WHILE LAMBERT WAITED for SOCO to arrive, he thought about Yalding’s recent visitor.
Rhi!
It was a strange name, sounding more like a nickname or pet name. Or maybe it was short for something. Rhiannon, perhaps? A traditional Welsh name, and one that inspired the song by Fleetwood Mac.
He punched in her number on his mobile. It rang for some time, and he realized she was probably driving her vehicle, unless she lived close by. He didn’t think leaving a message on her voicemail was a good idea, and was about to hang up when he heard the phone click, the sound of a car engine and her voice, urgent and high-pitched.
‘Hello! Who is it?’
‘Is that Rhiannon?’
‘Yes, yes! Who is that?’
He’d guessed right about the name.
‘This is Detective Inspector Harry Lambert of South Wales Police.’
‘What?’ she yelled.
‘I want to talk to you about Mark Yalding.’
There was a slight pause before she said, ‘Just a minute. I’m going to pull over.’
Lambert smiled to himself, wondering whether to admonish her for using a mobile while driving, then thought better of it. After all, in the great scheme of things, what did a crime like talking on a phone while driving matter when weighed against brutal serial killings?
When she came back on the phone, she said, ‘What’s this about?’
‘I was hoping you could tell me?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Lambert cleared his throat softly. ‘I want to talk to you about your friend, Mark Yalding.’
There was another pause before she said, ‘He’s not really a friend as such. I do know him, of course.’
Lambert decided to cut to the chase. ‘You were round at his place about fifteen minutes ago. I saw you there, and you also tried to ring him.’ She was silent at the other end. ‘Hello? Are you still there?’
‘Yes, I’m still here. But what’s this all about?’
‘I need to talk to you urgently. Give me your address and I’ll come over.’
‘You can’t come to my place.’ There was a tremor of panic in her voice. ‘You really can’t. Look, I’ll make some excuse later today and meet you somewhere. A café or a pub.’
‘Do you know the Wheelwright’s Arms, about halfway between Cowbridge and Bridgend?’
‘I’ll find it.’
‘Can you meet me there at, say, two o’clock?’
‘I’ll try.’
‘I think you need to do more than try. Unless you want me to pay you a visit.’
Her voice suddenly became strident. ‘Look … all right … I’ll be there. But how will I recognize you?’
‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll recognize you.’
A distant wail of sirens alerted him to the approach of police cars screaming towards the crime scene. He closed the phone hurriedly, before she heard them. Obviously she didn’t know her friend was dead, and Lambert wanted to be the one to confront her with the news, judge her reaction and find out what her relationship was with the victim.
And, of course, discover her identity.
‘More of the same,’ was Hughie’s comment. ‘The third in less than two days. Although, strictly speaking, the one in Carmarthen had been dead for a week. How come you found this one?’
Hughie studied Lambert carefully as he answered.
‘I came out here to interview him in relation to the investigation. There was no reply from the front door, so I came round the back and found the broken whisky bottle. It seemed suspicious, so I stuck on a pair of gloves, tried the door and found it was unlocked.’
‘And that’s when you hit on yet another dead paedophile.’
Lambert shook his head. ‘There’s no evidence the victim was a paedophile. He’s got no record of any sex offences. In fact, he’s got no police record of any sort.’
‘What about his arrest for downloading child pornography on the internet?’
Lambert shifted out of the way of one of the SOCO team, and there was another flash from the police photographer as the corpse was photographed from another angle.
‘It seems odd,’ Lambert said, and left it at that. ‘Mind if I take a look upstairs?’
‘Be my guest.’
Lambert started to leave the room, and then turned back as he thought of something else.
‘Hughie, you searched through the victim’s trouser pockets yet?’
‘Nothing in them. Empty.’
Lambert nodded thoughtfully, went out into the small hallway and climbed the narrow stairs. On the wall were framed photographs of various television productions, some of which showed the victim with his arms about an actor or a crew member, smiling and confident.
Lambert stopped and studied the victim’s face. Yalding was in his late thirties, he guessed, had slightly receding, pepper and salt hair, and a pleasant, boyish face. He looked too wholesome to be a man taking initial steps towards child abuse, but then Lambert knew child abusers didn’t always come from the same mould.
He carried on up the stairs. At the top, to the left and back of the cottage, was a reasonable size bathroom. There were two more rooms, and the first was a small bedroom being used as an office. The computer workstation had a flat-screen monitor on it, and an all-in-one scanner, printer and copier, but the tower computer was missing, having been confiscated by the police.
Lambert looked through the first workstation drawer but found it contained mostly spare ink cartridges and items of stationery, and very little else of interest. But the contents of the next drawer down were more interesting as it contained scraps of paper and notepads with names, phone numbers, websites and email addresses. Hopefully, there might be some revealing information here, and because all this private paperwork wasn’t too near the body, Lambert didn’t think it needed bagging by forensics. He could get Tony and Kevin to sift through this lot, to see what they could find. But what he was looking for right now was something far more personal, and he thought he might find it in the main bedroom.
As he entered Yalding’s bedroom, Lambert smelled stale sweat locked in the airless room. The window was closed tight and clothes lay strewn across the floor, but the rest of the room appeared to be reasonably neat, perhaps indicating that Yalding’s recently distraught state had made him careless in his hygiene. But what Lambert was most interested in checking were the bedside tables either side of the double bed, one of which – the one furthest from the door – was empty. On the other table lay some loose change, a bunch of keys and a packet of chewing gum. But there was no wallet. Not in the trousers the victim was wearing, nor on the bedside table with the rest of the contents of his pocket.
Lambert moved to the built-in wardrobe with a single sliding door that had been left open and rummaged among the victim’s jackets, searching for his wallet, although he doubted he’d find anything.
Having been through the victim’s entire wardrobe and finding nothing, Lambert returned to the living room, and found Dave, the crime scene manager, talking to Hughie about the press pack that had already begun to arrive in the street outside.
‘With the other two murders,’ Lambert interrupted, ‘we found wallets and we were able to identify the victims immediately. But we’ve found no wallet on the victim this time. And I’ve searched most of the house and found nothing.’
Dave raised a finger to make a point. ‘Not all blokes carry wallets. Some just keep their folding stuff in a pocket.’
‘So where is the folding stuff belonging to the victim? He’s emptied the contents of his trouser pockets upstairs by the bed, and there was only some loose change. There’s no paper money, and there are no credit or debit cards.’
Hughie scratched his cheek thoughtfully with his gloved hand, making a rubbery sound. ‘Are you suggesting the perpetrator stole the wallet this time?’
‘Yes, although I don’t think the motive was robbery. I think the killer knew there was something in the wallet he didn’t want us to find.’
Lambert’s mobile rang and he stepped out into the kitchen to answer it. It was DCS Marden.
‘So you just happen to discover another body, Inspector.’
Lambert smiled to himself. It was typical of Marden to get straight to the point.
‘That’s right,’ Lambert agreed. Not much else he could add to that. He imagined Marden’s irritation sweeping across the airwaves.
‘Would you care to elaborate?’
Lambert gave him the same story as he’d told Hughie, but added the details about the woman visitor and how he had phoned her.
‘So what made you decide to interview this Mark Yalding?’
‘Because I think he’s deeply connected to this case. And my finding his body confirms that.’
There was a slight pause before Marden grudgingly agreed. ‘Yes, well, good work, Harry.’ He cleared his throat before continuing. ‘I’m on my way over as soon as. I’m going to deal with the press on this.’
Lambert knew Marden pretended to find this a chore but suspected he rather enjoyed the attention. He imagined the chief super probably had video and DVD copies of his television appearances. Or was he being unnecessarily harsh?
‘Could I make a suggestion, sir?’
‘Yes, what is it?’
‘The murder weapon that was purchased at B & Q, Llanelli—’
Marden interrupted. ‘I’d already planned an appeal for witnesses to identify the purchaser, since you mentioned it yesterday.’
‘But I was going to suggest that you get someone to buy a copy of the weapon from a DIY store to show it on TV. It might help to jog a few memories.’
‘That’s a good idea. And I hope to get to the crime scene within the next half hour. Meanwhile, if you can help it, avoid talking to the press.’
Lambert had no intention of doing so; it was something he always tried to avoid.
‘And before I speak to them,’ Marden continued, ‘you can give me everything you know so far.’
‘Will do. And then I’ll need to get over to that pub for two o’clock, meet with this woman, find out who she is and her connection to Yalding.’
Marden sounded surprised. ‘You arranged to interview her in a pub? Why didn’t you get her address?’
‘She was reluctant to give it.’
Marden’s voice rose indignantly. ‘Sod that for a game of soldiers.’
‘I suspect she might be married and doesn’t want her husband knowing about her and Yalding. Sounds like they might have been lovers.’
‘And she’ll know he’s dead before long.’
‘That’s why I want to tell her myself, to see her reaction, before she sees it on the news. I’d like to take DC Debbie Jones with me.’
‘Woman to woman, and all that?’
‘Exactly.’
‘What about Sergeant Ellis?’
‘I was just about to ring him and Kevin Wallace. The victim’s got a lot of private correspondence in his study which I’d like them to go through with a fine-tooth comb.’
‘OK. I’d better get moving. I’ll see you in a little while.’
Lambert closed his phone and returned to the living room.
‘Hughie,’ he said, ‘if a wallet turns up when you’ve given the house a thorough going over, would you let me know?’
‘If you haven’t found it having looked in all the usual places, what makes you think—’
‘I’m not expecting it to turn up,’ Lambert interrupted. ‘I think it’s been taken for a reason.’
Hughie, holding tweezers and picking a tiny thread from the thigh of the corpse, said, ‘I might posit the opinion that the killer on this occasion has the same revenge motive, but being a bit broke decides to rob his victim.’
‘Then why didn’t he take Titmus’s wallet? That had over a hundred quid in it. No, I think there was something in Yalding’s wallet the killer didn’t want us to find.’
Hughie had stopped listening; he was too busy bagging minute items of evidence, his tongue poking from his mouth like a child. Sick of looking towards the mutilated corpse, and starting to feel nauseous, Lambert turned away.
Hughie noticed and said, ‘Do this often enough and you get used to it. I can guarantee that by the time justice catches up with the other sex offenders, you won’t give it another thought.’
Lambert knew Hughie had a point, but it didn’t seem to work that way. However many violent crimes he had witnessed, it didn’t seem to get any better. The inevitable reaction was depression, loss of appetite, sleepless nights and too much alcohol. All of which compounded the problem.
And now Hughie had reminded him that possibly there was more to come.
There were still three more sex offenders out there who were targets. And where were they? Could they be found before the killer struck again?
‘There are two ways of looking at this,’ Hughie said, interrupting his thoughts.
Lambert braced himself for one of the forensic man’s sick observations.
‘These homicides play murder – no pun intended – with your social life, but they do offer a fair bit of overtime.’