Anna stood up as Mike told her to talk to the prison governor to arrange the meeting. Privately far from happy, she left his office and returned to inform Barolli about Langton’s suggestion.
“Shit, that’s a schlepp and a half up there, isn’t it? It’s around Leeds — right?”
“Correct.” Anna wasn’t sure if the distance made it better or not. “I’ll contact the governor and type up a letter of introduction.”
It took three calls before she was able to speak to Jeremy Hardwick, the governor of Barfield. Hardwick was pleasant and listened as she explained, then he agreed that she should be allowed into the secure unit to talk to Welsh. So she made an appointment for the following afternoon and asked Barbara to work out how long the trip would take. Langton passed by her desk as he was leaving and paused.
“I’ve made contact with the prison,” Anna told him.
“Good. Make them keep him in his cage, get what you can, and report back. I think it’ll be a wasted journey, but right now we’ve nothing else.”
She watched him look over the incident board and have a talk with Barolli before he left. But she felt nothing.
Before long, Barbara came over to Anna with a route map and the details she would need.
“Are you driving, or should I get a train timetable?” Barbara asked.
“No, this is fine. I’ll drive, and Paul’s with me.”
“Remember, you’ll need the fax from the prison and an introduction letter; plus, do keep your petrol receipts.”
“Thank you, Barbara.” At least she would be well prepared, Anna thought.
“So tell me about this geezer Welsh,” Barolli said, slurping his coffee as he settled himself in Anna’s passenger seat. She had picked him up from his flat in Notting Hill, and they were heading for the M1.
“Highly intelligent;” just got a degree in child psychology. He was well educated, went to public school and I can’t remember which university, but he was reading law and dropped out. Anyway, he represented himself at his trial,” Anna told Barolli, wishing he wouldn’t slurp so loudly.
“So did Ted Bundy.”
“What?”
“That American serial killer, killed Christ knows how many women.”
“Yes, yes, I know who he is.”
“Well, he represented himself at his trial. The judge apparently said what a waste it was that such a brilliant mind should be so deviant, as he could have been a successful man.”
“Maybe Welsh could have been, but he just gave me the shivers,” said Anna, remembering.
“Why?”
“Because of his manner — everything about it. He was so well spoken and so arrogant, treating us as if we were beneath him. He never showed any emotion whatsoever, even when it was obvious we had enough evidence to arrest him, not even when he was charged. During his trial, he used to doodle on a notepad all the time and was constantly interrupting the prosecution. Judge Oldfield laid into him after one session, and he was quite unapologetic, simply drawling that as he was the man on trial for his life, he had every right to question the prosecution’s long-winded summing-up.”
“How long did he get?”
“Oldfield gave him two life sentences without bail, so thankfully, he will die in prison. The judge said he was one of the most despicable men he had ever encountered, that his crimes were sadistic and violent, and that he had never at any time shown a fragment of compassion for his victims.”
“How did he kill them?” Barolli seemed grimly intrigued.
“Held them captive, tortured and raped them over a period of four or five months. The first girl was only seventeen, and the second girl was snatched eight months after he disposed of victim one’s body. He buried her in the garden of his basement flat. It was a hideous place. Part of it was still like a cellar, with chains and bare brick walls, but the section he lived in was luxurious, and he owned the large walled garden. The area of the basement he occupied had every piece of high-tech equipment conceivable, with plasma TV, stereo, and an amazing kitchen extension with culinary devices a professional chef would die for. He actually owned the whole house but leased off the other flats.”
“What work did he do?”
“He ran a very successful IT company with offices in Canary Wharf, and he employed four people, or he used to. By the time we got on to him, he’d closed it down. I think he was ready to move abroad.”
Barolli tapped her arm and pointed as they headed toward the roundabout that led to the start of the M1. He asked if she ever used the big Brent Cross shopping center, as he had been there a few times. She shook her head, and he began telling her how much he had saved on the sale price of some fitted wardrobes for his mother. As they approached the motorway, there were numerous young guys holding up cardboard notices with various locations on them, from Manchester to Liverpool.
“London Gateway service station is the first up, isn’t it?” Barolli asked.
“Yes,” Anna replied.
“Used to be called Scratchwood Services,” he said as he slurped more coffee. After a long pause, he returned to their previous conversation. “Doesn’t make sense, does it?”
“What doesn’t?”
“That he was so successful and yet still committed murder. I mean, was he a freaky-looking bloke?” Barolli wanted to know, finishing the dregs of his coffee.
“No. On the contrary, he was very handsome — tall, well dressed.”
“Fuck. I dunno. Hannibal Lecter — right? I mean, don’t tell me in his fab kitchen he cooked his victims?”
“No, but he entertained lots of women. He honestly didn’t fit any profile we had ever come across, and it took months of surveillance and more months compiling the evidence against him. Langton headed up the inquiry, and he was like a dog with a bone: he wouldn’t back off him.”
“He’s something else.”
Anna hesitated and asked if he meant Langton. Barolli nodded.
“Yeah. I wish I’d started my career under his wing, like you. I could have learned a lot from him. Now he basically just swings in, passes out orders, and swings out again, but I’d have really liked the opportunity of working alongside him in his earlier days.”
Anna agreed, which led them to discuss how many cases Barolli and Langton had subsequently worked on together, from the serial-killer movie star to the Red Dahlia case. Where Barolli had not been as fortunate as Anna was in the many cases between.
“He sort of specializes in serial murders, doesn’t he?”
Anna nodded and then recalled the horrendous case when Langton had almost been killed. She didn’t want to think about the details even now.
“You had a scene with him, didn’t you?” Barolli asked, and Anna gripped the steering wheel.
“Yes, but it was over a long time ago, and I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“Okay,” said Barolli, unperturbed. “So let’s go back to this animal Cameron Welsh. You said that Langton was on to him — dog with a bone, you said, right?”
“Yes. We got the lead from an ex-girlfriend of Welsh’s,” Anna recalled. “We’d been on the investigation for about two months when she walked in, wanting to speak to whoever was in charge of the inquiry. She was very attractive and had worked for him in the city, but he had recently fired everyone, and at first we thought it was maybe a case of sour grapes. There had been a lot of press about the discovery of the second victim, but at that stage, we didn’t even know he’d killed before.”
Anna recounted how, after a lengthy talk to Langton, the girl had said she was certain the victim had been a temp in Welsh’s office a year or so previously. Langton had checked back and discovered that their victim had indeed been working for Welsh and had been sent to him by an agency. They then brought Welsh in for an interview. He was, Anna explained, polished and cool, and had an answer for everything. All they had was the girl’s statement. Welsh had dismissed the accusations as ridiculous and maintained that, as he had recently closed his company, she was simply trying to implicate him in a crime with which he had absolutely no connection.