Before he left Tim brought him up to speed with all that had been going on at the Magnets. Mac found that he was really missing his sessions at the Magnets with Tim. He heard Tim closing the front door as he left and he knew he’d miss his friend’s visits even more.
Chapter Seven
The day after, while he waited for Martin to send him whatever information he could about the mysterious Miss Bardolph, Mac tried to whittle down the cases to only those that might be relevant. The murder had to be that of a woman and blood must have been spilt.
He ended up with just six cases.
There was the murder and rape of Terri Maynard. That was one he’d love to solve as he was sure that whoever killed Terri would inevitably kill again.
The second case was that of twenty year old Marie Callaghan. She’d disappeared just over three years ago after leaving a night club in Hertford. Her body was found by walkers two days later in a forested area some two miles or so from the town centre. Her skull had been split open by a rock so there would have been blood enough. She hadn’t been sexually assaulted but the investigators still thought that rape was the probable motive. They figured that she’d put up more of a fight than the assailant had planned for and so he’d killed her with whatever there was to hand. After a search they found the rock but no prints. It looked like whoever killed her was wearing gloves. There were partial tyre prints but these proved inconclusive as they were from a popular brand of budget tyres. That was about it for evidence. No CCTV from the club or from the area around it and no-one saw Marie get into a car or saw a car in the vicinity of the woods. It looked as if the investigators had followed up every lead that came their way, no matter how faint it might have been, but they still came up with nothing.
Mac’s heart sank as he closed the file. He had a feeling that Marie’s case was one of those that, through bad luck as much as anything else, would never get solved. Somewhere out there was a man walking around who should be behind bars. He could only pray that the murderer was living in constant fear that he might feel a hand on his shoulder or get a knock on his door early one morning. Indeed he could remember a couple of men who had admitted that they’d actually been relieved when they’d been arrested. Waiting for the other shoe to drop can be an exhausting business.
The third case was that of thirty seven year old Agniezka Coleman who had been murdered some seven years before. She was originally from Kracow, Poland and her maiden name was Malinowska. She had been married to a Mr. John Coleman for eleven years and, on the surface at least, the marriage seemed a happy one. At the time of her death she’d been a care worker in an old people’s home in Baldock. Mr. and Mrs. Coleman had also lived in Baldock where he worked as a supervisor at a local supermarket. She’d finished her shift at nine o’clock one evening in March and left work to walk home. It was along the same route that she always took. Her husband arrived home after finishing his shift at eleven to find that she wasn’t there. He tried to phone her on her mobile but got no response. He walked back towards the old people’s home and found his wife’s body in an entryway that ran between a low block of flats and a house. She was dead having been stabbed several times. The investigators quickly ruled out robbery as her purse and credit cards were still in her bag. They also ruled out her husband as a suspect once the time of death had been firmly established as being just after nine. John Coleman had been working with his team at the supermarket at that time and his colleague’s testimony, backed up by the supermarket’s CCTV footage, meant that every minute between nine and eleven o’clock had been more or less accounted for. It couldn’t have been him. Nevertheless the investigators searched Coleman’s house but couldn’t find anything that pointed to the husband or anyone else. They then concentrated on the old people’s home but again found nothing of use. They even went as far as to travel to Poland to interview Agniezka’s family but again found nothing, no family feuds, no disagreements, indeed from what Mac read the family seemed quite close. They never found the knife that was used or any forensic traces other than some stray fibres that could have come from anywhere. The investigators had absolutely no leads and, reading between the lines, he could sense their frustration.
An old case popped into Mac’s head and he immediately wondered if it might be of some relevance.
Amrit came in with a welcome mug of coffee. Mac gestured to her to sit down while he went through the two cases.
‘Pity about young Marie, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘You’d think someone would have seen her wouldn’t you?’
‘It happens sometimes, just bad luck really.’
‘And what about this poor Agniezka? It doesn’t look like that case is ever going to be solved either,’ she said a little gloomily.
‘Well I’ve had some thoughts about that one. It reminded me of a similarly frustrating case we had a while ago, one that was finally resolved by a piece of luck as much as anything.’
‘Just let me get comfortable,’ Amrit said a smile as she plumped a cushion and placed it behind her.
‘Okay? Right then, one May Day Bank Holiday evening a man was found dead in Hyde Park. His body was found on a park bench and the cause of death was massive blunt force trauma to the head. In other words he’d been bludgeoned to death with a blunt instrument of some sort, a baseball bat the forensics people guessed. We never found any witnesses and no-one saw a man with a baseball bat in the park around the time of the murder.’
‘Hyde Park of all places! You’d have thought that someone would have seen something,’ Amrit interrupted.
‘Well the bench was somewhat hidden behind bushes and there weren’t all that many people around as it had been quite unseasonably cold that day. Anyway what weapon a person chooses when they set out to kill someone can tell you a lot in itself. Using something like a baseball bat is quite visceral and would normally involve some personal hatred on the part of the murderer. Although, having said that, I’ve known some instances where such attacks were used to send a message of some sort, usually to a rival criminal gang.
Anyway we investigated every aspect of the dead man’s life and we couldn’t find even the slightest reason why anyone would want him dead. He seemed to have been quite a mild, self-effacing type of man and we were stumped as to why anyone would not only want to kill him but kill him in that particular manner. So in desperation we started interviewing everyone again just in case we’d missed something.
Six days after the murder we spoke to some members of the park staff including one who hadn’t been interviewed previously as he’d been on holiday. He said that he’d been surprised when he’d seen the photo of the dead man because another man usually sat in that particular bench every Monday evening. He supposed that it being a holiday must have meant a change in the man’s routine.
Well we were there the evening afterwards and we caught the murderer as he was about to attack a man sitting on the bench. He’d circled around behind the bench and then pulled a baseball bat from one of those tubular cardboard poster tubes. He was about to raise it when he suddenly found himself surrounded by armed police. The man on the bench was, of course, one of my team. Once we caught him the full story came out.
The murderer was in the process of getting divorced by his wife but he was still insanely jealous about her. Although she’d taken out a court order against any contact with him he’d started stalking her anyway. That’s how he found out that she was seeing someone. The park bench was regularly used as a meeting place and his wife’s lover would sit there while he waited for her to finish work. He’d been watching the lover for a couple of weeks but, unluckily for the dead man, when the murderer made his move he was so wrapped up in his plans that he forgot it was a bank holiday. So, in the end, it was simply a case of mistaken identity, someone being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m wondering if this case could be one too?’
‘And would knowing that help?’ Amrit asked.
‘It could. The one advantage that I have over the policemen
who originally investigated the case is time. If it was mistaken identity then something might have happened in the meantime that might confirm the theory.’
Amrit left him to it. Mac checked his tablet but there was nothing from Martin as yet.
The fourth case was that of Mrs. Edith Dickinson from Hemel Hempstead. She was a pensioner who had been found dead by her son some eight years before. She’d been battered around the head by a blunt instrument so again quite a lot of blood. The murder weapon, something smaller than a baseball bat forensics said, had never been found and the motive was assumed to be robbery as money and jewellery had been stolen. There had been a spate of pensioner burglaries in the area around the time of the murder but strangely none of the others had involved any violence. Mrs. Dickinson had three children, the eldest Robert who found the body, and two twin daughters, Ellen and Eloise, who also lived nearby. The time of death was established as around one in the morning. All the children were married and their partners stated that they had been asleep in bed with them at the time of the murder. The investigators checked out the family’s financial situation and found that, apart from the house itself which was to be split three ways, Mrs. Dickinson left very little money behind. Her children didn’t seem in be in any money difficulties either so that seemed to rule out financial gain as a motive.
Mac gave this some thought. He then made a mental note to find out if any of the siblings had gotten divorced in the time since the murder.
The fifth case was the most recent of the twenty three. Eight months ago a twenty three year old woman called Ashley Whyte was found dead in her flat which was situated in a ‘nice’ part of St. Albans. She’d been killed by multiple blows with a hatchet and her right hand had been completely severed so there would have been plenty of blood. There was no CCTV and the neighbours said that they saw and heard nothing. Mac looked at the photos again and suspected that at least some of them must be lying.
Traces of heroin were found all over the flat and a small plastic bag of the drug was found stuffed into her throat. The investigators concluded that the crime was probably drug related.
This was also due to the fact that an identical crime had occurred just a few weeks before in North London, a crime that had been linked to a gang who were major drug dealers in the area. The word on the street was that the man who had been hacked to death had been a dealer working for the gang. He’d been skimming money off the top and that’s why his right hand had been cut off as a warning to others.
Police had long suspected that this gang was branching out and had begun peddling crack and heroin in the Hatfield and Hemel Hempstead areas as well as in St. Albans. Ashley had been cautioned once for possessing a small quantity of cannabis when she’d been seventeen but that was it. However the photos of the needle marks on her body testified that she’d been a recent user. The investigators obviously assumed that Ashley had also been defrauding her suppliers and that’s why she’d suffered the same fate. They’d concentrated on trying to establish a link between the drugs gang and Ashley and, when they found nothing, they seemed to have just given up.
There was something about this case that didn’t sit well with Mac and he decided that he was going to look at it in a bit more detail.
The last one he included was the murder of Asma Rafiq from twelve years before. Mac had hesitated as it looked highly likely to be an honour killing with the murderer now also being deceased but he put it in anyway.
Just in case.
He lay back and stared at the now all too familiar cracks in the ceiling as he thought. Of course if Miss Bardolph had been living out of the area for any length of time then the murder could have happened anywhere. The thought had also occurred to Mac that the murder scene might well have been from a scene in a TV drama or a book that had particularly stuck in her mind. To call it a long shot was probably being optimistic but, as he reminded himself, he didn’t really have anything better to do and he was more than grateful for the distraction that it provided.
He was interrupted by lunch. He could smell it coming and he started salivating.
‘What is it today?’ Mac asked with an expectant smile.
‘It’s just some vegetable and onion pakora with some raita on the side, all home-made of course.’
‘Oh, it smells heavenly,’ Mac replied.
He did Amrit’s cooking full justice and not a word was uttered until every last crumb had been despatched.
‘Now that really was heavenly. You know I’m so glad Bridget managed to get you to look after me. I really look forward to lunch and there’s not much else to look forward to being stuck in bed all day.’
Amrit gave him a look of disappointment.
‘And here was me thinking that it was our little chats that you so looked forward to.’
‘Oh, of course I do look forward to that…as…as well as the food,’ Mac replied getting a little flustered.
‘Oh it’s okay I’m just pulling your leg,’ Amrit said with a big smile as she collected Mac’s plate.
‘Well, talking about chats, come back as soon as you can and I’ll take you through the last two cases.’
She returned in less than five minutes and made herself comfortable while she waited for Mac to start.
When he’d finished taking her through the cases Amrit was quiet for a while.
‘You know it’s a real eye opener listening to these cases. I’ve lived in this part of the world all my life and you’d think that nothing like that could ever happen here.’
‘Well, it is a low crime area but unfortunately not zero crime, nowhere ever is.’
‘Okay so we’ve got a lot of different weapons, a box cutter, a rock, a blunt instrument, a hatchet and two knives. So what’s next?’ Amrit asked.
‘My God I’m impressed!’ Mac replied looking impressed. ‘You have been paying attention. Well I’ve only been skim-reading the cases to get a feel for them. I’m hoping that Martin will come up with something that will point me in the right direction and I can start digging a bit deeper then.’
Unfortunately his ‘digging deeper’ would have to wait. A few minutes after Amrit left his phone informed him that he’d just received a text message. It was from Martin.
‘Sorry got called onto another case so won’t be able to get you info until Monday.’
Monday? Of course it was Friday today. Mac had totally lost track of the days. Okay so the ‘Bardolph case’, as he was beginning to think of it, would have to wait. He had a whole weekend before he could do anything on that so what to do in the meantime? Without really thinking about it his mouse had opened the Ashley Whyte file.
What was it about this case that bugged him? It was an old story, a young woman falls in with the wrong crowd and gets sucked into a situation where she no longer has any control over her life. Perhaps she was trying to steal enough money from the drug gang to get away or perhaps she was just being greedy.
Still it bugged him. He knew that something wasn’t right about the case and he made his mind up that he was going to find out what it was.
Chapter Eight
Mac read the file again very carefully.
Ashley Mariah Whyte was born in North London but had moved to Hertfordshire with her family when she was young. Her father was a doctor and he had a prosperous private clinic in London at the time of his daughter’s death. He was a plastic surgeon who specialised in face lifts. Her mother had died a few years before and she had one sibling, a younger sister called Leah.
She’d graduated from Durham University with a degree in Educational Studies and she’d managed to get a two-one. Mac checked the dates and found that her mother had died while Ashley had been in the first year of her course. In those circumstances a two-one was a real achievement. It seemed to have all gone wrong for Ashley as soon as she returned home. Her father had expected her to go straight into teacher training, as that had always been her plan, but she hadn’t. In fact she hadn’t seemed to have done anything in the year
and a half since she’d finished her course, except get hooked on heroin of course.
Mac stopped reading and looked up at the cracks in the ceiling. He tried to imagine what it had been like for Ashley. She’d lost her mother, who she’d been very close to, yet somehow had managed to keep herself going until she’d gotten her degree. After that it seemed like she’d just given up. Perhaps it was only at that point that it had all hit her, he knew all too well how debilitating depression can be following the death of someone you were close to.
It was her father who had discovered that she had a habit. He’d visited her flat unannounced and found her unconscious after taking too much heroin. She nearly died and Mac couldn’t help thinking that the overdose might not have been a mistake. Anyway her father got her some help and paid quite a lot of money to put her into a private clinic for a month. This seemed to work and her father was convinced that she’d been clean around the time of her death. The photos told otherwise.
She could have been dealing for as long as a year yet she hadn’t shown up anywhere on police records. He looked again at the photos of the crime scene. It seemed even more surreal than it had when he’d first looked at them.
Could that really have happened to a ‘nice’ girl in a ‘nice’ part of St. Albans?
He remembered a number of times when horrible crimes had been committed and the neighbours would always say, ‘Things like that never happen here.’
He supposed what they really meant was ‘rarely’ rather than never. Of course rare events do happen but Mac had learnt to distrust them and to always try and look a bit deeper. So where to start? Mac’s eyes were still on Ashley’s dead body and the severed right hand. He had the thought that making sure it was a genuinely drug related killing would be a good place to start.
23 Cold Cases (The Mac Maguire detective mysteries Book 5) Page 5