Seeing an opportunity she had not previously anticipated, she hesitated only a moment before coming to a decision. Fresh out of training college, she’d learned one of the most valuable lessons of her career from a soon-to-retire copper of the old school. The illicit art of lock-picking wasn’t a skill the force looked favourably on, but her instructor insisted it would stand her in good stead. He’d been so impressed with her natural talent for the task that on his retirement he’d presented her with a gift: the small leather case in her pocket, packed with a selection of the best tools for the job. Michelle had seldom made use of it, but she remained rather proud of her ability to crack simple locks without leaving a trace.
The lock on the closed door which faced her was an elderly Yale. She set to work. It took her less than a minute to successfully open the door. She stepped inside and looked around, wondering where to begin her search. After all, she didn’t even know what she was looking for. And a part of her still held out that there was nothing to be found.
Noticing a desk on the far side of the room, she crossed to it, opened one of the drawers, and began to rummage through.
Then she heard a noise behind her. A door opening. A footstep. She turned to see him standing, half naked, just inside the room, dripping water everywhere. He must have just emerged from the bath; if it had been a shower, she would surely have heard it. As he lurched towards her, his face contorted with rage, the small towel he had draped around his waist fell to the ground, leaving him naked. For a second or two they both froze. The look on his face told her he was every bit as shocked and confused as she was, and just as frightened.
As she stared at him, transfixed, Michelle knew with absolute clarity that her suspicions had been right. This was the man who had killed Marlena, who would kill her if she did not get out of here this minute. So she turned, heading for the front door as fast as she could. He hurled himself sideways, making a grab for her, but he managed only to grasp her new shoulder bag. He tore it from her, breaking the strap. Then he seemed to step back, almost as if allowing her to escape. She half threw herself down the stairs, sprinted through the main door out onto the street and took off at a run, as fast as she could, her baseball hat falling unnoticed onto the pavement beneath her feet. She put a couple of blocks between herself and the apartment building before pausing to look back. She couldn’t phone anyone. Not easily anyway. Her new phone had been in her bag. She thought about approaching a passer-by for help, but decided her best option would be to head for Charing Cross police station, a couple of streets away. There couldn’t be a much safer place than that.
Nobody seemed to be following her. But then, he had been naked. He wouldn’t come after her without first pulling on some clothes, would he?
She leaned, panting, against a wall on the corner of St Martin’s Lane and Brydges Place, struggling to catch her breath. Her damaged nose made it difficult for her to breathe while running.
Brydges Place is a narrow pedestrian alleyway, overshadowed on either side by tall buildings, and surprisingly little used at the St Martin’s Lane end. It offered an effective shortcut to the police station. While Michelle was wondering if this was a shortcut she dared use, or if she should take the safer albeit longer option of the main drag, she felt a blow in the small of her back. A gloved hand was clamped over her mouth. Unable to make a sound, she found herself being pulled into Brydges Place. She could see people just a few feet away, but he’d been so quick and strong and assertive that nobody seemed to have noticed what was happening.
She began to struggle, but her strength was no match for his. The hand over her mouth was half smothering her. Why didn’t someone come into the alleyway? If someone didn’t come right this minute it would be too late for her; unless she could remove the hand that was blocking her airway, she’d soon lose consciousness. Her mind was extraordinarily lucid — just as Marlena’s had been, though she didn’t know that. So this is it, she thought. I’m going to die at his hands.
Strangely, the worst part was knowing that she would die without learning the answer to the question that had plagued her all night.
Why? Why had any of this happened? She knew now what he was, and had seen in his eyes how he must see himself. But why had he suddenly turned on his friends, inflicting such sadistic cruelty on people who had trusted and cared about him? Why?
It was her last thought. She felt an almighty blow to the back of her head. A searing pain cut through her body. Strong hands gripped her neck, squeezing the life from her. Then she was gone. Dead in his arms.
At last, too late, a pair of chattering office girls turned into the alleyway, heading for their place of work.
He shifted her weight, twisting her round so that she faced him, her dead body pressed close to his deadly one. Then he buried her face in his shoulder and lowered his hooded head, careful that his flesh did not touch hers, so that her features were concealed.
The two girls passed by without giving him, or poor dead Michelle, a second glance. She and her murderer looked every bit like a pair of lovers locked in a clinch.
He watched the girls retreat, their backs silhouetted against the brightness beyond the alley. There was a kind of alcove to his right, formed by the entrance to an old fire escape. He let Michelle’s body fall softly into a heap against its graffiti-covered yellow doors.
Then, he walked calmly away, his footsteps quiet and unhurried, until he was lost in the anonymous hubbub of the city.
Seventeen
The sight of a fellow human being slumped against a doorway in central London is sadly an everyday occurrence. The homeless, the drunk and the drugged, refugees and runaways, the mentally unstable, the physically infirm, the temporarily embarrassed and the permanently hopeless, are eternally attracted to the capital’s heaving melting pot. They seek refuge in the archways that surround our major railway stations, beneath bridges and viaducts, in the doorways of office and apartment blocks; they lie on the pavement by heating outlets, and are to be found sheltering in alleyways and dark corners throughout the metropolis. Their presence, frequently comatose, attracts little or no attention. And so it was that upwards of forty or fifty pedestrians, some using Brydges Place as a shortcut and some heading for the Two Brydges members’ club and the old pub next to it at the Bedfordbury and Chandos Place end of the alley, made their way past Michelle’s body without giving her a second glance, let alone stopping to investigate.
It was a pair of young mothers from the suburbs, in London on an away-day, their children in the care of their own mothers, who stopped to check on her, almost two full hours after Michelle had been killed. They took in the swollen face and the staring eyes and reached out to touch skin that was already cold. With trembling fingers one of them then dialled 999.
Vogel was taking an early lunch at a vegan café just off the Strand when the news reached him. He was told that the first officers on the scene, being from Charing Cross police station, had recognized Michelle and put a call in to Dispatch to report that one of their own was down. Vogel at once abandoned his stuffed organic tomatoes with brown rice and headed to the crime scene. He could not, in any case, have eaten any more of his food. He felt sick.
It took him less than five minutes, half walking and half running, to get there. He passed the police station on the way. The fire exit gateway where Michelle’s body had been discovered was a few yards from the end of Brydges Place, almost within sight of the back door of the station. Somehow, that made the discovery of her body all the more shocking. The SOCOs were already at work. The scene was cordoned off and several uniformed officers were ensuring its authenticity and keeping the public at bay. Vogel, though he hated it, duly kitted himself out in a Tyvek suit before approaching Michelle’s body.