Death in Profile

by Guy Fraser-Sampson

  Collison dropped into the incident room to break the good news. The atmosphere felt almost more unreal than before; even the boxes had disappeared. Priya Desai was absent, taking some time off to be with her father who was sick. Perhaps a theatre felt like this, he mused, once the sets had been taken down after the last night of a production.

  Bob Metcalfe and Karen Willis were standing by the window drinking coffee, watching a couple of technicians disconnect the last few computers. They looked as they felt: purposeless and a little dazed. For weeks after the arrest had been made, they had been hard at work on preparing the case. Now the sense of anti-climax was palpable. There was something else as well though, he reflected. There was the sense of a bond having grown between them during the last stages. Standing close together, it was almost as if they had the look of a couple. He wondered if he had missed anything, something he should have noticed but hadn’t, or whether this was something that had just evolved gradually from long hours of working together. There again, perhaps he was completely mistaken. He had learned the hard way that intuition was not his strong suit.

  They turned towards him as he approached and, in the process, seemed to move a little further apart.

  “Nothing left to do?” Collison asked.

  “Don’t think so, sir,” Metcalfe replied, a trifle uncertainly. Had he overlooked something?

  “Good. Then take the rest of the day off, both of you. You’ve more than earned it these last few weeks.”

  They both looked uncertainly at their watches. It was only just after twelve.

  “Go for a long lunch somewhere,” he suggested. “Relax. A couple of bottles of wine, that sort of thing.”

  Karen Willis turned to Metcalfe and smiled. He felt something perform a somersault inside him.

  “Why not?” she said.

  It was one of those days that cannot decide whether it wants to be summer or winter, and Hampstead was canopied by a Turneresque purple clouded sky, in which the sun every so often ripped a savage gash and broke through to bathe the streets in sudden blinding light. Even as fashionable shoppers shaded their eyes or reached for their sunglasses, it would disappear again, gleaming briefly through the sombre clouds on its way.

  With the threat of rain ever present, it was not the sort of day to be eating outside. A small French restaurant at the bottom of Flask Walk beckoned. Sitting in the window and looking out, it was a strangely silent environment. Few vehicles ventured along the back streets in the village. Occasional Asian tourists walked past uncertainly, keeping to the narrow, elevated pavement. Women of a certain age with dogs of a certain type moved more purposefully, often in the middle of the road.

  The menu was not a large one, the choice of a main course revolving largely around whether one was in the mood for fish or meat.

  “A Sancerre perhaps?” Metcalfe ventured uncertainly, looking up from the wine list.

  “An excellent choice,” his companion concurred approvingly.

  “You know about wine?”

  “A bit,” she admitted. “My father was a great wine enthusiast, and so is Peter. In fact, he reminds me of my father in many ways.”

  “They do say,” Metcalfe said before he could stop himself, “that women often look for the qualities of their father in men they find attractive.”

  “And similarly men with their mothers when it comes to girlfriends,” she countered.

  “True,” he replied awkwardly. “I suppose.”

  “You suppose?”

  “Well, I mean, I haven’t had a girlfriend for a while now – the job gets in the way, I find – and I can’t say that she was particularly like my mother apart from the fact they both had dark hair. But I’m aware of the principle.”

  The waiter arrived and they ordered.

  “I can’t really put it to the test for myself, either,” Karen said. “I do have a boyfriend, as you know, but I never knew my father, my real father that is. I was brought up by a really nice couple, but neither of them was a biological parent. I was adopted when I was little, and I can’t remember either of my real parents.”

  “Really? So was I.”

  “Well, that is a coincidence. What are the odds, I wonder?”

  “Not very high,” he replied firmly. “Only about five thousand kids get adopted in the UK every year.”

  “Really? How do you know that?”

  “I looked it up. I was curious.”

  So that’s…,” she struggled with the maths and gave up. “What, one percent or something?”

  “No, much less. About one in ten thousand, I think.”

  The Sancerre arrived and Metcalfe waved for Karen to try it, which she did with every appearance of knowing what she was doing, and pronounced it excellent.

  “Do you ever think of trying to trace your real mother?” she asked, as they replaced their glasses on the table.

  “From time to time,” he admitted. “I once got as far as finding out that she lived in Peterborough, but I decided not to follow it through.”

  “Another coincidence,” she said with a smile. “So did I. Mine lives here in London. I even got her name. It’s Susan Weedon. I used to carry it round with me for a while, her name and address, trying to decide whether to contact her or not.”

  “You obviously decided not to.”

  She nodded.

  “Any particular reason?”

  “Not really. I just reckoned she must have had good reasons to need to get rid of me, and that whatever they were I should respect them. I was very happy with my adopted parents, so it’s not like I feel any great emotional need to find her – although some people do, I’m sure. With me, it’s just curiosity. What’s she like, why did she do it, that sort of thing.”

  “I know what you mean,” he acknowledged. “It’s pretty much the same with me, though sadly my adopted parents split up when I was fourteen.”

  “How was that?”

  “It was OK actually. It was just a hassle from an administrative point of view. The adoption people had to come back and assess my mum as a single parent. In the end they decided it would be more disruptive to move me than to leave me where I was, which suited me fine.”

  “Do you still see her much?”

  “Not as much as I should,” he admitted guiltily. “It’s difficult, because she moved out of London down to Devon, and the job keeps me so busy, but that’s no real excuse I know.” He took another sip of wine and noticed the first few drops of rain beginning to speckle the window pane.

  “I wonder if that’s why we find it so easy to be friends,” Karen mused. “As you say, it’s a highly unlikely thing to have in common.”

  “Perhaps, yes,” he replied.

  He felt a sudden inner certainty that a defining moment had arrived, a split second in which a certain thing could be said, or at least hinted at. A moment which, if allowed to pass, might never recur.

  “Actually …” he began uncertainly, feeling his chest tighten.

  “Please don’t,” she said quietly.

  His gaze was more eloquent than anything he could have said.

  She shook her head silently, gazing intently into her wine glass and twirling her fingers around the stem. Finally, she spoke. “We can’t have this conversation, at least not now. I’m not free and it wouldn’t be fair to Peter to pretend that I am, or even that I might be. It’s my problem and I need to resolve it. I need to work out what I want.”

  “I’m shocked,” he said, though quite unnecessarily. “I thought you were happy with him. I mean, when I see you both together it feels like there’s a real bond between you.”

  “Oh, there is. I’ve never respected anyone as much as I respect Peter. He’s hugely intelligent, he has more integrity than anyone I’ve ever met, and he’s a thoroughly nice person.”

  “That’s the way he strikes me too,” Metcalfe was forced to admit. “But of course, there’s his … well, I mean he can a bit …”

  “The word you’re looking for is ‘stra
nge’, I think,” she said with a sad little smile. “Don’t worry, it’s what a lot of people think. And if you mean ‘not normal’ or ‘not like other people’, you’d be right.”

  “I’m not sure I meant it quite like that,” he said uncomfortably. “What is ‘normal’ anyway? Maybe ‘eccentric’ might be a better word, or ‘individual’ perhaps.”

  “A good one certainly – ‘eccentric’, I mean. I used to think he was just genuinely eccentric in the fine old English tradition, pretending that the second half of the twentieth century had never really happened, affecting the dress and mannerisms of the 1920s, all that sort of thing. Then I realised that it wasn’t like that at all.” She took a drink of wine and he waited for her to go on.

  “It’s more than that for him, and more serious too. It’s a defence mechanism. He finds real life challenging, particularly when it places him under any sort of pressure. He’s a very gentle soul really, brilliant but fragile, rather like a beautiful vase. When it all gets too much he retreats into all this period tomfoolery, but for him it’s deadly serious. He’s using it to run away from something he finds overwhelming, the way a kid might hide behind the sofa if something frightens him on television.”

  “Where does he get it from?” Metcalfe asked hesitantly. “I can’t help feeling there’s a book in there somewhere, or perhaps a whole series of them. Is it Jeeves and Wooster?”

  “Not really. It’s actually Lord Peter Wimsey. He’s completely obsessed with him – always has been since he was young. He grew up in a house without television and his mother had the complete set of Dorothy L. Sayers in her bookcase – you know, the originals in the yellow covers. He claims she even named him after Wimsey.”

  “I don’t know,” he said ruefully, “about the covers, I mean. I tried them in paperback, well one or two anyway, but to be honest I don’t think I ever managed to finish one.”

  “Then I think you’re the poorer for it,” she said judiciously. “I’m not sure they’re particularly great detective stories, and I agree they can drag terribly from time to time, but they’re very well written, and Wimsey is one of the great literary creations. If I was a man and I wanted a comforting literary figure to hide in I think I’d probably choose him too. As it is, when he’s in that sort of mood I get to play Harriet Vane, and she’s not so bad either.”

  “Did Sayers base Harriet on herself?” he asked, feeling it was a very intelligent query to make.

  “Well, sort of. She’s more of an idealised version of what Sayers would like to have thought of herself as, just as Wimsey is the idealised man she always wanted to meet and have fall in love with her. Poor woman, apparently she had a very unhappy love life in reality.”

  The conversation halted while the empty main course plates were collected.

  “Is it … well, difficult – the play-acting I mean?” he asked diffidently.

  “To be honest, I enjoy it hugely,” she said, tossing back her hair with a smile. “I suppose it’s a bit like going on holiday. Hartley said the past was a foreign country, didn’t he? Well, he’s right, and it’s fun. You get to wear elegant clothes and be treated like a lady, and everyone has perfect manners. That’s why so many people get turned on by it.”

  “Really? I had no idea.”

  “Oh yes, it’s not just Peter, you know. Why, there must be anything up to a hundred people or more at some of the vintage evenings we go to. Everyone loves dressing up and dancing proper dances, and having someone help you with your coat and open the door for you.”

  “In fact,” she went on, laughing at the thought, “we met Collison and his wife outside one the other week. She looks very nice, by the way.”

  “Don’t tell me they’re into that sort of thing?” he gasped.

  “Oh, no, they were just looking for somewhere to have dinner. Though I think he’d fit straight in. There’s an air of the natural gentleman about him. In fact, before Peter had even met him I told him Collison reminded me a bit of Rory Alleyn, and after he’d had a chance to observe him himself he agreed with me.”

  “And Rory Alleyn is … who?” he floundered.

  “Oh, Bob, he’s Ngaio Marsh’s detective, silly. Don’t you read anything from the Golden Age?”

  “A bit of Agatha Christie, from time to time,” he answered defensively. “So, tell me,” he said, deciding it was high time to move the topic of conversation away from authors with whom he had at best a nodding acquaintance, “if you enjoy all this period stuff so much, why are you thinking of splitting up with Peter?”

  “I wasn’t thinking of it at all until I met you,” she replied simply. “Then almost at once being around you made me feel, well, disturbed I suppose. And that in turn made me start to question what I feel for Peter, though I know very well that the poor lamb is very much in love with me.”

  Metcalfe felt a spasm of disbelief. Had she really just said what he thought she had just said?

  “You mean …?” He floundered for a way of asking what it was he wanted to ask.

  “I mean I’m pretty sure I know what you feel and yes, I feel it too. Now please, let’s change the subject.”

  They sat in silence.

  “Could I just ask,” he was still in a daze, “I mean, not to put you under any pressure or anything, just for my own peace of mind, when you think you might make a decision?”

  “Sooner than you think, perhaps,” she said with another quick smile. “Peter and I are going away tomorrow and not coming back until the day before the trial. I cleared it with Collison yesterday. He was concerned about my arrears of leave and was very keen for me to get away somewhere. I think he’s going to have the same chat with you, by the way.”

  “Oh God,” he said in dismay, “I hope not. It’s not as if I really have anywhere I want to go.”

  “Devon, perhaps?” she suggested gently.

  He flushed. “Yes,” he said. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, should I? Must have sounded very selfish or ungrateful or something.”

  “Not at all.”

  She picked up the bottle and showed him that there was still enough left for a glass each. “May I assume that we at least have time to finish the wine?”

  To his great disgust he then heard himself say something very corny indeed. “Yes, of course. In fact, I think we may have all the time in the world.”

  CHAPTER 11

  “Bit of a turn up for the books, Simon,” Alistair Partington said ruminatively. He and Collison were sitting side by side on one of the benches in the lobby of the Old Bailey. “I thought chummy would cop a plea,” he went on, “But it seems from what his silk has just told us that we’re going to have a fight on our hands.”

  “He’s going to plead ‘not guilty’?” Collison asked in amazement. “But the evidence is overwhelming.”

  As he spoke, Karen Willis arrived wearing a black skirt that momentarily deprived him of the power to think about anything else at all. From the slightly glazed eyes and inane smile on Partington’s face as he introduced them, it appeared that his learned friend was similarly affected.

  “I’m sure,” the barrister went on, trying but failing to keep his eyes away from Karen’s legs, “that they’re just going to test the evidence. I really don’t see what else they can do.”

  “Will he give evidence, do you think?” Metcalfe asked. He had joined the group unseen.

  “Well, we shall see what we shall see,” Partington replied. “But personally I wouldn’t let chummy anywhere near the witness stand.”

  They were all in court ten minutes later to hear Gary Clarke say “Not guilty” faintly but defiantly as each of the five charges of murder were put to him.

  Patrick Barratt QC rose to his feet with an air of faint ennui. “May it please you, my Lord,” he intoned, “I appear for the prosecution with my learned friend Mr Partington. M’learned friend Mr Smithers appears for the defence, with Miss Belinda Jilkes.”

  The Honourable Judge Brownlow, entitled despite his rank to
be addressed as ‘my Lord’ since he was sitting as a judge in the Central Criminal Court, had all this information in front of him already, but he nodded sagely and pretended to write it down nonetheless. “Yes, Mr Barratt,” he said.

  “Members of the jury,” Barratt began, turning slightly to address them. “As you have just heard from the charges which were put to the accused, this is a most distressing case involving five counts of murder, the violent and gruesome murders of five women to be exact. I regret that some of the evidence which you will have to hear and see you may find disturbing.”

  A slight frisson ran through the courtroom, as indeed Barratt had intended that it should. He looked down at his notes and then back over the top of his half-moon glasses at the jury, as he began to open his case.

  While Barratt outlined the circumstances of each killing, Metcalfe felt his attention wander. For one thing, he knew this particular story all too well. For another, he had not had a chance to speak to Karen since her return from leave. Now here she was sitting next to him and he was all too conscious that their thighs were almost touching but not quite. In an effort to divert himself, he gazed at the junior counsel for the defence but since she was plump, ugly and exuded an air of gratuitous aggressiveness, he found little solace in that direction.

  As might be expected of a respected member of the senior bar, Barratt put the case calmly, simply and effectively to the jury. At one point he said, “It is, I believe, common ground, that five items of female underwear were found at the address where the accused was living, and that these each respectively bore the DNA of one of the five victims.”

  The defence QC half-rose apologetically to ask that his learned friend amend this to ‘the common parts of the address where the accused was living’, whereupon the judge murmured something approving and Mr Barratt gestured in a distinguished yet deferential fashion and made the necessary correction. There was however something about his manner as he did so which conveyed to the jury the unmistakeable impression that they were entirely free to treat this intervention as the trivial example of legal pettifogging that it undoubtedly was.