by Lee Weeks
Carter watched as Gerald started sharpening the other side of the shears.
‘Do you work, Mr Foster?’
‘I’m a London guide. I take people on guided walks around the city and the surrounds. I’m working this afternoon.’ He looked at Carter as if to say – so hurry up.
‘A tourist guide?’
‘Yes. I show people round. Charles Dickens’ London. Jack the Ripper’s haunts. That kind of thing.’
‘Interesting job.’
‘It’s more of a hobby really. I’m semi-retired.’
‘What did you do before?’
‘I’m a carpenter by trade. I still get the odd call to make something but I haven’t done so much since my wife died.’ He caught Carter looking around at the mess in the kitchen. ‘I don’t see the point in keeping up with the housework any more. Never did really. That was always Marion’s domain. But I make sure I brush up well when I go to work.’
‘You manage here on your own?’
‘Yes. I can live very frugally. I don’t need a lot of money.’
‘Looks like you look after your tools. My granddad was one for making and mending, always saw him with a pair of pliers in his hand, always fixing something.’
Foster didn’t reply, instead he motioned his head towards the back garden and the bonfire.
‘Of course, I won’t keep you.’
Foster picked up his gloves and marched outside. Carter followed him out. They passed the overgrown edges of what had once been a neat and well-cared-for garden. There was lawn in the main middle part, shrubs around the outside now looking wintry and uncared for. The lawn came to an abrupt stop at a small copse of trees.
‘You’ve got a lot of space here. Ever thought of getting planning permission? Is that a big shed you’ve got at the bottom there?’ Carter took a few paces towards the trees and a shed with an open door.
Foster blocked his way.
‘It’s a workshop. I’m giving it a tidy-out. Look – I’m busy. If you want to talk to someone go and find that worthless no-hoper Niall Manson, the boy’s father. What about him? She said she’d broken away from him but I never believed it. If there’s some muck to roll in he’ll find it.’
‘Funny,’ said Carter, watching Foster work. ‘He didn’t seem to like you either.’
Foster stopped and looked him.
‘You’ve talked to him? What did he say?’
‘We talked about Danielle mainly.’
Carter watched as Foster seemed to be mulling this news over.
‘Ah well.’ He stamped on the growing pile of debris to burn. ‘Those that live in glasshouses shouldn’t throw stones.’ He glared at Carter.
‘Okay, thanks for your time, Mr Foster. I’ll leave you to it. I’ll leave a card for you in case you remember anything you think will help find her.’ He held up his card for Foster to see.
Foster took it from him and stuffed it into his trouser pocket. He watched Carter leave through the side gate then waited till he heard a car start off further down the road. He walked quickly down past the bonfire and into the copse. His heartbeat quickened as he approached his shed. He wouldn’t leave it unpadlocked again. That was silly of him. The policeman could have asked to look inside. Foster would have had to say no. The policeman would have been suspicious. Foster turned the handle and stepped into the shed and into a world that smelt of wood and creosote. The dust from newly cut chipboard was in the air. He walked across to the far wall and stood in front of the box he’d finished a few days ago. He pulled back a hessian curtain. Pinned to the wall behind it there were hundreds of photos of Danielle as a little girl.
Chapter 20
Carter was still out of the office when Ebony got a call from Robbo and headed down the corridor to see him. He was in there with Pam and one other researcher, a young graduate named James. The door was open as usual. Pam smiled. Robbo was sitting behind his desk, rocking his chair, and motioned for Ebony to come and sit beside him.
Robbo was giving James instructions. ‘Get a list of all of Danielle Foster’s contacts on Facebook, James, specifically the ones who are in the same circumstances as her – same age and with a child and keep it to North London for now. And concentrate on the ones that cross over with Emily Styles first. Hawk could have access to these women via a Facebook account. People have hundreds of friends on social media sites. Just a handful, maybe ten per cent, are real friends.’
He looked over his glasses at Pam and noted her disapproving look. Hacking into Facebook was not without its problems – getting permission from the American company was laborious at best. But then both Pam and Robbo knew there were other ways, not quite so legit.
He turned back to talk to Ebony.
‘Thought we could brainstorm.’
He picked up a highlighting pen and looked at the profiles of the two women as he highlighted the common traits. Robbo was making notes by hand, on his desk.
‘I want to go through the similarities between the two women and try to understand what Danielle is going through and what motivates Hawk. We can start with the info so far: age, physical type, lifestyle, family, relationship status. Emily and Danielle? What do they have in common physically?’
‘Physically? Just age, as far as I can tell,’ answered Ebony. ‘Emily was auburn, five foot seven, size twelve, and Danielle is dark-haired, five foot eight inches and very slim.’
‘So Hawk doesn’t go for a particular colouring in a woman. Personality-wise?’
‘We don’t know how similar they are really – we only have Tracy’s concept of her daughter and that’s based on a few meetings,’ said Ebony. ‘We do know that they liked one another. They were friends so they must have been alike in many ways or in the core things like the way they were towards people, their principles.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Robbo. ‘The core of a good friendship has to be common interests. Shared values. We have to talk to someone who really knew the women.’
‘Yes. It has to be another woman,’ agreed Ebony. ‘A friend from college, maybe.’
Robbo nodded. ‘We know that both women had been through a lot in their lives, both were starting over, trying to turn their lives around, and were tough women.’ He looked at Ebony.
She nodded her agreement.
‘Point is? You’d think they would have learnt not to trust?’
‘Yes, but something about Hawk made them think they were safe with him.’
‘He has some sort of affinity with them, with women – with children.’
‘But he feels something for the child, he doesn’t harm it. He didn’t harm Jackson,’ Ebony said. ‘He empathizes with the child. He relates to children better than adults. He identifies with the child. He takes pleasure from parting the mother and child. Something happened in his own childhood.’ Robbo was making notes: ‘Yes. Some parting with his mother. Some unnatural separation or betrayal in his childhood left him missing a piece of the emotional puzzle.’
Pam had stopped typing. Robbo heard it. He was used to her ways. She didn’t like to interrupt. But Robbo knew her silence meant she had something to add.
‘What you got for us, Pam?’
‘So many names – over fifty so far – women who went missing in their twenties with one child or more.’
‘Any of those turn up dead? Bodies found with splinters of wood in the skin, emaciated? Asphyxiation, strangulation suspected?’
‘The few that had turned up dead were too badly decomposed to know anything about how they died.’ Pam handed four files across to Robbo. ‘All of them dating from the last five years. I’ll keep searching through Mispers.’
Robbo read off the top few names:
‘Charlotte Rogers never returned from a night out, disappeared in 2011 from Finsbury Park. Her body found a year later in National Trust woodland in Bushey. She could fit the bill – so far as we can currently tell,’ Robbo said as he handed a photo to Ebony. ‘What month did she disappear?’
‘She disappeared
in June of that year. That would cross over with another woman, Sophie Vein, found decomposed in Rickmansworth in February 2012, missing nine months.’ Ebony looked at the photo of the body.
‘Impossible to ascertain cause of death – her body was scattered by wildlife. There was very little of her left.’
‘We are going to have to get some other factors going to narrow this down.’
Ebony picked up photos passed over from Pam.
‘Pauline Murphy, Jenny Smith, Mispers. The list goes on and on.’ She opened her hands in the air, exasperated.
‘Okay. Thanks, Pam.’ Robbo passed the files over to James. ‘Make a list of links between these women for me, James. I want to see how many of them share more than five similarities.’
‘If Hawk is responsible for even one of these women it means he is how old?’ Ebony was making notes on a sheet of paper on Robbo’s desk.
‘We are going back five years. Let’s say he started killing when he was in his mid-twenties – hardly anyone starts before then – then he’s thirtyish now. We know he’s strong enough to haul Emily Styles’ body down to the canal and to drop it in.’
‘But she weighed no more than a child.’
‘Granted. Could be a father-figure type then?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Ebony. ‘Something tells me they would trust a man more who was their own age. There’s some sort of attraction there.’
‘What do we know about the geographical layout of these two crimes?’ Robbo laid out a map of North London on the desk. He drew a line from Regent’s Canal out to Emily Styles’ parents’ house in Camden, to where she was last seen and then he drew one out from Regent’s Canal again but this one was to Danielle Foster’s flat in Finsbury Park.
‘There was also the flat that Emily was about to move into.’ Ebony peered at the map. ‘That’s a fifteen-minute walk from her parents’ house the other side of Camden towards King’s Cross. There – Archer Street.’ She found it on the map. Robbo lined it up. ‘The nursery was in between the two.’
‘Was that council-owned?’ asked Robbo.
‘Housing association like Danielle’s,’ answered Pam.
‘James, add that to the list of similarities – they must be in social housing.’
‘Just added that,’ said Pam. ‘Now we’ve narrowed the list to twelve.’
Robbo gave Ebony a cautious smile.
Chapter 21
Ever since he’d got out of the station Niall Manson had been chewing things over in his mind. He felt more aggrieved than sentimental about Danielle’s disappearance. He felt, deep inside, that it wasn’t right, and he took it as a personal injury done to himself. There had been a time when he cared about her, in his own way. If things had gone differently they would still be together now. Manson felt he was unlucky. He’d been dealt a raw deal all through his life. It had led him down a few shady paths that he probably wished he hadn’t travelled but now it was his time to make a stand: change his life; take it into his own hands. It looked as if Danielle was as good as gone and Niall Manson needed to cash in. A small part of him knew it would never have worked. She was too good for him: he knew it; she knew it. But money could make Manson feel a lot better.
Gerald Foster was at work when he got the call.
He was explaining to an American tourist how the salt used to come into London and into the pit where it was stored and in the warehouses at King’s Cross. He answered the third time that Manson tried his number.
‘Yes?’ His voice was hushed as he walked to the other side of the room to talk.
‘Foster?’
‘Yes.’ Foster was already recognizing the voice on the other end of the phone. ‘What do you want, Manson?’
‘Good memory. Good recall.’
‘Yeah. What do you want?’
‘Danielle’s gone missing.’
‘I know. So?’
‘So, I thought you and me might have a talk about it.’
‘What is there to say?’
‘I was called in to the Old Bill. They asked me all sorts of questions about her home life . . . I didn’t say all I could have.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Ha . . . I tell you what I remember – I remember you getting nasty more than once. You locked her in her room; made sure only you had the key. You get what I’m saying? Seems like fuckin’ strange behaviour towards your daughter. What went on behind them locked doors? You hear what I’m saying?’
‘You’re a loser, Manson. Piss off – you’re deranged.’
‘I could tell a lot of stories about you. I could tell them how I’ve seen you in your van, cruising along certain streets. You know what I’m saying? Picking up women.’
Foster had difficulty getting his words out.
‘I was never unfaithful to my wife.’ He hissed down the phone. ‘We had a good marriage. What I do now is my business.’
‘But, it’s not is it? I could tell the police everything I know . . . make up a bit more – it will take them time to prove it. All that time you’ll be banged up.’
‘I’ve got nothing to hide.’ Foster’s voice was shaky. He turned to look at the clients waiting for him to return. He was desperate to get off the phone and back to the job he loved.
‘You sure you want all your dirty linen washed in public? You’ll lose your job for sure whilst they investigate you. Here’s what I’m offering: I’ll say nothing but I want compensating. You get me?’ There was a silence on the other end of the phone. Manson continued. ‘I’m looking at ten K. I’ll give you one week to find it. By the way – I don’t give a shit what you do with the bitch Danielle.’
Gerald Foster put his phone away. He went back to his clients and apologized – he would need to hand them over to a colleague as he had personal stuff come up and had to leave.
Later that day Niall Manson was on his way to meet a friend. He was helping with deliveries of weed today. The police interest had halted distribution for a few days and now people were gagging for it. There were several drop-off points around the area where people could call and meet and buy weed from him. Demand was rising with the Christmas stress. He walked along the outside of the pavement and took a call on his mobile. His first customer. He took the order and closed his phone. Today was going to be a good day. Get some money in, put a bet on the horses, have a few beers later; find himself a friendly girl who wasn’t too fussy. Still, Danielle was there nagging at the back of his mind. It was all fucking weird. The more he thought about it, the more Manson was convinced that Foster could have flipped. Manson had known him for ten years. He’d seen him get stranger every year. He knew he spent all his time in the shed in his garden, banging away on some creepy project, restoring some useless old thing that came off the barges. That was another thing – the canals; Foster was obsessed with the canals and now they had pulled that friend of Danielle’s out of one. Then his face lit up at a new thought –– compensation. If she was killed by some lunatic – her father no less – would there be any money? Jackson would get the money. Simple then – he needed to get Jackson. After all, it was his son. The deal with Foster might work out, as well. No matter what any of them thought or said about him, he had rights and he intended to exercise them. Jackson was coming home with him.
Niall was so busy with his thoughts he didn’t notice the dark-coloured van that had just pulled out. As he heard the screech of acceleration he turned to see a familiar face focused on him from behind the steering wheel. He felt the impact of the van’s side bumper smack against his body, and pain as his legs slid beneath the front wheel and then his head disappeared under the back wheel and he felt nothing else.
Chapter 22
Tracy was taking a shower as Jeanie flicked through the TV channels to find something for Jackson to watch. They were watching In the Night Garden and Jackson was very intent on his programme. He got down from the sofa and sat in front of the television with Scruffy. Jeanie put a cushion on the floor for him. She was
sure Tracy would have had a problem with it but pretended to be unaware. There was nothing in the house that seemed designed for use; it was all for show. Jackson’s solid little frame sat hunched over as he curled his fingers in his toy penguin’s fur and watched In the Night Garden in silence.
When it was over Jeanie flicked through the channels again and found Peppa Pig.
‘Here is Peppa and her brother George.’ George grunted and waved. ‘Here is Mummy Pig and Daddy Pig.’ They came onto the screen, Mummy Pig smiling serenely, Daddy Pig waving at the viewers.
Jackson sat up and began pointing and talking to the television. He turned to look at Jeanie and then looked past her, as if he were looking for someone.
‘What is it, Jackson?’
He pointed to the screen. He was agitated. He got to his feet and went over to Jeanie. His face was crumpling. He was still pointing at the screen.
‘What is it, Jackson?’
He came over to Jeanie and held on to her as he kept turning back to the television and pointing.
‘Is it Peppa Pig?’ Jeanie watched him. He seemed slightly calmer until Daddy Pig came back onto the screen. He twisted away and buried his face in Jeanie.
‘No. No, Daddy Pig. NO.’
‘What is it, Jackson?’ Jeanie lifted him onto her lap. He clung onto her so hard that he was pinching her arms. He shouted at the telly.
‘No . . . no! Leave Mummy alone!’
‘What is it, Jackson?’ He looked at Jeanie and his eyes filled. ‘It’s okay, Jackson.’ She switched off the telly. She cuddled him and led him across to the table. She sat him on the cushion on the chair again and she sat next to him. She picked up the crayons and hastily drew Daddy Pig’s head on a piece of paper: his head flat like a hairdryer shape, a few hairs around his chin, round black glasses. She drew a picture of Daddy Pig’s face and cut out the drawing and then picked up the bag containing the puppets and took some out.
