The House on Downshire Hill

by Guy Fraser-Sampson

“There are five or six, and that’s just around the same time,” Metcalfe explained. “If we extend the timeframe then God knows how many we’re likely to come across.”

  “The problem I have with that theory,” Collison countered, “is that if these people were murdered then – so far as we are aware – their bodies have never been discovered. Surely if Taylor murdered Sue Barnard and buried her in a flowerbed then he would have been likely to dispose of his other victims – if there were any – in the same way. Christie buried most of his victims in and around his house, for example. So did Fred West.”

  “But the garden wall went up, didn’t it?” Willis said. “So he wouldn’t have had access to next door anymore.”

  “True,” Collison said with a shrug, “but what the hell, a flowerbed is a flowerbed isn’t it? It doesn’t really matter to whom it belongs. So why shouldn’t he just have used his own back garden?”

  “Maybe he realised, after the wife and children left home, that he’d been spotted in the act?” Metcalfe suggested. “He could have come to the view that it was just too dangerous disposing of bodies at home anymore and that he needed to find some other way of doing it. He might even thought about digging up Barnard, but by that time the wall would have been built and Jack Rowbotham would have been living at the house full-time, so it would just have been too risky.”

  “But then how would he have disposed of the bodies?” Collison persisted. “There’s no obvious possibility. He didn’t have access to an allotment, or a building site, or anything like that. He didn’t even go out very much.”

  “Would a recluse be likely to be a serial killer, Peter?” Metcalfe asked.

  “Not a true recluse who never went out, no, probably not. But was he always like that? I thought the evidence suggested that he had gradually become like it over the years.”

  “But that would suggest that he might once have been a serial killer but then stopped killing. Wouldn’t that be unusual?”

  “Yes, very. Of course we’ll never know for certain, but usually where a serial killer appears to have ended their activities it’s either because they’ve died, moved away, or gone to prison for some other offence. It’s unlikely they would just stop. They wouldn’t be able to.”

  “What about this new idea, guv?” Willis asked curiously. “The one about a possible serial killer preying on gay middle-aged men who frequent the Heath?”

  “We’ll need to take a look at that of course, and I’ve asked to see the files, but I’m very much hoping that we don’t need to go down that path. Can you imagine the expression on the ACC’s face if I was to tell him that not only might we have had a possible serial killer at work in Downshire Hill, whom incidentally we hadn’t been able to identify let alone arrest, but that I now wanted to tie up budget and manpower to investigate the possibility of another serial killer whose existence has never even been recognised?”

  “I can,” Metcalfe said with a smile.

  “But surely that shouldn’t matter, should it?” Collins asked mildly. “If there is an unsolved murder out there then it’s the responsibility of the police to investigate it?”

  “Oh, Peter, it’s really not like that,” Willis said kindly. “It’s all a matter of resources these days. There’s only a certain amount of money and a certain number of hours in the day. That’s why even missing persons cases often don’t get fully investigated, unless they involve a child or a vulnerable adult that is. Even with murders, there comes a time when an investigation has to be wound down.”

  “It’s never formally closed, of course,” Collison added hastily, “not unless we are pretty certain we know who did it but know that we’ll never be able to prove it. Or perhaps where that person has died or is serving a long prison sentence for something else. But it becomes effectively a dead file being dealt with by just one officer, who usually has a lot of them in their filing cabinet, all more or less categorised as ‘no further action’. And there they stay unless some fresh new evidence suddenly becomes available.”

  “And that’s the status of these other cases right now, is it?”

  “Yes, it is, Peter, and the ACC would be very unhappy to have them reopened unless there was some sort of dramatic new revelation. The same goes for the other missing girl reports, of course, but if we come to the conclusion that Conrad Taylor might have been at work in Hampstead as a serial killer, even for a limited time, then, reluctantly, the ACC would have to agree that we need to take another long look at those cases.”

  “I see.”

  Collins raised one arm and scratched his elbow distractedly.

  “We have had one welcome development, though,” Willis told him brightly. “We’ve located that school friend of Sue Barnard.”

  “Who is called Jill East, of course,” Collins replied. “Just to prove that I really have read the file.”

  “Yes, exactly, Jill East. It turns out it wasn’t that difficult after all. Believe it or not she was involved with the former pupils’ association for a while, and her daughter goes to the school right now. The headmaster recognised straightaway who we were talking about and was able to put us in touch. She’s coming in tomorrow morning to talk to us.”

  “Which will be an interesting opportunity to learn more about our first victim,” Collison said. “If the other neighbour – McKenzie – is to be believed then she was either moonlighting as a prostitute, or something pretty close to it.”

  “Which is strange,” Willis added, “since John Schneider claims that she wouldn’t have sex with him even though, he says, she was his girlfriend. As he said, if that was the case then why should she have sex with strangers?”

  “A valid question,” Collins mused.

  “The money might have had something to do with it,” Metcalfe said dryly.

  “Was the pathologist able to tell whether she was a virgin when she died?” Collins asked.

  “A good question, but no,” Collison responded. “There was almost no soft tissue left; just enough for a DNA sample.”

  “But no other DNA found on or inside the body?”

  “Again no, but I don’t think that’s very conclusive in this case. There was almost nothing left but skeleton.”

  “Well, in that case,” Collins said, twirling his now empty martini glass, “this lady’s evidence will obviously be very interesting. I wonder what she’s going to say?”

  CHAPTER 28

  “It’s very good of you to come in and see us, Mrs Donald,” Willis began the next morning. “Just for the record can you confirm that you are the person whom Susan Barnard knew as Jill East?”

  “Yes of course. We were at school together. In the same class actually. This is about her, isn’t it? I saw on the news that her body had been discovered. How terrible for her parents.”

  “It is terrible, yes, but maybe not so bad as not knowing where she was or what had happened to her. At least this gives them closure of a kind.”

  “I suppose so, yes. Are you quite sure it was her? I still can’t quite believe all this.”

  “There’s no mistake. We were able to take a DNA sample from the remains and match them against her mother.”

  “I see. So, how can I help you?”

  “Well, we’d like to focus on the weekend she went missing, but first I wonder if you could tell us something about Susan as a person. What was she like at school, for example?”

  “She was my best friend. We used to go everywhere together. She was a real laugh, always saying really outrageous things. She used to drive some of the teachers mental.”

  “What was she like around boys?”

  The woman giggled.

  “She was mad about them. We all were of course, but with her it was different.”

  “Different how?”

  “Well I suppose you might say it was a question of confidence. We all talked about boys all the time, but with her it was as if she really knew what she was talking about. You might say we all liked the idea of having a boyfriend, whereas
she actually had one, well sort of anyway.”

  “Do you mean John Schneider?”

  “Yeah, that was him. Actually I’m not sure she really wanted him at all, personally that is. She liked being to say that she had a boyfriend but I think as much as anything he scared her into it. He was big and had a nasty temper and once he decided that she sort of belonged to him I think she was a bit afraid to say that she didn’t.”

  “So far as you are aware, were they having sex? Did she say anything about that?”

  “It was really difficult to tell. She used to talk about sex all the time, she sounded a lot more knowledgeable than any of us, and when she was with John they were all over each other. But thinking about it, you know later as an adult, I often got to wondering if it was all for show, that she was just doing it to impress her mates, to make them think that she was really doing it with John when actually she wasn’t. I don’t know really, that’s the truth, I just don’t know.”

  “We’ve been hearing about what used to happen in the service road behind the shops in Belsize Park – after school I mean. Do you remember anything about that?”

  She giggled again.

  “It was all just a bit of a laugh actually. Oh, I know it sounds silly now, but it really used to give us a bit of a thrill. It was all down to Sue really. If she hadn’t been up for it then probably none of us would have gone either. She sort of egged us on.”

  “What used to happen exactly?”

  “Well, like I said, it was really just all a bit of a giggle. John and his mates used to hang around behind the shops and a group of us girls used to walk past as if we were taking a shortcut, though we didn’t need to really. John used to make us all give him a kiss, and then his mates. It was them we went for, not him. Each of us used to fancy at least one of his mates and this way we could get to kiss them while pretending we really didn’t want to. I remember there was one bloke I really liked, and I used to try to leave him till last so I could really take some time over it. Daft, isn’t it?”

  “Oh I don’t know,” Willis said. “We were all teenagers once.”

  “Can’t imagine you doing anything like that though,” Jill Donald said, giving her an appraising glance.

  Desai smiled, and pretended to concentrate hard on her notebook.

  “So it was John who sort of organised all of this?” Willis went on, colouring slightly.

  “Yes, him and Sue I suppose. I think the rest of the lads would happily have given it a miss. A lot of them used to get really embarrassed. To tell the truth, I think we girls were a lot keener on it than they were.”

  “Was John different to the others?”

  “Oh yes, big time. Oh, I know he was the same sort of age but he was bigger and he seemed really grown-up, like a real man. We didn’t really like him kissing us to be honest, but we had to go along with it. He used to take some real liberties. Particularly with me for some reason. Maybe it was just because he knew that Sue and me were best mates, and he was trying to annoy her. I don’t know.”

  “What was he like with Sue when there were other boys around – behind the shops for example?”

  “Oh, he was really possessive. There he was with his tongue in the mouth of all the other girls, but she wasn’t allowed to touch any of the other boys. She got pissed off and tried it one day and it was really awful.”

  “What happened?”

  “It was a boy Sue fancied like mad. I can’t remember his name. She used to give him the come-on at school, tossing her hair back and all that sort of thing. But he was terrified even to speak to her because of what John might do. Well, one afternoon when John was snogging one of the other girls she grabbed this bloke and started kissing him. John saw what was happening, out of the corner of his eye like, and he turned round and dragged her away. Then he hit him, really hard, in the face. It was like he’d suddenly snapped and become a different person. I’ll always remember the expression on his face; it was awful.”

  “Was the other boy badly hurt?”

  “Yeah, there was blood everywhere. I found out later that he’d broken his nose. We all started crying and ran away; we were terrified. We all thought John was going to get expelled for that. I still don’t understand why he wasn’t. I think the school said something about it not having occurred on the school premises or during school time and so it was just a matter for the police. But they never did anything as far as I know.”

  “But John did get into trouble later didn’t he?”

  “Oh yeah, I think he was completely out of control by then. Looking back on it, he just got worse and worse. When he hit that bloke and got away with it, well, you know, it made everyone at school even more afraid of him than they had been before. And I think it gave him the feeling that he could do whatever he wanted, that nobody could touch him.”

  “So what happened? What was he doing?”

  “It was really awful actually. He used to run out of the end of the service road when a woman was going past, grope her, and then run off laughing. He used to say it was all for a laugh, but it wasn’t. I know, ‘cos I saw him once when he was doing it. He had that same expression on his face as when he’d belted that boy – all anger and hatred. He dragged this woman to the ground and then stuck his hands up inside her top. I think he was squeezing really hard and hurting her. Anyway, you could tell she was terrified; she was screaming and he was laughing this awful nasty sort of laugh.”

  She paused, clearly upset by the memory.

  “Go on,” Willis said gently.

  “He got some of his mates to do the same too. I think they were just too scared of him to say no. They got into trouble of course. The police came to the school.”

  “Yes, we know about that.”

  “Again, me and my mates could never understand why nothing happened to them over that. Some of the women came to school and identified him, but it was like he just got let off.”

  “I’m sorry it seemed like that. Actually, there were some mistakes made with the investigation which meant the police couldn’t proceed against John. It wasn’t that they didn’t take the offences seriously. They just messed up, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, so that’s what happened. We did wonder. Of course that all just built his ego up more and more. He used to say that he’d got the better of the cops.”

  “Can you remember how long that was before Sue disappeared?”

  “Just a few months I think. It was around the end of the summer term, so maybe June or July.”

  “And Sue disappeared in October.”

  “If you say so. I don’t really remember.”

  “Let’s come to that, shall we? You may not remember the precise date, but she went missing on a Saturday and we believe that she might have been with you that day. Is that right?”

  “Yeah, it is actually. We went up the West End on the Saturday morning. She wanted to do some shopping. Loved shopping she did. I never had as much money as she did but I used to just tag along. We’d go round the shops of a Saturday morning, you know around Oxford Street, and have a coffee somewhere, just the two of us.”

  “Just the two of you? So as far as you know did she see John that day?”

  “No, I’m pretty certain she didn’t. Or at least she hadn’t arranged to. I think she was getting pretty fed up with him by then.”

  “Did she give you any clue of what she might have planned for later in the day? The evening perhaps?”

  Jill Donald shifted uneasily.

  “Yeah, but …”

  “What is it, Jill?”

  “Well, she used to come out with a lot of stuff I didn’t really believe, about men and such.”

  “Men? You mean men rather than boys?”

  “Yeah, well … yeah.”

  “It would be really helpful if you could tell us about it, Jill. Take as much time as you need.”

  She took a deep breath and clasped her hands in front of her.

  “OK, I’m not saying I believe any of this, it’s
just what she told me, all right?”

  “Yes, understood.”

  “She used to talk about going with men. You know, for sex. She said that’s where the money for her shopping came from. Like that Saturday. There was this pink raincoat she wanted and she just peeled off a load of cash from out of her purse and bought it. I don’t think her parents were that loaded, so where was that cash coming from? I remember asking myself that at the time.”

  “Did you ask her?”

  “Yeah, and that was one of the time she just laughed and said she got it from wanking off old men.”

  “Did she use those precise words?”

  “Yes she did. I can remember being really shocked. Remember it still, in fact.”

  “And did you think she was telling the truth?”

  “Well, I didn’t like to, but again where did all that cash come from?”

  “I asked you whether you thought she and John were having sex together. Can we come back to that?”

  “Well, I suppose it all depends what you mean by having sex. I don’t think they were actually having sex, but I’m pretty sure they were going in for … well you know, heavy petting. He tried to make me do it for him once. I wouldn’t. He got angry and I ran off.”

  “So she would at least have known what she was doing?”

  “Oh yeah, she used to read that book about sex that everybody had at the time. Well, we all did really. So we knew the theory, as it were. She used to talk about it all the time, only according to her she was actually putting it into practice. She said she had a few regular men friends who used to give her money to buy herself things.”

  “Did you say anything at all about these men that might help us to identify who they were?”

  “No, but I think they were local. I saw her hanging around a pub on Haverstock Hill one day – that summer I think, during the school holidays. She was all dolled up. Looked about 18 she did. When she saw me she got really angry and told me to go away. When I asked her what she was doing there, she said she was waiting for someone.”

  “Okay, to go back to that last Saturday, when was the last time you saw her?”