Joanna had heard he was a drinker, but it was only six o’clock and he had his car parked outside. He was as snappily dressed as ever, smartly casual in lightweight jacket and polo shirt, and he was not a man who gave a lot away. But she suddenly noticed how grim he looked. Perhaps he reckoned he needed a large Scotch.
He downed the whisky in one go, then turned to her. ‘In case you’re wondering, Frank Manners will never get another line out of me,’ he said suddenly. ‘He got me at a weak moment and I told him about making the drop. It was off the record, though, and he damned well knew it. I’d begun to think of him as a mate, I suppose, more fool me. The bastard’s landed me right in it, but he may live to regret it yet. That’s why you’re here.’
She inclined her head in mock graciousness. It was beginning to make sense now. Frank would have been so eager to get back at her after the success of her ‘Beast’ story that he would have broken the confidence of the Pope himself. And the old crime hack was an allegedly devout Catholic too.
‘There’s something I thought you’d like to know,’ Fielding continued. He obviously had no wish to waste time or make small talk. ‘This joker is some piece of work. He damn near tortured that girl to death. She may have died of dehydration ultimately, but my God she was a mess. Something specific. He sliced both her nipples off.’
‘Good God, why?’ Joanna could not imagine how even the most perverted killer could get a kick out of such a thing, but as she spoke she wondered if Fielding would think her naive to ask such a question.
If he did, he gave no sign. Instead, he smiled grimly. ‘A knife fetish? Who knows what turns these sickos on?’
Joanna was astonished. Not only by the dreadful deed but by Fielding’s eagerness to tell her about it. She wondered if his superiors knew he was planning to give her this line. Probably not, she thought. The detective might be a little chastened, but he was still a maverick. She glanced at him. Why was he telling her this? she wondered. What was his motive?
He carried on speaking, then, almost as if he had read her mind. ‘I want him, Joanna, and I want him fast. The more public outcry we can whip up, the more help we are likely to get. Anyway, that’s the way I see it.’
But not your bosses, more than likely, she thought. ‘Any more detail? How did he do it, and before or after she was dead?’
Fielding told her that a large sharp knife, possibly a carving knife or a hunting knife, was believed to have been used to mutilate Angela’s breasts. ‘And done while she was still alive, poor kid, definitely,’ he continued bluntly. ‘In fact, the SOCOs reckon Matey hadn’t been near the place since soon after he took Angela there. Seems like he may have been scared off and just abandoned her.’ He paused. ‘Two theories: one that he raped her and sliced her breasts right at the very beginning, maybe after the first drop went wrong, and that when the second drop went pear-shaped he was totally scared off and just legged it and left her there. Two, that he went back to the mine and had a bit more fun with her and sliced her breasts after the second drop. Just for the hell of it, or for revenge or some such twisted thing. Don’t know which scenario I like best, really. Do you?’
He made an attempt at his disarming grin but it didn’t quite work. He picked up the remains of his pint and drained the glass. ‘Oh, and she was buggered, of course, but that’s no surprise.’
It wasn’t, but Jo still hated to hear it. Rapists were very fond of buggery. It was all about degradation.
‘Curious MO,’ he went on. ‘On the one hand Matey’s a criminal out for gain. Organised. Done his homework. Knows the territory. He’s hand-picked his victim, studied her family. On the other hand he’s a psychopathic sex fiend. Those sorts usually perform opportunist crimes and gain doesn’t come into it.’ He stood up. ‘But you know that as well as I do, don’t you?’ he said, looking down, his face serious.
Good God. He really was treating her like a grown-up suddenly, as if he had finally accepted that she was indeed chief crime correspondent of the Comet and not just a bit of a joke. But she had no illusions about him. He was an instinctive wheeler-dealer, you could sense that in Fielding. She didn’t doubt he handled police politics very smoothly indeed. He seemed to have a pretty good grasp of the office politics of newspapers too. And Fielding was shrewd enough to know that if he wanted to stuff Manners, make him really mad, the best way to do it was not to feed a major exclusive to the opposition, but to tip off the woman who had been promoted over his head. That would hurt Frank Manners much more. In addition, Manners would be sure to guess that Fielding had fed her the line. He knew Fielding’s style so well. And that would make him even madder, which was no doubt Fielding’s intention.
As she left the pub, just minutes behind the detective sergeant, Joanna could not resist a chuckle. She didn’t doubt, however, that Fielding believed what he said about stirring up a public outcry, nor for a second that he had been genuinely horrified by Angela’s death and the manner of it. But there was this other side of him. He was a high-flyer, a man determined to reach the top in his career. While the bulk of the criticism of the police operation had so far been directed at the man in charge, DCI Parsons, Fielding was widely regarded as Parsons’s right-hand man, so it reflected badly on him too. The ransom drop which went wrong was especially damaging for him, of course.
Angela’s family, the boyfriend she knew had been rigorously questioned after her disappearance, and all who had been close to the teenager, were now fully aware that if she had only been found earlier she could probably have been saved.
A shiver ran down Joanna’s spine. She had been up to the remote spot on the moor where the body had been found, taken a look at Knack Mine. It was a stunningly beautiful place, actually, when you were out in the fresh air walking around, fit, well and free to leave when you wished. She could only imagine what it must have been like for a seventeen-year-old girl to be bound and trussed and held underground there. And raped. And buggered.
Word was that the girl had been a virgin, too. And on top of everything she’d been beaten and systematically tortured. Joanna found she had an all too clear picture in her mind, of Angela lying in that hole in the ground in her own blood and faeces, desperate for water, dying finally of dehydration. It was a wonder she didn’t just die of fear. All that the bastard had done to her and in the end it was simply lack of water that had got her. The whole thing was almost too dreadful to think about.
But Joanna had not actually seen the poor girl’s body. She had not had to look at those mutilated young breasts. Fielding had. Something else she could only imagine was the effect that would have on him. She knew he was a tough career cop. But she could not believe that he would not have been deeply affected. Certainly he seemed very different from the man she had first met.
She thought vaguely that maybe she could even get to like him.
Joanna’s story caused quite a stir. It was just the sort of tale the tabloids loved. All the other news desks wanted to know why their crime teams didn’t have the nipple-slicing line. She was pleased with herself. She was just as ambitious as Fielding in her way, and just as wrapped up in herself and her own world – aware as she was that it was a world many people considered to be more than a little distasteful.
Joanna was as disturbed by the horrors faced by Angela Phillips as any halfway decent person. But that didn’t stop her giving the gruesome story, in the words of her first news editor, ‘plenty of top spin’. Her report dwelt on every horrific detail. If she considered the effect of its being splashed luridly all over the Comet would have on those who were mourning Angela, it certainly didn’t make her pull her punches in any way. She became even more popular with her editor than she had been before. Picking up sensational exclusives was beginning to become a habit with her.
Her popularity with her peers, however, sank correspondingly. The opposition were getting roastings from their news desks and Frank Manners, allegedly working alongside her down in Devon but as often as not quite clearly working against her, k
ept having his thunder stolen. And he didn’t like it.
The pack picked up on her new connection with Fielding, as, she supposed, had been inevitable. Their attitude to her became increasingly more offensive and her relationship with Manners in particular struck a whole new low.
‘Good morning, Joanna,’ he said, meeting her outside the incident room at Blackstone on the morning that her latest big story had appeared. Joanna, waiting with a small group of reporters for a promised briefing, was standing by her car, idly studying the modern, rather ugly village hall, which seemed to her to be quite out of place in picturesque Blackstone, and thinking how ironic it was that the building in which Angela Phillips spent the last evening of her life now housed the police team investigating her murder.
Reluctantly she turned her attention to Manners, greeting him without enthusiasm.
‘You look quite radiant, darlin’,’ he told her. ‘Had a good fuck last night, did you?’
Manners spoke loudly and with a big smirk on his face. Nick Hewitt and Kenny Dewar chuckled appreciatively. Joanna suppressed a desire to slap all their faces. Then she remembered that Hewitt and Dewar would both have received the old midnight phone call after that day’s issue of the Comet had arrived at their night desks. She knew how pissed off that would have made them, particularly as it was her story, and immediately felt better.
‘Which is more than you’ve ever managed, I should imagine, Frank,’ she replied, and was rewarded with an appreciative chuckle from the Daily Express crime man. There were some good guys and Jo had a soft spot for Jimmy Nicholson, known as the Prince of Darkness because he invariably wore a Dracula-like black cape whatever the weather or occasion. He certainly liked women too. Jo had first encountered Jimmy Nic on the Spaghetti House siege, when Fleet Street’s finest were staking out the Knightsbridge restaurant in which a number of hostages were being held. Jim had walked up to a group of young women chatting with some fellow hacks in a nearby pub, introduced himself by name and added ‘I’m the big noise from the Daily Express.’ The extraordinary thing was they seemed to fall for it, too. On that job Jo reckoned she’d encountered Fleet Street’s first and only groupies.
She smiled to herself at the memory, then returned her full attention to the case in hand. ‘Right, Frank, if you can tear yourself away from your chums I’d like a word in private,’ she said. ‘I have a game plan that should keep us as far ahead on this one as we are already,’ she continued, smiling sweetly as she turned and headed towards the door.
Her remarks didn’t shut the others up, of course. She overheard, as no doubt she was meant to, Hewitt asking pointedly, ‘Anybody seen Fielding yet this morning?’
‘Having a lie-in, I understand,’ responded Dewar. ‘Exhausted, poor chap. ’Course, everybody knows the woman’s a raving nympho …’
This time Joanna held her tongue. Not only did women journalists only get their jobs through sleeping with the editor, they only got their stories through sleeping with their contacts. Wonderfully simplistic. Ability was never mentioned.
In a certain kind of mood Joanna even wished it could be like that. It would be a lot easier than working so bloody hard, she thought to herself wryly. Forcing herself to be businesslike and matter-of-fact, she started to discuss with Frank Manners how they could take the story forward.
The day turned out to be uneventful, however, and she was at her hotel early that evening when Fielding called her again and suggested a pint and a bite to eat, once more at the Drewe Arms. She agreed readily enough, but again there was something in his manner that left her unsure whether he wanted to give her a story or chat her up.
And as the evening progressed this was never really clarified.
‘I like you, you’re bright and I think you’re straight as well,’ he told her abruptly at one point.
‘Thanks very much,’ she said ironically. ‘How about you, are you straight?’
‘As a die,’ he said, flashing her the disarming grin.
She smiled back. ‘What am I doing here, Mike?’ she asked.
He shrugged. ‘This case has really got to me. You’re someone I can talk to,’ he said.
‘Spare me the clichés. I do know your reputation, you know.’
‘What reputation?’
‘Don’t be a prat. That reputation you have for being unable to stop yourself jumping on anything in skirts.’
‘You flatter yourself.’
‘Smug bastard!’
‘Anyway,’ he began, running an eye appraisingly over her trouser-suited figure, ‘I’ve never seen you in a skirt.’
He grinned again. He was good company. And when by the end of the evening he had still not made a pass at her, she didn’t really know whether she was disappointed or not. She’d had every intention of turning him down, of course. But that wasn’t quite the point.
Joanna stayed in Devon for the best part of a week, returning to London only when it became obvious that there was no chance of an early arrest. She asked Manners to stay on for a little longer just to keep an eye on things. At least, then, she wouldn’t have to look at the bloody man every day, she thought.
She left Dartmoor right after lunch, having filed an early story and manoeuvred herself into a situation where she would not be expected either at the office or the Yard. This meant that with a bit of luck she could be home in Chiswick soon after four o’clock. She wanted to get there early and make a special effort for her husband, something she knew she didn’t do nearly often enough.
As she drove, Jo reflected on her marriage to her childhood sweetheart. She and Chris had been an item since, aged seventeen, she had surrendered her virginity to him in the back of a Mini Cooper. Now that had been a feat of some agility. The thought of it still made her smile in spite of everything. And, as so often happens with young people discovering sex together for the first time, Chris and Joanna fell head over heels in love. They married when she was nineteen and he was twenty-one. So they had already been married for eight years, and they were no longer a match made in heaven.
Joanna felt that she had moved on in life, that she had moved into worlds Chris had never got close to. She didn’t believe that made her superior or even that her world was superior. In fact, on a bad day she would often concede that Chris’s life and career were a damn sight more useful than her own. It was just that he seemed to have stood still. Chris taught at a primary school near their home in Chiswick. She had little doubt that he would remain a teacher throughout his working life. That was the kind of man he was: content with his lot; dedicated in his way, but unambitious. She had no illusions about him. She didn’t even expect him to make deputy headmaster. Ever. And it might have been his chosen career, dealing with small children day in and day out, which gave him the kind of stick-in-the-mud naivety that was beginning to irritate her. He was always infuriatingly sure that his ideas, mostly formed in extreme youth, and his ways of going about things were the only right ones. Sometimes she felt that not only had he no concept of what her life was all about, but that he actually worked at keeping it so. Certainly he made it quite clear that he didn’t like journalists. They distorted the truth, misled their readers, ruined people’s lives. There was no talking about it with Chris. There was no middle ground.
She sighed. Since she had become a crime reporter he had increased his circle of most loathsome people to include policemen. She didn’t think she’d ever even heard him voice an opinion on the police until working with them became a daily part of her job. Then he decided they were crooks and villains equal to the criminals they were supposed to be catching. His only problem was making up his mind which was the lower form of life, hacks or cops.
Her problem was that she still loved him. She couldn’t help it. They went back a long way. And, in spite of everything, she was pretty sure he loved her too. After a week away she was determined at least that their first night together would be a good one.
The traffic was mercifully light. She was in Chiswick High Street at
4.15, parked the MG on a double yellow and nipped into Porsche’s fish shop where she bought two large Dover sole, Chris’s favourite. There would be potatoes and vegetables at home, Chris always kept the house well stocked with those, so all she needed to make the night special was a bottle of champagne, swiftly acquired from a nearby off-licence, and some flowers. One of the few things she bought regularly for their small but attractive cottage just off Turnham Green was flowers. Chris said it was because they hid her clutter. He was more than half right. She knew she was a lousy housekeeper. She left almost all of that sort of stuff to him, in fact, but she did like her flowers and she bought a big bunch of white roses, his favourite again, from a street seller.
She was at home soon after 4.30. Brilliant, she thought. Loads of time. She knew Chris was teaching games and wouldn’t be home until six. She found vases and arranged the roses in the dining room, the living room and, feeling optimistic, the bedroom. Then she peeled potatoes. She was going to make a really creamy mash. Chris loved mashed potato. She inspected the vegetable cupboard and, deciding on a simple green salad, easy and good for them, selected a crisp-looking lettuce, some cucumber and a green pepper. When she had finished chopping she made a dressing, then went to have a bath and change her clothes.
She felt relaxed and refreshed when Chris arrived. ‘Hi, darling, miss me?’ she called as she heard his key in the lock.
His response was a barely audible grunt.
Joanna’s smile of greeting faltered, but she carried on anyway. She walked towards him and wrapped her arms round his neck. ‘Dover sole on the grill, mash with full cream ready to go, champagne in the fridge. Do you love me or what?’ she challenged him.
He grasped her wrists with both his hands, flinging her arms away from him. ‘You’d better invite one of your lovers round, then, hadn’t you, ’ he told her.
‘What?’
‘Well, there’s not much point in wasting champagne on me, is there? I can’t get you a job or a story.’
A Kind Of Wild Justice Page 8
