The house didn’t feel right from the start. Murphy ignored that feeling, imagining a quick end to what felt like an unending investigation. Never mind that it had only been a few days; the fact that they had six bodies cooling in the morgue was enough. That was before he considered the media’s twenty-four-hour coverage.
‘Press is here already,’ Murphy said to Rossi, pointing towards the end of the street which had been blocked off. ‘Who the hell is telling them?’
‘If this is the right place, they’ll have a new story by tomorrow morning. Other people to piss off.’
Uniforms were stationed at both ends of the street, blocking access to enterprising news people who wanted to be as close to the action as possible. Every officer had been briefed about the case and told what to say, and what not to say, if asked questions.
Murphy just hoped that whoever was in the house wasn’t watching the news and preparing to hop over the garden wall.
‘Do we just knock?’
‘Let firearms go in first,’ Murphy said into the radio. ‘We’ll follow when everything is cleared.’
He and Rossi were sitting up front in the marked van, a few doors down from the house they had all converged on.
‘Amazing how many people we can rustle up when there’s something major going down. We ask for more money for stuff and get knocked back though.’
Rossi forced out a laugh beside him. ‘Does this house strike you as the right place?’
Murphy shrugged. ‘Takes all kinds,’ he said, turning up the radio as the firearms officers approached the house. ‘They can’t all live up in Formby in big houses like our last one. Sometimes our serial killers live in two-bedroom terraces in Walton.’
‘Suppose so.’
The light had faded fast outside, the dark clouds above them painting the scene in a dingy glow. ‘At least it’s not raining.’
Rossi didn’t say anything, leaning forward against the dashboard to see more clearly what was happening ahead.
The house was on a street that branched off Long Lane, which ran alongside Everton Cemetery and playing fields. From halfway up the road, where they were parked, you couldn’t see the green patch of land at the bottom of the road, just the houses which ran along each side. Two-bedroom terraces most of them, small houses for older couples and new families.
‘Back is secure.’
Murphy turned the radio down a touch, the chatter a little loud for a small van. ‘You’re a red, right, Laura?’
‘Yeah,’ Rossi replied. ‘But I don’t really follow it.’
‘House seems quiet.’
Murphy lifted up the radio and held it in mid-air. Kirkham and Hale, seated behind them in the back of the van, leaned forwards to listen. ‘I got into it a bit more last season, but it’s hard to watch every week.’
‘It’s weird not seeing Gerrard in a Liverpool shirt.’
‘Yeah, he’s been there so long he’s part of the furniture. It was weirder when Carra left though.’
‘Put the door in!
‘You’re a blue, aren’t you, Hale?’
‘Yeah,’ Hale said from the back of the van. ‘Staunch Evertonian me.’
‘Well, as long as you’re not a bitter one, I don’t mind.’
‘On three . . .’
‘What about you, Kirkham? Red or blue?’
‘Neither. I support Tranmere Rovers.’
‘One of the remaining few,’ Murphy said, laughing as he turned back to look at him. ‘Only joking. I’m sure there’s more than a few left, even after being relegated. At least a thousand. You should tell your fellow wools that they need to get behind their team, rather than picking up ours over here.’
‘Yeah, yeah.’
‘Looks like movement,’ Murphy said, moving forward. ‘Wait a second.’
They went quiet in the van, listening to the radio as the chatter went silent, before voices broke in.
‘Hallway clear . . . stairs clear . . . get down on the floor now. Get down on the fucking floor.’
Murphy opened the van door. ‘Looks like someone’s home,’ he said, getting out.
* * *
The elderly woman was still shaking half an hour later, every now and then almost convulsing. If there wasn’t a recent picture of her on the mantelpiece – a child under each arm – Murphy would have thought they had just turned her hair white. The hunched-over look was probably new, he thought.
‘I’ll be okay,’ Joyce Langdon said, bony hands cupped round a hot cup of tea someone had made for her. ‘Just a shock to have you storm in like that. You could have knocked, you know. I would have answered.’
‘We’re sorry, Mrs Langdon,’ Murphy said, surveying the room. ‘We can’t be too careful. You understand? We’ll have someone fix the door for you.’
Murphy looked towards Rossi who came over and sat next to Joyce. ‘You’re going to have to come down to the station with us, but I’m sure we’ll have you back here in no time.’
‘Fine, fine,’ Joyce said, lifting the cup up to her mouth. ‘I don’t have to wear handcuffs or anything, do I? Only the neighbours will think I’ve done something wrong.’
Murphy thought that was already going to be the case. ‘I think we can skip those for now.’
They had known that they didn’t have their man pretty much as soon as they’d walked in. The firearms officers had done their work leaving Joyce Langdon face down on her mottled red carpet, arms up her back and pinned to the floor. A quick search of the property had yielded enough evidence to suggest they weren’t in the right place.
You could never be too careful though.
‘Can we just ask you a few questions, Joyce?’ Murphy said, needing to know for sure.
‘Yeah, of course. What’s this all about?’
Murphy turned and looked at the Blaupunkt flat screen TV in the corner. He picked up the remote. ‘Do you mind?’ Murphy said, keying the buttons before Joyce had the chance to answer.
The now familiar scrolling black text on yellow background appeared on the screen. Along with a view which Joyce recognised.
‘That’s the bottom of this road!’ she said, a high-pitched exclamation escaping her mouth. ‘What are they doin’ – Oh, no.’
Across the bottom of the screen, words appeared.
ARMED POLICE RAID HOUSE: IN CONNECTION WITH ‘CHLOJOE’ MURDERS
Murphy pressed mute on the remote and placed it down on the mantelpiece. ‘Joyce, have you got anything to say?’
‘I . . . I have nothing to do with anything like that. Honest, you’ve got to believe me. I’m a pensioner. I’m seventy-nine years old, for Christ’s sake. I couldn’t do anything like that even if I wanted to. Didn’t you see the Stannah on the stairs?’
Murphy had, which had been the first indication that something wasn’t right.
‘Is there anyone else who lives here with you, Joyce?’
‘No, just me now. Gerry passed away three years ago, God rest his soul. This would have killed him off if he hadn’t already gone to the other side. Always had a dodgy ticker.’
‘So, there’s no children, grandchildren?’
‘We only had the one. My Barbara. She’s got two kids. Both girls.’
Murphy was beginning to wonder whether technology was all it was cracked up to be.
‘Did we get the wrong house?’ he whispered to Rossi.
‘No,’ she said, writing something down in her notebook and then scanning the room. ‘Do you have a computer at all, Joyce?’
‘Oh, yes, but I never use it. Barbara gave me her old laptoppy thing, but I can’t work it. Told me I could be one of those golden surfers . . .’
‘Silver surfers,’ Rossi said.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Joyce said, perking up slowly. ‘That’s what she said. Truth is, I haven’t had it out for months. It’s in the cupboard, next to the good plates, in the back room, if you want to see it.’
‘Do you have internet here, Joyce?’ Murphy said, looking for a router. ‘A box that lets you connect to the internet?’
‘Yes, it’s behind the telly. The cable people told me I needed it to watch all the old programmes they have on the planner thing. I’ve never touched it. I leave all that to Barbara to sort out for me.’
‘Can you just excuse us for a moment, Mrs Langdon?’ Murphy inclined his head to one side at Rossi and walked away into the hallway. ‘She doesn’t have a clue what the internet is,’ he said, once they were out of earshot. ‘Never mind how to use the thing for posting videos and that. There must be someone who comes here.’
‘Maybe,’ Rossi said, digging around in her pocket and producing her work phone. ‘I’m just thinking there might be something else.’
‘Because technology has done well for us so far . . .’
‘Shush a second, Grandad.’
‘I’m hurt by that comment,’ Murphy said under his breath. ‘Not even forty yet.’
‘Just give me a second.’
Murphy held up his hands, shaking his head.
‘Here we go,’ Rossi said a minute or so later, turning the phone to face Murphy. ‘Her Wi-Fi is unlocked.’
‘Shit . . .’
‘Anyone parked on the street could hook up to it and then everything traces back to here. That’s why we’ve got this address.’
‘That’s if she’s sure there’s no one else who has access to this house,’ Murphy said, rubbing his temples. ‘What if it’s her daughter, or her son-in-law? It could be anyone.’
‘I think my idea makes more sense than the suggestion that this woman has forgotten about a load of visitors.’
‘How would our guy know the internet wasn’t protected here? Tell me that then.’
Rossi went silent for a few moments, before raising a finger in the air. ‘He was looking for one. He knew if he did anything online, we’d eventually trace him. He could have an untraceable phone for all we know. Chuck a pay-as-you-go SIM card in it and it’s job done.’
Murphy mused for a few seconds. ‘Okay, if we can really prove that there isn’t anyone else with access to this house, then fine, I’ll go along with it. Still seems a bit strange that he could drive here and use Wi-Fi like that.’
‘That’s modern technology for you,’ Rossi said, putting the phone back in her pocket and walking towards the living room. ‘Unless you know how it works, it’s all so confusing.’
Murphy aimed a push towards Rossi’s back, but she skipped away with a smirk.
Media
He was transfixed by the television as shifting graphics ran across the screen and collided with the edge. Images flashed up on one side of the screen while an impossibly dapper man with a suitably serious face talked from the other. The images were repeated over and over; the same faces and same voices, saying the same things. Nothing new being reported, nothing new being spoken.
It was all because of him.
He was expecting a live interview with Kay Burley and him sitting in his home to appear at any point. Always at hand to appear at any tragic event or ongoing incident.
That was how it was now – the same faces at every tragedy, ready with a microphone and a po-faced look.
The way it all worked sickened him.
He remembered how he’d watched two buildings collapse on the other side of the Atlantic on a balmy September day. It was an aberration; their destruction something that united people across the world as they watched it unfold. An event unlike anything they had seen before; the mass killing of thousands of people live on television.
He had watched it, almost hypnotised by the images: planes slamming into buildings, scared New Yorkers running through dust-cloud-ridden streets, flailing bodies disappearing into nothingness.
Since then, violence had become prevalent on news channels, he thought. Beamed into living rooms, all for the viewers’ pleasure. The Iraq war, dead civilians piled up on streets, suspected terrorists tortured and humiliated. Hostage situations in Sydney and Paris. The London bombings, the armed sieges. The Boston Marathon bombing and its subsequent man hunt.
Raoul Moat, Derrick Bird. Mass killings as entertainment.
All shown live on a flat screen television or an electronic device of your choice. Twenty-four hours a day.
He had watched all these events. Looked up videos on the internet when the TV channels decided not to show them live. Beheadings and executions. He wanted to experience them all.
Society loved violence. It was everywhere, on every TV, inside every newspaper, at football matches, nightclubs – every event with more than one person. It lurked beneath the surface, just waiting to be examined, enacted. Love was the ultimate violence. He believed that with everything he had to give. Now, he was giving them what they wanted. Violence.
He thought back to a couple of years previously, when Liverpool had gained notoriety with the man who called himself Alan Bimpson. The image of him walking down the streets of the city with an automatic rifle, gunning people down, teenagers and elderly alike, had been burned into viewers’ minds.
The same detective who’d failed to save that final victim now hunting him.
Society had changed. Violence was the new norm, making them all so different.
Today he was responsible for the latest story which was keeping people riveted and engrossed.
* * *
Later, back in that room he was now so familiar with, his voice spoke into the shadows. ‘I’m not sure when things changed. When this became entertainment for so many of us. I think it might be twenty-four-hour news. Now we have the ability to change channel at any point and ingest a small morsel before moving on. Or there’s the invention of the internet, imparted to the masses to consume and enjoy. With that comes social media, the new conduit of society, the way in which conversation and argument is held. Offence given and taken. What do you think, Number Four?’
He didn’t wait for an answer.
‘I consume it all. I’ll read and watch everything I can manage.’
He allowed it to fuel him, scrolling through comments on the various websites which were all talking about him and his actions. The account he had created to post the video online had been taken down in the hours since, but there were still comments naming him by that stupid moniker he had chosen.
‘I’m trending on Twitter,’ he said with a chortle. ‘I never expected that to happen.’
He had needed only one email. Somewhere local, so he didn’t have to travel. The emails he had received had reached the hundreds within an hour. Most were calling him every insult imaginable, listing the violence that should be inflicted upon him. The things he should do to himself, before he was caught and cost them money by being imprisoned.
SUBJECT – KILL YOURSELF
SUBJECT – FUCK YOU!!!
SUBJECT – YOUR DEAD
SUBJECT – THIS COUPLE SHOULD BE NEXT
One email was all he required.
It had come an hour or so after the address had been posted online. A Liverpool-based couple, with a secret held on each side. He had noted down the details after accessing the email account via an open Wi-Fi spot he had found at a house near where he worked. He’d discovered that lots of people were still not up to speed with current technology and left their internet open to anyone passing, unprotected by a password.
The easiest way for him to stay under the radar.
They could trace the IP address, he guessed, but all they would find was a confused silver surfer in a two-bedroomed terraced house.
Not enough.
He had opened a few other emails but there was something about the first story that he had been attracted to. Concise and explicit. He had deleted the emails he had looked at, emptying the trash folder so no one else would see them. He left the rest there unread.
‘This is the new couple. What do you think?’
He sat beside Number Four, leaning into her as she shifted. He laid his head on her shoulder and moved the mobile phone into her eye line. ‘It’s the same story you always hear. Someone trapped in a lie. Choosing what they know and are comfortable with, rather than what could be. That’s not how it should be. I can save them. This couple will be the ones. They’ll see what I’m trying to do. I can feel it.’
Back at that anonymous street, he had sent one final email, hoping it would be all that was needed to make his point. He’d found the email address easily enough. Typed out a one-line message and clicked the send button, before logging off the free Wi-Fi and returning back to Number Four.
To Merseyside Police. The password for this account is loveisviolence.
