BETWEEN THE TOWERING Ionic columns of Selfridge’s department store stands an eleven-foot-high statue of a woman holding a large double-faced clock. She is known as ‘The Queen of Time’, and she guards the entrance with a majestic grandeur that few modern department stores ever achieve. On Friday the second of November, at precisely four minutes to noon, as the hands of her timepiece prepared to overlap, a scruffily dressed man marched with determination beneath her feet on his way to the store’s toy department on the third floor.
Here, below the distorted bleat of canned carols, a financially strapped character actor reduced to making appearances as Santa Claus waited in the spectral gloom of his illuminated styrofoam grotto, ready to disorient and terrify small children into being good.
In true commercial Christmas spirit, the children’s floor was a world of primary-coloured fluffy collectables and batteries-not-included interactive videotoys, many of them starting at £99.95.
At the entrance to Santa’s Grotto, harassed mothers and nannies lined up their wailing charges, readying them for their first major confrontation with an ethical problem in the real world. The children shuffled forward through the eerie mechanical tableaux of spasmodically slaving elves and diseased-looking goblins which were meant to enhance the magic of the season, and braced themselves for weighty problems concerning the value of duplicity (about having been good all year) and the reward of same.
Pushing his way through to the front of the line, the dishevelled man set about climbing the snow-clad polystyrene hill that sheltered Santa’s little rest area and changing cubicle. On the far side, he lay flat against the hill and watched as jolly old St Nicholas attempted to calm a ululating infant by seesawing a vermilion plastic pony before its horrified eyes. Finally, checking his watch and seeing that the appointed time had been reached, he dug into his jacket and removed a small handgun, which he carefully trained on the back of Santa’s deeply unconvincing wig.
He looked up to the roof of the cavern, where a hundred twinkling bulbs glittered in a man-made midnight sky, and for a moment it seemed as if he was standing on a real hill, staring into the infinity of the universe.
‘This is for you, my love!’ he cried, realigning the gun and squeezing off a single shot which reverberated through the fairy labyrinth. As the screaming began, he looked down to see that the top of Father Christmas’s head had exploded over the surprised infant. The child was thrown clear as the rotund body toppled slowly to one side and fell to the floor, pumping blood across the artificial snow and spattering a set of cheeky lightbulb-nosed reindeer with spots of crimson.
His mission fulfilled, the assassin slumped back against the styrofoam skislope and awaited the blessed arrival of the authorities.
‘Does this mean that I’m officially cleared?’ asked John. He found his visits to the police station oppressive and disturbing. The corridors were always filled with anxious people. Tension crackled in the air. How the staff managed to survive in such surroundings without becoming traumatised was a mystery.
‘In due course you’ll be notified in writing that you are no longer regarded as germane to the case,’ said Hargreave, ‘but yes, Mr Chapel, it does mean that you are cleared.’
John took down his raincoat and rose to leave. ‘Tell me something,’ he asked, ‘did you ever really think it was me?’
‘I’d have to say no to that,’ replied Hargreave. ‘Although I thought you were somehow involved. I still do. I’m just not sure how.’
‘Can you tell me about the man you’ve caught? I mean, why did he do it? How do you know it was . . .’
‘I think you’d better leave before I change my mind, Mr Chapel,’ said Hargreave wearily. ‘There’s still a lot of work to be done before we close the lid on this.’
After ushering his former suspect out of the door, Hargreave returned to his desk and sat with the case’s physical evidence files spread before him. If anything, the investigation made less sense now than it did before. Donald Peter Wingate, forty-five years old, an unemployed builder, had confessed to everything. More to the point, he had confessed to anything. He had immediately surrendered himself after the shooting of the Santa Claus, anxious to be taken into custody.
His shabby King’s Cross flat was wallpapered with photographs of all the current top models, mostly clipped from magazines and newspapers. Ixora’s picture was among them. In preliminary conversations with the arresting officers, Wingate often referred to ‘his girls’, about whom he obviously nursed an obsession. He admitted frequently tracking attractive young women to their homes and watching them from a distance, and disclosed that he had been following this daily ritual for two to three months.
He explained that he worshipped the models’ great beauty, and hated it when other men pestered or tried to touch them. He attempted to explain his involvement in each of the killings currently under investigation, but his conversation repeatedly deteriorated into rambling thought association. Mr Wingate was full of explanations, and precious few of them made sense.
The tabloid press had a field-day with a variety of SANTA’S PSYCHO SLAY headlines. Hargreave had a tough time making sure that the cause of the attack and the names of the models were kept secret from the journalists.
Subsequent investigation showed that Wingate had been interned in various mental institutions for the past seven years of his life. When arrested, he was found to be in possession of a small-calibre handgun and several rounds of live ammunition. When asked to explain his attack on an innocent store employee, he simply said that his girls would be pleased when they knew what had happened, although he denied ever having actually met or spoken to any of them.
Hargreave was far from happy. Donald Wingate seemed like an exaggerated version of Sullivan’s original suspect, Anthony Saunders. Their backgrounds held uncomfortably close similarities. The main difference was that Saunders had gone on to become a victim.
Each fresh admission of Wingate’s guilt brought with it a reverse effect. The inspector checked off his notes, running through the pages point by point.
Wingate was able to recite the correct locations of each of the crimes, although his fingerprints were not found anywhere. Yet he insisted that he had never worn gloves. He knew the names of all the victims and how they had died, and yet he could not remember where he had met them. Wingate had explained the motive for each of his attacks as that of jealousy. But Hargreave had conducted hundreds of criminal interrogations, and it was usual for such a person to show signs of emotional betrayal, or at least of nervous tension.
As their suspect was of doubtful mental stability, a police psychiatrist had attended each of the interview sessions. She was in agreement with Hargreave. Wingate seemed to know just so much about the crimes and no more, as if he had read up on each case and learned the circumstances by rote. He was unreliable, inconsistent, a self-confessed former white witch. But then, each time they were ready to dismiss the possibility of his guilt, he would reveal some point that had been withheld from the newspapers, something that only the police and the killer could possibly know.
‘This final murder makes no sense at all,’ he said to Janice as she came on duty. ‘He says he did it because one of the girls wanted him to, but he insists that he’s never met any of them or even spoken to them on the phone. And he can’t remember which one gave him his “orders”. And why a Santa Claus, for Heaven’s sake? Why not just some passerby in the street?’
‘Killing an ordinary person certainly wouldn’t have drawn so much attention,’ said Janice. ‘Perhaps it had to be someone outlandish. Did you ask him about the immersed crucifixes?’ The sergeant seated herself on the far side of Hargreave’s desk, stole a swig of his coffee and turned his notes around.
‘He says he can’t remember why he does that either. As he’s been living the life of a vagrant, we can’t prove his whereabouts on any of the nights in question. Although I’m damned sure that the doorman of the club wouldn’t have let him in looking the way he does. There are a dozen other inconsistencies in his stories, and the details vary every time. And yet . . .’
‘What?’ Janice surveyed the files which swamped the desk.
‘He knows about Dominguez being found on the railings. He knows that the razor was inside his body. He knows that Howard Dickson was killed with a sword. We’ve told nobody about that. What do you reckon?’
‘Simple,’ said Janice. ‘He’s a nut. I’m not being facetious. He has an impaired, distorted memory. Who can tell what his priorities are? If he didn’t do it, how could he have obtained inside police information, short of breaking in here at night? I’d say that until you uncover irrefutable proof of his innocence, you’ve got your man. What does his hospital file say about his past behaviour?’
Hargreave tamped the end of a thick cigar against its case and lit it. ‘I don’t know,’ he answered. ‘It was forwarded to the Wandsworth Clinic two years ago. They were the last people to treat him. I spoke to them this morning, but nobody seems to recall what happened to the file. The doctor who handled his case has since left. They also had a small fire which damaged part of the records office, so there’s more delay and confusion. We’re still looking, but God knows how long it’s going to take.’ He removed the cigar from his mouth and studied the glowing tip. ‘I think there’s an element we’ve overlooked throughout this.’
‘What element is that?’
‘What, because of the witchcraft thing? A lot of mental patients have a strong belief in the occult listed on their personality profiles. It’s very common.’
‘It’s not just that. A number of the victims were religious. Several wore crosses, which were removed after death.’
‘What about Santa Claus?’
‘Saint Nicholas. Blasphemy, perhaps, a false god. Let’s find out.’
‘How?’
Hargreave rose and reached for his overcoat. ‘We ask a priest,’ he said.