Class Murder Page 13

  ‘Geraldine! It’s been so long! Come in, come in. I’ll put the kettle on, and then I want to hear all your news.’

  Geraldine had admitted to her adopted sister, Celia, that she had been compelled to move to York, after a problem she had encountered in London. She hadn’t gone into details about having to leave the Met after putting herself on the wrong side of the law trying to protect her birth twin, Helena. With hindsight it had been a rash effort, with failure probably inevitable. After meeting Helena for the first time as an adult, she had allowed her emotions to overrule all common sense. Now she was suffering the consequences, one of which was that she had been obliged to move further away from Celia.

  As usual, Celia wasn’t interested in hearing Geraldine’s detailed news but was happiest when talking about herself. Geraldine didn’t mind. Celia was on her own for hours every day and needed company. Besides, it saved Geraldine having to talk. Apart from issues of confidentiality, she didn’t really like telling Celia about the cases she was working on. Celia could never get past the shock of hearing that people had been murdered and Geraldine could tell her sister was uncomfortable hearing her talk dispassionately about the victims. Celia briefly brought up the subject of Geraldine’s work.

  ‘I read about your case,’ she said. ‘It was in the news. That poor girl was only in her early twenties, and the boy wasn’t much older. How terrible. Who would do such a thing?’

  ‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ Geraldine mumbled.

  Celia’s emotional response jarred with Geraldine. Sometimes she wondered if she was unnaturally callous, because she was able to deal objectively with her work while other people were overwhelmed with the horror of what had taken place. But that attitude went with the job. She was trained to study the facts of a case rationally, without indulging in any personal feelings beyond a hard anger that fuelled her determination to see the killers brought to justice. Not that sentencing was always appropriate. With a skilful barrister, a premeditated murder could earn a prison sentence of just a few years. But there was nothing Geraldine could do to influence the length of a prison sentence. All she could do was prepare as clear a case against the perpetrator as she possibly could.

  Geraldine’s brother-in-law and niece were both home in time for lunch and the four of them sat around the table in Celia’s spacious kitchen to enjoy a traditional Sunday roast.

  ‘I suggested we all go to the pub for lunch,’ Sebastian said, ‘but Celia insisted on cooking.’

  ‘I’m not an invalid,’ Celia grumbled. ‘I can still cook.’

  ‘And very good it is, too,’ Geraldine said.

  ‘It’s yummy!’ Chloe agreed.

  Celia grinned. ‘I’m glad you two are enjoying it,’ she said pointedly.

  Sebastian smiled. ‘I’m not saying it’s not good. It’s fantastic, and nothing the pub can produce could match this, nowhere near. I just don’t want you to overdo things.’

  Celia rolled her eyes. ‘I wish you’d stop trying to wrap me in cotton wool. I’m perfectly OK.’

  Geraldine and Chloe exchanged a grin as they tucked into their roast lunch contentedly. They had both heard a similar conversation between Celia and Sebastian many times over the past six months.

  It was gone five and already dark by the time Geraldine left. Celia tried to persuade her to stay the night and set off in the morning but that was clearly impractical. Apart from the fact that Geraldine had to be at work early the next morning, the traffic would be far heavier on a Monday. Besides, the roads were safer after a day of traffic and winter sunshine than at the end of a freezing night. Promising that she would drive carefully and return soon, she left, reassured that Celia was fine.

  Feeling slightly guilty that she had enjoyed her break from the stress of moving along with the pressures of a double murder investigation, she drove home through a light but steady sleet. She had made the right decision to leave early. In a few hours slush on the roads would turn to ice. Leaving London behind her, she felt a pang of regret that she was going so far north, instead of returning to the flat in Islington where she had been happy. Leaving London had been a wrench. She had joined the Met with no intention of quitting her job until she was forced to retire. Her commitment to life in London had been absolute, until she had been abruptly uprooted against her wishes. Although she knew she would break the law again to save her sister’s life, she wondered if York would ever replace London for her. It was certainly a long drive home from Celia now.

  26

  Leah had been waiting up for Beth the previous evening. It had hardly been a pleasant end to Beth’s night out. After making her way back through the thickest fog she had ever seen, she had been relieved to reach home safely. The fog itself hadn’t bothered her much. In fact, she would have quite enjoyed the walk if it hadn’t been so cold, but her jacket didn’t offer her enough protection and she had been pleased to finally get home out of the bitter cold. Her relief had evaporated at the sight of Leah standing in the living room, her round face streaked with tears. Arms crossed, she had scowled at Beth, demanding to know where she had been. Beth was tempted to ignore the question.

  ‘I told you, I was at the club this evening. Not that it’s any business of yours.’

  As she spoke, it had struck her that she was sick of sharing a flat with Leah.

  ‘What’s happened to you, Leah? You used to be fun, you know. Now – well, it’s like living with my mother. Worse.’

  Leah began blubbering, mumbling about being stalked and killed. The histrionics went on for a while. Beth had tried not to listen. She was fed up with Leah’s attention seeking. It was one thing sharing her feelings, but Beth had heard enough of Leah’s anxieties. Apart from the fact that she had nothing new to say, if she was right then Beth had just as much reason to be scared as Leah did, if not more. Because if what Leah was telling her was true, not only was their home under surveillance by a murdering lunatic, but Beth was living with a woman who kept a gun in her bedroom. It made Beth nervous about getting up to go to the loo during the night in case Leah heard her and mistook her for an intruder. It was all well and good Leah saying she wasn’t going to shoot Beth, but if she was panicking in the dark she might not recognise her flatmate until it was too late.

  ‘You have to get rid of it,’ Beth said to her as they sat having a late lunch together in front of the television on Sunday. ‘It’s not safe to keep it here.’

  ‘I got it precisely because I don’t think we’re safe here.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘He’s watching us.’

  ‘Who is?’

  Leah lowered her voice and hissed. ‘The killer. He’s watching us.’

  Beth stood up and went over to the window to look out. The fog had cleared on a crisp cold day. Frost sparkled on the branches of a tree. A car drove by. Apart from that the street was deserted.

  ‘There’s no one outside,’ she said.

  ‘Just because you can’t see him doesn’t mean he’s not there,’ Leah replied sharply. ‘Of course he’s not going to let us see him.’

  ‘Then how do you know he’s there?’

  ‘I don’t know why you’re laughing. It’s not funny. I know he’s there because I saw him, but that was before he realised we were on to him. Now he knows, he’s keeping out of sight. That’s why you can’t see him. But he’s still out there, watching us.’

  Beth wanted to laugh again but Leah was so earnest, she hesitated. There was no doubt her flat mate was genuinely scared. Until all this had happened, Leah had been fun, bubbly and frivolous. She would collapse in giggles at the slightest provocation, sometimes for no apparent reason. This anxious Leah was unfamiliar and unwelcome. Not wanting to spark off another row, Beth decided to humour her friend.

  ‘What makes you think we’re being watched?’

  Leah shook her head. ‘I’ve seen him, stan
ding out there. And I told you, he followed me home last night.’

  ‘Well, he’s not there now, and no one followed me. I don’t know how you could even tell, in all that fog. Look, you might have seen someone out there at some point, I’m not saying you didn’t.’

  ‘I know what I saw.’

  ‘Yes, I believe you. If you say you saw someone outside, then I believe you. But even if there was someone out there, so what? There’s no reason to suppose he was watching us. Listen, Leah, everything that’s happened with Stephanie and Peter, it’s unnerved everyone. We’re all on edge, not just people who were in our class. No one likes the thought of a killer living somewhere in Yorkshire. It’s really scary. But having a gun really isn’t a good idea. We’re more at risk of being accidentally shot than being stabbed to death by a stranger. You have to get rid of it.’

  They discussed the situation for a while, but Leah remained adamant that she was keeping hold of the gun.

  ‘It cost me a fortune,’ she said.

  ‘Well, can’t you sell it?’

  ‘I’m not getting rid of it, and that’s final. I don’t feel safe at night without it.’

  In the end Beth gave up trying to argue with Leah. There was no point in them both getting heated about it. She would have to deal with the problem herself. Once she had thrown the gun away, there would be nothing Leah could do about it, but she was going to have to think carefully about how to dispose of it. For a start she would have to find a hiding place no one could stumble across accidentally. If a child were to get their hands on it, the possible consequences didn’t bear thinking about. In addition, she would have to make sure the gun never found its way to the police who might be able to take fingerprints or DNA, and trace it back to her and her flatmate.

  Leah would be furious, but she had never consulted Beth before bringing a gun into their rooms so she could hardly complain if the same treatment were handed out to her in return. And once Leah calmed down and recovered from her panic, she was bound to agree that Beth had done the right thing. Having made up her mind what she was going to do, Beth settled down to watch television. Unless Leah decided to go out that Sunday evening, which was unlikely, it would be impossible to slip the gun out of the flat without her seeing. Although she wasn’t comfortable with the thought of spending another night in the flat with the gun beside Leah’s bed, Beth was resigned to waiting until Monday to deal with the problem. Somehow she would contrive to leave work early so she could pop home and leave again, with the gun in her bag, before her flatmate came home.

  About six o’clock Leah said she was going to take a shower. As soon as she heard the water running, Beth nipped into her flatmate’s room. It was a mess. Stepping over clothes scattered on the floor, she tiptoed to the bedside cabinet. Silently she opened the drawer. Her hand trembled as her fingers closed around the gun. Too late she realised her fingerprints would be on it. Dropping it in her bag, she hurried back into the living room and grabbed her jacket and hat.

  ‘I’m just going out,’ she called out.

  Without waiting to check whether Leah had heard her, she left. Her heart pounded as she hurried down the path to the street, furious with Leah for having put her in this situation. She was tempted to go back inside and threaten to shoot her flatmate with the bloody thing. It would serve Leah right to give her a scare like that. If anyone looked in her bag, Beth would be in serious trouble. Her breath came in short gasps when she thought about what she was doing, but she had no choice. Because of her flatmate’s crazy paranoia, she was having to walk around the village with an illegal gun in her bag. She had never been so terrified in her life before, and it was all Leah’s fault.

  27

  Driving back was a slower journey than travelling down to her sister’s had been. Tired and peckish, even though Celia had given her a huge lunch, she had stopped for a bite to eat at a motorway services and didn’t reach home until past ten o’clock. She fixed herself a mug of soup, and sat down in her living room to study the notebook where she recorded her private thoughts. In addition to her official decision log, together with all the reports and interviews, forensically gathered evidence and other information gleaned from witnesses and all the people who had known the victims, she was keeping a note of her own impressions and theories. It wasn’t a strictly factual account but rather her own thoughts arising from the evidence, all hand written to eliminate the risk that anyone else might come across her jottings. She had only started doing this since her arrival in York.

  The other members of Stephanie and Peter’s class at school bothered her. She suspected at least one of them would be able to offer a theory about who might have killed them, but Eileen had decided, quite rightly, not to reveal evidence suggesting they had been victims of the same murderer just yet, for fear of starting a panic.

  ‘Once the media get to hear about it, it could spark a storm of unhelpful speculation from all sorts of people, which would only put us under more pressure.’

  Along with the majority of her colleagues, Geraldine agreed. The last thing they wanted was to fuel a public panic about a vicious serial killer. The media loved stories like that. What worried Geraldine was that, if the killer had been a member of the victims’ class at school, they would have traced him quite easily through the DNA left at the crime scene. Yet this killer had succeeded in committing two murders within a week, and they still had no idea of his identity. That hadn’t happened by chance. Whoever they were looking for was disturbingly intelligent.

  Finishing her mug of soup, she began to study her notes in earnest. So far no one she had encountered had struck her as in any way suspicious. Stephanie’s flatmate and boyfriends had all seemed genuinely shocked and bewildered by the murder. None of them could offer any ideas about who might have carried it out, apart from Ashley’s inconclusive reference to an unknown ex-boyfriend of the victim. Pursuing that line of enquiry had come to nothing. In her notes, Geraldine had suggested that Stephanie might have fabricated a violent ex-boyfriend to make herself sound more interesting to Ashley. It was all discouragingly vague.

  Unable to shake off the feeling that Stephanie and Peter’s former classmates held the key to the murders, she decided to speak to them all again herself. Turning to her iPad, she set about rereading the reports posted by other officers who had spoken to them. There were four of them still living in the area, two women and two men. The rest of the class had moved away. A team of constables had been checking public transport and CCTV on the roads, but no evidence had been uncovered to show that any other member of their class had returned to the area recently, other than a few who had come back to visit family in the area over Christmas and the New Year. It was lucky the murders hadn’t been committed then, as the number of suspects would have increased dramatically. It was just as well the killer hadn’t thought of that.

  Every adult male living in the local area was being approached for a DNA sample, along with all the past pupils from the victims’ class, but no match had yet been found for the DNA they had discovered, and that was the only clue so far to the killer’s identity. Eileen had set up a search for everyone who had attended the school at the same time as the victims, regardless of where they were now living, and the initial search had been widened to the surrounding areas of the county. Police throughout the UK were deployed to track down each individual who had been at school with Stephanie and Peter, including anyone who had taught them, and DNA samples were obtained and tested. The massive undertaking could take months to complete, but it had to yield a result eventually. They just had to hope there would be no further attacks while the search was underway.

  ‘No one is exempt,’ Eileen said. ‘If we can’t find our killer here, we’ll extend the search overseas. A few of their former classmates are living abroad, but people can travel.’ She looked around the room, a fixed determination in the set of her jaw. ‘Wherever this killer is hiding out, we’ll find him. There will
be no escaping our search, no slipping through the net.’

  Eileen spoke as though she was addressing a press conference. Geraldine thought she might be rehearsing for one. They were nowhere near closing the case, and Geraldine wasn’t the only one convinced the murders had been thought out very carefully and deliberately. The fact that the killer had carried them out so successfully suggested premeditation. The more Geraldine thought about the case, the more troubling it became. If the killer was living in the area, he was making sure he avoided being approached for a sample of his DNA. That, too, suggested the murders had been meticulously planned in advance.

  It was nearly two when she finally fell into bed, exhausted, but she couldn’t sleep. No sooner had she stopped thinking about the case than her thoughts drifted to her twin sister, and her deep-seated anxiety about how Helena was coping with the prospect of leaving the clinic. She would need a great deal of help to move on from her previous lifestyle, but Helena’s community was peopled with drug dealers and addicts. In the morning, Geraldine resolved to call the clinic and contact social services to check what assistance was in place for Helena once she quit the clinic. It might have been because she was tired, but Geraldine’s characteristic optimism seemed to have deserted her.

  28

  Compared to Saturday evening, the village was like a ghost town. As Beth walked down the main street, a buzz of voices reached her from the yard outside the pub where a group of youngsters had gathered to smoke. They must have been freezing, huddled together around a patio heater. She scurried past. A fine sleet began to fall and the smokers vanished into the pub. Glimpsing warm lights inside, Beth felt a pang of regret, but she couldn’t join them. Not yet. Before she could do anything else she had to get rid of the gun. There was no one else on the pavement as she crossed the road and reached the path that led down to the canal. A car sped by and she froze beneath the trees, waiting until it passed. Standing still she wouldn’t be spotted there. After a few seconds she carried on walking.