Jenny tried to answer but broke down in tears. Sobbing hysterically, she allowed herself to be led to a police car.
‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’ she blurted out when she had recovered enough to try and talk. ‘She’s dead.’
Her sobbing had subsided, but she was still shaking so much that she could barely speak. All she could think of was Zoe’s body, lying in the rain.
‘She’s getting wet.’ She burst out crying again. ‘She’s getting wet.’
47
Eileen shook her head, her expression drawn. ‘I know it’s hard to believe there’s been another victim, but we just have to maintain our efforts to find the killer.’
Geraldine wondered whether the detective chief inspector had been about to urge them to ‘redouble’ their efforts but had thought better of it. Everyone had been working hard. It wasn’t for lack of trying that they hadn’t yet succeeded in making an arrest.
‘We don’t know whether this latest death is connected to the other two,’ a young constable piped up.
No one responded to the comment. They all understood this third death was connected to the other two under investigation. They were still waiting to hear the results of the post mortem but they had received results of forensic testing carried out on the body. It made no difference to the dead young girl, but her body bore traces of the DNA that had been found on both Grant and Felicity. A double murder was worrying enough. To be hunting for a serial killer was far worse. So far the papers and news channels had not reported any details of Zoe’s death, but it wouldn’t be long before they latched on to it and began hounding the police and winding up members of the public. Geraldine could just imagine the headlines: ‘Serial Killer on the Loose’, with an equally disturbing subheading: ‘What Are the Police Doing?’ At a time when the police desperately needed members of the public to supply them with information, they couldn’t afford to let the media discourage people from coming forward, but there was little they could do to stop the negative reporting.
‘All we’re doing is trying to find out who killed them.’
Geraldine’s colleagues all turned to look at her and she realised she had voiced her thoughts.
‘Sorry, just thinking aloud,’ she said.
Several of her colleagues smiled.
Eileen grunted. ‘Let’s run over what we already know about him. He’s Caucasian, blond with blue eyes, and he seems to be killing in the centre of York. His first victim was a history teacher, male, thirty-two, the second one was another teacher, female, twenty-seven, and now this third one was a female student, eighteen years old.’ As she mentioned Zoe’s age, her voice seemed to harden. ‘Is it a coincidence they were all involved in education in some capacity? Or that the victims are becoming progressively younger? Or is this just opportunistic indiscriminate killing?’ She paused to allow the implications of her questions to sink in, before resuming briskly. ‘So come on, let’s get on with tracking him down. If there’s anything else that connects these three victims, we need to know what it is. Were they ever in the same place at the same time? Do they have any associates in common? What’s the link between them?’
Eileen strode back to her office to tussle with schedules and budgets, and no doubt prepare to fend off journalists. Geraldine didn’t envy the detective chief inspector her workload. In the meantime, teams were set up to work with the borough intelligence unit looking into the victims’ histories, and Geraldine’s own task was waiting. Disconsolately she made her way to the car park. The latest victim was only eighteen. It was going to be hard speaking to the bereaved parents.
Jonah looked up without his customary grin when Geraldine entered the room.
‘Another youngster,’ he said, by way of a greeting.
‘Eighteen. She was just finishing her first year at the university.’
‘The same age as my daughter,’ Jonah said.
They were silent for a moment, gazing at the body. Unclothed, with her hair scraped back off her face, she looked like a child.
‘She was fit,’ Jonah began and broke off with a scowl. He sighed and resumed. ‘She was fit and healthy.’
Geraldine rarely saw Jonah looking downcast.
‘What was the time of death?’
She already knew the answer, but hoped a specific question would draw him away from his internal musings. She was right. With a shiver, Jonah snapped back into his usual briskness.
‘Right then. She was young – eighteen –but I’d have judged her to be around thirteen from her physical development. She was killed yesterday evening, somewhere around nine, but –’
‘I know,’ Geraldine interrupted him, ‘the body was lying out in the rain overnight so it’s impossible to be precise about the time.’
Jonah shrugged as if to say, if you know so much, why are you here questioning me.
‘I’m sorry, I interrupted you.’
‘She was killed by one slash that cut through her carotid artery.’ Jonah paused and frowned. ‘I would have thought the killer must have been splashed with her blood.’
‘He left a trace of his own DNA in the brief struggle.’
Jonah nodded again. ‘Yes, he seems a bit careless, doesn’t he? Almost like he’s leaving a calling card. Here I am, your blond blue-eyed killer, come and find me.’
Jonah’s words were lighthearted, but he sounded angry. They had worked together on several cases, but Geraldine knew nothing about him beyond the fact that he was a pathologist. She had only just learned that he had a teenage daughter. It was easy to forget that outside the narrow context in which they met, he had a life she knew nothing about.
Zoe’s parents were due to arrive to make a formal identification of the body but Geraldine hadn’t been tasked with meeting them. Instead she went to speak to the dead girl’s flatmate. Until now Jenny had been too distraught to give a coherent account of how she had found the body. Her mother had arrived to take her home, and Eileen wanted her to give a statement before she left York. She had agreed to speak to Geraldine in her flat.
Jenny was a slender girl with light ginger hair and hazel eyes bloodshot from crying. She was seated on a sofa in the living room with her mother at her side.
‘I went to put the rubbish out,’ Jenny said, before breaking down in tears.
‘That’s all right. Take your time,’ Geraldine replied gently, inwardly fretting at the waste of time.
Her mother held her hand as, stammering and sobbing, Jenny described how she had found her flatmate lying by the rubbish bins.
‘I didn’t know it was her at first. And then I saw the blood. And then her face…’
‘Jenny, I know this is difficult for you, but if you could answer a couple of questions, that might really help us,’ Geraldine said.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘What time did you get home last night?’
Jenny glanced at her mother. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Was it late?’
‘No.’ Jenny sniffed and made a visible effort to control her tears. ‘It must have been about ten thirty or eleven. It wasn’t late. I had an early lecture…’
‘We think this happened around nine o’clock last night.’
Jenny let out a sob. ‘She must have been there when I got back, lying by the bins. If I’d known… if I’d known…’
Geraldine leaned forward in her chair and spoke slowly, to emphasise the significance of her next question.
‘Did you hear anything unusual, anything at all, outside your flat last night?’
‘No,’ Jenny shook her head, ‘no, no, I didn’t. I wish I had. I wish I’d known…’
She dropped her head in her hands and sobbed.
Her mother looked at Geraldine, with tears in her own eyes. ‘I think Jenny’s told you everything she can about her traumatic experience. Please, can you leave us in peace t
o come to terms with what happened?’
Geraldine sighed. There was nothing Jenny could tell her about the night her flatmate had been killed. All Geraldine could do was fish for information.
‘Was there anyone you can think of who might have held a grudge against Zoe? Any violent boyfriends?’
Jenny shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’
‘Did she have any particular friends she might have confided in?’
‘Josie.’
‘Josie?’
Jenny nodded. ‘Zoe had a friend called Josie. They were on the same course.’
Making a note of Josie’s name, Geraldine left.
48
It was fortunate for Geraldine that all the students who had known Zoe had been called to a meeting on the campus that afternoon. She made her way to the packed lecture hall.
‘Remember the college counselling service is open to all, students and staff,’ a pastoral tutor was saying as Geraldine made her way to the podium. ‘If you have been affected in any way by the loss of this popular member of our community, remember you are not alone, and please don’t feel you have to deal with this by yourself. We are here to support you.’
There was more along those lines. Geraldine waited until he finished speaking before she approached and introduced herself.
The tutor invited her to join him on the dais. ‘Would you like to say a few words?’
Geraldine hadn’t been planning to talk to the assembled students, but she took advantage of the opportunity to urge anyone who had known Zoe to contact the police. When she finished, she asked the tutor to point Josie out. Then she waited outside. When the meeting was over the students filed out of the building. The atmosphere among them was subdued. Josie’s pink hair was easy to spot, and Geraldine hurried after her. Josie was chatting to another girl and didn’t hear Geraldine call her name, but her companion paused in her stride and looked around.
‘Josie,’ Geraldine repeated, drawing level with them. ‘Might I have a quick word with you?’
The other girl sniggered. ‘Ooh, the police are after you. What’ve you gone and done?’
‘Shut up, you twat, this is about Zoe.’
Josie turned away from her crestfallen companion and smiled sadly at Geraldine. ‘If there’s anything I can do, I’d like to help, really I would. But I didn’t know Zoe that well. I only really spoke to her for the first time this term, and now –’ She broke off with a shrug, her features contorted in dismay.
‘But you were friends with her?’
‘Yes, that is, I knew her, but not very well. But we connected, you know. I like to think we would have been friends if only we’d had time to get to know each other better.’
‘Can we go and sit down for a moment so we can talk?’
She led the girl over to a bench beside the path. Josie looked appropriately solemn, although Geraldine had the impression she was basking in the attention. Her eyes flicked up constantly to glance at the students filing past, as though checking that they had noticed she was engaged in a private conversation with the policewoman who had spoken to them en masse.
‘I was wondering if she might have confided in you?’
‘Confided? Yes. All the time. People seem to find me easy to talk to.’
Geraldine didn’t comment on that, but pressed on with her questions.
‘Did she mention anyone who might have had a grudge against her?’
‘Not exactly, but…’
‘But…?’
Josie looked unexpectedly uncomfortable. ‘It sounds daft, but she was attacked on the street recently.’
Geraldine didn’t even attempt to hide her surprise. ‘Attacked? When was that?’
Josie shook her head, and her pink hair fluttered in the breeze. ‘I don’t know exactly.’
‘Can you tell me what happened?’
Josie thought for a moment. ‘It must have been about a week ago.’
‘What happened?’ Geraldine repeated, wondering whether the girl actually had anything useful to tell her or was just stringing her along.
‘Well, I wasn’t there, but she told me some old woman approached her on the street and wanted to buy her a coffee.’ Josie gave a reluctant grin. ‘You’re thinking it sounds pretty lame, aren’t you? Honestly, I don’t blame you. I thought just the same. But the thing is, she seemed really spooked by it. I mean, I think she was actually scared. I told her to go to the police if she was really that worried. But I can’t say I took it seriously. I mean, an old woman offering her a coffee. It’s hardly the Yorkshire Ripper, is it?’
‘What else did she say?’
Josie screwed up her eyes in an effort to recall what Zoe had told her. ‘She said this old woman grabbed her by the arm and told her she was going to lose her looks, and she said – that is, Zoe said to me – we should warn the other girls because this woman was crazy. And she said she might not have got away at all if two guys hadn’t come along and rescued her, because the old woman didn’t want to let go of her and she was strong. I know it sounds daft, but that’s what she told me. Anyway, she was so rattled, I told her to go to the police about it, but I don’t know if she did. I figured that if she really was scared, she ought to do something about it. And if she was just making a drama out of nothing, then there was nothing more to say. What was I supposed to do about it? There was nothing I could do, was there?’
Beneath her bravado, Geraldine could see that Josie really was very upset. At any age it would be a terrible experience to lose a fellow student in such a sudden and violent manner, but she was young. Like Zoe, she was only about eighteen.
‘You did the right thing,’ Geraldine reassured her. ‘There was nothing else you could have done.’
But it was an unsettling report all the same. On her return to the police station, Geraldine scanned the records for the past week and discovered that six days earlier Zoe had indeed turned up at the police station to report that she had been attacked on the street by a middle-aged woman. The details matched what Josie had said, and sounded equally unlikely. It was the kind of report that might be dismissed as an overreaction by a hysterical teenager. But a week after reporting the attack, Zoe had been murdered. It was hard to believe that could be coincidence.
‘Are you suggesting a woman is working in tandem with the male killer we’re looking for?’ Eileen asked, when Geraldine told her what she had discovered. ‘And why the hell didn’t anyone else flag up that Zoe visited the police station just six days before she was killed?’ She turned to Geraldine. ‘Are you really the only person who came across this? It wasn’t even down to you to check through recent reports. Who the hell did Zoe speak to when she came here last week?’
Geraldine muttered that it was only by chance she had come across Josie’s name.
‘If you hadn’t pressed Zoe’s flatmate for names, and followed up her mention of Josie, we might not have turned this up for another few weeks, if at all,’ Eileen snapped. ‘This is just the kind of thorough detective work that gets results.’
‘Geraldine’s certainly thorough,’ Ariadne said.
‘She doesn’t let anything go,’ Ian agreed.
Used to being respected as a successful inspector, Geraldine had struggled with working as an unknown sergeant. She was pleased to know that she was gradually reestablishing her reputation as a good detective. But her fleeting gratification was overwhelmed by distress over the death of another teenager, killed after appealing to the police for help. Along with her colleagues she had failed to protect first Daryl, and now Zoe, with the most terrible consequences imaginable for them both.
49
Geraldine hadn’t been to visit Celia and her family for a couple of months, and was eager to see them again. The baby would have changed quite a lot since her last trip, and she couldn’t wait to hold him again, and see with her own eyes how
much he had grown. Hearing Celia talk about him wasn’t the same at all. She was also keen to see her niece as often as she could while Chloe was still a child. In addition to her excitement at seeing her family, she was looking forward to getting away from York where the case was virtually at a standstill, with three murders and no leads to the killer. Everyone at the police station was pressing on in an atmosphere of sombre determination but they weren’t making any progress, and she desperately needed a break from it all.
‘Solid police work is what will get us a result in the end,’ Eileen kept telling the team. ‘There are no easy answers in our line of work. We just have to keep going and not leave anything to chance.’ She carried on for a while along those lines.
Geraldine didn’t interrupt the detective chief inspector to say that dogged police work was all very well, but what they could really do with was a stroke of luck. The way things were progressing, it seemed they would hear about another murder before they discovered the identity of the killer.
‘We have his DNA,’ Ariadne grumbled, voicing the general frustration. ‘How long is it going to take us to find him?’
They all knew that the longer a case dragged on, the more difficult it was to resolve. While the traces grew cold with the passage of time, and potential witnesses forgot what they had seen, the police could do nothing but wait for the results of forensic examination of potential evidence found at the crime scenes. Meanwhile the killer could be anywhere by now.
The sun was shining and the traffic was relatively light, yet somehow Geraldine didn’t experience her usual feeling of elation as she drove away from York. The investigation weighed too heavily on her conscience to be readily dismissed from her thoughts. Her whole purpose in working had always been to help and protect the public. Recently two young people had approached the police for help, and both were now dead. After what had happened, Geraldine couldn’t help questioning the usefulness of her work. But without it her life would have no purpose at all. She put the radio on in an attempt to distract herself from her miserable thoughts, but it didn’t help. Whatever music came on irritated her. After switching channels to hear a high-pitched woman’s voice in the middle of a story about marital breakdown, she turned the radio off.
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