‘He looked nervous,’ the witness added.
All the attacks followed a similar pattern. Standing in front of the victim to block his or her path, the sturdy youth pulled out a flick knife. As he did so, his accomplices positioned themselves around the victim who was thus hemmed in by a triangle of thieves. No one reported seeing the other two boys holding weapons. The boy brandishing a blade would bark at the victim to drop his or her possessions on the pavement. As soon as the two boys flanking the victim had darted forward to retrieve the stolen items, the three boys scuttled away.
‘So it looks as though we’ve got a ringleader,’ Geraldine said. ‘Maybe we can persuade one of his henchmen to talk.’
‘If we can find them,’ Ian replied grimly.
The gang didn’t appear to frequent a particular part of town but had struck in different areas and at different times of day. It seemed they wandered around searching for suitable victims out alone on quiet streets. Watching her colleague’s familiar features contorted in frustration, Geraldine swallowed a sigh.
‘Don’t look so down in the dumps,’ Ian said, glancing up and catching her expression. ‘We’ll get them in the end.’
Geraldine nodded, but she didn’t respond straightaway. She could hardly explain that she was feeling sad on his account, knowing that his wife would soon be giving birth to another man’s baby.
‘We always find our man,’ he added.
She did her best not to wince at the cliché. They both knew that even when they tracked down the muggers, they still might not find Grant’s killer.
‘My money’s on the thickset youth, the one wielding a knife,’ Ian went on, his craggy features creased in a smile that failed to light up his eyes. ‘When we get him, we’ll not only have the ringleader of the gang and stop the muggings, but with any luck we’ll have our killer nailed into the bargain.’
Once again Geraldine nodded in silence. Since his promotion to inspector, Ian seemed to be increasingly glib. More and more he sounded as though he was concerned with encouraging the sergeants and constables under him at the expense of focusing on the pursuit of hard evidence. She wondered if he was trying to counterbalance Eileen’s negativity, but she didn’t dare challenge him. Somehow, he intimidated her in a way that none of her other senior officers could.
‘Right,’ Ian said, ‘you share these descriptions with the VIIDO team, and I’ll get an e-fit officer on to them, and let’s see if we can get a visual the muggers’ victims can agree on.’
Geraldine was on her way to speak to the VIIDO team watching CCTV of the areas where victims had encountered the muggers when Eileen summoned everyone again. Hopeful that there had been a positive development in the investigation, Geraldine joined the small throng of officers heading for the major incident room. The mood of subdued optimism faded at the sight of Eileen’s face. She looked drained. Seeming to force her lips to frame the words, she said only, ‘There’s been another one.’
11
Less than a week after Grant had been stabbed to death, a second body was discovered, this time along the edge of the river beneath Lendal Bridge, near the centre of the city. Initially the emergency team that had been summoned assumed the victim had suffered a fatal accident, as the dead woman was found face down, caught in weeds growing by the tow path. Several cyclists, joggers, and pedestrians hurrying to work must have passed by without noticing the body trapped at the water’s edge. Only a retired postman taking a morning stroll had seen the body and raised the alarm. But not long after the body was hauled out of the water, it became apparent that the woman hadn’t drowned.
Geraldine and Ian arrived at the scene as quickly as they could. Already a forensic tent had been erected and a group of scene of crime officers were busy in the cordoned off area of the river bank, examining the ground for evidence. Geraldine gazed along the stretch of water, peaceful in the morning sunshine. A few fluffy white clouds floated lazily across a bright blue backdrop high above the trees, dwarfing the officers far below. In their protective white suits they resembled fat white slugs. It was hard to believe a murder had been committed in such an idyllic scene. She felt a sudden yearning to walk away from all the activity and follow the path that led alongside the river until she could breathe in peace.
With a sigh, she turned her attention back to her work. Ian was deep in conversation with a SOCO and didn’t see her glance at him. Instead of waiting for him, she decided to go ahead and check out the scene for herself. Pulling on protective clothing, she entered the tent where a team of white-coated officers were examining the ground, picking at the grass and poking around in the mud. No one seemed to be paying attention to the dead woman who was the catalyst for all their activity.
Lying rigid on its back, the body lay where it had been placed after being dragged from the water, the face slightly bloated and glistening. Assuming one of the rescuers had closed the eyes, Geraldine was pleased to see the dead woman had been accorded that much respect, at least. Not that it made any difference to her. She had evidently not been in the water for very long, because she was still reasonably intact, although her face and her positioning were too rigid to give an impression of someone sleeping.
Beneath an unbuttoned black coat she was wearing a yellow dress with a flared skirt that reached just below her knees. The coat and dress were both drenched and discoloured with mud and grass stains. Her shoes were missing, presumably lost in the water.
‘You can see where she was stabbed, right through the heart,’ a SOCO told Geraldine.
‘Stabbed?’ she repeated, staring down at the body.
The message had been passed on to them only that the victim had been murdered. Now, looking closely in the bright lighting that had been rigged up, she saw a dark stain on the muddy fabric of the dead woman’s dress.
‘Yes,’ the SOCO said. ‘She was stabbed before she was thrown, or perhaps fell, in the water. We thought as much when we first pulled her out, but we couldn’t be sure until the medical examiner arrived to take a look and confirm what we suspected. The blood on her dress was the clue. Bit of a giveaway, really.’
His eyes crinkled, and behind his mask Geraldine thought he was smiling. She didn’t smile back. Instead she turned back to look at the body.
‘So she was stabbed?’ she repeated, speaking more to herself than her colleague.
‘Yes,’ he agreed cheerfully. ‘So it looks like this is one for you.’
‘We’re already on a case.’ She sighed before adding pensively, ‘Another stabbing.’ Suddenly brisk, she turned to the scene of crime officer. ‘When was she killed?’
‘Assuming she was killed by the knife wound, she died before she entered the water sometime last night. The medical officer judged she was in the water for about twelve hours, but I think that was more of a guess than anything definite. He seemed to be in a hurry to get away.’
Geraldine nodded. The precise cause of death wouldn’t be established until the post mortem, but it seemed fairly safe to attribute her death to the stab wound to her chest, even if she had managed to stagger and slip into the water while injured but still living.
‘Do we know who she was?’
The other officer shook his head. ‘She had no means of identification on her and we haven’t managed to find any belongings round about.’
‘No handbag?’
He shook his head. ‘Nothing at all. No bag, no keys, no purse, no phone, nothing.’
Geraldine studied the dead woman’s face. She could have been about thirty. Long blond hair hung around her face in straggly wet strands, and her face bore smudged vestiges of scarlet lipstick and heavy mascara that streaked her cheeks like black tears. A woman wearing make-up was unlikely to go out without a handbag. It was likely the killer had taken it, but they would still have to dredge the river to look for it. But first they would search all along the river bank in case she had dropped it befo
re entering the water.
With a final glance around, Geraldine thanked the scene of crime officer and left the tent. There was nothing more to learn there as the body had been brought to the river bank by the rescue team. The stabbing might not even have occurred close to the site where the body currently lay. Finding the killer was their priority, but they also needed to find out the victim’s identity.
‘This was a stabbing,’ she told Ian.
He nodded, frowning, having heard the details from another officer at the scene.
‘No bag, no money,’ Ian replied.
Geraldine nodded. ‘You think this was a mugging?’
It was Ian’s turn to nod. ‘Stands to reason, wouldn’t you say? Given that she was robbed.’
Geraldine didn’t argue. But the fact that this victim had also been stabbed raised a disturbing possibility. They could only hope that the post mortem examination and subsequent forensic analysis didn’t find evidence to link the two murders to the same killer. Two accidental fatalities would be terrible enough. To learn that they were hunting for a multiple murderer would be far worse, as there was no reason to suppose he might stop at two victims.
That lunchtime Geraldine had arranged to go out for a Chinese meal with her colleague, Ariadne. Both frustrated by the stalling investigation into Grant’s death, they tried to chat about other matters, but the conversation kept drifting back to their current case.
‘I can’t believe we haven’t found a match yet,’ Ariadne said as they finished a bowl of prawn crackers which had arrived while they were waiting for their order. ‘We’ve checked the DNA of everyone we could find who knew Grant, and we’ve eliminated just about all his friends, as well as his family and his colleagues. So unless we come up with a match, it seems to confirm he was killed by a stranger. My guess is it was one of those blasted muggers who’ve been a thorn in our side for months.’
‘That’s what Ian thinks, and so does Eileen.’
Ariadne gave Geraldine a searching look. ‘You sound as though you don’t agree with them?’
Geraldine shrugged. Privately she suspected the murder was unrelated to the muggings. The crimes felt different. As a detective inspector working in London she had always been ready to voice her opinion, but since her demotion she was less forthcoming about her views. In retrospect she realised that even at her most confident, she had never really known whether her hunches would turn out to be correct. Occasionally she had been proved wrong. Perhaps it had just been luck that her instincts had mostly been spot on in the past.
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘I’ve absolutely no idea whether the murderer was involved in those muggings or not.’
Relieved to change the subject, she watched a sizzling plate as it was placed on the table in front of her.
‘This looks good,’ she smiled.
They spent the next few minutes tasting the different dishes and commenting on them, and the conversation moved on from the murder enquiry. Ariadne’s company offered a brief respite from her worries, but when Geraldine returned to her desk that afternoon, her disquiet came flooding back. It was important to stop the gang of muggers, who were a group of callous thugs, but until now they hadn’t physically injured anyone. On the contrary, they had been scrupulously careful to avoid any physical contact with their victims. Grant’s murder marked a complete departure from their previous operations, which suggested it might have been carried out by someone else altogether. By focusing the search on the muggers, Eileen could be distracting the investigative team from their purpose: to find Grant’s killer. Since no one else seemed to share Geraldine’s view, she kept it to herself. And now that they had possibly claimed a second victim, the hunt for the gang of muggers was set to continue with increasing urgency.
12
‘So what? So bloody what?’
Daryl stared at Carver through lowered lids, wondering whether he was as relaxed as he appeared. Casually, Carver flicked open his knife and yawned, displaying yellow teeth. Putting the knife down on his leg with the blade exposed, he rolled a spliff and lit up. Leaning back in his comfortable armchair, he puffed at the ceiling. After several botched attempts he managed to blow a nearly perfect smoke ring. Watching it float lazily above his head, he clicked his fingers in triumph.
‘See that?’ he crowed.
Nelson nodded, his narrow head bobbing up and down with exaggerated enthusiasm. ‘Sure, I seen it. Nice one, bro.’
‘Am I the man, or what?’ Carver twisted round suddenly to face Daryl. ‘Well? Some dude brodied your tongue, boy?’
‘No, no,’ Daryl mumbled, dropping his eyes. ‘That is, yes, yes, sure I seen it, and it was –’ He hesitated, groping for words. ‘It was cool, really cool, man.’ He heaved a sigh of genuine regret. ‘Wish I could blow smoke rings like that.’
‘Takes practice,’ Carver said. ‘And skill. You practise enough, you’ll get to blow smoke rings. Not as good as mine, but good enough. You just got to keep trying.’ He smiled complacently. ‘You try hard enough, you can do anything you want.’
Daryl watched a fragile column of ash lengthen on the end of the reefer, until Carver shifted in his seat and the ash dropped. Oblivious to its fall, Carver inhaled noisily and blew out a series of untidy puffs of smoke, none of which formed a circle. Frustrated, Carver flicked his reefer butt across the room. Daryl watched its glowing flight, tensed to jump up and grind it under his heel if it landed on the carpet. The butt fell on the concrete floor where it lay sending delicate threads of smoke eddying upwards through the dusty air. He wished Carver would stop lobbing burning cigarette ends, but he held back from complaining. It wasn’t smart to challenge Carver.
Several months ago, on the first occasion Daryl had been invited into the garage, he had rashly sat down on the one armchair.
‘That’s my seat,’ Carver had told him, speaking so quietly Daryl hadn’t sensed danger.
‘Well, I don’t see your name on it,’ he had replied, with an insolent grin.
Carver’s movement was so swift Daryl scarcely had time to raise his arm in front of his face. The scar was hardly visible now, a thin white line running along the back of Daryl’s left forearm from his wrist to an inch above his elbow. Neither of them ever mentioned the incident, but the memory hovered between them, a stain on the carpet and an unspoken threat.
‘This is my place,’ Carver liked to say, as though the derelict garage was a castle.
And, in a way, it was.
Watching the others closely, Daryl realised he wasn’t the only one feeling edgy. Nelson was fidgeting with the ring he always wore on his right hand, a sure sign that he was jumpy. When a car horn beeped somewhere close by, his eyes widened almost imperceptibly. Daryl caught his eye and Nelson looked away, casting a furtive glance at Carver. But Carver was sprawling in his chair, apparently oblivious to his companions’ nerves.
‘So…’ cautiously Daryl returned to what he had been saying before Carver was distracted by his smoke rings, ‘I still think we need to lay low and keep out of sight for a while. That’s all I’m saying. And maybe we shouldn’t hang out together until this blows over.’
Nelson looked at Daryl and licked his lips, as though he was about to take a bite out of him.
‘You saying you’re gonna stay away from us, man?’
As he asked the question, Nelson jumped to his feet and paced up and down the garage, with a sneaky sideways glance at Carver to check he was listening.
‘You gotta be joking, man,’ Nelson went on. ‘Where you gonna go? Who you gonna hang with? We’re family, bro. You can’t walk away from us. You can’t never walk away from us.’
Nelson turned to Carver, waiting for him to join in. Sensing a crafty motive behind Nelson’s outrage, Daryl tried to back down.
‘I’m not saying we stay away from each other,’ he stammered. ‘That’s not what I meant.’
&nb
sp; But he could see from Nelson’s flicker of a grin that it was too late to retract his words.
‘Not for long,’ he pressed on desperately. ‘Just for a few weeks, maybe.’
All the time Daryl and Nelson had been talking, Carver had remained silent, his eyes closed, as though he was asleep. Now he spoke, still without opening his eyes.
‘What kind of shit are you talking here, Daryl? What kind of wuss are you anyway?’
Daryl took a deep breath. ‘I just think we should stay out of sight until all this goes away. That’s all I’m saying.’
‘It ain’t never gonna go away if you don’t conquer your fear, blad,’ Carver said, opening his eyes slowly to stare coldly at Daryl. ‘This shit is all in your head, man. You gotta cut it out.’ He leaned forward, and spat on the carpet. ‘I don’t want bad blood between us, man.’
‘No, no, no bad blood. Of course not,’ Daryl replied, lowering his eyes, and struggling to keep his voice steady.
‘Shut the fuck up then. And you,’ Carver turned to Nelson, ‘stop prancing around like a dog on heat.’
Carver leaned back in his chair again as though to indicate the discussion was over. Nelson sat down on a wooden crate and stared at the floor. Daryl pressed his lips together and wondered what he should do now.
‘There’s no need for us to do anything different,’ Carver said softly. ‘The pigs don’t know us, and we don’t know them, and that’s how it’s gonna stay. Suits us fine, because they got no idea who we even are.’ He threw his head back and laughed, and his yellow teeth shone in the light from the bulb overhead. ‘We move in the shadows,’ he whispered, straightening up.
Rogue Killer Page 6
