Strange Affair (4 page)

“What about
inside
the car?” Gristhorpe asked.

“It’s in the police garage right now, sir. We should know something later today. There is one thing.”

“Yes?”

“It looks as if she was definitely forced off the road. The left wing hit the drystone wall.”

“But there was no damage to the right wing, at least not that I could see,” Annie said.

“That’s right,” Stefan agreed. “The car that forced her over didn’t make physical contact. Pity. We might have got some nice paint samples.”

“Keep looking,” said Gristhorpe.

“Anyway,” Stefan went on, “whoever it was must have got in front of her and veered to the left rather than come at her directly from the side.”

“Well,” said Gristhorpe, “what do you do if you’re a woman
alone and a car comes up fast behind you on a deserted country road at night?”

“I’d say either you take off like a bat out of hell or you slow down and let him get by and put as much distance as possible between the two of you,” said Annie.

“Exactly. Only in this case he forced her over to the side of the road.”

“The gear stick,” Annie said.

“What?” Gristhorpe asked.

“The gear stick. She was trying to get away. She was trying to reverse.”

“That’s the way it looks,” said Stefan.

“But she wasn’t fast enough,” said Annie.

“No. And she stalled.”

“Do you think,” Annie went on, “that there might have been two of them?”

“Why?” asked Gristhorpe.

Stefan looked at Annie and answered. It was uncanny, she thought, how often their thoughts followed the same pathways. “I think DI Cabbot means,” he said, “that if the driver had to put on the brake, unfasten his seat belt and pull out his gun before getting out, those few seconds might have made all the difference.”

“Yes,” said Annie. “Though why we should assume a murderer would be so law-abiding as to wear a seat belt is stretching it a bit. And he may have already had his gun out and not bothered to turn off the ignition. But if someone was there to leap out, say someone in the back, with his gun ready and no seat belt to unfasten, then she wouldn’t have had time to recover from the shock and get away in time. Remember, she’d probably be panicking.”

“Hmm,” said Gristhorpe. “Interesting. And possible. Let’s keep an open mind for the time being. Anything else?”

“Not really,” said Stefan. “The victim’s been taken to the mortuary and Dr. Glendenning said he should be able to get around to the post-mortem sometime this afternoon. In the meantime, it still looks very much as if death was due to a single gunshot wound above the right ear.”

“Any ideas about the sort of weapon used?”

“We’ve found no trace of a cartridge, so either our killer was smart and picked up after himself, or he used a revolver. At a rough estimate, I’d say it’s probably a .22 calibre. Anything bigger would most likely have left an exit wound.” Stefan paused. “We might not have had a lot of practice with gunshot wounds around these parts,” he said, “but our ballistics specialist Kim Grainger knows her stuff. That’s about it, sir. Sorry we can’t be a bit more helpful right now.”

“Early days, yet,” said Gristhorpe. “Keep at it, Stefan.” He turned to the rest of the group. “Has anyone verified the woman’s identity yet?” he asked.

“Not yet,” said Annie. “I got in touch with Lambeth North. It turns out their DI at Kennington nick is an old friend of mine, Dave Brooke, and he sent a couple of DCs to her address. Nobody home. They’re keeping a watching brief.”

“And there are no reports of her car being stolen?”

“No, sir.”

“So it’s still more than within the realm of possibility that the registered keeper of the vehicle is the person found dead in it?”

“Yes. Unless she lent her car to a friend or hasn’t noticed it’s gone missing yet.”

“Do we even know for certain that she was alone in the car?” Gristhorpe asked.

“No.” Annie looked at Stefan. “I’m assuming that’s something they’ll be able to help us determine down at the garage.”

Stefan nodded. “Perhaps.”

“Anyone run her name through our system?”

“I did, sir,” said Winsome. “Name, prints, description. Nothing. If she ever committed a criminal act, we didn’t catch her.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Gristhorpe said. “All right, first priority, find out who she is and what she was doing on that road. In the meantime, I assume we’re already making door-to-door inquiries in the general area of the incident?”

“Yes, sir,” said Annie. “Problem is, there’s not much
in
the general area. As you know, it happened on a deserted stretch of road between the A1 and Eastvale in the early hours of the morning. We’ve got people going from house to house, but there’s nothing except a few holiday cottages and the occasional farmhouse within a mile each way of the car. Nothing’s turned up so far.”

“Nobody heard the shot?”

“Not so far.”

“An ideal place for a murder, then,” Gristhorpe commented. He scratched his chin. Annie could see by the stubble that he hadn’t shaved that morning. Hadn’t combed his unruly hair by the looks of it, either. Still, personal grooming sometimes took a back seat when it came to the urgency of a murder investigation. At least as far as the men were concerned. Kev Templeton was far too vain, of course, to look anything but his gelled, athletic and trendy best, not to mention cool as Antarctica, but Jim Hatchley had definitely taken a leaf out of Gristhorpe’s book. Gavin looked like a trainspotter, right down to the National Health specs held together over his nose by a plaster. Winsome was immaculate in pinstripe navy
trousers and matching waistcoat over a white scallop-neck blouse, and Annie felt rather conservative in her plain pastel frock and linen jacket. She also felt unpleasantly sweaty and hoped it didn’t show.

Finding herself doodling a cartoon of Kev Templeton in full seventies gear, complete with the Afro and tight gold lamé shirt, Annie dragged herself away from her sartorial musings, admonishing herself once again for having difficulty concentrating these days, and got back to the matter in hand: Jennifer Clewes. Gristhorpe was asking her a question, and Annie realized she had missed it.

“Sorry, sir?”

Gristhorpe frowned at her. “I said do we have any idea where the victim was driving from?”

“No, sir,” said Annie.

“Then perhaps we should set about canvassing all-night garages, shops open late, that sort of thing?”

“If the victim really is Jennifer Clewes,” Annie said, hoping to make up for her lapse in concentration, “then the odds are that she came from London. As the road she was found on leads to and from the A1, which connects with the M1, that makes it even more likely.”

“Motorway service stations, then?” Kevin Templeton suggested.

“Good idea, DC Templeton,” said Gristhorpe. “I’ll leave that to you, shall I?”

“Wouldn’t it be better to get the local forces on it, sir?”

“That’ll take too much time and co-ordination. We need results fast. Better if you do it yourself. Tonight.”

“Just what I always fancied,” Templeton grumbled. “Driving up and down the M1, sampling the local cuisine.”

Gristhorpe smiled. “Well, it
was
your idea. And I hear they do a very decent bacon panini at Woodall. Anything else?”

“DC Jackman mentioned that there had been a similar crime some months ago,” Annie said.

Gristhorpe looked at Winsome Jackman, eyebrows raised. “Oh?”

“Yes, sir,” said Winsome. “I checked the details. It’s not quite as similar as it appears on first glance.”

“Even so,” said Gristhorpe. “I think we’d like to hear about it.”

“It was near the end of April, the twenty-third. The young woman’s name was Claire Potter, aged twenty-three, lived in North London. She set off at about eight o’clock on a Friday evening to spend the weekend with friends in Castleton. She never got there. Her car was found in a ditch by the side of a quiet road north of Chesterfield by a passing motorist the following morning and her body was found nearby – she’d been raped and stabbed. The way it looks is that her car was forced into a ditch by her assailant. The pathologist also found traces of chloroform and characteristic burning around her mouth.”

“Where was she last seen?”

“Trowell services.”

“Nothing on the service station’s closed-circuit TV?” asked Gristhorpe.

“Apparently not, sir. I had a brief chat with DI Gifford at Derbyshire CID, and the impression I got was that they’ve reached a dead end. No witnesses from the cafeteria or garage. Nothing.”

“The MO is different, too,” Annie pointed out.

“Yes,” said Gristhorpe. “Jennifer Clewes was shot, not stabbed, and she wasn’t sexually interfered with, at least not as
far as we know. But you think there could be some connection, DC Jackman?”

“Well, sir,” mused Winsome, “there are some similarities: stopping at the services, being forced off the road, a young woman. There could be any number of reasons why he didn’t assault her this time, and he could certainly have acquired a gun since his last murder. Maybe he didn’t enjoy stabbing. Maybe it was just a bit too up-close-and-personal for him.”

“Okay,” said Gristhorpe. “Good work. We’ll keep an open mind. Last thing we want is to let a serial killer slip through our hands because we don’t see the connection. I take it you’ll be activating HOLMES?”

“Yes, sir,” said Winsome. The Home Office Large Major Enquiry System was an essential tool in any major investigation. Every scrap of information was entered into the computer and connections were made in ways even a trained officer might easily miss.

“Good.” Gristhorpe stood up. “Okay. Any –”

There was a knock at the door and Gristhorpe called out, “Come in.”

Dr. Wendy Gauge, Dr. Glendenning’s new and enigmatic assistant stood there, looking as composed as ever, that mysterious, self-contained smile lingering around her lips the way it always did, even when she was bent over a corpse on the table. Rumour had it that Dr. Gauge was being groomed as Glendenning’s successor when the old man retired, and Annie had to admit that she was good.

“Yes?” said Gristhorpe.

Wendy Gauge moved forward. “I’ve just come from the mortuary,” she said. “We were removing the victim’s clothing and I found this in her back pocket.” She handed over a slip of lined paper, clearly torn from a notebook of some sort, which
she had thoughtfully placed in a transparent plastic folder. “Her killer must have taken everything else from the car,” Dr. Gauge went on, “but…well…her jeans were very tight and she was…you know…sitting on it.”

Annie could have sworn Dr. Gauge blushed.

Gristhorpe examined the slip of paper first, then frowned and slid it down the table for the others to see.

Annie could hardly believe her eyes, but there, scrawled in blue ink and followed by directions from the A1(M) and a crude map of Helmthorpe, was a\ name and address:

Alan Banks

Newhope Cottage

Beckside Lane

Gratly, near Helmthorpe

North Yorkshire

By the time his colleagues back in Eastvale were speculating as to what his name and address were doing in a murder victim’s back pocket, Banks was in London, making his way through the early Saturday afternoon traffic, past the posh restaurants and Maserati showrooms, towards his brother Roy’s South Kensington house, just east of the Gloucester Road. It was years since he had driven in London, and the roads seemed more crowded than ever.

He had never seen where Roy lived before, he realized, as he drove under the narrow brick arch and parked in the broad cobbled mews. He got out and looked at the whitewashed brick exterior of the house with its integral garage next to the front door and a mullioned bay window above. It didn’t look big, but that didn’t matter these days. A house like this, in this
location, would probably fetch 800 K or more on today’s market, Banks reckoned, maybe even a million, and 100 K of that you’d be paying for the privilege of having the word “mews” in your address.

All the houses stood cheek by jowl, but each was different in some detail – height, facade, style of windows, garage doors, wrought-iron balconies – and the overall effect was of quiet, almost rural charm, a nook hidden away from the hurly-burly that was literally just around the corner. There were houses on all three sides of the cul-de-sac, and the red brick archway, only wide enough for one car, led to the main road, helping to isolate the mews from the world outside. Beyond the houses at the far end, a tower block and a row of distant cranes, angled like alien birds of prey, marred the view of a clear sky.

There were hardly any other cars parked in the mews, as most of the houses had private garages. The few cars that were on display were BMWs, Jaguars and Mercedes, and Banks’s shabby little Renault looked like a poor relation. Not for the first time the thought crossed his mind that he needed a new car. It was a hot morning for June, hotter here than up north, and he took off his jacket and slung it over his shoulder.

First he checked the number against his address book. It was the right house. Next he pressed the doorbell and waited. Nobody came. Perhaps, Banks thought, the bell didn’t work, or couldn’t be heard upstairs, but he remembered hearing it buzz on Roy’s phone message. He knocked on the door. Still no answer. He knocked again.