by BILL KITSON
The kitchen, by comparison with the other parts of the house they’d seen, was lavishly furnished. Although DC Andrews and David Sutton had to lean against the worktops, the others sat at the large kitchen table. ‘Right,’ Nash told McKenzie when they were settled, ‘time for some explanations, I think.’
McKenzie took a deep breath. ‘It began with Ninette. She was the first. The only one not to have been identified. The first of the Cremator’s victims.’
Clara was struck by the curious use of words. McKenzie had said ‘the Cremator’s victims’ not ‘my victims’. Was that some strange schizophrenic way of looking at his crimes, ascribing them to another part of his personality?
McKenzie sat back in his chair, apparently at ease, showing no sign of remorse, or any other emotion. If Clara was puzzled by the man’s opening words, what followed had her increasingly baffled.
‘I met Ninette in Prague. That wasn’t her home; where she came from originally I have no idea. She was on the run then, but from what I didn’t find out until later. All she wanted was a lift. Well, more than that, someone to smuggle her across a couple of borders until she reached Western Europe. She told me she had no money, nothing to pay me. I would be doing it out of charity. I was driving an artic in those days. I’d no family, no home ties and the money was good.’ McKenzie paused, unscrewed the cap from the bottle of water in the middle of the table and took a sip.
‘I agreed. I knew what I was doing; what I was risking, but I didn’t care. I was alone, a long way from home, and I suppose I thought I’d get my leg over, if nothing else. What I wasn’t prepared for is what actually happened. We set off and as I drove, we talked. Her English was very good, and she had a lively mind. I suddenly realized how lonely my life was, how nice it was having a woman in the wagon alongside me. When the heater got the cab warmed up, I could smell her perfume and that musky woman’s smell. She was as attractive as she was intelligent, and I knew before long that I didn’t want to lose her. I suppose it was love at first sight, but I didn’t know what that was, so I didn’t recognize it. I offered her the chance to come all the way to England. She was worried about how she’d cope here, without money, papers or anywhere to live, so I offered her a job as my housekeeper.’
McKenzie smiled. ‘Of course there was no such job. I made it up because I didn’t want to lose her. I thought if she came to England without identification or money she’d be dependent on me and that way she’d have to stay. So that’s what happened. I brought her here. And then I killed her.’
Fleming sat forward in her chair. McKenzie was about to confess. The milkman looked up and his eyes met those of the detectives. He smiled. ‘That was what you wanted to hear, wasn’t it? That’s what you’ve been waiting for me to say?’
Jackie frowned. McKenzie’s interpretation of her thoughts was uncanny. If what they’d heard before was unexpected, what followed was completely off the radar.
‘I killed her because I brought her here within range of a perverted, evil bastard who raped, tortured and slaughtered her and then set fire to her poor abused body. He destroyed the only thing of beauty in my life. The man they so glibly refer to in the media as the Cremator. The man I’ve been trying for years to find. The man you’re going to arrest and put away where he can’t harm any more defenceless women. Because I’ll tell you something, if you don’t get the law to punish him, I’ll have to take the law into my own hands. Then you really will have something to arrest me for. Because I shall take him and put him on an altar, same as he did to those poor women; then I shall set fire to the bastard and watch him burn. And I’ll dance round listening to his screams and I’ll feel good. For the first time in years, I’ll feel happy.’
He saw Fleming and Mironova exchange puzzled glances and laughed. ‘Not quite what you were expecting, I guess? Well, let me spell it out for you. Am I the Cremator? No. Do I know who the Cremator is? Yes. Can I prove it? Yes, at least to my own satisfaction. Probably not sufficiently to convince a court of law, not without your help. That’s why I stage-managed everything that’s happened recently; everything to do with the abduction of Vanda,’ he glanced sideways.
She nodded, obviously aware of what was to come. ‘And here’s my proof.’
Nash, Fleming and Mironova stared at the object he tossed on to the table. Their bewilderment was complete. The object was a key ring. Attached to it was a fob in the shape of a tiny rugby ball. On the leather surface were five letters inscribed. NRUFC. ‘Would you care to explain?’ Nash asked.
‘I was living near Covermere in those days. I had a cottage I inherited from my parents that I’d extended and modernised. It was out in the wilds, ideal for me and Ninette. She moved in with me, using the spare room. As she began to trust me, she told me bits and pieces about her former life. Of course, she offered herself to me, not once but several times. I refused; I didn’t want her to sleep with me out of gratitude. That way I thought she’d resent me. I suppose I was scared of losing her. I told her if I’d wanted a prostitute I could go into the nearest town. That was how things stayed until Christmas. Ninette was so excited. She had no happy memories of Christmas in the past, but from the moment we bought the tree and decorated it she was like a five-year-old.
‘We spent Christmas Day alone, content to be with one another. We did what most couples do. We cooked a meal, overate, drank too much wine, pulled crackers, fell asleep watching TV and went to bed early. Except this time, we went to bed together. It happened almost by accident. We were a bit wobbly from the wine and sleepy into the bargain, so we were holding on to one another as we went upstairs. Ninette started to kiss me. Then she told me she loved me and that was that. I had no control over what happened, no chance to object, even if I’d wanted to. So she made love to me. I can remember her voice in my ear as we were lying together. “I want us to make babies”, she told me. “I want to hold your baby inside me”. It was without doubt the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me.’
McKenzie stopped and this time took a longer drink of water from the bottle. Nash could tell McKenzie was reining in strong emotions by the way he screwed the top back on the bottle. Round and round his hand went, even after the cap was firmly in place.
‘In the days and weeks that followed, Ninette told me more of her former life, and it wasn’t pretty. Her father was an alcoholic, a wife-beater. She herself was married at eighteen to a man she discovered had two pastimes. One was consuming vodka by the bucketload, the other, using her as a punch-bag. Eventually, she decided enough was enough and when he started on her, she took a rolling pin to him and beat him unconscious.’
McKenzie smiled sadly. ‘Ninette couldn’t understand why I started to laugh. I had to explain the old music hall joke about the wife who takes a rolling pin to her errant husband, like Punch and Judy.’ His smile faded. ‘Then I’d to explain what a music hall was, and Punch and Judy.
‘Everything had changed by then, and my employers weren’t exactly happy because I’d stopped doing long-distance work, and certainly wasn’t prepared to do any European trips. Not that I cared, I was too happy. But Ninette was bothered. We weren’t short of money, but she was desperate to contribute. It’s strange the way her attitude changed. She’d not been bothered until we became lovers, but after that she kept pestering me to find work she could do, no questions asked, so she could bring something into the house.
‘How it happened, I can’t quite remember, but she managed to get a job at the local rugby club. She had no experience of bar work, but she was a quick learner. The treasurer there was happy to pay her cash in hand; no doubt he was fiddling her hours. The man was a bit of a chancer, and I heard later that they’d given him the elbow because of his sticky fingers. Anyway, as the season was coming to an end they asked Ninette to work one extra Saturday afternoon. It was a special fixture against a representative side, some sort of club centenary, I think. She agreed because she wanted to buy herself some summer clothes. The match started early, so her plan was
to do the bar work, then go shopping and catch the bus home afterwards. Normally I picked her up, but I needed to do some work on the car to get it through the MOT.
‘When your head’s stuck under the bonnet of a car you forget what time it is. By the time I’d finished and got the car running it was gone 9 p.m. There was still no sign of Ninette, so I rang the rugby club. There was no reply; they must have shut much earlier. So I set off to look for her. I hadn’t gone far when I noticed the smell. I’d my car window open, and the breeze was wafting smoke through the gap. That made me look; and that was when I saw the fire. I stopped and went to see what it was.
‘I found her jacket first. It had been discarded in the struggle, I guess. I knew then it was Ninette on that funeral pyre. The jacket was very distinctive. I picked it up without thinking. I still have it. As I got nearer, I could tell it was her. I could tell even after all the terrible things he’d done to her. Don’t ask me how I knew. I just did. I think I only just missed her killer. If I’d been a few minutes earlier, perhaps I’d have been in time to catch him, to save Ninette even. And all those other poor women would have been alive today. As I was turning away, because I couldn’t bear to look any longer, I trod on something. Without thinking, I picked it up and put it in the jacket pocket. Then I drove home. It’s a good job there wasn’t much traffic, because I must have been all over, like a drunk. I got home, shut the doors and locked them. I went into the kitchen, took out a full bottle of whisky and sat down. I didn’t get up again until that bottle was empty. Believe it or not, I was stone-cold sober. I drank non-stop for weeks on end. I almost lost my job at the haulage company because of it. I thought if I drank enough I might forget what I’d seen; forget her, but it didn’t work.
‘The drink blurred my memory of what had happened at the scene of the fire. It was much later, when I was deciding whether or not to throw her clothes away, that I found that jacket in the bottom of the wardrobe. I’d screwed it into a ball and tossed it there. That was when I found that.’ McKenzie gestured to the key ring. ‘And that was when I started my manhunt.’
‘Why did it take so long to find him?’ Nash wasn’t convinced by McKenzie’s story, but he was prepared to see where he was going with it.
‘By the time I got started, the trail had gone cold. Bear in mind I’d none of your facilities to help me. Things you find out in hours take private citizens weeks, months even. Added to which I’d to work, to support myself and to fund the enquiries. Also, I’d to be discreet. The last thing I wanted was to alert the killer. And every lead I followed could have done that.’
‘Why did you abduct Mrs Dawson?’
McKenzie stared at Mironova as if she was dense. Instead of answering her question, he continued. ‘The first difficulty I had was identifying which rugby club that key ring belonged to. There were players in that match from all over. I’d had to choose between Neath, Northampton, Nottingham and Netherdale. Unluckily, I chose the bigger clubs first. What complicated matters, was that each club brought a handful of spectators with them. To begin with, I couldn’t be sure if these’ – he pointed to the key ring –‘were on sale to all and sundry, which would have made my task well-nigh impossible. Luckily, they were presentation gifts for the players.’
‘Going back to Ninette, why wasn’t her body identified? Why didn’t you come forward and tell the police what you knew?’ Nash asked.
‘I can’t expect you to understand the effects of grief such as that. For one thing I don’t think I was sober enough for long enough to reason it through rationally. Certainly not until far too late. By the time I was able to it would have looked highly suspicious. What would you have thought? I’d smuggled an illegal immigrant into the country, harboured her for over a year; kept her as my mistress. You’d have thought either I’d tired of her and wanted rid, or we’d had a lovers’ quarrel. As to why her body wasn’t identified, who else was there to do it? It was the last match of the season, by the time they re-started in September they’d have forgotten she existed. Can you remember the bar staff from somewhere you haven’t been for several months?’
‘What about the treasurer?’ Clara suggested.
McKenzie laughed. ‘He had enough problems of his own. He was already being investigated by the committee for embezzlement. No doubt, he was fiddling the staff hours as well. He’d be the last person to tell the police.’
Fleming was still unconvinced. ‘You’re saying you staged all this simply in order to bring the real killer to justice? You’re claiming you’re not the Cremator, in spite of the fact that your abduction of Mrs Dawson looked like one of the Cremator’s cases? What made you pick her, anyway? There must be dozens of other women in the area who fit the profile just as well, better even.’
Nash already knew the reason. ‘You think Brian Dawson is the Cremator? That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why you abducted his wife?’
‘I was angry with Vanda.’ McKenzie turned and smiled at her. ‘Because I couldn’t believe any woman could live with a monster like that and not realize what was going on. Once I had her here, I found out how brave she really is. She wasn’t going to give in. Even when she thought I was going to rape her, when I pretended to rape her for the sake of those photos, she wouldn’t cry out for help, wouldn’t show me she was afraid. All the time I was holding her she never showed me any fear, then, after she got over the shock of what had happened, she challenged me to do my worst. Even though she believed I was the monster who’d done all those horrible things. That takes a very special sort of courage. Even if I had been going to do all those things the Cremator did, I couldn’t have touched her, not after her display of bravery.’ McKenzie shrugged. ‘But perhaps that’s just the way a normal person thinks. Perhaps the Cremator would have seen that as some sort of challenge to his virility. Something to master, not admire.
‘I guess it was simply bad luck on her part that she got hitched to a sadistic pervert. I explained to her what I’d discovered. She didn’t believe me until I showed her the key ring, explained where I’d found it, told her about everything I’d done to discover the truth, and in the end, when I could bear to, I told her about Ninette and what happened to her.
‘Dawson wasn’t playing in that rugby match,’ McKenzie explained. ‘But I found out a long time later that he was one of the substitutes. One of the reasons I took Vanda prisoner, apart from wanting to put pressure on him, was in the hope that if you searched the property thoroughly looking for her, you’d find something incriminating, something to tie him in to the murders. But you didn’t look hard enough. So I took it one step further. After I showed Vanda the evidence that proved her husband was the Cremator, we thought up the idea of providing him with a “real” body. I stole a shop dummy and set fire to it in the woods on Black Fell. Before that, Vanda posed as if she was the victim. I made sure the dummy didn’t burn long enough to destroy the appearance. I sent the photos to Dawson, but even that didn’t break the callous bastard. That was when I made the phone call to report the body.’
‘From Vanda’s mobile?’ Nash suggested.
McKenzie nodded. ‘I was desperate to stir some action up. Everything I’d tried was hitting a brick wall.’
‘We’ll have to check the information you’ve given us,’ Fleming told McKenzie. ‘Obviously there are still a lot of unanswered questions. However justified you might have considered your actions to be, taking the law into your own hands that way simply isn’t on. By your own admission you’ve committed a string of very serious crimes, crimes that must be answered for, no matter what your motive. There’s the kidnap and false imprisonment of Mrs Dawson for a start. Added to that there’s the sexual assault. Although the rape may have been simulated, there is no mistaking the evidence that photo shows. You can throw in the breaking and entering charge, theft of a mannequin and wasting police time.’
If Jackie expected McKenzie to attempt to find excuses for his actions, she was surprised by Vanda Dawson’s intervention, but then, it was turning
into a day of surprises. ‘I think you’re clutching at straws. What’s more, you’re concentrating your efforts on the wrong target. Let me set you straight on a few points. First of all, the kidnapping and sexual assault nonsense. You can’t prove that Lindsay kidnapped me. Not unless I give evidence against him, and I wouldn’t hold your breath for that to happen.
‘As for the sexual assault, you would only be able to prove that if you could show that I was unwilling.’ Nash watched with fascination as she put her hand on McKenzie’s and held it. ‘If I still haven’t convinced you, let me tell you this. I asked Lindsay to fuck me. Begged him to, in fact, because I wanted him as I haven’t wanted a man in years. That’s because Lindsay’s a real man, not a sick, twisted pervert like that creep I am married to. Despite my pleading, Lindsay wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do it even though I’d tormented him to the limit, got him as aroused as a man can be. That’s because he wouldn’t take advantage of me because I was under his protection. I will tell you this though, the minute we’re alone together, I’m going to do my very best to persuade him to change his mind.
‘So, where does that leave your investigation? You’ve the break-in and theft of the model. I know the owner of Henrietta’s quite well, and I’m sure she won’t press charges if I offer to repay her for the loss and damage. Now we’re down to wasting police time, but as Lindsay’s put you on the trail of the most wanted serial killer in years, I don’t see how you can hope to make that stick, at least without it looking as if the prosecution is purely vindictive.’
Clara was astounded. From what Dr Grey had told her, her sister was a cowed, timid woman, browbeaten into submissiveness by her husband. The doctor’s account varied wildly from the spitfire confronting them, who rejected their accusations with the fury of a tigress defending her cubs. But there was also the far more serious matter of the accusation that McKenzie had made. His claim that Dawson was the Cremator could not be ignored or taken lightly. Perhaps there was going to be something worth salvaging from this wreckage of a day after all.