DCI Michael Lambert thought he’d closed his last case…

Yet when he’s passed a file detailing a particularly gruesome murder, Michael knows that this is no ordinary killer at work.

The removal of the victim’s eyes and the Latin inscription carved into the chest is the chilling calling-card of the ‘Souljacker’: a cold-blooded murderer who struck close to Michael once before, years ago.

Now the long-buried case is being reopened, and Michael is determined to use his inside knowledge to finally bring the killer to justice. But as the body count rises, Michael realises that his own links to the victims could mean that he is next on the killer’s list…

Dead Eyed

Matt Brolly

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2015

Copyright © Matt Brolly 2015

Matt Brolly asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © June 2015 ISBN: 9781474045032

Version date: 2018-09-20

Following his law degree where he developed an interest in criminal law, MATT BROLLY completed his Masters in Creative Writing at Glasgow University. He reads widely across all genres, and is currently working on the second in his Michael Lambert thriller series. Matt lives in London with his wife and their two young children. You can find out more about Matt at his website MattBrolly.co.uk or by following him on twitter: @MatthewBrolly

I’d like to thank a number of people who have helped, directly or indirectly in the writing of this book:

The whole team at HQ Digital for their support and encouragement, with special thanks to Clio Cornish for signing me.

My wonderful Editor, Charlotte Mursell, for her insightful comments and for pushing me to make this the best book it could be.

The Creative Writing team at Glasgow University. In particular, Zoe Strachan and Elizabeth Reeder for their great advice.

On a personal note, I’d like to thank my Mum and Dad, Carla and Joe, for their support and patience in waiting for my first book to be published.

Michael Brolly, for lending his first name.

My family and friends for being there over the years: Eileen Burnell, Claire and the Webbers, Mel and the Brollys, Ann and Jim Eardley, Beth and Warren Eardley, Alan, Ishy, Holly, Chris, Dan, Frank, Matt Lower, Ralph, Ryan, Simon, Alexia, Lizzie, Snuffy Walden, Elvis, Broll, Broll Junior, Dave the Dog, and many others who have made an impact on my life.

My children, Freya and Hamish, whose love is my greatest inspiration.

And Alison, my first reader and fiercest critic, for her unwavering belief and love.

For Alison

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Acknowledgement

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Epilogue

Endpages

About the Publisher

Prologue

The man hovered on the edge of the dance floor. His elongated limbs and thinning hair made him stand out from the young lithe bodies. Sam Burnham watched him from the bar, nursing the same brandy he’d ordered an hour ago.

The track ended and the man shuffled his feet. He scanned the mirrored dance area before heading towards the bar.

Burnham ordered a second drink. He sensed the man in his periphery, and turned to face him. He placed his hand on the younger man’s arm, and looked him directly in the eyes.

‘Can I buy you a drink?’ he asked.

The man nodded, staring at Burnham. Twenty minutes later they left the club together.

‘What now?’ asked Burnham, pulling his jacket tight against his body. It was a late September evening in Bristol, and the temperature had dropped since he’d set out earlier that day.

‘Where are you staying?’ asked the man. His eyes darted in random directions, not once focusing on Burnham.

‘Hotel. You wouldn’t like it. Do you live near?’ Burnham knew exactly where he lived.

‘I’m not sure,’ said the man. ‘I don’t know you.’

Burnham touched the man’s arm again. It was the simplest of techniques, but highly effective.

The man relented. ‘It’s not far away. We can walk.’

The man lived in Southville, a small suburb of Bristol less than a mile from the centre. They walked in an awkward silence, peppered with the occasional question from the man.

The man stopped outside a block of flats. ‘I don’t mean to sound weird, but do I know you from somewhere?’

‘I don’t think so. I guess I must have one of those faces,’ said Burnham, following him inside.

The flat was hospital clean, the air fragranced artificially. The living area was an array of various gleaming surfaces: glass, chrome, marble. Burnham accepted a glass of brandy. The man’s hands trembled as he handed it over.

They moved to the living room sofa and the man made life easy for him. ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ he said, his voice faltering.

As soon as Burnham heard the bathroom door click shut, he removed the phial from his inside jacket pocket. He broke the seal and spilled the clear liquid into the man’s drink, stirring it with his left index finger.

It took five minutes for the man to take a drink. A further five minutes for the drug to take effect. Burnham dragged him to the bedroom, the man’s skeletal body insubstantial in his thick arms. He placed the man on the bed and made a phone call.

Burnham’s boss arrived at the flat two minutes later carrying a small leather case. Burnham watched in silence as he removed a surgical outfit, a set of scalpels, and a second phial filled with a different substance. ‘Wait in the car,’ he ordered.

It was three hours before his boss left the building. Burnham hurried from his seat and opened the back passenger door for him.

‘Do you need me to clean up?’ he asked.

‘No, not this time.’

Chapter 1

Michael Lambert waited at the back of the coffee shop. To his right, a group of new mothers congregated around three wooden tables. Some held their tiny offspring; the others allowed their babies to sleep in the oversized prams which crowded the area. Two tables down, a pair of men dressed in identical suits stared at their iPads. Next to them, a young woman with braided hair read a paperback novel. All of them looked up as Simon Klatzky walked through the shop entrance and shouted over at him.

Lambert ignored the glances. He’d arrived thirty minutes earlier, out of habit checking and rechecking the clientele. He hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. He stood and beckoned Klatzky over. He’d last seen him two years ago at the funeral. ‘Good to see you again, Simon,’ he said.

‘Mikey,’ said Klatzky. Like Lambert, Klatzky was thirty-eight. He’d lost weight since the last time they’d met. His face was gaunt, his eyeballs laced with thin shards of red. When he spoke, Lambert noticed a number of missing teeth. The rest were discoloured and black with cheap fillings. His face cracked into a smile. He stood grinning at Lambert. In his left hand he clutched an A4 manila envelope.

‘Sit down then. What do you want to drink?’ said Lambert.

Klatzky shrugged. ‘Coffee?’

Lambert ordered two black Americanos and returned to the table.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ said Klatzky.

Klatzky had called earlier that morning desperate to meet. He’d refused to tell Lambert the details over the phone but had insisted that it was urgent. From the smell of him, it hadn’t been important enough to stop him visiting a bar first.

Klatzky’s hands shook as he sipped the coffee. ‘I thought it best you see for yourself,’ he said, looking at the envelope still clutched tight in his hand.

Lambert sat straight in his chair, scratching a day’s growth of stubble on his face. It was genuinely good to see his old friend. He’d only agreed to meet him as he’d sounded so scared on the phone. Now he was here, Lambert regretted not seeing more of him in the last two years.

‘How have you been, Si?’

‘So-so. I’m sorry I haven’t called before.’ He hesitated. ‘And now, contacting you in these circumstances.’ He still had a strong grip on the envelope, his knuckles turning white with the effort.

‘I’m not working at the moment, Simon.’

‘I didn’t know who else to talk to.’ Klatzky produced a bottle of clear liquid from his grainy-black rain jacket and poured half the contents into his coffee cup.

Some things didn’t change. ‘Are you going to show me then?’ Lambert didn’t want to rush him, but he didn’t like surprises. He needed to know what Klatzky wanted.

Klatzky drank heavily from the alcohol-fused drink, momentarily confused.

‘The envelope, Si.’

Klatzky stared at the envelope as if it had just appeared in his hand. He handed it to Lambert, his body trembling.

Klatzky’s name and address were printed on the front. There was no stamp. ‘You received this today?’

‘It was there when I got back.’

‘Back from where?’

‘I was out last night. Got in early this morning.’ He looked at Lambert as if expecting a reprimand.

Lambert opened the envelope and pulled out a file of A4 papers. Each page had a colour photo of the same subject taken from a different angle. Lambert tapped the table with the knuckles of his left hand as he read through the file.

‘It’s him, Mike,’ said Klatzky.

The subject was the deceased figure of an emaciated man. The skin of the corpse was a dull yellow. Wisps of frazzled hair clung to the man’s cheek bones, matted together with a green-brown substance. The corpse’s mouth was wide open, caught forever in a look of rictus surprise. Where the man’s eyes should have been were two hollow sockets. Tendrils of skin and matter dripped down onto the man’s face. Lambert recognised the Latin insignia carved intricately into the man’s chest. He placed the file back in the envelope, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow.

‘Well?’ asked Klatzky.

‘Where did you get this from?’

Klatzky poured more of the clear liquid into his cup. ‘I told you. It was there this morning when I got back. Why the hell has this been sent to me, Mike?’ he asked, loud enough to receive some disapproving looks from the young mothers.

Lambert rubbed his face. If he’d known what was in the envelope, then he would never have suggested meeting in such a public place. ‘I’ll talk to some people. See what I can find out. I’ll need to keep this,’ he said.

‘But why was it sent to me, Mikey?’

‘I don’t know.’ Lambert checked the address on the envelope. ‘You’re still in the same flat, over in East Ham?’

‘Afraid so.’

‘Have you seen anyone else recently?’

‘You mean from Uni? No. You’re the first one I’ve seen since the…’ he hesitated. ‘Since, the funeral.’

Lambert replayed the images in his head, trying to ignore the expectation etched onto Klatzky’s face. The inscription on the victim’s chest read:

In oculis animus habitat.

The lettering, smudged by leaking blood, had dried into thick maroon welts on the pale skin of the man’s body. Lambert didn’t need to see the man’s eyeless sockets to work out the translation:

The soul dwells in the eyes.

They left the coffee house together. ‘Do you have somewhere else you can go?’ asked Lambert.

‘Why? Do you think I’m next?’ asked Klatzky.

Lambert wasn’t sure what Klatzky had put in his coffee but the man was swaying from side to side. He placed his hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘Let’s not panic. These might not have come from the murderer. But until we do find out where they came from, and why they were sent to you, it would be sensible to stay away from the flat.’

‘Should we tell Billy’s parents or something? Christ, what are they are going to think?’

Billy Nolan had been the ninth and, until now, last victim of the so called Souljacker killer. A close friend of Lambert and Klatzky, Nolan was murdered in his final year at Bristol University where they had all studied. The killer had never been caught and everything Lambert had seen in the file suggested that he had started working again.

‘Look, you need to get somewhere and rest up. Let me worry about the details.’

‘I want to help, Mikey.’

‘You can stay out of trouble. That will help the most. I’ll contact you when I know something.’ He grabbed Klatzky’s hand and shook it. ‘It’ll be okay, Si.’

Klatzky’s handshake was weak, his palm wet with sweat. He swayed for a second before stumbling across the road to a bar called The Blue Boar.

Lambert stood outside the coffee shop, his hand clutched tight to the envelope. Years ago Lambert would have jumped straight into the investigation. The responsible thing would be to locate the Senior Investigating Officer on the case, inform them that Klatzky had received the material. But he needed time to process the information, to decipher why Klatzky had received the photos.

He walked to Clockhouse station and caught a train to Charing Cross, his mind racing. Making sure no one could see him, he opened the envelope. He scanned each page in turn, studied every detail. The photographs were direct copies from a crime report. The photographer had captured the corpse from all angles. The camera zoomed in on the victim’s wounds. The ragged skin around the eye sockets, the incision marks magnified in gruesome detail, the intricate detail of the Latin inscription, each letter meticulously carved into the victim’s skin. It was definitely a professional job.

Reaching London, Lambert took the short walk to Covent Garden. His wife, Sophie, was waiting for him in a small bistro off the old market building. She sat near the entrance, head buried in a leather folio. ‘Oh, hi,’ she said, on seeing him.

‘Hi, yourself.’

She shut the document she’d been reading. ‘Shall we order?’ she asked, business-like as usual.

They’d been married for twelve years. Sophie was half-French on her mother’s side. A petite woman, she had short black hair, and a soft round face which made her look ten years younger than her actual age of thirty-nine.

They both ordered the fish of the day. ‘So how was Simon?’ she asked.

‘Not great,’ said Lambert.

‘Well, don’t keep me in suspense. What did he want?’

Absentmindedly, Lambert touched the document in his inside jacket pocket. ‘Oh, nothing dramatic. He was thinking of putting together some sort of reunion.’

He could tell she knew he was lying. They ordered water to go with the fish and sat through the meal in companionable silence. Each avoiding discussing the reason they were there.

‘Everything’s booked,’ she said, finally. ‘The same church as last year. We can use the church hall afterwards. All the catering is organised.’

Lambert drank the water, cracking a fragment of ice which had dropped into his mouth. A shiver ran through his body as the cold water dripped down his throat. ‘Okay,’ he said, realising how useless the words sounded. Now he was, even after all this time, still unable to deal with the enormity of the situation.

‘We need to finalise the music,’ said Sophie.

Lambert gripped his glass of water, tried to focus on something more positive. ‘Do you remember that track she loved in the summer before she started school? She used to go crazy. Blondie, wasn’t it? She used to pick up her tennis racket and play along. I can’t remember for the life of me what it was called.’

Sophie beamed, reliving the memory. Then, in an instant, her eyes darkened. It had been two years since their daughter, Chloe, had died. They’d decided to hold a memorial service each year on Chloe’s birthday. Sophie’s mother had suggested they postpone it this year. She’d argued that rekindling the same memories every twelve months denied a necessary part of the grieving process. In principle Lambert agreed, but it was not a subject he could broach with Sophie. He blamed himself for Chloe’s death, and though she insisted otherwise, he was sure Sophie did too.

Eventually they agreed on a small song list.

‘I need to go,’ said Sophie. She stood and kissed him on the cheek, a perfunctory habit devoid of emotion. At home, they slept in separate rooms rarely spending more than five minutes together. This was the first meal they’d shared in almost a year.

Lambert hadn’t worked since Chloe’s death. He’d been hospitalised, and received substantial compensation. The last time Sophie had raised the subject of him returning to work they’d argued. Now the matter was never discussed.

‘I’ll be home early this evening,’ she said. ‘Then I’m out for dinner.’

She loitered by the table and regarded him in the way only she could. Lambert saw love in the gesture, tinged with compassion and empathy. But what he saw most of all was pity.

After she left, he paid the bill and walked outside. He found a secluded spot and took out the manila envelope once more. The easiest thing would be to send the file to the authorities and forget Klatzky had ever given it to him. And if he hadn’t just had lunch with Sophie, and seen that look of pity, that would have been his course.

Instead, he put the envelope back in his jacket and walked along the Strand. On a side street, he entered a small establishment he’d used in the past.

Inside, he purchased a pre-charged Pay As You Go mobile phone in cash.

From memory, he dialled a number he hadn’t called in two years.

Chapter 2

As expected, the man didn’t answer. Lambert left a message asking for a meeting. Ten minutes later he received a text message with an address and time.

Lambert caught the tube to Angel in Islington and located a set of rented offices. He showed his identification to the male receptionist but didn’t mention the name of the man he was supposed to meet. The receptionist led him to a small office area. He entered a four-digit code on a side panel and ushered Lambert into the room. The room had the feel of a prison cell. It had no window, only four brick walls and a steel-framed door. Lambert sat on one of the three faux-leather office chairs situated around a rectangular glass table and studied the photos once more.

Glenn Tillman exploded into the room five minutes later. A bulldog of a man, almost as wide as he was tall, Tillman had a pouty, baby-like face which looked out of place on top of his heaving muscle-strewn body.

‘I don’t like to be summoned,’ he said, as way of greeting.

‘Good to see you too,’ said Lambert. The last time he’d seen Tillman had been shortly after Chloe’s funeral. Both men had agreed that Lambert should take some extended time away from work. Lambert hadn’t heard from him since.

Lambert dropped the envelope onto the glass table. Tillman moved towards him and picked it up, his expression passive as he scanned the photos.

‘And?’ he said.

‘I hoped I would have been informed if anything came in on this,’ said Lambert.

Tillman sat, his breathing heavy. A blue striped tie bulged rhythmically against his thick neck. ‘You don’t work for us at the moment, Michael.’

‘This relates directly to me, sir. It would have been a courtesy.’

Tillman studied the photos again. ‘This goes back to your University days, doesn’t it? I remember it from your file. What did the press call him, the Souljacker or something?’ He put the file down. ‘Look, this is the first I’ve heard of it. It must be with the local CID. It’s not something that would come our way, you know that.’

‘I want access,’ said Lambert.

Tillman smirked. ‘There’s no access, Michael. If you’re not working for us then no way.’

‘Employ me then. Private contract.’

‘We don’t do that any more. We’re part of the NCA now. Sort of,’ he said, as an afterthought. The National Crime Agency had replaced SOCA, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, the previous year.

‘Right,’ said Lambert. Lambert had been working for SOCA when Tillman had recruited him. They’d previously worked together when Lambert had first joined CID. Tillman had been his first DI.

Tillman now headed a department known simply as The Group. It was a cross alliance with military intelligence. There had been five others in Lambert’s team. Aside from Tillman, The Group comprised one DI and one DS from the MET, and two operatives from MI5. For the first time in his career, Lambert had signed the Official Secrets Act for work and received a security clearance level. Lambert had long suspected that there were a number of similar groups working independent from Tillman’s collective.

‘Look, sir. I don’t want to push this but I need access.’ He was taking a calculated risk speaking to his superior this way. It was not beyond Tillman to tell him where to go, to leave him in the room for twenty-four hours to dwell on his insolence.

Tillman lifted his hand to his face. ‘You’re calling it in?’

Tillman didn’t really owe him anything, but his superior didn’t see it that way. Lambert had protected him once and still held potentially incriminating evidence on the man. He would never betray Tillman, but Tillman was honour bound to repay the favour. ‘I don’t want it to be like that, but if it has to be that way.’

Tillman rubbed his left temple, a familiar gesture Lambert had seen countless times before. ‘I will say you stole the access codes if it ever comes to light.’

‘I realise that.’

‘Then we’re done, Michael. Unless you come back to us, it will be the last time you have access to The System.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Lambert, getting to his feet.

‘I will email you the access codes within the next two hours. Any work you do on this Souljacker business is yours alone. Make no records. Understand?’

‘Sir.’

Tillman left the room without acknowledging him.

Lambert thanked the receptionist as he left the building. He doubted the man had any idea who he was, or who Tillman was for that matter. Lambert savoured the fresh air once outside, buoyed by the meeting. He’d thought he’d have to argue his case for access to The System but Tillman had given in almost immediately. He’d even given a suggestion of Lambert returning to work for him in the future.

The access codes arrived two hours later. Lambert was back at his desk in his home office, a three-storey Edwardian house in Beckenham, Kent, which bordered south-east London. Before him, information scrolled across six computer monitors. It had been a long time since he’d last activated them.

The System had been the reason Lambert had signed the OSA. As far as he was aware, only a handful of people outside The Group knew of its existence. The System was an amalgamation of existing computer systems and databases, as well as something else entirely. The System had direct access to a number of worldwide criminal databases including HOLMES and the PNC in the UK, and limited access to databases used by Interpol and European forces. In addition, The System could access the back end of nearly all social media sites.

Lambert experienced a rush of adrenalin as he logged into The System with codes sent to him by Tillman. He spent a few minutes acclimatising to the new layout, and exhaled sharply as he accessed details of the new Souljacker murder. The case appeared on HOLMES, the system used by the police to record details on major crimes.

A neighbour had discovered the body of Terrence Vernon five days ago, in a two-bedroom top floor flat in an area called Southville, a mile from the city centre of Bristol. The smell of the corpse had alerted the neighbour who had duly informed the police. The Senior Investigating Officer was Detective Superintendent Rush, though it was apparent that the chief investigator was Detective Inspector Sarah May.

The pathologist’s initial report suggested that the deceased had endured every part of the attack, including the removal of his eyes, the man’s eventual death resulting from a cut to his carotid artery. It had been no real leap to link the killing to the notorious Souljacker murders, the last of which had taken place eighteen years ago.

Lambert opened the window in the office. He could still picture Billy Nolan. In their last year at University together, his small group of friends had all managed to secure a place at the halls of residence. Nolan had lived six doors down from Lambert on the fifth floor.

It was Lambert who had broken down Nolan’s door that night. Nolan sprawled on his bed, giant bloody holes where his eyes should have been. Lambert had recognised it was Latin carved into his friend’s body but couldn’t translate it. He’d stared, dumbfounded, at the lifeless form, hoping it was some twisted joke being played on him. Then the smell had overwhelmed him and he’d struggled into the corridor and vomited.

Lambert shuddered. Similar scenes played on the computer screens now. Photos of Terrence Vernon’s corpse scrolled across each screen, lying askew on his bedroom floor, the two gaping holes in his skull looking too wide to have ever held human eyes. Next, the close-up pictures of the Latin, In oculis animus habitat. Like on all the previous victims, each letter was carved into Vernon’s chest in faultless detail, suggesting the killer had spent hours on the inscription.

Lambert recalled the fallout from Billy’s Nolan’s death, the number of lives forever affected by the senseless murder. He remembered the desolate look on the faces of Nolan’s parents as they arrived at the University. The students who had witnessed the sight of Billy’s disfigured corpse, who would never be quite the same again, who would always equate University with that one defining moment. He counted himself amongst their number.

Sophie knocked on the office door and Lambert closed the screens with a single punch of the keypad.

‘Hungry?’

‘I had something earlier, thanks.’

‘Working?’ asked Sophie, unable to hide the hope in her voice.

‘Sort of.’

She hesitated by the door. ‘That’s good.’ She was holding back, wanted to find out more but was probably afraid of how he might respond.

Lambert stared ahead at the blank computer screens, desperate to get on with work, ashamed that he didn’t know how to talk to his estranged wife any longer.

‘Okay, just popping out for dinner.’

‘See you in the morning,’ said Lambert.

Sophie shut the office door and Lambert returned to the computer screens. He had to blank out what was happening in his marriage for the time being. He returned to the screens and read through the case details uploaded onto the HOLMES system.

In oculis animus habitat. The soul dwells in the eyes.

During the weeks following Nolan’s murder there had been much discussion as to the meaning of those words. The SIO at the time, DCI Julian Hastings, had questioned Lambert about his understanding of the words. Lambert had studied Latin in school but couldn’t translate the words exactly without looking it up.

Billy Nolan had been the ninth and, supposedly, final Souljacker victim. Now, from nowhere, the killer was back.

From her notes, Lambert read that DI May had begun researching the older cases. The first victim, Clive Hale, had been murdered over twenty two years ago, the next eight victims falling foul of the Souljacker over a period of four years. May had assigned a number of junior officers the duty of trawling through witness reports and suspect interviews. During the Nolan investigation, a local surgeon, Peter Randall, had been the chief suspect, but the case had never gone anywhere near the courts. There had been no forensic evidence and Randall had a clear alibi for the time of the murder. It had been the only significant arrest there had ever been on the case.

Lambert had kept in contact with DCI Hastings after the murder. Hastings had offered him advice on joining the force. Now a retired Chief Superintendent, Hastings had stayed obsessed with the Souljacker cases even into retirement. If May had any sense, Hastings would be the first person she contacted.

Lambert clicked a button on his keyboard and sat back in his office chair. DI Sarah May’s file on the latest killing played through his six computer screens in a reel of information. Lambert sat transfixed and absorbed the material. He often worked this way, viewing the details from an abstract position searching for a key word, sentence, or picture that would change everything.

The same age as Lambert, Vernon had worked as a retail manager for a large supermarket in the Cribbs Causeway area of Bristol. Described by family, friends, and colleagues as a shy, awkward sort of person, his hard work ethic had helped him reach a reasonable level in his career. Vernon was single. He had divorced parents and no siblings. He had strong links with a local evangelical church, Gracelife Bristol, the minister of which, Neil Landsdale, had described Vernon as a hard-working and selfless member of his congregation who ‘would be sorely missed’.

Lambert watched unblinking as the pages scrolled across the screens. He read and reread the information until something made him pause. It was a picture of Vernon, taken with his work colleagues at the supermarket. Vernon towered over everyone else. Thin and ungainly in an ill-fitting shiny polyester suit, he was clean shaven with short cropped hair, a well-defined face with high cheekbones, and strong jaw.

Lambert couldn’t make out the colour of his eyes. He stared hard at the image of Vernon, a memory returning to him. He clicked onto another screen and accessed details on Vernon’s personal file. He scanned down the file and stopped at Terrence’s mother, Sandra Vernon. He clicked on her name.

It took him less than sixty seconds to find out what he was looking for.

Sandra Vernon’s married name was Sandra Haydon. She had officially divorced Terrence’s father, Roger Haydon fifteen years ago, though they had separated when Terrence was a child.

Lambert reloaded the photo of the victim, Terrence Vernon. Lambert cursed under his breath. Terrence must have changed his surname to his mother’s maiden name.

At University, Lambert had known him as Terrence Haydon.

Chapter 3

Lambert emailed DI May requesting a meeting for the following day. He didn’t share any information on the photos he’d received from Klatzky. He wanted to meet the woman face to face. After which he would decide if he wanted to take his personal investigation any further.

The fact that Klatzky had been sent the photos was obviously hugely significant but Lambert needed to know why he’d been sent them before he shared the details with anyone. His first thought was that the photos were a warning but the more he thought about it the less likely that seemed.

It came down to the sender. Lambert’s gut told him the killer had sent the photos and there was no logical reason for him to send a warning. It was possible the killer was playing a game with Klatzky. Like Lambert, Klatzky had been there the day Billy Nolan’s body had been found. Klatzky had been closer to Billy than anyone, and his life had spiralled out of control ever since Nolan’s death. Why the killer wanted to involve Klatzky now after all these years was anyone’s guess at the moment but at least it was a starting point for Lambert to pin his investigation on. A second starting point was the possibility that the killer was using Klatzky to lure Lambert into action. A more worrying thought had also occurred to him: that somehow the killer was attempting to set them up.

A nervous energy ran through him as he printed up relevant parts of the file. It was good to be back working, even on something so close to him. He took the files to the small bedroom at the top of the house. It was sparsely decorated with a single bed, desk, and chair, the flat screen television which hung on the wall taking up most of the space in the room. He flicked through the channels, unable to find anything of interest. He checked his email on his phone noticing that Klatzky had emailed him five times since their meeting, becoming more incoherent with each email. By the final email his words made little sense.

Lambert switched off the television and closed his eyes. His body hummed with tension, his chest tight as if an invisible weight pushed down on him. Eventually, the first flicker occurred. A fiery orange glow appeared to his left and blossomed into a collage of bright colour taking over his entire visual field. Infinite shades of red, yellow, and orange began to fade as his breathing slowed and he fell asleep.

He slept for three hours and reached Paddington station by six a.m. The station already teemed with commuters. Lambert booked his ticket and ordered a large black coffee from one of the shops in the large open-spaced concourse. He stretched his legs, alert and awake despite the meagre hours of sleep.

Lambert had survived most of his adult life on three to four hours a night and hadn’t suffered any detrimental side effects until four years ago when the hallucinations started. They occurred when he was overly tired or stressed. He had self-diagnosed his condition as a rare form of narcolepsy. It was something he’d never had checked out, fearing that an official diagnosis would affect his work. He had learned that the hallucinations were a signal that he was ready for sleep. He could control them now, to an extent. Unfortunately, that had not always been the case.

Lambert drank the bitter coffee, impatient for the train to arrive. May had yet to respond to his request for a meeting. He would give her until nine a.m. to reply to his email or his first destination would be her police station. Lambert watched the commuters and wondered if his own face mirrored the dull and sullen faces which hurried by him, everyone impatient and tired.

A different type of figure emerged from the set of escalators which rose from the underground. The unsteady figure of a man dressed in faded jeans and tattered leather jacket staggered towards him.

‘Great,’ whispered Lambert to himself. He considered hiding from the figure but Klatzky had already spotted him.

‘Mikey,’ he said, a little too loud. ‘I knew you would be here.’ Klatzky embraced him.

Competing odours overwhelmed Lambert. Sweat, cheap aftershave and stale nicotine were all linked by the reek of alcohol. Lambert kept his hands by his sides, tried to breathe through his mouth. ‘What the hell are you doing here, Simon?’ Despite the revulsion at Klatzky’s state, Lambert could not help but admire the man for finding him.

‘I knew Bristol would be the logical place for you to start,’ said Klatzky, slurring half of his words. ‘You never sleep, so it would have to be the first train. I’m coming with you.’

Lambert took a couple of steps back. ‘You’re not going anywhere, except home. Do you have any idea what you look like? What you smell like for that matter? I wouldn’t even sit in the same carriage as you let alone share a train journey.’

‘I need to come with you, Mikey. Look, I’m not afraid to admit it but I’m scared. He’s back. I want to know what’s happening, why he sent me the pictures. You told me not to go home, so I didn’t.’ Klatzky eyes darted around the station, as if he was surprised by his location.

Lambert shook his head. ‘You’ve been out all night?’

Klatzky shrugged his shoulders, a grin spreading across his face.

This was the last thing he needed. ‘Jesus. Listen, I’ll keep you informed. Where are you staying? Go and sleep it off. It’ll do you no good coming with me to Bristol.’

‘I need to know, Mikey,’ insisted Klatzky. He placed a shaking hand on Lambert’s shoulder, the leathery skin laced with wrinkles and a fine layer of black hair, the hand of a much older man. Lambert tried not to recoil from the touch.

The train was about to depart. Lambert took another step back and Klatzky’s shaking hand fell away. If the killer had sent Klatzky the file to get Lambert involved then the fear he saw in his friend’s eyes was at least partly his responsibility. ‘Okay, Simon. You can come with me but you can’t interfere. Is that understood?’

‘You’re a saint, Mikey,’ said Klatzky.

‘Shall we go then?’

‘I need a ticket,’ said Klatzky.

‘Oh I see. I’ll get you one on the train.’

Mercifully, Klatzky fell asleep before the train pulled out of Paddington station. He collapsed in a heap, his frail body lying at an awkward angle in the seats opposite Lambert.

Lambert opened his holdall and searched its contents. He pulled out a newspaper, and the file he had compiled on the Souljacker murders. There was still nothing from May on his phone. The conductor approached and Lambert purchased a return ticket for Klatzky with his credit card.

Klatzky snored himself awake as the train pulled into Swindon. His body spasmed, his head cracking against the underside of the table with a thud. Lambert tried not to laugh as the man composed himself.

‘How long have I been asleep?’ said Klatzky, rubbing his head.

‘Fifty minutes or so.’

Klatzky dusted himself down, his aged leather jacket creaking at each movement. He shuffled himself into position, sitting opposite Lambert. A waft of pungent air drifted across the table.

‘Your ticket,’ said Lambert.

‘Thanks, I’ll pay you back.’

Lambert stopped the woman pushing a drinks trolley down the aisle of the carriage.

‘Coffee,’ groaned Klatzky.

‘Make that two,’ said Lambert. They sat for a while in silence. Klatzky wincing as he took the occasional sip of coffee.

‘What happened to us eh, Mikey?’ said Klatzky a few minutes later.

Lambert was reading one of the three books he’d brought with him, a mostly useless textbook on lucid sleeping. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Don’t you remember those train journeys we used to take to Bristol on our way to University? We’d be half cut by now.’

‘You are half cut.’

‘Maybe,’ said Klatzky. ‘What happened to you, anyway? You were so happy go lucky then. You didn’t take anything seriously, not even your degree. Now look at you.’

‘That was twenty years ago, Simon.’ Lambert linked his hands together and rested his chin on them, staring at Klatzky.

In response, Klatzky leant towards him. Pointing his finger, he said, ‘We all grow up, Michael, but you changed. You’ve changed intrinsically as a person.’

Lambert laughed, but felt his facial muscles tighten as his face reddened. ‘Intrinsically? What are you talking about, Simon?

Klatzky slumped back in his seat. ‘If you don’t know what I’m talking about then there’s no point in explaining,’ he said. He drank the last of his coffee, screwing his eyes shut as he downed the dregs.

Lambert thought about continuing the bizarre argument, realising it was pointless arguing with Klatzky when he was in this mood. He opened his newspaper and spent the rest of the journey skimming through the despairing stories, his thoughts constantly returning to the file in his jacket pocket and what it all meant. At face value, it didn’t make much sense. Serial killers like the Souljacker didn’t just take eighteen years off between killings. If it was the same killer then there must have been a reason for the killer to have stopped in the first place, and more importantly a catalyst which had propelled him back to work.

Once in Bristol, they ordered breakfast at a small greasy spoon café outside Temple Meads station. Klatzky’s head drooped as they waited for their orders, his hangover clearly reaching its peak.

A teenage girl in a pink apron placed their breakfasts on the table. She grinned, the white of her teeth obscured by a thick metal brace. Piling his fork with a mixture of sausage, bacon and egg, Klatzky perked up. With his mouth half full he mumbled, ‘So what are our plans for today?’

‘Well, I plan to go to the University and have a look at our old halls of residence. And if I haven’t heard back from her I’m going to call the lead investigator on the case.’

‘Are we going to get a hotel?’ asked Klatzky, slicing through an egg yolk smothered in ketchup.

‘No, I want to be out of this place by the end of the day.’

‘Oh come on, Mikey, we could visit some old haunts. For old times’ sake.’

Lambert turned his face to the side, stretching his neck muscles. ‘It’s not a jolly, Simon. You asked me to help. This is work for me.’ He already regretted allowing Klatzky to accompany him on the journey, and sensed things were only going to get worse.

Klatzky returned to his breakfast, sulking like a scolded child. ‘I was thinking of calling the others,’ he said, a couple of minutes later. He finished his breakfast, wiping his plate clean with a thin slice of white bread. He looked Lambert in the eyes for the first time since they’d left the train.

‘That’s not a good idea,’ said Lambert.

‘Why not? We haven’t all been together for years,’ said Klatzky.

There had been six of them in their group. They’d spent their three years at University together as the tightest of cliques, all deciding to reapply for halls in the third year. ‘There’s a reason for that, Simon.’ Lambert placed some money on the table and left the café before Klatzky could argue further.

Over the years, Klatzky had been the only one who had tried to keep the group together. There had been the occasional impromptu reunion every few months after they’d graduated but the get-togethers had never been successful. They would initially start off well but after a few drinks it always became apparent that everyone was avoiding talking about Billy Nolan; it would reach the point where someone would mention his name just to break the tension.

Then the bad memories would return and the drinking would intensify until everyone reached a state of maudlin drunkenness which would occasionally descend into bouts of violence.

The others had all managed to put the Nolan incident behind them to one extent or another. Lambert knew getting the group together again would only reignite bad memories.

They caught a taxi from the long line of black cabs outside the station. ‘You’re a bit young to be students,’ said the rotund taxi driver, after being told their destination.

‘We’re alumni,’ said Lambert, his tone suggesting that all forms of communication between the driver and his two passengers should now cease. Lambert had only returned to Bristol occasionally over the last eighteen years, mainly for work. The city had transformed in that time but the changes had been gradual. Lambert couldn’t date any of the buildings. It was only when the taxi pulled up outside their destination that he felt a stab of nostalgia. Klatzky was almost tearful as they left the car.

‘Can’t you feel it in your bones, Mikey?’ he said, stretching his arms out as if he wanted to embrace the building.

Memories came to Lambert. Glimpsed images of the numerous nights out he’d enjoyed with his friends, of the girls he’d kissed, each memory tainted with the image of Billy Nolan, dead in his room.

Inside, Lambert had to produce his old warrant card before the grey-haired man behind the security desk would allow them entry into their old hall of residence. They took the unsteady lift to the fifth floor, Lambert enduring the odour which resulted from Klatzky’s lack of personal hygiene. ‘When did you last shower?’

‘I was out all night before I met you at Paddington.’

‘Of course you were,’ said Lambert. Lambert had yet to tell Klatzky about Terrence Haydon. Klatzky was in too fragile a state at the moment to take in the news that he’d once known the latest victim.

None of them had known Haydon well. He’d been an odd character who, like the report suggested, kept himself to himself. The other students had considered Haydon as somewhat of an eccentric. He’d studied Religious Studies and always carried a Bible with him, though Lambert could never recall him trying to push his views on anyone. He wasn’t even sure Haydon had been that religious. He couldn’t remember him being a member of the Christian Union.

Although the halls had been refurbished they looked essentially the same to Lambert. More memories came to him, mostly childish recollections of late-night drinking, water fights in the corridor, desperate early mornings of coffee-fuelled revision and the occasional romantic encounter. Klatzky was once again close to tears. Lambert knew the man’s hangover was intensifying his emotional response but it didn’t make it any easier to endure.

‘Why are we here, Mikey?’

‘I thought it would do good to reacquaint myself,’ said Lambert. He didn’t want to explain to Klatzky that he wanted to revisit the beginning from a professional viewpoint. He had been in his early twenties when Nolan’s life had been taken. Lambert had been just another dazed student at the time. Although it was nearly twenty years later, Lambert thought there might be the opportunity to see something afresh. Something he may have missed, or had not been looking for all those years before.

A middle-aged woman in a blue checked apron stopped them both. ‘Can I help you?’ she asked, in a deep West Country accent.

Lambert flashed his old warrant card. ‘I wanted to see Room 516,’ he said. When the cleaner showed him to a room halfway down the corridor Lambert realised the room numbers had been rearranged. The fifth floor had a rectangular corridor and Nolan’s room had been on the left-hand side corner with the window facing east onto the main road. Lambert followed his memory to where Nolan’s room should have been. On the door where Nolan had once lived hung a sign marked Storage Cupboard.

‘How long has this room been a cupboard?’ asked Lambert.

‘It’s always been a cupboard,’ said the woman.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Klatzky indignantly.

‘Listen, I’ve only been working here six years, love,’ said the woman.

‘It’s fine, it’s fine,’ said Lambert. ‘Could we possibly look inside?’

‘Suit yourself,’ said the woman, producing a key. ‘I haven’t all day, mind you.’

Shelves full of cleaning material and crisp folded sheets filled out the room. It bore no resemblance to the untidy and poster-ridden room which had once been Billy Nolan’s. The change of use had destroyed the room’s potency. Lambert had feared he would be overcome with more memories of that day. Now it was hard to believe the incident had ever occurred in such a space.

‘Let’s go,’ said Klatzky. ‘This place is giving me the creeps.’ His eyes sagged towards his cheeks, his lips trembling beneath the random spikes of black and grey hair which sprung from his sallow face.

‘Simon, go and get a coffee or something down in the cafeteria. I’m going to have a look around. I’ll meet you in ten minutes.’

Klatzky slumped off towards the lift. Lambert thanked the cleaner who locked the store cupboard giving him a confused and pitiful look. Once Klatzky was inside the lift, Lambert walked up the stairs to the sixth floor. He made a full circuit of the floor but couldn’t summon the memory of where Haydon had resided. A nagging sense told him that Haydon had lived almost directly above Billy Nolan but he couldn’t be sure. It felt too much of a coincidence. Before joining Klatzky for coffee, Lambert called Bristol CID and asked to be put through to DI May.

‘Can I ask what it’s regarding?’ enquired a female voice on the other end of the line.

‘Tell her it’s about the Terrence Vernon case,’ said Lambert. Thirty seconds later a strong deep female voice said, ‘DI May, how can I help?’

Lambert explained his position, telling May he was a former police officer who had important information about the Vernon case. Lambert presumed May had already discovered that Terrence Vernon was originally called Terrence Haydon, but wasn’t about to discuss the matter over the phone.

‘Where are you now?’ asked May.

‘In Clifton.’

‘Okay, there’s a little café on The Triangle called Liberties. Could you meet me there at midday?’

‘Done,’ said Lambert.

Chapter 4

Klatzky sat alone in the student cafeteria, woefully out of place. Facedown, he nursed a small coffee occasionally giving the students a suspicious look. He was at once vulnerable and unsettling, and the café’s patrons subconsciously sat as far away from him as possible.

After Klatzky declined his offer of a second coffee, Lambert ordered a large black Americano from a young man behind the counter. Klatzky looked up at him with sullen eyes when he returned. ‘I thought I’d enjoy being here, Mikey, but there are way too many memories. Being here makes it feel like it happened yesterday. I can remember everything, what that sicko did to his body.’ Klatzky sipped at his coffee. ‘Christ, and the smell, Mikey. I can taste it now more than ever. Do you ever feel like that? It’s part of me now. The blood and the smell…what was that stuff called?’

‘The incense?’

‘Yeah.’ He took another longer sip of his coffee as if trying to drown out the memory. ‘One good thing came out of it though,’ he quipped, ‘I never went back to church again. Too much incense in Catholic churches. I don’t even feel the need to go to confession.’

‘Small mercies, I guess,’ said Lambert. Pontifical incense had been found on the body of each Souljacker victim, and Billy Nolan had been no exception. Traces of the incense, which contained frankincense, matched that used by a number of Catholic churches in the country. However, the substance was freely available so it had proved impossible for any trace to be made.

‘Listen, Si, I have a meeting later with the officer in charge of the case. I have some information that she may or may not know.’

‘Okay,’ said Klatzky.

‘The body they found last week, the body in the pictures you showed me, were of somebody called Terrence Vernon.’ Lambert tensed waiting for Klatzky’s response.

‘Terrence?’

‘Yes, Terrence. I found out last night that Terrence Vernon was using his mother’s maiden name as a surname. He used to be called Terrence Haydon. Do you remember Terrence Haydon, Si?’

‘Mad Terry?’ Klatzky’s face fell, his eyes wide in recognition. ‘He killed Mad Terry? Fucking hell, Mikey. What does this mean? What the hell’s going on?’ His words came out in short, rapid bursts, oblivious to the other people in the room.

‘Keep it down, Si,’ said Lambert, through gritted teeth. A few of the students looked in their direction. Mad Terry had been the uninspired nickname given to Terrence Haydon whilst at University. The nickname resulted from a few eccentric behaviours, such as walking with long, exaggerated steps as he made his way around. ‘I don’t know. It’s partly why I need to see DI May. There are so many possibilities at this juncture it’s not worth hypothesising.’

Klatzky gripped Lambert’s wrists, his hands sweaty. ‘But Billy hardly knew Mad Terry, what’s this to do with anything?’

Lambert unpeeled Klatzky’s fingers, and, grimacing, wiped the sweat off onto the plastic table covering. ‘It could mean anything or nothing,’ he said, softening his voice. ‘Maybe the killer thought Haydon knew something about him.’

‘After all this time?’

‘It’s a possibility. Perhaps Haydon contacted the authorities. There’s no way for me to know until I look into it in more detail.’

‘What if the killer’s coming after everyone involved in Billy’s killing? Everyone who knew him?’

‘Don’t be dramatic, you need to snap out of this. If he’s going to kill someone once every eighteen years there’s a good chance that we’re all going to be safe. Listen, I need to go. I’m not sure how long I’ll be but I’ll call you when I’m finished. Try to get some rest somewhere.’

‘Where do you suggest?’ asked Klatzky.

‘I don’t know. Find a sofa. But stay away from the bars.’

‘Any other orders?’

‘No.’

Lambert reached the coffee shop thirty minutes early. Like London, Bristol basked in the heat of the Indian summer. A number of people sat outside the glass-fronted café. One of the crowd, a woman with shoulder-length black hair, stood up as Lambert walked towards the entrance. ‘Mr Lambert?’ she said.

Lambert turned to face the woman. ‘Yes?’

‘I’m DI May. Sarah.’

‘How did you know who I was?’

‘Forgive me,’ said May, not once taking her gaze away from him. ‘Can I get you a coffee and perhaps we can go inside and talk.’

‘Decaf, thanks,’ said Lambert.

A blast of cold air hit Lambert as he entered the high-ceilinged coffee shop, at first refreshing then uncomfortable. DI May directed him to a small booth with high wooden benches. She returned with two drinks and smiled as she sat down opposite him. Her large brown eyes shone bright, full of confidence and intelligence. She wasn’t wearing make-up and Lambert wondered if her looks were a benefit or hindrance in her professional life. From his experience, he imagined it was probably a bit of both.

‘So tell me DI May…’

‘Sarah, please,’ said the woman with a soft, yet firm voice.

‘Sarah. Tell me what you found out about me?’

DI May leant forward in her chair, her gaze remained steady, never once leaving Lambert’s eyes. Most people would have found her glare unnerving, would have felt obliged to look away, but Lambert matched her look. She spoke with a sly amusement. ‘Well, first of all, possibly most importantly, I know you’re a friend of the last Souljacker victim, Billy Nolan. In fact, Mr Lambert …’

‘Please, Michael.’

May squinted her eyes. ‘Michael. You were initially a suspect.’

Lambert crossed his arms, deciding not to answer.

‘Of course, you were one of many potential suspects and were cleared very early on in the case.’

Lambert’s eyes widened, prompting the DI to continue.

‘After graduation you were accepted into the accelerated programme, where you excelled.’ She nodded in admiration, and let out a small laugh. ‘You moved up the ranks and reached DCI.’

Impressed by her research, Lambert didn’t interrupt.

‘And then the mystery.’

‘The mystery?’

‘Yes, six years ago your work becomes classified. I received a phone call from a Chief Super this morning for trying to access the details.’

‘Which one?’

‘Tillman.’

‘Right.’

‘So can you fill in those blanks for me, Michael?’

‘Afraid not. As the file says, classified.’ Lambert hadn’t given much thought to his personnel file before though it was obvious that his work with Tillman was classified. The blanks coincided from when he’d joined The Group. He made a mental note to access it later on The System. Although government sanctioned, in many ways the organisation were a law unto themselves. Their remit had been to investigate politically sensitive cases, and as such the need to avoid public scrutiny. It had been a tough transition for Lambert moving from normal CID to The Group. He’d found out early on that it was a balancing act. They’d worked out of the same offices as other task forces, and were supposedly subject to the same governing rules, but at times Lambert had been given leeway he’d never experienced before. The small team had been issued firearms and had received military intelligence-level training. Lambert had known it was somewhat of an experiment, and from his meeting yesterday Tillman wasn’t about to tell him if things had changed.

‘But apart from that, you’ve done very well, Sarah.’

She shot him a glance, but he could tell she knew he was teasing her. ‘So what can you tell me, Michael?’

Lambert didn’t want to be too pushy at the outset. ‘I’ve been doing a little reading on the case,’ he said.

‘Naturally,’ said May.

‘I was particularly interested in the victim, Terrence Vernon.’ He studied May for a response. If she was surprised she didn’t show it.

‘What about him?’

‘I was wondering how much you knew about him.’

‘How much information do you have on the case?’

‘As I said, I’ve read some notes.’

‘I understood you are not active at the moment. I read something on your file about an absence of leave?’ said May. The words were matter of fact, contained no hostility.

‘Something like that. I take it you’ve made the same connection I’d had about Mr Vernon.’

‘You’re talking about Mr Vernon’s other name?’

‘Yes.’

‘It was his mother who let it slip. I spent some time with her. She told me about her divorce and how Terrence had changed his name back from Haydon to Vernon after leaving University. From there, we made the link with Billy Nolan. They were at University together. He lived one floor above Billy Nolan.’ She paused. ‘One floor above you.’

Lambert paused, assessing the underlying words. ‘I needn’t have bothered you, then,’ he said.

‘You’re not bothering me. So tell me what else you know.’

‘Not much more than that,’ replied Lambert.

May’s face contorted into a half smile, half frown. ‘Oh come on, we’re not going to play those games are we?’

Lambert shrugged. ‘From what I can see it’s highly probably that it’s the same killer,’ he said, checking no one was eavesdropping.

‘Of course, you saw the original body. Your friend Nolan.’

Lambert thought back to the day when they’d kicked down Billy Nolan’s door. Nolan’s corpse with its bloodied sockets, lying naked on the bed. The smell, a terrifying mixture of death and decay, not fully masked by the overpowering perfume of the incense. Klatzky had been right. That smell was part of Lambert too. He could taste it now at the back of his throat. He took a large swig of his coffee mirroring Klatzky’s earlier actions. Once he’d composed himself he said, ‘The carving is the same. Identical. And the eyes. He was alive when they were removed?’ he asked, knowing the answer.

May pursed her lips. ‘They haven’t been recovered. Like the others. Were Nolan and Haydon friends at University?’

‘No. We all knew Terrence but he wasn’t what we’d call a friend.’

And what was he like as a person?’ May raised her eyebrows and tilted her head. A practised gesture which had no doubt obtained many a confession from helpless suspects.

‘I’m sure you know all this but he was bit of a strange one.’

‘Mad Terry,’ said May, surprising him once more.

‘Mad Terry. He was a nice enough guy, though. Intelligent. I assume he was hardworking because he was always at lectures. Never slept in. Hardly went out.’

‘Any enemies?’

‘No. People talked about him behind his back obviously, me included I’m afraid. He wasn’t a threat to anyone and no one had any grievance with him.’

‘No altercations with Nolan?’

‘Not as far as I’m aware. I would say it is highly unlikely.’

May ordered another coffee from the counter. Lambert asked for a glass of water, his bloodstream thick with caffeine. When she returned he tried to take the initiative. ‘So what are you working on at the moment?’ he asked.

‘Normal procedures. We’re looking into Haydon’s church. As before, there was incense at the crime scene so we’ve contacted local churches to see if any amounts have gone missing. But the problem with these guys is that they just don’t have strong stock control.’ She raised her eyebrows again, a completely different look to before. The gesture softened her face and made Lambert feel like she was being companionable.

‘We’re crosschecking the other murders too but the connection between this murder and Billy Nolan’s is our main focus at present. In fact if you hadn’t found me there was a good chance that I’d have had to find you.’

‘How can I help now?’ asked Lambert.

‘Maybe you could stick around for a bit. I could do with some insight on the Nolan murders, if that wouldn’t affect you too much? Obviously I would prefer it if you didn’t conduct your own investigation.’ Her eyes narrowed, Lambert understanding the warning. She hesitated for a beat, the first sign of indecisiveness he’d seen. ‘Perhaps we could meet for dinner this evening?’ she said.

‘Sure,’ said Lambert, a little quicker than he would have liked.

DI May stood up to leave. ‘It was a pleasure meeting you,’ she said, shaking his hand.

‘I’ll see you this evening,’ said Lambert. He relaxed as he watched May cross the floor of the coffee shop. The encounter had surprised him. May was more open than he’d expected, and he imagined how easy it would be to work with her.

As he was about to look away, May stopped and turned. ‘Oh, Michael. Please feel free to bring along Mr Klatzky this evening as well if you wish.’

Chapter 5

Light blazed through the office windows on the third floor of the Bristol Central Police Station. DI Sarah May pulled down the blinds in her temporary office, blocking the piercing September sun and opened the window an inch to allow fresh air into the musty-smelling room. After switching on her computer, for the second time that day she turned her attention to Michael Lambert’s file. She’d enjoyed meeting Lambert. So much so that she’d suggested they meet that evening. It had been an impulsive request which she’d convinced herself she’d made for professional reasons.

His file made for interesting reading. He’d joined the force a year after leaving University, joining the same accelerated programme she was on at the moment. After two years’ probation, he’d moved straight to CID. His training officer, Glenn Tillman, was now a Chief Superintendent working for the NCA.

Lambert worked in major crimes and had reached the level of Detective Chief Inspector by the time Tillman recruited him again for a division in SOCA. The trail went cold after that. Lambert’s last three years of service had been almost blanked from the records. Even her Super didn’t have the clearance required to access details on Lambert’s term in SOCA.

She dropped the file on the desk and stared at the photo supplied with the file. If it had been taken some time ago, it didn’t show. Lambert was six foot one with the kind of slim, wiry body she associated with athletes. The photo captured his sad, doleful hazel eyes but missed the lopsided grin she’d encountered during their meeting at the coffee shop.

It had been convenient he’d emailed last evening. It hadn’t taken her long to link him to Terrence Haydon. Lambert had been friends with the last Souljacker victim, Billy Nolan, eighteen years ago. May had subsequently discovered that Haydon had lived in the same halls of residence as Nolan and Lambert.

May placed her hands on her cheeks and stared at Lambert’s photo. He’d made a good lunchtime companion. Funny and intelligent, self-depreciating, he was the sort of man she’d always been attracted to. Still, he was definitely holding back on something. They had tiptoed around the case, each only sharing the minimum of information. She’d asked him not to start his own investigation. His response had been non-committal at best.

A shadow lurked behind the glass panelled door of her office. She recognised the shape.

‘Yes,’ she shouted.

DS Jack Bradbury opened the door. ‘Christ, bit fresh in here isn’t it?’

May had been so wrapped up in Lambert’s file that she hadn’t noticed the cold air leaking through the window. ‘Jack, what have you got for me?’

‘The file you wanted. Simon Klatzky. Bit thin, I’m afraid.’

‘Thanks.’

Bradbury dropped the file and exited the office without a word. They had dated, if it could be called that, for two months prior to May becoming an Inspector. It had been an impulsive thing, and like all her impulsive actions it was something she’d had to learn to live with. Two years later, and still he moped after her. They’d managed to keep the affair a secret back then. Now she wished they had been more open about it. That way they would never have ended up working together, and she wouldn’t have to see his wounded look every time she refused to pay him attention.

The file on Klatzky was indeed thin. Like Lambert, and fifty other students, Klatzky had been interviewed following the death of Billy Nolan. In his statement, Klatzky had declared that out of the small group of Nolan’s friends, he was probably the closest. His life following his friend’s death suggested that he had not taken the incident very well.

Klatzky had been a promising engineering student, and had left Bristol University with a first. Yet, he had never held down a significant job since graduating. Now there was an arrest warrant out on him for failure to appear at court following a bout of shoplifting. One of Lambert’s former colleagues had spotted Lambert and Klatzky arriving at Temple Meads station that morning. Knowing that May was working on the Souljacker case, and Lambert’s tenuous link, he had called May with the information. It had been worth it to see the look on Lambert’s face when she’d asked him to bring Klatzky along for dinner that night.

May stretched her legs, tensing her calf muscles. She hadn’t been for a run since Haydon’s body had been discovered. The lack of exercise filled her body with tension. She’d been struggling to sleep recently, her legs twitching her awake at night. She promised herself she would make time for a quick run that evening, before her meeting with Lambert. It would be negligent not to do so. Healthy body, healthy mind, as her father would say.

Talking of healthy body, she hadn’t had a coffee in nearly an hour. She walked to the small kitchen office and dropped some instant coffee into a mug. It wasn’t ideal but was the best available. Two DCs, Tony Chambers, and Lyle Coombes, stopped talking as she entered.

‘Not interrupting anything, am I?’ she asked.

‘No, ma’am.’

Both men worked on the Souljacker case. Clearly, they felt awkward with her presence in the kitchen but they were waiting for the kettle to boil so couldn’t leave the close confines of the room. She didn’t make it easy for them. She leant back on the sideboard and folded her arms, both men doing everything to avoid her gaze. Strange how a simple change of title could affect the way people interacted with you. How you interacted with them. ‘Any news for me?’

‘Um, no, ma’am,’ said Chambers. ‘We’ve interviewed some more of his work colleagues, and they all spouted the same stuff.’

‘Nice enough guy, kept himself to himself,’ said Coombes, gaining courage from his partner.

The kettle boiled. ‘Don’t mind if I jump the queue?’

The men shook the heads, desperate for her to leave.

Back at her desk, she examined the old case files. Ten Souljacker victims in a twenty-one year period, but an eighteen year gap since the last murder. She may have considered Haydon’s death a copycat had there not been the link between him and the last victim, Nolan.

Absurd as it sounded, they had called in a handwriting expert to compare the indentations ripped into the torso of Terrence Haydon, with that of the previous victims. Going on photographic evidence, the expert had suggested there was a high probability that the Latin carved onto the victims, In oculis animus habitat, was made by the same person.

‘How probable?’ May had asked.

‘Hard to say for sure. I could be more precise if I was judging perhaps his handwriting on a piece of paper, but I would say ninety to ninety-five percent chance. If the latest, um, inscription, was made by a copycat, for instance, then I would say they are an expert forger.’

Not only an expert forger, but an expert killer. It would take skill, along with an exceptional coldness to keep someone alive whilst you extracted their eyeballs. The inscription on the body would have taken hours. Each letter was always carved with extreme precision.

One anomaly had sprung up from the handwriting expert. He’d said that the writing on the first victim’s torso, Clive Hale, from twenty-two years ago, didn’t match the others. It was possible that it had been his first kill, and he’d been nervous, but the expert was adamant the writing was not the same as the others.

May opened the office door and called for Bradbury. He appeared two minutes later, the hound dog look replaced with a look of professional attention, as if he’d given himself a pep talk in the intervening minutes. She realised she shouldn’t be so hard on him. In retrospect, he’d always wanted more from their time together than she did. She could have, and should have handled it better. She made a mental note to speak to him about it.

‘Jack, do you know anything about the SIO on the Nolan case all those years ago? Julian Hastings?’

Bradbury stood by the desk. ‘Not much more than I’ve read in the file. He was working here until the late nineties. I heard he was a bit of an old school copper. Bit strict. Not hugely talkative. From what I’ve heard the Nolan case fucked him up a bit.’

May looked up from her file for the first time since Bradbury had entered.

‘Sit down, Jack, for Christ’s sake.’

Hastings had retired six years earlier with the rank of Chief Superintendent, having spent his last eight years in Kent. ‘How was he fucked up, as you so eloquently put it?’

‘He became a bit obsessed with it, you know how it is. Rumour has it that was why he left the city. You know he’s a writer now?’ said Bradbury.

‘Yes, I picked up one of his titles today. Blood Kill.’ May picked up the book from her desk. A crude paperback, the words BLOOD KILL taking up half of the cover in a thick maroon font.

‘Catchy title. Wonder what it’s about?’

May offered him smile. ‘Read any?’

‘One. His first one. Can’t even remember the name now.’

‘Memorable then?’

‘I’m no expert. You could tell he was a copper though. Had all the procedures down to a tee. And the violence, though there wasn’t enough of that.’

The review didn’t bode well. Hastings had published three books since retiring. All police procedurals. Blood Kill was his latest according to the young woman who had sold May the book but according to the inlay page it was published three years ago.

‘Could you try and contact him for me?’ said May. ‘I’d like to get his take on the Nolan case. See if we’re missing anything.’

‘Sure. Anything else?’

‘No. Thanks, Jack.’

It would be good to get Hastings’ input. As things stood there was very little to work with. The killer was still an expert at hiding his traces, though forensics had managed to extract another man’s DNA from Haydon’s hair.

May withdrew the photos of Lambert and Klatzky from their files and entered the open-plan office where the incident room was situated. She walked to the incident board and pinned up the two photos, and drew three lines.

One line connected Klatzky and Lambert.

The other two lines connected the two men with the photos of the last two Souljacker victims.

Chapter 6

May stared at the photos on the whiteboard. Lambert and Klatzky, best friends of the ninth Souljacker victim, and acquaintances of the tenth. It was too much of a coincidence. ‘Jack, get everyone together in five. I want to go through everything again from scratch.’

Five minutes later, the team filtered into the conference room and May silenced them by standing. ‘Okay, let’s go from the beginning. Presuming we are looking at the Souljacker killer, and everything points that way at the moment, let’s start with the first victim and work from there.’

Bradbury cleared his throat. ‘Clive Hale. Twenty-two years ago. Body found in a bedsit in Clevedon. Same MO as the subsequent killings.’

May wrote Hale’s name onto the whiteboard, the marker making a squeaking noise on the vinyl covering. ‘Same MO but not as tidy as the others. The incision marks around the eyes were less precise. Bits of the eyeballs were actually found at the scene, which never happened again. Also, the carving on the body not as intricate or smooth.’

‘He was less experienced then, probably fuelled by adrenalin and rushed the job,’ said Bradbury.

May agreed. It was normally the pattern with the serials. The first kill rushed, as if the killer had to get it out of their system, the subsequent killings becoming more sophisticated as the killer became more practised. There was also the opinion of the handwriting expert to consider. ‘Lana, what do we know about Clive Hale?’

As DC Lana Williams stood, May noticed Bradbury roll his eyes. ‘Hale was nineteen, and unemployed. He’d been in the care system most of his life. No immediate family, no convictions. He attended a local Presbyterian church in Clevedon on occasions but the investigating team at the time discovered that he hadn’t been going there for months.’ Lana’s delivery was succinct and confident.

‘What can we glean from this?’ May asked the team in general, nodding at Lana to sit down.

‘Looking at the subsequent victims, and the latest victim, a common theme is the lonely male and a certain religious affiliation,’ said Bradbury.

‘That is a very tentative link,’ said DC Stuart Welling. Welling was the oldest member of the team. Forever doomed to remain a DC, Welling carried a permanent chip on his shoulder. His role within the team seemed to be to question everyone else’s decision making. It was because of this that May had included him on her task force.

‘Why’s that, Stuart?’ she asked.

Welling frowned, and remained sitting. ‘For one, I wouldn’t agree that Terrence Haydon was a loner exactly. He lived alone but had a good job, and flat, and had some social interaction with his colleagues. The previous victim…’ May caught the slight reddening of Welling’s cheeks as he checked his notes. ‘Billy Nolan. Very socially active and a student at University. As for the religious aspect, that’s a lazy generalisation. Some of the victims went to church, many of different denominations, and the killer carves Latin onto them. That in itself doesn’t prove a religious aspect to the killings.’

Bradbury turned his head so he could see his colleague. His elbows were held out wide, his chest thrust forward. ‘It was only an observation,’ he said.

Welling’s eyes widened. He scratched his jaw as if in contemplation. ‘A poor one.’

Bradbury sighed and returned his focus to May.

‘Victim two,’ said May.

‘Proves the point,’ said Welling.

May stood with her arms by her sides and shifted her stance as she waited for Welling to speak.

Welling finally took the hint. ‘Graham Jackett. Local vet.’

‘Unmarried,’ said Bradbury.

‘Yes, but socially active. Killed three months after Hale. Like Hale, he was found in his home. This time a semi-detached property in Nailsea.’

‘Religious affiliation?’ asked May.

Welling sighed. ‘He attended the local Anglican church but I can’t see the relevance. The work on the body is much smoother this time. It almost becomes a template for the subsequent murders. The removal of the eyes is pristine.’

‘Pristine?’ said Bradbury.

Welling shifted in his seat. ‘No trace of jelly was left at the scene,’ said Welling, to general amusement. ‘The carving on the body was much neater. He took his time on this one.’

They went through each victim one by one until they reached David Welsh, the victim prior to Billy Nolan. ‘Twenty-eight year old welder,’ said Welling.

‘Lived alone, went to church,’ added Bradbury.

‘Means nothing. Then we reach the popular student, Billy Nolan,’ said Welling.

‘And then, eighteen years later, Terrence Haydon,’ said May. They had decided to stick to his original surname for the investigation. She began writing on the whiteboard. ‘So what we know? Prior to the thirty-eight year old Haydon, each former victim was a white male aged twenty to thirty. They all lived alone except the ninth victim, Billy Nolan.’

‘Technically, he did live alone. He had his own room in halls,’ said Bradbury.

‘Okay. White, male, twenty to thirty, lived alone. Anything else?’

‘I still think the religious aspect is important. Of the nine victims, we know six attended church,’ said Bradbury. ‘With Haydon, that makes seven out of ten.’

Everyone in the room turned to look at Welling. ‘I’m not saying it isn’t relevant but at the moment it isn’t a definite link.’

May agreed with both of them. ‘We need to look closer at the victims. There has to be something more than gender and age which links them. Lana, start looking at those victims who didn’t have a religious background. See if there was any oversight here. Maybe it was an area not considered by the investigative teams. Everyone else, I want to know everything about each of the victims. Go back to the start, go through the case notes and search for anything which links the victims. Bradbury, we’ve enough resources here for this. Assign a team to each victim starting with Hale. Let’s see what we have by nine a.m. tomorrow.’

May returned to her office and shut the door. She paced the room, recounting the details of the team meeting. She played with the files on her desk, opened then shut the blinds. She needed to calm down. They were close to something. There was already a tentative link between the victims, and it would only take one thing, one small link she was confident she would be able to connect everything. Despite Welling’s protestations, she thought the religious aspect was relevant and hoped the investigative teams would find something of value in their research.

She sat and tried to banish the negative thought that the one small link would never be discovered, that they would always remain just out of reach.

Bradbury called through on the internal phone line. ‘I’ve managed to track down the SIO on the former cases, Julian Hastings. He wants to meet at seven a.m. tomorrow.’

‘Good,’ said May, hanging up. The retired Chief Superintendent had taken over as SIO from the Jackett case onwards. She could only imagine his frustration as he’d investigated victim after victim with no result. She bounced up and down on her chair, trying to control the adrenalin leaking into her system. From her office drawer, she took out her Kindle and downloaded a copy of Hastings’ last novel, Blood Kill, and began reading.

Chapter 7

Klatzky had already started drinking. Lambert found him sitting with a giggling group of students, swigging from a pint of lager. The students were all girls. In their late teens, early twenties, they were strikingly beautiful, particularly in comparison to the rough and jaded figure of Klatzky. Unbelievably, they were enjoying his company. One of their number, a tall slender girl, laughed every time Klatzky opened his mouth, stroking her dark hair absentmindedly with her left hand. Klatzky had always been successful with women at University but Lambert was surprised that these women would have anything to do with him now.

‘Mikey, come and join us,’ shouted Klatzky, on seeing Lambert.

The young women stared at Lambert as he approached. A small blonde girl with an obvious fake tan and a face lined with over-enthusiastic make-up echoed Klatzky’s words. ‘Yes, Mikey, come and join us,’ she said, provoking good-natured laughter from the others. It was clear the whole group had been drinking for some time.

‘Simon, can I have a word?’ said Lambert, ignoring the young woman’s request.

‘Sure, sure,’ said Klatzky getting to his feet. ‘Here, girls, get another round in.’ Klatzky placed a twenty pound note on the table which was snapped up by the dark-haired girl.

Lambert led Klatzky outside. He decided not to reprimand him about the drinking. ‘I’m thinking of staying for a couple of nights,’ he said.

‘Fantastic,’ said Klatzky. ‘Where do you have in mind?’

‘Listen, Si, I don’t think this is going to work, you being here.’

‘Don’t mind me, Mikey. I’ll keep out of your way. One city is much the same as another.’

It was pointless arguing. ‘Fine, there’s a Marriott at the bottom of the hill. I’ll book us in separate rooms for the night. Then we can discuss the situation tomorrow. I’ll ring you later with the room number.’

‘Great. Listen, Mikey,’ Klatzky hesitated.

Lambert sighed and took his wallet from his trouser pocket and handed Klatzky eighty pounds. ‘Don’t let those girls screw you over, Simon. And for God’s sake get something to eat.’

‘Yes, mum,’ said Klatzky, returning inside.

Following his meeting with May, Lambert decided he would continue with his own investigation for the time being. He didn’t want to impede her in any way, but there were questions he was impatient to have answered. It was too coincidental that Billy Nolan and Terrence Haydon had lived one floor apart at University. There was a connection to be discovered between the two, however unlikely that sounded at the moment. Since joining the force, he’d always resisted the temptation to revisit the Souljacker case. He’d understood that he’d been too emotionally involved. Now it was unavoidable. Klatzky had forced his hand. Lambert decided to start where he would normally start: the victim’s closest relation.

He hailed an approaching taxi and ordered the driver to take him to a small suburb of Bristol called Whitchurch where Terrence Haydon’s mother, Sandra Vernon, lived.

Twenty minutes later, he reached his destination. Whitchurch was a grey area, populated by uninspired near-identical houses with ashen facades and dull brown-red tiled roofs. Sandra Vernon lived opposite a crumbling supermarket in a small terraced house. The front of the house was well maintained with UPVC windows. A stone pathway led through a neatly mowed front garden to the front door. Lambert waited for a beat and rang the doorbell.

A small plump woman with large circular rimmed spectacles answered. The smell of cinnamon and burnt toast drifted from behind her. ‘Yes, what do you want?’ she inquired, in a high-pitched Welsh accent.

Lambert told the woman that he was a friend of Terrence who had recently heard the terrible news and had come to pay his condolences. The rotund woman looked him up and down for an uncomfortable amount of time before inviting him in.

Lambert surveyed the living room whilst Sandra Vernon made tea in the kitchen. The room was sparsely decorated with white walls and a couple of mass market reproduction paintings in cheap frames on the wall. A small flat screen television sat beneath one of the rectangular PVC windows. A simple wooden crucifix hung above the fireplace. Beneath it, taking pride of place on the mantelpiece, was a picture of Sandra Vernon and her son on his graduation day.

‘He was a good boy,’ said Sandra Vernon, returning with a tray.

Lambert couldn’t detect any emotion in the woman, her face blank. ‘He was, here let me take that for you.’ Lambert took the tray from the woman’s unsteady hands.

‘What did you say your name was again?’ she said, the lilt of her accent deeper now.

‘Michael Lambert. I lived on the floor below Terrence in his final year at University. We were not the best of friends but I knew him.’

Sandra Vernon poured him a cup of tea.

‘How are you coping, Mrs Vernon?’ asked Lambert, sipping the weak tea.

‘Day by day, Mr Lambert, but it is Miss Vernon. The church is a great help to me as you can imagine.’

‘Of course. Terrence was always very religious at University,’ said Lambert, unsure if he was saying the right thing.

‘He had a strong relationship with God. For that he will be rewarded.’

‘I didn’t realise his home was in Bristol whilst he was at University. My parents lived in London. To be fair, I couldn’t wait to get away from them,’ said Lambert. He ignored the comment about God. Tension was always high when religion was involved. Experience told him it was best to steer clear unless the conversation was necessary. Like Klatzky, he was a lapsed Catholic. Apart from the odd occasion, wedding, baptism, or funeral, he hadn’t attended church since he was a teenager.

Vernon drank her tea, studying him, her eyes lifeless behind the covering of her spectacles. ‘I always was close to Terrence. I decided to stay near to him when he moved to University. We lived in Wales before then.’

Lambert had never heard of a parent moving with their child to University. Though not inconceivable, it suggested an over-familiar relationship between parent and child. ‘It’s been a while since I’ve seen Terrence. Did he ever marry?’

Vernon laughed. ‘No, no.’

‘Was he seeing anyone?’

‘As I said, Mr Lambert, he had a strong relationship with God. He had no time for such nonsense. God was all he needed.’ Sandra Vernon looked away as she said the last words, as if threatened by Lambert’s suggestion.

‘What was that church he was with? It was one of those really evangelical ones wasn’t it?’

‘It’s called Gracelife. It is a proper church, with true believers and proper morals. It’s one of the reasons I moved here in the first place.’

‘Of course, sorry I don’t know much about these things.’ With the conversation failing, Lambert knew he had a decision to make. Either leave things as they were, or push the woman further. She had recently suffered a great loss, and for that he was sympathetic, but he wasn’t blind to the tone she was using. She had taken a clear disliking to him, speaking down to him as if he was a child.

‘One thing that did confuse me, Miss Vernon. I see that Terrence had changed his name to Vernon. We’d known him as Terrence Haydon at University.’

‘That was his father’s name.’ Sandra Vernon sat on the edge of her seat. Her face had reddened and she glared at Lambert, her small eyes magnified by her oversized spectacles.

Lambert didn’t mind the woman’s discomfort. He pushed further. ‘Ah yes, I remember Terrence mentioning him. Is his father not around any more?’

The woman’s eyes narrowed. ‘He was no father,’ she said, lowering her voice.

‘Did Terrence ever see him?’

‘He ceased being his father many years ago,’ said Vernon. Her voice came out as a screech as the colour in her cheeks deepened, her eyes narrowing once more.

Lambert poured himself some more tea. He tipped the clear brown liquid into Sandra Vernon’s cup. ‘Oh. I hadn’t realised. I’m sure I remember Terrence mentioning him. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. I just wanted to understand.’ Lambert kept his voice low and steady, focusing all his attention onto the flustered woman.

Vernon leant back in her chair. ‘His daddy was an evil man, Godless. Left us when Terrence was a child. Terrence never forgave him. It was his decision. He waited until he left University, but he didn’t want that man’s name sullying him any more.’

Vernon was over-protesting. ‘Despicable. Is he aware that Terrence has gone to a better place? I hope you’ll forgive my forwardness, but I could inform him if you had an address.’

The woman let out a small sound which sounded like a wounded animal. Her facial muscles tensed and Lambert watched, bemused, as her upper lip rose revealing the redness of her gums. ‘I don’t have his address. Who cares if he knows? He was nothing to Terrence, to us.’ she snarled.

Lambert stood. ‘No, you’re completely right. I’m really sorry to bother you. I should go. I was hoping to visit his church before I left for London. Thank you for the tea.’ He had what he’d wanted. Any sympathy he’d had for the woman had faded. He sensed the hatred in the woman, knew it wasn’t simply a reaction to her son’s death. It resonated within her, and he sighed with relief when he was out of the claustrophobic confines of her house. He had to speak to Terrence’s father, but first he had to see his church.

A white painted building, the result of two terraced houses knocked together, the church had a small sign nailed to the side wall announcing the occupants as Gracelife, Bristol. Minister, Neil Landsdale.

An elderly woman wrapped in a pink-check clothed apron opened the front door. ‘Yes?’

‘I’m here to see the minister,’ said Lambert.

The woman glared at him as if he’d said something incomprehensible. ‘Minister?’

‘Neil Landsdale.’

‘I’m just the cleaner,’ said the woman. ‘You can come in and check the offices if you want. There are some people moving about up there.’ She walked back inside, leaving the door open.

Apart from a giant wooden crucifix hanging from the far wall, little else suggested the interior was that of a church. It was more like a small dance studio. Stacks of plastic chairs and folded tables surrounded a polished wooden floor. Dull brown walls propped up the low ceiling.

‘Up there,’ said the cleaner, pointing to a panelled door which led to a flight of stairs.

Lambert heard talking as he moved up the dark staircase. One male, one female voice. He reached the office door and knocked. The voices stopped and the door was opened by a smiling woman, wearing a long-sleeved dress, patterned with large garish flowers, ‘Mr Lambert by any chance?’ she said, her face twitching.

Sandra Vernon had obviously called ahead. He kept his tone light. ‘Yes, you have me at a disadvantage, Miss…’

The woman kept the painted smile on her face but didn’t invite him to enter.

‘May I speak to Neil Landsdale?’ asked Lambert, when she didn’t answer.

‘I’m afraid he’s awfully busy at the moment,’ said the woman, her light voice lined with the trace of a West Country accent. ‘Would it be possible to come back later?’

Lambert stiffened. ‘Not really, I’m afraid. I’m only in Bristol for the day. It will only take a few minutes of his time.’ Lambert pictured the minister sitting at a desk behind the door. He had no idea why the man was avoiding him, but one thing was clear, he would not be leaving without first speaking to the minister.

‘Please wait here,’ said the woman, shutting the door behind her.

Lambert placed his ear to the door, but couldn’t hear the muffled conversation. He stepped back as the door opened.

‘Mr Landsdale will see you now,’ said the woman.

Two chrome-framed desks sat side by side in the office, each with an old box-style computer monitor on them. A grey-haired man stood in front of one of the desks. His hair fell to his shoulder, a week’s growth of stubble protruding from his face. His smile was as prominent and false as his colleague’s. ‘Mr Lambert, pleased to meet you. I am the minister of our humble little church. You can call me Neil.’

Lambert accepted the weak handshake. ‘Thank you, Neil.’

‘Please sit, how may I help?’

‘As I am sure Miss Vernon has informed you, I was Terrence’s friend at University. I’d come to pay my respect to Miss Vernon. Whilst here, I thought I’d see the church Terrence was so fond of.’

‘That he was, Mr Lambert. Terrence was an active parishioner, ever since he joined our congregation when he was at University. He will be sorely missed.’

‘You’ve been minister all that time?’

‘Yes,’ said Landsdale, holding his hands in front of him, his fingers interlocked. ‘It is my church.’

‘So you know Terrence’s father?’

‘I’m afraid not. Sandra and Terrence’s father had divorced some time before they moved here.’

‘Did Terrence ever speak of him?’

‘With all due respect, what business is it of yours? I thought you came to pay your respects.’ The smile was still there, but the humour had disappeared from the minister’s eyes.

‘I have, and I wanted to pay my respects to both parents,’ said Lambert, his voice rising, his patience fading.

Landsdale understood. He unlinked his fingers and sat back in his chair, as if trying to escape Lambert’s gaze. ‘Look, there’s not much I can tell you. Terrence’s parents were parishioners of our sister church in Neath, when Terrence was a child. The church had a different approach then. From what I heard, there was a bit of a nasty business when they separated. Terrence never mentioned him.’

‘Do you know where Mr Haydon is now?’ It would only take a minute to find the father’s address on The System, but Lambert wanted to hear the address from Landsdale. He tapped his knuckles on the minister’s desk, and waited.

‘Now how would I know that, Mr Lambert? Perhaps you should ask the police.’

Lambert continued tapping the desk, despite the threat. He inched closer to Landsdale who shifted in his chair, looking everywhere but back at him. ‘Okay. Thank you for your time.’ Lambert stepped back from the desk, Landsdale letting out a sigh. ‘Before I go, do you ever use incense during your services?’

Landsdale was on his feet, mirroring Lambert. A smile still stuck on his face. ‘Bit Old Testament for us. Let me show you out, Mr Lambert.’

Lambert ordered a taxi back to the city centre and waited outside the church for it to arrive. On the journey back, he replayed the meeting with Terrence’s mother. He hadn’t appreciated it at the time, but what he recalled most now was the coldness of her house. The sparse religious decorations, the hostility from the small bespectacled woman. Lambert hadn’t sensed much love for her son from Sandra Vernon, only the bitterness and hatred she felt towards her ex-husband. Lambert tried to picture what it must have been like for Terrence to be raised by such a woman and found himself feeling a bit sorry for Terrence’s father even though he had never met the man.

Landsdale was less straight forward. He gave the outward impression of being approachable and helpful, but he had a touch of steel about him. He’d refused to be budged on Haydon’s father, even though Lambert was certain Landsdale knew where the man was. Something was going on with Sandra Vernon and Landsdale. They were hiding something whether it was relevant to Terrence Haydon’s death or not. Lambert was lifted by the thought. In his eyes, secrets were a sign of progress.

Back in the town centre, he checked into the hotel at the bottom of Park Street, ordering a room for Klatzky. He sent Klatzky a text instructing him to pick up the room card from reception. He logged onto The System and checked HOLMES for updates. He was mildly surprised to see his name mentioned. May had reported meeting him for lunch, and that she had warned him not to start his own investigation. She had posted a picture of him as well as one of Klatzky. No mention of their meeting tonight had been entered.

He read through the details of the previous Souljacker victims, starting way back with Clive Hale. May’s team had noted the transition in style of the killer from the first hurried job on Hale. How from Graham Jackett onwards, the killer had been much more meticulous from the eye removal to immaculate inscriptions carved onto his victim’s torsos. May had ordered a closer look at all the previous victims which made sense to Lambert. He was particularly interested in the connection between six of the victims who had all been members of a church of various denominations. Billy Nolan hadn’t attended church at any time during University but maybe there was some link from the past which had escaped the initial investigative team. Reading further, he realised that May would likely find out. She was due to meet the SIO on eight of the last ten Souljacker killings, Chief Superintendent Julian Hastings, tomorrow morning.

It didn’t take long to find an address for Terrence’s estranged father. Roger Haydon lived in Weston-super-Mare, a small seaside town twenty miles from Bristol. Roger Haydon had been on housing and unemployment benefit for most of his life. One of May’s team, DS Jack Bradbury, had questioned the man. Haydon had claimed not to have seen Terrence since he was a child.

Lambert ordered a late lunch from room service and called Tillman.

‘You’re not working for me, so you don’t need to call in and report,’ said Tillman.

‘I had an interesting chat with the DI on this case, Sarah May,’ said Lambert, ignoring him.

‘And I should be interested because?’

‘What’s my official classification, sir?’

‘You know that, Michael. Leave of absentia or some shit.’

‘She managed to obtain my personnel file. Well, parts of it. She thinks I’m a man of mystery.’

‘We all think that, Michael. Now if there is nothing else? We shouldn’t even be discussing this on the phone.’

‘It made me think,’ said Lambert.

‘A new one, but go on.’

‘About coming back.’

Tillman didn’t respond. Lambert’s leave had been out of necessity. The accident had left him in an induced coma, followed by months of physical and mental rehabilitation. Tillman had never visited him during that time, but Lambert still received a small salary despite the accident occurring out of work.

‘Sir?’ said Lambert.

‘You want to come back?’ said Tillman.

‘I want to know where I would stand.’

‘We’ll meet once you’ve finished playing detectives,’ said Tillman, hanging up.

Lambert placed the phone on the bedside table and collapsed into the softness of the bed. Talking to Tillman had deflated his new enthusiasm. He’d never blamed anyone else for what had happened to Chloe. He’d revelled in his guilt, replaying the incident time after time, day after day. He’d refused all offers of help, from his wife and extended family, from his work colleagues. He carried his child’s death around with him like a millstone, and it impacted on everything. His wife wanted nothing more to do with him, and Tillman knew he wouldn’t be ready for work until he had dealt with it.

A tightness filled his chest, and he sat upright fighting the sensation. He stumbled to the bathroom and drank heavily from the sink tap. Forgetting his guilt would be a betrayal of Chloe’s memory but maybe there was another way to honour her. It could never bring her back, and he could never be redeemed, but he needed to move forward with the case.

Chapter 8

Lance Crosby left the small bookshop opposite the University building. He’d been waiting for three hours, ever since Lambert had caught the taxi. He watched Lambert enter the building and called it in.

‘Sit tight,’ said the man on the other end of the line.

Lance did as instructed. It was his third day on the job. The last two days had been spent in London following Lambert’s friend, Simon Klatzky. Keeping track of Klatzky had meant visiting an unending array of public houses, until yesterday when he’d contacted Lambert.

Lance had photographed the second man and forwarded the photos onto Campbell, who had taken great pleasure in the news.

In an instant, the focus changed. Lance had been following Lambert ever since. Following Lambert was more complicated. Campbell had warned him that Lambert was a professional and so it had proved. Lance hoped the other two would arrive soon. Sooner or later his luck would run out and Lambert would spot him. He’d kept his distance this morning on the tube and latterly on the train but Lambert was police. He’d told Campbell as much but the words went unheeded.

Before he had time to react, Lambert left the University building. Lance followed at a distance as Lambert walked down Park Street, heading for the Marriott hotel at the bottom of the hill.

Lance updated his boss.

‘Go back to the University and watch Klatzky,’ instructed Campbell.

Back at the building, following a gruelling trek back up Park Street, Lance showed the security guard a fake ID and went in search of the union bar. It was no surprise to find the second man there. Simon Klatzky sat at a table drowning his sorrows. Somehow he’d convinced a number of female students, attractive ones at that, to join him.

Lance ordered a Diet Coke from the bar and took a seat, imagining he was in for a long day.

Chapter 9

Like Bradbury had suggested, Blood Kill was full of authentic procedural detail but May found herself drawn to the story as well which was about the murder of teenage girl, a girl blind from birth. The main detective was a methodical and morally superior Superintendent. From what Bradbury had told her, Hastings had become obsessed with the Souljacker case during his time on the force. It had proved to be the major case he never solved, and there was an obvious parallel to the girl in his novel. She wondered if writing the book was cathartic for Hastings, if the success of his fictional hero in finding the killer alleviated his own perceived failings. She closed the book halfway through, surprised how engrossed she had become with the case.

Jack Bradbury stopped her as she left the office.

‘I thought you’d want to know. Sandra Vernon called. Apparently your friend Michael Lambert paid her a visit earlier on today.’

‘How long ago?’ asked May.

‘A few minutes. She called as soon as he’d left. She wasn’t very happy. He claimed he was a friend of Terrence Haydon and had called around to pay his respects.’

‘True in a way, I suppose. Did she have anything else to add?’

‘That he was asking some odd questions. In particular about Terrence’s father.’

‘What did he want exactly?’

‘She sounded a bit pissed,’ said Bradbury. ‘Lambert wanted to know the man’s address. Vernon didn’t pass on the details.’

Although she didn’t consider him a serious suspect, May had placed Lambert’s picture on the incident board next to Klatzky’s. She’d warned him not to start his own investigation but knew he would still get involved. Procedurally it would be difficult to officially get him working on the case, though it would definitely be beneficial. ‘You saw Terrence’s father yesterday?’ she asked Bradbury.

Bradbury nodded. She remembered his report. The man lived alone in a council estate in Weston-super-Mare. Sad figure by all accounts. He hadn’t seen his son in over twenty years. ‘Okay, I’ll have another word with him today.’

‘What, Lambert?’

May crossed her arms. ‘Yes, Lambert. Is there anything else?’

‘No, ma’am,’ replied Bradbury. With a brief flash of the puppy dog eyes, he turned away.

The hospital was less than a mile from the Central Police Station so she decided to walk. As she left the building, she thought she saw a figure from her past. She rubbed her eyes, as the figure disappeared around a corner, and retrieved a pair of sunglasses from her bag.

May had arranged to meet Siobhan Callahan at the hospital. Callahan worked as an Occupational Therapist. She’d been one of the students on the fifth floor of the halls of residence during the period when Billy Nolan’s body was discovered eighteen years ago.

She’d also been Michael Lambert’s girlfriend.

May uncovered her following a thorough reading of the student statements. She couldn’t believe her luck when she’d discovered the woman worked less than a mile from her office.

The extended heatwave still gripped the city, the late September sky a cloudless blue. May trekked up the hill which led to the hospital and searched for Callaghan’s department on the noticeboard in the main foyer. She followed the green line which led to the occupational therapy department. She recalled her own time at University, and the boyfriends she’d had there. She didn’t know how she would have reacted if someone wanted to talk to her about any of them. She rarely dwelled on the past, couldn’t relate to the wide-eyed girl she’d been in her early twenties. She viewed her past like a voyeur, her memories akin to a reader imagining a character from a book.

Siobhan Callaghan was not what she’d expected. May had pictured a stereotypical Irish girl, buxom and red-haired. The woman in front of her had short, spikey black hair, and a thin wiry body. Her face had a boyish quality to it.

‘Oh yes, Inspector. Sorry, I’ve been rushed off my feet today. Please come on through.’ She led her through to a small white cubicle, with a desk, two plastic chairs and an elevated bed. Like the rest of the hospital, the small area had a clean antiseptic smell. ‘Please take a seat. Sorry, I didn’t quite get the gist of your call earlier. You mentioned something about that incident at the University all those years ago.’

‘Yes, thank you for seeing me at such short notice,’ said May. ‘You’ve read about the recent murder in Southville?’

‘Yes. Ghastly. I thought about poor Billy when I read it. You think it’s the same person? It’s what the papers think, isn’t it?’

May studied the woman. She sounded genuine, and nothing about her body language suggested otherwise. ‘I can’t comment on that. We’re speaking to everyone who was in halls on the night Billy Nolan’s body was discovered. I read your statement from that time.’

Callaghan struggled to keep eye contact with May. Her eyes darted upwards, as if replaying that night in her head. ‘I was asleep when all the commotion happened, thank God. I never saw him. Christ, am I thankful for that. I can imagine it really fucked most people up. Oh, sorry, excuse my language.’

May waved her hand dismissing the apology.

‘This one girl, Laura, she could barely speak. Her whole body was shaking. I remember putting my arm around her. She buzzed. It’s the only word I can use to describe it. It was like touching someone who’d had an electric shock. Her parents collected her the day after. I never saw her again. I’d known her for three years at University and that was that.’

‘It says on your file you had a boyfriend at the time?’

Callahan shifted in her chair. ‘Michael,’ she said, a slight lilt to her voice.

‘Yes, Michael…Lambert,’ said May, pretending to glance at her notes.

‘Poor guy,’ said Siobhan. ‘He was the one who found Billy. Broke down his door. Have you spoken to him about it?’

May nodded.

Siobhan’s eyes widened. ‘Oh.’ She took a deep breath. ‘He was a bit like Laura to begin with, and then he went silent. He was close to Billy, you know.’

‘Yes, what was he like?’

‘Billy or Michael?’

‘Michael.’

A brightness overcame Siobhan’s face, the memory clearly a fond one. ‘He was a sweet guy. What can I say, we were young. It was quite intense.’

‘Were you going out with him for long?’

‘Six, seven months.’

‘Was it a monogamous relationship?’

‘As far as I’m aware. Why all these questions about Michael?’

‘The most recent victim, he was also at University with you.’

‘What?’ said Siobhan, the colour vanishing from her face. ‘Michael wasn’t the victim, was he?’

‘No, no. Sorry, Siobhan. I didn’t mean to confuse you. The latest victim was called Terrence Haydon. He was at University at the same time as you.’

Siobhan caught her breath. ‘He was in halls with us? What floor was he on?’

‘Floor six. Some people called him Mad Terry?’

‘Don’t remember him. What’s this to do with Michael?’

‘Oh, nothing directly.’

Siobhan placed her hands in her lap. ‘You can’t think he has anything to do with it? That would be ridiculous.’

May leant forward, catching a waft of antiseptic from the corridor. ‘No, of course not. We’re examining all the connections in the two cases. And obviously Michael knew Billy very well. Did you know Michael’s other friends?’

Siobhan relaxed, her shoulders dropping. ‘Yeah, there was a gang of them.’

‘What were they like as a group?’

‘They were nice enough guys. They basically liked to drink and go with girls, like all boys that age.’

‘Remember Simon Klatzky?’

Siobhan pursed her lips. ‘He was hot,’ she said, giggling. ‘God, listen to me. Yeah, he was good friends with Michael. We’d all go out as a gang sometimes. I think he was really close with Billy. From what I heard it hit him really hard as well.’

May thought about the photo of Klatzky she’d posted on the whiteboard, the hard life he’d had since leaving University. ‘Was there any trouble amongst them as a group? Any fights, things like that?’

‘There were the odd fallings out but nothing significant. They all got on really well.’

‘Well, thanks for your time, Siobhan. It’s been much appreciated. As I said it’s a routine thing.’

Siobhan had grown in confidence during the meeting. Her eyes were more focused. As they both stood, she asked, ‘So when did you see Michael?’

May noted the keen interest in the question, was surprised that the inquiry made her bristle. ‘He’s in Bristol at the moment. I met him today.’

‘What’s he like now?’

‘Yeah, he seems really nice. What happened to you guys after University?’

Siobhan walked her to the hospital elevator. ‘We met up once. He came to stay with me at my parents’ house for a week. He decided to go travelling for a year.’

‘And you didn’t want to go with him?’

‘We talked about it. I had another year at University as I was studying for my Masters. We said we’d stay in touch,’ said Siobhan. ‘But we never did.’

Back at the station, May changed into her running gear, skin-tight running trousers and a fluorescent yellow jacket. She thought about the touch of melancholy in Siobhan’s voice as she recalled not staying in touch with Lambert, and briefly regretted that no one from her past could provoke the same reaction in her. She tied up her running shoes, pulling the laces tight until it squeezed her feet and left the locker room.

As she left the changing room one of the uniforms, a constable by the name of Bickley, laughed. ‘Shit, I’m deaf,’ he said, pretending to shield his ears from the loudness of May’s jacket.

‘Very amusing. Better safe than sorry, don’t you think, Constable?’ she said, playing along.

‘No one’s going to miss you, that’s for sure, ma’am.’

May tried to run at least three times a week. It was five miles from the station to the house she shared with her father. He had moved in with her three years ago following the death of her mother. She couldn’t face him living alone, and they’d managed to make the living arrangements work.

Approaching rush hour, the roads next to the station were gridlocked with traffic. She started at a steady pace, her breathing increasing as she upped her pace. She noticed admiring glances as she ran but kept her eyes straight on the road ahead. Running gave her time to think. She never wore earphones like some of the other runners. She liked the sound of the world moving by, the rush of the air as she pounded the pavement.

It had been five days now since she’d been put in charge of the Souljacker case. Superintendent Rush had yet to apply any firm pressure. If it was the same killer, then it was the tenth victim in twenty-three years and although no one had come close to catching the killer, something about the way things were unfolding told her things were different this time. The link between Haydon and Nolan was crucial and in addition it was conceivable that lack of practice had made the killer sloppy. Seven different strands of unidentified DNA had been found at Haydon’s flat, but only one strain on the corpse. It had been found in Haydon’s hair but nowhere else in the house.

Now all they needed was a suspect to match the DNA on Haydon’s body. The thought drove her on, her pace increasing as additional adrenalin pumped into her bloodstream.

She started to tire four miles into the journey. Her legs filled with lactic acid as she tried to maintain her pace. It was unusual for her but not unexpected. She’d hardly slept since she’d been assigned to the case and her diet had been awful, cheap takeaways for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She needed an early night, a chance to clear her head but she’d suggested meeting Lambert later that evening. It had sounded like a good idea at the time but she was beginning to regret her decision. It had been impulsive, and if any of her previous staff appraisals were anything to go by, impulsiveness was her one major character flaw. It had led her into trouble more than once, both personally and professionally.

She pushed through the pain in her legs and increased her pace for the last mile. She liked to sprint the last few hundred metres home. She enjoyed the sensation of her body working at full throttle, everything pulling together, driving her forward. She reached the gates to her house and clicked her stopwatch. With her hands behind her head, she leant forward, her open mouth sucking air into her lungs.

‘Good time?’ asked her father as she opened the front door. He held a glass of red wine in one hand, the crossword section of the newspaper in the other.

‘It wasn’t a personal best,’ said May, her breathing returning to normal.

Her father went to reply. She could tell by the way he looked at her jacket that he was about to unleash some quip about the brightness of the material. He thought better of it, knowing her humour wasn’t at its highest at the end of a long run.

She read a few more chapters of Blood Kill before showering, and found herself relating more and more with the protagonist of the story. She sensed the man’s anguish as he searched for the killer of the blind girl and wondered if the real life Hastings would be similar to his fictional counterpart. Hastings had stipulated a meeting time of seven a.m. for tomorrow which had destroyed her plan of a good night’s sleep.

It was too late to cancel Lambert now. Anyway, she wanted to talk to him. He’d visited Sandra Vernon, and subsequently the minister of their small church, despite agreeing not to pursue his own investigation. She had to show him she should be taken seriously. What better way to do so than by going out for dinner with him, she thought ruefully.

She tried on a number of dresses before finding the perfect balance, a standard long-sleeve black dress which stretched below her knees. She scrubbed up well in the mirror but didn’t want Lambert to get the wrong idea.

She checked her email before leaving and was surprised to see an email titled:

Why did you ignore me?

At first she thought it was a joke but then she read the name of the sender, Sean Laws. She’d thought she’d imagined it, but it must have been him she’d seen on the way to the hospital. He hadn’t waved, so she hadn’t ignored him. She opened the email.

Hi Sarah, Only joking. I don’t know if you saw me but I spotted you out and about today. I’m in Bristol for a few days on work. I didn’t want to disrupt you. You looked so beautiful, walking along. It was really good to see you again. Maybe if you’ve time we could meet up for a chat?

He signed the email Sean with a solitary kiss and his phone number.

May slammed her laptop shut, her hands shaking. She had an absurd impulse to run down the stairs and tell her dad. Despite his age, she knew he would grab his coat and start scouring the city until he found Sean.

Sean Laws, the ex-boyfriend she’d once threatened to take to court.

Chapter 10

Lambert spotted the car two minutes after leaving the hotel. A silver Mercedes, this year’s plates, too grandiose to be police. Through the blacked out windows, he made out the vague silhouetted figure of the driver. He made a mental note of the number plate and took the short walk up Park Street to the restaurant, stopping occasionally to see if the car had followed him.

Twenty minutes early, he took a seat and ordered a cold bottle of lager as he waited for Sarah May to arrive. He’d left Klatzky at the hotel bar holding court with the four students from this morning, his concerns about the photos temporarily washed away.

Sarah May arrived at exactly eight o’clock. Dressed in a figure-hugging black dress, she carried a small handbag. Her hair hung loose on her shoulders, and Lambert wished he’d made more of an effort with his own appearance. He rose from his seat and offered his hand. She shook it, ignoring his awkwardness, her manner half-professional, half-cordial.

After ordering drinks, Lambert questioned May about her career. She described a meteoritic rise through the ranks that, to some extent, mirrored Lambert’s progress. She talked about her colleagues and some of the issues she faced as a woman in the force.

It began to feel like a date until May dashed that notion during the main course.

‘Now, Michael,’ she said, her tone snapping from casual to business-like. ‘I believe I told you not to follow your own investigation.’

Lambert straightened up in his chair. ‘You’re talking about my meeting with Sandra Vernon?’

‘Yes.’

His eyes widened in mock surprise. ‘You’re not having me followed are you, DI May?’

May blinked, her mouth curling into the slightest of smiles. ‘I’m afraid we don’t have resources for such frivolous behaviour. But I thought if you were the interfering type, and I thought that perhaps you were, your first port of call would be with Miss Vernon.’

He couldn’t tell if she was playing with him or if her annoyance was genuine. ‘You spoke to her today?’ asked Lambert.

‘After you visited her house.’

Lambert drank long from his glass of red wine, enjoying May’s scrutiny. Clearly he was being tested. ‘I was paying my condolences.’

‘That’s right. And the questions about Haydon’s father?’

Lambert laughed. ‘I wanted to pay my condolences to him as well.’

May leant in. ‘We’ve spoken to Mr Haydon. There’s nothing much to be gained from him. From the report I was given, he’s just a sad, washed up alcoholic.’

‘It was only condolences,’ said Lambert.

May lowered her voice. ‘Because you and Haydon were so close? Look, I understand the experience you can bring to the case. I’d be happy to share information with you but you must understand the complications that arise from you being involved. You’ve really pissed off Miss Vernon. It could damage our investigations.’

Lambert lifted his glass again and placed it back down without taking a drink. He’d been waiting for May to speak her mind. How the next few minutes went could possibly define their relationship. ‘I do appreciate that,’ he said. There was little the DI could do about his involvement and she probably understood that as well as he did, but he didn’t want to upset her at this stage. ‘I’ll keep a low profile for the time being,’ he conceded.

‘Thank you,’ said May.

They sat in silence for a time, Lambert sneaking the odd glance at his companion. He thought about his former colleagues, how rarely he had enjoyed a strong professional relationship with someone. He held onto his wine glass, went to speak and stopped.

‘What did you think of Miss Vernon?’ asked May, choosing to rescue him from his inaction.

Lambert sat back, decided he would trust May for the time being. ‘I would say eccentric if I was being polite.’

‘And if you weren’t being polite?’

Lambert thought about the coldness he’d sense from the woman, the hatred she’d vocalised about her ex-husband. ‘I couldn’t possibly say. Did you speak to her about her Terrence’s father?’

‘Not in great detail.’

‘Her reaction was over the top to say the least. I think you need to dig deeper, there’s something she’s holding back.’

‘Okay. I’ll question her again. You think the father is involved?’

‘Not directly.’ As this was a serial case it was unlikely the killer was a family member. ‘But there is definitely something she is not sharing. How about you, where are you on the case?’

‘You’ll know about the DNA found at the scene? No match on the databases, unfortunately. Our main area of investigation is the link between Haydon and Nolan.’

‘Makes sense. And the older cases?’ he asked, remembering what he’d read on HOLMES.

May tilted her head back. She didn’t answer immediately. Lambert sensed she was debating whether or not to share the information with him. ‘We’re looking at the older cases one by one. As you know, it’s nearly twenty years since the last murder. It’s possible something was overlooked in the past, or that there is a link we can tie in with Terrence Haydon.’

‘Anything significant so far?’

‘Not for me. There is a vague theory about churches at the moment. A high proportion of the victims were affiliated one way or another to a church. It might be significant but I can’t see how at the moment.’

‘Billy wasn’t religious,’ said Lambert, pleased that May was sharing the information even though he already knew it.

‘There you go. I was going to ask, have you ever done any cold case work on this over the years? I’m sure it must have been tempting.’

Lambert shifted in his seat. ‘I’ve tried to put it behind me. You can let these things define you if you’re not careful,’ he said, thinking that Billy’s death would always be a part of him even if he ever caught whoever was responsible.

After dinner, May walked him back to his hotel. She quizzed him again about the blank entries in his work record, the inquiry light-hearted.

‘There’s no great mystery.’ He’d drunk too much wine, her company relaxing him.

‘Who said anything about a mystery? Don’t hype yourself up.’ She gently shoulder-charged him, forcing him to stumble.

‘You’re quite impressive, DI May. I can never tell for sure if I’m being interrogated or not. Such confusion is not normal for me.’

‘I’m off the clock now,’ she said, as they reached the hotel entrance. She turned to him, her left cheek curling slightly into a smile: a beautiful and stark contrast to the snarl he’d seen earlier that day on Sandra Vernon’s face. He wondered what would happen if he leant in to kiss her, and took a step backwards realising he’d drunk even more than he’d imagined.

‘Thank you for a lovely evening,’ said May, saving him the embarrassment. She offered her hand which he shook savouring the warm softness of her flesh.

He said goodbye and retreated to the hotel, a sudden sense of fatigue spreading through him. He spotted Klatzky in the hotel bar, his arms wrapped around the black-haired student from the morning. They were alone, two wine bottles on the table before them. Lambert tried not to think about how much it would be costing. He retreated upstairs before either of them saw him.

Back in his hotel room, he checked his email and phone messages. Sophie had left a voicemail asking when he would be home. She would be asleep now so he sent her a text. Restless, he logged into The System. As he was using the hotel’s Wi-Fi, he had to pass through a number of extra security measures before gaining access.

He checked Sarah May’s file first, verifying what he’d been told over dinner. He checked for updates on HOLMES, and saw the name of his ex-girlfriend, Siobhan Callahan. May had met her earlier that day, not long after speaking to him. DI May moved fast and hadn’t shared as much with him as he’d thought. He tried to picture what Siobhan would look like now. She’d been such a slight thing, wild, spikey hair, a tattoo on her shoulder. He couldn’t imagine her now, wasn’t sure he wanted to know how time had changed her.

He studied the rest of the Haydon file. He knew most of the document by heart now, but began reading from the start again. He always worked this way. The repetition helped him process the information, his mind working on the finer details he may have initially missed. Instead of merely scanning, he studied each page of the file, analysing the structure and each individual word of the report until it stopped making sense.

He switched off the light and lay on the bed listening to the hum of the air conditioning circling the room. His head was overrun with images. Sleep was elusive, the wine he’d drunk keeping him awake. Alone in the darkness, his thoughts always returned to his daughter, Chloe. During the day he tried to keep busy, distracting himself with the mundane activities of life. But she never totally left him. She lingered in the faces of strangers, her voice whispered in their conversations. At night he had no way of deflecting her. He tried to turn his thoughts to the case, but however hard he concentrated they spiralled back to Chloe. His throat constricted as he fought back tears. He snapped the light back on and left the room, in time to see Simon Klatzky, his arm draped across his young student friend, trying to open the door to his hotel room. Lambert stepped back and took the opposite route around the floor towards the lift.

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