A Velvet Scream

by Priscilla Masters

  Bloody women: nothing but trouble. He was bound to be questioned over this and while he’d just decided to dump Claire, as he sobered up he realized he wasn’t quite so sure about a life of endless mates’ nights out and troublesome women wearing hardly anything but tiny, sexy, shiny skirts. Suddenly, more than anything, he simply wanted to be safe.

  Joanna was looking out of the window at the snow when Matthew came tripping back down the stairs, dressed now in a pair of khaki coloured jeans and a navy sweatshirt. As he wore ‘scrubs’ practically all day he only wore a suit if he was either in court, at a medical meeting (of which there were plenty), or teaching students. He was combing his still-damp blond hair with his fingers. He followed her gaze out of the window, on to the snow scene.

  ‘You’re not thinking of cycling to work through that, Jo, are you?’

  Resenting his proprietary tone, she turned away. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Even I’m defeated by this weather. Not only is it slippery on a bike but there’s always the chance that some mad car driver will slide right into you.’

  ‘Never mind,’ he said, pouring himself a huge bowl of muesli and sitting down at the breakfast table. ‘In four weeks time we’ll be on our way to Barbados . . .’ He waited, grinning and aiming a sideways look in her direction, ‘or Russia or Canada or South Africa or Australia or even somewhere else.’ He gave her another sneaky look. ‘We might be skiing or scuba diving or sitting on a train across the Rockies or photographing the Taj Mahal. On the other hand we could also be climbing Machu Pichu or cycling across the Ho Chi Minh Highway.’ He grinned at her, chewing his breakfast cereal slowly. ‘Isn’t it fun thinking of all the things we might be doing?’

  ‘You,’ she said, dropping into a chair opposite and cupping her chin in her palm, ‘are being very irritating and I won’t know what clothes to take.’

  He gave a noisy yawn and a look of mock reproval. ‘Of course, the honeymoon is conditional on my approving this wedding dress you’re being so secretive about.’

  Joanna had a moment of terrible doubt. Perhaps all brides do. What would he think of it? Matthew could be, at times, quite conventional. ‘Matt,’ she said tentatively. ‘It’s not . . .’ She paused, searching for the appropriate word, ‘the usual dress.’

  He stood up then, came behind her, put his arms around her shoulders. ‘As long as it’s not black.’

  ‘Umm.’

  ‘Jo,’ he said, his green eyes clouding. ‘You wouldn’t do that to me, surely?’

  ‘Umm.’

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I never thought you’d turn up to the altar in the usual white meringue. But black! My parents will never forgive you.’

  ‘They’ll never forgive me whatever I wear, will they?’ She tilted upwards, putting her face close to his. He kissed her mouth. ‘Mmm,’ he said. ‘Orange juice and coffee.’

  It was she who broke it off. ‘Time I went to work, Matt.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘And I didn’t say it was black,’ she hesitated, ‘or that it wasn’t.’

  She put a coat on over her skinny black trousers, red sweater and skiing jacket and gave a vengeful look at the inches of snow. Yes, it was definitely the car today, though she could have done with working off some of her anxieties with a stiff bike ride. She slammed the door behind her. Matthew wouldn’t need to leave for another half an hour.

  The one advantage of using the car was that she arrived at work at 8.15 a.m. and was already at her desk by the time Korpanski rolled in, which made her feel smug.

  ‘Morning, Mike.’

  ‘Hi, Jo.’ He hovered. ‘Coffee?’

  The phone on her desk interrupted her answer, making her jump with apprehension.

  ‘Piercy?’

  It was Colclough. Or to give him his full title, Superintendent Arthur Colclough. He of bulldog jowls and normally paternalistic attitude towards her. Not today. He sounded like a fierce bulldog. In spite of herself, she smiled. A fierce Staffordshire bulldog.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You’re ready for tomorrow’s hearing, I hope?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Superintendent Arthur Colclough gave a long, puffy sigh. ‘I never thought I’d see this day, Piercy,’ he said. ‘I’m disappointed in you. I’ve always thought I could rely on you, at least, to toe the line.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ She deflected Korpanski’s sympathetic gaze.

  ‘It reflects on us as a force, you know.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ There was no other response she could make.

  ‘And so near to my retirement,’ he finished mournfully.

  Joanna rolled her eyes at Mike. What this had to do with her dressing-down was unclear but she kept silent. He’d been threatening retirement for years.

  It was one of those things, Joanna had believed, which would never happen, although she knew, inevitably, that one day it would. She felt a bit sad. She had felt affection for Colclough. He had always stuck up for her. She had been his protégée. Thinking he was being a modernist, he had wanted a woman officer in a senior position in his station. And she’d fitted the bill. But right now his involvement was costing him dear and he wanted to let her know this. So he was lecturing her like a father. Well, not like her father. Christopher Piercy, or Kit, as he had liked to be known, had never lectured anyone in his life. That would have needed some measure of maturity – something her dad had never quite acquired. Sometimes, when she thought about him, which wasn’t often, she decided that it would have been a toss-up to discover who would grow up first: Peter Pan or ‘Kit’ Piercy. She wouldn’t have bet on either.

  ‘Nine o’clock, then. Sharp.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  As she put the phone down she met Korpanski’s eyes across the room. She read his gaze of sympathy but something more too. She glanced at his shoulder, still padded with a dressing. The injury was taking its time to heal. He still had to go for physiotherapy three times a week – in police time. Frances, his wife, would never forgive Detective Inspector Piercy for risking her husband’s life. Joanna wasn’t sure that she could forgive herself, either.

  Korpanski went to fetch the coffee and put it down on her desk. ‘December,’ he commented. ‘It’s come round quick.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He tried a cheery tone. ‘Not long now till the great day.’

  She peered hard into her screen.

  ‘Jo,’ he said tentatively, ‘are you sure you’re doing the right thing? I mean, you’re a copper. Levin’s going to want some sort of—’

  She spun around in her chair to challenge him. ‘Oh, you know what he wants, do you?’

  Korpanski shrugged. ‘At a guess: same as any man. A wife at home, kids.’ He ignored the fury rising in her eyes. ‘Well, you know what this job can be like.’ He looked awkward. Korpanski was not good at expressing himself. ‘The hours are crap,’ he continued. ‘It’s tough enough for a man, let alone a woman. Besides . . .’ He took a long, thoughtful swig of his coffee. ‘You’ve answered my question, Jo. You wouldn’t be so prickly if you knew you were doing the right thing.’

  ‘Well, thanks for that bit of philosophy,’ she snapped and turned back to her screen, glaring into it, so angry she could not read a single word. They worked in uneasy silence for a few minutes. When the phone rang again it was Korpanski who took the call, listening carefully, his face a mask. Joanna stopped staring into her computer screen and watched him instead, knowing something was happening by the stiffening of his shoulders, the beefing up of the muscles in his thick neck and the raising of his tone. Finally he put the phone down and turned to her. ‘We’ve got a suspected rape, Jo,’ he said.

  ‘A rape? Where?’

  ‘Outside the new nightclub, Patches. The girl was left for dead. Nearly died of hypothermia. She’s been out there all night. It’s a miracle she’s survived. She was hardly wearing anything. Passed out, I expect.’ Typically, Korpanski had already started to put his own interpretation on events. ‘Drunk. Perhaps drugs. Uniformed guys were cal
led out there . . .’ he glanced at his watch, ‘nearly an hour ago. She’s in Stoke hospital now, warming up.’

  ‘Is she conscious?’

  ‘Barely.’

  ‘Do you have a description of her?’

  ‘Five foot four, very slim, long, straight brown hair, brown eyes, wearing one high-heeled silver shoe and a black boob tube.’ He looked up. ‘And little else. A short . . . uniformed guys say very short, silver skirt turned up nearby together with the second shoe.’

  ‘We need to get down to the hospital as soon as possible with one of the WPCs to get a statement. Who’s done rape training?’

  ‘I think Dawn has.’

  ‘Right. Bring WPC Critchlow along. We’ll have to get swabs and stuff.’

  She looked into Korpanski’s fathomless eyes. ‘I take it this isn’t one of those I said yes, I said no?’

  ‘We won’t know till we get there, Jo, but it doesn’t sound like it considering she was left out there to die. Pretty heartless.’

  She thought for a moment, drumming her fingers on the desk. ‘I think we’d better go to the scene of the crime first and make sure that’s being dealt with properly. Then we’ll go to the hospital and see if we can get some sort of statement and some samples.’

  Mike was a man who liked action. He was already standing up.

  Joanna unhooked her jacket from the hook on the back of the door. ‘What do we know about our victim?’

  ‘Kayleigh Harrison. Fourteen years old. Lives with her mum,’ Mike turned to look at her, ‘who hasn’t yet reported her daughter missing. Fairly obviously, judging by her age and the fact that she was probably inside an over-eighteens’ nightclub until the early hours, I would guess she’s a bit of a tearaway. She should have been tucked up with her schoolbag by her bed.’

  Joanna smiled. Even if she hadn’t known it, by Korpanski’s censorious tone she would have guessed that he had a teenage daughter of his own to protect. They were already out of the door and heading towards a squad car now. ‘Have they spoken to her mum?’

  ‘They haven’t been able to get an answer at the house.’

  It was now nine o’clock. ‘Maybe she’s at work?’

  ‘Not according to the neighbour. More likely to be blotto,’ he said, ‘according to the uniformed guy who called round.’ He inched the car across the slippery car park.

  ‘Blotto,’ she commented. ‘This early?’

  ‘There’s more. The guy who found her this morning had left his car in the car park last night because he’d had a “good night out” last night. Unfortunately for him the effects of the “good night” were still in his bloodstream so the uniformed guys have advised him not to drive. He’s cursing, saying it’ll cost him his job if he doesn’t get to see a client today.’

  ‘I would have thought he’s got reason enough to miss a call today.’

  Korpanski said nothing but kept his eyes on the road.

  ‘So this “guy” was also in Patches last night?’

  ‘Seems so.’

  ‘Fairly drunk and with a gang of “mates”?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  They’d arrived. Though Patches nightclub was on the opposite side of the town to the station they were there within minutes. Leek is not a large town.

  Even as they climbed out of the car, Joanna realized that no one could be in any doubt that something had happened here last night. The car park was cordoned off, already a scene of activity, with a few curious onlookers watching and exchanging – what? Misinformation, probably. It was generally the case.

  Sergeant Barraclough, ‘Barra’ to all, was directing the fingertip search of the car park, which was damp and grey with slush, the scene furred by fog that clung around the area. Joanna didn’t envy them. A fingertip search is an unpleasant job: on your knees, even with ‘waterproof’ trousers which never quite were. The scene bore the indistinct uniform greyness of a Lowry, peopled by stick men and women whose focus was on the ground, all dressed in identical suits, hats and overshoes, each one anonymous.

  Do Not Cross tape had been strung around the entire area and the team, in their now sodden white suits, were moving forward in a slow, swaying movement. Joanna watched for a moment as they moved through the scene, the main sound a sort of sucking wetness with the odd shouted instruction. She glanced across at the nightclub. As do most clubs in the day, Patches looked decidedly seedy. It was a large, square building which had been a silk weaving mill two hundred years ago, but that had long since closed. It had then, briefly, been an antiques centre, but that had closed too and it had recently been converted into a nightclub with a coat of post office red gloss paint and blue window frames. There wasn’t much choice of venue for a night out in Leek. Apart from the pubs and The Winking Man, which was way out high on the Buxton Road, there was only here, so the local youngsters tended to congregate at Patches. With the fresh snowfall last night the A53 Buxton road would have been impassable, so unless any revellers could be bothered to venture into Hanley they were stuck with Patches.

  The car park was empty apart from the one splash of colour, a red Audi TT, with the number plate SEC5 21. The five had been curved to make the clumsy words, SECS 21. Joanna smiled. The plates were, strictly speaking, illegal, though they still struck her as funny. Though, in the circumstances . . .

  Barra came forward to speak to them. He jerked his head in the direction of the car.

  ‘Belongs to Steve Shand,’ he said. ‘He left it here last night because he’d had a drink too many – or six. When he came for it,’ he said, following their eyes, ‘he found young Kayleigh. Lucky he did and even more lucky he noticed her. She was partly hidden behind the wall and barely conscious. But he was here a while, so he said, because his locks were frozen. He was blowing on them when he heard a noise. He said it sounded like somebody moaning or groaning. He thought it was a cat or something, then took a look and found her. Otherwise she could have been dead.’

  ‘What time was it?’ Joanna asked.

  ‘Seven thirty. He was going to work.’ Barra gave a rueful smile. ‘Needless to say, we’ve detained him. He wasn’t fit to drive anyway.’ His eyes flickered back towards the vehicle. ‘We’ve kept the car. Just in case.’

  Joanna nodded and Barra continued. ‘We’ll do a quick check of it and if it’s all right with you he can have it back this evening.’

  ‘Yeah. Fine. What does he look like?’

  ‘Thick set. Muscular. Looks like he “works out”. Early thirties.’

  ‘Have we got any sort of statement from Kayleigh about her attacker?’

  ‘Not much of one so far. She says he was tall, skinny, London accent.’

  ‘Not a local lad then?’

  ‘It would seem not. No one she knew anyway.’

  ‘OK. Well, it’s not much but it’s something to go on.’

  Barra nodded.

  ‘The accent of our Audi owner?’

  ‘About as local as oatcakes.’

  ‘Sort of lets him off the hook then, along with Kayleigh’s description.’

  ‘Sort of.’ She could tell that Sergeant Barraclough was not quite convinced.

  ‘What job does this guy do?’

  ‘He’s a rep for a pharmaceutical company. Visits doctors in their surgeries and such like.’

  Joanna looked around. ‘Have you found much here?’

  ‘Bits and pieces. Not a lot. The sort of stuff you’d expect. Plenty of condoms. A couple of fag ends and lager cans but it’s so wet and cold.’ He paused. ‘The snow really hasn’t helped.’

  ‘No. Right. And how is the girl?’

  ‘Physically, she’s recovering.’

  ‘I’d better go and see her.’ Joanna said. ‘Just show me exactly where she was found, Barra.’

  ‘Over here.’ He led her between lines of tape, to the far corner of the car park where a low wall stood, probably a relic of some long destroyed outbuilding. Now it served as a store for bins – and was well hidden from the rest of the area.
‘Quite clever, really,’ Barra observed. ‘She’d have been out of sight. And considering the music would have been blaring, out of hearing as well. They just kept the old bins and stuff here. Bits of rubbish. Shand, the guy who found her, said she was covered in rubbish; looked just like an old pile of nothing until she moved. Lucky she did or this would have been a murder investigation.’

  Joanna looked around her. ‘Do you think our perpetrator recced the place first and chose this spot deliberately, or just hit lucky?’

  She knew exactly what she was asking. In spite of the cockney accent, was this a local man with local knowledge?

  Korpanski, too, was looking around – along the ground, then upwards. ‘Hit lucky or unlucky?’ he asked. ‘If he’d taken a look around first surely he’d have seen that?’ He indicated a CCTV camera set high on the corner of the nightclub, pointing down towards the car park.

  ‘I think he must have recced the place first,’ Barra said. ‘It’s just a little too lucky and well hidden here. But the camera’s set quite high up. I wouldn’t be surprised if the angle’s all wrong. Maybe we’ll find he’s done the old “hoody” trick and isn’t that recognizable from up there. It’s a bit too high. If I’d been advising the owners of the club I’d have said to bring it down a foot or two and get an angle which would at least give us a sporting chance of a face and identification. From up there we’ll just get the tops of heads and boots.’

  ‘I wonder,’ Joanna mused, ‘if he is a stranger? He could still be a local man with a London accent. Hopefully we’ll find him soon with or without the CCTV. Anyway, we’ll take a look at all that later.’ She peered down at the spot where Kayleigh had been found. It was a depressing little area, even without the memory of the sordid scene that must have been played out here last night. Melting snow, grey and cold, plenty of slush, dented lager cans, cigarette butts, polystyrene burger boxes, the general detritus of scruffy humans who can’t be bothered to bin their rubbish even though the bins stood right here, mere inches away. In spite of the open air there was a stink around the place too, of something unpleasantly rotting mixed with stale urine. The men spilling out of the club must have used this place as a pissing wall.