Chapter 14
Kearney tried not to say so but it had been his mistake. One tactic would have been to blame Anderson for being out of contact for twenty-four hours but Anderson knew he couldn’t do that. If he did, then it was tantamount to an admission that his decision had been faulty. No, his strategy was a combination of bluster and reproach about Anderson’s secrecy. Why had he not been told about Anderson’s suspicions? Why had he been left to suppose Simanovicz was the culprit? And anyway was Anderson so sure it wasn’t him?
Anderson was not prepared to allow Kearney one iota of comfort. He sat and drew his chair up to Kearney’s desk even before being asked to take a seat. Then he lent forward until Kearney, although he was a yard or so away across the desktop, flinched backwards. Finally, as though in consideration of his superior’s feelings, Anderson lent back and relaxed into the leather of his chair before speaking.
‘David,’ he said using the Super’s first name. It was the first time he had breached protocol since Kearney had been promoted over him — the Super would understand the significance. ‘We’ve worked well together for a number of years and on my part I’ve been very happy at the arrangement. Your talents suit the job you do, a job that I could not do.’ He paused. Kearney said nothing. ‘One of the strengths of our arrangement is that you let me do the detective work. You let me run my cases and I believe we’ve both benefited from that.’
Kearney nodded. The corollary to what Anderson was saying did not have to be spelt out. This one intervention could have disastrous consequences for both their careers. Anderson could see that Kearney was waiting to see whether his old friend and colleague could get him out of the hole he had dug for himself.
‘Maybe I should have kept you in the picture but in the past you haven’t wanted that. And I’ve been happy to take the responsibility until I could present you with the completed case. I have felt no need to burden you with doubts as I went along. That’s what being in charge of a case means.’
For a moment, Anderson thought Kearney was going to intervene. He knew that the man must have been bursting with suppressed indignation as Anderson spelt out to him the basics of their arrangement but he deserved the lecture. It wasn’t as though Anderson was doing it simply to enjoy himself – although he was getting pleasure out of the situation – it was a lesson that he hoped would produce results for the future. Anderson had no intention of working under a man who did not know his own limits.
‘But now this has happened, you must be burdened with the details. First, I have Simanovicz. Comben and I arrested him and he is at Stoke Newington. We’ve questioned him and I have been doubtful about his guilt ever since. He was in custody when Mrs Downing was attacked.’
Anderson paused and was pleased to see Kearney’s mouth drop. Then it was Kearney’s turn to surprise him. ‘I know you had Simanovicz; that’s why I released Mrs Downing. The Super at Stoke Newington phoned me. What I didn’t know was that you were so doubtful about him.’
‘I see,’ Anderson said, ’the old boy network came into play. Well, you understand now why I wanted Mrs Downing to be kept safe. What you don’t know about is the work DI Fielding has been doing. She’s discovered that we might have an American serial killer on the loose over here and we suspect that Mark Turney is that man.’
‘So I released Mrs Downing into the arms of a murderer.’
Anderson nodded. Kearney had got the message loud and clear. The two men looked at each other. There was no need to spell out the consequences for Kearney if Clarissa died. Interfering with the conduct of a case was a serious breech of police etiquette. To get it wrong and cause a death was a resignation matter.
‘Have you arrested Turney?’
‘No,’ said Anderson, ’we have absolutely no evidence to do so.’
‘He stands to gain from her death?’
It was hardly a question. They both knew what was at stake. ‘Yes,’ said Anderson, ’millions.’ Anderson wasn’t sure about this, maybe it was just hundreds of thousands but ’millions’ sounded better.
Kearney opened his mouth. Anderson imagined he was going to ask questions and make suggestions. He didn’t. ‘I’ve great confidence in you,’ he said, ‘I won’t interfere further.’
When he got back to his office, Fielding and Comben were poring over a detailed map of the area. They had marked a wide channel between Amanda’s flat and Clarissa’s house. Inside the area, a street was marked out in green.
Fielding didn’t look up as Anderson came into the office. She continued to look at the map but she did explain. ‘What we’re looking for cannot be far from both Clarissa’s house and Amanda’s flat. He had to have time to change and then change back between his journeys and we know he was back and in bed within forty-five minutes of the attack.’
‘And Amanda Clayden?’
‘She only woke up when I rang the bell,’ said Comben. ‘They went to bed at eleven and, as far as she knows, Turney was beside her all night.’
‘She doesn’t take sleeping pills?’ asked Anderson.
‘No,’ said Comben, ’apparently they have better ways of getting sleepy.’
Anderson met Comben’s smirk without a smile. The boy must learn when to be serious. ‘What’s that?’ he asked, pointing at the green area marked on the map.
‘It’s an old-fashioned mews. There are a number of lock-up garages rented out there,’ said Comben.
Anderson looked at Fielding.
‘We should have search warrants very soon now.’
It was good to have Fielding on the case. It had been much more tiring doing all the thinking. Anderson felt very weary and decided to go home. ‘I must rest,’ he said.
‘Do so,’ said Fielding, ‘I had a good sleep last night. Mrs Downing has twenty-four hour protection and, if anything turns up at the garages, I’ll phone you.’
‘Where’s Simanovicz?’ he asked.
‘I asked Stoke Newington to take him back to his parents,’ Fielding said.
‘Who knows about that?’
‘Mark Turney doesn’t,’ said Comben.
The garage was not hard to find and Fielding had her forensic team at work within the hour. The car inside had been stolen and there was no way of tracing the bicycle. Fielding did not imagine that Turney would have left any evidence connecting him to the place. She felt sorry for Comben’s hangdog expression but she couldn’t allow morale to slump. The rest of the team she sent out to trace the owner of the garage and to get some sort of a lead on the tenant. Then there was the car. It would help to know when and where it had been stolen.
She took Comben to the hospital to look over the security arrangements. She was shocked to see Turney sitting by Clarissa’s bed. There was a constable in the room but there were too many vulnerable tubes and wires connecting the poor woman to the machine that kept her alive. Comben sat down beside Turney and Fielding went in search of the senior surgeon in charge of the case.
The doctor came back with her and banished Turney from the room. The constable was allowed to stay but only sitting at a distance. The surgeon gave a convincing performance about his medical concerns to the supposedly grieving husband. Fielding had already thanked him in advance. It was his opinion, he said to Turney, that the presence of emotional relatives would spoil the calmness of the ward and was not good for the patient. Turney left: in a hospital, a surgeon’s opinion is tantamount to law.
Fielding asked the Super for two more officers to be permanently at the hospital — one in the corridor outside the ward as well as the one inside and one other. The ward was on the first floor but an agile person could easily climb up from the enclosed garden outside. She stationed a third in the quadrangle. Kearney made no fuss about the overtime and the cost involved.
Turney spent the rest of the morning at the hospital. The site plans helped and were displayed everywhere for the benefit of patients and visitors. But there was not enough detail and he walked around the grounds to see for himself how easy it was going to be. Finding the incinerator was essential and, when he did, he found the place locked with no one on duty. It had been the same at Central Middlesex where he had disposed of his gear in the past; the facility was used intermittently and mostly at night when the smoke it emitted could not be seen by nearby residents. It would do nicely when the time came; he could easily force the lock and add his green plastic bag to the rest waiting to be burnt. No one would rummage around a pile of clinical waste to find his overalls.
Then he walked round the block where Clarissa was receiving intensive care. It was built in the form of a hollow square around a quadrangle. The wards were on the upper two floors with the service areas in the basement. He wandered as though lost at ground level and then took the stairs down. He wandered at will without being challenged. It was always a surprise to him that people felt safe in a hospital.
The imponderable was Anderson. If he could jostle him mentally into doing what was wanted, then it would be easy. Before he drove north to Watford he fetched his gear from the cemetery and left it close to the hospital incinerator.
Back home in the light of day, Anderson slept. It was unusual of him to be able to do so but his exhaustion allowed it. When he woke it was two in the afternoon and he was angry with himself. He had dreamt and blamed himself as he dreamed. He awoke as tired as he had been that morning or so he thought. But once he got out of bed, he realised that his limbs, at least, did feel stronger.
Turney had managed to stay ahead of them: that was what irritated him. He had to put that right. It was time to take a jump forward and anticipate instead of reacting. And that meant getting inside the man and understanding what made him work. Clearly money did. This whole case had been about money — Clarissa’s money. The first two murders had been blinds. Turney had used his previous experience to jump on Simanovicz’s ideas as he had done before. But this time he was doing so for profit. The two dead women had never been important to him. They were as irrelevant to Turney as Patricia Rathbone and the other victims in Britain and the States. There was no motive for those senseless killings; all they indicated was Turney’s psychopathic tendencies. But he had now found a way of making use of his apprenticeship for profit.
An idea came to him, a notion that needed developing. He needed coffee. Lavazza, of course, twice the amount recommended by the percolator manufacturers. For some reason, it appeared that the British had a taste for weak coffee or at least coffee-making machine manufacturers thought so. He was sure that in France or Italy the number of recommended scoops per cup would be greater.
He watched the water dribble into the top of the filter and drip out underneath a dark brown colour. He did not try to think. The coffee would bring his mind into focus soon enough. Any forcing would distract the processes that were continuing beneath the surface of his consciousness.
Two cups later he was certain what Turney would do. He would be attracted by killing two birds with one stone — that was it. He was an economical killer. If one murder could serve two purposes that was what he would go for. Then he phoned Fielding’s mobile and asked if Turney was still at the hospital. He had left four hours ago at least. Then he tried to phone Kevin Walker but his line was unobtainable. The local mechanics would look into it so they said.
The Watford police were alerted and a few hours later phoned back. Walker’s lines had been cut and he had seen Mark Turney from his flat window. He was scared. Anderson understood. Turney was a frightening man especially if you had crossed him and he must know by now that Walker had been responsible for Felicity turning up in London. But if he was right, then being seen by Walker was only part of Turney’s plan. He would want to see Anderson himself or at least Fielding or Comben. He would want his diversion to distract from the hospital bed in Camden.
Anderson phoned Fielding and told him about the Turney sighting. They agreed that Comben should go and that he should be armed. Anderson could not allow another murder to take place while he was looking the other way. It might be a feint on Turney’s part but then it might not. Still he expected Turney back in Camden quite soon and he made his plans.
Turney made quite sure that Walker saw him and his car. Then he parked it across the street and waited. Kevin wouldn’t want to come outside to get help but he couldn’t phone the police from home, nor could he ask a neighbour to phone for him. Turney had cut most of the lines going to the block of flats. It was a gamble and it might not prove much of a distraction but he felt confident in Anderson. The man would eventually think of Walker. And, since Turney imagined they regarded him as a wild animal, it was logical to imagine he would take revenge on Walker.
It was two or three hours later than Comben arrived. Turney stayed in full view of Kevin’s window, then, as soon as Walker, with Comben at his side, pointed to him, Turney got out of the car and walked away towards the station.
There was plenty of time. Watford Junction to Willesden Junction took thirty minutes then the train to Hampstead Heath another thirty. Leaving time for connections, he should be at the hospital in less than two hours. He had a few minutes to wait for his train, so he phoned the Royal Free Hospital. Clarissa was stable but still under intensive care, so they said. Should he believe them? Probably not. He phoned again and asked for the private wing. Then he asked whether his wife had yet been transferred. There was enough delay before they said ’no’ to tell him what he wanted to know.
At the hospital he ignored the main entrance and skirted around the back to where he could climb a low wall behind the incinerator. He was very fond of incinerators; they had helped him to rid himself of unwanted baggage in the past. By the side of the low brick-built building, under a bush, he had hidden the clothes he had stolen from a hospital cupboard earlier. He dressed himself in the nondescript green overalls that distinguished those employees of low status from the doctors and nurses. Absolutely no one would take any notice of him.
When he had worked at a hospital in the States, one of his duties was to collect waste from the wards and take them to the incinerator. There was a high turnover of staff in this section and, he supposed it would be the same over here, so his unfamiliarity should pass unnoticed — no one would be likely make any enquiries. It was possible that, later, some nurse would remember seeing a new face but it was unlikely that she would be able to recognise him again. He felt secure as he found a trolley in the basement and wheeled it into the Private Wing.
The policeman outside one of the rooms was enough of an indication for him. He left his trolley and went downstairs to the outside of the building to work out how he could get into the room without being seen. It was difficult but he reckoned he could climb up to the window. To get inside, though, he needed someone to leave a window ajar. A trip back to the incinerator gave him what he needed. Inside and upstairs again he wheeled his trolley into Clarissa’s room. The officer outside followed him in and the one inside watched him carefully. He wore a mask this time to collect the waste and his bin was marked with the words ‘Clinical Waste‘. The two men kept well away from him.
Before he left, he hid a cloth soaked in chloroform behind the waste bin. It would take a while but the officer inside would open the window eventually. As he wheeled his trolley past the bed, he glanced over at his wife. There were some wires attaching her to a machine but no tubes or oxygen masks. He had not done very well last time. This time it would be easier. A pillow should do the job as long as he held it there long enough. He couldn’t imagine that she would struggle much or for long. All he had to remember was to disconnect the machine.
Then he went back to the incinerator and prepared himself. It was five o’clock and dark but he would wait until the night shift took over at six. The changeover traffic should lead to enough confusion to cover any noise he might make or, hopefully, Clarissa’s machine if it sent out a warning when disconnected. If he could get into the room, then he reckoned that the officer inside should be reasonably easy to subdue with a cloth soaked in more chloroform. But he could afford to leave no traces. If he wanted to inherit, they mustn’t be able to prove anything. Suspicions he could live with.
He wouldn’t be coming from inside the hospital, so he could cover his face with a mask. All his clothing would go into the incinerator before he left the hospital grounds. Trainers were necessary for climbing but he had bought them from a multiple store and he had stolen the decontamination gear from a building site he had worked on at Watford. Nor was the garage a problem: when they found it and they would – nothing inside would connect the place to him.
Now he had to think about what Anderson had been doing. Would he wait all night at Intensive Care? He thought not. He must know that tonight was the best night. At any time Clarissa might gain consciousness. Turney didn’t imagine that she could tell them anything but it was just possible that she could. Anderson would know he couldn’t take the risk. So, at some point Anderson would check on the Private Ward and it was impossible to know when. Turney decided that he would give him a good reason to stay put.
Access to the quadrangle outside the Intensive Care ward window was through a single door. But, at the semi-basement level, there were a number of windows that opened wide enough for him to get through. Turney walked around inside the building at the semi-basement level below the main hospital corridors. There was no one there at that time of the evening.
Through a window Turney saw him. The man Anderson had stationed was restless and, after a few minutes, he walked to and for in front of the wall under where Clarissa was supposed to be. Turney guessed that Anderson would be above.
Turney eased out of a window into a shadow. The moon illuminated part of the officer’s beat and he crept around until he was crouching below the man’s line of sight in the shadow at the end where the man would turn. But this time he didn’t come that far. Instead, the man stopped and crouched down himself. Turney stayed very still. His right hand was in his pocket clutching a chloroformed cloth sealed in a plastic bag.
After two or three minutes, the policeman fidgeted and Turney knew he would be up quite soon. Turney prepared himself and the cloth. This time when he came close and turned, Turney rose as well and placed his chloroformed rag over the man’s mouth as he pressed into his neck with his spare arm. Turney sank down with him on to the ground. He had wanted some noise to attract Anderson’s attention but there was none; he would have to wait. It was eight o’clock.
Then Turney crawled back through the window but did not attempt to close it. He walked to the far end of the corridor and waited. It was half an hour before Anderson came out on to the balcony above and shouted. Then he came down the staircase that served as a fire escape into the garden.
Turney imagined that he would have thirty minutes at least to do what he had to.
Anderson worried about his decision. The hospital had wanted to free an expensive bed and, though he could have resisted, it appeared to fit in well with his strategy. Moving Clarissa to another ward – now she was fit enough – seemed to be a sensible safety measure. If there had been a struggle in the intensive care ward, Clarissa could have been harmed while they overpowered the man.
But then there was the unscheduled visit to her room in the Private Wing. It was easily possible that Turney now knew Clarissa was there and that had meant splitting his forces. And it had meant moving Clarissa once more despite the hospital’s objections. And then there was Fielding — that was a worry too.
Every half-hour he checked round by phone and then at about eight Wilkins didn’t answer. He climbed out of the window on to the fire escape and shouted. There was no answering call and downstairs the smell of chloroform told him why. There was an open window but no sign of Turney. He alerted Fielding and then trotted through the hospital grounds towards the Private Wing.