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I say nothing, turning back to my screen, and he stands there for another couple of seconds, then walks away. When I look up again, I see that he’s stopped to talk to Satish on his way back to his desk. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but suddenly Satish turns and glances at me, abruptly turning away again when he realises I’m watching him. Edward looks at me too and smiles, looking a little embarrassed, I think, then heads back to his own desk further down the room. I stare after him for a moment, then realise I really can’t be bothered, and reopen my file on Lisa Turner.
I’d been aware of the case, of course, ever since the murder investigation launched a month ago, but it hadn’t struck me as one I might want to delve more deeply into. Until now, of course. Now, I desperately want to find out everything I can, every tiny little detail. If she really was the first in what is to be a string of related killings – still abigif, I keep telling myself – andifI really am a potential victim too, then Lisa’s the key, isn’t she? Or at least, she might be. Some killings are just … well, just random. But what killer chooses a random name in advance, and then seeks out a victim to match? Nobody would do that, surely? Which means that these names – Jane, David, Mary – aren’t random. They’re the names of specific people, people the killer has already selected. Probably.
‘I don’t know. I have no idea, not yet,’ I whisper to the photo of Lisa Turner. ‘But you, I want to know everything about you.’
I spent an hour this morning gathering as much information as I could, and now I scan my notes again. Lisa Turner had been single at the time of her death, and had one older brother, an Oxford GP called Alastair. Both of their parents are dead; I couldn’t find much on their father, Alan, who passed away fifteen years ago. But their mother was interesting. She died two years ago – a heart attack – but she was Alice Turner, better known as The Honourable Mrs Justice Turner, one of very few women to be appointed as a supreme court judge. I found a fascinating article when I looked further into that: Lisa, interviewed inThe Timesnot long after her mother’s death, talking about how ‘out of step’ the UK is in its judicial diversity, both in terms of race and gender.
‘This is the highest court in the land – the final court of appeal for civil cases in the UK and criminal cases from England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and yet where are all the female judges?’she’s quoted as saying.‘Less than a third of British judges are women. My mother felt passionately about that, and so do I. It has to change.’
Outspoken, then. Did that draw the attention of whoever killed her, maybe?
The police, it seems, have had little to go on in terms of suspects. Lisa had been making her way home, alone, from a New Year’s Eve party, and had seemingly taken a short cut along the Oxford canal towpath; her body had been found with serious head injuries near Wolvercote Lock, three miles north of the city centre and just minutes from her home on Godstow Road. There was an appeal for witnesses in the days following the murder, one news article mentioning that there were no CCTV cameras on that stretch of the canal.
Did the killer know that, and choose that location deliberately?And it’s so difficult to identify people in winter anyway, especially on a cold January night. Everyone’s bundled up in coats and hat and scarves. Even where there is CCTV coverage, faces can be tricky to see …
A smart, forensically aware killer then, avoiding cameras and, presumably, leaving nothing for the forensics team to go on. If he had, surely the investigation would be further on by now? It seems to have completely stalled, as far as I can gather anyway.
I want to look further into all of this, but I can’t concentrate until I know what’s happened in Birmingham. And, more importantly,whoit’s happened to. I click back through the news pages again. No further updates.
Come on, I urge silently.Come on. Tell us her name. Please.
And if it is Jane, as I strongly suspect it will turn out to be, what then?What the hell do I do then?
