The Blood Detective (31 page)

‘That’s enough conversation for now,’ he said.

Foster heard him pull a line of tape from the roll.

He tried to turn his head but couldn’t prevent it being strapped over his mouth. He felt a hand on his chest.

He watched as the killer pulled back his fist and slammed it into his side. He felt the air escape from him in a rush, a stabbing pain in his ribs. His body, acting on instinct to protect itself, attempted to twist away, aggravating his other wounds. Another punch landed on the same area as the first. It felt like a hot knife was being thrust between the muscles of his ribs. The area burned.

Make this end, Foster said silently, plaintively to a God in whom he had never believed.

Nigel discovered that Esau Kellogg had changed his surname to Hogg. He’d got married and tried to forge a new life at a house in a notorious slum on the outskirts of Kensington. The couple had two children but, two years after the second was born, Esau ended his life at the end of a rope.

Nigel traced the bloodline, spinning through the generations as fast as possible. The line was weak, but it survived. He reached the present day. Only two descendants remained: a man, who would now be thirty, named Karl Hogg; and a woman of seventy-six named Liza. He had no address for Karl other than the house his parents had been living in when he was born. The last address he could find for Liza was more than forty years old. He would need Heather’s help if he was to track them both down.

Nigel called her to pass on what he’d found. She was on her way to Duckworth’s flat on the border of Islington and Hackney - to see if he was there, and to speak to him about the client he had mentioned, named Kellogg. Heather suggested Nigel meet her there and give her the details.

When Nigel arrived, Heather and Drinkwater,

faces taut, were in Duckworth’s small, ordered office.

There was no sign of him. Heather was holding an olive-green box file. She threw it down on the table for Nigel to look at. A white tab bore the printed name Kellogg. Nigel opened the crammed file. There was a series of brown paper document holders. The first was labelled with black felt tip: Darbyshire.

Inside were original copies of birth, marriage and death certificates, running from the 1870s - the marriage of Ivor Darbyshire, newspaper editor - to the present day. Nigel flicked through to the present.

There appeared to be around twenty living descendants.

Among their records he found the birth certificate of James Darbyshire.

‘The four others are in there. Including Foster,’

Heather said.

‘He knew.’

‘He found out,’ Heather said. ‘Read this.’

She moved the computer’s mouse, kicking the

machine back to life. As the screen brightened, Nigel could see the indexed contents of a folder. The cursor highlighted a document entitled ‘kellogg letter’. It was created on the Wednesday of that week. Heather double-clicked.

Dear Mr Kellogg,

It has been some time since I last heard

from you. I draw your attention to my

final invoice, which was sent to you with

your last batch of research and for which

I have yet to receive payment. I trust my

work met with your satisfaction.

While on the subject of my research, I

think we both know the reason you asked

for it. I have been reading the newspapers

and have noticed a striking connection

between the people you hired me to trace

and those who have been victims of the

serial killer in Notting Hill. It is not

for me to judge how people use the information

I provide them with. But, in this

case, I think my concern is justified.

With that in mind, I think we should perhaps

reconsider my fee and seek to increase

it sizeably. “I have contacts with

the police and national newspapers

agencies who would both be interested in

getting their hands on the information

that I have provided you with. Confidentiality

is sacrosanct in my business, and

is one tenet to which I strictly adhere.

However, in this case, the circumstances

are so extraordinary as to test that

belief. The ball is in your court.

Sincerely,

Duckworth

Nigel shook his head, unable to believe that Duckworth had attempted to blackmail the killer before approaching the police.

Actually, he could. Presumably the killer knew that, too, and had picked his stooge carefully.

‘We’ve found a post office box address to which he sent the documents. The owner is registered as a Mr Kellogg, 24 Leinster Gardens, W2. There’s a team on the way there now.’

‘Read me that address again,’ Nigel said.

Drinkwater repeated it.

‘Tell your team to turn back. That’s a fake address.’

‘How do you know that?’ Drinkwater said abruptly.

‘Because that’s a fake house.’

‘A fake house?’

‘When they built the Circle Line, they had to

demolish a whole load of houses on the route because it was built so near the surface. Most people were paid off and relocated, and their houses were then knocked down. The residents of Leinster Gardens were richer than some of their neighbours and had a bit more clout. They said, with some justification, that a railway track would ruin the line of the street.

The Metropolitan Company agreed to build a fake facade to disguise the fact that there was a big gap where numbers 23 and 24 had been.’

‘Shit,’ Heather said, with feeling. Then she asked, ‘How have you got on tracing the Hogg bloodline?’

‘I’ve found two living relatives.’

‘Let’s find them. Quick,’ Heather said. ‘At the moment they’re all we’ve got, and we’re running out of time.’

According to the electoral rolls, Karl Hogg’s last known address was a purpose-built flat nestling at the western end of Oxford Gardens, a blossom-lined street of four-and five-storey Victorian mansions, most of them long since carved up into flats for young professionals.

Nigel and Heather sprinted up to the third floor of a red-brick block that was out of keeping with the stately atmosphere of the rest of the street. They knocked on Hogg’s door. No answer. An elderly woman in a neighbouring flat was in. She confirmed that a Karl lived next door, but she knew him as Karl Keene. Two months ago he had taken away most of his furniture in a van, though he had returned a few times since. When she asked if he’d moved out, he said he was going away but would be around for the next few months.

‘Did he say where his furniture was?’ Heather

asked.

She shook her head.

‘Did he work at all?’

‘As far as I know, he worked from home most of

the time. He produced his own magazine and a few books, or he used to. He did a lot for the local history group. They’re based in the Methodist church on Lancaster Road. I know he used to give talks and produced things for them.’

They ran the short distance to the church. The

history group’s office was tucked around the back of the building, up a flight of stairs. A large woman in a huge pair of brown-rimmed spectacles sat behind a desk in a small room neatly arranged with books and files. She gave them a welcoming grin as they entered.

‘Can I help?’

‘We’re looking for Karl Hogg,’ Heather asked,

flourishing her badge.

The woman could not hide her shock. ‘Goodness,’

she said. ‘Karl? We haven’t seen him for a while, I’m afraid.’

‘How long’s a while?’

She took a deep breath and looked out of the

window. ‘A few months at least. To be honest, I think he’s got a bit bored with us. He became disillusioned.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Well, we’re just a small local history group. Most of our members are interested in finding out how their relations lived, and a number are interested in the influx of people who emigrated from the Caribbean, the history of Notting Hill Carnival, that sort of thing. Karl’s interests were more, well, idiosyncratic you might say.’

Nigel wandered over to a rotating wire stand featuring a few of the group’s publications. He turned it and saw a thick, bound booklet called ‘The Sound of the Westway’. The author was Karl Hogg. Inside he could see it was self-published; there was little emphasis on design and clarity, page after page of unbroken prose, no illustrations. A labour of love.

He scanned the list of contents. The book appeared to be a treatise on the dark underbelly of Notting Hill and the Dale. Stories of the Christie killings on Rillington Place, Jimi Hendrix’s death in a hotel off Ladbroke Grove, the Rachman landlord scandals, the race riots that plagued the area in the 1950s and 60s, the area’s role in the Profumo scandal, the declaration of independence by the residents and squatters of Freston Road, ‘Frestonia’, the spirit of anarchy and independence and otherness that manifested itself in the music of The Clash, who gave the booklet its title.

No mention of the Kensington Killer of 1879.

The woman manning the counter was still explaining why Karl Hogg had drifted away from the group.

‘He became obsessed with something he called psychogeography.

I have to say, it went right over the

heads of many of our members. He never quite got on to mystical ley lines running beneath the streets, but he was heading that way; it was all-consuming for him, the idea that this area was afflicted - or blessed — with all these past events and would continue to be. He was obsessed.’

Nigel had seen this happen before. Men (usually) traipsing the streets in search of some mythical London soul, convinced that parts of the city had characters and personalities that imprinted themselves on its inhabitants. Nigel had some sympathy for such theories: how else could you explain an area of London like Clerkenwell with its history of agitation and protest? He remembered standing at the site of 10 Rillington Place less than a week before, as the sun drifted down and night followed, yards away from where he had found Nella Perry’s body, and the familiar humbling feeling he knew so well: in the presence of history, on the site of an infamous event, picturing what happened there and how its repercussions still echoed down the years. He had sensed, even then, the killer knew all about the area’s history and notoriety, even revelled in it.

‘Where is he now? Do you know?’ he heard

Heather ask.

‘No one’s seen him. Only the other day we were

talking about it. How over the last two or three years he became a solitary soul. Before then, you used to see him in the pubs, on the street, walking, talking to everyone: he claimed to be listening to the music of the streets. But then he became withdrawn, odd. He had a few grand dreams and schemes, but they came to nothing.’

‘Any places he used to visit regularly? Local pubs, perhaps?’

‘The Kensington Park on the corner of Lancaster Road and Ladbroke Grove. Horrible, grotty pub, but he liked it. John Christie drank in there, he always told us, as if that was going to change anyone’s mind.

Other than that, his Aunt Liz lives in a tower block at the top of the Grove. He used to pay her visits.’

‘Thanks,’ Heather said, and turned to leave.

‘I did hear he’d taken a bar job.’

‘Where?’

‘The Prince of Wales.’

Foster came to, the drug wearing off, the pain rushing in, bursting through. He had watched while the killer had injected him. Was this the dose that ended his life? But he regained consciousness, a mixed blessing.

He tried to move his shoulder but was met with a burning flash of agony in his right wrist as he flexed his hand. He tried to cry out but the tape was in place.

‘I broke your right wrist and right ankle while you were out of it,’ Hogg’s reedy voice said. ‘You should thank me for sparing you that experience. Keep still.

We have only two more breaks, then this is over.’

Foster tried to remember where those wounds

would be inflicted by recalling the injuries inflicted on Eke Fairbairn, but his mind, scrambled by pain and narcotics, refused to concentrate on one thing for more than a few seconds. Any notion of time had long since gone.

He seemed to drift once more. When he returned, the tape had been removed. Foster, disoriented, muttered woozily. Each word was an effort. Hogg ignored him.

There was a muffled noise from behind one of the boxes.

‘Everyone is waking up,’ Hogg said.

Foster heard him opening a bottle of some description.

From the corner of his eye he watched as he

went behind the pile of boxes. He could hear a man groaning, the voice soft and confused. The killer let out a low shushing noise, then re-emerged syringe in hand.

‘Who’s in there?’ Foster said. There had been only five victims in the 1879 case. Was this a sixth?

‘It’s someone who gave me a helping hand over

the past few weeks. Unwittingly. Though he did grow to be suspicious. However, I picked him well: rather than running to the police, he demanded money for his silence.’ He smiled. ‘He’ll get his payment later.’

Foster fought to keep conscious. He guessed the fracture to his leg might be compound, the pieces of bone having pierced the skin. Without instant treatment it was probably well on the way to becoming gangrenous. Even if he got out of here, saving it was unlikely. He let his head rest back. Bound and drugged, his body broken and battered, he could see no escape.

‘Did you bring them all here?’ he asked. Foster wanted to know as much as possible. Not that it mattered now.

‘Except Ellis,’ Hogg said, out of sight. ‘I kept him at a place I rented. Cost me an arm and a leg in sedatives but it was worth it, though I got the dosage a bit wrong. Killed him before I had a chance to do it. You live and you learn. For the rest, this place was ideal: you can bring the van in, it’s secure, no prying neighbours and I’ve soundproofed it so no one can hear you scream.’

‘Were they all alive, like this, when you

‘Yes. On the same bed. Drugged, but they felt it.