Blind Fury (8 page)

“I am here now.”

“Indeed you are. May I call you Anna?”

“No. My name is Detective Travis. Mr. Welsh, this is not a social visit, and I am here to discover if in fact you do have information regarding the murder inquiry. Please don’t waste either my time or Sergeant Barolli’s.”

“Time,” Cameron repeated softly, and then he smiled. “I want you to know, Detective Travis, that I have no grudge against you whatsoever. You did what you had to do, and I think you did it rather well. So . . .” He turned and gestured at his cell. “I certainly have the time, and obviously, I have spent many hours pondering my own situation, my own case. What interests me, and I am sure will interest you, too, is trying to understand what drove me to commit murder. I have retraced my life in detail, never allowing myself to feel self-pity, but more fascinated by what moment—was it madness or desire—that drove me to kill. This self-contemplation has opened up many areas about which I truthfully had been in denial; I now believe that I have two personalities, and only when committing murder are they joined.”

“Mr. Welsh, we are not here to discuss your case,” Barolli said curtly.

Cameron didn’t glance at Barolli but continued as if there had been no interruption. “This self-contemplation and self-analysis proved to be unsatisfying, since I have only myself as a template, so I subsequently broadened my research to delve into other killers’ minds. The outcome is the reason why I wished to see you, Detective Travis. My attempt to understand why I committed murder has enabled me to get inside the general mind of a killer, because I have been inside my own.”

Barolli sighed with impatience, and again Cameron gave no reaction to his presence.

“Have you brought in documents pertaining to your inquiry?” Welsh went on.

“No.”

“Well, that is a waste of time, isn’t it? For me to help you, I will need the postmortem photographs and reports and the forensic details. Without access to these, I doubt if I will be able to assist you in capturing the killer.”

“That won’t be possible, Mr. Welsh,” Anna said.

“Then you should
make
it possible,” he snapped, “because if you give me access to this material, I will be able to guide you toward your killer.”

Barolli banged back his chair and stood up, and Cameron for the first time turned his attention toward him.

“This is a waste of time,” Barolli growled.

Cameron stood up, and Barolli got to see for the first time how tall he was—well over six feet. He was also exceptionally fit, his body lean and muscular.

“Is that what you think, Sergeant Barolli—that I am wasting your time? I guarantee that I will not have any further meetings with you. Impatient little man, aren’t you?”

Barolli glared at Anna to get out of her seat to return to the main area.

Cameron moved closer to the bars and addressed Anna. “Let me get into his mind. I will
become
the man you want and give you an insight into who he is.”

Anna stood up, still refusing to look at Cameron directly as he continued. “You have three dead girls—one prostitute and two unidentified victims. You have no suspect and no witness, no DNA—you have nothing! But I guarantee I will be able to help your inquiry. Trust me. However, I need to have access to all your files to date on all three cases, the pathology and forensic details and statements and . . .”

Anna at last plucked up the courage to look at him directly.

Their eyes locked for a moment, then she turned away, picking up her chair to walk back down the aisle following Barolli. All the hair on her body was standing up, as if she had stepped into an ice-cold room. Cameron Welsh was the last person she would trust, and she swore that she would not subject herself to another visit. Due to the prison security they had to wait for the guards to take them back into the main prison. She could sense that Cameron Welsh was looking at her via the small hand mirror.

Chapter Three

A
nna was writing up her report on the incident board and couldn’t help overhearing Barolli chatting with Mike Lewis.

“Bloody drove all the way to Leeds to sit and listen to this egotistical bastard telling us that he could help crack our case. He only wanted all the forensic and postmortem reports and the photographs . . . sick fucker.”

“If we want an insight, we could always bring on board a profiler,” Mike said.

Anna joined them. “But not one of them is a killer,” she pointed out.

Barolli was surprised, asking if she was having second thoughts.

“No. I think he just wanted us—or me—there for his own kudos in the prison system. He will brag how he was able to get Met officers to come to him.”

“You should have seen his cell,” Barolli fulminated, “lined with hardback books like a library; he even offered Anna still or sparkling water! I dunno about it being a prison within a prison. It’s more like a ruddy holiday camp, and he was as tanned as if he’d been to the South of France.”

Mike looked at Anna and grinned. “Must be out of a bottle, as it’s not exactly sunbathing weather. So, wasted journey?”

She was about to agree when Detective Chief Superintendent James Langton walked in. They all turned, and he gave them a brief nod of acknowledgment, then came over to survey the incident board. He read Anna’s note about the prison visit and indicated for her to join him, tapping the mug shot of Cameron Welsh.

“How did you find him?”

“As arrogant as ever. In fact, he looked even younger than his mug shot.”

“Shows what three meals a day and no stress can do. You want to take me through the meeting?”

“It’s all there. He didn’t have anything, and we think it was a ploy to entertain himself.”

“So he wrote to you.”

“Yes. That’s a copy of the letter he wrote—you’ve already seen it.” Anna pointed to the board.

“Taken a fancy to you, has he?”

“I would say he’s too in love with himself to fancy anyone else. He makes my skin crawl.”

Langton looked at her and smiled. “What if he could get inside our killer’s head?” he said.

“I truthfully think his own head is stuck so far up his arse that he’d be incapable. He just wants to pull our strings. All this is a sick game, and I don’t want to see him again.”

“Got under your skin, did he?”

“Yes—and Barolli’s. Ask him what he was like.”

“I will. Okay, thanks.”

Anna returned to her desk as Langton went into Mike’s office. They were there for quite a while. Meanwhile, the incident room was quiet, as the officers had no new evidence and still no identification on their victim. Both Jean and Barbara had been working through all the Mispers on file but had no result.

Emerald Turk’s address had been searched while Anna was at Barfield, but no suitcase had been found. Barolli had also started looking for any ex–police officers who might have known Margaret Potts, but his inquiries fell on stony ground. It was depressing; the case was grinding to a halt.

Barolli came up to Anna’s desk and pulled at his tie. “I’ve been on to bailiff companies, but so far I’ve had no luck in tracing anyone who knew Potts or anyone who was an ex-copper. I dunno how far back I need to go in checking out retired Flying Squad guys, because they’re usually the ones that take up security or bailiff work. Maybe we need to talk to Emerald Turk again.”

Anna shrugged. They were grasping at straws, but to date, Emerald had been the most informative person with regard to the first victim.

“I don’t know if she can be any more help, but I don’t mind doing it,” Anna said. She wished they at least had the victim’s suitcase, and even better, her notebook with the license numbers.

Barolli ran a hand through his hair. It was hard to believe that they had no ID on two young beautiful girls and were still concentrating on Margaret Potts because they had little else to go on. Joan had been working on the possibility that they could identify their girl from dental records, but even though they were able to show on
Crimewatch
the two unusual front-teeth implants, they had not received a single call.

Mike came out of his office and signaled to Anna for her to join him and Langton.

Langton was sitting behind Mike’s desk, flicking through reports. He looked up and smiled at Anna as she came in. She was slightly thrown, although he had promised that their relationship would be more relaxed. She sat down and waited for him to finish glancing through the reports. Eventually, he let out a long sigh. “Not good, is it?” he said.

She knew he was referring to their inquiry, and she nodded.

“We have nothing, which is worrying,” he went on. “Pity the team didn’t get Potts’s suitcase—even better, the bloody notebook with the license-plate numbers. That’d have been really helpful.” He smiled at her again, and she started to find it unnerving. “Shame you didn’t question Emerald Turk first time round and not that impatient bugger Barolli. Knowing you, I doubt you’d have let it slip past you.”

She was even more puzzled and glanced at Mike Lewis, who was leaning against the wall, his hands stuffed into his pockets.

“Maybe not,” she said.

Langton stretched back in his chair and puffed out his breath. “I’ve got a lot of cases I’m overseeing, but this one causes me the most concern. Three dead women estimated to have all been killed by the same perpetrator—and from the MOs, it’s maybe more than estimated—but nevertheless, we have no leads connecting each victim. Hard to, when two remain unidentified. All we know for sure is that Potts was earning her keep shagging punters from the service stations, but whether or not the other two girls were also on the game . . .” He shrugged. “Then we have this creep Cameron Welsh. Now, if he is tugging our strings out of a misguided ego trip and he just wants to prove something to himself, do we dismiss him out of hand? What if he does have information? What if he could, as he said, get into the mind of our killer?”

“I very much doubt that,” Anna said, but she sensed what was coming and wouldn’t look at Langton.

“We have to go back,” Langton said, “and this time I will allow him to look at the postmortem report and—”

“You may be right, but I hope you don’t want
me
to go and see him again.”

“Sorry, but I do. He wants to interact with you. In Barolli’s report, he said Cameron turned his chair away from him so he wouldn’t have to look at him, and directed his entire conversation to you.”

“Well, yes, he did, but I’m female, and I think he just wants to get his rocks off having me there.”

“Fancies you, does he?”

She was getting angry. “I wouldn’t know what that sick twisted creep felt about me, but I would prefer it if someone else went to talk to him.”

Langton stood up. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do: you go and visit him again and see what he comes up with. If you are unable to deal with it, then we’ll arrange for one of the others to be with him.”

“It’s not a question of me being unable to deal with it. I just feel uncomfortable and would prefer not to be the one to interview him again.”

“You won’t be alone; Barolli will accompany you. I’ve already arranged it with the governor.”

Anna stood up. “So I don’t have an option?”

“Afraid not. Drive up there first thing in the morning. That’s all. Thank you.”

Anna wanted to slam the door of the office, but instead, she walked out with her hands clenched, trying to control her temper. In the incident room, she told Barolli they were on another scheduled visit to Cameron Welsh, and he swore.

“It’s a bloody waste of time, didn’t you tell Langton that?”

“Why don’t
you
tell him?” Anna snapped, then added that perhaps he shouldn’t, as Langton didn’t like the fact that he hadn’t found the suitcase belonging to Margaret Potts.

Barolli was still bad-tempered when Anna collected him the following morning. He remained silent for a long time, obviously furious at having to take the long journey again and the fact that he had let himself and the team down by not interviewing Emerald Turk well enough. The team still had no result in tracing the ex–police officers who were used by Margaret Potts to get back at the men who had beaten her up. The consensus was that even if they did trace them, they doubted it would progress their case. Langton, however, had insisted they continue in case one of the men picked up by Potts was their killer.

Anna and Barolli arrived at the prison and went through the same lengthy procedure. This time they did not meet with the governor, as he was unavailable. There were four different officers working inside the secure unit, and they were concerned that the three other men held there didn’t like being locked up in their cells to allow Cameron to speak to his visitors.

Welsh was sitting in the same position behind the bars in his cell, with his hair tied back in a ponytail. He was as immaculate as ever and again offered them still or sparkling water. Both refused, keen to get on with it and to leave as soon as possible. Welsh seemed to detect that Anna did not wish to speak to him. She sat, lips pursed, as Barolli passed through the bars a copy of the first file from the pathologist. This contained on-site photographs of the victims and detailed reports from the postmortems.

This time Welsh acknowledged Barolli, smiling and thanking him for the file. He edged his chair around to his desk and sat looking intently at each photograph. He made copious notes, and Anna became impatient, glancing at Barolli, who lifted his eyes to the ceiling. On this occasion, they heard the odd catcall from the other inmates, jeering and shouting abusive remarks about Welsh being a squeeler, but Welsh ignored them, as did Anna and Barolli.

Barolli glanced at his watch. Without looking up, Welsh said quietly that he was sorry for keeping them waiting, but he wished to make a thorough investigation if he was to assist them. He placed to one side the first file and requested the forensic reports. Yet again he spent ages on every page and made many notes. Anna forced herself to calm down and use the time to observe Cameron from her position outside his cell.

First she looked over the hundreds of books, noting that they were all in alphabetical order as well as arranged by size. There were many psychology, forensic, and medical manuals, and numerous volumes of true-life crime, legal textbooks, and court trials. She could see no modern novels, but two shelves contained classics, and these were alongside well-known playwrights—Ibsen, Chekhov, Shakespeare—and some of the book covers appeared to be old, perhaps secondhand, bought online or possibly from specialist journals. She paid attention to the shampoos and lotions, expensive ones, the conditioners and facial creams and suncreams and fake tanning lotions. His toothpaste was a whitener with bleach, and he had an old-fashioned boracic-powder tin. His battery toothbrushes were lined up like soldiers, as were his battery shavers and various aftershave lotions.

Barolli yawned loudly, and Welsh looked up, then returned to his notebook. He picked up a battery sharpener and started sharpening his pencils.

“Your killer is obviously working on long-haul drives for some kind of trucking company. The times of the murders are important. He is a night driver, as it is unlikely that any victim was killed in daylight.”

“We are already covering that line of inquiry,” Anna said sharply.

“Good. I thought you would be. Are you focusing on the tarts who hang out at the motorway service stations?”

“Of course.”

“I hope you’ve put up warning notices. These girls are like wasps—swat them away, but back they come, and I think . . .” He tapped his whitened teeth with the eraser on the end of his pencil. “I think he’s killed more than these three girls. Oh yes. This man has been busy for a long time.”

“Please pass the files back,” Barolli said.

Cameron reluctantly collected up all the papers and photographs. “I’d like to keep them,” he said.

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” Anna told him.

“Pity. I need more time with them.” Welsh handed the files to Barolli, ignoring Anna. “Can’t you get permission from DCS Langton?”

“No.”

“You can go, then. What I will begin working on until your next visit is the routes, and I will have more details for you after that.”

Anna had her hand resting on the bars, waiting as Barolli replaced the files in his briefcase. It was only a fleeting touch as Cameron trailed his fingers across hers, but it sent shock waves through her.

“Sorry,” he said, smiling.

Anna wanted to tell him in no uncertain terms that no way would she be returning to see him! She was even more sure it was a waste of time, since he had told them nothing new or added anything of any value to their case. All it had done was give him the sick pleasure of gloating over the pictures of the victims.

Driving back, Anna and Barolli got into a heated argument, as he felt they had gained useful information.

“Like what?” Anna demanded.

“For one, that there could be other victims, so we check back into cold cases; and second, he was right on the button for checking out long-distance lorry drivers; and third, that they would be working nights.”

Anna angrily retorted that they were, in case he hadn’t noticed, already doing exactly that, and Welsh had given them nothing new whatsoever.

“Okay, but you tell me how he knitted it all together—from what? Newspaper coverage? He may have even watched
Crimewatch,
but he was, to my mind, quite informative.”

Anna decided not to get into any further arguments with Barolli, who had started to annoy her. She was glad that he slept for the rest of the return journey.

Anna had just finished writing up the report of the meeting when Barbara tapped her on the shoulder to say there was a call for her from Cameron Welsh.

“Let Barolli take it—say I am not available,” she said crossly, but Barbara explained that Cameron had insisted he speak to her directly.

“Tough. Just who does he think he is? Please, Barbara, tell him I am not available, and if he has anything to say, let him talk to Barolli. I refuse to speak to him.”