Killing By The Clock Read online

  “Whatever it is, this is kidnapping. You are holding me here against my will and I have given you due warning.” She was proud of the firmness of her tone.

  Her abductor was less impressed, apparently. “Who’s going to listen to the bleatings of a common prostitute? Come off it! Occupational necessity, isn’t it? Getting into cars with men? But this is your lucky day. I came along quite by chance and I may even be able to save you from a lifetime of sin. Who knows? Life’s too short and too precious to spend it in the gutter.” He flashed another cold glance. “On drugs, are you? No? Surprised but pleased to hear that. You’re not too far gone. You look as though there might still be time to save you from yourself, as they say.”

  He gave a short bark of laughter. “Remember Henry IV?

  …the time of life is short!

  To spend that shortness basely were too long,

  If life did ride upon a dial’s point,

  Still ending at the arrival of an hour.

  An if we live, we live to tread on kings;

  If die, brave death, when princes die with us!

  “Dial? Hour? Death?” The words tolled like a funeral knell in her head and Chris felt a trickle of cold horror creep along her spine.

  For the first time since he’d picked her up, it occurred to her to wonder what business he could possibly have, driving down Eastern Avenue through the red-light district. Sick in her heart, she realised that this man whom she had always mistrusted was not taking her home to her mother in Shepton as she had naively assumed. He seemed to have other plans for her.

  ***

  The detective inspector was trying to keep the lid on the pot of bubbling emotions. “That’s enough, Shantelle! Er… Sarah! Not your fault. When Nature calls and all that… Not one hundred percent your fault… let’s say forty-nine. Fifty-one for Chris. Why the hell didn’t she put up a fight or get off a scream? She’s always ready enough to have a go at me… Something not right here… Get me the replays up on screen. We’ll take another gander. Where’s that cab got to? You’re joking! Hell! He’s given us the slip? Anyone traced the number? A London-registered cab?” He groaned. “A poacher! That’s all we need! Now we’ll have the Met swarming all over our patch! Track ‘im! He’s most likely on the M11 by now, heading south.”

  An exclamation of dismay from the redhead distracted him.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Sarah! Look, love, do us all a favour, will you, and stop blubbing! Go home. Take the rest of the shift off. After you’ve made your statement. Go back to the station… you’re in no fit state… is there a squad car around? Get a lift back, love…” He paused and added awkwardly, seeing her shoulders shake: “Try not to worry! She’ll be all right. Tough girl, DC Kenton. Go and put some clothes on-that’ll make you feel better.”

  The inspector waved her away. The sympathetic eyes of the rest of the squad followed her as, white-faced and suddenly awkward, Sarah slipped a pink cardigan over her bare shoulders and stumbled out of the office in her sparkling high heels.

  ***

  “Now where are you going? I’m getting fed up with this!”

  “You know where. But first, we’re going to drive around for a bit. Get to know each other again. I want to hear your story, Chris. Find out what led you into this disgusting mess. Try to understand. You may not have guessed it, but you were always one of my favourite students. Not the cleverest-but the most individual.”

  “You disguised your esteem pretty well,” she said, unbelieving.

  “I’m good at disguise,” he reminded her.

  They drove out into the country, past the fruit farms. They passed a signpost to the left: Shepton 6 miles Foxfield 6 miles .

  “Your neck of the woods, if I remember rightly?” he commented.

  He drove straight on. “I thought we’d go via Grantchester.” Suddenly he was speaking with the heavy kindliness of an uncle proposing an outing. “Such a beautiful village. All of England is there, I always think. Now, if one were dying, these are the images one would want to carry with one, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “One would agree,” she replied, determined to be tiresome.

  “I’d want to say goodbye with, imprinted on my mind’s eye, meadows full of silvery moon pennies, chestnut trees, swans preening on mysterious dark stretches of river, and… and… here it comes now! The church! Check the time, Chris-I don’t want to take my eyes off the road… tricky bend coming up… wouldn’t be much fun if we both ended up splattered on the churchyard wall, would it? But it wouldn’t be bad to be hearing the words of Rupert Brooke as one expired, either… What was it he said?

  Stands the church clock at ten to three?

  And is there honey still for tea?

  Well, go on! Have a look!”

  “Of course it stands at ten to three,” she snarled, annoyed by his dramatics. “Because it is ten to three! You stage-managed that well.” She dared to ask: “Do you ever stop acting and just… well… live?”

  He gave a laugh he would probably himself have described as “sepulchral,” she thought. It boomed out from some cold, empty space.

  “And why this obsession with time?”

  “I think I’ve already answered your question. Or, at least, The Bard has spoken for me. That’s why he’s so often quoted, Christina. Whatever our deepest thoughts, you can be sure that Shakespeare has already voiced them for us, but with ten times the nobility of phrase. If only we had the wit to profit by his wisdom, how many mistakes we would avoid, how much pain would be averted.”

  Chris groaned. Why, after all these years, did she feel she was being tested? With a strange feeling that her response might be important for her also, she wrestled with memory and expression.

  “Okay, your answer: the speaker’s the King, I guess because he’s using the royal ‘we.’ He’s saying life’s short. So we ought to live as good a one as we’re able. If we live on, well, that gives us an advantage over any dead king because you can take nothing with you when you go-not even kingly status. And if we die-so what? -it’s a brave death when princes are dying along with us.”

  Jameson gave an elegant shudder. “Something on those lines,” he said repressively.

  She looked again at the face, as handsome as it had been ten years ago, but subtly changed. The long-lashed dark eyes were shadowed, the mouth indecisive, tormented. Well, it was pretty much as you’d look if you’d decided to kill someone, she supposed.

  But her training was taking over. She flexed her hands and feet, ready to call on instant supplies of adrenaline when the moment came for flight or fight. If she could only get out of the car and kick off her silly shoes, she thought she could probably outrun him. And, though he was strongly built, she’d put up a fight if it came to it. This victim wouldn’t go down without a murmur. There’d be tissue under fingernails, scratches on his face. She decided on a surprise preemptive attack, going for the eyes. He’d never expect it. But there was something she could try first. She was a sort of hostage, wasn’t she? Okay-she’d try out the prescribed technique. She might just pull it off. Avoid bloodshed. After all, it was unknown for serial killers to murder someone they already knew. That must work in her favour. Chris adjusted her blouse, pulled down her skirt, settled back in her seat, and looked out of the window.

  “You’re right, Mr. Jameson-I say-may I call you Julius?-after all these years I feel I’ve caught up with you in age-it is perfection. Glorious countryside! And the best moment of the year! Easy to see why neither of us has moved away. (Establish a link.)

  “And I may not be looking the part at the moment, but I have actually stayed a scholar of sorts. I played Desdemona in my first year in college…You inspired me-you inspired many of us… did you know Maisie Jones was madly in love with you, by the way? No? And Jennifer Hogg and Patrick Dewar? We were sure you must have guessed! (Feed his sense of self-importance.)

  “Now this time when you deliver me to Mum, I want you to accept her cup of tea. Lots to talk about!” (Convey the ide
a that the man has a future beyond the present circumstances.)

  Chris added an incentive her instructors had never thought of: “Yesterday was baking day… there’ll be a lardy cake and some chocolate brownies.” (Greed. What man could ever resist a brownie?)

  Her girlish prattle faded away. His eyes were looking inward, dull and dark as Byron’s Pool, and she realised he hadn’t taken in a word she’d said. He turned to her. The swift smile he gave her was the sweetest she would ever encounter and was the more striking for its utter sincerity. Finally, he had dropped the mask of irony and she was being given a glimpse of the man below. But the face was frozen by agony, the man adrift and unapproachable.

  “I’m glad you’re with me at the last, Christina,” he said softly. “I’d never have planned for it, but now the moment’s come, it feels right. I did always admire you, you know. Enjoyed our fencing bouts. If things had been different… Ah, well… brave death when princes die with us. Princess would have been good. But I’ll settle for a tart. Whatever… it’s nice to have company.”

  She knew the signpost well. A few yards before the level crossing they were offered: Shepton 1 mile Foxfield 1 mile . He took the Foxfield turn, brought the taxi to a halt in the deserted lane facing the level crossing, looked at his watch, and listened.

  The three-thirty goods train on the London line screeched its customary warning.

  ***

  Gary Newstead scooped up the Monday copy of the Cambridge Observer from the mat and settled down with his mug of tea at the scrubbed table of his gran’s old kitchen. He grunted at the size of the headlines on the front page. Plenty of news today, then.

  Fifth slaying! they shrieked. Body of victim found at Eight Bells Public House.

  In a quiet village ten miles southwest of Cambridge, a day after she was reported missing, the latest victim of the Clock Killer has been found. Almost exactly where experts predicted.

  A police spokesman tells the Observer that the corpse of a young woman was abandoned (possibly killed) in the orchard to the rear of the Eight Bells pub in Shepton. The modus operandi conforms to that of the four previous victims. There was no sign of sexual assault, and the death was by strangulation.

  Police fear that the killer, by the significance of his choice of location (EIGHT Bells), may be taunting the forces of law and order. It had been widely predicted that the next attack would take place at nearby Foxfield, which lies exactly on the eight spot of the dial the police themselves had foreseen. It was late on Saturday night when the landlord became suspicious that something was amiss. The pub’s guard dog, released to perform his nightly duties, entered the rear snug, carrying a lady’s silver shoe in his mouth. The Alsatian (Butch) led his master and a selection of guests outside to the next grisly find by torchlight: a pink cardigan caught up on a rosebush.

  Behind the bush, the grim discovery. A double shock awaited the investigating officers who hurried to the scene. An examination of the body revealed the victim to be one of their own: DC Sarah Sharpe (25), who had, by a strange quirk of fate, herself been working on the case.

  DCI Rowe, who has been leading the enquiry, will pay his respects to the deceased in a news conference to be held at noon today. It is confidently expected that he will be announcing the arrest of a suspect.

  The landlord, who is helping the police with their enquiries, told our reporter of his puzzlement. His pub, isolated and at the end of a cul-de-sac, had seen no traffic other than regulars and police vehicles coming and going at the weekend…

  Gary read the article again carefully. He was so absorbed he didn’t hear their quiet arrival.

  “Enough shock-horror in there to entertain you, Newstead?” The grating voice of the detective inspector. “Did they get it right?” Two heavy hands descended on his shoulders. He listened in silence to the rigmarole: “Gary John Newstead, we are arresting you for the murder of Sarah Sharpe…”

  “Gerraway with you! You’re ‘aving a larf!” Newstead started to protest.

  They couldn’t know! He’d offered her a lift back to the station and no one had even noticed them set off. So many squad cars milling about they hadn’t been given a second glance. They’d never trace the car. He couldn’t even remember which one he’d used himself. She’d come quiet as a lamb, believing every word of the story he’d fed her about instructions to redeploy to Foxfield. Her mind was still on her mate. She was even keen to get there and help out. He’d knocked her unconscious in a lay-by before they approached the village and fastened her arms behind her back. His usual M.O. He risked no scrapings from fingernails, no scratches on his face. Nasty moment when she’d come round in the shrubbery, but he was always a quick, neat worker. He’d left no more trace than with any of the other sluts. And she was a slut. No doubt about that. He’d watched her enjoying herself, tormenting the men. Making fools of them. A slut. Like his mother. Gran had had to throw her out in the end. Then Gran had got him out of the Home and brought him up herself. Strictly. Correctly. She’d have approved.

  The DI was trying to balance distress at the death of a smart young officer and elation at the result he was about to announce. His voice was tightly controlled and betrayed only a trace of glee as he allowed himself the satisfaction of an explanation.

  “Sarah was tough and she was clever. She worked out she was in trouble and left a trace in the police car. We checked out the whole bloody fleet! The one you were seen returning to the pool-the one that still has your fingerprints on the wheel-also had stuck down on the door side of the passenger’s seat a wodge of chewing gum. Cram full of Sarah’s DNA! She parked it there deliberately, I reckon.”

  “Only proves I gave her a lift back to the station,” Newstead objected. “Am I saying I didn’t? If you ask me, I’ll tell you! Go on-ask!”

  “Agreed. But it was the first link. And once we had you up on screen, so to speak, it turns out it’s the second link that’s going to do for you… Tissue under her nails,” the DI watched Newstead’s face closely as he said the words. And, seeing with gratification the surprise he’d caused: “Naw, lad! Not her fingernails. Tied behind her back with plastic cuffs, her hands were, but our Sarah fought back, didn’t she, Gary, old chap? She kicked off her shoes and raked your leg with her toenails. I bet if I could work up the will to do it, I could lift your trouser leg and find a six-inch scar on your right ankle. Probably thought it was a rosebush you’d scratched yourself on in the scuffle? We’ve done the analysis. Now we’ll be needing a sample of your DNA. Open wide, will you? Sergeant-if you please?”

  ***

  Mrs. Kenton put the kettle on and hurried to answer the doorbell.

  Her neighbour, round-eyed, thrust a copy of the local paper at her. “Here you are, Sue. Page three. What a tragedy! Ever so sorry, dear. Better not keep you, in the circumstances.” And she hurried off.

  Sue Kenton settled down at the kitchen table with a pot of tea to read the account.

  Angel of Death Flies Over Village.

  Second mysterious death in twenty-four hours.

  Has the Angel of Death flown over Shepton this weekend? This is the question villagers are asking themselves as they grieve for a second local person whose dramatic death is reported.

  A young detective constable whose family lives in the village, Christina Kenton (26), witnessed the tragic event. Walking in a quiet country lane near her home, she was surprised, on approaching the Foxfield level crossing, to be overtaken by a black taxicab. “The driver must have seen the lights flashing and the bar come down,” states the witness. “Everything mechanical appeared to be working perfectly. The driver hesitated and waited until the goods train drew near and then he charged forward deliberately into its path.”

  The taxi was swept a quarter of a mile down the track. It’s a miracle that no one but the cab driver was killed. The driver of the train was taken to hospital suffering from shock but later released.

  The victim was thirty-eight-year-old actor Julius Jameson, who will be remembered
for his appearances as a young surgeon in the popular East Anglian series Cottage Hospital. Coincidentally, Mr. Jameson was, in recent years, actively concerned in real life in hospital affairs. He was one of the moving forces in the red-ribbon AIDS charity and was returning from an event at the Cambridge Clinic hours before the incident. Mr. Jameson made no secret of the fact that he was himself a sufferer from the scourge of HIV. In the circumstances, police are treating the death as premeditated suicide.

  ***

  Minutes later, Chris appeared, still in her dressing gown, pale and distressed. She’d shown every sign of bearing up well after the death of her old schoolteacher, but the news on Sunday of Sarah’s death had sent her into a shuddering and prolonged silence. She came and sat down by her mother’s side to read.

  “Jameson wouldn’t be pleased. Second billing. His death only makes it onto page three this morning,” said Mrs. Kenton with asperity. “You lied to them, Chris. You told me you were in the car with this nutter seconds before. Have you told me everything?”

  “I told them the simplest thing. What I thought they’d believe. It’s taken me awhile to work it out for myself,” Chris said. “He was going to kill us both.” Her voice was subdued, emotionless. “I couldn’t get through to him, Mum. He wasn’t even listening. He’d decided I was some worthless whore who’d be better off dead. He was doing me a favour. And using me to ward off the loneliness. He could never function without an audience and I was unlucky enough to drop into the front seat of the stalls to witness his grand finale. His death scene.”