Nine Lives Anita Waller (motivational novels for students txt) 📖

in thought, nursing her second cup of tea. Tonight would be a night for reading through the cold case of twenty-fourteen; a night for trying to get into a killer’s mind and for pondering the whereabouts of the killer for the last five years. If Frannie was going to be in, she would talk it over with her; two brains are better than one any time, and she trusted Frannie’s level-headed judgement completely. She smiled as she thought of the difference Frannie had made to her life; she had brought a calmness with her, a sense of order, and an ability to listen and let Erica work through the issues and frustrations her job created. Erica took out her phone.

Will you be in tonight? xxx

She waited for a couple of minutes, and received the response she needed.

I’ll be home around eight. Lasagne? xxx

Erica smiled and typed her response. It’ll be waiting. Love you xxx

She slipped her phone back in her pocket and turned as she heard Beth’s voice. Beth was standing at the refreshment van, miming drinking. Erica held up her paper cup to show she had one, and a minute later Beth joined her on the saturated seat.

‘This is wet,’ she announced, wriggling around.

‘You should try standing in that lot.’ Erica nodded towards the turbulent waters of the Porter only feet away from them.

‘You been in?’

‘Yes, with Ian. We walked upstream a bit, to see what, if anything, was happening. We both feel this is a good spot to chuck in a body, but there’s nothing that we’ve found that would indicate that was right. You been to that building?’

Beth nodded. ‘I have. Yes, they have CCTV. No, it doesn’t work. Hasn’t worked for six months, but they’ve not rushed to sort it because they’ve never needed it.’

Erica sighed and leaned back. ‘We’ll catch him this time. I don’t care about obstacles, he or she laughed at us back in twenty-fourteen but I’m in charge now, and they don’t call me the terrier for nothing.’

‘Do they?’

‘Do they what?’

‘Call you the terrier.’

‘No, but they should.’

Beth laughed and sipped at her drink. ‘So, have you had any thoughts? You looked lost in them when I walked to the van.’

‘Not really. Our first job is to find out if anybody’s come out of prison in the last month or so, after a five-year stretch. Those figures are variable. And we need to factor some things in like where the hell does he get Propofol from? I’m pretty damn sure you can’t buy that from a chemist’s.’

Beth took out her phone. Seconds later she showed Erica the results of her search. ‘You may not get it in a chemist’s, but it’s certainly available online. Or what about somebody who works in a hospital? Nurse? Orderly? Doctor? Does that water come much higher than that? It’s almost at our feet.’

‘It does. This is part of the new flood defence system Sheffield had to install. It works like an overflow from a sink, so I understand…’ Erica’s voice trailed away. ‘That’s what’s happened.’

She sat upright, and Beth looked at her.

‘What’s bothered me about this is if it is the same killer, and I’m ninety-nine per cent sure it is, he posed his victims. It wasn’t about having them sexually, it was about saying look what I’ve done and isn’t she pretty. That’s why it didn’t occur to me it was the same thing, even though Susie was naked. She wasn’t posed, and we’ve assumed she was dumped in the river. What if she wasn’t?’

Beth was listening closely. ‘You mean he posed her down there?’

‘No. I mean he posed her somewhere else, and the flood waters took her. What if he posed her on one of these seats? The water rose because it was spectacularly torrential that night, and took his carefully prepared body.’ Erica pulled out her phone, spoke to somebody from the Forensic team, who promised to be there within the hour.

‘Smart thinking, boss. I can’t see them getting anything, with all this water, but for what it’s worth, I think you’re right. Now let’s clear our rubbish up before we get arrested.’

7

The rain had stopped, but the skies threatened a heavy downpour at any moment. Erica and her team had assembled early for instructions, and Beth had been busy dividing the officers into groups of four, with details of where their search was to take place, pending forensic results from the intensive coverage of the pocket park. While the two senior officers felt that was the place where he had posed his victim, there still was no absolute proof, and work had to continue to look for any results from any other part of the water course.

The two women had met at six, clutching large takeaway coffees, to plan out the next steps. They knew every part of the five mile river had to be covered; the killer would kill again, of that they had no doubt, and he needed to be stopped before another young girl died. They had acquired a detailed map of the Porter, and its descent into the city centre. They began by drawing lines across and allocating members of their team, which had grown considerably given the new urgency that had been added to the investigation, once it was confirmed it was the same MO as their cold case killer.

Coffees finished, they headed into the briefing room. Every officer had checked in early; even the ones who hadn’t seen the body in situ had seen the photographs. This was a young girl near the start of her life, had done nothing to merit such an awful death. The whole team was waiting, ready for their instructions.

Beth took charge, handing out copies of the map to the allocated leader of each team of four. They had three teams and Erica watched with a degree of pride as everybody accepted the role handed to them, and immediately began preparations to move out.

She stood. ‘Before you disappear, do not go