Chapter 8
Detective Inspector Patricia Fielding was bored. The screen in front of her flickered and a new series of paragraphs stared at her. Were they different to the last lot? She really didn’t know; after a while – a very short while – the English text on display looked like a foreign language. She could pronounce it to herself but the meaning escaped her. It was like reading a book before going to sleep at night and the next day needing to start at the same place again. This she had experienced a lot recently. Promotion had cost her a great deal of time and effort; other things had taken a back seat. So, alone in bed each night, there was no more amusing way of getting tired.
She hadn’t imagined that promotion would be like this. She had worked with John Anderson for five years and she thought he rated her. How else had she got where she was? Why else had Anderson recommended her, if she couldn’t do the job?
She had never thought him petty — petty enough to have got her stuck in front of a screen all day. But it simply had to be down to him. ‘John Anderson is a bastard‘; she repeated these words to herself as if they were a mantra – every hour on the hour – or, at least, when she remembered. Unfortunately, they didn’t give her the calm a mantra was supposed to.
If it hadn’t been for those few foolish words, she would be out there, where she had proved herself. Had he fancied her and was that why he was so vindictive? She wondered what she would have done if he had asked, which he never had. He was almost ten years older than she was and wasn’t exactly handsome. But then men didn’t have to be. He was too fussy for her liking and his ex-wife had left him, so there might be something there. Still, policemen’s marriages were always breaking up; it was the job, so maybe it hadn’t been his fault. She still couldn’t answer her own question, though: ’would she or wouldn’t she?’ But then she would probably never have to decide.
The new job — she tried to think of its good points. The best aspect of all came to her mind first: it was temporary. It was preparation for higher things, so the Super said. Just what those higher things were he didn’t specify. Then there were the occasional courses — naturally: there were always courses. And then there was this: FBI-speak scrolling down her screen endlessly for what seemed hours — psychological profiles, sociological analyses all struggling to explain why they did it, what sort of people they were but never how to catch them.
Serial killers, had they invented them over there and exported them to over here? The cases were so diverse she wondered whether they were a special category at all. The one in front of her on the screen for example, according to the FBI, this one latched on to other killers, copied their technique and added an extra corpse. The real killers, always eager to own up to their guilt and brazenly proud of their work, had to be believed. Three such murderers, now serving life sentences, said they didn’t do the extra one and one had been caught before the copycat murder had been committed.
Fielding thought that, if he existed at all, this particular mother’s little treasure lacked imagination. He travelled to where there had been publicity about a series of murders and then added one. Sometimes the press had been too lazy to prise out of the police the exact circumstances of the original crimes, so he had improvised. The last line of the report though, was the one that led her to fax the States. They thought he had come to Britain, or, to be precise – if the Americans knew how to be precise in this case – to England.
After lunch, she looked at the answering fax. Agent Jim Stevens was interested in her enquiry. Why didn’t they communicate by E-mail or a Chat programme? She had the facility didn’t she? She certainly did. What were all those courses for if she didn’t know how to use a computer?
The messages flicked backwards and forwards. It was the nearest thing to a conversation with Jim that she could have apart from the telephone and much cheaper — the finance department would be pleased about that. Jim understood her scepticism. If he hadn’t been to four States and examined the evidence in detail, so would he be. But he had and he was convinced. There was one man and he had gone to England and, yes, he did know the difference between England, Britain and the United Kingdom.
She was beginning to like Jim. She was about to ask him whether he had a wife and how old he was, when he did so first. She invited him over to find out for himself. He said he’d like to. The case was his pigeon and he hated to let it go. If he could get permission, he would come and help but that was unlikely: he had enough in his own patch to be getting on with. She wondered whether this was how E-mail romances got started — hadn’t there been a film about that? She could see herself inventing the long blonde hair and the 36/22/36 figure she had wanted as a teenager. But what happened when you had to meet and found that your partner was a fifty-year-old fat balding dentist?
Jim suggested she get in touch with the Heathrow police. They hadn’t seemed keen to follow up his lead and they hadn’t come up with much but she should know what they did find out. He did, though, know someone over there who would want to co-operate.
National calls she could make; they didn’t make an unnecessary dent in the budget, so she phoned Sheffield. Detective Inspector Mark Wright knew all about Jim Stevens. He suggested she came up and talked to him. Officially his own case had been closed by orders from above but he hadn’t been satisfied. Why didn’t she get all the details on her screen before coming? She said she would and that she would travel north as soon as possible but first she needed to go to Hounslow.
She set the computer to work and left the office. She felt like a truant and slunk out as though trying to avoid the prefects. Kilburn to Heathrow Central was best done by Tube. She left her car at the station and, not for the first time, wondered whether keeping a car in London was worthwhile. Then, squeezed into a corner by an embarrassed man anxious to turn sideways, she re-convinced her of the superiority of the motor car. As long she could breath, she would drive.
As she suspected, Hounslow hadn’t done much. They had checked every male American landing at Heathrow on the right day and they had a list of hundreds. He probably wouldn’t have had time to get a false passport so, at some time, the names might be useful. But, since the FBI had no name and only the vaguest of descriptions given by one fortunate escapee, until he was caught the list was one for the filing cabinet.
It was rumoured that the Northern Line was the worst but Fielding made the Bakerloo a close second and the Piccadilly not far behind. By the time her ordeal by confinement was over and she arrived back at Queen’s Park, it was home time. She left the car at the station yard and walked home up the hill and across towards the Kilburn High Road. At one time, the houses there had been the residences of families with servants. Nowadays single people like herself occupied the servants’ quarters. Living high up on the fourth floor gave her exercise each day and it was warm, cosy, and quiet — it was home.
Inside her own front door there was another set of stairs leading to a small landing from which her kitchen, living room and a bedroom opened. She hung up her coat on a hook. It was six and the heating had come on, so it would soon be warm. Out there, September had turned chilly as the sun went down.
At six, she settled down in front of the television with a glass of wine from a box she kept in the fridge. She felt it was her duty to keep up with events, although the news seldom interested her. The different items, so similar from year to year, had no power to keep her mind occupied. There were times, after she had been listening to her grandfather’s stories of the War, that she blessed the normality of murder and rape. After the slaughter of millions, what else could be considered serious?
The weatherman came and went and, although she knew all that had happened that day in the skies, tomorrow’s forecast escaped her. It was always the way. Why couldn’t they give the forecast first when people are paying attention? She knew it would never happen. Who on this earth would give up their chance of extending their star billing for as long as possible? And the weather girls and boys certainly stretched it out these days.
A microwave meal, a look at The Bill on the box and then early to bed. She wanted to be in the station early the next day to see whether the computer had been working hard. And so she was, at six in the morning.
Her machine looked calm and composed sitting on her office desk but she felt it was quivering with excitement. She woke it up and there they were — pages of answers. She had been right: its programmes had been bursting with anticipation. She printed the info out and read solidly for an hour.
There had been five multiple murderers caught in Britain over the previous two years but only three were of interest. Each one of those cases displayed the telltale signs: a number of murders and an extra one denied by a killer who had been happy to admit to the rest.
The forces concerned had been variable in their thoroughness but in the end, all three final murders had been put down to the original killer and the cases closed. On each of these three occasions, the last murder in the series was similar to the others but also had distinct differences. She wondered why no one had noticed the pattern but then she remembered: Mark Wright had but hadn’t been allowed to follow it up. She was the only officer in the country specially assigned to make such connections.
She needed to interview the case officers concerned and she had to tackle Anderson. She wouldn’t want him to accuse her of hiding something that might help.
It was mid-morning before she left for Sheffield; it seemed easier to get to than Hounslow: ten minutes to Euston a short walk to St Pancras and a seat all the way to Yorkshire even though she was in 2nd class. On the way she read through her print-outs again. She hoped Mark Wright had more to offer; she needed something else when she presented herself to Anderson.
There was still half an hour to go when she had had enough and she sat back to contemplate the paper that covered the table in front of her. Luckily the carriage was empty but it would be a security risk when at busier times. First class would be better, did Anderson travel first class or was that reserved for superintendents and commissioners? She must look at the rulebook someday; perhaps she was selling herself short.
DI Wright picked her up at the station and took her back to his office. It looked the same as hers in London: she supposed police stations were all built using a pattern book like housing estates used to be and probably still were. Still he did have an office to himself while she shared hers.
Mark Wright was helpful and was very keen to get her interested. It made her wary, was he one of those men who get fixated and can’t let go even when the evidence is against them? She spent the whole afternoon looking at photos and reading descriptions. The local force had been thorough. They had learnt from the modern Ripper murders. In Sheffield these days things were done by the book. The original interviews had been gone over a number of times. Detective Inspector Mark Wright was convinced they had another murderer on their hands and that he was among those already questioned.
‘What makes you think the last one isn’t down to Walton?’ Fielding asked.
‘He won’t admit to it and the timing’s wrong.’
‘Timing?’
‘He never murdered two prostitutes in one night and he would have had to be quick doing the first and then driving to the second — too quick. No, this one was someone different.’
‘Walton’s been co-operative?’
‘We’ve interviewed him three times in prison. He’s given us every detail about the other murders but not this one.’
Only three men amongst those questioned measured up to the description Stevens had given Wright. Tall men, muscular men in their twenties but not body builders. Fielding was puzzled. It seemed too detailed. Stevens hadn’t said anything about any witness having had a close look at the man. ‘I thought no one had seen the man clearly?’ she asked. ‘You seem to know exactly what he looks like.’
‘So, you don’t know why Jim Stevens is so keen on catching this man?’
Fielding did not know but she wasn’t about to slip into Wright’s sense of certainty. ‘If he exists,’ she said. ‘The evidence seems very shaky to me. I’m not yet convinced that there is one man who’s doing all this.’
‘Stevens is absolutely sure and he’s convinced me. He believes the man is his twin.’
Fielding waited. What did he mean?
‘Everywhere Stevens has been, people thought he was the man they were looking for. The man looks just like he does.’
‘A lot of people probably look like he does.’
‘Maybe so but, the way he tells it, as soon as they saw him, they were amazed at the likeness. The woman attacked near the airport thought they’d brought him in as a suspect.’
Wright showed her a photo of Stevens. Tall heavily built with close-cropped hair and an open wide face. No, there were not a lot like him around but then he wasn’t around was he. Would he ever make the flight across? Fielding brought her mind back to the case. ‘And that’s another thing,’ she said, ’just because he attacked a woman near an airport, it doesn’t mean he took a plane.’
‘Well, they haven’t heard from him since that day and the woman saw him get in a car and head towards the airport car park. Later they found an abandoned hire car rented from the last place he’d been seen.’
‘Or possible been seen,’ Fielding was not going to fall headlong into Stevens’s obsession and she was beginning to feel unhappy about Mark Wright. She could see how Stevens could be affected by his experiences but it shouldn’t affect Wright’s judgement. And she certainly wasn’t allowing it to influence her. She needed to keep a clear mind on this, especially if she was going to convince Anderson.
‘He could have flown to a dozen countries apart from Britain,’ she said.
‘Stevens thinks that it’s unlikely that he speaks anything but English – American English – so Heathrow was his best guess.’
Fielding knew that the local police at Heathrow had been unimpressed. They had enough to do policing illegal immigrants; so they had done the minimum they needed to do and left it at that. She knew why. The Americans couldn’t prove to them that their information applied to one man. The person who caught the plane – if he caught it – might not be the same one who killed in Virginia or California or Maine. He might not have killed at all. The only witness had been attacked in the dark, which is why she could give no clear description, and it was only surmised that he had been the man identified in the FBI profile. They only had Stevens’s peculiar experience to picture the man.
Fielding tried to be sympathetic to Stevens’s theory but it was difficult.
‘I can see you still feel doubtful,’ Mark Wright said. ‘But Stevens is an experienced agent. I believe he’s on to something.’
She nodded. ‘Do you know anything more about the three you’ve picked out?’
‘Officially, no. Unofficially, yes.’
Fielding put her head on one side.
‘The case is closed – officially Walton did them all – but from time to time I try to find out what they’re all doing. It’s not easy.’
‘Harassment’ that was the word they all dreaded. If a case was closed then those who had been questioned should be left alone. ‘No fingerprints then?’ Fielding asked.
‘We never had any to match, so I obeyed orders and blew them away.’
Fielding looked again at her three photos.
Walton went to his desk and came back with a small notebook. ‘Two are married and living locally. Both have had kids since the murder. They’re at the bottom of my list.’
‘And the third?’
‘The man with the American accent. He’s gone, no trace.’
‘It doesn’t say anything about an accent down here.’
Walton looked at the record. ‘No, it doesn’t but I remember him. It wasn’t much of an accent but he came from America. I’m sure about that.’
But was she as sure? Fielding knew how easy it was to get a fixed idea and then interpret everything to fit in with it. ‘Did he show you his passport?’
‘No, it never came up,’ he said.
Fielding wondered whether this was all but looking up at Wright’s face, she saw it was clear there was something else.
‘Did Stevens send you the papers about the man they caught in New York?’ Wright asked.
Fielding nodded. It didn’t stop Wright going over the case.
‘He confessed to six murders but wouldn’t admit to the attack that failed. It was the same pattern as the one identified in three other States. It’s the same pattern as three cases over here.’
Fielding wondered how she would put all this down on paper. It looked thin even to her and she wanted it to be true. ‘Isn’t it all down to their so-called psychological profiling. Isn’t that really why they think he exists?’
‘It started that way, yes. In each case a series of murders was put down to one killer and then there was a final one that almost but didn’t quite fit the pattern. They believe Veronica Symonds - she’s the attack victim in New York - was lucky.’
‘You think the identification of Stevens’s “twin” makes his theory plausible?’
‘Yes I do,’ Wright said.
He couldn’t have been more firm. Fielding imagined he was good giving evidence in court.
‘You haven’t told me yet why you’re interested in all of this,’ he said.
‘No I haven’t,’ she said. ‘I will when I can.’
On the way back to London, she had time to think it over. It was a pity that Anderson had the ‘Ripper’ case and it was a pity that the connection she was trying to make with it was so vague. Copying a murderer from a century ago and adding to his score was hardly going to fool anyone. But he might be an opportunist and flexible enough to ply his trade in a variety of ways.
She had to try to convince Anderson that she was on to something. What use was her work with records and patterns of crime if she couldn’t apply them? The Super would surely see the point and, if Anderson agreed, she had a good chance of getting her way and joining the investigation. If she succeeded, it would get her out of her office and on to a case — and that was what counted. And there was a bonus: she would be working with Anderson again.
She would keep Jim Stevens and his ideas under wraps. He was too eager, too keen and he had made the case too personal - and he was American. No, she didn’t think he would go down well with Anderson or the Super.
A short report in writing to pave the way was the right way to do it. And she would make sure that it was on Anderson’s desk before he came in the next day. The rest of the printouts she would bundle into a file and she would carry it into Anderson’s office when summoned. There was nothing like a large pack of papers to impress. And anyway, their sheer size would be intimidating. Anderson wouldn’t want to plough through so much paper, so he wouldn’t become aware of the thinness of her evidence.
It had gone quiet and it wasn’t simply the lack of noise in his office that made Anderson think that. Comben sat silently opposite him, the desk between. There was no point in going over again what they had and what they didn’t have. Julian was their best bet but Anderson didn’t want to end the investigation yet. Outside the office was silent but they were all there — waiting. Anderson wondered whether there had been a leak but maybe they were all waiting for the next one. Two murders were not enough; it didn’t fit any sort of pattern. There had to be more and maybe that was what he was waiting for too. Forensics certainly had given them nothing to go on for the first two.
Anderson picked up the single sheet of paper that lay in his in-tray. It was from Fielding. He wondered whether she was enjoying her assignment. Promotion it might have been but Anderson imagined she would still prefer to be out there not stuck in an office. Responsibility for information processing and the hours in front of a computer screen that meant would not, Anderson thought, be her choice of job. Still she could hope for more active service in the years that followed and it was more money.
The paper drew attention to a pattern. It was the sort of analysis pioneered in the States and used to track serial killers there. Anderson had only the slightest familiarity with the process and he had gleaned that from American detective novels. Still anything was worth following up right then.
Anderson picked up his phone and summoned Fielding to him. Before she came, he dismissed Comben.
Fielding came into his office with an exaggerated air of confidence. Anderson knew her: her manner betrayed her discomfort. But was it the case or was it personal? He hadn’t thought he had made too much of it - in public at least. But maybe he was giving off signals that he didn’t know about. He had been hurt; he had to accept that. It had been an insult and it was still there lying between them. Anderson wondered whether she thought he had been instrumental in confining her to a desk because of it. He hadn’t thought of that before.
‘Is it of interest to you?’ she asked pointing at the sheet of paper in his hand.
‘We’ve nothing else. Until we catch the writer, that is,’ Anderson said.
‘There are three areas in this country that show up crimes that could be linked to the American data,’ she said.
‘So what are you saying?’ He wasn’t prepared to give her too much just yet. Was that professional or personal? There he was, back again scratching old wounds; he really must sort the thing out once and for all. He didn’t want it interfering with his work or hers.
‘It could be that their serial killer came over here and has been practising his trade around the country.’
‘And how does this…,’ Anderson waved her single sheet of paper much as Chamberlain had done sixty years before, ’tell us that.’
‘It’s not a usual pattern. The man’s an opportunist. He adapts his technique to the exigencies of the moment.’
‘So in this case, he just found out about Jack the Ripper and decided to add one of his own. Or maybe he happened to know about the stories and decided to copy them. Unless you think Julian’s the American, of course.’ This time he didn’t even try to keep the disbelief out of his voice.
‘It’s a thought,’ she said.
‘Have you any real proof that all this American stuff refers to one man?’
‘The FBI think so.’
‘Have you any real proof he is in England — if he exists.’ Anderson was trying – but not trying too hard – to keep the inflection out of his voice. He didn’t believe in long shots and all this psychological profiling was one big long shot. And the odds would be even longer if Fielding couldn’t be sure the stuff was relevant to England.
‘I didn’t think you wanted it all but I have more.’ She produced a bulging file and placed it on the desk in front of her.
‘And what does all that say?’ Anderson asked.
‘It’s a lot of evidence – not conclusive – but it seems to show that there is a man. His description rang bells in at least three places where murders of the type we’re considering took place.’
‘In England?’
‘Yes, a lot of it’s hearsay but reasonably reliable. Do you want to read this stuff?’ Fielding pushed the file towards him.
She was silent as he stared into her eyes. He knew what she wanted. She wanted to follow it up out there and he could ask her to do this. Upstairs would release her temporarily on his recommendation. But maybe it wasn’t simply wishful thinking on her part, maybe she really did have something. Her intuition – if one was allowed to use that phrase about a policewoman these days – had always been good. Anderson waved the papers away and then he was silent. He decided to trust her.
‘I’m sorry if I hurt you,’ she said.
‘Hurt me when?’ he said. He had been quick to answer — too quick. He was angry for betraying himself. But still, he was pleased that she had said something. It was enough that she had acknowledged what she had done. There was no need for anything further.
Fielding relaxed back into the seat. She was a fine woman: not beautiful but she had a small lithe body and she was intelligent — to Anderson that meant a lot in a woman. But she was still his subordinate — it could never happen. But, when they worked together, he had wanted it to. And that was what made it painful. He tried to fight the memory off but her few words had brought back the moment.
It was the day her promotion was announced officially, although he had known about it a week before. It had been polite of the Super to do this. It was his own strong recommendation that had made her promotion possible, so the Super’s consideration made sense. If she had failed it would have been as much a black mark against himself as against Fielding, perhaps even more so. She was young to be considered for promotion from Sergeant to Inspector; her time would have come again. But those above would have looked askance at his own judgement should she have given a bad performance.
She came back to the station in triumph and Anderson came of his office with a broad smile on his face to congratulate her. She came towards him with elation in her eyes and then she ignored his outstretched hand and hugged him to her. He felt her warm breath on his neck and the softness of her breasts through her shirt. Then she drew back and ran her hands down the sleeves of his suit.
‘You’ll have to be careful,’ she said ‘I might overtake you in the promotion stakes and then you’ll have to take orders from a woman.’
He smiled. It was a weak joke and it did irritate him. He had never thought of himself as sexist and reckoned he could take orders from a woman as easily as from a man. But it would still have been all right if she had stopped there. She didn’t; she fingered his lapel and his tie and then his shirt.
‘I suppose bright ties are acceptable these days,’ she said, ’but greens and blues that rivalled peacocks are hardly the colours for a man approaching middle-age who wishes to be taken seriously.’
He had felt a flush come to his face. She had spoken quietly and it was possible that no one else heard but he could never know. No one would dare mention it to him. Fielding saw immediately that she had made a mistake. But it was too late: the words had escaped with the full force of their spontaneity. And she couldn’t apologise with everyone gathered around.
Nowadays sober grey and dark blue suits had taken the place of those other brighter cloths and hung on the right of his wardrobe.
It had occurred to him many times that she could have apologised later – in private – but then his own reaction and the immediate changes in his wardrobe must have made it difficult. He had always supposed she had taken the decision to say nothing because she thought it the best thing to do for both of them. Her change of mind, he supposed, meant that she blamed him for her office job. Why else would she speak now? ‘Nice suit,’ she said.
He smiled. She had made the nearest to an apology that he wanted or needed. It was probably two words too many. What counted was that she knew it had hurt. ‘So why don’t you follow this up,’ he said.
‘You mean join the team?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘And my present work?’
‘If you prefer to get on with that … ’ he didn’t finish.
‘You’ll have a word with the Super then,’ she said.
He nodded and a smile broke out over her face. He smiled back.
Later that day Fielding found herself in one of those country towns where the agricultural show is the event of the year and murders take place elsewhere. She drove under a small arch and then up the main street, which looked as though it had stopped growing sometime in the nineteenth century. She parked and went inside a teashop that sold toasted teacakes and at eleven in the morning was full of matronly figures with white hair. Fielding wondered where the poor working people lived.
Later at the local nick, Inspector Carstairs was not happy to see her. She felt like an alien in a foreign land rather than a fellow police officer; he gave her the impression that he had declared Ludlow independent of the rest of the UK some time ago. He was old to be an inspector still; clearly he was near to retirement and didn’t want his last years marred by the activities of criminals. Still she understood; her presence reminded him of recent unpleasantness. In his mind, murder was an intrusion from the outside and murderers were invaders to be thrown back at the beachhead. He thought it impossible that the culprit - who must have been an ’outsider’ - was still in the town. He seemed to have forgotten that this was the second murder in one year — an unprecedented statistic. To him the ’incident’ was an aberration best forgotten together with the well-publicised rapes that had recently occurred in his patch.
More photos, more descriptions but no American accent. One of the photos, though, looked too similar to the picture she had of Stevens to be ignored. Carstairs seemed more than pleased to tell her that the man had moved on. He had been a visitor. Fielding imagined that this constituted an ade