To Catch a Creeper (12 page)

There’s a greater sense of urgency now that I know the criminal could possibly live in our close. I feel partly responsible. Not that I don’t care about Neil, as he’s such a kind, sweet man and the thought of him suffering in any way for fear he might be labelled a burglar makes my heart ache, but equally, the thought of someone perhaps two doors now just marauding around the area putting the Oakleigh Close name to shame does spur me on a bit faster.

My third piece of paper has the heading VICTIM’S PERSONAL DETAILS. And I study them carefully. For example, were there any similarities, i.e. did they like a drink or two? Were they out on the lash every night? Did they follow any sort of going out pattern? Were they prostitutes?

The first victim, whom I mark as No. 1 is a doctor

2. A solicitor

3. A vet

4. Dentist

5. Banker

I’m beginning to think they’re all professional, maybe attended the same university, and am waiting for the architect and surveyor, but then the next four change the pattern again, resulting in there being no pattern.

6. Housewife and mother

7. Lone bachelor (gay) unemployed

8. Publican

9. Young married couple – renting

My fourth sheet, I put down a heading.

EVIDENCE POSSIBLY LEFT BEHIND AT A SCENE

Like in that Jack the Ripper documentary they found a piece of Catherine Eddows’ shawl. I go back to my pink file and give it a quick read through, but nothing’s been reported. Then again, police are so used to crime around this neck of the woods, it’s surprising they’d even visit the victims’ houses, let alone wander around the streets at night looking for clues.

Custard gives a little whimper as if reading my thoughts. His tail thumps against the ground as he endeavours to urge my eyes onto the stairs going down.

The last victim of the Crouch End Creeper rents a house in, let’s see… I turn to Sheet No. 1. There it is. Elder Avenue. What do they say about fishing? Fish where the fish are.

‘OK, boy,’ I troop down to the hallway picking up a torch from Josh’s room on the way, ‘Elder Avenue here we come.’

***

It’s cold, dark, past two a.m. and I know I should be getting some shut-eye so I’m ready for work tomorrow, but a) I’m still a bit disturbed about the Declan dropping to his knees thing and b) this case has now grabbed me by the throat and I know I won’t sleep even if I did go to bed.

I walk along, eyes pinned to the ground… It’s quiet, very few people about. I decide to start my search at the Middle Lane end, walk down the right hand side of the road to Tottenham Lane then back up the left. I’m searching for something, anything, that the police may have missed. My first find is a round plastic opaque circle, which puzzles me a moment until I realise it’s the inside of a top of a drink bottle, then a piece of rag, two cigarette butts (all of which I place in a small envelope) and a scrap of paper with some scrawl on it, which I can’t make out in the dark.

I’m walking slowly. Apart from my heels echoing through the streets like pinging bullets, it’s eerily silent. Occasionally there’s a coo of an owl or the rustle of a fox clambering through the bins. Yes, Crouch End, an inner London village, overrun with actors, journalists, musicians and, best of all and much less sly, foxes. And I’m glad – of the latter that is. I love catching sight of them as they cross roads in front of me or slink through hedges as I drive past. Of course it’s sad they had to abandon their country homes, but I’m still happy they’re here, so I can admire their beauty without having to move to the sticks myself.

Custard, a little way in front of me, stops abruptly then stares greedily up at a tall tree, eyes rooted to a pair of squirrels on late night forage playfully spiralling around the trunk. It’s an oak or maybe an ash or… I look again at the road name. Durr,
Elder
Avenue.

The rain which has been threatening all day sweeps in, forming puddles in the potholes and rivers in the gutters. I fasten the belt of my leather coat tighter around me and gaze down with dismay at my flimsy shoes. I should really have changed into trainers at least.

Snippets of conversation keep repeating around my head. Isobel last night.

‘My dad said that serial burglars usually have the same MO.’

‘The same doctor? Surely that’s too much of a coincidence?’Janet’s had her usual skinful and is staring at a girl at the bar, clearly distracted.

‘She said “MO”, Janet. Not doctors,’ I jump in, happy to be the one correcting her for once. ‘You’re thinking of that old TV series,
Owen, M.D
.’

Now I’ve got her attention. She looks baffled. ‘Dr who?’

‘No, not–’

‘MO,’ Isobel carries on authoritatively, ‘actually stands for modus operandi. In other words they follow the same pattern. If their method works once, so they do it again, so Dad says. He told me about this burglar, called Brian, who worked his patch. Used to sneak in people’s back doors and then leave the front door propped open with a broom while he carried out his crime. It became his kind of signature tune. Brian the Broom they nicknamed him. He did this a number of times before he was caught. Did his bird.’

Isobel loves the police talk. She thought about being a policewoman herself, but then got pregnant with Liam and wasn’t so keen after that, what with the shift work.

‘Two months out of the slammer,’ she continued, dropping her voice and causing us all to lean forward, ‘he fell on hard times, decided he’d risk another little job, and was caught instantly. They saw the burglar had left the door propped open with a broom and knew straight away it was Brian. Bang to rights, he was.’

She sat up and we all leaned back again before I stepped in with another diverting-the-subject story so as not to upset Henrietta.

I shiver in my sodden shoes. The rain spatters against branches and I turn my collar up.

Maybe people would say it’s risky to be out here in crime city this time of night, but hey, there’s a risk in everything, isn’t there? You just have to minimise it. Be careful. Take precautions.

When I was young I used to have this recurring dream. What I’d call my ‘chasing dream’. Never knew who or what it was pursuing me, just that they were catching up fast. I had to run. Quick – upstairs to the bathroom. Lock the door. Open the window, climb through. Shut the window behind. Don’t look back. Then I’d be scrambling onto the roof, feet slipping as I clambered over the tiles over to the guttering where I’d quietly lower myself to the ground. Then run, fast. Up and over the back wall of my garden, the witch or monster or whoever still after me. Terror would course through my body, adrenalin filling every pore. And I’d run faster and faster over stiles, across fields, through ditches. Leaping rivers, hurdling gates until I came to my secret place – my burrow. A small den hidden amongst the bracken. There I’d be safe. Nobody could harm me. I’d pull the bracken over the mouth of the den and wait. I’d wake up trembling. Every time. Don’t know why I never looked back, but I never did. Not once.

It’s really starting to pour down now. The Nepalese mountain hat that the kids clubbed together to buy me last Christmas is drenched to my scalp, water trickling down my neck. Custard’s still within sight. Every now and then trotting back and forth. Checking I’m there. Rounding me up. It’s the sheepdog in him. He lifts his nose as if to catch the scent of a wild animal.

It’s a tiny sound. A twig breaking. Nothing more. But it’s enough to capture my attention. Keep me on my toes. Sharpen my senses.

I walk on a few paces. There it is again. That noise. Not squirrels, nor foxes – more purposeful. The sound of a person approaching. Footsteps.

No cave now. No safe place to hide. But I’m not going to run. Not going to look back either.

‘Custard. Come here. Heel boy,’ I quietly call him in to me and snip the lead onto his collar and that’s when I see it, glistening through the darkness under a tree. A shiny object, on the ground, partially hidden by a pile of dead leaves.

I stoop to pick it up but it’s attached to something, like stuck on. What on earth could it be? I scratch at it, peer closer and pull harder. And then I realise. It’s an enormous burgundy woman’s shoe and –most alarming of all – it’s attached to someone’s leg.

First thought – woman with big feet, but my eyes lift upwards to meet a pair of hairy shins. Man pretending to be a woman? Then lambswool coat. Neil? As my eyes rise even further to the shoulders with more alarm… Crouch End Creeper pretending to be Neil?

Chapter 11

He stares at me, granite grey eyes gleaming in the torchlight.

‘Cathy?’

‘Neil!’

‘Thought it was you.’ He grins. ‘The way you were walking.’

‘What do you mean the way I was walking?’ I breathe a big sigh of relief and lean up to kiss him. He’s always been tall, but with those heels he must be at least six foot six. I have to go on tiptoe.

‘Kind of hunched. And shuffling.’ He laughs.

‘Bloody cheek. I was just stooping down to pick up clues.’

‘For what?’

‘The Crouch End Creeper of course.’

He smiles gratefully and I smile back.

You know I love Neil. He’s the nicest hunkiest husband in the world, apart from Declan of course. Him and Henrietta were childhood sweethearts and have loved each other for years and years. This TV thing, well, it’s minor compared to the power of their love. The power of love. Makes me want to burst into song and I’m just deciding whether it should be the Celine Dion or Frankie Goes to Hollywood version, when Neil interrupts my thoughts.

‘Did Henrietta tell you I might be the suspect?’

‘Yes, but no-one else knows.’

‘Well, they will soon enough.’ His stiletto heels click clack alongside my kittens. ‘Once they put two and two together.’

‘Have you tried not wearing your lambswool coat – at least until this is all cleared up?’

‘I would but it’s part of my… It’s something I need to wear.’

‘Well, couldn’t you, perhaps, maybe walk round your house instead. Just for the next few months, until we, I mean they, catch him.’

‘It’s not the same…’

‘Oh, I understand.’ I don’t really, but what the heck.

‘It’s like you, Cathy, going without your cheese Wotsits for a week.’

I nod slowly. Now I
do
understand.

‘So you really were out searching for the burglar?’ he continues.

‘Not exactly him/her. I was just seeing if there was anything the police might have missed. I promised Henrietta I’d look into it, though why she thinks I’d be any good at detective work beats me.’

‘I suppose because you caught La La.’

‘Slightly different,’ I say, as we carry on walking. ‘She jumped onto my bed and revealed herself. It was impossible to miss her when she had her hands round my throat. Hardly the work of a great sleuth.’

‘We were all impressed nevertheless.’ He smiles. ‘Look, I’m going to escort you home. I’m not comfortable with you being out on the streets this late.’

‘Oh I’ll be fine.’

‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘I don’t mind you looking into things, Cathy, but I can’t have you being mugged or anything, not for me.’

‘Oh, all right then.’ I’m walking really slowly now, almost hobbling, as if my shoes are giving me gip, which they are a bit, but mostly so I can snuggle against Neil’s strong masculine body. OK, when I look up at him, it’s slightly disconcerting with the azure eye
shadow, false lashes and pearly pink lipstick, but underneath it’s still the same sexy Neil with the gorgeous grey eyes.

We reach my house.

‘Goodnight.’ He stoops down to peck me on my rain-soaked cheek. ‘Sweet dreams.’

‘Same to you, Neil,’ I say as I head down my path.

***

I nip straight back upstairs, towel my hair, change into my night clothes, grab a sheet of paper and write the word TIMELINE in black felt pen.

There I list the dates and times of the burglaries. Like say, if he works shifts, then the burglaries would more than likely be done in the day. Is it before five, after five? Is it Mondays at seven, Tuesday at eight, Wednesdays at nine? I’m looking for a pattern again. This time I process the figures into my Excel program and convert them into a bar chart. A maroon colour with turquoise background. Impressive, but doesn’t show any clear connections. I print it out anyway.

It’s almost three a.m. by the time I finish. The file’s thickening up. Granted, maybe it doesn’t hold anymore information you couldn’t glean from Google or local newspapers, but it looks the part. Five sheets with vital hard concrete facts and possible clues. And a sixth with a plastic bag full of cigarette butts, an old bottle lid, a note which now I’ve got home and deciphered I realise reads, ‘Don’t forget sesame oil’ but it’s a start. At least I’ve got a file to show Henrietta that I’m giving it my best shot.

***

The new AD2 is the one for you?
No.
Methane, profane?
No. Agonise, scratch head again. Think hard.

Who are RNW? German company, from Germany, Wagon, cowboy theme.
Wagons Ho
. Oh God. I’m screwed. What exactly rhymes with anaerobic digest gas? Piss all. And that’s another thing, it’s not even piggy pooh, which would at least have been a hook. No this car runs on something which comes from water treatment plants and landfill sites. What’s the excitement in that?

‘Hey, Cathy,’ Vivien sidles over to my desk and perches her pert little bottom on the corner of it, ‘did you catch that documentary about global warming last night?’

‘No, I was out.’ I move Rosa’s dark green leaved plant with the little yellow flowers before she squashes it. ‘Was it interesting?’

‘Very. All about the penguins. Poor things, all that ice melting. Did you see it, Honour?’

‘No, I was watching some political debate.’ Honour logs onto her computer and adjusts her glasses so they’re perched on the bridge of her nose. ‘But global warming has a lot to answer for, you know. And the poor polar bears suffer too, what with not being able to jump from floe to floe and no penguins to eat. When I was doing my geography degree…’

Vivien, who would usually listen to her prattle on for hours about her wealth of knowledge ignores her for once and focuses back on me. ‘Anywhere nice?’