Before he slept Cole thought about the woman. He wondered whether there was any truth in the rumour that she had kept Jack Wooderson busy for a few months. Perhaps it was the ambiguity that he found so unsettling, the element of uncertainty, that she could be frivolous and irresponsible and yet, a moment later, quite cold and relentless. Somewhere there, lay the appeal.
In the next room where the windows and curtains were fully opened, where the lights from the traffic came in with the chilled air and skirted over the flower-patterned wallpaper – a reminder that Cole had once been married – Geoff Maynard was thinking about another woman If indeed it was a woman.
She's new in town, he thought, she had to be, and yet her knowledge of the area indicated otherwise. But people didn’t recognize her and, what was more, she had no fear of confrontation with the competition. So if she was local could it mean…
Maynard’s frown became almost painful.
…that she was dressed as the tom no one recognized!
Belle de Jour?
In this case the shrinking violet dressed up like a temptress? Able to go so far but no further and then, out of frustration, attacking the person she actually wanted to be.
Could this be something as simple or as complex as genophobia? Maynard tried to shake the thought from his head.
Start again. People don't start this way. They start in little ways and while they are learning they leave behind a little form. The learning curve. Antisocial behaviour, shoplifting, minor infringements that carried nothing more than a warning. So where did she come from? Where was she staying? The answer lay in the Square, on that kerb of crawlers.
Maynard found sleep difficult at the best of times, but during a case it was almost impossible. He worried it until it was done. That was why after HOPE he had given it up and gone back to therapy. Interaction was where it mattered, where you could rebuild a shattered life. The people who shattered the lives came at you like waves on a spring tide and like Cole had said earlier, he wasn’t King Canute. You could get one or two but there would always be more stacking up behind. They rolled in, wave after wave, bringing with them acts of depravity and wickedness that the civvies – the good citizens of this green and pleasant land – could not even imagine.
We see things that no one should see. We hear things that no one should hear.
Coming back was personal, nothing to do with Cole or Baxter or the closure of HOPE, his old department. If Cole knew why he had come back he would have laughed out loud. Everyone had secrets. Didn’t they just? This wasn’t about the challenge. This was about selfharm. The dawn stole in from an overcast sky and set the day. Sam Butler was well aware that time was running out. What had seemed like crucial breakthroughs were simply not delivering and a sense of panic gnawed at his gut. He said, “They've held on to it since seventy-six?” Anian shrugged and bony shoulders ridged her thin shirt. “It was high profile. And they still use it at Hendon. It was quoted verbatim in one of those true-crime books called…”
He was standing over her. A button was undone and he caught sight of some blue bra. Without looking away he said, “ The Underground Slasher.”
“Absolutely. Guess who wrote it?”
“Wouldn’t be a guy named Maynard, would it?”
Anian threw him a flirty smile. She bent slightly forward – he was sure it was unintentional – and showed him some more of the vale. “I read it,” Sam Butler said, trying to pull back a memory, but the view was in the way and it wouldn't come. He shook his head – the vale of tears was right, he thought – and went on, “Crime does pay.” “It paid even more than that. It was serialized in the Sundays.” She pressed play and the voice of John Lawrence came through. Not as resonant but unmistakable.
“I was a gentle child and so quiet that people would say I wasn’t there when in fact I was. It got me into trouble on more than one occasion when my parents would ask how I had behaved at a particular function only to be told I wasn’t there. I was very shy and you would always find me in a corner, hiding. It was only later that it came to me I didn’t have to hide, that in fact, no one noticed me anyway. “My father was in the army. We were posted to Cyprus. It was well before the country was partitioned but even then Makarios was causing trouble. He was a dangerous man. We lived in Nicosia in a white villa next to a dried-up riverbed. I remember we used to find a lot of dead cats in Nicosia. Wherever you went you came across dead cats and that was strange. The point? Yes, the point is that this is the riverbed where I used to catch lizards. Some of them were up to a foot long. Before that, when I was even younger, I used to make Plasticine models of chickens complete with their lungs and hearts and gizzards and, once I'd made them I would slit them open to extract their innards. It fascinated me. Even though I’d put them there and knew exactly what I’d find, it was still a moment of huge excitement. I never knew why. Now, a little older, I had the lizards. Using drawing pins, I crucified them on little crosses I knocked together. I’d put three of them on a little mound of sand. It wasn’t a green hill but probably closer to the truth. Have you been to Jerusalem? There's not much green. And there wasn’t in Nicosia either. But there were lots of red anemones. I remember them well. But they didn’t last long. Just three days at Easter time and then, they died. Perhaps that is why they have become associated with Jesus. I used drawing-pins at first, until I got some tiny little tacks that would go through their hands and feet. They were better. More realistic. More like nails. You had to bang them in, like the Romans did. Hands? Do lizards have hands? Well, they did for me. If you slice off their tails before you put them on the cross they look quite human. They sort of moved, like Jesus might have done. You know? In agony. Or ecstasy. And they bled. But their blood was fatty, watered down. Not rich red, like ours.”
Anian recalled Maynard’s account of Lawrence’s early life, the birth of his brother, his mother’s hospitalization and his rejection. What was it the psychologist had said? It lit the fuse?
The tape continued. “After a while, about a month or so, that got boring, so I used to slit them open with a razor-blade. I'd sit for hours, watching the pale blood dry in the hot sun. When I stood up I'd get quite dizzy. A kind of religious experience. Point is, when I slit open one belly, a big white egg fell out. I say white. It was mostly white, but there was pus and green strands on it. Not much blood. But after that, I went after the females. At first you couldn't tell the difference until you slit them open. But after a while I learned. It wasn't only the swollen belly but the skin as well. Even the eyes seemed different. They hung there, on their crosses, with their mouths wide open and their little round eyes glazed over, but they didn’t cry out. They made no noise at all. But finding an egg, watching it fall out while they were still wriggling, that was special. After that I started cutting open the eggs, finding the little brown tadpoles inside. Even in the burning sun some of them lived for more than a few seconds.
“Tell me, if you can, what more than that can a schoolboy want?” Another voice came in, male, gentle. “You've told us about your parents. They forced you to go to church. Did that annoy you?” Lawrence laughed. “Of course we were forced to go to church. People in the fifties still believed in God. I collected the Sunday-school cards like everyone else. Moses and David and Jesus, dished out by a fat woman in flip-flops who had her eyes on the padre.”
“Did you have any friends in Cyprus? Did they cut the lizards as well?”
“Friends?” Lawrence's chuckle went on for some moments. The velvety tones of his voice sent a shiver down Anian’s back. She could barely believe she was listening to the man she knew as Mr Lawrence, the man whose knife and brush had so perfectly captured her image. The stranger's voice came back. “You never thought that killing the lizards was wrong?”
“Wrong? It didn't come in to it. At school we were dissecting mice and frogs.”
Anian pressed stop and the room fell strangely silent. Police officers – a couple of them old-timers waiting for their pensions, who had seen and heard a few things in their time – shuffled in their seats and exchanged uncomfortable glances. They were repelled, mostly, by the matter-of-fact quality of Lawrence’s voice but also by its – almost
– patronizing tone.
Breaking the silence Sam Butler said softly, “One sick bastard. He's killing these women, or he's got them bottled up someplace. I don't know how or where, but it's him. We know it's him.”
One of the PCs said, “What about having the lodger in, Sarge?” “Paul Knight? A waste of time. Let’s be kind and say that he is mentally challenged. He won’t give us any more than he did at the shop and that’s nothing. Lawrence is careful. He isn’t going to confide in Paul Knight.”
“That’s a no then, Sarge?”
Butler went on, “Guy’s have come back with zilch, so he's not up to his old tricks, at least not on the underground. So let's try it from another angle.”
Guy's Hospital kept a comprehensive pathology database on wounds to the person. There had been no unsolved attacks on pregnant women.
“He meets them in the shop, through his art classes or, as customers. Worse case scenario, he's killing them. Best, he's holding them prisoner. We’ll leave the why for the psychologists. Either way, it means there's another place where he does his business. How does he get there? As far as we know he doesn't have transport. How does he get the women there? Does he arrange to meet them, or does he take them? Are they forced to go along?”
One of the PCs cut in, “There's another possibility.”
“Go on?”
“If he is involved then he might be helping them to get away from…domestic violence, unhappy marriages. Maybe he's a selfappointed marriage guidance counsellor.”
“If Margaret Domey wasn't in the frame I'd say you had a point. But she wasn't running anywhere.”
The PC persisted. “Can we be sure of that? Who knows what goes on in private? How many times have friends and family surprised us? My brother was divorced. I hadn't got a clue until it was, basically, all over. I thought they were happy as… you know?”
For a moment Butler thought about his own marriage and his wife's affair, but time dulled the pain, turned it to something else.
“We'll keep it in mind, Joe, but for the moment we'll assume the worst.”
In another office a phone was ringing. Eventually someone answered.
DC Stanford suggested, “Maybe the women are driving him.” “Forced?”
“Not necessarily. But does it matter if he's getting to where he wants to go?”
“Fair point.”
“No it's not,” the plod interrupted again. “Linda Brookes didn't drive.”
Anian Stanford turned on him. “OK, so they might have caught a fucking bus.”
The copper shrugged. “Anian, it was just a suggestion. It wasn't to win fucking Mastermind.”
She backed off and threw him a quick apologetic smile.
Butler put an end to it. “So he might be meeting them in this other place. Let's widen the net. Use some initiative. Get your sources to ask around. He's a regular at The British. Does he drink anywhere else? He must have a warehouse or a lockup someplace. I know we’ve been here before but let’s try it again. We must have missed it. Get back to the friendly bank manager. Go through the statements again, line by line.”
The plod said, “What about surveillance?”
Butler hesitated. Cole had been quite clear. He said, “I’m still waiting for the green light on that. Let’s not jump the gun.”
Anian pulled her jacket from her chair and reached for her handbag. She smiled sweetly at Butler. “Tell me what you decide in the morning. I’m on an early night. A bath, a long one, then the theatre.” Butler nodded. Even though she’d mentioned it a dozen times he’d completely forgotten. “Bikini Line,” he acknowledged. “Anthea Palmer. I used to like her on the weather.”
“You and half the male population.”
“One minute she’s standing in front of the British Isles telling us it’s going to rain tomorrow, the next she’s cart-wheeling over everything in sight. She was on the front page this week or, at least, her knickers were. They snapped her getting into a car. A diabolical liberty, really. Maybe there should be a law against it. Invasion of private parts. Trespass by lens.”
“Schoolboys enjoyed the picture. I doubt that many men did.” Butler pulled a face. “You know nothing about men, then, Anian.” “What paper was it in? The Sun? The Mirror?”
“I don’t read crap.” Butler smiled. “The Sunday Sport!”
She smiled back and said, “It’s rare that a girl will show you her knickers unless she wants you to see them. And that includes photographers.”
His glance was a double take. She had surprised him.
A uniform poked his head around the door. “Sarge,” he addressed Butler. “Just had CB3 on. They've found Helen Harrison's car. Two roads up from the Gallery.”
Anian hesitated.
Butler said, “Get out of here. Go and enjoy yourself.”
She flashed him another sweet smile and let the door swing shut behind her.
The phone went. Cole said, “Cole.”
“It's me.”
“Right.”
“Read between the lines.”
“Right.”
“You were right. He spilled the lot. Helen's got herself a lover. My fucking wife has run off with another geezer. Can you believe that? Even I don't believe that. She's shagging Jesus fucking Christ and she runs off with John the fucking Baptist. That fucker's going to lose his fucking head. She's carrying my fucking baby for fuck's sake. She's in the fucking Costas, can you believe that? Soaking up the sun? I can't believe that. Treated this Lawrence cunt as some kind of confidant. They got real fucking close during the painting sessions. It ain't surprising, though, not really, considering the pose. They say love is blind, don't they? Know what I mean? It takes a brain dead, lungless fucker like Breathless to point it out. I should of seen it, Rick. I mean, for fuck’s sake, she had one leg on each arm of the fucking sofa. Anyway, she's still in contact. Going to ring him when she gets back. He'll let me know. Then I'll be paying her a fucking visit.” “Does he have an address?”
“Spain, but Spain's a fucking big place. I mean, I take her on a fucking boat to that other place. What was it again?”
“Greece.”
“Right. I take her there in a luxury boat and she settles for paella and fucking chips.”
“When Lawrence gives you the nod, you let me know.”
“I'll think about that one.”
“Think about this. Is Lawrence OK?”
“Yeah, I'd say, given the circumstances. Unfortunately he had an accident with his painting hand. Got a finger caught up in a guillotine. He uses it to cut the prints to size. Told him it was fucking dangerous, without a guard, but did he listen?”
“OK, take care of yourself.”
“Too fucking right. I owe you one now.” His emphasis was on the you.
“Isn't that a treat?”
Cole hung up. For a moment he wondered how much of the call was incriminating. All of it, he imagined. But it was too late to worry, so he set it aside.
But Helen Harrison running off to Spain? Not a chance. Helen Harrison was dead and John Lawrence had got her tucked up some place, getting off on whatever he got off on. But it was coming to a head.
It wasn’t often that Anian Stanford went out with her housemates. Getting their shifts to coincide was almost impossible but somehow, through luck and feminine wiles, they had managed it. The Royal Free nurses had come by a box at the Carrington Theatre. A consultant from Nigeria was making an impression on the youngest of them and Anian guessed it wouldn’t be long before they’d be advertising an empty room. But for the moment they made hay.
In the bath she drank some wine – why did it always seem so wickedly indulgent? – and getting ready she drank some more and perhaps that was why, as they settled in their box seats, she was less than discreet.
She said, “Five rows in, three from the centre aisle, see him? Next to the black girl.”
As Anian held back, the other girls eased forward.
“Mr John bloody Lawrence. He’s got those women somewhere.” “Oh my God! The missing women?” The youngest of them, the consultant’s target, spoke with that feigned enthusiasm at which all young nurses – perhaps young women in general – were adept. Anian nodded. “He’s got a poster in his shop window. Maybe a couple of freebee tickets came with it.”
“Like us then,” the nurse giggled. “But the girl – the black girl – must be thirty or forty years younger.”
“She's a tom, works out of The British. A tart with a heart. She even gives discounts to pensioners.”
“Oh my God,” the nurse said then, more seriously, “Why take a prostitute to the theatre? If you're paying for it you should be on the job.”
Anian laughed out loud. “I don't know. You tell me about men and what they've got to prove?”
The nurse leant forward for another look. “What’s he got on his hand? It looks like a glove puppet.”
Anian took another peep. “It is a glove puppet. It’s got red lips.” The nurse shrugged and shook her head. “This is not normal behaviour.”
Anian searched for Chief Superintendent Marsh but couldn't find him. Had she glanced at the other boxes she would have seen him sitting comfortably next to the Mayor. Gilly Brown had gold hanging from his neck. And at the back of the theatre, in the deep shadows, Assistant Chief Superintendent Deighton and his wife were finding their seats along with the councillors.
The nurse beside her touched her arm and pointed to the stage. The curtain was going up.
The curtain went up to reveal a street scene and a gang of youngsters, dancing to the right or left and pushing the passers-by aside. They shouted abuse across the steaming road. One of them daubed paint on a brick wall: Kill the Bill. And the gang began to sing:
There were a few skirmishes last night but nothing much
Just a few friendly little fights but nothing much
We gave the residents a fright but nothing much…
The passers-by joined in. First the Politician as he introduced the others:
He's a criminologist and she's a sociologist
And I'm a politician, vote for me.
He's a police-inspector and she's a social worker
And I'm a politician, vote for me.
I'm into crime prevention, stop the windows being broken
And I'm a politician, vote for me.
And with that slimy offering the politician flashed white teeth and produced a red, white and blue banner which read: Vote for me! And the gang sang:
We're the pill-popping, heavy-drinking, glue-sniffing gang from hell.
The gang's all here, born out of fear, you see…
Passer-by: Alienated youth, violence on TV, poverty, bad-housing, boredom and page three…
Politician: And I'm a politician, vote for me…
Street Cleaner: I'm a street cleaner and I hose away the blood
Council Worker: I’m a council worker and I make the windows good
Vicar: I'm the local vicar and I'm mis-under-stood
Politician: And I'm a politician, vote for me.
And the gang sang:
We're the pill-popping, heavy-drinking, glue-sniffing gang from hell.
The stage was a frenzy of movement and colour. The first half-dozen rows were all but hidden by smoke. Anian Stanford didn’t really notice. She was watching Lawrence, trying to make out his features in the dimmed lighting and wondering if the girl hugging his arm was aware of the danger she was in.
Geoff Maynard was still out and the house was strangely silent. He’d mentioned earlier that Donna had come back with a nil return on the CCTV images and Cole guessed he was in the Square again, checking out the faces.
In just a few days the psychologist’s domesticity had left a mark; silly things, like the dishcloth left hanging to dry instead of squeezed and left on the drainer, the Teacher's safely tucked away in the cabinet instead of its usual place at the foot of Cole's armchair. Cole switched off the light and carried a glass to the bay window. The lawn, in its winter coat and orange wash, looked thick and spongy. The wind was up, sweeping through the volcanic light from the street lamps, rushing through the trees and beating the fluttering, flame-like winter shrubs into submission. He felt the familiar bite of the Teacher's and shivered, waiting for it to lift his mood. This was no life, annihilated every night, dealing with filth every day. No intermission. Another day, another meeting, another seeing, speaking, sleeping. Just going through the motions without a purpose, apart from one, waking up to do it all again.
A car rolled to a slow stop at the end of his drive. He recognized it and checked his watch. It had turned eleven. He watched her lock the car and start up his path. She was biting her lower lip, ready to turn and run, searching for a light in the house and frowning at the darkness. Maybe she'd already checked out the White Horse and drawn a blank. She wore a grey jacket and a short navy-blue skirt that fanned in the wind. A sudden gust gave him even more of her legs. Almost casually, she reached down and held on to the hemline. He turned on the porch light and opened the door as she was about to ring.
For a few moments they stood in silence.
She levelled her gaze.
With a slight tilt of the head he beckoned her inside.
She hesitated for a second more then stepped over the threshold. In the bedroom window the stars dissolved in the condensation. In the volcanic light the hard-edged trees rounded like candle wax under a flame.
“You take them off,” she said as she plucked the elastic below her navel.
He did and, some time later, lay back nursing a semi-skimmed dick. In the morning the night was just a blur. Teacher's, before and after, got in the way of clarity. He remembered the stars as they found their cruel brilliance again as the condensation wept away.
During the night there had been an explosion and it wasn't an allotment shed or children with reconstructed fireworks. It had brought down the roof of a house in a terraced row. An old exhausted run-down place that needed demolishing anyway. According to initial reports the cause was a gas leak. It happened, more than people knew. The Fire Brigade was out in force and uniforms were cordoning the area. Safety experts were examining the scene. Two men had died. Blown to bits and the bits burned beyond recognition. In time there would be neighbours and scraps of documentation and dental records and reconstruction and numerous items that would give them the background, but for the moment they were just casualties of the night, written off as accidental deaths. It meant paperwork and time they didn’t have and, hopefully, an uncomplicated transfer to the coroner.
In the car, in the morning, as they passed what was left of the house and skirted the flapping police tape, DS Sam Butler said, “With a bit of luck forensics will have something for us on Helen Harrison's car. And we do need something.” He paused, then: “Did you enjoy the show?” If Anian heard it didn't register. She said, “I almost went round to Rick Cole's last night.”
Sam Butler was staggered, speechless. All he could do was shake his head in disbelief and keep the car from veering.
“Did you hear me?”
Eventually he found his voice, but it still came out sounding like someone else. “I'm having trouble with it. Tell me again.” “It's true. I was a bit pissed after the show. Couldn't help it. Wanted to. Couldn't. Stupid, isn't it?”
“Why?”
He sensed her shrug. “I don't know. Nothing makes sense anymore. He made it quite clear the other night that he’s not interested. Maybe that was it. The challenge. The old behavioural protocol becomes activated, doesn’t it? Pride, anger, you name it. In a negative way it’s still intoxicating. I'm getting hurt here, but I can't help myself.” “Back off, for Christ sake. I thought you'd had your fill of office romances. Think about it.”
She sighed. “You're right. But that's not me, is it? All my life I've jumped in head first and lived to regret it. I wish I hadn't told you.” He nodded reluctantly, unable to make sense of what he'd heard. He said, “So do I.”
“You're angry?”
“Leave it alone, Anian. I was surprised, that's all.”
After a moment he added, “For a while back there I forgot I was married with a little girl that's keeping me up all night. All right?” “That's fine. I understand.”
He shot her a glance. Her dark eyes were on the road. He wondered whether she did understand, that back there, for a moment, jealousy – pure, irrational, blood-rushing jealousy – had got the better of him. He drove in uncomfortable silence for five minutes then pulled up in a wide, well-maintained street the other side of the park. No line of parked cars here, just clean pavements and drives to every door. “St George’s Way,” Anian said quietly. “Imelda Cooke?” “Right,” Butler said and climbed out of the car.
She followed him up the drive toward a two-storey detached. Joseph Cooke had reported his wife missing three months ago. He had given up his job in the city to take care of the children. When he opened the door and recognized the police officers, the expectation of the bad news he’d been dreading drained his features and left a terrible stain in his eyes.
Butler had seen the look many times before – the certainty, the disbelief, the helplessness, the realization of all those nightmares, and he was quick to reassure him. “It's all right, Joe. There’s been no development.”
Relief flooded back. “Thank God for that. I thought…”
“I know. There should be a way of ringing you first to let you know that nothing's happened. I'm sorry. Are the kids at home?” “No. They're staying with their nan. I get a break from time to time. Come on in.”
They followed him into the hall.
“Can I get you something? Coffee?”
“No, no, thank you,” Butler said. “Listen, Joe, this is a bit delicate,” Joseph Cooke looked puzzled.
“You remember we asked you whether Imelda was pregnant, or not?”
“I remember. She wasn't.”
“Well, we have a number of missing women in the area and, with the exception of Imelda, the others are pregnant. I don't know what it means, exactly. I don't know why we're here, exactly.”
Joseph Cooke smiled sadly, “Clutching at straws?”
"Yes, that's it exactly.”
Anian stood aside, watching the detective sergeant as he skirted the issue, and the man beside him whose life had been shattered. Cooke offered, “You want to look at her things again? I've already done it a thousand times, but I don't mind. They're just as she left them. Nothing's been moved.”
“Yes, Sir,” Butler stammered. “That's what I really came for.” Cooke waved towards the stairs. “Help yourself. I'll be in the sitting room. Are you sure about the drink? I'm having one. And it's stronger than coffee.”
“In that case, Sir, scotch will do nicely. What about you Anian?” “Nothing for me, thanks. It’s a bit early.”
Cooke glanced at his watch and nodded. “So it is,” he said and left them to it.
As they climbed the stairs Anian asked, “What are we looking for, Sam?”
“Anything. Something we missed. A letter maybe, an appointment to a private clinic. If she kept it from him, it's hidden. Think about it.” “Kept the pregnancy from him?”
“Something like that.”
Anian shook her head and murmured, “In that case I hope we don't find it.”
They didn't. They went through the bedroom methodically but found nothing of interest. It was always difficult for coppers invading the privacy of innocent parties and they felt embarrassed going through the drawers, particularly those containing underclothes.
They hit the landing again, ready for the stairs, when a little tug of memory caught Butler between steps.
“What is it?”
“Just a thought. When Janet did her test, she left the box and instructions on top of the bathroom cabinet. We hadn't got Lucy at the time but maybe it was instinctive, you know, a place where the kids couldn't get to it, out of the way. Every time I had a shave I noticed it. The bloody thing became a fixture. You never throw away old pills and medicine bottles, do you? I’ve got some chilblain ointment I used the other day then noticed the use-by date was November ninety-four. Seemed to work though.”
“Too much information, Sam. You’re spoiling the image.” Together they moved into the bathroom, a green-tiled bathroom complete with avocado bidet and shower cubicle and double-door bathroom cabinet. And on top of the cabinet, where it had lain for over three months, disturbed only occasionally by a Maltese cleaner, hidden by familiarity and a pink plastic bottle of baby lotion, was a white oblong box.
The detectives shared a look of amazement.
“There's no kit here,” Anian said. “Just the box.”
“In this case an empty box is good enough,” Butler said and shook his head in disbelief. “And it makes five out of five.”