Bolton, J. - Now You See Me

‘And the youngest?’ asked Tulloch.

No one answered her.

‘How old was the younger girl?’ repeated Tulloch.

Still no response.

‘All the boys were under the legal age of consent,’ said the ginger-haired lawyer. ‘These were kids. A situation got out of hand. The police at the time did everything by the book, but no charges were brought.’

Barrett finished talking, put the phone down and looked at me.

‘It came down to the word of two working-class girls with reputations against those of five public schoolboys with influential fathers,’ said Tulloch.

‘Not exactly,’ said Ginger Hair. ‘The police found the condom packets. The girls’ fingerprints were on them. Why would they be if they hadn’t bought them in the first place? Those girls went into Bute Park expecting to have sex and then, possibly because the boys didn’t give them as much money as they were hoping for, they got nasty. Now, I think my clients have been as cooperative as you could expect, given the very considerable distress they’ve been subjected to and—’

Tulloch was on her feet. ‘What were their names? The girls?’ she asked.

Glances exchanged around the room. More than one man shrugged. Either the names of the victims hadn’t been important enough to be remembered, or they’d been as helpful as they were prepared to be.

‘Thank you for your time, gentlemen,’ said Tulloch. She left the room, followed by Anderson. The detective superintendent got up and switched off the recording equipment. In the incident room, someone reached up and turned off the screen.

‘Hey, Flint,’ called Barrett, from across the room. ‘Your mate Emma Boston’s turned up. Want to talk to her?’

I did. Anything to get out of that room.

60

‘WHAT’S GOING ON?’ EMMA DEMANDED AS I WALKED through the door. ‘I’ve got a bloody story to write, I can’t spend all day waiting for you lot to talk to me.’

The call Tom Barrett had taken upstairs had been to inform us that Emma Boston had returned home to get the message that we needed to see her urgently. Not wanting to miss out on anything interesting, she’d come straight down to the station. Her sunglasses were on the table in front of her and I was struck again by how lovely her eyes were. And how I might never now have the chance to ask her why she kept such beautiful eyes covered up.

‘Tell me where you were between eight o’clock and twelve noon on Monday morning, Emma,’ I said. The light on the monitor wasn’t switched on. I didn’t think anyone was watching us but I still couldn’t afford to be chummy. Certainly not with Joesbury back on my case.

She shrugged. ‘At home.’

‘Can anyone confirm that?’

‘I might have popped out for a coffee. Why, what’s happened?’

‘Let’s take turns to ask questions, Emma,’ I said. ‘Me first. Now, where did you go for coffee, what time was it, who served you and who did you see in the coffee bar?’

I made notes while she talked. Emma was a good journalist, she noticed things; she gave me plenty of detail of her morning and the trip to Nero’s. She shouldn’t have too much trouble proving she’d been nowhere near the Benn house when Charlotte was killed.

‘Why have you been trying to phone Charlotte Benn the last couple of days?’ I asked.

Her eyes narrowed. ‘You mean the woman who was murdered? I haven’t.’

‘Her daughter told us,’ I said. ‘Her mother had several phone calls from you, asking to interview her about the Jones and Weston murders. Apparently, you were talking to several of the mothers from the school, trying to find out how they felt about the killings.’

Emma’s creased face screwed up even further. ‘That’s bullshit,’ she said. ‘Someone was phoning Charlotte Benn? Pretending to be me?’

I knew Emma was telling the truth. Still had to go through the motions, though.

‘Are you telling me you haven’t tried to speak to Charlotte Benn?’ I asked.

She shook her head. ‘No way. I might have done, if I’d thought of it, but I didn’t. Tell me what happened.’

For a moment it was difficult to talk. ‘Still my turn,’ I said, when I’d pulled myself together. ‘I’m going to need your phone. And any you’ve got at home. I need to confirm they weren’t used to call the Benn house.’

Emma sat back in her chair. ‘Oh, you are kidding me. Again? How am I supposed to get anything done?’

‘If I were you,’ I said, ‘I’d concentrate on staying out of harm’s way. Can I have the phone, please?’

I put Emma’s phone into an evidence bag and got up. ‘Emma,’ I said, turning in the doorway. She looked up. ‘Please be careful,’ I added, as I left the room.

61

WHEN I GOT BACK UPSTAIRS, THE INCIDENT ROOM WAS quieter. Several people had left; there was no sign of Tulloch, Anderson or Stenning. Joesbury was still on the phone.

‘The boss has ordered the five boys to be brought in,’ Mizon told me. ‘They don’t all live in London, so it will take a while. And we’ve traced Karen Curtis, you know, mother of Thomas, the fifth member of the rowing team. She lives in Ealing. Stenning’s on his way over there with one of the new recruits.’

‘Where’s the boss?’ I asked.

‘She and the sarge are still with DS Weaver.’

‘Still can’t see it,’ said one of the older sergeants, whose voice was never pitched low and who now seemed determined that the whole room hear him. ‘Two young Taffy girls get it a bit rougher than they bargained for and ten years later someone starts slicing up mothers? Gotta be coincidence.’

No one answered him. Three dead women seemed to be stretching coincidence for most people. Joesbury was talking into the phone again, but he was too far away for me to hear what he was saying.

‘Those guys were ashamed of themselves,’ said Mizon to me. ‘None of them wanted to talk about it. They were defensive from the word go. I’ll bet they pulled some serious muscle with the Cardiff force.’

We heard footsteps and saw Tulloch and Anderson making their way along the corridor. The door opened and they came in.

‘I need somebody to get on to Cardiff,’ Tulloch said. ‘Find out their version of events. We need to know who the girls were.’

‘Their name was Llewellyn,’ said Joesbury, as we all turned to the corner of the room. He’d put the phone down. ‘They were sisters,’ he went on. ‘The eldest had just turned sixteen, the younger one was fourteen. I spoke to the records clerk at Cardiff Central. She couldn’t give me much, just that an accusation had been made and investigated. Two days later the girls withdrew their complaint.’

‘Which you might expect them to do if the accusation was spurious in the first place,’ said Anderson.

‘Or if enough pressure was applied by people they were scared of,’ said Mizon.

‘Our killer can’t be a woman,’ insisted Anderson. ‘Women don’t rape and they don’t slice up other women. It’s men who get up close and personal with a knife in their hands.’

Across the room, turquoise eyes fixed on me.

‘Couple of other things you should all know,’ said Joesbury, when he finally let himself blink. ‘The alleged rape we’ve just heard about took place on Saturday 31 August. The date of Jack the Ripper’s first murder. And the date someone got up close and personal with Geraldine Jones.’

‘What else?’ Tulloch asked.

‘The younger girl was called Cathy. The older one was Victoria.’

He waited for us all to think about it.

Tulloch pursed her lips and blew out a long, slow breath. ‘Victorian locations,’ she said. ‘Victoria Park, Victoria House, the Victorian swimming pool.’