by Linda Regan
“We need to check the grounds. Just routine.”
“And you shouldn’t come out of the house,” Isabelle added. “It’s not safe.”
Katie looked uncertain. “I just came to see…”
Alison pressed home her advantage. “If you see someone in your garden, you should ring the number you’ve been given.” She pointed at DC Holt, now sitting on a tree trunk at the bottom of the driveway, a newspaper open on his lap. “No point having a policeman on guard if you don’t make use of him.”
Katie turned those enormous blue eyes on her, and Alison pretended to be taken in. “How are you?” she asked her.
“What do you mean, just routine check?”
Alison shrugged. “We’ve just been asked to collect some samples, and check on you. Are you alone here?”
“Not for long. Kevin has taken Ianthe to see her pony, but they’ll be back soon. And Judy and Kim are going to come over in a while, to keep me company.”
“Good.” Alison pointed at DC Holt again. “Denis Holt is watching the house, and Charlie Mitchell will be back as soon as Olivia has given her statement.”
Katie’s eyes wandered to Isabelle, clipping fragments from the base of the bush at the bottom of the drive.
“And I think you’ll find Kenneth Stone won’t be released just yet.”
Katie turned the vulnerable eyes on Alison again. “Thank you,” she said softly, with a grateful smile.
Alison was more than ever convinced Katie was putting on an act. From her own days in amateur theatre, she knew it was the tough ones who got the best parts; given the kind of success she’d had, Katie Faye simply wasn’t this vulnerable. “You’re welcome,” she said. “All part of the service. I’ll just go for a quick look round the back while we’re here.”
It took her less than three minutes to find the summerhouse and turn the whole place upside down. She found nothing incriminating.
Katie was still standing in the driveway when she came back through the garden gate.
As she reached the bottom of her drive and came within sight of her car, her mouth fell open. “Oh fuck!” she shouted, staring at her second flat tyre in two days. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“Something else for the expense account,” Isabelle said, right behind her.
“The bloody thing’s only just out of the garage,” Alison said angrily, pointing her key at the boot to get the spare. “Thank God I got the last one fixed.”
A chuckle from a few yards away made her turn. DC Holt was mightily amused.
“That is way above the call of duty,” Isabelle said, failing to keep her face straight.
Alison chose to ignore the fun both DCs were having at her expense. “Tell you what, though,” she said. “I’m glad that I don’t do kitten pink t-shirts, arse-tight jeans and high heels.” She threw the spare wheel on the frosty ground and lifted the wheel brace and jack out of the boot. She flung Isabelle an angry glance. “Do something useful,” she snapped. “Go and collect some dirt from this side of the fence.” She gestured at a large bush that leaned, half in the road, and half in the Stones’ driveway. “To compare with the earth on the other side.”
Isabelle patted the earth below the bush. “Hey, this is newly dug.” She prodded the bush. “You know, I thought this didn’t look real last time we were here. It’s too green for this time of the year.”
DC Holt put in his fourpennyworth. “It was only planted a few days ago. They wanted a bit more privacy.” He carried on reading his paper, and Alison and Isabelle looked at each other. Isabelle put her hand on the base of the bush.
Alison stood up.
“It’s not very secure either,” Isabelle said.
“Holt? Over here,” Alison ordered.
The three of them dug down into the loose soil with bare hands and the small shovel, until Isabelle hissed, “There’s something down here, buried.”
Alison looked up the drive towards the house. Katie was nowhere in sight. By the time she looked back down Isabelle was dragging a bulky blue carrier bag from under the bush. She opened it and pulled out a long knife, then a dirty transparent plastic bag.
It was full of red g-string knickers.
The cuffs of Crowther’s new jeans were turned up so much he looked as if he was wearing knee-high socks. He wore a blue jacket dotted with tiny flakes of silver, which might or might not have been an attack of dandruff.
Crowther was flattered that Banham had given him the job of taking Olivia Stone’s statement. Where he came from, in the worst part of the East End of London, women often took a belting from their husbands when they stepped out of line. But it was something he hated. He treated women flippantly, but he liked them a lot. He’d sleep with them and move on, but he liked to think he made them feel good about themselves. He was old-fashioned that way; he looked after his girls, cherished and spoiled them, bought them good dinners, liked them to dress up nicely for him. He was first to admit he was a bit of a chauvinist, but he would never hurt a woman, and he despised men who did.
So this wasn’t about gaining brownie points for promotion. This was about the beautiful woman who was sitting opposite him, distressed, with a swollen, bruised face.
He placed a cup of coffee on the table in front of her. “I’ve sprinkled chocolate flakes on the top,” he said. “It gives it that extra flavour. I hope you’re not watching your figure.”
Her full mouth stretched in an attempt at a smile. That told him what he needed to know – that he was winning her over. “I made it warm, not too hot, in case your mouth is tender.” He smiled. “It certainly looks it to me.”
“Thank you.” She smiled back. Even with one of those eyes puffy and shiny, she was a real stunner.
“I’m going to record this interview, just routine. No hurry and no pressure. Have your coffee first.”
Suddenly tense, she shivered and pulled her cardigan from the back of her chair. It was cerise cashmere trimmed with a fur collar the same colour. Crowther briefly wondered what animal it was supposed to be from.
He winked to reassure her.
“Can I smoke?” she asked.
“Course.” He took an ashtray from the drawer and put it in front of her.
She opened her bag and scrabbled around for her cigarettes and lighter. She laid them on the table, and Crowther picked up the lighter, waiting for her to put a cigarette in the side of her swollen mouth. When she did he lit it, and watched her blow the smoke out.
“You want to make a statement about the abuse you have suffered at the hands of your husband, Kenneth Stone,” he said, softening the formal words with an encouraging nod.
“It’s for my children,” she said. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them.”
“They’re afraid of him too?”
She paused. “Yes, they are.” Her voice broke slightly as she spoke. “He hits them as well.”
“He’s a violent man, isn’t he?”
She fought back the tears as she nodded agreement.
Crowther leaned towards her. “Was he violent when you first knew him?”
“No, not violent. But he’s always been jealous, and possessive of me.”
He tried to sound sympathetic. “When did he start to show his violent side?”
Olivia flicked nervously on the cigarette. “I can’t remember exactly. What will happen? Will he get a warning? Or what?”
“That depends,” he said gently. “He’s also a suspect in a murder enquiry.”
Olivia looked at him wide-eyed.
“Did he tell you he bought a skip containing red g-string knickers and a large quantity of sex videos at an auction when the Scarlet Pussy Club changed hands?”
She looked sheepish. “That was because… I made a video. We all did.”
“We know about that. Tell me about him. You met him there, at the club?”
“Buying those videos… He was trying to stop them getting in the wrong hands, that’s all. At the auction he bid for whole skips of st
uff in the hope that the videos of me and Katie were in them.”
“But they weren’t?”
“No.” She flicked the cigarette again. “Kim was opening her dance school,” she told him. “The skips had costumes in them; he thought she would be able to use them for her dance productions. He passed the skips on to her.”
There was a knock on the door and Banham’s head appeared. Crowther turned the tape off and excused himself.
Banham quickly updated Crowther on what Alison and Isabelle had found. “It’s going to take a good twelve hours to check for DNA, or faded initials,” he said. “We can’t see any initials on pairs that we’ve just found, but there is a motif that looks like a strawberry. It’s being checked at the lab as we speak. So delay that interview with Olivia Stone any way you can. Tell her something urgent just came up, and you’ll have to ask her to wait. I want you to and Isabelle to have another crack at Ken Stone, and Alison and I will go for Finn. We’ll keep pushing at them. I think we’ve got the killer here, but until forensics turns something up, I don’t know which one it is.”
Finn was getting agitated. Gone was the nervous underdog; now Banham was seeing another side of this big man, and the undercurrent of anger running through him.
“If you’re not charging me, let me go. My kid needs me.”
“She’s with her grandmother,” Alison told him. “And you’re looking at another murder charge.”
“Where’s your evidence?”
“You’re strongly advised to co-operate and answer our questions.”
Finn sighed noisily. “I want to see a brief.” He raised his voice. “But I want out of here.”
“Why did Olivia or Katie change her name from Candyfloss to Strawberry?” Banham barked.
Finn shook his head. “It was Olivia. Ahmed called Olivia Candyfloss because he said she got everywhere. She didn’t like it, so she changed it. End of.”
“You’ve lost me,” Banham said. Alison threw him a despairing look.
Finn leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “She put herself about. First Ahmed, then me, and then Ken Stone came along. I wasn’t rich, so she dumped me and went off with Stone.” He shrugged. “No crime there. She was eighteen and beautiful.”
Banham’s phone bleeped. He checked the number of the incoming call and switched it off.
“She was getting some attention for the first time in her life,” Finn said. “Me and Ken Stone, we were both in love with her.”
“What did Theresa think of that?” Banham asked.
Finn laid his hands flat on the desk. “Olivia chose Ken. I courted Theresa, and I fell in love with her.” He looked away. When he spoke again after a few seconds, his voice had changed and the aggression had gone again. “I loved all the girls,” he said “I made it my job to look after them.”
“Why did Ken Stone visit you in prison?” Banham asked.
Finn gave a puzzled frown. “He didn’t.”
“Oh come on, Finn.” Banham was losing patience. “We have evidence that he did.”
“On my life, guvnor.”
Banham threw down a transparent evidence bag containing the prison record in front of Finn. “For the tape, I’m showing Mr Finn exhibit 313, prison visiting records,” he said. “It’s there in black and white: Mrs O Stone and Mr K Stone.”
Finn shook his head again and met Banham’s eyes. “That don’t say Ken came,” he said. “That says Mrs O Stone and Mr K Stone. Olivia brought Kevin to see me.” He hesitated a moment before adding, “He’s my son.”
With difficulty Banham kept his astonishment from showing on his face. This time the silence lasted almost half a minute. Then he asked, “Does Ken Stone know?”
“Yeah. I couldn’t marry her, could I? By the time she knew, I was doing time for Ahmed.” Finn looked away. “She didn’t want me anyway. And I loved Theresa, and she was pregnant too. It was a bit of a mess. But Ken wanted to marry Livvy, so it looked as if it might work out, for her anyway. Then when Kevin was about ten she brought him in to see me, and told him I was his father. They both visited me regular after that. At first Kev didn’t want to, but then we got on, had a laugh, like. He told me about Ken, how he got violent with them.” He clenched his fists. “After that I just wanted to get out and kill the bastard.”
“Is that why you blackmailed him?”
He looked at the wall. “Wouldn’t have been any need, if he’d coughed up like he said he would.” He turned round again and pushed his face into Banham’s. “It was tough on Theresa, you know. She had Bernadette, and it was… tough.”
“Are you saying the blackmail was her idea?” Alison asked.
Finn made no reply.
“I thought Olivia helped her financially?” Alison pushed.
“Some. Enough to get by.” He blew out a breath. “I was stuck in prison, Theresa had a handicapped kid, and Olivia had it all. Why shouldn’t Mr Kenneth Bigshot Stone pay up?”
“What about Katie Faye? Where does she come into this?” Banham asked. “She was paying half the blackmail. Didn’t you feel guilty about that?”
“No, I didn’t!” He slammed a fist on the table. “If it weren’t for me, she’d have nothing.”
“Now you’ve lost me.” Banham watched Finn’s gaze move nervously around the room.
“It doesn’t matter,” he muttered, dropping his head into his hands. “Oh Christ, what have I said?”
“If there’s something you think we should know, you’d better start talking,” Alison said crisply. “This is a triple murder enquiry, and one of the victims is the woman you love. If you withhold anything that could be relevant, you could be looking at another prison sentence.”
Finn looked at her like a man resigned to a fate he didn’t want to imagine. “All right. It looks like I’ve got no choice.”
“Do you think we’ve finally got the truth?” Alison asked Banham, outside the interview room twenty minutes later.
“Oh yes. He hasn’t any reason to make that up; he’s already served nineteen years for it. The question is, is he right about the stripper name? He pulled his phone from his pocket and switched it back on. “And that strawberry motif on the g-string. Does that tell us who the killer’s lined up next?”
He checked his phone. There was a string of missed calls made from the same number: one he didn’t recognise. He quickly pressed Return, but the number was unobtainable.
“I’ll get Katie Faye brought in,” Alison said, taking her car keys out and heading for the front door.
“Before you do, just run a check on that number for me.” He handed her his phone. “It’s called sixteen times in the last twenty minutes.”
16
Alison’s arm was halfway into the sleeve of her anorak as she rushed back along the corridor to the incident room. She tossed Banham’s mobile back to him and spoke at the speed of a Euro train. “Grab your coat. The calls were from Olivia Stone’s private line in her house.” Her car keys were already in her hand. “I’ll meet you at the car.”
Banham grabbed his coat and ran after her, pausing only to punch DC Holt’s number into his phone.
“Have you got Katie Faye with you?” he asked the young surveillance officer.
Holt sounded out of breath. “I needed the loo, so I knocked on the door. There were raised voices, so I followed the sound to the back of the house. Then I heard a car engine fire at the front, so I rushed back, just in time to see the BMW roaring off with Katie Faye at the wheel. I’ve already called for back-up…”
“Put out a warning not to approach her,” Banham said urgently. “Give them the registration, but tell them to keep their distance. She may be armed and dangerous.”
He had reached the bottom of the stairs, opposite the station sergeant’s desk. “Get me a radio,” he said to the duty sergeant, “and alert all areas. We’re looking for a black BMW – DC Holt will give you the registration number. Warn them the driver may be armed.” He put his mobile back to his ear. �
��Back-up’s on the way, and so are we,” he told him. “Stay at the house and keep us posted.”
Alison had the engine running and the door open as Banham tore out of the station, still talking to DC Holt. “You said you heard voices at the back of the house? Whose? Besides Katie Faye?”
“I don’t know, sir. A man, that’s all I could tell. I didn’t see any visitors arrive. If someone else was in the house, they got in without my knowledge.”
Banham climbed into Alison’s car. It was moving before he had closed the door.
“Let’s hope for a clear road,” she said.
She turned into the main road and jumped an amber light. She must have been driving at sixty miles an hour. Banham switched on the radiophone and asked the station sergeant for siren-led back-up. “That’ll help us cross London,” he said, “and keep us in one piece.”
“Just pray we don’t get a puncture. I’ve just changed the wheel and haven’t had time to get it mended.”
They approached a t-junction, and she pulled out without waiting for an oncoming car to give way.
“I’ll pray your driving doesn’t get us killed as well, shall I?” he said, clutching the edge of his seat.
Katie slowed down to just under thirty miles an hour. Her eyes kept flicking toward the driver’s mirror. She couldn’t turn her head to the left. If she moved even a millimetre, the large, shiny, newly sharpened carving knife pressed against her throat would penetrate her skin. The side of her ear was already stinging from the small nick intended as a warning not to try to alert anyone.
That sting made her aware exactly how sharp that knife was, and the damage it could inflict. The fear of what it might do to her throat stopped her thinking straight.
A red g-string lay on the passenger seat beside her. Another warning, as if she needed it: she already knew she was next in the killer’s sights.
The memory of the weeks working at that dreadful club soaked her mind. She’d been stupid. Stupid, and so desperate to earn the money to go to college and better herself that she put herself through the humiliation of rolling around naked on a filthy mattress pretending to have sex with Olivia, and having a huge dildo pushed up her anus by that pervert Ahmed. Six weeks’ work, taking her clothes off twice nightly in front of crowds of jeering drunks who pawed and mauled her young body, in the oppressive temperatures of the hottest summer in history. All because she had a dream – to become an actress, and make something of herself.
