bbc.co.uk/news
Yesterday, the daughter of businessman and TV star Harry Bannister became the latest victim in a series of attacks on the capital’s private tutors. Sam Bannister, 26, was attacked as she walked to the tube from her parents’ 20-million-pound Hampstead mansion where she had attended her sister’s 21st birthday party.
Her assailant approached her in the street, took her into an alley, pinned her to the ground and threatened her with a knife. The police are investigating the attack and are linking it to the recent murder of Giles Gallen in a Barnes cemetery and the assault on Emily Francis in Putney.
The victims in all three cases had been working as private tutors. Bannister had recently resigned from Forum Tutors, the agency that had employed both Gallen and Francis, who wrote an article 238in last week’s Standard describing the tutoring experience common to so many recent graduates.
Harry Bannister told the Standard, ‘I am appalled by what has happened to my daughter. She was simply walking along the road not far from our house on her way home and was subjected to the most distressing attack. Our streets are no longer safe. Knife crime is rife and it is no longer happening in the places it used to. It is spreading to different parts of our city, threatening different people. What I want to know is what our police are doing about it. Where are they? Where is their presence? And what are they doing about the murder of a young private tutor? What are they doing about the other attacks? What’s going on?’
Forum Tutors were unavailable for comment. DCI Karen Deighton, in charge of the investigation, said ‘We are pursuing several lines of inquiry and making progress. We have no evidence to suggest that private tutors or the Forum agency are being targeted. There could be other, unrelated reasons for these attacks.’
Garibaldi looked up from his screen at Deighton. ‘“Different people”? We know what Harry Bannister means by that, don’t we? White people in Hampstead.’
‘And we also know what it means by other unrelated reasons for the attacks.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘It means we haven’t got a clue. None of us have.’
Garibaldi let the ‘has’ remain unuttered.
‘One thing that puzzles me,’ he said, ‘is why Giles Gallen 239was murdered and Emily Francis and Sam Bannister weren’t. Why were they only attacked and threatened?’
‘Exactly,’ said Deighton. ‘If Gallen was killed because he needed to be silenced and if Francis and Bannister also needed to be silenced, why didn’t he kill them as well?’
‘Not that we want to be dealing with a tutor serial killer.’
‘Of course. But why the different MO?’
‘There’s no evidence that it’s the same man behind the murder and the attacks.’
‘Sure, but they have to be connected, don’t they?’
‘Looks like it. But if Francis and Bannister need to be silenced why do they say they don’t know anything? Both claim to have no idea why Gallen was murdered, no idea of what they’re being told to be quiet about.’
‘But we know Francis has already lied to us about one thing. What’s to say she hasn’t lied to us about others? And what’s to say that Bannister’s not keeping things from us as well?’
Garibaldi nodded. ‘We need to keep at them.’
‘We need more, Jim.’ Deighton pointed at the screen. ‘And now that bigmouth Harry Bannister’s on the case we need it quickly.’
Garibaldi leant back in his chair. ‘It all comes back to the same thing, doesn’t it?’
‘And what’s that?’
‘Tutoring.’
‘Yeah. We need to look more closely at Forum.’
‘And we also need to look again at the kids he was tutoring. And their parents. I get the sense they might have more to tell us.’
‘Right,’ said Deighton turning away and heading back to her office.
‘Let’s get on it,’ said Garibaldi under his breath. 240
*
‘I’ve told them you’re an old friend of Giles. Same pedigree. Very similar.’
When Simon Prest had heard Felicia Ireland’s words he should have thought twice about it.
He’d always been aware, since his time at Radley, that he wasn’t Giles Gallen and he was convinced the Rivettis had, in the last hour, made that same discovery for themselves. He’d been distracted throughout the whole interview, if not thinking about what it would be like to spend the summer on a yacht or in a flash villa then thinking that the only reason he was sitting opposite the Rivettis was because of what had happened to Giles. He was hesitant to step into a dead man’s shoes, especially when that man had been murdered, and murdered in a way that kept haunting him. The cemetery. The knife. The blood.
When the interview ended he knew he hadn’t made a good impression.
Mrs Rivetti had been the easier of the two. A bit over-anxious about her son’s prospects (what parent wasn’t?) but straightforward enough in her questions. Mr Rivetti, on the other hand, had unnerved him. When Simon was answering the mother’s questions he had sensed her husband’s scrutinising eyes. And when Mr Rivetti himself was speaking he felt even more under the microscope.
Mr Rivetti stressed the need for any tutor to be flexible and cooperative, willing to help in things beyond the merely academic, happy to involve himself fully in the life of the family, whether here in London or abroad. He then started to ask about Giles. How well had he known him? Had he spoken to him about his work for the family? Had he said anything about his summer abroad? Had he mentioned the other tutor who had worked for them?
That was when Simon had felt most uncomfortable. 241It brought home to him something he had been aware of for many years – that when it came to him and Giles, people were always more interested in Giles. Even when he was dead.
But as he walked away from the Rivettis’ house along Lonsdale Road towards Barnes, cutting through the path by the Swedish School towards the river and joining the towpath, he reminded himself that he hadn’t ever really wanted the job, that there were other reasons why he had turned up to the interview.
He checked his watch. He had to hurry.