The Ladykiller (28 page)

He was a what?

He was a nice man, that’s what he was, and when she left this station her life was her own!

She picked up the file and began to read again. She was being paid to find this murderer, and find him she would!

Charlie Miller came in from work at six fifteen. The house was, as usual, in pandemonium by then. All the children were in, and their Irish ancestry made loud arguing the norm. Like most children from big families, they had learnt to outshout one another at an early age. Charlie went straight up to the room that he shared with Terry and put on a Fine Young Cannibals tape. He was in the middle of getting underssed as his brother walked in with the paper.

‘All right, Tel?’

He shook his head and sat on the bottom of the bunk beds.

‘No, actually, I ain’t.’

Charlie frowned and stopped in the middle of taking off his shirt. Terry did look bad. He sat beside him.

‘What’s the matter, bruv? You got aggravation?’ His voice was low. Even though there was only a year between the two boys, Charlie looked on Terry as his little brother.

‘It’s about that bird who went missing . . . Louise Butler. Look.’

He opened the paper and Charlie glanced at it. Terry watched his brother’s face.

‘It’s that bird from the other night! The one with the weird bloke in the mask!’

Terry nodded.

‘I reckon we should go to the police. Tell them we saw her.’ Charlie shook his head vigorously.

‘Not on your bleeding nelly, mate. I ain’t going nowhere near them. And neither are you!’

‘But, Charlie . . .’

He pulled off his shirt and threw it into the corner of the tiny room.

‘No buts, Tel . . . Leave it!’

Terry knew by the sound of his brother’s voice that he had to do as he was told. Charlie didn’t like people disagreeing with him.

Terry ground his teeth in consternation. The girl was missing. She could still be alive.

Charlie looked at his brother and sighed. Terry was such a soft touch. He pulled off his work jeans and threw them on to the little pile in the corner. He hunkered down and looked into his brother’s face.

‘Listen, Tel, I’m sorry about that bird and all. It’s that Ripper bloke they’re all going on about. But for all that, I ain’t putting my . . . or your . . . face in the frame. Get it?’

Terry nodded.

‘Good. Now don’t let me hear any more about it. Besides, we was out of our nuts. What the hell could we tell them that would do any good?’

With that, Charlie picked up his deodorant and shampoo and went to have his bath, leaving Terry sitting on the bed, his mind in a turmoil. Fine Young Cannibals were singing ‘Johnny Come Home’ and listening to the words made Terry feel like crying. He wished Louise Butler would come back home and be safe, then he could stop thinking about her.

Turning off the tape, he lay on the bottom bunk and crossed his arms under his head.

They had nearly run her over. If the Grantley Ripper had got her, as the papers seemed to think, he wished now that they had. At least her end would have been short and quick.

Elaine and George were sitting in their lounge watching
South East at Six
when the story of Louise Butler’s disappearance came on the air. As her photograph appeared on the screen, Elaine shook her head.

‘Oh, George, isn’t it terrible?’

Louise was in her school uniform and looked very young. Quite unlike the girl of the previous Saturday.

‘Yes, dear. That’s all they’ve talked about at work, you know.’

‘Same with us. Her mother uses my supermarket. How must she be feeling? It must be like a nightmare. This is the third one, isn’t it? I was reading in the
Sun
today that the other girl, what’s her name, her father is a London gangster!’

‘Mandy Kelly.’

‘That’s it, Mandy Kelly. Imagine you remembering her name like that.’

George felt a tightening around his heart. It was fear.

‘Oh, it stuck in my mind, that’s all.’

Was Elaine looking at him oddly?

‘Would you like a nice cuppa, dear?’

Before she could answer there was a loud banging on the front door.

‘Goodness me, who on earth can that be?’ Elaine’s voice was high. People knocking at the door was a very unusual event in this household. She stood up quickly to answer it.

George remained seated. He was still trying to recover from his earlier slip. He looked even more surprised when Elaine walked into the lounge with two men.

‘George, this is Detective Sergeant Willis and PC Hemmings. They want to have a word with you.’ Elaine’s voice was quavering.

‘Can I make you two gentlemen a cup of tea or coffee?’

Willis smiled. ‘Tea would be lovely, madam.’

George sat in his seat, stunned.

They knew it was him! They had come for him!

‘Please sit down. Would you like fresh tea, George?’

He could feel his head moving up and down of its own accord. He was aware of Elaine leaving the room. His eyes were glued to the two men now sitting on his couch. He could feel his breathing quicken and strove desperately to control it.

‘I’m sorry to trouble you, sir, but we are questioning everyone in Grantley with a dark blue saloon car. It’s just so we can eliminate people from our inquiries.’

Eliminate. Eliminate. Eliminate. They didn’t know. They
didn’t
know. George smiled.

Outside the lounge door Elaine relaxed as well. Walking to the kitchen, she filled the electric kettle, her heart hammering in her chest.

George would never do anything like that. What had made her think that he would? She was too hard on him.

It was just the shock of seeing two policemen on her doorstep. It was like the other time. The terrible time. Then a thought occurred to her. Would they bring that up now? All these years later?

She set about making a pot of tea.

George would never do anything like that again. Never. Not in a million years.

In the lounge, Willis and Hemmings were listening to George’s account of where he had been on the nights of the murders and the disappearance.

‘I was in bed with terrible flu. My wife can vouch for that, officers. May I ask you a question?’

‘Certainly.’

‘If one of you is a police constable, surely he should be in uniform?’

Willis smiled.

‘On these kind of cases, sir, we try to be as informal as possible. We recruit uniformed officers into plain clothes so that people like yourself, who are being eliminated, won’t feel under pressure. From neighbours etcetera.’

‘How very thoughtful of you.’

Elaine came into the room with the tea. Her big-boned body felt clumsy and she placed the tray on the coffee table with a loud clatter.

Willis watched her surreptitiously. She was a bundle of nerves. She began to pour the tea and when she had finally finished and sat down felt as if she had run the London Marathon. She tried to calm herself.

Willis spoke directly to her.

‘Now, madam, on the second of December, 1989, which was a Saturday, I understand that your husband was home with you all evening?’

Elaine nodded.

‘He very rarely goes out in the evenings.’

‘I see. Now on the twenty-third of December, which was a Saturday, he was home with you then, as well?’

‘Yes.’

‘And on New Year’s Eve, you were home together?’

‘Yes. No. Actually, he was in bed with very bad flu. I went to a party at my friend’s alone. George was much too ill to leave the house.’

Elaine was aware that she was babbling.

Willis and Hemmings were both staring at her. Even her red hair seemed to be trembling.

Willis smiled and closed his notebook.

‘That will be all. I am very sorry to bother you, but I’m sure you understand.’

‘Of course.’ George was more his old self now. He could feel a giggle in his throat, just waiting to explode.

They were fools. Utter fools. He swallowed hard. The giggle was nearly at the roof of his mouth.

‘Would you gentlemen like another cup of tea?’

Hemmings was about to say yes when Willis declined. George smiled at the younger man. Hemmings smiled back. Elaine watched them. Was it her imagination or was George laughing at them all? More and more lately she had the feeling that George was different somehow. Now all this. Eliminating him from their inquiries.

‘Have you found the other girl yet? The one who’s missing?’

‘Louise Butler? No, not yet. We’re hoping against hope that she’s gone off with a friend or a boyfriend and will get in touch with her parents. But every day that goes by makes it less likely.’

George tutted. ‘How terrible. This man, whoever he is, must be very clever. I mean, three women murdered and no clues. That’s if the other young lady has been murdered, of course.’

‘He’ll make a mistake, sir. They always do.’

‘Quite.’ George smiled. They always did, did they? Well, not this one, Mr Clever Clogs policeman. Not this one.

‘He must be some kind of animal.’ Elaine’s voice was low and throaty. ‘Those poor girls. No woman’s safe any more.’

Hemmings nodded at Elaine, thinking, Well, you are. Any man who’d try and attack you would have to be mad!

Willis stood up and held out his hand to George who shook it warmly.

‘Thanks for all your help, sir.’

‘You’re welcome. Any time.’

Hemmings nodded and Elaine pulled herself from her chair and saw them to the door.

‘Thanks for the tea, madam.’

‘That’s OK. Goodbye.’

She closed the front door and leant against it, her heart beating fast once more. What was wrong with her? Why did she feel so worried?

George walked out into the hall.

‘All right, dear? You look dreadful.’

‘I’m fine, George. But it was like before. You know . . .’ Her voice trailed off.

He put his arm around her.

‘Now then, Elaine, there’s nothing to worry about. It was all a terrible misunderstanding. Anyway that was a long time ago and I paid my debt to society.’

He led her back into the lounge and steered her to her chair. ‘Now you stop worrying, my love. Just because I have a dark blue saloon car . . . well, does that make me a murderer?’

She shook her head.

‘Of course not, George. I’m sorry.’

‘There now, you’re chasing ghosts again, Elaine. It’s always been there between us, hasn’t it?’

George’s voice was soft.

She couldn’t look at him in the face. After twenty years this was the first time George had ever referred to what had happened. And he was right, it had always been between them. Because it had always been in the back of her mind, from the moment she got up in the morning until she went to bed at night. Even then, sometimes, it strayed into her dreams.

‘I’m sorry, Elaine. Really I am. I wish with all my heart that I could go back and change that time, but I can’t, I just can’t.’

George watched Elaine’s guilty expression and felt the laughter threatening again.

‘I know that, George. It was just seeing them, standing on the doorstep like that.’

‘I know, my love, I understand. I know that you’ve never forgiven me for what happened, and I don’t blame you, darling. I appreciate the way you stood by me. Really I do.’ He took her plump hand in his and repressed a shudder. ‘I love you, Elaine, I always have.’

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, knowing in her heart that it was an excuse to curtail the physical contact with him.

‘I’m just an old silly, George. I’ll make another cuppa.’

George moved so she could get out of the chair. He watched the material of her shell suit strain to the limit as she bent over the coffee table and picked up the tray of cups and saucers. She must have gone off her diet over Christmas.

When she left the room he sat back in his seat and grinned. They were all bloody fools! Every last one of them. And he was cleverer than a bag of monkeys, as his mother used to say, and would outwit them all. Starting with that fat bitch out in the kitchen.

Elaine was making the tea. She felt an urge to smash the teapot against the wall. The night of Mandy Kelly’s murder George had been out on one of his walks. She pushed the thought from her mind. The other night she’d been in with him. On New Year’s Eve he had been ill. Very ill. She was just paranoid, that’s what was wrong with her. She wished the time would go faster until her holiday in Spain so she could go away, leave George and just enjoy herself. She poured the water over the tea bags and felt the tears again.

For all George’s faults he was not a murderer. He was not a killer.

She had to believe that.

She had to.

Roll on Friday. She was seeing Hector Henderson, and more and more as the days went on found that she needed him, his simplicity and his jolliness. Most of all his kindness.

Willis and Hemmings discussed George and Elaine on their way to the next address.

‘He seemed OK, but that woman! She was a bundle of nerves.’

Willis shrugged.

‘We affect some people like that. Make them nervous. People like her never have the Old Bill round, see. When they do, it throws them like. He was a nice bloke though. Very polite and well spoken.’