Impression (DI Gardener 4)

“Same house?”

Briggs asked.

“I can’t say for definite that it was the same house, but it looks like it was. Fitz had sent for a detailed map of Batley in 1865.”

“Christ,” said Anderson. “Can you actually get such a thing?”

“Not quite. The best he could do was 1892, but everything was still there. Superimposed onto modern-day Batley, you find that Hume Street in 1865 is now Hume Crescent.”

“How weird is that? He’s obviously trying to frighten Baines because the private dick sent him down. Question is, is he trying to confuse him?” Briggs asked.

“Maybe. He’s definitely using Baines as a voice, because Baines has a blog.”

“We need a lot more on this bloke Allen,” said Briggs. “Did he have cryptic information for the second crime?”

“Yes,” said Gardener. “He reckoned that year added up to eighteen.”

“And what did Baines have to say about that?”

“He didn’t,” replied Gardener. “At that time he was too fixated on his 1982 mystery, persuading us that the recent double murder had been committed by a man named Steven Cooper.”

“I take it you’ve checked that out? Why did he suspect Cooper?”

“Long story,” said Gardener. “But it has nothing to do with Steven Cooper. He died in 2006.”

“But Baines has been back to see us,” said Reilly. “Only now he’s convinced it’s some haggis-eating heathen by the name of Mad Dog Danny MacDonald, because Vincent solved something else that happened in the early 1990s involving MacDonald. He reckons this big Scottish gangster is after putting the record straight.”

“What?” said Briggs. “And he’s waited thirty years?”

“That’s what we said.”

“Take it from me, big time gangsters do not wait thirty years to settle scores, and when they do, they don’t bother with clues. You’re either holding up a motorway bridge, or you’re wearing concrete shoes at the bottom of a very deep lake.”

“That’s why we’ve told him to stop wasting our time,” said Gardener. “However, we can’t ignore the clues and the evidence that Fitz has come up with.”

Gardener produced a copy of the book he’d taken from the mortuary, Foul Deeds And Suspicious Deaths In Leeds. It took him another thirty minutes to bring his squad up to date on what Fitz had told them, pointing out the parallels for each of the four murders.

“The killer is obviously someone who’s studied true crime to have copied the scenes exactly,” said Thornton.

“But why is he doing it?”

“Well, these people don’t have to have much of a reason, do they?” said Anderson. “I mean, he’s obviously got a damn good reason in his head for killing four people, but as for how he does it, well that could be anything.”

“You’re probably right, Bob. Sarah Brooke was a widow, and her daughter Hannah was a millhand; neither were prostitutes. John Critchley was the son of a JP and unemployed. So why he’s picking out that particular way of murdering someone is anyone’s guess.”

“We might never find out,” offered Reilly.

“However, all the people he’s taking out are connected. There must be an incident in the past that involved all of them.”

“Or maybe they’ve all crossed him at some point,” added Reilly.

“It doesn’t have to be anything with a psychopath,” added Rawson. “He could simply start and stop when he feels like it.”

“I’m not so sure he is a psychopath,” replied Gardener. “I know what he’s done is bad, but maybe he’s on a mission. Talking to Fitz, he firmly believes that that’s what it is. It’s possible his agenda only has so many people, and when he’s done, he’ll stop. We may find the man has a clean record, never done anything like this in his life.”

“There’s still the five-year-old girl to consider,” said Sharp.

“Or girls,” added Anderson.