Return

by Brian Freemantle

  * * *

  Barry Westmore, head of the forensic team, was waiting when Powell got back to the incident room. Hair and bone samples from the exhumed skeleton in the grave of Myron Nolan had produced an identical DNA for each American crime scene, as well as those in England.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The investigation was suddenly moving at remarkable speed but still not fast enough now that their time limit to prevent more killing was measured in hours. And there were immediate operational difficulties because of its expansion.

  With the discovery of the Gatwick flight it was obvious that Townsend and Basildon should split up, keeping London as the central control point but with Basildon supervising the airport ambush from a separate incident room at Crawley. The problem arose from the initial refusal of a third Chief Constable to accept the intrusion of a chief superintendent from one force and Rapid Response units from London, relegating his officers to subsidiary back-up. It was settled only by the personal intervention of the British Home Secretary, who in turn had had a personal Sunday night telephone conversation with the American Attorney-General during which mutual co-operation and jurisdiction between America and the United Kingdom had been made clear. The Home Secretary spoke to all three police controllers, insisting on no territorial jealousies, and making it his decision that the arrest would be organized as originally proposed. While resolving the practicality of command and hoped-for execution, it meant that Henry Basildon and Christopher Pennington confronted a solid wall of resentment when they finally got to Crawley, which worsened with the arrival of the three Rapid Response units.

  Four o’clock in the morning is the quietest time at Gatwick, the time Basildon chose personally to go there with Pennington, the unit commander Roger Cooke and a Crawley chief superintendent, George Preston. Even before they studied the maps and plans of the airport complex Cooke, a superintendent, chose passport control for the seizure. The plan was to put men around the Hertz receiving desk, for the first alert of Taylor’s return and to position others in plain clothes as apparent passengers who would gradually close in upon the man as he moved through the airport, totally to enclose him at passport control. Their return to the police headquarters coincided with Jeri Lobonski getting there, and more resentment.

  Several hours earlier Hertz had frustratingly confirmed the rental by a Harold Taylor from London airport of a blue Ford Escort not fitted with the Hertz automatic electronic tracking facility. It had, however, been hired on the Visa credit card and Visa’s London processing centre confirmed its use also to buy eight gallons of petrol at a Richmond garage on the day of Samuel Hargreaves’s death: the attendant had even written the Escort’s number on the credit card receipt, as an extra payment insurance. A watch was established on the number but the department manager warned there was sometimes up to a week’s delay in their receiving the confirming transaction docket after the computer-recorded purchase, which only got queried if the card had been cancelled for non-payment or reported stolen. By coincidence it was a confidence-flushed William Rodgers, who’d earlier found the Gatwick flight reservation, who spoke to the Visa authorities. At no time did he make it clear that the Visa was issued by an American bank, from which payment authorization would come direct, initially bypassing London, wrongly assuming the American source would have been obvious to the man to whom he was talking. The mistake caused a four-hour delay in getting any closer to Harold Taylor.

  The only national car number recognition computer operates from the vehicle registration centre in Wales – and is accessed by police only if a car is involved in a reportable incident – but Townsend logged an ‘advise-on-sight’ alert, covering every possibility, no matter how remote.

  And promptly at nine o’clock on the Monday morning he personally telephoned the Ministry of Defence, the previous day’s war museum search having proved fruitless, to be told by the first official he spoke to that the man didn’t have the slightest idea even where personnel records from 1949 of men seconded to the Four Power Control Commission were stored. Knowing from the Home Secretary’s earlier intervention that the investigation now had diplomatic and political muscle, Townsend gave the man thirty minutes to call him back with the guarantee that he’d found out and that a search was being made for the whereabouts of Major Walter Hibbs before he’d ensure that the Minister himself would be asked to do it.

  ‘You want confirmation of that in writing from the Prime Minister’s Office or the Home Secretary? Your choice,’ he exaggerated.

  ‘I wasn’t being serious,’ protested the man.

  ‘I am,’ said Townsend.

  And in the house in the hamlet known only locally as Lower Norwood Janet said: ‘This is going to be a special day, isn’t it darling? Mummy coming home, getting better.’

  ‘Very special,’ Taylor agreed. That’s why I bought the champagne, to welcome her back.’

  ‘What about to celebrate us?’

  ‘That too.’ He was happy, excited at what was to come.

  Janet had the gardener cut a lot of flowers, to brighten the drawing room with two homecoming arrangements and there were sufficient over to put in her mother’s bedroom. Taylor waited impatiently for Vera Potter to finish his room before carrying in his satchel, into which he crammed his intended binding cord and gagging tape. He only left two jackets and three pairs of trousers in the wardrobe, against the unlikely event of Janet coming into the room. All his other clothing – shirts, underwear, socks and shoes – he packed in readiness to leave quickly, after tonight’s ritual. As he did so he could hear Janet humming, happily, from her mother’s bedroom at the other end of the linking corridor. This time – this watering with blood – was going to be the best of any return. What, he wondered, was love like: the sort of feeling Janet claimed to have? Physical, like an erection or an orgasm? Or something completely different, an emotional experience that was beyond him? He would have liked to know. He didn’t like to admit failure of any kind – he never failed – but he remembered the shaman’s warning, so very long ago, that part of his sacrifice for the never-ending life was never to understand what ordinary mortals called love, for want – such a desperate want – of a better description.

  Taylor was uncomfortable about leaving his satchel in the house. He knew Janet well enough by now to be sure she would not look inside, even if she came into the room – which there was no reason for her to do, because they’d never share the same unconsummated bed again – but always before he’d kept the satchel with him at times like this and he felt unsettled not doing it.

  There was a key in his bedroom door, so he locked it before hunching over his current memorabilia. The eyes of Samuel Hargreaves and the hooker – and the cats – appeared to be losing their colour. A chemical reaction of the formaldehyde becoming overheated inside the trunk, from the sun, he guessed. He hefted the killing needle in his hand, like a practising juggler, lightly – so very lightly – touching the cutting edge of his scalpels. Could he do it? Just this once could he not kill first, to limit the blood flow, but start the dismemberment when Janet was still alive, so she’d feel it? He became excited again, erect, at the thought. He’d try. Just this once because of how different it had all been: extend the experience.

  He carefully repacked the specimen jars and his instruments – at the last moment remembering his souvenir letter from Hibbs to his wife – and put the satchel inside the wardrobe where the jackets and trousers remained. It had never been a consideration before, but why hadn’t he bought a small padlock to lock the satchel? They’d had them, all sizes and designs, in the gas station where he’d got the petrol and bought the cord and the tape. Stupid oversight. Too late now. Not important.

  They ate early, veal escalopes in a hot vinaigrette sauce with just new potatoes and al dente string beans that crunched when he ate them, and at the end of the meal Janet looked demandingly at him and he didn’t know what he was expected to say.

  Choosing safety he said, ‘That was excellen
t!’

  ‘I was trying to impress you.’

  Stupid whore! ‘You don’t have to try.’

  ‘So I’ve passed the kitchen test!’ she said.

  ‘You’ve passed every test. I’m not sure I can pass yours.’ Did ordinary people really talk shit like this? It was unbelievable!

  ‘You already have, my darling. Many, many times.’

  It was on his insistence that they left far too early; impatient now to get the old woman back to the house, where he’d have them both, whenever and however he chose. They were forty-five minutes ahead of schedule but Edith Hibbs was ready, as impatient as he was, sitting in her wheelchair, her few emergency belongings already packed up on her bed. Taylor demanded that he push the wheelchair, savouring the control. Nothing could save her now. She was his. Both were. Cat and mice, cat and mice: stupid mice, clever cat.

  There was a brief hiatus at the car, when he realized the old woman expected to be lifted into the vehicle and that he would have to come into physical contact with her to do it. He hated the feel of her bird-thin arm around his neck and having his arm beneath her sharp-boned legs to get her into the back seat, although she was very light, bird-like again and it wasn’t difficult.

  He didn’t have to bother much with conversation on the way back to the house. Janet and her mother kept up the bird analogy, chattering and chirping with inconsequential twittering he longed to silence. He had to lift her back into her wheelchair at the house and he did so glad that it was the last time he’d need to touch either of them other than on his terms, doing what he wanted to do.

  Edith Hibbs was delighted with the flowers and giggled in expectation when he appeared with the tray and the already arranged bottle and glasses.

  ‘Here’s to your recovery …’ toasted Taylor, first raising his glass towards the old woman. He turned the gesture sideways, to encompass her daughter: ‘… and to Janet and me.’

  ‘May the two of you never know misfortune,’ said the widow. In his excitement the slur the stroke had left in her voice was more obvious to him.

  ‘Trust me that we never will,’ said Taylor.

  In the FBI incident room in Pennsylvania Avenue Powell replaced the telephone from his third direct conversation with Townsend, getting up to go to Amy but seeing her crossing the room towards his side office. They met halfway.

  ‘He’s using the Visa card!’ he announced, triumphantly. ‘A place named Richmond, like in Virginia. We could get a trail.’

  ‘I know,’ said Amy. ‘That’s what I was coming to tell you.’ She led him back to her computer banks, pointing to two of her screens. ‘Here’s Richmond on his payment statement. What about Midhurst?’

  ‘What about Midhurst?’ echoed Powell.

  Amy held her finger to the previous day’s charge logged against the Visa number. ‘Yesterday he used it at another gas station at a place named Midhurst.’

  Powell was asked to hold, because Townsend was on the other line, so he disconnected to call Lobonski direct. Basildon had already found five Hibbses, none with military rank, in the telephone book, and was asembling squads to check each one when Townsend came through.

  ‘You don’t need to check them all,’ said Townsend. ‘It was the Ministry of Defence I was talking to.’

  * * *

  He forced a second glass of champagne upon a protesting Edith Hibbs and topped up his and Janet’s glasses, feeling as he always did in the last few moments, very calm, very relaxed. He’d make it a game to the very end. Janet was stupid – trusting – enough. And there was nothing the infirm old bitch could do to stop him. Done before she realized anything was wrong. Then play some more.

  ‘Back in a moment,’ he said. ‘Just going to get something.’

  In the bedroom he cut off two lengths of cord and fashioned a noose at one end of each, tightening both several times around his own wrist to ensure they closed smoothly. Satisfied, he coiled both lengths carefully just inside the very top of his satchel, looped to avoid either snagging on anything else when he pulled them out. He whistled tunelessly as he went back down the stairs, wanting them to know he was coming. They were both looking towards the door when he entered, Janet smiling curiously at the satchel.

  ‘A surprise!’ he declared.

  ‘This has got to stop,’ said Janet, imagining another gift.

  ‘It’s going to,’ he said. ‘Stand up and put your glass down.’

  Janet did as she was told. Her mother was smiling at them both.

  ‘Close your eyes and put your hands out, palms together!’ he commanded, reaching into the bag for the first length of cord.

  He actually had the noose open and held out as her arms came forward, snapping it closed and wrapping three more strands around her wrists before she jerked her eyes open, mouth wide in astonishment. He secured the binding by pulling the cord between the strands, needing only to immobilize her, before Janet said, ‘Darling … what—?’

  Without replying he kicked her, viciously, in the backs of her knees. She began to buckle and he forced her down further, behind her, looping the second noose around her ankles but this time running the cord up around her neck so that she was in a kneeling position with her head pulled up.

  ‘Stop it! What are you doing!’ she said, becoming frightened at last but not screaming.

  Her mother did, though: not really a scream, although she meant it to be. It came out as a small mewing sound, as she struggled to get up. He only half rose to shove her back but he did it so hard the chair teetered at the very edge of tipping over before righting itself.

  Janet was twisting her wrists, back and forth, trying to dislodge the cord but Taylor was in front of her again, wrapping more and more rope on top of what already held her, this time knotting it properly, as he did the further twine he wrapped around her ankles.

  Edith Hibbs was trying again to rise when he got to her and simply encircled her arms and chair back. Desperately she kicked out, catching his shin. He moved to back-hand her across the face but stopped himself. Instead he overcame her weak struggle and tethered her legs to those of the chair.

  Rigid with control the kneeling Janet said, ‘I don’t know what’s going on but I want it to stop. Please let us go.’

  ‘I can’t do that,’ said Taylor, flushed and smiling. ‘But you are going to know what’s going on. I’m going to tell you: tell you all of it.’

  * * *

  Although there was no outright panic everything was organized at great speed and there were mistakes and oversights, as there had been with the credit card. Townsend and Basildon agreed the strongest likelihood was that the family of Major Hibbs and anyone else who might have been in the house were already dead and that therefore the airport preparations had to remain in place although Basildon no longer needed to be there. Believing Harold Taylor was still likely to be in the village – and wanting to avoid warning him – they held back from flooding it with a police swoop from Midhurst. The larger force was moved into position to seal the area completely. Into the village itself went only the local policeman from the adjoining hamlet of Upper Norwood, although not in uniform, to look for the identifying blue Ford Escort. He was not to approach anyone in the vehicle, if he found it. Or go to the Hibbs house.

  It was only when they were on their way, their route being cleared by siren-blaring motorcycles, and followed by one of the Rapid Response units, that Henry Basildon realized their flawed reasoning.

  ‘We’re relying too much on suppposition,’ he declared. ‘We could be making a terrible mistake.’

  ‘How?’ demanded Jeri Lobonski.

  ‘Assuming they’re dead,’ said the other man. ‘If he hasn’t hit whoever’s there and they’re still alive we’ve got to warn them.’

  Basildon let the car phone ring a long time before disconnecting. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We didn’t guess wrong.’

  Taylor had stopped talking at the telephone’s ring, sniggering at the startled look of hope on both their faces. ‘What a
shame! No-one to answer it. An empty house, no-one at home. Another booking lost.’

  ‘This has gone on long enough! Let me up!’ said Janet.

  ‘Defiance! I like that. I can’t stand it when they start to whimper and plead. Piss themselves.’

  ‘What’s going on? Why are you doing this?’

  ‘Listen!’ he said. ‘Listen and don’t interrupt.’ He took the long-ago letter from the satchel, turning more towards the old woman. ‘It is insufficient for me to know that this inhuman monster is being removed from any civilized society for the rest of his unnecessary life,’ he read, looking up. ‘Recognize the words?’

  Edith Hibbs, speechless with terror, gave a vague head shake.

  ‘Your husband’s letter, when he was in Berlin. The one you kept upstairs in your boxes, with all that other crap.’

  ‘What have you done?’ demanded Janet, incredulous.

  Instead of replying Taylor proudly said, ‘That was me he was talking about! I’m the inhuman monster. He didn’t know how inhuman, but you’re going to.’

  ‘This doesn’t make any sense!’ said Janet. ‘Please let me up so we can talk about whatever’s wrong.’

  ‘Watch!’ he said, leaning closer to her. ‘This is the me you know …’ He transmogrified, moving his head back and forth between them: ‘… and this is the man your father – your husband – sat in judgement on in Berlin in 1949 …’

  Both women screamed, Janet much louder than her mother. Her eyes rolled up into her head, too, and she would have fainted if he hadn’t grabbed her. When she became aware of his touch she tried to pull away but couldn’t. He saw, disgusted, that Edith Hibbs had been sick.