The Fourth Victim

by John Mead

  ‘Ohh?’ Merry asked, realising the extra effort Lukula had put in since the mess up at the hospital. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Madeline had a large number of contacts listed on her phone,’ Julie explained, trying to sound enthusiastic about the tit-bit, ‘and we’ve traced all but one of them. It so happens the same number is on Lynsey’s phone, a pay-as-you-go number. We can’t trace it but it shows they had one contact in common.’

  ‘OK, but hardly useful if the number is untraceable and the phone has been dumped,’ Merry was less than impressed by the news.

  ‘Also, Madeline had a scheduling app, to keep up with her college work, nail bar appointments, plus her social and website life,’ Julie raised her eyebrows, still wondering how a sixteen year old could be developing an online soft core porn business to finance her future; enterprising just didn’t come into it. Although Maddy was hardly in the same league as the millionaire internet teens that were often quoted in the papers. ‘It shows she had met a CW a few times recently, including the day she died, and seems to have earned a bit of cash as a result, a figure of two hundred and fifty being shown against each visit.’

  ‘Do we have any idea who CW is?’ Merry was wondering what Julie was leading up to, hopefully not another dead-end.

  ‘No, the initials CW don’t link with anyone we have come across so far. Although they’re worth keeping in mind,’ Julie pointed out, trying not to sound as if she was clutching at straws. ‘However it started me thinking and I’ve checked out her financial situation. It turns out she has quite a bit stashed in a savings account, even taking account of what she earned on the internet and from part-time work. Also, Jody had managed to fund her drug purchases despite not having a job, so she was getting money from somewhere. Even Lynsey seems to have had a healthy bank balance for a student, though her mother did describe her as thrifty. My point is that if they were all getting extra cash from somewhere that’s an avenue we should look into?’

  ‘Possibly,’ Merry agreed without enthusiasm. ‘Jody had been on the street when she was younger and God knows how far Madeline was prepared to go for money. But how does that link with Lynsey? She was anti-drugs, clean lifestyle, shy even and too bright to get messed up in anything illegal.’ His own words, however, sparked a thought, ‘Not that being bright doesn’t stop you from doing something stupid. One of the things I found out in Scotland was that Alima knew Jenny Cowan long before she was admitted to the research project.’

  ‘Really?’ Julie was surprised, she couldn’t think that anyone had asked Alima exactly when she had first met Jenny but was surprised she hadn’t mentioned this.

  ‘Her brother had a holiday home up near Mallaig and it seems she knew Jenny and was buying drugs off her,’ Merry explained noticing Julie suddenly looked upset: both annoyed and hurt at the same time. ‘Of course she might not want to advertise a youthful indiscretion. She was still a student at the time and it was only a relatively short while after that she discovered Jenny as a DID sufferer, which got her onto the research project. Apparently it earned her a few brownie points so she might not have wanted to admit she already knew Jenny and it was just luck and not dedicated research and analysis that had located her.’

  ‘But you have to admit her knowledge of Jenny has helped us,’ Julie went on the defensive, determined to see the best in Alima’s actions and that they represented something more altruistic than just serving the doctor’s own ends.

  ‘To an extent,’ Merry admitted. ‘Certainly she brought Cowan to our attention. The confusion she created over Jenny’s identity caused the uniforms responding to check Cowan out carefully, leading us to match her prints with those on the Tesco bag, that’s the one solid piece of evidence we have. She also helped us sort out each of Cowan’s different personalities. Although, from what everyone, particularly her brother, has said Jenny sounds like the violent personality Alima calls Mia, the one who is always angry.’

  ‘Then you have Jackie, the party girl who can’t say no to boys, who is a bit like Madeline,’ Julie continued the line of thought. Then glanced at Merry and felt embarrassed at her boss’s embarrassment at her words so she quickly continued, ‘While Lynsey, the vulnerable and shy one, is like Leanne, trying to get on with her life despite everything.’

  ‘And, Jody is the drug addict, with no family and no one to care about her, almost invisible, there’s also elements of Jenny in that description, minus the violent outbursts,’ Merry said, thoughtfully. ‘Each victim was vulnerable in some way, each a facet of Jenny’s shattered personality. Was that what marked them out?’ he wondered out loud, ‘Is that Jenny’s motive? Is that enough to justify killing?’

  ‘That tallies with Alima’s thinking,’ Julie agreed enthusiastically. ‘She has said she thinks you are right about John’s dream, the women represent aspects of Cowan’s different personalities and the men are her abusers. She believes that she can use Jenny’s attempted suicide to help elicit a confession.’ Julie explained without thought, pleased to be boosting the part Alima had played.

  ‘When did she say that?’ Merry asked, thinking he remembered Alima suggesting it was most likely to have been Leanne who had attempted suicide.

  ‘Sorry,’ Julie said, rapidly covering for herself and Alima, ‘I haven’t had time to tell you, but I’ve talked with Alima and she says she now suspects it might have been Jenny who attempted suicide and that she saw the other three victims as reflections of herself, killing herself off in four steps.’

  When Merry spoke with Swift he thought he’d be updating him on some new and unforeseen progress, hopefully justifying and covering up for his going AWOL to Scotland. Much to his annoyance Matthew found that Swift was already aware of everything he had to relate. The DCI had met Doctor Hassan for coffee, who had expounded at length on her theories about Cowan’s motivations. Hassan had even suggested that Jenny had hinted at a confession of sorts, something Merry hadn’t known and made him wonder if Julie knew but had kept it back from him.

  Alima had managed to convince the previously doubting Swift that she was indispensable to extracting a full confession, using Jenny’s desire to self-destruct against her. Swift had enthusiastically agreed and made it clear to Merry that although he would be putting the questions to Cowan, when she was apprehended, they would be the questions that Hassan devised. Merry felt himself in no position to complain, his standing with his govenor being at a very low ebb, as a result of the time he had wasted and the various errors made on the case so far, not least of which was Jenny Cowan’s walking out of the hospital.

  With Hayden still following up on the Berner Centre CCTV leads that had been left incomplete, Lukula still interviewing people about possible links between Cowan and the victims, Rosen chasing up the technical staff and trying to track down possible sources of the victims’ financial well being, Merry had left himself two tasks. One, to speak with the various mental health workers to see if they could shed light on any connections between Cowan and the victims and, secondly, to visit the victims’ families to update them. Although family liasion officers would be working with the families he felt it was also timely to speak with them directly.

  Jenny’s case worker was little help, being alternately defensive of the work she’d done with Leanne and impatient of the time Merry was taking up in her busy work schedule. She had seen many sides of Jenny Cowan: including Leanne, Jackie and Meg, but nothing of John, Lilly nor the rage filled Jenny. She referred to her client only as Leanne Solbury and knew very little of Jenny Cowan or her background other than as a name on Leanne’s file that she had paid little attention to. She certainly knew little of Doctor Hassan’s work with her client and didn’t consider her to be officially involved with Leanne. Fortunately, It was a different story with the manager of the CAMHS centre.

  ‘I am so sorry, Inspector,’ Liz, the manager, apologised after having reiterated that Lynsey’s and Jody’s times at the centre didn’t
overlap. ‘I’m more than happy to check again, but after your last visit I spoke with both Lynsey’s and Jody’s doctors and checked our files on both, and I can’t find any connection between them.’

  ‘You’ve been very helpful,’ Merry smiled. ‘I wouldn’t be taking up more of your time but if there is any link with the names I’ve given you it would be a tremendous help.’

  Merry was left with tea and biscuits whilst the manager went to ask about Jenny, Leanne, Jackie and John, to see if Lynsey or Jody had ever mentioned them. Twenty minutes later and the manager reported back that the names meant nothing to either doctor and they had checked their notes, which being kept online these days meant they could be quickly searched for names or key phrases.

  ‘I really am sorry,’ the manager reiterated, ‘Lynsey’s death has struck everyone here quite hard, we were very proud of her recovery and how well she was doing.’

  ‘She wasn’t paid for any of her voluntary work she did here?’ Merry asked, a long shot he thought if ever there was one, given the definition of voluntary work being that it was unpaid.

  ‘No, she gave willingly of her time, happy to help others,’ the manager’s tone hushed and in awe of the paragon of virtue, as she now considered Lynsey to be for her occasional help at the centre. ‘Though she may have been paid expenses for taking part in the research study I told you about.’

  ‘I thought that was data collection only and didn’t directly involve the girls?’ Merry was suddenly alert, his inquisitorial tone making the manager uneasy, causing her to feel she had let the inspector down more than she had thought.

  ‘With some one-to-ones with certain individuals to help put the data into context. It was done with the girls’ permission and, as I said, they were paid expenses to compensate for their time. I can look up the researcher’s name, they’d know who exactly was seen and the amounts paid.’

  ‘Did their parents know?’ Merry asked.

  ‘Jody had turned eighteen by then but Lynsey would have needed her mother’s agreement,’ the manager explained as she searched her computer for information about the research project. ‘We weren’t directly involved other than to put the families in touch with the researcher, it only involved five or six girls as I remember, all of a certain age,’ then growing frustrated at not finding the contact information she was looking for, the manager stopped typing and took a different approach. ‘Actually, it’d be quicker if I phoned Doctor Hassan, she’d be able to give me all the details…’

  ‘Doctor Hassan? Alima Hassan?’ Merry asked dumbfounded.

  ‘Yes, she sponsored the project,’ the manager could see she had hit on something, from the inspector’s expression. ‘I explained when you were last here. She is a prestigious author and expert in her field and has done some consultancy work with our therapists. Though her methods weren’t always appreciated by some of the older staff, she was always full of praise for what the centre has achieved.’

  ‘Was she involved with the girls directly, did she work with them at all?’ Merry tried to keep his rising concern in check. It may be nothing, simply an innocent omission, however it was another connection to the case that Alima should have mentioned and that threw increasing doubt on the validity of her advisory role.

  ‘Never, that wouldn’t have been appropriate,’ the manager reassured him, ‘Doctor Hassan is not the sort of person to ignore best practice and protocols.’

  On reaching home Merry thought he would be able to put an increasingly bad day behind him, he hoped to gather his thoughts and recharge his batteries, but it wasn’t to be.

  ‘Redundant? That’s what she told you?’ Having spent the final part of the afternoon with the mothers of two recently deceased daughters’, both murdered, he could think of worse news but he had come to rely on a stable home environment to see him through the stresses of his job, so the news unsettled him more than perhaps it should.

  ‘She was very clear that there was nothing official as yet and technically she shouldn’t be telling me,’ Kathy quietly explained, herself still hardly believing what she’d been told and hoping it would blow over, a simple misunderstanding. ‘The decision and restructuring package has yet to be agreed by the governors but the head wanted to warn me, given all I have done for the school.’

  ‘All you have done and they are sacking you?’ Merry was indignant, it seemed to him it was his wife that carried the school.

  ‘They can optimise savings without impacting on teaching staff by cutting down on the pastoral care side, obviously they can’t do that so easily on the curriculum side,’ Kathy tried to sound reasonable, not taking it personally, even so she burst into tears.

  There had been a lot of tears that afternoon, born of pain and anger. Merry had arranged to meet both mothers’, Lynsey’s and Madeline’s, along with their family liaison officers, for a personal update. They had listened patiently to his briefing: there was a suspect but they were still gathering evidence, that it was a case of methodically sifting and checking through each line of inquiry until eventually they would have a solid case on which to charge someone. There followed all the usual questions, but growing anger at the trolling and press coverage.

  ‘They’ve wrecked my flat,’ Maureen Turner, angrily turned on him, after he offered some inane platitude about seeking grief counselling, ‘how will counselling help with that? There’s graffiti all over the place, it’s disgusting, we can never go back so where will me and my son live? My husband might deserve to be treated like this but I don’t? You should be doing more.’

  ‘We are investigating the attack and property damage,’ Merry tried to reassure her, ‘and will work with the local council so they understand your plight,’ he nodded to the FLO so he would know to follow up on both issues.

  ‘What about the things that people are saying and writing about us?’ Joanne Hensley, who had been the quieter and more reserved of the pair, suddenly joined the fray. ‘It isn’t right, we’re victims not suspects.’

  ‘I understand, I really do. Our press office is sensitive to what is released but we can’t control what the papers print,’ that sounded like meaningless bullshit even to Merry’s own ears but what else could he say. ‘As for the really disgusting and nasty online comments, though they have died down, we have a specialist unit trying to trace them back and won’t give up on that. I know it’s hard to accept but, for the moment, the best route is to have these sites taken down and not respond to them.’

  ‘I just want peace to grieve,’ Joanne said, desperate, angry and pleading. ‘I don’t want understanding or condolences. I don’t want lies or people asking me how I am. I want these people, who seem to enjoy feeding off others’ pain, to leave me alone. Just peace, that’s all. An end to it all and to be able to bury my daughter.’ Maureen had burst into tears halfway through this and had moved to hold Joanne’s hands in mute support. Both FLOs looked as if they were holding back tears, both had spent many hours in the company of the two despairing, grieving mothers.

  ‘I can’t promise you that,’ Merry spoke in a quiet, even voice into the tear filled silence that followed the intense outburst, ‘I can’t promise to change the world or the people in it, but I will move heaven and earth, all that I can possibly do and more, to find who killed your daughters.’ They muttered their thanks, though their eyes still accused, and no one in the room thought what he said was enough, it never could be. Words on their own were futile even if they were expected and well meant. What was done could not be undone, could never be mended, could never fully heal.

  At two in the morning, weary from having spent the evening going over lists of evidence, formulating priorities for the investigation, as well as reviewing their household budget to see if they could make ends meet without Kathy’s income, Merry got up to do the one thing he felt might give him some peace of mind and enable him to sleep. He copied a couple of pictures from Doctor Hassan’s blog and then us
ed Photoshop to dress her portrait in a headscarf, like the one in the photofit and CCTV picture and printed off the results. Making up a file of the different photos, composites and photofits, all of which bore striking similarities to each other while at the same time were nothing like each other.

  He was none the wiser and couldn’t even rationalise what he was trying to do. Alima had obviously made some bad decisions which undermined her role as an expert assisting the police. If this was the case it made himself and Swift culpable for not doing sufficient background checks, though in their defence none of this could have been discovered had not Merry delved so deeply into Cowan’s past. And, they did have the chief superintendent’s recommendation of Hassan.

  However, none of this rid Merry of a nagging doubt, a doubt he could not define, that plagued him. The puzzle unresolved he finally fell asleep in an armchair.

  18

  Jackie was embarrassed at wolfing down the breakfast roll but she was hungry and had not refused Matthew’s offer. She had been surprised when the two uniformed officers had approached her outside King’s Cross station, she had been sat outside a cafe nursing an empty cup of coffee wondering what to do next as she had no money left. They had spoken to her for a little while, unsuccessfully questioning her about Jenny Cowan and Leanne Solbury, before asking her to go with them to the police station. She had been polite and honest and made no objection to their requests, why should she be otherwise?

  At the police station a detective sergeant, whose name Jackie didn’t quite catch, asked her the same questions as the uniformed officers had, with as little success, and then left her alone with an odd tasting cup of tea which she barely touched. Eventually he came back, explained she was under arrest on suspicion of murder and told her she had the right to remain silent, unless it harmed her defence and something about questioning and court. She agreed she understood her rights mainly as she was tired, increasingly bored and too fed up to have him repeat them. Then she was driven off, by yet two more uniformed officers, and she assumed she was being taken to prison to await trial. However, she was pleasantly surprised when she arrived at Leman Street, partly as she recognised the place but more because Matthew was waiting for her.