Bartholomew stepped forwards. He knew Boyden by sight, enough to say hello in passing, but nothing more.
“Henry Boyden,” he said showing the detained man his warrant card. “I’m Constable Nick Bartholomew, and I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of a sex worker called Connie Williams, which occurred in Shacklewell Lane, Stoke Newington during the early hours of 20th December 1995.” He went on to give the caution, but Boyden wasn’t listening.
He looked as though he had just been slapped. “No, this can’t be happening,” he cried, staring at them in a combination of disbelief and horror. “You can’t do this to me. I know what you’re trying to do. You couldn’t get me for the Ripper murders so now you’re trying to fit me up with something else.” He turned to the custody officer, a look of desperation on his face. “Surely you’re not going to let them get away with this?” he pleaded.
“Is there any evidence?” The custody officer asked Bull.
Bull nodded, solemnly. “He’s bang to rights on this one, but I’m not in a position to disclose the nature of the evidence at this stage.”
The custody officer nodded her understanding; the murder team obviously had forensic evidence, but before they disclosed it, they wanted to give Boyden a chance to hang himself out to dry. “Mr Boyden,” she said, leaning forward with a bored look on her face. “If I were you, I’d think about getting a solicitor. I have a feeling you’re going to be with us for a long time to come.”
CHAPTER 33
Friday 12th November 1999
The second week of Operation Crawley was drawing to a close, and while they were no nearer to solving the four Whitechapel murders, Tyler’s team had at least managed to close a cold case that had been sitting on the books for the past four years.
The post-mortem of Connie Williams, which had been carried out on 23rd December 1995, had yielded a significant amount of forensic evidence. There had been semen in her vagina, and traces of skin had been found under the fingernails of her right hand. Some of this had been hers, but some of it had been foreign. Unfortunately, the profile obtained from the foreign DNA hadn’t matched anyone who was in the system at that time. However, the profile obtained from these samples had proved to be a one-hundred-per-cent match for Boyden’s DNA when it was run through the system while he was in custody for the Whitechapel killings.
During the first interview, they revealed that his semen had been found in the victim’s vagina. Boyden had simply given them a ‘so what’ shrug and blithely told the interviewing officers that he had no recollection of the event, although he accepted that he had used the dead girl’s services at some point. “That doesn’t make me a killer,” he’d announced defiantly. By the time they rose for a quick break, Boyden had been full of smiles, confident that they had nothing of any real substance against him and he would soon walk free.
The second interview commenced with the revelation that traces of blood and some skin fragments had been found under her fingernails, from where she had tried to fight her assailant off, and this was also a perfect match for his DNA profile. That wiped the smug smile from his face. There was no easy way to explain this away, and from the moment its existence had been disclosed he had known he was in serious trouble. His solicitor hastily requested that they take another break in order for him to consult with his client, and when they resumed – on the advice of his solicitor – Boyden had immediately gone into ‘no comment’ mode.
Boyden’s face was ashen when he was charged with Connie Williams’ murder late that evening, and he looked close to tears as the custody sergeant denied him bail on the basis that he posed a flight risk.
Following a second sleepless night in the cells, Group Four had whisked him off to Waltham Forest Magistrates Court, along with all the other non-bailable prisoners.
Boyden’s first court appearance lasted a matter of minutes, and he had only spoken once, briefly, to confirm his personal details. Dillon had taken the stand to outline the case against him and to make objections to bail, and then the defence solicitor had made an impassioned bail application on behalf of his client. The three worldly wise Magistrates who made up the presiding panel had listened attentively, and then promptly dismissed the application, remanding a broken looking Boyden to HMP Pentonville to await trial.
Claude Winston had also been released from hospital earlier in the week, and to Jack’s utter dismay, Holland had given the case to Andrew Quinlan’s team to deal with.
Holland defended the decision by explaining that Tyler’s team was drowning under the combined weight of work being generated by the Whitechapel murders and the cold case that Henry Boyden had been sheeted for. It would have been unfair – not to mention irresponsible – to load them up with a third case. Tyler knew the boss was right, but losing the investigation to another team still rankled.
After a series of interviews that had lasted two days, Winston had been charged with numerous offences, the most serious being two counts of attempted murder, possession of a loaded firearm with intent to endanger life, and possession of a couple of kilos of class A drugs with intent to supply. Like Boyden, bail had been refused, both at the police station and at Magistrates Court, and he had been remanded into custody to await trial.
While the Whitechapel killings hadn’t been solved yet, the detectives were making steady progress, and the case against the killer was growing stronger with every passing day.
Paul Evans had done some great work with the CCTV. He had found some interesting new
