Fifth Member Page 8

  ‘Who’s the boss around here?’ she said softly.

  ‘Believe it or not, he is. This is his patch, his nick. I’m just visiting, as it were, from Area.’

  ‘Oh, come off it, Gus! You’re the Superintendent on this case, you can decide how things’ll go. And I know your team is in on this case. I know you like to keep all your people happy, but there are limits. If you say I won’t be any use to you, fair enough, but –’

  He shook his head gloomily. ‘Oh, you’re useful enough, you old bag, as well you know. You’ve solved a couple of nasties in the past and I dare say you could bring some brain muscle in here, ’n all. It’s just not –’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ George said. ‘It’s not the usual thing to have the pathologist hanging around so much. Too bad. Now can we talk about what we should do next?’

  ‘Do I have a choice?’

  ‘Sure. Listen and find out or don’t and miss out.’

  ‘Some people call it feisty,’ he said to the ceiling. ‘I call it bloody big-headed.’

  ‘So I’m big-headed,’ she said. ‘It’s only because I’ve got a lot of brains in there. Can we talk about the case now?’

  He threw his hands up as though in despair and she grinned at him.

  ‘OK. Now, here’s the way I’ve been thinking. We’ve got two bodies so far, both showing close resemblances with the Ripper cases of over a hundred years ago. Now, what matters, I think, isn’t so much what matches in the MO, but what’s different.’

  He was listening, his head on one side and his eyes very bright. ‘The dog that didn’t bark?’

  ‘Kinda. And there were different time lapses between the Ripper cases and ours.’

  ‘I’m not sure I see what that has to do with –’

  ‘Nor am I. I’m just thinking aloud. Let me go with it, huh? OK, different time lapses.’ She reached into her pocket and pulled out a notebook and opened it. ‘Look, here we go. The first real Ripper murder happened in high summer: 31 August. There’d been a couple of nasty knifings of prostitutes in the spring of the year 1888, but they weren’t like the later versions and anyway, prostitutes were always getting themselves killed in those days. It was an occupational hazard.’

  ‘Still is,’ Gus murmured.

  She ran on. ‘So, 31 August. Then just over a week later, another. But then, around three weeks after that, a double event. Two on the same night, 30 September. After that pair, there was one more about six weeks later. They were all at weekends, by the way. Fridays or Saturdays or Sundays. And that was it.’

  ‘So?’ He was puzzled.

  ‘So, that’s one other difference from our cases. This is the end of October. Then there’s this business of displaying the genitalia on the shoulder –’

  ‘That really is horrible,’ Gus said with sudden violence, and George looked at him wryly.

  ‘I wonder if … Well, never mind.’

  ‘Wonder what?’

  ‘Would you be so put about if it was a woman? I know you hate all murders, truly I do, but I have to say you showed a bit of, shall we call it fellow feeling over what’s been done to these two guys.’

  He made a face. ‘I can’t deny it makes a man clamp his knees together when he thinks about it, but let’s not get into any of this man versus woman talk. Please?’

  ‘I agree,’ she said. ‘Back to the point. In fact it was only in one Ripper case that happened. The display of viscera, I mean. The first. After that, it was different. In three of the cases the genitalia were taken away altogether. In another the heart was removed, and in one there were no mutilations at all, apart from the slit throat, of course. Anyway, the total was that in one case genitalia – together with other viscera – were displayed on the shoulder. In two cases the uterus was removed altogether and was never found, and in others a heart and a kidney were removed. Although the mutilations were undeniably gross, the bit about displaying removed genitalia has kinda gone into folklore. Even I thought that had happened every time. It wasn’t till I read Paley’s book a second time and made some notes I realized I was wrong. Well, it seemed to me, maybe our killer has the same folklore in his head and that’s why he did what he did.’

  Gus shook his head and sighed. ‘Disgustin’ the way I make my living,’ he complained. ‘Why can’t I just be a jolly fish-and-chip shop bloke, and settle down to frying some nice bits of halibut and keep away from all this horror?’

  ‘Because you’re greedy and you want to do both,’ she said a little absently, still studying her notebook. ‘And you do. Gus, it seems to me that what our man is doing is making a statement. He’s not just out to gratify himself in some weird fashion the way the Ripper was. The way most serial killers are. He’s more –’ She stopped. ‘More calculating than that. He did what he did for effect.’

  ‘But serial killers always do it for effect!’ Gus protested, interested again. ‘Look at how often they send letters to the investigating police or phone up and taunt them, or send letters to newspapers.’

  ‘That’s part of the pleasure. They do that because they want to add to their underlying enjoyment. Which is the killing. In this case I’m not convinced the killings are done for pleasure. I think it’s more to do with making a statement or revealing a truth. Something.’

  ‘I think you’re jumping to conclusions,’ Gus said. ‘Our two victims are MPs, and because of that, you think political statement. And because you’ve been right about where we’d find the second body, you think you’ve got a political serial killer. But maybe there’s nothing political at all about these deaths, and no one’s trying to make any statement at all? Maybe these fellas cheated on their wives or screwed a friend out of money and that’s why they were killed? Why did they agree to go to the places where they died? We’ve not been able to identify any reason for either of these fellas to be in the East End, remember. And maybe we won’t find any more bodies. That’d smack your Ripper theory right on the head, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and lifted her head from her notebook. ‘We need more bodies, don’t we?’

  ‘Jesus!’ Gus said. ‘I thought my work had coarsened me, but you!’

  ‘I can’t deny I’m fairly comfortable around corpses,’ she admitted. ‘But that doesn’t mean I want people to be dead, if that’s what you’re implying.’

  ‘No, of course I’m not. It’s just that you sounded so dispassionate.’

  ‘I’m not really, just passionately interested in an academic way, which is different. And I’d like to stop the next killing if there’s one in the pipeline. Wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Does the Queen have problem children? Do me a favour! Of course, if there is one in it.’

  ‘I think there is. I’d like us – just you and me, not the whole damn force, which costs a bomb and’ll make Roop say horrible things if we don’t find anything – to go and do a bit of prowling on our own account. So far the killings have been close together. He – the killer – is ignoring the time lapses the original Ripper used. So let’s look now. You never know what we might find.’

  ‘Hmm,’ he said, looking over his shoulder into the incident room again. ‘We’d be quicker and maybe safer with a few bodies with us.’

  ‘And we’d be more likely to frighten off anyone who might be lurking around too,’ she said. ‘He could be getting ready to kill again, but if he sees a lot of Metropolitan flatfoots swanning around, it’ll send him off somewhere else where I can’t work out the address.’

  ‘What address?’ He stared.

  ‘Henriques Street, of course,’ she said. ‘As far as I can tell, comparing the old maps with the contemporary one, it’s where Berners Street used to be. And Berners Street was the site of murder three. Are you game?’

  8

  ‘I can’t really say,’ the barber said, setting the clippers to the neck of the man in front of him with a flourish of his wrist. ‘I ain’t here all the time. I just stand in for a mate when ’e goes off to an ’oliday. You’ll have to talk to people wha
t’re ’ere all the time.’

  Gus shifted his gaze to the mirrored reflection of the man in the barber’s chair. ‘Do you come here often?’ he asked.

  The man, thick necked, red faced and in his fifties with a skull that was shaved halfway up the back of his head, snickered. ‘I’m sittin’ this one out, ta.’

  ‘Very funny,’ Gus snapped. He reached into his pocket for his warrant card and flashed it at him. ‘Superintendent Hathaway, OK? And I’m not askin’ you for a bloody waltz, just a little chat.’

  ‘Well, how was I to know?’ the man said and slid his eyes sideways to look at George. ‘Saw the lady, like, and thought you was just – you know, nosin’ about.’

  ‘She is my colleague,’ Gus said, painfully aware of the fact that George had no warrant card and should therefore not really be taking part in police enquiries, not this way, anyway. ‘So. D’you know these parts well?’

  ‘Should do. Used to live ’ere. Before all the Pakis moved in and changed it all. So I’ve gone to Chigwell. Nice place, Chigwell.’

  ‘So why are you having your hair cut here?’ Gus demanded.

  ‘Cos I work ’ere, don’t I? Over in the Market. Got a nice little shop there – all done up fancy since the fruit and veg went, it is. And I like to go where they knows me, see? Can’t get a decent ’aircut in Chigwell.’

  Gus looked unbelieving. ‘But this bloke says he isn’t usually here, just standing in for a friend. So what are you doing here today?’

  The man in the chair sighed theatrically. ‘You can’t even ’ave a bleedin’ ’aircut these days without the filth getting interested, can you?’ he said to the barber’s reflection. ‘I ask you, you’d think they ’ad better things to do, wouldn’t you?’ He shifted his gaze back to Gus. ‘I didn’t know till I got ’ere that Alfie wasn’t here, OK? And I looked like a bog brush, it’s bin so long since I had an ’aircut. So I let Fred here do it, right, Fred?’

  ‘S’right,’ said Fred. ‘Only I’m Gary.’

  ‘Yeah, Gary. Whatever.’

  ‘I see.’ Gus pulled out his notebook and scribbled. ‘I’ll take your name and address if you don’t mind.’

  The man gave it sulkily, and Gus wrote it down, snapped the rubber band round his notebook and turned, ushering George in front of him. They left, banging the barber-shop door behind them. ‘Bloody fool, I am, letting ’em rile me,’ he muttered. ‘I didn’t mean to let on we were police at all. He just got up my nose.’

  ‘It’s all right. No harm done,’ George said soothingly. ‘I’d have been irritated too. Now where?’

  ‘Where’s left?’ Gus said gloomily. ‘We’ve been in and out of every corner there is down this miserable bloody street.’

  Indeed they had, buying things they didn’t want in scruffy tobacconists and sweetshops and groceries, and peering at ‘To Rent’ and ‘For Sale’ signs as though they were would-be tenants or buyers of the battered property they were admiring and, all the time, looking as carefully as they could into every corner and every doorway where it was possible that something or somebody might be hidden.

  The most obvious place had been the site next to the shop where they were now standing: a small piece of waste land covered with heavy foliage, branches and grass which was almost waist deep in places, fringed with massive bushes that added patches of gloom to the edges of the area. It looked like a perfect hiding place for any number of bodies, George had pointed out as soon as they’d seen it. There was even easy access via a section of broken wooden fence giving on to the street. But Gus had shaken his head.

  ‘Look at it,’ he said. ‘It’s been trampled all over. Our fellas went through with the proverbial nit comb when they were looking for CWG. If there’d been a body here they’d have found it.’

  ‘If it had been there at the time,’ George said, still looking over her shoulder at the waste ground. Somewhere across the other side a dog was barking and she had to raise her voice. ‘When did they stop searching?’

  ‘When we found CWG in Greatorex Street. That was, what? About twelve, I suppose. Before lunch, anyway.’

  ‘That’s right,’ she said slowly. ‘I did that PM in the afternoon, yesterday afternoon.’ She lifted her head then. ‘Gus, that dog sounds hysterical. Is it hurt or something?’

  Gus turned his head irritably. ‘I’ve got enough to worry about without being a branch of the RSPCA,’ he snapped, and then stopped, his eyes widening.

  ‘Yes,’ George said. ‘That was what I was thinking.’

  ‘Goddamn it,’ Gus said. He turned and went back into the shop, pushing the door open so violently that the barber whirled, clearly terrified. The man who had been in the chair was on his feet now, being brushed down.

  ‘You could have told me about the bloody lorry that was here yesterday afternoon!’ he roared. ‘There was one, wasn’t there? Or was it a van?’

  Gary stared. ‘Lorry? I didn’t see no lorry –’

  ‘You must have heard one, then. You can’t tell me you noticed nothing yesterday afternoon. On the waste ground.’ And he jerked his head to indicate the direction.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ the barber said in a resigned voice. ‘How often do I have to tell you? I didn’t see nothing out of the ordinary. There was no lorry and no van, I’ve told you.’

  ‘No cars parked there?’ George had come in behind Gus and couldn’t stop herself from asking questions. ‘Aren’t parking places popular round here? I’d think lots would use that patch.’

  ‘’Ow often do I have to tell you? I ain’t usually here!’ Gary sounded exasperated. ‘All I can tell you is there was no vehicles yesterday. All right?’

  ‘That dog.’ Gus shifted gear abruptly. ‘Was it barking yesterday?’

  For the first time Gary looked interested. ‘Barking? I’ll say it was. Driving me barkin’ too, it was. It wouldn’t shut up. It went on ’alf the night. I’m stoppin’ in Alfie’s flat upstairs this fortnight he’s away, so I heard it all night. Ruined me telly, it did. I had to turn it up loud and then the neighbours on the other side banged on the wall. Bleedin’ dog! Coulda killed the bugger, I could.’

  ‘What time did it start?’ George asked.

  ‘Eh?’ Gary rubbed his head, thinking. ‘’Ard to say. About … Let me see … I’d just popped down the bettin’ shop to pick up the winnings from the four-fifteen at Ripon. Nice little tip I had, at fourteen to one, come in lovely, and it wasn’t barkin’ when I went, but it was by the time I come back.’

  ‘Who was here while you were at the betting shop?’ Gus cut in. ‘And where can I find him?’

  Gary looked uncomfortable. ‘I’m on my own here. And, well, business was a bit slack so I took a chance. Put up a notice on the door and locked up. I wasn’t gone that long.’ He sounded defensive.

  ‘How long? Oh, come on, man. I don’t give a donkey’s fart how long you were gone. You can sort that out with your pal Alfie when he comes back. Just tell me what I need to know. How long?’

  ‘’Bout an hour, I suppose. It was a nice little win and I met a coupla mates and we went for a quick wet.’

  ‘And when you came back were there any cars parked then?’

  Gary crinkled his eyes, trying to remember, and then shook his head. ‘I didn’t notice. Didn’t look. Why should I? I didn’t even worry that much about the dog then. Like I said, why should I? But it went on and on. Didn’t stop till well after the pubs closed.’ He shook his head. ‘I was about to go out there with a hatchet, I swear, but I s’pose its owner heard it at last and come and fetched it. An’ now the bugger’s out barkin’ again. It’s enough to drive a man barmy.’

  The newly shaven skull beside him grinned. ‘You ought to live down our way, mate. They sell more muzzles there than anywhere in the country, I swear. All those Rottweilers and suchlike, making a row fit to burst. But it keeps the tea-leaves away, don’t it?’ And he nodded affably at George and Gus and made for the door.

  ‘I’ll be in touch if I need you,’ Gus said with a slightly omino
us air.

  The man winked. ‘I’m breathless waitin’,’ he announced and went, slamming the door behind him.

  Gus and George followed him out to the street and as the man turned to go stamping off up Henriques Street towards Commercial Road, Gus led the way to the edge of the waste ground. There was a low ridge between the pavement and the space itself, a row of bricks on which the broken fence had been set. Gus leaned over and looked on to the other side.

  ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘It won’t have been easy. See? The space is a good deal lower than street level. There are more courses of brick showing down there. So it’s about nine inches down: easy enough if a bit bumpy to drive in, but tricky as hell to drive out. You’d have to get a bit of a rev up to give it the power to mount that high step.’

  ‘Not if it was one of those big new cars that look like vans,’ George said. ‘You know the country sort people seem to use in London these days – what do they call ’em? Four-wheel-drive Range Rovers, Jeeps and Toyotas and so forth. They look like great boxes on wheels, with rails on their fronts.’

  ‘Bull bars,’ Gus said. ‘Mmm. I know what you mean. Yes, one of those’d manage it.’

  ‘Well, come on!’ George said, moving towards the fence, ready to climb through it to the space beyond. ‘Let’s get looking.’

  ‘Hold it. Eyes first, lady. Then we go in.’ He stood at the edge and stared round. ‘Tricky,’ he said after a while. ‘It hasn’t rained all week so the ground’s pretty hard. And that broken-down foliage and grass could have happened yesterday morning when our chaps were looking for clues. Hard to tell if there’s been any traffic this way since then. And I can’t see any of the sort of wheel tracks I’d expect if someone had come in here with one of those heavy four-wheelers. Or any other vehicle capable of getting itself out again.’

  He squatted then to look closely at the course of bricks at his feet. ‘There’s nothing here to suggest anything’s gone over, though here …’ He peered a little closer and then, to George’s complete delight, took a little leather case from his pocket and unsnapped it to reveal a small but powerful magnifying glass with a tiny, very bright bulb which lit up as he opened it out.