The Bat(104)

Harry squeezed the clammy receiver. He was trying to think. The man obviously didn’t know that the police were aware of Birgitta’s kidnapping and had revised their view of the possible murderer. That could only mean Birgitta hadn’t told him she’d been on her way to meet White, watched by the police. He had snaffled her right under the very noses of a dozen officers without even realising.

The voice brought him back from his thoughts.

‘An alluring possibility, Harry, isn’t it? The murderer helps you to put another enemy of society into the slammer. Well, let’s keep in contact. You have . . . forty-eight hours to bring the charges. I’ll be waiting to hear the glad tidings on Friday night’s TV news. In the meantime, I promise to treat the redhead with all the respect you might expect of a gentleman. If I don’t hear anything I’m afraid she won’t survive Saturday. But I can promise her one hell of a Friday night.’

Harry rang off. The fan was groaning and screeching wildly. He examined his hands. They were trembling.

‘What do you think, sir?’ Harry asked.

The motionless broad back that had been in front of the board the whole time stirred.

‘I think we should nab the bastard,’ McCormack said. ‘Before we call the others back, tell me exactly how you knew it was him.’

‘To be honest, sir, I didn’t know for sure. It was just one of many theories that occurred to me and one in which at first I didn’t really have much faith. After the funeral I got a lift with Jim Connolly, an old boxing colleague of Andrew’s. With him was his wife who he said had been a contortionist with the circus when he met her. He said he had wooed her every day for a year before he got anywhere. At first I didn’t give this a second’s thought, then I realised that perhaps he meant it literally – that in other words the two of them had had the opportunity to see each other every day for a whole year. It struck me that the Jim Chivers crew were in a big tent when Andrew and I saw them in Lithgow, and that a fair was there as well. So I asked Yong to ring the Jim Chivers booking agent to check. And I was right. When Jim Chivers goes on tour it’s almost always as part of a travelling circus or fair. Yong had the old itineraries faxed over this morning, and it turns out that the fair Jim Chivers had been travelling with in recent years also had a circus troupe until a while ago. Otto Rechtnagel’s troupe.’

‘Right. So the Jim Chivers boxers were at the crime scenes on the relevant dates as well. But did many of them know Andrew?’

‘Andrew introduced me to only one of them, and I should have bloody known it wasn’t to look into an inconclusive rape case that he dragged me to Lithgow. Andrew saw him as a son. They’d experienced so many similar things and there were such strong ties between them that he may have been the only person on this earth the orphaned Andrew Kensington felt was real family. Even though he would never admit he had strong feelings for his own people, I think Andrew loved Toowoomba more than anyone else precisely because they were from the same people. That was why Andrew couldn’t arrest him himself. His innate moral concepts clashed with his loyalty to his people and love for Toowoomba. It’s hard to imagine what a brutal conflict this must have been for him. That was why he needed me, an outsider he could steer towards the target.’

‘Toowoomba?’

‘Toowoomba. Andrew had found out he was behind all the murders. Perhaps the desperate, rejected lover, Otto Rechtnagel, told Andrew after Toowoomba left him. Perhaps Andrew made Otto promise he would never go to the police by saying he would solve the case without involving either of them. But I think Otto was close to spilling the beans. With good reason – he had begun to be frightened for his own life as he realised Toowoomba would hardly want an ex-lover wandering around who could give him away. Toowoomba knew Otto had met me and it wouldn’t be long before the game was up. So he planned to murder Otto during the show. Since they’d travelled together with an almost identical show before, Toowoomba knew exactly when to strike.’

‘Why not do it in Otto’s flat? After all, he had the keys.’

‘I asked myself that, too.’ Harry paused.

McCormack waved his hand. ‘Harry, what you’ve said already is so much for an old cop to absorb that any new theories won’t make much difference one way or another.’

‘The rooster factor.’

‘The rooster factor?’

‘Toowoomba isn’t only a psychopath, he’s also a rooster. And you can’t underestimate a rooster’s vanity. While his sexually motivated murders follow a pattern akin to compulsive acts, the Clown Murder is something quite different, it’s a rationally necessary murder, you see. With that murder he suddenly had a free hand, he was uninhibited by the psychoses that had set the pace in the other murders. A chance to do something really spectacular, to crown his life’s work. The Clown Murder will be remembered long after the girls he killed have been forgotten.’