Little Boy Blue

110

Helen hadn’t wanted to leave Angelique like that, but she’d had no choice. She could hardly call it in, so instead she had deliberately left the front door open. She had no doubt that one of Angelique’s neighbours would notice and investigate further. It wasn’t ideal and might delay her discovery for a few hours, but there was no other way. Helen couldn’t risk incriminating herself and, besides, she had work to do.

She had lowered the blind and turned off her phone. The whole of the kitchen table was covered in papers and files – the sum total of their work on these murders so far. She had the strong sense that they had been looking the wrong way the whole time, guided to do so by a killer who was organized, diligent and determined. Helen blamed herself – she had been wilfully blind to the growing evidence in front of her, burying her personal connection to the victims because it was inconvenient and unsettling. By retrieving her private phone, by summoning her to the third murder, the killer had let it be known that he would not let her involvement with Jake, Max and the unfortunate Angelique remain hidden.

Helen had a growing sense of who might be responsible, but she refused to let paranoia guide her thinking. She had to follow the evidence, focusing on the choice of victims, the manner of their deaths and the way their killer had gone about organizing these murders. The devil was in the detail in these cases and Helen returned once more now to Charlie’s credit card searches.

This was their killer’s only weak point, the one area where he might show his hand. They now had a third victim to work with and two new instruments of torture – Japanese soft cord bondage ties and a ball gag – which had presumably been purchased for the occasion.

Helen knew that their perpetrator favoured online bondage retailers so, plugging into the police network via remote access, she started to run the searches. She eschewed the chain sex shops in favour of the more boutique operations. And before long she found what she was looking for – the necessary items paid for by a Geoffrey Plough, an 87-year-old former teacher, now living in Shirley. He was an unlikely recipient for S &M products, but more telling still was the fact that the delivery address did not match Plough’s. The items had instead been delivered to a vacant retail outlet in Woolston.

Helen didn’t hesitate now, emailing Plough’s bank and using her name and reputation in the subsequent phone call to persuade the manager to release the necessary information to her. Moments later, her home printer was spewing out Plough’s debit card activity for the last three months.

Helen was excited to see that the list of transactions was fairly short. Whereas the other two credit card victims were keen shoppers, spending frequently at a large number of stores and sites, Plough was parsimonious. He presumably didn’t have much in the way of income, given his meagre spending, and he didn’t seem to shop online, preferring face-to-face transactions. He was also a man who didn’t like to go too far afield. Most of his purchases were made locally in Shirley and he was clearly a repeat customer. One location particularly stood out – one he seemed to visit daily. Wilkinson’s on Park Street.

Helen knew that Wilkinson’s had figured on the other fraud victims’ transaction lists and she pulled them from the files now. Her finger ran down one, then the next and sure enough both had been regular shoppers at the same store.

Which is where Helen was heading now. If she was right, the answer to this deadly game of riddles was waiting for her there.