Deadly Dance

by Hilary Bonner

  ‘I’m thrilled,’ she wrote. ‘I’ve realised for some time that I am in love with you. To know that this love is reciprocated is probably the best thing that has ever happened to me. When can we meet? Please can it be very soon.’

  ‘Of course,’ I replied.

  And therein lay the problem.

  FIVE

  By the time Vogel and Saslow were leaving the Fisher home, DCI Reg Hemmings had already set up a dedicated incident room at Kenneth Steele House, the Bristol headquarters of MCIT. Hemmings had also appointed his favourite administrator, DI Margo Hartley, as joint deputy SIO, along with Vogel. She would be operations manager, overseeing the mechanics and logistics of the investigation.

  Fisher was to be taken to The Patchway Police Centre on Gloucester Road, Bristol’s most modern station incorporating a state of the art custody suite and forty-eight police cells.

  Terry Cooke, Melanie’s father, would make the formal identification at the morgue later that morning, as soon as the pathology team was ready. Cooke would be accompanied by a family liaison officer, PC Kelly King, who was on her way to the family home. He had also agreed to come into Patchway in the afternoon for DNA testing and fingerprinting.

  Whilst Saslow was loading Fisher into the back of the squad car, Vogel took a step away and made a quick call to Willis.

  ‘The father’s second wife, Mrs Susan Cooke, is on her own, or I think she is anyway,’ he said. ‘Pop round will you? Better find a woman PC to take with you. Let’s see what she’s got to say about her old man and what he might have been up to last night. Melanie’s father seems genuine enough to me, but you never know. Just a preliminary chat. Might help build a picture.’

  At Patchway, Vogel quickly handed Fisher over to the custody boys and told them not to hurry with processing him.

  Back in the car, Vogel called DCI Hemmings to report what was happening. It was still not 10 a.m. yet.

  ‘Seems Jim Fisher’s been playing away from home,’ he began.

  ‘A dodgy stepfather, eh?’ muttered Hemmings. ‘What do you think? How likely a candidate is he?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Vogel. ‘The DNA tests should sort things out. Forensic say they found some hair, with follicles of skin attached, under Melanie Cooke’s fingernails. Presumably torn out of her assailant’s head whilst she was fighting for her life, poor kid.’ Vogel paused, trying not to think about that too much. He kept seeing his own daughter’s face.

  ‘He lived with the girl, Vogel,’ Hemmings interjected. ‘Any decent brief would argue that of course we’re likely to find his DNA on her.’

  ‘Not strands of hair under her fingernails, though, surely boss? That’s a classic result of lashing out in self-defence. There might be more forensic evidence too, that’s what I’m hoping for. We don’t know enough yet and, as you know, it will be days before we get the DNA results. So Saslow and I are on our way now to check out Fisher’s alibi. I didn’t like the man but …’

  ‘Vogel, you don’t like anyone!’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ said Vogel, who, in spite of appearances to the contrary, was not averse to occasionally indulging his lurking sense of humour. ‘I’m very fond of you, sir.’

  Hemmings grunted and made no direct response. Vogel knew the form well enough. A bit of banter made the day go by more easily, on investigations as disturbing as this one, but enough was enough.

  ‘Look, boss,’ he continued. ‘Fisher claims he spent last night with his mistress, if that’s what she is. This Daisy from Bath is certainly someone he’s serious about, he insists. I’d like to get her version of events before he has time to prime her …’

  ‘OK,’ interrupted Hemmings. ‘But on the way back, will the pair of you stop by the girl’s school? The North Bristol Academy. It’s the right side of town. We need to officially inform the headmistress and it’ll be an opportunity to chat to Melanie Cooke’s chums.’

  ‘Right, boss.’

  ‘And, by the way, I’ve given Willis all the backup I can spare on the door-to-door. Nothing yet though.’

  ‘I know,’ said Vogel. ‘I’ve just been talking to him. They’re still hard at it, but I’ve asked him to break off for an hour or so and do some checking on the father, Terry Cooke. He seems a less likely suspect than the stepdad, however Willis is going to have a chat with his second wife. She may paint a different picture. Particularly if she’s caught alone and on the hop. Cooke said he was going to stay with his ex for a bit.’

  ‘OK, but tell Willis not to take too long about it. We need some hard evidence. Some kind of witness would be handy. You know how it is, Vogel. People don’t always realise the importance of things they have seen or heard.’

  ‘Yes sir,’ said Vogel. ‘I’ll get Willis back on it as soon as I can. You’re dead right, boss. Those boys out there door-stepping really do have to keep plugging away. And it’s been such a damned thankless task so far they may well need someone cracking the whip a bit.’ Vogel echoed what he had earlier said to Willis. ‘A girl was assaulted and killed. She struggled and fought for her life. Someone must have seen or heard something, surely.’

  LEO

  All I knew was that I had to keep Tim. I wanted him. I needed him.

  I said the first thing that came into my head. And it was very nearly the truth.

  ‘I couldn’t quite come to terms with what we were doing,’ I replied. ‘Or rather, where we were doing it. It was all so awful …’

  ‘I didn’t like it either,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t run off. I couldn’t have done that to you.’

  His eyes were fixed on mine. Then he glanced away, blushing.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  He looked back towards me.

  ‘Do you want a drink?’ I asked.

  ‘I have one,’ he replied, gesturing at what looked like a glass of white wine on a table behind us.

  I wondered how I hadn’t seen him as soon as I walked in the place.

  Maybe he read my mind.

  ‘I spotted you when I came back from the gents,’ he said.

  ‘I’m very glad you did,’ I responded lamely.

  He asked if I wanted to sit with him.

  ‘Are you on your own?’ I asked.

  ‘No, I’m with a group of trendy gay mates,’ he said, the sarcasm heavy in his voice.

  Of course he was on his own. He was like me. Not quite like me, obviously. But not out. Not glad to be gay. Or proud to be perverted, as one of my work colleagues called it.

  Until recently my Soho haunt had been Larry’s Bar, a throwback to another age. A place almost exclusively for those who, even in the modern world, were still not openly gay.

  Most of the clientele, I’d always suspected, were married or in long-term relationships with women. There were still far more men in that situation than was generally realised. Some were probably in jobs where homosexuality continued to cause problems that no amount of legislation could fix.

  There had also been, on the basis of supply and demand, a number of young men more or less on the game.

  Larry’s had finally closed down the previous year. Young Tim probably didn’t know it had even existed. Although it might have suited him.

  Instead, as he struggled to come to terms with his sexuality, he used more modern methods of seeking out kindred spirits. Notably Grindr, the gay app which brings sexual opportunity straight to your phone.

  After Larry’s had closed, I’d bought myself a pay-as-you-go iPhone and had also turned to Grindr. But only when I was well away from my home territory. I needed to cut down, as much as possible, any chance of coincidentally contacting someone who might recognise me.

  It was through Grindr, albeit indirectly, that I’d met Tim, as I flicked my way through the list of available men, whose exact whereabouts was made known to me by Google tracker.

  As in: ‘John. 500 yards away. Come and give it to me hard.’

  An approach of that sort was totally unnerving to me. And, like a lot of gay men, I�
��d become wary of the app since the case of Stephen Port. He’s the serial killer and rapist who was convicted last year of the murder of four men he lured back to his East London flat after meeting them through Grindr. I might be fit and strong, but during the sex act I would be as vulnerable as anyone. I determined to stop using Grindr. I couldn’t resist looking on the app though. It was there that I’d come across an invitation to a weekend sex party at a flat just off Endell Street in Covent Garden. I’d seen this sort of thing before but never succumbed to the temptation. That time I decided to take the risk. Just the once. After all, I convinced myself, surely there would be safety in numbers?

  Before I rang the doorbell, I inhaled from the bottle of Xtreme I was carrying. I needed something just to get me inside. A number of men were lounging around a stylish sitting room. Some of them were wearing just their underpants. Mostly they looked pretty relaxed and were chatting away as if they were at a normal party. Of course, their relaxed states may have been partly caused by alcohol and drugs.

  Champagne, wine and vodka appeared to be the drinks of choice and I could see bits of drug paraphernalia around the place: mostly Crystal Meths, the party drug version of meth, GHB or G, and, of course, bottles of poppers.

  I sat down as far away from the others as possible. Nobody took any notice of me. I watched a couple slide into one of several, adjoining rooms, presumably bedrooms, as a group of three made their way out.

  On the one hand, I found it distasteful and on the other hand, erotic – pretty much the story of my sex life. However, poppers work almost instantly. Their effect combined with the heady, sexual atmosphere meant that I badly needed release. There was only one person in the room I could imagine making a move on. A young man standing in the far corner, fully clothed and looking even more uncomfortable than I felt. I liked that and I liked the fact that he was so pretty. It was Tim, of course.

  I moved across the room to him.

  After a few minutes of largely forgettable small talk, during which we discussed Soho gay bars and he mentioned The Freedom Bar and his plan to check it out, we headed into one of the bedrooms.

  It didn’t take long. Not for me anyway. I inhaled deeply again from my bottle of Xtreme and offered it to Tim, so we were both high. Then I just let rip. But, predictably enough, once it was over the sordid nature of the ghastly event in this incongruously stylish apartment hit me, like an out-of-control juggernaut. Within seconds I was fully dressed again and out the door.

  I heard Tim calling after me, but I didn’t stop.

  Now I had another chance, it seemed, to be with this beautiful boy whose face had haunted me ever since.

  There we were, among the confident, cool, gay set of The Freedom Bar, two awkward, reluctantly gay men sitting at a table making small talk again over a Cosmopolitan, in my case, and a glass of New Zealand Sauvignon in his.

  I wanted to tell him how ashamed I was now, of having been so desperate that I’d sought out that awful, sex party. I couldn’t say that though, could I? Not to him. After all, he’d been there too. I certainly couldn’t really explain my revulsion and the reasons for it. I wasn’t repulsed by Tim, that was for sure. Indeed, looking at him again, even whilst feeling so awkward and stupid, I found my desire for him rising in me. And that was without the Poppers.

  ‘Do you want to go somewhere?’ I asked suddenly.

  I saw him stiffen. I feared rejection.

  Instead he said, ‘I can’t take you back to mine. I told you before, I’m a student, I still live with my parents.’

  It made me smile that. It seemed so absurd, here amongst the cool ones.

  But Tim wasn’t awkward and secretive about his sexuality in the way that I was. He was only eighteen. It wasn’t a habit of years, a way of life for a man who probably rather liked it this way, if the truth be told. A man who almost enjoyed the inherent sleaziness of his own behaviour, the hiding in corners and the lurking in shadows. Tim just didn’t know how to do things differently. Not yet. If he was at all hole in the corner, it was simply because he had not yet found the courage to fully confront his own sexuality, to tell his parents and those around him. He had no gay friends, because he himself was still coming to terms with what he was. The sex party was just a part of his exploration. The truth was that he would have loathed Larry’s Bar and everything it represented. I’d been kidding myself ever to think differently.

  ‘I remember that you live with your parents,’ I said.

  And I certainly wasn’t able to take him back to mine.

  ‘There’s a Premier Inn at Leicester Square,’ I continued. ‘We could get a room.’

  ‘I don’t have much money,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll pay,’ I told him.

  So we ended up spending the night together. I paid cash in advance. The hotel was suitably anonymous. The room was basic, but clean and comfortable. And we were alone. It was certainly a vast improvement on that dreadful party.

  I’d spent the night with men before, but not often. Over the years I’d mostly contented myself with sweaty fumbles in dark corners, cubicles in public conveniences late at night or the doorways of backstreet shops long after opening hours. My conviction that it was all I was good for remained ever with me, and Poppers made the surroundings irrelevant. Nothing mattered except the sex. Until it was over.

  This was so different.

  It felt good to lie on clean sheets. It felt good to hold Tim in my arms afterwards and watch him fall asleep, with his head resting on my chest.

  For those few hours, I felt quite fulfilled. I felt complete, but I didn’t sleep much. I knew, all too soon, it would have to end. I would have to walk away, back to my usual, daily state of self-denial.

  Somewhere around six, I wriggled my way free of my young lover. It was still dark. I didn’t switch on a light. I made my way quietly into the bathroom, where I washed the gel out of my hair and dressed. I was hoping to leave and disappear into the early morning, without having to face Tim. Particularly as I had put on my straight clothes.

  But he woke as I re-entered the bedroom.

  ‘Hey, you,’ he said softly. ‘Why are you moving around in the dark?’

  He reached to switch on the bedside light. I could see that he was smiling at me.

  ‘I have to go,’ I said, trying not to look at him. ‘I’m sorry. I have to be somewhere. I shouldn’t have spent the night with you.’

  His face fell.

  ‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

  Although I half did, of course.

  He studied me, curious, frowning.

  ‘You look different,’ he said. ‘Your hair, your clothes. Everything.’

  ‘My work look,’ I said, trying to sound casual. ‘I have to go to work.’

  ‘On a Saturday?’ he asked, still frowning.

  ‘Look, I just have to be somewhere,’ I said, more sharply than I’d intended.

  I tried to soften my response. ‘Uh, it’s personal stuff. You know. I really do have to be somewhere else.’

  ‘Somewhere you can’t go looking how you did last night?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ he asked.

  Rather to my surprise, he seemed quite accepting. But then, he’d already told me he wasn’t ‘out’. Not yet. He always added ‘not yet.’

  I didn’t want to talk about it, of course. Bless him, I thought, if only he knew. But he would never know. There was so much in my life that I would never be able to talk about.

  ‘Not now,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, I really don’t have the time.’

  He threw off the bed covers revealing his beautiful, naked, young body. He had an erection again.

  ‘Stay just a bit longer,’ he said.

  I glanced away. I would not let myself look at him. I must not. I could not.

  ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I’m really sorry, I do have to go.’

  He looked crestfallen. He climbed out of bed and wrapped
his arms around me.

  ‘Look, that wasn’t just a quick one-night stand,’ he said, ‘Not for me, anyway.’

  ‘Not for me either,’ I lied.

  Although it wasn’t a lie that I had feelings for him, which had not necessarily been quenched by our sexual activity.

  ‘Look,’ I said. ‘Give me your phone number. I’ll call you, make a date to meet again.’

  ‘OK,’ he agreed, although he still looked disappointed. ‘Where’s your phone? You can put my number in it now and call me straightaway, then I’ll have yours.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m really sorry, but I’m in a big hurry. Just write your number on this, it’ll be quicker.’

  I delved into the top pocket of my jacket, where I’d already placed the receipt for the hotel room alongside the pen I always carry with me and handed both to him.

  He did as I’d asked, then passed the sheet of paper back to me.

  ‘Don’t I get yours?’ he asked.

  I scribbled a number on the bottom of the receipt, tore the piece off and handed it to him.

  As I did so he leaned forward and kissed me on the lips. I couldn’t let myself respond, not even a little. Our time together was over.

  I pulled away.

  ‘We will do this again,’ I said.

  ‘I hope so,’ he replied quietly.

  I was lying. I had no intention of seeing Tim again. Not then. The number I’d given him wasn’t mine, merely a random jumble of digits, and I wouldn’t be phoning him.

  I would just have to find another Tim. I told myself it wouldn’t be difficult. Grindr was a smorgasbord. I’d probably been overreacting to the Stephen Port murders. Thousands of men used Grindr and encountering another lunatic like Port would probably be less likely than being struck by lightning. I wouldn’t go to a sex party again, though. That was a step too far.

  I was aware of Tim’s eyes on me as I headed for the door, but I didn’t look back. And, thankfully, he didn’t say anything more.

  I put on the baseball cap I always carried with me and hurried through reception with my head down, although there was just one disinterested man on night duty behind the desk, and a cleaner mopping the floor who did not look up from his duties.