N
ot long after I ended my conversation with Stan, I tried Wingsy’s mobile once more, cursing him for not leaving it on. I was going to be having a few words with Wingnut when I saw him. I then busied myself waiting for Catherine to arrive by packing for a couple of days at my old friend’s house.
I’d barely placed the basics into my overnight bag when the doorbell rang, and I ran downstairs to answer it. I heard two female voices on the doorstep.
‘Nin, it’s Laura,’ said one of them.
I took the security chain off, opening the door to her and Catherine standing side by side. Laura reached forward, embracing me. I felt Catherine’s hair brush my arm and looked up to see her glancing up and down the street.
‘Please, girls, come in,’ I said. Catherine was making me nervous.
I led the way to the living room after bolting the front door. Couldn’t quite place my anxiousness. Once settled, I said to Catherine, ‘Was it Ray Hopkinson, that new DS, who gave you my message, or Nottingham?’
‘Both of them really,’ she answered. ‘Ray told me you’d called after Eric asked me to come and see you. I’ve known Ray a few years. He’s a decent enough bloke. Anyway, we’re here to give you an update on Lloyd.’
Laura and Catherine both held my gaze. Tough call for Laura, more so than for Catherine. As my friend it was an uncomfortable position for her to be placed in. No doubt
she’d volunteered to visit me, though, no matter how it made her feel. Two intelligent faces, one story. Laura began.
‘Jake Lloyd was going to be released from custody. When Mr Nottingham and Catherine came to see you that was the plan. That was why they recommended that you stay in a hotel.’
‘Just so you know, you were never on your own,’ Catherine added. ‘We were going to follow him, to see if he came back here, and then arrest him.’
That didn’t really make me feel all that much better.
‘As the evening wore on,’ Laura continued, ‘as the interviewing officers were finishing up, Lloyd suddenly began talking about how his cousin died. He rambled on for ages. They’d almost given up on him but then he came out with how he murdered Scott. He gave details, lots of details, and spoke about the clothing he wore when he killed him. Lloyd told us that he took it to his aunt Diane’s house and told her he’d spilled oil from his car on his top and jeans, and asked her to be so kind as to burn them.’
‘Are we really going to believe him?’ I asked.
Catherine shrugged her shoulders and said, ‘Diane was spoken to and confirmed what he said. It’s the DCI’s decision not to arrest her.’ I watched her repeatedly tap her pen against the notebook in her lap.
‘But you would have nicked her?’ I guessed.
‘Boss’s call on that one. That’s why he’s in charge,’ said Catherine.
Laura was sitting back on the sofa, out of Catherine’s view. I saw Laura nod and mouth the words, ‘I would.’
To hide my smile, I put my hands across my face, breathing in heavily.
When I took my hands away, my words crashed out with my breath. ‘What was in Lloyd’s cellar?’
My sudden swerve of questioning had the effect I intended: they appeared momentarily stunned. The truth came from their eyes and manipulated their expressions. I
read repulsion, disbelief, wonder. Whatever Lloyd had been housing was obviously monumental compared to a couple of hundred photographs.
One of you speak, I thought. It really can’t have been that bad.
They glanced at one another before Catherine placed her pen down and said, ‘He had some of your belongings.’
I was only aware I was dangerously close to the edge of my chair when I felt my knees begin to ache. As I shuffled myself backwards, I realised that my mouth was hanging open. I didn’t want to start dribbling; I might still end up in secure accommodation if I didn’t pull myself together. All I managed to say was, ‘Belongings?’
‘Clothes. We know they were your clothes because they were the ones you were wearing in some of the photographs he had on the wall.’
At some point, I must have said, ‘What?’ because I heard myself say it along with a sniff from Laura as she wiped her eyes with a tissue. Catherine continued, ‘We also found children’s clothes, some of them identical to those you and your sister were found in. He had old photos and newspaper reports describing the clothing. Some of the items had traces of blood on them. We’re testing it to see if it belonged to you.’
I managed to say, ‘Are you telling me he actually had the clothes Sara and I were wearing when…’ I put my hands over my face once more, I couldn’t recall the last time I had said my sister’s name.
‘No, no, no,’ said Catherine. ‘It’s likely those would have been destroyed along with everything else, other than the paperwork and forensics. They may be replicas. We’re looking into it.’
‘What about the other clothes?’
‘We don’t know. I’m sorry, Nina, but we just don’t know. We think he’s been in your house. We’re not sure. We want to bring a CSI here, if you agree.’
‘Fuck…’ I found myself standing up. I wanted to shout at Catherine, call Nottingham, shout at him. None of it would help or give me the answers I needed. I went to make tea. Wine was never an angry option.
Having given me a minute to calm down, Laura and Catherine followed me into the kitchen. With my back to them as I filled the kettle, I said, ‘Sorry. This is too much for me to take in. I have things to get done. I’m visiting someone this evening and staying at a sick friend’s tomorrow. What do you want from me now?’ I turned, searching both their faces.
Catherine said, ‘We need a statement, but not necessarily right now. In the morning?’ She knew that I’d do whatever she asked of me. It wasn’t in my nature not to. Besides, I was still a police officer. I had little choice.
Laura stepped nearer to me and said, ‘I’ve got my stuff in the car if you want me to stay over. Else you’re welcome to stay at mine.’
I declined. Jake Lloyd, my only demon at large, wasn’t going anywhere. And just the offer from her was enough to get me through the evening.
I showed Laura and Catherine out. Earlier I’d craved company; now I felt relieved to be alone again. Bereavement could do that to a person. My childhood was dead. I wouldn’t allow it to haunt me.
So many questions were tumbling around in my head but I felt unable to cope with the answers. I promised to call them in the morning and I insisted that I would go to the nick myself the next day to make my statement. This would be my chance to get back to work, speak to friends and colleagues, generally be a nuisance.
Attempting to put all morbid thoughts from my mind, and my packing for Stan’s complete, I took myself off to the supermarket to stock up for Annie. She’d left a couple of messages for me, full of swear words, asking where I was. The spelling in her text messages was dreadful but she always got the four-letter words correct somehow. I texted her to tell her
that I was on my way. The reply was ‘
Bout fucking time. Fort u were dead
.’ I laughed in spite of the turmoil I felt myself being drawn into.
Shopping complete, I drove to Annie’s and pulled up around the corner away from her house, as was my usual drill. I was surprised to see a new BMW in the driveway. Annie couldn’t drive and I’d only once before seen a car on her driveway: on the day her husband was arrested for attempted murder. My mind filled with hazy images of a marked police vehicle on the tarmac and an ambulance across the drive. I walked back to her house from my car with two carrier bags of quality foodstuffs, not at all sure what was coming next.
A man opened the front door to me.
A
s I got nearer to the figure at the door, my mind carried out a speedy run-down of likely people. I figured it must be a relative or friend of hers. I tried to place her two sons. It was a number of years since I’d last clapped eyes on them. They were both local but kept out of trouble with the police, or managed to avoid arrest at least. One was twenty-five and the other was thirty-three. This one had to be the eldest.
‘Nina. Long time, no see,’ said the man. ‘The old girl was worried about you.’
As I was about to reply, Annie’s tiny frame appeared under his arm as it held the door open. ‘Worried, bollocks. What are you telling her that for, Richard?’
Richard – of course it was: number one son. He rolled his eyes, opening the door for me.
‘Hello, Richard. Good to see you,’ I said. It was partly true. He was a kickboxer and welcoming me into his mum’s home. This could only be good news for me. I had told Annie what time to expect me, so her son being here was no coincidence.
Premium delectables unpacked and put away, I made my way to the front room with Annie. She seemed a bit tense: she’d only taken the piss out of me once. Richard was already sitting in the armchair, hands in the pockets of his hooded tracksuit top, left knee jiggling up and down. I decided to prompt him. It seemed the decent thing to do.
‘Richard, it must be years since we’ve met. How are things with you?’
‘Thing is, right,’ he answered, left knee motionless, ‘you never got this from me. I’ll deny talking to ya, seeing ya. Got it?’
‘Yeah. Got it,’ I said.
Richard glanced at his mum. Annie was inspecting her fingernails.
‘Those three murders over your way… heard some stuff,’ he said.
Interview trainers would call my reaction ‘guggling’. Don’t bother to look it up. It’s not really a word. I just sat there nodding and making interested noises without saying a thing. It required no acting skill on my part.
It seemed to work as, after only a few seconds, Richard said, ‘It’s a foreigner. You know, like, not English. From abroad.’
‘Richard,’ I said, ‘what makes you say that?’ I really wanted to say,
I know what a bloody foreigner is
. The thing with sarcasm and police officers, though, was that we weren’t supposed to use it. Not in front of the public anyway.
He glanced at his mum again. I continued to look at him, keeping silent.
‘I’ve heard that some bloke from Europe’s been killing people and slicing them up. Sick bastard. You know I wouldn’t normally talk to the police. Murder’s bad enough but this is out of order. I can’t tell you where that came from. What I can tell you is that that old lady, Daphne, she used to do a lot of work in children’s homes and stuff like that. Friend of mine knew her when he was a kid and said she taught him to read and write when the school had given up on him. Even helped him get his first job. You know, application forms and interviews and stuff like that.’
Richard paused. I wasn’t sure if there was more to come, so I waited. After a few more seconds, I risked a question.
‘How can I find out who this foreigner is?’
‘Dunno,’ said Richard. ‘Only heard he was foreign, not from round here.’
‘I appreciate what you’ve told me,’ I said, ‘but there are a lot of foreigners in and around the county. He may not even still be here. Do you know what country he came from?’
‘France or Spain, I think – maybe Portugal,’ Richard said.
Cheers, I thought, that narrows it down. For a minute, I thought that the task was impossible.
‘Can you tell me who you heard this from?’ I asked.
‘No, like I said, can’t tell you. It’s just gossip, that part,’ said Richard.
Annie stood up, muttering something about custard creams.
As soon as she shut the door behind her, I said, ‘I need more than this to find him. If you’re worried about talking to me, it can be someone else, you know. At another location, away from anyone who may know you.’
‘Yeah, we used to call them grasses. Now they get a couple of quid and you’ve given them a fucking stupid name, trying to make them sound like anything other than a grass,’ he said. I could see his knee begin to move up and down again. ‘No, I’ll tell you what I know now and that’s the end of it. I heard that some fella’s come over from France or wherever it was, killed them people, cut them up badly and may still be here in England. He’s shacked up with some local bird he’s been knocking off. Don’t know why he’s done it or if there’s gonna be more. I really don’t know any more than that.’
‘What’s your friend’s name – the one that knew Daphne?’ I asked.
For the first time since I entered the living room, Richard took his hands out of his pockets. He unclenched his left fist to reveal a scrap of paper in his palm and held it out to me. The paper contained the name ‘Charlie’ and a mobile phone number. While I was reading the number, checking for legibility, Richard stood up. ‘See ya,’ he muttered as he left the room.
‘Thanks,’ I said.
He paused before turning. ‘Like I said already, didn’t see ya and didn’t speak to ya.’
The front door slammed. I heard the sound of the car on the driveway start as Annie came back into the room with a packet of biscuits, complaining about her heating and how it made a terrible noise. I took the cue that there was to be no more mention of her son who had just passed me a lead on a serial killer.
I spent another hour or so at Annie’s listening to her moan about the weather and other trivia. She still made me laugh frequently, and the time passed quickly. As I was leaving, she walked with me to the front door. Annie grabbed my arm and said, ‘Listen, Nina. You’ve always looked out for me; when my old man knocked me about, put an iron in my face, you tried to do what you could to keep my boys on the straight and narrow. Make sure you’re careful. That’s all I’m saying.’
‘Thanks, Annie,’ I said, placing my hand over hers, which was still gripping my bicep.
27th September
A
t 8.30am on the dot, I left for the police station. I’d even managed to leave an open bottle of wine in the fridge the night before, so I wasn’t hungover. It was a small matter but one that made me proud.
As I made my way into the yard, I passed Nottingham’s car parked in the senior investigating officer’s bay. I’d decided that I was going to speak to him about staying on the enquiry before writing my statement. I felt a bit strange letting myself into the nick and making my way to the DCI’s office, but I had every right to be there. Technically I was doing nothing wrong. I wasn’t suspended; I wasn’t banned from the building. I’d merely been given a few days off because I had a stalker who was currently remanded for murdering his sexual deviant cousin. There was probably no precedent for such an occasion. The boss didn’t really know what category to fit me into.
Any day soon I expected to be sent to work elsewhere, far away from this enquiry. Problem was – the DCI had said it himself – chances were that none of us would ever work on anything like this again. I didn’t want to be back interviewing shoplifters when I could be working on a series of murders, and I needed to keep busy. I wondered if the officers who came looking for me and my sister in 1976 got the same personal satisfaction from a job well done? The likelihood was that they had. We were only human.
In order to avoid seeing anyone, I’d chosen the furthest, quietest corridor of the nick. The thoughts of my childhood rescuers had slowed my feet until I found that I had come to a stop outside Alf’s room. I could hear his voice, and curiosity made me listen at his door. A second male voice was answering a question I hadn’t heard. ‘Not sure, Alf. Any time soon but it’s looking like the next couple of days.’ I’d heard that voice before but I couldn’t place it. Something wasn’t right. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickle.
Only one thing for it. ‘Alf,’ I called as I opened the door. Alf was standing next to the boiler, metal door open, throwing something inside. On the other side of the room, sitting on a wooden chair with one of its arms missing, was Tony, Belinda Cook’s visitor.
‘Nina,’ said Alf. ‘Come in. This is Tony. He’s just given me a lift into work.’
‘Hello, Tony,’ I said, venturing into the room but still close to the door. I didn’t feel threatened, since I was in a police station, but this was very unexpected. ‘How do you two know each other?’ I asked.
‘Me and Alf go back years, don’t we?’ said Tony before Alf could say a word.
I directed my words to Alf but didn’t take my eyes off his visitor. ‘Tony and I have met. He’s been interviewed as part of Operation Guard.’
‘The murders? Have you, Tony?’ said Alf. ‘Didn’t know about that.’
‘Yeah. I’ve been staying from time to time with Belinda, Amanda Bell’s cousin,’ said Tony. He looked from Alf to me and said, ‘Always happy to help. You’re just lucky to catch me in the country. Anyway, it was great to catch up with you, Alf. I’d better be going.’
Tony stood up and Alf said, ‘I’ll see you out of the building.’ He shut the metal boiler door and searched in his pocket for his keys. ‘Better lock up while I’m gone,’ he said, as a polite way of telling me to leave his office.
Still mulling over the conversation, I walked up the staircase towards Eric Nottingham’s temporary office. Wingsy’s words about Alf disposing of dead people in the nick’s boiler came to mind. And there were those noises I’d heard in the office next to the briefing room last week. I dismissed the idea for a second time as it was totally insane. Alf was not a murderer. Why would he be murdering people and biting them? Why would anyone be murdering people and biting them?