Stop Dead (30 page)

Melissa shook her head.

‘I’m afraid I can’t remember. We never saw her. Social services had taken her away by the time the case came to us.’

‘So you’re telling me Linda confessed to protect her niece from being questioned?’

‘That’s one possibility. It’s what I believed at the time, because nothing else seemed to make sense. She realised that questioning the girl would only confirm her guilt, so there was no point putting the girl through it. Quicker and better all round for her to confess, and the outcome was the same anyway, even without the niece’s corroboration.’

‘There is another possibility,’ Geraldine said quietly.

The solicitor shook her head, her expression suddenly tense. She stood up and when she answered, her voice was sharp.

‘Linda Harrison confessed to murder. There was no doubt about the woman’s guilt. No doubt at all. Now, I’ve taken up too much of your time already, and I’ve told you all I know, so I won’t keep you any longer.’

Geraldine thanked her, pleased that she had taken the time to question Melissa face to face. The retired solicitor’s uneasy expression had confirmed what Geraldine already suspected. She too had realised that there was another possibility.

G
eraldine struggled to contain her excitement on hearing that Linda Harrison had a niece. This had to be the answer to the conundrum of the DNA found in Patrick’s car. The existence of a niece could even explain why Sam thought she had seen Harrison before. If their DNA was sufficiently similar for the niece’s traces to be confused with Harrison’s twenty-year-old sample, then it made sense that the two women would look alike. Suddenly everything was beginning to fall into place. All that remained was to trace the niece.

Arriving at her flat, she regretted returning home instead of going straight to her office. She couldn’t settle to anything. She fiddled around in the kitchen making herself supper but although she was hungry she couldn’t eat. She switched on the television but couldn’t concentrate. In the end she went to bed very early but lay for hours unable to sleep, thinking about Linda and wondering where her niece was. By the time Sam arrived at work the next morning, Geraldine had been at her desk for a couple of hours, searching for the niece.

Sam perched on Nick’s chair.

‘What are you doing?’

‘If he catches you sitting on his chair, there’ll be hell to pay,’

Sam leaned forward, peering earnestly at Geraldine.

‘So what you’re saying is that if you don’t agree to come to the canteen with me for breakfast, I could end up in serious trouble. Is that really what you want?’

Geraldine shook her head, laughing.

‘I had breakfast hours ago. I’ve got work to do, Sam.’

‘All the more reason for you to come to the canteen for a coffee. It’ll clear your mind. Plus you’ll have the added bonus of a super-intelligent and sympathetic listening ear to run your theory by.’

‘Who says it’s only a theory?’

Geraldine stood up. She would value Sam’s views about Linda’s niece.

Sam wasn’t helpful. To begin with she was sceptical about the idea that Linda’s niece might have murdered her uncle.

‘Think about it, Geraldine, it doesn’t really stack up. I can understand that you might suspect she killed her uncle, although why her aunt would have confessed to it, I can’t imagine.’

‘To protect her.’

‘Well, maybe. But serving more than twenty years in prison for a crime she didn’t commit, is that likely? And anyway, the case was closed. A jury found Linda Harrison guilty. End of. Even if there was a miscarriage of justice twenty years ago, and Linda was sent down instead of her niece, you’re saying that, after a gap of twenty years, the niece suddenly decided to kill Henshaw, Corless, Bradshaw, and this new victim, four murders in the space of a fortnight? That doesn’t make sense.’

‘The method of killing was similar,’ Geraldine insisted. ‘Linda’s husband was battered to death in exactly the same way as the four recent victims. Hit on the head and beaten in the genitals.’

Sam wasn’t persuaded.

‘So? The method of killing was similar. So what? That doesn’t prove anything. The Harrison killing was all over the news twenty years ago, wasn’t it? Going by what you’ve said, and what I’ve seen, it was front page stuff for weeks. Anyone could have been influenced by it.’

‘But like you said, after twenty years, why would anyone start copycat murders?’

‘Exactly. Why start up again after twenty years? That’s what I was saying to you.’

‘No, it’s not. You’re talking about copycat crimes. What I’m saying is that this might be the same killer repeating the same murder, reliving the original event for some reason. Perhaps something triggered it off.’

They argued round in circles for a while, neither of them prepared to concede. Geraldine hid her increasing irritation. At length she returned to her desk, her conviction shaken. Despite her exasperation, she knew the sergeant had done her a favour, warning her against giving her theory undue credence without proof. It was a desperate trap to fall into, in the absence of any useful leads, and all too easy to do. Without her theory that Linda’s niece was culpable she had no leads, but that was no reason to believe the niece was guilty.

Despite Sam’s scepticism about using DNA from twenty years ago, Geraldine focused her attention on looking for Linda’s niece. She discovered a girl called Emily Tennant had gone to live with Linda Harrison and her husband a year after their marriage. Emily was only six years younger than Linda. As her sister had been ten years older than Linda, it was likely that Emily was her niece. Emily Tennant’s birth certificate and school records weren’t difficult to trace. The school had her registered as living at the Harrisons’ address. Nearly two years later, when Emily was fourteen, Linda was arrested and the girl was taken into the care of social services.

After leaving school at sixteen, Emily vanished from the system. Her name didn’t appear on any census records, she was too young to be on the electoral register, and she wasn’t registered with a doctor or dentist. It was frustrating. Geraldine could find no record of any marriage or death, and no trace of her leaving the country or even applying for a passport. The only obvious explanations were that she was homeless or had changed her name, or perhaps both.

Geraldine’s research had thrown up no indication of where the name Tennant came from. Linda Harrison’s maiden name was Buckingham, and there was no record of her sister having married. Tennant could have been the name of Emily’s father, but no father was named on her birth certificate. Perhaps her mother had adopted a new surname to hide the fact that she was unmarried. In any event, Geraldine could find no records from the life of Emily Tennant after she reached the age of sixteen. The only vaguely encouraging piece of information was that she had found no record of her death. Linda was the only person who could help her.

Returning to the prison, Geraldine was admitted by a different prison officer wearing the same cheerful expression as the woman who had accompanied her on her previous visit. Once again she was led along a walkway around the prison building, past small scrubby bushes and weedy flowers. The place was eerily silent. Her guide led her through several secure doors, along corridors, until they reached the cavernous visitors’ room. It was empty. Minutes crawled by as though time had stopped. For some of the prisoners, incarcerated for decades, it effectively had.

At last another prisoner officer entered the room. She was alone.

‘Linda doesn’t want to see you.’

‘I just want to ask her one question.’

‘I’m sorry, Linda is refusing to see you.’

The prison officer led Geraldine back along dim corridors, her keys jangling as she locked and unlocked the heavy doors they passed through on their way back through the prison gardens. The outer gate closed behind her, and Geraldine walked slowly back to her car. Somewhere in the normal world to which she had returned, an unknown killer was hiding.

‘W
e have a match!’ Reg crowed, grinning at Geraldine from behind his desk.

His broad shoulders were hunched forward over his keyboard as she entered his office but he straightened at once, his face bright with enthusiasm. She couldn’t help returning his smile, he looked so pleased with himself.

‘Is it Emily Tennant?’

Her voice echoed his excitement. The detective chief inspector’s grin faded as he leaned back in his chair, frowning.

‘What’s that? Emily who?’

‘Tennant. Emily Tennant.’

‘Emily Tennant? Who’s Emily Tennant? The name they gave me is Lolita Wild. She’s the woman who was there when Bradford was murdered.’

It was Geraldine’s turn to look baffled.

‘Lolita Wild? Who the hell is she?’

Reg smiled, misconstruing her surprised expression.

‘Lolita Wild. I know, highly unlikely, isn’t it? But it’s probably a false name, although you can never tell, especially these days –’

‘Who the hell is Lolita Wild?’

‘That’s exactly what you’re about to find out.’

The misunderstanding was swiftly clarified. The forensic team had identified the owner of the blonde hairs found on Bradshaw’s body. The bad news was that her DNA did not match that of the brunette who had left her hair in Patrick’s car, which meant that different women had been at the two crime scenes. It wasn’t one woman who had dyed her hair, after all. They were looking for two women. The only other information they could gather from Lolita Wild’s hair was that she was a habitual heroin user.

‘But we already knew that from her record,’ Reg added.

‘Lolita Wild? That can’t be her real name,’ Sam laughed when Geraldine told her about the development. ‘What sort of a name is that?’

‘What’s so funny about it?’ Geraldine responded sourly.

She was vexed that her theory about Emily Tennant appeared to be foundering. She had been so convinced she was right.

‘Do you ever get a strong feeling about something, for no reason?’ she asked her colleague. ‘I mean, you just know you’re right, only you can’t prove it –’

‘You’re the one who’s always insisting on facts,’ Sam reminded her.

Geraldine sighed.

‘Come on, then, let’s find this blonde Lolita. Whoever she is, she was there when Bradshaw was murdered. ’

‘Lolita Wild sounds like a stage name,’ Sam said. ‘At least there can’t be too many women around with that name.’

‘That should make your job a whole lot easier then.’

It took Sam less than half an hour to track down the woman calling herself Lolita Wild. Real name Lynn Jones, she had been working in Soho as a prostitute. Over two years earlier she had left the hostel in London where she had last been recorded as living temporarily. After that the paper trail had gone cold. Leaving Sam to continue her search online, Geraldine paid a visit to the hostel. Even though it was a long time since Lolita had left, it was the only lead they had to her current whereabouts.

The hostel was a dreary block for homeless women, situated in a rundown street near Marylebone Road. A plaque in the dusty lobby informed visitors that it was a charitable foundation established in Victorian times as a refuge for fallen women. It was now run by a particular church sect. A grey-haired woman was seated behind a small glass partition. She watched with sharp black eyes as Geraldine approached. The woman enquired who she was visiting and smiled ruefully when Geraldine introduced herself.

‘We are a Christian house,’ she said softly. ‘Our aim is to help these poor women, but they struggle to follow the path.’

When Geraldine outlined the purpose of her visit the woman shook her head and explained that even if they could find a record of a resident going by the name of Lolita, they would be unable to provide any information about where she might have gone after leaving the hostel. It was difficult enough keeping a record of who was living there. They certainly didn’t have time to keep track of where the women moved on to when they left, even it was possible to do so. Mostly the women slipped away, changed their names, and ended up on the streets. Sometimes they returned for a while, before disappearing again.

‘I don’t want to sound callous, Inspector. It’s not that we don’t care about all the women who stay here. We do everything we can for them. We put a roof over their heads. But they come and go all the time. It’s that sort of a place. We like to think our doors are open to all comers, providing we have a bed for them, of course. Everyone is welcome here. We do what we can. But whatever we do for them, it’s never enough to keep them here for long. It’s usually drugs that lure them away. The devil’s at work, even here.’

Geraldine glanced around the drab hallway, trying not to feel dejected. It was hard to remain positive standing in such a depressing place. She wasn’t surprised people didn’t want to stay there long, although the miserable truth was that this was probably the best many of these women could hope for. She turned back to the woman sitting behind her glass partition.

‘It’s really very important we trace this woman.’

‘I’m sorry, Inspector, but there’s nothing I can do. We don’t record where the women go on to when they leave. It would be a pointless task. Most of them move on again fairly soon. They don’t stay anywhere for longer than a few months at a time. It’s never long before they’re back on the streets, soliciting to support their habit. And once they’ve left us, well, we’d help them if we could but they’re not our responsibility, after all. We’re very limited in what we can do for them.’

Geraldine thanked the woman. She asked if there was anyone at the hostel who had been there two years earlier and might know what had happened to Lolita.

‘Only Rowena. She’s in and out all the time. But you won’t get much sense out of her.’

Rowena was an emaciated woman with olive-coloured skin and almond-shaped eyes. She must once have been beautiful. Now her skin was blemished and blotchy, and she glanced suspiciously at her visitor with eyes that were bloodshot and inflamed. When Geraldine introduced herself, Rowena dropped her gaze and stared doggedly at the floor. Nevertheless, she admitted that she had known Lolita.