by Michael Kerr
Could Julie be an exception to the rule? Was she worth trying to save? Or was she too much of a liability? She could be his undoing. Commonsense urged him to act quickly, dispose of her in the canal and return the purpose-built holding room to a loft full of junk.
‘That won’t be enough. They’ll examine the circumstances of my murder again, and look at the possibility of it being you who cut my throat, and framed Leroy. Your victims have in the main been redheads who practised the oldest profession. You need to vanish and start over. This place is no longer safe. Kill the bitch and get the hell away from here’.
Lucas curled up in a tight ball and thought it through. Just when he thought he might have found something to cherish, life was conspiring to take it away from him.
CHAPTER-THIRTY-THREE
None of Carrie’s neighbours had seen any stranger approach her house.
DCs Mark Jones and Errol Chambers backtracked. Showed the enhanced stills of the suspect to staff at the tube station in Morden, then drove to Stockwell and repeated the process.
“You have any idea just how many commuters pass through here every day?” Eileen Cully said to Errol. “I don’t look at people, I just the take the money and issue tickets. I’d do better looking at photographs of hands.”
They were getting nowhere in a hurry. This was the basis of police work, wearing down shoe leather and talking to people, hoping to get the break that would bring them nearer to their quarry.
As they had done at Morden, they left Stockwell with a copy of a duty roster given to them by the station manager. All staff that had been on duty on or after five p.m. the previous day at both stations would be interviewed.
“Let’s grab a coffee,” Mark said to Errol as they came out into the sunlight. “I need a jag of caffeine to get my wheels turning.”
Mark had been down to his local rugby club the previous evening and hung one on. It wasn’t that he was a fanatical supporter of the game. But it was a gathering place for fellow Welshmen. He still spoke the language, and had fierce national pride.
“Okay, boyo,” Errol said in a West Indian/Welsh accent that probably had Richard Burton turning in his grave. “There’s a Starbucks over there, isn’t it?”
Mark grinned. “Stop taking the piss, Errol. I don’t try to sound like some Jamaican gangsta rapper when I talk to you.”
“That’s because you are one seriously uncool dude, my man. You couldn’t rap to save your skin.”
“I would rather lose my skin than try. Your idea of music is some no-talent ex-yardie talking bullshit to a moronic beat. What do you do on a Saturday night, limbo dance and listen to tone deaf morons banging oil drum lids with animal bones?”
“Better than shagging sheep in the valleys, and belonging to a poncy male voice choir.”
The banter between the two men continued until they were sitting at a counter with their double lattes.
“He had to have transport,” Mark said. “If he followed the transit here, then where did he leave his vehicle?”
They both looked across the street to the NCP car park almost facing the tube station. Hurried their coffee and hotfooted it over to the entrance, to walk around the barrier and approach the guy in the booth.
Mark flashed his warrant card for the silver-haired attendant to inspect.
“So what do you think I can help you with?” Roy Dern said.
“Were you on duty yesterday, sir?” Errol said.
“Not till eight in the evening. And I’m only still here now because my relief went sick. I offered to do a double shift to get tonight off.”
Mark pulled out the photocopy and opened it up. “You recognise this guy?”
Roy studied the picture. He was not a regular civvie. Roy had been a prison officer, after doing a nine year stint in the paras. The face was somehow familiar. He mentally erased the moustache. Just concentrated on the general shape of the face and the nose, mouth and chin.
“I couldn’t swear to it in court, mind, but a guy who picked up his van last night looked a lot like this. He didn’t have a ‘tache, and was wearing shades and a baseball cap. Looked as if his nose was busted. He seemed uptight and in a hurry.”
Mark and Errol could have kissed the man, but didn’t. Mark showed him another mugshot with the moustache airbrushed out.
“That’s more like him,” Roy said.
“Who would have been on duty at five p.m., sir?” Mark said.
“Zubi...Zubi Rawi. We all call him Mowgli. You know, like in Jungle Book.”
Errol felt his stomach knot. “What did he call you?”
“Er, Roy. Why?”
“Not whitey, or honkey?”
“Hey, back off, Officer. I ain’t a racist. Used to be, back in the seventies and early eighties when I was pounding the landings at Brixton. I’m like a lot of people I know. But you gotta change with the times.”
“You got this Zubi’s address and a contact number?” Mark said.
Roy nodded. “Yeah. He only lives a coupla streets from here. I think he and his family share a terrace with half of New Delhi, or wherever the hell they come from.”
After jotting down Zubi’s and Roy’s details and being told that the suspect had driven out in an old green panel van that might have been a Nissan, Mark and Errol strolled the short distance to the Rawi household.
Mark could smell curry before they knocked on the door. A small man wearing a string vest and sweat pants opened it.
“Yes. What is it you are wishing to sell?”
Mark held up his warrant card. “Nothing, sir,” he said. “We need to have a word with Zubi Rawi.”
“My son-in-law is not in any trouble, I hope. He is a good, hardworking boy.”
“We think he may be able to help us, sir,” Errol said. “Is he in?”
The man nodded solemnly. “Zubi,” he shouted over his shoulder. “There are some visitors here who wish to talk with you.”
A slim young Asian came along the hall from the rear of the house.
Zubi knew that they were police. They had a certain aura of authority about them that could not be mistaken. He had done nothing wrong, but still felt nervous. It was a fact of life that interest from the law equated to the investigation of a crime, or the news that something bad had happened.
“How can I help you?” Zubi said, looking at the men’s faces but reading nothing in their impassive expressions.
“May we come in?” Mark said. “We just have one or two questions to ask you.”
“Please come this way, gentlemen,” the grey-haired father-in-law said, beckoning them to follow him into a small reception room leading off from the hall.
They sat on a cowhide settee, and it crossed Mark’s mind that the now long-dead beast had not benefited from being regarded as a sacred animal back in India. Integration had the side effect of diluting cultural differences. He had seen a documentary on Eskimos, to be left a little disheartened to learn that they lived in prefabricated houses these days, drank Coke, watched satellite TV and rode about on Skidoos. The world was getting smaller, less interesting in his view, and was little more than a melting pot that might eventually lead to a loss of all diversity. He didn’t know if that would be a good or bad turn of events. Not his problem. He would be long gone before it came to pass.
“Can you confirm that you are Zubi Rawi, that you are employed by NCP, and that you were at your place of work at and after five p.m. yesterday evening?” Errol said.
Zubi nodded animatedly. “Yes to all those points, Officer,” he replied.
“We need to trace a guy who might have parked-up in a hurry. Could have been wearing a ball cap and shades,” Mark added.
“Was he driving a green van?” Zubi said.
Errol sat forward, hands clasped between his knees. “You tell us, Mr. Rawi.”
“Well, at a little after five o’clock, a man drove in, braked hard, jumped out of his vehicle and approached me. He said that he had an emergency and asked if I would park his
van for him. I did.” Zubi omitted to mention that he had accepted cash to do the stranger the favour.
Mark showed him the clean-shaven version of the suspect. “This ring a bell?”
“Yes. It looks very much like him.”
Mark pressed. “Where did he go, Mr. Rawi?”
“That is something I cannot help you with, Officer. He ran out into the street. I heard a car horn. He might have been crossing the road, perhaps to the underground station, but that is only a possibility.”
“Can you tell us the make of the van?” Errol said.
“Yes. It was an old Nissan. And before you ask, I did not have any reason to look at the registration.”
They left feeling a sense of jubilation. The new information virtually proved that Carrie had been followed by the same man who had murdered Marsha Freeman and attempted to blackmail Villiers. Their suspect was with little doubt a tattooist who Carrie had made contact with. All they had to do was put the creep and van together and it was a made case.
Mark used his mobile to call Matt.
“I think we just found ourselves the scent of a Wolf, boss,” he said.
“Is that a riddle, Mark?”
“No. We got him ID’d at an NCP opposite the tube in Stockwell. He parked his van there, or to be more specific, had the attendant park it for him. He took off like a scalded cat. Must have been following Carrie. If you get DVLC to put one of the suspect tattoo artists in bed with a green Nissan panel van, we can go pick him up.”
“Good work. We’ll be able to get CCTV. You and Errol get back to base. We’ll dot the i’s and wrap this case.”
Matt told Pete to do the necessary with Swansea, and went up to Tom’s office and spelt it out.
“So we put a man and a van together and we have a serial killer?” Tom said.
“Yeah. Good old-fashioned investigative work. Cops on the street following their noses.”
“What about the Spencer woman? If this works out, she could be pig in the middle. How do you take him without losing her? If she’s still alive.”
“It’ll be your call, Tom. For once this isn’t personal for me. All we can do is hit him hard and fast. He’ll think he’s too smart to be found. With any luck he’ll be busy doodling on some punter when we walk in on him. And even if we knew he was holding her, we couldn’t negotiate with him. It’s shit or bust with this head-banger. Talking to him gave me the impression that he’s the type who would rather go out in a blaze of what he might regard as glory.”
“We need him alive, Matt. He may have the woman stashed in a lockup or somewhere well away from where he lives.”
“That would be his last laugh on us, Tom. He would let her starve to death before telling us where to find her. That way he would still have power over events. We don’t have anything to offer him. It isn’t like some of the states in the US, where they can use the death penalty as a stick, and offer life without parole as a carrot.”
“I just don’t like to think of the woman ending up as collateral damage.”
“Neither do I, but that’s how it might play out.”
They both went silent. Knew that sometimes you couldn’t have the cake and eat it. In the real world innocents couldn’t always be saved.
The first ring of the phone on Tom’s desk startled them from bleak thoughts.
Tom picked up. “Bartlett.”
“It’s Deakin, sir. We have our Green Van Man. DVLC confirms that a guy by the name of Lucas Downey owns a green Nissan van. And Downey is the proprietor of a tattoo studio: Ink Magic by Lucas. It’s on Bertram Street off Shooters Hill Road in Blackheath. It was one of the premises that Carrie and the team covered.”
“Nice one, Pete.” Tom passed the phone to Matt and let the DS repeat what he had said.
After checking Downey out, Matt faced the assembled officers in the squad room. There was an excited murmur that you only heard when a case was coming together. The buzz of voices had a quality of nerve-jangling anticipation and expectation that seasoned cops rarely exhibited. They now had the bit between their teeth. Knew that they were on the last few furlongs, already stretching out for the winning post. It didn’t mean that victory was guaranteed, though. There was a last fence that could bring them down. It never paid to underestimate the opposition. The offender was also in the race, an unknown quantity with his own game plan. However airtight a case seemed to be, there was always a chance of things going belly-up. Until he was face down on the ground and cuffed, or if it came to it, stopped by a bullet, then that capricious finger of fate could fuck things up, big time.
“It’s not often we have all the pieces to play with,” Matt said to his team. “But this guy’s history doesn’t leave much doubt that he is the man that most of you refer to as the Wolf. His deceased mother was a redhead, one Brenda Downey, a known prostitute with a sheet as long as a football pitch. The file on her states that she was murdered by a live-in boyfriend, Leroy Brown, who also pimped for her. She had her throat cut, and Brown was found in the house, pissed as a rat with the knife in his hand. He took the fall, but with hindsight I think it was Lucas, a teenager back then, who did the deed and framed Brown.
“Lucas married a girl by the name of Sandra Scott. We don’t know why they split up, but we have a description. She was a younger version of his mother. The guy’s penchant for murdering redheads is probably tied in to a loathing of the two women. His ex-wife is currently remarried and living in Southend. Marci and Phil have gone to interview her.”
“When do we move in?” Dave Brent said.
“Soonest practicable moment. If he comes out in the open we grab him. If not, then we keep the place under surveillance, and try to get a team in next door to him. I want to hear and see whatever is in there. We can have sight and sound through the walls with the right equipment. If Julie Spencer is in situ and still alive, I want to keep her that way. It’s total containment for the time being.”
As if on cue, another phone rang and Errol answered it.
It was the man they were after.
“It’s the Wolf,” Lucas said. “Put Barnes on.”
Errol held the receiver up and waved it to get Matt’s attention. “It’s him,” he mouthed with an astonished look on his ebony face.
Matt took the call. “Yeah, what can I do for you?” he said in a quiet and offhand tone of voice.
“You can stop being cute, Barnes. I think you might have the dumb notion that you know who I am. Right?”
“If I knew your identity, then you wouldn’t be talking to me on the phone. You’d be sitting in front of me, charged with several murders.”
“I believe you’re playing games, Barnes. I made a mistake, and you don’t strike me as the type who would miss it.”
“That’s a first. An off-the-wall sociopath who admits to an error of judgement. I thought weirdos like you were incapable of acknowledging to being less than perfect in every way?”
“I’ve read up on you, cop. You have a knack of solving the big cases. I want you to know that I don’t rate you. You got lucky once or twice because the dickheads lost the plot and led you to them. I won’t be where you look. And as for Julie Spencer, don’t hold your breath. I might send you her head.”
Matt somehow managed to maintain his apparent air of detachment. “I don’t give a shit what you do,” he said quietly. “We wrote her off as soon as we knew you’d snatched her. It’s obvious that the only people you can have any meaningful relationships with are dead ones. I put you down as being a skinny little necrophiliac, who can’t get it up unless women are past being able to laugh at your scrawny body and―”
“You’ll regret badmouthing me, Barnes,” Lucas shouted. “I haven’t started yet. I’m going to make the likes of Bundy, Camargo and Chikatilo look like saints compared to me.”
“Everyone’s got to have a dream to aim for, Wolfie. Now, if you’re all through convincing me that you’re a totally fucked-up waste of space, I’ll get back to my coffee and doughnuts.�
�
Lucas bit halfway through his bottom lip. He was on the edge of losing all self control. No one had ever angered him as much as the self-satisfied cop was doing now. He faltered and was temporarily lost for words.
“What about your money?” Matt said. “You given up on it?”
A long pause.
“Keep it safe for me, Barnes. I’ll collect it when I’m good and ready.”
He pressed END on the stolen mobile, switched it off and hurled it out into the canal. Watched it pinwheel through the air, to send a moorhen flapping off across the scummy surface as the phone splashed and sank into the murky water.
Back at the van, he felt totally vulnerable. He could feel beads of sweat on his brow and upper lip. Barnes had been too cool. The bastard was hot on his trail. He wondered if he even had the time to tie up loose ends before bailing out. His walking, talking, living work of art was to have been the saving of him. A small part of his mind had considered starting over with Julie. They might have been good for each other. But it was not meant to be. She would have to be disposed of before he set fire to his home, business and van. He had no option now, and would have to drop out of circulation and reinvent himself.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
They played back the tape of the call. The threat that Downey had made to outdo serial killers of such infamy as Ted Bundy, and Daniel Camargo; The Beast of the Andes, and Andrei Chikatilo, the Russian mass murderer, was chilling.