‘Sorry Chief Superintendent, she’s gone. Not a lot I could do. The wind pipe was almost completely severed. That cut was made with some force.’
Palmer nodded. He wasn’t a squeamish type, but the sight of an almost decapitated Mrs Stanley was not pleasant.
‘Thank you, Doctor. I appreciate your efforts.’
The Doctor nodded and made to wash his bloodied hands in the bathroom. Gheeta blocked his way.
‘Sorry Doctor, could I ask you wash up somewhere else please? It’s a crime scene now, quite a serious one, and the killer may have used the bathroom.’
‘Of course,’ he said, looking enquiringly at the manager. ‘Charles, do you have an empty room on the floor where I could…?’
He waved his hands at the manager, who seemed to be in another place.
‘What? Oh, yes of course. Come along, I’ll open one up.’
The two of them left as Gheeta bent over the body.
‘I see we have the note left again, sir.’
‘Hmm,’ Palmer said, deep in thought. ‘Probably be as much use as the other notes. Sergeant, go down to reception and see if there’s any CCTV we can see. For once, we are right on the ball here; she’s been killed in the last hour, so people’s memories will be fresh too. Have a word with the staff on duty and see if they can remember anybody.’
‘Right, guv.’
As she left, the local West End Central Forensics team started to arrive, as did the photographer. Time to leave, thought Palmer, and after giving them a briefing he made his way down to catch up with Gheeta, who was taking short statements from the staff.
‘Anything?’
‘Nothing yet, sir; they’ve been quite busy with this literary conference going on. Lots of new faces, but nobody causing any concern. One thing though...’
‘Yes?’
‘Whoever went to Mrs Stanley’s room knew the room number. None of the reception staff recall anybody asking for her room number, and if anybody had they wouldn’t have given it. Hotel policy; they’d find out who the person was and ring Mrs Stanley on the internal phone to see if it was okay to give it.’
‘It could have been somebody from the conference who she’d given the number to.’
‘No, she didn’t check in until this evening after the conference ended for the day. She wouldn’t have known the room number.’
‘Interesting… Any CCTV?’
‘Only in the reception area; no cameras on the floors.’
‘Okay, that’s disappointing. Get a copy made and sent to Claire.’
The manager and hotel doctor came out of the lift and across to them.
‘One thing I forgot to tell you, Superintendent.’
The doctor was almost apologetic.
‘Yes?’
‘Mrs Stanley was just about alive when I got to her at first, and she was trying to say something. It was very mumbled, as you can imagine with such an injury, and I was intent on working to save her and not really listening; but it sounded like ‘Benny.’ Can’t be sure, but she repeated it a few times before she left us.’
‘Benny?’ Palmer repeated.
‘Yes, or something similar.’
Palmer turned to Gheeta,
‘You thinking what I’m thinking, Sergeant?’
She nodded.
‘Bennett.’
‘Couldn’t be, could it? He’s old and can hardly walk, and his wife’s in a care home.’ He turned to the doctor.
‘Thank you, Doctor. We may have to take a statement at a later date if that’s alright?’
‘Of course. Well, I have to go. Sorry to have met you both in such awful circumstances. I hope you get the killer quickly; these people can acquire a taste for it if they get away with one.’
The manager put him right.
‘Superintendent Palmer is head of the Serial Murder Squad at Scotland Yard.’
‘Oh,’ the doctor said, sounding a little embarrassed. ‘Sort of teaching my granny to suck eggs then. Apologies, Superintendent.’
He shook Palmer’s hand and was gone. Palmer turned back to Gheeta.
‘We didn’t physically check on Mrs Bennett, did we? Perhaps her dementia is not as bad as they think; could be a smoke screen. Get on the phone to the care home and ask that somebody checks on her whereabouts right now. I want to know that she’s in her room, or at least in the home right now; and check with the surveillance unit at Mr Bennett’s house, and see what he’s been up to; has he been out at all today. I’ve seen those benefit cheats on television shows, staggering around on sticks all week and playing rugby at the weekends!’
Sergeant Singh moved off to a quiet corner of the lobby to make the calls, as Palmer sat and started to turn the case over again in his mind. What had they missed? If Mrs Bennett was in the Home, and Mr Bennett in his, then who the hell was the ‘Bennett’ that Marion Stanley had gurgled out? Angela hadn’t any siblings, no brothers or sisters, and Claire’s digging into the family had not come up with any close relatives, uncles, aunts, cousins or the like. Was he on completely the wrong track? Maybe the killer was unconnected with the Bennetts, but knew about their loss and was using it as a smoke screen or a red herring; a psychopath who’d used it as a reason to kill? And a damn good one, if he or she was.
Gheeta returned, carrying a coffee for each of them.
‘Compliments of the hotel, guv,’ she said, sitting opposite him. ‘Mrs Bennett is in the lounge at the home as we speak. Mr Bennett is indoors, and has not been out all day.’
Another dead end.
‘We are missing something, Sergeant. God knows what, but there’s a link somewhere. The killer knew who the bullies were, knew about Angela Bennett’s suicide, and was enough of a friend to take revenge for her.’
Gheeta was puzzled.
‘But why wait so long for revenge, guv?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps the need for revenge has been growing inside our killer over the years, becoming more and more important in his or her warped little mind as time marches on; gradually taking over their thoughts and life until it becomes an obsession and has to be done? Like a tumour that has to be removed.’
‘Yuk,’ Gheeta said with a grimace. ‘There must be a relative we’ve missed. Both Claire and I have scoured the Births and Deaths Registers, and I’m positive there’s nobody related to Angela or her parents that we haven’t found. I’ll go back through it all again in the morning.’
Palmer finished his coffee and stood up.
‘Oh well, no more we can do tonight. I’ve told Forensics that if they come up with anything to ring me at home, but I don’t think they’ll find anything. They haven’t at the other murder scenes so we might actually get an early night, Sergeant.’
He put on his trilby.
‘At least there are no more ‘childs’ to worry about. The only worry is that now the killer has finished his or her list, she or he will just disappear.’
‘Or start another list, guv?’
Chapter 28
Getting home by nine o’clock was not an often enjoyed bonus for Palmer when a case was ongoing. He had thought about going back to his office at the Yard and wading through the case files again in the hope that something would jump out that they’d missed so far; but he had been through them countless times already, and the thought of an early night, with the added treat of a Barcelona La Liga game being live on Sky Sports, was too much. So he was a bit peeved when he entered the house, hung his coat and Prince of Wales jacket on the hall stand, perched his trilby on top of it, and gave Daisy the dog a good ‘hello’ cuddle, to hear voices from the lounge.
Mrs P.’s Garden Club meet was next week, and she hadn’t said that any of the family were coming over; not that that made any difference, as they seemed to drop in all the time, usually just as he had settled on the sofa with a good book, or when Barca or the ‘Gunners’ had just kicked off.
‘Only me,’ he shouted, just in case his arrival hadn’t been noticed.
‘We are in th
e lounge, Justin,’ Mrs P. replied.
‘Okay.’
He took a homemade cheese straw from the biscuit barrel on the kitchen table, a bottle of cider from the fridge, prised off its top, and went in to join them.
The ‘we’ in the lounge were Mrs P. on the sofa and Benji on Skype on the telly. He gave her a perfunctory kiss and flopped down next to her.
‘Can’t you turn him off?’ he whispered, trying not to move his lips. ‘The big match starts in a couple of minutes.’
‘Where’s your plate? You’ll get cheesy crumbs all down the side of the sofa.’
Palmer thought that ‘Hello dear, nice to have you home early for once, and have you had a good day?’ would be more of the sort of greeting he’d like, rather than an admonishment about cheesy crumbs. His mouth was full, so he just grunted back. From the television, Benji waved a hand.
‘Yoohoo, Justin! How are you?’
He nodded back to the TV screen, aware of the replaced webcam sitting on top of it.
‘Benji’s been telling me how to divide my azaleas.’
‘Barcelona’s kicking off in two minutes,’ he mumbled to her from the corner of his full mouth.
‘You have to make sure your spade’s sharp,’ Benji contributed from the box.
Palmer cleared his mouth with a gulp of cider from the bottle.
‘It’s live on Sky.’
Mrs P. nudged him with an elbow.
‘Where’s your glass? Benji will think we’ve no manners, drinking from the bottle.’
Benji was still dividing azaleas.
‘You can always take half-ripe cuttings and dip them in a rooting hormone before putting them in a cutting compost over winter. They’ll shoot up in the spring.’
‘Or, you can go and buy some from the Garden Centre in the spring,’
Palmer couldn’t resist it. Benji was shocked.
‘Oh no! No, no, no! That is the lazy way, Justin. Not the true gardener’s way of doing things at all! Monty Don would never do that!’
‘He would if he supported Barcelona.’
Palmer put his hand over his mouth as he whispered to Mrs P: ‘What’s he doing on the telly? He only lives next door! You could talk about your blooming azaleas over the fence.’
He checked his watch.
‘The match has started now. I’ve got a monthly standing order to Sky, not to Benji’s Gardening Tips.’
Benji was in full flow.
‘Tomorrow, Justin, I’m coming round, and we’re going to replace your strawberry plants so you’ll have a fresh and tasty crop in the summer.’
‘Nothing wrong with the strawberry plants; last summer’s crop was okay,’ said Palmer, remembering just how tasty they had been. Mrs P. was getting a little annoyed at him.
‘They were alright, yes,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t know that all those runners that grew off the main plants – the ones that you threw in the compost bin, Justin – should have been kept, and the old plants thrown in the compost instead.’
‘You see,’ Benji explained. ‘Strawberry plants only last in their prime for three years, and then you throw away the old plants and keep the runners to make new plants; then they will have bigger and sweeter fruit than the three year-old plants. Bit like modern marriages – stick it for a few years, and then split up and get new partners.’
‘Wish I’d thought of that,’ Mrs P. whispered in a sarcastic aside to Palmer, which went unheard as his mind raced into overdrive.
‘Damn!’
He jumped up from the sofa, sending cheesy crumbs everywhere.
‘I’ve got to go. Sorry, Princess.’
He gave a startled Mrs P. a quick kiss, and was out into the hall pulling his mobile from the jacket pocket and ordering a squad car to pick him up: ‘Now!’
By the time he’d put his jacket, coat and trilby back on, and got down the drive to the road, it was pulling up with the blues full on. He gave the driver instructions to get to the Yard as quickly as possible, then rang Sergeant Singh to tell her to meet him there at the office as soon as she could.
Chapter 29
It was eleven at night, and in Palmer’s team room Sergeant Singh was tapping the keyboard of the main computer. Palmer was standing behind her, watching very impatiently and shifting from foot to foot.
‘If you’re right, guv, we should have noticed this on the family checks we did.’
‘I hope I’m right; otherwise I’m in deep trouble with Mrs P., and you’ve been dragged back here on a wild goose chase.’
Gheeta smiled to herself; it was not often that Palmer’s hunches didn’t bear fruit. She typed away at the keyboard, inputting Bennett’s name and known addresses .The screen scrolled down as it searched, and then up popped a list of Bennett marriages and divorces. After a few minutes Gheeta smiled.
‘It’s here, guv! Hang on, let me come forward a bit ‘cause we only downloaded the records up to Angela’s death. These government data records are so easy to hack into, I’m surprised they aren’t played about with by hackers all the time.’
‘Played about with?’
‘Yes, I could put in false information, delete stuff and play havoc if I wanted to. Hang on here we go – downloading now.’
The screen scrolled like a teleprinter.
‘Aha! There it is! The Bennetts got divorced in 1997, and she reverted to her maiden name, Dorothy Robins; and he remarried in 2001, to an Elaine Chard.’
Palmer punched the air,
‘Yes! I knew it! The Mrs Bennett confined in the care home with dementia is Elaine Chard, his second wife. His first wife – and Angela’s mother – Dorothy Robins is out and about, and probably celebrating the end to a series of murders avenging her daughter’s suicide. Benji, you’re a genius.’
‘Benji?’
Gheeta knew who Benji was, but failed to see any input he might have had in the case.
‘Yes, Benji and his strawberry plants.’
He beamed at Gheeta.
‘I’ll explain in the morning. Now, let’s get you a car home. I’m just going to put out a warrant for Dorothy Robins. I think we need to pay Mr Bennett a visit in the morning; he’s a bit of explaining to do.’
Gheeta closed down the computer and put her coat on.
‘You think he’s playing a part in this, guv?’
‘Oh yes. Oh yes, indeed I do. You don’t think his divorce from Angela’s mother just slipped his mind, do you?’
‘No, but he seemed like a very nice old man.’
‘By all accounts, so did Crippen.’
They both laughed as they left the office.
Chapter 30
Mr Bennett watched from behind the net curtains, and was not surprised to see Chief Superintendent Palmer and his Detective Sergeant get out of the squad car and walk up his drive. He quite expected them really, after the phone call he’d had from Dorothy last night; the same call that he’d had from her after each murder. Just the four words: ‘Monday’s Child is gone’… ‘Tuesday’s Child is gone’… ‘Wednesday’s Child is gone’… ‘Thursday’s Child is gone’; and last night, ‘Fridays Child is gone’. Two uniformed officers stood by the gate. He opened the front door before Palmer had time to press the bell.
‘Chief Superintendent? This is a surprise.’
‘I don’t think so, sir.’
Palmer barged past him and went into the front room. Sergeant Singh waved an arm to indicate Bennett was to follow, which he did. Once they were all inside, Palmer rounded on him; his voice had a threatening edge to it.
‘Sit down, Mr Bennett.’
Bennett did so.
‘At the end of this little chat, and dependent on the answers I get from you, I will probably be charging you with aiding and abetting a criminal act, withholding evidence, and as an accessory to multiple murders.’
‘But I haven’t done anything, Superintendent!’ Bennett said, feigning amazement.
‘Mr Bennett, just stop this stupid act of innocence if you would. You told
me Mrs Bennett was in a care home and incapable of committing the murders; what you didn’t tell me was that she is the second Mrs Bennett, and that your first wife Dorothy Robins, Angela’s mother, is alive and quite capable of committing murders, and so far has probably killed five ladies; killing them all while you were protecting her identity from the police by withholding the fact that you had remarried.’
‘I told you the truth. You asked where Mrs Bennett was, and I told you where Mrs Bennett was. I didn’t lie at any time.’
‘No, you just forgot the fact that we were asking after Angela’s mother, did you? The only reason that makes any sense of you purposely not telling us that fact, is that you have known all along that Dorothy Robins was out there taking revenge for your daughter’s death. You knew we were hunting her, and deliberately withheld facts that would help the investigation and help us detain her. I think that the evidence points to you purposely withholding those facts so she could complete her murderous task.’
‘I would like a lawyer.’
‘Where is she?’
‘I would like a lawyer.’
‘When did you last have contact with her?’
‘I would like a lawyer.’
Palmer gave him an ice-cold stare for some time, then turned and looked out of the window, his back to Bennett.
‘And you’re going to need one, old son. Mr Bennett, I am arresting you for wasting police time, aiding and abetting a criminal act, and compliance in a murder or murders. Sergeant, cuff him, read him his rights, and get him taken to the Yard and held there.’
‘But I… I can’t just leave here…?’
POETIC JUSTICE & A KILLER IS CALLING: The DCS Palmer and the Serial Murder Squad series, cases 3 & 4. Page 8
