Femur saw one of the Kingsford officers sniggering with a mate as they mouthed the word ‘feathery’and waggled limp wrists at each other. He ignored them. If that was the worst they could find to do to irritate him, he’d be on velvet for the whole investigation.
‘Kara Huggate was bigger, older, blonde and notably square-chinned. Where the earlier victims were physically fragile, she was powerful. She could hardly have been more different. Why?’
‘Could’ve been a different man wot dun it, sir,’ suggested one of the local officers, with a yokel’s earnestness.
It was so convincing a picture of stupidity that, if Femur hadn’t been well aware that it took a certain amount of intelligence to get into CID, he might have taken the comment at face value and set about reminding them that he’d just raised the possibility himself. A few of the other locals sniggered.
‘Or something could’ve happened to the Kingsford Rapist during the intervening period to make him select a new type of victim,’ Femur went on. ‘He’s been inactive now for three years …
‘As far as we know,’ said the thin, dark chap from the back row. Femur suddenly remembered his name: Stephen Owler.
‘He could’ve moved away from the area and been knocking off older women up in the north or somewhere and grown out of feathery girls, sir.’
‘Good point, Owler. Get on to the central reporting desk at the Yard and find out what they’ve got on unidentified rapists operating anywhere in the country.’
‘Or he could’ve been done for something else and spent the time banged up somewhere,’ suggested Brian Jones, the younger of the two AMIP constables Femur had brought with him.
‘Quite possible, Bri. And, if so, there might’ve been a probation officer who bugged him or a woman from the Board of Visitors, prison governor or what-have-you, who’s given him a new blueprint for the ideal victim. See what you can dig up about any local men who’ve recently been released, will you?’
‘Sure, Guv.’
‘Right. Another possibility is that something happened to the Kingsford Rapist after his last known outing, when, as you will remember, he first killed.’ Femur glanced behind him at the photographs and saw the head-and-shoulders shot of the nineteen-year-old who had died. He pointed to her to make them concentrate. ‘Maybe the knowledge that he’d murdered someone shocked him into stopping for a while. Or maybe something in his life changed and gave him some kind of legitimate satisfaction that meant he didn’t need to terrorise young women to make himself feel powerful.’
‘Like what, Guv?’ Jones sounded puzzled. Femur didn’t think he was putting it on for the benefit of the local mob.
‘I don’t know, Bri. We’ll have to go to the shrinks for that. But I think it’s possible there was something, something that was reversed when he encountered Kara Huggate.’
‘Maybe she sussed him, sir,’ suggested Owler. He was frowning. ‘She’d only recently moved to Kingsford, hadn’t she? And she was a social worker, so she’d had the right sort of experience. Maybe she’d met him somewhere and realised who he was.’
There was an audible whisper of ‘Teacher’s pet’from the middle of the room. Femur ignored it and nodded at Owler to encourage him.
‘Or maybe when they met she said something that spooked him.’ Owler was beginning to look excited. ‘Yes, Guv, couldn’t it be that? He’s been going straight since the first killing and thinks he’s got away with it. Then he runs into Huggate somewhere around Kingsford, at work maybe or just socialising, and they talk. She says something casual about rape or women or murder that tickles him up and makes him think she knows what he’s done, so he decides to get rid of her. Couldn’t it be as simple as that?’
‘I’d have said that’s as likely as anything else at this stage,’ Femur said, pleased that his snap judgement of Owler looked like being correct. He glanced around the room, bringing in all the others, who hadn’t yet spoken. ‘But don’t forget, any of you, it’s more than possible that this case has nothing to do with the Kingsford Rapist. The similarities could be coincidence, or we could have a deliberate copycat on our hands.’
There was a sudden coldness in the room, as though someone in the crowd disagreed powerfully. Femur was surprised. He couldn’t see anything on any of the faces to account for it.
‘That means we’ve got to follow all feasible lines of inquiry before the trail gets cold. Right?’
There were a few desultory murmurs of agreement.
‘Right. So, what else have we got, Tony?’ Bill Femur looked towards his AMIP sergeant, trying not to show too much affection – that was as sure a way as any to piss off the locals – and nodded encouragement.
‘OK, Guv. Well, Sergeant Jenkins has been talking to the victim’s next of kin – that’s her mother. He’s got details of a couple of people who could’ve wanted her out of the way. Jenkins?’
Femur watched a big bloke, rugger-player by the look of him, with a great thatch of reddish hair, get to his feet and prop himself up against the wall as though he was far too tired to stand up by himself.
‘First there’s the manager of a Middlesex children’s home, sir. He was up in court this morning, where Huggate was due to give evidence against him. We think he could’ve paid someone to warn her off and it went too far. Or he could’ve had a go himself, and made sure she’d never do him any harm. Two constables, Evans and Watkins, are up in town interviewing the relevant people now.’
Tony Blacker pushed one hand through his smooth brown hair and tugged at his left earlobe as he watched Femur’s impatient face.
‘Then there’s Dr Gerard Thomplon, known as Jed,’ Jenkins went on, apparently unaware of any of it. ‘He’s a GP from the same area as the children’s home. He and Huggate lived together for five years and split up a few months back. Her mother says it was a nasty break-up and he’s an angry sort of bloke.’
‘Yeah,’ said Blacker. ‘And the danger time for women who’ve escaped a violent relationship is now thought to be up to eighteen months, so that would fit. Or he could’ve been trying to get her back and lost his temper when she refused again. Someone’ll have to interview him soon, Guv.’
‘Right, Tony. You’d better take that one on.’ Femur grinned around the room, inviting a laugh, and then looked back at his sergeant. ‘You’ve always been good with men who’ve a beef against uppity women.’
‘Yeah, I can slag off any feminist over a pint,’ agreed Blacker, well aware of what Femur was trying to do and happy enough to play along. They’d been a double-act for long enough to know when they had to resort to blokery to get people on side. The atmosphere in the incident room warmed up enough to justify what they were doing, although one or two of the younger women looked pissed-off. That was a pity but only to be expected.
‘And then, of course,’ Blacker went on, in his usual voice, ‘there’re her clients, maybe an addict who hadn’t had his methadone and thought she should’ve helped him, a schizophrenic who’d decided he could do without chlorpromazine and then got paranoid about her, an angry parent of some young scrote, lifer out on licence … Could have been any of the above.’
‘Or none,’ said a joker in the second row.
‘Right,’ said Femur, ignoring him. ‘Thanks, Jenkins, Tony. Now, Kara Huggate had neighbours. Someone must have seen or heard something, even though the gardens in Church Lane are bigger than your average semi and might’ve given the villain some protection. I want exhaustive door-to-door in Church Lane itself and in the next two streets either side. I want her phone bills and answering-machine tapes. I want any letters found in the cottage. I want a list of all her clients and their whereabouts last night. Right.’
He looked at the officers’names listed on his clipboard and started to hand out the tasks.
‘Owler!’ he called, when he’d got to the end.
‘Sir?’
‘When you’ve finished with the CRD at the Yard, I want you to get hold of the old Kingsford Rapist files and cross-check the SOC
O evidence, and the pathologists’and all the other lab reports with everything that comes through on Huggate. I want to know of every item that matches and all the discrepancies, too. All of them. Got that?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Right. Now, Jenkins, what was she doing yesterday? Who did she see?’
‘Not sure yet, sir. We haven’t had time to get a list from her office.’
‘I’ve got her diaries here, Guv.’ Blacker’s voice was as soothing as warm black treacle, and it had a bite in it, too: just like black treacle. ‘This year’s and last.’
‘Right. Somebody’s got brains, then. Let’s have a shufti.’
Jenkins looked bootfaced, as though he’d been personally bollocked.
Femur hid his contempt as he riffled through the current diary, trying to get some fix on the kind of woman Kara Huggate had been and how she’d arranged her life. January and February were filled with appointments, mostly work-related from the look of them, but the pages were also decorated with little drawings, doodles usually, and also reminders to pay specific bills and buy more washing powder and milk. It looked as if she’d reached that stage in midlife when women begin to mistrust their memory, or perhaps she had so much to think about that trivialities like shopping lists and bills could not be allowed to take up any mental space. Femur sympathised. At last he turned to yesterday’s page and sighed.
‘So. Who’s this “S”, then?’ Femur looked up at the local officers who were still hanging around not getting on with the jobs he’d given them. ‘Anyone any idea? Jenkins? Owler?’
He’d get all their names straight in the end, but those two were already stuck in his short-term memory so he’d concentrate on them for the moment.
When no one said anything, Femur tried again: ‘She’s got him listed for what looks like yesterday evening. Who is he? Why –’
‘Why should it be a he?’ asked one of the women. The sulkiness of her voice made it quite clear to Femur that she, at least, knew why he was so impatient with them all. He’d better get her name soon.
‘Good point. But not the most important. No one any idea of the identity of this character?’ Femur asked again, thinking, dozy buggers. Why didn’t they check out S the minute the body was discovered instead of waiting for us? If they’ve already talked to the victim’s mother about her life and possible enemies, and sent two officers chasing off after the ex-boyfriend and some man she was supposed to be giving evidence against in court, why the hell haven’t they bothered to find out who she was due to meet just before she died? He shook his head. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have thought there was some kind of deliberate obstruction going on. But long experience told him that it was much more likely to be cock-up than conspiracy.
‘No one’s got any idea yet, Guv,’ said Blacker, earning himself a few useful brownie points from the locals, who were drifting away to start doing what they’d been told. ‘But we’ll get on to it.’
Femur had picked up last year’s diary and was leafing back to Kara’s first months in Kingsford, looking for other mentions of S. ‘She’s had a fair lot of meetings with him, usually on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. Never weekends. No times are ever mentioned, only the initial. But it’s always at the foot of the page, which suggests it’s an evening date. Right, Tony. Give it number-one priority. Even if he didn’t kill her, he’ll be able to give us a better fix on the time she was last seen alive.’
‘It must be a boyfriend, don’t you think, Guv? Or maybe a client.’ The sergeant was picking his ear again as he always did when he was worried.
Femur was surprised he’d started so soon, it was a habit that didn’t usually appear until much later in an investigation. Perhaps he, too, was more than usually sickened by what had been done to Kara Huggate. ‘Boyfriend sounds more likely to me,’ Femur said. ‘She’s been drawing hearts and flowers round the initial here. And here, too.’
‘Looks like she was sitting by the phone doodling as they talked, doesn’t it?’ said a jaunty voice from behind them. ‘My sister does that when she’s first in love. Little hearts when she’s feeling soft and romantic, then houses, like that one there, when she starts working out how to get the poor bugger to talk engagement rings and wedding bells. She’s never succeeded yet. I’d say Huggate was in love and thinking about how to get the bloke to commit.’
Femur and Blacker exchanged glances. It was a valid point, but the young constable hadn’t been invited to make it, and in any case he should’ve been out of the room doing what he’d been told.
‘Owler?’ said Bill Femur, making himself sound surprised. ‘You still here? Why aren’t you phoning Scotland Yard?’
‘On my way, sir. Sorry, sir.’
When he’d gone, Blacker said, ‘If this S is a new boyfriend, that could fit with Owler’s other idea, couldn’t it?’
‘That Huggate could have met the Kingsford Rapist socially and spooked him? Yes, it could. Either way we’ll have to find out. In the meantime, Bri?’
‘Yes, Guv?’ said the AMIP constable.
‘Get on to the lab and tell them to hurry up with Kara’s address book. She must’ve had one. Get it as soon as you can and check out everyone with the letter S in the first or surname, wherever they are. OK?’
‘Sure.’
‘What about me, Guv?’ asked Caroline Lyalt, the second of the AMIP constables. She was twenty-six and had already passed her sergeant’s exam but hadn’t yet got the promotion she deserved. If this case went the right way, it might do the trick, and that was another reason for Femur to pull out all the stops. Not that he needed another reason.
He had a lot of time for Caroline. In fact, he often thought that if she’d been his daughter he’d’ve been bloody proud of her: serious but always ready to see a joke, sensitive but never neurotic, attractive but not bothered about it, and a hard-worker. He didn’t give a toss that she had a woman lover. In some ways, it made it easier for him, spending as much time with her as he did, but he knew Tony found it tough. Still, they were all old enough to work round that.
‘Right, Caroline, I want you to make a start interviewing the five earlier victims who survived and the family of the one who died. I know they were all questioned three years ago, but there may be something that was missed then which might help us this time.’ He smiled. ‘If there was, you’ll get it, even if no one else could. Pick one of the locals to take with you and I’ll excuse her the house-to-house.’
Caroline laughed. ‘Looking for a bit of easy popularity for me, Guv?’
‘They’ve got to like one of us, Cally,’ he said, ignoring Tony’s disapproval. ‘You’re the obvious candidate. You have my permission to slag me off as much as you think’ll help. OK. Now, hop it and leave Tony and me to a bit of man’s work.’
Caroline made her favourite insulting gesture, laughed at Blacker’s inadequately hidden disapproval, and went off to select her assistant.
‘Is that wise, Guv? Caroline will pick one of the girls, you know, and you don’t want her to start something …
‘Oh, grow up, Tony,’ said Femur, with rare irritation. ‘Just because she’s a dyke it doesn’t mean she’s a lunatic – or insatiable. She’s much less likely to make a pass than you are, or Bri. She’s sorted, settled. She’s not looking for anyone else.’
‘Oh? I thought … Have you met her, er …?’
‘Yes.’ Femur was grimly amused at his sergeant’s mixture of curiosity and revulsion. ‘She’s a ravishing actress you’d give your eye-teeth for. Take it from me. Besides which, she’s got a will of steel and a mind like a razor.’
‘Actress, Guv?’ He looked astonished, presumably having expected a whiskery dungarees-clad activist of some kind. ‘Anyone famous?’
‘Yes. Even you’d’ve heard of her, but don’t even think about it. I’m not going to tell you. She’s Caroline’s story, not mine. Now, let’s do some work.’
Chapter Three
Trish was lying on one of the two enormous black sofas in her c
onverted warehouse flat. Her overcoat was slung across the back of a chair just inside the front door and her shoes and tights lay in a heap next to her briefcase. Hating the feel of tights biting around her waist and chafing her thighs, she always stripped them off as soon as she got home. She usually had a shower and changed into jeans, too, but this evening she wanted to write to Kara’s mother first. In spite of the central heating, her bare legs felt waxy and very cold, but she paid no attention.
The letter was much harder to write than she’d expected. If she had ever met the widowed Mrs Huggate it might have been easier, but all she had to go on were Kara’s guarded comments. They had left Trish with the impression of a savagely disappointed woman who had loaded her resentments on to her daughter and blamed her for them. That wasn’t-how Kara had seen it, but it had been Trish’s interpretation of the little Kara had said. She had apparently believed, quite simply, that her mother detested her.
When Trish had protested, Kara had said that she had felt disliked from the moment she became properly conscious of having a separate existence. She had added, half-laughing, that she had long ago realised there was no point holding grudges, so she’d tried to mend things: to find some way in which she and her mother could learn to like each other. But it had never worked. Nothing Kara had ever been able to do had seemed enough to wipe out her lifelong shortcomings: her dreadful appearance, with hair much too long for a woman of her age; her frightful friends; her unsuitable job, working with ‘deviants and criminals’; and her refusal to live a life that would have helped her mother meet the kind of people she deserved to know.
As she thought about the woman Kara had described, Trish wrote draft after draft. None of them could possibly have been sent. They were all far too cold. Reminding herself that any woman, however disappointed or disagreeable she might have been, must mourn a daughter killed as Kara had been, Trish tore up the fifth version and started again.
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