CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The failed collection had been explained.
In fact it wasn’t a failure at all.
It just didn’t work out as planned that was all.
And he was definitely not to blame.
Naturally at first he berated himself for not being successful, or rather not as lucky as he had planned, but after much reflection and analysis he realised that it was the woman’s fault and not his.
He had done everything right.
She was the one who changed the rules.
If she had kept to the rules all would have gone according to plan.
But the damned bitch had broken the rules and had as a result broken the carefully planned chain of events that he had put into motion, or intended to put into motion.
He was the one with the intellect and the ability.
He had proven that before.
She was just stupid.
She was insipid and lacked the conviction of her earlier actions.
That was why at the last moment she had weakened and broken the chain.
If she had had more self confidence and had not changed the rules it would have all gone according to his plan and he wouldn’t have to search again.
But now he would have to go out again.
Time had been lost and he was getting edgy.
And annoyed.
He had to try again.
If he didn’t the headaches be was beginning to get now could get worse.
He never experienced them before.
It was the fault of that fucking bitch.
She broke the rules and that meant he had to suffer these headaches.
Well, there was a sure way to make them go away.
He knew exactly what he had to do.
*
There are six hundred and fifty Members of Parliament. For an Early Day Motion to get one hundred signatures is good. To get two hundred is seldom achieved. To get three hundred is very rare indeed.
Anthony Lawrence’s EDM had already secured two hundred and sixty seven signatures from MPs across all the major parties as well as from the minority parties. It indicated clearly that there was wide support for it.
When Lawrence had first drawn up the motion there had been four deaths, a person was reportedly in police custody being questioned and public anxiety was rising. He had called on the authorities to take all responsible actions to assist the police to bring the case to a close.
Since then a fifth woman had been killed. The person who had been held in police custody at the time, Rocky James, had not been charged with murdering any of the women. With the discovery of the latest victim and the media description of the horrific injuries inflicted on the women the public was definitely more worried and were speaking out demanding further police action. Naturally the Home Secretary had offered whatever additional help the police needed but the murderer was still at large.
So more and more MPs were adding their names to the EDM. And that meant the media were paying increasing attention to its passage through the House of Commons. There was still a very long way to go before the motion was ever likely to be debated, but that was not the point of an EDM. It was designed to highlight something that the sponsor and his backers considered important enough to bring to the attention of other members of the House and with luck to the notice of the journalists in the Press Gallery. Lawrence had so far succeeded on all fronts.
In my role as a columnist and not a daily follower of the events on the floor I did not have direct access to the Press Gallery in the House of Commons but I did have contacts among the writers who did. So when I was told how the EDM was rapidly gaining support I called Lawrence.
“Yes,” he said. “It’s going very well indeed. Better than I anticipated.”
“Do you think it might actually end up being debated?” I asked.
“If it did I would be amazed to tell the truth.”
“Really?”
“No. I can’t recall when the last motion was debated. I think mine will continue to gather support for a time yet but eventually interest in it will be replaced by something more immediately important.”
“How long then?”
“Oh maybe another few weeks. But I can’t be certain.”
“What if there are more killings? What then?”
Lawrence sighed. “If any more women are found to have been brutally tortured and killed and then dumped then to be frank I think the success of my motion will be the least of our concerns.”
I didn’t say anything and Lawrence went on: “I’m going to get onto Sir Kenneth Bell now and see if he can get his Home Affairs Select Committee to try to move things along a bit.”
“How can the Select Committee do that,” I enquired. “What can they do?”
“Not a lot I grant you,” answered Lawrence. “But perhaps they could call the Commissioner of Police and get him to explain exactly what is being done and how he sees things progressing.”
“So that is just another tactic to raise awareness then?”
“Pretty much.”
I was not convinced it would lead to anything concrete and I suspected Lawrence held the same view. Again I said nothing.
“So that’s it,” Lawrence said. “We’ll see how things unfold over the next few days. And let’s just pray for all reasons that another dead woman doesn’t turn up.”
*
After I finished talking with Tony Lawrence I decided to give Detective David Maguire a call. I rang his mobile and listened to the ring tone repeated in my ear. When there was no answer and it began to go onto recorded voicemail I cancelled the call. I did not want to leave a message and decided to try again later. When I did try again later I heard some indistinct chatter in the background and then Maguire’s voice: “Yes. Hello?”
“Hello,” I said. “It’s Zack. Are you free? Can you talk?”
“I’ll call you back,” he said and the connection was severed.
It was a good hour before my BlackBerry rang as I was sitting in a coffee shop in Victoria.
“Hello, David?” I asked.
“Yes.” Maguire sounded curt. “Look I don’t have much time to chat so what can I do for you?”
He certainly did sound as if he did not really want to talk. So I went on quickly: “I just wanted to check in to see what was happening. If there had been any new developments.”
“What sort of developments do you expect?”
“I have no idea. Anything. Have you got any new information?”
Maguire did not say anything so I continued: “I was just talking with Tony Lawrence. He’s that MP who started the Early Day Motion in the Commons. It has well over two hundred signatures already and he expects more. He’s also going to try to get the Home Affairs Select Committee to call the Commissioner and question him.”
“Shit,” said Maguire. “Why do politicians stick their noses in business they don’t understand. What does he hope to achieve for Christ’s sake?”
It was my turn to keep quiet.
“Can you get him not to do that? Can you convince him not to get any committee to call the Commissioner?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I could call him but what do I tell him when he asks why?”
Maguire breathed out heavily through his nose. “Listen,” he said. “We have a problem with this. This is still off the record right?”
He didn’t wait for me to answer. “There has been a development but I don’t want any bloody politician doing anything that might interfere with what we’re doing now. So can you get him to quieten down for a while?”
“As I said, I can call him,” I replied. “But why?”
I heard Maguire again sniff. “Just tell him we’re following a new lead and that if anything is done or said that gets in the way it could be extremely damaging. Ok?”
“What new lead? Can you tell me what it is?”
“Listen, if you can do this I might be able to give you something in return. Ok? But I want you to speak with this Lawrence as soon as you can. Can you do that?”
I had no choice. “Yes,” I said. “I’ll give him a call straight away. It was only a few hours ago that I was speaking to him. Hopefully he hasn’t spoken to Sir Kenneth Bell yet.”
“Good.”
“Can I call you back and can you then give me something, tell me what’s going on?”
“Give me about three hours. Then I’ll call you.”
“Ok,” I said. “I’ll wait to hear from you.”
The line immediately went dead.
I punched in the number for the Parliament switchboard and hoped I could get through to Tony Lawrence before he had spoken to Sir Kenneth Bell.
*
Maguire read down the list of names and shook his head.
“I don’t see one that I recognise,” he said.
“We’ve sifted through them already,” Walden told him. “That young fellow Kumar and I went through them. He’s a bright lad that.”
Maguire stretched his neck so he could see around his partner to where Kumar was sitting studying a file that was open on his computer.
“So there are fifty-two that we have to check out,” he said. “How are we going to divide them up?”
Walden had originally intended Kumar, Maguire, himself and another detective would share them out equally. But on reflection he had decided instead to just limit the work to the three of them.
“I reckon if you and I take twenty each Kumar can look after the remaining dozen.”
Maguire nodded. “Right. Let’s get on with it then.”
The allocation of the names was anything but scientific. Maguire took the top twenty, Walden the next twenty and Kumar the rest. They then went over to their respective desks and for the next hour and a half talked on the telephone to try to pin down as discreetly as possible where their targets were likely to be during the day.
Kumar was the first to leave the office, followed by Walden and five minutes later by Maguire.
*
Sanjay Kumar had been lucky and was able to speak with ten of the people on his list. Three had been female and he was quick to eliminate them as possible suspects after meeting with them. In all there were eight females that the detectives had to check out as Walden was quick to point out that assumptions should not be made that the killer could only be a man. There had been female murderers over the years, very few it had to be said, but making assumptions could sometimes lead to fatal mistakes.
It was getting dark and he estimated he would probably be able to complete his round within a few hours. Most of that time would be taken up with driving to the individual addresses which were in very different parts of the city. Perhaps, he thought, it would have been better to divide up the lists according to location, but that was with the benefit of hindsight. Speed had been the essence.
He knocked on the door of the flat. No answer. He knocked louder.
“Are you looking for him?”
Kumar backed away and look back towards the road where a white haired mad stood staring at him.
“Yes,” said Kumar. “Do you live here?”
“Upstairs,” said the man. “Well, next door actually. And upstairs.”
“Do you know if he’s in?” asked Kumar.
“I don’t think so. I saw him leave about half an hour ago. I haven’t seen him come back.”
“Do you know where he went or when he might be returning?”
“No. I just saw him walking out. What do you want with him?”
Kumar walked towards the man. “It’s not that important. I can come back later perhaps.” As he walked past the man he stopped and asked: “What do you know of him? A nice bloke I hear.”
“I don’t know him that well,” said the man. “He keeps very much to himself.”
“Ok then,” said Kumar. “Thanks for you help.”
“Bye,” said the man and walked to the door at the front of the building and let himself in. In the kitchen he began making himself a pot of tea and mumbled to himself: “A policeman I bet. Like London buses; you don’t come across one for ages and then three of them appear at once.”
*
Of the fifty-two names that Maguire, Walden and Kumar had to check, by ten o’clock they had eliminated thirty-nine. The remaining eleven would be dealt with the next morning which hopefully would not take too long. Five were abroad on holidays and had been out of the country for some weeks, one was now working in Dubai and only returned to London on visits once or twice a year, and one was working in Paris as a fashion designer and the information from an acquaintance was that he was decidedly not of the heterosexual type likely to get involved with brutalising females.
“We should be able to clear up the other four first thing in the morning,” said Walden. “We’ll then have a clearer picture as to whether one of them is our man or whether we are back to square one.”
“Let’s hope we’re able to identify a possible,” said Maguire. “If none of these people are likely then we’ll be back to square one. And that is a place I am tired of being to be honest.”
The other two detectives shook their heads. They then left the office, agreeing to meet up again first thing in the morning.
After they had gone Maguire was deep in thought for a time and then retrieved a number from his mobile’s memory and depressed the dial button.
*
I thought I recognised the number on my BlackBerry screen but I was not absolutely certain. I just hoped my assumption was correct.
“Tighe,” I answered.
“Detective Maguire,” he said. I had yet to have a conversation with him when he introduced himself by his first name. It was always detective or he simply began speaking as though we were already in the middle of a conversation.
“Hello,” I said. “This is a bit late to be calling isn’t it? It’s near to eleven. You should be at home with your lovely wife.”
“I promised to call you back,” he said. “So I am.”
“Yes. So you are.”
A silence settled between us.
“Do you have something for me?” I asked. “Have there been any developments in the case?”
“Maybe,” said Maguire. “It’s not certain but maybe.”
“What sort of developments?”
“This has to be off the record. I need your word on that.”
“Naturally. As always. Off the record.”
Again there was a silence.
“There are two things that have happened. One I can’t tell you anything about at all. The other is tenuous to say the least.”
“Can’t you give me the good bit?” I asked.
“No,” Maguire answered. “Not yet anyway.”
“And the other one is, what did you call it, tenuous?”
“Jesus Tighe, be grateful that I called you, that I even agree to speak with you at all.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean anything. Just that it sounds like maybe it’s nothing at all.”
“Maybe it is nothing,” Maguire said.
“Tell me anyway. You never know.”
“Before I do,” said Maguire, “did you manage to speak with your MP friend?”
“I did,” I said. Fortunately I had managed to reach Tony Lawrence before he spoke with Sir Kenneth Bell and we agreed they would hold off on doing anything further for the time being. That time being for the next twenty-four hours anyway.
“Thanks,” said Maguire when I explained this to him.
“So?” I enquired.
Maguire was still hesitant but said: “The night before last a young woman was assaulted by a man in central London. Not sexually assaulted and not attacked as such. But definitely she was threatened.” He stopped there.
“Are you saying,” I interrupted, “that the man who attacked her was the killer? Is that what you think?”
“We don’t know,” Maguire answered. “But he was aggressive and the woman was left feeling very frightened.”
“So,” I said. “What’s so unusual about it? Surely you get reports like that almost daily.”
“True,” answered Maguire. “But there was something that, I don’t know, something that was different. He was a good looking guy, extremely polite and courteous right up to the point where she refused to get in his car with him. And then he grabbed her and was very threatening.”
“Did he hurt her?”
“No. But he terrified her. He was so insistent, as though he was desperate for her to go with him. Not just the disgruntled would-be lover. It sounded like something more desperate than that.”
What Maguire was telling me was interesting but I could not see that it had anything to do with the case that involved five women being murdered. I told him as much.
“Look, all I’m saying is that the man involved here was not your usual half drunk lothario who was pissed off because he couldn’t get his leg over. This guy would have probably lost it if it hadn’t been for the two other men who came to her rescue.”
I was still far from convinced. “And that’s all you have to make you think this guy might, just might, be the serial killer.”
“This killer,” said Maguire, and I could sense he was becoming rather impatient either with my doubting comments or doubts that he could not dismiss from his own mind. “He does not batter his victims. He causes no injuries other than those which involve him removing certain parts of the body. So I think he lures women and doesn’t snatch them off the road as it were.”
“And that fits the profile of the man who attacked this women the other night? That’s why you aren’t prepared to dismiss it as merely another assault on a woman?”
“