“We’re still not far from the main Piccadilly Line platform,” Bryant answered. “I bet it’s not more than a few hundred yards. It just seems further because you’re dawdling.”
“This is a wild-goose chase, Arthur. If he’d suffered some kind of petit mal, or was simply in a state of intoxicated confusion, he’d have gone up, not down.”
“Not if he was physically too weak to climb the stairs. What’s that over there?” Bryant pointed ahead.
“You can barely see in daylight, I don’t know how you can spot anything down here,” May complained, but he went to look. The green plastic bin was the size of a man and missing its lid. It lay on its side between the tracks. As he approached, Bryant shone his torch inside.
It was hardly surprising that no-one had discovered the body. Matthew Hillingdon was curled up within, as if, in pain and desperation, he had sought the warmth and solace of an artificial womb.
? Off the Rails ?
32
In Memoriam
The only way to avoid thinking about Liberty DuCaine was to keep busy. Janice Longbright finished unpacking the last of Bryant’s crates and loaded May’s computer with witness statements, then sat back to regard the chaotic room. No amount of organisation would turn it into a decent centre of operations.
The Daves had nailed cables along the skirting boards to provide extra juice, but the walls were rotten, and there seemed to be a real danger that the hole in the floor might suddenly expand and send them all down to the basement. The Daves were planning to lay new floorboards, but could not agree how to go about it. Everything was lopsided, as if a wartime bomb had shifted the building slightly off-kilter, jamming windows in their frames and causing doors to gouge grooves in the floorboards.
While the workmen argued, Longbright called in the detective constables and impatiently listened to their report. “Tony McCarthy doesn’t know if this is the real name of the man who employed him,” said Meera, “but he’s given us our first solid lead. Mr Fox taught English at Pentonville Prison two years ago. He was employed by the former head of educational services, but she died of cancer last year. Fox was registered in her files under the name of Lloyd Lutine, and McCarthy confirms this was the name he used.”
“That must be an alias.”
“Why?” asked Meera, puzzled.
“The Lutine Bell is in Lloyds Bank, in the city. It used to be rung once to signify bad news. Here it is.” Longbright walked around Bryant’s cluttered desk and located a miniature brass copy of the original cracked ship’s bell. “A gift from a Lloyds client. Arthur used to ring it whenever a new murder case came in.”
“Couldn’t the name just be a coincidence?” asked Colin.
“Come on, Lloyd
“He must have been confident that no-one would make the connection.”
“Multiple killers have a kind of arrogance,” said Longbright grimly, thinking momentarily of her mother’s death. “Don’t worry, when we get him this time, we’ll put him on the national DNA database. I’d like to see him fake his genetic code. Got anything else?”
“Yeah. Fox made a friend at the prison. A history teacher. We’ve got her address.”
“Go home. I’ll go and see her.”
“We could do it first thing in the morning,” Colin offered.
“No, let me see if she’s up for a visit tonight. I’m not tired.”
It didn’t take Longbright long to walk to the Finsbury address. Georgia Conroy had the evasive eyes of a gentlewoman living in humbled circumstances. Her pale, lined face was designed for disappointment. “Please, come in,” she offered, drawing her dressing gown against the cold air and stepping back from the door. “I’m afraid the place isn’t very tidy. I was about to go to bed when you called.” The flat was perfectly neat, but smelled of damp and loneliness. Longbright accepted an offer of tea, knowing that interviewees were more relaxed when they had something to do. Kitchens were places for confidences.
“Of course, I knew the name was false the moment I heard it,” said Georgia, rinsing a teapot. “Either that, or his father had been a sailor with a sense of humour. Our time at the prison overlapped by about eight months, but we were on different shifts. He took me out for a drink a couple of times, said I reminded him of his mother, not much of a compliment. I felt a bit sorry for him.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t seem to have any friends.”
“Did he tell you much about himself?”
“Only bits and pieces. He was very guarded about his private life. Hated the job. Couldn’t wait to leave. I thought we got on quite well, but one day I came in and they told me he’d resigned. He never even came back to clear out his locker.”
“Here’s my problem, Miss Conroy – ”
“Georgia, please.”
“Georgia. Mr Fox has killed a number of times since he left his job at Pentonville, but we’re having a hard time getting any leads. If there’s anything you can remember…”
“He was obsessed with graveyards,” Georgia said, without hesitation. “Apart from the mother thing, that’s what put me off him. When we went for a drink it was all he talked about.”
The information meshed with Longbright’s knowledge that Mr Fox had worked as a grave digger in St Pancras. “Did he ever explain why he was so interested in them?” she asked.
“Not really. But I got the feeling it was connected with his family. Some damage in the past – ” She dried the pot thoughtfully. “That’s it. He wanted me to go and visit his father’s grave with him, but I thought it was a weird thing to do with someone you barely knew, so I said no.”
“Did he tell you where his father was buried?”
“Oh, yes, Abney Park Cemetery, in Stoke Newington. I remember the family name, too, Ketch, because it made me think of Jack Ketch, the executioner employed by Charles II. I’m a history teacher,” she added apologetically.
“If Lloyd Lutine was a pseudonym, how did he explain that his father had a different name?”
“He told me he was adopted. When it came to answering questions he was pretty glib, almost as if he’d rehearsed the answers.”
It was past midnight by the time Longbright reached Stoke Newington’s neglected cemetery. The gravestones seemed incongruous in their setting, surrounded by the terraced houses of a shabby North London town. Once, Isaac Newton had sat here composing hymns. Now the graveyard was wedged between betting shops and fried chicken outlets.
Longbright knew she shouldn’t have worn stockings and heels, but old habits died hard. The paths were muddy and half-buried in bracken. Sulphurous light fell from the distant street lamps, but did not penetrate the knotted undergrowth to any depth.
There had been one lucky break; the night caretaker had explained that only those who held plots bought before the cemetery company closed in 1978 could still be buried on the land. He directed her across the site, past the derelict non-denominational chapel that could have passed for a set in a Dracula film, to a neglected corner swamped by nettles and briars. The lights from a row of houses supplemented her torch-beam as she searched the overgrown plots.
The small plain memorial was notable for its newness; the remainder of the headstones in the area were more than a hundred years old. She leaned closer and scraped away some kind of parasitical weed that had clamped itself to the stone. Using her mobile, she took a shot of the inscription:
IN MEMORIAM
ALBERT THOMAS EDWARD KETCH
DIED 47 YEARS OF AGE:
