Chapter 28 #2
Nico grunted affirmatively and then quickly tapped a few buttons, and within moments, four streams of CCTV footage from different angles of the station’s exterior appeared on the screen.
He gradually began speeding them up as I did my best to keep track of the various car number plates whizzing judderingly past the camera.
‘So, is there a particular type of car you want me to try and find?’ Nico asked after a few minutes of scanning the footage to no avail.
I had tried my best to stay focused and alert on the various number plates the camera had picked up, but it was immensely difficult with multiple streams of traffic shooting across each screen simultaneously.
‘I’m looking for a number plate, final digits MDK, but it’s hard to try and track all the cars going past,’ I said, glancing down at Greta’s note again and making sure I had the right number plate corresponding to the right victim.
Lewis Khan – KV70 MDK – 11/11/2023
‘Oh, I wish you said that earlier,’ Nico said with a smirk as he quickly typed something on his computer.
As if by magic, there, at 19.03, the exact number plate fitted on a Mercedes Benz electric delivery van.
It was an understatement to say that those were pretty commonplace throughout the UK, even more so in London.
Everyone needed their vegetable choppers.
‘How on earth did you do that?’ I asked, flabbergasted. I just hope the masses of security cameras didn’t capture the 2022 incident where I got so hammered that I tried to start a fight with Gandhi’s statue in Parliament Square. I thought it had looked at me funny.
‘Trust me, it’s actually more comforting not to know,’ Nico remarked.
I tried to peer at the windscreen, make out who it may have reassembled through the pixels, but all I could see was a vague, shadowy figure in a high-vis vest in the driver’s seat.
There must have been some way to differentiate this van, other than its number plate, from the thousands that went through London alone every single day. ‘Can you zoom in?’ I asked.
Nico tapped another key on the screen and the grainy footage enlarged a little before us.
I walked closer to the big screen to try and spot any defining characteristics.
It was tiny but I noticed two small, albeit quite deep scratches on the left-hand side of the vehicle just by the back left wheel.
‘Okay, now can you go to Goldhawk Road on the 21 October 2024?’ I asked. ‘DF69 HMH.’
I knew Maggie Dawes’ disappearance had occurred somewhere between 19.
00 and 20.00, and I had asked Nico to begin the footage at 18.
00. He searched for the number plate and there it was at 18.
21. The words could not leave my mouth fast enough as I saw it – the same van again and I could see the two distinctive scratch marks clearly despite carrying a new number plate.
It matched up exactly to Greta’s note. The same number plate on the same van on the night Maggie Dawes died.
‘Okay, thank you, now can you go to Philbeach Gardens on 16 November?’ I requested. ‘Final digits, CBV.’
I watched Nico’s face ever so slightly twitch and grimace.
This was where Bea Powell vanished and the way his face dropped, and how the colour drained, told me that must have been his aunt.
He nodded without a word and quickly began to summon the footage.
I hesitated before finally committing to placing a hand on his shoulder.
It felt right in the moment, okay? He didn’t react either way to the gesture anyway, so I kept my hand there with no real movement as he began to boot up the footage.
The highlighted mark of number plate recognition flared up on the monitor.
I excitedly jammed my finger onto the screen – a gesture Nico clearly didn’t love – and tried my best to rub the smudge of fingerprint off the monitor.
There it was again – the van with two scratches, again sporting a new numberplate.
It all began to fall into place. The perfect way for the TellTale Killer to hide in plain sight and yet leave no security footage trailing back to him.
The most common vehicle in London, the generic delivery van; you’d melt into the background.
No one ever looks twice at a white van, especially not if you have a rotating plethora of number plates.
In addition to the fact that I bet it’s easier to throw a body in there than in a Mini Cooper.
Greta, you absolute genius.
‘The same van, different number plates,’ I exclaimed. Nico slowed down the footage as we both continued to watch the recording of the van pulling up on a street corner, stopping in a spot by an alleyway just slightly out of frame.
I realised Greta’s note only listed five victims because, though she hadn’t known it then, she’d been number six.
I’d considered asking Nico for the footage from the night she died, but without knowing what number plate the van was using on that particular night, I could lose hours trying to trawl through it.
‘Is there anything else in the footage that tells us more?’ I asked after I recollected my thoughts. ‘Anything at all?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ Nico said regretfully. I gave a little groan and moved beyond his desk to look more closely at a figure on the giant screen that dominated the room. Who could you be?
‘So, you don’t see who gets out?’ I asked, my eyes still fixed onto the figure behind the windshield to try and discern some kind of physical feature to ascertain what the TellTale Killer could vaguely look like.
‘Oh, it’s just some delivery driver shipping out these parcels.
It tells us nothing about Aunt Bea,’ Nico remarked indifferently.
‘Trust me, I’ve watched this footage hundreds of times, spent hours on forums, trying to work out what might have happened to her.
But it’s just another one of these unbranded delivery driver clones.
Feel like I’ve made myself go a bit crazy staring at the same sixty-second loop over and over again. ’
God, I knew how that felt. It was strangely nice to hear of another bereaved’s obsession with message boards, although I doubted Nico went on ones quite as shady as mine.
I then requested the two other camera footages, and sure enough, the van appeared in each one.
The timing didn’t always align exactly with the disappearances, but it was always there, defined by the scratches and each time sporting a different number plate, always lining up exactly with Greta’s notes.
I had no idea how the dates she’d pencilled beside them fit in. I’d asked Nico to check, but no van with those number plates showed up on any of the dates she’d written down. They must be signalling something else.
Now, I was stuck, though; the DVLA wouldn’t give out any private information about number plates. Unless, of course, you were a journalist with very good contacts and luckily, I knew exactly who may be able to help. Unfortunately, it meant going back, the second time in a day, to Hammersmith.
‘So, you think this is how the TellTale Killer’s been operating? With a van?’ Nico asked, swivelling his chair to face me again. He was more than a little interested; this was clearly a man invested in making sure the killer got justice. I did like a guy with a moral centre.
‘I do,’ I replied. ‘It makes more than a little sense, right? The perfect way to take his victims, and the perfect way to then deposit their hearts. Hiding in plain sight every time, swapping out number plates so no one catches on,’ I said, half explaining the revelation to myself as much as I was to Nico.
It reminded me of David Middleton, better known as the Cable Guy Killer, who used a company uniform as his way to slip past suspicion to kill his victims. Somehow, a brand makes us feel safe; it seems almost unfathomable that someone delivering our parcels could be capable of killing.
But that’s the trouble with serial killers – they could be anyone.
‘That’s very smart. You’re very smart,’ Nico said complimentarily with an ever so slight tilt of his head.
I almost smiled at that. For a moment, I was distracted, not by the recent discovery, but by the handsome man in front of me, lightly flirting with me. It was quite nice, you know. I realised I enjoyed being flirted with, even if I didn’t quite know how to flirt back.
‘I…’ He paused, massaging his throat like he was working through how to physically say something.
‘I was a little triggered the night you brought up serial killers. Only because I also spend so much time thinking about them, especially the TellTale Killer. I just want to find out what happened to Aunt Bea. I take it you’re not going to tell the police about this? ’
‘No,’ I responded. ‘And I take it you’re not going to tell them?’
‘No,’ he remarked, almost like he was a little insulted by the question. ‘I mean, in all honesty, I was hoping I’d get to tell you “I told you so” but hey, you were right. I mean, this is frankly outstanding.’
I started to give a polite guffaw and a flick of my hand as a kind of fake modesty but then stopped abruptly.
That turn of phrase was familiar, I had heard it…
no, read it, in that exact same tone by another person who had a weird obsession with the TellTale Killer.
‘All curds, no cream?’ I knew that was a familiar expression too.
My finger shot out like a bullet leaving a gun, pointing directly at Nico sitting in the chair.
‘No,’ I murmured, eyes narrowing and back hunching. ‘CerealKillerCornflakes.’
‘StabithaChristie,’ he responded, rising to his feet, finger outstretched, matching my accusation.