Thinking of Nancy brought his thoughts full circle back to Erica Smedley and Jez Hopkins. Their deaths, he was sure, were not coincidental. He was convinced they’d been killed as part of some larger plan. It was almost as if the killer had created two lists: one for his ritual killings with pregnant women and the other for … Gus shrugged … for show? To taunt? To send a message? That raised the question of how was he targeting the victims on the second list? What did the victims have in common? Perhaps there were two killers working together but with differing agendas – using a similar MO, but with different motives? Gus shook his head. The PM results indicated that the strangulation marks on Brookes and Flateau showed the hand spans to be the exact same width and matched in size, the marks found on Erica Smedley’s neck and he assumed Jez Hopkin’s too, although the PM results weren’t yet in on that one – it had to be the one killer – didn’t it? Gus was bewildered.
If the ritual murders were for the purpose of taunting his mum, what was the reason for the others? For, in this sea of uncertainty, the one thing Gus was convinced of was that nothing this killer did was random. Something gnawed on the periphery of Gus’s thoughts. What was it? Yes – if only he could work out the link between Hopkins and Smedley. Where did those two victims intersect with their killer? He made a mental log of the information they’d ascertained so far. Smedley was single, Hopkins in a relationship … and then it hit him. The one place that he knew for certain that both Smedley and Hopkins had intersected was at the ritual crime scenes. Hopkins had been hovering just outside the cordon at both and Smedley had been on the CSI team on the Brookes’ murder. Texting Alice quickly, he asked her to get Compo to go through all footage taken by the uniformed officers at both scenes.
Gus: I think the killer came back to observe the scene and selected his non-ritual target from there. Get Comps to cross match the looky loos from both scenes.
By the time they’d arrived at the service station, he still hadn’t managed to grab any sleep, unlike Sebastian Carlton who was in a full-throated snore with a dribble of saliva trailing down his chin. As Corrine pulled into a parking space, Carlton started awake. Feeling his phone vibrate in his pocket, Gus swung his door open and jumped out, desperate to get away from everyone for a while. ‘Half an hour, then back at the car.’
Striding off, shoulders hunched, he marched to the small artificial lake and strode round it, wishing to hell the journey was over – that was when he took Compo’s call. ‘What’s up, Compo?’
‘Boss, I’ve got something – well, I’ve got quite a lot, actually.’
Gus could hear Alice’s voice in the background telling Compo to just spit it out and that Gus wouldn’t be annoyed at him. That didn’t bode well for whatever Compo had found, and Gus, frowning, lowered himself onto one of the wooden benches by the water.
‘Well, I’ve found your grand … I mean your em, … well, the woman who gave birth to your mother.’ He paused and added, as if for clarification, ‘Mrs M, that is.’
Gus rolled his eyes. He knew who his damn mother was, but sensing from Compo’s tone that the lad was nervous, he refrained from saying anything and instead gave a non-committal, ‘Hmm.’
‘Well, actually she’s dead – drug overdose. Her name was Jeannie Cameron.’
That didn’t surprise Gus. He’d gleaned the fact that she was an addict from his mum.
‘The thing is, she was never in prison – or in a psychiatric facility and the only crimes she’d got on record are for prostitution and selling Class As.’
‘That can’t be right, Comp. She killed her little boy – there must be some record of it, even if she got off with accidental death or manslaughter.’
‘Em, well, that’s the next thing. Your uncle – your mum’s half-brother, Jamie – James Cameron – well, he’s not registered as dead. In fact, he’s still alive.’
Gus didn’t respond. His mind was whirring. That couldn’t be right – it just couldn’t – His mum had told him her brother had died that night. But Compo was never wrong. Well, he bloody well is this time.
‘Boss, … Gus – you still there?’
‘Yeah, yeah course I’m here, Comps. Just trying to think this through. You’re saying the brother my mum thought was dead is actually still alive?’
‘Yes.’
Gus’s frown deepened. He had a really bad feeling that he hadn’t heard the worst of this yet. ‘You have more, don’t you – something bad?’
Compo sniffed and swallowed so loudly; Gus could hear it over the phone. ‘It’s not good, boss.’ His voice rose in an anger that Compo never ever displayed and as if to emphasise his anguish at the news he had to impart, he swore. ‘It’s fucking shit. It’s fucking abysmal.’
Gus’s heart sped up. Mild mannered Compo didn’t rant, didn’t rave, didn’t swear. Voice quiet, resigned, Gus said, ‘Go on.’
All the previous emotion was absent from Compo’s voice when he next spoke. Gus imagined him, standing erect, headphones on, microphone in front of his lips, and his hands gripping onto his desk. ‘I got the archived records – I won’t go into how – from social services.’
A note of pride tinged Compo’s voice, but only for a moment, then he reverted back to his ‘professional’ tone. ‘I sweet-talked one of
