Past Mortem (29 page)

‘I’m just saying that what goes around comes around, that’s all.’

‘Natasha, did Lance hit you?’ There. He’d said it. He wasn’t even sure that he’d meant to say it, but he had.

‘No!’ Natasha exclaimed, too loudly and too quickly. Newson did not reply and after a few moments Natasha got up and left the room. When she returned she had her speech prepared.

‘It’s not like you think it is, Ed. It’s not typical.’

‘What do you mean, Natasha? It looks like a typical black eye to me.’

‘It’s not a typical instance of what you think it is.’

‘If you mean domestic violence, why don’t you say it?’

‘Because…because…Look, it’s only happened once.’

‘Oh, come
on
, Natasha. Listen to yourself.’

‘He’s only done it once!’

‘So far! They’ve all only ever done it once the first time they do it. Whether he does it again is entirely up to you.’

‘Look, Ed. Don’t give me any speeches, all right? I’ve been in the police since I was nineteen. I know about this shit. I dealt with it every day for years.’

‘Which is why you of all people should be aware that domestic violence is in most senses always typical and one of the most typical aspects of all is that the victim always tries to make out a special case for her abuser.’

‘I just said I don’t want any speeches! He was drunk.’

‘We were both drunk! He wanted to talk about us and I was too tired and I hadn’t seen him all weekend and then I got home and I only wanted to sleep, and — ’

‘Natasha, please!
Listen to yourself
.’

‘I’m just saying — ’

‘You’re just saying that it was your fault that he hit you, that’s what you’re just saying.’

‘I’m not! I’m saying that in a relationship both sides have to — ’

‘You’re saying that it was your fault!’

‘I don’t want to have this conversation, OK? I haven’t filed a complaint and this is not a police matter.’

‘I’m your friend.’

‘Then respect my right to deal with this in my own way.’

‘Have you thrown him out?’

Natasha did not answer.

‘
Have you thrown him out?
’

‘No.’

‘Then will you insist that he seeks counselling immediately?’

Again she did not reply.

‘Will you make him seek counselling, and if he refuses will you throw him out?’

‘I’ve just said I don’t want to — ’

‘Then it’s going to happen again.’

‘It’s
not
going to happen again.’

‘Natasha, if nothing changes it
always
happens again. You
know
that.’

‘Ed, we’re seeing the chief in just over an hour. If you want to complete your list before then we need to find out what fucking nightmare Warrant Officer Spencer left behind him from when he was at school.’

And so, with a new and unfamiliar tension now existing between them, Newson and Natasha turned once more to the Friends Reunited site to summon up the details of Spencer’s years at school, which had lasted from 1980 to 1992, when he had left at sixteen in order to join the army.

They had no musical clue to highlight a particular year, and they were forced to read through Spencer’s entire school career, which made up a grim catalogue of bullying and abuse. It seemed that he had formed the habit early.

Do you remember Denis Spencer?
half a dozen different ex-pupils at Spencer’s junior school had written.

If you weren’t in his gang you were in big trouble. If you caught his eye the wrong way, POW!, you got both fists straight in the face. If it was your turn to get it you crawled home on your hands and knees. If you got out of line he put your head in a desk and banged the lid down.

Again and again the same word came up.

Bully. Bully. Bully
.

It was clear that Spencer had not been choosy about who he terrorized and by the time he got to his comprehensive school he’d really got into his stride. He was the number-one topic of discussion on the school’s virtual notice board. An appeal had been made for good Spencer reminiscences and the replies were many and varied.

He flushed my head in the bogs…He twanged my bra strap every day in the dinner queue…He’d just kick you as you walked by…He held me against the wall by my neck…He stubbed his cigarette out on my satchel.

A teacher had even made a contribution.

I was so sorry and distressed to read of the way you all suffered at the hands of Denis Spencer. You must have felt that you should have been protected by the system. All I can say (and I cringe in shame as I write) is that we too were scared of him. Spencer was more than six feet tall by the time he was fourteen and he had two older brothers, one of whom was a policeman and the other a soldier. Spencer threatened me physically three times. He was bigger than me and once he actually grabbed me by the neck He told me that he knew where I lived and that if I went to the head I could expect a brick through my window. It would have been no use going to the head anyway, he was weak and scared himself. I don’t know if you recall Ms Simpson who taught art. She told me that he’d threatened her with gang rape!

‘My God,’ said Natasha, ‘what a thug!’ Eventually they found the letter they were looking for, the one that linked an event in Spencer’s past to the manner of his death. It had been posted by a classmate called Mark Pearce.

I’d always managed to stay out of trouble with Spencer. Maybe it was that that made him suddenly decide to have a go at me. They do say bullies are cunning like that, don’t they? Anyway, I’d never have risen to his bait if it had been just me, but he was clever and he had a go at my bird. I wonder if you’re reading this, Mandy? Do you remember what I suffered for you? It didn’t make you stay with me, though, did it? Not after I ended up in hospital with suspected brain damage. You slag. One lunch break That’s all it took, and my life got well and truly fucked. We were walking down the corridor, me and Mandy, hand in hand. Mandy was fit and everybody wanted to have her, so maybe Spencer was jealous or something. Whatever it was, it wasn’t my lucky day, because he and his boys barred our way and surrounded us and he started lifting up Mandy’s skirt and saying to me that I should hand her over to him for the lunch hour as payment for him not giving me a smack in the mouth. Well obviously I had to try and stand up to him. I’d have probably got done in whatever I did and I had to try and defend my bird, didn’t I? What would I have looked like if I hadn’t? So I told him to piss off and he said in that case I’d be the one who’d have to pay. So they sat me in a chair and started whacking me on the head with their atlases. Maybe you remember those books, of course you do, we had to lug them to geography twice a week, not that anybody ever learnt anything from them. Well, Spencer had his gang whack me on the head with the books for an entire lunch break, fifty-five minutes. Think about it. They hit me hundreds of times. By the end I was nearly unconscious and couldn’t fucking walk I had neurological damage, they said, and I was dizzy for months after. Luckily I was young and the brain is quite resilient when you’re young but I was still in bed for a month. I decided I wasn’t going to let him get away with it, so I told on Spencer and his gang and there was a piss-weak investigation, and of course they all denied it so it was their six words against my one. They’d kept people out of the form room while they hit me, so no one else saw, not that anyone would have had the guts to speak out. Well, obviously after snitching on them I couldn’t go back to school, so I had to go somewhere else, which really messed up my exams. What with that and the headaches that went on for years afterwards I ended up not going to tech, even though I wanted to be an engineer, but that was all fucked, obviously. I’m fine now, got a job and a life I like, but I had a very rough time for a year or two back then and all because I happened to be walking down the corridor just at the time that Spencer was looking round for a bit of fun. Well, that’s my story but, Spencer, if you’re reading this I’m telling you now that it ain’t over. Oh no, it ain’t going to be over till you get yours. I’ve got a plan, see. Want to know what it is? Don’t worry, you’ll find out soon enough. Oh yeah, and Mandy? Like I said, you’re nothing but a dirty slag.

Newson’s list was complete.

He was ready to attend his meeting with Chief Superintendent Ward.

TWENTY-SEVEN

G
ood Lord, Detective Sergeant Wilkie. What the hell happened to you?’

‘I was mugged, sir. I’m fine.’

‘What a bloody awful world we live in, eh? Just what kind of bullying bastard would punch a defenceless woman like that?’

Newson did not look at Natasha, but he could imagine how much this comment hurt. His heart ached for her.

‘All right, Newson, let’s get on with it,’ the chief said testily. ‘This situation seems to me to be out of hand. We have a swathe of unsolved murders which you have chosen to presume are connected. One of these murders at least is highly media sensitive. I’m thinking in particular, of course, of the killing of Farrah Porter, which has caused alarm at the highest level in the Home Office. It’s put me personally under a lot of pressure. I don’t like having MI6 looking over my shoulder and badgering me for results. What’s more, we now have to add to this catalogue of failure the grotesque complication of yesterday’s death and your connection with both the victim and one of the suspects — ’

‘There’s no complication, sir, I — ’

‘Don’t interrupt me, Inspector. You can have your say when I’ve finished and not before. Now, what I want to know, before I take the decision to take you off this case and dump you somewhere in the depths of traffic, is whether you have anything concrete to go on.’

Newson produced his list and laid it on the chief superintendent’s desk.

Ward glanced at it, unimpressed. ‘What’s this?’

‘The progress you’ve been asking for, sir.’

‘Does this list include the name of the killer or killers?’

‘Possibly, but I doubt it.’

‘Then could you explain what damn use it is, Detective Inspector?’

‘It tells us that we’re dealing with a vigilante, sir. A serial killer whose motive is revenge.

‘Revenge for what?’

‘Just revenge, sir, not personal, but general.’

‘I never knew a killer, serial or otherwise, whose motives weren’t personal.’

‘Well no, sir. The killer’s
core
motive will be personal, deeply personal, but the murders he’s committing are set at one remove from his own experience. I think he’s taking a general revenge for a private hurt.’

‘Meaning?’

‘All the murder victims were bullies at school, sir,’ Natasha interjected quickly. ‘Every single one subjected their classmates to appalling brutality. It seems certain to us that our killer or killers are taking a belated revenge for what these people did when they were growing up.’

‘Is this true?’ Ward asked Newson. The chief superintendent was never very comfortable in conference with women. ‘It seems pretty far-fetched to me.’

‘Yes, sir, it’s true. I don’t think there can be any doubt.’

‘What evidence do you have for this theory?’

‘The killer murders his victims using the method of torture that they inflicted on others when they were at school. Look at the list. As you know, Adam Bishop was stabbed to death with a pair of compasses. We’ve discovered that forty-five years ago he nearly killed a classmate — William Connolly on the list — by stabbing him with a pair of compasses.

For the first time Chief Superintendent Ward showed interest. ‘What about Porter? She’s the one I’m getting the pressure about.’

‘She was murdered using an acidic bleaching agent that turned her tanned skin white, and her hair was dyed ginger. We now know for certain that during the late eighties, while attending a girls’ boarding school, Farrah Porter made another girl’s life a misery over her white skin and ginger hair. Her particular delight was to taunt this girl over the supposed presence of red pubic hairs on the soap. The
only
thing that the killer left out of place in Farrah Porter’s bathroom was a single red pubic hair, which he carefully attached to a brand — new cake of soap.

‘Extraordinary.’

‘In the case of the girl with whom I was acquainted, sir…’

‘Yes, I’ve read Dr Clarke’s report on how she died.

Are you telling me that at school she forced a tampon down another girl’s throat?’

‘Yes, I am, sir. It’s documented.’

‘Where? Where is it documented? How the hell do you know what all these people did at school?’

‘I read it on the internet, sir. Just as I believe the killer did before me. I believe that he tracks down his victims via an internet website called Friends Reunited, which is a site where old schoolfriends can re-establish contact and — ’

‘I know what Friends Reunited is, Inspector, I’m not a bloody idiot.’

‘No, sir. Of course not, sir.’

‘These others?’ said Ward, looking at Newson’s list. ‘All the same? All dispensed with in the manner of their own previous cruelty?’

‘Without a shadow of a doubt, sir.’ And Newson went on to describe the grotesque mimicry perpetrated by the murderer on Neil Bradshaw, Angie Tatum and Denis Spencer.

‘This really is the most extraordinary case,’ concluded Chief Superintendent Ward at length.

‘Isn’t it?’

‘And then there’s your connection.’

‘Coincidence, sir. I happen to have attended the same school as the bully and the victim in one of the cases on my list.’

‘And you slept with them both.’

Newson was silent.

‘The question is, what are you going to do about it?’ This was a question that Newson found difficult to answer. He had come a long way in his understanding of the murders but he did not feel that he was any closer to discovering who had committed them.

‘I’ll have to get back to you on that one, sir.’

The meeting over, Newson offered to buy Natasha a sandwich. As they were leaving the building, however, they discovered Lance waiting on the steps. He was holding a bunch of roses.

‘All right, doll?’ he said sheepishly.

There was an embarrassed pause. Newson did not know how to react. He wanted to arrest the man immediately for assault, but he knew absolutely that this was something Natasha must sort out for herself.

‘I’ve been here since ten. Thought I’d have to wait all day.’

‘Lance, I’m working.’

‘You’re always working.’

Newson tried to leave them to it, but Lance stopped him.

‘Don’t worry, mate, I’m going. You’ve got your precious murders to investigate, not that you ever seem to arrest anyone.’

‘These things take time.’

‘Yeah, all the time.’ Lance turned back to Natasha and handed her the flowers. ‘Look, ‘Tash, these are for you…I’ll see you later, all right?’ He turned and headed for his motorbike. Natasha and Newson made their way to a nearby sandwich bar.

‘Don’t say anything,’ Natasha said.

‘He’s a bully, Natasha.’

‘I said don’t say anything. What the hell does he think I’m supposed to do with a bunch of flowers in the middle of a working day, anyway?’

‘Stick them in the bin.’

‘Don’t be stupid.’

‘Why’s that stupid?’

‘Because it must have taken a lot for a man like Lance to bring me flowers.’

‘A man like Lance? What sort of man would that be, Natasha?’

‘He’s a proud bloke, Ed, and he’s hurting.’

‘How much did it hurt when he punched you in the face? And what did it do to your pride, for that matter?’

They were outside the café now.

‘Look, I told you. I don’t want to have this conversation, and if you can’t respect that then I’m going. Understand? I’m going. I’ll take a sickie and you can find this bloody killer on your own.’

‘OK, I’ll shut up.’

‘Good.’

The café was small, and only a table for two remained vacant. Natasha was forced to place Lance’s flowers beneath her chair.

‘So,’ said Newson after they had ordered their sandwiches, ‘what do we know about our killer?’

‘He’s mad.’

‘Yes, that’s probably true, but what else? My guess is that he was a victim himself. These murders must have taken an enormous amount of planning, and considerable nerve. The psychological motivation to commit them would have to be absolutely compelling. He’d have to be a truly tortured soul.’

‘Or perhaps he’s the parent of a bullied child,’ Natasha suggested. ‘I mean, that’s got to be the worst nightmare for a parent, hasn’t it? Their child being bullied. It’d kill you, you’d feel so guilty that you didn’t stop it. So helpless.’

‘That’s possible, I suppose,’ Newson conceded.

‘For me the problem with the idea of our killer being a victim is that he seems so cool and confident.’

‘Cool?’

‘Yeah, psychopathic but definitely cool,’ Natasha went on. ‘I mean, look, he’s killed six people and we haven’t got the faintest idea who he is. He pulled off these murders on his terms. He made life amazingly difficult for himself, but he managed it all the same. He’s tough, resourceful, clever, he’s got nerves of steel. How is someone like that ever going to have let himself be bullied?’

Newson looked at Natasha sitting opposite him with her swollen eye. ‘You, above all people,’ he said, ‘should be able to see that strong, brave people, cool people, can still end up letting themselves be bullied.’

‘I said not to talk about it, Ed.’

‘Yes, that’s right. I’m sorry.’

‘But that was a nice thing to say.’

Natasha’s hand was on the table top. Newson put his on hers and gave a gentle squeeze.

‘I’m not very cool, Ed,’ she said. ‘I know you think I am, but I’m not. I’m an idiot.’

On their way back to the office Newson picked up a copy of the early edition of the
Evening Standard
. The front page was dominated by news of the death of a teenage girl attending a north London comprehensive, who had killed herself as a result of being bullied at school.

‘My God, it’s everywhere. We can’t get away from it, can we?’ said Natasha.

The story of Tiffany Mellors’ suicide was doubly uncomfortable for Newson, because it reminded him of Helen Smart. The girl had gone into her bedroom while her parents were out, lit some joss sticks, put on some music and begun cutting at her arms. By the time she got down as far as her wrists she had generated sufficient despair and self-loathing to make the cuts deep enough to end her torment. She had left a note in her big girlish handwriting that simply said, ‘
The bullying killed me in the end
.’ Her school had long been identified as one with a problem of bullying and the
Standard
carried an editorial calling upon the government and the teaching unions to do more to combat what they called the ‘cancer in the classroom. The article included a lengthy quote issued by Kidcall. Newson wondered whether Helen had written it.

‘
Bullying is a cancer. It eats at the souls of everyone involved, including the aggressor. It undermines the entire environment in which it occurs and in the long run diminishes us all. Our hearts go out to the parents of this beautiful young girl and I urge any other children who find themselves facing the same kind of despair to pick up a phone and call Kidcall. We
can
help. As for the government, we say the same thing that we say to teachers, parents and counsellors. It’s not enough to stand around wishing these things did not happen. We all have a duty to do something about it
.’

Newson thought again about Helen Smart. Damaged, self-destructive Helen, a bright, attractive woman who was crippled by self-loathing. He remembered the lout Kelvin slouching around her flat. What strange psychological point was she trying to make against herself by taking a man like that into her bed? Newson thought that perhaps it was the sexual equivalent of the cuts she made on her arm.

Tiffany Mellors’ smiling face stared up at him from the front of the paper. The Kidcall quote had got it right. She was beautiful, with a big, twinkling smile. What kind of bullying could possibly have led a girl like that with seemingly so much to live for to take her own life?