IMPERFECTION by Ray Clark (e novels to read online TXT) 📗

The silence that followed was claustrophobic. Gardener sensed the clocks ticking and the wheels turning. Had they found their man? He faced Trevor Thorpe, the profiler. “Trevor, any thoughts?”

Thorpe was dressed as they’d seen him previously, in a tweed jacket and brown cords. Once again, he left his chair and glanced at the ceiling as he walked.

“Well, Mr Gardener, a very interesting character. Someone I would perhaps like to meet. Did he appear very confident when challenged?”

Reilly nodded. “Pretty much.”

“What was his house like? Clean and tidy?”

“Yes,” replied Gardener.

Thorpe returned to his chair and sat down, exactly as he had last time, legs straddling the chair and arms across the back. “Did he have a display of curtains in the house?”

“As far as I remember,” replied Gardener, confused.

“Did you check the knots in the cords?”

“No, why?” asked Reilly.

“Just curious,” replied Thorpe. “Our man likes to tie knots, does he not? And the colour red was prominent, you say?”

“A little more than usual, yes,” replied Reilly.

“And he appeared... confident, you say?” Thorpe asked, spreading his arms out in front of him.

“Most of the time,” replied Gardener.

Thorpe stood up and stared Gardener in the eye. “They’re all coincidences, Mr Gardener. We need to find out more. Is he married? Was he married? I think the man we’re looking for is not a loner.”

He turned to stare at Reilly. “Security conscious... I doubt very much he will be. He’s spent so long being repressed, that he now wants to be free! He will not lock himself away. He’ll be out most nights, mixing and mingling, because he craves company. He wants to express those locked-in emotions. He wants to feel wanted! Loved!”

He sat back down on his chair. “No, Mr Gardener, I don’t think Corndell is your man. You’re seeing what you want to see because it fits in with what you think. You need to widen your thought patterns.” Thorpe said nothing else, and when it was obvious he’d finished, Briggs took over.

“Okay, how do you want to proceed, Stewart?”

Gardener turned to face the team. “Colin, I’d still like William Henry Corndell checked out. See what you can find. Where did he live in London, and what was he up to? Find out everything you can about him after he moved here. Check his credit and his bills. Fettle has a contact who worked for Her Majesty’s Theatre for years. According to Corndell, he played the part of the Phantom before Michael Crawford, so Fettle’s checking that for us.

“Thornton, Anderson, you two check out Lon Chaney. Find out every film he’s been in and what they’re about. I also want you to see if you can locate anything on a film called The Scarlet Car.”

Gardener pointed to the copy on the board. “Look at the last two lines. He’s telling us he’s about to kill another in Leeds. What does he mean by ‘down and out’? Is it an area none of us frequent? A seedy part perhaps? That puts Alan Cuthbertson back in the picture. He regularly visits places of ill repute. Or does he mean something entirely different? A tramp maybe?”

Gardener thought back to Derek Summers and the Christmas murders. At the time he met someone called Bob Crisp, a disbarred lawyer who’d turned tramp and lived underground in fear of his life. Since that investigation had been closed, he hadn’t seen the man. But he’d had no reason to. A pet hate of Gardener’s was anything unclean. He shuddered as he thought of the time he’d been beaten senseless because he’d dressed like a tramp, only to regain consciousness in the company of the man he had been searching for. But at the same time, he also realised what a friend Bob Crisp had turned out to be. Question is, where is he now?

“I want the rest of you to continue trying to find Harry Fletcher, chase up the leads we already have. Explore new avenues.”

Chapter Thirty-three

The following morning, Gardener showed Alan Briggs through to the kitchen. Malcolm was sitting at the table drinking his second cup of tea. The meeting was meant to be informal. Despite Briggs’s reservations, Gardener thought it best if they spoke to his father at home and with him present.

“Now then, Malcolm,” said Briggs. “How are you keeping?”

“I’m fine, Alan. You?”

“Can’t complain. Is there any more tea in that pot, Stewart?”

“Coming up, sir.”

Briggs pulled out a chair and sat opposite Malcolm. “I’m only here to ask you a few questions about Leonard White and the watch committee, if you don’t mind? It’s a sensitive issue, and by rights Stewart shouldn’t be with us, but he thought you might feel a bit better if he was.”

Gardener placed a cup of tea in front of Briggs and took a seat at the table. He noticed the strain in his father’s eyes, the drawn expression on his face. Since White’s death, he hadn’t been sleeping well. The fact that Jack Harper’s daughter had also been killed had brought the whole issue closer to home.

“What can you tell us about the watch committee?” asked Briggs.

“There isn’t much to tell, Alan. We used to vet the films when they came to Leeds. We had the power to censor what we felt was unacceptable.”

“And did you?”

“In a few cases.”

“Any in particular you can remember?”

“Not off the top of my head. I remember we considered a couple that were soft porn gone a little too far. We suggested cuts and the directors agreed.”

“So, you had to get the directors’ permission?”

“Not really, no. We just thought it polite to involve them.”

“Did the directors approve without opposition?”

“Mostly. They knew we had the power to ban the film, if they didn’t,” replied Malcolm, sipping his tea.

“Where did you