Fearful Symmetry Read online

  Blake stopped and turned on Kinnear. “Judging by his reaction to that last question, yes. And I think if you had kept quiet, I might have got a little more out of him.”

  “Sorry, sir, I just…”

  “You just need to hold off a bit, Kinnear. He clearly knows who we were talking about but he’s not saying anything. If we’d approached things in a less direct way, it’s possible we may have got an ID for our mysterious young man. Let me do the talking in future. Okay?”

  Kinnear’s cheeks coloured and he bit his lip. Blake’s mobile broke the tension. “Yes? On our way.” He looked over at Kinnear. “That was Alex Manikas. Ellen Kevney’s car has turned up.”

  Chapter 6

  Darkness pressed in on Ellen Kevney, intensifying the cold of the steel floor. She’d lost track of how long she’d been in this place. Forever, or so it seemed. She couldn’t see a hand in front of her. Her wrists were handcuffed, and, with a little brave groping, she had found they were chained to a steel ring in the floor. Everything was metal; the floor, the walls, the chain. That wasn’t strictly true; there was a commode in the corner made of plastic. She suspected that she was being kept in a shipping container.

  For the thousandth time, she tried to remember how she had ended up here but it was all very hazy. She’d dropped the kids off as usual and then gone home. What then? She knew what she normally did that day of the week. But had she been this time? Is that where she had been taken from? The huge black hole in her memory frightened her almost as much as the chains and the black, echoing crate she lay in.

  The whole room clanged as the door at the far end of the container swung open, groaning on its hinges. A familiar silhouette appeared in the square of daylight that dazzled Ellen.

  “Who are you? What do you want?” Ellen sobbed, lurching forward but being yanked down by the chains. She gasped as she hit the hard floor just like she did each time he came in. The figure squatted close and slid a tray towards her but said nothing.

  Ellen could smell the baked beans and feel their heat. Her mouth watered and she fought the urge to plunge her fingers into the steaming bowl. “Let me go,” she whimpered. “Please. My children will be worried…”

  The figure rose, looming over her and backed away towards the rectangle of light.

  Hot tears scalded Ellen’s cheeks and she looked up at him. “Please, I’m begging you. Let me go. You must have a mum. How would you feel if she was…?” The figure froze and she stopped, somehow sensing that she was heading down the wrong track. Then the door clanged shut, plunging her into darkness once more.

  Ellen sat in silence, trying to resist the smell of the food. Her stomach growled and she went through the same process that she had every day since she’d been taken. She pushed the bowl away with her foot and turned her back on it. It could be poisoned or drugged. She was pretty certain that however she’d got here, it involved a spiked drink or food. But she felt so faint and hungry. If she was to keep going, she needed fuel. She need energy to think of a way out, as unlikely as that may seem. There was no reason to think her captor would drug her again, was there? She shivered, pushing away the question of why he had taken her and what his plans were for her. Finally, she snatched up the bowl and began spooning the contents into her mouth.

  Ellen chewed and swallowed automatically, not tasting the mush. Blinking back the tears, she thought of her children, Casey and Donovan. The memories of chaotic mealtimes when she had to cram their busy lives between school and bedtime; swimming, football, dance, playing with friends. What would the kids be thinking, now? Her mum must be beside herself with worry, too. She imagined reading to them and stroking their hair before bedtime but that just made the harshness of her conditions worse. She longed for her small two-bedroom house and its ordinariness. The chains chafed her wrists and made it hard to pull the thin blankets over herself to keep warm. She shivered, trying to keep at bay visions of what might await her. Despite the painfully hard floor and the cold, Ellen Kevney finally slept, but her dreams were far from sweet.

  *****

  DCI Blake slouched on the desk and searched the crowded Operations Room for familiar faces amongst the assembled officers. DC Alex Manikas sat next to DS Vikki Chinn and, inwardly, Blake smiled; those two were bomb proof. His brow creased as he saw DI Kath Cryer and DC Andrew Kinnear sat next to each other. They had a complicated relationship; Kath still had a splint on her wrist from when she’d taken a shotgun blast for Kinnear. Blake would never describe them as bosom buddies, though. In the past, some of Cryer’s comments had been borderline homophobic. He was certain, Kinnear was going to make a complaint against her before she saved his life. Nothing more was said, but Blake worried about them both. He worried about Ellen Kevney more. Kath fiddled with the Velcro straps that secured the splint; fastening and unfastening them as if she couldn’t get the splint comfortable.

  “Are you alright, ma’am?” Kinnear said.

  Startled, Kath sat bolt upright. “Yeah,” she said. “Just getting it sorted.”

  “Hey! Blakey!” A voice cried across the office. Blake groaned as DCI Matty Cavanagh strutted towards the assembled group. Cavanagh was a swaggering, young scouser who spent as much time checking his hair in the washroom mirror as at his desk. It was said that if you snapped Cavanagh in half, he’d have LFC written all the way through him, like a stick of rock. He was always backed up by DS Bobby Dirkin, a shrewd and pugnacious foot soldier who covered Cavanagh’s tracks and did much of the spadework for him. If you wanted to cut through the crap in a case, Cavanagh and Dirkin were your men. But Cavanagh had an easy manner and an ability to get on with just about anybody. He was often seen perching on the edge of desks, chatting football or the latest episode of whatever was trending on Netflix. Cavanagh was a consummate networker; everything Blake wasn’t and it nettled him.

  “If you don’t mind, Matty, we’re just about to start a briefing.”

  “You’re tanned, sir,” Cryer said, giving Cavanagh an approving nod. “Been anywhere nice?”

  “Mexico,” Cavanagh said. “Cancun. Roastin’ it was.”

  “God. I’d love to go there,” Kinnear said, wistfully. “Chris says it’s too expensive.”

  “If I can get us back on track,” Blake said, instantly feeling ridiculous at the level of his irritation.

  Cavanagh pulled a face. “Oops, sorry,” he said. “I brought back some mingin’ sweets for you all to break your teeth on. My brother-in-law’s a dentist, you see. Anyway, they’re on my desk. Help yourself. If you want any input on this case, Will, just shout, mate.”

  “Thanks,” Will said, curtly.

  Blake watched Cavanagh saunter back to his desk and the chatter died. He cleared his throat. “Right. Ellen Kevney, 28, mother of two, mobile hairdresser. Missing for over two weeks. Yesterday her car, a Fiat 500, turned up in the carpark at Leasowe Station on the Wirral. Alex, any more details?”

  Manikas nodded and rose to his feet. “Yes, sir. CSI are going over it now but, as you know, cars are often a mess of prints and DNA, depending on who’s driven, or been in the car for weeks before. They did find a bag in the back containing some hairdressing equipment: tongs, clippers, some dyes, curlers and also a passport.”

  “She hasn’t left the country then,” Kinnear said.

  “It wasn’t Ellen Kevney’s passport,” Manikas replied. “It belongs to a Katerina Dragavei. A Romanian national. We’re making enquiries with the Romanian Embassy, Immigration, Interpol but that will all take time.”

  “Time,” Blake muttered.

  “There was something else, sir,” Manikas said, his voice breaking a little. “Something a little unusual.”

  “What?”

  “A copy of the Radio Times.”

  “So?”

  “From 2007. It had an interview. Erm… with you in it… your picture was on the cover. From when you were in that Searchlight programme on TV.”

  There was a ripple of murmuring across the assembled group and glances
were exchanged. A few people folded their arms or shifted in their seats, knowing this was a weak spot of Blake’s.

  Blake pursed his lips. “Really? That’s strange. Could just be coincidence of course… where did they find it?”

  “In the boot.”

  “D’you think whoever has Ellen Kevney is trying to goad you, sir?” Kath Cryer said, her voice sounding like fingernails on a chalkboard.

  Blake shook his head. “No, there are a hundred and one reasons that magazine could be in there, Kath. We’ve all put old newspaper down if we’re transporting a pet or…”

  “It’s quite an old magazine, sir,” Manikas said. “To even be around now is odd…”

  “Not really. It could have been at the bottom of a pile. Plus, there will have been interviews with other people in that magazine. I don’t know… Bruce Forsythe, maybe? Is the killer trying to goad him?”

  “He’s dead, sir,” Cryer said, her voice flat.

  Blake pursed his lips. “The passport. Let’s focus on the passport.”

  “The passport holder might have been working with Ellen, perhaps?” Kath Cryer suggested. “Is there any news on the body from Hilbre Grove, sir?”

  Blake shook his head. “No. We don’t know the identity of the victim at Hilbre Grove, yet. Or if it has any connection with Ellen Kevney’s disappearance. The body was badly decomposed; the heating in the house was on full. It’ll slow things down.”

  “Sounds like that’s what they wanted, sir,” DS Chinn said. “Cover their tracks.”

  “Maybe, Viki, but we can’t assume it has any connection to the Kevney case,” Blake replied. He turned to Manikas. “Had Ellen’s car been in the station carpark long?”

  Manikas shrugged. “We checked CCTV, sir and it seems the car was left there three days ago. The images aren’t very good. All we have is someone in a dark hoodie. Possibly male.”

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” Kinnear said. “Satellites can see a sparrow fart from space but we can’t make CCTV clear enough to pick out a face from twenty feet.”

  “Do sparrows fart, Kinnear?” Blake said, narrowing his eyes at the young DC. “And could you see it? Or would you hear it?”

  Kinnear reddened again. “I dunno, sir, I was just… you know…”

  “So,” Blake continued, leaving Kinnear to flounder, “who dropped that car off?”

  “Whoever took Ellen Kevney?” DS Chinn said.

  “Or Ellen herself?” Cryer added.

  Blake nodded. “Both possibilities, I suppose. Though I’m not sure what Ellen Kevney stands to gain from disappearing. She lived for her kids and seems to have led a blameless life.”

  Kath Cryer pouted and shrugged. “People get depressed and wander off…”

  “True,” Blake replied, “but they don’t then deposit their car a week after they’ve wandered off, do they?”

  “No, sir.”

  Blake frowned. “Sorry, Kath. We seem to be going round in circles. If we knew just something about where she was before she disappeared…”

  “She vanished on a Monday, sir, her day off,” Alex Manikas said. “After dropping her kids off from school, nobody saw her. She’d told her mother she was going to do a spot of shopping but our requests for any sightings in town, Cheshire Oaks or any of the local shopping centres, have brought up nothing. ANPR hasn’t picked up her car registration for that day.”

  “Her neighbour says she saw Ellen come home in the morning. But she wasn’t home in the afternoon because the neighbour had to sign for a delivery of hair dye on Ellen’s behalf,” Vikki Chin added.

  Blake sighed. “Vikki, could you have a chat with the neighbours again? See if there’s anything they missed. Any little detail. I’m getting desperate here. Kath can you use your abrasive charm to see if we can speed up forensics people on the bag found in the car?”

  Kath Cryer grinned. “They’ll be snowed under with the murder, too. I’ll do my best, though, sir.”

  “What about the Radio Times, sir?” Manikas said.

  “Forget that, for now, Alex,” Blake said. “You and Kinnear concentrate on Leasowe station and see if you can have a word with the staff…”

  The team dispersed and Blake spent another hour or so scanning files and papers, trying to find something, anything that may give him a lead. His phone buzzed and he read the text: Come home. Bring some chips. He smiled; that didn’t seem like a bad idea.

  *****

  It was almost eleven by the time Blake climbed out of his old Opel Manta outside Rock Lodge, the place he called home. It was a small building in comparison to the old Victorian mansions that stood nearby along the banks of the Mersey. Once, more than a century ago, this whole area had been the playground of the rich. Villas and gardens that led onto an esplanade where women in silks walked with top-hatted gentlemen. That was all long ago and since then, the park had been bisected by a dual carriageway. Some of the mansions had fallen into disrepair and even collapsed. A few still stood in their own grounds, sealed off from the estates of New Ferry and Rock Ferry by iron gates and the A41. Blake’s house had been a DIY project started by his parents when his father retired. He’d passed away and his mother, who developed dementia, had wandered out of the front door a couple of years ago, never to be seen again.

  He squashed down the memory of the door hanging ajar. Tried not to let the feelings of panic and guilt well-up in his tightening chest. At the time, he’d been so busy with his work, chasing villains and playing the efficient law man, that he hadn’t noticed the danger. The times he’d come home at night and found her in the garden calling for her husband or thinking he was someone else. He should have sorted things out sooner and got the support she needed, but he didn’t.

  Blake shook himself and held the chips under his arm like a rugby ball, as he fumbled with the keys in the lock. Pushing the door open, he called out, “Chips!” Serafina, his demon Persian cat came up to him, meowing and rubbing at his ankles so persistently, that it nearly tripped him over. “Okay, okay! Calm down, cat.”

  Laura Vexley leaned against the doorframe of the living room. “What time do you call this, Mr Policeman?” she said, a smile playing about her lips.

  “Sorry,” Blake said, accepting her hug but holding the chips at arm’s length to avoid them getting crushed. “Rotten day.”

  “I texted you,” she said. Her green eyes flashing. Cat’s eyes, Blake always thought. That’s why she gets along with Serafina. They’re kindred spirits.

  “You did,” Blake replied, scraping the chips onto two plates. “Several times, I noticed. Couldn’t reply. Too busy.”

  “You found time to get a haircut, though,” she said, raising one eyebrow.

  “Jeez, what is this? I could grow it long, if you want, and tie it back in a ponytail for you!”

  Laura sniffed and folded her arms. “Just saying, you weren’t too busy to pay attention to your rugged good looks. Was she pretty?”

  “What? Who?”

  “The hairdresser, running her fingers through your luscious locks. Was she pretty?”

  Blake shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. I didn’t really think about that…It was meant to be my day off. I just thought I’d get a cut while I could…”

  “She did a good job,” Laura said, scooping up a plate of chips and striding back to the living room. “Come on. Your chips’ll get cold.”

  He watched her tall, angular body disappear into the other room and shook his head. He’d only known her a matter of months and yet he’d cheerfully given her a spare key to the house and let her into his life. Or some of it. Sometimes, though, Blake felt manipulated, played even. He knew it was his own suspicious nature, something that made him a good policeman but a quality that worked against him in his private life. Or maybe he just couldn’t understand why this lively, beautiful woman would be even remotely interested in damaged goods like him. He looked down at his plate. She was right about his chips getting cold, though. And he needed to eat; tomorrow was another day and hope
fully, it would bring fresh leads.

  I didn’t really enjoy the killing. It didn’t feel like I’d thought it would. Not how it was in books or on the TV. It didn’t excite me or make me feel powerful. It was just something that needed to be done. It was a bit like when I worked in the slaughterhouse. Most of the people there were kind of removed from the actual job of killing the cattle.

  Thinking about it now, that’ll be something they’ll pick up on. I can see it now: ‘Our killer spent some time working in an abattoir, taking pleasure in tormenting the poor animals as they went to their deaths.’

  It won’t be true, of course, but it’ll help with the whole mythos. That’s an important word; there has to be a whole load of speculation and story spun around my past. It has to be a folk tale. You think of all the infamous murderers, the really big ones. They all had troubled pasts that experts and enthusiasts pore over for years after, keeping the flame burning. So, I did feel sorry for the poor woman, but, just like a cow or a chicken or a lamb, she had to go. For the greater good.

  One thing that really shocked me was the amount of blood. I really didn’t expect that, in spite of my past work experience. It went everywhere. I like to think she died quickly and relatively painlessly. I’m quite proud of that.

  I wasn’t too worried about the blood. I mean it’s not as if I have to clean it up. But I have to be careful. I mean, if I made it too easy, I may as well just go and hand myself over and where’s the fun in that? And anyway, greatness must be earned. Soon, the plot thickens, as they say.

  Sunday 9th February

  Chapter 7

  Ellen Kevney’s house sat in the middle of a neat row of terraced houses on Rowson street. Vikki Chinn pulled up outside. The house was built of old red engineering brick, probably built in the early nineteen hundreds. It looked like so many houses across this side of the Wirral, and over in Liverpool too; white UPVC doors and windows, blinds and a small, well-kept postage-stamp front garden. She thought, proudly, of her own flat in the middle of the city and wondered if Ellen Kevney had been pleased with her little house, too. Probably.