What Would Wimsey Do?

by Guy Fraser-Sampson

  By the time he returned, the team had made two significant discoveries.

  “Good news and good news, guv,” Metcalfe greeted him. “I’ll give you mine first and then you can hear Karen’s.”

  Karen was sitting on Metcalfe’s desk and, as he had come into the room, Collison had experienced a fleeting suspicion that whatever they were discussing, it was not the case.

  “OK, go ahead.”

  “Our man did enlist with the territorials several years ago,” Metcalfe said, “but he dropped out almost at once. He never even completed his probationary training.”

  “So much for that—pretty much as expected. Karen, what have you got?”

  “Something pretty explosive, I think,” she said with a smile. “You were right about Clarke renting his flat, sir. The owner is listed at the Land Registry as Colin William Barker of Lyndhurst Gardens. I rang him to double-check and it is indeed our Dr Barker, husband of Katherine.”

  Collison sat down heavily on an adjoining desk. “Bloody hell!” he gasped.

  “There’s more,” Karen went on. “He told me that they didn’t use a letting agent and that Kathy did all of that sort of stuff herself. It was almost like a hobby, apparently, gave her something to do. I asked if that included showing prospective tenants around and he said yes, absolutely. He confirmed that she had met Clarke several times; there were some plumbing problems to sort out after he moved in, he said.”

  “So our suspect knew the last victim,” he said, still dazed by this revelation. “Is that good or bad, I wonder?”

  “Good, surely, guv?” Metcalfe said, puzzled.

  “I’m not so sure.” Collison looked at his watch. “Let’s give Peter a quick ring before we leave. We can put him on the squawk box so we can all hear. Karen, see if you can get hold of him.”

  They gathered around her desk as she got through and switched on the loudspeaker.

  “Peter,” said Collison. “We’ve had a bit of a surprise here. It turns out that our suspect actually knew the last victim. He rented a flat from her. What do you make of that?”

  Whatever Peter made of it obviously took him a bit of time to think about, because there was a long silence before he responded. “It’s rather surprising,” he said at last. “Serial killers are on the whole opportunists, and usually target complete strangers, people they’ve never seen before. The Yorkshire Ripper would be a good example.”

  “So serial killers aren’t generally stalkers as well?”

  “No. There was a case in Florida a while back, I think, where someone who had been stalking women ended up killing three of them, but no. It certainly isn’t usual.”

  There was another long silence.

  “Thoughts?” Collison asked eventually.

  “My thoughts would be as follows,” said Peter slowly. “First, do we know that he did actually stalk her? Surely she would have noticed if he had, and might have told someone—her husband, for example. It’s quite possible that the fact that they knew each other was coincidental. It just so happened that the opportunity which presented itself featured someone he knew.”

  “Good thinking,” Collison said. “Karen, you’d better speak to Dr Barker again, and check whether Kathy mentioned anything about Clarke in the weeks before her death.”

  “There is one other possibility,” Peter’s disembodied voice added. “It’s most unlikely, but I mention it for the sake of completeness.”

  “Yes, go on.”

  “I appreciate this would mean you re-investigating all the other murders,” Peter said cautiously, “so I hesitate to raise it, but it is a logical alternative.”

  “Go on,” Collison said again, glancing impatiently at his watch.

  “What if he stalked them all?” Peter asked. “I rather think it has to be all or none. I could get comfortable with either, but I’d be dubious about one murder being completely different to all the others…I’m not sure how you find the answer, though,” he trailed off.

  “That’s our problem,” Collison said briskly. “Peter, many thanks again. Come on, Bob, we must be off.”

  It turned out that the case team from the DPP’s office already felt in need of counsel’s opinion, so that afternoon’s meeting was scheduled to be held in the Temple, that network of gardens and Victorian tenements which sits behind the Strand, unsuspected by most yet waiting to be discovered. At its eastern end stands King’s Bench Walk, and it was to one of these doorways, adorned with a simple list of barristers’ names, that Collison and Metcalfe made their way.

  After sitting in what seemed to be a rather cramped hallway for some time, they were ushered into the august presence of Mr Alistair Partington, a young man trying to give a convincing impression of being middle-aged. Neither this attempt nor the august atmosphere survived very long, however, as Collison realised as soon as he walked through the door that the two of them had sat through lectures at King’s College London together. The two men exchanged introductions.

  “So, Alistair,” he said after they had rehearsed the case against Clarke, “what do you think?”

  Alistair Partington brushed from his waistcoat some crumbs of a certain type of fruitcake that can be found only in barristers’ chambers and the Long Room bar at Lord’s Cricket Ground. “I’m sorry to say this, Simon,” he said quietly, “but I don’t think it’s much. It’s all circumstantial. I agree what you have is consistent with him being the killer, but none of it actually proves it.”

  “But he fits the profile…” Metcalfe urged hesitantly.

  Mr Alistair Partington fixed him with that benign smile which barristers tend to reserve for their instructing solicitors but which, it appeared, would do service for detective inspectors as well.

  “The profile is an ingenious piece of work, but it’s not evidence,” he explained. “In fact, if I were defending Clarke, I would object to it being mentioned in court at all. I would argue that its prejudicial effect outweighed any possible evidential impact.” He nodded approvingly at his own eloquence and his hands strayed dangerously towards his lapels. Collison, in whose opinion Partington had been the pompous type even as a first-year law student, smiled briefly.

  “All right, Alistair,” he cut in. “Let’s assume you are defending and you successfully persuade the judge that we’re not allowed to mention the profile at all. What do we have?”

  “You have the fact that chummy knew the last victim,” Partington said, telling the points off on his fingers. “You have the fact that he gave a phoney alibi and so cannot account for his whereabouts on the night of her murder. You have the fact that he seems to be an habitual fantasist. That’s all interesting stuff, but hardly compelling. If I were defending I’d be on my feet at this point arguing that my client had no case to answer.

  “Indeed,” he went on, after allowing this to sink in, “I have no wish to teach my grandmother to suck eggs, Simon, but were I in your place I’d be wondering whether I could even properly keep him in custody.”

  “So what do we need?” said Collison calmly.

  “You need something that places him at the scene of at least one of the murders. The closest you have to that is the fish food powder. It’s good, but it’s nowhere near enough.”

  “Even taken with everything else?” asked Metcalfe hopefully.

  “Ah,” Partington said, darting a glance at the man from the DPP’s office, who had so far said absolutely nothing, but had sat trance-like through the conference, “that’s another thing you have to think about. The courts and”—another glance at the silent prosecutor—“as I understand, the DPP, have become rather sensitive to allowing cases based entirely on circumstantial evidence to go before a jury, for reasons of which I am sure we are all aware.”

  The man from the DPP awoke from his trance at this point and started scribbling furiously. Collison sighed. Partington was of course alluding to the Dando murder, in which an innocent man had been sent to prison for several years purely on the accumulated weight of circumstantial
evidence.

  “There’s no forensic evidence to link him with any crime scene or any victim, I understand? No, I thought not. Well, then, in the absence of any confession, I’m really not sure what I can suggest.”

  “Suppose we could establish a motive for him murdering Katherine Barker?” Metcalfe said.

  “That would be different. It would be something, at least. You mean if he had become obsessed with her or something like that?”

  “Something like that, yes.”

  “Is there something like that?” Partington asked, looking at Collison.

  “No,” he said shortly, “there isn’t. Come on, Bob, we’ve got some thinking to do.”

  As they walked back through the Temple they made a gloomy pair. The man from the DPP had bolted outside chambers after cautiously proffering the limpest of handshakes, as though they were both infected with some contagious disease. He would doubtless shortly be shuffling his paperclips in an agitated fashion and composing a memo proposing no further action.

  As they came out into the Strand, Collison came to a decision. “Do you have the keys to Clarke’s flat?” he asked.

  “They’re at the nick, in my desk,” Metcalfe replied.

  “Then let’s go and get them,” Collison said, hailing a cab. “We’re missing something, Bob. We must be. You can’t murder five women in cold blood and not leave any traces anywhere.”

  After two hours’ painstaking searching, though, Collison was forced to admit he was wrong. They had levered off the skirting boards, removed the backs of kitchen units, taken the panel off the bath and lifted floorboards, yet they had found nothing except angry house-spiders, scurrying woodlice and water pipes.

  Closing the door of the flat behind them, he stood on the landing and took out his mobile phone with an air of resignation. “Alright,” he said sombrely, “I’ll tell the nick to release him.” He pressed the speed dial for the police station and gazed up at the ceiling while he waited for them to answer. “Never mind,” he said when they did, and cut the call off without taking his eyes off the ceiling. “Bob,” he said. “Tell me what you see up there.”

  Metcalfe’s gaze followed his. “A trapdoor,” he said slowly. “Presumably into the loft space. This is the top floor flat.”

  They looked at each other, and then Collison took the keys out of his pocket again and re-entered the flat. He remembered having seen a ladder in the hall cupboard.

  “It doesn’t really reach, though,” Metcalfe said, after they had erected it outside.

  “It’s good enough,” Collison said curtly. “I bet if you stood on the top rung you could open the trap and pull yourself up, Bob.”

  Metcalfe realised that this was a command, rather than idle speculation, and did as he was bid. “I can’t find a light switch anywhere,” he called down.

  “Wait,” Collison said. “I remember seeing a torch in a kitchen drawer.” He retrieved it and handed the torch up to his colleague. “What can you see?” he asked as Metcalfe switched it on and shone it around.

  “A light switch,” came the reply, followed by a sudden illumination, which revealed a space directly under the roof, presumably left over when the top floor flat had been carved out of what had originally been a house.

  Metcalfe pulled himself up so that he was sitting on the coaming around the trapdoor, and then said “Ah, wait a minute.”

  “Gloves, Bob,” Collison cautioned. He took two new pairs of plastic gloves out of his pocket and threw a packet up to Metcalfe, who caught it deftly, ripped open the plastic and pulled them on.

  “There’s a box up here,” he said. “Not very big. Here, I’ll hand it down—careful, there’s something heavy in it.”

  Collison laid it carefully on the floor as Metcalfe switched off the light and dropped back onto the ladder. Closing the trapdoor, he climbed down and the two of them stood looking at his find. It was plain brown cardboard, the sort of box that might once have contained an electrical appliance.

  Collison checked that his own gloves were securely in place, and then bent down and pulled it open. He stood up again, his heart beating wildly. Metcalfe’s eyes were blazing with excitement. Struggling to remain calm, Collison dialled again. “DC Willis, incident room, please,” he said. “This is Superintendent Collison calling.” Metcalfe watched him exultantly, listening to Collison’s side of the conversation.

  “Karen? I need you to get SOCO back over to Clarke’s flat…yes, right now…Tell them we’ve found something in the loft…a cardboard box…yes, a hammer and five items of female underwear.”

  Chapter Ten

  For the next few weeks the skeleton team at Hampstead worked hard to bring the mass of information collected during the investigation into a thorough and comprehensible paper chain for the forthcoming court case. A young man from the DPP was nominally in charge of this process but both Collison and Metcalfe knew that the standard of their staff was notoriously low, with many prosecutions having to be abandoned due to procedural errors or lost evidence. Nor did this particular individual, a man who wore earphones permanently around the office and who clearly suffered from what was either a worrying skin condition or an appalling shaving rash, inspire confidence.

  “Try to ignore him, Bob,” Collison advised quietly. “Do what he says but make sure the filing system is our own, and wherever possible keep at least one back-up of everything.”

  “You don’t trust him, then?” Metcalfe asked with a smile.

  “In a word, no. Not his competence, anyway. From the few chats I’ve had with him he doesn’t appear to have any legal knowledge at all. Is he actually a solicitor, I wonder? We could check I suppose. But even if he is, God only knows where he got his degree. I mentioned similar fact evidence the other day and he didn’t seem to have any idea what I was on about.”

  “I’ll be careful. By the way, there’s something I should tell you. I’ve had Tom Allen on the phone. He’s convinced we’ve got the wrong man.”

  “Really? Well, we should take that seriously; he’s a good copper. What’s he spotted that we’ve missed?”

  “Nothing specific. Just his copper’s instinct, he says. Personally, I think it may just be sour grapes that we caught Clarke after he couldn’t. Bit embarrassing really.”

  “I’d be sad if that were the case,” Collison said quietly. “I was hoping Tom wouldn’t take any of this personally, though I suppose that was too much to hope for, human nature being what it is. Well, ring him back and ask if he has any fresh evidence. If so, we’d be happy to receive it. If not, just pass on my best wishes.”

  “Sure. I’ll do that, and don’t worry about the bundles. I’ll do them myself with Karen.”

  Metcalfe was as good as his word. In the space of less than three weeks the incident room, which had seemed strangely devoid of people in the days since Clarke’s arrest, was filled steadily with boxes of files, numbered and referenced in a master ledger, with each individual document within each file further sub-referenced. Metcalfe, Willis and Desai toiled over their detailed report for the prosecution. It was grinding, tedious stuff, which every so often sent them out onto Hampstead High Street in search of strong coffee, but it was thoroughness in this—the essential and unglamorous side of real life police work—that was valued by fellow professionals.

  A report on the death of each victim highlighted the relevant forensic evidence, stressing the identical MO of each killing. A separate schedule showed that on each such occasion Clarke had no alibi, and furthermore that the only alibi he had advanced had been shown to be a lie. A copy of Susan McCormick’s statement was referenced at this point.

  A separate scientific report dealt with the fish food that had been found on Kathy Barker’s body, and identified it as the same type as had been found in Clarke’s flat. Details were also provided of Clarke’s NSU treatment, though Collison doubted whether the judge would allow this to be introduced; it was circumstantial at best.

  The clinching pieces of evidence, though, wer
e the witness statements of Collison and Metcalfe, who described how they had found the box in the loft above Clarke’s flat and identified its contents. A further forensic report confirmed that the DNA recovered from each piece of underwear matched that of one of the victims.

  In short, the DPP’s work had been done for them, Collison reflected, and very well done into the bargain. All the DPP’s office now had to do was to turn the police report into a brief to counsel, and surely they could be trusted at least to get that right.

  A call to Alistair Partington brought some reassurance. Though the august personage of a QC would probably lead the proceedings in court, Alistair would be preparing the prosecution case. He was already deeply into Metcalfe’s report and supporting documents, and liked what he saw. He was confident that once Clarke’s lawyers recognised the strength of the case against him, they would recommend a guilty plea. In any case, matters would not long be delayed; with the prosecution able to certify that their case was complete, a start date for the trial had been fixed just two weeks ahead.

  Collison dropped into the incident room to break the good news. The atmosphere felt almost more unreal than before; even the boxes had disappeared. Priya Desai was absent, taking some time off to be with her father who was sick. Perhaps a theatre felt like this, he mused, once the sets had been taken down after the last night of a production.

  Bob Metcalfe and Karen Willis were standing by the window drinking coffee, watching a couple of technicians disconnect the last few computers. They looked as they felt: purposeless and a little dazed. For weeks after the arrest had been made, they had been hard at work on preparing the case. Now the sense of anti-climax was palpable. There was something else as well though, he reflected. There was the sense of a bond having grown between them during the last stages. Standing close together, it was almost as if they had the look of a couple. He wondered if he had missed anything, something he should have noticed but hadn’t, or whether this was something that had just evolved gradually from long hours of working together. There again, perhaps he was completely mistaken. He had learned the hard way that intuition was not his strong suit.