by Tim Ellis
‘That’s as maybe, but it doesn’t detract from the fact that it’s still the holiday period and the cupboard is bare. You’ll just have to get out from behind your desk, roll back the years and roll up your sleeves.’
‘What about a rising star? Richards was a rising star. In fact, she’s still in the ascendency.’
‘Yes, Walter Day had a knack of finding rising stars.’
The line went quiet.
‘Sir?’
‘All right, Kowalski. I have a PCSO in Saffron Walden called Amelia Turtledove who’s showing some promise. You can have her until Monday of next week, but then she goes back to her proper job. Also, you can pay for her accommodation.’
‘A PCSO?’
‘Take it or leave it.’
‘How long has she been on the job, Sir?’
‘I never realised you needed the person to have specific skills and experience. Is time in the job an important attribute?’
‘No, I was . . .’
‘Eighteen months.’
‘I suppose I’ll have to take her.’
‘A wise decision. She’ll be with you by lunchtime.’
‘Thanks, Sir.’
‘And . . . make sure I get this one back alive, Kowalski.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
The line went dead.
He replaced the receiver back in its cradle and picked up his lukewarm coffee.
A PCSO! He could probably train her to make a decent mug of coffee, and run administrative errands for him. Eighteen months as a PCSO! She wouldn’t be much use. In fact, he’d have probably been better off working on his own.
Jerry appeared. ‘You’re up and dressed early.’
He glanced at the clock on the wall – ten to seven. ‘So are you.’
‘I turned over to offer myself up as a sacrifice to the god of debauchery, but he wasn’t there. It’s not too late though. We still have time.’
He wrapped his arms around her back, and slid his hands over her buttocks. ‘If only that were true. Sadly, I have a murder.’
‘You’re the DCI – DCIs don’t have murders. They have lots of people working for them who have murders, which means the DCI can keep his wife happy after years of neglect and unhappiness.’
‘That’s the way it’s meant to work, but sickness and holidays have decimated my available manpower. Parish should have been on call last night, but he said he needed two weeks off. I had to put myself on last night.’
‘So, it’s Parish’s fault – again?’
He kissed her neck. ‘That’s about the size of it.’
She wriggled from his clutches. ‘There’s no point in getting excited now then, is there?’
‘Maybe later I could make it up to you.’
‘How many times have I heard that?’
‘Let me count the ways . . .’
***
He was up early.
After phoning Angie at around nine last night he’d slept like a top and was awake at six-thirty ready to seize the day. The restaurant opened at seven. He was first in the queue, and helped himself to a full English, a pot of tea, fried bread, and side orders of mushrooms and black pudding.
By the time he’d demolished the breakfast it was time to go. He’d already keyed the postcode into the satnav, and it would take him ten minutes to reach Clifford Street Police Station, but as he had no idea where he was going he thought he’d give himself plenty of time to get there.
He was hoping that DI Stuart McIntyre started work at eight-thirty like most detectives, so that he wasn’t hanging around. There was a lot to do today and not much time to do it in.
The satnav was a female called Wanda, and she seemed to know where she was going. It took him thirteen minutes to reach the police station, and another seven minutes to park the car and walk round to the front entrance of the police station.
He produced his warrant card for the female civilian support officer on the desk – Jennifer Devine etched on her name badge. Even though he was on leave, he was still a Detective Inspector. And although he was conducting an illegal investigation, it wasn’t at the far right of the illegal continuum that he had to pass himself off as someone he wasn’t. ‘Detective Inspector Jed Parish from Hoddesdon Police Station in Essex to see DI Stuart McIntyre.’
‘Who, Sir?’
‘DI Stuart McIntyre.’
She screwed up her face, opened up a black loose-leaf folder and began running her finger down the pages. ‘No one by that name here, Sir.’ She picked up the phone and dialled an internal number. ‘It’s Jennifer on the front desk, Sarge. I’ve got a DI from Essex here who wants to see a DI Stuart McIntyre . . . Okay, Sarge.’ She put the phone down. ‘Sergeant Stovell is coming to speak to you, Sir.’
‘Thanks, Jennifer.’
‘You’re welcome, Sir.’
He paced around the empty reception like a man possessed.
A uniformed Sergeant appeared. ‘Sergeant Chris Stovell, Sir. Can I help you?’
‘I’ve come to see DI Stuart McIntyre if he’s available.’
‘Unfortunately, he died of cancer eighteen months ago.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘And you’ve come all the way from Essex to see him?’
‘Yes. I know I should have called first, but . . .’ He looked around the reception. ‘Is there somewhere we can talk?’
‘Of course, Sir.’ He keyed a numeric four-digit code into the access panel and opened the door into the station proper. ‘Follow me.’
Sergeant Stovell led him along a corridor to his office. ‘What’s this about, Sir?’
‘Kylie Woodhouse and her twins . . .’
‘. . . Dolly and Donna were murdered by a psychopath the media have called The Family Man at 54 Hartside Gardens in Jesmond on February 17, 2010.’
Parish nodded. ‘I see you’re familiar with the case.’
‘Everyone at Clifford Street is familiar with that case, Sir.’
‘And you’re also aware that he’s killed another two families since then?’
‘Yes.’
‘The last woman was the mother of my child.’
Stovell’s forehead creased up.
He explained: ‘She had two children by her husband. She left him, we had a fling, nine months later – a daughter was born.’
‘Was your daughter . . . ?’
‘Oh, no. My wife and I were looking after Melody – my daughter – for the weekend. He killed her other two children though.’
‘So, you didn’t call here first because you’re not meant to be investigating a case you have personal connections to?’
‘They should promote you, Sergeant.’
He laughed. ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’
‘Carrie – the mother – was also the DCI’s secretary.’
‘All sounds very cosy . . . for want of a better word.’
‘Believe me, it wasn’t.’
‘So, in the absence of DI McIntyre, you’d like to speak to someone who was on the team and pick their brains?’
‘In a nutshell.’
He picked up the phone and dialled a number. ‘Hi, Josie. Who’s got the Kylie Woodhouse file?’
‘You wouldn’t . . . ? What would I do without you?’ He put the phone down. ‘She’s bringing the file down.’
No sooner had he said it than the door opened and a thin middle-aged woman with short curly hair, lime-green framed glasses and a multicoloured maxi-skirt appeared carrying a thick file. ‘Another one you owe me,’ she said.
Stovell smiled. ‘I’d have to live for another two hundred years to pay you back everything I owe you.’
‘Or, you could whisk me away from all this drudgery. I hear the South of France is lovely at this time of year.’
He glanced at Parish. ‘This is Josie Mundy. She runs the station on behalf of the Chief Constable – we all work for her.’
Parish shook her hand. ‘DI Jed Parish from Essex. Nice to meet you, Josie.’
&nbs
p; ‘Essex huh! Did you know that you’re thirty-eight percent more likely to be hit by falling aeroplane parts there than anywhere else in Britain?’
‘No, I didn’t know that.’
‘Well, now you do. If I lived there I’d wear a hard hat.’ She opened the door and left.
Parish looked askance at Sergeant Stovell.
‘Don’t ask. We wouldn’t change her for the world, but she’s a few French fries short of a happy meal.’
‘Every station has one,’ he said. ‘A bit like the resident cat.’
‘Aye, we’ve got one of those as well – Arthur Dent’s his name.’ He opened the file Josie had brought him and said, ‘So, let’s see who’s still here.’ He rifled through the pages mumbling, ‘No, no, no . . . Four and a half years is a long time in the force these days. People get transferred, leave, retire, die . . . Ah!’ He picked up the phone and dialled an internal number. ‘Morning, Ma’am. Is DS Lauren Perry on duty? . . . She is? That’s great. Any chance she can come down and see me? . . . Thanks, Ma’am.’ He put the phone down. ‘Perry is the only one from the original team that I can see who’s still here. She wasn’t a DS then though – merely a DC, but she’ll be able to . . .’
The door opened. A blonde-haired woman in her late twenties wearing a loose short-sleeved black blouse and black slacks was standing there. She had an oblong face with a protruding chin and a high forehead. He hair was knotted at the back of her head and emphasised her muscular neck and shoulders.
‘Ah, Lauren. Thanks for coming down.’ Stovell indicated Parish. ‘This is DI Parish from Hoddesdon in Essex.’
DS Perry shook his hand. ‘Good morning, Sir.’
She had a grip like an American Pit Bull. His eyes narrowed as he tried not to register the pain that shot up his arm as his metacarpals were crushed to dust one by one. ‘Good morning, Sergeant.’
Once she released his right hand he began massaging it with the fingers of his left.
Stovell smiled. ‘Lauren’s the station arm-wrestling champion.’
‘North-east champion,’ she corrected him.
Parish pursed his lips. ‘Brilliant.’
‘I’m in training for the 36th World Championships being held in Vilnius, Lithuania next February.’
‘I didn’t realise it was such a popular sport,’ he said.
She shrugged. ‘Only with me. Anyway, I’m sure you didn’t come here to talk about arm wrestling.’
‘No.’
Stovell chipped in. ‘He wants to speak to someone about the Woodhouse murders, and you’re the only one left standing.’
She glanced at Parish. ‘That right?’
He nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘It was a long time ago.’
‘Yes, but since then he’s murdered another two families.’
‘The one that got away,’ she said. ‘Let’s go to the canteen. I’m sure Chris has other work to do.’
Sergeant Stovell held out the Woodhouse file. ‘You might want to take that with you.’
Perry took the file and tucked it under her arm.
‘And when you’ve finished with it, can you give it back to Josie?’
‘Sure.’
‘Thanks for your help, Sergeant,’ Parish said
‘I hope you catch the bastard, Sir.’
‘So do I.’
In the canteen Parish ordered a coffee, and Perry had a bottled water.
‘I’m in training, remember,’ she said in answer to his look.
‘Of course.’
They sat down at a table away from the main thoroughfare.
‘So, what do you want to know, Sir?’
Parish told Sergeant Perry about Carrie and her two children, about Melody and how the detectives at Epping had re-categorised the case as “Pending”.
‘Shortly to be hidden in the “Unsolved” pile?’ Perry said.
‘We all know how the game goes.’
‘And you’re running an unauthorised investigation?’
‘Yes. If I didn’t try to solve the murders myself . . .’
‘. . . You’d never be able to live with yourself, because you think that Carrie and the two children being murdered was all your fault?’
‘You’ve heard the story before?’
‘A few times.’ She took a swallow of water. ‘I was a newly promoted DC at the time. My involvement was limited to making the coffees and keeping the incident board up-to-date.’
‘I’ve got my head of forensics looking at the crime scene reports, the pathologist going over the post mortem reports, and someone in SCAS interrogating ViCLAS again. I thought that it might be useful to re-visit his old crimes and look at them from the perspective of hindsight.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘He bleaches every crime scene. Forensics never find any DNA or fingerprint evidence, which might very well be his weakness.’
‘How so?’
‘What would we do if we found either?’
‘Run them . . .Ah! You think he’s on one of the databases already?’
‘Yes.’
She shrugged. ‘It still doesn’t help us if forensics can’t find any evidence and he keeps changing his identity.’
‘Here, he was Martin Rollins, in Grimsby – Lewis Jones, and in Hoddesdon – Grant Mottram. He obtained Mottram’s name from the gravestone of a seven year-old boy in Halifax. To change identities he would have needed documents . . .’
‘The application forms?’
‘Exactly.’
‘What if he paid for forgeries?’
‘I don’t think he did. My head of forensics is travelling down to London to visit the Passport Office and the GRO to find out if any of those people completed an application form for identity documents.’
‘And you’re hoping that you can lift a fingerprint or a DNA sample from them?’
‘Yes.’
‘Worth a try . . . Unless he wore gloves.’
Parish shrugged. ‘If he has no luck there, he’ll travel to Swansea.’
‘It’s certainly a lead we never pursued.’
‘Also, everyone has made the assumption that the Woodhouse killings were his first. Were they?’
‘We didn’t find anything to suggest otherwise.’
‘A serial killer doesn’t normally appear fully-formed. Usually, he leaves a messy trail behind him. John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer and Ed Gein are typical examples. As I said, I’ve got my contact at SCAS investigating whether there are any links – tenuous or otherwise – that weren’t pursued.’
‘You’re giving this your full attention then?’
‘It’s the only way I know how. The other lead I’m pursuing is the names. Martin Rollins wasn’t his real name. You obviously carried out a background check and found nothing.’
‘That’s right. Prior to him surfacing as Kylie Woodhouse’s boyfriend in November 2008 there was no record of a Martin Rollins.’
‘He seems to follow three stages: In stage one he establishes an identity; in stage two he meets, moves in with and eventually kills his target and her children; stage three appears to be a cooling-off period that probably overlaps with stage one; and the cycle begins again. Look at the dates: At the moment we don’t know what he was doing prior to November 2008 when he met and moved in with Kylie Woodhouse, but my assumption is that he was establishing his Martin Rollins identity. He lived with Kylie and her twins for fourteen months and then kills her and the children on February 17, 2010. There’s a break then – the cooling-off period and establishing the new identity of Lewis Jones. He meets and moves in with Pippa Frayne and her son around July of 2011, and then kills the two of them fifteen months later on October 26, 2012. There’s another – much longer – cooling-off period until he re-surfaces as Grant Mottram in January 2014. He moves in with Carrie Holden and her three children in May 2014 and on July 20, 2014 he kills Carrie and the two older children.’
‘That only lasted three months,’ Perry said.
‘Ye
s. We don’t really know why he kills the families. Let’s surmise that everything starts off rosy, but gradually the relationship deteriorates to such an extent that the woman asks him to leave. Maybe Carrie reached that point a lot sooner than the other two women.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I wish she’d spoken to me, but she didn’t.’
The furrows on Perry’s forehead became deep crevices. ‘Why didn’t he kill the third child?’
‘My daughter, Melody. I’m glad he didn’t. There are two possible explanations that I can think of. First, I had her on that weekend, so she might not have featured in his plans. And second, he might have considered her to be too young. At the time, she was thirteen months old, which was far too young to pick him out of a line-up.’
‘And you’ve come all the way up here to do what?’
‘Speak to people mainly. After tipping my hat here . . .’
She glanced at the top of his head. ‘Did you leave your hat in Chris Stovell’s office?’
‘A metaphorical hat.’
‘Ah!’
‘I was going to go round to the crime scene . . .’
‘After four and a half years?’
‘I know it’s a bit . . .’
‘So, I guess you need my help?’
‘I don’t want to drop anybody in the proverbial.’
‘There’s no proverbial here. I’m my own boss until the DI comes back from his drinking holiday in Croatia next week.’
‘If you’re sure?’
‘How long are you here?’
‘I’m flying back tonight.’
‘Then, that’s fine. I can spare a day to re-visit the Woodhouse murders. It’ll be a legitimate use of my time, and it’s not as if I’m snowed under anyway.’
‘Thanks. There’s a couple of other things, as well.’
‘Oh?’
‘The name Grant Mottram was taken from the gravestone of a seven year-old boy buried in the graveyard of the Methodist Chapel at Heptonstall in Halifax who had died in 1989. This made Mottram around thirty-two years of age (1982 – 2014). What was he doing in a small village in Halifax? So, I plan to visit there later in the week. The other thing is, why? What’s it all for? I mean, this is not a hobby. He’s devoting his whole life to playing happy families time after time. He disposes of one family, and then begins the whole rigmarole of finding another one soon afterwards. It’s as if he’s stuck in a revolving hamster wheel. A criminal profiler would be able to . . .’