I was distracted as I heard tyres on the gravel drive. As I swung open the door, standing there was the last person I’d expected to see.
7 August
Kingsberry Farm
‘Callum!’
He was leaning against the door frame, his face weary and drawn as though he hadn’t slept much. Somewhere in the back of my mind, it registered that he was wearing the same clothes as when I’d last seen him.
He nodded his head towards James’s car and then stared pointedly at my dressing gown. ‘Seems like I’ve come at a bad time. Got company?’
His assumption infuriated me, but I bit back the denial and decided to let him think the worst. Without a word, I gestured him inside.
As he crossed the porch, I could almost smell the testosterone firing between him and James. I couldn’t decide whether it was embarrassing or flattering. I stood between the two of them, feeling like a referee at a stag-rutting.
‘Callum, this is James Turner from Fosters solicitors. James this is–’
‘DCI Ferguson. We’ve met in court.’ He extended his hand to Callum, who took it somewhat reluctantly, I thought. ‘It was a while ago, maybe you don’t remember?’
‘I remember.’ I was surprised at the venom in his voice; renowned for keeping his personal feelings to himself, it was unusual. ‘Three months’ work to nail a bastard that took you thirty minutes to get off.’
James sat down, shrugging his shoulders. ‘If it’s any consolation, he only walked because of a technicality. Nothing wrong with the policing. The lab let you down.’
Callum took the seat opposite, his blue eyes locking with James’s.
‘Not to worry, eh?’ Callum’s Scottish accent could be so deceptively soft. ‘He was killed a year later. Gangland shooting. So I suppose justice was served in the end.’
I couldn’t stand this any longer. ‘If you don’t mind, do you think we could deal with the situation at hand?’
Callum looked up. ‘Sorry, Jo. I suppose I owe you an explanation?’
‘Damn right!’ I exclaimed, unconcerned by James’s presence. ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t know about the press conference Hoyle gave?’
‘I heard about it–’
I wasn’t in the mood to listen. ‘He hung me out to dry and the Sunday papers had a field day with the photo they took of you and me at the scene!’
‘I know, Jo, listen–’
I wasn’t about to listen, not for a minute.
‘So where were you, Callum? When Hoyle paraded Taylor-Caine at the press conference and admitted there were two profiles. Two and two made five! The tabloids crucified me for God’s sake!’
Callum held up his hand, and only because I needed to draw breath, I let him get a word in.
‘I know how it looks, but it wasn’t like that.’
‘Then how was it, exactly?’ My tone cauterised as it cut.
Callum sighed, raking his hand through his hair. He looked down at the table. I wasn’t sure whether it was a device to help him order his thoughts, or discomfort at having to do this in front of James Turner.
‘After I left you, I didn’t see daylight for forty-eight hours. As soon as I got a break, Hoyle collared me. To say he roasted me would be an understatement.’
‘About bringing me in to run a profile?’
‘That and more. Taking you down to the scene really pissed him off. The fact that you did it for free almost made it worse! Me calling in personal favours instead of sticking to protocol.’
‘So you decided to leave me in the lurch?’ He opened his mouth to protest, but I cut across him. ‘What’s wrong, Callum? Bad career move to be associated with me, was it?’
He stood abruptly, his chair scraping back across the tiled floor.
‘Okay!’ he shouted. ‘Either you listen or I may as well just walk out now.’
A tiredness flitted across his face and he suddenly looked bone-weary. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet. ‘For God’s sake, do you really believe that?’
My eyes settled on his and I fell deeper into them, as though if I tried hard enough, I could see inside his head. Another chair scraped as James rose to his feet. Without looking at us he began to gather cups off the table and walked over to the sink, putting his back to us to take himself out of this intimate arena.
I turned and walked into the living room. I felt the warmth of him a fraction before his hands rested on my shoulders and he slowly turned me around. I had to look up to meet his eyes. His breath was warm on my face.
‘Hoyle was totally pissed off, but there wasn’t much he could do. Everyone knew that your profile was the one that got us the result. I could make that public knowledge, and if I’d been there, Jo, I would have. But Hoyle made sure I didn’t have advanced knowledge about the press conference. He made sure I didn’t see daylight over the weekend. I had to go to Blackburn to co-ordinate things with the team there. I’ve been buried in the back of bloody beyond trawling through Woodhouse’s life. Haven’t even had a chance to change my clothes – it’s a wonder Harvey can’t smell me from here!’
‘So they don’t have phones in Blackburn then?’
‘I tried. Your mobile was off and the office phone wasn’t answered. I called the house but that must have been while you were at the station.’ His eyes held mine as tightly as he held my hands. ‘Please, Jo, give me a break. You know I would never drop you in it for career reasons for Christ’s sake!’
It was only when I let my breath out that I realised I had been holding it. Suddenly I couldn’t hold his gaze any longer. I looked down at the carpet.
‘This weekend I felt so alone with it all.’
He held my hands tighter. ‘I know. I’m sorry.’
‘Tea?’ It was James, poking his head round the door.
I took the chance to pull back from Callum. ‘Please.’
Callum turned back to me when James had gone.
‘You know I only got the towpath killings because I was the SIO on call?’ I nodded. ‘Well, Hoyle took the chance to replace me over the weekend.’
‘He can’t do that! At the eleventh hour? When you’ve done all the work?’
Callum shrugged. ‘He can and he has. His way of rapping my knuckles. Not letting me get the public recognition for the collar.’
He went to stand and look out of the window as he spoke to me. ‘Shot him in the foot now though, hasn’t it?’
‘How do you mean?’
He turned to look at me. ‘Because when the shout came in about Martha’s killing, I was the SIO to pick it up.’
‘And he let you!’
Callum shrugged. ‘It’s legitimately mine this time. He could reassign it, but he’d have to explain that to the hierarchy. In any case, I told him I’d already set some inquiries in motion about her time in Manchester and the stabbings she talked to you about, so I was already involved.’
‘That simple?’ I sounded sceptical.
He shrugged again. ‘No. But he did make a point of asking whether we were having a relationship. If we were, then he would have reassigned it.’
I drew a shaky breath and tried to sound unemotional. Not sure I managed it.
‘You obviously said we weren’t?’
‘Well we’re not – are we?’ he said, softly.
I felt my emotions turn to stone.
‘No. I don’t suppose we are.’
James nudged the door open with his foot and came in juggling three mugs of tea. He was keeping one eye on Harvey, who was following him around, growling softly.
‘That dog really doesn’t like me,’ he said.
‘You’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘He’s been fed today.’ The joke seemed lost on him. ‘I’ll go pull some clothes on.’ My tone sounded brittle even to me. ‘You show Callum what he needs to see.’
7 August
Kingsberry Farm
They were both staring intently at the gruesome image that continued to scroll down my screen.
‘The techies wil
l track this,’ Callum said, as I entered the office. ‘Though I doubt his IP address goes back to the eighteen hundreds.’
‘So how did he get my personal email address here?’ I said, to no one in particular.
‘You don’t give this address out then?’ It was James’s turn to ask.
I shook my head. ‘The office in Fordley, but not here.’
‘Who has this address?’
It wasn’t a very long list. ‘Jen, of course, my publisher, Marissa, in London.’
‘Anyone else?’
‘You and Callum of course, and Alex–’
‘Who’s Alex?’ James asked.
‘My son. He’s a student and he travels a lot. I have to make it easy for him to get hold of me.’
James snorted. ‘So this one’s in the public domain as well then?’
I bridled at the inference that Alex would be stupid enough to give out my private details.
‘Come on, Jo.’ He spread his hands in a gesture of appeal. ‘A student?’
‘My son,’ I said, in a tone that crackled with static, ‘has been brought up around the fact that I deal with some of the most dangerous criminals in the justice system and he isn’t in the habit of giving my private contact details out to anyone!’
Callum shot James a conspiratorial look. ‘Careful, counsellor – dangerous ground.’
I glared at Callum, who simply grinned and looked back at the computer screen.
‘This isn’t a police crime scene photo. Not sure we’ve even got those pinned up in the incident room yet.’
‘So, taken by the killer then?’ James asked.
‘Or someone with him,’ I added, without being asked.
Callum shot me a look. ‘Is an accomplice likely?’
I hesitated, trying to stay objective. Though it wasn’t easy when the killer had brought his crime right into my home. ‘Too early to say. I need more information. You know the form, Callum.’
He sat back, stretching his long legs under the desk, his hands easing a knot in the nape of his neck.
‘I can give you what we’ve got so far.’
He got up from the desk and walked over to the arched window, staring out at dark trees and the outline of the woods against a purple-blue sky.
‘She was found at 3.30 this morning by a taxi driver picking up a fare from George House,’ Callum said to his own reflection in the now-darkening glass. ‘That’s a block of council flats. He waited five minutes but when no one came, he went in. The lift was out of order, so he took the stairs.’
Callum turned from the window and looked again at the image on the computer.
‘Found her laying on the first-floor landing. Just as she looks there. His call was logged at 3.35am. We’re conducting door-to-door interviews at the flats, but so far it appears everyone is deaf, dumb and blind. There’s been a blanket put over the press and so far it’s a news blackout until we know more.’
James was looking at the image again, his lips pursed thoughtfully. ‘Why you?’ he asked, quietly.
‘What?’
‘Why has the killer sent this to you? What’s the connection?’
‘Because I spoke to Jack. I called him out and he made Martha his first victim and sent me the image to prove it was him.’
Callum shot me an incredulous look. ‘You’re not serious?’
‘I set him free. Martha’s death is my fault and he either wants me to feel guilty or he’s thanking me.’
They looked at each other with uneasy expressions. But I wasn’t really directing my comments to them. I was tracking possibilities. The way I worked through the criminal mind. Processing the often illogical, impossible mental leaps murderers make to validate what they do and who they do it to.
Somewhere in the mental clutter would be the answers I needed to find out who Jack was and why he had chosen Martha, and now me, to be players in his sadistic fantasy.
Callum pulled up a chair and sat beside me, his voice quiet. The demeanour of a man speaking to a mad woman.
‘Jo, Jack the Ripper lived over a hundred years ago. This is a modern-day murderer who sends email for Christ’s sake!’ He raked a weary hand through his silver hair. ‘And whoever he is, I’ll sure as hell stake my pension on the fact that he’s not Jack the Ripper!’
I turned to slowly meet his eyes. ‘He believes he is,’ I said, simply. ‘And if that’s his reality, then that’s what I have to work with, because it’s only when I get inside his head that I’ll be able to see what he sees and think like he does.’
James visibly shuddered as he gestured a thumb towards the computer.
‘Who’d want to live for one second inside the head of whoever did that?’
‘I want to,’ I said, simply. ‘Otherwise he’s going to keep on killing.’
My house was quiet again.
The police had taken my computer away for examination. Callum confirmed I wouldn’t be questioned down at the station and James had finally taken no for an answer to dinner.
Until the post-mortem report and results from the CCTV from Westwood Park were all back, there was little to be done, but the thought of sitting and waiting was driving me insane. I decided to go to my library in the office and see if I could research some of the threads that were beginning to weave into the murder.
The atmosphere wrapped around me like a comforting blanket as I went in and switched on the lamps.
The whole left wall was floor-to-ceiling shelves. The volumes covered every topic on murder, mayhem and monstrous minds. Alex jokingly called it the ‘psycho shelf’.
If a murder had been committed since documents had been kept, I would have some reference to it. From the Borgias to the Boston Strangler, Yorkshire Ripper to the Zodiac Killer. I had an urge to collect, read and research it. A collection of material, photographs and post-mortem reports that most people would not want to share their homes with.
The crimes and times of Jack the Ripper were something I had plenty of material on, having covered it in my first book half a decade ago. With a glass of wine and a notepad on my knee, I trawled back through the terror of the East End of London a hundred and thirty years ago. If my instincts were right, it was a truly terrifying prediction of what was to come.
8 August
Fordley Therapy Practice
Callum raised an eyebrow as I dumped a pile of notes and reference books onto my desk. ‘Christ, it would take me years to trawl through that lot. How come you can read so fast?’
‘I don’t move my lips.’ I picked up the notes I made the night before. ‘Do you know there are more books written about Jack the Ripper than all the American presidents combined?’
‘Probably because he’s more interesting.’ Callum glanced at my scrawled notes. ‘You should have been a doctor – your handwriting’s shit.’
‘You should have been a policeman with powers of observation like that.’
He sat back in his chair, stretching his long legs beneath my desk.
‘So, what did this lot tell you?’
‘That there are as many theories of “whodunit” now as there were a hundred years ago. But instead of worrying about the original killings, we need to work out who’s behind the new one.’
‘And?’
‘I don’t have enough information to do a profile, do I? You haven’t shared the post-mortem report, crime scene photographs, etcetera. Need me to go on?’
He ignored the dig.
‘But you will have something.’ He flicked the pile of papers with his finger. ‘I know you well enough to know you won’t wait to be invited.’
‘Jack himself emailed me a private invitation – remember?’
Jen chose that moment to open the door and come in with two mugs of tea. I looked back at Callum as she left.
‘Where am I with this?’ I asked, quietly.
Callum looked at me for a long moment, before drawing a deep breath. ‘You’re involved up to your neck. The killer saw to that when he emailed you the snaps
hot of his little hobby.’
‘I mean professionally?’
‘You can’t be involved officially. You’re a material witness.’
I opened my mouth to interrupt him, but he raised his hand to cut across me.
‘But you and I both know that you can’t help it.’ He nodded towards the pile of notes on my desk. ‘It’s what you do – right?’
I couldn’t help smiling. ‘Right.’
‘He emailed you. So it could be someone you know. Maybe a patient or former patient? Let’s face it, with your clientele, we have most of the country’s criminally insane to go at for starters.’
Behind my eyes, I could still see the photograph Jack had sent.
‘This isn’t anyone I’ve dealt with before,’ I said, quietly.
‘How can you be so sure?’
I looked up into those perceptive blue eyes, my mind still trying to piece together what had begun last night.
‘I’ve never dealt with an MO like this before.’
‘So?’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe he’s changed his MO?’
I shook my head. ‘That doesn’t happen very often, in fact hardly ever. A savvy killer might change certain aspects of his crimes to fool the police, but certain signatures always surface somewhere.’
‘Signatures?’
‘Any behaviour done just to satisfy his psychological need is called a “signature”. Repeated patterns by the same offender become his signature.’
‘And they can never change it?’
I thought for a moment. ‘The Zodiac Killer in America killed for over a decade because he continually changed his MO. With hindsight, we can pinpoint certain trademarks of his today. So, yes, it’s happened, but with what we know now, I think we’d pick up personal signatures a lot faster.’
I sat back in my chair and took a sip of tea. ‘His choice of victim, location, some aspect of the way he kills, or what he does with the body. Posing them in some way or thinking about the way they’ll be found and what effect that has on the person who discovers the body.’
The Murder Mile Page 12
