by Ben Elton
Natasha took Kelvin’s details, which he gave with enough reluctance for Newson to form the impression that Kelvin’s was a name that already featured on the police computer, and then he and Natasha left.
There was silence for some time as Natasha drove them back to New Scotland Yard. Eventually Natasha spoke.
‘That must have been a bit hard, Ed. I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘That woman really put you through it.’
‘Yes, it was pretty grim. With the benefit of hindsight I can see that it was a very bad move to sleep with her.’
‘But that’s so often the case in life, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t think I’ve had sufficient experience to comment. All I can say is that she didn’t seem half so weird at the time.’
‘I warned you about looking into your past for sex.’
‘Well, I have to look somewhere.’ It was a flippant comment. Too flippant, considering the brutality of what had occurred, and Newson knew it. Silence returned, until once more Natasha broke it.
‘Ed, listen to me. Do you want to know the reason why you haven’t had a proper girlfriend since Shirley dumped you?’
‘Because there are not sufficient bargepoles in London with which girls can refuse to touch me?’
‘Exactly. Comments like that. You’re the problem. You. You’ve decided that you’re not going to get a girl, and so you don’t. You joke about and act like you’re this total no-hoper, and it’s kind of funny, which is OK, but it gets boring after a while, and I can assure you it’s not very sexy.’
They were interrupted at this point by a call from Chief Superintendent Ward, who had been notified about the Copperfield murder at the end of a long lunch at his golf club.
‘Newson, is it the case that you knew the victim of this grotesque crime? That you were m fact probably the last person to see her alive?’
‘Apart from whoever murdered her, sir, yes.’
There was a pause before the chief superintendent replied. ‘Well, that doesn’t look very good, does it?’
‘It’s a coincidental complication I’d have preferred to avoid, sir.’
‘I’m damn sure you would. What were you doing breaking into her flat, anyway? Why’d you gone to see her?’
Newson was conducting the conversation using the conference facility on the car’s hands-free phone, and the chief’s voice boomed around them. He could sense Natasha’s embarrassment.
‘I was paying her a social visit, sir. We’d attended a school reunion on the day before — ’
‘Did you sleep with her?’ The chief’s voice was angry.
‘It isn’t relevant, sir.’ Newson’s face burned. ‘Of course you did, and of course it’s bloody relevant, you damn fool. This girl was stripped and cut on the sex organs. That makes the murder a sex crime as far as I’m concerned, and your DNA will be all over her flat and I don’t doubt all over her.’
‘Sir, her death doesn’t have anything to do with me.’ Newson said it, but he knew that it wasn’t true. The murder did have something to do with him.
‘Oh, doesn’t it? You meet her, you sleep with her, and you leave the following day. You return a few hours later and break into her flat. In the meantime the woman has been horribly murdered.’
‘Yes, sir — ’
‘Why did you break into her flat?’
‘Because I was suspicious. I’d been invited round but there was no answer.’
‘Would you normally break into someone’s flat simply because having made an appointment they failed to answer the door?’
‘No, sir, but there was music playing.’
‘There was music playing?’
‘This killer plays music relevant to his victims while he murders them.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Newson! You broke in because there was music playing! Have you any idea how that sounds?’
‘Excuse me, sir, but may I ask what you’re suggesting?’
‘I’m not suggesting anything at the moment, Detective Inspector, but I will tell you that I find it all very strange.’
‘It’s a very strange case, sir, but I think I may have finally established a proper link between the murders.’
‘You think that you may have established a link.’
‘Sergeant Wilkie and I are heading back to the office now, sir. I hope to have something to show you first thing tomorrow morning.’
‘Ten o’clock. In my office. Goodbye.’
The drive continued in silence. Ten minutes later the chief superintendent was back on the line. ‘Who’s Helen Smart?’ he asked.
Newson and Natasha exchanged surprised glances.
‘She. figures in the Copperfield case, sir.’
‘Is she a suspect?’
‘The details of the murder tally directly with a note that she left on the internet describing a childhood experience of bullying.’
‘Have you slept with her too?’
‘I’ve just received a disturbing call from my office saying that Helen Smart has made a complaint against you. Says you’ve been round at her place harassing her.’
‘Sir,’ Natasha interjected, ‘Detective Sergeant Wilkie here. I attended the interview, in fact I conducted it, and I can assure you that there was absolutely no question of harassment.’
‘She says that it was inappropriate for you to be interviewing her since you and she have recently been sleeping together. Is this true?’
‘Yes, sir, it is.’
‘My God, Inspector Newson! What’s wrong with you? Are you ill? How much bloody sex do you need? You’ve slept with the victim, you’ve slept with your suspect. Perhaps if it ever comes to court you can work your way through the women in the jury! Just how compromised do you feel you need to be in this case?’
‘I don’t believe I am compromised, sir. My recent involvement with these women is not relevant to the case.’
‘Detective Inspector Newson, let me assure you, this does not look good. I’ll see you in the morning.’
After the chief had rung off Natasha clearly felt she had to say something. ‘Don’t worry about what that madwoman has said about you, Ed. I was there, don’t forget. And I hardly think that bloke Kelvin is going to want to involve himself in trying to frame police officers.’
‘No. No, you’re right. There isn’t a problem…Still, not pleasant, eh?’
‘No, definitely not pleasant.’
‘Shit!’ said Newson. ‘Shit, shit, shit. This is so unfair. So unfair. I have sex with just two women in about a trillion years…’
‘And they turn out to be the victim and chief suspect in the case you’re investigating. Good work, my son.’
Newson was in for one more massive embarrassment that day in front of Natasha, and, as always, he was the architect of his own misfortune.
They had returned together to the office they shared at New Scotland Yard.
‘The answer to all this lies on the Friends Reunited site,’ Newson said. ‘Let’s take another look, shall we?’
Natasha sat down at her computer and logged on while Newson went off to fill the kettle for tea.
‘I presume you used your home email address,’ Natasha said when he returned.
‘Yes, of course.’
‘What’s your password?’
Newson froze. The private password he had chosen with which to gain entry to Friends Reunited was ‘Natasha’.
It had not seemed foolish at the time. On the night on which he had joined Friends Reunited in pursuit of Christine Copperfield he had felt a moment of weird infidelity. His love for Natasha was so real to him that he had almost felt that in lusting after his old school flame he was being unfaithful to her. Stupidly, drunkenly, in order to assure himself that his fantasy relationship with Natasha was indeed real, he had entered her name into the little box marked ‘password’. Now he was paying the price.
‘My password?’
‘Yes. What is it?’
‘Maybe you should be the one to log on. You’re a m
ember, aren’t you?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t done it for so long I presumed it had lapsed. Anyway, I’ve put your address in now.’
‘I don’t think their memberships lapse.’
‘What difference does it make?’
‘I don’t know…You know, the fact that I’m connected to the last victim…Maybe I shouldn’t be accessing the site.’
‘That’s ridiculous. You’ve accessed it loads of times.’
‘I just think we should try and use your membership.’
Natasha was an astute woman. Her expression showed that she knew Newson was hesitating because he was embarrassed about his access code. What was more, she had clearly decided not to let him off the hook.
‘No, it’s your theory and your investigation. I don’t have to let you use my personal membership.’
‘I could order you.’
‘No, you couldn’t, any more than you could order me to lend you my kettle.’
‘So you’re not going to let me access the site via your membership?’
‘No. What’s your password, Ed?’
The game was up. He needed to get on to the site and quickly. The bullet had to be bitten. ‘Natasha.’
‘Yes?’
‘No. Natasha, that’s it, that’s my password.’
‘My name?’
‘Yes, I don’t know why I used it. It was just the first name that came into my head, that’s all.’
‘Bit weird, Ed.’
‘I don’t think so. I just needed a word, any word that I’d remember.’
‘And you chose my name?’
‘Yes.’
Natasha said nothing.
‘Right,’ said Newson, putting her tea down on the desk and attempting an airy tone, ‘better get on with it then, shall we? Bang it in, Natasha. Do you need me to spell it?’
Still she said nothing as she typed in her name and the seven little black blobs appeared one after another in the box. Newson could not remember the last time he had felt such an idiot.
TWENTY-FIVE
Newson began by informing the site that he wished to pursue his investigation by the name of a school.
When the box appeared he typed ‘Brockley Rise Junior’, the school attended by Adam Bishop and William Connolly from 1955 to 1960.
‘Connolly said he’d never spoken or written about what happened to him at the hands of Adam Bishop, but perhaps somebody else did.’
There were twelve names entered for the year that moved on in 1960, but neither Bishop nor Connolly was amongst them. Six of the class members had left information about themselves.
Marjorie Bartlett wrote:
Like lots of us from Brockley I went on to Lewisham Secondary Modem as was! I believe it’s a sixth-form college now. After that I worked in Woolies on Catford High Street where I met John and married him within a month! We are still together after thirty-three years and have two lovely grown-up girls. I would love to hear from any of the old gang if anyone remembers me.
‘They all want to be remembered,’ Newson remarked.
Lucy Seman wanted to be remembered, as did Donald Cornell and Patricia Powers.
I ended up joining the Navy! That was in the days when we were still Wrens. No ship board duty for us, more’s the pity! I would have loved to have gone to sea like the girls do now. I wonder if anyone remembers me? If they do I’d love to hear from them.
Jason Hart’s name had the word ‘NEW’ next to it.
I had to join this site now. I just had to tell someone and you of course are the only people who would understand. Has anybody heard? Adam Bishop got murdered! Yes! Ding dong, the bastard’s dead. It was in this evening’s Standard. He’s dead! And I for one can find nothing in my soul but delight. That bully damn near ruined our schooldays. He did ruin poor old Bill Connolly’s and I hope he rots. Vanessa, if you’re reading this, well done for what you wrote on the notice board. I suppose it’s only us that will ever read it or care. But at least somewhere there is an account of his cruelty. A cruelty I stood by and watched happen for which I’ll always be ashamed.
Rebecca Wilkinson was also new.
Thank you for joining us, Jason, and for saying something that I have not had the courage ever to say. I stood by too. I watched Adam Bishop hold little Billy down and stick that compass into him. Seventeen times, it was. I remember the number. He was always sticking it in him, wasn’t he?
But not like he did that day. I’ve always said that because I was a girl there was nothing I could have done. But that’s not true. I could have spoken out. But I didn’t and like you Jason I’ve always been ashamed.
‘Jesus,’ Natasha said. ‘So much pain in the world. Little slabs of it hanging about in the air, unnoticed and ignored.’
‘Not ignored this time,’ Newson said. ‘Somebody else was reading this website.’
‘Helen Smart, do you think?’
‘No, I don’t think. This all started some time ago, maybe with Warrant Officer Spencer. Who knows? Maybe even before that. Let’s see what Vanessa wrote on the school notice board, shall we?’
Vanessa Cuthbert had left no information about herself, but had made a contribution to the Brockley Rise junior school notice board.
Ours was a good school, but even good schools are not immune from the cancer of bullying. I’ve decided to say something here that I have waited forty-five years to say. When I was ten years old I witnessed an incident of violent bullying that has lived with me ever since. Anyone from my class will remember what happened because it resulted in a boy being hospitalized and nearly dying. Yet we did nothing about it at the time and nothing was done subsequently. Adam Bishop was a big cruel, violent boy from a cruel, violent family. Everybody knew the Bishops and everyone was scared of them. Adam made the lives of all of the kids in his class a misery, including mine. He used to touch the girls even though we were all only ten and he would hit the boys. One boy above the rest was the main victim of this vicious bully. William Connolly suffered at his hands from the age of five, and slowly but surely the bullying got worse. Adam Bishop got into the habit of stabbing William with his compass, just little scratches and pricks at first, but one day it got out of hand. I will never know what it was that sparked Bishop’s fury that day and I doubt that William will either. I’m sure he did not know at the time. Just something in Bishop’s psychopathic nature flipped and one break-time he literally threw William to the floor behind his desk. Then Bishop fell upon him and began to stab him with the compass, mainly in the arms but at the end he pulled up his shirt and gave him several in the stomach. Bishop was cunning as well as cruel, and he only let the thing go in at most half an inch. I can still remember him holding the spike between his finger and thumb about two thirds up it so that it would not go too far in. It was over in five minutes and then Bishop made William clean up the blood on the floor. He sent a little girl to get toilet paper. I was that girl and I did what I was told. After I handed the paper to Bishop he stuffed it into William’s mouth. Then he told him to clear out of school for the rest of the day and never say what happened. William ran out of the room and that evening he was taken into hospital with severe blood poisoning. There were about fifteen kids in the room when this attack took place and not one of us lifted a finger to help William. What’s more, when we were questioned later by the school and by a police constable not one of us was prepared to say a word. None of us wanted to become Bishop’s next victim and we should all be ashamed. Well, I’ve told the story now. It’s probably just between me and cyberspace and perhaps one or two of the old gang who like me look back in shame. Perhaps Adam Bishop himself will read it. If you do read this, Adam Bishop, then know this.
You are hated. You were hated then, you are hated now and you will always be hated. What you did scarred us all.
Vanessa Cuthbert’s public soul-searching was dated two months earlier and had preceded all the other mentions of Adam Bishop on the Brockley Rise pages. She had been the first to bre
ak the silence.
‘Just a few weeks before Adam Bishop was killed,’ Natasha noted. ‘Why do you think she spoke up when she did?’
‘Who knows? This whole Friends Reunited thing is only three or four years old. I suppose there are going to be a lot of worms slowly crawling out of the woodwork.
‘So the killer read what she wrote and decided to act upon it?’
‘I can’t see any other explanation,’ said Newson. ‘We now have both the Bishop and the Copperfield murder described in detail on the internet before they even occurred. What we need to do now is take a look at the schooldays of Warrant Officer Spencer, Angie Tatum, Neil Bradshaw and Farrah Porter.’
‘It’s Sunday evening, Ed. How do we find out where they went to school?’
‘Farrah Porter won’t be difficult, it’ll be listed in her Who’s Who entry, and I’m sure there’s any number of internet hits to be found on Angie Tatum.’
There were indeed. Like anyone who has been in the public eye, Angie Tatum had her obsessives, people who had set up sites in tribute to the girl whose breasts had caught the public imagination twenty years before. Since her death these sites had proliferated. There was even a goth rock group called Angie Tatum’s Dead.
The first site they opened revealed that Angie Tatum had attended a large comprehensive school in Essex.
Sergeant Wilkie entered the name of the school on to the Friends Reunited site. ‘I presume we’re looking at 1984 because of the compilation tape they found in her machine.’
‘Yes.’
‘The same as for Christine Copperfield.’
‘My guess is that’s a coincidence. I think it’s possible that the eighties generation is the one that figures most highly on the Friends site.’