The Alice Murders

by James Arklie

  Angie handed the wad across to Samuel and he pulled down his reading glasses from where they rested on the top of his head. The pictures were of the other ALICE victims, together with Bryony James and Deborah Wilcox.

  He looked at the first picture. ‘You want to give me a name?’ He looked up at Angie. ‘It may help jog the memory.’

  Angie told him it was on the reverse of the photograph. He looked hard at each one before passing them on to Amanda.

  ‘Did Chesney’s killer murder all these women? Is that what this is about? Are these the others?’

  Kline sighed inwardly, sometimes it was easier to interview people who weren’t so sharp, although it was pretty obvious what they were doing.

  ‘I need you to keep this quiet, Samuel. Yes, we are looking at a wider group of unsolved murders, but it’s low key. We don’t want it blown up by the press, social media and so on.’

  Samuel’s gaze was harsh and steady. ‘Perhaps full on publicity would be a good thing. Flush the bastard from the bushes. Then someone could shoot him.’

  Kline glanced at Angie. The ‘bastard’ didn’t need to be flushed from the bushes, he was wandering round in full sight. It was just they couldn’t see him.

  Kline answered calmly, ‘Low key, is the way forward for now, Samuel.’

  Samuel nodded, then pointed at the pictures in Amanda’s hand. ‘Sorry. But no one I recognise.’

  Kline looked at Amanda who shook her head. ‘Sorry.’

  Then Angie surprised him. She flipped open her mobile case and held out the picture of Alan Bleakley, taken back in the Eighties.

  ‘This man?’

  They both leaned in, looked hard, glanced at each other, then Samuel smiled.

  ‘Him I do know. I once had him by his throat up against a wall. Told him if he ever laid a finger on Chesney again, I’d use my fists to beat him to death.’ Samuel looked between them. ‘Don’t tell me I should have done it while I had the chance.’

  Kline smiled his lying policeman smile. ‘Just a person of interest in an associated case.’

  Samuel shook his head at Kline. ‘You’re a shit liar.’ He leant forward. ‘But do me a favour. When you do catch the bastard, bring him round here first. I want to slowly remove his balls with a filleting knife.’

  It was a trite comment but said with intense passion. Kline smiled indulgently. Samuel Arthur would have to get in the queue for that pleasure. Angie stepped into the moment and asked, ‘How did Chesney know Dr Bleakley?’

  Amanda answered. ‘She was a trainee nurse in Salisbury for about six months. He was there as well. She was young, got infatuated, threw herself in, which was typical of her. He was older, experienced and a brute. Hit her round a few times. After Dad threatened him, he moved on and Chesney decided nursing wasn’t for her.’

  Kline asked, ‘Why move to New Zealand?’

  Kline watched another glance pass between them. He was dredging through family memories and conflicts with the finesse of a bulldozer cracking and smashing down trees in a rainforest. He watched the tension work in the jaws on Samuel’s face, but it was Amanda who answered.

  ‘She met a New Zealander here. One day they married in a registry office without telling anyone. Two days later they ran away to New Zealand.’

  Kline looked at Samuel. ‘You didn’t approve?’

  The grey eyes drilled into Kline’s. He clearly didn’t want to go there right now. Which meant that Kline did.

  He realised Kline wasn’t backing off. ‘There were family complications.’

  Amanda stood sharply and started collecting their cups. Kline saw that Angie had this one.

  ‘Are you married, Amanda?’

  Amanda shook her head as the cups rattled on the tray. ‘Right man never came along.’

  Or he did, just the once, and her sister stole him.

  Then, he stole Chesney from her family.

  Then, someone stole Chesney from all of them.

  *

  The loose stone crunched beneath their feet as Angie and Kline made their way across the car park of a residential home on the outskirts of Andover. All Kline could think about was Jenny. Returning to a place like this had his emotions slopping round inside his gut like a drunken sailor trying to balance on the poop deck. He felt just as sick.

  They paused in front of the original building. It was a couple of hundred years old, red brick, three stories high. Stone steps led up to high double doors. Two sets of bay windows stretched away on either side of the ground floor. Retired folk sat in all of the windows watching the day go by. Right now, Kline and Angie had become the excitement of that day. Kline waved a couple of times and received smiles in return.

  Millie Maughn, mother of Lisa Maughn, who was murdered in Sydney, was in her eighties, in bed having a ‘bed-rest day’. She was as sparkly as they come. Her room was in a long, low modern extension at the rear of the building. She had double glass doors which led out to a wooden deck. It gave views of rolling fields beyond. A black cat was basking in the sunshine.

  Millie was also very much in command. Resting beside her on the bed, she had a walking stick that she used to indicate things she needed. A magnifying glass was in a drawer ‘over there’, ring that bell ‘there’ for tea, use that cord ‘there’ to drop the blind to keep the sun out of your eyes and so on.

  Several pictures of Lisa were on the bookshelves. A professional portrait photograph on Millie’s bedside table carried a handwritten message from Lisa – ‘To the greatest Mum on planet Earth, love you always, Lisa.’

  Millie saw Kline’s eye drawn to it. ‘You have children, Detective?’

  ‘No. We tried but it never happened.’ He found he was lying a lot today.

  She looked at Angie. ‘You?’

  Angie glanced at Kline defiantly, then forced a smile. ‘Yes. A daughter. Aged ten.’

  Millie leant towards her and said gently, ‘Then you will understand the love of a mother for a daughter and perhaps what it would mean to lose her.’

  Kline watched the emotions race across Angie’s face. Anger at herself, the pain of what she’d lost. It filled her eyes. Kline watched carefully, Angie needed to keep this professional. This wasn’t the moment to let her self-recriminations surface. Her jaw moved, grinding the memories between her teeth, then she swallowed them down.

  Angie nodded into the scrutiny. ‘Yes. I do understand.’

  And suddenly, Kline did too. The real depth of Angie’s darkness. What he’d done to her without thinking by allowing her to be involved. All these daughters murdered. Angie was fighting demons every second, of every day, of this case.

  Angie pulled the photographs from the folder. Kline would leave this interview to her. Go with the empathy that had built between them, white lie or not. Angie began with Kline’s story about following up a few new leads. She asked if Millie recognised any of the faces. Millie used her magnifying glass. The answer was no.

  She showed Millie the picture of Alan Bleakley.

  The kindness in her face flicked to severity then, with a sigh, floated to the softness of regret. Yet her voice was still a spit of venom. ‘That bastard.’

  Tears sprang to her eyes and she looked out at the cat which was cleaning its face with a paw. It paused for a second under the scrutiny before continuing.

  Millie turned and spoke directly to Angie. ‘We all make one mistake in life, don’t we? Life allows us that.’

  Kline’s mind was spinning for Angie, this really would be screwing with her head. Angie’s lips compressed. Her mouth twitched with the jerk of a forced smile. ‘We all make one. Some worse than others.’

  Kline saw the question form in Millie’s eyes, but she went on with her own story. ‘This man was Lisa’s mistake. I think they met at a gym. I can’t remember. But he was a nasty piece of work. A doctor who beat women. Bit of a contradiction, don’t you think?’

  Kline interjected. Alan Bleakley was getting more interesting by the second. ‘How did it finish?’

>   ‘My husband was a wealthy man. Property. He knew people. Tough men on building sites. Paid a couple to….’ She looked at Lisa’s picture.

  ‘I hope they hurt him, because he really hurt her. I still blame him for Lisa’s death. He was the cause, the start. If it hadn’t been for him…’

  Angie threw in a guess. ‘You sent her away? Travelling?’

  Old hands with thin skin interlinked on the bed. ‘Money can solve a lot of ills and can correct those mistakes. Lisa ended up in Sydney, loved it and wanted to stay a year, so John rented her that posh apartment overlooking the Harbour and….’

  Kline’s thoughts finished the sentence she couldn’t.

  And then some other bastard came and took her.

  *

  ‘What do you think, boss?’

  Kline was driving them back to Southampton, enjoying a summer’s evening cruising on the A303, if that was possible. He had something else he wanted to address before answering that question.

  ‘First, I want to know that you’re all right with this investigation.’

  Angie’s voice was weak. ‘Meaning?’

  Kline glanced sideways. There was no defiance in her challenge. She was chewing her bottom lip and tears dribbled down her cheeks. Her inner turmoil leaking out.

  ‘That is what I’m meaning.’

  She shook her head and Kline saw the determination still burning in her watery eyes.

  ‘I want him, Joe. Someone took my baby girl. Someone has murdered these women. It’s the same thing. Mothers whose daughters have been taken from them by a predator.’ She choked back several sobs, refusing to let it pour out, breathed into her anger, spoke more loudly and quickly.

  ‘It’s fucking appalling. It shouldn’t happen. It mustn’t happen.’ Kline was focused on three lanes of traffic, but knew she was facing him. Her anger rose.

  ‘How many, Joe? How many women has this man taken? Seven? Eight? Seventy-eight?’ She dragged a tissue from the pocket of her jeans, blew hard. Drove her anger home.

  ‘A global predator. Global. What do we know?’ She sniffed, cuffed at the tears in her eyes, raised a finger for emphasis, her face starting to twist with her anger. ‘No. I tell you what we know, Joe. He wants you. For some reason, he is drawn to you. And we have to use that, Joe. Use you.’

  She looked angrily out of her side window, then back to the windscreen. ‘So, what about you, Joe? Are you all right? This predator murdered Jenny and her sister. Don’t try and tell me this isn’t getting personal for you.’

  Kline focused on getting passed a long, articulated truck. It was very personal to Kline, for reasons Angie didn’t know, would never know, because Kline would never allow this man to speak of them.

  Kline pulled back in front of the truck and returned to Angie’s original question. ‘Is Alan Bleakley our man?’

  Angie threw her head back against the headrest. ‘Why do you always do that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Change the subject when it crawls close to touching an emotion.’

  Kline didn’t respond. He kept his bottled up inside; Angie let hers out. What was right and what was wrong? Was it self-protection or some kind of male pride? Beside him, Angie sniffed into the silence, letting it go. She wiped at her tears with a tissue and sighed to calm herself.

  ‘He may be, but only if we can place him in those five countries at that time. But shit, Joe, is Bleakley some kind of a bastard or what?’

  She blew her nose gently and tucked the tissue in the pocket of her jeans. End of emotions.

  She went on. ‘Are you thinking Bleakley pursued them for revenge? Because they dumped him? Because first Dad and then some hired hands beat him up?’

  Kline shrugged. ‘Why not?’

  ‘That’s serious revenge hatred.’

  Kline swung off the A303 and towards the City and the Port. ‘Isn’t that what sociopaths and psychopaths do? Exhibit extreme tendencies? Let’s focus on Bleakley. All the other parents are dead so, let’s get hold of surviving relatives and siblings of the other ALICE women. Ask if they knew of Bleakley. Did he have a relationship with the other ALICE women? If not him, did they pick up on any physical abuse issues with other men.’

  They came into Southampton centre along West Quay Road, passed the police station, IKEA and the back of the shopping centre. Kline headed towards Ocean Village to drop Angie. Two huge cruise liners were berthed and preparing for next day departure.

  As they came along Town Quay, Angie pointed out the Queen Mary. ‘One day. Posh suite at the back.’

  ‘The stern.’

  ‘Whatever. I’ll still be shipping shampagne.’

  Kline laughed. Was it the first time today? This week? ‘Very clever.’

  Then the depths of his subconscious fired a thought to his conscious that hit him somewhere between the eyes.

  Were they looking at this from the wrong angle?

  What did all of the ALICE murder scenes have in common?

  All the women were killed in their own homes, sure.

  But what was outside those houses and apartments?

  Ports and ships.

  Cruise liners.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Day Fifty-Two

  Kline had spent what he called a sleepless night. They were plentiful amongst police officers, especially those chewing on the cud of case. His mind wouldn’t go to sleep, but he must have sort of slept because there’s no way anyone could lie there for eight hours without sleeping some of it. When the morning comes you feel like shit and put that down to all the time you were awake...which had seemed like all night.

  Or maybe it was just a full moon.

  He made himself a quick mug of tea as he got ready for the day ahead. The mug had been Jenny’s, had two chips in the rim and it was priceless. Today was another day in his life with an event he was dreading. Another day that, when you are eleven years old or eighteen, no one ever mentions you will have to face. One of deep, dark emotion waiting to turn you inside out.

  The older folk must know about these days, know that they exist in your future, but they don’t tell you. They keep it hidden like that dark family secret. Or maybe they’re worried that you’ll give up as a teenager, so you don’t have to confront moments that can crush you.

  Today, Kline had to bury Jenny. To be accurate, she was being cremated because that was her wish. He sipped at his too hot tea and put a splash of water in from the cold tap.

  Once the cremation was done, Kline had to take her ashes out onto Solent Water and scatter them - ‘to the wind, the sea and the sun.’ He raised her mug to her. ‘Let my spirit fly’, was how she’d said it way back when death didn’t matter because it was never going to happen.

  Kline started gathering a small pile together on the table, starting with his mobile and wallet. Choosing cremation was clever of Jenny. She knew there was no way she could be buried. Kline would put up a tent by her grave and live there.

  On reflection, thought Kline, it was no wonder he couldn’t sleep. His thoughts were as tangled as an abandoned pile of rope, full of Jenny’s cremation and thinking about seaports and their killer. Kline added his ID tag to the pile and then his car keys. He went to his bedside table and closed his notebook that was full of the random jottings of the night; ideas and theories that he could throw round with Angie and Artie.

  He dumped the rest of his tea in the sink, thought about a final pee but decided against it. During the night he’d pissed more blood. This morning, standing over the bowl, he’d closed his eyes, pissed, flushed and walked away. He didn’t want to know anymore. It came down to Jenny and his body. They could sort it out between them.

  Kline collected coffee and pastries from the corner cafe. He checked for Luke Walton, but he wasn’t there. Kline hadn’t seen him since the last visit to his hospital room. Maybe the other Witnesses had cottoned on to his shenanigans.

  He collected Angie. He thought a waft of alcohol came into the car with her. He wasn’t surprised,
but wasn’t sure, so left it. All the way to the office she bent his ear about having more resources.

  Kline knew she was right. He ambushed Dave Barker as he was bumping through his office door hip first, protecting a carton of coffee and a bag of something in one hand and swinging a briefcase in the other.

  ‘Not a chance. Don’t even hold out the tiniest hope.’ Dave checked his watch. ‘My third meeting of the morning starts in two minutes.’ He shook an already tired head.

  ‘Now I know why you never wanted this job.’

  Kline pressed. ‘Dave. We have so many leads. He killed Audrey Waters. Killed… switched off Jenny’s machine. He’s here and now in Southampton. We may never have him so close.’

  Dave flopped into his chair, legs outstretched and sucked coffee from the carton.

  ‘Joe. I gave you this to close the circle on Evie. Allow you to retire satisfied. Not to open up what, seven lines of enquiry?’

  ‘We have to. It’s necessary to find the patterns that will lead us to him.’

  ‘You have some CCTV, I hear?’

  ‘Useless. He’s laughing at us from behind a black mask.’

  ‘All the same, he’s stepped into the open. Audrey Waters?’

  ‘Ask Pete, but nothing.’

  Dave sucked at the carton again. ‘Why’s he come back here, Joe?’ What does he want? With you, with us, with Southampton?’

  ‘Maybe he never went away. He just stopped.’

  ‘And what? I poked a rabid, sleeping dog by putting you back on the Evie case?’ He laughed grimly. ‘Don’t tell me I’ve got a serial killer out of retirement.’

  Kline shrugged. ‘He’s playing a game. Which means he’s got an agenda. Which means more will happen.’

  There was a rap on the door. Dave swore. Kline sensed he would rather be discussing cases than playing chief administrator and politician.

  Dave sighed. ‘There is no resource, Joe, because there is no resource to give you.’ Kline heard the door crack open behind him.