A Cold Case Page 4

  ‘Yes … a “there but for the Grace of God go I” sort of friend,’ Mundy explained.

  ‘Oh?’ Ingram asked. ‘A close shave?’

  ‘Yes, it was, and he’s a geezer called Kinross, Stanley Kinross – a very nice bloke. Very nice bloke indeed.’ Mundy looked out across a ploughed field to a small wood on the skyline. ‘In fact, you might have seen him from time to time over the years. He’s a bald-headed geezer with a pronounced limp.’

  ‘A copper with a limp.’ Ingram turned to Mundy. ‘No, I would have remembered seeing him.’

  ‘Well, the limp is the story.’ Mundy returned his gaze to his front. ‘We were on duty, me and Stan, both uniformed constables. I’d just joined the Met. Stanley was a year or so younger than me but he already had a few years in. Anyway, we were about to go off duty … it was approaching ten o’clock … when we got a call from control. One constable was required for a Mental Health Act escort; it was either me or Stanley. I was keen on a young policewoman at the time and had promised to take her out if we could both get off duty on time. Stanley had just got married and was anxious to get home so we tossed a coin. Stanley lost and he said, “Oh, well, I dare say that the overtime will come in useful”. He had just taken on a mortgage, you see, so there was some compensation for him in working late.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Ingram kept his eyes fixed on the road.

  ‘Anyway, it turned out that the patient had just been sectioned under the Mental Health Act as being a danger to others but he was apparently quite placid and cooperative. Stanley told me later that he, the patient, suffered from a delusion that he had “special powers” and that he had been arrested when he was reported for stopping women in the street and telling them that they had to give him their handbags. But he wasn’t snatching their bags and running off with them, you understand, just very calmly telling them that they had to surrender their bags to him because of his special powers.’

  ‘I’ve got you.’ Ingram continued to drive at a steady pace, in keeping with the traffic flow.

  ‘So the police arrived, sized up the situation and bounced him into custody. He kept telling them about his special powers so they called the police surgeon, who said that it was definitely a mental health issue. He said to get a mental health officer and request him – the patient, that is – to be sectioned. “It’s a clear Section 24 … forty-eight-hours’ detention for observation …”’

  ‘Yes,’ Ingram replied, ‘sounds like it was.’

  ‘Anyway, the mental health officer was called and had a chat with this geezer who kept asking to be allowed to go because he had special powers so the MHO consented to a Section 24. The geezer wasn’t going to go to the hospital voluntarily so the forms were completed and signed and they put this mad geezer in the rear of the mental health officer’s car. He took the wheel and Stanley sat in the front passenger seat, intending to run him up to Friern Barnet Psychiatric Hospital. So off they went, they’d got Highgate behind them and then suddenly the mad geezer apparently leapt forward and grabbed the steering wheel.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Ingram groaned.

  ‘Oh, yes, oh, yes, oh, yes … and his action, in grabbing the wheel, caused the car to crash. The patient was killed outright, the mental health officer sustained severe and permanent brain damage and Stanley Kinross was off work for the best part of a year. He recovered as much as he was going to recover but was left with a pronounced limp. The Metropolitan Police tried to retire him with some paltry, next-to-nothing package because he had only had three years’ service in at that point, but the Police Federation fought his corner and he was allowed to return to work, though he was told that it could not ever be front-line policing.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Ingram uttered. ‘I mean, if you’re a copper then you’ve got to look the part and act the part – you can’t walk your beat or chase after felons with a bad limp. It just wouldn’t do … it just wouldn’t cut the mustard.’

  ‘Reckon so.’ Mundy nodded gently in agreement. ‘So that’s Stanley Kinross. He’s been in the stores – or Criminal Records – ever since. He gets moved every so often to stop him gathering dust, and right now he’s in CR. So the career that might have been his, well, he just didn’t get. He’ll retire as a constable … a full increment, on a full-service pension, but a constable’s pension is a lot less than might have been the case … inspector or chief inspector or whatever he might have risen to, so that could so easily have been me in that car. If I had called “heads” instead of “tails”, and the richest thing is that the relationship with the female officer came to nought …’

  ‘By the Grace of God, as you say.’ Ingram slowed at the approach to a traffic roundabout. ‘But the mental health officer must have been travelling.’

  ‘Yes.’ Mundy nodded, this time vigorously so. ‘That’s the issue, the whole issue. I mean, instant death, permanent brain damage and a badly smashed-up leg … you don’t get injuries like that if you crash at thirty mph, and for quite a long time afterwards Stanley was angry with the mental health officer for speeding. He blames himself for not saying something to make the geezer slow down but the accident took place in a sixty mph zone and the MHO was not over the speed limit. On the limit, perhaps, but not over it. And Stanley is a deferential sort of bloke and he also credited the mental health officer with professional knowledge which he – Stanley, that is – didn’t possess, and he assumed the mental health officer knew what he was doing in getting the patient to the hospital as quickly as possible. In the event, the speed just increased the level of stress and tension within the confines of the car with a geezer in the back seat who believed he had special powers anyway … and it seems that it provoked him to react in the way he did. A nice, gentle drive up to the hospital at thirty mph would have taken twice as long but with little tension within the car, and at thirty mph any injuries in a crash would have been relatively minor.’ Mundy paused. ‘So I go and have a chat with Stanley when I can … I dare say I am suffering survivor guilt.’

  ‘He doesn’t resent you?’ Ingram asked.

  ‘No, not Stanley, and he wouldn’t swap my life for his.’ Mundy glanced to his left. ‘Outside the job his life is overflowing with fortune. He has a hugely successful marriage and two children at university – one studying law, the other studying to become a doctor. Me … no wife and an empty house to go home to … And my pension isn’t a great deal more than his is going to be … so, no, there is no ill will. We also go for a beer occasionally.’

  ‘That’s good to hear … unfortunate story, though,’ Ingram commented.

  ‘Yes, but he also hasn’t been badly affected by the job. Police work can make you a hard, cold sort of personality and he’s avoided that being out of frontline policing – only ever dealing with colleagues, or distraught relatives of the suddenly deceased, never with criminals, and he’s never been tied in knots in the witness box by clever defence lawyers, so he’s not become hardened by it all. He is a very pleasant, gentle soul. That’s no mean compensation.’

  ‘Who really?’ Ingram pressed after a short pause. ‘Who … really?’

  ‘Sorry?’ Mundy turned and looked at him. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You said “who really” just now when I asked you what your visit to CR was for,’ Ingram explained. ‘It suggests something other than a chat with your mate who had his leg smashed instead of you having your leg smashed.’

  ‘Oh, yes … just a case, just wanted to check something, get a detail or two.’ Mundy looked away from Ingram. ‘A case I was involved in a long time ago. It bothers me a little.’

  Tom Ingram remained silent for a few moments, then said, ‘Just take care, Maurice. You’re retired and you’re in the Cold Case Review Team so just stay within the rules – don’t go playing the private detective. For your own sake, you must not forget that. You’re in your autumn, you’ve been given a job because of your expertise … we both are and we both have … there’s just no room for either of us to pursue a hidden agenda. Don’
t use your membership of CCRT to access records of cases not allocated to us. Don’t step outside the box you’re in.’

  ‘I won’t. Thanks for the advice, Tom,’ Mundy replied, ‘but I won’t.’

  ‘All right, I won’t mention it again. Right, let’s go and read this file. What was her name?’

  ‘Janet Laws,’ Mundy replied. ‘Her name was Janet Laws. She was the fourth victim – that is if, and only if, there is a serial killer out there, but we are only interested in the link, if any, with the murder of Oliver Walwyn.’

  Ingram smiled at Mundy. ‘Pleased you said that, Maurice. Let’s keep it focused. That’s the ticket.’

  Tom Ingram knocked loudly but reverentially on the black-painted door of the house. It was answered promptly by a short, thin man with a mop of ginger hair. He was casually dressed and held a tabloid newspaper, folded up, in his left hand.

  ‘Police.’ Ingram showed his warrant card. ‘We’re sorry to call unannounced in this manner. We’d like to ask you a few questions, if we may …’

  ‘What about?’ The man had a high-pitched voice. ‘The police don’t call like this … out of the blue … unless there is some sort of emergency.’

  ‘There is no emergency, sir.’ Ingram spoke with a gentle, reassuring tone. ‘Please, don’t be alarmed … no need to worry.’

  ‘That’s a relief … so what is it about?’ The householder relaxed his muscle tone. ‘It must be something important.’

  ‘Janet Laws,’ Mundy advised. ‘A young woman called Janet Laws.’

  ‘Janet Laws … Janet Laws.’ The man looked momentarily beyond Ingram and Mundy at the street behind them and then at the officers. ‘That name … it’s a name that rings bells … I’ve heard that name before … just can’t place it. But it rings a bell all right.’

  ‘She was murdered some ten years ago. Her body was dumped beside the road … quite a remote road,’ Ingram explained. ‘We have been re-reading the file at Chelmsford Police Station and we saw that you gave some information.’

  ‘Oh, yes, the street girl … poor lass,’ the man replied. ‘A sex worker but you can’t hold that against her – so many of those girls are dreadful victims of circumstance but yes, I know who you mean. Now I remember. How can I help? I told the police all I could, all I knew, but it came to nothing. No one was arrested, not that I heard about anyway.’

  ‘We know, hence a reappraisal,’ Ingram explained. ‘Can we go over the information you gave?’

  ‘If you wish … please come in.’ The man stepped aside and the two officers entered the house. Mundy walked into the hall and turned to his right as the householder had asked him to do and entered a very neatly kept room with a television of a modest size set upon a low shelf beside the gas fire. A narrow alcove housed six shelves, each holding books of varying sizes. Mundy and Ingram sat upon being invited to do so. As he sat, Maurice Mundy took out his notepad and then took a ballpoint pen from the inside pocket of his jacket.

  ‘So you’re Mr Golightly,’ Mundy confirmed. ‘Mr David Golightly?’

  ‘Yes, that is me.’ Golightly sat in an armchair. ‘You know, I don’t think I can add anything. In fact, I think I will have forgotten some of the details.’

  ‘Even so … even so …’ Mundy glanced to his left and right. He found the living room to be cramped as is the case, he had observed, in many new-build houses. ‘Can we go over it again? What did you see?’

  ‘Well, it was a dark night … it was raining heavily, coming down in stair rods, as is the expression. I saw a grey car being driven at speed down a cul-de-sac.’

  ‘At speed down a cul-de-sac …’ Mundy confirmed.

  ‘Yes, I was walking home that night; well, I was walking to get a bus to take me home. I’d had a beer or two but I was still clear-headed. I was not a heavy drinker, I’m still not. I took a shortcut I knew down a narrow street which had no pavement on either side and runs between two industrial units … The road leads into the industrial estate … and during the night the estate is shut down. No traffic goes into it.’

  ‘All right,’ Mundy grunted. ‘We understand.’

  ‘So I am walking down the narrow passageway, the road at the bottom goes left and right … the right leads to the industrial estate while the left leads into Chelmsford … and I see car headlights approach from the left.’

  ‘So from Chelmsford – the car was coming from Chelmsford?’ Mundy confirmed.

  ‘Yes. So I am suddenly thinking that I’m in trouble here because the car has to turn right, up the narrow road I’m in, because if he goes straight on all he’s going to do is enter the industrial estate and that’s a dead end, a cul-de-sac. So I am frightened because I can see myself getting crushed against the wall. I might be quite small but even if I flatten myself against the wall a car will still catch me. This is what I am thinking, and I am not happy, not a happy camper at all. I am thinking strongly that I’m going to be done a real injury and there is no time to run back the way I had come to avoid getting crushed.’

  ‘I see.’ Mundy listened intently. He was finding David Golightly to be a credible personality. He noticed that Tom Ingram was also listening intently.

  ‘And I am more frightened because the boy at the wheel is not dragging his feet, he’s coming on at a fast pace. I expected him to slow to turn into the road I was walking down, then once the corner is turned to pick up speed again. I’m frightened now because I’m wearing blue waterproof clothing … a coat and leggings. They don’t reflect car headlights; the boy will not see me. This is what I am thinking. The next day after that I bought a pair of yellow waterproof leggings because they reflect car headlights.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ Mundy smiled.

  ‘So … I am getting more and more frightened by the second and then he only drives right past the narrow passage I am in.’

  ‘Into the industrial estate?’ Mundy said.

  ‘Yes. So I think he’s giving me a chance to run to the road he has gone down because that road has a pavement and there I’ll be safe. He’s missed his turning—’

  ‘His turning being the narrow passage that you were in?’ Mundy asked.

  ‘Exactly.’ Golightly nodded his head. ‘So I can get out of the narrow passage before he turns round and comes back and turns into the passage.’

  ‘OK.’ Mundy wrote on his notepad. ‘Please, go on.’

  ‘So I get to the end of the passage and I am safe and I see him coming back at high speed and he drives past me, past the narrow passage and goes back the way he came.’

  ‘Back into Chelmsford?’ Mundy tapped the ballpoint pen on his notepad.

  ‘Yes, so I thought that means that he’s a stranger, because a local person would know that there was no road through the industrial estate … and, like I said, he was going at speed as well. He was in a hurry driving at speed into a cul-de-sac … definitely a stranger … deffo … as my son would say … deffo a stranger.’

  ‘Fair observation,’ Ingram commented.

  ‘I was going to turn into the industrial estate myself because there is a pathway which leads out of the estate but it’s for pedestrians only … wide enough for motorcycles but there’s a concrete bollard at either end to stop them from using it. There’s no exit for cars. None at all. So, like I said … he was a stranger and he was a stranger in a hurry. But I told the police that at the time, yes I did, I deffo told the police that.’

  ‘Yes, it is in the file … they did note it down.’ Mundy smiled. ‘They were listening to you. Did you recognize the make of car?’

  ‘A Saab,’ Golightly replied confidently. ‘A Saab 90.’

  ‘You seem certain?’ Mundy observed, looking at David Golightly. ‘Are you sure of that?’

  ‘I used to own one,’ Golightly replied smugly, ‘so I ought to be able to recognize one when I see one. They don’t make them any more … more’s the pity. Wrap around windscreen, aircraft-like controls. You know all is well if all the needles on the dials are parallel, so you just need
ed to run your eye across the instruments. But if one needle is well out of parallel with the others you know something is amiss. I also liked the ignition key being situated between the front seats, just in front of the handbrake … a very nice touch that, so I thought, anyway. The car had a nice, stable ride, solid feel. It was a bit complicated, though – everything happened on the front wheels … drive, handbrake, everything – and that was why I parted company with my Saab. It was way too complicated, things kept going wrong … I swapped it for a Volvo and then I got reliability through simple, straightforward design. “Keep it simple, Simon” … the KISS principle, you see. The less there is to go wrong the less will go wrong.’ Golightly paused. ‘Yes, I confess that I grew to appreciate the reliability of the Volvo but I missed the sparky nature of the Saab.’

  ‘I get the picture … it was a Saab and you definitely know your Swedish cars. So, if you say it was a Saab, then it was a Saab,’ Mundy replied dryly. ‘In your statement you said that two men were in the car as it drove past you that night?’

  ‘Yes.’ Golightly replied with continued confidence. ‘It was a dark, rainy night but I was so close to the car as it went past that you couldn’t get another person between me and it. I was just inches away. I remember thinking that they seemed a bit like Laurel and Hardy.’

  ‘One big and one small?’ Mundy asked. ‘Is that what you mean?’

  ‘Yes, that’s exactly what I mean … with the little guy, the Stanley Laurel of the two being the driver and the heavy guy in the back seat.’ Golightly reclined in his armchair. ‘I thought nothing of it at the time but when I heard on the radio that a girl had been found just outside Chelmsford later the following day … naked … I contacted the police and gave them a description of the car.’

  ‘So why did you make a connection with the car and the murdered girl?’ Ingram asked.

  ‘Two reasons,’ Golightly replied. ‘The car was coming from the area in Chelmsford where the working girls stand but especially because the big guy in the back seemed to be struggling with something or someone.’