Evil Impulse

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by Leigh Russell


  Nearly tripping on an uneven paving stone, she cursed aloud as one of her trainers sploshed in a deep puddle. Her soles were reasonably waterproof, but water soaked through the top of her shoe, cold and clammy. The rain had eased off, but her foot remained wet and uncomfortable, squelching every time she walked on it. Indoors, the first thing she would do was take off her socks and shoes and dry her feet, rubbing them until they were warm again. As it was, all she could do was continue trudging, doing her best to avoid stepping in any more puddles. Not that it would have made much difference if she did, except that at least so far only one of her feet was soaking wet. It was little enough to feel gratified about.

  Preoccupied with her feet, she barely registered a faint noise behind her. It reached her again, a soft sound like someone sniffing gently. She stopped abruptly and listened. All she could hear was a faint plopping as rain dripped from nearby window sills and gutters, and a distant whispering of wind overhead. But when she walked on, listening, she heard it again: a faint snuffling, like a small dog casting around for a scent. Only the noise made by a small dog would come from somewhere below her knees and this sound came from above her head. She stopped again, poised to run, and heard only the spattering of water and the whisper of the wind.

  She scurried on, moving as fast as she could without stumbling in the darkness. Behind her she heard footsteps on the cobbles, or it could have been the pounding of her heart that she heard. But this time there was no mistaking the sound of someone sniffing close by. With a low cry, she spun round. A figure was standing behind her, close enough to touch her. One arm was raised as though to strike her with a fist wearing a leather glove. Over her attacker’s shoulder, she could see a massive building site where a new block of flats was being constructed. The neighbours were pleased about it, as they said it would improve the area and increase property values in the street. But at this time in the evening, the site was deserted, and there was no one to witness what was happening. She turned to run, but before she could move, a hand was slapped across her mouth from behind, pinching her nose so tightly that she could think only of the pain. It felt as though her nose was being wrenched off her face.

  One moment she was vexed about her soaked foot, the next she was unable to draw breath. If she did not free herself soon she was going to suffocate, but the realisation came too late. While one hand prevented her from breathing, her assailant grabbed her arm and shoved her forwards, off the street, propelling her through a high wooden gate. She stumbled over a brick that was propping the gate open, into an alley beside the disused brewery. In her panic she barely had time to catch sight of a riot of plants growing wild along the centre of a stony path. To the side of the path, more weeds reached halfway up a brick wall. The weeds flourished undisturbed, but her life was under threat.

  A rusty old bicycle was leaning against the wall. Unable to move her head, she stared helplessly past it to the buildings at the far end of the cul-de-sac. They were too far away for anyone to see what was happening in the alley below, even if someone happened to look out of the window. The horror of what was happening was too stark to comprehend and, for an instant, time seemed to hang suspended. A huge void opened in her mind and she understood that she was going to die.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’

  Her words sounded like a muffled whimper at the back of her throat, barely louder than the rustle of leaves in a tree, or the gentle drip, drip of the rain. No one would understand that she was asking a question.

  She tried again. ‘Who are you?’

  Even if her attacker felt the shuddering movement in her neck and understood what she was trying to say, there would be no answer for her.

  8

  The following morning they learned that the DNA found on Angie Robinson’s hairbrush was a match for the body found in the river. There was a faint murmur around the team when that information reached them, along with a few tentative smiles. Recalling the foul remains of the victim, and Greg’s anxiety about his wife, Geraldine could not share the general feeling of relief that they had at least established the identity of the dead woman. Although of course if the body had not been that of Angie Robinson, another family would have been grieving the loss of a different woman, and in the grand scheme of things it made no difference whether the victim was Greg’s wife or someone else’s loved one. Whoever it was, a life had been taken, and the killer had to be brought to justice. But Geraldine’s recollection of Greg’s apprehension and the image of his wife’s putrefied body made the investigation feel somehow personal for her.

  Looking into Greg’s history, Ariadne had come across something that was potentially interesting. When he was seventeen, Greg had been prosecuted for the alleged rape of a young girl. His version of events had been that the girl had not only been willing to have sex with him, but she had been the one to initiate intercourse by kissing him. The defence alleged she had stripped off and unzipped his trousers. Ariadne circulated the report before the next briefing, and Geraldine read it carefully. When questioned under oath, Greg had insisted that the girl had approached him in a club. She had appeared in court in a knee-length navy skirt and a blue polo neck jumper, wearing no make-up and with her long hair tied in a high ponytail. If anything, she had looked younger than her sixteen years, but she had lost credibility when the defence showed a photograph of her wearing heavy make-up and skimpy clothing, and adopting a seductive pose, in the company of several young men. Whether or not there was any substance to it, Greg had been cleared of the rape charge.

  ‘This could be significant,’ Eileen commented at the morning briefing.

  ‘He was acquitted,’ Geraldine pointed out.

  ‘True, but we need to consider him carefully,’ Eileen said. ‘Geraldine, you met him, didn’t you?’

  Geraldine nodded.

  ‘I suggest you go and bring him in. We need to find out what he was up to when his wife went missing. Ian, you can go with her in case he objects,’ Eileen added.

  Geraldine forced herself to appear impassive. After all her training, and her years of experience, she was professional in her work, regardless of who her partner was. Across the room, she glimpsed Ian’s face, drawn and stern. His expression could have been a result of the investigation, but Geraldine suspected that, like her, he was finding working together was more of a strain than he had anticipated. She nodded at Eileen again, without looking directly at Ian.

  ‘We’re on our way,’ she said, although as her senior officer it was Ian’s place to respond to the instruction.

  ‘Your car or mine?’ Ian asked, as they walked out of the incident room.

  ‘I’ll drive if you like,’ she replied.

  Sitting behind the wheel gave her an excuse to keep her eyes on the road ahead. Their affair was so wonderful, it had transformed her life, but they could not allow it to interfere with their work. They drove in silence until they reached the house where Geraldine had seen Greg the previous day. Seeing who was calling, the woman who lived there scowled. Geraldine promptly pushed her way inside, before the woman had a chance to slam the door.

  ‘This is the second day in a row you’ve turned up here uninvited and stopped him from getting on with the job,’ the woman fumed. ‘I’ve already had to phone the decorators and postpone them once. I’m not going to put up with another delay. I want you to leave right now, and not come here bothering us again.’

  While Geraldine apologised for the intrusion and the woman blustered and issued idle threats, Ian went inside and emerged a moment later with Greg at his side.

  ‘Where are you taking him?’ the woman demanded, her round cheeks red with indignation.

  ‘We’re asking Greg to accompany us to the police station,’ Ian replied.

  ‘Not in my time, you’re not,’ the woman replied. ‘I’m paying for a job to be done. Look,’ her voice changed and she began wheedling. ‘He’s nearly finished. Can’t you just
let him complete the job? He can’t leave it unfinished.’

  Greg walked out without a word, and a moment later he was sitting in the back of a police car, with Ian at his side.

  ‘This is about Angie, isn’t it?’ Greg asked in a flat voice.

  In her rear-view mirror, Geraldine glimpsed his face, pale and twisted with the effort not to cry. When they arrived at the police station, they sat Greg down and a constable brought him a cup of tea while Geraldine confirmed the terrible news that his wife was dead. At first he merely nodded. He didn’t break down in tears as she had feared, but looked sadly down at his long white fingers which were fidgeting with the handle of his mug of tea. He had not drunk it.

  ‘In a way it’s almost a relief,’ he muttered. ‘I mean, I wish she was still alive, of course I do, more than anything in the world. I’d give my right arm to have her back –’ He broke off and bit his lip. ‘But at least I know what’s happened to her, and she’s not somewhere… suffering… I was so afraid she was in pain…’ He looked up and stared directly at Geraldine. ‘Did she – was she – did she suffer much before she died?’

  Geraldine sighed, but there was no point in delaying telling him the terrible truth.

  ‘Her body was pulled out of the river. Do you know what she was doing along there?’ Ian asked.

  Greg shook his head. ‘I already told your colleague, I haven’t seen her since I left her at home a week ago. She’s been gone a week… I didn’t know what had happened to her… and now you’re telling me she fell in the river? How did that happen? Why was she there?’ His voice rose as he asked his next question. ‘Who was she with?’

  ‘I’m afraid we don’t know what happened. We were hoping you might be able to help us,’ Geraldine replied.

  ‘Help you? What do you mean?’ Greg asked, looking bewildered. ‘You said she drowned. You told me just now.’

  ‘I said her body was found in the river.’

  ‘Are you sure she’s dead?’ he asked with a pathetic desperation that convinced Geraldine he had not killed her.

  ‘Or he’s a good actor,’ Eileen retorted sharply when Geraldine shared her impression.

  Geraldine had no answer to that.

  9

  Once Greg had been told that his wife was dead, Eileen wanted him questioned more closely.

  ‘I’m not convinced he was surprised. I know you said he appeared to be shocked, but we can’t be sure. You can tell him it’s to eliminate him from our enquiries,’ she said. ‘Even if we are all convinced he did it.’

  They all knew that a spouse was, statistically, the most likely suspect in a murder case.

  ‘Greg, we need you to help us trace Angie’s movements on the night she died. Where was she going?’

  Greg shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he muttered. ‘I’ve no idea what she was doing down by the river. There’s no point asking me, because I don’t know.’

  ‘What you were doing last Wednesday night?’ Geraldine said.

  ‘You can’t think… No, no.’

  Geraldine questioned him as gently as she could, but he became increasingly distraught and incoherent. At last he seemed to realise that the police suspected he knew more than he was telling them about how his wife died.

  ‘That’s why you’re taping every word I say, isn’t it? Oh my God, you think I killed her. She was murdered, wasn’t she? Wasn’t she?’

  Greg’s face turned even paler than before, and he pressed his lips together with a wild expression in his eyes. He folded his arms with forlorn bravado, and refused to continue until he had a lawyer present.

  ‘I’ve seen enough cop shows to know my rights,’ he added.

  None of them mentioned his previous prosecution for sexual assault.

  ‘You haven’t arrested me, have you? So you can’t question me like this without a lawyer to defend me. Otherwise you have to let me go. And you can’t keep me for more than a day, not without evidence that I’m guilty. I’m not saying another word until I have a lawyer here to defend me. I know my rights and I’m taking the fifth amendment right now.’

  Without bothering to correct his confused understanding of the law governing the treatment of suspects, Geraldine agreed to his request. They heard him protesting loudly as he was led away to wait in a cell until the duty brief arrived, and they could continue the interview.

  ‘It’s a pity we don’t have enough on him yet to arrest him and be done with it,’ Ian grumbled as they walked along the corridor together.

  Geraldine frowned. ‘Apart from the fact that he was the victim’s husband, we have nothing at all against him. He reported her missing the day after she disappeared and, if he’s telling the truth, he hasn’t seen her again since then.’

  ‘If he’s telling the truth,’ Ian repeated. ‘We can’t take anything he says at face value.’

  ‘We have no reason to suspect he’s lying. Although he was accused of rape,’ Geraldine said thoughtfully.

  ‘That was years ago, and the case was thrown out.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean he didn’t do it.’

  ‘Even if the jury were wrong,’ Ian said, ‘we have to believe the justice system works, more or less, or everything degenerates into a chaotic free for all, where the powerful can flout the law with impunity, and the poor and disadvantaged go to the wall. That’s what we spend our lives fighting to prevent. But in any case, there’s nothing to suggest there was a miscarriage of justice in this instance. And even if the jury were wrong – and we have no reason to believe they were – he wasn’t violent towards the girl.’

  ‘Rape is always violent,’ Geraldine corrected him sharply.

  ‘Yes, yes, I know that, of course, but what I’m saying is, he had sex with a promiscuous sixteen-year-old when he was seventeen. There were several witnesses willing to swear in court that she had slept with other men. Just because the girl later thought better of what she had done and changed her mind, and wished she hadn’t had sex with him, and cried rape, that’s hardly relevant now.’

  ‘It hardly points to him being a murderer,’ Geraldine agreed.

  ‘No. Killing his wife would make him a murderer.’

  ‘And so far we have no evidence to suggest he killed her.’

  ‘You don’t think he did it, do you?’ Ian asked.

  ‘Honestly, Ian, I don’t know what to think. That’s what we’re trying to find out. But if you press me to say one way or the other then no, I don’t believe he’s guilty of killing his wife.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘It’s just my impression of him, but that isn’t relevant either. Whether or not he’s guilty, until we find evidence that condemns him, we have to think of him as innocent. I could equally well ask what makes Eileen suspect he did it?’

  ‘Because he’s the victim’s husband, and all husbands want to kill their wives, sooner or later.’

  ‘Ian, don’t be flippant. This is a woman’s life we’re talking about, and a man’s liberty.’

  Ian strode away, leaving Geraldine feeling unsettled by the suspicion that Ian’s response had been influenced by his feelings towards his ex-wife. It was impossible to discuss a case sensibly with a colleague who allowed their personal experience to influence their assessment of the facts. As she busied herself tidying her desk, she wondered whether she was being unfair. She was probably never completely disinterested when forming an opinion. At least she tried to be detached, but perhaps that was worse, believing she was objective, while allowing her personal opinions to shape her views without realising it. Maybe she ought to recognise her bias, rather than deny it. Still irritated with Ian, she switched her attention to her iPad, and began a desultory search through recent reports pertaining to the case. But her thoughts kept wandering back to Ian and his cynical remark.

  She was shocked to discover how bitter he had become. When they had firs
t met, years before, he had been relentlessly cheerful, but since his divorce, he seemed to be increasingly cynical. She understood he had been disappointed in his failed marriage, but she wished he would stop thinking about his fickle ex-wife. With an effort she forced herself to focus on the potential suspect, Greg. She was still rereading his statements when she was summoned. The duty brief had arrived and was ready for Greg’s interview to resume.

  The lawyer was a slender blonde woman, immaculately dressed in a tailored trouser suit. In some ways she reminded Geraldine of Ian’s beautiful ex-wife, Bev, and she wondered if he would have noticed any similarity. The interview seemed to drag on interminably, with Geraldine and Ian repeating their questions in various ways, while the lawyer responded so slowly it was hard to believe she was speaking her mother tongue. At length Greg grew fidgety, and demanded to know when he would be allowed to go home.

  ‘The police have not charged you with anything,’ the lawyer drawled in her laboured manner. ‘You are free to go whenever you like.’

  ‘That’s it then,’ Greg announced, rising to his feet. ‘I’m out of here.’

  ‘Not quite yet,’ Ian said.

  ‘You just told me I can go,’ Greg whined at his lawyer. ‘I want to go home. They can’t stop me, can they? You said I can go.’

  Heaving an exaggerated sigh, Ian pointed out that refusal to co-operate with the police investigation into his wife’s murder might in itself be sufficient grounds for suspicion. The accused man stared at him for a second, looking baffled. Then he turned to his lawyer.

  ‘You said I could go home. You’re supposed to be defending me. What the hell’s going on?’

  ‘I said you were free to leave as long as the police haven’t charged you with a crime,’ the lawyer replied. ‘They have no legal power to detain you, but that doesn’t mean they won’t want to question you, to eliminate you from their enquiries.’

 

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