Dance With the Dead: A PC Donal Lynch Thriller. James Nally

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СКАЧАТЬ for someone who’d struck before and would almost certainly kill again, soon.

      I needed to fillet, dissect, treble check and treble challenge every single detail in our unsolved files that could be pertinent to this murder. If I missed a suspect who then went on to kill again, it’d be on my head.

      The air tingled, charged. The lilting plants rallied and those empty white boards pined. I’d found my purpose, my road to redemption.

      I reached for a floppy disc marked ‘Unsolved Female Murders – Live’.

      The first disappointment: how few of these killings shared characteristics with the Liz Little murder. I thought I’d be spoiled for choice. Instead, only one case screamed out. At first glance, I felt convinced it had to be the same killer.

      I scolded my tearaway mind: treble check and treble challenge every single detail.

      Eighteen months ago, 43-year-old Helen Oldroyd had been found slashed and stabbed to death at the wheel of her racing-green Jaguar XJS in the car park of a leisure centre in Brentford, West London. That morning, she’d left the family home in Marlow, Bucks at 9.40am, telling builders renovating the property that she was running late for a 10am appointment. She’d been expected at her place of work – a Bureau de Change she co-owned in Paddington, West London – between 10.30am and 11am.

      No record of this 10am appointment had been found in her diary or detailed notebooks. She hadn’t mentioned it to her husband, Alistair, colleagues at work or to any friends.

      Two swimmers turning up at the Fountain Leisure Centre at 11am noticed the distinct green jag parked at the very perimeter of the car park, facing into an eight-foot-tall hedge. They assumed that the woman sitting in the driver’s seat was taking a nap. An hour later, they came out to find her in exactly the same position and raised the alarm.

      Officers found the keys in the ignition. On the console between the driver and passenger seat sat a sample of blue wallpaper and a six-inch piece of wood. Across the back seat of the vehicle, a variety of carpet tiles had been laid out as if on display or up for discussion. Her handbag sat untouched on the floor.

      The pathologist reported that Helen had been stabbed 50 times with a knife three to four inches long and an inch wide. Ten of the wounds were slashes to her hands and arms as she fought for her life.

      They found no weapon or signs of sexual assault.

      The pattern of her wounds showed that the killer launched his attack from the passenger seat, then got out of the car, walked around to the driver’s door, opened it and finished the job.

      Detectives interviewed more than 800 people who’d parked at the leisure centre that morning. None of them remembered seeing anything suspicious. Officers were baffled – the attacker must have been covered in blood and either walked to another car to drive away, or left the car park on foot. They’d never know because neither the car park nor the road outside was covered by CCTV.

      Helen had lived in a £600,000 detached house with Alistair, an estate agent, and their children Luke, 12, and Martha, 9.

      Alistair was interviewed at length and eliminated as a suspect. He insisted his wife couldn’t have been conducting an affair as they were ‘completely open’ with each other. He was unable to offer an explanation as to her presence in Brentford that morning, or who she might have been meeting. Helen had simply indicated that she would be driving to work as usual.

      He speculated that she must have received the call to attend this mystery assignation after he’d left for work at 8am. However, the builders working inside their home from 7.30am that morning insisted that the landline hadn’t rung. She didn’t own a mobile.

      The wallpaper found in her car was a small sample of a roll brought to her home that morning by the principle contractor. None of the builders had left the Oldroyd home at any time between 7.30am and 4pm.

      When news of the murder broke, a man who drove through Brentford that morning claimed that he saw Helen’s Jaguar travelling slowly and erratically along Chiswick High Road, south of the M4 flyover, at about 10am. When he overtook the car, he saw the woman driver wrestling with a man in the passenger seat. It had been a fleeting glimpse, he felt unable to provide a description. Assuming it to be a domestic, he sped on. Intriguingly, he said that at least five more vehicles held up by the Jaguar overtook at the same time, just as it pulled into the leisure centre car park.

      The report pointed out that the Fountain Leisure Centre couldn’t have been on any logical route Helen might have taken to work. The centre’s visitor book had no record of her ever attending. They found no swimming costume or towel in the car.

      My brain ached. I reminded myself of the goal here: to establish if both women could have been killed by the same man. There were obvious similarities; Helen and Liz had both been savagely attacked with a knife. They had known their killers. Their bodies had been left exposed in public places.

      But there were key differences too. Helen hadn’t been held somewhere, tortured or cut up. She’d died in what appeared to be a spur-of-the-moment frenzy, whereas Liz’s murder seemed meticulously pre-meditated.

      In fact, Oldroyd’s murder had been so messy that her racing-green Jag interior must be chock-full of DNA. After all, she and her attacker had wrestled for a matter of minutes. She must have grabbed hold of some skin, hair or even clothing fibres that might seal her killer’s fate. She kept herself fit; maybe she managed to draw blood. Perhaps the ferocity of her defence is what caused her killer to ‘flip out’ and stab her in such a blind frenzy.

      There had to be evidence of him somewhere in that car.

      My finger trembled as I dialled the incident room number.

      The meek ‘Mavis’ at the other end took my name, rank, badge number and insisted on calling me back ‘on a secure landline’.

      ‘DS Hobbs, Oldroyd incident room. How can we help you?’ stated an impatient male voice.

      I explained our initiative and the similarities between the cases, wrapping up with an offer to finance a fresh forensic sweep of Helen’s car.

      ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible,’ barked Hobbs.

      ‘I’m sorry?’

      ‘The forensic side of things has been fully explored, constable. I can confidently say there is nothing more to be gained from examining the car.’

      ‘With respect, sir, I can confidently say there’s been a lot of progress in genetic fingerprinting over the past 18 months. They can work with much smaller samples now … microscopic samples.’

      He sighed. ‘I am aware of forensic developments, constable.’

      ‘Excellent, so you know where we’re coming from then, sir.’

      I could sense his brain grappling.

      ‘Look,’ he said finally, ‘you may as well know. The officers at the scene let the undertakers remove the body from the car before forensics arrived.’

      I couldn’t speak.

      ‘It was the summer holidays, don’t forget. The place was packed with families, kids. By all accounts, it was a horrific sight.’

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