Alone with the Dead: A PC Donal Lynch Thriller

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Alone with the Dead: A PC Donal Lynch Thriller Page 17

by James Nally


  The horrible truth was: we had been talking about her. I hadn’t moved on at all. My ego was even hoping she’d come to London to rekindle our relationship.

  At some point later, I realised I was badly out of training for drinking, Irish-style. Everything became a blur, save for fragmentary moments of lucidity that seemed to last forever. Like when I got back from the loo at one point, to find Eve clearly agitated.

  ‘I was just telling Eve here about your gift,’ Fintan sniggered, ‘you get visited by the dead, isn’t that right, Donal?’

  She looked at me, almost accusingly: ‘What’s all this about?’

  She refused to let me laugh it off, so I found myself running her through my entire history with Marion Ryan: how she attacked me at home and in my car, before appearing to me twice near Sangora Road in broad daylight. She hung on every word, a rapt audience of one, while Fintan took the piss.

  ‘He tells me Meehan came to him too,’ he sneered.

  The night stopped dead at the mere mention of his name. A sickening angst took root in my core.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Eve mouthed, her face blanching, ‘I feel sick.’ She got to her feet and dashed to the ladies. The next fragment: Eve murdering an Irish folk song: Fintan and I sneering at how so many Irish women think they’re Aretha Franklin after a skinful. Amid the aural bloodletting, I was struck by a verse:

  So soon may I follow,

  When friendships decay,

  And from Love’s shining circle,

  The gems drop away.

  When true hearts lie withered,

  And fond ones are flown.

  Oh! Who would inhabit

  This bleak world alone?

  Fintan, self-styled music guru, told me it was an ancient ballad called ‘The Last Rose of Summer’.

  Then Eve launched into ‘Summertime’, Fintan explaining how that song had been ripped off from an old Negro classic, ‘Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child’. As Eve demanded and got the attention of the entire bar, I wondered if her subconscious mind somehow knew this.

  At some stage, one of those generic Irish country bands that specialises in sedating pissed immigrants spurted into life. They duly churned out the bog-standard repertoire of corny ditties and misery-milking ballads we’d all heard a thousand times before.

  When lost love and the joys of hole-digging failed to rouse the rabble, they belted out a good old IRA song. I watched the crowd whooping and howling in delight, their pockets bulging with Sterling.

  I bid the place ‘an Irish farewell’, slipping unnoticed out of a side door, leaving my homicidal ex in the sole care of my morally bankrupt brother. I couldn’t help thinking what a perfect couple they’d make.

  Chapter 22

  Clapham Police Station, South London

  Monday, August 12, 1991: 10:00

  Next morning, the incident room crackled. Teams yapped like excited hounds, the scent of prey tickling their impatient noses. Shep’s bold decision to get everyone pissed and onside Friday had been his first masterstroke. Judging by the atmosphere, the weekend’s four-pronged assault on Peter Ryan and Karen Foster had been his second.

  At the centre of it, Shep darted about, desk-to-desk, like some deranged orchestra conductor. He’d bark a brief question, place his hands to his lips, prayer-like, then listen hard, head bowed, to the long and winding replies. Occasionally his hands would fall, he’d lean forward professorially and squint at whatever he was being shown on a computer screen or a map.

  After an hour, he looked set to burst with excitement and called an impromptu briefing.

  ‘Now, I’d like each team to enlighten us about what they found out over the past two days. But please, give me the baby, not the birth.’

  He pointed first to DC Young, the female officer who’d been so clearly unoffended by Peter Ryan’s flirting.

  ‘A couple of colleagues at the Pines revealed that Peter and Karen had been an item some years back, perhaps three or four years ago.’

  ‘Why did no one mention this before?’ asked Shep. ‘And why haven’t Peter or Karen mentioned it at all? If only to prove it’s over between them? Or that it was just a fleeting thing?’

  ‘Their colleagues said the same thing; it had been so brief and it was finished by the time he met Marion. In fact, they were under the impression that Karen had grown close to Marion. They talked about them going to the pub together, quite often.’

  ‘But one colleague has a different story to tell. Isn’t that right, DC Young?’

  She failed to completely suppress a smile.

  ‘I spoke to Bethan Trott. She’s the nurse who watched TV with Karen and her sister Laura between five thirty and six p.m. on the day of Marion’s murder. When I asked her about the nature of Peter’s relationship with Karen, she became a little uncomfortable.

  ‘I pressed her and she finally started to open up. She told me that after Peter and Marion got married last June, they moved into a room in the staff accommodation quarters at the home which happened to be next door to hers. Around the same time, Karen asked Bethan for a spare key to her room so she could go there to watch TV when it was quiet. Bethan agreed. Bethan now claims that she returned to her room on several occasions to find her eavesdropping on Peter and Marion.

  ‘On one occasion, Karen had written a list of the presents Peter had bought Marion for her birthday and had added the words “sick, sick, sick” at the bottom of the page. When Bethan asked her why, she said something along the lines of “if only she knew what he was up to behind her back”. Bethan said she’d forgotten about this incident until a few days ago, when she found the piece of paper under her bed. Karen must have dropped it as she listened to them next door.’

  Shep interjected: ‘I’ve got that piece of paper here, if anyone wants to see it. She’s scrawled the words “sick, sick, sick” in manic writing across the bottom.’ He nodded for WPC Young to continue.

  ‘On another occasion, Bethan found Karen in her room in tears. When she asked what was wrong, Karen said that Peter was taking Marion away for a weekend, adding words to the effect of “he won’t even spend the night with me”. When Bethan asked her what she meant by this, Karen clammed up. So Bethan decided to do some investigating of her own.’

  The air in the incident room fizzed, charged, electric.

  ‘Last November, she saw Karen and Peter enter a shed in the grounds of the home where Peter has a desk. Fifteen minutes later, Karen emerged, as Bethan put it, “dishevelled”. She’s convinced that they’d had sex in the shed.

  ‘A few days later, she confronted Karen, who denied having any sort of sexual relations with Peter Ryan, insisting that they were just good friends. Bethan claims she believed her, which is why she hasn’t mentioned any of this before.’

  Shep swelled with almost unbearable self-satisfaction, a raging blush igniting both cheeks.

  ‘So, Peter Ryan and Karen Foster were having sex late last year, just months after Peter had married Marion. The challenge now,’ he declared, all-conquering, Churchillian, ‘is to prove that Karen Foster acted upon her obsession with Peter Ryan, by killing Marion.’

  ‘Obsession?’ scoffed McStay, holding up a VHS tape. ‘If Karen had some sort of homicidal hatred for Marion, then why did she attend their wedding in Ireland last summer? Karen is on this video, having a great time. Certainly looking nothing like the woman scorned.’

  ‘I’m sure she presented well to camera,’ sniffed Shep.

  McStay wasn’t done: ‘It’s worth noting that Peter Ryan is still staying with Marion’s family up in Enfield. They don’t suspect him of any wrongdoing whatsoever. They’ll be shattered by this accusation.’

  That punctured the euphoria. The O’Learys had been almost saintly in their dignity and patience. They really didn’t deserve a sordid sub-plot.

  Shep set about resurrecting the mood: ‘DS Barratt. Tell us please what you discovered from Peter’s best friend?’

  ‘Not his best friend, Guv, his best man, who
comes from his home town in Ireland but lives in North London.’

  Shep blinked impatiently.

  ‘He told us that Peter and Marion were planning to move to Ireland in the autumn to start a family. They hadn’t told their families yet: they were waiting until Marion was pregnant.’

  Shep decided to editorialise for anyone failing to keep up: ‘Karen got wind of these plans. Time was running out for her and Peter, the man she loved.’

  I wondered if, on the sly, he read his wife’s Mills and Boon books.

  Barratt remained deadpan: ‘Well we need to find out if Karen actually knew about these plans first, Guv.’

  Shep ignored him and turned to the last of the four teams. Maurice, the younger of the pair, spoke up: ‘We found out something from Pam Foster, Karen’s mother. She attended Clapham police station on the night of the murder while Karen and Peter were making their initial statements. When they were finished, she offered to drive Peter to Marion’s parents’ home. He told her that he couldn’t face them, and stayed the night at the Foster family home in South London, on the couch apparently.’

  Shep raged: ‘So we let the two prime suspects spend a night together, to get their stories straight. And we didn’t even know about it? Christ almighty.’

  Shep wasn’t as rattled as me. I realised I’d forgotten to read those initial statements made by Peter and Karen on the night of the murder. They’d given these statements raw – before their all-night, post-murder conference. If they were going to slip up, it would be in there.

  I scolded myself for making such a basic error. As soon as this briefing ended, I’d gut those initial statements. But at that moment, I faced a more immediate dilemma. I realised that if I flagged up my stranger suspect, Robert Napper, Shep would probably destroy me.

  He was coming to me next, soft soaping the old guard in the meantime: ‘Of course, we still have to keep an open mind about other potential suspects. Peter and/or Karen could have roped in an accomplice. And, of course, the Lone Wolf Killer line of enquiry remains open. Lynch, did you come across anything we need to check out?’

  My face burned. I had to flag up Napper. I had to. If I chickened out and Napper struck again, I’d never forgive myself.

  ‘Yes, actually I think there is someone we need to check out, Guv,’ I said, my voice shaking slightly. I felt like a noise pollution officer shutting down a banging party.

  ‘Did a Lone Wolf jump out of the paperwork and bite you?’ he laughed.

  The sniggers sucked the last drop of moisture from my throat.

  I told them about the Green Chain Attacks. I pointed out the obvious connections to Marion’s murder: the suspect had escalated, he’d used a knife, he’d targeted women both in public spaces and in their homes.

  So far, so plausible. I then hit them with the notes that put Napper in the frame: the first written by the patrol officer who caught him hanging around a woman’s back garden (‘abnormal, rapist, indecency type’), then the note which described the rape claims he’d made to his mother.

  That last revelation shocked even these gore-hardened hounds.

  ‘Christ, what sort of pervert would boast about a rape to his own mum?’ said Shep to murmured agreement.

  ‘So what sex attacks on local Commons did you find to match his confession?’ asked Shep.

  ‘Well, none, Guv, but I think it’s worth checking him out.’

  ‘What’s his form?’ asked Shep, irritably.

  ‘Er, not much,’ I mumbled, my cheeks sizzling like fried rashers, ‘possession of an air rifle in ’86.’

  I sounded half-hearted, it sounded half-arsed.

  ‘And?’ said Shep, chewing his lip.

  I shrugged: ‘That’s it,’ I said, trying not to swallow my own voice box. Nobody moved a muscle.

  Shep spoke patiently, as if to a child: ‘So he’s got no form for a crime like this, and the note from his mother is from nearly two years ago and doesn’t match any reported crime?’

  ‘That’s correct, Guv, but it’s not every day a mother shops her son for rape. She must know more. He must be some sort of deviant.’

  ‘I think you’re clutching at straws, Lynch. I mean none of the Green Chain Attacker’s victims were stabbed, correct? As far as I know, the attacks all took place in public places. I just don’t see the connection.’

  ‘He may have struck in someone’s home. We just don’t know yet. But in conscience, Guv, I had to bring this guy to your attention. This nutter is the only person I could find who’s on the loose and capable of this level of violence. He’s escalated to this. He’s worth checking out. That’s all I’m saying.’

  Shep shook his head: ‘This is a weirdo who lurks in the bushes at night and jumps on random women. You think he suddenly took a bus to Clapham, saw Marion and decided to stab her up?’

  Childhood humiliations flooded through me. Can someone else go in goal now?

  ‘He might have been stalking her?’ I heard my feeble voice plead.

  Shep smiled: ‘Do you think he brought his airgun with him, on the bus?’

  That got a laugh.

  ‘Lynch, get the officers at Plumstead to check him out. Can you stick to solving this case for now?’ he said with a mixture of disgust and pity. I hoped to God he’d let it go.

  Shep surveyed his flock slowly, dramatically. He leaned forward and spoke quietly, conspiratorially: ‘Let’s be bold and run with the idea that Karen Foster murdered Marion.’

  Hang on, my mind protested, the pathologist said it had to be a man. My memory flashed back to Karen that night, convulsing as I questioned her. That can’t have been an act.

  But Shep had the blinkers back on: ‘Okay, so based on what we’ve got, Karen takes the afternoon off work. She meets her accomplice. She either brought the weapon with her, the accomplice brought it or they went somewhere to pick it up. They drive to Marion’s home at Sangora Road. She and the accomplice park where they can see the far end of the street and the front door. Marion turns into Sangora on foot just after five forty p.m. Karen and the accomplice meet her at the bottom of the steps to 21. One of them is carrying a bag containing the weapon and a change of clothes.

  ‘They explain that Peter has asked them to bring some pots from the house to the Pines – they’re too big for him to carry on the train. Remember, according to Peter and Karen, that’s the reason she drove him back to the house that night. Peter may have mentioned this to Marion that morning, to prime her. Marion lets them in. She picks up her post and leads them up the stairs to the flat. On the landing, one of them stuns her with a blow. She falls. They go to work.

  ‘According to the pathologist, the attack took two to three minutes. They change out of their bloody clothes, leave the house, get back to the car and return to the Pines old people’s home where Karen is seen just after six.’

  I wondered if I was the only one not buying it. Either way, Shep kept selling.

  ‘Was Peter involved? I think that’s the toughest nut to crack right now.

  ‘Check out Karen and Peter’s bank and phone records. Get back to the Pines. We need to look at their precise movements on the day of the murder again. Who saw them and at what times exactly? Check out if anyone working at the Pines or anyone employed there in the past twelve months has form for violence. Also find out if any of them has a martial arts belt. Remember, Marion was knocked out by a karate-style chop.

  ‘The first thing I was told when I joined this investigation was that both Karen and Peter have watertight alibis. But do they? Have we really challenged those alibis rigorously? I don’t think we have,’ said Shep, resisting the temptation to leer at McStay and Barratt.

  ‘I want them both brought in for interview. Get Karen in first. With Bethan’s revelations, we can really shake her up. I think she’s our prime suspect. Mulroney and Gibson, oil the thumbscrews. Lynch, help them prepare for the interviews. I want nothing short of a full confession from her about the affair with Peter, then a full confession to the murder of
Marion. It’s her time to bleed, understood?’

  Chapter 23

  Clapham Police Station, South London

  Monday, August 12, 1991; 11:00

  Before I did anything else I had to look through Peter and Karen’s first statements. What if I’d missed something?

  I printed out both, along with the lengthier versions they gave later, laying them side-by-side for inspection.

  Peter didn’t appear to make any factual contradictions in either. However, I noted a few potential banana skins. How convenient that he’d forgotten his chequebook when buying the fish feed and water cleaner that day. A dated, timed and signed IOU seemed almost too good an alibi to be true.

  He’d made other claims that sounded distinctly like arse-covering exercises – or attempts to direct detectives down the ‘stranger killer’ route. He thought Marion had been wearing a bracelet on the morning of her murder that he hadn’t been able to find since. She phoned him at work that afternoon to say she had to run an errand and would be a little late home. He couldn’t remember what that errand was.

  Firstly, if Peter wasn’t getting home until nine p.m. – three hours after Marion – why would she bother telling him this? Secondly, while I was no sugar-hearted sentimentalist, I’d have recalled, stored and treasured every single word of the last conversation I’d ever held with my murdered wife, even the details of her trivial errand.

  Of course, in neither statement did Peter mention that he and Karen had once been lovers. Mind you, DS Glenn’s blinkered and misdirected team hadn’t asked him.

  None of this was proof, though.

  As I read through Karen’s statement from the night of the murder, my eyes seized upon a paragraph.

  The journey to Sangora Road took no more than fifteen minutes. We drove into Sangora Road and I parked up next to the pub at the bottom of the road.

  I grabbed her later statement and located the paragraph I was looking for:

  The journey to Sangora Road took fifteen minutes at the most. I couldn’t park on Sangora Road because it was already full. I had to park on the side road. I don’t know what it is called.

 

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