by Cara Hunter
‘Look,’ says Fawley, ‘I buy everything you say about this generation not caring which gender people are, or even if they have one at all, but the fact remains that Faith herself does care. She’s going out of her way to keep her private life private, and that could give someone a motive. Either a motive to out her or –’
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ says Somer, cutting across. There’s a flush to her cheeks now. ‘But I just don’t think this is getting us anywhere. I know Faith is incredibly wary about coming out as trans, but so what? We don’t all exhibit our personal lives on Facebook for the world to see. People keep all sorts of things secret for all sorts of perfectly good reasons – not just their sexuality but where they come from, whether they’re in a relationship, or religious, or pregnant –’
There’s an awkward pause. An intake of breath. Gis has a moment of panic – no one else knows about that, do they? And in any case, he knows he didn’t let it slip. But if anything it’s Asante Fawley is looking at.
‘So,’ says Fawley icily. ‘What do you suggest we do instead?’
Somer flushes again. ‘I’m not saying we rule out a possible link – of course not, we can’t.’ She stares him in the eye and her chin lifts. ‘But if you’re asking for my opinion, I think we should start looking back through our old cases. Because I’m prepared to bet this isn’t the first time this man has done something like this.’
Gis glances back at Fawley, and for the tiniest moment there’s something on his face Gis has never seen before. Not anger now, something else. Something that, in another man, you might even call fear.
The others must have seen it too, because the room is suddenly falling silent.
Fawley takes a deep breath. ‘There’s something I need to tell you. About the Appleford case.’
* * *
‘Denise? It’s Fiona. I just wanted to check – Sasha did stay over with Patsie at yours last night, didn’t she?’
She’s gripping the phone so tight she can feel her own heartbeat against the plastic. As long as she answers straight away it’s OK – as long as she answers straight away –
There’s a silence – an intake of breath. Please – please –
‘I’m sorry, Fiona, but I haven’t seen her. Patsie got back about 10.15 but she didn’t have Sasha with her.’
Fiona can hear it in her voice. That toxic combination of sympathy and relief. That it’s not her daughter who’s not where she should be – it’s not her world tipping into disaster.
‘Do you want to speak to Patsie?’
Fiona grasps at the offer like a drowning woman. ‘Yes, yes – could I? Is she there?’
‘I was just about to drive her in –’
‘Could I just speak to her?’
‘Sorry, of course. Hold on a minute.’
The phone goes mute and Fiona imagines the woman going out to the bottom of the stairs and calling up. Imagines Patsie coming slowly down, looking confused, wondering what Fiona is doing calling her this early – calling her at all –
The sound comes on again. ‘Yes?’ The girl is slightly out of breath.
‘Hi, Patsie,’ she says, forcing casualness into her voice. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing, but Sasha isn’t here. I thought she said she was staying over with you last night?’
‘She was going to but then she changed her mind.’
Fiona’s breath is so shallow she has to sit down. She can’t afford to lose it – she has to think clearly –
‘So when did you last see her?’
‘On the bus. She was still on it when I got off.’
‘What time was that?’
‘Dunno – about 10.00?’
The fist tightens another notch. It’s only a ten-minute walk from the bus stop – she should have been home by 10.15 – 10.30 at the latest –
‘Have you tried calling her mobile?’
Of course she’s tried calling her bloody mobile, she’s been calling and texting every five minutes – she must have left a dozen messages – two dozen –
‘It’s just going straight to voicemail.’
‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Blake – I really really want to help but I just don’t know anything.’
Fiona feels the tears come into her eyes. She’s always liked Patsie – ever since she was a little girl with her hair in plaits and scratches on her knees. And these days she seems to spend more time at their house than she does at her own.
‘You will call me, won’t you, if you hear from Sash? Just get her to ring me? Tell her I’m really worried.’
Suddenly she hears the girl’s breathing change – hears the gasp of real fear. ‘But she is all right, isn’t she?’
‘I’m sure she is,’ says Fiona firmly. ‘It’s probably just a silly mix-up. I bet she’s already at school and will give me a right talking-to later for embarrassing her like this.’
But when she puts down the phone there’s a fist of ice around her lungs.
* * *
Adam Fawley
4 April 2018
08.55
I open the cardboard file in front of me and take out two sheets of paper. A couple of people exchange surreptitious glances, wondering what the hell this is about.
‘I spoke to Alan Challow yesterday. He’s had the results on Faith Appleford’s shoes.’
I turn and pin the papers to the whiteboard, hearing the slight stirring behind me.
I take my time, but in the end I have to face them. ‘Along with soil from the allotment site and bits of gravel and all the other usual crap, he found something else. Something we didn’t expect. Traces of calcium sulphate.’
They’re none the wiser. Of course they aren’t. None of them were here back then, not even Baxter. Quinn looks at me and shrugs. ‘And?’
‘It’s plaster dust.’
‘So, you think our bloke is, what – a builder? Decorator?’
The glances aren’t surreptitious now; some people are frowning, openly confused. Others are wondering why I’ve been sitting on this – why I didn’t mention it straight away – and why, incidentally, we’ve been wasting time with bloody carpet cleaners and locksmiths. But they know better than to say any of that out loud. Asante, on the other hand, apparently doesn’t.
‘When exactly did you speak to Challow about this, sir?’ he says as the noise in the room rises. ‘Only I spoke to him at six o’clock last night and he never said anything to me.’
I feel myself flushing. ‘I asked him not to.’
Asante frowns and opens his mouth to say something but I cut across him. ‘There was another case in this area. Twenty years ago. They called him the Roadside Rapist.’
Some of them register recognition; most don’t. Somer is staring at me. As well she might.
‘He raped six young women and attempted to rape a seventh,’ I continue. ‘And he brutalized them. One of his victims lost an eye. Another committed suicide a few months after she was attacked.’
‘But he was convicted, wasn’t he?’ says Ev. ‘The man who did it? I can’t remember his name – Gareth something?’
‘Gavin Parrie. He’s currently doing life in Wandsworth.’
She looks bewildered. ‘In that case, why –?’
‘Parrie ripped out his victims’ hair. It was one of his signatures.’
Gislingham gets the point at once, but he’s still reserving judgement. ‘That doesn’t prove anything. Not necessarily.’
I look round the room. Slowly. ‘Parrie dragged his victims off the street, put plastic bags over their heads and bound their wrists with cable ties.’
‘Even so, sir …’ begins Ev. But I can see the beginnings of doubt in her eyes.
‘The last two women to be attacked were thrown into a van and driven away. Traces of calcium sulphate were found on both of them.’
‘So this bloke Parrie was a plasterer?’ asks Ev.
I shake my head. ‘No, he just did odd jobs, house clearance, that sort of thing. But his brother was a builder. Our theory was th
at Parrie borrowed the brother’s van to commit those two assaults, though we were never able to prove it, and there were no forensics in either his van or his brother’s by the time we got our hands on them.’
Quinn gives a low whistle. ‘Holy shit.’
‘But Parrie’s never admitted responsibility, has he?’ says Asante slowly. ‘Because if he had, he’d have been out by now.’
Asante’s sharp, no question.
‘No, DC Asante, he hasn’t admitted it. He’s always maintained that we set him up – that he’s entirely innocent, and someone else attacked those women. And given that sex offenders have to admit guilt to be eligible for rehabilitation, that’s stood against him with the Parole Board. At least, till now.’
Somer frowns. ‘You said “we set him up”? It was your case?’
I nod. ‘I was DS. Alastair Osbourne was SIO. But it’s me he blames. Me he thinks framed him.’
They’re not meeting my eye now, and I know why. It’s every copper’s nightmare. A case like this, rising from the grave.
I sweep a look round the room, trying to get them to meet my gaze. ‘I am absolutely convinced that we got the right man. I was then and I am now. But if the press gets hold of this – well, we all know what will happen then. Shit hitting the fan won’t be in it. On top of which, if Parrie’s barrister is even halfway competent he’s going to use the parallels with the Appleford investigation to raise fifty shades of reasonable doubt about the original conviction.’
There’s a shifting in the room now, a sense of adjustment, of recalibration. This is not the case they thought it was. It’s not the case I thought it was either, and yes, I probably spent far too long refusing to believe what was in front of my face. I’m expecting them to be pissed off with me – for that alone, if nothing else – and for some of them, at least, to show it. Quinn certainly, perhaps even Ev. But she’s staring at Gis. And she’s not the only one. It’s a look that says: You’re supposed to be DS. Say something. And all at once it hits me that they’re going to take their cue from him. And in that realization, I learn something else: what a damn good DS Gis has become.
Gislingham turns to me. His face is completely calm. ‘We’ve got your back, sir. I know I don’t need to say that, but I’m saying it anyway. We’ve got your back.’
* * *
After his big reveal, Fawley only stays for another ten minutes. Gis decides to take that as a compliment – after all this time with the boss breathing down his neck, suddenly there’s nothing behind him but cold fresh air. But at least he understands what all that was about now. No wonder the poor sod was under the cosh – who wouldn’t be, with something like that hanging over you. He must have been bricking it. And as Gis well knows, old cases that come back to haunt you are like the undead – it’s next to impossible to kill them off again.
As the door of the incident room swings shut behind the DI, Gis turns to face his team.
‘Right. Fawley didn’t say this, but I’m going to. If anyone has any reservations at all about this Parrie case, then speak now or keep shtum, OK? We all know the boss – he isn’t just a bloody good copper, he’s as straight as a die. There is no way – no way – he’d fit anyone up. And if you’ve even the slightest doubt about that fact then sorry, but you’ve no place in this team. Do I make myself clear?’
Evidently he does. The energy in the room lifts a level. People look up, stand a little straighter.
‘Good. So let’s bloody well get on with it, shall we? Because the quickest way to get Fawley out of the shit, and do ourselves a big favour at the same time, is to find the bastard who assaulted Faith and put paid to this Parrie crap once and for all.’
Murmurs of ‘Yes, Sarge,’ ‘Right, Sarge.’
‘OK then. DC Quinn, can you and Everett start with the builders on the petrol station CCTV we still haven’t managed to speak to.’
Baxter looks up. ‘And there are two or three other vans going past on the road that look to me like they could be builders.’
‘OK,’ says Quinn, ‘give me what you’ve got and we’ll try and track them down.’
Gis turns to Somer. ‘I need you to talk to Faith – see if the plaster thing means anything to her. It’s possible she knows someone in that sort of trade. I don’t think it’s very likely, but it’s a question we have to ask.’
‘Of course, Sarge. I was going to check how she’s doing anyway.’
‘And when you’ve done that, help out Quinn and Ev with the builders.’
People are dispersing now and Gislingham takes advantage of the distraction to take Baxter quietly aside.
‘I don’t know about you, but all that stuff about Parrie – it was a bit bloody close to home. I’m not saying the boss got it wrong back then, but the similarities are, well, you know.’
Baxter’s face is a masterclass of silent eloquence.
‘So what do you think? A copycat?’
Baxter considers. ‘Has to be a possibility. Though he’d have to know a shitload about the MO to be able to pull it off. I mean – plaster dust wouldn’t be hard to get hold of, but only as long as you knew about it in the first place.’
‘Yeah,’ says Gis thoughtfully. ‘That’s just what I was thinking. Have a look online – see how much you could find out that way.’
Baxter nods. ‘I can dig out the trial transcripts, too.’
‘Good idea. Best we know exactly what we’re dealing with.’
He turns to go, then stops and touches Baxter lightly on the arm. ‘Though let’s keep it between ourselves for the moment, yeah?’
* * *
At 11.15 Ev parks her Mini in a narrow street off Osney Lane, outside the offices of one of the builders on Baxter’s list. Their boards are all over north and central Oxford, outside big Victorian houses bristling with scaffolding and college buildings swathed in plastic sheets, which emerge like butterflies from pupae, grey turned gold and the stone new-shone. The premises is a converted warehouse, a chic conversion in brick and glass and wood that gives its own understated but unambiguous message about the sort of outfit this is. The same message as the carefully consistent branding – the elegant typeface and the dark teal blue that appears to be on every item capable of taking dye – ‘Make no mistake about it, this is a class operation’.
There’s no sign of Quinn yet so she wanders up and down a bit; it’s not a neighbourhood she knows that well so it’s an opportunity to be a bit nosey. This was an industrial area once but these days it looks as clean as a film set. From the ‘artisanal bean’ coffee shop on the corner to the über-classy block of flats opposite – that’s the sort of place she’d imagine Fawley living in if she didn’t already know he has an unexpectedly ordinary semi on the Risinghurst estate, just east of the ring road.
‘You all right?’
Quinn’s voice behind her takes her by surprise.
‘Had to drive round the block three times before I could find anywhere to bloody park,’ he says tetchily, staring (none too subtly) at where she’s left her Mini. She wonders for a moment whether to point out she only got a space because she’s been here over half an hour, but decides it isn’t worth it.
‘Right,’ he says, pulling the list from his coat and looking up at the building. ‘This lot are called Mark Rose & Co. Founded by the said Mr Rose ten years ago and doing pretty well as far as I could work out. They do commercial and residential work and some specialist stuff for the university. Forty-two full-time employees and about the same number of contractors.’ He tucks the pages back in his pocket and the two of them walk up to the front door.
They’re expected. There’s a cafetière and a plate of gold-wrapped biscuits set up and waiting in a meeting room on the ground floor, and the smart and efficient (male) receptionist assures them that Mr Rose is on his way. Ev can see that Quinn’s doing his best not to look impressed, but the surroundings are having an impact on him all the same. He picks up one of the glossy brochures on the table and starts studying it with what looks
to Ev like more than idle interest.
Rose arrives barely two minutes after the receptionist has gone. He has a tan, pale-cream chinos, a button-down pink shirt and an iPad. It’s the same model as Quinn’s. Ev suppresses a smile; boys and their toys. Rose smiles at them both, holding steady eye contact. ‘Good morning, officers. I hope you’re being well looked after?’
Ev reaches for her coffee. The mug is blue. The same blue as the vans and the logo and the receptionist’s tie. Diane Appleford would give her eye teeth for colour coordination of that calibre. And the coffee is – predictably – very good. Everett also has a weather eye on the biscuits. She isn’t going to get caught eating one in public but she might try to snaffle a couple as they leave. It’s always worth having something in your back pocket for the next time you need a favour from Baxter.
‘My assistant said it was something to do with our vans,’ begins Rose. ‘But I’ve done a quick check and everything is definitely up-to-date. Road tax, MOTs –’
‘It’s nothing like that,’ says Quinn quickly. ‘It’s about a young woman who was attacked on Monday on Rydal Way.’
‘I’m not with you.’
‘She was forced into a van and taken to the allotments on the Marston Ferry Road.’
Rose blinks. A frown is forming. ‘But there are hundreds of vans in Oxford –’
Quinn nods. ‘No doubt. But we have reason to believe one of your vans was in the vicinity at the time.’
Rose looks a little pale under his tan. ‘I see.’
‘Buying petrol at the BP on the roundabout, to be precise.’
Rose reaches for his iPad and turns it on. ‘If you bear with me a moment I’ll run a quick check on exactly where our crews were last Monday.’
‘Seriously?’ says Quinn, unable to contain the surprise in his voice. ‘You can do that?’
Rose shrugs; if you hold as many cards as he does you can afford to be gracious. ‘The vans are tracked by satnav. And we keep all the records. This is a premium-priced operation, Officer. I can’t afford complaints so I need to know where my people are. What time was it you were interested in?’