River of Souls (16 page)

The killer’s modus operandi revealed some key facts: attacking at night suggested that he was risk averse and organised enough to lead a double life. He might even be bucking the trend for most convicted serial killers and holding down a day job. Each of the attacks would have required considerable planning, but there seemed to be an element of calmness in his temperament. He had attacked Jude on the back seat of a car, dropped her body into the river, then driven into thin air without leaving a trace. Conjuring tricks that effective required a high degree of forethought. Despite his capacity for violence, he was composed enough to plan each attack rigorously before killing again.

The other clear link between the crimes was the Thames itself. I felt certain that the objects he attached to the victims’ bodies had a symbolic value, as well as a historic one. They wouldn’t have looked out of place in Jake Fielding’s exhibition of artefacts. Although the fetishistic element of the killing ritual remained unclear, the attacker’s confidence seemed to be growing. Amala’s death had shown an escalation in violence; her ordeal had lasted longer, and binding her feet and hands before tethering her to the riverbank had been the worst cruelty yet. Even if she had survived her injuries, she could never have swum away. I closed my eyes and tried to picture the kind of man who could calmly destroy someone’s face, then stand back and watch them drown.

I flicked open Hugh Lister’s book on the history of the Thames. It explained that the river had been sacred since prehistory. Bronze Age settlers had made human sacrifices and cast jewellery, swords and arrows into the water to appease their gods. They had lived in fear of immense floods that ravaged their settlements. The Romans had made offerings too, sacrificing bronze, gold and glass to the tides. But the chapter on the seventeenth century interested me most. It showed pictures of bellarmines just like the one tied to Amala’s body, the ceramic bottles small as the palm of my hand. Like Jake had said, the spirit jars had been used in witchcraft rituals to cast spells and capture spirits.

I scanned the pages until I spotted a fact that startled me. During the seventeenth-century witch trials, hundreds of women had been put to death at Execution Dock. They were tied to ducking stools or bound to the riverbank. Three tides had to wash over their corpses, to rinse away their wickedness, before their bodies could be buried. Maybe the killer had been sending a message by executing Amala using the same method. The end of the book revealed another surprise: bellarmines had a high monetary value. A German museum had paid thousands of euros recently to acquire an intact one. I closed the book and gazed out of the window at the pedestrians sidestepping puddles on Victoria Street. The killer must either be combing the Thames foreshore regularly, or have access to large sums of money.

I spent the rest of the morning checking assessment forms from my interviews, then studied my printout of the evidence gathered so far. HOLMES 2 – the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System – was a blunt instrument at the best of times, taking similar fact evidence and crunching it into a crude formula. Shane Weldon’s name was first on the suspect list it threw out, but I remained unconvinced. Despite the fact that he’d known Father Owen and killed a woman in the same vicinity, there had been no planning or ritualised violence in his first attack. None of the suspects identified by the profiling software struck me as a good psychological fit.

I studied my own list and thought again about Guy Shelley. His edgy manner, instability and isolation were all signs of a violent personality. Paul Ramirez had seemed incensed by Jude’s desertion, but Burns’s team had discovered nothing suspicious in his past, and his wife claimed that he’d been at home on the nights of each attack. Even if his rage towards Jude had made Ramirez violent, why would he kill her priest and her former nanny? My report felt thin and unsatisfactory as I folded it into an envelope.

Heather Shelley looked tense when I arrived at midday. Burns had been keen to interview her about Amala’s death, but I’d managed to keep him away, convinced that she’d be more open if I met her alone. It had been a week since our first meeting, but she seemed to be regretting her request for frequent progress reports. She sat at her kitchen table, raking her fingers through her hair, barely able to keep still.

‘First Father Owen and now Amala. I can’t believe it’s happening again,’ she whispered.

‘Can you tell me about your relationship with Amala?’

Her eyes were glassy with shock. ‘She was eighteen when she came to us. We employed her as our au pair through an agency, but the kids adored her, so I helped her apply for a permanent visa. She stayed on for three years as our housekeeper after they went to secondary school, then I encouraged her to get some qualifications.’

‘When was the last time you met?’

‘Two weeks ago. We visited Jude together, then had coffee.’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Someone must know who’s doing this. His wife, or a relative.’

‘Killers can be incredibly devious, unfortunately. Concealment’s part of the thrill. They love to feel they’re controlling the rules of the game.’

She glared at me. ‘How can you call it a game? My daughter’s fighting for her life and two of our friends have been murdered.’

‘I wasn’t describing my point of view. I have to enter the offender’s mind-set; a lot of convicted killers are competitive. They see successful attacks as victories.’

Misery was clear in her face. ‘I shouldn’t have snapped. I’m sorry, yesterday was a tough day.’

‘Something else upset you?’

‘Guy’s in a terrible state. He drove over from his flat on Bankside yesterday and he hasn’t left his room. The news about Amala hit him hard. He only stays here when he’s ill.’ She stared down at her clasped hands. ‘The GP’s upped his anti-depressants, but they don’t seem to be working.’

Heather’s distraught expression made me feel guilty for keeping her son’s name on my suspect list. It seemed ironic that Guy Shelley’s flat was on the riverside, a stone’s throw from the Tate Modern. He was surrounded by enough cultural stimulation to fuel his creativity for years, yet he was too frail to enjoy it.

‘Would you like me to speak to him?’

She looked optimistic for the first time since I arrived. Maybe she thought that a psychologist could wave a magic wand and restore her son’s mental health. But I felt sure he would need dozens of therapy sessions to address his problems. I’d made the offer more for Heather’s benefit than his. Despite her husband’s glamorous job, I didn’t envy the strain she was under. Seeing Guy would also let me assess his psychological state and help remove his name from my list.

I paused on the landing when Heather led me to the top floor. She managed to persuade Guy to let me in, but it was clear he was in no state for conversation. His room was modest compared to the rest of the house, grey light filtering through the window. A few sketchbooks were stacked on a table littered with screwed-up paper. He was hunched on the edge of his bed, forehead balanced on the heels of his hands. I sat on an armchair a few metres away.

‘No need to speak unless you want to,’ I said. ‘I’ll stay for ten minutes. If you feel like talking, I’m happy to listen.’

Silence is the first rule of psychology. Over the years I’d drawn hundreds of confessions from patients and prisoners, simply because I’d kept my counsel. At first I thought Guy would say nothing; he didn’t move a muscle, his chest curled tightly over his knees as though the outside world had ceased to exist. There was a row of charcoal drawings on the wall. One showed a demolished house, with bricks and girders spilling from its structure. Beside it was an aerial view of the Thames, frayed as a torn strip of silk. It seemed odd that all his sketches focused on dissolution.

Guy’s voice was almost too quiet to hear. ‘It’s happening again. I can’t stand it any more and she’s making it worse.’

‘Your mum?’        

‘Not her.’ He shook his head vehemently, still unable to meet my eye.

‘Try to explain why you’re upset, Guy.’

The silence thickened until it felt like a layer of foam insulating the room. I was about to leave when Guy finally looked up, his skin chalky, eyes reddened. ‘You can’t see it, can you? Lies are the only thing holding my family together.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘There are secrets everywhere you look.’

I asked him to explain, but he closed his eyes, his head lolling forwards over his knees.

Heather Shelley looked shocked by her son’s claim when I got back downstairs. ‘He’s upset. Guy often talks nonsense when he’s stressed.’

‘If there’s a family secret, it would help me to know.’

‘I’m not hiding anything.’

I smiled at her. ‘Most parents tell the odd white lie to protect their kids.’

‘Guy could be talking about his adoption. We mishandled how we told him about it. He’d always been so fragile, we waited until he was twelve. When he finally heard he went off the rails. He was furious everyone had known except him.’

It took me a moment to absorb the information. The photos in the kitchen made the family look like the perfect unit, but Guy’s build and colouring set him apart. ‘Has Guy seen a therapist since Jude was attacked?’

‘It didn’t help. I keep asking him to go back, but he refuses. The pattern’s always the same; he comes here in a dreadful state, stays a day or two, then leaves without saying what’s wrong.’

‘That sounds painful.’

She rubbed her hand across her cheek. ‘Tim doesn’t notice half the time. By the way, his office has arranged your meeting for tomorrow morning.’

‘Thanks. I want to find out whether the attacks could be linked to his job.’ I made the statement to reassure her. It seemed unlikely that anyone from the minister’s political sphere would choose to attack Amala, but I wanted to reduce her worry about the family connection.

‘You’ll have a hard time getting anything out of him. Tim’s got an amazing knack for detaching himself from anything personal.’

‘Try not to worry too much.’ I reached out and touched her hand. ‘Your son might find cognitive behavioural therapy useful. It won’t fix deep-seated emotional issues, but it can relieve anxiety.’

She gave a grateful smile then checked her watch. ‘Jude’s expecting me, but you’ll come back soon, won’t you?’

Heather’s stance seemed contradictory. Her body language was hurrying me out of the door, but her words were begging me to return.

20

I puzzled over the meeting with Heather and Guy during my taxi ride to St Pancras Way. A family therapist could have written a book about the Shelleys. Only the minister seemed immune to suffering, his stellar career distracting him from family concerns. I still had the sense that the killer must be so closely linked that any of the Shelleys could have identified him. When I looked out of the window, rows of police officers were marching along the riverbank by Blackfriars Bridge. Despite the inclement weather, search parties were scouring the foreshore at low tide. Rain was still coursing along the gutter as the cab pulled up outside the police station. A huddle of journalists was waiting outside under giant umbrellas, but I managed to bypass them without being accosted.

The incident room was busy as I headed for Burns’s office. Angie was babbling into her phone nineteen to the dozen, and Tania was giving one of her male underlings a dressing-down. She had a six-inch height advantage, and was applying the full force of her frown, glossy black hair tucked behind her ears. Detectives were racing from desk to desk. I’d never seen an investigation team working so purposefully, their urge to find Amala Adebayo’s killer going into overdrive.

Burns looked disgruntled when I reached his office, tie loose around his neck, as though he feared strangulation. His expression was a mixture of anxiety and poorly controlled rage. He nodded a formal greeting but gave no sign of a smile.

‘I’ve brought my profile report,’ I said. ‘Do you want me to talk you through it?’

‘I can guess what it says. Jude’s the trigger, isn’t she? He’s attacking anyone close to her. But what’s the cause? Someone’s picking off people she cares about.’

I shook my head. ‘You’re ignoring his obsession with the river and the fact that each attack hurts all of the Shelleys. I’ve included details of people I’ve interviewed and a couple of names to investigate more closely, but I need to push Jude harder for information tomorrow. Her whole family seems weighed down by secrets, especially Guy. The pressure’s brought him close to cracking point.’

‘Heather’s his alibi for the night of the attack, isn’t she?’

I nodded. ‘They’ve got different stories about how they spent the evening.’

‘Do you want Tania to interview them again?’