The Ladykiller Read online

  ‘Er . . . Tony sent me. Tony Jones.’

  Suddenly the voice changed.

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, sir. You caught me offguard there.’ George heard a throaty laugh. ‘Bit early for me, love, but come up anyway.’

  There was a whirring noise and the door clicked. George opened it cautiously. His cheesecutter hat and Burberry overcoat gave him the look of a working class spiv. His hard little grey eyes were moist with anticipation. He had drawn out three hundred pounds earlier. Two hundred and fifty had gone on the video that was now tucked away securely in his car. He still had fifty left. He’d decided to treat himself. If all that Tony Jones said was true, this Tippy was just what he needed.

  He wrinkled his nose in distaste at the acrid smell of the place. The narrow hallway was littered with old newspapers and circulars. It was dark and dingy. George pressed the lightswitch on the wall by the stairs and a muted light came from above. He began to mount the uncarpeted stairs. The wallpaper was long gone from the walls, and here and there in places were rust-coloured stains that looked like blood. He began to hurry.

  Inside her room, Tippy, real name Bertha Knott, was hurrying around trying to tidy up. The night before had been a hectic one with seven punters. One after the other. It was always the same in the holiday season. She picked up her discarded clothes and threw them into a small bureau, scratched and marked by years of neglect. ‘She practically threw the overflowing ashtray and empty vodka bottle into the tiny kitchenette, the cigarette butts flying across the work surface and into the sink. Bollocks! Sod that bloody Tony Jones! Imagine sending her a punter at this time of day. No brass worth her salt was even up before twelve thirty!

  She heard the timid knock on her door and sighed. She hoped this bloke wasn’t too rough. She was sore as it was. She pulled the grubby negligee around her bony body and opened the door, a wide professional smile on her face.

  George looked at the woman, dismayed. She was absolutely horrible. She had dyed black hair that looked like cotton wool dipped in liquid boot polish, her face was thin and feral-looking, and through the flimsy see-through negligee George could see that under her arms was enough hair to make a pair of identical wigs.

  ‘Come in then, cocker.’ Her voice was jovial. ‘Would you like a cuppa or a drink?’ George walked into the room. He watched the woman’s scrawny buttocks disappear behind a curtain and looked around him, heartsore. The room was filthy, the large double bed taking up most of the space. It had black sheets on it, and George was not sure if that was their original colour or just the result of years of use. The cord carpet on the floor was covered in cigarette burns. Around the iron fireplace there were hundreds of them. Obviously the men who had used this room over the years had tried to flick their cigarettes into the hearth from the bed, and the majority had missed. One large overstuffed chair stood under the window covered in items of apparel: stockings, suspenders and other types of underwear.

  Tippy came back with two relatively clean glasses full of vodka and tonic. George took his for want of something else to do. Tippy placed hers on the old bureau. Picking up the underwear from the chair, she dumped it on the floor.

  ‘You have a sit down, luv, and I’ll go and get myself ready. Sorry about the mess but you caught me on the hop like. I’ll only be ten minutes. She disappeared through a door that George had not noticed before and called over her shoulder, ‘Take your coat off and get comfy.’

  He stood with the drink in his hand, deciding whether or not to make a run for it. Elaine’s houseproud ways got on his nerves but he would rather them than this dirty cat’s way of living. He walked to the chair and looked through the grubby net curtain. The street below was busy. George watched the people rushing about their business and just for a second he wondered what he was doing here. It was a disappointment. George did not class his pastimes as dirty in any sense. He had never thought that prostitutes and squalor went hand in hand. He had always imagined them as they were depicted in the media - beautiful young girls who loved their job and lived like queens. Reality was different and George did not like reality.

  He had just turned from the window, intent on leaving, when the woman walked back into the room. She looked completely different! She saw George’s mouth drop open and smiled. She had her hair in two pigtails. Her eyes were made up with heavy black eyeliner, her mouth was a deep red rosebud. She had discarded the dirty wrapper she had been wearing and had on long silky black stockings and suspenders, a black peephole bra and crutchless panties. An overpowering smell of Freesia perfume hung around her like a cloud. She grinned at George.

  ‘Now this is more like it, isn’t it?’ Her voice had taken on a husky, girlish tone and he was gratified. All his earlier thoughts flew from his head. She looked like the women of his younger days who had adorned the packs of nude playing cards. Who had gazed up at him from his adolescent girlie mags. In short, she looked like a whore.

  Her high-heeled shoes showed off her long thin legs to advantage. Her breasts were tiny and pert, the pink aureoles just hardening in the cold air of the room.

  ‘You haven’t taken off your coat. Shall Tippy take it off for you?’ She slipped it from his shoulders, folding it up and placing it carefully on the chair. George faced her, his eyes shining once more.

  Tippy pouted.

  ‘Tippy wants her money first. Twenty quid for the works, anal sex is an extra tenner.’

  George nodded, and handed over the notes.

  ‘Good. Well, I’m ready when you are, lover boy.’

  She watched George pulling off his clothes and grinned again. They were all the same. Stupid buggers. She gritted her teeth. Oh, please, let him be a quick finisher. She wasn’t in the mood for a long day’s screwing.

  She lay down on the dirty bed. Even through her perfume she could still detect the sour smell of the sheets. As George loomed over her, she was planning in her mind when to take the sheets to the launderette, and whether or not to pay for a service wash. She hoped he noticed the Durex she had strategically placed in the top of one of her stockings. He looked greener than the proverbial grass to her. Maybe she should have told him fifty quid. He looked as if he could afford it.

  Well, she consoled herself, his type normally came back, and she liked that. If she got another regular customer it would keep her off the streets for a bit. King’s Cross was not what it had been in her day. What with the runaways and the young druggies . . .

  Tippy felt George bite her nipple painfully and suppressed a cry.

  Another bloody nasty bastard. She sighed heavily. Here I go again. She pulled herself up on the bed and, kneeling in such a way that George could see her breasts to their best advantage, took his phallus into her mouth.

  After a couple of minutes an idea occurred to her. She lifted her head and looked into the man’s face.

  ‘For another tenner, you can tie me up if you like.’

  She got off the bed and, opening the bureau, took out a set of handcuffs and some leather-look rope.

  George nodded and Tippy brought them to the bed and handed them to him.

  As George tied her up she thought: Oh, well, in for a penny.

  Even Tippy was amazed when she heard George actually humming while he worked. Finally, with the prostitute spreadeagled on the bed, her arms and legs stretched wide, he was happy.

  This was submission. She would not fight him, she would just lie there and accept whatever he did.

  Getting off the bed, he went to his coat. He took his white cotton gloves from the pocket and slipped them on. Tippy watched him, half bored already. But when she saw what he was taking out of the inside pocket of the overcoat, she felt faint with fright. It was a large knife in a leather holder. As he pulled it slowly free it caught the weak January sunshine and Tippy strained against the bonds that held her.

  ‘’Ere, what you doing with that?’

  George walked to the bed and smiled. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you, my dear.’

  Kneeling ov
er her lower body, his belly hanging on to her knees, he began gently to cut off her panties.

  Tippy was breathing heavily, her face white under the black eyeliner and heavy foundation.

  Her mind was reeling. The bloke was a fucking nutter and she had let him tie her up!

  ‘Look, you’re not gonna hurt me, are you? Promise.’

  ‘I promise. Now shut up!’

  George’s voice had taken on a harsh inflection. Tippy shut up.

  Suddenly, the mild-mannered little man didn’t look green any more - he looked positively dangerous. Especially with that smile of his, that smile that just showed his teeth. Tippy closed her eyes tightly.

  Just wait until she saw that Tony Jones. The ponce! Sending her a candidate for Broadmoor. Tippy lay back and prepared herself for the worst afternoon of her life.

  ‘So, sir, what do you think?’

  Kenneth Caitlin lit himself a cigar, blowing the smoke out in huge puffs that swirled around his bald head.

  ‘From what I can see, Katie, this man is either very careful or has been very lucky. Very lucky indeed. There’s nothing at the scenes of the crimes. Nothing on the bodies, except of course as you pointed out his genetic fingerprint. There is absolutely nothing else to go on at all.’ He grinned at her. ‘This is just up my street, by Christ. I’ll find the bastard though.’ He poked his finger at her. ‘You just watch.’

  Kate’s voice was sarcastic. ‘So what do you suggest we do now?’

  ‘Well, the uniforms are out in force looking for the Butler girl. I think she’s dead though. This man has never hidden the bodies before, has he? So obviously if he’s hidden this one, he’s playing a whole new ball game. But I’ll tell you something now, Katie. They all bugger themselves up in the end. Look at the Yorkshire Ripper.’

  Kate was annoyed. Caitlin was getting on her nerves.

  ‘The Yorkshire Ripper killed thirteen women, sir, and was finally caught during a routine inquiry. Otherwise there’s no knowing just how many more he would have killed. What we have here is a chancer. The psychological profile is of a man who hates women, that much we already know. A man who has a job that could possibly have brought him into contact with the victims, though I don’t think so myself. If the women knew him, there would be someone else who knows him as well in the same capacity. The psychologist also says he’s likely to be married. That narrows the field down a bit, if it’s correct. He also has a knowledge of the area so is obviously a local man. Other than the dark-coloured car seen at the scene of the second murder, and a dark green car seen at the first, we have nothing whatsoever to go on.’

  Caitlin watched her. Women were always so emotional. They took their cases personally.

  ‘Well, I’m appearing on Crimewatch this week. Maybe something will come of that. Someone who’s not from the area could have been driving through and seen something.’

  ‘Yeah, and pigs might fly.’ Kate’s voice was bitter.

  Caitlin took another puff on his cigar.

  ‘Pigs can fly already, or so the druggies think when they see the police helicopters.’

  Kate closed her eyes. The man thought everything was a big joke. She stood and picked up her jacket from the back of her chair.

  ‘Where you off to?’

  ‘I’m going to see how the search is going on.’

  ‘Leave that to the uniforms, they’ll let us know soon enough if they find something. It’s bitter cold out.’

  As Kate opened her mouth to answer, the phone on her desk rang. She picked it up.

  ‘I’ll be straight down.’

  Caitlin heard the excitement in her voice.

  ‘Who was that?’

  ‘I think we may have a breakthrough. Come on.’

  Geoffrey Winbush walked hesitantly into Grantley Police Station. The desk sergeant smiled at him.

  ‘What can I do for you, son?’

  ‘It’s about the disappearance of Louise Butler. I think I may be able to help like. I think I saw her.’

  The desk sergeant was all business now. Opening the security door, he led the boy through to an interview room.

  ‘What’s your name and address, son?’

  ‘Geoffrey Winbush, 122 Tenerby Road.’

  The sergeant wrote it all down.

  ‘Well, sit yourself down. There’ll be someone to see you in a minute.’

  Leaving the boy sitting at the table, he went back to his desk and phoned up to Kate. Sergeant Mathers hoped that the boy could shed some light on the case.

  Kate walked into the interview room followed by Caitlin. Her first thought was that the witness was a good-looking boy. He was blond with deep-set brown eyes which looked troubled at this moment, and he was well dressed. He looked about twenty. His shoulders were wide and even though he was sitting, Kate saw he was a large boy. She smiled at him.

  ‘I’m Detective Inspector Burrows and this is Chief Inspector Caitlin. I understand you have some information about Louise Butler?’

  Kate sat opposite him and Caitlin leant against the wall of the room, his cigar smouldering in his mouth.

  The boy looked at them nervously.

  ‘Well, I didn’t know her personally but the other night like, I think it was her that we seen on the Woodham Road.’

  ‘We?’ This from Caitlin.

  The boy nodded.

  ‘Yeah, me and me mates. We was going to the rave - me, me brother Ricky, and three others: Tommy Rigby, Dean Chalmers and Mick Thomas.’

  He swallowed heavily and Kate felt sorry for him.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, as we was driving along, we saw this bird, walking by the roadside. She was on her own like. Anyway, I stopped and offered her a lift. But she wouldn’t get in. I’m sure it was her though.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t she get in? Did she say she was waiting for someone? Did she mention what she was doing on that road on her own?’

  ‘No, nothing. Mick Thomas was pissed out of his head. He slagged her off.’ His voice broke. ‘We all did. We left her there, on that road. We left her there to die. We drove on to the rave and left her walking, thumbing a lift.’

  ‘Thumbing a lift? Was she definitely thumbing a lift?’

  The boy nodded.

  Caitlin’s voice made him jump as he bellowed across the room: ‘You left a young girl to walk along a dark road at night? You slagged her off, as you put it, and left her there? Have you any sisters, young man?’

  ‘Yes, sir, two.’

  Caitlin had the cigar clamped between his teeth. He removed it before saying venomously, ‘Well, I hope if they’re ever in Louise Butler’s position, they’re treated better than you treated that girl. Now then, names and addressess of the other boys. Pronoto. I can’t be bothered to waste me breath on yer.’

  Kate closed her eyes. Caitlin was right, of course. The boys should never have left her there. But by the same token, the girl should have had more sense than to walk along a road like that in the dark. But that bloody Caitlin, he had to throw his weight around. He had to make himself heard.

  And the worst of it all was, Kate was the one who had to listen to the old sod!

  She smiled at the white-faced boy.

  ‘Shall I get us some coffee and then you can make your statement?’

  ‘Please.’ He began to cry. ‘We never thought that she’d be murdered. We’d had a drink . . .’

  ‘So you were drunk-driving on top of everything else? And how the thunder do you know she was murdered? We have no body that I know of.’

  The boy looked at Kate beseechingly. She got up from her seat and manhandled Caitlin from the room. Outside she whispered, ‘Don’t you think he feels bad enough without you on his back?’

  Caitlin shrugged his shoulders and buttoned up his wrinkled suit jacket. He blew cigar smoke in her face.

  ‘No, actually, Katie . . . I don’t. I think he’s an arsehole.’

  With that, he went back inside the interview room and she clenched her fists.

 
; If he called her Katie once more she would be getting arrested herself. For grievous bodily harm.

  She went to organise the coffee.

  Kate pulled into her drive. She was tired. Winbush hadn’t really been any help. Caitlin had put the fear of Christ up him and, consequently, he had been loath to say too much. Kate had arranged to go to his house and see him herself. The trouble with Caitlin was he still behaved as if it was the old days, when everyone wanted to help out the police. He should come back down to earth with everyone else. Since the West Midlands business and now all this about false evidence everywhere you looked, the police popularity poll was down to minus two.

  She let herself into her house. The smell of meat assailed her nostrils and she followed the smell into the kitchen. Her mother was turning lamb chops under the grill.

  ‘Hello, Kate, get yourself seated and I’ll make you a coffee.’

  Dan got up from the breakfast bar. ‘I’ll do it, Eve, would you like one?’

  Evelyn shook her head.

  ‘Oh, by the way, Katie, you had a call. Said his name was Pat and could you call him back.’

  Kate felt her heart freeze in her chest. She could feel Dan’s eyes boring into her face.

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’ She lit a cigarette for something to do. Patrick calling here. She felt herself go hot all over.

  ‘So who’s this Pat then?’ Kate detected a hint of jealousy in Dan’s voice.

  ‘None of your business, Dan, actually.’ He stared at her and Kate dropped her eyes. ‘He’s a friend of mine if you must know.’

  ‘I see. Where did you meet him then?’

  Evelyn watched the two of them with a little smile on her face. Dan’s questions were annoying Kate and if he wasn’t careful he just might end up on the receiving end of her tongue. She placed the chops under the grill once more and the only sound in the kitchen was the lamb fat spitting.

  ‘I said, where did you meet him?’ Dan’s voice rose.

  Kate put down her coffee cup and looked at her exhusband.

  ‘What the bloody hell has that got to do with you?’

  ‘It’s got a lot to do with me. My daughter . . .’