‘I think by that time he was in over his head,’ said Mariner. ‘Dee and Coral weren’t part of the plan, plus he knew them personally, so killing them brought home to him the enormity of what he’d done. No, what I can’t work out is where he took Grace and Rosa. There isn’t any firm evidence yet that either of them has even been inside his house.’
‘He’s a bugger for cleanliness, though,’ Jesson pointed out. ‘Perhaps he’s just very thorough.’
‘But to leave no trace of them at all? That would be quite an achievement. Do you think there’s anywhere in the hospital or at the clinic he’d have been able to take them?’
‘Without anyone else seeing or suspecting? It’s hard to see how,’ said Jesson. ‘I’d love to know why he did it too.’
‘He’s screwed up,’ said Mariner. ‘His new girlfriend dumped him, and that, combined with the horrors of what he must have seen in the Congo, sent him off the rails.’ But even as he said it, he was already thinking that it was too convenient an explanation.
‘And what brought out him here, to this hill?’ Jesson went on. ‘Conscience or cowardice?’
‘Conscience, surely,’ said Mariner. ‘He had every opportunity to run away. He left the hospital last Thursday morning, with Dee in the boot and Coral dead at his home, but at that stage nobody had a clue. We weren’t onto him until nearly a week later and we haven’t found his passport. He could have quite easily disposed of Dee’s body and disappeared completely. So why didn’t he do that?’
‘Like you said, he suddenly came to his senses,’ said Vicky. ‘Everybody’s been telling us what a nice guy he was. Perhaps what he’s done to these women was an aberration, a period of madness.’
‘That simple?’ said Mariner doubtfully.
By the time Mariner and Jesson got to the appointed city pub later that afternoon, the celebrations seemed to have got underway without them and people were already starting to drift away — some to catch up on work that had been left untouched for days, and others back to their families, intent on starting the weekend early. Here, too, the atmosphere was subdued, and few people seemed inclined to stick around. Jesson and Glover both decided to leave and Mariner couldn’t blame them. Soon only he and Sharp remained.
‘There’s bound to be a certain lack of satisfaction because we didn’t catch him,’ said Sharp, perceptive to his mood. ‘In a weird way Hayden gave himself up, didn’t he? And not all cases are neat and tidy, with explicit and rational motives. You know that as well as I do. Anyway I’m off to brief the ACC, and you should get yourself off home, too.’
‘Yeah, I will,’ said Mariner. But just not yet. Jamie wasn’t due back for another hour and he wanted to write some of this up while it was still fresh in his mind, so instead he returned to the incident room. He was still there when the forensic report from Leo Hayden’s house came through. It contained nothing very illuminating, except to confirm that Leo Hayden must have been very good at clearing up after himself. There was nothing to place Grace, Rosa or Dee there at all. APR had identified most of the fingerprints as naturally belonging to Hayden and to Coral Norman. There were however several prints, and other trace elements from person or persons unknown, mainly in the kitchen and bedroom. For Mariner that simply meant that Hayden had gone on more than one internet date, and that some of those women had made it back to his house.
Mariner called through to Max, the IT technician. ‘Nice one, bro,’ he said. ‘You got him.’
‘He got himself really,’ said Mariner, without enthusiasm. ‘Is there anything interesting on his computer?’
‘A bit of porn, but tame stuff,’ said Max. ‘No special proclivities showing up, but there are a couple of email rants about his clients at the Gannow. Dude was having some trouble reconciling that kind of work with his experiences in Africa. I’ll send you the transcripts.’
And Mariner could do no more today. Last one out, he switched off the lights in the incident room and was home in good time for the day-centre bus. The escort today was an older woman who Mariner hadn’t seen before. ‘Where’s Declan?’ he asked.
‘Called in sick,’ the woman said. ‘It’s meant to be my day off today. Still, I don’t mind the extra money.’ It made Mariner feel bad about Mercy all over again.
* * *
Millie was ambivalent about Suli’s shooting trip with Greg Easton on Saturday morning. ‘Are you sure you still want to go?’ she asked, over breakfast.
‘I’m looking forward to it,’ said Suli. ‘It’s not often that I get the chance to play with boys’ toys.’
‘Be careful,’ she said, as he was leaving. ‘I don’t want to end up a single-parent family.’
Suli looked at her. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe some of Louise’s anxiety is rubbing off on me.’
Suli put his arms around her and hugged her close. ‘I really hope not. It’s clay pigeon shooting, that’s all. I don’t think I’ll be in mortal danger.’
But after he’d gone, Millie found that she couldn’t relax, and even Haroon seemed unsettled. On impulse she texted Tony Knox. What are you up to today? Could use some company. Happily, Tony was, as so often seemed to be the case these days, on a mission to avoid domestic chores, so agreed to meet later at a nearby pub.
* * *
On paper Mariner and Jamie had little in common, but what they did share was a liking for the outdoors and the stamina to walk for miles. As it was Jamie’s last weekend at home, Mariner had planned a walk over Clent and Walton Hills, but just before they set out, he got a text from Tony Knox asking if they wanted to meet him and Millie for a lunchtime pint. Mariner texted back suggesting the Navigation, a Black Country pub where Jamie had been before and so would be relaxed, and instead of the hills, they set off for a walk along the canals.
Mariner felt a twinge of nostalgia to be sitting in a bar with his old sergeant and constable. If you overlooked the baby sleeping in his car seat, and the autistic man sitting a safe distance away stabbing at his iPad and occasionally muttering under his breath, it was just like old times.
‘First things first,’ said Knox, raising his pint. ‘Congratulations on catching your washerwoman.’
Millie joined in the toast. ‘Birmingham women can rest easy again. There’s no doubt it’s him?’
‘It pretty much adds up,’ said Mariner, with muted enthusiasm. ‘We think he’s been hanging around the hospital foyer, talking to these young women and possibly stalking them, before abducting them. Then he tied them up before bathing them and shaving off their pubic hair, and buried them wrapped in a sheet — oh, and at some point he put a necklace on them.’
‘A necklace?’ said Millie.
‘With the letter P,’ said Mariner.
‘P for pervert, presumably,’ said Knox.
‘Well, thank God you got him,’ said Millie. ‘Must be a good feeling.’ Haroon stirred in his seat, contorting his face into a sleepy grimace, and they all turned to watch.
‘How’s your friend?’ Mariner asked Millie. ‘What was her name — Louise?’
‘Hm, I might have been wrong about the domestic abuse,’ Millie admitted. ‘But there’s definitely something odd about them. Suli’s gone shooting with Greg, her husband, today on the family estate. They’ve got a clay pigeon range where customers can go to try out their products. It was partly why I wanted to get out of the house. I’ve got this feeling about it.’
‘Suli will be fine,’ said Mariner. ‘He can take care of himself.’
‘Remind me, who is it this bloke works for?’ asked Knox.
‘Pincott and Easton,’ said Millie. ‘You must have come across them on Athena.’
‘I’ve heard of them,’ said Knox. ‘And they’ll be on NABIS’s radar, but then so is every gunmaker in the country.’ It came as no surprise to either Millie or Mariner to learn that Operation Athena was working closely with the National Ballistics Intelligence Service.
‘Even if they only make sports guns?’ sa
id Millie.
‘That might be what they do officially, but I’m guessing that some of their employees have skills that could be put to less legitimate uses,’ Knox pointed out. ‘Especially for the right price. We like to keep an eye on things.’
‘Are you any nearer to finding out who might have shot Brian Riddell?’ asked Mariner.
Knox rubbed a hand down the back of his head. ‘It’s so frustrating,’ he said. ‘We’re starting to build a case around the main players for illegally importing and re-boring weapons, and it was assumed that once we started reeling them in, intelligence about the Riddell shooting would follow. We’re convinced it’s tied in with the gang-related stuff going on in the Aston/Newtown areas. That was Riddell’s patch after all, and he was involved in some key arrests over there a couple of years ago.’
‘You’ve got DNA from the crime scene?’ asked Mariner.
‘Yeah, they recovered a fresh lump of chewing gum. But it hasn’t matched with anyone known to us. The UCs are well established on the inside, but apart from the odd bit of wild conjecture they haven’t picked up a whisper about the shooting. It’s weird. It’s as if nobody knows.’
‘And no chance the UCs have been compromised?’ Millie asked.
‘If they were, they’d be dead or maimed for life,’ said Knox, chillingly. He swallowed the rest of his pint. ‘Who’s for a top-up?’
‘I’ll get them,’ said Millie. ‘Will Jamie have another?’ she asked Mariner.
He glanced over to Jamie’s half glass of shandy. ‘No, he’s fine,’ he said. ‘But he might have another bag of crisps. Jamie — Hula Hoops?’
Jamie’s eyes flicked up from the iPad momentarily. ‘Loops,’ he said.
‘It’s his last weekend at my place,’ Mariner said to Knox, explaining about Manor Park.
‘That’s brilliant,’ said Knox. ‘You’ll be a free man again. Have you broken it to Mercy yet?’
For a moment Mariner was surprised that Knox had remembered her name, but then he recalled that it was Knox, of course, who had stumbled across Mercy in the first place, in that friend-of-a-friend way of his that could be so useful; through Jean no doubt. ‘I think she’s quite disappointed,’ he said. ‘But her help was only ever meant to be a temporary thing. I think she’ll be OK, as long as her son doesn’t give her any grief. You haven’t come across a Carlton Brown in the course of your new job, have you?’
Knox pulled a face. ‘Nah, doesn’t ring any bells,’ he said, as Millie returned with the next round of drinks.
* * *
When Millie got home she was relieved to see Suli’s car already parked outside the house, and over dinner he was enthusiastic about his day. ‘Greg was right when he talked about the family estate,’ he said. ‘It looks like half of bloody Shropshire.’ He’d taken pictures on his phone and held one out to show her. ‘Can you believe that?’
‘Louise said they were well off,’ Millie said.
‘It’s a great marketing angle,’ said Suli. ‘I can see how it would impress clients, especially the Yanks. Greg’s uncle is a character, to put it politely. I didn’t entirely take to him.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He never seemed to miss an opportunity to put Greg down. I went for a pee after lunch, and when I came back, Greg and “Uncle,” as he calls him, were having a bit of a ding-dong about some deal that Greg is under pressure to close. The final straw seemed to be that a company vehicle has gone missing and Greg hasn’t got round to reporting it yet. When I walked back into the room, you could have cut the air with a knife. Thankfully Uncle didn’t come with us onto the range. But it didn’t exactly put Greg in a relaxed mood. He was tense and twitchy all afternoon. To be honest, it wasn’t much fun after that and I was quite glad to get away.’
‘It might explain why Greg is so domineering,’ said Millie. ‘It doesn’t excuse him, but if he’s under that kind of pressure at work, I suppose I can understand why he comes home stressed.’
‘I wasn’t sure at one point if he regretted asking me there.’
‘He made the invitation before he found out I’m in the police,’ Millie reminded him. ‘Perhaps he wouldn’t have, if he’d known. Did you say anything to him?’
‘I asked if everything was all right. He just told me there’s this big contract hanging in the balance.’
‘And what about the shooting?’
‘It was fun,’ Suli grinned, ‘though I wasn’t much good at it.’ Lifting his arm, he rolled his shoulder a couple of times. ‘I’m going to ache for days, too. Anyway, what have you two been up to?’
Millie told him about their day. ‘Though I half expected Louise to come over this morning. She must have been on her own today too.’
‘Oh, she’s not. Greg told me,’ said Suli. ‘She’s gone to her mum’s for a few days.’
* * *
A strange, two-headed creature gazed back at Tiffany Davey from the mirror.
‘You look fabulous, babes!’ said the voice in her ear and Lex’s face, resting on her shoulder, broke into a wide grin. ‘But you’ve got to lose the splint. It spoils the look.’
As usual, Tiffany didn’t argue with her friend. Ripping back the Velcro, she took off the bulky splint even though she’d been told to keep it on constantly for the first two weeks. She tried to flex her wrist. Ow, it hurt. She’d have to remember to use her other hand tonight. But Lex was right. She did look pretty good, and a tiny piece of her dared to hope that this would be the night. Perhaps the eve of her twenty-second birthday would be when she met her special someone. Around the age of fourteen, Tiffany had been part of a comfortable majority among her friends, which year by year had shrunk, until finally becoming a minority of one.
She was the only one who had never been on a date and had only ever been kissed by a man who wasn’t a blood relative on two occasions. The one time when a boy from school had seriously attempted to snog her at the prom, it had made her feel slightly sick. Though she didn’t have absolute proof of this, Tiffany was certain too that she must be the only one of them left who was still a virgin. As her friends were starting to get serious with their blokes, Tiffany felt more and more like she was missing out and was getting increasingly tired of her aunties and her mum’s friends asking her all the time, ‘Got a boyfriend yet, Tiff?’ So in the last few months, spurred on by Lex and Sophie, she’d made a big effort to lose some of the puppy fat, had her hair tinted and her eyebrows shaped. She was never going to be the thinnest or the prettiest girl, and her hair was beyond taming with even the most powerful straighteners. But she wanted to believe it — tonight was going to be different. She said as much to Lex while they were getting ready.
‘Well, then,’ said her friend. ‘You’ve got to put yourself out there and make it happen.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
Shortly after Mariner and Jamie arrived home, ducking in out of a sudden cloud burst, Mariner’s phone pinged with a text from Suzy. She’d been at a conference in nearby Coventry and wondered if he was busy. The message was bland, leaving his options open. Mariner called her back straight away. ‘Jamie and I just got back home,’ said Mariner. ‘We’ve been out all day. But you could come over?’
‘Sounds good,’ she said. ‘It’s all winding down here now, so I should get away by about seven. Go ahead and have dinner without me. They’ve fed us really well here.’
‘Great,’ said Mariner. ‘It will be good to see you.’ He meant it. He hadn’t been sure after Cambridge if he’d really screwed up, and now the prospect of seeing her made him ridiculously happy. Since squandering that last opportunity, he had quite literally ached for her, so tonight was a very welcome surprise.
Suzy had only been over to Mariner’s place a couple of times, and her visits had been far from relaxed for anyone concerned. Jamie had been wary of Suzy, just as she had trodden carefully around him, and Mariner was on edge for both of them. Tonight things seemed remarkably easy. Jamie barely acknowledged Suzy when she arrived, and he allowed
them to sit near him in the living room, where he was watching Pointless.
‘He must be getting used to you,’ Mariner said, slipping his arm around Suzy. ‘Ironic, now that he’s about to go into Manor Park full-time.’
‘You’ve got him a place? That’s fantastic,’ said Suzy, ‘for both of you.’
‘Thanks,’ said Mariner, ‘for making me feel less selfish than I actually am.’
‘You’ve had quite a week,’ she said. ‘Caught that guy, too.’
‘Sort of,’ said Mariner. ‘But you’re right. The worst seems to be over, which is a relief. How was your conference?’
‘Oh, boring academic stuff. You know us in our “rarefied little world” . . .’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Mariner. ‘I didn’t mean those things I said in Cambridge. Really, I wasn’t talking about you.’
‘I know, and you’re forgiven,’ she said. ‘It was my fault anyway. Barney’s an arsehole. I should have remembered that.’
* * *
After the long walk it seemed logical to Mariner that Jamie should be tired and ready for an early night, leaving Suzy and him to enjoy each other’s company. He was in for a disappointment. Initially co-operative, Jamie went up to his second-floor room to brush his teeth the first time Mariner suggested it. But after that he seemed to change his mind and getting him into his pyjamas and then bed took forever, none of which was helped by Mariner’s impatience. When he finally got down to his own room, Suzy was dozing and despite all other intentions, the day caught up on him too. He woke a couple of hours later, aroused and hard, but Suzy was sound asleep. A break in the showers had exposed the full moon, and through the thin curtains it cast a pale light over her. She lay on her back, completely open and trusting, one arm thrown across the pillow above her head. Mariner couldn’t help himself and slid his hand under her skimpy camisole.
‘Hey,’ she murmured. ‘What do you think you’re up to?’
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