I didn’t need to look at my notes. I told them the story of the last night of Annie Chapman’s life, of the killer who’d struck without making a sound or leaving a trace. Twice while I was speaking, Joesbury glanced up, caught my eye for a split second and looked back down. When I mentioned that she was last seen alive at five thirty a.m., I saw several people looking at the clock. Five thirty a.m. was less than ten hours away.
‘Any truth the Ripper was a member of the royal family?’ someone called from the back. Tulloch and I shared a look. She nodded at me to answer.
‘You’re talking about Prince Albert Victor,’ I said. ‘He was a grandson of Queen Victoria and in direct line to the throne. There are two theories relating to Prince Albert. The first is that he was suffering insanity brought on by syphilis and that he went on a murderous rampage of the East End. It doesn’t really stack up because, as a member of the royal family, his whereabouts at the time are a matter of public record. It’s pretty much impossible that he carried out the murders himself.’
‘What’s the other theory?’ prompted Tulloch, and I got the feeling she wanted me to speed up.
‘The second involved a Masonic conspiracy,’ I said. ‘According to this one, Prince Albert entered into a secret marriage with a young Catholic woman and had a baby daughter. The woman was locked up in an asylum but the child’s nursemaid, Mary Kelly, escaped with the child to the East End and told what she knew to a group of prostitutes, who then hatched a plot to blackmail the government. The prime minister at the time was a Freemason. He brought in a few of his Mason buddies and the story goes that they lured the women into the royal carriage, where they were murdered in accordance with Masonic rituals.’
‘Is it possible?’ asked one of the uniformed sergeants.
‘Unlikely,’ I said. ‘For one thing, the women were killed where they were found. The amount of blood at the scenes and the lack of any in the surrounding area make that pretty clear. And the attacks just don’t seem like calculated executions, they were done in a frenzy, by someone barely able to control his rage.’
‘OK, OK.’ Tulloch was on her feet now, looking at her watch. ‘Thanks, Lacey, but we can talk about Ripper suspects all night and I’m not sure it’ll take us anywhere. Let’s get out there, shall we?’
Quickly, the station cleared. As groups made their way out of the building I could almost see the tension hovering above them. Waiting for something bad to happen; it was always so much worse than actually dealing with it.
‘Anything in particular you’re looking for?’ one of the CCTV operators asked me.
I’d gone back to my old station at Southwark, covertly following the rest of the MIT, and had made for the room where all the CCTV cameras across the borough are monitored. Thirty television screens are permanently broadcasting live footage. The operators can zoom in on any particular image in seconds and the detail is impressive. Look at people sitting outside a pub and you can see the ice gleaming in their drinks.
‘DI Tulloch just wants me to watch for a while,’ I lied. ‘See if it jogs my memory about last week. Can you see any of our people?’
They began switching screens and we spotted several members of the MIT, parked in cars on street corners, wandering past pubs and shops. Mark Joesbury’s car was parked about two hundred yards from the murder site. The driver door opened and he got out. Then DS Anderson appeared from the passenger side. As I watched the two men disappear into the estate, I wondered, for the hundredth time, about Joesbury’s threat to have me investigated. And whether he’d actually followed it up.
A figure in a blue coat caught my eye on a screen higher up. Dana Tulloch was crossing the square outside Southwark Cathedral.
If Joesbury had done the most cursory of searches, he’d have found out that I joined the police aged twenty-six, a little over three years ago after a spell in the RAF reserves, that I got good marks on all my training courses, had studied for a law degree in my spare time and was accepted on to the detective programme the first time I applied.
If he’d accessed my personal records – unlikely, but if he had – he’d know that I’d studied law at Lancaster University, but had dropped out before completing my second year. He’d know that when I was fifteen I was cautioned on the street for having a half-smoked joint in my pocket, and that a year later, I was admitted to hospital having taken too much GHB in a nightclub. On my release the next day, I’d been given another police caution.
I watched Tulloch pull open the main doors of Southwark Cathedral and step inside. I stood up, thanked the two operators and left the room.
If Joesbury had really gone to town, he might have learned that I was born in Shropshire, that I never knew my father, and that my brother and I were raised by grandparents, and occasionally in care, after my teenage, drug-addict mother found the responsibilities of parenthood too great to deal with. He might know that after my grandparents died and my own drug problem escalated, I’d spent several years just drifting, living off the grid. He might even know that my brother lived in Canada and that he and I hadn’t spoken in years.
That had to be it. I hoped.
25
THE CATHEDRAL WAS GETTING READY TO CLOSE FOR THE night. An elderly verger held up both hands at me, fingers splayed, and smiled before nodding towards the door. I had ten minutes.
Tulloch was staring ahead as I approached, her eyes on the central stained-glass window above the altar. She must have heard me getting closer but she was as still as the stone images around us. I almost turned to go, then changed my mind and spoke quietly to her. ‘Ma’am,’ I said.
She started, as if I’d woken her from a nap. ‘What are you doing here?’ she said.
Good question. ‘Sorry,’ I began. ‘I saw you coming in and …’ I stopped. I really wasn’t sure why I’d followed her.
‘And you wondered why I was in here instead of pounding the streets?’ she said, turning away from me again. ‘It would make quite a headline, wouldn’t it? MURDER TEAM CHIEF PRAYS FOR GUIDANCE WHILE KILLER ATTACKS AGAIN.’
I couldn’t reply to that. In terms of what I’d been thinking, she was pretty close.
‘You missed Evensong,’ she said, after a second.
‘I’m not much of a churchgoer,’ I replied.
‘I never used to be,’ she said, her eyes still fixed ahead. ‘But now I think I’d give anything to know that someone up there’s in charge. That there’s a plan.’
I’d never thought of it that way. Nor was I about to start.
Tulloch half rose and moved along a chair, giving me little choice but to sit down beside her. I sat. And waited.
‘I know it was you in the ladies’ room the other day,’ she said softly.
‘Sorry,’ I said again. ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’
No reply. I tapped my foot against the crimson hassock in front of me, making it swing on its hook. ‘I just assumed you’d eaten something that didn’t quite …’ I stopped. I’d assumed nothing of the kind and this wasn’t a woman you could bullshit.
‘That would be just about everything I put in my mouth, Lacey,’ she said. ‘I can’t eat.’
I sneaked a sideways glance. I’d never be allowed through the door at Weightwatchers but I was chunky compared to Tulloch.
‘I had an eating disorder when I was a teenager,’ she went on. ‘I thought I was over it. Apparently I’m not. If I eat, I throw up. I’m surviving on skimmed milk, orange juice and vitamins right now.’
I gave the hassock another kick. I was beginning to wish I’d never gone into the CCTV room. Tulloch looked down at the swinging hassock, then back up again to the window.
‘You want to know what I’m doing here?’ she asked. ‘I’m composing my request-for-redeployment letter.’
Requesting redeployment meant resigning from the inquiry. It would be the end of her career as a detective.
‘It’s going quite well,’ she went on, in a conversational tone, as though the two of us were discussing televis
ion we’d watched the previous night. ‘It’s modest but dignified. Apologetic, of course. No way around that, really.’
There was nothing I could say.
‘All my friends,’ Tulloch carried on, ‘which isn’t a huge number, but all of them begged me not to take this promotion.’
I should have gone straight home. This was way beyond me. And I was getting a nervous twitch in my leg. The hassock was going to go flying, any second now.
‘They said I wasn’t ready. That I needed more time.’ She glanced my way. ‘But how often do opportunities like this come along, Lacey?’ she said. ‘I could have waited five years for another chance.’ She turned back to the altar again and gave a little sigh. ‘And London was so far away.’
‘From Scotland?’ I risked.
Her head gave a little sideways dart, towards me and then back again. ‘What do you know about Scotland?’ she asked.
‘Nothing,’ I said truthfully. ‘Well, practically nothing. Just that it was a big case.’
For a moment Tulloch was silent. Then she said, ‘It was a bad case. Unimaginable. Some scars run so deep.’
When I looked at her again, her eyes were closed. She was tugging at the sleeves of her coat, pulling them further down over her hands. Then she seemed to sense me looking at her, because she opened her eyes and faced me.
‘I thought, what’s the worst that can happen in south London?’ she went on. ‘The odd knife attack? A domestic taken a bit far? I could have dealt with that. I just wasn’t prepared for this.’
‘This hasn’t happened yet,’ I said, more firmly than I felt. ‘There is no this. We have one murder, that’s all.’
This time she didn’t look away. Unusually, on a woman of her colour, she had a light scattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Behind her, I could see the verger making his way down the side aisle, past the massive pale stone arches that lined the nave. Tulloch didn’t take her eyes off me.
‘The police in the original investigation were crucified,’ she said. ‘At the time, and ever since. Charles Warren resigned over his failure to find Jack. Well, I’m going to get in first. I can’t have five women’s deaths on my conscience, Lacey, I just can’t.’
One had to see her point. The few hours when I’d thought I could have kept Geraldine Jones alive had been pretty uncomfortable ones. I also knew that if there were more killings, and no one was caught, Tulloch would take the blame.
‘Can I ask you something?’ I said, thinking that if a senior officer could be this confiding with me, I could probably get away with an opinion or two of my own.
She gave a little shrug with her chin. I took it as a yes.
‘How many mistakes have you made so far?’ I asked.
A crease line appeared between perfectly shaped eyebrows. ‘I’m not sure …’
‘If you had to start the whole investigation again, what would you do differently?’
She was shaking her head. She wasn’t having it.
‘If someone more experienced had been in charge, who didn’t have any of your personal issues,’ I went on, ‘what would they have done that you didn’t?’
She sighed and turned back to the front. I looked the same way, at the double row of statues above the altar, and at the three arched stained-glass windows above them.
‘You’ve done OK,’ I said. ‘Nobody’s so much as hinting otherwise. And we don’t know anything else is going to happen. I’d give it another twenty-four hours if I were you.’
Tulloch leaned forward until her elbows were on her knees and her chin in her hands. ‘Why do you think I’ve been telling you all this?’ she said.
Bloody good question. ‘I’m handy,’ I offered.
‘I’ve been making it inevitable,’ she replied. ‘The simple act of telling you about my resignation has made it a fait accompli. I can’t lead a murder team if even one of them knows I feel like this.’
‘Well, it’s lucky I’m not on the team then, isn’t it?’ I sat back in my chair, knowing I sounded a tiny bit smug. ‘You’ve been very clear on that.’
She made a sound that could have been a soft laugh. It could also have been a small sob. ‘You remind me of someone,’ she said.
‘Is that good or bad?’
Close by, the verger was hovering. He caught my eye and stepped closer. He raised his left wrist and pointed at his watch.
‘So sorry,’ he said. ‘Time’s up.’
Dana stood. I did the same and we walked to the rear of the cathedral, our footsteps unnaturally loud in the now empty building.
‘Mainly good,’ she said. ‘She was a good friend of mine. But she was a meddler. Couldn’t seem to grasp that when you stick your head above the parapet, someone will take a shot at it. I rather suspect you have the same problem.’
She was right, I had to get over this parapet business.
‘By the way,’ said Tulloch, as we stepped out into the night, ‘what have you done to Mark?’
I couldn’t look at her. ‘Do you mean DI Joesbury?’ I asked after a second.
She gave a soft laugh. ‘Yes, that’s the one. Did you two have words?’
‘Well, I … I’m not sure the two of us really hit it off,’ I managed. ‘Sorry.’
She didn’t reply, but when I glanced across again she was smiling.
‘Have you known him long?’ I asked, a second before I realized I didn’t want to know anything about Tulloch’s relationship with Joesbury.
‘We went through training together,’ she said. ‘I wanted to change the world, Mark wanted all the free time off the service gave him to play rugby.’ She smiled again. ‘After a year or so they clamped down on that and he didn’t have a plan B.’
We stopped to wait for the lights at the pedestrian crossing. I wasn’t about to feel sorry for Joesbury. I figured he’d found his niche as an undercover thug.
‘We were very close for a long time,’ Dana was saying. ‘I’m even godmother to his son. Then I had a long-term relationship breakup just as he was going through his divorce. We helped each other through it.’
The lights changed and we crossed.
‘I’ve barely seen him the last two years,’ she went on. ‘He’s been off the radar with this drug gang and I was up in Scotland. I suppose I’m just making up for lost time. He’s practically the closest I have to family now.’
We’d reached the station.
‘This business about him hanging around the investigation because he’s bored,’ I said. ‘That’s not actually true, is it?’
Tulloch gave me the small, slightly smug smile of a woman who knows she’s loved. ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘He’s watching my back.’
She wished me goodnight and a safe journey as she went inside. As I climbed into my car I was thinking that, whilst Tulloch might not have much in the way of family and friends, she was a whole lot better off than me.
26
A MANDA WESTON CAN’T STOP SHIVERING. EXCEPT, shivering is something you do when you are cold. She has a feeling she might be cold – she’s naked, after all – but this spasmodic shaking has nothing to do with temperature. This isn’t cold. This is terror.
High above her head, suspended from the ceiling, hang large, coloured shapes. She sees red, blue and yellow paint peeling away and thinks she should know what they are but her petrified brain can’t seem to process normal information any more. Just the minutiae of what’s happening to her body. The rough wooden bench she’s lying on feels like a thousand tiny creatures are biting into her. An itch below her right eye has become so intense it makes her want to weep and she’s sure something is crawling up her left leg. Nothing she can do.
Not that it stops her trying. Hands, then arms, head and legs. Tugging and twisting and pulling until exhaustion gets the better of her again. One last effort, whole body, one massive buck, do it now. Useless. She can’t move.
A noise behind her head. Someone coming back.
A hand touching her face. Then a sudden burning as
the tape across her mouth is ripped away and the cold air stings raw skin.
‘How’re you doing?’ whispers the voice in her ear.
Amanda tries to think of something to say. Something that will strike a chord, make a difference. Something other than the old clichés. Why are you doing this? Please don’t hurt me. Let me go now, I won’t say a word, I promise.
‘This is a mistake,’ she chooses. ‘I’m not the person you think I am. I’ve done nothing.’ Amanda thinks it isn’t possible to be any more afraid. Then she realizes it is.
‘Tell me something about yourself, Amanda,’ whispers the voice. ‘Tell me about your children.’
Her children? Her stomach turns cold. Impossible. Abigail is at school. Someone would have called her if she’d gone missing? When did she last talk to Daniel? Amanda strains her eyes, looking left and right, as though she might see them, strapped down like she is, one on either side. No one there. She and the voice in her ear are alone.
‘What are their names?’ asks the voice. ‘I’ll know if you’re lying. You’ll know too. What’s your daughter called?’
‘Ab—Abigail,’ Amanda manages.
‘Sweet. And your son? Tell me all about your son.’
‘Daniel,’ she says.
‘You must be very proud of them. Mothers will do anything, won’t they, for their children? Are you a good mother, Amanda?’
‘I try. I don’t understand. Why are …’
Suddenly, Amanda isn’t cold any more. She’s hot. Sauna hot. She watches a figure in white move away from her towards a bench at the far wall. She sees a hand reach out, a finger tap gently on a small, portable CD player.
‘Let’s have some music, shall we?’ says the voice. ‘This is one of my favourites.’
The tune rings out, light, jolly, familiar, as the white figure comes back towards her. It’s a tune from childhood. The lyrics start just as something that feels like ice is traced slowly across Amanda’s stomach. The trail it leaves behind begins to prickle and then sting. She can almost hear her hot blood sizzling as it meets the cold air.
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