Elsewhere house-to-house enquiries were being conducted around the area where Rebecca Morris had last been seen, and the HOLMES team were fully engaged in linking all this together. The work was slow and laborious, but it was necessary.
Thankfully Barry had already been a big help in the Carol Siddons case and Hunter was hoping that with his lifelong knowledge of villains and their families, together with his previous casework as a detective, he might be able to point them in the direction of their killer. Barry’s immediate task was to determine if the ‘modus operandi’ of the murders fitted the profiles of any of the district’s sex attackers. And to add to his workload he had also picked up where Grace had left off sifting through the dozens of ‘missing from home’ case files, which had been removed from the basement at Police Headquarters. Earlier that morning he had set to work on those and had already been able to dismiss a good quantity of those reports quite promptly. Many of the files still had photographs of the ‘missing’ girls stapled to the front sheets, and although they were now yellowing with age, by carefully studying the images, Barry had found that either because of hair colour, size of the individual, or clothing description, they could not possibly be the latest victim
“And how are the missing from home checks going Barry?” Hunter enquired returning back to his own mound of paperwork.
“Painful and tedious,” Barry responded, pushing his spectacles back onto the crown of his head. “I’ve managed to get a rough height and age of the bones together with colour of hair from the anthropologist, and the exhibits officer has managed to clean up the labels from the clothing to give me their size and original colour, for comparison with the reports. What is interesting however is the exhibit Professor McCormack found. Remember? The playing card inside the plastic bag. I can confirm it’s the three of hearts by the way. Well this was also inside the bag.” Barry held up a small section of paper. It appeared to have been torn from the top heading section of a newspaper and although yellowing and cracked at the edges the black print was still decipherable.
“Not all the headline print is there but it looks like it’s from our local weekly paper and it shows the date the sixth of October nineteen-ninety-nine. On a hunch I went through the ‘misper’ files, and using that date as guidance it’s helped me separate one girl’s folder - a Claire Fisher - but we’re slightly out of sync. She was reported missing on the first of October that year – five days before the newspaper cutting. She’s roughly the same height as the skeleton and had the same colour hair, but no clothing has been listed on her report.”
“Was the torn newspaper actually inside that plastic bag with the playing card?” asked Hunter, becoming alert to Barry’s information.
Barry nodded.
Hunter’s eyebrows raised and his blue eyes engaged with Barry’s. “This killer is one really twisted evil bastard Barry. He wants us to know this is his work. He placed that with the body so that we would know when she was killed, and I’m guessing that part of the paper will lead us in the direction of who she is.” Hunter pushed aside his notes. This find had his fullest attention. “We’ve been making enquiries and wondering why such a gap between the murder of Carol Siddons and Rebecca Morris, well it’s my bet that this will go some way to fill in those gaps. Contact the local paper and see what’s in the copy, and then get that exhibit to forensics and see if he’s left any DNA or prints. Let’s just hope he’s slipped up somewhere along the line.”
* * * * *
At the same time as Grace Marshall was organising the warrant, and search team with the local Task Force, to raid Steve Paynton’s old family home and allotment, Barry Newstead was entering the local history room at Barnwell library. Following a
phone call to the local weekly newspaper, The Barnwell Chronicle, he had discovered that old archive editions were no longer kept at the newspaper office, but had in fact been put onto microfiche and were held in trust by the local history group.
Within ten minutes of entering the small history room Barry was seated before a large microfiche reader, receiving instructions in its use by the female supervisor, who was at the same time loading the roll of microfiche containing all 1999’s editions of the weekly local newspaper onto the machine’s spool. As she leaned over him he couldn’t help but take in the alluring smell of her perfume. Quite an expensive one he thought, as he sneaked his gaze to her face only a few inches from his. It made him realise how much he had missed the smell of a woman since the sudden death of his wife from a stroke three years ago. Although heavily made-up he guessed she was in her mid fifties, roughly the same age as he, and he found himself being distracted from the task in hand.
“Right Mr Newstead,” she said straightening up.
She had taken him by surprise. He hoped she hadn’t caught him staring at her. He could feel his cheeks flushing.
“You just turn those handles at the side of the machine until you find the edition you want, then when you’ve found what you want you hit the print button, which will copy what you see on the screen. Understand all that?” she checked with him and smiled.
A very attractive smile he thought.
“If you need anything else just give me a call” she finished, then turned on her low heels and clicked her way back towards her desk.
He turned the spool slowly at first, watching the blown up images of the past editions of his local paper float across the screen. He was soon getting a feel for the movement, which he quickened as he became used to the momentum of the apparatus, and in less than a minute he was soon spinning past the editions until he hit mid-September’s pages and then began to slow until he settled on the 6th October’s front sheet. He took out the torn section, now secured inside a police exhibit bag, which had been discovered beside the female skeleton. He manoeuvred it around and held it in front of the reading screen for comparison. Confirming it was from the same paper he set it down to begin scanning the newssheet. He didn’t need to go far down the page. Within seconds he knew that what he had been looking for was contained in the front-page headlines. He began to pore over the print.
POLICE SEARCH FOR MISSING TEENAGER
Detectives leading the enquiry into the surprise disappearance of 15 year old Claire Louise Fisher from Barnwell are urging the public to help them with information.
Claire was reported missing five days ago on October 1st.
The last reported sighting of Claire was by her boyfriend at 9.30pm that night.
There was more to the report. The journalist had filled the remainder of the story with Claire’s background, plus interviews with her parents and friends, which he quickly scanned. And he recognised the photograph of Claire that the paper had used. It was a clear replica of the one from the front of her missing from home file back on his desk.
He slapped the table excitedly. He knew in his mind that having read this that Claire Louise Fisher was their latest corpse.
He looked for the print key on the microfiche reader, hovered his index finger over and stabbed at it. Almost instantaneously the copier below the microfiche reader spurred into action and within seconds a facsimile of the front page of the 6th October 1999 edition had been printed onto an A4 sheet.
Barry sat back in his chair and perused the story again. He found himself shaking his head and muttering to himself as he read it a second time, whilst thinking of the ramifications of what he had just uncovered.
Claire Fisher went missing on the first of October ninety-ninety-nine, he said to himself, and the edition of this newspaper didn’t go on sale until the sixth. That means the killer didn’t bury her straightaway. Claire was either alive and held somewhere, or killed and kept somewhere for the best part of a week until the paper came out, and then she was finally buried.
“This is one twisted bastard.” He said. From the corner of his eye he caught movement from the desk, and he glanced up to see the faired-haired local history Supervisor looking in his direction.
“Sorry about that” he whisper
ed loudly towards her, and apologetically raised a hand. “Talking to myself. A sign of age eh?”
She smiled back.
Quite a nice smile; a welcoming smile, he thought. There was something about it, which conjured up the image of Susan Siddons. It seemed perverse that such a painful event as this should bring them back together again after all these years. It made him realise just how much he had missed her. This has to be fate he thought. And he was a great believer in fate. He wondered about giving her a call.
-ooOoo-
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
DAY TWENTY-FIVE: 31st July.
Thunder growled and rumbled overhead, and a split second later the rain fell in streams, pelting the earth like spears. Grace Marshall cowered beneath the canopy of the rear entrance of Barnwell Police station. She had been petrified of thunder since a child and for some reason it still scared her. She would rather tackle a violent man than face thunder. Her eyes darted back and forth across the car park searching for Hunter who she knew was waiting for her in an unmarked police car. She spotted a dark blue Vauxhall whose windscreen wipers appeared to be working overtime to cope with the sudden downpour, and although she couldn’t see who was driving she guessed it would be him.
She glanced up at the thick mass of storm clouds, placed her working clip file over the top of her head and in the same instant made the decision to dash to the car. Despite the fact it had only been seconds, as she bounced into the passenger seat of the CID car, the rain was already beginning to soak through her Italian linen trousers. She shook her work folder into the footwell and then pulled down the passenger side visor and stared into the mirror. She flicked a comb of fingers through her hair in a vain attempt to stop it frizzing like it usually did, and then brushed several stray droplets of rain from her cheeks.
Hunter stared at her shaking his head.
She looked back.
“What?” She returned her eyes to the mirror. “Image is everything Hunter, and if you were a woman you’d know that,” she finished, slapping the visor back in place.
“A little rain never did anyone any harm,” he retorted.
“It does when it takes me half an hour to put my make-up on, and another half an hour to do my hair each morning. Bloody British weather.”
Shaking his head he said. “Anyway, I understand you had a good day yesterday.”
“The Paynton’s you mean?”
Hunter nodded and then turned the demister on the dashboard full-on to clear the fogged front windscreen.
Grace gave back a mischievously wicked smile. “They were really pissed off by the time we’d finished. In fact old man Paynton almost got locked up for breach of the peace when we dug up his allotment. We found the bodies of the dogs though, just like Barry suggested. Forensic have got those and we should know if we have a match with the hairs on Carol Siddons’s cardigan in a day or two. Oh, and by the way, did you know that some of the locals have graffited Steve’s house. Paedo’s been sprayed all over the front of it. The family are going ballistic,” she chuckled.
“Serves them all right. That family have plagued that estate for far too long. It’s nice to see them get a taste of their own medicine for a change.”
“Anyway where are we off to today?”
Hunter dropped the Claire Fisher file onto Grace’s lap. He wound down the misted over driver’s door window a fraction.
The burst of rain had halted but the skies were still rumbling and threatening overhead.
He pointed at the folder as he accelerated slowly out of the station car park. “We’re off to see a Mr and Mrs Fisher. Barry also had some success yesterday.”
As he drove, Hunter recounted Barry’s newspaper discovery and how he’d managed to confirm his findings with a dental match from Claire Fisher’s records.
“It looks as though the killer had Claire for five days at least before she was buried with that newspaper report. Is that sick or what? I find it hard to believe this has been going on in my own district for all these years. Now I know what the detectives were going through when they were dealing with Fred and Rosemary West.” Hunter slowly shook his head.
Grace felt her skin go goosey.
“This twisted bastard seems to be taunting us Grace. He doesn’t mind us finding out who his victims are. It’s as if he knew we’d eventually find this one and he’s actually helping us to identify her. It’s almost as though he thinks he’s never going to be caught. That he’s cleverer than us. We really are up against it at the moment. I just hope we can get a breakthrough before he kills again.” He slowed the car as he met the rush hour crawl. “And another thing Barry’s unearthed. He did some further digging yesterday, going back across old local newspaper reports and then made a few phone calls to other police stations in the District. As a result of what he’s uncovered there’s at least another three local teenage girls who have disappeared without trace over the past thirteen years.”
“What.” exclaimed Grace looking up sharply from the Claire Fisher file.
“Yes, Barry’s found that there are three other cases of girls missing from this area since nineteen-ninety-three when Carol Siddons was first reported. He’s pulled all their files and found that they all disappeared with no apparent reason and more disturbingly that they all fit the same profile, especially as to age and physical appearance as our present three victims.”
* * * * *
The Fisher house was a sumptuous, four bedroom detached residence on a small exclusive estate on the edge of Barnwell. Hunter had learned that the family’s engineering business had flourished over recent years and that Mr and Mrs Fisher had moved home on two occasions since nineteen ninety nine when Claire had gone missing.
The woman who answered their knock at the door took Hunter by surprise. She appeared a lot younger than the details on file. In fact she looked not much older than him.
As if reading his puzzled expression as Hunter introduced himself and Grace, the slim raven-haired lady responded. “I’m Julia. Mrs Fisher number two. Derek’s new wife. Well not really his new wife. We’ve been married nearly three years now. Beverley, Claire’s Mum, died in two thousand and one from cancer.”
“There’s no need to explain,” replied Hunter showing his police badge.
“Derek keeps telling me the same but I could tell by the look on your face that you were surprised that I was a lot younger than you were expecting. I’m used to greeting people like this even after three years. I suppose I don’t want people to think bad of me. As though I’m jumping into a dead woman’s shoes if you know what I mean. I was his secretary you see, at the firm, and got very close to both Derek and Beverley when Claire went missing. Then of course when Beverley was diagnosed with breast cancer I took on a lot of the responsibility of the business and of course got even closer to Derek especially when Beverley died. I know there are some people who think I was having an affair with Derek whilst his wife was dying, but that’s so far from the truth.”
“You really don’t have to explain all this to us,” Hunter responded.
“But I feel better now that I have done. Anyway Derek’s expecting you. He’s in the lounge. Come through.”
Hunter and Grace followed Julia Fisher along a bright and airy hallway into a large, tastefully furnished lounge. The room was filled with sunlight; its brightness enhanced by magnolia painted walls and highly polished oak flooring. Leather furniture and bespoke light oak units containing antique ‘blue’ pottery added to its expensive look.
Hunter noticed in particular a number of impressionistic style paintings hanging around the room, which looked original and under different circumstances he would have loved to have sauntered around to view them.
French doors at the end opened up into a large hardwood orangery, which gave view over a garden festooned with a wide variety of plant colour.
Derek Fisher was standing in the centre of the room waiting to greet them and he energetically moved forward upon their entrance offering his hand to sha
ke. Hunter immediately recognised the Masonic signal and responded accordingly.
“Which Lodge are you in?” Derek Fisher asked, pointing to a tan-coloured leather settee, one of three in the large room, inviting Hunter and Grace to be seated.
“Knights Templar,” Hunter replied. “But I don’t get so much now. To be honest it’s not really my thing. I joined because of my father. He’s from Glasgow and as you know it’s quite a Scottish tradition to be involved in The Masons. When he came down here to live he joined the Knights Templar Lodge at Barnwell and then of course sponsored me just like his Father had done for him.”
“I must invite you to mine some time. In fact I’m in the chair next year, so I’ll send you an invite.” He paused and smiled at Grace “Enough of the funny handshake stuff eh, and down to real matters. You’re here about Claire you said on the phone.”
Grace took over. “We are Mr Fisher. We believe we’ve found her. But I’m sorry to say it’s not good news.”
“Don’t apologise dear. I guess I knew all along it would come down to this. Is this visit because of the bodies you’ve dug up on the old pit site? It’s been all over the news.”
Grace nodded. “The dental records point us towards it being your daughter and a simple DNA sample from you would make it conclusive.”
“I’m guessing you won’t be allowing me to see her. Although I suppose I won’t be able to recognise Claire after all this time.”
“I’m afraid not. She’s been buried a long time.”
Derek Fisher gave off a long sigh “The one good thing I’ve got now after all this time is closure. It’s such a shame her mum’s not around to know that you’ve found her, even though Claire is dead. She grieved right to the end you know,” he gulped and pursed his lips. “I’ll get the opportunity to lay her to rest?” he asked.
“You will, but not just yet. I’m afraid we’ll need to hang on to Claire for some time yet until the Coroner gives permission.”
Heart of the Demon (D.S.Hunter Kerr) Page 16