Shatter (30 page)

There are murmurs of astonishment from the ranks. Many in the room saw Christine Wheeler die. How did such an obvious suicide suddenly become a murder victim?

Meanwhile, the facts are being presented— age, height, hair colour, single status and her career as a wedding planner. Soon the details shift to the day of her death. Christine’s last journey is outlined, the phone cal s and her walk through Leigh Woods wearing only a raincoat and high-heel shoes. CCTV images from the bridge are flashed onto the screen.

The reporters are growing restless. They want an explanation but DI Cray won’t be rushed. She is listing details of the phone cal s. Certain facts are withheld. There is no mention of the bal et shoes that were delivered to Darcy’s school or the pet rabbit left on Alice Furness’s doorstep. These are things that only the kil er could know which means they can be used to filter out genuine cal ers from the hoaxers.

DI Cray has finished. She introduces me. I flip through my notes and clear my throat.

‘Sometimes in my work I come across individuals who fascinate me and appal me in equal measure. The man who committed these crimes fascinates and appals me. He is intel igent, articulate, manipulative, sadistic, cruel and pitiless. He didn’t lash out with his fists. He destroyed these women by preying on their worst fears. I want to understand why. I want to understand his motives and why he chose these women.

‘If he’s listening now or if he watches on TV or if he reads about it in the newspapers, I’d real y like him to get in contact with me. I want him to help me understand.’

There is a hubbub at the back of the room. I pause. Veronica Cray stiffens in alarm. I fol ow her gaze. Assistant Chief Constable Fowler is pushing his way through the crowded doorway.

Heads turn. His arrival has become an event.

There are no spare chairs in the room except at the main table. For a fleeting moment the Assistant Chief Constable considers his options and then continues along the central aisle until he reaches the front of the room. Placing his hat on the table, leather gloves tucked inside, he takes a seat.

‘Carry on,’ he says gruffly.

I hesitate… look at Cray… back at my notes.

Someone cal s out a question. Two more fol ow. I try to ignore them. Montgomery, the man from
The Times
, is on his feet.

‘You said he preyed on their worst fears. Exactly what do you mean? I saw footage of Christine Wheeler on the Clifton Suspension Bridge. She jumped. Nobody pushed her.’

‘She was threatened.’

‘How was she threatened?’

‘Let me finish, then I’l take questions.’

More reporters are standing, unwil ing to wait. DI Cray tries to intervene, but Fowler beats her to the microphone, cal ing for quiet.

‘This is a formal briefing, not a free-for-al ,’ he booms. ‘You’l ask your questions one at a time or you’l get nothing at al .’

The reporters resume their seats. ‘That’s better,’ says Fowler, who peers at the assembly like a disappointed schoolmaster, itching to use the cane.

A hand is raised. It belongs to Montgomery. ‘How did he threaten her, sir?’

The question is directed at Fowler, who pul s the nearest microphone even closer.

‘We are investigating the possibility that this man intimidates and manipulates women by targeting their daughters. There has been speculation that he threatens the daughters to make the mother co-operate.’

This drops a depth charge in the room and thirty hands shoot skyward. Fowler points to another reporter. The briefing has turned into a question and answer session.

‘Are the daughters harmed?’

‘No, the daughters aren’t touched, but these women were made to believe otherwise.’

‘How?’

‘We don’t know at this stage.’

DI Cray is furious. The tension at the table is obvious. Pearson from the
Daily Mail
senses an opportunity.

‘Assistant Chief Constable, we’ve heard Professor O’Loughlin say that he wants to “understand” the kil er. Is that your desire?’

Fowler leans forward. ‘No.’ He leans back.

‘Do you agree with the Professor’s assessment?’

He leans forward. ‘No.’

‘Why’s that, sir?’

‘Professor O’Loughlin’s services are not material y important to this investigation.’

‘So you can see no benefit in his offender profile?’

‘None whatsoever.’

‘Wel , why is he here?’

‘That’s not a question I’m going to answer.’

Raised hands are slowly being lowered. The reporters are happy to let Pearson prod the Assistant Chief Constable, looking for a raw nerve. Veronica Cray tries to interrupt but Fowler won’t surrender the microphone.

Pearson doesn’t let up. ‘Professor O’Loughlin has said that he’s fascinated by the kil er— are you also fascinated, Assistant Chief Constable?’

‘No.’

‘He said he wants the kil er to cal him, don’t you think that’s important?’

Fowler snaps. ‘I don’t give a toss what the Professor wants. You people, the media watch too much TV. You think murders are solved by shrinks and scientists and psychics. Bol ocks!

Murders are solved by good, solid, old-fashioned detective work— by knocking on doors, by interviewing witnesses and by taking statements.’

Ropes of spit are landing on the microphones as Fowler stabs his finger at Pearson, punctuating each of his points.

‘What the police don’t need in this investigation is some university professor who has never made an arrest or ridden in a police car or confronted a violent criminal tel ing us how to do our job. And it doesn’t take a degree in psychology to know we’re dealing with a pervert and a coward, who targets the weak and the vulnerable because he can’t get a woman, or hold on to one, or because he wasn’t breastfed as a baby…

‘The profile Professor O’Loughlin has drawn up doesn’t pass the so-what test in my opinion. Yes, we’re looking for a local man, aged thirty to fifty who works shifts and hates women.

Fairly bloody obvious, I would have thought. No science in that.

‘The Professor wants us to show this man respect. He wants to reach out to him with the hand of compassion and understanding. Not on my watch. This perpetrator is a scumbag and he’l get al the respect he wants in prison because that’s where he’s going.’

Every set of eyes in the room is focused on me. I’m under attack but what can I do? DI Cray takes hold of my forearm. She doesn’t want me responding.

Questions are stil being shouted:

‘How does he threaten the daughters?’

‘Were the women raped?’

‘Is it true that he tortured them?’

‘How were they tortured?’

Fowler ignores them. Donning his hat, he straightens it, sliding a palm across the brim. Then he slaps his gloves from one palm to the other and marches down the central aisle as if leaving the parade ground.

Flashguns are firing. Questions continue:

‘Will he kill again?’

‘Why did he choose these women?’

‘Do you think he knew them?’

Veronica Cray cups her hand over the microphone and whispers in my ear. I nod and stand to leave, angry and embarrassed. There are howls of protest. It’s become a blood sport, not a briefing.

DI Cray turns slowly and fixes the room with a fierce stare. It’s a statement in itself. The press briefing is over.

38

Veronica Cray rocks along the corridor like a ship’s captain leaving the bridge of her sinking vessel, retiring to her quarters while others lower the lifeboats.

‘That was a complete fucking disaster.’

‘It could have been worse,’ I murmur, stil stunned by the vitriol of Fowler’s attack.

‘How exactly could it have been any worse?’

‘At least we warned people to be careful.’

Phones are ringing in the incident room. I have no idea what sorts of cal s are being generated or what filters are in place to weed out genuine information.

Many of the detectives are trying hard not to look at me. News of my public humiliation has reached them already. Most have adopted homebound expressions, biding their time before they can put on their coats and leave.

DI Cray shuts her office door. I sit before her. Ignoring the NO SMOKING sign, she lights up and opens the window a crack. Aiming a remote control, she turns on a smal TV tucked in one corner on a filing cabinet. She finds a news channel and mutes the sound.

I know what she’s going to do. She’s going to punish herself by watching the press briefing being broadcast.

‘Want a drink?’

‘No thank you.’

She reaches inside an umbrel a stand and takes out a bottle of Scotch. A coffee mug doubles as a glass. I watch her pour and then return the bottle to its hiding place.

‘I have an ethical question, professor,’ she says, swil ing the Scotch like mouthwash. ‘A tabloid reporter and an assistant chief constable are trapped in a burning car and you can only save one. Who do you save?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘There’s only one true dilemma— whether you go to lunch or to a movie.’

She doesn’t laugh. She’s being serious.

A file is sitting on her desk decorated with a yel ow Post-it note. It contains printouts from the Police National Computer. The database has been trawled for similar crimes. She hands me the cover sheet.

In Bristol two drug dealers tortured a prostitute who they accused of being a police informant. They nailed her to a tree and sexual y assaulted her with a bottle.

A stevedore in Felixstowe came home to find his wife in bed with their next-door neighbour. He tied the neighbour to a chair and tortured him with his wife’s curling irons.

Two German business partners fel out over the division of profits and one of them fled to Manchester. He was found dead in a hotel room with his arms stretched across the top of a table and his fingers severed.

‘That’s it,’ she says, lighting one cigarette off another. ‘No mobile phones, no daughters, no threats. We got sweet FA.’

For the first time I notice the shadows beneath her eyes and creases in the contours of her face. How much sleep has she had in the past ten days?

‘You’re looking for the obvious answer,’ I say.

‘What does that mean?’

‘If you see a man in the street, dressed in a white coat with a stethoscope around his neck, straight away you think he’s a doctor. And then you extrapolate. He probably has a nice car, a nice house, a trophy wife; he likes to holiday in France, she prefers Italy. They ski every year.’

‘What’s your point?’

‘What are the odds that you’re wrong about him— one in twenty, one in fifty? He might
not
be a doctor. He could be a food inspector or a lab technician, who happened to pick up a stethoscope that someone dropped. He might be on his way to a fancy dress party. We make assumptions and normal y they’re right, but sometimes they’re wrong. That’s when we have to think lateral y, outside the square. The obvious solution, the easiest solution, is normal y the best one— but not always. Not this time.’

Veronica Cray looks at me steadily with a formless smile, waiting.

‘I don’t think the murders have anything to do with the wedding planning business,’ I say. ‘I think you should look at another angle.’

I tel her about the reunion of old school friends at the Garrick’s Head a week before Christine Wheeler died. Sylvia Furness was also there. It was organised by email, but the person who supposedly sent the invitations drowned three months ago in a ferry tragedy in Greece. Whoever sent the email set up an account in her name or had access to her password and username.

‘So we’re looking at family, friends, her husband…’

‘I’d look at her husband first. They were separated. His name is Gideon Tyler. He might be stationed with British Forces in Germany.’

The DI wants to know more. I describe our visit to Stoneleigh Manor, where Bryan and Claudia Chambers were living like prisoners behind security cameras, motion sensors and jagged glass.

‘Gideon Tyler knew both victims. They were bridesmaids at Helen Chambers’ wedding.’

‘What do you know about this ferry accident?’

‘Only what I read at the time.’

The detective blinks at me slowly as if she’s stared too long at a single object.

‘OK, so we’re dealing with one offender. He was either invited inside their houses or he broke in. He knew things about their wardrobes, their make-up, Sylvia’s handcuffs. He knew their telephone numbers and what cars they drove. He orchestrated to meet their daughters earlier to obtain information. Are we agreed on this?’

‘So far.’

‘And the same man broke into the Wheelers’ house and opened the condolence cards.’

‘A reasonable assumption.’

‘He was looking for something.’

‘Or searching for someone.’

‘His next victim?’

‘I wouldn’t automatical y jump to that conclusion, but it’s certainly a possibility.’

The detective’s face betrays nothing. Emotion would be out of place like a birthmark or a nervous tic.

‘This Maureen Bracken, is she at risk?’

‘Quite possibly.’

‘Wel , I can’t put her under guard unless there’s a specific threat against her or hard evidence that she’s a high probability target.’

I don’t have any hard evidence. It’s only supposition. A theory.

The DI glances at her TV and aims the remote. A news bul etin is beginning. Images from the press briefing flash across the screen. I’m not going to watch it. Being there was embarrassing enough.

Outside the day has disappeared. Everything about my clothes and my thoughts has a soiled wrapper feel to it. I’m tired. Tired of talking. Tired of people. Tired of wishing things made sense.

Christine Wheeler and Sylvia Furness grew tired. It was as if their kil er pressed a fast forward button and stole years from their lives, decades of experiences both good and bad. He used up their energy, their fight, their wil to live; then he watched them die.

Julianne was right. The dead remain dead, no matter what happens. I understand that intel ectual y but not in the hol ow space that echoes in my chest. The heart has reasons that reason cannot understand.