Secrets of Death (36 page)

‘So you’re going to pull that out of the bag at the right moment.’

‘I think when I produce the photo of Victoria Jenkins with her A-level results it will break him down.’

‘Personally, I still think he might have been one of her customers,’ said Fry. ‘They say that can develop into an obsession for the wrong man.’

‘Well, whatever his reason for it, he seems to have been devastated by her murder. And with no one being charged for it after all that time? Tate turned into a vigilante. And you can see why, can’t you?’

‘It was just a question of time,’ protested Fry. ‘We would have got there in the end.’

‘I’m sure you would. In the end.’

‘So he was able to identify Roger Farrell as the killer before we did,’ said Fry. ‘How did he manage that?’

‘Don’t feel bad about it, Diane,’ said Cooper. ‘The fact is, journalists can do a lot of things the police aren’t able to do. They can ask questions we can’t, go places we can’t, cut corners, break the rules.’

‘All
right. There’s no need to go on.’

‘So Fay Laws needs to be spoken to again.’

Fry made a note. ‘I’ll get Jamie Callaghan to speak to her. Unless you wanted to do it yourself?’

‘No, that’s fine.’

‘And what else was there?’ said Fry. ‘Oh, yes, the website. Were you going to give me the details of that?’

Cooper handed her the printouts from
secretsofdeath.org
.

‘It was just a question of time,’ he said.

‘It’s horrible stuff,’ said Fry after a glance through the printouts.

‘Luke found dozens of other websites of a similar nature,’ said Cooper. ‘One of them has instructions for slitting your wrists that match exactly the method that Bethan Jones used. So whether she used the
secretsofdeath.org
website in particular or some other site, I don’t know. But we have a definite connection for Farrell, and for three of the others – Burgess, Kuzneski and Denning.’

‘Through the business cards.’

‘Yes.’

‘Could we find out where they were printed? It would provide some firm evidence against Tate.’

‘There are too many possibilities. We could try local companies, but we don’t have the resources to extend the inquiry any further than that. I suspect it was probably an overseas printer anyway – it’s easy enough to do online and practically untraceable.’

‘And the combination of letters and numbers were a password?’

‘Yes, providing access to a sort of members’ area
where you could get personal guidance. That’s where all the more detailed stuff comes from, thanks to Luke Irvine. I picture Tate luring Farrell in, or instructing him to go there.’

‘Was Tate trying to blackmail him?’ asked Fry. ‘If he was, he would have been unsuccessful. Hull and Sharif were already bleeding him dry.’

‘Personally, I think it was more than blackmail. Tate wanted to get fun out of it.’

‘Fun?’

‘The feeling of power,’ said Cooper. ‘Playing with someone’s life. You can only do that if it’s someone you’re convinced is worthless or deserving of their fate. It wasn’t just about money.’

‘And the card itself?’

‘The card may only have been for one purpose. Yes, it was a message. But it was intended as a message from Anson Tate to Roger Farrell. Imagine that
Secrets of Death
card coming through his letterbox one day. It would have shaken Farrell to the core, the realisation that Tate knew where he lived.’

‘It would scare me, actually.’

‘Me too.’

Fry smiled. ‘We’ll go back to Simon Hull. We’ll work out all the details in due course.’

‘I’m sure you will.’

She looked at him quizzically. ‘Were all those other suicides arranged just to camouflage the death of Roger Farrell?’ she said.

‘No, no. It wasn’t as simple as that.’

Cooper had thought about the question already. Anson
Tate had surely enjoyed what he was doing. Given the opportunity, he’d found he couldn’t stop. All those potential suicides coming to his website had encouraged him to continue. They had needed him. And he’d been unable to turn them away, because he liked it too much. He liked being needed. It was difficult to imagine the feeling of power it must have given him. The power over life and death. It was the nearest you could ever get to being God.

‘What about the others?’ asked Fry.

‘I’ve had the team going through them in minute detail. We can’t find any connection.’

‘Really?’

‘Apart from Farrell, it seems Tate didn’t contact any of the others directly. He didn’t need to, though. David Kuzneski, Alex Denning, Gordon Burgess, Bethan Jones, and probably others – they were already in a state of mind where they’d decided to look for guidance or for information, or just for someone who understood what was going through their heads.’

Fry nodded. ‘Not everybody would understand. They probably felt members of their families wouldn’t.’

‘Exactly. So they went looking elsewhere. And of course they did it online. It’s like when you feel ill, isn’t it? Everyone goes online to check what disease their symptoms might indicate, before they ever think of visiting their GP. It seems to be the same with potential suicides. They do a Google search one night when they’re feeling at rock bottom and they come across these websites.’

‘And
some of them found Anson Tate’s site
secretsofdeath.org
.’

Cooper sighed deeply. ‘Yes. So they weren’t targeted at all. They were drawn to it, like moths to a flame.’

Ella Webster stared at the photograph of Anson Tate, then laid it carefully on the table.

‘Yes, I do recognise him,’ she said, as if Cooper had been pestering her with the question for days. ‘He visited my aunt when I was over there from Spain a few months ago. I didn’t like him, but Aunt Fay wouldn’t tell me what he wanted. She said he was a journalist, but not what he was writing about.’

‘He wasn’t writing a story about anything. He was investigating your father.’

Ella looked away. ‘I thought it must be something like that. I just didn’t want to get involved.’

‘Mrs Webster, did you have any idea what your father was doing?’

‘No. Well, there was talk among the family. Disapproving murmurings from Aunt Fay, the odd mysterious hint from Uncle Alan, her husband. I tried to keep out of it.’

‘You didn’t
want
to know anything.’

‘No, I didn’t. Does that make me so bad? The father I knew had already gone. Not that he was ever a loving and affectionate dad. But he’d changed so much after Mum died that we couldn’t even talk to each other any more. He was like a stranger to me. Whatever it was, I just prayed it would end quietly, without dragging us all into some vile scandal. That would have
been awful. I have two children, you know. I need to shield them from things like that.’

Cooper studied her carefully. Like almost everyone he’d ever interviewed, she was keeping something back. Some were blatant about it, but others pretended to be open, sharing some information while holding details back. And Ella Webster had clammed up, just like a suspect in an interview room. Cooper expected her to say ‘no comment’ at any moment.

‘You and your family must have suspected something?’ he said. ‘Why didn’t you come to the police?’

Her eyes flickered, but there was no other response.

‘You surely had some idea of what your father was doing?’ he persisted.

‘How could we?’ she said.

Cooper stared at her, frustrated. How could they indeed, if they had never talked to him? The timing of the estrangement in Farrell’s family looked to be more than a coincidence. But, since none of them would talk, he had no evidence that he could use.

He would have to leave it to their consciences. In years to come they might reflect that their own inaction, the instinct of loyalty to a family member, could have resulted in the deaths of three young women.

‘I think you probably knew what your aunt was talking to Mr Tate about,’ said Cooper. ‘And you didn’t object. You just closed your eyes, crossed your fingers and hoped it would work out in your favour.’

Ella Webster pursed her lips stubbornly. ‘All I can say is that it turned out for the best in the end. No long-drawn-out court case, no prurient media coverage,
no need for any of the family to get dragged in. And my children can remain oblivious. All they know is that they no longer have a grandfather whom they never met. I’m sorry, Detective Inspector, but that’s the way I like it.’

Cooper wanted to tell her that it might all come out afterwards, when they got Anson Tate in court. A not-guilty plea would result in a long, complicated trial with many of the details about Mr Farrell brought out by the prosecution. He didn’t feel able to say that with any confidence, though. He wasn’t sure that the CPS would go ahead with a prosecution or what charges they could use. And Tate was certain to plead guilty to anything they presented. A quick hearing and a lesser sentence. He could see Tate smiling now.

Instead, Cooper stood up. There seemed nothing more to say to Ella Webster. Chloe Young had been so right, more correct than she could know. Some men had no one to talk to, not even members of their own family.

He couldn’t feel pity for Roger Farrell, of course. But how many others were there out there, alone and isolated through no fault of their own, easy prey to malicious outside influences and to their own inner torments?

Ben
Cooper interviewed Anson Tate again. He was very glad that Tate wasn’t the ‘goldfish’ type of interviewee who responded with ‘no comment’ to every question. Tate liked to talk. He talked a lot. All he wanted was the attention. It was a bit pathetic to see really.

But after a while Tate’s arguments about rational suicide began to grind Cooper down. Tate was trying too hard to present himself as someone with good intentions, claiming that even Roger Farrell had made his own decision to end his life. Anson Tate was just a man who was there to help.

Sitting across the table in the interview room, Tate still looked insignificant, despite everything that Cooper now knew about him, or suspected. His narrow mouth was held in a tight line and his eyes darted around the room. The stiff wedge of hair on his forehead had sagged and lost its shape. It lay against his skull like a damp rag.

‘So, Mr Tate,’ said Cooper, ‘tell me this: what was the nature of your relationship with the murdered student Victoria Jenkins?’

Tate
scowled. ‘I don’t want to talk about her.’

‘Why not? Are you ashamed, Mr Tate? Surely not.’

‘Why would I be ashamed?’

‘A man like you, with a teenage girl …’

That hit a nerve. Tate flushed angrily.

‘That’s a disgusting suggestion,’ he said.

‘Well, you’re a lot older than she was,’ persisted Cooper.

Tate leaned forward. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Old enough to be her father.’

Cooper frowned at his tone. ‘What are you saying?’

‘Don’t you get it? I
was
her father. Victoria was my own daughter.’

‘You look a bit shattered,’ said Fry later, sitting across the other side of Cooper’s desk without a hint of a knock on the door. ‘Mr Tate worn you out?’

‘He’s depressing me,’ admitted Cooper.

‘What now?’

‘His relationship with Victoria Jenkins,’ he said. ‘It was more than an obsessive crush on a much younger woman. Tate believed that she was his daughter.’

‘What?’

‘It seems he had a fling with her mother, way back when he was a dashing young newspaper reporter. When he was sent out on the A-level story, he realised who she was and calculated that her age was a fit.’

‘Did he never do anything about it? Speak to her mother, try to get a DNA test?’

‘No, not Mr Tate. It was an act of faith for him. He must have seen something of himself in her or
convinced himself that she was his, because of her cleverness. He has quite an ego, you know.’

‘Doesn’t he just?’

‘Well, that’s his story. Believe it or not, as you like.’

‘So what did he do after Victoria Jenkins was killed?’ asked Fry.

‘He expected there to be an arrest and someone to be charged with her murder. He was hoping for justice, I suppose. And it didn’t happen.’

‘Well, that would be why Tate made himself busy making his own enquiries around Nottingham,’ said Fry, consulting her notebook. ‘It seems he talked to the working girls. They gave him information that they wouldn’t share with us.’

‘I suppose he paid them, did he?’

‘Yes, that tends to make a difference. So they told him their experiences. Roger Farrell had been on the scene for some time and word gets around. Even the newer girls knew all about him. They gave Anson Tate enough for him to use.’

Cooper looked at her closely. Fry seemed a bit uncomfortable. Her head was down gazing at her notes, as if she couldn’t meet his eye. He knew there was something she deliberately wasn’t saying. She was hoping he wouldn’t ask the pertinent question. That was why she couldn’t look at him. But what was it? He considered what he’d be focusing on if she was a suspect in an interview room and he was probing for the truth.

‘Diane,’ he said, ‘how do you know all that, if the girls wouldn’t talk to you?’

Her head came up suddenly.

‘What?’
she said.

To Cooper, it sounded like ‘no comment’. So he asked the question again.

‘You’ve just said that the working girls in Nottingham wouldn’t share information with you. Anson Tate would be the only other person who knows what information they gave him and he hasn’t admitted it in my interviews with him. Not yet anyway. So how do you know what the girls told Tate?’

‘I …’ began Fry.

‘Yes?’

‘I used Devdan Sharma,’ she said. ‘He said he had some relevant experience from his assignment liaising with Immigration Enforcement. So I asked him to use his contacts. They came up with an Albanian girl who’d been working in the Forest Road area. They picked her up earlier this week and she was facing deportation. She talked.’

‘And that’s it?’

‘It seemed a good idea,’ Fry said defensively. ‘And it worked. You can’t deny it worked.’

‘No, I can’t.’