Daisy in Chains

Anne Louise Moorcroft

Ellipsis Literary Agency

Bute Street

London WC3

Mr Hamish Wolfe

c/o HMP Isle of Wight

18 November 2015

Dear Mr Wolfe

Re: Maggie Rose

My client regrets that her answer to you must remain the same. Her current projects will keep her entirely occupied for the foreseeable future and consequently she must decline, once again, your request that she consult regarding your case.

She has asked that I refrain from forwarding any future correspondence from you. It would be better if you did not contact us again.

Yours faithfully

Anne Louise Moorcroft

Chapter 1

ON THE SOMERSET coast of the Bristol Channel, roughly equidistant from Minehead and Weston-super-Mare, is a large storm-water drain.

No one likes it.

A blackened pipe, four feet in diameter, the drain carries excess water from the arable farmland of the Mendip Hills and outflows into the Channel a hundred metres from the sea wall. At high tide, seawater moans and roars inside it, whilst rocks and driftwood crash against the concrete sides with a startling ferocity.

As hikers, dog walkers and fishermen pass by the access manhole they quicken their steps. A square of steel railings keeps them at a distance, but the tall, cage-like structure merely serves the illusion that something menacing is moving below ground. And no one relishes the fetid, oily droplets that shoot through the meshed steel cover with every strong wave. Organic matter gets trapped inside and rots. Indeed, the drain captures and concentrates everything about the sea that is dark and dreadful. Maggie Rose has always been unnerved by the drain. In a few more minutes she will be afraid that she is about to die in it.

Most days, when Maggie reaches the seafront she takes the cliff path. This morning she is distracted by a small Raggedy Ann doll that lies, discarded, on the sea wall. She bends to pick it up, puzzled, because children don’t come to this beach. There is no sand to play in and the large smooth pebbles are awkward underfoot. Maggie has never seen a child here and wouldn’t expect to in the middle of winter.

With the doll in her hand, she looks around, at the angry water, at the gulls that are high and sly amidst the lowering clouds. In the field behind, she sees sheep, limp and miserable in their frosted coats.

The beach is almost empty. She doesn’t see a child. Just two people who may have lost one. Up to their knees in water, at the point where the storm drain outflows, are a thin woman with short fair hair and a man dressed for fishing. The woman seems to be trying to get into the drain, but the breaking waves, and the fisherman, are holding her back.

‘What’s happening?’ Maggie isn’t sure they will hear, because the wind is snatching up and stealing all sounds but those of its own making. Another wave hits the couple and the man falls.

The water is icy cold when Maggie steps into it. The churning pebbles make wading dangerous and she can’t see the seabed through the grey, silty water. Slightly out of breath, she reaches the couple as the fisherman staggers to his feet.

‘I’m going in,’ the woman says. ‘It will kill my son if anything happens to her.’

The rag doll, now tucked in Maggie’s coat pocket? A grandchild? A child of six years old or younger could stand upright in the drain, would see only the adventure the mysterious tunnel offered, not think about the danger of the returning tide.

‘When did you last see her?’ Maggie has to shout in the woman’s ear.

‘A minute ago, maybe two.’ The woman’s voice is almost gone from the strain of yelling. ‘She was running further in, away from the waves.’

Well, that was something, at least.

‘You can’t go in this way,’ Maggie says. ‘It’ll be completely full in a few minutes. You’ll both drown.’

Minutes might be optimistic. The tide is already high, is nipping at Maggie’s thighs. The water level in the pipe will rise with each new wave, until there is simply nowhere for the little girl to go.

‘We might be able to get her out higher up.’ Maggie turns to the fisherman. ‘Can you stay here for as long as it’s safe, just in case she gets washed out?’ To the woman she says, ‘Come with me, I’ll need help.’

Holding hands, the two women wade back through the water, their clothes sodden before they reach the shore. As they clamber back over the sea wall, Maggie, the younger by over twenty years, runs ahead. She walks this way every day. She has seen workmen access the drain from above.

‘What is it?’ The woman catches up as Maggie reaches the metal fence surrounding the access manhole.

‘Ssshh!’

Both listen to the rumbling, sucking and moaning beneath their feet. Something sizeable is crashing around beneath them.

‘Those are waves you can hear.’ Maggie points through the railings. ‘When the tide’s fully up, it sprays out through the grille in that manhole cover. It’s not doing that yet, so the drain beneath us is still dry, at least some of the time. Give me a leg-up.’

On the other side of the fence, Maggie drops flat and puts her face against the grille. ‘Hello! Can you hear me? Come this way!’

‘Daisy,’ says the woman, her voice heavy and hoarse. ‘Her name’s Daisy.’

Maggie yells again as she tugs at the manhole cover. ‘Daisy, if you can hear me, come this way.’ She tugs again but the cover doesn’t move.

‘Will this help?’ The fisherman has arrived and is holding something out to her. ‘It’s a Leatherman. Try one of the spanners.’

To the sound of the grandmother’s whimpering, Maggie takes the all-purpose tool and finds a spanner the right size. ‘Hold on, Daisy, we’re coming.’ She twists the lock again and feels it give.

‘Come on, lass,’ says the fisherman. ‘You can do it.’

The lock is released. The hatch clangs back on to concrete and Maggie is staring into darkness below. Before she can change her mind, she swings her legs round and jumps. Crouched in the tunnel, she can see nothing, hear nothing, but the sound of water getting closer. Holding on to the sides for balance, bent over almost double, she begins to move forward, calling encouragement to the child.

‘Daisy! Don’t be scared. Just come towards me.’

Fewer than a dozen steps into the drain and water is covering her ankles, surging higher with every wave. The grandmother and the fisherman are still yelling for the child, which is good, because Maggie doesn’t want to open her mouth in here again if she can help it. A dozen steps more. The water is almost at her knees. Her back is starting to ache and the muscles of her thighs can’t hold her in this position for much longer.

‘Daisy?’

A big wave strikes, hitting her full in the face. The child is gone. This is hopeless. She turns back, just as another wave throws her off balance. As she stumbles to her knees, Maggie hears a scraping noise behind, followed by a strangled cry and then heavy breathing. A shivering body is pushing against her. She turns to see terrified eyes looking into hers, hears a desperate, grateful yipping.

Daisy is a dog.

She can curse her own idiocy later. Maggie grabs hold of the dog’s collar, just as another wave tries to pull the animal back out to sea. As the wave recedes, the dog kicks back against Maggie’s body and scampers towards the hatch.

Another wave, a bigger one. For a second Maggie is beneath the surface, feeling herself sliding along the concrete base of the drain. There is nothing in the smooth, circular pipe to catch hold of. Another wave, she slides back again. The waves are giving her no time to recover before the next strikes. She is being dragged deeper into the tunnel.

Some yards away, Daisy, unable to leap to safety, is barking. The woman and the fisherman are still yelling. Almost too cold to keep moving, hardly able to get her breath, Maggie crawls forward.

She is going to die saving a dog. How completely ridiculous.

Then the dog is on top of her, its sharp claws digging through her jacket, using her as a stepping stone. Claws scrape against stone and then the dog, at least, is safe.

Maggie plants her feet, holds on tight to the sides of the manhole and jumps. Safely on dry land, she falls to the ground beside the exhausted Daisy.

‘Oh, good girl, clever girl, well done.’

Unsure whether the woman’s praise is for her, or the creature she’s just rescued, Maggie runs her hand down the flank of the wet, trembling dog. Big, brown eyes stare up at her from a sweet canine face. The white, smooth body is peppered with black spots. Daisy is a Dalmatian.

‘Hey, beautiful.’ Nudging the dog out of the way, Maggie lowers the hatch again just as a wave – the one that could have killed them both – comes racing up the pipe. She hears something metallic clanking against the grille and knows instinctively what it is. A quick check in her pocket confirms it. She has left her car keys in the tunnel.

‘I’m Sandra,’ says the woman as she starts her car engine and waves goodbye to the fisherman. ‘I’ll have you home in no time.’

‘Thank you.’ Maggie watches her own car getting smaller in the wing mirror. She will have to cycle back to collect it. Or call a cab.

‘I think there’s another rug in the back.’

Maggie already has a travel rug around her shoulders and the heating has been cranked up to maximum but she can’t stop shaking. ‘You’re sure you can get into your house? Because I’ll take you back to ours, run you a bath there. I’m Sandra, by the way.’

‘I keep a key hidden in the garden.’ Maggie would prefer to take the two-mile journey in silence.

‘I can phone my husband. Get him to turn up the heating, make you some hot chocolate? My clothes would probably drown you, but they’ll be warm and dry.’

‘Thank you, but I left the heating on.’

‘Do you have dogs?’ Sandra isn’t an attractive woman. Her face is too thin, her lips almost non-existent, her jaw too prominent. Probably almost as cold as Maggie, her skin is mottled, the tip of her nose bright red. She needs to get home too.

‘It would be with me, don’t you think, if I had a dog?’ Maggie turns to look at the Dalmatian, fast asleep on the back seat. The Raggedy Ann doll, sniffed out and claimed by the dog before the two of them had even got back over the fence, is just visible beneath its head. ‘I’m glad Daisy is OK.’

Sandra pulls over to let another car pass. ‘I came here today to talk to you,’ she says. ‘I didn’t want to come to your house, I didn’t want to intrude, so I thought I’d wait for you at the beach. And then Daisy ran off just before you arrived. It all nearly went so horribly wrong.’

Maggie fixes her gaze straight ahead. ‘The road’s clear,’ she says.

‘I drove over this morning,’ Sandra says before she’s even changed gear. ‘And yesterday morning too. I watched your car pull out of your drive. I guessed you were coming here. And that you come at high tide.’

To have made that guess, the woman must have been watching her for more than two days, has probably followed her here before now.

‘What did you want to talk to me about?’ They are almost at the main road. She can walk from here, if necessary.

‘I’ve read all your books.’ Sandra is breathing heavily, as though walking at speed, not driving a car along a country lane. ‘Someone sent me three of them, about six months ago. A well-wisher, I never did find out who. I bought the others.’

‘Thank you.’ It will take between ten and fifteen minutes to get home from this point. Longer if she is forced to walk.

‘I enjoyed them. Is enjoyed the right word? I’m not sure. I found them interesting. You make a good argument. They were readable. Not too much technical stuff. And you go easy on the gore, and the violence.’

‘Readers usually choose crime fiction for the gratuitous violence,’ Maggie says.

‘Are you working on another one?’

‘Always.’

‘I don’t suppose you’re allowed to say what it’s about? I mean, who it’s about?’

‘I’m allowed to do whatever I like. But I choose not to talk about work in progress, I’m afraid.’

‘You’re obviously wondering why I’m going on like this.’

‘Actually, I’m wondering how you found out where I live.’

Sandra slows to take a corner. When she is back on the straight she glances over. ‘I’m Sandra Wolfe,’ she says.

For a second, the two women stare at each other. ‘Hamish’s mother,’ Sandra adds, unnecessarily.

‘This is Hamish’s dog.’ Maggie looks round at the motionless animal. ‘Of course. I remember a photograph of the two of them together. It was used a lot while the trial was ongoing.’

‘His defence team thought it would be the most sympathetic. Hamish with his beloved dog. Not that it made any difference.’

‘Her name is Daisy?’

‘My son wrote to you. Four times. I know you saw the letters. He showed me your replies.’

‘How did you get my address?’

Sandra’s chin has the stubborn set of someone who knows she’s in the wrong but won’t back down. ‘Someone found it for me. I promised I wouldn’t say who exactly. Please don’t worry. I wouldn’t dream of invading your privacy. That’s why I waited to talk to you at the beach.’

‘One could argue this is a greater invasion. At home I could close the door on you. All I can do now is wait until you drive me home.’

They’ve reached the main road. Sandra applies the handbrake.

‘Miss Rose, my son is innocent. He isn’t a killer. I know him.’

Maggie wraps her arms around herself. The cold is starting to hurt. ‘I’m sure you believe that, but do you imagine any mother of a convicted killer says anything different? The traffic is usually heavy here at this time of day. You need to be careful.’

They pull out into the path of a yellow car.

‘He was with me the night Zoe Sykes was killed.’ Sandra ignores the angry horn. ‘We had dinner, I drove him home. He couldn’t have killed her, so it follows he didn’t kill the others, doesn’t it? All four women were killed by the same man, so if Hamish didn’t kill one of them, he couldn’t have killed the others.’

They cross the village boundary. Less than five minutes to Maggie’s house. ‘I’m afraid I know very little about the case.’

‘The police didn’t believe me. They thought I was lying. The restaurant couldn’t help. There was no CCTV footage. The staff couldn’t remember, but I know he was with me. He didn’t kill that Sykes woman.’

‘And yet a jury believed that he did.’

‘Have you ever been in a prison, Miss Rose?’

‘Yes, many times.’

‘Then you know what it’s like. Decent people, people like Hamish, they can’t survive in prison. The stench and the violence and the endless noise. He’s not known a moment of silence since he was convicted.’

‘Then the best thing you can do for him is keep him well supplied with ear plugs.’

Sandra flinches. ‘There was a fight on his corridor just yesterday. They pick on him all the time. Every day he’s in fear for his life.’

‘Why me?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Why is it so important to your son that I take up his case? Turn right here, please, on to the High Street.’

‘It isn’t just me. There’s a whole bunch of people who support Hamish. People who’ve read about the case. Who know there was a miscarriage of justice. Miss Rose. I wish you’d meet them. They have a website. You can google it.’

‘Mrs Wolfe.’

‘Sandra, please.’

‘As I wrote to your son directly, my work schedule is full for the foreseeable future. I simply don’t have the time. Just before the pub, on the right. Thank you for bringing me home.’

‘I can drive you back to collect your car. When you’ve changed.’

‘I’ll get a cab. And now, if you’ll excuse my being blunt, I don’t expect to see you waiting for me at the beach again.’

‘Wait!’

Maggie is half out of the car. She turns back to see that Sandra is holding something out to her. A small, square cardboard box. ‘He asked me to give you this. He makes them himself.’

Maggie starts to shake her head. On the back seat, Daisy opens her eyes.

‘Please, Maggie, what harm can it do?’

Maggie takes the yellow box tied with white ribbon, closes the car door and sets off along her drive. Only when she has turned the corner and she can no longer be seen does she open it.

Inside is a flower, fashioned from paper. The petals are white, the stalk and leaves a bright emerald green. It is beautiful, perfect.

A convicted murderer has sent her a rose.

Chapter 2

The Times Online, Monday, 8 September 2014

CONTROVERSY IN COURT AS WOLFE TRIAL OPENS

Accused surgeon, Hamish Wolfe, refused to enter a plea on the first day of his trial at the Old Bailey today. In accordance with English law, he will now be tried as if he had pleaded not guilty.

Dressed in a dark grey suit, white shirt and blue tie, Wolfe appeared to be paying close attention to proceedings, but when asked to speak, he remained silent, in spite of the judge, Mr Justice Peters, on three occasions, advising him that it was not in his interests to do so.

Up until the time of his arrest, Wolfe was a leading cancer surgeon, one of the most highly regarded young doctors in the south-west. He was an active sportsman, a rugby and hockey player, experienced and talented at both climbing rock faces and crawling beneath them. He held a pilot’s licence. Generally considered a very handsome man, he seemed blessed with a loving family and a wide circle of friends. He had just announced his engagement to celebrity model Claire Cole. Today, he faces four counts of abduction and murder. If convicted, he is likely to spend the rest of his life in prison.

The disappearances of four young women between June 2012 and November 2013 sparked one of the biggest police investigations ever conducted by Avon and Somerset police, but it was a lucky break on the part of Detective Constable Peter Weston that led to Wolfe’s arrest in December 2013.

Refusal to plead is rare but usually indicates a desire, on the part of the accused, to decline to recognize the authority of the court. Interestingly, three separate psychiatric reports commissioned by the Crown Prosecution Service were submitted incompletely, giving rise to speculation that Wolfe may be unfit to plead and to stand trial. The detective who arrested him, though, emphatically disagreed when the suggestion was put to him.

‘Absolute rubbish,’ commented Weston, since promoted to Detective Sergeant. ‘Wolfe understands perfectly well what’s going on and is more than capable of entering a plea. He’s playing games with us. It’s what he does.’

The case of the Crown v. Hamish Wolfe will continue tomorrow.

(Maggie Rose: case file 004/TT8914 Hamish Wolfe)

Chapter 3

‘I’VE REALLY GOT to go. Why don’t you discuss it with Tim?’

‘There is no fucking way—’

The line goes dead. Detective Sergeant Pete Weston starts to count. One, two, three – no, he isn’t going to make it to double figures. Not this time.

His eyes slide to the passenger seat where a gold wristwatch lies like tossed litter. He picks it up, wondering at the ability of gold to retain its warmth, even on days like this, and looks at it for a second or two.

Well, it’s never going to fit him.

He gets out of the car, still livid, and pops open the boot, hardly noticing the minuscule ice shards that stab his exposed skin. The wheel wrench is cold in the way that gold never is. He drops the watch to the pavement and strikes it once with the wrench.

He gathers three pieces, doesn’t bother collecting all the shattered bits of the face, and drops them into an evidence bag from the glove compartment. His hands are stiffening with cold by this point, but he takes up his phone.

Found your watch, he types. Must have got caught on the seat runner. Might be repairable. I’ll give it to Tim.

Domestic arrangements sorted, he can get on with the job.

He pushes open the iron gate and crunches his way up the path, through an avenue of frozen laurel bushes. The garden is long and narrow. Tall trees grow behind the early Georgian rectory, curving around it, sheltering it like a protective parent. There are large windows to either side of the front door and Weston feels as though he can describe, without seeing them, the elegant, spacious rooms beyond with their high, carved ceilings and limewashed walls.

There is neither bell nor knocker on the red-varnished door, just an old-fashioned brass bell that he swings to produce a deep, sonorous clanging. He waits, for thirty seconds, maybe a minute, until he hears the sound of a chain being removed, of a lock being turned.

Warm air wafts out as the door opens and a woman is standing directly in front of him, the raised step bringing her face on to a level with his.

‘Miss Rose? Maggie Rose?’

He feels that momentary loss of control at being taken by surprise. Every copper in the land has heard of Maggie Rose: defence barrister, true-crime author, pain-in-the-police-force’s-collective-arse, but few have met her. She doesn’t do interviews, has never released a photograph.

She is probably the right side of forty and slim enough to look fragile, even in the oversized white woollen sweater that reaches almost to her thighs. She has small features in a sharp, very pale face. Her eyes are blue.

So is her hair.

‘What can I do for you, Detective?’ she says.

Not just the blue rinse of a genteel elderly lady. Not just the half-hearted blue streaks that are sometimes seen amongst the crowds at the Glastonbury Festival. This is bright, turquoise-blue, waving gently to a little below her chin.

He has no idea how she knows that he’s with the police.

‘Detective Sergeant Pete Weston.’ He holds up his warrant card. ‘I was hoping to have a few minutes of your time.’

‘Come inside for a moment.’

He follows her down a pale green corridor, past panelled doors that are firmly closed. The kitchen they enter is large, painted shades of cream and pale gold.

While he’s been looking round – he’s a copper, he can’t help himself – Rose has curled into an armchair close to an Aga. Her slippers are enormous, furry boots. Blue, like her hair.

‘Have a seat.’

He sneaks a glance at the laptop on the central table as he pulls out a chair, but the screensaver has kicked in to show constantly changing scenes of Arctic wastelands: massive snowdrifts, ice formations, blue ice.

‘Can I just confirm that you are Maggie Rose?’

‘I am. Will this take long? And does politeness demand that I offer you coffee?’

‘That’s your call, Miss Rose. I’m here because I understand you had a visit from Sandra Wolfe yesterday.’

She nods her head as she speaks. ‘She came here first, from what I understand, but didn’t make herself known. By her own admission she followed me to the beach and spoke to me there.’

Maggie Rose has a measured way of speaking, of choosing each word carefully, as though addressing an audience.

‘Can I ask what was the nature of the conversation?’

‘I expect you can guess.’

‘Indulge me.’

‘She wants me to take on her son’s case, to get her beloved child – in whose innocence she genuinely believes, by the way – out of prison.’

‘What did you tell her?’

Rose blinks. Her eyelashes are dark, but he can’t see the clogging gloop of mascara. ‘May I ask you a question first?’

‘Shoot.’

‘How did you know she and I had met?’

‘We monitor the website she and a few of her friends run. There’s a chat room that’s publicly accessible. She – Sandra Wolfe, I’m talking about now – was telling another member of the group that she’d met you.’

‘Then you probably already know the answer I gave her.’

Well, she had him there. ‘She’ll try again,’ he says. ‘Sandra Wolfe is not a woman who gives up easily. Next time, she might not bother waiting on the beach, she might knock on your door. She might bring some of her friends with her. She’s a woman grieving, Miss Rose. She believes her son has been stitched up and women like that aren’t always stable.’

Rose wriggles in the armchair, pulling her heels back against her bottom. ‘So you’re here out of concern for me?’

‘I’m here because while this group of people – who, frankly, I’d like to refer to as nutters and misfits, but that’s a bit judgemental and not very PC so I’ll just call them misguided individuals – can do whatever they like in their own time, I don’t want them bothering or even frightening ordinary members of the public.’

She holds eye contact. ‘I wasn’t frightened.’

‘No, I don’t expect you were.’

‘And you’re lying to me.’

He gives an exaggerated start. ‘Come again?’

‘You’re not here out of concern. You’re here because you don’t want me to take on Hamish Wolfe. You don’t want me digging up old details, finding your mistakes, holding you to account. Putting Hamish Wolfe away was the greatest success of your career – it was you, wasn’t it? I remember your name in the newspapers – and you can’t bear the thought of someone overturning that conviction.’

Pete feels his heartbeat starting to race. ‘We didn’t make mistakes. Hamish Wolfe is guilty.’

‘Everyone makes mistakes. Even Hamish Wolfe. That’s why you caught him. And for what it’s worth, I agree with you. I have no plans to take on his case.’

She moves again, lowering her feet to the floor. ‘But let me be very clear, Detective,’ she says. ‘If I were to decide to do so, no amount of pressure on your part would put me off.’

He stands before she has a chance to. ‘Would you mind if I used your toilet? Cold day, too much coffee, I’m afraid.’

She nods towards a door behind him. ‘That will take you into the rear hall. The door immediately opposite is the downstairs cloakroom.’

‘Thanks.’ He leaves the room, conscious of her eyes following him. To his right is the back door of the house and through its glass he can see a double garage. The downstairs loo is a small room, plain and functional. To his left is another door.

The sound of voices, low-pitched but unmistakable, comes from the kitchen he’s just left.

When he returns to the kitchen, Maggie Rose is leaning over the table, staring at her laptop. She is alone. She closes down the screen, but not before he’s spotted his own name on it.

‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘I suppose I’ve taken enough of your time.’

She says nothing, but slips back into the armchair, this time tucking her legs inside the sweater. There is something very childlike about the way she sits. Were it not for the tiny lines on her face, she might even look like a child.

He takes one step towards the door. ‘I’m sorry Sandra Wolfe approached you. I’m sorry you’ve been pestered with letters from Wolfe himself. We found that out on the website as well. I wish I could offer to do something about the inconvenience and disturbance that must have caused, but I can’t, I’m afraid. These people are free to do what they like within the law.’

‘I understand the law well enough, thank you.’

‘But what I can do is advise. And I advise you to have nothing to do with Sandra Wolfe, or the Wolfe Pack, or whatever that bunch of idiots are calling themselves this week. And I certainly advise you to have nothing to do – ever – with Hamish Wolfe.’

‘If you’re advising me, Detective, why am I feeling threatened?’

She hasn’t moved. She’s still curled up like a cat in the large armchair. He can’t imagine anyone looking less threatened.

On a sudden whim, Pete moves to the window. The garden is huge and the few colours visible through the frost are dull and muted. The lawn that stretches out from the back door is the opaque white of chalk and the high brick walls, the line of mature trees, the dense shrubs all seem to conspire to keep out sunlight.

‘Do you live here alone, Miss Rose?’

There is movement in the glass’s reflection as Maggie Rose gets to her feet behind him. Her weird hair and pale face materialize behind his shoulder.

‘That feeling of being threatened has not gone away,’ she says.

‘I apologize. Really not my intention.’ He turns to face her. ‘Before her son was arrested, Sandra Wolfe was probably a perfectly nice, middle-class Somerset lady, working part-time, having friends round for dinner, eating at the golf club on Saturday evenings. But we all know what female animals are capable of when their young are threatened.’

‘I just thought her very unhappy, but I’ll bear in mind what you say.’

She turns and he has little choice but to follow her from the room. In the hall, he looks around for signs of someone else in the house, but the doors are all still closed.

‘The pressure group are another story,’ he says. ‘None of them were ever normal, in my view. Several have either a minor criminal record or a history of psychiatric problems. Most are unemployed, or under employed. They have very little in their lives so, to fill the gap, they give themselves a cause. And having got one, they’re pursuing it with a great deal of conviction. Individually, they might not be too much of a problem, but they wind each other up and egg each other on.’

At the front door she turns to face him. ‘I’m familiar with the idea. It’s called group-think.’

‘Yeah, well it’s at work here. So, I’d advise you to review your security arrangements. Make sure the locks are solid, fit a few security lights, if you haven’t got them already, and keep a chain on your door. These people know where you live.’

There is a softening in her face that makes him think, for a second, that she might be about to smile. ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’

He takes the opportunity to glance up the stairs. No one on the landing. ‘Please do,’ he says. ‘But above all, don’t be tempted to have anything to do with Hamish Wolfe. I’ve looked into that man’s eyes, and trust me, there isn’t anything human there. Wolfe isn’t a man, Miss Rose. He’s a monster.’

She smiles. Properly this time. Her mouth is wider than he’d realized, her pale lips fuller. She has neat, small white teeth. ‘I’ve heard he’s quite the ladies’ man.’

‘They often are. That’s why they manage to kill so many.’

‘Do you know what, that does interest me. Not the fact that he was popular before he was arrested. He’s a good-looking man, there’s nothing remarkable in that. What fascinates me is the number of women who, by all accounts, write to him in prison. Why would they do that, do you think?’

‘All notorious killers have a fan club,’ he says.

‘Fascinating.’ She’s still smiling as she reaches for the lock. ‘That would, actually, make a very interesting book. If I had the time, which I don’t.’

‘Wolfe wouldn’t be interested in you, I’m afraid,’ Pete says.

They swap places in the doorway and he catches a whiff of the odd, chemical smell of her hair.

‘Why’s that?’

He makes a point of looking her up and down. ‘You’re about four stone short of his preferred body weight. Thank you for your time.’

The door closes before he’s taken three steps down the path. He doesn’t look back, doesn’t pause, even though his phone starts ringing when he reaches the gate. He climbs into his car, shuts out the cold, and checks his phone. It is one of his detective constables, thirty-four-year-old Liz Nuttall. He presses Accept. ‘Talk to me, Nutty.’

‘You made it out, then?’ she says. ‘How’d it go?’

‘She’s not what I was expecting, that’s for sure. Seems to be pretty cool on the Wolfe front. No real interest in engaging with Sandra Wolfe further.’

‘Could she be faking it? By the way, Latimer’s been asking for you. I told him you were at a meeting at County Hall about the schools’ drugs outreach programme.’

‘Nice one.’ Their boss, DCI Latimer, will expect no feedback from a meeting at County Hall. He makes no secret of the fact that bureaucracy bores him.

‘Listen, Nuts, do me a favour, will you? Run a check on The Rectory.’ He glances sideways at the big old house he’s just left. ‘Electoral roll, utilities, you know the sort of thing. Rose was talking to someone while I was in there but did a good job of keeping whoever it was out of sight. As though she really didn’t want me to know she wasn’t on her own.’

‘I’m not getting anything,’ says Liz, after a few moments. ‘No record of her having a partner or a lodger. No, nothing.’

Pete is still looking at the house. The windows are blank and empty. ‘There’s someone else in there,’ he says. ‘I’m sure of it.’

Chapter 4

www.CommonplaceSexism.com

HOW FAT BECAME A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH

Posted 5 October 2014, by Beth Tweedy, regular contributor and self-confessed ‘bigger-than-average girl’

Zoe Sykes, Jessie Tout, Chloe Wood and Myrtle Reid were killed because they were fat. That is a fact.

Zoe, Jessie, Chloe and Myrtle were targeted on the strength of their dress size and then murdered. We still don’t know exactly how, but you can bet your life it wasn’t pleasant. Their bodies were dumped in wet, dark, underground places, from which they were never supposed to be recovered. Zoe’s still hasn’t been. This happened to these women because we’ve become a society in which body size is the last remaining bastion of prejudice. Because fatness has become so despised, we can tolerate the annihilation of it.

Hostility towards those who don’t conform to our body-image ideal has been growing steadily in the last couple of decades. Oh, I know, girls in plus-sized school tunics have always been catcalled in the street. Fatties, fat women in particular, have long been the (big) butt of comedians’ jokes, but in recent years, this fat-ism has taken a much darker turn.

We’ve seen larger women attacked in pubs and on the streets, by assailants of both sexes. Dental hygienist Tracey Keith, 22 stone, was left shaken and badly bruised by the verbal and physical attack launched upon her as she travelled home by train one night last June. Her offence? Taking up too much room on the seats. Many women tell similar tales. Fat women get refused entry into nightclubs, they’re abused in doctor’s surgeries, because, of course, their ailments have to be directly related to their body size and consequently their own fault. Fat people don’t get jobs, they don’t get interviews for jobs, they can’t even get cabs, half the time, as though their excess body weight might prove too much for the seat springs.

And all this is being condoned by those in authority.

It’s OK now, for influential bullies, like the vile Ron Carter writing for The Spectator, to talk about the ‘horribly fat woman’ in the Tesco queue, accompanied by her ‘wobbly kids’ and to joke about sending them all to starvation boot camp. When educated, intelligent opinion-formers talk in such ways, what hope is there for the jabbering Twitter underclass?

As a nation, we pride ourselves on being diverse. And yet there is almost zero tolerance of anyone of size. Women of my size and larger cannot walk the streets without being verbally or physically assaulted. The normal rules about behaviour, respect and common courtesy don’t apply to us.

And now the most fundamental of the Ten Commandments doesn’t seem to apply to us either. Hamish Wolfe swore to preserve life wherever possible but allowed himself to become so enraged by what he saw as the drain on the NHS by overweight people that he took matters into his own hands. Even those who outwardly condemn his actions are secretly relieved he didn’t kill anyone of worth. He chose to kill large, unattractive women, so that’s not so bad then. He may even have done us all a big favour, by reducing the financial demand on the NHS in future years. Think I’m exaggerating? Search Hamish + fat people on social media and see what you find.

By his actions, Wolfe has legitimized the ill treatment and abuse of people of size. He has set us back decades.

Hamish Wolfe will never come out of prison alive. But the threat to women roams our streets continually.

COMMENTS:

SuziePearShape writes . . .

I’m a larger than average but perfectly healthy woman and so far, today, I’ve been called Tubs, Nelly the Elephant and Fat Cow. It’s not even the middle of the afternoon. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been pushed, shoved, or abused by perfect strangers in the street, simply because of the way I look. In the queue at Asda, other shoppers look into my basket and sneer. A man asked me once if I was planning to eat it all myself. I have three kids, thanks very much, dickhead. You’re right, Beth, bigger women just don’t matter as much.

MellSouth writes . . .

A darker side of fat-shaming is to assume that fat women are easy. Because they look the way they do, they will sleep with anyone, they are grateful for the attention. They aren’t allowed to be particular, they have to take what they can get (and frequently do). Inappropriately touching a fat woman in a bar, grabbing her breasts or her bottom, will be viewed by all around as humorous. Either she was asking for it in the first place, or she should be grateful anyone wants to touch her at all. Fat women simply aren’t afforded the same protection by the law as their skinnier sisters.

GazboGoon writes . . .

Fat cows like you make me sick. Just stop eating so much and your problems will all vanish, daft bitch.

Jezzer writes . . .

Ever shagged a fat bird? Talk about fart and give us a clue. LOL.

‘Never read below the comments line.’

‘You’re right.’ Maggie closes the screen.

‘Do you think people buy this idea of the killings being a vendetta against fat women?’

‘No. Most of the stuff in the national press was a lot more sensible.’

‘Where?’

Maggie flicks through her bookmarked articles. ‘This one. In the Telegraph.’

Telegraph Online, Wednesday, 15 October 2014

FAT WAS NEVER THE ISSUE

Dismayed by the hysterical outpourings surrounding Hamish Wolfe’s conviction last month, Sally Kelsey argues that the victims’ size was largely irrelevant.

Since Hamish Wolfe started his prison sentence barely a day has gone by without an article decrying our habit of ‘fat-shaming’. ‘Justice for Fat Girls Too’, screamed one well-known blogger’s headline last week, as though Wolfe hadn’t just been handed a whole life tariff, effectively locking him away for the rest of his days. If justice can strike a heavier blow than that, I’m not aware of it.

The police have been criticized for not catching him quickly enough, for not realizing when Zoe Sykes vanished back in June 2012, that there was a fat-slayer at work. Never mind that Zoe still hasn’t been found, that for days, weeks, even months after she was last seen she was still just listed as a missing person, the police should have known back then that something was up. They should have warned fat girls that they were in danger.

The media have been accused of not taking the serial killer seriously enough, because he ‘only killed fat girls’. We’ve been accused of condoning the behaviour of the social media ‘low-lifes’ who trolled the victims’ Facebook pages and Twitter accounts, posting hateful comments about how they deserved what they got.

These commentators, on both official and unofficial channels, are seriously missing the point.

Hamish Wolfe wasn’t running a one-man campaign against fat women. He was too intelligent for that sort of nonsense. He was a killer and, like every other serial killer of our time, he had a victim type. Zoe, Jessie, Chloe and Myrtle rocked his boat. He liked them. Unfortunately for them he had a very warped way of showing it.

There’s a lot of evidence, and much of it came up at his trial, that Hamish Wolfe had always had a bit of a thing for chubsters. Our size-obsessed society found it hard to believe, given his own Greek-god looks, but like them he did. (Don’t be fooled by press photographs of him with his reed-thin fiancée – some men are remarkably good at using their partners as smokescreens.) Wolfe dated quite a few larger ladies at college and there was even a rather seedy video found, allegedly, of him having sex with a Rubenesque young lady.

What he did was dreadful. Shocking. But it says nothing more about our society than occasionally we produce something that is twisted and broken. There is a great deal wrong with Hamish Wolfe, but no serious commentator has ever suggested there was anything wrong with his victims.

Eat up, ladies. You’re as safe as any of us.

Comments . . .

‘No. No comments. Stop right there.’

Maggie shuts down the site. ‘I’m done.’

‘What did you make of Detective Sergeant Weston then?’

She tries, and fails, to stifle a yawn. ‘Haven’t really thought about it. Seemed sensible enough.’

‘Think there’s anything in this idea that Wolfe’s supporters might come and bother you here?’

‘I doubt it. Why?’

‘Oh, I’m just wondering how long you’re going to ignore the crunching on the gravel, the knocked-over flowerpot and the sound of several door handles being tried. How long before you admit that, for the past half-hour, someone’s been wandering round outside?’

At first, there is nothing outside that Maggie can see. The night is too dark. Nor can she hear anything, except the click and rattle of the central heating system as it cools. Then a pinpoint of light appears from around the side of the house as a solitary figure heads towards the road.

Maggie watches as, not once looking back, her midnight visitor walks away down the street.

Chapter 5

People of Our Time magazine, December 2014

HUNGRY LIKE THE WOLFE?

Silvia Pattinson braves Parkhurst Prison to meet the infamous Mr Wolfe.

Hamish Wolfe receives over a hundred letters a month, over 90 per cent of them from women. Most of his correspondents, he tells me when I meet him at HMP Isle of Wight (Parkhurst), believe him to be the victim of a miscarriage of justice.

‘Sometimes the truth is obvious,’ he says. ‘Only those with a vested interest of their own remain blind to it.’

When I question the extent to which we should rely on the opinions of people who’ve never met Wolfe personally, who’ve never studied the case and its evidence in detail, who might be – I’m sure I blush as I say this – more influenced by his good looks than by any real sense of justice or truth, he denies that his personal attributes are the issue at stake.

‘When a body of people believe something to be true, it’s usually because it is. I’m the victim of a narrowly focused, cost-pinching investigation that went for an easy and obvious solution.’

When I ask why, then, he hasn’t appealed against the verdict, he tells me that he fully intends to. ‘Sometimes the dust needs to settle. I’m thinking carefully about who I’d like to work with in the future. I want my lawyer to be the best and I can wait. My liberty is too important to throw away on a rushed appeal.’

While he waits, he has no shortage of women only too happy to help him pass the time. Women send him money, write letters of support, suggest escape plans and even propose marriage. Each assumes that she is the only person who has taken an interest in him, that he must be lonely, longing for her letters.

I suggest that giving this interview might let the cat out of the bag on that one, but he just shrugs. I get the feeling he is unmoved by the adoration of women he will probably never meet. He responds to very few, he says, only the ones who strike him as being intelligent and sensible, and then usually just to thank them for their good wishes. Many of his letters he gives to fellow inmates, particularly the lewder ones.

When I question the morality of doing so, he looks at me sharply. His green eyes narrow and for the first time I remember that I’m in the presence of a convicted killer.

‘If a man sent you his boxer shorts,’ he says, ‘along with a note telling you he’d worn them two days in a row and then masturbated in them, what would you do?’

‘Bin them,’ I respond. ‘Throw them out.’ I’m a little unnerved by this stage. Wolfe and I are alone in a windowless room. He is cuffed to the table but he is a powerfully built man and very close to me.

‘I did that,’ he tells me. ‘The guys started fishing them out, so now I just save them the trouble.’

I ask him if most of the letters he receives are sexual in nature. ‘A lot are,’ he admits. ‘Some of them want to know what I’m supposed to have done to the victims. Those are the most disturbing, if I’m honest. These women don’t care whether I’m guilty or not. They’re actually hoping I am and that I can give them salacious details. Others ask if Parkhurst permits conjugal visits. It doesn’t, by the way. Mostly, the women who write to me are lonely, even if they already have families. They’re desperate to reach out to someone, to have that special connection. They see me as a bit of a soft touch. I’m not going anywhere.’

At this point, Wolfe smiles at me, and I’m suddenly far more afraid of him than I was when he was being less than charming.

‘Not immediately, anyway,’ he concludes.

(Maggie Rose: case file 00326/5 Hamish Wolfe)

Chapter 6

PROPERTY OF AVON AND SOMERSET POLICE. Ref: 544/45.2 Hamish Wolfe.

Chapter 7

THE CID ROOM at Portishead police station is unusually quiet for a weekday morning, thanks to an armed hold-up and two muggings in Bristol city centre last night. For now, only Pete, Liz Nuttall and Sunday Sadik, a rotund, disgustingly cheerful man, are in the room.

Liz is staring at her computer screen. ‘Shane Ridley drowned his wife in the bath,’ she says, ‘before hacking her body into pieces to dispose of it. The jury took less than an hour to convict him. Maggie Rose, however, has supposedly found evidence that Lara Ridley was having an affair – or affairs – with person or persons unknown. She’s arguing that one of the lovers killed her.’

From directly behind Liz’s chair, Pete can see the photograph of Ridley’s wife, Lara. Mid twenties, blonde, beautiful.

‘So, not only was she murdered, the world is being told she was a whore,’ Liz goes on. ‘Ridley’s appeal is coming up in two months and is expected to be successful. Lara’s father had a stress-related heart attack last month and her mother is on antidepressants.’

Sunday, who will never stand up if he can avoid it, glides over on his wheeled office chair, catching himself inches before he collides with Pete’s legs.

‘Steve Lampton beat up and strangled three women he met on internet dating sites.’ Liz has opened another screen. ‘Except he didn’t, according to Maggie Rose, who got him off in 2007. He received nearly half a million in compensation and, rumour has it, his lawyer got 40 per cent of that.’

‘Gwent police never looked for anyone else in connection with those murders,’ Pete adds.