“He couldn’t,” said Fitz. “It’s simply fate.”
“Or it could be–”
“Don’t you dare,” Gardener threatened his partner. He turned back to Fitz. “Was this suicide guy found exactly the same way as Fisher?”
“Yes. His friends gained access to his bedroom and found him kneeling on the floor with his throat cut, his head above a basin full of blood.”
“Where did you find all this, Fitz?”
The pathologist reached into one of his desk drawers and passed a paperback book across the desk to the senior officer. It was a standard,
perfect bound 6” x 9” publication entitled Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in Leeds.
Gardener leafed through the book, which was only around a hundred and fifty pages. The blurb on the back informed the reader that it covered a few of the most intriguing murder cases to occur over the last two hundred years in Leeds and the surrounding areas. There were four bookmarks indicating the chapters that covered the deaths the pathologist had informed Gardener about.
He had a sudden thought about the visits Vincent had made. He turned to his partner.
“Maybe that lunatic Baines who came to see us isn’t as mad as we thought. His first email made reference to numbers, and the date of the first murder adding up to twenty, which 1865 would.”
“And not 1982 like he thought,” offered Reilly.
“Precisely. And the second one added up to 18.”
Reilly glanced at the pathologist. “What was the year the body was found in the doorway?”
“1881.”
“There’s your 18,” said Reilly.
“What if it was the killer who had contacted Baines?”
“I wonder if he knows Baines as well as he makes out.”
“Or is he using him as a mouthpiece?”
“Who’s Baines?” asked Fitz.
Gardener briefly ran through it.
“Is there any mention of a man called Samuel Birchall in this book, apparently died from an overdose of opium?”
Fitz nodded. “I think it’s on the very last page.”
Gardener found it in a chapter titled ‘Suicides 1849 – 1909’. He quickly read through the four paragraphs, which were exactly as Vincent had mentioned.
“Maybe he’s a lot better than we gave him credit for,” said Gardener.
“I don’t think so, boss. We gave him hard evidence that it could be someone known as the Pudsey Poisoner, a man called Raymond Allen. He hadn’t even considered that one.”
“No. Is Allen responsible? Nicola Stapleton was found with a syringe underneath her that had been used to inject a compound into Barry Morrison, which was about as lethal as a poison.”
“Even so, I still think it would be out of a poisoner’s league to have come up with stuff so elaborate.”
“You’re probably right, Sean, but I think we need someone on Allen. Check out his background, exactly when he was put away, what he was up to inside, and where the hell he is right now.”
Gardener glanced at his watch. “Fitz, I really appreciate this. It’s given us something else to go at, but we really will have to go. We have an incident room meeting in about half an hour.”
“Before you do,” replied Fitz, “there is something else in the book which I found very disturbing. Please turn to page 55 and read it now. You might find your whole incident room meeting will be centred around that chapter.”