‘Ruth . . .’ Nelson takes her hand and looks up into her face. ‘We shouldn’t do this.’
‘You’re right,’ says Ruth. She leans forward just as his lips touch hers.
*
Judy rings Tony and tells him to meet her at the station. He sounds very excited. ‘I’ll come at once.’ Judy can remember the days when catching the perpetrator was purely a thrill, the culmination of the chase. These days everything seems much more complicated.
Clough waits while Judy reads Bob Carr his rights again and asks whether he wants a solicitor. Carr shakes his head, he still seems slightly dazed. One eye is closed and purple. Judy hopes that the boss didn’t hit him. There are some very incriminating knuckle marks there.
‘I’d like to ask you some questions now,’ she says. ‘Do you need anything? Tea? Coffee? Water?’
‘Just some water, please.’
Tony goes to fetch it. Judy has a whispered conversation with Clough.
‘Do you need me to stay?’ says Clough.
‘No, it’s fine. Thanks for everything.’
‘I enjoyed it,’ says Clough. He surprises Judy by giving her a quick kiss on the cheek as he leaves.
In the doorway, Clough meets Super Jo head on. Judy hears her give an exclamation of surprise and, she thinks, delight.
‘Hallo, Dave. Have you come back to us?’
‘No. I just happened to be on the scene.’
‘That’s what good coppers do.’ Jo gives him a pat on the back. She’s always had a soft spot for Clough, thinks Judy. She hopes Nelson will forgive her for calling the superintendent but she really couldn’t let Jo find out about Carr’s arrest on the evening news.
Judy barely has time to appreciate Jo’s Saturday evening attire of leggings and oversized Ramones T-shirt when Tony arrives with the water. After a brief consultation with Jo, Judy ushers Bob Carr into interview room one. There’s no time to talk to Tony about strategy. She just hopes that he’ll have the sense to follow her lead.
‘This is an interview under caution with Robert Carr. Present DI Judy Johnson and DC Tony Zhang.’ Judy presses record. Jo is watching through the two-way mirror.
‘Why did you attack Dr Galloway just now?’ asks Judy.
‘I wanted to keep her quiet.’ Bob looks at her out of his mild blue eyes.
‘Why?’ Wait, Judy tells herself, give him time to answer.
But Bob doesn’t seem to need time. ‘She knew,’ he says. ‘About the others.’
‘Which others?’
‘Stacy and Jill. Nicola and Jenny too. There were signs of acid damage on the bones, you see. I didn’t do it on purpose but I kept them at the studio. There must have been traces of acid on the material I wrapped round them. Phil Trent didn’t spot it. He just thought that they had been buried in acidic soil. But Ruth knew better and she made the link. She texted Crissy to ask if any of the artists at Grey Walls used acid.’
‘Did you kill Stacy, Jill, Nicola and Jenny?’ Wait, she tells herself again. Let the suspect incriminate himself.
‘I was saving them,’ says Bob, leaning forward earnestly as if he is explaining the theory of solar-plate etching. ‘They were too beautiful to live. I got the idea from the Lantern Men. We were a light in the darkness, guiding women onto the right path. Sometimes the kindest thing is to save the women from the world.’
‘How did you kill them?’ asks Judy.
‘I knew Stacy from the old days in London,’ says Bob. ‘She was beautiful, tall and blonde like Crissy and Ailsa, like all of Ivor’s women. I met her again at a party at Ivor’s house. There was a definite spark between us. We started sleeping together and, one night, I just put my hands round her neck and that was that.’
‘You strangled her?’
‘I didn’t mean to. Ivor had told me that some women like being choked during sex. That’s all it was at first. A game. But afterwards, she looked so beautiful and at peace, I realised that I’d done her a favour.’
‘What did you do with her body?’
‘I kept it in the freezer at my studio. I almost forgot about her. Then I met Nicola at the community centre. She was beautiful too. I knew she was going to the end-of-term drinks at the Dragon so I waited for her on the way home and I killed her. It was easier that time.’
I bet it was, thinks Judy. She is temporarily lost for words so Tony says, in exactly the right even tone, ‘What about Jenny?’
‘I met Jenny at the barbecue on the beach. I knew where she worked. It was easy. I waited for her as she cycled to work. It was almost as if she was waiting for me. Like in her story. The Artist was me, you see. I buried Jenny and Nicola in the garden of the Jolly Boatman because I knew that Ivor had buried Sofia there.’
‘You knew that Ivor had killed Sofia Novak?’ says Judy.
‘I guessed. I knew all of Ivor’s secrets. He told me about the choking game. I knew he was sleeping with Sofia. Then, one afternoon, I came back early from a hike and I saw him drive off as if the hounds of hell were after him. I followed him and saw him burying something in the pub garden. I never saw Sofia again. So sad. She was a lovely little thing.’
Bob sounds genuinely upset about Sofia whereas, in his view, his own victims were lucky to have been saved. Judy grips her hands together and keeps her voice steady.
‘What about Jill Prendergast?’
‘I met her at Ivor’s fiftieth. We got talking and she told me that she had a boyfriend. I knew that she needed saving from him. Jill was too good for some electrician, someone who had probably never thought about art and beauty in his life. I wasn’t sure how to do it but then, one night, I was driving home and I saw Jill waiting at the bus stop. I offered her a lift. She said yes immediately. It was almost as if she knew what I was going to do and she accepted it. I drove her to a lay-by and strangled her. It was as easy as that.’
‘What did you do then?’
‘I put her in one of the freezers at the studio while I worked out where to bury her.’
‘You buried her in Chantal Simmonds’ garden. Why?’
‘Well, I didn’t think I could use the Jolly Boatman again,’ says Bob, as if explaining a technique to a particularly slow student. ‘Three bodies are enough, don’t you think?’
‘Is that why you buried Stacy there too?’ says Judy. ‘After all, you had kept her in the freezer for a long time. Why did you suddenly decide to bury her?’
‘No comment,’ says Bob. Rather too late, in Judy’s opinion.
‘Did Chantal Simmonds know that you’d buried Jill and Stacy in her garden?’
‘No comment.’
Judy looks at Tony. ‘What about Heidi Lucas?’ says Tony. ‘What happened to her?’
For the first time, Bob sounds slightly quavery. ‘I thought it was over. I thought I wouldn’t have to save any more women. But then you dug up Jenny and Nicola. It was all in the papers. Their photos too. And I thought of Heidi. I remembered her from the barbecue, you see. I knew the route she’d take because I’ve got the same cycling app. We discussed road racing that evening. I met her on the way, persuaded her to come to my van and I strangled her. I left her on the marshes and put the badge beside her so that you’d know it was the Lantern Man.’
The Lantern Man, in the singular. Isn’t that what Crissy Martin had said? Did she know all along?
She knows she has to get permission from the CPS first but, after she has sent Bob back to his cell, she says out loud, in her best DI voice, ‘Robert Carr,. You are charged that you did murder five women, Stacy Newman, Nicola Ferris, Jenny McGuire, Jill Prendergast and Heidi Lucas contrary to common law . . .’
*
It’s almost eleven o’clock by the time that Nelson appears at the station. Super Jo and Tony have gone home. Bob Carr is in the cells and Judy is watching a video of her interview with him.
‘Hi, boss,’ she says. ‘He
confessed. To all five of the women. Stacy, Jill, Nicola, Jenny and Heidi.’
‘Heidi too?’
‘Yes. He says that the publicity about finding Nicola and Jenny made him want to “save” another woman. I’ve been thinking about the witness who saw Heidi chatting to a woman on a bike. I think that was Carr. He’s got a ponytail and the witness only saw him from the back. He has a bike too. I saw it when I was in his studio. Chantal called round to see Bob that evening but she left at eight. Afterwards, Bob went out on his bike to kill Heidi.’
‘Bloody cyclists,’ says Nelson. Judy thinks that he sounds strange. Normally, at this stage of an investigation, Nelson would be full of energy, hardly staying still for a second, barking orders and slamming doors. But, as he sits down next to her, she thinks that he looks calm and almost light-hearted. She never thought that she’d say this about the boss but he looks . . . peaceful.
‘How’s Ruth?’ asks Judy.
‘OK. I took her to hospital in your car. No concussion. The cut wasn’t serious but it needed a few stitches.’
‘Did Frank come to collect her?’
Nelson meets her eyes blandly. ‘Yes. I phoned him from the hospital. I left before he arrived though.’
I bet you did, thinks Judy. Aloud, she says, ‘Carr declined to have a lawyer present. He was full of crap about saving the women from themselves but it was clear that he got a sexual thrill out of the murders. That’s why the women all looked the same, tall and blonde and beautiful.’
‘That’s why Sofia Novak looked different. She was the only one that March killed.’
‘Bob found out about Sofia. He followed March and saw him burying her. That’s what gave him the idea about the pub garden. Ruth spotted traces of acid on the bones. She asked Crissy if any of the artists used acid in their work. Bob Carr did. He told us that day we visited his studio.’
‘Crissy must have told Bob that Ruth was asking,’ says Nelson. ‘Idiot woman. That was what made Bob go after Ruth. He used Laura as a decoy. She was his type, after all. Bloody nutcase.’ That sounds more like the old Nelson.
‘I still don’t understand about Stacy and Jill,’ says Judy. ‘Bob killed Stacy before the others and kept her in a freezer at his studio. I don’t understand how Jill and Stacy came to be buried in Chantal’s garden and covered with March’s DNA.’
‘Did Chantal know that Bob had killed them?’
‘I don’t know. Bob wouldn’t say. Came over all “no comment”.’
‘I’ll talk to Chantal tomorrow,’ says Nelson. ‘Crissy Martin too.’ He tries to smother a yawn.
‘It’s been a long day,’ says Judy.
‘It has,’ says Nelson. ‘It seems years since we were watching that bloody bike race. It was good to have Cloughie in on the hunt again.’
Normally this would irritate Judy. She knows that Nelson misses Clough around the station. He probably thinks that there are too many women on the team now. But it had been unexpectedly good to see Clough again.
‘Clough’s really upset that he’s missed out on this case,’ she says.
‘Serves him right for moving to Cambridge,’ says Nelson. ‘Right. Shall we call it a day? Can you give me a lift home?’
‘Sure,’ says Judy, standing up and turning off her computer. ‘You know what the worst thing is though?’
‘What?’
‘Cathbad will say that he was right about Ivor March.’
‘Cathbad’s always right,’ says Nelson.
Now Judy is really worried about him.
Chapter 34
Even Nelson has to admit that Salthouse looks beautiful in the morning sun. Yesterday’s rain seems to have washed everything clean. The sea glitters and the houses look as if they have been newly painted. By Ivor March perhaps. The church bell is ringing and Nelson realises, with a slight shock, that it’s Sunday.
The path to Chantal Simmonds’ cottage looks overgrown and picturesque, wild flowers blooming in the hedges, the nettles almost waist high. When Nelson gets to the house he sees that the garden is still a building site, the banks of earth looking somehow sinister, as if a coffin is about to be buried.
Chantal opens the door before he knocks. As usual, she looks as if she is dressed for a party in a tight pink dress with a black jacket. She invites Nelson into the sitting room where the ginger cat is on the sofa, in exactly the same place as before.
‘That’s March’s cat, isn’t it?’ says Nelson.
‘Yes,’ says Chantal, stroking the orange fur. ‘She’s called Mother Gabley.’
Chantal sits beside the cat and Nelson takes the chair opposite. For a minute they look at each other in silence and then Nelson says, ‘Why did you frame Ivor March?’
Chantal takes a deep breath, as if she is about to embark on one of her famous rants, but then she shrugs, a tiny movement that makes her look like a completely different person.
‘He killed my sister,’ she says.
‘Sofia Novak?’
‘Yes. Sofie was my little sister.’ Chantal is still stroking the cat but so hard now that its fur is flattened. That’s why the papers implied that Chantal looked foreign, thinks Nelson, because she was, in fact, Hungarian. Or, rather, half-Hungarian. Wasn’t her mother English? It accounts for the perfect accent, if so. And, far from being attracted to tall, blonde women, March was clearly drawn to small, dark women, like Chantal and her sister. Except for Crissy, of course, and hadn’t Crissy said that theirs was more of a ‘spiritual union’.
‘My real name is Kiri,’ says Chantal, and even her voice changes slightly. ‘Kiri Novak. I changed my name when I came to England and married Alan. His surname’s been useful to me at least.’
‘Did Sofia follow you to England?’
‘No, she came here after she left school,’ says Chantal, her voice softer than Nelson has ever heard it. ‘She was going to backpack round Europe, staying at youth hostels. She wanted adventure, she said. Dad begged her not to go alone. I was back in Hungary by then. Sofia came to England in July 2007. That was the last anyone saw of her. My parents were devastated. They both died within a few years. The grief killed them, I’m sure of it. I came back to England to look for Sofie. We only had one letter from her and it was postmarked Cambridgeshire. No address, just “Grey Walls”. It wasn’t hard to find the place though. I decided to befriend Ivor, to find out what he knew. It wasn’t difficult. Ivor’s so vain, he thinks every woman is after him. Ivor and I became lovers and then I met Bob and Leonard. Eventually Bob told me that he thought that Ivor had murdered a “foreign girl”. Bob said he didn’t know where she was buried. I know that’s a lie now. He didn’t tell me because he’d buried two other women there.’
‘You were at the excavation,’ says Nelson, ‘and at the inquest.’
‘Yes,’ says Chantal. ‘I wanted to see my little sister laid to rest. I must say that Dr Galloway was very respectful. I owe her for that.’
‘Why didn’t you go to the police? Why go to all the trouble of framing Ivor?’
‘There was no proof,’ says Chantal, ‘and I didn’t even know where she was buried. But then I got friendly with Bob and I realised how weird he was. Even I didn’t realise how weird, until he told me that he’d killed Jill. I was horrified at first – Jill was a friend of mine – but then I realised that it was a way to get my revenge on Ivor. I told Bob that I would help him. That’s when he told me that he’d killed Stacy five years earlier. She was still in a freezer at his studio. I told him to bury them both in my garden.’
‘Why would you do that?’ says Nelson. Even when, early that morning, he had realised the truth about Chantal, it still seemed too fantastical. He still hardly believes it even though he is hearing this account from her own lips.
‘I wanted Ivor to suffer,’ says Chantal and now her eyes gleam with the familiar fervour. ‘I wanted him to go to prison for crimes tha
t he didn’t commit because he’d never be charged with the one he was guilty of. It was easy to get Ivor’s DNA – I had his comb, his toothbrush, I even saved some semen from a condom. Oh, and I used your fur too, didn’t I?’ she says to the cat. ‘You didn’t mind. You always preferred me to Ivor.’ Mother Gabley purrs, eyes shut, as if agreeing.
‘But why did you pose as the loyal girlfriend?’ says Nelson. ‘Why not say that you suspected March?’
‘That was clever, don’t you think? You’d never suspect me of planting the evidence, though it was the obvious solution, because I loved Ivor so much.’ She puts her hands over her heart and rolls her eyes heavenwards.
‘Did you suggest to Ivor that he get Ruth involved?’
‘Yes, I knew she was the best. I told Ivor that she might find evidence that he was innocent but really I wanted her to find Sofie. I guessed that Ivor would tell her where she was buried.’
She did find evidence, thinks Nelson, and it nearly killed her. Chantal’s face, when she talks about her sister, stirs his pity but then he reminds himself that she let a known murderer go free.
‘How could you have guessed that?’ he asks, though he himself guesses at the answer.
‘Because of you,’ says Chantal, smiling beatifically. ‘I knew that Ivor would tell Ruth, if he told anyone, because of her link with you. Crissy told me all about your affair with Ruth. I knew that Ivor would tell Ruth because he wanted to get to you. It suited his sense of drama to have your ex-girlfriend digging up his victims. Plus, I honestly think he felt guilty at the end. The bastard.’
Nelson thinks of Madge saying ‘he enjoys a drama’. Never ignore the bleeding obvious. ‘Was that why you got Crissy to send that anonymous note to Phil Trent,’ he says, ‘because you wanted Ruth involved?’
‘That’s right. Crissy was easy to manipulate. She thinks she’s so wonderful, drifting round that big house being patronising to everyone. She didn’t even mind when I seduced Ivor. She still thought that she was the Queen of the May and that all the men were in love with her.’
‘I thought she was your friend. I thought you were working together.’
The Lantern Men Page 27