The Blood Detective

by

Dan Waddell

When the naked, mutilated body of a man is found in a Notting Hill graveyard and the police investigation led by Detective Chief Inspector Grant Foster and his colleague Detective Superintendent Heather Jenkins yields few results, a closer look at the corpse reveals that what looked at first glance like superficial knife wounds on the victim’s chest is actually a string of carved letters and numbers, an index number referring to a file in city archives containing birth and death certificates and marriage licenses. Family historian Nigel Barnes is put on the case. As one after another victim is found in various locations all over London, each with a different mutilation but the same index number carved into their skin, Barnes and the police work frantically to figure out how the corresponding files are connected. With no clues to be found in the present, Barnes must now search the archives of the past to solve the mystery behind a string of 100-year-old murders. Only then will it be possible to stop the present series of gruesome killings, but will they be able to do so before the killer ensnares his next victim? Barnes, Foster, and Jenkins enter a race against time - and before the end of the investigation, one of them will get much too close for comfort.

Dan Waddell is a journalist and author who lives in west London with his son. He writes about the media and -popular culture, and has published ten non-fiction books, including the bestselling Who Do You Think You Are?, which tied in with the BBC TV series. This is his first novel.

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This is for Emma.

See you in my dreams.

: published .

Copyright Dan Waddell 2008

All rights reserved

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real people, alive or dead, is purely coincidental

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Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser ISBN: 978-0-141-02165-0

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This book would never have been completed without the help of the following people. Firstly, my

editor at Penguin, Beverley Cousins, whose patience and faith were greatly appreciated during the difficult circumstances in which I found myself writing

the book, and whose expert editorial eye has since improved it immeasurably. Her assistant, Claire Phillips, also offered some helpful suggestions and alterations.

Secondly, I am extremely grateful to my agent,

Araminta Whitley, who helped locate the real story in among my earliest drafts. She worked tirelessly to improve the book at every stage and was always at hand to offer advice, ideas and encouragement. Mark Lucas, Peta Nightingale, Lizzie Jones and the other wonderful folk at LAW also made vital contributions along the way. Thanks to you all.

I would also like to thank the following, all of whom helped in the writing of this book: Nick

Barratt, resident genealogical genius; Professor Robert Forrest; Rachel and Paul Murphy; Lillian Aylmer and Gavin Houtheusen at The National

Archives; Christine Falder at DeepStore; Wall to Wall productions; and my family, especially Irene and my Dad, for their love and support.

Finally, and most significantly, my wife, Emma, who died of breast cancer while this book was being written. Without her ferocious loyalty and the belief she had in me, I would never have begun writing it.

Or any other book, for that matter. I owe her everything.

She lives on in the heads and hearts of me, my

son and many, many others.

Wearing the type of smile that often distinguished the half cut from the sober, Bertie stepped out of the Prince Albert on Pern bridge Road and immediately felt the icy blast of cold air on his face. It was invigorating; the rigours of a week’s work, a bellyful of beer and the numbing warmth of the pub’s fire had helped him forget how bitter it was outside, though word of it had been on the chapped lips of everyone who had come in for a drink. March, they muttered. Felt more like January.

After shaking his head to rid it of the fug of the pub, he glanced up at the clear, black sky. No fog; the wind had chased away the perennial smoke that blanketed the city at night. A nice change, he thought, to use his eyes and not instinct as he made his way home.

To his right he could hear the clatter of traffic on Notting Hill Gate. A man scurried past, head down, left hand holding his hat in place, the right gripping his coat across his throat.

Bertie did not even button his; he did not mind the cold. He was warm-blooded. ‘My little bed-warmer,’ Mary liked to call him, as they closed in to form a crescent shape together under the covers. Sometimes in winter, when he got into bed, she would raise a chilly foot — she felt the cold terribly — and place it softly between his legs to warm it. Made him jump. ‘Back off, woman,’ he would tell her. But she would giggle and so would he. He was incapable of getting angry with her — and

she with him, as she would prove in about fifteen minutes’ time when he stumbled into bed near midnight with the smell of boo^e on his breath.

The thought of it— the thought of her— made him smile as he started weaving his way home along Ladbroke Road. The wind was at his back, blowing towards the Dale. Bertie was glad to have left that benighted place behind. Their life had improved immeasurably since he and Mary and the little ones had moved to Clarendon Road. It might still be on the edge of the Dale but it had felt like afresh start. For the first time in his life he felt able to breathe.

He crossed the road, passing the Ladbroke Arms and the police station ahead of the crossing with Ladbroke Grove, the lamp casting a halo of warming light over the few policemen standing outside having a smoke. He nodded at them as he passed. Ladbroke Grove was quiet so he crossed without pausing turned right and made his way up the hill. At the summit he toyed with going further on and turning on to Lansdowne Crescent, or cutting across the churchyard and down St John’s Gardens. He chose the latter.

He went to the left of St John’s, its cathedral-like spire pointing a bony finger into the darkness above him. As he passed the church he noticed something moving to his right.

Some poor beggar seeking shelter from the wind, he thought.

Then it was on him; hot, rancid breath on his cheek.

‘What the…’

Before he could finish, the blade was stuck deep in his ribs.

The noise as it left his flesh sounded like a finished kiss.

The figure retreated into the darkness as swiftly as it had arrived. Bertie felt little pain, just bewilderment. His hands went to his ribs; there they felt the warm stickiness of his own blood. He sat back on the ground, as if pushed. He tried to call for help, but no words came. He raised his hands to his face and saw them slicked with his own blood. God save me, he thought, his breath becoming shallow.

Mary,’ he whispered, thinking of her lying there, waiting for him to slip into bed so she could warm herself on him.

He lay back on the damp grass, aware of the smell of moist earth and the last pitiful throbs of his heart.

Finally, he felt the cold.

Detective Chief Inspector Grant Foster, stiff from lack of sleep, dragged his tall, weary frame from his brand-new Toyota Corolla, feeling the familiar ache of being hauled from his bed in the middle of the night. Even though he had stopped smoking six

months ago he felt a pang for nicotine. Arriving at a murder scene had been one of those occasions when he would habitually spark up; part of a ritual, a summoning of will. He cracked his knuckles and sniffed

the cold air.

Dawn was approaching over London and the

sound of traffic on the distant Westway was evolving to a constant drone as early workers joined latenight stragglers on the road. Despite the frosty tang in the air and the last blustery breaths of the fierce wind that had blown all night, a mild warmth hinted at the first signs of spring. In less than two hours the sun would be up and the late-March day would begin. But Foster was in no mood to be optimistic.

When he sniffed the air, he noticed only one smell: trouble.

Detective Sergeant Heather Jenkins, her wild black hair tied back in a ponytail, fell in beside him as they crossed the road towards the church.

‘It’s a nasty one, sir.’ Her strong Lancastrian accent flattened the vowel of her final word.

Foster nodded. ‘Certainly sounds like it,’ he said, speaking for the first time. His deep, rich voice seemed to emanate from somewhere down around

his boots. ‘Unlike the drunk the other night.’

Both of them had been woken when it was still

dark the previous Sunday morning to attend what appeared to be the suicide of a tramp in Avondale Park. Foster, supposed to be having a weekend off, though no one had seen fit to inform those on duty, had left it to Heather, gone back to bed and tried to get some more sleep. Unsuccessfully. Four days later, he still resented the intrusion.

Heather made a noise down her nose to indicate

her disbelief that Foster was still angry, not quite a snort, more a sort of reverse sniff.

‘You can’t let that go, can you, sir?’ she said.

‘Our workload is bad enough without having to

poke around the cider-drenched corpse of some

loser,’ he muttered without looking at her.

“You don’t reckon that tramp is entitled to the same consideration we lavish on other people’s

deaths? We don’t even know his identity: don’t you think we owe it to him to find out who he is and whether he had a family?’

‘No,’ he said emphatically. ‘But have you checked with the Missing Persons Bureau?’

She nodded. ‘Nothing that seems to fit so far.’

‘Probably yet another loser no one gave a stuff about. One less piss-stained wino for the lads on the beat to sling in the drunk tank.’

From the corner of his eye he saw her shake her head slowly.

They had reached the churchyard. Cresting the

hill of Ladbroke Grove, overlooked by a crescent of handsome early-Victorian mansions, it made a curious scene. It certainly beat the council estates, pub car parks and patches of barren land where

London’s murder victims were usually found. Yet he felt uneasy because, during more than twenty years on the force, he couldn’t remember another body being found on religious ground. As if that was a step too far, even for the most psychotic. He made a mental note to revisit this thought.

Detective Inspector Andy Drinkwater, hair neatly cut, lantern-jawed with chiselled features, was waiting for them at the cordon that had been put around the entire perimeter and was being guarded by a few uniformed officers. Foster often teased Drinkwater about looking like an ageing refugee from some

long-forgotten boy band: he was an obsessive gym rat, a teetotaller and, given his clear complexion, Foster suspected, with a shudder, he might even moisturize.

This morning in his knee-length woollen overcoat and gloves, he looked every inch the detective.

‘Sir,’ he said, nodding at Foster. ‘Heather.’

She smiled at him apprehensively.

‘Morning, Andy. What we got?’ Foster asked.

Over Drinkwater’s shoulder, to the left of the

church, he could see forensics settling in for the long haul. A white tent had been erected over the crime scene, tape bound around the perimeter of the