Authors: Barry Maitland
“I see. Well, one thing I wanted to check again with him was the time he arrived home on Saturday night. There’s no chance it could have been later than 11:55, as he said?”
“Oh no. He’d have been right about that. That’s the twelve o’clock rule. He must be home by midnight, unless it’s something very special. He is only fifteen. And I think young people appreciate having firm rules to work within, don’t you?”
Kathy smiled. “I’m sure you’re right. I get the impression from my friends that it’s the parents who get tired of the rules first. You know, having to monitor them, staying up to midnight to check the kids are back, that sort of thing.”
Mrs. Ratcliffe nodded. “Yes, well, we don’t actually do that. We’re usually asleep long before then, I’m afraid. There has to be an element of trust. Anyway, have a talk to Warwick, by all means.”
Kathy asked the boy if he would show her his room upstairs, so that she could see how much of the house and garden next door was visible. From the main window, in front of which stood a desk crowded with electronic equipment, the elaborate array of aerials in the garden of number 30 was clearly visible, although almost nothing of the adjoining garden could be seen. However, there was also a small side window facing directly across to the Hannafords’ house, and through it Kathy could see a corresponding window in what must be Angela’s room.
“You can see directly across to Angela’s room from here, Warwick,” she said.
“Yes. She always kept her curtains drawn on that window.”
“But you don’t?”
He shook his head, cautious, but feigning indifference.
“So you would have definitely been aware of it if her light had been on when you returned on Saturday night?”
“Suppose so.”
“And it wasn’t?”
“That’s what I told the other bloke.”
“Did you draw your curtains when you returned?”
“Yes.”
“And you heard no sounds from next door?”
“No.”
“No sound of a car starting up? No sound of anything being broken? A voice? A cry?”
Warwick shook his head and looked away. His hand strayed towards the dial on a silver metal box and began to fiddle with it.
“And you are quite certain about the time? 11:55?”
“That’s what I told the man.”
“I know, but you probably didn’t realize then just how serious this all was, Warwick. Look at me, please. Did you realize then that Angela had been brutally murdered? Did you realize then just how important your statement would be? You were probably more concerned at that point about your parents’ twelve o’clock rule, isn’t that right?”
Warwick swallowed uncomfortably, his eyes darting back and forward from Kathy’s steady gaze.
“You realize you may well have to give evidence about this in court, under oath, Warwick. And the other people at the party you were at on Saturday night may have to do the same, to confirm the time you left. Now, you see how serious this is? I can give you this one last chance to revise your earlier statement, if there are any inaccuracies in it, and there’ll be no more said. All right?”
He nodded.
“Well?”
“It was later.”
“Yes. How much later?”
“It was after one o’clock.”
“How much after?”
“Probably about 1:45. I’m not sure exactly.” He looked at Kathy
in appeal. “I couldn’t tell them the truth before, not with Mum and Dad there watching me. They go on and on about their stupid rules. I didn’t think it mattered much anyway.”
Kathy nodded. “Anything else you want to change?”
He shook his head. “No, honest. There were no lights, and I didn’t hear anything. I came in through our back door, with the key they leave under the flower pot for me, and I’d have noticed if there’d have been any lights on next door at that time. Honest.”
“
WELL, THAT CLEARS UP
that little difficulty,” Brock said.
“Yes,” Kathy nodded. “And Mr. Hannaford asked me to ask you if you would go in person and explain what we’re doing.”
Brock raised his eyebrow at her.
“He’s very angry and wants to have a go at someone. He wondered why we hadn’t rounded up all the perverts in London for questioning.”
“Good idea. Book Wembley Stadium for me, will you, Kathy?” Brock gave a low growl and tilted back in his seat, scratching his beard. “No, he’s right, of course. I’m damn sure this mongrel’s done something before that we know about. Maybe he didn’t go as far as murder, but it was so . . . elaborate, and ritualistic, as if he was working to a script he’d thought very carefully about and probably rehearsed. I can’t believe this was his first time. He must have worked himself up to this, through a series of stages, most likely.”
“Isn’t it possible that it was all just fantasy up to this point?” Kathy suggested. “Maybe borrowed from books, or films? Trying to cut off her face, for instance. It seems to make no sense, unless he was copying something.”
“Like what?”
“Well, that was in
The Silence of the Lambs
, wasn’t it, and in
Gorky Park
? Especially
Gorky Park
. Cutting off the victim’s face was a big thing.”
“Was it?” Brock curled his lip in distaste. “I’m thankful I didn’t see either of them. And where would that take us?”
“I don’t know,” Kathy shrugged. “That he saw himself as Hannibal Lecter, perhaps, or Lee Marvin.”
Brock grunted, obviously unconvinced. “Well, at any rate, we’ve got to find the precedents, whatever they are, in the ocean of unsolved murders, assaults, rapes, and missing persons. The most promising so far is a murder/rape in a park about five miles from here, three months ago. Nothing quite like what we’ve got. But it wouldn’t be the same, necessarily. It would be the step that led to this, and the step before that. A question of knowing what to look for . . . recognizing it when we see it.”
“I’d like to help look.”
“You want an indoor job for a while?” Brock glanced up at her from under his thick eyebrows.
Kathy shrugged and nodded. Her encounter with Hannaford had unsettled her; not his anger, which was understandable, but the unexpected sense of elation that his powerlessness had given her. He could do absolutely nothing to catch his daughter’s killer, whereas she might. He was dependent on her, and he knew this and hated it, just as she relished it. Afterwards she had felt ashamed.
“Well, how about the Sexual Assault Index? You’re familiar with that?”
Kathy nodded.
“You can access it from the computer here. You might want to go up to the Forensic Science Laboratory at Lambeth too. They may have additional stuff they haven’t put on to the computer record. Have you been up to the MPFSL? Leon Desai will set it up for you.”
Kathy eventually found herself a terminal, and settled down to spend the rest of the day working her way through the hundreds of rape cases analysed in the SAI. It was a grim task, the Index a dreary catalogue of male brutality and female misery, but the
possibility that the next case might provide a clue to Angela’s killer, or the next, drove her on.
“Fancy a drink?” She looked up to see Bren at her shoulder. She shook her head and looked back at the screen.
“Not tonight, Bren. See you tomorrow.”
“Oh.” He looked surprised. “You don’t want a lift back to town?”
She shook her head again and he noticed the gleam in her eye.
“On to something?”
“No. Not a thing.”
He shrugged, hesitated, then padded off.
Half an hour later, Brock put his head round the door. “Any luck?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Need a lift?”
“I’ll wait for a while longer. Get a train.”
He saw the preoccupied look on her face, her eyes straying back to the screen, and nodded. “I went to see the Hannafords this afternoon,” he said.
“Oh.” Kathy looked back at him. “How did it go?”
Brock shook his head. “Not good. She’s doped to the eyeballs, but what good will that do? Just postpone the agony of coming to terms with it, I’d have thought. And he’s like a bomb, ready to go off, poor bastard. They need help, but they won’t see anyone except the doctor and the vicar—and us. I mentioned the programme to put them in touch with people who’ve been through the same thing as them, but they’re not ready for it yet. I’ve told Ted to follow it up. Where is Ted, by the way?”
“Er, I don’t know, Brock. I haven’t seen him since lunchtime.”
“Oh. Well, see you tomorrow.”
KATHY WAS STILL AT
her screen an hour later when a call came through for her from Manchester. It was a man’s voice, agitated, speaking quickly.
“Hello? You’re the one spoke to Rhona Clement, aren’t you, at Merritt Finance?”
“Yes, that’s me. Who am I talking to?”
“I’m her boyfriend, Darren. Look, I’m not going to talk long, only Rhona wanted to tell you something about Angela.”
“Fine. Do you want to put her on?”
“No. She wants to tell you off the record. She doesn’t want to lose her job, see? So I said I’d speak to you, and you can’t say she told you. She’ll deny it if you do.”
“Darren, I . . .”
“Look! My brother’s being cremated tomorrow, so I don’t want to argue about it!” He was speaking very fast, almost a gabble, and Kathy could sense the tears welling into his eyes. “The thing she wanted to say is that Angela told her a couple of times that someone at work was bothering her—trying to chat her up, following her home on the train, touching her, you know.”
“Yes. Who was it, Darren?”
“Tom, his name is. Tom Gentle. He’s their boss.”
“Ah . . . good, Darren. Thank you. Now look, if you’ll just tell me where Rhona’s staying, I’ll come up there and . . .”
But the line had gone dead.
KATHY AND BREN WERE
waiting for Clive Ferry in his office the following morning. Once again he was a model of impeccable managerial attire. He rested his hands lightly on the desk in front of him, two inches of brilliant white cuff visible at each wrist, and spoke to Bren.
“And is there any progress, would you say?”
“In a way,” Kathy replied, the abruptness of her tone registering with him. His precisely sculpted moustache gave a little twitch and he turned his head towards her.
“When I was here the last time, Mr. Ferry, you reacted very clearly to something I said, then avoided explaining why. I’d like to give you a further opportunity to tell me what was in your mind. And I have to warn you that obstructing a murder investigation is an extremely serious matter.”
“I beg your pardon?” Ferry looked at Kathy in surprise, then turned to Bren, who stared back at him impassively.
“I mentioned to you that Mr. Tom Gentle had bought a ticket to accompany Angela to the theatre on Saturday night, and you clearly were alarmed by that suggestion. Further information has now come to us which suggests why that may have been the case. Would you please now tell us what you know?”
Comprehension spread across Ferry’s face at the mention of Gentle’s name. “Ah,” he said, and lowered his eyes to consider his shirt cuffs for a moment. “You must understand,” he said at last, “that I did not see it as my place to plant unwarranted suspicions in your mind. But since you now ask me directly . . .”
“Yes.”
“Tom is a married man . . .” He looked to Bren for understanding. “When you mentioned that he had arranged to go to the theatre with Angela . . . I thought it odd.”
“Has he done this sort of thing before?”
“What sort of thing?” Ferry said cautiously.
“Asked women from the office to go out with him, had affairs . . .”
“No. As far as I know, he’s never done that.”
Kathy stared at him and he avoided her eye, glancing across at Bren, who had taken out his notebook.
“What then?” Kathy insisted.
“Nothing. That’s it.”
“Had he been making approaches to Angela?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
So carefully phrased, wanting neither to lie nor to tell the truth.
“Well,” Kathy shrugged, “if you can’t help us get to the bottom of this, Mr. Ferry, we’d better talk to the women again.”
“The women?” He looked at her in alarm.
“On the seventh floor. Maybe they’ll be more forthcoming this time.”
Ferry cleared his throat. “There was . . .” He hesitated, then started again. “There have been one or two misunderstandings in the past between Tom and women employees of the company. I suppose that came to my mind when you mentioned . . .”
“Misunderstandings?”
“Some people felt that he . . .”—Ferry searched for the phrase—“took liberties, one might say.”
“Come on, Mr. Ferry,” Bren broke in, with a little grin of sympathy, “what exactly was he doing?”
“Oh look, it was harmless.” Ferry turned to Bren with relief. “A typist made a complaint that he was following her home after work. There was a perfectly innocent explanation as it turned out—he was looking for a new house at that time, in her area. But then some of the other girls joined in and claimed that he had, at one time or another, been improper in his manner to them.”
“In what ways?”
“Oh, touching, mainly. Remarks that might be misinterpreted. One said she had felt he was spying on her when she went to the ladies’ room. Things like that. I’m sure most of it was based on a misunderstanding of his manner, that’s all, with just a pinch of hysteria, I suspect. But we brought it out into the open. I discussed it fully with him, and he agreed to avoid putting himself in a situation where such misunderstandings could happen again.”
“Is the woman who complained still here?” Kathy asked.
“No. She left soon afterwards.”
“Seems the wrong way round,” she replied. “Why not get rid of him if he was the cause of the trouble?”
“We didn’t get rid of her. She left of her own accord. And there was no real substance to it, Sergeant, I’m sure of that. He is a very mild and caring person. Besides which, his wife, Muriel, is the daughter of our chairman, Sir Charles Merritt.”
“Ah,” Kathy nodded.
“Look, I’ve explained all this to you because I wanted you to hear a balanced account of what happened. But the point is, it’s completely irrelevant to your investigation. For God’s sake, you’ve met him—it’s unthinkable! Tom Gentle is not a violent man. Whatever else he may be, it is impossible to believe that he is that.”