by Daniel Cole
‘Winter! I’m not going to …’ However, she trailed off as voices rounded the corner:
‘If he’s with that scary goth girl again, I swear I’m gonna fire him here and now.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, move over,’ she huffed, diving inside just in the nick of time, watching as two pairs of legs marched by. Unimpressed, she glared across at Winter: ‘This is ridiculous.’
‘Welcome to my life,’ he shrugged. ‘So, you were saying?’
Marshall caught him up on their unexpectedly productive conversation with Eloise Brown and, with Chambers’ prior agreement, invited him along to their meeting the next morning, where she was going to take them through the remaining sketches one by one.
‘I still don’t get the laurel leaves,’ he whispered, shooing off a trespassing toddler when it attempted to climb in with them.
‘It’s just a thing the two of them had,’ she explained, without explaining anything at all. ‘He scattered leaves all around our Venus de Milo … Something to do with art and marriage and nymphs maybe?’
‘Well, that clears it up.’
‘It went over my head, OK? But she’s adamant it relates to her.’
‘So … we’ve put her under protection, right?’
‘Chambers sorted it. She’s convinced Coates would never hurt her though.’
Winter looked sceptical … and then a bit hungry:
‘Want something to eat … a drink maybe?’
‘What have you got?’
‘Literally anything,’ he told her, gesturing to the supermarket beyond the zipped opening.
‘A bottle of red to share?’
‘Coming up.’
‘… Malbec or a Bordeaux Blend.’
‘Ummm. I’ll see what I can do,’ smiled Winter, pretty sure he’d already forgotten it.
‘… But French not Argentinian if you go for the Malbec.’
Already hanging halfway out of his hiding place, Winter looked back at her with an exasperated expression.
‘My dad was big into his wines,’ said Marshall apologetically.
‘Sommelier?’
‘Drunk. Oh, and some cheese and biscuits wouldn’t go amiss … And, Winter!’
‘Yes?’ he asked from somewhere outside the tent.
‘Could you grab some plasters and painkillers? … My hand’s really starting to hurt.’
Winter returned a few minutes later with their ‘borrowed’ supper. Fortunately, he didn’t notice Marshall’s look of horror when he handed her a bottle of Merlot from … she didn’t even bother finishing the label to discover who had admitted responsibility.
‘I had a thought,’ said Winter, ‘over at the cheese counter,’ he revealed, not entirely sure why that detail was pertinent himself. ‘At the risk of sounding like a snob …’
They were dining on Merlot and Dairylea Triangles.
‘… it seems likely that Robert Coates and his biological mother, being an addict, might’ve lived in council housing … until he was taken away from her.’
‘I can certainly check. Why? What are you thinking?’
‘That Alphonse and his addict mother also lived on a council estate.’
‘You think the same one?’ asked Marshall, intrigued.
‘It just seems from what you’ve said, that if the statues represent events in his life, and the victims share qualities with the people in his life, then it follows that the locations might be important in some way as well.’
‘Hmmm,’ said Marshall, part pondering but mainly because her mouth was full. ‘You know, if you said some of this clever shit around Chambers once in a while, he would wait for you and we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation in a tent right now.’
‘But where would be the fun in that?’ he smiled, toasting cardboard cups with her.
‘Honey, I’m—’ Chambers froze in the doorway. Eve was waiting for him, arms folded and already changed for bed. ‘… Sorry for something?’ he asked with a weak smile, having spent their evening together alone searching Coates’s office instead. ‘What did I do?’
‘What did you do?! What did you do?!’
‘I … I don’t know,’ he stuttered.
She marched over to the television and pressed play on the VCR:
‘… serial killer. Lead investigator on the case Detective Sergeant Benjamin Chambers is pictured here attending the scene of the latest brutal murder in which …’
She switched it off.
‘Oh,’ said Chambers. ‘That.’
‘This is him again – the statue man! The one who did this to you!’ She pointed down at his leg. ‘You promised me.’
‘Honey, I—’
‘Don’t honey me!’
‘All right,’ he said, holding his hands up. ‘Eve … I tried to say no but—’
‘You tried?’ she laughed bitterly. ‘You didn’t try hard enough! Did you tell them this case nearly killed you already?’
‘They have the files.’
‘And did you tell them you still can’t walk across the reception at work in the mornings without stopping for a rest?’
‘I—’
‘Did you tell them you’d quit if they tried to make you do this?’
Chambers sighed: ‘… No.’
‘Then you didn’t really try at all, did you?’
He opened his mouth, but then hesitated, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to get to sleep should he break a promise and lie to her on the same day.
Irritated by his silence, Eve stormed away, slamming the bedroom door behind her.
Back in the recently named Sainsbury’s Homicide HQ, Marshall and Winter had put an impressive dent in their bottle of wine and assortment of cheeses aimed primarily at children. Unpeeling a Babybel, the combination of alcohol and the sombre greenish light inside the tent had put Marshall in a melancholy mood:
‘She’d still be alive if it wasn’t for me.’
Winter looked confused: ‘Who?’
‘Tamsin Fuller.’ He still looked lost. ‘The Venus de Milo!’ she snapped, angry with him for already forgetting the name that was all she could think about. ‘If I’d just left it alone … He’d stopped. He was done until I turned up at his house.’ She stared into her blood-red drink. ‘They’re on me. From this point on … whoever he hurts. They’re all on me.’
Winter huffed and topped up her party cup:
‘With all due respect, that’s the biggest load of rubbish I’ve ever heard. We’re police officers,’ he told her proudly, apparently forgetting that he currently wasn’t. ‘And police officers catch bad guys, even when they might react badly to that. Robert Coates is to blame for that woman’s death – no one else. And it’s tragic, but no more tragic than the three lives he’s already taken and got away with. So stop thinking like that.’
Marshall tucked her dark hair behind her ear, as if she’d been hiding behind it.
‘Can I ask you something?’ Winter said, lowering his voice to a whisper.
‘Sure.’
‘That night we met Chambers in the pub, he made a comment.’ Marshall knew full well what was coming next. ‘He said you had track marks up your arms.’
‘I remember,’ she nodded. ‘He doesn’t miss a thing, does he?’
‘So … it’s true?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Is it like a work thing?’ he asked awkwardly. ‘Like from being undercover?’
‘You’ve watched too many movies.’
He looked confused: ‘But … you’re a narcotics officer.’
‘Which makes me very good at hiding it.’
‘Don’t they check you for things like that?’
‘Frequent random urine testing,’ she revealed, the look on his face not improving any, ‘nothing one to three days and a repeat prescription for codeine can’t cover,’ she smiled. ‘… Back pain.’
Winter knew he was out of his depth: ‘Are you … OK?’
‘You mean: am I a drug addict?’
‘Yeah.’
‘No. I’m not an addict and, yes, I’m OK.’
‘Then …?’
She sighed heavily: ‘There’s this social stigma around heroin that anyone who takes it instantly becomes a gaunt, sunken-eyed zombie, when the truth is, it’s far more like alcohol than they’d like to admit. There are those with the self-restraint to dip in and out and know their limits. Just as there are those who become a slave to it and let it consume them. I’m fortunate enough to fall into the former category. Anyway, they’re old. Most of them. Souvenirs of a misspent youth, bar very occasional relapses.’
‘How occasional?’
‘Do you ever have those days? Those days where it feels like your mind is screaming at you? When you have so much of everything going on at once that you feel like you can’t cope, can’t concentrate, like you’re going to explode? … Days when you’re just so fucking tired of pretending and all you want to do is go home, pack a bag and go … and then keep going? Just leave it all behind and never look back?’
‘I … Maybe you should talk to someone,’ suggested Winter.
‘I’m talking to you, aren’t I?’ said Marshall. ‘So yes, there are track marks on my arms, tactically covered by tattoos, and each and every one of them represents one of those days. And do you know what? I’m thankful for them because they saved me from doing something far worse.’
‘Saved you?’ he asked in genuine interest.
‘Some people have friends, others a myriad of other addictions. I … have this.’ Marshall closed her eyes and took a deep breath, experiencing a phantom surge of euphoria just at the memory of sinking a needle into her skin. ‘It’s like … like puncturing a balloon. Not putting something into you but taking something away: a sharp prick here and then from the very top of your head it starts to work its way down, all those problems and worries and stresses and regrets washing out of you, resetting you just for one night … It is peace, and that is a very precious thing.’
She opened her eyes to a concerned-looking Winter, realising that her right thumb was still poised over an imaginary plunger:
‘Hey,’ she shrugged. ‘You asked.’
Fifteen minutes later, they reconvened out on the street, Winter having finally finished his shift.
‘It’s not that late,’ he said, zipping up his jacket. ‘Still hungry? Fancy a drink somewhere?’
‘No. But thank you. I’m exhausted. I’d better get home.’
‘OK,’ he smiled, now a little worried it had sounded like he was asking her ‘out’ out.
‘Don’t worry,’ she assured him, reading his expression with unsettling accuracy, ‘I know you didn’t mean it like that.’
‘Huh? No! Of course. I didn’t think …’ He trailed off. ‘Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Yeah. See you tomorrow.’
‘Hey, Marshall!’ he blurted when she went to walk away. ‘… Jordan,’ he corrected himself. ‘I’m your friend,’ he told her genuinely.
She smiled: ‘… I know.’
Winter nodded and headed off in the other direction as Marshall’s expression collapsed. Mind screaming, she desperately tried to work out whether she was nearer to the squat house in Maida Vale or the strip club in Farringdon but was unable to concentrate on anything.
There was no way she was going home tonight.
Friday
CHAPTER 24
‘You are a genius,’ Marshall greeted Winter when she came to collect him from the well-worn sofas of the New Scotland Yard reception area wearing the same clothes she had been the previous night.
‘I know,’ he nodded as they started walking towards the lifts, relieved to get away from the assorted newspapers left lying around – all featuring the same snap of their Venus de Milo on the front pages. ‘… Why though?’
‘Alfie and Nicolette’s council estate – you were right. It was the same one Coates’s mother lived on. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.’
Having worn a suit for the occasion in an attempt to impress Chambers with his professionalism, Winter was feeling rather uncomfortable. Apparently, he had put on a few pounds since its last outing, and made a mental note to loosen his belt another notch the next time he got a chance.
‘What about the other locations?’ he asked as they started to ascend the building.
‘Coates only ever lived at two addresses, but we’re compiling a list of past employers and asked his bank to flag any recurring or notable transactions … But our best bet is Eloise Brown.’
‘And what did she say?’ he asked, wanting to catch up on everything he’d missed before he could get in there and embarrass himself like the third wheel he was.
When the lift doors juddered open, Marshall stepped out and looked back at him in surprise:
‘We figured you’d want to ask her that yourself.’
The expression of pride on Winter’s face immediately gave way to suspicion:
‘And Wainwright’s OK with that?’
Marshall took a moment too long to answer: ‘… Of course.’
‘She doesn’t know I’m here, does she?’
‘Not so much.’
Winter couldn’t stop staring at Eloise.
It was getting a bit creepy.
Everyone had noticed.
But how Robert Coates had ever managed to woo such an intelligent and beautiful woman was beyond him. Even in the confines of the drab investigation room, she seemed to radiate fun and positivity, effortlessly brightening the day of anyone fortunate enough to come into contact with—
‘You’re doing it again,’ Marshall nudged him.
‘Sorry.’ He forced his eyes back down to the list in front of him.
The office was buzzing. People rushed in and out with armfuls of paperwork, while the ringing phones, overspill from the tip line, didn’t pause for breath – the nationwide press coverage rapidly gathering momentum.
It felt as though they were getting somewhere. After showing Eloise on a map where their Venus de Milo was discovered, a memory had been jogged free: she and Coates getting off the Tube at Pimlico station to walk along the river. Assembling a selection of crime-scene photographs absent of the newly built block of flats in the background, she had recognised it as the spot where the two of them had shared their first kiss. And then, when the list of past employers revealed that Coates had spent three consecutive summers working at the British Museum, there could be no doubt that the locations were every bit as significant as the works of art he was mimicking.
‘I think I’ve got something!’ called Marshall, grabbing the map off the adjacent desk. ‘Tyburnia Grammar,’ she announced, pointing just to the right of a vast expanse of green space. ‘His secondary school. And it’s only a few roads over from Hyde Park.’
Chambers leaned in for a closer look, but then frowned, the four roads standing between it and the park troubling him. Struck with an idea, he headed back over to his own workspace to retrieve one map of the London Underground network and one showing a confusing tangle of bus routes knotted around the city:
‘He’d have been coming in from the gnome house in Wandsworth, right?’
‘Right,’ replied Marshall.
He tapped his finger in satisfaction: ‘No nearby Tube stations. The number twenty-eight bus would’ve got him there but dropped him on the wrong side of the park … The murder site would have been on his daily walk to school.’
‘We’re getting closer,’ smiled Marshall in relief, Chambers nodding in agreement:
‘We’re getting closer.’
People are shallow, simple creatures, and beauty no more than a tool to exploit that fundamental flaw – to fit in with a specific group, to project a deceptive impression of oneself, to attract a viable mate – animalistic behaviour in its most primitive form, and Robert Coates understood that concept better than most.
Where a gangling and awkward university professor could repel the majority of close encounters in situations where attention is inevitab
le, a handsome and charming stranger will form new friendships with ease – with those who want to be with him – with those who want to be like him, while leaving behind a lasting impression.
Neither were appropriate for today, however. Today, he would slouch and shuffle around as though the weight of the world was bearing down on him. He would smile hopefully at anyone who caught his eye, as if to say ‘please to God let me unload some of my troubles onto you’, and watch them retreat from his vicinity. He had shaved the stubble that cast such a flattering shadow across his jawline and picked out his earthiest clothing, a rainbow of beiges and browns, making him resemble a lump of rock whenever he stopped moving.
Because today, he needed to be invisible.
Chambers clicked the lid back onto his pen and turned to Eloise:
‘Tell us about the Venus de Milo.’
Dressed in another paint-spattered shirt, she got up, holding the presentation she’d been working on all morning:
‘The Venus de Milo is a marble sculpture attributed to Alexandros of Antioch somewhere around 100 BC. It is a little larger than life-sized and is displayed in The Louvre in Paris.’
Giving her an encouraging smile, Winter scribbled down a detailed set of notes on her introduction, which even the most thorough detective couldn’t deny was all utterly useless to their investigation.
‘She also goes by the name The Aphrodite of Milos.’
‘Aphrodite?’ asked Chambers in recognition.
Eloise nodded: ‘The goddess of love and beauty.’
‘Which is how we know it’s meant to be you,’ said Winter, both Chambers and Marshall turning round to look at him. ‘I mean, why we think he thinks it’s you,’ he added quickly but going bright red even quicker.
An embarrassed smile broke across Eloise’s face.
Marshall rolled her eyes.
Chambers shook his head.
They both turned back to face the front.
‘So, is it Aphrodite or Venus?’ asked Chambers.
‘Both,’ replied Eloise. ‘Aphrodite is Greek. Venus is Roman. Same goddess, different names. But, of course, this is art and there are different interpretations. Some – Robert included – don’t believe it’s Aphrodite at all, but Amphitrite, who, when Poseidon asked for her hand in marriage, fled to Atlas on the far side of the world.’