Killing the Shadows (2000) (16 page)

“I knew all that before I read the entrapment transcripts,” Fiona continued. “As I’m sure you did too, Steve. However, it became clear from reading what passed between Blake and Erin Richards that he knew more about Susan Blanchard’s murder than he could have gleaned from the press reports. He knew, for example, that her hands were arranged as if in prayer, the fingers linked rather than having the fingertips propped against each other. Blake always maintained after his arrest that he’d heard that in the pub, but he couldn’t identify the person he claimed had told him. I’ll come back to that later, though.”

Kit nodded. In spite of himself, he was as fascinated by Fiona’s dissection as Steve. He was sure he’d guessed where she was heading, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t interested in seeing how she justified reaching that conclusion. Even after all this time, he was still intrigued by the way her mind worked, so analytical in contrast to his own intuitive approach. “Consider our breath well and truly hated,” he said.

Refusing to be thrown off her stride, Fiona ignored him and carried on. “What I want to deal with next is the fantasies that Blake outlined in his letters and conversations with DC Richards. Based on my experience, I would expect the killer to have very specific fantasies. I would expect the object of his fantasies to be a teenage girl or a woman in her early twenties, as Susan Blanchard was. They’re easier to manipulate, both in fantasy and reality. In the scenarios he plays out in his head, this killer will objectify women. He’ll fantasize about control, submission, violent activity that causes the object of his attention to show extreme fear. He’ll imagine threatening her with a knife, tying her up, causing her pain, cutting her, making her beg for mercy.” Fiona paused and took a long draught of her wine. “And because he killed her out of doors, I’d expect the setting for those imaginary sexual encounters to be in a park or in woodland.

“But that’s not what we find in Blake’s fantasies at all. Almost everything he outlined to DC Richards involves voyeurism. He talks and writes about a third person watching their sex games, being turned on by them, often joining in. Admittedly, there are some strong elements of submission and domination in there too, but they’re much more in the realm of playfulness rather than the real infliction of pain. But the clincher for me is that in all of the scenarios he outlines for this woman he’s aiming to bed, this woman he’s been taking on walks through the parks of London in each and every scene he describes, where they are going to have sex is indoors. At the undertaker’s where he works, at the office where she works, in a deserted warehouse, in his flat. Not a single one of these elaborately detailed, pornographically described situations is out of doors.

“And finally, there’s the question of the pornography that your officers found in Blake’s flat. It’s true there was a lot of it, both magazines and videos. And it’s true that most of it was what would be classified as hardcore, mostly involving young women or teenage girls. But if the catalogue in the file is accurate, surprisingly little of it focuses on rape or S&M. What there was a lot of was threesomes and voyeurism. Plus a bit of bondage.”

“You’re saying Blake doesn’t match the crime,” Steve said flatly.

“Based on the product of your operation, I think any qualified psychologist with an open mind would come to that conclusion,” Fiona agreed.

“There’s more, though, isn’t there?” Kit chipped in. “You think you know what really happened, don’t you, Fiona?”

Steve paused halfway through spreading pate on a piece of bread. “You do?”

Fiona fiddled with her napkin. “That’s not what I’m saying, Kit. I don’t know who did kill Susan Blanchard. But I’d stake my reputation that Francis Blake didn’t.” She took a deep breath. “However, I believe he saw the man who did. Blake’s a voyeur. That’s why he looks at parks the way he does. He likes to watch. I think this is what happened that morning on Hampstead Heath. He was lurking in the shrubbery hoping he’d see a couple making love. What he actually saw was very different. Francis Blake stood and watched while somebody else raped and murdered Susan Blanchard. And it was the most exciting thing he’d ever seen in his life.”

T
he silence that followed Fiona’s conclusion had the quality of empty air after the shock wave of a bomb blast. Even though Kit had guessed where she was heading right at the start of her exposition, the certainly of her judgement chilled him into stillness. Steve closed his eyes and dropped his head on to one hand, massaging the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “That’s a bit of a leap,” he said softly.

“It makes sense of all the information in a way nothing else does,” she said, reaching for the bottle and refilling her glass, as if girding her loins for a challenge to her reasoning.

Steve raised his head and met her eyes. He wanted to believe her, not least because it might give him fresh avenues to explore. But he was aware that his own feelings for her had always made him willing to give her the benefit of any doubt. He’d stuck his neck out to defend her reports to his bosses, and it had paid off in the past. This time, though, his very future hung on what he did with the Susan Blanchard case. If he screwed it up even more than it already had been his career was effectively over. No one would criticize him if he let the case slide into the unsolved regions; the public assumption would remain that they’d got the right man but had wrecked the case against him. But if he took a chance and pursued the possibilities thrown up by Fiona’s theorizing, he’d better be damn sure he got it right. He cleared his throat. “Or maybe Blake is entirely innocent,” he said.

Fiona shook her head. “Too many coincidences.” She ticked off the points on her fingers. “We know he was on the Heath that day. We know he fantasizes about being a voyeur. And we know he knew things about the murder victim that were never in the public domain. It’s stretching credibility too far to suggest that the one man who happened to be on the Heath that morning was also the one man who happened to be told in a pub by an unidentifiable stranger precisely how Susan’s body was arranged. All the reasons why Blake was a suspect in the first place have another interpretation, and only one interpretation that he saw what happened.”

“If you’re right and it sounds reasonable to me the irony is that Francis Blake could genuinely have helped the police with their inquiries,” Kit said. “He knows more about this killer than anyone.”

“If you’d treated him as a witness instead of a prime suspect the very first time you interviewed him, the day after the murder, it’s possible that things might have turned out very differently. But…” Fiona shrugged. “Probably not.”

Steve sighed. “One way or another, we blew it. I have to say, I think you might be right. I’m not totally convinced, but I’m going to have to take it into account.”

Fiona gave him a long, considering stare. She was used to Steve grasping her ideas more firmly than this. His very caution made her realize how much pressure he was under in this case. She hadn’t wanted to become involved, but now she was glad she had done what little she could to help. “I hope it’s useful,” she said, with more humility than she usually felt when she had offered her professional opinion.

“What I don’t understand,” Kit said, “is why Blake didn’t come out with the truth when he was interrogated after you finally arrested him. I mean, it’s the obvious get-out for him, isn’t it? “It wasn’t me, guy, but I saw the bloke who did it.””

“Not if you were supremely confident that the court would throw out the case against you. Not if you knew there could be no forensic evidence tying you to a crime you didn’t commit,” Fiona said. “He had a solicitor with him, didn’t he, Steve?”

“Right from the off. The first interview he did after the arrest was a ‘no comment’. Then when we laid out the evidence, his brief asked for an adjournment. When they came back, all Blake would say was that he’d been on the Heath that morning, he’d lost track of time and realized he was going to be late for work, and that’s why he was running when the witnesses saw him. As for what he wrote and said during the undercover operation, he was adamant that it was total fantasy, nothing more.”

“So when they had their little chat, the brief will have told him you’d never make it stand up in court,” Kit said, understanding dawning. “And that little shit sat there smug as a bug knowing that he knew more than you would ever know about what happened to Susan Blanchard, and that you’d never find out what that was. What a total scumbag.”

Fiona nodded. “He probably thought the whole thing would be thrown out in the magistrates’ court. Instead of which, he ended up spending eight months on remand. And by that stage, he had no way out. He couldn’t recant at that point and admit what he’d seen, because you would have been so furious that he’d jerked you around, you’d have charged him with being an accessory. He must have so much festering rage inside him for the police now.”

Kit leaned back in his chair. “Not a bit of it. Didn’t you see him on the TV? He’s revelling in it. He’s been having the time of his life. Not only does he have these powerful memories to relive any time he wants to. He also has the supreme satisfaction of knowing he’s left the police and the CPS looking like idiots.”

“More than that, he’s going to be paid for it,” Steve growled. “Massive compensation from the Home Office for wrongful imprisonment, not to mention what he’s screwed out of the newspapers.” He let out a deep breath. “Sometimes this job would make you fucking weep.” In the soft lighting of the dining room, the planes of his face seemed even starker than usual following the bitter confirmation Fiona had brought him.

There was a long pause. Suddenly no one felt much like eating. Kit reached for the bottle and topped up everyone’s glass. “So where can you go from here?” he asked Steve.

“Back to square one? Since it wasn’t Francis Blake, someone else was on the Heath that morning killing Susan Blanchard. We’ll have to go back and look at every single witness statement and reinterview them all.”

Kit gave a snort of laughter. “Yeah, right. It’s not like Blake’s going to be coming across with what he saw.”

“There is one thing you might like to consider,” Fiona said slowly.

Steve looked up, his eyes alert. “And that is?”

“It’s possible that Blake has managed to identify the killer. He may have recognized him, he may subsequently have seen him. He may even have seen the killer make his getaway in a car and managed to get the number. I’d say that given his moment of triumph, it’s conceivable that Blake has become confident enough to try blackmailing the real murderer. I don’t know if you’ve got the resources for this, since the investigation is officially dead, but when he comes back from his jolly to Spain, I’d watch him very carefully. Tap his phone, open his mail, carry out very discreet surveillance, monitor his bank account. It’s a slim chance, but Blake might just lead you straight to your man.”

Steve shook his head dubiously. “It’s reaching a bit, Besides, I’ll never get a warrant for a phone tap on the basis of this. The best I can manage is probably a loose surveillance.”

“It’s better than nothing. What else have you got?” Kit demanded. “Sure, you can go back and talk to all your witnesses again, like you suggested. But how much more are you realistically going to get out of them now so much time has passed? Plus, anything they have to say is going to be tainted by the media blitz surrounding the arrest and the trial. They’re going to lean even heavier on the idea that Blake’s your man. It’s only human. Seems to me a slim chance is better than no chance at all. You want to redeem yourselves on Susan Blanchard’s murder, I’d say you’ve got no choice.”

“I’ve also got no budget,” Steve said bitterly. “I’m supposed to be pursuing a discreet, deniable investigation here, which means I’ve got hardly any bodies to speak of and even fewer resources. There’s no way I can mount the sort of operation you’re suggesting, even if I thought I could justify it.”

“Maybe it’s time to call in your markers,” Kit said. “There’s got to be some of your team that owe you big time. Or feel like they owe Susan Blanchard and her family. Not to mention all those coppers that are smarting at what the judge had to say. I bet a few of them wouldn’t mind giving you the odd bit of unofficial unpaid overtime. Fuck it, if all you need is somebody to sit outside his house in a car, I’m up for it.” He grinned. “Never say die, Stevie.”

Steve shook his head. “You put me to shame, you two. Fiona spends hours analysing Horsforth’s shitty operation, and you offer to doorstep the number one scumbag in the capital. And all I can do is sit and whinge about how hard it’s all going to be.” He straightened his shoulders unconsciously. “Thanks, both of you. At least now I’ve got a new line of inquiry to get people energized.”

Kit raised his glass. “To a result,” he said.

Steve gave a wry smile. “To the right result.”

It was after midnight when they got home. Kit announced he was too wired to sleep and too mellowed on Steve’s wine to write so he was going on line to see if any of his international playmates were around on one of the several multi-user computer games he treated as a way of winding down. “Seven o’clock on the East Coast,” he mumbled as he wandered through to his office. “Should be somebody out there ready to be killed.”

Fiona climbed the stairs to her attic. She’d drop off her papers in her office, then head for bed and a blissful seven hours of sleep. The winking red eye of the answering machine gave her a moment’s pause as she turned to leave. Ignore it or hear it out? Duty won over desire, not least because there was obviously only one message.

It was Salvador Berrocal, his confident tones deadened by the soundproofing. “I thought you’d like to know that we have identified a suspect in the two Toledo murders,” he said. “I am sending you the details via e–mail, but I wanted to let you know as soon as possible that we have made progress.”

“Yes!” Fiona clenched her right hand and punched the palm of her left. Now she was as restlessly awake as Kit. Two swift strides took her to the computer where she accessed her e–mail. There were half a dozen messages, but only one that interested her. She downloaded it and opened it immediately.