by James Nally
‘No, thankfully.’
‘In a relationship?’
‘No, and I’m tempted to say I’m thankful for that too.’
‘How did you lose her? The last serious one?’
I felt cornered. ‘She cheated on me. Twice.’
‘How long ago did this take place?’
’Almost two years ago.’
‘Her name is?’
‘Eve Daly.’
‘Have you seen or spoken to Eve since?’
‘No.’
‘What about your family? Are you close?’
‘I’m close to my mum. Or at least I was. Now it’s a bit more complicated.’
I suddenly felt found-out, checkmated. He sensed it, almost jogging back to his slippery black throne to home in for the kill.
‘And why is that?’
‘My father is a rabid Republican. When he found out I’d joined the British police force, he made it known he never wanted to see or hear from me again.’
‘When did you last see your mother?’
‘Eighteen months ago,’ I croaked, my throat dry with shame.
‘How were relations with your father before that?’
‘Not good.’
The silence demanded filling.
‘I never seemed to be able to please him, you know? At best, I embarrassed him. I’d try to help out on the farm but just end up annoying him. I had this ability to make him blind with rage without even trying, and I mean apoplectic. Anything I did angered him, basically.’
He knew there was more, the misery-milking, sorrow-sucking fuck.
I sighed in resignation. ‘I found out recently that my mother almost died during my birth and that we’d both been very ill afterwards. She couldn’t bear any more children after that, I’d say physically or mentally. Over those first few years, I didn’t sleep very much and she got prescribed tranquilisers. She’s been hooked on them ever since. So basically I ruined my dad’s life, and he’s hated me for it ever since.’
There you have it, you nosy little prick. Happy now?
‘Any siblings?’
‘One older brother. Of course, he’s brilliant at everything. I could never outshine Golden Boy.’
The bitterness with which I imparted that last line shocked me. Did I resent Fintan? Had I been holding him responsible all this time?
Swartz breathed in and out hard through his nostrils, sated.
‘What do you think your mother would like to happen?’
‘Well, obviously she’d like me and Da to patch things up, get on.’
‘Do you think you can ever find inner peace while you have this impasse with your father?’
‘Well, it’s not like we used to be best buds, is it? I’ve borne his disappointment all my life. Now’s no different, it’s just more … official.’
‘What do you think is the cause of your insomnia?’
‘With respect doctor, that’s like asking me “What do you think is the cause of my fuzzy hair?” Your hair is just fuzzy, like Shredded Wheat. There’s nothing I can do about it.’
He studied me thoughtfully, caressing his Shredded Wheat beard. I sat there absently, wondering why they all felt compelled to sport beards. Some sort of academic Beard Pressure?
‘I can’t sign you off until you at least attempt to address your insomnia,’ he announced, finally.
‘But that’s got nothing to do with why I’m suspended,’ I protested.
‘It’s got everything to do with your mental health, Donal. If I sign you off and you blow up again … well, they could wash their hands of both you and me.’
‘I’ve seen specialists about it. No one can help.’
‘You have to help yourself. You need to address the worm. Sort things out with your father. Or at least try to. Do your bit, see what happens.’
I shook my head and shot to my feet: ‘It’s not that simple, doctor. Besides, like I say, that’s got absolutely nothing to do with the reason I’m here. I’m afraid I’ll be seeking a second opinion.’
As I walked to the door, that puff of madness found me.
‘Let’s not forget Swartz,’ I raged. ‘I’ve been sent here because of a single provoked incident, a moment of madness. To drag some random issue from my personal life into it, then use it against me … well, it’s outrageous …’
He didn’t even look up.
‘I had a son like you,’ he said finally, quietly.
That shut me up. They never talk about themselves.
‘He joined the army just to spite me really. He was a bloody musician, not a soldier.’
His eyes studied the carpet, softening.
‘You always think you have time to sort these things out, but you don’t.’
He sighed sadly. ‘He got killed in 1982, in the Hyde Park bombing.’
I shuddered at the memory. The IRA had planted two devices. The first, a car bomb, killed three members of the household cavalry. The second exploded under a bandstand in Regent’s Park, killing eight soldiers as they played songs from the musical Oliver to a crowd of lunching workers and tourists.
He looked up, his eyes manic now, hunting for understanding.
‘He was 22, same age as you.’
‘Oh Christ,’ I whispered, shame flooding me, ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘The idiot boy who planted the bomb was also 22. He’ll spend the rest of his life in prison. They say now the authorities ignored a warning. They let it go off.’
He shook his head, his gaze somehow peering inwards.
‘It’ll be eleven years in July. His mother has never got over it.’
‘And you?’ I said, unable to resist turning inquisitor on a shrink.
‘I’ve forgiven them, Donal. She hates me for it, but I don’t see any other way.’
Those eyes flashed agony.
‘Anyway,’ he sniffed, snapping back to the present, ‘wasn’t it Wilde who said always forgive your enemies, because nothing annoys them so much?’
He laughed. I sensed it was that, or cry.
‘I couldn’t forgive.’
He didn’t react. ‘Well, we hear now that the government is talking to the IRA, trying to thrash out a ceasefire. If I can forgive, and they can sit and talk peace, then surely you and your father can give it a go?’
‘I tried before, several times,’ I protested.
His wet eyes begged mine, like a starving dog’s.
‘I’m still seeking a second opinion, doctor,’ I said.
‘I just hope you get a second chance,’ he said flatly, looking away to release me.
That night, two vivid dreams terrified me awake. Those same nightmares have been haunting me ever since.
At least I hope they’re nightmares. Because if either of them is a premonition, Da’s in grave danger. And I’m the only person who can help him.
Darius looped the holes and I got my badge back. But we’d been sneaky, petty and the Met wouldn’t let it go. They agreed to reinstate me so long as I didn’t work on ‘live’ cases. After all, that had been the root of ‘all my trouble’ last time around. And so they buried me here in their Cemetery with full Acting DC honours. Now it was my job to break out.
My arrival made us ‘The Filthy 13’. But our odd-numbered battalion of outcasts didn’t follow a granite-souled pilgrim like Lee Marvin. No, we fell in behind a kindly old duffer named Detective Superintendent Simon Barrett – known as ‘Claret Barrett’ on account of his poorly disguised drink problem, or ‘Carrot’ Barrett because of his red hair and crippling inability to ever wield the stick. But Barrett’s soft-touch leadership made him an ideal boss for what had become the Force’s cushiest number. After all, the Cold Case Unit had recently acquired the most effective stealth weapon in criminal justice history.
The development of ‘genetic fingerprinting’ in the late 1980s had turned ‘DNA’ into the by-word for belated justice. There was no place you could hide from DNA – it was all conquering, infallible, omnipotent.
As the d
ispensers of Justice’s indomitable new truth serum, our unit had recently cracked some of the country’s most iconic unsolved murders. Of course the media – tireless proponents of a flat, black-and-white earth – depicted us as a dynamic squad of avenging angels, hoofing down doors and meting out justice to the worst kind of killers – the ones who’d beaten the system and ‘gotten away with it’.
The truth was rather more mundane: DNA fingerprinting proved to be pretty much all we had. And so we approached every unsolved case in the same way. We’d take DNA samples from either all of the suspects in the original case or every man of a certain age in the local area. Meanwhile, we commissioned the Forensic Science Service (FSS) to re-test all of the original exhibits using the latest DNA fingerprinting techniques. When the results arrived, we cross-referenced them against DNA records. If we got a match, we made an arrest.
When that failed, we still fell back on the almost mythical power of genetic fingerprinting. We’d reveal to the national and local media ‘a positive new lead’ or ‘significant new information’ about a particular case, and that this fresh twist was being subjected to ground-breaking DNA techniques.
We peddled this white lie for good reason: it rattled the perpetrators and any witnesses who’d lied to protect them. We then paid them all a visit and acted as if we’d finally worked out the truth – we just needed the imminent DNA results to confirm it.
The prospect of ‘having to go through it all again’ made many dodgy witnesses and even hardened killers break and confess. Few have the stomach for it, second-time round.
There was a downside to all this, of course. No matter which route we took – testing new science or knocking old doors – we had to inform the families of the murder victims. The effect tended to be two-fold negative. Firstly, by ‘bringing it all up again’ we were forcing these people to re-live the darkest episode of their lives. Secondly, to flush out twitchy witnesses or repentant suspects, we had to play-up our certainty that, this time round, we would get justice for the victim, thus raising expectations that we couldn’t always meet.
Either way, there was little actual ‘investigation’. We spent our days cross-referencing the new with the old, be it science or statements, making our work almost entirely clerical, soulless and solitary. And so the alcoholics in the unit drank more. Those prone to depression or other unspecified illnesses got signed-off more. Whatever dastardly deeds the rest of us had committed to end up here, only the Met’s internal disciplinary board truly knew. But I was the most desperate to get away, to swap cold for hot, to get back on a murder squad.
Now the murder of Elizabeth Phoebe Little presented me with my first real opportunity. If I made a good impression on DS Spence, he might just scout me. I needed to go back through all the unsolved cases and unearth some solid potential leads to present to him.
A chill slithered around my neck. Until now, my work at the Unit had been as a revisionist, correcting history, backdating justice. Sure I’d helped hunt down killers, but they weren’t active, mid-spree like this maniac.
Forget the usual DNA ‘fishing’ or the bluff for buried secrets. This was a murder hunt. I was looking for someone who’d struck before and would almost certainly kill again, soon.
I needed to fillet, dissect, treble check and treble challenge every single detail in our unsolved files that could be pertinent to this murder. If I missed a suspect who then went on to kill again, it’d be on my head.
The air tingled, charged. The lilting plants rallied and those empty white boards pined. I’d found my purpose, my road to redemption.
I reached for a floppy disc marked ‘Unsolved Female Murders – Live’.
The first disappointment: how few of these killings shared characteristics with the Liz Little murder. I thought I’d be spoiled for choice. Instead, only one case screamed out. At first glance, I felt convinced it had to be the same killer.
I scolded my tearaway mind: treble check and treble challenge every single detail.
Eighteen months ago, 43-year-old Helen Oldroyd had been found slashed and stabbed to death at the wheel of her racing-green Jaguar XJS in the car park of a leisure centre in Brentford, West London. That morning, she’d left the family home in Marlow, Bucks at 9.40am, telling builders renovating the property that she was running late for a 10am appointment. She’d been expected at her place of work – a Bureau de Change she co-owned in Paddington, West London – between 10.30am and 11am.
No record of this 10am appointment had been found in her diary or detailed notebooks. She hadn’t mentioned it to her husband, Alistair, colleagues at work or to any friends.
Two swimmers turning up at the Fountain Leisure Centre at 11am noticed the distinct green jag parked at the very perimeter of the car park, facing into an eight-foot-tall hedge. They assumed that the woman sitting in the driver’s seat was taking a nap. An hour later, they came out to find her in exactly the same position and raised the alarm.
Officers found the keys in the ignition. On the console between the driver and passenger seat sat a sample of blue wallpaper and a six-inch piece of wood. Across the back seat of the vehicle, a variety of carpet tiles had been laid out as if on display or up for discussion. Her handbag sat untouched on the floor.
The pathologist reported that Helen had been stabbed 50 times with a knife three to four inches long and an inch wide. Ten of the wounds were slashes to her hands and arms as she fought for her life.
They found no weapon or signs of sexual assault.
The pattern of her wounds showed that the killer launched his attack from the passenger seat, then got out of the car, walked around to the driver’s door, opened it and finished the job.
Detectives interviewed more than 800 people who’d parked at the leisure centre that morning. None of them remembered seeing anything suspicious. Officers were baffled – the attacker must have been covered in blood and either walked to another car to drive away, or left the car park on foot. They’d never know because neither the car park nor the road outside was covered by CCTV.
Helen had lived in a £600,000 detached house with Alistair, an estate agent, and their children Luke, 12, and Martha, 9.
Alistair was interviewed at length and eliminated as a suspect. He insisted his wife couldn’t have been conducting an affair as they were ‘completely open’ with each other. He was unable to offer an explanation as to her presence in Brentford that morning, or who she might have been meeting. Helen had simply indicated that she would be driving to work as usual.
He speculated that she must have received the call to attend this mystery assignation after he’d left for work at 8am. However, the builders working inside their home from 7.30am that morning insisted that the landline hadn’t rung. She didn’t own a mobile.
The wallpaper found in her car was a small sample of a roll brought to her home that morning by the principle contractor. None of the builders had left the Oldroyd home at any time between 7.30am and 4pm.
When news of the murder broke, a man who drove through Brentford that morning claimed that he saw Helen’s Jaguar travelling slowly and erratically along Chiswick High Road, south of the M4 flyover, at about 10am. When he overtook the car, he saw the woman driver wrestling with a man in the passenger seat. It had been a fleeting glimpse, he felt unable to provide a description. Assuming it to be a domestic, he sped on. Intriguingly, he said that at least five more vehicles held up by the Jaguar overtook at the same time, just as it pulled into the leisure centre car park.
The report pointed out that the Fountain Leisure Centre couldn’t have been on any logical route Helen might have taken to work. The centre’s visitor book had no record of her ever attending. They found no swimming costume or towel in the car.
My brain ached. I reminded myself of the goal here: to establish if both women could have been killed by the same man. There were obvious similarities; Helen and Liz had both been savagely attacked with a knife. They had known their killers. Their bodies had been left exposed
in public places.
But there were key differences too. Helen hadn’t been held somewhere, tortured or cut up. She’d died in what appeared to be a spur-of-the-moment frenzy, whereas Liz’s murder seemed meticulously pre-meditated.
In fact, Oldroyd’s murder had been so messy that her racing-green Jag interior must be chock-full of DNA. After all, she and her attacker had wrestled for a matter of minutes. She must have grabbed hold of some skin, hair or even clothing fibres that might seal her killer’s fate. She kept herself fit; maybe she managed to draw blood. Perhaps the ferocity of her defence is what caused her killer to ‘flip out’ and stab her in such a blind frenzy.
There had to be evidence of him somewhere in that car.
My finger trembled as I dialled the incident room number.
The meek ‘Mavis’ at the other end took my name, rank, badge number and insisted on calling me back ‘on a secure landline’.
‘DS Hobbs, Oldroyd incident room. How can we help you?’ stated an impatient male voice.
I explained our initiative and the similarities between the cases, wrapping up with an offer to finance a fresh forensic sweep of Helen’s car.
‘I’m afraid that’s not possible,’ barked Hobbs.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘The forensic side of things has been fully explored, constable. I can confidently say there is nothing more to be gained from examining the car.’
‘With respect, sir, I can confidently say there’s been a lot of progress in genetic fingerprinting over the past 18 months. They can work with much smaller samples now … microscopic samples.’
He sighed. ‘I am aware of forensic developments, constable.’
‘Excellent, so you know where we’re coming from then, sir.’
I could sense his brain grappling.
‘Look,’ he said finally, ‘you may as well know. The officers at the scene let the undertakers remove the body from the car before forensics arrived.’