“Quite,” Collison agreed, at a loss as to where this was going.
“Main thing is, I’m not a psychiatrist,” Collins emphasised quietly but insistently. “Mustn’t call me one, I’m afraid. Very naughty. Criminal offence, and all that, to impersonate a member of the medical profession. Like a policeman, in fact.”
Metcalfe’s face had borne a curious expression ever since the announcement of Collins as Karen’s partner. Now he began to smile, and seemed about to say something. Collison noticed, and threw him a stern glance. “Absolutely,” he agreed hastily. “A simple misunderstanding, that’s all.
“OK, boys and girls,” he said more loudly. “Everyone back to work.”
There were quite a few amused faces around the room, which now bent themselves slowly back to their desks. Andrews looked at Desai and raised his eyebrows. She shrugged in reply. Metcalfe noticed that Karen was looking at Peter Collins with a concerned expression, as though worried that he should make the right sort of impression upon the team, and troubled that he had not.
“Now then, Doctor Collins,” Collison went on, “let me introduce you to Bob Metcalfe, my right-hand man. He’s been on the investigation from the beginning, so anything you want, or need to know, he’s the man to ask.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Metcalfe said formally, shaking hands. Once again he felt that strange feeling briefly in the pit of the stomach, before it disappeared just as quickly.
“How do you do,” the other replied. He glanced briefly at Metcalfe and then let his gaze wander over the white board.
“So these are our – um – victims?” he enquired.
“Yes, and we need to bring you up to speed as quickly as possible” Collison said briskly.
“Excuse me, guv,” Metcalfe proffered diffidently, “but I thought the doctor might find this useful.”
He passed across a slim folder. “That’s only a summary, of course, it’s no substitute for reading through the files, but I thought you’d be interested in particular in the circumstances of each murder, so far as we have been able to piece them together. How the victim was attacked, that sort of thing.”
“Great idea, Bob,” said Collison warmly.
“Yes indeed,” Peter agreed with a sudden smile, “I’m sure that will be very useful, thank you. Thank you very much.”
“Perhaps,” Collison suggested, “we could direct you to one or two points in particular that we’d like you to think about?”
“Go ahead.” Peter perched himself on a table, still gazing at the photographs of each murdered woman at the top of the white board.
“Number one,” said Collison, “the killer uses chloroform to subdue his victims: is there any significance in them being unconscious or semi-conscious when he rapes them?”
“Number two,” he continued, marking them off on his fingers, “what about the use of a condom in each case? Is this at all usual, especially in a rape by a single perpetrator? Might it tell us something useful about our killer?”
“Number three, the missing underwear. Is it taken as a trophy, do you think?”
“And generally,” he wound up, a little lamely, “can you spot any sort of pattern or common thread which runs through these murders connecting them in some way, other than the obvious fact that the MO is the same in each case?”
“Not straight away, of course,” Karen broke in, a little anxiously. “Nobody’s expecting you to shoot from the hip, Peter. Least of all DS Collison, I’m sure.” She glanced at him for confirmation.
“Absolutely!” he agreed. “The last thing we want is a snap impression. Ask us for anything you like, study the material, and then let us know when and if you have any tentative conclusions you’d like to share, OK?”
“Come on,” Karen said, steering Peter towards an empty desk. “You can work here next to me. Now, is there anything you need?”
“Yes, please. I’d like a map of Greater London – and a cup of tea would be nice.”
“I’ll see what I can do – about both,” she responded with a smile.
As she left the room, Collison buttonholed Metcalfe. “Bob, any luck tracing that cab driver?”
“Not so far, guv. We’ve tried all the radio cab dispatchers, but nobody has any record of a call coming in for Wood Green from the Hampstead area any time after about six. We’re working our way through the list of individual black cab drivers, but it’s a long job. We could use some more bodies, ideally.”
“I’ll see if I can charm a few from uniform just for one shift,” said Collison dubiously, “though heaven knows they’ve already done more for us than we have a right to expect. They’re just as stretched as we are.”
“I can ask for volunteers to put in some overtime this evening,” Metcalfe suggested.
Collison hesitated. On the one hand, he was conscious that the team had already put in a lot of overtime over the past eighteen months. This was undesirable for two reasons. First, they were clearly jaded, and tired people make mistakes. Second, the ACC had told him, and none too subtly, that concern was already being expressed in high quarters about the impact the spiralling costs of this case were having on the overall CID budget. On the other hand, it was vital that they find the cab driver fast, before the trail went completely cold.
“Alright,” he said at last, “but use your discretion. I’d rather it was some of our short-term brethren. You old lags are knackered enough already.”
“Ok, guv, if you say so.” Metcalfe sounded uneasy.
“Something on your mind, Bob?”
“It’s nothing specific, guv, just that there are some I’m not sure we should trust with anything too important, if you know what I mean.”
“Then use your discretion, like I said. And as for you, Bob, you’ll leave at 5.30 this evening and try not to even think about the case again until tomorrow morning – that’s an order. We’ll none of us be any use if we’re exhausted.”
An hour or two earlier that same morning, Tom Allen was standing by the cab drivers’ cabin on Haverstock Hill, sipping cautiously a mug of tea which was scalding hot and composed of roughly equal parts sugar and tannic acid. His stomach, troubled by the effects of too many beers the night before, rebelled at the prospect and attempted to engage his gag reflex, so he put the mug down and stared hard at the chipped counter while he waited for the moment to pass. Apart from anything else, Len had insisted it was on the house, so he could hardly leave it.
“What brings you out of the nice warm cop shop then, Chief Inspector?” Len asked cheerfully. “Business is it?”
“’Fraid so, Len,” Allen replied. “Looking for a cabbie who picked up a lady somewhere round Lyndhurst Gardens – probably here or hereabouts – shortly after 11.30pm two nights ago, and took her over Wood Green way. Pass the word, would you? Here’s my card with my mobile number should anyone remember anything.”
“Right you are, Mr. Allen. Always happy to be of assistance, you know me. I’ll put it up here on the board here, to remind me to ask.”
He slipped the card behind an elastic band wrapped around a piece of cardboard, which was in turn pinned above the tea urn.
“’Ere,” he said suddenly as he turned back, “it’s not that poor girl ’oo was done in, is it?”
“’Fraid so, Len,” Allen said again. “Make sure you pass the word, will you? It’s important.”
He turned his head aside and sneezed loudly.
“That’s a nasty cold you’ve got there,” Len said sympathetically.
“Yes, I know – can’t shake the damned thing,” Allen replied, blowing his nose vigorously.
“You work too ’ard, Chief Inspector, that’s your trouble. Spot of leave, that’s what you need. Nice long ’oliday. On a beach somewhere, maybe.”
Allen grunted, and managed to tip most of his tea away on the pavement without Len noticing. He swallowed the remaining contents, hoping that the mug would hide his grimace.
“Got to go, Len,” he said. “Thanks for the tea.�
�
“Back to the nick, is it?” Len asked as he dunked the empty mug in a bowl of soapy water.
“St John’s Wood,” Allen replied with a shake of his head. “Next cabbies’ hut on my list.”
“Nice one, that,” Len purred appreciatively. “One of the original nineteenth century shelters. Listed building now, you know.”
CHAPTER 5
The next day was an unproductive and therefore depressing one. At the wrap-up meeting at the end of the day, which Collison had now instituted as routine, there was little new to report. There were still no firm reported sightings of Kathy Barker on the night of her murder. Nor had they found the driver of the cab which they felt sure must have picked her up. There was nothing new from Forensics, and nobody had called in response to any of the cards which the door-to-door team had pressed into reluctant hands “just in case you remember anything later, no matter how unimportant it may seem”. As Metcalfe went round the room, the response “Nothing to report, guv” began to sound like a ritual incantation.
It was a Friday, and Collison had decided that he did not want anybody working over the weekend. He wanted the team, the whole team, to stay as fresh as possible.
“That includes you, Bob. For God’s sake take a proper break from the case, even if only for a couple of days.”
“Understood, guv,” Metcalfe replied dutifully, but they both knew he would probably be sneaking guiltily into the station.
It wasn’t that he didn’t have a life of his own, he told himself as he pushed a trolley round Sainsbury’s on Saturday morning, wondering vaguely, as he did every time, whether he might encounter Karen Willis similarly engaged. However, by the time he had put two washes on, one white and one coloured, quickly vacuumed the carpet, and then done the ironing in front of the television, he was beginning to wonder.
It was not yet 9pm on a Saturday night and he knew that he should have been out socialising – but where, and with whom? He didn’t fancy a solitary pint in the pub; it might force him to recognise himself for the sad loner that he had undoubtedly become. “Face it,” he thought as he brooded over a TV dinner for one, for which his appetite seemed to have disappeared even while he was heating it up, “you don’t have a girlfriend, you don’t have a hobby apart from the occasional gym session, and you don’t even have any mates.”
It would have been convenient to blame the investigation. Certainly for the last eighteen months he had genuinely had little free time, often working evenings and weekends; his neighbours had finally complained after he had run the washing machine in the middle of the night once too often. When Tom Allen’s faltering relationship had finally given up the ghost, he had been sympathetic; he had reason to be. His own on-again, off-again romance with an air stewardess he had met through an old flame a couple of years back had already preceded it round the U-bend of oblivion.
He fiddled with his food rather than ate it, and drank his way through a bottle of wine. Finally he fell asleep in front of the television, waking at about 5am with a sour taste in his mouth. Rather than going to bed and trying to sleep some more, he decided to put on his running kit and go for a long jog.
From his studio flat in Golders Green, it was a long, slow pull up the hill, past The Old Bull and Bush and on to Jack Straw’s Castle. He deliberately took this as his route, however, relishing the challenge of whether he could make it to the top without pausing. The pain in his legs and the tightness in his chest were a welcome distraction as well as a reminder that he was not spending nearly enough time in the gym. As he fought his way up the last stretch it was a real struggle to keep going, the sweat streaming down his forehead and into his eyes. Finally, mercifully, it levelled off and he slowed to a walk as he waited for the pounding of his heart to subside. He took his pulse, and when it fell back below 150 he set off again, much more easily this time, as the road started to drop downhill into Hampstead. Almost without thinking, it seemed his feet were taking him towards the police station.
This was sad, he thought, really sad, and he forced himself to carry on down the hill towards Belsize Park. He could turn down Pond Street and loop back up East Heath Road to Jack Straw’s Castle again. He trotted doggedly past the taxi drivers’ cafe, down to the traffic lights by St Stephen’s Church. An onlooker would have seen him suddenly run three times in a tight little circle at this point, then jog back to the cafe, which naturally was closed so early on a Sunday morning, gaze at it for a few moments and then turn to resume his planned route.
During his three revolutions on the pavement, he was in fact cursing himself fluently and unforgivingly under his breath. While marking time, he was looking for the cafe’s opening hours. Noticing that it would now be closed until the next morning caused him to curse some more. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? It was so obvious. As he resumed his run, he made a mental note to be here when the cafe opened on Monday.
He had found his rhythm now, and his stamina, had found a pace at which he felt he could jog, albeit slowly, almost forever if need be. The long drag back up the hill past the Vale of Health seemed to clear the fuzziness from his head, though the unpleasant taste remained. The long descent from Jack Straw’s Castle came as a well-earned reward, carrying him easily back to the door of his building, which was tucked away in a service yard behind some shops – exactly, he noted automatically, like the one in which Kathy Barker had met her killer a few days previously.
Even after a shower, a shave and a cup of coffee it was still only 9.30am. He tried to read the Sunday paper he had bought, but found himself staring blankly at the page, thinking of nothing in particular. He had to face facts. The investigation had taken over his life. Without it, he had nothing on which to focus. Was that why he had become obsessed with Karen Willis. Obsessed? He forced himself to try to consider the situation as dispassionately as possible.
Surely not ‘obsessed’. He had come across one or two stalkers in his professional capacity and knew what it was to be truly obsessed with someone. ‘Infatuated’ perhaps? That might describe it more accurately. He thought about her frequently, found her disturbingly attractive, and had the utmost difficult, try as he might, in discerning anything about her that was less than perfect.
Yet ‘infatuated’ sounded wrong as well – too juvenile, somehow, like a schoolboy crush. He was thirty-two years old, not sixteen. Then again, he could not remember feeling like this about anyone before. His air stewardess had been a good friend to have a drink and a meal with, a convenient squeeze when he needed sex, and someone pleasant to wake up next to in the morning, but he could not summon up any emotion for her which ran any more deeply than that. Nor, he was forced to admit, for any previous girlfriend.
“This is pointless, anyway,” he told himself. “The woman has a boyfriend, after all.” Yes, now Peter – what was he to make of him? He seemed so – well – strange, and yet she was clearly deeply attached to him. What drew a woman like Karen to a man like Peter? He realized he was still stuck on the same page of the newspaper and stood up abruptly. For a while, he gazed out of the window; Golders Green was quiet at this time on a Sunday morning. Then, as he had known would happen sooner or later, he found himself heading out towards the tube station for the one stop journey to Hampstead. Had it not been starting to drizzle slightly he would have taken the bus; it seemed silly to travel only one station, even though, like all Metropolitan police officers, he went free of charge.
As he wandered down Hampstead High Street he was startled to see Tom Allen coming in the opposite direction.
“I’ve just been looking for you,” he began without preamble. “I thought you’d be at the nick ...?”
It was a question, but sounded close to an accusation.
“I do get weekends off, you know,” Metcalfe replied defensively.
“Oh come on, Bob, when did you take a weekend off since we started on this case? There’s a killer out there somewhere, and every day that we don’t catch him is another day he’s free to kill some othe
r poor cow.”
Metcalfe winced slightly; Allen had a way of expressing himself that was all his own. He looked around for somewhere they could sit down. A coffee shop was just opening up across the road. “Come on, why don’t we have a coffee? It’ll be nicer than the inside of a cop shop on a Sunday morning.”
“All right,” Allen said grudgingly.
“And that’s another thing,” he said as they crossed the High Street, “why can’t I get into the nick? My swipe card won’t work.”
“Well,” Metcalfe replied carefully as they sat down. “That’s just standard procedure, isn’t it? You’re not attached to Hampstead anymore, so I expect IT automatically cancelled your access.”
“Hmm.” Allen sounded unconvinced.
There was a break while they ordered coffee.
“And why would you be trying to get into the nick anyway, guv?” Metcalfe asked innocently. “You are on leave, after all.”
Allen snorted. “Leave? Do me a favour! I told you, I want to catch this nutter, whether it’s official or unofficial.”
Metcalfe sighed. “You know the rules, guv, as well as I do. I can’t discuss the case with anyone who’s not on the team. DS Collison has made that a specific order, by the way.”
“Charming,” commented Allen sarcastically. Yet, thought Metcalfe, he did not seem as upset as he might be. On the contrary, he seemed almost to be suppressing a smile.
“That’s charming that is,” he reiterated, “considering I’ve found your taxi driver for you.”
Metcalfe gaped. “Our taxi driver ...?” he echoed stupidly.
“That’s right,” Allen said briskly. “The black cab driver who picked up the victim from Haverstock Hill and deposited her in Wood Green shortly before her death. I assume you are looking for him, aren’t you?”
“Of course we are, guv,” Metcalfe replied uncertainly, “we’ve been phoning around for a couple of days. But how did you ...?”
“Easy enough,” came the airy response. “I asked around at a few cabbies’ caffs and shelters. Nothing to it really. Just good old-fashioned police work.”
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