Bolton, J. - Now You See Me

‘When was this?’ asked Mizon.

‘It started a few days ago,’ Madeleine said. ‘In the end, Mum told me that if she rang again, to say she wasn’t in.’

‘Did your mother mention a name at all?’

Madeleine nodded. ‘I wrote it down. It’s in my bag in the hall.’

Mizon and I and the two boys waited while Madeleine fetched her bag. She handed a small notebook over and the two of us looked down at the name Charlotte Benn had warned her daughter about.

Emma Boston .

As Mizon drove us back to the station, I phoned in the news about Emma Boston being in contact with Charlotte Benn and was told that someone would be sent out to find her. We arrived to find that Tulloch, Anderson and several of the team were still at the public meeting over at St Joseph’s and that it had already featured on several morning news programmes and London-based radio stations. We learned that Emma had yet to be located and people in her building thought she might have gone away for a few days.

The Jones children, sons of the blonde woman who’d died in my arms the night all of this started, were waiting for us.

Jacob, aged twenty-six, had prematurely greying hair and startling blue eyes. His mother’s eyes. He was tall, with long arms and legs, good-looking and aware of it. He was a junior doctor in Sheffield. Joshua, at nineteen, was taller than his brother but very slight. We spoke to the boys for twenty minutes and got the same old story. Their mother had had no enemies. They had no idea why she had been on the Brendon Estate that night. They couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to hurt her. They weren’t aware of her having been in contact with Charlotte Benn in years. Amanda Weston, formerly Briggs, they barely remembered.

The Weston/Briggs children, just like the two Jones boys, were sad, scared and angry. Like the Jones boys, they could tell us nothing. By the time Mizon and I had finished with them, Tulloch and the others were back. The public meeting had been an ordeal, by all accounts. Nearly seventy confused and frightened families wanting answers we didn’t have. The mothers in particular had been told to take extra care in the coming weeks, to report anything suspicious, to let people know where they were at all times, to pass on the warning to others connected with the school.

The post-mortem examination on Charlotte Benn’s body had now taken place and we’d had early results emailed through. Death had been caused by massive loss of blood when both carotid arteries were cut. She’d probably died some time between eight and ten o’clock on the morning of Monday 1 October. A little late to mark the exact anniversary of the Ripper killing, but I guess our killer had to wait for her to be home alone.

At the end of the day, I drove home, but instead of going inside, I walked to the South Bank, bought a burger and sat on a bench to eat it, watching the river that I knew couldn’t scare me any more. I sat there for as long as I could bear it, waiting for the shadow drawing closer, for the voice whispering in my ear. When I needed a change of scene I crossed Vauxhall Bridge and headed for Westminster. I kept in the open, in well-lit spaces, easy enough to spot, not too vulnerable to being jumped on. Just by the Houses of Parliament, I turned quickly on the spot and saw a dark shape disappearing into a side road. I was being watched. Impossible to tell who was watching.

Nothing happened. No one came anywhere near me. By ten o’clock, I was cold and exhausted. I made my way home and went to bed. For a few hours, I actually slept.

When I arrived at work the next morning, Mizon was finishing a cigarette at the front door. She stubbed it out as I approached.

‘Everyone’s upstairs,’ she said. ‘A woman arrived five minutes ago, asking to talk to the DI. She’s claiming she’s the next victim.’

59

Wednesday 3 October

JACQUI GROVES WAS THIN AND PALE WITH CHESTNUT HAIR IN A chin-length bob. She wore nice clothes, good jewellery and a little more make-up than the average woman in her late forties. I watched the internal TV screen as first Tulloch and then Anderson joined her in the interview room. Around me, the team crowded close.

‘Two kids,’ said someone directly behind me. ‘Twins. Boy and a girl. Toby and Joanna. Both went to St Joseph’s. Twenty-six years old now.’

On the screen we watched Groves reach into her bag and pull out a narrow white envelope. She handed it across the desk to Tulloch. ‘This arrived this morning,’ she said. ‘In the post.’

Tulloch made no move to take it. ‘Can you tell me what it is?’ she asked.

‘Cuttings from a newspaper,’ Groves replied. ‘Two of them. One about the murder of Geraldine, the other about Mandy.’

‘Do you know who sent them to you?’ asked Tulloch.

Groves shook her head. ‘There’s also a note,’ she said.

Tulloch inclined her head. ‘Please go on,’ she said.

‘It says, “TIME FOR NUMBER FOUR”,’ said Groves. ‘Meaning me, I suppose. I’m number four.’

Tulloch nodded at Anderson, who got up and found gloves from a drawer in a nearby desk. He put them on and then pulled the contents out of the envelope. The camera was too far away for us to see them clearly, but they appeared to be exactly what Groves had described. Almost. The press reports weren’t cuttings, they’d been lifted off the internet and printed out on standard office A4 paper.

‘Postmarked late Monday night,’ said Tulloch. ‘In central London. Do you have any idea why someone might want to send you this?’

Groves shook her head.

‘She’s lying,’ muttered someone behind me.

‘Not sure,’ said Joesbury, who’d moved closer to my chair. ‘She looks scared to me.’

Then the door of the interview room opened and someone we couldn’t see stuck their head inside. Tulloch suspended the interview and then she and Anderson left the room.

We waited for Tulloch and Anderson to go back into the room, for something else to happen. Nothing did. People began to drift away from the TV screen. Someone offered to get coffee. No one seemed able to get on with any work. Just when we were ready to give up, the door opened.

Tulloch had no need to call for silence. I could hear people around me breathing.

‘Jacqui Groves’s husband, Philip, is downstairs volunteering to make a statement,’ she said. ‘So are Geraldine Jones’s husband, David; Jonathan Briggs, Amanda Weston’s first husband; and Nick Benn, who found his wife’s body on Monday. And three heavy-duty solicitors.’

Silence around the room. I wondered if anyone could hear my heart beating.

‘The detective superintendent wants to be present,’ Tulloch went on. ‘We’re starting in five minutes. I guess this is it, everyone.’

‘Talk to them individually,’ said Joesbury. ‘It’s too easy for them to stick to their story if they’re together.’

Tulloch and he held eye contact for a second. ‘I know that,’ she said. ‘But they’re here voluntarily in the presence of some very aggressive legal help. For now, I think we just have to listen to what they’ve got to say.’

As soon as she left, the rest of us turned back to the TV and flicked it to the main interview room on the top floor. As the screen flickered into life, we saw Anderson checking the recording equipment. Then the door opened and the room started to fill with tall men in expensive suits. I saw a resemblance to Felix Benn in one man. Another looked a little like Joshua Jones. The two lawyers were easy to spot. They didn’t look scared. The superintendent came in with the third lawyer and they all took seats around the large glass table. Through the windows behind them we could see the rooftops of Lewisham and a cloudless autumn sky.