and sometimes, just sometimes, I hanker for the good old days, Joe, because more than anything, I want to beat you to an inch of your life — and then kick you some more — whether or not you killed Claire.’
He released Joe with an exaggerated flick of the fingers, like he was dropping something horrible. Then, grabbing Joe’s arm, he said, ‘Come on, let’s go and see the Custody Officer.’
‘ There was no need to do that, Henry.’ Danny’s voice was strained. She was sitting on the examination couch in the police surgeon’s room in the custody complex, her feet swinging. Lilton was in a cell, awaiting his brief.
‘ Yeah,’ he conceded, slightly embarrassed. ‘I suffer from the “red mist” syndrome occasionally. It gets me into trouble now and then.’
‘ He’s not worth it.’
‘ Hey, okay, nuff said.’ Henry held up his hands in surrender.
Danny looked down at the floor and suddenly it came out. ‘I saw her face, Claire’s face, the expression on it,’ she choked, ‘and it’s only now I realise what it meant, and I made her go back home and it was obvious to anyone with half a brain she had good reason not to want to go back.’ A torrent of tears welled up and flooded over the edge. Her face rose pleadingly to Henry. He crossed to her. She slid off the couch and her arms went round him. ‘Her dad was sexually assaulting her. No wonder she went off the rails… and I didn’t spot it. Someone with my experience — I must be thick as a brick. And she even came in twice to see me, but didn’t have the courage to stay and speak. And what did I do? Nothing. I deserve to lose my job for this.’
‘ No.’ Henry held Danny at arm’s length so he could see her. ‘You cannot blame yourself for this. Every cop in the world would go bananas if they blamed themselves for things going wrong in other people’s lives.’
She closed her eyes sadly and wiped away her tears with a flourish of both hands. ‘Yeah, right,’ she muttered. ‘What are we going to do about Joe Lilton?’
‘ Do you think he killed her?’
Danny shook her head. ‘No, I don’t.’
‘ Let’s interview him with a solicitor, then bail him to come back here in a week. We’ll probably have a better picture of things by then. What about Mrs Lilton? Should we arrest her too?’
‘ I don’t think she will be involved, but I suppose we need to speak to her at some stage.’
The door swished open. It was the Custody Sergeant.
‘ Henry, Danny, need to have a quick word.’
The detectives exchanged a glance, both thinking the same thing: Joe Lilton had made a complaint of assault against Henry.
Both were wrong.
Myrna stirred. Her head was still resting on her forearms. She was stiff and aching. For a few moments she did not move, keeping her eyes closed and breathing in deeply through her nostrils. She sat up and stretched the feeling back into her blood-starved limbs. The crinkle of pins and needles was painful and pleasurable at the same time. She rolled her neck and winced as her back muscles protested.
The clock on her desk told her that ninety minutes had passed since her last phone call to Karl Donaldson in London. Dawn had already revealed itself across Miami; soon the office cleaners would be in, followed shortly by the more enthusiastic workers amongst the staff.
She rubbed her eyes, cleared her throat and glanced across to Tracey.
‘ Holy shit!’ were the first words Myrna uttered.
The girl had disappeared.
The custody officer pulled the custody record out of its plastic wallet.
‘ We don’t know who she is — she won’t tell us,’ he said to Danny and Henry, ‘but she’s about eleven or twelve; she’s as pissed as a rat, glued up to the eyeballs, as violent as any girl that age can be and basically a real bitch to deal with. I gave her a drink of tea which she promptly threw all over me. Luckily most of it missed; now she’s stripped herself stark naked and is prancing about in the buff in a juvenile detention room, having urinated and then shat in one corner. She’s now smeared excreta all over the walls.’ He raised his nose. ‘Can you smell it?’
Henry inhaled. ‘Ahhh, yes, the smell of shite.’ He smiled empathetically at the Sergeant; Henry was pleased to announce that his spell as a custody officer had been brief but horrible, done a short time after his promotion to uniform Sergeant, somewhere in the dim, distant past. The role was unenviable, having to be a kind of unloved intermediary between the investigating officers and the prisoners. Always a no-win situation. It was a job Henry had quite happily left behind.
‘ So it’s a crap job you’ve got,’ said Henry. ‘What’s it got to do with me?’
‘ It’s probably all balls, I suppose, but she said she knew who killed Claire Lilton, but she wasn’t going to tell us — then she stuck two fingers up at me and lobbed a turd in my general direction. I’m getting too old for this,’ he whined, rubbing his neck. He was twenty-seven. ‘Just thought you’d like to know, that’s all. Take it or leave it.’
‘ Nothing lost having a word, is there?’ Danny said.
Myrna shot out of her chair and crossed quickly to the restroom. Tracey was not there. She began a systematic walk through the offices of Kruger Investigations. Ten minutes later she returned to her office, pretty certain Tracey had gone. She sat down heavily and reached for the phone to call night security down at the front entrance. As her hand drew the receiver to her ear, she noticed her purse was open. With a curse playing on her lips, she grabbed the black bag and rummaged through it.
Tracey had beaten her to it.
She had been cleaned out.
Juveniles are not detained in normal cells, but in juvenile detention rooms which, instead of cell doors, have thick wooden ones with toughened glass windows. There are no toilets in such rooms and every time the occupant wishes to pay a visit, they have to ring the bell. Henry hated dealing with kids. Give him a hardened professional criminal any day. Much simpler.
He and Danny stood outside the DR and tried to peer through the layer of faeces the young lady had smeared over the window. They could just see her, sitting cross-legged on the floor, naked, singing at the top of her voice, then shouting obscenities between verses. They could smell her very well.
The cell was covered in it and so was she.
Danny turned to the custody Sergeant. ‘Why was she arrested anyway?’
‘ A nothing of a job really. Caught shoplifting in W H Smiths. The store detective chased her, she ran away down the Prom and she kicked off when she was collared. She gave the store detective a real shiner, I’m told. Took three bobbies to bring her in.’
‘ And we don’t know who she is, yet?’
‘ No.’
‘ Yes, we do,’ came a triumphant voice, interrupting the Sergeant’s reply. It was one of the arresting officers. ‘Been leafing through the Missing from Home reports, just in case — and voila!’ He flapped a message switch. ‘I think it’s this girl.’
‘ Well done,’ the Sergeant commented.
‘ What’s your plan of action?’ Danny asked.
‘ Hm… got to get her cleaned up before we do anything with her. Going to have to get a couple of policewomen into overalls, drag her out and dump her under a shower. This DR’ll have to be steam-cleaned now — little madam. Danny?’ He looked questioningly at the DS. ‘Don’t suppose you’d be interested in grabbing a pair of overalls and helping out?’ It was a fairly rhetorical question. ‘No, supposed not.’
‘ We’ll come back and speak to her when she’s clean — and sober,’ Henry said.
The custody officer looked severely miffed at the problem. Bloody kids, he thought. Should be shot at birth.
‘ Just got off speaking to the States again. A woman named Myrna Rosza, remember? She was the one who originated the information on Charlie Gilbert.’
