by Bill Rogers
‘The Boss has gone home,’ said Nick. ‘You just missed him.’
‘He’s been up all night?’ said Jo. ‘That’s crazy.’
‘I know. I managed to persuade him to let us get an area car to take him home. He wasn’t fit to drive.’
‘What about you?’ she asked.
‘I’m okay,’ he replied. ‘I was away not long after you. I’ve only been back in half an hour. Listen, the Boss wants us to manage this between us while he’s not here. Is that alright with you?’
‘Of course it is. You’re the deputy SIO though, so there’s no way I’m going to step on your shoes.’
He grinned. ‘But I bow to your experience and seniority.’
She poked him with her finger.
‘Give over, Nick. It was a toss-up which of us passed our Inspector’s Board first.’
‘I know that,’ he replied. ‘I’ve got my own Board in a fortnight’s time. Don’t tell anyone though. I don’t want anything jinxing me.’
‘You’ll be fine,’ she said.
He shook his head.
‘Not if we don’t catch this bastard soon.’
‘We will,’ she replied. ‘We have to.’ She pointed to the Policy File he was holding. ‘Where are we up to?’
‘The post-mortem results are in. No surprises. She died in exactly the same manner as the others. Strangled with a ligature made of human hair. A section of her own hair had been cut, and removed. This time, however, there were a few defensive injuries.’
‘Where?’
‘Light bruises on her arms that had not been evident at the crime scene, but no fingerprints or DNA, which suggests he was wearing gloves. They will give us some indication of the size of the perpetrator’s finger pads. Only trouble is, we can’t be sure that they are the perpetrator’s rather than one of her clients’.’
‘They will if the report says they are perimortem,’ Jo pointed out.
‘Also CIS found mountain bike tyre tracks at the scene. They’ve been photographed, and lifted.’
‘We’re inching closer,’ Jo said.
The remark didn’t seem to cheer him. ‘But how many girls need to die,’ he said, ‘before we actually get there?’
‘What about the tests on Hartley’s car?’ she asked.
‘They’ve come back negative for any of the victims. There were traces of cocaine, which we assume came from prostitutes, since there were none in Hartley’s house and he tested negative for drugs when he was arrested.’
‘Has anyone spoken to the CPS?’
‘The Boss did. They’ve decided that despite the fact that he didn’t actually solicit anyone on the night in question, he should still be charged because he has admitted that was why he was there and that he had done so regularly in the past.’
‘Do you mind if I tell him?’ she said.
‘Rather you than me,’ he said. ‘Be my guest.’
Jo swore.
It looked as though the entire press corps was camped outside the suburban semi-detached. There were two vans with satellite discs on the roof, and a fleet of cars. She counted at least three motorcycles. There were more photographers snapping the property than you see at a Premiership football match. A reporter was in the process of talking to camera.
Jo parked well back from the nearest car, and walked purposefully up the path of a house next door but one to the Hartley home. Head down, facing away from the assembled mob, she rang the doorbell. A little old lady opened the door on a chain, and peered nervously through the gap.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ said Jo, shielding her warrant card with her body. ‘I’m with the police. Could I come in for a second?’
There was a moment’s hesitation, and then the chain was slipped and the door opened. Jo stepped nonchalantly inside.
‘My name is Joanne Stuart,’ she said. ‘And you are?’
‘Mrs McGonagle. Maggie McGonagle.’
She led the way into the lounge, then turned to face Jo, and lowered her voice as though someone might be listening in.
‘Is this to do with Number 35?’ she asked. Before Jo could reply she added, ‘Who’d have thought it? Poor Samantha. And those poor wee children.’
‘Mrs McGonagle,’ said Jo, ‘I know this may sound strange, but would you mind showing me your back garden?’
‘My garden?’
‘Please.’
‘Well I never,’ Mrs McGonagle muttered, shaking her head as she went back into the hall, and straight to the kitchen.
Jo leaned over the kitchen sink and looked out of the window. It was exactly as she had envisaged, given that this was a relatively new estate. The gardens were lawned and divided by low wooden fences. She stood up, and smiled.
‘I need your help, Mrs McGonagle,’ she said. ‘I am going to go outside and climb over your fence and that of your neighbours so that I can reach the back of Number 35 without having to battle my way past the press. Would that be okay with you?’
Mrs McGonagle’s eyes twinkled behind her spectacles.
‘How exciting,’ she said. ‘Of course you can. Will you be coming back the same way?’
‘I will,’ said Jo.
‘In that case I’ll have a cup of tea and a slice of Madeira cake waiting for you. How long do you think you’ll be?’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Jo, ‘but it really isn’t necessary. I’ll only be a moment.’
‘Nonsense. It’s no trouble.’
Before Jo could object, she pulled the bolt on the back door, turned the key in the lock, and opened the door.
‘Off you go then.’
Jo turned in the doorway.
‘Your neighbours. They don’t have dogs by any chance, do they?’
Mrs McGonagle’s eyes twinkled again. ‘No, dear. But you might want to watch out for the tortoise.’
Jo negotiated the first fence without any difficulty. As she crossed in front of the patio windows of Number 33, a woman crossing through the lounge stopped in her tracks and stared at her open-mouthed. Jo held up her warrant card, smiled, put a finger to her lips, and carried on.
She raised her left leg over the fence. As it landed on the far side, she felt a tug, and heard a ripping sound. She swore for a second time that morning, and did what she should have done to start with. Look over the fence.
A young pyracantha, replete with red berries, was being trained along and up the side of the fence. Her trousers had caught on several needle-sharp thorns. She gingerly swung her right leg clear of the offending bush, and bent to free her trousers. There was a two-inch rent at the top of her calf, but at least her skin had not been penetrated.
She walked to the back door of Number 35, and knocked twice.
There was no response. She knocked again, harder this time. She heard a key turning in the lock. The door opened. An astonished Samantha Hartley stood there. Her face was free of make-up, her eyes red-rimmed.
‘What the hell?’ she said.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Hartley,’ said Jo. ‘I didn’t want the press to see me, and I assumed that you would prefer they didn’t see the police calling on you again.’
‘It’s a bit late for that,’ she said, pointedly blocking the entrance with her body. ‘What do you want?’
‘I need to talk to your husband, Mrs Hartley.’
‘Why?’
‘I’d rather discuss that with him.’
‘Well, you can’t. He no longer lives here.’
‘Where will I find him, Mrs Hartley?’
‘He’s staying at his brother’s.’
She gave Jo the address.
‘When you see him,’ she said, ‘you can tell him he can collect the rest of his stuff on Saturday morning. I’ll be out, and so will the kids. My father will be here to make sure he doesn’t try to change the locks.’
‘Very well,’ said Jo. ‘And I want to say how sorry I am about the way in which this has impinged on your family.’
‘Impinged!’
she shouted. ‘Impinged? It’s bloody well destroyed it. No, correction. He’s destroyed it.’ She took a breath to steady herself. ‘I’d like you to leave now.’
Jo turned to go and then stopped.
‘Your husband is no longer a suspect in the Firethorn investigation,’ she said. ‘And he has done his best to help us. I thought you should know.’
Mrs Hartley stared back at her. Her face was expressionless. She closed the door, locked it, and slammed home the bolts.
Jo looked down at her flapping trouser leg and back at the pyracantha. Sod it! she told herself. I’ve had enough of tiptoeing through the bloody tulips. She pulled open the side gate, and stormed out to the front of the house and down the garden path.
She shouldered her way through the throng of reporters and cameramen, enjoying the contact her elbows made with the odd rib or two. Head up, shoulders straight, she stared down the camera lenses as she marched to her car. They could make of that whatever they liked. She didn’t give a stuff.
Chapter 50
Hartley’s brother lived twenty-five minutes away in leafy Reddish Vale. Having made the fatal decision to use the M60 ring road, it took Jo closer to forty. A tanker spillage had closed two lanes, and the hard shoulder was out of use because of the smart motorway improvement work. She had sat fuming for fifteen minutes with her air vents closed while scores of diesels in front of her, their drivers too ignorant to turn off the engine, spewed carbon monoxide into the atmosphere.
When she finally arrived at the brother’s house, it was Hartley’s sister-in-law who answered.
‘He’s in the garden room,’ she said. ‘I think it’s best if I left you to it. Would you like a drink? I can offer you tea or coffee.’
‘No, thank you,’ said Jo. ‘I don’t expect that it’s going to take long.’
The sister-in-law paused in the hallway. ‘Go easy on him,’ she said. ‘He’s in a bad way.’
‘How bad?’
‘Somewhere between fragile, and totally devastated.’
The sister-in-law led the way through an open-plan lounge to a pair of patio windows, beyond which a large conservatory with brick walls looked over the golf course. Jenson Hartley was slumped on a long wicker sofa, his face turned away from them, half-hidden by cushions.
‘Jen,’ said Hartley’s sister-in-law, ‘it’s the police for you.’
He burrowed deeper into the cushions.
His sister-in-law gave an apologetic shrug.
‘I’ll be in the kitchen when you’ve finished,’ she said.
Jo dragged a matching wicker chair closer to the sofa, and sat down.
‘Mr Hartley,’ she said, ‘it’s SI Stuart. I need a word with you.’
There was no response. ‘Jenson,’ she said, ‘please look at me.’
Reluctantly he pushed himself into an upright position, and turned to face her.
The transformation shocked her. In less than twenty-four hours he had become a shadow of his former self. His hair was in disarray. His eyes, red-rimmed like his wife’s, had dark half circles beneath them. His cheeks glistened with tears of self-pity. Mucous clogged his nostrils, and he was unshaven. The overall impression was of a haunted man who had surrendered to despair.
Jo was torn between sympathy and anger. Hartley had brought this upon himself and upon his wife and children too. He had been happy to exploit those vulnerable women, at least one of whom was now dead. And his overwhelming response was self-pity. A score of men had been caught kerb-crawling in the round-up over the ten days since Mandy Madden’s body had been found. She wondered how many of them would have been reduced to this state.
‘I have some news for you, Mr Hartley,’ she said. ‘You are no longer a person of interest in relation to the death of Genna Crowden or any of the other young women.’
There was a flicker of hope in Hartley’s eyes.
‘However, you do need, within the next twenty-four hours, to come back to the station where you were interviewed, where you will be formally charged under Section 51A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 with soliciting another, in a street or public place, for the purpose of obtaining a sexual service from that person as a prostitute.’
Hartley sat there slack-jawed.
‘When you have been charged,’ Jo continued, ‘you will then be bailed to appear at the magistrates’ court, along with a number of other men charged with the same offence. You are likely to receive a fine up to a maximum of a thousand pounds, and you should know that since you were using a car at the time of the alleged offences the magistrates’ court would have the discretion to disqualify you from driving.’
That jolted him into action. To Jo’s surprise, Hartley fell forward on to his knees, and grasped the arms of her chair with his hands. His eyes were wild, his voice full of desperation. She tried to scoot the chair across the floor away from him.
‘No!’ Hartley pleaded. ‘You can’t do that!’ he shouted. ‘If I can’t drive, I’ll lose my job.’
Jo managed to wrestle herself free, and stood up. Hartley sank back on to his heels, and stared up at her.
‘Please,’ Hartley said, ‘I’ve already lost my marriage. My children hate me. Now I’m going to lose my job and my reputation. Without those she’ll never take me back.’
Hartley’s sister-in-law appeared in the doorway.
‘I warned you to go easy on him,’ she said, hurrying to his side, and crouching down beside him.
‘I’m sorry to have been the bearer of bad news,’ said Jo, ‘but it’s not something I can avoid. It comes with the job.’
‘Then I’m glad I’m not you,’ replied the sister-in-law.
‘I’m afraid that your brother-in-law has to report to the North Division Headquarters police station at Central Park by the end of the day,’ Jo told her. ‘Otherwise he’ll be arrested again. I’ll let myself out.’
She stepped into the lounge, remembered something, and turned back.
‘Oh and by the way, Mr Hartley. Your wife asked me to tell you that you can collect the rest of your things on Saturday. She will not be there, but her father will.’
As Jo turned to leave, the sister-in-law’s parting words rang in her ears.
‘Put the knife in why don’t you?’
Chapter 51
THURSDAY, 18TH MAY
2.18AM
Jacinta shivered. It wasn’t the cold. It was one of the telltale signs that she was in withdrawal. Her runny nose was another. She wiped it with a tissue and threw the tissue into the gutter. Another couple of hours and the sweats would start. Come dawn there would be muscle spasms, and nausea, her heart beating like a subwoofer on speed.
She hadn’t wanted to go out again. Not with that monster roaming the streets. Killing at will. Kenny said she had no choice. A score for a score. That was the deal.
Kenny Kebab. His mates had started calling him that as a joke on account of his favourite hangover cure. He’d quickly taken to the nickname when he found out that an infamous New York gangster had been known as Johnny Sausage.
Kenny Kebab. A big fish in a small pool. Her pimp, landlord, and dealer rolled into one. If she didn’t have enough money by morning to both pay him and score, she didn’t know what she was going to do. Her body still ached from the last time. He was clever was Kenny. He always made sure the bruises never showed where it mattered.
Jacinta was bright too. Bright enough to know she was trapped between three hells: the punter, the pimp, and the smack. Dumb enough to see no way out. The only way was forward, one of the other girls had told her. Place one foot in front of the other, and keep going till you either find an exit, or fall over the edge of a cliff. The way things were going, all she could see ahead was the cliff. Some nights, like this one, she’d have welcomed it. A sudden drop and then oblivion. But that was what the skag was for. Except with heroin you woke and had to start all over again.
It was Kenny that insisted they drive out here. There were now too many coppers round the red-light district,
he said. She couldn’t disagree with that.
‘There’s a big one going down tonight,’ he’d said. ‘One that’ll set me up for a couple of months. I’ll come back for you in the morning. If you need me before then, text me.’
Then he’d driven off, and left her standing there. At least it was an area she knew, having grown up just a mile or so away. She was past caring someone might recognise her. More worried that there was nobody to watch her back. But her overriding concern was, would there be any punters? She had to make a minimum of fifty quid to keep Kenny sweet and the same again for the skag. At twenty quid to give head, forty for full sex, and fifty for both, that meant a minimum of four punters, and more likely six or seven to make it worth her while.
To her surprise there had been three in quick succession. Two, like her, had shunned the red-light district and were driving round on the off-chance of finding a tom. One had been an opportunist, who had spotted her as he was walking home from the pub, and fancied a quickie down by the side of the railway embankment. Nothing since then. She’d been here for over three hours now, and was still thirty quid light. The trouble was the best of the night was over. Only the sad, the desperate, and the sickos trawled streets like these after 2am. Still, one good punter and she’d be sorted. Then she’d text Kenny to come and get her.
That was all it would take.
Just one good punter.
Tonight he felt good. The last one had not gone entirely to plan. He had been forced to expose himself in ways he had not anticipated. No matter. They would assume he was a creature of habit. In which case they would be following both the form and pattern he had given them so far. They would be looking for the man in the CCTV images. The man on the mountain bike with a hi-vis vest. What they would not be expecting was that, like the chameleon his father had bought him for his tenth birthday, he had changed his appearance, and modified his modus operandi.
He whispered it softly. Let it roll off his tongue.
‘Modus operandi.’
The initials were bland, and understated. Like BO for body odour, or KO for knockout. Modus operandi had a grandeur that reflected the seriousness, the professionalism, the preparation, the thought, and the effort that went into the hunt. And the skill that lay behind every kill.
