by Mark Romain
Sarah was an extremely resourceful woman, so it didn’t take her long to come up with a solution. She telephoned her husband, who was having one of his LAG meetings with Charles Porter at Whitechapel this morning. Whatever failings Simon had, and there were many, he was one of the most persuasive people she had ever met; if anyone could find out where the scene was, it was him. Sure enough, Simon had called her back within minutes with the information she sought. The moment she hung up, Sarah grabbed the keys from reception, told Charise to hold the fort, and jumped in the Mission’s green mini-bus. She had driven straight there, determined to find Bull and get some answers, but, so far, she hadn’t had much luck in that department. Sarah had already been standing in the freezing cold, surrounded by a dozen disgruntled workers who had been evicted from the warehouse, for a little over twenty minutes. She had managed to eavesdrop snippets of their conversations, hoping to learn something about the latest murder, but all they seemed interested in was the gossip about Dave from finance shagging a girl from the typing pool, Ada dumping her shit of a boyfriend who, having got her pregnant, was demanding she have an abortion because he wasn’t ready to be a dad, and what the union were going to do about the unpopular changes to working practices that the company had proposed this morning.
Two outside broadcasting units, one from the BBC and one from Sky, had turned up a short time ago, parking on either side of her mini-bus and boxing it in. Before long, the journalists had started circulating amongst the crowd, interrogating them for information, and she wondered if they would have more luck that she had. Just when she was on the point of giving up and going back to the Mission, tail between her legs, she spotted Steve Bull walking across the yard.
“Steve! DS Bull,” she called out, waving frantically to get his attention.
Having just tasked Richard Jarvis to take a statement from Billy Briggs, the driver who had discovered the body, Bull was on his way back to the deposition site when he heard his name being called. Looking around, he spotted Sarah and made his way over.
“Hello Sarah,” he said, surprised to see her at the scene. “What brings you here?”
Sarah bit her bottom lip. “Steve, I heard about the murder. I need you to tell me the victim’s name.” She was trying to remain calm, but it wasn’t easy.
Bull studied her carefully, confused by her distress. “We don’t know her name yet,” he said guardedly. “But even if we did, I couldn’t disclose it to you without the DCI’s authority. Why do you ask? And why are you so upset? Is something wrong?”
She nodded and a single tear ran down the side of her left cheek.
This was perplexing. Bull ducked under the cordon tape, wrapped an arm around her shoulder and led her to one side, well away from any onlookers. “Okay,” he said when they were alone. “What is it?”
The words spilled out of her. “I should have told you this on Saturday when I found out, but Cassandra made me promise I wouldn’t say anything.”
“Slow down,” Steve told her, placing a hand on each shoulder to steady her. “Who’s Cassandra? And what should you have told me?”
“Cassandra Newly is a sex worker. She’s one of the girls we canvassed on Saturday evening. When I told her about the rehabilitation work we do at the Mission she asked if there was anything we could do to help her get off the game and turn her life around. We never turn anyone who asks for our help away so I invited her along to one of our meetings, with a view to entering her into a programme. When I asked her, what had happened to make her feel this way, she confided that she and a couple of other girls were having real problems with a particularly nasty client, and this had made her realise she couldn’t continue living like that.”
Steve’s eyes narrowed. “What sort of problems?”
“Well, he was becoming increasingly rough with them, and saying deeply disturbing things about what he wanted to do with them. He was talking about cutting them up and slicing them open, and they were scared he might actually do this. It all sounded really perverse when she told me.”
Steve felt his pulse quicken. Could this be the break they needed to catch the bastard? “Why didn’t you tell me about this at the time?” he asked, wondering if it was because she didn’t trust him.
Sarah took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she said, bowing her head in shame. “I know how lame this sounds now, but I was just trying to do the right thing by Cassandra.”
Bull was annoyed, but he knew there was no point in berating her. “Did she give you a name for this client?”
Sarah nodded. “Yes, he told all the girls that his name was Brian and that he was a cop. That’s why they were all afraid to say anything.”
“So, what changed?”
“He came to see her late on Saturday evening. He was a little drunk, and he was still wearing his ID on a lanyard around his neck. He’d obviously forgotten to remove it after work. She caught a glimpse of his personal details. Turns out he’s not a cop after all; he’s a civilian called Henry Boyden.”
The name meant nothing to Steve Bull, but it would be easy enough to check out. “And you’re worried that this Boyden bloke is the killer and that his latest victim might be Cassandra?”
“At first I was dubious,” she admitted. “I know Henry Boyden – not well I grant you – but he seems like a nice person. He works at Whitechapel police station, and he’s been doing some voluntary work at the charity for the last couple of months.”
“How did that come about?” Bull asked, astonished that anyone working the kind of shifts police employees were required to perform could possibly find the time to do charity work. It all sounded a bit suspect to him.
“He’s in my husband’s lodge.”
“Lodge?”
“They’re both Masons,” she explained. “Simon got talking to him at one of their meetings and Henry seemed genuinely interested in what we did. One thing led to another, and before long he had started volunteering.”
“Tell me you didn’t withhold this information just because he seems like a nice person?” Steve pleaded. The trouble with people like Sarah, he knew from past experience, was that they always wanted to see the best in people, and it made them fucking gullible.
“No,” Sarah said, exasperated that he should think her so naive. The tears, triggered by guilt and remorse, were flowing freely now. “Oh, Steve, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you all of this straight away, but I was trying to protect her. I swear that I had already made up my mind to pass on the information before I heard about the murder; I was just trying to work out how best to do it without revealing Cassandra’s identity. And now it might all be too late.”
It might be, Steve thought. And if it is, you’ll have to live with that. “There’s nothing you can do here, so why don’t you go back to the Mission,” he told her. “I’ll make some urgent enquiries and talk to you later. Do you know the names of the other two girls?”
Sarah dabbed at her eyes. “I only know their first names. One was a redhead called Trudy and the other was a mixed-race girl called Sonia. They all do their soliciting around Middlesex Street, I think.”
“Okay, leave it to me,” Steve said, heading back towards the cordon. “I’ll speak to you later.”
◆◆◆
Ned was pestering Dillon again. He had finished the record photography of the body and was waiting for Calvin and Tyler to finish their big forensics Pow-Wow and say what they wanted him to do next.
“Actually, it’s a bit of a result, going back to Poplar tomorrow,” Ned was saying.
The photographer’s sanity, along with his choice of hair stylist, was definitely questionable, Dillon decided. “Is it? Why?”
“I think that the mortuary technician fancies me,” Ned confided.
Dillon disguised his laughter with a cough. “What, Fred Dawkins?” he said, trying to keep a straight face.
Ned looked totally confused. “Who’s Fred Dawkins?”
There was no one called Fred Dawkins, as far as Dill
on knew. “Big ugly brute of a man, bald head, squashed nose; he’s got ‘love’ and ‘hate’ tattooed across his knuckles. Oh, and he has a bit of a problem with body odour. Come to think of it, you two would make a nice couple: Fred and Ned.”
“No, not Fred,” Ned said, turning his nose up indignantly. “I’m talking about the delectable Emma Drew.”
“How could you possibly think Emma fancies you?” Dillon scoffed. He gave Ned a look that implied the photographer was deluded.
Ned’s face did mock offended. Then it lit up in a mischievous grin. “Oh, do I detect the presence of the green-eyed monster?” he teased. “Come on, admit it, you’re just jealous because girls like her always pick suave, sophisticated, intellectual types like me over knuckle-dragging apes like you.”
Dillon folded both arms across his barrel of a chest. “And you’re so modest with it,” he said sarcastically.
“Very,” Ned agreed. “Don’t tell me you didn’t see her giving me the eye last week, flirting with me and rubbing up against me while I was photographing that girl’s body on the slab.”
Dillon shuddered. That was just plain creepy.
“Anyway,” Ned continued, “I’m not seeing anyone at the moment so I’ve decided to ask her out next time we speak.”
Dillon didn’t like the sound of that. Nerdy Ned was actually quite a nice guy, but Emma could do so much better. He decided to change tack.
“I think you’re misreading the signals, old son,” Dillon said kindly. “I wasn’t trying to say that she would prefer me to you. I was trying to say that she would prefer someone like Kelly Flowers to either of us, if you get my drift.” He winked, conspiratorially.
Ned looked confused for a moment, and then the penny dropped. “You mean she’s gay?” he asked, horrified.
“I’m afraid so, mate. Better men than either of us have been blown out by that girl. But, hey, if you want to ask her out, be my guest. I just don’t want to see a sensitive guy like you get humiliated.”
Ned looked crestfallen. “I can’t believe she’s gay,” he said.
“Who’s gay?”
Both men spun around to see George Copeland standing behind them.
“Don’t creep up on people like that,” Dillon scolded, wondering how much the tubby exhibits officer had heard.
“Who’s gay?” George repeated. He loved a bit of gossip, and this sounded juicy.
“Emma Drew from Poplar mortuary,” Ned said.
George seemed sceptical. “Emma? Are you sure?”
“Mr Dillon was just telling me,” Ned said.
George stared at Dillon with undisguised suspicion. What was the big lug up to now? “I didn’t know Emma batted for the other side, and I’ve known her for years.” He didn’t mention that he also knew her ex-boyfriend.
Dillon was starting to feel rather uncomfortable. “It’s probably best that we keep it to ourselves,” he said quickly. “I mean, I’m sure she’ll come out when she’s good and ready, but we don’t want to cause her any grief by broadcasting her sexuality before she’s ready to tell the world.”
“No, of course not,” Ned agreed. He had a cousin who was gay, and he knew how hard it had been for her to come out to her parents.
Thankfully, Dillon was spared further discomfort because, at that point, Tyler and Calvin’s conversation broke up and the CSM wasted no time in whisking Ned and George away.
“So, what forensic priorities did you agree with Sam?” Dillon asked, grateful for the reprieve.
Before Tyler could answer, Steve Bull appeared, looking excited. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said,” but I’ve just been talking to Sarah Pritchard outside the cordon, and I think you two are going to want to hear this.”
◆◆◆
Henry Boyden felt like shit. He had hardly slept a wink last night, and he hadn’t been able to face eating anything all morning. One of the whores had complained about the way he had treated her, but what exactly had she said? Hopefully, Simon could make it all go away, but what if he couldn’t and Sarah Pritchard went to the police about him? What would he say if they questioned him? This could ruin everything. He was due to work a late shift today, his third in a row, but maybe it would be better to phone in sick. He needed time to think; to get his story together in case he was interrogated.
His wife had noticed that he wasn’t himself as soon as he’d joined her and the kids for breakfast this morning, but he had managed to put her off the scent by saying he had a touch of the shits, probably the result of eating an iffy sandwich he’d purchased from the canteen the day before. Mornings in their house tended to be chaotic, but somehow Sandra always managed to get the kids dressed, fed and out of the house on time with military precision. Unable to relax, Henry Boyden had spent the majority of the morning sitting on the sofa fretting about his future.
He switched on the radio just in time to catch the eleven o’clock news, and what he heard chilled him to the bone: There had been another Ripper murder in Whitechapel. This really wasn’t a good time for someone to allege that he’d been roughing up prostitutes.
◆◆◆
“Listen up,” Dillon said, kicking the briefing off. It was three o’clock already, and the day had passed in a blur. The six detectives he’d assembled to carry out the arrest were crammed in Tyler’s office, clustered around the desk he had commandeered. “The information we have is that a forty-year-old white male called Henry Clive Boyden frequently uses the services of prostitutes in the Whitechapel area. He has become increasingly violent towards several of the girls in recent weeks, assaulting them during sex and threatening to come back and cut them up in a manner that is consistent with the injuries inflicted by our killer. We know from a source that one of the girls he’s been threatening is a mixed-race girl called Sonia. Our latest victim is mixed race. She wasn’t carrying any ID, so we had a dead set of fingerprints taken at the scene and rushed up to the Yard. The results were phoned through about fifteen minutes ago, and guess what: her name is Sonia Wilcox. Is that a coincidence? I don’t think so.” From the expression on the arrest team’s faces, neither did they.
“Boyden’s been telling the girls a few porky pies about who he is,” Dillon continued. “He’s been claiming to be a police officer named Brian. In fact, he’s a civilian station officer at Whitechapel. It seems that Boyden’s done some voluntary work for the Sutton Mission over the last couple of months, and we believe he may have been using that as a screen to legitimise his contact with the working girls. Anyway, Dean’s done some flash research for us. What have you found out, Deano?”
“Well,” Dean began, “he’s no trace on the PNC, or on the CRIS, CRIMINT or CAD databases. I checked with Human Resources to see if there was anything interesting or relevant in his personnel file about his previous work experience. Get this – he served in the army medical corps.”
Paul Evans let out a low whistle. “So, he definitely has some rudimentary medical knowledge.” Boyden was starting to look like a good suspect.
“That’s right,” Dean confirmed. “Then I checked with the duties office to see what he was working on the nights our killer struck. Turns out he was off duty on both the night Tracey was murdered and the night of the double event. We know the fourth victim was killed over the weekend, probably on Friday evening. Boyden did an early shift on Friday, so he could easily have snatched her that evening. He worked late shifts over the weekend, but they finish at ten o’clock.”
“So even if she wasn’t killed until Saturday night, he could still have done it,” Dillon said.
“What’s he working today?” Jarvis asked, wondering if they were going to have to arrest him at work.
“He was supposed to be doing another late shift, but he phoned in sick this morning,” Dean said.”
“Where does he live, Deano?” Charlie White enquired.
“Boyden actually lives in the borough. He’s got a place in Vallance Road – not far from where the Kray twins grew up – lives there with his wife
and two nippers, both of whom are primary school age. There are no dogs as far as I can tell.”