Now You See Me

by Sharon Bolton

  ‘Take your time,’ I told her. ‘It’s important that you’re sure.’

  She looked again at the snapshots of Victoria and Cathy Llewellyn, before taking off her glasses and bringing the photograph closer to her face. I gave her time, conscious that upstairs in the incident room, people would be watching us. She shook her head again and I thought I saw a tear shining in the corner of one eye.

  ‘These photographs were taken a long time ago,’ I said. ‘The girls would be older now, in their twenties. What about this one?’ I was pointing to the older of the two girls.

  ‘She looks, I don’t know, I may have seen her,’ Evadne said, looking up at me and then back down at the photograph. ‘She was pretty, dear, like you. Nice little thing.’

  My face was still swollen and discoloured. I wasn’t remotely pretty. I began to suspect that Evadne Richardson would be little use in court as an eye witness.

  ‘Did you get a good look at her face?’ I asked, knowing I had to go through the motions. ‘Did you, for example, notice a scar at all?’ Tulloch had told me to check whether our nurse bore any resemblance to Emma Boston. So far, Emma’s alibis checked out but Tulloch wasn’t letting her go easily.

  Mrs Richardson thought for a moment, then shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I didn’t notice a scar. Do you think she could have hurt my Karen? A nurse?’

  ‘I don’t think she was really a nurse,’ I said.

  I got back upstairs to find Tulloch had returned from Evadne Richardson’s house. Karen Curtis’s severed head – we had to assume the murdered woman was Curtis until we knew otherwise – had been nowhere in the house. Nobody had asked the obvious question out loud.

  ‘The woman at Mrs Richardson’s house was killed between thirty-six and forty-eight hours ago,’ said Tulloch. ‘That’s according to the attending surgeon. We know Karen Curtis was alive at seven thirty on Monday evening because that’s when her mother last saw her. The chances are she was killed shortly after that.’

  ‘By this nurse,’ said Anderson

  ‘Probably,’ said Tulloch. ‘Our killer, knowing Mrs Curtis’s habit of visiting her mother on Monday evening, arrived at the house that afternoon wearing the uniform of a district nurse. Mrs Richardson is used to being visited by nurses, the woman appeared unthreatening and had ID. She had no real reason not to let her in.’

  I found a vacant chair and sat on it.

  ‘Mrs Richardson didn’t see the nurse leave,’ continued Tulloch. ‘She just heard the front door close. What seems likely is that the killer remained inside and quietly made her way upstairs.’

  ‘Waiting for Karen Curtis to arrive,’ said Anderson.

  Tulloch nodded. ‘A few hours later, Mrs Richardson said goodbye to her daughter but heard her going upstairs, which was unusual. A short time after that, she heard someone coming back down again and assumed it was Karen leaving the house. It seems safe to say it probably wasn’t.’

  ‘Whoever it is, she knows these families well,’ said Anderson. ‘She persuaded Geraldine Jones to go to the Brendon Estate late on a Friday night. She found out where Amanda Weston was living and that she was on her own in the house. She may even have known Amanda wasn’t due back at work for a few days. Then she called on Charlotte Benn when she was on her own. Now we find out she knows where Karen Curtis’s mother lives and when Karen visits.’

  ‘She does her homework,’ said Tulloch. ‘But so would I in her position.’

  The door opened and Joesbury came in. Tulloch gave him a half-smile as he settled himself down at the desk opposite mine.

  ‘What we don’t do is panic,’ Tulloch went on. ‘We know who her next victim is and we have her safe. We can keep Jacqui under armed guard if necessary. And we have time. The Ripper didn’t strike again until 10 November. That’s nearly six weeks away.’

  ‘She won’t wait that long,’ I said. ‘This isn’t about the Ripper any more.’

  Everyone turned to face me. ‘What do you mean?’ asked Tulloch.

  ‘If it hadn’t been for all the Ripper business,’ I went on, ‘the coincidence of the dates, the letters, the body parts turning up all over London – if it hadn’t been for all that, we might have realized earlier what was going on. Someone might have spotted the connection when Amanda Weston was killed. But the whole of London was on alert for a copycat serial killer and that was exactly what she wanted. It gave her time to get to Charlotte and Karen. It was all just smoke and mirrors.’

  Nobody answered me. I couldn’t see anyone about to disagree.

  ‘She’ll know we’ll have figured it out by now,’ I said. ‘And she’ll have planned for it. She’ll have a way of getting to Jacqui Groves that we haven’t anticipated.’

  ‘Who’s she, Flint?’ asked Joesbury. ‘Who are you talking about?’

  No choice but to look up at him. ‘One of the Llewellyn sisters,’ I said. ‘It’s got to be.’

  Joesbury stood up, a tiny smile on his face. ‘Say that again,’ he said.

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘The girls’ name.’

  ‘Llewellyn,’ I repeated, sensing people around us looking puzzled.

  ‘Now that’s interesting,’ he said. ‘Everybody else in the room is pronouncing the name phonetically, Loo-ell-in.’

  ‘And?’ I said, my heartbeat picking up.

  ‘You’re making that odd guttural sound in your throat,’ he said, ‘more like a “cl” than a “l”. You’re saying the name the way the Welsh do.’

  I stared at him for a second, conscious of everyone watching us. ‘I’m from Shropshire,’ I said. ‘Last time I checked, it was on the Welsh border.’

  ‘Yeah, whatever, you two. We need to find them both,’ said Tulloch. ‘Lacey, I’m putting you in charge of interviewing the homeless. If they came to London penniless, they would have lived on the streets for a while. Flint, are you even listening?’

  Joesbury and I were still glaring at each other. I turned away and fixed my attention on Tulloch.

  ‘You can have a team working with you,’ Tulloch went on. You can have some WPCs out of uniform. We also need to get people to Cardiff.’

  ‘They inherited money,’ said Stenning. ‘They could have got off the streets. And they could be working together. We could be looking for two women.’

  ‘We can’t rule anything out,’ said Tulloch. ‘We need them both.’

  ‘I found Cathy this afternoon,’ said Joesbury in a quiet voice.

  Silence.

  ‘Excuse me?’ said Tulloch.

  ‘An hour ago,’ he repeated. ‘Just after lunch.’

  Tulloch looked like he’d slapped her. ‘Why in God’s name didn’t you say anything? I want her brought in. Now.’

  ‘Hardly possible, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Why?’

  Joesbury was looking at me again now. ‘She’s been dead for nearly a decade.’

  68

  TULLOCH STOOD, STRODE ACROSS TO THE WINDOW, PUT her hands on the ledge and took a deep breath.

  ‘Go on,’ she said.

  ‘I got suspicious when I heard Neil say that Victoria had claimed her grandfather’s inheritance,’ said Joesbury. ‘If he died intestate then his money would be divided equally between his nearest surviving relatives. Victoria would have been given half of it, the rest saved for Cathy when she eventually showed up.’

  ‘For Victoria to be given it all meant she was the only one left alive,’ said Tulloch. ‘Shit, I should have thought of that.’

  ‘Cathy Llewellyn died in an accident ten years ago,’ said Joesbury. ‘She left home about six months after the alleged rape. I assume she made her way to London, because the following summer she was living in a semi-derelict houseboat near Deptford Creek. Squatting along with a group of other kids.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Tulloch.

  ‘It broke away from its moorings one night and caught fire at the same time. Nobody is entirely sure how many kids were on board, but five bodies were found in the river. One boy survived, a la
d called Tye Hammond, and he could only remember another five people.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ asked Tulloch.

  ‘I checked the death register,’ said Joesbury. ‘I found the date of Cathy’s death and checked the coroner’s report and then press archives.’

  ‘There’s no doubt it was Cathy?’ asked Tulloch. ‘Did they check dental records?’

  ‘Not that was recorded,’ said Joesbury. ‘But they didn’t need to. The body was identified. It wasn’t badly burned, apparently. She drowned.’

  ‘Who identified her?’

  ‘Big sister Victoria. Once the coroner’s inquest was over, she claimed the body and arranged cremation.’

  Tulloch closed her eyes. For a few moments we watched her breathing. Then she opened them again.

  ‘What about Victoria?’ she said.

  ‘Still nothing,’ said Joesbury. ‘Nothing’s been heard of her since she claimed her grandfather’s money.’

  Tulloch raised her head. Her face was drawn and pinched. ‘Well, it makes things simpler,’ she said. ‘Victoria’s the one we want.’

  69

  Thursday 4 October

  THE AFTERNOON OF GERALDINE JONES’S FUNERAL WAS A perfect autumn day. Bright and clear, with just a smattering of leaves in the gutters to remind us that summer was beating its retreat. Most of the MIT went along. Afterwards, Tulloch and Anderson went to a press conference at New Scotland Yard. The rest of us returned to Lewisham.

  I spent the afternoon at my desk, pretending to be working. We were notified that Joesbury was following up a lead on the Llewellyns, but we heard nothing from him directly.

  Time had picked up speed, it seemed to me. Every clock, every watch in the room was running fast. Options were disappearing like ice on a griddle and I had no idea what to do next.

  It was still only twenty-four hours since the body – albeit incomplete – of Karen Curtis had been discovered and the world’s press were having a thoroughly good time with the story. The new Ripper had claimed his fourth victim, he’d managed to stage a double event, and the country was revelling in gleeful outrage.

  He was still being referred to as a he.

  So far, the public had been told nothing about the alleged rape in a Cardiff park that might just have been the catalyst for everything. The photograph and descriptions of the Llewellyn girls had been sent to every police station in the country and Victoria had temporarily become the most wanted person in the UK. We just hadn’t said why.

  Neither had we publicly released the information that Karen Curtis’s head was still missing, but it was only a matter of time. We’d had to warn our colleagues around London that a severed human head was likely to turn up any day now, probably at a prominent Victorian location. It was the sort of news that was going to leak pretty quickly.

  At six the day shift ended and people started to drift away. Soon just Mizon, Stenning and I were left in the incident room. Anderson arrived back at six thirty, just as we were about to give up on him and Tulloch.

  ‘How’d it go, Sarge?’ Stenning asked him.

  ‘Blood bath,’ said Anderson. ‘Everyone else gone?’

  ‘Anything you need, Sarge?’ asked Mizon. ‘Or shall we get off?’

  ‘The boss has asked us all round for dinner,’ said Anderson, looking uncomfortable. ‘Only if you’re free, she says, nothing formal.’

  Stenning and I raised eyebrows at each other. ‘Dinner?’ said Stenning. ‘As in, at her place?’

  Anderson shrugged. ‘Must be a gender thing,’ he said. ‘You get a bloke DI, he invites you down the pub. A woman asks you to dinner.’

  ‘Are we supposed to bring flowers?’ asked Stenning.

  Dana Tulloch lived in a modest-sized terraced house in Clapham, but when she opened the door to us there was nothing modest about its interior. The walls were a soft smoky cream and the wooden floors walnut. The pictures on the walls were limited-edition prints and even one or two that looked like originals.

  Her living room had three matching sofas in pale green and a large, square rug patterned in squares of green, rust and oatmeal. A real fire was burning in the hearth. As Dana took our coats, we could hear someone moving around in the kitchen and my heartbeat stepped up a pace. A few seconds later, I was disappointed. It seemed safe to say, though, that Anderson and Stenning probably weren’t.

  The blonde woman smiling at us was tall and athletic, with a perfect oval face, a clean jawline and brown, puppy-dog eyes. She was older than Dana, possibly around forty, but you only had to look at her to know she would probably look much the same at fifty.

  ‘I’m Helen,’ she said. ‘Dana’s partner.’

  Dana’s partner? Where had I been?

  The six of us ate around the table in Dana’s dining room and I found myself shy as a child. I was sitting next to Helen, who, it turned out, was Detective Chief Inspector Helen Rowley from Tayside police in Scotland. Fortunately, none of the others were quiet and no one seemed to notice I wasn’t saying much. When all the plates but Dana’s were almost empty, Helen put down her glass just a little more heavily than she needed to. We all looked her way.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Everybody ready to talk?’

  Tulloch sighed and shrugged.

  Helen’s smile didn’t falter. ‘Or are we just here for the pleasure of our company?’ she asked.

  ‘Always,’ Tulloch replied.

  Helen gave a short laugh. ‘Yeah, well no offence, you lot, but I didn’t fly down from Dundee for the fun of meeting my girlfriend’s new team.’ She turned to me. ‘Dana says you’ve got a good feel for what’s going on. You think it’s Victoria Llewellyn?’

  A little surprised to be singled out, I nodded. ‘I think it has to be,’ I said. ‘What’s happening now has to be linked to the rape. Her sister and her mother are both dead. No other family that we know of. She’s the only one left.’

  ‘And she’s going for the mothers because she thinks that’s the best way of getting back at the boys,’ said Helen.

  ‘Well, the mothers will be a softer target,’ I said. ‘Those boys are big blokes now; they all look like they can handle themselves. The mothers will be a different story entirely.’

  Around the table, Anderson and Stenning were nodding to themselves. Mizon was watching me carefully. Dana’s eyes were going from me to Helen.

  ‘And, yes, I think if maximum revenge is what she’s going for, she’s got it right,’ I went on. ‘When those boys know for certain that what they did eleven years ago caused their mothers’ deaths, and that they died so horribly, I think it will eat them up.’

  ‘And the Ripper business was only ever just a smokescreen?’ asked Helen, who seemed happy to ignore the others.

  This was where I had to be careful. ‘I think so,’ I said. ‘I think she wanted us thinking Ripper from the word go. A real copycat, on the other hand, would have stuck more rigidly to the historical trail, letting us cotton on gradually.’

  Helen’s eyes didn’t leave mine.

  ‘By sending the Dear Boss letter to a journalist, she made sure London got Ripper fever,’ I said. ‘Everyone was counting down to the next murder.’

  ‘I’ll say. Whitechapel was like the first day of the Harrods sale on 8 September.’ That was Anderson.

  ‘She was playing with us,’ I said. ‘She let the whole day of the 8 September go by with nothing happening until the evening, when she staged a fake call to get the team out to Southwark and, using Emma Boston’s phone, she tricked me into going to the swimming pool.’

  ‘To find the uterus,’ said Helen. ‘Nice touch. And a day later, she sends you out to Victoria Park to find the rest of Amanda Weston. She does have a bit of a thing about you, doesn’t she?’

  ‘She chose her second victim quite carefully,’ said Tulloch. ‘By going for the one mother who’d moved out of London, who didn’t have any contacts with the capital, she slowed down the process of someone making the connection between the first two victims. It was days
before we realized the school was the key to it.’

  ‘She sounds like someone who knows how the police operate,’ said Helen.

  The others fell silent for a moment, as they all thought about that one. I kept my eyes down.

  ‘How do you think she got Amanda Weston to London?’ Helen was still talking to me.

  ‘I’m not sure we’ll ever know,’ I said, glancing up. ‘But her accomplice, Sam Cooper, used a replica gun. Those things can be quite convincing, especially if you’re not used to weapons.’

  ‘And after the second body was discovered, it became open season for Ripper hunters,’ said Helen.

  ‘She made sure of that,’ I said. ‘A hundred years ago, the press seriously got in the way of the police investigation. Reporters got to witnesses first, they bribed them, they ran stories that were just pure invention. Almost as much time was spent dealing with the effects of press speculation as it was hunting the Ripper. I think our killer wanted that happening with this investigation too.’

  ‘But all the publicity worked against her as well,’ said Mizon. ‘She had every mother connected with that school on full alert.’

  ‘Yes, but she had a plan for that too,’ I said. ‘Before we really cottoned on about the school, she gave us Cooper. We’d seen him at Victoria Park, we had a DNA link to the semen on Amanda Weston’s body. He was a slam-dunk suspect and we caught him. Because she let us.’

  ‘Do you think he was involved in the actual killings?’ asked Helen.

  I shook my head. ‘The last thing he said, before he pulled me off that bridge, was “This is a fucking fix.” He realized he’d been set up.’

  ‘And we all thought it was over,’ said Anderson, leaning back in his seat.

  ‘She’d killed two more women before we even knew there was still a threat,’ I said. ‘But she knew we’d figure it out then. She knew that one of the husbands, if not all of them, would talk.’

  ‘So why is she still ripping?’ said Mizon. ‘That’s what I don’t get. Why all the dramatics with the entrails and the heart and Karen Curtis’s missing head? If she knows we know, why bother?’