by Ben Oakley
The name caught on and the area had been known as Little Venice ever since. It's always bugged me because the area has no resemblance to Venice whatsoever. There is a very small island just off the canal called Browning's Island, named after the poet Robert Browning. So small that most people completely miss it but that's not Browning's fault.
It was a bit more difficult to miss Rembrandt Gardens. It was on the East side of the canal and was a popular spot for readers, dog walkers and lovers. Apparently the builders had destroyed multiple art studios in 1975 in order to build the small park. I didn't know what was more beautiful.
“What are we doing here?” I said.
She pointed at two officers near a bench overlooking the canal. She didn't need to say a word.
As we approached, Paine introduced herself to the officers and we were both introduced to Miss Jameson. She was mid-sixties, big curly hair, dressed very nicely in traditional clothing and had a bit of girth to her.
The two officers stepped away as Paine sat next to Miss Jameson. I stood next to the bench looking out at the canal and the astonishing Georgian-inspired houses on the other side of the water. I could never afford to live in Little Venice but I guess I was okay with that.
Paine spoke first, “the officers tell me you might have seen something on a canal boat. Could you explain to me what you saw?”
“Of course my dear, no problem at all, I know how these things work,” she tapped a book beside her and winked. Her voice was more South Coast than London but she spoke well and with grandeur in her voice. “Where shall I start?”
“Anywhere you like my dear,” I exclaimed.
She smiled, “I like you.”
“Glad someone does,” I glanced at Paine who had a smirk on her face.
“So,” Miss Jameson began, “when the weather is decent enough, especially in the Summer, I come here every day I can. I bring with me a book to read and I sit right here on this bench. Most days it's free and no one is sitting on it, but I don't mind sitting with someone. Only they talk and it puts me off my reading.” She winked at me.
I winked back, seemed like the right thing to do. Although I almost blinked instead as I had never recently had the need to wink at anyone.
“Carry on,” Paine said.
“Yesterday afternoon I noticed something quite suspicious. There was a slim canal boat floating by ever so slowly which wasn't unusual in itself but it's what I heard which threw me a little. It sounded like a woman was being bludgeoned and she was crying for help. See, some of these boats have television sets built into them so I supposed it might have been a television but then I saw him.”
My attention was peaked. I watched as Miss Jameson tried to picture his face in her mind.
She continued, “a young gentleman, say about thirty-ish, poked his head through the skylight window. It's one of these newer boats, all kinds of additions even I wasn't aware of. He was wearing a cap and he took it off to get some fresh air I would have thought. Short dark hair, quite handsome but his eyes were something else. The way he stared at me...” she drifted off.
I glanced at Paine who was shaking her head at me slowly as if she really didn't want to be there.
“Bludgeoned?” I said to Miss Jameson.
She snapped out of her daze, “yes, yes, it sounded like he was hitting her with something. Quite awful but again it might have been a television.”
“You mentioned his eyes?” I dug further.
“Yes, but not his eyes; his stare. The way he looked at me drove a dagger right through my skull. He had intent on his face like he was planning something. You know what it means? Intent?”
Paine motioned at Miss Jameson's book, “what are you reading?”
“Oh, it's a fantastic story about a search for a deranged killer stalking young women in Manchester.”
I heard Paine sigh a little too loudly, “were you reading that yesterday?” She asked.
“Yes, yes I was. Only got about twenty pages in on account of the fear of that man's stare.”
Paine interjected, “are you certain about what you heard and saw.”
Miss Jameson shrugged a little and scrunched up her face, “I mean I do have an over-active imagination but I know what I saw and what I heard. I just hope I've been of some help to you. I figured it may have been important and I needed to tell someone.”
“Do you remember what the canal boat looked like?” I asked.
“Yes, I made a note,” she turned to the inside back cover of her book. “It was a narrowbeam canal boat, approximately fifteen metres in length, mostly darkened blue. It had three painted red-framed squares and only three windows on the side. The galley entrance was boarded up but might have been accessible I suppose. It didn't look as though it was in the best of shapes.”
She closed the book and looked at me with a proud look on her face.
“May I kindly take a photo of your description?” I asked.
She dutifully obliged and I snapped a quick photo using my phone. I figured it might come in useful at some point.
“Had you ever seen the boat before?” I asked.
“I'm not sure, there are so many that go past here on any given day and I'm usually engrossed in a book. I assumed it to be a rental boat as it was rather plain-looking.”
I offered my thanks for her time and Paine dutifully did the same. I could see that Paine wasn't impressed and was heading back towards the officers when Miss Jameson called back after us.
“There was one more thing,” she crooned.
“What's that my dear?” I asked kindly.
“The boat was headed for the tunnel and it never returned.”
Twenty
Paine pulled the officers to one side, just away from Miss Jameson who had immediately begun reading her book again.
“Are you kidding me?” Paine said to them, “you brought me down here for this?”
The officers were rightly shaken and a little taken aback. “We thought it might have helped with the Blood Stream killings,” one of them said.
“Dammit guys, we're not talking about killings or serial killers or anything like that right now. No one should be talking about it, especially you.”
I jumped in, “but something did happen and it's definitely worth noting, don't you think?”
“She doesn't even know what she saw,” Paine said, “her head's in a book, it always has been.”
I beckoned Paine away from the officers, she saw me and hesitated but then gave in. She thanked the officers and requested them to take Miss Jameson's details nonetheless. I moved to the very edge of Rembrandt Park where it touched the canal, then I glanced into its murky waters.
“What tunnel?” I said.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Investigating. What are you doing? Why are you so nonchalant about this whole thing?”
She frowned and joined me right on the edge, “nonchalant?” She put her hands on her hips again, “see this is the difference between you and me.”
“Go on then,” I said.
“You have no idea the ramifications of announcing an active serial killer in the city. You think this is fun and games.”
“You think being investigated for kidnapping and torturing a teenage girl is fun and games?”
“I am running damage control here,” she said a little angrier than usual. “If word gets out there is a serial killer running amok near major tourist sites then we have all kinds of shit coming our way.”
“But it would send more information your way and then you might be able to catch the guy.”
“This is the 21st Century; the digital age. Serial killers should have died out with the twentieth.”
“You're not running damage control, you're running scared, you and your whole department.”
“Scared?”
“That you'll be lynched in the public domain, that you're incapable of catching a killer who has killed seventeen people. The longer you keep a lid on this th
ing, the greater the fallout will be when it goes public. I know this from the inside out. There are active serial killers running amok every year in this country and beyond. Just one look at my research would have told you that.”
I shook my head in frustration and continued, “died in the twentieth! Why are you holding back here? Is it me? You still think I've got something to do with this? You're a detective, why are you hesitating to detect?”
She sat on the nearest bench, overlooking the waters of the canal. She reached into her pocket and took out a pack of Royals cigarettes. I shouldn't have been shocked but I was slightly.
She tapped one out, threw it in between her lips and lit it just as quickly as she would draw her phone out. Had I overstepped the mark? I wasn't sure but I'd hit a nerve somewhere.
“Didn't know you smoked?” I said.
“I don't. There's a lot of things you don't know about me. You want one?”
“I quit, I told you,” though it was very tempting.
I strolled over to her, wondering what nerve I had touched upon. I thought for a moment that maybe I had been too pushy. Then I remembered this was my neck on the line and I had every right to question the circumstances surrounding this whole thing.
“I live alone,” she said, “but I have a boyfriend I see a few times a week. Every time I go and see him, we don't talk about anything I do. It would hurt him too much to know the things that happen on these streets.”
“I think we're all pretty desensitised at this point in human history.”
“Are you gonna let me finish?”
“As you've only just started, carry on.”
“God, I dunno why I'm telling you this.”
She took a long drag on her smoke and I couldn't help but breathe in as she breathed out, catching that long lost sensation of condemned joy.
She continued, “if the public knew everything that goes on then not only would we be held to account but we would be in the firing line. Everything gets lapped up by the media and glorified to the masses. These monsters don't deserve the limelight, they don't deserve a headline on the news. Going public hurts us, most of the information that comes in is false or ineligible.
“We spend even longer going through mountains of witness statements and all kinds of derogatory information that amounts to nothing but a waste of time. This way gives us focus and a small dedicated group of people who know what they're looking for. Give these killers a limelight and they use it to their advantage, we fan the fires of the desire to kill and I can't live with that.”
I sat beside her and looked out to the water. I couldn't argue with what she said but I did think that going public provided more intel than not.
“Can't you put out a missing boat story or something to track him down?”
“It would scare him away. You really think the old lady is on to something don't you?”
“I dunno, we shouldn't ignore anything at the moment. What tunnel was she on about?”
“Closest one to here is the Maida Hill tunnel, five minutes walk to the east.”
Of course I knew about the Maida Hill tunnel, it should have clicked but it didn't straight away.
“Well it would be an awfully fine place to take a life.”
She looked at me with disdain, “it's a through-tunnel, there's no hidden doorways or recesses.”
“Not saying there is but it's part of this canal system.”
“If there's anything in there we would have known about it already. The whole of the Regent's Canal averages out at just over one metre deep. You could wade through the entire thing with the right protection.”
Something struck me then and I wasn't sure whether to roll with it or even mention it. If one could walk through then it might have been a possibility the killer was in the canal with them when they died. It was just a thought that passed my way.
“We better take a look then,” I said.
“Take a look at... what?”
“Maida Hill tunnel.”
“I'm not walking through that, it's dangerous.”
“Like you said, they shut the waterways.”
“Only a very small section. You can still can take a boat right up to Camden Lock on both sides, it hasn't shut down the entire canal.”
“So we take a boat.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Is that your catchphrase?” I mocked. “All detectives have one.”
“We're waiting on confirmation of where Stansey King is. We're not taking a canal boat through there.”
“We wouldn't see much from a canal boat. If I remember correctly they recently opened the tunnel to non-powered boats.” I winked at her.
She stood and traipsed to the ashtray on top of the public bin to extinguish her cigarette before walking back and exhaling the last breath of smoke.
“No chance!” she said in no uncertain terms.
“It's the only option we have.”
“Why do we even need an option?”
“Come on, let's do this.”
“No!”
Twenty One
Ten minutes later I was smirking just a little at the sight of Detective Megan Paine struggling in her Kayak.
I had spotted a van full of kayaks parked near a house just away from Little Venice and had convinced the owner to let us borrow them for half hour. Twenty quid sealed the deal to make it worth his while. He was even kind enough to help us to the water's edge. Didn't even question what we doing or why.
“There's lots of boats coming in from the west,” he had said, “don't stay in the tunnel too long, it's difficult to see you if the light catches you all funny.”
Shortly after, I was leading Paine towards the Maida Hill tunnel.
“You are gonna bug me all to hell,” she quipped, as she struggled with her double-bladed paddle.
“Maida Hill tunnel is 249 metres long,” I said, “can you believe it?”
“You haven't seen Islington then.”
I had seen Islington tunnel but had never been through it. “How long is that one?” I wasn't too sure as it was to the east of Camden and I rarely went that way.
“Almost a kilometre in length.”
I didn't realise the Islington tunnel was so long. “Maybe we should look at that one next!” I half-joked but was half-serious at the same time.
“Harrison Lake, you are an oddity.”
“Can't argue with that.”
We casually drew closer to the west entrance of the tunnel and I saw the small circle of light in the distance marking the east side of it. I was even a little apprehensive myself but I was sure it was the right thing to do.
The brick walls either side were sprouting weeds along their cracks, some of it had been trimmed and weeded but some of it was left wild. The cafe on top of the entrance to the tunnel was full of people on an early lunch or a late breakfast. Apparently it was a good spot to watch the boats enter the tunnel.
I'm sure it wasn't uncommon to see kayakers enter. I'd even seen pictures of surfers go through but it always provided a talking point to the coffee and bacon consumers above. I nodded my head at the cafe in general just to acknowledge them. I'm sure Paine wasn't doing the same.
I checked and she was casually moving the kayak through the water. She smirked at me either to silently tell me she was getting the hang of it or that she hated me at that very moment.
I slowed down to let her get closer. Then we entered the darkness of the tunnel.
“Probably a good idea to get your torch out, right about now,” I said.
“I don't have a torch.”
“All police carry torches.”
“Do I look like a uniform officer?”
“So you don't have a torch?”
I heard her rattling about and then a light illuminated one side of the tunnel. I realised what it was and did the same. My phone had a pretty powerful flashlight on it. Not as good as a real torch but it worked nonetheless. I just hoped I wasn't going to drop it in.
“Don't tell me there are rats in here?” she said.
“This is London, you're probably on top of one right about now.”
“Don't make this any harder than it needs to be.”
“You're not a rat person?”
“Just the thought of it makes me shiver. The long tails, the sound they make,” she shivered loudly. “What are we looking for?”
“Have you guys ever dredged the tunnels?”
“Honestly I'm not sure.”
“If you were killing people on the canal then wouldn't it make sense to discard of evidence in a dark place? The sewers, the tunnels, the underground.”
“I'm not getting in that water!”
“I'm not asking you too. Just look for anything odd on the buffer edges or on the bricks themselves.”
“Yes sir,” she said mockingly. “So why didn't you join the force?”
The question came out of nowhere. “At the time it simply didn't interest me. You are restricted by red-tape and rules and I guess I couldn't work out a way where I could fit in and make it work.”
“Nothing wrong with rules.”
“There is if it restricts one from solving a crime or investigating a story. I didn't want to be restrained in my work, I wanted to be free to research and investigate in a way that assured the truest version of the story was written. I could never be a mainstream reporter or department detective, it just didn't work for me.”
“So you went private?”
“For a year before I found the Oculus. Or the Oculus found me. I guess you could say I thrived on the mystery of every story I was researching. I enjoy the research and love the unusual.”
“No wonder you're bad with women.”
“Who says I'm bad with women?”