The Watcher (25 page)

‘What things?’ asked Christy.

‘No idea. Burton is messed up about sex.’

‘Sir, I’m not going to defend him. John and I were a team back then. We worked well together. I know his strengths – and his weaknesses. He can’t keep his hands off pretty women, but that doesn’t mean by a long way that he is
messed up about sex
, like you say. None of us believed for a moment that he had actually raped that rather hysterical young woman. The prosecutors didn’t believe it. The report writers, all independently, didn’t believe it. But of course he couldn’t stay. Because all his male colleagues, at the very least, here at the Yard made it clear that they wished the whole drama on him. And because it was obvious that the incident would follow him round. A high-ranking inspector doesn’t cut a particularly convincing figure if every criminal he catches, or the criminal’s lawyer, can ask him with a grin if he is the cop who was once investigated for rape. He didn’t want that. I can understand it completely.’

‘Christy, perhaps you aren’t completely objective about Burton. I know you appreciated him as a policeman. But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s turned up in a murder investigation and that we have to check up on him and how he fits into all of this.’

‘Good. Let’s look at
all of this
. Why Carla Roberts and Anne Westley? Not exactly Burton’s typical prey, are they? One in her mid sixties, the other almost seventy. He certainly didn’t bed them.’

Fielder continued to press his point. ‘Burton certainly doesn’t have an alibi for the time of the murder of Thomas Ward.’

He had sent an officer to talk to John Burton. John had claimed that he had been in his office on Tuesday afternoon. He had met a customer who wanted to protect his mansion with a comprehensive security system and needed to be advised. The conversation had gone on until six o’clock. The customer confirmed this. However, after that John had been alone, starting to produce a concept for his customer and to calculate the costs. He had also been on call until nine o’clock. Then he had been relieved by a colleague and, as he stated, went home. Unfortunately, there had not been a single call that evening. Nothing had happened. That meant that between six and nine, he could have driven out to Thorpe Bay and back to London without anyone being any the wiser.

‘Not everyone without an alibi is guilty,’ pointed out Christy. ‘And Burton wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave when he was on call. Too many things could go wrong.’

Fielder turned away from the window. ‘I’m not saying it is Burton,’ he said. ‘I’m just trying not to get too focused on this Samson Segal. It’s just a feeling . . . Everything about this man, or at least what we know about him, seems too . . . obvious to me. Maybe it’s just the feeling that we’re being handed the culprit on a plate. Suddenly this woman appears and claims casually that her brother-in-law has a neighbour’s life on his conscience while handing over a pile of papers that practically proves her thesis. That sets alarm bells ringing for me. It’s a reflex, I can’t help it.’

‘He’s disappeared. That doesn’t exactly look good for him. Or suggest he’s innocent,’ said Christy. She shook her head. ‘I know what you mean, boss. But sometimes that’s how it works out. You get your man because someone who knows him and has been suspicious for a long time just can’t keep quiet any longer. And you have to admit that Segal fits our profile of the killer perfectly. He has massive hang-ups about women, as his sister-in-law says and his notes confirm. He has wished for years for a relationship and always been rejected. Sometimes he writes hateful rants about women. He stalks women, noting every detail about their lives. And about their families. He knew that Thomas Ward is never at home on Tuesday evenings. He knew that Becky Ward should actually have been at her grandparents’ house. He had all the information he needed.’

‘Not all of it. He obviously had no idea about Gillian Ward’s affair with another man. At least he didn’t know anything specific.’

‘Of course people try to hide such things as best they can.’

‘Admittedly. But would he, in spite of his intense observation of them, not have noticed that the daughter was home?’

‘She didn’t go out because of her sore throat. He wasn’t seeing her and so he must have assumed she had gone off,’ suspected Christy.

‘She goes to her grandparents every year between Christmas and New Year. Everyone who knew the Wards knew that.’

‘But those people don’t have the odd character traits that Samson Segal does.’

‘So, let’s say he thinks Gillian Ward is home alone. Does he force his way in, so he can kill her? The woman he worships?’

‘Who doesn’t pay him any attention,’ added Christy. ‘Doesn’t even notice him. And didn’t defend him when her husband barked at him. He felt like she treated him
like trash
, that’s what he wrote. He was expressing the hate that he feels. He had worshipped her, but then it changed. He had been bitterly disappointed by her.’

Fielder rubbed his hands over his face. He was tired and impatient, and last night’s champagne was not helping. ‘And how do Roberts and Westley fit into this theory? One living in Hackney, the other in Tunbridge Wells?’

‘He had a car. Those distances were hardly insurmountable for him.’

‘Then he would have mentioned them in his notes. No, Sergeant, there’s too much that doesn’t fit in,’ said Fielder, shaking his head. ‘Even the ropy theories we already have are now collapsing. At least Westley and Roberts had something in common. They both lived on their own and had been pretty isolated since their retirement. Gillian Ward, on the other hand, is married, has a daughter and works.’

‘That means,’ said Christy, ‘that we have been focusing on the wrong common denominator. The fact that they live on their own doesn’t seem to be the decisive link between the victims. There must be something else. Something we’ve missed.’

‘We have to go deep into Anne Westley’s past,’ said Fielder. ‘And Carla Roberts’s. And Gillian Ward’s. That will be easier, because she’s still alive. Yes, we should start with her.’

‘And we should make sure we find Samson Segal,’ said Christy. ‘He’s important! Either he’s guilty or he’s an interesting witness. He observed the Ward family and sniffed around their lives. He might have noticed something decisive.’

‘The sister-in-law is just being questioned again,’ said Fielder. ‘Maybe that will give us some clue. It’s terribly cold outside. Segal must have found a warm bolthole.’

‘We’ll get him,’ said Christy.

He looked at her. He could feel her conviction that they had their killer.

But he still could not believe it.

She had the feeling that she had just been sitting on the sofa for three days, staring at the walls with no understanding of what had happened in her life. What was not right. She would cook (for Becky really), tidy the flat, shower in the morning and put on clean clothes. She would fill the dishwasher and empty it again. Every evening she would take a strong sleeping pill, lie down on the sofa and sink into a numbing, black abyss, from which she woke in the morning without feeling refreshed. She prepared breakfast, toasted bread, cut fruit, fried eggs.

Tara had already complained. ‘Gillian, there’s nothing for me to do! I want to take care of you, but I have the feeling it’s the other way round!’

She had looked pleadingly at her friend. ‘Let me do something, Tara. Otherwise I’ll go crazy.’

Tara concurred immediately. ‘Of course. I understand.’

That horrific night, Gillian and Becky had gone to stay at Tara’s house, along with Chuck, whom Gillian found in the end, after a desperate hunt, shivering and confused a few gardens further down the street. He must have run out of the open kitchen door in panic, when the horror and violence descended on their house. A friendly and very sensitive policewoman had explained to Gillian that the house had to be cordoned off as a crime scene. ‘We can’t let any clues be destroyed. Do you know anyone who could put you up for a few days?’

Gillian had thought of her parents first, but they lived too far away. Then Tara had occurred to her. She had called her friend and explained what had happened. At first there had only been silence on the other end of the line. After a long while Tara had said, utterly stunned,
‘What
happened?’ The next moment she showed that she was a woman who dealt with this kind of situation regularly at work. She had acted calmly and decisively. ‘I’m on my way,’ she said. ‘I’ll fetch you both. Of course you can stay at my place as long as you like.’

They had been there since that night. In Tara’s beautiful old flat in Kensington. A Scotland Yard detective inspector had come to talk to Gillian and she had told him everything she knew. She had even told him the truth about her relationship with John. A policewoman had talked to Becky in the presence of Gillian and a psychologist. Becky, Gillian knew, was an important witness. She had not seen the culprit, but she had crept downstairs when she heard noises: a loud thud and a crash, then her father shouting, ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’

Then there had been two shots. From her vantage point on the stairs, Becky had seen her father fall on to a chair.

‘Did you think about running over to him?’ asked the policewoman.

Becky shook her head. ‘No.’ She sounded apologetic. ‘I knew someone was there. I’d heard my dad talking to someone. I’d heard someone shooting. I . . . was so afraid. I just wanted to get away. Away!’ She had gone white as a sheet. ‘I should have helped him. I should have gone over. I should—’

The psychologist stepped in quickly. ‘Absolutely not, Becky. You couldn’t have done anything for him. You did the right thing to get yourself to safety.’

‘I just wanted to find out what had caused Becky’s sudden instinct to hide,’ explained the policewoman. It sounded like a justification. ‘Unfortunately, everything she saw, heard and felt that evening is important to us.’

But nothing Becky told her was really useful. She had been painting, had been so engrossed in it that she had only realised a stranger was in the house threatening her father when his voice had risen.

‘When I saw Daddy collapse, I got really scared. I was standing on the stairs and I slipped. That made quite a loud noise and in that moment I knew . . . I knew somehow that the person who had done it now knew I was in the house. I lost it a bit, I was so afraid. I ran upstairs and looked for a place to hide.’

She had remembered the suitcase in the junk room in the attic because she used to hide in it when she and her friends played up there. She had lain there, with cramps in her arms and legs and barely daring to breathe, and listened to the culprit comb the whole house for her. He had run from one room to the next, thrown open wardrobes, pushed furniture aside.

‘When he came upstairs I almost died of fright. I thought he would find me immediately. He was making a lot of noise and he threw boxes around in the junk room. I thought I’d be dead any minute.’

‘But you saw nothing at all?’

Becky shook her head. ‘The suitcase lid was closed. It was dark inside. Completely black.’

The policewoman wanted to know if Becky had heard the doorbell ring at any point, but she could not remember. ‘I don’t think so. I don’t know. But I think I would have gone downstairs if I’d heard it.’

Tara and Becky, who still looked rather drugged and listless, had gone ice-skating in Hyde Park. Tara had tried to convince Gillian to go with them, but she had refused. ‘No. You two go. I’ll be happy to be here on my own.’

Soon after the two of them had left, Detective Inspector Fielder had called and asked if he could come by. Gillian would have preferred to fob him off with some excuse, because she felt so tired, burnt out and empty, but she knew that she had to pull herself together. The man was doing his job and he needed her support. It was important that they find Tom’s murderer.

Now Fielder was sitting opposite her in an armchair in Tara’s living room. She had made coffee and he was grateful for the cup she poured him. He looked very tired. Probably he had been partying the night before.

What a terrible New Year’s Day, thought Gillian. From where she was sitting, she could see the balcony and the grey sky. Chuck was sitting at the window. He too was looking out, his eyes following the birds that sometimes landed on the railing and looked at him cheekily.

Detective Inspector Fielder was just expounding on his theory of how the culprit had got into the house. ‘If we assume that he didn’t ring the bell, and – following on from that – that no one opened the door for him, then it could be that he found a much easier way in. We’ve had a look. From the street, you can look through the little window in the front door all the way to the kitchen and see if the back door to the garden is open. That works even better in the evening, when everything inside is lit up. We suspect that your husband opened the back door. Maybe he just wanted to let some fresh air in. Because there is nothing on the door to suggest it was forced open. The murderer, who might have planned on ringing the bell, saw his chance, ran around the house and entered the kitchen from the garden. That’s why Becky didn’t hear anything.’

‘Are there any footprints?’

He shook his head regretfully. ‘By the time the police arrived, several more hours of snow had fallen.’

‘But why?’ asked Gillian. ‘Why? Why would anyone want to kill Tom?’

He asked a question in return. ‘Do the names Carla Roberts and Anne Westley mean anything to you?’

Gillian needed a few seconds to understand the full amplitude of what he was saying. ‘Do you think there’s a connection . . . ?’

‘So you know who the two women are?’

‘From the papers. I don’t know them myself.’

‘You’d never heard of them before? Your husband never mentioned them to you?’

‘No. Never.’

‘Dr Anne Westley was a doctor in London. You never visited her with Becky?’

‘No. Like I said. I don’t know her.’

Peter Fielder took a sip of coffee and gently placed his cup back on the table. He looked at Gillian with a serious face. ‘The weapon. The pistol that shot your husband. It is almost certainly the same weapon that was used against those two women.’