The Blood Detective

11

Detective Superintendent Harris was sitting in Foster's chair when he arrived the next morning.

He was waiting, leaning forwards, a frown on his tanned face. Foster's head was heavy; three pints in the pub, then half a bottle of claret before turning in hadn't helped. But he needed it to get to sleep -- an alcohol-induced coma was preferable to a restless night.

Harris said nothing, no greeting. Merely tossed a copy of a morning tabloid on to the desk. Foster picked it up.

There was a picture of Dammy Perry on the front page, dressed in a full-length gown, straw hair, broad smile, bleached eyes peering from the page. She looked ethereal, otherworldly. Above the picture, in bold type, the headline read: 'Could She Have Been Saved?'

No, thought Foster. He turned, as directed by the story, to page three.

'There are six pages in total,' Harris said.

'Jesus!'

'And there's a leader on the comment page. It says we should hold an investigation into how our forces came to be at the wrong tube station and missed the chance to catch the killer.'

Foster was only half listening as he leafed through the pages. The headlines were a succession of lurid questions: 'When Will Fiend Strike Again?' 'What Are Cops Doing?' There was a picture of Simon Perry, 'Slain Dammy's Brother', managing to look both bereaved and self-regarding.

'Fish-and-chip paper,' Foster said, tossing it back on to the desk.

A thin, joyless smile spread across the superintendent's face. 'To you, Grant, it may be. But this is exactly what we don't need. Do you know how bad this looks?'

Foster was in no mood to get into an argument about media perception. 'I can see how, reported like this, it looks bad. But the fact is, we discovered he was going to dump a body only a few hours before he actually did. The genealogist found out it was to be Notting Hill. There wasn't time to research the whole history of the London underground. It was a genuine, honest mistake. In any case, she was dead before her body was dumped.'

'Her brother will cause us no end of problems.'

'Her brother's a chinless fool.'

'Who sits on the Home Affairs Select Committee.'

Foster said nothing; he was prepared to weather Harris's public relations paranoia.

'What about the first victim? How come nobody realized he'd been murdered until almost a week after his body had been found?'

Foster explained the story of the tramp who wasn't. The severity of Harris's expression did not alter. He had been in the army in his younger years and, with his ramrod straight back, salt-and-pepper hair and overweening pomposity, Foster guessed he might have made a good officer.

'We need more manpower,' he said, when Foster had finished.

'I agree.'

'I'm bringing Williams's team in from South.'

That wasn't what Foster had in mind. They needed more infantry, not another general. He started to protest. The room, lit only by the thin sunlight of the early morning, darkened perceptibly as two masses of grey cloud met and became one.

'I'm taking charge,' Harris said. 'And you won't like my first decision.'

Foster said nothing; he could feel the tension bulging in the back of his arms.

'DO Williams's team, and most of yours, are going back out on the streets, finding witnesses, digging up all they can on the victims - their lives, their enemies, every single thing they can find. They will show the sketch you've got to everyone who's ever known these victims. I'm also releasing it to the media. We're going to shake down every single ex-con in London who's ever picked up a knife. Williams will coordinate the investigation on the ground and report back to me. You will concentrate on the past. Find out what the hell happened in 1879.'

'Sir . . .'

'Grant, there is a man out there murdering at will,'

he said, his finger jabbing towards the window. 'The press are all over it. They're saying it's the biggest manhunt since the Yorkshire Ripper.'

'So you're going to turn it into one?'

'Yes, if it means we catch the murderer,' he barked back.

'We've been behind the eight ball all the way through this investigation and now when, if we haven't yet got a foothold, at least we've got a bit of purchase, you're standing me down?'

'Not standing you down, Grant. Asking you to oversee a different part of the investigation.'

The one that involves being shut away in dark rooms poring over documents, books and maps, Foster thought.

'We need to understand everything that happened back then. What is it someone once said, "The past is another country"?'

'So is France. Never wanted to go there either.'

Harris simply shook his head. 'My mind is made up.'

In one respect Foster knew Harris was right; to solve the present they needed to solve the past. But the killer was to be apprehended in the present, and that was the task he wanted to see through himself.

Instead, he would be stuck in some archive with Barnes when they finally caught this creep.

'The ex-wife of Graham Ellis is coming down today to identify the body. I fixed it up.'

'I'll handle it,' Harris said immediately, rising from Foster's seat. He picked his papers up from the desk, uncurled his wiry frame and walked out without another glance.

Foster picked up a pen and hurled it against the wall.

Nigel was standing outside the newspaper library, puffing on a roll-up, when Foster screeched to a halt in his car, then reversed at speed into a space. He and Heather got out, Foster striding three yards ahead of her. As he reached the door, he did not meet Nigel's eye, muttered no greeting, merely brushed past and went into the small reception area.

'Don't ask,' Heather murmured to Nigel, who flicked his cigarette stub to one side with forefinger and thumb, then followed her in.

The security guard on reception was waiting to take them to their room. They went through a set of double doors into the small 'cafe' area, which was nothing more than a collection of chairs, tables and vending machines. They headed left through more double doors into an area that Nigel knew was for staff only, then straight across the staff canteen into a small room that smelled as if it had lain unused for some time. The walls bore the shadows of long-gone pictures and calendars. It was windowless and, when Nigel absent-mindedly ran his finger along the only table, it was thickly coated with dust. Two swivel chairs and a battered wooden chair had been put in there for their use.

Foster shut the door behind them. 'We're working here,' he barked.

Nigel didn't understand why, but sensed it would be unwise to ask. Foster detected his bemusement.

'If we work upstairs, or wherever the main bit is, what's to say Joe Public doesn't have a look at what we're doing? Or your mate Gary Kent, or some other enterprising hack, doesn't slip a few quid to one of the staff in exchange for having a glance at the same papers we've been looking at? Here we know we can get some privacy.'

'But that doesn't solve the problem of the staff being bought off,' Heather interjected.

'No, but I've asked for copies of every single national newspaper that was published in the 1870s to be brought here.'

'Every one?' Nigel asked incredulously.

'Yeah. So if they want to work their way through that lot, they can. By the time they reach 1879 Well, they won't. They're too lazy,' he said.

There was a knock on the door. Foster opened it, mumbled a few words and then closed it. In his right hand Nigel recognized the 1879 volume of the Kensington News and West London Times from which he had located details of the third murder on Saturday night.

'I asked the duty manager to personally bring me the Kensington News for 1879 an<^ mentioned that, if word got out, I would know exactly where it came from.'

He tossed the book on to the table. Dust billowed from between the pages as it landed with a thumping slap.

'We look in here first,' Foster said. 'When the other stuff arrives, we look through that. We build up as much information about these murders as we possibly can.'

'Most of the national newspapers will be on microfilm,'

Nigel said. 'We need . . .'

'A microfilm reader is on its way down, Mr Barnes,'

Foster said.

Nigel could see that when Foster got his teeth into something, it came away in chunks.

Foster took the job of scouring through the newspaper volume. He turned over the pages until he reached the next edition, dated Friday April nth.

'Here we go,' he said.

Heather came and looked over his shoulder. Nigel stayed where he was, staring at the microfilm reader he'd just been brought.

THE KENSINGTON HORRORS:

YET MORE OUTRAGES

Once more, last Saturday morning in Notting Dale, came another of those sadly terrible scenes with which the area has become only too accustomed during the past two weeks.

To describe the event as clearly and succinctly as possible, it is necessary to describe the location which has been the scene of this latest crime. Saunders Road, an incomplete terrace under construction in the heart of the new Norland Town, stands directly west of the West London Junction railway line, in what was until recently deserted commons and farmland.

Last Friday night the occupants of Saunders Road knew little of the horror that took place only yards from where they sought repose, and the throw of a stone from the Norland Castle, where Reverend Booth and his Salvationists are seeking to win hearts and mend the ways of the local poor. As the residents of that quiet street slept soundly abed, the butchered body of poor John Allman, an Irish-born commercial traveller, aged 38, of nearby Stebbing Street, a devoted father of three, was hidden on a small patch of wasteland at the western corner of the terraced street. The next day, around midday, one of the occupants seeking air on a constitutional was met with the awful sight of Mr Allman's corpse face down beneath the detritus!

Reports suggest Allman, a man of repute and good standing among neighbours despite a known liking for drink, had been making his way home from the Queen's Arms tavern at the junctions of Queen's and Norland Road when he was attacked by the ghoul.

Like his poor three fellow victims, a stab wound to the abdomen was enough to ensure his demise.

Despite the police's unwillingness to confirm the atrocity, the news spread that the Kensington murderer had been at his ghastly work again, and within an hour, the environs surrounding Saunders Road were closed to the public by cordons of police.

Bedlam then ensued. As night fell, a gang of roughs wielding torches waded across the boundary into Shepherd's Bush Common, upon hearing of a mendicant smeared with blood in that vicinity. Assuming him to be the culprit, they went in search, terrorizing the filthy scores of unwashed who live their pitiful lives upon the patch of land known as the Green.

Encountering a terrified gypsy, the bloodthirst of the mob caused them to beat him almost senseless. The poor soul, believed to be innocent, perished of his injuries.

Foster paused in his reading. 'Here he goes again,' he said, a sadness in his voice.

Heather whispered her disbelief behind him.

Alas, it is with great sadness yet increasing anger that we report that the Kensington Killer struck once again, bringing yet more fear and hysteria to our small part of the world. Fewer than 72 hours after the body of poor Allman was found, the lifeless figure of William Kelby, a draper in his fortieth year, was found in Powis Square by a passer-by as the bell of All Saints Church tolled for the first time after midnight on the 8th. His throat had been cut. That damned, demented spirit had been at his evil work once more before slipping back into the safety of the shadows.

The police have failed utterly in their attempts to prevent this ghoul butchering almost at will, the total now being five poor unfortunates slain by a single stab to the heart. Outsiders are beginning to regard North Kensington, Notting Hill and the Dale as dens of infamy so deep as to be impenetrable. We are one and all, so to speak, branded on our brows with the mark of Cain. That this stain has been fixed on the locality by reason of the crimes committed with such impunity in its area, who can doubt? And the police have had five crimes in which to obtain clues and catch the fiend, but have failed without question.

We request the culprit be caught. Nay, we, on behalf of our terrified readers, demand it.

Three victims in eight days, Foster thought. Five in two weeks. Even if there was little doubt, this confirmed his view that this was personal. A mere copycat would surely have selected a killer with a less hectic schedule.

The following week's edition announced that three days after the fifth victim was found, the police arrested a thirty-year-old crofter named Eke Fairbairn.

Barnes told him the meaning of the name was 'handsome child', which seemed cruel given the newspaper's description of Fairbairn as a 'giant', whose 'aspect was gruesome to behold'. A mob had gathered at the station in Notting Dale, hundreds of people baying for the suspect's life. A set of makeshift gallows had been erected.

The police made confident noises to the press about the arrest. The suspect's neighbours queued up to confirm that they had always known he was a bad one, that there had always been something shifty about him. He was single, but his mother and father, who shared his house, had been forced to flee the area, though whether as a result of shame or mob rule was not elucidated. Then the suspect was charged. The newspaper, previously incredulous at the police's incompetence, had reversed its position: the division and its senior detective in charge of the case were now being celebrated, albeit with one caveat. 'We trust a conviction will be secured,'

a leader thundered ominously.

Foster's mobile rang, sucking him back into the twenty-first century. It was Drinkwater.

'Andy,' Foster said.

'How's it going, sir?'

'He killed five times.'

Drinkwater let out a whistle. 'Two more to go, then.'

'What you after?'

'Just wanted to let you know that the first victim has been officially identified as Graham Ellis.'

'The ex-wife come up with anything interesting?'

'Not really. She had nothing to do with him over the last year of his life. Not an amicable divorce, apparently.'

'I presume someone's going through the firm's files to find out whether there's anything that links Ellis with Darbyshire and Perry?'

'A team's on its way to Cheshire as we speak.

There's one other thing: we've finally got the tox report on Darbyshire.'

'And?'

'Traces of GHB in his blood. PCP too.'

Foster knew 'liquid Ecstasy' - or 'Grievous Bodily Harm', as it was quirkily known on the street. Its original use was as a surgical anaesthetic, before word spread and people started to use it for weight loss.

Then it was picked up by clubbers sated by Ecstasy and seeking a different high. Widespread use had led to another, more sinister purpose: as a 'date rape'

drug that rendered victims incapable, coma-like. It was easy to get hold of these days, so this discovery hardly heralded a breakthrough. Though at least it shed light on the killer's MO.

'Enough to kill him?' he asked.

'No. Just enough to make him lose consciousness for a few hours. Williams and his team are at the pub now, and they seem intent on tracking down every GHB user in London.'

There would be a few of those. GHB was not just the drug of choice for those too ugly, shy or perverted to attract members of the opposite sex without knocking the object of their lust out, but also clubbers who wanted to shed their inhibitions.

'Makes sense,' he said eventually. 'Anything on the other two?'

'They reckon first thing tomorrow for Ellis, the day after for Perry, but Harris is telling everyone he's put a rocket up their arse to get the reports later today.'

'Tomorrow morning it'll be, then. Call me if anything else turns up.'

Foster snapped his phone shut.

'What's going on?' Heather asked.

'The ex-wife confirmed the tramp was Ellis. Which means, if the last sighting was correct, the killer held him for two months. Darbyshire tested positive for GHB. Which explains why he was able to hold Ellis for that length of time. That's a truckload of GHB, though.'

It also explained the bed sores. He had been on his back for the whole time.

'He kept him drugged and sedated for all that time?

But he held Perry for little more than a day, and Darbyshire for only a couple of hours.'

Foster shrugged. 'Perhaps the day he kidnapped him was the only day he could get to Cheshire. Maybe his job, or something else, keeps him in London most of the time.' Foster knew he was getting somewhere.

'Or his job took him to Cheshire on that day and he thought he'd take his chance.'

Nigel was silent, staring at the giant screen of his microfilm reader as if hypnotized.

'What have you got so far?' Foster asked him.

Nigel, still looking at the reader, scrunched up his face in response.

'Nothing much different to what we know. Not about the killings, at least.'

Foster felt a flicker of anger. Nigel had told him that The Times would prove to be the best source of a reliable day-by-day narrative of the killings and their aftermath.

'There is one thing, though. The Times, which usually kept itself above the fray, wrote three leaders castigating the pohce, including one on the day of Fairbairn's arrest. These killings were big news. Questions were even asked in the House of Commons about the pohce investigation. Also, the man they arrested is described in one report here as a "lunatic".'

Foster couldn't see the significance. The guy had slaughtered five people in two weeks. That was hardly the behaviour of the sane.

'They had a very different way of classifying mental illness back then,' Nigel continued. 'From 1871

onwards, census returns recorded if someone was a lunatic, an imbecile or an idiot. The latter meant someone was classed as congenitally mad. An imbecile was someone who was judged to have been sane once but had become insane. A lunatic was prone to losing his or her reason but had moments of clarity. That covered a multitude of conditions.

New mothers, for example. Back then, post-natal depression was considered a sign of lunacy.'

'So what you're saying, Nigel, is that this guy might have been mentally unstable, but it doesn't mean he was psychotic, or schizophrenic?' Heather said.

'No, he could just have been a bit odd. An eccentric'

'Did they let lunatics stand trial back then?' Foster asked.

'Certainly. You'd have to be well and truly off your rocker to be declared too insane to stand trial. The Victorians believed in crime and punishment with few exceptions.'

'Find out whether this guy stood trial. If he did, what happened to him, everything. I also need to find out where Saunders Road is. If it still exists . . .'

Heather interrupted to get his attention. 'I looked it up on Streetmap on the Internet. There is no Saunders Road in wio or wi 1.'

'Shit,' Foster said.

'The local library should know,' Nigel suggested.

'The newspaper report mentioned that the road was being built,' Foster added. 'It also said it was in Notting Dale, by the railway track. That means it must have been on the border of Kensington and Chelsea with Hammersmith and Fulham. You know what runs through there now, don't you? The West way -- a motorway. You telling me he's going to throw a body out of a car on one of London's busiest roads?'

'An underpass runs beneath it,' Heather volunteered.

A

darkened underpass. That would be too obvious, Foster thought. Nothing this guy did was obvious.

He needed to be out there, moving the investigation on, not stuck in a room reading, flicking through old newspapers.

'Heather and I are going to the library, then. We'll see where this road was exactly. Nigel, you stay here and find out whether Eke Fairbairn was tried,' he said.