by Michael Kerr
“You could have done it,” Matt said. “You didn’t have a cast-iron alibi for the timeline covering the three days that Connolly had been missing before his body was dumped.”
“Yeah, I could have, but I didn’t, and there’s no evidence to suggest that I did,” Richard said as he poured coffee for Matt and himself.
“So like I already asked, who do you think did it?”
“I haven’t got a clue, Inspector. But I’d like to buy him a drink and thank him. What you have to do, unofficially, is put yourself in victims’ shoes. They’re personally involved with grief, whereas you’re just a cleaner, mopping up after the events when you can, and in many instances the bad guys never even get lifted.”
Matt said nothing. He was not about to tell this man that he had taken pleasure in using extreme violence against men that he had adjudged to merit it, and would kill in an instant to protect those he cared for. There was an internal battle within him, and he couldn’t help but sympathise with many victims of crime that wanted revenge. It was all about settling scores. He could relate to that, because wasn’t the type that believed in turning the other cheek.
Matt finished his coffee and said, “I think we’re done here Mr Madsen.”
Marci drove. After a few minutes she said, “You’re quiet boss. What was it he said that put you in a funny mood?”
“I’m not in a funny mood,” Matt said. “I just see where people are coming from, and that makes me feel a little ineffective. We do mop up, when we can. But that doesn’t bring back one murdered person, or un-rape one woman, or prevent a child who has been abused from being mentally scarred for life.”
“We’re not bloody psychic, boss. We can’t prevent sickos from committing the crimes. All we can do is everything possible to catch them and stop them from doing it again.”
“Yeah, I know. But too many slip through the net. There are career criminals and worse enjoying freedom, and we know exactly who they are but don’t have the proof that’s needed to touch them. They use the law like a weapon and turn serious crime into a game. A lot of the time our hands are tied.”
The conversation would have gone on, but Matt’s mobile rang. There was no caller ID, but he answered anyway. It was DI Tony Underwood at Barking.
“We went through a couple of dozen CCTV tapes and a lot of copies from discs, and we have images of two apparently teenage boys heading in the direction of where we found the body, and then returning the same way later. And from other cameras further along the route we established that they entered Beacon Towers, a high-rise block next to the A13. We also have footage of a dark Vauxhall Astra driving through the trading estate at just after six-thirty a.m., but it obviously left the area by the loop road down by the river, and that has no coverage.”
“Do you have a plate number?”
“No. But your computer whiz kids at the Yard should be able to enhance it, and maybe the driver.”
“Great work, Tony. We’ve just been to interview Richard Madsen in Romford, so we’re nearby. We’ll call in for the tapes.”
“I’ll get the coffee on,” Tony said before ending the call.
CHAPTER FOUR
HE was lost in his work. The head was just resting on top of the bench, sitting as if it was on the stump of its neck. He studied it and then reached out to gently caress the small blemish on its left cheek, to smooth it away.
The process could now begin. He carefully applied a melted neutral coloured shoe polish as a separator, and then a total of eight coats of liquid latex to the face, with thin fibreglass strips between some of the coats to give the finished mould rigidity. Once hardened, he carefully removed the still slightly pliable rubber from the sculpted clay head, examined the interior and smiled. Perfect. The next stage was to place the now firm mould into a box of soft sand to support it.
It was time to take a break. He left the workshop and walked back along the flagstone path that bisected the lawn, past the garage on his right, to enter the kitchen and wash his hands and scrub his nails before making a pot of tea.
Rascal raised his head ‒ from the folded duvet that served as his bed in the corner of the room ‒ to check who was there, and then went back to sleep.
He sipped the tea, listening to Classic FM on the radio/cassette and feeling extremely content. From the latex mould he had made from the face sculpture, he would now be able to produce masks as necessary, to add a more uniform signature to his executions. But there was no hurry. He had no intention of running amok and escalating. He would spend some time becoming familiar with Craig Danby’s routines, to determine the most practical time and place to abduct him. In the meantime he had the mask to finish making, and a half completed doll’s house that he had decided to give to a children’s play group in Chadwell Heath.
Back in the workshop, he used a soft brush to carefully spread separator on the inside of the latex mould, to then mix an appropriate quantity of clear resin with a catalyst and a small amount of white paint, with which he coated the interior, leaving only the eyeholes clear. Within twenty minutes the resin was hard. He used a thin spatula to free the mask from the mould, and held it up to inspect. The result was pleasing. He drilled two small holes, one at each side of the mask, so that elastic could be affixed to hold it in place when worn.
Standing in front of a gilt-framed, oval-shaped Victorian wall mirror, which he had bought at a car boot sale, he held the mask up to his face and stared at the reflection in the mirror. It was almost pretty; the cupid bow lips could be painted gold, and with the adornment of a fancy hat and the addition of sequins, crystals or rhinestones, each mask would become a striking celebration of its wearer’s death. It was pleasing to think that his creations would perhaps find their way into room 101 of the Black Museum, now renamed the Crime Museum ‒ due to a section of society’s obsession for political correctness and paranoia over ethnicity ‒ at New Scotland Yard. They could well find a place next to death masks of hanged felons, or be hung above such items as a letter sent from Jack the Ripper to London’s Central News Agency back in September of 1874, which read:
Dear Boss,
I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they wont fix me just yet. I have laughed when they talk about being on the right track. I am down on whores and I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled. I love my work and want to start again.
After breaking up the clay head and scattering the pieces outside in a flower border, he wrapped the mask and latex mould separately and took them into the house to secrete in the false bottom of the credenza.
He was now all set to stalk Danby and, when ready, take him and help the deviant make restitution for the crimes that he had committed.
Tony served them with coffee in his office and then one by one selected and loaded the videos and copies of hard discs for them to watch, freeze-framing the time-coded footage at points that he had made a note of, where the Astra or the boys appeared.
The plates and driver of the Vauxhall were impossible to identify, but Matt was sure that Kenny Ruskin in Computer Crime Section would be able to sharpen up the images.
The views of the two boys walking back were far better, taken in early morning light.
“I’ve run off a couple of copies of the best shot I could find of the lads,” Tony said. “If they do live in Beacon Towers, you should be able to find someone that can ID them.”
“Great job, Tony,” Matt said. “We’ll head over there now to see if we can locate them and have a word.”
Fifteen minutes later, Matt parked outside the ugly, dark-grey high-rise block, which he thought of as a giant tombstone set in the cracked and potholed concrete area around it. Most of these old eyesores needed to be demolished. They were damp, decaying monstrosities. Many of them in poorer areas were unfortunately overrun with crack dealers and had become breeding grounds of crime. A lot of the older residents no doubt kept their doors locked and did not venture out between dusk and dawn. It was no way for decent people to have
to live, trapped in environs that they could not afford to escape from. He was not a political animal, but it angered him that successive governments squandered billions on new railways and the like, while the services that ordinary working class people and pensioners needed and depended on went to the dogs.
They entered through the main doors and walked over to the lifts. There were two. One worked, the other didn’t. The door to the one that did stuttered open and a huge elderly woman limped out.
“Excuse me,” Marci said. “I wonder if you could help us.”
“Why, are you lost?” the woman, Hilda Quinlan, said.
“No, but we’re looking for someone,” Marci said, showing the old woman her warrant card.
“Do I look like a fuckin’ snitch?” Hilda said. “I have to live in this rat-infested sewer, so I tend to mind my own business, it’s safer that way.”
“We only want to ask two youngsters a couple of questions. They’re not in any trouble.”
“So ask someone who gives a shit,” Hilda said as she barged between them like a bowling ball attempting to take out the last two pins.
Matt laughed, which was a rare occurrence. “There goes a pensioner I’d hate to upset,” he said.
“Maybe we should come back dressed as down and outs,” Marci said. “Or just break the glass, hit the fire alarm and wait for the kids to appear when everyone leaves.”
Matt walked off along a ground floor corridor with Marci in tow and knocked on the first door he came to. The door opened and he had to look up to make eye contact with a thirty-something guy who was wearing a tee-shirt and jeans that were almost splitting against the muscles beneath them. He had full sleeve tattoos on both brawny arms, and a deep knife scar that ran from just above his right ear to the corner of his mouth.
“Who are you and what do you want?” Dean Fairfax asked Matt.
Matt showed his ID. Then took the folded photocopy of the two lads from his pocket, opened it up and held it out.
Dean shook his head, but Matt saw the flicker of recognition in his eyes.
“We need to talk to them, nothing else,” Matt said. “Tell me who they are, give me a flat number, and I’ll forget that I could get as high as a kite from smelling the pot on your breath.”
“Are you threatening me?” Dean said.
“Absolutely. I don’t want to have to arrest you, or go to the trouble of sealing this shit-hole up like a drum and having uniforms knocking on every door, but I will.”
Dean chewed the inside of his lip for a few seconds and then said, “The kid on the left is Ronnie Parker and he lives up on the fourth floor. Second on the left as you get out of the lift. Okay?”
Matt nodded and headed back to the foyer as the door was slammed shut behind him.
“I’ll use the stairs, you take the lift up,” Matt said to Marci. “Just in case ‘Muscles’ gives the kid a bell and he tries to do a runner.”
They met up on the landing of the fourth floor. “Thanks a lot,” Marci said. “The lift smelled like a gents’ toilet that hadn’t been swamped out for a month.”
“Since when did you start frequenting gents’ toilets?” Matt asked as they walked along to what was number fourteen. He knocked on the door.
When it was eventually opened by a tousled headed youth, Matt said, “Hi, Ronnie, we need to talk.”
Ronnie panicked and bolted. Just ducked and ran, knocking Matt sideways as he flew past him, only to find himself on the landing floor, being held in a painful wristlock by a woman.
Matt hunkered down and held out his ID for Ronnie to see. “Are your parents in?”
“My dad is down the pub, as usual, and my mum pissed off and left us a couple of years ago,” Ronnie said.
“So let’s go inside and talk for a minute,” Matt said as Marci helped Ronnie up and guided him back through the open door.
“What about?” Ronnie demanded.
“About the body you and your pal found,” Matt said, holding out the photocopy for him to see.
Ronnie shook his head. “It didn’t happen.”
“Cameras got footage of you walking through the trading estate, then walking back later on. And the recording of the call that one of you made will give us a match. Putting on a gruff voice doesn’t fool the technology we’ve got.”
“Okay, we were there,” Ronnie admitted. “But we didn’t do anythin’. Just found the stiff and made the call.”
“You did the right thing,” Marci said. “Please tell us exactly how it went. It could be very important.”
“We were just walkin’ along, lookin’ to see if the tide had left anythin’ worth pickin’ up. I saw this big plastic bag, and we went up to it. Jace, that’s my mate, Jason Tuttle, cut the plastic open with his penknife and the body fell out. It looked like one of those dummies in shop windows, but we soon sussed that it was just a mask on a guy’s face.”
“Did you touch it?” Matt asked.
“Fuck, no. We pissed off. And then I made the call.”
“Did you notice anything else, like a car nearby?”
“No. Just some drag marks and footprints in the mud. There was no one about. But the trail led back to the road, so I knew it hadn’t been chucked off a boat and washed up.”
“Is that everything?” Matt asked.
“Yeah.”
“So let’s go and talk to your mate. And then we’ll need to find your dad and get permission to take you to where the drag marks led to.”
“My dad’ll go apeshit.”
“He’ll be okay,” Matt said. “Trust me; you did the right thing making the call.”
They spoke to Jason Tuttle, got exactly the same story, and then left the high-rise and walked across the street to The Railway Tavern. Ronnie stayed outside with Marci while Matt went in and found the lad’s father, whom Ronnie had said was thirty-eight, balding, had a Mexican-style moustache and would be wearing a blue fleece and chinos.
“Excuse me,” Matt said to Roy Parker, who was sitting at a table nursing a pint. “I need a word with you.”
Roy said nothing, just glanced at the warrant card that Matt held out.
“Your son found a body and phoned us. I want your permission to take him to the scene.”
“A body?” Roy said. “Where?”
“On the mudflats at the end of River Road. If you’ve watched the news you’ll know what I’m talking about.”
“The guy wrapped up in plastic?”
“Yeah. Ronnie and his mate came across it and did the right thing.”
“The little bastard is always skivin’ off and gettin’ into bother. And then the twats at his school lean on me and threaten to take me to court. How the fuck can I force him to go? He lost the plot after his bitch of a mother pissed off.”
Matt wanted to grab Parker by the throat and tell him to be a better father to his son, instead of spending his time and probably any benefit he was able to claim on booze. But you couldn’t change an adult’s personality in five minutes, if ever. People were the sum of their life experiences. It was about how and where they had been brought up, and what fate had thrown at them that governed their behaviour and outlook.
“He seems a bright lad,” Matt said. “I reckon with your help he could see the light and knuckle down.”
“Whatever,” Roy said, finishing his pint and standing up to go to the gents. “Take him where you like.”
Marci drove through the industrial estate and followed the road to the left until Ronnie said, “Here.”
They got out of the car and Ronnie pointed to a spot through the grass and weeds, to where the rotting remains of a wooden post was leaning at an angle from the marshy ground it was fixed in.
“The trail from where we found the body led back to the left of that post,” Ronnie said.
Matt looked at the still slightly flattened grass, and walked up and down the stretch of road where the killer must have parked his vehicle. There was nothing evident. He had hoped to find a muddy footprint, but
the absence of any just led him to believe that the perpetrator had wiped his boots or shoes. And a forensic team had already combed the area. They had a collection of cigarette ends and other litter that Matt was convinced would not have been dropped by the man they sought.
When Ronnie got out of the car, back at Beacon Towers, Matt walked a few yards towards the entrance with him.
“Your dad’s a little lost,” Matt said to Ronnie. “Doesn’t matter why, but he is. I think you could help him turn a corner. And I know I’m a cop and an adult, whom you probably resent on both counts, but I used to be a teenager like you. And I wasn’t particularly interested in school, but I used it. It was free and it offered knowledge, which is power. If you want to end up being a nonentity with nothing, fine, but I think that you’re too intelligent to have no future worth shit.”
“Do you always give out free advice to everyone you meet?” Ronnie asked.
Matt shook his head. “No. A lot of people aren’t worth wasting words on. I think that maybe you just need to sit back, think about what you want out of life and go for it.”
“Easier said than done.”
“Nobody said anything worth having was easy to get.”
Ronnie just turned and walked away, to vanish into the grasping shadows of the dismal building with his hands stuffed in his jeans pockets and his head low, as if he was searching the ground for dropped coins, or hopefully for motivation.
Matt got in the Mondeo and told Marci to head back to the Yard. He wanted to get the footage of the Vauxhall Astra to Kenny Ruskin and hope that he could do his magic and give them a registration plate number and a close-up mug shot of the driver.
Tom phoned as they drove back into the city.
“Yeah,” Matt said. “Who’s dead?”
“Not funny, but on the money,” Tom replied. “You ever watch City Crime on the box?”
“I’ve caught snatches of it. Why?”
“Because the lead presenter, Danielle Cooper, was found dead at her flat a couple of hours ago by her agent.”