Murder Club

by Mark Pearson

‘We believe the two knew each other, part of a ring. Rapists. So I need you to think was there anybody you saw him with, someone you might recognise or know.’

  ‘His wife kept him on quite a short lead all the time. She was a fairly domineering character. There were the masons, of course, but that was about it.’

  ‘He was a mason?’

  ‘Yes. Is that relevant?’

  ‘I don’t know, Miss Riley. We’re just trying to put the pieces together, and the two people who could enlighten us are both dead.’

  She shrugged apologetically. ‘That’s all I can think of.’

  ‘Did he have meetings at the pub?’

  ‘We had a back room, a function room. Every fortnight or so he would get cheese and wine in. Goodness knows what went on in there.’

  ‘You would recognise a photo of one of the men?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure I would. I have a good memory for faces. Names are another matter. Don’t get me started on names. But faces, I’m like an elephant.’

  ‘Would you have a look at a photo for us then, please,’ asked DC Cartwright.

  Michelle Riley picked up a pair of black-framed glasses as Sally handed her the photo of Christian Peterson.

  ‘No,’ she said, without hesitation. ‘Never seen him before in my life.’

  66.

  KATE WALKER WAS at her desk in her office at the station. She typed in some codes on her laptop, entered the name Dr Laura Chilvers and her police personnel file came up, starting with her full name.

  Kate took a pen and wrote the name Angela Laura Chilvers. Underlining the first six letters of her name, twice.

  Kate had suspected that Laura had been lying to her. Now she knew it. She flicked through her file and started checking her CV, the pen tapping on the desk once more as she read it.

  She closed that page, then accessed the NHS database system, entering her security code and opening the files for Reading General Hospital. She put the pen aside and read the files from eight years ago. Twenty minutes later, she pushed the print icon and a photo printed from the wireless machine on top of her filing cabinet.

  She slipped the print into an A5 envelope, then looked at her watch and cursed. She was running late. She was supposed to pick Siobhan up from dance school. The other matters would have to wait.

  Stephanie Hewson drew the bolts on her door and opened it. Delaney and Sally Cartwright were standing on her doorstep and, as they walked into the house and the door closed behind them, the man with cold blue eyes in a van on the opposite side of the road made a fist of his gloved hands as he held them on the key in his ignition, then fired up the engine and sped away heedless of the frozen snow that was turning the road into a skating rink.

  ‘I thought now that he was dead it would all be over,’ said Stephanie Hewson.

  ‘I’m sorry, Stephanie,’ said Delaney, in no hurry to take off his coat. ‘But we are on it. I’ve spoken to Harrow nick and they are going to send some uniforms to stand guard here.’

  ‘But I don’t understand. Why would I need it?’

  ‘Because we think there is more than just Michael Robinson.’

  ‘A group of them,’ added Sally.

  ‘What, like some sick sort of club?’ said Stephanie Hewson.

  ‘It looks that way.’

  ‘Do you ever drink in The Castle pub?’ asked Delaney.

  ‘No. I’ve never even been there.’

  ‘You changed your testimony because someone threatened you, and I know I said I wouldn’t press you,’ said Delaney. ‘But I need to know what these people said.’

  ‘They didn’t say anything. They left things on the doorstep.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘White lilies at first. Then a postcard with the three monkeys on it.’

  ‘Hear no evil. See no evil. Speak no evil.’

  ‘Yes that’s the one. Finally there was a wreath, I think their message was pretty clear.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All the time I felt like I was being followed. Watched. I know I am bound to be nervous, but it was more than that.’

  Delaney nodded to Sally, who held out the photo to the distraught woman.

  ‘Do you recognise this man?’

  ‘No, should I?’

  ‘He matches the description of a potential rapist. Someone else was attacked on the hill.’

  ‘Poor woman.’

  ‘Do you have any connection with someone called Michelle Riley?’

  ‘She runs a rape victims support group, not far from here.’

  ‘And were you a member of that group?’

  ‘I went once, on the advice of a friend. But it wasn’t for me. Talking about it made it all come back. Can I see that picture again, please.’

  Sally handed her the photo.

  ‘He does remind me a little of someone though,’ said Stephanie Hewson.

  ‘Of whom?’ asked Jack Delaney.

  ‘The guy who took me to the group.’

  ‘He was a friend?’

  ‘No. Well, sort of. I had had a blind date with him on the night I was attacked. But he came too … I don’t know. He was always turning up with gifts asking if I was okay. He knew I didn’t want a relationship. I told him that but he said he was happy just being a friend. In the end I told him to stop calling.’

  ‘And he did?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s his name, Stephanie.’

  ‘John Smith.’

  ‘Jesus!’ muttered Jack Delaney.

  ‘Do you know him, sir?’

  Delaney gave Sally a withering look. ‘I should think there’s a good few million people know a John Smith, Constable.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Do you have his address?’ he asked Stephanie.

  ‘He did give me a mobile phone number but I threw it away. Sorry. Do you think he was part of this group then?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘My God. I had him in the house. All that time.’

  ‘I told you I’d take care of you, Stephanie, and I will. No one’s going to hurt you again. Not on my watch.’

  Sally Cartwright thought about commenting on the expression, then decided against it.

  ‘Come on, Sally,’ Delaney said to her. ‘We need to go back a step.’

  Kate Walker looked anxiously at her watch. The traffic had been horrendous. She was already twenty minutes late and had had to park quite a way from the hall where Siobhan’s dancing classes were being held. She’d be looked after in the hall, but, even so, Kate felt guilty for keeping her waiting.

  She tightened her coat and was walking briskly along the pavement when a voice called out to her.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  Kate swivelled round to see a figure in a hat, a scarf wrapped around his face and a knife in his hand.

  ‘Be very careful what you do. I know you are pregnant.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want you to follow me back to my vehicle and keep very, very still.’

  ‘Just don’t hurt me, or the baby. I’ll do anything you want.’

  ‘That’s a very good attitude to have.’

  The man took her arm and marched her along to a black van parked behind her car. The sliding side-panel was open. ‘Get in,’ he said, then followed Kate inside, and shut the door.

  67.

  DELANEY RANG THE doorbell for a second time, long and insistent.

  ‘She said she was going to her mother’s, sir,’ said Sally.

  ‘I guess we’ll just have to let ourselves in then.’ Delaney kicked at the door. There was a cracking sound, but it remained closed. Another kick shattered the lock and the door flew wide open. It was dark inside. Delaney flicked on the light switch and hurried down to Michelle Riley’s office. He went straight to the filing cabinet while Sally checked the desk.

  ‘Stephanie said she had to register to join the group and John Smith likewise. Find his details, quickly.’

  ‘I still say we should wait to get a warran
t, sir,’ she said.

  ‘And I say you look good in uniform, Cartwright. So shut it or I’ll bounce you back to the beat before you can say due legal process.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Also we’re not going to be arresting Michelle Riley, are we?’

  Sally opened the left-hand drawer and took out a wooden box wrapped in a red silk handkerchief. She unwrapped it and looked inside. ‘Are you sure about that, sir?’

  ‘What is that?’

  Sally held up a pack of tarot cards. ‘Maybe somebody crossed her palm with silver?’

  ‘Count them. There’s supposed to be twenty-six Major Arcana cards. See if there are two missing.’

  Sally took out the cards, separating them into two piles, Major and Minor, while Delaney tackled the filing cabinet. It had three drawers. The bottom was filled with rape-counselling literature and pamphlets. The second had a number of textbooks, sociological studies, videos and DVDs. The top drawer had an alphabetical filing system. Delaney pulled out the index card filed under S. There was no John Smith. He tipped the cards on top of the cabinet and went through them all. Stephanie Hewson’s contact details were there, but there was no sign of any John Smith. Delaney knew it probably wasn’t even the man’s real name. His luck wasn’t that good. He looked over at Sally Cartwright. ‘Full deck?’ he asked.

  ‘No. There’s five missing.’

  ‘Five?’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Shit! You know what I’m thinking now, Sally?’

  ‘This isn’t about a group of men raping. It’s about a group of people taking revenge.’

  ‘Why John Smith, if that’s his name?’

  ‘Michael Robinson queered his pitch big time, didn’t he, sir? And from what Stephanie tells us, he’s not actually playing with a full deck himself.’

  ‘And then he went on to try it himself. So fixated with the woman that he acted out his fantasies on Lorraine Eddison at the back of the Ryan Theatre.’

  ‘Or tried to.’

  ‘What was the date Lorraine Eddison was attacked?’

  Sally dug out her little black notebook and flipped back through some pages.

  ‘Twentieth of April, sir.

  Delaney snapped his fingers.

  ‘Is that significant, sir?’

  ‘Very significant. Come on, we’re out of here.’

  Kate Walker leaned against the side of the van. Her hands had been tied behind her back with the kind of plastic slip-knot cuffs the police use.

  The van was moving slowly but it skidded every now and then, and Kate was thrown forward. She couldn’t use her hands to protect her belly and every movement made her almost cry with despair. She knew how fragile was the life she was carrying inside her. Particularly at this relatively early stage of the pregnancy. She silently prayed to God to save them both, but mostly she prayed for Jack.

  Delaney and Sally Cartwright waited impatiently in the plushly carpeted entrance foyer of the Ryan Theatre. A couple of ridiculously tall schoolboys in their mourning outfit of a school uniform watched them curiously.

  A short while later, and the theatre’s technical manager came hurrying through the entrance door, slightly red-faced and out of breath. He was about five foot eleven with curly, mousy hair, in his forties, but with a pampered, youthful look about him.

  ‘What kept you?’ said Delaney.

  ‘I was in The Castle.’

  ‘Haven’t you got a show on? Shouldn’t you be working?’

  ‘Nah.’ The man grinned at Sally. ‘I was working on a pint of Foster’s. I just open the theatre for them, lock up when they’ve gone.’

  ‘It’s a rep company?’ asked Delaney.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you hire the place out in school holidays, I saw your poster for this show that’s on tonight when we were here the other day.’

  ‘Yes, we hire it out. Why? Thinking of holding another Secret Policeman’s Ball?’

  Sally smiled but didn’t let Delaney see it.

  ‘So it was hired out last Easter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who to?’

  ‘I’d have to check the records. It was a musical, though. Starlight Express.’

  ‘Not exactly opera, then?’

  ‘Not exactly musical either, if you ask me.’

  Delaney grunted. ‘Sally, show him the photo.’

  ‘It’s his own photo, sir.’

  ‘I know that. Just show him the bloody picture.’

  Sally handed over the photograph to Christian Peterson.

  ‘Any members of that visiting company look a bit like you?’

  The technical director scratched his head. ‘Come to think of it, I did get mistaken for one once. A woman from the audience asked for my autograph.’

  ‘What did you do?’ asked Sally.

  ‘I gave her one.’

  Sally laughed and Delaney glared at her. ‘And you,’ he said, turning back to the curly-haired man. ‘Get his bloody details, now.’

  ‘Can I ask what this is about?’

  ‘No, you bloody can’t!’

  Twenty minutes later, DI Jack Delaney had his foot raised for the second time in an hour and was kicking in the front door of a downstairs flat. A woman opened the window to complain, but Sally held her warrant card, and she disappeared back inside, slamming the sash window down noisily.

  It took a few more kicks, but eventually Delaney had the door open.

  They walked into a room with a three-piece suite in beige fabric, a television and a coffee table. Nothing expensive. Seemed that John Garland – Delaney had discovered from Christian Peterson what Smith’s real name was – had saved all his money for the state-of-the-art sound system and huge collection of CDs that dominated the left-hand side of the room.

  They continued through the lounge into a small passageway. There was a bedroom to the right, a kitchen ahead and a bathroom with the door open leading off from the kitchen.

  Delaney pushed the bedroom door open and flicked on the light.

  ‘Jesus Christ, sir,’ said Sally as she followed him.

  There was a double bed in the right-hand corner. One wall was covered with newspaper cuttings and photos. Mainly of Stephanie Hewson.

  The phone in his pocket trilled and he took it out. ‘Delaney.’ He listened for a while. ‘How long has she been missing?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Siobhan’s safe?’ His right hand was balling into a fist. ‘I’m at John Garland’s place now, Diane. Send back-up.’

  He closed the phone and put it back in his pocket. Gazing at the photos on the wall, his mind whirred. There he was with Stephanie Hewson on her doorstep, Stephanie hugging him as if he was a long-awaited lover. And there was a picture of Kate Walker. Her curly hair every bit as dark as Stephanie Hewson’s.

  ‘He’s got her, Sally,’ said Delaney. ‘That sick son-of-a-bitch has taken Kate.’

  68.

  BIBLE STEVE SMILED at the pretty young nurse as she walked alongside his bed which was being wheeled, by a porter, along the corridor to the general ward at the top of the intensive-care area.

  ‘Sorry to have to move you, Steve, but there has been a pile-up on Western Avenue. Too many people thinking they can drive as fast as they like even in these treacherous conditions.’

  Bible watched as paramedics and nurses hurried past with people on trolleys, blood-splattered, some moaning in pain. The surgical registrar ran alongside, her junior assistants with her as she talked to the paramedics, assessing the seriousness of the crash victims’ injuries.

  ‘So much blood,’ said Bible Steve.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ said the nurse who was distracted by the commotion.

  ‘More people will die.’

  The nurse helped the porter wheel his bed into position in the empty space at the top of the ward.

  ‘What do you mean, Steve?’

  Bible Steve turned to look at her. ‘That’s not my name,’ he said.

  *

  Jack Delaney took a candle from t
he box by the small side-chapel. He carried it to the wrought-iron candelabra. It already contained a number of candles, none of them alight. He took a lighter from his pocket and scratched the flint. The wheel turned but no flame came. Again and again he tried, but to no avail. He closed his eyes and shook the small, steel box furiously. Once more he span the wheel. A flame flared and Delaney quickly lit the candle before it winked out, and carried it over to the candelabra.

  He knelt on the cold stone floor, closed his eyes once more and made a sign of the cross.

  ‘Pater noster qui es in caelis …’ But he stumbled over the words. ‘Pater noster …’ he began again, but couldn’t find the words that once upon a time had come so readily to his lips. He opened his eyes and looked upward at the statue to the woman after whom the church had been named.

  ‘Hail Mary, full of grace,’ he said. ‘Our Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.’

  Kate stumbled slightly but John Garland held her arm tightly and marched her along the alleyway. He had cut the ties from her wrists, but they still throbbed with the pain of it. She held her left arm over her stomach. Trying to feel her baby’s heartbeat through the thick, woollen fabric of her coat.

  She grunted with pain as the man dug his fingers into her arm.

  ‘Shut it or you’ll regret it,’ hissed Garland angrily.

  ‘Who are you? Why are you doing this?’

  ‘Because I can.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough. You and that sad fuck of a boyfriend of yours.’

  ‘What’s Jack got to do with this?’

  ‘He’s been a bad boy, Kate.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Jack’s been putting himself about. What’s up – now you’re pregnant, you don’t let him fuck you?’

  There was an old street lamp at the end of the alleyway. It cast a warm yellow glow of light, but she could see heavy snowflakes falling in front of it. Could feel them in her long hair, chilling the cheeks on her face. She had no idea what the man was talking about. He was clearly insane, but if she could keep him talking maybe she could figure out a way to get help.