The Boy in the River (15 page)

‘Not bad: you’re clearly picking up my culinary methods.’ She looked at me. ‘So you really think this could be it?’

‘Someone somewhere must know something. Maybe Jean does.’

‘Wouldn’t it be fantastic to put an end to this?’

I didn’t need to answer that after the weeks of malevolent phone calls and emails.

‘Are the police checking on this medical journal?’ she asked.

‘I got the impression they wanted to do the phone tap first. I suppose they don’t have unlimited resources.’

‘On the other hand, if the medical journal doesn’t check out, then the phone tap is probably a waste of time.’

I gave her a sideways look. ‘What are you building up to?’

‘Well, it wouldn’t do any harm to see if that part of her story stacks up, would it? We’re going up to London anyway this week. We should be able to track that journal down easily enough.’ She glanced at my beloved curry, seething on the stove. ‘You really ought to stir that, you know.’

Faith and I spent that Friday morning in the reference library of the Royal College of obstetricians and Gynaecologists at sussex Place near Regent’s Park. I had dressed for the occasion in a sombre suit and tie, and allowed the receptionist to believe my doctorate was a medical one, so that she personally ushered me into the hallowed precincts.

There on the shelves was the relevant issue of the medical journal Jean had named, and inside it was a photograph of our Nigerian suspect, Vincent, giving his full name and contact details. He was one of the authors of a medical research paper and his smiling face looked out from the page. The photograph showed a confident, professional-looking middle-aged man. I wondered what he would think if he knew that two total strangers half a world away were linking him to the murder of a boy called Adam.

19

Bath and London, June 2002

I knew the police disapproved of amateur sleuthing, so I didn’t report our discovery to them.

A few days later nick Chalmers and Will O’Reilly were sitting opposite me in our living room in Bath. We were waiting to telephone Jean, who had given us a time slot during which we could reach her. There were just the three of us as Faith was away on a research trip.

As the minutes counted down Nick passed me a list of questions.

‘You want me to ask her all this?’

‘If you get the chance.’

I dialled Jean’s home in Lahore. There was a long pause and then I could hear the phone ringing at the other end. The receiver was lifted.

The voice was fairly young, educated; tense but controlled. I pictured an intelligent woman of about thirty-five. It would not be easy to dismiss this person as a crackpot and that made me, if anything, even more nervous.

She told me she didn’t have much time, then took a couple of breaths to compose herself. ‘All right. I’ve told you that Vincent is a colleague. Naturally, I’ve had a good deal of contact with him. I became aware that he was acting very strangely during the year 2000—’

‘2000?’

‘I mean 2001, of course. I get so jumpy I make mistakes.’ Jean told me Vincent had visited Britain and Nigeria several times during 2001. She thought he was in London that September, but couldn’t be entirely sure. After one of his trips to Nigeria he came back through Lahore on his way to London with a young Nigerian boy, perhaps five or six years old. Jean didn’t know where the boy came from or who he was. She didn’t think he was a relation. Vincent made no secret of the boy’s presence but then he took him to London and neither she nor any of her friends or colleagues in Lahore had seen him since.

I suggested that Vincent might just be chaperoning the child for a friend.

‘No, no, there’s more. He’s involved in voodoo.
Juju
, or whatever they call it.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘He was quite open about it. He said he believed his career was being held back by a jealous rival at the hospital – another Nigerian – and that this man had put a
juju
curse on him. He told me he was going to do something that would cancel out the curse and clear his path to a successful future. Apparently a
juju
man back in Nigeria had told him what he needed to do.’

‘I don’t suppose he said what that was?’

‘No. But pretty soon after he told me this, Vincent made one of his visits to the UK. When he came back later that month he seemed much more confident and relaxed. He told me everything was going to be all right now . . .’

In the silence I could hear her breathing. ‘What are you frightened of, Jean?’

‘I can’t talk about this to my husband. I’m terrified that if he gets wind of what I think, he’ll somehow let Vincent know – they might even have a good laugh about it. I’m really frightened of what Vincent might do if he knows I suspect him, but I can’t just sit quietly and forget about it, can I? As soon as I saw you in that TV interview I knew you were the person I had to tell.’

‘I’m sure you did the right thing,’ I said.

I heard a muffled sound in the background.

Jean whispered, ‘Oh, my God! My husband’s coming back. You must phone next week, same time. I’ve got to go . . .’

The phone went dead.

I put down the receiver. Will and Nick glanced at one another, and then looked at me. I tried to read their faces, without success.

‘You did fine, Richard,’ Will said. ‘But I wanted her to say more, to tell us something that would be actual evidence.’

Nick nodded. ‘Why don’t you try and get some more details out of her by email, Richard? We can talk before you call her again next week.’

I tried not to show my disappointment.

Nick went on to say that they’d heard from the disgruntled Yorubans again – more than once. This was news I didn’t want to hear. Jean’s messages had helped me put that episode to the back of my mind.

‘They gave me quite an ear-bashing,’ nick said. ‘I told them you were confident of your theory, Richard, and that’s the line I’ll stick to.’ He paused. ‘So long as you
are
confident . . .’

I took a deep breath. ‘I’m confident,’ I said.

‘Good. Because there’s more at stake here than the feelings of a few brassed-off Nigerians.’

I looked from him to Will.

Will said, ‘Ever since you gave us the possible West African link, we’ve kept an eye out for anything that matches it.’

‘And?’

‘There’s a woman in Scotland who’s rather caught our attention. I’d prefer not to say any more about it just yet.’

‘It would be great if you could come up to London,’ Nick said. ‘I’ll be able to fill you in. And ask Faith along.’ A smile played around his mouth. ‘We always enjoy her company.’

Several emails arrived from Jean over the next forty-eight hours. She explained that her husband had come home unexpectedly and she’d had to get off the phone fast, but that she already felt better now that she’d made contact. It was an immense relief to unburden herself to someone who understood.

It struck me that her messages were getting rather prolix; natural enough, perhaps, for a woman who had at last found an ally after months of suspicion and secrecy, but I was aware too that her information still lacked the kernel of hard evidence the police needed. All the same, I dutifully collected all her messages and sent them off to Nick.

Faith and I were running late on the morning of our visit to Catford. I logged into the email account I was using for Jean, rather hoping the inbox would be empty – we would be pushed to make the London train as it was – but Jean had sent me five emails and they all seemed pretty lengthy. Casting a quick eye down the pages, they appeared to give further information about the mysterious Vincent, but I didn’t have time to read them properly, so I hit the print button.

We arrived flustered at Bath Spa Station just as the train drew in and found a pair of seats with a table. I pulled out the emails and began to read.

I knew almost at once that something was wrong, but said nothing as I passed them to Faith. I didn’t need to ask her. ‘“My songbird”?’ she quoted, with some scorn. ‘That’s a bit of a bloody odd thing to call you, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, it is, rather.’ I cleared my throat.

‘“Such a lovely man”,’ Faith read on, breathlessly. ‘“Such a caring, kind, intelligent individual.”’ She flattened the sheet on the table. ‘Are you sure this woman’s got all her marbles?’

‘Because she calls me kind, intelligent and caring?’

‘If I was feeling generous I could cope with that. But
songbird
?’

‘It’s worse than that, though, isn’t it?’ Tell me she’s not in a total muddle over timing.’

‘She’s not just in a muddle; she’s gone completely haywire. She’s a whole year out, surely?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘And you told me she got the year wrong on the phone too . . .’

I nodded. ‘Vincent was in Lahore all through September 2001. He was nowhere near London. He couldn’t possibly have killed Adam. The whole thing’s been a waste of time.’ I stared out of the window. ‘My playing at Sherlock Holmes in London, the phone tapping. Everything. All because of some lonely woman with a taste for the dramatic.’

‘I don’t know,’ Faith said. ‘I think she’s sincere. She really does suspect this character of Adam’s murder.’ She shrugged. ‘She’s just wrong.’

‘Great,’ I said. ‘Hear that clattering sound? That’s the whole house of cards collapsing in a heap.’

As the First Great Western train sped towards London I wondered how often the police must have to put up with this sort of thing. I understood now how Will and Nick had managed to stay so cool about Jean’s ‘information’ even while they were diligently checking it out.

Well, at least I’d learned something. I’d learned how easy it is in an investigation to allow yourself to believe what you most want to believe.

20

Catford and Bath, June 2002

We didn’t say much as we caught the tube at Paddington. When we finally reached Catford station, Nick Chalmers was waiting for us.

‘You two look a bit down in the mouth,’ he said.

Before we reached his car I had given him a brief summary of Jean’s latest messages.

‘It happens,’ he shrugged.

‘I feel a bit sorry for her,’ Faith said. ‘I think she meant well.’

‘Maybe.’ He opened the driver’s door. ‘But I can’t say I’m completely surprised.’

We headed for a nearby Japanese restaurant. The place had blue walls and black wooden tables and benches – colours that pretty well matched my mood.

Nick had seen it all before.

‘A high-profile case prompts a never-ending stream of calls like that. Some are obviously loopy. Some are loopy but don’t look it. Some are malicious. A lot are well-intentioned but rubbish. But we have to make some sort of attempt to follow them all up. So anything that helps us sort the wheat from the chaff is useful. Like your tip about West Africa.’

Nick told us he’d received a telephone call back in February from a PC McGlyn in Glasgow. He’d been the duty officer at a care hearing for Jacqueline and Precious Osagiede. Social workers were worried about their welfare. Their mother, Joyce, had been found guilty of minor breaches of the peace and she’d come out with a bizarre argument for getting her children back: that she was a member of a cult, that she needed the children for a ritual ceremony that night or there would be terrible consequences.

Kevin Williams, the social worker, confirmed that Joyce had indeed told him that she was a member of a cult. And when he’d been in her flat he’d seen all sorts of strange looking artefacts and what he assumed were medicines.

Joyce Osagiede had originally presented herself at the Croydon Immigration office in south London in November 2001, claiming asylum. It seems she had already been in the country for some time. She had two young girls with her, aged six and four. She said they were her daughters and that she was from Sierra Leone in West Africa.

‘But the Immigration people weren’t so sure,’ Nick said. ‘Nigerians quite often claim they come from Sierra Leone – they think it helps their chances of asylum. I guess all this may be nothing more than another interesting diversion, but the cult is Yoruban. I’ve found her file. She admitted under questioning that she had travelled from Sierra Leone to Benin City in Nigeria in the mid-1990s to marry one Tony Onus, a prominent member of a cult calling itself “the Black Coat Eyes of the Devil Guru Maharaj”, if you can believe that. She says he has messianic status.’

Guru Maharaj sounded distinctly Eastern. I had a hazy recollection of a similar sounding mystic guru in the Seventies. But then again, new religious movements sprang up by the hundreds every year in Africa. It was hard to keep up.

Nick leaned towards us. ‘Joyce says that this group has participated in a number of human sacrifices during initiation ceremonies, that her husband took a prominent role in these sacrifices and that her own newborn son was sacrificed in 1995.’

The lunchtime hum faded into the background.

‘He was sacrificed by his father?’

Nick nodded. ‘According to Joyce, anyway. It was supposed to bring power to someone who was a devotee of the cult.’

According to Joyce, her husband sacrificed ten people in Nigeria in that one year. She went on to say that – not surprisingly – she grew more and more scared of him, and finally ran away because he wanted to sacrifice one of the two girls next. She fled to England to save them.

Immigration sent Joyce to Glasgow, as part of their policy of spreading asylum seekers around the country. There the social services became very concerned about the state of the children and put them into care. It was at the care hearing that Jim McGlyn heard her beg for them back so they could take part in this ritual.

The social workers’ case files mentioned ‘strange items’ in her flat and what looked like packets of some unidentifiable substance. Kevin Williams confirmed these sightings in court. Interviewing Joyce had become a priority.

My next task was to look more closely at the Guru Maharaj cult.

Before we left, I asked Nick if there had been any progress with the analysis of the contents of Adam’s intestine. Nick said he would check and get back to me.