Authors: A.J. Waines
When I left, Mr Knightly was still gazing at the album. It must be tragic to know that everything of value in your life lies in the past, in a place that’s been and gone - leaving only a handful of six by four images to hold on to.
As I walked back to the car, I realised I’d never known his first name.
Wendy fluttered her fingers by way of acknowledgement as I approached my car, but we didn’t speak. I sent her a text with the words:
Home, James.
Another weekend was looming large ahead of me. I was in one of those restless moods, when I didn’t know what to do with myself. I didn’t feel like having company, nor did I fancy being on my own. I was disturbed by my trip to Norwich. The cause of the fire was turning into a gruesome mystery. I didn’t want to open up old wounds, but the only way to check whether either Mum or Dad had opened the windows that evening, was to ask them. If they hadn’t, it meant something very serious indeed. In the light of Mr Knightly’s comment about leaving the front door key under a plant pot, it wouldn’t have taken rocket science for someone else to have got into the house. If someone had deliberately opened the windows, maybe they also had something to do with the fire. But, why?
My mother picked up the phone. I could hear jolly guitar music in the background.
‘Darling, we’ve got friends over. Just mixing the sangria.’
It sounded idyllic. I didn’t want to spoil their fun, but I felt I had no option.
‘I’ll make it quick, Mum, sorry to have rung at a bad time.’
‘It’s never a bad time when it’s you, dear,’ she said.
‘I went to see Mr Knightly, today. The man who used to live next door to us.’
She hesitated and I heard a hoot of laughter in the background.
‘Whatever did you do that for?’ There was a different tone in her voice now: cold and wary.
‘I won’t go into details, but there seems to be some confusion over what happened with the fire.’
‘Some confusion? What do you mean?’
‘About how it started. About the house.’
Mum’s voice was suddenly muffled, as though she was holding the phone to her chest. I could make out her voice telling someone where to find the brown sauce.
‘I can’t go into that now,’ she said. ‘We’re in the middle of —’
‘I know. Listen. I have one question. Just one. Is Dad there?’
‘Is that the question?’
I brushed off her sarcasm. ‘It’s about the windows in the house that night. Did either of you open the downstairs windows, the night we went out to the pictures.’
She didn’t say anything. I heard someone start to sing.
‘No. It was the middle of winter and the heating had gone off. Why would we open the windows?’
‘That’s what I thought. Can you ask Dad?’
She held the phone to her chest again and I could hear her calling my father over. There was a short exchange between them.
‘No,’ said my mother. ‘He says the same as me. Everything was off; the lights, the heating. No one opened any windows. What is this about?’
I didn’t want to disclose Cheryl’s psychic notion that the fire hadn’t been an accident. I knew that wouldn’t go down too well.
‘There are some points about the fire that don’t add up, that’s all. I just want to make certain. I want to be able to explain it all in my own mind.’
‘Don’t go stirring things up, Juliet.’
‘That’s exactly what Aunt Libby said.’
‘Well, don’t. I can’t go through all that again.’
Silence. ‘I’ve got to go,’ she said, and the phone went dead.
Later that day, I went to the phone-box outside the deli, to make the call. I knew the police had been tapping all my means of communication; my emails, landline and mobile phone and I didn’t want anyone listening in to this one. These days, I was having to stop and think before everything I did, everything I said - and it was driving me nuts. Every conversation with Brad, for instance. I had to remember to call him DCI Madison, for a start. I had to keep the conversation strictly business-like. I didn’t want to get him into any trouble. I also had to be careful about what I said to Jackie about the case. I wasn’t, after all, supposed to be discussing it with anyone.
Whenever I left the flat, I had to think about how I would get to where I was going and whether Wendy, Zac, Penny, or one of the other officers assigned to babysit me, would be able to follow. I had to remember to text, so they’d get a head-start. I was starting to feel like I should have a ball and chain around my ankle. Precautions here, filtering what I said, there - I was fit to burst. It went entirely against the grain for someone impetuous, like me.
‘I want to ask a favour,’ I said.
‘Go ahead.’
‘I wondered if you could access some police records for me.’
‘Woa,’ said Brad. ‘Is this about Andrew?’
‘No. Not him. It’s about a house fire in 1990.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘My brother was killed in a fire at our house, when we lived in Norwich. I did mention it to you, briefly. Well, I’ve been talking to various people and the cause of the fire is starting to sound very sketchy.’
‘Are you on your mobile?’
‘No, I’m on a public payphone. Your mates should be out of earshot.’
‘Who have you been talking to?’
‘I checked the newspaper reports from that time. They said the fire spread quicker than it should have and that a full investigation was underway, but there were no follow-up reports.’
‘Could be that the paper didn’t bother to print anything else. Old news. Especially if no suspicious circumstances came to light.’
‘It’s not just the newspaper.’ I said. ‘I spoke to an old neighbour and he remembered our house being affected by a power-cut and our downstairs windows being open. I asked my parents and they said they didn’t open any windows.’
‘You
have
been busy.’
‘Anything to take my mind off what’s been happening here.’
‘I take your point.’ He let out a loud sigh. ‘I’m not sure I can access those kinds of records.’
‘Oh.’ It came out weak and small, like a child. I hadn’t meant it to.
‘It’s outside my jurisdiction.’
‘Right.’
‘And I could get into serious trouble.’
‘I understand.’
Silence. I decided to give it one last shot. ‘It was January 18
th
, 1990.’
‘Why do I get the feeling I’m going to do it anyway?’ he said.
‘Maybe it’s something to do with your loyalty to justice. Or perhaps, it’s my irresistible powers of persuasion.’
‘Okay. Look, I’ll put out some feelers. I can’t promise anything.’
‘You’re a gem. Thank you.’
He hesitated and I was expecting him to say he had to go. ‘You busy this weekend?’ he said.
‘Not especially.’
‘I might pop over…if that’s okay.’
‘What will your officers think? They’ll be on my doorstep watching you clock in and clock out.’
‘I’ll send them home and take over for a while, if that’s okay with you.’
It was very okay with me.
‘Is that entirely above board?’
‘I’m the policeman. Let me worry about the protocol, eh?’
My hand was shaking when I hooked up the receiver, but for once, it wasn’t out of fear.
He was early. As I opened the door, I couldn’t help checking up and down the street. Sure enough, the blue Astra had gone.
‘I made her day,’ he said, ‘giving WPC Kenton the evening off. Means she can go to the cinema with her boyfriend.’
I wanted to say that just by showing up, he’d already made mine.
‘It will only be one minder from now on, by the way,’ he said. ‘Our finances are stretched to the limit.’ He laid his jacket on the back of the sofa. ‘Something smells delicious.’
I’d spent so long trying to decide what to wear that I’d nearly messed up the chicken supreme altogether. The onions had frazzled to cinders and the chicken hadn’t defrosted in time. I’d managed to salvage the situation by slipping some garlic bread into the oven in the nick of time.
In the end, I’d settled for pale jeans and a simple white blouse, which already had a splash of basil oil down the front. It had been too late by then to do anything about it.
‘Just a small glass, I’m driving,’ he said, as I poured out the Pinot Grigio.
I had to stop my face from falling. Not what I wanted to hear. Right now, with doubts about the fire and nothing to reassure me about the rising toll of local murders, I could have done with his company until dawn. It wasn’t about sex - just having him in the flat would have been enough.
I handed him the glass and leaned against the sofa. I was exhausted already and the evening hadn’t even begun. Since the police had discovered that the third victim, Lindsey Peel, had worked at Fairways, I’d been waking up at regular intervals during the night, soaked with sweat and gasping for breath. I’d felt hands around my neck, water gurgling into my lungs. I was supposed to be in bed, but instead I was spending all night in freezing water, fully clothed, kicking against the tide, fighting to keep my face out of the water, fighting to get to the shore.
In each dream my legs started strong, but quickly turned to jelly. I would look down and see useless numb tree trunks instead of legs. I couldn’t swim. My body wouldn’t float, I couldn’t scream. I was sinking towards the river bed, dropping away from the surface, falling, falling - watching detritus drift past my face.
In the past three days, I was sure sleep hadn’t claimed me for one minute. I couldn’t even take a bath these days; I couldn’t bear to lie in the water.
As a result, my need for comfort and protection had escalated sharply. Being on my own every night was tortuous. I hadn’t told anyone - not even my therapist, and I wasn’t about to disclose it now.
I excused myself to stir the sauce, then took the chair at the far end of the sofa, curling my feet underneath me. There was a yawning gap between us.
‘How are things going?’ I asked.
‘On the case you mean?’
‘That, and…you.’
‘There’s not much “me” at the moment. Up to my neck with interviews, trawling through statements, briefing meetings, reporting back to the SIO.’
‘Not going well?’
‘You’d think that with three murders in the middle of London, we’d have evidence jumping off the pavements at us.’
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘I think, more to the point, do you?’
‘It’s weird. I don’t want to talk about it or even think about it, but I need to. It’s with me every second of the day, anyway, and I need to keep trying to make sense of it. I’m greedy for any fresh information, even though a huge part of me doesn’t want to know.’
‘I can understand that. I’ll try my best to keep you in the loop.’
The oven-timer pinged. In contrast to Cheryl’s exotic apartment, my dining area had an old wooden table with a placemat under one leg and a couple of chairs my father had rescued from a skip. I brought through the garlic bread.
‘We’re looking at the dates of the murders,’ he said, ‘to see if there is a pattern: September 20
th
, October 6
th
and October 12
th
.’
‘Are they all the same day of the week?’
‘No. A Sunday, Tuesday and a Monday.’ He crunched into a chunk of crusty bread. ‘So far, the gaps have been sixteen days and then six days.’
‘Doesn’t sound like much of a pattern,’ I said. I tried to remember not to speak with my mouth full.
‘We’re looking at the weather conditions and the tides. Seeing if there’s a link there. The Thames is tidal as far as Teddington.’
‘Yeah. Derek told us.’
‘It seems that the killer made sure the bodies were all in the water around high tide. Fast running water, of course, makes recovering any forensic evidence extremely difficult. DNA, hairs and fibres - everything gets washed away.’
‘Did they travel?’ I said, swirling my glass, watching the way the liquid rocked from side to side. ‘What I mean is - did the victims stay in the same place in the water until they were found?’
‘I think so. Pamela’s coat was hooked to a tree, but we can’t be sure if that was accidental or if the killer deliberately made sure she wouldn’t travel. My hunch is the latter.’
‘Because he wanted to make sure I saw her…’
‘The killer sent you to a specific spot at a designated time: Hammersmith Bridge at dawn. A body could travel considerable distance with the tides coming in and out, so we have to assume he wanted to make sure she stayed in place.’
I put down the chunk of garlic bread I’d broken off. My appetite seemed to have temporarily taken a walk around the block. ‘What about Aysha and Lindsey…were they…hooked..?’ I stopped. The word sounded degrading, insulting, as if they were inanimate objects.
‘Aysha was embedded in the reeds in the bank at Richmond. Our experts think it would have taken a greater force than the tide to shift her. We can only assume the killer placed her there and knew she wouldn’t travel.’
He pointed to the last piece of bread with a questioning look. I offered my palm to indicate he should take it. He seemed to have the remarkable ability to eat heartily while discussing the most unpalatable subjects. Probably years of practice at separating the two. ‘Lindsey’s shoelaces had been tied together and they were caught around a tree stump. Probably to do the same thing - keep her in the spot where he wanted her to be found.’
He took a sip of wine and rolled the stem between his fingers.
‘And there’s no pattern about the timings, other than they occur at high tide at whichever bridge he chooses?’ I said.
He made a sucking sound with his lips. ‘The dates aren’t particularly remarkable, tidally speaking.’ He ruffled his thick dark hair with his fingers. It looked soft and for a second I wondered what it would smell like. ‘Basically, the killer has two choices of high tide every day, around six to seven hours apart. The tides shift by about half an hour each day, so, for example, a high tide at 2pm on one day, would fall at about 2.30pm, the next day. And there’s a delay between the bridges.’
I was struggling to keep up with him
He sat back. ‘High tide at London Bridge gets to Richmond Bridge an hour later. It’s about a twenty-minute difference for Battersea and forty minutes for Hammersmith Bridge.’ He stretched out his arms interlocking his fingers and making them crack. ‘It tells us he’s calculating and smart. He’s not acting on impulse.’
‘And he knows something about the Thames, the tides.’
‘Exactly. So far, he’s made sure the bodies get to the river at the time of high tide for whichever bridge he’s chosen. Always undercover of dark - a night-time tide.’
‘Is he a skipper on a riverboat, perhaps?’
‘Or someone who works in the Port of London authority. Or the UK Hydrographic Office…or the Royal Navy. We have to look into every possibility.’
I sucked in air. ‘What a nightmare.’
He sat forward and rested his elbows on the table. ‘Shall we change the subject?’
‘Yes, please. Ready for a supremely cooked chicken?’
It wasn’t hard, this time, to find other things to talk about. He asked me about my training to become a psychotherapist and I asked about what he usually did on his weekends off. By then, I’d had several glasses of wine and he had switched to sparkling water. After the dessert, a tour de force lemon sponge (although I say so myself), we went back into the sitting room. I didn’t want to offer him coffee. It would feel like I was introducing the end of the evening - and then he’d be on his way. I poured myself another top-up of Merlot.
After I turned off the spotlights and switched on the table lamp, I came up behind him. He was sitting with one ankle propped on the other knee. I caught sight of the triangle of bare flesh under the folds of his open collar and I wanted to touch it, explore it, feel the warmth of it. When you’re no longer sober, moments when you notice a contour, a movement, a perfume, can become imbued with sexuality. The desire to touch can become instantly compelling. Before I knew it, I’d slipped my hands inside the top of his shirt and around his neck. He didn’t move. I bent forward and gently nipped his ear lobe with my front teeth. Then he moved, but not in the way I was hoping for.
‘Juliet, I really don’t think…’
‘I know, I’m sorry.’ I withdrew my hands.
‘You’ve had a lot to drink, you’re vulnerable…’
I didn’t want to hear the I-can’t-take-advantage-of-you-in-this-state speech.
I moved away and switched the television on. It was half-way through the late news.
‘Still friends?’ he said.
‘Of course,’ I decided it was better for me not to sit next to him. I moved to the comfy chair.
The next item was about the case. It was everywhere. We couldn’t escape it. A senior officer was explaining that there was no evidence of drug abuse linking the three women and that they came from very different backgrounds. I wondered what little Aysha Turner, a black teenager from a high-rise estate in Brixton, had in common with Pamela Mendosa, a rich American woman in her late twenties. Except, of course, the abortion clinic. None of the news’ reports so far had mentioned the link all three women had to Fairways. Thankfully, they’d never mentioned me, either. I could do without a gang load of press hanging around my door. It was bad enough with my appointed minders.
‘It makes us sound completely inept,’ said Brad, staring at the screen.
Indeed, the item didn’t come across brimming with confidence about the police finding the killer any time soon. It was more a desperate plea for someone to give themselves up.
I switched it off.
I could see he was upset.
‘I feel so useless,’ he said, banging his fist on the heel of his cowboy boot. ‘We’ve interviewed sixteen hundred people already, asking when they last saw the women, where they worked, their backgrounds. All that. We’ve been through two thousand hours of CCTV footage around all three bridges, looking for a boat or a car that pulls up or anything unusual.’