Murder Club (28 page)

The barmaid laughed. ‘You’re joking me, aren’t ya? A staff party, alone in the cellar, she leading him on. His word against hers. What are the chances of that getting to court? And even if it did, what are the chances of a successful prosecution?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Yeah, you do. And besides she was paid off. Big time.’

‘How much?’

‘Fifty large, apparently.’

‘And you know all this how?’

‘The old dragon told Lee. One night off her head on the Tanqueray while he diddled her.’

DI Hamilton smiled. ‘Diddled?’

The barmaid grinned. ‘The old diddley do. Makes the world go round so they say.’

‘So they do.’

The barmaid flicked her cigarette on the floor and ground it under her heel, then jerked her thumb back towards the bar. ‘So the Queen of Narnia in there …’

‘Detective Inspector Halliday.’

‘If you say so.’

‘What about her?’

‘Are you diddling her?’

‘Ours is a strictly professional relationship.’

‘Good. I come off shift at eleven o’clock if you’re snowbound and still around.’

‘I’ll bear it in mind.’

‘Do that.’ She handed the detective a piece of paper. ‘Name and address. If she’s still there, that is.’

‘How did you get hold of this?’

‘The old dragon’s phone book. All their old numbers.’

‘You consider a career change, come and look me up.’

‘And if you fancy making the world go round, come and do the same.’

She winked at him and walked back into the bar.

A couple of minutes later, DI Halliday came out of the Ladies and up to the bar. Tony had his coat on and his beer remained untouched. She looked at the piece of paper in his hand.

‘Give you her number, did she? And where’s my wine, by the way?’

‘She gave me a number, yes. And you won’t be needing the wine.’

‘I bloody will, if I have to sit here and look at your “cat that’s got the cream” smile much longer.’

‘They’ve cleared the jack-knifed lorry on the M11 and the B-roads are clear enough now. We’re good to go.’

‘Thank Christ for that!’ She stood up and fished
the
car keys out of her pocket.

Tony took them from her. ‘You’ve had three glasses of wine, I’ve had a pint and I only took a sip of that gin.’

Emma Halliday was going to snap back but realised he had a point. ‘Fair enough. Come on then,’ she said, putting on her coat and heading for the door. Tony Hamilton shrugged apologetically at the barmaid and followed her.

‘So what’s the number you’ve got?’ asked DI Halliday as the night air hit them.

‘It’s what you might call a bit of a clue.’

‘Go on.’

‘Michelle Riley. Used to work for Andrew Johnson when they ran a pub in Harrow-on-the-Hill.’

‘And?’

‘And,’ replied Tony as he beeped the car door open, ‘seems she claims that Andrew Johnson raped her one night in the pub cellar.’

‘Ah!’ Emma moved the seat back a little to accommodate her long legs.

‘Ah, indeed. And it seems likely he did, because they paid her fifty large to keep her mouth shut about it.’ Tony Hamilton pulled his seatbelt around him and clicked it into place.

‘Michael Robinson. Andrew Johnson. Both from Harrow. Both rapists. Some kind of club, you’re thinking.’

Tony fired up the ignition. ‘Rape club? I don’t know. Maybe.’

‘Somebody used a police-style Taser to make them jump in front of a train. Maybe we have a vigilante?’

‘I’d say we definitely have!’ said Tony Hamilton as
he
flicked on the windscreen wipers to clear away the fallen snow and pulled out into the High Street heading back to London.

DEREK ‘BOWLALONG’ BOWMAN
was whistling rather tunelessly as he laid out his instruments on the trolley by the mortuary table. He looked at his watch and smiled as Kate Walker came into the room, followed by Diane Campbell.

‘I was just about to start without you,’ he said.

‘That’s okay, Derek. You can start when we’ve gone,’ said Deputy Superintendent Campbell.

‘Fair enough,’ replied the pathologist, laying down the circular Stryker saw.

Diane and Kate walked across and looked at the naked body of the young woman lying on the table. Her hair had been straightened, her arms laid flat alongside her. Her eyes were closed, the blue veins in her eyelids even more prominent now.

Diane Campbell pulled out a photograph and compared it with the dead woman. She handed it to Kate. ‘Looks like we found her,’ she said.

‘Who is she?’ asked Derek Bowman.

‘She’s a statistic, Derek,’ said Diane Campbell. ‘More proof that we’re not doing our job.’

‘The police aren’t responsible for homelessness, Diane,’ said Kate.

‘I meant as human beings.’

‘She was living rough?’

‘Had been on and off since she was fifteen years old. She ran away from abuse at home, into prostitution, drugs, prison. Seemed she’d been let down by society her whole life. According to the homeless shelter where she was registered, she had the mental age of a child.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Margaret O’Brien,’ said Diane. ‘Everyone called her Meg.’

‘What did she die of?’ asked Kate.

‘Neglect.’ Dr Bowman shook his her head. ‘Just as the Chief says. Left on the street, sub-zero temperatures. Didn’t stand a chance.’

‘She wasn’t murdered?’

‘Depends how you define that. The cold killed her as far as I can tell pre the post. But it certainly looks like hypothermia to me.’

‘It does,’ agreed Kate.

‘But someone beat her first. At least we know who she is, now. Maybe give you people something to go on,’ he said to Diane Campbell.

Kate Walker looked at the girl’s right arm. The bruises on her arms were purplish and mottled.

‘Defence wounds, I’d say,’ continued the pathologist.

‘Similar to those on Bible Steve,’ said Diane Campbell. ‘What kind of instrument would have caused these injuries?’

‘A baseball bat,’ offered Kate.

‘Possibly,’ Bowman said. ‘Or a policeman’s truncheon.’

‘We call those “asps” nowadays, Derek.’

‘So you do.’

‘And policewomen carry them too,’ added Kate.

The pathologist crossed to an X-ray display and switched on the light. It was an X-ray of the young woman’s arm. ‘Whoever it was that hit her, and whatever it was he …’ he paused and looked at Kate, ‘or she hit her with, they did it hard enough to cause a hairline fracture here.’ He tapped on the image.

‘She had very little padding, mind,’ added Kate Walker. ‘Doesn’t look like she had had a meal for months.’

‘So we do know who she is now, as Derek said,’ said Diane. ‘But that does leave us with another problem.’

‘Which is?’

‘If this isn’t the girl Bible Steve said he killed … then who was he talking about?’

‘Assuming he saw anything at all,’ said Kate.

‘Maybe someone else was taken. Maybe Steve and this girl tried to stop it, got in the way and were beaten off.’

‘Meg ran away to hide from whoever it was, and died in the cold.’

‘Bible Steve was certainly left to die.’

‘Sounds like there might be another body out there,’ said Bowman.

‘This is London, Doctor,’ replied Diane Campbell. ‘You can count on it.’

Kate’s phone trilled in her pocket. She took it out and read the text message. ‘Rip Van Winkle has started to get flashes of memory back apparently.’

‘He’s out of the operation?’

‘Yup.’

‘Is Jack on it?’

‘No. He’s in Harrow.’

‘Come on then, Kate, it looks like the A-team are on the case.’

JACK DELANEY PUSHED
the buzzer and stepped back from the door. He was standing outside an end-of-terrace house at the bottom end of the hill in Harrow. Sally Cartwright stood beside him, flapping her arms around herself in a vain attempt to get warm.

‘Aren’t you cold, sir?’ she asked, looking at Delaney who was wearing his customary, battered leather jacket.

‘Not particularly, Sally, I have the love of a good woman to keep me warm.’

‘Bushmills in your veins, more likely.’

After a short while the door opened, as far as the chain allowed, and a woman looked nervously out. ‘Are you the police?’

‘Yes,’ replied Delaney, immediately spotting the resemblance to Stephanie Hewson. Same height, more or less, same build, same hair-colouring. Same haunted look in her eyes and worry lines creasing a handsome face.

‘Can I see some ID?’

‘Of course, Miss Eddison,’ said Sally.

Delaney and Sally held up their warrant cards which the woman inspected before shutting the door and opening it again with the chain clear. They
followed
her down a small hallway and down into a sitting room off to the right.

It was a furnished simply, with a three-piece suite in floral fabric, a television, a brown coffee table. The curtains were closed and a small gas fire was burning. Delaney opened his jacket as he sat down on the sofa. Sally didn’t.

On the coffee table was a hardback copy of
When God Was a Rabbit
, with a bookmarker halfway through it and a coffee mug beside it, steam still rising from the surface.

‘Good book?’ Sally asked.

The woman nodded without replying. Delaney hadn’t read it, but Kate had. It spoke of childhood, of happier times, but was also very sad in parts too. But then life was like that. You got dealt a mixed set of cards.

‘We need to speak to you about what happened to you earlier this year, Lorraine,’ he said.

The woman burst into tears.

Kate Walker ignored the stern glances the surgical registrar was giving her. She hadn’t met the woman before but she looked like she only weighed six stones wet, and Kate had never been one to be intimidated by authority.

Bible Steve was sitting up in bed now. He seemed different, his eyes more focused. Not as scared.

‘You say you have been having flashes of memory?’

‘Just fragments really. You know, like a dream. When you wake up and try to hold onto it and sometimes you can’t. Sometimes just bits of it.’

‘You seem a lot more lucid.’ Kate turned to
Dr
Crabbe. ‘Do you think his memory is returning?’

‘Possibly. As I explained to Steve, amnesia can be caused by a number of things. Shock can often be a part of that. And another traumatic episode can have the reverse effect. He has been through a lot these last few days.’

‘These fragments,’ continued Diane Campbell. ‘Can you tell us about them?’

The old man rubbed his eyes. ‘Just people, faces,’ he said.

‘Do you know who they are?’

‘No. At least, I think I did know them once. And I can see buildings. Tall, granite buildings. And I can see a house. I think it’s possible I might have lived there.’

‘Do you remember the road? The town?’

Bible Steve closed his eyes tight shut, then opened them and shook his head. ‘I can’t, I’m sorry. If I try it just fades away.’

‘Don’t try and force it. Sometimes these things take time,’ said Kate.

‘Can you remember anything of Friday night?’ asked Diane, in a manner that suggested time was something they didn’t have.

‘No.’

‘You were with a young woman. You were both attacked. Did you hurt anyone, Steve?’

‘I can’t remember. Why would I hurt anyone?’

Diane Campbell’s phone beeped in her pocket. ‘I’m sorry, I have to take this,’ she said and went out into the corridor.

‘Make sure that woman doesn’t upset him further.’ The registrar went to check on a patient next door.
The
intensive care unit was always a bit of a revolving door, Kate knew only too well from her own days on rotation in the department. She didn’t miss them one bit. Beds becoming vacant were not always a good sign.

She sat down on the chair beside the homeless man’s bed.

‘I watched the police footage of you being booked in on Friday, Steve,’ she said. ‘I know that Steve isn’t your real name, but do you mind me calling you that?’

Steve shook his head.

‘In the footage you seemed to recognise the police surgeon who attended to you.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Doctor Laura Chilvers. She has been in to see you.’

‘The blonde lady. The angel.’

‘Yes, you called her that in the station. Why is that?’

‘I don’t know. It just came into my head. I know her, I think.’

‘Where from, Steve?’

‘I don’t know. But I can see her. And there is blood on my hands.’

His forehead furrowed as he tried to remember. ‘Did I try to kill her?’

‘You recognised her before you were attacked, Steve. At the police station.’

‘Did I want to hurt her?’

‘I don’t know.’

KATE WALKER FLIPPED
the X-ray transparency onto the light box and clicked the switch.

She looked at the skeletal chest that was exposed and traced her finger across it.

She flicked off the light and stood there looking for a moment, contemplating.

‘Did you find what you were looking for?’ asked Dr Crabbe.

‘Yes. I think I did.’

‘Good.’

‘Maybe. I’m not so sure that it is good. Do you think he’ll make it?’

Dr Crabbe considered for a while, then shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t think he will.’

Lorraine Eddison held a paper tissue and blew her nose. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘You have nothing to be sorry for, Lorraine,’ answered Jack Delaney.

‘Yes I do.’

‘It wasn’t your fault you were attacked.’

‘I shouldn’t have been walking alone at night. I should have got a taxi. I had had too much to drink.’

‘None of that makes it your fault,’ said Sally
Cartwright.
‘The man who attacked you is a sick predator.’

‘Did he rape you, Lorraine?’

‘No. But he tried to.’

‘You managed to get away?’

‘He held a knife to my side and said if I shouted out or screamed he would kill me.’

‘Just like Michael Robinson,’ said DC Cartwright.

‘I saw on the news that he had been killed.’

‘That’s right, Lorraine.’

‘But this wasn’t him. I was attacked after he was arrested.’