He’d known what she’d done. Which he could have used to his advantage later on if he’d needed someone who knew how to manipulate Martha. It was a connection that tied him even tighter to the murders.
But for me, he still didn’t fit the Jack that I’d been dealing with.
1 November
Fordley Police Station
In the three weeks since Harrison’s name had been released, things had moved quickly. Forensic evidence was still coming in but what the team had so far was damning and conclusive, and more than enough to convince everyone they had their man.
Callum still looked exhausted but less drawn than before. Whenever I saw him though, I still felt a distance between us that I couldn’t span. He was civil and formal – in some ways that made it feel even worse. Perhaps too much had happened for it to ever be the same? I didn’t know, but I still hoped we could repair things once this case was done.
He watched me as I scanned the paperwork he’d pushed across his desk.
‘Forensics confirmed there was soil on the bike that matched that found at Polly’s café,’ he was saying. ‘The blond hairs found on the victims are a match for Harrison’s and they found his DNA matched the blood spot on Anne Stenson.’
He tapped the pictures of the contents of his fridge. ‘The womb came from Anne Stenson and the partial womb belonged to Kate Lawson. Still no sign of her kidney, though.’
‘On 16 October 1888, Victorian Jack sent Catherine Eddowes’s kidney to George Lusk, who was running a vigilante group in London at the time. That’s probably what he was keeping it for – to post it to someone – but was dead before he could send it on the right date.’
‘My money’s on the fact that he would have sent that to you,’ he said, watching me across the desk.
I looked up from reading the post-mortem report on Lizzie Taylor-Caine.
‘I can’t imagine what I would have felt, getting that through the post. This was brutal enough,’ I said, quietly, unable to shake the image of the gold rings with their grizzly message pushed into the throat wound that almost decapitated her.
He nodded, running a hand through his hair. ‘There were traces of her all over his flat in Fordley. Not to mention we found her handbag and the keys to her flat there. CCTV shows her leaving her flat on the day of the briefing. Then the next morning, it picks up her car going back to the underground car park at her apartment block. There’s no coverage inside the garage. But we’re assuming it was Harrison taking her car back there. He probably let himself into her flat with her keys and left those and her mobile on the table. Dropped the latch and let himself out. That accounts for all her belongings being in her flat when we got there. Making it look like she’d just walked out and disappeared into thin air.’
‘Any CCTV of him leaving her flat?’
He shook his head. ‘No, but the cameras at the front had been vandalised. Maybe a coincidence, or maybe he’d taken care of them earlier, knowing he was planning to go there? Maintenance say they’d been broken the week before, but it would take them weeks to get round to doing them.’
He offered me a coffee. I shook my head and watched him pour another for himself.
‘In the bin in his kitchen, they recovered tape with her hair and skin cells stuck to it,’ he said. ‘Looks like he kept her there before killing her and dumping her at the back of the Polski Klub in the early morning of the thirtieth.’
‘How did he move her?’ I asked. ‘He could hardly move her body on the bike! He’d need a car or a van?’
‘We’re working on that. Must have had access to some kind of vehicle – probably stolen. There’s nothing registered to him, but we’ll find it.’
He arched his back and stretched, relieving knots. ‘The techies found access to your computer at the farm from the computer at the university. The pictures of Susie, or Martha as you knew her, and Anne are on there. The dates they were sent to you match up. There’s also lots of activity on all his computers, accessing your remote server and your messaging service.’
I nodded, unable to find holes in any of the evidence. When I looked up, he was watching me.
‘But?’ he asked, quietly.
I shrugged. ‘All the physical evidence fits,’ I said. ‘Except the evidence I need.’
‘Which is what?’
‘The evidence in his mind. I don’t see “Jack” in Harrison,’ I said, simply.
‘You met him over three years ago, Jo, and only for a few days spread over a period of weeks.’
I shrugged. ‘It can be enough.’
‘But not always,’ he reasoned. ‘They don’t all present that obviously. You’ve said yourself, there are more psychopaths in business than in prison. Holding down professional jobs, with partners, families. We’ve all come across them.’
‘True,’ I conceded.
Maybe it was professional pride – not wanting to admit that I hadn’t picked up on anything when I’d been with him. One thing was bothering me, though. ‘The Laundy blades – any sign of them?’
‘Not yet. Have to say, that is a loose end that concerns me.’
It concerned me too. ‘He attached great value to those. He wouldn’t discard them. Why would he use the kitchen knife you found with his body and not a Laundy blade when they’re such a big part of his killing ritual?’
He shook his head. ‘Maybe that’s the point? They were so valuable to him, he wouldn’t want them falling into our hands – would rather dispose of them?’
‘No. I don’t think so,’ I said with conviction. ‘My profile might not have been right about everything, but I’m sure on this one. Those blades are a vital part of his signature. He wouldn’t dispose of them and he would have used them in his own suicide. If that’s what he did.’
I still couldn’t convince myself that Jack had killed himself. It was a massive piece that didn’t fit.
‘We’ll keep looking,’ he said. ‘I’ve got less of a team now though, and the chief constable is pulling back the resources.’
I’d seen evidence of that when I’d walked through the incident room that day. Previously, as the body count had risen, so had the number of officers involved. There wasn’t a square inch of space at Fordley nick that hadn’t had a desk and a computer squeezed into it. Over three floors of the station had been taken up by the major incident team, with officers drafted in from other forces. But in the last few weeks, the team had been stripped back to almost its original size.
The press were still hungry for anything connected to the victims or to anyone who knew Harrison, and the coverage was relentless. As if reading my mind, Callum tossed over the latest edition of the Fordley Express.
‘At least we don’t have to brace ourselves for that one,’ he said, indicating the banner headline.
What the Ripper had planned for his final victim!
It had a sickening image of the remains of Mary Kelly, discovered on the morning of 9 November 1888 in her own house at thirteen Miller’s Court, Whitechapel.
I looked at the black and white image, taken in the early days of crime scene photography. It was one of the most horrific and gruesome murders in the annals of serial killings.
The remains barely looked human, such was the ferocity with which Jack the Ripper had brutalised the young Irish girl’s body.
Both breasts had been cut off and placed beneath her body. She had been totally eviscerated and her organs placed around the room. Her heart was missing but there had been a fire set in the grate of the small cramped room during the night, and there was evidence that the Ripper had destroyed her heart in the flames. All the features of her face had been cut off; the rest had been hacked to pieces and was unrecognisable. He had also stripped the flesh from her thighs.
‘Cause of death was the severing of her carotid artery,’ I said. ‘Hopefully for her sake, before he carried out the rest of the mutilations.’
‘Why do you think she was treated so much worse than the others?’
‘Lots
of theories. Some say he knew her – had some sort of personal grudge with her. Others think that it was simply because he had all night with her in the privacy of her own home. So he could indulge in all of his fantasies with her body without fear of interruption. She was the only one of his victims not killed in the street.’
‘What’s your theory?’
I looked again at the barely recognisable remains of what had, by all accounts at the time, been a pretty girl.
‘I think she knew him. She obviously felt comfortable enough to take him back to her home. Neighbours said they saw her going into the house with a man voluntarily. They heard her singing during the evening while she was with him. They ate together. The remains of her last meal were still in her stomach at the post-mortem. A familiar punter maybe? I think she’d entertained him before and was comfortable with him.’
‘And yet, he could do that to her – to someone he knew?’
‘A natural escalation of his deviance. Classic really. They get better as they practice their craft.’
‘Well, thank God we stopped Harrison perfecting his craft before he got to that victim.’
8 November
Kingsberry Farm
‘You’re selling?’ Jen seemed shocked by the idea.
‘It’s not realistic to use the Fordley practice anymore, is it?’ I reasoned. ‘Even when the dust settles, I don’t really want to go back there. Too many people know it’s our place now. It wouldn’t afford us the privacy we need.’
‘I suppose clients might be reluctant to go there now it’s been splashed all over the news.’ She cleared the supper dishes from the kitchen table. ‘We could still work up here though, couldn’t we?’
We’d agreed it was time for her to move back home and her bags were in the porch waiting to load into her car. I’d become used to having her around, despite my initial misgivings. It had been nice to have the company and the extra help around the place. But I couldn’t keep her from Henry any longer.
‘Certainly more convenient than the commute into town,’ I said. ‘For me, that is. You’d still have to travel on the days you were here, though.’
She shrugged, opening the porch door with her foot to let Harvey out.
‘Same travel time as going into Fordley for me, but less traffic and Henry is happier that I’d be working from home a few days a week. Still, feels like the end of an era selling the practice.’
I knew what she meant. But I felt it was time for changes all round. The publicity surrounding ‘Jack’s’ murder spree had been double-edged. On the one hand we were inundated with requests for TV appearances and interviews as the press picked over the facts of what had happened and why – hungry for more insight into the mind of a serial killer and fascinated by my connection to the case. That had also fuelled interest in the launch of my next book, due out at Christmas, so we were frantic with engagements with Marissa for that.
On the other hand, calls for my expertise on the criminal justice side of things had stopped coming. The circus surrounding my connection with ‘Jack’ made me persona non grata on the court circuit anytime soon. So my work as an expert witness used by police forces and the crown prosecution service had dried up.
Jen gave me a peck on the cheek as I hauled her case into the car.
‘Give me a call tomorrow and we’ll sort out the diary.’
‘Will do.’
I caught Harvey’s collar and watched as she reversed out. She paused to let George’s ancient Land Rover go past the gate as he went on his habitual trip for a pint at the local, and then followed him down the darkening lane on her way into Fordley.
‘Just you and me now, boy,’ I said, as he whimpered at her retreating tail lights.
8 November
11pm
Kingsberry Farm
Back in my study, I sat and looked at the reams of notes I’d made on ‘Jack’, alongside my assessment of Paul Harrison. It was two different jigsaw puzzles that just didn’t fit together.
A soft silence settled through the house, broken only by the sound of Harvey’s snoring and the gentle ticking of the clock. I tapped a pencil against my teeth as I went through my notes again.
Motive? As far as I could see, Paul Harrison didn’t have one.
Because of the picture gallery at his flat, the police theorised that Harrison had become obsessed with me. Then enacted Jack’s crimes in some sort of twisted role play of ‘UK’s most infamous serial killer versus famous criminal profiler’.
But obsessive behaviour doesn’t spring from a void. There had to be a catalyst for it. But as I replayed all the interactions we’d had while he was with me at the farm, I couldn’t find one.
I jumped when the shrill of my mobile shattered the silence.
‘Hello?’
‘Jo…?’ I could barely hear the hoarse whisper down the phone, despite the silence in the room.
‘Hello?’
‘Help me… Jo…’ The voice was barely audible. I glanced at the caller ID – George’s farm.
‘George?’ I could hear the alarm in my own voice as a cold panic began to grip my stomach. ‘George, are you okay? What’s wrong?’
‘Think… oh God, Jo… think I’m having…’
I barely heard the soft groan and then a faint ‘thud’ that could only be a body hitting the floor. ‘George…? George!’
I was already reaching for my car keys as I headed for the door. Harvey was on my heels as I pulled open the door of the Audi that had no room for him.
‘Sorry, boy.’
The gravel sprayed behind the rear tyres as I accelerated out of the drive and bounced out of the gate onto the lane. As I jounced over the potholes, I could see Harvey in the rear-view mirror racing along behind me, barking over the roar of the engine.
It was only a mile of rough track, but never had it felt so long. I had the headlights on full beam, as I recklessly negotiated the narrow lane. Turning the last bend, I lost sight of Harvey but I knew he’d still be galloping down the track behind me.
I swung the car through the gate of George’s farm, barely stopping before I flung open the door and ran towards the house. The front door wasn’t locked when I pushed it open and ran in.
The small parlour was bathed in the honeyed glow of a fire-side lamp. The only sound above my laboured breathing was the mellow ticking of the old grandfather clock in the corner.
The handset of his ancient telephone was swinging from its wire, dangling over the edge of the Welsh dresser. I stopped and stared at the empty spot in front of the dresser where I’d expected George to be.
I walked over and slowly returned the handset to its cradle, scanning the room for any clue as to what might have happened to him. There was an open box beside the phone, its contents of gift tags spilling out as if they’d been tipped out in a hurry. I recognised the pattern – they were the same tags found in Liz Taylor-Caine’s severed throat.
‘George?’ I yelled, already moving to the back of the house.
I stood in the middle of the kitchen, willing my heart rate to slow down so I could listen for sounds above the thundering of the blood in my ears.
His coat hung on its peg by the door. His muddy boots were on the mat.
Everything seemed in its place apart from a sliver of light spilling out onto the stone flags from the partially open fridge. As I went to close it, I noticed a red stain along the bottom of the door. My eyes followed the sticky red trail to a Tupperware box on one of the glass shelves. My fingers shook as I unclipped the lid.
‘Shit!’
As I dropped the box, the bloodied human kidney hit the floor, splashing my shoes in sticky gore. I stared at it in shock, frozen to the spot.
Kate Lawson’s kidney? The one Jack hadn’t had time to post?
I heard Harvey barking in the yard, then a high-pitched squeal at the same time as the unmistakeable crack of a gunshot reverberated around the house.
When I ran onto the yard Harvey was laying in the circle o
f light cast by my car headlights. His side was bloody and matted. He raised his head slightly and whined when he saw me, then fell back with a low whimper.
‘Harvey!’ I went towards him.
It was then I saw, out of the corner of my eye, the barrel of George’s shotgun to my left. In pure reflex I caught hold of it as the figure holding the gun stepped out of the shadows and stood in front of me.
My brain froze, momentarily unable to process what I was seeing.
‘You!’
The cold metal of the barrel was ripped out of my grasp as a strong arm brought the hard wooden stock round to hit me across the face with a sickening ‘crack’ that I heard rather than felt as the ground came up to meet me.
8 November
12am
I swam towards consciousness, as if following air bubbles to the surface of a dark sea.
‘Welcome to crime scene B.’
The words triggered an alarm inside my head, flooding my body with adrenalin. The surge of cortisol sending shots of electricity through my skin and tripping my heart to hammer against my ribcage like a terrified bird fluttering against the bars of a cage.
This couldn’t be real. I was waking from a nightmare.
I tried to sit up but pain seared through my neck and shoulders. Something was holding me down.
It was stiflingly hot. Hard to breathe. The metallic taste of blood was in my mouth.
I willed my eyes to open, focusing on the face inches from mine.
‘No!’ My voice sounded hoarse.
James looked down at me.
I was laid on a mattress, my arms outstretched. My wrists tied to the brass bed head of a narrow single bed. I twisted to one side, trying to raise my knees, then looked down to my naked ankles tied to the ornate metal foot of the bed.
The Murder Mile Page 24