‘Not.’
‘Definitely not?’
‘We’ve got close to a million profiles on our database; every week, we make better than sixteen hundred positive matches. We know what we’re doing. If he was at the scene of crime, he was wearing a full-body condom.’
‘Is he on the database?’
‘No, sorry.’
‘Is the DNA you did find on the database?’
‘Sorry again.’ She was about to hang up when he added, ‘DS Mooney, I’m on your side. I’d nail the bastard for you if I could.’
Sorley and Stella headed up the briefing. The team members had equipped themselves with coffee and cigarettes and salt-and-vinegar crisps; it was only ever salt-and-vinegar; chocolate bar of the week was Kinder Bueno.
Stella said, ‘We’re releasing him. He’s going.’
‘The DNA test,’ Harriman guessed.
‘The DNA, yes; it doesn’t match. And he’s not on the database.’
‘What about his special knowledge?’ Maxine Hewitt asked. ‘The sweats and the cross she wore round her neck.’
‘The sweats he got from scanning exchanges between SOC officers and Notting Hill nick. The chain’s a more difficult issue.’
‘Because he had to be there to know.’
‘No. Because someone told him.’
A silence fell. You could hear the fans in the VDUs and the rumble of a plane settling into the Heathrow flight path.
Harriman said, ‘You mean someone here, don’t you?’
Sorley was leaning against the exhibitions board. Valerie Blake lay half naked and dead just behind his right shoulder. He said, ‘We’ve looked at the photo of Valerie Blake that was on Kimber’s wall: the cross isn’t visible. It’s possible that he’d seen it on another occasion and decided to mention the sweats first and the cross later, keep us on the hop, but it just doesn’t feel like that. Suddenly he’s got this new information for us and he’s very pleased with himself. As if the information was new to him as well.’
No one spoke.
After a moment, Stella said, ‘He didn’t kill Valerie Blake. He couldn’t have decided to confess until after her death. He wasn’t planning it. Why would he remember the cross? He had a scanner. The information about the sweats came from us. The information about the cross came from us too.’
Sorley looked round the room. He said, ‘In your own time...’
*
Kimber waited while his possessions were brought up from the exhibitions room. The contents of his pockets, a Bearcat police scanner that was not, in itself, illegal, some videos, a box-file of photographs, locks of hair taped to display boards. Nick Robson was the exhibitions officer, but Stella had sent Jack Cuddon down to get the stuff.
Cuddon wasn’t speaking; he wasn’t saying a word.
Kimber smiled at him winningly and said, ‘Listen, you can keep the videos. I’ve finished with the videos.’
You could see the tremble in Cuddon’s hands; violence reined in.
To Stella, Kimber said, ‘I did it, why don’t you believe me?’
Stella said, ‘Many sad people kill themselves; it’s a good solution.’
‘You ought to believe me.’
‘Some take pills; some jump off tall buildings.’
‘You’ll be sorry that you didn’t believe me.’
‘Some slash their wrists; some hang themselves.’
Kimber said, ‘You’ll see.’
Four thirty and already dark. Or what passes for dark in London: city-twilight. Stella stood by a squad-room window and watched Kimber as he flagged down a cab. Jack Cuddon was standing behind her, also watching. She walked out to the car park and Cuddon followed. He lit a cigarette against the chill. Neither had bothered to collect their coats. The wind brought tears to Stella’s eyes.
‘You were seconded,’ she said.
Cuddon nodded. Stella noticed that the face she had previously thought prim could become closed, etched with hard lines. His eyes were dark-rimmed, as if he hadn’t slept.
‘Where from?’ she asked.
‘Drugs.’
‘Never seen anything like this?’
‘Dealers and suppliers kill each other all the time: Yardies, Triads, Snakeheads, Turks. There’s a daily rate for the job.’
‘Anything like this?’
‘No.’
‘And you were never up close, were you? It was always admin, never the sharp end of things. You wouldn’t have been in the interview room or at Kimber’s flat if DC Greegan hadn’t keeled over with the flu.’
In the car-park lamplight, their faces were smudged with shadow under the eyes, their cheekbones pinched white with the cold.
‘He’d be better off dead.’
It was what Anne Beaumont had said. Stella shook her head. ‘He didn’t do it.’
‘He’s walking the streets now.’
‘Jack, he didn’t kill her.’
‘He did other things. You were in that flat.’
Stella said, ‘You’ve got something to say. Say it.’
He walked off a little way, disputing with himself, then came back. ‘My wife was raped, it was before I met her, he stalked her for a while, that came out later, but she hadn’t known about it, then he raped her, he’d done it to five other women, stalking at first, it always started that way, then raping, they didn’t catch him, not when my wife was attacked, they caught him after that, after he’d attacked two other women, this was seven years ago, she was twenty-eight, but I didn’t know until a few months back.’
He stopped as if he’d run out of story or out of breath, then shrugged suddenly and dropped his cigarette and trod on it and lit another.
‘When did you get married?’ Stella asked.
‘Four years ago.’
‘What changed things for her?’
‘He was released. Simple as that. They let him out. She couldn’t take it.’
‘A few months back,’ Stella guessed. Cuddon nodded. ‘How is she now?’
‘Difficult to tell,’ he said. ‘She doesn’t live with me any more; she lives in Prozac Land. A happy place where happy people smile happily all day long.’
The wind had a real edge. Stella wiped away tears with her cuff. ‘You wasted my time, Jack. I was an ace off charging him. Worse than that, whoever did kill Valerie Blake has been given more time.’
‘He’s walking the streets now,’ Cuddon said. ‘Kimber’s away free.’
‘Go home, Jack. You’re looking lousy. There’s something going round. We’ll have to find someone else. I’m really sorry.’
‘Are you?’
‘Believe me.’
‘He’s walking the streets,’ Cuddon said again. ‘Who knows what could happen?’
Mike Sorley was swimming in paper. He raised a hand as Stella came in: not waving but drowning. He said, ‘He’s gone –?’
‘Coming down with the flu,’ Stella said.
‘I’ll ask for a replacement.’ He checked his watch and lit up. ‘Why did he do it?’
Stella told him.
He said, ‘It wasn’t on his file.’
‘I’m not sure anyone knows.’
‘It should have been on his file.’ After a moment, he added, ‘It is now.’
*
Stella was in the women’s room. She emerged from a cubicle to find Maxine Hewitt washing her hands for the fifth time.
‘They sent you,’ Stella suggested. ‘The rest of the team.’
‘They sent me, yes – to ask what’s happening.’
Stella mentioned Jack Cuddon’s illness and Maxine observed that there was definitely something going round. Stella washed her hands and held them under the warm-air dryer; they were still cold enough to tingle slightly.
‘Why did he do it?’ Maxine asked.
Stella told her.
Maxine said nothing until they were walking down the corridor to the squad room. ‘I suppose we’re lucky he didn’t kill the bastard.’
Stella said, ‘I suppose so.’ Then, �
��Of course, he still might.’
14
Robert Adrian Kimber: Hello. We’ve never met, but I’ve been reading about you. Now that the police scene of crime tape has gone and the police have also gone, I thought I’d drop you a line. Throw you a line, you might say. Life-line of sorts.
I know how you feel. I know why you did what you did. If you want to know more about that – if you want to know more about me – put a card in the message-mart at ‘Store Twenty-Four’ in the North End Road about a missing cat called Nero. Also use the words: ‘Smoky-blue with a white tip to his tail’. Put your email address.
I hope you don’t mind that I took a look round. Finding you was easy. You just need contacts. I’ve got lots of contacts. The replacement door wasn’t very sturdy. In fact, a number of people had been in before me, but they didn’t find anything to take, of course, because the police had done that. I’m afraid someone pissed in your hallway. Some people are too stupid to live, aren’t they?
It was a shame they took the photos away but I enjoyed your stories. If you like the fiction you’d like the real-life version even more. You must have been thinking about that, haven’t you? I bet you have.
I would love to see your photos.
Can you guess who I am? I was so surprised when I saw Valerie’s name and yours linked in the press. It would be nice to have a chat about Valerie and what you told the police and what they said. You had them guessing for a good long time, I have to hand it to you.
Valerie. You were following her and the thing is I didn’t know. That’s the odd thing, the really odd thing – I didn’t know.
Don’t forget the cat’s name is Nero.
15
There were no roses in Rose Park. Winter roses, summer roses: you’d wait in vain. Maybe there had been once; maybe a rose garden had existed where now there was a scabby acre of grass and four chain-and-tyre swings. Maybe roses had once flourished next to those starved ornamental trees and the tangle of overgrown scrub.
Rose Park had a bad rep. You could check out the recreational tendencies of those who used the park from the litter of syringes and condoms. Dog-owners from Harefield would bring their pets along for a run and a dump. Now and then, young mothers new to the area might spot the swings and take their kids in, but they never went back. The locals, especially those from the Harefield Estate, used it as a short cut between the shops and the maze of small roads that led in and out of the bull ring.
That’s why Sophie Simms was walking through. It was a regular route for her and she wouldn’t have worried about Rose Park’s reputation anyway, as it was still light and there were people around in the streets. She was thinking about the guy she had spent the night with: a new guy – she’d been seeing him for a couple of weeks. She liked him, but there were problems, and she was having a little debate with herself.
He’s good looking but you know he’s into bad stuff.
Everyone’s into bad stuff.
No, really bad stuff.
He’s sweet when he’s on his own.
Meaning you don’t like his friends.
I’m not sleeping with his friends.
It’s drugs and it’s not now and then.
Good, I could use some drugs.
Me too. But it’s how deep he’s in. Those Yardie boys...
I can keep him clear of those guys.
You can?
Sure.
Tell me how.
Easy. I’ll never let him –
Sophie never finished telling herself how, because that was when the light suddenly faded to grey and things around her seemed to fly away. Seemed to scatter. She knew she was falling but didn’t know what had made that happen. There was a noise like a machine in her ears. She registered the pain a moment later, like a shout on the wind. It was bad, it struck every nerve in her body, but in her head it was immense: a red and white explosion too big to allow her to cry out. Then the noise stopped; the pain billowed; the grey became black.
She went on falling long after she hit the ground.
He pulled her into the scrub and knelt beside her. He hit her with the hammer twice more, bringing the blows down from as high as his arm could reach, then propped her against one of the ornamental trees and looped a length of woven cord round her neck but didn’t pull it tight. He stripped her from the waist down; he pulled off her leather jacket and pushed her sweater up under her chin. He was wearing a reversible coat, red one side, black the other. He switched the red for the black, then took a pack of babywipes out of his pocket and cleaned his face and hands very thoroughly. As he left, he dropped the clothes he’d taken from her into a skip.
She could have been anyone. In fact, he had picked out several other women, but something had happened to keep them safe: one had answered a mobile, another had taken a path that led away from the scrub-cover, on a couple of other occasions someone else had come into sight.
Sophie had been on her own in the park, just for a minute or so. She had taken the path near the scrub. A minute or two was what he needed. The first hammer blow had taken no time at all and he’d been in the scrub with her twenty seconds later. People can die that easily; they can die that fast.
But Sophie wasn’t dead.
It was dusk when Stella walked into Rose Park. There was a light drizzle on the wind, rain turning to ice. Back on the road there was a light-show of roof-bars and blue domes, their beams sweeping the bare branches of the ornamental trees. Sorley had put out a panic call and found a scene of crime officer to deputize for Andy Greegan. The guy had gone straight to the scene; now he was organizing halogens and nominating an entry/exit path to the site.
Stella could see he was doing a good job. She said, ‘You are?’
‘DC Silano, Boss.’ He had thinning hair, a long widow’s peak greying at the sides, but a boxer’s build. The straight nose and strong chin were masked a little by fleshiness; at a stone lighter, he would have been good-looking.
‘First name?’
‘Frank.’
‘Where did they find you, Frank?’
‘Paddington Green.’
‘Where is she?’
‘Charing Cross trauma unit. We’ve got some stills.’
‘At the scene?’
‘Yes.’
‘How did that happen?
‘Some kids found her. They robbed her and took off. Then one of them decided to call triple nine to report a body. A response team got here before the ambulance; one of the uniforms had a camera. They couldn’t risk moving her, so he fired off half a reel while the others were doing vital signs.’
‘Where’s the response team now?’
Silano nodded towards the road and the mish-mash of lights. ‘In the car. One of them went with the ambulance.’
Stella moved closer to the place where Sophie had lain. Forensics officers in white coveralls were going over the ground, moving slowly, sampling and bagging among the spikes and the dog turds. She could see where the grass was matted and sticky. When she stepped back to the path, Harriman was walking towards her, a little silver point-and-push camera in his hand.
Stella said, ‘Get someone down to the hospital.’
‘DC Hewitt’s on the way.’
‘Is that the camera?’
‘This is it. Be good, I should think: you can’t go wrong with these things, self-focusing, automatic flash.’
‘Did you get a verbal report?’
‘The uniforms say she was propped against a tree. There was a ligature round her neck, she was naked from the waist down, the rest of her clothing had been pushed up under her chin. No sign of the missing clothing as yet. The police doctor went with her in the ambulance. According to the uniforms, the doctor gave it as multiple blows to the head with a blunt instrument.’
‘It’s the Valerie Blake MO.’
‘Identical,’ Harriman said.
There were streetlights and shop-window neon and headlights, but there were no lights in the park. Stella looked up the path towa
rds the exit that led off to the Harefield Estate. She could see the tops of the tower blocks, a more solid grey against the darkening sky. She remembered walking back across the park with bags from the mini-mart: nine, maybe ten years old; she remembered the man who had opened his coat to her; she remembered the gangs of kids steaming through on stolen bikes. How many of those kids had survived, she wondered; how many had escaped?
Stella Mooney, Detective Sergeant, AMIP-5 murder squad. Most Harefield kids went the other route: druggies, crooks, hookers, dealers. Maybe you don’t make the choice, she thought, maybe it’s all down to chance, a decision so small you can’t remember it, a choice based on next to nothing.
A figure was standing at the top of the path. Stella didn’t see him at first because his silhouette was muddled with the railings that ringed the park; then he shifted his weight and, for a moment, came clear.
Without looking away from that shadow, Stella said, ‘The guys in that response vehicle will know the patch. Tell them to drive to the north side of the park. The path we’re on now leads to a side street, then there’s an alley, then a main road, then you get into Harefield. Tell them to park across the alley.’
Harriman followed her eyeline. He said, ‘Where?’, then the shadow moved again. ‘Okay, I see.’
‘I won’t move until he does. Go with them. Leave the driver in the car and take the other guy with you. Call me when you’re in position, then start down the alley. I’ll move up from here.’
‘Not without some help.’
‘I’ll take this guy, Silano. He looks handy.’
Harriman started back to the road, walking quickly, resisting the urge to run. Stella moved a little way into the tree-cover, keeping to the tape-lines set out to protect the site. She wanted to maintain a fix on the shadow, but she had the light from the street behind her, so she was a silhouette too. She moved further into the trees, wanting to be inconspicuous. It was a good thought, though others weren’t thinking as fast. The guy driving the response vehicle came off the verge fast, saw a gap between a panel truck and a toy sports, and hit the siren. Harriman yelled at him, but by the time the driver killed the noise they had hit the main road intersection and the shadow was peeling away from the railings, now a lower, sleeker shape – that of a man starting to run.
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