The Blood Detective (20 page)

‘Well, find that out. But there may be no need

to dwell on it too long. Between me, you and the gatepost they’ve got someone in custody.’

Like Foster, Nigel could not decide whether he

felt elated or disappointed.

‘But we still need to plough on and dig out what we can,’ Foster continued. He paused. ‘Tell you what, I’ll ask them to let you stay there longer. But they won’t have anyone to bring you what you need, so you’ll have to make do with what you have. Send me photocopies of anything significant you find out about the trial. But don’t pull an all-nighter or anything like that. Chances are, we’ll need you tomorrow.’

That was fine with Nigel. He just wanted to reach the end of this newspaper narrative. The thought of leaving it now, albeit only overnight, was agonizing.

The trial had lasted just three days: two for the prosecution to open and present their case, half a day for the defence - defendants were not allowed to give evidence on their own behalf — and a further half a day for the judge’s summation. While the first two days had been given acres of coverage in the two newspapers Nigel was relying on, the third was not; the defence case amounted to little more than a half-hearted plea for innocence from a barrister and a former employer of the accused, who said he was a man of simple yet good character. It merited a few paragraphs only. These were set against a litany of prosecution witnesses, who attested to the accused’s drunken, violent nature, and the pages their testimony garnered. If the newspaper was to be believed, there could be only one verdict.

On the evening of the third day the jury retired, reaching a verdict within twenty minutes. The judge, one eye no doubt on the fact that the edition deadlines of the newspapers had passed, delayed until the next morning. Nigel could only wonder what that night was like for the condemned man — the dragging agony.

The next morning the courtroom was awash with

people. Of the two reporters, the News of the World’s intoxicated, excitable representative best conveyed the exquisite tension of what happened next.

Every pair of eyes were on the dock. No event took place for what appeared to be an eternity, until the sound of a door opening below and the shuffle of feet on wooden steps indicated Fairbairn was on the way to his assignation with fate. The collective breath of the crowd was audible as the prisoner loped into the view of the galleries. This time, the first occasion during this trial, there were no cries, no declamations. Only silence unbroken. As always his gaze was to his feet, but once did Fairbairn raise his head and look towards the gentlemen of the press crushed into a single gallery. For all the world he looked as if he would speak to us, that the mute would break his silence and offer a sign of the obvious turmoil which raged within that gigantic cold heart. Yet there came only a heavy, baleful stare that communicated little, until his eyes settled back on his boots once more.

The clerk of the court appeared and all attentions were focused on the bench where Mr Justice MacDougall would take his seat for this final act. Breathless silence continued to reign, so much so that a pin could have been heard to drop, but it was broken with a gasp of such volume one would think that it had been rehearsed by the company present. The act that had brought forth this collective sound of wonder was the clerk’s placing of the black cap on the bench in front of where the judge would sit. My eyes went to the accused, to gauge his reaction at the sight of that awesome piece of apparel that indicated his terrible end. He was still peering down in front of his body, perhaps contemplating the abyss into which his mortal body would soon be launched.

The judge entered the court, resumed his place and asked the foreman of the jury if a verdict had been reached. The foreman answered in the affirmative and, when asked what that verdict was, replied ‘We have agreed that the accused is guilty’.

The clerk asked the customary question whether the man had anything to say before the sentence of death was passed. At last that huge face lifted from its earthly gaze and another gasp issued forth from those around. In a voice low and doleful, barely audible, Fairbairn at last loosed his tongue.

‘I never done the thing,’ he murmured, and that was all the pitiable creature could muster.

As was usually the case, the execution was fixed three clear Sundays after the sentence had been passed. But there was no sign of interest waning in the story: the next day The Times in a leader pronounced itself pleased with the verdict, and congratulated the prosecution for offering such a compelling case.

Nigel’s eye was also caught by another report of a gruesome killing in North Kensington. Under the headline ‘Man Slays Family’ was a short report of a man named Segar Kellogg, who had slit the throat of his wife, stabbed his son and then smothered his two daughters before turning the knife on himself. The son, the story said, was still alive though in a grave condition. The surname delighted Nigel: he came across it rarely. It was an occupational surname given to slaughtermen in Essex. John killed hogs. When the time came for a name to differentiate him from other Johns, he was named John Killhog. Over the centuries this had become Kellogg. How appropriate, Nigel thought grimly, that a man bearing that name had slaughtered most of his family.

Subsequent articles in the News of the WorldConcentrated on the daily comings and goings of the condemned man. There appeared to be incredulity at the lack of a confession — Nigel knew it was customary for newspapers and periodicals to print special editions with the repentant ramblings of condemned men and women — and the view appeared to be that Fairbairn was harbouring secrets so dark that he was afraid to unburden himself. Others noted that he insisted on his innocence to whoever visited his cell.

His mood was described as ‘serene’, yet elsewhere as ‘dark and morbid’. The Sunday before his execution the News of the World appeared to have grown weary of his reluctance to confess all, and carried barely a paragraph about him. It did note that an application had been made by the Royal College of Surgeons for Fairbairn’s body to be submitted to them for dissection and study, a matter which was under the consideration of the Home Secretary.

Fairbairn was led to the gallows, only once faltering in his step. The executioner, Norwood, and his subject then shook hands. Fairbairn was asked whether he wished to say any final words. He turned to the selected reporters and said: ‘I never done the thing.’

Fairbairn died instantaneously, so the reports suggested, though, as was customary, his body was left on the scaffold for one hour before being taken down and transported to the Royal College of Surgeons.

Nigel stumbled out into the approaching twilight, after faxing what he’d found over to the incident room, and made his way to the tube, the details and events of the trial and execution replaying in his mind over and over. For some reason he felt immense sorrow for the dumb, child-like mute who had

received the ultimate punishment. He thirsted to know more, to immerse himself in greater detail. A glance at his watch told him no archive would still be open. Instead, that evening, he would have to throw himself on the mercy of the Internet. Surely such a momentous set of murders, the trial and its aftermath would still ripple down the years?

This hunger for more knowledge grew keener

during the hour it took him to reach his flat in Shepherd’s Bush. He was puzzled by Foster’s silence, but figured the detective had been detained by other business. Perhaps they had caught the killer. Nigel did not actually care; his interest had been pricked by the events of 1879. He wanted to discover as much as he could to satisfy his own curiosity. He booted up his computer before he had even removed his jacket or put his bag on the floor. As soon as it came to life, the luminescent screen providing the only source of light in his flat, other than the remains of the day shining weakly through his window, he sat down and opened his Internet connection, typing the name ‘Eke Fairbairn’ into his search engine.

Two pages. Twenty-seven results. Is that all, he thought? He had expected more. It was as if what he had read and learned that day had vanished, airbrushed out of history.

He checked the results. Nearly all were linked to sites connected to the Hunterian Museum, housed within the Royal College of Surgeons. According to the first hnk he followed, the museum’s collection of anatomical exhibits included the skeletons of several criminals who had been dissected following execution. Among them was that of ‘murderer Eke Fairbairn’. So Fairbairn’s body was on actual display?

Another look confirmed it was. He checked

the museum’s opening times: nine the following

morning. He sat back and rested his hands behind his head. Tomorrow he was going to meet the Kensington Killer.

Foster threw his jacket on the kitchen table and filled a glass of wine to the brim. It had taken him and Heather the entire evening to doorstep the first five floors of the tower block, twenty flats of surly men and women with a reflexive suspicion of the police.

They had not seen anything out of the ordinary in the past few days, nor anyone new moving in. Even if they had, Foster sensed he’d be the last to know.

He had had to co-opt DC Khan for the next day,

but it still meant another forty-eight hours going door-to-door. The exact time they had before the killer was due to deliver his fourth victim.

It had taken five killings for the police in 1879 to bring the murderer to justice. This time he wanted it to stop at three.

He went to his jacket pocket and pulled out a

folded envelope. Inside were copies faxed by Barnes of newspaper reports of the 1879 trial. Foster sat down at the table and began to read. Soon, tiredness crept in. He grew weary of having the trial filtered through the lens of a Victorian hack. He wanted to learn the details first-hand, assess the evidence himself.

He called Barnes and left a message, asking if

the original court transcripts were available and to contact him first thing in the morning. Some clue as to why this was happening would be in there.

He stood up and stretched. He walked through to the lounge and wondered what to do with himself.

This house had long since stopped being a home; it was more a place in which he rested and refuelled. It had always been like that, ever since his father’s death.

Eight years in which he had shut down every part of his life apart from work.

He wondered what his dad would make of this

case. When he first became a detective, shortly after his father had retired, Foster would go through current cases with him, get his opinion, his hunches, ideas on where to look next. His dad would give examples of tough cases he’d cracked, but would always warn against making assumptions: ‘Nearly every mistake that I know of has been made when people start seeing what they want to see, not what’s actually there.’ Foster always emerged from those conversations with a sense of purpose, a plan of action.

For the first year or so following his father’s death, he still heard his voice. He held conversations in his head, outlining the problem, the sticking point, his father’s voice responding in its usual economical way.

But it faded, began to wane. He could conjure up images of his father, and occasionally he would hear him speak. But, when he sat and consciously tried to bring him to mind, he was out of reach. The voice merged into others, those of colleagues, friends. The past had slipped away.

But if he ever needed the sage words of his father, it was now. Could he get it back? Rebuild his father’s memory? Can you summon a voice back from the void?

He went to the bureau, unlocked it and lifted the lid. There it still all was, exactly as it had been left.

He had done this countless times, picked up the paperweight, stared at the pictures, then closed the bureau again. But this time he decided to go further.

He looked at the picture of himself as a boy, with his mum on Camber Sands. It brought back no memory; he had been only two. These people were strangers. Neither of his parents was interested in photography, and few pictures existed of him and his sister. Yvonne, he thought, a memory stirring.

Not a pleasant one either. She lived on the other side of the world with her family; he hadn’t seen or spoken to her since the funeral. She blamed him, not only because of what he did, but for not including her, consulting her. He remembered the last words she had flung at him before she walked

away from the church, as the rain slanted down in sheets.

‘One day I will forgive you. But right now that day seems a long, long way away.’

He knew it was down to him to re-establish some sort of contact, to bring that day forward, but the longer he left it the more difficult it became. He winced and cast the image and the anger in her voice to one side, returning to the photo of his younger self at the seaside. Still, no memory came.

There was always one memory he could not erase.

His father, frail and pale, lying on his bed, a monumental weariness seeping from every pore. It had overridden the figure of his youth. The tall, rigid man, not an ounce of fat on him - unlike Foster, whose excesses and indiscipline had bestowed a tyre of fat around his middle. His father did everything with economy: drank, ate, slept. His emotions too; all was confined and controlled.

Foster put the picture back down and rooted

through some papers. A few paid bills, an invitation to a Met dinner, other trivial day-to-day correspondence, none of which bore his father’s imprint or any semblance of his soul.

His mobile, bursting to life, broke this bout of introspection.

‘It’s Drinkwater.’

‘How’s it going?’

Drinkwater paused. ‘Well, it’s going. Where are you?’

Foster noted his young colleague’s hesitancy. ‘At home. You get a starring part in the Terry Cable interview?’

‘I sat in for a bit.’

‘What’s your gut feeling?’

Again, Drinkwater paused. ‘He fits the profile; he’s got previous for violence, including sexual assault, which fits in with the Dammy Perry killing.’