The Retribution

Nicky scratched his head, crossing his legs again. Paula wished she had Tony Hill’s ability to read a person’s body language. She’d recently been on an interrogation course that had devoted some time to the subject but still she felt as if she was only skating over the surface. ‘I don’t remember,’ he said. ‘It feels like forever, you know?’

‘Did she have regulars?’ Paula asked. ‘Or was it mostly air-crew passing through?’

‘Both.’ He inhaled deeply and let the smoke flow from his nostrils. ‘Some of her regulars were crew that fly the same route all the time. Like, if it’s Tuesday it must be the Dubai lot. She had a few Arab regulars, coming in and out from the Gulf. Some locals who work the cargo terminal.’ He sighed. ‘I don’t know names or anything like that. I never really paid attention. I wasn’t that interested in her punters, if you must know.’

‘Did she have a place where she took them? A hotel room, a bedsit, somewhere like that?’ Drowned in a bath, Paula thought.

Nicky gave a small splutter of laughter. ‘Are you kidding? She was a street-level prostitute. She never worked in a brothel or a sauna. She worked the streets. She fucked them round the back of the Flyer. In their car, if they had one.’ He laughed again, a terrible choked sound. ‘It’s not Pretty Woman, our lives.’

‘What about where these guys were staying? The out-oftowners must have had hotel rooms. Did she go back with them?’

Nicky shook his head. ‘Like I said, Suze was street. She wasn’t going to get past any hotel receptionist with a pulse. Why are you asking about this?’

‘We think she wasn’t killed where she was found,’ Paula said.

‘They said she was drowned. And they found her in the canal. Why would you think she wasn’t killed there?’

‘They found the wrong water in her lungs,’ Paula said. ‘It wasn’t canal water. Wherever she drowned, it wasn’t in the canal.’ She waited while he processed that information. ‘Any idea where that might have been?’

‘No fucking idea at all.’

‘Did she ever mention feeling threatened?’

‘The only time there was ever any bother was with the East Europeans. And like I say, that got sorted out. It was months ago, anyway. If there had been any blowback off that, it would have hit a long time ago. Whoever killed her, I don’t think it was personal. Anybody could have picked her up. Once the Flyer shut its doors, she worked on the street. It’s not like anybody had her back. Out there, she was on her own. It wasn’t like in Temple Fields where I work. We’re team-handed there. Somebody pays attention who I go with. I do the same for them.’ He shook his head. ‘I told her she should find somebody to work with. But she said there wasn’t enough work to go round. I can’t blame her. She was right. Fucking recession.’

‘What? People cutting back on paying for it?’ Kevin said, a hint of sarcasm obvious to Paula.

‘No, copper,’ Nicky said angrily. ‘More people out on the street selling it. We’ve been noticing that, me and Suze. A lot of new faces.’

That was interesting, Paula thought. She wasn’t quite sure why, but anything out of the ordinary couldn’t be disregarded in a murder inquiry. ‘Any trouble from the new faces?’

Nicky ground out his cigarette in an African ceramic ashtray, then lifted the top and dropped the stub neatly below. No overflowing saucers here, Paula noted. ‘There’s been some rucks down Temple Fields,’ he said at last. ‘But not out the arse end of Brackley Field.’ He picked up his cigarette packet and tapped it on the arm of the chair. ‘When will they let me have her body?’

The question came out of nowhere. ‘Are you her next of kin?’ Paula said, playing for time.

‘I’m all she’s got. Her mum’s dead. She hasn’t seen her dad or her two brothers since she was nine. She was in care, same as me. We look after each other. She needs a proper funeral and no other fucker will do it for her. So when do I get to sort it out?’

‘You need to talk to the coroner’s officer,’ Paula said, feeling bad about sidestepping a question that had no easy answer. ‘But they won’t release her right away. With her being a murder victim, we need to hold on to her for a while.’

‘Why? I knew there had to be a postmortem. I mean, I watch TV, right? I understand that. But now that’s been done, surely I can have her back?’

‘It’s not that simple,’ Kevin said. ‘If we arrest someone—’

‘If? Don’t you mean when?’ Nicky jumped to his feet and began to prowl up and down the room, lighting a cigarette as he moved. ‘Or is she not important enough to qualify for “when”?’

Paula could sense Kevin tensing alongside her. ‘Here’s how it goes. When we arrest someone, he has the right to ask for a second postmortem. Just in case our pathologist got it wrong. It’s particularly important when there’s some question about cause of death. Or, like in this case, a forensic issue relating to the body.’

‘Fuck,’ Nicky spat. ‘The rate you lot work at, we could all be dead before you arrest someone.’ He stopped, leaning his head on the wall. In silhouette, he looked like an artist’s rendition of despair. ‘What happens if this twat gets away with it? How long before you decide to give her back to me?’ He was getting worked up now. There would be nothing more of value from Nicky today, Paula realised.

‘Talk to the coroner’s officer, Nicky,’ she said, calm but not condescending. ‘He can answer your questions.’ She stood up and crossed the room to where he stood and put her hand on his arm. Through his long-sleeved top, she could feel hard bone and quivering muscle. ‘I’m sorry about your loss. I promise you, I don’t take any murder lightly.’ She handed him her card. ‘If you think of anything that might be helpful, call me.’ She gave him a thin smile. ‘Or if you just want to talk about her, call me.’

16

Carol glared at Penny Burgess, the crime correspondent of the Bradfield Evening Sentinel Times. It was probably as well for the reporter that Carol was watching the press conference on CCTV and not in the same room. From her earliest days in Bradfield, the reporter had alienated Carol, in spite of her appeals to sisterhood and justice. It infuriated Carol that someone who claimed to espouse the beliefs closest to her own heart could deny them so effectively in her actions. What was almost more irritating was that the woman seemed to be bulletproof. No matter that her career regularly seemed to hit the rocks – there she was, still getting