The Sholes Key (An Evans & Blackwell Mystery #1) Read online

  “Who?”

  “My son.”

  “Your son works here?”

  “Yes, and he’s just about to start his shift.”

  A minute later, a boy with a backpack and cap entered the office. He had the same facial features and wide shoulders as his father. He threw the pack down at his feet and pulled the buds from his ears.

  “Son, these are police officers. Detectives, this is my son, Ivan.” The boy stood against the wall quietly. “Son, last Tuesday night, you were at home with your mother, right?”

  Ivan nodded.

  “They’re saying our car was reported stolen. That wasn’t you, was it, Ivan?”

  He shook his head and slowly rolled the buds around his mp3 player.

  “What do you do here at Tesco?” Theo asked him. He watched the boy bend down, open the bag, and pull out his work shirt. He just couldn’t see it—this boy, a serial killer? Sure, the father worked with knives, had access to freezers, and would be strong enough to strangle a woman, but he couldn’t see that either.

  “I stock the shelves,” Ivan said as he stood up. “I need to change.”

  “One more question,” Theo blurted out. “Do you know a woman named Helen Smithwick?”

  “No,” replied the father.

  “The writer?” asked the boy. He paused in the doorway.

  “You know her, son?”

  “Well, not really. Mum reads her stuff, her books. You know, all the books lying about the house.”

  “Have you ever met the writer?” Theo asked. Both the father and the son shook their heads, and the detectives turned to leave. “This is all rubbish,” said Theo as they exited the store. “We will not get anywhere doing this.”

  “We might find the car that the killer drove—”

  “Will we? What if the killer drove a route not picked up by CCTV and then what?” Theo looked around the car park in search of his vehicle.

  “Well,” Dorland replied, “you’re the one saying that the killer knows this Sophia woman and is trying to speak to her. Perhaps he’s saying to her that this is one way to catch me, if you find out what car I’m driving.”

  “You think he wants us to catch him?”

  “Isn’t that what you’re saying? He wants us to catch him?”

  Theo finally spotted his car and headed for it. “I don’t think that’s his aim. I believe he’s talking to her, but not because he wants her to catch him. He wants her to understand him, understand why he’s doing the things he’s doing. In a book I read about serial killers, it states reasons why they kill. Some kill for gain. Since he never took any items of value from the houses, I doubt that’s the motive. He may possibly kill for pleasure,” Theo continued, “but there’s more to it than that. If he liked to kill, he would have prolonged the event. There are no signs of rape on either of the bodies. He may send those notes to show he has control over us. And look at us running around like decapitated chickens.”

  “Why do you think he’s killing?”

  “I’m no profiler, but I believe there’s a chance he chooses his victims very carefully. He knows what kind of person he would choose, and the victims all have that in common. If it’s because he’s acting on a vendetta, or is on a mission against these women, we need to find the connection. If we find that, we may learn how the killer knew them. We should compile a list of some things all four victims did in common, any restaurants they attended, functions, meetings, parks they liked, maybe our victims all hate a certain race of people or had strong opinions on certain issues. You and the others start gathering information on these women. They have something in common, and we just need to find it.”

  “What are you going to do in the meantime?” Dorland got into the car.

  “If the killer is trying to tell me something about himself, I need to figure out what it is.”

  “You think we should stop trying to trace the stolen vehicle?”

  “We don’t even know if we have the right registration number. It could be anyone. Let’s focus on what we know, not what we partially may know.”

  * * *

  After dropping off Dorland, Theo went to Sophia’s flat. He considered entering through the garage, but decided it was easier to follow a woman through the front door. It was better if Sophia didn’t expect him.

  Sophia didn’t answer the first time he knocked, or the second or the fourth. She did answer on the seventh. In her robe. “Theo, not now.” She started to shut the door. He put his foot in.

  “You look like hell.”

  She glared at him.

  “Well, you’re not answering your mobile.”

  “Maybe, Theo,” she said in a whisper, “I don’t want to talk with anyone. Please, respect my wishes.”

  “I’ve had a hellish day,” he said, and pushed his way into her reception room. “Would have liked your company. Have coffee?”

  She left Theo by the door and shut herself in her bedroom. Theo stepped into the kitchen. Nothing had changed since the night before—dishes in the sink, papers littering the counters. No fresh coffee. Had he woke her? Guilt hit him in the face. He was a bastard. He walked to her bedroom and spoke through the closed door. “Look, Sophia, I’m sorry to barge in on you like this. We’re at a standstill. Sophia?” He turned the handle.

  Sophia lay curled-up on her bed. He sat down next to her.

  “I can’t cry,” she said. “I’ve tried but I can’t.”

  “Well, that’s good. Can’t see the use in it myself.”

  “Have you ever killed anyone?”

  “What? What happened?” He put his hand on her hip and turned her toward him.

  She looked at him blankly. “Haven’t you watched the news today?”

  “No. What happened? Did you murder someone?”

  “It’s a long story.” She sat up and hugged her knees to her chest. “I can’t be of any use to you and your investigation.” She lay down again and cocooned herself in her blankets.

  Theo went back to the living room and turned on the television.

  “—after months of investigation, MI5 has caught the group believed responsible for what is known as the Bunny Bombings. In a gunfight that erupted early this morning, four agents of Her Majesty’s Secret Service and three belonging to a group of animal rights activists were declared dead at the scene—” The newscaster continued to speak, but Theo became distracted when the camera focused in on Liam.

  “It wasn’t supposed to end this way,” Sophia said. She had followed him into the living room. “I shouldn’t have been involved in undercover work. I was trained to sit behind a desk. What happened was ridiculous.”

  “You can’t blame yourself.”

  “I can’t?” she yelled. “I think I’m so smart, but really, I’m not. Not about some things.” Theo opened his mouth but Sophia said, “Don’t say it. Don’t justify what I’ve done.” A knock sounded on the door to Sophia’s flat. “Oh, leave me the hell alone!” She stormed off to her room and slammed the door.

  Theo opened the door. Liam seemed shocked to see him but entered holding a box.

  “Tragic business, this.” Theo broke the ice.

  Liam walked to the kitchen and placed the box on the countertop, wincing. “I warned her. She didn’t imagine she’d have to shoot her boyfriend.”

  “Her boyfriend?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “That’s what everyone is saying. What happened to you, Liam?”

  “I was shot.”

  “Why aren’t you in the hospital?”

  “I have a couple of broken ribs but I’m not dead. It was more important that I be here than there.” Liam put two pies on a metal baking dish and turned the oven on. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “I need Sophia’s help on the case,” Theo replied.

  “You think now is the time for that?” Liam licked the pie flakes off his fingers while he held the tray in his hand. “I don’t think I can bend over to place this in the oven. You up for
it, Theo?”

  Sophia entered the kitchen and said, “Will you two morons just leave and let me wallow in my shitty misery?” She grabbed the tray from Liam, threw it in the oven and slammed the door shut. “Beef or chicken?”

  “Chicken,” the men said in unison.

  “What are you here for, Liam?” Sophia asked as she went to the television and turned it off. “I don’t want to watch that, understand? I don’t want the events of this morning repeated in this house, do you understand?” She placed the remote on the fireplace mantle and plopped down on an armchair.

  “You left us without giving a statement. We need to know the events from your viewpoint. I know you don’t want to go over it again, but—”

  Sophia interrupted Liam by pointing to her desk. He went over and picked up a folded piece of paper. “I wrote out everything that happened. Every time it played in my mind, I would rationalize things out. I’m still waiting to wake up,” she said.

  “How did you figure out the watch was the key?” Liam asked.

  “It came to me gradually, but last night I knew. It had to be something he kept close when he typed his emails. We all thought it must be a book or other device, but I had searched his office thoroughly. Yesterday when Theo looked down at his watch, it reminded me of all the times Marc…” she paused, “ that Marc played with his watch, a watch that didn’t work.”

  “Well, you were correct. The back cover flips open and mini rotors are inside. The emails contain the positions of the rotors on the axle and the initial rotor settings to be used to decrypt the email messages.”

  “At least one good thing came from this,” she said. “Hopefully we can stop the bombings.” She stopped. “Why are you here, Theo? Are you still searching for the man? The killer? I can’t help you.”

  “We’re not getting anywhere.”

  “And how is that my problem?”

  Theo chose his words carefully. “We’re worried, that’s all. If you don’t remain on the case, the killer will become angry and retaliate.”

  She watched him. “You think he’ll kill again?”

  “If he’s hoping for your attention and he’s not getting it, he may murder someone else. I just don’t want to imagine how.”

  “I’ll help you with the code, Theo, but once I finish, I don’t want to see either of you again. Understand?”

  They both nodded.

  Theo picked up the folder he’d brought with him and laid out the papers. “We’re still trying to find the connection between the women,” he said. “Had these women wronged him at one time or another? Had they ignored him? Perhaps that clue has something to do with the other codes, maybe all the codes are keyboard related. He did type out the code. They were all done on a keyboard. Or perhaps he worked with keyboards. Doe he make them? Aren’t most computer products made in places like China or Mexico?”

  “Let’s assume the keyboard had something to do with the code, because the code was written with numbers, not letters.” Sophia went to her desk, retrieved her notebook and looked at the first few numbers in the code. “See here, 241233. Two, two what? Two keys, the second key, it couldn’t be because there were only four different numbers. Okay then, 24 then 12 then 33, what is that? Couldn’t be twenty-fourth key or letter, then what would thirty-three mean?”

  Liam pulled his pie from the oven and blew on a forkful.

  She went on, “Assuming there were only letters used in the numbers, what could it be, what could 24 be? How many letters across the first row? QWERTYUIOP across the top row that makes ten letters and ASDFGHJKL make nine letters on the middle row, and ZXCVBNM makes seven letters on the bottom row. So would 24 mean the letter B, the twenty-fourth letter in all the letters? Then what would 33 be? There were not enough letters left—”

  “What about forensics?” Liam interrupted her.

  “Nothing,” Theo replied. “Helena’s computer was looked over, but her novels and a few basic computer documents were all that we found. According to tech, she didn’t do much in the way of updates and virus protection, only had a few programs installed.”

  “Nothing that could give us a clue to why the killer might want her dead?” Sophia asked.

  Theo shook his head. “Not that we could find. Her book was the latest document, and the only pages she browsed on the Internet were related to her book. One woman on my team volunteered to read the book. She read it in three hours and said it was wonderful, like many of her other novels—typical of romance. Nothing a killer would find offensive unless, as she stated, ‘you have something against lovely, heart-warming stories.’”

  “Any suspects?” Sophia asked.

  Theo went through the course of his day. “We looked into the backgrounds of all on the list. Mr. Richards’ son, Ivan, who works at a Tesco nearby, was on that list.”

  “Do you have a photograph of him?”

  Theo nodded and took one from the files.

  “Why is the boy a suspect?” Sophia went over and took five bites of her pie before looking up again. “What? I haven’t eaten all day.”

  Theo said, “After leaving the Tesco, we ran the boy through our database and discovered he has a record for a sexual assault and car theft.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Liam asked. “Maybe that’s the killer; why don’t you pull him in?”

  Theo shrugged. “It’s complicated. We still need to confirm his alibi. He might have a perfectly good alibi. I don’t want to bring a boy in and then look like arses because we didn’t do our homework. Also, he’s just a kid. It’s one thing to steal a car, it’s another to brutally murder multiple women.”

  “Yes,” Sophia replied, “but he also has a sexual assault on his record.”

  “True. However, none of the women were assaulted sexually.”

  “If it were me, I’d pull the boy in. You’ll look like greater arses if you have another girl go missing,” Liam said.

  “It’s not enough even for a search warrant,” said Theo.

  * * *

  Sometime later, Liam pulled Sophia out into the hall.

  “What?” she asked, pulling her hand from his grasp.

  “I want to know how you are.”

  She was about to spit words of anger at him but when she looked into his eyes, she only saw concern. “It’ll take time, Liam. I spent almost half a year on this case, but I wasn’t prepared—”

  “You did amazing.”

  “What?” She shook her head. “Because of me and my amazing work, four good agents died today. I should’ve stopped him before he went inside. I didn’t know his mobile alerted him each time the door to his house opened. I didn’t know he had alerted his men. This was important intelligence and I knew nothing.”

  “But you found the key and already we’re compiling a list of names. No one blames you.”

  “I blame me.”

  Liam placed a hand on her arm. “I want you to get trained. Become an officer on my team.”

  “Are you joking? I think not. I still haven’t talked to Vincent—I’m not sure I have a job after today.” She took a step back and leaned against the wall. “Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow, all the events will finally hit me. All I know is, I need time to process and deal with today’s events. And I need to do it alone.”

  After Liam had left, Sophia sat at her keyboard with a glass of brandy instead of her usual cup of coffee. Theo sat cross-legged on the floor, examining the photos laid out in front of him. She decided to keep her mind occupied with the code, but she had so many questions. Why did the killer put QWERTY on Helena’s fingers? Why didn’t he put the letters on her back?

  QWERTYKB on fingers made sense. You use your fingers to type on a keyboard. Why only use the fingers though; you type with your thumb, why not place letters on the thumb? Maybe he only wanted to use eight letters. No, he abbreviated keyboard to K-B when he could have used the thumbs and wrote the letters K-E-Y-S. The killer only wanted to use the eight fingers. But why?

  She stood and paced around
the room, creating a path between the photos. She fluttered her fingers as if typing. Type, type, type, she repeated to herself.

  “What are you doing?” Theo asked.

  Twiddling her thumbs, it finally came to her. “What do you use the thumbs for? You don’t type letters with them. No, the thumbs are only used for the spacebar. And what is missing from the codes? Spaces.”

  Running back to her computer, she placed her fingers on the keyboard. Grabbing the code, she looked at it. That could be why the numbers do not go above the number four, because there are only four fingers on each hand. 24 was the first number. If two numbers represented a letter, there were no numbers above 34. That meant the second digit in each number represented the finger you use. Therefore, in 24, you would use the fourth finger. Did the little finger or the index represent the fourth finger?

  Deciding to try both, she started with the little finger that would type the letters, QAZP:/. The index would land on RFVTGBYHNUJM. She decided to rule out the non-letters, leaving her with QAZPRFVTGBYHNUJM. Okay, so now she had that sorted, what did the 2 in the number 24 mean; the second letter you would type with the fourth finger, which was A or the second row? This left her with the letters AFGHJ.

  Going on to the next number in her code, she came to 12. That could mean the second finger of the first row. Unsure what the second finger was, she narrowed it down to the letters X and C. The first letter would be AFGHJ and the second would be X or C. That didn’t make any sense to her. AX AC FX FC GX GC HX HC JX JC were her only options. She wrote down on her notepad next to her mouse. AX or AC. Looking down at her code, she groaned. Here she came across a star. What the hell was that supposed to mean? She drank the rest of the brandy from her glass, reached down beside her desk, and poured herself another. As she brought it to her lips, Theo’s hand covered the top of the glass.

  “Have you made a breakthrough?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “Then I would lay off the alcohol. I want you to be lucid to crack this.” He went into the kitchen and started making coffee. She joined him.