The One a Month Man (3 page)

Back in my hutch, the cheap digital timepiece on my wrist alerted me to the fact that a mid-afternoon drink was overdue. I was fast finding my way around and had already located the two most important features of the building – the men’s room and the refreshment robot. Like most police-station vending machines, this one tried to rip me off, promising me change but reneging on the deal. Not until I’d given it a kicking did it cough up. Nothing in this life was ever straightforward. Going nuclear for one’s most basic rights had become the norm.

Returning to the file, I again focused on the first case, the murder of Louise Redman. A portrait photograph, presumably from a family album, showed a strikingly attractive redhead. I always flinched at these kinds of happy-family pics in the context of a crime so hideous. Although the colour photo was more than thirty years old, none of Louise’s vitality had faded with the passage of time. She seemed so alive, as if trying to
speak to me, to tell me something of what happened and who robbed her of the rest of her entitlement.
You owe me
, she was saying.
I was having such fun. I had so many plans. I was going
places. I was going to have kids. By now, I’d be a grandma, a success
story, if it hadn’t been for that bastard who took me by surprise. You
now know who it was. Go nail that psycho. Make him pay.

If there was a way of connecting with the dead, I wondered how much help that would have been. Very little, I suspected. I doubted that she knew her killer; she’d learn from me. I didn’t believe that this was a case in which the victims had been
preselected
. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. If the fourth assault was following a template, then Louise would have been scared witless, as Tina had been, by the ‘Scream’ mask. But Pope must have spoken. And unless he was a master of speech disguise, she would have instantly tuned into the transatlantic accent. A Yank at Oxford. Not too many of those in that era, especially of his physique. He couldn’t afford to let her live; nor the others. Tina was the one that got away and Richard Pope would have been behind bars three decades ago if the detectives on the job had pressed the right buttons.

The only way now to ensure that Richard Pope got his
comeuppance
was to hunt down Tina Marlowe. There was no DNA evidence to link Pope to the three murders. So the only means of incriminating him for all four crimes was through Tina. The condom ritual was the four-time calling card. Convince jurors that Pope attacked Tina with intent to kill and they would convict him of the murders. The pattern of circumstantial evidence would be crucial – and damning. But first Tina had to be traced. Then she had to be persuaded to testify. Without her in the witness box, giving a first-hand account, the case was a non-starter. The DNA evidence against Pope, although compelling, would not stand alone for the murder charges. Tina was pivotal. So where would I begin? Only one way: to treat Tina as a missing person. In today’s world of data footprints –
from tax records to credit card and mobile phone providers – there was no hiding place. Unless you were dead, of course. And that was my one overwhelming fear. A cold case frozen in time for ever.

N
ext day Sharkey was at his desk before 7 a.m. However, cold-case plodding didn’t demand Flying Squad tempo: thirty-year-old investigations could be put on hold another couple of hours. On this detail, you danced to the tune of a waltz, not a quickstep. So I’d unilaterally decided to keep
civilized
office hours: nine-to-five, until the need to rack up the momentum.

Sipping coffee, I went knocking on Sharkey’s door.

‘Something I can do for you?’ he said, the sort of response designed to make you feel a burden.

‘A small favour,’ I said, straddling the threshold, neither in nor out.

He glanced up, waiting. The size of favours, like everything else, was relative. A request for a thousand-pound loan from a bank was peanuts; from a pauper, it was just nuts.

‘I need a partner.’

‘I don’t run a dating agency.’

How droll
! I obliged with a manufactured laugh; just a little one. ‘Not
that
kind of partner,’ I said, unnecessarily.

‘No can do. You’re only here because we’re so short-staffed. Remember?’

‘And I thought it was my talent that had been auctioned.’

Now it was his turn to mimic amusement. ‘I can’t even spare you a pair of bicycle clips, never mind wheels.’

‘There’s someone at the Yard I’d like to join me; that’s what I’m after,’ I said, banter over.

‘That’s none of my business.’

‘I’m hoping you’ll make it your business.’ I stepped inside his office now, pulling shut the door behind me. ‘I’d appreciate your negotiating it with Pomfrey for me.’

‘He’s
your
boss, not
mine
.’

‘But he’ll say no to me.’

‘How do you know that without giving it a shot?’

‘I
know
. But you might have more luck.’

He stretched for his yellow legal pad. ‘OK, who is it you want to hold your hand? What’s his name?’

‘It’s a
her
.’

He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. His prurient thoughts were telegraphed telepathically.

‘Detective Sergeant Sarah Cable,’ I said.

‘Why her?’

‘Because she’s good.’

‘In bed?’

‘As a detective.’

He wrote the name, then tapped the blunt end of his Parker ballpoint on his desk. Looking at me thoughtfully, he said, ‘Leave it with me.’

I hesitated at the door. ‘I’d be grateful if her secondment was immediate.’

‘Leave it with me,’ he repeated. ‘Anything else?’

‘Only that she
is
good in bed, too!’

His face told me that he was a man who responded favourably to self-deprecation.

Back in my stuffy, airless hutch, I returned to the Tina Marlowe documents. She originated from another river-town, not more than fifty miles away, to the east. There was an address in the file and every chance, I reasoned, that at least one of her parents was still alive, perhaps living at the same address. No
statements had ever been taken from them (how could they have possibly helped?) but their names had been noted, just for the record, just to tick a box: Ronald and Rosemary Marlowe. There was also a phone number for them.

OK, here we go
. Ten rings, then a hesitant, ‘Hello.’

‘Is that Mrs Marlowe?’ I said, trying not to sound like a
cold-call
telesales pest.

‘Yes,’ she replied, diffidently.

Voices are notoriously deceptive. Pensioners can sound like bolshy teenagers, while adolescents can come across as
comatose
oldies.

I rattled through my spiel, introducing myself and explaining that it was essential for me to make contact with her daughter.

I heard what I believed to be a sharp intake of breath, like someone just winded by a blow below the belt.

‘Tina’s not here. Hasn’t been for years. Not since …’

I sensed that it would be counter-productive to develop this conversation over the phone. ‘These are things that you can explain face-to-face.’

‘Oh, dear,’ she said, clearly unsettled by my proposition. ‘I thought all this was dead and buried long ago.’

This was the trouble with revisiting cold cases, rattling old bones, stumbling on skeletons in cupboards, opening sealed wounds, rekindling memories, some inevitably maudlin, some painful, few comforting.

‘When were you thinking of coming?’ she added, vaguely, yet seeming to have accepted the inevitable.

‘Today,’ I said. ‘I could be with you early afternoon.’

‘My health isn’t good,’ she said, demurring.

‘I won’t keep you long,’ I promised, disingenuously, having no idea how long the interview might take.

‘Well, if you must.’

‘See you about three,’ I said, underscoring the fait accompli.

‘Oh, dear….’

That’s when I guillotined it, cutting the pipeline of resistance.

Rosemary Marlowe’s house was on the fringe of the town centre and no more than half a mile from the sleepy River Ouse that belted Bedford across its midriff, dividing north from south. Mrs Marlowe’s home was situated in a leafy avenue on the more affluent and sedate north side, in view of a spacious park, with a bandstand, cricket pitches and a pavilion. The avenue was straight and wide; the Royal Mall in miniature.

As I pressed the doorbell, I saw white net curtains twitch at the edges. When she didn’t immediately come to the door, I didn’t bother ringing again; I knew I’d been heard and observed. She was taking her time and preparing herself; an ordeal for her, a routine knock-up for me.

‘Is that Mr Lorenzo?’ she said, croakily, from the other side of the locked and bolted fortress door.

‘Detective Inspector Lorenzo, yes.’

A key turned and a bolt was levered sideways gratingly, before the sturdy door inched open, still secured by a security chain.

‘Please pass me your ID,’ she said; a hard nut for any con artist or burglar to beat.

It must have been a further minute or so until I was
considered
safe to be admitted.

Mrs Marlowe was diminutive and stooping, leaning on a stick as she led the way, at a shuffle, towards her sitting room. The flower-patterned dress that covered her shapelessly almost reached her fluffy slippers. Even though she wore glasses, it was obvious that she was still severely myopic. The glasses kept
slipping
and this irritated her as she constantly had to stop to adjust them.

‘Where shall I sit?’ I said, showing that I respected the fact that she was queen of her castle.

‘Take your pick,’ she said, indifferently.

The ceiling was high, from which a mini-chandelier, with a cluster of crystal bulb-sockets, was suspended in the middle of the lofty room. There was a white marble fireplace, over which was hung a large mirror, with an ornate, old-gold frame. In the mirror, I saw the none-too-pleasing sight that had confronted Mrs Marlowe at her front door: a man nearing the threshold of the Big Four-O who had abused himself, but seemed to have escaped, so far, without too many penalty points. But you cannot always judge a vehicle’s mileage from its external appearance and rust is easily camouflaged. My coal-black eyes matched my unruly hair. Before we separated, my wife, Patricia, told me that my ‘untamed looks’ preserved my ‘boyish appeal’. But when we parted, she said my features were evidence of a dissolute lifestyle and my
boyish appeal
had transmuted into
immature personality
. My ‘fugitive eyes’, according to Patricia, were those of a runner from reality, from responsibility and conformity; a Bohemian, but no rhapsody. My lifestyle may have been raffish, but my sartorial judgment had always conformed to Yard protocol. All-night gambling sessions in casinos, too much booze and fast-food addiction had done me no favours, but those vices were behind me – fingers crossed! My weight was coming down. I no longer had to breathe in and hold my breath in order to button my suit-jacket. I could also fasten my collar-button without garrotting myself. Admittedly, there was still some baggage beneath my eyes, but it was being unpacked by the day. Mind you, even when other parts of me had bloated, my face had remained lean, hungry and mean – just like a young Frank Sinatra, before he had ballooned, I’d been told flatteringly. My natural dark complexion made it seem that I was always in need of a shave, even while the aftershave was still smarting. At least six feet tall, I towered over my elderly hostess, who, when bent and buckled, was barely half my height.

I parked myself in a chintzy armchair, fabric fading, beside the fireplace. She placed herself opposite me, lowering herself in aching increments, her fragile, arthritic frame creaking, her joints stubbornly resisting. There were several framed photographs on the mantelpiece, three of them of a beautiful young woman.

‘Tina?’ I surmised, pointing to the largest of the three portraits that had caught my eye.

She followed the trajectory of my arm with her milky eyes. ‘Yes, that’s my Tina,’ the lump in her throat pulsing her
wrinkled
neck.

‘When she was at Oxford?’

‘Just before she went up to Oxford. The same year.’

‘Lovely-looking girl,’ I said, sincerely.

‘Yes. She was very striking, very happy and carefree then. That’s how I like to remember her – before the bad times, before everything changed.’

‘Where is she now?’ An opportune moment to go for the jugular.

‘Where is she now?
’ she echoed. ‘Oh, please,
you
tell
me
. I was afraid you had bad news for me.
More
bad news. Information about … well, you know, something dreadful.’

‘Nothing like that, I assure you,’ I said, leaning towards her, engaging with her intently, harnessing her focus. ‘When were you last in contact with her?’

A sea-mist seemed to settle over her eyes. A single tear
dampened
a pale, pinched cheek, but she made no attempt to wipe it away. ‘Years ago.’

I waited for her to elaborate, but nothing came.

‘I realize this must be painful for you, Mrs Marlowe, but we believe that we finally know the identity of the man who attacked your daughter – and murdered three young women.’

She reacted without emotion now, as if she’d been drained dry long, long ago. ‘What good will
that
do? It won’t help Tina. It won’t bring back the others, or my Ronnie.’

‘
Ronnie
?’ I said, puzzled.

‘My husband.’

‘I’m sorry, but you’ll have to explain,’ I said.

Mrs Marlowe must have been in her eighties, but seemed to have aged even further since my arrival.

‘Tina didn’t continue at Oxford; I suppose you know that?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ I admitted; there was nothing about that in the file.

‘She came home
that
Christmas and didn’t go back. She wouldn’t talk to us about what had happened. We thought it advisable not to badger her for details. And the police could disclose only so much. We learned more from the reports in newspapers than from Tina. The police were very helpful. They arranged counselling for Tina, but she didn’t stick with it; said it made her feel worse. She also refused to see a
psychiatrist
. She withdrew into herself … completely. Spent days and nights in her room, endlessly. Wouldn’t eat with us. Sent out for pizzas. Lost weight, then ballooned. Up down, up down, but never upbeat in mood. Always a cloud over her. We tried to focus on the future. You know, about what she intended doing with her life. After all, it had been her ambition, since she was about eleven, to become a politician, a Member of Parliament, and perhaps even make it to prime minister one day. But we never managed a rapport. I so much wanted to connect with her. But all we ever got from her were blank, vacuous looks. Emptiness.’

‘It must have been frustrating for all of you.’

She gazed mistily at the portraits, reliving the past thirty years in a few seconds, I suspected, before she said, ‘Then she just upped and left.’

‘Without warning?’ I said.

‘Not a hint. Middle of the night. Gone before dawn. Just a note on the kitchen table.’

‘What did it say?’

‘“Goodbye. Thanks for everything. I know you tried. The fault has been all mine, not yours.”’

Tears flowed freely now.

‘And you’ve never seen or heard from her since?’

‘I haven’t. Ronnie gave up his well-paid job to go looking for her. He was a civil servant in London with the Ministry of Defence. Commuted daily by train. After quitting, he travelled the country searching for her. He even hired someone from one of the country’s top private detective agencies.’

‘Didn’t you report her missing to the police?’

‘Oh, yes, straightaway. But because of the note she left, there was nothing to suggest she’d come to any harm or was in danger. She was an adult who’d flown the nest. Nothing the police could do unless anything untoward came to light.’

‘The Salvation Army’s very good at finding people who’ve cut themselves loose from their families,’ I said, really posing another question.

‘They were one of Ronnie’s first ports of call and they were very supportive. In fact, they did better than the PI.’

‘They found her?’

‘They did, but not until two years after she’d vanished.’

I knew the sequel, but I allowed Mrs Marlowe to tell me.

‘They made contact with her, but she didn’t want us to know her whereabouts or circumstances. They agreed to act as a conduit, passing messages from us to Tina. We implored her to phone us, so that we could hear her voice, learn directly from her own mouth that she was all right, and find out if there was anything she needed.’

‘But the call never came?’ I prompted her.

‘Never.’

‘Was the Salvation Army able to reassure you that she was OK and not at risk?’

‘No.’ This was uttered with considerable desolation. ‘So Ronnie continued his crusade. We’d both benefited financially
from inheritances a few years previously, so our finances were pretty sound. We could manage without incomes. I was a teacher, but I was too wrung out to face a classroom of children, happy and bright, just how Tina had been at their age. So I quit, too. Just sat at home, here, brooding. Ronnie was a wreck, taking all sorts of pills; some to help him sleep, others to keep him awake. Anti-depressants seemed to depress him more. Back on the road, he looked all over, but London seemed the obvious place; after all, it is the kingdom of the lost, isn’t it? A magnet to runaways.’ The question was rhetorical. ‘He booked into a cheap hotel around King’s Cross and just padded the streets for a full two months, looking hopefully into every female face he came across.’