Friends to Die For

by Hilary Bonner

  Vogel felt sure that the man’s alibi would prove to be genuine. It was almost too absurd not to be genuine. However, this didn’t particularly please the detective. He was beginning to run out of suspects.

  George was interviewed next. Vogel remembered him as being the most cocky of the friends. Now George Kristos didn’t look cocky at all. His eyes were red and, like Ari Kabul, his hands were shaking.

  ‘I can’t believe another one’s dead, not Michelle, she was so lovely, so young and pretty and everything, and now it’s all starting again, and it can’t be Alfonso who did it because he was in jail, but none of us ever thought he could be capable of murder, not me anyway, and he’d never have hurt Marlena, certainly not her, he worshipped her you see, so—’

  ‘Mr Kristos,’ Vogel interrupted sternly.

  George stopped talking. His eyes were open almost unnaturally wide. His jaw was slack. Vogel thought he looked like a scared rabbit caught in headlights.

  ‘Mr Kristos, I need to establish your whereabouts earlier today,’ Vogel continued. ‘Could you tell me please where you were between the hours of nine and eleven?’

  ‘Right, yes, of course.’

  George seemed almost eager to help. And, unless he were guilty, why shouldn’t he be? thought Vogel. Those suspects who were innocent must surely want to see the killer found every bit as much as he did. Aside from the fact that they would all be under suspicion until the culprit was found, in the absence of a motive there was no way of predicting who the killer’s next victim might be.

  ‘I was with my neighbour, Marnie. Well, first of all I went to the shop and got some fresh bread and a couple of Danishes. She likes Danishes, you see. I go round every morning when I’m not working. We have breakfast together and I tidy for her and keep her company for a bit.’

  ‘What time did you leave your flat and what time did you arrive back at this Marnie’s?’

  ‘I went out soon after eight, and I don’t suppose I was gone more than twenty minutes. I was with Marnie by about half past eight. I always get there quite early or she starts to fret.’

  ‘And what time did you leave Marnie?’

  ‘Oh, it must have been eleven o’clock. Very nearly anyway.’

  ‘You stayed with this elderly woman for two and a half hours? I must say, that is extremely neighbourly of you, Mr Kristos. Indeed, some might say excessively so.’

  George coloured slightly and mumbled something incomprehensible.

  ‘If you have something to say, Mr Kristos, it would help if you spoke up, please.’

  George nodded. ‘Well, it’s embarrassing. But actually Marnie’s daughter, well, she pays me to look out for Marnie. Only Marnie doesn’t know, you see.’

  ‘I don’t see, Mr Kristos. Perhaps you could explain.’

  ‘Well, Marnie’s daughter, she lives in Ealing now, smart house, young family. All of that. She isn’t up for running into Soho every day to see to her old mum, and Marnie certainly wouldn’t be up for living in Ealing. No way. Not that she’d ever be invited.’ George shook his head sadly.

  ‘So in effect this is a job?’ Vogel asked. ‘Looking after your neighbour is paid employment for you. Is that what you are saying?’

  ‘Kind of, yes,’ responded George, still stumbling slightly over his words, his face bright red now. ‘I do all sorts of work when I’m not acting, which is most of the time, unfortunately. I do maintenance round the building where I live, I work in a theatre box office sometimes. I mean, I can turn my hand to all sorts of things, and I have to. So, yes, looking out for Marnie is a job, I suppose, it helps towards paying the rent.’

  ‘And you go in every morning at about the same time, and always for what, two or three hours?’ asked DC Jones.

  George nodded. ‘Yes. Only, well, you see, nobody knows. None of the others. Not my girlfriend either. Nobody. I mean, it’s not very cool, is it? Chap like me, a paid carer for an old girl like Marnie. I’m ever so fond of her and that, but . . .’

  George’s voice tailed off. There was a kind of panic in his eyes.

  Vogel stifled a smile with difficulty. This was a murder investigation, yet George Kristos was more anxious about his cool image than establishing his whereabouts at the time of the crime and enabling himself to be eliminated from police inquiries.

  After George, it was Greg’s turn. He said that he’d spent the entire morning in and out of his van delivering crates of whisky all over West London, and beyond, into Surrey and Middlesex. He’d made an early start. He’d got to Chiswick at about half past eight, then gone on to Ealing, Acton, Hounslow, Twickenham, and further west, he said, to Kingston, Staines and Slough. On the way back he’d made deliveries to more central addresses in Barnes, Putney and Clapham before returning to his Waterloo lock-up to reload. He claimed he’d been planning to spend the afternoon making more deliveries, some nearby, in Waterloo itself, and various riverbank addresses, as well as Covent Garden, Clerkenwell, and maybe north to Camden, Hampstead and Highgate.

  ‘Then you lot came and that was the end of that,’ he said.

  ‘I take it you have a record of your movements, Mr Walker?’ asked Vogel.

  ‘’Course I bloody do,’ snapped Greg. ‘Most of the places I deliver to someone answers the door and takes the stuff in. Sometimes the householder, sometimes caretakers, porters, cleaning ladies. Sometimes I go next door to a neighbour if there’s no one in. They all sign for it, don’t they? My clipboard’s in the van. I’d have shown it to your boys if they’d given me half a chance. But they were in too much of a bloody hurry to strong-arm me down here, weren’t they?’

  ‘Mr Walker,’ said Vogel, ‘I’m quite sure you weren’t strong—’

  Greg cut him off. ‘That’s as maybe, but I heard my missus crying earlier. Sobbing ’er heart out, she was, and don’t tell me it weren’t her because I know bloody better. Whaddya think you’re doing, making a doll like her cry? Never hurt a fly, my Karen.’

  ‘Mr Walker, two women have been murdered, a police officer, my colleague, and an elderly lady, both, I believe, friends of yours. Both were violently attacked. I have to make whatever inquiries I deem necessary in order to find whoever has committed these dreadful crimes and, in each case, bring him . . .’ Vogel paused, ‘or her, to justice. And I am afraid that means questioning every member of the group of friends Michelle and Marlena were part of. Almost everyone in that group has recently been the victim of some type of incident, ranging in severity from malicious pranks to murder. Those of you who are innocent of any wrongdoing could be in extreme danger. That includes your wife. If she is innocent, as you say, then I must do everything in my power to establish her innocence and to ascertain if there is anything she knows, albeit unwittingly, that might lead us to the guilty party. And if she or anyone else is upset by being questioned, well, so be it.’

  Vogel glanced to the side and saw DC Jones staring at him. Vogel coughed, clearing his throat noisily to hide his embarrassment. He was aware that he was not conducting this interview in a professional manner. Nor strictly according to procedure. He didn’t have to explain himself to anyone. Least of all to a suspect.

  Greg was also staring at him. And it was he who broke the silence.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said, taking Vogel by surprise. ‘I’m not thinking straight. You gotta do what you gotta do to find this bastard. It’s not the Fonz, we know that now. He couldn’t ’ave killed Michelle anyway, right?’

  Vogel nodded.

  ‘Yeah, so the bastard’s still at large. My Karen could be next. Any of us could. And Michelle, I can’t believe she’s dead. She was that pretty and full of life always.’ He broke off. ‘I mean, not that it makes any difference, that stuff. My Karen, well, she’ll be crying about Michelle as much as herself.’

  He looked directly at Vogel.

  ‘Anything you want to know, anything I can do to help, guv,’ he said.

  ‘You can tell me about your own relationship with Michelle.’

  ‘We were fr
iends. Not close friends, like, but good friends. Just part of a group that met every Sunday really . . . but you know that.’

  Vogel nodded. He did indeed know that, and he was sick of asking the same questions and getting the same answers. He felt he was getting nowhere. All he could hope was that the boys doing the searches, and the various forensics results they were awaiting might give him some of the answers he needed. In the meantime, he could only continue to go through the motions. The answers continued to be repetitive.

  Greg got on very well with Michelle. No, there had never been any ill feeling between them. And no, he could think of no one with a grudge against her.

  ‘Except maybe her old man, Phil, another copper. Did you know she was married to a copper, and that they’re separated?’

  Vogel nodded.

  ‘Yeah, he ran off with some woman Michelle always referred to as “that tart”.’ Greg grinned. ‘She was always going on about him. No love lost there, either way round.’

  Vogel sighed. The team had already checked out Phil Monahan. Vogel had asked for that to be done as soon as he’d heard about Michelle’s death. He now knew that Monahan had been on duty since 8 a.m. that day and had spent most of the morning at his desk in Dorchester CID. He certainly would at no stage have had time to nip up to London, murder his estranged wife, and nip back. Even if he’d had any desire or inclination to do so.

  The final interviewee was Bob.

  ‘Of course I can prove I was at Chatham Towers all morning,’ he said. ‘Twice a week I go there and it takes me ’til early afternoon. I get there about eight and I don’t usually leave ’til after two. I know the people who go off to work early, and I do their terraces first. Then I do the public areas. The place is usually deserted by nine o’clock, you see, because it’s all professional people, lawyers, accountants, City workers, that sort of thing. So I don’t get in anyone’s way. Before I start, Pete – that’s the porter – he always makes me a cuppa.’

  ‘And he did that this morning?’

  ‘Yes. We take a bit of a break, sit down in his little room in the basement, have a chat. Then I get stuck in again. There’s a lot to do at this time of year on the terraces and outside, clearing the last of the winter stuff, putting in the spring bedding plants and so on. And in the foyer, well, they always like it to look tiptop with a bit of colour, so I’m constantly replacing plants, usually just rotating them, you know. I don’t like to throw living things out. I bring them back to my place if I can find the room, put them in my cold frame if I need to, give ’em a bit of TLC—’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ interrupted Vogel impatiently. He didn’t need a lecture on horticulture, and if he’d been less wearied by the lack of progress he probably wouldn’t have let Bob go on as much as he had. He did his best to persevere.

  ‘So how long did you and Pete spend together drinking tea this morning?’

  ‘Oh, about twenty minutes, I suppose,’ said Bob.

  ‘And then you worked on the public areas. Was this Pete with you then?’

  ‘Some of the time. He has a desk in the foyer, but he has various jobs to do. He can confirm that I wouldn’t have had the chance to nip off and murder little Michelle Monahan.’ Bob shook his head sadly. ‘Look at me,’ he instructed. ‘Do you really think I’ve got it in me to murder somebody?’

  ‘You were in the army, Mr Buchanan, you have been to war.’

  ‘A long time ago. And one thing that did was to make me never again want to have anything to do with the death of another human being. If I’m the best suspect you can come up with, then I’d say you haven’t got very far with this investigation.’

  Vogel was inclined to agree. Stoically he carried on with his questioning.

  ‘What about when you went into the various flats to work on the private terraces? Pete wouldn’t have been with you then, would he? Presumably he wouldn’t have even known which flat you were supposed to be in.’

  ‘What do you mean “supposed to be”?’ asked Bob, showing a bit of spirit. ‘Anyway, I was in and out of my van all morning, wasn’t I? They let me park it in the courtyard round the back. I’m forever shifting plants about, fresh topsoil, fertilizer, tools and stuff, aren’t I? And I have to pass Pete’s desk every time, don’t I?’

  Vogel watched as Bob was escorted back to his cell. It wasn’t like him to feel so confused. He was also becoming frustrated. Every one of the seven appeared to have a solid alibi for the period during which Michelle was killed. And this left the policeman no further forward.

  He felt as if he were groping his way through a thick and impenetrable fog. And he was getting nowhere fast. Just as Bob had implied.

  Vogel sat for a moment, staring into space, aware of DC Jones watching him anxiously. Then he pulled himself together and marched into the MIT room, trying to look purposeful. Perhaps there would be news from the search teams or forensics. Also there might be word from the officers looking through CCTV footage, starting with the streets around Brydges Place, where Michelle’s body was found, and then moving further afield.

  Two murders had been committed and the murderer must have left clues. That was Vogel’s simple logic. Criminals make mistakes. Eventually. Sadistic killers leave a trail. It was up to him to uncover that trail and to follow it to its conclusion.

  nineteen

  In between my turns in the interview room I waited quietly in my cell. I could not believe they had not yet discovered me. Wasn’t it obvious by now that I was the perpetrator? Many times throughout my life I’d wondered if I was the only person in the world who wasn’t stupid. This was just another example. I could always manipulate people, make them believe what I wanted them to and do what I wanted them to do. It was as if God had given me some rare and dangerous talent, a genuine sixth sense, in exchange for what he had taken away.

  But nothing could ever make up for that.

  I have experienced guilt. I am not a sociopath. I have feelings, not just for myself, but for others too. I’d even felt a certain sense of remorse when I had to dispense with Michelle Monahan. Not much, it’s true. She’d always annoyed me. At first it had amused me to be wining and dining with a police officer, and her so blissfully unaware of my history. But she was just too pretty and perky, too bright and vivacious. It made me want to slap her. I was jealous. Boy, was I jealous. She had everything going for her, yet after she’d had a few drinks she would start to moan about her wicked ex-husband and her ruined life. There was nothing wrong with her life. She had a career. And her looks. Men seemed to fall at her feet. Even I’d found her attractive, and that was the most annoying thing of all.

  Nonetheless I regretted her passing. Strange, really, that I found myself almost mourning her death, as if I hadn’t been responsible for it.

  It had been quite different with the bitch. I felt no regret for her passing. I’d carved into her and removed her organs much as a butcher would clean out the insides of a pig, leaving little more than a bare gaping cavity. It pleased me that I had been efficient, quite casually efficient. I’d felt nothing for her. Indeed, as I’d watched the bitch’s life blood flow, spilling across the floor, puddling at my feet, I experienced only a sense of release.

  I had lusted after vengeance for so long, never imagining that it would one day come within my reach. So, when I severed the bitch’s genitalia and plucked out her womb, I had felt, more than anything else, triumphant. I had finally been avenged.

  Once it was done, and the bitch was dead, I considered, then, taking my own life. After all, thanks to her, it had always been a total disappointment to me. When I was younger I would sometimes wake up in the mornings and feel a fleeting moment of hope at the thought of a new day. Then I would remember my own reality. Every day is the first day of the rest of your life, they say. It could never be like that for me. Every day of my life I had to bear the legacy of what the bitch had done, what she had turned me into – a wretched apology for a human being, a damaged, empty shell.

  Marlena. So wonderful,
so funny, such a character. Everyone loved Marlena. Even I had loved Marlena, hadn’t I? Before I’d learned the bitter truth.

  My one regret was that I hadn’t killed her sooner. It offended me that she had lived so long, unscarred by what she had done. She’d claimed, in her dying agony, sputtering through the gag I had made for her, that she hadn’t realized the damage she had done. Begging for mercy – she who had shown none! She’d thrown me aside, leaving me to suffer, not just then but for the rest of my life. Self-preservation had been her only concern. She’d had no thought for me – until the day I finally caught up with her.

  Oh, I had given her exactly what she deserved. I took my time, let her know what it was to feel pain as I sliced into her skin. My God had ordained that she be delivered unto his faithful servant. He guided my hand as I hacked out her womb, the very symbol of motherhood, which had no place within her.

  I had destroyed her just as she had destroyed me.

  Michelle, on the other hand, met a quick and relatively painless death. She brought it on herself. If she hadn’t invaded my privacy, sneaking into places where she was not welcome, it wouldn’t have happened. But she left me with no alternative. Had I not acted, she would have revealed me – for what I am, as well as for what I had done. And it was the prospect of the former which distressed me far more than the latter. There are worse things than being branded a murderer. A prison sentence would be as nothing compared to what I had endured. But to have the world know what lay behind the facade I had spent so many years crafting and constructing? I could not face that. No, that I could not allow. Therefore Michelle had to die. I knew I shouldn’t reproach myself for what she had forced me to do. She had got what she deserved.

  Now I must wait, as I have waited in the past, careful to give nothing away. That detective, Vogel, he was supposed to be clever, wasn’t he? I half expected him to burst into my cell at any moment and declare that he was ready to charge me with double murder. If he were really clever, possibly other murders too. But time passed. I knew that, if no charge was brought, I could only be kept in custody for thirty-six hours. Unless a magistrates’ court allowed a brief extension. And therein lies a most curious aspect of British law. In order to protect the innocent, the guilty share all manner of privileges.