Those We Know (DI Olivia Austin Book 4) Page 3

  Even though they didn’t have all of the pieces yet, they had enough for Liv to know in her gut that they were on to him. His actions since she’d found his second victim’s residence had been emotional. Compared to the murder of Rosie Whitford at the beginning of the week, it was like night and day.

  “Is there anything else we might be missing?” Lawrence asked, brow furrowed almost predictably.

  “I’m worried we’re too comfortable in our own investigation,” Olivia blurted out. They turned to her, confusion evident. “We clearly have a way of doing things around here. If we keep that up, he’s going to know our next steps. After last night, I’m certain he’s seen us work before. He spoke with a familiarity to me. I couldn’t pinpoint his voice, but I got the sense he knew me, or at least knew of me.”

  The memory sent a wave of shivers down her spine.

  “Plus, I don’t think Diana—" Clara choked on her words a little bit before continuing, doing her best to shove the pain down. “I don’t think she would have let a stranger into her flat. It’s just not like her.”

  Olivia rigorously nodded her head, pushing herself up to the whiteboard again to write, “knows Diana” in big bold letters. After a moment she erased it, replacing it with “Diana trusts.”

  “How many men does PC Hershel trust on the force?” Lawrence picked up on Olivia’s line of logic so seamlessly; it always amazed Olivia how quickly they found a rhythm together. It was a shame she’d eventually have to separate from him to head her own team.

  “Not many. “Clara explained. “But she does trust everyone from her class, except some prick, Wentworth. But she’d never let him past the front door, that’s for sure.”

  “Could you get me a list of that class?” Olivia whirled away from the white board to see her friend already typing away at her computer. Seconds later, the office’s printer whirred to life, spitting out a list of seventeen names.

  “Six on the list are women, one has passed away, and four live outside of Cornwall these days,” Clara declared. “Which leaves six suspects.”

  “Damn woman, you work fast,” Olivia commented, eyebrows raised so high she swore it pulled her head back a bit.

  “It’s Diana, of course I’m going to—” Clara stopped in her tracks. “Shit.”

  “What?” Lawrence saddled up next to her.

  “Do you have photos from her apartment?” Clara asked, urgency pushing her voice higher, faster.

  “On my work phone, yeah,” he replied, unlocking it before handing it over to Clara. She swiped through the photos, the phone held close to her face.

  “Bingo. Her graduation photo,” Clara exhaled. “It’s not on the wall. We need to call the SOCO’s, see if it ended up on the ground.”

  “On it,” Lawrence whispered, grabbing his phone from Clara’s palm before quietly excusing himself to the corner of the room. Olivia approached her friend’s turned back cautiously.

  By the time she’d reached her, Clara had spun on her heel and flung herself into Olivia’s arms. She squeezed her tightly, clinging onto her friend in hopes that it would help ease some of her pain.

  “Liv, I don’t know what to do if—” Clara had been holding it together so well, but in her friend’s arms, she crumpled.

  “We’re going to find her,” Olivia assured her. “I promise you,”

  The detective glanced down at the paper Clara had printed off.

  Six names. Joel Turner. Seamus Doyle. Ethan Brown. Daniel Taylor. Victor Wright. Riley O’Connor.

  It has to be one of them.

  5

  “What do we do about them?” Lawrence asked under his breath. The pair were studying the page with six bolded names in the corner of Clara’s makeshift office. Collins had found out that the tech analyst had returned to work and immediately sent her packing, though Olivia made sure to assure her she’d be kept updated on the case before she was ushered away by Detective Constable Timothy Harris.

  The first victim had been Tim’s ex-girlfriend. Tragedy evidently struck in multiple places with this case.

  “We could hold them all in interrogation, give us some time to crack the case and look for solid leads,” Olivia offered.

  “It would have to be clean, though,” Lawrence added. “Six cops with resources are a lot of people to try and pin down simultaneously. Plus, we’d be scrambling from one suspect to the next while reducing our manpower to actually look for Diana.”

  He made good points, despite Liv wanting to just nab them all straight away.

  “All right,” she sighed. “Well two of them don’t work for the force anymore, right?” Olivia shifted between the small files Clara had put together on each of the suspects. Riley O’Connor had left Newquay to tend to his ill grandmother, while Ethan Brown had moved on due to a dispute with his superiors. “What if we round those two up then put the other four on a job, making sure they’re always partnered with someone outside of their graduating class?”

  Scepticism stitched itself into Lawrence’s eyebrows.

  “So we pick up Brown and O’Connor and send the rest into the field?” he asked.

  “Do you have a better plan?” Olivia demanded, doing her best to keep exasperation out of her voice.

  “Not necessarily,” he resigned. “I’m just worried the four of them will realise we’ve pulled in Ethan and Riley.”

  Liv watched as he scratched his chin, weighing up the possibilities.

  “Surely, there has to be a way to keep it under wraps,” she mused, understanding exactly where he was coming from. News slipped through Newquay Police Station at lightning speed.

  “Wait a minute,” Olivia started, excitement waking up her eyes. “What if we use the gossip mill in this place to our advantage?”

  “And how do you suggest we do that?” Dean was a sceptic, but Olivia could tell that he also welcomed any idea with promise.

  “We plant a rumour.” She lowered her voice as she spoke. “Something false. Something that will make the killer slip up.” Her tongue pressed the words out just as they began to form in her own understanding, almost getting ahead of herself.

  “I don’t know…” Lawrence started. “From everything he’s done so far, I can’t see him falling into our trap easily.”

  He watched her closely, trying to get a sense of what she was thinking.

  Olivia nodded, looking back.

  “You’re right,” she confirmed. “So it would have to be something plausible enough to trick a relatively savvy officer whilst also getting us valuable information…” She wracked her brain. Surely, there was something that could work.

  Her thoughts would have to go interrupted for the moment, though, as Det. Supt. Collins barged into the office.

  “There’s another body,” he announced before either Dean or Olivia could protest at the intrusion. “Both of you, follow me.”

  Liv’s heart sank immediately in her chest as she jumped from her seat, falling in line directly behind their boss.

  “Is it…?” Lawrence asked, voicing the concern that Olivia couldn’t bring herself to speak aloud. Collins gave a grave shake of his head no.

  “No I.D. yet, but it’s not Diana,” he answered, relief evident in his voice. “Another woman, though, and she’s barely been dead more than an hour or two from the looks of it. This monster’s going into a frenzy, and it’s not pretty.”

  “Any other major discrepancies from his earlier M.O.?” Olivia asked, her voice shaky at the news that the young PC wasn’t the body found.

  “It’s easier to show you than explain,” Collins admitted, ushering the detectives into the lift.

  “Sorry, sir,” she started as he eased in beside them. “I left my bag and phone in the office and…”

  Her words were cut short.

  “You won’t need them,” their Superintendent answered firmly, and Olivia’s gut filled with dread; what kind of ominous statement was that? It was then that she noticed her boss looked paler than usual. It took a lot to faze the
detective superintendent; what could possibly be wrong?

  “You’re making me nervous, sir.” The words left Olivia’s mouth before she fully had time to process them. The sinking of the lift matched the sinking feeling in her chest as they slowly descended to the ground level.

  “We need to catch this son of a bitch—and fast,” he growled.

  Olivia glanced to Lawrence at her side, who returned her wide-eyed look with one of his own. What had happened with this discovery that had rattled their boss more than the previous ones?

  Then they stepped out of the lift—and into sheer chaos.

  6

  He had dumped her body just outside the station.

  The absolute audacity.

  Who does he think he is?

  “This kind of escalation is…” Olivia trailed off as she hovered over the body of their third victim of the week. The woman had been pummelled into a suitcase and dragged in front of Newquay police station.

  “Terrifying,” Dean finished for Olivia, rising up to his full height next to her, lowering the sheet over Jane Doe as he did so. The body showed all of the markings of their serial killer: blunt force trauma to the head and several missing organs. Her mouth had been bludgeoned to remove dental evidence, and both hands had been chopped off.

  An escalation in both violence and drop site.

  “Is he taunting us? Trying to get caught?” Olivia felt dumbfounded. Never had she gone up against a killer so depraved, so bold. She was used to their perpetrators hiding, doing their best to conceal their crimes. This guy… He was almost flaunting himself. Showing off.

  “This feels more like peacocking than an attempt to get caught.” Dean pointed out, eyeing the surrounding area. “He wasn’t sloppy with her body; he wants to be able to continue his kills.”

  Olivia pondered his words.

  “But he also wants to raise the stakes,” she added. “It’s like a game to him.”

  Silence descended on them both until DI Lawrence wiped at his brow with the back of his wrist.

  “He’s trying to prove that he’s better than us,” he spoke. “Smarter. Stronger. Killing three people and kidnapping a fourth in less than a week takes an insane amount of stamina.” Olivia could hear a tinge of amazement in her partners voice; she hated that she felt it, too.

  “Dropping a body in front of the police station, though…” She pursed her lips together. “So arrogant that he thinks he won’t get caught? You don’t have to be ‘brain of Britain’ to know there’s CCTV everywhere.”

  “Paid a cabbie to drop her off,” Collins reported, approaching the duo from behind. “And before you ask, he paid in cash and wore a hoodie with sunglasses. All the driver remembers is that he seemed Caucasian and looked to be fairly fit.”

  Olivia looked around the entrance and up at the windows of the houses that surrounded the station.

  “We’re down to five main suspects now,” she whispered to Lawrence. He quirked an eyebrow. “Daniel Taylor’s black,” she further explained.

  It didn’t give them any further clarity, but at least they were whittling down the numbers.

  But it was fast enough. This last murder hit deeply.

  She looked down at the unfortunate woman hidden beneath the sheet.

  Seeing it had made Olivia quickly realise why her boss had been so upset. For someone to so brazenly come after their station—and get away undetected—felt like a huge violation.

  “Who found the body?” Olivia asked, glancing past the crime scene tape to the small crowd forming. It wouldn’t be long before a reporter arrived, and at that point, they’d have to do a lot of peddling to make sure this stayed out of the press. A flimsy white sheet over the woman’s body would do little to stop the tabloids from running their gossip.

  “Shift change was fifteen minutes ago,” Collins explained. “A couple of men from the oncoming shift noticed the case as they came in and called over security. The initial thought was that it could be a bomb threat.”

  Olivia glanced at Dean.

  “They thought it was a bomb threat and didn’t immediately evacuate?” she demanded, a touch more tersely than expected.

  Collin’s nodded his agreement.

  “You’d think as much,” he answered, tucking his already neat shirt into his trousers. “By the time the security guards had come over, they could see a tuft of black hair protruding from the zipper. And well, once you’re looking for a body, it’s not hard to see the outline of one.”

  The grisly image his words created made Olivia shudder. He wasn’t wrong about that part. She was just surprised their killer had managed to carry it unnoticed.

  Dean clearly had the same thoughts.

  “The cabbie really didn’t query it?” He asked the question as he continued to stare at the white sheet. He’d come so far since the first crime scene in the hotel when it came to holding down his breakfast.

  Olivia couldn’t decide if that was a good or a bad thing.

  Collins sighed at the ridiculousness of his coming reply.

  “He was told it was a practical joke—a mannequin with rocks at the bottom.”

  Olivia rolled her eyes at that.

  “Trust me, we’re holding him in interrogation for a while,” their boss assured them.

  Olivia started to ask another question but stopped when she registered a familiar face approaching them.

  “Elliot,” she breathed, suddenly hyperaware that she still hadn’t showered since she and Duracell had slept together.

  “Detectives,” he greeted, his lips pulled into a grim smile. “I wish we didn’t have to keep meeting under such grotesque circumstances.”

  “Agreed,” Lawrence nodded. “Any new updates on victim number two, Charles?”

  Dr James was about to answer, but his eyes rested on Olivia’s forehead wound, and he frowned.

  “An encounter with the killer,” she said quietly. “A long story…”

  He nodded, accepting that now wasn’t the time nor the place to go into it.

  “But you’re okay?” he questioned, and after he’d been satisfied with her nod, he turned back to Lawrence. “Updates,” he continued. “Only that he also appeared to have engaged in penetrative sex—presumably consensual,” the medical examiner elaborated. His eyes innocently settled on her.

  “Any fluids?” Olivia enquired, doing her best not to let her cheeks flush with embarrassment. Never had she been more grateful for Lawrence’s scarf tucked neatly around her neck to hide her transgressions.

  “Some trace amounts of spermicide that would be consistent with a condom,” Dr James explained. He was so matter-of-fact about it.

  “So, we’ve got a bisexual perp?” Lawrence offered.

  Olivia nodded.

  “Or,” she paused. “We have multiple killers.”

  There was silence as the words sunk in.

  “Detective Austin, you know it’s perfectly possible for someone to be attracted to multiple genders, right?” Elliot asked. Was that a smirk?

  Amusement played on Dean’s face, and their boss raised an eyebrow.

  “Of course, I do,” she replied, doing her best to keep any attitude out of her voice. “But something’s been bothering me about this whole setup. The speed of escalation. The killer murdered who we have now found out is Charles Harrington what? Two nights ago? Then last night ran away from me, managed to get to Diana’s flat and kidnap her—fighting her immensely in the process, because God knows she wouldn’t give up easily—and then also butchered this woman all before what? Noon today?”

  Lawrence scratched his thumb over his eyebrow, nose crinkled as he pondered her statement.

  “Plus,” he added. “If it’s someone on the job, he’d have been at work forty hours this week. Twenty if part-time, but still…” He trailed off. “This kind of overkill seems bizarre for more than one perpetrator, though. Usually, someone with this level of aggression kills alone.”

  Collins looked at each of them in turn.

/>   “What if it’s because he just recently brought someone new into the fold?” Olivia asked. “It could even be that he killed both Rosie Whitford and Charles Harrington but then has someone helping him with Diana.”

  “That’s a whole new can of worms, Olivia,” their superintendent sighed.

  “It also means that none of our alibis for the officers here are as sturdy as we previously thought.” Lawrence added.

  A pair of SOCOs approached Collins, and Olivia waited until he’d followed them out of earshot before she spoke.

  “Elliot, is there any way to establish some sort of forensic basis for multiple killers?” She pivoted to look at Dr James, startled by the warmth in his eyes.

  “I could analyse the trajectories of each stab wound to see if there’s a possible height discrepancy, I suppose,” the medical examiner replied. “And I’ll check for any other inconsistencies across bodies. I haven’t had a chance to look at this poor victim…” He gestured with a small grimace. “Up close yet, but based on my initial findings with Rosie Whitford and Charles Harrington, I’m more inclined to say that they were killed by the same person.”

  “Understood.” Olivia nodded. “You’re probably right. Something about this just bothers me…”

  “Me too.” Dean sighed. “You could be onto something here. It could also be an entirely different situation, though. We shouldn’t put all of our eggs in that one basket.”

  “Agreed.”

  A phone sounded somewhere around them and they stood in silence momentarily. All

  Olivia could think about was the image of two killers running rampant around Cornwall and all the resources they’d need to bring them both in.

  And then poor Diana… Before she had a chance to speak, Elliot crouched in front of her and lifted the edge of the white sheet.

  “Heavens above,” he groaned to himself, standing again. “On that note, detectives, unless there’s anything else you need from me, I’m going to liaise with the SOCOs and look at getting the body moved for an autopsy once they’ve finished.” Olivia could see the exhaustion etched on his face as he said it; he was tired of studying these victims. She couldn’t blame him. So was she.