by Ed James
‘Oh?’
‘Dropped Abi at home.’ Fenchurch opened his notebook ahead of the inevitable deluge of information. ‘What’s up?’
‘You want to tell me how it went?’
Fenchurch looked away. ‘Not really.’
‘That well, eh?’ Docherty swallowed. Took a few goes to get it down, whatever it was. ‘You pair have certainly been through the mill. I hate to see you like this, Si.’
‘I hate to feel like this, boss.’ Fenchurch tried to smile but it wasn’t happening. ‘That report will be in your inbox by five tonight.’
‘Good, good.’ Docherty pursed his lips, then groaned. ‘Anyway. Loftus just handed me my arse.’
‘Moaning about me again?’
Docherty took his time to reply, nodding. ‘Never a good thing when half of my update with the boss is spent on him repeating warnings about your behaviour.’
Fenchurch leaned back in his chair. Mulholland was taking greater interest in their chat than her phone call. ‘Give me strength.’
‘Si, I’ve covered your arse enough times now. Loftus is on to you. If you step out of line again, it’s disciplinary action.’ Docherty repeated his weird swallowing action. ‘Am I clear?’
‘Loud and clear.’ Fenchurch cracked his knuckles. ‘Now, can I get back to this report?’
‘Afraid not.’ Docherty coughed. Then again, harder. ‘South London MIT have passed us a case. They’re still working three murders and an abduction, and we’re twiddling our thumbs, writing reports and escalating any slight hiccup with forensics.’ He glanced at Mulholland. ‘Body of a young female. University of Southwark’s kind of on the border of our patches.’
Fenchurch’s blood froze. ‘Southwark?’ Burning talons wrapped around the icicles in his veins.
Chloe’s university . . .
Chapter Two
DS Kay Reed drove the pool Volvo over Blackfriars Bridge, the thick rain splashing off the grey void of the Thames and battering the new railway station standing on the river. Her left hand kept leaving the steering wheel to touch her hair, short back and sides, a long quiff swept up at the front. Didn’t suit her one bit.
Her driving rattled Fenchurch’s fillings. Drums thudded in his ears as he tried to keep focused on any updates to his Pronto, the posh version of the Airwave radio the Met were still forcing on them but nobody else, yet. No ID on the victim. The worry that it could be Chloe clawed at his neck. He swatted the spider climbing up. Except it wasn’t there. ‘You mind slowing down, Kay?’
‘You’re such an old man . . .’ Reed stopped behind a wall of traffic, two lanes huddling at the lights, hidden in the shadow of yet another pair of towers, yuppie flats at the top, student accommodation at the bottom. She pulled into the oncoming lanes, flashing her lights, and trundled along the road snarled up with taxis and buses, Travis cars and Ubers. She hauled the wheel to the right and cut between a demolition site and some rare Victorian class in this part of the city. ‘You okay, guv?’
Fenchurch didn’t have a response. He sucked a pill down with a glug of stale water from the bottle in the door pocket.
‘You want to talk about it, guv? Mulholland at it again?’
‘Never stops. The bloody cheek of her, Kay. She asked if I wanted to talk to her about Chloe. She’s the last person on earth. Especially after what she did.’
‘You’ve never told Docherty, have you?’
‘Just you. For now.’ Fenchurch motioned at the wide pavement. ‘Park there. We’ll walk the rest.’
Reed pulled up and plonked the ON POLICE BUSINESS sign on the dashboard. She got out first. Fenchurch had to jog to catch up with her.
The University of Southwark’s halls of residence stood over the road, a modern five-storey block of glass and metal, the grey matching the sky. A gang of students hung around outside, shivering in the rain. Laughing and joking like there weren’t police officers guarding the entrance. Like there wasn’t a dead girl inside.
‘Guv, you need to take a breather.’ Reed grabbed his arm, blocking his way. ‘You’re going to have a heart attack.’
‘I’m fit as an ox, Kay.’
‘Not what I mean, guv. It’s not just about Mulholland, is it?’
‘Because my daughter’s studying here?’ Fenchurch blew air out, emptying his lungs. ‘It’s not a conflict of interest if she’s not involved.’
She touched his arm. ‘No, but you think the body might be Chloe.’
All Fenchurch could see was how the building had been back in the summer, just after the end of term. Glowing in the heat, not soaked through by the November rain. Fenchurch leading a team inside, leading them to Chloe’s room.
Nothing like he’d imagined finding her would be like. Nothing like where, either. He’d expected suffering somehow. PTSD. Emotional and physical scars. Locked in a basement.
But she had been fine. Too fine. Cared for. Put through university. One single scar, the result of surgery to make her forget.
All based on lies, based on kidnapping, child abuse, cover-ups. The torment he and Abi and their parents and his colleagues all went through. The strain that tore his marriage apart, turned his hair from blond to white, took his mother to an early grave.
‘Calm down, guv.’ Reed’s grip tightened on his arm, hauling him back to the here and now. ‘I don’t want people speaking about the state of you.’
Fenchurch sucked in deep gulps of air. Listened to the traffic, the voices, the patter of raindrops on the pavement. Smelt cigarette smoke, bus fumes, ozone from the rain. ‘Thought I was over this, but it’s getting worse.’
‘That’s better. Come on.’ Reed led him along the street, where plainclothes officers thinned the lake of uniforms outside the entrance.
‘Kay!’ DS Jon Nelson was lurking around, chatting to that young detective constable who Fenchurch could never remember the name of. A long trench coat covered his beige suit. Rain beaded like sweat on the dark skin of his forehead. He dipped his head towards them. ‘Guv.’
Fenchurch nodded back, taking in the faces of the team. Nobody from his squad. ‘You got an ID?’
‘Not yet, guv.’ Nelson held up a SOCO suit. ‘Need this if we’re going inside.’
Nelson signed the Crime Scene Manager’s form on the clipboard, the SOCO suit tight around his frame, thickened out by muscle and flab. The three-piece suit underneath didn’t help.
The inner locus included a chunk of corridor, stretching out from a wedged-open door with 37 etched on a brass plate. Fenchurch couldn’t remember if that was Chloe’s room number.
He tried to focus on their surroundings, notice the details. Doors and walls and carpet. Budget-hotel chic, but not cheap. London prices, as if students didn’t have enough to pay for these days.
A suited figure emerged from the room, tapping his fingers on his tablet’s screen. Mick Clooney, the head Crime Scene Investigator. His mask puffed out. ‘You got here quick.’
‘Mick, you got an ID yet?’ Drums still battered Fenchurch’s ears.
Clooney held up his tablet. The body of a young female student lay on the bed, fully clothed but dead. Blonde hair covered her face, looking like she’d swallowed it. ‘Hannah Jane Nunn.’
Fenchurch let out a breath of relief. This was never about Chloe. Too easy to fall back into that old habit, wrapped up in worry and fear.
‘This her room?’ Fenchurch got another nod from Clooney. The relief caught in his throat. If someone could get inside a room and murder the occupant, it could happen to Chloe. She lived nearby. His gut tightened around emptiness. Would’ve lurched if he’d eaten anything since seven.
Reed spoke to him through her eyes, the only part of her visible. Noticing his relief.
Fenchurch took the tablet from Clooney and scanned the image, trying to focus his nerves on something positive. ‘How’d she die, Mick?’
‘Pratt’s doing his thing just now, but it’s a fairly obvious strangulation. Quite a bit of beating, too, if you ask me.’
&
nbsp; Fenchurch pinched the screen and zoomed in on her head. Red marks circled her throat, some deep indentations at the front. ‘Can you get prints off that?’
‘Tried. Failed.’ Clooney took his tablet back. ‘I’ve got to Foxtrot Oscar, Si. Managing another two crime scenes. Call me if you need anything, but you’ve got a good team here.’
‘Not so fast.’ Fenchurch blocked him. ‘You owe me at least an hour of your time, Mick. Come on.’
‘Simon, I can’t—’ Clooney tucked his tablet under his arm and dipped his head. ‘Fine. Half an hour.’
‘Cheers, Mick.’ Fenchurch let him enter the room and waited till he was out of earshot. Nelson was crouched by the doorway. ‘Jon, can you get a home address? And find anyone who she dealt with on a daily, weekly, annual basis. I want time with whoever’s in charge here. Chancellor, Rector, whatever they’re called. Someone got into her room — did she know them? All that jazz.’
‘Guv.’ Nelson sloped off down the corridor, tearing at his mask and goggles.
Reed was frowning at Fenchurch. ‘You okay, guv?’
He wiped at his mask, smearing the sweat into the fabric. ‘What, because it’s not my daughter lying there?’ He didn’t give her a chance to respond. ‘We’re going to find this woman’s killer. Don’t you worry about that.’ He barged past the two CSIs dusting the door surround.
Her room was filled with CSIs. Nothing much of note on the walls. One of those Charlie the Seahorse posters where he’s smoking a joint. Not much of a view, just a back lane. Bars on the window, though hard to tell if it was for stopping people getting in or the other way round.
A wardrobe filled the back wall, a CSI cataloguing and dusting the contents. The rest of the room had standard office furniture, a mid-brown wood desk with a blue chair. Books stacked up on top, piled on the floor, classic novels mixed with literary theory and political stuff. So Hannah was an English Literature student, most likely.
A single bed with—
Fenchurch blinked at something hard in his eye.
Hannah lay on the bed. From here she didn’t look like she was sleeping. The bruises on her face and the marks on her throat looked worse in the flesh than on the tablet screen. Took real strength to distort skin like that.
The pathologist knelt over the body. Dr William Pratt, humming a rum-pum-pum from some opera or something, poking and prodding the corpse. He glanced over at them. ‘Look who the cat’s dragged in.’
‘William. You getting anything I can use?’
Pratt added a tiddly-om-pom. ‘I can confirm that she died during the night.’ Om-pom-pom-pom-tiddly-om-pom. ‘I’m thinking between three and seven. I do need to confirm the room’s heating schedule to determine an exact time. You know, body-heat loss and so forth. Then my calculations will be a lot more accurate.’
‘Any evidence on the body?’
‘Not my forte, Inspector.’ Pratt went back to Hannah and the om-pom-pom.
‘Room’s clean, so far.’ Mick Clooney was kneeling on the floor. ‘A ton of fingerprints and fibres that’ll no doubt all trace back to the deceased.’
‘So nothing to go on?’
Clooney stood up with a groan. ‘You said it.’
Fenchurch checked the desktop. ‘What about her phone?’
‘Good news is we’ve got it.’ Clooney held up a mobile in an evidence bag. ‘Bad news is it’s an iPhone 7 and it’s locked. No danger we’re getting into it any time soon.’
Fenchurch took it off him. Kids and their expensive phones. Six hundred quid for the cheapest. Not much less on a contract. Gifts from Mummy and Daddy, no doubt. ‘So that’s it, then?’
‘Well.’ Clooney gestured over at the wardrobe. ‘Tammy’s checking her possessions. Aside from some leggings and tops and jeans, her wardrobe contains nothing but gym clothes and lingerie. Expensive stuff, too. Lacy, skimpy, corsets, you name it, it’s there.’
‘I’m pricing it up as I go, before you ask.’ Tammy was stacking up a pile of bags at the foot of the bed, a tangle of lace and black fabric. ‘Over three grand just on lingerie, according to the Victoria’s Secret website. The gym gear’s decent stuff, too. Under Armour and Nike and so on.’
Fenchurch picked up the top bag from the pile. Nothing much to go on until they had people to quiz. Another glance at Clooney. ‘Do you know who found her?’
Chapter Three
Fenchurch stayed near the back of the kitchen, listening. The sort of communal student area that spawned arguments about stolen milk. Stank of burnt toast and acidic instant coffee. Nobody had cleaned up all weekend, either.
Reed perched on a stool. Just the one pat of her quiff so far. ‘I understand you found her body?’
‘This morning. Half nine on the dot.’ Troy Danton stood between them, hands in pockets. Kid was fizzing with energy. Must be about seven stone soaking wet. Which he was, his hair gel slicking his forehead. Stank of the stuff, like a cheap barber’s. He sounded Peckham — down that way, you can pin an accent to a street. ‘I’m a cleaner here. Me and three other geezers. Split the building between us. Get half a corridor done every day. Do a proper job and all.’ He kept his focus on Reed. ‘Hers was first.’
‘Convenient.’ Reed gave him a steely glare. ‘First room on your rounds just so happens to be the one with a dead body in it.’
Danton’s gaze shot between them, spending more time clinging to Fenchurch now. ‘I found her. That’s all.’
Fenchurch wandered over to Danton, getting almost too close. The chemicals wafted off him, a lame attempt at masking the fug of cigarette smoke. ‘Listen, son. Someone got in her room during the night and murdered her. Bit of a mystery how they got in. Now, you’ve got a good cover story.’
Danton stepped away from Fenchurch, arms up, almost knocking Reed off her stool. ‘I just found her!’
‘I want to hear your story, okay?’ Fenchurch raised his hands in a placatory motion. ‘That’s all. Take us through it slowly. Remember, if you lie to us . . .’ He drew a line across his throat.
‘I found Hannah. That’s all.’
Fenchurch waved at Reed. ‘My colleague didn’t mention her name.’
Danton shrugged. ‘So?’
‘How well did you know her, son?’
‘Nice girl. Got a routine, yeah? Start at Room 37 on a Monday. 47 on a Tuesday. You get the drift. She’s in 37. I started there. No crime in that.’
‘Not saying there is.’ Fenchurch rested against the counter and stuffed his hands deep in his pockets, trying to mirror Danton. ‘How often do you speak to her?’
‘Few times. She’s doing English, I think. Supposed to be the laziest cu— students.’ Danton blushed, rubbing his ear. ‘Afternoon lectures. Not many of them, and all. So she was always in when I was cleaning. Sometimes she wouldn’t let me in, so I’d go next door, do hers later. When she doesn’t reply, I let myself in.’
Reed glanced at Fenchurch, flashing a warning glare. ‘You ever notice anything weird about her possessions?’
‘Not my business, darling.’ Danton took four goes to rub his nose. His fingers sliding off somehow. Too much grease or hair gel or sweat. ‘This morning, she didn’t answer. I opened up and . . . that’s when I found her.’
‘What time did you start?’
‘Seven.’
Reed looked up from her notebook. ‘When did you find her?’
‘About half nine.’
Fenchurch got in Danton’s sight line. ‘So what were you doing for that two and a half hours?’
‘What?’ Danton scowled at Reed. ‘What does he mean?’
‘You said you started at seven. Then you only got round to cleaning Hannah’s room at nine thirty.’
Danton sniffed, brushing his fingernails up and down his cheek. ‘Mixing detergents and that.’
‘That takes two and a half hours?’
‘About half an hour.’
‘So the other two hours were spent on “that”?’
Danton shut his eyes. Kid was panicking
, trapped between two coppers asking serious questions, putting him in the middle of something.
Reed was blocking his exit. ‘What took the other two hours, Mr Danton?’
Danton stood up tall, frowning. Clearly never heard his surname that often, just TROY or YOU. He rubbed his nose on the first attempt this time. ‘Had a few errands, you know. For my gaffer.’
‘And this gaffer would confirm this story, yeah?’
Danton exhaled. ‘I didn’t kill her. Swear.’
‘So where were you, then?’
‘Here. Working. Helping a mate.’
‘Can we speak to this mate, Mr Danton?’
‘It’s the truth.’
Reed wrapped her arms tight around her torso, scowling at him. ‘And what about before your shift started?’
‘Sleeping.’
‘And after sleeping?’
‘Walked in. Took me an hour.’
‘Anyone walk with you?’
‘No.’
Fenchurch started pacing the room again, getting in the way of the kitchen’s other exit. Last thing they needed was this oik making a run for it. ‘Mr Danton, you’ve not got an alibi for the time Hannah was murdered.’
‘Swear I didn’t kill her!’
‘I’d love to believe you, son, but you need to tell us where you were.’
‘Can’t.’
‘What do you mean, you “can’t”? Is it because you were killing her?’
‘Didn’t kill her!’
‘So what the hell were you doing?’
Danton stared at the floor. ‘Can’t tell you.’
‘Try us.’
Danton thrust his arms out wide, sniffing, his mouth hanging open, tongue flopping out. ‘I was selling drugs . . .’
Fenchurch couldn’t make any sense of it.
‘Happy now?’ Danton stuck out his arms, wrists together like he was being cuffed. ‘Lock me up. But I didn’t kill nobody.’
‘Okay, so who were you selling drugs to?’
‘Students.’
‘Got names for them?’
‘Honest John. Bab. El Freako. The Beast.’ Danton scratched his neck. ‘Give everyone a name, I do. Helps me remember them.’ He nodded at Reed. ‘Mrs Frosty.’ Then Fenchurch. ‘Alan Pardew.’
