Dark Water: A gripping serial killer thriller

  ‘How are we doing?’ asked Erika moving over to them. Knight was a tall angular woman with a blunt dark fringe, and Temple a head shorter with pleasant blond boyish features.

  ‘We’re just putting a timeline together, Jessica’s movements leading up to August 7th and then when she left 7 Avondale Road,’ said Knight blowing her fringe out of her eyes and pushing a pin into the map. ‘We’re working from the original missing person report and all the statements.’

  ‘Who’s this?’ asked Erika picking up a yellowing photo of a thirty-five year old man with pale blue eyes, greasy blond hair and a beaky face.

  ‘Trevor Marksman, the convicted kiddy fiddler. We’re including him in the timeline as he was seen watching her in the days leading up to her disappearance,’ said Temple. ‘Although, this is what he looks like now.’

  He sifted through and found a picture of a man with hideous burns to his face. He stared straight into the camera, and pain was etched in his eyes, now deep set under skin grafts and he had no hair, eyebrows or lashes.

  ‘Don’t say kiddy fiddler. It makes a joke of something horrific. Sex offender, paedophile. Okay?’ said Erika. DC Temple’s cheeks flushed red and he nodded. ’This is good work though, do you think this will be ready for tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Yes, Ma’am,’ said Knight.

  ‘Call me Boss, please.’

  ‘Yes, Boss.’

  John came through the door with a takeaway box and a cup of coffee. He moved over to his desk by the door, put down the take away box and opened it stuffing a load of chips in his mouth. ‘Hi Boss. Chip?’

  ‘No,’ said Erika, waiting.

  ‘Sorry boss,’ he said through a mouthful of chips. I haven’t eaten all day…’ he swallowed them down with a gulp of coffee. ‘You’ve had a couple of messages from Superintendent Yale, asking for the report on Jason Tyler.’

  ‘Shit, I forgot about that,’ said Erika looking at her watch. It was coming up to ten pm.

  ‘We’ve also had the official autopsy report through from Dr Strong, I put it on your desk.’

  ‘Where is my desk?’

  ‘In your office.’

  ‘I’ve got an office?’

  ‘Up the back there,’ said John. Erika turned and saw the large glass box at the back of the open-plan office. It was crammed waist high with white and grey boxes. She moved over to the door and John followed. In the middle of all the boxes she could just make out a desk.

  ‘Are these all the files on the Jessica Collins case?’

  ‘Yes, Boss. Arrived this afternoon from the Specialist Casework Investigation Team. And they carry on under the window there.’

  There was no space to move beyond the doorway. The autopsy report was in the middle of her desk.

  ‘Sorry, Boss. The files were delivered after I put the report on your desk,’ he said putting down his chips and tackling the stack of boxes in the doorway, pulling them out to make a small gap. Erika joined in as they shifted boxes outside. She looked around at the cramped office, nearly every desk was full and occupied. ‘Shit, there’s no space for any of this.’

  She slid another box out through the glass doorway, and managed to squeeze in to reach the chair and reach the report on the desk.

  ‘And this is everything?’

  ‘So I’m told. The Specialist Casework Investigation Team sent everything over that’s been in storage, it goes back years and in no particular order. There’s evidence bags mixed up with files, some boxes are marked in date order from 1991 up to 1995, and then some are marked up with the names of locations, and then there are a load with no label at all where files have been stuffed in with no regard… ’

  A phone rang from inside Erika’s office, and she moved through the boxes to pick it up. It was Marsh.

  ‘What have you got from the historical case files?’ he asked without pre-amble.

  ‘I’ve just got them.’

  ‘Are you putting together a list of suspects?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’d like to see it as soon as possible.’

  ‘I had a chat with DC Greene who was the family liason on the case. She gave me a good insight, but I need more manpower to get through this stuff,’ said Erika.

  ‘Ok, I’ll see what I can do. Did you see the papers?’

  At the same time John handed her a slightly rain splattered copy of The Evening Standard, and she saw that it had made the front page of the evening edition.

  ‘Yes, I’ve got a copy. I see they’ve gone with the same picture of Jessica Collins.’

  ‘Yes, for some reason they forgot to include the incident room number. But Colleen Scanlan is on it, and they should be adding it to the online edition any minute now.’

  Erika looked up at her team, many of who were flagging sat at their desks. Marsh went on,

  ‘Martin Collins is flying into the UK late tonight with Laura and Toby. They’ve asked for a meeting with the SIO and media liaison.’

  ‘I was planning to meet with the family…’

  ‘Martin Collins wants assurances that this case will be dealt with properly, after the fiasco it turned into last time.’

  ‘Well I hope if you’ve spoken with him you’ve made those assurances?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good, and I’ll re-iterate them.’

  ‘Erika, we need results on this one.’

  ‘At the same time I’m untangling a web here, Sir.’ Erika went on to briefly what she’d earned from Nancy, the added, ’I need to do some more digging, and I’m serious about more manpower. We need to work through these files fast. Then I can start giving you list of suspects.’

  ‘Ok, leave it with me,’ said Marsh and he hung up.

  17

  Erika was bleary eyed when she arrived at Bromley Cross the next morning. She’d stayed late finishing the Jason Tyler report and working through some of the the Jessica Collins case files, and had only grabbed a few hours sleep.

  When she got out of her car in the underground car park, she heard a whistle and saw two familiar faces coming toward her.

  ‘Boss! Bloody good to see you!’ cried Detective Inspector Moss. She was a small compact woman with short red hair tucked behind her ears, and her face was a mass of freckles. She rushed forward and grabbed Erika in bear hug.

  ‘She’s very excited to see you,’ said the tall black officer joining them a moment later. It was Detective Inspector Peterson, cool and handsome in a sharp black suit.

  ‘Okay. I can’t breathe,’ said Erika laughing. Moss broke free and took a step back.

  ‘I thought you’d forgotten about us, Boss?’

  ‘It’s been crazy. I was re-assigned here as a spare part and suddenly, they piled me high with cases,’ said Erika, feeling guilty that she hadn’t kept in touch with her former colleagues.

  ‘Go on Peterson, give the Boss a hug too,’ joked Moss. He rolled his eyes.

  ‘Good to see you, Boss he grinned,’ he leaned forward and gave her an awkward pat on the shoulder.

  ‘Do you need parking permits?’ asked Erika.

  ‘Just one, we came in my car, Peterson’s waiting to be assigned a new one.’

  ‘It died on the Sun in The Sands roundabout last week,’ he said. ‘Total nightmare, the middle of rush hour, I was due back at the nick. There was cars honking like mad, smoke coming out from under my bonnet.’

  ‘You should see the bonnet, Boss he looks really good in it. I told him not to wear it today. Although it quite suited him…’

  ‘Piss off Moss,’ said Peterson.

  ‘He’s just being modest, Boss. The frills framed his face… Made him look like a baby Idris Elba.’

  Erika burst out laughing. ’Sorry, Peterson,’ she said.

  ’S’alright,’ he grinned. She had forgotten just how much she enjoyed working with Moss and Peterson, and how much she’d missed them. They reached the lift at the end of the car park, and she pressed the call button.

  ‘Its good to have you both here t
hank you. Although, I don’t think we’ll be laughing much more today. This case is going to be tough.’

  * * *

  The incident room was full when they arrived, and Erika introduced Moss and Peterson and was pleased to see that she’s been assigned six additional CID officers to work on the case files. DC Knight then stood to take them through the timeline of events leading up to the disappearance of Jessica Collins.

  ‘How much do you want me to explain about location, Boss?’ she asked, looking at Moss and Peterson and the other new members of the team.

  ‘Imagine we know nothing. We don’t live near Hayes. We’ve never heard of Jessica Collins. We are all hearing this for the first time… And remember,’ Erika added standing and addressing the incident room. ‘There are never any stupid questions. If you don’t understand something, shout.’

  She sat back down, and DC Knight moved to the giant four metre square map on the back wall,

  ‘Okay so this map covers an area of twenty miles from top to bottom. In the centre is central London, and the bottom of the map, down south is the Kent borders, and here we are in Bromley Cross,’ she said indicating a large red cross on the map. ‘And we’re 2.6 miles from Hayes village. It’s a popular commuter belt village, lots of people who live there work in the city of London. It takes thirty minutes to get into the centre of London by train, and it has a higher than average population of retired people. Property prices are high, and it’s a predominantly white demographic area…’

  Knight then nodded to DC Temple who turned off the lights. She moved back to a laptop activating the projector, which shone a larger scale map on a blank square of whiteboard. Knight moved to one side of it and went on,

  ‘This is a larger scale map of Hayes Village. You can see the high street here in the centre, and where the houses thin out to the north it becomes Hayes Common. The common is an area of woodland and heath, crossed by bridleways and footpaths. It’s one of the largest areas of common land in Greater London, at 225 acres. There are multiple access points to the common that can be accessed from Baston Road, Baston Manor Road, Five Elms Road, Croydon Road, Prestons Road, Warren Road, West Common Road and Commonside. At its southern end is the disused quarry where Jessica’s remains were found. The quarry was created between 1906 and 1914, when sandstone was excavated. Over the years it has twice been filled and cleared; during the Second World War there was an army base at Hayes common and anti-aircraft guns. In 1980 the quarry was cleared for the second time by archaeologists as part of a wider dig looking for Bronze Age relics. After this, it was left to fill with water. Bromley council twice put forward applications to have the quarry used for commercial fishing, but on both occasions the idea was overturned as the common is a site of nature conservation interest, and is protected.’

  She paused and moved to the other side of the map, the projection of the roads playing over her tired face like arteries.

  ‘I’ll now move on to the timeline of events leading up to the disappearance of Jessica Collins. She lived here with her family in 7 Avondale Road, which is less than a mile from the Hayes Quarry, the closest entrance being here on Five Elms Road. You can see the houses on Avondale Road are all detached with large gardens. It’s an affluent area. On Saturday 7th August 1990 at 1.45pm, Jessica left her house to go to a birthday party for her school friend, Kelly Morrison, who lived at number 27 Avondale Road. It was only a short walk of around five hundred meters, but she never arrived. The alarm wasn’t raised until over two hours later, just after 4pm, when Marianne Collins arrived at 27 Avondale Road to collect Jessica, and saw she wasn’t there.’

  She nodded at Temple and he went to the laptop and a Google Street view image appeared,

  ‘Here’s a view from the top of Avondale Road where it branches off a main road.’

  The Google Street view blurred forward in bursts, the image moving past the houses on Avondale Road. ‘You can see that the houses are all large, two of three storeys. They’re all set back from the street and many of them have high hedges, trees… Here we are passing 7 Avondale Road, the Collins house… and we’re moving forward to 27 Avondale Road. I’m trying to get hold of images of the street from 26 years ago, but from the witness statements I’ve read. As is today, it wasn’t possible to see the street from inside most of these houses.’

  The Google Street view surged forward past better-appointed houses. A postman was frozen mid-walk, his face blurred and his hand deep in his mailbag. Further along, a woman was emerging from one of the driveways with a small dog. From the back she had short curly blond hair.

  ‘Okay, now you can see that Avondale Road curves sharply to the left where it becomes Marsden Road.’ She pointed to a large manor house painted a buttery yellow with a grand pillared entrance. ‘This is now, The Swann Retirement Village, a nursing home, but 26 years ago it was used a halfway house for convicted sex offenders. Its existence wasn’t made public, and it only came to light shortly after Jessica’s disappearance. One of its residents, Trevor Matthews was the main focus for the original investigation. Photographs of Jessica were found in his room on the top floor. And the Matthews house could be seen clearly from his window. He was also spotted by a neighbour hanging around outside their house on the afternoon of August 5th, on the 6th around the same time and on the morning of the 7th. He was arrested on the 10th August. He was kept in custody for questioning, but no evidence, beyond photos he had taken of Jessica was found to link him to her disappearance, ’

  ‘But now we have a body,’ said John.

  ‘We have Jessica’s remains, but there is virtually no forensic evidence after twenty-six years underwater,’ said Erika.

  Knight went on,

  ‘All members of Jessica’s immediate family have an alibi. Marianne and Martin were both at home with Toby. An elderly neighbour and her husband popped in for coffee at around 3.15pm, a Mr and Mrs O’ Shea now deceased. They stayed for forty-five minutes until Marianne left with them to go to collect Jessica. Their oldest daughter Laura was a two hundred and forty miles away on a camping trip with her boyfriend in the Gower Peninsula in Wales. They’d left early the day before.’

  She looked at the room.

  ‘The results of a door-to-door weren’t helpful, most neighbours were out and those who were in had strong alibis. As you saw in the Google Street Map, most houses are blind to Avondale road, we have a two hour period where anything could have happened. There were few tradesmen; there is no post on a Saturday afternoon. Back in 1990 very little of the area was covered by CCTV. No buses travel down Avondale Road.’

  A silence fell over the room for a moment before Temple put the lights back on. Erika moved to the front and stood by the map, now faint under the strip lights.

  ‘Thank you or working hard to put this together… And to all of you who worked late. We’re having to hit the ground running here with a huge amount of historical casefiles.’ She saw how despondent everyone looked.

  ‘However, this should be seen as a positive. The case files could yield much more. We also have the benefit of hindsight. We also have a body. I’d like you to divide the boxes up. DC McGorry will be in charge of this. I’d also like you to pay attention to the role of the SIO on the case, DCI Amanda Baker. I want to know about her background, anything you can find about her personal life and what she’s been up to since she left the force.’

  ‘Like a witch hunt?’ said one of the CID Detectives, an older officer with balding sandy hair. He had piercing green eyes and was sat back with his arms folded.

  ‘What’s your name?’ asked Erika.

  ‘DI Crawford. I was a PC on this case back in 1990.’

  ‘Did you request the case or was it a lucky co-incidence?’

  ‘Lucky, or unlucky,’ he chuckled. Erika fixed him with a glare,

  ‘So what’s your point?’

  He sat up and looked a little awkward,

  ‘There’s been a lot said about DCI Baker, but I always thought she was dealing with fo
rces from both sides… She had the Collins family criticising her, and she had a lot of the top brass at the time briefing behind her back. It wasn’t right.’

  ‘I’m not here to trash the reputation of one of our colleagues, but she decided to take justice into her own hands with the prime suspect in the case Trevor Marksman. This is what he looked like when he was arrested,’ she said holding up the first photo. ‘And this is what he looks like now.’

  There was a murmur of shock when they saw the close up headshot of Trevor Marksman with burns. ‘DCI Baker was instrumental in tipping off a group of local women who put a home made petrol bomb through his front door just over a year after Jessica went missing. He’d just been assigned a council house. He was the only person that came close to being a suspect. We need to re-visit his statements along with everything else in this case, but keep an open mind.’

  Di Crawford put up his hand.

  ’Boss, I was involved with the search around Hayes Quarry, and the Marine did a thorough search.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Must have been in November 1990.’

  ‘Okay. This is good. So Jessica was kept alive and or killed somewhere else and her body dumped at a later date,’ said Erika.

  ‘I didn’t have access to anything that went on in the incident room, ‘ he added. ‘Back then I was just a uniformed PC, full of enthusiasm. Life had yet to sand me down.’

  ‘I can relate to that,’ said Erika. ‘It’s good to have you on the team. A little bit of continuity with the past… Okay, everyone, I’d like your main priority to be reviewing the physical evidence. Once we get a hold of what’s in all of these boxes we can move forward. We’ll re-convene tomorrow morning for a progress report.’