The Stranger You Know (Maeve Kerrigan Novels)

by Jane Casey

  “Something made his psycho radar ping,” Derwent said. “Something they did, or said, or the way they looked.”

  From where I was kneeling the three pictures of the victims were upside down. I glanced at them and then looked again. “Hold on.”

  “What?”

  I grabbed three pieces of paper and made a frame that I laid over Kirsty’s head, hiding her hair. “One.” I made another and put it on Maxine’s picture. “Two.”

  “What is this, kindergarten?”

  “Bear with me.” I covered Anna’s hair. “They look alike now. That’s the same smile.”

  “You think they smile at him.” Derwent did not sound convinced.

  “That could be enough.” I frowned, remembering, then scrambled across to the forensic report on Anna Melville, which I hadn’t had time to read yet. “Bingo. We found a hair on Anna’s body. This report says it was a synthetic one. From a wig. He crops their hair so they can wear the wig.”

  “What color?”

  “Fair.”

  “Like Angela?”

  I really wanted to compare them, too. I had to make a quick decision. Instead of answering Derwent I got up and found my bag, pulling out Angela’s file. “Don’t go mental.”

  He was up on his knees, trying to see what I was holding. “What’s that?”

  I laid the school photograph of her beside the other three. “Perfect match, I’d have said.”

  “Is that Angela’s file?”

  “Yes, but concentrate on this. This is important. He sees them—doesn’t matter where. He makes a connection. They were all about the same height—five two, five three—with a physical resemblance to Angela. The wig makes them identical. You’re right. This is all about her.”

  “Give me the file.” Derwent’s eyes were fixed on it.

  “You’re not listening.”

  “Give it.”

  I held it against me, my arms folded across it. “Not yet. What did you pick up? I heard you mumbling.”

  Derwent glowered. “Enjoy this moment, Kerrigan, because you’re not going to be in charge for much longer. When things get back to normal, you’re going to get a reminder that you’re a very junior detective.” He picked up the crime-scene pictures from Maxine’s flat and Anna’s bedroom. “Right. Look at these. Why is Anna Melville lying with her head at the end of the bed?”

  “Don’t know. So you can see her through the window?”

  He made a buzzer sound. “Good answer but wrong. Why did the killer move Maxine’s bed?”

  “Did he?”

  “Definitely.” Derwent pointed. “That’s the bedside table over there. That’s the line from the headboard on the wall. That mark in the carpet is from the castors on the bed. This isn’t where the bed was supposed to be.”

  I checked Kirsty’s pictures. “This one wasn’t moved.”

  “No need. Do me a favor. Look up the crime-scene pictures from Angela’s file.”

  I did as I was told. “And?”

  “He leaves them with their heads to the east. I bet Angela’s the same.”

  He was right. I chewed my lip, thinking. “So he’s making them into Angela all over again. That suggests he killed her, too. Why the twenty-year gap?”

  “No idea. You’ll have to ask him.” He looked pointedly at the file. “You know, it would be a good idea to compare the original crime-scene pictures with these.”

  I slid them out of the file and hesitated, weighing them in one hand. “Are you okay to look at these?”

  “It was a long time ago, Kerrigan.”

  “Even so.”

  He held out his hand. “Come on. I’ve seen them before, anyway.”

  “When was that?”

  “When Leonard Bastard Orpen was interviewing me.” He fanned them out, his hands steady. “Right. What have we got?”

  “The flowers and greenery match our new victims.” I looked across the images. “Candles, though. There weren’t any at the Poole crime scene.”

  “It would have been dark there, at that hour of night. The less light he has in the room, the more it resembles Angela’s death. A few candles give him enough light to see his victims. He can’t open the curtains or blinds in case someone sees him, and electric light isn’t going to make it seem real for him.”

  “Candlelight flickers,” I said. “The light might make it seem like they’re moving. If he’s acting out a scene, I mean.”

  We sat for a moment, imagining our killer and his conversations with the dead. Because dead women can’t answer back. Out of nowhere, I recalled Derwent telling a joke at a domestic murder scene, the victim lying on her kitchen floor in a pool of blood.

  What do you say to a woman with two black eyes?

  Nothing. You’ve already told her twice.

  “And the eyes,” Derwent said. “What about them?”

  I told him Dr. Chen’s theory about the retinal image.

  “Jack the fucking Ripper.” He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “He does it differently now. I don’t know if that’s relevant. Knife rather than by hand.”

  “More squeamish.” He tapped the recent crime-scene pictures. “This is all more tentative, isn’t it? He doesn’t have the nerve to do them outside. Angela’s death was quick and dirty. He took a big risk, killing her beside the house.”

  “Why did he kill her in the first place? She wasn’t sexually assaulted, according to the file.”

  “Maybe he didn’t have time. Got interrupted.” Derwent blew out a lungful of air. “I’m not imagining the connection, am I?”

  “I don’t think so. Are we looking for the same killer?”

  “Fuck knows. Maybe.”

  “A twenty-year gap and it’s not quite the same MO, is it? But he’s using the same signature as Angela’s killer. Reliving it.”

  “We could be looking for a twenty-something killer in 1992 who’s been in prison or abroad and now that he’s forty-something he doesn’t have the stomach for killing out of doors, or gouging out eyes with his hands. Or back then he wanted to use a knife on Angela and he didn’t have one. He’d have preferred to be indoors but had to go with being outside when the opportunity presented itself. Works both ways. Maybe he’s perfecting his technique, not imitating what happened in 1992.” Derwent was pacing back and forth along a narrow strip of carpet that was all that remained uncovered by the drifts of paper.

  “I’ll go through the files again. See if anyone who was sent down for a long stretch in the year after Angela’s death has been released recently.”

  “Or if anyone’s just come off probation. That might be making him cocky, now that no one’s looking over his shoulder.” He snapped his fingers. “Speak to probation officers too. See if there’s anyone they’re worried about for these killings.”

  It would take roughly a million hours to cover all of the paperwork. “The geographical spread doesn’t help,” I said tentatively. “We have no way of knowing where he actually lives. He seems happy to operate wherever the victims live.”

  “I like him for being ex-army. He adapts according to the territory. That’s a military mindset.”

  “It could equally apply to a chess player.”

  “We’re not looking for a fucking geek, Kerrigan. Nerd boy who loves chess isn’t going to be out there strangling and mutilating women. He’s an alpha male, this guy. He takes control. He knows what he wants and he makes it possible to get it.”

  “You sound as if you admire him.”

  He shook his head. “Admiration is not what I feel for this turd. But you have to admit, he’s doing a good job. Three murders and we’ve got nothing. There isn’t one credible suspect in that pile of interviews, just like last time. I was the only one they had and I was just lucky to have an alibi because otherwise I’d have gone down for it.”

  “What about this time round?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Have you got alibis for the nights the murders took place?”
>
  He glared. “Probably. I haven’t checked.”

  “Maybe you should.”

  “Why?”

  “In case someone makes the same connection as us and comes asking. Andy Bradbury would love the chance to make you sweat in an interview room.”

  “That tosser.”

  “Yeah. That increasingly senior tosser.” I started to sort out the pile of pages nearest me. “Someone has already suggested we might be looking for a police officer.”

  “We might. But it’s not me.”

  I glanced up at him and found that he was staring at me with the peculiarly intense blue gaze that meant he was irritated. “Of course not,” I said, a little too late.

  “So what happens now? You said Godley’s keeping it quiet. Are you and Una Burt the only people actually working on comparing Angela’s case with the three recent deaths?”

  “That’s not quite right,” I said cautiously. “Una Burt is tied up with organizing liaison between the different teams.”

  “So it’s just you.”

  “And you know you can trust me.” Look on the bright side …

  “For fuck’s sake.” Derwent paced back and forth again. “I’m going to have to get involved.”

  “No, Josh, you have to stay out of it.” I stopped for a second, surprised that I’d used his first name, but he didn’t notice.

  “I’m not staying out of it. I’m in it. It’s my story, for fuck’s sake. This is about me.”

  “It’s about three dead women. Four, including Angela. And you can’t be involved because Godley would sack us both, and he’d be right. Look, I’ll tell you everything I find out. I’ll discuss interview strategies with you and let you know who I’m talking to. You just can’t be there.”

  “Kerrigan…”

  “No.” I put Angela’s file down on the sofa. “It’s late. I’m going to go home. I’ll leave you this because I think you should read it, no matter what Godley says. You need to stay in the background but you can absolutely advise me, and between us, I think we might be able to get somewhere.”

  He was shaking his head. “You can’t buy me off with the file.”

  “Okay, then I’ll take it away and you can talk Godley into letting you be officially involved.” Which will never happen. His shoulders slumped and I knew I’d won, though it didn’t give me all that much pleasure. “I’m trying to help you, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “I want to find out what happened too.”

  “Yeah.” He looked out the window at the street below. It was deserted, except for a rangy fox scavenging on the other side of the road. He watched it until it disappeared. Almost to himself, he said, “I’d just like to know.”

  SUNDAY

  Chapter Nineteen

  I don’t know if I’d have recognized him in the street, but when I saw him in the bar he owned, my first thought was that Shane Poole hadn’t changed all that much since he was seventeen. He was broader in the shoulder and softer around the middle, and his hair had a startling amount of gray in it considering he wasn’t yet forty, but the basic elements were the same: a tall, hefty guy with big hands and a serious expression. He reminded me of Derwent, but I couldn’t have said why—his voice, maybe, and his demeanor, and a little bit his appearance. I wondered if it was just growing up in the same place or if Poole had been so influenced by Derwent’s example that it was still, after all these years, how he chose to carry himself.

  His business, the Rest Bar, was in a side street off Brick Lane, something that had pinged my radar when I tracked him down. Brick Lane was curry-house central, popular for office outings, open until late and the very definition of vibrant. It was close to the City where Anna had worked, closer still to Whitechapel where Maxine had lived. It was a place where my victims might plausibly have gone, where they might have met their killer. A killer who was obsessed, it seemed, with Shane Poole’s sister and how she died. I went to meet him with a long list of questions and the uncomfortable feeling that Derwent was standing right behind me, looking over my shoulder, watching my every move.

  At nine on a Sunday morning the Rest Bar was empty except for a man slowly sweeping the wooden floor. It was a bleak place at that time of day—too quiet without the hum of conversation and music, too bright when the sun was shining through the windows on gray leather seats that looked unpleasantly sticky. Everything would look a lot better at night when the great copper pendant lights over the bar were switched on. As it was, nothing could make up for the smell of spilled wine, stale beer and bleach. I’d expected Shane Poole to speak to me in a back office but he sat down in one of the booths, stretching out an arm along the top of the banquette as if he was relaxed. He was anything but, I thought, noticing the tremor in his right eyelid and the rapid tapping of one finger that he couldn’t seem to suppress.

  “Thanks for agreeing to see me.”

  “You said it was about Angela.” He had a raw-edged voice, throaty and pitched a little too loud. The cleaner looked up when he spoke, then quickly bent his head over what he was doing. I thought the man looked scared and wondered if it was because he was scared of Shane or because he thought I was there to check the employees’ visas and send him straight back to Lagos on the first available plane.

  “We’re trying to work out if there’s a connection between Angela’s death and three murders that we’re currently investigating. Kirsty Campbell, Maxine Willoughby and Anna Melville.”

  He pulled the corners of his mouth down and shrugged, as if to say the names meant nothing to him.

  “They were strangled in their homes in the last nine months.”

  “Sorry to hear it.”

  “There are … circumstances that made us want to compare them with Angela’s death.”

  “Do you think it’s the same guy?”

  “It’s possible.”

  He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor instead of at me. “I thought I’d left all this behind. It’s years since we’ve heard anything from you. Years.”

  “You” in this context meant the police, I understood. “Sometimes there’s nothing to tell the families in unsolved cases. Sometimes it’s better to wait until a proper case review instead of bothering you for no reason.”

  “It would have been nice to know someone still cared.”

  Someone had cared. Someone named Josh Derwent had cared, a lot. I wasn’t ready to mention his name, though.

  “There were no new developments. Solving a murder can be a waiting game but I understand it’s hard to be patient if you feel nothing is being done.”

  “My mother waited. My mother was patient with you. She’s dead now. She died three years ago come December.” He rubbed a hand over his face, rasping stubble. “She never got over it, as you might expect. Never forgave herself for not stopping it. Never could rest, knowing you hadn’t caught him.”

  “It wasn’t an easy case,” I said quietly. “There wasn’t a lot to go on.”

  “There was an obvious suspect and they let him go.” Shane looked at me, his eyes watery but defiant. “Now he’s one of you lot.”

  “He had an alibi. Your father—”

  “My father. Do you know where he is?”

  I shook my head.

  “In a home—not far from where we used to live, though he doesn’t know it. He’s got dementia. Doesn’t know what day it is. He was probably going that way back in 1992—he had to retire two years later. Mum tried to look after him but it was hopeless. We sold the house to pay for his nursing home and she had to move in with her sister.” Shane pointed a finger at me, a little too close for comfort. “Don’t tell me he couldn’t have made a mistake. Got confused. Mixed up one young lad with another. One person was responsible for what happened to Ange. One. And he walked away from it.”

  “He was ruled out as a possible suspect early in the investigation.”

  “He was my friend. He raped my sister.”

  I squirmed. “I am th
e last person to be an apologist for a rapist, believe me, but if it was rape it was only in a technical sense. From what I understand there was consensual intercourse.”

  “She was fifteen. He was older than her. It was rape.”

  “The Crown Prosecution considered it at the time and decided prosecution wasn’t in the public interest.” I hesitated, wondering if I should go on. In for a penny … “I read the file. Statements from her friends. Transcripts from her diary. There was a lot of evidence that she was a willing participant in whatever sexual activity took place up to the night in question. Obviously she was killed before she could talk to anyone about what had happened, or write about it, but—”

  His nostrils flared. “He took advantage of her and then he killed her, and as if that wasn’t enough he mutilated her.”

  I wasn’t going to argue with him anymore; he’d had twenty years to resent Derwent and I couldn’t change his mind in twenty minutes. “What happened to Angela was horrible. As I say, I’ve read the file. I am more sorry than I can say that the murderer wasn’t caught. I’m not discounting what you’ve told me about who was responsible, but I think it’s worth investigating other angles, too.”

  “If you can’t or won’t see the truth there’s nothing I can do to help you.” His tone was final and I was afraid he was going to get up and walk away.

  Quickly, I took out three pictures and laid them on the table in front of Shane. “Can you look at these and tell me if you recognize any of them?”

  He glanced at them. “Who are they?”

  “The recent victims.” I didn’t identify them beyond that. Let him try to put a name to a face if he recognized someone. He leaned over and stared at them for another few seconds.

  “Did any of them drink here?” I tried.

  “You’d have to ask my staff. I don’t spend a lot of time talking to the customers.”

  “But you’re here when the bar is open.”

  He spread his arms out. “I live here. I’ve got a flat upstairs.”

  And he hadn’t invited me to see it, preferring the public space of the bar. I could almost have felt hurt. Except that I would have wanted to do the same thing, if the police had been interviewing me.