Past Mortem (32 page)

It was late in the day now and Natasha was gathering up her things to leave.

‘What happened to the flowers?’ Newson asked.

‘I put them in a vase in the ladies’ loo. Always nice to have flowers in the loo, I think.’ She smiled. ‘Don’t worry about me, Ed. I’ll be all right.’

‘Yes, I’m sure you will. Just don’t let him do it again, eh?’

‘As if.’

After Natasha had left, Newson turned on the television to watch the south-east edition of the news. He had lost count of the times the media had more information on a case than he had and now he regularly watched the bulletins. The horrifying suicide of Tiffany Mellors was the top story as it had been in the
Standard
throughout all the editions of the day.

Watching the video footage supplied by the dead girl’s family to the media, Newson found himself thinking once more of Christine Copperfield. Tiffany even looked a little like Christine, the same beautiful blond hair and golden skin, the same lithe figure. She had indeed been beautiful. A news editor’s dream. There were a number of testimonials in the coverage, friends saying what a great friend she had been and teachers paying tribute to an attractive, spirited girl who had been such a credit to the school.

Then Dick Crosby appeared, speaking from his office with a Kidcall poster on the wall behind him, appealing for any other kids who found themselves in distress to just pick up the phone. ‘Don’t suffer in silence,’ he said. ‘Don’t let the bullies scare you into keeping quiet. Pick up the phone, call us, we’re here for you — ’

Newson turned off the television. His phone was ringing.

‘Hello. Chief Inspector Newson.’

‘Ed,’ said a deep American voice, ‘it’s Jameson. Roger Jameson.’

TWENTY-NINE

N
ewson met Roger Jameson in the bar at the hotel where Jameson was staying, a private establishment behind Marble Arch.

‘They know me here,’ Jameson explained after they’d been led to a pleasant table in the corner. ‘I’ve been back and forth quite a few times over the last few years. This is kind of a discreet and cosy bolthole.’

‘You like things discreet?’

‘Who doesn’t?’

‘Well, it’s very nice, anyway,’ Newson said. ‘I suppose they must pay pretty well in the New York Police.’

‘For a long time it was more about exchange rates.

For a heck of a while there the buck was real mighty. I used to come here all the time and feel like I was a king.’

Their beers arrived, and they drank for a moment in silence as Newson waited. Jameson had asked to meet him and Newson was going to let him get round to whatever it was he wanted to say in his own time.

‘Great reunion,’ Jameson said.

‘Yes, quite a day.’

‘I saw you leave. It looked like you’d gotten lucky with Christine for the second time.’

Newson said nothing.

‘Listen, Ed, I heard about what happened. That Christine was killed.’

‘I thought perhaps you must have done.’

‘I saw the in memoriam note Sally Warren posted on our Friends Reunited page.’

‘Oh, you were visiting that, were you?’

‘Yeah. I wanted to see what people said about the reunion, and to thank Christine for organizing it. It was a great thing she did, particularly for me, giving me the chance to say all that stuff I said and all. I wanted to thank her, and to apologize for having kind of hijacked things.’

‘My impression was that you made the party swing.’

‘Well, whatever. I found out she’s dead.’

‘Oh yes, she’s dead all right.’

‘It was a big shock, and I guess I was also intrigued. Once a cop, and all that. Sally didn’t give any information about how it happened, so I called a couple of pals. Your guys. London cops. CID.’

‘You know officers in the Met?’

‘Yeah, I did an exchange a couple years back. Spent twelve weeks over here. It wasn’t a long time, but you know, bonds form quick in the front line.’

‘You were on exchange with CID? I thought you said you were just a beat cop, a humble flatfoot.’

‘Yeah, I did say that, didn’t I? Truth is I did rise a little higher for a while one time. Not as high as you, Ed, but I made sergeant.’

‘Detective Sergeant?’

‘Yeah, that was me. I was a detective, too.’

‘But not any more.

‘No, I got busted right back down to the pavement.’

‘Why was that?’

‘I killed a guy. Beat him to death. He was resisting.’

‘Ah. Like the Somalian man.’

‘Maybe a little. I got mad with him and didn’t stop when I should’ve stopped. I think that’s why when it happened again with the Somalian illegal I held back.’

‘Or perhaps because a second occurrence
of
a similar offence might’ve got you life in jail?’

Jameson looked hard at Newson, his eyes narrowed over the rim of his glass as he sipped his beer, and for a moment Newson felt that he was thirteen again and that Jameson was the scariest person in his life.

‘That was uncalled for, Ed,’ Jameson said. Newson did not reply. ‘Well, I guess it’s to be expected. Just because I’ve decided to try and set the record straight don’t mean everybody’s got to suddenly believe I’m a good guy all of a sudden.’

‘I did believe you when you spoke out at the party. Perhaps I still do. I’m just wondering why you bothered to lie to me.’

‘I guess because I knew what you’d think. I really wanted to unload about the Somalian guy, see, so I just pretended the other thing never happened.’

‘So why are you telling me now?’

‘Because I wanted to talk to you about Christine, and I knew you’d figure out that I must have connections with your people to know what I do. Then you’d a gotten suspicious and looked up my FBI file on the net because every damn thing in the US in on the net and in the public domain. You were always the brightest kid, Ed, and you must be one hell of a cop because I never knew anybody make detective inspector at your age. I decided that if I was going to work with you I’d better be straight with you.’

‘Work with me? What d’you mean?’

‘Well, talk to you at least. Ed, do you think Helen Smart did it?’

Newson was taken aback. Clearly Jameson had been digging deep and seen things he shouldn’t have. Unless, of course, he had other ways of knowing what had been going on.

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Oh, come on, Ed, give me some credit. I may not be the cop that you are but I ain’t a fool either. I heard that Christine got choked on a tampon and that it happened only a week or two after Helen put that weird letter on the site saying what Christine did to her.’

‘All right, then. No, I don’t think it’s likely that Helen Smart killed Christine Copperfield, but it’s possible.’

‘I don’t think she did it. Any more than I think William Connolly killed Adam Bishop or Annabel Shannon killed Farrah Porter.’

It ‘was fortunate that Newson had just drained his beer, because otherwise he would have choked on it at this point.

‘Ah, I see we’ve been working on similar lines,’ Jameson said. ‘I hoped I wasn’t making a fool of myself.’

‘What do you know about Bishop and Porter?’

‘No more than any guy who knows his way round the internet could discover. I guess I followed the same reasoning as you. When I realized that Christine could only have been killed by somebody who’d read about her on the Friends Reunited site, I wondered if maybe this wasn’t the first time it had happened. So I went online with Google, looking for murders. You know, trawling the recent press archives, checking out the amateur sleuth sites. I was looking for out-of-the-ordinary stuff, murders where the most interesting aspect was the manner of death. Well, I wanted weird and I got it, two of the weirdest murders I ever heard of, and that’s coming from someone who works in New York City.’

‘Bishop and Porter.’

‘Exactly. Next I found out where they went to school, just like I imagine you did. Then I went searching for them on Friends Reunited and, bingo, I had William Connolly and Annabel Shannon. Again, just like you did.’

Newson did not know what to make of it. Jameson knew so much.

‘I’m right, ain’t I?’ Jameson asked. ‘Someone out there is killing bullies?’

Newson could see no value in denying it. ‘Yes, I think that’s what’s happening. Although it’s only conjecture. What do you think? You seem to be as well informed as I am.’

‘Oh, I doubt that. And don’t go thinking I’m smarter than I am either. Anyone who read Helen Smart on the Friends site and then found out how Christine Copperfield died was going to start putting two and two together.’

‘Perhaps not quite everybody, Roger. I think that to work out what you’ve done as quickly as you have shows extraordinary detective skill.’

‘Whatever.’

‘Either the NYPD lost a brilliant detective when you got demoted or they lost a clairvoyant.’

‘No, I ain’t that. But I admit I was good on a case. It’s just that in the long run I had the wrong temperament. I’m impatient, see, and I got a short fuse. That ain’t helpful when it comes to slow-burn cases. I want justice but I ain’t prepared to wait for it.’

The waiter brought two more beers, despite the fact that they had not ordered them.

‘They know me here,’ Roger said for the second time. ‘Don’t worry if you don’t want yours, I’ll just neck ‘em both.’

‘No, I’ll drink it. Long day.’

‘Ain’t no other kind for a cop.

‘That’s the truth. Cheers.’

‘Yeah. Cheers…So why would someone be bumping off bullies? ‘Cos they was bullied themselves, right?’

‘The thought had crossed my mind, certainly,’ Newson replied warily.

‘I guess it’s one theory.’

‘You have another?’

‘Yeah, I don’t think you’re looking for a victim, I think you’re looking for a bully. I reckon this guy has to be worse than any of the people he’s hitting just to do the stuff to them that he’s doing. You see, in the long run I believe that people don’t change. I believe that a man is pretty much set to be whatever he is going to be on the day he’s born.’

Newson waited a moment before replying. When he did he looked Jameson directly in the eye. ‘You started off a bully, didn’t you, Roger?’

Despite the fact that there was a waiter standing behind the bar and fellow guests in other corners of the room Newson found himself instinctively checking the exits.

‘Yes, I did, I sure did, but, you see, I’ve come to accept that in myself and that makes a difference. If you understand a thing, you can control it. Focus it.’

‘You weren’t in control when you lost your stripes, though, you said so yourself.’

‘That was all part of the learning process. Now I know why I do the things I do.’

‘Why’s that, then?’

‘It ain’t out of taking any pleasure in causing pain. It’s kind of like a
need
. A need to be noticed, a need to be respected. I guess you could almost call it a need to be loved.’

‘Is that why you beat a man to death for resisting arrest? Because you wanted to be loved?’

‘You play hard ball, Ed.’

‘It does seem like an obvious question, doesn’t it?’

‘Well then, OK. I think the answer is yes. When a man is on his knees in front of you begging for you to stop, pleading with you, promising you anything if you’ll just take away his pain, that’s kind of like the way a desperate lover might behave, don’t you think?’

Newson did not reply. Natasha could most certainly take away his pain and he would without doubt be prepared to go down on his knees before her and beg her to do it.

Jameson continued. ‘When you’re about to kill a man he’s totally dependent on you. His whole life is in your hands. You are his world and there ain’t no room in it for no one else but you and him. Like a mother and baby. Or two people fuckin’. Ain’t that like love?’

‘I’d think that the differences outweigh the similarities,’ Newson said, but he wasn’t entirely sure. He was trying to find a confident, detached tone, but there was definitely something seductive about Jameson with his quiet drawl and his perverted thesis.

‘Even back in the days when I was ruining Gary Whitfield’s life I believe that I was doing it because I needed him, you know? I needed him to be obsessed by me, I needed him to be thinking of me twenty-four/seven. The more I bullied him the more I knew that I was on his mind every second of the day, from when he woke up to when he went to sleep, and even then I was in his dreams. He couldn’t escape me. Ain’t that like love?’

Newson knew that it wasn’t, but he couldn’t deny that Jameson had produced a pretty fair description of his own obsessive and debilitating feelings towards Natasha. When he woke up. When he went to sleep. And in his dreams.

‘Why did your marriage break up, Roger?’ Newson asked. ‘What happened to that girl you met at the Springsteen concert? You said on the Friends site that it was pressure of work.’

‘Plus the fact that maybe I’m gay, you think?’

‘I did wonder, even when we were at school. Let’s face it, your relationship with Gary Whitfield was pretty physical, wasn’t it? In a robust kind of way.’

‘And I loved to watch him cry.’

‘You seemed to love to
make
him cry.’

‘And I sure wasn’t doing it for my health, eh, Ed? Yeah, you’ve got me all right. I always knew I had a thing about the boys, but it wasn’t till I got married that I realized just how damn queer I was.’

‘Bad time to find out.’

‘Ain’t that the truth?’

‘And the big confession thing you did at the reunion? All the things you said to Whitfield?’

‘Still trying to make him love me, I guess.’

‘Do you think that perhaps the same thing could be said about the killer I’m seeking? That he needs to be loved?’

‘I’m just saying that maybe you ain’t looking for a victim, that’s all. Maybe you’re looking for a bully. A bully who wants to be top bully. A man who needs to feel significant. Who needs to feel respected. This guy’s moved on from bullying victims. Now he’s going after bigger game, he’s bullying bullies. He’s taking on the pretenders to his crown and he’s laughing in their, faces, ‘cos he’s showing them that there’s only one
really bad
kid on his block.’

‘It’s an interesting theory.’

‘Let me help you find him, Ed.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I want to get him.’

‘Ah, you want to show him that there’s an even worse kid around than him? You want to be the guy to outbully the überbully.’

‘Partly, sure. Like I say, a man don’t change much, but also I’m a cop and I’d like to be back in the saddle. Maybe if I can help get this guy, stop him before he kills again, it’ll kind of make up for some of the stuff I’ve done.’