He was in the house. How did he get in? She’d checked every door, every window, twice, three times. But he was in the hallway, just standing there, listening. Surely he could hear her heart? It was beating, thrashing against her ribs. She had a sudden terrifying thought. Supposing he wasn’t alone? She strained to hear anything over the pulse in her ears. What if she collapsed? She put a hand to her chest. No. She wouldn’t make it easy. What was that? Oh God. He was on the stairs. Was he one of the men terrorising old women? She’d seen their faces on the news. Knew the terrible things they’d done. What was he going to do? What did he want? Would he kill her? Was it possible to die of fright?
“Do you ever get scared?” Marlow said.
How many times had Bev been asked that? Most people envisaged policing as wall-to-wall murder and mayhem, ignored the fact that it was mainly plodding and slogging followed by rainforests of paperwork. It had its moments, sure, when a life could be on the line, but they were a blue-moon event. Usually she deflected further queries but there was something in Marlow’s voice.
“You can’t afford to get scared,” she said. “After, maybe.” When it sinks in and the flashbacks start and the nightmares continue.
He nodded. “It’s a hell of a job –”
“For a woman?” The smile didn’t disguise the challenge in her eyes.
“I didn’t mean that. I just wondered what attracted you.”
“I fancied the uniform.”
He raised a hand. “You don’t like talking about it. Sorry. Let’s change the subject.”
It was too late. The scene was in her head again. The police tape cordoning off the back of the sports hall at her comprehensive school, a classmate in a body bag. The lead detective had gently coaxed a fifteen-year-old Bev through several interview sessions. She’d been closer to Donna than the other girls and he needed her help, he said. She’d forgotten his name now but he’d been kind and calm and he’d made her feel she was doing something for Donna. The killer was caught within days, a paedophile released early on licence.
Bev was stirring the espresso though she hadn’t added sugar. “I guess I feel I can make a difference.”
Tom cocked his head slightly.
“Most people live by the rules, yeah?” she said. “They may not like them, they may not want to, but they do. They’re pretty decent. They play the game. Then there are others who don’t give a flying fart. They see something they want? They take it. They see something they don’t like? They destroy it. Have you any idea how shit it is to tell a mother her daughter’s never coming home again, or a wife that her husband’s on life support because some smack-head’s beaten him to a pulp?”
She glanced round, aware that Tom wasn’t the only listener, and lowered her voice. “Sorry. I get fired up. I hate the bastards who make other people’s lives a misery. The more we put away the better.”
He nodded slowly. “Don’t apologise. I can see how much it means to you.”
She could count on the fingers of one finger how many people she’d shared that with. “Yeah, well.”
“No, really. You have passion, commitment. You must be really good at what you do.”
She was about to answer but noticed him glance at his watch. Slightly miffed, she pre-empted him. “We’d best get the bill.”
“Only checking if there’s time for more coffee before they throw us out.”
That half-smile was a killer. “Sure,” she nodded. “That’d be good.”
She watched as he beckoned Luigi, wondered what she’d say if he asked her back to his place, wondered how good that would be. Not that she would, of course. Not with Oz in the picture. She couldn’t. Could she?
The call on her mobile pushed all speculation out of her head. It took a few seconds before she recognised the voice. The message was instantly clear. There’d been another attack.
12
“There’ll be a lot of bruising but I don’t think I broke anything.” Maude Taylor paused and added a rueful, “More’s the pity.”
Bev shook her head. The way things were going, the old woman was lucky not to have inflicted more damage. She’d probably have ended up in court on an assault charge. At the moment she was in the spare bedroom, propped up by several pillows. She’d been in bits until Bev dispensed a nightcap large enough to sedate a safari park. SOCOs, complete with goody bags, were just about ready to leave. Bev was still trying to get her head round the details.
“Where do you think you hit him, Mrs Taylor?”
“Difficult to say, dear. It was rather dark.” The hint of satisfaction in the old woman’s voice suggested the double Armagnac had kicked in.
“He’ll have a sore head, that’s for sure.” They’d found a clump of short dark hairs inside the attacker’s mask. So it didn’t look as if this episode was down to blondie. Baby Face must’ve been tucked up in bed or having a night off. Just as well. Maude’s sedation could have been terminal if there’d been two assailants.
“It’s such a shame I didn’t see his face. As soon as I grabbed the mask, he ran like the wind.”
Shame was an understatement. They had a shedload of E-fits but none of them did. They needed finer detail. They were chasing shadows, trying to catch smoke. They hadn’t even established how many were in the gang. Three? Maybe four? There was Iris and Joan’s Baby Face, Marty Skelton’s Tall Dark Dog-loather and Tom Marlow’s Pale Youth With Studs. That’s assuming they were connected in the first place. And that they’d graduated to murder. Bev blew out her cheeks.
“Are you all right, dear?” Maude asked.
“Me? I’m fine.” Miles away but fine. “What about you? You were very brave to go for him like that.” And stupid.
“I was very stupid, as you well know.” Maude laid a hand on her chest. “There was a moment or two, dear, when I thought I’d die of fright. Then I thought of what he’d done to Sophia. I was absolutely furious. I just hit out. The awful thing is –” she couldn’t meet Bev’s eyes – “I wanted to hurt him. I really wanted to hurt him.”
Bev took the old lady’s hand; it was the only way to stop the tremor. “We don’t know for sure it’s the same man, Mrs Taylor.” Not that there was much doubt. The crime scene guys reckoned whoever it was had a key. Sophia Carrington’s house keys were missing.
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Maude said.
Neither did Bev. Hopefully the lab might come up with a few conclusions. “And you’re sure nothing was taken?”
“I’m not sure of anything, to be honest.” She was shivering now, delayed shock. Bev pulled up the duvet, tucked it in closer.
“Try and get some sleep. We’ll talk again in the morning.”
“Thank you for getting here, dear. You weren’t in bed, were you?”
Close. Bev smiled, shook her head. Tom had been all concern, even offered a lift to Kings Heath. She’d made a joke about not mixing business with pleasure. She hadn’t been sure what to make of his parting remark. She’d mulled it over in the cab. A man saying he’d ‘better get used to this sort of thing’ made assumptions which both tickled her pink and pissed her off.
“You’d been so kind and I desperately needed to see a familiar face.”
Bev wagged a finger, softened the admonition with a wry smile. “You’d have had one if you hadn’t sent Jude packing.” The family liaison officer had become too familiar; Maude had told her to piss off, though not in so many words.
“You’re right,” the old woman managed a weak smile. “At least I didn’t hit her with my stick.”
Bev shook her head. “Mrs. T. What are you like?”
She shuddered. “Anything but that, Sergeant. You’d better start calling me Maude.”
“Maude it is.” Bev got to her feet. “I’ll be off. And don’t worry. As well as the uniformed officer at the door, there’ll be patrols 24/7.”
“Thank you, dear.”
Bev was halfway down the stairs when the old woman called her back. She found Maude sitting up
in bed, clutching the duvet to her neck. “You think he’ll try again, don’t you?”
If he hadn’t found what he wanted, an old woman, even a feisty old woman with a stout stick, wouldn’t deter him. Bev crossed her fingers behind her back. “He’d have to be mad to do that, wouldn’t he?”
“The old bag went for me. She’s fucking crazy.” Davy was in a phone box round the corner from his home. It stank of vomit and piss and sweat, some of it his.
“Did you get the stuff?”
“You’re not listening, Jake. I told you: she attacked me. She was lying in wait with a knife.”
“She cut you?” Could be handy. Jake waited. The pause was too long.
“No. I knocked it out of her hand.”
“Liar.”
“I’m not. I got whacked.” Davy hated the whine in his voice.
“Christ, man. She’s not in the fuckin’ SAS. Get a grip.”
“Fuck you. I’m going home.” He didn’t care anymore. He’d nearly pissed himself on that landing and his arms now had matching bruises. He braced himself for a load of verbal abuse but this time Jake’s voice was soft and low.
“Sorry, Davy. Was that one or two?”
That was better. The old Jake was back. Davy breathed a sigh of relief. Lately he’d begun to feel he didn’t know Jake any more. Or like him. “One or two what, Jake?”
“Apologies.”
“Sorry?”
“You fucking will be if you don’t get your arse round there and get what I want.”
“I can’t.” He didn’t know which was worse: the threats or the silence. “Jake?”
“I’m waiting.”
“I can’t go back.” He wasn’t going to tell Jake but he’d have to now. “The old cow saw my face. She grabbed the mask.”
“She still got it?” Even better.
“Yeah.”
“That’s OK. Makes it easier.”
“What for?”
“For you to go back.”
Thank God there was a phone line between them. “I’m not going back, Jake.”
“You will, Davy. You’ll do anything I tell you. Or the old girl’ll get it.”
Davy pictured his gran back at home. Last time he’d seen her she’d been ploughing her way through a family pack of liquorice allsorts, reading another romance. Jake was right. He had no choice.
13
“What time did you get in last night?”
Bev almost choked on her cinammon toast. “I beg your pardon?”
Emmy Morriss licked a finger and turned a page of her tabloid, instantly taken with: I stole my sister’s husband. Why does she hate me?
“I didn’t hear you come home. I was worried.”
Bev exchanged an eye-roll with her gran. Sadie’s was quite scary, given the magnification from today’s lime-green glasses. “I’m a big girl now, mum.”
A drawled ‘yes’ meant Emmy wasn’t listening properly.
Bev glanced at the headline. “Good, is it?”
Her mum blew a smattering of crumbs off the paper. “It helps the job.” She did two days a week in Kings Heath library.
“Oh yeah?” Bev said. “How does that work?”
“Articles like this are about people, aren’t they? What makes them tick.”
“Sick, perhaps.” Bev winked at Sadie but her gran had her head down in the book club’s latest read. Bev screwed her eyes, tried to make out the title upside-down. Beneath the Skin. Sounded more top-shelf than middlebrow.
“That’s not nice, dear,” Emmy protested. “Lots of our callers are sick. Some are suicidal.”
Shoot. She’d forgotten the Samaritans’ stuff. “Sorry, mum. How’s that going these days?”
Emmy put in a couple of nights a month, sometimes more. Bev reckoned she might as well stay home if all she needed was a bunch of problems to sort. Her mum laid the paper down and lowered her voice. “Well, obviously, I can’t go into details –”
“Good,” Sadie interjected without looking up. “Any chance of a boiled egg?”
Bev grinned. The old girl got away with murder. Bev’d miss her when she finally found another place to live. Not that a move was exactly imminent; it wasn’t even vaguely imminent, though there were a couple of properties to view today.
“I’ll eat out tonight, mum. Don’t save me anything.”
Emmy sniffed, turned a page. “I wasn’t going to.”
The smell hit Bev as soon as she entered the swing doors. Highgate reception looked like a branch of Interflora. A bouquet of red roses, all cellophane and scarlet ribbons, very nearly obscured Vince Hanlon. No mean feat, given the Sergeant’s bulk.
“What’s all this, Vincie?” Bev asked. “You trying to get round me?”
“Not me, mate.” He beckoned her forward, handed over a small envelope. Her name had never looked so good: perfect copperplate. Vince had a Masters in deciphering the written word upside-down. She stepped back to a point where X-ray vision wouldn’t have had a chance.
Luigi sends his love, she read. As well.
“You should smile like that more often,” Vince said. “Better than a face-lift, that is.”
She raised an eyebrow but gave him the benefit of the doubt.
“Who’s madam’s secret admirer, then? Anyone we know?”
Bev frowned. He certainly wouldn’t be the only one asking. “Vince? Do us a favour?”
Too late. “Morning, Khanie.” Vince smirked, held the flowers aloft. “What do you think?”
Oz glanced at Bev, then the bouquet, then back at Vince. Ordinarily she loved that uncertain smile of his.
“Bev won’t tell me,” Vince teased.
She pursed her lips. Go on, big man: drop me in it.
“Tell you what?” Oz asked, not taking his eyes off Bev.
“Whether I should get the missus some chocolates as well. It’s her birthday. Twenty-one again.”
Oz’s smile was slow in coming. “I’m sure she’s sweet enough, Sarge.”
“Best crack on,” Bev muttered. Oz was already so far ahead she had to run to catch up. When she glanced back, Vince was adding big strokes to an imaginary slate.
The Morriss desk usually resembled a snow globe with paper-flakes everywhere. For once there was just one message. Angela Collins had called. Iris was being buried at Hodge Hill cemetery on Monday. Bev made a note of the time. There’d be a discreet police presence but she’d go along anyway. Paying her respects was the least she could do.
She grabbed a machine coffee en route to the briefing. The room was chocka, though the buzz had nothing to do with the case.
“Hey, Sarge, heard the latest?” Darren New patted the chair next to him. Oz was perched on the windowsill.
“Heard what?” She tugged at the hem of her skirt. It was a bit short for work but the blue linen matched her eyes.
“It’s the disciplinary today.”
No need to ask whose. Everyone in Highgate had a take on Mike Powell’s future in the force. Bev’s had shifted slightly in recent days. It was edging towards Better the devil you know, but that was probably down to the woman who’d just walked in.
“Right, listen up.” DI Shields stood, arms folded, centre stage. Audrey Hepburn meets Posh Spice. Bev curled a lip. “A stupid mistake was made yesterday which could have cost an old woman her life.” The DI let that little bombshell sink, then lobbed another. “If things had been handled professionally, the case might have been cracked. Instead, we’re back to square one.”
Bev kept her mouth clamped. The squad would have read her report on the incident last night at Maude Taylor’s place, so everyone knew where Shields was coming from even if she wasn’t naming names.
“Sergeant Morriss. Perhaps you’d like to explain why a vulnerable old woman was allowed to remain without protection in the house of a murder victim?”
Load the question, why don’t you? It would never have been asked if Shields had spent any real time with Maude. Bev didn’t know how the old woman would be af
fected by last night, but prior to the break-in she’d had a mind of her own and wasn’t afraid to shout it. Despite all Bev’s entreaties, she’d refused point blank to stay elsewhere. Bev had compromised as best she could.
When she eventually spoke, Bev’s voice was calm and measured. “Precautions were in place.” Apart from family liaison, she’d requested local patrols both foot and motor. With hindsight, it wasn’t enough.
“Brilliant,” Shields said. “So how come an assailant lets himself in with a key?”
“Well, pardon me if my crystal ball’s broken.”
Shields flapped at the words with a dismissive hand. “Apart from the fact Maude Taylor was lucky to escape with her life, we could have been waiting for him and made an arrest.”
Bev was on her feet. “And that’s down to me?”
“Enough.” How long had Byford been in the room? A dozen heads turned as the guv made his way to the front. Bev was shocked at how haggard he looked. “You’re not the only one who should have seen the possibility, Bev. We’re supposed to work as a team. The priority now is to make sure no one misses anything else.”
He took a seat as Bev resumed hers. Shields, after a nod from Byford, assigned tasks, then asked for input. Bev wanted to see Maude Taylor first thing. A good night’s rest might have loosened memories.
“I’ll be coming with you,” Shields said.
I’d rather eat sick. “That’ll be nice.”
At least the bloody woman used her own wheels. Imagine twenty minutes of small talk with Danny Shields: mission statements and monthly targets. Bev glanced in the driving mirror. Shields was just pulling up behind.
“Your brake light’s not working,” Shields said.
Bev locked the MG, hoisted her bag.
The DI was waiting. “Let’s get this clear. I’m here in a supervisory capacity. I’ll take a back seat to observe your technique. And it had better be good.”
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