by Val McDermid
‘You’ve got an hour,’ Sergeant Fowler grunted as he closed the door firmly behind him.
Bronwen Scott got to her feet and greeted him with a wide smile. ‘Dr Hill. I didn’t expect to encounter you in circumstances like this, but we’ll have this sorted out in no time at all.’
He ignored her and walked round to the far side of the table like a sleepwalker. ‘Carol?’ He grabbed the back of the chair for support and subsided into it. He wanted to reach out and touch her, to confirm that he wasn’t lost in some psychotic break.
Carol pushed her hair off her forehead, her eyes flinty, her face forbidding. ‘I’m not here for you. I’m here because Paula knows how stupid you can be. You need Bronwen to get you out of this mess. Otherwise more women will die. If you’d thought about something other than yourself for five minutes, you would have understood that. So don’t fool yourself that you’re the big draw tonight. I’m here for Paula and for justice and for the women whose names we don’t even know.’
Right then, he didn’t care why she was there. All that mattered was that they were sitting in the same room again. The edifice he’d built to protect himself from his feelings for her was already a crumbling ruin. How could he have considered for a moment the possibility of excising her from his life? It was like rediscovering a limb he’d been managing without. A limb he’d thought amputated for ever. He couldn’t keep the grin from his face, even in the teeth of her unflinching glare.
He was aware that Bronwen Scott was speaking but he had nothing to spare for her. He drank in every detail, checking it against the mental checklist he hadn’t even known he’d been keeping. Her hair was styled differently – the lines more blunt, the shagginess thinned out more. The lines around her eyes were deeper, the new traces in her face from sorrow rather than laughter. Her shoulders seemed broader, the seams of her jacket straining slightly where before there had been ample room for a shrug. She’d always been self-contained; now she was like a door slammed in his face.
‘Dr Hill?’ Scott had raised her voice and finally penetrated. ‘We don’t have long. I need your version of events so we can set about getting you out of here.’
‘And finding out who killed those two women,’ Carol said.
‘That’s not my job,’ Scott said briskly. ‘And actually, Carol, it’s not your job any more either.’
Tony found his voice. ‘Maybe not, but I’d put my money on Carol without resources ahead of Alex Fielding and her murder squad.’
Carol rolled her eyes. A familiar gesture but denuded of the tolerant affection he’d grown used to. ‘I couldn’t be less interested in flattery. Like I said, I’m here for Paula.’
Her disdain was hard to take. It made something inside him clench in pain. But it was still better than not having her in the room at all. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Do you know why DCI Fielding has arrested you?’ Scott thrust herself back into the driving seat.
He nodded. ‘Because she’s one of those cops who can’t see past the evidence. You remember Alan Coren, the humorist? He once told his son, “Don’t write the first thing that comes into your head – the dim kids will have had that idea. Don’t write the second either – the clever boys will probably have thought of that one. Write the third idea – that will be yours alone.” Well, Alex Fielding’s never bothered to give the third idea house room.’
‘Very entertaining, Dr Hill.’ Now it was Scott’s turn to roll her eyes.
‘Tony, please.’ He knew he was showing off but he might never get another chance to remind Carol of what he could be.
‘I appreciate you see the world through the prism of the psyche, but could we focus on the evidential reasons why Fielding arrested you? Tony?’
When he’d sat in the observation room and watched Bronwen Scott in action, Tony had often wondered how different she was with her clients than when she was an opponent. Tougher than he’d expected, was the first answer. She wasn’t falling for his practised skills and she wasn’t indulging him. Time to return her moves in the same style. ‘The bodies of two murdered women have been found this week. For the record, I didn’t kill either of them. They were both brutally beaten, to the point where their faces were unrecognisable. Their labia were shaved and glued together. There’s no obvious connection between the two of them, although there might be a professional link. Nadzieja Wilkowa was single and Polish, she worked as a rep for a pharmaceutical company. Bev McAndrew was divorced, mother of a teenage son, and she was the pharmacist in charge at Bradfield Cross Hospital.’ He stopped. ‘You’re not taking notes.’
‘I’ll get all this in disclosure from Fielding. At this point, it’s interesting to have the background but I want to know where you come into the picture. And your version of events, of course.’
Carol raised a finger, indicating she wanted to speak. Scott nodded briskly. ‘How much of this did you know before Fielding questioned you?’
She hadn’t lost a yard of her pace, he thought, impressed with the question. ‘I knew quite a bit about Nadia Wilkowa. And I knew Bev was missing. She’s a friend of Paula’s and she asked my advice about her disappearance. I wasn’t much help. But in the course of that conversation, we talked about Nadia.’ He gave Carol a pained smile. ‘Actually, she took me to Nadia’s flat.’
‘Oh, Christ,’ Scott said. ‘So your prints and DNA are going to be all over the victim’s flat?’
‘I was gloved up,’ Tony said. ‘I’m not entirely hopeless. There shouldn’t be any obvious DNA traces. But DNA is one of the issues. There’s a bloodstain on Nadia’s jacket that has tested positive for my DNA.’ Carol nodded wearily, but Scott merely looked resigned. ‘When they interviewed me, I had no idea how that happened. But I’ve had time to think, and I can explain it.’
‘I’m pleased to hear that. So how did it come about?’ Scott leaned forward, fixing him with her attention.
‘As I think you both know, I do most of my work at Bradfield Moor Secure Hospital. I deal with a wide range of patients who come to us because they are either a danger to themselves or a danger to society. Their lives are often car crashes and they’re left stranded in the wreckage. When they first come in, they’re often frightened and angry and violent. About a year ago, I was called out to assess a young man who had run amok with a machete in his school staff-room. Luckily, he’d been tackled by a very brave teacher before anyone had been seriously injured.’
Tony clasped his hands in front of him, running his thumbs over each other again and again. ‘He’d been sedated before he came to us, but what I didn’t realise was that he’d been growing increasingly agitated before I went in to talk to him. He seemed calm on the surface but as soon as I started asking him to talk about what had happened, he managed to free one arm from its restraints and he punched me in the face. My nose was bleeding copiously and I left the room to get it stopped and cleaned up.’
Carol gave the barest of nods. ‘I remember you telling me about it.’
He looked straight at her. ‘You know how clumsy I am, Carol. I stumbled out into the corridor and through a set of swing doors, not really looking where I was going, paper towels up to my face. And I crashed into a woman coming the other way. She put her arm up to protect herself.’ He closed his eyes, replaying the scene. ‘I’m pretty sure it was her left arm. I apologised. She said, no harm done and went on her way.’ He opened his eyes. ‘She was a pharmaceutical rep, right? That’s what it said in the paper. So she had a reason to be there.’ It sounded thin. Artificial. Even to his ears. But that was often the way with the truth.
‘You bumped into a woman a year ago when you were having a nosebleed? And she still has your DNA on her sleeve?’ Scott sounded almost amused, as if this was the most outrageous attempt at exoneration she’d ever heard.
‘I’m just telling you what happened.’
‘You think she went a year without having her work clothes cleaned? Without realising she had your blood on her jacket?’
‘A
ll I know is what happened. Now I’ve had my memory jogged, it’s quite clear.’
Carol’s investigative instincts cut in. ‘Was the incident logged in the Bradfield Moor accident book?’
‘It will have been,’ Tony said. ‘Because I needed an ice pack from the nursing team.’
‘We need to check that date and then we need to cross-check it with Nadia Wilkowa’s work diary,’ Carol said, tapping a note into her phone. ‘I’ll chase that up with Paula.’ He loved watching her doing what she’d always done best.
‘It’s a pity there’s no way of telling how old the DNA sample is. That would have resolved it on the spot,’ Scott added.
‘Even more of a pity that the blood ended up on something that gets dry-cleaned rather than shoved in the washing machine. If it had been through the hot wash a dozen times, it would be so degraded it would be obvious that it wasn’t made this week,’ Carol pointed out, not to be outdone in the DNA knowledge stakes.
‘Next time, I’ll aim for the blouse. So you think we can demolish the DNA evidence if we can prove the nosebleed incident?’
‘It gives reasonable doubt a helluva knock, that’s for sure,’ Scott said. ‘Was that it, then? Was that all she had?’
Tony shook his head sorrowfully. ‘Then there’s the thumbprint.’
Carol closed her eyes momentarily as if in pain. ‘What thumbprint, Tony? I thought you said you wore gloves at her flat?’
‘No, not on Nadia’s stuff. My thumbprint is on Bev’s phone.’ He tried the pitiful puppy smile again. This time, both women scowled at him. ‘I was completely baffled when they interviewed me about it earlier. Clueless. I’ve no recollection of ever clapping eyes on Bev in the flesh, never mind touching her phone.’
‘Was it a clear print?’ Scott asked.
Tony shook his head. ‘It was a bit smudged on one side and a bit distorted by the shape of the phone. But when Fielding showed it to me, I could see the points of similarity.’
‘Can you remember how many points of comparison were highlighted?’
‘I think it was six.’
Scott smiled. ‘I’m not worried about a fingerprint ID like that. I can put up half a dozen experts who’ll discredit it. These days, unless you get a crystal-clear fingermark on a flat surface, you can knock the feet from under any prosecution expert witness. Fingerprint comparison is so subjective it’s not even regarded as a science any more. All you have to say in court these days is “Shirley McKie” then watch the prosecution shrivel and die.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Tony said. ‘Who’s Shirley McKie?’
‘She was a Scottish police officer. Her fingerprint was wrongly identified inside a murder scene where she swore she’d never been. The Scottish forensic experts stuck to their guns and she was charged with perjury,’ Carol explained. ‘And then it all fell apart. Turns out that while it’s true all fingerprints are unique, identifying them is riddled with human error.’
‘So we can kick their fingerprint evidence right into the long grass,’ Scott said. ‘It’s history.’
‘That’s good,’ Tony said. ‘Because as it turns out, I was in Bradfield Cross on Monday afternoon. When Bev went missing.’
Carol groaned. ‘Why am I not surprised? Are you going to share it with us? Or shall we just play twenty questions?’ She shook her head. ‘Nothing changes.’
‘Actually, Carol, you might be surprised on that score. But this isn’t the time or the place for that conversation.’
‘There is no time and place for that conversation. Monday?’
Slapped down again. Tony took a deep breath and picked himself up. ‘I was at a meeting in Bradfield Cross Hospital late Monday afternoon. I tend not to agree with the consultant there, Will Newton. The man’s a moron. I think he got his qualifications by saving up Coco Pops box tops. By the end of the meeting, I was furious. I stomped out of the meeting room. All I wanted was to get out of there before I said something that would only make everything worse.’
‘Did you go anywhere near the pharmacy?’ As usual, Scott was straight to the point.
‘I don’t think so. I was pissed off and I wanted to vent my energy so I walked home. I wasn’t really paying attention to my surroundings. I don’t think I passed the pharmacy but I don’t know whether I passed Bev.’
Scott sat back in her chair and contemplated him. ‘Please tell me that’s all?’
‘Well, the other things are circumstantial.’ He spread his hands. ‘Nothing I’ve done. The sort of thing that could happen to anyone.’
‘But only do happen to you,’ Carol pointed out. ‘You said, “things”. Plural. What are we talking about here?’
‘I was trying to be helpful,’ he said. ‘After Paula told me about Bev, but before we knew she was dead, I thought I’d take a look at the supermarket where she’d supposedly been shopping. I needed some bits and pieces and I fancied the walk, so I went over to Freshco at Kenton Vale.’
‘It says on the custody record you live on a boat in Minster Basin. So you walked from the basin to Kenton Vale Road to pick up a few bits and pieces at the supermarket? That must be, what? Two miles?’ Bronwen’s deadpan delivery did nothing to hide her scepticism.
‘He likes to walk. It helps him think.’
‘She’s right. I do. And it does. And what it made me think is that this is a careful killer. Because the CCTV in the car park at Freshco isn’t great. There’s plenty of holes in the coverage. According to Paula, the body dump for Nadia was in Gartonside, where it’s scheduled for demolition and there are no cameras. And from what I can gather, Bev was found up on the moors in the middle of nowhere. So again, no cameras.’
‘And? There has to be an “and”, right? There generally is with you,’ Carol said, bitterness still evident in her voice. She wasn’t loosening up, he thought. He’d hoped they’d slip into old rhythms without realising it, but she was too watchful of herself for that. Time appeared not to have done much healing of her hurt.
‘There is. I bought more shopping than I’d intended and I got the bus home. And that’s when I realised buses have CCTV that films outside the bus as well as inside. Bradfield buses have fourteen cameras on each double-decker bus, did you know that? So I suggested to Paula that they take a look at the footage. Which they did.’
‘Was it helpful?’ Scott asked.
‘Oh yes. They got a bit of Bev on one camera. And they caught a few seconds of the bloke who was following her. It wasn’t much use for ID. Medium height, medium build, though he could have been a slim guy wearing bulky clothing. He was wearing a hoodie and he kept his head down. You can see he’s wearing glasses, but that’s about all. They told me they had footage of the man who abducted Nadia, and it was pretty much the same. There’s only one distinguishing feature.’ Tony looked down at the table. He hated this piece of information. In his head, it was the one that made him look guilty. ‘He’s got a noticeable limp. He limps with his left leg.’
‘Oh, fuck,’ Carol said. With feeling.
‘You have a limp?’
Sometimes it was tempting to go for the crass one-liner. This probably wasn’t one of those times. ‘I had major knee surgery a couple of years ago. A patient attacked me with a fire axe. Someone else’s patient, I always like to point out.’
‘And you were supposed to have a second surgery to deal with the limp,’ Carol said. ‘I take it you’re still dodging Mrs Chakrabarti?’ She half-turned to Bronwen. ‘He does have a limp. It’s worse when he’s tired. Such as, when he’s tramped two miles across town to shop in a non-local branch of Freshco.’
Scott gave him a sharp, assessing look. ‘I don’t like the limp,’ she said. ‘That’s the sort of circumstantial that the CPS gets very hot and horny over.’
‘Lots of people have a limp,’ Tony protested.
‘No, actually, they don’t,’ Carol said. ‘And if you’d done what you were supposed to, neither would you. Doing nothing just gets you into trouble, Tony. And not for the first time.�
��
She’d never held back. He’d always admired that in her. But it was hard to take when he was the target of her sharpest assaults. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘Can we put the thrust and parry on the back burner for now, please?’ Scott sounded almost as pissed off as Carol. ‘What’s the other circumstantial?’
Tony looked at Carol and gave a wry smile. ‘Before I say this, in the interests of not getting my face slapped, I want to be clear that this is DCI Fielding’s journey into absurdity. Not mine.’
‘Fielding thinks the victims both look like me,’ Carol said heavily. ‘She’s got a bee in her bonnet about it. She thinks Tony’s killing women who look like me because I walked away from him.’
There was a long sticky pause. Then Scott said chattily, ‘And are you, Tony?’
50
Patience was a virtue he’d learned young. His father had never tolerated tantrums or whining, so he’d understood at an early age that keeping his mouth shut and learning to wait was the key to minimising the pain of his existence. Therefore it was no hardship to him to extend the time she would spend in the freezer before he let her out to play.
But that didn’t mean he had to sit around twiddling his thumbs. By now, her husband must be starting to panic. It was almost midnight – five hours later than she should have been home, given when she’d left work. At first, the husband would have assumed a hold-up in the transport system – a delay on the tram. An accident throwing the city centre into gridlock. Something relatively benign. But as the minutes ticked by and no text or phone call arrived, he’d have started to feel anxious.