The Bridge

by Stuart Prebble

  Michael confirmed that she was.

  “In fact Alison is your alibi witness on all three occasions, isn’t she?” said Bailey.

  Once again Michael confirmed that she was. “But there are other people, at the care home where my grandmother is living, who saw me there at the time of the first incident. I was there in the waiting room. When we saw my grandmother on that day she wasn’t very well—and the doctor thought she might have been upset by the TV reports of the incident, so she will remember where we were. Dr. Williams, her name is. Bernice Williams, I think.”

  “What time was that, Michael?” asked the female detective. “What time did visiting at the care home start?”

  “About three PM, I think, but we were in the waiting room before that. We sat and watched the news reports about the incident on Waterloo Bridge on the TV.”

  “But the Waterloo incident happened at one-fifteen, Michael, at which time, by your own account, you were probably on your way to see your grandmother—who is in Battersea, did you say? That’s about half an hour from Waterloo on a Saturday afternoon.”

  Gordon Giles leaned over to him again and whispered that this was the reason he had advised Michael not to say any more than he was being asked.

  “In fact,” the female detective was continuing, “according to our CCTV, your car was in the area of Waterloo at just about the time the first incident took place. Is there some reason why you didn’t take the opportunity to tell us that?”

  Michael experienced a sinking feeling in his stomach. It had slipped his mind that they had eaten lunch on that day at the sushi restaurant near the Festival Hall. Still, though, his sense of indignation was stronger than his caution. “So let me get this straight,” said Michael, once again ignoring his lawyer. “You think that I went for a walk on Waterloo Bridge, picked up four tiny children and threw them into the River Thames, ran into the crowd, and went to a retirement home in Battersea to visit my grandmother?” Michael’s exasperation was beginning to overtake his good sense. “Either you people are mad, or you think I am.” He looked across the table and saw the look which passed between the senior and junior officers. Yes, he realized, clearly they think I am the Madman.

  After responding as briefly and precisely as he could to a number of other routine questions, Michael was informed that he would be put into a holding cell downstairs at the police station while other aspects of his story were checked. Alison was still on her way under police escort from Brighton, and they would need to question her before anything further happened.

  “You’ll understand why we need to keep you somewhere secure for the time being, and for your own safety we are going to make sure that you will be in a cell by yourself,” said Bailey. “I’m sorry that we’re unable to make you more comfortable, but with luck this won’t take too long.” Bailey and Collins stood up, and he was surprised to find two uniformed constables entering the room and walking around his chair. Each of them took hold of him by a forearm, ready to raise him to his feet.

  “Hey, hey, steady,” said Michael, and for the first time he felt physically frightened of the situation in which he found himself. He turned to Detective Chief Superintendent Bailey. “Listen, the only person I have in my family is my grandmother, who I was visiting on the day of the first incident. She is very old and very unwell; she has fast-progressing Alzheimer’s. If she hears about this on the news, it will kill her in a heartbeat. Is there some way this situation can be handled so that she doesn’t find out for a few hours until it’s all sorted and I’ve been released?”

  The two detectives gave each other a look which was enough to tell Michael that it was already too late.

  “I’m sorry, Michael,” said Collins. “We think that someone in your place of work must have tipped off the press. They had already got to Alison by the time we were able to send officers to collect her, and we hear that they’ve been knocking at the door of the care home where your grandmother is living. I’m afraid that if it isn’t already, your name is shortly going to be everywhere.”

  The escorting officers had not established a grip that was sufficiently firm to support his weight, and as Michael’s legs gave way beneath him, he slumped sideways, landing heavily on the hard floor. For a few seconds he lay still, but then involuntarily he drew up his legs into a fetal position. Moments later he felt his body begin to shake, a sort of hysteria, as he lost control of his movements. The muscles in his neck were tightening and going into a spasm.

  “He’s having some sort of fit,” said Bailey, who now hurried towards the doorway and pushed an alarm bell. After a few more seconds Michael felt himself being gripped under his arms and again, without any conscious intention of doing so, he began to struggle. The more he moved around, the firmer and tighter their hold on him, and the greater his determination to resist. Then a Klaxon sounded, and two more uniformed police officers entered the room, each of them immediately running to take hold of his flailing legs. Michael felt himself being lifted bodily off the floor, as the four strong men held and pulled on his limbs until he felt that they would be ripped away from his body.

  * * *

  Michael woke up with the sensation of a tight grip on his forearm and felt himself begin to panic all over again until he realized that he was feeling the squeeze of the cuff of a blood-pressure monitor. He looked up and saw that an older man whom he took to be a doctor was examining him, and a few seconds later he could feel a cold spot over his heart as a stethoscope was pressed to his chest. Michael looked at the doctor, who appeared not to have noticed that his patient was awake and simply continued going about his business as though working on a medical dummy. In those few seconds Michael found himself wondering if the doctor was reluctant to look into the face of a monster. A few moments more and the man had collected his instruments and, still without speaking, he stood up and went to the door.

  Michael had never been in a police cell before but had seen plenty of them in TV dramas, and this was exactly what he would have imagined. It was a tiny room with one small window made of frosted and reinforced glass, and the only furniture was a bed and a chair. There was a small lavatory with no toilet seat, and the only difference between his imagination and reality was that the walls were clean and apparently freshly painted in pale-green gloss. Michael’s head was beginning to clear, and he was regaining some sense of what was going on around him.

  “You just make yourself comfortable here, lad.” For some reason the broad Yorkshire accent was unexpected and sounded almost surreal in these circumstances. “Try not to worry because it will do no good. What will happen now will happen, and we’ll come for you and get you sorted out as soon as we can.” Michael raised his head to look at the speaker and found a uniformed sergeant of about fifty-five with a deeply pockmarked face, the kind of marking which might have been scar tissue from an old wound or skin disease. “My name is Sergeant Mallinson, and if you need anything, press the button next to the door.” Michael made the shape of Thank you with his mouth, but no sound came out, and he felt himself leaning to one side and once again drawing up his legs into his chest. He heard the clang of the door closing and the unmistakable sound of a heavy lock being clicked into place.

  A mix of thoughts were swimming around Michael’s head like terrified fish in a glass bowl, without any apparent likelihood of organization or process. At one level it seemed impossible to believe that he was in this situation at all. He knew that it seemed a cliché even as he experienced it, but for a moment he really did wonder if he would shortly wake up to find that it had all been an awful dream. Then he struggled to take on board the enormity of it all. Those last words spoken by the detectives in the interview room resonated around his brain. The crimes committed by the Madman were probably the biggest news story of the year in Britain and had undoubtedly been reported internationally. He recalled seeing features on the television about the way that other countries were reporting the crimes, in which tourists planning on visiting the country were adv
ised to take special care of young children. If what the police were now saying was true, his face might already be on every TV news screen in the world. Police in Britain have arrested a man in connection with the recent spate of deaths of young children in what have become known as the Madman murders. Michael could imagine the news flashes, and in his mind he saw them presented by newsreaders in different languages, with the only common factor being a picture of himself projected behind their shoulders.

  Then Michael began to think about what the police had meant when they said that the press had discovered and contacted Alison before their officers had managed to reach her. He imagined that she might first have been shocked, but then quickly she would have been dismissive and even possibly briefly amused by such a stupid idea, until the real implications of the suggestion fully impacted. He wondered if she had been doorstepped by the press, and now his image of the news bulletins began to include video of her running the gauntlet of a posse of journalists, all screaming questions and accusations at her. But meanwhile, looming in the background of the mental aquarium, the biggest and most menacing presence of all was the question of Grandma Rose. It was probable that whoever had tipped off the press about his arrest in the first place would have known about his grandmother, and it could not take long before the pack descended on Greenacres. The only good thing was that the care home had some security, and in theory it should not be possible for any of them to barge directly into Rose’s room. However, if the reports were on the TV, and no one at the home had the presence of mind to intervene, Rose would get the shock of her life to see her grandson’s picture on the news—no doubt accompanied by a caption saying “Alleged Madman arrested” or something equally ghastly.

  Michael tightened his muscles and screwed up his body into a still-smaller ball, covering his eyes with the palms of his hands to shut out his thoughts and the rest of the world.

  * * *

  Alison looked out from her seat in the middle of a convoy of three fast cars, two in full police livery and one unmarked, as they ignored all the traffic restrictions and swerved dramatically into the rear entrance of Charing Cross police station. Several journalists had attempted to keep up with them on the drive from Brighton, but the police had turned on sirens and ignored red lights, eventually leaving them far behind. The pavement outside the police station was so crowded with journalists and TV news crews that ordinary passersby had to step off the curb, and eventually several officers were sent out to erect barriers to cordon off a safe area. The young officers followed their instructions not to respond in any way to the barrage of questions about the man they had in custody.

  There in the backyard of the station, waiting to meet Alison, were Detective Chief Superintendent Norman Bailey, whose face she also knew from the TV news, and Detective Constable Collins. They stepped forward as she got out of the backseat and immediately thanked her for coming and for helping them to clear up a few questions about Michael.

  “Did I have a choice? I was bundled into a car and driven here under police guard like I’m a terrorist. Am I under arrest?” Alison was scared, but her fear was overlaid by a pronounced and growing sense of anger about the way she was being treated.

  The chief superintendent assured her that she was not under arrest. “But as you’re now aware, we have information which has led us to believe that your friend Michael Beaumont might know something about the recent murders of young children, and we think that you may be able to help us to eliminate him from our inquiries.”

  “Michael doesn’t know anything more about it than what we’ve seen on the telly and read in the papers. He’s totally innocent and I can certainly help you to see that.”

  “That’s all we need,” said Collins. “If you’re able to help us to establish a firm alibi for him on the relevant dates, you’ll have done him a great service, and we can all get about our business.”

  Once inside the police station, she was taken to the same interview room that Michael had occupied less than an hour earlier.

  “But just one thing before we start,” said Bailey. “As a routine inquiry we asked one of our officers to look into your recent phone records.” He paused as if to add gravity to what was to follow. “Can you tell us a bit more about a text you received just a few weeks ago which said, and I quote, ‘There’s no point in trying to protect him’?”

  * * *

  It was three hours since Michael had been taken to the holding cell, and such had been the turmoil in his head that he started to fear for his sanity. For a few minutes at a time he was able to isolate the individual elements which led to his current situation, and to stay reasonably calm and confident that he would very soon be able to prove his innocence and be out and back to his normal life. But then those thoughts were swept away by the reality of having been arrested and held as a suspect in what was the most notorious series of crimes of his lifetime. He thought he was in danger of losing control and had to work hard to keep a grip on himself.

  After what seemed to be turning into a nightmare without end, eventually he heard the key in the lock, and the same two officers who escorted him from the interview room came into his cell. Behind them was the uniformed officer who had introduced himself as Sergeant Mallinson.

  “Try not to worry, lad. I’m sure it will all be sorted in a little while.” Michael felt he had never been more grateful in his life than at that moment to the scar-faced sergeant who now turned and walked ahead of him back towards the interview room.

  “Is Alison here?” he asked. “Can I see her?”

  “I’m afraid not right now, Michael,” said Sergeant Mallinson. “Maybe later, if the detectives can just get answers to a few more questions.”

  Something about his tone of voice made Michael wonder for the first time about the “good cop, bad cop” routine he had read about in detective novels, and whether Mallinson’s attitude was part of a strategy. He said nothing but was led back into the same room as before, to find that his solicitor Gordon Giles was already sitting with the two detectives, Bailey and Collins. On the table in front of them was a laptop computer and a brown cardboard file which lay unopened. Bailey reached across and pressed the button which started the recording machine. He reminded Michael that he was still under caution and required him to acknowledge aloud that he understood.

  “Well, your girlfriend backs up your story that you were with her on the three dates we are interested in, Michael,” said Bailey. Michael closed his eyes and exhaled. He’d known, of course, that she would do so, but having it confirmed went some way to reassuring him that he was not losing his mind altogether. “However, when pushed for details, Alison is unable to say for certain that she was with you every minute on all three occasions, and anyway so far all we’ve got is her word for it. She is your girlfriend, after all, so is probably inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt.” Bailey paused to allow the thought to sink in. “Meanwhile, there are one or two other things that have come to light that we need to sort out with you.”

  “Now then, Michael.” It was the female detective’s turn to pick up the questioning. “Can you tell me whether this is yours?” Collins placed a plastic bag on the table in front of him, and inside it he could see the bulky shape of the key fob used to unlock and start his Vauxhall, attached to a USB stick. Of course he recognized it.

  “Yes, it’s mine,” he said, and immediately Giles leaned across and whispered to him. When he had finished, Michael turned back and spoke again to the detectives. “Or what I should have said is that it looks very much like mine, or if it isn’t, then certainly I have one like it.”

  “If I were to tell you that the USB stick attached to these car keys is exactly the same as the one we received through the post from the man claiming to be the Madman, what would be your reaction to that?”

  Michael considered for a moment. He remembered thinking when he heard the original news report that he had a USB stick on a key ring, but at the time had no reason to worry about it. The
re must be tens of thousands of them. He looked at Giles for assistance but was met with a blank stare. “I think I’d say that I got that from a service station which probably must be part of a chain of them up and down the country and that I would imagine that thousands of them had been sold. They were very cheap.”

  The two detectives showed no apparent reaction to his reply and merely continued to look back at him as though considering whether to continue with the same point or to move to the next.

  “Is the phrase ‘you are no nearer to catching me than you were when I first started’ familiar to you?” asked Bailey.

  Michael glanced once more at Giles to see whether he wanted to offer any advice, but again found nothing helpful in his lawyer’s expression.

  “It rings a bell. Isn’t it what the Madman said on the tape you guys played at the news conference?”

  “Yes, it is,” said Collins. “But it’s also very nearly the same phrase as was used by the man who sent recordings to the police hunting the Yorkshire Ripper in 1979. But then again, you knew that, didn’t you?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because you studied the Yorkshire Ripper story, didn’t you? Isn’t that right?”

  “Yes, I think I did, as part of my media course. Yes, as you’ve no doubt discovered, coverage of the case was a module in my course. But again, I guess it must have been studied by tens if not hundreds of thousands of people. Anyone who has looked at that original case has listened to the tapes and might be familiar with that phrase. Anyway, I don’t know what you’re getting at or why we need to have these conversations. Haven’t my alibis been confirmed? I wasn’t there for any of these three incidents.”

  Superintendent Bailey seemed to ignore the last comment. “So is that where you got the idea from?”

  “What idea?”

  “To record and send the USB stick.”

  “I didn’t record and send the USB stick.”