The Jigsaw Man

by Nadine Matheson

  Henley was sure of two things when she closed down the file. Carole Lewis had known her killer and she had arranged to meet him.

  Alan Lewis wasn’t much of a looker. His thinning grey hair was pulled back tightly into a ponytail. The skin on his scalp was red and flaky. His brown eyes, which sat uncomfortably on folds of pale white skin, darted up from Henley’s warrant card to her face. He licked his thin lips before he answered.

  ‘I’m busy. Can’t this wait?’

  ‘Well, I’m more than happy to chat to you here,’ replied Henley, sitting on the white, crackled Formica-covered table.

  The security gate beeped manically in unison with Alan’s irritated puffs as he walked through them and headed towards the door.

  ‘So, it’s not enough that I’ve got to put up with you lot fronting up at my house whenever you feel like it and turning the place upside down, but I’ve got to put up with you turning up at my place of work as well,’ said Alan as he walked in the direction of the large pond that was flanked with Canada geese. He stopped at a bench and pulled out a bag of tobacco and cigarette papers. ‘Where’s that other one? The brunette. Sergeant Lancaster.’

  ‘I’m not with Wood Green CID.’ Henley walked around Alan and sat down on the bench. The view of the pond was more enticing than a court building that had once housed unwanted children.

  ‘Who are you with then?’

  ‘The Serial Crime Unit.’

  Alan stopped rolling up his cigarette and flakes of tobacco floated down onto the grass. ‘Why on earth would you lot want to speak to me?’

  ‘Because I don’t think that I’m sitting here talking to Carole’s murderer, that’s why. I’ve got a few questions for you and a request.’ Henley kept her eyes focused on the geese making their way into the water.

  ‘You believe me. You believe that I didn’t kill her?’

  Henley turned to look at Alan just in time to see his shoulders sink with relief.

  ‘They had me in that police station for over two days. Do you know what it’s like to sit in a cold cell where you can smell your own piss and shit and then they have the bloody cheek to ask you if you want breakfast?’

  Henley waited until Alan had regained his composure. ‘Your wife. How long were you married for?’

  ‘Six years.’ Alan pulled a lighter out of his back pocket and sat down on the other end of the bench. ‘I met her… I met her in the park.’

  Henley noticed the hesitation in his voice. ‘What were you doing in the park when you met her?’

  ‘The sort of activities that don’t involve an actual dog, if you get my meaning, Inspector.’

  Henley didn’t ask him to elaborate.

  ‘We met up a few times. I asked her out for a drink. She was nice, we liked the same things and the rest is history.’

  ‘Her body was found in the park in Highgate Woods.’

  ‘I know. We agreed that when we got married that we would stop the dogging and we did for about five months; but then she wanted to go back. It’s like she needed the attention. I didn’t want to share her but she’s… was stubborn. I wasn’t enough for her. I just wanted her to be careful. I would take her, not to watch because I’m not into that now, but I knew that there were times when she went on her own.’

  ‘So, when she didn’t come home you weren’t surprised.’

  ‘No, I was. She always came home. She was good like that. I have a second job. I work security at a club in Kings Cross. I would get home from there about 4 a.m. and she was always home by 4.30. That was the time the buses would start running again. The morning she didn’t come home, I knew something was wrong. I called her phone, but it kept ringing. I went to the park to look for her, but she wasn’t in the usual place. I called the police and told them that she was missing but they just shrugged it off. And then later in the afternoon that bloody DS Lancaster was at my front door.’ Alan took a long drag of his cigarette.

  ‘You told DS Lancaster that you were with Dawn Bradley the night your wife was killed but your alibi didn’t check out.’

  ‘Have you met Dawn’s husband? I’m not surprised that she denied it. Knowing Dawn, she must have used a different name.’

  ‘Did Carole ever talk to you about being a juror on the Peter Olivier murder trial?’

  ‘Did she talk about it? She wouldn’t shut up about it. She thought that she was so important traipsing up to the Old Bailey every day.’

  ‘What did she tell you about it?’

  ‘I told you. Everything. That she was a juror on the Jigsaw Murderer case. How he cut up the bodies. How attractive she thought that Olivier guy was, that he was—’ he grimaced. ‘Charming? Can you imagine? There were times that I actually thought she was sick in the head.’

  ‘What about the other jurors? Did she ever talk about them?’

  Alan flicked the butt of his cigarette towards the water’s edge. ‘A couple. She talked about a girl called Zoe. They used to meet up for drinks sometimes.’

  ‘Anyone else?’ Henley scribbled the information down in her notebook.

  Alan rubbed at the greying bristle on his chin. ‘There was some woman that she couldn’t stand. Called her Agatha Christie on cocaine. Then there was him.’

  Henley stopped writing. ‘Him?’

  ‘I can’t remember his name. But he used to phone her all the time. I took a look at her phone and I saw the text messages from him.’

  ‘Was she sleeping with him?’

  ‘She denied it, but the things that he was saying. You don’t talk that way unless you’ve been intimate. Do you know what I mean?’

  ‘Can you remember his name?’

  Alan shook his head. ‘Nah.’ He glanced down at his watch. ‘How much longer is this going to take?’

  ‘I’m nearly done. I just need your permission.’

  ‘Permission for what?’

  ‘To exhume your wife’s body.’

  Alan’s face paled. ‘What the fuck for?’

  ‘We believe that her murder might be connected to a series of murders that the SCU is currently investigating.’

  ‘You want to dig her up?’ He shook his head in disbelief, the cigarette smouldering away between his fingers. ‘And you think that this same person killed my Carole?’

  ‘It’s a possibility, but we can’t be sure until we—’

  ‘Dig her up?’

  Henley nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘What you apologising for? You didn’t kill her.’ Alan stamped out the cigarette on the bench and flicked the butt towards the pond. He breathed out so sharply that it sounded like a whistle. ‘Fine. Do it. Do what you need to do. As long as it puts me in the clear, you can dig her up.’

  Chapter 52

  ‘Surprised to see me?’ Olivier leaned against the door frame and pushed the hood off his head.

  ‘I… er… what the…’ Blaine was in shock. He looked past Olivier to see if there was anyone in the hallway. ‘How did you get into the block?’ he asked. He turned off the light in his flat, hopeful that might just make the man standing in front of him… disappear.

  ‘The security in this building is lax. Any ol’ Tom, Dick or Harry could walk in off the street.’ Quick as a flash, Olivier pushed past Blaine and entered the flat, turning the light back on.

  ‘I told you that the police have already been to see me,’ Blaine said. He followed Olivier but hesitated in the doorway, reluctant to be in the same room as him. ‘They’ve been calling me, checking up on me. They could have someone watching me right now, you don’t—’

  ‘Calm. The. Fuck. Down,’ Olivier said. He opened the fridge, took out a can of beer and opened it. ‘You’re giving me a headache.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be here.’

  Olivier eyed him over the can. ‘I’m not staying. I just need something from you.’

  Blaine couldn’t think what Olivier could possibly want from him when the police already had their eyes on him. ‘Like what?’ he finally asked. Olivier stepped forward qu
ickly, causing Blaine to jump back.

  ‘Why so jumpy?’ he laughed. ‘You had no problem with me when you were coming to see me inside. Look,’ – Olivier held up his hands – ‘no handcuffs this time.’

  Blaine finally mustered up the courage to turn his back on Olivier. He walked into his small living room and checked that the curtains were tightly closed. Olivier sat down and stretched out on the sofa. Blaine stood by the window, unsure what to do.

  ‘Everyone’s looking for you.’ Blaine moved across the room and sat down in his armchair, as far away from Olivier as he could get.

  ‘I’m aware of that,’ said Olivier. ‘But one thing I’ve learnt is that the police never look in the most obvious places.’

  ‘What do you want from me?’ Blaine couldn’t hide the tremor in his voice.

  Olivier sighed heavily and dropped his head back onto the cushions. ‘Have you got a decent Indian round here?’ he asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Indian. Food. Takeaway. A little man on a moped who will deliver it to your house.’

  ‘Yeah, there is, but—’

  Olivier jumped to his feet, took hold of Blaine’s neck and pushed him hard against the wall.

  ‘You’re probably thinking that you should have left,’ Olivier whispered into Blaine’s ear and squeezed his fingers around his throat. ‘You should have packed your little wheelie bag and disappeared the second you heard I was out.’

  Olivier released his grip. Blaine coughed, the sharp intake of air rattling his chest.

  ‘They’re going to think I helped,’ Blaine said weakly as he slid to the floor. ‘I can’t go back inside.’

  ‘I don’t think you have much of a choice. They’ll pin something on you.’ Olivier walked over to the sofa and picked up a laptop. ‘How do you think this copycat feels about me being out? Will he be pleased, or will he be pissing his pants like you? It might even turn him on.’

  ‘I don’t… I have no idea,’ Blaine said. He coughed again and touched his bruised neck gingerly.

  ‘My original case files, your notes from my trial. The papers from your own trial. Are they here? You said you kept everything,’ asked Olivier.

  Blaine nodded and pointed at the files and folders held together by elastic bands on the bottom shelf of his bookcase.

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘Everything,’ Blaine replied, his voice hoarse.

  ‘Good.’ Olivier opened the laptop and pressed a button. ‘Password please. Hurry up, I won’t bite.’

  Blaine hesitantly stood up, walked over and entered his password.

  ‘Thank you kindly.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ Blaine asked.

  Olivier didn’t answer. He continued to type away and drink his beer. After a couple of minutes, he looked Blaine square in the eye and said, ‘I am helping the police with their enquiries.’

  Chapter 53

  Daniel Kennedy. Zoe Darego. Sean Delaney and Carole Lewis. The names were written in red removable ink on the whiteboard.

  ‘You’re absolutely sure that Lewis needs to be on the board?’ asked Pellacia. Henley glanced over at Ramouter who was staring at their boss, his eyes wide with disbelief.

  ‘Of course she’s sure,’ Joanna said before walking past and dumping a pile of papers on Ramouter’s desk.

  ‘I’m just playing devil’s advocate,’ Pellacia continued. ‘We’ve got a gap of four months between Lewis’s murder and Kennedy and Darego being found. Then we have how they were killed. Kennedy, Darego and Delaney were all dismembered. Lewis wasn’t – her throat was cut.’

  ‘It was a bit more than her throat being cut.’ Henley pulled a large evidence bag filled with letters towards her. ‘Whoever it was almost cut her head off. It may have been a more opportunistic killing but there was still a degree of planning involved. My gut tells me that she went to that park expecting to meet somebody specific, someone she knew. I just don’t know who.’

  ‘Your gut isn’t enough, I’m afraid. What about the DNA that was found on her?’ asked Pellacia. ‘Any matches?’

  ‘There were two, her husband and Gary Wilkins. Stanford arrested and interviewed Wilkins last night. He admitted to having sex with Carole earlier that night. He says it wasn’t the first time and that she was one of the regulars who met in Highgate Woods. He says that he was already at work at the time Carole was murdered but he’s changed jobs since then and Stanford is having trouble finding his old site manager. The third was unidentified.’

  ‘Is it possible that our killer is one of the other men she slept with?’

  Henley shook her head. ‘We can’t rule it out, but the DNA from the unidentified match was found under Lewis’s fingernails and from the dried semen on her legs. It wasn’t found inside of her. I don’t think that our killer had penetrative sex with her.’

  ‘I know that we’re looking at Blaine and now this Gary Wilkins as viable suspects, but what about the other two jurors who were done for contempt? They’re part of the reason why the original trial fell apart. Have you spoken to them?’ Pellacia asked Ramouter.

  ‘Pine works full time as a paramedic, so it’s been a bit tricky arranging to meet him because of his shift times, but we’re seeing Naylor later; not that he was pleased about it.’

  ‘How far did you get with tracing the other jurors?’ Pellacia asked.

  ‘It took most of the morning, but I found them,’ Ramouter said. ‘There’s a couple that we don’t have to worry about for the time being. Naomi Spencer is in Vietnam on honeymoon. She left about a month ago and is not due back for another two and a half weeks. Kushal Bollasingham is serving a sentence at High Down. Eighteen months for benefit fraud. He’s scheduled for early release next April. Then we’ve got Hamilton Bryce. He moved to Manchester last year. I asked him if he had been in touch with any of the jurors after the trial and he confirmed that he hasn’t.’

  ‘Hopefully, we don’t have to worry about Bryce. With the exception of Lewis, our copycat seems to be confining his movements to south London, but we should still ask Greater Manchester Police to keep an eye on him,’ Henley suggested.

  Pellacia nodded his agreement.

  ‘That just leaves Alessandro Naylor, Jessica Talbot, Dominic Pine and Michael Kirkpatrick,’ said Ramouter, folding his list in half. ‘What do we now? We can’t just rock up at their front doors and tell them that they’re possible targets for a serial killer.’

  ‘We’re going to have to.’

  ‘What did the UKPPS say about protecting the remaining jurors?’ asked Pellacia.

  Henley groaned as she recalled her infuriating conversation with Gia Mapess, the London director of the UK Protected Person Services.

  ‘She was more concerned about policy and procedure than applying her common sense,’ said Henley. ‘They need to review the case in order for them to assess the level of threat against our jurors.’

  ‘A serial killer running around London isn’t enough of a threat?’ asked Pellacia.

  ‘Not until they say so and then it’s up to the jurors to give their consent as to what sort of protection they want; personal alarms, police patrols—’

  Henley was interrupted as the phone on her desk began to ring. She recognised the number on the display; it was Anthony’s direct line.

  ‘What’s happened to your mobile?’ said Anthony. ‘You weren’t picking up, so I thought I’d try to get you the old-fashioned way.’

  Henley cradled the phone into her neck, reached into her bag and pulled out her mobile. There were five missed calls from Anthony, but the phone was on silent mode. ‘Sorry about that. So what’s the urgency?’

  ‘Your head.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Your head. The one that was unceremoniously dumped at your house. I’ve got an ID for you. Check your email.’

  Henley woke up her computer and opened the attachment in Anthony’s email. The man looking back at her was smiling. The curls of his thick black hair fell onto his forehead. He looked
like he was in mid-twenties.

  ‘His name is Elliot Shen Cheung. Twenty-four years old when he disappeared,’ Henley enlarged the photo on the smartboard. ‘The e-fit was circulated and went live on the Missing Persons Unit website last week. About two hours ago the unit received an alert that there was a possible identification.’

  ‘So who is he?’ asked Ramouter. ‘And what did he do to Olivier?’

  ‘Originally from Hong Kong,’ Henley continued. ‘Came over when he was eighteen to go to university in Cardiff. He moved to London when he graduated and was working for an advertising firm in Hoxton Square. He was reported missing by a friend a week before his body, minus his head, was discovered, but apparently no one had seen him for at least two weeks prior to that.’

  ‘What about his employers? They didn’t think that it was odd that he hadn’t turned up for work?’ asked Pellacia.

  ‘They said it wasn’t the first time that a junior member of staff hadn’t bothered to turn up,’ said Henley.

  ‘Who made the identification?’ asked Ramouter.

  ‘The MPU received two alerts. The first alert came from a Tanya Dunnett. She was Elliot’s girlfriend, but they broke up about a week before he disappeared.’

  ‘And the second?’

  Henley could feel the scars on her stomach tightening as she examined the photograph of a smiling Elliot Cheung who was now lying in six separate parts in the mortuary.

  ‘It was Peter Olivier.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ said Pellacia. ‘Peter Olivier contacted the MPU?’

  ‘He didn’t call them. It was done yesterday afternoon, via the website. I’ve already spoken to Ezra and he’s trying to track the IP address that Olivier used.’

  ‘If it was Olivier,’ said Pellacia. ‘There are some strange people out there. For all we know, it could be someone claiming to be him.’

  ‘It’s a possibility,’ Henley agreed. ‘But I wouldn’t put anything past Olivier. The most important thing is that we’ve got an identification.’

  ‘So, who the hell is Elliot Cheung?’ asked Pellacia. ‘I don’t remember coming across that name when we were looking at the rape allegations that Olivier made.’