by Paul Finch
These initial three slayings constituted what investigators would later come to refer to as ‘the first string of murders’, primarily because they hadn’t yet fully adopted the Stranger’s trademark MO.
The ‘second string’ would commence within a few months. These would be more organised and less opportunistic in nature, and as they’d focus primarily on courting couples and doggers, would comprise the crimes for which the Stranger would best be remembered. He was clearly learning fast by this stage, because in these cases all the new victims were stalked beforehand, covertly and professionally. But he was also enjoying himself more – possibly because the females in these cases were ‘dressed for sex’, and because the very isolated locations in which he found them allowed him to take his time. Whatever the reason, the methods used to eliminate these latter victims were increasingly more gruesome, a wider variety of implements used, the females in particular suffering ever greater and more prolonged savagery.
Gemma perused the raw detail with her usual unemotional eye, though even for someone who had been physically present at several of the crime scenes, the final few photographs made harrowing viewing, while the accompanying medical reports were sufficient to put the most experienced homicide investigator off her lunch. Of course, in all this mass of information there were only three obvious connectors to the case Heck had just reported from the Lakes. As he’d said, the unsuccessful assault on the two walkers was vaguely similar to the successful assault on the two hitchhikers near Glastonbury. But that could be coincidental. Likewise the second possible connector, which was the blitz assault with the heavy stone; again, the use of such a crude weapon would not be atypical of the average opportunist offender. But the third connector was more difficult to dismiss.
Strangers in the Night.
The press had only come to dub the killer ‘the Stranger’ when the second string of murders was well underway and he’d settled on his targets of choice: sexual adventurers looking to hook up with strangers. But as far as Gemma was aware, that was the only reason they’d given him such a moniker. By pure chance, the song Strangers in the Night had happened to be on the radio during his final attack – the one in which she had been the intended victim – but the investigation team had never publicised this fact. The only other non-police person who could have known about it was the Stranger himself.
On its own, this fact perhaps wasn’t quite enough to chill the blood, but then Gemma would have been lying to herself if she didn’t admit she hadn’t spent at least some part of the last ten years wondering where the Stranger’s body lay.
Or if indeed it lay anywhere at all.
She ruminated on this for several minutes, before standing up, straightening her skirt and leaving her office. The main detectives’ office, or DO, as it was known, was located at the far end of the department’s main corridor and filled with chattering keyboards and idle discussion. As usual, about half the team were on base, and one of these was big, bearded Detective Sergeant Eric Fisher. SCU was not a cold-case unit, but Gemma always believed in keeping half an eye on the past, and it fell within DS Fisher’s remit, along with his many other analytical roles, to regularly review all their open and unsolved cases, particularly in response to new and possibly relevant info flowing in from more current enquiries.
‘Eric, what are you doing?’ Gemma asked.
He glanced up from the nest of paperwork over which he’d been slumped.
‘Homework, ma’am.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I’m at Winchester Crown tomorrow. Regina v Smallwood.’
‘If you’re giving evidence tomorrow, I’d have hoped you’d be on top of it by now.’
‘So would I.’
‘Yeah, well drop it for the time being.’
Fisher sat back, his swivel chair creaking beneath his vast girth. ‘Ma’am, I …’
‘This won’t take a minute.’ Gemma leaned with folded arms against the filing cabinets alongside him. ‘Strangers in the Night …?’
‘Okay … nice song.’
‘That’s all it means to you?’
‘Well …’ He adjusted his glasses as he pondered this. ‘Believe it was originally part of a movie score. Frank Sinatra released it sometime in the mid-60s …’
‘No comedians today, Eric, please.’
‘Sorry, ma’am.’ He pawed the spillage of paperwork on his desk. ‘Always get nervous when I’m going to Crown. Just trying to lighten the load. Erm …’ He squinted as if it would help him recollect. ‘The Stranger referred to it as his tune, or something like that … on the night you shot him.’
Gemma pursed her lips. ‘Who else knew about that, Eric?’
‘Aside from a select few in the Stranger taskforce, and SCU, no one.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
‘That intel’s accessible via SCUA and HOLMES 2, but only if you know what you’re looking for beforehand. If I remember rightly, a strategic decision was taken back in 2004 to withhold that specific detail from the public.’
‘That’s correct,’ she said. ‘And no one has reversed that decision at any time since?’
‘Not to my knowledge.’
‘Okay, Eric … thanks for that.’ She moved to a big grimy window overlooking Victoria. It was shortly before noon, but the dull, damp greyness of late November pervaded the city. Many shop-fronts were lit, vehicles shunting along Broadway in a river of headlights.
‘Something wrong, ma’am?’ Fisher asked.
‘No, it’s okay.’
She didn’t elaborate, so he shrugged, spun around at his desk and recommenced his homework.
‘But I’m going to be away for a couple of days,’ she added as an afterthought.
He spun back again. ‘Anywhere nice?’
‘Normally, yeah. But at this time of year I’m not so sure. Cumbria.’
He arched a bushy, red-grey eyebrow. ‘You’re not by any chance seeing …?’
‘Don’t ask me that, Eric … okay? Just don’t!’
Immediately, she regretted her curtness. Two and a half months ago, Eric Fisher had only been one of several SCU detectives to express dismay that Heck, in his opinion the most proficient investigator in their team, was transferring north. In fact, despite Gemma having so adversarial a rep inside the National Crime Group that she was quietly referred to as ‘the Lioness’, the normally affable DS Fisher had been so forthright in his view that she’d ‘catastrophically mishandled’ her latest disagreement with Heck that she’d almost suspended him. She’d only resisted that ultimate sanction because she’d known where such impertinence stemmed from – a genuine conviction they were making a big error letting Heck leave.
‘Maybe,’ she admitted. ‘Possibly. Yes alright, probably.’
Fisher nodded, quietly pleased. ‘Cool.’
‘There’s nothing cool about it, trust me,’ she said. ‘I’d much rather stay here.’
‘You going up there alone?’
‘For the moment.’
He seemed puzzled. ‘So … what’s the case?’
‘There isn’t a case just yet. Not for us.’ Understandably, he looked none the wiser. ‘It’s a ghost if you must know, Eric.’ Sensing several others earwigging from different corners of the DO, she lowered her voice. ‘Can you believe that? I’m chasing a bloody ghost.’
Chapter 6
Though it was only a journey of twenty-five miles, it took the ambulance two hours to arrive at Cragwood Keld from Kendal. The last few miles saw it crawling along Great Langdale and uphill into Cragwood Vale at less than a snail’s pace. It was the worst fog any of the ambulance crew had seen, but you didn’t play Lewis Hamilton on these roads even in blazing sunshine. It would be similarly slow progress heading back to Kendal; despite having a seriously injured person on board, there would be no police escort to clear the way – Mary-Ellen’s Land Rover was still at Cragwood Ho, and though Heck intended to travel down to the hospital in his own car at the first opportunity, there were a c
ouple of things he needed to do up here first. But at least Tara Cook would now have health professionals alongside her and could be drip-fed painkillers.
Heck stood in the doorway of the nick and watched as the ambulance pulled slowly away, its tail-lights dwindling like fish-eyes sinking into ocean gloom. Only now, outside in the cold again, did it occur to him that he was still wearing damp, musty clothes. He turned to Mary-Ellen. She’d already got changed. Organised to a tee, there always seemed to be a second uniform pressed and ready in M-E’s wardrobe for occasions such as this.
‘I’m nipping to the Section House to get some dry togs,’ he said. ‘Can you knock on a few doors … get everyone over to the pub?’
‘Sure, but I thought you were going down to Kendal with the ambulance.’
‘I’ll follow the ambulance. I want to speak to everyone else first.’
‘No probs,’ she said, eagerly, still enjoying the unaccustomed action. ‘I’ll get up and at ’em.’ She strode off across the road.
It had often struck Heck as odd that an all-action character like Mary-Ellen had consciously sought reassignment to Cragwood Keld. He didn’t buy into her glib explanation that the moment she heard Heck was being posted here, she wanted to hook up with him because she’d read about his antics in the police press. It was a complex deal, swapping forces; the paperwork alone was off-putting. Heck knew, having done it several times. Plus, he couldn’t imagine what kind of action she’d thought she was going to get up here. Then again perhaps, as she’d also once said, she just loved the great outdoors.
‘I should have been a park-ranger, me, sarge,’ Heck remembered her once sniggering. ‘Gimme a horse, some buckskins and a whole range of empty mountains, and you can shag me any time you want.’
Promises, promises, he thought as he headed down a ginnel opposite the station which connected with the village green. So long as she got the villagers together, that would do for the time being. On the right, at the end of the ginnel, was ‘the Section House’, as they called it – a one-up/one-down built of whitewashed stone, which, as it had had no permanent occupant for years, had been refurbished and taken on a long-term rental by Cumbria Constabulary. As police digs went, the Section House was actually pretty good. Okay, it was a bit compact – split-level, with the lounge, diner and kitchen all crammed into a single space downstairs, while the ‘bedroom’ was actually a timber balcony, accessible only by a loft-type ladder. But it was double-glazed and centrally heated, and it had all the mod cons Heck could need.
He scrambled ‘topside’, as he thought of it, stripped off, towelled down, and then pulled on jeans, trainers and a hooded blue sweatshirt. As a rule, Heck tended not to view himself in mirrors anymore than he needed to. He was only in his late thirties, so he was hardly old, but his face had taken more than its fair share of kicks and punches over the years, and these days looked … well, ‘lived-in’ would be a polite way to describe it. At least he still had a full head of black hair, even if it was its usual unruly mop. He dragged a comb through it, before grabbing his phone, his radio and his cuffs, locked up and crossed the leaf-strewn green to The Witch’s Kettle, in which several of the villagers were already waiting.
Hazel and Lucy stood behind the bar, regarding him curiously. As Hazel was the only person offering bed and breakfast accommodation in the vicinity, Heck had rung her shortly after getting back to the nick with Tara, to check no visitors had arrived unexpectedly. The reply had come in the negative, but he hadn’t had time to elaborate further.
‘We got everyone?’ he asked, approaching the bar.
‘What do you mean?’ she said.
‘Where’s Mary-Ellen?’
‘Here,’ the PC said, coming in after him with another woman. This was Bella McCarthy, a former investment banker from the Home Counties who lived in the Lakes in early retirement with her husband, James. He was already present in the pub. She sat down alongside James at the foremost table, the pair of them in matching green wellies and waxed overcoats.
‘That’s everyone, sarge.’ Mary-Ellen sidled to the bar.
‘Good.’ Heck turned to face the crowd, who were also seated but watching him expectantly.
There weren’t too many of them actually. As well as the McCarthys, Ted Haveloc had arrived, along with Burt and Mandy Fillingham and a pair of spinster sisters, Dulcie and Sally O’Grady.
‘Hello, everyone,’ Heck said. ‘Thanks for dropping what you were doing and getting over here so promptly. By the way, does anyone here not know who I am?’
There was no reply. He was pretty sure he’d spoken to all of these people, for various reasons, over the past two and a half months. ‘Okay … I’ll get right to the point. I’m afraid there’s been an incident. A pretty vicious attack in fact, not too far from here. Two young girls were walking in the Pikes when they were assaulted. Just the other side of the tarn, in fact.’
The crowd listened in stony silence. But already, worried frowns were appearing.
‘I’m not saying there’s a specific threat to this community,’ Heck added. ‘But I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t at least warn you. We’ve no idea who the perpetrator is, but this was fairly serious violence. On top of that, we’ve got reason to believe he may be armed.’
‘You mean with a gun?’ Burt Fillingham said, looking uncharacteristically bewildered. He was a short, squat man in late middle-age, with thinning, straw-blond hair and a curious line in tank-tops, ties and tinted spectacles; he was normally a rather superior, disapproving character, who viewed himself as an authority figure. He certainly knew everybody else’s business, which sort of went with the postmaster territory, Heck supposed, at least in a rural enclave like this.
‘Yes,’ Heck said. ‘We don’t know what kind yet, or how much ammunition he’s got … or even how willing he is to use it. The thing is, this attack occurred sometime last night. On which subject, I don’t suppose anyone heard anything out of the ordinary?’
‘I heard what sounded like a gunshot?’ Sally O’Grady said in a querulous tone. Around fifty, she was the younger of the two sisters by about ten years, and by far the most nervous, but both were physically similar to each other; tall and thin, with short grey hair. ‘It was a long way off though, I thought.’
‘What time would that have been?’ Heck asked. ‘Early hours maybe? Four o’clock? Five?’
‘Oh no, much earlier than that. I’d say around midnight.’
‘Okay.’ Heck threw a discreet nod at Mary-Ellen, who nodded back, acknowledging that he wanted her to take a statement from Sally later.
‘You folks don’t need me to tell you how vast and empty the Lakes can be at this time of year,’ Heck said. ‘I mean, this guy … he could have legged it in any direction. He could be miles and miles away by now. He might even have left the county. We’ve no clue about his transport capability.’
‘If this attack was up in the Pikes in the middle of the night, he must be a robust sort.’ This came from Ted Haveloc, a rugged, sun-wizened character, whose tattoos, broken teeth and chaos of wiry grey hair indicated a life spent largely outdoors and made him look much older than his sixty-two years.
‘We can’t make assumptions about anything,’ Heck replied. ‘We don’t know the first thing about him. We haven’t even had a chance to get up there and look yet.’
‘The attack happened at around midnight, and you haven’t been up there looking?’ Burt Fillingham said.
‘The fog’s impeding our best efforts, but the latest forecast is that it’s due to clear by around midday tomorrow.’
‘That’s twenty-four hours off,’ Bella McCarthy said. ‘What do we do in the meantime?’ She was a tall, trim blonde of around fifty-five, always decked in the latest rural fashions and a famous local sportswoman, playing a prominent role at the Cragwood Boat Club. But at present she sounded so dismayed that her small-statured husband, who despite his dyed brown, crimped hair, was ten years her senior, took her jewellery-coated hand in his. James McC
arthy was another boat enthusiast and one-time big noise in the City, and yet was inclined to extreme mousiness in his wife’s presence, which might explain why she seemed less than impressed by his attempts to comfort her.
‘That’s what I’ve gathered you all for,’ Heck said. ‘As I say, I’ve no reason to assume this man will come down to Cragwood Keld. Most likely he’ll be far away by now. But it’s not impossible. I mean, the Cradle Track is the most direct route up into the Pikes. It’s also the most direct route down.’
‘But would he really come this way?’ Mandy Fillingham – Burt’s plain, dumpy wife – asked, evidently seeking reassurance. ‘I mean, knowing there are villages here and people … and that he’s wanted by the police?’
‘I don’t know,’ Heck said. ‘The best advice I can give you at present is to go home and lock your doors and windows. Report anyone wandering the village who you don’t know, and certainly don’t admit anyone to your house. In fact, don’t even open the front door until you’ve looked through your peephole or living-room window and established who it is.’
‘So we’re prisoners in our own homes?’ Bella McCarthy said.
‘Kind of,’ Mary-Ellen agreed.
‘Oh my God!’ Sally O’Grady looked appalled to hear it in such bare terms.
‘Sally!’ her sister said warningly.
‘But only until tomorrow,’ Mary-Ellen added.
‘Assuming the fog clears tomorrow,’ Bella retorted. ‘I mean this is the Lake District, you know. And it is November.’
‘Bella, there’s zero chance of this guy coming here,’ Mary-Ellen said.
‘How can you say that if you don’t know anything about him?’
‘The thing is, Mrs McCarthy,’ Heck said, ‘you’ve got a police office right in the middle of Cragwood Keld. I can’t stress how unusual that is in this day and age. It exponentially reduces the chance of an offender setting up shop here. You’ve got officers right on the spot.’ He indicated Mary-Ellen. ‘PC O’Rourke and I will remain permanently on duty until this guy is arrested or until we can be absolutely sure he’s left the area.’