Bolton, J. - Now You See Me

Around me several eyebrows raised. Then Joesbury appeared in front of me with a glass of water in his hand. Without making eye contact, he held it out and I took it.

‘One of the phrases you’ll hear often about the Ripper,’ I said, after a couple of gulps, ‘is “without a trace”. Because that’s how he worked. The police at the time searched the area around Bucks Row thoroughly and found nothing. There were people sleeping yards from where Polly was killed and they didn’t hear a sound. When she was found, she was still alive, even with those terrible injuries, so the killer could only just have left. Nobody saw anything.’

‘Sounds a hell of a lot like what happened on Friday night,’ said Stenning from his desk by the window.

For a moment no one spoke.

‘On the other hand, Kennington is a long way from Whitechapel, Geraldine Jones was not a prostitute and she wasn’t killed in the small hours,’ said Mark Joesbury. ‘Let’s not get carried away just yet. When did he strike again, Flint?’

‘Hold on a second,’ said Tulloch. ‘Can I just—’

There was knock on the door. Everyone’s head turned. I didn’t know the man who was standing on the other side, but Tulloch got up and nodded at him.

‘We’ll take a break,’ she said. ‘Thanks, Lacey.’

Back at the temporary desk I’d been assigned, I tried to find out a bit more about Emma Boston. None of the online directories of journalists listed her. She wasn’t a member of the National Union of Journalists, nor could I find her byline in the archives of any of the national or bigger regional papers. I did, though, find several references to her on the unofficial and anonymous police blogging community.

Emma Boston had upset more than one of my colleagues in her short career as a journalist in the capital. According to Dave of Dagenham, a much-followed police blog, she was a loose-tongued bitch, as physically repulsive as she was morally repellent, who lied for a living and would sell her granny’s puppy if it earned her a few quid. Another blogger suggested she had a drugs habit and recommended regular raids of the slum she called home.

The clock crept towards noon and Stenning popped his head round the door to say that the team were off to the nearby pub for a late breakfast/early lunch. I shook my head when he asked me to join them, mainly because I’d caught sight of Joesbury leaving the building with the others. There was just something about that man that unsettled me.

Instead I bought sandwiches, crisps and bottled water from the canteen before making my way down to the interview suite.

‘Hi,’ I said, as I pushed open the door.

‘How long are you going to keep me here?’ Time in police custody had done nothing to improve Emma Boston’s appearance. She seemed to have lost even more colour from her skin and her spots stood out red and livid. She still wore her sunglasses, even though the room had no daylight.

‘It’s necessary,’ I said, sitting down and offering her first choice of the sandwiches. ‘We need to find out who wrote that letter. If he left any trace at your flat, we need it.’

‘He pushed it through the letterbox,’ she answered. ‘Any trace he left would be on the front door. You’re trying to prove I wrote it myself.’

No point arguing. ‘Well, we need to rule that out,’ I said. ‘Did anyone offer you lunch?’

‘I didn’t write it.’

‘I know,’ I said, realizing that I really didn’t think Emma was a liar. ‘But if it’s genuine, you have to be very careful. Whoever killed Geraldine Jones picked you out. He knows where you live.’

We both thought about that for a second.

‘Have a sandwich,’ I said.

‘Actually, somebody did …’ Boston shrugged and pulled a wrapped tuna sandwich towards her, looked at it and screwed up her nose.

‘The canteen’s not at its best at the weekend,’ I said, just as the door opened behind me. I turned my head to see Joesbury in the doorway, a large Prêt A Manger bag under one arm. He gave me a sharp look that lasted a nanosecond and then turned to Emma. Who’d taken off her sunglasses to look directly at him. She had the most beautiful hazel-brown eyes.

‘Don’t tell me she’s feeding you canteen food,’ Joesbury said to her. ‘You can have her up before the Police Complaints Commission for that. Remind me later, I’ll get you a form.’ He emptied the bag on to the table. ‘Chicken, avocado and pesto dressing,’ he said. ‘Got you the last one.’ He picked up the still-wrapped tuna sandwich, glanced down at me again and then shrugged at Emma as if to say, What can you do?

‘Have a nice lunch, ladies,’ he told us, on his way out.

The door closed and we heard his footsteps travelling a few paces down the corridor. He stopped to talk to someone, probably the duty sergeant, who burst out laughing.

‘He’s nice,’ said Emma, unscrewing the top off a bottle of freshly squeezed orange juice. ‘Not like all the other troglodytes in here. No offence.’

I’d been staring at the door. I turned back to Emma again. ‘Oh, none taken,’ I said.

‘He came in earlier to talk about getting a camera put over my front door,’ she went on. ‘In case whoever delivered the letter comes back.’

I was about to unwrap the tuna sandwich when we heard sharp heels clicking in the corridor outside, then Gayle Mizon exchanging a few low-pitched sentences with Joesbury. The door opened and she looked in at us. ‘Boss wants you upstairs,’ she said to me.

‘She’s called everyone back from the pub,’ Mizon told me as we walked back towards the stairs. ‘The smudge mark on Emma Boston’s letter is human blood.’

I opened the door at the end of the corridor and looked at her. She nodded at me. ‘It’s Geraldine’s,’ she said.

21

I GOT TO MY USUAL CAMDEN HAUNT AT TEN THIRTY. THE PLACE was just starting to fill up and the music was loud enough to drown out any possible conversation. I took my drink out to the piazza and wandered over to one of the horse statues, already regretting the impulse that had brought me here.

I’d spent the afternoon trying (and largely failing) to find something to do. Even at a distance from the team I could sense that the mood around the station had shifted. The possibility of Geraldine Jones’s murder being just the start changed everything. As I heard Joesbury pointing out, the goalposts had been stretched the width of the entire bloody football field.

At the end of the day I’d nipped into the ladies’. It was empty. A minute later, the door opened and someone entered the next cubicle. I’d just pressed the flush button when I heard the sound of my next-door neighbour vomiting. I washed my hands and waited for her to stop.

‘You OK?’ I asked, when I figured she had. ‘Can I get you anything?’

I waited a few more seconds, but there was no response. I turned to leave, but behind the door, where it had missed the hook and fallen to the floor, was a blue trench coat. Tulloch’s. Guess I wasn’t the only one feeling edgy.

So I’d come out on a whim, knowing that an evening in my flat with nothing but my own thoughts could drive me half daft. And there’d been that tune I simply couldn’t get out of my head. ‘My Favourite Things’. It made no sense. I hadn’t thought about that old game in years, but it was like the dam I’d built in my head was rupturing, letting through old memories like trickles of water.

I wasn’t even sure any more what had been on the list. Flowers maybe, and perhaps books. Ponies, definitely ponies. I’d loved equine creatures of all shapes and sizes, even donkeys – which was probably why I liked the Camden Stables Market so much – but cute, plump, cheeky ponies had been my favourite.