by Michael Kerr
“It’s like Hyde Park here,” Suzy said as Billy fed the vending machine. “I had no idea it was so big.”
“A misuse of land,” Billy said. “Like the golf course next to it; acres of ground that could be built on. Dead people should be processed to feed farm animals. Why bury or burn them?”
“That’s a terrible thing to say, Billy.”
“It’s practical. People are no different to cows, pigs or anything else. Once they’ve popped their clogs they’re just meat.”
Suzy said nothing. She believed in God, and so although she loved most animals, could not think of them being as important as people. Maybe Billy was just not thinking straight. He was obviously in a strange mood and upset, but rarely showed his feelings.
It was another fifteen minutes before one of the funeral director’s assistants entered the waiting room to tell them that the service was about to begin.
Everything echoed in the almost empty chapel. Only half a dozen of the eighty seats were occupied by the late Gwen Foster’s close neighbours and a distant cousin. The vicar said some appropriate if less than accurate words to the silent congregation regarding the life of the departed, and as a taped rendition of Daniel O’Donnell singing Peace in the Valley played through hidden speakers, the coffin slowly moved on rollers beneath it, to vanish as if by magic through heavy maroon drapes.
Outside, in front of a mature willow tree next to one of the car parks, a lone figure stood with his hands clasped in front of him. He had watched the hearse arrive, and had not moved since. He wore an expensive charcoal grey suit and a black silk tie. The collar and visible part of his tailored shirt was swan-white. He was immaculate. As the sound of the music died, he turned and walked back to his car, climbed in and drove away. He felt a little sad. Gwen’s death had disheartened him.
Tom got a call from Lloyd Mercer in Forensic Science. They had retrieved DNA-rich blood samples from two individuals at the house of James Brodie. Lloyd said that one of the profiles was Brodie’s, but that the other was from an unknown source, and was adjudged to have been unintentionally donated by the man now tagged as the ‘Housekeeper Killer’, whom Brodie had punched in the mouth.
“Can you identify who it came from?” Tom said.
“There are currently almost six million profiles on the national database,” Lloyd said. “A lot are samples recovered from crime scenes, like these two, and many more taken from police suspects that have been arrested and held at a police station. We’re running it through NDNAD, the National DNA Database. If he’s been arrested, then we should get a hit. But it could take a while.”
“What do you call a while, Lloyd?”
“Who knows? A match could be found in the next thirty seconds, or in two hours. I’ll call you back if we get lucky.”
Tom took the lift down to the ground floor, fumbling for his cigarettes and lighter as he walked out of the rear door into the car park. He lit up and took a few deep drags, then flicked the half-smoked cigarette away, for it to land where others lay like dead soldiers on a battlefield at the foot of a wall.
Back inside, Tom plodded up the stairs up to where the SCU had its suite of offices. He saw Matt over by a table in the squad room, sitting the wrong way round on an office chair with his forearms over the back of it. He was talking animatedly to Marci and Phil, and had a gloomy expression on his craggy face.
Tom gave the three of them a small smile of greeting as they noticed him approaching.
“I just brewed fresh coffee, sir,” Marci said. “Do you want a cup?”
“Si por favor, mi querido Marci.”
“Uh!”
“That’s Spanish, for ‘yes please, my dear’,” Tom said.
Marci grinned. “I guessed that, but why the foreign lingo?”
“My wife, Jean, is wearing me down. She just chips away like a stonemason, determined to reshape me. Wants me to pack the job in and move to some ex-pat community in bloody Spain, which is already full of old cops and bank robbers playing golf or sitting next to swimming pools drinking too much.”
“Not something on your ‘things to do’ list, then?”
“I’d die of boredom,” Tom said. “Work keeps me going, and retirement is not an option. They’ll have to drag me out of here kicking and screaming when I hit sixty.”
Matt said nothing. He knew exactly how Tom felt. For some of them, being a cop was not a job, it was a vocation.
“We’ve got something,” Tom said, shaking off the thought of living in some poxy flat in Alicante. “They retrieved DNA belonging to the as yet anonymous shooter, which they’re running through the database. It could be the break we need.”
Matt felt the old familiar buzz. Being close to catching a killer was like every good thing in life rolled into one. Nothing compared.
Billy took Suzy for a bar meal at The Moon Under Water on Staines Road. It was a Wetherspoon pub, reasonably priced and not full of yuppies, tourists and the like. People visiting the capital didn’t often visit Hounslow. They came for the so-called sights.
“You okay, sweetheart?” Suzy said. “You haven’t said more than two words since we left the crem.”
“I don’t know whether I’m okay or not,” Billy said as he looked at the choice of meals chalked up on a board. “Mum’s at peace now, and I guess that’s all that matters. I kind of loved her and hated her at the same time. But after my father did us both a favour and died, she did her best for me.”
“You’ve never told me anything about your dad.” Suzy said.
“He was a fucking tosser. He spent most of his days pissed and being violent. He put mum in hospital lots of times, but she wouldn’t say a word against him.”
“Did he hit you?”
Billy nodded. “I got used to the pain. It was the cellar I was scared of. He locked me in it a lot.”
“Why didn’t your mum leave him?”
“Because she was stupid, and too scared of him. She told me, years later, that he’d said that if she left, he would find her and kill her, and she believed him.”
Billy suddenly smiled, leaned forward and kissed Suzy on the mouth. “Let’s order a meal and talk about something else,” he said. “I’m starving.”
They both plumped for gammon and chips. Billy had a pint of bitter, and Suzy drank a Vodka Breezer. Billy wiped his cutlery three times with a serviette, and then took the pineapple ring off the top of his gammon steak with his fork and put it on Suzy’s plate.
The Eurocopter EC 135T appeared to rise up from the water as it became visible over the horizon, from where it commenced to fly low and slow like an armoured insect as it approached from the north end of the reservoir. The dull thump of rotor blades chopping through and displacing air was an unmistakable sound.
The sphere-shaped pod under the nose of the copter supported two cameras and employed a gyroscopic stabilisation system. One of the cameras was a standard colour day camera equipped with a powerful zoom lens, and the other was a thermal imaging camera enabling heat sources to be detected, that was usually utilised during hours’ of darkness. Both were linked to a recording and downlink system.
It only took one pass over the eastern side of the lake. The observer raised a thumb to signify to the pilot that they had found the submerged car. The vehicle was filmed and its position pinpointed with GPS. The pilot did a complete circuit of the reservoir, in case more vehicles had been dumped in it. Satisfied that there was only one, he reported his findings to base, for them to be relayed to Tom Bartlett at New Scotland Yard.
Tom phoned Matt’s extension. “Those magnificent men in their flying machine found a car,” he said. “I’ll arrange for it to be hauled out. I thought that you might want to be there, to see if it’s the Nissan, and whether Gibson is still inside it.”
“Does Grizzly know that the expense of the search looks as if it was worth every penny?” Matt said.
“Not yet. I’ll let him sweat for a while.”
Pete drove. They stopped on the way
in Walthamstow, and Matt went into a Starbucks for two coffees to go while Pete kept the engine running, due to being parked on double yellow lines. He had no desire to get in a heated argument with an over zealous traffic warden.
The big Ford recovery truck was already on site with its ramps down when they parked up. But it was another thirty minutes before a couple of police divers arrived, to then suit up and go in the water to attach the steel hook from the truck to the submerged car. It had not been designated as a crime scene, and so the divers did not risk entering the vehicle, which had settled into deep silt.
The truck driver hit the button, to take up the slack of the heavy chain, and they watched as first the rear of the car emerged, and then the whole vehicle appeared with muddy water spewing from the open windows. It was Gibson’s Nissan, the registration was a match.
When the car had decanted much of its contents, Matt and Pete approached it from both sides and – wearing plastic throwaway gloves – opened the front doors, to stand back as the remaining water gushed out. Matt was disappointed not to see Gibson’s corpse behind the steering wheel. Pete checked the rear seat and then the boot, but there was no body.
“At least we know where he isn’t,” Pete said. “Now all we can hope for is that he didn’t steal another vehicle.”
“There would’ve been no reason for him to sink the car if he was intending to leave the district,” Matt said. “I’ve got the feeling that he’s within a few miles radius of here, holding someone hostage in their house.”
“It would take forever to check out every property.”
“Maybe not. He’ll have shied away from any populated areas and selected an isolated house.”
“There’s a hell of a lot of those in this area.”
“I didn’t say it would be easy, Pete. We need to flush him out, and dissuade him from harming whoever he’s holding.”
“That’s a big ask. How do you suppose we go about it?”
“He’s not a dimwit. If I was him I’d be watching the news. If we can make him believe that we know that he’s in the forest and that we’ve got it sealed off and are tightening the net, he could just admit defeat and surrender.
“And we can flood the area with uniforms to knock doors, and have regular helicopter flights going over. It could flush him out.”
“Or cause him to dig in deeper.”
“It’ll buy time for hostages,” Matt said. “They’d be no good to him dead. The longer he stays put the safer they are, because if he tries to make a break for it, he’ll top them.”
“Why?”
“Because I would think he will have altered his appearance. He wouldn’t want anyone to be able to tell us what he looks like now.”
Billy walked Suzy to her door and kissed her goodnight. He then made his way home. He needed space. She would have been happy to go to the house with him and fool around, but sex was not on his mind, just lots of old memories forming and then dissolving in his brain: not just phantom thoughts, but almost solid images to him. He experienced a farrago of emotions. Saw his mother as she had looked when he had been no more than ten years old, and realised that she had been a beautiful woman with glossy dark hair, peaches and cream complexion, full lips and emerald green eyes. He knew that she had loved him dearly, and yet she had not been able to protect him or herself from his father. Suzy had asked why she hadn’t just walked away from the man, and he knew that it was the fear of what his father might do to her and Billy that kept her shackled by invisible chains.
Unlocking the door, he walked along the hall and came to an abrupt stop. It took a few seconds for him to properly take in the scene that met him in the kitchen, where drawers had been pulled out and their contents dumped on the floor, cupboard doors were wide open, and shelves swept clean by some intruder. His senses took over, and his hearing became more acute as he strained to detect any sound that would indicate another presence in the house. And he noticed a faint smell of something that did not belong; a spicy scent of what he decided was a man’s after shave lotion.
Bending down and picking up a lethal-looking boning knife from where it now lay on the floor among the mess, he gripped the hardwood handle, which was smooth as glass from many decades of use, and proceeded to search the house, after first ascertaining that the lock on the back door had been forced. He checked every room. Everywhere was in disarray. Some bastard had broken in and turned orderliness to chaos. Entering what had been his mother’s bedroom, he could hardly bear the sight of what had been done. He wanted to find the trespasser and disembowel him. A red tide flooded his mind. He had to stand still for a minute and take deep breaths and find a measure of composure. The contents of the dressing table drawers had been tipped onto the top of the bed, and he could see his mum’s underwear. The wardrobe doors were also open, and dresses, skirts, blouses and what had been her Sunday best clothes were crumpled and lying on the carpet.
This was desecration to his way of thinking. Some shithead had broken in and gone through the house like a fucking tornado while he had been attending his mother’s funeral. The cellar! Jesus. He almost fell down the flight of stone steps as he rushed to see if his hiding place had been found.
The heavy sink had not been moved, because if it had the burglar would not have put it back, but he checked it anyway to be certain. The gun and the money were still in the metal box. He sighed with relief and removed the gun and silencer before replacing the box containing the money in the cavity and pushing the sink back in place.
It took Billy all night to bring order back to the small terrace house that was the hub of his universe. He returned everything to its rightful place, and cleaned every item and surface that he suspected had been touched. At six a.m. he made a pot of tea, using loose leaves as his mother had always done, and put two slices of bread in the toaster, giving the tea sufficient time to infuse in the boiling water. Three minutes later with the toast buttered and on a plate, he poured first a small amount of milk into a cup and then the tea through a strainer. It was a small ceremony that he enjoyed performing. Sipping the beverage between bites of the hot toast, he contemplated what he could do to alleviate the rage that was eating at him like an all consuming cancer.
He needed to kill somebody; to terrorise them and feel the elation that only their fear provided. He knew that the act would give him relief. For awhile all his tension and fury would melt away, and he would feel calmer and be able to focus on the pretence of being normal again, whatever normal might be.
After wiping crumbs from his mouth, he once more visited the cellar, to return with his list, from which he would select the next pairing. As he pondered, he poured another cup of tea. There was no need to hurry. He needed to replace the lock on the back door, and to add sturdy bolts top and bottom. He would then sleep for several hours and be refreshed before he murdered two more people. He had made his choice. When Maria Harper arrived at Neville Marsden’s house in Ealing the following morning, he would be there, to enter with her and deal with both of them.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
He looked at her and imagined her gagging as he forced his blood-engorged penis deep into her mouth. The fact that her hands were bound behind her back and that he had the sickle in his hand really turned him on. Bondage and sadism were practises he had never indulged in, unless strangling the women he had raped counted as such. This was definitely as good as it got. He owned the couple. Fear for each other’s wellbeing gave him the power to do anything he wanted to. Ruthie would be as obedient as a cowed dog, but he would not give her an instant’s chance to turn on him. This bitch had proved that she had the spunk to stand up to him and defend herself. He almost forced her to give him head, but held back. There was a small part of him that still abhorred what he had become. And up until now he had only raped and killed absolute strangers to him.
After the initial trauma of being hurt and made prisoner in her own house, Ruth had decided that for Doug’s sake she would do nothing to cause the man to harm eith
er one of them. He had insisted that she call him John, and had cut the plastic tie that pinioned her wrists and allowed her to bathe and bandage Doug’s head wound. He had then forced her to fasten Doug’s wrists to the bars of the solid brass bed head, and checked that she had pulled the ties tight enough.
Time had dragged by. He freed her hands to let her go to the toilet and to cook for them.
“Who will miss you?” John said to Ruth. “And don’t lie to me, because if anyone pays a surprise visit, I’ll probably have to kill them.”
Ruth told him that Gillian Nelson, her partner at the florist’s, would expect her at the shop in the morning.
“You’d better phone her and give her a plausible reason why you won’t be in for a few days,” John said. “And be extremely careful what you say.”
Ruth steadied her nerves and made the call. Told Gill that Doug’s mum in Dorset had suffered a stroke, and that they were driving over to Weymouth to be with Doug’s dad. She had no need to phone Doug’s boss, due to Doug having taken a week off work to build a henhouse and erect adequate fencing for a run. The last thing they wanted was for the local fox population to think that it was a canine KFC and have access to easy pickings.
Nights were the worst. He kept Ruth downstairs with him, and while he slept on the settee, she was laid on a duvet on the carpet with her hands fastened to the metal pipe of the large radiator that was bracketed to the lounge wall.
It was on the third morning of her and Doug’s ordeal that Gill knocked at the door.
“Ignore it,” John said. He had driven Ruth’s Micra deep into a large patch of brambles that grew in abundance in long grass behind the woodshed, where it could not be seen unless someone had reason to search the property.
Gill was stubborn. She kept knocking at the front door, not put off by the absence of Ruth’s car, and then walked around to the back and started rapping on the kitchen door. She had phoned Ruth’s mobile number several times, but was put to voice mail. And then she had phoned Ruth’s mum, Sheila, in Basingstoke and asked her if Gill’s mother-in-law was okay, only to be to be told that Maureen Porter had been fine the previous evening, because they had talked on the phone.