Rogue Killer

by Leigh Russell

  He took another bite and then chucked the rest of it on the pavement.

  ‘I think I’m going to puke,’ he said.

  Daryl watched as a stray ant discovered the bonanza and began scurrying around in a frenzy. It was a waste of a perfectly good sausage roll, but he didn’t dare retrieve it.

  ‘Let’s go and do it then,’ Carver said.

  He seemed to have no recollection of the humiliation he had just suffered.

  ‘You feeling OK then?’ Daryl hazarded.

  ‘Sure thing. Why not?’ Carver answered.

  ‘You just knocked yourself out,’ Daryl said.

  Carver halted and turned to stare at Daryl through half-closed lids. ‘What did you say?’ he hissed.

  Nelson folded his arms and leaned back on his heels, watching, with a faint grin on his lips.

  ‘I just wanted to make sure you’re all right.’

  ‘I’m all right. Why wouldn’t I be, halfwit?’

  It wasn’t clear whether Carver was refusing to acknowledge his defeat, or genuinely had no recollection of what had happened. Whatever the truth, Daryl realised it wasn’t a good idea to mention it again.

  ‘No reason,’ he muttered. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Imbecile,’ Carver said, cuffing Daryl on the side of his head. ‘Stop talking shit.’

  After that, they had better luck. Back in the safety of the garage, they set to work dividing up their spoils: two handbags stuffed with goodies, and a brief case. Having tipped all the contents out on the floor, Carver put the three bags down.

  ‘One each,’ he said.

  There was a beautiful crimson handbag, which Daryl really wanted, but Carver put that one aside. Nelson had next pick. He chose the brief case, leaving a brown leather handbag for Daryl.

  He smiled. ‘Wicked.’

  Watching him, Nelson burst out laughing, rocking backwards and forwards. ‘What you doing with a handbag, you fucking gay!’

  He hadn’t made fun of Carver, but Daryl didn’t retort. The handbag looked expensive, and had a gold name on the front.

  ‘It’s for my girl,’ he said.

  Nelson laughed harder. ‘You telling us you got a girl? In your wet dreams, boy.’

  Daryl just shrugged. He knew who he was going to give the bag to, and he didn’t care what Nelson thought.

  ‘My girl’s gonna love this. She got style,’ he said quietly.

  Nelson sniffed and turned his attention to the money and phones, keys and cosmetics, credit cards and iPads and purses spread out on the floor between them. Carver watched closely as Nelson rifled through all the items, sorting them into piles and then counting the money, starting with the notes.

  ‘Nearly two hundred quid,’ he announced at last. ‘Fuck all this plastic. Why can’t people carry their money in cash? Fucking perverts. What use is all this plastic shit?’

  Carver nodded complacently.

  ‘Not a bad day’s work,’ he said.

  Daryl wanted to know what his share of the cash would be, but he hesitated to ask. Impatiently he watched Carver pull out a cigarette and light up. Leaning back in his chair he began blowing uneven smoke rings at the ceiling.

  22

  Only someone who was a dedicated killer would devote so much thought and care into taking lives. Given the preparation he had taken, it was hardly surprising he hadn’t been caught. From all the accounts he had read in the papers, they had no idea who he was. That was really down to him, leaving no clues behind. All the same, he lived in constant fear of hearing the police banging at his door. Now, more than ever, he needed to be careful.

  It was barely a week since his last kill, and the second one had been rash. Sometimes he had been forced to wait for years between kills, until he felt it was safe to continue. Those periods of inactivity were tough, with only his memories to sustain him. But this time, he had killed two people in the space of a week. That was unprecedented for good reason.

  He hadn’t planned to make the second of his two recent kills so soon after the first one, but an opportunity had arisen and he had given in to the temptation. Down by the river, in near darkness, with no one else around, the impulse had been too strong to control. He would have to watch that, and exercise greater restraint in future. An impetuous kill, when he wasn’t out hunting for a victim, was far too risky. He had been stupid, allowing himself to be carried away in the excitement of the moment. It had taken seconds to slip into his protective clothing and strike. With hindsight, he resolved never to carry his rucksack with him again unless he was planning to use it, carefully and deliberately.

  If the police weren’t preoccupied with looking for a gang of muggers, he might not have got away with it. So while he had no intention of stopping, he knew he had to be more careful. It would be wise to wait a while before his next venture. For at least a year he would keep his head down and stay out of sight. He would be cautious and resist his urges, however powerful they became.

  Not that he was seriously worried, because there was no way the police were going to find him. They were looking in all the wrong places.

  23

  Geraldine was still hoping the woman she was looking for would remember seeing a blond man near Pope’s Head Alley on the evening of Grant’s murder. If so, she might be able to give the police a description of the killer. That could be just the lucky break they were looking for. There was even a chance the woman might be working with the killer and so could lead them directly to him. Geraldine called at her house again on her way to work early the following morning, but there was no answer.

  It was unlikely, yet the figure who had followed Felicity down to the river could have been the same woman. Geraldine wondered whether it had really been a coincidence that the same woman might have been in the vicinity on both occasions. The fact that no one had responded to a television appeal for the woman in question to come forward, combined with the fact that she wasn’t answering her door, suggested that she might indeed be hiding something. Another possibility had also occurred to Geraldine. Because if this woman had seen the killer, there was also a chance he had seen her. And if he had, that might explain why she was impossible to find.

  Determined to investigate further, Geraldine went to speak to Ian.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, with more than a hint of impatience in his voice.

  She hovered in the doorway. ‘Is this a bad time? I can come back –’

  ‘No, no. You’ve disturbed me now. So, what do you want?’

  She went in and shut the door. ‘I want to talk to you about the case.’

  ‘Go on. I’m listening.’

  When she explained her concern that the dark-haired woman sighted on CCTV might also have been murdered, Ian shook his head.

  ‘You’ve brought this up before, Geraldine. She’s probably just gone away. Maybe she walked out on her partner. Women do that all the time,’ he added with a touch of bitterness in his voice. ‘It’s not our job to go chasing after them.’

  ‘If she was nearby when Felicity was killed, she might have witnessed what happened and become a victim herself.’

  ‘If that was the case, there’d be a body –’

  ‘They were right by the river. Felicity was found in the water. What if the other woman’s body was also thrown in the river? She could have become caught up in river weeds and got trapped beneath the surface.’

  Ian shook his head again, understanding her drift. ‘SOCOs found no signs of anyone else being involved in any sort of scuffle, and we can’t justify the expense of dredging the river without any evidence. Geraldine, what you’re suggesting may perhaps be plausible, but it’s nothing more than vague supposition. I can’t go to Eileen with a half-baked idea like that and expect her to sanction the resources we’d need to dredge the river. Let’s work from what evidence we have, and not go running off after some theory concocted
out of thin air.’

  ‘This is not just a haphazard theory. The woman’s been missing since the second murder and it’s possible she saw the killer both times. He might have felt it was necessary to get rid of her.’

  ‘Oh please,’ Ian interrupted her. ‘What are you basing this on? A woman goes away. So what? It’s hardly a case for a serious crime investigation, is it? She could be on holiday. And people walk out on their partners all the time. There’s nothing to suggest a crime’s been committed, is there? Look,’ he went on a little more gently, ‘there’s nothing to stop you going to speak to her, to see if she can tell us anything. It does no harm to speak to her, if you can find her. That’s up to you.’

  ‘Ian –’ She hesitated again, hating the way he made her feel so unsure of herself. ‘Ian, if there’s anything else you’d like to talk about, anything at all, you know you can speak to me as a friend. We’ve known each other for a long time.’

  He gave a brisk nod. ‘Thank you. I’ll bear that in mind.’

  ‘I mean, about Bev.’

  At the mention of his ex-wife’s name, his frown deepened. ‘Is that all? This is all very well, and I appreciate your good intentions, but I have work to do, and so do you.’

  She nodded and left the room quickly, uncertain whether to feel annoyed, or anxious. Ian had been understandably devastated when his wife had left him. He hadn’t even known she was having an affair when she had fallen pregnant by another man. At the time his marriage had broken down, Geraldine had been working in London. They had met up as friends and equals, and Ian had confided freely in her. Now that Geraldine was working with him, he rarely spoke to her about his personal situation. Although she missed the intimacy of their former friendship, she was reluctant to pry, and already regretted having brought up the subject. Feeling despondent about the whole situation with Ian, she left the room and went to speak to Eileen.

  The detective chief inspector listened solemnly to Geraldine’s fears.

  ‘You’re suggesting this woman saw the killer at the scene of both murders just around the time they were committed?’

  Geraldine nodded. ‘So I wonder if she’s been killed as well, to protect the killer’s identity.’

  Eileen frowned. ‘There’s no body.’

  When Geraldine pointed out that Felicity had been killed by the river, Eileen shook her head.

  ‘I see where you’re going with this, but is there any evidence to suggest there might be yet another body in the river?’ she asked, as though they had already discovered multiple bodies floating in the water. ‘No, Geraldine, this may be an interesting theory, but it certainly can’t justify the expense of dredging the river. If any evidence turns up to support your idea, of course we’ll get on to it straightaway.’

  Geraldine returned to her desk, disappointed that both Ian and Eileen had dismissed her theory, even though she knew they were right. Without evidence, there was no case to investigate.

  ‘Cheer up,’ Ariadne said, seeing Geraldine’s expression. ‘It’s not that bad. We’ll crack this case sooner or later. We’ll get him through his DNA.’

  Geraldine nodded, but it wasn’t the investigation that was making her feel low. The truth was, she hated seeing Ian looking so miserable, knowing there was nothing she could do to cheer him up. An awkwardness had arisen between them and they didn’t seem able to talk to each other like they used to. At one point she had hoped their relationship might develop into more than friendship. She was afraid Ian might have picked up on that, although she had been careful to conceal her feelings. Whatever the reason, he was keeping her at a distance, and she was sad to have lost their former closeness. She would have liked to tackle him about it, but she wasn’t sure how to approach the subject. So she kept her disappointment to herself. It didn’t help that she was unable to discuss her feelings with anyone else. Even Ariadne knew nothing about the situation.

  ‘I know,’ Geraldine replied, returning Ariadne’s anxious smile. ‘It just feels as though we’re going nowhere.’

  ‘It does feel like that. I don’t know about you, but I really thought we’d got our man when we arrested Felicity’s ex. He was such an obvious suspect. It’s a pity he was a false trail. The obvious suspect usually turns out to be the one we’re after. Shame it didn’t turn out that way this time. It would have been nice to get this wrapped up, after two deaths.’ She looked apprehensive and she lowered her voice. ‘You don’t think there’ll be any more, do you?’

  ‘Who knows? But I don’t see why there should be.’

  ‘No, you’re right, but it’s a worry, isn’t it? And the media don’t help, with all their scaremongering.’

  Geraldine shrugged. ‘We just have to keep on keeping on, and hope for the best.’

  24

  Instead of going straight home after work that evening, Geraldine drove to Gillygate once again to find out whether the missing woman had returned home yet, but once again no one answered the door. Geraldine felt that Eileen had dismissed her concerns fairly peremptorily. Even Ian hadn’t taken her seriously. Meanwhile, they were no closer to questioning the woman who might hold the key to the investigation. A few cranks had walked into the police station to insist they had been present on the night of one or both of the murders, but they had promptly been dismissed. There had been no response from anyone credible. Meanwhile, Geraldine felt increasingly uneasy about the woman who had seemingly vanished.

  The following morning a woman came into the police station claiming to have been mugged. She seemed fairly coherent. The constable who initially spoke to her was aware that the team were keen to find out as much as they could about the muggers, so he passed her on to Geraldine. She greeted the woman, Wendy, who was about twenty-five and wiry.

  ‘I wasn’t going to come forward. I don’t want my mum to know about this or I’ll never hear the end of it. But there’s been so much in the local news about muggings that I thought I really ought to report what happened. They tried to snatch my bag right off my shoulder. If it wasn’t for my training in martial arts, anything could have happened.’

  She lowered her eyes, waiting for a response.

  ‘Are you saying you resisted them taking your bag?’

  ‘Oh yes. I –’ Wendy hesitated. ‘I threw one of them,’ she admitted.

  ‘Threw? As in –?’

  ‘As in judo. I threw him to the ground. I don’t think he was hurt, but I didn’t hang around to find out. It all happened so quickly. There was no time to think. I was so scared, I just wanted to defend myself and get away as quickly as possible.’

  ‘You were clearly acting in self-defence,’ Geraldine reassured her. It was surprising that so petite a woman could have taken anyone on in a fight, let alone a violent assailant. ‘Can you describe your attackers?’

  ‘Describe them?’ Wendy repeated.

  ‘Yes, we’re trying to track them down and the more information we have, the sooner we’ll find them.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. Let me think. There were three of them…’

  Wendy paused for a moment, her eyes screwed up with the effort of remembering.

  ‘It’s difficult, you know. In the moment I was so shocked… and then I was focused on getting away.’

  ‘Yes, I understand. But anything you can tell us might be helpful. How old were they? Can you give me an idea of how tall they were?’

  Geraldine was concerned when Wendy told her one of the youths had threatened her with a knife.

  ‘Are you telling me you attacked a man who was armed?’

  ‘I said I’d give them what they wanted, but he had to lower his knife first, and he did. He didn’t see what was coming,’ she added with a sly smile.

  Wendy had been stopped by three boys. The oldest carried a knife and seemed very calm. The other two were both skinny and not yet out of their teens, and jumpy. Wendy’s description tallied with what
other witnesses had told the police. It was obviously the same gang that had been reported before. This time the victim was able to add one detail that hadn’t been mentioned yet. One of the boys had a bad case of acne.

  ‘Are you sure of that?’

  ‘Absolutely. I can picture him in my mind. The brawny one who was armed, he seemed to be the ringleader. I can’t really remember his face, because I was so shocked, but he had a growly kind of voice, as though he had a throat infection, and he had fair hair. I think the second one was tall and skinny, although he was hovering at the edge of the group and I didn’t see him so clearly, and the third one, the one with acne, looked terrified.’ She paused. ‘I think he was scared of the other boys. I looked at him when the one who had threatened me was on the ground. He must have been about sixteen, and younger than the other two. He was really frightened.’

  ‘How old were the others?’

  ‘I’d guess they were about eighteen or twenty, but I don’t really know. I only saw them for a few seconds, and I was distracted, wondering how I was going to escape unharmed. And then I ran.’

  ‘Thank you. That’s been very helpful.’

  Geraldine summoned a constable to take a formal statement from the witness while she wrote up her own notes on the meeting. After that she went to find Ian. She wasn’t sure what kind of greeting she would receive, but he gave her a cautious smile when she opened his door.

  ‘Geraldine,’ he called out to her, ‘I’ve been meaning to come and speak to you.’

  She waited.

  ‘Please, come in and shut the door. I wanted to apologise,’ he went on, awkwardly. ‘I’m sorry if I came across as abrupt with you yesterday, and – well, it was uncalled for.’

  She smiled with relief. ‘That’s OK. These are tricky times.’

  She wasn’t quite sure what she meant by that, but he returned her smile, obviously also relieved to be on good terms again.

  ‘I have been meaning to talk to you about Bev at some time,’ he went on, ‘but really there’s nothing to tell. She’s still living with this other man, and our divorce is in the hands of the lawyers. And that’s all there is to it, really.’ He looked at her with a tentative half smile. ‘Time for a new beginning, and a new life.’