by Michael Kerr
It had taken a couple of weeks for Matt’s team to home in on Harrison. He had approached a young woman, at a bus stop in Kilburn, who was proficient in martial arts and had kicked him hard enough in the stomach to stop him in his tracks. Harrison had taken off in the direction of Chaucer Street, and with a good description from the woman, several shopkeepers in the area recognised him from the e-fit they were subsequently shown.
Johnny was asleep when a loud voice roused him scant seconds before the door to his flat imploded and armed men wearing Kevlar vests entered his bedroom.
Drawing the hunting knife from under the pillow, Johnny shot out of bed and backed into a corner of the room.
Matt flipped on the light, then glanced across to DS Pete Deakin and smiled. Pete nodded almost imperceptibly and pointed his pistol at Harrison.
“Do you know how stupid you look, son?” Pete said as he grinned at the skinny young man who was wearing nothing but a pair of bright red socks. “Lose the knife and lay face down on the bed with your hands behind your back. And do it now, before I shoot you in the leg.”
Johnny thought about it for the best part of three seconds, then dropped the knife and assumed the position.
They had him bang to rights. There were fifteen assorted hand and shoulder bags stuffed in a wardrobe, and they were sure that forensics would find DNA on the knife from several of the woman that he had attacked. In basketball it would be a slam dunk.
“You should have stuck to nicking lead,” Matt said as Pete cuffed Harrison.
“I fell off a fuckin’ church roof and broke my leg,” Johnny said. “It put me off heights for life.”
The comment caused everyone in the room other than Johnny to laugh.
It was one p.m. when Matt, Pete, and DC Phil Adams walked into the Kenton Court Hotel in Tottenham and sat round a table in the residents’ bar.
“Didn’t you see the sign on the door?” Ron Quinn said in his West Country drawl. “It says residents’ bar, not cop convention room.”
“This isn’t a convention, Ron,” Matt said. “We just want a pint. And if you remember, I was a resident in this fleapit for a while.”
“Was doesn’t count, and this is not a fleapit,” Ron said. “I change the sheets every month whether they need washing or not, and I haven’t set eyes on a rat in the kitchen for over a week.”
They all chuckled. It was proving to be a day packed with humour. Ron was a friend, especially of Matt, who he had first met when Matt was recuperating from being shot. Ron had not minded the cop staying at the Kenton, even though he had known that people were intent on killing the policeman, which could have also put him in the firing line.
Matt and Pete had beer. Phil just sipped at a half pint of Coca-cola. He had an appetite for alcohol that at one time had become a problem, so he was now teetotal.
“Another result, boss,” Pete said to Matt. “Harrison will go down for a long time.”
Matt nodded. They had only one serious case that was still ongoing. A felon had murdered three women in the city: apparently just lifted them off the street, bundled them into alleys and raped them before manually strangling them and placing them in skips. So far they had no leads, and it was obvious that he was a repeater and would strike again. Stranger on stranger killings were the hardest to solve. Some never were, although Matt and his team kept at them, and never gave up on the belief that they would eventually find and arrest the offender.
It was two days later that Tom Bartlett walked into Matt’s office and unceremoniously dropped a manila document wallet on his desktop.
“We got this dumped on us less than an hour ago,” Tom said. “Our illustrious leader offered our services at a meeting on the top floor. He told them that it was definitely one for us.”
Matt raised his eyebrows. If Detective Chief Superintendent Clive ‘Grizzly’ Adams had accepted the case, then he most likely had an ulterior motive, or was just taking it as a favour to one of his high-ranking golfing buddies.
“What is it?” Matt said.
“Another serial started up by the look of it,” Tom said. “Three months ago a sixty-three year old woman was discovered at her maisonette, hog-tied in the bath with a plastic bag taped round her head. She had been hit hard enough to probably knock her out, but not raped. Cause of death was asphyxiation. Her sister had got worried when she couldn’t contact her by phone, so called round and used a spare key to gain entry.”
“A burglary that escalated?” Matt asked.
“Not that simple,” Tom said. “As far as we know nothing was taken, unless she had cash in the house, and her sister doubts that.”
“So why have we got it?” Matt asked as he opened the file and withdrew a sheaf of A4 copy paper and 8x10 photos.
“Because of a link. The woman, Helen Atkins, was a housekeeper for Donald Weston, a guy who made his millions in banking before the crash in oh-eight. When detectives went to interview him at his house in Highgate, they found him in his study with a bullet hole between his eyes. There was an open wall safe with no cash in it, and it transpired that his credit cards had been taken and maxed out.”
“And?”
“And yesterday another woman was found dead in her terrace house in Hammersmith: a housekeeper who’d worked for a rich old guy. Her niece found her. It was a carbon copy of the first murder. No prizes for guessing that when they called round to interview her employer, he was dead in bed with a bullet hole in his forehead.”
“At least we’ve got a pattern,” Matt said.
“Yeah, it’s the same MO, but if the scene is as clean as the first one, we haven’t got much. There was no trace recovered at Weston’s home or his housekeeper’s place.”
“Any similar crimes before these?” Matt asked.
Tom shook his head. “No, this is pretty original. Whoever did it must have a decent IQ to have sat and worked it out. He selects rich, widowed or single elderly men that have been reclusive characters with housekeepers. My first take on this is that he painstakingly watches them over a lengthy period and knows as much about them as he needs to. Both of the women were murdered on their day off. He must have broken into their homes, interrogated them, and took the keys to the principal victims’ houses. And as we know he doesn’t leave anyone alive to talk.”
“Okay, Tom, I’ll get the ball rolling on this. How are the press going to run with it?”
“It hasn’t hit the fan yet. The connections haven’t been broadcast to our beloved Fourth Estate. All four murders are just separate unrelated incidents outside of this building.”
“Problem being, he may have a list of prospective targets,” Matt said. “No well-heeled old guy with a housekeeper is safe.”
Tom shrugged. “There was a three month gap between these. Hopefully we have some time to work the case without anyone else being at immediate risk.”
Matt fanned out the crime scene photographs on his desk and studied them. “He’s a cold-blooded bastard,” he said. “There’s no apparent sign of anger or even pleasure gotten from what he does. This may be purely about the money, and the killing is just to leave no witnesses.”
“Maybe,” Tom said. “But he could have worn a mask or a balaclava and just left them tied up and gagged. There was no need to kill them.”
“I need some more coffee,” Matt said. “I’ll read through this lot, then bring the team up to speed.”
Tom left and walked through the Serious Crimes Unit squad room and out into the corridor. Took the lift down to the car park level and stepped outside the building and lit a cigarette. He had cut down to five or six a day, but knew that he should quit. The heart attack he’d suffered had forced him to make changes in his lifestyle. He ate less fried food, played golf once a week, and only had the occasional scotch, having developed a taste for red wine in moderation.
As he stood in the shadows smoking, Tom reflected on Matt Barnes. It was his DI that basically ran the unit. Tom had his finger on the pulse and monitored, to a degree, t
he direction in which a case was investigated, but knew that it was Matt that joined most of the dots and usually came up with the goods. Matt was his colleague and friend, and they had been through a lot together over the years. When Matt had been shot by the psycho hitman, Gary Noon, he had been in a critical condition, and Tom had feared that he would not survive. That Matt had recovered and returned to duty, albeit minus a kidney, had been a minor miracle.
Dropping the cigarette end and scraping the sole of his shoe over it, Tom made his way back into the building and took the lift up to his office on the fourth floor. He had a growing mountain of paperwork to plough through, and almost but not quite envied Matt, who could just get on with solving serious crimes, without the same degree of the associated pen pushing that came with the added responsibility of higher rank.
Within an hour DC Marci Clark, as coordinator, had a set of whiteboards displaying all key points and photos relevant to the murders of the two housekeepers and their employers.
“Let’s talk it through,” Matt said, sitting on the edge of the desk in front of his team. “We have a killer who plans ahead and carefully carries out these crimes. His preparation is faultless. He obviously knew that his intended victims were elderly, rich and lived alone. He also knew that they had housekeepers that lived out. And he knew the women’s addresses and when they had a day off. All he had to do was get keys from the women, ask a few questions about their employers, and then kill them. He let himself into the men’s homes, took their money and credit cards, and then shot them. He doesn’t take jewellery or anything else that he would have to fence. And he leaves no trace.”
“Clever,” DC Errol Chambers said. “He’s found a formula that works, so he’ll probably stick with it.”
Matt nodded. “Exactly, Errol. It’s a given that he had no previous contact with the victims. He researches them, and the ones that fit his criteria are selected. We need to know how he does it.”
“He could look at the Sunday Times rich list, or sites on Google,” Marci said. “Or just roam around wealthy areas and watch and listen and make notes.”
“He must have form,” Pete said. “Maybe he’s done time for similar types of robberies, but without going the whole way and murdering anyone. I don’t see this as being some guy just starting up and killing people from the get-go.”
“Okay,” Matt said. “We need to dig deep. He’s smart. Canvass the areas of all the victims to see if someone remembers a stranger hanging about. And we need to look at CCTV footage from the ATM locations where he used the stolen credit cards. Although he isn’t stupid. I doubt he’ll have smiled at the camera for us.”
“That’s two repeaters up and running at the same time, boss,” Phil said.
“What’s new?” Matt said. “The official figures show that the number of murders in the UK is falling, but from where we’re sat it’s hard to believe the stats. I don’t think we’ll go out of business in the foreseeable future, so let’s get busy and solve these two before the body count goes up.”
Matt went back to his office, drank coffee, and accepted the cold hard truth that the chances of lifting the killers before one or both of them struck again, was slim to none.
CHAPTER THREE
He showered and then washed the clothes that he had worn when committing murder and robbery. He had disposed of the brass shell from the pistol on the way home from Barons Court; wiped and dropped it through the bars of a drain in a gutter as he knelt next to it and pretended to tie a shoe lace. All he needed to do now was burn the cheap trainers he’d worn, and hide the gun and the cash. He was no longer the killer, Daniel. That was just an alias he used to give his victims a name to call him by. He had always liked the actor Daniel Day-Lewis, especially in his role as Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York, and so had adopted the name.
He felt totally safe keeping his weapon and the money at home. He would never be suspected of the crimes, and so had no need to worry over his house being searched. He was confident that he could not be linked to the deeds. Suddenly ravenous, probably due to the rush of adrenaline released during an escapade that had left him sapped of energy, he grilled several rashers of bacon, made a two-egg omelette, added sliced mushrooms and diced spring onions to it, and brewed a pot of tea.
After eating and then washing and drying the pans, plate and cutlery twice, to be absolutely sure that they were spotlessly clean, he replaced them in their allotted places before going down to the whitewashed cellar of the old terrace house, taking with him the gun that he had disassembled and cleaned, along with the silencer and money.
He could smell the damp, and the temperature dropped by ten degrees and raised gooseflesh on his arms. He hated the cellar. As a child he had been locked in the spider-ridden underground room for sometimes days at a time by his father, Stephen, who had been a mean and cruel alcoholic. Fortunately, the piece of shit had done the right thing and fallen down a flight of stone steps, pissed and, as the coroner had later reported, suffering from chronic liver damage, which was almost certainly caused by a surfeit of too much cheap booze, leaving his mother and him a lot happier, if materially poorer by his passing. But the little house on Wilton Street had been paid for, and with no mortgage repayments to find, Gwen Foster had put food on the table by working as a cleaner for a well-off Jewish family, and then as a housekeeper for some rich fuck who had insisted on being addressed as Colonel, even though the rank was probably as genuine as Elvis’s manager Tom Parker’s had been.
Billy went across to the large pot sink in the corner and, using all of his strength, pulled it and the heavy base beneath it away from the wall, to then remove a section of fake brickwork that he had crafted by hand to be all but impossible to differentiate from the surrounding uneven and badly pointed bricks. From the space behind it he lifted out a large metal box and carried it over to a solid table that he vaguely remembered as having once belonged to his grandparents.
Taking the leather cord from around his neck, he used the key hanging from it to open the box and reveal a sealed plastic bag containing eighteen thousand pounds in twenty pound notes. He took the bag out, opened it and touched the money, smiling at the thought of how easy it was to obtain whenever he wanted more.
Removing the band from a wedge of the fresh notes, he spread them on the table and took pleasure in the multiple images of the Queen that stared up at him from the valuable pieces of paper. He placed the gun on the bed of money and realised that it was the taking of it that gave him pleasure. He didn’t need it. He did not own a car, or smoke, or drink alcohol to excess or take drugs, and spent much of his time on the Internet or watching DVDs or movies on TV.
It had begun with the Colonel. His mother had once taken him with her to the big nineteenth century house in Golders Green, when he had been off school suffering with chickenpox. The old man had been brusque with his mum, told her that under no circumstances was she to bring her son to the house again, and sent her home, telling her that she would forfeit pay for the day. That single encounter with the curmudgeonly septuagenarian had soured him against the affluent of society. To his way of thinking they were aloof and acted as if having wealth made them in some way better people.
It had been over a decade later when he decided that those that were rich, single and elderly were soft targets to rob. He had listened to his mum’s tales of friends that also kept house for prosperous individuals; in particular to that of a woman by the name of Elsie Garrity, whom he had not met but knew where she lived. Apparently the old doctor that she was little more than a skivvy for had at one time owned a private clinic specialising in cosmetic surgery for – in the main – women who were disenchanted with what nature had or had not given them, and could afford to go under the knife to enhance their faces or bodies, in the vain attempt to roll back the years with nips and tucks and countless other surgical procedures that masked what was an inevitable process.
Billy scowled at the memory of his first bungled attempt to part a rich old man fr
om some of his money. He stood motionless, closed his eyes and allowed the episode to enter his mind and replay…
…It had been a little before seven p.m. on a fine but cold October evening the previous year when Elsie had arrived home and opened the door of her council flat on the fourth floor of a tower block off Finchley Road, within sight of the Hoop Lane Cemetery.
At the last moment, Billy had pulled on a balaclava and pushed Elsie in the back, knocking her full-length to the floor in the narrow hallway. He closed and locked the door behind them and drew a large boning knife, taken from the cutlery drawer at home, and quickly knelt down next to the moaning woman, who was lying with her head to the side facing him. He showed her the knife and she started wheezing and going purple in the face.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “I just need some information, so calm down.”
Elsie’s mouth formed a perfect circle as she took deep breaths and slowly regained a little composure. He thought she looked like a goldfish he’d once had, with big staring eyes that didn’t blink, and fat lips that sucked against the smooth glass of the bowl.
“I…I don’t have any money,” Elsie gasped.
“I don’t want your fucking money. I just need to know a few things about the guy you work for.”
“I…need…my…inhaler,” Elsie said, making loud whooping noises in between each word. “I…have…asthma.”
Billy sighed, beginning to get pissed off by the woman. “Where is it?”
“In…my…handbag…there,” Elsie said, pointing across the carpet with a trembling finger.
Billy went over to the handbag, picked it up and rifled through it until he found the inhaler, which he tossed to her.