Rogue Killer

by Leigh Russell

  Geraldine recalled the words of a local intelligence officer: ‘We’re like a foreign army fighting guerilla warfare in the mountains against an indigenous army who know the terrain.’ With a sigh, she turned to the next witness statement and read depressingly familiar words. ‘It all happened so fast…’

  8

  One of the visual image detection officers reported seeing a woman walking quickly along High Ousegate away from Pope’s Head Alley shortly after midnight on the night of the murder. Geraldine went straight along the corridor to watch the footage. It wasn’t absolutely clear the woman had come out of Pope’s Head Alley but it was possible, in which case she might have caught sight of the killer just before the attack. She might even have witnessed the murder and been too frightened to come forward. Geraldine asked her colleague to replay the film and they watched it carefully together. Recorded after night had fallen, the image was indistinct, but they could see the woman had long dark hair, and she was in a hurry. Something about her rapid stride drew Geraldine’s attention. There could have been any number of reasons why she was walking so fast, not least of which was that it was late and she was out on the streets alone. All the same, Geraldine asked the visual image detection officer to try and trace where the woman went.

  ‘She could be a vital witness in our murder enquiry,’ she said. ‘Good work spotting her.’

  The constable nodded and turned back to her screen, smiling.

  When Geraldine reported the discovery to the detective chief inspector, Eileen was sceptical about how useful the sighting might be.

  ‘Just because someone was walking along the street nearby doesn’t mean they witnessed the murder. We don’t even know who this woman is. As evidence, it’s pretty flimsy, but follow it up, Geraldine. Let’s see what we can find out.’

  The visual image detection officer called Geraldine to say she had followed the woman as far as she could. After leaving the western end of High Ousegate, the woman had turned right into Coney Street, then right again along St Helens Square, doubling back on herself to pass the Minster and along Petergate to Gillygate where she had disappeared into a side street. The whole journey had only been just over a mile, although she could have taken a shorter route along Pope’s Head Alley into Peter Lane.

  ‘Can you identify the point where she had turned off Gillygate, before she disappeared from view?’ Geraldine asked.

  ‘Yes. We can pinpoint that exactly.’

  ‘Good work.’

  What was even more encouraging was that the street the woman had turned into was a dead end. Geraldine thought she might drive there after work and look for the woman, but as she was packing up to leave, Ian stopped by her desk and asked her whether she would like to go for a drink on her way home. His fair hair was neatly combed, but there was an unfamiliar stubble on his chin and he looked tired. She had the impression he was more troubled than usual, and wondered whether he was focusing on the case or thinking about his estranged wife. Thinking he might want to talk about his marital problems, she postponed her planned trip to Gillygate and nodded.

  ‘That would be nice.’

  They walked together along the street to the nearby pub and Geraldine took a seat while Ian fetched a couple of beers.

  ‘How’s things with you?’ Geraldine asked as he sat down opposite her in a brooding silence. ‘Have you heard from Bev at all? Or would you rather not talk about it?’

  ‘It?’ he replied, raising his eyebrows.

  ‘You know what I mean. Your marriage. And the baby.’

  ‘The marriage is over, and the baby’s not mine,’ he replied shortly. ‘She ran off with her former boss, and they’re having a baby. What more is there to say?’

  Before she could respond, Geraldine was vexed to see their young colleague, Naomi, approaching.

  ‘Can I join you?’

  Geraldine would have liked to continue her conversation with Ian in private but she could hardly object, so she smiled up at her young colleague as Ian grunted his assent.

  ‘So, what are we talking about?’ Naomi asked as she sat down. ‘I take it you’re discussing the case?’

  Geraldine smiled to hide her resentment at the intrusion, and Ian grunted again.

  Oblivious to the fact that she had interrupted a completely different conversation, Naomi went on.

  ‘Eileen’s idea is probably right.’

  ‘What? That it was a mugging gone wrong?’ Geraldine asked. ‘I don’t see why this murder would be anything to do with the muggers. Firstly, the victim wasn’t robbed, so it actually makes no sense to assume this was a mugging.’

  ‘Perhaps they were disturbed?’

  ‘There was no evidence of that, and nothing to connect the muggers to the murder,’ Geraldine replied, doing her best to hide her annoyance. ‘I mean, the two might be linked but it’s no more than a stab in the dark to think that, if you’ll pardon the pun. I just think it’s early days to begin indulging in unsubstantiated speculation.’

  ‘So what are your thoughts on the murder?’ Ian asked.

  Geraldine told them about the woman who had been spotted on CCTV.

  ‘She just appeared out of nowhere, so she could have come from Pope’s Head Alley.’

  ‘Isn’t that just speculation?’ Naomi muttered.

  ‘No, it’s something to regard as a possible lead,’ Geraldine snapped. Aware that she was allowing her irritation to show, she went on in a more measured tone. ‘If she did come from Pope’s Head Alley, I just wonder whether she might have seen the killer. The thing is, she could have taken a short cut along there but she chose to walk the long way round along Coney Street. Maybe she didn’t want to walk past something she’d seen?’

  ‘Or perhaps she didn’t want to walk along a snickelway late at night,’ Naomi replied. ‘Anyway, if she’d seen anything, she would have spoken to us. This is a murder investigation. People can’t choose not to tell us anything they know.’

  ‘She wouldn’t necessarily have come forward,’ Geraldine replied.

  ‘It’s naive to think everyone is public spirited and wants to help us,’ Ian agreed.

  Finishing her drink, Geraldine stood up. ‘I think it’s time I went home,’ she said. ‘I don’t know about you two, but I’m worn out.’

  Naomi turned to Ian. ‘Are you hungry?’

  Without waiting to hear his reply, Geraldine left. At the door she glanced back. Naomi was still sitting beside Ian, talking to him, and he was leaning forward in his chair, nodding and smiling. With a sigh, Geraldine walked back to her car alone. Almost without thinking she drove to Gillygate. Parking her car at the end of the side road where the woman with long dark hair had vanished, she walked along the pavement, wondering where the woman lived. Seeing a man manoeuvring his bicycle through a gate, she hailed him as she passed.

  ‘I’m looking for a friend of mine,’ she said. ‘She’s got long dark hair.’

  She hoped he wouldn’t ask her for her friend’s name. If he did, she would have to make something up, which might render her question pointless. But he shook his head.

  ‘Sorry, I’ve only recently moved in. I don’t know anyone around here.’

  Geraldine hung around for a while, walking slowly along the pavement. At the end of the street she saw a B & B sign in one of the windows, and rang the bell. A portly woman answered the door.

  ‘Excuse me, I’m not looking for a room.’

  The landlady’s expression altered subtly but she asked Geraldine politely enough what she wanted. Geraldine trotted out the same story: that she was looking for a friend. She held back from showing her identity card. If the woman she was looking for had seen anything at the crime scene, she was clearly in no hurry to share her information with the police. That being the case, Geraldine thought it best not to alert her to the fact that they were looking for her.

  ‘There are a few
women along here who might fit that description,’ the woman replied.

  Geraldine waited, wary of appearing too keen.

  ‘But I’m not sure I should tell you,’ the landlady added. ‘I mean, I don’t suppose it’s any great secret, or anything. You could have seen her walking by. But it’s really none of my business. I think I’d rather not say.’

  Reluctantly, Geraldine took out her identity card. ‘I’d like you to be discreet about this, please. I’m investigating a crime.’

  The landlady’s eyes widened in alarm.

  ‘The woman who lives along here isn’t suspected of any criminal activity, but we think she might have witnessed something that could help us in our enquiry, and she might not be aware that she could help us. So it’s vital I speak to her. But we don’t want to worry her by letting her think we’re looking for her. It’s nothing like that.’ She laughed. ‘We’d normally just put out a request for her to come forward via the media, and hope for a response, but as we happen to have stumbled on the fact that she lives somewhere along this road, we thought we’d come and look for her.’

  It sounded slightly odd, but it was the truth. The landlady studied the card and nodded.

  ‘It could be the woman who lives three doors down,’ she said. ‘She’s the only one I can think of with very long hair. But that’s all I can tell you about her. We’ve never spoken. I’ve just seen her going by, usually late at night.’

  Geraldine thanked her and went to the house the landlady had pointed out, but there was no answer when she rang the bell. Concealing her own identity, she checked with the neighbours on either side of the house, both of whom confirmed what the landlady had said. There was little point in hanging around, so having identified a house where the potential witness might live she left, intending to return the following day. If this woman could tell her anything that might help the police to track down the killer, Geraldine wanted to hear about it. Thoughtfully she wrote up her notes that evening, hoping she was wrong. A gang of muggers would be much easier to track down than an intelligent solitary killer.

  9

  The day after the body was discovered, a short article appeared in the local papers about his recent victim. Frowning with concentration, he read that a local school teacher had received a fatal stab wound in Pope’s Head Alley. The article went on to give details of the location, which ran between Peter Lane and High Ousegate. The street names made him smile. They had a magical ring to them, an other-worldly resonance, reminding him of the Narnia books he used to read as a child. There was a photograph of the alleyway – without a body – an image pulled off the internet.

  He stared at the small black and white picture, remembering how he had followed his victim. The man had made it easy for him, stumbling along the narrow passage without once looking round. He had even been singing under his breath, preventing any possibility that he might hear footsteps behind him. He had been too drunk to resist the attack, too drunk even to understand what was happening to him. By the time he grasped what was going on, it was too late. Not until blood spurted from his throat had his eyes widened in understanding, but by then his eyes were already glazing over and he was sinking to the ground.

  ‘You… you…’ he had stammered, his voice slurred with drink, and gurgling as the blood reached his throat.

  The dying man had lifted his arms, reaching out for help. Their eyes met above the bloody hands raised in supplication, and then the arms fell back and he lay still. Once his victim was dead, the killer had slipped away. No one saw him leave the lane, his bloody accoutrements concealed in the rucksack he had carefully placed out of range of the gushing blood.

  The paper gave the victim’s age as thirty-two, and said he had lived and worked in York, but there was no mention of his name. That was a pity. It somehow added to his satisfaction to be able to think of his victims by name. But that would no doubt be forthcoming in time. He had learned to be patient. The rest of the article comprised comments from the headmaster of the school where he had taught, and a brief reference to a wife left behind, grieving and in shock. According to the head, the victim had been ‘a gifted teacher who will be sorely missed by his pupils and colleagues’.

  He laughed out loud at that. The head would never have said, ‘He was a boring teacher whose loss will give his pupils a welcome break from lessons,’ even though that was far more likely to be true.

  The article went on to say the police were following several leads, and a senior investigating officer was quoted as saying they were expecting to make an arrest soon. As if!

  ‘In your dreams, Detective Chief Inspector Eileen Duncan,’ he muttered.

  But he wasn’t angry. On the contrary, their lies made him smile.

  After that he kept a careful eye on the papers and watched the local news on the television, and was pleased when interest in the case quickly died down. Within a few days it was no longer mentioned at all, as though it had never happened. He smiled. He liked to keep things strictly between himself and the people he killed. Discretion was vital; the less fuss his murders provoked, the less likely he was to be caught. And he had no intention of being caught. Not now. Not ever.

  10

  Geraldine had seen the papers, and now the item had attracted attention from the local television news, where a self-appointed community spokesperson was accusing the police of negligence in allowing a gang of muggers free rein to run amok on the streets of the city. Geraldine listened to a few minutes of a discussion where a relatively mild-mannered police representative was struggling to counter the opinionated campaigner’s arguments.

  ‘So what you’re telling us is that the police are powerless to protect us?’

  ‘No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. Please don’t twist my words –’

  ‘You told us the police have been unable to stop these muggings, so the criminals responsible – and let’s not mince words, these are dangerous criminals we’re talking about here – have been allowed to continue roaming the streets unhindered, terrorising their victims, and now they’ve murdered an innocent man, which was a tragedy waiting to happen. So I repeat my question: what’s the point of paying the police if they can’t protect our citizens?’

  ‘What I said was –’

  ‘We all heard what you said. It’s a matter of public record now.’

  ‘If you’d let me finish my point –’

  ‘Answer my question. What is being done to stop this danger threatening the safety of everyone walking on the streets of York? Or are we all to stay indoors for fear of being murdered?’

  ‘The police are following several leads –’

  ‘Everyone knows those are empty words. The police still don’t know who’s responsible for killing Grant Marcus, do they?’

  Geraldine muted the television in disgust. The media had allowed them only four days to investigate before leaping in with their scaremongering, with the result that the police spokesperson was forced to deal with a verbal lashing live on air. Even allowing for the fact that it was always easier to attack than defend, the police came across as feeble. She doubted the discussion would be allowed to develop into a justified complaint about limited police resources. A fatal assault on an innocent man was far more sensational than the problem of reduced budgets and insufficient manpower. Angrily, she flicked through the channels until she found an old black and white war film. Life had seemed so much simpler then, when everyone could identify a common enemy.

  She and Ariadne commiserated over the appalling television debate as they sat drinking coffee in the canteen the following morning.

  ‘The trouble is, these days moral lines are increasingly blurred,’ Ariadne complained. ‘Before long television presenters are going to be giving air time to some campaigner who’s demanding to know what’s being done to help the poor youths abandoned by society, left to walk the streets mugging and killing people. They’ll no
longer be treated as criminals but unfortunate victims of the system, and we’ll be the bad guys.’

  ‘I think we already are,’ Geraldine replied.

  She wondered how things had gone so badly wrong as they sat swapping horror stories about how the police were disrespected, until it was time for the early morning briefing.

  Eileen looked around, one foot tapping impatiently on the floor.

  ‘Grant’s widow is agitating to know when she can arrange the funeral, and of course that won’t be for a while, and in the meantime she’s been speaking to some bloody journalist, and there’s a huge palaver blowing up about it in the media. Why the hell can’t they back off and leave us to get on with the job?’ It was a rhetorical question.

  Eileen looked around the incident room with a glare that Geraldine had come to recognise as typical of her when a case was proceeding slowly, as if she thought there was more the assembled officers could be doing to track down the culprit. Geraldine looked over at Ian who was on the other side of the room. When she first arrived in York, they had shared a mutual impatience with the detective chief inspector’s hectoring. But Ian was standing beside Naomi and now, instead of catching Geraldine’s eye, he turned his head to exchange a glance with Naomi. Geraldine suppressed an irrational flush of jealousy. Ian was entitled to stand next to Naomi, and to look at her. At last Eileen drew the meeting to a close and they dispersed to continue with their work.

  Geraldine and Ian had been studying statements given by the victims of recent muggings, listing common features that appeared in the descriptions of the muggers themselves. They were fairly diverse, and most of them were uselessly vague, but some similar details cropped up in several of the accounts. A number of the witnesses were so hysterical that, for the most part, their exaggerated claims had to be discounted. The lucid ones reported seeing three youths, the first one stocky, the second tall and skinny, and the third member of the gang small and, according to one witness, quite possibly the youngest of the three.