Blue On Blue

by Dal Maclean

  “Power,” Will repeated blankly. What power did Ava think Kelly had?

  “She can get June to help, or not. And . . . I had to tell you too. She has information.”

  Will expelled a heavy breath. He was starting to suspect now that it was a weird, twisted dream and he was going to wake up beside Tom, with the TV appearance still ahead. It was as ridiculous and full of gaping holes in logic, as only dreams could be.

  “How would Eve Kelly know who I am? Or that you’re connected to me? How does she know anything about me?”

  “I don’t know,” Ava burst out. “I was just told . . . I had to pass on the message. And now I have.” The last few words were loud, as if she hoped someone would inform Eve.

  “Why would she use Max’s name?”

  Ava’s face crumpled and her breath sobbed. “Because anyone looking into it will blame Max’s brother. Or his friends. So she has deniability. She likes hurting people and she likes being cleverer than anyone else.”

  Will rubbed a hand over his face. Christ.

  “You know I have to report this conversation. Which means she’ll be . . . .”

  “I’ll deny it.” Ava’s voice shook with what sounded like panic. “I’ll say you made it up. Will . . . please. You have to ask the Director to put me in segregation. Please Will. Please. I don’t even know if that’ll stop her.”

  At last, he felt a spasm of something like pity for her.

  What a way to live out your days.

  “I’ll try,” he said.

  Finally she lost the threads of her control. She began to cry inconsolably, like a child.

  “I’m sorry Will! Tell Tommy I’m sorry!”

  He actually believed she was. She’d probably been sorry about every person she’d killed, to serve her brother.

  Will waited till he was back in his car to call Hansen’s mobile.

  He was still not entirely convinced he was awake.

  But he gave Hansen an edited version of events, beginning with the need to segregate Ava and moving on to the discovery of June’s DNA at a fresh murder scene, culminating in the bizarre interview he’d just conducted.

  He found he didn’t have the mental energy to even try to disentangle it in his head, because he knew most of the information he would need to make coherent sense of it, was missing.

  He had Eve Kelly, June Winton and Ava Burchill in the mix. And Daria Ivanescu.

  Fucking hell.

  He should be in the office, guiding the search for Daria’s killer as Ingham had trusted him to do. Instead, he was wasting crucial hours, dancing on Hansen’s strings.

  Hansen listened without interruption, which impressed him, because Will knew he’d have been laughing his bollocks off if she’d tried to sell this debrief to him.

  She hummed thoughtfully when he ground to a halt. “Well. Isn’t that intriguing?”

  “Not necessarily the word I’d have chosen Ma’am,” he said.

  But again Hansen ignored the clipped hostility in his tone. “Where are you now?”

  “About to leave Chertsey to head back to the station.” It was already early afternoon, most of the day wasted on shit. He felt restless and worried by the bizarre pointlessness of the distraction, agitation pricking his skin.

  “Since you’re there,” Hansen said, “head for Bronzefield. It’s not far away.”

  Any last urge to diplomacy blinked out. “It’s almost two hours!” Will protested. “And we don’t need Winton’s DNA. I’m supposed to be leading a murder inquiry! Ma’am. Not to mention heading the unit until the DCI gets back. I can’t just. . . .”

  “Brief them from the car,” Hansen cut in. “We can’t ignore this. I’m going to get you immediate permission for an interview. I want to know what Eve Kelly wants.”

  And again, there was no more room for argument.

  Ingham had ordered Will to ignore June’s bizarre link to the case; Hansen was ordering him to follow it up, if only by default. Hansen outranked Ingham. He had no choice. But he was aware that he was now totally, unambiguously in agreement with Ingham—they did not have the time to indulge peripherals like this, however intriguing to Hansen or to Will himself.

  He ended the call and switched on the engine, punching HMP Bronzefield into his SatNav with rebellious resentment. And as he guided the car out of the carpark, guilt was wrestling with worry. He hadn’t meant this to happen, but he seriously doubted Ingham’d see it that way.

  Once he was well on to the A317 he called Salt, who was predictably gobsmacked by his news.

  “Eve Kelly?” he breathed. “That’s really fucked-up.”

  “Yeah,” Will said. “Keep it quiet. You know how rumors get legs in there.”

  Salt’s voice lowered to a near whisper. “Barry’s been footerin’ around, Guv.”

  The hair on the back of Will’s neck prickled. That tone from Salt always meant something.

  “He’s had a wee dig round thon company that owns the clubs that hired Daria from Joey’s firm. Fuzi plc. So he followed a trail of crumbs through some creative accountancy, an’ the company’s solely owned by a wee fella called Eric Chan, who has his fingers in all sortsa pies. An’ Eric Chan. . . . ”

  “Hosted the party Ricky Desmond died outside.” And there at last was a solid link between Daria’s case and June’s.

  “You got it. It could be a coincidence though,” Salt said. “London isn’t that big a place in those circles. But. . . .”

  “But?” Will prompted.

  “I told Barry to keep schtum for now. Not mention it to anyone.”

  By which, Will assumed, he meant Scrivenor, who would immediately tell Ingham.

  Guilt rushed back like a tide coming in, and Will wished powerfully that he could go back to the morning—after the TV broadcast—to regain that sense of relief from the fear that he was undermining his own colleagues.

  But the box was open now.

  Will may not be a pure white knight like James, but Ingham was right.

  He was a natural copper—by instinct. And Eve Kelly’s poker hand had just gained strength, because June was back in the game.

  10

  The Interview Room was the same one Will used on his previous visit to Bronzefield.

  He wasn’t sure quite what he expected when the inner door in to the prison swung open. He knew he was nervous in a way he hadn’t been then. But who wouldn’t be, coming face-to-face with Eve Kelly?

  He was all too aware that he was going in to this interview blind, more or less. He hadn’t had the chance to speak to coppers who knew her; he hadn’t looked at the notes on her case.

  When a prison guard led her in though, Will felt a shocking sense of familiarity—the opposite of his experience with June—like recognizing a celebrity in the 3D flesh after seeing them exclusively through cameras. The woman he’d studied as an academic subject, once upon a time.

  She was objectively, as her pictures had suggested, extremely beautiful still, as if age hadn’t dared to touch her. She had elfin features, thick shoulder-length dark hair, eyebrows shaped and slanted and perfectly plucked. Her huge eyes were fringed by thick lashes; her mouth was full and luscious. She had a swanlike neck and a tiny waist and she moved with sensuous grace.

  She reminded Will powerfully of someone. And . . . of course she did.

  Audrey Hepburn. That was why the press had dubbed her “Holly Golightly.”

  He felt a primal tug of basic physical attraction even as his mind stuttered between the disorientation of seeing someone as famous as her in the same room, and blank repulsion, knowing what she was.

  Unlike June, her hard gaze fixed on Will the moment she walked into the room. He saw a blink of reaction—something like surprise—and then her eyes didn’t leave him as she approached, or as she sat down at the table opposite him. He carefully didn’t look away either.

  “Well, well,” she said at last, slow and gloating. “You’re Detective Inspector Foster.”

  “Miss Kelly.”r />
  She smiled, a smile full of unabashed lechery. She must be nearing fifty but it was very hard to believe it. Her skin was milky and flawless—barely lined—and there were almost no signs of sagging muscles.

  “Isn’t this a nice surprise?” Her voice was low pitched and aggressively South or East London, though in the few clips of her interviews Will had seen, she’d sounded cut-glass cultured. “I ain’t seen nuffink like you in a long time. Oh ‘ang on,” she raised her eyebrows in a stagy moment of remembrance. Will continued to regard her impassively. “There was a bloke, coupla years ago. . . . Funny thing, he was a copper too. And I say funny because every pig I ever dealt with, pretty much . . . looked like a pig. It’s easier if it does what it says on the tin.”

  Her grin was full of challenge and Will was very aware she was taking his measure. Her teeth were perfect, he noted. Kudos to the prison dentist.

  “That uvver cop though. . . .” She leaned closer and widened her eyes, sharing juicy gossip. “Turns out ‘e was raving queer. What a waste.” She pushed closer still, revealing an unlined cleavage. “But, you’re not a poof.” Her voice had lowered. Her eyes were avid. “I see the way you’re lookin’ at me.”

  Will concentrated on showing no physical tells: he didn’t swallow or blink or twitch or color. He could only hope his pupils were behaving.

  He scrabbled for the memory of the psychiatric diagnoses he’d read, when he’d studied her. And, thank fuck, he could recall most of it, because she’d been such a fascinating study.

  Highly intelligent. Psychopathic. Antisocial and emotional instability disorders. Superficial charm, absolute disregard for others. A pathological liar, with an inability to experience remorse.

  He seemed to recall that a prison psychiatrist had also later diagnosed her with paraphilia sadomasochism, concluding there was a considerable sexual element to what Eve had done. She found intense sexual pleasure in inflicting maximum pain and torment on her male victims.

  She despised men, but her sexual orientation was entirely focused on them and her sex drive was abnormally high. The psychiatrist had reported her intense level of sexual frustration in prison, and an unwillingness or inability to adapt to available homosexual sex.

  That had been years ago of course . . . when Will was still a student. But—it could be useful. She’d been in here a very long time already, and she was one of the very rare inmates serving a whole life sentence.

  It was one thing though to write an essay about it; quite something else to have the full force of her malign personality directed at him.

  She was trying to unnerve him, obviously. She’d want to shock him, to put him at a disadvantage. But two could play at that game.

  “I got your message, Miss Kelly,” he said, as if she hadn’t said a word.

  “Mmmm. Call me Eve.” She smiled wolfishly. “You’ve a gorgeous mouth. And that jawline. Those shoulders. . . .” She lowered her head and smirked from under thick dark lashes. “I bet you have a massive cock. Will.”

  Will smiled amiably back. “You’re wasting my time Miss Kelly. And I have something you want.”

  He used the phrase deliberately and backed it up with a lopsided half-smile. She was close enough to allow him to see her pupils expand. Her irises were dark gray, not brown as he’d first thought.

  He didn’t know if it really was attraction and sexual frustration on her part, or she was just getting off on having someone to play with; to undermine and unsettle. But it didn’t matter. He had her attention.

  “Are you thinkin’ about me, bouncin’ on your dick?” Eve asked. Will let his smile deepen to aloof amusement. She sighed showily. “Times like this I really do miss cock.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have cut off so many of the ones you got near then,” Will said.

  He had the satisfaction at last of seeing genuine startlement.

  One-nil.

  “You have thirty seconds to tell me what you want. I’m a busy man.” He had no idea if he was playing this right or not.

  Eve pouted like a child, and perversely, that was the moment when she looked closest to her real age. “What I want?” she said. “I want you to make my useless turd of a son come an’ visit.”

  Eve had a son? He must be one fucked-up bastard.

  Now he thought of it though, Will remembered a second wave of headlines around her, the year Sanjay died. Will had been looking for a new purpose after leaving the Met, and he’d purposely stayed away from news that reminded him of what he’d left behind. But that story had been hard to miss. He seemed to remember that a child of one of Eve’s victims had murdered her kids. Clearly though, one had survived.

  “You didn’t know,” she gloated. “Well, let me tell you, Will—” She sniffed as she sat back, all sexiness temporarily suspended. “—’e’s a shit son. I gave him everythin’ and he turns out to be a faggot. An’ he doesn’t visit me even though I’ve been very good and stopped meself tellin’ everyone who he is.” Her expression drained of false warmth. “Now I find out he’s got engaged. And he didn’t come an’ share his ‘appiness wiv his mum.”

  Nothing was as Will had expected, other than Eve was unnerving him.

  “Let me get this straight . . . ” he said. “You had Ava Burchill mutilated, to force a visit from a child who wants nothing to do with you?”

  “If he wanted somethin’ to do wiv me, I wouldn’t be interested, would I?” She glanced, with showy deliberation at the prison officer. “What happened to poor Ava though . . . shockin’. But nothin’ to do wiv me.” Her eyes sparkled with glee and she looked full of life, Will thought, in a way she hadn’t when she walked in the door.

  She’d been needling him all the way, trying to shock, trying to find his vulnerable spot.

  No reason he shouldn’t probe more deeply at what those psychiatric reports and her own behavior had hinted might be hers. If it was still true that she was highly motivated by sex, and she’d been without the kind that she really wanted for over twenty years . . . that could eat at anyone’s will.

  He slouched back in his chair and let his suit jacket fall open, the picture of relaxation, refusing to dwell on who she was as her eyes roamed over his torso. He felt reckless, like prey taunting a predator.

  “So,” Will said. “Say hypothetically I agree to find your son . . . .” Eve’s gaze ripped away from his body up to his face. Her mouth curved, but her eyes were greedy. “What do I get in return?”

  “June’ll cooperate,” Eve said at once. “Give you your sample. Tell you anythin’ you wanna know. ”

  “There’s not much she can tell us,” Will said, deliberately indifferent,

  “You think?” Eve smirked.

  “Yeah. I do.”

  But what Will couldn’t work out was why such small stakes to Eve—warning her son it was in his best interests to come and visit—had required a calling card as over the top as Ava’s mutilation. Other than sheer enjoyment of course.

  “What if we can’t find him?” he asked.

  “You’re at South Ken nick right? That’s what I ‘eard.”

  How had she heard? He frowned and nodded.

  “That useless Black cunt still in charge?”

  Will flinched, and Eve’s whole face transformed with delight, like a gorgeous child given an unexpected prize.

  Finally, she’d got through to him.

  “Ask her,” she smirked and sniffed. “She came to see me once. Hard cow. She knows about Stevie. Tell ‘er I’ll be sharin’ my maternal pride wiv the rest of the world if ‘e doesn’t look sharp.”

  “So . . . .” Will said slowly. “Your son has to come and see you, or you expose his identity, and you stop June cooperating with a murder inquiry on pain of serious violence. That about sums it up?”

  Eve looked sad. “You make it sound unreasonable put like that. But . . . no. One more thing . . . .” Her eyes were avid. “You bring Stevie. No one else. You. Or no more info.”

  Stevie.

  Will sm
iled, stretched showily in his chair and stood. Her eyes locked on his crotch.

  He suspected now that she’d fixate on anything and anyone who might alleviate her boredom, especially someone she could fantasize might satisfy a starvation for the kind of sex she wanted. And she seemed to respond to resistance.

  He was playing with fire, but he’d use whatever he had to. Moral niceties didn’t come into it.

  “Thank you for your time Miss Kelly.” Let her wonder if her gambit had worked. He directed that lopsided half-smile at her again.

  She fixed on his mouth, then his eyes.

  She said slowly, “I’ll tell you what . . . June’ll give you that DNA sample before you go. As a gesture of goodwill. But don’t even try gettin’ her in segregation. I’d take that as a provocation. An’ she wouldn’t like that. Understand?”

  “I don’t even know if that’ll stop her.” Will remembered the look on Ava’s face as she’d said it. Mortal fear.

  “You’re not going to get what you want if you destroy your own cards, Miss Kelly,” Will said. His smile widened, as if she amused him.

  “While the cards are in my ‘and . . . they stay in one piece. They get taken away? Well . . . .” She raised her chin, frowned and pouted, in a stagy display of coming to a decision. Then she gave a playful moue. “Tell you what. I’ll give you a bonus prize. So you can see it’s worthwhile makin’ me ‘appy.”

  Will raised his eyebrows and waited, gut churning. It’d be giving ground to ask.

  “June ‘ad a baby,” Eve announced with satisfaction.

  Will sighed, but he found he was relieved as much as disappointed. A craven part of him didn’t want Eve to be useful enough to cultivate. “That’s not news, Miss Kelly.”

  “Is it news her kid was adopted by Joey Clarkson?”

  It was sunny, blustery and cold outside, a typical April afternoon.

  Will sat in his car in the car park until Hansen had once again—but at his request this time—contacted the Director of the prison to clear the way for another inmate interview with June.