Stranglehold (15 page)

‘In both cases, yes. The first one doesn't tally with any of the few DNA records we have for violent criminals. It will be useful when we get our man, but perhaps not until then, except for eliminating the innocent. The semen from Hetty Brown is still being tested at Chepstow. We shall know within twenty-four hours whether it came from the same man as raped Julie Salmon before he killed her.'

‘First one in a house awaiting demolition. Second one on a building site. Any connection there?' Harding's mind still worked like a detective's, seeking out any connection which might narrow the hunt.

Rushton said, ‘We've combed through all the construction workers in the area: easier than usual because temporary workers have almost disappeared in this recession. It didn't produce anything definite. One or two we're still watching because they were around without an alibi at the time of both murders, but there are plenty more like that, unfortunately.'

‘No motive common to both deaths?'

‘Not that we've found so far. Darren Pickering was Julie Salmon's rejected lover, of course, but no obvious motive for Hetty Brown.'

Don Haworth said, ‘He did know her, though. I've seen both of them in the
Roosters
club.'

Rushton nodded. ‘He admits to a nodding acquaintance, but nothing more. And we haven't dug up anything closer, yet.'

They were silent, contemplating the bleak probability of an unbalanced mind which had struck without reason and might do so again at any time. Lambert said, ‘The bodies were found within a mile of each other, both in deserted places which yet were not far from the town. It might argue a local man. But of course, we don't know that it wasn't the girls who sought out the location: they may have had no fear of being killed when they went to these places.'

‘That could apply to the one strong suspect we've so far turned up from outside the district.' Rushton looked at Lambert, wondering whether he should bring this out in front of the police surgeon, and received his nod of assent. ‘A certain Vic Knowles.' Don Haworth, with his football club connections, leaned forward involuntarily at the mention of the name.

Rushton checked his notes. ‘He admits to picking up a prostitute from the
Roosters
on the night Hetty Brown was killed. He had intercourse with her in the back of his car, according to his story. Forensic confirm from an examination of his car that that is probably true. He claims not to know her name, and he claims that she chose the spot where he should park. It was within a few hundred yards of where Hetty Brown was found dead. Incidentally, we're now certain she was killed where she was found, so he didn't kill her in the car and dump her. If, of course, it was Hetty Brown and not some other girl altogether in the car, as he'd prefer us to believe.'

Lambert said, ‘The sooner we have that semen analysis, the better.'

Rushton said, ‘One thing that we do know is that although Knowles lives a hundred miles away, he was also in the area on the night when Julie Salmon was killed.'

‘Reason?'

‘He says he was watching a testimonial match at Oldford. The match did take place that night. But even if he was there as he says, he could still have killed the girl later.'

‘Have the Scene of Crime team turned up anything that might tie him in with the first murder?'

Rushton rustled through his notes again, though he knew the answer: he had tried hard to pin these killings on the man who was to be the new manager of Oldford Football Club. ‘Nothing from the first killing, as yet. There are various hairs and clothing fibres from the house where Julie Salmon's body was found, which forensic are in the process of comparing with the materials the boys gathered from Knowles's car yesterday.'

Lambert said, ‘The SOC stuff from the Julie Salmon house is proving very difficult to use, so far. Lots of people had been in and out of that house – it's been empty for months – and it's very difficult to isolate what was there before the night when she was killed. We're looking for stuff common to both sites, but there's nothing significant as yet.'

Harding looked grim. ‘What about the Hetty Brown SOC findings?'

Lambert said, ‘Again, far too many people have been in and out of that site: kids mostly. The team did find one footprint, of a city-type shoe, in the clay near where the body lay. We don't know for certain that it was connected with the crime, but forensic think it was made not more than twenty-four hours before we found it. Needless to say, we haven't found a Prince Charming to fit it yet, or I'd have let you know before the news conference.'

‘Not enough evidence to warrant a search warrant for any of your suspects, yet, I presume.' Harding was more conscious than anyone of the way investigations could be hindered by the necessary safeguards of the law. ‘Sergeant Hook said you had a few men in the frame.'

Lambert nodded. He might not be worried about promotion, but he was human enough to want to show that his team had not been idle, even though there was no sign of a result for them yet. ‘We've mentioned Darren Pickering and Vic Knowles. Both of them have changed their stories in the course of interrogation. We're still gathering more information on both of them. We've got their fingerprints, but one of the things about this business is that there's a notable absence of dabs at both scenes of crime. It suggests that our man didn't kill on impulse, but went carefully prepared, knowing what he was going to do.'

It was a thought which brought a moment of silence even to experienced policemen, hardened to bloodier deaths than these. The Chief Constable drew a hand over his frizzy grey hair. ‘Who else?' he asked curtly.

‘A man we'd love to pin a serious crime on. Charlie Kemp.'

‘You can say that again.' Harding was well aware of the villainy perpetrated without retribution by the elusive Kemp. ‘It's not just wishful thinking?'

Lambert smiled grimly. ‘I'm trying to guard against that, sir. But one of the threads running through the crime seems to be the
Roosters
club at the football ground. Kemp controls that, whether or not the licence says he's officially in charge.'

‘What's his connection with the two victims?'

‘He knew both of them, though at first he tried to deny it. Our one bit of luck so far is that we have a drugs squad officer operating in the
Roosters
club. Drugs are being bought and sold there. It's the usual tale: the drugs squad sergeant's biding his time, hoping to get at the suppliers behind the pushers. I haven't confronted Kemp or anyone else with him so far, and unless it proves really necessary we certainly don't want to blow his cover. But he's observed quite a lot of interesting comings and goings at the
Roosters
, apart from the drugs traffic.'

‘Including Charlie Kemp's.'

‘Exactly. Incidentally, it seems quite possible that Kemp is part of this drugs ring, but he's far too astute to be seen at the front of things. But that's not our concern at the moment. He could have committed both murders, from the timings we know about. Julie Salmon had been in the
Roosters
with Darren Pickering, so Kemp would know her at least by sight. He had sex with Hetty Brown in what he treats as his private suite at the
Roosters
on at least three occasions: he's admitted as much. On the night of her death, he says that he saw her, but that she wasn't with him. He has no alibi from nine o'clock onwards on that evening. He says he was alone in his office for two or three hours – most unlikely – and that he arrived home at “about midnight”. He and his wife sleep in separate rooms, so that she is unable to confirm that.'

Kemp had been able to thumb his nose at them for far too long. But the knowledge of the satisfaction it would give to Lambert and his team to pin this one on him sounded a note of caution in Harding's Chief Constabular brain. ‘Anything at the scenes of crime that suggests Kemp was there?'

Lambert shrugged. ‘Not so far. But then there isn't anything definite for anyone, or we'd have pulled them in. The shoeprint near Hetty Brown's body could be Kemp's, but we haven't enough evidence yet to ask for a search warrant.'

‘Anyone else I should know about?'

‘There are various people we are still keeping an eye on: most of them are regulars at the
Roosters.
But I'm afraid we're working on negative rather than positive evidence. They're people who can't give convincing accounts of themselves for the nights of either murder, but who were also not sighted anywhere near the places of the deaths.'

It was Bert Hook who said, ‘Has anything further come up on Benjamin Dexter?'

Harding raised an eyebrow at what was a new name to him. Unexpectedly, it was Don Haworth who enlightened him. The police surgeon said slowly, ‘Ben Dexter spends a lot of time around the
Roosters,
much of it in the company of Darren Pickering, whom you discussed earlier. They make a very odd couple, and I think young Dexter rather likes that.'

Lambert said, ‘Dexter enjoys baiting the police. His father was a chief superintendent in the Met Police. He's retired now: his son was born when he was forty-seven. They have no contact with each other, but it does mean that young Dexter knows more than we would like him to about our procedures. We could pull him in on minor drug charges any time we want. He's a user. As far as we are aware at the moment, he may be no more heavily involved than that. But he was heard exhorting Pickering not to take Julie Salmon's rejection lying down. And we think he's one of the people who's been helping to organize the hooliganism which has grown with the success of Oldford FC. He's never at the centre of it, but he always seems to be somewhere around.'

Haworth said, ‘Dexter is a strange young man. Well educated, with a lucrative job. He seems to enjoy what he calls “slumming”, which perhaps accounts for his association with Darren Pickering. They usually seem to be together when I see them at the Roosters.'

Harding said, ‘Girlfriends?'

Rushton said, ‘No regular ones that we've been able to find. And no boyfriends either. He strikes you as an unpleasant young man with a capacity for violence, but enough intelligence to cover his tracks. Of course, we haven't taken him to task about the drugs yet – that's drugs squad business, and they'll move when they think the moment's right. When we had him in here, Dexter was polite, even cooperative on the surface, but he was ready to sneer at you as soon as you turned your back.'

Lambert said, ‘He has no previous convictions, of any sort.'

‘I'm no psychologist,' Don Haworth offered, ‘but it would be interesting to see what one made of Ben Dexter.' He looked around the table, waiting for the routine police winces at the mention of this branch of medicine, but received none on this occasion. Perhaps that was a measure of the anxiety. ‘It may be that the drugs account for the oddities in his behaviour, but I have a feeling you may be dealing with an unbalanced mind there.'

There was a little pause while they weighed the thought, looking to the cabinets behind the doctor which held the clothes of the two dead girls. Then the Chief Constable glanced at his watch and said, ‘Anyone else?'

Lambert said, ‘One of the troubles with killings of this kind is that there may be no apparent motivation. That makes it difficult to narrow the field by elimination. No one else seems as strong a candidate at the moment as the four we've mentioned. Equally, I have to say that the evidence is not so strong against any one of those as to stop us looking further. I'm afraid it's quite possible that our man may be someone else entirely, someone we've hardly considered as yet. I've told the team as much, and emphasized that they must remain vigilant for any new leads.'

It was a bleak but realistic thought on which to break up the meeting.

Lambert was dealing with the mountain of paper he had pushed aside to pursue the Strangler when there was a discreet knock at his door.

Rushton came in quietly, almost apologetically, not at all like the erect and confident bureaucrat he usually presented to his chief. Lambert concealed a spurt of irritation, which derived as much from his dissatisfaction at their lack of progress as from the interruption. ‘What can I do for you, Chris?' He made himself use the Christian name, prepared himself to squash the ‘sir' which Rushton persisted in allotting to him, even when they were alone together.

The Inspector, who usually would have had to be asked, sat down absently without invitation in the chair opposite Lambert. ‘It's personal, sir.'

It was the one thing John Lambert had not been prepared for. Rushton usually behaved as if he did not have a private side to his life; even if he had problems there, they did not have the kind of relationship which would have made Lambert a natural confidant.

He pushed aside his papers, leaned forward a little. ‘What is it, Chris? Illness?' He sought desperately for the name of Rushton's wife. Christine would have been able to tell him; for a policeman, he was very bad on names, and getting worse as the years passed.

In this case he need not have worried. Rushton, clasping his hands for a moment on his knee in front of him in a gesture which was so uncharacteristic that it made him seem strangely vulnerable, said, ‘No, nothing like that. It's Anne. She's left me, you see.'

There was really no reason why Lambert should feel so shocked. It was common enough anywhere now, and commoner still in the police force. Everyone knew that. Broken marriages were a hazard of the job. But it was still a shock when it happened to someone working with you. ‘It may be nothing permanent, Chris. We're all working under a lot of stress at the moment.'

‘She's gone off to her mother's and taken Kirstie with her.'

Again, he would never have got the name for himself. The child couldn't be more than two years old; he remembered Rushton with the first pictures of the baby, surrounded by WPCs. He said, ‘It may not be too serious. Most women do that at some time.'