The Blood Detective (11 page)

‘Strangulation seems the likeliest option.’

‘Anything from toxicology?’

‘No. But there were signs of heavy drug and

alcohol abuse.’

Foster completed a clockwise lap of the body.

He picked up one of the man’s limp feet by the

ankle. Strange, he thought. This guy’s feet are in immaculate condition. He couldn’t have been on the streets for too long. Most tramps’ feet are knackered: covered in corns, bunions and blisters, filthy and stinking. It didn’t make sense. Unless the guy used to be married to a chiropodist. The hands were soft, too; smooth and uncalloused like a clerical worker’s, not the gnarled hands of a derelict who slept on the streets, smoked tab ends from the gutter and drank meths.

Something didn’t add up.

Nigel had asked Ron for microfilm copies of the Evening News and the Evening Standard. It seemed to take him an eternity to return. Nigel sat there, cursing his name and his bulk, the building empty and quiet apart from the silent hum of a distant generator.

Darkness was beginning to fall and the huge bowls of light, suspended by chains from the ceiling, cast a sepulchral glow across the main reading room.

I need to do something, he thought. He got up

and wandered into the second, smaller room. To one side of that was the microfilm reading room, a dark space bereft of natural light, lit only by an occasional lamp and the illumination of the reading screens.

Nigel had spent hours of his life in here, spooling through centuries of copy.

To his left, away from the microfilm readers, was a bank of computer terminals, a few of which were allocated for searching recent issues of the national newspapers by keywords. He sat down at one, hit a key and the screen burst to life. There was nothing on this database that would be much use to the investigation, it only went back a decade or so at most. It was the recent past, but still he fancied losing himself in it for a short time.

He wondered how high-profile a cop Foster

was. In the search field he typed ‘Detective+GrantsFoster’

and hit return. The machine chuntered reluctantly then produced its results: nineteen hits. The first few were reports of murder investigations in which he’d been quoted. But it was the seventh that caught Nigel’s eye: ‘Top Cop Cleared of “Killing”

Father’.

The story was nearly eight years old. Nigel clicked the link immediately.

A Scotland Yard detective suspended after being suspected of murdering his father in a mercy killing has been cleared and reinstated after no charges were brought against him.

Detective Inspector Grant Foster, 39, was arrested two months ago after his father, Roger Foster, a retired detective, was found dead at his home in Acton last July. His son made the call to the emergency services reporting his father’s death.

Last month an inquest into Mr Foster senior’s death recorded an open verdict. The coroner said at the time: ‘It is clear that Detective Inspector Foster helped his father end his life. It is not the duty of this inquest to decide whether that help was criminal. That is a matter for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service.’

The news that DC I Foster will not be charged and will return to his job has already attracted criticism from anti euthanasia compaigners.

Last night, Adrian Lewis, Conservative MP for Thewliss, said: ‘I’m not sure what message this sends out to the general public. It is not for us to decide whether someone has the right to die - it is our Lord’s decision. I do hope this isn’t a case of one rule applying to members of the public, and another to members of the Metropolitan Police.’

Nigel sat back to absorb what he’d read. Regardless of whether he had been charged, there seemed to be an admission that Foster in some way assisted his father’s death. In that case, how did he keep his job?

Nigel checked his watch. He could plough on and find more stories, but it had been half an hour since Ron had descended into the bowels of the building and time was getting on.

Back in the reading room there was no sign of life.

He decided to go and find Ron himself, hurry him up, get an estimate for how long it would take. He walked across the reading room to the double doors through which the attendants disappeared when they retrieved an order. Nigel had always wondered what lay behind them. A vast cavernous hall stacked with shelf upon dusting shelf of yellowing files? He opened the door and stepped on to the landing of a brightly lit staircase. In front of him was a lift.

He pushed the button and it opened immediately.

He half expected Ron to step out, clutching his microfilm or file. But it was empty. He entered and looked for the list of buttons on the wall. There was only one: B. He pressed it, the doors closed and with a slight judder the lift began its long descent.

It juddered once more when it hit the bottom, and with a weary clank the doors parted. Nigel was faced with an area with three exits: one ahead, one to the left, the other to his right. Which to choose? The window of each door was frosted, so he could not peer through. There was no light behind the glass on either side, but the path ahead appeared to be lit. Ron must be down there, he thought.

He opened the door to a long corridor, its walls uninterrupted by doors or windows. At the far end was another double door. Nigel hesitated. What if Ron wasn’t down here? What if he was upstairs wondering where the hell Nigel was? He should turn back. But, no, he was certain Ron was down there and he needed those newspapers. He started to walk, his footsteps the only sound.

He reached the door, dark green and swinging

slightly on its hinges. He pushed at it slowly and was immediately hit by the unmistakable, sweet waft of ageing paper and dust. But the area beyond was inky black. Funny, he thought. If Ron is down here, then why isn’t the light on? The corridor light behind him was on, the only source of illumination. He shrugged and stepped through into the darkness. He reached with his left hand to the wall inside the door. His hand touched something cold and hard. Steel, he thought. He patted the area around the door hinges, finally locating a switch. He turned it on.

It took him a while to fully realize the dimensions of the room in front of him. Then he saw that it was a long, low tunnel. He looked up. He was an inch under six feet tall, yet the ceiling could not have been more than two feet above him. There were metal shelves either side from floor to ceiling, containing bound volumes of various newspapers. He thought of Ron and smiled. How did he fit down here? He must weigh twenty stone. Perhaps that’s why he had taken so long. Perhaps, like an adult Augustus Gloop, he had become wedged in one of these tunnels.

Nigel knew enough about the newspaper library

to realize that this was one of the four storage units.

These were more than 260 feet long. Nigel believed it: he was unable to see the door at the far end. But he could see rows and rows of files. This is what becomes of yesterday’s news, he thought. Not wrapping chips, but bound together in silent volumes in this tomb.

There was the sound of a door shutting. Ron, he thought. He called his name out, though it emerged only as a hoarse whisper, which caused him to cough, choking on the dust generated by twenty-eight miles of shelf. When he finished, there was silence.

‘Ron,’ he said, louder this time.

No reply. Had the sound of the door closing come from behind or in front? It was difficult to tell. It must be the front, he decided. He peered down the long tunnel in front of him, waiting to see Ron’s bovine figure heave into view.

Another door closed. That was definitely in front of him. He stepped away from the door at his back and called again. His uneasiness increased. I should have stayed upstairs and waited, he told himself. The door behind him opened without noise, but he sensed it, a waft of musty air at his back. He spun around.

‘Shit!!/’ he screamed.

Ron dropped the microfilm boxes he was clutching to his chest.

‘Jesus,’ he said, putting his hand on his heart.

Nigel held his hands up, more out of reflex than anything else. For a few seconds, neither man could speak.

Ron broke the silence. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he said, his face turning from surprise to anger.

‘I came looking for you,’ Nigel said eventually.

‘I thought you … I don’t know what I thought, actually.’

‘You scared the crap out of me,’ Ron said.

He bent down and collected the microfilm boxes.

Nigel helped him. When the boxes had been located and picked up, both men looked at each other.

‘Sorry,’ Nigel said. ‘I’m a bit jumpy. Like I said, don’t know what I was thinking.’

Ron shrugged. ‘Well, promise me you’ll leave the collecting to me, eh?’

Nigel nodded.

Ron handed the films over to him. ‘But you can

take these up,’ he said. ‘I need a fag after that.’

Nigel made his way back to the reading room

with the reels. He delved first into the Evening News, finding reports on each of the murders, each filling increasing space as a connection between them was made. But in the report of the third murder, and the shock and fear it had spread throughout Kensington - or ‘dread and consternation’, as the Evening News described it - there were no further details on the location of the body, only mention of it being found near Notting Hill station. He checked the next day’s paper to see if any more mention was made. While there was a large report about how terrified local residents were, again no exact location was given.

He loaded the Evening Standard. It was as if the same reporter had penned both sets of articles; they were identical in detail and length. He scanned every report, soaked up every word, but there was nothing new for him to pass on to Foster. He sat back and rubbed his eyes. He checked his watch; an hour had passed in seconds, peering at the dimly lit screen in a dark booth. He noticed the familiar signs of a headache settling in behind his eyes, and he decided to go outside and grab some air to clear his head.

He told Ron, who was back at his station.

‘I’ll join you, mate,’ Ron said jovially, obviously having forgiven him for his trespass. ‘Need another fag.’

Nigel had put his coat on. Ron wandered down in just his T-shirt. Outside the front entrance, he lit his cigarette while Nigel watched a few cars flash past, not interested in a roll-up. He pulled his mobile from his pocket and switched it on.

No new messages. Not that he expected to be the first person to be told when they arrested the killer.

‘Low battery’ flashed up on his screen. He cursed himself for failing to charge it that morning and turned it off once more to save what little power he had.

‘How’s it going?’ Ron asked, exhaling with force.

Nigel looked at him apologetically.

“I know you can’t tell me the details, but you can tell me whether it’s going well, can’t you?’

‘It’s going … OK. Just got microfilm eyes,

that’s all.’

Ron nodded in sympathy. ‘You know how they used to get the papers flat enough so they could be filmed?’

‘Can’t say I do.’

‘Iron. Used to have a team of women that flattened them with domestic irons.’

‘Really?’

‘Straight up,’ Ron replied and took another enormous, loud drag on his cigarette.

Nigel realized he had to get more specific in his search. ‘I need the Chelsea Times,’ he said.

‘I’ll get down there and get it for you once I’ve finished smoking this,’ Ron offered. ‘Might take me a while, though. It’s not life or death, is it?’

Nigel smiled. ‘It could be.’

Foster was in his car, reliving the memory of the previous Sunday in Avondale Park in Notting Dale when he’d been called to the scene of the tramp’s death. There had seemed little remarkable at the scene when he first arrived there. The rain had fallen steadily throughout the night, and he remembered the trees appeared to be bowing under the weight of water. The tramp had been found hanging from the frame of a children’s swing, though he had been cut down by the attending officer in a vain attempt at resuscitation, so Foster did not see the body in situ.

He’d been back to the office and collected some pictures. The rope, the swing, the tramp’s body, the area around the scene. None of it looked in any way out of the ordinary. The rope had been sent to forensics for examination and Carlisle had been summoned to do a second postmortem. Foster had called the park keeper, who had found the body at dawn, and been assured, as he had been the previous week, that no one had witnessed anything strange or different the day or night leading up to the body’s discovery. Yet the park had been closed at five p.m., which meant the killer must have dragged or hauled the body into the park by some means. Foster had walked around the park perimeter and could see no obvious way in.

The question that bothered him was: Why was

there no stab wound? Barnes had told him that all three victims in 1879 had been stabbed. So why hang the first one?

They needed an ID. He had asked for dental

records to be prepared and compared against those on the missing persons database, but that would take time. So, here he was in his car, kerb-crawling through the streets of Ladbroke Grove and Notting Hill, armed with a stack of pictures of a dead man. He started by St John’s Churchyard. Pieces of police tape attached to the railings still fluttered in the wind. But the churchyard itself was empty.

He drove along Portobello Road; the market

stallholders had long since packed away their stalls, though the detritus of a busy Saturday still littered the road. He parked up when he reached the railway bridge, at the northern, darker end of the street. It was here the winos liked to hang out, in and around the alleys, buildings and dark corners that constituted life under the Westway.

He checked Acklam Road, a pedestrianized street running parallel to the overhead motorway. There was no sign of anyone, homeless or not. He crossed back over Portobello and walked beside the Westway towards Ladbroke Grove. There was a small park called Portobello Green, a haven for local workers eating their lunch by day, and for the chaotic and confused drifters drinking fortified wine by night. He pushed the gate that led into the park, and heard it creak. From the other side he could hear voices, people laughing and shouting. As he got closer he could see a group of homeless gathered around one park bench, falling quiet as he drew near, recognizing him as trouble.