Deadly Purpose, page 15
“I take it you’ve spoken to him.”
“Yeah. And I plan on being a better son to him than I have been. I know that the old saying, ‘You don’t appreciate what you’ve got till it’s no longer there’, is true.”
Jim left, not wanting to be at the house when Vic got home. He knew that they would end up coming to blows; that he might lose his temper and strike the man. Revenge was best served cold. He would wait, and when the time was right he would stop being a cop for a few minutes, and as the aggrieved brother of a woman that Merrick had put in such great danger, he would take great pleasure in using his fists to punish the man. Maybe that was a childish, primitive attitude to adopt, but he didn’t care.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
As Bernice Parsons was being tortured and mutilated, Alfie Herbert was going through his nightly routine. He checked everything twice, and sometimes three times, not properly trusting himself to go to bed without being absolutely sure that everywhere was locked up securely, and that all the switches were turned off. He had a morbid fear of house fires, and of burglars breaking in. Funny how the older he got the more nervous he became. There was a time when he was scared of nothing. But that was way back. Now that he lived alone and was not in the best of health, he worried about every little thing.
With the television off and the aerial unplugged, in case the lightning of a summer storm struck, Alfie padded through to the kitchen and checked the bolts on the back door.
A scream. He was sure that he heard a scream. It could have come from outside, but he thought it was from the semi next door.
Silence. He held his breath and strained to hear. Nothing. And then muffled voices. What to do? Should he phone his neighbour and ask her if she was all right? Or phone the police? No. Not his business. He listened for another minute or two but heard nothing more, so made his way upstairs, changed into his pyjamas and went into the bathroom.
The walls between modern houses were too thin. Alfie could hear the sound of running water. It was late for Ms Parsons to be taking a bath. She usually took one on a Saturday evening. He knew her routines by the sounds he heard. Maybe she had company staying. He was almost sure he could hear voices again, and it didn’t sound as if it was coming from her telly.
Back in the bedroom, Alfie switched off the lamp and pulled a curtain back a fraction to peek out into the night. There was no car parked next door. And he recognised the few vehicles that were in sight. He climbed into bed, turned the light back on and picked up the book that lay next to it, planning to read the last couple of chapters of the le Carré novel he’d borrowed from the library. He would take it and the other three he had already finished back in the morning, and spend a couple of hours choosing some more. The local library was Alfie’s favourite place. It was a constant in the changing world that rushed by it. Built well over a century ago, the building was a sanctuary to him. Inside, the aisles were tall oak canyons, their shelves crowded with a bounty of books to suit every taste. And the smell of polished wood warmed his sinuses in near silence that was broken only by the odd sneeze, cough, the sound of footfall on creaking floorboards and the rustle of pages being turned. A door to the right of the main desk led into what had been a small reference room, but was now also home to a few computers, where people used the Internet, and the microfiche, on which interested parties could scan back issues of newspapers and various other documents.
Damn it. Where were his spectacles? He was continually misplacing them. He would have to tie a piece of cord to both arms and keep them hung round his neck. He got up, checked the bathroom and saw his specs on top of the cabinet next to the loo. He put them on. They were in need of cleaning, so he removed them and tore a piece of toilet tissue off the roll to wipe them with, before having another pee, which was an act that took an age to complete these days. Everything about him was slowing down. He recalled that as a teenager he’d pissed like a horse.
As Alfie was about to flush, he heard a sound that could have been a shout of alarm. He couldn’t ignore it. Taking a toothbrush and throwaway razor from the tumbler on the corner shelf above the wash hand basin, he stepped into the bath and held the open end of the glass against the wall tiles, with his ear pressed to its bottom. He could definitely hear voices. Why would Bernice have other people in her bathroom? She wouldn’t. Something was very wrong. He rushed downstairs, looked up her number and called it.
“Hello,” Lesley said.
“Er, hello,” Alfie said, not recognising the voice. “This is Alfie Herbert next door. Is Ms Parsons there?”
“Yes,” Lesley said. “But she can’t come to the phone at the moment. Would you like to leave a message?”
“Uh, no,” Alfie said. “I just wondered if she was all right. I heard noises.”
“Everything is just fine and dandy, you nosy fuck. So why don’t you get back to whatever disgusting thing you were doing before you rang up to talk dirty to Bernice.”
“I...I―” Alfie stammered before the dial tone began to purr.
Placing the receiver back in the cradle, Alfie gathered his thoughts. The woman on the phone had been unjustifiably abusive. Rather than be pleased to know that Bernice had a neighbour who showed concern, she had gone out of her way to insult him. He felt more than a little angry and confused but wasn’t sure what to do.
The slamming of the back door of Bernice’s house broke the state of inertia, deciding him on what action to take. He phoned Bernice’s number again. No answer. He disconnected, then stabbed out 999 with a palsied finger.
Jim was back at home. He fell asleep in an easy chair as he thought through all aspects of the dangerous predicament his sister was in. His neck was aching when he woke up. It was broad daylight, but still only five a.m. He rubbed his cricked neck, wincing against the discomfort, then stood up and went through to the kitchen to brew coffee, fire up a cigarette and stare out the window at another day in progress. When his mobile rang he grunted in surprise as the loud discordant notes broke the near silence. He took the phone from his pocket, and without checking the caller ID he accepted the call.
“Yeah,” he said, expecting it to be his sister or Vic.
“That was quick, boss,” Liz said.
“That’s ’cause I’m standing in the kitchen, waiting for the coffeemaker to do its thing.”
“Do you ever sleep?”
“Only when I’m tired. Who’s dead?”
“Bernice Parsons.”
“Should that mean anything to me?”
“No. But the fact that she was tortured before being murdered in her bath should. Am I ringing a bell?”
“Loud and clear. Where are you?”
“At the scene in Willesden.”
“Who contacted us?”
“Mal Saddler, CID. A hunky DS who’s been trying to get in my knickers for a couple of years. He got a call from local uniforms. Seems an old guy living next door to the victim thought something bad was going down and called it in. Two uniforms attended, expecting it to be a domestic, but found signs of a break-in, so investigated, then called Sadler. When he arrived he sussed the pattern and knew that it was a case we were working. He has my mobile number, so gave me a bell.”
“How’d he get your number?”
“I gave him it. We’ve been out a couple of times.”
“I thought he was married.”
“You sound like my father used to.”
“Sorry.”
“No you’re not, boss. And to feed your curiosity, his wife ditched him over a year ago. Left him for a nine-to-five guy that she got to eat meals and have a social life with. Satisfied?”
“I didn’t ask. Give me the address.”
“Forty-seven Talbot Road. You want directions?”
“No, I’m a detective. I’ll find it.”
There was no rush. Jim lit another cigarette. Poured the freshly brewed coffee into a chunky white porcelain mug that he’d stolen from the police canteen, and concentrated his mind on the case that they had tagged The Couple Killers.
Stopping at a newsagent’s in the area, Jim asked where Talbot Road was. He could have let Liz tell him, or even dug the A-Z out of the glove compartment and studied it, but opted for the easy way. He’d considered having a satellite navigation system fitted, but was too proud to rely on GPS technology to get him where he wanted to go.
There were marked and unmarked police vehicles, two vans belonging to Forensics, and Harry Nash’s car lined up at the kerb.
Jim was recognised by the uniform at the gate, who lifted the crime scene tape for him to duck under. Liz and Mark were in the lounge, gloved up and wearing plastic overshoes. A techie gave Jim a pair of each to put on.
“Just one?” Jim said, looking from a blotch of blood on the settee’s arm to a smattering of spots on the grey carpet.
“Yes. The woman was single and lived alone,” Liz said.
“Show me,” Jim said.
Liz headed for the door. Jim followed her out into the hall and up the stairs. Mark remained downstairs. He had no wish to see the body again.
The sight that met Jim in the bathroom was shocking, but not surprising, and was no more or less depressing than any other murder scene he had ever attended. Being what might be described a seasoned murder cop, a part of him was hardened to witnessing the results of what he considered to be the ultimate crime: the violent taking of life. But on a personal level each atrocity was an individual event, that he never allowed himself to become apathetic about. Each and every murder was as important, and as harrowing; an unforgivable crime against humanity, committed by another person or persons that were bereft of the qualities that separated mankind from the beasts of the field. Without compassion, murderers had – to his way of thinking – foregone all the human rights that the law still afforded them. They’d made a choice, and should have to pay the price for their actions. Unprovoked murder should be deterred by more than mere incarceration for a few years in a comfortable environment. Being segregated from society was in itself a far too lenient punishment. He, and many other members of law enforcement agencies, would bring back capital punishment in a blink, to deal with those whose guilt was proven beyond any reasonable doubt.
The woman had been tortured. Jesus. He knew that life was a state of existence in which suffering came as part and parcel of the deal. Some adversity and pain could not be avoided, be it physical, mental or emotional. That was the toll we paid for the journey through it. But hope, however futile, was what fuelled the survival instinct and gave the thinking person the propensity to stand firm against misfortune. This victim had been stripped of all expectation. Bernice Parsons had been beaten, burned, degraded, terrorised, and had almost certainly been in no doubt that her life was about to be brutally foreshortened.
“What do think, Liz?” Jim said.
“That this wasn’t random. She was selected. And that it’s now more than likely that it was the women at the last two scenes that were the prime targets.”
“Which confirms what we knew; a serial killer is up and running,” Jim said.
“Times two. It still looks as though it’s a pair working together.”
Jim had not taken his eyes off the body in the bath. The legs were partially covered by the shower curtain, which had been torn free from the plastic rings to lay creased and stained pink with a wash of blood and water. He stood motionless for long seconds, before reaching for his mobile and making a call.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Helen was about to leave for September House. She found herself more enthused at the prospect than when she had been facing another day at Grafton Moor. Over the past year she had found the part-time work at the clinic far more rewarding than dealing with the criminally insane patients that were incarcerated at the secure psychiatric hospital. Strange, how what had started as voluntary work was now the area in which she thought her expertise could be best utilised. To a large extent the patients at Grafton Moor were to all intents and purposes a lost cause, receiving therapy, mainly in the form of drugs, that did little to cure them; only suppressing violent and antisocial symptoms that were in many cases homicidal. The truth was, the main function of the facility was containment. As with most maladies in life, Helen concurred that prevention was better than cure. She had a growing aspiration to work with people that could be helped before they became so ill that they committed serious harm to others or themselves. Within her was a growing desire to make the break and work full-time at September House, not too concerned that it would involve a significant drop in salary.
Her mobile rang as she picked up her handbag and headed for the door. She glanced at the screen and saw that the caller was Jim Cole.
“Yes, Inspector?”
“We have another murder. Same MO as the others. I wondered if it would help if you visited the scene, to see it in the flesh.”
Helen experienced a stab of apprehension. Although she had consulted on several cases, she had only been privy to seeing the aftermath of one murder. The victim had been a teenage girl, and had been the fourth to be raped and eviscerated by a psychopath who had subsequently, when cornered on the platform of the underground at Oxford Circus, thrown himself under an oncoming train.
“You still there?” Jim said.
“Yes. Where are you?”
“Willesden. Talbot Road. You want directions?”
“Please.”
Jim gave them to her.
“I’m on my way,” Helen said, and ended the call.
“Is the shrink coming to see a fresh kill?” Liz asked him.
“Yeah. I want Helen to see it as is. Photographs are a poor substitute.”
“Helen? Since when did you start using her Christian name?”
“Since now,” Jim said. “She’s one of the team on this. And I call all of you by your first names, don’t I?”
Liz grinned. “Mr Informality.”
“That’s me. But you know my bite is worse than my bark.”
“Yeah, boss, you can be a Rottweiler when aroused...I mean roused.”
“What was that, a Freudian slip?”
“Must have been. I can’t be getting enough.”
“Enough what? Coffee?”
“Among other things.” Liz was enjoying the banter. This was how it had been before Jim’s wife had died. He really was back and had dismantled the wall he’d constructed brick by brick, to rejoin the human race.
“Have you and Mark been through the place?” Jim said, changing the subject.
“Yes. The only things that might be significant are a ball-point pen with blood on it that was found in the kitchen, the fact that there’s no plastic in the vic’s purse, and a framed photograph I found in a bedroom drawer. It was at the bottom under a pile of stuff, face down, and with the glass broken.” Liz went out on to the landing and into a bedroom, picked up the frame from the top of a dresser that looked circa nineteen-seventies, returned and held it out for Jim to see.
The guy in the colour shot was posing on a beach, wearing nothing but skimpy leopard-spotted swimming trunks, sun oil and a smile. He looked reasonably fit, but was sucking his gut in, and his legs were too thin for his upper body. He had golden hair flopping down over his forehead, and a cheeky smile. Jim pegged him as being in his mid-thirties. The background was of white sand, turquoise sea and a cloudless, denim-blue sky.
Taking the frame from Liz, Jim placed it face down on a TV guide on the coffee table, took the back off and removed the photograph. A lot of people wrote stuff on the backs of special photographs. Yes. In small, neat handwriting across the top of the 5x7 was written: Steve, Varadero, Cuba.
“We need to know who this would-be Adonis is,” Jim said. “He’s probably an old boyfriend.”
“I’d bet on it,” Liz said. “He’s got a come-to-bed look in his eyes, and a semi- hard on.”
Jim wasn’t sure about the look in the man’s eyes, but studying the bulge in his trunks he had to agree that the guy was packing a loaded dick. “So get a blow-up of his face and circulate it. Someone who knew the victim should be able to ID him.”
Liz took the photo back, ran her tongue lasciviously over her top lip as she gave the guy’s nether regions a second intense inspection, then popped it into an evidence bag.
Jim shook his head. Wondered if his DS was getting enough. It crossed his mind that he’d been celibate for a long time. It was as if his sex drive had been switched off like a light the second that Jill was taken from him.
He was in the lounge when Helen Sands was shown in by a uniform.
“Thanks for coming,” Jim said by way of a greeting.
Helen shook her head, and her long, glossy, raven hair swung with the grace of a model’s in a TV advert for some overpriced conditioner. “Maybe later, Inspector. Can you walk me through what occurred here?”
Jim inclined his head towards the kitchen. Helen went in, looked about and saw the hole in the glass door. Opened it and went out on to the back step and closed the door behind her.
“What did he do after he gained entry?” she said through the circular opening.
Jim raised an eyebrow. “Who said it was a he?”
“Women and glass cutters don’t really go together. If we’re right in thinking that this is a couple at work, and I’m sure we are, then the woman is instigating the killings. I would imagine the guy is her partner, along for the ride.”
“Could be a man working on his own,” Liz said. “We assumed that a couple was responsible, because it explained how the first victims were bound and gagged. But the killer could have forced the women to tie up their partners, and easily have been able to truss up the women, without having to keep a gun or knife on them.”
Helen shook her head as she once more entered the house “There were no prints on the tape from any of the victims’ hands, so I still believe it’s a couple at work. And if it was just a woman, she would have been able to gain entry by just knocking at the front door. Women are wary of men, not usually of other women.”
