Working Girls (38 page)

She turned to see Ozzie grinning down, an armful of files in his grasp.

“Thinking, Constable. The word’s thinking.”

“Yeah, right.” He dumped the papers in her lap. “Bit of bedtime reading for you. Ma’am.”

She pulled a face, then grinned back. “Thanks, Oz. You’re an angel.”

“There’s a couple of reports you might not have seen. Came in this morning. I copied them as well.” He had a glint in his eye which she doubted stemmed from paperwork. It
didn’t. “I’d have got away sooner but there’s a bit of a stink on back at the ranch.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Something to do with DI Powell. The guv’s had him on the carpet. No one really knows what’s going on, but you know what that place is like. You should hear some of the
rumours.”

All manner of Powell’s shortcomings sprang to mind, but that was down to him being a pillock. Professionally, far as she knew, he toed the line. “So what’s the smart money
on?”

Ozzie shrugged, inspected his shoes. He didn’t go in for bad-mouthing, so this must be a biggie.

“Go on, Oz.” Bev did not share his misgivings. “You must have heard something.”

He was hesitating and she was about to ask again when he spoke. “Ferguson’s name keeps cropping up.”

She blinked, mind whirring. Duncan Ferguson, fruitcake of this parish; hobbies included confessing to murder and making death threats. Powell had certainly spent a fair bit of time with the
bloke. He’d spoken to him on the night of Louella’s murder, been to his home, led the interviews back at the nick. So what had Powell done?

“I give up,” she said after a few moments. “Give us a clue.”

He spread his hands. “Honest, Sarge. I’d tell you if I knew.”

She snorted. “You’d be the only one round here who does, then.”

Ozzie glanced round, clearly eager for another subject. He nodded at the girl in the bed, her fingers wrapped round Paddington’s neck. “Poor kid. Must’ve been quite a looker
before some bastard got his hands on her.”

Bev put a finger to her lips, beckoned him closer. “She’s probably listening to your every word. She’s just being arsey. I’m hanging round cause I need her to give me a
steer.”

“Hope you have better luck than me,” Oz said. “I called on your mate. Val? About the clothes? She’s burnt the lot. Said they were covered in blood.”

Mate? Bev wasn’t too sure about that. It still rankled that she hadn’t put a call in about Jules. It seemed even the oldest profession closed ranks. More importantly, it scuppered
any chance of forensics finding a thing, let alone a stray hair or three to match the others that had surfaced elsewhere. “What you up to now, Oz?”

“I’m still digging.”

She looked puzzled.

“Steve Bell,” he explained. “Apparently he was at Thread Street Comprehensive a few years back. I’m having a word with the caretaker up there at lunchtime. Oh, and the
guv wants me to organise this ID parade you were on about.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I think he just wants to put the wind up Hawes.”

“I can think of other things I’d rather put up him.”

Oz wasn’t listening properly, glancing at his watch, his lips in a rather fetching pout. “I should just have time,” he muttered to himself.

“Time for what?” she enquired.

“Desperate Dan.”

Bev looked blankly at him.

“The bloke duffed up a couple of days back?” Oz prompted. “He’s in here. Men’s Surgical.”

It was ringing a vague bell. “He the one Gazza’s been babysitting?”

Oz nodded. “Thinks he might talk but Gaz is otherwise engaged today.”

Bev looked at Cassie who was still doing a Sleeping Beauty, mouthed the query “Funeral?”

Oz nodded. “Anyway, the guv wants me to pop my head round while I’m here.”

Seemed a strange request. It was nothing to do with the case.

“I know what you’re thinking, Sarge. But this bloke’s in a bad way; any worse and it’ll be murder, not attempted.”

She lifted a few files. “Catch you later, then. This’ll keep me going.”

She ferreted out the fresh stuff first, browsed through. And froze. No wonder the guv wanted to go ahead with the ID parade. The hairs on the scrunchy found near Louella’s body matched
Charlie Hawes. She grabbed at the next print-out, fingers fumbling in the rush then stopping dead. It didn’t make sense. Scraps of hair caught under the girl’s nails were definitely not
Charlie’s. Neither had they found a match for the tiny particles of fibre. Fibre contaminated with minute traces of oil. She held the papers in her hands, staring ahead as if the answers were
about to show up. She was back to loose threads, unravelling ends, but at the same time, a gut feeling that it was all here if she knew where to look.

She flicked through the rest of the reports, reread interviews and witness statements. She was as still as the comatose patients, a patch of calm surrounded by constant sound. She cut out the
beeps and hums, ignored the occasional swish of cotton against nylon, the trill of a phone. She was miles away, head full of thoughts that one second seemed to connect and the next were as far
apart as ever.

“Ain’t you got a home to go?” The voice startled Bev. She glanced at Cassie whose wide yawn showcased the benefits of fluoridisation. Shame about the gap in the front but even
fluoride was no proof against a fist in the mouth.

“You’re not still knackered, surely?” Bev smiled.

“Need me beauty sleep, don’t I?”

Bev told her about last night’s attack on Jules, said she’d be around for a while yet.

“I’ve been thinkin’ ’bout what you said.” Cassie was staring at her hands. Bev held her breath. “It was all crap. You’re on completely the wrong
track.”

“Put me on the right one then, Cass.”

“Charlie Hawes is a mad bastard but he ain’t stupid. He ain’t gonna kill his girls, specially not a bird like Shell. Makin’ him a fortune, she was.”

Bev put her head in her hands, felt like putting them over her ears. She didn’t want to hear this. Heard it before; from the horse’s mouth, only yesterday. She sighed, looked at
Cassie again. “I thought you were going to help me.”

The silence lasted a few seconds. “I don’t have to tell you anythin’.”

“No, ’course not — ”

“Will you shut the fuck up!” Bev took a deep breath. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a kid so angry. “I don’t have to tell you anythin’.
You can see it for yourself. On tape. There’s half a dozen of ’em. Buried, in the park. They were gonna be Shell’s passport out of the game. I told her blackmail was wrong but she
reckoned these tapes were gonna take her to a better place. They did that all right. Only trouble is she can’t never come back now, can she?”

The girl was telling the truth, it was in her voice, Bev just didn’t want to believe it. If it wasn’t Charlie Hawes, she’d been wrong since the start.

“So Charlie…” She got no further; Cassie was still seething.

“What was it your mate just said? Must have been a looker before some bastard got his hands on her? Well, for bastard read Charlie Hawes.” She was crying now. “Get him for what
he done to me.”

It was something, but it wasn’t the biggie. “So the tapes. Who –?”

“An old fart from up at the school. Shagging the arse off some bugger.”

An old fart from up at the school?
Bev was in a state of shock, mesmerised by her racing thoughts and the silent tears streaming down Cassie’s cheeks.

“Go and dig ’em up. Your lot get off on a bit of porn, don’t they? Have a good laugh. Then go get the bastard who really did kill our Shell.”

35

Bev recognised the location from Cassie’s description: an old, rotting tree stump, a stone’s throw from Bogart’s Pool. The same pool she’d thrown up in,
the same stump on which she’d sat waiting for the waves of nausea to recede after the sight of Louella’s body. It had been night then, but even now in the middle of the day the park was
dark and dank. Darker in places; last time there’d been emergency lighting.

Trembling, she looked round; detected a hint of menace. Whether it was in the damp air or her fevered imagination, she wouldn’t like to guess.

She gazed down, knowing the answers were beneath her feet, a shroud of black plastic giving protection from wet earth and voracious mouths. There was no rush. Oz hadn’t put in an
appearance yet.

She lit a cigarette, one of several items she’d bought en route from the General. She inhaled deeply, savouring the forbidden weed, refusing to consider it yet another failure. On her
current rap sheet it didn’t register. The nicotine hit made her dizzy, nauseous. She took another deep drag, then another and another. She threw away the butt only after lighting another
cigarette from the glowing end. The nausea passed; at least she’d mastered that. She was watching, waiting, making sure he wasn’t around, half-hoping he was.

A boring old fart up at the school.

Only he wasn’t. Bev had made the same sort of mistake as Cyanide Lil. Only worse. Much worse. Lil wasn’t a cop; just a harmless old biddy who’d seen Henry Brand as a
‘real gent’. Bev knew he was a pervert with a taste for S&M. She’d just never seen him as a killer. She’d only ever seen one man as the killer. She’d been backing
the wrong horse from the start. The favourite had faded before the finishing post. A rank outsider had come up from behind. Digging out the tapes would confirm what she was sure she already
knew.

It had started to make sense in the car on the way over. There was no sudden flash, no specific spark. The complex threads had simply started drawing together; a gentle tug here, a little pull
there, and the loose ends had begun to fuse. She didn’t know everything but —

A sudden noise. She twisted her head; recognised it as the thud of a decaying branch falling onto a lush carpet of rotting vegetation. She relaxed again. No, not relaxed: shifted focus, then
zoomed in.

Cassie had talked her through the videos. Shell had nicked them from Charlie. They made the tape Ozzie took look tame. Henry Brand in shot throughout and in the shit forever. Shell had
threatened Brand that the movies were going on general release unless he wanted exclusive rights. Bev covered her face with her hands. No wonder the poor kid thought her boat had come in;
she’d probably seen a whole fleet. All Shell had to do was keep her mouth shut and she’d make a killing. Brand couldn’t afford
not
to pay. That was the theory.

Bev lifted her head, suddenly alert. The sharp crack had come from the upper branches of an old fir. She listened again. Nothing.

Her cigarette was almost out. She snatched a last drag then flicked the butt into the water. It was so quiet in the park she heard the hiss. She toyed with the idea of lighting a third. No.
She’d waited long enough.

She rose, reached for the spade. The price tag was still attached, not that she’d be writing it off on expenses. This wasn’t just part of the job. Anyway, a few quid bore no relation
to what she felt she owed the girls and the guv. Her obsession with Hawes had cost everyone dear.

She sighed, felt an unbearable weariness. ’Course, she could call out a plod for the donkey-work, and by rights the boss should be here. Somehow it felt better like this, though.
She’d been out on a limb from the start; ending it on another seemed fitting. Okay, she’d called Oz, but that didn’t count. They’d come a long way together. She glanced at
her watch.

The earth was still soft after Tuesday’s downpour. Nothing to work up a sweat. She wondered if Shell and Cassie had found it easy or if they’d had to take it in turns. Maybe one kept
lookout while the other dug.

About a metre down, Cassie had said. Bev looked into the hole; halfway there then. A worm, gross in its fat whiteness, was struggling on top of the soil, protesting about the intrusion, the
light, whatever pissed worms off. She felt like killing it, cutting it, really giving it something to whinge about. Wrong target: she tossed it aside in the next clod.

She was working more carefully now, alert for a glimpse of black plastic. Did plastic still shine after a month’s interment? Better not risk it: she went down on her hands and knees. The
earth’s dampness seeped through her tights, on to her skin.

It was there. She could see it. Maybe she should hang fire till Oz got here? Nah. He’d cover her back with the guv. Christ, she’d back-covered big time for Oz. She scraped at the
earth with her fingers, revealing more of the sack beneath. Nearly there now. The soil was blacker, more cloying, smelt stronger.

And then it was closer. Too close. Far too close.

She’d seen nothing, heard nothing but now she was face down, head down, a foot hard on her neck. She was winded, fought not to gasp for the breath that had been knocked from her lungs.

How had he known she was there?

With her head down, Brand’s voice was muffled. Her body was making competing noises of its own: blood rushing in her ears, heart pounding against ribcage. She was terrified, fighting a
rising panic. She was afraid of the earth; afraid it would fill her mouth, her nostrils, she wouldn’t be able to speak, wouldn’t be able to breathe.

The pain was excruciating. For a second she feared blacking out. Then she remembered what he’d done to Michelle and Louella; tried to do to Jules. There’d been enough victims.

There was very little time. That was all she knew. The park wasn’t much used at this time of year but he wouldn’t hang around. He’d gone to extraordinary lengths to keep them
off his back; he wouldn’t take more of a risk than he had to now. Think, girl, think. He could snap her neck like a twig whenever he liked, but she didn’t think he’d go for that.
Not his style. So which hand held the knife?

Every nerve was charged, every muscle taut. She sensed a lessening of the pressure on her windpipe. He’d have to crouch to use a knife; was he going for the kill?

Was the pressure easing, or was her neck going numb? Her eyes were accustomed to what little light there was. She’d only have one chance of a pop.

A second? Two? That’s all she had. The fist-sized rock was just within reach. If she could grab it when he lifted his foot, she might just be able to…