Death Bed (17 page)

H
e stared down at the empty bed with an impatient frown. Donna hadn’t lasted long. It was a pity he had brought her home before getting rid of Jessica but he couldn’t always control his guests’ visits as he would have liked. He hadn’t been looking for anyone when he had happened to pass Donna on the street, stumbling around in a drunken haze, and it had been all too easy to bring her home with him. He would have been a fool not to take advantage of the opportunity. Now she had gone it was maddening that he hadn’t been able to find another visitor straight away. He had been out all weekend driving around searching, without any luck.

He had nearly picked up a decent girl on Sunday night only her boyfriend had come charging along at the last minute and ruined everything. That was infuriating as she had looked healthy and what was even more annoying was that one of them might have noticed his car. It was just as well he’d had the sense to take it to a scrap yard out of town the next morning, because a uniformed policewoman had been round later that day asking about a black BMW. He was confident he hadn’t given anything away, but the narrow escape had shocked him deeply. It didn’t cost much to secure the foreman’s silence at the scrap yard, but the woman throwing up in his previous car had meant burning it was the only sure way to destroy all trace of her. He would have set light to it himself, but fire terrified him.

It was simple enough to get hold of another vehicle. It wasn’t so easy finding visitors to view his collection and they never stayed long, but he hated keeping it all to himself. It was far too important for that. One day he would throw it open to the whole world. Everyone would be able to come and see what was much more than a mere collection of fascinating objects. It was a valuable statement, perhaps the most significant statement ever made by man. And so far, no one still living had seen it but him. It was a pity to leave the rest of the world in ignorance but he wasn’t ready for a public display, not yet. The collection had to be completed first. In the meantime he was working hard, adding to his exhibits. It wasn’t his fault that some of his specimens were still alive when they arrived. It pained him when they died, overcome by the weakness of all flesh.

He regretted having to chain his visitors to prevent them from leaving but he couldn’t risk news of the collection leaking out before he was ready. Most people were ignorant, small-minded fools who believed death was inevitable. In a way they were right, but death didn’t have to be the end; genuine artists understood that wasn’t the whole truth. He walked over to the bed and stroked the sheet with the tips of his fingers. It felt hard where blood had dried on it. With a sigh he turned away and looked at the shelves that covered one wall. They were filling up nicely, and not everything was even out on view yet. There was more. He picked up a tin decorated with pictures of Big Ben and the words: ‘New York – Paris – London – Rome’ printed over and over again around the lid. He looked inside it before he replaced it on the shelf. Reaching up, he took down the thigh bone whip and swished it through the air. With a quick flick of his wrist he made it crack loudly and grinned.

‘Death be not proud,’ he intoned softly, ‘though some have called thee mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so!’

His voice rose to a shout on the last two words.

‘For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me!’

He was stalking round the room now, beating time with the handle of the whip.

‘One short sleep past, we wake eternally, and death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.’

That was what those girls were too stupid to grasp. He had offered them a chance of immortality and all they could do was whine and bleat about going home. How long could they hope to stay there? Fifty years? Sixty years? And what then? Did they think any part of them could survive without his intervention? He alone could offer them the chance of real immortality, not some mumbo jumbo spiritual fairy tale about a kingdom in the sky, but real physical permanence, right here on earth. Only they were too ignorant to understand.

He picked up the Big Ben tin and sat down on the bed, forgetting about the blood stains, and beat time on the tin like a drum as he recited more verses.

‘Full fathom five thy father lies; of his bones are coral made; those are pearls that were his eyes: nothing of him that doth fade but doth suffer a sea-change into something rich and strange.’

Tired out, he returned the tin and the whip carefully to their places. Then he walked along the shelves touching the items in his collection, each one posing its own challenge to the transience of life. He glanced down at the tin. It was time to bring another visitor home with him to admire his collection. He was disappointed the last woman hadn’t lasted long enough to appreciate what he was doing for her, but it didn’t matter. He would find another guest to come home with him soon, if he had to search all through the night, someone educated, capable of appreciating the collection.

Leaving the attic he paused on the threshold and looked round, smiling. A small child’s skull grinned back at him. The child itself had vanished hundreds of years before; its smile would never fade.

T
hey had questioned people working around Bond Street, checked CCTV footage from near the bar where Lily had last seen Donna Henry alive, searched the roads approaching the canal tunnel where her body had been found, and the vicinity of Tufnell Park where Jessica Palmer’s body had been discovered, cross-referencing registration numbers and descriptions of vehicles that had been in those areas at the times the killer must have been there. Geraldine had spent the entire day reviewing reports, trying to find a connection between the two victims. The whole exercise was time-consuming and tedious, and ultimately pointless because they hadn’t come across any new leads.

Late that afternoon Geraldine went back to the bar in Camden where Lily had last seen Donna alive, eleven days earlier. Geraldine hadn’t questioned people there in the evening yet. When she arrived the bar was fairly empty but by six o’clock it was packed with people stopping for a drink after work, the atmosphere quietly cheerful. She made her way around the room with a photograph of Donna Henry, asking everyone if they recognised her. One after another the customers said they didn’t. Some were apologetic, others just shook their heads and a few turned away without even bothering to answer. Geraldine persevered, watching the door and going over to anyone who came in.

Finally a young man sitting on a bench said he recalled her.

‘Do you know her?’ Geraldine asked.

‘No, but I remember seeing her here. It was just the once and I only remember it because she was so wasted. We had a laugh about it, me and my mate.’

‘When was this?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. It was on a Friday, maybe two or three weeks ago.’

He turned and called out to a man standing at the bar.

‘Hey Will, when were we last here?’

‘Why?’ his friend asked.

‘Just tell us, will you? It’s important.’

‘Alright, it was about a fortnight ago. Who wants to know?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

The seated man turned back to Geraldine.

‘Yes, it was a couple of weeks ago. We were out the front having a smoke, and the woman in your photo came out. I only remember because she nearly fell over right in front of us. She was so wasted she could barely walk.’

‘Was she drunk?’

‘I guess. Or something.’

He grinned.

‘Where did she go after she left the pub?’

The man glanced around as though that would help him picture the scene in his mind, then shrugged.

‘She just went off down the road, I don’t know where.’

His friend came over with a couple of pints.

‘Yes, we were here on a Friday, must’ve been the week before last,’ he said as he sat down. ‘Why? Who wants to know?’

Briefly Geraldine explained who she was and what she was doing there. The second man nodded.

‘Yes, I remember. She was well out of it, nearly fell arse over tit.’

‘Did you see which direction she went when she left?’

He pointed.

‘She went off that way.’

‘And that’s all we saw,’ the first man chimed in. ‘But I can’t say I was watching her for long. She just walked by and then she was gone.’

‘Did you see anyone with her?’

‘No, I don’t think so. Not that I can remember. What’s all the questions for anyway? Who is she?’

When Geraldine explained that Donna Henry had been murdered, the first man she had spoken to looked shocked.

‘I had no idea,’ he said. ‘I feel shit now, laughing about her like that.’

‘You weren’t to know.’

‘If there’s anything we can do - ’

‘What you just told me is really useful. Is there anything else you can remember about what you saw that evening, anything at all?’

‘She was limping,’ the second man said.

‘Limping? How?’

‘Just limping, you know, like she’d hurt her foot. She left the pub, tripped and nearly fell over, probably twisted her ankle as she was wearing really high heels, and then she limped away down the road and disappeared. And that’s the last we saw of her.’

‘Thank you very much. You’ve been a great help already. If you think of anything else, please give me a call.’

Geraldine handed each of them her card.

If nothing else, this had confirmed their suspicion that the killer was out on the streets looking for vulnerable women. From what the witnesses had told her, it sounded as though Donna Henry had stumbled and hurt her ankle. Befuddled with alcohol and cocaine, she would have been an obvious target for the expensively dressed, well-spoken prowler.

‘There was no mention of any injury to her ankle in the post-mortem report,’ Sam pointed out when Geraldine repeated what the witnesses had told her.

‘I suppose it’s always possible to miss something like that if you aren’t looking for it, and a slight swelling could easily have been covered up in the injuries caused by the chain. In any case, it might not have been serious enough to show up, you know, when you twist your ankle and it’s agony for a moment and then it passes off with no lasting damage. It could have been enough to make her limp for a while as she was walking away, pissed and high, staggering along the street.’

Reg Milton agreed that the scenario made sense when she told him about it.

‘Good work, Geraldine.’

She tried to conceal her irritation at his condescending tone. ‘Now we’ve pinpointed the direction Donna was walking when she left the bar we know where to focus the search of CCTV footage,’ she said.

It wasn’t much, but it was something.

‘We’re going to stop checking CCTV footage,’ the detective chief inspector replied quietly.

‘What?’

‘It’s taking up a lot of man hours, and it’s not going to come up with anything after all this time.’

‘But now we know where to look - ’

‘Yes, you did well there Geraldine, but you have to appreciate, this is London. There’s always heavy traffic on the streets, even at night, and the chances of picking out one car among so many, when we don’t even know what we’re looking for - ’

His eyes slid back to his computer screen.

‘That’s my decision.’

‘Yes, sir.’

He looked up with a smile on his lips, his eyes cold.

‘It’s Reg.’

Geraldine forced herself to return his smile.

As she left his office she wished her colleagues would stop talking to her as though she had arrived in London from another planet.

‘I’ve seen traffic before,’ she muttered under her breath.

‘We do have sodding cars in Kent.’

She knew the only way to stop his sniping was to solve the case, but she was beginning to think that was impossible.

G
eraldine stayed up most of the night studying CCTV footage from the pub where Jessica had last been seen by her fellow masseuse, assuming the other girl from the Paradise Parlour was telling the truth. The film taken inside the pub was blurred, but Jessica was visible, drinking with her workmate. Geraldine fast-forwarded. Jessica could be seen leaving the pub, but then the film became grainy and it was difficult to distinguish what was happening outside in the street. It looked as though she was walking unsteadily as she moved out of the frame. A dark car drove past a few moments later with a figure in the passenger seat who could have been Jessica, but it was impossible to be certain because it was so indistinct. The IT technicians who had worked on enhancing the film had been unable to make out any identifying features of the vehicle which had only been visible briefly, from the side. Just as it pulled away from the kerb another car had driven up behind it obscuring the registration number.

Eventually Geraldine went home, too tired to focus on the fuzzy grey film any longer. She didn’t think she would be able to get to sleep but dropped off as soon as her head touched the pillow and struggled to wake up when the alarm rang.

‘Have you been here all night?’ Sam asked, only half joking, when she found Geraldine glued to her screen first thing in the morning, fast-forwarding through tapes of Jessica and Donna on the nights they had disappeared.

‘No, I went home last night and came back early.’

Geraldine was aware she sounded irritable.

‘Leaving no stone unturned is one thing,’ Sam told her, ‘but don’t you think you’re overdoing it? I mean, watching all these films again is a waste of time. If you don’t collapse from exhaustion you’ll end up comatose with boredom.’

Geraldine leaned back wearily in her chair.

‘Until we come up with some new evidence there’s nothing to do but review what we already have. What else can we do?’

‘Have some breakfast?’

Geraldine shook her head.

‘Not now. I want to finish going through these tapes.’

‘You don’t really think you’re going to catch a clear shot of a registration number and Jessica Palmer climbing into the car. You know the film’s already been watched right through?’

‘As long as there’s a chance - ’

‘You know what they’re saying?’

‘Who?’

Sam nodded towards the door.

‘Everyone on the team, even the DCI, I expect.’

‘Don’t tell me,’ Geraldine muttered. ‘They’re saying that we’re never going to find whoever killed Jessica Palmer and Donna Henry, so we might as well pack up and go to the pub.’

‘No. I mean - ’ she hesitated. ‘Do you know what they’re saying about you?’

‘About me? Let me guess. I’m a county mounty who doesn’t know she’s in London.’

She turned back to her screen.

‘Now it’s time to get back to work, Sam. You’ve got plenty to do and so have I.’

Sam spoke in a rush.

‘They’re saying you don’t trust anyone else to do the job properly.’

Geraldine looked up at her in surprise.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘A team of uniformed constables went round Bond Street and before they’d even finished - ’

‘You mean they were recalled - ’

‘Whatever. The point is, you went round after them because you thought you could find something they’d missed. Now the CCTV’s been watched all the way through and that’s not good enough for you, you have to sit up all night viewing it. They’re saying you want to do everything yourself because you don’t trust your colleagues on the team, and you might as well run the investigation single-handedly since you seem to think everyone else is incompetent. And they’re saying that for all your thoroughness, you’re no further ahead than anyone else.’

She paused.

‘It’s not what I think, but it’s what other people are saying.’

Geraldine shrugged.

‘I don’t care what they’re saying about me. All I’m concerned about is finding the killer and I wish everyone else would focus on that as well, instead of wasting time and energy on idle chatter.’ Her voice rose in vexation and she broke off, afraid of sounding as though her colleagues’ opinion of her was justified. ‘That’s all for now, Sam. I want to get on and I’m sure you do too.’

She turned back to her screen.

‘Close the door on your way out.’

‘I was only trying to be helpful,’ Sam said without moving. ‘I thought you’d want to know. The point is you don’t need to overwork so much. We’re all in this as a team, and we’ll sort it out together.’

Geraldine didn’t turn round.

‘I said, that’ll be all, thank you.’

A second later she heard the door close.

As she sat watching the tapes she tried not to be distracted by what the sergeant had told her. After all her excitement at moving to the Met it seemed she had already got off on the wrong foot with her colleagues. And worse than her personal disappointment was the frustration of knowing she was searching for one man in seven million.

‘We seem to have reached a dead end,’ she told the detective chief inspector that afternoon.

‘Yes, the lead on the accident to the car near Bond Street was a disappointment, wasn’t it? Despite all your efforts,’ he added.

Geraldine remembered what Sam had told her and felt her face go hot.

‘So, what do you suggest we do next?’ he asked.

‘It might help if we broadcast a reconstruction of when Jessica was last seen. We can put together quite a lot of information. We know what she looked like and what she was wearing that night. She was there with a colleague and the CCTV footage gives us the time Jessica left the pub. We know she was drunk and the CCTV seems to indicate she was picked up more or less outside the pub. It’s possible someone noticed her getting into a car, and they might come forward if we can only jog their memory.’

‘Go ahead, Geraldine. The sooner we get a reconstruction broadcast, the more chance I suppose there is of finding a witness who remembers seeing her,’ Reg replied, suddenly eager. ‘And it’s important we’re seen to be doing something,’ he added. ‘Good thinking.’

Geraldine didn’t answer. She hadn’t suggested the television reconstruction as a means of making the team look effective, but as an avenue to explore which might help them find the killer. Driven by her desire for justice she suspected Reg Milton was motivated by personal ambition. Geraldine trusted his judgement but she was less sure about trusting him.