The kill list, p.4
The Kill List, page 4
‘I want to see you,’ Streeter said. ‘You haven’t replied to my letters, and I’ve sent you a visiting order.’
‘I don’t need a visiting order. What is it that you want to say that you can’t tell me over the phone?’ Henley asked.
‘Everything.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘No. You need to see me. I’m begging you. Please.’
Henley inhaled deeply, pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at the screen. She had already spent five minutes longer on the phone with Melissa’s murderer than she wanted to. She returned the phone to her ear and heard Streeter’s pleading voice again.
‘Please,’ he was saying. ‘I won’t stop calling or writing. I need to talk to you. Face to face.’
The teenage Anjelica, who had grown into a woman with a family of her own, who was still on some subconscious level grieving the brutal loss of her best friend, had no desire to breathe the same air as Andrew Streeter. Anjelica wanted Streeter to admit to his crimes and to die a slow and painful death. Anjelica’s dreams were haunted by Melissa’s face, her mouth and eyes sewn shut. Teenage Anjelica had stood under a steaming hot shower, scrubbing herself with carbolic soap as she tried to get rid of the smell of the river and decomposing flesh that had seeped into her pores and coated every strand of hair on her head. But Detective Inspector Anjelica Henley of the Serial Crime Unit had a different story. DI Henley was emotionally detached. DI Henley was curious. DI Henley wanted to know what would motivate a convicted murderer to seek out the witness and friend of one of his victims. DI Henley wanted to look in the eyes of a murderer and see the demons that tortured his soul.
‘Fine,’ Henley said.
There was a pause, the silence filled by the sound of Streeter struggling to breathe.
‘Thank you.’
Henley picked up the pain in Streeter’s voice. ‘Don’t call me again,’ she said.
7
23 September 1995
It was early: 5.48 a.m. The only people awake were the office cleaners making their way home from their overnight shifts in the city, early joggers, empowered by watching Michael Johnson winning gold in the 200 and 400 metres at the World Athletic Championships, and Terry, the owner of a scrapyard on Thurston Road in Lewisham. Terry had agreed to be at the yard early to receive a couple of cars that had been used in a robbery in Manchester, despite his raging hangover after drinking his weight in whisky at his uncle’s wake the night before. The toilet in his office was blocked again and he’d gone to the back of the Portakabin to relieve himself.
It had taken 3.8 seconds for his brain to register the smell. His fingers were still gripping the buttons of his jeans when 2.8 seconds later he saw the cause of the smell and warm urine began to travel down the inside of his left leg. He’d run blindly out of the yard and into Thurston Road, ignoring the loud screeches of a 47 bus and a cussing driver who’d hit the brakes to avoid hitting him. Terry had completely forgotten about the two stolen cars in his yard when he ran towards the row of red telephone boxes. He made the 999 call and a police car had arrived seventeen minutes later. PC Clarens immediately picked up the smell of piss on Terry and had his hand on his radio ready to call it in as the rantings of a drunk who’d pissed his pants until his colleague, WPC Sabato, ran past him, abruptly stopped, and vomited the fried egg and bacon sandwich that she’d had for breakfast, inches from his feet.
The tall gates of the scrapyard were closed and guarded by a couple of police officers, who watched the passing traffic, not sure if the passengers on the top deck of the passing bus could see the body in the scrapyard; later, articles in the South London Press would reveal that they could. DS Rhimes had arrived twenty-eight minutes after WPC Sabato had been sick and he was in a mood. He was usually a stickler for not breaking his morning routine. Glass of warm water. A cup of instant coffee, a bowl of Frosties and a slice of toast with Marmite. He was grateful that the early-morning call had meant that he was unable to even think about food. He pulled out the monogrammed handkerchief that his niece had bought him for Christmas, and pushed it hard against his mouth and nose, but it didn’t help. The smell of decomposing flesh that had festered in the dry heat of an unexpected heatwave was enveloping him. The soured scent penetrated the cotton fibres of his shirt and coated the skin on his back. Beads of sweat travelled from his forehead and tickled the upper eyelashes of his left eye. He blinked and instantly regretted removing the handkerchief from his mouth to rub it across his forehead. He stepped back and looked at the crowd of crime scene officers, reluctant to start their jobs, standing far away from the perimeter of the crime scene.
‘Have you ever—’ DS Ian Turner didn’t finish his sentence as he began to dry heave, his eyes turning red and beginning to water.
‘No, I haven’t,’ Rhimes replied. He placed the handkerchief back against his mouth and nose and walked towards the body. It was obviously a woman, but he wasn’t sure about the age. The body had been wrapped in a clear plastic sheet but that didn’t stop the gases from the decomposing flesh and organs from rising like steam into the air. Rhimes crouched, careful that his knees didn’t touch the ground.
‘Can you see it?’ Rhimes asked Turner. ‘Her face.’
‘Hard to miss,’ Turner replied, coughing. ‘Do you think that it’s her? Chalmers. It looks like her, I think.’
‘Has to be,’ said Rhimes, leaning in and taking in the details of the woman’s face. He gently pushed the tip of his right index finger against her auburn hair. The hair was rigid as though it had been styled with gel. Rhimes ran his gloved finger along the track lines that had been left behind by a comb. There were dark red patches on her face where the skin had blistered and burst. Rhimes coughed deeply, the force rattling his rib bones as the hot repugnant air of death caught in the back of his throat. He quickly stood up, turned and walked towards the gaggle of officers who still hadn’t moved from their spot. Whether they liked it or not, it was time to get to work. Rhimes shook his head but there was nothing he could do to get rid of the image in his head. An image that would keep him up at night and pierce his dreams for the next five years. The image of the woman’s eyes and mouth sewn shut with thick black thread.
Two Weeks Later …
He squeezed. Placed his hands around her neck and squeezed. She was too weak to fight back. Too weak to raise her hands and claw at his face, but he squeezed anyway. He didn’t want to kill her. Not yet, but he needed her to know that she had no power. That he was the one in control. He could feel the jugular vein in her neck thicken as her pulse became erratic, her blood frantically struggling to find a clear route to her brain. There was no gasping for air but more of a strangulated, violent choking as the muscles around her voice box pulsated against his fingers. He didn’t want her dead, but he could see that she was close, edging towards the dark void. There was power in that moment as he watched her. He squeezed tighter and waited for something to stir inside of him. He should have felt something: fear, ecstasy, or empathy. But there was nothing.
Her bloodshot eyes had squinted at first, trying to adjust to the poor light, but then they had widened as she tried to force her lips to push aside the dirty rag wrapped tightly around her mouth. He enjoyed seeing the fear in her eyes, and how the feeling of power increased the adrenalin and the dopamine in his body. The silent pleading, the initial fight when he removed their clothing and then the inevitable acceptance as he felt their muscles slacken in defeat … it was enough. He thought that being inside their bodies would be what he wanted but it wasn’t. This wasn’t about sexual satisfaction; it was about control, and right now he was the one in control.
There was another one in the room. He’d turned his head to check that she was still curled in the foetal position. He’d been careful with the amount of GHB he had given her. Just the right amount to make her docile, but not too much to risk killing her.
He turned his attention back to the woman in front of him. There was beauty in that moment. The spiralling of the thin threads of blood breaking through the dull whiteness of her eyes. That he could appreciate. The brief respite of tenderness in the savagery. Two more seconds and that would be it. The heart would give up. But that wasn’t the plan.
He let go.
He watched as she fell to the ground like a spineless doll; too weak to even let instinct take over and force her hands to meet the ground to break her fall. He stepped back and listened to the sounds of her throat muscles releasing and violently swallowing the stale oxygen in the air. It looked even more painful than when the life was being squeezed out of her. He took a step forward, reached down and grabbed the crown of her hair. The long brown and blonde strands which had glowed like a halo in the setting summer sun now felt like straw in his hand. He dragged her towards the back of the room, not realising that the gag had slipped from around her mouth.
‘Please … please,’ she begged weakly.
‘Don’t do that. Don’t beg,’ he said softly, as though soothing a baby back to sleep. He looked across at her neighbour, asleep in the corner. He looked up at the light bulb and thought about changing it to something brighter. There was safety in the darkness but imagine the torture of being in a room that was brightly lit. What was that phrase that his dad would always say?
It’s the hope that kills you.
‘Come on. Stand up.’
He didn’t hide his face. He wanted them to see him. To be their last memory.
‘We’re … go … you’re letting me go?’ she asked, her words slurred.
He smiled. He could see it. The hope in her eyes.
He made her walk to her shallow grave. In the darkness he could sense the anticipation in her muscles as she walked slowly across disturbed ground, her wrists tied with rope, barefooted. There was always a moment of hesitation when they suddenly smelled the salt in the air, heard the waves breaking against the beach and the aggressive cry of seagulls. The woman’s screams joined the seagulls’ cries as he pushed her into the three-foot-deep hole. He jumped into the grave, grabbed her fighting feet and quickly wrapped silver duct tape around her ankles. She continued to scream when he pulled himself out of the grave and picked up a shovel.
‘Deep breath,’ he said, breathing in the sea air himself. He could see dawn beginning to break in the distance. The pale blue light a faded bruise against the black sky.
‘Deep breath,’ he said again, urgently shovelling dirt into the shallow gravel, ignoring the coughing and frantic shaking of the woman’s head. The earth continued to fall, burying her alive.
If he’d been paying attention, then he would have realised that the girl he’d left behind in the room wasn’t really asleep. If he hadn’t become so lost in his task, he would have known that the girl had been determinedly loosening the ropes around her wrists after he’d left the house with the other woman. If he hadn’t become lost in the rhythmic sounds of the crashing waves and the hypnotic task of the burial, he would have realised that the girl in the room had escaped the house and was running barefoot across the sharp gravel, away from the sea, and away from him.
8
Present Day – 1 June
Henley turned on the television in the living room and the radio in the kitchen to bring some life to her empty house. For the first time in months, she had left work early only to find her dog, Luna, asleep in a sunspot in the living room and a note that Rob had pinned to the fridge letting her know he’d taken Emma to the cinema and that he hadn’t had time to cook. Henley winced as her once broken ankle started to throb as she limped across the kitchen towards the fridge. She had a firm plan. To pour herself a large glass of Chenin Blanc, order a Chinese takeaway and to finally read the letters that Andrew Streeter had sent her. She’d thought about telling Rob or Linh about the letters, but she knew what would have happened. Linh would have told her to burn the letters and Rob would have dragged her to therapy and repeated his cries that Henley was unwilling to draw a line between her personal and professional life.
‘Everything will be fine,’ Henley said aloud, picking up her glass of wine. She shoved the letters under her armpit, opened the French doors and walked into the garden with a now-awake Luna trailing behind her. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been able to sit alone in her garden with the warm air tickling the small hairs on the back of her neck while she listened to the rhythm of the streets in her part of Brockley. Police sirens, car horns and snatched pieces of conversations of a city that grew louder as the days grew longer.
‘I suppose I should be grateful that you didn’t write to me at home,’ Henley muttered, reaching for the first letter.
23 April
HMP Ruxley
Dear Detective Inspector Henley,
You’re probably surprised to be hearing from me. I’ve started and rewritten this letter four times. I know that writing this letter is the right thing to do but understandably I would be a fool to believe that you would want to hear from me. You’ve got two options when you’re in prison for life. You can humble yourself and try to change in order to live with yourself, or spend the next however long you’ve got being angry. I am angry. My life has been stolen from me.
I need to see you. There are things I need to say to you that need to be said in person. I have no right to privacy, which means that at least five people read this letter before it made its way out of the prison post. I know you can book a social visit to see me online, but I’ve also enclosed a visiting order. I know that these are for social visits and that you could visit me in your professional capacity as a detective, but I wanted to give you options, especially when I don’t have any.
Sincerely,
Andrew Streeter
Prison No: 90865YL
15 May
HMP Ruxley
Dear Anjelica,
I’ve been thinking a lot about what my last words might be. ‘I am an innocent man.’ I’m not going to waste time by asking why you haven’t replied to my letter or come to see me.
Could you please visit me urgently? By now, my lawyer would have told you of my application to the CCRC for my case to be reviewed and, God willing, overturned by the Court of Appeal. I would like to be given the opportunity to have a life outside. I was only 23 when I was sent to prison. Can you remember what you were doing when you were 23, when you thought you had all the time in the world? I’ll be 48 years old in a couple of months. I would like you to take my age into consideration when you weigh up the pros and cons of visiting me. We both have nothing to lose and everything to gain by this visit taking place. There are no cons. This is not even transactional. I just want to talk to you, face to face. This could be career making, if you’re the type of person who cares about their professional reputation, but even if you’re not, then think about me. An innocent man serving life for another man’s crime.
Regards,
Andrew
Prison No: 90865YL
Henley read the letter again and wondered if someone in the prison had written the letter for him. It was difficult to reconcile Andrew Streeter the murderer with the beautiful penmanship displayed on the rough sheet of prison paper. Henley picked up the third letter that Joanna had handed to her. She felt her heart gathering pace as she read Streeter’s words. The third letter was shorter. Urgent. To the point. He needed to see her.
Henley picked up her glass of wine and swallowed the rest of the now warm wine in one gulp. In that moment all she wanted was to run away. To finally give in to Rob’s demands to jack in the job. She tried to imagine an easier life, one that revolved around a normal nine-to-five. But she couldn’t see it. And she knew that stepping one foot into that kind of life would kill her.
Henley picked up her phone and opened up her contacts. There hadn’t been many times where she’d been able to predict her life was about to be turned upside down, but as she listened to the dial tone of HMP Ruxley, she knew deep in her gut that everything she had believed in was about to change.
9
‘It’s nice here, isn’t it? Like being at the seaside,’ Streeter said, easing himself carefully onto the wooden bench. ‘I was too ill to appreciate it when I first arrived. I was busy concentrating on not dying, but now that I’m in remission. I have a second chance.’
If Henley hadn’t seen the large blue-and-white sign confirming her arrival at Ruxley Prison for herself, she would have been inclined to believe him. A cluster of small boats was bobbing away in the harbour, and the sound of seagulls screeching buzzed over her head. The only things missing were an ice cream in her hand, Emma building sandcastles and Luna playing in the crashing waves. It wasn’t lost on Henley that every fantasy of a different life didn’t include Rob.
‘How did you of all people end up in an open prison?’ Henley asked, sitting down on the opposite side of the picnic table.
‘Let’s just say it was a series of fortunate events.’ Streeter winced as the plastic tube connected to his cannula and to the drip hooked on a stand behind him grew taut when it became tangled around his wrist. Henley saw the plaster on Streeter’s left hand wrinkle as the cannula pulled at the skin. ‘I keep doing that,’ he said, gently untangling the tube.
‘You didn’t answer my question,’ said Henley.
‘I’d been at HMP Cornwell Hill for the past fourteen years. Ten years at Belmarsh and then they transferred me out to the middle of nowhere. Not that it matters. A cell is a cell. Anyway, about eighteen months ago, the cancer kicked in. I fought it once, thought that I was in the clear but then it came back and I got really sick, so sick that they had to send me to Medway Maritime Hospital for treatment. When they thought I was going to kick the bucket, they sent me to Ruxley because they have rooms here, not cells – but rooms on the hospital wing for end-of-life and respite care. They thought I was dying. I thought I was on my way out too, but then … I don’t know, call it a miracle or the sea air.’
