A Body in the Lakes by Graham Smith (great books of all time .TXT) 📕

as Pattaya and Bangkok were hotbeds of sexual activity and that sad, desperate men like Gracie often flocked to them. For a couple of weeks maybe he’d felt like a prince as one Thai hooker after another tried to entice him to their beds.

It was distasteful to think that Gracie was likely a sex tourist, but regardless, the real sickener was that they were back to square one on the murder case. What O’Dowd would make of it was anyone’s guess.

‘Here.’ Unthank handed her a large evidence bag containing the laptop. ‘You head back with this; I’ll stay and oversee a proper search by a search team. You can get the ball rolling.’

As she put the evidence bag onto the passenger seat of her car, Beth couldn’t work out whether Unthank was doing her a favour by letting her escape the foul cottage or if he was making sure he wasn’t the one who had to deliver the bad news to O’Dowd.

Forty-Seven

When Beth returned to the office O’Dowd was sitting at her desk going through reports and Thompson was nowhere to be seen.

‘How’d you get on?’

Beth relayed what she and Unthank had found and waited for the inevitable explosion at the way their best, and only, suspect had been proven as being out of the country when one of the crimes they’d accused him of was committed.

The explosion didn’t come. O’Dowd’s only reaction was a hissed exhalation that lasted a full ten seconds.

‘Buggeration and other such words. It was a good idea and all that, but it didn’t pan out. What you found on his laptop will still put him away, and explains why he did a runner, so all in all, it’s a decent job, well done.’ O’Dowd looked at Beth. ‘Take the laptop to Digital Forensics, write up your report and pass the whole lot over to DI Yates; he and his team will take it from here.’

Beth nodded at O’Dowd. She wanted nothing more to do with Gracie after what he’d done to her, and as his victim, there was no way that she could work on his case. Interviewing him with O’Dowd had been a big enough risk without her presence further tainting the case against him.

‘It’s not just you that’s off the Gracie case: I’ll be getting the whole team off it. So far as we’re concerned, it’s solved. Yes all the legwork is still to do, but if what you’ve told me is true, and I have no reason to doubt you, you’ve got more than enough to secure a conviction.’ O’Dowd wiped a hand across her face. ‘All that’s left to do is collate the evidence, let Yates and his team deal with that. They can spend their days looking at the filth on his laptop. I want you where you should be, in FMIT. That brain of yours is too good to waste on a job that any idiot can do.

‘Plus, I don’t want you getting fucked up by having to deal with looking at rape or kiddie porn for days on end. I have a killer to catch, and don’t want to lose you to a different investigation. Doubly so if your involvement in that investigation may compromise the trial. I’m sorry, Beth, I know what you’re like and that you’ll want to follow it through, but right now, the murder case is our priority.’

‘Ma’am.’ As disappointed as she was with O’Dowd’s decision, Beth was also pleased that she’d not have to deal with Gracie again. ‘What do you want me to do now?’

‘Go over what’s known until you can come up with another idea. That’s all I can think of unless you have any suggestions.’

‘There has been one thing that’s been on my mind. The spacing of the kills is pretty much eighteen months, yet it was twenty-two months between Harriet and Felicia. Normally you’d expect the dates between incidents to get shorter instead of longer as the killer escalated, yet the Lakeland Ripper ended up overdue. His lusts and desires will have been at breaking point.’

O’Dowd laid her pen on the desk. ‘What are you getting at?’

‘Maybe we should be watching the misper reports. When a woman is reported missing we should start looking into their disappearance as soon as it’s reported rather than waiting the usual twenty-four hours. He didn’t penetrate Felicia himself and there’s no way of knowing whether doing what he did to her satisfied his desires.’

‘Do it, but keep me in the loop; I don’t want you out looking for every Cinderella who doesn’t get home by midnight.’

As Beth reached for the phone to contact Control she avoided O’Dowd’s eyes. Her request for the misper reports to be monitored had another reason she wasn’t yet ready to share with the DI. She’d spied a couple of anomalies in her spreadsheet, and the thoughts they were prompting were too horrifying to voice until she could back up her suspicions with hard evidence.

Forty-Eight

The streets of Maryport were quiet as Willow made her way towards the river. Rather than have Spike miss his usual walk because of her having a night out, she’d elected to take him along the riverbank beforehand. Tonight’s walk wouldn’t be a long one, though, she intended to only go half the usual distance, and instead of her normal saunter, she was walking at pace to make sure the walk was completed in the least time possible.

The riverbank was alive with insects and Willow had to slap at a few as she went. It would be typical for her to get a bite on her face or arms tonight of all nights.

She was looking forward to meeting up with her old friends, but most of all she was looking forward to getting herself glammed up for a night out. It had been a long time since she’d felt the need to make the kind of effort that would get her noticed.

When she let Spike off his lead he immediately disappeared into a