Caught in the Web Emmy Ellis (best ereader for textbooks txt) 📖

around in there. What the hell was the best approach here? He ignored the questions his brain threw at him and concentrated on a game plan.

Inform the team of the latest.

Catch up with any data they’d found since this morning.

Read his father’s case file. Again.

Read the files of the first two murders.

Search for others committed around that time, see if there were any more comparisons.

Find the fuckface who’d stood beside the hedge in his mother’s street and stared at her as though he was fascinated by her. That was how she’d described it. That the bloke had looked at her in wonder. Burgess knew the expression. A killer tended to become obsessed, to either view a victim with a weird kind of awe or hatred. Neither emotion was good. Hence the hotel. Keeping her safe.

His mother had quickly gone into the living room to call Burgess then had peered through her starched net curtains. The man had remained there for a moment or two, seemingly undecided, thinking, perhaps. Then he’d taken off, and fucking hell, Burgess’ mind gave him a too-late image of a man turning down another street as he and Shaw had belted it back up the road towards her house.

Black jacket. Beanie hat. That beard. The same sodding clothing as the man caught on CCTV in Anita’s street.

Burgess had been that close to the killer and hadn’t realised.

Now that he had, he felt sick.

He slammed the heel of his hand on the centre of the steering wheel.

“He was right there,” he said to Shaw, pointing down the road at the corner. “Right there, and we didn’t have a clue.”

Chapter Twenty

Shaw had accessed the old cases on his computer with relative ease. With such unique points to plug in, it had taken no time for the search to produce what he’d been after. No cases in this town, other than those of sixteen years ago, had insects placed in the mouth. He no longer felt it had anything to do with Bethany Smith’s old case.

With the team briefed on the latest information, the place was abuzz with activity and renewed enthusiasm. Burgess had his father’s file to go through again, and once he’d made himself and Shaw a coffee from the Tassimo, he’d stated he wanted quiet to concentrate.

That was all right. Shaw liked quiet himself while reading.

Case Number: 285-762-5

Name of Deceased: Emily Louise Hornton

Age of Deceased: 35

Victim Location: Christchurch Lane—alley between Good Groceries and Letty’s Launderette

So there was a name for the first female victim in the first case, something solid to go on. Something they could dig into and hopefully produce much-needed results. The cases had to be linked, and if they weren’t, and the recent murders were copycats of the past—wouldn’t there still be a link just with that? Wouldn’t the killer have chosen the old murders for a specific reason? The similarities were too strong to be passed off as such, in Shaw’s mind. Same sort of insects in the mouths. Same locations.

Oh fuck. And the same type of look.

Shaw studied the photographs of Emily Hornton, some in situ in the alley, others on the morgue table. She was a brunette, same as Anita Curtis, although Emily’s hair wasn’t as clean. Their features were scarily identical.

He clicked on another open tab and checked the second victim.

Case Number: 285-875-2

Name of Deceased: Thomas Hornton

Age of Deceased: 37

Victim Location: Canal Lane—south side, directly opposite Wingman Street

 

He read on for a moment, then, “Shit, they were married.” He glanced up to stare over at Burgess. “The first two victims were bloody married.”

“What?” Burgess leant back, which jogged his chair, his hand going up to his chin.

“Female killed on one day, male the next. Um, exactly the same dates as our victims, just sixteen years ago. Fucking hell.” Adrenaline surged through Shaw, pumping his blood fast, sending it thundering around his veins.

“Christ…”

Shaw scanned Thomas’ document some more. Studied the pictures. Same trampy style. Same features. “Victims’ features are very similar to our victims. And they had a son—or she did at any rate.” Oh God… He dared to take a peek at Burgess.

He’d gone pale. “It can’t be that easy, surely. All this is too…convenient. Answers don’t usually fall into our laps like this.”

“Sometimes life has a funny way of working.” Shaw shrugged. “Sometimes we ignore what’s there because we can’t believe it’s that easy, then we go on and create more work, put in more effort trying to disprove what’s right in front of us. Not this time. We’re going with this—it’s all we have. And it’s too much comparable information for us to sling it to one side because we think it’s easy.”

“Hmm.” Burgess sipped his coffee. “How old were the victims?”

“She was thirty-five, he was thirty-seven. She had the…thing in her mouth, he had the moth. She was in the alley, him at the canal.”

What’s he trying to do with the ages? Prove that not everything is the same? Doesn’t matter if they’re not—this is the break we need.

“And the age of the kid at the time of death?” Burgess prodded.

Ah, okay. He’s working it out. Probably seeing if the kid who came to his house years ago could be this man.

“Twenty. So she had him young.” Your dad seems to have been a fucking paedo. “Making him, what, thirty-six now.” Shaw let a shiver rampage all over him. It’s him. He switched back to Emily’s file. “She was naked, heroin overdose.” Then to Thomas’. “He was dressed, heroin overdose. Big coincidences here if you insist on arguing the evidence as being too convenient.”

“They’re not coincidences, I realise that. Can’t be—too many of them at once.” Burgess drank more coffee. Didn’t he trust himself to get up and scan the files