Hidden Killers

by Lynda La Plante

  When Janet got to her front door she was immediately suspicious as it was half open. She kicked it wider as she heard Jane screaming, and hurled the bag of groceries aside. Allard had his back to her and, turning to face her now with the carving knife free, he switched from attacking Jane and went for Janet. She picked up the old hoover and swung it at him. She didn’t release it, but swung it again and this time it knocked him into the door frame. He was screeching like a crazed animal and Jane came out, kicking at his legs, but he got back up on his feet screaming with rage. Janet now rammed him hard in the groin with the folded child’s buggy. He dropped the knife and yelped in agony. She grabbed the knife and was on top of him, holding it at his throat.

  “You want to know what it feels like, you scum. I’m gonna cut your throat, you bastard.”

  Gibbs had done a frantic run, unaware as Jane had been about the flat by the stairwell; he now heard the screams, hurtled through the double doors and ran into the flat. Janet was losing her fight as Allard was able to push her aside—his strength was frightening. It took the three of them to get him down. Gibbs was punching and stamping on his prone body but Allard still attempted to get up. He was clawing at Gibbs and then punched him in the chest and he was by far stronger and starting to stand.

  Jane was gasping for breath as she picked up the little boy’s tin bus and rammed it down on Allard’s head, knocking him face down and giving Gibbs the chance to drag his arms up and cuff him.

  Janet was crying and laughing at the same time. She slumped against the corner and then started to sing in a screeching voice “The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round.” She picked up the knife wanting to have another go at Allard. “He could have got my boy, he could have hurt my boy.”

  “Just knock it off, will you. Gimme that now.”

  Gibbs had tied a towel around Allard’s head, so he was disoriented and cuffed, but still using his body like a ram and kicking out at anything as Jane and Gibbs hauled him into the lift.

  Moran and Edwards screeched to a halt beside the patrol car. Edwards immediately went to assist Gibbs and get Allard in the car. Moran went directly over to Jane, and held her, asking quietly if she was all right. She nodded, and he gently touched her face.

  “You come back with me, Edwards will go with Gibbs and lock the bastard up. Come on, let me put you in the car. I won’t be long.”

  Jane sank into the passenger seat, and closed her eyes. Moran had a few words with Gibbs and Edwards and then headed into the estate.

  Moran found Janet sitting on the sofa, shaking and drinking from a bottle of brandy. “If she wasn’t here, he’d have killed me, I just thank Christ my mum took the kid to a friend’s cos I got to work and . . .”

  “Shush, shush,” he said, sitting beside her. “We got him and you’re safe.”

  She nodded. “You want me in court, Nick, I’ll do it, do whatever you want. She knocked him for six with the double-decker bus.”

  “Will you be all right?”

  She nodded, taking another swig of brandy. “You make sure she’s all right because she was in here alone with him.”

  “I will, but you muddied the waters, Janet. What the hell were you doing blackmailing the bastard?”

  “I couldn’t work, I’m still red raw from where he sliced me, an’ I wanted to get something out of it. I had to get my mother over from Jamaica to look after my son, I was broke, Nick.”

  He sighed. “Is it true you have evidence, I mean apart from being able to identify him?”

  She took another mouthful of brandy.

  “Tell me, I am looking out for you, for Chrissakes, and I always have, but this is you pushing the limit . . . was it a lie?”

  She hesitated and then slowly got to her feet. “It might mean nothin’, but when those coppers found me, I stuffed it into me bag along with you know what.”

  Janet went to a cabinet and opened a drawer. She took out something wrapped in newspaper. “You can smell him on it, and I know he raped that young girl because he thought she was me, and I know you used that blonde copper in my fur coat because it was me he was always after.”

  Moran frowned as she slowly placed the newspaper-wrapped parcel on the coffee table. As he reached over to open it she put her hand over it.

  “It’s all been my fault, Nick, cos I stole his money out of his cab and I know you was protecting me and couldn’t use me as a witness, and to be honest you have always been about the only person I could trust.”

  “You’ve certainly screwed me over, so what is it?” Janet slowly opened the newspaper. It contained Peter Allard’s balaclava that she had ripped from his head. He didn’t touch it but rewrapped the newspaper around it. He knew it could not be used as evidence as it was too long after Allard’s arrest.

  “Will you still look after me, Nick?”

  He got up and smiled, saying he would make sure she was taken care of. He had no idea what she had meant by the double-decker bus but he would find out.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  DS Gibbs drove Jane back to the section house and as she attempted to get out of the car he had touched her arm.

  “Listen, I need to apologize to you, I behaved like an arsehole, and I just want to clear the air between us. To be honest when I did that run into that estate I had a few seconds when I didn’t think I would be able to deal with stuff, you know, the tension and all that crap. I’ve had these recurring sweats and panicky feelings, but when I saw you with that bastard I never felt for a minute I couldn’t cope. Maybe it’s over, you know, I’ve come through it.” Jane was taken aback when he leaned toward her and kissed her cheek, before he gave an embarrassed wave of his hand for her to get out of the car.

  Jane was back on duty on the Monday morning. DCI Shepherd had been informed of the arrest of Allard, and told her that she was to be at Hackney Station to make a formal report. He didn’t appear interested in discussing what had occurred, having already had a lengthy conversation with DI Gibbs.

  Jane was not disappointed. In fact, she was partly relieved as she had been very traumatized, and had hardly slept after she had left Gibbs. However, like Spence, she had been somewhat comforted by the fact that she had remained in control and had not suffered from nerves.

  Peter Allard had been charged with assault and battery and held in the cells at Hackney. On his arrival at the station, Moran had received a call from Maidstone. The stones from the patio had been lifted, and using arc lights, as the soil beneath was being carefully sifted, they had partly uncovered a roll of carpet.

  The body was inside the carpet, covered with plastic, and thick duct tape bound her from head to toe. As a result of the tight bindings there was little decomposition. It was without doubt Susie Luna, as in the pocket of her overall was a name tag from the Majestic Hotel where she had worked.

  After clearing her absence with DCI Shepherd, Jane arrived at Hackney Station and went into the incident room where DC Edwards gave her the update on the discovery of the body. Moran was waiting for the formal identification but it was pretty conclusive. “He wants to see you, and he’s had DCI Shepherd on the phone, so he’ll no doubt fill you in.”

  Jane felt nervous, wondering if this was going to be a severe reprimand over her suspicions about Moran. She was not that eager to go and see him, but she had no option. She checked her appearance in the ladies’ locker room and then went to his office, which she still thought of as Bradfield’s. She knocked on the door, and it was a moment before she heard Moran say “come in.” He gave almost a curt nod of his head, to indicate for her to sit in the chair opposite his desk.

  “We need to discuss a few things just to clear the air a bit. I have given DCI Shepherd a rundown. He started off being a bit tetchy about your professional conduct, saying that you were not a team player—he already seems to think you were acting without backup on the Shirley Dawson case.” Jane chewed her lips.

  “Shepherd said he had discussed this with you previously, about some u
nethical procedure. Apparently, despite the coroner’s report that it was a non-suspicious death, you and DS Lawrence continued to investigate. You went without authority to question Katrina Harcourt and introduced evidence of the black patent leather shoes but—”

  Jane interrupted. “It was a good job we did.”

  “Hang on, Tennison. Although he disapproved of what he described as unethical procedure, he did express his admiration for the way you triggered the investigation into the murder of Shirley Dawson. What was it that made you suspect foul play?”

  Jane hesitated before answering. “I found it very distressing because I was alone in the flat with the victim, her eyes were open, and I had to lift her out of the bath to be taken to the mortuary. Something just didn’t feel right. She was the same age as me, and she had a small child, and it was seeing the baby food, her bottle ready to feed her.”

  “As a detective, you’re going to find an awful lot of cases of non-suspicious death and of victims as young or even younger than you. What was it that made you believe Shirley Dawson’s death was suspicious?” he asked her again.

  “It was an intuitive feeling that something didn’t add up. I think the position that her body was found in, in the bath, was not quite right. That was all really.”

  “But at that point you didn’t have the evidence. Would you have ever considered the need to find something that would implicate them?”

  Jane knew he was testing her with regard to the fact she knew he had planted the knife. She looked at him directly. “There was no need to uncover evidence that wasn’t there because my finding of the photographs was enough.”

  “What did you feel when you were proved right?” Moran asked quietly.

  She turned away, unable to answer.

  “It made you feel good, didn’t it?” he asked, and she nodded.

  “And how did you feel about the two suspects being charged with murder?”

  “Good, they deserve to be given life sentences.”

  “How would you feel if they had got away with it?”

  “That I had failed.”

  “I suppose you know why Allard was given bail and was let out of prison?” Moran stood up and put his hands in his trouser pockets, and moved from behind the desk.

  Jane was becoming more uneasy, suspecting he was going to bring up the fact she had been suspicious of him doctoring the confession and planting evidence of the flick knife, which she now knew had been given to him by Janet Brown.

  “Allard will be put away for the rest of his life. He hid the murder of Susie Luna for five years, hid his disgusting perverted sexual urges and appeared on the surface to be a decent honest husband and father. The current trial will go ahead because the other criminal offenses, the assault on the owner of the adult bookshop, the kid Ginger, the attack against you and Janet Brown, and even the murder of Susie Luna, are not what he is on trial for, they will be a completely separate arrest. Do you understand? The law let him loose, and we got him back, and we won’t let him out of our sight, but it’s all down to the correct procedure in the courts, understand?”

  “I find it hard to believe,” she said and he nodded. He began to unnerve her even more as he moved behind her, still with his hands in his pockets. She was sure this was now going to be a reference to the knife.

  “Make you feel positive, does it?”

  “On the one hand, yes, that we caught him. On the other, very confused that the trial will get him on one set of charges and that he could then be free unless we have the evidence to get him on something else.”

  “Right, because his legal team will not allow the new charges to be read at the same time, so the jury will not be privy to them. There will have to be a completely new trial.”

  She swiveled her head round to see him because it sounded unbelievable.

  “What do you feel about Janet Brown? Or Angie, as she calls herself?”

  She was taken off guard and shrugged. “I don’t know what I feel about her.”

  “She saved your life?”

  “Yes.”

  “She has agreed to give evidence at Peter Allard’s immediate trial, but I am unsure if we will need her. What do you think about that?”

  “If it will jeopardize her as an informer, and it is possible to keep her identity safe . . . then she should not be called.”

  “But you know she blackmailed Marie Allard?”

  “Yes, but in reality if she hadn’t we might never have got the details and information about Susie Luna.”

  He nodded and moved back to the desk. “So that is something you would not deem necessary to expose?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good, OK, WDC Tennison. I think we’ve cleared up a lot, apart from . . .”

  Oh God, she thought, now it’s coming, but he leaned down behind the desk and brought up a large package wrapped in a Hamleys carrier bag. “This is for you. I don’t think it is necessary to put it in the report. DC Gibbs organized it, and we all chipped in.”

  He swung the handles in his fingers. “WDC Tennison, you are one of us. So take it and we’ll see you tonight for a good knees-up.”

  Jane left with the carrier bag, and went into the ladies’. She opened it up and took out a very large, very expensive replica of a red double-decker bus. She couldn’t keep the smile off her face, tucking it under her arm, loving the fact he had said that she was one of them. It made up for everything she had been through. She’d make sure Peter Allard was put away when the time came, and if that failed, she would make sure that she would be the one to arrest him for murder.

  Shortly before the trial of Peter Allard began, DS Lawrence had a meeting with Moran. The newspaper was still wrapped around the black woolen balaclava, and as he carefully opened it to reveal the hood, he placed it onto a sheet of white paper on the lab table.

  He leaned in closely and sniffed, as he could detect a strong sweet smell.

  “I can smell some kind of aftershave.”

  Moran nodded. “Yeah, I know, it’s Aramis . . . I use it, but I won’t be as from today . . . Anything else? Any bloodstains?”

  Lawrence used a spatula and took his time examining it, turning the hood around, pressing it down and checking every inch. He detected that on the area where the assailant’s mouth would have been, the wool was in part stuck together.

  “This could be his saliva, but I can’t detect any blood. I can test if there is a residue but I doubt it, and with it being black nothing shows up. Your rape victim wasn’t cut, was she? Besides, you won’t get it into the trial now—how long ago was this found?”

  “He was wearing it on the night of the rape, so it’s quite a substantial time, although it was kept wrapped in that newspaper. But I’m certain his defense council won’t accept it . . . I just needed to know for certain.”

  “Sorry, but like I said I can do some tests . . .”

  Moran shrugged and checked his watch. “I got to go. Thanks for your time, Paul.”

  Just as Moran reached the double doors leading out from the lab, Paul called out to him.

  “Hang on . . . come back.”

  Moran hurried to the table. Lawrence was using a pair of fine long tweezers and had placed onto the white paper a thin, pale blue woolen strand. He now teased out a second strand and held it up.

  “Is that blue rabbit fur?” Moran asked.

  “No, it’s wool, just caught inside the rim of the hood. What was your rape victim wearing?”

  Moran took a deep breath. “A shaggy blue mohair jacket.”

  “Shit . . . it’s a pity this wasn’t brought in earlier because I could have checked it out with the actual jacket.”

  “Thanks, Paul, but I don’t hold out much hope that we can use it.”

  By the time Moran returned to Hackney he was anxious to discuss the findings from the balaclava. He felt that the results confirmed, without doubt, that Peter Allard had committed the rape. But he was concerned about the late discovery of the vital evidence and after
a heated discussion with the defense lawyer they were refused permission for it to be used in court.

  Disappointed, Moran put more pressure on confirming that the body found at the Allards’ rented house was Susie Luna. The body had still not been formally identified when the trial began. All he knew was that they were hoping to gain a result from dental checks, and there had been delays caused by trying to trace a dentist in Maidstone who had had Susie Luna registered as a patient.

  As the trial commenced Jane witnessed the hidden depths of Peter Allard’s sick mind. He constantly made direct eye contact with the jury and said very clearly that he pleaded guilty to the assault charges. When the rape charge was read out he said loudly, “Not guilty.”

  Jane held her own in the witness box. She was controlled under questioning by the defense council, who accused her of deliberately encouraging the defendant by wearing sexually suggestive attire that would have been an attempt to lure the defendant into making a sexual approach. Jane denied the allegations and said that her intention was to safeguard any other women from being attacked. It was all very uncomfortable and by the time she returned to sit in the court to listen to the rest of the trial she could hardly contain her anger. Moran winked at her to indicate that she had held her own. He then sat with his head bowed, refusing to look at Allard who stood in the witness box looking very handsome, wearing a suit and a pressed shirt his mother had brought into the prison for him to wear for his court appearance. Allard had the audacity to keep his head held high, and then lower it in a gesture of submission when he said softly that he was ashamed of having assaulted the women but he was under such stress because of his wife’s medical predicament.

  The defense were able to argue that his confession was taken under duress and was therefore not admissible evidence. They argued that his signature and that of WDC Tennison were also not acceptable.