Aftermath

FIVE

Sunday, 14th June — 09.15 hours — 21.45 hours

in which two inquiries converge and the kind reader hears of Thomson Ventnor’s private issues.

Hennessey reclined in his chair. ‘Booze, the demon drink,’ he sighed and raised his eyebrows. ‘Seems a likely thread, sir, a likely common denominator,’ Carmen Pharoah sipped her tea. ‘Veronica Goodwin evidently had a significant problem, so did Angela Prebble and Mr Penta was angry about being abandoned in favour of AA. . and alcohol may also explain the unidentified victim, a woman in her sixties, I think she was.’

‘Yes, sixty-one plus or minus twelve months,’ Hennessey glanced at the ever expanding file, ‘just the sort of elderly down-and-out, an old soak who would not be missed, who had probably wandered into a different part of the country to avoid the shame of being as she was where she was known; came to York to be an unknown in a strange town so we have no record of her on our mis per files.’ He tapped the desk top. ‘I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the sooner we get a National Missing Person’s Database the better, and I can’t see why it should not be set up in these high-tech information technology days, seems to be the easiest thing in the world if you ask me. Well, enough of my ramblings for this fine, sunny Sunday morning. So it seems that we might have a breakthrough. We still have yet to notify all the next of kin and obtain confirmation of ID of all the victims. As I understand it, the families of Paula Rees, Rosemary Arkwright, Helena Tunicliffe, Roslyn Farmfield and Denise Clay have yet to be visited. We can address that now. I don’t like making first contact in situations like this by phone, very insensitive, but it may be expedient.’

‘A simple phone call asking if their missing family member had a significant drink problem. We can follow up with a home visit later to explain the reason for our interest and obtain help to confirm identification,’ Carmen Pharoah suggested eagerly, ‘and also ask if they had any contact with the York Chapter of AA.’

‘Good. Can you get on that?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘So what have you got on, Yellich?’

‘Working with the Crown Prosecution Service to frame the charges for the Askham Links manslaughter case but, unlike us, they don’t work on Sundays, so I am at your disposal for any legwork.’

‘Good. Ventnor?’

‘Theft of prestige cars, sir.’

‘Oh, yes. . any progress?’

‘Little to report, sir, but they’re getting bolder, they’ll make a mistake.’

‘Yes, so you have time as of now for this case.’ Hennessey tapped the file of the Bromyards murders.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good. Webster?’

‘I also have time, sir. I am working on the burglaries of wealthy homes in the area, same MO and, like Ventnor, I am waiting for them to make a mistake.’

‘All right. . you see. .’ Hennessey leaned forward and clasped his hands together, resting them on his desktop, ‘I don’t know how best to prioritize this, you see we have a code forty-one on our hands.’

‘A murder!’ Yellich sat forward in his chair. ‘As if the Bromyards case wasn’t enough.’

‘Yes. You were all committed yesterday and so I attended the murder scene. He. . the victim, was an old, well oldish. . a man in his middle years. . positively identified as one James Post. . strangled, head smashed in, found in a field just outside the city. Probably would be lying there still had not an alert member of the public put two and two together when she saw a column of flies hovering over something. I’ll explain what I mean later, but the upshot of it is we have to visit his drum, an address on the Tang Hall Estate, so not a wealthy man. His brother, who identified the body, phoned later with his brother’s address. He also has a key but I asked him to stay clear, it’s going to be a lowlife petty criminal murder, brought on by some petty quarrel. It’s nothing of the magnitude of this,’ Hennessey patted the Bromyards murders file again, ‘but it’s fresh, we’re still within the first twenty-four hours, whereas with the Bromyards case we seem to be coming in when it’s all over, no fresh evidence at all.’ Hennessey fell silent. ‘I am going to the post-mortem of James Post; Dr D’Acre is coming in today to do it, to the delight of her daughters.’ He smiled. ‘She told me that if she is at work on the weekends her daughters get to ride their horse, without having to compete with her. . more time for them you see. But I have a visit to do before then. . that name. . the couple you visited yesterday afternoon, Pharoah and Ventnor. . Malpass?’

‘Yes.’

‘That name rang bells with me and yesterday evening when I was exercising my dog I remembered. So, visit, then the post-mortem for me. Webster.’

‘Sir.’

‘I want you to go with Ventnor, collect the key from James Post’s brother and visit his flat.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘DC Phaorah, if you could address the phone calls you suggested?’

‘Yes, sir.’

The woman’s face melted into a smile when she saw that it was George Hennessey who had knocked on her door. ‘George,’ she said warmly and bent forward to kiss his cheek.

‘How are you, Tilly?’

‘Getting there. . do come in.’

‘Thanks.’ Hennessey swept off his panama and stepped over the threshold into Matilda Pakenham’s house in Holgate. He saw that she kept it in a neat and clean manner and was burning a joss stick, which filled the house with the pleasant scent of incense.

‘Are you studying?’ Hennessey noted a pile of text books in the corner of the living room as he accepted her invitation to take a seat.

‘Yes,’ she smiled proudly, ‘just as I said I would if I got the chance. . History, no firm plans as to what to do with the degree once I get it, but early days yet. I feel like an old woman when I attend lectures with all those female students who were in school uniform just a year ago.’

‘You are younger than you are old, Tilly,’ Hennessey smiled. ‘If you see what I mean.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Any news of the ex?’

‘No, he seems to be leaving me alone. He didn’t enjoy gaol, he couldn’t charm the guys in there.’

‘Well, not only am I calling on you to see how you have settled. .’

‘Settled is the word. If you hadn’t bought me that meal that day I’d still be wrapped in a blanket in a shop doorway, picking out Edelweiss on that old tin whistle for a few coins in a plastic beaker.’ She shuddered. ‘What a place to fall to. . but they say that. . they say you have to reach your gutter before you can start the long climb back to respectable living.’

‘That’s what Alcoholics Anonymous say.’

‘Yes, good people. . they helped me as much as you did.’

‘It’s actually that which I have called to ask you about.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, I want to pick your brains.’

‘I’ll make us some tea.’ She rose from the scatter cushion on which she sat. ‘My brain will make for richer pickings if I am drinking tea. Join me, George?’

‘Love to, thank you.’

Once again settled, each with a mug of herbal tea, which was not to George Hennessey’s taste, he said, ‘I recall you talking about a couple. . one Mr and Mrs Malpass.’

Tilly Pakenham shuddered. ‘Yes, I will never forget them. . oh. . will I ever.’

‘Tell me about them.’

‘Why? Have they come to your attention? I knew they would.’

‘Just tell me about them. . how you met. . why you didn’t see them again? If you recall, you told me once. I was not really interested in them then.’

‘But you are now?’

‘Well, let’s just say, let’s just say things have developed.’

‘I see. . well Ronald and Sylvia, what can I tell you? We met in an AA meeting. They were different from the others, they had confidence, self-respect. If they were alcoholics they had made a full recovery. Not just dry, but they had recovered their self-confidence, self-respect, self-worth. He was tall and handsome and she was elegant. . both well dressed. In fact, he put me in mind of my husband, the charming salesman and equally vicious wife beater. He wouldn’t have sold as many cars and kitchen units as he did if the customers knew how often he put my blood on the wall.’

‘Indeed.’ Hennessey sipped the herbal tea.

‘Well, they approached me and said they offered an alternative for one or two evenings a week, and I asked them what they meant. They said that it’s more of a drink avoidance group. . for people who get fed up with the usual AA routine of people boasting how they overcame it. It does get routine and they said it came to the point that they realized that they were sitting in the AA meetings as a means of avoiding sitting in a pub. It was seen as an alternative place to go, but you had to sit in rows like you were in a cinema and listen to one or two people’s life stories, and what they really needed was a pleasant evening’s chat, like spending the evening in the pub with your mates but without the alcohol.’

‘All right.’

‘Well, it sounded inviting, so I went along, met in a cafe in the centre of York, one that opens in the evening, and we drank coffee, had a nibble to eat and just chatted until we felt we had killed the evening, by which time we just wanted to go home and sleep.’

‘Just the three of you?’

‘Oh no. . no. . there could have been six or seven sometimes, but those two were always there, it was their group, Ronald and Sylvia’s. . and a small bloke who rarely said much. I can’t remember his name, but Ron and Sylvia were all charm and smiles and approving looks, and it’s that which got me on edge. I had just escaped from a man who had lured me into a violent marriage with exactly that selfsame sort of charm and approval.’

A heavy footfall was heard passing the window, a click, click, click of steel-heeled stilettos which echoed in the narrow street. ‘That woman,’ Tilly Pakenham inclined her head to the window, ‘she lives three doors down. I tell you, she can’t go into her backyard to put her rubbish out or hang her washing on the line without wearing those shoes, so that the whole terrace hears her. When she walks out of doors the world has to know about it.’

‘It could be worse,’ Hennessey drained his cup, ‘could be a lot worse.’

‘Dare say. So, where was I?’

‘The charming Ronald.’

‘Ah, yes. . and the equally charming Sylvia, they were like two peas in a pod.’

‘How long did you attend their evening get-togethers?’

‘For a few months over one winter.’

‘And you stopped going?’

‘Yes, when they asked me if I’d like to go to the coast with them. . just a day’s run to the coast.’

‘In winter?’

‘Yes. I thought that was strange. I saw a small palm tree in a hailstorm once. . winter hail. . that is a coastal resort in the winter, so I didn’t think it sounded inviting, and then there was that smile. . that charm. . alarm bells rang. I thought, I’ve been here before, so I declined, and when I did a look of anger flashed across his eyes and I knew then that I had made the right choice.’

‘Did he extend the invitation to others?’

‘Not on that occasion, that evening there was only myself, the quiet little guy and Ronald and Sylvia. It was when the little guy had gone to buy more coffee for us that they asked me if I wanted to go with them to the coast for the day. That was the last I saw of them.’

‘I see. When was that?’

‘Oh. . about two winters ago.’

‘Do you remember anyone else there?’

‘One or two, mostly women, varying ages.’

‘Any in particular?’

‘Yes, a really sweet girl called Veronica, she came quite often then just stopped, probably got the same sort of vibes off Ronald and Sylvia that I got.’

‘Yes,’ Hennessey rose from his chair. ‘She probably did.’

Dr D’Acre pushed the microphone away from her and up towards the ceiling, it being mounted on a long anglepoise arm, and peeled off her latex gloves as Eric Filey wheeled the corpse of the late James Post towards the mortuary. ‘Well, that’s it,’ she announced calmly, ‘massive head injuries and also massive injuries to the throat. Someone wanted him deceased all right, and frankly either injury would have been fatal.’

‘A belt and bracer job,’ Hennessey offered. He stood against the wall of the mortuary laboratory dressed in green disposable paper coveralls.

‘Yes. . yes. . I dare say that you could say that, dare say you could describe it thusly. . a belt and bracers job. The injuries are certainly contemporary with each other and I would guess, but only guess, that he was strangled before sustaining the head injury, though. . though. . there is no reason why they have to be in that order, but it was someone making sure. . belt and bracers job as you say. Total absence of blood under his fingernails. He didn’t put up much of a fight, or he clawed at nothing, or couldn’t fight at all, so perhaps the blow to the head was the first injury to be sustained after all. . but a blow to the head has more of a making sure feel about it than does strangulation.’

‘Yes, I would think the same.’

‘If he was strangled by someone much larger than he, then that would also help explain the absence of blood; he simply could not reach his attacker’s face and being a very small man that means that his attacker would not have to be abnormally tall. . he might have tried to pull his attacker’s hands off him but he wouldn’t have clawed at them. . people in that situation just don’t.’

‘I see.’

‘His kidneys have been damaged by alcohol consumption over many years and his liver showed signs of recovery from alcohol damage. Very useful organ is the liver, in that it can recover from sustained abuse. . the kidneys can’t. So he was a dried out alcoholic. His body was clean, he washed, but the kidney damage was unmissable, he had hit the bottle in his life and the bottle had hit back.’

‘Very well.’

‘So tell me,’ Dr D’Acre turned to Hennessey, ‘have you identified the last remaining unidentified corpse in the kitchen garden murders case?’

‘No. Not yet.’

‘I see. . that will be another grave for me to visit.’

‘Another?’

‘Yes, I visit John Brown’s grave from time to time. . you recall the bloated floater?’

‘Ah, yes. . you evacuated this room, put on all extractor fans, took a deep breath, stabbed the stomach and ran for the door?’

‘Yes, that one. He was given a name and buried in a pauper’s grave in Fulford Cemetery, but he was somebody’s son, possibly somebody’s brother, maybe somebody’s father. . so they gave him a name and buried him, and I go and lay a flower on his grave every now and again. So I might be doing the same for that wretched woman. Just sufficient of her remained for me to be able to tell that her liver and kidneys were shot to hell; just a derelict bag lady, no one missed her. But she was somebody’s daughter, maybe somebody’s sister, and possibly somebody’s mother and no one reported her missing. She’ll be given a name and buried in the paupers section of the cemetery close to John Brown. . another grave for me to visit.’

Webster turned the key in the lock of James Post’s flat. Ventnor stood beside him. Both officers wore latex gloves. Without a word passing between them the two officers entered the flat, which was on the second floor of a block of low rise flats and accessed from a neatly kept common staircase. They proceeded with caution and with Webster announcing their presence by calling out ‘Police’. Receiving no answer, the officers stepped into the corridor carefully observing the six foot rule, that they must continually be within six feet of each other at all times to witness any findings of evidence, and to witness that neither was light-fingered should the householder or relative accuse the police of theft.

The flat had five rooms and a bathroom and a kitchen, three of the rooms being bedrooms. It was clearly not a flat intended for single person occupancy. The possibility which occurred to both Webster and Ventnor was that James Post was once married, his spouse and children had left and he had retained the tenancy, as would have been his right, and he would have resisted all moves by the Housing Department to accept a smaller flat, tenants rights being tenants rights.

The sitting room of the flat was found to be airless, with all windows closed, and in an untidy and unclean state. As so often, during the summer months, the fireplace had become a receptacle for all things inflammable, awaiting the first chill of autumn before being ignited. The furniture was inexpensive, covered with a fine layer of dust and the carpet was sticky to walk on. Two of the bedrooms had beds without bedding and wardrobes which proved, upon inspection, to be empty. The third, and largest, bedroom contained a double bed covered with crumpled sheets and there was male clothing strewn liberally about the floor and atop a chest of drawers.

‘Definitely a teenager,’ growled Webster.

‘Sorry?’

‘Well, the Chief’s recording stated he wore youthful clothing and footwear, and clearly still hasn’t learned to tidy his room.’

Ventnor laughed softly. ‘Reminds me of a sticker I once saw on a teenager’s bedroom door, “Why should I tidy my room when your generation has made such a mess of the world?”’

‘Hard to argue with that.’ Webster turned and stepped from the room and Ventnor followed, to complete the ‘sweep’ before commencing a detailed drawer by drawer, shelf by shelf, cupboard by cupboard, search of James Post’s home. The officers opened the door of the last of the rooms to be entered and stopped short at the threshold. The room was a small box room or store room close to the entrance of the flat. It had no natural light and smelled strongly of chemicals. Webster switched on the light which glowed a soft red. A bench ran across one wall containing phials of chemicals, film negatives hung by clothes pegs from a length of cord which was suspended from wall to wall across the room.

‘Well, now we know how he spent his free time,’ Webster commented.

‘Serious kit,’ Ventnor said.

‘The plastic tools?’

‘No. . that,’ Ventnor pointed to a camera lying on the bench furthest from the well, ‘a Nikon I think, very nice piece of kit.’

‘You’re a photographer?’

‘Hardly, just dabble in it, but I know enough to know I’d be hard pressed to afford a camera like that.’

‘I see.’

‘But it’s at odds with the rest of the contents of the flat, everything is cheap and tacky.’

‘Stolen, you think?’

‘Possibly, or he might have bought it, if he had a little undeclared business going on here. . printing naughty pics, the sort that folk wouldn’t want to send to the chemists. .’

‘Where would he keep any prints?’

‘Somewhere flat, like the inside of a drawer or an album. . even a large envelope, somewhere out of natural light which will make prints fade.’

A drawer underneath the bench on which the developing chemicals stood did indeed contain a number of large padded envelopes, which contained prints of a risque nature, as Ventnor suggested, not the sort of film one would send to the high street chemist to develop, but one envelope caught his eye, it was labelled ‘Bromyards’. He picked it up gingerly and pointed the label out to Ventnor, ‘Small world,’ he said.

‘Wheels within wheels,’ Ventnor gasped.

Webster took the photographs from the envelope. Each photograph was of one of the victims of the Bromyards kitchen garden murders, all were naked, all were attached by their ankle to the length of chain. Some of the victims had a blank expression as if accepting their fate, others displayed a look of extreme fear, others were pleading with their eyes. . and each was labelled by name on the reverse of the print, each with their full name: Angela Prebble. . Veronica Goodwin. . save for one which seemed to the officers to be a photograph of the one victim that had not been identified, who was known to Post as simply ‘Old Annie’. ‘Old Annie’ had clearly kept her identity a closely guarded secret, even to the end.

The two officers laid the photographs on the bench and withdrew from the room, and from the flat, touching as little as they could.

Webster went calmly but quickly down the stairs and out into the gardens at the front of the building to contact DCI Hennessey on his mobile phone, to notify him of the discovery in James Post’s flat and request his attendance and the attendance of scene of crime officers. Ventnor began to knock on the doors of the neighbours of James Post, and found he took an instant dislike to the first woman who opened her door upon his calling. It was her eyes, he thought, all in her eyes. The woman seemed to be smirking at him. So natural was her look that Ventnor guessed she would probably be smirking at the world, as if it was all a joke and all beneath her in some way, as though she was above all, superior to all; her and her little flat on the Tang Hall Estate of the city of York where the tourists never venture.

‘Don’t know much about him,’ she said, smiling with her eyes and her mouth as if she was giving an eager to please act, thought Ventnor, but he also sensed that she was about to burst into laughter at his expense, and she also seemed to know that she was annoying him and delighted in doing so. She was, he sensed, the sort of woman who would provoke any male partner to punch her. ‘He was just the little man across the landing who didn’t say much and who kept strange hours. . strange man with strange hours.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, coming and going at all hours of the day and night. He used to have a drink problem many years ago, that’s why she left him.’

‘She?’

‘A woman and her children. They were not married, they cohabited.’

‘Did you see anyone call. . any friends, for example?’

‘Him! With friends?’ She snorted with laughter. ‘He just kept himself to himself, never even knocked on my door to borrow a drop of milk if he ran out of the stuff. He was the quiet man on the stair but always seemed preoccupied.’

‘But you don’t know with what?’

‘No, not in the twenty years I have been here. The others on the stair will probably say the same about him. Ask them if you like.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Ventnor turned away, ‘we will.’ Then he turned back and asked of the woman as an afterthought, ‘Did Mr Post own a car?’

‘No.’ The woman answered clearly. ‘He walked from his home and walked back. I never even saw him get out of a car, or into one as a passenger.’

Somerled Yellich handed the photographs back to Hennessey, all printed in black and white on coarse matt finish, sixteen prints, some of which showed a victim, clearly a victim, a middle-aged man or woman, dressed in ill-fitting rags, the men with distinct facial hair and all with matted scalp hair, all lying or kneeling or on all fours, all with that look of resignation or despair or bewilderment, which was also in the eyes of the victims photographed in the kitchen garden at Bromyards. Yet, in the photographs of the victims taken out of doors, the photographer had clearly knelt to get the camera angle level with the eyes, so that he not only captured the look therein but also a distinct landmark. In one, the background showed the unmistakable outline of the Forth Railway Bridge, another showed the entrance to the Box Railway Tunnel in Wiltshire. Yet another showing Boston Stump in Lincolnshire, and yet another which showed not a famous landmark but a road signpost which was easily distinguished and read ‘St Mabyn — 1 mile’.

‘St Mabyn?’ Hennessey queried taking back the prints from Yellich.

‘It’s in Cornwall, boss. I looked it up in my road atlas.’

‘Cornwall,’ Hennessey sighed, ‘Cornwall. . so we have Scotland, Wiltshire, Lincolnshire and Cornwall, as well as others whose landmarks have still to be identified.’

‘Yes, sir. . and then five showing no body at all, just Post standing in a Hindley-esque manner, looking down at the ground on which he is standing, and, like Myra Hindley, he seems to have favoured moorland.’

‘Yes, sir, and also like Hindley, he is unlikely to have taken those pictures of himself by himself. It’s possible with a delayed shutter mechanism, but the remoteness of all the locations and Post did not drive. . he had an accomplice or accomplices.’

‘Yes.’ Hennessey looked at the five photographs which just showed James Post, small, diminutive, standing over a small plot of land which clearly had some dreadful significance for him, but a significance, despite its dread nature, which was evidently also a source of pride for him.

‘So we have twenty-five victims and that is the twenty-five which they catalogued. There’ll be more.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘We need to know more about James Post.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘He’s the key to this.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Yellich stood.

‘I am going to take learned advice.’

‘Understood, sir.’

‘If. . if. . your enquiries about James Post lead to the mention of a name Malpass, let me know immediately.’

‘Malpass, sir?’

‘Yes, Mr and Mrs Malpass. If you do hear mention of that name I want to know and I’ll tell you why at that point.’

‘We have interviewed them, sir. Ventnor and Pharoah. .’

‘I know,’ Hennessey smiled. ‘I know.’

‘But if they’re suspects we should move before they kill again. . surely?’ Yellich’s voice rose.

‘No. .’ Hennessey leaned back in his chair. ‘They are not suspects, not yet, and if I am right there’s no more danger.’

‘No danger, sir? They’re serial killers!’

‘Yes. . and their last victim was James Post. If I am right, it’s all been happening around us without us knowing anything about it and we have come in at the aftermath. But I want to bounce my thoughts off a learned brain before I decide how to proceed. And I need more on James Post. Get Webster on it with you.’

Webster thought Mrs Lismore to be a kindly lady. She seemed warm of manner, she was a woman whose eyes sparkled and her smile seemed to Webster to be genuine. She was slender and short, with close cropped hair, and stood on the threshold of her house on the Tang Hall Estate having fully opened the door. ‘I was,’ she said, ‘until I moved out. . I am Mrs Lismore now. This is going back some years. How did you find me?’

‘Housing Department,’ Webster said, ‘when I told them it was an important investigation.’

‘All right, well now you’ve found me. Would you like to come in? Better than standing out here, even on a pleasant day like today.’

The inside of Mrs Lismore’s flat was, Webster found, neat and clean, though a little Spartan and spoke of a limited income. Webster accepted her invitation to sit down. ‘I told them my partner was abusive,’ Mrs Lismore explained as she too settled into an armchair, ‘and I let them assume I meant physically abusive, and so they rehoused me and the children here. . just a few streets away but he never bothers us.’

‘He won’t be bothering you ever again anyway.’

‘Oh. .?’ Colour drained from her face. ‘You’re not telling me he’s dead?’

‘Yes, I am. He was found deceased in a field outside York. We traced him by a library card in his pocket and his brother made the identification.’

‘Oh. .’

‘But we need to know as much about him as possible. We believe he might have been involved in a serious crime which we are still investigating.’

‘I see. . that’s unlike him, he was an alcoholic and that’s why I left, just picked up the children I had had with my husband and walked into the Housing Department and said, “I have walked out of an abusive relationship”. They put us in a woman’s shelter and then allocated me this tenancy. So, he was a drinker but never a criminal. I do find that surprising.’

‘It probably was a development in his life which occurred after you left him,’ Webster suggested, ‘but the manner of Mr Post’s death suggests he was a deliberate target, he was not a random victim who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

‘What was the manner. . can I ask?’

‘Strangled and then battered to death, and his identification removed from his person.’

‘But they missed the library card?’

‘Yes.’

‘I see. . certainly sounds like someone wanted him dead, I’ll give you that.’

‘So, accepting you had little or nothing to do with Mr Post in the last few years. . but might you know of any enemies he had?’

‘No. . no I don’t’

‘Friends?’

‘Again, no. I do wish I could help. He drove any friends he might have had away from him.’

‘How did he deal with his drink problem?’

‘Alcoholics Anonymous. . eventually. It was a long time before he got round to going there, but in the end he went and they helped him stay off the bottle. . so I heard.’

‘Long shot, but we had to ask.’

‘My son could help you. . well, he might be able to.’

‘Your son?’

‘Kenneth. He works in the Civil Service. Nothing special, fairly low grade and money’s tight for him. . State Pensions Department on the Stonebow. He is Jim Post’s natural son but he took my name. I believe he tried to get to know his father in the last year or so once he. . his father. . had dried out.’

Kamella ‘Kamy’ Joseph was a slender woman of striking Asian features, with long black hair. She sat in her office at the university with a large poster of Sydney Opera House stuck to the wall behind her. She glanced out of the window at ducks on the pond and then turned to Hennessey and said, ‘I think you are quite correct. It’s all over.’

‘It seemed like the normal progression, easy victims and undervalued people who won’t be missed. .’

‘Yes, the photographs are clearly of down-and-outs and seem to be deposited or buried all over the UK. I mean, why should the Lothian Borders Police link this gentleman here with this gentleman found in Lincolnshire? Presume they had no identification on them?’

‘It’s safe to assume they didn’t, otherwise the other police forces would have contacted us, and they do not appear to have done, but we think this murder spree is about twenty years in existence. . or was if they have stopped.’

‘If the man in these photographs has himself been murdered in the same way these other victims were murdered then yes, they have stopped. This is going to make an interesting paper. I would appreciate having a look at the evidence once it is all wrapped up.’

‘I think that could be arranged.’

‘Thank you. . and then they ratcheted things up by abducting people who would be missed and leaving them together in an overgrown kitchen garden.’

‘Taunting us?’

‘Possibly, possibly even a way of giving themselves up. I have a photograph of a crime scene in the United States of a serial killer’s work. . or activity. This man would get into the houses or apartments of women who lived alone, murder them, and then ransack the property. In the home of one of his victims he got her lipstick and on the mirror of her dressing table he wrote, “Stop me before I do this again”.’

‘Blimey.’

‘Yes, he wanted to be stopped but he couldn’t just walk into a police station. . the strange workings of the human mind, but that incident has lead to the theory that when a serial killer, or killers, appear to be getting bolder and taking valued and well integrated people as their victims, it is a way of giving themselves up. . of stopping it all.’

‘Interesting. . because they want the notoriety?’

‘Who knows why? It is the thrust of forensic psychology to try to get into the minds of these people, to identify some pathology which they have in common. Being unable, yet wanting to stop has been claimed by other serial killers, so it might not be about notoriety at all.’

‘What sort of person or persons are we looking for?’

Kamella Joseph PhD by the nameplate on her desk, reclined in her chair. ‘Well, apart from the usual manipulation by charm, which is common among psychopaths, I’d say you’re looking for someone. . or persons. . who could offer these victims what they seemed to want, which would appear to be acceptance. Down-and-outs are continually shunned, yet if a charming person, who is well dressed and is like the down-and-out wants to be like, offers friendship, and if that hand of alleged friendship is taken. .’

‘The trap closes.’

‘Yes,’ Kamella Joseph smiled, ‘the trap closes.’

‘And if someone is not a down-and-out but feels socially isolated. .?’

‘Same thing, the offer to meet unmet needs.’

‘Lucky Matilda Pakenham.’

‘Who’s she?’

‘A young woman who, when at a low point of her life, declined the offer of a trip to the coast with a charming couple who had befriended her.’

‘Ah. . so you have a suspect or a couple of suspects?’

‘Yes, but so far just suspects, and I don’t want to act too soon. . don’t want to put them to flight. . though I think there is little risk of that, but I don’t want to run the risk. . and I think. . I believe. . that they have taken their last victim anyway.’

‘Only ever saw him with another woman once. . just one time.’ The man sat rigidly in his chair of grey painted steel, with shallow grey upholstery, behind a metal desk of two-tone grey. ‘He didn’t notice me. I wasn’t looking for him; we just passed in the street, father and son, we just walked past each other, but he’d cleaned himself up. No longer an alcoholic, he was smart and clean and tidy.’ Kenneth Lismore was his father’s son, Webster thought, very small, slightly built, but he had benefited from his mother’s influence, because here was the same benevolent attitude, the same warmth about the eyes.

‘Go on,’ Webster prodded gently.

‘Well, we met up after that. I wanted to get to know him, now that he had sobered, and so we met for coffee from time to time. I asked him about the woman I had seen him with on Swinegate and he said it was a friend of his. He didn’t want me to meet her, he said that “we understood each other”, and added “but it’s not serious”. I took that to mean that they had both been alcoholics, and she did indeed appear to have a hardbitten and a used look about her.’

‘A lady of the streets, perhaps?’

‘Possibly, but by then helping each other to lead cleaner, more sober lives. . so good for both of them, but she still had a humourless expression and cold, angry eyes. All that I saw in an instant.’

‘A name?’

‘He did mention her name once, but you’ll know her.’

‘Oh?’

‘Most probably, she had gaol house tatts.’

‘Gaol house tatts?’

‘Just here,’ Lismore tapped the top of his left hand. ‘Girls in residential care often give themselves similar sorts of tattoos. Soak a ball of cotton wool in ink and push a pin through it, then prick, prick, prick or rather jab, jab, jab and the pin takes the ink beneath the surface of the skin and there it remains.’

‘Ah, yes, of course, I know the type. Will you look at some photographs?’

‘Yes, of course, but this was a few years ago, blonde hair stiff with peroxide. . she had a name. . what did dad call her?’ Lismore turned his head to one side and glanced out at the concrete and glass that was the Stonebow development in the centre of York. ‘What was her name? It was a racecourse name. .’

‘She had the name of a racecourse?’

‘No. . no. .’ Kenneth Lismore held up his hand, ‘part of a racecourse followed her name, like “Winning Post Mary”, but not that name. . a name like it “Starting Gate Sally”. . something like that.’

‘First bend?’ Webster suggested.

Kenneth Lismore shook his head, ‘No. .’

‘Paddock somebody?’

‘Nope, but we’re getting there, keep them coming,’ he added with a smile.

‘Starter’s orders?’

‘Nope. .’

‘Furlong?’

Kenneth Lismore smiled, ‘Furlong Freda. That’s it.’ He beamed. ‘She had “Freda” tattooed on the back of her left hand and he called her “Furlong Freda”. I don’t know how she acquired the name but that was definitely how she was known. There will only be one “Furlong Freda” in York, I’ll be bound.’

‘It sounds like somebody we’ll know, as you say,’ Webster stood, ‘most probably for petty stuff. Thank you, it’s been helpful.’

‘She acquired the name when she was a working girl; she used to work the racecourse.’ Hennessey handed the file to Webster.

‘Furlong Freda McQueen,’ Webster read. ‘Actually, just plain Queen, but calls herself McQueen. For some reason she changed her name between her last period of borstal training when she was nineteen and her first conviction for soliciting when she was twenty-two. She was a regular customer of ours until she was thirty-eight years old. She must have burnt out, as they all do, or got to be good at covering her tracks, but either way, we don’t seem to have had a whiff of her for ten years, sir.’

‘Time to pay a call on her, you and Ventnor, but it’s been a long day, we can ease up.’

‘We can, sir?’

‘Yes, there will be no more victims. I didn’t think there would be and the suspects I have in mind are not going anywhere.’

‘I see, sir.’

‘Dr Joseph at the university agrees, our suspects have “matured” as serial killers do. . or as Furlong Freda seems to have done. . they “burn out”.’

Thomson Ventnor ate a ready-made meal that he had bought from the supermarket. Just one meal, which he carried home in a plastic bag; it was the only item he purchased and simply required reheating. After the meal he took a bus out of York to the semi-rural suburbs and to a large Victorian house set in neatly tended grounds. He observed swallows and swifts darting about in the summer evening air as he walked up the winding drive to the house. He opened the door and was met by a blast of heat which he always believed could not be healthy. He signed in the visitors’ book and went up the wide, deeply carpeted staircase to a lounge area, where elderly men and women sat in high-backed armchairs, and where a television set stood in the corner. A young woman in a blue smock smiled at him. Ventnor walked across the floor to an elderly man whose face lit up with delight as he recognized Ventnor, but by the time that Ventnor had walked the few paces to where the man sat, the man had retreated into his own mind, so that all Ventnor could say was, ‘Hello, Dad,’ even though he knew he was speaking to a person who was little more than a vegetable.

Later, he returned to the city and walked the streets, and eventually fetched up in a pub he found to be pleasingly quiet. He bought a beer and stood at the bar. He thought of the issues. . the transfer to Canada. . the need to stay in York until his father had passed away. . his passion for Marianne that did not seem to be diminishing.

It was Sunday, 21.45 hours.