A Game of Minds

by Priscilla Masters

  He brought his hands back down to lie flat on the desk again. There was still that fine tremor that he couldn’t quite control. ‘Marvel could not have made me angry. She was not the right sort.’

  ‘So how did you feel when you snuffed them out?’ She used the cruel language deliberately.

  And it surprised him. He regarded her with a frown, and she realized her use of the disparaging word had made him uncomfortable.

  She kept her face impassive and waited for his answer.

  ‘How did I feel?’ He leaned in, surer of his ground now. ‘How do you think I felt, Claire?’ She’d lost her advantage.

  ‘Probably you felt nothing. Perhaps you felt some anger.’ She’d affected disinterest as though she didn’t care either way.

  ‘I suppose I didn’t feel much. When I watched them giggling and flirting I felt angry. I wanted them to suffer. I did not want them to ever grow up. But when they were dead, I felt nothing.’

  ‘Which is why you just chucked them out of the car.’

  ‘Mmm. I suppose so.’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Willard said that you watched the girls. You drove around, stalked them and selected your quarry before you took them and killed them.’

  Kobi laughed out loud. ‘In his dreams,’ he said. ‘I was spoilt for choice. Have you any idea how many of these girls are stalking the streets, playing their silly little games, pretending to be women when they are still … just … little girls?’

  She didn’t respond.

  ‘I had a job to do, Claire, to clean up the streets.’

  ‘But you could never have continued doing this.’

  Kobi sat back, folded his arms. ‘I managed four,’ he said.

  ‘Five?’

  Kobi wasn’t going to be caught out with this. Smiling, he shook his head. ‘Listen to me, Claire,’ he said. ‘Listen very carefully. Because I killed the others, I know things.’

  Claire listened.

  ‘When you find Marvel’s body, it will be fully clothed and you will not find a single cell of my DNA.’

  ‘Do you know where her body is?’

  ‘Aa-ah.’ He shook his head. He gave a little cough. ‘You’re not listening to me, Claire.’

  ‘I am. And I’ve read the police notes. You were quite good at keeping the girls forensically clean.’

  ‘I can’t bear carelessness. Speak to her family. They know the truth.’

  It was his final word. So what had she gained from this interview? Perhaps she was asking the wrong question. Maybe she should ask herself what had he gained?

  THIRTY-TWO

  Thursday 10 October, 9.15 a.m.

  The next day she had two problems to deal with. One of the nurses had left a message to say that the Birmingham clinic where Ilsa was now an inpatient had contacted them to say that she was expressing a wish to go home.

  Alarm bells jangled loud in Claire’s head. She immediately rang the clinic and spoke to the manager. ‘Do you feel she’s robust enough to go home? How is her mental state?’

  The manager sighed. ‘We’re not trained here, Dr Roget. How can we assess her?’

  ‘Has she been having hallucinations? Is she deluded?’

  ‘Not as far as we can ascertain,’ the manager said cautiously.

  ‘I’d better speak to her.’

  ‘I’ll bring her to the phone.’

  There was a pause and then she heard Ilsa’s voice. ‘Hello.’

  ‘I understand you want to go home. Is that so?’

  Ilsa’s voice was flat. ‘It’s where I belong.’

  ‘Have you spoken to John?’

  ‘I was just going to ring him.’

  ‘Well, see what he says. I guess if it’s OK with him … But I thought you were anxious about being home. You’ve claimed that his behaviour towards you has been a major contributory cause of your anxiety and depression. That you feel threatened and manipulated by him. Something which he denies.’

  ‘It’s something I need to face up to,’ Ilsa said bravely and then, quite smartly, she turned the tables. ‘Isn’t that what you advised?’

  Claire felt uneasy. ‘Why not wait a week or so?’

  ‘I want to see my son. He’s only eight. He’ll be missing me.’ Her voice was steady.

  Claire had to remind herself. This was Ilsa who on admission had been so anxious she could not cross a street or leave the house, who now appeared perfectly in control of her emotions. This was a welcome turnaround but it felt unnatural. There was no drug which could have wrought such a dramatic change even in the weeks Ilsa Robinson had been an inpatient and on medication. Claire felt unconvinced and troubled.

  Ilsa tried to persuade her, almost wheedling. ‘I want to be with my son. I won’t get better here, Claire. I’ll get better much quicker at home. I feel ready.’

  ‘You’re there as a voluntary patient, Ilsa. If you want to go home no one can stop you. But be certain that’s what you want and you really feel ready. And,’ she felt bound to add, ‘if things don’t work out you must get back in touch with us.’

  Ilsa responded calmly. ‘Thank you.’ Her voice lightened. ‘I promise to take my medication and I promise to attend the day centre regularly.’ She trotted the words out like a catechism. ‘And,’ she added, ‘I need to spend time with my son, my husband and my friend. Goodbye, Claire,’ she finished.

  Claire could only hope it was goodbye and not an au revoir.

  Afterwards Claire knew at that point she should have responded differently. But she had had no grounds for restraining Ilsa. She had not been sectioned and was a voluntary patient. She tried to ring John Robinson but he wasn’t answering either landline or mobile. She left messages on both phones saying only that she was concerned his wife was discharging herself and would soon be on her way home. She had a bit of a head start. There would inevitably be a slight delay while the pharmacist gathered her take-home drugs.

  One solution that did cross her mind, of course, was to ring Grant. He was working at the house and maybe he knew where John Robinson was, but she was reluctant to drag him into her work life. Besides, it would break every rule of patient confidentiality.

  Afterwards she would regret all the decisions she had made.

  Feeling even more uneasy, she left a second message on the Robinsons’ home phone.

  THIRTY-THREE

  She left instructions with the ward asking them to keep trying John Robinson’s phone and let him know that his wife was on the way home. When she put the phone down, instead of feeling relief, her concern compounded. She didn’t believe in miracles, particularly in psychiatry. Anxiety and depression were frequently embedded in a person’s character. One could use methods – cognitive behavioural therapy, psychotherapy, pharmacology – but cures tended to be slow. There was no ‘quick fix’. This apparent miracle was more an indication of instability than a cure. As the atmosphere can feel heavy just before a storm breaks while the insects bite and sting, Claire could feel the same pressure building up.

  And the day wore on.

  Coincidentally Grant did ring later. ‘I have a favour to ask.’

  ‘Are you at the house?’

  ‘Just heading back,’ he said. ‘Been to pick up some wallpaper sample books. He now wants a sixties pattern. Honestly.’

  ‘Is Mr Robinson at home?’

  ‘I’m meeting him there later. Why do you want him?’

  ‘I can’t say, but if you do see him can you ask him to please ring me? Urgently,’ she added.

  ‘Sounds intriguing.’ Grant paused but she was not leaking private facts.

  After a moment’s silence he spoke, sounding slightly sulky at being excluded. ‘When or if I see him, I’ll pass the message on.’

  ‘So what was it you wanted to ask me?’

  ‘Have dinner with us? Mum moves back down to Cornwall next weekend. I’m giving her a hand with the move. Just spend some time with us before she goes.’

  Recalling the hostile stare and the obvious resentment towa
rds her that had emanated from Laura Steadman, even at her daughter’s funeral, Claire was silent. So was Grant. He knew better than to try and persuade her. So not even a please passed his lips.

  If she and Grant were ever going to resume their relationship, Laura Steadman, his mother, would be part of their lives. She had lost her only daughter. Grant was all she had left. ‘OK,’ Claire said quietly, feeling cornered and already apprehensive. ‘How about Sunday lunch?’

  ‘Great,’ he said, sounding pleased. ‘I’ll go ahead and arrange it.’

  Claire was already feeling sick at the thought.

  And she was, frankly, worried about Ilsa Robinson’s homecoming.

  Suddenly Kobi’s case seemed the least complicated. At least she knew or thought she knew what she was dealing with. She was prepared for his swerves and lies. They did not ambush her like Ilsa. She knew his diagnosis. Ilsa’s true mental state was anybody’s guess.

  The knock on her office door broke in as loud as a thunderclap. DS Willard stuck his head round the door. ‘Just passing,’ he said, grinning at her, friendlier than of late.

  ‘You’ll give me a bad name. My colleagues will be wondering exactly what I’ve done to warrant a visit from a policeman.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ve done something naughty,’ he said, still smiling.

  She waited.

  ‘Tom Trustrom’s not got long to go,’ he said. ‘We’re running out of time. I wondered if anything in the notes might help hurry things along?’

  ‘I haven’t looked at them yet, but I did have a few more questions.’

  ‘I’ll answer them if I can.’

  ‘Why was he able to murder Teresa and Shelley?’ She deliberately left out Marvel. ‘Why hadn’t you caught him?’

  Zed Willard looked embarrassed. ‘We had someone else in our sights,’ he confessed. ‘We were short on DNA analysis and our suspicions centred around another guy who had committed similar crimes back in the eighties and was out of prison.’ He shook his head gravely. ‘We ballsed up and two more girls paid the price.’

  ‘Or three,’ she reminded him.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said abruptly, ‘or three.’

  ‘Talk me through it. Make me see it from your point of view.’

  Zed Willard practically squirmed. ‘Kobi wasn’t in our sights. Prior to Petra Gordano’s murder he’d never been convicted of anything. He was just a teacher who got on with his job.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ she said. ‘That’s not strictly true, is it? He’d had that allegation made against him by a teenage girl. Didn’t that flag him up?’

  He shook his head, frowning. ‘That was an internal enquiry. We had nothing to do with it. The school were sorting it out. It hadn’t come to the notice of the police so he was still under our radar.’

  She made no comment and he couldn’t resist adding, ‘He was found not guilty and allowed to carry on teaching in the same school.’

  When she didn’t respond, he tried again. ‘Claire,’ he said earnestly, ‘those are the ones who give us trouble, the “perps” who have been clean right up until their first crime. I mean it’s shit, I know, but that’s what happens. They get away with it because they’re not on any list.’

  ‘So he was hanging around Newcastle-under-Lyme bus station and picked Petra up. No one saw her get into the car?’

  ‘According to her friends she’d twisted her ankle in hockey practice so was limping along and caught an earlier bus home but still later than the general school bus. It was an unusual time. She was sitting down looking fed up. Loads of people saw her. But she wandered off when the bus was a bit late and that’s when we believe Kobi picked her up. Within half an hour, Claire, that girl was dead. Her body was found less than two hours after she’d gone missing.’

  ‘And there was no sexual assault?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No DNA evidence?’

  ‘No. All we had were some fibres from a car seat. And it was a material used by six manufacturers. We’re talking Fords, VWs, Nissans. All the cheaper, common models. It didn’t exactly narrow the field.’

  ‘And Jodie?’

  ‘Congleton is Cheshire,’ he said defensively, fingers drumming on the desk. ‘We had resources right through schools, bus stops, bus stations. We were warning girls not to accept lifts from people they didn’t know. But we focused our warnings on Staffordshire or more specifically Stoke-on-Trent. Jodie was last seen standing at a bus stop. The weather was very hot that day and she looked exhausted, according to eyewitnesses. One woman approaching the bus stop saw her speak to a man in a blue Ford Focus, window down.’ He groaned. ‘One of the most common cars on the road. She saw him offering her a bottle of water. Jodie got in. The woman simply assumed the driver was someone Jodie knew. Her description was pathetic. She thought it was a man but it might have been a woman with short hair. She thought he – or she – had brown hair. She got the car number plate all mixed up, as it turned out, but she did get the make and colour of car right.’ He looked gloomy. ‘Her brother-in-law had one just like it.’ He looked even gloomier. ‘Sometimes we can be so unlucky,’ he said. ‘Robbie August, known paedophile, whose taste was for teenage girls. “Budding women”, he called them.’ The disgust in Willard’s voice made him almost spit the words out. ‘Once we have a likely suspect all our attention is focused on finding evidence to support that theory.’

  She swallowed her retort.

  ‘Robbie August lived in Biddulph halfway between the two crimes. He fitted the profile and …’ Willard groaned. ‘As luck would have it he drove a blue Ford Focus and the fibres from Petra’s clothes looked like a match. There was no DNA evidence to link either him or anyone else for that matter to the two crimes. We questioned him under caution. He was very vague about his movements on both days. We put a watch on him.’

  ‘And then Marvel went missing.’

  Zed Willard sank back into his seat and seemed to shrink. ‘Because we had been keeping a close eye on August we knew he hadn’t had anything to do with Marvel’s disappearance. We’d been watching him.’ He looked shamefaced. ‘To be honest at first we wondered if she’d just gone AWOL.’

  Willard shrugged and his voice rose. ‘I managed to convince myself, fall in with the general view that it was Kobi.’

  ‘There’s no need to shout, Zed.’ She could feel her own anger rising. ‘You should have told me about Marvel’s family.’

  ‘I couldn’t see that it was anything to do with it,’ he said sulkily. ‘Well, to put it in a nutshell her mother and father were on the verge of a divorce. They couldn’t agree on anything. Her mother was a cow, quite frankly.’ He glanced apologetically at Claire. ‘She called her daughter the Ugly Duckling.’ He paused, frowning. ‘I wasn’t sure it was used as an affectionate title. In fact …’ he continued after a short pause, ‘… poor girl. I think everyone in the Force felt sorry for the kid when it started coming out. As it had nothing to do with the case we kept it out of the papers.’

  ‘Her dad?’

  ‘Tom? He was …’ Willard was frowning. ‘He was an odd sort of guy. Quite retiring and shy while his wife harangued him. And then every now and then he would burst. I’ve never seen anything like it. He would shout and scream as though he was in agony. And a lot of his anger appeared to be directed towards his wife.’

  ‘Not anymore.’

  ‘Well they’re divorced and he’s so ill. Back then he was a different man. I think if we hadn’t been there he got so furious I could have imagined him beating his wife to a pulp. She was frightened of him.’

  ‘So did you look into the rest of her family? Her siblings? Teenage brother, two kid sisters?’

  ‘None of them was much help. I mean, the girls were young. And they were upset. Shane put a brave face on it but of course we had to have appropriate adults when we spoke to the girls and I think that might have inhibited them. They painted a picture of a strange sort of home life where there was this odd one out. But the truth was our investigation into t
he family was pretty cursory. We never thought it was one of them.’

  ‘Tell me about the teenage brother.’

  Zed Willard shrugged. ‘What can I say? When he got his ear buds out and stopped playing games on his phone he hardly said anything. Typical teenage lad, I suppose. Didn’t want to engage with the police.’ He chuckled. ‘In fact, like many teenage lads he didn’t really want to engage with anyone, I suspect, not even his peer group. Certainly not his parents or sisters.’

  ‘Did he say anything significant about his sister’s disappearance?’

  ‘Not that was recorded.’

  ‘So you knew by then it wasn’t Robbie August. And Marvel’s body didn’t turn up. So you were casting around for a new suspect. At the time did you think it was the same killer?’

  Zed Willard nodded. ‘When her body didn’t turn up we just thought he’d changed his MO. And then Teresa Palmer went. And we knew even more certainly that it wasn’t Robbie. He was, in fact, in custody for flashing at a girl in Tunstall Park.’ His mouth was grim and he was frowning.

  ‘We knew then it was our schoolgirl killer again. Same MO as the first two. Girl picked up near a school, still in uniform, body found within hours. We drafted in more men.’

  And Claire sensed unease. ‘Shelley,’ she said softly.

  Zed Willard drew in a deep sigh. ‘Kobi being clever again. She vanished from Newport.’

  ‘Shropshire.’

  Willard nodded. ‘Body found weighted down in Westport Lake this time.’

  ‘So he drove her all that way to dump her in the Potteries. And then …’

  ‘A bit of luck,’ he said, ‘that the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust took such an interest in wading birds and egrets.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Someone remembered … took down the same number. That led us straight back to Kobi. He was arrested two days later.’

  Willard’s phone broke in, strident and insistent. He frowned at the number. ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘I need to take this.’ He moved outside the door and she heard his responses.