By now, the team had had the opportunity to look further into the lives of the four dead women in order to try and find out if there were any links between them. They’d also been looking into doctors and surgeons living in Mildenheath as well as building a list of people who’d potentially be in a position to find out a lot about the women’s lives.
They’d looked at the women’s lives in as much detail as they could, but it seemed that there was little or no crossover. All except Emma Roche had Facebook profiles, and they’d cross-referenced the friends lists of the other three. They had only two mutual friends between them, which was quite remarkable considering the fact that they all lived in Mildenheath. One was a disabled woman living in a surrounding village who’d been housebound for three years and the other was a man who’d moved to New Zealand five years earlier for work.
‘I had a look at the medical records,’ Luke Baxter said, looking down to read off his notes. ‘Keira Quinn had been taking medication for depression, as had Lindsay Stott. Marla Collingwood had been going through CBT, a talking therapy, but had refused medication.’
‘Isn’t that quite high? Three out of four women being treated for depression?’ Wendy asked.
‘Depends how you look at it. Generally it’d be about one in four, but we’re looking at women who live on their own, generally divorced or separated, not working. I’d be pretty bloody depressed too.’
Wendy decided not to bite. ‘Who was the counsellor? Had Keira and Lindsay been having this CBT too?’
‘Counsellor was a woman called Diana Kenning. She was on holiday when the last two women died, if that’s what you’re going to ask. And no, Keira and Lindsay had just been taking medication.’
‘Did they have the same doctors?’
‘Nope. Emma Roche and Keira Quinn were registered at the same surgery but saw different doctors. Lindsay Stott and Marla Collingwood were registered elsewhere.’
‘Anyone else who’d have access to their medical histories?’
‘Nothing requested by third parties,’ Baxter replied curtly.
‘I had a look through the list of doctors living in Mildenheath,’ Frank Vine said. ‘Mostly British or from the Indian subcontinent. No Polish or Eastern European, which I was looking out for based on what Debbie said about the Polish link in the original Ripper case. I did find something interesting, though. There’s a doctor called Desmond Jordan living locally. Bit of an odd character by all accounts. Originally trained as a surgeon but took a diversion to become a GP. And guess what? He’s American.’
‘You thinking of a link with Tumblety, Frank?’ Debbie asked, her voice betraying a frisson of excitement.
‘It’s possible. Tumblety was an American doctor living in Whitechapel and was heavily linked with the Ripper killings for quite a while.’
‘Seems a bit tenuous to me,’ Wendy said. ‘Anything else to link them?’
‘Not looked into it too far yet, but something did stand out. Tumblety was from Boston, right? Well, get this. Desmond Jordan is originally from Baltimore.’
Culverhouse stood and stared at Frank Vine for a few moments. ‘Frank, I don’t mean to be funny, but you are aware that they’re about four hundred miles apart, aren’t you?’
‘Yeah, obviously, but they both begin with B! Got to be something in it, hasn’t there?’
‘Have we got anything better?’ Culverhouse asked, exasperated.
‘Not at the moment.’
‘Great. Fucking great.’
‘We’re looking into the Polish community as a whole,’ Steve Wing said. ‘I’m in contact with the Polish church and community club down the road. Trying to see if there’s anyone from Poland who trained as a doctor or surgeon before moving here. I’m also looking at the hairdresser route. Mainly because they’re the sorts of people who hear all about people’s lives. That and pub landlords, but we already know two of the women didn’t go to pubs all that often and the other two went to different ones from each other, so I’m going to get onto phoning around all the local hairdressers to see if any of our four victims were on their client list.’
‘Right. Good,’ Culverhouse said. ‘But why hasn’t it been done already?’
‘To be honest, guv, we’ve all been focusing mainly on the medical side of things. Got to jump through hoops with the GMC, then cross-reference it all with census data and council tax records to see who lives locally. Then find their place of birth and run them through the PNC... It all takes time.’
‘Well we don’t have time,’ Culverhouse said. ‘That’s running out fast, so let’s get a move on, alright? The only name we’ve got so far is this Desmond Jordan. Probably best we get a statement and alibi from him for the nights of the murders. We don’t want to spook him too much right now, so we’ll visit a few other doctors as well. Word gets around and we don’t want him to think he’s our only suspect, particularly when we’ve got next to sod all to go on. Knight, could you go down and get a statement?’
‘No problem. I’ll do it later on today.’
‘Right. And I want an update on everything by the end of the day. There’s a lot of chasing and paperwork to do, so we need to get on top of it.’