There was a silence.
“Maybe they really were just hidden there at random,” Karen said in the end, though without much conviction.
“Synchronicity, you mean?” asked Metcalfe, recalling an earlier conversation. “Extreme coincidence. Someone just happens to dump some murder evidence right outside the flat of a man who is a tailor-made suspect?”
There was another silence, longer this time. Metcalfe stared moodily into his cup, hoping that the remains of his coffee might distract him from Karen’s legs.
“I’ll tell you what might be an explanation to fit the facts,” Collison said suddenly. “It’s just come to me, and a very nasty thought it is too.”
They both looked at him.
“Suppose somebody has been manipulating events all along. Suppose somebody created a set of facts which they knew would lead to a particular profile, and that this particular profile would lead us to Clarke?”
“Oh, come on, guv,” Metcalfe protested, “that’s pretty fantastic, don’t you think? For a start, how would anyone know in advance that we would bring in a profiler? It never occurred to Tom Allen when he was leading the investigation.”
“Maybe you’re right, Bob. I certainly want to believe that you’re right.”
“That’s surely a step too far, sir,” Karen said firmly. “Bad enough to know that we may have been hoodwinked by a deception plan without thinking that we’ve been manipulated into the bargain.”
“Time we were off, anyway,” Collison said, looking at his watch. “We’ve got to brief the troops.”
An air of frustration was beginning to pervade the incident room. A few days ago they had believed they had the means to crack the case quickly and simply, but the slow process of tracking down and eliminating potential suspects was not only tedious work, but didn’t seem to be leading to results.
“Well, folks, we’re going to try a difference of emphasis,” Collison said, deliberately breezy. “We’ll keep some bodies on tracking down the remaining keyholders and I’d like to keep open DI Leach’s line of enquiry as to whether anyone might have had a grudge against Clarke, but there’s something else I’d like to consider as well, potentially related to that latter point.”
He perched on a table. “Up to now this inquiry has focused on investigating this series of killings on the assumption that they are linked; that we are hunting a serial killer.”
“You mean they’re not linked, sir?” Priya asked, struggling to keep the incredulity out of her voice.
“Of course they’re linked in the sense that the same person committed them all. I’m not trying to deny that. No, it’s that I think we should consider the possibility, no matter how unlikely it may seem, that the murders may not be the random acts of a serial killer but instead have a different purpose behind them; namely to camouflage the fact that the killer may have had a motive for committing one of these killings, but has deliberately laid a false trail for us to follow to hide that fact.”
“Is this your own theory, sir?” Leach asked innocently.
“Yes, entirely my own,” Collison responded briskly and decisively. “It’s something that came to me overnight.”
“It’s a very bold theory, sir,” he observed.
“Bold in what sense?”
“Well, in two senses really,” Leach said slowly. “Firstly, there’s no evidence at all to support it. Secondly it might mean re-opening the whole investigation from the very beginning.”
An audible moan of protest ran round the room.
“Perhaps there’s no evidence to support it because nobody has ever looked for it,” Collison pointed out mildly. “In any event, let’s ask DC Willis to review the individual victims just to see if the idea has legs.”
A faint titter broke out in one corner and Collison sighed at the puerile male humour that would find any association between Karen and the word ‘legs’ amusing. She coloured slightly but then stepped forward resolutely to address the room.
“Victim number one was Amy Grant, a student. We never found out exactly what she was doing that weekend in London. If we are going to reopen the investigation then we could try once again. She seems to have disappeared completely after she got the train from Birmingham. There’s no trace of her having stayed anywhere and she didn’t have family down here – she was from Darlington.”
“I suppose the most likely explanation is that she was staying with a man somewhere,” Metcalfe interjected.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Karen said. “There were suggestions by a few of her university friends that she might have been gay, though nobody was really sure. She was apparently a quiet person who kept herself to herself. No-one really seems to have known her at all.”
“Sad,” Collison said quietly. “But given someone would have to be very determined indeed to murder not just her but several other women to cover it up, she seems an unlikely candidate.”
“May I make a suggestion, sir?” Leach asked.
“With pleasure,” Collison replied.
“Well, if this theory is to have any validity, our murderer must be a very obvious suspect for one of the killings. Otherwise why go to all this trouble?”
“A good point,” Collison acknowledged. “I should have thought of that. Thank you, Andrew. Yes, it would have to be someone who would normally be our first port of call: husband, boyfriend, something like that.”
“So far as we know, Amy Grant was single,” Metcalfe said. “So I agree that she seems an unlikely candidate for our ‘real’ victim.”
“So does Tracy Redman,” Collison observed. “As a prostitute she would have had a higher than usual chance of being killed by a deranged client, but there’s no way it would be the sort of killer we are talking about now.”
“And I think we can rule out Joyce Mteki as well, guv,” Karen said. “She worked as a nurse, lived alone and was a born-again Christian. Again, she seems an unlikely candidate to attract this sort of killer.”
“Jenny Hillyer was an office worker who lived as a single girl in a flatshare,” Metcalfe said, consulting his notes. “She did have a boyfriend but he had an alibi which we were able to vet carefully as we were pretty confident about the time of death in her case. I interviewed him myself and frankly he didn’t seem the type to kill anyone, let alone pull a stunt like this.”
“There was also evidence from her flatmates that she and her boyfriend were on very good terms,” Priya interjected. “They were planning to move in together.”
“So that leaves Katherine Barker,” Collison concluded.
“Who had a pretty ropey relationship with her husband, featuring frequent shouting matches, according to the neighbours,” Karen pointed out.
“A husband who is on our list of potential keyholders,” Metcalfe said, half lifting his copy of the list from the table, “and thus had access to the loft space.”
“And who owned the flat where Clarke lived and had no real alibi for the night his wife was killed,” Priya added, staring hard at Collison.
“And who is someone who might have had possible cause to have a grudge against Clarke,” Leach said with sudden excitement. “There was some talk of him having stalked Katherine Barker, wasn’t there?”
“And might it be significant,” Karen was thinking out loud now, “that the killings stopped with Katherine Barker? Perhaps that meant our murderer’s task was now complete.”
The tension within the room was palpable.
“I suppose,” Collison said, striving to keep calm, “that we never really checked out his alibis for the other murders because we ‘knew’ that we were looking for a serial killer, whereas he was simply the bereaved husband of one of our deranged killer’s victims.”
“Correct, guv,” Metcalfe confirmed. “Just as we reckoned that it wasn’t overly suspicious that he didn’t have a provable alibi for his wife’s killing because we ‘knew’ that she had been murdered by the same man who killed the others, and Barker had absolutely no motive to kill four
unknown women.”
“We need,” Collison said with understated determination, “to re-interview the good doctor. But let’s get as much background on him as we can. Karen and Priya, drop in on the neighbours again and see if they having anything new to add. Andrew, look into his professional life; see if there any skeletons in the closet there. Bob, you organise the financial checks. The rest of you, carry on with eliminating the keyholders.”
“Excuse me, guv,” Karen said, “but couldn’t we use the keyholder enquiries as an excuse to re-interview Dr Barker?”
“My thoughts exactly,” Collison replied. “That way we shan’t arouse any suspicions. But let’s get as much as we can through other channels first. OK, people, thank you. Let’s get to work.”
“Charles seemed dashed excited last night,” Wimsey said later.
“So he should have been, Peter,” Harriet responded. “You gave him a really good idea for the investigation, don’t you remember?”
“Did I?” He seemed distracted.
“Yes, don’t you remember? It’s taken the inquiry down a whole new path. We now think that Katherine Barker’s husband may have done it.”
“What, all of them?”
“Yes, Peter, just like you found in one of your books, to conceal his wife’s murder as part of a serial killer’s rampage.”
“Well, it’s a viable theory, I suppose,” Wimsey said, shaking his head a little, “but a wee thing prosaic, don’t you think? The husband? That makes it just a simple crime of passion after all. How dashed boring.”
“Don’t start thinking about it all over again, there’s a dear. Charles specifically told you that you couldn’t have anything more to do with the case, don’t you remember?”
“I think so, and I’m sure there must have been a good reason but I can’t quite remember it. I say, Harriet, what’s wrong with me? Why am I having such trouble remembering things? Have I been ill?”
“I’m afraid your nerves have been bad again, Peter. I have some pills from the doctor if you’d like to take them.”
“Oh God, not the shell shock again? I do hope I haven’t made a bally nuisance of myself.”
“Of course you haven’t,” Harriet said warmly. “Anyway, we all just want to see you well again.”
“Well, that might explain it, I suppose,” he said, rather vacantly. “Being ill, I mean …”
Harriet knelt, took his hand and kissed it. “Don’t worry, Peter,” she assured him, “you’re going to get well, and soon.”
He smiled weakly at her.
“You know,” he said after a while, “I’ve been thinking about what old Parker bird said about that profiler fellow. About how he told the police that he didn’t think they’d got the right man, and how they ignored him.”
“That’s quite right,” Harriet confirmed, staring at him intently. “The evidence seemed so strong, you see.”
“I’m sure Charles did nothing wrong, he’s a good man,” Wimsey said.
“A pity you couldn’t be there, though, darling. I’m sure you would have sided with the profiler and put things right.”
“I don’t know about that,” he protested. “As you say, the evidence was overwhelming.”
“The important thing to remember,” she said, weighing her words carefully and trying to see what effect they might have, “is that the profiler did nothing wrong. On the contrary, he was right and had the police listened to him then Gary Clarke would be alive today.”
“It does look rather like that,” he mused.
There was a long silence during which the clock of Christchurch could be heard striking eight.
“Would you like something to eat?” she asked eventually. “Bunter’s not here but I could rustle something up.”
“I think perhaps I would,” he replied. “Though I’m so tired, Harriet. I feel as if I haven’t slept for months.”
“Well,” she said, getting up from the floor, “after dinner why don’t you have one of the doctor’s pills. They’ll help you sleep.”
“A gentle thing, beloved from pole to pole,” he murmured.
“Wordsworth?” she hazarded.
“No, some other cove,” he said. “Coleridge, I think.”
“Nature’s soft nurse,” she said gently.
“Oh, not Shakespeare, Harriet, surely?” he groaned. “Why, you’re becoming almost as predictable as poor old Charles.”
CHAPTER 18
“You’re going to reinvestigate the husband?” the ACC asked.
“Not really a reinvestigation, sir,” Collison demurred. “At the time we were confident that we were only looking for a serial killer and so once we had established that Kathy Barker’s murder fitted the pattern we ruled out the husband as a possible suspect.”
“But you are looking for a serial killer, aren’t you?” the ACC said pedantically. “You’re surely not suggesting that some of these crimes were committed by different people?”
“Not at all, sir, there’s no doubt they are all the work of one murderer, but it’s the motive that’s key. I’d say we might now be looking for a multiple killer rather than a serial killer. A small difference but a significant one.”
The ACC made a noise that sounded suspiciously close to “Harrumph”.
“So what I’m proposing is really a proper investigation ab initio, as you might say.”
“I hope you’re not using Latin phrases down at Hampstead nick. We don’t want to alienate the troops more than is absolutely necessary.”
“It means ‘from the beginning’, sir.”
“I know what it means,” the ACC retorted. “Just tell me what you have in mind. Are you going to bring him in?”
“Not until absolutely necessary, sir,” Collison said warily. “I’d like to get as much background as possible first. I have people re-interviewing the neighbours and checking out his professional and financial circumstances – discreetly of course. To that end, sir, I’d like to apply for a court order to examine his bank account.”
“Hardly necessary is it? Even if he did murder his wife it doesn’t seem likely his motive was financial.”
“Even so, sir. I’d like to do it. I’m very conscious that we’ve got it wrong once already and I don’t want to be left wondering whether there’s anything I should have looked at that I didn’t.”
“Hmm,” said the ACC, and then, “Oh, all right. But be careful, Simon. If it turns out you’re wrong about this, the press will have a field day accusing us of harassing the bereaved husband of a sex killer’s victim.”
“I’m aware of the sensitivities, sir.”
“I’m sure that you are but I’m the one who’s going to have to face the Commissioner and explain the media coverage if anything goes wrong. In fact, I think on reflection that you need to report back to me before any attempt is made to re-interview the husband. Informally or otherwise. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly, sir,” Collison said primly.
“Now I wanted to ask you something,” the ACC went on in a different tone of voice. “I’ve made Tom Allen senior investigating officer on the Clarke prison murder. What do you think of that?”
“It’s not for me to advise you, sir, but it sounds like a good call. Allen needs to get back to work and mounting an inquiry within a prison calls for a good, hard copper, which is exactly what he is.”
“You don’t have a problem with him, then?”
“No, on the contrary, sir, we’re friends and I have a lot of respect for him.”
“I’m glad you said that. I’m going to put him and his team into Hampstead nick alongside you. It’s a question of resources. It’s not practical to base the inquiry at the prison and there’s plenty of space at Hampstead. We’ve been trying to close the place for years, as you know.”
“Oh,” said Collison, and then stopped.
“Oh, what?”
“Well, there’s the inquiry into the leaks, sir, if you recall? Might it not be a bit of a conflict to have Tom working in the
very police station that is being accused of leaking inside information to him?”
“Oh, that,” said the ACC dismissively. “Yes, I didn’t have a chance to tell you. I’ve had the initial report from Internal Affairs. In their view identifying the culprit will prove extremely difficult and would not be a good use of resources. So I’ve recommended to the MPC that we drop the whole thing. I’m sure he’ll agree.”
“Oh,” Collison said again, struggling to keep the surprise out of his voice. “Well then I suppose it doesn’t really matter.”
“Exactly,” the ACC said airily. “All water under the bridge. Glad you see it that way. You were quite right to bring it to my attention, though. Well, off you go but keep me posted. And remember, no move is to be made to approach Dr Barker without my express authorisation.”
“I understand, sir,” said Collison.
“How is Peter?” Metcalfe asked as they walked up Hampstead High Street. “Any change?”
“I’m not sure,” Karen replied. “He seemed to be groping towards some sort of reality last night. I think Collison’s comments about ‘the profiler’ may have got through to him on some level. I managed to get him to take one of the tranquilisers the doctor prescribed; he went to bed early and he was still asleep when I left this morning.”
“Where shall we go?” Metcalfe asked as they reached the end of Flask Walk. “The Flask? The Wells?”
“What about the Holly Bush?” she suggested. “I haven’t been there for ages.”
“OK,” he agreed. “Less likely to run into anyone from the nick there anyway. They’re too lazy to climb the steps.”
Shortly after they crossed the road by Hampstead station they began the ascent themselves. Conversation ceased as they laboured up the steep flights of steps up to Holly Mount. At the top, it felt as though they were looking out from the top of a cliff over the sights of London laid out for their delectation. They turned right and picked their way with care over the cobblestones to the pub on the corner. An eighteenth century house with leaded windows, exposed beams and low ceilings, it was like walking onto the set of a Dickensian costume drama.
They each ordered a soft drink from the bar and found a pew-like seat for two in the small room at the front. It was almost empty apart from a middle-aged man on his own with a pint of London Pride and what looked like chicken pie. He gazed at Karen in frank admiration. Almost certainly a writer, she thought as she sized him up.
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