Impression (DI Gardener 4)

“Neither of those has turned up anywhere, have they?” Briggs asked. “Is there anything in the book about that?”

Gardener allowed a hush to descend over the room before tackling his final point.

“Oh, Jesus,” said Briggs. “There is, isn’t there?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Gardener. “It happened in 1891. According to the book, five-year-old Barbara Whitham Waterhouse was last seen on Saturday 6th June during the afternoon peering into a shop window in Town Street. She was playing with a friend who was asked by her mother to go and fetch some sandwiches. The two girls collected them before separating. Between the Saturday afternoon and Wednesday 10th June, nothing more was seen or heard of Barbara.

“Her body was found behind the Municipal Buildings in Leeds on that Wednesday evening. The Yorkshire Post published the fact the day after the body was found. It appears that her injuries were so horrific that the mother fainted, and the father was unable to bear up.”

Colin Sharp broke the haunting silence in the room. “What happened?”

“The murder happened at a time when Jack the Ripper was at large in the East End of London. The Yorkshire newspapers pounced on it. She was wrapped in a shawl, and it was reported that the body had actually been washed after the murder. At some point in the afternoon, one eyewitness report said they had seen a small girl fitting her description in Woodside, perhaps going towards Leeds, and she was accompanied by a man and a woman.

“Apparently there were forty-five different wounds on the body, including cuts and stab wounds. The deepest of which ran from the bottom of the stomach to the chest. It would seem that the murderer had stabbed the little girl in the chest before ripping the body right up to her neck. Her throat was cut, and her legs had almost been hacked away from her body. Judging by the cuts on her fingers, it was evident that she had tried very hard to resist the attack.”

Gardener allowed the dust to settle before adding, “I understand all about police budgets, but some things are more important. I want officers behind the municipal buildings every night from now until we catch the lunatic responsible for these four murders.”

Chapter Forty-nine

Vincent had been in a state of shock since Gardener and Reilly had shown him the article in the newspaper – for two reasons. First, he could not work out how he had missed that edition of The Yorkshire Post. Second, his life was in far more danger than he had realized.

He left the police station, went straight home, locked all the doors, and barricaded himself in. Raymond Allen was a lunatic – a very dangerous lunatic, who knew poisons better than anyone else, including John Oldham.

Vincent became involved when he overheard John Oldham the chemist talking to another staff member about the sickness problems they had been having at the shop, and that they had only started since the apprentice Raymond Allen had joined them.

Vincent confronted Oldham and asked him if he was serious about the comment. His reason for asking was fact that he’d discovered bottles and cartons tucked away in the bottoms of bins and behind them, and he was of the opinion that poisons had to be disposed of properly: that there were set down procedures.

Vincent tracked down Allen’s family, where he was shocked to learn the extent of Raymond’s experiments. His mother had died in childbirth and from a young age his fascination for poisons and the effect they had on people grew rapidly.

When he was twelve, he had tested poisons on his family, enough to make them violently ill. He’d gathered large amounts of antimony and digitalis by repeatedly buying small amounts, lying about his age and claiming they were being used in science classes at school. Allen’s stepmother, Sarah, died from poisoning in 2003.

Allen’s sister informed Vincent of the two occasions when Allen himself had become as ill as the rest of the family. Vincent decided that Allen had either forgotten which stuff he had laced, or he had deliberately poisoned himself to make it appear genuine.

As one of Allen’s duties was making tea, Vincent asked Oldham to analyse it. The tea had in fact been poisoned and the stock in the shop was incorrect. The p

olice were informed and Allen was arrested, after confessing to the attempted murders of his father, sister, and friend.

Raymond Allen was sentenced and sent to Rampton hospital for the criminally insane.

Since constructing his blockade, he had sat in front of his computer, watching and waiting. He’d eaten nothing apart from a chocolate bar. But he had polished off his entire stock of lagers before starting on the Jack Daniel’s.

He was now on his third glass. It was eight forty-five in the evening, and his email inbox had pinged. The Man in Black had sent another.

His message was more direct than any of the previous emails. The friendly tone was missing; gone were the clues.

Vincent filled his empty glass with whiskey again, draining the last drops from the bottle, realising he did not have another to replace it with. He was buggered if he was going across the road to Morrisons.

He read the email:

Hello Vincent.

If you haven’t guessed by now you never will. You’re not really the detective you thought you were. Seems you’ve wasted most of your time in a blind panic, hoping the two detectives leading the double murder case will save you.

They won’t.

Keep your thoughts on Samuel Birchall.

Keep your eyes open and your ears peeled.