Dead Eyed

Bradbury turned his head so he could see his colleague. His elbows were held out wide, his chest thrust forward. ‘It was only an observation,’ he said.

Welling’s eyes widened. He scratched his jaw as if in contemplation. ‘A poor one.’

Bradbury sighed and returned his focus to May.

‘Victim two,’ said May.

‘Proves the point,’ said Welling.

May stood with her arms by her sides and shifted her stance as she waited for Welling to speak.

Welling finally took the hint. ‘Graham Jackett. Local vet.’

‘Unmarried,’ said Bradbury.

‘Yes, but socially active. Killed three months after Hale. Like Hale, he was found in his home. This time a semi-detached property in Nailsea.’

‘Religious affiliation?’ asked May.

Welling sighed. ‘He attended the local Anglican church but I can’t see the relevance. The work on the body is much smoother this time. It almost becomes a template for the subsequent murders. The removal of the eyes is pristine.’

‘Pristine?’ said Bradbury.

Welling shifted in his seat. ‘No trace of jelly was left at the scene,’ said Welling, to general amusement. ‘The carving on the body was much neater. He took his time on this one.’

They went through each victim one by one until they reached David Welsh, the victim prior to Billy Nolan. ‘Twenty-eight year old welder,’ said Welling.

‘Lived alone, went to church,’ added Bradbury.

‘Means nothing. Then we reach the popular student, Billy Nolan,’ said Welling.

‘And then, eighteen years later, Terrence Haydon,’ said May. They had decided to stick to his original surname for the investigation. She began writing on the whiteboard. ‘So what we know? Prior to the thirty-eight year old Haydon, each former victim was a white male aged twenty to thirty. They all lived alone except the ninth victim, Billy Nolan.’

‘Technically, he did live alone. He had his own room in halls,’ said Bradbury.

‘Okay. White, male, twenty to thirty, lived alone. Anything else?’

‘I still think the religious aspect is important. Of the nine victims, we know six attended church,’ said Bradbury. ‘With Haydon, that makes seven out of ten.’

Everyone in the room turned to look at Welling. ‘I’m not saying it isn’t relevant but at the moment it isn’t a definite link.’

May agreed with both of them. ‘We need to look closer at the victims. There has to be something more than gender and age which links them. Lana, start looking at those victims who didn’t have a religious background. See if there was any oversight here. Maybe it was an area not considered by the investigative teams. Everyone else, I want to know everything about each of the victims. Go back to the start, go through the case notes and search for anything which links the victims. Bradbury, we’ve enough resources here for this. Assign a team to each victim starting with Hale. Let’s see what we have by nine a.m. tomorrow.’

May returned to her office and shut the door. She paced the room, recounting the details of the team meeting. She played with the files on her desk, opened then shut the blinds. She needed to calm down. They were close to something. There was already a tentative link between the victims, and it would only take one thing, one small link she was confident she would be able to connect everything. Despite Welling’s protestations, she thought the religious aspect was relevant and hoped the investigative teams would find something of value in their research.

She sat and tried to banish the negative thought that the one small link would never be discovered, that they would always remain just out of reach.

Bradbury called through on the internal phone line. ‘I’ve managed to track down the SIO on the former cases, Julian Hastings. He wants to meet at seven a.m. tomorrow.’

‘Good,’ said May, hanging up. The retired Chief Superintendent had taken over as SIO from the Jackett case onwards. She could only imagine his frustration as he’d investigated victim after victim with no result. She bounced up and down on her chair, trying to control the adrenalin leaking into her system. From her office drawer, she took out her Kindle and downloaded a copy of Hastings’ last novel, Blood Kill, and began reading.

Chapter 7 (#ulink_8f61dd5d-b1e0-552e-aaa6-e5769c2861cf)

Klatzky had already started drinking. Lambert found him sitting with a giggling group of students, swigging from a pint of lager. The students were all girls. In their late teens, early twenties, they were strikingly beautiful, particularly in comparison to the rough and jaded figure of Klatzky. Unbelievably, they were enjoying his company. One of their number, a tall slender girl, laughed every time Klatzky opened his mouth, stroking her dark hair absentmindedly with her left hand. Klatzky had always been successful with women at University but Lambert was surprised that these women would have anything to do with him now.

‘Mikey, come and join us,’ shouted Klatzky, on seeing Lambert.

The young women stared at Lambert as he approached. A small blonde girl with an obvious fake tan and a face lined with over-enthusiastic make-up echoed Klatzky’s words. ‘Yes, Mikey, come and join us,’ she said, provoking good-natured laughter from the others. It was clear the whole group had been drinking for some time.

‘Simon, can I have a word?’ said Lambert, ignoring the young woman’s request.

‘Sure, sure,’ said Klatzky getting to his feet. ‘Here, girls, get another round in.’ Klatzky placed a twenty pound note on the table which was snapped up by the dark-haired girl.

Lambert led Klatzky outside. He decided not to reprimand him about the drinking. ‘I’m thinking of staying for a couple of nights,’ he said.

‘Fantastic,’ said Klatzky. ‘Where do you have in mind?’

‘Listen, Si, I don’t think this is going to work, you being here.’

‘Don’t mind me, Mikey. I’ll keep out of your way. One city is much the same as another.’

It was pointless arguing. ‘Fine, there’s a Marriott at the bottom of the hill. I’ll book us in separate rooms for the night. Then we can discuss the situation tomorrow. I’ll ring you later with the room number.’

‘Great. Listen, Mikey,’ Klatzky hesitated.

Lambert sighed and took his wallet from his trouser pocket and handed Klatzky eighty pounds. ‘Don’t let those girls screw you over, Simon. And for God’s sake get something to eat.’

‘Yes, mum,’ said Klatzky, returning inside.

Following his meeting with May, Lambert decided he would continue with his own investigation for the time being. He didn’t want to impede her in any way, but there were questions he was impatient to have answered. It was too coincidental that Billy Nolan and Terrence Haydon had lived one floor apart at University. There was a connection to be discovered between the two, however unlikely that sounded at the moment. Since joining the force, he’d always resisted the temptation to revisit the Souljacker case. He’d understood that he’d been too emotionally involved. Now it was unavoidable. Klatzky had forced his hand. Lambert decided to start where he would normally start: the victim’s closest relation.

He hailed an approaching taxi and ordered the driver to take him to a small suburb of Bristol called Whitchurch where Terrence Haydon’s mother, Sandra Vernon, lived.

Twenty minutes later, he reached his destination. Whitchurch was a grey area, populated by uninspired near-identical houses with ashen facades and dull brown-red tiled roofs. Sandra Vernon lived opposite a crumbling supermarket in a small terraced house. The front of the house was well maintained with UPVC windows. A stone pathway led through a neatly mowed front garden to the front door. Lambert waited for a beat and rang the doorbell.

A small plump woman with large circular rimmed spectacles answered. The smell of cinnamon and burnt toast drifted from behind her. ‘Yes, what do you want?’ she inquired, in a high-pitched Welsh accent.

Lambert told the woman that he was a friend of Terrence who had recently heard the terrible news and had come to pay his condolences. The rotund woman looked him up and down for an uncomfortable amount of time before inviting him in.

Lambert surveyed the living room whilst Sandra Vernon made tea in the kitchen. The room was sparsely decorated with white walls and a couple of mass market reproduction paintings in cheap frames on the wall. A small flat screen television sat beneath one of the rectangular PVC windows. A simple wooden crucifix hung above the fireplace. Beneath it, taking pride of place on the mantelpiece, was a picture of Sandra Vernon and her son on his graduation day.

‘He was a good boy,’ said Sandra Vernon, returning with a tray.

Lambert couldn’t detect any emotion in the woman, her face blank. ‘He was, here let me take that for you.’ Lambert took the tray from the woman’s unsteady hands.

‘What did you say your name was again?’ she said, the lilt of her accent deeper now.

‘Michael Lambert. I lived on the floor below Terrence in his final year at University. We were not the best of friends but I knew him.’