Sugar & Spice (38 page)

178

Matt’s call came as Claire was getting in her car.
“No sign of Ceri so far, Claire. Just waiting for Gavin to finish a lecture.
Are you still at home. We’ll be late for Milton Keynes. Sorry.”
“I’m already here.”
“What! For Christ’s sake, Claire, I told you to wait till I got there. You’re
not to see him on your own.”
“Done and dusted, Matt. I’ve just left him.”
“Jesus. Did he try anything?”
“Matt, he was a perfect gentleman. And guess what. He’s a former patient at
the Foundation. Things are beginning to add up.”
“Like?”
“I need some time to think it all through.”
“Claire, don’t go doing anything silly.”
“I’m not a kid, Matt.”
“Now you know how I feel, Claire.”
“Danny?”
Matt sounded embarrassed. “He sort of came along, for the ride.”
Claire held back a laugh. “Give my love to Ceri when you see her, Danny.”
“You bet!”

179

The row of lock-ups had seen better days, but even if McKenzie’s description had
not been fresh in Claire’s mind, the huge chain and padlock would have drawn her
to it. Number five with the green door.
“Have you lost something, miss?”
Claire turned to see two young boys eyeing her suspiciously. She smiled
politely. “I’m just looking, but thank you anyway.”
She made her way round to the side window. The glass had long since been
vandalised, heavy mesh wire barring her view. The kids were watching her with
great interest.
Claire smiled at them. “Would you happen to know who this belongs to?”
“Who wants to know?”
“I do. Is it a secret?”
“Are you a copper?”
“Do I look like a cop… Like a poliewoman?”
“You sound like one, asking lots of questions.”
“I just wondered to whom this garage might belong, that’s all.”
“Dunno. 'E don’t live round 'ere.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“We know everyone round 'ere.”
“I see.”
“Anyway, you’d better not go near it.”
“And why might that be?”
“Baldy don’t like it.”
“Baldy?”
“Yeah, that’s what we call him. He ain’t got no 'air, you see.”
Claire nodded her understanding. “I guessed that might be the case. He doesn’t
like you going near it?”
“Yeah, he goes crazy if he sees us.”
“Crazy,” the second boy confirmed. “Even my mum says he’s a loony. She
says we’re not to go near 'im. An 'specially not Megan.”
“Megan?”
“My sister.”
Claire could feel the adrenaline rise. “What about your sister?”
“He offered her a quid to pull her knickers down.”
“My God! She didn’t, did she?”
“No fear! For a quid? She ain’t that stupid.”
“Yeah,” said the other boy. “That’s gotta be worth at least a fiver.”
“Boys! Really! Did your parents tell the police?”
The boys looked aghast. 'No fear! We don’t want the old bill round here. They
always accuse us of nicking things.”
“Yeah, last week a copper 'ad a go at me just because I was looking through
a car window. An’ I wasn’t even gonna nick nuffink. It was a crap car anyway.
Not even worth running a key down.”
“Your sister. Was she okay? He didn’t try to touch her or anything?”
“No chance. I would’ve kicked 'im in the bollocks if he 'ad. Oops! Sorry,
miss. Didn’t mean to swear.”
Claire managed a nervous smile. “When did this happen?”
“Just after Christmas.”
“You’re sure?”
“Course I am.”
“How does he get here?”
“Bus. Then he drives off in his van.”
“A bus?”
“What’s up with that? I s’pose you’re too posh to go on a bus.”
“No, I didn’t mean that. This bus, where does it go?”
“City centre.”
“You mean Milton Keynes?”
“That’s what I said. City centre.”
“And where does the bus come from, before it gets here?”
“City centre, obv! It’s a circular.”
“I’m sorry, boys. I’m not from this area.”
“We can tell that.”
“So this man, he gets the bus here, goes off in his van, and then brings it
back and gets another bus?”
“Yeah. Don’t see why he can’t park outside his own house.”
“Prob’ly coz he lives in a flat like we do, thick twat.”
“Don’t you call me a thick twat, you tosser.”
Claire raised a hand to quieten them.
“This wouldn’t be a white van by any chance? With no windows?”
“Yeah, why? You gonna buy it off him?”
“Maybe. I’d certainly like to see it.”
“Tough. He went off in it this morning.”
Claire felt her stomach convulse. She searched her mind for the date. January
thirtieth. “Are you sure?”
“Do we look stupid? He was 'ere just a couple of hours ago.”
“Can you describe him for me?”
“What, baldy? Well, he ain’t got no 'air.”
“Boys, this is important.”
The boys considered carefully. “Well, he’s bald, like I said. And big! Built
like a brick shit-house. Oops, I mean…”
“It’s okay. Just tell me. It doesn’t matter if you swear.”
The boys’ eyes brightened. “Don’t it? Fucking ace!”
“Bollocks, arse-holes, shit, cunt, fanny,” said the second boy quickly, just
in case she changed her mind.
“Boys, please. Just describe him to me.”
“Bald.”
“And big.”
She thought of Leroy McKenzie. “He wasn’t… He wasn’t black by any chance?”
“No way! We don’t have no coons round here.”
Claire let the remark pass. This was too important. “Anything else? How old
was he?”
“Ancient. At least twenty.”
“Or sixty. I’m ten next month.”
“I was ten in October.”
“Yeah, on Halloween.”
“Fuck off. It was in the day time.”
“Still Halloween though. That means your mum’s a witch.”
Claire raised hand to quieten them. “Listen to me, boys, if this man comes
back, just stay well away from him, okay?”
They waved a dismissive hand.
“Whatever.”

180

Professor Gavin Large eyed Danny with practised disdain, firm in the belief that
his students were mere kids and anyone below their late teens should still be in
nappies. He looked to Matt for an explanation. Was there something he didn’t
know?
“Gavin, meet Danny. Danny, Gavin Large. Professor Large, no less. That’s what
can happen of you eat all your greens and study hard. You’ve been warned!”
Danny held out a hand and Large took it reluctantly.
“Pleased to meet you, son.”
“Ditto, dad.”
Large looked to Matt. He had more than enough insolence off his students.
“Danny’s working with me.”
“On this story?”
“It’s complicated. He’s not as dumb as he looks.”
Large looked unconvinced. The kid looked pretty dumb to him.
“No sign of Ceri yet?”
“Not a dickie bird. Admin’s spoken to her parents. They haven’t heard from her
either. Of course, they’re worried sick now.”
“Have the police been told?”
“Not by us. Students wander off all the time. Just one of those things. We can
hardly send out a search party every time someone misses a lecture. But I admit
I’m concerned, Matt. Ceri’s been preoccupied with this Uncle Tom business for
far too long. Her course-work was seriously suffering. The last thing she can
afford is to miss more lessons. So what was this message? I assume it’s related
somehow?”
“We wouldn’t be here otherwise,” said Danny.
Large glared at the boy, then raised an eyebrow to Matt. “Your right-hand man,
is he?”
Matt smiled. “Ceri said she’s certain the man they’ve got in custody, Greg
Randall, is innocent. She’s convinced Uncle Tom has killed twice more since
Randall’s arrest.”
“And you believe her?”
“Gavin, it was you who gave us her profile in the first place.”
Large raised his hands defensively. “I hope she isn’t leading you on a wild
goose chase, Matt. This Randall character, there’s a DNA match, isn’t there? The
way I heard it they found his semen on the last victim. That’s pretty damned
conclusive in my book.”
“Mistakes have been made before.”
“The odds are literally millions to one against a chance match, Matt. You know
that. Ceri spent best part of a week pestering me about the statistics.”
“But Ceri said…” Danny gave way under the professor’s stern gaze.
“The fact is, she got too personally involved. I should never have agreed to
her going down to you and Claire. It went to her head. I don’t want to be
unkind, but she’s just a second-rate student on one of my piss-poor courses, for
God’s sake. What the hell was I thinking of, sending you that profile? I’m
sorry, Matt. I thought there was something in it. I was wrong. Dunst was wrong
too. But at least we admit it.”
“But Ceri…” Danny began.
“Ceri think she knows it all,” Large said. “They’re all the same at that
age. Now I expect she’s skulking in some library somewhere desperate to find
some obscure fact to try breathe life back in to her discredited theory. I’m
going to have to fail her, Matt. Too much imagination, too little hard work. A
dead loss.”
“That’s not fair. Ceri’s well cool.”
Large eyed Danny with disdain. “Listen, son, when you’ve got a few degrees
beneath your belt and letters after your name… When you’ve been round the
block a few times, come back and we’ll discuss it, okay?”
“We still need to talk to her,” Matt insisted.
“Be my guest. If you can find her. You can tell her from me to get her pretty
little backside into my lecture hall or she’s finished. I can give you her
address, Matt, but she’s not there. I called round myself this morning.”
“You called round? That’s a lot of effort for a dead loss.”
Large shifted in his seat. “Yeah, well I feel responsible. I should’ve given
her a bollocking when she handed it that damned profile, and put her back to
work on the curriculum. She might have got a decent grade if it wasn’t for all
this nonsense.”
“We’re not convinced it’s nonsense, Gavin. Supposing Randall is innocent like
she says. There are a lot of grey areas. There’s nothing so far to link Randall
with any of the other victims. Nothing at all. Social Services found nothing to
suggest he’d abused his own kids. Two six year olds. Is it likely whoever killed
all these kids could have two daughters himself and never have touched them?”
Large considered the point while he grabbed an apple from his case. “It’s
possible. The Yorkshire Ripper disembowelled his victims, but never harmed his
own wife.”
“Peter Sutcliffe,” Danny said.
“Very good, son. Now if ou don’t mind, we’re having a conversation.”
Danny scowled. Matt winked at him. “Let me fill the professor in on what we’ve
come up with so far, then you can annoy him some more.”
Large listened with at first impatient amusement, then more serious mood. By the
time Matt got to Ceri’s voicemail, Large was intense.

181

Large said, “At the time I was semi-convinced about Ceri’s theory. I must
admit the Isle of Wight murders threw us all off the scent, though by the sound
of it your solicitor friend has come up with a plausible explanation for that
one. But again, that just builds the case against Randall.”
“How?”
“Given the pattern that has emerged it seems likely Uncle Tom was following
this ordered procedure of date and place quite compulsively. By which I mean
clinically compulsive. He has no more control over adhering to this pattern than
a kleptomaniac does over stealing or an anorexic does over not eating. Now, Ceri
identified a pattern whereby Uncle Tom made two attacks on successive days, on
the same days of the month, right? So where was the other attack to accompany
the Woolwich victim?”
“There wasn’t one.”
“Exactly. And why?”
“Because there was no place anywhere beginning with the letter X.”
“You’ve got it,” Large said. “That explains why the Woolwich attack was
different from all the others. I think he wanted to be caught, because his
raison d’atre, the series of assaults following the pattern, was suddenly
brought to an end because there was no place beginning with an X to meet his
clinical need. That is so painful for him that he lets himself be caught, to
justify in his own warped mind why he can’t continue the pattern.”
“The suicide complex,” Danny said quietly.
Large nodded grudging approval. “Very good, son. Think of it logically, Matt.
A string of victims left forensically clean, with the taunting calling card,
then suddenly all this new evidence that puts him bang in the frame. Sorry,
Matt, but everything points to Randall.”
“But what about Ceri’s voicemail,” Danny objected.
“Danny’s right, Gavin,” Matt agreed. “She said Uncle Tom has killed twice
since Randall’s arrest. We know for sure there was an abduction in that Welsh
town.”
“An abduction, maybe. Even that’s not for sure. The kid might just have run
away. It happens. There’s nothing to link it to the other murders. And where’s
this other victim Ceri has apparently conjured up?”
“We don’t know. Listen to the voicemail, Gavin. Maybe it will mean something
to you.”
Large listened intently as Matt replayed the message. Afterwards he said
nothing, deep in thought. He started on another apple. “Oxford somewhere,
right?”
“That’s what Ceri says, but there’s no place anywhere in the country beginning
with X, least of all Oxford.”
“Why so certain?”
“Computers, CD-Roms, the internet, you name it. We’ve even been over the
Ordnance Survey.”
“The Ordnance Survey map of Oxford?”
“Of course,” Danny said. “We’re not amateurs.”
“I’m beginning to see that. You wouldn’t happen to have it with you?”
“I told you, I’ve got everything. But you’re wasting your time. We’ve been
over it a billion times.”
Large took the map and laid it out. “Maybe you weren’t looking for the right
thing.”
“Yeah, silly us. We were looking for a place beginning with an X.”
Large smiled smugly. “Look at this.” He passed Matt’s note book to Danny.
“Read it out to me.”
“I can’t read this crap! It’s all in shorthand.”
“Right. Which shorthand, Matt?”
“Pitman 2000 originally, but I use my own version now. We all do.”
Large nodded. “Ceri too. Her course notes are always wrapped up in some
hieroglyphic or other.” He was tracing his finger over the map as he spoke,
ees never leaving the table. “But what I’m thinking is much more basic.
Everyday abbreviations. The type everyone uses. Even the kid here. X marks the
spot, my friend. X marks the spot.”
“You won’t find anything,” Danny persisted. “I guarantee it.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But I thought you had faith in the girl.”
Large leant over the map tracing increasingly wide finger circles while munching
on his apple, then suddenly, “Sweet Jesus!”
“What?”
Large sat back, mopping his brow. “That girl is incredible. My star pupil.”
“Gavin?”
“You can bet your last penny there’s a child missing from this village.”
Matt and Danny craned their necks to see the location south-east of Oxford that
Large was marking with his index finger.
As one they read it out loud.
“Christmas Common.”