The Binford Mysteries

by Rashad Salim

  I studied the screen but couldn’t see what he was referring to.

  “Right there!” He jabbed his finger at the screen again. “See him?”

  He pressed pause and the footage resumed playing.

  I saw what he was referring to. “Lawrence Wilson.”

  “I fuckin’ knew it!” He jumped up from his chair and grabbed his suit jacket. He walked out before returning a few minutes later. “Come on, let’s go!”

  “Where?” I asked. “The hospital?”

  “I phoned the hospital. They said he doesn’t start for another hour.”

  “We goin’ to his place then?”

  He nodded.

  We left the office and stopped by Clark’s desk.

  “Did Booth give us a time of death?” Richardson asked him.

  Clark flicked through the post-mortem report. “...Said the victim died approximately 48 hours before time of examination. So roughly Monday evening around 8pm to midnight.”

  We thanked him and made our way to Lawrence Wilson’s residence. When we arrived at his door, the lights were on at his flat and I could see him moving around.

  Richardson rang the bell and Lawrence opened the door quickly.

  His eyes shifted back and forth at Richardson and me before he asked Richardson why we were here.

  “Thought we’d have a chat, Larry,” Richardson said. “Mind if we come in?”

  “I’m getting late for work.”

  “This’ll only take a minute,” I said.

  Wilson looked at us and caved in.

  “Thanks for the invite,” Richardson said and pushed past him indoors. I followed him.

  Lawrence shut the door behind us as we walked into his living room. It was a neat place. Lawrence seemed to apply the same approach to cleaning at home as he did at work.

  “Ok, what do you want? Make it quick. I’m already late as it is.”

  Richardson ignored him and continued exploring the living room, looking at all of Lawrence’s photos and books displayed on shelves. He stopped when he came across a stack of magazines on the coffee table. I gave them a closer look myself and saw they were photography magazines.

  “This your new hobby?” Richardson asked.

  “What does it matter?” Lawrence said.

  “Take a lot of photos, do you now?” Richardson asked him. “Fancy showin’ them to us?”

  Wilson narrowed his eyes and glared at Richardson. “That’s it. Get out now.”

  “Take it easy,” Richardson said. “We just wanna ask you a few questions, that’s all.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like what the fuck were you doing by the canal last night?” Richardson asked him casually.

  Wilson was about to say something but stopped himself.

  “Answer the question, Lawrence,” I said.

  “You were spotted by some of the other officers at the crime scene last night,” Richardson lied. “We even have you on videotape.”

  “So what?”

  “So I think that was a damn stupid thing for you, don’t you think?” Richardson asked. “A person of interest such as yourself.”

  “What were you doin’ there?” I asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothin’?” Richardson asked. “You could’ve done that here. Had to be somethin’, Larry. Couldn’t stay away, could you? Just had to get another look, hey?”

  Wilson’s eyes narrowed. “I had nothin’ to do with that.”

  “I thought I made it clear the last time we had our little chat that I had your card marked,” Richardson said. “And now you pretty much hand yourself to us.”

  Wilson swallowed hard. “Okay, I admit it was stupid of me to go there. I shouldn’t have. But I wasn’t the only one, was I? I just wanted to know what the big deal was. I heard some people talking about it on my way to the off licence and thought there was no harm in having a look.”

  I studied him carefully. He seemed to be telling the truth but it was such a perfect answer it made me more suspicious.

  “Where were you on Monday evenin’, Lawrence?” I asked.

  “Were you here?” Richardson asked. “Readin’ up on your new hobby?” he nodded at the magazines on the table.

  “I was at work.” There was a confidence in his voice that made him sound smug.

  “And you can verify that, can you?” Richardson asked him. “People saw you?”

  “Ask my boss,” Wilson said. “He’ll tell you whatever you wanna know. I was there from four o’ clock til midnight.”

  Richardson stared at him. “And after that?”

  “I came home after that, didn’t I? Where else was I gonna go to bed?”

  “Thanks for your co-operation, Lawrence,” I said. “You’ve been a great help.”

  “We’re gonna check out your alibi,” Richardson told him. “Don’t you worry.”

  Richardson and I left Wilson’s flat and one of his neighbours, a woman in her forties, came out of her house and approached us.

  “He in trouble again?”

  “What makes you say that?” Richardson asked her.

  “Come off it,” she said. “The Old Bill’s always poppin’ ‘round here. What’s he done this time?”

  I was surprised she knew we were police officers, considering how she couldn’t have seen me before since I hadn’t been around for long. Maybe Richardson had been making regular visits before.

  “I’m afraid we can’t say anythin’ about that,” I said.

  “I see.” She gave me a wary look like she had been expecting that answer.

  We moved on and on the way to Richardson’s car I asked him what he made of Wilson being at work around the time Ravinder had died.

  “He probably was at work. He was quite upfront about that.”

  “But?”

  “But I still think he’s up to no good. A nonce is a nonce for life,” he said. “Maybe he had nothin’ to do with Ravinder’s death but he might have known somethin’ about the abduction. I didn’t like the feelin’ I got from his mags.”

  “The photography stuff?”

  He sighed. “Just sent my alarm bells ringin’.”

  28

  DC Cole

  After questioning Lawrence, Richardson and I went back to the station. Enfield and Rahman had also returned by now.

  All six of us team members spread out around the office. Richardson and I told them about Lawrence being present at the body dumping site and how he claimed to have been at work at the time of Ravinder’s death.

  Clark asked Enfield and Rahman how the canvassing had been.

  “We talked to a lot of people,” Enfield said. “More than a few said they had seen a white van parked up near the canal yesterday afternoon.”

  Richardson and I looked at each other.

  “I don’t suppose any of them got the make or the plates, did they?” Richardson seemed to know the answer to that already. It was a no.

  “But we got something else though,” Enfield said. He looked down at his notebook. “Some old woman said she saw a creepy looking man near the canal in the afternoon.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Richardson leaned closer to peek at his notes.

  “Not just her,” Rahman said. “Someone else saw him there and identified him too.”

  “You get a name?” I asked.

  “No,” Rahman said. “But I knew who these people were talking about. The man is practically famous around town. I don’t know his name but I know where he lives.” He raised a piece of paper with an address scribbled on it.

  WPC Burton had been listening quietly until now. “I’ll get on that,” she said and took the note from Rahman. “See if I can get his name.” She left the room.

  “We need to start thinkin’ about a possible profile for our perpetrator,” Richardson said.

  Clark shook his head. “That’d send us down the wrong path. We can’t think on those terms.”

  “What do you mean ‘wrong path’?” Richardson asked him. “I’
ve been consultin’ with other murder teams and I’ve done a bit of research. I spoke to a few people at Scotland Yard about my assumptions-”

  “Assumptions?” Clark asked.

  “Yeah,” Richardson said. “Anyway, they’ve agreed with me that we’re lookin’ for a white man in his late thirties to early fifties.”

  “Based on what?” Clark asked him.

  “Based on countless previous cases of serial killers,” Richardson said.

  “I don’t know about that,” Enfield said. “Sounds like we’ve narrowed down our search a bit too much going on that description.”

  Something occurred to me. “What makes you say he’s a white man?” I asked Richardson. “Previous cases?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Previous cases of murdered Asians?” Clark asked Richardson.

  “Not exactly, no,” Richardson said. “But the vast majority of serial killers in the UK have been white men. You all know that.”

  “You think these might be hate crimes?” Enfield asked Richardson and looked at the rest of us.

  “That’s what a lot of the community are saying,” Rahman said.

  “Hang on a minute,” I said and raised a finger. I was still trying to get it right in my head what had crossed my mind. “What about the killer being Asian?”

  They all looked at me like I was mad. All except Clark. “It’s a possibility,” he said.

  “I doubt it,” DI Rahman said. “Doesn’t make sense.”

  “Yeah, and don’t forget the white van,” Richardson said. “Keep that in mind. Asim Patel, who discovered Rishi Malhotra’s body said he saw a white man at the wheel, remember?”

  I did remember that and I was aware of the white van but the presence of the white van still hadn’t been determined as suspicious yet. It could still be totally innocent.

  “And how do we know this is one man responsible?” DI Rahman said. “What about a group of people like the BNP? The other white supremacist group, Combat 18, are known to attack Asian youths in recent years.”

  “It doesn’t have any traits of a hate crime,” Clark said. “If it were a hate crime, the culprits would’ve made it clear. Most hate crimes have a strong message. We don’t have that with either murders. And as for whether it’s one man or a few men behind the murders, it’s rare for serial killers to work with others. Isn’t that right, Richardson?”

  “Yeah,” Richardson said. “That’s what the records show. Just like they show it’s almost always a white man.”

  “It’s not a white man,” I said.

  “Why not?” Richardson asked.

  “Because most serial killers – who I’ll readily admit are white men – do not kill outside of their race,” I said.

  “You got that right,” Clark said and gave me a wink.

  29

  Asim

  That evening, after everyone in town was talking about The Binford Snatcher, I stayed in my room pretending to do my homework but what I had really been doing was going through all the newspapers, trying to find out as much as I could about how much progress the cops had really made in finding out who was killing boys in my town.

  When it was dinner time, I was reluctant to sit down at the dinner table with my family. I knew they had been talking about it all day while I was at school and they were interested in knowing how much I could tell them.

  I went to the kitchen where Rizwan and dad were already seated. I took a seat opposite my dad while my mother rushed around laying down food on the table.

  “How was your day?” my dad asked me in Punjabi.

  “It was fine.”

  “I heard the police came down to talk to you boys,” he said. “Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “That boy that was killed – did you know him?”

  “They were in the same class,” Rizwan said.

  “I see.”

  We ate our dinner and when I was done, I tried to escape back to my room but my dad stopped me.

  “Hold on.”

  I winced. Talking to my dad about the murders was the last thing I wanted to do. I was embarrassed about the whole thing and wished he would just leave me alone about it.

  “I just want to know you’re going to watch out and be careful at all times, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t take any risks by going out after school,” he said. “I want you to stay home this weekend.”

  That caught me by surprise and I stared at him in disbelief. “I can’t stay home!”

  He frowned. “Why not?”

  “I’ll go mad.”

  “Don’t be a fag,” Rizwan said. “Be wise.”

  “Are you gonna stay home?” I spat the words at him.

  “No, I don’t have to,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “Cos the killer out there ain’t going after men. He’s going after skinny little boys like you!”

  I couldn’t contain my anger and slammed my fist down on the table.

  “Asim!” my mum called out from the other side of the kitchen.

  “Calm down,” my dad said softly. “Just do as we say. It’s for the best.”

  “Anyway,” Rizwan said, puffing out his chest, flexing his chest and arms, “Nobody would mess with me.”

  I got so pissed off I stormed out of the kitchen and went back to my room. I felt like slamming the door shut but the door had been worn out for so long I thought that would break it.

  I lay on the bed and sulked. I turned to my bedside table where one of the newspapers lay, the front page giving The Binford Snatcher plenty of coverage, and slapped it away.

  I couldn’t believe the serial killer had fucked up my social life as well.

  30

  DC Cole

  “So you think it’s an Asian serial killer?” Richardson asked.

  He was driving us to where Neil Roberts lived. The creepy man seen by the canal.

  I wanted to visit him with DI Rahman or DI Clark instead - Rahman, because he was familiar with Neil and Clark because he was a lot easier to be around with than Richardson. I had to suppress visions of Richardson kicking down Neil’s door, seizing the man by the collar and forcing him to confess.

  “He has to be Asian,” I said. “It’s the only way.”

  “The only way what?”

  “The only way he’s managed to not get caught yet.”

  Richardson looked at me. I knew he understood.

  “So how’s he doin’ it?”

  “I don’t know that yet but I do know he’s been able to move around town without drawin’ attention to himself. That’s somethin’ easier for an Asian man to pull off. And I think he might be an authority figure – someone kids look up to, someone they respect or fear.”

  Richardson laughed. “Since when did you become an expert on Binford?”

  I smiled. It felt good having impressed him.

  We reached Neil Roberts’ house and parked the car across the street. When we got out I surveyed our surroundings. It was a part of town I was unfamiliar with but I had a feeling I was going to know it a lot better soon.

  We crossed the street and stood at Neil’s front gate. I studied his garden and house.

  The paint on the gate was flaking. The wooden fence separating his garden from the pavement was chipped and in bad shape. The weeds and bushes in the garden had out of control growth like they hadn’t been trimmed in a very long time. The house itself was just as shabby.

  “Doesn’t this freak care about any of this?”

  “Didn’t you hear Rahman?” I said. “Apparently, he hardly ever leaves his house and when he does he only does a bit of shopping or loiters about in isolated areas.”

  “I take it he lives alone?” Richardson said. “The place doesn’t have a woman’s touch.”

  “No shit,” I said and walked to the front door. I rang the bell but nobody answered. There was a door knocker at the centre of the door so I used that twice and waited.

  “He better
be home.”

  “Where else could he be?” Richardson asked.

  It wasn’t a question I wanted to think about. The door opened then.

  Neil Roberts held the door ajar and peeked through the gap. He was a big man. Easily over 6’4 and at least sixteen stones. I had him down as being in his early fifties. “Yes?” he asked.

  “Neil Roberts?” Richardson asked.

  “Yes, who are you?”

  We showed him our badges and introduced ourselves.

  “We were hopin’ to ask you some questions, Mr Roberts,” Richardson said.

  “Go on,” Roberts said. He held the door ajar.

  “May we come in, Mr Roberts?” I asked. “We won’t be long.”

  He frowned. “We’re fine here, if you don’t mind.”

  It made me wonder what he had to hide inside.

  “Fine,” Richardson said. “We wanted to ask you about yesterday.”

  “What about yesterday?”

  “Did you hear about the body of the school boy found in the canal yesterday?” Richardson asked.

  “Yes, I’m afraid I have. I saw it in the papers.”

  “You were seen in the area yesterday afternoon,” Richardson said.

  “And what of it?” his eyes shifted from me to Richardson.

  “We were wonderin’ if you saw anythin’ suspicious,” I said. “Anythin’ that might help us. Does anything come to mind?”

  “No,” Neil said. “I can’t think of anything of the sort.”

  “Mr Roberts, I’m curious,” Richardson said and paused to get Neil’s full attention. “You were by the canal but you didn’t notice the foul smell coming from nearby.”

  “It’s a canal. They’re not exactly clean, officer. Well, not like the old days.”

  “There was a rotting corpse in the canal, Mr Roberts,” Richardson said. “And you just sat by the canal without noticin’ anythin’ was wrong?”

  Neil was silent for a while so I prompted him. “Mr Roberts?”

  “...You know I wish I could say this used to be a nice place but frankly Binford has always been an awful place to live.”

  “You don’t like it very much, do you?” Richardson said.