by Linda Regan
Her closest girlfriends were the girls from the early days at the Scarlet Pussy Club, the women she shared a lifelong secret with. They had only worked together for those few weeks, but what happened had entwined their lives, and no matter where life took them, they would always be there for each other.
Susan’s parents had died when she was only seventeen, so in a way those girls were her family. She had two cousins, but they never called or remembered her birthday; the Scarlet Pussy girls never forgot it.
Mostly she was happy with her lot. As long as she could keep this job until she retired on an old age pension, everything was going to work out fine – even this business with Brian Finn. He would be paid, as he well deserved, then they could all move on.
It was a freezing night, and if she was staying open for business it meant leaving the street door wide open to invite passing trade. She decided she would make a hot mug of tea to get her through the hour.
As she walked from the shop to the tiny kitchenette at the back, she checked, for the third time since she had returned from the meeting, that the brown envelope containing the cash was in the cutlery drawer. She wanted Brian to have the money as soon as possible; keeping it in her kitchen was too much of a responsibility. She had phoned him twice since she’d returned, and would try again after she shut up business for the day and arrange to meet him first thing in the morning.
As she filled the kettle, she thought she heard someone walk into the shop. “Be there in a flash,” she called, giggling to herself at the innuendo.
No one answered. Punters often wanted to remain anonymous, and she was used to it. She didn’t speak again.
She plugged the kettle in, still giggling to herself, and turned to find herself face to face with a figure in black, blocking her exit to the shop. She let out a loud yelp, and only saw the knife as it swung towards her.
She didn’t scream as it hit her. It happened too quickly. Blood and splinters of bone spurted high in the air as the razor-sharp edge ripped into the top of her head. She reeled backwards, and the next blow lodged in her temple artery. Blood shot everywhere, staining the grubby walls and ceiling, and as her head hit the wall behind her she lost consciousness. Her body slid slowly down its own slime clinging to the wall behind her. Her one remaining eye stared as Tara, her cat, its back arched in fear, crept in from the shop.
The killer spotted the animal, and made a speedy swing, slicing the terrified animal’s head from its body and batting it though the air like a cricket ball. It hit the wall, then seeped into the bloodied mess that a few seconds earlier was the bubbly Susan Rogers.
Finally gloved hands prised open Susan’s blood-filled mouth, forced a red g-string between her teeth and closed the mouth around it. The murderer turned quickly, opened the cutlery drawer, took the brown envelope and left.
5
Banham was pleased he was able to keep his weekly appointment with Joan Deamer. She asked him how his physical problem was progressing, and looked slightly amused when he mentioned Katie Faye as well as Alison Grainger.
“Katie’s so pretty,” he told her. “Any man would be attracted to her. And…” He looked down at his lap, and Joan said nothing, waiting for him to continue.
“And?” she prompted when he didn’t.
“It’s… Her eyes. They’re so blue…”
He closed his eyes as the nightmare images of his wife and daughter began to fill his mind again. His heart began to pound, and he had to fight to slow his breathing.
From a distance Joan Deamer’s calm voice penetrated the rushing sound in his ears. He couldn’t make out what she was saying, but it seemed to soothe the panic all the same. He opened his eyes, and after a few moments the room stopped swaying, and he was able to look at Joan’s concerned face.
“Are you OK now?” she asked. “You had me worried for a minute there.”
Banham nodded, swallowing hard.
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
As happened so often during these sessions, it took a minute or two to get started, but once he did, he found he couldn’t stop talking. Joan Deamer listened patiently as he told her again about the worst night of his life, when he arrived home to find his wife and baby daughter brutally murdered, their bludgeoned bodies on the floor of Elizabeth’s nursery. When the words stopped pouring out of him and he sat, breathless and drained, she covered his icy hand with her warm one and squeezed it gently, biting her lower lip.
Banham felt he’d been wrung dry. He was reminded of his first session with Joan, when the memory of that horrific night had come tumbling out for the first time. Slowly his heart rate calmed, and after a little while Joan spoke.
“What I don’t understand is how what happened today connects to… that night? There’s clearly something – some kind of trigger.”
“It’s…” Banham breathed deeply. “Katie Faye has… her eyes are so… so blue. Just like Diane’s.”
“Ah.” Joan Deamer nodded. “How does that make you feel, Paul?”
Banham struggled to find an answer. “Scared,” he admitted. “She’s a main witness in the case I’m on, and I’m probably going to see a lot of her in the next few days.”
“So you’re concerned you might not be able to handle it?”
“Partly, I suppose.”
“What else, then?”
“Well, I’m… She’s so…”
She helped him out. “You’re attracted to her?”
“Of course. But then there’s… Alison. But that’s different.”
Joan Deamer smiled. “Paul, all I’m getting here is that you’re a perfectly normal man, as least in the way you react to women. You have a problem, but you’ve come a long way since you first came to me. In fact, I’d say you’ve taken a second step forward.”
“What was the first?”
“Deciding to come for counselling in the first place. Now, where do we go from here? Do you think you’re ready to move forward with Alison?”
He shook his head. “I messed up big time there. I wouldn’t dare.”
“How did she react when you showed an interest in Katie Faye?”
“I don’t think she liked it, but…”
He was almost sure her small smile signalled genuine amusement. “What does that tell you?”
He made no reply. Joan tried again.
“How do you think she’d react if you asked Katie Faye out?”
“That’s a definite no-no. Katie’s a witness in a current enquiry; it’s out of the question.”
“And if she wasn’t?”
He gave her a rueful smile. Joan Deamer could read him like a book. She knew he wouldn’t have the courage. Why would the sexiest woman on television be interested in him?
He always left Joan’s office exhausted but oddly satisfied. After only eight sessions they had made a lot of progress. At least he’d begun to feel his life might eventually be more than work and loneliness, even if Katie Faye’s liquid blue eyes were way out of his league.
He felt a stab of sadness that he had blown his chance with Alison Grainger. As well as being attracted to her, he felt comfortable in her company, probably because they had work in common. At least they still had that. He pulled his mobile from his pocket and pressed her number.
“What news on Brian Finn?” he asked.
“We’re still outside his mother’s, guv. Crowther’s keeping me entertained.”
With his endless fund of stories about his conquests, Banham thought. “Good,” he replied. “Keep me informed.”
He walked to his car mulling things over. The results of the post mortem wouldn’t be in until tomorrow, and Katie Faye and Olivia Stone had agreed to come to the station in the morning to make their statement. Finn would be brought in for interview tonight, but until that happened he still had time on his hands. He decided to pay his sister Lottie another call. He’d be in good time to tell Madeleine the story about the princess and the pea-fairy. He turned it over quickly in his mind. The p
rincess was pricked by a needle from a spinning wheel and put to sleep in an ivory tower, but the pea-fairy was on duty under the mattress, and summoned a handsome prince to climb the tower and wake her with a kiss so they could live happily ever after. He would tell her the prince had a white pony; she loved ponies almost as much as Banham loved her.
It was dark, and the cold had really set in as he turned into the small side road of Victorian semi-detached cottages where Lottie lived. His passenger seat was heaped with small chocolate bars for Maddy and Bobby, and a bottle of wine and a bunch of flowers for Lottie. He liked giving his twin sister treats; life wasn’t great for her since her husband had upped and left.
Bobby was playing football against the outside wall. The boy ran to meet Banham as he drew up in his new dark blue Ford Mondeo.
“Hey, Uncle Paul, that’s a new motor. Can I get a ride?”
Banham scooped up the gifts from the passenger seat and stepped out of the car. What was Bobby doing in the street on such a cold night, playing on his own? He held out a hand to his small nephew and pointed the key at the car. “I’ll have to clear that with your mum,” he said. “If it’s OK with her we’ll bring Madeleine too.”
The front door of the tiny cottage opened into the lounge. As he pushed it, Bobby slid down his back, and Lottie looked up. She was sitting by the table talking on the phone, and brought the call to a swift end when she saw her brother and son. Her eyes were red as if she’d been crying.
An appetising aroma wafted through from her tiny kitchen. “What’s for supper?” he asked cheerfully. “Is there enough for an overworked policeman?”
Bobby was jumping up and down beside him, trying to relieve him of the chocolate in his hand. “Have you had your tea?” Banham asked the boy.
“Yep.”
Banham released his grip on the sweets, then put the flowers and the wine on the table beside his sister.
“Pork chops, creamed swede and fried potatoes.” Lottie picked up the flowers and carried them through to the kitchen, looking everywhere but directly at her brother. “And yes, there’s loads, especially the swede. The kids won’t touch it. Give me a few minutes.”
“You won’t get your chocolate next time if I hear you didn’t eat your swede,” Banham warned Bobby, who was kneeling on the floor rummaging through the assortment of sweets. He looked up at his uncle with a mischievous grin, which Banham found himself returning. Both he and Madeleine could wrap him round their little fingers, and they knew it.
He called to Lottie, “Take as long as you like. I’ll take Bobby and Madeleine for a spin around the block in the new motor, then I’ll put them to bed if you like.”
One bedtime story turned into three. At the end of each one, Madeleine asked if she was pretty enough to be a princess, and each time Banham told her she was. Finally she fell asleep, thumb in her mouth and arm around her white unicorn. Banham tucked her Barbie blanket around her and crept down the narrow staircase to join his sister.
“Drink, Paul?” Lottie held up the bottle of wine he had brought.
“Better not. I’m working tonight.” He sat down at the table, where she had laid a place for him. “The swede smells great, the kids don’t know what they’re missing.”
“Cinnamon and butter, with a touch of black pepper.” She put the plate in front of him.
“What’s on your mind, Lot?” he asked, picking up his fork.
“Nothing.”
The answer came too quickly. He starting cutting his pork into very fine slices. “I’m always ready to listen,” he said, “and always at the other end of a phone.”
Lottie pulled her mouth into a smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I know. You don’t need to worry about me. It’s all sorted now.”
He put a forkful of swede in his mouth and chewed slowly, turning his head to look at her. This time she didn’t look away.
Brian Finn was only in his mid-forties, but the mass of dark curly hair from his youth had faded and thinned. He was still a big man, though the muscled physique from his earlier fighting days had turned to fat, and he looked like a middle-aged man who lived on junk food.
His shabby navy tracksuit looked as if it had been retrieved from a charity shop, and his trainers were grey with age and thick with mud. He was sweating heavily and breathing noisily as he jogged slowly toward the flats.
“He’s coming,” Alison said, cutting Crowther off in mid-sentence.
Crowther opened the car door, ID his hand. Finn spotted him, froze momentarily, then made a dash for the graffiti-clad staircase that led to his mother’s council flat.
“Brian Finn! Stop! Police!” Alison hit the pavement at a run.
But Brian had disappeared up the stairs.
Alison hotfooted her way up the stairs and caught Finn before he reached the third flight. He tried to resist, but she held fast to his arm and pushed him against the wall. Crowther was right behind her, verbalising his disgust at the smell of stale urine.
Finn wrestled like a cornered wild animal. It took two of them to cuff his hands behind his back, and as they led the big man down the stairs windows and doors all over the estate opened and curious heads popped out. A few kids leaned over a concrete balcony strewn with clothes. Alison looked up, momentarily distracted by a particularly inventive term of abuse, and Brian suddenly kicked out.
“This is a set-up,” he yelled. “What the fuck am I supposed to have done?”
Crowther held on to him and hustled him into the back of Alison’s car.
“We can start with resisting arrest,” she said calmly. “If you carry on like this, we’ll be adding assaulting a police officer.” She slid into the seat beside him. “And then there’s a small matter of blackmail.”
A stone came hurtling through the air and landed on the bonnet of her beloved car. “And accessory to criminal damage,” she added.
Her famous temper was about to erupt. “Leave it, sarge,” Crowther said abruptly. “Let’s go.”
Her fury subsided as fast as it had risen. He was right; this estate was dangerous enough; no need for them to make things worse for the local force.
Banham was at the station before Crowther and Alison arrived. Isabelle Walsh had left Brian Finn’s file on his desk, and he had taken the chance to get up to speed on the man’s history.
In July 1988, Finn had been caught red-handed with Ahmed Abdullah’s dead body in his car. He confessed to his murder, but refused to answer any questions, and consequently served nineteen years of a life sentence, before being released a few weeks earlier. The cause of death was recorded as asphyxiation; the post mortem revealed a satin thread in Abdullah’s windpipe. The thread had been part of a red g-string found in the deceased’s top pocket.
Banham rubbed his mouth, then picked up the papers and made his way to the interview room.
When he entered the room Finn didn’t look up. He sat motionless, head bent, staring at the table.
“He has refused legal representation, guv,” Alison said.
She turned the tape on and made the official statement. Banham tapped his chin with his fingers and looked at Finn. “So you decided to blackmail Olivia Stone and Katie Faye?”
Finn lifted his head, but didn’t answer. His eyes darted nervously from Banham to Alison and back again.
Banham sighed. “OK. Let me remind you. You sent them a note demanding a hundred thousand pounds.”
Finn still said nothing.
Banham raised his voice slightly. “One hundred thousand pounds. In exchange for video tapes you have in your possession. Tapes of both women, and three others, in intimate sexual situations with Ahmed Abdullah, the man you killed.”
Finn’s gaze dropped back to the scarred table. “Will I go back to prison?” he asked quietly.
“Why did you kill Shaheen Hakhti?” Banham asked abruptly.
Alison threw him a quick glance, surprise in her eyes.
“What?” Finn looked astonished. “I never… Shaheen? Dead?” His
brown eyes were wide and frightened now. “I love them girls. I wouldn’t hurt an ’air on their ’eads.”
“You killed Ahmed Abdullah,” Alison said. “You admitted that.”
Finn looked her in the eye. “And I’ve served my time,” he said, his voice firmer. “I don’t need to answer any questions about that. But I’m telling you, I wouldn’t hurt them girls. I wouldn’t. Shaheen, dead…” His face dropped into his hands and he shook his head slowly.
“You’d blackmail them,” Alison said sharply. “Isn’t that hurting them?”
Finn looked up at her and his face crumpled. “That’s different. If they’d…” His voice fell to a whisper. “My kid’s brain-damaged.”
“We know,” Alison said. “It’s very sad. But blackmail is still a crime.”
Banham was watching him carefully. “You choked Ahmed Abdullah with a red g-string,” he said. “And Shaheen Hakhti was found with one in her mouth.” He paused. “Only you cut Shaheen’s throat as well.”
Brian looked terrified. “I never did, guvnor.” He put his hands flat on the table and leaned towards Banham. “I wouldn’t do anything like that,” he said emotionally. “Why would I want to kill her?”
“That’s what we’re asking you,” Banham said coldly.
There was a silence.
Alison looked Finn in the eyes. “Shaheen wanted to take your blackmail demand to the police,” she said. “She didn’t want Olivia Stone and Katie Faye to pay you. And you knew that, didn’t you?”
Finn made no reply.
“OK, let’s go back to the beginning.” Banham was becoming irritated. “There were six women working with you in the Scarlet Pussy Club nineteen years ago. Ahmed Abdullah made pornographic tapes of those women, which came into your possession. You knew they would pay handsomely to get them back. But Shaheen Hakhti wouldn’t agree. She wanted to go to the police. So you killed her.”
Finn jumped up and banged his fist on the table. “That’s a lie! Till you said it just now, I didn’t even know Shaheen was dead.”