Know No Evil

by Hampton Graeme

  ‘Hectic as always. You?’

  ‘Yeah, good.’ He opened the beer and took a sip straight from the bottle. ‘I’ve been asked to head up a murder investigation.’

  ‘Murder?’

  He recounted the events of the day without going into detail.

  She added the vegetables to the wok, stirring them around the hot oil with a wooden spatula.

  ‘Yes, there was something on the local news about that. Tragic. What a waste of a life.’

  ‘Mmm.’ He took another sip of beer and headed into the living area. The doors to the balcony were open, letting in a cool evening breeze.

  He went out onto the balcony, and stood leaning against the railing, sipping his beer and appreciating the breeze on his cheeks. The setting sun suffused its golden glow over the jagged landscape, and in the near distance he could make out the overground line snaking its way north towards Dalston on a series of Victorian brick viaducts. To the east of Hoxton station lay Haggerston Park. He tried hard not to think about a young woman lying strangled and battered in her shallow grave, and now lying cold and dead on a mortuary slab. He tried even harder not to think that a little boy might be growing up without a mother.

  Half closing the balcony doors behind him, he headed back into the living area and sat down on one of the over-sized sofas that occupied the vast room. There were a couple of estate agent’s brochures on the coffee table. He picked them up and flicked through the glossy photos of expensive properties in leafy suburbs. ‘I thought we could look at the Finchley house this weekend,’ Sarah shouted from the kitchen. ‘That’s assuming you’re not working.’

  He threw the brochures back on the table and took another sip of beer. ‘I’ve got Jake this weekend, remember?’

  Sarah appeared from the kitchen and stood at the end of the sofa, the wooden spatula still in her hand. ‘Sorry, I forgot to say: Claire phoned earlier. She said she tried your mobile but couldn’t get an answer. She didn’t want to leave a voicemail. She’s asked if you could make it next weekend.’

  He rubbed a hand over his eyes. ‘She’s changed the arrangements again? That’s the second time this month.’ He looked over at the photo of his son that sat on the bleached-wood sideboard at the far end of the living area. He’d taken the photo on his phone during a trip to Alton Towers on Jake’s last birthday. His son was smiling, something he hadn’t been doing a lot of lately.

  Sarah scrunched her face into a half smile, punctured with a nasal sigh. ‘Don’t shoot the messenger.’

  ‘Sorry. It’s just… I was looking forward to taking him bowling.’

  ‘Matt, you always take him bowling. Either that or it’s the cinema. Why not take him to the Science Museum or the Planetarium? He might enjoy it and learn something at the same time.’

  ‘He’s an eight-year-old boy, Sarah. He’s got school for education. Weekends are for fun.’

  She perched on the arm of the sofa, and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. ‘I know I don’t have any right to interfere, but it won’t do him any good in the long run if you keep indulging him all the time. I’m sure Claire would agree with me.’

  Denning doubted if his ex-wife would agree with Sarah on anything, especially the welfare of their only child. ‘Maybe.’ So much of his life was spent treading a fine line; always trying to keep everyone else happy. Sometimes he thought it would be nice to take his son somewhere far away and never come back. ‘I can ask him,’ he said.

  ‘Great. And at least think about that house. We can easily afford somewhere bigger now. Preferably somewhere with a garden. Jake would like that.’ She rubbed his shoulder and headed back into the kitchen.

  Denning glanced at the brochures on the coffee table. ‘I thought you liked living round here. And do we really want to commit ourselves to a massive mortgage?’ He bristled at the prospect of years and years of debt hanging over their heads.

  ‘Why are you always worrying about money?’ Sarah shouted from the kitchen. ‘I should get a decent bonus this year, and there’s the extra money you’re bringing in now you’ve been promoted. We might as well plan for the future.’

  Money seemed to occupy so many of their thoughts these days, but for different reasons. He suspected Sarah was unaware of just how little he earned as a detective inspector, while her annual bonus as a portfolio manager with a major investment bank could have easily paid for a third car.

  Then there were the maintenance payments for Jake. Not that he resented that: it was important for his son to have stability in his life, and being a parent was a full-time commitment, irrespective of how rarely he actually saw his son.

  He looked over at the picture of Jake. He hadn’t been himself the last couple of times they’d gone out. Maybe Sarah was right: perhaps it was time to try somewhere different for their irregular father and son outings. Maybe he needed to work harder at being a better dad.

  Chapter Nine

  Molly booted up Jon’s laptop. She was sitting at the desk in the tiny office at the back of the house, which overlooked the garden. Jon was downstairs, watching a football match he’d recorded on Sky Plus, two cans of Stella Artois for company.

  If she’d told him what she was doing he would have accused her of being obsessed, and it was just possible he might have a point.

  But if nothing else, this would quench her curiosity.

  She typed the name ‘Anthony Ferguson’ into the search box and hit the return key. The screen instantly filled with a list of over a dozen websites, mostly news sites, but also a couple of discussion forums and a website devoted to the celebration of the world’s most notorious serial killers.

  Molly clicked on the BBC news website.

  She was already familiar with the basic facts of the case: seven women had been dragged off the street at night and brutally murdered. The oldest was thirty-four, the youngest was fifteen. The police had initially underplayed any links between the first few killings before eventually having to admit they were the work of the same man: Anthony John Ferguson, twenty-eight; a loner who lived with his elderly grandmother in New Cross.

  She read on.

  The victims had all been sexually assaulted, beaten and strangled. The level of violence had suggested the perpetrator was deranged and dangerous. The press had dubbed him ‘The Bermondsey Ripper’, though his killing spree had quickly extended beyond Bermondsey to other areas of south east London.

  Within days of the last murder, Ferguson had been arrested and charged.

  At his trial, the judge labelled him the very embodiment of human depravity, and handed him a full-life tariff, meaning Ferguson would never be released. The press speculated that he’d acted out of a deep-rooted hatred of women. He had shown no remorse for his actions, and had never expressed any pity for his victims or their families. Two psychiatrists had declared Ferguson as being of sound mind with no history of mental illness, though one suggested there was some indication of psychopathy in Ferguson’s personality, and noted that he had a below-average IQ.

  Ferguson had launched an appeal with the Court of Appeal six months after his conviction; no longer claiming his innocence, but challenging the full-life tariff. However, as the tariff had been set by the trial judge rather than a politician, the appeal was rejected and the sentence upheld.

  Molly remembered the trial. It was just before she’d gone back to Oz to stay with her dad and his new wife for a couple of years of dodging arguments and trying to sort her life out.

  At the bottom of the BBC page there were links to several online articles and news stories about Ferguson. She clicked on a couple of them. The coverage of both the crimes and the man who carried them out bordered on salacious. Ferguson was variously described as a ‘monster’, a ‘beast’ and ‘the devil in human form’. His grandmother had been forced to move house after an online vigilante group published her address. She died the following year from a heart attack. The brother of one victim was quoting as saying that he hoped Ferguson would ‘rot in hell’.
There were the usual demands to bring back the death penalty for Ferguson and people like him.

  A couple of stories focused on Ferguson’s background, trying to uncover a reason for his behaviour, and asking if people like Anthony Ferguson were born evil, or whether upbringing played a part.

  But it was the final article that prickled her interest. It was written by a freelance journalist who questioned certain aspects of the Ferguson case, hinting at a possible miscarriage of justice.

  Molly re-read the article a couple of times. The story was little more than speculation, with nothing to substantiate its claims beyond idle conjecture.

  She noted the name of the journalist, Magda Kilbride, and a contact email address. The article had been written two years ago to mark the tenth anniversary of the killings so it was likely the email address would still be active. She started to draft an email, thinking carefully about what she wanted to say. It would be better if she didn’t mention being a police officer, as that would imply her enquiry was in some way official. At this stage it wasn’t even an enquiry, just casual curiosity. Or was it something more; a niggling doubt that had refused to go away…?

  She looked at the decade-old photograph of Anthony Ferguson: dead eyes framed in a pockmarked face. She didn’t believe it was possible for a person to look evil but, innocent or guilty, there was something about Ferguson that made her skin crawl.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘We’ve got the preliminary results of the post mortem through,’ Denning announced to his team next morning. They were gathered together in the MIT suite on the fifth floor. The air conditioning was still off, and the room already felt hot and oppressive. ‘We also now have confirmation that our victim is Leanne Wyatt.’

  Denning stood at the front of the room next to a large whiteboard. He had the beginnings of a headache, no doubt caused by lack of sleep and exacerbated by the heat.

  He looked around the room. He was at least four officers short of the number ideally needed to competently conduct a murder investigation. A combination of biting cuts to police budgets and a couple of officers on long-term sick leave meant he was already starting this investigation on the back foot.

  A blown-up aerial photograph of the park dominated the right hand side of the whiteboard: a circled cross in red marker indicating the area where the body had been found. The map was surrounded by photographs of the crime scene, including several pictures of the victim, graphic and bloodied; enough to turn all but the strongest of stomachs.

  ‘Results confirm Leanne Wyatt was strangled and beaten by a blunt instrument, most likely a hammer. There was evidence of vaginal bruising, suggesting she’d been raped.’ He pointed to the photograph of Leanne taken during the post-mortem. Her face had been cleaned up but was pale and empty, like a bleached waxwork.

  ‘What are those scratch marks on her body?’ DC Ryan Cormack asked.

  ‘Foxes, apparently,’ Denning said. ‘According to the PM report, some of them are quite deep.’

  ‘The mark on her forehead looks a bit like a cross,’ Ryan added.

  Denning looked more closely at the photo. Ryan had a point: the scratch marks on the victim’s forehead did faintly resemble a cross, but equally, they also looked like random scratch marks.

  ‘Best not to jump to any conclusions just yet,’ Denning said calmly. ‘Let’s stick to the bare facts for now.’ He read the PM report. ‘Time of death is given at around midnight on the evening of July 23rd. There were high levels of alcohol in her system and traces of amphetamines, but no evidence of Rohypnol or any other drugs associated with rape. We’re still waiting for the forensic report,’ he said, making a mental note to chase up Gorton. ‘Obviously our priority at this stage is to find out where the murder took place and who was responsible.’

  ‘So we round up all known sex offenders,’ Kinsella said.

  ‘That’s certainly a possibility, Dave, but most sex attacks are opportunistic: the attacks usually occur where the bodies are found. This is different. It feels like there’s been an element of planning here.’

  Kinsella made a noise Denning couldn’t quite hear. He ignored it and continued, ‘CCTV picked up a white Ford Transit van parked near the eastern entrance to the park around midnight yesterday. Unfortunately, the park’s CCTV is analogue rather than digital, so the images aren’t sharp enough to get any clear details. We’re going to get the boys and girls in the tech team to digitally enhance the picture quality. Hopefully this will give us a registration number, and then we can run it through the Automatic Number Plate Recognition system. Tech have also got Leanne’s laptop which, with a bit of luck, should throw up something useful. Her mobile phone is still missing, and it’s possible her killer has it, maybe even kept it as a souvenir. We’ll contact her service provider and try and get a trace. Even if it’s switched off, they’ll be able to give us an approximate location, which we can then narrow down. In the meantime, we’ll continue with door-to-door and speak to people who knew our victim. However, it seems Leanne kept herself to herself and didn’t have many friends. Perhaps this was because she had a small child and couldn’t get out much, but it’s also possible she was shy and didn’t make friends easily. As we speak to more people who knew her, we should build up a better picture of who she was and why someone might want to kill her.’

  ‘My money’s still on Gregor Kane for this. He knew the victim, he’s got previous for assault, and he’s nasty. He fits the bill to a tee.’ Kinsella shared his wisdom with the team. He was sitting on his desk, arms folded over his barrel of a chest, wearing the same sweat-stained shirt he’d been wearing the previous day.

  ‘Despite having an alibi, Kane remains a person of interest,’ Denning said. ‘However, until we can disprove his alibi, we’re going to have to handle Kane with kid gloves.’

  ‘Don’t we always.’

  Denning watched as Kinsella rolled his eyes. He didn’t doubt Kane was certainly capable of this, but Kane was nobody’s fool: if he had killed Leanne, he would have covered his tracks well. If they were going to go after the likes of Gregor Kane and his slippery father, they would need to be one hundred per cent sure of their facts.

  ‘What about DNA?’ Ryan Cormack asked.

  ‘I’m going to chase up forensics, as soon as I’ve finished this briefing, so hopefully we’ll get their report ASAP. Once we have it, we can cross-match anything with the DNA database and see if we get a match.’

  Denning turned to the whiteboard. Taking a marker pen, he scribbled another name on the board: Daryl Bailey.

  A murmur of whispering passed between various members of the team, then Kinsella asked, ‘How exactly does Daryl Bailey fit into this?’

  ‘His name came up when we were questioning Kane.’

  ‘You’re not going to take Gregor Kane’s word for it?’ asked Neeraj. ‘He’s just trying to get himself off the hook.’

  ‘One of Leanne’s workmates confirmed that she seeing an older man,’ Denning explained. ‘She didn’t give a name, but the description fits Daryl Bailey. Either way, we need to speak to him, to eliminate him or otherwise.’ He cleared his throat and continued. ‘In the meantime, I need someone to check out an allegation, or possible allegation of sexual assault that may or may not have been made against Mr Bailey around ten years ago.’ He looked at Neeraj, who just sat there impassively, staring blankly back at Denning. Denning turned to DC Bell. ‘Trudi, can you look into that? Get in touch with Bailey’s old clubs. Find out all you can about what he got up to when he played for them. See if there’s any hint of scandal, any suggestion of impropriety, especially if it involved young women.’

  Trudi nodded and scribbled the details in her notebook.

  Denning turned back to the whiteboard. ‘Our first priority at the moment is to locate where Leanne was killed. Let’s start by finding out where she was on the evening of the twentieth and who she was with. Her mother said she was meeting a friend that night. Her clothing suggests she was dressed for a night out, so wh
ere did she go? Who did she meet?’ He looked round the room at a sea of nodding faces. ‘This could turn out to have been a random attack, but we have to explore the possibility that Leanne knew her killer. We need to examine every aspect of her life: who were her friends? Was she seeing anyone other than Gregor Kane? Kane seemed to imply that she was. I accept that Gregor Kane may not be the most reliable of individuals, but we have to explore the possibility he’s telling the truth in this instance.’

  ‘What about her son?’ Kinsella asked.

  ‘I don’t think he did it, Dave. He’s only five,’ Trudi said, earning a cacophony of laughs and sniggers from the team.

  ‘I mean, do we know who the father is?’ Kinsella said, shooting an angry look in Trudi’s direction. ‘That might be relevant to all this.’

  ‘Gregor Kane is the obvious choice,’ Neeraj offered.

  ‘Whoever he is, he’s definitely worth speaking to,’ Kinsella said.

  ‘Susan Wyatt claims Leanne insisted Kane wasn’t the father, and this seemed to be backed up by what Kane said yesterday. However, that doesn’t entirely rule him out.’ Denning recalled how Kane’s apparent disregard for Leanne’s son was at odds with Susan Wyatt’s description of someone who was always good with little Charlie. One of them was lying, and his money was on Kane: a love of children wouldn’t sit well with his macho bravado.

  ‘Of course, it is just possible she never knew who the kid’s father was.’ Kinsella seemed to address the comment to the wider room rather than Denning directly. Denning flashed a sharp look at Kinsella, which went unnoticed.

  ‘I’m not sure that’s helpful, Dave. Let’s work on the assumption that Leanne did know who Charlie’s father is, in which case, yes, it would help to speak with him, so at the very least we can rule him out of our inquiries.’

  ‘Assuming it isn’t Gregor Kane,’ said Kinsella. Denning caught sight of Neeraj smirking. He returned to the whiteboard.

  ‘Okay, let’s focus. This is a murder inquiry. We need to get results and sooner rather than later. We need to trace Leanne’s movements on the night in question.’