The Night Stalker (Detective Erika Foster 2)

‘What? Had a vacuum round before he scarpered?’ asked Moss. ‘I wish he’d pay me a visit. You should see my place.’

Despite the heat, Erika saw a couple of the crime scene officers working around the body hide their smiles.

‘Moss, not the right time.’

‘Sorry, boss.’

‘I think the arms were tied post-mortem,’ said Isaac, gently indicating the wrist area with his latex-gloved finger. The skin around the armpits was stretched in white lines against the shades of waxy skin underneath. ‘There’s very little abrasion on the wrists.’

‘So he was already in bed when the attack happened?’ asked Erika.

‘Possibly,’ replied Isaac.

‘There’s no discarded clothes. He could have undressed normally for bed and tidied them away,’ said Moss.

‘So someone could have been hiding under the bed or in the wardrobe, or could have come through the window?’ asked Erika, blinking as sweat ran down her forehead into her eyes.

‘That’s for you to find out,’ said Isaac.

‘Yes, it is. Lucky me,’ replied Erika.

Erika and Moss came downstairs to the open-plan living area, where a team of crime scene technicians was working on the rest of the house. One of the technicians approached them. Erika hadn’t met him before. He was in his early thirties, with a handsome face and a high Nordic forehead. Sweat glistened through his blond hair. When he reached Erika, he looked up, realising how tall she was at just over six foot.

‘DCI Foster? I’m Nils Åkerman, crime scene manager,’ he said. He had a slight Swedish accent under his perfect English.

‘You’re new?’ asked Moss.

‘To London? Yes. To murder and mayhem, no.’ Nils had a pleasant, handsome face and, like many people who dealt with death and horror on a daily basis, seemed respectfully detached, with a dark sense of humour.

‘Good to meet you,’ said Erika. Their latex gloves crackled as they shook hands.

‘What do you know already?’ he asked.

‘Take us through it from the top,’ said Erika.

‘Okay. So the mother shows up around seven-thirty to feed the cat. Lets herself in with a key. The power had been switched off at the mains when she arrived. And it looks as though it had been off for a few days. The contents of the fridge and freezer were decaying.’

Erika looked over to the large stainless steel fridge-freezer, where a couple of brightly coloured child’s finger paintings were attached with magnets.

‘The Internet and phone connections had also been cut off,’ added Nils.

‘Cut off from not paying the bill?’ asked Erika.

‘No, the Internet cable itself was cut,’ said Nils, moving to the kitchen counter and holding up a plastic evidence bag containing two pieces of cable. One was connected to a small modem. He held up another bag. ‘This is the victim’s mobile phone. The SIM card and battery are missing.’

‘Where was it found?’ asked Erika.

‘On the bedside table. It was still plugged in and connected to the charger.’

‘There’s no other phone in the house?’

‘Just the landline downstairs.’

‘So, whoever did this took the SIM and battery out of the phone after it had been put on the bedside table to charge?’ said Moss.

Nils nodded. ‘It’s a possibility.’

‘Hang on, hang on,’ said Erika. ‘Was there anything else on the bedside table? The bedroom looks very bare.’

‘Apart from the phone, there was nothing else,’ said Nils. ‘We did, however, find these in the bedside table drawer.’ He held up another evidence bag containing four gay porn magazines: copies of Black Inches, Ebony and Latino Males.

‘He was gay?’ asked Erika.

‘And married,’ added Moss.

‘How old was he again?’

‘Forty-six,’ replied Moss. ‘He was separated from his wife. But these magazines are old. Look, they’re issues dated 2001. Why would he keep them here?’

‘So they were hidden, and he was secretly gay?’ asked Erika.

‘Maybe they’d been stashed away for years. Maybe he liberated them from the attic when his marriage broke down,’ said Nils.

’That’s too many maybe’s for my liking,’ said Erika.

‘We found the packaging for an individual microwave lasagna on the kitchen island. It was on a plate, and beside it was an empty wine glass and a half-full bottle of red wine. We’re about to send them off to the lab,’ said Nils. ‘You should also see this.’