London crime

The genealogical inspiration for The Blood Detective came first, but it matched perfectly another passion of mine – London. I moved here in 1997 and like many Northerners before me, was swiftly seduced by the size and the scale, the pace of life and the bright lights, and, above all, the rich, ever-present history.

I’ve always stopped to read every blue plaque I see, even when it bears the name of an 18^th century philanthropist I’ve never heard of. The thought I’m walking the same pavements as people long dead has always struck me as ridiculously thrilling. When I see old pictures on the walls of a pub or café of the surrounding area, I’m always mesmerised to see how much it’s changed, what buildings still exist, which ones have gone, peer in close to see the grubby faced urchins and austere men and women.

When I moved to Ladbroke Grove in 2000 I never realised the area had such a colourful history. Then, shortly after I moved in, a taxi driver pointed out that Rillington Place, scene of the notorious Christie killings, was just a few hundred yards from my front door.

I went down to see. It’s no longer Rillington Place. That was bulldozed in the 1970s. In its place is a close of new red-brick houses. But get this: there is no number ten. Instead of a house bearing the same number as the one in which John Christie carried out his gruesome slaughter, there is a gap.

I found this discovery spine-tingling. Further investigation revealed that Christie used to drink in my local, which still featured few unsavoury characters. I looked at old maps featuring Rillington Place. I bought books about the history of the local area. Notting Dale, where I lived, Notting Hill’s poorer, uglier neighbour, used to be a den of iniquity and poverty. The park where I took my son to play was once a fetid swamp known to locals as ‘The Ocean’, whose foul odour could be smelled for miles around. Most of the least salubrious areas were cleared to build the Westway, the looming, monstrous overhead motorway that cuts a swathe through the Dale, but you can still sense something in the air; a crackle of danger, a hint of vice. There is nothing new about it. Notting Dale always had it. Dickens spoke and wrote about its depravity. Charles Booth, in his survey of the poor of London, toured the area extensively. His notes have been digitised and put online; they proved a valuable resource.

Most of the time I just walked and walked. I’ve always been fascinated by psychogeography, the idea that places bear an imprint of their past. It certainly seemed to be the case in my part of west London. I loved the way that seedy, seamy Notting Dale existed alongside Notting Hill, throbbing with tourists ticking off backdrops and settings from the movie, which airbrushed all that is vibrant and interesting in the area in favour of celebrating all that is flaccid and dull.

When I wasn’t walking, I spent much of my time in the local library studying old maps, seeing how much the whole area had changed. The ‘past misdemeanours’ section of my novel is set in 1879, which was deliberate. The Metropolitan Railway connected the area to central London, and hectares of open countryside were being built on as London swallowed everything in its path. It seemed a perfect place for a serial killer to carry out his macabre work, and for his misdeeds to resurface 125 years later.

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