All My Enemies by Barry Maitland Read Free Book Online

smiled.
    “You’ll be at the post-mortem, Leon?”
    He nodded.
    “Well, I’ll see you there, and then I’ll join you down in Orpington, Ted. I’ll hold a briefing for the local CID, and then I’d like to talk to the boyfriend. Do you know what he does, Kathy?”
    “He’s unemployed.”
    “Well, line him up for me, will you, Ted? We need to check up on the crew he was out with on Saturday night.”
    “To confirm his alibi, Chief?” Ted said.
    “And theirs. It’s possible they all knew that Angela would be returning to an empty house that night.”
    “Was she in the church choir?” Bren turned to Kathy.
    “I’m not sure. Nobody mentioned it. Why?”
    “The way she was set out, with her mouth jammed open, arms by her side, like she was singing or something. If it was one of those blokes who knew her, if maybe they paid her a visit that night and she refused to co-operate, could that be some kind of sick joke? The choir girl singing her last hymn?”
    Kathy frowned, but didn’t reply.
    Brock shook his head, shoving his papers together, the meeting over as far as he was concerned. The others recognized the signs and began to get up. But Kathy said, “Brock, can I ask something?”
    “Of course.” He stopped what he was doing and looked at her, while the others sank back down on to their seats.
    Kathy suddenly felt that she should have kept quiet, but she ploughed on anyway. “Yesterday you said that there had to be some pattern linking Angela’s life and the killer’s. Fair enough if, as Bren suggests, it was someone she knew. But if it wasn’t. Where would we begin?”
    He seemed disappointed by the question. “It’s far too early tosay, Kathy. We don’t want to start with preconceptions. We need a lot more information.”
    She winced and muttered, “Yes, yes, of course,” and to herself thought
Great start, Kathy.
    “But . . . one inevitable thought . . .”—Brock stared at the salmon as if its gawping mouth might tell him something—“is the railway.”
    “The railway?” Kathy wondered if she’d misheard.
    “Mmm. Angela lived in Metroland, Kathy, the great suburban territory sustained by the intricate web of its electric railway system. There are more passenger trips made each year on the Southern Region railways around London than in the whole of the United States. But, more to the point, Londoners understand London in terms of its railway system.”
    Kathy still looked frankly puzzled.
    “Remember John Duffy, a couple of years ago?”
    “The serial killer?”
    “Yes. The papers dubbed him ‘The Railway Rapist’ because he seemed to have a preference for committing his crimes near a railway line. And the reason for that was that his mental map of London, the way he could navigate within it, was built around the railways he travelled on. From that it was possible to identify the area he lived in.
    “For Angela, London was what you see from the Petts Wood to Blackfriars line. She got on it at 8:19 each morning and again at 5:17 every evening. It was as familiar to her as her own bedroom, and maybe that’s true for her killer too. Maybe he caught sight of her on that line, and stalked her on it, and finally followed her home from it.”
    He paused and frowned, as if he’d said more than he’d meant to. “Anyway, let’s keep an open mind for the moment.”
     
     
    BREN DROPPED KATHY AT the north end of Blackfriars Bridge and continued across the river to the National Theatre, while she walked east down Queen Victoria Street. It didn’t take her long to find the building in which Merritt Finance occupied floors five to eight. The Head Office Manager’s suite was on the fifth.
    “Mr. Ferry should be in any time now, Detective Sergeant,” the secretary said. She seemed fascinated by Kathy, and kept glancing at her bag, as if it might contain some lethal arsenal. “Can I get you a cup of coffee? Or perhaps, if you told me what it was about, I might be able to help in some