Working Girls (39 page)

His hot rank breath was in her ear. “Don’t even think about it, bitch.”

Oz was running. He had to get to Bev. Boy, had he got news for her. He’d just left Men’s Surgical. It was all in his notes. Desperate Dan, a k a Danny Glover,
hadn’t so much grassed on Charlie Hawes as covered him in turf. As a former heavy of Hawes Danny’s words carried weight. Talk about putting a smile on Bev’s face. Oz
couldn’t wait. His own face fell when he saw the empty space at the girl’s bedside.

“Hi, Cass. Where’s Sergeant Morriss?”

“Bev?” Cassie lifted her glance from a dog-eared copy of
heat.
“Dunno.”

Oz turned but something in the girl’s expression gave him pause. “You sure, Cassie?”

She turned a page ostensibly intent on some Hollywood C-list celeb.

Oz tapped a foot. “Come on, love. I need — ”

“Did you mean what you said earlier?” He hadn’t a clue what she was on about. “You said I must have been a looker before…”

“Look, love, I’m in a bit of a hurry—”

“Bugger off, then.”

He shook his head; didn’t like women swearing. God knew why he liked Bev so much. “Tell me where she is and I will.”

“She buggered off an’ all. Soon’s she got — ” She’d shut her mouth but couldn’t hide the look on her face.

“Got what?” Oz asked. What had Bev got? And where had she gone?

“It doesn’t matter.”

So why was Oz’s instinct telling him it did. He looked more closely at the girl. She’d been crying. The whites of her eyes weren’t, and tears had left salt trails on cheeks the
colour of damsons. It would be weeks before the bruises faded.

“Okay. Have it your way.” He saluted her and this time made it to the door before turning. “Tell you something, though, Cass.”

She licked a finger turned another page.

“You’re still a looker in my book.”

He closed the door gently behind him. He was halfway down the corridor before she called him back.

The man’s breath was on Bev’s neck. He’d shifted his foot; the pressure she felt now was from a hand. Which one? She desperately tried to recall which he
favoured. It would determine the direction of the knife. That he had a blade she had no doubt. She could even describe it: small, sharp, serrated. She saw again the damage it had already
inflicted.

She felt his fingers tightening. What was going on in his sick mind? Why hadn’t he stabbed her already? Knifed her in the back? It would be easy. No. Of course. She knew then. He was going
to cut her. The way he’d cut Shell; the way he’d cut Louella. He’d go for her throat.

The pressure eased as he grabbed her hair to yank her head back. She jerked forward; the self-inflicted pain was preferable to a blade. Her hair was too short. He couldn’t get a grip.
Bev’s reverse jerk was equally quick. Her head whacked into the side of his face. She heard a crack like a twig snapping.

She was on her knees now struggling to get to her feet. She was in agony. Her spine, her neck, her head all hurt like shit. There was dirt in her eyes. They stung like hell. She could hardly
see. Had he dropped the knife? She hit out in the direction of his heavy breaths.

“Bitch.”

The hiss helped. She lashed out again. Then kicked. Her boot made contact. The scream could have come from either of them. Bev’s eyes were streaming. She dashed a hand across them,
desperate to get some vision back, more desperate that the knife wasn’t heading her way. It took seconds for her to identify the noise. It couldn’t be. “Fuck.”

He was getting away. She caught a soft-focus glimpse of Brand heading for a line of trees, dragging one of his legs. It wasn’t the only thing she saw. The knife lay on the ground at her
feet. So did the fist-sized rock she’d envisaged smashing into his skull. She’d never catch him. She could barely stand let alone give chase. She had no choice. She made a grab, aimed
and threw. Then the pain, the dizziness overwhelmed her. The earth rushed towards her as she fell to the ground.

Oz was in the car spitting feathers. What the hell was she playing at? He’d been gagging to share Dan’s dirt with her, but oh no. According to Cassie, Bev would be
in the park by now digging up videos crucial to the Lucas inquiry. He glanced at the dashboard clock. An hour she’d been gone. On her own. Without so much as a whisper. Teamwork, or what? He
had a damn good mind to call it in.

He started the motor, still undecided whether to go to the park or back to the nick. Why had she left him out of the loop? It was out of character: those parts of her character he thought he
knew. He had time for Bev, recognised her strengths, tolerated the odd fault. Morriss-the-Mouth some of the blokes called her. But Oz reckoned the smart-lip stuff was mostly a front, a distraction.
She felt things deeply did Bev. He’d picked up on that straight away. He’d also recognised a sliver of ice inside a core of steel. She was her own woman; refused to be one of the lads;
ploughed her own furrow.

He snorted. How apt. He could see her now digging away with her little spade. Of course, she’d covered her back: left a message on his mobile. For God’s sake, he was only down the
corridor. She’d known precisely where he was.

He tapped an angry beat on the steering wheel, then the image shifted. Bev was still digging, head down, leant forward. Back not covered.

“Oh shit.”

He put his foot to the floor, told himself not to be stupid. Repeated it half a dozen times on the way. The killer wouldn’t be there. There was no reason for the killer to be there. He
told himself that as well. By the time he arrived he almost believed it.

There were two bodies. Bev was on her side near the pond. A man was lying face down over by the trees. Oz was so out of depth, he felt he was drowning. He knew the procedures.
There were systems in place. Call it in. Cordon it off. Don’t contaminate the scene. The books didn’t say anything about Bev being down. He ran through wet grass, sticky mud, stumbled,
almost fell.

She was on her right side. Her face, hands, clothes were filthy. There were holes in her tights; one shoe had come off. She was very still. He lifted her hair to feel for a pulse, saw the livid
bruising and blood on her neck.

“Bastard.” His voice was a whisper.

“Get your fucking hand off. It hurts.” So was hers.

“Bev.” He swallowed; couldn’t speak.

She tried to sit but waves of pain forced her back. She put a hand to her head. It hurt to open her eyes. “Bastard got away.” Her voice was a rasp. It hurt to talk. It hurt to open
her mouth.

Oz’s was open in shock.

“Brand. He’s the killer.” She lifted a hand to her throat. “Call it in. Get an APB out.”

“I don’t think so.”

“What?”

“There’s a bod — ”

“What?”

“By the — ”

“Help me up. Now.”

“I’m calling an ambulance first. I’m not sure you should be moving at all.”

She was struggling to sit. She’d just spotted Brand, recalled what happened in the seconds before she’d lost consciousness.

“Sarge?” Oz laid a hand on her arm. She shook it off.

“Is he dead?”

“I’ve not — ”

“For Christ’s sake. Check it. Now.”

The waiting lasted a lifetime. If Brand was dead, she wasn’t sure how she’d live with that. He was a murderer, but if she’d killed him – what did that make her?
Tentatively she tried standing. There were bumps and bruises. Nothing broken. She felt sick. It would pass. Oz was walking towards her. She examined his face, searching for clues.

She could wait no longer. “Is he dead?”

Oz shook his head. “No.”

She closed her eyes, mouthed her gratitude.

Oz was in front of her, regarding her closely. His face creased in concern. “He’s not dead. But, Bev. It’s not Brand.”

She felt the colour drain from her face. She didn’t believe it; forced herself to approach, to see for herself. Oz had applied cuffs and placed him in the recovery position. The face was
partially obscured. The long dark hair had come adrift. The unwittingly comic effect of the wig was underlined by the swelling on the back of the head. It put Bev in mind of a shiny pink egg. She
imagined the rock would be around somewhere.

She knelt. Maybe she needed a closer look; maybe she needed to confirm the snot rag was still alive.

He was. He shook hair out of his eyes and spat in her face. Charlie Hawes was a looker. Steve Bell bore little resemblance.

36

The soup was grey, greasy, gross.
Of the day
it said on the board. It didn’t specify which day. Not this one, Bev thought. This had been the longest day she could
recall. It was ending in the canteen at Highgate because she was too depressed to face an empty house, too scared to be alone with her thoughts, too wired to switch off. Oz was opposite, forking an
omelette round his plate. Bev’s throat wasn’t up to anything more solid than the consommé; her appetite wasn’t even up for that.

“Come on, Sarge. You’ve not tasted it.” He handed her a spoon.

Her smile was shaky, matched by the fingers she was trying to close round it. She slammed it down, watched crumbs jiggle on the plastic cloth. She was pissed off. Not with the cutlery. She
leaned her elbows on the table, rested her head in her hands.

She shouldn’t be there by rights. She knew that. They’d wanted to keep her in the General overnight but she’d walked, desperate to be in on the preliminary interviews with
Bell. Byford – a seething Byford – had refused. She couldn’t get it out of her head.

He had thrown not so much the book as the library. He hadn’t raised his voice; hadn’t had to. The thunderous look on his face was enough. She’d shown scant – make that no
– regard for procedure. She’d kept colleagues in the dark and could have got herself killed. She’d endangered DC Khan, and potentially damaged the force.

Part of her had silently rebelled; the tirade was unfair. Bell was in a cell for Christ’s sake. Then she recalled not only her time-wasting obsession with Hawes but her utter conviction
that Brand was the killer. That led to a flashback in the park: caught between a rock and – for hard place, read knife. She’d come
so
close to the knife. It was a place she
didn’t want to go.

Sure that Byford was going to kick her off the squad – perhaps all the way back to uniform – she’d kept quiet, glad when the storm eventually blew itself out and he’d
told her to get out of his sight.

That was then. This was now. And Oz had recently emerged from one of the later interviews. They were by a radiator and she had a Blues scarf round her neck. She still had the shakes. She leaned
forward, hands clamped in armpits.

“Talk me through it, then.”

He took a bite; couldn’t speak through rubbery egg. She knew his game: playing for time. She sighed. He actually felt sorry for her. She’d got it so wrong she could go on Mastermind.
Name: Beverley Morriss. Specialist subject: cocking it up.

“Come on, Oz. I’m a big girl now.”

He laid his fork on the plate, took a sip of water. “Look, Sarge, anyone could’ve — ”

“Cut the crap, Oz. Anyone didn’t. Just me. It was me who made the mistakes. Jumped – no, make that leapt – to conclusions.”

She looked round, met the curious glances of a couple of plods three tables away. She gave a less than regal wave but at least used all her hand.

“You hadn’t seen the tapes,” Oz said. “You only had what Cassie gave you.”

Cassie had confirmed the boring old fart’s identity but knew nothing about Henry Brand’s co-star. Bev blamed herself. She should have pushed the girl harder; got a description, age,
anything. No. She’d hared off to retrieve the videos – ignoring the bigger picture.

Unlike Oz. He, she’d since learned, had gently drawn out Charlie’s erstwhile minder Danny Glover. The man had coughed enough to put the pimp behind bars till he picked up his
pension. Charlie was already in custody getting a taste for porridge. Living off immoral earnings was the least of his worries. Not when there was porn, blackmail, extortion, abduction, kidnap and
attempted murder.

One of Danny’s tip-offs had led to a police raid on a house in Balsall Heath. Vicki Flinn was there, in a bad way but alive. Seeing Lucie would be the best treatment. Arrangements were in
hand. Annie Flinn had taken the baby to her sister’s. But only after Charlie Hawes had
borrowed
Lucie for a night, a little chilling reminder to Annie what could happen if she
blabbed.

It was all second-hand news to Bev. Vicki refused to see her, let alone talk to her. It was another stick Bev was beating herself with.

Oz handed another. “Why’d you leg it like that? You knew where I was.”

She gazed at her blackened nails; scrubbing had only touched the surface. She didn’t know the answer. Leaving a message on a mobile was pathetic. There were signs all over the hospital
telling people to switch the damn things off. She’d known he wouldn’t get it while he was in the building. She’d done it deliberately. But why? It was another place she
didn’t want to go.

She shrugged. It was a cop-out. He acknowledged it with a shrug of his own.

Bev delved in her bag and came up with a crumpled pack of ciggies. He pushed his chair back and for a second she thought he was leaving. He must have seen her face.

“You’ll be wanting an ashtray.”

God. It must be worse than she thought. Oz loathed smoking. He came back with a saucer and a smile of sorts. She lit a Silk Cut, took a deep drag. It had been small beer so far. Now it was time
for the brewery.

“Come on, Oz. You were in there for hours. What’s the scumbag saying? What’s he putting his hand up to?”

“It was weird. At first he wouldn’t open his mouth, then – ” Oz’s hands traced floodgates opening.

Oz reckoned it boiled down to greed and revenge. Bell had been one of Hawes’s hired hands. Charlie had brought him on board to service the gay brigade. Enter Henry Brand. Bell had been
Brand’s favourite whipping boy for years. Paid well over the odds. Bell certainly couldn’t afford to let Michelle take a cut of the fairy cake.

“Bell said she was cutting her nose off to spite her face.” Oz shook his head. “Can you believe that?”