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  Quickly rising to her feet, Terri nods and cuts in. “I know. You’re right. I was out of line, and I’m not here for a fight. Last night, I let my emotions get the better of me when I should have just taken my bollocking on the chin.”

  Erin shakes her head dismissively. “Yes, you bloody well should have. And, more importantly, you should have told me about your encounter with Wilton the second you made the connection.”

  Pensive for a moment, she pauses briefly before quietly adding, “It wasn’t all you, though. I was wrong to make it personal. And I think if we’re going to continue working together, we both need to make more of an effort to keep things on a strictly professional level. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” Terri replies with a relieved and appreciative nod.

  “Okay, let’s say no more about it then. What’s that?” Erin asks, pointing to her desk.

  “A peace offering,” Terri says half-smiling and handing over a takeaway cup of coffee and a white paper bag. “Skinny cappuccino and a cheesy croissant from Roberto’s.”

  “You remembered?” Erin comments with a smile.

  “Of course I did. Come on now. Sit down and get this inside you,” Terri says gesturing to Erin’s seat. “While you eat, I’ll gather the troops in the meeting room. Shall we say fifteen minutes, boss?”

  Pleased to have cleared the air without too much drama, Erin smiles again. “That’s perfect. Keep it to the core team, though. Keep everyone else working on their current assignments. We need a breakthrough, and fast.”

  “Will do, boss. Do you want to include DI Gladwell in the meeting?”

  “Yes, please,” Erin replies. “Thanks, Terri. Oh, and thanks for the breakfast.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Terri says. “Make the most of it, though. By all accounts, the hotline has been going crazy. It may be a while before you get a chance to eat properly again.”

  . . . . . . . .

  Aside from DI Marchetti, the only other officers present in the room are DS Bolton, DS Cheeseman, DI Gladwell and DCs Thorne and Potter. Erin politely acknowledges each of them in turn before asking Gladwell for his update. “Any good news for us today, Malcolm?”

  Opening his notebook in his own typically eccentric and almost theatrical manner, Gladwell slowly shakes his head. “Nothing major that you don’t already know, ma’am, but I have carried out some additional tests on the claw hammer and can now say with absolute certainty that it is indeed the Singh murder weapon. The dimensions of the hammer head and the strike pattern are a perfect match to the wound on her skull and the trace DNA samples are 99.9 percent conclusive.”

  “That is good news,” Erin says. “What about Shelley Wilton? Could it also be the murder weapon in her case?”

  Carefully referring to his notes, Gladwell nods. “Yes, I believe it’s highly likely that she was killed with the same weapon. We don’t have any matching DNA evidence, but the strike pattern is another perfect match.”

  “Okay, that’s brilliant news,” Erin comments. “I thought you said you had nothing major that we didn’t already know about.

  Anyway, you’re way too modest, Malcom. This is a major development and it pretty much confirms now that we are indeed looking for a killer that has struck in both Manchester and Merseyside.”

  Clutching at straws and hoping for more good news, Erin then asks, “I don’t suppose you’ve also found something conclusive to link Wilton and Singh to Darren Pope’s murder?”

  This time, it’s no great surprise to anyone when Gladwell shakes his head.

  “Okay, what about the glove and the rest of the samples recovered from the crime scene?”

  “Nothing from the glove so far,” Gladwell responds, shaking his head again. “I am, though, looking into some new techniques for finding and extracting trace elements of DNA. They’re highly experimental at this point but worth a shot, I think. I’ll also be trying the same techniques on the unmatched lipstick and mascara samples recovered from Shreya Singh.”

  “So, nothing else new at this point?” Erin asks.

  “Nothing, but I’m confident it won’t be too long,” Gladwell says.

  His expression is less than convincing and Erin switches her attention to Potter and Thorne. “DI Marchetti tells me that the hotline has been going mad. Is that right?”

  Both officers nod, and DC Potter hands out copies of the call log summary. “As expected, ma’am, the first twelve hours have been extremely busy. All in all, the team have taken nearly six hundred calls from concerned members of the public with information relating either to our suspect or the hammer.

  “Amongst those calls, we’ve had the usual smattering of nut jobs and timewasters, including three different individuals offering to confess to all three of the murders.”

  “Any of them credible?” Erin asks.

  “No, ma’am. Two of them are serial confessors well-known to us and the third was from a pisshead working on an oil rig somewhere off the east coast of Scotland who picked up the story from the online edition.

  “He called the hotline at just after midnight last night to leave his confession, then called back in a panic this morning after sobering up and remembering what he’d done. According to him, he’d had one too many nips of Scotch after a shitty day and in his own words, he “thought it would be a good laugh.”

  Referring to the call transcript, Potter adds, “Oh, and “can’t we take a joke?”

  “Really?” Erin says. “I hope he still finds it funny when we charge him with wasting police time. Let’s have our colleagues in Scotland pick him up as soon as he gets back on dry land.”

  “Already arranged, ma’am,” Alice Thorne says with a smile.

  “Good.” Erin nods. “What else? Do we have anything credible worth looking into?”

  DC Potter smiles and hands Erin a sheet of A4 paper. “Yes, ma’am. This fella’s name came up six different times. He’s a Manchester-based mechanic and has previous for aggravated robbery, car theft and indecent exposure.”

  Erin carefully reads the rap sheet before handing it over to DI Marchetti. “One of his arrests was during your tenure on the robbery squad. You know him?”

  The face in the mug shot leaps from the page and recognition is instant. Shaking her head in a mixture of shock and disbelief, Terri hands the rap sheet back to Erin.

  “Know him? It was me that bloody arrested and charged him for the aggravated robbery. It wasn’t quite what—”

  Terri is interrupted by a barely concealed snigger from Tony Bolton, who mutters to himself, “Seriously, this just gets better and better.”

  “Meaning what exactly?” DI Marchetti snaps dismissively.

  Pleased to have got her back up and knowing it will annoy her even more, Tony smirks and says, “Meaning, ma’am, that in addition to having a direct connection to one of our victims, you also now have a direct connection to a potential suspect.”

  Turning to Erin, he sarcastically adds, “We already know where DI Marchetti was on the night that Shelley Wilton died. But given this latest development, I think maybe we should also be asking her where she was on Boxing Day last year when Darren Pope was murdered and where she was on St. Paddy’s Day when Shreya Singh had her face ripped off.”

  Gladwell, Thorne and Potter clearly have no idea what Tony is alluding to, but before Erin can close him down, Terri angrily goes on the offensive. “Not that it’s any of your bloody business, DS Bolton, but I was home with family on Boxing Day, and I was out with friends on St. Patrick’s Day. The bigger question should be, where you were on Boxing Day, Tony? Oh, that’s right,” she says before he can respond. “You were at Anfield watching the match, weren’t you? So, what happened after the match? Did Darren offer you a hand job in that underpass? Did you lose your temper when you couldn’t get it up? And where were you drinking on Paddy’s Day when Shreya Singh was killed? You told everyone you were out that night with your rugby mates but we only have your word for that, don’t we?”

  Now almo
st incandescent with rage, Tony looks ready to explode. Before things can escalate further out of control, Erin angrily slams her fist down on the table. “That’s enough, the pair of you!”

  Both fired up and unwilling to back down, Bolton and Marchetti continue to trade insults and blame for the disturbance.

  Forced once again to raise her voice, this time, Erin leaves them in no doubt of the consequences of continuing the argument. “I said, that’s enough! One more word from either of you and I will suspend both your asses. Do I bloody make myself clear?”

  Both officers quieten down but don’t respond to the question, forcing Erin to repeat herself. “I said, do I make myself clear?”

  “Crystal,” Terri says, clearly still annoyed.

  “DS Bolton, do we understand each other?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Tony replies surprisingly calmly. Then turning to Terri, he says, “I apologize. My comments were uncalled for.”

  She knows as well as everyone else that Tony’s apology is meaningless, but needing to move on, Erin asks, “Are we good here, DI Marchetti?”

  Knowing it’s not the time or place to settle the issue between her and Tony, Terri reluctantly nods, “Yes, ma’am, we’re good.”

  Disappointed at the behavior of her two senior officers, Erin shakes her head. “Good. We’ll continue this discussion later, but for now, we have at least one murderer to catch. Possibly two.

  So, if I could ask you both to refrain from the mudslinging for the rest of this meeting, I’d like to find out more about this guy.”

  Without waiting for a response, she takes the rap sheet and hands it back to DC Potter. “Carry on please, Mike.”

  “Yes, ma’am. His name is John Murray, aka Johnny Murray. He’s five feet ten inches tall, heavy set, fifty-two years old with a home address in the Cheetham Hill area of Manchester. His convictions are for multiple counts of car theft in his mid-twenties. One count of indecent exposure in 2011 and one count of aggravated robbery in August of 2016.”

  “Any time served for the indecent exposure or the robbery charge?” Erin asks.

  “Just a fifty-pound fine and forty hours of community service for the indecency,” DC Potter replies.

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s what I was trying to say earlier,” Terri interjects. “It wasn’t anywhere near as serious as the charge makes it sound. He was caught taking a piss at the side of the road, and if he hadn’t been drunk and abusive, it’s likely the arresting officer would have probably just given him a caution and sent him on his way.”

  “Okay, fair enough,” Erin says with a nod. “And what about the aggravated robbery?”

  DC Potter quickly refers again to the charge sheet. “He got eighteen months for that one, ma’am.” He then quickly adds, “That’s pretty light for an aggravated. That’s all the information we have for now, though.”

  Turning to Terri, Erin asks if she can shed any light on the leniency of the sentence.

  Nodding, she says, “Yes, ma’am, I can. The aggravated is another charge that sounds more serious than it actually was.

  You should know also that Johnny Murray is not exactly the sharpest tool in the box, and he is certainly no criminal mastermind. You’ll understand why when I tell you what happened.”

  “Okay,” Erin prompts. “We’re all ears.”

  “Okay, great,” Terri says. “So, on the day in question, Murray was flat broke and wasted again after a lunchtime drinking session. At some point during that session, he somehow got it into his head that it would be a good idea to rob the local post office on his way home from the pub.”

  Raising her eyebrows and smirking, Terri continues, “Now, this is where it gets interesting. At the time of the robbery, Murray was unemployed and the post office he chose to rob was the very same post office where he’d been collecting his weekly unemployment benefit for the last eight months. Not exactly the smartest move ever, but if that’s not dumb enough in itself, he also made no effort whatsoever to hide his identity from the post office staff, who, by now, all knew him well.

  “According to the staff, witnesses and friends interviewed after the robbery, Johnny Murray is a bit of a character and actually quite a likable guy when he’s not shit-faced.

  Because of this, the staff on duty initially thought it was just a drunken prank when Murray burst in demanding they hand over the money. They only started to take him seriously when he said he had a gun in his pocket.

  “Even then, he was so drunk he could barely stand up, and concerned for his safety, the manager on duty actually came out from behind the counter to try to help him.

  “Then, in what can only be described as a rare moment of commonsense for Murray, he sobered up long enough to realize what he was doing wasn’t such a great idea after all. Unfortunately for him, in his panic and rush to get away, he accidentally knocked over the manager and she broke her arm. The staff called it in, and Murray was found thirty minutes later sleeping it off on a park bench.”

  “So, I guess that would explain why it was classed as aggravated robbery but he received such a light sentence?” Erin says.

  “Yes, ma’am. If he hadn’t knocked over the postmistress or pretended to have a weapon, it’s unlikely that the Crown Prosecution Service would have pushed for it to be classified as aggravated robbery. At worst, it would have been attempted robbery, but more likely downgraded to threatening behavior on the grounds of diminished responsibility. At most, he would have received a suspended sentence or probation.”

  Erin mulls it over and then asks, “Okay, well, you’ve met this guy – do you think he’s capable of murder?”

  With no hesitation, Terri shakes her head. “Honestly, ma’am, no, I don’t. But then, from what I’ve heard, I would have probably also said that about Dennis Nilsen and Harold Shipman if I’d met them before their arrests. Johnny Murray has also shown more than once that he is capable of doing some pretty stupid things when he is wasted. I don’t know if he would go as far as murder, but six other people obviously seem to think he could.”

  Terri’s last statement is a reference to the six calls to the hotline that name Murray as a possible suspect. Turning back to Mike Potter, Erin asks him to tell her about the calls.

  “Do they all specifically point the finger at Murray?”

  “No, ma’am. Not exactly. They all suggest in one way or another that Murray could be the suspect in the picture, due to similarities in the height, build and the type of jogging suit that Murray is known to wear. But what’s really of interest to us is that three of the callers have suggested a connection to the hammer.”

  Her interest piqued, Erin leans closer. “That is interesting. Tell me about those three. Who are they?”

  “Murray’s supervisor and two of his colleagues,” Potter replies.

  “You said he was a mechanic,” Erin says.

  “Yes, ma’am. He’s a mechanic by trade, but he’s currently working in one of those Kwik Fit places. They just do replacement exhausts, servicing and—”

  “Thanks, I know what they do,” Erin interrupts impatiently. “Tell me about his connection to the hammer, DC Potter?”

  “Yes, of course. Sorry, ma’am. Well, according to Murray’s colleagues and his supervisor, each of the technicians is issued with their own Makita toolkit and each of the kits is color-coded using yellow, red, green paint, etc. They do this to make sure the kits don’t get mixed up and to stop the lads nicking each other’s tools if they lose something.”

  “Okay, and I’m guessing that Murray has the blue kit?”

  “Yes, ma’am, he does, and, more importantly, his supervisor says that Murray was issued a replacement claw hammer on Monday the 7th of January this year after he returned from the New Year break.”

  “That was a week after Shelley Wilton’s murder,” Terri says.

  “Fuck!” Erin exclaims. “This could be our man. Why the hell didn’t you say something sooner, DC Potter?”

  He is halfway
stuttering through an apology when Erin suddenly stands up. “DI Marchetti, come with me, please. The rest of you, get back to your offices and stand by for further instructions.”

  The team leave as instructed, and Erin apprises Terri of the next steps while they walk. “I’m going to see if the chief super is in his office. This is the breakthrough we were looking for, and I don’t want him to find out about it from anyone else. While I bring him up to speed, I want you to get on the blower to our counterparts in Greater Manchester Police.

  “The Wilton case is officially ours now, but our suspect is living on their patch. We’re going to need their full cooperation to bring him in and get him transferred over to our jurisdiction.

  “Be polite, of course, but don’t take any shit. Make it perfectly clear that this is our collar and that we will be calling the shots during the arrest.”

  “Leave it to me, boss,” Terri says confidently. “I’ll let you know when it’s done.”

  “Great. I shouldn’t be long. Let’s catch up when I’m back in the office.”

  They are about to part ways when Erin says, “Oh, and pass on my thanks to Mike Potter. I think I was a bit abrupt with him back there.”

  “Yeah, just a little,” Terri says with a smirk. “Mike and Alice Thorne were here most of last night sifting through the call records. I’ll make sure they both get a pat on the back. They’ll appreciate it.”

  “Thanks,” Erin says. “And good luck with GMP.”

  . . . . . . . .

  Barely an hour later, a beaming Terri rejoins Erin in her office. “We’re good to go, boss. The Manchester team are fully on board with our request, and the guys heading up the Wilton investigation have offered their assistance to bring Murray in. They’ve also offered to arrange the escort detail over to our patch.”

  “That’s great news,” Erin smiles. “You should take DS Cheeseman with you as your number two. And take Mike Potter and Alice Thorne along for the ride. It will be good experience for them.”

  Clearly confused, Terri shakes her head. “Hang on a minute. You’re not coming, boss?”