A Question of Identity (Simon Serrailler 7)

by Susan Hill

  She remained deeply asleep, even when the door of her bedroom opened, and only woke, startled and bewildered, when the light went on.

  Fifty-seven

  THE CHIEF CONSTABLE heard him out without interrupting. She knew Serrailler well and she had seen him in many moods but never as angry as now. They had gone to Chalford Road together, to the house in which Olive Tredwell had been murdered, and where her body was still upright in the new white-painted chair with its bright blue cotton cover, in front of a large oak cheval mirror. The electrical flex was still tied tightly round her neck, knotted on the left-hand side, as all the others had been. She wore a long floral nightgown. Her feet were bare, the toenails freshly clipped.

  When he had walked in and seen her, Simon had wanted to weep, with frustration, anger, grief, and with a terrible feeling of guilt. But he had shaken himself within seconds. The other emotions he accepted, but if anyone other than the killer was guilty, it was not him.

  ‘I‘ll have the skin ripped off their bloody backs.’

  ‘Simon . . .’

  ‘I mean it, ma’am.’

  The pathologist had been and gone and forensics had finished the first part of the job. They heard voices now, then the tread of footsteps on the stairs. The bump of a loose floorboard.

  The men with the body bag and the stretcher.

  ‘Ma’am . . .’

  ‘It’s fine, get on with your job, guys. We’re out of here.’

  At the front door, the Chief said, ‘Press conference?’

  ‘Yes but the bare minimum for now. They’re asking even more awkward questions, unsurprisingly, and an army of TV and radio vans are outside. I can deal with the press, but those bastards at Special Ops will hide behind their walls of secrecy. They think they’re not answerable to anybody.’

  ‘They’re not, in the normal course of events, they’re a law unto themselves, most of the time for good reason, but this is precisely why they can’t make mistakes. Nobody’s going to cut them any slack, Simon.’

  ‘Cut who any slack? Nobody knows they exist. Punch them and it’s like punching a hole in a cloud.’

  ‘Forget revenge for now. Find this man before we have a fourth murder.’

  ‘Fifth,’ Simon said wearily. ‘You’re forgetting Nobby Parks.’

  ‘You’re sure about that? A different MO, though it definitely wasn’t an accident.’

  ‘Of course it wasn’t. Nobby had to be shut up. He’d been talking to the press about the mobile-phone pictures. He might have seen and heard anything on his night walkabouts. That’s what the killer was afraid of.’

  ‘Did he see anything? Is there anything on the photos?’

  Simon shook his head. ‘That’s the sad part. Not a thing. And I doubt if Nobby knew anything either, he was just enjoying his hour in the sun, poor bugger.’

  Paula Devenish walked a few paces away from her waiting car so that they were not overheard.

  ‘My resignation’s gone in. Have you thought any more about it or is this all getting in your line of vision?’

  ‘No. My line of vision is clear. As I said when we met on the train, I’m grateful for your vote of confidence but it’s not for me.’

  Simon watched her car speed off before going to his own and heading back to the station, seething with anger and more than ready to do battle. His mobile rang as he was taking the bypass fast so he had to ignore it. As he entered the building, Polly was coming down.

  ‘Looking for you. Priority call two or three minutes ago. They wouldn’t speak to me, but they’ll ring back at ten fifteen.’

  It was ten fourteen. Simon got to his office, closed the door and hung up his jacket.

  The phone rang.

  ‘DCS Serrailler?’

  The voice was familiar by now.

  ‘Can I have a name?’

  ‘Floor Five. Your current situation has been under close consideration this morning. As you are aware, we can’t answer questions, we cannot confirm or deny anything, or make comments on names or cases. But in view of the most recent incident we’re prepared to pass on one piece of information.’

  ‘Now listen –’

  ‘As I say we cannot comment or answer questions, so if you would just listen to me, Superintendent.’

  Simon realised that this was to be as near as they would come to some sort of climbdown and face-saving exercise, though neither would ever be admitted. He also knew that whatever they were about to give him would be all.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I can tell you that we retrained the man you named as a plumber.’

  ‘From what? What was his original trade?’

  ‘No further information and I can neither confirm nor deny anything else.’

  A climb-down. Jesus, what a way to work. Asking questions was a detective’s default setting, but these guys worked strictly on a need-to-know basis. They asked no questions and answered none, they lived in little numbered boxes, among the anonymous, those with code names, and those going only by a number. Their cases were filed under computer-generated passwords and they had personal control over only a severely limited corner of a jigsaw, the rest of the pieces being under the control of many others, none of whom they necessarily knew. It would drive him mad, just as terrorist and code work would drive him mad, though surveillance and undercover operations had always got his blood flowing faster.

  He pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen, and after thinking hard for a few minutes about what he had been told, began to draw out a plan of action, writing furiously.

  Then he called the whole team for a meeting in an hour’s time.

  ‘Olive Tredwell,’ he said, pointing to the usual hideous pictures. ‘Same MO, same clean crime scene – no prints, no blood, no semen. But forensics have the mirror and they’re examining it for any trace of saliva. They have it as top priority. But they found nothing at the other crime scenes. Nothing on the mirrors or the surfaces.’

  ‘Guv?’

  ‘Yes, Steph?’

  ‘Mrs Tredwell’s place is nowhere near the sheltered housing.’

  Someone else jumped in at once. ‘But who’d risk going up there now we’ve got the patrols?’

  ‘True. I just thought – well, it’s completely on the other side of town, and her street isn’t entirely full of older people, it’s got all ages.’

  ‘Which could mean he’s started walking about, looking, keeping watch. Not so easy, but nor is it difficult to find old people living alone. Most streets have them.’

  ‘I think this is a copycat.’

  Simon shook his head. ‘Remember, we haven’t released details about the MO. Nothing about putting the bodies in front of a mirror has got into the media and it won’t, nothing about the toenail clipping. This isn’t a copycat. Now, heads up. I know it’s frustrating, I know you feel got at, you feel demoralised, you feel he’s running rings round us. He has done that but he won’t be doing it for much longer. He’s getting cocky now – and once that happens, he’ll make a mistake. Cockiness always leads to errors. They start thinking they’re invincible. They believe that they cannot be caught.

  ‘More important. I have a bit of inside info. I know we’re looking for Alan Keyes. I don’t know the name he’s using, or whether he’s changed his appearance, but he’s working as a plumber.’

  ‘So we need to find a plumber?’

  ‘Exactly. OK, entrapment is the name of the game and let’s hope to God it works. Can any of you come up with a likely venue? A small industrial area maybe with individual workshops, a disused repair garage. We’ll be setting up a backstreet builders’ base, with a couple of vans, workshop, carpentry and brick stuff . . . plastering . . . all the supplies will be there but not in huge quantities. Crummy office at the back – you know the sort of place.’

  ‘Girlie calendars from 2001 and no tea mug without a crack in it.’

  ‘You’ve got it.’

  ‘Are we trying to find this place and get the owner to vacate?’

&n
bsp; ‘Too risky. We’re setting the whole thing up ourselves. In Lafferton, doesn’t matter too much where so long as it’s tucked away.’

  ‘Waterloo Terrace.’

  ‘Nelson Street,’ someone else said.

  ‘Right,’ a DC said. ‘I did an op round there last year, had to hang about for days, got to know it like the back of. It’s the old working end of Lafferton, terraces, two-up two-down.’

  ‘Got you,’ Serrailler said.

  ‘Run-down. Some of the houses are boarded up, some have dossers, some students. One or two of the old locals left but they’ve pretty much died off. There’s a couple of pubs, bookie, two corner shops. Disused church. But halfway down Nelson Street there was a repair garage, with a yard. Got wooden gates, padlocked but kids broke the padlocks. Got an office, outside lav, sort of waiting area for people collecting cars. Could make a small builders’ yard.’

  ‘Get on to it, find out who owns it, we want to rent it, by the month. Any To Let signs?’

  ‘Been a For Sale one for yonks. Garage must have closed five or six years ago, maybe more.’

  ‘OK, you get on with that asap, Barry. Next up, small ads. I want them on cards in all the corner shops and newsagent windows you can find. Then in the free papers – wherever you see “Kittens for Sale” and “TV Aerials. Good Rates. Reliable.” Get them ready to go up but don’t roll them out until the yard’s set up. Nice excuse to requisition some new felt tips from stationery. Off you go, won’t take long, but I want to see what you’ve done.’

  One by one the team picked up on their jobs. Simon pulled in three uniforms for overtime work, playing the roles of extras round the yard.

  The most difficult to assign was the builder who owned the yard and was doing the advertising. Getting him to look the part was not as hard as having him sound it.

  But by the end of the afternoon, he had his team, and the DC had come back with a deal done easily on the empty garage. They were in business. The text of a small ad printed out was on his desk, and two cards beside it.

  PLUMBER WANTED. Must be fully qualified and experienced in variety of installation/repair/emergency work, including CH. Gas-fitting cert. and own vehicle a plus. Plenty of long-term contract work for right applicant. Top pay for top man.

  Hendry’s Builders, 44 Nelson Street, Lafferton. Phone 222848 for appt.

  Simon ticked approval and asked for twenty handwritten copies.

  He was about to leave, and drive round there for a recce, then go to Rachel’s, hoping that she might be back from the hospital, when he had a call from forensics. They had found a minute amount of saliva on the mirror in Olive Tredwell’s bedroom. If the DNA was recoverable and matched hers, it meant that she had been strangled after she had been placed in the chair. She had watched it happen. They were running final tests and would know definitively tomorrow.

  Fifty-eight

  EVEN SAM WAS on the doorstep to greet Molly. She had spent the day at Bevham General, seeing her tutors, and come over to spend the night at the farmhouse. She looked older, thinner, and her face had changed subtly. The old Molly had been plump, still half childlike in her soft round features, but now her bone structure showed. She would never be a beauty but she was pretty, with an interesting, thoughtful face. Felix wrapped his arms around her, and every bit of news spilled out of the other two as they went in, Sam carrying her bag.

  She had driven herself there. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever cycle like I used to,’ she said to Cat, as they went upstairs to her old room. ‘I know nothing that happened had anything to do with cycling, but it seems to have attached itself to that. I’d be terrified.’

  ‘But apart from that, how are you?’

  ‘Good,’ Molly said firmly. ‘I feel steady now. I’ve learned to cope with flashbacks, I know what to do if I have a panic attack, but I’m not having many now. I’ve had a lot of help from the psychologist – I never realised the half of what they do. Oh God, it’s lovely to be back here, Cat . . . it’s just the same but something’s different.’

  ‘We’ve painted the walls. New bedcover. Better lamps.’

  ‘It’s still home though.’

  Cat sat on the edge of the bed. ‘So, what did they say?’

  ‘I’m repeating my final year and taking the exams after that. No worries. The prof said the experience might prove very useful even if it doesn’t seem so at the moment. Empathy with patients being the buzz phrase – I’ll understand about PTSD better than most . . . She asked if I had thought of going into psych. I hadn’t, but she suggested I give it some thought. I don’t know though . . .’

  ‘No, and you won’t yet. Listen, you don’t have to – there’s no pressure and I’d totally understand if you wanted to be at the hospital for the year instead – but if you wanted it this room is yours and you’d be more than welcome. Think about it.’

  But Molly had already flung her arms around Cat.

  ‘I was going to ask but then I thought probably you wouldn’t need me, or want anyone or . . . well, anything might have changed. Yes, please!’

  ‘That calls for a celebration bottle then. I’ll go and open one. Take your time, have a bath, come down when you feel like it. I’ll keep the marauders at bay.’

  ‘No, don’t, I want to see them. There’s a lot to catch up on. I know you told me about the hospice . . . how’s everything else? Simon married yet?’

  ‘Oh ha ha.’

  ‘And how are Judith and Richard? I heard at first but not for a bit now.’

  ‘Fine,’ Cat said, going out. ‘Busy. But fine.’

  Hannah was coming up the stairs as she went down, bursting with things to tell Molly, ask Molly, complain about or boast about or share in confidence with Molly. She left them to it.

  Simon finally left the office at nine that evening. Rachel was not answering her phone, which meant she was at the hospital, but he drove round past the house anyway. Her car was not there. Lights were out.

  He had stopped for fuel and bought a bunch of flowers on the forecourt, but now he looked at them on the passenger seat and saw that they were dismal and looked cheap. He scribbled a note on a torn-out page from his diary and put it through the letter box instead.

  Thinking about you. Ring when you can S. x.

  He dropped the flowers in a bin on the way home.

  Fifty-nine

  OLIVE TREDWELL’S SON had written to the Chief making a formal complaint against the police and Serrailler in particular. Muriel Atkinson had telephoned several times in distress to ask why the killer of her twin sister had not been caught and why others had been allowed to die in the same terrible way. Simon was about to have a team meeting for an update on the builders’ yard set-up, when a call was put through to him from Rosemary Poole’s daughter.

  ‘I keep reading this and that in the paper, I keep seeing your face on the television and you’re being all full of sympathy for the bereaved families, but we don’t get told anything, we’re fobbed off with “ongoing investigations” and what we can guess from the TV. It isn’t good enough. I’ve got two little boys here asking questions I can’t answer, wanting to know what happened to their Gran, and what am I to say? I don’t think you understand.’

  ‘Mrs Fletcher, I assure you absolutely that I do. And you were right to ring me. I can’t promise that I can tell you everything because some things have to remain confidential to us – if they got out they could hinder our progress.’

  ‘You’re saying you’ve made progress? Seems like the exact opposite to me.’

  ‘I know it does. As I say, I can’t tell you everything but you’re right to pick me up on my failure to keep you and the other relatives informed and hear what you have to say. I’m going to ask all the bereaved families to come here and meet me, and ask whatever you like – and I promise you I’ll do my very best to address all your concerns.’

  ‘You sound like a politician.’

  ‘God help me, I hope not. We’ll arrange a time suitable to everyone and meet you
all here. Perhaps we can even organise it for late this afternoon, if that isn’t too short notice.’

  ‘Make it for two in the morning. I’ll be there.’

  ‘Someone will ring you later and give you a time.’

  ‘The TV people won’t be there, will they?’

  ‘They will not. This will be a closed and private meeting, you have my word.’

  ‘To be honest, I thought I‘d be wasting my time – I never expected to get to speak to you, thought I‘d be fobbed off with someone or other. So I‘m grateful.’

  The meeting was held in the conference room at six o’clock and the press officer and Polly had set it out with the chairs in an informal half-circle, with a table of tea, coffee and biscuits, places in front for Serrailler and the Chief. No one else. There was no desk, no microphone, no reporting, no interruptions.

  Simon told them everything he was able to about each case and its investigation, and the way everyone worked both separately and as a team. He was sympathetic, apologetic, gently spoken, and used as little police jargon as possible. There was actually very little he could say that they hadn’t already heard but he managed to make it sound new, and as if he was taking them all into his confidence. It worked. The initial hesitant questions were not aggressive and he did not feel challenged. Mrs Sanders’s twin sister said she believed the police had the hardest job in the world, Karen Fletcher asked if there was anything more they could do to help. ‘I’ve racked my brains to think of anything I might know, but I can’t. I’d rack them again if it was useful. There’s a monster out there. We can’t get our own loved ones back but surely to God we can try and do something, anything, to stop this happening again.’

  ‘That’s all very well,’ Olive Tredwell’s son said, ‘but it isn’t our job, is it? It’s theirs.’

  Murmurs of agreement.

  ‘You’re right,’ Simon said. ‘The job of catching this extremely dangerous man is ours first and foremost, but this is no different from any other situation – we rely on members of the public for vital information, things people may know or remember that we couldn’t possibly be privy to. That’s not dodging our responsibility, I assure you. Now as to the resources we’re putting into this –’