by Bo Brennan
“DI Tom Dwyer, pleasure to meet you, Sir,” he said, all but bowing and stooping.
Colt wrestled his hand away and extended it to India Kane.
“DC Kane,” she said curtly, her icy blue stare looked right through him. Not a hint of recognition, which left him pleasantly surprised.
Len gestured them to take a seat. “It would appear the rape case you've been working on has caught the attention of the MPS.”
“Great,” India said. All eyes turned her way; Tom squirmed with embarrassment.
Colt looked on inquisitively amused. “Go on,” he said, turning in his seat.
“I’ve interviewed over thirty people and come up with jack. Short of pulling in the thirteen year old paper boy I’m all out of leads. So you want to pick it to pieces? Be my guest.”
Colt jerked his head and leant towards her. “You’ve interviewed over thirty people?” he said incredulously.
She leaned away, crossing her arms. “We do the job thoroughly in this neck of the woods.”
Colt frowned. “Either you have more hours a day in this neck of the woods too, or we’re speaking at cross purposes.”
“I know the drill,” she snapped. “You’re here to carry out a twenty-eight day review of my Southampton rape investigation.”
Colt's eyes narrowed. Working with this one was going to be a right bundle of laughs. “Actually, it's the Winchester rape scene you attended yesterday that I’m interested in, but if you have a month old unsolved rape investigation on your hands then I'm going to want to take a look at that too, India.”
He leant back in his chair, extended his legs past Tom and crossed his ankles in front of India’s feet. Staring at her, he said, “And for the record, I’m not here to review your investigation, I’m here to lead it.”
Chapter 4
“Right settle down everybody. Lee, arse, seat,” Firman bellowed, and the low level chatter in the meeting room immediately ceased. Sangrin dropped into the nearest chair. “We have a serial rapist on our patch. DCI Colt is the SIO who’ll be leading our investigation.”
India felt Sangrin's eyes on her and looked up to see him grinning with glee. An officer from another force being parachuted in to lead someone else’s investigation meant only one thing – they'd screwed up, big time.
“Why have we got a Senior Investigating Officer from the Met, Guv, instead of our own?” Sangrin whined. India clenched her jaw. Knowing it was coming did nothing to dampen the urge she had to punch him in the face.
“Pay attention, Lee, and you'll find out,” Firman said.
The sound of scuffling and cursing outside, meant someone else was joining them. Only one person could make an entrance like that. The hulk frowned as he tugged open the door, giving the woman and her bulky kit a wide berth. “Bear with me,” she flustered, stacking her kit against the wall before straightening up. “SOCO Vicky Maplin, Sir.”
“AJ Colt,” he said, extending a shovel. “Glad you could join us.”
Sangrin pulled out the chair next to him and patted the seat. India rolled her eyes. He’d be lucky. Vicky would have him for breakfast, preferably chopped into small pieces and scattered over her Weetabix.
“Now we're all here, let's get this underway,” the hulk said, taking off his jacket and hanging it over the back of his chair. “First and foremost what goes on in this room, stays in this room. Consider yourselves the chosen ones.”
A few murmurs swept around the table, he had their full and undivided attention.
“Second, but no less important,” he said, pocketing his flashy cufflinks and rolling up his shirt sleeves. “I'm neither your Guv’nor nor your boss. He's sitting here.” He placed a hand on Firman's shoulder; to India it resembled a shovel swatting a fly.
“I'm here to work with you. My family and friends call me Jim or James. Only my mother calls me by my full name, my colleagues generally call me Colt. I'm sure there are a few other choice names in use, and as long I don't hear them we'll all get along just fine.”
A happy little chorus of laughter erupted which left India gobsmacked. He'd only been here five minutes and he already had them eating out the palm of his hand. None of them seemed remotely wary of this man who had forearms bigger than their thighs. India felt like she’d landed in Lilliput and Gulliver had just arrived.
“To date we know that one individual has committed thirty-seven rapes across four counties, but only nineteen victims, including your latest one Sharon Cutler, have been identified.”
“Excuse me, Colt,” Dwyer said. “You say he’s raped thirty-seven times but we only have nineteen victims – am I missing something here?”
“Very perceptive, Tom, you've leapt slightly ahead of the game,” Colt said, rubbing his hands together. Dwyer smiled, India wondered why when he’d just been publically patronised. It was amazing what you could get away with if your delivery was smooth and you looked the part.
“We believe he drugs his victims rendering them unconscious before he rapes them. He records the rapes and sometime after the attack he mails two copies – one addressed to the victim, and the other personally addressed to me. So far I have received thirty-seven DVDs featuring different victims over a period of three years.”
“It’s personal then, Sir?” India said. She wasn’t falling for his informal approach. Maybe if he lost the waistcoat and tie, or even smiled occasionally, it wouldn't be so hard to swallow his contrived act.
“Currently we have no evidence to support that theory,” he said. “But it has been explored, and we can't rule it out. And please, call me Colt.”
Then he smiled, as though he'd just read her mind. She stared at him, didn't like it one bit. The smile was fine, dazzling in fact, a perfect set of whitened teeth that must have cost more than she earned in a month. But it didn’t reach his eyes.
“Sixteen victims have come forward of their own accord after receiving their copy, and three have been brought to our attention by others, including the latest victim, Ms Cutler, the first on your turf. There are a further eighteen victims we are aware of that we have yet to locate.”
India sighed. “Sharon Cutler is the second on our turf, Sir. My Southampton rape case pre dates it by a month.”
“This isn’t a clean-up operation to dump all your unsolved cases, India,” he said. “But like I said earlier – I will be paying particular attention to your case files.”
India cocked her jaw and glared at him.
Firman cleared his throat, interrupting their stand-off. “Today I want you all to tie up any loose ends on your outstanding cases and complete hand overs to your colleagues,” he said. “Tomorrow at 0800 hours a full case meeting has been scheduled where you will be joined by the external team completing the taskforce. For the foreseeable future, twenty-four seven you belong to Colt. Your sole aim will be to catch this attacker. And if he's on my patch, I want him caught. Understood?”
“Understood, Guv,” they chorused.
“Now get to work”.
“India,” Colt said, as she jostled for the door with Dwyer and Sangrin who both abruptly stopped in their tracks to gloat.
She pivoted on a foot to face him. “Yes, Sir.” He stood there, eyebrows raised, dark eyes boring into her through thick black lashes that were wasted on a man. “What?” she said.
“I need to see your files for the Southampton and Winchester rapes.”
“They're on my desk.”
“After you,” he said, staring at her.
Great, India thought as she headed for her desk. Like there aren’t enough arseholes around here already without shipping them in from the Met.
India took her seat and effortlessly pulled the two heavy case files from her cabinet. Colt looked on as Tom and Lee milked every ounce of their new found special status for all its worth, gleefully dumping their caseloads on already overburdened stunned colleagues.
“Which one do you want first, Southampton or Winchester?” she said, without looking up.
&n
bsp; “Start with Southampton.” He planted his hands firmly on the desk beside her. She didn't look at him. He didn't like that. People who couldn't make eye contact couldn't be trusted. “The sooner you get it disposed of, the sooner you can concentrate on the job in hand.”
“Grab a chair,” she said, and wheeled herself as far along the desk as she could get.
He pulled up a chair and slid in next to her, it was a tight squeeze. His right thigh was pinned uncomfortably against the leg of her desk; his left was wedged against India Kane. The only other female he ever sat in such close proximity to was Mags – his own personal mood moderator, she kept him in check by squeezing his leg throughout meetings. He doubted India Kane would do the same, in fact he bloody hoped not.
“This isn't working for me,” she suddenly snapped.
He jerked his head back just in time to narrowly avoid a Doc Marten boot in the face as she clambered over the back of her chair. He sat in stunned silence as she stomped around the desk, dragged an empty chair from the work station opposite, positioned it at the end of her own, and sat down. “That space is all yours,” she said, sweeping a hand through the air.
He smirked and shook his head as she opened the first folder and got straight down to business. He wasn’t too thrilled about working in such close proximity to her either.
She took him through the Southampton case file page by page, delivering a detailed account of every lead and line of enquiry she'd followed, every statement taken, every place visited. Her investigation had been methodical and organised, relentless. Sixteen DNA swabs and sets of fingerprints had been taken and analysed, turning up nothing. Every single suspect had been ruled out. Peculiar as she seemed, her work revealed a sharp and clinical mind. And she was right. This was definitely their man. As they reached the back of the file a gridline map came into view.
“What's this?” He unclipped the map from the binder, and unfolded it to its full twelve page spread as she explained.
“I was trying to establish the offender’s geographical radius to the victim. That map shows every post box sorted through the mail office where Katherine Darcy's envelope was stamped.”
Impressive, even he hadn't thought of mapping them in this format. “This must've taken you a considerable amount of time.”
“Wasted time,” she said. “I didn't realise how big an area the mail sorting office dealt with.”
Colt did. The Post Office were shutting local ones down and condensing operations into fewer vaster super centres, it was proving more difficult for his London team to intercept and track the child porn arriving in the country via the postal system.
What he hadn't thought about was the big red x marking the spot of the victim’s house and the proximity of the post box nearest it. Generally they appeared to be few and far between these days, but this map showed one at the corner of Katherine Darcy’s street. Colt closed his eyes and visualised the roads of all the known victims’ homes. He hadn't personally spoken to any of them, they were scattered all round the country. But he had driven past every one of their houses, mainly in his own time, trying to make sense of it, trying desperately to find a pattern. And it looked like he might’ve found one in her case file.
“Not necessarily,” he said, rising to his feet. “Come with me.”
He strode back across the office to the boxes of files stacked in the corner of the incident room, almost sending a grumbling red faced Lee Sangrin and the chair he was carrying sprawling. His eyes scanned the labels on the side of the boxes listing their contents.
“That's about right,” he said, pointing to the box at the bottom of the pile.
India shrugged. “Sod’s law.”
“I'll shift this lot,” he said. “Go find something I can break the seal with.”
India Kane made herself a coffee, sat at her desk and checked her emails and messages. When she returned to the incident room, mug in hand, he'd neatly restacked the boxes and was standing at the table picking at the evidence tape with neat non-existent nails.
He frowned at her. “That cup doesn’t look very sharp,” he said.
India brushed his hands away and pulled out the battered Swiss Army knife that lived in her pocket. In one smooth action she punctured and sliced the seal with the sharp edge of a blade and popped the lid.
Perching silently on the edge of the table she watched as he pulled out file after file, finally reaching in to retrieve the last one in the box. Waving it in the air his face broke into a beaming smile that made his dark eyes sparkle and the corners crinkle. A proper smile, not the soft soaping shit she'd been dubious of earlier.
“Sod’s law,” he said, smiling her way as he laid the file on the table. “Ever get the feeling it's going to be one of those days?”
“Most mornings,” India said.
He flipped swiftly through the file, studious eyes skimming every page. “Shit. Not conclusive,” he murmured. “I'll have to go back to each location and check the theory.”
“What theory?”
“Look.” He flipped back to the beginning of the file and went through it page by page. Underneath each evidence scan of the envelope the known victims had received their DVDs in, was an exterior photograph of their house. In at least a third of them a post box was clearly or partially visible.
“Coincidence,” India said dully.
“No such thing,” he said, looking at her sideways. “He’s always sent them from the area he was attacking in. I bet he's returning to each scene to post them.”
India counted twelve in each county before the postmark was replaced with that of another. Her Winchester case was the first postmark from the Hampshire County. No sign of Southampton.
He pulled his iPhone from his pocket and jabbed a single key. His call was picked-up instantly.
“Mags, do me a favour,” he said. “Kick up a shit storm in the post room; we're missing a DVD, the fucker struck in Southampton last month. And find out why it didn't flag on HOLMES.”
As he continued his conversation, India stepped away from the table and stood at the third floor window. Two down, ten to go. She pressed her forehead to the cool glass, watching the women of Winchester going about their business, wondering which one of them would be next.
Chapter 5
The Nag’s Head, Winchester.
“Jesus, woman, what the hell is wrong with you tonight?” Dwyer had lined her up the perfect shot to recover their game, and dignity, and India had fluffed it completely – leaving the black wide open for Sangrin to take the game, again.
“She’s got a pissy on,” Sangrin sneered. “Lost her case to the better man, didn’t she.”
The better man bit remained to be seen, but she was pissed off that she’d had the lead snatched from her on not one, but two cases. The hulk’s arrival had totally screwed up her day.
“Oops there it is.” Sangrin continued his needling as he put the black away in the corner pocket. “That’s twice in one day you’ve been shagged by the better man, Kane.”
“Unlike you, Lee, I’m not pissed that I didn’t get my whole head up the hulk’s football kicking arse today,” she bit back.
Dwyer glared at her, his eyes wide and fixed as he tapped the base of his cue on the slate floor. Doing that annoying attention grabbing thing he did when he wanted her to button it. She had no intention of buttoning it – Sangrin was an A grade prick and he’d been getting on her tits all sodding day. “I’m pissed because I didn’t get to take Sharon Cutler’s statement today. You know, my job, you tedious little twa –”
“You’ll get the opportunity tomorrow,” a low voice whispered in her ear. Oh for fuck’s sake. She’d been stifled by that expensive aftershave all day. “And for the record, it was Rugby.”
She knew that, the boys had been banging on about it all afternoon.
India took a deep breath and turned to face all 6’6” of the problem, DCI ‘only-my-mother-calls-me-whatever’ Colt, here to steal her glory and probably drop kick her
arse into traffic division by the end of the week. “Thank you, Sir,” she said.
It could’ve been worse; her awkwardness was quickly lost as a throng of people swarmed around him from every corner of the pub – like bees around honey, or flies around shit. She hadn’t quite decided which yet.
Seemed everyone loved AJ Colt, who wouldn’t when he was banging up kiddy fiddlers for a living? She’d bet her salary that he’d never been spat on in the line of duty. According to her brown nosing colleagues he was a legend on the pitch as well. Had forty-three caps for England, whatever that meant.
India frowned as a fat bloke from the custody suite elbowed her out the way in his haste to kiss the DCI’s arse. He was lucky she was drinking coke; she had a tendency to get punchy when jostled after a beer or two. Right now she was happy to be out of his line of fire, she’d be a lot happier with a drink inside her though. Amid all the chaos and commotion his presence brought, she seized the moment and made her way towards a much thinned out bar. It was her turn, as loser, to buy the round.
“That’s the third game in a row you’ve lost tonight, kid,” Pete said. “You’ll never live it down you know.”
She shrugged and lined up the four empty glasses on the bar. “Fill ‘em up. Make mine a wine and chase me a Tequila.”
Pete frowned. “You sure about this?” he said, leaning on the bar, one hand on the Tequila bottle, one on the shot glass.
India rolled her eyes. An ex fire fighter, Pete had owned The Nag’s Head with his wife Bev for twenty- two years, and had taken her in when she was alone in the world and on the verge of turning feral, raised her like one of his own. But she wasn’t his. And she didn’t need moderating. “Yep,” she said.