by A J Waines
‘You’re confusing my client,’ said Ms Kemp, raising an eyebrow in my direction as if it was a lethal weapon.
I leant forward, ignoring her. ‘Why is November 9th one of the dates, William?’
‘I went to the bridge,’ he said.
‘Yes. You went to Kew Bridge on November 9th. The police saw you there, didn’t they?’
He nodded.
‘Did you go to the bridges on the other dates; on September 20th and October 6th and 12th?’
‘That’s when the women were killed,’ he said.
‘That’s right. But were you there as well, William? At the other bridges - Hammersmith, Richmond and Battersea - on those dates?’
‘Those are the dates when it happened,’ he said. ‘Water… bridges.’
Ms Kemp slapped her hand on the table. ‘You’re harassing Mr Jones,’ she said. She turned towards William and whispered something to him. He nodded.
I took a breath and sat back.
I could see Brad lean forward out of the corner of my eye. He was about to say something, but I hadn’t finished. I put my arm out, desperate to stop the juggernaut from running us all over. William was staring at the table. I sent my eyes swiftly around the room, exhorting them all with my gaze not to jump in with anything at this point. I knew exactly what I wanted to say next, but I needed the silence first. It was a crucial moment of power; an apparent vacuum fizzing with energy. Everyone froze as if I’d pressed the pause button on a DVD player. Not even Ms Kemp twitched.
‘When’s the next date?’ I said. Matter-of-fact, with no great weight or emphasis. ‘The next important date.’
‘Soon,’ he said.
‘You know when it will be?’ I said, slowly, quietly, gently.
‘I know when it was,’ he said.
‘You know when it was when something happened?’ I said. ‘Something to do with the water and a bridge?’
‘Yes. Bad things.’ He stroked his hair, as if soothing himself after a frightening incident.
‘And when was that?’ I said, ‘The next date when the bad thing happened.’
‘November 15th,’ he said.
I did a quick mental calendar check. I could almost hear us all doing it, simultaneously. It was the twelfth, today. The fifteenth was this coming Sunday.
‘November 15th?’ I said. ‘That’s when the next bad thing happened - you sure?’
‘Yes. Never forget. No need to write it down.’ He pointed to his head to indicate where he was storing all the dates when something bad had happened.
‘And these bad things…the bad things that happened…they happened to you?’ I asked.
‘Yes.’ He answered straight away. Clean, straightforward.
‘And they’re connected with the water…under bridges…on the dates we’ve mentioned?’
‘Yes.’
I sat back again. ‘Thank you, William. That’s really helpful.’
Brad leant over to switch off the tape-recorder and we left the room.
As soon as we got into the corridor, he rounded on me. I braced myself.
‘I’ve got to hand it to you.’ he said, a broad smile transforming his face. ‘That was something.’
I was holding my chest. I felt like I did on the day I ran a ten-kilometre race with a head-cold. The floor was starting to roll like waves in the sea; the walls were pulling me towards them. Brad grabbed a chair just in time. I sank my head between my knees.
‘Well done, girl.’ Cheryl was at my side, her hand stroking my back.
‘Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves, here,’ said Brad, chewing his lip. ‘He knows the dates of the murders. And where they took place. So he reads a newspaper…’
‘He knows the case inside out,’ I said.
Brad looked like he was about to rest his hand on my shoulder, then dropped it.
‘We’ve got a date, but it’s still not conclusive. Jones hasn’t owned up to anything, yet.’
‘He’s using the same dates that have some significance to him in his past,’ I said, ignoring Brad’s scepticism. ‘Dates, when something traumatic happened to him.’ All of a sudden, I needed to be outside. The room was stuffy, stifling.
‘Let’s give Juliet some air, shall we?’ said Brad, who must have seen the way my face was rapidly going grey. They walked me outside into the car-park.
I leant against the wall and took some deep breaths. ‘I should have asked him if it was Blackfriars Bridge,’ I said. ‘We need to know for sure if that’s the right place.’
‘No,’ said Brad. ‘If we mention Blackfriars again in that context, he’ll think we know too much. He…they…will change the plans.’
I mulled it over. ‘Maybe you’re right.’ I turned to Cheryl. ‘Did you pick up anything else?’ I said, straightening up. The duplicated blurred shapes around me were gradually returning to form only one of everything.
‘Nothing apart from this underground feeling at Blackfriars Bridge. But I can’t put my finger on it.’
Chapter Twenty-six
I woke up at 6am the following morning with a pervasive sense of gloom. Two days to go. Everything was in the hands of the police now; they had a date and a location and there was nothing I could do. I tried to go back to sleep, but my body felt like it had been hooked up to a caffeine-drip all night.
The two clients I had booked in for the following day had cancelled, but I had to get out of the flat. I couldn’t spend the day doing ironing or watching false smiles on daytime television. I wanted to be sealed within a crowd of people, doing something normal and every day. Besides, it was Friday, 13th. I’m not normally superstitious, but with so many awful things happening lately, I didn’t want to be on my own fretting over what fate might decide to add to the mix.
I ran through a list of places I could go. The National Gallery seemed about right: ordinary people, distraction and nowhere near any bridges. I pulled the curtain aside in my bedroom and spotted WPC Penny Kenton inside the car across the road. She must have drawn the short straw again. I texted her to say I was catching the Tube from Putney Bridge to Trafalgar Square, and left without any breakfast.
I thought about the information the police were now working with: Blackfriars Bridge, November 15th - and realised how flimsy it was. Deduced on the basis of a pop song and the word of a disturbed man who the police knew wasn’t even the killer. What if we’d got it horribly wrong? What if William Jones was feeding us red-herrings? What if another woman was going to die because the conclusions we’d come to were wrong?
I reflected on Cheryl’s sense that there was something underground in connection with the impending murder. It couldn’t be the Tube, because that had been closed for months, but was there anything else underground in that area? Or was that a red-herring, too?
Surely, there were too many coincidences for William not to be involved, but I wasn’t sure he had anything further to tell. Presumably, whoever William was working with, had sense enough to realise he would be a liability if questioned by the police. The less he knew the better.
Brad’s main concern was that the plan might change. William had only mentioned Blackfriars Bridge in the context of the song by the Federal Jackdaws, so he may not have felt he’d given that piece of information away. But William had revealed the next date, although he’d done it in the context of explaining how all the dates had been relevant for him in the past. Given his mental condition, maybe William wouldn’t know that he’d let something slip.
My view was that William certainly wouldn’t want the date to change. To him the dates were sacrosanct: they were significant for their link to something traumatic in his past and he wouldn’t want to shift to a different date that had no meaning for him. A change of date would only be in question, of course, if William had told his accomplice that the fifteenth was out of the bag. My instinct was that he hadn’t.
It was pouring down and there was a biting wind as I hit street level at Trafalgar Square. I pulled my coat around me and re-wrapped
my scarf, keen to get inside.
I trawled round the galleries, trying to transport myself into a world of high art and aesthetics. I went up to level two, towards the paintings from the end of the nineteenth century. I drifted from room to room and tried to focus on the paintings, but stopped with a jolt every time I came across a picture of a river with a bridge. There were plenty of them: Canaletto, Monet, Turner. I was standing in front of one by Millias, when I recognised the figure who drifted into my field of vision. I knew the soft corn-coloured curls tucked inside his collar, the scuffed hems at the bottom of his jeans.
He hadn’t seen me and was gazing at the picture. I watched him tip his head on one side, taking in the scene. It was Ophelia. A Pre-Raphaelite portrait of a woman lying in a stream. Just before she drowns.
I saw the look of melancholy on Andrew’s face change into an expression of fascination and delight and found myself starting to wonder if he was responding to the quality of the oil technique or the imminent fate of the subject.
Abruptly, to block the direction in which my brain was heading, I stepped forward and tapped him on the shoulder.
He said how good it was to see me.
‘You too,’ I said. My eyes sought out Penny, to give her a nod of approval. ‘How have you been?’
‘Good. Very good. I’m still off the drink. Going to AA meetings regularly, now. Done some new paintings. Got some work in a gallery in Oxford. Yeah, pretty good. And you?’
Life had moved on for Andrew and I realised mine had remained stuck fast in the cement of uncertainty and fear.
‘Pretty much the same,’ I said, trying not to look at the picture.
A woman came up beside Andrew’s shoulder. I saw her shyly take hold of his hand.
‘This is Genevieve,’ he said, lifting up their interlinked fingers so I could see they were a couple. ‘She’s a photographer.’ She had long blonde hair, was a good four inches taller than me with a cavernous cleavage tucked under the fur neckline of her coat. It looked like the same woman I’d seen at his award ceremony. Andrew had clearly reverted back to type. I could image a few more nude portraits emerging out of this relationship.
‘Hi,’ she said, ‘you an artist, too?’ Her French accent was strong and sexy.
‘No,’ I said. ‘But I do appreciate art.’
She showed no signs of recognition at my name. It would appear that Andrew hadn’t mentioned me. We made polite conversation, before I looked at my watch and said I had to go. I watched their heads lean together as they moved into the next gallery.
By now, my concern over the way in which Andrew had been transfixed by the painting had been overtaken by more complicated emotions. I felt flat and angry. Andrew really had moved on. But it wasn’t the new girlfriend that disturbed me, it was something else. I blindly made my way to the exit. Then I realised why I was so upset. The gorgeous Genevieve was getting the Andrew I had always wanted; carefree, fun, but above all, sober. The timing had been wrong when the two of us had been together and the sober version of Andrew hadn’t been available, except in tantalisingly short bursts.
I ran down the steps of the Gallery, not caring whether Penny was keeping up or not. It was raining hard and I didn’t bother to pull up the hood on my anorak. Getting wet and cold was fitting, given how desolate I felt inside.
On the way back, I had a call from Brad. He wanted to meet, but he didn’t say why. He’d suggested the pub by the river in Putney, so at least I could have a drink. It was about all I was fit for.
* * *
The Duke’s Head was swamped with Friday evening commuters in their blue pin-striped suits and pink shirts, so we took our pints outside. The picnic tables on the patio were full, so we wandered over to the path overlooking the water. The pub was literally ten meters from the river.
‘Is this your night off?’ I said, innocently.
‘Only a couple of hours. Then I’m back on again.’
I didn’t want him to see my disappointment. I could see he had other things on his mind. ‘Things are moving,’ he said.
‘Tell me,’ I said, huddling into the lining of his coat like a child. I was glad the pub was too packed. The cold outside drew us together.
‘We’ve been looking into the possibility of an underground aspect to Blackfriars Bridge.’
‘Really? You’re taking what Cheryl said seriously?’
‘We’re covering all avenues, that’s all. We would have done it anyway.’
‘Is Cheryl off the hook now?’
‘We’re still keeping a close eye on her. The SIO thinks killers of this kind - the smart ones - often want recognition for their brilliance, but they can end up shooting themselves in the foot by giving away too much information. She says they thrive on the risk of staying one step ahead of the police. Could be that Cheryl is playing that game. She could be in on this with both Jones and her brother.’ He ran his finger down my nose. ‘Or she could be genuine, like you say.’
‘I hope so,’ I said, the chill forcing me to press further under his coat.
‘Did you track down Jones’ parents?’
‘We’d already spoken to Mrs Jones to find out more about his condition and his whereabouts, but we got her back in again to ask about the body-bags. She confirmed William’s story, but says she’s only taken them to keep him happy. She said it was far too morbid to keep her dresses in them. The funeral parlour let him have old stock, apparently. She didn’t have a lot to add, to be honest. Says none of the dates William mentioned mean anything to her.’
‘And his father?’
‘They split up years ago and he’s remarried, living in Dorset. Couldn’t throw much light on William. Says he hasn’t seen his son for years and that’s corroborated all round.’
‘So we’re left with William’s date and Blackfriars Bridge. What else is underground in that area? The Tube is closed, right?’
‘Yes. But we’ve discovered something else. I don’t know how much you know about the city, but much of it is built over old rivers that have gone underground.’
‘It vaguely rings a bell. The underground rivers of London…I saw a programme about it once.’
‘The Fleet is one of those hidden rivers. It goes underground near Hampstead Heath station, then stays buried under the streets until it comes out right under Blackfriars Bridge.’
My jaw gaped. ‘The exact spot…’
‘We’ve had an officer following the last section over-ground and there are places where you can stand over a manhole cover and actually hear the river running underneath it.’
I grabbed his collar. ‘Oh my God, Brad - it makes sense! An underground river ending at Blackfriars could be the place.’
‘There’s a problem as far as we’re concerned,’ he said. ‘Once the Fleet gets to Blackfriars, it’s become part of the sewage system.’
‘Ooh – not so good.’ I stared blankly at the water. ‘Hold on a minute - so far the bodies have deliberately been left where they would be found. Wouldn’t something as bulky as a body get trapped out of sight, down there?’
‘That’s the big question. We’ve talked to experts and they reckon with enough heavy rain, the cast iron floodgates inside the Fleet’s outfall would open up, causing it to overflow and a body would be swept out into the Thames.’
‘So, it fits - if there’s enough rain.’ I looked up at the sky that over the last few days had been tipping water down at regular intervals. ‘How much rain is heavy rain?’
‘The Met Office says this could be enough.’
‘How would someone get down to it?’
‘That’s the issue. We talked to Thames Water and we’ve had our guys over at New Bridge Street. The best access to the sewer is in the middle of a busy road. You’d have to stop the traffic. There’s no way anyone could get down there without drawing considerable attention to themselves.’
‘In theory, though, could a body be dropped down a manhole into the sewer?’
‘Yes. It’s wide enoug
h. Then it would gradually make its way towards the floodgates.’
‘What are you going to do? It’s Saturday tomorrow and then Sunday is the big day.’
‘I’m going down with a team tomorrow to take a look.’
‘Into the sewers? Wow…’ I stood back, animated again. ‘Can I come?’
What was I thinking? The words came out of nowhere and as soon as I uttered them I realised how childish and incongruous they sounded. Me – miss prim and proper – literally mucking in and getting myself filthy? Understandably, he gave me his characteristic you’re-talking-gibberish look. ‘No way,’ he chuckled.
I rested my hands on the wooden rail and stared out across the choppy black water. The Thames looked relatively clean, but I knew it harboured risks of E coli, salmonella and hepatitis. What would the sewers be like?
‘I need to know if we’ve got it right,’ I said earnestly. ‘If what William told us adds up to another wretched victim – down there under the bridge.’
‘You’d get to hear about it soon enough.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ I huffed. ‘On the side-lines - waiting. I feel so useless. My life’s been completely taken over by this lethal game of catch-up and I’ve been powerless to do a thing.’ I turned to him, took hold of both his hands. ‘I’m caught in the middle of it and yet, I’m always at least one step behind. Can you understand?’
‘Sort of.’ He withdrew his hands and turned to the water too, the breeze lifting his hair into thick tufts.
‘Come on, Brad. When am I ever going to get another opportunity to get knee-deep in…a London sewer?’
‘Not a chance.’
‘Why not? I’ve been really helpful, so far.’
‘I can’t deny that, but this is different. It’ll be disgusting.’
‘Not suitable for a woman, is that what you’re saying?’
‘No…it’s dangerous. If we don’t get the timing right and the water rises too fast, it’s going to be panic-stations down there. It’s a police operation. You’re not trained.’
‘And you are?’
‘I’m a police officer. You’re a psychotherapist. Which one do you think has a better chance of doing a good job?’