‘It might be… something on the pillow.’
‘A trace of yourself.’
‘Just a trace. Just a smear. Or I’d lick the cups.’
Bloss looked at him, almost startled. ‘What?’
‘The cups in her cupboard. Lick them.’
Bloss smiled. ‘Yes, I like that.’
‘But I never did what you’ve done. How is it? How does it make you feel?’
‘You know,’ Bloss said, ‘I made a bit of a mistake with Valerie. I wanted to make it look like sex. Like a sex thing. I took her clothes off and left them somewhere else. There had been other attacks, I’d read about them, and I’d sort of got the idea that they were about sex as much as killing. He used a garrotte.’ Bloss paused; a light smile washed his face. ‘Very personal; very hands on.’
‘That’s why you did Sophie the same way.’
Bloss was silent a while, then he said, ‘Yes.’
‘I knew her,’ Kimber said. ‘She was seeing a guy… a few doors down from me. Well, didn’t know her, but I knew who she was. I used to see her go past, see them going somewhere together, see her crossing Rose Park from time to time.’
‘There you go,’ Bloss said. ‘It’s all connected. The world works that way.’
‘I even thought about following her sometimes. Not serious, because she was an estate girl, but I thought I might get a clipping. She had nice hair.’
Bloss said, ‘Is that right? I didn’t notice.’
‘They kept asking me how I’d killed her. Valerie.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Boxed clever. Tried to. I didn’t know about the garrotte.’
‘It’s a very personal way of doing it. You can feel them going. And it’s up to you how fast. It’s an inch by inch thing.’
‘But you used the hammer.’
‘To quieten her down.’
‘No, I mean with Sophie.’
‘Ah, yes. To make it look like the others. And I left the ligature to link Sophie to Valerie. So they would think of them as all of a piece – all the attacks.’ Bloss shook his head and gave a little laugh. ‘I don’t usually do things that way.’
‘How then?’
‘Whatever occurs. Common mugging. Break-in gone wrong. Sometimes an accident if the opportunity presents. You have to be ready to improvise. You know the way a carpenter will go with the grain? Like that.’
A craftsman talking to an apprentice. Kimber could envisage the learning curve.
They walked back in a rising wind. Kimber said, ‘Can I have it?’
Bloss knew he meant Valerie’s gold cross. He shook his head. ‘I’d like to, but it’s spoken for.’
‘How many?’ he asked. ‘All in all.’
He meant how many trophies; how many dead.
‘I don’t know,’ Bloss said. ‘I try not to look back. Nostalgia’s an overrated thing.’
28
Sue Chapman had been replaced by Marilyn Hayes, one of the team’s civilian computer operatives. The people working with Marilyn had shared her tasks between them. Paperwork and budget: the operational watchwords. Marilyn was striking. She had good looks, a great figure, a tumble of black curls, and you could only wear those jeans with those fashion boots if you had great legs. The most striking thing about her from Pete Harriman’s point of view was the wedding ring.
As Harriman passed her desk, Stella smiled. She said, ‘Life is full of little disappointments.’
Harriman was silent on the subject.
Marilyn patched a call through to Stella. Tom Davison said, ‘You asked after my underwear, DS Mooney. I can tell you that it’s a very full topic.’
‘Crowded, I imagine.’
‘Packed with good things.’
‘What you don’t know about me,’ Stella said, ‘is that I’m a year off retirement and have problems with weight and alopecia.’
‘That’s not what the hidden-camera shows. I’ve got a DNA match for you.’
‘That was fast.’
‘Not the clothes and shoes from the warehouse. I’m talking about the scenes of crime – Sophie Simms and Valerie Blake.’
For a moment, Stella missed the point. Then she said, ‘A match?’
‘All over the place. The unidentified DNA at the Blake scene of crime is also present at the Simms scene of crime.’
‘Does it incriminate?’
‘I’d say so, yes. There are traces at the wound sites.’
‘Male?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Stranger things have happened. Have you cross-referenced with –’
‘The earlier attacks? Yes. Not present.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘We don’t work alone down here.’
‘What?’
‘These results were checked by two other guys.’
‘Can I get this in writing?’
‘I’ll fax it through.’
‘Can you do it now?’
‘I’m sitting by the fax machine as we speak.’
Sorley had his coat on. His desk was a swamp, but at least he was walking away from it. Stella came in with more paper and he stood up to read it.
‘It’s the same guy. It’s not Kimber, it’s not linked to the other attacks. We’ve got a series of two, positively linked, apparently random, apparently motiveless.’
‘The others were random and motiveless.’
‘But they weren’t committed by our man.’
Sorley picked up his briefcase, heavy with paperwork. He handed the report back to Stella. ‘Okay, he killed our two, he didn’t kill the others, it doesn’t bring us any nearer to finding the bastard, does it?’
‘No, but it means we’ve got his DNA. It also means that we don’t have to transfer Blake and Simms to the other teams.’
Sorley hefted the briefcase, testing its weight. ‘Oh, good.’
As she was leaving, Nick Robson handed her a brown office envelope. Nick was tall and had a moustache that was too old for his face. ‘The package waiting for Valerie Blake at the Post Office,’ he said. ‘A video. It was in a padded bag: I’ve sent that off to Forensics along with the video-sleeve. We dusted the vid and it was clean, so I think it’s okay to let it go.’
‘What’s on it?’
‘It was a plain sleeve.’
‘But you didn’t play it?’
‘We haven’t got a VCR.’ Stella put the envelope in her bag and headed for the door. Robson said, ‘How well do you know that guy Davison in Forensics?’
‘Never met him.’
‘Really?’ Robson said. ‘He seemed to know a lot about you.’
She walked past her car and straight across the road to the pub. It was instinct more than choice. When she’d been with George, towards the end when going home had seemed either too bleak an option or too cosy, she would hole up in the pub for a couple of early-evening drinks. A couple, or three. She would take the day’s reports and browse through them, as if she were there for just that purpose though, in truth, she needed time out of time, a place where she didn’t belong.
Maybe it was having gone back to the Vigo Street flat. Maybe it was that she couldn’t bring herself to lie in the bed, or it was almost believing she could hear George’s voice, or being up at 3 a.m. with a bottle of Stoli.
Old habits.
She ordered a drink: shot-glass, ice, vodka. She had drunk it and its partner when she saw Harriman sitting in a booth at the far end of the bar. She took her last drink, her final drink, and sat down with him. He said he was just killing time.
‘Until –?’
‘I’m meeting someone. No point in going home.’ She fished in her bag and handed him the report Davison had faxed through. He angled it to the light to read. The pub was dressed for Christmas and the lamps were covered with a holly and ivy crêpe-paper trim.
‘Doesn’t help us find him,’ he observed.
‘Sorley said that.’
‘But it lets us know what to focus on.’
&
nbsp; ‘Exactly.’
Harriman sipped his beer, looking at Stella over the glass. He said, ‘Don’t laugh, okay?’
‘Okay.’
‘Did you know Maxine Hewitt’s gay?’
‘Well, I’m afraid I did, yes.’ She was laughing despite her promise.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Thank you very much.’
She had walked back to her car when she saw Marilyn Hayes leaving. In the car-park lights it was possible to see that Marilyn had freshened her make-up, and the jeans–boots combination looked as good as ever.
Stella watched her across the road and into the pub.
Never second-guess a class operator.
29
Delaney said, ‘You don’t look good.’
‘I didn’t sleep.’ Stella was cooking. She had called in to an Eight-til-Late on her way back and picked up salmon steaks and salad, which was as close to the notion of ingredients as she was prepared to get. He’d opened a bottle of wine, but she’d poured herself a vodka.
‘Bad dreams –’
‘No dreams at all.’
He put his arms round her and kissed her. The liquor had made her breath hot and heady. He said, ‘I love you,’ which was true and she knew it.
‘How are your street-people?’
‘They’re out in the cold.’
‘In both senses’
‘Exactly. They’re beginning to sense a genuine affinity with the Baby Jesus.’
‘But they’re good copy.’
‘Couldn’t wish for better.’
‘This case,’ Stella said, ‘this fucking case is going a step forward and a leap backwards.’
‘What’s the step forward?’
‘We found a DNA match at the Simms and Blake scenes of crime. Exclusive to those scenes.’
‘And it doesn’t belong to Robert Kimber.’
‘No, it doesn’t.’
‘But that still doesn’t help you find –’
Stella held up a hand to stop him going any further. ‘It should have been Kimber,’ she said. ‘He sounded right and he felt right and he had the look.’
‘What look?’
‘You know it when you see it.’
‘Copper’s instinct.’
‘That would be it.’
‘Gut feeling… sort of a hunch, really.’
‘Shut up.’ She hit him on the arm, laughing, and turned to put the salmon into the oven. ‘Make the salad. You open the bag and invert it over a bowl; tricky till you get the hang of it.’
Delaney opened his mouth to tell her about Kimber’s emails, then closed it again. He wasn’t through with Kimber: there was more to be had. But if he let Stella know that he’d visited the man and interviewed him, that chance would be lost. All he’d hear would be the sound of doors slamming and one of them would probably be the door to his flat.
Valerie Blake’s video was lying on the worktop. He moved it to find a place for the salad bowl. ‘What’s this?’
‘I don’t know yet,’ she said. ‘Put it on.’
Stella cut a lemon into quarters. She dropped one of the quarters into her drink and splashed a little more vodka into the glass.
Delaney poured vinegar and oil into a screwtop jar. He added a little Dijon mustard and some crushed garlic and shook the jar hard.
Kimber said, ‘Hello, Valerie. You don’t know me but I know you.’
Stella paused, the glass at her lip. Delaney paused in mid shake. The man on the video was wearing a face-mask made of some thin, glossy material, satin or silk, with holes cut for the eyes and mouth. His lips were slightly pursed and damp and pink. Even though the tape was short, he had a lot to say for himself.
After a while, Stella said, ‘It’s Kimber.’
Delaney knew it was but couldn’t say so. They watched it three times. Later, Marilyn Hayes would make a transcript of it for circulation, and, as she set down the words, she would feel her face burn, feel the nerves in her back jump as if someone had pulled a wet thread in her spine.
Hello, Valerie. You don’t know me but I know you. I know where you go and what you do. I know where you live… as you can tell, or how could I have sent you this message? What did you think when the postman delivered it? Something a friend had sent? And what do you think now? [LAUGHTER] Well, I am a friend, Valerie. Think of me as a friend you haven’t met as yet. A friend in the offing, you might say. I watched you reading on the tube the other day. I don’t read much, really, but I might try that book, just to imagine you following the story, just to share it with you. I like it when you go jogging, Valerie. I can see your shape. I can see your breasts move. I like the way your hair lifts in the wind when it’s not tied back. When you’re walking in the street you look from side to side, look into shops. If you’d known, you might have seen my reflection there sometimes, just behind you, waiting for you to set off again. Sometimes I’ll be coming towards you, sometimes I’ll be behind you. You never knew, did you? I’m always there. It would be no good looking, because I’m just one in a crowd. How would you know me? You don’t know me, but I know you. [LAUGHTER] I think I’ll come over and see you some night. I think I’ll come round. You’ll be asleep. Fast asleep, but when you wake up I’ll be there. I’ll be there in the room with you. And we’ll have such fun. [LAUGHTER] Let me tell you what we’re going to do...
After the screen went to blue for the third time, Stella speed-dialled Sorley and held the phone close to the TV while he listened.
He said, ‘What do you want to do? We know he’s not our man.’
‘What we do know is that he’s a stalker and he had a lot of fun at our expense. Now this. Intimidation, issuing threats, obscene articles through the post, intent to commit a serious crime, you name it. And he’s walking the streets, free as air.’
‘You want to nail him anyway.’
‘That’s right. Bring him in and hand him over to Serious Crimes. He’ll have sent other videos to other victims. There’ll be crime reports. DNA, voice-printing, shouldn’t be difficult.’
‘You could give them the video. Let them go after him.’
‘Why wait?’
‘Is this personal, Stella?’
‘Yes, it’s personal.’
‘Fair enough. Go and get the bastard.’
The message she left on Pete Harriman’s mobile said, ‘I know what you’re doing and I know who you’re doing it with, but you’re missing all sorts of fun at sixteen thirty-one, Block C.’
She took Maxine Hewitt and Frank Silano and called in two ARV teams to watch their backs. The Hatton gun made a bass-percussion sound as it took the door out, but at that time of night it was one bass-percussion sound among many.
There was a detritus of odds and ends scattered about and, in Kimber’s bedroom, the closets and drawers were empty. The scant furniture was still in place, but the small workstation had gone. They made a search anyway, but it was clear there would be nothing to find.
‘Think he knew,’ Silano asked, ‘or got lucky?’
‘Lucky. Two hours ago, I didn’t know myself.’
Silano took the kitchen. A full rubbish bin, stale food, cardboard sleeves from ready meals.
Maxine took the bedroom. A jumble of unwanted clothes and a dirty sheet heaped on the mattress; she turned them with latex-gloved hands.
Stella took the main room. Circulars, giveaways, pizza vouchers.
John Delaney’s business card.
As they were leaving Kimber’s apartment, the Drugs Squad were emerging from Jaz’s place. Jaz was with them, his wrists snared by plastic handcuffs. When he spotted Maxine, he looked puzzled for a moment, then he saw the light. He showed her his teeth and she smiled back at him.
‘I told you,’ she said, ‘that it was just a matter of time.’
The girl stood in the doorway, looking a little unsteady on her feet. She focused on Maxine and called her a fucking bitch, but didn’t know what to do next.
Stella watched as Jaz was hauled off. She said, ‘Did you d
o that?’
Maxine shrugged. ‘Someone certainly did.’
‘Ask me,’ Stella told her. ‘Ask me before you call up the heavy squad.’
‘I didn’t say it was me.’
‘No, you didn’t,’ Stella agreed. She might have been smiling.
In the bull ring, a group of boys had gathered, hoodies pulled forward, diesel denim scuffing the ground. Stella and Frank Silano got into the car, but Maxine delayed a moment. She pointed at the boys, her thumb cocked.
‘You’re next,’ she advised them, and her thumb wagged: one round, two rounds, three. Blam-blam-blam!
30
Bloss and Kimber strolling on the Strip, up among the druggies and the whores, the dealers and the high-rollers. The night was cold, but everyone was out to play. Although it wasn’t raining, there was a light mist in the air, a thin cloud of droplets that carried exhaust gases and fast-food stain and ganja-smoke and a rainbow haze of neon. Bloss had taken Kimber to a studio flat on the main road, just before you hit the Strip. It was over a bookie’s and faced the cemetery. Just now, they were checking the territory; they were getting the lie of the land.
‘Anyone,’ Bloss was saying. ‘Anyone you choose. But here’s the trick: it has to be someone you don’t know. Who doesn’t know you. As if they were random.’
‘They always are,’ Kimber told him. ‘The ones I follow.’
‘We’re not talking about following.’ Then Bloss checked his stride and glanced at Kimber. ‘Are we?’
Kimber looked away to where a girl was making a sale to a punter driving a family hatchback, bending low to give him a good look at what was on offer. She undid the top button of her fake-fur coat and named a price. All the girls were wearing fur: red, blue, pink, black, orange, tiger-striped or pinto.
‘Her?’ Bloss asked. ‘Yes, it could be her. Bit close to home, perhaps.’
Kimber nodded. ‘I used to see a girl up here. Nancy.’ He looked round as if he might find her. ‘I paid her, you know. I like that. It’s the best way. I paid and I did what I wanted.’
‘And what was that?’
‘Games.’
They walked a little further. The whores eyed them but didn’t approach. Bloss had a look that said Not me; not now. The pimps eyed them too, then shrugged and turned away; these guys weren’t punters and they weren’t cops, so obviously they had business of their own and as long as it didn’t stop the hookers hooking, the pimps would have no complaints.
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