Chris added an incentive her instructors had never thought of: “Yesterday was baking day… there’ll be a lardy cake and some chocolate brownies.” (Greed. What man could ever resist a brownie?)
Her girlish prattle faded away. His eyes were looking inward, dull and dark as Byron’s Pool, and she realised he hadn’t taken in a word she’d said. He turned to her. The swift smile he gave her was the sweetest she would ever encounter and was the more striking for its utter sincerity. Finally, he had dropped the mask of irony and she was being given a glimpse of the man below. But the face was frozen by agony, the man adrift and unapproachable.
“I’m glad you’re with me at the last, Christina,” he said softly. “I’d never have planned for it, but now the moment’s come, it feels right. I did always admire you, you know. Enjoyed our fencing bouts. If things had been different… Ah, well… brave death when princes die with us. Princess would have been good. But I’ll settle for a tart. Whatever… it’s nice to have company.”
She knew the signpost well. A few yards before the level crossing they were offered: Shepton 1 mile Foxfield 1 mile . He took the Foxfield turn, brought the taxi to a halt in the deserted lane facing the level crossing, looked at his watch, and listened.
The three-thirty goods train on the London line screeched its customary warning.
Gary Newstead scooped up the Monday copy of the Cambridge Observer from the mat and settled down with his mug of tea at the scrubbed table of his gran’s old kitchen. He grunted at the size of the headlines on the front page. Plenty of news today, then.
Fifth slaying! they shrieked. Body of victim found at Eight Bells Public House.
In a quiet village ten miles southwest of Cambridge, a day after she was reported missing, the latest victim of the Clock Killer has been found. Almost exactly where experts predicted.
A police spokesman tells the Observer that the corpse of a young woman was abandoned (possibly killed) in the orchard to the rear of the Eight Bells pub in Shepton. The modus operandi conforms to that of the four previous victims. There was no sign of sexual assault, and the death was by strangulation.
Police fear that the killer, by the significance of his choice of location (EIGHT Bells), may be taunting the forces of law and order. It had been widely predicted that the next attack would take place at nearby Foxfield, which lies exactly on the eight spot of the dial the police themselves had foreseen. It was late on Saturday night when the landlord became suspicious that something was amiss. The pub’s guard dog, released to perform his nightly duties, entered the rear snug, carrying a lady’s silver shoe in his mouth. The Alsatian (Butch) led his master and a selection of guests outside to the next grisly find by torchlight: a pink cardigan caught up on a rosebush.
Behind the bush, the grim discovery. A double shock awaited the investigating officers who hurried to the scene. An examination of the body revealed the victim to be one of their own: DC Sarah Sharpe (25), who had, by a strange quirk of fate, herself been working on the case.
DCI Rowe, who has been leading the enquiry, will pay his respects to the deceased in a news conference to be held at noon today. It is confidently expected that he will be announcing the arrest of a suspect.
The landlord, who is helping the police with their enquiries, told our reporter of his puzzlement. His pub, isolated and at the end of a cul-de-sac, had seen no traffic other than regulars and police vehicles coming and going at the weekend…
Gary read the article again carefully. He was so absorbed he didn’t hear their quiet arrival.
“Enough shock-horror in there to entertain you, Newstead?” The grating voice of the detective inspector. “Did they get it right?” Two heavy hands descended on his shoulders. He listened in silence to the rigmarole: “Gary John Newstead, we are arresting you for the murder of Sarah Sharpe…”
“Gerraway with you! You’re ‘aving a larf!” Newstead started to protest.
They couldn’t know! He’d offered her a lift back to the station and no one had even noticed them set off. So many squad cars milling about they hadn’t been given a second glance. They’d never trace the car. He couldn’t even remember which one he’d used himself. She’d come quiet as a lamb, believing every word of the story he’d fed her about instructions to redeploy to Foxfield. Her mind was still on her mate. She was even keen to get there and help out. He’d knocked her unconscious in a lay-by before they approached the village and fastened her arms behind her back. His usual M.O. He risked no scrapings from fingernails, no scratches on his face. Nasty moment when she’d come round in the shrubbery, but he was always a quick, neat worker. He’d left no more trace than with any of the other sluts. And she was a slut. No doubt about that. He’d watched her enjoying herself, tormenting the men. Making fools of them. A slut. Like his mother. Gran had had to throw her out in the end. Then Gran had got him out of the Home and brought him up herself. Strictly. Correctly. She’d have approved.
The DI was trying to balance distress at the death of a smart young officer and elation at the result he was about to announce. His voice was tightly controlled and betrayed only a trace of glee as he allowed himself the satisfaction of an explanation.
“Sarah was tough and she was clever. She worked out she was in trouble and left a trace in the police car. We checked out the whole bloody fleet! The one you were seen returning to the pool-the one that still has your fingerprints on the wheel-also had stuck down on the door side of the passenger’s seat a wodge of chewing gum. Cram full of Sarah’s DNA! She parked it there deliberately, I reckon.”
“Only proves I gave her a lift back to the station,” Newstead objected. “Am I saying I didn’t? If you ask me, I’ll tell you! Go on-ask!”
“Agreed. But it was the first link. And once we had you up on screen, so to speak, it turns out it’s the second link that’s going to do for you… Tissue under her nails,” the DI watched Newstead’s face closely as he said the words. And, seeing with gratification the surprise he’d caused: “Naw, lad! Not her fingernails. Tied behind her back with plastic cuffs, her hands were, but our Sarah fought back, didn’t she, Gary, old chap? She kicked off her shoes and raked your leg with her toenails. I bet if I could work up the will to do it, I could lift your trouser leg and find a six-inch scar on your right ankle. Probably thought it was a rosebush you’d scratched yourself on in the scuffle? We’ve done the analysis. Now we’ll be needing a sample of your DNA. Open wide, will you? Sergeant-if you please?”