The House on Downshire Hill

by Guy Fraser-Sampson

  “And you’re not that are you? Oh, why do you have to be so nice all the time?”

  She broke off at this point, buried her face in her hands, and started sobbing silently. She took her hands away and looked helplessly around the room, a frown of utter self-disgust on her face. Collison watched her equally helplessly; he could guess what it was costing her to be seen crying like this. Metcalfe slipped out of the room and returned shortly with a box of tissues. Their delicate lilac colour marked them as the property of Karen Willis; lilac was one of her favourite colours.

  “Oh, thank you, guv,” she gulped through her tears and, seizing a handful, blew her nose violently.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, dabbing at her eyes, “this is stupid. I’ll be all right in a minute.”

  “Take as long as you need,” Collison advised. “We know this must be very upsetting for you.”

  She crumpled the tissues in her fist and gazed at him fixedly.

  “You know, don’t you? About Sophie and me. I don’t know how, but you know.”

  “Yes, we do, but it’s really none of our business and there’s certainly no need for anyone else ever to know.”

  “Are you … you know, shocked?”

  “Why on earth would I be shocked? People meet, they are attracted to each other, they have a relationship. It happens every minute of every day. What’s there to be shocked about?”

  “Oh, you know…”

  “We know nothing, Bob and I. And that’s the way it’s going to stay, Priya. Your personal life is your personal life. It’s none of our business.”

  “But can I ask you …”

  “Can you ask me if I think she’s been using you?”

  “Yes. Please be truthful. I’m really so confused …”

  “The only truthful answer I can give you is that I don’t know. Can we ever really be sure of anyone? That’s the essence of a relationship, I think. That you have to be prepared to take somebody on trust even though in so doing you open yourself up for them to hurt you. You have to trust them not to. It’s a bit like the Boy Scout handshake – do you know that story?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Well, I used to be a Scout and when you met another Scout you had to shake hands with your left hand.”

  “Why the left hand?”

  “That’s the whole point I’m trying to make. Baden Powell spent time in Africa and he saw the tribesmen there would put down their shield, which they held in their left-hand, leaving the person they were greeting still holding their spear. It was a sign of trust, you see. I’ve always thought that relationships are a bit like that.”

  “You come out with some really weird stuff, guv. Do you know that?”

  “I’m sorry. Maybe my mind just works a bit differently to other people’s.”

  He reached out for her damp and crumpled tissues and tossed them in the bin.

  “At least your mascara hasn’t run,” he observed. “How do you manage that?”

  “I don’t wear mascara,” she said in surprise. “I hardly ever wear any make-up at all. Haven’t you noticed?”

  “No I must confess I hadn’t,” he said awkwardly. “It must be because you-”

  He broke off and cleared his throat.

  “Well anyway,” he went on, “speaking purely as police officers, unless you think that Sophie’s level of interest in the case is truly remarkable, then I don’t particularly feel like reopening the possibility of her being a suspect. To tell you the truth, I don’t think we have the time. We’ve been put under pressure to bring this enquiry to a conclusion as quickly as possible one way or the other. I’d just been chatting to Bob about it before you came in. I’m desperate to find some way of placing John Schneider with either victim, or preferably both. If we can’t do that then we’re going to have to hand the file over to the CPS, and they will proceed against Raj.”

  “Well, he is the obvious suspect,” she murmured.

  “Yes, and the CPS think there’s a pretty clear case for him to answer.”

  “Well there is, isn’t there?” she pointed out.

  Metcalfe smiled. Collison saw it, and smiled sheepishly himself.

  “Yes, you’re right of course. And please don’t say that it’s just because of my natural reluctance to believe that the most obvious suspect must have committed the crime. It’s not that at all. It’s more that I find it very difficult to believe that these two murders are not connected in some way.”

  “And there’s no way that Raj could be involved with the first one, is there?” Desai said.

  “Hardly. He would only have been a few years old. And so far as we know he had no family connection with the UK.”

  “So far as we know,” Metcalfe pointed out.

  “You’re right, Bob, we should have checked that. Let’s run some searches before we interview Raj again.”

  “I suppose there couldn’t be some other sort of connection?” Desai proffered hesitantly.

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just thinking aloud really.”

  “Nothing wrong with that. Carry on.”

  “Well, we know that Taylor killed Sue Barnard, don’t we?”

  “We know that he buried her, which isn’t quite the same thing. Probably more accurate to say we assume that he killed her in the absence of evidence to the contrary.”

  “Yes, OK, whatever. Let’s just say that he had something to hide. Well, suppose that Raj found out about it in some way. He might have been blackmailing Taylor. Perhaps that’s what the payments from the bank accounts were.”

  “It’s a nice idea,” Collison replied, “but victims tend to murder their blackmailer, not the other way round. It wouldn’t give Raj a motive for killing Taylor. No, the CPS are quite right. If Raj is our killer – and he’s the only person we can place at the scene apart from possibly a fleeting visit by Schneider – then the most likely explanation is that Taylor found out he was stealing from him and Raj panicked and killed him.”

  “By the way, we’ve been discussing that fleeting visit, as you call it,” Metcalfe told. “We only have his word for it that he wasn’t able to gain access to the house. Suppose that he did get in, and killed Taylor. Wouldn’t it be a really cute stratagem to go next door and tell the neighbour that you haven’t been able to get any answer?”

  “A bit too cute, surely, guv? Wouldn’t his natural instinct be just to slip quietly away and hope nobody would notice him?”

  “Yes, I guess so,” Metcalfe conceded reluctantly.

  “I suppose it’s always possible that he might have seen Rowbotham looking out of the window, or somehow just thought that he’d been spotted,” Desai went on.

  “You mean he just made the best of a bad job – decided to brazen it out?” Collison asked.

  “Yes. And that would explain why he didn’t identify himself to Rowbotham. We know that he and his sister were planning to go back to Canada. The only reason they haven’t gone already is that they couldn’t get jobs and ran out of money. So all Schneider would have left behind him was the memory of Rowbotham having met a complete stranger, and us with no way of being able to identify him.”

  “It’s a puzzle isn’t it?” Collison asked ruefully. “Well, it just goes to show that our only chance now is being able to break John Schneider when next we see him. It seems that once again we shall have to rely on Peter Collins.”

  CHAPTER 31

  “OK, people, listen up please,” Collison said that afternoon in the incident room. “I’m afraid we’re running out of time. The CPS think we have an adequate case against Raj for the Taylor murder, and the powers that be are pressing us simply to hand the file over and close down the enquiry.”

  There was a silence.

  “To be perfectly frank, I don’t want to do that,” he went on. “For one thing, it seems to me that we still have at least one other viable suspect for that killing. For another, it would mean abandoning any thought of the two murders being related to
each other, and I’m not ready to do that yet.”

  He walked over to the whiteboard and gazed at it thoughtfully.

  “There’s so much about John Schneider to find disturbing. We know that he had anger management issues, and a tendency to violence. We know that he’s demonstrated aggressively sexual behaviour towards women. We know that he’s lied about what he said to Jack Rowbotham. So what else might he have lied about?”

  “There’s also the question of these dead women in Canada, guv,” Metcalfe proffered. “The Canadian police have already said that if we have reasonable cause to think Schneider may be a serial killer then they’ll be wanting to take a serious look at him themselves.”

  “Agreed. However – and it’s a big ‘however’– we don’t have a single piece of solid evidence against him. Everything is either supposition or highly circumstantial. As Dr Collins reminded me the other day, it’s not enough for us to show that he could have committed the crime, or even that he’s the sort of person who is more likely to commit this sort of crime than other people. We have to get something firm on him, something that strongly suggests he actually committed this specific murder.”

  “And how do you propose to do that, sir?” Evans asked.

  “We have to break him,” Collison replied grimly. “We’re going to get him back in for another interview tomorrow, and this time I’m going to let Dr Collins loose on him. I realise it’s a gamble; he may simply clam up, particularly as we’re going to have to let him have a lawyer this time. But I don’t see that we have any choice. Like I say, we’re running out of time.”

  “So you still fancy him for the Taylor killing, guv?” Desai enquired.

  “Yes, I still like the hypothesis that when he found out about Taylor killing Barnard he resolved to come back to England and take revenge. We’re pretty sure that he returned just before Taylor was in fact killed. He doesn’t have any proper alibi – only his sister – and I don’t necessarily buy the story of him not being able to gain access to the house. For all we know it might just have been a clumsy attempt to throw us off the track, or muddle the timing. I’m going to re-interview Jack Rowbotham, by the way, so that we can nail Schneider’s lie once and for all.”

  “What about Raj, sir?” Goodwin asked. “He is still the prime suspect after all. If we get left with him and nobody else, we still need to be able to build the strongest possible case against him.”

  “Quite correct,” Collison agreed. “At the same time as DS Willis and Dr Collins are interviewing Schneider, DI Metcalfe and myself will be talking to Raj and his lawyer. It has to be the two of us, I’m afraid, as there may be some security implications which we’re not allowed to share with the rest of you.”

  Though this was hardly fresh news, it still prompted some sidelong glances among the team. Evans put his hand up.

  “Yes, Timothy?”

  “Have we found anyone to corroborate the story about Barnard offering herself to men in Downshire Hill, sir? I know her school friend confirmed that she may have been on the game – well, sort of, anyway – but can we actually place her at the scene?”

  “Well, we know she was buried there,” Collison replied with a grim smile, “but I take your point, Timothy. It’s always possible that she was killed elsewhere. We know that Rowbotham’s back garden was not secure at the time. That’s something else I want to ask him about. If he was coming and going frequently in the evening as he says, then he may well have seen her hanging about himself.”

  He looked around the room.

  “Anything else? No? Well, in that case I’d like everybody to get away early this afternoon – no later than five say – because it’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”

  •

  Shortly after five Collison found himself once again in the large living room of the house in Frognal.

  “I really can’t make up my mind,” Collins said, “whether it’s too early for cocktails or too late for tea. What do you think, Simon?”

  “I’d be very happy with tea, thanks. I have a feeling I’m going to be very late tomorrow evening, so I’d rather like to get back to Caroline as soon as I can.”

  “I’ll make it,” Lisa volunteered, “and then I’ll go upstairs so you four can chat properly.”

  They all murmured their thanks as she slipped from the room.

  “Well, there you are, Peter,” Collison said. “You’ve probably already heard from the others that we have one chance left at Schneider, and one only. If we can’t get some sort of confession out of him tomorrow then we’re going to have to let the CPS go ahead against Raj.”

  “And you don’t like that idea?”

  “You know I don’t. Oh, I know he’s the obvious suspect and I know it’s likely a jury would convict on the basis of what we know, but I just feel there’s something wrong. Something we’ve missed, perhaps.”

  “I see.”

  “So how do you propose we handle Schneider? When I say ‘we’, by the way, I mean you and Karen. Bob and I are going to be busy with Raj.”

  “Well, it’s very difficult preparing a profile on Schneider when I’ve never even met him. But I’ve read everything on the file, and of course I’ve had long chats with Karen about her impressions each time she met him. I’ve got some notes here, but the short answer is I think we have to appeal to his vanity.”

  “Vanity?”

  “Yes, he clearly has a strongly egotistical view of himself and his environment. We all do, of course. We all view the world looking outwards from ourselves and so it’s perfectly natural that our perspective should be egocentric. But with people like Schneider, that becomes exaggerated, partly because they have such low levels of empathy. The less you care about or feel for other people, the more emphasis you’re likely to place on yourself and your own needs.”

  “You’re describing a psychopathic state of mind, aren’t you, Peter?” Metcalfe asked.

  “Yes, though of course not all psychopaths are killers, or even violent. But this lack of empathy, and corresponding high regard for the self, is typical of such a state. Some of this is a bit controversial, but personally I’m a strong supporter of the view that environmental conditioning plays a very large role here. Psychopaths who develop into serial killers tend to have a very distorted parental relationships. Either one parent is missing entirely, – usually the father – or the emotional relationship with one parent is either very distant or over-close.”

  “And you think that ego plays a part in what they do – the killing?”

  “Not directly, no. The urge to kill goes to something else, some emotional or perhaps sexual need that at a certain point can only be fulfilled by killing. You see, along with this heightened egotistical sense often goes an actual inadequacy, whether sexual, social, emotional, or a combination of the three. Serial killers tend not to be people who are hugely successful in their careers, for example. This combination of factors can lead to a craving for control, and killing is of course the ultimate form of control. It’s significant in my view that in many cases the killing itself is preceded by lesser but nonetheless effective means of control. Gacy used handcuffs, for example, and Christie sometimes used gas to render his victims unconscious, as Sutcliffe did with a hammer.”

  “So where does the ego come in, then?” Collison prompted

  him.

  “Once they are discovered. Once they realise the game is up then ego kicks in and makes them want the world to know just how effective they have been as a serial killer. In a perverted sort of way I suppose it’s them trying to convince the world – and themselves – that they really have been a success after all. Gacy, for example, was anxious that he should get full credit for all his killings, not just the few the police were already investigating. But equally, they tend to hold a few back, just so they can think that they still somehow hold the upper hand, that there’s something they know which the police haven’t found out. I think that’s why Brady would never reveal the location of all his victims; it gave
him a warped sense of superiority.”

  “And of course his lack of empathy meant that he had no feeling at all for the families of his victims and their need for closure,” Willis put in.

  “Yes, exactly, Karen. I must say that had I been advising on that case I wouldn’t have tried that approach at all. I think it was doomed to failure.”

  “So how would you have played it then?”

  “Well, it’s easy to be wise after the event, but I would have been tempted to cast doubt on the number of people he had actually killed and challenge him to prove it.”

  There was a silence while Collison digested this.

  “I can see a possible flaw in such an approach, Peter,” he said at length.

  “What’s that, my old Parker bird?” he asked in his best Lord Peter Wimsey manner.

  “You said that ego kicks in when they realise the game is up, when they’ve been caught. But we haven’t caught Schneider, have we? On the contrary, we are trying to get him to convict himself out of his own mouth.”

  “Yes, you’re quite right. I was just coming to that, actually. And even if he did commit the Taylor murder, that doesn’t necessarily show that he’s a serial killer, does it? He might just have been driven by his historical feelings for the Barnard girl. But you’re right, of course; if that’s the case, then my approach won’t work. So we have to assume that it is the case. It’s a bit like one of those situations in bridge when you have to put the cards where you want them to be, because if they’re not then you can’t make the contract anyway.”

  “I see,” Collison said unhappily. “I was rather hoping that you might come up with some brilliant scheme to persuade him to admit to the Taylor murder.”

  “Nothing specific that I can put my finger on,” Collins replied uncomfortably. “I’m afraid this is just one of those situations where we have to do our best and see what happens.”

  “What’s your instinct, Peter?” Metcalfe asked curiously. “Forget what we can prove and just look at what we know, or think we know. Do you think he would have been capable of killing all those women in Canada?”