Grave Doubts (18 page)

On Tuesday Fenwick received a call from the prison. Griffiths had sent a letter to Agnes and a copy had been made for him. Anne brought the fax into him and he asked her to read it out as he had forgotten his reading glasses. Halfway through she stopped and look at him, puzzled.

‘This doesn’t really make sense, does it? He keeps referring to some book, then he goes on about his hellish life in prison and how he is working on his appeal. It hasn’t faxed well. I’ll call the prison for another copy.’

He was in a meeting with Superintendent Quinlan when they were interrupted with a message that the Metropolitan Police were anxious to speak to the Chief Inspector.

Quinlan raised his eyebrows at Fenwick who shook his head, baffled.

‘I’ve no idea what they want. Do you mind if I take it?’

‘Put them through, I’m as curious as you are.’

Quinlan switched the call to the speakerphone so that he could listen in.

‘DCI Fenwick.’

‘This is Superintendent MacIntyre. You placed a marker on the National Criminal Computer last Friday about assaults involving amputated fingers.’ Quinlan looked at him with exasperation and Fenwick shrugged in half apology. ‘May I inquire why?’

Fenwick explained quickly, not just about Griffiths’ attacks in Harden but also about the information he had secured from Telford and Birmingham.

‘Why are you interested, sir?’

‘There’s been a murder on my patch. A young woman. Her index finger was removed. Her body was discovered today by a colleague worried that she hadn’t turned up for work. I haven’t received a confirmed time of death but it was at least forty-eight hours ago.’

‘Tell me, is she in her twenties, dark-haired, slender, perhaps a student or professional woman?’

‘Yes – does that match your victims?’

‘Exactly. And was she very badly beaten or mutilated before and after death?’

‘Yes…’ Fenwick heard the hesitation in the man’s voice and had a flash of insight.

‘Before we go further, I appreciate that you’ll need to eliminate me from your inquiries. I can give you a statement and I have alibis for the weekend and for Friday.’

‘Thank you. Ridiculous I know but it’s just the timing.’

‘I’d be the same in your position. I’ll make the statement here and have it sent to you?’

‘Perfect. Then we can talk fully.’

Fenwick broke the connection.

‘Why on earth did you suggest a statement, Andrew? It’s completely unnecessary.’

‘If my interest had been noted at the time of the original enquiry I’d agree with you but I only entered it on Friday, perhaps hours before this woman was killed. Any coincidence like that has to be checked out. I’d do it, no matter if it caused offence.’

‘Well hurry up and come back here before you call him. This could have major implications.’

He returned within fifteen minutes. Quinlan had cancelled his next meeting and was waiting impatiently. Fenwick laid out the bare facts of his work since Nightingale’s flat had been broken into. Quinlan studied his tables comparing victims and MO for a long time. The expression on his face changed from irritation through anger to concern.

‘So you are suggesting that Griffiths was involved in these earlier crimes?’

‘Griffiths and/or someone else. There are two distinct methods here despite the amputation of the fingers, and Griffiths is nowhere near six foot.’

‘Rape victims always over-estimate their attacker’s height. And anyway, there’s the matter of the letters we received linking all the crimes.’

‘It might still be two men but working together. I know it’s rare but it has happened.’

‘Do you realise what you’re implying? How could you charge off on this hair-brained line of enquiry without consulting me first?’

Fenwick knew that he was very exposed. He’d intended to share his work with Quinlan at an appropriate time but had wanted to digest the information first, to avoid jumping to conclusions on too little evidence. As he tried to explain this to Quinlan he was cut off abruptly.

‘Never mind that now. Have you sent this to MacIntyre yet?’

‘No, sir. I thought it required careful explanation.’

‘Damn right it does. Have you had the courtesy to consult the original SIO?

‘I’ve spoken to Inspector Blite,’ Fenwick paused and sighed deeply, ‘it was almost the first thing I did but he was pretty dismissive.’

‘As he has every right to be. He identified the other cases but the connection was so shaky that we jointly agreed not to pursue it.’

Something in Quinlan’s blustering tone, so different from his normally straightforward manner, put Fenwick on alert.

‘Whose call did you say it was not to pursue the connections?’

‘A
joint
one, Chief Inspector.’

Fenwick noted the warning, suddenly sympathetic.

‘I would imagine that a step of that importance would have to be ratified from the very top, so we’ll need to be sensitive to the ACC’s position on this as well?’

Quinlan turned away in his large swivel chair and stared out of the window. As he waited for him to calm down, Fenwick worked through their dilemma. The ACC and Blite had always been tight, two of a kind, often an unhelpful alliance. Fenwick could imagine what had happened once Griffiths was in custody. Blite had made the same phone calls that he’d done but instead of digging deeper he’d had a quiet word with his mate, ACC Harper-Brown. There was a choice to be made: a quick aggressive prosecution of a multiple rapist who had been spreading fear in the county for months versus a drawn out enquiry based on superficial similarities in evidence. Blite would have had no guarantee of success, as the CPS was even refusing to support a prosecution for the murder and two of the rapes because of lack of evidence.

Quinlan had probably been involved but with his boss and SIO against the idea of a complicated extension of the enquiry he would have found it difficult to change their view. After a suitably contrite pause Fenwick spoke again.

‘I have a suggestion if you’ll hear me out.’

‘Go on.’ Quinlan kept his back to him.

‘My idea’s this. After Griffiths was safely locked up you decided that the vague similarities with other crimes outside the Division could be investigated during a quiet spell in Harlden. An intensive workload preparing the case for trial and the very tentative nature of the connection meant that this couldn’t be initiated straight away but last week you asked me to reopen the file.’

‘Why you and not Blite?’

‘I had come to you asking for more work…’

Quinlan laughed dismissively. That would not be credible.

‘All right, I came to you because I wanted more of a challenge. My detection rate for the last few months had been exceptional, you recognised that I was bored, in need of a more stimulating case and you gave me this…having checked first that Blite did not mind, which he didn’t being newly back from sick leave and fully stretched.’

‘Blite would need to corroborate the story.’

‘What choice does he have? He’s not exactly in a strong position, is he?’

‘And the ACC?’

‘Call him. Tell him that my work was only partially complete and you had been going to brief him at your next progress meeting when this murder happened.’

The Superintendent swung his chair back and raised weary eyes to meet Fenwick’s.

‘Very well. But I won’t take credit for your own initiative. You pursued the connection and followed through without guidance from me and that’s what I shall say. I’ll call the ACC now. Talk to the Met along the same lines then revert to me. I want to know what they’re going to do next.’

Fenwick was almost through the door when Quinlan called out to him.

‘Were you really that bored?’

Directness and diplomacy struggled within Fenwick. Unusually, diplomacy won.

‘I was on a winning streak, that’s all.’

MacIntyre was relieved to hear from an alibied Fenwick and launched into a full description of the murder. Lucinda Hamilton was twenty-four and lived in Knightsbridge. She was the middle daughter of the chief executive of one of Britain’s largest companies, a man who happened to be a personal friend of the Home Secretary. The case was being handled with utmost urgency.

Lucinda had been found dead in her flat at ten-twenty that morning by a female colleague. She’d been beaten, raped, strangled and stabbed, and her index finger taken. So far there were no physical traces of the killer. He had washed the body and spring-cleaned the flat. MacIntyre was hopeful that they might recover trace evidence from the waste pipes but Fenwick was unconvinced. In the Harlden attacks nothing was left to identify the perpetrator.

Fenwick sent through his analysis of the previous crimes and went to find Quinlan who had made his call to the ACC and was looking more relaxed.

‘We are to volunteer to help the Met provided it doesn’t take much resource. The ACC has agreed that you can act as Liaison Officer rather than DI Blite because of your experience of working with London.’

When MacIntyre called, Fenwick outlined the suggested West Sussex contribution to his investigation, treading carefully and making it clear that they would be subordinate to his control in all matters relating to the Knightsbridge crime. He’d acquired tact during his secondment that tempered his typical bluntness but it was wasted. Harper-Brown had already contacted the Met and an edge in MacIntyre’s tone warned him to proceed with care.

‘I was proposing to spend the rest of today and tomorrow re-examining the cases here and re-interviewing the victims, if they’re willing. I’ll also make-up a dossier of photographs for you to compare with the injuries to Lucinda Hamilton.’

MacIntyre accepted the olive branch.

‘OK. We also need e-fits of the perpetrator as well. There are witnesses who saw Lucinda leaving a pub on Friday night with a man they hadn’t seen before.’

Anne interrupted him half an hour later with an envelope from the prison.

‘The photocopy of Griffiths letter has arrived.’

She was showing an unusual interest in this correspondence and blushed when he stared at her.

‘Do you have an idea you’d like to share with me, Anne?’

She wouldn’t meet his eye, but kept her attention on the letter.

‘Do you believe in graphology?’

‘I’m not even sure that I know what it is.’

‘The study of handwriting.’ She rushed on before he could say anything. ‘I’m studying it at evening class. I’m a novice but my teacher is fantastic. I’d really like to give her this to study.’

‘I don’t think so. It wouldn’t be something I’d like to have public, even if she could help us, which I very much doubt.’

‘It would provide an insight into the writer’s character. I realise it’s a strange idea, and of course to do it properly she’d need the original, but I do think it might help.’

It was rare for her to become involved in the operational side of his work so he was understated in his rejection.

‘I’ll think about it. Have you asked the prison to hold any incoming letters for me?’

‘They want an authorised request in writing, something about prisoners’ rights.’

‘And the envelope. I want it handled carefully, to preserve any prints. I’ll draft the paperwork today.’

The request depended on his being able to give substance to an assertion that Griffiths had an acquaintance
and
that the person had stalked Nightingale and posed a danger to her. Yet this remained only a theory. Perhaps an analysis of Griffiths’ handwriting would tell him something new. The idea was absurd and any evidence wouldn’t be credible but the thought prompted another idea. If he could persuade MacIntyre to have his profiler look
beyond
Lucinda’s murder, their analysis might provide substance to support his hypothesis.

He would have to work his way closer to MacIntyre first and he sensed that the ACC had already compromised his chances with his high-handed style. A visit to London would be the perfect excuse to build rapport. He would take all the information he had and practise his charm on the way.

The journey to London was usually quicker by train than car but Fenwick sat in a near empty carriage just outside Clapham Junction for forty-five minutes because of signal failure. He apologised for his lateness but MacIntyre waved the words away. It was Wednesday. Lucinda’s body had been discovered twenty-four hours before.

‘She’d been dead for between 60 and 72 hours according to the post-mortem. So far we can’t account for her movements from around nine o’clock on Friday when she left the Frog and Nightgown pub until the Saturday night/Sunday morning when she died, but there’s one possibility.’ MacIntyre paused and opened the post-mortem report in front of him. ‘There are signs that she was tortured before death, and she’d been raped and sodomised repeatedly.’

‘You’re saying that he kept her alive?’

‘It looks likely. I haven’t told her father yet, for obvious reasons. I want to be as sure as I can be before I do.’

Fenwick’s eyes naturally went to the boards on the walls of the incident room with their smattering of photographs.

‘Dear God.’

‘Is this consistent with the other crimes?’

‘There was a murder in Harlden that the CPS wouldn’t allow us to link to the rapes. The MO is similar, though the violence here is even worse. Any joy with trace evidence?’

‘Nothing. She’d been thoroughly washed and the flat scoured clean. Bleach has been poured down the drains. In the kitchen, he put any utensils he’d used into the dishwasher and we have nothing.’

‘He ate in her flat?’

‘Must’ve done if you think about it. He was there for a day at least. We’re searching the rubbish bags now in case we can find anything. Our only real leads are eye-witness accounts of the man seen leaving the bar with her.’ He passed an e-fit over to Fenwick. ‘Ring any bells? He’s tall, about six foot, lean build, wavy blond hair, brown eyes.’

‘It’s so general. Any distinguishing characteristics?’

‘None, that’s my problem. The eye-witness descriptions vary. The one you’ve got there is a composite of the most reliable.’