The Devil's Claw

by Lara Dearman

  ‘I had it blown up. Look.’ A close up showed the marks clearly. Three long, vertical scratches and a shorter, horizontal one underneath.

  ‘And here, on Janet Gaudion.’ It was there, on the top of her right thigh.

  ‘Melissa. And Mary.’ Michael placed the magnified images side by side.

  Jenny looked at each in turn and then to Michael.

  ‘He’s marked them.’

  Michael nodded.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Michael, this is proof! Someone killed these girls and left a bloody calling card and nobody noticed. And it’s not just the marks.’ She told him about her meeting with Tom Le Jardin.

  ‘The kid who found the guy a couple of weeks ago, no one took him seriously.’ Michael said. ‘It was only luck his notes ended up in the file. Taken on its own, this guy or scarecrow, whatever it was he found, could have been written off as a coincidence. But taken with what this Tom Le Jardin said?’ He paused, scraped at his stubble. ‘This is methodical, planned. Ritualistic, even. And it’s been going on for decades.’

  Jenny picked up the picture of Amanda, studied the marks on her cheek again, and was again struck by the feeling that the mark was familiar to her, that it existed somewhere in her memory, that it was there, waiting for her to grab hold of it. She searched through another pile of photographs, these ones all taken at the scenes where the bodies were found. Crime scenes, she thought. She looked at each girl in black and white, all of them lying on the sand.

  ‘He hasn’t hurt them.’

  ‘Hmm?’ Michael rubbed at his eyes.

  ‘I mean, he hasn’t beaten them, or raped them.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s just … it doesn’t feel violent, the way they were all found. When you look at them all like that, they look almost peaceful.’

  ‘Like they’re sleeping. I thought the same thing. But it’s murder. We’re looking for a violent individual. Never mind he doesn’t want to spoil his victims’ pretty faces.’

  ‘So what do we do now? Where do we start?’ She put the pictures back on the table. ‘Did you look into David De Putron? He gave Amanda piano lessons at the youth club, he may have taught Hayley too, that’s significant, isn’t it? Perhaps he knew all of these girls somehow? And there’s something off about him. I’m sure he had Brian call me, to warn me off.’

  ‘I started doing a bit of digging after you spoke to Hayley’s mother, and I’ll certainly do some more. But, Jenny, you have to remember that everyone knows everybody else here, one way or another. I even looked up piano teachers in the yellow pages. There are only twelve listed. The fact that one man may have given two of the girls lessons is not surprising.’

  He hesitated. ‘I need to be honest with you about something.’

  ‘I think I know what you’re going to say, but it’s OK, really. Unless it’s going to affect what’s going on right now.’ She pointed to the wine bottle and raised an eyebrow.

  That wasn’t it, Michael said. He’d been drinking, yes, but it didn’t happen very often, at least not any more. He rubbed his eyes again, pulling his hand down over his chin, scraping the coarse hairs backwards and forwards. She felt an almost overwhelming desire to put her hand out, pat his shoulder, to tell him it was all going to be OK. She took another sip of her tea instead and looked at him expectantly.

  ‘I used to drink a lot, as it happens,’ he said. ‘Started off as part of the job, few pints after work, but it soon became more than that. I needed the alcohol to function. It wasn’t just me, mind you, there were plenty of us turning up hung-over on a regular basis, it was part of the culture. Not that I’m trying to make light of it, but I did a better job than most, even when I was half drunk. It never affected my work. Not until Ellen died.’ He shook his head, as if trying to convince himself, and then looked at her. ‘After that, it was a different story.’ He paused.

  ‘I turned up drunk a couple of times. A couple of times I didn’t turn up at all. The force was understanding. I took a leave of absence, but that made everything worse. Without work to distract me, I hit rock bottom. Nearly died, as it happened. Forced me to take a long, hard look at things. And that was when I found God.’

  Jenny tried not to look uncomfortable. He went on.

  ‘I cleaned up my act, stopped drinking, worked harder. I’d always been a good copper. With a clear head and a sense of purpose, I reckon I was probably one of the best. Started to see things more clearly, saw some of my colleagues for what they really were. Lazy, entitled jobsworths, some of them, thought they were better than everyone else because they wore a uniform. Thought they could get away with anything. Only I couldn’t let them. Not any more.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Not long after I’d turned things around, started to get on with my life, a young lad was brought into the cells. Drunk, throwing up, mouthing off. Said something one of my colleagues took offence too and got a good kicking for it. The family lodged a complaint. There was an investigation by Internal Affairs. They took statements. Four coppers saw what happened. Three told one story. I told the truth. Some of them have never forgiven me for it.’

  They sat in silence, Jenny unsure for once what response was required. He seemed to pick up on her uncertainty. He stared at her, and for the first time she noticed his eyes were not the brown she’d assumed and which would match his swarthy, island complexion, but a dark, unsettling blue.

  ‘I have very few friends on the police force, Jenny. I’m telling you this so you understand. They’re not going to like this. I’m going to accuse the force of being blind to a serial killer when there was evidence right under our noses. We’re going to have to be careful.’

  ‘How could this have been missed, Michael?’

  He shook his head. They moved around a lot on the force these days, he said, from department to department. Over the course of a career an officer might work Fraud, Traffic, Criminal investigation. He’d been on the force nearly forty years and he’d not come across these cases before. He remembered them, of course, you always remembered the bodies, but he’d not worked on any of them. She had to realise, he said, that none of these cases were considered crimes. The files were all slim, nothing to them really. He’d spoken to the officers who’d worked Hayley’s case already, and he was sorry to say it wasn’t given the attention it should have been, whether through oversight or laziness, well, that he wouldn’t like to say.

  ‘As for what we do now, I’m going to have to concentrate on Amanda. It’s the only open case and I need to review it, in light of all this.’ He shook his head. ‘And I’m going to have to take this to the chief. Today. You need to leave this to me now. This is a murder investigation, multiple victims; I can’t have you involved, not like this anyway. I can’t stop you reporting on it, obviously, conducting your own investigations, as it were. Only … tread carefully, Jenny. We don’t know what we’re dealing with here.’

  She nodded. ‘I understand. But this is a story now. A really big story. I’m taking it to Brian. See what he makes of it.’

  ‘Give me some time. I need to give everyone at the station a chance to get on top of things, to prepare a response. I might not be their favourite copper, but I’m still a copper, and this,’ he gestured to Jenny and the paperwork, ‘this is only going to work if we keep each other on board.’

  ‘End of today?’

  He nodded. ‘I’d better get on with it then.’

  ‘You might want to take a shower before you go in. Freshen up a bit?’ She pointed to the wine. ‘I thought the church saved you from alcohol?’

  ‘The church saved me from a lot of things, but you can’t appreciate faith unless you know what it is to doubt, Jennifer. Every now and then, I doubt. And when I doubt, I drink.’

  He gave her a pat on the shoulder as she left. ‘I’ll call you with an update as soon as I can.’ The door clicked shut behind him.

  It was mid-morning but the sky was sombre, the sun obscured by thick slashes of slate-grey c
loud, heavy with rain. The street was empty. The forecast had been for good weather but islanders knew better than to trust a weather forecast. Centuries of fishing and farming had bestowed them with a sixth sense. They could feel it in the air and see it in the movement of the trees and the sea. Even Jenny.

  30

  Michael

  He looked at the mess on the table, picked a mug out of the sink, rinsed it, and made a cup of instant coffee. He drank it while it was too hot, scalding his tongue and the back of his throat in his haste to finish. Then he showered, quickly but efficiently, and stood in front of the bathroom mirror.

  He was old fashioned when it came to shaving. His razor, for example. He’d had it for twenty years. A present from Sheila. Anniversary or birthday, he couldn’t recall now, and he probably hadn’t appreciated it at the time because it was nothing fancy. But it had become, over the years, a constant in his life.

  He applied the shaving foam liberally. Scented with lemon and menthol, it helped to clear his head and felt cool on his tired skin. He liked shaving. Other men complained about it, found it a hassle. Not him. Holding the razor’s bone handle, slowly, steadily, pulling the blade over his cheeks and his jaw, paying careful attention to the areas where his skin had loosened under his chin and was more likely to catch if he rushed. It was one of the rare moments in his day when he was completely focused on the task in hand but also completely relaxed.

  Most days, anyway. Today, he was tired, his arm unsteady, his hand trembling more than usual. He couldn’t keep his thoughts from the mess of paperwork on his kitchen table, from the files and the notes and the pictures, from the marks on the dead girls’ bodies, from what they meant. There was no doubt about it in his mind, none at all. He winced as he nicked himself. He pulled some tissue off the toilet roll and pressed it hard against his chin until it stuck fast.

  He went to his room. He’d done nothing to it since Sheila left. He dressed in a crumpled white shirt, pulling a navy V-neck over the top, thus rendering the creases a non-issue, and a pair of corduroy trousers. He combed his hair and looked at his reflection in the mirror on the wardrobe. He looked old. He was past the minimum retirement age for a copper, could have taken his pension already. Why hadn’t he? Stubbornness? Determination? Fear? He wasn’t sure he knew. Whatever the reason, this case would change everything. For him. For the force. A serial killer on the loose. In Guernsey. After today, nothing would be the same again.

  He sat at the foot of his bed, closed his eyes, clasped his hands together. It took practice to pray effectively. It looked easy, but it wasn’t. You had to block out the noise, your own and other peoples’. It was easier in church, with the support of the congregation and with the reverend to guide you. At home, he found himself distracted too easily, found his mind wandering, his silent words interrupted by the roar of a motorbike or the barking of a dog. It was especially important today, though, to be quiet and centred, to ask for guidance and strength, to pray for the girls and their families. To pray for Jenny, for the island. To ask for forgiveness. For himself, always, and for the police force, for letting those girls down. And for him – whoever was doing this. He prayed for forgiveness for him and asked that they might find the sick bastard. Because justice started here, in this world. With Michael.

  On the way out of the house, he checked his chin in the hallway mirror. Blood had seeped through the toilet paper and dried, forming a tissue skin. He peeled it away, carefully, reopening the wound as he did so. He grimaced at the mirror as he surveyed the damage. It was a bad cut. It would bleed for hours.

  * * *

  He arrived at the station at lunchtime. Years back, everyone would have been in the mess hall. Canteen you’d call it now, a big room with a small kitchen behind a serving hatch where a couple of cheerful ladies would serve up hot food, school-dinner style. Nothing fancy. Sausage and mash or fish and chips or, his favourite, a bowl of steaming bean jar, a delicious, meaty, bean casserole, with bread and butter to mop up the thick juices. They’d all take their allotted hour, loosen belts, kick back and relax over a hot meal. There would be card games; euchre or cribbage, football pools being argued over, plenty of chat and banter. Until the chief officer or the deputy chief officer came in. Then you’d stand up as they walked by, only sitting down when they told you to.

  Not any more. These days, hardly anyone glanced up as he entered the office, despite him outranking the lot of them. The few who did gave him a nod and a muttered ‘sir’. Everyone else remained glued to their screens, sandwich in one hand, the other resting on a mouse or holding an iPhone, the act of eating barely interrupting the flow of report writing or various other onerous administrative tasks which were now all part of a day’s work. He missed the typing pool. For many reasons, not least that the well-trained, well-dressed young ladies in it used to handle all these mundane jobs so efficiently, freeing up the coppers to keep the streets safe. It wasn’t a sexist thing. He was all for female officers. Crikey, he’d take an all-male typing pool if it meant his paperwork would be reduced.

  DC Marquis was at his desk eating a pallid, soggy-looking wrap and washing it down with swigs of a bright pink drink claiming to be some sort of vitamin-enriched water.

  ‘Do you have a minute, Marquis?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ He jumped to his feet. ‘What can I do for you, sir?’

  ‘Come with me.’

  ‘Certainly, sir.’ He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and then his hands on his trousers, leaving a faint trace of mayonnaise on the shiny fabric. ‘Where are we going, sir?’

  ‘We’re going to talk to the chief.’

  Marquis’ eyes widened and his face turned a now-familiar shade of red. Michael gave him a reassuring pat on the back. ‘It’s nothing to worry about, Stephen. I just might need you to back me up on a couple of things. Follow me.’

  * * *

  Prior to the appointment of Chief Officer Hammond, all the chiefs of the Guernsey police had been Guernsey born and bred. That was not to say, by any means, that they had all been good. The last one, Chief Officer Le Noury, had been an affable buffoon. They couldn’t retire him quick enough. But before him there was Chief Officer Wilson. Good old Roger. Michael had liked him as much as the next person until the incident with that boy, assaulted in police custody. Chief Wilson had told him his unwillingness to ‘see things from the other officers’ perspective’ was bringing the force into disrepute. Never mind the officers who’d beaten up a young lad. No mention made of those bastards. According to Roger Wilson it was Michael who had let them all down, broken some sort of code. He was still knocking about – special advisor or some such.

  Now, Chief Officer Hammond, he was English. No matter he came with excellent qualifications and years of experience and had actually made some positive changes to the force’s somewhat outdated working practices, he was an outsider and, therefore, according to general opinion, at least amongst the ranks, not to be trusted. But it struck Michael right now, as he sat opposite the somewhat beleaguered chief, that in this case, having a mainlander at the helm might be a positive advantage. No prior involvement with any of the cases. No baggage. No history.

  They had been sitting in his office for several minutes, Hammond turning the pages of the file he had given him slowly and without comment. Marquis was fidgeting in his seat and rubbing at the stains on his trousers. Michael sat still and straight, reading the various certificates and diplomas framed on the walls, taking in an old photograph on the desk of two little girls, twins if he wasn’t mistaken, in matching school uniforms and a newer picture of the same girls, much older, in caps and gowns, scrolls held aloft. He stared at their smiles. Always pained him a little, graduation photographs. You could almost see the hopes and dreams in their eyes.

  Hammond closed the file and looked up through rimless glasses. He had a heavy, well-cultivated moustache, which he stroked with his left hand while his right tapped the desk rhythmically. He looked to Michael. Tap, tap. Then to Marquis. Tap,
tap. Then to the file. Tap, tap. And, finally, back to Michael. He placed both of his hands on the desk in front of him. Michael took a deep breath. He could see it coming. He was going to get laughed out of the station.

  ‘This all looks plausible to you?’

  Michael nodded.

  ‘And you, DC Marquis, you’re a relation of Jennifer Dorey’s, I understand? A lot of this seems to have stemmed from her research.’

  ‘Not a close relative, sir, a second cousin.’ Michael raised his eyebrows at him. ‘But she’s very thorough, sir, very professional in my experience.’

  ‘You can see where my findings have tallied with hers.’ Michael added.

  Hammond nodded. He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

  ‘You’d better get a team together, Gilbert. Pull everything we have on the closed cases and see if there’s anything left in the evidence room. We’ll need to reprocess it according to today’s procedures. As of now we’re only officially treating Amanda’s death as suspicious. We’ll look into the others on the quiet. Let’s try to contain the panic.’ He glanced down at the file again. Michael nodded and rose to his feet, motioning for Marquis, who appeared glued to his seat, to follow.

  ‘We had a special term for this kind of thing in the Met, Gilbert.’ Michael turned back to the Chief.

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘We’d call this a clusterfuck, Gilbert. I hope you’re the kind of copper who can deal with one.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Michael pulled the door shut behind them as he left.

  All in all, it had gone better than he hoped.

  * * *

  He stood, Marquis at his side, and explained the situation to the rest of the force. Slowly, as they realised what he was saying, they stopped eating their sandwiches and swigging their cokes and listened, open-mouthed. It was a wonderful feeling, having them listen, the usual looks of derision or disinterest wiped from their faces by the words he was saying. Amanda’s death was to be treated as suspicious. And they needed to get their arses in gear and investigate it. Properly, this time. He assigned a new team to interview everyone again, another team to review the evidence. This time enquiries would not be routine. This time it was a murder investigation. As he spoke, unseen by the rest of the room, Chief Hammond opened his office door and stood, leaning in the door frame. He nodded to Michael and listened. Michael continued. There were a number of other deaths which might be linked to Amanda Guille’s, he said. A small team, headed up by him and DC Marquis, would be looking into those. If and when a connection was made between the deaths, the investigation would be adjusted accordingly. Several looks of incredulity passed around the room. Fallaize raised his hand. Annoying little shit, Fallaize was. Wore too much product in his hair and was always flashing a new watch or pair of cufflinks. He must come from money because his police salary certainly wasn’t paying for it all.