Doppelganger

by Geoffrey West

  Stuart was still wearing his tee shirt and battered leather jacket. His stubble had almost acquired beard status, and the steel-framed reading spectacles slid down his nose, as his stubby grubby thumb scrolled across the screen of his iPad.

  “No wonder the public hate the media.” He grinned as he gulped down crisps and took a swig of his Fosters, burping quietly. “I reckon editors would commit murders if they could, just to be sure of decent copy. Matthews would, no question. Sales have gone through the roof since the first killing.” Stuart grew up in Sheffield, and his northern accent has been undiminished for all the years I’ve known him.

  He adjusted himself in the seat and slid his glasses up his nose once again. “Right, mate, let’s get down to it. First off, this is the deal, yeah? Fifty fifty on the upfront payment against royalties, and the same for any subsequent ones. And I get equal credits on the front cover, and I supply most of the facts. You write it up, and dig up all the crap about the family backgrounds of the victims, whitewash them up and tell everyone they were only flogging their arses on the streets because they were paying for chemotherapy for Granny. ‘Cos as things stand we’ve never got enough for 80,000 words, unless he tops some other poor beggar in the meantime. But your job is to find out all the kind of boring background shit that can pad it out, at the same time as you sex up the copy I give you. Plus you do any research I’ve not got the time for. I’ve got quite a bit of juicy stuff that was too raw to use in the paper. All in here.” He tapped the iPad. “I’ll email it all across to you later on.”

  “Fine. Can we talk through what you’ve got already?”

  “Okey dokey.” Stuart sniffed and blew his nose, then scrolled the screen, reading from it as he talked. “The first victim, Annie Marie Molloy, a 58-year-old prostitute, whose beat was in Canterbury East, near the station. Found naked and bleeding from wounds to her head and body, laying up against some railings. The window cleaner who found her, Stan Morris, couldn’t see her at first, wrapped up as she was in bright blue builders’ plastic sheeting. He investigated further and found there was summat inside the roll of plastic.” Stuart crammed more crisps into his mouth, releasing a fine spray of potato crumbs as he continued: “Lots of blood, horrific wounds to her head, evidence of partial strangulation. And she were scalped.”

  I nodded, remembering the coverage at the time. “In the American Indian meaning of the term?”

  “Absolutely. The skin and bone along the top of her head was sliced completely off, like lopping the top off of a boiled egg. When they found her, blood and brain tissue had leaked out all over the shop, just like it was supposed to have done when they topped Thomas Becket.”

  The image formed uninvited in my mind: eyes below an attenuated forehead, all the semblance of a normal face, but with an oozing mess of horror above.

  “How was it done?” I asked.

  “Pathologist reckons as how it was something heavy and sharp – particularly since the cut wasn’t clean, or even complete. Summat like a heavy sword or an axe sliced into the forehead and cracked open the front of the skull, then it looks as if it was sawn with a hacksaw or summat similar until most of the top half of the skull was sliced across. Then the front lid of the skull, along with the hair attached to the remainder of her head, was sliced away separately.”

  “Left with the body?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “The scalped sections are always missing. Police are reckoning he keeps them bits as some kind of trophy, mebbe.”

  I closed my eyes momentarily.

  Stuart rattled on, in professional mode. “Of course the Bible left on her chest, open at Judges chapter three, with verse 15 highlighted. Right Jack, Murder Number Two. Angela McCree was a much younger working girl, who frequented the High Street. She were one o’ them stick-thin kids, almost anorexic. A registered drug addict who’d resort to anything on hand if she couldn’t get reasonable gear. Dog walker found her in St Augustine’s Abbey Gardens. Hardly a mark on her, apart from the scalping and the damage to her head. Wearing jeans and nowt else.”

  “Injuries?”

  Stuart scrolled down the page. “Again, apart from the scalping, partial strangulation. The body were partially hidden under a pile of leaves. And again, the Bible left open on her chest, this time open at Job chapter 21, highlighted at verse 26.

  “Do you reckon the Bible references mean anything?”

  “Who knows?” Stu took a swig of beer. “Likely to be a religious nut who chooses prostitutes because he objects to their morals – wants to teach them a lesson, or some bastard who wants to mislead the coppers into thinking along them lines. Or the most usual reason: the killer enjoys killing women, and prostitutes are easy prey, out alone late at night. Mebbe we’re looking for someone inadequate, isn’t that what you psychologists say? A hatred of women means impotence or inadequacy.”

  “Both of them prostitutes,” I remarked. “What about Rebecca Fenton, the third victim?”

  “Another working girl, aged forty-five, found out at Greyfriars.”

  I thought of the idyllically beautiful riverside estate, where the oldest priory in England had recently been repopulated by Carmelite monks after 400 years. It was sacrilegious that such a holy and truly peaceful place, where the monks held services in the ancient chapel in the middle of a field, had been defiled by a murder such as this.

  “Same injuries, another Bible on her chest, this time with a verse from St John highlighted.”

  “Any significance in the verses he chooses, do you think?” I asked.

  “Haven’t a clue.” Stu took a gulp of beer and swiped a hand across his lips. “I’ll see if I can find a theologian to study the passages. You never know.”

  “And what do we know about the final almost-victim, Caroline Lawrence?”

  “Now that’s what’s interesting. Spoke to my mole on the investigating team just before I got here. As we thought, they are treating her as one of the victims. However, she’s not a working girl and never has been. Caroline’s a perfectly respectable woman – she works as an insurance loss adjuster here in the city. Her car broke down, and her mobile phone battery was dead. She made it to the car park beside Healey’s Wood and was walking back to the Saracen’s Head to phone for help. Had no idea that that particular car park is used for all kinds of illicit relationships – brasses go there in punters’ cars. It’s also known as a site for ‘dogging’ – you know, where couples go for no-questions-asked sex with strangers. They’re working on the principle that the killer assumed she were a working girl, found her alone and took his chance.”

  “And she ran off and blundered into the road?”

  “Aye.”

  “Did she see him?”

  Stuart shook his head. “Bugger sneaked up behind her. First she knew, he’d bashed her on the head, and was trying to throttle her. She struggled like mad and managed to bolt. Last thing she was reckoning on doing was turning round and looking at him.”

  “Could she say anything about her attacker?”

  “Nowt much. And this is summat that’s really weird,” Stuart went on. “Crazy really. The AMIT taskforce have obviously been reckoning on that it’s a man, that’s the usual thing you’d expect, right? But Caroline said she’s certain she remembered a smell of perfume.”

  “Perfume?”

  “Aye. Just before it happened, she remembers that she became suddenly aware of a strong smell of perfume.”

  “Aftershave?”

  Stuart shook his head. “Knows her perfume, does young Caroline, and she recognises it. Heaven’s Dust, by one of them famous names, like Chanel, or Givenchy. Here,” Stu reached into his shoulder bag and pulled out an envelope which he opened and took out a slip of card. “Get a whiff of this.”

  I smelt the card. Instantly a sweet flowery perfume filled my nostrils, and it triggered a memory. I’d smelt it somewhere before. Recently.

  “I popped into town and got a girl at the perfume counter in Debenhams to give me a sample. Ch
ance in a million they had some, but it were some special promotion. No point really, but I was passing, and thought, if I ever smelt it again I might be able to recognise it.”

  “And do you?”

  “No.”

  I tried to think where I’d smelt it before, but I couldn’t.

  “But, come on Stu. That level of violence, that degree of strength used. It’s someone who feels no affinity for women, an arch misogynist, perhaps a female-hating homosexual, surely. How could it possibly be a woman?”

  He shrugged and slurped his beer. “True, but It’s not just that. Caroline could be mistaken, but she reckons that just for a second she caught a glimpse of a hand. Painted fingernails. Statistically, most of these types of murders are done by men, of course,” Stuart muttered. “But if you accept that a woman could have done the killings, the method she used is neither here nor there. And think about it. How much easier it would be for a woman to pick up potential women victims than a man. They’d trust her, they’d be off guard when talking to her, whereas with potential punters, they’d be aware of the risks, they’d be ready to run. What’s more...” Stuart sat back and looked pensively into his pint, licking beer froth from his lips. “There’s plenty of vicious women.”

  “How is Rachel?”

  “Not seen her for nigh on six weeks now. She chucked me and I can’t say as I blame her. I drink too much, I’m always late for dates, I’m a crude selfish bastard and I let her down time and again. Wonder why she put up with me for as long as she did.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No one to blame but meself, mate.”

  “Do you miss her?”

  “Aye, course I do. How about you? Some time since your divorce, in’t it? I’ve not seen you with anyone. Got some lass you’re seeing on the quiet?”

  “No.”

  “Someone who’s already married, mebbe?”

  “I told you, no.”

  “Anyone on the horizon?”

  I shook my head.

  “Lying bastard.”

  Then I remembered where I’d smelt the perfume before.

  Lucy.

  It smelt just like Lucy’s perfume.

  Chapter 3

  HEAVEN’S DUST

  I’m a realist. The likelihood was that the characters who’d beaten me and threatened to kill me if I didn’t abandon the Sean Boyd book would obviously let their lesson sink in for a day or two, possibly even a week, assuming they’d achieved their end. Perhaps as long as ten days. But Ann’s presumption of a fortnight’s grace was probably overly optimistic. Besides, for all I knew they had an informant inside the publishers. And as soon as they found out that the book was going ahead regardless, they’d put out a contract on my life.

  I got up early and drove down to London, arriving in mid-afternoon. First I went straight round to an ex-soldier I know who now runs a shop in the East End. He supplies surveillance materials, gadgets that private detectives use, such as clandestine recording devices and special cameras and camcorders. He also sells defence equipment, and three hundred pounds bought me a Kevlar vest, a thick uncomfortable board-like garment that was designed to absorb the impact of bullets and knives. Mind, it couldn’t stop a bullet from a Mac 10, or a high velocity Uzi handgun say, and even an ordinary round would be likely to drive the wind out of you, most likely knock you over, but at least the impact would be spread over a relatively wide area, and in most circumstances there’d be no entry wound.

  Then I did something illegal, and distinctly risky. A contact in the underworld had once told me about an ‘armourer’, based in south London, who could supply any weapon for a price. A gun could be rented, provided it was returned to him unused or, if any rounds were discharged, the hefty deposit you had to leave with him would be forfeited, and it would be up to you to dispose of the weapon. A used gun, sullied by the attendant forensic evidence irrevocably etched into its workings, could often be tied to a specific murder or heist, precluding its use by anyone ever again. Normally I never break the law, and if anyone found the Glock 9mm automatic in my possession I would very likely be facing a prison sentence. But I was a marked man. The likelihood was that at any time a contract could be put out on me and I’d be in the kind of tight situation where a gun might be the only thing that could save my life. When I got home I carried the gun and ammunition in a Tesco carrier bag up to my bathroom. I wrapped the gun and the rounds in masses of clingfilm, put it back in the carrier bag and wedged the package up above the top of the hot water tank in the bathroom in a cupboard, behind several copper pipes.

  Then, for the hundredth time that day, I thought about Lucy.

  I felt a compulsion to see her again, but I was afraid I had no chance with her. But I steeled myself to dial the mobile number she’d given me, half expecting a brush-off. It was true that after my ordeal she’d spent the entire afternoon with me, and collected me from hospital in the morning, but that had been an act of duty, because she was obviously a kind person, who wanted to help someone in trouble. Knowing her attitude to my profession, let alone the fact that I’d agreed to do the very thing she thought was appalling, that is start writing a book about the Bible Killer, undoubtedly meant that she might not want to have anything to do with me. Writing the Bible Killer book, of course, was something I’d have to keep to myself for as long as I could, if I didn’t want to wreck my putative relationship with her before it had even begun.

  I needn’t have worried. She was friendly, and when I tentatively asked if she’d like to have dinner with me, she insisted that I should come to her flat, where she could cook us a meal.

  I already knew about Mad about the Book. The bookshop was in the ground floor of a 15th-century building whose downstairs was one of those packed-to-the-ceiling antiquarian book emporiums where cardboard boxes full of paperbacks spilled out onto the pavement during opening hours, and where there was a cavernous interior, where shelves tottered dangerously under the weight of thousands of tomes, and there was barely room to walk. To the right of Mad about the Book’s main entrance, Lucy led me to a much less noticeable doorway, behind which was a narrow winding staircase. That first time I climbed those stairs, I had to practically bend double to clear the ceiling until I emerged into the cramped oak floor-boarded nest that was her home.

  Weirdly, behind the outside door to her flat, were huge metal bars that slid into the brickwork either side, which were, as Lucy told me, “To protect me. Don’t laugh.” She went on: “But I would always feel insecure, if I didn’t have locks like this. I couldn’t sleep, I’d be afraid of someone breaking in. The windows are alarmed, too. I’m a scaredy cat, I know, but I worry about being attacked. Especially now.”

  “Canterbury is one of the least crime-ridden cities in England.”

  “I know. It’s stupid, but that’s just the way I am. Easily scared. And right now it’s even more important to take care.”

  And that wasn’t all of it. She carried a flick knife – a vicious looking thing that was undoubtedly illegal – in a sheath attached to her ankle, and showed me how quickly she could slip it into her hand and activate the sharp snap that flicked out the vicious pointed blade, apparently honed to a razor’s edge. She also carried a can of mace, also illegal, the spray that disables an attacker by temporarily blinding him. And she told me she’d attended an unarmed combat night class, and was adept at certain karate chops.

  It did make sense in one way, but it was only later that I understood why she felt so scared all the time. Of course by then it was too late.

  Like the staircase, the sitting room had a very low ceiling, as well as tiny, leaded-light windows with frilly curtains, a small television and a comfortable floral-pattern covered sofa and chairs, and the floorboards were dark oak, waxed to a bright shine. Through one doorway was her tiny kitchen, and the other door led to her bedroom. I’d glanced into the bedroom in passing, and it was just as I’d imagined it would be: chintz covered eiderdown over the half-tester bed, that had neat dark blue drapes.
The ceilings and walls were painted white between the twisting woodworm-riddled black oak rafters. The whole flat smelt of furniture wax, cooking herbs and the faint scent of incense from joss sticks. Lucy told me that she liked to light a joss stick wherever she could, she enjoyed the sharp hard tang of the smoke, it reminded her of her mum, who’d apparently been a hippie in the 60s. Even now, whenever I smell that characteristic sharp tang it reminds me of that time, when I was more content than I’ve ever felt before or since.

  Her workshop was next door to the bedroom. On one work-table was a miniature wooden dressing table, two inches tall, complete with shield-shaped, swivelling mirror. Its drawers, so miniscule that it was almost impossible to grasp their handles between fingertips, slid in and out smoothly, constructed using such delicate joinery that it was unbelievable. Another workbench was taken up partially by a large bandsaw, an elaborate affair with a metal platform, the centre of which had a fine-toothed blade running at right angles. There was also a pedestal drill, with a similar flat bed and a handle to pull the drill bit downwards, and there were also miniature clamps, tweezers, and a special miniature hand-held drill, as well as several large magnifying glasses on bendable metal arms. In the corner there was a partially constructed dolls’ house – Georgian, with fine-grained floorboards and tiny fireplaces. On shelves above her worktable there were racks full of sheets of very thin timber and strips of metal, as well as metal rods, shelves full of tiny boxes of screws and different kinds of adhesives, tiny pins and screws and an assortment of miniature chisels and other small hand tools.