by Frank Smith
‘I wish I could get that kind of response when my computer crashes,’ said Molly, ‘but then, I’m not a bank.’
Peter Jones took a card from his pocket and handed it to Molly. ‘Try us next time,’ he said. ‘You may not be a bank, but we do pride ourselves on our response time.’
Molly looked at the card. ‘I will,’ she said, ‘and thank you.’ She looked at the card again and said, ‘Percival Street? Is B and B fairly new in Broadminster?’
A rueful smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. ‘So much for advertising,’ he said. ‘We’ve been there almost three years, which is when I moved here. I used to work for Danforth DataCom as a technical programme manager in Wolverhampton until they were taken over by an American firm. I could have kept my job with the new company, but it meant moving to America, and I didn’t want to do that. Fortunately, Bill Bristow, who owns B and B Data Specialists, is a personal friend; he was about to open a branch in Broadminster, and he offered me a job. So I moved here and I’m glad I did. I like Broadminster, and I’ve made quite a few friends here.’
‘Through the church, I imagine,’ Molly said. ‘And now choirmaster. You must have a good voice.’
‘Only fair,’ he said modestly, ‘but I do have a degree in music. I used to teach it many years ago, but I couldn’t make a decent living at it, so I went back to university and found my niche in electronics. But I do enjoy the choir, so when no one else would take on the job of choirmaster when Adam Fairfield left, I volunteered.’
‘Which brings me to why we’re here,’ Molly said, taking out the photograph found among Gavin Whitelaw’s possessions. ‘I know this was taken years before your time here, but I’m wondering if Mr Fairfield left any pictures or a record that might tell us the identity of the junior members of the choir in this picture?’
Jones studied the photo, then shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not,’ he said, ‘and I can’t say I’d given it any thought until you rang. But there must be some sort of record of those times.’ He eyed Molly levelly. ‘I take it this is to do with the tragic death of Billy Travis,’ he said quietly, ‘but I don’t understand what it has to do with the choir. How is it involved?’
‘We don’t know that the choir’s involved at all,’ said Molly. ‘We have reason to believe there’s a common purpose behind the killings, but the only link we’ve found so far between the victims is that two of them were in the choir when they were teenagers, and one of those victims contacted an existing member of the choir shortly before he was killed.’
Frowning, Jones looked at the picture again. ‘So that was Billy back then,’ he said soberly. ‘To be honest he wasn’t the greatest of singers, but he enjoyed being in the choir and he was rarely absent or late, even for rehearsals, which is something that can’t be said for all members, I’m afraid.’
He tapped the picture. ‘Mike Fulbright, the tall chap at the back, has probably been with the choir longer than anyone, so he might remember who they all are. Have you spoken to him? His father was the minister there for years.’ He leaned closer and said, ‘Good Lord! Is that Meg Bainbridge when she was young?’ He shook his head. ‘She’s still with us, you know. Lovely voice. She could have gone further with training. Pity.’
He handed the picture back to Molly. ‘Thank you for showing me that,’ he said. ‘Where did you get it?’
‘It belonged to one of the victims,’ said Molly, ‘and one of the others had a picture of himself in cassock and surplice that was taken around the same time.’
‘So what is it you’re looking for, exactly?’
‘This picture’s estimated to be something like fifteen years old,’ said Molly, ‘and while only two of the victims appear in it, some of the other youngsters in the picture may be able to tell us if the other victim was ever in the choir.’
‘I suppose I should have asked Adam Fairfield about that,’ he said, ‘because the book I have was fairly new when I took over. Why not put the picture in the local paper? Some of those kids are probably still living here.’
‘We thought of that. But it was felt that, since the connection is so tenuous, and we could be wrong, we didn’t want to start rumours and speculation about the choir without more evidence.’
‘Then why don’t I contact Adam Fairfield and see if he can help? He may have taken some of that stuff with him. He must have kept some sort of records over the years. He doesn’t have a computer, but his daughter does, and I’ve been in touch with him through her before. I don’t remember the e-mail address offhand, but if I could have a copy of that picture, I’ll send it off tonight and explain what it is you want. Even if he can only identify a few of the people in the picture, that could lead to others.’
The team of detectives and uniformed constables making door-to-door enquiries around Windsor Street and the Red Lion were kept going until ten o’clock that night before Paget told Ormside to bring them in. ‘But I want them back at it first thing tomorrow morning,’ he said. He kept reminding himself that Connie Rice’s disappearance probably had nothing whatsoever to do with the killings of three men, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that it just might.
Surprisingly, once he’d stopped complaining, Rick Crowley had become interested in the process of building a picture of the man he claimed had been talking to Connie, and by three o’clock that afternoon, he declared the result ‘a pretty good likeness’. Warned of the consequences if he was misleading them, he stuck to his guns. ‘That’s him!’ he declared. ‘It might not be exactly right, but it’s as near as makes no difference. So, now I’ve done your job for you, can I go and get on with my job?’
Paget had ordered the picture to be given to the media, together with the usual request for anyone who had seen the man to contact the police. Four people had called in by late evening, and those leads were being checked out.
One of the searchers in the Red Lion car park found a good-luck charm in the shape of a shamrock half embedded in the gravel some distance from where Connie usually parked her car. ‘It was about twelve feet away,’ the man told Ormside. ‘Thing is, it was nowhere near the line she would normally take between her car and the door of the pub, but it could have come off if she were being carried or dragged to another car. I’ve shown it to the staff in the pub, and they say they’re sure it came off her bracelet. We don’t know when it was lost, but they said Rice was always fiddling with the bracelet, and she would have said something if she’d lost it earlier.’
Connie’s car had been towed in for further examination, but the initial report from forensic was that there was no obvious evidence of a struggle.
‘So it looks as if she was attacked in the car park and dragged over to another car,’ Ormside said. ‘Her attacker then drove her car out of the car park to make it look as if Connie had gone home. He parked it close by, then went back and drove away with the girl.’ The sergeant’s eyes were bleak as he looked at Paget. ‘Which would mean she would have to be unconscious or incapacitated in some way while he moved her car . . . or dead.’
TWENTY
Saturday, 29 October
Windsor Street was a cul-de-sac consisting of eight houses on each side, with three forming a semicircle to close off the end of the street, and every one of them had been visited, without result. Some residents said they’d seen the car there, even noticed that it wasn’t one they’d seen in the street before, but hadn’t thought much about it at the time. Others said they hadn’t noticed it at all. Even the woman who reported it said she hadn’t noticed the car in front of her house until midday on Thursday. ‘I thought it must belong to someone visiting,’ she told Tregalles, ‘so I left it, thinking it would be gone by evening. But when I saw it still sitting there this morning, I reported it and asked to have it removed.’
‘They’re mostly older people in that street,’ Tregalles explained to Ormside. ‘In fact I think half of them were on their way to bed by the time we packed it in last night. But even if they had been looking out, what could they tell
us? Connie Rice didn’t leave the pub until midnight; it was dark; there was no moon, so whoever drove her car around to Windsor Street wasn’t taking much of a chance.
‘We’ve questioned most of the people on the route between the pub and Windsor Street. We stopped people out walking their dogs, people on their way through on bikes and in cars, and we’re no further ahead than when we started. To be honest, Len, I think we’re all wasting our time going out there again this morning.’
‘So what do you suggest we do?’ Ormside asked.
‘I don’t know, and that’s the trouble,’ Tregalles said wearily. ‘Even if we assume Connie Rice was taken by the same person who killed the other three, we still don’t know what connects the victims.’
‘Forsythe seems convinced there’s a connection through the All Saints choir,’ Ormside said. ‘Both Travis and Whitelaw were in the same choir, and Whitelaw did go to see Mike Fulbright, another member of the choir, shortly before he died. And you said you don’t believe that Fulbright was telling the truth when he said all they talked about was cars.’
‘I’m sure he wasn’t,’ Tregalles said, ‘but the fact that some of them were in the same choir ten or twenty years ago, doesn’t mean much in a town this size. I know Molly’s got it stuck in her head that there’s a connection, but I can’t see it myself.’ He frowned as he looked around the office. ‘Where is she, anyway?’ he asked.
‘Where you’d better be if you don’t want Paget on your case,’ Ormside said. ‘She’s been out there since seven o’clock this morning, talking to anyone she happens to meet.’
Tregalles looked at the clock. ‘It’s only just turned eight now,’ he said. ‘What the hell is she trying to prove?’
‘I don’t think she’s trying to prove anything,’ Ormside said, ‘or needs to for that matter. I suspect she believes, as you do, that all this knocking on doors and stopping people in the street is a waste of time, but she’s slogging through it because she knows it has to be done just in case. So why don’t you go out there and give her a hand?’
The morning sun felt warm against his face as he drove along the top of the quarry, but once he dropped below the lip of the giant excavation, the sunlight disappeared, and he was reminded that it was late October, and summer was long gone. He shivered, but not so much from cold as from the memory of his last visit here. He felt guilty about slipping out of the house and leaving Jimmy behind, but Alice had flatly refused to let the boy return to the quarry. He’d agreed to skip coming here last Saturday, telling Jimmy that he had other things to do, but he knew his son had been looking forward to coming with him this weekend, and he wished now that he’d insisted on bringing him.
‘He didn’t actually see anything,’ he’d reminded his wife, ‘so there’s nothing for him to be frightened of.’
But Alice wouldn’t budge, and he’d finally given in and stopped arguing. Maybe later, when all the fuss had died down, Alice might change her mind and he could bring the boy here again.
Descending to the quarry floor, Ron Jackson stopped the pickup close to what looked like a fresh fall of stones. Sometimes the rains did that, and some of the stones looked to be about the size he was looking for. He stuck the goggles on his head, then took the sledgehammer and the largest of the cold chisels from the box in the back of the pickup, and set them on the ground. Then, head down, he began to pick his way carefully through the smaller stuff to reach the larger stones. He was wearing boots, but it was all too easy to turn an ankle, and having done that once, he’d learned to be careful. He found a flat spot and stopped to look for just the right stone to start on. Some would split well, while others would either refuse to split, or suddenly shatter into a thousand pieces and leave you with—
‘Oh, Jesus!’
Ron Jackson felt as if his blood had turned to water. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He kept telling himself it was some sort of distorted mental image, an hallucination left over from the time before; it couldn’t possibly be real.
But it was real, all too real. His stomach churned and suddenly he was on his hands and knees, spewing out his breakfast.
‘Looks like the ground broke away beneath her when she reached the edge up there,’ Paget said, ‘and the whole lot came down with her. Her hands are bound behind her back, her mouth is taped just like the others, and the letter A has been carved in her forehead. God only knows what their killer thinks these people have done that they need to die in such a cruel and sadistic way.’
He was speaking to Amanda Pierce, who had just arrived at the scene. ‘Starkie estimates that she’s been dead for more than a day, possibly two. And if that proves to be true, Connie Rice was driven out here and killed within hours of leaving the pub – and, like the others, he believes she was alive when she went over the edge.’
There was an air of desperation in the incident room that afternoon. SOCO was out in full force at the crime scene; Connie’s flat was being searched again, and her flat-mate, Sandra Palmer, was being pressured to think of anything Connie had said or done that might be relevant to the investigation. Five more people claimed to have seen ‘the man in the picture on TV’, and although Paget knew it was a long shot, he sent Molly off to ask Rick Crowley for the names and addresses, if he knew them, of the regulars who had been in the Red Lion on Wednesday. ‘They may not have been in the pub at the same time as the man Crowley claims was chatting up Connie,’ said Paget, ‘but one of them may know the people who were celebrating their lottery win, and one of them may be able to tell us more about this mystery man, or at least give us a better description. And I’ll get the press officer to put out an appeal for anyone who was in or near the pub that evening as well.’ He was grasping at straws and he knew it, but with nothing else to work with, what was there to lose?
They had tried several times to contact Connie Rice’s mother, without success, and there was no one home when the Bristol police went round to the house. ‘They’re off somewhere different almost every weekend,’ a neighbour told them. ‘They’ll probably be back Sunday evening.’
Paget was staring blankly at the whiteboards when the phone on Ormside’s desk rang. It sounded louder than usual in the unnatural quiet of an almost deserted room. The sergeant answered, then handed it to Paget, mouthing ‘Superintendent Pierce,’ and pointing upwards.
‘We’re on Breaking News on Radio Shropshire,’ she said. ‘They appear to have full details linking all the murders, and they used the phrase “serial killer” at least six or seven times in a two-minute clip, so you can imagine how that will go over with the public. So I think the sooner we respond the better, and I’ve instructed the press officer to set up a conference for six o’clock this evening, where I’ll be making a statement and asking the public for their help. I’ll also make another appeal to anyone who was in the Red Lion that night to come forward. And, as the senior officer heading the investigation, I think you should be there as well, Neil – so, with less than two hours to go, I’d like you to come up and help me draft an opening statement. As for the questions . . . they’ll be after blood, so we’ll just have to do the best we can.’
Sunday, 30 October
Mike Fulbright was still feeling the effects of last night’s celebration when he came down for breakfast. The Grinders had been playing away the day before, and it had been midnight before he got home. Bleary-eyed, and with a dull ache nagging away at the back of his head, he’d given serious consideration to staying in bed and to hell with the choir this morning. But the thought of young Findlay stealing a march on him changed his mind.
‘Do we really have to listen to the news at this time on a Sunday morning?’ he asked irritably as he filled his plate. ‘It’s nothing but doom and gloom, for God’s sake!’
‘I was just listening to see if there was any update on the hunt for the serial killer,’ Rachel said mildly. ‘I thought you’d be interested since one of the victims was a fellow choir member, Billy Travis. And then there was the chap the police said came
to see you just before he was killed. Whitelaw, was it? And now they’ve found the girl who was missing, in Clapperton quarry just like one of the men before her. You know a lot of women, Mike. Perhaps you knew her as well? Connie Rice?’
Hunched over his plate, Mike became very still. ‘So what did they say?’ he asked. ‘Do they have any idea who’s behind the killings?’
‘It didn’t sound to me as if they know very much at all,’ she said. ‘They were on TV last night. One of them was that chief inspector who came to see you, but neither of them said very much. Just that they’re doing everything they can. They’re following several leads – you know, the usual stuff – and they made an appeal for anyone who was in or near the Red Lion on Wednesday night to come forward. They spun it out a bit, but it sounded to me as if they didn’t have a clue, and I mean literally!’
Rachel reached for the teapot and refilled her cup. ‘You were out Wednesday evening, weren’t you, Mike?’ she asked innocently. ‘Were you anywhere near the Red Lion?’
Sunday, a day of rest . . . for some, perhaps, but not for others, and Amanda Pierce’s car was already there when Paget pulled into his parking space in Charter Lane. He’d come in this morning simply because, knowing the killer was still out there, he couldn’t stay away, and there had to be something he could do to get the investigation moving again. But what? The question had been pounding away inside his head since last night. The press conference had been bad enough, but it looked ten times worse by the time the editors had worked it over for airing on the late evening news.
He entered the building and was heading for the incident room when the duty sergeant stopped him to tell him that Detective Superintendent Pierce wanted to see him in her office the moment he arrived.
‘Sounds serious,’ Paget said. ‘Did she say anything else?’
‘No, sir,’ the man said, lowering his voice, ‘but she usually says “Good morning” when she comes in. Not this morning though. Tell the truth, sir, she looked a bit grim.’