by Ian Mayfield
Sooner or later, though, something would have to be done about home.
Nina had met Paul Jackson three years ago when they’d both been working at West End Central, she on the Soho Vice Squad and he as a CID clerk. At the time he’d been engaged to a woman who worked for Westminster City Council, but that hadn’t stopped him and Nina hitting it off and falling in love. He’d broken off his engagement, then in due course he’d proposed to Nina and she’d accepted. Shortly before their marriage, Paul had quit his job for a highly paid sales position from which, the idea was, he could put himself and Nina on a solid enough footing to afford the mortgage on a house large enough to fill with the host of children they dreamed of having. Unfortunately, Paul thought tact was what you did to a piece of paper in order to make it stick to a wall. This misconception got him fired within two weeks for casting fluently Anglo-Saxon doubts on the masculinity of the area sales manager after being blamed for the fall through of a vital deal. Nina had gone along with his side of the story, and given him the full support she believed to be her wifely duty and prerogative. But this had all happened over a year ago. Paul, in the intervening time, had managed to land a temporary job in a department store over Christmas - and that had been it. Nina’s patience was wearing thin. The entirety of their marriage to date had been spent living at her parents’ house. Mr and Mrs Tyminski, in the best Catholic extended family traditions, had welcomed their daughter and new son-in-law with open arms. But the arrangement had serious disadvantages. Lack of space, for one; the guilt of imposing, for another. All this while their sex life, pursued in the uncomfortable knowledge that Nina’s parents were the thickness of a wall away, suffered chronic damage that might never heal.
Now it was turning into a race against time. The Tyminskis were used to having the couple as part of the household; the problem, more and more, would be how to sever that bond painlessly. The infuriating thing was that Paul simply did not seem to appreciate the urgency.
Of course, he’d promised her a place of their own - when they had the money. Nina was seriously wondering whether that promise would ever be fulfilled. She cast sidelong glances at - as it seemed to her - the palatial comforts of Sandra and Neil Jones’s maisonette, contemporaries enjoying a lifestyle that should also be her right - hers and Paul’s. But however much she badgered and nagged him, he still could not land a job. The manner of his leaving his previous employment hadn’t helped, but surely someone ought to employ him.
And then just lately, the worrying behaviour changes. Little things. Like that business the other night when she’d got back from obbo. Staying out until all hours. The steady disappearance of sex from their relationship, which, even considering... Apart from his shocking sense of timing on Wednesday night, he hadn’t touched her for more than a month.
He was slipping away from her. However maddening he’d become, she still loved him; loved him so much it hurt. But this couldn’t go on.
The locker room was empty. The relief change had happened an hour ago, and the civil staff and most of the CID were on their way home. Nina walked past the lockers and through the door that led to the toilets and showers. She entered a cubicle, lowered the seat cover and sat down, sliding forward until she was perched on the edge. She leaned back, hands on her lap, sighing deeply, switching her mind back to the events of the day, looking for things she might have missed about the rapist who was out there somewhere.
They’d divided into two pairs. Jasmin and Jeff had started following up the Cole and Harkness cases. They’d left the office in the early afternoon, one bound for Epsom and the other for Ealing, in search of officers who might hold in their memories or notes some clue to the identity of a dangerous sex criminal. Nina and Lucky had done the donkey work, logging the faxes and emails, the phone calls and voice messages flooding back from all over the Met in response to the APB. It had been a mind-numbing task. Lucky, to her credit, had stuck at it diligently, head down, not stirring except to head off to the kettle when Nina suggested it might be time for more tea. Nina was now feeling a bit guilty about that. But it had paid off. Another five possibles, all south of the Thames, all unsolved, and all involving attacks by an intruder in the victim’s home. Already they’d made some calls whose results seemed to strengthen the connection.
A queasy feeling made her look down. With a sense of unreality she realised she’d been masturbating. Her mind having found something to occupy it, meanwhile so had her body. Quickly she brought herself off, then sat back, feeling herself relax, muscle by weary muscle. It had yielded as much sexual gratification as a saucepan full of cold mashed turnips and there were probably better ways of dealing with stress, but she didn’t have time for them and this way at least provided an outlet for some of her frustration. It made her ashamed when she thought about it, but it was survival. The alternative was to let it all mount up until she snapped, and she’d lost enough already without her marbles going as well.
She lifted the seat cover, peed, left the cubicle and went back to her locker where she took off her clothes and hung them up. Carrying a towel through to the showers, her pale reflection in a mirror caught her eye. Not for the first time, she wondered if her body could be the cause of Paul’s remoteness. There were, she fancied, pinching it between thumb and forefinger, the beginnings of a spare tyre about her middle. She ran her hands upwards and cupped her small breasts in her palms. She had no wish to age into a fat Slavic babushka; even so, she envied what she saw as luckier women. Jasmin Winter, for example, whose neat, proud but manageable bust looked great under any clothing and who insisted blithely that it was just a matter of finding the right bra. Nina’s, by contrast, all but disappeared the moment she got dressed. If she had to put on weight, for pity’s sake, why couldn’t it be there?
Showers constituted one of the perks of working in a large modern police station. She stood, lathering herself, rinsing off, until the water ran cold and the grime of the day was washed away, and she felt clean and fresh ready for obbo. You learned to find alternatives to sleep in the Job, and a long hot shower was often a good substitute when it came to recharging batteries.
She dried, dressed and gathered her things. She was unaware she was crying until her hand was pulling open the door, when she realised she couldn’t see what she was doing for the tears.
Outside she collided with Lucky. Just behind Lucky was Jeff Wetherby, returned from Ealing, on a similar mission to the men’s locker room next door.
‘You OK?’ He frowned at her.
‘I’m fine,’ she snapped. He recoiled. She succeeded with a struggle in keeping the tremor out of her voice, the desolation she felt from reaching him.
They watched her receding down the corridor, her strange scampering walk even more conspicuous from behind.
‘Now what was all that about?’
‘Who cares?’ Lucky smiled, fleetingly.
Jeff was left staring at the ladies’ locker room door.
Hackney’s chief superintendent was away at a conference, and it took Kim and Marie some time to track down a subordinate willing to authorize the search warrant. The subordinate wouldn’t sign anything without talking to Sophia first, and Sophia had disappeared into a meeting, so it was late afternoon by the time they entered the flat by the same means the squatters had used, knocking out the boarded-up front door to get at the Yale lock. The door opened, and they stepped into the dark hallway.
‘Poo!’ Marie said, gagging. ‘Somebody forgot to flush the bog before leaving.’
Kim switched on the hall light, took a few tentative steps and said, ‘Right, we’ll start with the obvious. Looks like there’s two bedrooms; how about I take a look at them while you do the front room and the kitchen?’
Marie pushed open a door with her fingertips and peered inside. She grimaced. ‘You got x-ray vision or what?’
But Kim had already disappeared.
The front room was a tip. Cardboard boxes were stacked floor to ceiling, jostling for floor space with furni
ture upholstered in 1970s curry powder yellow. Washing up, fast food packaging, lager cans, dirty androgynous clothing and piles of old newspapers and magazines lay everywhere. Marie fished out a bra from under a settee. So there had been a woman here. She examined it. 36B. She wished they’d checked the contents of Debbie’s underwear drawer more closely when they’d searched her room. Still, from the description it sounded like her size. ‘Wish it was mine,’ she said wistfully, out loud.
‘What?’ Kim’s voice, from the doorway.
‘Oh, nothing.’ She turned. Kim was half in the room, arms folded. She looked grim.
‘Found something?’
‘You could say that,’ Kim said. ‘Come and look at this.’
Marie followed her into the main bedroom. There was no need for Kim to point out what she wanted her to see. In contrast to the front room, the only furniture was a pine double bed, with slatted head and footboards. It was relatively new, possibly secondhand. It wasn’t important. The writing on the wall above it was. Dark red capitals a foot high, dried rivulets running down behind the headboard. They might have been blood, more likely red paint. Whatever the medium, the effect was the same.
The message read:
RACE TRAITOR
NIGGER LOVER
(THRALL)
The CSI was Vietnamese, mid-thirties, with lingering acne and glasses that didn’t suit her. Her face behind them was defensive as she stood up and looked at Sophia Beadle. She said, ‘Yep. It’s blood. Don’t ask me if it’s human; can’t tell that in the field. Could be from a cut of raw steak for all we know at this point.’
She was referring not to the writing on the wall but to a small reddish-brown streak on the mattress. The graffiti, from its chemical smell and from paintbrush bristles left behind in the daubing, had been confirmed as red gloss.
Sophia nodded. ‘Get a sample over to Lambeth. Mark it urgent. If it is human and it’s Debbie Clarke’s, I want to know quickly.’
The CSI glared at her, affronted. ‘Was about to,’ she said, and returned to her work.
Sophia turned to Kim. ‘Right. What else?’
‘Looks bad,’ Kim said. ‘I mean, she’s on the run, right? All she had on her was the clothes she was wearing.’
‘We assume,’ Sophia reminded her. ‘We don’t know for certain what was in that bag of hers.’
‘Yeah, but we found it. It’s got her purse in and some makeup - nothing fancy, just lipstick, mascara, powder: everyday stuff. No change of clothing. Unless, like you say, she’d put it on.’
‘You’ve double-checked the description of what she was wearing against the clothes Marie found?’
‘The Clarkes are on their way to Hackney to ID them.’
‘What’s in the purse?’
Kim shrugged. ‘Just some loose change, a condom and an Oyster card. Debit card’s missing and no sign of that hundred quid. If there was anything else, it’s gone and all.’
‘To hinder us, if this is what it looks like,’ Sophia said gravely.
‘Them bits of rope...’
‘Yes.’ The DCI nodded. ‘Until we get something back from the lab we can’t go wildly speculating, but coupled with that’ - she waved at the red daub - ‘it looks a bit ominous. Is Marie back yet?’
‘Guv.’
She was at her shoulder, right on cue.
‘I’ve had another word with Mrs Brownlie,’ she said. ‘Reckons she can generally tell when the squatters are in or out, ‘cause they’re not that mindful of being quiet. She had a good think, but she can’t remember hearing or seeing Meredith or any of the others since yesterday afternoon, and definitely not since last night when Porter called there. If it was Porter.’
Kim said, ‘Do they wake her up at night?’
Marie shook her head. ‘She’s on tablets for her arthritis, says once she’s had those, that’s her for the night. The Rolling Stones playing live in her bedroom wouldn’t wake her.’
‘Her metaphor, or yours?’ The three of them grinned, grateful for a moment’s release from the grim business at hand. ‘Now,’ Sophia went on, ‘I’ve asked the local CID to tap their informants, and we’ll get all the hostels checked, see if that’s where Meredith’s gone.’ She turned to Marie again. ‘It would be helpful to have a bit more to work with. Did Mrs Brownlie mention any of the other squatters’ names?’
‘Aye, she did,’ Marie said, pleased to have anticipated. ‘There’s two other males who’ve been here besides Meredith. One’s called Dermot and she thinks the other one’s Bill or Billy. She says there was also a girl turned up from time to time, didn’t appear to be a permanent fixture.’
‘Debbie?’
Marie shrugged.
‘Descriptions?’
‘In my pocket book.’
‘Get them written up and circulated,’ Sophia said. ‘Chances are they have some sort of record. How about the neighbours the other side?’
‘No luck there, I’m afraid, guv. Saw nothing, heard nothing. All they were interested in, and I quote, “Hope this means those druggie parasites are out of there for good”.’ A cynical smile. ‘No squatters’ friends there. Bring down property values, don’t you know.’
‘There’s a laugh,’ Kim said, ‘round here.’
‘Anything else?’ Sophia said.
‘I was about to go and see if there was any joy from the house to house.’
Sophia pondered for a moment and said, ‘No, leave that. The local bobbies can cover it. I don’t think there’s much else to be done here; you may as well be off home.’
‘Guv?’ Kim glanced over at the bed with difficulty. ‘In view of this, should I call off the obbo? Least for tonight, seeing as the Clarkes ain’t gonna be there.’
‘Yes, call and let Nina know she can have an early night. It all depends on what happens when they get here as to how we proceed from then on. I take it,’ she added, ‘nothing more of interest on that front yet?’
Kim shook her head.
‘I still agree with you: he knows more than he’s telling,’ Sophia said. ‘But we shall see.’
We could always go to the pictures, Nina decided, looking at the office clock. It was the second thing she’d done after putting the phone down from Kim Oliver’s call. The first thing had been to slam a clenched fist down on the desk and swear very loudly, an action so out of character that Jeff, the only other person still around, had almost fallen out of his chair. He was now staring at her, as aghast as if the Queen had walked into the room and asked if she could bum a smoke.
She stopped short of telling him it was PMS, doubtful he’d be convinced. Six months working in an office full of women, she supposed, you soon got to know when their periods were. She said, to stop him thinking, ‘You’re a film buff. What’s on at the moment?’
His gaze followed hers to the clock. ‘Bit late.’
‘I was thinking the Warner, Purley Way.’
He nodded. ‘Shows all hours there,’ he informed her, infuriatingly, because she knew that. He said, ‘No overtime tonight?’
‘Been a development. Apparently I’m not needed.’ She bent down to pick up her bag. ‘Oh, well. Better make the most of it. See you.’
‘Take care,’ he called, making her hesitate in her step as she went out of the door, because if he said any sort of goodbye at all it was a simple grunt - ‘Ta-ta’ at the most. She told herself to stop being paranoid. He couldn’t possibly know anything, unless Sandra had been talking, and if she had Nina would kill her.
Jeff was still bothering her as she drove home. Of course he’s going to be curious, she tried to tell herself, if you suddenly start shouting obscenities and assaulting the furniture. He wasn’t the sort to pry, but what if he’d overheard something? The canteen was a hotbed of gossip, seldom founded on much more than hints and hearsay, but often conveyed with little regard to volume.
Start thinking like that and she’d go cuckoo. There was no telling what Jeff, or anyone, knew that they kept to themselves. Most likely, she tho
ught with a flash of inspiration, it was this business they were investigating. Rape naturally turned your mind to the wellbeing of those close to you. So stop being a miserable, cynical cow, Nina chided herself, and take his words in the spirit they were intended.
She looked up at the house as she parked, and her heart sank as she saw the front windows were unlit. That meant nothing either. What was the matter with her? It was her parents’ bridge night, and although her sister had singing lessons on Fridays she was quite capable of cancelling and going out with her friends if they came up with something more interesting to do. Besides, Paul was probably in their room, at the back of the house, remember?
Nina, stepping indoors with a lighter heart, decided she wasn’t going to take no for an answer. She didn’t feel like making a full change just for the pictures but she was washed and brushed up; she might as well redo her face and present Paul with a fait accompli. No point looking like Dracula’s dinner on top of -
She never knew what made her stop at the top of the stairs. Perhaps something among the tiny, subliminal sounds and smells of the house, alerting her to an alien presence. But there was nothing subliminal about the female giggle she distinctly heard coming from the half-open door next to theirs.
Lucia, she thought, appalled. How could she, in Mum and Dad’s room? She crossed herself and edged towards the door, driven by a terrible fascination. It occurred to her that the laugh had sounded nothing like Lucia; it had been shrill, coquettish, where her sister’s was a sort of strident bray.
The thought got no further before she froze, ice congealing in her gut.
Through the gap in the door she could see her parents’ bed reflected in the wardrobe mirror. The bed was occupied. From beneath the sheets protruded a man’s broad, bare shoulders, and on top of the shoulders rested the cropped, balding head of her husband.
