“Witnesses?”
“Nobody saw a bloody thing.”
“What about Devotee and his motorbike?”
“Ruled out,” Wardle admitted, his expression grim. “He’s got a firm alibi for Heather’s killing — family wedding — and we couldn’t make anything stick for either of the other two attacks.”
Strike had the impression that Wardle wanted to tell him something else, and waited receptively.
“I don’t want the press to get wind of this,” Wardle said, dropping his voice, “but we think he might’ve done two more.”
“Jesus,” said Strike, genuinely alarmed. “When?”
“Historic,” said Wardle. “Unsolved murder in Leeds, 2009. Prostitute, originally from Cardiff. Stabbed. He didn’t cut anything off her, but he took a necklace she always wore and dumped her in a ditch out of town. The body wasn’t found for a fortnight.
“Then, last year, a girl was killed and mutilated in Milton Keynes. Sadie Roach, her name was. Her boyfriend went down for it. I’ve looked it all up. The family campaigned hard for his release and he got out on appeal. There was nothing to tie him to it, except that they’d rowed and he once threatened a bloke with a penknife.
“We’ve got the psychologist and forensics on to all five attacks and the conclusion is they’ve got enough features in common to suggest the same perpetrator. It looks like he uses two knives, a carving knife and a machete. The victims were all vulnerable — prostitutes, drunk, emotionally off balance — and all picked up off the street except for Kelsey. He took trophies from all of them. It’s too soon to say whether we’ve got any similar DNA off the women. Odds are, not. It doesn’t look like he had sex with any of them. He gets his kicks a different way.”
Strike was hungry, but something told him not to interrupt Wardle’s moody silence. The policeman drank more beer then said, without quite meeting Strike’s eyes,
“I’m looking into all your guys. Brockbank, Laing and Whittaker.”
About fucking time.
“Brockbank’s interesting,” said Wardle.
“You’ve found him?” asked Strike, freezing with his pint at his lips.
“Not yet, but we know he was a regular attendee at a church in Brixton until five weeks ago.”
“Church? Are you sure it’s the same bloke?”
“Tall ex-soldier, ex-rugby player, long jaw, one of his eyes sunken, cauliflower ear, dark crew cut,” reeled off Wardle. “Name Noel Brockbank. Six foot three or four. Strong northern accent.”
“That’s him,” said Strike. “A bloody church?”
“Hang on,” said Wardle, getting up. “Need a slash.”
And yet, why not a church? Strike thought as he went to the bar for a couple of fresh pints. The pub was filling up around him. He took a menu back to the table as well as the beers, but could not concentrate on it. Young girls in the choir... he wouldn’t be the first...
“Needed that,” said Wardle, rejoining Strike. “I might go out for a fag, join you back—”
“Finish about Brockbank first,” said Strike, pushing the fresh pint across the table.
“To tell you the truth, we found him by accident,” said Wardle, sitting back down and accepting the pint. “One of our guys has been tailing the mother of a local drug lord. We don’t think Mum’s as innocent as she’s claiming to be, so our guy follows her to church and there’s Brockbank standing on the door handing out hymnbooks. He got talking to the copper without knowing who he was, and our guy didn’t have a clue Brockbank was wanted in connection with anything.
“Four weeks later our guy hears me talking about looking for a Noel Brockbank on the Kelsey Platt case and tells me he met a bloke with the same name a month ago in Brixton. See?” said Wardle, with a ghost of his usual smirk. “I do pay attention to your tip-offs, Strike. Be silly not to, after the Landry case.”
You pay attention when you’ve got nothing out of Digger Malley and Devotee, thought Strike, but he made impressed and grateful noises before returning to the main point.
“Did you say Brockbank’s stopped attending church?”
“Yeah,” sighed Wardle. “I went down there yesterday, had a word with the vicar. Young guy, enthusiastic, inner-city church — you know the sort,” said Wardle — inaccurately, because Strike’s contact with the clergy had been mostly limited to military chaplains. “He had a lot of time for Brockbank. Said he’d had a rough deal in life.”
“Brain damage, invalided out of the army, lost his family, all that crap?” asked Strike.
“That was the gist,” said Wardle. “Said he misses his son.”
“Uh huh,” said Strike darkly. “Did he know where Brockbank was living?”
“No, but apparently his girlfriend—”
“Alyssa?”
Frowning slightly, Wardle reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, pulled out a notebook and consulted it.
“Yeah, it is, as it goes,” he said. “Alyssa Vincent. How did you know that?”
“They’ve both just been sacked from a strip club. I’ll explain in a bit,” said Strike hurriedly, as Wardle showed signs of becoming sidetracked. “Go on about Alyssa.”
“Well, she’s managed to get a council house in east London near her mother. Brockbank told the vicar he was going to move in with her and the kids.”
“Kids?” said Strike, his thoughts flying to Robin.
“Two little girls, apparently.”
“Do we know where this house is?” asked Strike.
“Not yet. The vicar was sorry to see him go,” said Wardle, glancing restlessly towards the pavement, where a couple of men were smoking. “I did get out of him that Brockbank was in church on Sunday the third of April, which was the weekend Kelsey died.”
In view of Wardle’s increasing restlessness, Strike passed no comment except to suggest that they both adjourn to the pavement for a cigarette.
They lit up and smoked side by side for a couple of minutes. Workers walked past in both directions, weary from late hours at the office. Evening was drawing in. Directly above them, between the indigo of approaching night and the neon coral of the setting sun, was a narrow stretch of no-colored sky, of vapid and empty air.
“Christ, I’ve missed this,” said Wardle, dragging on the cigarette as though it was mother’s milk before picking up the thread of their conversation once more. “Yeah, so Brockbank was in church that weekend, making himself useful. Very good with the kids, apparently.”
“I’ll bet he is,” muttered Strike.
“Take some nerve, though, wouldn’t it?” said Wardle, blowing smoke towards the opposite side of the road, his eyes on Epstein’s sculpture Day, which adorned the old London Transport offices. A boy stood before a throned man, his body contorted so that he both managed to embrace the king behind him and display his own penis to onlookers. “To kill and dismember a girl, then turn up in church as though nothing had happened?”
“Are you Catholic?” Strike asked.
Wardle looked startled.
“I am, as it goes,” he said suspiciously. “Why?”
Strike shook his head, smiling slightly.
“I know a psycho wouldn’t care,” said Wardle with a trace of defensiveness. “I’m just saying... anyway, we’ve got people trying to find out where he’s living now. If it’s a council house, and assuming Alyssa Vincent’s her real name, it shouldn’t be too difficult.”
“Great,” said Strike. The police had resources that he and Robin could not match; perhaps now, at last, some definitive information would be forthcoming. “What about Laing?”
“Ah,” said Wardle, grinding out his first cigarette and immediately lighting another, “we’ve got more on him. He’s been living alone in Wollaston Close for eighteen months now. Survives on disability benefits. He had a chest infection over the weekend of the second and third and his friend Dickie came in to help him out. He couldn’t get to the shops.”