by Michael Kerr
“That’s one possibility, Ms Gould,” Matt said. “When did you last see her?”
“You mean before I found her body?”
Matt nodded.
“Three days before she died. We had a light lunch at a café near Green Park.”
“How did she seem?” Marci asked.
“Her usual cheerful self. Life was good. Danielle had a wonderful career and was still on the rise.”
“Can you think of any reason that she may have had to take her own life?” Matt asked.
“No, none whatsoever. Although she was a little bipolar. The death of her mother in January hit her hard. But she had a very strong character.”
“Bipolar!” Marci said.
“Yes, up and down, but I believe she was on some form of medication for it. Sometimes she could seem to be abnormally happy and positive and energetic, but once in a while she became very subdued, with a very dark and negative outlook on life.”
“Anything else?” Matt said.
Rhonda gave it some thought. “I know that she was very upset over her co-presenter’s suicide. She told me that she thought of Jeff as being the brother she’d never had. Perhaps the loss of her mum and then Jeff affected her much more than she let on.”
“How did you gain access to her flat?”
“Danielle gave me a spare key over a year ago. I would sometimes call by and drop paperwork off. And I kept an eye on the place and watered plants if she was away for any length of time.”
There was nothing else, but Matt and the team now knew beyond any doubt that Danielle had been murdered. The autopsy report confirmed that she had water in her lungs, and there was no way that she could have drowned before cutting her wrists and bleeding out, or then raised herself up to have her head and shoulders above the surface. CCTV footage had shown the comings and goings of visitors to the apartment building, and all but one had since been identified and questioned. The only person not to have been found was a tall man wearing a red parka, and a pair of sunglasses which in itself was suspicious on a dull March day. With his head down and his face hidden by the bill of a ball cap as he approached and entered the building, it was impossible to see his face.
The clincher that made it a double murder beyond doubt, was that the same unknown subject was also filmed entering the apartment block that Jeff Goodwin had lived at. The two presenters of City Crime had been selected and killed by the same man. The task was to now zero in on him. And Matt hoped that it was someone known to both victims. If it was some lowlife that they had investigated on their TV show, then it would throw up scores of suspects, with the possibility that the killer was a pro and had been hired to do the deeds.
As for the murders of the two masked victims; the team had interviewed everyone that knew Neil Connolly and Virgil Simpson, but were still in the dark. Both men had been ex-cons, and it was firmly believed that the killer was a vigilante, and that he would most likely keep going, selecting individuals from a vast pool of murderers and sex offenders that had been released from prison, or had walked free from courts on technicalities, or because a fickle jury had been swayed by a guileful defence barrister who wanted a result, and was indifferent to his client’s guilt or innocence.
The days rolled by, and Matt was beginning to believe that they had exhausted all possible lines of inquiry on both cases. The break that they needed was not forthcoming. It was disconcerting to acknowledge that only another similar murder may give them new clues to lead them to The Clown. Same went for The Suicide Killer, as they had begun to call the murderer of the two TV presenters.
They were in the doldrums, like a boat with its sails limp and in need of a breath of wind to move them in the right direction.
Most seasoned coppers knew that it could be a hard grind to break some cases. You had to stay with them and keep digging. Criminals almost always made mistakes, and it only took one wrong move to be the undoing of them.
CHAPTER SEVEN
BETH had now settled in at Morning Star. Working with children in need of help, support and guidance was proving to be a hundredfold more satisfying than dealing with insane murderers. She now had a high degree of job satisfaction, due to being in the position and having the opportunity to use her skills to aid youngsters in coming to terms with and getting past whatever had happened to damage them psychologically.
Beth parked her Lexus in the small car park at the rear of the detached, modern two story building, which was set back from the road amid landscaped gardens. She used her key card to enter the clinic, and made her way upstairs to the large office where some of the staff had already gathered for the morning briefing.
“Good morning, Beth,” Sylvia Mitchell ‒ the clinical director ‒ said. “Coffee?”
“Tea would be good,” Beth said. “The work is stimulating enough, and I drink far too much java.”
“My poison is red wine. The more of it I drink, the tighter my jeans get. I thought it was good for you.”
“Depends on the amount you drink. Most of us have to fight to stop our cargo from shifting as time goes by.”
“You’re one of the exceptions, Beth. You look like a model. How do you do it?”
“I eat very little fried food, and plenty of fruit and veg. I go to the gym twice a week, and I’ve never been big on chocolate or desserts.”
“Sounds like purgatory,” Sylvia said. “I enjoy eating too much of all the wrong stuff.”
The light banter told Beth that there had been no untoward incidents since she had left the clinic at six p.m. the previous day. The mood of the staff was relaxed to a level that she had never experienced at Northfield.
They sat around a large rectangular table and briefly discussed each of the forty minors that were currently in their charge. There was no element of rivalry between the doctors, councillors, teachers and nurses. Like Beth, the majority of them worked at Morning Star part-time, and each had the singular aspiration to help their wards overcome the psychological problems that they suffered from.
There was no dormitory. Each child had his or her own small room. And the clinic was visibly and purposely very homely, to generate an ambience of safety and comfort. There was a large playroom, a library, two class rooms and even a computer room, all on the ground floor. And at the end of what was called the east wing was a small indoor swimming pool for supervised use only.
Abigail Carter was sitting on the edge of her bed, looking straight ahead with a thousand-yard stare as she tightly embraced Eeyore; a Disney soft toy of the grey donkey character from Winnie the Pooh. Eeyore seemed a fitting choice of cuddly animal for Abigail, due to her having the same basic aura of gloom and pessimism.
“Good morning, Abby,” Beth said after knocking on the partly open door before entering the room. “How are you and Eeyore today?”
There was no response. Not that Beth had expected one. Abby had not spoken to anyone since arriving at the clinic two months ago, but was not by any means dumb, either intellectually or physically. She had just withdrawn into herself and chosen not to communicate. Although she had on several occasions been overheard talking to the inanimate donkey.
Abby had been an only child; a blithe spirit up until the accident that had taken place in the back garden of the house in Rickmansworth where she had lived with her parents and Charlie, a Cocker Spaniel that had ears very similar to Eeyore’s.
It had been in mid-December when Alan Carter died in front of Abby. He had climbed a ladder at the front of the house and was attaching a long cable that had outside lights in the shape of lanterns along its length with clips, when he stretched a fraction too far and the ladder slipped to the left and fell.
The future is an unknown terrain of uncertainty, its landscape littered with pitfalls that cannot in many instances be seen or avoided. Every second of every day holds the unexpected. As one man wins the Lotto, another is cut down by accident or disease. There is no life plan that can save you from a fate that gives no warning that it will befall you.
Alan Carter was thirty-three; a self-employed website designer with a growing number of clients. He had foreseen a bright and comfortable future for his family, up until the ladder fell. Oh, shit! Those were the only two words that screamed in his mind before his head slammed into one of the bevelled coping stones that topped the low retaining wall of the patio.
Abby watched the accident happen in what seemed to be slow motion. Her dad went sideways, his left arm stretched out into mid-air; his right hand still holding on tight to a rung of the toppling ladder. She was transfixed, unable to move as the aluminium ladders bounced noisily on the patio. Her dad also bounced. His head hit the top of the wall and recoiled back from it. Slumping over the ladders with a fan of blood escaping from his scalp ‒ which turned his light-brown hair to a bright fire engine red ‒ Alan stared straight at her, and she saw blood run out of his left ear to trickle down the side of his neck, before he started to jerk around like a person suffering some kind of fit.
She had wanted to run to him, to help him, but was set in place as solidly as a tree, to just stand trembling as warm pee ran down her legs. And then she had started screaming, and her mum had come running out of the kitchen door and knelt down and began crying as she cradled her dying husband’s head.
The ambulance had taken her dad away, and Abby had not seen him again. She had held her mum’s hand tightly at the church, and just stared at the coffin that she knew her dad was lying in. After the service it was carried out into the small cemetery, and as it was lowered into the hole in the ground, Abby’s mind seemed to close down. She went into a room in her head and shut the door. She was still aware of her surroundings, but chose to be apart from them. The outside world was a horrible, dangerous place, and so, apart from Eeyore, she decided to ignore it as much as she possibly could.
Abby’s mother, Natalie, had not been able to help her. The breakdown that she suffered after the funeral was of a magnitude that made it impossible for her to get past her husband’s death.
There followed a few weeks of living with her paternal grandparents, and being taken to the doctor’s, and then having tests carried out at the hospital, but Abby would not be drawn out from the self-imposed mental isolation that she opted to remain in.
Referred to Morning Star by a consultant who was a friend of Sylvia Mitchell, the team, including Beth, thought that Abby’s rehabilitation would be one of their biggest challenges.
Abby would usually, but not always, follow instructions, and could look after herself, but presented many symptoms associated more commonly with autism. She did not respond to her name being spoken, and could be very intolerant of people invading what she thought of as her personal space. And she did not interact with the other children, but sometimes watched them at play. Much of the time she would just cuddle Eeyore, avoid eye contact and rock backwards and forwards if she was sitting down. She had set routines and would become extremely agitated if changes were made.
Beth wanted to break through, to see Abby smile and hear her talk, but did not as yet know what trigger may bring that about.
“Would you like to put your coat on and come for a walk in the garden?” Beth said. “It’s a little cold, but bright, and I saw a couple of squirrels in the trees.”
Abby turned her head away from Beth and continued rocking. It was a little soul-destroying. The girl had become totally introverted, and the team feared that time would not be in any way healing, but would most likely reinforce the apartness that Abby had chosen as a way to cope with her father’s death, and then seeing her mother become a stranger.
Beth left the clinic at three p.m. Sylvia had spoken to her over lunch and asked her if she would consider working fulltime, and without any hesitation she had said that she would.
Back home at Orchard Cottage, Beth prepared the ingredients for an evening meal of beef marinated in wine with sauté potatoes and asparagus tips, and then sat out on the decking and drank coffee and made notes concerning Abby.
Matt texted Beth at home just before six and said that he was on his way. As always she felt the sensation of butterflies in her stomach. They had their work, but savoured every second that they were together. From the moment that they had fallen in love with each other, that initial fervour had not dulled, but had grown even more with time as they made memories together. They had both faced death at the hands of homicidal maniacs, and the experiences had made them appreciate just how much they would lose if anything should happen to tear them apart.
Matt drove in the open gateway between the thick beech hedges and parked his Vectra behind Beth’s Lexus on the wide gravelled drive. It was dark, and so the motion activated security light came on.
Beth opened the door ‒ after checking through the peephole ‒ and was in his arms. When together, they felt like teenagers experiencing first young love, and hoped that they always would.
“Coffee or Scotch?” Beth asked as they headed for the kitchen.
“A Scotch would hit the spot,” Matt said. “How about you?”
“I’m going to have a slurp of the red wine that I’ve cooked our meal in, and we can sit and relax for a few minutes and tell each other about what kind of day we’ve had before we eat.”
“Sounds good,” Matt said. “Does that mean you’ve had a good day?”
“Mixed,” Beth said as she poured the drinks. “Sylvia asked me if I would consider working fulltime, and I said yes. But a problem with one of the children is bugging me.”
“Tell me about it.”
Beth quickly ran through the history of the trauma that had caused Abby’s apparent self-imposed withdrawal from the outside world. “She didn’t have the capability to deal with it, so just opted out; closed a door in her mind and won’t come out.”
“So you need a key to open the door,” Matt said.
“Exactly.”
“I’ve got an idea, but it may be stupid. I’m a murder cop, not a shrink, and I don’t have much in common with kids, apart from having been one a long time ago.”
“So run it past me,” Beth said. “Something from outside the box could be just what we need to bring her back.”
As they spoke, the vigilante killer known as The Clown was readying himself to make his way to torture and murder another man whom he had personally tried, judged and sentenced to death.
CHAPTER EIGHT
HE examined the finished mask and smiled. It was truly a work of art and would not have been out of place at the Carnival of Venice. Had he not created it for a specific purpose, he may have kept it and hung it on the wall of his lounge. The detail was outstanding. Perhaps it was a waste to place it on the face of the pervert, but then, the beauty of it would ‒ literally ‒ mask the ugliness within Craig Danby.
All set. Rascal had been fed and exercised, and was now on his bed in the corner. It was time to go and make the world a safer place for people to live in.
He wore a navy-blue parka, dark grey trousers, a black woollen beanie hat, and pulled on a pair of thin unlined leather gloves, before leaving the bungalow in his newly bought second-hand car; a small, tan-coloured Golf hatchback. Next to him on the passenger seat was a plastic supermarket shopping bag that held the mask, a length of strong cord, a roll of duct tape and a ball gag.
It was a short drive. He parked the car in a space two streets away from the shabby house where Danby lived in a bedsit. Stooping slightly, he made his way to it on foot, employing the cane and affecting a slight limp to appear physically impaired. The old and infirm were almost invisible to younger, able-bodied people. Certain lesser categories of the public at large became almost invisible to the masses, not registering in their minds. Anyone asked to describe him would only remember what appeared to be an elderly man with a bent back, limping along with the aid of a cane.
The outer door to the house was shut but not locked. There were metal post boxes affixed to the wall in the hall, and each had the room number and the name of the occupant on the front, written on slips of
paper in block capitals with a marker pen and inserted into small holders behind acetate.
Number two, in which Danby lived, was just at the end of the hall on the left. He walked up to the door, placed the bag on the floor and rapped on the wood with the handle of his cane.
“Police,” he said in a loud, firm voice. “Open the door, Danby, we need a word.”
Fuck! Now what? Craig thought as he closed the laptop, pushed it under the small two-seater settee and stood up. More hassle. The filth took a great deal of pleasure in harassing him. But he was behaving. Just looking at, fantasising about, but not touching young children, for the time being. There was no law against wanting to do something illegal.
Walking over to the door, Craig opened it expecting to see the smirking faces of a couple of uniformed coppers.
There was a blur of movement, which he instinctively pulled back from.
The heavy handle of the cane did not catch Danby flush on top of the skull to knock him senseless or at least daze him and cause him to drop to his knees. The rounded back of the ram’s horn connected with his forehead, to then break his nose as it whipped down to hit the floor in front of him.
Damn! He stepped inside the room and pushed the door closed behind him as his quarry put his hands up to cup his nose, which was spouting blood from both nostrils.
Craig blinked through watering eyes. Who the fuck was this guy? He wasn’t a copper. And then he recognised him as the stranger that had been sitting on a bench and staring at him as he walked past.
Backing up, Craig angled to the right to where the small cooker and sink and short length of countertop lined the back wall of the room. He edged behind the table and picked up the wooden rail back chair to defend himself with, as the man ran forward with the cane raised and used his left hand to throw the table up and back, to shoulder into the underside of it and smash Craig into the cooker, to pin him in place.