Charisma

by Jo Bannister

  ‘What do you say? You won’t be too comfortable – I’ll have to tie you up if anyone comes; if Kelso or the Malteaser thought I’d let you go we’d both be dead men. But when it’s over you’ll understand. You’ll see why it was worth it. What do you say? Will you help me?’

  Donovan’s battered brain was digesting it, mulling it over, thinking at once too well and not well enough. When he had the answer he slurred, ‘I know who you are.’

  Brady thought he was wandering again. ‘Of course you do. We grew up in the same town.’ He grinned at a sudden memory. ‘You wrote “Paisley For Pope” on my car.’

  ‘Not that. I know what you’re doing here.’

  And Brady saw in his eyes that he did, and his heart sank. In trying to win Donovan’s confidence he’d said too much. Now the risk was doubled – more than doubled. Before, the only man who knew had every reason to keep the secret. Now he shared it with someone whose feelings towards him were ambivalent and whose head wouldn’t be his own for a couple of days.

  Brady chewed the inside of his cheek. Perhaps neither Kelso nor Scoutari would come back here. Perhaps, even if they did, Donovan would told his tongue. But he wouldn’t bet his life on it. If they thought of it one or the other would want to know how close the police were – if Donovan really had stumbled on them by chance or if there was a net closing in. If they were determined to know, he’d tell them. Anyone would.

  That gave Brady a dilemma. He could make sure Donovan wouldn’t answer questions, however persuasively put. But if he hit him again he could hurt him badly. He could tell anyone who asked that he’d already conducted an interrogation and there was nothing to worry about; but men whose liberty was at stake might not take his word for that.

  He could hope to wrap things up before Donovan became an issue. But the earliest the deal could now be done was this evening, and that left more than enough time for something to go wrong. Then Brady could wave goodbye to seven months’ hard, difficult, dangerous work. That was the best that could happen.

  In fact his choices were fewer and simpler than that. He could call the thing off now, to protect Donovan and himself, or carry on with all the risks that entailed. Twenty hours. A blink of the eye on the cosmic scale. A whole lifetime to certain exotic butterflies.

  He eyed the author of his problem coldly a moment longer. Then he said with conviction, ‘No, you don’t. If you did someone’d get it out of you with a cigar-lighter. So you know nothing. Understand? Nothing about me beyond the fact that I used to be in the IRA. Forget the rest, hold on to that. That’s our passport out of this. If they believe I’m prepared to kill you we’ll be all right.’

  ‘We’d be all right if we left now.’

  Brady bared his teeth in a grin of no humour whatever. ‘You’ve blown my cover, boy. Thanks to you I have to wind this up three months ahead of plan. I’m not going in empty-handed.’

  ‘These people are going to want me dead,’ said Donovan. ‘You want to risk my life for the sake of your track record?’

  This time the grin was genuine if fierce. ‘Why not? I’m risking mine.’

  Brady still had the mobile phone. Donovan held out his hand. ‘Let me call my chief. If this is above board he’ll go along with it, and I will too.’

  ‘Away on! Your chief will hear from my chief when this is over, not before. I’m only discussing it with you because you haven’t the wit to keep your suspicions to yourself.’

  Donovan thought he could get the mobile and settle it that way. He lunged for it. But in his current state he had neither the speed nor strength of the older man and Brady snatched it easily out of his reach.

  ‘Leave it alone, will you!’ Brady glared at him, tempted to spare himself trouble by hitting Donovan again and be damned to the consequences. But his conscience pricked and instead he dropped the mobile on the floor behind him and stamped on it. ‘There. Now will you give me peace?’

  Donovan groaned. ‘That’s the second one of those things I’ve lost this year. You should see the frigging paperwork.’

  Brady didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. ‘Co-operate with me and I’ll buy you a new one. All right?’

  Donovan thought about it. He licked his lips. ‘If this operation matters that much, maybe you reckon it’s worth keeping going. How do I know you won’t do what they ask and kill me?’

  ‘You’ll know,’ Brady smiled. ‘When I point a gun at you and pull the trigger, you’ll know then. If I miss, I’m on your side.’

  4

  Friday morning found CID like the saloon of the Mary Celeste. There was plenty of evidence that people had been there, should still have been near by: coffee cups half finished, sheets of paper stuffed into typewriters, pens lying in open phone-books, jackets over the backs of chairs. There were just no people.

  Shapiro, pausing en route to his office, considered the scene morosely. If somebody reported a stolen handbag he’d have to deal with it personally. Great, he thought: we’ve got two murders on the go so the only detective with time to pick up a phone is the chief inspector. Good morning, madam – no, I’m sorry, my constables are all busy – will I do?

  In fact it wasn’t quite that bad. DC Stewart came back from the collator’s office while he was still standing there. ‘Were you looking for me, sir?’

  ‘I wasn’t looking for anybody in particular. But I thought there’d be someone here. Where are they all?’

  It wasn’t that big a squad so Stewart knew. ‘Scobie’s with the CPS, Morgan’s beating up the photo-copier, Sergeant Donovan called in sick. Inspector Graham’s talking to the lads downstairs.’

  ‘What about?’

  Stewart shrugged. ‘All she said to me was, if she wasn’t getting the right answers maybe she should ask some different questions.’

  That was Liz being cryptic: there was no point trying to work it out. Sooner or later she’d explain. Shapiro set off for his office again; again he stopped before he got there. ‘I saw Donovan yesterday evening. He seemed all right then.’

  ‘It’s his hand, sir. He thinks it might be infected. He’s taken it down the hospital to see what they say.’

  ‘How improbably sensible of him.’ Shapiro retired behind his door.

  He’d hardly sat down when he heard Liz’s swift steps on the stair. So her mood preceded her and it was no surprise when her face came round his door alight with possibilities. As if she were a hunter who, after long and tedious work in the coverts, had seen the russet flash of a fox’s brush.

  ‘Frank, I think we’ve been rather stupid about this. We all assumed we had a basic idea of who we were looking for: a man who wasn’t necessarily very tall, who possibly had sexual difficulties, who hated women and took it out on young girls. Dear love us, we even wondered if a man in a wheelchair would fit the bill! But there’s a simpler explanation for why they weren’t raped. What if the killer isn’t a man but a woman?’

  Shapiro blinked. ‘You’re not serious.’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ she insisted. ‘Think about it, it makes sense.’

  He thought. ‘Women use poison. Sometimes they use guns, or run people down in their cars. How many women commit murder with a knife?’

  ‘Not many,’ admitted Liz, ‘though it has happened. But the reason isn’t psychological, it’s physical. Women don’t go in for close-quarters murder not because they’re squeamish but because mostly their victims are stronger than them. To kill a man, the average woman has to do it at one remove – a gun, a car – or there’s every chance he’ll turn the tables on her. Most women attacking a man with a knife would end up in casualty themselves.

  ‘But that’s not a problem where the victims are all young girls. Any grown woman would have been stronger than Alice Elton, and most would have been stronger than Charlene Pierce – she didn’t exactly look after herself, did she? Also, a woman would have had that vital element of surprise. We’re all just a little wary about men we don’t know, but who gives a second glance to a woman standing in a doorway
or strolling in the park? Unless she’s obviously drunk or has a safety-pin through her nose, nobody thinks that a woman in a secluded place could be up to no good. People who’d cross the road to avoid meeting a man in the same circumstances scarcely notice that she’s there.’

  Shapiro was still wrestling with the idea. Liz Graham was an experienced detective: he knew better than to dismiss out of hand anything she thought promising, even if it went against all his expectations. ‘All right, allowing that it’s possible, how do we find out?’

  ‘I want to do the house-to-house again, at The Jubilee and round the park. I know,’ she hurried on, anticipating objection, ‘it’ll take manpower we could be using elsewhere. But I really think this is the way forward, Frank. I’ve talked to the lads who came doorstepping with me, and we were all asking the same question: Did anybody see a strange man? I want to go back and ask if anyone saw a strange woman.’

  There was too much to do to waste time repeating an exercise that had already proved futile. If another girl died while limited resources were tied up pursuing so tenuous – some might say frivolous – a lead, the next mob would be after his blood.

  But she was a good detective. She didn’t indulge in frivolous investigations. If he believed in her, perhaps he should trust her instincts too.

  Finally he nodded. ‘Do it.’

  It took less time than Shapiro had feared. Armed with knowledge it had taken hours to accumulate last time – who was still up and about the night Charisma died, who was awake in the houses round the park when Alice Elton met her killer – Liz went straight to those people who were at least potential witnesses and didn’t trouble those who slept from eleven to eight-thirty.

  Even so she might have learned nothing useful. When he heard her return ninety minutes later he quietly put down the papers he was working on and waited for her. Until he knew what, if anything, she’d discovered there seemed little point continuing. He listened carefully, and believed he heard in the metre of her approaching tread not merely hope this time but triumph.

  She entered his office with a knock so peremptory it was no more than her knuckles brushing the door as she wrenched at the knob. Radiance like an aura flooded the office. ‘That’s it, Frank – that’s the breakthrough. It was a woman. I even know what she looks like.’

  Shapiro breathed out, half a sigh and half a prayer. ‘Sit down and tell me what you’ve got.’

  She took a moment to compose herself. ‘I’ve got witnesses. People saw her, Frank. But they thought nothing of it because we all assumed the killer was a man.’

  ‘What did they see?’

  Liz knew what he was asking. ‘Not the actual attacks. But there are several sightings of her at relevant times and places. She was seen in Brick Lane on the night Charisma was killed: the first time at about one o’clock near Jubilee Terrace, when she seemed to be waiting for someone, then half an hour later at the other end of Brick Lane walking quickly towards the town centre.

  ‘Suppose she met with Charisma soon after the first sighting. They talked, then they took the walkway to Broad Wharf. Perhaps the woman said she had some business for her, or offered to pay for a magazine interview – something like that. When they reached the alley she got behind Charisma and cut her throat. Then she bundled her out of sight under the tarpaulin, and then she left. She’d have no trouble reaching the end of Brick Lane in time for the second sighting.’

  Shapiro was nodding slowly. At this stage it was about all the comment he was prepared to make. ‘What about the park?’

  Liz’s face glowed with satisfaction. ‘One witness puts a woman fitting the same general description on the bridleway at about the time Alice Elton was coming through the council yard, a few minutes before she was killed.’

  Shapiro watched her through narrowed eyes, seeking the flaw in her reasoning. But there wasn’t one. ‘There’s nothing about either of these killings that a woman couldn’t have managed if she was determined enough. It didn’t require strength or even speed so much as the element of surprise. There was no sexual assault: she disordered Alice’s clothes to make us think there’d been an attempt at intercourse but it was interrupted. She knew we couldn’t be sure if Charisma was raped; ditto the girl at Dover. Alice was stripped to confirm the connection between them and reinforce the natural assumption that the killer was a man.

  ‘We kept asking the wrong damned questions,’ said Liz. A note of self-reproach crept into her voice. ‘I did: I can hear myself now. “Did you see a man hanging round?” – “Have you seen any strange men?” And of course the answer was no. When we asked if they’d seen any strangers we started getting some answers.’

  ‘Good work, girl.’ There was nothing patronizing about his approval, it was genuine admiration and some relief. ‘What put you on to it?’

  ‘You did.’ His eyebrows expressed doubt so, with a certain sly pleasure, she explained. ‘Last night, when you were telling me how the road to obscurity for a woman detective is paved with attractive male suspects. You said that in order to succeed I had to be better at the job than a man. In the early hours of this morning I found myself wondering if a woman couldn’t have done this job too.

  ‘When Morgan and I went back and did the house-to-house properly several people said they’d seen a woman but hadn’t mentioned it because we’d only asked about men.’ She gave an angry little shake of the head. ‘That was careless. I hope to God Alice Elton didn’t die of semantics.’

  Shapiro’s expression was rueful. ‘If you mean did she die because police officers are human beings and as such incapable of seeing through brick walls, men’s souls or particularly dense fogs, then the answer may well be that she did. But we’re not to blame for things we could only have prevented by being more than we are. We do our best: inevitably that means making mistakes sometimes. You’ve less to reproach yourself for than the rest of us. At least you realized where we’d gone wrong.’ He reached for his pen. ‘This description you have. How general is it?’

  Liz scowled. ‘Too damn general. It fits about a quarter of the female population, including me.’ She remembered what she’d been told but checked her notes anyway. ‘She was wearing a light raincoat and a printed headscarf on both occasions. A skirt in Brick Lane, dark trousers at the park. Not sure about the height: either tall with an average build or average height with a slim build. No hair colour because of the scarf. None of the witnesses think they’d know her again – too dark the first time, too far away the second. Two of them mentioned a noticeably quick walk but that’s not surprising in view of what she was doing. Oh, and no handbag. Nobody saw a bag.’

  ‘It could have been in the hand, or over the shoulder, furthest from them.’

  ‘It could. But most women habitually carry their bag on one side – it feels downright odd on the other – and this woman was seen from both sides, walking left to right at the park, right to left in Brick Lane. I’d sooner think she didn’t want the bother of it when she was planning some energetic exercise. Also, she wouldn’t want to risk dropping something personal.’

  ‘So the fact that she didn’t have a bag with her doesn’t mean she doesn’t use one.’

  ‘No. But it may mean she carries more in her pockets than most women do. The knife, tissues to clean any blood off herself, perhaps a mirror to check with. She can look at her coat, see that she hasn’t been splattered, but if she’s walking round with blood on her face somebody’s going to notice. At the first light she comes to, or if it’s daylight as soon as she’s in the clear, she’s going to whip out a mirror. Nobody’d give her a second glance: we women are always checking our make-up, aren’t we?’ She smiled tightly.

  “The light-coloured raincoat doesn’t seem a great idea.’

  ‘It is if it’s plastic. She can clean it up in a moment, spotlessly. Blood on a woven fabric, however dark, would be hard to remove that completely.’

  There was a long silence as they put it all together. Then Shapiro spelled it out. ‘So we’re
looking for a woman of at least medium height and slimmish build, who owns a light-coloured waterproof – possibly with some unusual items in the pockets – and a printed headscarf; who’s been in Castlemere for at least a week, and who was in Dover last August. Why does she kill young girls?’

  ‘Why does anyone murder people they don’t know?’ countered Liz. ‘It’s either madness or evil. I expect when we find her she’ll trot out a list of reasons that seem to make sense to her; and when her defence counsel calls in a psychiatrist he’ll trot out a quite different list that seems to make sense to him. But we’re dealing with an abnormal mind: perhaps we shouldn’t expect to understand.’

  There was another long silence but Liz knew the discussion wasn’t finished. She could almost hear the cogs grinding in Shapiro’s head. At length he looked up, straight at her, and said, ‘I know someone that description could fit. So do you.’

  As soon as he said it, she did. Her eyes widened, then narrowed. She was running through what they knew and what they believed, looking for parallels. ‘She fits what we have of a physical description. She has business that takes her through Dover – I’ll check the exact date but we know they go back to Europe for the autumn. She was in Castlemere when Alice Elton was killed. More than that: Davey was eating breakfast alone that morning. Why? – two people staying in a hotel together normally take breakfast together even if they split up afterwards. And you could argue that someone devoting her life to a religious crusade has an abnormal mind.’

  It was Shapiro’s turn to play devil’s advocate. ‘Charlene Pierce was killed, hidden, put in the canal and pulled out again all before Jennifer Mills arrived in town on Sunday night.’

  Liz shook her head. ‘We don’t actually know when she arrived, only when she checked into the hotel. We do know she and Davey travelled separately – he booked in a couple of hours after she did.’