Bad Press

by Maureen Carter

  “How’d it get to the News building?” Again, her tone was indifferent. “This letter?”

  Snow frowned. “Post, I suppose.”

  “Personal delivery?”

  Needled now. “How should I know?”

  Pensive, she pursed her lips. “Be on camera anyway.” It was bullshit, but Snow appeared shaken. The paper’s reception area did have saturation CC coverage, but the chances of the Disposer handing over the letter in person were slim. Make that skeletal. On the other hand if there was nothing on tape, could that in itself be significant? Fingers crossed the techie boys would come up with a pointer or two.

  Flint leaned forward. “Whether the letter’s genuine or not, you’re playing into the man’s hands.” Oxygen of publicity. Fifteen minutes of fame.

  Snow shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong. We’re showing him he can trust us. Trust me. If he believes that, he’ll contact us again. Contact me again. Maybe he’ll get careless, let something slip.” The reporter straightened, then leaned forward, mirroring Flint’s posture. “Look, superintendent, there’s nothing in that letter to indicate who he is, where he’s from, or who his next victim will be. Surely if I develop some sort of relationship with him, win his confidence...?”

  “What?” Flint snapped. “That you’ll expose him? Bring him to justice? Save lives? Let me work this out, Mr Snow.” He raised a finger as if he was seeing the light. “You’re not a sanctimonious self-serving little prat. You’re actually doing us all a favour.”

  “Exactly.” He sat back, arms folded.

  “Interview suspended.” Going by the look on Flint’s face, Bev suspected it wasn’t the only thing he wanted to suspend.

  DCS Flint dipped a chocolate digestive in a mug of tea. “What do you make of Snow?”

  Bev turned her mouth down. They were taking a short break in the canteen. Mac would be on board when the interview resumed. Flint needed to prepare for an imminent news conference – undoubtedly a rougher ride.

  “Truth’s not his big suit.” She brushed KitKat crumbs off her jacket. “I reckon he knows more than he’s letting on. And he’s enjoying this.”

  She’d been mulling over Byford’s warning about Snow being nobody’s fool, a journo who wanted to go places. Maybe he saw this story as his ticket out. She narrowed her eyes, struck by a sudden thought. What if he was doing more than writing it? What if the Disposer didn’t exist? What if Snow was making the news, not just breaking it? Impossible. Off the wall. They needed forensic evidence, not flights of fancy.

  Maybe they’d get something back from the lab. The package was now where it should’ve been in the first place. Not that they were holding their breath.

  Bev gazed down on to the car park. Snow’s stories had certainly sparked the feeding frenzy feared by Flint. The media circus was already setting up camp. She spotted radio cars, TV wagons, a couple of OB units. From this height it looked like media toy town. And boy were they gonna have fun. “Sooner you than me, boss.”

  Flint followed her gaze. “I’d best get going.” He slurped the rest of his tea, and headed for the exit.

  Seconds later he was back. “Bev? I meant to ask. What happened with the Graves woman?”

  Bollocks. She’d let it go. The doctor who topped himself. She was supposed to have chased the widow. Flint must’ve seen it on her face.

  “Soon as you like, Bev.” The senior detective’s patent disappointment was worse than a drubbing. “Another note arrived this morning.”

  “How’s the gut, Mr Snow?” Bev swept in to Interview Two, file under an arm, Mac on her heels.

  The reporter straightened from an almost horizontal sprawl and fingered his fringe. “Is this gonna take long, cos I’ve got better things to do. I came here...”

  “Of your own free will. Yeah. I know.” She perched on the edge of the desk, cast him a curious gaze. “Stomach bug, was it? Why you didn’t show for work yesterday?”

  He stretched both arms over his head, yawning wide. Playing for time? Winding her up? The reporter couldn’t claim he’d been ill. He’d told Bev the news desk had called him out.

  “Where’d you hear that, sergeant? I was on a story.”

  Anna Kendall had let it slip. And in the truth stakes, Bev knew where her money lay. “What story?” she asked.

  “It’s not relevant.” He tapped his foot.

  “Where’d you go to cover this story?”

  “Leave it,” he snapped. “It’s not important.”

  Push it? Press on? She narrowed her eyes. They’d nothing to hold him on. If she got up his nose, he could walk. Anyway there was probably more fertile ground. She moved to the business side of the desk, switched to police-speak. “The tape please, DC Tyler.”

  The reporter pursed his lips, sat back arms folded.

  “Where were you yesterday afternoon, Mr Snow?” Bev asked. “From midday onwards?”

  “At home. Working on my column.” Quick. Too quick?

  “Can anyone verify that?”

  “I cleared it with the desk. Why?”

  “What’s the column about?”

  Slight pause. “Police corruption.” The smirk didn’t last long.

  “So you weren’t taking a stroll in the park?” She opened the file, casually shuffled through police photographs from yesterday’s crime scene. “Small Heath park?”

  “No! I finished the piece then went for a drink.”

  “Where?”

  “The Bacchus bar.”

  “What time?”

  “I dunno. Five, six-ish? Are you treating me as a suspect?”

  “Philip Goodie. How’d you know him?”

  “I don’t. Only what details the killer supplied.”

  “That you claim he supplied.” She waited until Snow made eye contact. “Philip Goodie had your business card in his wallet.” The comment provoked what she suspected was the reporter’s first genuine reaction. Confusion? Shock? Uncertainty? Shame she couldn’t read it.

  He shrugged. “Punters call all the time. Maybe he had a story for me.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “He did that, Mr Snow.”

  “And Gladys Marsden?” Mac threw in, as arranged, from off field. “Did she have a story?”

  “Who?” Snow shifted in the seat.

  “Wally Marsden’s wife,” Bev said. “How much did you pay her?”

  “I’ve never met the woman.” But he knew something. There’d been a flash of fear in his eye – Bev was almost sure.

  “The poor old girl was dying anyway,” Bev said. “Did you know that?”

  “Are you charging me with anything?” They couldn’t. They’d not a shred of evidence against him. Gut feeling told her he knew more about Gladys Marsden’s murder than he was letting on, probably more about the paedophiles’ deaths. Sin of omission? Last time she looked that wasn’t a crime. As for her off-the-wall theory that the Disposer was a figment of the reporter’s imagination – she wasn’t even convinced Snow was capable of killing let alone culpable. They couldn’t detain him. Reluctantly she shook her head. Chair legs screeched against floor tiles.

  “Where you going?” she asked.

  He cast a glance of contempt. “Some of us have got work to do.”

  16

  A serial killer with an agenda and a penchant for publicity was a story with legs to die for. The press had dubbed Birmingham Murder City. National TV were planning live inserts into main bulletins. Newsnight wanted to record a down-the-line interview with Flint. Radio phone-ins had scrapped schedules to go with the paedophile flow. Upside far as Bev was concerned – her media liaison role had been passed up a rank.

  Far as the press went, it was all chase-tail-and-catch-up. Matt Snow’s head start had put journalistic noses out of joint. A regional hack perceived as a joke had shat on national reporters from a great height. More than that. Snow, as the Disposer’s perceived personal contact, was part of the story. And the crime correspondent wasn’t sharing. A seriously miffed media couldn�
�t shoot the messenger so at the police news conference and in much of the ensuing coverage Flint had taken most of the flak.

  Why hadn’t police linked the killings sooner? Why hadn’t they issued a warning? What steps were being taken to protect potential victims? What leads were being followed? How imminent was an arrest? Would the Disposer strike again?

  By the 18:00 brief for what was now Operation Wolf, the squad felt it was in the firing line as well. Head down, DCS Flint paced in front of the murder boards. “It ends here.” Deliberate or not he’d stopped in front of Philip Goodie’s photograph. “There’ll be no more killings.”

  Bev sniffed. Brave words. Easy to say. Patrols had been stepped up in areas known to be frequented by low-lifes, warnings had been disseminated by officers calling at shelters, halfway houses, approved accommodation. Forewarned – forearmed? Piss in a gale force. Released paedos didn’t exactly advertise their whereabouts in the community. And not all paedos fitted the sleaze bill. Look at Philip Goodie. The guy appeared to have turned his life round: decent suit, respectable job, low profile.

  Bev reckoned the media was doing a better job warning the public than the police. Not many punters – let alone paedophiles – could be unaware by now that a killer was on the streets of Birmingham taking out child sex offenders. Downside was this: some people didn’t give a toss; a fair number were with the Disposer all the way. How did the cops know? Because Outraged of Edgbaston et al had e-mailed their views to newspaper letters pages, some had been allowed local radio airtime. They’d all get a police visit. Those who’d supplied names would get one quicker. Way Bev saw it, issuing warnings was a sideline. The main event was staring them in the face.

  “Something on your mind?” Flint asked.

  “That.” She nodded at one of the whiteboards where a blown-up copy of the Disposer’s missive to the Evening News was displayed. “What sort of person writes a letter like that?”

  There were mutters of nutter, psycho, sad sack. Bev shook her head. “Try victim.” She watched as squad members took a fresh look. Facial expressions differed, some were sceptical, others clearly on the same page.

  “Someone who’s been there?” Daz asked.

  “Or whose kid has.” Bev’s focus was still on the words. “No one has time for paedos. But whoever wrote that loathes them. Look at it: ‘Paedophiles are scum. Paedophiles are evil. Paedophiles are vermin.’ Has to go deeper than bog standard skin crawl.”

  “‘I am our children’s saviour.’” Flint quoted this time. “Like he’s on a mission to protect rather than destroy.”

  She nodded. “Sounds to me like a personal crusade.”

  “Being waged in public,” Flint snarled. Everyone knew his Paxman grilling was due that evening.

  Everyone also knew a large part of the inquiry would now be devoted to tracking down more people like Eddie Scrivener: fathers, families, even close friends of children who’d suffered abuse from convicted paedophiles. Shit. The Scrivener alibis. She’d not got round to checking. Mental note: pass it to Mac.

  Mind, Scrivener was the tip of a vast iceberg. She tapped a pen against her teeth. How far back would they look? And over how wide a field? Goodie’s case had been tried at Nottingham Crown Court fifteen years ago, and they had no way of knowing if it was the oldest on the killer’s hit list.

  Flint split the graft as best he could between the team. Like they didn’t have enough to play with: potential witnesses to be re-interviewed, God knew how many hours of CC footage still to be viewed. And calls to the incident room in response to the saturation news coverage were increasing every hour. The incoming flow needed serious monitoring and follow-up.

  It was a subdued squad that filed out ten minutes later. Bev reckoned compared to what they were looking for, a needle in a hay barn would be a piece of gateau.

  Just after seven and feeling a touch brighter, Bev pulled up outside Madeleine Graves’s pad in Handsworth Wood. Locking the MG, she gazed across its dusty leather roof. Tickety. Tudor Grange showed signs of life. Grey smoke drifted into a pewter sky from a bonfire round the back; amber light glowed through leaded windows at the front. Bev’s upbeat mood was down to more than the fact someone was home this time, she’d also recouped Brownie points with the boss, wiped the earlier disappointment from his face. Though DCS Flint would never be ‘guv’ to her, she didn’t want his disapproval either. She’d fallen into step with him as they’d left the nick – poor bloke was en route to a BBC telly studio in the Mailbox. She’d relayed Anna Kendall’s request to shadow her for a news feature. Flint was quick on the uptake, recognised the potential straight off; agreed that getting inside track on Snow would be even more useful now. He gave Bev free rein, happy for her to use her own judgement dealing with the hack, looked even happier when she casually let slip where she was off to.

  Crunching gravel underfoot for a second time, Bev caught a whiff of the smoke and smiled. The pungent odour, evoked bonfire nights from years back: her and Frankie pushing a raffish Guy Fawkes round in a wonky dolls’ pram, getting soaked bobbing for apples, air writing with sparklers. Lost in reverie, it took a second to work out where the lah-di-dah voice was coming from and who it was addressing.

  “Door’s on the latch, dear. Let yourself in. I’ll be down in a jiffy.” Bev glanced up, spotted a woman with a warm smile calling her through an open window on the first floor. She’d clearly mistaken Bev for someone else. Be rude not to oblige though. The woman brushed strands of thick wavy hair out of her eyes, glanced towards the road. “Are you sure your car will be big enough?”

  For what? Bev waved a reassuring hand, stepped in smartish, didn’t need asking twice. She wiped her Docs on a rush mat as she took in the hall. It was twice the size of her mum’s sitting room. Tad gloomy though. The subtle lighting wasn’t enough to offset the effects of all the oak panelling and heavy drapes. What with that and a tiled chessboard floor, she half expected to see a knight in armour lurking in the background. Flared nostrils detected beeswax and pot pourri. Predictable pongs in a place like this. Eyes narrowed, she sniffed again. If her nasal radar was on the money, something a lot less predictable lingered. She raised a curious eyebrow. Ganja was so not Tudor Grange.

  Nor were the bulging black bin bags lined against the wall, or the muffled blasts of heavy rock from above. She cocked her head. Guns N’ Roses? Yep. She put the sudden hike in volume down to someone not having Sympathy For The Devil. The music faded and was replaced by a low murmur of voices. Couldn’t catch more than the odd word. Not for want of trying.

  Quick shrug, then she ventured in a few paces, wondered idly who Mrs Graves – if that was the woman she’d spotted – had been expecting. Given Bev’s predilection for wearing blue, she’d been taken for a social worker in her time, even the odd meter reader. The life-size painting on the far wall stopped her in her tracks. Her low whistle was maybe involuntary. She stepped closer, eyes creased. No mistaking who that was. The newspaper pic hadn’t done Adam Graves justice, and he’d looked tasty in that. Unwittingly she licked her lips. The man was drop dead gorgeous. Sharp dark suit, soft dark hair, sultry dark eyes. Forget Milk Tray, this was Green and Black man.

  “You’re admiring the portrait?” Deep stair carpet, soft tread. Bev jumped. The woman from upstairs stood at her side, fiddling with a fussy chiffon scarf round her neck, the warm smile was a little cooler now. “My late husband. A friend of ours is a well-known artist.” Mrs Graves gazed at the canvas, could’ve been talking to herself. “It’s hard losing someone you love. I miss him very much.”

  Bev couldn’t take her eyes off the widow. How the heck did Mrs Beast bag Mr Beauty? Nobody likes a bitch, Beverley. Even so...

  Dumpy was maybe a bit strong, but the spread was definitely middle-aged and the two-inch heels only just brought Madeleine Graves up to Bev’s five-six height. The matronly figure was unrecognisable from the guv’s photo. Shame really: underneath the slap, the face probably retained a trace of prettiness. Juliette Binoche’s mum
– on a bad day? Trouble was La Graves had tried too hard. The heavy hand with the cosmetics hadn’t worked. Only made her look older. Last thing she needed given her old man could’ve passed for her toy boy

  “It must be very difficult,” Bev murmured. She sensed the widow’s focus shift; they made eye contact for the first time.

  “You can have no idea.” Not bitter. Factual, telling it like it is. She straightened, seemed to pull herself together. Moved on mentally too. Bev watched her walk away. “The stuff’s here. I’ll give you a hand. It was awful going through Adam’s clothes, but I know it’s what he would have wanted. It’s for a good cause.” Oxfam? Cancer Research? Age Concern? Bev didn’t say a word. When she turned back, Mrs Graves held a bin bag in each hand. “They’re not heavy but they’ll take a lot of room. You may even have to make two journeys.”

  “Mrs Graves, I’m...” Struggling here.

  Toffee coloured eyes clouded with uncertainty, confusion. The woman dumped the bags at her feet, put a hand to fleshy lips. “Oh Lord. You’re not one of Claudia’s people, are you? The jumble sale? She said she’d send someone along around seven. I assumed...”

  “Easy mistake to make, Mrs Graves.”

  The mouth tightened; there was steel in the soufflé. “Then you are...?”

  “I’m a police officer, Mrs Graves. Bev Morriss. Detective Sergeant. I’d like a word about your husband.” People look guilty when the law’s around, even when they haven’t broken it. Madeleine Graves almost seemed to relax.

  “There’s coffee in the kitchen. Come through. We’ll talk there.”

  People grieve differently. Some clam up, can’t even mention the dead person’s name, let alone wax lyrical. Not Mrs Graves. It was Adam this... Adam that... Adam everything. Bev quickly realised her police status was immaterial; the woman just needed someone to listen. Which she was happy to do. For a while. She waited and watched as Madeleine drifted round her domain pouring coffee, arranging cakes on a plate, talking incessantly about the man she described as her soulmate. Bev shifted in her seat, felt what? Uncomfortable, sure, the woman was pouring her heart out to a stranger. But humbled too. Bev didn’t think she’d ever felt such passion for anyone. Just chatting about Graves had taken years off the widow’s face. The lines were softer, the eyes shone, the smile was infectious. Displacement activity of course. Mrs Graves wasn’t stupid: Bev wasn’t there as a grief counsellor. But Bev was warming to the widow. Maybe it was the latte and home baked chocolate brownies.