Let The Bones Be Charred

by Andy Maslen

  Baz nodded.

  ‘That leaves me and Garry. I want to talk to the husband. He discovered her body, after all.’

  ‘Boss?’

  Camille had all but stuck her hand in the air.

  ‘What is it, Camille?’

  ‘Any news on the initial pathologist’s report?’

  ‘I received it about twenty minutes ago. Nothing we haven’t already figured out for ourselves. Basically, Mrs Connolly was subdued somehow, possibly by being drugged, then mutilated by having her breasts cut off, and then she was strangled.’

  ‘Jesus!’ came the low mutter from Will Dunlop, ‘we’ve got a real nutcase on our hands.’

  ‘Or not,’ Roisin said. ‘This could still be a common-or-garden domestic dressed up as something weird to throw us off the scent. You know that most murders are either a domestic, a drunken brawl that went sideways or a side-effect of some other criminal activity, don’t you?’

  Way to motivate the new guys, Roisin, Stella thought. She stayed silent, wondering how Will would handle the implied criticism from the senior detective. Admirably, it turned out.

  ‘Of course I do. But I can’t see a woman like Niamh Connolly being involved in the sort of criminal activity that would get her killed. And anyway, villains don’t usually go in for anything quite as baroque as what happened to her, do they? And a pub fight? I don’t think so. Which just leaves the husband. I’ll go out on a limb here, but even the most royally pissed-off husband who’s been cheated on or otherwise shafted is hardly likely to turn his wife into that, is he?’

  He pointed at the crime scene photo of Niamh Connolly on the whiteboard.

  ‘Baroque? What’s that then, some kind of new grunge music?’

  This was Arran, gamely trying to defuse the incipient spat between Roisin and Will.

  Will put his hands up in mock surrender.

  ‘OK, OK, I know. I lost the accent but not the vocabulary. Guilty as charged, officer. Arrest me!’

  He held his hands out to Arran, wrists together, palms uppermost.

  ‘If I may, ladies and gentlemen?’ Stella said, just loud and sharp enough to cut through the banter. ‘There’s a dead woman in one of the stainless-steel capsule hotel rooms over at Westminster mortuary, so let’s get a move on, shall we?’

  Back in her office, Stella called Jerry Connolly’s mobile number. He answered almost before the first burring ring tone had started.

  ‘Jerry Connolly.’

  ‘Mr Connolly? I’m Detective Chief Inspector Stella Cole. I work in the Metropolitan Police’s Special Investigations Unit. We are the team responsible for catching the person who murdered your wife.’

  Over the years, Stella had found that plain speaking was her friend more often than her enemy. Trying to find appropriate euphemisms for the worst atrocities one human being could inflict on another rarely did anything beyond adding embarrassment to the grief, shock and horror the victim’s family were already having to cope with.

  ‘I thought the Wandsworth people were doing that.’

  ‘They did begin the investigation but, for crimes of this nature, the Met’s policy is to have a specialist unit handle the case. We are part of what’s called the Homicide and Major Crime Command. What I would like to do is come and talk to you, if that’s OK?’

  Connolly sighed. He sounded drained, as if even expelling the air from his lungs took some sort of monumental effort.

  ‘Very well. If it will help catch the man who did that to Niamh. When?’

  ‘As soon as possible. I don’t know if you’re working or…?’

  Connolly’s voice hardened.

  ‘You know, detective chief inspector, although the City has a reputation of profits before people, when one’s wife is brutally murdered, one does, actually, take a few days off for compassionate leave.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Of course.’

  ‘I’m staying with friends in Wimbledon. My house is still off limits. Come whenever you like. The address is 71 Edge Hill. Geoff and Sue are both out at work,’ he added. ‘Will you want to talk to them?’

  ‘It’s possible, but we can arrange that separately. For now, we’d like to talk to you. We’re based in Paddington. Would an hour from now be OK? Say, midday?’

  ‘Fine. Goodbye.’

  Stella pocketed her phone and shook her head.

  ‘Great! First conversation with the husband and I’ve already put his back up,’ she said to the four walls.

  Grabbing her bag and checking she had a notebook and pen as well as a digital recorder, she headed for the door.

  ‘Ready, Garry?’ she called across the squad room.

  Garry had just returned from the kitchen with two aluminium travel mugs with what she hoped was coffee.

  ‘All good, boss,’ he said with a smile.

  The drive from Paddington Green took fifty minutes. Although the Westway was running freely and they made it through Shepherd’s Bush and Hammersmith in good time, things choked up as they approached Putney Bridge.

  This meant Stella had plenty of time as they crawled their way along Putney High Street to remember. The High Court judge, Mister Justice Sir Leonard Ramage, had driven along this route in his purple Bentley on the way to murdering Richard and Lola. Ramage had paid for his crime with his life and she experienced a dull ache of grief now, rather than the homicidal rage that had driven her to find and execute the men and women responsible.

  The traffic freed up as they hit Putney Hill and then they were driving along the eastern edge of Putney Heath and onto the southeastern edge of Wimbledon Common.

  ‘It’s down here on the left,’ Stella said five minutes later, after consulting her phone.

  10

  TUESDAY 14TH AUGUST NOON

  Stella knew the look well. The man who opened the door wore it like a sad overcoat of the most threadbare construction.

  Jerry Connolly was around the six foot mark, she estimated, but his stoop had reduced him by a few inches. His face seemed devoid of animation. His red-rimmed eyes were likely the result of drinking or weeping or a combination of the two. And his thick blonde hair, though cut short, was a mess, sticking up at odd angles as if he’d showered then slept on it.

  The interview Wandsworth CID had conducted had furnished her with the bare bones of the couple’s life. Jerry Connolly was fifty-eight, a successful insurance broker. He and Niamh, his second wife, had been more or less happily married for eight years. He’d been a Guards officer before going into finance.

  His first wife, Clarissa, had died of breast cancer in 1998. Their son, Giles, was now twenty-six and working in South Korea as an estate agent. Niamh Connolly and her first husband, Niall, had divorced in 2001. Their son, Cormac, was twenty-one, two years into an Archaeology degree at Reading university.

  ‘Mister Connolly? DCI Stella Cole and DS Garry Haynes.’

  ‘Come in,’ Jerry Connolly said, in a voice even wearier than it had sounded on the phone an hour earlier.

  He turned and shambled into a brightly lit sitting room at the front of the house. Stella took a seat on an immaculate dove-grey suede sofa, and Garry sat beside her. Connolly sank into a matching armchair and seemed to almost blend into its upholstery. His grey needlecord trousers and white polo shirt did nothing to lift the unnatural pallor of his complexion.

  Stella began with the usual formula, although she tried as best as she was able to inject a note of genuine sympathy. She knew first-hand how grief could rob you of everything, even your sanity.

  ‘First of all, Mr Connolly—’

  ‘Jerry, please.’

  She nodded and continued speaking in a quiet but firm voice.

  ‘Jerry. We are very sorry for your loss. I want you to know that we are going to do everything in our power to find the person who murdered your wife.’

  ‘I hope you do,’ he said. ‘I don’t think he’s going to stop at Niamh.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  He rubbed a hand over his unshaven che
eks. In the quiet of the cool, immaculately tidy room, the sound of his palm against the bristles was clearly audible.

  Stella scanned the shelf behind him and saw a row of typical family photos. Some were clearly casual holiday snaps, others more likely studio shots, husband and wife with two grownup daughters, attractive young women both. A type of photo Jerry Connolly would never, ever pose for again.

  ‘It’s pretty bloody obvious, don’t you think? A man does that to a woman, well, I can tell you it wasn’t someone settling a personal grudge, although believe me there are plenty of those. I don’t know if Niamh was his first or not, but it’s clearly a serial killer.’

  He uttered the last two words as flatly as if he were describing the colour of his shirt.

  Stella was caught in two minds. Part of her agreed with Connolly’s assessment. It was the thought that had been running laps inside her brain since she’d seen the crime scene photographs. But another part screamed, ‘Take care!’ If word got out that there was a sexually sadistic serial killer stalking London’s streets – its wealthiest streets – there’d be a media shitstorm, quickly followed by the political version.

  ‘I know how distressing the circumstances of Mrs Connolly’s death were, but it’s far too early to start jumping to conclusions.’

  Connolly flapped a hand, almost languidly, as if to say, whatever, I don’t really care.

  ‘Fine,’ is what he actually said. ‘You’re the experts. So, what do you want to ask me?’

  ‘Actually, the first thing I want to ask you is where your family liaison officer is? Didn’t the officer who spoke to you on Friday appoint somebody to stay with you?’

  ‘He did, yes,’ Connolly replied in clipped tones. ‘A Detective Constable Lewis. Very capable young woman. I told her I could handle my grief in my own way without her jumping up to make a pot of tea every five minutes. She’s back at Wandsworth police station, I believe, though she said she would keep me posted on developments.’

  Far from the FLO being the sympathetic tea-maker of TV dramas, Stella knew they played a crucial investigative role. No sense in pushing the point with Jerry Connolly. Not yet, anyway.

  ‘And would you like her to stay as your FLO? I can appoint a new officer if you would like, now that the case has been transferred to us.’

  Connolly heaved a deep sigh.

  ‘Do you know, I really don’t care. DC Lewis, one of yours, whatever you think best.’

  Stella made a note. She raised her head and looked Connolly in the eye.

  ‘Did your wife have any enemies? People who’d want to do her harm?’

  Connolly sat a little straighter in his chair.

  ‘You do know what Niamh did for a living, detective chief inspector?’ he said, sounding incredulous, which Stella knew he had a right to be.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then you’ll know she picked a job, a calling, to use her words, where making enemies was pretty much a condition of employment. You only have to look at the emails and letters she received on a daily basis to see that. The comments on her Facebook page were just as bad. Hate-filled people sending death threats, saying the most—’ He passed a hand over his face again and Stella could see the pain it was causing him to talk about his wife, ‘—the most, obscene, disgusting things you can imagine.’

  ‘Did she keep the hate mail?’

  ‘Yes, in a filing cabinet in her office. It’s in the converted stable block in our back garden. I think they took it all away, the first lot of police who came out.’

  ‘How about the emails and online messages?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Niamh kept them all. Had a folder she named “Crazies”.’

  Stella made another note. Something to pick up on with Mark Hellworthy.

  ‘And from those you saw, or the things your wife discussed with you, did anybody in particular stand out? Anyone who went further than messaging her and writing?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Not really. They’re only brave when they’re hiding behind a keyboard. People like that run a mile if you confront them personally.’

  ‘And did you ever have to do that? Confront someone personally? At your house, for example?’

  ‘Never. Niamh used a PO Box as the charity’s address. The house is in my name and there are far too many J Connollys for anyone to make the link to Niamh.’

  ‘How about in public? I know that Niamh,’ Stella paused, ‘is it OK if I use her first name?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘I know Niamh went along to the LoveLife protests. I’ve seen her on TV. Did she ever mention any of the rival protesters getting physical, threatening her to her face?’

  ‘Not to me. One thing you have to understand about Niamh, she wasn’t afraid of anything. This was everything to her, part of who she was. She didn’t back down from anything. If one of those bloody women’s rights people had threatened her, she would have dealt with it there and then. I used to ask in the early days but she just told me not to worry.’

  ‘OK, well, we’ll follow that up anyway. It’s what we call a line of enquiry. As SIO, sorry, Senior Investigating Officer, it’s one of my jobs to develop a working theory as to how we go about catching Niamh’s killer. Lines of enquiry are the different hypotheses we follow through. So people violently opposed to her views would be on our radar. What about in her personal life?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Was there anyone with whom she had fallen out? Anyone from her past who might wish her harm?’

  Connolly frowned and Stella could see from the way his lips tightened that he didn’t think her questions were relevant. She agreed with him, but that didn’t mean she could afford not to ask them.

  Every copper has a simple formula drilled into them from day one on the job. ABC: Assume nothing, Believe nothing, Consider (and check) everything. That’s what she was doing now. Even though she was pretty sure Mark Hellworthy would have already gone over the same ground.

  ‘Nobody,’ he eventually replied. ‘Outside of her work, Niamh had only friends. And to save you the trouble of asking, our marriage was fine, too. No infidelities on either side. We loved each other very much.’

  ‘Thank you. I understand that these questions may seem irrelevant to you, or even insulting, but we have to go through every possibility in order to make sure we don’t miss something. And that’s why we also need to ask you one last question today, Jerry.’

  ‘What?’

  Garry spoke for the first time. He and Stella had agreed that he’d be the one to ask the most risky question of all. The one that could provide a valuable lead or righteously piss off the most important witness.

  ‘Can you tell us where you were between 11.00 a.m. and 4.00 p.m. last Friday?’

  As though he’d been expecting the question, Connolly answered simply and straightforwardly. No emotion. No flaring temper. Mark Hellworthy would have asked him the same question on the day his wife had died.

  ‘I was at work. In my firm’s offices all day. We had a board meeting first thing, which lasted until lunchtime. I took lunch at my desk and then was in a series of meetings until six. You said that was your last question?’

  ‘Yes,’ Stella said.

  ‘Then here’s something I want to tell you. I was in the army before the insurance business. Scots Guards. I served in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq. I’ve seen what men will do to women in war. Rape, mutilation, torture. It’s used to terrify and demoralise local populations. To exact revenge sometimes. Or just to satisfy an individual’s bloodlust. But it’s chaotic, the way it’s done, I mean. Frenzied. What happened in my house was cold. Clinical. I’ve seen evil in my life, as I’m sure you have. And on Friday, I believe I saw it again. Tread carefully when you go after this man, DCI Cole. Tread very carefully.’

  After thanking Connolly, and promising once again that she would not rest until his wife’s murderer was arrested, charged and convicted, she and Garry let themselves out of the house and cli
mbed back into his silver Ford Mondeo.

  ‘What d’you make of him, boss?’ Garry asked as they headed for the main crime scene, or, rather, group of scenes: Valencia, on Wimbledon Parkside.

  ‘I think he’s in shock. I think he’s falling back on his military training to prevent himself screaming.’

  ‘You like him for it?’

  Stella turned in her seat to look directly at Garry, who kept his eyes glued to the road ahead.

  ‘Seriously?’

  Garry shrugged. ‘Nine times out of ten it’s the husband.’

  ‘You saw the photos, right?’

  ‘Yeah. But what if you wanted to get rid of your wife? You’d know the stats. You read the books, watch the shows on TV. So you do it like a serial killer and send the cops off on a wild goose chase. Stranger things have happened.’

  ‘OK, well, let’s say, for the sake of argument, I do like him for it. He has an alibi—’

  ‘Unchecked.’

  ‘An unchecked alibi, but he’d have to be mad to provide one as detailed as that if he couldn’t back it up with witnesses. And can you really see a guy like that hacking his wife’s breasts off while she was still alive?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s a long shot. But you always say Occam’s Razor when one of the babies starts flinging wild theories about.’

  ‘Yes, I do. But the idea that you look for a solution to a problem involving the fewest assumptions doesn’t mean throwing everything else out of the window.’

  ‘He did sound kind of sarcastic when he talked about her “calling”, you remember? I made a note. Hey, arsehole, learn to drive!’ he barked suddenly, as a beige Fiat 500 in front of them suddenly slammed its brakes on to dive into a parking space beside a meter.