The Night Stalker (Detective Erika Foster 2)

Keith wrinkled his nose and pushed his glasses up, then backed up the wheelchair and let them in.

68

Keith Hardy’s flat was carpeted throughout with a dated pattern of lime green, yellow and red hexagons. Erika and Peterson followed him down the corridor, the wispy top of his head just visible over the high back of his whirring wheelchair. Through the first door to the left was his bedroom; on the back wall, opposite the large bay window, Erika saw a large hydraulic hospital bed on wheels. Next to the bed was an old polished wood dresser with a three-panelled fold-out mirror. The dresser was crowded with an array of medication: large tubs of medical creams, preparations and a bale of wispy cotton wool. Clothes hung off the curtain rail, and the bay window looked out over the seafront promenade, where people moved past and seagulls could be heard cawing faintly. A ceiling light burned brightly, along with two small lamps on the bedside and the dresser.

They passed another tiny room, which was packed with junk, including an old manual wheelchair, piles of books and another electric wheelchair with the back panel off, its wires and innards spilling out. Another door on the right-hand side of the corridor led to a large, specially equipped bathroom.

Keith reached a frosted glass door at the end of the hallway, manoeuvred his chair through, and they followed him into a poky kitchen-living room with views of a tiny courtyard backing onto a tall brick building. The kitchen was old and grubby, with specially adapted low counters. There was a whiff of drains, mixed with fried food.

In the other half of the room, three of the walls were filled with floor-to-ceiling shelves containing hundreds of books, video cassettes and DVDs. A small gas fire sat against a chimney breast, and above it were more shelves, loaded with more books, paperwork and a mismatched selection of table lamps – which were all switched on, so that the space, although small and cramped, was brightly lit. Nestled in one corner was a PC on an old metal stand. A series of coloured balls bounced around its screen.

‘I don’t get a lot of visitors,’ Keith said, indicating a small armchair on the opposite side of the gas fire, which was covered in piles of magazines and newspapers. ‘There are a couple of stacking chairs in the gap beside the fridge,’ he added. Peterson went and pulled them out.

Keith moved to the computer in the corner and, using the joystick, swivelled his chair round to face them. He pushed his glasses up his nose and peered at them through the greasy lenses, his large eyes shifting from side to side. Erika imagined that if a fly buzzed past, his tongue might shoot out and catch it.

‘You can’t arrest me,’ Keith blurted. ‘I never leave this flat… I haven’t done anything.’

Erika pulled some paperwork from her bag and unfolded it, smoothing out the pages. ‘I have here details of your bank account with Santander. Can you confirm this is your account number and sort code?’ She passed the paper to him. Keith looked at it briefly and passed it back.

‘Yes.’

‘It shows that in the past three months you have ordered five items from a website called Allantoin.co.uk. Five suicide bag kits. I’ve highlighted the transactions on your bank statement…’ Erika leaned forward to hand it to Keith.

‘I don’t need to see it,’ he said.

‘So you acknowledge this is your bank statement and these transactions are correct?’

‘Yes,’ he said, biting his lip.

‘You also ordered what is called a bump key. That’s also highlighted on your bank statement…’

‘I got it from eBay, and it’s not illegal,’ Keith said, sitting back and folding his short arms across his chest.

‘No, it’s not,’ said Erika. ‘But we have a real problem here. I have three murders committed in and around London by someone who has used a) a suicide bag to asphyxiate the victims and b) a bump key to gain entry to one of the properties.’

Erika reached into her bag and pulled out a crime scene photo of Stephen Linley. She held it up to Keith, who winced.

‘As you can see, the suicide bag on this occasion burst… The intruder used a bump key to gain entry.’

Erika put the photo away and pulled out photos of Gregory Munro and Jack Hart lying dead with the bags over their heads. ‘On these occasions, the bags remained intact, but still did the job…’

Keith gulped and looked away from the photos. ‘I can’t be the only person to have bought these items,’ he said.

‘We’ve been given a list of people who have purchased suicide bags in the past three months. Many of them bought them for the purposes of ending their lives and, tragically, are not here to speak to us. You are one of the few who has bought multiple bags and is still here to tell the tale.’