Know No Evil

by Hampton Graeme

  The whole team stopped what they were doing and looked over at Neeraj. He was pointing at his computer screen.

  ‘I just clicked on this to get the latest cricket score and this came up.’ It was the front page of an online copy of the London Echo. The headline made Denning’s blood run cold: Serial killer loose in London: who’ll be next?

  Chapter Fifty

  Denning read the article twice. He skimmed over the content at first, taking on board the gist of the story, then read it again in detail. And it was detailed.

  Below photographs of all three victims were the bold facts about the case, some of which had already been revealed to the public, most of which hadn’t. A ‘source’ from within the Met claimed that the police suspected the same man was responsible for all three murders, but as yet were clueless as to who this might be. There was mention of a ‘former Premier League footballer, now turned PE teacher’, and ‘the drug-dealing son of a notorious east London gangster’, both of whom the article stated had been taken in for questioning but subsequently released. But it was the final sentence that was caused the skin on the back of his neck to prickle: *Police suspect there may be a link to a series of murders that gripped the capital twelve years ago, dubbed the work of the* Bermondsey Ripper. Next to this there was an old photograph of Anthony Ferguson taken at the time of his arrest, looking dark and feral.

  It was damning. It was what they had been trying hard to avoid, at least for as long as they could. Panic would slowly spread like a plague, just as it had twelve years ago. They would find themselves under the most invasive scrutiny from both the press and the public. Not only that, cranks would crawl out from underneath every stone imaginable contacting them to claim they were the killer. A difficult case had suddenly become a whole lot harder.

  ‘Has Betty Taggart seen this?’ Kinsella asked.

  The team were either looking at Neeraj’s computer screen, or looking the article up on their own computers. But there was no escaping it: a source from within the Met… They were all thinking it: someone on the team had spoken to the press.

  He caught sight of Trudi shooting a look in Molly’s direction. He hoped the press leak and Molly’s arrival on the team were purely coincidental.

  ‘To answer your question, Dave, I’m guessing not.’ He looked over to McKenna’s office. She was sitting at her desk tapping away at her keyboard. Had she seen the article she would have called him in by now to share some expletives with him.

  ‘How did the press get hold of this?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘Well, it says a “source within the Met”,’ Kinsella barked. ‘I reckon it means one of us.’ He turned and looked at Molly. She sat at her borrowed desk, tight-lipped and giving nothing away.

  ‘Let’s not start jumping to conclusions,’ he said. ‘The press make stuff up all the time. Some bored journo’s probably put two and two together and assumed there’s a link between the recent murders and the old ones.’

  ‘Correctly,’ pointed out Kinsella. ‘They obviously know their facts. And what about all the Ferguson stuff? We’ve only just found that out ourselves. It’s clear that someone’s opened their gob.’ He wasn’t going to let this drop until they had somebody’s arse on the carpet for it.

  There was an outburst of idle chatter in the room that quickly looked like it was in danger of getting out of hand. Denning raised his hands: ‘Let’s not get this out of proportion. Yes, it doesn’t help us, and yes, it does suggest that someone’s deliberately talked to the press, but we don’t know that for sure. Most of this could have been worked out by somebody checking facts and making assumptions. Three suspicious deaths all very similar, and all within a few miles of one another occurring over the space of a couple of weeks – it doesn’t take a genius to work out there’s quite possibly a connection.’

  ‘What about the Ferguson link though?’ Neeraj asked. ‘They couldn’t have worked that out. Unless Walters told them.’

  ‘Walters is hardly likely to go to the press with this. He’d be as good as publicly admitting that he fucked up all those years ago.’ But Denning sounded more confident than he felt when it came to ruling out Walters. He couldn’t rule out anyone. ‘We need to work hard and fast now it’s all out there. The one advantage is it will likely mean that our man will be even more careful now. He may even decide to lie low for a while, which means the chances of there being another murder are looking slimmer. But equally, it means he’ll be on his guard, less likely to slip up, and therefore even harder to find.’ He looked around the room. It was still uncomfortably muggy in the MIT suite, and the team were already exhausted. Tempers were in danger of fraying or snapping altogether. ‘OK, let’s get on with it. We need a complete picture of Anthony Ferguson’s life. Something’s got to connect him with this other man; it’s up to us to find it, and quickly.’

  He was about to return to his desk when he caught sight of Neeraj raising his hand. ‘Could I have a word, boss? I think there’s something you should know.’

  * * *

  Molly tried to remain calm. They were back in Betty Taggart’s office. She was sitting behind her desk this time, lips clenched, face the colour of puce. Denning was half leaning against the filing cabinet. Neither was smiling.

  ‘You never said your partner is a journalist.’ Denning spoke as though they were making idle conversation at a dinner party. Her first thought was to wonder how the hell he’d found out about Jon; she’d made damn sure she hadn’t shared any personal information with him on the car journey to and from Bells Wood. But then she remembered Deep Neeraj whispering in Denning’s ear the minute they’d all finished gawping at the tawdry headline in the Echo. Neeraj knew about Jon. She, Trudi, Neeraj and some of the others had shared the odd post-work drink over the years, which inevitably led to the occasional snippet of personal information slipping out after a couple of pints.

  ‘Was a journalist,’ she corrected. ‘He isn’t any more.’

  Denning looked at Betty Taggart. Her lips remained pursed, exacerbating the lines round her mouth.

  ‘Somebody leaked this shit to the press,’ Denning said coldly. ‘Somebody from my team.’ They were both looking at her now, not threateningly but with a look that suggested one wrong answer would result in a small nuclear explosion going off in Betty Taggart’s office. ‘You can see the difficult position this puts me in. I need people I can trust.’

  He was being reasonable. Almost too reasonable. She’d rather he just shouted at her. She would shout back, naturally, and not let concerns about deference to senior officers cloud her reason. It would instantly kill stone dead any hopes she had of ever gracing the MIT suite again, at least in this division, but it was her default response mechanism. Her dad had ingrained that in her from an early age: never let anyone walk all over you, because if you do it once, they’ll make a habit out of it.

  ‘It wasn’t Jon,’ she said. She felt her voice falter slightly as she spoke and she hated herself for it. Not because it suggested she was lying, but because it made her appear weak. ‘It’s just not his style,’ she added. But if she was honest, she didn’t know what Jon’s style was these days.

  ‘We’re not saying it was intentional.’ It was Betty Taggart’s turn now. Like Denning, her voice was cool and level and dripping icicles. ‘Perhaps you and he shared some pillow talk, “how was your day at the office, dear”, that kind of thing, and you mentioned something you should have kept to yourself. He’s not appreciated the… the sensitivity of the information, and passes it on to an old friend in the press. Next thing…’ She threw a paper copy of the Echo onto the desk in front of her, where it landed with a heavy thud, its front page headline shouting up at her. Molly didn’t know how she’d come by it. Had someone just nipped out to the nearest branch of WHSmith and bought a copy, simply so Betty Taggart could make this overly dramatic gesture?

  ‘Jon’s not an idiot,’ Molly argued. ‘Besides, I haven’t spoken to him about this. At least not in any detail.’ She wasn’t sure
why she was defending Jon, especially when she couldn’t swear they were still a couple. But in reality she was defending herself rather than him. Even if Jon had leaked the story to the press, it would be her neck in the noose rather than his. They would assume she had given him the information and that, like a dog with a stick, he had only done what any good journalist would do with a juicy story.

  ‘Look, this wasn’t Jon.’

  ‘So you’ve already told us, Molly, but you can see where we’re coming from here, can’t you?’

  She looked imploringly at Denning. ‘I swear; this’ – she jabbed a finger at the newspaper lying accusingly on the desk– ‘has got sweet fuck-all to do with me. I’m telling you the truth.’

  A heavy silence fell on the room. Betty Taggart sighed and looked at Denning. ‘It’s your call, DI Denning.’

  Molly watched as a frown lined Denning’s face. ‘OK, I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. But if anything like this happens again, you won’t find me so accommodating.’

  Chapter Fifty-One

  The building site was a sea of mess and noise. A massive crane loomed high and ominous over a breezeblock shell, destined to become yet another luxury housing development that would be priced beyond the pockets of the average Londoner. Men in hard hats and orange vests sweated in the heat. The whole area was contained behind a white wooden wall, its blinding starkness punctuated with the occasional computer-generated mock-up of how the expensive apartment block would look when finished: three brick and glass rectangular boxes positioned around a concrete and gravel forecourt, with a granite fountain as its centrepiece.

  ‘Nice,’ said Neeraj.

  ‘Really,’ replied Denning. ‘I think it looks ghastly.’

  He parked the Focus next to a grubby Portakabin that housed the site’s office.

  Barry Thomas was the site foreman. He greeted Denning and Neeraj with a half-smile and a vice-like handshake. Thomas was in his early fifties, with a thick neck and a fuzz of salt and pepper on top of his head. His cheeks and forehead were red from too much exposure to the sun.

  ‘How can I help you guys?’ he asked, removing a couple of manila files from an orange plastic chair, and indicating for Denning and Neeraj to sit down. Denning brushed some grit off the seat before sitting on it.

  ‘It’s about Anthony Ferguson,’ Denning began. ‘I believe he used to work for you, about twelve years ago.’ It had been Ryan Cormack who’d made the connection: Ferguson’s employment history had been patchy, with many years spent on the dole. However, at the time of the murders, he’d been employed on a building site and had been overseen by Barry Thomas.

  Thomas sat behind a wobbly metal desk, its surface smothered with papers and folders and general rubbish. Denning spotted a copy of the London Echo tucked under a pile of glossy brochures, but couldn’t tell if it was today’s. ‘That little runt. Yeah, like I could ever forget him.’ Thomas’s had a strong hint of West Country about it. ‘But I wouldn’t exactly say he worked for me. We used to subcontract a lot of the work in those days. I mean you think there’s a shed-load of building work going on in London now, well you should have seen it back then, before the credit crunch. We couldn’t throw them up quick enough.’ He paused briefly when a young lad popped into the scruffy office to ask Thomas to sign something. He scribbled a barely legible scrawl on to the paper – some kind of chitty –and the young lad left the office, throwing Denning a curious glance as he did so. ‘Sorry about that,’ Thomas continued, ‘it never stops.’

  ‘Anthony Ferguson,’ Denning urged. ‘What was the nature of this contract work?’

  Thomas relaxed his bulky shoulders and stretched his spine, which made a series of clicking noises. Denning thought he heard him fart. ‘He was employed as a general labourer, but had had some basic training as a plasterer. Not that he was a very good one, mind. We often had to get another couple of lads to go over his work again, sorting out all the bits he’d botched.’

  ‘Why didn’t you get rid of him?’ Neeraj asked.

  Thomas shrugged. ‘If he hadn’t been arrested, I probably would have eventually.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ remembered Denning. ‘He got into a fight. What happened?’

  ‘Something and nothing. One of the other guys was winding him up about something, nothing unusual in that, but whatever it was he said he got Ferguson riled. He hit the bloke with a claw hammer.’ Thomas ran a hand though his wavy hair. ‘Don’t get me wrong, Ferguson was provoked, but the guy needed stitches. It could have been very nasty. That’s when your lot were called in. He was questioned over the assault, then the next thing I know he’s been arrested for murder.’

  ‘And that was the first time Ferguson had been violent, to your knowledge?’

  ‘Yeah. At the time I thought it was out of character: Ferguson usually wouldn’t dare say boo to a goose. Looking back, I realise it was probably only a matter of time before he turned nasty. Though getting a bit tasty with a bunch of hairy-arsed builders is a totally different ball game to attacking women.’

  ‘Why did you keep using Ferguson if you weren’t happy with his work?’ Neeraj asked.

  ‘Good question. Suppose I felt sorry for him. Besides, he may not have been very good, but he was reliable. He’d turn up for work on time, and usually not hungover. I can’t say that for a lot of these boys. Admittedly, that may have had something to do with me putting a boot up his backside and threatening him with the push if he was ever late.’ He laughed at the memory. ‘Besides, he was only ever on short-term contracts, so it’s not like we was stuck with him. To be honest with you, if we hadn’t been so desperate for workers, maybe I wouldn’t have used him, but we had such a high turnover of men back then, it was easier just to put up with him.’

  ‘Was there anyone he was particularly close to?’ Denning asked.

  Thomas gave another throaty guffaw of a laugh. ‘No chance. Like I said, most of the lads used to take the piss out of him on a regular basis.’

  ‘So he was unpopular?’ asked Denning?

  Thomas thought for a moment. ‘I wouldn’t exactly say he was unpopular. It was more a case of victim mentality. If something went wrong on the site, he’d usually get the blame for it, even if it wasn’t his fault, like. He just put up with it, stupid sod. He used to get the piss taken out of him too. Sometimes it was just harmless banter, but sometimes it could be quite nasty.’ He reached over and opened the door of a small fridge that sat on a shelving unit beside the desk. He took out a can of Coke and pulled back the ring. ‘Would you guys like one?’

  They both declined, then Denning asked, ‘So he had no friends that you knew of?’

  Thomas took a swig of Coke, draining most of the can in one long, continuous gulp. ‘Look, mate, I employed him to do a job; his private life was no concern of mine. I certainly never knew he was out killing women in his spare time.’ He finished the Coke, scrunched the can in his fist and tossed it into a bin in a corner. He folded his arms across his large chest. ‘Do you mind telling me what all this is about? I told the police everything I knew at the time, which wasn’t much.’

  Denning offered him a propitiatory smile. ‘I just need to know if Ferguson was close to anyone while he worked for you. Did he speak to anyone? Was there someone who didn’t treat him like something they’d stood in?’

  Barry Thomas belched loudly. He sat staring at Denning and Neeraj as though he was trying to suss out if they really were a cops, or just some random blokes who’d walked in off the street to ask a load of dumb-ass questions about somebody who didn’t matter any more, if he’d ever mattered at all. He scratched at a large red spot on his neck. ‘There was one bloke. I wouldn’t exactly say they were friends. Prior to the incident with the hammer, there had been a bit of aggro one day, nothing physical, just a slanging match. Probably some banter had got out of hand. We were already behind schedule on a job, so tempers were strained. A couple of the lads were having a go at Ferguson about something or other. Ferguson just sat the
re and took it, as he usually did, and a few of the other lads joined in. It was a bit like a sport for them really: goading the poor bastard until he cracked. Anyway, this other bloke got involved. He started sticking up for Ferguson. Told the guys to leave him alone. Well, it did the trick: they backed down. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t long before the piss-taking started up again. A few months after this incident, Ferguson decides he’s grown a pair of balls and goes off on one like Rambo’s uglier bastard brother.’

  ‘Who was this bloke?’ Denning asked.

  Thomas shrugged. ‘That’s just it, I can’t remember. He was only with us for a few weeks while we were finishing off a job. Another contract worker: ran his own business, I think. That wasn’t uncommon – if were behind with a job and it was nearing completion, we’d often contract smaller jobs out to local firms. Mostly it was just tidying up and finishing off: putting in kitchens and bathrooms, ironing out any little kinks. These were high-end properties. When people are paying top rouble they expect quality. It’s more cost-effective than going over schedule.’

  ‘But you must have records?’ asked Denning.

  Another shrug. ‘The accounts department might know. I mean, I could get onto them, like, and ask, but it was yonks ago. The bloke might have gone out of business by now.’

  ‘It’s worth a try, and I would really appreciate it.’ Denning handed Thomas his card.

  Thomas said, ‘OK. But you’re still not going to tell me what all this is about?’

  Denning stood, pushing the plastic orange chair back with his legs. ‘Just get in touch as soon as you’ve got the name and any contact details for that contractor.’

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  ‘I know it’s a load of old tosh, but it doesn’t make us look good.’

  Denning had just returned from talking to Barry Thomas when McKenna had beckoned him into her office. She wasn’t shouting, but her voice was audible enough to be heard beyond the thin partition wall that separated her office from the rest of the MIT suite.