by Wonny Lea
Picking up his house phone the killer punched in a number and after five rings heard a woman’s voice. He told her who was calling and received a less than hospitable response.
‘Yes, I know it’s been a long time, and I know we parted on less than favourable terms, but the truth is that I would like to make amends and I wondered if you would consider a round of golf. The weather is set to clear up over the next couple of days and it should be perfect for eighteen holes by Tuesday morning.’
Before the woman had a chance to reply he played his trump card. ‘I would prefer not to say anything to your friends about the trouble you were in some years ago. I just want to make my way back into favour at the club, and if you help me do that I will help you keep your criminal record a secret.’
There was silence initially at the other end of the line and then some expletives that were not very ladylike and were accompanied by accusations of blackmail.
The killer just laughed. ‘Call it whatever you like. I think you and I could make a good team on and off the greens, but the decision is yours. Do you want to risk letting everyone know what crime you were arrested for back in 1997, or shall we tee off with the first available slot on Tuesday morning?’
Chapter Thirteen
Connie’s handicap
It was almost midnight and Martin, Matt, and Helen were the only people left in Incident Room One. They were surrounded by the various pieces of information that had been gathered over the past three weeks, and Helen was putting the last touches to a whiteboard on which she was building up a picture of the killer.
An image from the CCTV tapes of the Red Dragon Centre had given her a central outline, and she had added what had amounted to just small snippets from the memories of witnesses at each of the murders. In isolation, their evidence was sparse, but it was coming together and she stood back to admire her handiwork.
‘I think we should go to the press with this,’ she suggested to Martin. ‘We now know we are looking for a well-built man, not far off six foot, who has a marching gait – but that’s not too obvious until you really start looking at it. He has been seen on at least three occasions wearing a black baseball cap with a wide brim and we know the exact make and colour of his car. That’s a lot more than we had for the last public appeal and should jog someone’s memory.’
Martin nodded but at the same time he looked at Matt who was in danger of swallowing his own head with the size of his yawn. ‘Come on, let’s call it a day and pick it up again in the morning. You both look shattered and I know I am. So let’s all go home and try to get some sleep.’
Martin took one last look around the room when the others had left. He had an itch that he seemed to be incapable of scratching. Sgt Evans had said that there was something about the killer, something about his voice and the way he moved, that rang a bell, and that was a feeling that Martin had also experienced since the start of this investigation. He made a mental note to speak to John Evans the following day and switched off the lights.
It seemed more like ten minutes than ten hours when he was back in the same place but this time surrounded by the whole team.
‘Let’s forget about the first two murders for the time being and concentrate all our efforts on what happened yesterday. The killer was lucky to get away with his plan because Matt and Helen were on their way to cover the garden centre as one of our identified possible sites for this murder.’
Matt shook his head. ‘It’s so bloody frustrating. If we had been fifteen minutes earlier, maybe less than that, we might have prevented it – or at least caught the killer fleeing the scene.’
Martin continued. ‘We have still not had the victim formally identified but we are in no doubt that he was a Mr Arthur Taylor. He had left his car in the car park and we traced his registration number to an address in Danescourt. There was no one at the house and according to the neighbours Mr Taylor and his wife moved away some months ago, but none of the people we spoke to, nor the DVLA, have a forwarding address.
‘The small dragons tattooed on his forearms are exactly as described by one of the neighbours and we have heard from the PM result of yesterday that the victim was being treated for pancreatic cancer and didn’t have long to live anyway. It surely won’t be long before his wife reports him missing – I’m just surprised that she hasn’t done so already.’
Matt interrupted. ‘It’s normal for us to wait until someone has been missing longer than a day before taking any action, and if the person is a non-vulnerable adult it could be longer than that. Hundreds of people leave their homes every day and never come back – it would be impossible to follow them all up. Many just come back the next day.
‘As for where they moved to, well, that could be anywhere, and they obviously didn’t want their new whereabouts known.’ Matt was showing an unusually high level of frustration. ‘Mr and Mrs Taylor could have left the country, we have no way of knowing at the moment. We may be able to find out but it will take time.’
Martin spoke firmly. ‘The killer was able to make contact with Mr Taylor and persuade him to turn up at a specified time to the Primrose Garden Centre. If he was able to find the Taylors then we should be able to. What have we got?’
Martin answered his own question. ‘We have a name, a known previous address, a detailed description that includes some significant identifiers, and a man who had a life-threatening medical condition. I phoned the professor last night to get some more information on that last one and he said he would talk to colleagues at the Velindre Hospital.
‘Velindre treats cancer patients not just from Cardiff but from the whole of south-east Wales. The Professor seemed to think that even if Mr Taylor had moved out of the area he could have chosen to continue to be treated at Velindre if his programme had already been established there. They would surely have an up-to-date record of his address and the Prof will let us know if he gets anything.’
Sgt Evans spoke. ‘We have used the national network to pick up on any missing person reports. Although there may be little action taken straight away there will always be a missing person’s form completed and I suspect there will be only one report giving details of dragon tattoos to match those on our victim’s arms. We will get notification immediately if any report does contain that sort of detail.’
‘Thanks for that,’ said Martin. ‘While you’re on your feet, did you give any more thought to what you said about having some vague recollection about certain aspects of the killer?’
Evans shook his head. ‘No, but it’s still nagging at me, and I’ve even woken up a few times almost feeling that I know who it is, but I can’t get beyond that – it’s still just a feeling.’
Martin said that he was having the same sort of feeling. ‘Perhaps we are both thinking of someone we have come across during one of the many investigations we have jointly been involved in over the years.’
‘Well, there are plenty of those,’ replied Sergeant Evans. ‘I’ve been, through personal choice, at the same rank since you returned from Swansea to join the CID here as a DS. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then, and we must have been together for countless arrests – it’s something that relates to someone we have investigated, I’m sure, and it will come to me.’
‘Keep thinking,’ Martin encouraged him, and then added. ‘Let’s think a bit more specifically about the killer, Matt, take us through the evidence given by the two women at the café and the young girl.
‘Well, thanks to a woman who has an amazing knowledge of cars, we’re able to give you the details you see on the board here. Her friend remembered exactly where they had seen the killer leave his car, and they were both able to identify him from the image we showed them. Unfortunately, though, neither of them saw his face in any detail.
‘DC Cook-Watts and I knocked on doors surrounding the spot they identified and came across a schoolgirl who had seen the killer while out walking her dog. She was able to tell us the man had blood on his clothes, and he had obviou
sly seen her looking at him because the bastard kicked her dog. The only additional information we got from the girl was that the man was wearing what she called trainer boots and she said that one had blood all over the toe. I think that fits in with what Alex found at the scene.’
Alex spoke to confirm this. ‘We found some partial footprints. All three came from the same shoe, the right one, and the little girl confirmed that it was the right shoe that was bloody. It doesn’t help us identify the killer though, and it will only serve as evidence if we eventually find the shoe in his possession.’
Martin thought for a while and then opened up his thoughts for comment. ‘The killer has now struck three times, and we have been told through the medium of his poetry that all his victims are known to him. We know that one was a teacher, one was a scoutmaster, and yesterday’s victim was a car salesman. Here is where we have to do some more boring investigative work.’
‘Helen, I want you to find out everything you can about the three victims. We already have sheds of information on the first two, but I want you to cross-reference until you’re blue in the face. The killer knew all of them, so how many people would have been in that position, and don’t forget me. How many people who knew Miss Rossiter, Mr Davies, and Mr Taylor also know me? It’s a tall order but something more efficiently done by a small group of people – do your best.’
‘Matt, do whatever you can with the information we have on the car. Find out who every grey BMW with a Cardiff registration plate belongs to and chase up their details. If any one of them was anywhere in South Wales yesterday I want to know about it.’ Martin paused and then continued.
‘The details of the killer’s car were read out by one of the television presenters last night, so the killer will probably be aware that we have a lead on his car. I think that means that we have seen the last of the BMW, and if I were in his shoes I would be looking to use a different vehicle. If he doesn’t have access to another vehicle he may consider hiring one.’
‘OK,’ said Matt. ‘What you are asking for regarding car owners is not going to be a five-minute job – it could take days or even weeks to complete. Even then we may have to contend with cars that have been stolen, or owners who’ve sold cars on without completing the correct documentation.’
Martin replied. ‘I know all of that, but it has to be done so let’s just hope we get an early break.’
Matt nodded. ‘Picking up on anyone who hires a vehicle over the next few days will be easier, provided of course that the killer goes to a registered car hire company. I’ll get calls out to all of them within a fifty-mile radius and ensure we are notified of any customer meeting our killer’s description. We will need to receive that information while the customer is still on their premises, having the paperwork processed.’
‘We won’t want the killer being alerted to our interest so we will have to ensure that the car hire companies are discreet, but that exercise is also going to be time-consuming and potentially unproductive.’
Matt was aware that he was sounding negative and tried to end on a positive note. ‘At least we’ve all got things to do, and it marks an end to the navel-gazing of the past three weeks. We will get this killer, and we must all be on a mission to ensure that it’s before he kills again, so any volunteers please – there’s lots of phoning and legwork on offer.’
There was no shortage of officers willing to help Matt, and the numbers in the room dwindled down to a mere handful. Charlie signalled her desire to be included and on the way out was explaining how she could bring high-tech support to the exercise.
Martin watched Charlie wheel her way out and thought how well she looked. The news of her pregnancy was not yet common knowledge as she and Alex wanted to keep their secret between themselves and just a few good friends for a bit longer.
Alex noticed Martin watching Charlie and he smiled and said quietly. ‘Looks good on it, doesn’t she? I didn’t think she could be more beautiful than she was on the day I married her, but now look at her. I’m sure everyone must recognise her radiance for what it is.’
Martin nodded his agreement. He had never seriously thought about having children of his own and had, to a certain extent, been put off the idea by the over enthusiasm of his ex-wife – but now there was Shelley. There was no doubt that the love and excitement that oozed out of Alex and Charlie was contagious, so maybe it was worth thinking about. He pulled himself together sharply, not just because he realised that he and Shelley hadn’t even spoken about having a family, but also because he had murder to think about.
Some distance from Goleudy was a woman whose mood itself was murderous. Connie Jackson was feeling anxious and her usual haughty attitude was nowhere to be seen. She stared out of the window of her large detached house in Cyncoed and prayed for rain, but the wind had blown away the clouds and for the moment it was looking like a return to summer.
The phone call of yesterday had rattled her and was threatening to turn her well-ordered world upside down. She adored her lifestyle and luckily for her she still had a small fortune with which to indulge herself. Connie admitted to being over forty but stopped well short of her real age count of fifty-three years. To be fair to her, she did look younger than her age, but she was beginning to find it more and more of a struggle to sustain the gap between fantasy and reality.
Swimming and regular sessions at the gym kept her figure where she wanted it to be, and she thought disdainfully of some of the women she knew who seemed content to let everything be taken over by the pull of gravity. An excellent hairdresser, with a price tag to match his expertise, kept her hair the colour of a true ash blonde. Her wardrobe was classic and her jewellery simple but expensive. Connie’s biggest let down was when she opened her mouth.
For the first twelve years of her life she had lived in the East End of London, but when her parents divorced she had moved to West Wales. As a teenager she was ridiculed for her Cockney accent and did her best to mimic the accents she heard around her. The result was an unmitigated disaster but she got by because of her amazing figure and her classic good looks.
She was only eighteen when she met and married Stefano Giordano, an Italian who was the first person ever to enjoy Connie’s harsh accent. He had twin business ventures in Milan and Cardiff and his companies thrived and provided the couple with every possible creature comfort. Connie quickly learned to enjoy the good things in life, but she was young and easily bored and her experiments with pills at parties soon turned into a much harder habit that was still with her.
In 1997 her husband had died of a massive coronary. She had other memories of 1997, as yesterday’s phone call had reminded her. How did that bastard know about her conviction for possession of class A drugs? Her very expensive barrister had assured her, at the time, that it would be buried and that none of her friends would ever get to hear about it.
Connie was unaware that the man who had called her yesterday was the killer that she had just been hearing about on the news. She just knew him as a member of the golf club who some years ago had taken an unwelcome fancy to her, and who had seemed to think they would make a couple.
She had been in the running for becoming the first female president of the club at that time and didn’t want to upset any of the members who were eligible to vote. So for the sake of a peaceful life she had endured a few rounds of golf with him, but when he had made it plain that he wanted her as more than just a golfing partner she had unceremoniously dumped him.
He had not taken rejection well and continued to boast to members of the club that they were an item. In order to quash this line of gossip she remembered telling some of the committee members that he was useless on the golf course and even more pathetic on a personal level. Thinking back she realised that the day she had spoken so derogatorily about him was the last day she had seen him. He hadn’t been to the club for years, so why the sudden interest in a round of golf and with her – of all people?
She moved from the window and poured
herself a very large glass of brandy. She drank the first mouthful of the neat spirit without batting an eyelid. How would she cope with the proposed round of golf planned for Tuesday morning? The bastard sounded serious about letting people know of her past conviction, and it couldn’t be happening at a worse time for her.
Her current houseguest was a distant relative of her late husband and he was loaded. Her husband had left her very well provided for, but that was over ten years ago and last year she had been forced to partially mortgage the house for the first time to top up her capital. There was still something like a million in equity left, but with no income and expensive outgoings it wouldn’t last for ever – she had seen how quickly money disappeared.
Roberto was obviously interested in her, but he knew nothing of her addiction and she suspected that if he even got a whisper he would be on the first plane back to Milan. She would make sure he never found out, or at least not until after they were married. Even Connie’s closest friends were unaware of her cocaine habit, and until the noxious phone call of yesterday she firmly believed that the only people who did know were two dealers in Cardiff.
Since that horrendous time when she had been stopped for a minor traffic offence and the police had found cocaine in her car, Connie had been a model addict. It was unlucky for her that the incident had occurred during a ‘get tough on drugs’ campaign.
She regretted that her husband had been made aware of her arrest but it was he who had hired an expensive legal team and kept things out of the public eye. The stress of the whole episode undoubtedly exacerbated an underlying heart condition and he had died before the end of what Connie called her annus horribilis.
Since her husband’s death Connie had attracted the attention of a number of men, but until Roberto there had been no one she had seriously considered. The Italian family of which her late husband and Roberto were members was keen to see her settle for another member of their clan, if only to ensure that the property once owned by Stefano stayed with them. Not that the family needed more money or equity, it was more a point of honour that no one outside the family should get what Stefano had worked hard to achieve.