Love Story, With Murders (6 page)

‘From what we know,’ says Watkins, ‘Khalifi has no wife, no partner.
We’ve spoken with his departmental head and one or two others, but we need much more. What connection
did he have to Mary Langton? Who might have wanted him dead and why?’

Next we turn to Langton. Needless to say, you can’t find large chunks of human remains in someone’s shed or garage without pulling those people in for questioning. So on Saturday
night, Arthur Price had been driven down
to Cathays. The interview plan had been to hang tough for an hour or so, not quite accusing the old man, but almost, and seeing if any cracks emerged. In
fact, the old man was so open, so soldier-like, flirtatious and charming, that after twenty minutes the two DCs conducting the interview broke for a consultation with their team leaders, and
decided to run the whole thing differently. Someone
went out to get chips, and the rest of the interview was conducted over mugs of tea and plates of chips with brown sauce, with Price doing his
gallant best to assist.

I know all this only because one of the DCs involved, Susan Konchesky, told me about it all. Watkins says nothing except, ‘Interrogation of Price revealed no grounds for suspicion. His
garden is easily accessed from the land
to the rear of his property. He reports a minor squabble with Elsie Williams’ – according to Konchesky: she didn’t like him burning garden
clippings, he called her an old harpie – ‘but no real contact.’ The Ice Queen doesn’t say it, but we all know by now that Elsie Williams could have picked a quarrel with an
empty room, so Price is hardly unique in having had a run-in with her.

And in
any case, as Watkins goes on to say, there seems absolutely no connection between Elsie Williams or Arthur Price and Ryan Humphrys, the plumbers’ merchant. Nor between any of them
and Mary Langton.

‘Price and Humphrys have supplied us with lists of friends, family, and tradesmen who have had access to their property. We are currently cross-checking those lists against address books
and
phone records, but so far we haven’t found any significant overlap.’

Watkins grimaces at the lack of correlations. As though it’s someone’s fault. Then says, ‘Causes of death.’

There’s laughter at that. It sounds stupid – because people tend not to live long and healthy lives when they’ve been divided into dozens of pieces and distributed around
suburban Cardiff – but Watkins is right:
we don’t actually know what killed either Langton or Khalifi. Were they cut up whilst still alive? If so, why? If not, then what?

More questions than answers. The corpses seemed to have been butchered reasonably proficiently, ‘but a garden saw or kitchen knives could have done the job adequately. We’ve got no
evidence so far of slashing, hacking, or even signs of struggle.’ So quite likely
a clean death, with butchery taking place thereafter.

Then some complex and uncertain forensic material, which Watkins summarises in her usual take-no-prisoners way.

The biggest curiosity: the condition of Mary Langton’s corpse.

The leg found in the freezer was, according to the guesstimates we have so far, in roughly the condition you’d expect from a leg that had been frozen for five
years, then left to rot in a
wet freezer with the power off. The arms and the head were in worse condition, but probably not five years worse. The fact is that forensic science doesn’t have a whole raft of statistical
data on how rapidly a head decomposes when submerged in a barrel of old lawn mower oil. There are various tests currently being done to explore how far the oil has penetrated
the bone and soft
tissues. Those tests may or may not give us something more definite, but we’re never likely to get a firm fix on the timing.

‘Best estimate,’ says Watkins, ‘the head was in that barrel for one to three years. Maybe more, maybe less.’

A stone had been left in the mouth to keep the head below the surface. It had fallen out, with a little oily plop, when I lifted the head.
In ancient Greece, corpses were buried with a coin in
their mouths, so the newly dead had something with which to pay for their passage into the underworld. That falling pebble felt like Mary Langton finally making payment. Her spirit finally exiting
this world.

‘With the arms, it’s a little clearer,’ Watkins continues. ‘If those arms have been consistently stored at ambient temperature,
the extent of the decomposition is
consistent with something between two and four years. I’m told that, in the opinion of our forensics team, it is highly unlikely that the arms were stored in Ryan Humphrys’s roof for
the full five years.’

She emphasises those words:
highly unlikely
. I realise that nearly everyone is writing notes in their notebook. I’m not. I look keen instead.

Watkins
has found a psychologist from somewhere to give a psych briefing. Those things are normally mind-numbingly stupid, amounting to little more than, ‘I think your killer may not be
quite right in the head.’ A tedious message wrapped up in half-baked jargon and faux-scientific references. The tarot of modern criminal investigation.

This time, however, the psychologist – a tired-looking guy from
Swansea – has a little more to offer. He notes that the Langton killing is odd for at least three reasons. One, the
dismemberment. Two, the very wide distribution of body parts. Three, the apparent efforts made to preserve the body parts (the freezer, the barrel of oil, the airtight wrapping of the arms) may
suggest some novel type of disorder or obsession.

‘Naturally, it’s possible,’
says the psychologist, ‘that the killer distributed body parts in order to confuse and deflect any criminal investigation. That could be a
rational behaviour under the circumstances. But there are other ways to deflect attention and of course disposing of the corpse so that it isn’t found at all might have been an even more
rational course of action.’ He pauses. Most of these guys are wannabe
detectives, but he’s aware he won’t be loved for trampling on our turf. He backs off.

‘What I
would
say is that the dismembering of corpses has been strongly associated in the past with offenders suffering from various personality disorders, often with possible
schizoid features. Speculating further, I’d suggest it’s reasonably probable that the killer chose to retain at least one item for
himself as a kind of memento. That kind of
retentiveness is common in some offenders. Think of it as trophy hunting, if you will. But the obsession with
preserving
the corpse is a new one on me. It’s as though there’s a
splash of compulsive hoarding in there. A refusal to give things up. A desire to retain control. I don’t want to pretend there’s much science I can offer here, but if you want
my gut
feel, I’d say we were looking for a guy who needs to hold on to things. Possibly a hoarder. At very high risk of being a repeat offender.’

One of my colleagues asks whether the Langton killer and the Khalifi killer are likely to be the same person. The psychologist thinks maybe not, though he – and everyone else here –
thinks the killings are certainly linked.

A discussion,
led by Watkins, ensues. But the energy which filled the room at the start, that bristling energy that had stalked the room like some giant beast, is pretty much dead now. Times
like this show Watkins at her best and worst.

At her worst, because she’s so taut, so devoid of humour or sympathy. She’s like an order-issuing robot – rapid, precise, disapproving, relentless.

And at her best,
for the same reason. An order-issuing robot is just what we need. There are search teams for Cyncoed, search teams for the reservoir, teams for database research and QUEST
analysis, teams for the Khalifi interviews. Bam, bam, bam. She spits out instructions like something ejecting nails.

I think about Mary Langton. A red-cheeked English girl who chased a hockey ball and found her death.
When you have a dead girl’s head in your hands, a head that can’t help but stare
at you with sightless eyes even as it spits its black penny out, you have a connection. Like it or not, you’re joined. While my colleagues scribble their notes, I remember Mary. The weight of
her head. The slipperiness. That feel of bone.

How did you die, Mary?
I ask her. She doesn’t tell me, but it’s early
days.

Eventually, forty minutes after starting, Watkins shuts up. I have a ringing in my ears. Her voice. Those commands. That tone. I think everyone feels the same way.

I’m on the Khalifi team, which disappoints me. I assumed I’d be on the Langton team and think about asking to be reassigned. If it were anyone but Watkins, I
would
ask, but
because it’s her, I just walk grumpily upstairs
to a smaller conference room where pink-faced DI Owen Dunwoody assembles us.

Against the wall, there’s a table laid out with ID photos, known facts, basic bio. Born Moroccan, but a longtime British resident, here since he was a student. Born Muslim, but
non-practising, nonreligious. Family in North Africa, but limited contacts with them. The intelligence databases are closed to us, but we
can send in queries and have had a clean bill of health
back: no known terrorist links. No hints of religious fundamentalism.

Dunwoody’s team – me, Bev Rowland, Jon Breakell, Jim Davis, Angela Yorke, one or two others – start taking what we need: photos, fact sheets. Khalifi has a thin brown face.
Forty-something. Neat dark hair. A kind of fussy precision in his suit, his narrow tie and
white shirt. But there’s something else too, something that scampers away from me before I can
define it. His face isn’t static. It’s in motion. Half-looking away from the camera. Mouth opening into a laugh. Or perhaps opening to say something. But there’s a disconnect
between the eyes and the mouth. Like the eyes are saying one thing and the mouth is about to say another.

I don’t know,
though. The photograph eludes me. Mary Langton’s photos were as plain as toast. A cow-toothed English girl who played hockey. When I found her head, her flesh was in a
pretty decayed state but the cow teeth were still there. Somewhere in her eyeless stare, you could still hear the clack of a hockey ball, the smell of riding tackle.

My annoyance at being here instead of on the Langton team
is already beginning to dissolve.

Who are you, Mr Khalifi? And what do you have to do with Mary Langton?

We’re about to find out.

The Engineering Faculty is a short walk from Cathays. Never been before.

We get there at ten. Three DCs, me, and DS Jim Davis, who loves and adores me. I love and adore him too. We express our love by never talking to each other and by making sharky comments to third
parties whenever we get the chance.

We’re greeted by Gayle Thomas,
the Head of School’s assistant.

She offers three platitudes about the ‘terrible tragedy.’ Then gives us a list of Khalifi’s students. A list of his faculty colleagues. Shows us to an ‘interview
space,’ an underheated room with old carpet, big windows, and some books behind glass cupboards.

‘Refreshments for you there,’ she says, pointing to a tray of thermoses, as though we wouldn’t
be able to recognise them without assistance. ‘We’ve drawn up an
interview schedule to help get things organised. Obviously if you need longer with anyone, that can be arranged. All the students have been notified and they know that it’s okay for them to
skip a lecture if they have to.’

She gives a little smile. One of those hospitality smiles. The sort which says,
I’m professionally dressed
in an inoffensive blue suit, I’ve put tea bags in individual sachets out
on a small china saucer, I’ve made you some lists which are all neatly stapled, and look – I’m smiling.
Small white efficient teeth.

Through the glass pane in the door, I can see the first students assembling.

It’s a well-organised setup and we do need to interview these people, but I hate the sense of being managed.

Davis does too. He starts grumbling about the tables. Privacy issues. Hospitality Thomas holds her hands in front of her like a supplicant at some Catholic shrine. She tells Davis that
she’ll arrange for some break-out rooms. He grumbles some more. She does prayer hands. He grumbles once more about the coffee, then drops it. The first students come in.

I interview three of them.

Three people, not all that much younger than me. Khalifi a reasonably popular lecturer. Expertise in materials science, whatever that is. Also mechanical engineering.

The third of my students, Kerry, is a mouse-haired girl who sits opposite me wearing a long gauzy scarf and pulling at it like she’s dying to make some experiments in
self-strangulation.

She bores me.

‘Did he ever make
a pass at you?’ I ask.

‘A pass? No. No.’ She looks shocked by the idea.

‘Did he have a fling with any of your fellow students? A one-night stand? Late night snog? Anything like that?’

‘No.’

It’s bad interview technique, but I’m bored and feeling antsy. I don’t want my lovely little murder case to turn dull on me. I feel angry at these girls for being alive, when
Mary Langton
is dead.

‘Sexual relationships with other lecturers? Drugs? Global jihad? Bondage games?’

‘No.’

Kerry looks at me reproachfully, as though I’m not doing my job. Which I’m not.

‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Could you look through these questions and note down anything that might be relevant? Thanks.’

I leave her with pen and paper going through our list of interview questions.

I walk
out of the room and let the door bang shut behind me. I’m in a bland, official corridor. Blue carpeted. Student posters and notices tacked to the wall. The same blend of academic
earnestness and trying-too-hard hipness I remember from Cambridge.

Where do you hide a leaf? In a forest. How do you conceal a secret? With openness. Prayer hands and efficient teeth.

I start to prowl. I’m not
too sure where I’m headed, but I’m not utterly surprised when I end up on the management floor. Same blue carpets, no student posters.