by Bo Brennan
Gray laughed and tilted his head. “The sort that’s looking for dark, dirty, and dangerous fucks. There’s a car park twenty yards up on the left where they meet.”
“Doggers,” India said flatly.
Gray nodded. “They park up and get it on in their vehicles or in the woodland over there.” He pointed at the treeline bordering the body. “The real exhibitionists like to do it in the open at the water’s edge.”
India’s lips twitched. “Do they?” she said, staring at him. “Do they really?”
“So I’m told.” Gray glanced back at his crew, loitering around the truck. “Up to twenty cars a night regularly use this spot. Mainly couples, some singles.”
India followed his gaze. “Which one is it?”
“Not happening,” Gray said, turning back to face her.
“Tell me it’s not Charlie, he’s got a kid on the way.”
“I’m not telling you anything.”
“But there could be loads more witnesses. If one of your lot comes here, they might know who else does.”
“Not. Happening.” Gray set his jaw when she eyeballed him. “They don’t swap names, India. They swap body fluids. No strings, stranger sex. You haven’t got a hope in hell’s chance of anyone coming forward. Unless one of them knows,” he said, nodding at the group of ghostlike white suits bustling down the road towards them.
India’s eyes narrowed as Dr Fisher – deep in animated conversation with Firman and Sangrin – wiped grease from his chin with a sauce stained serviette, rolled it into a ball, and tossed it over his shoulder. The CSI team, slavishly lugging field lights and heavy kit down the footpath behind them, didn’t look happy. Sangrin looked like a demented gnome. “Does one of them know?”
“Get a bloody suit on, Kane!” Sangrin shouted. “We’re not wearing these for fun.”
Gray chuckled and wandered over to brief them.
“Didn’t die here,” Dr Fisher said. “This is merely the dump site.”
“Are you sure?” Sangrin said.
Freaky Fisher glared up at him, raising one unruly eyebrow. “I’ve been doing this for longer than you’ve been on the planet, Sergeant. Of course I’m bloody sure!”
India rolled her eyes. It was obvious to everyone rustling in white paper suits inside the crime scene tent, that the woman on the grass bank in front of them didn’t die there. Not a drop of blood was spilt. She glanced at her watch, wanting to be at her desk for the lunchtime news in case the phones started ringing about Pocahontas. “Guv, am I really needed here? The abduction –”
“Your abduction’s been upgraded to murder,” Sangrin said, before Firman could respond.
India bristled in irritation. “How’d you work that out?”
Sangrin reached inside his scene suit and pulled a piece of paper from his top pocket. “The emergency call detail from Gray Davies,” he said, handing it over. “Matey with the dog said the fire starter was a man in a white van. Caller’s number’s on there. Find out who he is and come back to me asap, there’s a good girl.”
India almost baulked at the additional details he’d gleaned from Gray while she’d been hauling on her scene suit. “Oh well, that’s sorted then, what with there only being one white van in the entire county,” she said, smacking the heel of her hand into her own forehead. “Silly me. I’ll just look up its registered keeper details when I get back to the office. Case closed.” Twat.
Sangrin raised his brows. “You got her picture with you?”
“How is that going to help exactly?”
“Can you categorically tell us that that is not your missing Pocahontas?” he said, pointing at the corpse between them.
India stared down at the charred remains. Dr Fisher, from his position kneeling next to the body, stared expectantly back at her.
“Well, is it her or not?” Sangrin asked.
India lifted her eyes and glared at him over her mask. He winked at her in victory. She diverted her gaze to Firman, seeking his support but knowing it was futile. “You had a white van and a missing woman, now you’ve got a white van and a dead woman. What’s your problem?” Firman said, spreading his hands. “He’s talking sense.”
India gave a tight nod in reluctant agreement. “No problem.” Sangrin didn’t talk sense often, but even she had to acknowledge he was this time. Missing people and dead bodies had a tendency to go hand in hand. She’d already been called obnoxious and rude this week, and now she was publicly adding belligerent and stupid to the list.
“Glad we’ve got that sorted,” Dr Fisher chirped, smiling up at her. “First things first, you’ll have to inform the coroner, my dear. You’ve got yourself a suspicious death.”
“No shit,” India murmured.
“I’ll deal with the press,” Sangrin said. “Kane, you’re at the post mortem with the guv’nor, and then back at your desk fielding calls. With all your experience of sex crimes, this one should be a piece of piss with you on the paperwork.” He leered at her from behind the safety of his facemask. “Look what the bastard’s done to her bits.”
India had been trying hard not to look, but the fact the dead woman’s legs were splayed and her genitalia all but gone had been impossible to ignore.
“We’re done here,” Dr Fisher said, brushing away his snap-happy camera technician and springing to his feet. “Let’s get her on a slab and see what she can tell us.”
India doubted the woman would be telling them very much at all, guessed it was a near impossibility minus her head.
Chapter 13
The Old Bailey, London
Maggie’s nose twitched as she straightened his tie. Colt knew that she could smell it. “Knock ‘em dead, Boss,” she said, smiling up at him.
“If only,” he murmured, rolling his head against the tense knots already forming in the muscles of his neck and shoulders. He could’ve done with a little last-minute stress relief this morning, but when the alarm went off at five and he’d reached for her, India was nowhere to be found. Neither was her car. She’d left no note, nothing.
He drank coffee alone in her kitchen. Showered in her bathroom and used her vanilla shampoo. Then, with her towel wrapped around his waist, he strolled over to his place and got dressed, drowning himself in aftershave in a vain attempt to mask the feminine fragrance.
The scent of her still lingered.
“Kylie Jones is up first,” Maggie said. “She shouldn’t take long. I’ll see you in there.”
Colt forced a smile as she headed off to the courtroom. Finding himself alone in the police witness waiting area, he dropped into a chair with just his fretful thoughts for company.
Kylie Jones – all cherry Chapstick and thick black eyeliner. Thirteen years old and living in an impenetrable bubble of sinfully constructed delusion that Colt tragically understood. All she wanted was the same as everybody else – to be loved. Hell, he was a grown man and that’s all he wanted. He felt loved – but it would still be good to hear those three little words occasionally.
Kylie had heard those softly whispered sweet nothings more times in her few short years than he would hear in his whole lifetime.
Love – the only thing money couldn’t buy.
But vodka, cigarettes, and rides in fast cars had bought an impressionable and lonely Kylie Jones.
Colt stretched in the uncomfortable plastic chair and tipped his head back to the ceiling. He had more money than he could ever spend, and had had more lovers than he could ever count, but for the very first time in his life he’d actually found what Kylie thought she sought. But the person he’d found it with – unlike the love of young Kylie’s life – wanted nothing in return. Took absolutely nothing from him – demanded no glitzy restaurants, no red-carpet events, no white sandy beaches on far-flung tropical shores.
India had sucked him into her private, simple world . . . and it felt good. Right.
Colt frowned and lurched forward in his seat, resting his forearms on his thighs. There were no parallels to be
drawn here. Kylie was a child, living with her parents. She was unique in that respect. All the other girls in this case had come from broken homes and the care system. She shouldn’t have been seeking anything that couldn’t be found abundantly in the arms of her own family. But it wasn’t. And she had.
At the very best of times love could be cruel and unkind, but regardless of what her screwed-up young brain and body told her – this was not love. Thirty years her senior, Mohammed Bashir was a predatory paedophile who had capitalised on her familial instability in order to abuse her in the worst ways possible. He’d lavished her with phone-credit, cigarettes, drugs, drink, and attention. Called her his princess to make her feel all grown-up and special, wanted, and loved. Drove her to parties all around the country, where he plied her with alcohol and introduced her to his mates. And when this naive little girl was pissed out of her skull, he pimped her out to his ‘mates’ for money and favour.
When Colt’s unit raided one of these parties, they found Kylie in an upstairs bedroom – naked and unconscious, face down on a dirty mattress in a pool of her own vomit. Used condoms littered the bedroom floor. Forensic testing revealed they hadn’t even bothered to use fresh condoms every time they’d raped her. The DNA profiles of multiple men were found alongside Kylie’s in each of those spent rubbers.
Kylie Jones was emotionally vulnerable when Bashir first got his claws into her at eleven years old. Two years on she was emotionally bankrupt. Brainwashed. Broken. Chief recruiter of other young girls for the gang.
And Colt did not want her inside that court room.
He wrung his hands together and cracked his knuckles. He had a really bad feeling about this.
Winchester
Gray Davies pressed the intercom buzzer, and yawned as he waited for a response.
“Don’t do that,” Charlie Riggs said. “You’ll start me off.”
Courtesy of a speeding motorist, hell bent on revenge, they’d been dragged out of their station-house bunks three times in the night. Thankfully, Sangrin had seen fit to release them from the murder scene as soon as he found out they hadn’t soaked his corpse and she’d burned out naturally. Gray had managed to snatch another three hours sleep before he and Charlie fell in with their regular crew on day shift. So far, it was proving uneventful.
The intercom crackled. “Yes?”
“Good morning, Mrs Reynolds,” Gray shouted into the small metal box. “It’s Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service. We’re here to carry out the annual inspection. Could you buzz us in, please?”
When the blue-rinsed queen of the sheltered housing complex emerged from Flat 1 peering suspiciously at them, Gray smiled and pressed his ID to the reinforced glass doors. “Can you let us in, please, Mrs Reynolds?” he shouted.
“I can now I’ve seen you,” she shouted back, smacking the access button like a prize-winning fighter. “Can’t be too careful these days. A lot of undesirables around.”
“Better to be safe than sorry,” Gray said agreeably as the crew crowded into the small lobby of Cantilever Court amid a flurry of greetings.
Mrs Reynolds screwed her ancient face into a frown. “What?”
Gray tapped his ear and made a twisting motion with his fingers. “Your hearing aid, Mrs Reynolds. Turn it up!”
She fiddled with the dated contraption in her ear, her gaze shifting between the appliance parked on the grass outside and the crew blocking the stairs to the second storey of the eight-dwelling block. “Is it really necessary to send a whole fire engine and all of you to check a few smoke detectors?”
“We’re on duty, Miss,” Gray said, hearing his own words echoing through her ear drum. “If we get a call-out we’ll go straight from here.”
The old girl set her jaw. “My John might’ve been gone fifteen years, but it’s still Mrs Reynolds.”
“Sorry, Mrs Reynolds.” Gray held up his paperwork, feeling suitably chastised. “Could you spare me a couple of minutes to update our records, please?”
Mrs Reynolds peered at his clipboard, head slightly tilted as the mechanical delay between his words and her ears finally caught up. “Ready when you are,” she eventually said.
With a subdued smile Gray diverted his gaze to the layout plan on his clipboard. “Has any building work been carried out since we were last here?” he asked.
“Only by the pillock in Flat 7,” she said. “Nothing official.”
Gray turned the page on his paperwork and scanned the list of residents provided by the council. “Er, Flat 7. Mrs Aveberry?”
“Dead,” she said. “Choked on her Christmas dinner.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” he said, writing ‘deceased’ next to her name.
Mrs Reynolds wrinkled her nose. “Don’t be. She wasn’t a very pleasant woman.”
Ignoring the chuckles behind him, Gray cleared his throat and pressed on. “Is that flat currently vacant?”
“No.” Mrs Reynolds pursed her lips and brusquely crossed her arms. “Her equally unpleasant daughter took over the tenancy.”
“And that would be a Miss Aveberry, would it?”
“Unless someone was stupid enough to marry her. Doesn’t live there, though,” she said, leaning in and lowering her voice. “Strangers have been coming and going all hours of the day and night lately. Foreigners. None of them look old enough to be here. None of them are in at the moment either.”
Gray made a note on his records that the property may, or may not, have been sublet, and that nobody was home to grant access for the check. He also noted there was still no sprinkler system installed in the main lobby.
“Everything else is the same, and everyone’s in,” she said, gripping his arm. “C’mon then. You can do me, while the rest of them get on with it.”
Gray looked to Charlie, hoping he might buzz him out of this date too. “No chance,” Charlie said, and headed up the stairs.
“Just in case you don’t hear the alarm sound, these new ones have a strobe light as well, Mrs Reynolds.” Gray pressed the batteries into the last of the updated smoke detectors and set his sights on the stove.
The horror of an old-fashioned chip pan greeted him.
“You hungry?” Mrs Reynolds asked. “Want me to make you chips for lunch?”
“No, Mrs Reynolds. I want to take this away,” he said, lifting the dangerous monstrosity. “If you let me dispose of it, I’ll bring you back a nice new one. A safe one.”
Mrs Reynolds frowned. “That’s older than you,” she said. “Never had a problem with it, makes perfect chips.”
“No one ever has a problem until their house burns down.”
“Give over,” she said. “I only have chips once a week.”
Gray stifled a yawn as he begrudgingly placed it back on the stove.
“Am I keeping you up young man?”
He didn’t have the energy to spar with the old girl, her body might be knackered but her eyes and tongue were sharper than his today. “Busy night,” he said.
“I suppose you were out dancing all night. You youngsters burn the candle at both ends and then wonder why you can’t get up in the morning. Sit down, take the weight off,” she said pulling out a chair from the kitchen table. “You got a girl?”
He briefly thought about Cara, before shaking his head as he sat down. “I’m young free and single, Mrs Reynolds.”
“You gay?” she said, looking him up and down.
Gray frowned. “No.”
“What’s wrong with you then?” She scowled as she handed him a fine bone china cup and saucer full of tea strong enough to stand a spoon in.
“Nothing. Too busy to meet someone, I guess.” He hadn’t expected tea; she hadn’t asked if he wanted one. It was welcome, but now he was stuck with an equally unwelcome interrogation of his love life. He scooped three sugars from the bowl on the table and stirred it well, flinching with each chink of the spoon against her best china.
“Times have changed,” she said, wearily lowering herself into a ch
air. “I was married to my John for fifty-two years before the wretched cancer took him. No one gets married these days.”
Gray smiled. “I came close once.”
“What happened? She die?”
Gray shook his head as he sipped his tea. “She cheated.”
“First time?”
“Only time, I hope.”
“And you couldn’t forgive her?”
“I didn’t get the opportunity,” he said, dumping another sugar in his cup. “She moved in with him the next day.”
“Left you like a spare prick at a wedding, eh?”
Gray suppressed a laugh. “You kiss your grandkids with that mouth, Mrs Reynolds?”
She wistfully raised her cup to her lips. “I would if I had any. Unfortunately, my John and I were only blessed with one son. Not for want of trying mind,” she added with a mischievous wink. “My boy puts work before women, too. Me included. Want a biscuit?”
“Go on then,” he said, warming to the old bird.
“There’s some chocolate ones in there.” She pushed a battered biscuit tin across the table as though it contained the holy grail. “Handsome boy like you needs a woman. Life’s a long time to be on your own. Especially if you reach my age.”
Gray lifted the lid and stared at the biscuits. “Do you ever get lonely, Mrs Reynolds?”
“Sometimes,” she said. “But not as lonely as you.”
“Me?”
“I can see it in your eyes boy. I’ve got fifty-two years of memories with the love of my life to keep me warm at night. What you got?”
He swallowed hard. All he had was a duvet. “She wants to try again, Mrs Reynolds.”
“And what do you want?”
Gray answered instantly, surprised he hadn’t even had to think about it. “I want what you had.”
She smiled at him with moist eyes. “Well then, you need to stop buggering about and get on with it.”
