She looked at her notes, and couldn’t bring herself to make the next call.
‘Problem?’ Fennimore said.
‘I’m a bit nervous about requesting the DNA trace on the nipple stud,’ she said. ‘Spry was very specific about not spending more money on lab analysis, so …’ She stuttered to a halt and hoped he would jump in and rescue her.
He exhaled into the mouthpiece. ‘All right … I do happen to know someone at the DNA lab at Wetherby. I can get it done fast, under the radar. If or when you get something useful, you can enter it in the books.’
27
‘If you must play, decide upon three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time.’
CHINESE PROVERB
Fennimore was watching the TV in his room with Joe – José González – the hotel concierge. Joe was off duty until the evening shift; Fennimore had struck up a conversation with Joe on his first visit to Manchester, when he’d asked if there was a betting shop nearby. They had discussed their mutual interest in turf accountancy and Fennimore discovered that González studied form, betting on the outsiders with a sporting chance. Fennimore, on the other hand, studied the odds and bet on the best statistical chances. Complementary skills, so far as he was concerned. Today, they were up eight-hundred-and-twenty on an initial stake of fifty pounds each. Taking the advice of the Chinese proverb, they had agreed the stakes and the quitting time, which guaranteed neither one of them would walk away out of pocket, and engendered a warm glow that Fennimore refused to acknowledge as smugness.
He and Joe had a hundred riding on a four-to-one shot in the three o’clock chase at Sedgefield. His mobile rang as the horses rounded the bend and entered the back straight for the last time. He checked the caller ID and answered.
‘Kate,’ he said, one eye on the screen. ‘How’re you holding up?’
‘Right now, I’d give a week’s salary for a good night’s sleep,’ she said.
The horses were out in the country on the far side of the course, beginning to spread out as the leaders pushed on for home.
‘Got a minute?’ She did sound tired, but he heard a tremor of excitement in her voice.
Soon the riders would be rounding the final bend, disappearing from view in the dip as they turned into the straight until the leaders reappeared, jumping over the last fence. Fennimore always thought that sudden reappearance was the most exciting sight on any racecourse in the UK, but the slight quaver of eagerness in Simms’s tone had him hooked, and he motioned Joe to turn the sound down.
‘A minute, an hour, a lifetime for you, Kate.’
‘Bollocks,’ she said, then, ‘Sorry – tiredness brings out the Tourette’s in me. Nick, we got two partial fingerprints from the edge of the photograph.’
‘And …’ He kept his eye on the screen as the horses took the last few fences, their horse still on the bridle in fourth place, Joe urging it on, but Fennimore was listening, knowing there was more – she wouldn’t have phoned him unless there was more.
‘We got a link to a tenprint from one of the excess ODs – a genuine overdose that is – not one of the penicillin victims.’
He felt a happy surge of adrenaline. ‘Let me guess,’ he said. ‘Rika.’
‘The very same. I asked a forensic anthropologist to do a comparison of the photo booth image with Rika’s PM photo – it’s her, Nick. Our murder victim was carrying Rika’s photo around in her purse.’
Fennimore turned away from the TV. ‘Even your superintendent couldn’t dismiss that as a coincidence.’
She gave a short, coughing laugh. ‘He pointed out that since we don’t know who Rika is, it hasn’t “progressed the investigation in any measurable way”.’
‘He really is a pillock, isn’t he?’ Fennimore said.
‘Well he’s right, I suppose – it doesn’t give us her real identity,’ Simms said. ‘We know from the coroner’s inquest that she had no ID on her at all, not even a bus pass.’
‘Trafficked?’ Fennimore asked.
‘Maybe, but I’m going to play that possibility down for a bit, until I’ve got something more definite.’
She was hedging. He didn’t blame her – any hint of gangland connections or an international dimension would almost certainly lose her the case – the Intelligence and Security Bureau would swoop in and snatch the investigation from under her nose. Fennimore knew Simms well enough to be sure she would not want that. He was surprised to realize that neither would he.
‘Anything new on Rika?’ he asked.
He heard her puff air into the receiver. ‘Only that the state paid for her burial.’ Renwick had turned that one up.
Behind him Joe roared in Spanish at the TV, leaping to his feet in an unconscious effort to be the first over the last fence.
Fennimore stuck a finger in one ear and pressed the phone to the other, raising his voice over Joe’s yelling. ‘So, what will you do?’
‘Work the case until they shut it down around me.’ He could practically see the stubborn jut of her chin.
‘I’ve had a team out for two hours, doing the rounds of the massage parlours with Rika’s photo booth picture,’ she went on. ‘Either they’re stonewalling us, or they really don’t know her.’
‘Rika did die almost a year ago,’ Fennimore said. ‘And massage parlours have a rapid turnover – nobody stays long. Some of the girls give up, quit the life.’
‘Not Rika,’ Simms said. ‘She had a serious drugs habit – she couldn’t afford to quit. And if her habit got to be a nuisance to the management, they’d’ve kicked her out onto the street without a second thought—’ She stopped suddenly.
‘What?’ he asked.
She laughed. ‘You’ve just given me the angle I need. Fennimore,’ she said, ‘I think I love you.’ A silence followed, heavy with meaning. She hung up before he could think of something to say.
Fennimore turned to face the room again. The TV was still on, though the volume was off. Their horse was making a steaming circuit of the winners’ enclosure, and Joe had left a note on the coffee table: ‘I’ll pick up the winnings and drop your share in this evening, Brujo.’
Another win. He should be pleased. He was pleased. But a share of easy money suddenly seemed dull set against the possibility of closing the case. With Kate.
Simms walked fast to the Major Incident Room, trying not to think about what she’d just said to Fennimore.
Some of the team were out canvassing. Of the ten remaining, three were HOLMES operatives. She had already delivered the bad news about staffing cuts at the morning briefing; there was a reek of defeat in the place. She had a quiet word with Ella Moran, asked her to run off a bundle of colour copies of Rika’s post-mortem photo on the office printer, and called the rest to order.
Simms held up a spare copy of Rika’s smiling image from the photo booth, and looked around the room. ‘Rika didn’t look anything like this when she died,’ she said. ‘She was a drugs-wasted mess.’ She held a copy of the post-mortem photograph next to it. ‘This is what she looked like when she died.’
Moran started handing out the PM photographs and they began to sit up and pay attention. ‘We’re moving the search to the streets. Go to the corners; talk to the sex workers and addicts who might have known her. Show them the PM photo side by side with the photo booth image. Ask if they knew her. If they did, we need to know where she came from, if she ever told anyone her family name, or the name of a friend from home who was here in the city. A good-looking girl like Rika probably started out working in the saunas. Find out which.
‘Our murder victim was carrying Rika’s picture around in her purse. We don’t have a clear picture of what she looked like – she was too badly beaten. We do know she was probably working as a prostitute. She wasn’t a regular drug user, so she was healthy. And she’d never been subjected to whipping before the night she died. She was a natural blonde. Ask them to look at Rika and try to picture her with a slim blonde woman: long legs,
short, straight hair, early twenties.’ They were making notes, eager, heads up, ready to get to work.
‘Now, I know a lot of you will be back on normal duties tomorrow. You’ll want to clear your desks, get reports written up.’ She gave them a deadpan look. ‘Fill in your expense sheets.’
She got a ripple of laughter.
‘So. I’m not going to force anyone – I’m asking for volunteers.’
Four or five hands went up immediately; Ella Moran’s was one of them, standing at the printer with a handful of post-mortem pictures in her hand. ‘I worked that beat in uniform, Boss,’ she said. ‘I know some of the girls. If you want, I could—’
‘Go ahead, Ella. Call me direct if you find anything – anything at all.’
DC Moran dumped the rest of the photos onto one of her colleagues, then she was out the door.
In Renwick’s absence, Simms worked on task allocation with the HOLMES2 manager, devising a schedule with the volunteer canvassers. In twenty minutes they were on their way, stuffing photographs into their pockets and hooking jackets and overcoats from the back of chairs. Simms posted a spare on the whiteboard next to her post-mortem photo and alongside the list of penicillin-related deaths.
As she turned she saw Detective Superintendent Tanford at the door, standing back to let the team out. He nodded to the last officer and stepped inside.
‘I was passing,’ he said. ‘I heard you’d been told to scale down – thought I’d come in and commiserate. I know you feel there’s a lot more to do.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the door. ‘And judging by what I’ve just seen, you intend to get it done. I’ve got to hand it to you, Kate, I expected to find a demoralized rabble, but I’m almost knocked down in the rush of folk aiming to make the best use of the few hours they’ve got left. I knew you were good – I never guessed you were inspirational.’
Simms bit her cheek to suppress a smile; she had the feeling that Tanford would consider that too girly.
‘The photo in our murder victim’s purse belonged to Rika,’ she said. ‘They were close.’
He stared at her. After a few moments he tapped his fingers to his upper lip and a smile ghosted at the corners of his mouth. ‘Well, well, well. That …’ He shook his head, picked up a spare photo and studied it. ‘That’s just … fantastic. Shows what you can do if you just keep turning over stones, eh, Kate?’
Her mobile rang and she dipped her head in apology.
‘Go ahead,’ he said.
‘Boss, it’s Mouse.’ Apparently Ella Moran had embraced her nickname. ‘I’ve spoken to a few of the girls. No one recognized the photo, but someone said I should talk to a girl called Candy – she had a mate called “Rita”. A foreigner, she said.’
‘Good. Where can we find this “Candy”?’
‘This time of day,’ Moran said, ‘she’s usually round the back of Piccadilly Gardens, trying to score.’
Simms guessed that if she was going to get anything useful out of their witness, she would need Moran’s sensitive touch. ‘Where are you now?’ she asked. ‘I’ll pick you up.’ Moran gave her a location and she disconnected.
Tanford was still there, watching her, that half-smile playing on his lips. ‘Still turning over stones, Kate?’ He stepped aside with a mock chivalric bow, and waved her on.
Her office phone was ringing as she stopped in to grab her coat and car keys. It was reception. ‘There’s a Doctor Fenn at the desk,’ the receptionist said.
Simms’s mouth dried and her heart began to pound thick and hard.
‘He’s asking to speak to you, ma’am.’
28
‘Heroin is a Judas, a bad friend who betrays you. It is a cruel lover who goes away and makes you crazy for him.’
RIKA
Fennimore saw Kate Simms steaming like a freight train through the glass doors at reception. She wore a woollen coat buttoned to the throat; it was minus five outside and a thick bank of dirty white cloud was creeping towards the city from the Pennine moors. She buzzed herself through, pulling a leather glove onto her left hand like she meant to do battle. Fennimore stood to greet her.
Eyes glittering, jaw set hard, she extended her ungloved hand. ‘Doctor,’ she said, ‘This is … unexpected.’ Her formal courtesy sounded like a poorly veiled threat. She gripped his elbow and steered him to the door. ‘I’m afraid I can only spare a few seconds – if you wouldn’t mind walking with me?’
Outside, she said, ‘What the hell are you doing here – has something happened?’
‘Nothing happened,’ he said. ‘That was the problem – I was bored.’
‘You ran out of money.’
He considered telling her that he was another two hundred to the good, but couldn’t think of a way to say it without bragging, so instead he shrugged, said, ‘Where are we going?’
Kate gave a frustrated groan, turned on her heel and started walking. ‘“We”,’ she said, ‘are going nowhere. I am going to the car park; you are going back to your hotel.’
He loped alongside her. ‘Wouldn’t it be quicker to cut through the building?’ The car park was around the back.
‘And what if someone recognizes “Doctor Fenn”?’ She carried on at a pace – three sides of the building to gain access to the car park – and he matched her stride easily, which only seemed to infuriate her more. ‘You’re not supposed to be here, Nick. I’m not supposed to even be talking to you.’
‘Okay,’ he said, stalling for time. ‘But you’ll have to drop me – I let my cab go.’
She stared at him. ‘You really think I’m that naive? Hire another one.’
‘Here?’ He turned full circle. This stretch of Rochdale Road was home to the police station, a self-storage unit and a low-cost car park. It was a long, cold walk back to the city. ‘You see a taxi rank? Black cabs don’t hang around police stations, Kate. And a minicab will take thirty minutes to haul out here – I’ll freeze to death.’
‘You could walk it in twenty-five.’
‘Wrong shoes,’ he said, looking down at the polished toes of his black Derby lace-ups.
‘You should have thought about that before you came out here to ambush me.’
She pretended to hunt for her car along the rows of vehicles, and there was something in her agitation, the way she avoided his gaze – he was certain that she was thinking about what she’d said to him over the phone.
‘Leave, Nick,’ she said. ‘Now.’
He couldn’t go back to the hotel – he would drive himself mad thinking about what she’d said, and the mistakes he had made five years ago.
‘Tell you what – I’ll call for a cab, go and wait in reception.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’
He began to think he might just get that ride in her car. ‘I’ll just …’ He jerked his thumb over his shoulder and began to retrace his steps.
‘Nick, I’m warning you …’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said, still moving. ‘I’ve been out of police work for an age. Who’s going to know me?’
She swore softly, and he knew she was about to cave in, but he waited to hear the chirp of her alarm as she clicked the remote key before he turned, careful to keep the smile off his face.
She gave him a look that would melt steel.
‘Hey, come on,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t even have known that was Rika’s photo if it weren’t for me.’
She couldn’t deny it. But it didn’t take a lesson in Kate’s famous social skills to tell him she didn’t like it either.
‘You will stay in the car,’ she said, jabbing the ignition key at him over the roof of the car. ‘You will not speak to anyone.’
They stopped to pick up someone at Cheetham Hill. A plump young woman with fine brown hair and a pleasant face. Fennimore vacated the front seat, held the door for her and offered her a beaming smile.
‘Hello,’ she said. It sounded like a question.
‘Nick,’ he said, opening the rear door.
‘Detective Constable Moran.’ She slid into the front seat. ‘Mouse, if you like.’
‘Mouse?’
‘New nickname,’ she said. ‘I’m trying it on for size.’
He took the back seat. ‘Nice to meet you, Mouse. I’m—’
‘Walking if you say another word,’ Simms interrupted.
The young constable threw a puzzled look at her boss.
‘Don’t worry about him,’ Simms said. ‘He’s not even here.’
There was a time when Piccadilly Gardens was a no-go area, but regeneration since the IRA bomb in the nineties, and a zero-tolerance approach from Greater Manchester Police had effectively reclaimed the gardens from the pushers and addicts who had plagued the area up to the end of the noughties. During the day, at least, the gardens and fountains had once more become a place for families and office workers to relax, take the sun, enjoy the green oasis in the heart of the city.
But the need for heroin is a tyrant – the addicts simply adapted, hovering at the margins, ghosting at the edge of visibility. Goods were bought and sold instead in the narrow streets and dark alleyways that served as service access for the office blocks and shops that fronted the square.
It was here they found Candy. She looked one step away from collapse – two stones underweight, pale and half frozen in a denim jacket and cut-off jeans in the sub-zero temperatures. She shifted from one foot to the other, the cuffs of her jeans loose on her thighs, her legs mottled purple with the cold.
She saw them pull up at the kerb ten feet down the narrow roadway and started walking. She moved slowly, as if her bones ached, as if even the brush of her clothing against her skin caused her pain.
Kate Simms slid the car into first and trundled alongside her.
‘You talk to her,’ Kate said quietly.
The young officer wound down her window. When she’d first spoken, Fennimore recognized her accent as generic Northern – flat vowels and elongated ‘o’s, but as she spoke to the young hooker, it metamorphosed to the nasal sounds of broad Mancunian.
Everyone Lies Page 21