The Torment of Others (44 page)

As she watched Kevin go, she thought,
Actually, it was my fault.
They should have waited until they had the search results in from Derbyshire before interviewing the three men. But Kevin had been eager to get going and he was concerned that Derbyshire would drag their heels over the searches out of sheer bloody-mindedness. And because of the terms of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, they could only hold the men for thirty-six hours before they’d have to go before the magistrates who would probably not understand the complex evidence relating to the camera and so would throw out the request for extended custody. Kevin had told her Derbyshire were becoming increasingly restive at what they perceived to be the big city boys expecting them to do the shit work. So, against her better judgement, she had sanctioned a series of preliminary interviews.

Carol squeezed the bridge of her nose between her fingers. She was making too many mistakes. It wasn’t like her. It frightened her, with Paula’s life at stake. Screwing up was bad enough on its own, but concern over screwing up could make her hesitate fatally; failure to reach a decision could be as damaging as making the wrong one in a case of this sensitivity. She sighed and made the call to Derbyshire. Then she reached for her coat. Time to go and see what Tony was being so mysterious about. And maybe she could get at least one of her worries off her chest at the same time.

She stopped in at the murder room, where Merrick was still ploughing through statements, his eyes heavy, his shoulders bowed. He looked up as she entered and slowly shook his head. Carol moved round the room, a supportive word for everyone. She ended up at his side, a hand on his shoulder. ‘We’ll find her, Don,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you go home and get some rest?’

His face twisted in pain. ‘Home? Ma’am, I’m living in her house. Going home just makes it worse. It feels like a reproach.’

Carol cursed herself for her insensitivity. ‘Can’t you go back to Lindy and the kids? Just for a few nights?’

‘Too late for that. She’s not even speaking to me.’

Carol squeezed his shoulder. ‘Check yourself into a hotel, Don. Charge it to the inquiry. But get some rest, please.’

He gave her a crooked smile. ‘I will if you will, ma’am.’

‘Touché. But I am at least leaving the building now, Don. You should do the same.’

She was halfway down the corridor, lost in thought, when the familiar sight of Jonathan France swaggering towards her in his bike leathers jolted her back to earth. He grinned and quickened his step, not taking in the frozen expression on Carol’s face.

‘What are you doing here? How did you get in?’ she demanded.

His step and his smile faltered. ‘I wanted to see you. The guy on the front counter remembered me being here before, so he let me come up.’ He looked hurt. ‘I thought you’d be pleased to see me,’ he added plaintively.

In reply, Carol threw open the nearest door, which led into an empty meeting room. ‘In here,’ she indicated with a jerk of the head. He followed her, perking up at the prospect of privacy, in spite of the contraindications. Carol shut the door behind them and glared at him. ‘What did you think you were doing, sending those flowers here?’

Shock flattened his features. ‘I thought you’d like them.’

‘So why not send them to my house?’

He shrugged. ‘You’re never there.’

‘The florist would have left them with a neighbour. But no, you sent them here. Didn’t it occur to you that a police station is a gossip factory? That my private life is now the subject of speculation from the canteen to the Chief Constable’s office?’

‘I didn’t think…’

‘No, you didn’t. I’m running two major murder inquiries here, and the last thing I want is this kind of distraction.’

Stung, he rounded on her. ‘Distraction? That’s how you see me? A distraction?’ Carol shrugged. Two patches of colour burned on his cheekbones. ‘You used me,’ he said, light dawning. ‘You used me to prove to yourself you could get past the rape.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘You got what you wanted too–an image of yourself as the strong, sensitive saviour. But that wasn’t enough for you, was it? You wanted it to matter to me, you wanted to be the man who would heal my heart. Well, Jonathan, I’ve got news for you. You never came near my heart, because somebody else has first claim to that.’

As so often happens in the throes of emotional argument, he seized on the least relevant point. ‘You told me you weren’t seeing anybody else. That night we had dinner, you told me.’

Carol clenched her fists. ‘I’m not seeing anybody else. Not in the sense you mean. But you can’t reduce relationships to the simplicity of playground games.’

‘You were dishonest,’ he said bitterly. ‘You were never emotionally available.’

She shook her head vehemently. ‘I never said I was. You presumed. You saw what you wanted to see and you presumed the rest.’

‘I don’t deserve this,’ he said, his voice shaky.

Carol’s anger suddenly fizzled out, leaving her hollow and weary. ‘No,’ she said. ‘You probably don’t.’ She opened the door. ‘I’m not ungrateful, Jonathan. And I would have liked it if we could have been friends. But that’s not going to happen now.’

He stepped through the open door. ‘I don’t envy him, this man you love,’ he said bitterly.

‘That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said tonight,’ Carol said sadly. ‘Goodbye, Jonathan.’

She watched him go, feeling the last traces of adrenaline leave her. Christ, how much worse could it get tonight?

Tony sat at his desk, staring out at the cityscape that flowed down the hill towards the centre of Bradfield. In the distance, the office towers in the financial district showed irregular squares of light like half-completed seaside bingo games. ‘You’re out there somewhere,’ he said softly. ‘Making your plans, figuring out how to get us to play your game, deciding what to do with Paula.’ A picture was starting to form in his mind of the person behind these crimes. It had been a struggle to grasp the shadowy mind of the puppetmaster, but at last he was piecing it together, gradually making sense out of the jumble of information in his head. Convincing Carol was going to be a lot harder, he thought.

He saw her car draw up and ran downstairs to let her in. He was shocked by how drained she looked. Her eyes were hollow, her skin slack and pale. ‘You look shattered,’ he said, stepping aside to let her in.

‘I fucked up on the Tim Golding interviews. It looks like we ended up cutting the right man loose and holding on to the wrong one. Kevin seems to think the suspect is confident enough to go home so we can rearrest him. I’m not so sure. We’re getting nowhere on the search for Paula. Don and Jan are at each other’s throats because Jan says Paula’s gay and Don says she’s not. And Sam Evans thinks somebody died and made him God. The only one who’s not doing my head in is Stacey, and that’s because she only talks to machines.’ She took off her coat and threw it over the newel post at the foot of the stairs. ‘Where are we?’

‘You want a drink? Or are you still working?’

‘Yes, and yes. I’m waiting to hear from Kevin, but I’m out of the office now for the night unless something breaks on Paula.’

‘Kitchen, then. I’ll open a bottle.’

While Tony got the drinks, Carol settled herself at the kitchen table. ‘I just gave Jonathan his marching orders,’ she said.

Tony had his back to her, which he was grateful for. It meant she missed the leap of joy in his eyes, the smile that lit up his face. ‘And how do you feel about that?’

Carol snorted with laughter. ‘Oh, Tony, you’re such a fucking shrink.’

He glanced over his shoulder at her. ‘Sorry. But it wasn’t a shrink question. It was a friendly enquiry.’

‘I feel pissed off with him for pushing me into a corner. He sent the most ridiculous bouquet of flowers to the office, then he turned up there this evening. If he’d have just let it lie, we could have been friends. But it was that presumption, you know?’

Tony brought the glasses to the table. ‘I know. “You slept with me, so how can you resist loving me?”’

‘Exactly. And you know how I get when I’m cornered.’

He winced. ‘Not a pretty sight.’

‘I was horrible to him,’ she admitted. ‘But I didn’t want there to be any room for doubt. I haven’t got the time or the energy for that right now.’ She sipped her drink gratefully. ‘I just hope I haven’t blown him as an expert witness.’

‘I shouldn’t think so. Given his behaviour so far, I suspect he’ll want to impress you with his magnanimity. And of course, he’ll want to believe that once a bit of time has passed, you’ll realize what a good thing you let go by you. Don’t worry, Carol, he’ll be back.’ Tony raised his glass to her.

She groaned. ‘I hate you sometimes,’ she said.

‘You’re going to hate me even more when you hear what I have to say.’

‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘There was a reason why I’m here, wasn’t there? OK, spill.’

He’d never been good at the politics of information. Direct, uncomfortable, unvarnished, that was how his delivery always went. Even for Carol, he couldn’t do diplomacy. ‘Somewhere at the heart of this case, you’re going to find either a cop or someone who’s tight with the cops. A SOCO, that sort of thing.’

Carol’s hand stopped halfway to her mouth. Carefully, she replaced her glass on the table. ‘That’s a hell of an allegation.’

‘It’s what makes sense. I believe Derek Tyler could not have constructed these crimes. Tyler’s of low intelligence. He’s stubborn, but he’s also suggestible. If he was going to kill a prostitute off his own bat, he wouldn’t have planned it like this. It would have happened on the street, with a knife or a half-brick. There would have been forensics all over the place. You’d have had him in custody the same night. He’s not a sophisticated game player like our killer. But nobody fitted up Derek Tyler. So we come to the Creeper. Because there’s one irresistible psychological fact here: Derek Tyler could not have imagined those crimes. This is somebody else’s fantasy. Somebody else pulled the strings.’

‘What if it’s Tyler who’s pulling the strings now? Getting someone else to do the crimes so he won’t have to do the time?’ She knew she should tell him about Hart. But she wanted to see where he was going with this, untainted by her suspicions.

Tony shook his head. ‘Believe me, Carol. I’ve spent time with him. He just isn’t smart enough.’

‘So if it’s the Creeper who’s behind it all, why wait two years to start again?’

Tony closed his eyes and laid his hands, palms down, on the table. ‘Because I’m careful. Because I want the dust to settle. Because it takes time to find another Derek Tyler. Because I don’t have the desire to get my own hands dirty. Because the joy comes from exercising power twice over. Not just the power over the victim but also the power over the killer. And this time around, the power over the police.’ He opened his eyes. ‘But mostly because I don’t want to be caught, and it takes time to arrange things in such a way that I can protect myself.’

‘OK. That all makes some sort of sense,’ Carol said grudgingly. ‘What I don’t see is how it points to a cop.’

‘I spoke to Dee tonight.’

‘And?’

‘She won’t tell us what we want to know about the Creeper. And she won’t tell us because she doesn’t trust us to protect her. That suggests either a cop or someone who is owed a duty of care by the cops. Someone on the team. Or even an informant…?’

Carol shook her head. ‘No, I’m sorry, I don’t buy it. It’s just as likely that the Creeper is somebody out there who she sees as powerful enough to breach whatever protection we put round her. That doesn’t spell cop to me. It could just as well be a pimp, a dealer.’

‘She doesn’t have a pimp. Jan says they’ve cleared out most of the hard nuts. And why would she imagine a dealer could breach witness protection?’

Carol gave him a cynical, knowing look. ‘Because there is a perpetual assumption that drugs squad cops are bent, that you don’t get to be a high-level dealer without having some cop in your pocket.’

Tony slumped in his chair. He’d given it his best shot, but he hadn’t really expected her to go for it. ‘Do me a favour: keep it in mind.’

She drained her glass and reached for the bottle. ‘I appreciate your input on this, I really do. But I think you’re way off beam.’

‘Fair enough,’ he said.

‘Not the theory, Tony. I think that’s nothing short of brilliant. But where you’re pointing the finger, that’s where you’re off the mark,’ she said.

Puzzled, he paused with his glass halfway to his mouth. ‘What have I missed?’

‘Someone with the skills to brainwash another person. Someone who has access to Derek Tyler, who can make sure he never tells what he knows. Someone who was in Temple Fields the night Sandie Foster was killed.’

Tony’s eyes widened. ‘What are you saying, Carol?’

‘I’m saying that Aidan Hart fits your profile better than any cop.’

Tony snorted with laughter. ‘Aidan Hart? You’re kidding me.’