The Ladykiller (6 page)

While he carried out his ministrations he felt the excitement building up within him. And such was his feeling of ecstatic happiness as he pulled her legs open, he had to stifle the cry that had gathered in his throat.

This was what she wanted. This was what they all wanted.

It was when George lay across her, spent and replete, that he found out why she had not moved at all during his little ‘game’.

The lump of wood, so convenient, had contained a six-inch nail. It had been forced through her skull and into her brain.

George looked at her and tutted once more.

It was her own fault. All her own fault. Women always caused trouble. They were just so bloody stupid . . . Stupid fucking bitches! Bringing his fist back he smashed it into her face as hard as he could.

Mick O’Leary looked at the policewoman’s face in disbelief. He had been up all night and thought that maybe his mind was playing tricks on him.

‘What did you say?’

The WPC had never felt so bad in all her life. She saw the three children huddled together on the settee. Their father’s fear had communicated itself to them. She could have cried herself.

‘Your wife was found an hour ago, Mr O’Leary. She’s been murdered.’

The WPC watched the man’s face crumple before her eyes, and put her arm around his shoulders.

‘Not my Gerry . . . Not my lovely Gerry. Please tell me that it’s not true? Please?’

Mick O’Leary’s voice broke as he spoke the last word and he put his hands to his face, the tears bursting through his fingers like a dam.

‘Dad! Don’t cry, Daddy!’

Ten-year-old Grania pulled her younger brother and sister into her arms. She had never seen her daddy cry before.

‘I want my mum. When’s my mummy coming home?’

At the same moment as Mick O’Leary was being told that his world had been ripped apart, George Markham was cooking his wife a nice breakfast.

Elaine walked into the kitchen, the smell of eggs and bacon making her mouth water.

‘Oh, George, I would have done that.’

He actually laughed.

‘I wanted to do it for you, my love. I do love you, you know, Elaine.’

‘Do you, George?’

For some unknown reason his saying that he loved her depressed her more than anything else he could have done.

George held out her chair for her and she sat down at the table.

‘Eat that up, my dear.’

Elaine stared at the eggs, bacon and tomatoes, and her appetite came back.

George watched her eat.

That’s why you’re so fat, Elaine, he thought, because you’re a greedy bitch.

‘Now then, my dear, what’s it to be? Tea or coffee?’ His voice was as polite as ever.

But George had a secret. A very important and exciting secret that he would not tell to a living soul.

He ate his own breakfast. For some reason he had a ravenous appetite this morning.

Chapter Three

Elaine sat at her till in the supermarket. Every customer who had passed through the large glass doors today had had only one thing on their minds: the rape and murder of Geraldine O’Leary. Since the body had been found, Grantley had been buzzing with news, views and assumptions. While tills crashed around her and people packed their shopping Elaine chatted to a customer, a woman who had known the victim.

‘It makes me go all funny, just thinking about it.’ The woman paused to force a large packet of cornflakes into her shopping bag.

‘I mean, poor Gerry, she had three of the most gorgeous children you’re ever likely to see. And she was happily married.’ She nodded her head sagely. ‘And how many can say that in this day and age?’

‘You’re right there. So who found her then?’

The woman rearranged her silk scarf. In the heat of the supermarket it was beginning to make her head itch.

‘It was a young kid. He was on his way to deliver the papers. Well, he used the cut through from Vauxhall Drive and there she was . . . dead as a bleeding doornail!’ She shook her head again.

‘I bet this will just be the start. You mark my words. This is just the start.’

Elain grimaced and totalled her till.

‘Seventeen pounds and eighty-five pence, please.’

The woman opened her purse and took out a twenty-pound note. ‘Bleeding daylight robbery, if you ask me. I ain’t even got the makings of a dinner here!’

Elaine smiled in sympathy but her mind was still with Geraldine O’Leary. Poor woman, to die like that. She shuddered.

Giving the woman her change, she went on to the next customer.

The whole of Grantley was appalled and shocked at the rape and murder. Every woman knew that it could easily have been her and they were all frightened.

Frightened and excited. Because nothing like this had ever happened in Grantley before.

Detective Inspector Kate Burrows looked down at the body and winced.

Detective Sergeant Willis watched her surreptitiously, smiling slightly as he watched her blanch.

Who, he wondered, in their right mind, would give a female copper a rape and murder? Women were too emotional for this type of thing.

He looked Kate up and down on the sly. Not a bad-looking bird for her age. Bit flat-chested to his mind, but she had good legs and nice eyes. Deep brown eyes that matched her hair exactly.

Willis dragged his mind back to the present as the pathologist spoke again.

‘The nail entered the head here.’ He pointed to Geraldine’s temple. ‘On the left-hand side, where it entered the brain. I would say that death was instantaneous. We found traces of semen on her thighs and breasts, which is unusual in these cases. Only a small amount was inside the vagina.’

The man rubbed his eyes with the forefinger and thumb of his right hand.

‘The blow to the face was administered after she had died. As you can see, he crushed the nose. She has several broken ribs. I would hazard a guess that she had been kicked. Kicked very hard as one of the ribs broke and punctured a lung.’

He shook his head. ‘A very brutal attack. Very calculated. She has scratches and particles of dirt on her knees. My guess is that she put up a fairly good fight.’

‘Any skin under the nails? Anything else for us to go on?’ Kate’s voice was low and subdued.

He shook his head. ‘Nothing, I’m afraid. Of course we can get a DNA reading from the semen . . .’ His voice trailed off. He shrugged. ‘Maybe some traces of hair or fibre will turn up off her clothes. I’ll let you know.’ The pathologist began combing Geraldine’s pubic hair slowly and carefully, his mind back on his job. Kate turned away from the woman’s rapidly greying body.

‘Thanks.’

She walked from the mortuary and Willis followed her. Neither spoke until they were back in the canteen at Grantley Police Station sipping cups of coffee.

‘Look, don’t let it get to you, love. These things happen.’

Kate stared at the younger man, frowning in concentration. She took a deep breath.

‘How dare you?’ Her voice was low and filled with rage. Willis was shocked. ‘How dare you patronise me like that? Just who the hell do you think you are? “These things happen”! Is that what you honestly believe?’

Her voice was incredulous. ‘Do you think that Mrs Geraldine O’Leary is standing in heaven thinking: These things happen. Do you think her husband and children are just shrugging their shoulders thinking: These things happen!’

Her voice was beginning to rise and Willis looked around him in embarrassment.

‘These things don’t just happen, boy.’ She stressed the last word. ‘Out there somewhere is a murdering rapist. Do you understand the enormity of that? Do you? Well, DO YOU?’

Willis sat rigid in his seat, crimson with shame. Everyone in the room had gone quiet and was sitting watching them.

‘It means that for the majority of women normal living will now be curtailed at four-thirty when it gets dark. It means that women who live alone or whose husbands work nights will be sitting uneasily in their own homes. It means that even locked in a car driving along they will not feel safe. It means that parents with young daughters will be sick with apprehension until they return from school, work, wherever they may have been. The list is bloody endless! How dare you sit there and tell me these things happen?

‘And one last thing, while we’re getting ourselves sorted out. I am a Detective Inspector. I am your boss. So in future you address me as such. In the six months I have been here there has been a general lack of respect, and as from today your lackadaisical attitude stops.’

Getting up from her seat, Kate stormed from the canteen, leaving a hush behind her.

Willis sighed heavily and one of his friends, DS Spencer, went to his table.

‘So the vixen’s got claws, has she? Flash bitch! If she’d spoken to me like that I’d have punched her in the mouth.’

A female voice from a nearby table said, ‘Very macho, Spencer. Sure you ain’t the rapist? I hear the victim had a broken nose.’

‘Get stuffed!’ Spencer went back to his cronies and sat down.

‘Bloody women. Whoever it was who let them in the force in the first place wants psychiatric help. As for that Burrows . . . Uppity cow!’

‘She’s been put in charge of the murder and rape, so you’d best get used to it.’

Spencer looked at the speaker. ‘Well, let’s see how well she does, shall we? Personally she gets on my wick.’

‘Maybe that’s what’s wrong with you, Spencer. She
won’t
be getting on your wick.’

Everyone laughed.

Spencer picked up his cup of tea and with his free hand shoved his middle finger under the other man’s nose.

‘Spin on it, Fisher.’

Fisher grinned.

‘Only if you ask me nicely!’ He fluttered his eyelashes suggestively.

Spencer drank his tea down. Bloody women. It would take a rape to bring out their true colours. He wouldn’t mind but the silly bitch O’Leary had probably been asking for it.

Kate Burrows sat in her office and tried to calm down. She admitted that she had been hard on Willis, but he got on her nerves. Most of the plain clothes at Grantley CID got on her nerves. She rubbed her hand over her face. She had been on the receiving end of discrimination since she had joined the force, it was an occupational hazard. But this lot here . . .

She turned her attention to the file in front of her. She wanted every bit of information imprinted on her brain. As in most of the cases she worked on, she wanted to be more knowledgeable than her male counterparts. She began to read.

A little while later there was a tap on her door.

‘Come in.’

The door opened and Willis walked into the room.

‘Yes?’ Her voice was clipped.

Willis nodded. ‘Ma’am, Superintendent Ratchette would like to see you, if you’re not too busy.’

‘Thank you, Willis.’

She watched him turn and walk meekly from the room. Mentally, Kate licked her finger and chalked one up to herself.

‘You wanted to see me, sir?’

Superintendent Ratchette smiled at her as she entered his office.

‘Sit down, Kate. I suppose you know that we have had the nationals on to us already?’

She grimaced. ‘I didn’t know, but I guessed it wouldn’t take long.’

‘Well, as usual they’re making a nuisance of themselves. We must try and contain this as much as possible. Hopefully this is just a one-off thing. It’s all we need, especially with Christmas not two weeks away.’ Superintendent Ratchette’s voice was tired and Kate felt sorry for him.

‘Well, at the moment, sir, there’s not that much to go on. We’re hoping that forensic will show something up. I’ve already arranged the door-to-door, it’s within a mile radius. The usual thing. Every male from fourteen to sixty-five will be interviewed - their make of car checked, where they work, where they were between six thirty p.m. and seven a.m. Oh, and before I forget, I’ve made DS Dawkins the office manager. She’s good.’

Superintendent Ratchette raised a bushy grey eyebrow. ‘I bet that went down well, didn’t it?’

‘Not really.’ Kate laughed ruefully. ‘Two women on a big case. Makes male CID eyes red just thinking about it!’

Ratchette laughed out loud. He liked Kate Burrows.

‘Well, whatever you think, Kate, it’s your case. If you could just keep me informed of any developments, as and when they occur?’

‘Of course, sir. But I don’t like the feel of this one. Geraldine O’Leary worked at Rudys wine bar, but from what I can gather she was not a woman who encouraged men, although she was good-looking and would obviously attract them. We’re checking out all the customers anyway. Most are local men. Her husband was babysitting last night and a woman called Conroy called around at seven-thirty to collect an Avon order and stayed chatting till gone eight when Geraldine O’Leary’s mother came round to drop off some Christmas presents. There’s no way it’s the husband. His alibi is watertight.’

Ratchette nodded at her.

‘Looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you.’

Kate stifled a yawn. It had been a long day and it still wasn’t over.

‘I have a feeling this is going to be a tough one, sir, a very tough one.’

George walked into his house and was grateful for the warmth of the central heating. He was freezing. Under his arm he had the local paper. He could hear Elaine clattering around as she cooked. Taking off his overcoat, he hung it up in the hall cupboard and silently entered the kitchen.

Elaine turned from the sink and jumped.

‘Oh, George! You gave me a start. I didn’t hear you come in!’

She waved her hand in front of her face as if cooling herself down.

He smiled.

‘Sorry, dear.’ He sat at the table and looked at the paper. He smiled wider. Across the front page in large black letters was one word: MURDER.

Settling himself into his chair, George began to read. This morning the body of a woman had been found in Grantley Woods. She had been raped and murdered . . . He felt the familiar excitement flow through his veins. The victim was a Mrs Geraldine O’Leary, a thirty-two-year-old mother of three.

The poor children! The poor, poor children. Shaking his head, he began to read again.