‘Who holds the leash, sir?’ Mal wondered out loud.
‘Our press office is fully up to speed, but essentially I will hold it, very tightly. Can I add, she’s savvy and knew well before the leak that she was onto something. If she approaches any of you, for any reason, just shake your head and smile. You have nothing to say to Ms Starling. However, don’t judge her for being from My Day – she’s got the goods’ — he tapped his head — ‘and the smarts to work for top-notch media. So if you do find yourself suddenly chatting to a good-looking girl in a pub, think Lauren Starling, and be aware that her antenna is always alert.’ He took the liberty of pinning a blown-up photo of Starling onto a corner of their board. ‘Can’t miss her.’
Jack thought Kate looked uncomfortable at the mention of Lauren but chose to let that thought go. ‘Right, onwards. Let me tell you about my trip north yesterday.’ He gave them a comprehensive update. ‘So I suspect by the end of today we’ll have some pathology and SOCO information, but the body should arrive in London today and we’ll hear back from that post-mortem of Dr Cook’s by tomorrow. Kate, you stay on that as he’s familiar with you now. We need to corroborate that Robbins was drugged, and with what.’
Kate nodded.
‘Why the hands?’ Mal asked.
‘I think it’s to do with being a thief,’ Jack replied. ‘Just a theory.’
‘But his real crime was the rape, sir.’ Sarah frowned.
Jack nodded. ‘Yes, I suspect our killer is subtle of mind. Usually the penalty is one hand for repeated theft, but he’s taken both, and my bet is he’s suggesting taking Amy Clarke’s virginity is every bit a theft of property . . . And the other dismemberment is obviously more symbolic.’ His team looked numbed. ‘Okay, we should have Sarah brief us on her progress next.’
He was relieved to have the news of Lauren Starling’s involvement out of the way and his team fully diverted onto more important matters, but he still refused to look at Kate or Joan in case their gazes held questions. Instead he took up his usual position, leaning against a desk, arms crossed.
‘Thanks, sir. All right, well. I hope all of you are ready for the roller-coaster. Together with the information Ms Starling gave us, I have now found nine unexplained deaths of criminals over the past four years.’ She waited for and got the collective gasp of surprise. ‘Nine that we know of . . . potentially there are more.’
‘Can you link them?’ Mal asked.
She smiled. ‘Not in an obvious way, with the killer’s calling card, trophy-taking, even his MO. Each died wildly differently and up and down the country. But,’ she said, pausing, ‘every one of the cases I have now put into your files committed their original crimes in the Borough of Enfield.’
This prompted looks of astonishment, as a vital piece of the puzzle found its home.
‘Excellent work, Sarah,’ Jack said, clapping once. ‘So, everyone, our killer has been at his craft for several years, selecting victims from in and around the Enfield area. What does this tell us?’ He stepped back and indicated for Kate to take over.
‘Part of the criminal scene?’ one eager constable said, trying to get noticed.
‘Potentially but not necessarily,’ Kate said. ‘Naturally that’s our first thought, though, and why we’ve asked various divisions to let us know what they’re hearing on the streets. What’s happening with the North London Crown Court?’
‘There are fourteen we’re looking at,’ Mal confirmed.
Kate looked surprised. ‘Right, well, that’s a lot of ground for us to cover. Mal is designating tasks and we need all the admin staff to be quietly interviewed. We’re looking for regular visitors to the gallery, anyone who is particularly lippy about lenient sentences. Let’s get looking for blogs and articles about lenient sentencing. We probably need to look into any judges who are known for their liberal approach, too. Give me that list. Mal, perhaps you could tackle judges’ clerks. I’ll speak to any judges, or even you, sir . . . they might prefer your rank.’
Jack stepped back up. ‘Good. All right, let me know what you need. Yes, Sarah?’ She had her hand up and he smiled.
‘Er, my uncle was a clerk of the court over in Somerset. Because they’re out front, they’re very aware of the comings and goings of the court. I think it would be advisable to give that group of people a special focus because they’ll have eyes and ears on everyone within the court, whether they’re criminal, voyeurs, journos, the curious, students and so on.’
‘Okay, good,’ Kate said. ‘As you know the role, why don’t you handle calls to the clerks of the court and I’ll handle judges. Sir, perhaps you can take up the conversations with the judges if we find anything interesting?’
Jack nodded. ‘I don’t mind helping out at the courts as well, anyway. The more of us covering off those interviews, the better. That is on top of everything else we’re focused on, which is stripping down every case we know of and rebuilding it. We’re looking for gaps, stones that have been left unturned, essentially. Sarah, I want to know in how many of these cases propofol was used.’
She nodded.
Kate gave him an expectant look and he sighed. ‘My office.’
She had the grace to bring him a coffee before she fixed him with a look of accusation. He gave a defensive gesture with both palms facing her. ‘I didn’t invite her, Kate.’
‘Why couldn’t you get rid of her?’
‘Do you mean when she was waiting downstairs, or meeting me at King’s Cross?’
‘Why not? She’s only a rag writer.’
He gave a small look of pain. ‘She’d have just bobbed up somewhere else. She’s so much more than just a rag writer.’ He watched Kate’s hackles rise as she caught the sniff of something only another woman might. ‘What I mean is,’ he said, now trying to throw her off that particular scent, ‘she’s talented, and none of us should underestimate her.’
‘No, you’ve made that clear to all of us.’
‘She can run circles around most. She’s really a bright kid.’
‘How old is she?’
He shrugged, hoping to make it appear as though it wasn’t important. ‘I have no idea.’
‘Take a guess.’
‘Why?’
‘Why, Jack? Because on the two major cases I’ve worked with you, a woman involved catches your interest.’
‘I’ll stop you there,’ he said, an edge of warning in his tone. ‘I didn’t know Anne McEvoy, I knew a person called Sophie. And Lily was a victim. I don’t need reminding of the personal pain to me over previous cases, and I certainly don’t need cautioning from you about my romantic involvement with anyone I choose. I don’t particularly like it that Ms Starling’s involved, but I’m not going to spit in her face because she is. She was there first. She has more cases to scrutinise than we do. We’re on her coat-tails and she just may be able to help.’
‘How?’ Kate wasn’t backing down. He admired her terrier-like determination and that was why, as her senior, he was indulging her despite the rebuke he’d like to give.
‘She can fly under the radar in a way that no member of the police can. Nosy journalists are tolerated, swatted at, anticipated, even . . . but the minute you have plain-clothes police involved, a new set of tongues begin wagging.’
‘You’re going to use her?’
‘If the right set of circumstances present themselves, I might.’
She looked back at him with dismay.
‘You’re a hypocrite, do you know that?’
Kate blinked, wounded. ‘Why’s that?’
‘Well, you’re quite happy to suggest manipulating Anne McEvoy in prison for anything she can tell us, but bring on the good-looking journo and suddenly your hackles are up.’
She put her hands up defensively but momentarily they looked like claws . . . if they had been talons, he suspected she’d have plunged them into him. ‘Are you saying I’m jealous?’
‘No, I’m saying don’t have double standards. We need all the help we can
get on this case because right now we don’t have much.’
He knew Kate hadn’t heard much since he’d accused her of being insecure. He had to make it right. ‘Kate—’
‘That’s fine, sir. Bring in whoever you choose, sleep with whoever you like.’
‘I will . . . and I do, DI Carter, and I don’t need your permission to do so. Are we clear on that?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘That will be all.’
17
Kate left Scotland Yard unsure of where to go but wanting to get as far from the incident room, and especially her boss, as possible. What was wrong with her? Now he was irate in all the ways she’d hoped to avoid. How could he trust her if she managed to reduce them to this familiar stalemate?
What did that say about her – was she a nutcase or simply someone who felt deeply? Being labelled emotional was not the best badge of honour to receive as a detective inspector with aspirations of moving to DCI over the next couple of years. For a woman, showing emotion at work was often the antithesis of what was admired. Kate knew she covered her feelings by being brisk; her dry manner could come across as cruel when all she was trying to do was to keep people at a distance so they wouldn’t look too far inwards at the girl who was looking for love.
She’d thought she’d found it – so good for a while – but it was sadly with the wrong man. That was not Geoff’s fault. Jack had only responded to her in that charming, inclusive way that was his method for running a team. Geoff had once said she’d got Jack wrong from the start and had misread his manner as romantic instead of just his way with every woman, which was to be gracious, amusing, generous.
‘He’s like an old-fashioned knight. Chivalry is alive and well in my buddy, and he makes the rest of us look and feel like cavemen by comparison.’ Kate had heard the clear ring of truth. Even so, Kate knew she and Jack shared something special. Not even Jack could deny it, not even Geoff, and that was the real reason their relationship had foundered. Geoff had been so good for her . . . but he was not Jack and that was her whole problem.
Kate sat on the Underground carriage, rumbling through the belly of London, lost in a mind devoid of thought but filled with guilt and embarrassment. Jack could be forgiven for thinking she had found some perspective, but she felt so very stupid now for showing him that she hadn’t; she could fake it, but she couldn’t make it stick for long. She’d been so proud of herself after their dinner, at how casual, amusing and capable she was of being alone in his house without making him feel awkward. But all he had to do was give her an inkling that there may be some romantic interest in his life and she became unreliable.
He was right, she reasoned: she was jealous of him taking an almost proprietorial interest in this journalist. It was identical to how she’d felt when he’d fallen for McEvoy and then Lily. Dislocating from Jack had been the best move for her heart but now, back in his orbit, she could feel that sense of despair, that desire for ownership creeping up on her again. Every smile he cast someone’s way, every wink, any attention . . . she wanted it to be hers, not theirs.
Kate, you are grieving for a relationship that was never real and will never be, she told herself in the darkness beneath London. It was not an unfamiliar piece of advice but, this time, clattering towards a destination she now realised was Enfield as she glanced up at the blue Piccadilly line’s route, she made a firm promise that she would let go of this daydream, which was holding her back from finding what she wanted.
The automated woman’s voice announced their imminent arrival at Finsbury Park Station and, given it was the middle of the morning, it was not too crowded. She emerged at street level where the National Rail, London Underground and two major bus stations connected.
A lot of tracksuits and way too much leggings-and-sneakers action, she thought, noting the sloppily dressed pedestrians moving around the concourse. She couldn’t help but be aware that she stood out in this neighbourhood, even in her working garb. And no one could be oblivious to the fact that this was the home of the Arsenal Football Club . . . there were Gunners logos, signs and souvenir shops all around and many wearing Arsenal gear. She would be careful not to mention that she was a Manchester United fan, she thought grimly.
Football was not the reason she was here, though. She’d come to see where Peggy Markham had been found, plus a walk around Finsbury Park seemed a good way to clear her head of today’s misstep. She moved away from the busy streets around the station and the stadium and followed her nose towards the green expanse that formed one of London’s oldest parklands in the neighbourhood of Harringay, a once proud and verdant landscape of the Victorian era. The British Lottery Fund had quite recently awarded it a ton of money, which had enabled much-needed renovations including cleaning the lake, building a new café, adding an updated children’s playground and resurfacing tennis courts. She recalled attending an Oasis concert here. When was that? She couldn’t be bothered trying to remember. Right now, it was host to dog walkers and mothers with babies in prams, but it was so large an expanse that it felt deserted.
It took Kate a further five minutes of strolling, realising she was headed in the wrong direction and turning back on herself before she found the huge old tree where the brothel madam had been found slumped. There was still a small snag of police tape on the tree to confirm this was the spot – Markham’s final resting place, where her killer had injected the lethal dose of propofol that had snuffed out her life at fifty-nine.
The space was open but not entirely naked to the public eye. A small copse of trees would have given some cover, and it was not a place that many would wish to be in the darkest, most silent hours of a wintry morning. Close by was a timber shelter over park benches; it seemed incongruous to Kate as she looked around, wondering why that spot in particular had been chosen, but she didn’t dwell on it after giving it a cursory look, noticing that the slats of timber that formed the ceiling had been ripped away. She frowned, wondering distractedly why bored teenagers got their kicks from destroying things . . . any structure seemed to be fair game. She imagined they’d wearied of the effort because the enclosure looked solid and well-made and only a few slats had been tampered with. She kept walking, doing a couple of revolutions of the tree where Peggy had been found, but she couldn’t find anything that inspired her to linger. Head back, then? No, she was still embarrassed, still angry with herself; they’d made a promise of no stone unturned, in which case, it was off to Hornsey Police Station for her.
She took a ten-minute taxi ride to Crouch End and pushed through the doors of the police station, surprised by how busy it was. Flashing her warrant card over the heads of the people waiting to be dealt with, she was let in through the side door past the reception counter where two officers were fielding enquiries, various complaints, one lippy drunk and an angry woman demanding that the police do something about the driver who had sideswiped her car and driven off. An officer approached, introducing himself as DS Helm.
‘DI Kate Carter,’ she said, matching his smile. ‘Bit of a circus out there?’
He shrugged. ‘Pretty normal for us, ma’am, although it is pension day and that always seems to get people stirred up.’ He walked her past the custody suite where she could just see through the porthole that a recorded interview was underway; this unit seemed swamped. He showed her into a small meeting room. ‘Our senior detectives are at court today, ma’am. How can I help?’
Kate didn’t feel like sitting but did to be polite. ‘Thanks. Um, I’m actually just doing some due diligence . . . making sure we’ve locked down everything we know about a particular case.’
He frowned. ‘That Hornsey’s involved with?’
‘Yes, but it happened about six months ago. Got some media attention.’
It dawned as soon as she said that. ‘Peggy Markham.’ He nodded and so did she. ‘I wasn’t here then, but what can I do to assist?’
‘Well, we’ve read the files uploaded to the database. I just wondered if I could see t
he original material; it helps to eyeball it all, plus I can tell my chief that I’ve ticked this box.’
‘Of course. I thought the case was all squared away as suicide, though?’
She sighed inwardly; she had anticipated this. ‘Yes, it was, but there may be some connection with a new case. I’m sorry that I can’t say more about that right now but, as I say, this is just me making sure we’ve done all the right legwork.’
‘No stone unturned,’ he said with a smile.
‘Exactly,’ she said, ensuring there was a note in her tone that suggested it was tedious but necessary.
‘Right. Sit tight, I’ll fetch what you need. Coffee?’
‘Coffee would be great,’ she said.
Later, engrossed in the file, she realised the coffee was far from great, but it was hot and filling her belly, which she’d overlooked feeding for breakfast, and she suspected lunch would pass her by too. She was down to the last couple of sheets; she’d already decided there was nothing new to learn here but at least felt satisfied she could report to the team that they knew all they could from the original crime reports.
Just as she was reaching for the mug of tepid coffee to take a final swallow, she turned over some handwritten notes tucked into the back of the file. The detail at the top told her it was a DC Lisa Farrow interviewing a man called Bernard Beaton. She frowned, then realised it was a witness statement. Her breath caught as she quickly scanned the neat handwriting. Beaton had claimed he’d witnessed a murder; that Peggy Markham had been brought to the park and killed by a man with a syringe of something lethal. Kate knew she was reading the same lines over and again, also that her mouth had opened slightly and she could swear her heartbeat was audible.
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