behind him.
He looked round, nervous. Not wanting to be seen by other officers, going against years of accepted procedure. Whatever he was, he was a copper who did things properly. Followed the rules. Made them work for him. This was completely new territory to be in.
Rose guessed from the look on his face what was going through his mind. She smiled, unable to resist the urge to toy with him. As he crossed to his desk, sat down behind it, she put down the laptop she had been carrying, stood with her back against the door. Her hands went to her breasts, opening the buttons on her blouse. She threw her head back as if the touch of her own fingers were sending her into ecstasy.
‘I want you, Ben. Here. Now. In your office. Your lovely, shiny, DCI’s office.’
The look on his face was, she thought, priceless. He wanted her, too, no doubt about it. Here. Now. But it went against every action he had ever done, everything he had ever believed in.
She slid a hand between her denimed legs. She moaned, sighed. ‘All this power in here. And it’s all yours. God, I’m so horny…’
‘Rose…’ He looked like he was about to go into cardiac arrest.
Indecision played across Ben Fenwick’s face, so easy to read. Like he had a cartoon angel on one shoulder, a cartoon devil on the other, and he was listening to each argument put forward, weighing them both up. Rose almost laughed out loud.
Mind made up, he got up from his desk, came towards her.
Immediately she stopped what she was doing, dropped her hands, straightened up.
‘Later,’ she said, pushing herself off the door, picking up the laptop and walking across to the desk. ‘We’ve got work to do. Come on.’
She sat down in the chair he had recently been sitting in. Spun herself from side to side. Smiled. ‘Nice, though. A DCI’s chair in a DCI’s office. I could get used to this.’
‘I thought… thought we had work to do…’
Poor Ben, she thought. Didn’t know if he was coming or going. Put him out of his misery, get down to business.
She reached for the laptop, opened it, powered it up. ‘This was Julie Miller’s.’
‘Past tense?’
Irritation flashed in her eyes. ‘
Fenwick came round the side of the desk to join her. ‘What am I looking at?’
‘Photos. Julie Miller posted her life on here. There’s over a hundred of them. I went through all of them. Found a few coincidences. Well, more than coincidences, really.’
She moved the laptop over, pointed to the screen.
‘What am I looking at?’
The photo was of a house party. Students from the look of it, or at least all young people. Julie Miller was in the centre of the picture, tumbler of wine in one hand, a young man with his arm round her, clamped to her.
‘Him. There.’ She looked at Fenwick, triumph in her eyes.
‘That,’ she said pointing to the screen, voice raised higher than necessary, ‘is Suzanne Perry’s ex-boyfriend. Mark Turner.’
Fenwick frowned. ‘And he’s…’
‘Looking very friendly with our girl Julie, yes.’
‘So… they knew each other?’
‘I did some digging. It would have come up eventually. Julie Miller was at university the same time as Suzanne Perry and Zoe Herriot. Here in Colchester. The same time as Mark Turner. Well, he’s still there. Doing a Ph.D.’
‘And did he say he knew her?’
She shook her head. ‘Denied it.’
Fenwick straightened up. There was light dancing in his eyes now. ‘We might be on to something…’
‘I remembered something Mark Turner said to me. He’s part of a horror-film society that meets in the Freemason’s Arms on Military Road in New Town. So I did a bit more digging.’ She sat back, smiling. ‘Guess who the barmaid was there?’
Fenwick frowned once more.
‘I’ll tell you. Adele Harrison.’
‘So… Mark Turner is connected to all the women in this case?’
She nodded. ‘He is. And that’s something Phil Brennan doesn’t know.’
Fenwick stood up. ‘Then we’d better tell him.’
Rose didn’t move. ‘After the way he spoke to you earlier? Why?’
‘Because it’s procedure. Everyone’s so bloody accountable these days if proper procedure isn’t followed then heads will roll. Jobs will be lost.’
She turned to face him, stopping him leave just with her eyes. ‘But not your job, Ben. Phil Brennan’s perhaps, but not yours.’ She stood up, pushed her body against him. ‘We know something he doesn’t. If we act on it, bring Mark Turner in, while he’s off running round chasing non-existent leads, then we might well have cracked the case.’ She pushed right close against him. ‘What d’you think?’
Before Fenwick could reply, her phone rang. She ignored it.
She smiled. ‘Feeling hard, Ben?’
The phone kept ringing.
He was breathing heavily. But looking irritated. ‘Look, please answer that. It might be important.’
She sighed, took the phone from her pocket, glanced down at the display.
‘Phil Brennan. I’ll ignore it.’
She switched it off.
Fenwick looked slightly nervous. ‘I think you should…’
She put her hands round his neck.
‘Now, where were we?’
69
‘They’ve been dead a while,’ said Phil. ‘Both of them.’
‘I can see that…’ Mickey Philips tried to back out of the bathroom, only to find Anni blocking his way. Reluctantly, he stayed where he was.
‘You OK, Mickey?’ said Phil. ‘Not going to have a repeat of the other day?’
‘I’m fine, boss. Yeah…’
Phil wasn’t so sure. And he couldn’t blame his DS. The bathroom looked like the aftermath of a particularly violent, drunken party in an abattoir. Blood spray covered the white tiles from floor to ceiling, almost like a caricature of slaughter. But there was nothing caricatured about the bodies in the bath. A man and a woman, both fully-clothed, their necks slit open, the wounds deep and fierce, their bodies just dumped without any ceremony.
‘We know he likes a knife,’ said Phil. ‘That’s how he got rid of Zoe Herriot too.’
‘Weapon of choice,’ said Anni. ‘What’s that stuff they’re covered in?’
‘Quicklime, I reckon,’ said Phil. ‘Helps to break down the bodies faster. Hides the smell too.’
‘Lovely,’ said Anni.
‘Good job you were both nearby,’ said Phil.
‘Yeah,’ said Mickey, still trying not to look at the sight before him, ‘wouldn’t have wanted to miss this.’
Anni had told him all about Ian Buchan, the soldier she was tracking down, the boat he lived in. Seeing what had been done to Julie Miller’s neighbours in such close proximity, he had just jumped to the top of their prime- suspect list.
‘I’ll call it in, get a CSI team over here. I’ll just try Rose first.’ He dialled a number.
‘So what d’you reckon?’ said Mickey to Anni while Phil was on the phone. ‘He moved in here, kept Julie Miller
