Like This, for Ever

2




THE CHILDREN WERE beautiful. They lay curled on their sides, spooned together. The fingers of the boy in front looked as though they were about to twitch and stretch, as sunlight and his internal body clock told him it was time to wake. Even in the flat light of the tent, he didn’t look dead. Neither did his brother, snuggled up behind him, one arm slung carelessly across his sibling’s chest.

‘Boss!’

Dana started. Her gloved hand was reaching out towards the closest boy’s forehead, where a damp lock of hair had fallen forward. She’d been about to brush it out of his eyes, the way a mother would. She still wanted to – to smooth it back over his head, pull covers up over their shoulders and keep the night air from their skin, bend and brush her lips over the soft cheeks.

Stupid. She didn’t have children, had never known maternal feelings in her life. That they should kick in now, that a couple of dead, ten-year-old boys should be the ones to awaken them.

‘Boss,’ repeated the other living occupant of the tent, a heavy-set man with thinning red hair and an indistinct chin-line. ‘Tide’s coming in fast. We need to get them out of here.’

Detective Inspector Dana Tulloch, of Lewisham’s Major Investigation Team, let Detective Sergeant Neil Anderson help her to her feet. They moved out of the police tent and into the smell of salt, rotting vegetation and petrol fumes that was the night air by the tidal Thames. The waiting crowd on Tower Bridge wriggled in anticipation. Light flashed as someone took their photograph.

As she and Anderson stepped away, others took their place, moving quickly. In a little over thirty minutes, the area would be under several feet of water. The two detectives walked up the beach towards the embankment wall.

‘Right under Tower Bridge,’ said Dana, looking up at the massive steel structure. ‘One of the most iconic landmarks in London, not to mention one of the busiest spots. What is he thinking of ?’

‘He’s a cheeky bastard,’ agreed Anderson.

Dana sighed. ‘Who was first on the scene?’ she asked.

‘Pete,’ Anderson replied, looking around. ‘He was here a minute ago.’

Dana watched as more SOCOs made their way gingerly down Horselydown Old Stairs, the slimy concrete steps that offered the only access point to this stretch of the riverbank.

‘He’s killing them faster, Neil,’ she said. ‘We’ve never found them this quickly before.’

‘I know, Boss. Here’s Pete.’

Detective Constable Pete Stenning, thirty-one years old, tall and good looking with dark curly hair, was jogging lightly down the steps to join them.

‘What can you tell us, Pete?’ she asked, when he was close enough.

‘They were spotted at 20.15 by the local florist,’ said Stenning. ‘I was with him just now. He’s had a busy day, what with it being Valentine’s Day, and he’s got a big wedding on tomorrow so he and a couple of assistants were working late. He needed a fag and smoking in the street is frowned upon so he tends to wander down the lane and up Horselydown steps. Finds it soothing to watch the river, he says, and there’s shelter if it’s pissing it down. His words, not mine.’

‘And he spotted them?’

‘There was just enough light from the Brewhouse behind and the bridge in front, he says, although he wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking at till he went down to the beach. And before you ask, he saw nothing else. The two women in the shop confirm his story.’

‘Any thoughts on how they were brought here?’ asked Anderson.

‘Could have come by water,’ said Stenning, ‘but personally, I doubt it. This is a bloody treacherous place to bring a boat in at anything other than very high water.’ He gestured over towards the river’s edge. ‘There’s the remains of a Victorian embankment just under the water there,’ he went on. ‘If your boat hits that at any speed, chances are you’re going down.’

‘Road, then?’ said Dana.

‘More likely,’ said Stenning. ‘One thing you should see,’ he went on. ‘Just a bit further under the bridge.’

Dana and Anderson followed Stenning into the shadows beneath Tower Bridge, trying to ignore the craning necks and intense stares just a few feet above them. Then all attention switched from the police officers to the small black bags being carried out of the police tent. The boys were being taken away. A few outraged cries broke out, as though the police on the beach were responsible for what had happened to the children.

Beneath the bridge, uniformed officers with torches were still combing the short stretch of bank that remained accessible. A small area had been cordoned off with police tape. Stenning shone his torch on to it.

‘Footprints?’ asked Anderson.

‘Large wellington-type boot,’ said Stenning. ‘Looks to be the same tread as the ones we found at Bermondsey. Thing is, there would be no need for him to come here. Look.’

He was pointing back towards the stairs.

‘He carried them down the steps, then a few yards along the beach to where we found them. He’d want to get it over with as quickly as possible. And yet he walks all the way over here, a detour of – what – eight metres, to leave a footprint.’

‘On the only stretch of sand I can see on this beach,’ said Dana.

‘My thoughts exactly, Ma’am,’ said Stenning. ‘On the rocks and gravel, he wouldn’t have left any prints. So he comes over to a patch of sand that, conveniently, happens to be beneath the bridge and sheltered from the rain. He wanted us to find it.’

‘Cheeky bastard,’ said Anderson.

‘Who’s that, Sarge? Him or me?’

‘Both. You OK to accompany the bodies?’

Stenning agreed that he was and then set off to follow the mortuary van as it took the boys’ bodies away.

‘I’ll get on with the door-to-door, if it’s alright with you,’ said Anderson.

Dana nodded. Anderson invariably got twitchy if forced to keep still for more than a few minutes during an investigation.

‘Somebody will have seen something,’ he went on. ‘Even if they don’t know it yet.’ He turned to go, then half turned back again. ‘What’s up, Boss?’ he asked her.

She ought to tell him nothing, that she was fine. The team needed her to be fine.

‘This one scares me, Neil.’

She saw his head draw back, his eyes narrow. ‘You’re the DI who caught the Ripper,’ he said. ‘My money’s on him being scared of you.’

Anderson loved to say what he thought was the right thing. Even when the right thing was an obvious cliché.

‘Mark and Lacey caught the Ripper,’ she said. ‘I just got the credit. And I was never as scared by the Ripper as I am by this one. Four boys dead in two months. Another one still missing. And he’s speeding up. He’s taking them faster and he’s killing them faster. How long have we got before the next one?’