by E C Deacon
“What about the timing?” said Everton, keen to find something positive, since the visit was his suggestion in the first place.
“Well, I’ve made some progress there,” replied Teddy, dragging his cursor along the timeline at the bottom of the video and freezing it to reveal the shadowy figure of a man entering The Botanist. “Your suspect arrived at 19.45, half an hour before your victim. Notice he keeps his head down and away from the CCTV camera even when he sits. He doesn’t look around, doesn’t order a drink, just sits and waits.”
“You reckon he knew it was there, the camera?”
“Yes. Which would indicate to me that he’s been there before. That he meticulously plans his abductions, cases appropriate bars before suggesting them as meeting places.”
“If he’s so meticulous, how come he let Tessa Hayes go? It doesn’t fit the profile,” said Helen, giving voice to a problem that still puzzled her.
“Maybe he didn’t? Maybe she escaped?”
“After he’d drugged, abducted, stripped and shaved her body hair? I don’t buy that.”
“Okay,” said Everton. “If we’ve got nothing inside the bar, what about outside?”
Teddy dragged the timeline cursor forward on the video image and stopped it at 21.09.
“They left together, as you can see, just after nine o’clock. If you look carefully, you’ll see she’s just a little unsteady on her feet. Notice him guiding her through the door. The Rohypnol, if that’s what it was, was probably put in her drink around thirty minutes earlier. There’s a shot of him at the bar ordering two glasses of wine, but nothing conclusive.”
“He needed to get her out of there before it really took effect?”
“Yes. Or he might have drawn unwanted attention to himself. Now look at this. These are taken from exterior CCTV and traffic cameras in the area.”
He opened another window on the screen. Helen and Everton leaned forward to get a better look. There were a series of uploaded thumbnails of Tessa Hayes and her assailant exiting the bar and making their way over the road to the far side of Kew Green, displayed in a sequential timeline.
“These aren’t going to help you physically identify the man – it’s too dark and he’s still wary, keeping to the shadows – but I trawled through all the local cameras and found this.” He pointed to the final thumbnail, double-clicked on it and enlarged the image.
“It’s them. That’s his car!” exclaimed Helen, pointing to a grainy image of Tessa Hayes being helped into the passenger seat of a midnight-blue Mercedes Estate on the VDU screen. “Can you read the number plate? What does it say?”
“P767 XWR. But don’t get too excited. The plates are false. They belong to a Fiat Uno that was written off in an accident in 2012.”
“Bollocks.”
“My sentiments entirely. But all is not totally lost. We now know that he’s using a Series C Mercedes Estate. It might be possible to track the car’s direction of travel using other traffic cameras in the vicinity.”
“And how long will that take?” said Helen, fearing she already knew the answer.
“Well, if they’re all in working order – and that’s a big if – two to three days.”
Helen groaned to herself – DS Clark was going to love this – and turned to answer her mobile. It was more bad news.
It looked like an IRA “dirty protest”. Excrement was smeared on the walls, floors, furnishings and bedding. And it stank.
“Where is he now?” Helen stood in the doorway of the geriatric ward of Wilson Hospital with the ward manager, Nora, a middle-aged overweight woman who believed in the sanctity of the NHS and her own authority.
“Your sister is giving him a bath.”
“Delia? When did she get here?”
“Twenty minutes before you. I suggested she look after your father whilst we get the room cleaned and disinfected. As I explained to her, we’ll have to discuss arrangements for your father if this continues. She said that you might be able to take him?”
“Me?”
Helen was shocked by her sister’s nerve but in retrospect not surprised; suspecting that the suggestion was not made in the best interest of their father but to make a point to her. Delia had always felt Helen put her career before her family – an accusation that Helen resented because deep down she knew it was right.
It wasn’t that she didn’t love her father. Beneath all his patriarchal, head-of-the-family bullshit, she knew that Frank was a sensitive man. A man broken by his illness and his wife’s refusal to stand by him until his inevitable end. A man of contradictions, who worked in a garage and yet loved listening to Stockhausen. Who read the Daily Mail and Dickens. Who hated pubs but on Friday nights always offered his “fledglings” tiny nips of his home-made marrow rum as a treat before bedtime.
She stood in the doorway, staring at the shit crusting on the walls, and remembered the first time she thought that something was wrong, that his mind was going walkabout. She was nineteen. They were living in a nice three-bedroom terraced house in Croydon. Her mother was teaching her aerobics class and was late, as usual. He came fumbling out of the bathroom, after his ritual of scrubbing the ingrained oil from his hands and forearms, and had forgotten to zip his flies up. Not only that, but there was a large wet patch where he’d obviously peed his pants. Of course, she never said anything to him and a few minutes later he changed into fresh clothes, and back to his old self.
But later, when she broached the subject with her sister, Delia, she dismissed it in the crude way she always did when she didn’t want to confront bad news. “The poor old sod was probably having a wank.”
“Delia. That’s disgusting.”
“Why? You think because he’s old he doesn’t get the urge? And he’s not going to get any from Mum, is he? She shut up shop years ago.”
And that was the last conversation they had about it. Helen went off to Leeds University to do a degree in Criminal Psychology and Delia got pregnant, married and had two kids. And now she had another on the way and resented Helen for her success and freedom – and Helen knew it. So, her suggestion that Helen should care for their father because she had other family commitments stuck in Helen’s craw. Where was Delia when their mother went off to her aerobics class and never came back? In Disneyland Paris, celebrating her wedding anniversary to a guy she wished she’d never married! And had she flown home? Had she hell. Helen was left to deal with it alone.
Helen stepped out of her dark thoughts and into the room. She pulled out her iPhone, knelt and began photographing the shit-smeared scrawl on the wall.
“Excuse me. What are you doing? You can’t take photographs in here.”
“I’m a police officer,” snapped Helen, “and this could be a crime scene.”
The scrawl read:
Help
Later, Helen and Delia stood arguing in the echoing Victorian hallway. Frank sat in a wheelchair between them like an umpire refereeing a match. Except that he wasn’t seeing or hearing anything; at least nothing his warring daughters would recognise.
He was remembering, in a series of seemingly unrelated images, his Morris Minor Traveller. The desire he felt, seeing it as a junkyard wreck. Him, dismembering it, piece by rusty piece. Its refurbishment, bolt by bolt, into a gleaming thing of beauty. The radiant smile on his wife’s face, reflected in the gleaming new paintwork, as he proudly unveiled his restoration for the first time. Its inaugural seaside trip. His beautiful young daughters laughing excitedly from the back seat…
His smile faded as he wondered who the two unhappy women were standing above him, and why they were arguing about someone he’d never heard of.
“He hasn’t been abused. There isn’t a mark on him.”
“There are different types of abuse. There was no water in his room.”
“If he doesn’t want to eat or drink they can’t force him.”
“Someone needs to sit with him, even if it’s only for a few minutes, to persuade him.”
&nb
sp; “This is the NHS, not Harley Street. You get what you pay for and we don’t pay anything. That’s why we have to do it.”
“By we you mean me. You’re living in his house, Delia.”
“I’ve got two kids and I’m five months pregnant, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“And I’m investigating the abduction and possible murder of three women.”
“Shame one of them isn’t our mother… What? Fuck her. You hate her as much as I do, Helen.”
“I’m not talking about her, I’m talking about him. What if he heard?”
“He’s away with the fairies. He’s in gaga land. Now, are you going to have him or not?”
“How can I unless I give up my job?”
“Get a nurse in.”
“Have you any idea how much that costs? Do you want to sell the house to pay for it?”
“I’ll help out with the cost if that’s what’s worrying you.”
It wasn’t. It was putting her life, her career and her future on hold. Giving the best years of her life away to a man who now didn’t even recognise her.
Delia shrugged, took out a wet wipe from her purse and, like Pontius Pilate, washed her hands of the problem.
The house was morgue-cold. Laura stood in the hallway, her back against the front door, allowing her eyes to slowly accustom to the dark, wondering why she’d come. What evidence she hoped to find. She contemplated turning the lights on to ease her fear but decided against it, not wanting to draw attention to herself. Why? She wasn’t doing anything illegal. It was her house. She owned it; she was free to come and go as she pleased. She was being irrational.
She pulled a torch from her tweed overcoat pocket, switched it on and immediately off, worrying that if anyone saw it she’d look even more suspicious, then gasped as her mobile started up in her pocket. Memories of the night of Gina’s suicide came flooding back, of someone on the stairs hearing her phone call. The panic in his footsteps as he ran for it, passing inches from her face. Jesus, she thought, it could be him outside now. Or he could be inside. She inched the mobile from her other pocket, took a deep breath and checked the Caller ID: Don Hart. She blew in relief, tapped in BLOCK CALLER and turned on the hall light.
She found nothing in the kitchen, but in an effort to calm her nerves made herself a cup of coffee. The milk was off in the fridge so she poured it down the sink and rinsed the container, then placed it in Gina’s recycling bin. Fortified by the scalding caffeine, she made her way into the sitting room.
The heavy brocade curtains were still closed but the room felt ten degrees colder than the kitchen. Or was it just her imagination? Ignoring the ceiling light, she turned on the table lamps that book-ended the sofa and surveyed the room like an appraiser, not calculating the value of the fittings, but calculating what was missing. At first sight there was nothing. She began a methodical search. Starting at the sideboard, she emptied, searched and replaced the contents drawer by drawer, then the shelving unit, from top to bottom, removing the books and ornaments to allow her to check behind them. She removed the leather sofa cushions, squeezed her hand down the void at the back. She did the same with the armchair. There was no sign of Gina’s missing mobile phone.
Her coffee was cold by the time she finished and made her way back into the hall. Unopened post littered the floor. Most were junk, but there were a few bills – gas and Three Mobile – and some handwritten letters of condolence. To a dead person, she thought grimly to herself as she tossed them onto the hall table and made her way up the stairs.
She was in Gina’s spare bedroom-cum-study when she found the power connector for the iMac still plugged in under the bed. But where was the laptop? She went through every wardrobe, cupboard and drawer. It wasn’t there and neither was her mobile. It made no sense. She slumped onto the bed amongst the flotsam and jetsam that had once been her friend’s life and a sudden thought hit her like a blow – Gina’s phone bill! She stumbled out of the room and down the stairs, snatched up the Three Mobile envelope and ripped it open.
Nephilim was retouching his installation. It needed constant attention to keep his “angels,” in pristine condition. Completely thrown, hearing the skylark call again, he stupidly answered his mobile. She said her name was Laura and that she was a friend of Gina’s. He knew immediately who she was. He dropped the phone, stamped it to pieces, picked up the SIM card and destroyed it. But now he was panicking. How had she known the number? Only Gina knew his private number and she was dead. He shivered at the thought of it and felt the tell-tale tug of his scar. He was getting cold and it wasn’t good for his condition. He warmed his hands over the Calor Gas heater, placed them over his mother’s “gift” and tried to collect himself and his thoughts.
The air temperature in his studio needed to be a constant three degrees. Any lower and he risked the surface of the meat freezing. Any higher and the model’s mummified flesh beneath the feathers would begin to attract microorganisms and parasites and rot, forming a fungus-like bloom on the feathers. He’d installed a dehumidifier, which helped, but the wooden structure and corrugated iron roof, even though it was partially insulated, were not ideal. Still, they would have to do for now. He couldn’t risk drawing any more attention to himself.
He hadn’t visited the farm in over a week; taking too much time off work would appear suspicious. At first, he was so distraught that he actually contemplated suicide himself. He even bought a length of nylon clothes line – a romantic gesture in honour of his fallen dove’s wishes – but hadn’t had the courage to go through with it. It had made him sick reading her so-called mother’s statement in the newspaper. He knew the real truth about her and her self-inflicted cripple of a husband. But that would have to wait until he solved the problem of Laura Fell. Christ, he thought. How did she get my personal number? Why couldn’t the stupid bitch leave well alone?
He walked slowly around the installation, minutely adjusting the tableaux as he circled it, tightening or loosening the fishing lines that held his female “angels” upright and suspended in position so they appeared to float above the floor. They were wingless, because in his mind they were “fallen” and waiting for His redemption. But every inch of their bodies was covered in beautiful white plumage, even their eyelids and lips, making them appear half-human, half-angel. Like him. There were only two now. One had become infected by parasites and he’d been forced to dismantle and burn her in the chicken pit, under the fowl. The smell of paraffin and barbecued flesh was disgusting but there was no other alternative. He couldn’t risk the body of Kate Holmes being discovered and he comforted himself with the thought that, with his help, she’d found redemption.
Finally satisfied, he repacked his instruments, turned off the light, unlocked the dividing door and walked through into the dovecot. The birds were roosting and barely noticed his intrusion. He re-locked the door from the outside, lifted the wooden plank from the floor and laid his tools carefully in the void. Then, replaced the plank, made his way outside, padlocked the door behind him and trotted up to the farmhouse.
He was late – a failing he’d shared with Gina and they’d both chastised each other about – so he only had time for a quick strip-wash at the sink. He remembered watching her standing naked at another sink, washing herself in preparation for their lovemaking. How pale her skin was in contrast to her black, unruly pubic hair. And how it glistened like dew and dripped as she walked towards him. And how she opened her legs to allow him to dry her there. And how she lay on the bed, smiling and submissive, as he picked up his shears and made her even more beautiful. The memory was both exquisite and agonising.
He moaned and dried his stiffening penis. He pulled on his clothes, put his brown contact lenses in, and headed for the door.
Everton had trawled through the CCTV traffic footage and found absolutely nothing. He’d done two hours unpaid overtime and hadn’t heard a damn thing from Helen, who’d rushed off to deal with some family issue. So, when Laura Fell rang, he put aside hi
s scepticism and agreed to meet her at Gina Lewis’s house in Caxton Road.
It was less than a five-minute drive from the nick and she was waiting for him in the doorway when he pulled up. He smiled, thinking how different she looked from the last time he’d seen her, still beautiful but somehow less defeated and more energised.
“Would you like a coffee?” she offered, shutting the front door behind him and ushering him into the sitting room.
“No thank you. I’m caffeined out. It’s been a long day, one way and another.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t think–”
“Don’t apologise. I didn’t mean you. You, I like…” If Laura heard his Freudian slip she said nothing. He hastily changed the subject. “You said that you discovered something about Gina’s missing mobile?”
“Yes. Take a look at this.” She handed him a sheaf of mobile phone bills and stood so close to his shoulder as he examined them that he could smell her perfume. Concentrate, he said to himself.
“What am I supposed to be looking for?”
“Okay. This is Gina’s last mobile bill. You can see it shows no more outgoing calls after the night she died.”
“Which is what you’d expect.”
“Right. But look at the last incoming calls. They’re nearly all from me. This one,” she said, pointing to a call marked 10.34 pm, “is when I was standing outside the house. Which proves I phoned her. Now, look at the next day. See?” she said, jabbing a finger at the numbers. “Those are more calls from me, which means her phone was still live.”
“Yeah, but the same would be true if someone stole it.”
“I heard it ringing. In here. I heard it and someone turned it off.”