Dying to Meet You (18 page)

Nick was smiling and holding onto her hand like he could never let it go but he was still fuming and raging inside. Right now he’d like to personally string Calder up and hang
him for what he had put her through. He had so nearly lost her. It didn’t bear thinking about.

It was the Kaufman’s call out that had saved her from a watery grave like the other three. Dare he say that to her right now? He didn’t think so.

She was frowning trying to speak. ‘Nick - Calder guessed that I’d latched on to him earlier on I think. When I started to question ask him about Geraldine Temple.’

‘Geraldine Temple? Kaufman’s ex?’

‘Yes. I think Brian is Geraldine Temple’s son. Her sister in law told me about him indirectly. She didn’t know his identity. Geraldine turned him away you know. And then she killed herself. Seeing her must have made him lose control. From then on he wanted to punish women like his mother. And Linda followed when she turned him down.’

‘Sorry
- you’ve lost me.’

‘You’ve go
t to understand how bad he was feeling when Geraldine did that to him. She’d dumped him twice. As a baby and then again when he was already distressed from the death of the woman he’d believed to be his mother.’ They were helping her off the stretcher into a bed. ‘And I think he was crazy about Linda, Nick. She good as told me she was worried about his strong feelings for her. She wanted to let him down lightly. But I think Linda turning him down too was the last straw.’

Farmer nodded. It seemed to make some sense now.

‘And he just went over the top killed her in a blind rage. He’s a clever lad - he’d have made a good police officer and he used Astrology to cover up the real motive. Geraldine was a Cancer star sign too. Then he went a stage further and killed Jude Van Hoet and put the ad in the paper to get Ellie, another victim...’

‘Would have got you too.’ He squeezed her hand harder still.

‘Yes. He guessed I was onto him. He knew I’d put the ad in and decided he’d go a stage farther and kill me too. It comes easier when you’ve killed once. Can I have a drink now?’ She clutched at her throat dramatically. ‘I’m dying of thirst here.’

Her mother came in.
‘Mel - what have you been doing? Where have you been?’

Mel grinned and said weakly, ‘Pigging it out in a car boot, Mum.’

‘A car boot!’

Her father caught this as he came in. ‘In a car boot?’

‘Yes… a car boot.’

‘Whose car boot?’ her mother said looking to Farmer to explain.

A nurse came in and smiled. ‘The doctor would like to examine you, Ms Goring.’

‘I would like to see my son. How is he, Mum? Thank you for getting him here.’

‘He’s sleeping. And they’re pleased with his progress.’ Her mother’s smiling face reassured her.

Fifty-Three

Peterson was out in the corridor talking to Trask. ‘How’s Calder?’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I must check on him and his father. Hard to believe he had Ms Goring penned up in his car boot. Has he recovered sufficiently to question yet?’

‘You’ll have to ask the doctor about that, ma-am. Here he is now.’

‘Doctor Edwards, how is DC Calder?’

The Registrar looked grave. ‘I’m sorry, Superintendent, there have been complications.’

She nodded. ‘He’s not likely to recover? Has his father been told about this?’

‘Y
es.’

Peterson nodded. ‘How is his father taking it?’

‘I think you’d best ask him yourself, he’s by his bedside. He hasn’t left it since he came out of theatre.’

She opened the door quietly and saw Ralph Calder. He looked grey and ill. He was talking quietly to
his son. ‘Why didn’t you tell me, son, how you really felt? I could have helped you.’ Ralph Calder suddenly turned his head and saw Peterson standing there.

‘I’m sorry Mr Calder. I didn’t like to interrupt you.’

He rose slowly from his seat to face her. ‘How long have you known about what Brian did, Superintendent? Everyone must know about it by now. My boy was not in his right mind to do such dreadful things. Why didn’t someone try to stop him?’ He was wiping away the tears that ran unchecked down his cheeks till now. ‘He really lost it you know when I told him he was adopted. We made a mistake not telling him. But his mother wanted to keep it till he grew older.’ He shrugged. ‘Then we couldn’t find the right time. ’

‘I’m sorry
, we had no knowledge of ourselves till only recently.’

‘I heard he tried to hurt Mel Goring too. A lovely young woman. Is she all right?’

‘As far as I know she is. A bit shaken and resting up still. She’s in here.’

‘That’s good news at least then.
’

Fifty-Four

At her request Mel was able to visit Jack in a wheelchair pushed by her mother into the children’s ward. They found Jack just waking up with a big smile on his face. ‘Mummy! Mummy! Where have you been?’

‘Hello, darling. Seems like we are all coming in here to visit you today. You look much better than I feel. We’ll soon have you home again.’

‘Why are you in a wheelchair, Mummy?’

At that moment Farmer put his head round the door. ‘How is he? Hello old
chap!’

‘This is Inspector Farmer, Jack. He’s popped in specially to see both of us in here. Aren’t we the lucky ones?’

‘Why are you in here, Mummy? Were you poorly too?’

‘A bit. But we’ll soon be home again. Nanny said she’s going to you make your favourite strawberry tart. Aren’t you a lucky boy?’

‘Have you had anything to eat yet,’ Nick said softly in her ear. ‘You must be starving. I’d have brought you in some fish and chips only it’s a bit early for that.’

She laughed. ‘I’m not put on the hospital’s menu yet. I’ve been offered some toast. Sound good right now. I’m hoping to be allowed home soon but I shan’t be happy till I know Calder is arrested.’

He grinned. ‘How soon can I get you home?’ he whispered in her ear. ‘I’ll give you a good reason why I want you there for some plans of my own.’

She chuckled. ‘Sorry. You’ll have to share me for the moment. Sylvie and my editor have been on the phone already. And I can’t get away from this place till I’ve got Jack home with us again. Jack comes along with me, don’t forget. Then I’m all yours. On one provision
...’

‘And that is?’

‘You give me free reign on the case within reason once you’ve got it under wraps.’

He grinned back at her. ‘You drive a hard bargain.’

Fifty-Five

Peterson came into the incident room accompanied by a tall stranger who sat down on a spare chair at the back. She looked visibly disturbed and troubled. Not only had they had one of their officers been badly
injured and unlikely to recover. But it was believed now that he was responsible for the killings. And worst of all to be responsible for another officer’s death.

No one wanted to talk about it. But they would have to face up to official internal questioning as well as the public soon.

‘Well you all know what has happened since we dealt with the Kaufman’s yesterday evening. It seems like Erik Kaufman has left the country. We have the women in custody. They have been looked at and examined by our police doctor. Two of them have TB. Their papers have been gone through and they are classed as illegals. At least five of them are under age.’

‘What about DC Calder, boss?’ One of the WPC at the back of the room had plucked up sufficient courage to ask it. ‘How’s he doing?’

Peterson sighed and rubbed her forehead. ‘For the present he is still in intensive care. We’re not able to interview him as yet. He’s in a coma which he is not expected to recover from.’

‘Have we got proof that he’s responsible for DS Handley’s death, ma-am?’

‘And the other two. What about them?’

‘Is it right he took the journalist Mel Goring prisoner with intention to kill her too?’

Peterson grimaced. ‘That’s correct. Ms Goring is recovering from her ordeal well now in hospital. Thankfully she suffered no severe injuries.’

Farmer took over. ‘Thanks to the fact that Calder’s car was brought in here. If she had been left any longer incarcerated in the car boot it might have been a different tale altogether.’

Peterson turned to the tall man who had now joined her. Smiling she announced, ‘And now I would like to introduce you to my husband, Richard Letherbridge. You might have heard of him. He is a Police Profiler. He would like to give you his view on why Calder has been revealed to be the perpetrator here.’

‘Thank you.’

Looks were exchanged all round the room. Farmer smiled. That figured.

‘I’ve kept purposefully low key here. I can promise I have not come into this before now until my wife, Superintendent
Peterson -’ He smiled at Peterson. ‘- suggested it. She thinks I should have something further to say on this.’

Farmer and Trask exchanged glances.

‘From what I have heard during the past week it has become obvious to me that the killer wanted to be discovered and punished for his crimes. We know that Calder worked with DS Handley, his first victim when they were investigating the death of Geraldine Temple four weeks ago now. It was given a verdict of suicide by the coroner.

‘
That was his motive for killing Linda Handley two weeks later. Calder had lost the woman he knew as his mother, Miriam Calder, six weeks previously and was shocked to discover then that he was adopted and not the Calder’s son as he had first been led to believe by both parents.

‘Ralph Calder has admitted it had been kept from his son that he was adopted till after his mother’s death. And it appears
Geraldine rejected him again when he approached her. At the time she was apparently in a bad state of depression.

‘Calder
, as a police officer, was forced to return to see his birth mother dead in the bath killed by her own hand. He found her letter where she confessed to rejecting him and bitterly regretting it. And kept it hidden from Linda Handley, thinking he was responsible for her death. I have been told it has since been found on him.’

Peterson nodded. ‘We found and read her letter
- it was in Calder’s wallet. It is evidence that he was her son. She begged for his forgiveness in it.’

Lethbridge continued, ‘Calder found that the death of his birth mother
was too hard to bear and if that was not enough, Linda also rejected him. This must have seemed to him the ultimate rejection. He raped her and strangled her, and then in an act of desperation used the connection; the Cancer star sign which his mother, Geraldine shared with Linda as a cover up.

‘But he couldn’t leave it there. He had to find other victims, young women with the same
star sign to make it work as a motive. So the death of his next two victims followed from there. He’d already noted that Jude Van Hoet wore a Cancer sign pendant. And the fact that she was Erik Kaufaman’s partner made it easier. He used his policeman’s authority to enter the Orchid Club flat on a pretext to check on their security and kill her. It needs more work on it to tie it all up but I’m sure that your very able team will manage to tie up all the pieces to put the case together.’

‘And Ms Goring. How did she come into it?’ Trask spoke out before Farmer.

‘It appears that Ms Goring, a good investigative journalist, was also working on this, and observed the Astrology aspect which was to become obvious in all three cases.’

‘Luckily it was brought to an end
with an intervention by Ms Goring.’ Trask grinned at Farmer. ‘Right or wrong she took him up on in a blind date and so nearly became his fourth victim. She had also realised by then that Geraldine Temple’s suicide had more than a little to do with it.’

*

‘She kept him pretty quiet, didn’t she?’ Trask grinned at Farmer as they left the incident room. ‘I heard they’re looking for a house locally. So we’ll see more of the Lethbridge influence in the future I expect.’

Farmer chuckled
and whistled, ‘Love is in the air,’ as he walked down the corridor.

Fifty-Six

‘Do you know just how much it’s meant to me finding you like we did?’ Nick said reaching out to hug Mel again.

She laughed and kissed him. ‘You may live to regret what you’re saying one day.’

‘I don’t think so. I would have if I’d lost you. I was much at fault as well.’

‘I’ll remind you of this moment in the future.’ She smiled at him. ‘What do you think about Peterson and her new husband? What’s he like? He sounds smart. I’d like to interview him.’

He grinned. ‘That’s a good pairing if ever if I’ve heard of one. She’s kept it quiet for as long as she could.’

‘So what about us, DI Farmer? Are you going to keep us under wraps?’

‘As if I could.’ He laughed. ‘As long as you can keep your nose out of any of my cases in future I will be pleased to broadcast that you’re my better half from now on.’