Page 32 of Her Hidden Shadow

Gina suspected they had all they were going to get. They thanked Saffi and headed out, knowing that she’d be interviewed again later.

As they approached Gina’s car, Wyre stopped. ‘What did you make of that, guv?’

‘I know we need to interview Gerard Hale. I can’t believe that Robbie Shields has gone from suspect to victim, and Tiffany Crawford is confusing me. I checked my messages. PC Smith has been to see her, and he’s organised for some officers to go back and fit a panic button in her home. We need a deeper background check on Mr Hale. Did you manage to speak to someone at the station?’

Wyre nodded. ‘O’Connor had just got back from the post-mortem, so he’s checking out Honey Pots with PC Ahmed. They did say the witness has arrived and he wants to speak to us about seeing Robbie Shields on the night of Sienna’s murder.’

She checked her watch. ‘Let’s get back. If he has something crucial to say, we’ll be the first to hear it.’

Twenty-Two

Gina finished checking her emails then she sent a message to Jacob, asking him how he was feeling. She followed the link to Tiffany’s file. There was a knock at her office door and Wyre peered through the gap. ‘Cheesy twist? Mrs O sent these in, and she sends her best for the big case.’

Gina nodded. ‘Yes, please.’ She took the pastry from Wyre and bit into it. ‘Wow, all butter, just what I needed. Take a seat. I’m just going through the Tiffany Crawford file.’

‘I spoke to PC Smith, and he said that the panic alarm has been fitted in her flat. He noted how scared and nervous she seemed.’

Gina scanned the notes and interviews from the original case. ‘I’m not surprised reading this.’ She looked away from the screen and placed the half-eaten cheese twist on her desk.

‘What is it?’

Shaking her head, Gina continued reading. ‘It was a horrendous attack. Her husband was away with friends, so she was alone. Someone entered through an upstairs window that had a faulty catch. Her husband had left a set of wooden ladders outside, resting alongside the house after he’d been cleaning the windows. The perpetrator crept in. She awoke to see someone staring at her in the dark, wearing a balaclava. When she went to reach for her phone, it wasn’t there, and she could only conclude that he’d already taken it. It was later found in the spare bedroom.’ Gina bit the edge of her nail. Her heart began to thrum as she read on. Strangulation was one of her personal triggers. Her abusive dead ex-husband used to grip her by the neck until she went blue. She’d never felt happier to see anyone as dead as him after he’d tumbled down their stairs.

‘And?’

Gina scrunched her brows as she continued. ‘In the statement, she says she tried to talk to him, and she begged him to take anything he wanted from the house, but he then pinned her down. He stabbed her in the back of the neck with a spiky earring and she never knew why. The officers who took the original statement mentioned what a strange thing that was for her attacker to do. She tried to fight him off, but he sat on her and within seconds, he had a scarf wrapped around her neck and he pulled. She goes on to describe how she fought and eventually, she managed to punch him in the neck. It took his breath away. He stumbled out of the room and left through the front door. She describes how she watched him running off into the darkness and seconds later she heard a car pull away.’

‘Where did she live at the time?’

Gina turned her screen around so that Wyre could see the details. ‘Webheath, in Redditch.’ She pulled up a map. ‘Look at where she lived. This was her house.’ Gina pointed. ‘To the left is a road and I know this road leads to a maze of single track, country lanes. He knew how to avoid ANPR.’ She knew that no vehicle of any relevance had been picked up by automatic number plate recognition. No one saw a car that shouldn’t be parked up at the time and no one saw this man. ‘All I can say was that the perp must have known the area well to avoid detection like he did.’

‘What about the neighbours?’ Wyre pulled her chair in closer.

Gina clicked on another file. ‘No one reported seeing anything. At the time, Kieron Crawford mentioned an old boyfriend of Tiffany’s, one who apparently didn’t treat her that well, but the man had a concrete alibi. There were no other suspects, and the case remains unsolved. No notable forensics were found, suggesting that the perp was forensically aware. There were no fingerprints, but Tiffany did say he wore gloves. He left nothing, not a jot.’ Gina opened the photo files. ‘Look at this.’

Wyre stared wide-eyed. ‘That’s not the actual scarf used, is it?’

Gina read the notes underneath. ‘No, it’s an exact copy of the scarf that the attacker used to strangle her with. She’d bought it from Primark the week before and it was missing from the scene. He took it with him after he attacked her.’

‘And it’s the same scarf that was used to strangle Sienna Moorcroft.’

Gina nodded. ‘It’s identical and it’s at least four years old. I doubt Primark still sell them now. He takes a trophy, then he uses it in his next attack. That’s his personal signature. And look at this, the earring he stabbed her with didn’t belong to Tiffany.’

Wyre blew out a breath. ‘Do you think it was taken in a previous attack?’

Gina nodded. ‘I suspect we have a serial strangler and he’s escalated to murder. We need to share this with the team now, and then we need to look for any other similar unsolved crimes. To prove this theory right, we need to find an unsolved attack, involving strangulation, where an earring was taken. It’s a long shot, I know. Our killer is getting more dangerous by the minute, and we need to stop him before he attacks again.’

Twenty-Three

After everyone had been updated in the incident room, Wyre followed Gina into interview room one. ‘It’s great that DCI Briggs has agreed to link Tiffany Crawford’s attack to the murders of Sienna Moorcroft and Robbie Shields,’ Wyre said as they walked.

‘It is.’ Gina opened the interview room door and smiled at the middle-aged man who was pulling at his long hair. He dropped a strand onto the floor before searching for another one with his tobacco-stained fingertips. ‘Mr Sallis. Thank you for coming in,’ Gina said as she and Wyre sat opposite him. She explained that they’d be taping the interview and Wyre started the tape rolling and made the introductions.

‘I don’t know if it’s worth taping. It’s just something small really. I caught the end of the news earlier. When I saw the appeal for that man, err Robbie something, I knew I had to call.’ He dropped another hair on the floor.

News of Robbie Shields’s murder hadn’t broken yet, but she knew from the briefing that his brother, who was also his next-of-kin, had been contacted. ‘I’m sorry to say that you may have been the last person to see Mr Shields alive.’

‘You mean he’s dead? I thought he was just missing.’ He furrowed his brows and scratched his stubble. ‘What do you need to know, and I’ll do my best to help.’

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