by Louise Voss
‘This could be extremely helpful,’ he said, glancing down at his notebook, which he angled so Hattie couldn’t see it. The key words he’d written down, which tallied with Rose’s and Jessica’s murders, were underage, crop, hotel room and, underlined, no sex.
Suddenly, they had a prime suspect. A prime suspect who just happened to be one of the most famous men, not just in Britain but in the whole world.
‘I need to talk to this girl,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘I need her name, Hattie.’
‘Oh God, it’s all going to come out that I’ve talked to you.’ She put her hands over her face. ‘I didn’t mean to say so much.’
Patrick looked wryly at the empty wine glasses on the table.
‘You can’t talk to the girl, Detective. It’s impossible.’
‘Nothing’s impossible, Hattie,’ he said.
Chapter 20
Day 6 – Patrick
On the way back to the incident room, Patrick had a moment of brain-panic – the realisation that there were so many layers of thought going through his head that they all swirled together like tutti-frutti ice cream, and separating them out into a cogent to-do list seemed as impossible as restoring the ice cream back to its original ingredients. He parked in the staff car park and pulled out his Moleskine and a pen, balancing the notepad on the steering wheel so he could try to get it all down before he forgot:
Get update from Peter Bell re key card
“ “ “Gareth
Brief Suzanne
Get Mervyn Hammond in
Find out name of girl Shawn attacked – MH should know
Check on Gill
Chicken fillets/washing powder/binliners
Winkler – what’s he up to??
He paused after this last one and underlined Winkler’s name again. Although they were meant to be working together on this case, it occurred to Pat that he hadn’t seen anything of his ‘colleague’ – how that word stuck in his craw – since the last team briefing. During the Child Catcher case, Winkler had gone off on his own and almost screwed up the whole operation. He was pretty sure Winkler’s apparent lack of interest in this case would prevent that happening again, but he couldn’t help but feel a tickle of anxiety.
Even though the list needed to be four times longer, Pat decided it was enough to be going on with. Most of those things were doable that afternoon. He toyed with the idea of ringing Gill first, having just had a sudden grim vision of her and Bonnie, stuck in front of the TV on this cold wintery day, Bonnie chatting to her Barbies and Gill ignoring her, staring with unseeing eyes at the screen . . . He shuddered. No, it wouldn’t be like that. Gill wasn’t like that anymore.
Yet he could never quite shake the worry that she might be, that she was just hiding it well when he was around.
He got out of the car and pulled out his phone to call her, but then saw Peter Bell heading towards his own car, remote key in his hand.
‘Cyber-Crime office only open mornings these days?’ Patrick enquired. He hadn’t meant to sound snippy, but it came out that way, and Bell’s fleshy face folded into a brief scowl that he immediately covered up with an obsequious smile.
‘Ha ha, Guv, no, far from it, actually. I’m back off to the Travel Inn to check out something I’ve unearthed about their room key system. Just a theory I’m going to test. If it works, I think we’ll have our answer as to how the perp managed to get in.’
Patrick nodded with surprise and pleasure. ‘That’s excellent! I was about to come and ask if you were getting anywhere. Nice work, Bell.’
The man’s smile was genuine this time, displaying yellowy teeth crossed slightly at the front. He wasn’t a looker, poor guy, thought Patrick.
‘Well, as I said, it’s just a theory at the moment, but I’m reasonably confident . . .’
‘Keep me posted. That would be a big step forwards.’
Bell gave Patrick a mock salute, almost poking himself in the eye with his car key in the process, and Patrick swallowed a grin.
By the time he’d got into the incident room he decided he’d ring Gill later. Suzanne was standing by the water cooler with her back to him, and he couldn’t help but take a moment to let his gaze sweep up and down her body. Her long blonde hair was in a loose, glossy sheet almost to her waist, emphasising her trim hourglass figure in a pencil skirt and tight white shirt . . .
Suddenly aware of someone hovering behind him, Patrick snapped out of his reverie and turned to find Gareth Batey by his right shoulder. The man did have a habit of lurking anxiously. He needed to be far more assertive, thought Patrick. He was a good solid cop, bright and efficient, but this slightly weird diffidence didn’t do him any favours.
‘Gareth,’ he said. ‘I was about to come and find you. Did you hear we’ve got a potential lead on the key card?’
Batey nodded. ‘I was coming to tell you the same thing,’ he said in his soft Scottish accent. He was wearing a fuzzy sort of woollen tie in heathery colours and Patrick wondered if it was a statement or a reminder of his Highland origins. ‘I’ll go with Bell back to the Travel Inn, if that’s OK with you.’
‘Good idea. Report back to me later,’ Patrick replied, slightly distractedly, as Suzanne was walking back to her office, draining a paper cone of water on the way. She lobbed the empty cone with perfect accuracy into a waste paper bin five feet away. When she saw Patrick, he thought he saw her eyes light up. But perhaps he was deluded.
‘I’m just back from interviewing Hattie Parsons from OnTarget’s record company,’ he said, catching up and falling in step with her. ‘Very interesting. But potentially tricky – can I fill you in?’
She gestured him into her office. ‘Tricky why?’
He explained what Hattie had said about Shawn Barrett and the underage girl in Dublin, and that Mervyn Hammond had gone to great lengths to cover up her complaint. ‘Hattie says she can’t remember the girl’s name, but I reckon she could find it if Mervy-boy won’t tell us. He definitely knows it.’
‘Let’s get him in, then,’ Suzanne said. Patrick noticed she had slipped off her high shoes under the desk, and the sight of her stockinged toes had the usual effect on his groin.
‘Who – Barrett or Hammond?’
‘Hammond first, get the lie of the land.’
Patrick groaned. ‘He’s as slippery as a barrel of eels, but yes, I think you’re right. I’ll lean on him. Can you imagine the media shit storm we’ll have on our hands if we have to haul in the singer from the world’s biggest boy band?’
‘Never a dull minute,’ said Suzanne, smiling at him. ‘But better we expose this now, if it’s true, than have another Operation Yewtree in thirty years.’
Patrick agreed. Every day seemed to bring a new story about historic cases of rape or sexual assault by some former TV favourite or pop star.
‘But don’t go in on Hammond with all guns blazing – he’s the sort who’d set his lawyers on us if you even look at him funny.’
‘Credit me with some sensitivity!’ Patrick pretended to be offended. ‘I’m not a bull in a china shop . . . well, not usually . . .’
There was that smile again.
‘I know you’re not, Pat,’ she said, holding his eyes for just a second too long.
Chapter 21
Day 6 – Wendy
The queue for the signing stretched all the way from the Waterstones bookshop on Piccadilly to the Costa Coffee on the corner of Church Place. Wendy had a friend from back home who was an obscure crime novelist. Wendy had been to one of his book signings once – three people had turned up, including her.
Now here was a boy band who probably hadn’t read their own book, let alone written it, with hundreds of people desperate to get in to see them. Not that this had anything to do with the book itself, of course. It was a chance to actually meet OnTarget, to be
a foot away from them, breathing the same air. Even Wendy felt a little excited at that prospect. The allure of celebrity. Wendy’s mum had been almost overcome when she’d bumped into Dave from Slade in the supermarket, forty years after they were properly famous. In this secular society, celebs were the new gods.
She walked along the line, mostly made up of teen girls, and wondered if she was walking past Jade, F-U-Cancer or any of her other contacts – she wouldn’t allow herself to call them friends – on the forum. Over the last couple of days she had spent every spare minute chatting, tweeting and posting on Tumblr, barely sleeping, her eyes scratchy from staring at screens. She had been friendly and bubbly, uncontroversial but witty and, she believed, had made quite an impression. Even the initially stand-offish Jade had responded to some of her posts and retweeted her a couple of times. This was partly because Wendy had written the most over-the-top gushing review of one of Jade’s shipping stories on StoryPad, laughing to herself as she bashed out superlatives to praise what was actually the most appallingly written erotic dream sequence in the history of literature.
After she’d been doing this for a day, DI Lennon had asked Wendy how she was getting on. She had responded with a torrent of enthusiasm and a plea that she should be allowed to continue. And the lovely man had said yes, which had made her want to give him a hug.
Though, to be honest, everything Patrick did made her want to give him a hug. More than that, she wanted him to handcuff her to a bed and . . .
She refused to allow herself to think any further.
As soon as Wendy heard that Jade and a bunch of the other girls were heading to this book signing, Wendy knew she had to come along. This was her chance to observe them in the flesh, maybe chat to one or two of them. She didn’t know what any of these young women looked like, but if she kept her eyes and ears open, maybe she would be able to figure it out.
She also suspected that, maybe, the murderer would be here. If he was targeting girls like this, perhaps he would come along to observe his prey. The idea stoked the flames of anger that burned inside her. The determination to catch him before he struck again. There weren’t many men here. A few teenagers, standing sheepishly beside their star-struck girlfriends, clearly hoping their mates didn’t see them. A number of dads too, accompanying younger girls who bounced up and down in the queue, eager for the doors of the bookshop to open. Apart from that, there were just security staff and, of course, the band and their entourage who would be inside in the warm, doubtless bracing themselves for the snowstorm of female hormones.
Wendy reached the front of the queue and wondered what to do next. There was a small group of teenage girls right at the front, chatting excitedly, clutching their phones and grabbing each other whenever there was a sign of movement behind the doors of the shop. One of the girls, a blonde in a fake fur, leopard-print coat, shivered like a smack addict locked in a freezer; another girl with black hair couldn’t stop thumbing her phone. Just in front of them, at the very start of the queue, was a girl of about fifteen with orange fake tan and big boobs, her forehead already lined from too much frowning. Beside her stood a boy about her age who kept trying to put his arm around her. He was about her height but with ridiculously short legs. As Wendy watched, the girl with the tan said something to him and he trotted off up the road on his little legs, coming back ten minutes later with two cups from Costa.
‘Thanks, babe,’ the girl said, cream bubbling up through the lid in the cup as she slurped at it.
‘Anyfink for you, bae,’ said the boy.
Wendy tried not to smirk. Was one of these girls Jade? She knew from Twitter that Jade had been planning on coming here in the middle of the night, with her boyfriend, whose name Wendy didn’t know. She took her phone out and opened Twitter, to see if Jade had updated recently. Sure enough, she had tweeted a boast about being the first in line.
OMG I’m going to meet Shawn!! #OnT #booksigning
In fact, Wendy remembered now, Jade had an Instagram account that was full of selfies. She navigated to it and found Jade straight away. There she was, pouting at the camera. This was definitely her. There was even a shot of her with her boyfriend.
Wendy hesitated. Should she approach Jade and her friends? She was worried about whether she would actually pass for a fourteen-year-old. She’d been to New Look to buy a new outfit, had applied her make-up in the way she thought her younger self would, and on the way here had gone into a supermarket and attempted to buy cigarettes, though she didn’t smoke. The twenty-something woman behind the counter had asked for ID and Wendy had grinned and immediately walked away. To an adult, she could pass for a mature-looking fourteen-year-old, she was sure – but would she fool Jade and her mates?
As she summoned her inner teenager, trying to think of a good reason for approaching Jade that wouldn’t make her look like a stalker, the doors opened. Jade and her gang squealed, the line surged a little, but then the doors were immediately shut. It was just a few guys coming out, smiling at the sight of the queue. Wendy recognised one of them: Mervyn Hammond. A shifty-looking bloke stood next to him, a Staffordshire terrier in human form, and just behind was a beardy guy in his early thirties with a bland, pleasant look.
‘Amazing turnout,’ Wendy heard Mervyn Hammond say, and the bland man nodded and smiled.
Right, Wendy thought. Time to see if I can fake it as a teenager. She prepared to head over to Jade’s group when someone put their hand on her shoulder.
‘Wendy?’
She turned. It was DS Masiello.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Wendy asked.
Carmella raised her eyebrows. ‘That’s a nice greeting! Thought I’d come down here, take another look at our OnTarget fans. See if there’s anyone hanging around.’ She spoke in a hushed voice. ‘What about you?’
‘I was just passing by, actually.’
She squirmed. DI Lennon hadn’t given her permission to do this. She was supposed to be conducting her investigation solely online, not putting her face out there. She knew if she got a result he would forgive her, would be impressed and pleased, she hoped. But Masiello turning up like this ruined it!
She groped for something else to say and was saved by movement behind her as the doors opened again and a pair of security staff beckoned the crowd forwards, two at a time, while Mervyn Hammond and his companions looked on.
‘Makes you wish you were young again,’ Wendy said, gesturing at the expressions of anticipation on the faces of the girls in the line.
‘I don’t know about that.’
‘Well, anyway, I’d better be getting on,’ Wendy said.
Carmella was looking at her suspiciously now. Oh God, she was going to run back to Patrick and tell him.
‘See you at the station,’ she said, softly, and as she walked away she became aware that someone was watching her. She turned. Jade’s boyfriend frowned at her before Jade grabbed his wrist and tugged him through the doors into the shop, the crowd surging forwards behind them. Wendy walked on, towards the Costa, wishing she’d had a chance to introduce herself to Jade and the other girls. When she looked back, Carmella was talking to Mervyn Hammond.
Oh shit, please don’t let Patrick be angry, she thought. But now she had an even greater reason to make this work. She was going to have to push things forwards. She knew exactly what she needed to do.
Chapter 22
Day 6 – Chloe
Chloe was gutted. Her mum had made her wait because she had to take an important call from a client, and then Brandon had announced that he needed the loo just as they were about to leave, and the traffic had been predictably horrific, and they had to stop for petrol and there was a long line at the garage. By the time she got to Waterstones, having run the last hundred yards, her stress levels were off the scale and, as she feared, the queue was already so long that the chances of getting in were less than zero.
She joined the line anyway, behind a group of shrill twelve-year-old girls and tried to figure out if there was some way of getting farther ahead without getting her hair pulled out. Security staff walked up and down the line, presumably to stop queue-jumping and fighting among fans, or to drag out any girls who fainted with excitement.
If only Jess were here. She’d know how to get them in. The thought was followed immediately by a rush of sadness. Jess wasn’t here. Tears welled up in Chloe’s eyes and she remembered the dream she’d had a few nights ago. She’d been waiting down at the Rotunda to meet up with Jess, but her friend hadn’t turned up and Chloe felt increasingly panicked. Just before she woke up, her pillow damp beneath her face, Chloe realised: Jess wasn’t coming. Not ever.
She inhaled deeply, aware that the twelve-year-olds were gawping at her. Maybe she shouldn’t have come . . . It was too soon after Jess’s death, too painful to think how much Jess would have loved this. MissTargetHeart – Rose – too. Brandon kept going on about it, how it was ‘mad’ that Chloe knew two girls who’d been killed, till she’d been forced to smack him around the head and tell him to shut up, which made him cry and go running to Mum. It wasn’t ‘mad’. It was tragic. Although she hadn’t really known Rose, not properly.
The twelve-year-olds were whispering and giggling now and, irritated and embarrassed, Chloe left the line, stalking down towards the store. She could see Mervyn Hammond up ahead, talking to a woman with auburn hair. The woman turned and Chloe realised she was that cop, the one who’d stood next to the detective at the vigil when he made his appeal for information. And just beyond the female cop, Chloe saw Jade and Kai, right at the front of the queue.
Her knees wobbled and all of a sudden the wintry sun seemed too bright. She staggered away, almost colliding with a security guy, and sat down on the kerb, sucking in deep breaths. It all came rushing back to her, the reason why she didn’t talk to Jade anymore; what had happened to that girl; the things that she hadn’t told the police about . . .