Ag sank back on the pillows. ‘We were going to do something with the kids.’
‘I’ll try to get back in the afternoon – take them for a kickabout.’
She laughed. ‘Kat’ll love that.’
‘She will, actually. There’s nothing she likes better than sending Luke running around like a rabbit on heat.’
‘Go away, you silly man,’ she said, a smile on her lips.
Driving to Corham, Heck took in the mist rising from the fields. It was another cloudless day, the sun already a bright orb. Birds flitted across the road between the trees like small coils discharging energy. Heck enjoyed the trip every morning. For years he’d gone through the drab suburbs of Newcastle, the traffic thundering along until it ground to a halt in tailbacks. Corham was an efficient place. On the northern side the roads could handle the traffic even during rush hour, while the wide roads in Ironflatts that used to service the steel mill and other heavy industry were never congested now. Besides, there weren’t many cars around early on the first of the May bank holidays.
He saw Assistant Chief Constable Dickie getting out of her dark green Audi as he pulled into his parking place outside Force HQ. She waited for him, her black jacket and skirt immaculate and her briefcase as full as ever. Until she spoke, she appeared to be ‘Mrs Normal’, her nickname – average height, weight, looks; bobbed mousy hair in an old-fashioned Alice band; a couple of unshowy rings on her left hand. Her husband – she hadn’t taken his name – really was Mr Normal: an insurance broker in Newcastle, who played golf and looked after the garden. The only thing that marked them out was that they didn’t have the standard two children – they didn’t have any. The general feeling was that the ACC didn’t do sex.
‘Good morning, Heck,’ she said, a faint smile on her unpainted lips. Make-up was surplus to requirements unless there was a press conference. ‘Busy night.’
‘Ma’am.’ Although Ruth Dickie had been a WPC when Heck was already a DI, her rise had been rapid. She was a shrewd operator, good at police politics – Heck’s bugbear – and hardworking. She had taken the weight off her then superiors during the early planning of Pofnee and had been rewarded with responsibility for crime across the whole force area.
‘Something major go down in one of the cities?’ Heck found it unlikely that she was referring only to the brothel stabbings.
‘Nothing worse than usual,’ she said drily.
Heck knew that could mean anything from running fights in central Newcastle to student bashing in Durham to drug-gang violence in Sunderland.
‘I’m interested in the Albanian connection,’ the ACC said, as they went across the entrance hall.
‘Is that right?’
‘They’re becoming a real problem in Newcastle.’ She tapped in the door code. ‘We don’t want them operating under our noses in Corham, especially if they’re being overtly violent. That wouldn’t be at all good for the Force’s image.’
Heck nodded. It was all about image. If it hadn’t been a holiday, the local press would have been clamouring for a statement.
‘My office in five minutes,’ Ruth Dickie said, as the lift doors opened. ‘You and your DIs will be sufficient.’
Heck swallowed a laugh. Why couldn’t the ACC use normal words like ‘enough’? He knew the reason – because she wasn’t normal at all, no matter how she looked. She was a woman rocketing through the glass ceiling, the chief constable’s job in her sights. He admired her and he wasn’t envious. He’d rather have walked the Roman Wall in winter wearing swimming trunks than occupy the sixth-floor corner office.
‘Morning, Joni,’ he said, as he walked into the fourth-floor MCU suite, having taken the stairs and almost lost his breath.
DI Pax was hammering away at her keyboard. ‘Sir,’ she responded, without looking away from the screen. ‘ACC want us?’
‘How did you guess?’
Joni shrugged.
‘Where’s Morrie?’
‘At the brothel. He and Nathan are being very secretive.’
Heck called the other DI. ‘Morrie? You have a minute to get over here. The ACC’s office.’ He terminated the call. ‘That should get him moving. In truth he’s got three minutes.’
Joni went to the printer and started collating papers.
‘Anything you want to tell me before we get grilled?’ Heck asked, dumping his bag in his glass-walled office. There was no one else around.
‘Nothing that won’t wait, sir.’
‘Thanks a lot. Let’s go then.’ He looked at her. ‘Aren’t you knackered?’
‘It’s not the first time I’ve pulled an all-nighter.’ Joni’s face softened. ‘Thanks for the concern, though.’ She followed him to the stairs, knowing his habit of avoiding the lifts. ‘There is one thing.’
Heck looked over his shoulder.
‘The brothel. It’s owned by a company based in Liberia.’
He groaned.
20
Suzana watched the birds swarm over the park. They were like the shoals of fish she had once seen on Italian TV, circling and clustering in a dance only they could understand. She had spent the rest of the night behind the thick bushes that lined a park by a river. In the early morning she had gone through the nearby rubbish bins, finding half-eaten meat and bread and unfinished bottles – she ignored the beer and drank water and juice. Then, clutching her bent legs in her arms and leaning against the wall behind the bushes, she managed to sleep; not deeply and only in short bursts, but enough to refresh her. The wound in her chest was painful, as were her feet. She had taken off the trainers and socks and unwrapped the bandages, pouring water from a bottle she had saved over the lacerated soles. She didn’t know if it would be enough to fend off infection, but it was all she could do. When it got dark, she would see if she could find an unoccupied house to break into – there would be food and hot water, maybe even ointment and clean dressings. She wasn’t going near any hospital. Leka and his stinking friends would be there if she hadn’t killed them; she knew how unlikely it was that all three were dead. Even if they were, others would come after her. The clan could never allow a woman to get the better of it.
She kept still as children came close, a ball crashing through the foliage. Fortunately the clothes she’d stolen weren’t brightly coloured and she wasn’t seen. Eventually the shouts and screams grew distant. Suzana was thinking about the kids in her village. They had nothing, certainly not the sturdy shoes and good quality clothes these ones wore. They used the heads of hens that had been slaughtered instead of balls, the boys with their heads shaven against lice and the girls never allowed far from their mothers or elder sisters; until they became old enough to go the way of many sisters, the way that led abroad to the worst kind of slavery. She wished she still had a weapon. That would be her priority when she found a house: a knife she could use on them when they came for her, then draw quickly across her own throat.
As the day passed, she found that sleep evaded her. She was sitting on a sheet from one of the newspapers she had taken from a bin. The print was faded and the photographs blurred. The word ‘Corham’ appeared in the title and in many other places. Was that the name of the place she had been living in for months? Cor-ham. She pronounced the word under her breath, wondering if she was saying it correctly. Cor-ham.
Then she looked closer. There was a photograph of two women coming out of a house, one of them short and white, the other tall and dark-skinned. Suzana had never seen a black person in the flesh until she was in the airport in London. This woman looked powerful, as if she was a queen, but she was different. Even though Suzana would have nothing in common with her, she felt a strange connection. She peered at the words underneath. The ones that began with capital letters were probably names. Ma-ur-een Hug-hes, she voiced. Jo-ni Pax. This was the police officer who had left the card. Pax was like Albanian ‘paqe’. Was that what the name meant? ‘Peace’? Suzana laughed silently. Peace was the opposite of what she had experienced in this land.
She fumbled in her new clothes for the wallet and took out the rectangle of card. There was a telephone number and an address under Jo-ni Pax’s name, but she wasn’t going to visit any police station. Free was what she was now, free until death. Still, this Joni woman looked capable. Maybe she really could protect her…
Suzana slapped her cheek. That was weakness. Only she could save herself. She had to plan, she had to steal, she had to be forever on the watch for Leka’s people and those who would betray her to them, she had to stay in the shadows. No policewoman, especially not a dark goddess, could help her.
Suzana put the card back in the stolen wallet and tried to understand why Jo-ni Pax was in the newspaper. She understood some words that were similar to her own language and to Italian, but not enough to make sense of the story. If Jo-ni Pax was anything like the Albanian police, she would be taking money from criminals. Ma-ur-een Hug-hes probably thought she had been helped by her, but she would be just another victim. The police helped no one but themselves.
When the sun sank and darkness gathered, mist rising from the river as it did in the mountains where she had grown up, Suzana crawled carefully out of the bushes, having waited until the last people with dogs had left. Then she slipped away, anonymous, no longer a slave but fully committed to remaining free. And to revenge.
21
ACC Crime Ruth Dickie leant against the window ledge and looked at the three officers sitting on the other side of her desk. She liked to have height advantage, even though she was no more than five foot five in her flat shoes.
‘Let me recap. One of the men attacked in the brothel is dead from the head injuries he suffered. Another, who was stabbed, is recovering from surgery and out of danger. Predictably, he hasn’t said a word. There’s been no sign of the man who walked down the street with what was described as a piece of cutlery sticking out of his head. Apart from confirming they’re from Albania, none of the women has said anything material to the investigation.’ The ACC looked at Joni.
‘Correct, ma’am. They’re terrified for their families back home.’
‘They didn’t even give you the missing woman’s name?’
Joni shook her head. ‘They say they didn’t know it. It may be true. They don’t seem to know each other. The pimps probably kept them in separate rooms.’
‘Vile but not unheard of,’ Ruth Dickie said. ‘As for you, DI Sutton, you found a safe at the house in Burwell Street. Unfortunately, raising a magistrate has been a slow process, but we should have it open in the afternoon.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Morrie confirmed, looking pleased with himself.
‘But canvassing of the vicinity has been singularly unproductive.’
Heck struggled not to smile. Ruth Dickie’s standard operating procedure was to skewer subordinates when they thought the pressure was off.
‘Well, the people down there aren’t exactly our biggest fans. A lot of the men would have been customers of the knocking shop. We did find one old lady willing to talk, ma’am.’
‘The witness who said the man had a fork in his head because she recognised the distinctive handle? The forked man.’ If the ACC was proud of her witticism, she didn’t show it. ‘She also told you that a very tall person in a red hat was outside the house in question.’
This time Heck had to raise a hand to his mouth.
‘Yeah, she got confused by the lad dressed as a traffic light.’
Ruth Dickie turned her gaze back to Joni. ‘Who told you little of substance, DI Pax.’
‘I’m going to do a follow-up interview, ma’am.’
‘No, you’re not,’ Morrie Sutton expostulated. ‘This is my case.’
The ACC had no interest in turf wars. ‘DCI Rutherford?’
‘DI Sutton left the interview before it got going, so DI Pax will continue for the sake of consistency.’
‘Thank you. Your priorities as of now are what?’
‘Joni … DI Pax will see if she can get anything out of the man in hospital when he’s fit to talk.’ Heck glanced at Morrie. ‘While DI Sutton will act on what is found in the safe, as well as coordinate the SOCOs’ reports.’
Ruth Dickie nodded. ‘And the house? It’s all very well it being owned by this Liberian company, but someone local must be paying the bills.’
‘DI Sutton’s team will look at that, ma’am,’ Heck confirmed.
‘Very well. I’ll see you at the morning briefing tomorrow.’
Joni stood up and looked at the ACC. ‘Pardon me, ma’am, but what about the women?’
Ruth Dickie showed little interest in the question. ‘Didn’t you say they were being looked after in a hostel until the Border Agency’s checks are completed?’
‘Yes, but it’s not secure. They’ve been sexually abused for who knows how long, but at the same time they don’t want to antagonise the men who brought them here. I’m worried they’ll slip away.’
‘We don’t have the resources to babysit them, DI Pax. Unless you want to volunteer.’
‘Maybe I will, ma’am,’ Joni said, glancing at Heck. ‘But there’s someone else at risk.’
‘I presume you mean the woman who murdered one man, put another in hospital and forked another.’ This time the ACC did smile, but there was little sign of amusement. ‘I should have thought the citizens of Corham are the ones at risk. Her description has been circulated, has it not, DI Sutton?’
Morrie nodded, giving Joni a sly smile. ‘Yes, ma’am. We’ll catch the … we’ll catch her soon enough.’
‘That will be all,’ Ruth Dickie said, looking at Joni doubtfully. Displays of emotion were not to her taste.
22
‘It’s OK, Nick,’ his mother said, handing him a plate of bacon, sausage and scrambled eggs. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong.’
Michael was already halfway through his breakfast. ‘That’s right, lad. But if I get my hands on those so-called friends of yours, they’ll be sorry.’
His grandson looked at him blankly. ‘Leave them alone. Pete hung around for a bit. Anyway, I’d have done the same.’
‘I sincerely hope not. Friends are the most important thing in life. I still have…’ He broke off when he saw his daughter-in-law’s face. ‘Come on, eat up. We don’t want to be late for the fishing.’
‘Not coming,’ Nick said, pushing his plate across the table and getting up.
‘Wait, darling,’ his mother said, holding on to his arm as he tried to leave the kitchen. ‘We have to talk about this.’
‘About what?’ Nick said, pulling gently away and walking out.
They heard his footsteps on the stairs.
‘I don’t understand,’ Rosie said, her eyes damp. ‘He’s never been like this before. Not even when … when Alistair died.’
‘He saw some bad stuff last night,’ Michael said. ‘And he should never have been handcuffed, let alone interrogated. I thought that black woman had her head screwed on, but now I’m not so sure.’
Rosie sat down and stared at her son’s untouched food.
‘Don’t worry,’ her father-in-law said. ‘I’ll go and have a chat with him when he’s cooled down. You know what it is?’
‘No … oh, you mean girl trouble.’
Michael nodded. ‘You know, I can understand the girls in his party clearing off, but his male friends shouldn’t have run.’
‘They’re just kids,’ Rosie said softly. ‘Don’t judge them as if they were in the army.’
The major general didn’t respond. His daughter-in-law still hadn’t got over the loss of Alistair, for all his faults, and letting go of Nick was proving difficult for her. He hated to imagine how she’d be when Nick went to the Far East. He found himself thinking about the female detective with the curious name. Pax. Good name for a law keeper. She reminded him of a sergeant who’d served in his communications unit in Bosnia. Mavis Westron. He’d never touched her – he didn’t do that kind of thing with female personnel – but there was an aura about her, a strange mixtur
e of ‘come hither’ and ‘do so and I’ll break your fingers’. DI Pax had something similar.
‘I’ll take him a coffee,’ Michael said. He went to the cafetière on the sideboard, poured himself one too and put the mugs on a tray.
He paused outside his grandson’s door. Usually there was ear-shattering music coming from it, but today he could hear the birdsong in the meadow behind the house. He knocked and turned the handle. To his surprise, the door was locked.
‘Nick? I’ve brought you a coffee. Come on, chap. I won’t bite.’
There was a pause and then the key clicked. The door still didn’t open. Michael turned the handle, balancing the tray on his other hand. Nick was sitting with his arms round his drawn-up legs in the far corner of his bed.
‘I don’t want anything to drink, Gramps,’ he said fiercely.
Michael raised his shoulders. ‘I’m not going to pour it down your throat.’ He smiled. ‘Though I could if I wanted to.’ That didn’t raise even the ghost of a smile. They had always had a tactile relationship, the older man hugging his grandson and ruffling his hair. They still occasionally played touch rugby in the back garden, but it didn’t look like that wouldn’t be happening today.
‘Spit it out, then, lad. Problem shared and all that.’
Nick remained silent.
‘Your mum thinks it’s girl trouble.’
‘Why? What have you told her?’
Michael raised a hand. ‘Nothing.’
Nick stared at him, his eyes bloodshot. He obviously hadn’t slept much. ‘You promised you wouldn’t, Gramps. You know it’ll upset her.’
‘I won’t. But you have to promise me something in return.’
‘What?’
‘Forget her. You need to concentrate on your exams. Then it won’t be long till you’re backpacking your way across the other side of the world.’
Nick blinked and ran his forearm across his eyes. ‘I can’t, Gramps,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I can’t … I love her.’
Carnal Acts Page 6
