‘Where –’ she began in a screechy whine.
Seeing Geraldine, she pressed her thin lips together and stood poised, one hand on the door, while the other hand wandered absent-mindedly to her face. Long bony fingers cupped her chin.
‘Mrs Birch?’
The woman nodded without speaking. Behind her fringe, Geraldine saw her eyes narrow with suspicion.
‘May I come in?’
Mrs Birch’s eyes widened in sudden apprehension when Geraldine held up her warrant card, and her grip on the door tightened visibly, bony knuckles whitening under the pressure. Without another word, she ducked her head and led Geraldine into a cluttered front room. Tattered magazines covered a coffee table, women’s magazines and car periodicals jumbled together as though they had fallen on the floor and then been thrown together on the surface of the table without any care.
A fat ginger cat strolled into the room and scrutinised Geraldine before leaping onto Mrs Birch’s lap with surprising agility as soon as she sat down. She scooped the animal up in her thin arms and dropped it on the floor. Offended, it raised its tail in the air and stalked out of the room.
‘Where is he?’
‘Mrs Birch, I’m afraid your husband’s dead.’
The widow looked confused.
‘What are you talking about? Who are you?’
Geraldine took out her warrant card again and held it up.
‘I’m here to tell you that your husband is dead. I’m so sorry for your loss,’ she said softly.
Neither of them spoke for a moment, then Mrs Birch dropped her head into her hands. Geraldine waited. The cat reappeared and rubbed itself against the bereaved woman’s legs, purring loudly. She moved her leg, shifting the cat away from her. It settled down on the carpet, wrapping its tail around its body. After a moment it rose to its feet and leaned against her shins again, mewing plaintively.
‘He knows,’ Mrs Birch said dully.
‘What?’
‘Ginger. The cat. He knows what’s happened. He can tell. That’s why he’s not purring.’
She began stroking the cat, while tears slipped down her gaunt cheeks.
‘So he’s dead?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘What happened?’ She turned her tear streaked face to Geraldine. ‘Was it his fault?’
‘His fault?’
‘The accident. It was the other driver’s fault, wasn’t it? John was a safe driver. He’d been driving the buses for ten years without an accident. He – he was a good driver –’
‘This wasn’t an accident, Mrs Birch.’
‘But – the bus –’
Gently Geraldine explained that her husband hadn’t died in a traffic accident.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Your husband was murdered.’
‘How?’
‘He was assaulted, hit on the head and knocked out.’
Mrs Birch shook her head.
‘I don’t understand. Why? Why would anyone kill John?’
Geraldine asked the bereaved woman if she could contact anyone. Mrs Birch shook her head.
‘There is no one else. There was only ever the two of us, me and John.’
‘Do you have any family you could call?’
Again she shook her head and her fringe quivered above her eyes.
‘We never had children.’
She explained she was an only child, and her husband’s only brother had gone abroad and died.
‘Do you have a neighbour who could be with you?’
Mrs Birch shook her head again.
‘Be with me?’ she repeated, bemused. ‘There’s only Ginger.’
As if rejecting her dependence, the cat arched its back and trotted lightly out of the room.
Back in her own flat, Geraldine slumped down on her sofa and scowled at an ink stain she had made with a biro the night before. The sofa was dark, so it wasn’t particularly noticeable, but she knew it was there. She made a mental note to ask her sister how to remove it, when they next spoke. It was the kind of domestic detail her sister would know about. With a bowl of pasta and a small glass of wine on a tray, she flipped through channels on the television but couldn’t settle to anything. The memory of John Birch’s widow wouldn’t leave her. It wasn’t as though it was the first time she had delivered news of a tragedy to an unsuspecting family, but there was something about the woman’s isolation that was unsettling. The detective chief inspector had considered it fortunate there were no children in the marriage, but children might have given the widow some support.
Usually efficient at detaching herself from homicide victims and those they left behind, for no obvious reason Mrs Birch perturbed her. Sitting disconsolately in front of the flickering television screen, she replayed the widow’s words in her mind, like a voice over. ‘There is no one else.’ Geraldine tried not to see parallels with her own situation. She had her work. But in twenty years’ time she would be retiring. What company would she have then? She thought of Sam as a friend. An intimacy had sprung up between them as they worked closely together. But either one of them might relocate at any time and even if they continued as a team for twenty years, their relationship would inevitably lose its immediacy once they no longer worked together.
Apart from her colleagues at work, there were very few people Geraldine felt close to. Even before she had learned about her adoption, she had never felt at ease with her adoptive family. Looking back on her early life, it was almost as though she had sensed that she didn’t belong with them. Now she went through the motions with her sister, pretending nothing had changed. Hannah was a loyal friend, but she had her own family to fill her life. It struck Geraldine that her birth mother might be in a similar situation to Mrs Birch, living an isolated and lonely existence. Perhaps she too had only a cat for company. For the first time Geraldine wondered whether she owed it to her mother, as much as to herself, to find the stranger who had given birth to her.
CHAPTER 62
Charlie hesitated as he reached the estate. It was already dark and he never knew when or where they might be waiting for him. His main advantages were that he was a sprinter, and he wasn’t worth the effort of chasing. There was nothing on him worth nicking. They already had his phone and he never had more than a couple of quid which they were happy to take off him, but only if it was no trouble. If he didn’t get too close before they noticed him, he could usually escape. If not, they would rough him up a bit, jeering and twisting his arms, spitting and throwing the odd punch. But they were too thick, or too carefree, to conceal their presence. As soon as he was aware of them, loitering on a street corner or hanging about in one of the alleys between the blocks of flats, he would be off.
His mum didn’t like it. She was always on at him, wanting to know who was in the gang that kept picking on him so she could complain to the school, or harangue the police about the violence on the streets. He assured her he had no idea who they were, so there was no point in reporting it. It was difficult enough keeping her out of it and she didn’t even know the extent of his problem. She thought he had lost his phone, as well as his new school bag. That had probably been a mistake, because she flatly refused to replace his phone, calling him irresponsible and a waste of space, and a host of other things besides.
‘You think I’m made of money?’ she’d screeched at him. ‘Do you know how much that phone cost?’
‘But Mum, I need a phone.’
‘Well life is full of disappointments, you little sod. Get your own phone.’
He nearly told her he’d been mugged, but the truth would only set her off again, doing his head in with her questions.
The problem with narrow alleys was that, once one of the gang pushed past him, he was trapped. They had caught him like that a couple of times. Since then he tended to go the long way round, walking along Hornsey Road until he could turn right and double back to Birnam Road where he lived. It was raining and he deliberated over whether to risk it. As he hesi
tated, a woman approached. He seized his chance and entered the estate right behind her. He had no idea if they were in there, skulking in the shadows, but he couldn’t smell cigarette smoke or hear their voices. Even if they were there, waiting silently, they would probably leave him alone with the woman walking in front of him. Safety in numbers, he thought. He began to hum under his breath.
It was very quiet on the estate. Charlie’s trainers padded softly and the woman moved silently ahead of him. Her pace quickened as she entered an alley between the blocks. It crossed his mind that she might be afraid of him. The idea made him smile and he walked faster to keep up with her. In the half light he saw the woman glance anxiously over her shoulder and he felt a slight thrill. There was no longer any doubt about it. She was frightened of him. That could only mean one thing. She was expecting him to mug her. He glanced around. There was no one else in sight. Grinning, he trotted closer, eyeing the bag slung across her shoulder. If his mother refused to replace his phone, he would sort it himself. He should have thought of this before, it was so obvious.
Catching up with her half way along the alley, he looked back over his shoulder. The place was deserted. With one short stride he reached her, grabbed hold of her bag and yanked it. It was unexpectedly heavy. The wide leather strap slipped off her shoulder and down her arm. But instead of letting go, the stupid cow clutched at the bag with both hands, jerking it out of his grasp. She didn’t turn round. He couldn’t see past her hunched shoulders but she seemed to be fumbling inside the bag. Close up he could see she was wearing a smart coat and her hair smelled of some poncy perfume that probably cost a bomb. With renewed vigour he grabbed at the strap of her bag. She must have a few quid in there, a decent phone and some feminine stuff he could wrap up and give his mother for Christmas.
He tugged harder at the strap with one hand, at the same time giving her a smart shove between her shoulder blades to make her lose her footing. It wouldn’t be difficult to whip the strap from her shoulder as she struggled to keep her balance, and by the time she found her feet he would have vanished. It was that simple. He hung on. Instead of letting go, the woman spun round. He caught a glimpse of her eyes, staring maniacally as she raised her arm above her head. He was so startled that for a fraction of a second he didn’t realise what she was doing. In the nick of time he dodged back and the hammer she was wielding hit him only a glancing blow on the side of his head. The pain was excruciating. If he hadn’t darted back out of reach, she would have killed him.
For a second he was dazed. He was vaguely aware that his back was pressed against the wall. His legs were too weak to support him and he was sliding slowly down the wall to the ground. A movement alerted him to his assailant, still there in the alley. With difficulty he opened his eyes. Her arm was raised, her face a mask of loathing. He tried to stammer an apology, but his mouth wouldn’t work. All at once she stopped, her arm above her head, turned and fled. As he slumped to the ground, he became aware of voices echoing along the alley.
A moment later two women hurried past. He thought they hadn’t noticed him lying against the wall, but as they scurried by he heard them muttering. One of them said something about a tramp, and how it shouldn’t be allowed. Her voice floated back to him, sour and disapproving.
‘There must be places for them to go.’
He didn’t care what they were saying. Those women had probably saved his life.
He heard hoarse moaning and realised the noise was coming from his own throat. He pressed his lips together and sat up. Feeling the side of his head gingerly, his fingers slid in wetness. He was bleeding. With a groan he staggered to his feet, blinking. Everything looked strangely fuzzy and he felt dizzy. Without warning he threw up. Sitting on the ground, stinking of sick and bleeding, he began to cry. Regularly mugged by other boys, he hadn’t even managed to mug a lone woman.
Thankfully the house was empty when he finally staggered home. In the bathroom he studied his face in the cloudy mirror. A layer of skin had been scraped off the side of his face, the deep graze bordered down one side by a nasty bruise. He touched the surface of his damaged skin and winced. With trembling fingers he stroked his hair sideways across his temple to cover the bruise as well as he could, resolving to tell no one how a woman had bettered him in a fight. It was lucky his straggly hair was so overgrown. He would tell his mother he had fallen over, scraping the side of his head. At school he would have to spin a yarn about how he had fought off three muggers, all by himself. He could just imagine what his classmates would say if they found out he had been beaten up by a woman. He smiled grimly at his reflection and flinched when the movement made the side of his head smart.
CHAPTER 63
Geraldine sat down at her desk with a takeaway and logged on. She hadn’t gone to the canteen for lunch because she wanted to be alone to check through all the files stored on the internal data system. Details of everyone interviewed or questioned in connection with the victims had been entered and there were a lot of documents to look at. It promised to be a tedious job. What made it even more time-consuming was that she didn’t yet know what she was looking for. All she could do was hope she might stumble upon some piece of information that would point her in the right direction. It was going to take her days to read through everything again, and would probably prove pointless in the end, but she had to do something. Every time she closed her eyes she saw Mrs Birch’s scrawny figure sitting alone in her untidy front room.
Picking at her lunch, she left most of it to grow cold while she scanned through all the earlier suspects’ statements, starting with Amy. As she read, she remembered the widow’s expensive clothes and immaculate hair, and wondered what she was doing right now. Not grieving over her dead husband, that was for sure. She turned her attention to Guy. Since Amy and her lover had first been suspects, the case had become far more complex. There was no way they could be responsible for all four murders that had taken place.
It seemed like months since they had started the investigation and there were still many unanswered questions, like Stella’s role in Henshaw’s life, but beyond curiosity there was no reason to investigate those early suspects. Nothing they had said helped establish who had killed Henshaw, Corless, Bradshaw and now Birch. And if the police didn’t find the killer soon, there might be other victims before long. It wasn’t her fault the killer remained at large, but Geraldine couldn’t help feeling accountable. She focused on her reading with renewed determination. She had access to all the information so far gathered. If there was any hint of a clue that had been overlooked, she had to find it. That she had done her best wouldn’t exonerate her.
‘Hey, you look miles away.’
Nick’s desk was placed at right angles to hers; he must have walked right past her without her noticing. She gave him a cursory glance. His features softened into a smile, inviting conversation.
‘I’m thinking,’ she answered tersely, not wanting her train of thought to be further interrupted.
She turned away, signalling that she wanted to be left alone. To her annoyance, he stood up and came over to perch on the edge of her desk. Resisting an impulse to snap at him, she kept her eyes fixed on her screen.
‘Must be interesting,’ he ventured.
He smiled warmly as though he was perfectly comfortable twisting round to look at her. She didn’t answer.
‘Still working on the Hammer Horror?’
She looked up on hearing him use the term coined by some idiot reporter.
‘The Hammer Horror?’ she snorted. ‘That’s what the bloody tabloids are calling him.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t pay attention to anything those hangers-on say. You just get on with the job.’
‘That’s what I’m trying to do right now.’
‘Well, don’t let me stop you. ’
He waited for a few seconds but she didn’t look up from her screen so he retreated to his own desk where he sat shuffling papers.
Geraldine scowled. Her attempt to pre-
empt distraction had failed, because now she was bothered by the possibility that she had offended her colleague. She had nothing against Nick and besides, they had to share an office.
‘I’m sorry to be unsociable, it’s just that I’m bogged down in all this.’
‘Can I help?’
‘Hardly. I mean, you don’t know the case from the inside, and it’s really a matter of going over details again. If I had to start explaining, it would – well, it would waste time …’
He was back on her desk, smiling in his relaxed way that really wound her up in her present state of agitation. It was hard to believe he could be so dense as to ignore the obvious fact that she wanted to be left alone to get on with her work.
‘I’m very experienced,’ he said. ‘I’m sure I can be of assistance, and I can easily spare half an hour to help reduce the load on an overworked colleague.’
Now Geraldine felt irritated with herself for resenting his tone. She knew he didn’t intend to come across as patronising, but genuinely wanted to help. All the same, she began to understand how he could have riled Sam.
‘Thanks, but I really need to get on.’
No longer caring if Nick took her abrupt dismissal the wrong way, she settled back to work.
She went over what Corless and his girlfriend had said. Closing the last document, she turned her attention to witnesses and studied Keith Apsley’s statement. It was growing late and she was nowhere near finished.
‘I’m off,’ Nick announced. ‘If you’re sure I can’t help you out?’
Geraldine looked up. Maybe she should go home and forget about work for the evening, so she could return to it fresh in the morning. She was wasting her time, going over and over the same old documents.
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