The Blood Detective (19 page)

He had asked for the News of the World reel to be brought to him, so that he could soak up every

nuance and detail, the more salacious the better, and immerse himself in the case.

The picture swiftly became clear. The accused was a simple giant, ‘nearer seven feet than six’. Nigel knew this would have marked him out as extraordinary in a time when the average size was about a foot shorter than the present day. The man was itinerant, travelling the country in search of work, as many of his class did, transported by the booming railways. The press had used this common fact to imply shiftiness, as if there were sinister reasons behind Fairbairn’s many travels. One interview with a Liverpudlian, a native of the city where Fairbairn had worked on the docks for less than a year, said that he had been hounded from his job by colleagues.

‘He weren’t right,’ was the damning verdict.

There was no shortage of neighbours to echo that view. Fairbairn kept himself to himself, he didn’t mix, he barely spoke. Each character quirk was taken and finessed to insinuate a loner, a crank, a nut. Even more damning was the fact he was known to frequent local pubs, an insignificant nugget the News of the World regarded as important enough to mention in every update on the investigation.

On 5 th May Fairbairn, now almost universally

known as ‘The Giant’, appeared at the Old Bailey.

He loped to the dock and spent the whole proceedings fixing his focus on the floor. ‘Not once did he raise his baleful gaze from his boots,’ The Times reporter noted. ‘Not even when his name was called, nor even when his fateful plea of Not Guilty was recorded.’

Two weeks later, on 19th May — the wheels of

justice were not slow to turn in the nineteenth century — the trial began. The court was teeming, the best seats bought by the upper classes in search of low class thrills. When Fairbairn took his place in court, high-pitched gasps broke the expectant hush. Most of them emanated from wealthy women in the ringside seats. This being the judicial equivalent of opening night, they were dressed in their best — hats and all.

One reporter noted the rustle as one after the other they produced fans to cool themselves: ‘Such was the crush around the venerable court that gathering breath was a trial.’ The same reporter noticed the mixture of distasteful and admiring looks directed towards the defendant, which accompanied the

furious fanning.

Those in the cheap seats were less demure. Cries of ‘Hang, you bastard!’ and ‘Let him dangle!’ led to at least four men being ejected, a scene described by the man from The Times as ‘a sordid kerfuffle’. Through it it all Fairbairn’s gaze never once lifted from his feet. Instead of the giant man who had appeared at the arraignment, Fairbairn seemed to have been physically altered by his ordeal. His shoulders slumped, he had lost weight, he winced when he

moved, and one arm remained seemingly immobile at his side. ‘Never has a sorrier, more pathetic creature answered such a grave charge,’ The Times opined.

Nigel noted with interest the fact that Fairbairn was being charged with only two of the Kensington killings, presumably for lack of evidence regarding the other three. He recorded this in his notepad, knowing that it might be something to pursue later.

The two he was answering were the first and third killings, just over a week apart.

The case was prosecuted by Mr John J. Dart, QC, MP who, from the transcript provided by one of the newspapers, was not going to allow the opportunities afforded by such a stage to be squandered. There was no physical description of the barrister, but Nigel pictured a portly, pompous politico, florid features glowing under his white wig as he preened on the floor of the packed courthouse. He opened by asking the jury to strike from their minds all that had been written about the case, which would be decided on the known facts.

Here Dart turned and slowly raised his finger

in the direction of the accused. The Times recorded how the eyes of the courtroom followed the direction of the digit.

// is the Crown’s case that that man stood there, Eke Fairbairn, did with malice and in cold blood murder Samuel Roebuck and Leonard Childe.

Dart held his pose, allowing the impact of his

gesture and words to settle on the audience. Once again, from the public gallery, came the cry ‘Let him dangle!’ followed by a brief halt in proceedings while the judge called for order. When they reconvened, Dart outlined the prosecution case.

On the evening of March 24th, Mr Roebuck, as he was in the habit of doing was seeking refreshment in the Clarendon public house on Clarendon Road. According to witnesses, Mr Roebuck had taken a considerable amount of porter during the evening hours. He was a working man and this was nearing the end of a working week. It is not for us here to judge his behaviour. No, Mr Roebuck has met our maker and judgement has already been passed by a higher authority. Late in the evening he was described as drunk yet not incapable.

For reasons unknown, you will hear how Roebuck became embroiled in a quarrel with the prisoner at the bar, which culminated in the ejection from the premises of both men, the expectation being that the quarrel would be settled there and not within sight of womenfolk. The two men departed…

The Times noted here how Dart walked the length of the jury rail before returning to his original spot without saying another word, until:

Roebuck was not to be seen alive again!

Once again he allowed his words time to imprint on the consciousness of those present. Next he outlined the details of the second murder charge, relating to Leonard Childe, a 38-year-old blacksmith. Again, the night before he was found stabbed, Childe had been drinking at a local pub. Fairbairn had been drinking in the same pub and, as with the previous charge, was seen to row with the victim. Both were evicted from the premises. Dart said the prosecution would also produce a knife found at the lodgings of the accused, and an expert witness who would testify it was the same knife that had caused the fatal wounds.

The News of the World reported how, as the prosecution’s opening speech came to its close, Dart

lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper.

is the prosecution’s case that the accused is a man incapable of handling strong drink. A man who, rather than settling his quarrels with his fists or turning the other cheek, did brutally pull a knife and slay both unfortunates. Good Christian men know evil lurks in the bottom of a glass. We contend there is an even bigger evil lurking in the heart of the accused. Together they have forged a combustible and repellent concoction that has been midwife to these obscene and ungodly acts.

‘If this map is right, then it should be somewhere around here,’ Heather said, turning a photocopy of a map one way and then the other in the hope its mysteries would become clearer.

The bray of a car horn from their rear made them both jump.

‘The bastard,’ Foster said, checking the rear-view mirror and seeing, from the neck down at least, the male driver of a white van, slapping his steering wheel in frustration at their pedestrian pace.

‘Sir, don’t,’ Heather cautioned.

Foster bit his lip. He wanted to stop the car, climb out and, as the white-van Neanderthal bristled, produce his badge, administer a bollocking and tell him to watch out. The roads of London, where men and women developed the patience of toddlers at being held up in the choked streets, agitation growing at their role as insignificant cogs in the great city’s grinding daily machine, had long since been a bugbear for Foster. The resentment caused by the morning’s meeting with Harris, the ignominy of being sidelined, had not yet dissipated. Venting his spleen on a gormless van driver might prove cathartic.

Instead, aware from the corner of his eye of

Heather’s concern, he merely continued to dawdle, gaining solace from the knowledge that he was adding a few increments to the rising blood pressure of the bottom-feeder behind him. Sure enough, there came another blare of frustration, just after Heather indicated that he should turn left on to Queensdale Road.

The street was empty. They parked outside a Sikh temple at the end of the road and got out of the car.

‘That’s where the Salvation Army mission was,’

Heather said, poring over the map once more. They had gone straight to the local studies section of the hbrary at Kensington Town Hall. Within seconds of asking for a map they had obtained one, printed only a few years after the killings of 1879. Saunders Road was on there, at the end of what was then Queen’s Road, now Queensdale. They made a photocopy and drove straight to this spot.

Foster stood and looked at the map with Heather.

He saw the angle of Saunders Road on the map, then gazed up at the point where it would have stood in the present day.

‘Jesus,’ he said.

Heather was as quick to work out where the road had been. It was a road no longer; instead, twin tower blocks, brown, beige and monstrous, two plinths of sixties functionalism, soared above them into the steel-grey sky. To their left was a terrace of handsome Victorian townhouses, costing well over a million each, Volkswagens and Beamers sitting patiently outside.

Across the road was a different world: high-rise living with its neighbours from hell and claustrophobic menace. Despite spending all his life in the capital, it still took his breath away to see how these two quintessential styles of London existed side by side, rubbing away at each other like silk and sandpaper.

They worked out from the map that it was the

nearest of the two tower blocks that covered the ground where Saunders Road had been.

‘This guy’s having a laugh,’ Foster said.

The pair reached the entrance of the grubby building.

A young black woman leaving with a crusty

nosed child gave them a suspicious look, rumbling them as police immediately. The local force were probably seen and heard on a nightly basis, Foster thought. Inside the lobby, the smell of piss, neglect and bleach was heady rather than overpowering.

‘Twenty-four floors,’ Heather said, looking at the lift. She did not press the button to summon it, for which Foster was thankful. He dare not contemplate the evils it may contain. However, at that moment it opened. An acned youth in a white tracksuit, and blessed with the furtive face of a rat, stepped out.

‘How many flats in this building?’ Heather asked.

He stopped, looked at both, a vacant worry spreading across his face. Foster caught the unmistakable sweet whiff of marijuana.

‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘Maybe a hundred or summink.’

‘Thanks,’ Foster said and let him pass, though not without a long withering stare to worsen the youth’s stoned paranoia.

‘So, a hundred-plus flats, any of which could be the one our killer uses to dump the next victim. He could be in there now.’ He swiftly corrected himself. ‘They could be in there now.’

Heather nodded. ‘Nothing for it but to go door-to door and keep an eye on every scroat who comes and goes.’

Foster plunged his hands deep into his coat

pockets.

‘No point checking on who in this place has a

record,’ he dead-panned. ‘Bet only the cleaning lady and the lift engineer don’t.’ He gave his colleague a grim smile. ‘Come on. Let’s make a quick phone call before we start.’

They went back to the car, where he switched

on the heater and the radio. Together they formed a background murmur.

Andy Drinkwater’s phone seemed to ring for an

age. Eventually he answered, sounding breathless.

‘It’s Foster.’

‘Sir,’ Drinkwater exclaimed. ‘You heard the news?’

‘What news?’

‘We’ve pulled in a suspect. Happened about twenty minutes ago.’

‘Who?’ He could already sense conflicting emotions: joy that the killer might have been caught before he could strike again; frustration that it was someone else who made the nick.

‘Details are still a bit fuzzy. He’s called Terry Cable.

He fits the description on the sketch. Apparently, he’s previously served time for manslaughter and has a record of using GHB, including once for a date rape, though the charge was withdrawn.’

Bang to rights, then, thought Foster.

‘What was your news?’ Drinkwater asked.

‘We’ve found the place where the next killing will be. Or, at least, where the next body will be found.

A tower block beside the Westway. Was hoping

I could round up some help.’

Drinkwater paused. ‘It’s all hands to the pump

here, sir.’

‘Don’t worry, Andy. I understand. Keep me

updated.’

‘Will do.’

The line went dead.

‘What?’ Heather said, desperate to be in the loop.

‘They’ve pulled someone in. Sounds promising.’

‘Yes,’ she said, and clapped her hands together once as she spoke.

Foster didn’t share her sense of triumph, and he could see she’d noticed.

‘You’re not certain, are you?’ she queried.

Foster shrugged. ‘We have a suspect, at least. At last’ But no, he thought, I’m not certain. ‘Come on,’

he added, turning the engine over. ‘Let’s get a coffee.

We need all the energy we can get if we’re going door-to-door in a tower block.’

The hours had fallen away. A member of staff put his head around the door to ask Nigel politely if he needed anything, and mutter apologetically that the hbrary closed in half an hour. Nigel first had to shake his head to bring himself back into the present, and then checked his watch to make sure the librarian was not joking. He wasn’t; it was four thirty exactly.

‘Did the detective make any provision for me

staying after hours?’ he asked.

The assistant shook his head dolefully.

‘Don’t suppose I can without his arrangement,

can I?’

The assistant affirmed that was the case.

Nigel found his phone and called Foster. He told him that the hbrary was to close in thirty minutes.

‘How much more have you got to look at?’ came

the reply.

‘I’m on the final day of the trial; they’re about to reach a verdict, I think.’