“You’re right, and it has added weight to your pregnancy theory, but you need more, or you can leave it to MPS.”
Butler's nod was resigned.
From the kitchen Janet called, “I'm coming through.”
Cole threw Butler an appraising look. “Come back to me with something solid, concentrate on Helen Harrison. Her trail is fresh. Don't waste time. If Jack decides to call it quits I won't be in a position to argue. You'll have to find me something to use.” He nodded and repeated, “Helen Harrison. Get to know her better than Ticker does. He's obviously missed something that's right under his nose.” Butler topped Cole's glass again and watched as his old colleague made small work of it. They sat at the table where Janet was pouring Australian white. Anian sat opposite Cole and he stole a glance. Her nipples still poked through. They hadn't changed. He had. The scotch was doing the trick and lifting away the curse of Orpheus. His phone went.
Janet looked horrified and said, “Shit!”
Butler pulled a face.
Anian looked at Cole over her wine glass and smiled sweetly. She knew something; maybe she'd caught his earlier glance. ain be set aside. He caught his dimly lit reflection in the rear-view and something blue-eyed and colder than the December night looked back.
Chapter 8
CB1 was Charlie Bravo One, an Astra hatchback panda, driven by PC 7231 Wendy Booth. The car was three years old but looked older. Wendy Booth was twenty-nine but felt older. She had been on the job for ten years and on driving duties, which was her choice, for the last five. She was on the late shift, which she preferred, for it was the shift most likely to involve both ends of society: the brain-dead yobs who thought they controlled the streets and the pinstriped suits who probably did. At 21:15 she was parked up in a lay-by smoking one of her twentyaday Silk Cuts that occasionally ran to thirty, listening to the excited voices on the radio and waiting for the shout to come her way. It came at 21:23 and five minutes later she picked up the skipper, Sergeant Mike Wilson. He was tall, slim and forty-two. All boots, bollocks and baggy uniform, was how Wendy described him to her friends. His face was friendly, big nose, soft eyes, easy smile and tufts of ginger whiskers that he’d missed in the shaving mirror. In the old days, he would have made a perfect plod. Everyone loved him and he had a big boot for the local troublemakers. Unfortunately his day was done and, sooner or later, one of the automatons from Westminster or, more likely, the Hague, would have him out of the job.
At 21:31 she was moving along the High Road to the Square and the leisure centre. She saw the flashing cars and vans, the streamers of fluttering police tape and the army of plods spreading out from the SOC. The ambulance had already left. As they passed she saw the white boiler-suited SOCOs beginning their fingertip search. Another woman had been attacked, the second in two days and, by all accounts, it was the same MO. A bad one.
A psycho had used a knife, one of the personality disorders that the experts on the various committees decided were no longer a danger to the public. Care in the community. Keep taking the pills, my son, and off you go.
If there was one thing that upset the police more than anything it was the need to collar the same bastard twice. They drove into the Square where the red lights from the dirty bookshops and sex shops with their DVD booths still flickered. Gangs of teenagers spilled into the road and the drunks zigzagged across the pavements.
Sergeant Mike Wilson said soberly, “Where do these people come from?”
“I don’t know where they come from, Skip, but for most of them this is the end of the line.”
He grunted.
“What exactly are we doing here, Skip?”
“We’re showing a police presence. It’s good for the troops on the ground and the front pages in the morning. And of course, we can keep our eyes open for weirdos. Not the weirdo, mind you, he’ll be long gone, but any weirdo will do.”
“They’re all weirdos. Show me someone normal around here.” “She’ll do for a start. Pull over.”
Wendy slid the car to stop beside a forty-something woman. She wore a black miniskirt, black high-heeled pointed boots, black patterned hosiery and black lipstick that, as she smiled, cut her face in half.
“’Ello Mikey, don’t ‘ave to ask what you’re doin’ daaahn ‘ere, do I? You arfta anover discount, are you?” She leant down toward his open window and rested a thin white arm on the door. Light from the sex shop behind her gathered in the fair hairs on her forearm. “Now, now, Elizabeth, don’t give me Mikey or even the micky. There’s people here who might not understand your sense of humour and go off telling others that I’m a customer.”
“Oooh, Mikey, are you insinuating that I’m a strumpet? Everyone knows that men with a todger as big as yours gets it for free.” She leant down a bit further so that her white blouse sagged and showed him her dark nipples. She looked across at the grinning PC. “’Ello, Wendy darlin’, you all right? You’re not getting sexually harassed by this man are you?”
“I’m all right, Lizzy. I can hold my own.”
“Yes, darling, I’ve heard you can. Better than most, I heard. Well, darling, even so, if he asks you to take it up the arse make sure you get a decent dinner out of it. None of this Big Mac Pizza House shit.” “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Mike Wilson tapped his nose. “You heard about the business back there?”
“Who hasn’t, darling? It’s all over the Square. All the plods knocking about is messing with the trade. We’re thinking of reporting you to the Department of Trade and Industry.”
“Didn’t see anything, hear anything?”
“Not a thing, darling. First we knew about it was the ambulance.” “What about last night?”
“That was just a one-off at the time so it didn’t cause a stir. Oneoffs is happening all the time, you know that. Disgruntled punters or pissed-off managers who think you’re holding back. But these girls are civvies. They wouldn’t know a trick from a treat.”
“Be a good girl and ask around.”
“For you Mikey, anything. If there’s so much as a whisper I’ll be in touch.”
“Appreciate it.”
She gave him an intimate little smile while her eyes brimmed with melancholy. She blinked and looked across at Wendy again. “You take good care of him, Wendy darling. He’s one in a million.” With that she stood upright and faded into a crowd that had gathered outside the sexshop window.
PC Wendy Booth slid the car back into traffic. Lizzy’s final look had opened a tap of emotion and she swallowed hard before finding her voice. “First time I’ve heard a pimp called a manager.” She threw him a sideways glance. “One in a million, eh?”
“These girls are very astute. You could learn a few things, Wendy Booth.”
“If ever I want evening classes, Skip, I’ll know where to come.” “Don’t you fancy me, then, PC Booth?”
“I do, I do, and I’m having to hold myself back from jumping all over you, but I’m great mates with your wife and I love your three kids to bits so I’ll just have to live with it.”
Sergeant Mike Wilson nodded and said, “Right. So you’re a lesbian then, are you?”
Chapter 9
Eleven years ago Donna Fitzgerald had joined the force as a seventeenyearold cadet. It had been her ambition for as long as she could remember and she had never considered an alternative career. She had passed the interviews, the physical and psychometric tests and joined the force in August, she remembered, the month that produced the worst crime figures. She was also reasonably happy to be one of the few officers at Sheerham schooled in the bedside manner; hers was the sympathetic ear for the victims of rape and domestic violence and other serious sexual assaults. She could have been part of a Sapphire Unit and might even have been a substantive DC by now but that she was still in uniform was her own choice. She had learned long ago that CID was not for her.
