“Anyway. He’s scary, Inspector Parker, but the fact that he’s been talking to my mother all these years, that there’s this whole side to her I knew nothing about, and then she commits suicide out of nowhere …” She shook her head slightly. “And this new killer. Did you already check out Fiddler’s Mill? I mean, back in the day.”
“It was searched when Reave was arrested. As best they could, anyway—it’s a big piece of land. And Lancashire CID had another look when they realized the link with these new disappearances. It’s all very different now, you’d hardly know there had been a commune there.” Parker tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “The information on Reave’s background is incredibly sparse. Everyone who might have known him when he was a child is dead now, and there’s hardly any record of him from those years, and nothing from adulthood. There’s a birth certificate, enrolment in an infant’s school, and then he seems to just drop off the face of the earth.”
Heather pursed her lips, taking this in. “He has got to know something. When do you want me to go back?”
“Give him a day or so to think about it, but otherwise, as soon as possible.”
“You really think it could help? With the current murders, I mean?”
“There’s every chance Reave has vital information.” Parker drummed his thumbs against the steering wheel briefly. “Whoever this new person is, we think he has a personal tie to Reave. The murders are just too similar.”
“Stuff only the killer could know, things like that?”
He snorted a little and pushed a hand back through his hair. Abruptly Heather could see how tired he was, and how young. Certainly no older than she was.
“I can’t really comment on that, but yeah. The original Red Wolf killings were, well, uniquely weird. Michael Reave is a particularly strange monster, and it’s a very good thing that he’s in prison. But whoever this new guy is? He has certainly done his research.” He cleared his throat, apparently realizing he was being unprofessional. “Anyway, Elizabeth Bunyon and Sharon Barlow weren’t found in London, of course, but our biggest source of information so far is sitting in a cell at Belmarsh. I’m liaising with Lancashire CID on this, giving them all the assistance we can but …” Outside, a set of traffic lights turned green, and for a moment the car was filled with the sound of purring engines. DI Parker apparently drove faster when he was agitated. “Serial murderers are their own kind of unpredictable.”
“You’re sure it’s a serial killer? Is he taking souvenirs?”
“What is it you do for a living again, Miss Evans?”
“Uh, well. I’m a writer.”
“Oh.”
She laughed. “Just bits and bobs, you know. Freelance. Copywriting mostly …” She smiled. “Film reviews sometimes. A lot of proofreading at the moment.”
“Well.” He looked thoughtful now, and Heather got the impression he was talking something through out loud, almost as though she wasn’t there. “He’s taken a lot of time over the bodies, and there are things—things that were not released to the press about the original Red Wolf murders—that strongly suggest he intends to keep going.” He cleared his throat, looking faintly embarrassed again. “I studied criminal psychology. Wrote some pieces about serial murder. The Green River killer, Shipman. Bits and bobs, like you say.”
“If he’s doing stuff that matches up with the original murders that the public never even knew about … is it possible it was someone else all along?”
For a long second, Parker said nothing. When he spoke again, he sounded newly sure of himself. “No. Ultimately the evidence against Reave was strong, and while he’s been in prison, we’ve had no more murders like it.”
“Until now.”
He grimaced. “Until now.”
“I’d love to hear more about it, if you have time.”
The traffic had slowed, and he had a moment to look over to her. “It’s not normally an appealing subject for conversation, Miss Evans.”
“Then you can’t know many writers. Call me Heather, okay? Bloody Michael Reave thinks it’s fine to call me Heather, so I reckon you can.”
He chuckled reluctantly at that. “Fair enough.”
When they reached the outskirts of Balesford, Heather asked him to drop her off by a row of shops—for reasons she couldn’t put a finger on, she didn’t want him to associate her with her mother’s house. Leaning back to close the car door, she made herself meet his eyes directly.
“I meant it, you know, about having a chat. Balesford is a shithole but there’s a decent Chinese restaurant a few minutes from here. Really good Peking ribs.”
“Well …” To her faint surprise he smiled. “I’m not sure that’s really appropriate, Heather.” She noticed it wasn’t a yes or a no, technically, so she smiled back.
“You’ve got my number, DI Parker.”
Back inside her mother’s house, Heather went into the living room and picked up the book she had found earlier. A book of fairy tales, a wolf on its cover. She thought of the creepy story Michael Reave had told her, of the child that turned into a wolf when he drank from an enchanted stream.
Reave was right, then. Her mother had been interested in this stuff. But why would it be here, lost under the sofa? As though someone had kicked it there.
Remembering the torn page she’d found on her mother’s dressing table, Heather began to flick through it, looking for the story it had been ripped from. But quickly she realized this was going to be harder than it looked; many pages had been ripped out and apparently thrown away. There were still illustrations of round cheeked boys and girls, of bears and castles and soldiers, of fairies and goblins and boggarts, their capering figures appearing every few pages.
No wolves though. No wolves left at all.
CHAPTER11
“NIKKI, IT WAS so fucking creepy I can’t even tell you.”
“It sounds like it.”
They were in Nikki’s living room again, the remains of a Chinese takeaway strewn across her formerly pristine
