42
15 June | One day earlier
It had been 108 days since the third victim, Joseph Symons, was taken. Some people in the Met, some cops who Healy didn’t believe deserved to be cops, started talking about the end; whispers in the corridors at first, and then – like a wave of chatter – it filtered down through the hallways and into the meeting rooms. They believed a man who had taken three people and never been found could just stop; turn it off like a light. Or if they didn’t believe that, they held on to the remote possibility he’d got caught up in something else: that he’d been forced off the radar; that he’d been charged with another crime or gone to prison on something unrelated. But Healy knew it hadn’t happened like that, and so did Craw and the rest of the Snatcher team. And at 11.14 p.m. they got the call to prove it.
It was a tower block in Hammersmith, sitting in a patch of land between the flyover and the river. The call had come in from a neighbour who knew the occupant of Flat 312 and said she hadn’t seen him for three days. Ordinarily they’d chat in the corridors of the third floor every day when he returned from his job as a shop assistant. But the last time she saw him was the Tuesday before. She’d heard him leave for work, had even watched from her window as he headed off towards Hammersmith Tube station – but that was the last time she saw him. She thought she might have heard him come home that night, perhaps the sound of his door opening and closing, perhaps even the faint sound of conversation in the hallway, but she couldn’t say for sure. She definitely didn’t see him or hear him on Wednesday, and she hadn’t seen him since. It was now Friday night.
The tower block was perched on the edge of a grass bank that dropped down to a rusting fence and the train tracks beyond. It was one of five, all connected via walkways, all part of the same estate. If it hadn’t have been for the media, camped out in a space to his far left, light bulbs flashing, camera crews jostling for space, there might have been a strange kind of stillness to the place; a lack of light and sound, as if a pregnant hush were hanging in the air. In the walkways, in the alleyways, in the windows, Healy could make out figures – their faces freeze-framed in the glow from the police lightbars – looking on as things played out. At any other time, this was one of the most dangerous housing estates in London. He’d stood over bodies in this place. He’d knocked on doors and told parents their kids weren’t coming home. But now even the gangs and the dealers stood back and watched in silence as another came into this place.
One who was even worse than them.
After coming up the stairs – every light out, just like the others, bulbs smashed in the stairwell – he put on the forensic boiler suit, zipped it up and moved into the flat. Again, it was a carbon copy of the flats the other victims had lived in. Healy spotted Craw in the kitchen. There was a door off the living room, opening on to a bedroom. Chief Superintendent Ian Bartholomew stood in the doorway. Healy glanced at him but didn’t greet him. Bartholomew had started to get involved personally about four weeks after Joseph Symons went missing. ‘Three is three too many,’ he kept saying in daily briefings, as if no one on the task force felt anything for the men. Craw hated it; maybe hated him too. She’d never said as much to Healy, but her feelings were barely concealed: there, just below the surface, bubbling and stewing until one day in the future she would either say something she regretted to Bartholomew’s face, or she would walk into his office and hand in her resignation.
‘Melanie,’ Bartholomew said to Craw as she arrived from the kitchen. ‘What the bloody hell am I supposed to tell the media?’
Most of this, Healy knew, was down to him. Bartholomew had been there when Healy had been trying to find Leanne; and there in the aftermath, desperate not to give him a second chance. The decision to pull him on to the Snatcher case was Craw’s, and hers alone, and now she would be held accountable if it all went wrong: by Bartholomew, by Davidson, by anyone with a grudge against Healy. All Healy knew was that he owed it to her for giving him a chance – and he owed it to her not to make any mistakes.
Bartholomew backed out of the bedroom, letting Healy take in the crime scene, and stepped closer to Craw. ‘Melanie,’ he said again, using her first name to cushion the blow of what was coming next. ‘I think it’s time I took over the media briefings. This needs to come from the top. They need to see that we’re taking this seriously, and that we won’t just sit back and accept what we’ve got here tonight.’
‘With all due respect, sir, I’ve never put an impression across to the media that we weren’t taking these crimes seriously.’
‘Don’t take it personally,’ he said, holding up a hand to her, as if he’d barely heard her. ‘I have full faith in you and your …’ He paused, glancing at Healy. ‘Team.’
‘Is there anything else you want to lead directly, sir?’
He looked at her, trying to find the insubordination in her face, but Craw looked at him blankly. ‘No. You carry on as is. I trust you. I’ll take the media hit.’
Bartholomew left.
Healy glanced at Craw, who looked back. There was nothing in her face, nothing unspoken. No indication that she thought any less of Bartholomew, even though he’d just relegated her from the front line of the case. He was happy for her to work the hours and feel the pressure build, but he wasn’t going to let her have her day in the sun if they ever caught the Snatcher. And yet she remained silent. Healy admired her even more for her poise.
He looked into the bedroom for a second time. The hair had been placed in a neat pile on the pillow. Just like Wilky. Just like Evans. Just like Symons.
‘What was this one’s name?’ Healy asked, looking at Craw.
‘Jonathan Drake,’ she said.