Walk in the Park

by Jay Gill

  Fuller laughed and slapped my shoulder. “I told you she’s smart. Now, Jensen, what I have told you about spending too much time on Wikipedia? You need to get out more.”

  I kept my expression neutral. I was less and less crazy about the idea, but I could see Fuller’s point and I had to remember this wasn’t my case. I could voice my concerns but, in the end, I had been brought in to advise.

  Though I tried to hide it, Jensen could see the concern on my face. “I’m alright with this,” she said. “I volunteered, remember? And anyway, you’ve got my back, right?”

  I didn’t find her air of confidence convincing. It was apparent neither of us was completely happy with Fuller’s decision. All I could do now was be a part of the team, and ensure every step possible was taken, to ensure Jensen’s safety.

  “Damn right. If anyone even looks in your direction, you’ll know about it. You have my word.”

  “In that case, what are we waiting for? Let’s do it.”

  Jensen was as tough as any detective I’d known, and tougher than some. She was also smart enough to be scared, but there was no way on earth she was going to let anyone here sense it.

  Chapter Nineteen

  We couldn’t have undercover officers on the ground walking close by. The operation depended on the Regent’s Park Ripper believing Jensen was a vulnerable woman out by herself using the park. We were setting a trap for a predatory killer who was picking off those weaker than him in an ambush-style attack.

  Instead, we had to make sure Jensen was forewarned of anyone approaching so she could protect herself until help arrived.

  She was a well-trained officer, and she was wearing a lightweight stab vest under her sweater. She was carrying pepper spray and had a Taser tucked inside her handbag. But I knew that her knowing self-defence and combat techniques would do her no good if she was knocked unconscious by an unexpected blow from behind.

  We were monitoring Jensen as she walked the chosen route. It passed the locations of the two earlier attacks and seemed like the logical point at which to start the operation. I could only imagine what was going through Jensen’s head each time she approached the crime scenes.

  The park was full of open space and for the operation to be convincing there could be no sign of anyone else around when the Ripper approached.

  We were close by, but not too close; it would take nearly a minute and half for any officer to get to her. In that time Jensen was on her own and would need to defend herself. To say I wasn’t happy was an understatement.

  For two days, we had nothing. Each day was excruciating, as we couldn’t let our guard down for a second.

  “How are we doing, team?” Jensen asked us via her microphone on the evening of the second day. “You’ve got eyes on me, right? You haven’t popped out for pizza, I hope?”

  Jensen was heading in the direction of the bandstand, close to where Ceri had been murdered.

  “We’ve got you, Jensen. Our eyes haven’t left you for a second. Just one thing,” said Fuller.

  “What’s that?”

  “We finished the pizza and we’ve moved onto the blueberry cheesecake. It’s bloody lovely too.” Fuller and a couple of junior officers started laughing hard.

  “Screw you, Fuller. You’re such an idiot,” said Jensen.

  “We’re all here,” I said. “The same couple you saw earlier with a little girl on a tricycle will be with you again in a couple of minutes.” I checked my watch. It was getting late and the light was starting to fade. I looked at Fuller and he nodded. “Make your way back carefully to your car. That’s it for today. We’re losing light, fast. We’ll go again in the morning.”

  “Suits me fine. I’m freezing my butt off out here. Maybe tomorrow I could wear a nice thick jacket and some trainers?”

  “The clothes are similar to those worn by Cerise,” I told her again.

  “You don’t need to remind me. The difference is I’m not nineteen anymore and these heels are killing my bloody feet.” She started to laugh a little and I sensed she was feeling the relief of safely getting to the end of another day.

  Everyone was feeling the same. After long hours of nothing, the tension had built up until it was unbearable.

  I could see Jensen from the surveillance van. It was a dark green and gold park maintenance van parked close to the lake. “I’ve got eyes on you, Jensen, You’re all clear. Just a few hundred yards now. Go straight to your car and we’ll follow you out. Stay in character. He might be studying you.”

  I turned to the two junior officers who were now chatting. “This operation isn’t over until she’s back safe. You got it?” I snapped.

  I turned back to the window and raised my binoculars again. I’d only looked away for a second. Out of nowhere a cyclist appeared and was closing fast on Jensen’s position.

  “Who’s that?” I shouted. “Behind you, Jensen.”

  “What? Where?” Jensen turned and tightened her grip on the pepper spray. It all happened so fast. Jensen stepped aside and prepared herself as the cyclist approached.

  Fuller was on his feet. “I can’t see his face. He’s wearing some sort of mask over his nose and mouth.”

  Everyone held their breath. I had my hand on the van’s sliding door.

  “You okay, Jensen?” I asked.

  The cyclist looked at Jensen, thanked her for moving aside and sailed past.

  “Yeah. All good. But I need a drink. And it had better be a double. What a day. What a bloody day.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Outside the park the cyclist was stopped and questioned. We were all exhausted and feeling jumpy. We sat in silence waiting to hear whether this was our man.

  “Negative,” came a voice over radio. “He’s not our man.”

  “How certain?” Fuller pushed back.

  “Well, sir, he’s a she. The cyclist is female,” replied the officer flatly.

  “Fine. We’re calling it a day,” said Fuller.

  Everyone was frustrated. We’d all put in a long day with nothing to show for it. The operation might not have yielded any results but it had run smoothly and Fuller had gone up in my estimations. He might be tightly wound and a hard man to deal with, but he knew how to run an operation and was surprisingly well respected. I realised I might have misjudged him.

  Fuller’s mobile phone started buzzing on the desk in front of him. Then so did mine.

  “Detective Hardy,” I said. The voice on the other end sounded anxious.

  “Sir, there’s been another attack. On the other side of the park. Behind the tennis courts, near the running track.”

  Jensen arrived just as I was climbing out of the van. “You’re coming with me to the hospital,” I said, passing her the bag containing her change of clothes. “I’ll explain everything in the car. You can change while I drive.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  We left Fuller to wrap things up at Regent’s Park and raced straight to the hospital.

  “We’re here to see Catherine Simmons,” I told a junior doctor as we entered the emergency room. Jensen and I held up our warrant cards. “It’s important we see her immediately.”

  The young doctor looked confused and, being unsure what do, made a phone call. “Follow me,” she said finally.

  “How is she, physically?” I asked as we walked. I needed to ascertain the extent of the attack she’d suffered.

  “When she arrived, Mrs Simmons was very shaken. Understandably so. Physically, she is okay. We treated her for some minor scratches and abrasions. Emotionally, not so good. She was swinging from being tearful to hysterical. I think it’s the shock. We’ve given her something to calm her nerves, and so she might appear a little drowsy.”

  “You can see her for a few minutes, but she must rest. My name is Doctor Li. My shift ends in about an hour, but please ask for me if I can be of any assistance.”

  “Thank you, Doctor Li,” said Jensen as she pushed open the door to Catherine’s room.

  Th
e doctor introduced us and for a while Catherine ignored us. I let Jensen take the lead, feeling that was the right way to go.

  “My husband?” said Catherine eventually.

  “He’s on his way, Mrs Simmons,” said Jensen. “As soon as he gets here, the nurses are going to bring him to you. I promise.”

  “Would you mind if we ask you a few questions about what happened? While we wait for your husband,” I asked gently. “It’s really important we catch the man that did this to you.”

  “It was him, wasn’t it?” asked Catherine.

  “Him?” said Jensen.

  “The so-called, Regent’s Park Ripper.”

  “We don’t know at this stage. Perhaps you can tell us what happened? If it is him, you might be able to help us catch him and save someone’s life,” said Jensen.

  Catherine looked at Jensen and I could see in her eyes she was gathering her thoughts, trying to put in order the events that had led up to her lying in that hospital bed. Surprisingly, she smiled broadly.

  “I beat the crap out of him and he ran away,” said Catherine.

  “Good on you,” said Jensen encouragingly.

  “As soon as I felt the shove from behind I knew what was happening. I felt this huge push and I was knocked off balance. Somehow, I guessed it was him. I’d seen a report on the news of those poor women. At the time, I said to myself that if he came after me I’d fight back—and I did.”

  “You’re a brave woman,” I said. “Without a doubt it saved your life.”

  Jensen sat down next to Catherine and passed her a tissue which she held onto but didn’t use.

  “I hit the ground hard. Straight down on my face I went.” She touched her cheek and winced. “I knew what I had to do. I saw it on YouTube ages ago. A self-defence video. So I got to my feet as quick as I could and went straight at him. I didn’t hesitate for a second. You should have seen me—even better still, you should have seen his face. He looked scared and confused. I went berserk. Like a mad woman. Screaming and yelling and clawing and kicking and punching at him. I didn’t stop, not for a second. And it worked. He just looked totally confused. Then the bastard took off.”

  “Do you think you’d be able to give us a description?” asked Jensen.

  “Definitely,” said Catherine. “I’ll never forget his face, ever.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  As well as forensic evidence we now had a description and photofit of the suspect.

  With the surveillance operation deemed a ‘disaster’ by Chief Webster, Fuller was keen to consider a new approach.

  “We’re going to split into two teams and start going door-to-door,” said Fuller to the room of assembled officers. “If the Regent’s Park Ripper is local, which psychological profiling and logic suggest he is, then our job is to flush him out. Everyone here has been given a photofit and a map. Anyone who hasn’t got either the photofit or the map, go and see DS Jensen before leaving.”

  Fuller continued. “Someone out there knows who this man is and where he is. As soon as we start showing the picture round we need to be ready to respond. So stay on your toes and let’s get a result. I’m now going to hand you over to DS Jensen.”

  Jensen stepped up to the front of the room and continued. “I’m going to head up Alpha group, and DCI James Hardy, who I’m sure needs no introduction, will be heading up the Beta group. As you arrived, you were all designated either group Alpha or group Beta. I don’t need to stress to anyone here just how important it is we get this killer off our streets. He will kill again if not apprehended. So I want no mistakes. Hopefully, what we are aiming to achieve here today is easy enough to understand. Now, Detective Chief Inspector Hardy has something to say.”

  The room fell silent and all eyes turned to me. I let the silence hang in the air for a few seconds. Fuller and Jensen had done a good job of briefing everyone; there was now a sense of purpose and positivity, spirits were high and everyone was keen to get on with the job. My job now was to make sure everyone knew who they were confronting.

  “Many of you know me and the kinds of cases I work. Somehow, over the years, I’ve found myself working cases that, to a large extent, consist of brutal and often multiple homicides. I never chose those cases. Rather, it seems they chose me. And this has meant that I’ve spent a large part of my time on the Force studying and pursuing, and fortunately for the most part, arresting individuals with psychopathic tendencies. Individuals like the man you and I are tracking today. Individuals who consider their murderous acts a game.

  “I want to make something perfectly clear: the level of violence this man is prepared to inflict on another human being makes him extremely dangerous, and not just to women. If he feels cornered and you’re in his way, he will not hesitate to go through you. Don’t doubt that for one second.

  “You may know I lost a friend to this killer, and because of that I want him caught more than most, but not at any cost. I want you all to make it home safely tonight. You hear me? Be careful out there today. Look out for one another, watch each other’s backs. We’re going after a killer who has nothing to lose by harming any one of us.”

  Fuller wrapped things up and the room started to empty. “Let’s go flush him out,” he said. “Let’s go get him.” He then turned to me. “You might need to work on the motivational speaking a bit. I think you scared the life out of them.” He slapped me on the back and walked ahead, chuckling to himself.

  “Ignore him,” said Jensen. “You did the right thing. They needed to hear the dangers.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I felt a true sense of pride as I looked at the huge turnout of officers. Everyone was keen to be involved. I’d learned some officers had given up their day off to be a part of what we were doing. There was a real sense of positivity in the air and it felt good to be part of it.

  Fuller co-ordinated from a temporary command post, while Jensen and I insisted on being part of the team on the ground.

  We went door-to-door, street-to-street, showing the picture and talking to everyone we met. As the minutes and hours passed it felt like we were hunting a ghost. With each No and every shake of the head, I couldn’t help feeling a more desperate need to catch a break. As morning became afternoon and not a single solid lead to show for it, I worried my confidence had been misplaced. But we kept at it, and finally, as our teams swept across town, our efforts slowly began to bear fruit. A few nods and distant recollections of possibly recognising the face. Hands went up and fingers pointed in the direction where he’d last been seen. I prayed we were finally closing in on the killer’s home turf.

  The smell of oil and petrol hit my nostrils as I entered J. B. Autocare.

  “Hello. How can I help?” asked an older man at the front desk. With a puzzled expression, he looked behind me for my car.

  “I’m looking for a man called Jim Bowers,” I said. I introduced myself and showed him the picture of our suspect. “We’re hoping you might have seen this man.”

  “I’m Jim Bowers,” said the man, wiping his hands on his overalls. He took the picture, then squinted at it more closely and called a younger man over. “This is my son Mark,” Bowers told me, then handed Mark the photo. “What do you think, Mark? Do you think it’s him?”

  “Could be,” said Mark. “Same weasel eyes.” He stepped away and went back inside the van he’d been working on.

  Jim looked at me and handed back the laminated picture. “He in trouble?”

  “We’ve got a few questions. We think he might be able to help us,” I said, half truthfully.

  “That’ll be why there’s an army of you out there?” Bowers looked over my shoulder at the constables knocking on doors across the street. “Is he the one that done those two women in the park?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “No reason. Just putting two and two together and coming up with five.”

  His son laughed from inside the van.

  I was getting impatient but didn’t
want Bowers clamming up on me. “Speaking to this man could lead to us catching whoever did murder those two young women. One of the women was the mother of a baby, only ten months old.”

  Bowers scratched the back of neck while he thought about what to say next. He called over his shoulder to his son. “What do you think?”

  “Yeah, tell him. I never liked him anyway.”

  Bowers wiped his nose on the back of his wrist before he said, “It could be Shane. Shane Colewell.”

  “It’s definitely Weasel Boy,” called Mark. “I’d put money on it.”

  My heart was thumping out of my chest. “How do you know him?”

  “He worked here for a while, part time, doing this and that. We had the idea of taking him on full-time, you know, training him up. It didn’t work out. He was good with his hands. In fact, I still think he would have made a half-decent mechanic. But his heart wasn’t in it. Don’t ask me why. I think he had problems at home. Something just wasn’t right.”

  “In what way?” I asked, trying to a get a feel for Colewell.

  “Can’t really put my finger on it. His attitude, maybe? Lack of commitment, I guess you could say. When he was given a task he’d do it, no problem. Other times, he’d just sort of, drift off. Sometimes when you were talking to him, you could tell he was thinking about something else. He was a bit of a dreamer, I suppose. In the end we just decided he was the wrong fella to invest in. The weird thing was, when I told him things weren’t going to work out, he didn’t seem to mind. He just sat over there for the whole of the rest of the day.” Bowers pointed to a torn and filthy old chair. “Then at the end of the day, when we clocked off, he clocked of with us. Natural as you like. He never came back and we haven’t seen him since.”