Hidden Killers. Lynda La plante
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as he sat up straight. Moran paused, looked him in the eye and nodded, as if he’d just realized something.
‘You also don’t want to admit to the rape because of your wife. You think she’ll accept the indecent assaults because they are in some way her fault, but raping a teenage girl, she won’t accept that. Well, even if you don’t confess, believe me, I will make sure she comes to realize it was you and sees you for the animal that you really are.’
Allard looked helplessly at Jane.
‘Why don’t you tell him the truth? I might have said I had a knife, but I didn’t . . . that was only to frighten you. I thought you were someone else. Why are you lying? You know I’ve been set up with the flick knife, because he wants to charge me with a rape I didn’t commit.’
Jane didn’t know whether to believe Allard or not. There was something about his desperate pleas that made her feel uneasy about the whole situation. Moran picked up his desk phone, called the duty desk and asked for a uniform PC to be sent up to his office. He then told Allard that they would conclude the interview for now as he had further enquiries to make. Jane partially held up the pen in her hand as she had a question she wanted to ask. Irritated, Moran repeated that the interview was over.
Feeling frustrated, Jane went to the CID office, where
DC Edwards was sitting at his desk writing.
‘Where is everyone?’ she asked.
‘They’re in the pub celebrating one of the detectives’ birthdays. As soon as I’ve finished these notes on the search of Allard’s house I’m joining them, if you want to come?’
‘DI Moran is with DCS Metcalf and he wants you to prepare the charges against Allard for all the indecent assaults.’
Edwards looked annoyed and mumbled something about having enough bloody work to do already and missing out on the booze-up.
‘I have to do the CRO 74, but could give you a hand as well if you need it?’
‘I have to go downstairs and get some blank charge sheets and the Guide to the Wording of Police Charges for an indecent assault and assault on a police officer,’ Edwards said as he walked towards the door.
Jane shouted across the room, ‘Moran said the list of the victims’ names was on his desk.’
Edwards raised his hand to acknowledge he’d heard her as he left the room.
Jane thought she’d be helpful and get the list from Moran’s office. She looked on his desk and to one side in a plastic desk tray she saw the list on top of a thick file. She picked up the list and noticed the file underneath had
‘DI Moran’ and ‘Indecent Assaults’ written on it. She was curious, picked up the file, placed it on the desk in front of her, sat down and started to flick through the victims’ statements. It quickly struck Jane that not one of the six victims mentioned actually seeing a knife, but in all of the cases the suspect had worn a stocking mask and said ‘I’ve got a knife so don’t scream!’ Jane remembered Allard saying something similar, but couldn’t quite recall his exact words.
She was about to replace the file when she saw another file with Moran’s name on it marked ‘Lamb Lane Rape’ in the plastic desk tray. She knew that Lamb Lane was only a stone’s throw away from London Fields where she was attacked and, opening the file, she took out the victim’s statement and started to read the salient points. The suspect had grabbed the victim from behind and held a flick knife to her throat and said, ‘If you scream or struggle I’ll cut your neck.’ Again she believed this was similar to what had been said to her by Allard. Jane read on. The rape victim stated that when the man had been on top of her and had penetrated her she noticed he had bad body odour and that his breath smelt of alcohol. Jane recalled Marie saying that her husband didn’t drink and she also remembered the sweet smell of aftershave when Allard had grabbed her from behind. However, what really struck Jane was that in the rape victim’s statement the assailant was wearing a black balaclava with eye holes, not a stocking pulled down over his face.
She heard someone in the CID office and quickly put the rape statement back. She picked up both files from the desk to put them back in the tray, but in her haste she dropped them.
‘What are you doing?’
She looked up and saw DC Edwards staring at her. ‘I, er, was trying to find the list of victims and just picked up some files when I heard your voice . . . It startled me and I dropped them.’
Edwards helped her pick up the statements, which she put back in the case files. He noticed DI Moran’s name on the Indecent Assaults file and asked Jane if she’d been lumbered with writing the report. Jane nervously shook her head, saying that she was just interested in reading the victims’ statements. Edwards sensed from her tone and demeanour that something was wrong, even more so when he noticed that she’d also dropped the rape file.
‘Did you ask Moran if you could look through these files?’
Jane knew it wasn’t worth lying. ‘No, but I didn’t really know much about any of the cases so I was just having a quick read of the statements.’
‘Listen, Jane, one thing you don’t do is go snooping through a senior officer’s files. If Moran found out, you’d never get in the CID, in fact you wouldn’t even be allowed to cross the threshold into the main office again!’
‘Are you going to tell him?’ Jane asked, looking worried.
Edwards hesitated at first, then reassured Jane that she could trust him to keep quiet, but he sensed something else was making her nervous and asked her what it was.
Jane explained that no one had seen a knife in any of the indecent assaults, and in every attack the suspect wore a stocking mask, but in the rape he wore a balaclava. She was about to continue when Edwards interrupted.
‘So what? It’s a form of mask, just like the stocking Allard wore. Moran is way more experienced than the two of us, and if he thinks all the attacks and the rape are linked then he has good reason. He can’t just ignore Allard as a possible suspect, can he?’
‘No, I appreciate that, but the attacker in the rape held a knife to the victim’s throat and said “If you scream or struggle I’ll cut your neck—”’
Again Edwards interrupted. ‘Yeah, exactly like Allard said to you, Jane. So let’s just agree to differ and get on with what DI Moran told us to do.’
‘It’s not what he said to me . . . and there are other glaring differences between last night’s assault on me and the rape.’
Edwards looked at her. She had her CID pocket book in her hand.
‘Allard said to me, and this is word for word . . .’ Jane looked at her pocket book. ‘“I’ve got a knife . . . so keep your mouth shut, you fucking thieving whore, or I’ll cut your throat wide open this time”, but he didn’t even hold a knife to my throat.’
‘For Chrissakes, Jane, apart from a word or two it’s the same . . . so just drop it.’
‘The rape victim also said her attacker smelt of BO. Allard was so close to me that I could smell his aftershave.’
‘So? He could have been sweating like a pig after stuffing himself with steroids, for all we know.’
Again she referred to her pocket book. ‘Allard said in the interview, “I paid prostitutes for sex in the back of the cab. Anyway, one night this tart ripped me off by snatching my money bag and running off.”’
‘It’s called motive, Jane, he’s telling you why he committed his crimes. No, I’m wrong . . . he’s actually trying to blame prostitutes for the fact he became a pervert. He also attacked women who weren’t prostitutes!’
Edwards was losing his patience.
‘But he thought they were . . . just like he did with me. In fact, I think it’s possible he thought I was the same prostitute