by Casey, Jane
‘Not something. I’ve got everything.’
* * *
Once again, reporting what I’d found was like summoning a storm. It felt as if every police officer on duty in the borough turned up to have a look at what we’d found, along with hundreds of SOCOs. Inspector Saunders became shrill, determined to prevent anyone from crashing through the lane and the secret garage, preserving the evidence of what Sid Hudson had done beyond reasonable doubt. I got a well done from her, and a pat on the back from Chris Curzon. Andy Styles looked torn between being pleased and envious, which was fine by me. I’d have felt the same way.
And Gary? Gary didn’t speak to me again, but he hung around near me, watching every conversation I had and listening to everything I said. It annoyed me but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of saying so. I thought he was sad, and pathetic, and I couldn’t understand how I’d ever found him attractive when he just wasn’t, at all. I didn’t waste too much time on him. I was far more interested in what would happen when Superintendent Godley arrived.
For such an important person, he made little fuss about turning up in the washed-out grey of early morning. His tie was the same ashy shade as the sky.
‘Lena, what have you found?’
‘Not me. One of my lot, though.’ She beamed up at him. ‘Come and see.’
He followed her into the garage and looked at the array of things on the floor, where the SOCOs were categorising them and photographing them. It was a pathetic collection in one way – bits of other people’s lives that he’d wanted to keep, for his own purposes.
What made it truly chilling was the amount of stuff we’d found already. We knew about three rapes but judging from the underwear and shoes, there had been many more. And he’d have taken more from them than their clothes and footwear. He’d have taken their self-confidence and their faith in humanity. He’d made them into victims. I hoped at least some of them had made the difficult journey from victim to survivor. I didn’t know how they could, but people could surprise you.
Though not always in a good way.
Godley emerged from the garage looking pleased, not quite smiling but definitely more cheerful than he had been when I’d met him previously.
‘Who do I have to thank, Lena? Who searched the garage?’
‘These two over here.’ Inspector Saunders led him over to where Gary and I were standing. ‘They found the box.’
‘Well done, both of you,’ Godley said.
‘Thank you, sir,’ Gary said loudly, drowning me out.
‘Locking this man up is quite an achievement.’
‘It’s very satisfying, sir.’
Said the man who wanted to de-arrest Hudson and leave him in peace. I felt anger start to build inside me. I couldn’t let it get the better of me. Not when Inspector Saunders had specifically warned me against losing my temper.
Godley was looking around. ‘This garage is a long way from the Hudsons’ house. What made you try this one?’
Gary laughed. ‘Just a hunch.’
And that was it. The last straw.
‘No,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t. It was because the house is unoccupied so Hudson could come and go as he liked. No one would even know he was using it. The paint on the garage door is peeling but the padlock’s brand new. He added that himself. And the make of the padlock matched the key I found in the cage.’ If I put a little bit too much emphasis on the ‘I’ in the last sentence, I couldn’t help it.
‘That was a very good search,’ Godley said, looking at me again. I felt the thrill of his blue gaze and wondered if he remembered seeing me earlier in the week or if he thought we hadn’t met.
‘Remind me of your name?’
‘PC Maeve Kerrigan.’
‘Well, PC Kerrigan, I’m impressed. You did an exceptional job tonight.’
I glowed with pleasure.
‘It was a team effort,’ Gary said sulkily.
‘You said I was making something out of nothing,’ I snapped. ‘What was it you said? “Leave it to the big boys”, wasn’t it?’
The corners of Godley’s mouth turned down. After a moment of pure panic I realised he was trying not to laugh. ‘All police work is a team effort, but some players make a special contribution. Officer Kerrigan should be proud of what she achieved.’ To me, he said, ‘I’ll be keeping an eye on you. If you ever need any help or advice, call me.’
He handed me a card and I shoved it in a pocket, embarrassed. I was proud of what I’d achieved. But I felt bruised, somehow – not in my body, but in my soul. I felt unsettled and annoyed because of Gary’s behaviour. It was more of a betrayal that he’d tried to take the credit for my work than that he’d bet he could sleep with me.
Which suggested to me that I was far more interested in work than anything else, and I was probably in the right place.
Having spoken to Godley, we were sent on our separate ways, but not before Gary had implied, in front of Inspector Saunders, that Godley had been extra-nice to me because I was good-looking.
‘It’s easy to get attention if you’re a woman. You just have to shove your tits in the direction of the most senior person there.’
‘That’s not what I did.’
‘And Mr Godley is too clever to fall for that anyway. Or any of your guff.’ She patted his cheek, as if he was a naughty nephew. ‘There’ll be other chances to impress. Maybe not Mr Godley, but you’ll get your chance.’
He didn’t look pleased and I knew, with a sinking feeling, that Gary Lovell would be an enemy of mine from now until the end of time.
In all the throngs of police I eventually fetched up with Chris, who jangled the patrol car keys at me. ‘You’ve got some writing to do, young lady. We’d better get back.’
‘Fine,’ I said.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. Just thinking.’ Thinking and making decisions.
Making resolutions.
I sat in the patrol car and watched the streets slide by as Chris drove back to the station. They were good resolutions, I thought. They would help, a lot.
There were only three of them.
One: I was never going to get romantically involved with a colleague again. Ever. Gary had been a bad choice on every level, and I was going to be working with him for most of the next two years.
Two: somehow, I was going to work for Superintendent Charles Godley. I didn’t know how yet, but it was absolutely going to happen, one day.
Three: I was not going to stop being a police officer, no matter how hard I found it.
I was good at it.
And I wasn’t going to give up now.
Read on for an excerpt from the first book in the series featuring Detective Constable Maeve Kerrigan
The Burning
And don’t miss the rest of the series!
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Copyright © 2011 by Jane Casey
Chapter One
Maeve
I didn’t know where I was or what I was doing when the phone rang; I didn’t even know that it was the phone that had woken me. I came up from miles below the surface and opened an eye as one part of my brain tried to work out what had disturbed me and another part focused on how to make the noise stop. It resolved into a low rattle that was my phone vibrating crossly on the bedside table along with the high-pitched shrill of the most annoying ring tone I could have chosen. Fumbling for it in the dark, I sideswiped it and managed to push it off the table. It fell face down in the carpet, still ringing, the sound now slightly muffled. I’d winged it but not killed it. The bonus was that now it was a little bit harder to reach. I leaned out of bed at a dangerous angle, raking the carpet with my fingers, trying to get to it.
‘Mmph!’
Most of the nuance was lost in the pillow, but I interpreted Ian’s comment as ‘answer the fucking phone’, which was pretty much what I was thinking myself. Along with what time is it? and what does this eej
it want?
I got it at last and stabbed at the buttons until it stopped making a noise, trying to read the screen. LANGTON. Rob. I squinted at the time and read 03.27. Half past three in the morning and Detective Constable Rob Langton was calling me. I was waking up now, my brain starting to crank into gear, but my mouth hadn’t caught up with the change of plans and was still slack with sleep. When I said hello, it sounded slurred, as if I’d been drinking for the last—I worked it out—three and a half hours instead of having some much-needed shut-eye.
Three and a half hours. That made six hours of sleep in the last forty-eight. I squeezed my eyes closed and wished I hadn’t added it up. Somehow, knowing the numbers made me feel worse.
‘Did I wake you, Kerrigan?’ I would have recognised the Manchester twang anywhere.
‘You know you did. What do you want?’ I asked, but I already knew. There were only two reasons why Rob Langton would be ringing me at that hour of the morning sounding excited. One: there was another body. Two: they’d caught the killer. Either way, I wasn’t going back to sleep any time soon.
‘Got him.’
‘No way.’ I sat up in bed and put the light on, ignoring a groan from beside me and squinting as I tried to concentrate. ‘Where? How?’
‘We had a bit of help. Nice young lady out on the beers with a bladed article didn’t take kindly to being next on the Burning Man’s list.’
‘He’s not dead.’ My heart was pounding. If he was dead, that was it. No answers. No trial. No justice.
‘Nah, he’s clinging on. He’s in hospital. In surgery, at the minute. Two stab wounds to the abdomen; she lacerated his bowel.’
‘Ouch.’
‘Yeah, couldn’t happen to a nicer person.’
‘Anyone we know?’ I rubbed my eyes with the heel of my hand and tried not to yawn.
‘Not known at all. Never been arrested before, and he hadn’t come up in this enquiry.’
I sighed. That wasn’t great news. We hadn’t even been close to catching him, then. We’d just been lucky. Though the girl had been luckier still. I wasn’t a fan of people wandering around carrying knives, but I’d seen enough dead women in the past few weeks to think it wasn’t such a bad idea.
‘His name’s Vic Blackstaff. He had all his documents on him—driver’s licence, work ID. He’s in his mid-fifties, does shift work for a call centre in Epsom. Lives in Peckham. Drives through south-west London to get home in the small hours of the morning. Plenty of opportunity.’
‘Older than we’d thought,’ O commented. ‘Shift work fits, though. Where did it happen?’
‘Richmond.’
‘That’s quite a long way out of the usual area. Up to now he’s stuck to Kennington, Stockwell—nowhere as far out as Richmond.’ I was frowning.
‘Yeah, but his usual area is flooded with uniforms. Makes sense that he would be hunting elsewhere, doesn’t it?’ Rob sounded confident and I gave a mental shrug; who was I to second-guess a serial killer?
‘They’re going through his car at the moment,’ Rob went on. ‘We’re waiting at the hospital.’
‘Who’s we?’
‘Me and the boss. And DI Judd, unfortunately. We’ll be interviewing the young lady as soon as the doctors tell us we can talk to her. She’s still being checked out.’
‘How is she? Is she—’
I didn’t want to fill in the rest of the sentence. Is she going to make it? Is she badly beaten? Is she burned? How far had he got?
‘She’s fine. Shaken up. Nothing wrong with her but we haven’t been allowed in to see her yet. She says she’s not ready.’ Rob sounded impatient, which nettled me. Why shouldn’t she take her time before speaking to the police? She’d had a shock. What she needed was a sympathetic ear. And I was the ideal person to provide it. Energy flooded through my limbs, adrenalin pushing fatigue into a corner, to be ignored until I had time to give in to it again. Three hours’ sleep was plenty. I was already out of bed, making for the door, stumbling on rubbery legs that ached as if I’d run a marathon the day before.
‘Well, I’ll be there soon. Maybe they’ll let me talk to her.’ The perks of being the only woman in Superintendent Godley’s inner circle were not legion, but now and then it came in handy.
‘Why doesn’t that surprise me? Nought to sixty in ten minutes, that’s you.’
‘That’s why you phoned me, isn’t it?’ I was in the bathroom now, and debated whether I could risk peeing while on the phone. He’d hear. I’d have to wait.
‘I knew you’d want to be here.’ That was only half the story; it suited them all for me to be there. I could hear rob grinning; he was a smug git sometimes, but I could forgive him, because when all was said and done, I did want to be there, and without a call from him, I wouldn’t have known a thing about it until I’d seen it on the news.
‘Which hospital?’
‘Kingston.’
‘I’ll be there in half an hour,’ I said before I’d thought about it properly. It was a long way from Primrose hill to Kingston and I desperately needed a shower. My hair was sticking to my head. There was no way I was leaving with dirty hair. Not again. ‘Make that forty minutes.’
‘We’re in the ICU. Phones off, so ring the hospital if you need us.’
‘Will do.’
I flicked the water on before going to the loo, but even so, it wasn’t even close to warm enough when I forced myself to step into the slatelined shower area, wincing as the spray hit my goose-pimpled skin. The showerhead was the size of a dinner plate and pumped out rain-forest levels of water; it was just a shame that it never got hot enough for me.
Style over substance, as usual. But it wasn’t my flat so I couldn’t really complain. I was sharing it, officially, but I felt more like a guest. And not necessarily a welcome one, at times.
I had balled my hands together under my chin, hugging body heat to myself, and it was an effort to unknot my fingers and reach for the shampoo once the water started to approach tepidity. Haste made me fumble the shampoo cap and I swore as I heard it skitter around the sloping tiles that led to the drain. I left it there, hearing my mother’s voice in my head, sure, it can’t fall any further … two minutes later, I stepped on it and had to muffle a yelp in the crook of my elbow as a sharp edge dug into the arch of my foot. Swearing was a help. I swore. A lot.
I scrubbed at my scalp until the muscles in my forearms complained and rinsed my hair for as long as I could allow myself to, eyes closed against the lather that slid down my face. Bliss to be clean again, joy to know that the case was coming to an end. I wanted to stay in there forever with my eyes closed; I wanted to sleep—how I wanted to sleep. But I couldn’t. I had to get going. And by the time I got out of the shower, I was what passed for awake these days.
Back in the bedroom, I tried to be quiet, but I couldn’t help rattling the hangers in the wardrobe when I was taking out a suit. I heard stirring behind me in the bed and bit my lip.
‘What’s up?’
I wouldn’t have spoken to Ian if he hadn’t spoken to me; that was the rule I observed about getting up and leaving in the middle of the night. Not that I was sure he’d ever noticed there was a rule.
‘Going to meet a murderer.’
That earned me an opened eye. ‘You got him. Well done.’
‘It wasn’t exactly all my own work, but thanks.’
He rolled over onto his back and threw an arm over his face, shielding his eyes from the light. He was in his natural position now, hogging the middle of the bed. I suppressed the impulse to push him back onto his own side and hauled the sheet up instead, tucking him in. Look, I care about you. See how thoughtful I am.
‘Mmm,’ was the response. He was on his way back to sleep. I slipped the dry-cleaner’s bag off my suit and balled it up, squashing it into the bin. I should have taken it off sooner. The suit smelled of chemicals and I wrinkled my nose, reluctant to put it on. The forecast was for a cold day, and rain. I thought longingly of jeans tucked into
boots, of chunky jumpers and long knitted scarves. God, dressing like a grown-up was a pain.
I sat on the edge of the bed to deal with my tights, coaxing them over damp skin, wary of ripping them. My hair dripped onto my shoulders, cold water running down my back. I hadn’t got time for this. I hadn’t got time for immaculate. Slowly, infinitely slowly, I worked the material up over my thighs and stood to haul the tights the rest of the way. It was not the most elegant moment of getting dressed, and I wasn’t pleased to turn and find Ian staring at me, an unreadable expression on his face.
‘So is this it?’
‘What do you mean?’ I slipped on a shirt, then stepped into my skirt, zipping it up quickly and smoothing it over my hips. That was better. More dignified. The waistband was loose, I noticed, the skirt hanging from my hips rather than my waist. It took the hem from on the knee to over it, from flattering to frump. I needed to eat more. I needed to rest.
‘I mean is this the end of it? Are you going to be around more?’
‘Probably. Not for a little while—we’ve got to sort out the paperwork and get the case ready for the CPS. But after that, yeah.’
If there isn’t another serial killer waiting to take over from where the Burning Man left off. If nothing else goes wrong between now and Christmas. If all the criminals in London take the rest of the year off.
I was looking for shoes, my medium-heeled courts that didn’t so much as nod to fashion but hey, I could wear them from now until midnight without a twinge of complaint from my feet. I could even run in them if I had to. One was in the corner of the room, where I’d kicked it off. The other I eventually found under the bed, and had to sprawl inelegantly to retrieve it.
‘I hate the way they whistle and you come running.’ he sounded wide awake now, and cross. My heart sank.
‘It’s my job.’
‘Oh, it’s your job. Sorry. I didn’t realise.’
‘Don’t do this now,’ I said, stabbing my feet into my shoes and grabbing my towel. ‘I’ve got to go. It’s important and you know it.’
He’d sat up, leaning on one elbow, blue eyes hostile under thick eyebrows, his brown hair uncharacteristically untidy. ‘What I know is that I haven’t seen you for weeks. What I know is that I’ll be ringing up Camilla to say you can’t come to supper after all, and is that OK, and I’m really sorry if it’s mucked up her seating arrangement. What I know is that your job always seems to come first.’