Chameleon's Shadow

Eighteen

THE NEWS, LATE ON Wednesday afternoon, that Walter Tutting had emerged from his coma was greeted with relief by the inquiry team. Progress on Kevin Atkins’s mobile had been painfully slow. The last incoming call, prior to Jackson’s, was from a pay phone at Waterloo station, and a half-hearted hope that the booth might produce results so many weeks later was quickly shattered when information came through that it was cleaned daily. Jones refused to authorize a forensic examination. ‘We might as well dig a hole and pour money into it,’ he said grimly.

Over sixty entries in the address book had been followed up without success. The majority of contacts were friends, family or business acquaintances, most of whom had been interviewed and dismissed at the time of Atkins’s murder. Of the remainder, fifteen, including three male prostitutes, all ex-army, had since accounted for themselves.

Four names remained to be checked but in each case the user’s mobile number had been disconnected. They were logged under the single-word tags of ‘Mickey’, ‘Cass’, ‘Sam’ and ‘Zoe’, but with no ideas of possible surnames from the Atkins family, the team was waiting on a data-search of the server’s files, with a warning that results could take days if multiple servers were involved. Even then, there was a good chance the numbers had been registered to companies, which would involve further time-consuming interviews.

The small hope the police had had that the phone had been used with a different SIM card after it was taken from Atkins’s house also came to nothing. As did the saliva DNA from the mouthpiece, which proved to be the victim’s. In answer to Detective Superintendent Jones’s question, ‘Why would the killer carry Atkins’s mobile around in public?’ the psychological profiler shook his head and said it didn’t make any sense to him.

‘Is that the best you can do?’

‘For the moment. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a single convicted serial killer who carried his trophies with him. The usual MO is to secrete anything incriminating inside an area he controls . . . usually his home. You’ll have to give me a day or two to research it.’

Jones leaned forward. ‘Supposing the boy made a mistake? Supposing he stole the phone from the woman? Would that make a difference?’

‘In what way?’

‘Women are very protective of their bags. If my wife wanted to hide something, particularly something small, she’d drop it to the bottom of her bag and carry it around with her.’

The psychologist shrugged. ‘How sure are you that the lad who stole the phone was telling the truth?’

‘Not at all.’

‘Then I’d talk to him again before you hare off in a different direction. The most obvious reason for a person to be walking around with trophies is because there was nowhere else to put them.’

‘Meaning what?’

‘Your killer might be part of the homeless community.’

Arranging another interview with Ben Russell had taken twenty-four hours, and Jones was out of patience by the time the boy’s solicitor agreed to make himself available at five o’clock on Wednesday.

‘Criminals have too many bloody rights in this country,’ he grumbled to Beale as they drove to the hospital. ‘We’d have the story out of the kid in half a second flat if he didn’t have guard dogs to protect him.’

‘We’d have something out of him,’ Beale agreed, ‘but I wouldn’t bet on it being any more truthful than what he’s told us already.’ He broke off as a call came through for the superintendent, smiling when the man punched the air. ‘What’s up?’

‘Tutting’s regained consciousness.’ He tapped in his secretary’s number. ‘Lizzie? Change of plan. I need you to get hold of Ben Russell’s solicitor and tell him we’ll be running late on the boy’s interview. Yeah . . . yeah . . . I know he’s a pain in the arse . . . so tell him I don’t give a damn whether he’s there or not. The kid’s lying through his teeth and we both know it.’

*

Jackson gave a startled jump when Acland disengaged himself from a shadowy recess between two buildings halfway down Murray Street as she approached her car. She hadn’t seen him since driving away from the squat the previous day and, by his unshaven appearance and crumpled shirt, he looked as if he’d slept rough overnight. He certainly hadn’t returned to the pub. ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded angrily. He was dangling his jacket over his shoulder in a 1930s-style affectation that didn’t suit him. ‘Hitching a ride,’ he said. ‘Where have you been? What have you been up to?’ ‘Just walking.’ ‘For thirty bloody hours ?’ she said scathingly. ‘Give me a break! Daisy and I have been worried sick. You’re damn lucky the police didn’t decide to question you. You’re supposed to stay put at the pub.’ ‘Sorry.’ He walked round the BMW to open the door for her while she put her case in the boot. ‘If I’d realized it was going to upset you that much, I wouldn’t have done it.’ ‘I’m not upset, I’m angry.’ ‘Whichever.’ He pulled the door wide. ‘It was your night off. I thought you and Daisy could do with some time to yourselves. She makes it pretty clear she doesn’t want me around.’

‘So now it’s Daisy’s fault?’ said Jackson grimly, stalking after him. She wrestled the door out of his hand. ‘Get in,’ she snapped, ‘and stop behaving like Little Lord Fauntleroy. As far as I’m concerned, he was a nasty little brown-noser in a silly suit with a deeply insipid mother . . . and I’m not that easily sidetracked.’

But she was. It certainly didn’t occur to her to question why he chose to open the door behind her and toss his jacket across the back seat.

Nor did she pursue the issue of what he’d been doing, although it wasn’t clear to her afterwards whether it was her choice or Acland’s to steer the conversation towards his mother. She had tried for the last few days to encourage him to talk about his family and his sudden willingness to describe his relationship with his parents took her by surprise.

‘If it takes an insipid mother to produce Little Lord Fauntleroy, then you’re confusing me with someone else,’ he said idly, attaching his seat belt. ‘There’s no way you could describe mine as insipid. In any case, courtesy was drummed into me at school and Sandhurst. Manners maketh man . . . and all that crap...but I’ve never understood why women are allowed to be as rude as they fucking well like.’

Of course Jackson was intrigued, not least because she’d come to recognize that the lieutenant was a puritan. He rarely used vulgar language unless he was angry. ‘You think I was rude?’

‘Yes.’

‘I come from the wrong side of the tracks. You’re looking at the last of a long line of working-class grafters who talked in glottal stops and never had an even break in their lives.’ She flicked him a mocking glance. ‘There wasn’t much cause for my ancestors to say thank you to anyone. They had it programmed into their genes to bow and scrape to privileged types like you.’

‘You haven’t done badly out of it,’ he said curtly. ‘At least your grafters sound genuine. I don’t even know what privilege is except that you get sent away to school at eight so that your parents can claim some cachet from it. Appearance is everything in my family.

As long as the surface passes muster, it doesn’t matter how much dirt is being churned up underneath.’

‘What kind of dirt?’

‘Anything that lets the side down. My father’s father was a chronic alcoholic – he was drunk twenty-four seven – but my mother told everyone he had Parkinson’s disease. I was scared shitless of him when he was in a rage. He kicked one of our dogs to death in front of me when I was ten. I was too frightened to say anything... but I really hated him for it.’

‘Did he hit your grandmother?’

‘Probably. She left him after my father was born. I never met her – I don’t think Dad did either.’

‘What about your mother’s parents?’

Acland shook his head. ‘I’ve never met them. As far as I know, there was a massive falling out around the time she married my father. They emigrated to Canada . . . but I don’t know which came first, the falling out or the emigration. Mum used to fly off the handle every time they were mentioned . . . so no one speaks about them now.’ He leaned forward to massage his temples. ‘She’s likely to—’ He broke off abruptly.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Do you get on with her?’

He didn’t answer.

‘Should I take that as a no?’

‘She likes her own way. I sometimes wonder if that’s what caused the row with her parents. If they disapproved of Dad, they might have tried to stop the wedding.’

‘What’s to disapprove of?’

‘Maybe they thought he’d turn out like his father.’

‘Did he?’

Acland shook his head. ‘The opposite. He’s spent his whole life trying to make up for my grandfather’s failings.’

‘In what way?’

‘Mortgaged the house and the farm up to the hilt to pay off the old man’s debts and try to make a go of it. He had a dairy herd until the milk prices dropped and he found it was costing more to produce the stuff than he was being paid for it. I tried to persuade him to sell up at that stage, but—’ He broke off on a shrug.

‘What?’ asked Jackson.

‘The silly old fool went into sheep instead. There’s too much debt hanging over the place. The best he could afford after the mortgages were cleared would be a cheap brick box on an estate somewhere.’

‘What’s wrong with that?’

‘Mother wouldn’t like it.’

Jackson smiled slightly. ‘Not grand enough?’

‘Something along those lines. It wouldn’t be worth it anyway. She’d be at war with the neighbours in seconds.’ He stared out of the windscreen. ‘Dad earns just enough out of the flock to allow them to stay there, but it’s all very precarious.’

‘Does your mother know that?’

‘I doubt it. She’d make my father’s life hell if she did.’

*

Jackson thought of the conversation she’d had with Robert Willis that morning when she’d phoned to say Charles hadn’t returned. ‘Would he have gone to his parents?’ she’d asked. ‘I can’t see it. He and his mother don’t get on, although I’m not so sure about his relationship with his father. He talks more sympathetically about Mr Acland . . . usually to do with the farm and the amount of work the man has to put in.’ Willis’s dry smile travelled down the wire. ‘Mrs Acland seems to be a lady of leisure . . . and I think that offends Charles.’ ‘What about the girlfriend? I know you said there was no love lost between them, but would she take him in for old time’s sake?’ ‘Jen? Can’t see that either, I’m afraid. She might go along with it, but I can’t see Charles even asking. Does she know he’s staying with you?’

‘Not that I’m aware of. There’ve been no phone calls for him . . . and he keeps to his room when he’s not out at night with me.’

‘Even when he’s not sleeping?’

‘Yes.’ Jackson sighed. ‘He seems to have a problem with Daisy and it’s making life rather difficult. He cuts her dead if he bumps into her by accident and it’s upsetting her.’

Willis hesitated. ‘What sort of personality is she? Friendly? Affectionate?’

‘Very. I’ve been wondering if he fancies her.’

‘I wouldn’t think so. I’d say it’s more likely he’s afraid she fancies him. He has real difficulty interpreting women’s motives.’

‘Because of the girlfriend?’

‘Because of the relationship, certainly. He talked about signing up to a fantasy. I interpreted that as meaning that he expected to settle down with Jen and live happily ever after . . . but it didn’t work out that way.’

‘Why not?’

‘He never told me,’ Willis said, ‘but I can make an educated guess. For a number of reasons – principally because Jen allowed her true character to emerge, I suspect – Charles became disillusioned with her.’ He paused. ‘She tried to persuade me it was her choice to end the relationship, but I don’t think that’s true. I’m ninety per cent sure it was Charles who pulled out when he realized how angry she was making him.’

‘You said he put his hands round her throat in the hospital. Had he ever done anything like that before?’

‘I’m guessing the abuse escalated during the latter part of the engagement. Jen has issues of her own which may have provoked it.’

‘What kind of abuse?’

Another hesitation. ‘I only know of one other episode. Jen described a particularly vicious rape to me and I’m confident that it did in fact happen. Charles is clearly ashamed of something in the relationship and rape seems to me the most likely cause. I’m guessing Jen used sexual favours to manipulate him – offering them or withdrawing them at whim – which is why he finds women difficult to read.’

Jackson allowed a brief silence to develop before she spoke again. This was information she hadn’t been given before. ‘So let me get this straight,’ she murmured with a touch of irony. ‘If Charles wasn’t given sex at the time that he wanted it, he took it by force? Then . . . not liking the person he was becoming, he ditched his fiance´e and is now too ashamed to talk about it? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘Not exactly. I think you’re embellishing what Jen told me. She spoke about one rape. I believe it happened as I indicated earlier . . . an escalation of abuse, culminating in a single episode of forced sex. After which, Charles cut all ties with her.’

‘Bully for him!’

‘Maybe so, but don’t assume that Jen’s blameless. As a couple they’re completely incompatible – in every way – and it’s my opinion that Charles tried to extricate himself as soon as he understood that.’

‘You’re making a lot of assumptions in his favour,’ said Jackson acidly. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’

‘Because there’s no evidence to support Jen’s allegation. Charles hasn’t admitted anything.’

Jackson wasn’t impressed. ‘It’s one thing to wish a rapist on to me – he’d have a job working up the energy – but quite another to put Daisy in his way. What if he mistakes a show of friendship for a sexual advance?’

‘That may be why he’s avoiding her,’ Willis said matter-offactly. ‘He doesn’t want to be drawn into another relationship based on flirting.’ He amended the sentence immediately. ‘I’m not suggesting that your partner seeks anything other than friendship – nor, indeed, that Charles does – but he’s intensely suspicious of women who use physical contact to demonstrate empathy.’

‘That’s hardly an answer to my question.’

‘I realize that.’ He broke off to order his ideas. ‘I can’t be a hundred per cent certain, of course, but I’d be very surprised if Daisy was in any danger from Charles. The only two women he’s shown any real animosity towards are his mother and Jen . . . and both of them display narcissistic personality traits. In fact, his experience of his mother may well have been why he was attracted to Jen in the first place.’ Willis fell into another thoughtful silence.

‘Go on,’ prompted Jackson.

‘Her personality was familiar to him and he mistook that familiarity for love. I doubt he even knows how narcissism shows itself in the early stages of a relationship. He certainly wouldn’t expect charm.’

*

Jackson drew up behind a long line of cars waiting to turn right. ‘What sort of relationship do your parents have?’ she asked Acland. ‘They’ve been married thirty years.’ She gave a grunt of laughter. ‘What does that mean? That they’re blissfully happy together . . . or that they grit their teeth and get on with it because no one better has ever come along?’ Acland shrugged. ‘I haven’t asked.’ Jackson glanced at him. ‘Isn’t it obvious when a relationship’s successful?’ ‘Not to me it isn’t.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘It depends how you define success.’ ‘I usually go by how well a couple communicates. If they find each other interesting, then talking comes naturally. They swap information . . . share a sense of humour . . . want their partner to

enjoy what they enjoy. I see a lot of troubled relationships in my job, and they’re often characterized by mutual avoidance and silence.’

‘That’s better than constant arguments.’

‘Not necessarily,’ Jackson demurred. ‘For some people, arguing is a form of communication. It also suggests a level playing field within the relationship. It makes me suspicious when I meet a couple where one partner is afraid to challenge the other. I’ve seen too many situations where the dominant personality is abusive.’

Acland didn’t say anything.

‘Do your parents argue?’

‘Only in private. I used to hear them going at it hammer and tongs when I was a kid.’

‘So you don’t want arguments in your own relationships?’

‘No.’

‘Do you believe that’s achievable?’ she asked. ‘Women have come a long way in thirty years. There aren’t many these days who won’t fight their corner when they disagree with something.’ She spun the steering wheel to take the turn before the lights changed. ‘You don’t seriously expect your view to prevail every time, do you?’

‘No.’

‘Then you’re bound to have arguments,’ she said matter-offactly. ‘Daisy and I agree on most things but we’ve had some ding-dong battles along the way . . . and I don’t regret them. It’s taught me what really matters to her.’

‘Do you lose your temper with each other?’

Jackson shook her head. ‘Not really. We raise our voices and storm out in a huff occasionally, but not to the extent that we see a red mist.’

‘Who wins?’

She flicked him an amused glance. ‘Who do you think?’

He was about to say ‘you’, but changed his mind. ‘Daisy.’

‘Every time,’ she agreed. ‘I don’t have her stamina. She’ll keep an issue alive for a month if it suits her. Is your mother the same?’

Acland was unprepared for the question. ‘It never goes that far,’ he said, surprised into answering honestly. ‘Dad gave up provoking her a long time ago.’

Jackson found his vocabulary interesting. ‘I thought you said they were always arguing.’

‘When I was a kid . . . not any more.’

‘So you weren’t joking when you said they went at it hammer and tongs? These were physical confrontations you were listening to?’ She paused for a moment, but went on when he didn’t answer. ‘Who was doing the hitting?’ Silence. ‘I assume from the words you used that your mother has more of a temper than your father.’

‘You could say that.’

‘Have you inherited it?’

He turned to look at her for a moment. ‘I’m nothing like my mother,’ he said flatly.

Jackson shrugged. ‘So you take after your father and avoid confrontation?’

‘Yes,’ he said harshly.

‘You didn’t back off with Rashid Mansoor during your fight in the pub,’ she pointed out. ‘You went at him hammer and tongs.’

‘He should have left me alone.’

‘The same way your father now leaves your mother alone?’

No answer.

‘Are you sure you’ve got your facts the right way round?’ Jackson needled him lightly. ‘Are you sure it wasn’t your mother who did the provoking and your father who lashed out in temper? If he avoids confrontation now it’s almost certainly because he’s learned to manage his anger.’

Acland leaned forward to press his thumb and forefinger against the bridge of his nose. ‘He’s too spineless to be angry about anything,’ he said contemptuously. ‘He had to drive himself to Casualty once with blood pouring out of his arm after she took a knife to him. When he came back, he told me he’d cut himself on some barbed wire. It was pathetic. He was always making excuses for her.’

‘Perhaps he was trying to protect you.’

‘He made sure everything happened behind closed doors after that . . . then packed me off to school. We played musical chairs around Mother so that she could have everything her own way.’

‘And you despise him for that?’

‘Yes.’ He opened and closed his fists till the knuckles cracked.

Privately, Jackson sympathized with him. It would explain a lot about his character, she thought, if he had no respect for the gentler of the parental role models. She even wondered if his problems with his mother stemmed from a confused admiration for her strength. ‘Except it’s hard to break cycles of abuse, Charles. If your dad grew up with an alcoholic wife-beater for a father, it must have taken extraordinary control to put up with similar treatment from your mother . . . then reach a point where it doesn’t happen any more. Most people would commend him for that.’

‘Not me. He wouldn’t have married her unless he enjoys being a doormat.’

‘He might not have known . . . unless her parents tried to warn him –’ Jackson gave a small shrug – ‘which may be the reason why she fell out with them. But even if they did, he wouldn’t have believed the warning. The relationship she had with them would have been very different from the one she had with your father.’

Acland shook his head stubbornly. ‘He lived with his own father long enough. If he’d ever found the guts to stand up to him, he might have done the same with my mother.’

‘Is that how you tried to run your relationship with Jen?’

The question, unanswered, hung in the air between them.

‘You can’t seem to decide which of your parents to emulate,’ Jackson went on. ‘Whether it’s more important to prove who’s boss . . . or to walk away when the abuse gets out of hand. Did you get a buzz from hurting Jen?’

Acland stared at her for a moment. ‘Not as big a buzz as I got from hurting my mother,’ he said before turning away to look out of the passenger window.