Death Bed

by Leigh Russell

  She half expected Chloe to comment when she unlocked the door to her own flat, but her niece just followed her in without a word, sat down and looked around the small square living room. ‘Nice telly,’ she commented. ‘Can we watch?’

  ‘No,’ Celia answered. ‘We’re here to see Aunty Geraldine and her new flat. It’s lovely, Geraldine. Are we going to get the tour?’

  ‘Come on, then,’ Geraldine smiled. ‘It won’t take long.’ Chloe jumped up and Geraldine took them from the living room to the kitchen with its small table, and then the bedrooms and bathroom.

  ‘That’s it! What do you think?’ she asked when they returned to the living room.

  ‘It’s very nice,’ Celia replied politely.

  ‘But - ?’

  ‘But nothing.’

  Celia hesitated.

  ‘It’s immaculate.’

  ‘You say that as though it’s a bad thing.’

  ‘No, not at all. But it’s like a show home. I mean, it’s like no one lives here.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Geraldine said, although she knew Celia hadn’t intended it as a compliment.

  ‘I’ve just moved in after all, give me time and I’ll manage to clutter it up a bit more.’

  They both knew that wasn’t true. Celia had said the same about Geraldine’s flat in Kent.

  ‘Well I like it,’ Chloe said.

  Geraldine smiled.

  ‘Thank you, Chloe. So do I.’

  ‘Can I phone Emma?’

  ‘No,’ Celia answered. ‘It’s rude to phone your friends when you’re in company. We’re here to see Aunty Geraldine. You can speak to Emma when we get home.’

  ‘But - ’

  ‘Come on,’ Geraldine said brightly. ‘Lunch is ready.’

  Chloe went to the bathroom after they had finished eating and as soon as she left the room Celia began speaking very quickly. ‘Are you alright, Geraldine? I mean, how are you settling in?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure. I mean, I’m pretty tired what with moving and everything, and the case is very time consuming - ’

  ‘Is it this killer who’s taking his victims’ teeth? It’s been on the news. Is that the case you’re working on?’

  ‘You know I can’t discuss my cases.’

  ‘I know. But - ’

  Celia glanced anxiously towards the door.

  ‘That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. I wanted to ask you - ’

  Geraldine felt uneasy, uncertain where this was heading.

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’

  She stood up but Celia reached out and put her hand on Geraldine’s arm.

  ‘Wait. I want to ask you something before Chloe comes back.’

  ‘Why don’t you call me and we can talk on the phone?’

  ‘You never answer your phone. Just listen will you?’ Geraldine sat down and they both looked at the door. As if on cue, Chloe came back in.

  ‘Mum, when are we leaving?’

  ‘You’ve only just got here,’ Geraldine said.

  ‘Thank you for lunch, Aunty Geraldine. It was really nice.’

  Celia sighed and took her mobile out of her bag.

  ‘Chloe, why don’t you go in the hall and phone Emma now that we’ve finished lunch?’

  ‘Yay! Thanks, mum.’

  Chloe grinned, grabbed the mobile and ran out into the hall, closing the door firmly behind her. Celia waited and after a moment they heard the faint noise of Chloe’s voice. Celia leaned forward and spoke softly.

  ‘I wanted to check you’re OK with the news. We haven’t really had a chance to talk.’

  ‘What news?’

  ‘About your adoption.’

  ‘Oh that. I haven’t thought about it much. Haven’t had time,’ Geraldine lied.

  She had decided against telling her sister she was searching for her birth mother. Celia had been very close to Geraldine’s adoptive mother. Her grief was still raw, and she might view it as a betrayal of their mother’s memory.

  ‘Are you sure? You’re not just saying that?’

  ‘Of course not. Why would I do that? Now, tell me about what’s going on with Chloe before she comes back.’

  They chatted for a while and then Celia called Chloe.

  ‘You’ve been on that phone long enough!’

  After a while Geraldine put the kettle on and they sat round the table drinking tea and eating chocolate cake until Celia announced it was time to leave.

  Geraldine was slightly ashamed at the relief she felt as she closed the door behind them and slumped on the sofa. Her conversations with Celia were always slightly strained, and she was glad to be alone again. When her phone rang she was pleased to hear the familiar voice of Ian Peterson, the detective sergeant she had worked with in Kent.

  ‘Thought I’d catch up with you, find out how it’s all going in the big city. I hope they’re keeping you busy?’

  His cheery tone lifted her mood and she told him as much as she could about the Palmer Henry case.

  ‘Sounds like you’re in your element, with a tricky case like that,’ he said when she finished.

  Geraldine knew he understood her frustration with an investigation that seemed to be going nowhere, but before she started bellyaching she asked about his fiancee. Ian had announced his engagement just before Geraldine left for London.

  ‘How’s the wedding plans?’

  ‘That’s partly what I’m calling about. We’ll be sending out invitations, but I’m ringing round to let people know we’ve fixed a date.’

  ‘That’s great, Ian. I’ll put it in my diary straight away.’

  He sounded so happy she no longer wanted to bleat about her problems.

  ‘So do you miss us?’ he laughed.

  ‘Not in the slightest. London’s great,’ she lied, and the conversation drifted back to his wedding arrangements.

  ‘To be honest, I’m leaving everything to Bev, it’s more her sort of thing. I’d invite you to the stag do, but - ’

  She laughed and assured him there was no way she would have accepted. She hoped he didn’t realise that wasn’t true.

  After he rang off Geraldine felt a stab of guilt at the realisation that she missed the sergeant more than she missed her sister, but she had worked closely with Ian Peterson and besides, although she and Celia had been raised in the same family they weren’t really sisters. Since she had discovered she was adopted her childhood memories had felt like a sham. Her mother, her father and Celia had colluded in constructing a life for her based on a lie. And now, among all the people she had questioned about the deaths of Jessica Palmer and Donna Henry, at least one person was lying. There were so many lies, and they always led to trouble.

  Not that the truth was necessarily easy to face; it was hard to accept that the one blood relative Geraldine knew about didn’t want to see her. She sat down on her bed and took the photograph of her mother out of the drawer.

  ‘I’ll find you anyway,’ she whispered before putting it carefully away. The photograph was irreplaceable; her only link with her mother.

  For now.

  53

  A REGULAR CUSTOMER

  Geraldine arrived at Hendon early on Monday morning and reviewed the day that lay ahead of her. She had to write her decision log plus she had expenses claims and other paperwork to sort through, but she couldn’t face starting her week with tedious tasks that wouldn’t move the investigation forward. There was more important work to be done. Kilburn wasn’t far away and it was still early enough to drive there before the traffic built up, so she decided to go and question Eddy Hart before he went into work. Once he was out driving they probably wouldn’t be able to catch up with him until the end of the day, and she was keen to wrap up that line of enquiry so they could focus their resources on finding another possible lead, instead of wasting man hours checking out Robert Stafford’s alibi. Geraldine was convinced he hadn’t killed Jessica Palmer, and the sooner
they could eliminate him from the enquiry the better.

  She drove to the rundown estate in Kilburn where Eddy Hart lived. The door to his block of flats wasn’t locked and she entered the dingy hall and went up a narrow flight of stone stairs to the second floor. Hart’s flat had no bell so she rapped as loudly as she could, and after a few minutes a young man opened the door.

  ‘Are you Edward Hart?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s me.’

  His mouth hung slightly slack giving him a vacant expression. ‘Who are you then?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Steel.’

  She held up her warrant card, slightly surprised to see that he was barely thirty.

  ‘I’d like to ask you a few questions, Mr Hart.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  He didn’t seem curious.

  ‘I’m just having breakfast.’

  He waved a spoon he was holding.

  ‘Can I come in for a moment? It’s just a formality, only we’re hoping you might be able to help us with an investigation.’

  He hesitated.

  ‘Alright, come on in then, if you must,’ he said at last, ‘but I hope you don’t mind talking while I eat.’

  Geraldine followed him into a tiny kitchen where he sat down on the only stool and began scooping baked beans out of a tin. ‘I’ve been away,’ he said as though that explained his rudimentary eating arrangements. ‘Sorry, did you want to sit down? We can go in the other room if you like.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ Geraldine replied.

  He looked at his watch.

  ‘I’ve got to get off to work soon.’

  ‘I won’t keep you long. I’m interested in a friend of yours, Robert Stafford.’

  ‘Yeah, I know Robert, but he’s not exactly a friend. He’s my cousin.’

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  Eddy sucked on his spoon for a moment.

  ‘I don’t know. I was away last week.’

  He shoved the spoon in his mouth and looked up at Geraldine. ‘Is that it then? Only I’ve got to get off to work soon.’

  ‘Robert said he saw you on his birthday?’

  ‘Oh yeah, that’s right. Only it was my birthday, not his.’ Geraldine nodded. Stafford’s story checked out so far.

  ‘You’ll remember the date then.’

  ‘My birthday was on Friday but I saw Robert on the Saturday. He was working on the Friday or something, and anyway, I was out with some mates on my birthday. So I saw Robert the next evening. I was a bit hung over.’

  A grin transformed his slightly gormless look into a mischievous expression.

  ‘Where did you and Robert Stafford go on Saturday night?’

  Eddy gave her the name of the pub.

  ‘After that we got a takeaway and went back to his place and I crashed there because it was late. I do that sometimes, stay over, when neither of us has got work the next day. He’s got a spare mattress and he does a great fry-up for breakfast.’ He glanced miserably at the empty baked bean can in his hand.

  ‘So you were with Robert Stafford all night?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s right. On the mattress. I told you, he’s my cousin.’

  ‘Mr Hart, have you ever been a member of the National Front?’

  ‘The who?’

  ‘The National Front.’

  ‘They’re the ones who want to send all the immigrants packing?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He sucked on his spoon again before replying.

  ‘Well, I can’t say I totally disagree with them. Not that I’ve got anything against anyone, but there are just too many of them. I mean, we let anyone and everyone in and well, what about the rest of us?’

  ‘Have you ever joined the National Front or the BNP? Or attended any of their meetings?’

  ‘Me? No way. What would I want to do that for? I mean, I can’t see the point. Life’s complicated enough as it is. Poncing about on the telly, telling the rest of us what to do. What about all the money they waste? That’s our money, that is.’

  He stood up, tossed his empty can in the bin and dropped the spoon in among the dirty crockery in the sink.

  ‘Thank you, Eddy. You’ve been a great help.’

  Geraldine put away her notebook.

  ‘I’ll see myself out.’

  ‘No worries. Robbie in some sort of trouble with the law then, is he?’

  ‘Would that surprise you?’

  ‘Yes, as it happens, it would. He makes such a fuss about rules. Not that I don’t agree with him but he can go a bit over the top. You try cheating him at cards and you’ll soon know what I mean. And don’t get him started on benefit scroungers.’

  Not only because Sam would be disappointed that it was looking increasingly unlikely that Stafford was the killer, but also to satisfy her own misgivings, Geraldine went to the pub and the Indian restaurant Eddy had mentioned.

  The landlord of the pub recognised Stafford but couldn’t confirm when he’d been there.

  ‘It could have been a Saturday. It was a few weeks ago anyhow. Sorry I can’t be more precise, but we get lots of people coming through here of an evening.’

  The manager of the Indian restaurant was more helpful, because Stafford was a regular customer. It turned out that on the Saturday night in question, a transaction had gone through at half past midnight on Stafford’s credit card, confirming Eddy Hart’s account of the evening. Sam wouldn’t be happy. No one could seriously suggest that Stafford had sneaked out of his flat without his cousin noticing, dumped Jessica Palmer’s body in an alleyway near Tufnell Park station, and returned to Arsenal without his absence being noticed. Robert Stafford’s alibi had been confirmed for the night Jessica Palmer’s body was left in the alleyway in Tufnell Park, and they were back at square one.

  54

  LAST SEEN ALIVE

  ‘We have to find something on him,’ Sam insisted, her face twisted in irritation. ‘Until we nail that racist bastard, we have to keep looking. There must be something, otherwise we’ve got nothing to go on.’

  She wasn’t happy when Geraldine suggested they forget about Robert Stafford.

  ‘Forget about him? How can we forget about him? Come on, Geraldine, it must’ve been him. Who else could it have been? No smoke without fire and all that, and we know what he’s like. All we have to do is prove it. What if he was working with an accomplice?’

  Geraldine felt sympathy for the sergeant’s desperation. It would certainly be a relief to find evidence that would put Robert Stafford back in the frame. The media were whipping up a storm of absurd allegations. Stafford was a bouncer from the North. To make matters worse, his former association with the National Front had been unearthed. Several papers had already cited that alone as evidence of his guilt. But apart from the fact that it wouldn’t be right, there was simply no point going after the wrong man because without proof there was no case against him. Even the few officers who had never believed Stafford was guilty were dejected at the confirmation of his innocence, the prospect of more dull hard work that lay ahead, and the unspoken worry that they might never find the killer who had taken such macabre trophies from his victims.

  ‘We must redouble our efforts,’ Reg Milton said.

  Despite his upright carriage and manner of looking people straight in the eye he seemed uncertain.

  ‘Remember, the Met solves nearly all of its murder cases - ’

  ‘Ninety seven per cent,’ someone said.

  ‘And I’m not going to let this be one of the very few exceptions,’ the detective chief inspector went on. His words were positive but his voice had lost its characteristic vehemence.

  ‘So let’s put Robert Stafford out of our minds, get back to what we know and work from that.’

  Empty words. They didn’t need a pep talk, they needed information. Most murderers were identified because the police were able to trace them through their connection to their victims. If this killer was attacking people at random, it would require an interminable amount of cross-refe
rencing at the end of which they would probably come up with nothing. And while they were at a loss over where to look for the killer, he could be out on the streets eyeing up his next victim.

  A young constable suggested sending a female officer out to walk the streets at night pretending to be drunk.

  ‘That way we could catch him at it. The WPC’s wired and under surveillance, and as soon as he bundles her into his car we follow.’

  There was a brief discussion of the proposal before Reg Milton dismissed it.

  ‘We have no way of knowing when the killer is planning to abduct another victim, if ever. And if he does, we don’t know if he’s still going to be operating round here. And even if he is, it’s a vast area. We can’t afford to run a surveillance operation around every pub in North London. If we try this on a small scale, the chances are we’ll never be in the right place at the right time. It might sound like a good idea, but it would be a waste of resources.’

  ‘We’ve got to do something,’ the constable insisted.

  There was a faint murmur of assent.

  The detective chief inspector frowned.

  ‘What we have to do is keep looking. We can start by returning to the pubs where Jessica Palmer and Donna Henry were last seen alive and asking more questions. Perhaps we can jog someone’s memory.’

  ‘Perhaps we can’t,’ someone muttered, expressing the general mood of dissatisfaction.

  Geraldine went back to her office to check her messages. It wasn’t helpful for the boss to say work with what you know when they didn’t know anything. She felt as though she was standing on shifting ground. Supposedly skilled at understanding people, for more than three decades of her life she hadn’t known she was adopted, hadn’t even known her own name, and now despite all her training in listening to people, she had worked closely with Sam Haley for over two weeks without an inkling that the sergeant was a lesbian. At the end of the day she went to the Major Incident Room and found Sam tapping at a keyboard.

  ‘Let’s go for a coffee,’ Geraldine suggested.

  Sam leapt to her feet.