by John Harvey
“And he’s in a hostel?”
Whitemore shook his head. “Should have been. Ordinarily, yes, that would have been the case. But there were no places available at the time. He’s in a flat in the Meadows instead.”
“How’s he making out?”
Whitemore shrugged. “Keeping his nose clean, as far as we can tell. Getting him to talk, it’s like getting blood out of the proverbial. But from what you said, you’ll know that yourself already. And he’s not got any more chatty with age.”
One of Whitemore’s colleagues, who’d been having what sounded like an increasingly tense conversation on the phone, broke the connection with a curse and immediately dialled another number. A female officer came into the room, dumped her bag on her desk, and went straight out again.
“The offense Dowland went down for,” Prior said, “the assault. Can you tell me about that?”
“Let me see if Dave Stockdale’s in the building,” Whitemore said. “He was the arresting officer. He can tell you better than me.”
Stockdale was older than Tom Whitemore by a good ten years, possibly more, one of those officers who finds his level early and sticks with it until he draws his pension. In Whitemore’s office, he nodded at Prior, choosing to ignore her rank, and leaned back against one of the desks.
“Dowland had been spotted hanging out in the red-light district on a number of occasions,” he said. “Creeping up on cars parked on the Goose Fair site on the Forest. Catching an eyeful, then jerking off. Wonder he didn’t get his face fixed by some punter or other. We’d warned him off till we were blue in the bloody face, but that didn’t stop him coming back.
“Night in question, he obviously thought he’d do a bit more than look, talked this tart in St. Ann’s into giving him short time for a tenner, up by the reservoir, Corporation Oaks. When they got there, no sooner’d she got her drawers down, he weighs into her with this bit of old two-by-four he found laying around. Smacked her round the head real bad and then, once she’d stretched out on the ground, starts strangling her. Would have finished the job if her shouts hadn’t roused someone passing nearby. Student, on the way back to his digs. Dowland ran off, but not before this bloke got a good look at him. No question it were him.”
“The prostitute, what was her name?”
“Eve Ward.” Stockdale laughed. “Been working that patch so long, they’ll be raising a statue to her soon. Services to the fucking community. If you get my drift.”
Neither Prior nor Tom Whitemore cracked a smile.
“Are there any other instances of him using violence?” Prior asked. “Dowland?”
“Not as far as we knew then,” Stockdale said. “A lot never gets reported, mind, you know that well as me.”
“And did he ever give any reason for attacking the woman the way he did?”
“Laughed at him, that’s what he said. Least, that’s what he came out with at the trial. His brief’s idea, I’d not wonder. Before that, we had the devil’s own job to get him to admit to bloody anything. Tie his shoe, right there in front of you, an’ next minute he’d say he didn’t. But if that’s what it was, spur-of-the-moment-like, how come he had a bit of two-by-four handy? Too bloody convenient by half, if you ask me.”
“You think he went out prepared?” Prior asked.
“I bloody do.”
“Okay, Dave,” Tom Whitemore said. “I think that’s all for now.”
Grinning, Stockdale shambled to his feet. “Good luck with it,” he said to Prior. “Dowland and his like, Tom here’ll not thank me for saying so, but to my way of thinking, if you can’t castrate the buggers, at least when you lock them up, lose the bloody key.” He winked. “Just kidding, of course. My bit of fun.”
“Salt of the earth,” Whitemore said when Stockdale had left the room. To Maureen Prior it didn’t sound like a compliment.
RICHARD DOWLAND’S PROBATION OFFICER WAS BRIDGET Arthur, an experienced fifty-year-old with grown-up children and a husband who was a senior fire officer, both their working lives spent in the same community in which they were born and raised. Bridget was well built and quite tall, tall enough to carry her weight, a haircut that didn’t take prisoners, an expression that, normally serious, became almost girlish when she smiled.
As she made herself and Maureen Prior tea, she apologized for the state of the mugs, stained beyond saving. The sugar she stirred with a ballpoint pen.
“Just temporary all this?” said Prior, looking round. The office was in a Portakabin that swayed a little in high winds.
“Yes,” Bridget Arthur said. “Right. Four years this coming June.”
Prior laughed and accepted a biscuit, a custard cream, to go with her tea.
“Richard Dowland,” Arthur said. “What’s your interest?”
Maureen leaned back. “Eight years ago he was a suspect in a murder inquiry I was working on; in the end there was nothing to connect him. He was arrested and questioned but never charged. The murderer was never found. Now there’s another case, similar...”
“This is the woman out in Sherwood?”
“Yes.”
“She was strangled.”
“That’s right.”
“And you think Richard...?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“Because of what happened in St. Ann’s?”
“Exactly.”
“There’s something linking him to the victim?”
“Not so far as we know.”
“So why do you think he might be involved? I don’t understand.”
Prior drew breath. “Okay. Eight years ago, when Irene Fowler was found strangled, Dowland was working in the hotel where she was killed. As far as we knew then he had no record of violence and we ended up letting him go. But since then the picture’s changed, he’s attacked this woman, come close to killing her, by strangulation. And now, just a month or so after he’s re-leased, there’s another attack, another woman strangled. You don’t think we should be looking at Dowland?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Look, Maureen, I’m not going to presume to tell you how to do your job.”
Good, Prior thought. She dunked what was left of her biscuit into her tea and it crumbled apart.
“It’s just... Look, Richard, he’s not a saint, I’m not saying that. Far from it. Not overbright, not the sharpest penny in your purse. Pathetic, that’s what he is. What happened out by the Forest, whatever the reason, it was terrible, of course it was. The poor woman was terrified out of her wits, badly injured, nearly killed. But he’s paid for that; he’s served his time. He should be given a chance. That’s what we’re doing, giving him a chance.”
“And if he’s done it again?”
“If he’s offended again, if he as much as steps out of line, his probation will be revoked and he’ll end up back inside. All I’m saying—what I’m asking—don’t dump on him without reason.”
The first drops of rain hit the roof of the cabin and a moment later the windows were rattling.
“Let me ask you something,” Bridget Arthur said.
“Go ahead.”
“This latest victim, what sort of a woman was she?”
“What sort? Perfectly ordinary, mid-fifties.”
“Respectable? Middle class?”
“I’d say so.”
“Good job?”
“Yes.”
“And the other woman, the earlier murder?”
“Irene Fowler. Pretty much the same. A bit more high-powered if anything.”
Bridget Arthur nodded. “Look at the reports, then. Read Dowland’s file. All the women he’s ever shown an interest in, the trouble he’s been in, it’s always prostitutes, working girls. There’s a restriction on his probation order now, keeping him away from red-light areas, and that’s why. All right, these other women, the age might be the same, but that’s all. The kind you describe, professional, intelligent. Richard would be terrified. Run a
mile.”
“I’d like to talk to him just the same.”
“Your privilege. But Richard’s a vulnerable adult. If you’re going to question him officially, someone he knows well should be present.”
“Tom Whitemore, will that do?”
“Tom’s fine. But if for any reason he can’t make it, I’ll give you my cell number, you can call me. Or Ben Leonard, that’s the community psychiatric nurse Richard’s been seeing.”
Prior smiled. “Kid gloves, I promise.”
For some minutes more they sat there, remains of their tea getting cold, listening to the rain. If it were true, Prior was thinking, the reason Dowland struck out at Eve Ward was that she belittled him; how much more inferior might Irene Fowler and Claire Meecham have made him feel?
Chapter 19
RICHARD DOWLAND WAS LIVING IN THE UPPER HALF OF a small, flat-fronted, terraced house in the Meadows, not far from Wilford Crescent and the playing fields leading down to the Victoria Embankment and the River Trent.
At first glance the place looked clean and tidy, the few bits of furniture uncluttered and Dowland’s possessions all neatly in their place. A stained picture of Mary holding the Christ Child above the gas fire in the living room; a cup and cereal bowl still waiting to be cleared away. Only gradually did you realize most of the surfaces were filmed with dust and that there were patches of grease on the backs of chairs, the bed, the kitchen walls.
Dowland stammered a greeting to Tom Whitemore, flushed under Maureen Prior’s gaze and turned away.
“I just wanted you to meet Maureen here,” Whitemore said, “maybe have a little chat. Although I think you met her before, quite a long time ago.”
Dowland said nothing. Whether he recognized Maureen Prior or not, he gave no indication. His face, Prior thought, had the pallor of sour milk. One eye was watery and the skin above the other was swollen and inflamed as if from a sty. Whiteheads ran like rosary beads down one side of his face. He was wearing trackie bottoms and a shiny tracksuit top that didn’t match, dilapidated trainers, his hair in need of a comb.
“So, Richard,” Whitemore said, once they had all sat down. “How’s it all been going?”
Dowland mumbled something under his breath.
“Been keeping out of trouble?”
“Ye-yes.” Not looking: looking at the floor.
“Good, good.” Whitemore leaned back and crossed his legs. “Last night, for instance, what did you do last night?”
Dowland said nothing; a glance toward Whitemore and nothing more. He was still refusing to acknowledge Maureen Prior’s presence.
“Stayed in, did you?” Whitemore persisted. “Stayed here?”
“Yeah. Yes, that’s right.” Dowland’s voice was audible but only just.
“And today?”
Dowland blinked back at him.
“You’ve got plans for today?”
“No. I dunno.”
“You’ll be going out, surely? Some time? A walk, at least?”
“Maybe, yeah.”
“Bit of fresh air, do you good.”
“Yeah, s’pose so.”
“Down by the river, perhaps? You go down there at all? It’s close, after all.”
Dowland’s hands fidgeted in his lap. “Yeah, ’s’all right.”
“How about this evening?” Whitemore asked. “Meet someone later, will you? Go out for a pint?”
Eyes fixed on the carpet between his feet, Dowland shook his head.
“No friends, then, Richard?” Prior asked, speaking for the first time. “You must have friends, surely? Mates?”
The answer, like most of his answers, was slow in coming. “Not here I ain’t.”
“Where then?”
“Inside. In prison. Lincoln. I had friends there.”
“How about a job?” Prior said. “Working at the moment, are you?”
Continuing to stare at the same worn square of carpet, Dowland made no answer.
“Bridget’s seeing about a job for you, isn’t she, Richard?” Whitemore said. “Talking to someone. On your behalf. Someone she thinks might be able to help you out.”
With stubby fingers, nails bitten down to the quick, Dowland was scratching at one of the pimples on his chin.
“This job,” Prior said, “hotel, is it? Richard? In a hotel?”
“I don’t... I don’t know.”
“Portering, maybe?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s what you’ve done before, haven’t you? Portering?”
“Yes.” Barely a nod.
“That was when we talked before, you and me, Richard, wasn’t it? You remember now?”
For a split second, he looked into her face. “No, not really, no.”
“Come on, Richard, I’m sure you do. Something had happened at the hotel, that’s why I was there. A woman, a guest, something happened to her. You can’t have forgotten that.”
Dowland had stopped attacking his spots and instead his fingers were gouging into the soft skin on the inside of his arms.
“You were very helpful then, Richard,” Prior said. “I’m wondering if you can help us again.”
She waited for the worst of the scratching to cease; long lines, livid on the pale loose skin.
“You see, something similar’s happened again. Not at a hotel. At least, not as far as we know. But another woman, she’s been found. In the same way...”
Both hands clamped over his ears, shutting out the words, Dowland slid forward from his chair, down on to his knees.
Moving slowly, careful not to distress him further, Tom Whitemore leaned forward and, with his hands beneath Dowland’s elbows, raised him back up and eased him back into his chair, then pried his hands away from his ears.
“Tell you what,” Whitemore said, “why don’t we stop talking for now? You’ve got milk in the kitchen, have you? You remembered to get some milk? I could fancy a nice cup of tea.” This with a glance toward Maureen Prior that said, okay, that’s it for now, back off.
THE RIVER CURVED QUITE STEEPLY AROUND THE memorial gardens, the bandstand, and the paddling pool, the green roof of County Hall ahead, and beyond that the floodlit stanchions of both the forest and the county grounds. At their backs, the beginnings of the city clustered low and unpromising, the rounded dome of the Council House just visible in the indifferent light. Overhead, the sky was sealed a uniform bluey gray.
“Wouldn’t think it was May,” Tom Whitemore said. “Almost halfway through the bloody year. Pair of gloves’d not go amiss.”
Maureen Prior had her hands balled up inside the pockets of her windbreaker, collar up.
A six-man boat moved fast past them, parting the water, oars rising and falling in unison.
“Poor bastard’s close to falling apart.”
“He’s on medication?” Prior asked.
“When he remembers.”
A couple ran toward them on the lower path, no longer young but moving easily, the man’s head slick with sweat nonetheless, the pink of the woman’s lipstick matching, almost, the sweatband holding back her auburn hair.
“Ever make you feel guilty?” Tom Whitemore asked.
“How’s that?”
“All these people, exercising, keeping fit.”
Prior shook her head; any time she felt a little overweight, all she had to do was sit awhile in the Old Market Square and watch the fatties waddling by on their way from Pizza Hut or KFC.
“You don’t go down the gym or anything?” Whitemore said.
“Not any more. I did for a while.”
She had gone for a couple of nights a week at first, lifted a few weights, a spell on the rowing machine, occasionally a class, aerobics of some kind; in the end it had been too much of a cross between a meat market and a fashion show and she’d quit.
“How about you?” she asked.
“Marianne and I were members at David Lloyd, out at Compton Acres...”
“Marianne, that’s your wife?”
/> “Yes. We kept it going for a couple of years, used it a lot at first, but then... I don’t know, things kept getting in the way. Marianne would drive out there, use the pool, that was about all. In the end it didn’t seem worth the expense. Now she tells me I’m putting on weight.”
“It doesn’t notice.”
“Thanks.” He grinned an almost boyish grin and for a moment Maureen was worried he might think she was flirting.
“Dowland,” she said, “how close a watch are you keeping?”
“Between Bridget Arthur, myself, and the rest of the team, he’s seeing someone four or five times a week. But there’s no kind of surveillance, if that’s what you mean. Some cases, we might try and pull in a few extra bodies, cobble something together, keep a closer watch, but only if we thought there was a real risk to others.”
“And that’s not the case here?”
“I don’t think so. Well, you saw him.”
“I saw someone who’s jumpy, neurotic. A mess.”
“But dangerous?”
“Who’s to say?”
“Ben—that’s the psychiatric nurse—according to him the risk of Dowland resorting to violence again is low. Minimal. Save maybe against himself.”
Prior stopped. “I wonder if he’d have said that five years ago? Before Dowland beat Eve Ward about the head and nearly throttled her to death.”
They cut back through the gardens behind the statue of Queen Victoria, up past the tennis courts and toward the church in front of which the car was parked. On the far side of the city centre, rain was funnelling dark toward the horizon.
ELDER HAD BEEN OUT AT TOP VALLEY WHEN THE RAIN had started, talking to Irene Fowler’s daughter Patricia, who had recently moved up from Market Harborough to take a teaching post at the comprehensive. They sat in the empty classroom, perched on tables, staring out, as the wind blew the rain in swathes across the playground and flung it against the glass.
