“Arrested him this morning. He’s being questioned as we speak.”
“Okay, well thanks for keeping us informed. I’ll have a word with the DI and see what she wants to do next.”
33
The windscreen wipers batted away the drizzle as the cab wended its way through traffic lights, pedestrians and bikes. They talked about her life and the Master appeared very interested and she, flattered by the attention, had completely lost track of the streets outside. Not that the Master would have worried if she hadn't, he didn't plan on giving her the opportunity to relate it to anyone else.
As the cab finally came to a halt, the Master leaned forward to pay the cab driver, his panama pulled well down over his eyes. He led her from the car and down first one street then another. He took off the trench coat and Panama hat and, tucking them under his arm, he led her into the final street.
The large Victorian dwelling, with whitewashed hallway and a central, spiral, oak staircase had a very masculine feel. Large tropical plants were dotted around. Michelle thought they were probably Red Dragon trees and a cheese plant which was thriving on the copious light being shed from the circular sky-light. An antique-looking chest of drawers, an old clock and hat stand completed the sparse hallway décor.
“Come,” he said, as he placed one hand in the centre of her back. “Take off the hat and glasses and let’s go up stairs.”
Michelle was taken into a cavernous, cream room enhanced by an elaborate moulding in the centre of the ceiling. A black leather couch filled one side of the room, and a large, chrome music system stood in the centre of the wall opposite.
Surrounding her was an assortment of Japanese art and Michelle suspected they were expensive originals, judging by the hint of must in the air. A large alcove displayed row upon row of vinyl albums.
Her attention was on the massive bay window, opposite the door through which they had entered. The view was breath-taking. Michelle knew that it must be a view of the River Thames. She could see walkers, canoeists and large weeping willows, whose long, sad branches swayed elegantly in the afternoon breeze. Michelle smiled – it felt like heaven already.
“Would you like a glass of brandy?” He was lingering out the niceties. Anticipation of the torture was almost as good as the torture itself. Almost.
Michelle was surprised at this request. It was surely a bit early for brandy. Perhaps he wanted her relaxed.
“Please. That would be lovely.” Michelle's smile was beautifully open. As The Master left for the kitchen, he licked his lips.
An oval, walnut coffee table stood littered with notes. Michelle didn’t want to appear nosey, so she didn't examine them, choosing instead to marvel at the charming view.
34
We matched your hair with hair on this shirt.” In the claustrophobic interview room, David Spencer pushed the see-through evidence bag towards Brown.
Silence.
“Kelly’s blood is present on the shirt. It’s her DNA!”
Silence.
“Your shirt. Her blood. How come?” The detective’s voice had upped considerably in volume.
“Okay. Okay, it’s my t-shirt an’ its Kelly’s blood. But I didn’t kill ‘er. We had a fight the day before she went away. I still loved ‘er. I wanted ‘er back. I knew she was going to see someone else but she wouldn’t say who.”
“Tell us about the fight. How did it happen?” Yvonne's voice was low and soft.
“She were on ‘er way to see ‘er parents. I saw ‘er. She were walkin’ along the road, and I called out to ‘er. At first she wouldn’t come. But I wouldn’t stop callin’ and she came over, I guess to shut me up.”
Kevin’s hands were shaking and he grabbed one with the other, the skin on his face was damp, “She were really pissed at me. Told me to stop making so much racket and embarrassin’ her. Then she said she were goin’ away. I said she were goin’ t’meet someone else and she didn’t deny it.”
“What happened then?” Yvonne prompted.
“She said she had to go and I tried to stop ‘er. I grabbed ‘er arm, and she swung ‘er bag at me. I ‘it ‘er. I didn’t mean to. I caught ‘er square on the nose. It just bled and bled.”
“Why was there so much blood on your shirt?”
“She were crying and worrying about ‘er clothes. All the rags I ‘ad were covered in grease, so I took off me shirt and got ‘er to hold it to ‘er nose. It took ages for the bleedin’ to stop. She were just glad that ‘er nose weren’t broken. She were mad at me, but we went in Martin’s house and had some coffee while she cleaned up. She didn’t want ‘er parents to know about the fight.”
“How did you get into Martin’s house?”
”Through the kitchen door. It goes straight in from the garage an’ it weren’t locked.”
“And no-one saw you in the kitchen together?”
“No.”
“Kevin, why didn’t you wash your shirt straight away?”
Kevin looked embarrassed, “It were ‘er blood…It didn’t seem right to wash it off.”
“Well?” David Spencer asked Yvonne, as they stood in the hallway outside of the interview room.
“I don’t think he killed her.” Yvonne said, her head tilted, pensively. “I think he’s telling the truth. When would he have had the opportunity? Kelly’s parents watched her get onto the train.”
“But what if he was waiting for her on the train?”
“How would he have transported her to Oxford?”
“He could have bought her back on his bike.”
“But surely he wouldn’t have been able to cope with the bike if she had struggled?”
“Well maybe she was already dead and he sat her on the pillion seat and tied her to him 'round the waist.”
“I just don’t buy it.”
“Look, Kevin is the best suspect we have right now… and I think there’s a bloody good chance he did it.”
Yvonne gritted her teeth and made to answer, but Spencer had already turned his back on her and was disappearing down the corridor.
Yvonne sighed, chewing her lower lip. She knew how personal, cases could get, and was aware of the keen rivalry between forces. However, women’s lives were at stake and she felt intuitively that the killer was more sophisticated than the boy who had just broken down at interview.
“Brian?” Yvonne turned to her Sergeant.
“I agree with you Ma’am. I don’t think he did it, but he doesn’t help himself by lying and withholding information.”
“He’s scared and he’s hurting, Brian. He loved her and now she’s gone. I think that would put any one of us in a spin, don’t you?”
The journey back to Oxford passed in almost total silence but when they arrived back there was more bad news.
“I want you to scale down the enquiry.” Peterson waved his hands for emphasis. “By next week, I want Mike and Deborah freed up for other investigations. You and Brian can stay on this case for now, but I want you to think about wrapping it up.”
“But Sir…”
“Yvonne, West Yorkshire have a solid suspect and are expecting the go-ahead for prosecution from the CPS.”
“What if they’re wrong? I don’t believe that Kevin has the wherewithal to carry out the killing and get rid of the body in the way it was done. It doesn’t make sense and what about Hannah?”
“Look here Yvonne, they have solid DNA matches and in any case, the two murders may be unconnected. I want you to concentrate on the second one.”
“Kevin had a perfectly good explanation for the blood on his shirt.”
“I have a meeting with the Chief Constable in ten minutes. Think about it and we can discuss it next week.
Every fibre in Yvonne screamed in frustration. How could he scale down the investigation now? Talk about writing the murderer a blank cheque.
35
36
Tasha sat in Yvonne’s office, absent-mindedly pressing the button of her ball-point in and out repeatedly.
The DI had decided against informing the team that the investigation might be scaled down. It might not happen, but she had confided in the psychologist. As Tasha prepared her profile for the briefing, she already had a good idea of the kind of man she believed was committing the murders but also knew how big an impact, good or bad, the profile could have on the case.
She could feel the flutters in her stomach; could see the bruised and bloodied bodies of the dead girls in her mind. Twenty minutes felt like twenty hours.
When Yvonne burst in, face like thunder, muttering “God that man can be a total prick sometimes.” Tasha looked up open mouthed at her. She had never heard the DI swear before. When she raised her brows in unspoken enquiry, Yvonne just shook her head saying, “It's okay, ignore me.” and the psychologist chose not to push it.
37
As she handed copies of the profile to the team, later that day, Tasha expected some scepticism.
“I’d put his age at thirty to forty-five.” Her tone was strong and even.
“How come so specific?” Mike asked, his tone betraying his scepticism.
“The degree of organisation, and the precise positioning of the bodies, indicate to me that this is an older man who is confident in what he is doing. He will have honed his predatory skills over many years. Probably starting with smaller stuff - minor sexual offences, possibly rape and working up. I’d say he’s almost certainly Caucasian. This type of offender tends to stick within their own ethnic group. He’ll be educated and have a white collar job.
“What about relationships?” Brian asked.
“I’d say single. This guy’s a loner. He may have been in relationships which haven’t worked out, but he’ll have shown sadistic tendencies within these relationships.”
“And his base?”
“That’s harder to pinpoint, but I’d say London - although he must have strong links with Oxford, either present or past.”
“I don’t see how you can read all this from such a teeny amount of information.” Mike, used to old-fashioned information and questioning, was unhappy with what he believed was too much supposition.
“A lot of research has been done with serial offenders. Much of it has involved questioning killers themselves, and was pioneered by the FBI at their Behavioural Sciences Unit at Quantico,Virginia. It helps us predict how these guys operate.”
Yvonne watched the discussion but was no longer involved. The nagging memory was back, swimming around her head like clothes in a washing machine. An old murder case. The tied body of a woman. Headington Quarry sometime in the late eighties.
She fought to bring the vague blur into sharp focus. She remembered seeing the story on the national news but not really knowing any of the details until coming across the newspaper cuttings in an old file when she first joined Oxford CID. She had been in a hurry at the time and had only skim-read the file. Although the details were hazy, she was sure the killer had never been caught. She struggled to call to mind the name of the Detective who had originally handled the case. She couldn’t, but one thing she did remember was that he had relocated to the Metropolitan police.
38
Michelle had downed only one glass of brandy, thirty minutes ago, but she lost her footing as the Master led her down the steps. His fingers gripped her upper arm tightly, preventing her from falling. Funny, she couldn't really feel his fingers on her arm. Come to think of it, she couldn't feel very much at all.
At the bottom, he let her go and she staggered. Was she drunk? As she attempted to steady herself, she was surprised by the failure of her arms to do what she wanted. She raised her hands to clap. She could see them, but she couldn't feel them. She realized that they were made of air and could pass right through each other. The situation wasn’t funny, so why was she laughing?
“Tetrahydrocannabinol.” The Master muttered, smiling satisfactorily to himself. Michelle didn’t understand and giggled.
“Tetra-hyro-canibooo yourself,” she replied, but stopped laughing when she found herself alone on the other side of the trap door. There was no light in the room and she could see nothing, so she felt her way around.
“Aargh.” Michelle knelt down to pick up whatever it was that had made her toe bones crack, as they smashed against it. She found a heavy metal ring attached to a chain of some sort, which led to another ring. Shackles.
She dropped them, as though the metal was white hot, and sent them clanging to the floor. She wanted to huddle in a corner, except she wasn’t sure where a corner was. She fell asleep where she lay.
Minutes passed, or maybe it was hours but she awoke to find her head hurting and body aching from sleeping on the cold stone floor. Her mouth was as scratchy as sun-dried wood and she was ravenous. For the first time she felt real fear. Rising unsteadily to her feet, she searched in the blackness for a door but found none and hot, wet tears dropped from her lashes. Even then she hoped that this was all just part of a game, the realism of which was designed to increase the eventual pleasure.
These hopes were short-lived. The sound of the hatch being lifted signaled The Master’s return. Turning nervously towards the incoming light, she could feel every muscle taut: like overly-tuned strings on a violin.
“Did you sleep well, little one?” The words were soft, the voice hard.
Michelle’s blood was thudding somewhere inside her ears. The Master placed a large tray on the table and she made to run up the steps.
He caught her easily and threw her back into the room.
“Where are you going?” the air was thick with menace.
“Please, let me go. I’ve made a mistake…”
“Oh yes. You have, and you have no idea how big.” His voice was liquid nitrogen, freezing her to the spot as he bolted and locked the hatch, pocketing the key.
Michelle was trying to think. If only she could get her head clear. The Master had hold of her now and began impatiently tearing the clothes from her body, hitting her hard every time she resisted. She cried out again and again but it made no impression.
When she was naked, he pushed her to the floor.
“Kneel!”
“Yes, Master.” She was quiescent now, but thinking. Thinking. If only she could get him in a softer frame of mind. She knelt to the floor, back straight with her head held high. She placed her hands on her thighs, palm-downwards.
“Very good, Michelle. Now tell me what you are.”
“What am I, Master?”
“You’re a whore. Tell me you’re a whore.”
Michelle said nothing. He grabbed the whip and brought it down on her right shoulder. The end of it lashed her back.
“I’m a whore!” she screamed, tears falling off her nose.
“That’s better.” He gave an acrid smile. “Now, down on all fours.”
Michelle dropped forward onto her elbows, her head and back as straight as she could manage.
“Good little whore.”
Michelle heard The Master walking about somewhere behind. She tried to stop herself trembling, but her muscles, through cold and dread, had a life of their own.
She felt something hot and wet being poured onto her back. She cried out at the pain of it, but stayed as steady as she could. A cold glass was placed on her right buttock and Michelle sensed that the glass falling would result in punishment.
“Stay still.”
With incredulity, she realized that he was eating: using a knife and fork and drinking wine as though he were relaxing in a restaurant. This man was acting out a very bizarre fantasy. Michelle breathed a little. Perhaps this ordeal would not be quite as bad as she'd feared.
Any thoughts of safety were dispelled when, after he had eaten his fill, he caught her by the hair and dragged her to a standing position.
On tip-toe, she felt her whole scalp under strain. He was bodily lifting her until she felt flat, hard wood beneath her back and she was hit again across her cheek. Her wrists and ankles were locked in position and, as the box came down over her head,
she screamed.
The plaintive sound was quickly muffled by the box, which was tight around her neck. She fought for air, which barely came through two small holes. After a short while, her sweat-soaked hair clung to her head and face. She had no idea where the Master had gone or what her fate would be. She only knew that she didn’t want to die in this place.
TWENTY
It was eight o’clock on Thursday evening. Detective Superintendent John Walker sighed, as he hit the back of his throat with a double of his namesake’s scotch. He took in the intense gaze of the DI who had come to ask him about a cold case. Now rapidly nearing retirement, he had long since stopped caring if the stacks of paper were piling high in the two trays on his desk.
It was a cold evening, and Yvonne appreciated the warmth of his office, even with its suffusing smell of cigarettes and whiskey.
“Thank you for seeing me at such short notice,” she stated, neglecting to add that this was on her own time and without her senior's authorisation.
“So, you’re on the trail of a murderer.” John Walker examined her with uncharacteristic interest.
“Yes. We're investigating two deaths which I'm sure are linked. I wanted to ask you about the woman’s body you found in Headington Quarry.”
“Headington quarry.” Walker frowned as he struggled to recall the details. “I think it was…nineteen eighty-eight, when we found a body in the quarry. It was my wife’s fortieth birthday. I missed the celebrations. She never quite forgave me for that.”
“What had happened to victim? Who was she?”
“We identified the remains from dental records. She was a twenty-year-old student called Emma Shilton, who’d disappeared a year earlier from Magdalen College ball. She was no more than bones when we found her. Bones and rope. Her femur was dug up by a dog. I guess we have a lot to thank dogs for, eh?"
DI Giles BoxSet Page 6
