by M J Porter
“It seems to me that should have been followed up and quickly. I wonder if that’s why he moved so far away for the next victim, Cambridge and then all the way to Inverness.”
“Seems highly possible. I imagine, when he realised the tie pin had been lost, he must have worried he’d be caught, and pretty quickly. Maybe it made him more cautious?”
“Or more arrogant,” Sam mused unhappily, considering all the murders he’d committed since.
“Just think of all those lives that could have been saved,” O’Rourke stated unhappily.
“So, we have Hamish’s drawing and the advert for the rugby player. Just look at how similar it is. Yes, the face has been altered, made to look younger, no doubt to fit with the other drawings, but even the missing sock is the same.”
“We do, yes. Here you are,” O’Rourke stated as she passed both items to him. She was shaking her head with unhappiness. Sam thought how easy it was to bring everything together, now they knew the answers.
“What shall we do about the art in the sketchbook?”
“We’ll number the books and the pages, and then they can refer to them. I don’t want to take the sketchbooks apart.”
“Right, I’ll do that.”
“Make them book A, B, C and D. So, he was in Book B on page 4. We can put the images from the loose portfolio next to the corresponding advert and Hamish’s drawings. We can’t make it much more obvious than that.”
O’Rourke chuckled at his dark tone.
“I take it you don’t think much of the Chief Superintendent.”
“I don’t know the man,” Sam felt compelled to qualify.
“But you’ve heard stories about him?”
“I have, yes. They’re not very kind about him. I should probably wait until I meet him before I make a decision.”
“Perhaps, but knowing what you do, we should ensure we make these connections patently obvious.”
“Yes, it’ll be worth it to get his agreement and support. So, who was the second victim?”
“The second is Esme McDonald, in Inverness, the one Hamish informed us about.” O’Rourke squinted at the map as she spoke. Sam stood and moved to the table, holding all the details.
“Date of birth, 12th December 1911. Date of death, or rather, her body was found on April 4th 1919, at a school again, this time the Inverness Royal, on Crown Road. A hockey ball was found close by, as was a set of cufflinks and a handkerchief with the initials S.M on them. They thought it was a teacher to start with, but again, no one was ever arrested for the murder. They did get the cause of the death correct, drowning.” Sam reeled off the facts. Esme’s case was almost as familiar to him as that of Robert’s. O’Rourke quickly wrote down his words.
“No arrests. It seems they were too busy trying to contain the problems caused by the American soldiers attacking the police that evening. Poor Esme.”
“And here, this is the image that Hamish drew, and there’s an image of her, crying in sketchbook A on page five, and then this, the advertisement. At least she’s smiling in it,” Sam spoke aloud.
“Chronologically, it’s Robert next,” Sam stated when O’Rourke had finished with her notes on Esme.
“Robert McFarlane, date of birth, 7th of August 1916. Date of death, 30th September 1923, cause of death was drowning, and he was found in the church hall on High Street. Never really any suspects.”
Sam nodded along with her words. He was sorting through the advertisements, looking for the correct one.
There it was, the advertisement with a smiling boy playing cricket, bat high in the air, hat jauntily on his head. Quickly, he found the image from Sketchbook A on page four, once more noticing the similarities. Then he hunted out Hamish’s drawing as well.
“You know,” he’d not realised that O’Rourke was behind him. “If you didn’t know better, you could almost accuse Hamish of being the one who produced the drawings.” A startled gasp escaped Sam and O’Rourke nodded knowingly.
“I’m just playing devil’s advocate,” she reassured hurriedly, realising how much she’d surprised him.
“Yes, but you do have a point. Maybe we shouldn’t show Hamish’s drawings alongside the ones we’ve discovered from Sotheby’s and the custard company.”
“I really don’t think the Chief Superintendent will accuse Hamish. Not with all this other evidence. And of course, Hamish has never had his drawings turned into advertisements for the custard company.”
“No, no, you’re right. I’m just seeing problems where there aren’t any,” Sam offered hastily.
“You’re probably right to be cautious,” O’Rourke mollified, and Sam knew he was looking for problems where there weren’t any. Not really.
Mason shook himself, wanting to dispel the worry.
“Ivy Reynolds is next. Date of birth 17th March 1918. She was found on 29th June 1925 in the sports ground that belonged to St Luke’s College off Magdalen Road at 6.30 am. It was ruled death by misadventure. There was never any mention of drowning. But, well, the file was the smallest of them all. You get the impression that no one cared that much. She wasn’t from the most affluent area of town. Posing her as though she was riding a horse was a mockery. Poor girl. Poor family.”
O’Rourke wrote as he spoke. Sam found Hamish’s drawing and then the matching advertisement in the 18th November 1939 edition of the Picture Post.
“She’s in Sketchbook D, on page 1,” Sam continued. All of the cases upset him, but there was something about Ivy’s that enraged him. So little care for her and her family. It shocked him to think that the local police had been so callous. The fact that there were no paper cuttings from the local newspaper made him realise it might not just have been the police who hadn’t thought it worth investigating properly.
“And so to Anthony McGovern,” O’Rourke recited the details quickly. Anthony’s file was familiar to them both by now.
“Born 18th May 1919, body found on the 6th October 1926, in the Women’s Institute's gardens on Walliscote Road. The coroner ruled it as an unlawful death, a drowning, again. He was only wearing one stripy sock when he was found.”
“The sketch is in book A, on the third page, and,” Sam paused. “Here’s the advertisement, from the 30th September 1939 edition and Hamish’s drawing.” He gazed at the image from the sketchbook. They’d not had police photographs to look at, only the ones from Cyril Rothbottom at the Weston Mercury. Seeing the drawing brought Anthony to life. It was unsettling to realise just how talented the murderer had been. Had it been easy for him to kill these children, or had it been a compulsion that tormented him? The desire for such answers plagued Sam. It pushed him even though the case was, to all intents and purposes, solved.
“The next one was quick, after Anthony,” O’Rourke mused. Sam’s head snapped up to the map, and he eyed the date.
“Only four months later. That’s not like him. Usually, the gaps are for years, not months.”
O’Rourke nodded unhappily.
“It makes me worry that there are other cases we don’t know about, even now, after all, we have two unknown images in the sketchbooks that we have, one in sketchbook B and one in D.”
“Hum,” Sam mused. “It does beg the question as to why. But we’ll never know. Not now.”
O’Rourke’s hooded eyes returned to her note-taking while Sam read from the report.
“Born on 25th December 1919. Body found on the 2nd February 1927. Poor family,” he couldn’t help but add. “Every Christmas Day since then must have been torture for them.”
O’Rourke’s silence filled the room, and Sam had to clear his throat before he could continue.
“Gerald Brown’s body was found beneath a layer of snow. He’d been missing for nearly a week. They only found him when the thaw started. This time they ruled it as death by misadventure. They assumed he’d been caught out in the snow and plunging temperatures and not managed to make it home. Especially as he was only wearing shorts and a shirt.”
&nbs
p; “Again, no crime photographs because the doctor decided he died from hypothermia. But here’s the advertisement, and Hamish has produced this image from the notes taken by the police sergeant who was called to the scene, a Davydd Davies. The chief inspector was down with influenza at the time, or so it says. It was Inspector Davies who contacted us. Said he couldn’t miss the similarity now he’d been alerted to the other deaths.” Sam kept his tone light. After all, who was he to criticise another? Even so, it would be a heavy burden for Davies when the truth was known.
“It seems to me that it’s another one where our killer got away with it because the investigation was lacklustre, to say the least,” O’Rourke grumbled, although Sam didn’t miss the sorrow in her sharp words.
“The drawing is in Book C, on page five.”
O’Rourke sighed heavily. “It doesn’t get any easier, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t. We have to take solace in knowing he's dead and gone, and no one else will die at his hands.”
“Perhaps, but if there are more cases that come to light, it’ll still feel as though he’s out there, enjoying himself if that’s why he did it.” She shivered as she spoke. Sam swallowed heavily. O’Rourke made an excellent point.
“Mary Thompson was found in Watford on 15th November 1928 by her older sister, Polly. She was born on 3rd May 1920, so one of the older children. Unfortunately, Polly ran to her mother on finding her sister unresponsive. Her mother then rushed to help Mary. They thought she might still be alive. She’d only been missing since the day before. The body was entirely disturbed by the time the police were involved. All the same, the report states that Polly had commented her sister was in a strange crouched position, both arms above her head.”
“Hamish produced a drawing that we matched to this advert of a girl weightlifting on 11th October 1941, and again, to sketchbook C, page three. It’s a bit of a stretch to make the connection with the details after the police were involved, but the fact that she only wore one sock makes it a certainty, in my mind, at least.”
“What was the coroner’s verdict?”
“Death by misadventure. They didn’t even do an autopsy. The body was unmarked. It had been a cold night.”
“Only the third female victim,” Sam mused.
“Yes, for this occasion and the choice of weightlifting, it would have been perfectly acceptable if he’d decided to pursue only males,” but there was no real bite to O’Rourke’s words.
“It was a risk, going to London,” Sam ruminated.
“Yes, and no. The greater risk was going to Watford. It’s far less built up there.”
“You would have thought someone might have noticed.”
“Apparently not. It’s as though he was always hidden. Not once has he even appeared as a suspect. Family members, or people close to the victims, but not strangers.”
Sam held his tongue. It was good that he and O’Rourke had the same opinion about the murders. But then, hindsight was a wonderful thing.
“And so to Glasgow. Deidre McGregor, date of birth, 6th August 1922, was found on Glasgow Green, close to Montieth Row, on 14th September 1929. The cause of death was determined to be drowning. While it made sense that she’d drowned, the river was close by; no one could decipher how the body had made its way away from the river or even why it hadn’t been found sooner. It was hardly hidden from view.”
“There was a year-long investigation into what had happened. The city's parents were in an uproar, but again, they found no answers, and eventually, only the father was asking for answers. And he died five years later, and since then, it seems that no one has even picked up the case file, not until one of Deidre’s friends, who happens to be in the police force now, read your alert.”
“Deidre was found with one leg extended far behind her, one arm far in front, and her head slightly tilted. The police photographs make it seem as though she’s dancing. Hamish drew her as well. She’s in Book B, on page seven.”
Sam paused and glanced at O’Rourke.
“Are you thinking the same thing as me?”
“Perhaps,” there was hesitation in her voice, so he took pity on her.
“The victims are spread across these books, in no discernible order. It must mean that these aren’t the only drawings he made of them. He must have continued to draw and copy from his original drawings, and we’ve not found those yet.”
O’Rourke gasped at the announcement, her face pale.
“That’s a terrible thought. But,” and O’Rourke paused. “It makes sense, I suppose. Unfortunately.”
“Do you want to take a break?” Sam asked because she did look quite unwell.
“No, no, it’s fine. I just. Well, do you think we’ll find the original drawings?”
“I would hope so. If they were also dated, as I know some artists date their work, it would seal the case even more.”
“I suppose I’ve just become so used to thinking of them in the adverts, smiling and playing, that I don’t want to consider how frightened they must have been. Or how twisted the artist truly was.”
“I agree. When we go to Cambridge, we’re going to need to be prepared for it all to be so much worse than everything we’ve already seen.”
Sam still considered calling an end to their morbid quest through the murdered children, but they were so nearly finished that he decided against it. Better to have the task completed than have to return to it later that day.
“Frederick Anderson was found on 23rd January 1930, by Conway Castle, opposite the railway line. He was found by a police sergeant called out to a disturbance at the castle. What he found was more horrifying than he could have hoped. Frederick hadn’t even been reported missing. His family believed him asleep upstairs. They had quite the shock when the police knocked at their home.”
O’Rourke scribbled away as Sam spoke.
“His date of birth was 17th April 1922. The cause of death was never fully determined. Some said that he must have fallen from the castle ramparts, but there were no marks on the body, and once more, he was placed strangely. The doctor determined that it must have been a head wound. The police sergeant said it could only have just happened because he was still warm to the touch even though it was freezing. It seems the fact he was wearing only his school uniform and no coat raised no alarm bells.”
“Again, Hamish’s drawing makes sense of it all, legs wide apart, arms flung back behind him. It’s so obvious that he’s been posed as though performing a long jump. I just can’t ignore it.”
“So, another one where there was no suspicion of foul play.”
“Yes. At least they did take photographs, and even in those, you can see that his lips are blue. Even I know he was drowned, and I’m no doctor.” Sam spoke with fury, and O’Rourke wisely held her silence. He breathed deeply, fought for calm, and then offered half a smile.
“Sorry, it seems this is unsettling both of us. Anyway. Hamish drew him, and here’s the advert as well, from 13th January 1940. And his image was in Book C, page 1.”
O’Rourke wrote as he spoke while Sam once more felt his eyes drawn to the map.
“I can’t believe he got away with it, not somewhere like Conway. It’s so small,” O’Rourke spoke conversationally.
“It does seem to me as though sometimes the risk of getting caught was more than half of the appeal.”
“So, you’re saying that just killing the children and drawing them wasn’t enough?”
“Absolutely. Or maybe, he tried to stop but couldn’t and became more and more reckless in the hope that he might be caught. It’s impossible to tell without being able to speak to him.”
O’Rourke considered his words, her eyes flashing from the map to the notes she was making.
“Come on, let’s finish off. I need a cup of tea and something to take my mind from all this.”
“Well, our last victim, that we know off, was William Smith, date of birth, 5th April 1924. He was discovered on 15th January 1933. He was fou
nd on the cricket pitch off Pier Road in Berwick upon Tweed. It was ruled as death by misadventure. Hamish has drawn the lad. He has his legs wide apart, one arm in the air. I would say he was throwing the cricket ball.”
“Bowling,” O’Rourke mused. Sam smiled at the correction.
“Yes, bowling. The wrong time of year to be playing cricket, if you ask me.” And she raised her head from the pile of papers and grinned at him.
“His drawing is in book B on page two.”
“Are we going to say anything about the other two images and not knowing who they are?”
“I don’t think we need to draw attention to the fact that there are even more unsolved cases out there. I think that’ll be obvious enough. Or at least, I hope it is.”
“Then, we’ll just lay out all the items, and we can leave it for the Chief Superintendent to draw his own conclusion.”
“Yes, I think we need some fresh air and to be away from all this, for now, at least.”
“Thank you,” O’Rourke’s words were soft, and she kept her eyes focused on her feet.
“I should be thanking you. You’ve supported me through all these terrible stories of lives cut short. No matter how much I wanted to solve the case, it never wanted to be in such a way.”
O’Rourke met his eyes then.
“I know, Chief, but, well, at least now, a lot of people will be able to grieve properly. Everyone needs answers, even to the most horrific of questions.”
With that, she stood and turned to the door.
“I’m going to sit in the sun for a bit with a mug of tea.”
“I’ll be along in a few minutes, and then I’m locking the door, and neither of us is allowed back in, not until we need to show off our house of horrors.”
Sam stood and placed the final magazine image next to Hamish’s drawing. He cocked his head to one side, appreciating just how good an artist Hamish was all over again.
Without those drawings, his wife would never have made the connection to the custard adverts. And then all these cases would still be unsolved. It was all such happenstance, but however it had happened, he was pleased that he’d been there to witness it all.”