But what if I was wrong? What if Jane hadn’t found any men because she hadn’t been looking for them. I saw two dozen women in Jane’s file. What if there was an equal number of men? If I accepted that Jan had been taken by the Sandman, I also had to assume it was because the Sandman had taken Jane.
The exact detail of what he planned to do with them was the stuff of nightmares and insignificant to the problem at hand which remained our need to identify, track and catch the maniac.
‘I need to report this to the police,’ I mumbled.
Big Ben came to my rescue. ‘I’ll do it. I’m going to do it from the office though, or at least not from inside his apartment. I don’t want to get caught up answering questions and making statements tonight.’
I gave that just a few seconds thought, then argued. ‘No, I’ll do it. I’m going to speak to Quinn. The police need to get on board, and this might tip the balance.’
Karen overheard me. ‘You said the police were already involved. Were you lying to me?’
Cursing myself, I ended the call quickly. ‘Ben, I have to go. Call Amanda, see how she is getting on and head back to the office if that is where she needs you. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
‘How’s it going with Karen?’ he asked, but I cut him off before he could finish asking the question.
Karen’s eyes had been accusing before. Now they were livid. I was going to try to calm her down, but I didn’t hold out much hope.
‘What I said was the senior police officer has the file and would be throwing officers at the case.’
‘But you don’t know that he is doing anything, do you?’ Karen raged.
Hilary tried to calm things down. ‘We are only trying to help.’
He got completely ignored by everyone.
Buck took a step forward, though not in a threatening manner – I’d already put him on his backside once this evening. Rather, he was attempting to get his bulk between me and the ladies in the house.
‘I think perhaps you had better go now,’ he suggested, his tone making it sound like a hopeful plea.
Ignoring him, I kept my gaze locked on Karen. ‘I didn’t lie to you.’
‘But you stretched the truth,’ she accused with a choke of outrage. ‘You don’t care about me.’
‘That’s not true,’ I protested.
‘You want to save Jane and you want to use me to help you do it.’
‘I just want your help identifying the man behind all this. If we get him, you can go back to your normal life.’
‘Or I can die in the process!’ she screamed, tears running down her face. She wasn’t being rational, but that train had left the station a while ago when terror turned up to replace it.
Buck reached out to place a friendly hand on my shoulder. I shot an eyebrow in his direction which was enough to make him reconsider the move. I was done here though. Karen wasn’t going to come with me tonight no matter what I said.
Making a point of letting my shoulders slump, I put my phone back into my jacket pocket and raised both hands in surrender.
‘Karen, I am genuinely worried for you. I believe the police will grab this case and solve it, but I cannot wait for them to get up to speed. Jane can’t wait,’ I added, my voice quiet. ‘I hope that you can. I want you to come with me so we can solve this together,’ she sucked in a sharp breath to start arguing again, and I had to speak quickly to cut her off, ‘but I can see that you are not going to.’
‘No,’ Karen confirmed. ‘I am not. Like Buck said, it is time for you to leave now.’
I didn’t move straight away. I wanted to ask her how she was going to feel when Jane’s body was found and she could have helped us save her, but to do so would be both cruel and unfair. Instead, I asked, ‘Can I send you some pictures? My team are working to identify the man. When they think they have him, will you tell me if he is the same man you saw in your bedroom?’
Karen Gilbert cast her eyes down, looking at the floor rather than meeting my eyes. After a second or so, she nodded her head; a small unhappy movement. ‘Yes. I still don’t think I will be able to identify him though.’
It was as good as I was going to get, and it was time to accept defeat.
Leaving the house with Hilary on my shoulder, I prayed Amanda was having better luck than me.
Amanda. Aliases. Friday, December 23rd 1956hrs
Jagjit hadn’t found another one or, at least, he hadn’t found another house owned by Toby Carter nearby to one of Jane’s suspiciously missing women. What he had found was another example of two different houses owned by a man bearing the same name.
A little more trawling showed that Toby Carter only lived in the two houses under his name for a total of four years and three months and only eighteen months of that was in the first house.
The second name that cropped up twice was Alexander Banks. He lived in Sittingbourne near to a woman called Jennifer Metcalf in 1995 but moved away before she went missing and cropped up again in 2016 in the seaside resort of Sandwich. That’s where a woman called Elise Dupont vanished. According to
