CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
“Please. Just let me go. I won’t tell anybody. I promise.”
As she said these words she knew instantly that he would ignore her. She also knew that if she was in his place she would know just how hollow they sounded.
In countless films those very same sentences had been spoken and in virtually every one of the them the person who spoke them, the person whose life was being held in jeopardy, finished up being killed or if not killed, ignored.
She was no different.
He simply took no notice of her.
He had come into the room once again carrying the tray with the bowl and various other things she could not see clearly. Under his arm were bundles of towels. She knew straight away that no matter what she said, irrespective of how much she pleaded, he would carry out his intentions. And that meant he intended to hurt her once more.
The last time the pain had been severe. But it was not as hurtful as the shame and embarrassment she felt with the commencement of her period. That was something she could not, would never, forget. Such a private thing was meant to be private. Certainly not shared in the least intimate way possible. With a stranger. A man. A man who held her captive. A man who had her totally under his control. Completely naked. Powerless. It was unforgivable.
“Why are you doing this?” she whispered. “Why won’t you let me go? Please. If it’s not sex you want what is it? Why are you hurting me?”
The man had placed the tray on the side table just as he had done before. And repeating his previous movements he carefully laid out the implements. Then the towels he unfolded and shook out and spread them out lengthwise behind her head at the end of the bed against the wall.
“What are you going to do?” she said and lifted her head off the pillow as far as she could so she could see the top of the side table. “What’s that? Is it a shaving knife? An old style razor? Are you going to shave me?” Still with her head raised she looked down at her naked body to where she could see her pubic hair. It was in what was known as the almost natural style with just her inner thighs up to the bikini line waxed.
He continued not looking at her and picked up a feather. Loosely wrapped around the stem of the feather, the calamus, the hollow shaft and which has been used to make quill pens, was a piece of paper. He knew the word pen itself is derived from the Latin penna for feather and in French, plume can mean either feather or pen. None of this held any meaning for her as she tried to see what was written on the paper. The last time he had done this had resulted in his inflicting pain on her. He had sliced off one of her toes. That was also when she had started to menstruate and her hot embarrassment had begun. In her anger, her hot fury, she had lashed out at him verbally when he came back to the room hours later carrying another tray. This time it was a dish of soup that he made her eat, spoonful after spoonful, no matter how many times she spat out the liquid and the occasional tiny bit of gristle or bone. Finally he gave up, wiped away the spittle, and left her alone.
Now once again she feared what was to come.
“What is that?” she repeated, this time meaning the paper that he was reading. She had the impression he already knew what was written on it because he simply glanced at it for a moment, just as he had the previous time, and then carefully folded it into a tiny square and placed it in the same corner of the tray as he had before.
Only then did he look at her and she saw that his eyes were expressionless, dead.
*
Mhhhhhhggggggggg.
The feathers had been kind.
His chances of success remained unchanged.
This time he knew there would less blood.
He also knew that the level of danger was low.
Everything was under control.
He looked but didn’t touch the girl.
The lobe was tiny which was to be expected.
Her hair was short.
Short enough not to get in the way.
Now the cut throat razor.
It felt warm and comfortable, the slightly curved wooden handle fitting neatly in his palm, his thumb along the length to where the blade joined.
Briefly he examined it.
It was blemish free.
It shone in the light from the bulb in the ceiling.
Mhhhhhhggg.
Without looking at her face he reached his left hand and took the lobe of the girl’s right ear between his thumb and forefinger.
She shook her head but then suddenly stopped.
She was looking directly at him with wide eyes.
She knows what is going to happen.
She is sensible enough not to struggle.
To fight it risked unnecessary hurt.
He was amazed.
She was actually helping him.
He let go of the lobe and took her ear between his thumb and forefinger again, high up, so that he held the entire ear firmly.
Pulling it slight forward and upward, away from her hairline, he reached forward with his right hand, placed the blade at the top of the ear, close to the skull and in a slow single motion sliced the ear free.
He placed the severed flesh in the bowl, dropped the razor in also, reached above her head taking a single towel and held it bunched firmly against the bleeding.
She was looking at him.
Her mouth clamped shut.
Her eyes squinting.
She was obviously in pain.
But she was not making a sound.
He looked away.
This was a good one.
It had gone well.
If the feathers continued to favour him he would be able to continue his experiments for a long time.
Mhhhhhhggg.
He was happy.
*
The serial killings were all over the news.
Parliament was taking a closer and more vocal interest in the state of the police investigations, thanks largely to the growing following for the Early Day Motion started by Tony Lawrence MP.
This meant that the media had decided to follow things more closely as well. So far the newspapers, radio and television had given reasonable exposure time to the murders but now their interest had been stepped up considerably. Now they all wanted answers.
Crimestoppers is a programme separate from the emergency telephone number system that allows members of the public to provide anonymous information about criminal activity. It allows the person to provide crime solving assistance to the police without being directly involved in the investigation process. Crimestoppers programmes are operated in many communities worldwide but it began in Albuquerque, New Mexico in the mid-Seventies which followed the fatal shooting of a female university student working at a local filling station. After two weeks the police had no information when out of desperation a detective approached the local television station requesting a reconstruction of the crime. The re-enactment offered a reward for information leading to the arrest of the killers and within seventy-two hours a person called in identifying a car seen leaving the scene at high speed. It was this quick response that led to the detective helping to design a system where the public could anonymously provide details of criminal events. It also took advantage of every possible media opportunity.
So far Crimestoppers had referred to the serial murders on a number of occasions. But they were mentions only as some of the details of the deaths could not be revealed and the police were not in a position to inform the public how they might actually be able to help with their investigations. There was simply too little known.
The hosts of the programme had Superintendent Ford in the studio and asked him questions about the murdered women, where they were found, in a little detail the nature of the killings, the dates when the bodies were found, and so on.
For his part Superintendent Ford answered the questions as best he could. Which meant the viewer was no better informed than before, as everything he said had already been published in newspapers and aired on radio and television.
Of course he failed to mention that the police did have one suspect in mind. That would be far too premature. The police had much more digging to do before they would be able to make their next move.
*
As I watched the programme I knew that Superintendent Ford was merely going through the motions. His main purpose was to show that the police were doing all they could to solve the murders and bring the person or persons responsible to justice. At the same time it was an opportunity for him to again issue advice and warnings to female viewers to exercise greater care when on the streets, especially late at night.
But I knew more than the other viewers. I knew the suspect’s name and I also knew where he lived.
Alec Bartholemew.
Rokeby Road.
A few clicks on bing’s multimap search engine on the PC and it was a straightforward way of locating the street. I discovered that it was off the main arterial thoroughfare Lewisham Way midway between New Cross and St John’s. I was not familiar with it having not been a regular visitor to that part of south London but I could see immediately that it would easy to locate.
Out of interest I clicked on bird’s eye view and noted that it appeared to be a street that was lined on the one side by terrace houses while on the other there was a school built along the H frame model with tennis courts at one end and parking for vehicles at the other. Where Rokeby Road began at the junction of Brockley Gardens and Upper Brockley Road there was open space with a few trees. At the other end of the road on the same side as the school were semi-detached houses. That meant that if Bartholmew lived in a flat which I assumed it was most likely in one of the terrace houses on the north side.
Next I punched in Yell.com in the Google search window. There were two search windows, one for the profession of the address or telephone number I sought and the other to identify the location. I had no idea of Bartholemew’s work so I simply entered his surname. The location was easier. Hitting the return key I saw that there were six Bartholemews listed. The first was a residential address in the far north west of London, another was somewhere I did not recognise, a third I also could not recognise, and a fourth was out of the city near Gatwick airport. Of the remaining three two were businesses, one a provider of care homes and the other offering accounting services. The last remaining Bartholemew pointed to an A. Bartholemew of Rokeby Road. The telephone number was in light blue below the address.
So now I knew who the police suspected as the serial killer and exactly where he lived. I even knew his telephone number. I sat back and pondered the information I had.
Only recently I had been introduced to a young journalist graduate from the City University of London who was full of excitement and anticipation and hope and everything else that accompanies new graduates no matter what course they have completed. It is natural I suppose for young people embarking on what is to become their life’s work. Of course not all continue along the original path and some, if not many, change their minds and head in a completely different direction. But this young Indian woman was determined she told me not to be swayed from what she saw as her calling. She had even been a vocal worker in the University’s own Bureau of Investigative Journalism which as a not-for-profit organisation was designed to bolster journalism by producing high-quality investigations for press and broadcast media.
The Bureau was a fledgling endeavour just year or two old, I learned, and worked in collaboration with other news groups such as the BBC, Channel 4, the Financial Times and the Daily Telegraph and Le Monde among others, to get its investigations published and distributed.
It was the conversation I had with the young Indian who said she was embarking on a journey that would define her future for many years to come that I recalled now. I hate the too often used term journey. Far too many people, young and old, use it in my view and it has become personally irritating. But it was her enthusiasm for uncovering the truth and exposing wrongs that made me think of her now.
Here I was, a journalist of not inconsiderable experience, who had for some time had the inside track on the police investigations into the serial murders because of my association with Detective David Maguire, who had used that association to my own benefit as a columnist, and who now had the massive advantage over every other journalist of knowing precisely who the police suspected of the crimes. And I was doing nothing with that information.
“It is incumbent on us as professional inquisitive reporters that we probe matters of public interest,” had stated the girl whose name I seemed to remember was Shubra or perhaps Subraj. “It is up to us to discover the truth and to fill the gaps left by other news media. Even if it means we get hurt along the way.”
She had then rattled off famous cases in support of her argument: The writer for the New York Tribune who almost a century and a half before had himself committed to a mental asylum and as a result brought about a change to the lunacy laws; more recently around the turn of the twentieth century and work done on poverty in the East End of London; and of course the exposure of drug dealers by the late Veronica Guerin for the Sunday Independent in the mid Nineteen Nineties. There were more than enough examples of the huge risks some investigative journalists took and I was being lectured on them by someone who had yet to even become a serious writer.
“What the hell,” I thought to myself. I could either sit on my hands and do nothing and perhaps have to write up more stories about more deaths, or I could try to do something that might be helpful in apprehending the killer.
The walk from my flat to Green Park underground station took no more than twenty minutes. I could have elected to get on the tube at Victoria Station but if I got the Jubilee Line from Green Park instead it meant I did not have to change until I got to London Bridge four stops away. And anyway the stroll past Buckingham Palace and up through Green Park itself was always enjoyable. At London Bridge I waited for a few minutes to catch the Southern train that passed through Brockley and New Cross. It was at New Cross that I alighted and spent another twenty five minutes walking to Rokeby Road.
The properties were substantial semi-detached two or three stories. Invariably the two front doors were adjoining so that the staircases inside also abutted, resulting in the desired separation of the bedrooms. It was only second smaller bedrooms that were next to each other on the first floor while the larger master bedrooms were at the corners. On the ground floors, as with the main rooms above, the reception areas looked out onto the street through large bay windows. In the buildings with loft extensions there were small skylights at the front while at the rear there were either bigger dormer windows or angled Velux windows. Overall the buildings along both sides of the road were well kept.
Rokeby Road was attractive also because of the amount of greenery. There were large trees at irregular intervals and neatly trimmed shrubs also lined the pavements. In some cases the hedges and shrubs at the front were slightly overgrown casting a lot of dark shadow across the entrances.
I could see that this was the case with the building where the suspect called Bartholemew resided. I could make out the entrance door to the front of the building as well as the obviously large rooms on the first floor and the converted loft. But the front reception room to the left was completely blocked by a huge untidy shrub that stood about ten feet high and easily the same across. The occupants were not keen gardeners. I crossed the road and pushed aside the rusting iron gate. From the concrete path I noticed the grass around to the right side of the building was patchy and presumably led to a second or side entrance to the building.
I was now decidedly undecided what to do. Here I was right outside the entrance of the building where the police’s prime suspect responsible for the series of brutal murders lived and I really had no idea what to do. I could hardly knock on the door and when Bartholemew answered begin asking him how he felt to be thought of as one of the country’s most horrific serial killers. Yet here I was.
Instead of doing what I now considered to be really quite foolish I stepped off the path and walked around to the side of the building. There was indeed a second door with the number of the building above it with the letter b beside it. Immediately I recognised that while I originally believed the building was a sole occupancy I knew now that there was a second flat, and from what I had observed from across the street this ground floor flat was most likely a smaller portion of the whole. My guess was it was a single ground level one bedroom premises.
There was a small square window beside the door at head height but I could not see through it as the glass was opaque which while it did not completely hide the interior it blurred it sufficiently for anyone trying to have a look inside. For a brief moment I wondered what would happen if I tried to get into the premises. I recalled the case of a Hong Kong policeman who had apparently committed suicide because he was involved in serious corruption reports. He was not thought to be corrupt but the story had it that he had informed on colleagues, and then committed suicide. That version of events was ridiculed for more than one solid reason. First, it was claimed that he shot himself a number of times, each time in the body and not once in the head. A second claim was that the flat in which he lived had been locked from inside and therefore as nobody could have got in suicide was the only explanation. But a television reporter went to the flat, pried open a small window, climbed into the flat and filmed his report from the very room where the policeman was said to have shot himself. The window I remembered was about the same size as the one I now stood in front of at the entrance to what I assumed could well be the home of the serial killer that was terrifying London with increasing intensity.
“Who are you?”
With my mind many thousands of miles away I had not seen or heard anyone nearby.
“What are you doing?”
I quickly took a single step back and turned towards the street to my left. Standing just near the corner of the building was a man dressed in slacks, long sleeved shirt rolled up to his elbows and carrying a sports bag.
“I said what do you want?” the man demanded.
He was probably in his late twenties, maybe early thirties, and the way he carried himself, not to mention the sports bag with the leaping Puma on the side, suggested he was pretty fit.
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m just…” I took another step to the side where I was standing a good six to eight feet from the door. Then: “And you are?”
I had no idea why I was asking him who he was when he had just demanded to know who I was. His question was naturally more appropriate given the strong possibility that he lived here and the fact that I was the unknown intruder as it were. But I had no idea what else to say.
He carefully placed the bag on the ground and advanced slowly towards me. “This is my home. Who are you and what do you want? Why were you trying to see into my flat?”
He kept walking slowly towards me.
“Is your name Bartholemew?” As soon as I said it I knew it was an opening for him that I should not have offered.
He stopped only five or six feet away from me, his arms straight by his wide. “Y