River of Souls (12 page)

Jude’s room still smelled of sickness and antiseptic. The pillows on her bed were stacked so high she was raised almost vertical, as if she was determined to be on an equal footing when we began our work.

‘Are you sure you want to do this, Jude? I could come back another day.’

‘Now’s fine, but how do you know it’ll work?’

‘It normally does.’ I smiled at her. ‘You don’t have to relive the memory, just take the parts that surface, and let the rest pass. I’ll play you a recording I made by the Thames, about the same time you left the party. It should help you remember that night. You can end the session at any time. Is that all right?’

‘I think so.’ Her hands were locked together like a mountaineer clutching a guide rope.

‘Say the word and we’ll stop. Okay?’

Her face was shielded by her veil of chestnut hair, but she gave a light nod. I pressed the play button on my Dictaphone and the room filled with sounds. High heels clacked along the pavement, a plane engine droning, the shrill whine of a motorbike. After a few minutes, Jude’s hands fell limp at her sides.

‘Can you remember what you wore to the party?’ I asked.

Her words hissed out slowly. ‘Denim jacket, summer dress, green wedge-heeled sandals.’

‘Well remembered, that’s brilliant. Did you drink much?’

‘Only a few glasses of wine. I chatted for a while, danced with Natalie and some other friends. Then I left about one a.m., by myself.’

‘Listen to the sounds and try to remember what happened next. You can surface any time you want.’

Her voice was so calm it sounded like she’d been drugged. ‘The street was deserted. There were no taxis, so I decided to catch a night bus to Jamal’s, to apologise for yelling at him. It happened fast after that. A man pulled me onto the back seat of a car.’

‘Did he get out of the passenger’s side?’

‘No, he was in the driving seat.’

‘You’re standing on the pavement now. What do you see?’

‘He’s taller than me, wearing a hat or a hood. His face is in the shadows.’

‘What about his hair colour?’

She hesitated. ‘Almost hidden, I think it’s whitish blond.’

‘You’re doing really well. Now you’re in the car, what can you hear?’

‘His breathing. He’s on the back seat, whispering something about the river. The blindfold’s tight around my eyes. It’s all happening so quickly.’ She fell silent, as if her energy was draining away.

‘What can you smell?’

‘Something sickly. Sweetness and chemicals.’

‘What does it remind you of?’

‘Fake tan or cheap perfume. And his clothes feel coarse when I try and fight him; synthetic, not cotton.’

‘Listen to his voice again. What does it sound like?’

‘Strained, as if he’s trying to disguise it. But the accent’s like mine. It’s familiar.’

‘Can you remember where you heard it?’

‘All I can feel is the pain in my head. That’s where it ends. There’s nothing else.’ Her hands were twisting again in her lap, the torn flap of her mouth sealing itself.

‘Okay, Jude, I’m switching off the recording. When you hear the click, you’ll be back here with me, perfectly safe.’

When I hit the switch, Jude heaved for breath like she was surfacing from a long dive, the respirator wheezing oxygen into her lungs.

I had an hour to kill before meeting Burns. I sat in the library on Euston Road, studying my notes. Jude’s reaction to autohypnosis had been unusually powerful. She was so eager to remember her attacker’s identity that she’d fallen into a state of semi-consciousness as soon as the recording started. But her recall was so patchy there was little hard detail to go on. She’d conjured up a bizarre picture of a man desperate not to be recognised. It sounded like her attacker had disguised every part of his identity – voice, skin tone and clothes. His desire for concealment plus his repeated apologies made me wonder if he was an atypical psychopath, capable of feeling remorse.

I flicked through my notes from previous meetings. Interviewing Jude’s close relatives had shown me a family fraying at the seams. Guy’s anxiety had disabled him since the attack, and Heather was frantic with worry. Timothy Shelley was so caught up in the pressures of his job that he had little time for anything else. He had probably never noticed the extent of his son’s unhappiness and seemed determined to keep out of the reinvestigation. It was taking far too long to visit him at Westminster to discover if Guy was correct about his father’s job exposing him to potential threats.

I pushed my notes back into the folder and tried to focus on why Guy’s behaviour had concerned me. On a psychological level he seemed even more damaged than Jude, exuding isolation and negativity, locked inside his unsmiling shell. But I was no closer to understanding the killer’s choice of victims. Jude and Father Owen had known each other, but no link had been established between them and Amala Adebayo. Killing a newly qualified policewoman seemed to challenge the theory that the Shelley family was the primary target.

Taxis were in short supply on the Euston Road, which was buzzing with weekenders heading for Bloomsbury, but at least the driver who finally collected me seemed happy. Londoners were queuing to use his services rather than face the constant downpours. I arrived at Lambeth Road to find Burns waiting outside a greengrocer’s, his collar turned up, wearing a look of abject disgust.

‘Dreich,’ he muttered.

‘You can say that again.’

‘Let’s get a coffee.’ He nodded at a greasy spoon across the road.

Burns sat opposite me in the café. He looked the same as ever, built like a heavyweight boxer, dark eyes giving me a baleful stare. Attraction still nagged at me; but hopefully suppressing it would make it die away.

‘Whatever you’ve got to say, spit it out, so we can clear the air,’ I said.

‘I still need to apologise.’

‘You already did, but I didn’t buy it. Men don’t go home for the sake of their children. They go because they love their wives.’

His eyes locked onto mine. ‘You don’t get it, do you? It wasn’t easy. You were in my head for years.’

‘Rubbish. All you think about is work.’

‘That’s not true.’ His smile creased the corners of his eyes. ‘There’s always time to fantasise.’

‘Don’t flirt with me, Don.’

‘I wouldn’t dare.’

‘Good, then we can be friends again.’

Burns looked shocked. ‘Have we ever been friends?’

‘Not really.’

He gave a slow grin. ‘We’re back to square one then.’

‘Not quite. I’ve got good reason to hate you now. My bike got nicked from the railings at Wapping.’

He looked mortified. ‘Was it insured?’

‘Forget it. Let’s just get on with the job.’

He nodded. ‘I’ve had some news about Amala. Guess who she worked for when she got her first nannying post?’

‘Enlighten me.’

‘The Shelleys. She was Guy and Jude’s nanny before the MP got his cabinet post, and she stayed close to the family. It was Heather who encouraged her to join the police. Amala visited Jude in hospital every few weeks, regular as clockwork.’

My thoughts raced. Anyone who entered the lives of the Shelleys was in danger: first their priest and now the children’s former nanny. Other members of the family could be next on his list.

‘What kind of security have the Shelleys got?’

‘Category One, Ministry of Defence. They’ve stepped up travel security round the minister, and the wife and son have been given bodyguards.’

‘That’s good news. Jude’s still sure she knew her attacker’s voice, but the memory’s buried too deep to access. You need to run a check on everyone who crossed her path: kids from her school, friends, teachers, social groups. It sounds like the guy’s heavily disguised when he makes his attacks. He smells of fake tan, wears a hat or a hood, and he may be using some kind of costume. If he’s going to that kind of trouble, it’s more than concealment. I think he’s ashamed, Don. He probably hates himself for what he’s doing.’

‘The bloke’s all heart, isn’t he?’ Burns’s smile twisted. ‘Did she mention any names?’

‘Not yet. I’ll have to keep working with her. Have you got any information on Paul Ramirez yet? I got the sense he’s chasing students like it’s going out of fashion.’

‘Angie’s found nothing so far.’

‘I wish I knew more about the calling cards.’

‘They could just be bits of old rubbish from the riverbank; more proof that the bloke’s mad as a hatter.’ Burns seemed so focused on the human details of the case he’d forgotten that the objects could be vital clues.

‘It’s got to be more than that. The arrowhead he tied round Jude’s neck might be centuries old, I did a search on the Internet. I’m seeing a historian at King’s College tonight to get the pieces identified.’

He looked distracted as he checked his watch. ‘Let me know if you want an escort. We should get moving, Shane Weldon’s waiting for us.’

‘Why are you so keen for me to assess him?’

‘The MIT interviewed him three times after Jude’s attack, but we know they weren’t thorough enough. The bloke killed a woman in Battersea twenty years ago, cut her throat, then dumped her in the river. He’s lived at Sinclair House for two years since his release, but something could have sparked his violence again, couldn’t it?’

I kept my misgivings to myself as we walked to Sinclair House. The only connection I could see with the current crimes was the riverside location of Weldon’s attack. From Burns’s description, no other factor linked him to the Shelleys. The hostel turned out to be an austere red-brick building set back from the Lambeth Road, with barred ground-floor windows. It looked like a cross between a prison and a low rent hotel, the carpet in the foyer worn thin as paper. The manager was called Mr Bell, his smile a jumble of grey, mismatched teeth.

‘Shane’s waiting in the day room. Can you spare me a minute after you’ve see him?’

‘Certainly,’ I replied.

He led us down a corridor to the back of the building. Yellowing paint was drifting from the walls, and the air smelled of woodworm, bleach and spoilt milk. Weldon was sitting in the day room, reading the
Sun
. His sandy hair was so badly styled it looked like he’d cut it himself, a ragged fringe undulating across his forehead. Even from a distance there was something disturbing about his face.

‘You stayed in specially for this, didn’t you, Shane?’ Mr Bell addressed his client as if he was twelve years old.

‘We need to see Mr Weldon alone, please,’ Burns said.

The manager looked affronted as he backed away. When I glanced at Weldon again, I realised why his face had startled me. A deep scar bisected his left cheek. The cut had severed his facial muscles, leaving him with the incomplete smile of a stroke victim. His eyes were tiny and too close together, his gaze flickering from my breasts to my legs, without ever landing on my face.

‘What’s this about?’ His voice had the low rasp of a committed smoker.

‘We’re looking into the Jude Shelley case and two recent attacks by the river,’ I said.

‘I don’t know anything about that.’ His truncated smile vanished.

Burns leant forwards. ‘Where were you Sunday and on Wednesday night, Shane?’

Weldon’s fingers tugged at his hair, gestures twitchy as a teenager’s, even though he must have been in his forties. ‘I went to church on Sunday, then for a walk. Wednesday I saw my mum at her flat in Wembley. Last time I checked, all those things were legal.’

‘Don’t get clever,’ Burns snarled. ‘It doesn’t suit you.’

‘Which church do you go to, Shane?’ I asked.

He hesitated for a second. ‘St Mary’s.’

I studied him more closely. ‘Did you know that Father Owen was killed a few days ago? His body was found on the riverbank.’

‘I just go to the services. It’s my nearest Catholic church.’ His hands twitched in his lap.

‘I’ll need to check that,’ Burns said, pulling out his notepad. ‘What’s your mum’s phone number?’