The Killing Habit Read online

  ‘Tell us about that,’ Thorne said.

  ‘We were matched on a dating website. I told your colleagues all this first thing this morning.’

  Tanner glanced down. ‘That would be… Made In Heaven?’

  Cooper nodded.

  ‘How does that work?’ Thorne asked.

  ‘Well, it’s not exactly rocket science. I mean, plenty of people do it. You just register your details, answer a questionnaire that takes half an hour, pay them a monthly fee and they send you matches.’

  ‘So, what exactly were you looking for, Gavin?’

  For the first time, Cooper appeared uncomfortable. ‘Come on, what’s anybody who does this looking for?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Thorne said. ‘True love? Companionship? Sex?’

  Stacey Poole shifted in her seat.

  ‘I was looking for a partner,’ Cooper said. ‘I still am. I got divorced six years ago and I’d like to be with someone.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t think there’s anything strange or… shameful about that. I know that most relationships start at work statistically, but there’s not a lot of romance in chemical engineering, and I’m way too old for clubbing or any of that nonsense. So, I just thought, why not?’

  Tanner smiled. ‘Maybe I should try it myself.’ She turned a page. ‘So, you were matched with Alice Matthews…’

  ‘Yes. We exchanged a few messages on the site, then moved across to private emails.’

  ‘How many emails did you send her?’ Thorne asked.

  ‘Half a dozen, maybe.’

  ‘What were they about?’

  ‘Just chat to begin with… families, hobbies, whatever. Then once we agreed to meet, it was just about making the arrangements. What kind of food did we both like, where we should go.’

  ‘So, you met Alice Matthews for the first and only time eight nights ago on April the nineteenth, after you’d booked a table at the La Cucina restaurant in Amersham. Is that correct?’

  Cooper said that it was.

  ‘How did that go?’

  ‘It was… nice. She was nice. I still can’t believe anyone would want to hurt her. She was lovely.’

  ‘Not lovely enough though.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘For you, I mean?’

  ‘Not in that way… no. We didn’t really click.’

  ‘Did you think she was attractive?

  ‘Yes, but —’

  ‘Did you think she was sexy?’

  ‘Well, she wasn’t really my —’

  ‘Were you hoping you might end up in bed together? Did you suggest it?’

  Cooper was looking rattled suddenly and Poole reached over to lay a hand on his arm. ‘You don’t have to answer any of these questions, Gavin.’

  ‘No, you don’t have to,’ Thorne said. ‘But I thought you were keen to help.’

  ‘Look, we got on really well, all right? We talked all the way through the meal, we had a laugh, but there wasn’t… you know, there was no…’

  ‘Spark?’ Tanner suggested.

  ‘Right, and it was obvious we both thought the same thing.’

  Thorne nodded. ‘So, what happened afterwards?’

  Cooper shrugged. ‘We went home. Well, I presume she went home… I read about what happened in the papers, obviously. I paid the bill and we walked out to the car park together and said goodnight. We said we’d keep in touch. I got in my car and drove home.’

  ‘You went straight home? Is there anyone who can confirm that?’

  ‘I live alone.’

  ‘Do you have any neighbours who might be able to confirm what time you got in?’

  ‘Possibly, you’d need to ask.’ Cooper shook his head. ‘But aren’t there ways you can check all this?’

  Poole sat forward. ‘Of course there are. Automatic number plate recognition, mobile phone data.’ She looked at Thorne. ‘I presume all this is in hand.’

  ‘Right,’ Cooper said. ‘You can check where my phone was, can’t you?’

  ‘Yes, and we will. Could you give us your mobile number?’

  ‘If you want. I have two phones, actually.’

  Tanner nodded, as if she was impressed. ‘You’re not dealing drugs on the side are you, Gavin?’

  Cooper barked out a humourless laugh. ‘I have one phone for work and another for private use. Same as a lot of people.’

  ‘Could you let us have those numbers?’

  Cooper reeled them off, then stared at Thorne, waiting.

  ‘Have you had other dates through Made In Heaven?’

  ‘A few.’

  ‘None that worked out though?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Cooper said. ‘It can take a while. Some people aren’t always what they claim to be.’

  ‘Are you?’

  Poole opened her mouth, but Cooper got in first. ‘Yes, I think so. I mean, everyone exaggerates a bit, I suppose, and nobody says that they’re fat and ugly with bad breath, do they? But I certainly didn’t claim to be George Clooney.’

  ‘Have you ever gone on a date with any of these women?’ Thorne looked at him as he quietly spoke the names of the three victims they believed had been killed by the man who had murdered Alice Matthews.

  Patricia Somersby, Annette Mangan, Leila Fadel.

  Cooper shook his head. ‘No. I think I was matched with an Annette a month or so ago, but not with that surname.’

  ‘We’re going a bit further back than that,’ Thorne said. ‘Could you tell us what you were doing on October ninth and thirtieth, last year?’

  ‘Not off the top of my head. Can you?’

  ‘How about December twenty-eighth, last year?’

  ‘Well, not specifically,’ Cooper said. ‘But I can check. I’d need to call the company, get them to look at my work diary.’

  ‘That would be very helpful.’

  Cooper looked at his watch.

  ‘Are we keeping you?’

  ‘I’m just trying to work out the time difference. It’s probably still too early.’

  Thorne looked at him.

  ‘In Toronto. Still a few hours before anyone gets in.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘That’s where I was working,’ Cooper said. ‘I was on secondment to an arm of the company based over there.’ He relaxed suddenly, seeing the look on Thorne’s face, sensing immediately that he had inadvertently produced his get out of jail free card. ‘I only came back from Canada three months ago.’

  Cooper turned to Poole and shook his head as though he was dealing with incompetents. Muttered something, smiling. Thorne watched Tanner close her notebook, then reached across to turn off the recorder.

  THIRTY-THREE

  The matchmaking business conducted by the Made In Heaven agency appeared to take place exclusively online, so Dipak Chall spent fifteen minutes trawling through company databases before he was able to find a phone number. Even then, the woman who answered his call immediately attempted to direct him back to the agency’s website.

  Chall interrupted and informed her that he was a police officer.

  ‘Oh, well, that’s good,’ she said. ‘Bit of a cliché, I know, but plenty of our female clients have a thing for a man in uniform.’

  ‘I don’t wear a uniform,’ Chall said, ‘and I’m not calling because I’m interested in your services. I’m calling to enquire about two of your clients, Alice Matthews and Gavin Cooper.’

  ‘Right…’

  ‘Can I start by asking you to confirm that these people are registered with your agency?’

  ‘Well, I don’t recognise the names,’ the woman said. ‘But we have got rather a lot of clients, and anyway, I’m afraid —’

  ‘So, can you check if —?’

  ‘I was saying… we’re members of the Dating Agency Association, so we have to comply with the requirements of the Information Commissioner’s Office and the Data Protection Act.’

  ‘Yes, but, once again, my name is Detective Sergeant Dipak Chall and —’

  ‘Thing is, I can’t jus
t give that kind of information out over the phone. I mean, you should know that.’

  Chall looked across to see Yvonne Kitson watching him. He shook his head. ‘I understand that, but I have to tell you that I’m part of a team investigating a homicide and it’s our belief that the victim was registered with your agency.’

  There were a few seconds of silence. ‘One of the people you mentioned?’

  ‘That’s correct. Alice Matthews was murdered just over a week ago.’

  He heard the woman sigh before she said, ‘Bloody hell, not again.’

  Chall sat forward immediately, raising his hand and waving Yvonne Kitson over. He picked up a pen and reached to drag a sheet of paper across his desk.

  ‘Sorry… could you repeat that?’

  THIRTY-FOUR

  From a window in a first floor stairwell, Thorne and Tanner looked down and watched Gavin Cooper and his sister-in-law climb into the same car that had brought them. As the Volvo eased out of the car park, Thorne turned away and leaned back against the wall.

  He said, ‘I’d’ve been happy to let the smug wanker take the bus.’

  ‘It was never going to be that easy,’ Tanner said. ‘You didn’t really believe it was him, did you?’

  ‘I hoped it would be.’

  ‘Well, course you did.’ She took a small make-up pouch from her bag and opened a compact. She frowned and ran fingers through her hair, which she had been fussing with all morning. ‘I knew he wasn’t our man the second he walked in.’

  ‘No, you didn’t.’ Thorne looked at her. ‘And since when did you think hunches mean anything?’

  ‘I don’t.’ Tanner put her make-up away. ‘He didn’t really strike me as being very bright, that’s all.’

  ‘Bright?’

  ‘OK, then… capable of what this man’s done.’ She took a few steps up towards the Operations Room, then turned. ‘Come on, we’ve got a lot of work to do. I know how much you wanted this sorted quickly, but it’s not going to happen, so now’s exactly when we need to get our nuts down.’

  Thorne knew Tanner was right; how stupid he’d been even thinking that the man they were after was going to present himself to them, tied up in a nice neat bow. Yes, he’d been given a bloody nose in that interview room, but he’d had plenty of them before, because they were an occupational hazard and the damage was rarely permanent.

  It was what happened when you ran straight into a brick wall.

  ‘It can’t just be a coincidence, though.’ Thorne stepped up to follow Tanner. ‘Alice Matthews meeting a stranger for dinner on the night she was killed.’

  ‘It’s unlikely,’ Tanner said. ‘But that still might be exactly what it is.’

  Thorne shook his head. ‘The other victims were all single women, who’d had some kind of communication, texts or emails, that the killer didn’t want us to find, right?’ Tanner nodded and they kept on climbing. ‘Annette Mangan’s friend had an idea she was meeting someone and so did Leila Fadel’s mother. So, Gavin Cooper can have alibis coming out of his arse, but him meeting Alice that night still feels to me like it’s part of this somehow.’ They paused for a few moments at the door. ‘The picture on that box of yours…’

  They walked into the Operations room to see Dipak Chall deep in conversation with Yvonne Kitson, before glancing up when they came in and instantly raising a hand. Tanner led the way over to them, recognising a look on her DS’s face that Thorne was less familiar with.

  News. Good or bad.

  ‘I talked to a woman at that website,’ Chall said. ‘The one Cooper was registered with.’

  Thorne leaned against the desk. ‘Yeah, well, it’s academic now. Cooper’s in the clear.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And sorry for being a twat earlier, by the way. I know everyone’s knocking their pipes out.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Chall said.

  ‘Why is it academic?’ Tanner looked at Thorne. ‘Not a coincidence, you said.’

  ‘It isn’t a coincidence.’ Chall raised the papers he was clutching.

  ‘Put it this way,’ Kitson said. ‘It would be amazing if it was.’

  Thorne and Tanner looked at them.

  ‘In June last year, a woman called Karen Butcher was murdered.’ Chall stabbed at the papers in his hand. ‘Strangled to death at home in Coventry. She was registered with Made In Heaven, and matched with a man named Terry Summers, who was eventually charged with killing her.’

  ‘Charged?’ Tanner looked at him. ‘Was he convicted?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Kitson said.

  Thorne opened his mouth and closed it again, then pointed towards his office and walked away. Chall, Kitson and Tanner quickly followed and once Tanner had closed the door behind her, Thorne nodded, keen to hear the rest of it.

  This new development would, of course, be passed on to everyone involved in the investigation, but as the core team, it was important they process the information first, and it was clear that Chall had not finished.

  ‘Obviously, I’ve asked the woman at the website to check their records to see if Patricia Somersby and the other victims were also registered and she’s promised to come back to me, but in the meantime me and Yvonne have been looking into the Karen Butcher case.’

  ‘She had a date with Summers after the website matched them,’ Kitson said, ‘and was found dead the next morning. Summers had no alibi and they had DNA evidence of some kind —’

  ‘We don’t know the details,’ Chall said. ‘I’ve requested the file on the original investigation.’

  ‘Summers claimed all along that he had nothing to do with it, said he went home after he and Karen Butcher had gone out, but the jury weren’t having any of it and he was sent down for life.’

  Tanner pulled a chair across and dropped into it. ‘Shit.’

  ‘What?’ Thorne asked.

  ‘I only looked at unsolved cases.’

  ‘Well, course you did. That’s what I asked you to do.’

  ‘I should have been more thorough.’

  Thorne looked away. He knew there was little he could say that would stop Tanner beating herself up about this perceived failure. She seemed almost as good at it as he was. He turned back to Kitson and Chall. ‘Right. Sounds like we should go and have a word with Terry Summers. He can’t have had anything to do with the more recent murders, but let’s see if he still says he wasn’t responsible for the first one.’

  ‘Problem,’ Chall said.

  ‘Summers never stopped protesting his innocence,’ Kitson said. ‘Right up until he hanged himself in Wakefield six months ago.’

  Now, Thorne dragged a chair across. Kitson and Chall leaned back against desks. Clearly deciding that if there was more self-flagellation to be done she would do it later, alone and in private, it was Tanner who broke the silence.

  ‘OK, so now we’ve got a picture that’s starting to make sense,’ she said.

  ‘Really?’ Thorne sat back and stretched out his legs.

  ‘Let’s suppose that Terry Summers was innocent.’

  ‘What about the DNA?’ Chall asked.

  ‘Well, we don’t know what that is yet. Whether there was a mistake made in processing it. How easy it might have been to fake, or plant.’

  Thorne, Chall and Kitson stared at her, while a wash of something like inspiration passed quickly across her face, then a grimace of doubt and, finally, a flash of possibility.

  ‘Now, that’s how to hide a pattern,’ she said. ‘He kills his first victim, and provides the police… somehow… with the most obvious suspect on a plate. Then, when he does it again, there’s no way they’re ever going to connect the two murders, because the first one is nicely done and dusted with the culprit safely locked up. Then he disguises another one as a burglary, he moves around the country, uses various means to hide the electronic evidence… he’s not made it easy, I’ll give him that much.’ Her eyes widened, as another crucial piece of the puzzle slotted into place. ‘And if anyone does make a conne
ction, even with one of the other murders, because of the way he does it there’s always going to be a perfect suspect front and centre.’

  ‘The likes of Gavin Cooper, you mean?’ Thorne said.

  Tanner nodded. ‘Whichever poor sod the victim happens to go on her date with.’ She sat back, clearly as happy as she could be with the picture. ‘He’s not just looking for the women he’s going to kill, he’s looking for the men they get matched up with. They need to fit the bill as well, because he needs ideal candidates to pin the murders on if he has to.’

  ‘So, how does he find them?’ Thorne asked. ‘He obviously knows when these people have been matched and somehow he finds out when and where they arrange to meet. I think it’s safe to say our dating site’s right in the middle of this…’

  ‘Maybe it’s someone who works for the website,’ Chall said.

  Thorne nodded, thinking.

  ‘Or he’s a hacker of some sort,’ Kitson said. ‘Hacks into the Made In Heaven website, sees who’s getting matched with who, then when he finds a couple he likes the look of he hacks their private emails so he knows the time and place they’re meeting up.’

  ‘Easier if it’s your own computer system,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Yvonne’s got a point though,’ Chall said. ‘We already know he’s computer-savvy, because he wiped the hard disk on Leila Fadel’s laptop. I mean, I wouldn’t know how to do that, would you?’

  ‘I’m not discounting anything,’ Thorne said. ‘But for now, get back on to that website and tell them we need to know if the other victims were on their books. Make some noises about shutting them down if you need to.’

  ‘Yeah, put the wind up them a bit,’ Kitson said. ‘And tell them we’ll be paying them a visit.’

  ‘No.’ Thorne and Tanner said it virtually simultaneously.

  Thorne stood up; buzzing again, that brick wall crumbling as suddenly as it had appeared. ‘Don’t tell them.’

  THIRTY-FIVE

  The counsellor – ‘call me Rob’ – told him their time was about up for the day, so Evans got up and walked to the door.

  ‘We’re well on the way,’ Rob said. ‘The physical withdrawal’s almost run its course. That’s only half the job, obviously, but you’ve got every reason to be proud of yourself.’