'Ignore him,' Sally said. 'He's an idiot.'
'I will.'
He sat down beside her.
'Actually, I'm glad you're here,' said Sally.
'Of course. We're going for a curry, aren't we?'
'Yes. Later. But I meant I'm glad you're here because I want to talk to you. About work. About the crime-scene photos of the second victim that were posted on the Net. There's something a little wrong with them.'
Michael Hill stood up. 'Well, if we're going to talk shop, there's a little bar I found. I thought we could go there for a drink first, before the ruby? Bit quieter than here.'
Sally looked down at his feet as she stood up. 'New boots?'
Michael Hill looked down at his snakeskin cowboy boots, polished to a gleam, and smiled as he admired them, stroking his black shoestring tie as he did so. 'Fairly new, yes.'
Sally looked at her watch again and then shrugged; if anybody could take care of himself, Jack Delaney certainly could. Besides, she had earned herself a bit of fun.
She stood up and gave Michael a quick kiss on the cheek. 'Come on then. Let's leave the peanut gallery to it.'
Sally headed for the door, Michael Hill put his hand to his cheek where Sally had brushed her lips, and then followed her, desire dancing in his eyes and the faintest of smiles quirking the corners of his mouth.
Diane Campbell was leaning against Jack Delaney's desk. Looking through the Filofax that Jimmy Skinner had just brought back from the flat in Mornington Crescent. Kate Walker, meanwhile, was working at Sally's computer going over the forensics reports on both the dead women. 'So Jennifer Cole's real name is Katherine Wingrove.'
Jimmy Skinner nodded, a gesture on his tall thin body somewhat akin to an albatross dipping for food. 'She was a midwife at the South Hampstead Hospital, and did escorting work on the side. The first victim, Maureen Casey but calling herself Janet Barnes, was a student nurse, also at the South Hampstead, about eighteen months ago. According to Katherine Wingrove's diary, she had been working in prostitution since she was fifteen years old and had come to London as a runaway from domestic abuse. She wanted to qualify as a nurse, put that life behind her, but found she couldn't. Student bills to pay, debt mounting up. Katherine Wingrove helped her out, showed her the classier end of the trade. She gave up the nursing and took up escorting full-time.'
'Why did nobody recognise them at the hospital?'
'They look completely different, with the make-up and clothes on. Katherine Wingrove was on scheduled holiday this week so no one was expecting to see her anyway. And Maureen's own mother took some time to come forward she looked so different.'
'Either way it's not about prostitution, it's about the hospital. All three of his victims have worked there at some time.'
Kate typed in the address that Melanie Jones had given the police, truecrimeways.com. It opened on to a general site detailing true crimes, murders of a particularly brutal and violent nature. On the sixth page was a picture of a gravestone, at the bottom of a long article about Fred West. Following the instructions they had been given, Kate clicked on the cross at the top of the gravestone. A box appeared requesting a password.
Skinner watched what she was doing. 'It's just a like the paedophiles, hiding hyperlinks within a seemingly legal site. You need to know where it is and a password to get into the specialised area.' He said the word 'specialised' with a definite curl to his lip.
