by Jack Benton
‘I was barely off the streets. I, of course, had no idea Jeremy was responsible at the time, but I wasn’t about to come forward with any names. It just wasn’t done, and you didn’t want Jeremy coming after you. He was a nasty piece of work if ever there was one. Growing up in those places does things to a man’s personality.’
‘You seem to have come through it okay,’ Slim said.
‘I gave up a lot more than life on the streets,’ Terry said, his tone telling Slim that the old man had likely taken part in as many horrors as he had in Iraq.
Slim had a thousand more questions, but Terry had work to do, so they arranged to meet at a later date. Slim headed back to Holdergate, where he met Lia, who had just finished an early shift, in the Station Master for lunch. ‘The Strangler,’ he said, pulling from his pocket two pictures, one of Jennifer Evans in her nurse’s uniform, another of the four victims he had printed from a shop near Manchester station.
‘You think she was Bettelman’s first victim?’
‘When I saw the pictures of the murdered girls, it left me in little doubt, at least initially,’ Slim said. ‘I mean, the hair colour is the same, the approximate age at the time of death. A lot doesn’t add up, though. If Jim Randall had told Jeremy about Jennifer, why the long delay between her death and his first recognised murder? He killed those four women in the space of six months, but there was over a year between Jennifer’s disappearance and the first murder.’
‘Perhaps there were others not recognised as his?’
‘It’s possible. I’ll ask my secretary to dig up a list of unsolved murders from that period.’
‘But you don’t think so?’
‘At this point, I have no proof of anything.’
Slim fell silent for a while as they ate. He sensed Lia watching him, and wondered how much of his theory he should reveal. The biggest problem was that if Jennifer had been murdered, where was the body?
The other victims of the Peak District Strangler had been left out in the open, almost as a taunt to the police, but of Jennifer there remained no trace.
41
‘Thanks for agreeing to meet me,’ Slim told the grey-haired, bearded man sitting opposite him in the cafe outside Wentwood Station. ‘To be honest, I wasn’t sure anyone would respond to my request.’
The man, whose name was Peter Edwards, shrugged. ‘Well, if you’re going to make a program kissing his arse, at least get your facts straight.’
Edwards, according to Kim, had jumped at the chance to be interviewed for a possible TV program about the life of Tobin P. Firth. Slim had already sat through three pseudo-interviews with people who had proven to have barely known him at all, with most of their anecdotes little more than hearsay. One woman had shown up with her hair freshly done and then been upset that no TV cameras were present. Slim had explained to each that the interviews were speculative. On hearing this, the woman had given stunted answers to his first few questions and then cried off the rest of the interview, citing the sudden onset of a headache.
Edwards, on the other hand, appeared all too pleased to dish whatever dirt he had on his former classmate.
Propping a clipboard on his knee, Slim said, ‘What do you remember about Tobin?’
Edwards rolled his eyes and scoffed. ‘You mean Toby? Always made me laugh when I saw that name. Guy was full of himself.’
‘At school, you mean? What kind of student was he?’
‘“Lively” would be a polite way to put it. “A big-mouth,” less so. Bit of a joker, liked to rile the older kids then run off laughing. He wasn’t a fighter; always talked his way out of it, sometimes left his mates to get copped for it.’
‘Was there much indication that he’d end up writing books for a living?’
Peter laughed. ‘Oh yeah. He was constantly telling stories, many of which were elaborate lies. He never had a consistent circle of friends because he was always moving between groups. It made him hard to genuinely like, but it also felt like a popularity contest. He wanted to be the boy who knew everyone.’
‘Did you like him?’
‘Honestly?’ Peter sighed. ‘I didn’t hate him. He was entertaining to be around, and always a laugh. But you couldn’t trust a word that came out of his mouth. If you got on with him it was fine, but if you got on his bad side you’d suddenly hear rumours about yourself, like you had body odour, or you’d shagged the spotty girl everyone took the mick out of, or you’d been caught in the toilets with your dick in your hand and a copy of the class photo. No one would ever know quite where the rumour came from, but you could bet your life it started with Toby. Sometimes it seemed like he played school the way most people play video games these days. Like it was something to be won.’
Peter claimed to have last seen Toby aged fourteen, before Toby transferred schools to a different area of the county, but he had come with a contact for a woman called Denise Layman, whom he claimed had been a close friend of Toby’s. Slim thanked him for coming, then headed back to his guesthouse to respond to some more voicemails.
Kim had left a message to say she had finished reading Toby’s series, but when Slim called back she didn’t answer. Probably gone to lunch, he assumed. Kay had also called but had left only a short message asking Slim to call him back. However, on Slim’s attempt he got no answer, so instead he found himself penning a letter to Marjorie Clifford, thanking her for her letter and letting her know his progress on the case so far, promising to contact her if he ever solved the mystery.
After eating a sandwich from a newsagent, he headed off to meet Elena again. Instead of greeting him with a smile as he entered the same coffee shop they had met in for the first time, her face was sullen. She looked up once as he entered, then looked down at a coffee she was languidly stirring.
Slim took a seat opposite, then called the waitress and ordered a coffee.
‘Thank you for calling me,’ he said. ‘I have some updates on your case.’
Elena looked up. ‘There’s only one thing I want to know, Mr. Hardy. Have you found my mother?’
‘No, but—’
Elena lifted a hand, her brow wrinkling. ‘Then I don’t need to hear more. I received your invoice two days ago, and I of course paid it in full.’
Slim suppressed the urge to grimace. Kim was handling such things now, with an efficiency he had never been able to muster. Had he still been responsible, he would likely never see a penny for his work. Much as he appreciated the payment, he felt a sense of guilt at the lack of positive information he could offer in return.
‘I assure you that I’m close to a breakthrough—’
‘I’m afraid that I think it’s time we closed this investigation,’ Elena said, her voice rising as she spoke over him. ‘Perhaps it was wishful thinking on my part. I did hope you might have found some answers, though.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s all right,’ she said, her tone telling the truth, that it wasn’t, not at all. ‘I do thank you for your efforts.’
Elena got up to leave just as Slim’s coffee arrived. She gave him a motherly pat on the shoulder as she passed, but she didn’t look back.
42
Kim’s phone call the following morning confirmed Elena had officially dispensed of his services. Slim, who had spent the night with Lia, wasn’t sure how to tell her his business in Holdergate was now over, so after they ate breakfast together he told him he had some paperwork to deal with and headed back to the guesthouse.
His suitcase lay open where he had left it, a pile of laundry recently done in the guesthouse’s coin washing machine folded neatly in a plastic bag alongside.
Slim squatted down and started to pack, then changed his mind and stood up. With a staff member in his employ and premises to pay rent on, he no longer had the option of working for nothing. However, it was Tuesday, and it was unlikely Kim could organise a new case before next Monday. He had told the landlady he would stay until the end of the week.
He could at least
follow up on the open leads.
Feeling a fresh sense of urgency, he headed for the door.
Charles Bosworth was waiting for him at Holdergate Station. As they boarded a train to Manchester and took seats in the front carriage, Slim’s questions were queueing up.
‘I feel like I’m being taken on an outing by my grandson,’ Bosworth said, beaming out of the window. Then, with a grin, he added, ‘A shame we’re going no farther than Manchester Piccadilly.’
‘I don’t want you to feel spoiled,’ Slim said.
‘I’ll pay for the ice-cream,’ Bosworth quipped, as he pulled Jennifer’s historical case file out of his bag and arranged the papers on his knees.
‘I doubted you’d want to keep this casual for long,’ he said.
‘I have a lead that connects Jennifer to the Peak District Strangler,’ Slim said.
Bosworth lifted an eyebrow. ‘Do you now?’
‘There are a few issues of location and circumstance, but I’m confident she was on his radar.’
He pulled out the same photos he had shown Lia. Bosworth nodded. ‘I’ve seen these before and the resemblance was noted at the time.’
‘As we discussed before, it’s circumstantial at best,’ Slim said. ‘The first of the four known Strangler victims wasn’t for more than a year afterward, and they were all prostitutes. Their bodies were all found relatively quickly after the murders. Bettelman was working at the time as a delivery driver in Manchester. The blizzard meant there was no way he could have driven to Holdergate on that night. It’s not possible, is it?’
Bosworth shook his head. ‘No.’
Slim reached into a bag he had brought himself and withdrew two pictures. One was the second picture Toby had given him which showed the man standing by the park fence. The other showed two apparent line sketches of different men’s faces.
Kay had faxed Slim the two pictures early that morning. An added note explained how Kay’s friend had separated the two composite images as best he could, then filled in the missing information to complete what now appeared like two artists’ impressions.
‘Do you recognise either of these men?’
‘This one, nope, but this one … good God.’ Bosworth frowned at the sketch of a man around thirty with a deeply furrowed brow, hard eyes and a savage scar which slashed across the corner of one eye and down to his jawline. Bosworth looked up.
‘I want to hear it from you,’ Slim said. ‘I know what I think, but I want to hear you say it.’
Bosworth let out an airy whistle. ‘It’s him. That’s Jeremy Bettelman, the Peak District Strangler.’
Slim nodded. ‘And my next question is how did he happen to be standing at the gate of Holdergate Park when Jennifer Evans came out of the station on the evening of January 15th, 1977?’
43
‘This is genuine new evidence.’ Bosworth said, barely able to contain his excitement. ‘Good God, you really have overturned a few stones. How in the blazes did you find this?’
‘Luck, for the most part.’
They had discussed aspects of the case throughout the journey. Slim, however, still had too many holes to fill in before he came to any conclusions. Even proving Bettelman was responsible beyond a reasonable doubt was a hollow result without Jennifer’s body. A dead man couldn’t reveal a grave’s location. There could never be true closure for Elena Trent until her mother was found.
Slim helped Bosworth down from the train and they made their way out to the main concourse. There, they went to an information desk where Slim related the details he had given over the phone that morning. After being asked to wait for a while, they were greeted by a smiling man in overalls.
‘Ted Dean,’ the man said, offering a hand to both. ‘We spoke on the phone. A pleasure to meet you.’
With far more enthusiasm than Slim might have expected of a man who worked in a railway junk yard, Ted Dean led them through a door and out into the goods yard. Slim stared at the rows of rusting locomotives, passenger carriages, and freight wagons lined up across a vast field of sidings tracks that extended nearly as far as the first commuter station at Ashbury.
‘She’s over here,’ Ted said, as Slim, helping Bosworth, who was negotiating the weed-choked rails and pits of rubble and vegetation in between, followed with far less confidence.
‘You know,’ Ted continued, doubling back to keep his companions in earshot, ‘it’s so rare that someone shows an interest in one of these old girls, that when you got in touch, I couldn’t wait to meet you.’
Bosworth looked ready to flash Ted the badge, but Slim tried to be more convincing with his interest than he had been with Robert Downs. He quoted lines he had memorised from the internet and tried to ask suitably technical questions in order to reinforce his chosen identity of a keen trainspotter.
‘Thirty-four years on the Hope Valley, another five running locals on the Manchester metro, then it was retirement for this old girl,’ Ted Dean said, reaching up to pat a rusted lump of metal on the corner. ‘Well, here she is. I’ll leave you and your grandfather alone for a while. Feel free to take a look around. The doors are open so you can go inside. Let me know when you’re done. I’ll be in the office over there.’ He pointed to a corrugated iron shed near the station’s back entrance.
Bosworth turned to Slim. ‘Grandfather?’
‘I suppose I could have been your youngest,’ Slim said, grinning.
Bosworth propped up his stick and sat down on a pile of girders while Slim pulled out a digital camera and began taking photographs of the old train. He took a quick look around the outside, then another quick look inside, but most of the internal fittings had been gutted. Finally he turned his attention to the train’s underside, squatting down to peer underneath at the wheels and axels and various component parts, taking photographs or at times running his finger over the rusted surfaces, unsure quite what he was looking for, but sure he would know when he saw it. All the while, Bosworth watched him like an old mentor supervising a young protégé.
Finally, after half an hour of stumbling around the old train, Slim packed up his camera and headed back to where the retired policeman sat.
‘Thanks for waiting,’ he said.
Bosworth smiled. ‘I’m sure you’ll tell me all about what you found on the way back,’ he said.
‘Once I’m sure of what I found myself,’ Slim said. ‘If I found anything at all.’
An hour later, after another long discussion with Ted Dean about things Slim struggled to pretend to understand, he found himself again sitting opposite Bosworth as the train accelerated out of Manchester Piccadilly, a twilight falling over the city behind them.
‘So,’ Bosworth said, after a few minutes of genial chat. ‘I’m guessing you’re not a closet trainspotter. What was all that about?’
Slim opened up his camera and turned it around for Bosworth to see. He pointed at a photo of the train’s underside.
‘I was exploring a possibility,’ Slim said. ‘It’s clear from the original photograph that Jennifer fled from whoever she believed she saw in the snow. We know from the lack of tracks heading elsewhere that she returned to the station. Had she fled back onto the platform, she had to have lost her bag, realistically close enough to the station that it could have found its way to the old bridleway in the jaws of a fox—or, as I believe more likely at this point, a dog—on something sharp or pointed from which it would have taken the amount of power to remove it that stretched the leather around the teeth marks. Are you following?’
Bosworth nodded. ‘And you thought she might have tried to duck under the train?’
Slim nodded. ‘I was looking for a spot where a woman stooping, perhaps even on her knees, might have had her bag pulled off her shoulder as she fled. And do you know what I found?’
‘What?’
‘Nowhere.’
Bosworth frowned. ‘Which means what?’
Slim stroked his chin. ‘My belief at this point is that Jennifer Evans fled back in
to Holdergate Station and never left.’
44
‘Hey, Slim, good to hear from you. You keeping well?’
‘I’m in a rich vein of form,’ Slim said, ‘depending on what you think of my track record. Don, I’m afraid I’ve got another favour to ask.’
Donald Lane, an old platoon mate of Slim’s who had left the army with his record unblemished and had gone on to set up an intelligence agency in London, gave a dry chuckle. ‘I have a whole separate log book just for you, Slim,’ he said. ‘It’s got some quite spectacular entries, so you’ve got a standard to live up to. What do you have for me?’
‘Do you remember a serial killer back in the late seventies called Jeremy Bettelman? He was nicknamed the Peak District Strangler. He killed four women between January and April of 1978, but committed suicide in prison in 1984.’
‘Rings a vague bell.’
‘I think he’s connected in some way to my current case. He was a van driver in the Manchester area. No doubt his movements were investigated. What I’m looking for is a copy of those records. Specifically, I’m looking for the regularity with which he visited Holdergate in the period between December 1977 and the first of his four confirmed murders.’
‘Good God, Slim, you don’t ask for much.’
‘I’m testing you, Don. I want to know just how good you are.’
Don gave a long sigh. ‘Give me a couple of days.’
‘Thanks, Don.’
Slim hung up, then headed for a lunch date with Lia.
She was waiting in a quiet Italian restaurant just off Holdergate’s main square. Slim was surprised to see she had dressed up for the occasion.
She lifted an eyebrow when she took in his appearance. He had shaved, but wore yesterday’s jeans and a sweater that was at least three days unwashed.
‘I’ll give you a chance to remember,’ she said, a sly smile on her face. ‘Before I chastise you for forgetting what is a quite landmark occasion.’