“Heard Guinane telling his girlfriend where he was going next,” Simmons continued for him, although his tone was dubious.
“I reckon that’s it. We know now Moker was the serial killer. Hadn’t managed to get Mrs True and her kid, so went for other bait.”
Simmons shook his head as he pulled his raincoat up against the rain. “I dunno. Doesn’t make sense to me. How could he know where the agency was?”
“We found those phone books in his flat. He’d got the address beforehand, probably days ago when he first read about Guinane in the papers. Don’t forget, the agency’s name as well as Guinane’s was underlined in thick pencil in those articles about him being a suspect. Same as the location of True’s house.”
The two detectives had obviously been able to go through the cuttings more thoroughly than I had, even if it had only been a quick search.
Simmons clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Nah, doesn’t work for me. It’s too pat. I want a proper look into this Sydney Presswell’s background, your brother-in-law or not.”
“Ex-brother-in-law,” Coates insisted.
“In every sense now. Look, there’s something going on that doesn’t sit well with what we know. I want more background on Guinane, Presswell and True. Especially Presswell though, because he’s the one who’s been feeding you information about Guinane. I mean, really putting Guinane in the shit.”
“Okay, but—”
Both men looked towards a new car, a dark Jaguar saloon that has just drawn up behind the other police vehicles.
“Oh-oh,” said Coates resignedly. “The governor’s here.”
“Yep, and he’s got Commander Newman with him,” said Simmons. “Word’s obviously got upstairs about our breakthrough.”
Should be interesting, I thought, as I loitered close by, a wall behind my back so that I was out of the way of the busy policemen (not that it mattered, of course, they’d never know they’d bumped into me apart from a brief moment of disorientation). How the hell was anyone going to make sense of what had been going on?
The two senior policemen came towards the apparent crime scene, walking briskly and acknowledging the salutes of officers who were making themselves look even more busy. The taller one was Chief Superintendent Sadler. The shorter man (although only comparatively shorter because Sadler was so tall) wore an important- looking crisp, dark uniform and sported a neatly clipped beard. This one acknowledged his men with a sharp flick of the brown leather gloves he carried towards the rain-speckled visor of his cap.
When they reached the two detectives, Sadler introduced them to the uniformed policeman. “DS Simmons and DC Coates.”
The senior officer gave a curt nod of his head. He addressed Simmons.
“Give me a quick rundown on the main investigation and how it ties in with this.” His gloves indicated the two figures at their feet. “I gather they are connected in some way?”
“We heard about the woman who collapsed and died earlier tonight at Paddington Green after naming her attacker,” Sadler said to his two detectives. “The wonder is how she ever made it to the station in the first place with her injuries.”
“That’s right, Sir,” agreed Simmons. “She arrived there with a knitting needle straight through her heart.”
“Carry on from that point,” Commander Newman said impatiently.
“Because of the murder weapon involved, Paddington Green got on to the Yard’s major incident room, the one dealing with the recent spate of serial killings. As luck would have it, DC Coates and I were there on overtime and we scooted over to the nick as soon as our receiver passed on the information.”
“She was already dead when you got there?” queried Chief Superintendent Sadler as he scrutinized the bodies on the ground, a sour expression on his lean face.
“That’s correct, Sir. Incidentally, she had many other marks on her body, indicating her killer had roughed her up beforehand. She must have put up quite a struggle and there was no mutilation. We figure she’d managed to escape before that could happen.”
“And you say she named this person Moker as her attacker.” It wasn’t a question from the police commander but an affirmation.
Sadler spoke. “That’s right. She wasn’t all that coherent apparently—not surprising after everything she’d been through—but fortunately the name itself was perfectly clear.”
Simmons picked up again. “Locating Moker’s address was easy enough. No previous form by the way. Our computer found it on the electoral roll and Swansea supplied the make and number of Moker’s vehicle. We assumed there’d be a car involved because our killer would have had to have some kind of transport to transfer previous victims from one place to another for the mutilation. It was the break we were waiting for—a fresh killing. Could’ve been another copycat, of course, but this time we thought we were really on to something. In all, there were three ‘Mokers’ in the book but two lived out in the suburbs and we were keen on the one from inner London where all the murders were committed. We sent men out to the other addresses just in case, but our main attention was on the Shepherd’s Bush address. We knew our instincts were right the minute we entered Moker’s empty flat.”
“You had a search warrant, I take it?” Commander Newman asked sharply.
“Requested over the phone, delivered while we were there, Sir.”
I think neither of the two officers wanted to ask if that was before or after they’d entered the flat.
“We didn’t make any mess getting in though, Sir,” Coates quickly put in, as if reading their minds. “The window was only latch-locked and a credit card quickly took care of that when we got no response to knocking on the door. A constable climbed in and opened up for us. We can always say the door was open in the first place if it’s a problem.”
The commander stared at him for a second or two and, as an observer who didn’t like the grubby little detective, I enjoyed Coates’s discomfort.
“Let’s hear the rest, Simmons,” Newman said, redirecting his gaze.
“Yes, Sir. Well, although it was unfortunate that we didn’t catch Moker at home there was enough evidence in that place to know we’d found our serial killer, and forensics are going through the flat with a fine-tooth comb as we speak.”
Commander Newman gave an encouraging nod of his head and Simmons went on.
“We found newspaper clippings of every murder and mutilation so far, including James True’s. We also found a whole bunch of knitting needles stashed away in a cupboard, some of them already sharpened and all the same brand as the murder weapon.”
“Well done,” Newman acknowledged, slapping the leather gloves into the palm of his hand. “Now, how does it tie in with all this?” This time he nodded down at the dead bodies on the ground.
“Yes, I’m not too clear about what you told me over the phone,” put in Simmons’s immediate boss, Sadler. “You said Moker turned up at this James True’s house.”
It was odd being referred to in this way when I was standing only a couple of feet away (I’d moved away from the wall to get closer to the group).
With Coates chipping in every so often to let his superiors know he was in the picture, Simmons quickly explained how they had found news clippings showing pictures of Andrea and Primrose, and then had noticed the missing page in the telephone book from the T section. They’d immediately—and quite smartly, I thought—put two and two together, so they sped to my home in force and found a distraught Andrea and Prim. With what they’d learned from Andrea they had put out a fresh APB for all units to step up their search for Moker’s Hillman which, in the event, was spotted by an officer on fixed point outside a VIP diplomat’s house, who called in the information. The Hillman was only two streets away from the agency and that was when Simmons and Coates suspected (again, quite astutely, I thought) Moker had gone after Oliver Guinane, the man who had tried to appropriate his, Moker’s, crimes.
It was Sadler who interrupted the flow. “Is this man Guinane inside the agency now?” The tall man glanced up at the lights on the fifth floor and, reflexively, the commander did the same.
“Not sure, Sir. I sent some men up there a little while ago to look, but they haven’t reported back to me yet. I was about to go up there myself, just before you arrived. Thought I’d better put you and the commander in the picture first.”
