The Murder Wall

by Mari Hannah

  ‘So?’

  Gormley reached for a pen and paper, began drawing as he talked. ‘He’s changed his appearance, Kate. That’s what threw me. When I met him, he had a shaven head and a tattoo underneath the hairline, like this . . .’

  He showed her his drawing of a crucifix.

  ‘There’s no mention of it in his file,’ Daniels said.

  ‘Exactly my point! Take a look here . . .’ Gormley produced another sheet of paper. ‘This is a photocopy of the inside front cover of Forster’s prison file. Every physical description is listed, including distinguishing marks. But if his tattoo was hidden by hair, it wouldn’t have been noticed.’

  ‘And therefore not recorded.’

  Gormley grinned. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Most pond life have tats. They copy each other on account of the fact that they have no imagination. Crosses are common. It’s religious symbolism, but on its own it’s not enough.’

  ‘Then we’ll just have to find something that is . . .’

  They split the file in half and worked late into the night, the hands of the clock winding their way slowly and painfully round the dial. Daniels sighed loudly. Sick of reading, she sat up straight, casting her tired eyes across the litter on her desk: empty sandwich cartons, spent coffee cups and several crisp packets – all cheese and onion. Gormley looked up briefly and then went back to his reading. His capacity to keep going amazed her. Using a paper knife as book marker, she flicked through the remaining pages to see how long it would take her to finish. Right near the back there was a typed report. Her eyes homed in on familiar handwriting, a scrawled reference to a conversation between Jo and one of Forster’s juvenile counsellors.

  ‘Hank, listen to this. It’s in Jo’s handwriting.’ She began reading aloud: ‘“Mrs Forster is a profoundly religious woman and Jonathan resents this deeply. Paradoxically, this led him, at sixteen, to have a crucifix tattoo engraved under his hairline. A definite attempt to piss off his mother, who, the social worker tells me, is now terrified of him.”’

  ‘Yes! Oh, you little beauty!’ Gormley rushed round the desk to see for himself. ‘Maybe there is a God, after all!’

  Daniels re-read the note, feeling suddenly energized.

  ‘It’s a religious link, no doubt about it,’ she said.

  ‘I’m telling you, Kate, this guy makes Dennis Nilsen look like a boy scout.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it. But you said yourself, he’s a sadistic rapist. This recent spate of killings are hardly his style. Apart from Sarah, who I can’t help thinking just got caught up in something she had nothing to do with, our victims are all middle-aged men and women. They weren’t interfered with. He just shoots them. End of.’

  Gormley’s determined expression was hard to argue with.

  ‘Trust me,’ he said. ‘Forster’s our man.’

  87

  As they waited to gain entry to the Regional Psychology Service, Gormley had time to notice a new addition to the graffiti on the door. Under the word WANKER someone had taken a thick-tipped permanent marker and added SPERM DONORS REQUIRED.

  He glanced sideways. ‘You sure you want to do this without talking to Jo first?’

  The door clicked open before Daniels had a chance to answer.

  The receptionist was waiting behind her security screen. She gave a welcoming smile as they walked in. Daniels explained why they were there and detected a slight reluctance from the woman. But she made no fuss; just directed them down the corridor, even offered to make them a cup of tea.

  When they reached Jo’s office, Daniels stopped short of the door.

  Gormley gave her a second. ‘You really want to do this?’

  ‘I do, OK? She’ll kill me when she finds out, but that’s my problem, not yours.’

  They entered the office and put on the lights.

  ‘I’ll take the desk,’ Daniels said. ‘You start with the filing cabinets.’

  They had only just got started when the door flew open and Jo stormed in. The room temperature seemed to drop several degrees as the three of them stood there, no one knowing quite what to say. Jo was dressed casually in cords and a sweater, her hair tied back carelessly, leaving wisps hanging loose around her face. She was obviously well and truly hacked off.

  ‘Ever heard of search warrant?’ she asked.

  Daniels bit her lip. In her wildest dreams she hadn’t expected to meet her like this. She wondered why the woman on reception hadn’t warned them Jo was in the building. You could cut the atmosphere with a knife. Gormley removed his hands from the drawer he was searching, made his excuses and left.

  ‘Well?’ Jo barked. ‘What the hell d’you think you’re doing here?’

  ‘We have a warrant—’

  ‘Which you know perfectly well has now expired!’ Jo walked to the filing cabinet and slammed the drawer shut. ‘Could you not have had the courtesy to call me first?’

  ‘I’ve been calling you for days.’

  Daniels moved towards her but Jo stepped away.

  ‘I’m not ready to make nice, Kate.’

  A little grin appeared on Daniels’ face. ‘Not Ready to Make Nice’ was the title of one of their favourite Dixie Chicks songs, the one they used to play when they’d had a row and neither of them wanted to back down.

  Jo went and sat at her desk, leaving Daniels isolated in the middle of the room.

  ‘You going to tell me what you hope to find here?’ she asked.

  Feeling a little bit silly and a lot sad, Daniels said, ‘Can I at least sit down?’

  Jo nodded towards a chair.

  ‘The truth is, I’m not sure.’ Daniels sighed. ‘One of your clients is beginning to emerge as a likely candidate for Alan’s murder and at least two others. He’s our best suspect yet, but I don’t really understand him and I need to, if I’m going to catch him.’ She pulled a folded sheet of paper from her pocket – the photograph Gormley had copied from Forster’s police record – and handed it over. ‘I know you’re officially barred from working on the case, but MIT need your help, Jo. I need your help. He is still on your caseload?’

  Jo nodded, her expression darkening. In the time she’d been supervising Jonathan Forster, she’d formed the opinion that his was a case where ‘life’ should have meant just that. For the last two years, she’d tried to peel back the layers of his past, to get beneath his thick skin, to talk some sense into him – show him that he could so easily take a different path . . .

  She’d been wasting her breath.

  Within the confines of her office, he’d emptied the contents of his polluted mind, worn his sentence like a badge and refused to see beyond his own twisted logic. If he was involved, then Daniels had a problem.

  ‘You’d better make yourself comfortable,’ Jo said.

  It was a clear warning that they were in for a long session. Daniels called Gormley on his mobile and told him she’d meet him back at the office. Jo rang her secretary, told her not to disturb them and asked for a pot of coffee, then fetched Forster’s file from a grey filing cabinet behind her desk. There was no question of doctor/patient confidentiality here.

  There was no time to lose.

  Daniels relaxed a little. It felt good to be on the same side once again. But before they got down to business, she had something important to say about the events of the past few days. It was the first chance she’d had to talk to Jo face to face and she didn’t know when she’d get another. Jo sat down again, curious as to what was coming.

  From the look on Daniels’ face, something was.

  ‘Bright knows,’ she said bluntly.

  ‘About us?’

  Daniels nodded.

  ‘How?’

  ‘What makes you think I didn’t tell him?’

  ‘Did you?’

  Daniels flushed. ‘Anonymous letter, delivered to HQ with a copy to Martin. Thought I should give you the heads up, in case—’

  ‘They won’t say anything to me,’ Jo said calmly. ‘I’d like to see t
hem try!’

  ‘No . . . I don’t suppose they will.’

  ‘What did you tell them?’

  ‘I told Bright the truth. We were involved, but not any more.’

  ‘Bet that went down well. And Martin?’

  ‘Has no proof whatsoever. Let’s just say I’m not his favourite DCI right now. You told me it would come back and bite me on the arse, and now it has.’

  ‘And you’re still alive? Still in the job? Well, goodness me!’

  So the subject was now closed, and they were no closer to resolving their differences. Daniels was convinced she’d be blackballed from going any further in the job. But somehow that didn’t seem to matter any more.

  Changing the subject, they got down to business and talked about Forster for nearly two hours, going over his psychological assessment in minute detail. The information Jo provided was pure gold; the picture she painted guaranteed to put the fear of God into most right-minded people.

  ‘. . . as I said, he has all the characteristics of an anger rapist. It’s not unusual for attacks to increase in severity over time.’

  ‘Whether or not they involve a sexual element?’ Daniels queried.

  Jo was thoughtful for a moment. ‘His attack on the young girl he killed was horrific and unpremeditated, but the source of his anger was definitely his mother.’

  ‘And now what? He’s displacing his anger?’

  ‘Possibly . . . his perception of women is that they’re whores: hostile, self-centred, disloyal. Rejection is an obvious trigger for guys like this. They become enraged and strike out whenever their masculinity is threatened. Don’t underestimate him, Kate. He might look and act like a wimp, but he’s an evil little shit, make no mistake.’

  ‘But why would he be killing men as well as women?’

  ‘You’re the detective. I’m sure you’ll work it out.’

  ‘Please, Jo. I’m struggling here.’

  ‘I don’t have all the answers, Kate. You know that. The guy’s been locked up for over twenty years! Who knows what nasty things have happened to him during that time. Such a prolonged period of incarceration might have sparked off a fury the magnitude of which we can only guess at. People change – even damaged ones – and not always for the better.’

  ‘OK . . . thanks for the insight.’ Daniels gathered her stuff. ‘I’d appreciate it if you kept this meeting between the two of us. Bright will go nuts if he finds out I’ve discussed the case with you.’

  Jo reacted as though she’d been slapped. But Daniels was already rising to her feet and hadn’t seen it. She was half expecting Jo to embrace her when she stood up too and was caught off guard by her angry tone.

  ‘Shame you’re not capable of change!’

  Daniels was lost for words.

  Jo marched over to her filing cabinet, replaced Forster’s file, then went to her bookshelves, the top three of which housed hundreds of professional journals she’d collected over the years. On a shelf lower down, one book in particular caught her eye: Jean Piaget’s The Child’s Conception of the World. As she watched Jo remove it from the shelf, Daniels’ stomach lurched at the sight of the front cover, which featured a child’s drawing of a little girl with lots of freckles. Jo opened the front cover. Inside, there was a personal inscription, beautifully crafted by its writer.

  She brought the book to Daniels and handed it over, still open.

  It was a moment of real heartache for Daniels as she stared at her own handwriting. She had bought the book many years before. Knowing nothing of psychology, beyond that which she’d observed on the city streets, she’d loitered for ages in the bookstore, agonizing over which book to buy. In the end, it was the freckles that tipped the scales. How Jo had laughed when she found out.

  Well, she wasn’t laughing now.

  ‘Take it!’ she said. ‘I won’t be needing it any more.’

  Their moment of closeness had dissolved without trace. It was a cruel way of saying their relationship was over. For good.

  Devastated, Daniels slipped the book into her pocket and left.

  88

  Daniels was staring out of the window. Gormley suspected she hadn’t told the whole truth about her meeting with Jo earlier. She was brooding about something. He didn’t know what, but suspected it had little to do with the case.

  A knock at the door surprised them both. Maxwell poked his head in, asking for a second of their time. Daniels beckoned him in, curious to know what he wanted. Since his transfer to another team, he hadn’t been seen for dust. She wondered if he’d come cap in hand, thinking he could get his old job back. If so, he didn’t have a hope in hell.

  ‘What do you want?’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘If you’re sniffing around for Martin, you’re wasting your bloody time.’

  Maxwell’s brow creased, as if he had no idea what she was on about.

  ‘Well? Spit it out, now you’re here.’

  He handed her a disk. ‘I found more footage of Jo Soulsby while working on another enquiry . . . I think you should take a look at it, boss.’

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ Gormley snapped. ‘Haven’t you heard the news?’

  ‘She’s been bailed, Neil,’ Daniels explained. ‘Expects to be cleared of all charges. Given that she’s done nothing wrong, why would I be remotely interested in whatever’s on this disk?’

  Maxwell hesitated. ‘Because she was in another part of town, being dragged up a back alley by two thugs.’

  Complete silence.

  Oh my God! Daniels felt sick. Outraged. She couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. Maxwell had drawn her a picture she just couldn’t get out of her head.

  Poor, poor, Jo.

  What she must have gone through.

  Daniels was close to losing it, unable to conceal her disgust.

  ‘. . . I couldn’t actually see what happened,’ Maxwell continued. ‘But it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to fill in the blanks. I only wish we’d found it sooner. To be raped by Stephens was gross, but to suffer at the hands of two morons in the street, well, it doesn’t bear thinking about. She’s innocent, all right.’

  Gormley stood up, about to usher him from the room.

  Daniels put her hand up to stop him. ‘No, Hank. It’s OK, this is important. It ties up a lot of loose ends, explains why Jo hung around in town, her blocked-off memory, why she was in a state when the taxi picked her up.’

  She didn’t really know what else to say. What to think. Maxwell was an unlikely source of closure. Gone were the smart-arse remarks, the snide glances. It was as if this latest shocking revelation was too awful even for him to contemplate. His lips were moving again but Daniels didn’t hear a word of his apology, the shame he felt for the way he’d behaved, his request to be given another chance.

  89

  Daniels had been sitting in her vehicle for a good half-hour, observing the entrance to the Regional Psychology Service. In that time, the door had opened only twice, allowing a couple of women back out on to the street.

  According to the receptionist, Forster was still inside. Daniels couldn’t bear the thought that he was probably in a room with Jo, sharing the same air, when she now had knowledge that he might conceivably have killed her ex. Wondering how she was coping with that, Daniels glanced at her watch. Forster’s weekly reporting was scheduled to last just half an hour.

  He’d be out any second now.

  While she waited, the conversation she’d had with Jo following Maxwell’s revelation that she’d been attacked reverberated round her head. After several attempts to call her, Jo had finally answered her phone. But she point-blank refused to discuss the thugs in the alley; refused to be a victim again. The police hadn’t been interested when she reported Stephens for rape. As far as she was concerned, they had nothing more to say to one another. Then the phone went dead.

  Daniels willed the door across the street to open again.

  It did.

  She put her hand to her earpiece. �
�Here we go.’

  A scruffy man left the building, hesitating at the gate just long enough to light a cigarette. He set off along the road with an arrogant strut, picking his nose as he went, wiping his hands on the back of his jeans. It was the first time Daniels had seen him in the flesh, though something about him struck a chord. He was a very different person than the one Gormley had described. Not a wimp frightened of his own shadow, but an arrogant, cocksure lowlife with an evil look in his eye.

  Gormley’s favourite saying popped into her head at the exact same time it came out of his mouth: If it looks like shite . . .

  ‘. . . and it smells like shite,’ Gormley said, ‘then it’s probably shite.’

  Daniels smiled.

  Although it was getting dark, the streetlights were good enough to make the identification. She got out of her car, making sure she wasn’t seen, conscious that Forster might very well be armed. She followed at a safe distance. It looked as though he was heading for the address Jo had given her. He turned right off the main road, in no hurry, stopping to pass the time of day with a young boy coming the other way, a glance over his shoulder forcing Daniels to retreat into the shadows of a shop doorway. She caught his reflection in the glass and thought she saw something change hands. Her earpiece confirmed that Gormley had seen it too.

  ‘Probably an arrestable offence . . . want me to pick him up?’

  Daniels spoke quietly into her sleeve. ‘Negative, Hank. We want to get the bastard for something much bigger than a poxy heroin deal. But first, we need proof. Something concrete we can act on. We can’t risk this thing going tits-up a second time.’

  As if sensing their interest, Forster looked back over his shoulder again, then took off downhill towards the entrance to Brandon Towers, a block Daniels knew well. Built in the sixties to combat overcrowding, it had since become home to many of the region’s criminals, the socially disaffected and the downright unfortunate. The exterior walls were covered in graffiti, the whole place in need of pulling down.

  Forster went in through the main entrance. Daniels stood a while, considering what to do next. She gave Gormley permission to return to base, watched him drive off, and then turned away.