by Adam Croft
‘Now, I want the two of you to go home. I can’t risk you fucking this investigation up at the last minute. You’ve both completed your actions, right?’
‘Yes,’ Wendy replied, quietly. ‘Just awaiting further instructions and preparing for tomorrow night, guv.’
‘Good,’ Culverhouse replied. ‘In that case, you can both consider your work on the case to be completed.’
‘What? But it’s not finished yet!’ Baxter pleaded.
‘I’m not kicking you off. I’m telling you I don’t have anything more for you to do. Tomorrow night will be a response situation for CID. It’s down to the officers on the ground to take over. We can manage without you both until the morning after. You can spend tomorrow evening, after you’ve both calmed down, meeting up in a pub somewhere and talking through your differences. Because if I’m going to hold this unit together, I bloody well need you both to cooperate.’
‘A pub?’ Wendy said, almost laughing. ‘Tomorrow night? With respect, guv, I’d rather be here working on the biggest case we’ve ever had rather than in a pub. And anyway, if the town’s being shut off we won’t be able to get near a pub.’
‘There are villages. You’ll manage. Now do as you’re told and fuck off.’
57
7th November
The lot of a journalist — aside from the long hours and terrible pay — was the balance between loyalty to her sources and loyalty to her job.
Suzanne Corrigan had been updated by DS Wendy Knight about the investigation, but on the strict proviso that none of it was to even be hinted at in the newspapers.
Wendy had told Suzanne some incomplete details in order to test the water. She trusted Suzanne as a source of information following receipt of the Dear Boss letter. Of course, they’d had to probe her whereabouts on the nights of the murders and investigate her background in order to work out why she of all people had received the letter. Put simply, Suzanne Corrigan was not a person under suspicion, and Wendy now wanted to use this opening to foster more positive relations with at least one member of the local press.
It was all about give and take. Suzanne had provided them with a vital piece of evidence and Wendy would keep her in the loop as to what was going on. As soon as something was publishable, Suzanne would have the scoop. In the meantime, she’d had to report only the bare bones, with the police careful not to release any details which would have allowed anyone to draw the obvious links between the killings. The fact that the same person could be responsible for more than one — or all — of them was pretty much accepted as public knowledge, and it had hit the sweet spot between raising awareness and limiting hysteria.
For Suzanne, the decision was gut-wrenching. She knew that this story would easily be the biggest local news story of the year, if not the decade, and would also make for huge national news. She thought back to the press scramble over the Yorkshire Ripper, Harold Shipman and the Ipswich murders and realised that she had an enormous opportunity to break one of the biggest crime stories of all time. A madman terrorising a small English town by recreating the murders of Jack the Ripper? It was pure gold.
Running with the story would, without doubt, completely destroy her relationship with the police. She might get a big payday from the paper, who’d make a mint by selling the story up to the nationals, but it would almost certainly be the last crime story she worked on locally.
All her journalistic instincts told her to go for it, but there was something stopping her. She knew from previous stories on the paper what Wendy Knight had been through, and the focused, confident Detective Sergeant had inspired her. Although quick fixes and riches were one thing, there was no substitute for doing the right thing.
From a purely selfish point of view, she also suspected that this was some sort of test. Perhaps they were trying to see how trustworthy she was, in order that she could be trusted with even bigger stories in future. After all, who knew what went on behind closed doors? A fleeting thought crossed her mind — only for a moment — that they might even be feeding her scraps of false information to try and trace leaks. She knew plenty of colleagues who’d been caught out that way.
When she’d joined the Mildenheath Gazette, Suzanne had had the pleasure of working briefly with Don Norman, a veteran journalist who’d enjoyed a long and fruitful career on the local newspaper and had even had a brief foray into radio and television journalism. He’d told her to always remember what her values and belief systems were before she ever first set foot in a newspaper office. That way, he said, she’d always be true to herself.
It was those words that rung loudly in her ears now as she convinced herself that the urge to take the money and run just wasn’t her. It was something that had wormed its way in and instilled itself in her purely by being surrounded by this culture of dirty journalism.
Suzanne wanted to do things differently. She knew that trust and honour went a long way — much further than many other journalists realised or appreciated — and she was certain that she could carve her way with honesty and respect.
It was a classic psychological battle. She recalled seeing an experiment on an episode of Horizon one time, in which young children were offered a bag of sweets right that second or the opportunity to wait ten minutes and get two bags of sweets. The overwhelming majority went for instant gratification. The understanding of delayed rewards was something that only came with maturity, and she chuckled at the realisation that many of her colleagues were no more psychologically advanced than the four-year-olds on TV.
One other thing Suzanne Corrigan knew that her colleagues didn’t was that tomorrow was going to be one of the biggest days in the history of crime in the UK.
58
8th November
As with everything in policing, it was all about balance. The knee-jerk reaction would’ve been to have put the entire town on lockdown, imposed a curfew and had anyone in public arrested on sight. Aside from the impracticalities, that was an approach which would have done more harm than good.
Simply doing nothing and waiting to see what happened wasn’t an option either. It certainly wasn’t something the family and friends of the fifth dead woman would be too pleased to find out about. A balance had to be achieved, and everyone at Mildenheath CID was satisfied that it had been.
Culverhouse had managed — through the assistance of Chief Constable Hawes — to fend off the flailing claws of Malcolm Pope, who’d been suggested as someone who could come in to aid the investigation. Hawes had put his job on the line to convince the Police and Crime Commissioner that everything was under control. In any other CID department, a string of Detective Superintendents and Chief Superintendents would’ve been able to step in and restructure the team to suit the investigation, but Culverhouse was grateful for the unconventional and archaic county setup which meant that he — for now — answered directly to the Chief Constable. Should tonight’s efforts not result in the killer being caught, that would all end.
All major roads into Mildenheath would have roadblocks and traffic checkpoints in place by eight o’clock that evening. The public would not be forewarned, but simply asked to state who they were and where they were going. Anyone on the watch list which had been generated throughout the investigation would be immediately held for further questioning. Anyone passing through the town would be directed back out and around — for the most part towards the main M1 motorway, on which the Mildenheath exit junction would be shut too.
Officers had been drafted in from a number of neighbouring forces, with riot vans, squad cars and a range of response vehicles being brought in too. All registered PCSOs within a particular radius had been called in as well as mobile CCTV vans having been drafted in to give extra coverage over certain areas of the town. The police presence on the streets of Mildenheath would be unprecedented.
The list of suspects had, by now, been exhausted. A string of interviews had got them next to nowhere, with their only link being to the hairdressing salon. Everyone who
worked at the salon had been interviewed to no avail, and Queenie Kinsella had long been discounted as a suspect. In the absence of anything else, the coincidence was undeniable, but any direct link was completely unprovable.
‘Does anyone have any questions at all?’ Culverhouse asked the assembled CID officers in the incident room, both Wendy and Luke Baxter conspicuous in their absence.
‘Not really a question, but a slight nagging concern, guv,’ Debbie Weston said. ‘I know we need as many officers on the frontline as we can tonight, but I have this worry that we might be falling into a trap. The killer’s proven to be at least one step ahead at all times so far. How do we know this isn’t just another deliberate ploy to get us where he wants us? What if he’s just trying to distract police resources for some reason?’
‘Well it’s a bit fucking late to raise that now, isn’t it?’ Culverhouse barked.
Patrick Sharp, the psychological profiler, stepped forward from behind Culverhouse. ‘In fact, I’d think that was unlikely. According to his profile, I’d strongly expect him to follow his MO. It compels him to try and kill a victim who fits his criteria again tonight. He won’t deviate from that.’
‘Besides which,’ Culverhouse added, ‘it’ll be uniform on the streets. We’re going to need to hang around for when something kicks off, so if you fancy playing desk sergeant for the night, the job’s all yours.’
‘What if that’s the whole plan all along, though?’ Debbie asked, clearly getting nowhere.
‘I’m confident it isn’t,’ Patrick Sharp replied, smiling.
‘You say he won’t deviate, but what about the second letter? That was a deviation.’
‘All I can do is repeat what I’ve already said. He got desperate. There are only two outcomes here. Either he succeeds and kills his fifth victim, or we catch him.’
59
8th November
Although the station was eerily quiet that night, the officers who remained were far from subdued. There was an odd atmosphere of exterior calm but with a clear and permeating sense of heightened alertness.
Debbie Weston found herself pacing around the incident room, her heart pounding in her ears as she glanced at the clock every few seconds. She kept running through the facts in her head. They knew the fifth victim was likely to be of Welsh or Irish descent, possibly a prostitute, possible having had a husband die in a tragic accident at a young age. She knew it was unlikely the intended victim would match all of these criteria. Every victim up until now had only matched one or two, which was what had made identifying the fifth victim completely impossible.
She knew she was going to get nowhere. She’d been going over it in her mind for weeks, and she knew she needed to keep a calm and level head. Like the guv said, they were the response team now. They had to wait and entrust the officers on the streets with the intelligence they’d gathered so far.
She hadn’t smoked in a long time, but she always kept a sneaky pack of cigarettes in the glove compartment of her dented, faded Vauxhall Cavalier. Without a second thought, she jogged down the stairs and let herself out into the car park.
Debbie flung open the glove compartment and rummaged around inside, her hands running over a selection of receipts and parking tickets. She found the pack of cigarettes. There were still four left. Bingo. She picked up the folded piece of paper which had fallen out during her rummage and was about to put it back in the glove compartment when she saw what was written on it.
It was the home address of Suzanne Corrigan, the journalist from the local paper. She’d given them her home address in case they wanted to contact her out of hours. She’d jotted down her mobile number on a separate piece of paper somewhere, too, but Debbie was buggered if she was going to be able to find that.
Llanedeyrn, 21 Mark Street, Mildenheath.
Debbie chuckled as she saw the address, as she had when Suzanne Corrigan had first handed her the piece of paper. Mark Street wasn’t the sort of road where many owners gave their houses names, to say the least. Most didn’t even give them a lick of paint, so Debbie had automatically questioned what she had seen as a rather pretentious act. Suzanne had been quick to mention that Llanedeyrn was the area of Cardiff she’d been brought up in, and that it reminded her of home. She’d also mentioned that her parents did a similar thing when they moved over from Belfast, calling their new house in Wales Castlereagh.
Debbie’s face soon turned from amusement to horrific sudden realisation as she threw the slip of paper and packet of cigarettes into her footwell, jumped into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
As she sped off towards the town centre, she fumbled around in her pocket for her mobile. Bugger. She’d left it on her desk. She could even see it sat there in her mind’s eye. She decided against turning back. Time was of the essence.
60
8th November
Wendy and Luke Baxter had headed north to a village pub not far from county police HQ at Milton House. As the pub was not only fairly rural but also popular with the police, the owners were willing, more often than not, to stay open well beyond their usual hours.
They knew, too, that they were likely to get a call before too long to let them know that they’d either apprehended the killer or found another body, so this was going to be no early night for either of them.
This wasn’t the way Wendy wanted to spend her evening, but she’d been told by Culverhouse that she needed to clear the air with Luke. They’d been sat in near silence for a good few minutes, neither of them really knowing what to say to each other.
‘That Desmond Jordan’s up for the chop,’ Baxter said, taking a sip of his pint. ‘CPS are going to charge him over the assault in the pub, apparently.’
‘Good,’ Wendy replied. ‘He’s a slimy bastard. Deserves everything he gets coming to him.’ Jordan’s infidelities would undoubtedly prove to be the unraveling of his marriage, not to mention his career, but it had at least had the unintended consequence of clearing him of multiple murders.
The silence fell over Wendy and Luke once again, neither of them particularly wanting to be here or being especially interested in making small talk.
‘What’s the point in this?’ Wendy finally said. ‘I’m never going to like you and you’re never going to like me. Can we just leave it at that?’
‘Always the optimist, aren’t you?’ Luke replied. ‘Look, I know you’ve been through a lot of shit but why let the job suffer? I’m not saying we need to be best mates, but I think we can at least be civil.’
Wendy was stunned into silence. It certainly wasn’t like Luke Baxter to be the voice of reason and extend an olive branch. ‘Someone spiked your drink or something?’
Luke laughed. ‘The job stresses you out at times. I get it. It does with me, too. It does with all of us. And yeah, we’ve got different ways of doing things. But so what? You get on alright with the guv. He’s not that much different from me.’
‘It’s not the same,’ Wendy replied. ‘You’re a climber. He’s spent years doing the hard graft. You were parachuted in and fast-tracked because you spend all your time licking his arse.’
‘Is that really what you think?’ Luke said, leaning forward. ‘Let me tell you something. I always wanted to be a copper. Ever since I was young. You want to know why I never talk about my family life? When I was five, my parents were coming home from a weekend away. I’d been staying with my dad’s sister. They were driving back home when a car sideswiped them at a set of traffic lights. The people in the other car were being chased by the police. My mum and dad died instantly. My aunt and uncle took me in and brought me up, but all I ever wanted was to join the police and try and put things right. Try to make sure those mistakes didn’t happen to other people. But I could never get in. So yeah, I went to uni and they put me through the fast-track programme. You know yourself how little you can actually do on the streets. You’re always being shat on from up high, paperwork, bureaucratic procedure. There’s fuck all you can do as a bobby to p
ut anything right. So yeah, I’m trying to get as far up the ladder as I can. Not to feather my own nest, but to make a difference.’
Wendy swallowed and looked down at her drink. ‘I’m sorry, Luke. I didn’t know.’
‘No. No-one does. It’s not something I go broadcasting. But at the same time I don’t expect people to just make their own judgements based on nothing.’
‘It must be hard,’ Wendy said, not knowing what else to say.
‘Yeah. Course. But you just have to wear this disguise, don’t you? Pretend you’re a big brave boy and that you don’t give a shit about anything. Because, inside, I’m still that scared little five-year-old boy. That was the day everything stopped.’
‘You don’t have to wear a disguise, Luke. The world’s moved on. You don’t lose points for being sensitive and emotional any more. Besides, there are better disguises than the one you’ve been putting on since you’ve been working here.’
Luke laughed. ‘I’ll just nip down the fancy dress shop and grab myself a Batman outfit then, shall I? Wear that to work instead.’
‘More like Pratman,’ Wendy joked, feeling the tension and atmosphere lift as they shared a laugh for the first time since they’d met. No sooner had she registered her enjoyment of this feeling, she was hit like a bolt from the blue. ‘Fuck. Fancy dress shop.’
‘What?’ Luke said, taking a mouthful of beer.
‘Fancy dress shop! There’s one next door to Terri Kinsella’s salon, isn’t there?’
‘Uh, sort of. Not fancy dress, though. I think it does more theatrical costume hire. Proper professional stuff. I don’t think they’d have a Batman outfit.’
Wendy stood suddenly. ‘Don’t you remember? Queenie Kinsella said her son ran the shop next door. The costume hire shop! That’s how it was done! Old Queenie went blabbing to her son about the lives of her customers, and meanwhile Paul’s compiling his dossier of Mildenheath’s women, waiting for his perfect five!’ She grabbed her mobile phone from her pocket, walked quickly to leave the pub and phoned Frank Vine.