Dance With the Dead

by James Nally

  I couldn’t speak.

  ‘It was the summer holidays, don’t forget. The place was packed with families, kids. By all accounts, it was a horrific sight.’

  The full impact of his revelation took time to sink in. Removing Helen from the car not only contaminated the crime scene, it tainted anything connected to her body – skin, hair, fibres, even blood splashes. Just one body part could possibly be deemed exempt from this human contamination …

  ‘Did you send her fingernails away for examination?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, his voice dry and tight, ‘but it didn’t throw anything up.’

  ‘I’d like to request them, sir, put them through the ringer again.’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ came his irritated response.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘They’ve been mislaid,’ he squeaked.

  ‘Mislaid, sir?’

  ‘Lost constable. The fingernails have been lost,’ he spat bitterly.

  ‘Christ. So what now?’

  ‘What now? We need a bloody miracle.’

  Chapter 5

  Vauxhall, South London

  Saturday, April 3, 1993; 17.00

  My only hope now of connecting the murders of Liz Little and Helen Oldroyd would be to identify a common enemy with murderous potential.

  But that would have to wait.

  Having exhausted the ‘live’ unsolved female murder files, I needed to dredge those ‘dead files’ for potential connections, suspects and leads.

  Time to revisit ‘The Others’.

  The folder for 1992 – last year – contained four surreptitiously jilted prostitute murder investigations. Considering the Met Police boasted an overall murder detection rate of 90 per cent of about 170 homicides, this failure spoke volumes. Then I remembered how ’92 had been dominated by two of the most high-profile Met Police manhunts of all time; Stephanie Slater’s kidnap and Rachel Nickell’s murder. With finances already stretched to breaking, something had to give. And nobody in the national media had written a single word about the deaths of these ‘desperate skanks’.

  The first three didn’t appear to have any links to Liz’s murder: Karen, 26, spine crushed, nose broken, asphyxiated, dumped in the Lea River; Carol, 32, sexually assaulted with a blunt instrument, bled to death, buried at a concrete works; Mandy, 23, choked with a ligature, found ‘posed’ in a disused warehouse, wearing just a demonic facemask and a pair of Mr Men socks.

  And so I discarded those poor women, just as society had in life and the Met Police did a matter of weeks after they’d died.

  But the fourth unsolved case needed to be flagged.

  In December last year, three boys fishing the Wood Green reservoir near Alexandra Palace hauled a heavy-duty black plastic bag out of the water. But the bag wasn’t nearly as heavy-duty as the contents … a woman’s severed body parts.

  A specialist forensic team hooked three more bags from the depths. The victim was an unidentified Caucasian woman in her 20s – a mystery not helped by her missing hands. When dental records failed to unmask her, the pathologist had a moment of inspiration. Good old Dedwina discovered that the dead woman had ‘double D’ breast implants, and that each pair came with its own unique pin code. Via manufacturer and surgeon, police learned that they’d been paid for by one Philip Armstrong, with an address in West London.

  What a way for the 63-year-old property magnate to discover that his former lover, 22-year-old Valerie Gillespie, had been murdered.

  A few months earlier, sugar daddy Armstrong had pulled the money plug on his ex-call-girl lover, for reasons that didn’t seem adequately explored. Valerie’s ‘good life’ dining at the Ritz and shopping in Bond Street came to a sudden end. She hit self-destruct, then rock bottom, working the strip behind King’s Cross railway station to fund a £150 per day crack habit. Sugar Daddy, drug dealers, clients and co-workers were all interviewed and eliminated. The investigation fizzled out. I was about to re-ignite it.

  Valerie’s murder had already been linked to Liz Little’s earlier today, when Edwina revealed how both women had been anally assaulted with an A3 battery. Similar killer MO, similar victim injuries … I had something to present to DS Spence.

  I trawled back through ’91 and more unspeakable acts against the only women desperate enough to get into cars with strange men. As ever with prostitute murders, most of the girls had been murdered swiftly, before any sex act had taken place. Usually, all that stuff came later – proving that, for this particular category of killer, it was all about wielding power and control over a woman.

  Another case leapt out. Melinda Marshall, 19, from Bristol had come to London in May 1991 to find work as a model. Within months, she’d signed up to the Diplomat agency as a ‘high-class escort’, meeting men in West End hotels for between £300 and £500 per night.

  Within weeks, she’d earned enough to rent a luxury two-bedroom flat in one of Chelsea’s smartest streets, for cash. She shared with a friend and fellow escort, Kim Morley, 21, also from Bristol.

  On the morning of January 1st, 1992, Kim found her flatmate naked, stabbed and beaten almost beyond recognition on the floor of her bedroom. She’d been raped and sexually assaulted.

  Because there had been no forced entry or robbery – £100 in cash was found close to her body – detectives assumed she’d been murdered by ‘a client’ or someone she knew. The report went on: ‘The last person to see Melinda alive had been a minicab driver we failed to trace, who dropped her off outside her flat just after 2am.’ I couldn’t help thinking how such lazy thinking typified the general apathy towards these victims. The last person to see Melinda alive was the man who murdered her.

  The manager of the Diplomat Escort Agency revealed that her last booking had been a 10pm supper date at the Langham Hotel, near BBC Broadcasting House on Regents Street. At 10.30pm, Melinda called the agency from the hotel foyer to report that the client – a Syrian businessman and frequent customer – hadn’t shown. They never heard from her again.

  Forty minutes later, at about 11.10pm, staff at the swanky Walpole hotel on the Strand turned her away. The concierges of London’s five-star hotels wielded vast influence; working girls of any class only gained entry on their say-so.

  Diplomat’s manager couldn’t offer any explanation for her Waldorf cameo, but guessed she’d been ‘moonlighting’ either alone or for another agency.

  Reluctantly – and only after the threat of a court order – Diplomat handed over the details of Melinda’s clients during her 14-week stint on their books, including the final John who’d failed to show. Each of them had been quizzed by detectives; each had a rock-solid alibi for what was, after all, a night when we tend to have rock-solid plans: New Year’s Eve.

  Unusually, Melinda’s murder did get widespread media coverage, making me realise that newsworthy loosely translates as fuckworthy.

  The fact she’d been a ‘high-class’ call girl helped. As did her recent work as a model – especially those racy but tasteful portfolio shots of her in lingerie and thigh-high boots. The newspapers’ trickiest editorial challenge had been finding a way to justify publishing this copyright-free soft porn. They all managed it admirably, even the broadsheets.

  Melinda’s parents knew nothing of their daughter’s secret life.

  ‘She wasn’t even blonde,’ her bewildered dad, Jack, told one newspaper, ‘she was a redhead. We didn’t even recognise her in those modelling shots.’

  In another: ‘I just can’t believe that she got herself involved in something like that. She was so shy that she’d send for someone else to order for her at a café.’

  But her flatmate and fellow escort Kim offered a very different perspective: ‘Sometimes businessmen say to me “You’re smart. Come and work for me as my secretary”. But why would I swap the tube at rush hour for a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce at dawn? Why would I make tea for a man when I can get him to buy me £300 glasses of champagne?’

  I wondered what Melinda would have swappe
d at the moment she first saw that knife. I blocked it out, stuck to the facts. Similar MO, similar injuries … Melinda made it onto the list of murders that could be connected to Liz Little.

  I’d just started dipping into the previous year’s file when my office phone rang.

  ‘I’ve got some very interesting news for you,’ Fintan teased.

  ‘Please tell me that “very interesting” also means “very good”. I need some.’

  ‘Ah, Jesus, you’re not still falling in love with all those dead hookers, are you?’

  ‘I’m reading about men who have sex with dead hookers, Fint. Honestly, I don’t think I’ll ever get the horn again.’

  ‘And what a devastating loss to London’s womankind that would be. Usual place, six-ish?’

  ‘Why do we always have to go to that kip?’

  ‘Trust me, it’ll be worth it.’

  Chapter 6

  Soho, London

  Saturday, April 3, 1993: 19.00

  The Coach and Horses in Soho felt like stepping into a faded 1970s Polaroid photo, all nicotine yellow and cancerous tan. Especially the cadaverous regulars. They were the worst kind of pissheads – arrogant drunks with an image of themselves as rakish intellectual mavericks. Beware the self-proclaimed ‘local character’, or anyone who works so hard to appear eccentric. The Coach was full of them – clinging to the bar and their own high opinions of themselves, an exclusive club validating each other’s kamikaze drinking habits and boorish wit.

  I resented these Peter O’Toole wannabes in their tweed jackets and cravats, wafting their imported Gauloises cigarettes, affecting the louche deportment of drunken professors.

  They seemed to be either overpaid voiceover artists (failed actors who’d peddle any product for money), overpaid columnists (failed writers who’d peddle any opinion for money) or people who ‘work in TV’ (whatever that meant).

  Of course, Fintan loved it. The Coach plugged him into the glorious Fleet Street of yore, when charlatan hacks drank, whored and rabble-roused while occasionally bashing out award-winning nuggets of copy.

  He arrived in customary style: inexcusably late, mac on, fag on, game face on. Buzzing with mischief.

  The pint I’d bought him three rounds ago now looked like stale piss, but he downed two thirds in one go, sleeved his mouth and said: ‘I hope you’ve got plenty of paper cash with you.’

  ‘Why would I need paper cash?’

  ‘Because, last time I checked, G-strings don’t hold pound coins.’

  I cringed. Taking me to a strip club felt akin to tying up a starving hound outside a butcher’s shop window. There was a very real chance I’d lick the glass and howl ravenously at the carcasses.

  Of course, I came up with a more mundane objection. ‘And why would I want to tuck the best part of a week’s salary into the knickers of a girl who isn’t even interested in me.’

  ‘Because, my bold, intrepid, swordsman of truth and justice, you can find out all about Ms Elizabeth Little. Same again?’

  He skipped to the bar, schoolgirl-giddy and beaming. Tonight he had a scoop rocketing through the printing presses and a series of juicy follow-ups baking in the oven. For once, he could relax. He returned with three pints – two for himself to catch up – and a chipped bowl of gnarly pork scratchings.

  ‘Come on, Fintan, don’t make me beg.’

  ‘Well, if begging’s your thing, lover boy, I’m sure we can find a lady to cater for your wanton, unmanly needs at the Florentine Gardens hostess and erotic dance club, just off Regent’s Street. Of course, we’re going there purely on business, you understand?’

  ‘How did you find out she worked there?’

  ‘She filed a tax return. Invoices, the lot. Though I suspect she declared about a tenth of what she actually earned blowing fat Arabs and the like, certainly judging by her flashy pad.’

  ‘What, so hookers are paying tax now?’

  ‘Well, Donal, funnily enough she didn’t describe herself as a hooker on her tax return. Jesus, can you imagine? Annual turnover: 300 men …’

  ‘Current assets: pert tits and arse.’

  ‘Fixed assets: horny old men. No, as far as the taxman’s concerned, Elizabeth Little is a professional dancer who invoiced the Florentine for 24k in the last tax year.’

  ‘I still don’t understand why someone in the black economy would declare themselves to the taxman.’

  ‘Well, they got Al Capone for tax evasion.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Maybe the owner of the Florentine wants to make sure it’s legit, at least on paper. Think about it, Donal, it’s the perfect business for laundering money. It’s all cash, isn’t it? No man’s going to risk having a payment to a glorified whore house on his credit card bill. And because it’s officially legit, the owner can rinse his dirty money through the club’s accounts.’

  ‘And that owner is?’

  Fintan didn’t speak for a moment. Behind me, the ancient cash register dinged and spat out its clunking metal drawer. A knot of people to my right laughed way too hard.

  Fintan’s words were as dry as chalk, as if they’d sucked all the moisture from the air.

  ‘The club is owned by Jimmy Reilly.’

  It felt strange hearing the name spoken aloud. Hardened gangsters melted at the mere mention of it, refusing to talk about him even in hushed or reverential terms. Newspapers, including Fintan’s, refrained from printing his name for fear of reprisals.

  Unlike cartoon 1960s villains the Krays, Reilly eschewed fame and limelight. But amongst criminals, police and the media, his reputation for creative violence – which he preferred to carry out personally – made him an almost mythical bogeyman figure.

  I learned all about him a few months’ back when our Cold Case Unit had been struggling to cope with a mounting number of unsolved gangland hits. DS Barrett hauled in Scotland Yard Intelligence to supply us with a ‘who’s who’ of London’s criminal underworld. Reilly won that particular beauty pageant hands down.

  They described him as one of a new breed of ruthless and sophisticated ‘godfathers’ who’d completely overhauled the way criminal gangs worked – so that bringing bosses like him to justice proved all but impossible. They listed on a whiteboard the differences between this ‘new wave’ of crime lords and the ‘pavement-crossing, sawn-off shotgun merchants’ of yore. Some stuck in my mind.

  *They acquire legitimate businesses and use them as a front for their illegal activities.

  *They employ top accountants, lawyers, barristers, financial advisers to make this happen.

  *They are willing to deal with any group globally, including terror organisations.

  *They are surveillance aware, tech savvy and shun fame. Photographs of these people do not exist in the public domain.

  *They are willing to kill or punish people personally rather than employ others to do their dirty work, to eliminate the risk of blackmail or betrayal.

  Officially, Reilly made his money in security, recycled metal and waste management – the classic gangster’s holy trinity of Slap, Scrap and Crap. But as the Scotland Yard spooks explained, his rise from nowhere came about through the far more dubious trio of gold, protection rackets and E.

  The youngest of 12 kids, he’d been brought up on London’s meanest streets in Canning Town – an irredeemably drab and pitiless slum near the Royal Docks on the river Thames. The East End of his childhood pre-dated Canary Wharf, City Airport, Docklands Light Rail and fancy apartment blocks, performing instead as London’s coke-caked arsehole, the watery outlet for miles of ironworks, chemical factories and filthy gasworks.

  By the time Reilly left school in 1975, aged 15, any docks that hadn’t been shut down were closing. Rampant unemployment led to a thriving black market and the emergence of local gangs like the Snipers and the Inter-City Firm (ICF), soccer hooligans who’d attached themselves to local club West Ham United, aka the Hammers.

  Like five of his brothers before him, he was recruited by the
Snipers and got involved in lorry hijacks, armed robbery, protection rackets and muscle for established local criminals.

  By 21, he reputedly headed the Snipers and ran his operations out of the Duke of York pub on Freemason’s Road, at the edge of Canning Town. He’d terrorised the landlady into giving over the lease even though her name was still above the door.

  That same year, 1981, after a shooting at an illegal drinking den in Homerton, detectives raided the Reilly family scaffolding business and seized stolen goods, a sawn-off shotgun and ammunition. Reilly was convicted of handling stolen goods but escaped prison, receiving a nine-month suspended sentence – his only conviction.

  This brush with justice spurred Reilly to identify less risky, more profitable criminal enterprises in which he didn’t have to get his hands dirty. He muscled in on local massage parlours, taking a cut of the profits. He invested in an amphetamine sulphate factory ran by major league East End criminals with distribution networks all over the country. He set up a security firm supplying bouncers to clubs and pubs, employing his old pals from the ICF and the Snipers. This proved an ingenious ruse as he could ‘charge’ drug dealers to work inside, barring anyone who refused to pay the going rate.

  Then, in November 1983, a robbery near Heathrow airport set Reilly and his ‘new wave’ criminal contemporaries on a whole new trajectory. The five-man gang who pulled off the ‘Brink’s Mat robbery’ expected to get away with £3 million in cash. Instead, their overloaded getaway blue Transit van trundled up the A4 weighed down with 6,800 bars of gold in 76 cardboard boxes, a three-tonne booty worth £26 million.

  This jackpot altered the British criminal landscape forever.

  Police nabbed the robbers and put tabs on any major criminals with the clout/contacts to move/melt such a large amount of precious metal. So the major criminals divided the gold and delegated the moving/melting to trusted fledgling gangsters or specialists on the rise. Men like John ‘Goldfinger’ Palmer, Kenneth Noye, the Evans brothers from Islington and to James Declan Reilly from Canning Town.