Innocent Blood (39 page)

Fenwick and the police specialist went over the statement from one of the self-confessed abuse victims together. They concluded that there was a good chance it was substantially truthful but it was sometimes difficult for victims of abuse to disentangle reality from their nightmares. Several more sessions of careful, sympathetic questioning would be needed before he could be sure he had a reliable witness for any prosecution.

But the good news was that the victim had identified Taylor from an array of e-fits put before him. He also described his car, knew the registration number and talked of a large house with ornate gates.

Fenwick needed fresh air after the interview and went out to buy a sandwich and fruit for a very late lunch, delaying his next visit as he ambled through St James’s Park, his thoughts on the Well-Wisher and the identity of Paul’s killer. He found a bench, finished eating and called Harlden, noting that the battery on his mobile phone was low again, though he was certain he’d charged it. His call was answered quickly and he was put straight through to the incident room.

‘We’ve arrested Sarah Hill for the attempted murder of Jeremy Maidment,’ Bob Cooper said in a deadpan voice Fenwick could tell was forced.

‘Really?’ He could do laconic better than anyone.

‘Well, we knew she was unstable. Who saved him, or did he disarm her with a bedpan?’

‘Well, I did, guv.’

‘Good grief!’

‘It’s true, there are witnesses.’ Cooper laughed.

Fenwick joined in but sobered quickly.

‘Poor woman. She’ll probably be better off in care but it’s such a shame.’

‘The major’s not pressing charges, even though he’s clearly at risk from her. Just as he’s still refusing protection.’

‘Guilty conscience.’

‘He’s decided to leave hospital already, against his doctor’s advice. Nightingale thinks it won’t be long before he leads us to the man he’s protecting.’

‘If it’s likely to be today I must come back.’

‘I wouldn’t bother, there’s no way he’s going anywhere; he can barely walk. The doctors are furious with him for discharging himself and putting his recovery at risk.’

‘Maybe he sees it as some sort of penance. If Nightingale’s managed to wake his conscience the guilt will be eating into him worse than any physical pain.’

‘So you do think he’s a decent bloke then,’ Cooper said with some satisfaction.

‘I think he started out decent, Bob, and maybe he still is inside, but he’s flawed. He’s covered up for a child murderer and serial abuser. No amount of good intentions and charity work can ever compensate for that. A man is what he does in my book.’

‘But surely the real bastards are the men that raped Paul and killed Malcolm. Watkins and Ball are accounted for, maybe three if you believe the Well-Wisher about Taylor…’

‘Which I do.’

‘But that still leaves this man Nathan or The Purse, whatever he calls himself; he’s the villain I want to find.’

‘Me too. I’ll be going to Camden later to see what they’ve been able to find out about the Well-Wisher. By the way, who owns the land where the car was burnt? Has Clive posted a report on that yet?’

‘Hang about; I’m in the incident room now.’

He could hear Cooper call over to one of the research officers.

‘Yes, he gave an update this morning. It’s owned by the council. They bought it as a potential waste-recycling site fifteen years ago. The previous owner isn’t on the database, as it only goes back to 1995 but there’s a search going with Land Registry. Shouldn’t take too long to find the answer. Oh, and there’s a message here for you or Nightingale to call Tom at the lab, says it’s urgent.’

Fenwick used some of his precious battery for the call.

‘Andrew, good. I’ve just spoken to Louise Nightingale; she had her phone off during a tricky interview apparently, but I’m glad you called because I’ve got some fascinating news.’

‘Well, don’t keep me in suspense.’

‘You remember the blood Nightingale found in the copse, with the cigarette butts?’

‘You’ve finished analysing it and got a match.’

‘Don’t spoil my moment of fun! I don’t get that many.’

‘Go on then, Tom, amaze me.’

‘Nicolette made the breakthrough. She extracted DNA from the sample Nightingale gave us and then did something really smart. Rather than running it against all the databases she decided to check it with everything we’ve worked on for the Hill and Eagleton cases. And, yes, she found a match.’

‘To whom; not Ball?’

‘No, another of Paul’s rapists.’

‘What? It must belong to The Purse. Ball’s dead; Taylor’s meant to be dead; Watkins was in custody when the meeting happened… Do you realise what this means? Ball met The Purse the day before he was killed. He might even have been given the drugged whisky that killed him. But how was The Purse injured?’

‘That, I’m happy to say is your job, not mine,’ Tom said with relief.

‘This is fantastic. Say well done to Nicolette for me, will you?’

‘Of course. And well done Nightingale too. If she hadn’t taken those samples you’d be none the wiser.’

Fenwick called her at once but had to leave a message as her phone was off. She’d delivered a critical link between the Choir Boy investigation and Paul Hill. The Purse was still alive and had been within a few miles of Harlden in the last fortnight. He might even have been responsible for Ball’s death.

Fenwick had that strange feeling that came just before the end of an investigation, a sense of something vital about to happen. It was as if all the facts had sunk down within his subconscious and combined into a deep, mud-like goo, confused and without substance. But within that volatile mixture a process had been going on unnoticed, elements shifting, re-sorting, fitting together to create new ideas in an alchemy that was establishing the case’s own DNA. Tom’s news about the match had dropped into this seething mass and it was as if a chain reaction had started that would require very few further ingredients to complete.

If asked, of course, Fenwick would simply have said that things were coming together. He never revealed the subterranean workings of his mind to anyone.

As he walked back his skin prickled. He was hypersensitive to everything happening around him: the rush of tourists and early commuters; the smell of exhaust, sweat and stale food that hung in the heavy air; the casual brushing by of people too preoccupied to notice the man in their midst walking at a pace slower than the crowd.

When he reached Scotland Yard he asked for the man leading the surveillance of the hotel Ball had visited shortly before he died.

Ed Firth was younger than he’d expected from their conversations on the phone. About thirty-five, tall and lanky with glasses, he looked more like a college professor than a detective, and yet he was in charge of the Child Crime and Protection Unit for east London. His team had taken over surveillance when the regular detectives became convinced the house was a brothel servicing paedophiles. Firth shook his hand briefly and then went straight to business. There was little humour about him and Fenwick sensed he cared too much about the victims he was charged to protect and rescue than was good for him.

‘We’ve been able to establish for sure that the Madeira Hotel is actually a paedophile brothel and we’ve just managed to get someone inside. He’s working there serving drinks and food but it’s very hard for him to give us reports without rousing suspicion. Until this morning we hadn’t heard a whisper but then our man called to say that one of the customers is different; there’s a rumour that he might even be the owner.

‘This man.’ Firth passed Fenwick an eight-by-six black and white photograph. ‘We don’t know his name and he’s only visited once since we’ve been watching. Do you know him? Apparently there’s a special boy they keep for him that none of the other punters are allowed to use.’

Fenwick took time to study the picture. It showed a man in his seventies, slight, short, with thinning hair and a toothbrush moustache, leaving the house in an obvious fury. He didn’t recognise him but asked Firth to send a copy through to Harlden so that they could cross-check it against their long list of interviewees.

‘Do you know who the boy is that’s reserved for him?’

‘This lad.’

Firth handed him a shot of a boy looking out of a window on the fifth floor of the hotel.

‘This is an enhanced version. He’s been in that same room for as long as we’ve been watching the place and we’re becoming concerned for his welfare. According to our source the boy tried to run away this morning; went over the back gate but they caught him. We don’t know his name.’

‘I do. He’s Sam Bowyer, born in Cowfold, West Sussex, and he’s only twelve. He ran away from home two months ago. Here.’ Fenwick opened his briefcase and passed Firth Sam’s slim file. ‘Why are you concerned for him?’

‘Look here – on the enhancement to the photograph. See the bruising?’

‘Dear God; it looks as if he’s been strangled. Why haven’t you raided the place?’

‘The longer we continue surveillance the more of the bastards we can capture on film and the more information our man can secure from inside. If we go in too early we may end up with a weak prosecution.’

‘And meantime those boys in there continue to be abused, may even be murdered.’ Fenwick tried to keep his tone neutral but some of his feelings escaped into his words and Firth flushed.

‘Don’t you think I know that, sir?’

‘Whose decision is it when to launch an operation?’

‘My boss, Head of Vice, and the CPS. They’ve a conference tonight as it happens. I’ll tell them my concerns – again – but I don’t think they’re going to change their policy, which is wait and gather as much as we can.’

‘They can’t wait any longer. There really could be murder in that house, I wasn’t playing with words. We’re investigating a paedophile ring that’s already resulted in two boys’ deaths, maybe more. This lad could be next.’ Fenwick picked up Sam’s picture, his face was consumed with anger.

Firth looked at him strangely but Fenwick said nothing to explain the vehemence of his remark. How could he tell a stranger that the boy was so like young Paul Hill that he’d had a premonition of doom about him from the moment he’d first seen his photograph in the random pile of missing persons?

‘I’ll do my best but it would help if you could give me chapter and verse on the other cases.’

‘Call this number, ask for Alison Reynolds. She can give you everything you need. And send copies of the surveillance photographs to her as well. She’s knee deep in a swamp of pornography that would turn anybody’s stomach and one of these men might just match the suspects we’re trying to identify. While I’m here, can I look through the other surveillance pictures in case anything strikes a chord?’

By the time he left Firth they were on better terms, though the half hour he’d wasted on the photos had produced no shock of recognition. Outside the rush-hour traffic had built up and he debated whether to take a cab or the tube to his final appointment. The cars were nose to tail in front of him so he decided on the tube.

He changed onto the Piccadilly line and less than half an hour later was talking to Detective Sergeant Ben Woods at Holborn Police Station. If Woods was surprised that an officer of his rank would trouble to follow up personally on what he clearly considered a minor inquiry, he was too experienced to show it.

‘We’ve been through CCTV footage from the area but there are places not covered, including the phone box itself. You’re welcome to view them if you want to, sir, or you can take them with you.’

He pointed towards seven video cassettes, not as many as Fenwick had hoped for.

‘I’ll have a quick look here and then take them when I leave. What about the area; were there many people about?’

‘Between one and one-thirty in the morning? Very few. We’ve put up notices requesting information and asked in the hotels and bars in the area but without success I’m afraid.’

‘No one saw anything at all?’

‘Nothing, sorry.’

Fenwick took the tapes into the equipment room feeling a fool. He didn’t know why he still did this sort of thing, following up on detail when he could as easily have sent someone else. But he was in the area and he wanted an excuse to stay away from his office a little longer.

He considered the management side of police work a necessary evil. At MCS he’d discovered a civilian clerk keen to be more involved in operational policing and who relished acting as an unofficial administrative assistant for him alongside his secretary. Thanks to their efforts he had improved his reputation and had time to devote to his own priorities without it being noticed.

He had to accept that the other reason he was in London and not in Harlden was that Nightingale was handling the main investigation very well without him. He still felt guilty about his treatment of her at the start of the case and was trying to compensate by giving her space to prove herself.

He fast-forwarded each of the tapes in turn, slowing to normal speed every time a figure came into frame. After half an hour, with just a brief break for something that allegedly was coffee but could have been sump oil, he’d isolated five sections that showed the same man walking from Montague Place at the back of the British Museum towards Russell Square and back again between 1:20 a.m. and 1:39 a.m. The period that he was out of shot coincided exactly with the time of the phone call to
CrimeNight
.

Unfortunately none of the frames gave him a good view of the face and he could only estimate the man’s height at around five six or seven. He found Ben Woods, who arranged for copies of the relevant sections to be made, and gave instructions that the originals should be sent to the Met forensic lab to be enhanced urgently.

‘Is there much around that area?’ Fenwick asked as he sipped another mug of poisonous brown liquid.

‘Nothing that’s open at that time of night; a few shops, a pub on the corner but the landlord saw nothing. There’s a church a bit further up and a refuge for the homeless in Huntley Street but again they close their doors well before one.’