‘I know what you mean, I think this is personal, very personal. It also bears similarities to some of the murders committed by Richard Cottingham the Times Square Torso Killer. He killed prostitutes and would butcher them in hotel rooms, cutting off their hands, breasts and heads then set them on fire.’
Ben’s mouth fell open, she heard Cain whisper, ‘Jesus, Morgan.’
She stopped and looked around the room, everyone was staring at her. But she couldn’t help it, her fascination with true crime and cold cases would creep into investigations, and it hadn’t done them any harm up to now, in fact if anything it helped them catch the killers. She continued, ‘I’m not saying that this is the case here, I’m just stating the similarities, but it’s quite obvious this isn’t something a killer would walk in off the street and do. For a start they would know that they needed three bags, three lengths of rope. They would have had to have watched the family for some time, so they knew when the best time was to kill them. One of the neighbours said that Sally always worked late on a Thursday, that gave them time to take out David and Tim before Sally got home; and I noticed Sally was wearing a silver crucifix necklace and a ring on her left hand, so it wasn’t a burglary gone wrong.’
Ben was scratching the side of his face. ‘A crucifix? That’s odd, she wasn’t religious. Even made some comments when we were catching up. Let’s make sure Wendy bags that up. So why do you think Sally was killed last?’
Amy pulled a small gold crucifix on a delicate chain out of her shirt. ‘You don’t actually have to be religious to wear one. I love my little necklace, it was a present from my gran. Sally’s might have been a gift from someone.’
Morgan hesitated; she didn’t know if this was right, but it felt right to her. They might laugh and poke fun at her because she enjoyed reading true crime books and listening to podcasts about it, but at least she had an open mind when it came to the motives of killers.
‘I think whoever did this had an issue with Sally, they wanted to kill her last so she could see that her entire family was already dead before she died. Torture her in the worst possible way, just before they killed her.’
Al was now staring at Morgan along with the rest of the room, making her squirm a little in her seat but she stood her ground. ‘At least that’s my theory.’
‘Sally was the target, David and Tim were in the way?’
‘Basically, yes. The killer waited for her to come home. If they only wanted David or Tim, they could have left before Sally arrived.’
Nigel was nodding his head. ‘Looking at their house, lifestyle, I would put their victim risk factor as low. I can’t see that the life they led put them in the high or medium risk category and caused them to be the victims of crime, well not unless you find out something that contradicts this. I agree that this appears to be something very personal.’
‘We need a timeline of events, let’s watch Maggie’s camera footage and see who came home first, what time it was and if anyone was loitering around in the street or if they had already gained access to the house. The killer didn’t leave out the front door, so they must have run across the school fields at the back of the house. Maybe they also gained entry to the property that way.’
‘Amy, can you go to the school and ask to view their CCTV footage? Find out where the cameras are, and see if you can gain access to the playing fields without crossing the school playground. Then I want you to have a walk around the field and see if there are any gaps in the bushes that the killer could have used to get in or out.’
She looked down at her watch. ‘Okay, but then I’m going to need to be back here at dinner to get ready and get to Mrs Black’s house for the funeral.’
Morgan realised that Ben had forgot all about Des’s funeral in a few hours, so tied up with trying to solve this case and bringing Sally’s killer to justice.
‘Of course, we’re all going to need to do that. You do what you can, Amy, and then get yourself off. Morgan, you’re going to have to stay here and be my video monitor, you can’t go hobbling around on that ankle all day. Is that okay?’
He was wearing an expression of worry and she knew he was waiting for her to object.
‘Of course, that’s fine.’
‘It is?’
She nodded, watching as he breathed out a small sigh of relief, wondering if she was usually too hard on him and deciding that she wasn’t. She liked to be in the middle of things, but she’d clean the office, stack the papers and sort out the filing cabinets if Ben asked her to, because at least it meant she was here, back where she belonged, instead of feeling like a fish out of water down in Barrow.
‘I’ll get the PCSOs to carry out extensive house-to-house and CCTV enquiries focusing on Hest Bank Road to begin with. Once we have the relevant footage secured, we can start watching it. The good news is there is no shortage of houses with cameras and Ring doorbells; the bad news is we are drastically short of officers to sit and view it. I’ll figure something out though.’
Marc stood up. ‘This afternoon is going to be a hard one for anyone attending Des’s funeral; if you’re taking part in the guard of honour then please make sure you’re back in time to get yourself ready and get to the cemetery.’
Morgan felt sad that Des’s funeral was only at the crematorium and not at the church, but it was hardly fitting to hold his funeral in the very place they had found his body. Too painful, without putting his poor mum and everyone else through that. Besides she didn’t get the impression Des was a very religious man; at least this way it wouldn’t be a long, drawn-out affair. Then she scolded herself for even thinking like that, the least they could do was to give him a good send-off. He deserved it, he had died on the job even though he did his best to avoid working. She thought about his cat, Kevin, and hoped he was okay whilst they were out at work. Did cats know when their owners had died or were they as ruthless as they seemed, only caring about whoever it was with a fresh pouch of food and someone to rub behind their ears?
‘Morgan, are you good to print out some questionnaires for the PCSOs?’
She nodded; of course she could, anything to keep her mind off Des until she really had no choice but to face him for the final time.
EIGHT
They all went their separate ways: Amy left to go to the school, Al and his team following, ready to head in the direction of the Lawsons’ house and begin a painstaking fingertip search of the back garden and school playing field for any discarded evidence. Wendy escorted Nigel back down to her office, no doubt to come up with a detailed plan of how they were going to approach the scene. Marc left too and Morgan wondered what on earth he got up to and where he went every time he dashed out of the station. He either had his own stash of case files he followed up on, more meetings than anyone should, or he was having an affair with someone, which was the usual reason colleagues disappeared mid shift without a valid excuse. She didn’t care as long as he left her alone.
Ben turned to her. ‘I’ve spoken to Will, who kindly offered to attend David and Sally’s post-mortems today. I don’t want to put them off because of Des. I still can’t reconcile the lively, bubbly woman with the corpse we discovered. Would you be able to attend Tim’s with me though? Kids are hard to watch.’
‘Of course, do you want me to go with Will today?’
Morgan hated funerals. For someone who was only twenty-four she’d been to more than she cared to think about, and then she realised she was being utterly selfish; she couldn’t leave Ben to go on his own. He’d had his fair share too over the years.
