The Maggie Murders (28 page)

‘But then all this electronic
rubbish came along. It’s all drum machines and synthesisers nowadays. All Cock,
Aitken and Bloody Waterman. No-one’s interested in real music anymore!‘

‘It’s a pity, but I suppose with
your musical background it wasn’t hard for the police to make a case against
you?’ asked Debbie taking her chance to move matters on.

‘Them drugs weren’t mine.’

‘Are you suggesting the police
planted them on you?’

‘No.’

‘Then how do you explain the
story you told in court about picking up Connie Baker on the night of 11th
June, 1987?’

Byrne bit into a biscuit; Debbie
noticed he hadn’t offered her one, despite his earlier promise.

‘I won’t get in no more trouble
about this, will I?’

‘You won’t get into trouble for
telling the truth, Nigel.’

‘I got 18 months for telling the
truth!’

Debbie forced herself to look
more closely into Byrne’s blotchy face. Whatever the judge had thought, this
looked like a man who at least believed he was telling the truth; or at least
his version of the truth.

‘So, you picked up Connie Baker
outside the Royal Standard Hotel and drove her to Brixington?’

‘I picked a woman up on the
front, yes.’

This was where the prosecution’s
case had begun to unravel. Byrne’s previous positive identification of Connie
had been unpicked by the defence team and he had then become increasingly shaky
about the precise details of his journey.

‘Where exactly on the front?’

‘Down by the docks.’

So a good mile from where he said
he’d picked up Connie.

‘And where did you drop her?’

‘Brixington.’

‘Allingham Avenue as you said in
court?’

Byrne sighed.

‘The police suggested it might be
clearer for the jury if I said Allingham Avenue.’

Now things were becoming
interesting, thought Debbie. The Exmouth One didn’t quite have the same ring as
the Guildford Four, but a miscarriage of justice was a miscarriage of justice
whichever way you looked at it.

‘And so where did you really drop
your passenger?’

‘At the local school – she said
she had to get there before ten in order to get her vote in for Maggie.’

‘And why didn’t you say that at
the time?’

‘I got confused. It’s near
Allingham Avenue anyway and they wanted me to keep it crystal clear for the
jury.’

‘And what time did you really
drop her off?’

‘Just before ten.’

So the polling station would
still have been open and the timing sounded less suspicious than the around
eleven ‘o’ clock to which he had sworn to in court. A respectable citizen might
have cause for a last minute vote, whilst a drop off around the time of last
orders could put a different spin on events.

Given that the school was at
least a good 5 minutes further from the Bakers’ house than Allingham Avenue and
that the time of ten o’clock was at least an hour or more before the fire was
set, Debbie could appreciate why the police might have wanted to paint a
clearer picture for the jury.

‘And for this they made the drugs
charges disappear?’

‘I still served a year for
perjury and lost my family into the bargain!’

‘And so you made this deal to
save your family?’ prompted Debbie.

‘Of course I did. I knew Mandy
would chuck me if I let her down again.’

‘And why did you think this woman
was Connie Baker?’

‘The booking was made in the name
of a Mrs Baker and she looked like her, especially when they showed me her
picture in the papers down at the station. It was dead easy to pick her out of
the line up.’

‘They showed you a newspaper?’
Debbie was incredulous. They might just as well have stuck Connie Baker in a
line-up with a post-it note over her head saying ‘Pick Me!’

‘The Custody Sergeant said it
would be okay.’

‘And you thought the woman in the
dock was your passenger?’

‘Well it was going to be five
years in gaol if it weren’t! And it could have been her!’

A hunch had formed itself in
Debbie’s mind. She was still certain that Nigel Byrne had perjured himself
through the Machiavellian deal he’d made with the police and yet there was no
smoke without fire, as her grandmother liked to say. Certain parts of his story
could well have been true.

‘Did the woman you picked up look
like this?’

She slid a photograph across the
small table wedged between the two bunks.

‘Let me get my specs.’

Debbie waited as Byrne rifled
through an overhead locker crammed with junk. He emerged looking self-conscious
in a pair of NHS spectacles; the very ones he should have been wearing on the
night in question according to Connie’s barrister.

Byrne at least did the justice of
studying the face this time.

‘Well apart from the hair, it could
have been her.’

‘What about the hair?’

‘Hers was blonde, not brown.’

Debbie smiled to herself and
retrieved the photograph of Maggie Mallowan.

It was only when she was looking
for a call box to telephone Jane that she wondered about the usefulness of her
discovery. She knew the stuff about how Byrne had been leaned on and led by the
police wouldn’t affect Jane. A lot of that was out in the open already given
the verdict in the trial and she’d just been crossing the‘t’s and dotting the
‘i’s. If it helped get rid of any of the rogue officers, well that would not
only be a good story, but the decent officers would also benefit.

 Most of the cops she had met in
her line of work had been decent people trying to do a difficult job; this was
a good story, but it was no more than ‘one bad apple’ syndrome. It was like the
less than scrupulous journalists she’d met who certainly didn’t represent the
heart and soul of journalism. For every paparazzo trying to find out where
Connie Baker was now living, there were two or three like her who were just
trying to get the story right.

And yet it was one thing to have
got Nigel Byrne to identify Mrs Mallowan as the likely killer, it was going to
be quite another thing for it to be of any material use to Jane.  Just as it
would be impossible to try Connie Baker for the same crime again, it was also
going to be just as impossible to find twelve jurors prepared to believe the
testimony of a proven perjurer!

 Opening the door to the
telephone kiosk she’d found in the deserted shopping precinct of the camp, she
realised that whilst it was one thing to have come up with a solution to these
murders, it was going to be quite another proving it. And unless Jane came up
with a brilliant way around this dilemma, she wouldn’t even be able to get this
part of the story into print. Unlike Connie Baker, Maggie Mallowan would not
only escape the courts, she’d also keep her reputation intact.

It was only then that she
realised someone had vandalised the phone.

****

Osborne’s office was smaller than
Dent’s palatial suite and not designed to show off his giant’s robes. The
awards and certificates which Osborne was sure to have picked up on the way to
achieving his current seniority were not displayed in gilt frames on the wall.
Instead of framed photographs of him hob-nobbing with the great and the good,
there was one of Simon and his parents on holiday in France. Jane’s chair was
not visibly inferior to his and the desk seemed to be a genuine workspace,
rather than a badge of authority.

Yet it didn’t mean the DCS was
going to be a pushover. Despite his apparent friendliness, she knew he was
under enormous pressure to crack the case. She didn’t usually think people on
his pay scale deserved the silly money they were being paid, yet in cases like
this she knew it was the top brass who became the burnt offerings when
sacrifices were needed to appease the politicians and media.

Jane’s new found confidence in
Sobers’ solution had drained a little by the time she found herself sitting
opposite him. She would have been more comfortable if she could have removed
her jacket, yet in preparing for the interview she’d noted that her new
deodorant had left little white patches on her black top which the washing
machine hadn’t removed. Osborne probably wouldn’t even notice or care about
this; however the fact that she knew still made her feel ill at ease with her
presentation.

Osborne looked sceptical – ‘You
think Mrs Mallowan is our killer based on her taste in literature? Well I love
John Le Carré and Ian Fleming, but I’ve never made a dead letter drop in East
Berlin, or played the tables at Monte Carlo with an alluring KGB honeytrap
glued to my arm!’

‘Well, we’ve had copycats before
and if some people think video nasties are to blame for Society’s ills, why not
be inspired by the best?’ answered Jane.

The DCS sat back at his desk
trying to come to terms with the bizarre theory Jane was putting to him.

‘What about the Maggie angle?’

‘I think she just struck lucky,
it was another way of linking the killings, but not a method as sure as using
the nursery rhyme. She couldn’t be sure in 1983 that Thatcher would win the
next election, let alone the one after that.’

Osborne drummed his fingers on
the desk.

‘Why Mrs Mallowan then?’

‘She benefits big style from her
husband’s death. None of the other relatives do. Kellow left virtually nothing
and Connie already had all the money in the Bakers’ marriage.’

‘She might just have wanted to be
rid of a disabled husband?’ suggested Osborne.

‘Possibly, but their somewhat
unusual relationship seemed to work for them and so my money’s on Maggie
Mallowan; plus we can place Connie Baker in East Sussex just a few hours after
the last fire was set.’

‘She might have had an
accomplice?’

‘That’s possible, or even the
driving skills of James Hunt, but I think it’s more likely it was just her
father’s funeral which caused Connie’s flying visit to England.’

‘Apart from this ingenious theory
what else have you got on her?’

Jane couldn’t meet the gaze of
his piercing blue eyes.

‘Nothing. We’ve got no physical
evidence to connect her to the first two murders and plenty for the third;
however that’s all explained by her presence in the running of the business.’

Osborne harrumphed. This was not
the breakthrough he needed to get the press and more importantly the Chief
Constable off his back. Though at least it was something. Jane was a good
copper in his opinion and knew the earlier cases well.

‘Keep digging. If you can find
something on her that we can use as leverage I’ll be happy to bring her in for
questioning.’

It was D.C. Sandy Clark who found
the connection. Jane’s small team had been working all the overtime permitted
to discover whether Connie Baker or Margaret Mallowan was the more likely woman
to be behind the murders. She knew the top brass wouldn’t be impressed by
Sobers’ theory; they still favoured a serial killer attacking strangers at
random and therefore she needed more proof than the abstract ideas of a
disgraced detective.

Three unsolved murders in just
seven years ensured that at least she was given the resources to keep
investigating the crimes. The Devon and Cornwall Constabulary could not be seen
to be sliding down the league tables and Dent was vehemently resisting
political pressure from the Home Office to bring in officers from outside to
oversee the investigation.

If Jane could find a link between
the latest crime and the earlier ones, then she could have whatever remained of
the budget that DCS Osborne no longer needed for the main investigation into
Gerard Mallowan’s murder.  With the press, public and politicians all hungry
for results, Jane finally had the resources available to keep up a fairly full
investigation into the Butcher and Baker killings and their more than nominal
links to the Candlestick-maker’s death. For this to her was the essence of the
case, the link to Maggie Thatcher being nothing more than an interesting, but
distracting gloss.

‘Mallowan’s been married before!’

‘Who to?’

‘A Tony Christie.’

‘Not the singer!’ joked one of
the other DCs.

 ‘Not unless he died in a car
crash in 1979 on the A303’.

Jane tensed.

‘When in 1979?’

‘Friday, 4th May.’

‘That was the day after the
election…’

All the members of her team had
stopped what they were doing; they all understood the significance of the
election dates by now.

Sandy continued to read from the
report in front of her –

 ‘He burnt to death.’

There was a collective intake of
breath. They listened intently as the detective outlined the circumstances of
Tony Christie’s death on the day Thatcherism had begun in 1979.

‘Good work, but how does this
work as evidence against her?’ interrupted Osborne.

Osborne’s unexpected entrance
seemed to suggest he possessed the type of lucky timing which often attended
the successful. He crossed the room to take a closer look at the report on the
death of Mrs Mallowan’s first husband.

 ‘It’s still circumstantial, ‘
Jane sighed, ‘but the coincidences of her having two husbands burn to death on
dates associated with victories for Margaret Thatcher seems a strong one.’

‘Is there any evidence to suggest
Tony Christie died in anything other than an accident?’

‘He was three times over the
limit and his car was seen being driven in a haphazard fashion and at very high
speed according to three witnesses who gave evidence at the Inquiry. The lorry
driver stated he had no chance of avoiding the car,’ replied Sandy as she read
from the Coroner’s report.

Jane was impressed by the
thoroughness of her colleague’s work; Sandy hadn’t just announced a chance
finding, she had clearly followed it up before making it public to the team. If
there was any justice she’d make Sergeant before the year was out.

‘And how does that help support
your hypothesis that she killed Kellow and Baker to mask the reasons behind her
second husband’s murder?’ Osborne interjected.

Jane thought hurriedly, trying to
process the latest piece of the puzzle.

‘Well it is a positive link
between her and at least a similar event which connects three of the killings.
Her first and second husbands were both burnt to death on election victories
for Maggie. The first husband’s death may have been an accident; however the
reasons behind that crash may have led her to kill the other men.’

Jane looked anxiously as Osborne
folded his face in his hands. There was a hollowness in the way she had
expressed her case and yet she felt they were very close to a result, moreover
she knew the pressure they were under to not only gain a conviction, but more
importantly to gain a safe conviction. It was why she had decided to conceal
the information Debbie had discovered from Byrne, as any mention of the Connie
Baker trial had become taboo at the station. If she told the DCS that they were
making a case partly based on the evidence of a convicted perjurer, then there
was no way he was going to back her. She’d been glad that he’d humoured Sobers’
link to ‘The ABC murders’, but telling him anything more than that would have
revealed the foundations of sand on which her case rested. They were going to
have to play this investigation absolutely by the book.

‘Okay, bring her in and let’s see
if we can get something out of her. I’ll organise a warrant to search her
house.’

****

Jez was beginning to wonder if he
was in over his head. Being interrogated by two senior police officers over his
lover’s husband’s death had not been fun; not remotely.

Adding half a can of coke to his
tumbler of vodka he sat on his balcony and wished that he smoked.

He knew she couldn’t have done
it; they’d been in bed the night he died, but the police and particularly that
blonde one had been very good at making him doubt the facts as he knew them. At
least in computing there was no room for manoeuvre; things were logical. This
is how he would have to think about it - like a programmer and not like the
dilettante lover of an older woman.

Finding the drink too weak, he
added another few fingers of vodka.

Across the room he could see the
angry red eye of his answer phone flashing. It would be his father – he called
every Friday. His father didn’t know about her. Would he have to tell him? The
age difference between them wasn’t insurmountable, as she wasn’t so much older
than he was – twelve years according to one of the files he’d discovered when
cleaning her computer. This had revealed she was thirty-six and not just over
thirty as she had led him to believe.

Logically, that would make her
only nine years younger than his mother and yet he knew logic wouldn’t cut it
with his parents, even though his own father was at least a decade older than
his mum. The fact that Jez ran a successful business and had his own apartment
still didn’t seem to impress the old man. He kept on about Jez overextending
his line of credit and kept wanting to know how he financed both the apartment
and sports car he was driving.

Well it wasn’t from her. Well not
all of it. The banks had been very keen to support his business and getting
credit had been no big deal. Sure, she’d given him a few grand here and there,
yet that was just in the role of his sleeping partner as she liked to joke.

As far as his parents knew he had
been seeing a string of girls since leaving Norwich. This in part had been
true, as there was always a girl he could find to take to family events. Those
women seemingly unimpressed by his good looks usually changed their minds when
they saw the Merc. His largesse didn’t seem to go amiss either, or the
expensive gifts he could afford to buy.

He slurped his vodka as he gazed
listlessly across the canal.

Some of the girls he introduced
to his family he did sleep with and yet they weren’t her. There’d been a
Belgian au pair he’d been dating on a semi-regular basis for nearly half a year
that had threatened to turn into something more serious. Last Christmas, he
could tell that his mum had that wedding planner look about her and yet when
Wilma had returned to Antwerp without an engagement ring he hadn’t felt any
sense of loss.

He’d tried to hide the other
girls from her, but Mags hadn’t seemed to mind. She’d even invited comparisons,
having the self-assurance to know she won every time. He had a feeling Wilma’s
sudden departure had been to do with the threesome Mags suggested they’d have.
Wilma had seemed so liberal at first, yet when she’d returned from the bathroom
to find the two of them making a start, or more precisely to find Mags’
magnificent body bestriding his on the lounge floor she’d turned and fled.

Sex with Mags was like surfing
the biggest wave you’d ever seen, sex with the others was perfectly pleasant,
yet it never rocked his boat in any especial way.

He blushed as he recalled the
memory. A further slug of vodka roused his desire for both women and yet he
knew it was only Mags that had ever made him feel special. From that first time
in Exmouth to this morning’s incredible awakening, she just knew how to please
him.

He didn’t feel bad about the
husband. Well he did feel bad that he was dead. And to die like that – well
that wasn’t good.

He poured more vodka into the
coke and wondered if the banana liqueur Steve had brought back from the
Seychelles would be the only alcohol left remaining in the flat when this bottle
was empty?

He could marry her now. She’d
assured him that once her own business was successful enough, then the two of
them could be together.

Yet that brought back the problem
of his father. He knew when their relationship became public it was going to be
bad news – he just hadn’t expected that bad news to form part of a murder
enquiry.

And poor Mags! Her husband had
been shagging the maid and yet all the press could do was depict the man as a
wonderful businessman and pillar of the local community!  What hypocrites! The
vodka was finally working its magic. Perhaps he should go and see her? And yet
he recalled her instructions. They just had to sit it out until the furore was
over. Having his picture on the front page of ‘The News of the World’ would not
be the best way of breaking the news to his father…

Well now was not the time to
worry about seeking his father’s approval, now was the time to worry about
where that bloody bottle of banana liqueur had got to!

****

After checking that Leo was back
safely from the football; double checking with the Millers that Jen had really
gone to their house for the night and ensuring that Tim was watching over baby
Max, Jane replayed the interview with Maggie Mallowan in her head. She had no
need to wait for a transcript, every syllable and nuanced look was etched into
her brain, after all it had nearly finished her career…

Mrs Mallowan had sat with perfect
poise and equanimity in the interview room.

‘Do you have any questions for
me, Detective Chief Superintendent?’

Jane remembered how Mrs Mallowan
had deliberately seemed to ignore her at the start of the interview. It was
only when Osborne had seemed oblivious to her charms that she had started
trying to rattle Jane.

She cursed herself for being so
naïve, the tricks and wiles used by Maggie Mallowan were nothing new, but she
deployed them so gracefully and elegantly that they were almost imperceptible
at first. A less beautiful woman might have come across as blousy and blunt, but
their suspect possessed a beauty which made you want to take her on face value.
She was the type of woman even other women couldn’t feel jealous of.  When
she’d crossed her elegant legs in front of Osborne and coolly asked him if he
would like more details of what she and Jez had been up to on the night of her
husband’s murder, it should have come across as crass and calculating and yet
even Jane had felt the frisson in the air.

The super at least had appeared
to be cool enough until she’d said –

‘Public school man, are you
Superintendent? And not married by the look of it? Perhaps you would prefer if
I spelt it out for you? I know what those places can be like for shy boys like
you…’

Jane had seen the blush suffusing
his cheeks and had tried to help out –

‘And so you were with Jez
Carberry all night?’

‘Do you find that so hard to
believe, Sergeant? But then again married sex is so banal, isn’t it? What do
you average, sergeant – a quick fumble every other week, or have you also been
checking out other avenues for your desires? I saw a nice looking constable on
the way in, perhaps one of you two should ask him to take down your
particulars?’

She hadn’t bitten that time and
had been quick enough to realise that Maggie Mallowan had noticed her own ring,
as well as the absence of one on Osborne’s hand, nevertheless the woman knew
how to get under the skin.

By then, the DCS had recovered
enough to steer the conversation back to the case –

‘We’re not all governed by our
carnal desires, Mrs Mallowan…’

‘Well you don’t seem to be
Superintendent. But that’s a good public schooling for you, isn’t it? Repress
all those unhealthy desires, or else take them out on your fag? I think that’s
why my late husband was so attracted to Lin. Probably reminded him of his own
public school days; they’re so passive some of these Orientals aren’t they?’

‘And what time did you leave Mr
Carberry’s apartment?’ pressed Osborne, not rising to her jibes.

‘Around half past ten. Jez’s boys
had turned up for work and however much I might have enjoyed a little more fun,
Megadeth is sadly not really my choice of background music for a good morning
shag.’

‘And they saw you leave?’
interjected Jane.

‘They saw everything, Sergeant.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘We were coming out of the
shower, Superintendent, when the boys let themselves in. Don’t worry, it’s
nothing they hadn’t seen before.‘

Jane noticed how she had stressed
the ‘they’ and the deliberately provocative way she leant forward. She could
tell that Osborne felt irritated; she’d noticed that he had a habit of running
a hand through his hair when he was nervous. Maggie Mallowan had a genius for
finding people’s pressure points! Well they did say there was only a thin line
between what made a great detective and what made a great criminal... Trying to
steer the conversation on to ground less comfortable for their suspect, Jane
had asked why her husband might have gone to ‘Scandalabra’ that night.