Sisters

Part 5 of a psychological thriller

                                    Chapter 15

                         Inspector Lucas Delves Deeper

There was of course no current case of a suspected serial killer at work in London, which told Lucas that either he was altogether on the wrong track or that the woman whom he was seeking was very cunning and resourceful. On average, there is one unsolved murder each week in the United Kingdom. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that there is one murder of which nobody is convicted, for in many cases, the police have a pretty good idea who is responsible for the death; they simply lack the evidence to secure a conviction. Of course, any of these deaths could be the work of a serial killer, but the odds are against it. Serial killers usually each have their own distinct modus operandi and the murders carried out by such people tend to be a little more bizarre and noticeable than the run-of-the-mill domestic murders which form the overwhelming bulk of crimes of this sort.

     The task which Inspector Lucas faced was to try and sift out from those fifty murders each year, any which looked as though they might be a little out of the ordinary. Put like that, it was an all but impossible task; particularly since the investigation itself was quite unofficial and he could not spend a single minute of his working day on it, nor use any of the resources at his official disposal. Bearing in mind too that this did not include the supposed suicides and accidents, any of which might also be a disguised murder. Despite this, Lucas had made a start and already found one or two curious incidents from the past.

     A simple Google search of the names of the four women whom he was investigating had thrown up some interesting items. Jemma Foster's maiden name, for instance, had led to an article from a local newspaper about a tragedy at a birthday party. Headlined 'BIRTHDAY PARTY DEATH SHOCK', the piece went on to say;

     Tragedy struck at a twenty-first birthday party on Saturday, when a 20

     year-old guest collapsed and died. Sophie McAllister attended the same

     university as Jemma Cartwright, whose birthday was being celebrated. It

     is thought that the death might have been caused by anaphylactic shock

     linked to a peanut allergy. Jemma's mother, Mrs Yvonne Cartwright, said

     that her daughter was deeply shocked. An inquest will be held into the

     death.

     After reading this item, Giles Lucas sat gazing at the screen of his laptop; rubbing his chin in a meditative way. According to the paper, the party had taken place four and a half years ago. He shivered suddenly. There was something more than a little unnerving about this private quest. Sight unseen, he would bet a hundred pounds on Tanya Cartwright, Chloe Donague and Jennifer Cole having also been present at that party. There was nothing to indicate that there had been anything fishy about the death, but he noted down the details anyway. It would be easy enough to find out the verdict of the inquest and to discover if anybody had had any suspicions about Sophie McAllister's death at the time. He Googled her name as well, but couldn't find anything after her death. Her inquest had evidently not been interesting enough to make the papers.

     For Lucas, the difficulty was that he wasn't really hunting for murders at all; rather deaths which had looked at the time like accidents or natural causes. There was no shortage of accounts of such things in the papers over the last few years, but tying them to any of the four women in whom he was interested would be another matter. The suicide of Jennifer Cole's father was covered briefly and there was even a mention of George Cartwright's death on a university website. He appeared to have died a few months after Jemma's twenty-first birthday. None of it seemed to tie in with anything else though. Lucas switched off the laptop and stared moodily into space. This wasn't getting him anywhere.

     The only way that he was going to make any progress in this business was by bending a rule or two; which Inspector Lucas was loath to do. However, if there was the slightest possibility that he was right and that a serial killer was operating in London, then perhaps this was one of those instances where the end justified the means. It was a slippery slope to start on, but maybe just a little unofficial probing in an official capacity, if it could be put so, might be possible. He decided to pay Mrs Yvonne Cartwright a visit; just on spec. Perhaps she would provide him with a lead of some sort.

                                      ***

     Since her husband's death four years earlier, Yvonne Cartwright's life had been flat and dull. Despite all his shortcomings, she had loved George and they had been more like best friends than husband and wife. The loss of her husband still lay heavy upon her and apart from visits by Tanya and Jemma, she didn't have much to look forward to these days.  All of which meant that when the doorbell rang that September afternoon, she was not doing anything of interest. The house was immaculately clean, which meant that she had no cleaning or polishing with which she could occupy her time and neither of her daughters were expected that day. Yvonne didn't really know what to do with herself that day. The sight of the handsome, if slightly saturnine-looking young man standing on the doorstep was not an unwelcome one, especially when he introduced himself as a police officer and asked that if she wasn't too busy, perhaps Yvonne might be able to spare him a few minutes? Perhaps this going to be something out of the ordinary which would brighten up an otherwise dull day.

     'What's it about?' asked Yvonne, after having carefully checked Inspector Lucas' warrant card.

     'I'd like to ask you a few questions about a woman called Jennifer Cole. She lives a few houses down from you.'

     'Jennifer? Of course, I know her. Is she in some sort of trouble?'

     'Might I come in, Mrs Cartwright? I don't really want to discuss this on the doorstep.'

     Yvonne Cartwright's day was thus pleasurably enlivened by a visit from a handsome police officer, who wanted nothing more than to listen to her talk. This was a novelty for the lonely woman and it explains why she let out a good deal more about her own life and those of her daughters during the subsequent conversation than she would have done if circumstances had been just a little different.

     When they were comfortably settled at the kitchen table, Lucas having gratefully accepted the offer of a cup of coffee, Yvonne asked, 'So what's all this about Jennifer?'

     'There was a tragic death in July. I'm sure your daughters will have mentioned it to you. Young woman called Melanie Pearl.'

     'Yes, they said somebody had killed herself and that they found the body. Well, not them, there were a group of them. Greenwich, wasn't it?'

     Inspector Lucas smiled warmly and said, 'Yes, that's right. I can see that this won't take long at all. I was worried that I'd have to explain all about it, but you're a step or two ahead of me.'

     This sort of meaningless flannel was something of a speciality with Lucas. On the one hand, he was flattering Yvonne Cartwright by congratulating her on her acumen and at the same time, threatening to cut short the conversation. He had picked up on her loneliness and guessed that his visit was the only thing of any interest likely to happen to her today and she would almost certainly be hoping to prolong it for as long as possible. Which she could only do by talking to him and perhaps letting interesting things slip, as she did so.

     'What it is, Mrs Cartwright,' said the inspector in a confidential tone of voice, 'Is that the inquest returned an open verdict. I'm just tying up any loose ends and making sure that we've crossed all the 'T's and dotted all the 'I's. You know how quick people are to come down on the police if we slip up or miss something.'

     'Don't I just. I think it's terrible the way people are always so ready to jump on you when anything goes wrong. What do you want to know about Jennifer?'

     For five minutes, Inspector Lucas listened carefully, as the sad and lonely woman gave him chapter and verse about the family history of the woman living down the street. There were a few snippets that he filed away for future reference, but most of what she said, he had already found out for himself. Then Yvonne Cartwright said, 'You know, her mother died at about the same time as my husband. Same hospital he'd been in. I honestly thought she was going to have a breakdown. Jennifer, I mean. Mind, Sam, Mrs Cole that is, had been ill for a long while.'

     Colleagues who had seen Lucas in action during the questioning of both witnesses and suspects had remarked that he would have made a good priest or psychiatrist. He had an uncanny knack for asking open-ended questions and then just listening to the answers patiently. This, combined with his ability to generate soothing waffle at the appropriate moment, made him very good at extracting unwitting admissions. He was aware of his reputation and it was the fact that his methods had failed so abjectly in the Melanie Pearl case that had made him so fiercely determined to get to the bottom of it, one way or another.

     'You're a widow?'

     'Yes, my husband died four years ago. Jennifer's mother died about a month before George, my husband. It was a dreadful time. All those deaths that year...'

     Lucas' finely tuned antennae twitched at this odd statement. All those deaths? Was that the way that people usually referred to the deaths of two people from illnesses? He asked casually, 'Deaths? Do you mean apart from your husband and Jennifer Cole's mother?'

     'Oh yes. There was the girl at the party that spring and then a week later, that boy who'd been at the party as well. Awful.'

     'What party was that?'

     Yvonne Cartwright's account of her older daughter's twenty-first birthday party added nothing that Lucan had not already been able to glean from the newspaper articles he had uncovered. Nevertheless, he let her ramble on about the party and when she had ground to a halt, he said, 'Who was this boy you mentioned?'

    'Well, I didn't actually know him, but I found out later that he'd been at the party. Listen to me going on, you must have better things to do than hearing about all this!'

     'Not at all, I'm very interested,' said Inspector Lucas, combining honesty and tact in a way which is seldom possible, 'What happened to this boy?'

     'Well he'd come to the party with some friend of Tanya's. I heard he was a bit of a bad lot, but you know what girls are. They will go after that sort of boy. Anyway, a week after the party, he went over to Tottenham Marshes and threw himself in front of a train. It was so weird, because everybody said he was the last person you'd think that would do something like that. Still, I suppose people always say that when somebody kills themselves, don't they?'

     'Yes, I'm sure that's true.'

     'Is there anything else about Jennifer and her family that you want to know?'

     'Well, I don't suppose you'd know what her mother actually died of?'

     'Gosh, yes. Her throat was cut.'

     For a moment, Lucas wondered if he'd heard correctly; it sounded such an improbable thing to announce in this matter-of-fact way. He said, 'I'm sorry, I understood you to say that she'd been ill? I thought she died in hospital.'

     'Well she did. And she was very ill. Cancer of the pancreas. She shrunk away to nothing at the end.'

     Possessed though he was of superhuman reserves of patience when winkling out information in this way, Inspector Lucas felt a sudden and almost overwhelming urge to lean over and grab hold of this inoffensive woman, so that he could shake her until her teeth rattled and she told him what he wished to know, without any rambling.  He let none of this show in his face and simply remarked, 'I suppose it was an accident of some kind?'

     'Nobody ever worked out quite how it happened, but yes, they thought it was an accident. Sam was in bed, she was dying and they'd put her in a side room. When somebody went in, they found her on the floor, with a chunk of glass through her neck. It was a vase which somebody'd left on the bedside table. It was broken and they thought that Sam had somehow got out of bed and then managed to fall over, knock the vase to the floor and then fell on top of it.'

    Lucas shook his head and said, 'Poor woman. Well, I've taken up more than enough of your time, Mrs Cartwright.'

     'You won't have another coffee?'

     'I'd love to, but my boss wouldn't be too pleased if I spent the afternoon sitting around drinking coffee.'

     As they moved to the front door, Lucas said, as though it were a matter of no special importance, 'Forgive me Mrs Cartwright, it's absolutely none of my business, but I couldn't help but notice the scar on your older daughter's mouth. Did that happen recently?'

     'Oh no, it was when she was three. Actually, it was her sister who did that.'

     Standing there in the hall Yvonne Cartwright, hoping to prolong the visit by this kind and sympathetic man, gave Inspector Lucas a bowdlerised and greatly edited version of the events which had led to her daughter being scarred for life.

     As he walked back to the car, Lucas' mind was racing in over-drive. He had learned of two more grisly deaths; one of which pointed plain and square at Jennifer Cole. Who but she would have any interest in the death of her own mother? He didn't think that his day off had been wasted at all. The closer he looked, the likelier it seemed to him that the only common factor in all this was Jennifer Cole.

                                  Chapter 16

                           Tanya and her Father

George Cartwright had never really taken to his second daughter. She had been a fractious and grizzly baby; not given to laying there placidly in her cot the way that Jemma had done. There didn't seem to be any way of settling Tanya; other than walking up and down with her in the middle of the night when she woke up. Even that only worked while you held the child. The second she was laid down again, she would begin to cry; like as not waking her sister in the process. All this was such a marked contrast to the way that Jemma had been at a similar age that Tanya's father began to harbour a grudge against the new baby.

     Things didn't improve as Tanya grew older and began to walk. She was messy in her eating and late becoming clean and dry; both of which irritated her father. In fact, by the time the little girl was two, George Cartwright actively disliked his second daughter, which of course had the effect of making him feel guilty and ashamed. He blamed Tanya for those feelings of his as well as for everything else she did to annoy him. Perhaps if Jemma had not been such a perfect and well-behaved baby, things might have been different; but there it was. He honestly thought that there must be something the matter with his second daughter. Knocking out his wife's front teeth and maiming her sister cemented this attitude towards Tanya. As far as George Cartwright was concerned, there was something malevolent about the little girl.

     For her own part, Tanya picked up when very young that her father had no time for her. He would cuddle Jemma and make a fuss of her, while scarcely acknowledging her little sister's existence. Children of course take as given the conditions in which they grow up. If you and your family live in a cave, then that is normal; those who have loving parents take that as their base line. For Tanya, ‘normal’ was being loved by only one of her parents. As she grew older, she rationalised this state of affairs as follows. Looming over her childhood was that dreadful act of violence which she had perpetrated against her sister. Her understanding was that her mother had somehow found it in her heart to forgive her, but that her father was, and would always remain, implacable in his anger at what Tanya had done.

     Up to the age of eight or nine, Tanya tried to ingratiate herself with her father and win his affection. She would hug him, try and cuddle up to him and sit close, as her sister did. None of her efforts made the least difference. Her offence was too grave for George Cartwright ever to forgive his younger daughter. If she sat close to him, he would cringe away from her touch as though she was infected. There could, as far as he was concerned, never be any redemption for the person who had disfigured his darling child. He was not actively cruel to the little girl; it was more that when she was around he simply withdrew emotionally and, whenever humanly possible, physically as well.

     Because she was so keen to be accepted by her father, Tanya began to watch him and try to work out what she could do to please him and perhaps cause him to relent towards her. It was this watchfulness that led her to learn of her father's propensity to infidelity at an early age. Not that she would have phrased it in this way when she was nine, but she certainly knew that her father was very attentive to other mothers as well as her own and she also saw that while he shrank away from any physical contact with her, George Cartwright was only too keen to brush against or touch other girls or women.

     The significance of what she had observed of her father's behaviour was not immediately apparent to the child, but certainly by the age of eleven, she had worked out that he was probably cheating on her mother; which was a shocking idea. Tanya never mentioned this to Jemma, because she felt that her sister would not be pleased to be told such a thing. Nor did she say anything to her mother either, it would have been too embarrassing. On one occasion, she saw her father holding a woman's hand and talking earnestly to her. On another, she came home from school during the day with a tummy ache and found her father at home with a woman whom she did not know.

     One thing which greatly puzzled Tanya was that while her father had no time at all for her, he always greeted and even stopped to speak to, Jennifer, who lived down the road. She knew from her first day at school that she was supposed to dislike Jennifer Cole and finding that her father was happy to smile at Jennifer and look at her almost as though he liked her, did not exactly endear the other girl to Tanya. It made it easier to share Jemma's feelings about her.

                                   Chapter 17

                           Jennifer Makes a Discovery

Although they lived in the same street and she had seen them out and about with their mother, Jennifer Cole did not speak to Jemma and Tanya until she and Jemma began school together at the same time. She had of course observed the scar which was the most obvious feature of Jemma's otherwise pretty face and heard some of the hushed conversations about it the cause of the disfigurement, but it was only when they found themselves in the same reception class at the local primary school that Jennifer realised how much she wanted to be close to Jemma. It wasn't just that she was attracted to the other girl; she felt an overwhelming affinity for her, which made her attentions to Jemma just that little bit too marked for the other girl's taste.

     The chief result of Jennifer's efforts to make friends with Jemma when they were just four years of age, was to trigger an antipathy towards Jennifer in the other child; one which she passed on to her sister when she too started school the following year. Little girls of such tender years cannot reasonably be expected to articulate their feelings precisely and so neither Jennifer nor Jemma could put into words their very different feelings towards each other. Had they been able to do so, then Jennifer would have said that she felt an immediate desire to be close to Jemma and share her life in some way. She would not, even in later years when her vocabulary had expanded immeasurably, ever be able to explain this longing for the company of Jemma, and later on her sister. For her part, Jemma was repulsed by the other child's insistence on dogging her footsteps in the playground. The older she grew, the more she recoiled from Jennifer. Had she been able to express herself fully about this emotion, Jemma Cartwright might perhaps have said that she had the sensation that Jennifer Cole was part of a secret that she did not wish to know. The best means of avoiding learning just what this distasteful and frightening secret might be, was to shun the girl and keep her at a distance.

     Oddly enough, Tanya Cartwright felt no such antipathy for Jennifer at first, but in her self-appointed role of loyal defender of her big sister's interests, she adopted Jemma's view of the case soon after starting school; a habit which she was to maintain for the next twenty years. Seeing that her father looked at Jennifer in a more pleasant way than he did at Tanya helped to consolidate this viewpoint.

     All through primary and then secondary school, Jennifer did her best to insinuate herself into the lives of Jemma and Tanya. Sometimes, they couldn't avoid her, as when she joined the same choir and gymnastics club as the two sisters. By and large though, she was either ignored or rejected mercilessly at any opportunity. Had she been a girl of any great insight, Jennifer might perhaps have asked herself why she persisted in exposing herself to this humiliation over the years. As it was, her pursuit of the Cartwright sisters' friendship simply became a given in her life as she grew up; as did the inevitable cold-shouldering that she encountered because of it. It wasn't until her mother was dying of cancer that she was given a piece of information which set the whole thing in context and, in effect, provided her with the key which unlocked a major part of her life.

     It had been one of Samantha Cole's worse days; one in which the pain and nausea were more or less constant. It was the middle of April, but winter didn't seem to want to shift that year and there was still a chill in the air. Awkward though it was to ask a favour of Jemma and Tanya's mother, Samantha had manoeuvred an invitation for her daughter to Jemma's forthcoming twenty-first birthday party. She hoped that this would cheer Jennifer up. Her daughter seemed to have been down in the dumps lately.

     Ever since she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Samantha had known that an unpleasant duty must be undertaken as regarded her daughter. She felt so ill for much of the time, that the thought of any rowing or bad atmosphere filled her with dread, but it would hardly be fair to Jennifer to say nothing and to carry this secret with her to the grave. She accordingly chose a time when the two of them had just eaten and after the plates were washed up, said to her daughter, 'Jenny, we've got to talk.'

     She didn't know it, but even those few words had been enough to put her daughter out of countenance. She disliked what she thought of as the 'little girl' name Jenny; much preferring to be called 'Jen' these days. Despite this, she said to her mother, 'What is it? You're not going to go through the insurance for the house again or talk about your will, are you?' This sounded brutal, but the fact was that Jennifer was more upset about her mother's illness than she was prepared to let on and concealed this by being brusque and ungracious.

     'No,' said Samantha, 'It's nothing to do with that. Come and sit down.'

     Jennifer sat next to her mother on the sofa and said, 'Well, what's this about?'

     'You know, when I got married, the one thing I wanted, above all else, was a baby. Maybe that was why I got married to your father in the first place, I don't know.'

     It was embarrassing to hear her mother talk in this way about her life before Jennifer was born and she reached out and squeezed her mother's hand, hoping to put an end to this by saying, 'It's OK mum, honestly. I had a good childhood, you were a great mother.'

     In the normal way of things, Jennifer's mother was pleased to have her ego stroked like this, but today she seemed to be irritated by it. She said, 'No, just listen to what I have to say, Jennifer. I'm not fishing for compliments.'

     It was not often that the two of them spoke seriously about things and her mother's tone was making Jennifer uneasy. The discussion about the fact that the pancreatic cancer was most likely terminal had been gruelling enough and yet her mother looked even more uncomfortable about this. There was a sick feeling in the pit of Jennifer's stomach as Samantha said, a little more gently, 'I'm trying to explain to you about something I did a long time ago. It affects you and I think that you've a right to know about it. Just let me tell you and then you can judge me how you will,'

     Then, with her daughter sitting next to her, white-faced and anxious, Samantha Cole explained what had happened almost a quarter of a century ago.

     'Your father and I had been married for just over two years and in all that time, I'd never...used anything. You know what I mean?'

     Jennifer did and found it almost excruciating to hear her mother talking about contraception. To say nothing of referring openly to sex like that.

     'Anyway, I didn't get pregnant, that's what I'm driving at. Over two years and I hadn't even been a week late. I'd always been like clockwork and nothing changed, so I wasn't miscarrying or anything like that. Just, it was business as usual.'

     Menstruation had always been a taboo subject in the house and now her mother was talking about her periods! It was all too much and Jennifer felt herself blushing. Her mother didn't even notice and just carried on. 'I worked out that Richard, your father I mean, must be sterile. Firing blanks, we used to call it when I was at school.' She smiled thinly.

     'Well, I never wanted to be a single mother. I always thought of devoting myself to a baby and looking after the home. I know that sounds old fashioned, but it's how I was brought up. Besides, I happen to think that children need a mother and father.'

     It seemed to Jennifer Cole, as her mother spoke, that the air was charged; the way it sometimes is during an electrical storm. She wanted to jump to her feet and run out of the room, but instead she sat and listened to what she knew in her heart was going to be very bad news.

     'Either we could go for a lot of tests and maybe spend a fortune on fertility drugs, in vitro and all the rest of it, or I could take matters into my own hands.'

     'What did dad say about it? Did he want a baby as much as you did?'

     'You know what your father was like. He loved his work, we could travel round Europe, had enough money to please ourselves. I don't think he was that bothered. Men often aren't, you know. It's women that have this mad drive for babies. Anyway, I decided to do what was necessary. I thought that if I just got pregnant by somebody else, then nobody would ever know about it.'

     'Just like that? You went off and got yourself knocked up? Did you even tell dad?'

     'Oh, for God's sake stop being so prissy! These things happen. I didn't tell Richard, I wanted him to think the baby was his. Obviously. It was just a matter of finding somebody, a man I mean, who would give me the healthy sperm I needed. That's how I thought of it, as finding a sperm donor. Don't look at me like that, Jennifer. You're not a child, you're a grown woman. Sometimes you have to do unpalatable things. It's what women do.'

     There was a long silence, which seemed to stretch out forever. Samantha Cole was lost in the past and Jennifer's heart was hammering in her chest and she was having difficulty breathing. At last, she said, 'Well tell me the rest. You might as well.'

     'Luckily, I knew just the man for the job. he was always coming on to me and he was an intelligent man, educated. Like your father. I couldn't have just let anybody do it with me, you know.'

     'So, it worked,' said Jennifer in a small voice, 'Well, it must have. I mean here I am. Who was it? Nobody I know, I hope.'

     'Yes, it worked. I got pregnant after the first couple of times. I just told him, the man I mean, that I didn't want to do it again and he was fine about it. He was married himself, you see. There was no percentage for him in doing the sums and working out the dates and so on. We hardly spoke again after I found out that I was expecting you. Well, that's it. I just thought I ought to tell you, you deserve to know.'

     'Who was it?' asked her daughter in a queer, tight voice, 'Who was this fucking sperm donor?'

     'There's no need for that sort of language.'

     'Who was it, mum? Just tell me.'

     'Promise you won't go mad. It was all a long time ago and there's no point raking over the ashes at this late stage.'

     'Who was it?'

     'Oh, very well then. It was George Cartwright, Jemma and Tanya's father.'

     Everything was suddenly too much for Jennifer. Her stomach churned, she lurched to her feet and stumbled out to the kitchen, where she was promptly sick in the sink. Even as she was vomiting, her entire life came sharply and dramatically into focus. She knew immediately why she had always been so attracted to Jemma and Tanya and understood too why she and her father had never really hit it off. Despite what her mother said, Richard Cole had known on one level that she was not really his child and so had not felt the strength of paternal love and affection which made for a strong bond between father and child. She remembered too George Cartwright smiling at her and bending down to talk to her. He never took any notice of any other children that she saw. Of course, he must have guessed the truth.

     Although she must have been able to hear her retching, her mother did not come to the kitchen to ask if she was alright; for which small mercy, Jennifer was grateful. She didn't think that she would have been able to bear to see or hear her mother just then. All her thoughts were concentrated on the person whom she blamed for all this. The one responsible for her regular humiliation as she had tried over the years to form a bond with the two girls whom she now knew were her sisters; the one who had robbed her of the joy of having a father; the one whose selfishness had ruined her whole life. As she stood there at the sink, Jennifer Cole told herself that she would make sure that George Cartwright suffered for this; she would devote all her energies to making that wretched man pay.

      
                                Chapter 18

                          Inspector Lucas at Home

Diana was seeing some friends that afternoon and did not wish to be encumbered by Sarah-Anne. Since it was his day off, Lucas was staying in to look after his daughter. As his wife drove off, it struck Giles Lucas that this was the first day in a very long time that he had spent entirely with Sarah and he felt a pang of guilt; mingled with the regret he knew that he would feel in later life for not having made the most of the little girl's childhood. 'Well,' he said, 'What's it to be little one, home or park?'

     'Park! Park!'

     'Park it is. Let's get your shoes and coat on.'

     It was a crisp, sunny autumn day and Lucas enjoyed the visit to the park almost as much as his daughter. They both kicked through fallen leaves, both went on the swings and both then had biscuits and juice in the little cafe which stood next to the playground. For her part, Sarah-Anne was revelling in the exciting novelty of having her father's undivided attention and she was making the most of it. After they had finished their juice, she said wistfully, 'More swing, Daddy?'

     'You want to go on the swings some more? Of course. Come on, I'll race you to them.' The words were no sooner out of his mouth than Sarah had leaped up and bolted for the door. The two of them sprinted back to the playground together, Lucas being sure to keep a few paces behind, so that the child would have the pleasure of winning the race.

     As they headed back to the house for lunch, it struck Inspector Lucas that he couldn't remember when last he had enjoyed a morning so much. His daughter was such an uncomplicated little thing at that age. As long as she had a biscuit and was pushed on a swing for as long as she wanted; she was utterly contented with life. When they got home, Sarah wanted her father to play with the dolls' house with her. He readily consented and found that his role was really limited to holding the little figurines and moving them to where his daughter directed. She provided all the dialogue and frowned crossly if Lucas attempted to improvise any lines for the inhabitants of the doll's house. She was the director and he was merely a technical assistant.

     The day passed pleasantly until about two, when Sarah yawned and announced abruptly, 'Sleep now!' He had quite forgotten that she was still supposed to have an afternoon nap. After leading her up to her room and helping her take off her shoes, Lucas waited until she was laying on the bed and then covered her with a blanket. Her eyes closed and she was asleep by the time that he had pulled the curtains and tiptoed from the room.

     As he went down the stairs, Lucas laughed out loud at the way that Sarah had just said bluntly, 'Sleep now!' and then proceeded to do so. None of the tiresome and irritating preliminaries that adults engaged in; the glancing at the clock, the suppressed yawn, the casual remarks such as, 'Just look at the time!' he tried to imagine what would happen in his life if, when he was tired or bored he just said at once, 'Sleep now!' and went off to lay down. The thought made him chuckle again.

     After making himself a cup of coffee, Lucas settled down into a comfortable chair and turned his mind once more to the Melanie Pearl 'Case'. He knew better than most the danger in police work of becoming preoccupied with one particular case and dwelling on it in your free time, but even so he found that he could not just drop this. This was especially true since his conversation with Jemma and Tanya Cartwright's mother. He had learned of two new deaths associated with that small group of four women; deaths which had occurred within a couple of months of each other. Sitting there, Inspector Lucas ran over in his mind what he had been able to uncover about these new deaths.

     Through a contact in the Health Service, Lucas had found that a partial autopsy had been performed on George Cartwright. His chest had been opened and his heart examined. There was scarring on the heart; which confirmed that he had suffered a massive heart attack. That he had then hovered between life and death for a few days; before dying suddenly while in hospital, led inexorably to the conclusion that his death was due to natural causes. As far as one could be sure about such matters, George Cartwright's death could not be considered in any way suspicious.

     That left Jennifer Cole's mother and the young man who had been at that ill-fated birthday party; Jack Simmons. Both these deaths had been violent. The inquest into Simmons' death made interesting reading. According to the train driver, he had seen nobody other than the man who was killed. Which tended to make suicide the likeliest possibility; except for one curious point. The driver said in his statement that the young man had appeared to jump backwards onto the track and into the path of the oncoming train. In all his life, Lucas had never heard of such a thing. Surely, people throwing themselves under train always went forwards, rather than backwards? There was mention too of a 'shelter' and this too puzzled him a little. A verdict of suicide was returned; the young man's actions having clearly been deliberate. Diana was due back in an hour or two and Lucas thought that he would take a quick run over to Tottenham and have a look at the scene of Jack Simmons' death.

     Lucas got up and went back into the kitchen to make himself another coffee. What about Samantha Cole, dying in a pool of blood on the floor of the hospital room? That had been officially designated a tragic accident; it being surmised that the dying woman had somehow got out of bed and then fallen to the floor, bringing down the glass vase with her. It had smashed and then she had collapsed onto a shard of broken glass, which severed an artery. A freak accident. It was bloody funny how these things seemed to take place in connection with those four young women, though! Lucas knew that he had summoned up just about as much official information concerned with this business as he was going to be able to do, with causing raised eyebrows somewhere. Any further investigations would have to be done through strictly unofficial channels or else he would end up being called in to see the Super and asked exactly what case all these requests were connected with.

     When Diana came in, Lucas said, 'She's upstairs, having a nap.'

     'Did you have a good time?'

     'Yes, we went to the park. She loved it.'

     After some more inconsequential chat about what a nice time he had had and how much Diana had enjoyed meeting her friends for lunch, Lucas said, 'I'm just popping out.'

     'Anywhere interesting?'

     'Hardly. Tottenham.'

     His wife gave him an odd look and said, 'Is this your serial killer case?'

     'It's just something I want to look at. Place where something happened.' he replied evasively.

     'Giles, you're not getting too bound up with this business, are you? It's not even an official thing at all, is it?'

     'I've found out about two more deaths, one a woman who bled to death and the other a boy who went under a train. Truly, I can't just pretend that those things didn't happen. Specially if they did turn out to be murder and the person who did it is still walking around killing people. You must see that?'

     Diana looked at her husband affectionately and said, 'You seem driven lately, that's all. Can't you hand over all the information you've got to somebody else and let others investigate it?'

    'I might at that, once I've got some sort of case. All I've got at the moment is smoke and shadows.'

     Inspector Lucas hadn't been to Tottenham marshes for several years, but it didn't look as though it had changed much over the course of that time. Indeed, the marshes always seemed to him to have a timeless air about them; as though they were unaffected by the passage of time in the streets of London which surrounded them on all sides. They were restful and bucolic and probably looked much the same now as they had done during the Industrial Revolution, when the River Lea was an artery along which raw materials had been brought to the capital by barges.

     Getting to the bridge where Jack Simmons had died entailed trekking across a scrubby expanse of grass. Here and there were a few gaunt shrubs and the very occasional, spindly tree. For some reason, the whole place put Lucas in mind of wildlife documentaries which he had seen of the African savannah. It would not be surprising to see a giraffe wander into view!

     The railway crossed the river at a shallow angle and Lucas could see that he would be obliged to scramble up an embankment if he wished to examine the scene of the supposed suicide. Once up onto the tracks, he could see the shelter mentioned in the train driver's testimony and made his way towards it; keeping a wary eye out for trains which might be approaching from either direction. Once he was up there, the inspector had a clear view of the shelter; looking for all the world like a sentry box built of red bricks. He walked up to it and went inside. There was just room for two people to squeeze in at a pinch. If Ezekiel Mills, who had been driving the train, was to be believed, then the young man who had died must have jumped backwards out of here and fallen straight in front of the train. But why would he do such a peculiar thing?

    For the next quarter hour, Inspector Lucas tried jumping onto the railway tracks in a variety of ways. At the end of it, he was satisfied in his own mind that nobody would kill themselves in the way that Jack Simmons had supposedly done. If you stood in this little space with your back to the tracks and then jumped out suddenly at the last moment, then you'd be as likely to do so just after the train had arrived, rather than just in time to go under the wheels. You might bounce off the side of a carriage and get a few bruises, without being killed. It made no sense. Why would you go to all that trouble? Come to that, why come here to die in the first place? There was easier access to the tracks further on, when once they were running along level ground, rather than over this viaduct. Why choose the bridge to kill yourself on? One way that that the driver’s account of the incident might work would be if somebody else was in here with the boy, somebody keeping an eye out and then shoving him backwards at the right time. That would definitely work.

     While he was standing there mulling this over, Lucas became aware that somebody at the foot of the embankment was shouting up at him. He looked down and the man, a uniformed police officer, called out, 'Yes, it's you I'm talking to. What are you doing up on that bridge? Just get down here.'

     When he'd slithered down the grassy slope to where the policeman, from the Transport Police he observed, was standing, Inspector Lucas took out his warrant card and flashed it. He said, 'I'm looking into a death that took place here a few years ago. Sorry, I should have let you people know.'

     The officer looked at him curiously and said, 'You mean that lad who was supposed to have topped himself up there? Four years ago?'

     'Yes, that's the one. Why, you know anything about it?'

     'I was here that day. We'd been having trouble with kids trespassing on the line and were doing patrols along here, between Northumberland Park and Tottenham Hale.'

     'You said "supposed to have topped himself". That mean that you don't buy it as a suicide?'

     'I know damned well it wasn't suicide,' said the other policeman grimly, 'But I could never prove it.'

     Lucas could hardly believe his luck and said, 'Listen, is there anywhere round here where we could have a coffee or something? This could be important.'

     'There's the Water's Edge. Little cafe place, just along the way. See it over there?'

     When they were comfortably seated with their coffees at a round, white-painted, wrought-iron table overlooking the river, Inspector Lucas said, 'Go on then. You don't think Jack Simmons killed himself. Why not?'

     'Because he wasn't alone up there. You ever hear of anybody going to commit suicide and taking a friend with them? Specially one who nips off quickly after it's all over?'

     Lucas rubbed his chin and said, 'I didn't see anything about this in the transcript. Of the inquest, I mean.'

     The man sitting opposite reddened slightly but perceptibly. He said, 'No, well you wouldn't that's down to me.'

     'Go on.'

     'I got there almost soon as the train had gone over that boy. As I got to the bridge, a young couple who were hanging around, I thought they were just rubbernecking, came up to me and said that they had some information. There were a few people gathered round, everybody seemed to know by then that someone had gone under the train. I asked what they knew and they told me that they heard the train slam on its brakes and that at the same time, they'd seen a girl coming down from the bridge, same place where you just came down.'

     'Why didn't you put this in your report?' asked the inspector with mounting irritation and excitement.

     'There was a dozen things to do and I took their names and address. They said that they'd been too far off to be able to give a description, but they were sure that this was a young girl, maybe a teenager. And they were dead sure that she'd been up on that bridge when the train slammed on its brakes.'

     'Well?'

     'Thing is, they gave me a dodgy address. You know the sort. They didn't mind tipping me the wink, but didn't want to end up giving evidence, making statements, any of that. All I had was a girl in a tartan skirt, maybe sixteen, eighteen years of age. No point in putting that down anywhere, it was hearsay.'

     There was a long and slightly strained silence. On the one hand, Lucas wanted to give this man the bollocking of his life for not taking this sighting of the girl further, but he was at the same time keenly aware that he had no real business making enquiries here anyway. In the end, he said, 'Use your loaf next time, eh? Never mind, you've helped me a lot.'

     On the drive back home, Lucas' mind was turning over furiously as he considered the implications of what he had learned. One of those four bloody women had been there when Jack Simmons had met his death and what's more, she hadn't bothered to hang around afterwards. If that wasn't a suspicious circumstance, then he really didn't know what was! Proving it though; that would be something else again.