Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [reading in the dark TXT] 📗

fucking song. Pride Parade? What is he, gay? I know he married a fuckin’ Jewess and he has Jewish fuckin’ kids! Now stop wasting my fuckin’ time and get the hell out of here!”

“Thanks Brad, Catch you later.”

I switched it off and held up the phone. “This man is not obsessed with Don McLean or his song.” I pointed at the scans. “He did not write those notes.” I sat back in my chair. “He killed Hattie, but he did not kill those girls.”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly and noisily. “Let’s follow the evidence and see where it leads us.”

“You got my vote.”

We stood. He stared at me a moment, then said, “If you’re right, and I am not saying that you are, but if you are, it means we have three killers. Brad Johnson, who killed Hattie, an unknown killer who killed those four American girls, and Katie’s killer, also unknown, who is trying to frame the original killer.”

I nodded. “That is the way I see it, Harry.”

“It’s a nightmare. I doesn’t bear thinking about.”

I smiled. “But thinking about it is exactly what we are going to have to do. It has many implications. It gets complex, Harry, very complex. Listen, can you email me the original Butcher file?”

He nodded and picked up his internal phone. “Have a copy of the Butcher of Whitechapel case sent to Detective Stone’s email address. Thanks.” He hung up. “Right, let’s go.”

We stepped out of his office and in among the cubicles and partitions where the ordinary detectives worked. We crossed the large room and took the elevator down to the parking garage. As we descended, we stood in silence, each in our own thoughts. Then, as the elevator stopped and the doors opened, Dehan said, “We need to know what details of the original crimes were given out to the press. Did you hold anything back?”

We crossed through the semi-dark toward Harry’s car. The lights flashed and the beep echoed through the underground caverns. He pulled open the driver’s door and stood biting his lip.

Dehan said, “Right now, we have a pool of suspects of at least eight million people, maybe more. But if there was something repeated in Katie’s murder that was not public knowledge, then that narrows it right down to anyone involved in the investigation.”

I leaned on the roof. “Or intimately acquainted with the killer.”

She nodded, looked at me, and nodded again. As we pulled out onto the Victoria Embankment, Harry wedged his phone into a cradle on the dash and said, “Patel!”

We heard it ring over the sound system, then a voice said, “Hi, boss, ’sup?”

“I want you to look up every article that was published on the Butcher of Whitechapel. I want to know exactly what was released to the press.”

“Am I looking for anything in particular?”

“Yeah…”  He looked at Dehan in the mirror. “Consistencies between Katie and the original four that were not reported. Do you understand?”

There was a moment’s silence. Then Patel said, “So we are saying that this is a different killer?”

“Bright boy. But, Pat? Keep this under your hat. If I find anyone has got wind of this, I’ll skin you alive and feed you to my children, understood?”

“Gotcha, boss. I’m on it.”

Dehan was quiet for a moment, then asked, “So, you have nice kids, huh?”

With no trace of humor, Harry replied, “Keep’em hungry, keep’em keen.”

We made a big loop, then drove down Whitehall to Milbank, past Parliament Square and the Palace of Westminster, and followed the river Thames for twenty minutes in a steady flow of heavy traffic. Gradually, the trees and gardens became more abundant and the buildings became smaller, and soon we turned right, in among residential streets of elegant, Georgian houses with stoops and sash windows that were vaguely reminiscent of parts of New York.

Eventually, we pulled up outside a large, red brick house, with the first floor painted in brilliant white and a large, rubber plant tree shading a short path to the front door. We followed Harry down that path and he rang the bell. It was opened after a moment by a blonde, young woman in pink shorts and bare feet, who was wearing a blue sweatshirt and a worried expression.

“Are you the police?”

He showed her his badge. “Detective Inspector Harry Green, miss, and these are Detectives Stone and Dehan from New York. They are accompanying me in this investigation. May we come in?”

“Of course.” She stepped back and pointed to an invisible door. “Through there. Would you like some tea?”

She showed us through to a big, airy living room with calico sofas and armchairs and plates, mugs and pizza boxes on the floor. She hastily started gathering them up while fingering un-brushed hair from her face. “Grab a seat, I’ll put the kettle on, sorry…!”

She left the room. I saw Dehan glance at her watch. It was six PM, but still bright outside. We heard water gushing into a kettle, and a moment later, the blonde girl came back and sat next to Dehan on the sofa. “I didn’t get much sleep last night. It’s a bit worrying, isn’t it?”

Harry smiled like a kind uncle. “Are you Sarah Hamilton?”

“Oh, yes, sorry! Should have said. Not really myself…”

Dehan observed her through slightly narrowed eyes. “You are Katie’s roommate?”

“No! Heavens no! We share the whole house. I’m more of a housemate. I mean, it’s her house. He father bought it for her. But I help to cover the bills, and the council tax is just awful!” She looked at Harry and muttered, “We’ve been friends forever.”

Dehan smiled. “That’s nice. Have you got a photograph of her?”

“Gosh, yes!”

I had already seen them. There were four of them on the bookcases that had been built into the