Bolton, J. - Now You See Me

‘You’re talking about Prince Albert Victor,’ I said. ‘He was a grandson of Queen Victoria and in direct line to the throne. There are two theories relating to Prince Albert. The first is that he was suffering insanity brought on by syphilis and that he went on a murderous rampage of the East End. It doesn’t really stack up because, as a member of the royal family, his whereabouts at the time are a matter of public record. It’s pretty much impossible that he carried out the murders himself.’

‘What’s the other theory?’ prompted Tulloch, and I got the feeling she wanted me to speed up.

‘The second involved a Masonic conspiracy,’ I said. ‘According to this one, Prince Albert entered into a secret marriage with a young Catholic woman and had a baby daughter. The woman was locked up in an asylum but the child’s nursemaid, Mary Kelly, escaped with the child to the East End and told what she knew to a group of prostitutes, who then hatched a plot to blackmail the government. The prime minister at the time was a Freemason. He brought in a few of his Mason buddies and the story goes that they lured the women into the royal carriage, where they were murdered in accordance with Masonic rituals.’

‘Is it possible?’ asked one of the uniformed sergeants.

‘Unlikely,’ I said. ‘For one thing, the women were killed where they were found. The amount of blood at the scenes and the lack of any in the surrounding area make that pretty clear. And the attacks just don’t seem like calculated executions, they were done in a frenzy, by someone barely able to control his rage.’

‘OK, OK.’ Tulloch was on her feet now, looking at her watch. ‘Thanks, Lacey, but we can talk about Ripper suspects all night and I’m not sure it’ll take us anywhere. Let’s get out there, shall we?’

Quickly, the station cleared. As groups made their way out of the building I could almost see the tension hovering above them. Waiting for something bad to happen; it was always so much worse than actually dealing with it.

*

‘Anything in particular you’re looking for?’ one of the CCTV operators asked me.

I’d gone back to my old station at Southwark, covertly following the rest of the MIT, and had made for the room where all the CCTV cameras across the borough are monitored. Thirty television screens are permanently broadcasting live footage. The operators can zoom in on any particular image in seconds and the detail is impressive. Look at people sitting outside a pub and you can see the ice gleaming in their drinks.

‘DI Tulloch just wants me to watch for a while,’ I lied. ‘See if it jogs my memory about last week. Can you see any of our people?’

They began switching screens and we spotted several members of the MIT, parked in cars on street corners, wandering past pubs and shops. Mark Joesbury’s car was parked about two hundred yards from the murder site. The driver door opened and he got out. Then DS Anderson appeared from the passenger side. As I watched the two men disappear into the estate, I wondered, for the hundredth time, about Joesbury’s threat to have me investigated. And whether he’d actually followed it up.

A figure in a blue coat caught my eye on a screen higher up. Dana Tulloch was crossing the square outside Southwark Cathedral.

If Joesbury had done the most cursory of searches, he’d have found out that I joined the police aged twenty-six, a little over three years ago after a spell in the RAF reserves, that I got good marks on all my training courses, had studied for a law degree in my spare time and was accepted on to the detective programme the first time I applied.

If he’d accessed my personal records – unlikely, but if he had – he’d know that I’d studied law at Lancaster University, but had dropped out before completing my second year. He’d know that when I was fifteen I was cautioned on the street for having a half-smoked joint in my pocket, and that a year later, I was admitted to hospital having taken too much GHB in a nightclub. On my release the next day, I’d been given another police caution.

I watched Tulloch pull open the main doors of Southwark Cathedral and step inside. I stood up, thanked the two operators and left the room.

If Joesbury had really gone to town, he might have learned that I was born in Shropshire, that I never knew my father, and that my brother and I were raised by grandparents, and occasionally in care, after my teenage, drug-addict mother found the responsibilities of parenthood too great to deal with. He might know that after my grandparents died and my own drug problem escalated, I’d spent several years just drifting, living off the grid. He might even know that my brother lived in Canada and that he and I hadn’t spoken in years.

That had to be it. I hoped.

25

THE CATHEDRAL WAS GETTING READY TO CLOSE FOR THE night. An elderly verger held up both hands at me, fingers splayed, and smiled before nodding towards the door. I had ten minutes.

Tulloch was staring ahead as I approached, her eyes on the central stained-glass window above the altar. She must have heard me getting closer but she was as still as the stone images around us. I almost turned to go, then changed my mind and spoke quietly to her. ‘Ma’am,’ I said.

She started, as if I’d woken her from a nap. ‘What are you doing here?’ she said.

Good question. ‘Sorry,’ I began. ‘I saw you coming in and …’ I stopped. I really wasn’t sure why I’d followed her.

‘And you wondered why I was in here instead of pounding the streets?’ she said, turning away from me again. ‘It would make quite a headline, wouldn’t it? MURDER TEAM CHIEF PRAYS FOR GUIDANCE WHILE KILLER ATTACKS AGAIN.’

I couldn’t reply to that. In terms of what I’d been thinking, she was pretty close.

‘You missed Evensong,’ she said, after a second.

‘I’m not much of a churchgoer,’ I replied.

‘I never used to be,’ she said, her eyes still fixed ahead. ‘But now I think I’d give anything to know that someone up there’s in charge. That there’s a plan.’

I’d never thought of it that way. Nor was I about to start.

Tulloch half rose and moved along a chair, giving me little choice but to sit down beside her. I sat. And waited.

‘I know it was you in the ladies’ room the other day,’ she said softly.

‘Sorry,’ I said again. ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’

No reply. I tapped my foot against the crimson hassock in front of me, making it swing on its hook. ‘I just assumed you’d eaten something that didn’t quite …’ I stopped. I’d assumed nothing of the kind and this wasn’t a woman you could bullshit.

‘That would be just about everything I put in my mouth, Lacey,’ she said. ‘I can’t eat.’

I sneaked a sideways glance. I’d never be allowed through the door at Weightwatchers but I was chunky compared to Tulloch.

‘I had an eating disorder when I was a teenager,’ she went on. ‘I thought I was over it. Apparently I’m not. If I eat, I throw up. I’m surviving on skimmed milk, orange juice and vitamins right now.’

I gave the hassock another kick. I was beginning to wish I’d never gone into the CCTV room. Tulloch looked down at the swinging hassock, then back up again to the window.

‘You want to know what I’m doing here?’ she asked. ‘I’m composing my request-for-redeployment letter.’

Requesting redeployment meant resigning from the inquiry. It would be the end of her career as a detective.

‘It’s going quite well,’ she went on, in a conversational tone, as though the two of us were discussing television we’d watched the previous night. ‘It’s modest but dignified. Apologetic, of course. No way around that, really.’