The Lost Victim, page 3
‘Yes. If we could get hold of a recorded interview with Peter Conway, that would be like gold dust,’ said Maddie.
‘But we are aware of reporting restrictions, and the restrictions of recording an interview with a serving, er, prisoner for commercial purposes. If you did gain access to him, we could have an actor record and recreate the interview based on a written transcript,’ said Fidelis.
‘There is the option to license archive material of Peter Conway,’ said Maddie, seeing the look on Kate’s face. She added hopefully, ‘Do you own any recordings of him?’
‘No.’
‘Right. That’s okay.’
Kate looked around the office. There was a bookshelf on the wall behind Fidelis with English-language and foreign editions of their clients’ fiction books.
‘How did you come to find this case, Janey Macklin? I’ve never heard the name, and I don’t remember it being a high-profile investigation when I was a police officer in London in the 1990s,’ she said.
‘Maddie’s partner, Forrest, is a features writer,’ said Fidelis. Her tone suggested that she thought being a ‘features writer’ was akin to shovelling shit for a living.
‘The Forrest Parker who wrote the magazine piece about Janey Macklin?’ asked Tristan.
‘Yes,’ said Maddie with a bashful smile. ‘Forrest was friends with Judith Leary, who had the correspondence with Thomas Black.’
‘Well. She was more of an acquaintance, Maddie. Yes?’ said Fidelis with a look of dismay.
‘Yes. Acquaintance, but they did know each other quite a long time,’ said Maddie.
‘How did Judith come to start writing to Thomas Black?’ asked Tristan.
‘Forrest met Judith when they were at drama school together. Many years ago. One of Judith’s acting jobs involved going into prisons and doing drama workshops with the prisoners, and that’s how she met Thomas Black.’
‘Do you have copies of the letters?’ asked Kate.
‘Yes. Forrest took copies, before he sold them on behalf of Judith’s estate,’ said Maddie.
‘Does Forrest work for Real Crime magazine? Or is he an actor?’ asked Tristan.
‘Neither. He’s a freelance writer,’ said Maddie. There was a long, awkward silence. And Kate thought Fidelis was enjoying it.
‘We’re very interested in working with you both,’ said Fidelis, breaking the silence. ‘My job as a literary agent and in the creative sector is to curate great stories and shepherd them to, gosh, I don’t know what you’d say for a podcast – shepherd it to the air waves?’
‘A podcast is downloadable, not broadcast,’ said Maddie.
‘Yes. I know,’ Fidelis snapped. ‘My point is I can see a good story, a great story, that needs a bit of excavation. We have a fantastic location: King’s Cross, and old London, which thrums with history and intrigue. We have an unsolved disappearance or a murder with young Janey Macklin. A miscarriage of justice with, er . . .’
‘Robert Driscoll,’ said Fidelis’s assistant, speaking for the first time behind her desk.
‘Yes, of course – Robert Driscoll. And we have Peter Conway and Thomas Black, two of the most notorious bastard, if you excuse my French, serial killers. This could be a blockbuster . . .’ Fidelis smiled and checked her enthusiasm. ‘So. That’s where we are. What do you think?’
‘I agree. It all sounds intriguing. What exactly are you willing to pay us?’ asked Kate, going in for the kill. She saw Fidelis and Maddie recoil a little at the mention of money.
‘That can be negotiated,’ said Fidelis.
‘Okay. Let’s negotiate,’ said Kate.
4
Tristan stared at the laminated map above the seats as the Tube train shook and shunted its way from South Kensington to King’s Cross on the Piccadilly line. In his backpack was the cardboard folder of information they’d been given by Fidelis’s assistant. He was excited at the prospect of an investigation, especially one which could mean spending time in London. They had negotiated a good deal, and Tristan felt relief that their financial future was secure for the next few months.
‘We need to see a contract,’ said Kate for the fifth time, when he caught her eye.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘But the meeting was good. They want to hire us.’
Kate nodded, but she didn’t know if good was the right word. The meeting had been interesting, but there was something about it all that she couldn’t put her finger on; was it all too good to be true?
The Tube train was busy on this Friday afternoon, mainly with shoppers taking advantage of the post-Christmas days off, and it was standing room only.
‘Where did you live in London, when you were in the police?’ asked Tristan.
‘Deptford Bridge.’
He studied the map. How the hell did anyone find their way around London? The Tube map was a grid of coloured, snaking, angular lines radiating out from a hub which looked like a bottle of stout lying on its side. Kate reached up and pointed to one of the train lines made up of two thin blue lines.
‘Here. Deptford. Close to the end of the Docklands Light Railway. I was twenty minutes from the centre, and when I lived there, there was a lot of new construction, new flats. The DLR was a new train line.’
Tristan thought back to what he knew about the night Peter Conway attacked Kate; it had been at her flat in Deptford. And as far as he knew, it was the last night she had lived in London. She’d been hospitalised and then moved back to live with her parents when she was pregnant with Jake.
‘Yeah. That’s where it happened,’ said Kate, seeing what Tristan was thinking.
‘Did you own the flat in Deptford?’
‘I wish. It would be worth an absolute fortune by now.’
‘And the flat the agency have offered us is . . .’ The Tube train pulled to a stop at Holborn, and the doors opened with a whoosh. To Tristan, it was all so bright and vibrant. The platform was crammed with people, and passengers with bags and a lady with a pushchair flooded past them against the tide of more passengers boarding the Tube. A recorded voice asked them to mind the doors and the gap.
‘It’s in King’s Cross. Percy Circus. A short walk from the main King’s Cross station,’ said Kate as she moved to one side to let a couple of nuns pass.
‘What did you think of Fidelis and Maddie? They’re very posh.’
‘Yes, they are. And maybe not in a good way.’ Kate wondered why it was bothering her. Her own feelings of inferiority? The middle-class chip on her shoulder?
Tristan did a double take as the nuns moved past. One wore a hot-pink handbag over her shoulder, and the second had scarlet lipstick and big false eyelashes.
‘Fancy dress, I presume. I hope. Or they’re from a very forward-thinking order,’ he said. Kate laughed.
‘Where do you want to go first?’ she said, looking back up at the map.
‘We should have a look at the area in King’s Cross where Janey went missing. And let’s find somewhere to have a coffee and look at those letters between Thomas Black and Judith Leary.’
When they reached King’s Cross, there was a crush of people waiting, crammed on the platform with shopping bags and thick coats, and it seemed chaotic.
‘Bloody hell, this has changed since I was last here,’ said Kate when they emerged from King’s Cross underground station and into a paved plaza.
‘Isn’t that the hotel where they filmed the Spice Girls video for “Wannabe”?’ said Tristan, pointing to their right at the enormous red-bricked splendour of the Midland Hotel, now called the St Pancras Renaissance. The courtyard out front was busy with people, and a bellboy pushed a pile of suitcases inside.
Kate smiled.
‘Yes. When I was a copper in London, this whole area was horrible. The train station plaza was all enclosed in a dingy, squat building, which always seemed to have scaffolding wrapped around it. Drunks, prostitutes, and drug dealers hung around along the side of the road in the doorways and windows, and the Midland Hotel there was boarded up, with piss-stinking doorways. In my first year on the beat, I was called out here so many times to deal with trouble. Mainly drugs.’
Tristan turned and looked around. Christmas lights and decorative silver stars and gold snowflakes formed a canopy above the road, red buses roared past amongst the traffic, which included an open-top bus filled with tourists peering down and shivering in the weak sunshine.
‘Look at all this,’ said Kate, turning to their left to face the glass-and-steel skyscrapers. A crane swung slowly to the left with a load of concrete blocks. ‘This place is unrecognisable from when I was last here in 1995. How will we find anyone who saw or knew anything about Janey?’
Kate was quiet as they walked past the hotel. A group of tourists posed for selfies in front of a red phone box, and the smell of roasting chestnuts and mulled wine wafted over from a food van parked on the edge of the piazza. They took a left down Pancras Road. The click-clack of the trains behind the high brick walls was the same as she remembered, and so was the smell: diesel mixed with the cold air which hit the back of your throat. Kate recalled Pancras Road’s grimy lock-ups under the brick arches. The brick arches were still there, but they were now occupied by designer shops and posh restaurants, and much of the brickwork had been sand-blasted, removing the black stain from a hundred years of London smog.
They stopped outside a smart-looking gastropub with shiny copper lamps and red-painted window frames. A chalkboard with a flowery hand announced that they served ales from a microbrewery and champagne by the glass.
‘Look,’ said Tristan, indicating the sign above them, swinging in the breeze. It read ‘The Jug.’
‘Bloody hell. The Jug is still here. I bet they didn’t serve champagne by the glass back in 1988,’ said Kate.
They carried on walking. Amongst the shops and restaurants, the arches also housed modern warehouse-style offices. They were all closed for Christmas, but many of them had left their lights on, and in a couple, Christmas trees twinkled with fake presents neatly wrapped underneath. Kate felt dismay. This whole area had been scrubbed clean. The past erased, 1988 might as well have been 1888. A few minutes later, they reached a small crossing with a tiny Starbucks on the corner.
Tristan took out his phone, scrolled for a moment, and looked back up at the familiar sign. Inside it looked cosy and inviting, and a small Christmas tree stood by the counter.
‘This was Reynolds newsagent’s,’ said Tristan.
‘I should have guessed. Of course it’s now a Starbucks,’ she said. ‘Let’s get a coffee. I need caffeine, and time to think.’
5
Kate sat in one of the high seats in the window, and Tristan left his backpack and went up to the counter to order coffee. They'd found a photo of Reynolds newsagent, taken in 1990, and Kate looked at it on her phone. There was a ripped awning in faded red-and-white stripes with ‘REYNOLDS’ written in black. The picture window where she now sat was filled with what looked like wanted ads – the kind of little postcards that you could use to place an ad to buy or sell. The pavement out front was filled with metal racks containing all the daily newspapers and magazines. And a small metal Wall’s ice cream sign stood next to a tall revolving rack with greeting cards.
‘I asked the barista if he lives locally,’ said Tristan, coming over to the table with two coffees and chocolate croissants. ‘He looked at me as if I were mad. He commutes an hour to get here every day.’
It was a shock to be back in London, and to realise how provincial she’d become. She sipped her coffee; it was hot and strong and just what she needed.
Tristan opened his rucksack and took out the slim folder they’d been given by Fidelis and Maddie. It was blue, and written across the front and then crossed out was Booker Prize long lists 1990–2000. Printed underneath was MATERIALS FOR KATE MARSHALL DET. AGENCY.
There were only a couple of A4 papers inside fastened with a paper clip, and a tiny black USB key. There was a typed note on a compliments slip:
These are the letters from Thomas Black to Judith Leary where Janey Macklin is mentioned. The USB key contains all letters. Please keep safe. Maddie x
‘Is that a London thing, signing off with a kiss?’ asked Tristan, holding up the compliments slip and raising an eyebrow.
‘Not when I lived here,’ said Kate. ‘Maybe it’s a publishing thing.’
Kate put the first letter between them, and they read.
Friday, 29 October 2010
3948562 HMP Wakefield
* * *
Dear Judith,
* * *
Despite what you might have read in the media recently, I spend twenty-three hours a day in my cell. It’s true; I am lucky to have access to my reading and writing materials and a small television, but I would give anything to have true freedom. Please, my dear, understand that you have true freedom. You have a degree of financial independence, your own flat, and the luxury of time. You wrote in your last letter that you woke up with nothing to do. You took the train into London and wandered around Regent’s Park in tears at your lack of acting work. Oh, what I would give to wake up, leave my cell, and walk through the city unchecked from place and time!
I have no doubt that you have been reading the newspapers. Peter Conway has been returned to incarceration after his escape attempt ended in tears. We are back at the circus, with media and staff gawking like we are all monkeys in a zoo. He’ll be kept in solitary for a few weeks, so I won’t have the misfortune to bump into him. There’s a certain vulgarity about Conway, I’ve always thought. It seems he had a fan on the outside who helped him escape, and there was a promise to reunite him with his ‘common old mum’, Enid. The rumour is that the two of them were screwing. Old Ma has been having her way with him since he first filled out his trousers . . .
‘Are you okay with continuing to read this?’ Tristan asked Kate. She felt a tightening in her chest when she saw the date of the first letter. When Peter Conway escaped on 27 October 2010, his plan had been to abduct Jake and for them to flee to Spain with Enid. She shuddered at the thought of how close they had come to reaching their aim.
‘Yes. We need to read it.’
Tristan nodded, and they turned back to the letter.
No doubt he’ll be using up all of his prison stamp allowance to write to dear old Ma, who is (apparently) being held in HMP Downview, down south, until the CPS decides what to do with her. I think she’ll only get a few years.
My path crossed with Conway’s a few times on the outside. Back in the day, when he was a copper, he pulled me over late at night for driving with a faulty headlight. Even then, I thought it was odd for an officer to be out on the beat, on his own, at 2am, dealing with such mundane tasks. He was quite dashing in his uniform that night, and the only reason the encounter sticks in my mind is that I saw him a week or so later, drinking at The Jug in King’s Cross. Back then, The Jug was delightfully seedy. Peter Conway was there on his own that night, and I don’t know if he recognised me, but he didn’t let on if he did. Conway seemed to be watching the younger women in the pub quite closely. I thought he was on surveillance until he bought a young girl who couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen a double vodka and then another, before asking her to join him. It only stuck in my mind because a month or so later, it was all over the papers that a girl had gone missing in King’s Cross . . .
Tristan looked up at Kate.
‘Hang on. Thomas Black says Peter Conway stopped him at two am for having a faulty brake light, and this was five weeks before Janey went missing. That would make it mid-November 1988.’
‘It means Peter was impersonating a police officer,’ finished Kate. ‘He didn’t graduate from Hendon until early 1989.’
‘It doesn’t say if Peter Conway was in a police car or plain clothes.’
‘Plain clothes officers have ID,’ said Kate, troubled. They read on:
I later heard on the grapevine – grapevine is a much more pleasant word for it, I won’t subject you to that, my dear – that Peter Conway was the one who kidnapped Janey Macklin. He’d got to know her in the pub weeks before she vanished, so she was happy to get into a car with him. He also might have been wearing his police uniform when she got into his car.
I don’t know if I’ll get the chance to bring this up with Conway. I’ll let you know. But back to how I started, please try to enjoy your life out there. You are an outstanding actress. I’m a monster, and many people would think my endorsement of your talent isn’t worth a fig. However, I believe it’s worth its weight in gold. I have no reason to lie to you, my dear.
Keep your pecker up.
* * *
Yours, Thomas
Tristan sipped his coffee, and Kate took out the second photocopied letter. This was much longer, but the short section about Janey had been highlighted.
You wrote in your last letter, dated Sunday, 31 October, which itself was in reply to my letter dated Friday, 29 October 2010, that you felt burdened by me telling you about a girl named Janey Macklin, whom I believe could have been an early victim of Peter Conway. Just to reiterate, Judith, my dear, the screws open and read every one of my God damn letters. So they’ve probably read every word I’ve ever written to you, and God knows who else. Rest assured, you don’t need to do anything with the information I’ve given you. It’s now known by the higher-ups, whomever they may be. I still haven’t had the chance to ask Conway about this, and I don’t know if I will have anytime soon. He’s being kept in solitary confinement under strict supervision.
Kate looked up from reading. They had only been in the coffee shop for half an hour, but already, a fog had descended on the road outside, and the light was fading.
‘What do you make of Thomas Black?’ she asked.
‘He thinks he’s an intellectual. He’s displaying a lot of the classic serial killer traits: smooth-talking but insincere, egocentric and grandiose.’
