Monster of the Algarve: Harrison Lake Investigations, #3

By Ben Oakley

The Algarve, Portugal, visited by 20 million tourists a year, home to 460,000 people, and a playground for a serial killer known as the Monster of the Algarve.

Private investigator Harrison Lake returns to Albufeira to provide a fresh take on the case, sixteen years after his parents died in an accident on the town's shoreline.

But things quickly take a sinister turn when another victim is discovered, and Harrison is forced to choose between solving the mystery at all costs or getting out of Portugal alive.

As secrets and lies are exposed, he learns the monster is connected to the most infamous Portuguese disappearance in history. A discovery that could change the landscape of the entire region.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Twelvetrees Camden
• Release date: Jun 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223681694

Book preview

SELECT TITLES BY BEN OAKLEY

FICTION

HARRISON LAKE INVESTIGATIONS

The Camden Killer

The Limehouse Hotel

Monster of the Algarve

NONFICTION

TRUE CRIME

Bizarre True Crime Series

True Crime Killers Series

Orrible British True Crime Series

Monstrous Serial Killers Encyclopedia

Monsters of True Crime

WELLBEING

Suicide Prevention Handbook

How to Use Imagination for Mental Health

HISTORY

The Immortal Hour: The True Story of Netta Fornario

What dark thoughts chase you?

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Forty-One

Forty-Two

Forty-Three

Forty-Four

Forty-Five

Forty-Six

Forty-Seven

Forty-Eight

Forty-Nine

Fifty

Fifty-One

Fifty-Two

Fifty-Three

Fifty-Four

Fifty-Five

Fifty-Six

Fifty-Seven

One

The monster was waiting.

Thinking.

Hunting.

The line between living and inevitably rotting away was plaguing his thoughts, a cancer eating away at his oh so perfect existence. He found himself on the verge of dying every second, closer to the end, to the fate that could take hold at any moment. The choices were to die by his own hand, alone in the shadows of his once great town or commit the ultimate sin.

Not for the first time, he chose sin.

The sin of cold-blooded murder.

His life was all about the small moments which could change the course of one’s life for the rest of time. It was the little things that had changed him. The overheard conversations, the passing judgements, the faces of the girls he hoped to grip tight in his hands, crushing them to their deaths.

The last shimmer of the dying sun dropped off the horizon beyond the ruined Castle of Paderne. It was in the carcases of history and the leftovers of civilisation where the monster found solace, peace and fulfilment. It was with fortunate circumstance the girl had taken the pedestrian trail alone and upward to Paderne. He hadn’t needed to plan this one out, it had been an opportunity which had quite literally walked past him. And the monster was not one for passing up the opportunity of a kill.

Stupid German girl, he thought, believing she was free to explore the castle after sunrise – and alone. She had passed him on the path and exchanged mild pleasantries, such was the mask he wore to those who would become his victims. He had stopped further down the path and glanced back, the excitement shivering through his bones. He simply had to make sure she was alone. Being a tourist, she probably wasn’t aware of the Monster of the Algarve, the terror running through the region, nor the fact she was heading to the site where the killer had claimed his previous victim.

The olive groves, fig and carob trees, were no impediment when traipsing through to the rural, isolated castle on top of the hill. The Atlantic-influenced Mediterranean vegetation was enough to hide him from view of the girl, despite the lights from the towns in the distance. The trail would meet with the road up ahead and she would either take the road back down or walk around the external Taipa walls of the castle itself. He hoped she was adventurous enough to explore the ruins, and he hoped above all else she was alone.

The ruins were held in high esteem across the region but were closed for a number of weeks for refurbishments to take place. Even if they had not been closed off, many Portuguese teens and tourist groups would party around the walls, so it was not uncommon for people to be in the vicinity. Which is why the monster knew what to look out for. If there were anyone else nearby, local or tourist, then he would abandon the kill and traipse back down the hilltop in the hope another opportunity walked his way.

As he reached the top of the hill beside the entrance gate, he panicked for a moment as he suddenly heard voices. No, one voice; the German tourist. She was talking to someone and his heart dropped through his chest, his disappointment obvious, angered by an opportunity gone astray. Yet, he had followed her to the castle and he would have long regretted it had he not at least moved in for a closer look at what could have been.

The Castle of Paderne was an unusual trapezoidal shape, almost a hectare in size, with only the walls remaining. The regeneration work was obvious near the entrance gate where unsightly scaffolding stood, proudly declaring it was for the betterment of the Algarve. A government-proclaimed secret sandcastle to help boost tourism in the region; exactly what the monster did not want.

No more tourists.

No more belittlement.

He heard the girl’s voice on the eastern side, near the low and last-standing tower, which would surely be regenerated in favour of tourism. He had to peek at the very least, to savour the air she breathed, to see who was with her and what she had planned. The sandy makeshift paths, tight against the external walls, lent well to creeping around, allowing an element of surprise and stealth where needed.

A large and quiet gulp of air and he peered around the corner of the wall. He opened his mouth when he saw the girl sitting on a rock, looking out to the dark landscape beyond, with a phone to her ear. He felt his heart quicken and the sweat begin to form. The scaffolding may have turned the tourists off at least for a little while, and the locals may have stayed at home, but this one girl had traipsed up the path to her fate, hopefully to the end of her life.

He understood a little German but not enough to hold a conversation. He picked up enough to understand what was going on; relationship, affair, boyfriend, cheating. It appeared she had gone for a long walk to blow off some steam. Suddenly she shouted into the phone and dropped it to the side of her, kicking her legs out and sitting back on the rock.

Time to get to work.

The monster calmly strolled around the side of the eastern wall and didn’t hide his footsteps. He wanted her to know he was coming, he needed her to understand why he was there. She noticed him immediately.

Scheisse! You scared me, eh? she proclaimed.

He shrugged and confidently walked towards her, the excitement building, closer to the itch that needed scratching. There was no hesitation required, no beating around the bush. He reached up behind his back and pulled out his five-inch blade, catching the darkening dusk on its tip.

I’ve done nothing to you, she called out.

She frantically stood as the monster approached. He could see her now in all her glory. The tight and too short denim skirt was barely covering the tops of her legs. The pink tank top, hanging off her slight shoulders, covered in part by her long blonde hair, were too much for him to handle. The temptation was too much, the forbidden fruit was ready for him.

He swung out with the knife but she jumped back and screamed at the top of her lungs. He lunged forward with his left foot and kicked her in the stomach. She fell to the ground and desperately scrambled off the sandy path and onto the hill. She looked back and screamed again, music to his ears, but wary of others hearing her. He charged down the hill after her as she struggled to get to her feet. He hoped she wasn’t some kind of athlete like one of his other victims. He remembered her well, she had taken some beating to get her under his knife.

Fortunately for him, the German girl was all over the place, thrown into shock, unable to connect orders in the brain to movement in her legs. He grabbed her by her hair and slammed her back into the ground, before punching her square in the face. She recoiled, grasping at her face to protect herself, attempting to kick him off. As she was about to scream again, the monster punched her once more, almost knocking her out. But he was glad she didn’t, he wanted her to feel this.

He wrapped her hair around his hand and dragged her back up to the ruins, slamming her into the castle wall. She slid down into a seated position, legs out in front of her, back pressed against the sandy exterior. She tried to raise her hands to stop any further attack.

Please, she cried, spitting out the blood dripping from her broken nose, what do you want?

The monster crouched down in front of her, straddling himself over her legs. He lifted her head up to face him before speaking in a soft, thick Algarvian accent.

To dance with the dead beside the ruins of history.

He slammed the knife into the side of her neck with such force the tip of the blade exited through her windpipe. The blood spurted out and her body shook as the monster pulled the knife out and stabbed her multiple times in the chest and stomach in quick succession.

When her body stopped jolting, she slid to the side, her head hitting a rock near the wall. Content she was dead, the monster used all his force to stab her in the stomach one more time. This time, he left the knife in and felt the blood flow over his hand, then with as much force as he could muster, he ripped the knife sideways across her stomach. He knew from experience the large gash would cause her innards to flow out from her body.

He stood back and admired his work, holding the soaked knife in his right hand. Her bloody death was a thing of beauty, her body on display, exposing her insides and soul. The forbidden fruit was a dark paradise only he was allowed to experience. He wondered for a moment, if he could piece her back together, push the intestines back in and seal her back up. It was something he could maybe think on with the next one. Because there would be a next one, there always would be. The more tourists who arrived in his beloved Albufeira, the more choice of victims he had to choose from. He felt untouchable, powerful, eager to continue his rampage of death.

He reached down and lifted the girl, wrapping his arms around her. He held her mutilated corpse tight, feeling the warmth of the blood flow onto him, then he did what he had wanted to do with the last one but didn’t have the time. The one thing he had always wanted to do and now had the opportunity.

Dance with the dead beside the ruins of history.

Two

There is not enough chocolate or vodka in this world to keep me from contemplating dark thoughts about my parent’s deaths. I guess you could say, it made me the Harrison Lake I am today. They died sixteen years ago, a moment which changed the course of my life forever. I remember the night well.

The turn of the millennium had come and gone but we still partied like the world was ending. There was no point in taking the night softly, tiptoeing around issues of morality. That night, like many before it, was built around where to find the cheapest alcohol and the hardest parties. It was Camden in 2006, hosting remnants of the jilted generation, barely hanging on in a society that felt as alien as the stars.

I was twenty-six, young, dumb and strung out on a future with no real possibilities. Glad to see some things never changed. The club was called Paradise Lost, a fitting tribute to pre-millennial Nineties décor and a time when it didn’t matter if you were a goth or a townie, you only had to have a label to fit in anywhere. I was torn right down the middle, not dark enough to go full goth and not relevant enough to slip in with the hardcore clubbers. I was born to run the line between fitting in and dropping out.

Back then, without my friends I was nothing. We were born in the late Seventies or early Eighties, a world with no internet, no mobile phones and no inclination of the change coming to sideswipe us from the civilisation we once knew. At the dawn of the twenty-first we were free and yet lost at the same time, having succumbed to witnessing the end of the second and the beginning of the third Millennium of human history. I suppose losing my parents and being an only child while still working out what to do with my life had a larger impact on me than I would have thought.

They didn’t teach me stuff like that in school. I was never taught how to deal with grief or the commonalities of life. Instead, I was shoved in front of a career’s advice specialist and force-fed propaganda from a Government intent on hitting self-made targets, rather than preparing their young for the intricacies of society. Which is why by my mid-twenties, I was hitting the drink hard.

The Paradise Lost was a melting pot of sexual tension, sweaty students, banging beats, and leering middle-aged drunks. Paradise to some, hell to others. We were bulletproof, forged in the dying Twentieth-Century, rushing headlong into a future not made for us. The sexual tension was evident enough with the student rubbing up against me, shaking her sweaty body to a metal song, remixed to fit the style of the club. I wasn’t complaining as any night out in Camden, just a couple of miles from my family home in Hampstead Heath, was a night to be treasured. If it didn’t end up with one of our group either passed out, hooked up, throwing up or waking up the following day next to the ghoul of Camden then it wasn’t a night at all.

Though I was unsure if the girl against me was a ghoul or a real stunner but it didn’t matter as I was lost in the moment. Elysium hit at just gone one in the morning when the club was packed tight and bodies were sliding off one another,. The outside world dropped away and a veil of ecstasy enveloped me as the exhilaration of dance and alcohol combined to lift me out of the banality of life. It was a fleeting moment which sent bolts of electric excitement through every nerve in my body, lifting my spirit to the heavens.

A feeling that can be ripped away with a simple look from a friend.

I caught Andrew, a friend since school, glaring at me from nearby, beckoning me away by nodding in the direction of the exit door. It was common for him to want to go out for a smoke and just chat in the early hours but it was the look that got to me. The music was deafening, too loud to have a conversation in, I’m surprised any rocker’s ears survived the early 2000s. He had sadness in his eyes and I wasn’t sure if he had fallen for another girl who’d turned him down or if something worse had happened.

Begrudgingly, I slid away from the sweaty female then followed Andrew out the club to the smoking area near the front of the building, pushing my way between the sea of bodies and thick sticky floors, barely cleaned by the day shift. The fresh air hit me hard and for a moment I thought I sobered up but then had to reach out a hand to the wall to keep myself steady.

What are you doing, mate? I said, she was all over me in there.

Andrew was looking at me, eyes wide, shaking his head. You haven’t got your phone on you, have ya?

I had only recently picked up my new Nokia and never carried something so clunky to a club.

No, man. Paid too much to risk it.

Harrison, he said, rarely calling me by my full first name, I’m sorry, mate. He lifted his phone up.

What’s going on?

They’ve been trying to reach you and maybe my number was next on the list, I don’t know.

Andy, I’m really not straight right now, so can you just tell me what’s going on? You’re freaking me out.

His phone began ringing and he looked at the number before rubbing his face with his free hand.

It’s for you, it’s the same number. I said I’d come and find ya. He handed me the phone, I’m sorry, mate, I really am.

I took the phone from him and watched as he rested his hand on the wall and put his other hand over his mouth, eyes to the ground. I staggered away from the wall of the club to the roadside in order to hear better.

This is Harrison Lake? I mumbled into the phone.

As I listened to the police officer on the other end, I felt something change within me. The feeling of exuberance I had when inside the club became something far worse. I was no longer part of anything, the vibrant life I once had was ripped out of my chest and the world became devoid of light. A greyness dropped over everything I was looking at, a feeling of dread filtered into my skin, everything became doom-laden. My life, if for a moment, had come to an end.

My parents were dead as a result of a boating accident in Portugal, where they were holidaying. Their bodies washed ashore near a cove on the Algarve coast, a few hundred metres from where the boat was found. The police said they would send someone around in the morning to discuss things further and offer me assistance but the more they spoke on the phone, the more distant I became.

I dropped the phone to my side, the drunkenness fading quickly. The shock came on too quick and I fell to my knees, phone clattering to the pavement. The trail of vomit splashed down in front of me, a consequence of utter shock and confusion – and alcohol consumption. I fell to the side and barely managed to keep myself sitting upright as I pushed my legs out to sit flat on the pavement, my feet precariously dangling on the road in front of me. Cars rushing by mere inches away.

The tears came and they weren’t shy about it. I cried to high heavens, shaking at the fear of what was to come, knowing the inevitable loneliness and sadness to follow. I felt Andy’s hands on my shoulders as he dropped in behind me, pulling me into him tight. My other friends noticed and quickly discovered what had happened. They too were shocked and held me close, rocking me to the early hours of the morning.

I can’t remember how I got home that night but I woke up alone in my own bed, in my family’s four-storey townhouse which was suddenly devoid of life and love. I waited for the police to come and they arrived around lunchtime with more details for me, not that I wanted them. I wished to be alone with my grief. I wanted it all to be some sick joke but the worst things never are.

A week later, I went to Portugal to bury my parents at a small state-funded funeral with only a few other extended family members. I never went back to the country and dealt with my grief by cutting myself off from the world for quite some time. I never worked out how to overcome grief or the loss of my parents. No one prepared me for it. I exist in a time with some of the greatest minds ever to have lived and yet the answer to overcome grief still eludes them, away from self-help gurus and high-priced counselling.

I promised myself I would never return to Portugal for I associated the place with death and pain. But sixteen years after I buried my parents, in my forty-second year, I was about to break that promise.

Three

I like that you come and visit me, Miss Jameson said.

The same bench in Little Venice on the Camden canal where I first met her felt like a confessional booth at times. She certainly had a way with words that eased my mind. Though she was nearing sixty-six, we had a common desire to solve the world’s problems, one of which turned out to be.

It’s like everyone is way ahead of me and I’m so far behind, I muttered. No matter how hard I try to catch up, I never reach them. It’s been a difficult two years, I’m not gonna sugar coat it.

What happened with the girl?

Which one?

Stansey King, you know, your twenty-one-year-old lodger?

I leaned back on the surprisingly comfortable wooden bench, looking out to the shimmering water of the canal. The summer had been kinder than the last, more warm days with a full sun to draw vitamin D from. Had the weather been like it every day of the year then England, London specifically, would have been a perfect place to live but the grey months were sometimes too long.

She moved on. She was young, too young to be lodging with me. I was there for her when needed and that’s all that mattered.

It’s hurt you, hasn’t it.

I glanced at her,