The Patient Killer (A DCI Morton Crime Novel Book 4) (28 page)

It was by happy accident rather than design that Doctor Byron Carruthers was taken to Her Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh.

Belmarsh was a Category A prison, home to the violent and the criminally deranged (though not the legally insane). Murderers, rapists and other high-security prisoners were locked down in blocks one and two of the facility, many of them remaining cell-bound twenty hours or more per day.

Alongside those condemned souls were the more run-of-the-mill prisoners and a large proportion of remand prisoners who were awaiting trial. They were housed in the still grungy, but much less dangerous blocks three and four.

Carruthers was destined for block four. Before he could go there, he had to endure the repetitive, paperwork-heavy and privacy-light intake procedure. For the past two hours he had filled out forms in triplicate, and had answered a lengthy interview on the same questions, before finally his prisoner number was allocated.

‘Finally,’ the man in charge of intake asked, ‘do you have any gang affiliations?’

Carruthers fixed him with a stare. ‘Only the British Medical Council. Do they have a posse in here?’

‘The... the what?’

‘The British Medical Council. We’re currently engaged in a war with the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers. They go by “the Quantum Crew” in here, or so I’m told. If you could make sure I’m not cellmates with any of their lot, it’d save me a shanking.’

‘Right... I’ll just write down none. That’s it for this stage of intake.’

‘Does a nice hot supper await me?’

‘I’m afraid you’ve got a strip search and photographs to go yet. I’ll take that bag from you now.’

The Prison Officer indicated Carruthers’ bag of personal belongings, which Carruthers punted over to him with his foot.

‘Thanks. You know we will destroy anything in this bag that’s on the list of prohibited items, don’t you?’

‘Isn’t it a bit late to tell me that now?’ Carruthers said. ‘There goes my favourite rifle.’

‘You’ve got a
gun
in here?’

‘Of course I don’t. What kind of idiot do you take me for?’

The first prison officer left. He was replaced by another in short order, and Carruthers was ordered to strip down to his boxers. He did so quickly, revealing a scarred body with white lines criss-crossing his torso and chest. The guard’s eyes lingered on the scars for a moment.

‘I do apologise,’ Carruthers said smugly. ‘It’s a little chilly in here.’

‘Very funny, wise guy.’ The prison officer bagged up his clothing. ‘You’ll get these back if you’re released.’

‘When, not if.’

‘They all say that. Here.’ The guard tossed over a bag of prison clothing. ‘Get dressed. One last question before we get you settled. Do you have any healthcare needs?’

‘Finally, something I’m interested in. I’d like to see the prison doctor, if you don’t mind. I fancy an upgrade to a bed in the hospital wing. And can you manage a turndown service?’

W
ednesday May 6th 09:00

‘Boss, we’re going round in circles,’ Ayala complained. ‘We can’t do it.’

‘You want to give up, then? Call it a day and move on?’ Morton said.

‘Yes. He’s going to be charged for several incidences of Human Tissue Act offences. He could get ten years for each. He’s old. Is it really going to make a difference?’

Ayala had a point. The doctor was both old and sick. ‘It might. He’s only being charged with a single specimen count. We don’t know how long he’ll be sentenced to, if they’ll find him guilty, or how long he’ll live. Even if it weren’t going to make a difference, I’d still need to find out. The families deserve justice.’

Rafferty interjected herself between them. ‘Boys, I’ve got an idea.’

‘Let’s hear it,’ Morton said.

‘When Primrose Kennard’s body was found, we thought it was her sons who murdered her.’

‘They didn’t act like innocents.’

‘The killer seemed to know her. Her body was dumped on her husband’s grave. How would Carruthers have known where it was?’

Of course. ‘He followed her.’

‘Bingo,’ Rafferty said. ‘And he would have had to follow her into Highgate Cemetery proper. You can’t see the grave from the road.’

‘And if he was stalking Kennard, then he must have been stalking the others, too,’ Morton said. ‘He knew where they lived. He knew that Kennard made daily visits to her husband. Rafferty, you’re a genius.’

‘I know,’ she said immodestly. ‘We can’t put Carruthers at the crime scenes on the day of each murder, but can we put him there before the victims died?’

‘Hmm,’ Morton mused.

‘What are you thinking about? Witnesses? Roisin Weir, the cemetery guide – she might have seen him.’

‘She might. We can do one better. They’ve got CCTV on the entrance to Highgate. Now we’ve got a firm suspect, it’s a simple case of working our way back until we find whichever day Carruthers visited on. Ayala, I want you to go examine the tapes.’

‘He could have visited months ago!’ Ayala protested. ‘That’s thousands of hours of footage!’

‘Not my problem. Besides, you can cut down on most of the work. Primrose Kennard was a creature of habit. She visited old Hubert’s grave at the same time every day. If you check the CCTV for then, Carruthers won’t be far behind. Now, go.’

Ayala left the room in a huff.

‘Hogge... what CCTV is there near her house?’

‘There isn’t any,’ Rafferty said. ‘I checked.’

‘So, we need an actual witness.’

‘Her boy-toy?’

‘You mean her victim.’

‘He didn’t think of himself that way,’ Rafferty said.

‘Carter Gould is a teenage boy. Of course he thinks any opportunity to get laid is wonderful. That doesn’t stop it being abusive, wrong and illegal. She used her position of authority to cajole him into the bedroom,’ Morton said.

‘She used her tits to cajole him into the sack. The kid wanted it. She was only six years old than him.’

‘I can’t believe you’re arguing with me over this. If genders were reversed, then you’d be agreeing with me, wouldn’t you?’

Rafferty glared. ‘Maybe.’

‘Maybe...’ Morton trailed off.

‘Maybe what?’

‘Maybe,’ Morton said slowly, ‘that’s the connection.’

‘They’re all sleeping with Carter Gould?’

‘No. They’re all doing something wrong. Think about it. Amoy Yacobi was a known smuggler. His exploits were public news, and his criminal convictions were a matter of public record. Primrose Kennard was a shoplifter. Niall Stapleton was in the middle of a robbery when he was killed.’

‘And Hogge was sleeping with a student,’ Rafferty said.

‘These are vigilante murders. He’s on a moral crusade.’ Morton flashed back to his conversation with Carruthers, when he had asked the doctor why he had saved Ebstein:
He didn’t deserve to die.
‘He’s killing people who he thinks don’t deserve to live.’

***

T
he cameras belonged to the church. They were discreetly positioned near the guard house at the Swain’s Lane entrance, with the footage being digitised and backed up in case of trouble.

There had been break-ins over the years. Before the current security measures were put in place, kids used to run amok, drinking and smoking.

It didn’t take long for Ayala to obtain the footage he needed. The church agreed to allow him access as soon as they had authenticated that he was who he said he was, and they even found him space inside the guard hut to watch the footage on his laptop.

It was boring work. The cameras only covered a narrow angle which went from one side of the gate to the other. It was easy to see who was coming in and out of the cemetery, but the view of the pavement beyond was poor. Pedestrians and cars zoomed through the gates during open hours, but the only movement on the street outside the grounds caught on film were feet wandering past at the top of the frame; the cameras didn’t see far enough to get anything more in the shot.

Kennard appeared like clockwork. Nearly every day at nine o’clock, Ayala saw her coming into the cemetery with flowers, and then she’d leave without the flowers half an hour later. She must have tossed the old flowers in one of the cemetery’s bins on the way out.

Ayala worked backwards from the most recent footage to the oldest. After the first few hours of footage he became restless. Even at 30x speed, it was drudgery.

Then he saw him. Carruthers hadn’t followed Kennard in after all; Morton was wrong. Carruthers was too smart to follow a little old lady at close distance. It was obvious Carruthers knew which way she went after entering Highgate. Perhaps he had seen her enter the cemetery, but stopped following once she was inside.

The doctor had returned on his own. It was nearly a month before Kennard’s murder. If he had known her schedule was so regular – and, given that he had been stalking her for weeks before her death, he would have – then he could simply have looked for the grave she was visiting on his own.

The doctor left again an hour later. It would have been child’s play to seek out a gravestone marked
Kennard
.

The doctor was stalking the victims before they died. It didn’t make him a murderer, but it certainly looked suspicious.

W
ednesday May 6th 13:00

There was no evidence that Amoy Yacobi had been stalked. If it had happened, the transgressions had long since been condemned to history.

Stapleton was a dead end too. His murder seemed almost impulsive when compared to the others, though no less meticulous. The denizens of Hatton Garden permitted PC Buchanan to check, but there was no sign that Carruthers had visited Hatton Garden in the weeks before the murder. But then again, there was no sign that the victim had ever been there before, either – and, given the circumstances, it seemed to fit that it had been Niall’s virginal visit to the area.

The only other hope of building a stalking case was to connect Carruthers to Olivia Hogge.

Morton found Carter Gould at his home. The boy was on study leave before his final exams, and it was with great reluctance that his grandmother allowed Morton to disturb him.

Carter’s room didn’t look as Morton had expected it to. There were no piles of dirty laundry on the floor, nor were the walls adorned with posters.

‘Nice room.’

Carter looked up from his maths textbook. ‘Uh... thanks?’

‘Do you remember me?’

‘Yeah, I remember you, brah. What do you want?’

‘I need you to look at some pictures.’

‘Did you find the guy? The one who offed Ms Hogge? I’ll say whatever you want me to say.’

‘That won’t be necessary. I’m going to show you six photographs. I need you to tell me if you recognise any of them.’ Morton pulled up an e-fit app on his phone and began to show Carter the photos.

‘Him!’ Carter said when Carruthers’ mug shot appeared. ‘I saw that guy, bruv. He was this creepy older dude with a weird vibe. I thought he was trying to chat up my girl.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yeah. Did I get him? Is that the guy what killed Ms Hogge?’

‘I think so.’

Two out of four.

***

M
orton had an email from one of the guards at HMP Belmarsh when he got back to the office.

The prison officer didn’t have anything new to say, but he did confirm that Carruthers’ body was covered in scars. He included a photo by way of attachment, which Morton suspected a court might exclude on the grounds of privacy. Kieran could always subpoena the prison officer to appear in person to testify as to the scars if it came down to it.

The evidence was building. They had enough to make two stalking cases and infer that Carruthers had stalked all four victims. Everything was circumstantial, though, so a conviction wasn’t guaranteed. The biggest hurdle that remained was that Carruthers had been alibied by his wife every time. If even one juror believed Fenella Carruthers’ testimony that her husband had been with her on the nights of the murders, then he would get away with everything.

T
hursday May 7th 11:00

Morton had to take a second crack at her. He gathered all his evidence: the photographs of her husband’s body the prison officer had taken, a still from the CCTV footage of Carruthers at Highgate Cemetery that Ayala had found, and the witness statement of Carter Gould.

This time he found her at home. She reluctantly let him in and then eyed him curiously as he sat on the sofa.

‘Why do you keep trying?’ she asked.

‘Mrs Carruthers, I’m never going to give up on finding out the truth. I know your husband has lied to me, and he’s been lying to you too. He wasn’t at home those nights. He’s been out a lot lately, hasn’t he?’

‘He works late, that’s all.’

‘That’s not true, Mrs Carruthers,’ Morton said gently. ‘He’s barely been at the hospital at all for the last few months. He told them he was sick.’

‘He has been sick.’

‘Not too sick to stalk an elderly lady on her trip to visit her husband’s grave.’ Morton showed her three photographs in turn. The first was of Primrose Kennard entering Highgate. The second showed Fenella’s husband going in a few hours later.

‘And this is her now.’ Morton showed her the final photograph, which depicted Primrose Kennard lying face-down on her husband’s grave. ‘He killed her, and he dumped her in the cemetery. That’s what you’re covering up.’

‘I’m... not...’

‘Yes, yes, you are,’ Morton said.

‘He could have any reason to go into a cemetery. That doesn’t prove anything.’

‘Then, let me show you more evidence. This is a witness statement from Carter Gould. His... girlfriend, Olivia Hogge, was murdered. Carter saw her being stalked by your husband. He positively identified him in a line-up,’ Morton said. He omitted saying anything about Hogge’s conduct; she didn’t need to know about that.

Fenella’s eyes began to well up. ‘It can’t be. He wouldn’t,’ she pleaded.

‘He did.’ Morton showed her one more photograph – the picture of her husband’s scars. ‘Look at those scars. There’s one there where his kidney was taken out. He gave that to Doctor Isaac Ebstein. Ebstein became his accomplice, and he’s since confessed. The scar on his chest is from a lung lobe being removed. That was transplanted into Primrose Kennard before he killed her. And the bone marrow removal scar is from his donation to Olivia Hogge. He killed her, too. Byron has killed at least four people. Help us. Do the right thing. He’s not the man you married anymore.’