by James Nally
I couldn’t stop my mind skidding across assumptions like a well-hurled pebble: ‘This has to be the hair of her killer, surely Edwina? Or someone party to her murder? An accessory?’
She eyed me as you might an over-exuberant toddler. ‘Hair identification isn’t an exact science. Far from it. There could be hundreds of people out there whose hair follicles would appear very similar to these under a microscope. However, it may prove useful for confirming or eliminating a suspect.’
‘I see,’ I said, nodding solemnly as if mentally storing her points. But I’d already drawn my own cast iron conclusions. The victim here had clearly known her killer. The hair belonged to someone in her circle. Find the owner of the hair clasped between her stiff dead fingers, and we’d find her killer.
Chapter 3
Brownswood Road, London N4
Saturday, April 3, 1993; 11.10
As I emerged from the tent’s gloom, the mid-morning glare scored my tired eyes and tasered that dormant hangover back to life. A familiar knot of aching dread tightened behind my navel. What if I’d missed the chance to catch this killer before he’d struck here? With merciless certainty, my gut was telling me I must have …
This woman may not have been a streetwalker, but she’d met a wretched, protracted, depraved end just like the others. It had to be connected.
‘The Others’.
That had become the Cold Case Unit’s by-word for the unsolved female murders that no longer had an incident room or an officer attached. In other words, the cases that had been quietly wound down. Of course, officially Scotland Yard doesn’t close the file on any unsolved crime. But these particular investigations had clearly been shelved, the victims forgotten, all ties cut. Only a walk-in confessor, a knockout new witness or a DNA breakthrough could reboot these cases now.
Not that anyone was bothering to explore any of these possibilities …
I stumbled across this stash of ‘dead’ files while reviewing unsolved female murders in the capital over the past decade. It felt like uncovering an unmarked mass grave. I couldn’t understand how this could happen – until I met the victims.
They were all young women estranged from their families and communities, often just out of care or prison or a mental institution. Most had been hooked on smack or crack, lost souls with nothing but their bodies to sell. Desperate skanks. Nobody noticed they were gone until their bodies turned up; rent asunder like the carcasses of Christmas turkeys. No witnesses, no murder weapon, no DNA, no media interest, no relatives making noise.
No motive.
I also discovered scant will to catch their killers. The murder of a tom somehow didn’t count, especially a crackhead street cat. They knew the risks. As if somehow their grim demise had been inevitable. Deserved. Without the other standard pressures – raucous relatives, meddling media, panicking public – these investigations had been expediently binned at the earliest opportunity.
After all, resources were stretched and Scotland Yard could divert much-needed detective brainpower elsewhere, to serve more pressing political agendas. Like the highly publicised murders of middle-class, ‘respectable’ women.
However, when I analysed these ‘dead’ case files, I made a series of alarming discoveries. For starters, the sick tableau of depravity endured by ‘The Others’ proved that a number of woman-hating killers were on the loose in London right now, who would kill again soon.
I raised the alarm with my boss, DS Barrett. He didn’t listen.
I drew up a list of men who frequently used streetwalkers and had convictions for violence against women, explaining that any one of these cretins could escalate to become tomorrow’s notorious serial killer.
He didn’t listen.
Then, a few months back, a notorious crime that had grown into a national media event changed everything. Michael Sams had been convicted of the kidnap of estate agent Stephanie Slater, who police managed to free after a sensational, high-profile manhunt.
Sams confessed that, a year earlier, he’d carried out ‘a dry run’ by abducting 18-year-old Leeds prostitute Julie Dart and forcing her to write a ransom note to her boyfriend. Sams knew Dart’s family couldn’t afford to cough up the 150k demand, so he killed her anyway. But the case proved my ‘canary in a coalmine’ theory – that dangerous men were willing to ‘practise’ their most carnal desires on easy-meat prostitutes first.
DS Barrett suddenly realised that the men we’d failed to catch for these prostitute murders may strike again – and they might not restrict their depravity to crack-addled streetwalkers next time.
Now he listened.
He set me a task: comb through every one of these ‘dead’ files, highlighting all potential suspects and links to other cases.
He then set me another: if a breaking female murder appears to share any link or connection to an unsolved case, attend the crime scene.
It hadn’t happened, until today.
Now I felt convinced that whoever tortured and killed this poor woman had struck before. He’d escalated to this. That blade of dread twisted in my guts. What if I’d failed to spot him in the old files, leaving him free to kill her?
What if I’d missed the chance to stop him?
It felt a strong possibility. After all, I’d spent months poring over those old case files yet failed to level a criminal charge against a single suspect.
I must have missed him …
My angst turned to agitation at the sight before me; Fintan at the polythene perimeter, chatting animatedly to the crime scene officer I’d fallen head-over-heels for earlier. Even from this distance, I could tell he’d turned on the old charm cannons full blast.
‘Here he comes, Dick Fosbury,’ he called towards me, and she cackled mercilessly, shrivelling my insides. I knew I had to hit back, so faked a serene smile while scrabbling about desperately for a witty riposte.
‘I think you’ll find I’m no flop,’ I heard myself declaring to the suddenly silent planet. That wiped the smile from her pretty face. Fintan glared at me aghast.
‘Donal, this is Zoe from the Forensic Science Service. I’ve been telling her all about the important work you do, for the Cold Case Unit.’
I checked to see if he was taking the piss. Had the flirting couple decided to gang up on me again, for another cheap laugh? I wouldn’t be falling into their trap this time.
‘I’m doing my best to get the hell out of there, to be honest,’ I mumbled, clearly wrong-footing both of them.
Fintan ploughed on, undeterred. ‘Zoe’s been telling me what happened to that poor girl in there. We’ve just been saying, whoever did this isn’t a first-time offender. As this is a red-light zone, he’s probably targeted working girls in the past.’
‘That’s speculation,’ I protested.
‘So, I’ve been explaining to Zoe how you’ve spent the past few months analysing unsolved prostitute murders, and that you may well have a head start in tracking down the person responsible.’
I would’ve disputed this too, had I managed to get a word in edgeways.
‘I’ve asked Zoe here to page you as soon as she gets a confirmed ID for the victim and to keep you abreast of any forensic developments. That way, you can crack on right away linking the MO here with these other unsolved cases you’ve studied, which could save a lot of time. And let’s face it, we’re in a race against the clock here to find this maniac before he strikes again. I hope that’s okay with you both?’
I thought about asking him outright, there and then: ‘What angle are you playing here, Fintan, because this murder still doesn’t seem newsworthy to me?’ But Zoe had my pager number now, her smile toasting me like a marshmallow. So I defied my gut and rolled with it. Whatever ‘it’ might turn out to be …
When Zoe’s smile turned quizzical, I realised I’d been frowning all this time. That’s what trying to keep up with a Machiavellian brother does to you; like playing speed chess against Gary Kasparov. So I released all my anxieties in one multi-colo
ured party balloon by declaring: ‘I think that’s a great idea.’
Zoe turned serious then, almost solemn. ‘Fintan tells me you’ve come down here of your own accord, just to see if you can find any connections.’
‘Well … not exactly,’ I reddened again. ‘I got paged and …’
Fintan interjected: ‘I told you he’d be mortified.’
Zoe put her hand on my arm, stopping my heart stone dead: ‘Well, I think that’s so admirable, and on your first weekend off in months … amazing.’
‘Er … thanks, Zoe,’ I flustered, the feel of her name tingling my tongue.
Fintan hoisted up the police tape: ‘It’s the low road for you this time, Dickie.’
Before I had time to utter another word, he bundled me under the tape and away in a virtual headlock.
‘Don’t forget to stay in touch,’ he called back over an impressively executed mobile half-nelson.
‘What the fuck was that all about?’ I muttered.
‘Can you just button it until we get round the corner?’
Fintan led me into the fake wood-panelled Star café on Blackstock Road: ‘Don’t worry. I’ll give you a lift to work. You’ve got plenty of time.’
‘What’s going on?’ I asked as he lit a cigarette and took an enormous drag.
‘Well?’ I demanded.
‘Donal, you haven’t been on a proper date in months. I could tell she took a shine to you. So I decided to take the initiative and intervene.’
‘And, thanks to you, the first thing I tell her is a pack of lies.’
‘Did the trick though, didn’t it? She thinks you’re some tortured soul in solitary pursuit of the baddies that hurt fallen women. She’s got your pager details now so even you can’t bottle out of it.’
I cast my most disapproving look.
‘She’s cute though, right?’ He smiled. ‘She reminds me of Holly Hunter. I was almost going to ask her “why the long face?” but she didn’t look in the mood.’
His aloft eyebrows demanded a reply.
‘If she’s so cute, why didn’t you stake a claim?’ I said. ‘You’re not normally slow in flinging yourself forward.’
‘She seemed a bit emotional to me. Or highly strung … definitely brittle.’
‘Maybe she just cares, you know, possesses normal human feelings?’
‘Well, there’s something not quite right there,’ he sniffed, ‘so, hey, you two should be perfect together.’
‘I knew you couldn’t do it,’ I smiled.
‘What?’
‘Just do something nice for me. I knew you’d have to ruin it. It’s in your DNA.’
The waiter arrived, his apron suffused in disturbing red stains that had clearly defied repeated washing.
‘It’s Sweeney Todd,’ muttered Fintan under his breath. ‘Imagine the fucking DNA in that.’
I couldn’t face flesh after what I’d just seen, so opted for fried eggs, toast and tea. As ever, Fintan had to both top me and go off-piste, ordering scrambled eggs, baked potato and tomato ‘not out of a can’. He then flummoxed the waiter further by saying no to tea OR coffee.
‘You off the hard stuff then, Fintan?’
‘Have you ever looked at the mugs in cafés? I mean really looked? Or at the knives and forks for that matter? I’ll only eat somewhere like this now if I’ve got these.’
He leaned into his satchel and produced a packet of wipes.
‘Jesus, you’re turning into Howard Hughes.’ I laughed. ‘Shall I order some peas for you to arrange in size order?’
The tea, knives, forks and paper napkins crash-landed.
‘Go on,’ he urged, ‘take a really close look.’
‘Later,’ I said, ‘tell me first the real reason why you went to all that trouble back there with Zoe.’
He put out his cigarette, plucked a wipe from the packet and set to work on a fork.
‘Well, you’re always complaining that the press never covers any of these prostitute murders,’ he said, polishing away, ‘that the cases are, how do you always put it, “starved of the oxygen of publicity”. Where did you get that by the way? On one of your training courses in Bramshill?’
‘Where else?’
He lifted the fork to his eye to examine it: ‘This time I’m really going to try.’
‘Why?’
‘Zoe told me how this girl had been cut in two and had her face disfigured.’ He placed the fork carefully on one of the napkins and looked up at me. ‘I’ve got a feeling about this story. There’s more to it.’
I couldn’t believe Zoe had been so indiscreet.
‘You didn’t tell her you’re a hack, did you?’
He shook his head. ‘She didn’t ask. If there’s one thing this job has taught me, it’s to act like you should be there. People presume the rest.’
‘Christ, wait ’til she finds out. That’ll fuck everything up.’
Fintan set to work on the knife.
‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘your best chance of cracking this case is if it gets lots of publicity. But for me to get it into the paper, I’m going to need your help.’
I shifted uncomfortably in the screwed-down, plastic seat. For a split second, I recognised my eye glinting in the knife’s reflection.
‘I need you to tell me all you know, and tell me the girl’s ID when you get it.’
‘Because …’
He placed the gleaming knife down beside the fork.
‘The more I know, the better chance I have of getting a good show in the paper. The better the show, the more likely I get a call from someone with information which I can then pass to you. Think about it … if you work with me on this, we might just get you back on a murder squad.’
‘What do you get, Fintan?’
‘A scoop. Let’s just say my gut instinct is telling me that this girl was no skanky tom. In fact, I’d wager she’s an actress. If she’s an actress of any note, this story will go big. Very big. It’s all about celebs these days, even minor ones. That’s what sells papers.’
I tried not to look shocked or impressed. But my mind was throwing bouquets at his feet; how in hell had he figured this out?
‘What makes you think she was an actress?’
‘I’ll give you a clue,’ he said.
‘I don’t do riddles, Fint, you know that.’
‘Okay, well, if you change your mind: A black flower, six letters. Sounds like the surname of your ex.’
The gruff waiter dropped my fried eggs with such ferocity that they scrambled on impact. He informed Fintan that his order would be ‘many more minutes’. Clearly the culinary ambitions of the Star didn’t stretch to the baking of potatoes or the sourcing of real tomatoes.
Or, for that matter, to the cleaning of knives and forks. Under duress, I agreed to examine my cutlery before tucking in. Sure enough, both bore the microscopic debris of previous meals, including a rock-hard yellow speck on the inner rim of the fork’s central prong that had to be congealed egg.
‘They’d have to fucking carbon date that,’ said Fintan.
‘It’s probably older than the chicken who laid it,’ I agreed.
He handed me his polished cutlery, but the damage had been done. I pushed the plate away.
‘Happy now?’ I said.
He shrugged. ‘If you look at anything closely enough, for long enough, you’ll find its dirty little secret. The thing is, Donal, without publicity there’s far less chance that they’ll catch this woman’s killer. So why don’t you help me, just this once?’
‘I don’t know, Fintan …’
‘For her sake. I mean come on, you don’t want her winding up in some clerical bin like the others, do you? Or was that all just talk?’
As he re-appropriated his sparkling cutlery and – when it finally arrived – picked at his bespoke meal, I unloaded everything that Edwina had told me. Well, almost everything.
I held back the detail about the strands of human hair found between her thumb and finger
. I didn’t want this to become common knowledge; it could yet prove our secret insurance policy, our suspect-clincher.
I concluded with the pathologist’s certainty that the victim hadn’t worked as a street hooker, news he greeted with unbearable self-satisfaction. I could tell the rest didn’t really matter to him now. So long as she wasn’t ‘a desperate skank’, he could ‘get the story away’.
As he put it: ‘If she’s a looker and not a hooker, it’s a double-page spread.’
‘So her murder now merits a story?’
He frowned, genuinely perplexed that I didn’t view the world through the twisted scope of his news desk.
‘The thing is, when a prostitute is murdered, no one is surprised. None of our readers relate to it because it’s happened to a prossie, not to a normal woman. Prostitutes and pimps and crack are not part of our readership’s world. It’s different when a “good” woman is murdered … that creates a threat to all women. That sells papers. All I need now is a sit-down with the parents and selects.’
‘Selects?’
‘That’s the trade term for family photos. Some less scrupulous hacks have been known to swipe them from the mantelpieces of grieving relatives. I know one woman who always asks to use the upstairs loo so she can perform a quick sweep of the bedrooms.’
I sighed. ‘And now I’m aiding and abetting the same scurrilous press.’
‘Hey, I don’t do stuff like that.’ He glared at me, wounded. ‘Jesus, give me some credit.’
He pushed his virtually untouched meal away and lit another cigarette. I cringed: ‘You are aware that Sweeney Todd has access to sharp implements from the kitchen?’
He didn’t even hear me. ‘The question now is, why did they dump her body here? Clearly they’re sending a message to someone. But to who? There’s a bigger play here. Much bigger.’
My pager buzzed.
Below a mobile number, the message read: Hi Donal. Victim ID confirmed. Please call, Zoe.
I grabbed Fintan’s fat mobile and dialled.
‘Hi Zoe, Donal Lynch, we just met at the crime scene.’
‘Hi Donal. Turns out this girl was on the Met’s Missing Person file. We’re pretty certain we know who she is.’