The Narrow Bed, page 3
It’s easy to see the logic the police must have followed: ‘This murderer is killing pairs of best friends! Billy Dead Mates is the perfect name for him! It’s a playful reworking of Billy No Mates!’
Can’t you just imagine the discussions they’ve been having, all these DC No-Solves who have failed to put an end to the killing spree? ‘These murders must be about friendship. Perhaps he resents best friends because he never had a bestie himself,’ they say to one another.
By calling him Billy Dead Mates, they’re inviting us to sympathise with a murderer. ‘Poor, lonely Billy,’ is the subliminal message. ‘If only someone had extended the hand of friendship and provided a shoulder for him to cry on, perhaps he wouldn’t have grown desperate enough to kill.’
And just who might these hypothetical people be that failed to invite poor Billy to their sleepovers and summer houses? Could they be girls and women, by any chance? We’re usually the ones expected to open our hearts and our legs, to provide emotional sustenance to needy men incapable of taking responsibility for their own actions. Make no mistake: although no male detective has said so explicitly, if Billy has been lonely all his life, then the underlying assumption is that somewhere, somehow, a woman is to blame. Perhaps his mother didn’t let him play out with the other children on their street, or an ex-girlfriend humiliated him by mocking the size of his todger. Does he maybe have a shrewish wife who never lets him go to the pub with the lads after work?
I’m beyond certain that if I were to put all this to DI Giles Proust or DC Simon Waterhouse, they would vehemently deny they’re thinking along these lines. They’d insist that they blame Billy and no one but Billy for the four murders he’s committed so far. They would claim that the name Billy Dead Mates, with its implicit reference to Billy No Mates, was in no way intended to elicit sympathy for a killer. To which I would say, ‘Oh, really? Then why aren’t you calling him Billy Dead Women?’
That’s right, folks. He might have killed two pairs of best friends, but it’s telling that the police are pushing that angle so hard, isn’t it? We know that nearly all of the violence in our patriarchal woman-hating society is male. This isn’t a controversial feminist assertion; it’s a simple fact. Toxic masculinity is responsible for more than 90 per cent of fatal assaults in the UK. The overwhelming majority of murders of women are committed by men. Yet, again and again, the police and the media conspire to conceal what’s going on, which is nearly always the same thing: lethal male violence against women and girls.
Here we have a killer who has killed three women. Please note: there is no need for the helpful among you to submit comments along the lines of ‘But one victim was a man! Don’t forget Joshua Norbury!’ That doesn’t change my fundamental point: it’s an outrage that a male killer can murder three women, and be reported as having done so all over the national media, and yet the words ‘misogyny’ and ‘male violence’ are not even mentioned. It was the same when Godfrey Cornish murdered his daughter Holly. Why are we so reluctant to name this plague that’s claiming more and more lives all the time: pernicious male brutality and the deeply entrenched belief among men that female lives don’t matter? Why do those with the power to control the story reach instead for a nickname like Billy Dead Mates that directs us, however subliminally, to side with the perpetrator rather than with his victims?
I’m aware that we don’t yet know for sure that this killer is a man. The police haven’t found him! He might be a woman! O come all ye mansplainers and men’s rights activists to tell me that women can be killers too. I don’t deny that, but the fact is that the overwhelming majority of murderers in our society are male. I don’t believe the police would have coined the nickname Billy Dead Mates if they believed there was an equal chance of the culprit being a woman.
This monster – Billy Dead Women – might or might not be taking lives because he harbours some deep-seated resentment around the issue of friendship. We don’t know that he does, and neither, presumably, do the police. Yet this is the feature of the situation that everyone is keenest to talk about. ‘How intriguing!’ we say to one another in wine bars as if it’s the latest episode of CSI. ‘Pairs of best friends – how novel! How distinctive! Whatever might his motive be?’
Well, let’s think about it, shall we? We know that Billy has murdered three women, and that the majority of his victims are female. We know this beyond doubt, but it’s something no one wants to discuss. That’s not the story that’s got the media excited. That’s just boring old misogyny, the most familiar motive in the world – so old hat that our society regards it as barely worth remarking upon, let alone eradicating.
2
6/1/2015
Simon Waterhouse feared that DC James Wing from Bournemouth and Poole Police was under the impression that the two of them were becoming friends, or might do so in the future.
It would never happen. It couldn’t happen if Simon didn’t let it, and he wouldn’t. He’d stand firm against the threat. Thankfully, Dorset was nowhere near the Culver Valley. Soon as they’d caught Billy, Wing would be out of Simon’s life, which was as it should be. Agreeing about a couple of things didn’t mean anything; it wasn’t a sign that you were on the same wavelength. More likely to be coincidence.
It was nothing personal against long-legged, curly-haired James Wing, who was more intelligent than many even if he did have the irritating habit of rolling his eyes when he spoke, like a thwarted teenager. Simon simply wasn’t the sort who allowed people to latch onto him.
The couple of things that he and James Wing had agreed on so far had first been mooted by Wing. On both occasions, Simon was put out to find himself in the position of seconder. If they were good ideas, he ought to have had them first.
Not that anyone apart from him and Wing thought they were valid points. Of the six officers in the sterile, green-walled room at Paddington Green police station in London, representing three Major Crime teams from different parts of the UK, only Simon had supported Wing when he’d opened today’s meeting by saying it was stupid that they were calling the killer Billy Dead Mates.
‘Because it might be a woman, you mean?’ DS Sam Kombothekra, Simon’s sergeant and line manager, had asked.
‘No.’ Major eye-rolling from Wing. ‘Some women are Billies, usually with “ie” at the end.’
‘Billie Piper, Billie Jean King, Billie Holiday,’ DS Neil Dunning, their host for the day, chipped in quickly. Of course – it would matter to a man as petty as Dunning that he should list all the female Billies before anyone else did. Simon had worked with him before, hampered by a marked lack of cooperation and good faith on both sides. He’d wondered, before his first encounter with Dunning on the Billy case, if there might be some scope for burying hatchets. Seconds after walking into the room – in Bournemouth on that occasion, with pockmarked white walls and a faint smell of cauliflower cheese – Simon had known there was no chance. How had Dunning managed to get all his hard feelings to that initial briefing without the help of a suitcase on wheels?
‘I was going to say Billie Holiday,’ said Dr Kerensa Moore, the psychological profiler who was their guest for the morning. The low turnout was due to her presence, Simon suspected. No one wanted her or believed they needed her; she was an unwelcome gift inflicted on them by the London higher-ups. There would have been between twelve and twenty detectives here if she hadn’t got involved. As it was, there were three from the Culver Valley, two representing the Met on home turf – Dunning and DC Grace Woolston, a woman with chipped green nail polish and two cats that she talked about as if they were people – and a lone James Wing from Bournemouth and Poole.
‘Billy Dead Mates doesn’t work for two reasons,’ Wing said. ‘One: it’s too Little England. No one in America knows what a Billy No Mates is.’
‘They do now, thanks to us,’ said Dunning. ‘The few who are interested, that is.’
‘It makes us look like parochial hicks in the eyes of the rest of the world,’ Wing insisted.
‘Is your new friend serious?’ DI Giles Proust asked Simon, who flinched. The F-word; the very one he didn’t want to hear. In front of Wing, too. Proust – the third and most senior member of the Culver Valley delegation – was a cunning bastard. He seemed always to know the worst thing to say to Simon, and he always said it. Billy’s might be flawed but Proust’s nickname was perfect: the Snowman, inspired by the icy wasteland he had in place of a heart.
‘Are you serious, DC Wing?’ A new friend for Simon, as Proust saw it, was a shiny new victimisation opportunity for him. ‘Are you this murderer’s public relations manager? You’re worried he might not catch on internationally?’
‘I’m worried about how it looks, yes. If we can’t name our serial killers, thinks the New York Times and USA Today, then maybe we can’t catch them.’
‘The New York Times?’ Proust snorted. ‘You’re aiming high. So far one talk show host with a haircut like a bad wig has given Billy a token mention, and one blogger from Dayton, Ohio, has written a ponderous screed – which, in any case, contains an explanation of the nickname: “In Great Britain, a friendless individual is colloquially described as a Billy No Mates.” And all is clear. I see no problem.’
‘My bigger issue is that the name Billy Dead Mates is misleading,’ said Wing.
At the word ‘misleading’, before the explanation, Simon had got it. He’d understood. Everyone else’s blank expressions told him that he was alone. Just him and Wing, who’d thought of it first.
‘Why isn’t it accurate?’ Sam Kombothekra asked.
‘He’s killing pairs of best friends,’ Proust said loudly and slowly. ‘They’re friends, which is synonymous with “mates”. They’re murdered, which is synonymous with “dead”.’
‘He’s killing pairs of best friends, yes, but they’re friends with each other,’ said Wing, eye-rolling again, ‘not with him. To call him Billy Dead Mates implies he’s killing his own friends. And we’ve no reason to think he is. The opposite. There’s been no connection found between the two pairs. Linzi Birrell and Rhian Douglas existed in a very different world to the one Angela McCabe and Joshua Norbury inhabited. We’ve found nothing to suggest any overlap—’
‘They were all murdered by the same person,’ Proust interrupted flatly. ‘I call that overlap.’
‘I was going to say “nothing to suggest any overlap in their friendship circles. We’re as sure as we can be that Linzi and Rhian had no friends or acquaintances in common with Angela and Joshua. So it’s not Billy’s mates who are dead, is it?’ Wing sat back and folded his arms.
‘Aren’t you being too …?’ Sam Kombothekra began hesitantly. ‘I mean, if you think of it as “Billy of the Dead Mates”…’
‘Like Tess of the D’Urbervilles.’ Kerensa Moore smiled.
‘Why does this matter?’ Proust had adjusted his voice to its coldest setting. When alone with his team – Simon, Sam, Colin Sellers and Chris Gibbs – this tone would guarantee silent compliance for the foreseeable future, unless Simon was feeling particularly bloody-minded.
Kerensa Moore stared down at her feet and frowned, no doubt deciding not to do anything as rash as make a harmless remark ever again.
James Wing, by contrast, appeared impervious. ‘No.’ He directed his reply to Sam, bypassing Proust who sat between them. ‘Billy Of The Dead Mates That Aren’t His doesn’t work. Everyone who knows the saying behind the name knows it’s Billy No Mates as in Billy has no mates. When you change the phrase slightly, the silent reference remains: leading people to assume … rather, misleading them into assuming that it’s Billy’s mates that are dead – that he’s killed his own friends. Billy has dead mates. Can’t you see the problem?’
‘I’m looking at him right now.’ Proust stared at Wing.
‘I think DC Wing’s got a point,’ Simon forced himself to say.
‘I’m not sure most people are that literal-minded,’ Kerensa Moore said with a nervous glance at Proust. ‘Hardly anyone would get as far in their thought process as “Billy of the”, “Billy has”, etcetera.’
‘Maybe so, but it’s not ideal that we’re calling him by a name that misrepresents him,’ said Wing.
‘I take your point, but I just don’t see that it does,’ said Sam.
‘Then you don’t take his point, Sergeant,’ offered the Snowman. ‘You reject his point.’
‘No, I can see what he’s saying, completely, but the name works for me. At the most basic level …’ Sam shrugged. ‘He’s killing pairs of best friends and we’re calling him Billy Dead Mates.’
‘Also, you don’t know for certain that the two pairs had no one in common,’ said Kerensa Moore.
‘We pretty much do,’ Simon told her. ‘Unless all four murder victims were keeping their friendship with Billy secret from everyone they knew. These weren’t secretive people, though.’
‘Well …’ Moore swallowed visibly. ‘I haven’t been invited to start, officially, but …’
Proust waved his hand at her in a batting-away gesture – one that would say quite unambiguously to an untrained observer, ‘Get out of my sight.’
‘He means start,’ Simon told Moore.
‘All right, then. Given that we’ve reached this point in the discussion naturally … I think we have to consider the possibility that Billy was, secretly, a friend of each of the four victims. Extensive interviews with all four families have turned up no one who knew them all, yet we believe that each of them – Joshua, Angela, Rhian and Linzi – invited Billy into their home, and that three of the four made him at least one cup of tea … Who would you welcome into your home and make tea for, when you’ve not mentioned to your nearest and dearest that you’re expecting a visitor?’
‘A canvasser, a charity worker, a market researcher doing a survey,’ Simon reeled off the first three possibilities that occurred to him.
‘Maybe, yes.’ Kerensa Moore rewarded him with a smile. ‘Or maybe a secret friend who persuades normally open people to enter into a conspiracy of silence with him. Either way, this killer is skilled at manipulation. Four murders, unsolved, and no leads apart from a sighting of a blonde woman at one crime scene who is as yet unidentified.’
‘Our blonde woman’s gone up in smoke, I’m afraid,’ said James Wing. ‘But I can think of one possible lead no one’s mentioned. You’re all going to hate it.’
‘Let Dr Moore say her piece.’ Proust glared at Wing. ‘I’m not ready to hear another of your opinions. It hasn’t been long enough since the last one.’
What possible lead did Wing have in mind? Why couldn’t Simon think of it?
‘I don’t think it’ll surprise any of you to hear that I think Billy has issues around friendship,’ Kerensa Moore went on. ‘The obvious conclusion, I suppose, would be that he or she never had a best friend and always yearned for one. But somehow … I don’t know. I think I’d expect someone with that motivation to kill, for example, several of their former classmates, or a group of friends on a fun night out together. Not one pair, then another – and more pairs in the future for all we know.’
‘Are you making this up as you go along, Dr Moore?’ asked the Snowman. ‘I swapped a sizeable chunk of budget for all you know, and so far it seems to be not a lot.’
‘It’s not much,’ Kerensa Moore agreed. ‘I’ll come to that later. There’s a very specific reason why I’m able to glean so little in this case – these cases, I should say – but I want to stay with the friendship thing for a while. Pairs of two being killed makes me wonder if Billy was the third and least powerful of a trio of friends. You’re going to ask me for supporting evidence.’ She smiled at Proust. ‘I have none. It’s no more than informed guesswork, but that’s what struck me: the rejected member of the three-that-was-a-crowd taking symbolic revenge on the other two by killing pairs of best friends.’
‘What an entertaining story,’ said Proust. ‘I have one too: Billy was deserted by his wife who ran off with her best friend after deciding she was a lesbian. Symbolic revenge. Who’s to say my theory’s any less likely than yours?’
‘Which is why I said: no evidence.’
‘You said, “informed guesswork”. Informed by what?’
‘It’s a theory based on observations I’ve made in the past, in other cases, that were later proved to be sound. One thing I am sure of: Billy is a serial killer in name only. You’re a great deal more likely to catch him if you forget everything you think you know about serial killers in your search for him.’
‘What—?’ James Wing began.
Moore raised a hand to shut him up. ‘Billy has the victim tally of a serial killer, but he lacks the correct mindset. Serial killers might have three victims, twenty-three, thirty-three or a hundred and three, but those victims are always either individuals—’
‘Everyone’s an individual,’ Dunning and Grace Woolston said in unison.
‘Apparently not,’ James Wing muttered in Simon’s ear, as Simon was thinking the exact same thing. So that was Wing’s point doubly proven.
‘The victims of serial killers, 99 per cent of the time, are individuals, killed individually,’ said Moore. ‘Serial killers rarely target groups, even groups as small as two, and in the rare cases that they do – Zodiac, for example – they kill the whole unit, be it two or three or however many, at the same time. But I can’t stress enough how exceptional that is. Normally, serial killers collect individual victims that fit a certain type.’
‘So Billy’s abnormal even within his abnormal category?’ Sam asked.
‘A freak among freaks,’ Proust summed up.
