Fifth Member

by Claire Rayner

  ‘David CWG,’ said one of the sergeants.

  ‘Caspar-Wynette-Gondor,’ said Rupert Dudley reprovingly.

  ‘The initials’ll do or we’ll be here till Easter,’ Gus said and there was an appreciative murmur of response.

  ‘Right. David CWG, MP for Bilkley Town. Aged forty. Labour Party. Quiet sort of chap. Neither very ambitious, nor very lazy. An average backbencher they say,’ Dudley said, a touch stuffily, clearly feeling himself put down.

  ‘Who says?’

  Dudley grimaced. ‘The Tory Chief Whip. Woman for a start. There’s a piece of holy terror and no mistake. But several other MPs say it too, even their own Whip. Wife’s a different sort.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘A lush. Couldn’t be lusher. Swears she’s been dry for a month till last night, but when he didn’t come home, it pushed her over the edge and she gave up trying. Now she’s right out of her skull, and useless for questioning. You couldn’t blame a man for skipping out on someone like that.’

  ‘Except they’ve been married for fifteen years and there’s never been a whisper of gossip about him and other women.’ Tim Brewer put that in. ‘Which doesn’t give us much in the way of leads.’

  ‘Hmm. So what have you all been doing?’

  They told him, one after the other, of enquiries to all CWG’s known colleagues and friends, calling them out of their beds at the crack of dawn to the irritation of many. Of visits to all his known haunts in restaurants and clubs. Of calls to his family, his barber, to everyone. No one knew a thing and all claimed to be worried.

  ‘ “It’s not like David,” they keep saying,’ Tim Brewer reported. ‘Everyone kept telling me what an easy-going regular sort of bloke he is.’

  There was a little silence then and Gus stared up at the ceiling, his eyes half closed. ‘You know what this could mean, don’t you?’

  A short silence and then someone at the back of the room said bravely, ‘Another killing, Guv?’

  ‘Yup,’ Gus said. ‘Another killing. I’m not one for going off half cocked on these things as well you all know, but there are features of the murder of Sam Diamond’ – he jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the huge pinboards that had been put up with the meagre information so far collected written on them – ‘that makes me think we might have a serial killer out there. One MP dead in a very fancy fashion and another missing. You can’t help wondering.’

  ‘Do we start dragging the usual bits of the river, Guv?’ Dudley asked. ‘We could get the river patrol at it tonight – better then, to stop a lot of fuss and comment. And there are the commons and the parks –’

  ‘You won’t find him there,’ George said loudly. One or two people jumped, startled. She had been totally silent till now and they had forgotten she was present. After all, the pathologist wasn’t usually part of such meetings.

  ‘What’s that?’ Gus said.

  ‘I said you won’t find him in the river or on a common or a park or such a place. I think I know exactly where he’ll be. And he’ll be very dead. And what’s more, he’ll have been strangled before his throat was cut.’

  There was a sudden silence, so thick it was almost a palpable weight.

  ‘Really?’ Rupert Dudley grinned at her over his shoulder without any humour, his eyes glittering. ‘Quite sure, are you?’

  ‘No,’ George said. ‘Not totally. But enough to say I think it’s worth looking in Spitalfields. In the neighbourhood of Hanbury Street, I’d suggest.’

  4

  This time they showed their amazement by breaking into an excited buzz of chatter, which Gus allowed to continue as he stared at her, his face crinkled with puzzlement.

  ‘Yer what?’ he said at length. ‘Why Hanbury Street? What do you know about Hanbury Street that we don’t?’

  She grinned at him, delighted with herself. ‘Only that it’s been there a long time,’ she said.

  ‘But what’s that got to do with – Shut up, you lot! Christ Almighty, a man can’t hear himself think! Right. That’s better,’ as the room quietened and they all turned to stare at George expectantly. ‘Now, Dr Barnabas, will you do us the kindness of explaining?’

  ‘A pleasure, Superintendent,’ she said, amused at his attempt at formality. ‘I did the PM last night, as requested, and I found some interesting things.’

  Gus looked round. ‘Where’s Mike Urquhart? I want his report on that PM. Why didn’t I get it this morning? Wasn’t he attending as coroner’s officer?’

  ‘He was,’ George said, ‘and he made notes. But the man was out on his feet. I told him I’d report this morning for him and he could give you his written report later.’

  Gus glared at her, opened his mouth to complain about her interference with his staff and then, seeing the glint in her eyes, thought better of it. ‘Good of you to be so concerned about him,’ he said sardonically. Someone in the room snickered and Gus glared again.

  ‘I’ll read you the rough of my notes,’ George said quickly. It had been fun to get them all startled that way, Gus in particular, but now she had to be businesslike. ‘Here we go. A well-nourished man – in fact, over-nourished, running to fat. Age uncertain but I’d suggest about fifty. In reasonable health, and no signs of illness. His injuries, now. The throat had been cut by about six or seven pretty savage blows from a smallish knife. Not a heavy one, but very sharp. The neck vessels and other structures were severed. The larynx in particular was severely damaged – he’d tried to get through it and then, because it resisted, had to go through the trachea. The cervical spine had been nicked by the knife in several places but had held its integrity, otherwise it was very close to a decapitation.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said someone. ‘That must have been bloody painful.’

  George lifted her head to see who had spoken but failed, so she said it to the room at large. ‘No, not in the least. He was already dead when his throat was cut.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ said Rupert, startled enough to speak to her directly without a sneer. ‘Already dead?’

  ‘Yes,’ George said. ‘He’d been manually strangled. I found the indentations of fingernails and the remains of bruising under each of the indentations. One of the indentations had been scratched, too. I’ve sent the specimen of skin for microphotography, in the hope that you might eventually get a suspect and be able to match the injuries to his right hand. I got photographs in situ, as well, of course. The trouble is obviously that any suspect just has to cut his fingernails and there you go – the indentations won’t be worth a dime as evidence. And, of course, no prints. Even if there had been a hint of one, which as you know is rare on skin, though not entirely impossible, it’d have been washed away by blood – and I had to remove the blood to see the skin and that would have removed such traces too. But I had to do it, of course.’

  She waited for Gus to complain but he just nodded.

  ‘The rest of the injuries, well …’ She looked up at Gus who hesitated, thought for a moment or two and then turned to the rest of the people in the room.

  ‘We’ve got some tricky business going on here,’ he said. ‘Only a handful of people know what I’m about to let Dr B. tell you: last night’s patrol car team, and the people who came to the scene at Durward Street. And not all of them know this detail. Those that do have already been warned to keep their lips tightly buttoned, because this information absolutely must be kept quiet – both because it’s the sort of information we’re going to need to weed out the wrong suspects and the nuts who’ll come rushing to confess in the usual way, but also because we don’t want to start a public fuss. I just want you all to know that if a single whisper of this gets out of this room I will find out who did the whispering – and never think I couldn’t – and deal with them personally. Is that understood?’

  There was a little movement of excitement and eagerness as people looked at each other and then at Gus.

  ‘Is that understood?’ he repeated, looking from one side of the room to the other, catching the gaze o
f one person after the other, constables and inspectors, men and women. There was a ragged murmur of assent and after another moment Gus nodded, satisfied. ‘I trust you,’ he said and turned to George.

  She described the rest of the injuries in the most colourless tone she could manage, trying to make it sound as normal as sunrise for a murderer to remove his victim’s genitalia and arrange them neatly on the shoulder. They all listened in complete silence. Not until she finished did someone stir and mutter, ‘What a way to get back at someone who screws your bird,’ and there was a nervous giggle that released the tension. Gus made no effort to control the laughter, letting the wave of sound slide across the room and die of its own accord.

  ‘A very odd case, ladies and gentlemen,’ he said then with a slightly portentous air. ‘A tricky problem for us. And it explains why we’re so anxious about this other Member of Parliament. It’s not just that he’s an MP and all those buggers are vulnerable these days, it’s the fact that this first murder has all the stamps of a serial killer’s work. Peculiarities like this aren’t part of your average domestic, after all.’

  ‘They were for Wayne Bobbitt,’ someone said and again there was laughter, but this time Gus was quick to stop it.

  ‘Not the same thing at all,’ he said. ‘This man was strangled and then mutilated in a particularly gruesome fashion. So, you have to think serial. It stands to reason. Right, Dr B.? You’re the pathologist, you know how these buggers’ minds work.’

  ‘I’m not a forensic psychiatrist,’ George said. ‘Yet. I’ve taken the courses, but I haven’t done the exams or done much work in the field. So you’ll need to get a second opinion. But for what it’s worth, I agree. This looks like a serial killing with more than one bizarre feature.’

  ‘Three,’ Rupert said. ‘Strangled first, and then throat cut. And then – then the other thing.’

  ‘I can think of another,’ George said. ‘If you’d like to hear it. It’s the one that tells me the place to look for CWG is Hanbury Street.’

  ‘Let’s have it then.’ Gus went and perched on the edge of one of the desks so that he could swing his legs. He seemed more relaxed now, and she knew why. His entire team was hanging on to every word uttered; and that was the way he liked them. The more interesting they found a case, the harder and better they’d work.

  ‘I was thinking as I finished up the PM that I’d heard of a similar sort of action before. The removal of genitals and the displaying of them on the shoulder, that is. Another serial killer, and one that caused a lot of excitement. He didn’t always remove the genitalia, mind you, but that was harder for him, seeing his victims were women –’

  ‘Blimey!’ someone said from the back of the room. ‘I know who you mean!’

  George glanced up and saw the look on the face of a young woman police constable who was sitting well to the back. She was in uniform, and her face went pink as she realized that George had identified her.

  ‘Well?’ George said.

  The girl mumbled and went pinker than ever. ‘I – I don’t know, of course,’ she managed. ‘I was just sort of guessing.’

  ‘It’s all anyone’s doing at this stage.’ George was encouraging. ‘I’d be more grateful to hear what you think. If it matches my idea, then I’ll feel more – well, I’d like a match. So, who did that make you think of?’

  ‘It sounds so silly,’ the girl said. ‘Now I think of it, I mean. Melodrama and all that.’

  ‘No,’ George said, greatly encouraged herself. ‘Come on, lady, spit it out. Don’t be afraid of this bunch of guys here. No need to apologize for having an imagination.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ the girl said miserably. ‘I suppose – well, I thought, Jack the Ripper.’

  There was a guffaw from a couple of the men standing near her, but George jumped to her feet. ‘No joke, fellas. Because I thought exactly the same thing, and wondered if I was being stupid. But I’m not so sure we are, as you’ll see. Uh, what’s your name?’

  ‘WPC Julie Bentley, ma’am,’ the girl said.

  ‘Right, Julie, let’s look at the facts.’ George almost ran across the room to the big pinboard which had fastened to it a map of the area, with a pin with a red flag on it attached to a point over to the right of the area covered, just above a major road.

  ‘Look, this is where Sam Diamond was found,’ she said. ‘Durward Street, just behind Whitechapel Station. OK. I have here a map of this same area when the Ripper was at work. It’s dated 1862 and the murders happened in the late 1880s, but I don’t imagine the street had changed that much in the twenty odd years.’

  She held up a small paperbacked book. ‘I read this a little while ago. It’s by a chap called Bruce Paley and he’s got a great theory about who the Ripper was. Not that that’s what we’re concerned with, of course. But it’s well researched, and believe me, it really made me think. Look, the first Jack the Ripper murder, the first one they were sure was his, that is, happened here.’ She produced the map illustration in her book. ‘Just where –’

  ‘Can we get that blown up so we can all see it?’ Gus demanded. ‘How long would it take?’

  ‘I can fix it, but it’ll take a while,’ Dudley said. He reached for the book.

  ‘Let me explain first,’ George said. ‘And then of course you can have it. It’s your book anyway, Gus – Guv.’ She looked at Gus over her shoulder. ‘I, um, borrowed it. You remember, you bought it after we saw that TV programme about the case.’

  The people in the room, all of whom were in on the open secret that Gus and George lived together, grinned at each other, delighted with the Guv’s discomfiture, but George rattled on. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Here it is. You’ll have to take my word for it till the map’s been enlarged for you. I can tell you that the first murder happened on a street called Bucks Row which was just north of Whitechapel Station. Bombed, I guess, or just pulled down. There’s been a lot of building round there, with the new supermarket and stuff. Anyway, as best as I can tell the body was found where Bucks Row used to be. Isn’t that too much of a coincidence? The appalling neck injuries. The genitalia removed and arranged on the shoulder the way the Ripper did – and in the same street or as near as dammit. That’s why I think you ought to look for CWG around Hanbury Street, up near the old fruit and vegetable market, because that was where the Ripper’s second victim was found. If I’m right and you find him there, it means we’ve got a copycat murderer who is more than a hundred years out of date.’

  Again there was a silence and then Julie, clearly emboldened by her previous efforts said, ‘But the Ripper killed women. Prostitutes. This is a man. So’s the missing one. And they’re both MPs.’

  ‘Some people regard them as prostitutes,’ Tim Brewer said thoughtfully and a great shout of laughter went up in which even Rupert Dudley joined.

  Gus grinned widely. ‘You’ve got a point,’ he said. ‘Dr B., doesn’t that push your theory in the mud?’

  ‘It could,’ George said readily. ‘Of course it could. I wouldn’t dream of saying I was right for sure until we had another victim. But if we do, and it’s where I said it would be, well then, we’ll have to consider it possible, won’t we?’

  The speed with which the search was reorganized and recommenced was remarkable. George sat in the big incident room as the briefing was given, listening to Rupert Dudley giving detailed instructions about who should go where and how they should comb the area, enjoying the crisp efficiency and much impressed by Dudley though she would not have let him know it for the world. Gus had left this straightforward chore to him, while he himself went to report back to the Commissioner, who was taking a great deal of interest in what was going on. And even Gus had to admit that it was natural he should. ‘It isn’t every day,’ he said dryly as he went to find a quiet phone, ‘that you get someone stalking members of Her Majesty’s bloody Government.’

  George agreed, and after a while found she was listening with only half her mind while considering with the others just why someo
ne should want to kill MPs. Was this killer – if she wasn’t running ahead of herself and there really was someone after MPs in general and not just Sam Diamond in particular – why would anyone have it in for such people? That they were among the most despised members of the community in these cynical days, George was well aware; it had been a long time since nations had offered deference and respect to those elected to govern a country. But that was a hell of a long way from setting out systematically to kill them.

  Stop it, she told herself. You’re jumping to absurd conclusions. There’s no reason yet to suppose this is more than a one-off killing. And yet –

  ‘Inspector Dudley,’ she said as the last group to have been given their instructions began to leave the room. ‘May I come along too?’

  He looked at her dispassionately. ‘What for?’

  ‘Well, if I’m right and you do find him and he’s dead you’ll have to send for me anyway. If I’m already there you’ll save time.’

  ‘And if you’re wrong,’ he pointed it out wearily, as if speaking to a fractious nagging child, ‘you’ll just be in the way. As long as you’ve got your bleep switched on, as it should be, I can get you if I need you.’

  ‘All the same,’ she said, biting back the angry retort she ached to make. ‘I’d like to be there.’

  ‘No doubt,’ he said and turned to leave himself. ‘No doubt,’ and went.

  She was furious. To be treated in such a fashion by one of Gus’s junior people – it was no wonder she hated him so. The man was a sonofabitch and always would be. And she’d be damned if she listened to anything he ever had to say, ever. He didn’t want her there? Tough. She’d be there, and what was more, she told herself as she pulled on her coat and headed for the door after him, I’ll go in a Goddamn police car, the way I’ve every right to.

  She hadn’t, of course. If they wanted to give her a lift some place, then they could, and she’d say thank you, but she couldn’t precisely open a police car door and say, ‘I’m coming with you.’ Not as a right.