by John Mead
‘No, they don’t. The swinging blow with the weight of the hammer, would have done most of the work but even so it suggests a very violent intent, perhaps an intention to kill rather than accidentally doing so. Moving them also suggests a degree of calmness and possible premeditation, as does the choice of where the attacks took place.’
‘How’s that?’ Consgrave asked, forgetting he was there to observe.
‘Both attacks took place at quiet times of day, at points that are sheltered and not overlooked. If you wanted to catch someone in a public place which isn’t very public, these are good choices. It also suggests that the attacker knows the area and these parks well. Lynsey regularly jogged through both parks, the two crime scenes, and along with Wapping Woods, are constants on the different routes she takes. At least, that is what her running route plans we found seem to show.’
‘Jody frequented St George’s, at least during the dry weather, a number of people recognised her when the area was canvassed and she was picked up on CCTV,’ Rosen informed them. ‘She may have gone there to buy drugs. Nowak has confirmed that he had sold to her a couple of times previous to their last encounter, which was a few hours before she was killed.’
‘I can’t see that Jody could be mistaken for Lynsey,’ Merry continued, ‘so we can rule out the first attack being a mistake but there could be other links between them rather than their being random victims. Both had mental illness issues and attended the same local clinic, I’ll be following up on that after the briefing. Jody was a drug user and had a number of arrests for possession, and toxicology showed she had recently taken fentanyl, of the China Girl variety. Whilst Lynsey volunteered on anti-drugs projects, so their paths could have crossed though on different sides of the fence. Julie, I’d like you and Gillian to look into that, plus follow up on our missing headscarf-wearing witness.’
Porter, who had sat up at the mention of her name, half raised her hand to indicate she had something to say, which added to her earnest youthfulness and made Merry feel like a lecturer in a classroom. ‘I think I’ve identified her passing by Shearsmith House on the northern side of the gardens, though nothing of her actually entering the park, which seems odd, as she is next seen by the witness and CCTV at the eastern exit. It looks like she was leaving, as shortly after, CCTV also shows a woman in a beige headscarf, wearing a dark top and trousers leaving the area of the community centre just further east of the gardens. I can’t trace her very far before or after these sightings but she was certainly in the immediate vicinity of the park fifteen minutes before and after the attack.’
‘Anything of her face?’ Swift asked.
‘No, sir,’ the constable was apologetic despite it not being her fault, as she started to pass out photos she had taken from CCTV, ‘she seems to walk looking down, perhaps not uncommon for a muslim female to help preserve her modesty, but there is more than a passing resemblance about her figure in each shot that makes me think it is the same woman.’
‘Not much use for identification purposes,’ Merry stated, peering at the blurry photos of side and rear shots, ‘but I see what you mean. It’s good work though, well done,’ causing Porter to smile, a slight blush on her cheeks. ‘Perhaps we could put out a fresh appeal for witnesses and include a mention of this person.’
Swift was quick onto his feet at this point, ‘Yes, both myself and Chief Inspector Consgrave are talking with the press office on this and we want to be careful about the message we send out. We all understand that two killings, whilst disturbing, may not amount to very much else but given the associations the Whitechapel area has, we don’t want any “Ripper” headlines. We want the message to be more on the lines of: extra police vigilance around the area’s green spaces, wise precautions for females out alone, that sort of thing. We’ll include a fresh appeal for witnesses and further canvassing and patrols around local parks but at the moment I want to keep the two deaths separate in people’s minds as it might also help ward off the more fanciful tips we get back.’
‘Talking of tip-offs,’ Rosen spoke up as Swift regained his seat, ‘Gillian isn’t the only one with news.’ He nodded to the two CID constables sitting at the rear.
‘Yes,’ the younger of the pair, Barry Youlden, taking his cue and, following Swift’s example, getting to his feet. ‘We have had a number of calls about a black youth lurking around the high-rise blocks on the north side of Swedenborg Gardens, Stockholm Towers in particular. One witness said he saw a young black man climb over a wall into the gardens, given there is a gate not far off it seems an odd thing to do. And, this was just before Lynsey Hensley was attacked. The bad news is we can’t find anything of him leaving the gardens, but we have picked him up earlier, getting out of a car, passenger side, near Stockholm Towers and we have the car registration.’
‘You’ve got the driver’s name?’ Merry asked, alert to the possibilities of a breakthrough.
‘Just come through,’ Youlden smiled at the stir his news had caused amongst the others.
‘Good, immediately after this you and Hayden go and question the driver, bring them in if they don’t cooperate. Otherwise get your wall climber picked up and brought in for questioning. Get what you can out of him but hold him until I’m back from the mental health clinic. Ray and his team are going to review both cases and each victim’s background to see if there are any further possible ties between them. Forensics are looking at the trace that was recovered at both scenes to see if they are linked, no bloody plastic bag was found at Jody’s attack and in neither case do we have much physical evidence. Nor do we have any motive as neither appears to have been robbed, although Jody’s phone is missing but that could have been picked up by anyone. Neither girl was sexually assaulted, so what did the attacker get out of this?’
‘The thrill,’ Lukula piped up, Merry had meant it as a rhetorical question but it seemed an obvious answer to her.
‘How so?’ it was Swift who asked, his face both puzzled and concerned as he half-guessed what Julie meant.
‘The growing excitement over planning it,’ Lukula explained, her army experience giving her an insight to a world of conflict and violence the others could only guess at, ‘checking out the different localities, the best place to strike from, going over and over it in their head, perhaps practising with the hammer. Then the adrenaline pumping wait, followed by the explosion and high of adrenaline during the execution. It would be hours before they started to come down off that high. Then the realisation they had gotten away with it and could start the whole process over again.’
‘Fuck,’ Swift muttered to himself but clear enough for the others to hear, his own army career had ended after breaking an ankle on a final training jump and he’d never seen action but he recognised what Lukula was describing.
‘OK,’ Merry stated, taking up the reins again, ‘it’s all good thinking but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Although Julie is right about escalation,’ Merry hesitated for a moment as he decided on how best to allocate the next task he wanted done. ‘David can you work with our analyst and check back over the last twelve months for any attacks using a hammer or similar weapon? Start with assaults on young women and then widen it out to anyone, there may have been some practise runs leading up to the murders and his methods could have evolved.’ David Anderson, who had worked solidly in the local CID for eight years nodded, wondering if this would be his moment to shine and break out of his otherwise plodding career.
‘OK, anything else?’ Merry paused, but seeing a chorus of shaking heads finished by saying, ‘On one other note, I know there’s no canteen on site and the drinks machine is plugged into the sewerage pipe but can we do our best to keep the office clean of Costa cups and takeaway boxes. If you bring it in then take your rubbish out, as apparently the cleaners don’t do these rooms since the station was put on restricted opening hours. Briefing at ten tomorrow, that should give us all time to follow up on our assig
nments.’
7
Hayden phoned Merry as he arrived at the local Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service centre for his prearranged appointment with the manager. Her news wasn’t good. The black youth seen climbing over the wall at the rear of Stockholm Tower was with the driver when Hayden and the young DC from CID called, it turned out the pair were cousins. The youth had gone to the high-rise to visit his girlfriend, but spotting the girlfriend’s older brother, who disapproved of the relationship, he had jumped over the wall to hide. The girlfriend confirmed the event and had, with a salacious grin, alibied the youth for the time of the attack on Lynsey.
‘Thanks,’ Matthew told her, trying not to feel dispirited, he was usually more pessimistic about such leads but for once he had hoped for a breakthrough. ‘Call it a day for now but first thing in the morning go over all the outstanding calls from the public, see if anything else is worth following up.’
‘Their times with us do not overlap, I’m afraid, so there is no obvious connection,’ the office manager, Liz, told him, she was a women in her mid-forties and she managed to look both cheerful and efficient whilst appearing tired. Her clothing reeked of tobacco smoke, which Matthew considered a pity as she had an attractive, neat figure and searching eyes that denoted intelligence. ‘Lynsey Hensley finished with us as a patient nearly two years ago. Though she remained in touch and we are aware of the work she has been doing in local schools. Occasionally she gave talks about her experiences here. Such a bright girl, such a loss,’ the manager sighed, before continuing. ‘Jody only attended here fairly recently as part of her transition period. She received excellent treatment when she was in custody and came to us while waiting placement with adult services as she was turning eighteen.’
‘Could they have met here, in passing say?’ Merry tried a long shot though with little hope.
‘I’ll ask reception to check back over the visitor’s log, everyone has to sign in.’ Matthew waited as the manager had a tense conversation with the receptionist who obviously didn’t think it part of his duties to check back through the archived logs. ‘It will take a little while,’ the woman smilingly explained, ‘Lynsey’s visits were also logged as part of a support programme we run, so it is only a matter of checking a few dates but, unfortunately, the old visitor’s logs are stored in our archive.’
‘Thank you, while we wait can you give me any details about who took over Jody Grahame’s case,’ Matthew asked, then waited while the manager tapped away on a computer.
‘I can print off details of the doctor, support worker and case file worker for you, but to be honest they might not be much help,’ the manager sounded both apologetic and resigned at the news. ‘We keep notes on progress during the transition period to see that everything goes OK, which it did. However there’s a note on file to say both the support worker, who was helping with her drug addiction, and the doctor, who treated her for depression, had contacted us for information as she had stopped attending their sessions. It is down to the case worker to ensure a client attends their sessions but at the end of the transition period her case worker moved away and in the period when a replacement was being found, Jody dropped off the adult services map.’
‘How is that possible?’ Merry asked, though guessing that budgets and poor resources would figure in the answer.
‘Jody wasn’t a high risk,’ the manager stated, looking more tired and stressed than she had a few minutes ago, twirling a fidget spinner in the absence of a cigarette break, ‘she hadn’t self-harmed for sometime and, since her attempted suicide at fifteen, her biggest problem seemed to have been drugs; her depression and self-loathing was thought to stem from her drug use. Whilst the case workers do their utmost to keep patients attending sessions, if they refuse or, as in this case, simply don’t push for help, then they tend to get dropped off the list. Unfortunately demand for these services greatly exceeds the NHS’s ability to supply, so cases are prioritised and Jody wasn’t a harm to others nor particularly herself. At least she wasn’t that different from anyone else on the list in that respect.’
‘I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised,’ Merry confided, ‘a lot of people we deal with have mental health problems, either as victims or perpetrators of crime.’ Then realising how pretentious he sounded, Matthew asked, ‘Is there anything else on either file that can help us?’
‘Nothing really,’ the manager again was tapping on the computer keyboard, scanning files, ‘Lynsey had a strong support network in her mother, aunt and school, which would have tipped the balance in her favour, Jody didn’t. There’s a note on each file that their details have been used in a clinical review, with the possibility of individual follow ups.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘A graduate student preparing a PhD dissertation on factors influencing recovery rates, it would have been fully vetted before approval and it was sponsored by a very well known researcher. Actually I know the sponsor, she has done some work with our team both on a consultancy basis as well as some free work in recognition of how well we operate,’ the manager explained, a hint of pride entering her voice that the centre had such a link. Any response Merry would have made was cut short by his phone ringing.
Porter had quickly retrieved a file containing all of Lynsey Hensley’s volunteering work, which was on the girl’s laptop taken from her bedroom. Most of the contact names in the file had already been spoken to but Lukula left Porter to phone the remaining ones and took the lists with her to visit Jody’s mentor at her supported accommodation. Julie had little hope the information on the file would produce a link to Jody Grahame as nearly all the talks Lynsey and her friends gave were at junior schools and the content hardly looked as if it would engage an older, established user, like Jody. Her view was confirmed by Jody’s mentor.
‘Jody was alright,’ the mentor, a university graduate who was trying to establish a career in the charity industry by working for a low wage at the accommodation project, informed the sergeant, ‘not a problem as such. She was typical of the young, ex-offenders we house here but she did seem to be making a serious effort.’
‘How was that?’ Lukula asked, noticing the young man seemed a little in awe of talking to a police officer. Like the majority of the population, outside of traffic incidents, he had probably never had any contact with the police other than seeing them walk the streets.
‘Nothing from her case worker for the last couple of months, which is a good sign,’ he explained, feeling his work with ex-offenders gave him a connection to the rather attractive, if slightly older female officer, ‘she also talked about regular meetings with her therapist. She seemed very positive about those, said they were helping a lot. The only setback she’d had was recently losing her part-time job at a supermarket, it was a blow but I was surprised when she went missing. We give them a day and a night then report them missing to the police or probation officer, often they are in custody already when we call.’ The mentor smiled, knowingly, sharing a moment with a fellow professional, then quickly turning serious on seeing the sergeant’s stony visage.
‘Do you have any details of the therapist or the place she worked?’ Lukula asked, thinking the graduate out of his depth amongst the streetwise ex-offenders he was supposed to be helping. Julie was of the view that life experience counted for more than academic learning, though she realised her own background biased her viewpoint.
‘We have the case worker’s details, who oversees that end of things, the workplace details will be on file. I’ll get them for you.’
‘Hi, sir,’ Julie phoned her boss the moment she got back to her car, pleased at the link she had found, ‘I’ve got details of Jody’s case worker for her mental health support and where she had worked part-time, and guess what?’
‘She didn’t have one,’ Merry was quick to throw cold water on Julie’s findings.
‘What?’ Lukula was taken aback at the unexpected resp
onse.
‘She hasn’t got a case worker and hasn’t been attending therapy or drug support,’ Merry explained, smiling at the manager as he spoke on the mobile. ‘The very helpful manager at CAMHS, has checked her records and phoned a contact she has at adult mental health services. Jody doesn’t have a case worker and doesn’t access the service anymore.’
‘Bugger, her mentor thought she was doing well, seeing a therapist regularly,’ Lukula shouldn’t have been surprised, addicts tended to lie a lot to hide their addiction and Jody had obviously relapsed, but then remembered her other piece of information. ‘However, she did have a part-time job, until recently, the same place Lynsey worked. It’s up by the Berner Centre, I’m on my way there now.’
‘I’m sorry we couldn’t be of more help,’ the manager stated politely, if without real conviction, she was walking Merry out and already had a pack of cigarettes in her hand ready for her smoker’s break.
‘That’s fine,’ Merry acknowledged, waving the file containing copies of the few details they had gleaned for him, none of which seemed of any use, but he would pass on to Rosen for entry onto HOLMES2 just in case an unseen or future connection was revealed. ‘Every little helps,’ he said over his shoulder leaving the manager to her coffin nails.
The young manager, of Chinese descent, who managed the supermarket was less than helpful and bridled at Sergeant Lukula’s deepening scowl of frustration.
‘I already said that I’ve told your other officers that Jody Grahame used to work here but was sacked six or seven weeks ago because of very poor timekeeping. Lynsey Hensley worked weekends, she reduced her hours to Saturday mornings while she studied for her A level exams. She’s a very good worker and it’s a pity she cut her hours but qualifications are important,’ he stated, somewhat pompously, glancing at his own certificates in Business and Management Studies gained from a local college, adorning his office walls. ‘Jody Grahame only worked part-time, weekday mornings usually, and was not a good worker, no qualifications.’