Good Girl Gone Bad

by Emmy Ellis

  Breathing in the fresh air, he willed it to clear his head, to get some sense of peace in there instead of this boiling mass of questions that had no answers. It hadn’t escaped his notice that several people had clocked the activity—someone kicking in a door in the middle of the night would do that, wake you up, get you shuffling to your window; What the devil is that, love, kids messing about again, is it?—and he pulled the door to, ensuring they couldn’t see inside the house.

  He sighed, his mind so full yet numb at the same time, like his brain cells were firing in one half but dead in the other.

  A car eased up to the kerb, Gilbert getting out with his trusty black case, and Kane straightened his spine, gave himself a talking to: Act professional. Don’t lose it now. He felt guilty for moaning about Richard and his drinking, for his partner’s lack of attention at work when the man had bigger issues to deal with. The suicide note… God, it had been difficult reading.

  I CAN’T GO THROUGH CHEMO. SORRY.

  Bloody hell, Kane had had to squeeze his eyes shut at that, recalling the yellow tinge to Richard’s skin, thinking his liver was packing up from alcohol, when all along it had likely been cancer, and Richard had probably been drinking to blot out the reality of it, unable to face the diagnosis.

  Assume makes an ass out of u and me.

  And Kane had assumed all right.

  “Deary bloody me,” Gilbert said, rocking up the path and coming to a stop in front of Kane. “This is a bit of a shock, isn’t it?”

  “Just a bit.” Kane nodded. “I thought—”

  “Don’t.” Gilbert rested a hand on his shoulder. “We both thought it. And there was you saying I’d be the one to do his postmortem, but I didn’t think it’d be this soon.”

  “It was a joke. I was angry. I shouldn’t have opened my mouth. I…”

  Gilbert squeezed his shoulder then took his hand away. “Listen, you’ve put up with a lot of crap off him for a while now. Last two years, isn’t it? How were you supposed to know he was ill? Did Winter or Richard ever say anything, give you a heads-up? No, they didn’t, so stop blaming yourself.”

  Kane shook his head. “I should have paid more attention. He’d said he had something going on, something he had to do. What if he left work yesterday to go to some appointment or other and got even worse news?”

  “But he didn’t tell you, did he, so how can you expect to have helped?”

  “I couldn’t have.”

  “Well, then, no remorse.” Gilbert smiled. “Richard hadn’t been doing his job properly, and you can’t carry a crap partner. Harsh but true. You know me, say it how it is. Realist not fantasist. Best way to be, that.”

  “I grassed him up to Winter,” Kane said. “I requested Nada as my new partner. What sort of person does that? Christ.”

  “A normal person. And so you should have told the boss. Not being funny, but if young Zeb down in the morgue didn’t do his fair share, you can bet I wouldn’t be putting up with it. He’s there to do a job, health issues or not, and if he’s not fit to do the work, he shouldn’t be there. Same as Richard. He should have retired. He was getting on a bit anyway. No one would have questioned it. Richard dropped the ball when things went to shit.”

  “He’s right there, you know,” Kane said. “Right behind us.”

  “Well, it’s not like he can hear me anymore, is it?” Gilbert roared with laughter then snapped his mouth shut. “Oops, forgot it’s the early hours and people won’t be awake yet.” He glanced up and down the row of houses. “Then again, looks like most of them are. Anyway, I’ve got a job to be getting on with. Your free counselling session is over. It’ll cost you the price of a pint in the local next time we’re there at the same time. Now get yourself off to bed.”

  Kane would never get used to Gilbert’s humour, his way of dealing with things.

  Gilbert went inside, said, “How’s it hangin’, Rich?” then laughed again. “That joke never gets old.”

  Kane blocked him out, staring across the street, thinking of Debbie, wondering where she was and whether they’d find her, take her home to her mum and dad. Her parents were likely sitting up right now, wide awake, still fretting, wringing their hands, pacing, blaming themselves.

  HE DOESN’T LIVE FAR. I COULD TAKE A FEW STEPS, AND THERE HE’D BE, SMILING AT ME THROUGH HIS WINDOW, WAVING.

  “Fuck me sideways…” Kane dashed inside, spotting Nada in the kitchen at the end of the hallway talking to a PC. “Nada!”

  She turned her head in his direction. “Boss?”

  “We’re needed elsewhere.”

  She bolted out of the room, probably sensing the urgency, and he strode out, down the path, getting into his car and starting it up before she’d even reached the gate. He pressed the accelerator, gesturing to her through the window to hurry the hell up, and she ran around the front of the vehicle and threw herself inside. Then he was off, heading towards the Vine house, desperate to get there quickly so he could pick their brains about the neighbours opposite and find out whether any males lived alone. While speeding along, he searched his mind for information from the neighbours’ statements, their names, what they’d said, what they’d seen—or not.

  Coming up blank, he smacked the dash, and Nada jumped.

  “Bloody hell, boss, do you have to?”

  “Sorry,” he muttered.

  “Mind telling me where we’re going and what we’re going there for in such a rush? Anyone would think your arse is on fire.”

  “Debbie Vine’s house. Listen, I need some info.”

  “All right, but remember I’m tired, so there might not be any information readily available.” She pulled a Werther’s Original out of her pocket and held it towards him. “Want one?”

  “No, what I want is for you to work something out for me. Think back to the neighbours’ statements regarding Mrs Smithson’s murder, okay? I read Debbie’s files earlier, ones stored on her laptop, and she wrote: He doesn’t live far. I could take a few steps, and there he’d be, smiling at me through his window, waving. Who lives alone on the other side of the street, do you know?” He shot Nada a quick look.

  She frowned, pressed her fingertips to her forehead, her thumb to her right cheek. “Give me a second or two, will you? I’m a few peas short of a casserole at the minute.”

  “What?” Kane frowned and riveted his attention on the road ahead.

  “You know, I’m a few Fruit Loops shy of a full bowl.”

  “Whatever you’re on, Nada, get off it. Concentrate.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  Tension bunched his muscles, and he focused on breathing and getting to the Vine’s in once piece.

  “Ah,” Nada said. “I remember now. Me and Lara took turns on that side of the street. Everyone I spoke to hadn’t seen anything, and they were either female singles or part of a couple. But Erica mentioned a bloke who gave her the creeps. She said he wore all black, had a really bushy moustache that she swore had the remains of his last meal in it. Churned my stomach when she said that.”

  Kane huffed out an impatient breath.

  “Anyway,” she went on, “he lives alone, said he’d been at home all night and hadn’t seen or heard anything, and…”

  He turned to catch her scrunching her eyes up. “And…?”

  “I’m trying to visualise the street, sir. Hang on a sec.”

  Give me strength…

  “Yes, right, he lives opposite the Vine family, sir, two doors down from Mrs Smithson.”

  Kane cheered internally, swerving to miss a tabby cat wandering across the road, yellow eyes gleaming in the glare of the headlights, his instinct telling him this was the man Debbie had been mooning over. He slewed into the street in question, tyres screeching, and glided to a stop outside the Vine’s place.

  “Name,” he demanded, snapping back the lock lever and elbowing open the door.

  Nada did the same. “If I remember rightly, Henry Cobber or something.”

  “Cobbings,” he sai
d, the name jangling around in his head, the ding-ding-ding of the winner’s bell ringing loudly.

  He belted up Cobbings’ path, moving to the door and crouching. Quietly, he pushed up the letterbox, his recent action of doing the same at Richard’s house bringing on goosebumps, but nobody hung here, no feet dangled in red-and-black tartan slippers. The hallway was in darkness except for a sliver of light seeping beneath the door to the right.

  He stood, glanced left, eyeing a wooden garden gate attached to the side of the house. It was tall, had to be about six foot, and if he couldn’t open it, he’d have to climb over. He turned the old-fashioned ring handle, and the latch on the other side must have lifted, judging by the rusty squeak. But it was still locked, so he reached over the top to feel for a bolt. It was too far down for him to get a grip on it, so he stood side-on to the gate and linked his hands.

  “Up you get,” he whispered. “Undo the bolt, will you?”

  Nada planted her foot in his hands, the sole of her shoe gritty on his skin, and he hoisted her up. The scrape of the bolt moving seemed overly loud, and he cringed. Nada jumped down, and Kane opened the gate, pushing it slowly in case it had a mind to protest the way the bolt had. It didn’t, so he led the way down the alley and out onto a smallish lawn.

  He frowned. This area wasn’t as big as Mrs Smithson’s and didn’t seem in keeping with her layout. Her garden went farther back, yet this one appeared half the depth. He hauled himself up onto the fence that separated this garden from the one next door. Their space went back another eighteen feet, easy.

  Kane jogged towards the trees at the edge of the grass and shoved himself between two of them.

  You fucking beauty.

  He poked his head out and beckoned for Nada to follow him. She pushed past the branches, some of them pinging out and slapping Kane’s face, then they stood together in front of a brick building, about the size of a one-car garage, a white UPVC front door to the far left. No windows, so he couldn’t peek inside to see what the interior held.

  He knocked on the door. Held his breath. Nada pushed out an exhalation beside him, and if her heart banged as fast as his, he sympathised with her. This was high-octane shit, and his sphincter clenched in anticipation.

  Kane knocked again, harder this time.

  Something hummed.

  With no glass in the door or a letterbox to look through, he couldn’t work out for the life of him what that noise was. A click, faint, then the door opened about an inch, a gold security chain preventing it going much farther.

  A man in an orange boiler suit stared through the gap.

  “Yeah?” he said. “Do you know what the bloody time is?”

  “I’m well aware of the time, Mr Cobbings.” Kane pulled out his warrant card, flashed it, then tucked it away. “DI Kane Barnett, and this is DS Nada Caridà. Can we have a word?”

  “What about?” he asked, gruff as you like. “I’m busy, aren’t I.”

  “What is this?” Kane gestured to the building.

  “My man cave. Keeps me out of the missus’ hair.” The skin beneath his visible eye lifted, as did the corner of his mouth.

  He was smiling, then.

  You’ve got nothing to smile about, sunshine.

  “I see,” Kane said. “Well, so we don’t disturb your missus by chatting out in the garden, or any of the neighbours come to that, we’d best come into your cave then, hadn’t we.”

  Cobbings sighed. “If you insist.”

  The door shut, then the tinkle of the chain being removed sounded. Kane nudged Nada and nodded while staring at the door, so she’d get the gist they had to storm inside once it opened. Pulse thrumming, his chest fluttering with nerves, Kane waited.

  The door opened, and Kane shot forward, forearms crossed in front of him, creating a battering ram, and he pushed at Cobbings, who staggered backwards, shouting “Fuck!” then righting himself. At the same time, Kane and Nada barrelled into him, sending him lurching in reverse, arms windmilling, one foot leaving the floor to point towards them. Cobbings went down, and Nada leapt on him, shoving him onto his front, jabbing her knee in his back and yanking his arms behind him, cuffing his wrists before Kane had a chance to help. She sat on the man then, ignoring him trying to buck her off, his legs going up and down, him working to kick her.

  “Sir…”

  Kane looked at her, then at where her attention was.

  A body on a metal table.

  What?

  A woman on the floor.

  A pool of blood beneath her head.

  Long dark hair draped over her face.

  God Almighty…

  Kane rushed over there, Nada barking into her radio for assistance and an ambulance. He checked the woman on the floor first, moving some hair to press two fingers to her neck. A pulse, thankfully strong and steady.

  “She’s all right,” he said, getting up to move to the side of the table.

  This one wasn’t.

  The only way he could tell it was female was from the bra and the absence of a set of tackle between the legs. Everything else about her was just indicative of being human—a burnt human. Then bile raced up from his stomach at the sight of five fingertips—or was that a thumb there?—between the body’s legs, and a…a…a bracelet on the wrist. A cheap plastic one, four blue dolphins dangling off it.

  Oh God…

  The sex worker’s dolphin…

  TWENTY-NINE

  “This mess is connected to the sex worker.” Kane’s voice.

  What?

  Confused, the pain in her head threatening to murder her, Charlotte frowned, keeping her eyes shut. She didn’t trust her ears—it must have been Henry who’d spoken. Yes, it was him, messing with her mind. How the hell had she not realised he had another side to him?

  Because he never showed it to you, that’s why.

  There was that. He’d always been nice, but for him to have kept Jez’s drugs for him all these years, done his dirty work? Jesus, she never would have imagined that.

  “What do you mean, sir?” a woman asked.

  Charlotte pressed her lips together and held back a shiver. Dare she hope she’d been saved? It was highly unlikely, what with the luck she’d had all her adult life. Good things didn’t happen to her. This ‘mess’ just proved it. The stench of shit just got more gag-worthy the longer time wore on. And speaking of good, she’d always been that. Maybe it was time for her to go bad.

  “What do you mean, sir?” someone mimicked. Another woman?

  Charlotte cracked her eyes open, just enough so she could sip, not gulp, the view in front of her—she didn’t think she could handle too much at once. Not after everything else she’d seen lately.

  All that greeted her was her hair over her face. She slowly lifted her hand and parted the strands, praying Henry didn’t notice, that he wasn’t looking at her. Feet in black brogues, topped by black trousers, faint pinstripe. She’d love to say the person had put on burgundy socks with moss-green diamonds up the sides, but that would mean Kane was here, wouldn’t it.

  She shifted her attention to the right, and some woman sat on Henry’s back—and it had to be Henry; that orange boiler suit like Jez’s work one gave it away, except Jez didn’t really need to use it because he didn’t work in a fucking garage.

  “The, uh, the victim—Christ—that poor woman on that table there has a bracelet on with the same dolphins as the one I spotted at the warehouse crime scene.”

  It was Kane, it was.

  “It’s not a woman,” Charlotte said, her voice hoarse, and she pushed herself to sit up.

  “Charlotte?” Kane shot down in front of her. “Bloody hell, I didn’t realise it was you. How the hell did you get here?”

  “Jez came for me.” All her anxieties about this not really happening floated away, but then she looked at Henry, who stared at her from beneath that woman’s arse, and anger raged, hot and sharp and wicked inside her. She pointed at him, then across the room. “Then he put him in ther
e.”

  Kane glanced over his shoulder at the wardrobe. “Nada…”

  So that was her name. The woman peered across the room. “Oh…”

  Kane walked to where Jez’s hand rested on the floor and bent to take his pulse. “He’s gone.”

  Joy plunged into Charlotte, starting in her toes, swimming the crawl, eating up the distance until it reached her heart, then her head, where she blinked, disbelieving. It was obscene to feel this happy about someone dying, but… No, she wouldn’t think about it now. She’d revel in it later, when she was alone.

  Yes, she’d gone bad.

  Kane returned to her, taking her hand and guiding her to stand. “What did you mean ‘It’s not a woman’?” He stared behind her.

  “That’s a girl,” she said. “I…it’s her shape, her size.”

  “A girl.” Not a query, not echoing it as a question. “Shit.” He faced Nada. “You hear that? Do you think it’s…?”

  She nodded.

  “Fuck this fucking world, just fuck it.” He slapped his forehead. “Get off him,” he said, bright red spots tinging his cheeks, “and I’ll take him back to the house. You stay here with the bodies, please, Nada.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Charlotte said, grabbing his wrist, squeezing, pressing her need into him. “I don’t want to be here with…them.” She shivered, and her stomach cramped. She clutched it, nauseated and so anxious to get the hell away that she had the urge to bolt. The fresh air coming through the open door—a door she hadn’t even thought was there—seemed to call out to her.

  “Right.” Kane pursed his lips then helped Nada up.

  They hauled Henry standing by gripping one of his arms each and spun him to face the exit. Henry stared at her, and with the mannequin looking over his shoulder, the whole visual gave her the damn creeps. But she glared back, standing her ground—no man was ever going to have her cowering again. She’d steer clear of them if she had to, and where she planned on going, the only males she’d see were minimal.