by J P Lomas
As for the information he’d dug up on Connie Baker, it hadn’t been the smoking gun he thought it was at the time. Dent was less than exhilarated at his news, as it meant they would still be unable to prosecute Connie a second time for the murder of her husband, even if they got her bang to rights for the other killings. The Chief Constable had seemed especially wary about starting a potential witch hunt against Mrs Baker and kept worrying away about how bringing Connie in for further questioning would play with the media…
Jordan was further discomfited by the unexpected arrival of Osborne and his revelation that Connie Baker had an even more watertight alibi for the night in question than their previous assumption that she’d been in another country. It transpired she’d been caught speeding in a hire car at two in the morning by the Sussex police on the night in question; given that a conservative estimate for the start of the blaze was shortly after midnight, she would have needed to have been Stirling Moss to have set the fire and got back to the vicinity of her airport hotel in that time.
The fact that Osborne credited Hawkins for the discovery of this alibi had made the revelation doubly distasteful for Jordan.
****
I is for Irish
Well the luck of the Irish; not that they’ve had much luck since she’s been in power! Conversely, I’ve always enjoyed the rub of the green since her election.
Those Republican cowards who tried to murder her said she only had to get unlucky once, whilst they would have many more opportunities to get lucky. Well they were wrong and now they’re paying for it. And then they had the nerve to moan about her shoot to kill policy, what else do you shoot people for?
When she emerged from the ruins of the Grand Hotel I wept. I almost felt that was the signal to kill again. To get rid of the second barrier to my success, but that would have been no fitting tribute to her. My plans for the second death were still gestating and needed care and nurturing. I could have got carried away and bungled everything out of a moment of weakness. She would not have approved.
Far better for me to view that outrage against her in Brighton as yet further proof of her inviolability; not even the IRA could kill Maggie!
I’ve learnt composure from her. The graceful elegance with which she carried on with the conference that morning, despite escaping death hours before was truly sublime. When they stood and gave her an ovation in the conference hall, I was standing in front of the television clapping my hands for all they were worth. They valued her then. Her courage put them all to shame and yet some of them now have the temerity to think they could do the job better!
Well, let my plan be my tribute to her! By waiting, I’ve shown I’m as calm and collected as she is. Rather than botch it by rushing it through, I’ve created a masterpiece through being patient and prepared. A true picture of Britain under Maggie.
The final piece of the jigsaw slotted in as easily as all the rest. To have completed the whole picture within this decade was a most suitable time frame, as the 1980s will always be hailed as her decade and I’m glad to feel a part of her success.
What now? Well once the dust has settled, it will be time for me to move on. There’s nothing to tie me to this life now. One more year here for the sake of appearances and then I can begin a new life in a new decade somewhere else. The Irish have always been good at moving on and making a new start elsewhere, well this is one lesson I can learn from them! Not that I’ll have to begin again on the bottom rung of the ladder!
Chapter 24
The ‘Abbot and Costello’ was a trendy pub off Kensington High Street. The very fact it wasn’t a ‘Red Lion’, or ‘Turk’s Head’ conveyed the fact that they weren’t just geographically distant from Devon. This fact was reinforced by the very agreeable choice of wines on the card in front of her. It was no longer a simple case of red, rosé or white. Jane now had over a dozen of each colour to choose from as she settled herself into the comfortable, leather contours of the sofa Sobers had marked out for them. Relaxing, she reflected it was more like sitting in a study, or clubroom than a pub. She presumed they’d spent a fortune achieving this level of studied distress, even the gallimaufry of objects displayed on the shelves looked like high class junk.
As he returned from the wide and airy bar, bearing her choice of New World White and his own pint of lager, she reflected how well her former boss looked. In her mind’s eye, vicars were supposed to be plainly dressed in black clericals and dog collar; however Sobers appeared as elegant as ever, in a graceful pair of chinos, buttoned Oxford shirt and stylish jacket. He also looked relaxed and content – yes, that was the word content.
‘So joining the Sky Pilots turned out alright, guv?’
She sipped her wine, as Sobers’ clear gaze returned her look.
‘His name’s Joe.’
Jane looked quizzical at the sudden non sequitur.
Sobers steepled his fingers and smiled.
‘He teaches Film Studies at the local comprehensive, that’s where the future lies he says. He’s also taking an M.A. at King’s – that where I met him. As ever God places temptation in my path.’
Jane relaxed. As ever Sobers was the better detective, knowing what she wanted to ask, before she asked it.
‘So your family are okay about it?’
‘No.’
Jane dropped her gaze into her glass.
‘But I am. London’s a big place, no more running away.’
Jane looked up and saw that he meant it.
‘And the Church?’
‘Let’s just say it’s fortunate my calling lies with Lambeth and not with Rome. I have to sift my own conscience to find an answer to this one.’
A troubled look passed over Sobers’ handsome face and the unusual warmth of his countenance was replaced by the more diffident expression she had become accustomed to seeing in Devon.
‘Anyway, you haven’t come all the way up from Camberwick Green just to chew the fat about your old boss’ love life, have you?’
His wolfish grin only reminded Jane of how seldom she had seen him smile in the months they had worked together. She pushed over some Photostats from the case file. The smartly dressed people at the bar probably thought she was an estate agent, only she didn’t have a mobile and the pictures she was sliding across the low table were far more gruesome than the type of images hawked by London’s property gurus.
He flicked through the sheets, as Jane enjoyed the remainder of her wine.
‘Who benefits?’
‘No-one really benefits from the first murder, though a local entrepreneur has been able to make a profit by turning the site into an amusement arcade. The estate was left to his estranged half-sister – blood being thicker than water and all that. She died last year leaving a couple of grand to the local donkey sanctuary and nothing else; her brother’s bequest just about helped her pay the fees for the last few years of her life. If she hadn’t died, she would probably have ended up in a local authority care home.’
‘Probably willed herself to die then...’
‘Wouldn’t have surprised me, she looked as if she could have lived for another thirty years if she’d put her mind to it.’
Sobers’ glance fell on the bookshelves lining the wall behind Jane’s head. An assortment of hardbacks offered an eclectic mix ranging from popular thrillers to autobiographies by the no longer rich or famous. The smile which suddenly lit up the former detective’s face seemed to illuminate their whole corner.
‘Tell me about her library.’
‘Her library?’
‘Remember when you called me last, you were gushing over some property programme you’d seen and having grand ideas about moving Tim and the children to some cottage on the edge of the moors which you’d be able to renovate in your spare time?’
Jane recalled the Chardonnay fuelled conversation she had had, or at least parts of it. It had been a two bottle Friday night after a very long week and she’d been flitting from police work, to home life, to gushi
ng on about her property fantasies. The ‘spare time’ and the ‘it’s only another fifty thousand’ aspects of the conversation had dissolved more quickly than the aspirin as she struggled to get Max changed the following morning.
‘You kept returning to the subject of Mrs Mallowan’s house and how it wasn’t fair that such undeserving people, I think ‘rich bitch’ may have been your precise phrase, could afford such houses, when hardworking police officers had to work all the hours God sends?’
Jane grinned. ‘I’ve been listening too much to Tim. He’s gone all Che Guevara on me at the moment. You should see the list of things he doesn’t let me buy – this South African wine for a starter!’
‘As a brother, I must say I agree with him.’
It was one of those conversational points where Jane couldn’t decide if he was being ironic. She decided to make a point of getting a gin next.
‘As well as envying the dimensions of her ill-gotten fortune, you said she’d make a good killer.’
Jane furrowed her brow, but for the life of her this part of the conversation seemed lost in the alcoholic miasma it had been made in. Had she been serious?
‘You said it was her choice of books?’ prompted Sobers.
Light scattered the clouds obfuscating Jane’s memory.
‘She had dozens of crime thrillers! All those books which make our jobs seem easy – the ones where a brilliant revelation at the end catches the killer and all the loose ends are neatly tied together. At least her taste appealed to me more than all that military stuff her husband seemed to enjoy.’
‘At least her books were about fictional deaths.’
Jane swirled the remains of her wine around in her glass as she tried to follow Sobers’ thinking.
‘Reading about crime doesn’t make one a murderer. Half the population of East Devon would be banged up if that was the case!’
Sobers smiled and indicated his empty glass.
‘Time for one of those blinding revelations,’ he grinned ‘but first for one of those annoying advertising breaks whilst you refresh my glass. Make sure it’s a nice, liberal Dutch lager please!’
****
Dent glared at the telephone on his immaculately tidy desk. When his personal assistant had told him who was calling he had initially been pleased, as he’d had so many pats on the back from those in high places lately that he had been feeling positively spoilt. At the club’s AGM he’d been almost certain that he had been sounded out about whether he would be prepared to accept a knighthood in the next honours list. There had been more than one idle moment lately when he had been practising how to introduce himself as ‘Sir George’ and reflecting on whether he should have a new uniform run up for the occasion. Even Delia would get another outfit out of it.
The fallout from the Connie Baker case had been the final nail in his predecessor’s coffin and had left him as the obvious replacement – well to be honest he had been pretty much running the show for the last few years anyway. Sir Robert having been quite content to let his ambitious deputy take the plaudits, though Dent had been quite careful to let the right people know who had ultimately been responsible for the prosecution’s failure in the case of Regina versus Baker.
The fact that the case might be coming back to haunt him was not one of the options he had foreseen. With the world’s media now camped outside his headquarters he was for once finding the limelight a less than comfortable place to be in. He’d left Jordan and Hawkins to deal with the more awkward questions yesterday and had not been overly impressed by their lack of media savvy. Having ensured the assembled pack that he had his best men on it, he’d tried to use the usual platitudes to reassure them that a result was on the cards, but several awkward journalists kept harking on about the Baker case.
There had even been one chit of a girl who kept badgering him about the conduct of the investigation and making absurd parallels with the conviction of the Guildford Four; absurd, but potentially damaging for him. The Media had effectively sided with the prosecution in the matter of Connie Baker and so there had been no clarion calls from them for the head of his predecessor. Those calls had come from within and if he had been instrumental in both persuading Sir Robert it was the right time to go, whilst at the same time putting himself forward at his replacement, who could blame him? Dent had spent over thirty years climbing the ladder; it was his turn at the top.
The write ups now though were beginning to be less warm. The editorial in last night’s ‘Express and Echo’ had certainly had a line or two in it he had taken to heart. None of the tabloids had yet run anything about his handling of the case, yet they could be a fickle lot. And with the resignation of Sobers and the death of Spilsbury he was running out of people to take the blame. He needed another scapegoat…
****
‘The ABC Murders.’
As soon as Sobers said it, Jane got it. In Agatha Christie’s classic novel a single murder had cleverly been hidden in a series of killings fashioned to look like the work of a serial killer.
‘But in her book, there’s one out of sequence – once the real killing is out of the way, the murderer made a mistake.’
‘By killing someone with a surname beginning with ‘E’ in Doncaster, rather than killing someone whose name began with a ‘D’.
‘You’ve a good memory.’
‘It was the only detail I didn’t like. I just felt the surname should have been at least more than one letter distant – a Jackson, or a Poole or even a Fox. When everything else is so right, I always hate it when a detail like that bothers me.’
‘So which is the odd one out? If we go for this nursery rhyme thing, the Baker is the only one whose surname is used to fit the rhyme rather than their occupation; though I’d say it was stretching it a bit to describe Mallowan as a candlestick-maker?’
Sobers steepled his fingers and half closed his eyes.
‘The politics complicates it,’ judged Sobers. ‘Are we dealing with The Butcher, The Baker and The Candlestick-maker Killings, or The Maggie Murders?’
‘Or both?’
Sobers’ brown eyes widened and he stared deep into her face.
‘That may be the key,’ he exhaled.
He ran through it for both his and Jane’s benefit –
‘To summarise, as Hercule Poirot might do at a moment like this, we have had three murders in the last seven years, each one linked by both a nursery rhyme and a victory for Maggie Thatcher. One of those murders, unless they really are the work of a crazed killer holds the key to the case. Now no one benefits from the first death, apart from the Amusement Arcade Man’.
‘And the donkeys.’
‘And the donkeys. It’s also the murder least likely to be the intended one.’
‘Because of the time between the crimes?’
‘Yes, the gap’s too long. If there was any real link between the murderer and the first victim, then the police would have had four years to find it, before the idea of there being a serial killer on the loose was fed to them.’
‘So, it’s going to be the second or third murder, presuming there’s not going to be a fourth one?’
‘Well, unlike the ABC murders, our killer hasn’t taken the luxury of having a whole alphabet of victims to kill.’
‘Whilst at the same time being economic with the killings, as you said Christie’s killer quickly got it wrong after the intended victim was bumped off.’
‘So, who benefits out of the two widows?’
Jane scanned the notes she’d made and yet she knew the answer already.
‘Margaret Mallowan. Her husband was a property developer and financed a chain of up-market boutiques for the grieving widow, leaving her a millionaire several times over. Connie Baker already had her father’s money and the only thing she gained from her hubby’s death was yet more guilt free shagging and not having to care for a cripple.’
Sobers raised his eyes at his former colleague, ‘It’s not like you to be so censorious, Jane? How
has that woman’s lifestyle affected you? Are you jealous?’
‘Given the newspapers I must be the last monogamous person left in the UK! Everyone seems to be at it all the time! You must know what it’s like.’
‘Because I’m gay?’
She saw she had hurt Derek by the way he drew into himself. She reached out for his hand, instantly wanting to apologise and wished she had a time machine to take her back to her pre-gaffe conversation.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘We’re not all fucking like monkeys, Jane. I told you that I’ve accepted my sexuality, I didn’t say I was having sex.’
Jane blundered on.
‘But you’re in a relationship… You said you had a boyfriend?’
‘I am and I do, though Joe and I aren’t sleeping together. He humours me, while I feel guilt and angst about my reluctance to act on my feelings. I have desires which my family thinks of as unnatural and some of my fellow Anglicans think of as abhorrent and un-Christian.’
‘But that’s awful.’
‘Some people might feel it would be much worse if we were actual lovers. I know that he finds it more difficult than me and sometimes I turn a blind eye to occasional lapses in Joe’s fidelity, as I don’t want to be responsible for his unhappiness.’
‘So what will you do? I mean it just seems so awful for you…’
Sobers indicated his glass.
‘Right now I’ll probably drown my sorrows, a lesser sin if you like. Then I’ll probably admit my life with Joe isn’t working out and I’ll try to subsume my energies in my theological studies and helping out my parishioners.’
It took Jane several more large gins to think that she was getting her head around her friend’s dilemma and several more for her to try and stop persuading him that a loving God would forgive his nature. She kept failing to appreciate that his difficulty lay less with his personal beliefs and more with his evangelical upbringing. When’d he described watching an exorcism performed on a girl in his church when only a child himself, she hadn’t been able to believe that he wasn’t kidding. She felt he’d been telling her next he was best friends with The Witch-Finder General…