by Paul Gitsham
“Wouldn’t it take both signatures to close out a joint account?”
Sutton shook his head. “Ordinarily yes, but he didn’t quite empty the account. He left a thousand pounds and wrote a cheque to Cash for the rest — twenty-three thousand, five hundred and sixty-nine pounds. Writing cheques that large only requires one signature.”
“He clearly planned this in advance to some degree. Still, the question remains — how did he get from here back home or wherever he went after dumping the Land Rover?”
Sutton pulled out the local map he’d noticed stuffed in the passenger door pocket. After a few moments’ work he quickly identified their location and a nearby village about two and a half miles away as the crow flew. Perhaps an hour’s walk.
A little over five minutes later Tony Sutton and Warren were standing in the centre of the village at the local bus station.
“Shit,” breathed Sutton. “Who’d have thought a tiny little place like this would be so well connected?”
He was right. The village of Tootingbourne was little more than a hamlet, but the confluence of three major roads and the convenience of a large market square without a war memorial in the centre had prompted the local council to build a large bus terminal. From here, one could catch connections heading into each of the adjoining counties, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, whilst National Express Coaches serviced the four London airports and the north of England. Cameron couldn’t have chosen a better spot to disappear.
* * *
Back at the station, Warren called an evening briefing. Nursing a cup of hot coffee, he felt the chill leaving his body. The leads from the Crimewatch reconstruction had dried up in the last few hours and morale was sinking again. News that Cameron had ditched his Land Rover did nothing to improve the mood.
“He could be driving anything now. With twenty grand in his back pocket, he could have bought any old clunker and paid enough for there to be no questions asked. It could be weeks before the previous owner realises Cameron hasn’t informed the DVLA of the change of ownership.” Warren turned to Gary Hastings.
“What’s the news on CCTV from the bus shelter in Tootingbourne?”
Hastings shook his head. “Nothing there, I’m afraid. They recycle the tapes after a week. It’s just there to catch out vandals and the like. We’ve got hold of the records from the ticket machines for the past two weeks, but it’s unlikely that he used his credit card. We’re circulating Cameron’s pictures around the different bus companies in case any of the drivers remember him and we’ll have posters up in all of the bus stops but it’s a long shot.”
“Well keep at it and make sure that everything is logged. I’ve let Traffic know that we’re no longer looking for his Land Rover, but I’ve decided to keep that from the public at the moment. We’ll let Cameron think we’re still looking for it — maybe he’ll make a mistake. At least it’ll free them up to look for more leads.”
With nothing else to be said, Warren stood up. The team looked dejected.
“Keep your chins up, people. It’s disappointing that we’re now in a manhunt stage, waiting for information from others, but don’t forget we have an important role to play here. The DNA evidence is good for Gemma Allen and Saskia Walker but we’re still pretty circumstantial as far as Sally Evans and Carolyn Patterson are concerned. We still need good evidence linking Cameron to their murders. And let’s not forget we still haven’t ruled out an accomplice. Cameron is a sixty-year-old man who’s spent much of the past fourteen years in prison. These crimes are pretty sophisticated for such a person.
“Regardless, it’ll be our legwork that secures this bastard’s conviction when we finally catch him. Let’s make sure we can pin all four killings on him, not just two.”
Friday 30th December
Chapter 55
Friday morning greeted Warren with a light dusting of snow and icy patches. Warren and Susan’s street was off any major thoroughfare and so the gritters left them to their own devices. Once he’d made it onto the main road, he was able to drive a little easier, but the wreck of a Vauxhall Nova wrapped around a lamp post was a salutary reminder to take care.
A check with the night shift revealed no new leads and so Warren found himself in his office eyeing the pile of routine paperwork that he’d been putting off for the past three weeks. Unfortunately the fact that Warren’s team were involved in a major murder investigation was of no consequence to the regular criminals that were CID’s bread and butter and he was still expected to keep up with the reports and remain on top of what was happening on his patch.
With an apparent lull in the murders, he knew he should take the opportunity to shift some of the backlog. After the summer’s big case, Warren had been exhausted and the last thing he’d needed was to wade through the two-inch pile of paperwork and the hundreds of emails that he’d shoved to one side as he’d pursued the killer at the university. He’d vowed not to make that mistake again.
He’d kept up with his emails reasonably well, but the dream of a paperless office was as far away today as it ever was and he’d studiously ignored the growing pile threatening to spill out of his ‘non-urgent’ in-tray.
With a weary sigh, Warren took a long swig of his coffee and settled down. After a few seconds’ thought he got up and made sure his office door was partly open — the last thing he wanted was for one of his team to assume the boss was busy and decide not to interrupt him. Please interrupt me, he pleaded silently…
By lunchtime he had received no interruptions and his phone had remained stubbornly silent. On the plus side, he had worked his way through about three quarters of his backlog. Pleasingly, muggings and assaults were down, perhaps due to fewer people walking the streets. Similarly, the increased numbers of people staying in had no doubt contributed to a drop in burglaries — although at least some of that was probably due to a recent high-profile anti-burglary drive by the Communities team. Balancing out the positives was a significant increase in the number of thefts from vehicles. Christmas always saw a spike in such crimes as careless shoppers left enticing packages in plain view or the proud owners of new in-car gadgets installed them then forgot to put them in the glove box when they left the car unattended. However, some bright spark from Welwyn had noticed a possible pattern in such thefts, suggesting an organised gang. Warren signed off on the extra funding requested to allow them to pursue the lead. If they could make some arrests and pin some of these extra thefts on the miscreants, then it would make a nice dent in Warren’s crime figures. And if the courts played their part and locked the little toerags up for a few months, they might even enjoy a dip in recorded crime next year.
Conscious of the amount of food he’d eaten over the past few days, Warren had opted for cheese sandwiches, yoghurt and an apple for lunch. Joining the rest of the team in the briefing room, he saw that most of them were being similarly frugal.
All except for Gary Hastings, who was cheerfully tucking into a bulging turkey sandwich with what appeared to be a pork pie and a wedge of stilton waiting for him in his Tupperware box. A large slab of heavily iced Christmas cake wrapped in tin foil completed the mini-feast. Karen Hardwick sat to his left eating a tomato and lettuce sandwich, a look of barely concealed resentment on her face.
Oh, to be young again, thought Warren with a twinge of jealousy, although he was pretty sure he’d never enjoyed a metabolism quite like the young DC’s. Still, it could be worse, he thought, glancing over at Tony Sutton grimly doing his best to enjoy some Ryvita crackers and extra-light Philadelphia cream cheese.
Warren believed strongly that a lunch break was an important time for the team to unwind and let their subconscious work on problems and for that reason he tried to discourage shop talk. So he was glad when Tony Sutton started an animated debate about which was the best Bond movie shown over the Christmas period. By the time Warren received the message that Forensics were on the line, the table was firmly split into two camps — those favouring
the early Sean Connery movies and those taken by the latest Daniel Craig outings. Roger Moore didn’t get much of a look-in, noted Warren as he left to take the call; a pity — A View to a Kill had been the first Bond movie he’d seen at the cinema.
* * *
“Cameron didn’t use his Land Rover to transport any of the murder victims,” Warren announced to a stunned team.
“What? Are they sure?” asked Gary Hastings.
“About as sure as they can be. They’ve ripped the thing apart. No signs of any blood, hair or other trace anywhere inside the vehicle. They also can’t find any signs of that strange cardboard residue that the victims must have picked up in the vehicle. Furthermore, they’ve analysed mud and soil residue from all four tyres and under the wheel arches and found no match to the dumping sites. Apparently, the presence of pollen grains suggest that the car hasn’t been cleaned since at least the spring, so they’d have expected to have found something.”
“Damn,” muttered Tony Sutton. “It explains a lot though. The amount of footage Traffic have analysed, it was getting beyond reasonable that we hadn’t spotted the Land Rover near any of the crime scenes.”
“The question remains, then: what was he driving?” Karen Hardwick asked. He must have had something to transport them.”
“It also raises the spectre of an accomplice again,” suggested Gary Hastings.
“But who? And why?” Warren tried to hide his frustration.
“We need to find the link between these four women. I’m sure that’s the key. How could Richard Cameron have come across them? None of them seem to be in his social circle, such as it is. But the attacks are too wel -planned for him to have just randomly snatched women off the street. He knew their routines and we know from his computer that he researched the dumping spots in advance. If there is an accomplice involved, then maybe that person or even persons are the link. If we can find them, then maybe we can find Cameron.”
* * *
Back in his office, Warren couldn’t face returning to the paperwork pile. What was he missing? Somewhere there was a link between these clues. Unbidden, the dream from a few nights ago returned. It was like a jigsaw puzzle with lots of pieces, none of which seemed to fit together. He closed his eyes. There were clues out there, he was certain. But where?
The ringing of his telephone jerked him back to reality.
“DCI Jones.”
“It’s Yvonne Fairweather.” Warren took a moment to place the name — the PC working vice.
“Yes, Constable, go ahead.”
“Melanie Clearwater came round a few hours ago and she wants to talk.”
Chapter 56
The call from the hospital had taken Warren by surprise. Melanie Clearwater had not only regained consciousness, she apparently had some hazy memories from the night of her attack. Realising that she might be able to shed some light on who had beaten her so badly, Warren lost no time driving over to Cambridge.
Warren felt a little guilty. With all of the focus on the four murders, the attack on Melanie Clearwater had been put on the back burner. It wasn’t that she had been forgotten about — far from it, teams of specialist officers had been questioning the working girls down on Truman Street night after night and Warren had read their reports daily — but a random assault on a prostitute had definitely been a lower priority. Nevertheless, progress in her case could lead to an arrest and the removal of another dangerous predator from the streets of Middlesbury.
Introducing himself to the doctor in charge of the intensive care unit, Warren was told that the young woman was very agitated and that the only reason he was being allowed to speak to her was because they felt it might calm her down if she knew that the police were taking her seriously.
Entering the room, Warren was shocked again at the appearance of the young woman. Small-framed and very underweight, she was swallowed up by the large bed. The mismatch made her seem even more childlike. Because of that, the huge swellings, visible even under the bandages, seemed all the more horrific.
Sitting down at her bedside, Warren introduced himself. PC Yvonne Fairweather had just left and so she knew who Warren was and why he was there. Clearwater’s speech was slurred, a combination of her badly swollen mouth — she had lost several teeth — her pain medication and whatever damage had happened to her brain during the beating. Nevertheless, she appeared lucid and the gaze through her puffed-up eyes seemed steady.
“You say that you remember the attack and the events that led up to it?”
Clearwater nodded slowly, her voice raspy but coherent. “Remember it all. Have seen man before. Was why I went down alley with him.”
Warren’s heart skipped a beat.
“You know the man? Do you have a name?”
“Yes.” She shook her head at the same time. Warren interpreted this as yes, she knew him, but no, she didn’t have a name.
“How do you know him?”
“Went with him a few days ago.” Melanie had been in Intensive Care for two and a half weeks and probably had little idea of how much time had passed, so Warren interpreted this as some days before the attack. About three weeks ago, he estimated.
“He was a former client?”
She shook her head. “Hired me. Somebody else client.” Her voice shook slightly and Warren could plainly see that she was fighting sleep. He frantically tried to work out what she meant. “Do you mean that he hired you — but on behalf of somebody else?”
She nodded her head slowly; already her eyes were closing. “Birthday.”
“Melanie? Are you still awake, Melanie?” There was no response.
“You will have to come back tomorrow.” The nurse in charge of the unit had appeared silently beside the bed.
“Can’t you wake her up, just for a moment?”
The nurse’s tone was firm. “Absolutely not. You saw how exhausting just that short conversation was for the poor girl.”
A wave of frustration swept over Warren as he stood up. “You don’t understand. She was about to tell us who attacked her.”
The nurse’s voice became harder. “I know, Detective, I was listening. We all want to know what animal did this to her, but you can’t rush her. It’s an absolute miracle that she’s awake, let alone speaking and remembering the incident.”
Warren glared at the nurse for a few seconds, before letting out the breath he’d been holding. “You’re absolutely right, of course. I’m sorry.”
The nurse smiled at him reassuringly. “I fully understand. I’ll contact you as soon as she is ready to speak again. And if she says anything, I’ll make a note of it.”
Warren nodded his thanks, recognising that the busy nurse was trying to be as helpful as possible. Picking up his coat, he cast one last glance at the battered young woman. Even when asleep, she looked stressed and tired. He got the impression that she had looked like that before the attack. I hope you get the help you need, he whispered silently as he left the ward.
For the first time since the young woman’s attack, he actually felt the first stirrings of hope that he might actually solve this crime. Now if only they could get a lead on the other murders, then he would be able to rest a bit more easily himself.
Saturday 31st December
Chapter 57
December the thirty-first. The last day of the year and Warren couldn’t help a bit of introspection. The past twelve months had been a roller coaster to say the least. This time last year, he and Susan had been living in a rented flat in Birmingham. He’d been a detective inspector with West Midlands Police and Susan had been enjoying her job as a teacher in a Birmingham comprehensive. They’d celebrated Christmas with Bernice and Dennis and Felicity was just starting to show the early signs of her third pregnancy. They’d spent a night at Granddad Jack’s and Nana Betty’s and were preparing to attend a New Year’s Eve fancy dress party with some friends of Susan.
Fast forward twelve months and Nana Betty was gone and the couple were in their own house a h
undred miles away. Warren was now a DCI in charge of catching a serial killer and Susan was busy trying to turn around the science department of a failing school. At this precise moment, Warren couldn’t decide if the pluses of the last twelve months outweighed the negatives. At least they had a party to go to that night, he thought.
Warren’s first job when he got in that morning was to ring the hospital to see how Melanie Clearwater was doing. The news wasn’t good.
“She’s been up all night vomiting and has a fever. We’re doing tests but it looks as though the winter vomiting bug has struck the ward.”
“How long do you think it’ll be until she’s well enough to talk again?”
The pause was ominous.
“She’s a very poorly young woman. It really is touch and go at the moment. Besides which, even if she does pull through, we’re about to initiate a lock-down of the ward to stop it spreading any further. No visitors for forty-eight hours at least whilst we do a deep clean and get the patients stabilised.”
Forty-eight hours. Warren fought a surge of frustration. He managed to keep his voice calm as he thanked the nurse. It wasn’t her fault and the stress in her voice suggested that she was having at least as bad a day as he was.
The rest of the day passed in an equally frustrating manner. Although New Year’s Eve wasn’t technically a bank holiday, this year it fell on a weekend and so the CID team’s phone calls were as often as not redirected to voicemail. By six o’clock it became clear to Warren that he was just wasting time in the office. He’d all but cleared his paperwork backlog, which was something at least. The thought of coming back to that on January the third was too depressing. Strictly speaking he was off-shift until after the bank holiday, but his team knew that he would be immediately contactable and he insisted on being copied in on each day’s briefing notes, no matter how threadbare.