The Burning (45 page)

And then she opened her eyes and looked straight at me.

I didn’t say anything, I just waited for her to know me. It took a moment. Then, in a weak, thready voice, she spoke.

‘I wrote you a letter.’

‘I read it.’

‘I wrote one for Gil.’

‘I read that too.’ I watched her to see her reaction, the flicker in her eyes as she registered what I knew, what she had said. ‘I think you might regret writing that, to be honest.’

Her face crumpled and she closed her eyes, shutting me out. a tear slid down the side of her face, slipping into her hair. I thought about what had happened to her – what Gil had done to her – and I tried to feel sorry for her. But thinking about what she’d done herself made it hard. When she had regained control of herself, she took a deep breath.

‘I thought the pills would work. Why didn’t they work?’

‘A pipe leaked in the cell next door. The guard came in to check that yours was still dry, and found you.’

She nodded and turned her head away. ‘I wish it had worked. I don’t want to spend the next thirty years in prison.’

‘No one ever does.’ I leaned down, so no one else could hear what I said. ‘I’m glad you didn’t die.’

She looked back at me, surprised – not a little pleased, I think. I leaned an inch closer still.

‘You took Rebecca’s life to safeguard your own. You picked over what she’d left behind and you borrowed what suited you from it. You took the man she’d loved. You took her place in her parents’ lives. You dressed like her. You copied the way she spoke, the way she wore her hair, her make-up, her jewellery.’

Louise’s eyes were fixed on mine, her pupils wide and dark. She ran her tongue over her lips nervously, and it was black too, as if she was rotting from the inside, the evil festering within her.

‘I hope you live a long life, Louise. and I hope you don’t know a minute’s peace from now until the day you die. You took Rebecca’s life,’ I said, one last time. ‘The very least you owe her is to live it.’

Outside the prison, I stopped by Godley’s car.

‘So that’s it, then? We can’t go after Maddick, even with this?’

‘Pass it on to the sex crimes unit at the Yard, if you want. Let them follow it up with his ex-girlfriends – see if there’s anyone else who wants to make a complaint. But I think you’re going to have to let it go, Maeve.’

‘That’s not right. If we walk away from it, we can’t be sure justice will be done.’

‘You don’t think that’s our job, do you? Making sure that justice is done?’

I frowned. ‘Isn’t it?

‘We’re just trying to hold back the tide, Maeve. For every killer we catch, there’s another we don’t. Murderers who are clever enough to find victims who don't count. Rapists who are plausible enough to get off every charge. abusers whose crimes don’t come to light for decades. We can only do something about the crimes we know about, and half the time, even if we get a conviction, the punishment isn’t fit to be called justice.’

I shook my head, bewildered. ‘If you’re so cynical about it, why do this job at all?’

‘Because it’s better than not even trying.’ He sat into the driver’s seat and looked up at me. ‘Maddick will come again, Maeve. His type always does. and when he does—’

‘I’ll be ready,’ I finished for him.

T
HE
B
URNING
M
AN
‘W
ILL
N
EVER
BE
R
ELEASED
’

Razmig Selvaggi will spend the rest of his life in jail for murdering four young women in South London.

Selvaggi killed Nicola Fielding (27), Alice Fallon (19), Victoria Müller (26) and Charity Beddoes (23) before setting fire to their bodies. He terrorised the residents of the Kennington area, where he hunted his victims between September and December of 2009.

Mr Justice Cauldwell, sitting at the Central Criminal Court, ordered 24-year-old Selvaggi to serve the maximum sentence. He said: ‘This was a targeted campaign of murder. It is right you should spend your whole life in prison. You will never be released.’

Selvaggi listened without showing any emotion as Mr Justice Cauldwell said he had targeted vulnerable young women. ‘They were out late at night, walking home alone. But they should not have been at risk from harm. You killed them, burned them and left them, by your own account because you enjoyed it.’ The judge said the case met the legal requirements for a whole life sentence because the murders involved a ‘substantial degree of premeditation and planning’.

Selvaggi pleaded guilty, having confessed to the crimes once in custody. He was caught while attempting to attack an undercover policewoman in December 2009. Analysis by forensic science experts revealed DNA from two of the victims on a hammer that was found at his address, as well as items of jewellery that had belonged to all four women.

Detective Chief Superintendent Charles Godley, who led the investigation, said Selvaggi had committed ‘despicable acts of violence’ that had left the capital in a state of terror.

Selvaggi is expected to be placed on suicide watch and undergo routine psychiatric assessments. His defence team said they would be considering whether there were grounds for an appeal, as is routine in all criminal cases.

The Metropolitan Police will now check outstanding cases in the London area to see whether there could be links to Selvaggi.

W
OMAN
J
AILED
FOR
‘M
ISTAKE
’ K
NIFE
A
TTACK

A woman has been jailed for two years for wounding a 56-year-old call centre worker ‘by mistake’. Kelly Staples, 20, of Richmond, Surrey, was sentenced at Kingston Crown Court.

In January she pleaded guilty to wounding Victor Blackstaff, but in mitigation her barrister told the court she had believed she was under threat.

‘The capital was in a state of hysteria at the time of the incident because of the activities of the serial killer known as the Burning Man, then unapprehended. My client believed her life was in danger. She was considerably inebriated following a night of drinking and admits that her judgement was impaired. She wounded him by mistake.’

The judge, His Honour Judge Steven Delaware, said that the two-year sentence reflected her early plea of guilty and also the fact that she had no previous convictions, but pointed out that it was a warning to others not to carry knives. He was also concerned by the serious long-term effects of the attack on the victim. Mr Blackstaff is continuing to receive medical treatment for his injuries and has not been able to return to work.

T
HIRD
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UICIDE
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‘O
VERCROWED
’ W
OMEN’S
P
RISON

A third prisoner has committed suicide at HMP Mantham in Northumberland. Louise North, 29, was halfway through the second year of a life sentence for murder. She was returning to her cell on the top landing of the prison yesterday morning after breakfast when she jumped over the railing and plummeted sixty feet. She died instantly. Anti-suicide netting had been removed to allow repairs to take place on the landing below. Prison authorities have launched an enquiry into why North was able to move around the cell block without adequate supervision.

This was North’s second attempt to kill herself. She had previously taken an overdose of antidepressants while on remand awaiting trial for the murder of her best friend, Rebecca Haworth, but was discovered in time to receive medical treatment. Her suicide note was a key part of the case against her at her trial, although her barrister argued it was written while she was suffering from depression and should not be viewed as reliable evidence of her guilt. In the witness box, she claimed it was intended to convince her then boyfriend not to mourn for her, and that she had lied or exaggerated in many places. The trial received considerable media attention because of North’s attempt to copy the crimes of notorious serial killer Razmig Selvaggi, dubbed the ‘Burning Man’, who was still at large at the time Rebecca Haworth was murdered.

In spite of her history, North was not considered to be a suicide risk by the prison authorities and was not under special supervision. She was regarded as a model prisoner.

Three women have taken their own lives in HMP Mantham since 2009, despite efforts to improve living conditions for the inmates and the introduction of a counselling service. Sophie Chambers, chief spokesperson of prison reform group Cell Out claimed that there are still serious problems with over-crowding and poor facilities in the Victorian jail, and urged the government to release funding for the construction of new prison buildings as a matter of urgency.

Convicted in May last year, North received a life sentence with a minimum tariff of twenty-five years. She would have been eligible for parole in 2035.