‘You’ve got to agree it’s a bit of a coincidence, both of them working as waitresses in similar kinds of cafés,’ Ariadne said, as she and Geraldine were discussing the case.
‘It would have given them the opportunity to encounter a lot of strangers in the course of their work,’ Geraldine replied thoughtfully. ‘I suppose that’s something we ought to be looking into.’
The missing girl, Zoe Watts, was a teenager, and still at school. The team were divided on whether her disappearance might be linked to the murders. While they were all hoping the girl had simply run away from home, as teenagers sometimes did, Eileen was keeping an open mind on the question of her connection to the murders. Along with her colleagues, Geraldine hoped Zoe would not turn out to be another victim of the murderer.
Wondering whether they had missed something, she decided to return to the cafés and question the dead women’s colleagues again. Angie’s unctuous manager answered all her questions willingly enough, but he had nothing to add to what he had already told her on her previous visit. The café was empty and Geraldine suspected he was keen to see the back of her as quickly as possible because he spoke very rapidly, casting frequent glances at the door in case a customer walked in.
‘Is there anything else I can help you with, Sergeant?’
He did not seem to know very much about his former waitress. All the same, Geraldine continued to question him, only this time she was more interested in his customers than his employees. According to the manager, no customer had demonstrated any particular interest in the dead girl.
‘She just waited at table,’ he replied. ‘There wasn’t any more to it than that.’
The manager bristled visibly when Geraldine persisted with her line of questioning.
‘This isn’t that kind of establishment,’ he retorted. ‘My waitresses do not strike up any kind of friendship with men who come here. I would never tolerate that kind of familiar behaviour in my staff. That’s not what they’re paid to do. This is a respectable café. You can see that for yourself.’
He gestured around the room at tables and brown plastic chairs, dark against pale yellow walls.
The brunette waitress, Klara, was keen to help yet she too was unable to offer any useful information but resorted to babbling about her work, hinting that she had a better job in mind, once her English had improved sufficiently. Geraldine did not stay long. The visit had been a waste of time.
The second victim had only been working at her café near Lendal Bridge for about six months, and no one there seemed to know much about her. She had worked alongside two other waitresses, neither of whom appeared to have held a conversation with her.
‘Sorry, but I only did the lunchtime shift and we were always rushed off our feet,’ one of them apologised. ‘I hardly spoke to her, really. She seemed nice enough. It’s horrible, what’s happened to her.’
The manager of a shop where Leslie had been employed previously was slightly more helpful. A slightly pompous middle-aged woman, she referred to herself and the younger people working there as ‘the staff’. When Geraldine asked for the contact details of anyone else who worked there, the manager raised a pencilled eyebrow.
‘We are the staff,’ she repeated grandly, as though she was referring to royalty.
The shop was owned by a company whose representatives rarely visited, and the manager was in effect the boss, serving in the shop with the other employees. Leslie had been employed there for nearly two years.
‘We were considering letting her go,’ the manager admitted, with an unconvincing show of regret.
‘Why was that?’
‘She was flaky,’ the manager replied uneasily. ‘This is just between us, isn’t it? Only I do like to help the police when I can. And the poor girl is dead now, isn’t she? Raped and murdered right here in York.’
She shuddered and dabbed her eyes with a paper serviette. Geraldine quickly corrected her about the nature of the assault on Leslie.
‘Are you saying she wasn’t raped?’
‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. Where did you hear that she was sexually assaulted?’
‘Oh, you know how people talk,’ the woman replied vaguely. ‘Anyway, that’s a mercy and we can all sleep soundly at night again.’
Geraldine resisted the temptation to respond to that absurd remark.
‘It would help our investigation if you could tell me more about the kind of woman Leslie was. You said she was flaky. Do you mean she was unreliable?’
The manager shook her head. ‘What a terrible business,’ she said. ‘That poor girl.’
Geraldine repeated her question.
‘Oh that,’ the manager said. ‘I only meant that she was often late for work, and once or twice she turned up looking like… well, looking as though she could do with a good night’s sleep.’ She lowered her voice. ‘She struck me as the sort of girl who likes to have a good time, if you know what I mean.’
She looked meaningfully at Geraldine, who thanked her for the information and did her best to find out more. But the manager shook her head.
‘I’m afraid I have absolutely no idea who she went out with. Like I said, I think she was interested in meeting men.’
‘She was married,’ Geraldine reminded her.
‘Well, you wouldn’t have thought it, the way she carried on.’
When Geraldine pressed her to explain, she described how Leslie used to change at the end of the working day before going out for the evening to pick up men.
‘How do you know that’s what she was doing? She could have been meeting her husband.’
The woman shook her head. ‘Not dressed like that, she wasn’t. He came here once to meet her, and he was definitely not the kind of man to go out clubbing, or to bars and what not. He looked like a very respectable man. He was a lot older than her. I thought he was her father. If you ask me,’ she lowered her voice, ‘she went out looking for other men. Well, it seems she found one.’
‘Did she say anything that led you to believe she was cheating on her husband?’
‘She didn’t need to. I saw the way she dressed.’
Despite her belief that the dead woman had regularly gone to bars or clubs hoping to meet men, the shop manager did not know which venues Leslie had frequented or whom she might have met after work.
33
Geraldine had the impression her colleague was upset about something, but Ariadne insisted she was fine. Her protestations failed to convince Geraldine. Ariadne kept laughing a little too loudly, and she grinned foolishly whenever a colleague walked past, as though desperate to convince everyone she was happy. Geraldine’s suspicions were confirmed when she saw Ariadne in the toilets, sniffing and wiping her eyes. As soon as she spotted Geraldine, Ariadne turned away and blew her nose vigorously, but she knew that Geraldine had seen her crying and there was no longer any point in her maintaining the pretence that everything was fine.
‘Let’s go for a coffee, and you can tell me all about it,’ Geraldine said.
Ariadne shook her head, insisting this was not something she could discuss at work, where she risked being overheard. So at lunch time they left the police station together and went into York for a pizza. The pub local to the police station was frequented by colleagues and Ariadne wanted to go where they could talk unobserved.
‘You don’t have to tell me what’s troubling you, but I’m listening if you want to talk about it,’ Geraldine said as she sat down.
She picked up her fork and waited.
‘I’ve done a really stupid thing,’ Ariadne blurted out.
Geraldine did not answer.
‘It’s Andrew,’ Ariadne muttered at last, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.
‘Andrew? You mean Andrew Wilder, the constable who’s come to join us from Northallerton? What about him?’
Andrew had
arrived in York as one of the team drafted in to help with the double murder investigation. Ariadne mumbled that she liked their new colleague. Geraldine thought about this. She had been so preoccupied with her own troubles that she had not noticed any particular intimacy developing between him and Ariadne, and was surprised to see her friend looking so upset.
‘And so?’ Geraldine asked. ‘Is there more to this? I mean, have you let him know how you feel?’
‘Yes. Kind of. That is, yes. We had a thing.’
‘What do you mean?’ Geraldine asked, although Ariadne’s meaning was pretty clear.
‘Oh for goodness sake, Geraldine. Don’t be an idiot. You know what I mean.’
Hesitantly Ariadne confided that she had accepted an invitation to go for a drink with Andrew.
‘I know it was wrong of me,’ she concluded miserably.
‘There’s nothing wrong with two colleagues going for a drink,’ Geraldine replied cheerfully. ‘That’s what we’re doing right now, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but there was more to it than that.’ Ariadne lowered her voice although there was no one nearby who could hear her. ‘I went home with him. That is, I invited him back to my flat.’ She paused. ‘I mean, it’s a long drive back to Northallerton at the end of the working day.’
She had clearly not offered him her sofa.
‘Well, he’s single, and you’re single,’ Geraldine said. ‘Where’s the harm in two consenting adults spending the night together? I understand you don’t want everyone to know and start gossiping, but it’s not as though you’ve done anything wrong. I don’t really understand what’s bothering you. You obviously like each other, so that’s good, isn’t it?’
Since Ariadne had confessed to liking Andrew, Geraldine decided not to mention that he had also approached her. If he was lonely and looking for a relationship, there was no reason why Ariadne shouldn’t benefit from his attention when Geraldine was not interested in him. It would be unkind to imply that Ariadne had not been his first choice of potential partner.
‘The thing is, I really like him but I don’t know if he feels the same way. He’s never really said anything to suggest he thinks of our relationship as anything more than a fling. Is it too early to ask him how he feels? I don’t want to look desperate.’
Geraldine put down her fork and spoke slowly. ‘I’m hardly an expert in relationships but if you really want my advice, for what it’s worth, I think you need to be patient. Give it time. Probably neither of you really knows how you feel about each other yet. Just go with it and see what happens.’
‘But I’m not comfortable cheating on Nico.’
Geraldine was taken aback. For nearly a year she and Ariadne had worked closely together and become good friends, yet in all that time she had never once heard Ariadne talk about anyone called Nico.
‘Nico? Who’s Nico?’
‘My boyfriend.’
Geraldine was even more confused. Ariadne had never mentioned that she had a boyfriend. On the contrary, she had told Geraldine that she was tired of being on her own, and wanted to meet someone. Ariadne’s eyes filled with tears again, and she twisted a tissue in her fingers as she explained that she had been seeing Nico for a couple of months. He was the nephew of a friend of her mother’s.
‘I don’t understand. If you’re seeing someone else, why did you sleep with Andrew? No, sorry, that was a stupid question.’
‘What should I do? Help me, Geraldine.’
‘For a start, you need to tell Nico it’s over between you.’
‘But what if the affair with Andrew doesn’t last? I don’t want to end up with no one.’
Geraldine took a gulp of her water. ‘Well, which of them do you want to be with? Given that you can’t keep on seeing both of them.’
Ariadne sighed. ‘Andrew, obviously, I suppose, or there wouldn’t be a problem. Nico’s asked me to marry him, but I don’t know if Andrew’s serious, and it’s too early to ask, isn’t it? I mean, we’ve only been out for a drink once and then he came back to my place. That’s all we’ve done so far. I mean, we had sex, but it’s only been the once. How can I find out how he feels? I don’t want to frighten him off. But I’m not comfortable about cheating on Nico.’
‘It doesn’t sound as though you love Nico.’
‘Well, I do and I don’t, if you know what I mean.’
Geraldine shook her head. ‘I’m not sure I do.’
‘Sometimes I think I love him. I could imagine spending the rest of my life with him quite happily. But it’s different when I’m with Andrew. It’s – I can’t explain, but he makes me feel alive. He’s exciting, you know? I don’t know what to do.’
‘You need to stop seeing Andrew and get over it, or else tell Nico it’s over between you,’ Geraldine replied firmly. ‘It’s not fair on any of you to carry on like this.’
‘But what if I end things with Nico and then the affair with Andrew doesn’t last? He’s never said anything to suggest he thinks of what we did as going anywhere. I don’t want to end up with no one. I’m nearly forty. It’s taken me so long to find Nico. And I do like him.’
‘Ariadne, you’re cheating on both of them, and messing yourself up at the same time. You have to stop seeing one of them. And if you like Nico so much that you don’t want to lose him, I’d say you should refuse to see Andrew again. You’re probably just having last minute collywobbles about Nico because it sounds like it could be serious with him.’
‘You’re right,’ Ariadne replied. ‘I’ve been an idiot, haven’t I? Andrew’s quite attractive, isn’t he? I think it just went to my head when he seemed interested in me. And I was a bit pissed. Oh well, like you said, no harm done. I won’t make that mistake again, that’s for sure.’
Ariadne smiled and Geraldine lowered her eyes, shocked to realise how little she really knew about her friend. Casting her mind over other people she thought she knew, she wondered what they might be keeping from her. To be fair, she was as guilty of being secretive as Ariadne, concealing her own relationship with Ian from everyone else. Thinking about her feelings for Ian, she realised she did not even understand her own reticence to be open about his moving in with her. But she was afraid to reveal it to other people, as though that might somehow ruin the relationship she was guarding so jealously.
34
A report had been sent by the forensic team which had been examining the bin in which Leslie’s body had been transported. Extensive tests having failed to reveal any prints or DNA, Geraldine quizzed a member of the team about the disappointing results.
‘Human fingermarks are left by natural oils deposited on any surface the fingers come into contact with,’ the officer explained to her.
‘Yes, yes, I know all that, but surely you must have found something, even a partial print, somewhere on the bin? Did you examine every inch of it?’
‘Every millimetre,’ the forensic scientist replied. ‘The trouble is, a non-porous substance like plastic is easily cleaned using a simple solution to break down the oils. Even a damp cloth can do the job. Whoever handled this bin was careful to remove any marks that might have been left on it.’
‘What about DNA? You must have found traces of DNA on the bin?’
‘Only the victim’s, I’m afraid,’ the scientist said. ‘The whole bin, inside and out, was cleaned with a strong solution of sodium hydroxide which corrodes organic materials. The bin stank of it. That would have been enough to destroy any traces of DNA, especially if the user was wearing a mask.’
Geraldine frowned. ‘Someone took a great deal of trouble to cover their tracks. How easy is it to get hold of sodium hydroxide?’
‘It’s readily available, everywhere. It’s widely used to unblock drains.’
‘But wouldn’t sodium hydroxide have dissolved the bin?’
‘No, on the contrary, sodium hydroxide is stored in plastic con
tainers because it damages glass, and anything else organic.’
Later that afternoon a message came through from the VIIDO team that Andrew had spotted someone wheeling a bin into the passageway beside the club on Friday at around six pm.
‘Well done,’ Eileen said, gazing around the room. ‘It’s just as well someone around here is on the ball.’
A couple of other officers mumbled discreetly, but no one minded that Eileen had singled out a newcomer for such high praise. What mattered was that they might have a sighting of whoever had deposited Leslie’s body in the alley. Eileen put the footage up on the screen in the incident room and they all watched in silence as she played it through. The film was disappointing. Whoever was wheeling the bin was only clearly visible from behind, stomping along the street fairly quickly. When a camera did catch a shot from the front, the figure was moving swiftly, and the image was blurred by heavy rain. Whoever was pushing the bin had chosen a wet day when the pavement would be less crowded and any film would be indistinct.
‘This killer is no fool,’ Eileen muttered crossly. ‘He’s making it impossible for us to track him down.’
‘Almost impossible,’ Geraldine replied softly, and the detective chief inspector grunted.
Eileen played the short film through again. Silently they watched the killer, or perhaps an accomplice, pushing the large bin along the pavement. His hair concealed beneath the hood of an anorak under his loose hi-vis jacket, he was wearing large black shoes and thick safety gloves, looking just like any other refuse operative pushing a bin. Except that the contents of this bin were very different to the garbage it would usually contain. Snatches of film from various cameras recorded the bin and its custodian in short bursts, travelling along the pavement outside the club, until they disappeared around the corner into the alley where the film stopped. Following the film backwards, they watched the bin being unloaded from a black van with false number plates. The registration number had already been traced to a Ford Fiesta which was parked outside its owner’s house at an address in Wales.
Evil Impulse Page 14
