Passion Killers (14 page)

“How do I know she is my daughter?” Ken demanded. “With your
generosity
she could be anyone’s.”

Katie, still trying to calm things down, held out a mug of coffee to Kenneth. Ianthe burst into tears and flew at her father, screaming, “I hate you, Daddy. You’re always hurting Mummy.”

The mug flew out of Katie’s hand and the scalding liquid landed on Kenneth’s trousers, seeping through and burning his leg. He jumped up with the shock, and raised his hand to hit Olivia again, but Kevin and Katie grabbed at him and forced him back into his seat.

“Take Ianthe upstairs,” Katie said in a low, urgent voice. “Please, Kevin. Get her out of here before she gets hurt.”

Ianthe was cowering by the door, hands over her face. Kevin flung a venomous look at his father and did as Katie asked.

As the door closed behind them Kenneth stopped scrubbing at his trousers. “I’ve given you everything,” he said to Olivia in a low voice. “I put up no objection when your sleazy stripper friends came here. I even supported that brat of Theresa McGann’s. And now you’re asking me for fifty thousand pounds to ensure that
your
murky past doesn’t wreck
my
career. I ask, is that really fair?”

Olivia threw Katie a nervous glance.

“He knows about the blackmail?” Katie said “I thought...”

Olivia shook her head.

“Your little secret, was it? And she’s blown it? There, now will you believe she’s not to be trusted?” Ken said triumphantly.

Katie looked at Olivia reproachfully. “I thought we had all sworn to keep this between ourselves. Now it turns out Kim has shared it with Judy, and Ken knows too. Who else is in on it?”

Olivia didn’t answer. Katie could see how upset she was, but she was furious.

She raised her voice. “Who else?”

“I didn’t tell him. The police did.” Tears poured down her face, and Katie’s anger melted.

“Never mind,” she soothed. “We’ll get it sorted.”

Ken stood up and pushed past her. “Just for the record,” he snarled, “I know exactly –
exactly
– what’s on that video. And I’m starting to wonder why Ahmed Abdullah chose that particular scenario for you two.”

“Lottie, what’s going on?” Banham asked.

“Please, Paul, don’t start.” Lottie cradled the phone and stood up. “I’ve got to get the kids something to eat.”

Banham blocked the doorway. “Tell me,” he said gently. “I care about you.”

She stared at the carpet, too ashamed to look him in the eye.

“I needed a job,” she said quietly. “Something with hours to suit me – not some nine to five thing. I know it’s a bit seedy, but Derek’s stopped paying the kids’ maintenance. I have to be here for them, you know that.”

“I told you I’d help out.” Banham felt anger rising. Why should she be reduced to this?

“I don’t want your money!” She covered her face with her hands and sat down abruptly. “I don’t want to have to rely on someone else.”

“You’re my twin sister, for God’s sake!”

“I want a job of my own, so I can earn our keep.”

“Does it have to be a sex chat line?” He was shouting, but he couldn’t help it. The current case invaded his head: those innocent women with their throats slashed and g-strings stuffed into their mouths. “Lottie, you have no idea how dangerous this could be, what it could lead to...”

“A pay cheque,” she shouted back. “Get out of my way, Paul. I need to make my kids some food.”

He swallowed down the conflicting emotions. “Please, Lottie. You and the children are all I have. Please let me give you money. I’ll sort Derek out too; he’ll pay all the maintenance you want after I’ve seen him. But till I can do that, let me give you something to tide you over. What else have I got to spend my money on?”

“Spend it taking Alison out for a really nice meal,” she said with a small knowing smile. “Now, do you want some tea?”

He blew out a long breath. She clearly wasn’t going to listen. “Yes, please. But I haven’t got long.”

Lottie patted his cheek and went to the kitchen to fill the kettle. She smiled at him and said, “I’ll make you a deal. Madeleine wants a banana and soldiers. You make that for her, and I’ll cook us bacon and eggs. And while we eat it we can talk about whether you’re going to ask Alison out.”

He looked at Lottie’s tired face. “I don’t want to talk about Alison. She won’t go out with me, so there’s no point. I want to talk about you and the kids, and I want to help.”

“Good.” Lottie pulled a carton of eggs and a packet of bacon out of the fridge. “Then feed your niece.”

That was when Banham’s phone rang.

“Finn made the 999 call?” Banham asked, taking in the narrow concrete balcony leading from the graffiti-clad stairway to the open door of Theresa’s high-rise flat.

Alison nodded. “He was going mental when we arrived. Shouting and ranting like a wild animal. He kept saying she wasn’t cold, so he thought she was still alive. Now his DNA is all over her.”

“Surveillance saw Finn approaching the flats?” Banham put his hand to his head. A wave of guilt overtook him; he should have been able to save Theresa.

“They were just arriving for duty,” Alison confirmed. “They saw him approach, but didn’t see anyone else leave.” She dug into her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “We found this in the kitchen, near her body.”

On the paper were the words
Ken Stone
– in Theresa’s handwriting, Banham assumed. His eyes lit up. “Bring him in,” he said.

“With pleasure.” Alison took out her mobile and passed on the instruction to DC Crowther. “And if he makes any kind of excuse,” she added, “Just arrest him.”

Banham stroked his mouth with his hand. “So we have the exact time that the call was made? And the exact time surveillance came on duty?”

Alison nodded.

“Do they match?”

“To within fifteen minutes.”

Banham read the concern in Alison’s eyes, and a surge of panic went through him. He was about to face another female corpse, and if she looked so worried it meant it was going to be a bad one. He felt a sudden sympathy for Brian Finn. If he was innocent, he had just come home and found his wife murdered, and he hadn’t been there to prevent it. Banham knew exactly how that felt.

Alison was looking at him. He blinked and pulled himself together.

“Surveillance are parked over there,” she said, leaning over the balcony and pointing to the car park. “They had a clear view of all the entrances and exits. They saw Brian Finn arriving as they pulled up at two-forty-five. They saw a gang of four youths, and an older woman with a shopping basket, but no one leaving the estate in a hurry. Finn’s 999 call was logged at one minute past three.”

“Giving him enough time to kill her,” Banham said.

Alison nodded agreement. He moved toward the door, and she tactfully blocked his path.

“Could someone could have left the block without them noticing?” Banham suggested. “Their brief was to check on people arriving, and keep an eye on Theresa.” He knew he was putting off the moment when he’d have to go into the flat, and saw that Alison realised it too. He met her eyes and lowered his voice. “Is it as bad as the last one?”

“I’m not sure any corpse will ever be as bad as the last one,” she replied quietly. “But you don’t have to...”

“Yes, I do.” As he pushed open the door to the flat he heard her say, “Take a deep breath.”

The small kitchen smelt of boiled milk and blood.

Banham hovered inside the doorway. Heather Draper the pathologist was examining the body. She had her back to Banham, blocking his view.

“Evening, guvnor, glad you could join us.” Max Pettifer’s public school voice rose from the floor. The forensics chief was crouching on the cheap lino, scraping up coagulating blood. “Not a pretty sight I’m afraid, and rather a confined space here, old boy. If you’re going to throw up, can you try to do it outside?”

Banham caught sight of the blood-soaked red satin g-string which lay on the table. He quickly turned away. “Time of death?” he asked, praying he wouldn’t make Max’s day by vomiting up the bacon sandwich Lottie had made him.

“I can only hazard a guess, but I’d say a couple of hours ago.” Heather Draper suddenly moved sideways, revealing Theresa’s body. Her throat had been opened and its insides were in full view. Banham looked away.

‘It’s ten past five now,” Heather went on.

Banham’s eyes settled on Max, still on all fours, carefully picking up a fragment of something pale with a pair of tweezers. He held it to the light before dropping into a see-through evidence bag, and gave one of his irritating hoots of laughter. “The tooth, the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth.”

Banham became aware of Alison standing beside him. “Finn’s in the next room,” she said, raising her eyebrows.

Banham took the hint and followed her, leaving the scene-of-crime team to their work.

Brian Finn had his head buried in his hands. He was sitting on a worn, rust-coloured armchair that would have looked more at home on a dump. Stained, grey carpet covered the floor and childish scribble decorated the beige painted walls. Alison nodded to the woman constable to leave them.

Finn puzzled Banham. He didn’t have him down as very bright, nor had he seen any sign of real violence in the big man. Most lifers Banham had met never seemed to feel sorry for anything they had done, but Finn did. He had a vulnerability about him that worried Banham. He found it hard to see this man as a convicted killer, but the fact remained that he was. He decided to play carefully.

Finn spoke first. He looked up at Banham and said, “I didn’t kill her.”

“So why wait nearly twenty minutes before you called 999?” Banham replied.

“I didn’t kill her,” Finn repeated. “She’s my world. I’d have died for her.”

“That wasn’t the question.”

Finn shook his head. “The front door was open and I walked in.” He hesitated and his forehead crumpled. “Then I...” Now his voice rose. “I... tried to revive her. I didn’t want to believe... I hoped she wasn’t... Then I rang 999.”

“You must have seen her throat had been cut,” Alison said.

Finn looked at her helplessly. “I thought maybe she’d wake up for me.”

“How did you try to revive her?” Banham asked. Finn’s clothes were covered in blood.

“I pumped at her heart, like they do on TV. Then I pulled the knickers from her mouth and...” His voice broke. “That was when I knew she was... dead. So I called 999.”

“The knickers?” Banham recalled the g-string on the kitchen table. “They were in her mouth?”

“Yes.”

Banham exchanged glances with Alison, who immediately started writing in her notebook.

“What else did you touch?” Banham asked.

His voice rose almost to a shriek. “My kid! I went to find Bernadette. She’s been drugged, and so has Sarah.”

“Brian, you need to calm down,” Banham said.

“I didn’t kill her,” Finn shouted. He opened his mouth and a long wail came out.

Banham closed his eyes. Guilty or innocent, Finn was in no state to answer questions. He gestured to Alison to follow, and left the room. She sent the uniformed female officer back to sit with Finn, and pursued Banham out on to the concrete passageway outside the flat.

“We’ll take his clothes, of course,” she said, “but he’s cradled her, so it won’t prove anything either way.”

“Let’s give him a minute.” Banham stared unseeingly over the balcony.

“Do you think he killed her?”

“I honestly don’t know. We’d better take him to the station and keep him there, while they pick up what forensic they can. He was in the area when Susan was murdered too. If it’s a coincidence, it’s a big one.” He shook his head to clear it. “Why did Theresa write Ken Stone’s name on a piece of paper? If she did write it, of course. When her mother wakes up, you’d better check it’s her handwriting.”

“Guv.”

“And why the g-things? Brian Finn and Ken Stone both have a connection with them. We need to keep pushing them both.”

“What about Olivia Stone and Katie Faye?” Alison said. “They’ve got a lot to lose if those videos come to light.”

“You’d better talk to their surveillance officers. Check what time surveillance started.”

“I already did, guv. They’re outside the house in Cherry Tree Walk, have been for two hours, and the women are in the house.” She flicked her eyes up at Banham and added, “I hope they don’t get a puncture!”

Banham ignored the comment. “They all left the police station separately this morning,” he said. “Ken went to a meeting. Olivia went home and Katie went to pick some stuff from her flat in Chelsea.”

“So they all had time to come here and kill Theresa after they left the station this morning, and then get back to the house before the surveillance team arrived.”

Banham nodded. “We need a time of death, and as precise as possible.” He blew out a long breath. “And you’d better get another statement from Judy Gardener and Kim Davis.”

Alison looked puzzled.

“There’s no surveillance on them,” Banham reminded her. “Gardener particularly requested to look after Kim herself, with no surveillance back-up. Why?”

Alison nodded slowly. “All those women have strong motive.”

Crowther was standing at the front desk in the station waiting for the duty sergeant to finish checking Ken Stone in. The front door opened and Brian Finn walked in, flanked by two uniforms. He was wearing a grey to welling dressing gown which belonged to Theresa, and his feet were bare; he had refused the regulation plastic flip-flops and seemed oblivious to the February weather.

“Well, thank the Lord!”

Kenneth Stone’s upper class accent irritated the hell out of Crowther, and the reek of alcohol made it worse.

“I hope this time they throw away the key,” he drawled.

“That’ll do, Mr Stone!” The Mr stuck in Crowther’s throat.

But Brian seemed so immersed in his own thoughts that he hadn’t even heard. Crowther was glad of that – but he wasn’t expecting what came next.

Finn, fast as a cheetah, turned, lifted his arm, curled his hand into a fist and laid it fast and hard in the side of Ken Stone’s face before anyone had a chance to stop him. Then he raised his knee and with perfect aim landed it heavily in Stone’s balls.

Stone crumpled in a heap on the floor. Crowther struggled to keep a straight face as he moved to pull the man to his feet.

But Finn was there before him. Before the two uniformed police officers could restrain him, he dodged Crowther and swung another hard, fast punch, knocking Kenneth on to his back again. He began to pummel him, giving him no option but to keep moving his arms defensively from face to groin and back again.

“That’s for hitting your wife and kids,” Brian yelled. “And if you’ve touched my Theresa, consider yourself dead meat.”

Crowther stood back, allowing Finn to get in another punch to Ken’s chin, before two more uniforms who had heard the rumpus ran to help. It took all four of them to pull Finn back. It was left to Crowther to help Ken Stone.

“I’ll sue you,” Stone said, sitting up gingerly. “I’ve got plenty of witnesses here. You’ll regret that.”

“You think I fucking care?” Finn struggled to break free of the officers who held his arms behind his back. “Be a man – hit me back. Go on, I dare you.” Finn lifted his chin and jabbed it forward at Stone.

“Shut it!” Crowther shouted. “Both of you shut up!” The four uniformed officers kept hold of the big man with an effort. “Lock him up, and leave him to cool down!”

Finn was dragged off by two of the uniforms, and Ken Stone rose painfully to his feet. He brushed Crowther’s upper arm. “Quite right, animals like that should be locked up.”

The pint-sized cockney stared, half-amused, for a second or so, then turned to one of the remaining officers. “He’s right. Lock him up too.”

Stone started to protest, but Crowther pointed a finger in his face and added, “If you don’t put a lid on it, I’ll get the bloody national press on the phone.”

Alison stood at the coffee machine watching Isabelle fill a mug with frothy hot chocolate. When she had finished, Alison pressed the button marked Black Coffee, as Banham walked up to the machine.

“Go with Crowther, will you, Isabelle,” he said. “I need a statement from Judy Gardener and Kim Davis about their movements today. You’d better check it out when you’ve taken it.”

“Guv.” Isabelle looked from Alison to Banham and back again, a little smile playing around her lips.

“Now would be good,” said Banham sharply.

Isabelle tossed her hair back and walked off.

“What’s with her?” he asked Alison.

“No idea, guv. Am I interviewing Ken Stone with you?”

“Yes – as soon as his solicitor arrives.” He hesitated a moment, then leaned towards her. “Um, are you doing anything tonight?”

Alison’s face flushed warmly. “Guv?”

He was feeding coins into the machine.

“I don’t know what time the solicitor will get here, of course.” He kept his back to her. “You are free tonight, are you?”

She was always free. Why would she not be free? The only man who interested her was standing right here in front of her. She was more confused than ever, but decided to put it down to his need for company in the wake of another g-string victim.

“Yes, as it happens, I am.”

“Good.” He looked at the plastic cup in her hand. “Would you like another coffee?”

“No thank you.” She tried to be brisk and businesslike but knew she wasn’t making a good job of it. “Why do you suddenly want to know if I’m free?”

“I need a favour.” He ran his hand through his hair and took his own plastic cup of coffee from the machine. “Ah. I’m sorry. I don’t know what you must be thinking.” He turned away from her again and fiddled with the buttons on the machine. “I’m not making a pass at you, Alison. I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Adding insult to injury or what, she thought.

“It’s just that... Well, I’m worried about Lottie, and the kids. There’s something going on. It needs a woman’s point of view and you’re...” He paused obviously trying desperately to choose the right words. “I know you’re more like one of the boys, but you are still a woman...”

It had been a very long day, and she had spent some of it under her car, lying on the dirty road changing her tyre. She was uncomfortably aware that she looked at her worst; no man in his right mind would fancy her, especially not with someone like Katie Faye on the horizon. At that moment her dearest wish was that for just one hour of her life she could look like Katie.

But the humiliation hadn’t finished.

“I thought we’d have a takeaway. At your place, if that’s all right. If it makes you feel better, you can pay half. But please, help me out here. I really need to talk to a woman about this.”