Alone with the Dead: A PC Donal Lynch Thriller (21 page)

Trinity Road, South London

Thursday, August 15, 1991; 08:00

Samantha and Jazmine didn’t show.

I spent the night wondering why I wasn’t being accosted by their tormented spirits. I came up with two possible explanations:

A: I’d been deluding myself about having some sort of ‘gift’: I was simply a borderline alcoholic insomniac with a history of inexplicable mental and physical collapses.

B: They didn’t need to come to me because I was already on the trail of their killer.

I favoured A, dreaded B. Did their no-show confirm what I feared most: that they’d been murdered by the same person who killed Marion?

As I walked to work, Samantha and Jazmine winked at me from every window. They were blonde, pretty, murdered in their own home – all ingredients guaranteed to secure them blanket newspaper and TV coverage.

The red-tops screamed ‘serial killer’ with undisguised glee. The young, pretty women of London were not safe in their own homes, and this ‘monster’ would come for their ‘tots’ too.

The incident room seemed strangely deserted. Mick warned me that Shep had been summoned to the Yard for a ‘crisis meeting’. ‘I’d make myself scarce if I were you.’

Before I left last night, Shep had flushed some judge out of his Mayfair drinking club to sign a search warrant. At daybreak, the Foster family home in Lee, South East London got the knock.

A forensics team was busy taking fingerprints from all current and recent employees of the Pines residential care home. How I craved a result there.

Two teams had spent the evening going door-to-door on Sangora Road. Mick told me to get stuck into their reports.

I quickly realised that London must be the best place in the world to get away with murder. The citizens of this city simply don’t look at other people, let alone observe their behaviour. We avoid eye contact because that eye might belong to a psychopath actively seeking someone to batter. Having read the blood-curdling contents of London’s unsolved crime files, I couldn’t blame them.

I found one single reference to a woman on the street at the relevant time. The statement read: ‘At about five forty p.m., Charles Crosby, of 74 Vardens Road was cycling home from work along Sangora Road when he saw two women coming down the steps of either 21 or 23. The second woman carried a black gym bag and may have been black.’

I dug out testimony from the residents of number 23 – the house next door to the murder scene. Angela Adeyemi, an IC3, or African female, said she left the house with a friend at about five thirty-five that evening to attend a gym on Clapham High Street. This surely torpedoed any hopes that Crosby had seen Karen and her accomplice fleeing the scene.

Just after eleven, Shep almost ran into the office. ‘I’ve just had my nuts blowtorched for two hours,’ he said, ‘we’ve got to make this collar happen.’

I handed him the note detailing what Crosby saw. Then, with an apologetic grimace, I passed over the statement from Ms Adeyemi.

Shep read both, gave them back and said: ‘Get Crosby in, as soon as possible.’

As he walked off, I gave Mick a quizzical look.

‘Desperate times …’ he said.

I rang Crosby’s home phone number. His haughty wife delighted in informing me that he couldn’t possibly make it to the station until after four p.m.

Just before lunchtime, DS Barratt returned with his forensic ferrets, fresh from their forage of the Foster family home. He sported the smug gait of a man with sterling news.

First, he produced half a dozen true crime books, retrieved from Karen’s old bedroom: these included the bestselling
Murder Scene Secrets
, by Professor Laurence C. Richards BSc, MSc, FRSA.

‘This is how Karen learned to thoroughly and comprehensively trash our crime scene,’ said Barratt.

‘Can you believe Richards is allowed to make money giving away our techniques?’ barked Shep.

Barratt said they were wrapping up their search when he spied a mop in the garage.

‘And look what I found buried in the mop’s handle,’ he said, pulling out a metal ruler which had been pared down to a point at one end. ‘This end is potentially lethal,’ he said, ‘and it measures five inches. As we know, that’s about the length of the blade used to kill Marion. Karen’s dad, Terry, is a window cleaner, she and her sisters often help him at the weekends. He told us he uses this ruler to scrape dirt out of awkward corners.’

I couldn’t help thinking a ruler as a murder weapon looked a little desperate.

‘When I asked him about the day of the murder, well, that seemed to be his most awkward corner yet.

‘He told us that he got home at his usual time, three p.m. He said he left the mop in its usual place, standing in the corner of the garage. We asked him if he remembered this metal ruler being there the day after the murder. He got really agitated and, get this, said he couldn’t remember. I pressed him and he said it again, he couldn’t remember.’

Shep decided to do our thinking for us: ‘Karen wouldn’t have had access to potential murder weapons. She could have popped home on the afternoon of the murder, when she was supposedly shopping in Blackheath, picked that up before driving to Marion’s.

‘After killing her, Karen had to get straight back to the Pines, because Bethan Trott and her sister Laura were her alibis. She must have brought the weapon back with her and stashed it somewhere before going to see Peter to do the fish. Then, at a later date, she would have slipped the weapon back into the mop.’

It was plausible, if a little stretched. Without forensic evidence, I felt a jury would never buy it,

Shep went on: ‘I trust you took it to the lab?’

‘Got it checked out, right away. Of course it’s clean,’ said Barratt, ‘but at least you can wave it in front of Karen, see how she reacts. Judging by Terry’s response, this is our murder weapon and they know it.’

Shep told him to take the blade to the pathologist: ‘See if he’ll confirm that it could have been the murder weapon, in terms of shape, size, sharpness.’

‘There’s something else,’ said Barratt, relishing his moment in the sun and wringing it out for all it was worth. ‘Karen still gets some of her post sent to her family home. When I looked on top of the fridge, I found her bank statement from July. It seems that when she was shopping in Blackheath with her sister Laura on the afternoon of 1st July, at four ten p.m. her cash card was withdrawing ten pounds from Lambeth High Street – just up the road from the Pines.’

Shep grabbed and scoured the statement: ‘So much for Karen’s rock-solid alibi. The only people backing her story now are her sister Laura and the woman they watched TV with from five thirty to six that day. What’s her name?’

‘Bethan Trott,’ someone said.

‘Get her in, Barratt, as soon as you can.’

Charles Crosby turned up bang on four, bang on stereotype. Late forties, cowlick fair hair, square face, strong chin, pinched pink cheeks, chunky knitted pullover, big tits, big arse, mustard corduroys: ‘A good cove,’ was how any judge would view him. I’d always found it fascinating how the two most pronounced social stereotypes in Britain are the richest and the poorest: the Toffs and the Chavs. Maybe they’re not as different from each other as they think.

Unlike my colleagues, I held no inferiority-based grudge against posh English people. To me, they seemed very polite and very sexually repressed – characteristics I could readily relate to.

As instructed by Shep, I took Crosby into his office and left them to chat. About fifteen minutes later, Shep called me in.

‘Mr Crosby has kindly agreed to give us his statement. Can you write it down for him please?’ The media studies lecturer wasted no time getting to the important bit: ‘At about five forty-five p.m., I was cycling down Sangora Road on my way home from work when I saw a man and a woman coming down the steps of number 21. I didn’t get a close look but the woman was aged between twenty and thirty, had long dark hair and wore a red top. Both she and the man were white Europeans. The woman carried a black gym bag.’

‘Thank you, Mr Crosby,’ Shep cut in abruptly, ‘we really have taken up enough of your very valuable time.’

‘Thank
you
, Superintendent,’ said Crosby, ‘I really do appreciate you putting me forward for the remuneration.’

‘Think nothing of it,’ laughed Shep, shaking his hand, ‘that’s what it’s there for.’

As soon as Crosby was out of earshot, I asked: ‘What was that about?’

‘He’d heard that Marion’s family have put up a £20,000 reward for information leading to her killer. I was just assuring him that his evidence may well put him in the running for it. Anything to keep a key witness happy.’

I struggled to understand how anyone with key information about a tragic murder could even think about money. Maybe it was a class thing.

‘Didn’t he originally say that he saw two women, and that one of them may have been black?’

‘Well, he seems to have cleared it up in his own mind,’ said Shep, as a knock sounded on his office door.

‘Come in,’ he called.

I wanted Karen Foster banged up, not fitted up.

I reminded Shep: ‘What about the black woman who lives at 23? Shouldn’t we check if it could have been her and her friend heading to the gym?’

‘Mr Crosby has made his statement,’ said Shep, absently, signing for two packages. I noticed that one of the parcels came from Woolwich CID, the second from the Agfa video transfer company.

As the courier shut the office door behind him, Shep turned to me and said: ‘If we can turn over Bethan Trott, we’ve got a case.’

I remember Fintan’s words that afternoon at the Feathers:
When he gets a sniff of a collar, he goes proper psycho. Like a bloodhound.

He handed me the first package: ‘This is a preliminary case report into the Bisset murders. Take a very thorough read. See if you can find more reasons why the nutter who did this didn’t kill Marion. Report to me by lunchtime tomorrow.’

My hand shook as I took it and headed to the door. Half of me dreaded what might be in here. What if they’d found proof that Marion’s killer also murdered the Bissets?

‘Lynch,’ Shep’s command made me jump. I turned around: ‘Your arse is mine, son. Don’t forget that.’

Trinity Road, South London

Thursday, August 15, 1991; 22:00

That evening, I walked into my spick-and-span sitting room, called Eve’s name and saw a note on the table.

Dear Donal, I’ve already ruined your life once. I don’t want to ruin it again. Thank you for everything. I’ve gone to stay with a friend. I’ll be in touch. All my love, whatever that is worth to you or anyone, Eve x

She hadn’t added a number. I screwed up the paper and lobbed it over the back of the couch. The two barely burnt, lopsided candles on the table caught my eye. That was us now, I thought. We’d burned once, and brightly. But no longer.

I rang Gabby. Her spiky blonde flatmate answered.

‘Hi,’ I said brightly.

‘Hi,’ she said flatly, her tone confirming that Gabby had been talking. I couldn’t help feeling slightly pleased: at least she obviously gave a shit.

‘Can I speak to Gabby?’

‘Er, no, she’s out actually.’

‘Out?’ I said, but it sounded more like, ‘yeah right’.

‘Yes, out. And I don’t think she’d want to talk to you if she were in.’

‘If she were in?’ I repeated back, sarcastically.

‘Look, Donal,’ said Spiky coldly, ‘she doesn’t want you calling here again. Ever. Understood?’

‘But …’ I protested to the dead line.

I poured a monstrous Shiraz and suddenly thought about all those Masses of my childhood. Those words you heard, Sunday after Sunday, never leave you.

I raised the glass and addressed the wall: ‘Take this, all of you and drink from it: for this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant, it will be shed for you and for all men so that sins may be forgiven.’

For the first time in my entire life, I felt free. Truly properly free. Bar Fintan, I had severed all personal ties. Even the ones I’d pursued. Emotionally, I had no duty or responsibility, no debt or investment, no plan or fear, no guilt or blame.

The wine tasted sweeter than anything I’d ever drunk.

Clapham Police Station, South London

Friday, August 16, 1991; 10:00

I speed-read the Bisset file. The killer’s fastidious handiwork made it plain that it wasn’t a domestic. However, as a matter of course, detectives checked out Samantha’s partner and an ex, immediate family, neighbours and everyone on her phone call records. They found nothing of interest. Yet again, neighbours didn’t see or hear anything unusual, and I marvelled at London’s collective determination to mind its own business.

Samantha’s family revealed that, until four years ago, she had been a new age traveller, living on the road with a commune. Then she settled down to be a full-time mum to Jazmine. Her daughter didn’t know her father, who had continued living the nomadic life. Detectives were trying to contact him.

Conrad, Samantha’s boyfriend of nine months and the poor bastard who found her, revealed that she rarely locked her doors or windows, sunbathed topless on her balcony and never shut her front room blinds. ‘She was a free spirit,’ said Conrad. I hoped her spirit had finally found the freedom it craved during her physical life.

Normally, you’d guess that some local Peeping Tom loser had spotted this hot blonde sunbathing with it all on show, grown obsessed and turned stalker. But the clinical, methodical, ritualistic butchering of her body and the removal of a trophy suggested that her killer had mutilated bodies before. His craftsmanship made the frenzied attack on Marion Ryan look amateur. But my mind kept getting pulled back to one indisputable connection between the cases – both Marion and Samantha had been frenziedly stabbed to death just inside their front doors. I felt convinced that it had to be the same killer. Maybe he’d planned to ceremoniously carve Marion open but got spooked or disturbed somehow.

After lunchtime, Shep bounced out of his office: ‘Bethan Trott’s in. I’m taking this one myself, Lynch. Come and watch a master inquisitor at work.’

I struggled to match Shep’s breakneck pace down the corridor. Once again, he punched in his secret code to release the security door, then stood back to let me do the work. As I pulled down the handle and shouldered hard, my thoughts turned again to that flat door at number 21, spring-loaded to cut off your fingers.

We walked into suite two, past Bethan, to the far end of the table. She sat alone, her right hand playing nervously with a large crucifix around her neck, her brown eyes darting between us. Everything about her looked meek, timid: her mousy hair, scared, tired eyes, thin busy lips, nervous fingers.

Shep didn’t turn on the tape recorder.

‘Now, Beth Ann,’ he mispronounced, probably deliberately, ‘reading your second statement, you suddenly felt a moral compulsion to mention the small fact you caught Karen and Peter fucking in the shed at work last November?’

Bethan reddened.

‘And that Karen had been using your room to spy on Peter and Marion? Then, like a magician, you produce Karen’s handwritten list of the presents Peter had bought Marion for her birthday with the words “sick” scrawled across the bottom. You know what I think, Beth Ann?’

Bethan’s eyes shot up to Shep’s for a nanosecond, the target taking one last chance to read her assassin’s bullet.

‘You
know
Karen killed Marion Ryan, don’t you, Beth Ann? But you don’t want to be the grass who puts her away, do you? I understand this, Beth Ann. After all, no one likes a squealer.’

Her eyes didn’t know where to look.

‘Do you know what perverting the course of justice means, Beth Ann?’

She dropped her crucifix and shook her head.

‘It’s when someone misleads the police or the justice system and wastes our time. It’s a criminal offence. Do you know what you can get for perverting the course of justice, Beth Ann?’

‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ whispered Bethan.

‘A life sentence. Imagine that, Beth Ann? Locked up in Holloway prison for eight or ten years? Big old jack-booted, tobacco-chewing dyke screws making you lick ’em out every night? I bet you’d love that, wouldn’t you, Beth Ann?’

She looked at me, shocked, pleading. I enjoyed giving her nothing back.

‘I want a solicitor,’ she said, her eyes narrowing, determined.

‘I offered you a duty solicitor when you first came in, Beth Ann, and you said no. Have you forgotten already? Why would you need a solicitor anyway? You’ve got nothing to hide, have you?’

She opened her mouth to speak, then thought better of it.

Shep read out her original statement: ‘“I had been in the communal kitchen in the Pines staff residence preparing food when Karen and Laura Foster arrived between five fifteen and five twenty p.m. There was no one else in the kitchen. I can be sure of the time, because we’d planned to watch a TV soap together in my room which started at five thirty.”

‘Tell me about Marion Ryan. Did you like her, Beth Ann?’

She nodded, uncertainly: ‘I was close to Marion. She was lovely.’

‘If you had to choose between Marion and Karen Foster, who would you say was your closer friend, Beth Ann?’

‘I’ve known Karen for a lot longer than I knew Marion, so I was closer to her.’

‘I see,’ said Shep, ‘but you don’t have to choose, do you?’

Bethan frowned. I didn’t understand what he was getting at either.

‘I don’t have that luxury,’ said Shep. ‘I like you and I like Karen, but which of you am I going to charge with perverting the course of justice?’

Bethan’s jaw dropped and she blinked three times, very quickly.

‘Because either Karen Foster is lying to us, or you’re lying to us. One of you is not telling the truth. Now, Beth Ann, this is your last chance to save your arse. Do you understand me?’

She nodded rapidly, making it abundantly clear that she’d grasped precisely what he meant only too well.

Shep leaned forward, switched on the tape recorder, told it the time and attendees. He then asked Bethan to tell us everything she did and saw from lunchtime onwards on Monday 1st July, 1991.

She sounded desperate, hunted: ‘I was with my mother that afternoon and got back to the Pines at about five past six. I saw Laura Foster waiting for me on the balcony of my room which is on the first floor. Karen had a key to my room and they sometimes watched TV when I wasn’t there. When I got to the door to the building on the ground floor, Laura opened it for me. We walked upstairs together. Laura said she and Karen had been in my room since five p.m. and that Karen had left at six to do the flowers with Peter.’

‘What was Laura Foster wearing?’

‘Jeans and a black t-shirt.’

‘Just remind me briefly of the times again.’

‘I went to my mum’s in Tooting at about two, stayed until five thirty and got back to the Pines at about five past six. I didn’t see Karen until later.’

‘Okay, stick to 6.05; when you got back, how did her sister, Laura Foster seem?’

‘Well … She didn’t seem to be her usual self. She was fidgety and kept pacing around the room, whereas normally she just sat down and chatted.’

‘Did she say anything that struck you as odd?’

‘Not that I remember,’ said Bethan.

‘Did you see Karen again that evening?’

‘Karen came to the room at about eight. She said she couldn’t stay long as she had to drive Peter home. She had a cigarette and some water and then left.’

‘I didn’t know she smoked,’ said Shep.

‘She doesn’t, usually.’

‘Did she say anything unusual?’

‘She mentioned in passing that her and Laura had been in my room earlier, from about five to six.’

‘What was Karen wearing?’

‘Jeans and a red t-shirt.’

‘Did she use your bathroom?’

‘No.’

‘Did she mention anything about an upset stomach?’

‘No.’

‘So she left and Laura stayed. What next?’

‘At about nine, the phone in my room rang. Karen asked for Laura. She took the receiver from me, went white and said something like: “Marion’s been killed” or “Marion’s dead”. She seemed very shaken.

‘During their conversation, Laura started crying. She put the phone down and said Marion had been stabbed and that Karen and Peter had found her body.’

‘You say she was crying, can you describe how?’

‘She was hysterical. She was in a really bad way, even though she didn’t really know Marion. I phoned a cab, gave her ten pounds and sent her home.’

‘Did Karen or Laura have any items with them?’

‘I noticed after Laura had gone home that she’d left a black gym bag under a seat in my room.’

‘Did you look inside?’

‘I had a quick look inside and saw a red t-shirt and a make-up bag on top, but I didn’t go through the rest of it.’

‘Oh come on, what was in the bag?’

‘I told you, I felt bad prying into her personal stuff. I just glanced in the top, saw the red t-shirt and a make-up bag, then closed it again.’

Shep sighed, letting Bethan know that she hadn’t earned her freedom yet.

‘Next morning, when did you next see or hear from Karen or Laura Foster?’

‘I went into work at about eight a.m. I told my boss that Marion had been murdered and that Karen and Peter had found the body. Later that morning, at about ten a.m., I got a call from Karen. She sounded annoyed. She said to me “Bethan, who have you told?” It turned out that Karen had been speaking to one of the hospital bosses and had been surprised to discover he already knew about the murder.

‘Around midday, the porter rang me to say Karen was at the home and wanted to pick up something from my room. I went down to meet her in the foyer. Laura was there too. They said they wanted to pick up the gym bag they’d left behind.

‘We all walked up to my room. Karen looked upset and tired. She said to me again: “We were here just after five yesterday.” They picked up the bag and left.’

Like Peter a day earlier, the more Bethan spoke the more she came to realise that Karen Foster could have murdered Marion, and that her sister Laura may have been somehow complicit in the crime.

‘Had you any dealings with either sister over the next few days?’

‘Laura rang me a few days later to tell me that the police would be calling to see me. She wanted me to call her as soon as they’d been.’

‘Didn’t that strike you as suspicious?’

‘I just thought she was being supportive, as a friend.’

Shep took another loud, deep, disappointed breath.

‘Go on,’ he said, a headmaster tolerating a tall tale.

‘The Sunday after Marion’s murder, the police came to my room at the clinic. DC Young told me that they required a statement from me but, in the meantime could I write down everything I’d done on the day of the murder. I was also asked to recall how long Karen and Laura had been with me and at what times. I was frightened. I didn’t know what to say. If Karen and Laura said they were in my room from five p.m., why should I doubt them? After they left, I phoned Laura and told her about it.’

‘Did you express your reservations to Laura about lying to the police?’ said Shep.

‘I didn’t lie. I believed them. She could tell I was worried but she kept assuring me: “We really were at your room just after five. We were not lying. Just tell the police you were with us at that time.” Why would I doubt the word of a close friend?’

‘Did you not start to wonder why Karen and Laura were so anxious for you to give them this alibi?’

‘I don’t think they had anything to do with Marion’s death.’

‘Marion’s murder,’ Shep corrected her, ‘she was stabbed to death, remember?’

She nodded quickly, obediently, close to breaking.

‘When did you next speak to either Karen or Laura?’

‘I called Karen after I’d made my written statement, to tell her what I’d said.’

‘And how did she react?’

‘She just said “okay”.’

‘Did you speak to her again?’

‘She phoned me a couple of days later and asked me if anyone else at the Pines had been interviewed. She told me again that she and Laura had been in my room from five.’

‘What did you think of this behaviour? Surely you must have wondered why she was so insistent that you stick to your story?’

‘I was beginning to think maybe something wasn’t right.’

‘Oh come on, Bethan,’ shouted Shep, his gag of mispronouncing her name lost in rage, ‘enough is enough. You
knew
Karen murdered Marion. You agreed to provide her with an alibi. You’re an accessory to the murder of Marion Ryan.’

‘No! I never for one minute thought that. Never. Everyone knows it must have been a man. I think you’re fitting them up.’

‘Are you scared of her, Bethan?’ sneered Shep. ‘Were you frightened of what she’d do to you if you told the truth? Were you frightened you’d end up stabbed to death, like Marion?’

‘No, no,’ she cried, her face screwing up into a hideous ball, ‘I want a solicitor.’

‘You’ll need a solicitor,’ said Shep, ‘because I’ve got a good mind to charge you. Interview terminated at sixteen thirty-two.’

Shep bolted upright, knocking his chair back with an almighty crack. ‘May God forgive you,’ he spat at her bowed, shaking head: her crucifix rattling the table top.

I followed Shep outside and back along the corridor: ‘My God, Lynch, Karen Foster did it. It’s the only explanation. Jesus Christ, they plotted it down to the last detail. That gym bag they left in Bethan’s room held the murder weapon and Karen’s change of clothes. That was a smart move, leaving it there. Even if we suspected them at the very start, we never would have searched Bethan’s room. What Bethan saw in that bag had to be the red t-shirt Karen wore when she helped carry out the murder. Of course it’s all probably in the bottom of the Thames now.’

I nodded. ‘And if you’re going to look inside a bag, you take a good bloody look, don’t you, Guv? Why is she protecting them?’

‘She was trying to save her own arse while not dropping them completely in it. She knows enough not to make herself the star prosecution witness. The Fosters would make her life a misery. So she’s playing dumb. Bethan Trott’s a hell of a lot smarter than she comes across,’ said Shep.

I was struck by a new twist. ‘Neither Karen nor Laura have an alibi now for that afternoon. We’ve got to get Laura in. Why the hell would she back her sister to the hilt when she knows she’s murdered someone?’