hammering. He was badly beaten up, and sexually assaulted too.’
Warders are said to have turned a blind eye to McConnell’s savage battering. Then yesterday (Sunday) because of a prison officers’ work to rule, he was left unattended in his cell for long enough to end his life. A Home Office spokesman said there would be a full enquiry into the incident.
McConnell managed Bodies gym in the city centre, where the killer’s third victim, solicitor Gareth Finnegan, was a member.
McConnell faced a minor assault charge after coming to the rescue of an undercover police sergeant who was attacked by a third man in the Temple Fields gay village.
He then tried to flee the country while he was out on bail. Police rearrested him as he was about to board a ferry for Holland, and persuaded magistrates to remand him in custody.
A police source revealed, ’What we did made people think that McConnell was the killer, and that’s what we wanted.
‘Serial killers are very vain, and we thought that the killer would be so outraged that we had pointed the finger at the wrong person that he would break cover and make contact.
‘It’s all gone horribly wrong.’
A friend of McConnell’s said last night, ’Bradfield police are murderers. As far as I’m concerned, they killed Stevie.
‘The police really grilled him about the serial killings. They put him under all kinds of pressure.
‘Even though they let him go afterwards, mud like that sticks. He got the cold shoulder at work, and out in the gay bars.
‘That’s why he decided to leg it. It’s a tragedy. Worse than that, it’s a pointless tragedy.
‘This hasn’t taken the police an inch closer to finding the killer.’
Penny lit another cigarette and read through her copy. ‘Pick the bones out of that, Kevin,’ she said softly, hitting the keys that would save the file and transmit it via her modem to the office computer. Then, as an afterthought, she typed:
Memo to newsdesk.
From Penny Burgess, Crime Desk.
I am taking tomorrow (Monday) as time off in lieu of working extra hours last week and today. Hope this doesn’t pose too many problems!
‘A Land Rover Discovery, metallic grey or dark blue?’ Dave Woolcott confirmed, making a note on a pad.
‘That’s what the man said,’ Carol agreed.
‘Right. With it being Sunday, I can’t get a full run-down from Swansea on every vehicle like that on our patch,’ Dave said.
‘What we could do, though, is get a team going round the main dealerships and the quality secondhand dealers asking for their records of anyone who’s bought one,’ Kevin suggested. Like all of them, he was fired with an excitement only slightly tempered by the tragic news from Barleigh.
‘No,’ Brandon said. ‘That’s a waste of time and personnel. There’s no guarantee that the killer bought his vehicle locally. We wait until tomorrow morning. Then we go flat out.’
Everyone looked disappointed, even though they recognized the force of Brandon’s argument. ‘In that case, sir,’ Carol said, ‘I’d like to work with Dave compiling lists of computer hardware and software suppliers so we’re ready to roll with that as soon as there are some spare bodies to hit the phones.’
Brandon nodded. ‘Good thinking, Carol. Now, why don’t the rest of us go home and rediscover what our houses look like?’
Tony was stretched out on the sofa, trying to persuade himself he was enjoying the luxury of watching TV when the doorbell rang. The hope of company come to rescue him from his restless boredom catapulted him to his feet and down the hall. He opened the door, a smile already spreading across his face.
The smile died halfway as he registered that he was out of luck. There was a woman on the doorstep, but she wasn’t one of his friends or colleagues. She was tall, bigboned, with heavy, blunt features and a strong, square jaw. She pushed her long dark hair away from her face and said, ‘I’m really sorry to trouble you, only my car’s broken down and I don’t know where there’s a pay phone. I wondered if I might use your phone to call the AA? I’ll pay for the call, of course…’ Her voice trailed off and she smiled apologetically.
FROM 3' DISK LABELLED: BACKUP. 007; FILE LOVE. 017
When I clocked Sergeant Merrick in the Sackville Arms, I thought I was going to pass out. I’d only gone there because I knew the detectives from Scargill Street use it. I wanted to hear what the gossip was among the murder squad. I wanted to hear them talk about me and my accomplishments. The last thing I expected was to see so familiar a face staring out at me.
I was sitting unobtrusively in the corner when I saw Merrick come in. I debated whether to leave, but I decided that might make me noticeable. The last thing I wanted was for him to recognize me and follow me for whatever reasons of his own. Besides, why should I let a policeman drive me away from my lunch break?
But I couldn’t stop the churning in my stomach in case he caught sight of me and moved across to speak to me. I wasn’t afraid of him, but I just didn’t want to draw attention to myself. Luckily, he was with two of his colleagues, and they were too busy discussing something – me, probably, had they but known it – to pay much attention to anybody else. I recognized the woman from the papers. Inspector Carol Jordan. She looks better in the flesh than in print, probably because her hair’s a lovely shade of blonde. The other man I hadn’t seen before, but I filed his face away for future reference. Carroty-red hair, pale skin, freckles, boyish features. And of course, Merrick, head and shoulders above the others, some kind of dressing on his head. I wondered how he’d come by that.
I’d never hated Merrick the way I hated some of the others, even though he’d taken me into custody a couple of times. He’d never treated me with the contempt they had. He’d never sneered at me when he arrested me. But I could see he still saw me as an object, someone not worthy of respect. He never understood that when I sold my body to sailors it was for a purpose. But whatever I did then is irrelevant now. I am different now, I am a changed person. What happened back in Seaford feels as irrelevant and remote as something I’d seen at the cinema.
In a strange way, being in the presence of the very officers who are trying to track me down was quite exciting. I got a real buzz out of being only feet away from my hunters, who didn’t sense their prey. They didn’t even have enough sixth sense to realize there was something extraordinary happening, not even Carol Jordan. So much for women’s intuition. I see it as a sort of test, a measure of my ability to delude my pursuers. The notion that they can catch me is so absurd, it’s unthinkable.
I felt so strong after that encounter that the next day’s paper hit me like a blow with a sandbag. I was walking through the main computer room when I saw an early edition of the Sentinel Times lying on some junior engineer’s desk. FIFTH BODY IN QUEER KILLER’S RAMPAGE screamed out at me.
I wanted to rage and shout, to throw things through windows. How dare they? My handiwork is so individual, how could they mistake some blundering copycat’s body for one of mine?
I was trembling with suppressed fury when I made it back to my own office. I’d wanted to ask the engineer if I could have a look at his paper, but I didn’t trust myself to speak. I wanted to rush out of the office to the nearest newsagent’s and snatch a copy off the counter. But that would have been unforgivable weakness. The secret of success, I told myself, was to behave normally. To do nothing that would make my colleagues think there was something peculiar going on in my life.
‘Patience,’ I told myself, ‘is the cardinal virtue.’ So I sat at my desk, fiddling with the intricacies of a piece of software that needed rewriting. But my heart wasn’t in it, and I know I wasn’t justifying my salary that afternoon. By four o’clock, I could stand it no longer. I grabbed my phone and dialled the special number that broadcasts Bradfield Sound to callers.
The story was the lead item on the news bulletin, as it ought to have been. ‘The body of a man found in the Temple Fields area in the early hours of the morning is not the fifth victim of the serial killer who has brought terror to Bradfield’s gay community, police revealed this afternoon.’ As the newsreader’s words sank in, I felt my anger depart, the hollowness inside me whole once more.
Without waiting for more, I slammed the phone down. They’d got something right at last. But I’d gone
