Molly felt a stab of nausea rip through her stomach.
Part of her felt disgusted at the actions of Jon, a man she’d let into her life in the misguided belief that he was a decent guy. But another part of her felt angry; angry at the thought of having been taken for a fool. She’d somehow become a pawn in a sick game of hate being played out between her boyfriend and his ex-lover, and cursed herself for contacting Mags in the first place. More worryingly, she’d let them take her for a fool. She ran to the ladies’ toilet beside the lift and flung open the door of the first cubicle. Dropping to her knees she threw up into the toilet bowl.
* * *
Denning had finally swatted the wasp. It had landed on the table roughly halfway between the two glasses of Guinness and he’d thumped it with the heel of his hand. It now sat squashed and dead on the table. He stared at its crushed corpse for a minute, trying to process the bombshell Walters had just exploded in his lap.
Walters sat opposite, staring blankly at his feet. Perhaps he regretted saying what he’d said: fearing it could prize open a decade-old can of nasty worms resulting in some kind of post-career disciplinary case for gross misconduct, or dereliction of duty, or simply failure to protect the public from a potentially very dangerous man. However, Denning suspected that deep down what Walters mostly felt was relief. Relief that he’d finally had the chance to unburden himself of all the guilt and regret that had been building up since the day Anthony Ferguson was sent down. Whatever the case, he had now presented Denning with a major conundrum. On the one hand, he should haul Walters’ arse over the coals, but more pressingly, he needed to find out who this other party was.
‘I know exactly what you’re thinking,’ Walters said. His face had taken on a waxen look, like a melted candle. ‘Why didn’t I speak up at the time? Why didn’t I share my concerns with someone else? A senior officer, or even a fellow officer?’ He shook his head slowly. ‘We had our man.’
‘Even though he had an alibi for one of the murders?’
‘We checked that alibi. It didn’t stack up, and it was only for one of the murders: there was enough good, solid evidence to link him to all the others.’ Walters had raised his voice half an octave. He wasn’t quite shouting, but there was a clear hint of anger in his tone.
Denning laid his hands on the table, brushing the dead wasp onto the patio. ‘Mr Walters, I’m not here to have a go. Whatever you did or didn’t do twelve years ago is irrelevant now. You can’t change the past.’ He threw the retired cop a reassuring smile. ‘I need you to give me the whole story. From the top.’
Walters stood up, abruptly scraping the metal garden chair against the flagstones. ‘I’m going to have another drink. Would you like another?’ He nodded at Denning’s near-empty glass.
‘OK, just some water.’ He didn’t want any more alcohol – apart from the fact he’d be over the limit, he knew he desperately needed a clear head.
He watched Walters disappear inside the tidy bungalow, his shoulders stooped, his head slightly bowed.
Denning looked around the verdant garden: alive with colour and bathed in amber sunlight. The tall willow tree cast a wide and jagged shadow over the newly mown lawn, like a giant spider inching its way towards them. The garden was obviously Walters’ pride and joy; the one thing that kept the insanity of creeping boredom at bay during the long, dull days of retirement. Walters had a nice life. Did Denning have the right to take that away from him because he’d fucked up a major murder investigation so many years ago? Would he have behaved any differently in Walters’ shoes? Yes. He was damned sure he would have chased up every lead; worked the case until there were no doubts left lingering in the back of his brain saying ‘what if?’. But he wasn’t Walters. Walters came from a different generation of policing. He’d learned the job from the bottom up, earning his place at the top of the ladder through years of graft. Denning, as Betty Taggart had been so quick to remind him, had shot up the greasy pole aided by a psychology degree and the kind of IT skills the job required these days. Perhaps he shouldn’t be too quick to judge.
Walters reappeared carrying another can of Guinness and a glass of iced tap water. He placed them on the wrought iron table and poured the Guinness into his empty glass. He took a sip and gave Denning a brief moment of eye contact, then his gaze shifted back to his feet.
‘Ferguson had a low IQ. In fact, he was barely literate. His solicitor had to explain his rights to him. He was just too stupid to have planned those murders. Maybe he might have got lucky once, possibly even twice. But he didn’t have the brains to get away with it for as long as he did. Not unless he had help. Then there was the description from one of the witnesses. I know, witness descriptions are never reliable: a dozen different eye-witnesses will give you a dozen different descriptions of the same suspect, each one insisting they’re spot on. Even so, we had a witness who remembered seeing someone at the bus stop where the second victim was snatched. The witness was a doctor coming off a shift at St Thomas’s, so hardly unreliable. But the description wasn’t that of Ferguson. OK, it could have been Ferguson, and we just assumed the witness had got it wrong, or it was a coincidence. CCTV was no help. Whoever planned the murders had a knack of finding areas where there weren’t any cameras: side roads, back streets, places where nothing ever happened.’
‘The witness description?’ Denning prompted.
Walters sighed. ‘A tall man, late twenties to early thirties. Well built. He was seen chatting to the victim. We never managed to trace him. It just seemed easier to believe the witness had made a mistake. I mean it’s possible the man in question was entirely innocent and was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.’ His gaze shifted back onto Denning. ‘I know we should have made more of an effort to tidy up loose ends. And if we’d had more resources, more manpower, perhaps we would have. But like I said, this was nothing more than a gut feeling. There was no physical evidence to suggest anyone else was involved. The only DNA we found matched Ferguson. I know that if I’d taken my suspicions further I would have been told to forget it. Everyone wanted the case closed, and when Ferguson was sent down that’s exactly what they got: closure, nice and neat.’
Except it was neither nice nor neat. It was scrappy and inconclusive. And it now looked like Walters’ convenient ending had come back to bite them big time. Denning could feel his shoulders tense. Despite the relative coolness of the shade thrown up by the willow tree, he felt a tiny bead of sweat on his temple. ‘Do you have any idea who this other man might be? Did Ferguson have anyone he was close to?’
Walters shook his head. ‘Apart from Derek Rodman, Ferguson had no friends. He was a loner.’ Walters drank some more Guinness, gulping it down like a man with a thirst. ‘Whoever this other man was, if he even existed, there’s no obvious connection to Anthony Ferguson.’
Chapter Forty-Six
Denning spent the entire journey back to London replaying his conversation with Walters in his head. If he told McKenna about Walters’ suspicions, it would make the whole thing official. There might even be an inquiry about Walters’ mishandling of the case twelve years ago. It would destroy his reputation and turn his peaceful retirement into a living nightmare.
And there might not be anything in it. What did they really have to work with? A questionable alibi for one of the murders; a witness statement that placed someone other than Ferguson alongside one of the victims; and Walters’ claim that Ferguson didn’t have the brains to qualify as a serial killer on his own merit. Since when was intellect a necessary qualification when it came to committing murder? Even if he did buy Walters’ theory about there having been two killers, where was the evidence that Ferguson’s mystery accomplice was the same person who’d murdered Leanne Wyatt, Tanya Russell and Sandra Blake? And even if he was, why wait until now to start killing again? There was so much that just didn’t add up.
‘How did it go with Walters?’ Fisher asked as soon as he returned to the MIT suite. He had let her use his desk while he’d been out. T
here was a stack of papers littering the surface of the desk, and a couple of mugs half-filled with what looked like tepid coffee. There was also a faint whiff of cigarette smoke, which he chose to overlook.
He grabbed a chair and sat down next to her. ‘Very interesting. I need to run some ideas by DCI McKenna first.’ He paused for a moment. ‘It might be useful if you were to sit in on that meeting.’
Fisher shot him a puzzled look, but he changed the subject before she had a chance to ask any more questions. ‘That list, did anything useful come up?’
She rummaged through some untidy papers on the desk before handing him a couple of crumpled sheets of A4 with a list of names scribbled on them. One or two had an asterisk next to them, and another couple had question marks after their names.
‘The ones with a star are people of possible interest. One in particular,’ she pointed at a name he couldn’t read, ‘released a few weeks ago. Served eleven years of a life sentence for a murder committed in Brighton shortly after Ferguson’s killing spree. Another,’ she pointed at a different name, ‘a rapist. Briefly shared a cell with Ferguson a few years back. I’m still checking some of the other names, but those are two that jumped out at me so far.’
He thanked her. He could tell that her heart hadn’t been in it, but it was all the more important now to check names. ‘I want a specific note of anyone who was released around the time of Sandra Blake’s murder.’ There was nothing to say their murderer had ever had any contact with Ferguson. There was the possibility that he had simply been inspired by Ferguson’s legacy and was now trying to establish his own by acting out some sick fantasy that would leave his indelible mark on the world.
It was now dawning on Denning that the more clues they unearthed, the more questions they would raise.
Fisher looked over the list of names again. ‘I’ll need to check the details with the probation service. I’ll get on to them straight away.’ She reached for the phone on Denning’s desk, lifted the receiver, then paused. ‘What exactly did Walters say?’
* * *
‘Two of them?’ McKenna’s voice was half an octave higher than normal. ‘There were two of the bastards and Walters kept this to himself until now?’
Molly knew about Betty Taggart’s reputation for straight-talking, but seeing it first hand was a new experience. She stood behind her desk, one hand on her hip, clearly looking like somebody who resented having her Saturday afternoon interrupted, even for a murder investigation. ‘I don’t fucking believe this.’
‘In fairness to Ken Walters,’ Denning offered, ‘this was never anything more than speculation on his part. Unsubstantiated and certainly not supported by any forensic evidence.’
‘Even so…’ She looked at Molly, the wrinkle on her brow questioning her presence at the meeting. ‘He should have made his concerns known at the time. We’ve got a maniac out there running around killing women at leisure all because Walters bungled the original inquiry. I should be demanding his arse on a stick.’
‘Do we need to make it official?’ Molly asked. ‘I mean he’s told us now, and it could yet turn out be something and nothing.’ She felt guilty about dropping Walters in the shit. If she hadn’t gone raking up the ashes of a cold, dead case he would have been left in peace to enjoy his retirement. Any consequences coming his way would be down to her.
McKenna shot her a look that suggested she should keep all future opinions to herself. ‘Did he have any suggestions as to who this mystery accomplice might have been?’
Denning shook his head. ‘We don’t even know if he’s still alive; if he even existed at all. And there’s still nothing to link Walters’ suspicions with our ongoing case. This could just be coincidence. Or, and at the moment this is the theory I’m working with, this is a copy-cat killer. Either someone who’s been reading up on Ferguson and now fancies having a go themselves, or more likely someone who was in prison alongside Ferguson and sees him as some kind of celebrity.’
‘Maybe…’ McKenna pursed her lips together, exacerbating the spidery lines around her mouth. ‘But we can’t ignore the possibility that if someone was sharing the killing spree twelve years ago, they’re back in action and having another go. But why now?’
‘DS Fisher here is looking for anyone who’s recently been released from prison, especially anyone who may have had any connection to Ferguson,’ Denning said. ‘It’s possible our killer’s been inside until recently. Not necessarily for murder, but maybe with a history of violence. I know it’s all a bit of a long shot, but it would explain why they haven’t been around for the past decade.’
‘And you’re sticking with your copy-cat killer theory?’ McKenna looked directly at Denning.
He seemed to give the matter some consideration. ‘Honestly? I don’t know. I can’t simply dismiss what Ken Walters told me, even if I’d like to.’
McKenna had stopped punching her chin. She now stood with both hands on her hips. ‘I think we need to speak to Ferguson. Directly or indirectly, he seems to be the key to all this.’ She turned to Molly. ‘And I think we owe you a massive thank-you for pointing us in this direction in the first place, DS Fisher,’ she added, and for a brief second Molly thought she saw Betty Taggart shoot a thin-lipped smile in her direction.
Chapter Forty-Seven
A slightly queasy feeling swept over Molly as the heavy metal gate slid shut behind her.
A uniformed prison officer keyed a sequence into an electronic pad on the wall beside the gate and a couple of bleeps told her the gate was now locked.
They were standing in a corridor in Bells Wood Prison in Essex on Sunday afternoon. The prison was new, built sometime in the last twenty years to house mostly Cat A and B prisoners: rapists, arsonists, and murderers. The interior was painted white. White walls, white gates, white floor. Even the furniture was white. It gave the place a slightly clinical feel, more like a hospital, Molly thought, than a prison.
The officer was a taciturn man in his early forties, with bulky shoulders and a rapidly receding hairline. His regulation black shoes squeaked noisily on the polished floor as he walked them down the corridor. The unblinking red eye of a CCTV camera let them know they were being watched. The officer had barely spoken to them since she and Denning had pitched up at the prison reception area ten minutes ago, flashing their warrant cards and having to stand there like naughty schoolchildren while the officer sitting behind the reception desk confirmed that their visit had been OK’d by the governor.
Not that it had been plain sailing organising the meeting with Ferguson in the first place. The Met’s Deputy Commissioner had had to put in an official request to the Ministry of Justice directly, insisting Ferguson had information that could help the police with an ongoing murder investigation. The governor of Bells Wood, however, had been unconvinced. He had wanted to know how a man currently almost eleven and a half years into a life sentence would know anything about a series of freshly committed murders. It had taken pressure from the Ministry of Justice before he had agreed to the meeting.
And that hadn’t been the only tough cajolery that had taken place. Molly had worked hard to persuade Denning to let her come along to meet Ferguson. He’d told her it should be Neeraj as he was number two on this investigation, but she’d argued that she was the one who’d led them to Ferguson and therefore earned the right to be there. Denning wasn’t so sure. She suspected he thought she wanted to see Ferguson out of perverse curiosity, like looking at a caged animal in a zoo. And perhaps he was right to think that. Ferguson had dominated her thoughts for so long she knew she had to see him in the flesh and look him in the eye. Perhaps that would go some way to slaying the monster.
They were shown into an interview room off the bright, white corridor. The room was painted in slightly subtler hues of dove grey, with a plain beige carpet on the floor, and vertical blinds fighting back the glaring sun on the square, barred windows that ran along one of the walls. There was a round, wooden table in the centre of the room
, with four chairs. A water cooler sat in a far corner. This wasn’t what Molly had expected. Somehow she’d imagined Ferguson being incarcerated in some gothic Victorian monstrosity, like something out of Dickens.
‘Take a seat, guys,’ the taciturn officer said. ‘Ferguson will be here in a minute.’ He looked at Denning and Molly, unsmiling. ‘As the governor confirmed, I’ll be present throughout the interview.’ He closed the door and stood between the table and water cooler, arms folded.
Denning had asked that they speak to Ferguson alone as he was more likely to be forthcoming if there wasn’t a prison officer present. However, as he’d made clear to Molly on the journey up, he didn’t expect Ferguson to offer up anything useful at all. They were simply doing this to keep Betty Taggart off their backs.
There was an oppressive silence in the room, interrupted by the filtered white noise of the prison that seemed to emanate through the breezeblock walls and thrum and hiss around the visitor’s room.
Molly had never been inside a prison before, and it wasn’t an experience she wished to repeat in a hurry. There was something intimidating about the sound of a gate locking behind you, knowing that your liberty was curtailed, albeit temporarily. Denning seemed more at ease with the situation. Perhaps he’d been to a prison before, or maybe he was good at hiding what he was feeling. During the car journey to the prison, conversation had been limited: she learned that he was married, his wife was half-Chinese and he had a degree in psychology and criminology from UCL, but otherwise they’d mostly passed occasional comments about the case as the Essex countryside had sped by. Looking at him now, she wondered what lay behind the ice-cool demeanour. There was no denying he was attractive, not quite in a male model kind of way as Trudi had suggested – there was a softness about his face and his forehead was a little too high – but he was certainly gym-fit and had sexy, pale blue eyes. She wondered what his opinion was of her.
Know No Evil Page 22