by J P Lomas
Well at least the media have got bored with my little affair. There’s the odd bit from time to time about the bungled investigation into the Baker killing, with some of the trendier left-wing titles trying to connect it to the release of the Guildford Four. One of the in-depth pieces in the Sundays must have put our Chief Constable’s nose out of joint, as he was certainly looking more than a little camera shy when he was being door stopped on the news the other night.
But the news is now mostly full of all these doom mongers whinging on about the state of the economy! Don’t they remember what this country was like before Maggie? The rubbish was piling up in the streets, the dead weren’t being buried and power cuts had become the norm! Without her three terms in office, our destiny would have been among the third world economies.
But we’ve been here before and no leader with the size of her majority is ever going to be in any trouble. She can easily ride this storm out. Sir Anthony’s fate should be a lesson learnt by all those Wets whinging on about Britain’s relationship with the bloody EEC. Who needs Europe anyway? The only thing it ever gave me was Chlamydia!
****
Jez walked out of the meeting wondering what he might have to give up first: Chez Jez, the car or the company? Pushing his way through an early evening crowd of revellers dressed as ghosts and witches, he turned onto the High Street in search of a bar where he could have a proper drink.
It was supposed to be a simple case of a little re-financing in order to gain more investment for the expansion of JAC Games and yet it now seemed more like a case of Game Over. Perhaps he should have spent more time overseeing the development of their software, rather than playing doctors and nurses with Mags? Rising inflation, coupled with an increase in interest rates had left his finances in very poor health.
Whilst he’d been worrying over how to break the news to his father and helping Mags avoid the tabloids, it seemed his credit rating had been falling faster than his sales figures. Whilst rival companies were still enjoying the good times, sales of ‘Superpower!’ had been diminishing as rapidly as the Soviet Union. The money they had ploughed into developing and advertising ‘Superpower 2 – The End of the World’ looked now to have been wasted. He’d already had to close their retail outlet and lay off the shop staff, whilst Luke and Stu had agreed to a cut in their hours. In all honesty, he should have fired one of his software designers and yet he just couldn’t decide which one to sack.
The growth of the console market hadn’t helped either. The days when the Spectrum, Commodore and BBC Micro had ruled the Home Gaming market were under threat from a new generation of console games from Japan and America. His old Atari now appeared antique when set against the new Game Boy and he was beginning to wish he’d listened more to Luke’s grumbles about working on products which had a built in obsolescence.
Maybe that pipe dream he’d talked about with Mags might come to fruition after all? They might have to scale it back from Australia or Hawaii, yet from what he knew of her improved finances, they’d easily have enough to set up a surf shop in Cornwall. He could run the business, whilst maybe she could look after the bar he planned to open next door. A quick peek at her accounts had revealed she was a millionaire several times over. At least her inheritance had been invested wisely in bricks and mortar, not in nebulous lines of credit and intellectual property agreements.
Yet he wasn’t as keen on becoming her kept lover. He’d need a few shreds of dignity left to fend off both the inevitable jibes from his father, as well as his mum’s disapproval over marrying an older woman. Although they hadn’t got around to even discussing marriage. He knew she’d need a suitable period to grieve and of course they still had to keep a low profile whilst the police enquiries wound down. Or until the real killer was caught – though that was probably being too optimistic.
And yet things were beginning to bother him. She still hadn’t set a date for him to move in with her, whilst he still had an expensive mortgage on the apartment to pay and his cash flow situation would certainly improve if he could sell it, even if it would fetch less than he’d paid for it. Wasn’t it about time she started to give him a little more insight into that future they’d planned together? Losing his business was one thing and risking a breach with his family another, but there was now another niggling doubt which was now making him feel very young and very vulnerable.
Being interviewed by that pretty journalist about the murders had not been a good idea; it had raised questions which he thought had lain dormant. He would normally have run a mile from such people, but she had been very persuasive. Though a part of him wondered if it had been her cute face and hot body which had made him agree to meet her in a bar. Given that Mags had insisted on a decent period of mourning, he’d half a mind to see if their meeting might provide him with some physical solace which he had been missing sorely.
Debbie Rowe might have agreed to change his name in any finished article, but she certainly hadn’t been open to his charms. Given that she’d been dressed in biker boots and a leather jacket, he presumed she must have been a dyke; straight women found him irresistible. Unfortunately, he had not been so good at resisting her questions. It wasn’t so much that he found himself opening up to her, more that he found her persistent questions about the exact nature of his relationship with Maggie digging away at feelings he had wanted to stop interrogating.
Maybe it was time to take another look at those files he’d found on her Mac?
****
The sudden explosion which lit up the night sky in a shower of pink and green sparks didn’t concern Jane as much as the report of Geoffrey Howe’s resignation speech on the BBC. The belated firework outside was just a leftover from Guy Fawkes’ Night; the manner of Howe’s departure was the real bombshell.
Jane tensed when she heard the news. The fact that her daughter wanted to join a kibbutz and drop out of Warwick left its place as the most pressing thing on her mind, when the breaking news on the bathroom radio announced that a second Tory leadership contest would be held less than a year since the last one.
The ‘Maggie Murders’ was still an on-going investigation and Jane headed up the team investigating any new leads into the killings of the three men. She was certain of Margaret Mallowan’s guilt; however she had no proof which would convince a jury of this, nor even enough to convince The Crown to charge her. The misguided attempt to prosecute Connie Baker over her husband’s death had made the powers-that-were afraid of a second mistrial.
Powers-that-were being the key phrase as Dent had finally gone. He’d resigned at Christmas – they’d cited ill health, but everyone knew it was down to pressure from on high over the failure to find the killer in the most sensational murder story to hit Devon since ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles.’ Story being the relevant word according to the rumourmongers, as an internal investigation had been opened into the force’s handling of the case, as it seemed Dent had been more than a little creative with the truth.
Canteen gossip tended to be right more often than not, even if chief gossip Mark Salmons had also taken gardening leave recently. Well, you couldn’t just threaten prisoners any longer, especially when those drunken women in your custody suite turned out to be London solicitors down on a hen night…
Jane felt that if she and Osborne had been allowed to mount a case against Margaret Mallowan for the murder of her husband, then they might have got a result if Dent’s meddling in the Baker murder hadn’t handed a potential open goal to any hypothetical defence team, as it would be difficult to find a dozen jurors who weren’t aware of the police’s catastrophic mishandling of the case against Connie Baker. It was just going to look like they were persecuting women for their sexual appetites.
Without that shadow hanging over them, she felt they might have made their case. Even if it was only on similarly circumstantial evidence, she felt many of the jurors might have been swayed. Especially if no perjured evidence was offered this time. And if they’d been able to ch
arge her, she felt she and Osborne might finally break Jez Carberry.
The news of a second leadership election meant they would now be under even more pressure with the world’s media likely to descend on the city in droves in the expectation of another murder.
At least she felt certain that the killings were over – Margaret Mallowan had disposed of her husband among the other victims and had quite literally got away with murder. ‘The Butcher, The Baker and The Candlestick-maker’ were all dead.
That had to be it, didn’t it?
Yet the fact that all three killings had happened on days when Margaret Thatcher had won elections made her wonder who might die when she succeeded again on November 20th? Then again what if she lost? Tim seemed to think that her time might be up and that Kinnock would lead Labour to victory in the New Year. He was cock-a-hoop at the news and had embarrassed them all with his celebratory dancing, which had resembled an epileptic elephant on ‘E’ according to the increasingly world weary Leo.
But Maggie losing? That really was unthinkable.
****
In London, Sobers watched the news unfolding with disbelief. As a man of the cloth he was supposed to be above party politics, but given the often public spats between the palaces of Lambeth and Westminster, the Church had become seen, in the inner city at least, as one of the few forces daring to oppose the extremes of Thatcherism.
The poverty he came across every day in his parish shocked him. Many of the people he came into contact with lived in conditions which were more of the third world than the first world. And yet just a stone’s throw away from many of the poorest people, some of the most expensive addresses in the world brashly thrust themselves into the skyline. London was still the divided city described by Dickens. Fagin’s gang might be a little more multicultural these days and Scrooge might now be working in a glass and steel skyscraper; however there still remained the ever widening gap between rich and poor that the consensus politics of the post war period had tried to narrow. It was the best of times and the worst of times all over again.
He felt his former lover’s hand move under the thin sheets of the hospice’s bed.
Ronnie only had enough strength to attempt to mouth the question.
Sobers leant over the bed and gently kissed Ronnie’s pallid forehead.
‘Yes, my darling, I’m afraid it looks bad for her.’
He watched the young man close his eyes and listened to his irregular and shallow breathes. It wouldn’t be long now.
Politics had been the least of the moot points between them. The fact that Ronnie had become a celebrity cheerleader for the Tory Party was only one aspect of the story which might make it catnip for the tabloids. The unrequited love between a black Anglican vicar and an agnostic children’s TV host was the very type of story which The News of the World would have loved to unearth and it would need very little embellishing.
Even being here was taking a risk; he’d just have to hope the paparazzi would not look beyond the dog-collar and his role as someone ministering to the dying. He’d only found out about Ronnie’s illness through the celebrity gossip provided by Mrs Forrester and had felt duty bound to attend him in his last months. He wasn’t entirely sure who he was trying to help bury, the ravaged man before him, or his own feelings about his past.
He mouthed a silent prayer.
Chapter 29
Chief Constable Harding was already in Jane’s good books for simply not being Dent; the full support he offered her for extra bodies to help ensure nothing untoward happened during the latest leadership election had now made him completely adorable in her book. Her team was quickly supplemented by as many detectives as she could wish for and DCS Simon Osborne although placed in nominal charge, made sure he gave her every opportunity to lead the case.
All she had to do now was to find a potential target for her reserves of manpower to investigate… This was the focus of the morning’s meeting, as in a few days Michael Heseltine would be making his long anticipated challenge to Margaret Thatcher for leadership of the Conservatives. A politician who had been waiting in the wings for almost as long as Dent, the blond maned Heseltine looked to have the determination and support which just might cause a sensational upset. With her reputation badly wounded by Howe’s attack on her the previous week, the Iron Lady was suddenly looking very brittle. Although Maggie at least seemed confident of victory having chosen to miss the vote herself in order to attend a European leaders’ conference at Fontainebleau.
Some commentators had ascribed this as bravery, others as a sign of the arrogance which had caused major figures in her party to abandon her.
Jane added the first line of the nursery rhyme to the white board in the operations room. A photo of their prime suspect Margaret Mallowan had already been tacked to the board. Time for a brainstorm:
‘Rub-a-dub-dub?’
‘It’s Cockney rhyming slang for a pub, ma’am,’ volunteered one of the new officers.
‘So the target could be a pub – well there are far too many of those for comfort. If we lose surveillance on her, it could be one of dozens of targets…’
‘Three maids in a tub? That’s one of the versions isn’t it?’ volunteered DC Clark, one of the long standing members of the team.
‘And your point is, Sandy?’
‘I’m not sure. Maids are traditionally girls or virgins.’
There was some tittering from the recently delegated squad members.
‘Go, on. At least some of us take the idea that we have a serial killer on the loose seriously.’
Jane’s rebuke ensured a more respectful silence met Sandy Clark’s next point.
‘Well, think about it – three girls in a tub or bath, what does that sound like?’
‘A bloody good idea!’ guffawed one of the more irrepressible detectives.
‘And where would you find three girls in a bath, DS Turner?’ asked Jane with steel in her voice.
‘Well there’s a few clubs like that around here, from what I’ve heard…’
‘What about that club on Frith Street? The White Rabbit. It’s supposed to be a gentleman’s club, but when I was working vice there were rumours of some high class escort girls working there. It’s supposedly Jacuzzis and masseuses for top end executives, but there’s been more than a few rumours it’s nothing more than a high class knocking shop, ‘interjected DC Warman.
‘I think that’s worth looking into Bruce.‘
‘But then again why would she target girls? We are still presuming the killer’s Mrs Mallowan, aren’t we?’ asked Sandy.
‘Yes, both the Chief Super and I agree that Margaret Mallowan is our most likely killer.’
‘And she’s only killed men before,’ stated Sandy.
‘But that’s only from following the main characters in the rhyme. She may have become so fixated on Thatcher that she’s willing to change her M.O.?’ offered Osborne as he took a seat at the back of the briefing room.
‘What if Thatcher loses?’
There was a general chorus of scoffing from the assembled company.
‘I’m serious, ma’am! ’ Sandy called above the hubbub, ‘Then she might want revenge on the type of people she believes stabbed Maggie in the back.’
‘You’re not thinking of another Guy Fawkes are you Sandy? I know we’re dealing with a ruthless woman, but she’s hardly in the same league as the IRA!’
‘Maybe not blowing up the Houses of Parliament, but I could see her wanting to burn down the local Conservative Club…’
Jane met Osborne’s eye, Sandy had made a very perceptive point. Not only were they going to have to keep a team on Mallowan, but they were also going to need to check out both The White Rabbit and the local Conservative Club. Given that Gerald Mallowan had been a prominent member of the latter, Jane felt that their killer would favour that as a possible target. Though what if he had also frequented the former; their marriage had been at the separate bedrooms stage?
As she
was leaving the briefing, another thought suddenly came to her. What if ‘tub’ meant a boat? There were plenty of boats in Devon and hadn’t Gerald Mallowan had a yacht moored at Exmouth Marina? All her new manpower suddenly seemed in very short supply…
****
Sobers had been visiting his Auntie Ida when they’d heard the news that President Kennedy had been assassinated. He could still remember hearing Uncle Desmond swearing and then the look his Aunt had given him for turning the air blue with what many people nowadays would have considered a comparatively mild expletive. They’d then popped round next door to watch the pictures on the Gayles’ TV set that evening. Half the street seemed to have been clustered around the tiny black and white screen showing the pictures from Dallas. The fug of cigarettes and the smell of alcohol on the breath of many of the men folk had given the event the air of a wake, which he supposed in many ways it was.
When Mrs Forrester burst into the vestry in a manner that suggested she’d forgotten her GP’s advice about keeping her blood pressure under control, he’d been in the middle of using the Church’s Letraset to make posters advertising their Christmas Fair. He’d just realised he had spelt nativity with a double ‘t’ when Barbara Forrester’s cry of ‘She’s resigned!’ conveyed the historic news of Mrs Thatcher’s political demise.
Posters and flowers now forgotten; the two of them clustered over the portable radio Mrs Forrester had been listening to by the altar. Unable to quite believe the news on LBC, he’d retuned it to the BBC for confirmation.
‘But she won the election?’ cried the puzzled, but delighted flower arranger.
‘Not by enough to avoid a second round it seems.’
‘So she’s really gone!’
‘So it seems.’
‘What do we do?’
‘Ring dem bells?’ Sobers smiled.