People-watching always makes me ravenous. I was hungry to graduate from the Samaritan Technique and enjoy face-to-face interactions once again. Sure, I’d killed Jono in the quarry at only twelve years old and I’denjoyed Sarah in my sixth-form days, but I was wise enough to know that I was still a beginner. Sean and the others that I got with the Samaritan treatment were mere placeholders. When I decided it was time to put myself back out there, I did so with much caution and, without wanting to be overly generous to myself, much success. My scouting efforts paid off and several of these early conquests played out like a dream. Although I’d love to overcome my modesty and commit my neophyte achievements to paper, I can’t share every detail of every victim with you. Alas, there really is only so much I can give away. Plus, I’m working to a word count, you know.
Because I was still developing my craft, I ensured that my one-to-one encounters were with low-risk victims, and you should do the same. In my younger days, I had some strange habits and practices that I’ve altered over time. Throughout this chapter, I’ll be talking you through some of those early methodologies, and how I’ve changed my style as my experience has grown.
Let me begin with a little context.
As you can imagine, poor and forgotten senior citizens make perfect pickings for those of us starting out. In many towns and villages in the UK, one can generally locate the area most densely populated by the elderly: tiny estates made up of cubic bungalows. Handrails and ramps galore.
I met Betty one cold and wet November day. My arm was wrapped in a papier-mâché plaster cast à la Teddy Bundy. (What can I say? I was a young fanboy. It was a phase.) Tony wasn’t with me that day, but I had walked the area a few times ahead of selecting Betty for a house call.
I had to ring the doorbell lots of times before her watery eyes peered out through the tiniest crack. Several chains held the door in place. I explained that my car had broken down and I needed help. If I could just come in and call the AA?
The teapot wore a floral jacket. A tea-cozy that had been passed down through her late husband Albert’s family. Albert had always said that he could tell instantly if tea had come from a pot without a cozy on it. It wouldn’t mast the same, according to him. I agreed.
Betty wore a white blouse with faded flowers, and a pale pink skirt. Despite the chill temperature inside the bungalow, she’d also donned thin tights and beige Jesus sandals. There were photographs on every surface, including one of Jimmy Nail. A Wedgwood collection and dozens of china dogs. A cabinet full of Albert’s war medals. Everything blanketed in a thick layer of dust.
I spent a good couple of hours with Betty. The old gal could really chat. She told me about rationing during the war. How she and her sister used to go to school on alternate days because they had only one pair of shoes between them. How her mother was left with nothing when her father died with his lungs full of coal dust. How they’d been saved from the workhouse by the Salvation Army.
“There won’t be much when I go,” Betty said, completely out of the blue, “but what there is will go to them.”
Betty told me about her and Albert’s shotgun wedding. Spicy stuff. A son born six months later. How their boy graduated from university, only to fall in a river on his way home from the ceremony. She began to weep and I felt the time had come, so I removed my plaster cast. Betty looked confused, but not for long. I used her favorite Wedgwood clock. It’s what she would have wanted. The distinctive design was soon invisible beneath the blood and the fragments of skull.
Afterward, I went to the kitchen and pulled on Betty’s rubber gloves. I located her black bin bags and put the now rather bloody clock inside one, and the outer layer of my clothing in another. Then I made my way around the bungalow, rifling soundlessly through drawers and placing small items of value in another bin bag. I did fret for an instant over the amount of plastic I was using, but sometimes needs must.
I slid Betty’s wedding band from her finger, along with a beautiful blue ring. The big star sapphire gemstone must have been worth a fortune, and the light danced around it so that it looked like it was glowing. Her hands were desperately arthritic and I had to exert a little more force than I’d envisaged. I confess, it’s possible I broke a finger in my quest for a trophy.
I put Albert’s medals and some photographs inside a tea-towel and stamped on it quietly. Then I scattered the broken pieces around the room. The towel went in a bin bag, too. I’m sure you’ve deduced my aim by now: I was attempting to present the scene as a robbery gone wrong. Hooligans after a quick buck to feed a heroin addiction.
Once the stage was set, I turned the heating on and the thermostat up. A brilliant method to widen the possible-time-of-death window that the pathologist would eventually give to the police. A warmer body decomposes faster and decomposition is our friend as it makes precise conclusions about the death far less likely at the postmortem. Also, I was freezing cold in that bungalow. Betty was clearly a tough old bird.
In the bedroom, I found all of Albert’s clothes still neatly arranged in the wardrobe. His glasses atop a book on the bedside table. His flat cap on a hook as if he’d just come back from the shops. By the door was a beige overcoat, scarf, walking stick and a tartan shopper. I put it all on, turned the coat collar up, pulled the scarf tight and hunched myself over.
Outside, I cleaned the doorbell with a Dettol wipe (I dip my fingers in silicone on a weekly basis but you can never be too careful), then I shuffled down the ramp, pretending to hold the rail. I remained in character until I was beyond the little village. It was dark by the time I reached my bicycle, which I’d concealed behind some trees. I peeled off all the clothing, revealing my cycling suit beneath. I detached the bag from the shopper’s frame and stuffed everything into my backpack. I cycled the thirty miles to my car in no time. I adore the bicycle: you wear so much gear that it’s impossible to identify you, or even discern your gender; plus, you travel five times faster than on foot, so camera footage of you will be blurry.
My backpack and its contents, the shoes I’d worn—it all went into the river. The clothes, the clock, everything. It’s a misconception that burning evidence is the best disposal method; a deep body of moving water is superior. While both fire and water corrupt evidence, water has the added advantage of taking it away and hiding it for you, making it incredibly difficult and very costly to find. Fire, on the other hand, isconfined to a location that is known to you, and house fires in particular attract a lot of attention. Imagine if I’d set Betty’s place on fire. The authorities would have been there within minutes. After my stroll along the river, I boil-washed my cycle suit with oxygen-based detergent, three times. Bleached my bike. Then celebrated with a nice Chablis from Marks and Spencer and a share-pack of Maltesers.
No one found Betty for weeks. According to the newspapers, her nephew turned up for a rare visit and noticed a smell coming from the letterbox.
Over the coming months, I enjoyed the company of several other old-timers. I learned an awful lot about bingo, snooker and Blackpool hotels. I have never drunk such good tea before or since.
Chapter Nine
The second Taylor opens the door to the headquarters of Northumbria Police and Sam enters, a man of indiscernible age steps forward and introduces himself as DI Neil Duggan. He looks windswept, despite being indoors, and his shirt is hanging out on one side. His accent is broad, and somewhat soothing, although she has to concentrate to understand him fully. Sam apologizes for their lateness, explaining that the train was delayed.
“Aye, the trains are chaos,” Duggan says as they sign in and follow him through the building. “Beeching’s Axe swung hard in the North,” he adds, but Taylor only shrugs when Sam sends him a questioning glance. She decides not to seek clarification.
They sit in a small but clean and modern meeting room and Duggan brings them each a frothy coffee from a machine in the corridor.
“We’ve only five minutes,” Duggan says, slurping his own drink. “Then Tweedy will be here and he waits for no man, or woman, so I’ll have to catch you afterward. I canna tell you how Betty hashaunted me. I spent hours on the application to reopen the case. I spent days on the forms. Went down to London and did the presentation to the board. All in my own time and at my own expense, too. The DCI isn’t very… er… supportive of going over old ground. Especially given that Betty is Durham’s case, and I transferred here a decade back. All DCIs care about these days is improving on last year’s statistics.” Duggan shakes his head but then smiles, his entire face lifting. “I can’t believe I’ve done it—got Betty’s case reopened. You’re finally here.”
Taylor clears his throat awkwardly and Sam takes a sip of her coffee before asking, “To reopen Betty’s case?”
“Aye.” Duggan’s brow wrinkles. “You lot are from the cold-case review team, aren’t you? The new team of…” He lets his words die as Sam shakes her head. “Well, what then?”
“We’re part of the Charlotte Mathers investigation,” Sam says. “A child who was—”
“Aye, I watch the news.” He leans forward: “But, how’s that…? So, is Betty’s case reopened or not?”
“DI Duggan,” Sam says, “I’m sorry, but we’re investigating a possible connection to Charlotte’s murder. A book by a man named Denver Brady,How to Get Away with Murder, describes Betty’s murder and has another murder in it that is incredibly similar to Charlotte’s. A copy of that book was also found among Charlotte’s possessions at the crime scene.”
