Dying to Meet You (11 page)

They were drinking coffee in the pier café by the bandstand after Laura had called her to meet up. Mel Goring viewed her elderly aunt across the table with affection and some trepidation.
She was wearing her long green silk kaftan with its scarlet and purple poppies, a turquoise bandanna which was struggling to keep in the mass of frizzy bright hennaed hair, and amber beads strung loosely round her thin neck which clinked musically like temple bells when she gestured expressively with her long thin arms. Once seen never forgotten, that was Laura Goring.

Mel put down her coffee cup and sighed. ‘I only wish I had made you tell me who it was. You really should have done, you know.’

‘I wish I had but I have a code of honour in my profession too, my girl. I do not divulge a client’s Tarot reading.’ She said shaking her head. ‘Not that Ellie would have taken any notice if we’d attempted to warn her beforehand. I dropped some hints that she should be very careful. All of us did. She was walking on air when she went off to meet him. It’s not the kind of publicity I want so don’t you dare write about it in your paper.’

‘She dated a stranger. She took the risk of meeting him. She was so young. Far too young to die. Promise me now, Aunt Laura, if you get any other young women who ask for your advice on meeting a stranger you will tell me right away. Promise?’

‘I promise. You have my word on it, Mel.’ Laura Goring said solemnly.

Mel hoped earnestly that she would keep it.

Thirty

‘This little girl appears to be another of this butcher’s victims,’ the Medical Examiner said. ‘She was strangled and raped.’ He shook his green capped head. ‘She was most probably a
virgin. Blood tests have shown that she was given a date rape drug.

‘
He used the long silver chain of the pendant to throttle her. Her neck has swelled up around it. I have it for you to examine. Looks like a similar one to those worn by the other victims.’

Farmer swore as he listened and studied the face of the girl lying on the table. ‘He had everything well thought out beforehand, didn’t he?’

Trask nodded. ‘If a date rape drug was used that could well be how he managed to get her into the park and keep her there without any fuss.’

Farmer nodded. ‘I have checked up on that. There is a small side gate in Upper Park Road that is not always checked or locked at night.’

‘I think we ought to bring in the barman from the Orchid Club, Jerome Connell,’ Farmer said. ‘Linda Handley looked him up on records a few days before she died. And he was in the casino the night that Jude Van Hoet was killed. He was charged with sexual assault and rape but they couldn’t get it to stick two years ago. So let’s get to know him a bit better, see if he has been molesting the girls down here. Find out his background.

‘Stalking was also mentioned on the report. A young woman who drank in the wine bar after work reported being stalked by him,
after she turned him down for a date and was phoned late at night till she changed her number to ex-directory.’

‘Do we know his home address?’

‘Lives in a bed sit on the East hill.’

‘Bring him in.’

Thirty-One

Sgt Bennett saw Mel Goring come in through the station doors and felt worried. She grinned. ‘Good morning, Sergeant Bennett.’

He smiled back at her. ‘And what can I help you with this morning?’

‘I would like to see DI Farmer if he’s available please.’

‘He’s busy. I’m not certain if he’s ready to talk to the press.’

‘Just give him my name
please.’

Bennett picked up the phone. ‘DI Farmer
... can you spare a few minutes for Ms Goring?’

Mel smiled as she watched his anxious face change quickly. She hoped she wasn’t making a big mistake coming in here. But she thought she ought to tell him what she had come up with so far
.

‘Ms Goring, the Inspector will see you now.’

‘Thanks.’ Swinging her hips she walked through the corridor and knocked on the office door.

Farmer put down the phone
and leaned forward in his chair. ‘Good morning, and what do I owe this visit to?’

She sat down. ‘Well I’ve had a good think since we spoke the other
evening and I’ve decided to do some work myself on catching the killer.’

He
saw the pendent she was wearing on a chain round her bare neck and his face changed from mocking amusement to anger.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing wearing that thing? Are you bloody stupid or what? You told me that you are an Aries!’

‘So what! Only you and I know that!’’

A knock came on the door, Trask and Calder looked in.

‘Going to pick up the suspect, guv,’ Calder threw a swift glance at Mel and smiled. ‘Good morning, miss.’

She smiled. ‘Good morning.’

‘You’ve got those photos of the Cooper girl, Trask. See if anyone saw her in the park or anywhere on the seafront Sunday evening.’

‘Okay, Nick
.’

The door closed behind them. Farmer turned to Mel. ‘I am not going to sanction what you’re doing. You must be crazy. You should leave it to us. If we needed anyone to do it we’d ask a policewoman. You’re obviously not thinking straight. Forget it.’ His voice was harsh. He really meant it.

‘That’s your opinion, not mine. I just thought I’d give you fair warning, that’s all. You can tell the rest of your officers if you wish what I intend to do. Perhaps you should tell Peterson too.’

He leaned forward their faces almost met. ‘I think you’re mad, Mel Goring. Bloody foolish if you like.
Those are my last words on it.’

‘You’ve already heard mine, Nick Farmer.’

She walked out of the station, head held high, angry tears stinging her eyes. She could have done with his assistance but if he was going to take it like this she could do without it. He wasn’t going to stop what she was about to do.

Thirty-Two

‘You’ve got someone waiting to see you, Mel,’ the young office temp Sylvie said as she came into the Newspaper office. ‘It’s a Mrs Temple.’

Mrs Angela Temple. Mel recognised her at once. She had last seen her at the inquest for Geraldine Temple ten days before when she had covered it for the
Observer
. She was Geraldine’s sister in law.

‘Mrs
Temple - what can I do for you?’

‘I hope you don’t mind me coming to see you. I came on behalf of myself and my husband. He’s the local vicar here for St Holy Trinity Church and his sister’s death could have received a great deal more publicity than it did, thanks to you, Ms Goring. You were kind to Geraldine and us in your article.’

‘I had a feeling that your sister in law enjoyed quite a bit of publicity over the years. Some good when she was working in the theatre and some not so good later on.’ Mel smiled reassuringly. ‘Your husband must have had ample cause to be worried about his sister.’

‘Yes, very…worried.’ She fidgeted with the clasp of the purse in her lap.

‘He knew of course about her connection with the Kaufmans?’

‘From the beginning.’ Mel saw the anxious look come back in her thin face.

‘Look - if I guarantee that I will never use what you say to me here I really would appreciate it if you can tell me how Geraldine came to know them?’

Angela Temple fidgeted with her purse some more for a moment or so. ‘She
was Erik Kaufman’s girlfriend up to ten years ago. She met him with her stage work. She was in a musical. I gather that he had put some considerable money into the theatre. He was what they call an angel I believe.’

Mel smiled
- she couldn’t picture Erik Kaufman wearing a halo or wings.

‘Geraldine was an actress. And a good one. She was getting roles on
television. That was before she was involved in a bad car crash with Erik Kaufman.’

‘It was a car accident that injured her?’

‘Yes - a really bad one. It put him into a wheelchair and it took her a long time to recover with a scarred face. She had some good plastic surgery but it damaged her mentally. She had counselling for years afterwards but never really recovered. It was so tragic. Geraldine was such a beautiful girl. And very talented.

‘She took to taking drugs after that. At first it was for the pain she suffered. She managed with her brother’s help to stop taking them. But as you know she drank far more than was good for her and confessed to me that she was sure his brother Freddie had engineered the crash. You see he was crazy over her
too, and I think he was always jealous of his brother.

‘Erik paid for her private hospital treatment. He blamed himself afterwards entirely. He helped her generally to recover but she was afraid to have anything more to do with him romantically. She told me because she was afraid of Freddie. She said she was quite sure he was mentally unbalanced. He certainly has more than a streak of cruelty in him.’

‘Erik must have been very much in love with her at one time then.’

‘He was. He paid the rent for her flat when she came back here to live. Sent some beautiful flowers for her funeral and paid for everything. He seemed very upset. His brother never came. We were glad of that. Hugh hasn’t fully recovered from the shock of her death yet. He was so very fond of his sister.’

‘
Her cancer was terminal I understand.’

‘Yes
, but there was another reason for her to do what she did,’ she hesitated. ‘She’d had a child. A son when she was quite young, just eighteen when she was at the drama school. She had him adopted but he’d managed to trace her as they can these days. He contacted her shortly before she died.’

‘Good lord!’ Mel exclaimed.
‘That must have been a shock for her. And very traumatic.’

‘Oh it was. He just turned up on her doorstep.
She’d refused to speak to him on the phone. He wanted to ask her so many questions. Her reasons for putting him up for adoption. His father’s name and so on... He was not Erik’s child. The father was another young drama student.’

‘Was she prepared to tell him anything?’

‘No, she wasn’t. She wasn’t prepared for any of this. Meeting her son was particularly upsetting for Geraldine. At the best of times she wasn’t strong and she was in a terrible state when I came over in answer to her phone call. She had just got rid of him. And she couldn’t cope...’

‘Did your husband know about the baby?’

Angela Temple shook her head slowly and blinked back her tears. ‘He didn’t and neither did I. Not till then. She’d kept it a secret from him. From everyone. Her parents especially. She never told me till this happened. And to make things worse her son came to visit her on her birthday and unfortunately Erik had forgotten it. For the first time ever. He normally sent her a birthday card, a cheque and orchids.

‘
She sent her son away when he came to see her, said he was mistaken and that she’d never had a baby. But she confessed afterwards to me that she’d lied to him and felt terrible about it.

‘He never left his name or address for us to get in touch with him. I felt really bad about it. He must have wanted to see her badly.’

‘She spoke about it to you then. Did she tell you his name or anything more?’

‘No. It disturbed her
, I know that much.’

‘I think you’re right perhaps that
it affected her state of mind critically. He never came back again to try to see her then?’

‘No - I’m sure it was as upsetting for him, if not more. She never told me what he said or where he’d been living till then. She didn’t want to hear it. She got paralytic drunk and hardly made any sense to me at all. She still didn’t want her brother to know but I had to tell Hugh of course and he went round to see her. But she was no longer making sense.’

‘None of this was mentioned at the inquest.’

She shook her head. ‘No, it wasn’t. We didn’t want to make things any worse and as she had terminal cancer the coroner accepted that the illness could have made her do this dreadful thing.’

Mel nodded. ‘Understandable.
So why are you telling me this now?’

‘Because I feel that we should try to find Geraldine’s son. I think Geraldine would want that to try to make up for what she did to him. We must tell him what Geraldine didn’t tell him. How she really did regret it afterwards.’

‘So what does your husband think about all this? This could make her son feel even worse instead of better.’

‘I haven’t told Hugh yet. He’s very upset still. He wishes we could have done more for her after the accident. She was such a lovely girl. If only she’d never met Erik Kaufman she might have been still been working in the theatre now. And received some acclaim for it.’

‘Well, I wish you luck anyway with your search.’

It wasn’t till later that Mel thinking through again what Angela Temple had told her mulled over the fact that Geraldine Temple was born in July and could possibly be a Cancer s
tar sign too. Had she been blackmailing Freddie after the accident because it had been so bad for her?