‘I can’t say I like him much.’
‘That’s as may be, but he’s got the ear of the commissioner. If he’s to take over on a permanent basis, then you’d better stay on his side.’
‘What about DCS Goddard? Can he do something?’
‘If we catch Charlotte Hamilton, then anything is possible. Without a result, both the DCS and I are out and back on traffic duty.’
‘A bit dramatic.’
‘At the least demoted or transferred out to the suburbs.’
An announcement sounded in the station. The 4.15 p.m. to Newcastle is leaving in ten minutes from Platform 4. First stop Peterborough.
***
Charlotte, using the GPS installed in the BMW, made good time; twenty minutes after stealing the car she was on the A1 and heading to Peterborough. She had travelled on the train from Newcastle many times, and she knew it would arrive in Peterborough at 5 p.m. She had a greater distance to travel, and the train was quicker. The drive should take two hours; she had one hour and fifty minutes.
Exceeding the speed limit on more than one occasion, she made the trip in one hour and forty-two minutes. She left the car and rushed into the railway station. Quickly purchasing a ticket, she waited for the train from London to pull in. It arrived on time. Charlotte looked for familiar faces; she saw none.
As the train stopped, she climbed into the second carriage. She knew she would need to search the train. Her disguise was good, she knew that, but there was no way to fool the DCI again, as she had that night in Newcastle.
Charlotte sat patiently in her seat waiting for the train to leave. It was still some distance to Newcastle; she had time. Carefully she looked around the carriage; no one she knew. She felt safe.
In the fourth carriage, Isaac stood. He looked around, phoned his men up and down the train: nothing.
‘Looks like we’re okay,’ he said.
‘What happened to her?’ Sean asked. Both he and Isaac were sitting close to Gladys Lake on the trip from London: one on either side of her.
‘I won’t feel safe until I’m back in Newcastle,’ Dr Lake said.
‘We’ll be there soon enough,’ Isaac replied.
The train pulled out five minutes after it had arrived in Peterborough; its next destination, Doncaster.
Charlotte felt the knife in her bag. It would be dark outside before the train arrived in Newcastle; she decided to wait for another ninety minutes.
Sean went and purchased some food and drinks for his party of three; Charlotte ate nothing, not moving from her seat. She didn’t even complain when the child in the seat behind kept prodding the back of hers with his feet. She felt as if it was the end of a long journey.
The light outside the train started to dull, a sign of the impending night. Unwilling to wait any longer, she pulled up the collar of her coat, ensured the hat she wore concealed her face, and moved forward in the train. She walked through the first carriage, scanning left and right; attempting to move her eyes, not her face. There was no sign of her prey and her bodyguard.
She retraced her steps, back through the second carriage where she had been sitting; the third carriage was the same as the first. She took a seat.
A suspicious woman, at least to Charlotte stood at one end of the third carriage. Charlotte arose from her seat and moved into the fourth carriage. Immediately a message on Isaac’s phone: ‘She’s heading your way from the front of the train.’
Charlotte saw the woman on the phone, realised that she had been spotted. She lunged at the woman, caught her a glancing blow with her fist, causing the woman police officer to fall back and onto the floor. Charlotte moved forward, oblivious to the danger and the outcome. Sean was first to spot her. ‘Stop,’ he yelled.
Charlotte took no notice and kept moving forward. Sean went to draw his gun from its holster, but the train was full. A child was running up and down the corridor between him and the woman. Charlotte pushed the child to one side with her foot and continued forward, reaching Sean. He attempted to grab her. She pulled her knife out from her bag and slashed him badly across the face; he fell to one side, holding his face and attempting to control the bleeding.
Isaac was right behind Sean. He pulled his gun. ‘Stop, or I’ll shoot.’
‘Shoot then. I only want that bastard woman.’
The passengers on the train, confused about what was happening, craned their necks; one man stood up.
‘Sit down!’ Isaac shouted. ‘Police. This woman is extremely dangerous.’
In the confusion, Charlotte moved forward again. Gladys Lake stood up. ‘Charlotte, please stop, you need help.’
‘Not your help,’ Charlotte replied.
Isaac stood between Charlotte and her target. Some of the passengers were screaming in fear; some had hidden in their seats. A child cried.
‘Charlotte, stop,’ Isaac warned her again.
She ignored him. The distance between the two of them was no more than six feet. Isaac realised that he had no option but to pull the trigger. The bullet hit her in the left leg, causing her to falter. His police training had taught him to aim for the torso, but the risk of hitting people in the carriage was too high.
Undeterred and apparently impervious to the injury, she continued. Isaac pulled the trigger again, this time hitting the other leg. Charlotte, unable to continue, fell forward. ‘You bastard,’ she mumbled weakly, blood trickling down her legs.
As she fell, she raised the knife in front of her. She collapsed into Isaac’s arms, the knife piercing his shoulder. By this time, Sean, temporarily recovered, had taken control of the situation. One of the plain clothes had phoned for an ambulance to be at the next station, five miles away.
Charlotte, wounded but not fatally, was treated by Gladys Lake on the train as it headed to the station. Isaac, not so badly injured, although in a lot of pain, held a towel that he had been given by one of the passengers to his wound, the blood soaking it.
‘Don’t worry, Charlotte. I’ll look after you,’ Dr Lake said.
Charlotte, unable to speak, looked horrified.
Sean O’Riordan phoned DCS Goddard to update him, then DCI Caddick. After the situation had stabilised, he phoned Wendy and Larry. Sara Marshall, on hearing the news, phoned Charlotte’s father.
‘I’ll make sure she is treated well,’ the sad man replied.
Charlotte had killed seven people, including her own brother, yet her father still loved her.
The End
Murder in Little Venice
Phillip Strang
Chapter 1
To those who lived on the houseboats that lined either side or the cyclists and the walkers who regularly used its towpaths, the Regent’s Canal was a place of beauty. Only a few would know of its history, and that two hundred years previously it had been busy with barges shipping cargo from the seafaring vessels that docked at Limehouse on the River Thames, to connect with the Grand Canal, and then up through England.
Even fewer would know that it was named after Prince Regent, a frivolous man, the son of a mad King. He was better known for his grossly expensive tastes in decorating palaces and wasting money, although some others may have known of his penchant for mistresses, including the infamous Mrs Fitzherbert.
Such history was far from the mind of Mary Harding as she walked her dog along the towpath between Westbourne Terrace Road Bridge and Harrow Road in an area of London known as Little Venice. It was still early, and it was only her and her dog, a sprightly Jack Russell. She had walked that stretch of the canal many times before and still enjoyed the atmosphere. She looked up at the elegant Regency houses as she walked; wished she could afford to buy one but knew she probably never would. She glanced over at the water, and sometimes into the open windows on the houseboats: some were modern and luxurious, others were run-down. The smell of early morning cooked breakfasts pervaded the air.
Mary Harding maintained her pace, trying to rein in the dog as it tugged on its lead. A waste of money for
dog training, she thought.
‘Stop barking,’ she said, knowing full well that people were still sleeping in their boats no more than six feet from where she was. She had had problems with the dog before in the flat she shared with two others, just two hundred yards from the canal, although separated from the houses close to the canal by several million pounds in real estate value. The dog, of which she was uncommonly fond, would have to go, she knew that. A good home in the country where its barking would not offend anyone.
Mary Harding moved forward to grab the dog and to scurry away with it in her arms. The dog took one step forward, peering into the water, barking incessantly.
‘Shut that damn dog up,’ a voice bellowed from within the confines of a houseboat. A nervous woman, Mary Harding apologised as best she could, but the dog continued to defy her.
Looking into the water, the woman could see why. There, in the water, wedged to the rear of the belligerent man’s houseboat, was what appeared to be a dead animal.
She found a stick nearby and prodded the carcass; it turned over. Stricken with horror, incapable of using her phone, she hammered on the side of the houseboat. ‘Help, help!’ she screamed.
The man who had criticised the dog came out within seconds. ‘What the –?’
‘There, behind your boat.’
Still barefooted, and only wearing a tee shirt and shorts, the houseboat owner looked over into the water where the dog had been barking. Then, still half asleep, he rushed back to the houseboat, picked up his phone and dialled the emergency services on 999.
***
‘It’s enough to turn your stomach,’ Crime Scene Examiner Windsor said. They were the man’s first words apart from the pleasant early morning courtesies on arriving at the scene. The former towpath, now a footpath, had been blocked off at both ends from upstream at Westbourne Terrace Road Bridge down to Harrow Road – the people who would normally walk down there relegated to Warwick Crescent. From there the curious could watch the investigation unfold.
‘What do you reckon?’ DCI Isaac Cook asked. It was still early, and he would have preferred to be in bed, but when the phone rang, he had been out of the door within five minutes. After apprehending the murderer in his previous case, the psychotic Charlotte Hamilton, he was once again the shining star at Challis Street Police Station, especially after she had stabbed him in the shoulder, although he wondered if the murders in the area would ever reduce in numbers.
‘What’s left has been in the water for less than a day,’ Windsor’s reply. Gordon Windsor had been assigned to Challis Street for some years, and the man knew what he was talking about. Isaac Cook knew that the on-the-spot analysis from the CSE would be enough for him to bring the full team together. The pathologist and the autopsy would reveal more about the body, or what remained of it, on the towpath by the rear of the houseboat.
Jim Parsons, the owner of the houseboat, and Mary Harding, the dog’s owner, were both sitting down at the other end of the boat drinking cups of tea. Larry Hill, Isaac’s DI, was interviewing them. Parsons, previously annoyed with the barking dog, was patting it.
‘White, male, age uncertain,’ Windsor said.
‘Any chance of an identity?’ Isaac asked.
‘DNA, missing persons. It may be possible, but there’s not much to be going on with here.’
Isaac looked at the body, shielded from public view by a hastily-erected crime scene tent. He could see the CSE’s reluctance to be more precise. It was clear that whoever had done it had been a butcher. It was evident why the woman had thought it was a slab of meat that was bobbing up and down in the water. Apart from a torso, nothing else remained: no head, no legs, no arms. Even Windsor had felt a lump in his throat on seeing the body for the first time, and some of the other police officers, uniforms, had vomited into the canal.
‘The cause of death?’ Isaac asked.
‘I’d have thought having your head cut off would have been as good a way as any,’ Windsor replied.
‘Dead before decapitation?’
‘Pathology may be able to tell you, but I can’t be more precise. I’d say after death, but don’t quote me on that.’
‘Any injuries to the body?’
‘None that I can see.’
‘Murder?’
‘It hardly seems to be an accident, does it?’
The two people integral to the discovery could not help with the details about the body; one was walking her dog, the other was asleep. Both Isaac and Larry stayed at the crime scene for two hours before returning to Challis Street. The uniforms had commenced interviewing people walking past, and Wendy Gladstone, Isaac’s sergeant, would conduct a door-to-door later in the day down Warwick Crescent and then up Delamere Terrace, although it was a long shot. Unless the team knew how long the body had been in the water, and the flow of the water in the canal, it would not be possible to ascertain where the body had entered it. It was believed, not certain, that what had been found at the rear of the houseboat had come from upstream, but where? DCI Isaac Cook and his Homicide team needed to meet.
***
Detective Chief Superintendent Goddard put his head round the door of Isaac’s office to give the obligatory words of encouragement before leaving. ‘I’ve total confidence in the team, hopeful of an early result, keep up the good work.’
Isaac could only reflect on the insincerity of the man. Goddard had always been his mentor, but now the man’s political manoeuvring, his attempts to ingratiate himself with the commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police, his ability to suck up to politicians had started to grate.
Sure, on the previous case with little progress on catching the killer he had held on to Isaac for as long as he could, but in the end he had been dumped as the SIO and supplanted by a downright miserable sod of a man by the name of Seth Caddick. Isaac knew that if he hadn’t played his hunch right and arrested the serial killer, he would no longer be at Challis Street. Almost certainly out of London, maybe a remote station in the country or demoted.
Mid-morning, the key members of his team gathered in Isaac’s office: Larry Hill, his DI, Sergeant Wendy Gladstone and Constable Bridget Halloran, the department’s case prosecution officer. ‘An update, sir?’ Wendy asked.
‘I’ve already started work on the paperwork,’ Bridget said.
‘This is what we have,’ Isaac said. ‘At 6.05 a.m. a body was discovered in Regent’s Canal at Maida Vale. The woman who found it was walking her dog.’
‘And the woman now?’ Wendy asked.
‘Once she’d given her statement, she was taken home. Also, the owner of a houseboat gave a statement as the body was wedged under the rear of his boat. There is no suspicion attached to either person.’
‘Any indication as to how long the body had been there?’
‘According to Gordon Windsor, the condition of the remains indicate that it had not been in the water for long so we must assume it had drifted down the canal. As for a more precise time? That’s up to Pathology, but it may prove difficult.’
‘Why?’ Bridget asked.
‘The body had been dismembered, and there is no head.’
Both Wendy and Bridget looked shocked.
‘Murder?’ Wendy asked after clearing her throat.
‘That would be the logical conclusion. Gordon Windsor assumes it would have been a blow to the head or a bullet, but with no head, there’s no way to prove it.’
‘How do we establish the identity?’ Wendy asked.
‘DNA may help, or at least it may give us an approximation of its background: Anglo-Saxon, Asian.’
‘African?’ Bridget suggested.
‘The body’s white.’
‘Where do we go from here?’ Wendy asked.
‘Missing persons. You and Larry can do some checking. In the meantime, we need someone who understands river flows, especially the Regent’s Canal. Camden Lock is about three miles downstream, there are no locks upstream, at least none that should affect the flow. W
e need to put together some names of possible victims, and hope Pathology is able to do some reconstruction analysis: height, age, ethnicity.’
‘Long shot, sir,’ Wendy added.
‘Agreed, but let’s go with what we have.’
‘We’re dealing with savages here,’ Larry said.
‘That’s understood, unless there was a reason for concealing the identity.’
‘It’s still savage, and if the body’s not been there for long, then maybe he’s not been missed yet.’
‘Regardless, we have a murder case. No easier, no harder than our previous cases, and we managed to solve all of those. We’ll solve this one, I’m sure of it,’ Isaac said.
He had to admit he was becoming tired of the endless succession of murders. London crime figures, especially murders, were down, yet his area of London was continuing to accumulate the numbers. True, he knew that he and his team had solved them all, even when the odds were not stacked in their favour, and when others within the Met were looking for them to fail, or at least, him. Not that it concerned him unduly. He knew how it worked, although it was a distraction. The best he could do was to get on with it and prove to his doubters that they were wrong.
***
Larry observed prior to entering the Canal and River Trust’s building located next to Westbourne Terrace Road Bridge on the western side of the canal at Little Venice that the water flow was negligible.
Once inside, George Ashburton, one of the Trust’s employees, confirmed his observation. ‘Minimal. Just enough to keep the water flowing towards the Thames, although if there’s a lot of water upstream, then it’ll flow a little faster.’
‘If an object was thrown in the water, let’s say within the last twenty-four hours?’ Larry asked.
‘We always have to deal with that problem. The locals are the worst, but so are some of the tourists with throwing in plastic drink bottles, stolen bikes. You’d be surprised what turns up if we drain part of the canal.’
DCI Isaac Cook Box Set 1 Page 84