Strange Blood
Page 8
‘Don’t see why not,’ he said, ‘After all, she doesn’t need to know where you got it from, does she? Tell you what, come over for a drink and I’ll fill you in on a few more details while we’re at it.’
Oh God, here we go, she thought. But she was willing to string him along. Just until she’d got enough out of him to get Des off her back.
*
The three naked women were standing in front of a huge, golden full moon. All of them had long black hair, swept back to reveal their breasts. The one facing the front had a blazing torch in her left hand. The other two stood back-to-back behind her. One held a vicious-looking whip while the other brandished a silver-bladed dagger that glinted in the moonlight.
Megan pursed her lips. The artist responsible for the cover would certainly not have won any prizes but there was no mistaking what the book was about. Leafing through the pages she found more naked women drawn in various poses alongside each chapter heading. There were sections on Initiation, Sacred Sites, Methods of Divination and Making Magic and these were interspersed with photographs of men and women in long robes and heavy, Celtic-style jewellery.
She smiled wryly as she noted that the men all seemed to have beards and were the wrong side of forty, while the women were much younger and distinctly nubile. It seemed to be a common feature of the library of books on the occult found in Sean Raven’s house. She put the book down on the table alongside a biography of Aleister Crowley. One look at the depraved face of the book’s subject leering out from the front cover should have been enough to put most people off the occult for life, she thought. But what about Tessa Ledbury? What had drawn her into this shadowy world? Megan remembered what Delva had said about the man with his hand on Tessa’s knee in the photograph. White, about mid-forties, shoulder-length grey hair, slim. Very intense eyes. Not bad-looking, actually. She wondered how much longer she would have to wait to see Sean Raven for herself.
Steve Foy had asked her wait down in the basement after she had briefed the team on the forthcoming interview. It had been a tense half-hour session, with Kate O’Leary barely concealing her triumph at having apparently been proved right. When Megan had reminded her that there was no forensic evidence to pin on Sean Raven and that the only hope of getting him to admit the crime lay in subtle psychological empathising during interrogation, she had stood up and walked out of the room, muttering something about needing the loo.
‘Hi! He’s put you in the dungeon, has he?’ Dave Todd appeared round the door, two cups in his hand.
‘Thanks,’ Megan said, ‘I’m gasping.’
‘I’m not surprised.’ He sat down opposite her and took plastic spoons and sachets of sugar from his pocket. ‘We’re still waiting for Sean Raven’s brief to show up. He was supposed to be here half an hour ago.’
Megan raised her cup to her lips and noticed how Dave Todd’s glasses had steamed up around the lower edges. He was drinking it black. Must have an asbestos mouth, she thought. Hers was too hot even with milk.
She eyed him over the rim of her cup. The gold-frames suited him. They gave him an interesting, intellectual air. She guessed that they probably made him look older than he really was. If she had had to put an age on him she would have said twenty-six or twenty-seven. But he could be younger.
She tried to imagine his backgound, his progression to detective sergeant. It was something she did whenever she met someone new, a habit so ingrained she couldn’t help doing it, even when she didn’t need to. She had him down as a graduate who was being pushed through the ranks quickly.
‘You don’t think Raven’s the killer, do you?’ Todd’s sudden, direct question caught Megan off guard.
‘Well, I, er … I couldn’t really express an opinion until we’ve done the interview,’ she faltered.
‘I don’t either,’ he said simply.
She eyed him curiously. ‘Why not?’
‘I was the arresting officer when he was up on the rape charge,’ he said. ‘It was a joke from start to finish. That Carole-Ann Beddowes is an evil bitch.’ The venom in his voice was unmistakeable. Megan held his gaze.
‘You think she made the whole thing up?’
He nodded. ‘She could lie for England, that one. And now she’s out for revenge, big style. Hell hath no fury, and all that.’ He drained his cup and tossed it into the bin. ‘If I was the Guv I’d be taking a bit more interest in the cyclist.’
Megan frowned. ‘What cyclist?’
‘He hasn’t told you?’ There was a flicker of embarrassment in Todd’s eyes. ‘One of Tessa’s neighbours told us this morning. Said she remembered someone on a bicycle going past the house round the time of the murder. She said whoever it was seemed in a hurry. Nearly knocked her flying as she was coming along the pavement.’
Megan flushed with anger. How could Foy have failed to tell her something as important as that? ‘This neighbour,’ she said, trying to control her voice, ‘did she give you a description?’
‘Not a very good one, no,’ Todd said. ‘Wasn’t even sure if it was a man or a woman. Just said it was a white person in a black tracksuit and a black cycling helmet. Couldn’t say what colour hair or eyes because the helmet obscured the face.’
‘And the age?’ Megan persisted. ‘Did she give you any idea of that?’
Todd shook his head. ‘She’s sixty-nine and she wasn’t wearing her glasses
‘So what makes you so sure the person on the bike wasn’t Raven?’
‘He’s lost a kneecap.’ Todd’s gaze was unwavering. ‘Car accident a few years back. Can’t bend his right leg.’
*
Delva peered at her A-Z in the twilight. She wasn’t sure if this was the right street. She knew she should have left it another day, really. He probably wouldn’t even have received the flowers yet.
She checked the address again. Yes. This had to be the right place. She moved the gear stick into first, and was about to start driving slowly along, scanning the house numbers, when she saw him. Richard Ledbury was coming out of the front porch of a pebble-dashed house, brushing aside a trailing frond of wisteria that flopped across his face as he opened the door.
Delva stopped the car and switched off the engine. She could feel her heart pounding and realised how ridiculous that was. He was dressed more casually than when she had last seen him. The T-shirt and jeans made him look younger. His face looked the same, though. A deep frown line between his eyebrows. Not that it made him any less attractive. She felt a powerful urge to run over and take him in her arms.
Then she saw the woman. Coming out behind him. Dark hair like Megan’s. It was the policewoman she had seen yesterday. What was her name? Kate something? Probably come to break the news about Tessa’s lover.
Delva watched as they walked along the street away from her. They stopped when they reached a Vauxhall Corsa. Purple or dark blue. She couldn’t really tell, it was getting dark. She got in the driver’s seat and he went round the other side. Was she taking him to the station? They sat there for a few minutes, talking. Delva wondered if the policewoman was having to use her powers of persuasion again.
When it happened she was so shocked she blinked. They kissed. A quick, furtive movement that she told herself she must have imagined. But no. They did it again. And now he was getting out. Standing there on the pavement gazing after the tailights of the car as it disappeared down the street.
*
Back in this piss-awful dump. Blew it with that last one. Bitch had company. Should’ve headed back then, but it seemed such a waste. So many possibilities at the precinct. Click, click, click of heels on concrete. No one with the X-factor, though. Never mind. Bound to be queuing early tomorrow. Ringside seats for the hottest show in town.
Chapter 7
Megan tensed as Foy’s arm brushed hers. He was leaning across to rewind the video footage of Raven’s interview and his peppermint breath filled her nostrils, making her want to gag.
She was seething inside at the thought of him holdi
ng back the information about the cyclist. What was the point of involving her in the case if he withheld crucial details like that? She wasn’t sure what game he was playing, but it was obvious he was not to be trusted. She fought back the instinct to walk out; refuse to have anything more to do with the investigation. She had to find out about Raven. Weigh him up. She had to satisfy herself that Foy was on the wrong track. And so she would keep silent about the cyclist. For now.
‘Would you like something to eat?’ Steve Foy glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘I can get something sent down from the canteen.’
Megan shook her head. The last thing she had eaten was the ham roll in the café at Pendleton. That was nearly nine hours ago. But she didn’t feel hungry. Listening to Sean Raven had robbed her of her appetite.
The expression on Foy’s face told her that he was feeling just as frustrated as she was, albeit for a different reason. Nothing had worked. The empathising, the answering of a question with a question, the encouraging nods – all had produced a big fat zero. As they should, of course, if the man was innocent.
She had sat watching the interview through a two-way mirror, directing the questions via an audio link with Foy and O’Leary. She had noted the way he reacted, his facial expressions, the way he moved his hands and altered his posture. Now she and Foy were going over it again on the tape.
It wasn’t hard to imagine what had drawn Tessa Ledbury to him. He had an angular face with well-defined cheekbones and an aquiline nose. But the most arresting feature was his mesmering, indigo blue eyes. At times during the interview Megan had felt as if he could see her through the mirror. He seemed to be looking right at her. But that was impossible, she told herself.
She flicked a switch, freezing his face on the screen. Although attractive, it was drawn-looking. Megan could guess what must be going through his mind. He had been out of prison for just seven weeks. And now this. Yes, he had had an affair with Tessa Ledbury. No, he had not seen her since he came out of jail. No, he could not care less whether she had become a Christian. And no, he did not kill her. He was at home on the morning she died. Working on a magazine he published on his PC. Yes, it was a contact magazine for swingers. So what?
Foy clicked the off button and Raven’s image disappeared from the screen.
‘What about his wife?’ Megan asked, ‘Are you planning to interview her tonight?’
‘Yes’, he replied with a heavy sigh, ‘You up for it? Need to phone home?’ He gave her a sly look. ‘Don’t want young Patrick waiting up, eh?’
Megan felt her cheeks burning. Was he fishing or did he know? She could just imagine him sniggering to his colleagues, telling them she was knocking off one of her students. She pretended she hadn’t heard, scribbling observations about Raven on the pad in front of her.
‘I’ll get some coffee brought down,’ Foy said at last. ‘His wife’s name’s Mariel, by the way. Like Muriel but with an ‘a’. Looks like a real witch too – long black hair and big on body piercing.’
Megan nodded, her face angled slightly so that her pierced nostril was directly in his line of vision. It gave her a perverse sense of satisfaction to see him shift uncomfortably and look away.
Mariel Raven looked like a pin-up from a bondage magazine. She stood up in a flurry of chains, studs and biker leathers, her blue-black hair swinging round her face like a pirate flag in a gale. She was thirty-nine, but looked at least five years younger.
Megan watched through the mirror as Kate O’Leary walked into the room and took a seat next to Steve Foy. Kate was rather like a toned-down version of the woman she was about to interview. Same long dark hair, but hers was marshalled into a thick French plait. She had the same pale skin and brown, almond-shaped eyes as Mariel Raven, but the only jewellery she wore was a pair of tiny garnet studs in her earlobes. Catherine Zeta Jones meets Cher, Megan thought with a wry smile.
As the interview progressed Megan began to understand why Sean Raven had broken the law to make Mariel his wife. She was supremely confident. The sort of woman Megan could imagine inadequate men paying to dominate them. Totally unfazed by anything Steve or Kate threw at her, she gave as good as she got.
‘Yes, I suppose you could describe me as a swinger,’ she said, leaning back in her seat and folding her arms so that the chains on her jacket rattled. ‘I love Sean but I’ve never restricted myself to a single sexual partner – male or female. He knows that. I don’t expect him to be monogamous. As long as we’re honest with each other, that’s all that matters.’
‘Ask if he was honest with her about his affair with Tessa.’ Megan spoke into the microphone that connected her with the two police officers.
Steve Foy put the question. Megan watched Mariel Raven’s face closely as she replied. The lips pushed into an inverted ‘U’ and the eyebrows, one pierced with a silver ring, shot towards her hairline. When they came, her words were laced with biting sarcasm.
‘She was just another little glitter-witch. We get them all the time. Bored housewives with a ‘vacant’ sign slung across their fannies.’
Megan couldn’t see the faces of the police officers but she heard Steve Foy cough slightly before he spoke again.
‘What do you mean by ‘glitter witch’?’
‘It’s what serious Wiccans call people who are just playing at it. All they’re really interested in is the trappings – it’s like kids dressing up.’
‘But didn’t Tessa go through the initiation ceremony?’ Kate cut in. ‘Surely that involved some level of commitment?’
Mariel smiled wryly. ‘Well she was on what you might call a fast-track entry,’ she said. ‘Sean was desperate to fuck her and he knew she wouldn’t do it unless he told her it was part of the deal of becoming a witch. She was quite prim and proper when she first started coming, but he soon cured her of that.’
‘How long were they … lovers?’ Kate hesitated slightly before enunciating this last word as if she found it somehow inappropriate.
‘About a year, off and on, I suppose.’
‘You suppose?’ Steve Foy said, ‘You mean you’re not certain?’
‘Well he didn’t tell me every single time they did it, if that’s what you mean,’ she retorted, ‘I mean, it would have got a bit boring, really, wouldn’t it? I used to like to hear about it at first. It’s always interesting when one of us is screwing someone new. But she was so full of shit.’
‘What does she mean?’ Megan whispered.
‘What do you mean?’ Kate O’Leary’s head tilted forward slightly, as if inviting a confidence.
‘Oh, she turned into a real prick-teaser. Spent most of the time telling him how guilty she felt about her husband and her kids. That’s what I meant about her being a glitter witch. She liked to pretend she was a free spirit but what she really wanted was monogamy. She couldn’t cope with the idea of sex without commitment.’ She paused, her fingers stroking a silver pentacle pendant that rested on the smooth white cleavage above her black lycra vest. ‘I’m sure she would have ditched her old man if she’d thought there was a chance of something permanent with Sean.’
‘But that wasn’t on the cards?’ Kate was still using her sympathetic voice.
‘Not a chance!’ She almost spat the words out, her hand flying from the pendant and thudding on the table. There was a pause as the officers exchanged glances.
‘Ask her why she married him,’ Megan said.
‘Mrs. Raven,’ Foy picked up, ‘can I ask you why you agreed to marry Sean? You see, I don’t understand what the attraction would be for someone like yourself. Of marriage, I mean.’
‘It was for my son’s, sake, not mine.’ There was another clink of metal as she shifted in the chair.
‘Your son?’
‘Yes. He was seven when I met Sean and he was having problems at school. Sean offered to marry me and adopt him. He thought it would help, you know, give him a bit of stability.’
‘But he failed to tell you that he was already married?’
‘And yet you married him a second time while he was in prison.’ Foy carried on as if he had not heard the last part of what she said. ‘Now why would that be? Not for your son’s sake, surely? I mean, he must be what, eighteen, nineteen now?’
‘He’s twenty-one,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘And like I said before, I happen to love Sean. I can’t expect someone like you to understand the way we live but I think that’s our business, don’t you?’
‘As long as it doesn’t involve breaking the law, yes,’ Foy said. Megan could imagine his expression as he said it. The pale, bushy eyebrows would rise, the nostrils would curl slightly and he would rub the index finger of the hand he was leaning on up and down on his chin. He reminded her of a fox. But Mariel was no silly chicken cowering in a corner of the henhouse.
Megan watched and listened as Foy tried to break the woman down with the shock tactics she had suggested. At one point he thrust one of the crime scene photographs at her, staring pointedly at the pendant around Mariel’s neck. There was a flicker of revulsion as she took in the sight of Tessa Ledbury’s mutilated face, but no other sign of emotion.
‘Okay,’ she said, nodding her head slowly, ‘Now I can see what this is all about. But it’s a set-up. It has to be. Can’t you see that?’ Her eyes flashed angrily as she tossed the photograph back across the desk. ‘There are plenty of people who rubbed their hands in glee when Sean got sent down. You should have seen some of the letters I got!’
‘You mean Sean has enemies?’ Kate O’Leary’s words were more of a statement than a question.
‘You know he has!’ There was a sound like fingernails on a blackboard as Mariel leaned forward, the studded leather bracelet on her wrist scraping the table. Megan winced.