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To Kill a Man - Maggie Costello Series 05 (2020)

Page 3

by Bourne, Sam


  Perhaps it was her line of work, but Natasha was adept at reading situations like this. In court, it was always useful if you could intuit when someone was hearing information that was new or sensitive. And that was what she could see now. Instantly, and no matter how fogged her brain was with shock, she could tell that this exchange between the two officers was not routine. The young woman was telling her superior something important and unexpected. That much was written on both their faces. The detective’s eyes were registering first surprise, then interest, then a kind of satisfaction, as if he’d been proven right on a key point.

  At that moment Natasha was certain that the police had found something. And, without knowing how or why or what that was, she knew it made them suspect that she had not told them the whole story.

  Chapter 4

  Washington, DC, Headquarters, Metropolitan Police Department

  The 07.45 morning meeting was chaired by the man known universally, by critics, colleagues and perhaps even his immediate family, as Ratface. His formal title was Assistant Chief of Police of the Metropolitan Police Department for Washington, DC (Investigative Services), but to everyone inside this room, he was Ratface. The nickname was not cryptic or allusive, but literal: he looked like a rodent.

  Usually this meeting was dull, a read-out from the department’s seven district commanders, updating the group on ongoing inquiries and any new cases that had arisen overnight. Each of the seven would read out a roll-call of cases in a shopping-list monotone that suggested every item was routine and required no further discussion. The purpose of this meeting was oversight, so, naturally, the aim of everyone attending was to ensure they escaped with as little oversight of their own work as possible. Ideally, none.

  The commander for the Fourth District had finished her list – announcing that the investigation into the suspected arson attack on a community centre, conducted with their colleagues in the Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department, was ‘advancing as before’, which was taken to mean ‘without progress’ – when her counterpart for the Second District, which included the Georgetown neighbourhood, cleared his throat.

  Ratface took that as his cue to move his chair forward, noisily. He leaned in, his body language signalling extra interest. The district commander looked up, noticed the move and reached for a pen, scribbling on his list. Veterans of the 07.45 suspected he had hastily adjusted his running order.

  Accordingly, he began: ‘Georgetown: suspected sexual assault of white female, thirty-six, resulting in death of assailant. Victim underwent medical examination overnight and will be questioned this morning. Dupont Circle: mugging and stabbing—’

  ‘Hold up.’ Ratface blocked the attempt to move on. ‘Can we have a name on the victim, please?’

  Reluctantly, the commander answered. ‘Natasha Winthrop.’

  The room greeted that news with a combination of gasps, a whistled exhalation and, from one senior officer, a declaration of ‘Jesus fuck’.

  ‘Full report please,’ Ratface said.

  There followed a brief account of the night’s events, punctuated with some head-shaking disbelief both at the notion that a young, female lawyer had killed a man with her bare hands and that the lawyer in question was one fast becoming a national figure.

  ‘Who’s in charge?’ asked Ratface. He was told that since the incident had happened out of hours, the specialist homicide unit could not be called immediately. Two officers of the local district, backed by a specialist in sexual assault, were handling it.

  Ratface grimaced. He bit down on his pen, staring at the table as, so his colleagues presumed, he made the political calculation of what did or did not best serve his ambition to become Chief of Police of the nation’s capital – the same calculation, in other words, he made every minute of every working day, evenings and weekends. Eventually, he spoke.

  ‘As we all know, this individual’ – he meant Natasha Winthrop – ‘has a high profile. There will be tight scrutiny of every aspect of our conduct. Press, social media. The feminist community, in particular, will be quick to judge how we handle a case of sexual assault.’

  ‘We put a foot wrong and we’ll have the OPC over us like a fucking rash,’ a colleague chipped in (perhaps in revolt at the prissiness of feminist community). Natasha Winthrop had fought a few cases involving the Office of Police Complaints, and the nodding that followed this remark suggested the colleague had a point. Natasha had once been the go-to lawyer for those who represented people screwed over, beaten up or even killed by the police. Everyone in the room understood: it would not be smart to screw over Natasha Winthrop.

  Ratface chewed his pen a bit more, then gave the order. ‘Current officers are to stand down. This needs to be handled at commander level. Reporting directly and daily to me.’

  Chapter 5

  Washington, DC, a few hours earlier

  Natasha Winthrop prided herself on her sense of direction, her spatial awareness and her memory for landmarks. Together they ensured she was rarely lost. But as of this moment, they had abandoned her.

  At first, she told herself it was because it was dark, or because this was an unfamiliar part of the city, in the southwest quadrant that she barely knew, or because she was not driving but rather was a passenger, in the back seat of a police car, seated next to a watchful Sandra. But every now and then the more likely explanation barged its way into her thoughts: not that long ago she had been the victim of a violent sexual assault and she had killed a man. No wonder she had no idea where she was.

  The one thing she noticed as they moved through empty roads were the signs for the hospital. She couldn’t have told you which one, but that was where they were heading. She noticed that, once they pulled in, they drove past the regular entrance and parked by a side entry, unmarked and away from the main building.

  She had visited places like this long ago, back when she handled cases of this kind, though she hadn’t done many. She recognized the same heroic effort to pretend it was something else, to soften the atmosphere: floral prints on the walls, little scented bags of potpourri. The futile effort to pretend you’d come in for a massage rather than a forensic examination, as if this were a hotel spa rather than a police-cum-medical facility.

  Sandra led her into what she said was the Initial Room. Two chairs facing each other, a low coffee table, more bland art on the walls. Natasha looked around, noticing that all the surfaces were plastic: even the seats were wipe-clean. Of course. This was a sterile space, designed to prevent any contamination of evidence. The evidence being, once again, Natasha and her body.

  Sandra stepped out. But she was still audible, from down the corridor. Natasha couldn’t make out the words; just Sandra’s voice and the short, intermittent replies of another woman. Not quite hushed, but unmistakably an exchange of sensitive information. Was she briefing the doctor who was about to do the examination? Or was this more talk of whatever it was the police had seen at the house, with its implied accusation? Natasha detected the same uncertainty she had picked up earlier: these people didn’t know whether to treat her as a victim of a sexual assault or a suspect in a homicide.

  A moment later the doctor – longish, greying hair; kindly face – was there, explaining the sequence. That she would examine Natasha’s body. That the process might take some time, because they had to be sure to miss nothing. And that Natasha was to say if anything made her uncomfortable and that they would take a break. She stressed that Natasha was in charge here and nothing would happen that Natasha did not want to happen. Natasha understood what the doctor was doing – she could almost see the page in the training manual, warning police and medical staff of the dangers of inflicting on victims a second violation. But she wondered if they were being extra careful. Under ‘Occupation’ she had, after all, entered the single word ‘Attorney’.

  Natasha lay on the examination couch with her eyes closed, telling herself th
at this was no different from a visit to a gynaecologist. Letting the doctor do what she needed to do: take the swabs, examine, study, probe. She could tell when the woman paused, when she lingered for a moment. What had she seen? A scratch? A thumbprint, perhaps, where the man had pressed hard on Natasha’s flesh?

  Natasha’s eyes stayed closed while the examination went on, for hours it seemed. She sent herself away while the doctor worked, a technique she had learned long ago. The trick was to launch herself into the sky, to float above the moment and separate herself from it: a self-induced out-of-body experience. But it wasn’t easy.

  Eventually, the examination was over. They offered Natasha the option of going to stay with a friend or remaining and showering ‘here in the facility’. Returning to her own house was not ‘a possibility at this stage, ma’am’. It was a crime scene they wanted left undisturbed. Natasha muttered something about ‘getting back on the horse’, worried that if she left it too long she might never want to sleep in that house again. But the officer looked at her blankly, waiting for an answer to the two options offered. Natasha said she would stay and shower, ‘right away, please’. She had been itching to cleanse herself the second it had happened; she could still feel his . . . fluid on her skin, or at least the memory of it. She wanted it gone.

  The shower was long but devoid of pleasure or relief. She scrubbed herself hard, but at no point did she feel like she was becoming clean. She only stopped when the water began to turn cold.

  She slept for a couple of exhausted, restless hours on a hard, narrow mattress that resembled the examination couch. There were no overt nightmares. Instead, she woke every twenty minutes or so, with a start; once she even gasped. It was the recollection on waking, fresh each time, of what had happened a few hours earlier. For a split-second, there would be a brief hope that it had all been a mistake, that she had imagined it. But that would vanish as soon as it had arrived, chased away by the realization that this was no dream. It was real.

  Every so often, a picture would come into her head. Unbidden, she saw that newly dead body. The damp clothing. The face.

  A few hours later, there was more activity outside, more whispers. And within a few minutes, Natasha Winthrop found herself in an interview suite, facing two detectives, a man and a woman. The woman – white, late forties, dark hair, grey at the roots – introduced herself as Marcia Chester. Her face was lined, and seemed to be covered in a very fine dust, perhaps foundation, applied the previous day. She looked tired, but in a way that suggested the fatigue was structural: a life of hard work and constant stress. Natasha had known plenty of women like that; she smiled what she hoped was a smile of solidarity and empathy, one woman to another. The detective didn’t reciprocate, but kept turning the pages in the file open on the desk in front of her.

  The man was younger: black, wearing spectacles, bookish rather than hipster. He identified himself as Adrian Allen.

  Chester began, confirming that she was the more senior. She asked Natasha to state her name, date of birth, address. She said that she was tape recording the interview.

  ‘Can you tell us what happened last night at your home address?’

  Perhaps it was the demands of being asked a direct question, the reminder it brought of her professional life. But at that prompt, Natasha cleared her throat and clicked into gear. She willed herself to shake off the sluggish, out-of-body disconnection of before. Now she described what happened, as precisely and clearly as she could. She spoke confidently, knowing what her questioners wanted and determined to be a good, useful witness. She was no longer buffering.

  It helped that she knew how regular members of the public could be frustrating when giving a legal statement, repeating themselves, being vague, missing out crucial parts of the story, elaborating on things that were irrelevant, getting the timing of events wrong. Natasha Winthrop wanted the police to see that she was not like that, that she was a fellow professional.

  But when it came to describing the moment she saw her attacker in the doorway, her voice gave her away. She trembled. And the sound of her own voice wobbling seemed to act as a cue. By the time she’d got to the end, her cheeks were wet. She reached for a tissue on the table in front of her.

  ‘Can I go back one step?’ It was the man.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You say he appeared in your doorway at midnight.’

  ‘Yes, around then. Give or take.’

  ‘You’re not sure?’

  ‘No, I am sure. I remember the clock on my computer. It said eleven fifty-nine pm.’

  ‘So you are sure.’ It was the woman speaking.

  ‘Yes. I’m sure.’

  ‘So why did you say “give or take”?’

  ‘I meant, I don’t know the exact minute he appeared in the doorway. But I checked the time on my computer when I first heard a noise in the house. Which would have been only a minute or two before that.’

  ‘All right.’ Chester turned back to another page in the file. ‘You have a chain on your front door, am I right?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But it wasn’t broken.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘It’s not broken. See?’ She held up a close-up photograph of Natasha’s front door, the chain dangling down as always. ‘It’s all in one piece.’

  ‘I hadn’t put it on.’

  ‘OK,’ said Allen, as if ready to move on.

  ‘Why not?’ It was Chester, not yet satisfied.

  ‘I hadn’t locked up yet.’

  ‘But it was midnight. Is that your normal practice, to be alone in your house in the dead of night with your front door unlocked like that?’

  ‘But it wasn’t the dead of night. It was the evening.’

  ‘You said it was midnight.’

  ‘I mean it had been the evening. I had been working through the evening. At the end of the evening, after an evening’s work, I planned to lock up, turn off the lights and go to bed.’

  ‘All right. If you say so.’

  ‘I do say so. What are you getting at?’

  Now Allen spoke. ‘Nothing at all, Ms Winthrop. We’re just trying to get everything straight in our minds, no loose ends.’ He smiled.

  Chester resumed. ‘You weren’t expecting someone that night?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not your partner perhaps?’

  ‘No.’ Natasha paused, unsure how much to give away. ‘I’m single.’

  ‘You hadn’t kept the chain undone because you were expecting someone to come over?’

  ‘No.’

  Chester turned another page, as if unimpressed or, at the very least, uninterested. Natasha, instinctively searching for a sympathetic face, glanced over at Allen. He offered a tight smile.

  ‘All right,’ Chester said, as if ready to take another tack. ‘And the man who attacked you. You’re absolutely sure you’d never seen him before?’

  ‘I’ve told you, he was wearing a mask. I didn’t see his face fully until it was over.’

  ‘Sure, but when you did. Absolutely the first time you’d seen him?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Not known to you at all?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You weren’t expecting him to come over?’

  That put a crack in Natasha’s resolve to be the calm, capable witness and professional equal of this woman.

  ‘“Come over”? Come over. Do you not understand what happened to me? This man tried to rape me. You’re making this sound like some kind of social call.’

  ‘Please, Ms Winthrop.’ Allen, stepping in. ‘My colleague and I are just trying to make sure we’ve dotted every i and crossed every t. We’re just being thorough.’

  ‘And you believe in being thorough, don’t you?’ It was Chester.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’ve spoken to your n
eighbours.’ It was a statement rather than a question.

  ‘Yes?’

  Allen chipped in, ‘They’re all very concerned for you, as you can imagine.’

  ‘But d’you know what’s strange? What struck me as strange, anyway.’ Chester fixed her gaze on Natasha for a long minute, inviting her to answer, a hint of a smile on her face.

  ‘No, I don’t know. What?’

  ‘None of them heard a scream.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘None of them heard anything at all, in fact. No sound of a break-in. That’s OK. He might have been a pro, got his way in without making too much of a ruckus. They can do that, the good ones. But not a sound out of you. Not a peep.’

  The male detective was looking at Natasha, his face still friendly – or friendlier than Chester’s, at any rate – but he was doing nothing to hold his colleague back. Natasha was aware that he was watching her, gauging her reaction, scrutinizing her face. Chester carried on:

  ‘And it was weirdly hot last night, wasn’t it? Like, crazy for this time of year. We had the air-con cranked up, I can tell you. And you had the window open. In your home office, I mean. That kind of night.’ She was looking at her colleague, as if seeking his endorsement on this point. ‘So if you had made a sound, somebody would have heard it. Wouldn’t they, the neighbours? A woman screaming.’

  ‘I did, I’m sure . . . I wanted to, but I couldn’t . . .’

  Allen said, ‘I understand.’

  ‘Just, you’d think, a strange man appears out of nowhere, in your doorway, just like that, standing there, in your home office – well, most women I know would let out an almighty scream, don’t you think so, Detective Allen?’

  ‘But I . . .’

  ‘I mean, you couldn’t help yourself, could you? Just the surprise.’

  ‘I’ve told you. I was so shocked, I couldn’t scream. I mean, I gasped but no—’

  ‘Which is why I was asking, you know, left field and all, but was this perhaps someone you did know after all?’

 

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