The Fourth Victim

by John Mead

  Swift had phoned Merry, not long after the inspector had arrived at the incident room, telling him that Cowan had been picked up, arrested and was on her way to Leman Street. Swift was absolutely clear that Merry was not to interview Cowan, she was simply to be kept safe until her solicitor arrived. Swift and Hayden, with Doctor Hassan’s close support, were going to conduct the interview and over the course of the day Swift expected to get a confession, Hassan had assured him the attempted suicide was a cry for help and the work she had done with Leanne when she was in hospital had paved the way. However, Swift didn’t say Matthew couldn’t take the suspect for breakfast.

  Jackie had a nice smile, both inviting and shy at the same time, her eyes warily glancing around as she ate. She held herself more upright than Leanne, having a confident posture which showed off her shapely curves as she was not afraid of attracting admiring glances. Her voice was equally attractive, being soft with the slightest hint of an Irish lilt.

  ‘You can have another,’ Matthew told her, the glass fronted cafe in Canter Way had pretensions above the typical greasy spoon but the breakfast roll did look inviting and he fancied one himself now.

  ‘You must think me a pig eating it so quickly,’ her embarrassment, at discovering he was a police officer, fading as they smiled at each other, ‘but I can’t remember when I last ate.’

  ‘Do you remember being at the hospital?’ Merry asked, waving at the waitress to bring two more rolls and tea.

  ‘Vaguely,’ she admitted glancing down at the grubby bandage on her left arm. ‘They said I could go and gave me some pills as I left.’

  ‘Where did you go?’ Merry wanted to know, surprised at how pleased he felt speaking to Jackie, it was more a comfortable chat between old friends rather than an interrogation.

  ‘I do remember you,’ she stated with a shy smile, pouring them both more tea from the pot the waitress had brought. ‘In case you thought I’d forgotten.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ he told her truthfully enough. ‘I’d have liked to take you for another drink but under the circumstances I can’t. As you are under arrest… being a policeman you understand, I can’t be your friend…’

  ‘I understand,’ she tried to reassure him, very few of the men she had known bothered to be as nice to her as he was being and she wasn’t the sort of person to get someone else in trouble if she could avoid it. ‘It’s kind of you to buy me breakfast.’

  ‘Where did you go when you left the hospital?’ he asked.

  ‘To the pub, same one we met in,’ she explained, wondering if he’d understand that she had hoped to find him there, but he gave no indication of doing so. ‘Then I must have gone back to the flat, as I woke up there. I thought I’d get away for a few days, so I changed and packed some stuff.’

  ‘Oh, why was that?’ The rolls arrived and he passed one to her, indicating with a smile and a nod that she shouldn’t stand on ceremony and tuck in.

  ‘Don’t know, just felt I needed too. I can’t leave them behind, I know that, but at times I like to feel I’m going off, getting away by myself, you understand,’ she explained, unabashed at talking with her mouth full, they had already shared enough intimacy not to be put off by a few poor manners she thought. ‘I couldn’t think where to go exactly, but decided on Newcastle, as I’ve lived there before.’

  ‘Do you mind talking about the others?’

  ‘I prefer not to,’ she pulled a face. ‘Doctor Hassan explained to me about them and my condition when I lived in Edinburgh. I try not to think about them and just get on with my life.’

  ‘You’ve known Doctor Hassan a long while, from when she was a student. Do you remember her from Mallaig?’ Merry asked wiping his mouth on a napkin, he felt sorry for Jackie, she seemed nice, so ordinary and chatty, not at all like the mousey, shy Leanne, nor the aggressive Jenny he’d learned so much about.

  ‘No, not really, I may have met her then,’ Jackie pondered, ‘but I get confused. Leanne mentions the doctor in her diaries, they are sort of like my own but written by someone else,’ she smiled at the guilty thought. ‘I always read them, when I can, so I know what she has been up to. I never really liked Hassan, she went on all the time about how important the research project was and how I needed to listen to her. But, from what she wrote in the diary, Leanne seemed to like her.’

  ‘This was during your time in Edinburgh, not from before?’

  ‘Yes, Leanne’s diaries from that time were all taken by Doctor Hassan as she said they were part of the project. All her ones from Newcastle got dumped, I don’t know how but Leanne wrote about how upset she was about it. I never kept any of my own, I didn’t want her or the others reading them.’

  ‘What exactly have you been up to over the last few days?’ Merry was keeping an eye on the wall clock behind Jackie, knowing he didn’t have much time before Swift would find out she was missing.

  ‘I booked into a Premier Inn, I think I slept there but don’t remember going back, all my stuff must still be there,’ Jackie, didn’t seem particularly put out by either the gaps in her memory nor the loss of her things, it had happened often enough and was just the way her life worked.

  ‘Did you find a boyfriend to stay with?’ Merry guessed, Jackie wasn’t the type to stay alone for long.

  ‘We stayed in the hotel together, though it may have been his room,’ Jackie admitted, she wan’t embarrassed by the fact that she’d picked up a man but hoped Matthew wasn’t jealous or angry; she didn’t like it when people got angry with her. ‘He was going to drive me back to London but something must of happened as I woke up back on the train. Good thing I’d kept hold of my purse and ticket in my handbag. Then the police found me at King’s Cross and brought me back to you.’ She smiled at him in what she hoped was a becoming way that would make it clear he could have her again if he wished.

  ‘Do you remember the night we met?’ he asked, reading the desire in her eyes.

  ‘Of course, it was fun,’ she put her hand on his, giving it a gentle squeeze as she winked and smiled broadly.

  ‘What about the night before that? Do you remember where you were and if you were with anyone?’

  ‘I’m not very good with days and dates,’ she explained, wondering why he wanted to know, ‘I remember a lot and the order of things but not always exactly when.’

  ‘We met on a Saturday night, I was wondering if you were out or with someone the night before on a Friday,’ he explained, but seeing her smile fade he added, ‘I’m not upset if you did but it may help you if you can remember.’

  ‘There was a man,’ again there was the shy, becoming smile, she was a passionate woman and she knew it, didn’t apologise for it, ‘someone I’d met, that I knew from some weeks before. I had spent an evening with him and then a night when I bumped into him again in a pub, that could have been the Friday or it may have been a Thursday.’

  ‘Do you remember his name?’ Merry asked, knowing they should be heading back. ‘Or the pub where you met?’

  ‘It was the Hungerford, on Commercial Road, I often go there, and I think he was called Billy,’ she explained, glad to see Matthew wasn’t the jealous type, not all her boyfriends were as understanding of her needs. ‘He worked there, behind the bar, or his mate did and he was helping him as it was busy.’

  ‘OK, one last question and then we need to go back, do you know any of these girls?’

  Merry spread the pictures of the dead girls out on the table and Jackie studied them, shaking her head at each, then going back to Madeline Turner, ‘I think I’ve seen her, somewhere but I haven’t a clue where or when.’ Matthew’s phone rang as she spoke and he could see it was Swift, but he didn’t bother answering it.

  ‘Come on, we need to get back,’ he told her getting up. Outside, before they turned the corner where they would be seen from the police station, he suddenly pulled her to him and they kissed. ‘It’s best if w
e pretend we don’t know each other, you understand,’ he told her and she nodded, even if she didn’t fully understand why. ‘I’m on your side but it’s better no one else knows.’

  Swift did not believe Merry, he didn’t even bother giving the impression that he believed him. Merry had told him that Cowan had complained of being hungry, couldn’t remember when she’d last eaten and was agitated by the arrest. Given that he thought it best to keep her calm, he’d decided to take her to a cafe, the Leman nick being anything but calming.

  ‘She is hardly a flight risk,’ Merry explained, knowing he had flouted PACE regulations, which determined how detainees should be treated, and that he could be suspended.

  ‘Although you had lost her once already,’ Swift pointed out, his tone hard and disapproving. Everyone else in the incident room was keeping their head down apart from Alima, who was quick to side with Merry, saying that keeping Cowan calm and stable was the best thing to have done. Alima had glanced over at Julie, expecting her to speak up for Matthew as well, but she seemed inordinately busy on her computer. Lukula was desperately trying to think of something to say that would help rather than make things a lot worse for Merry whose breach of police protocols was breathtaking.

  ‘I see,’ Swift, his face a study of barely controlled anger. ‘Under the circumstances I will conduct the interview, I was in two minds about letting you run with it but this has made my mind up.’

  ‘Yes, sir, I have plenty of paperwork to be getting on with,’ Merry stated truthfully, though the message was plain enough, he’d fucked up once too often and Swift no longer trusted him.

  ‘Your workload isn’t my primary concern about your current performance,’ Swift informed him, leaving the incident room with Doctor Hassan and Hayden, carrying a file of evidence prepared for the interview, in tow. ‘Performance being the operative word for a clown show like yours.’

  Merry waited long enough to be certain Swift had gone to the interview room where Cowan and her solicitor were waiting, before turning to Julie and motioning her to follow.

  ‘Where is it we are going?’ Lukula asked, feeling as if she’d been volunteered for a suicide mission, she had nothing against an officer showing a bit of initiative and going rogue occasionally but Merry seemed to have taken to it like an alcoholic falling off the wagon.

  ‘The Hungerford Arms on the Commercial Road, just down from Watney Market,’ Merry explained. ‘Jackie told me she had seen a man, by the name of Billy, who works there on the night Madeline Turner was killed. At least she thought it was the Friday but could have been the Thursday, either way I thought it worth checking out.’

  ‘And you didn’t think to mention this to the govenor?’ Lukula stated despairingly, ‘If he finds out about you and Jackie, he will suspend you.’

  ‘My actions might have been morally suspect but she wasn’t even known to us at the time I met her so I can’t be suspended for that.’

  ‘But taking her out of custody for breakfast, given your history it will look decidedly suspicious,’ Julie felt annoyed, not only because he’d acted so idiotically but also his taking the blame for her mistake in letting Cowan get away from the hospital was now gong to make the whole thing seem ten times worse. ‘If he’d given you a dressing down it might have been better but as it is he’s obviously seething and…’

  ‘Forget him and focus on the job in hand,’ Merry stated, surprised just how calm he was feeling, somehow being on Swift’s bad side wasn’t bothering him. ‘It’s Alima’s involvement that’s concerning me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Julie demanded, suddenly on the defensive.

  ‘She’s known Cowan for a long time, youthful indiscretion or not she seems to have bought drugs from her in Mallaig as a student,’ Matthew ticked off his concerns. ‘Then she uses Cowan to get on the DID project which led to her getting her doctorate. Then Cowan runs scared and leaves the project before the professor in charge has a chance to conclusively review Alima’s data. Now she has picked up with her again in London and suddenly Cowan’s in the frame for three murders.’

  ‘What are you on about?’ Julie puzzled, she’d pulled into Buross Street and was waiting for a parking space, unconcerned at blocking the short, dead-end turning. ‘So she has been Cowan’s therapist since Edinburgh, so what? OK, she knew her before then and it opened up an opportunity for her but that’s hardly suspicious.’

  ‘That’s just the half of it. Yesterday I visited the local mental health services office and the manager told me that Doctor Hassan was well known to them and she sponsored a research project that just happened to included Lynsey and Jody,’ Matthew was using Julie as a sounding board, knowing what he had discovered was strange but could be no more than coincidence.

  ‘Ahh, I see your point,’ Julie’s tone dripped sarcasm as obviously as a bucket with a hole drips water. ‘A well known clinical psychologist sponsors research at a mental health facility. Wow, Sherlock Holmes would be astounded.’

  ‘Cheeky cow,’ Matthew laughed, causing Julie to smile, the tension between them ebbing away as they shared the joke. ‘However, good old fashioned policing made me get the manager to pull up everything she had on the project and I checked with the university supposedly involved. Not only didn’t they know anything about such a project, the post graduate student named as conducting it had left the university over a year ago and returned home to Hong Kong.’

  ‘There has to be a mistake,’ Julie could hardly believe what she was hearing, Alima wasn’t like this she knew her too well.

  ‘This all happened a couple of months before Jody was killed,’ Merry went on, surprised at how shocked Lukula was, it was beginning to dawn on him that there was more between Julie and Alima than he had realised.

  ‘It’s just a coincidence, odd I’ll admit,’ Julie didn’t believe her own words but neither was she going to back down, if you couldn’t trust and stand up for the woman you loved then what was the point?

  ‘Look,’ Merry pushed on, ‘she’s a chancer, she used Cowan to get onto the DID project and then to get her doctorate. When I contacted the university they said that she had worked with them on a consultancy basis but they had parted company when her work didn’t prove to be up to the standard they required.’ Merry paused as a car left the turning and Lukula manoeuvred to take the space, for a moment it looked as if another driver was going to pull in front of them but Lukula hit the siren and sent him packing.

  ‘Right,’ Lukula stated, more calmly than she had felt a moment previous, ‘so she had a bit of bad luck and did something stupid, so what?’

  ‘This is our expert, the person we are allowing to direct the questions we ask our murder suspect,’ Merry pointed out, causing Lukula to swear under her breath as the penny dropped. ‘She was obviously fishing for something with the local mental health service and two of the girls she has been looking into have been killed. What worries me is she has seen an opportunity again…’

  ‘Her new book Unravelling the Mind of a Killer,’ Julie groaned in realisation, then went on to explain, ‘She’s desperate for a new book deal, that’s what she’s angling for.’

  ‘Exactly, she’s got herself involved in the middle of the case, convinced us all she has a special insight and all the time I think she’s plain out of her depth and simply floundering: not waving but drowning.’

  ‘And us with it,’ Julie realised the crap storm they were creating for themselves. ‘Jesus! Have we fucked up?’ It was a decidedly rhetorical question.

  Billy, it turned out was a forty year old, out of work builder who helped out at the pub for cash in hand, his wife having a small part-time job and he was worried that he’d lose his benefits if his tiny income was declared. Once they’d assured him they weren’t going to say anything about his occasional work at the pub he readily talked about Jackie – a ‘lovely and loving woman’, as he described her. He was absolutely certain they had met
for the second time on a Thursday, as he’d covered for his mate in the bar that afternoon while the landlord was out on business, and he’d spent the first half of the night with Jackie when his wife was doing a late shift on her cleaning job.

  ‘What about when you first met her?’ Merry asked.

  ‘That’d be a Friday in April,’ Billy explained with a wide smile of remembrance, ‘that was a day and a half, it was the wife’s birthday so I had to satisfy the lovely Jackie in the afternoon and my wife after bingo in the evening. Not bad for a man of my age.’ He grinned and winked, then stopped, realising that Julie was glaring at him as she would at dog shit stuck on her shoe.

  ‘What was the date?’ Merry persevered.

  ‘The 14th, Friday 14th April,’ Billy confirmed, trying to look contrite under Lukula’s disapproving stare.

  ‘Right, we’ll need a statement,’ Merry informed him, Swift wasn’t going to like this, the afternoon of the 14th April was when Jody Grahame had been killed.

  19

  ‘What is happening?’ Doctor Hassan patiently asked, she had been surprised when Swift had suspended the interview with Cowan, just as she thought they were getting somewhere. She had waited, sipping the coffee that Hayden brought for her, while Swift went to speak with a man that Matthew had brought in. But now she was getting annoyed at being left out of the picture.

  ‘Matthew has found a man who claims to have been with Jackie at the time Jody Grahame was killed,’ Julie told her, having studiously left Alima alone as she wanted some distance between her professional and private life.