The Art of Murder jp-3

by Michael White

  The time passed slowly. I could not move around freely for fear of making too much noise, and the cold was creeping through my clothes. Eventually I heard the door to number thirteen creak open and a figure emerged into the freezing early morning. I caught a brief glimpse of him before he shuffled away into the alley leading back to Dorset Street. Approaching the door, I tapped quietly. When there was no response I tapped again. The door opened a crack and the face of a young woman appeared. She was tall, just a couple of inches shorter than me, and had a pretty if careworn face and long, blonde hair.

  ‘I’ve finished work, love,’ she said.

  I looked down as though in resignation to distract her. Then, with a single shove, the door flew inwards and I grabbed Mary about the mouth. Dragging her across the room, I removed two pieces of rag from my pocket and tied one of them across her mouth as a gag. The other I used to bind her wrists. Guiding Mary to the bed, I pushed her so that she fell backwards. She writhed and tried to scream through the gag. Taking a length of rope from my bag, I tied her feet to the metal rail at the end of the bed. Pulling her bound wrists up over her head, I looped a length of rope over the rag binding and tied the other end to the head of the bed.

  Ignoring Mary’s efforts to break free, I surveyed the room. Even by the standards I had grown accustomed to in the Stew, the place was squalid beyond belief. There were piles of filthy clothes lying on the floor and thrown over the foot of the bed. The sheets were soiled and grey. The mean light I had seen earlier came from a gas mantle in the far corner. There was a fireplace in the wall nearest the door, but it was empty. The room was freezing.

  Two rickety wooden chairs stood against the back wall, adjacent to the end of the bed. I extracted a box of matches from my bag and, finding some scraps of old newspaper on the floor, laid a fire in the grate. Grabbing a chair, I wrapped the legs in some of the repulsive clothes and rags scattered on the floor and smashed them against the end of the bed. The chair made a dull thud as it crumbled. I then yanked away the clothes and snapped the pieces of shattered timber until I had a nice pile of kindling for the fire. Within a few minutes, the flames were lapping and I could warm my hands in front of them.

  ‘An extremely cold evening, I’m sure you’ll agree, Mary,’ I said to my prisoner.

  She made some indecipherable sound through the gag, which I ignored. Then, satisfied my hands were warm enough, I set to work.

  I did not sleep after returning to my room but began painting while everything was fresh in my mind. I knew that it would only be a matter of time before pandemonium broke out in the neighbourhood and the sheep started bleating.

  I lost all track of time, but sure enough, around 11 a.m., I heard the sound of the police racing to the scene and the raised voices of shopkeepers in the street below my window. I felt a delicious sense of being anonymously at the centre of everything, behoven to none, a Master of the Universe, a god who could pull the strings of the little people and make them dance. It was utterly intoxicating.

  Looking down at myself, I noticed my clothes were still soiled with streaks of blood and there was a small lump of tissue caught in one of the buttonholes of my waistcoat. Without further ado, I stripped, put the clothes into a bag, washed thoroughly, checking my appearance in the mirror close to the bowl, and changed into fresh things. By 11.30 I was at the entrance to Miller’s Court watching, with concealed delight, the scurrying and the palpable distress.

  Just before I approached the door to Mary Kelly’s room, my attention was drawn to a policeman. His back was towards me as he bent forward in the shadows and vomited noisily against the wall. My goodness, how people overreact, I thought as I took a step closer to the door.

  Two men emerged. One of them I recognised as Inspector Abberline. He had the complexion of a ghost, the blood completely drained from his face. He looked up suddenly and glared at me. We had met once before, the day after my busy night dispatching Elizabeth and Catherine.

  ‘Mr Tumbril,’ he croaked. ‘How pleasant.’

  I doffed my cap.

  ‘I think even you would rather not go in there,’ Abberline added with a slight flick of his head.

  The policeman who had been vomiting appeared from the shadows wiping his mouth and looking embarrassed. He was about to speak, but when he saw Abberline’s expression he straightened his jacket and retreated.

  ‘These things are never pleasant, Inspector,’ I replied as politely as I could. ‘But I have a job to do.’

  Abberline fixed me with a cold look, and then, without uttering another word, walked straight past me towards the alleyway and the main road beyond.

  Inside, things were pretty much as I had left them. Mary was opened up from throat to groin. Most of her organs had been removed and placed around the room. The fire was burning and there was an oily deposit running up the wall above the grate — human fat that had reconstituted after vaporising in the flames.

  A doctor and his assistant were at the scene studying the body. They ignored me completely and I stepped over to the far side of the room, pulled my sketchpad from my bag and began to draw.

  It was then that my world changed. My eyes followed the lines of ruin in Mary Kelly’s body, tracing the red and the grey lacerations along her thighs and across her devastated face. Her features were almost unrecognisable as ever having been human. It was at that precise moment I suddenly realised I was wasting my time. There was no need to draw, no need to paint, no need to represent. My art lay there on the bed, just as my other recent creations had lain on the wet ground of dark alleyways. Furthermore, this work was on a grand scale. In itself, each murder was a beautiful piece. But together … together they formed a gestalt, a masterpiece. The bit players, the Abberlines and the Archibalds, the plodding plodders and the doctors studying the inanimate flesh, they were all characters in the finished work, angels in the corner of a Michelangelo, foliage bordering a landscape. It was magnificent. I was magnificent.

  In a delirium, I returned my sketchpad to my bag, turned and walked out of number thirteen Miller’s Court. Unaware of anything going on around me, I swung into Dorset Street, weaving my way back to my room on Wentworth Street. Reaching the door at the side of the corn-chandler’s shop, I turned the key in the lock, closed the door behind me and walked along the narrow hallway. Slowly, I ascended the stairs feeling as though the world could not become a better place. The conviction that I had broken through into a new form of perception was almost overwhelming.

  Outside my door, I thought I heard a tiny sound from inside. I turned the key quietly and pushed the door inwards. I had left the curtains closed, but it was past midday and the sun was bright, casting a sparse light about the room. In my haste, I had left my collection of bloodied knives and a saw in my open leather bag. A bloodied cloth lay draped over the side of it. The entire arrangement sat beneath my latest painting. Standing a few feet from the bag and the canvas, close to the middle of the room, was Archibald Thomson.

  Chapter 41

  Brick Lane Police Station, Wednesday 28 January, 9 a.m.

  Pendragon met Jimmy Thatcher at the entrance to the Briefing Room. The sergeant was holding a low-sided cardboard box filled with packets of sandwiches and cups of coffee from the local deli.

  ‘Good man,’ Pendragon said, opening the door for Thatcher and following him in. He picked a coffee and a sandwich from the box and walked to the front of the room to take a seat next to Superintendent Hughes. The whole team had gathered. Pendragon glanced round the room and saw how tired everyone looked. Some had been working all night and the strain was beginning to show.

  He thought it best to dive straight in. ‘Okay,’ he said, standing up. Gripping the edge of a desk, he leaned forward. ‘We have a fourth murder and a suspect in custody. But I have grave reservations about his possible guilt.’

  ‘Why? Hughes said, turning to him. ‘Francis Arcade was found at the murder scene and the dead woman had his fingerprints on her face.’

  ‘That’s
correct. But Arcade could not have killed the first two victims. And he definitely did not kill O’Leary unless he slipped out of the cell, killed the priest and slipped …’

  ‘There’s no need to be sarcastic, Inspector.’

  Pendragon checked himself. ‘Yes, Arcade could have committed the latest murder,’ he managed to say evenly. ‘A copy-cat murder …’

  ‘That is possible,’ Grant interrupted.

  Pendragon nodded and waited a moment before picking up where he had left off. ‘It is possible. I’ve just come from questioning him a second time. Except I couldn’t get a word out of him. He’s clammed up again. He’s almost catatonic.’

  ‘Guilt? Sudden realisation of what he’s done?’ Hughes suggested.

  ‘Possibly, ma’am. But I don’t believe Francis Arcade is a killer. And …’ he raised his voice a few decibels as the superintendent made to interrupt ‘… even if he is, and even if he did kill Chrissy Chapman, who killed Kingsley Berrick, Noel Thursk and Michael O’Leary?’

  There was a heavy silence in the room.

  ‘We have more than enough to charge Arcade,’ the superintendent persisted

  ‘I know, ma’am, but I would advise against it.’

  Hughes glared at the DCI then turned away.

  ‘I’ve got a psych coming in at ten o’clock. We need to get Arcade talking. I don’t believe he’s a killer, but I do believe he knows a hell of a lot more about what’s going on than he’s admitting.’ Pendragon took a gulp of coffee, straightened up and started pacing in front of the smart board and the usual wall of crime-scene photographs. ‘Right, well … here we are again, and no nearer cracking this case.’ Exasperated, he stopped for a second to look at his team. ‘Let’s run through the latest facts. Towers, have you and Sergeant Mackleby found out anything about Berrick’s nefarious activities? If, indeed, there were any.’

  ‘Well, guv,’ Mackleby began, ‘Kingsley Berrick was a promiscuous gay man, there’s no doubt about that. I can list over a dozen regular partners, many of whom were at the private view at the gallery. Every one of them has an alibi for the time he is believed to have died.’

  ‘And our friendly MEP, Hedridge?’

  ‘They definitely had a relationship, whatever Mr Hedridge says, but he’s in the clear. He spoke to his wife immediately after getting back to his flat. The call was logged at four minutes thirteen seconds, starting at three minutes past two in the morning. She was in New York for a few days. There is also CCTV in the reception of the apartment block where he lives during the week. It shows him arriving at one-forty. No one left the building until later that morning, at six-forty-three — a woman who lives along the hall from Hedridge’s apartment.’

  ‘Berrick did have connections with some of the local villains,’ Towers commented. ‘But nothing relevant that I can find. He had a liking for the old Bolivian marching powder apparently, and this led him to hook up with some unsavouries. He also did a bit of laundering, skimming off some of his profits to avoid tax.’

  ‘You don’t think he could have been bumped off because he got on someone’s wrong side?’ Inspector Grant asked.

  ‘Nah. Don’t make sense anyway. What about the others?’

  Grant nodded and took a gulp of his coffee.

  ‘All right, what about the cherry-picker?’ Pendragon asked.

  ‘Absolutely no other footage from CCTV.’

  ‘And the machine itself?’

  ‘Almost every cherry-picker in Greater London is owned by local councils or by private gardening firms, ones that specialise in the heavy-duty stuff — lopping trees, that sort of thing. None of the councils or the private firms has lost a cherry-picker.’

  ‘What about hire companies?’

  ‘There are hundreds scattered around the country, but only three in London. I had Vickers talk to them and go through their records. Between the three hire firms, eleven cherry-pickers have been rented out in the past three weeks …’

  ‘I’ve accounted for all of them,’ Vickers interrupted, wearily. ‘So, then I checked sales of cherry-pickers around the country going back six bloody months.’ He let out a sigh. ‘I narrowed it down to green or white machines because of the paint flecks found by Forensics,’ he added, and glanced at his notebook. ‘Every machine was bought by a company — as you’d expect. I phoned all of them and they checked out, although …’ he turned two pages and scanned his writing ‘… one’s a bit iffy.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Pendragon.

  ‘Yeah, green cherry-picker, model called a Finch, sold in October last year to a Dada Ltd, based in Maidstone. I tried to reach them by phone, but the number was nonexistent. I emailed and it came back “undeliverable”.’

  ‘That’ll be the one,’ Pendragon said. ‘Dada Ltd. God! How tedious.’ He looked over at Hughes who was staring at him, puzzled. ‘The killer has set up at least half a dozen phoney companies, each with a name in some way linked to art: Rembrandt, Gouache … Dada. It’s becoming a little tiresome.’ Then he turned to Sergeant Thatcher who was in his habitual pose, leaning against the back wall. Thatcher straightened up. ‘I have some other companies I want you to chase up, and three addresses for warehouses that may have some bearing. I’ll give you the list after the meeting.’

  The sergeant nodded.

  ‘So, victim number three Michael O’Leary,’ Pendragon went on. ‘Grant? What have you found out?’

  Inspector Grant was at one of the desks close to the back of the room. He straightened and put down his coffee cup. ‘Sergeant Vickers and I have interviewed everyone we know of linked with the priest,’ he began. ‘The Churchwarden, Malcolm Connolly, and the Church Council all said pretty much the same thing. Father O’Leary was a kind, gentle bloke, much loved by his flock.’

  ‘Have you found anything to link O’Leary with Berrick or Thursk?’ Hughes asked.

  ‘Nothing at all. I’m pretty certain he never even knew they existed.’

  ‘And what about the elderly priest who found the body? Father Ahern?’

  ‘Yeah, the old boy’s out of hospital and convalescing at his house close to the church. He’s eighty-odd, and obviously finds the whole thing deeply disturbing, but he was quite coherent. He ran through the events of Saturday morning. All fits perfectly with what Connolly and the others said.’

  ‘What about background?’ Hughes asked.

  ‘Ah, well, that’s where it gets interesting,’ Grant replied, and paused for a moment to glance around the room. Most of the team had turned to face him. ‘I dunno, I got a bit sick of all the Church people saying what a wonderful geezer Father O’Leary had been. ’Course you’d expect them to, I s’pose. But anyway, I did a bit more digging. Before moving to St Aloysius, O’Leary had been the priest of St Luke’s in Croydon. On a whim, I went there to interview the current priest, Father James Flannigan. He was a friendly guy, knew Father O’Leary vaguely. He was as keen as mustard to help us catch whoever had done this terrible thing to a fellow priest. Actually, he was a bit gabby, to be honest.’ Grant smiled and shook his head. ‘Or maybe it’s just my natural easy-going manner …’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ said Inspector Towers, and glanced at the others, shaking his head.

  ‘Well, long and short, Father Flannigan let slip that there’d been a couple of complaints made against O’Leary and this had prompted his move to Stepney. He wouldn’t elaborate, but I dug a little deeper and found there had actually been a complaint to the local police too, suggestions of “sexual impropriety” as the report put it.’

  ‘Really?’ Hughes said, sitting forward.

  Pendragon stopped pacing for a moment. ‘Was there an official investigation?’

  ‘Looks like it came to nothing. The Church did their usual job of keeping things quiet. Surrey police found no evidence and dropped it.’

  ‘But then he moves to the East End,’ Pendragon said half to himself. ‘How long was O’Leary in Croydon?’

  Grant flicked through his notes. ‘Got there in ’ninety-eight
,’ he said, and turned another page. ‘Before Croydon he’d been the priest of a small church in rural Essex, between Billericay and Braintree.’

  ‘Braintree?’ Pendragon and Turner said in unison.

  Grant looked a little startled.

  ‘Was he there for long?’

  Grant looked back down at his notes. ‘Yeah, fourteen or fifteen years.’

  Pendragon stared at the gathering in silence.

  ‘What is it?’ Hughes asked.

  ‘Juliette Kinnear grew up in Braintree.’

  ‘Back to the Kinnear girl again, Jack?’ Hughes sighed.

  ‘Well, it might be a motive.’

  ‘But she died fifteen years ago.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Pendragon answered and sat down next to the Super, folded his arms and looked out at the tired faces of the team.

  ‘All right,’ Hughes said, suddenly energised. She stood up. ‘We have to make some headway with all this. The Commander is getting impatient, and so, quite frankly, am I. I realise everyone is working hard, but we are simply not getting anywhere.’

  Pendragon made to interrupt, but Hughes carried on. ‘There has to be a connection between the four victims. We’re missing something, and we have to find it. Jack?’ Hughes turned to face the DCI. ‘What’s the plan?’

  Pendragon stood up again. ‘I want everyone … and I mean everyone … connected in any way with Chrissy Chapman to be interviewed — searching questions. I want to hear about any links with Berrick and Thursk that are out of the ordinary. Obviously, she knew both men well, but is there some subtext there? Anything, as the Super says, that we’re missing?’

  Pausing for breath, he looked down at the floor for a moment. ‘I hate to sound like a pessimist, but I have a nasty feeling our killer hasn’t finished yet. They are obviously working to a careful plan. The cherry-picker they used may well be the one bought by this firm, Dada Ltd. That was back in October. If it is the same one, it means these murders have been very carefully planned indeed. That would figure, considering the meticulously executed procedure, the attention to detail. We have to find a link between the four victims. I do not … I repeat do not … want a fifth body on our hands.’