by Jessie Keane
They were hitting dead ends.
But there was still the CCTV from the club’s interior. If that turned up nothing, they’d have to appeal to the public for information.
‘How’s it going?’ DCI James Barrow asked Romilly as she passed by his open office door at a fast walk, hitching her arms into her navy jacket as she went. Romilly paused and stepped into his office. ‘We’ve got three bullets from the two vics and the church door, plus two spent shells from the room opposite the church with ballistics,’ she said, pushing the door closed behind her. And I think Kit Miller’s got the third shell. ‘Awaiting reports, sir.’
‘This misper too much on top of all that? I could reallocate. By rights, it should have been Turner’s shout anyway, but he came back two days and now he’s off again, with the flu. Or Sharp’s lot could take it?’
‘No. It’s fine.’
Romilly bridled a bit. The suggestion that she couldn’t cope niggled her. She’d been coping all her life; she thrived on stress, and just as well. Policing was in her blood, like it had been in her dad’s, and granddad’s. Starting out as a greenhorn beat bobby, she’d worked her way up the ranks, breezing through her exams, getting into plain clothes with energy and an enormous amount of application. For the past two and a half years she’d been an effective SIO – Senior Investigating Officer – in charge of major crime cases. And she’d loved it. Lived for it. Maybe a little too much. Career first, life second. So maybe it was her fault her husband had chosen to fuck around. And now she was coming up to thirty years old. Her carefree twenties were behind her, and she’d barely even noticed them go.
‘There could be links here,’ said Romilly. ‘Word is Kit Miller owns the part of town where the warehouse robbery went down. His mother Ruby owns the club the misper vanished from, and his sister’s groom and the photographer got done on her wedding day. It’s all a bit too close for comfort.’
‘Your honest opinion?’ he asked. ‘On the church shooting?’
Romilly shrugged. ‘Got to be gangland, hasn’t it? Most likely. But we’ll follow it through. To the bitter bloody end – as per usual. PM on the photographer’s being done right now, then the groom this afternoon. I’m heading off over there.’
‘OK. Don’t let me keep you.’
48
The killer was back in the room again, with the dogs. He hated the fucking dogs. But he was pleased that he was about to collect at least a portion of the last twenty due from his uncle for a job well done.
Well, ish.
It bothered him that he hadn’t picked up the three spent shell casings in the flat after the shooting. But there’d been that random, bastard puff of wind, ruining his shot, and then he’d seen Kit Miller, his third target, coming at a run and knew he’d been spotted. He didn’t do hand-to-hand, he wasn’t strong enough for that, and he knew that Miller would squash him like a gnat.
He had to clear out, fast.
And he had.
But it gnawed at him, leaving those shells behind. It was untidy, and he didn’t like that. He didn’t like the fact that he’d wasted Miller’s shot, either.
‘So, the money . . .?’ the killer prompted. He’d waited more than a week for this. He’d been patient for long enough.
‘What about it?’ The killer’s uncle grabbed one of the dogs and hauled it, slobbering, onto his lap. The killer stifled a wince. His uncle stared him in the eye. ‘You got Hinton. You got Lewis. But you didn’t get the one we wanted most. You missed your chance with Miller, and I’m not paying you a single solitary bean until he’s six feet under.’
‘That’s not fair. I fulfilled two-thirds of the contract.’
‘I don’t deal in thirds, sonny. I want the whole job done, then you’ll be paid.’
‘It’s more difficult now. They’ll be on guard.’
‘Your problem, not mine.’
The killer felt rage in his heart as he stared at his uncle. There were other complications, too. But of course he wasn’t about to tell his uncle about Crystal Rose and her unfortunate death. What with the shootings at the church and the girl going missing from Ruby Darke’s club, he was worried that someone was going to make a connection. He told himself it wouldn’t do them any good if they did, but still – he didn’t like it.
He really didn’t.
But what could he do? He had to pick his moment carefully, finish the job. And then he’d get his money.
49
It was the part of the job Romilly hated most, attending post-mortems. The pathologist, Derek Potts, was middle-aged, scholarly, gently smiling, and he always wore a natty bow tie. At Christmas he wore one with a snow scene and reindeer. He was like a favourite teacher, someone you’d be happy to have a chat and a pint of beer with down the pub. He treated each dead body respectfully, patiently; uncovering, slicing, weighing – everything was done with a steady, reverential air.
Romilly liked that.
She’d been at PMs in the past, conducted by other people, where the atmosphere was humorous and blasé, and that didn’t feel right. She’d seen that sort of attitude sometimes down the cop shop too – it was the way some coppers dealt with the bad and the bloody-nigh unbearable. Like a biker’s helmet on a dusty road with a treacherous turn, with a teenage biker’s head still inside it and his body twenty feet away. Nasty stuff. Hard to take. So they made a joke of it, hoping that would somehow take the sting out.
Romilly stood back, clad in the same protective clothing as everyone else in this big, cool, Lysol-scented room, while Potts and his assistants worked on the body of Clive Lewis, the photographer. Under the glare of the lights, Mr Lewis was carefully dissected on the big metal table with the drainage channels.
The Y-section on the chest and abdomen was first. The high-pitched whirring of the saw put her teeth on edge as it sliced through the mortal remains of Clive Lewis. She looked away. Not that she was squeamish – she’d attended enough post-mortems now to be way past the throwing-up stage.
The sawing went on. She looked at the sink, where kidney-shaped and circular metal bowls were stacked, ready for containing the bits and pieces of what had once been a human being. One of the assistants brought several dishes over to the table. Time passed. The heart was being examined and weighed.
‘Maximum damage here,’ said Derek to Romilly. ‘He couldn’t have survived this shot.’
Next came the lungs. Then the kidneys.
‘Oh! Well, that’s a surprise,’ said Derek suddenly as he sliced open the stomach bag and emptied its contents into a tray. He half-turned toward the detective inspector. ‘Romilly? Come and have a look at this.’
Romilly approached the table, and looked.
‘Fuck,’ she said.
Derek smiled. ‘Well yes. Quite.’
50
Tanya Bellifer taught yoga and she loved dogs. She was a fizzy little laugh-a-minute blonde with a ponytail and a cute, blue-eyed face permanently crinkled up with smiles. She lived with her boyfriend Andy, who was working as a forklift driver in a DIY warehouse at the moment, but he wanted to take his interest in bodybuilding into personal training. They were going places, they had their own house and a fucking great mortgage, a car each, and the only slight wrinkle in the happy-ever-after was her dogs.
They were big bastards, these dogs. A mother and daughter Newfoundland, each of them black as ink and huge. The mother weighed in at eleven stone, and the daughter was catching up fast. These two monsters ate more than both the humans in the household put together.
‘They’re costing us a fucking fortune, Tans. I’m telling you, they got to go,’ Andy was always saying.
But they were her babies. She couldn’t have kids, so the Newfies stood in. Maybe those damned steroids Andy took to bulk up were the trouble, who knew? She’d read that they increased muscle but shrank a man’s gonads to the size of peanuts. Tanya adored her dogs, and if Andy wanted them gone, fuck him. He could go. She wasn’t going to be parted from her doggies, no way.
&nbs
p; She walked them in the woods behind the house every morning and afternoon, fitting them around her classes; they were no trouble at all. Yes, they ate a lot, but what price could you put on love?
It was a bright morning, and she was glad of the dappled shade cast by the big oaks. Once she’d found a deer lying in here, sunbathing in a warm patch of sunlight. It had scarpered when she appeared, but she’d gone to the spot and felt the ground; it was warm. She’d sat there awhile, feeling at one with nature; peaceful.
Now she strode along, no time for sitting. She had a dental appointment to get to in a while so they were going to have to cut short their walkies this morning.
‘Casey! Pucci!’ she called as they hared ahead of her.
Time to get their leads on, get back to the house, smarten up.
‘Come on, girlies, let’s be having you!’ she carolled.
They were quiet, somewhere up ahead, out of sight.
‘Oh, flip,’ she said, hurrying after them.
‘Casey! Come on, come to mama, girls,’ she called. They’d led her further into the woods than they normally did, and she had to get back to the house sharpish.
Then she spotted them ahead in a small clearing among the trees.
‘Oh, you naughty girls,’ she said, and hurried up.
Pucci, the baby girl, was pawing at the ground, exposing a bit of black plastic bag, while Casey, the mum, was yanking at something with her teeth.
‘What you got, girlies?’ smiled Tanya, coming up, clipping on Pucci’s lead.
Casey didn’t even look up. She was pulling at some grey-blue thing, a doll’s hand maybe. Some kid had dropped their doll or someone had dumped household rubbish here, hence the bin bag. The smile dropped from Tanya’s face as Casey tugged harder. One of the doll’s fingers came away and . . . Oh Christ, that’s not a doll’s finger.
Tanya staggered back a step. She felt bile rush up into her throat like acid as Casey snapped her jaws together and swallowed the digit. A half-choked scream tore its way out of Tanya’s mouth. She grabbed Casey’s collar and clipped on the lead and almost had to drag the dog off its find. There was a grey arm poking up stiff as a branch from the soil the dogs had disturbed.
Oh Jesus!
That’s not a doll. It’s a dead body.
Then the smell hit her and Tanya backed away, whimpering, gagging, pulling the dogs.
She started to run with them, stumbling, crying, back to the house.
51
‘I think the twins should go and stay with Vanessa,’ said Ruby.
Days had passed. Daisy had come out of her bedroom and was now downstairs in the sitting room.
This was progress. But Ruby couldn’t forget what had happened the other night, Daisy going out with Daniel looking for a hit when she had two small children upstairs, depending on her. Needing her.
‘What?’ Daisy looked at her vaguely.
Ruby let out an exasperated sigh. She knew Daisy was suffering. But for God’s sake! She was going to have to snap out of this. Vanessa was the twins’ adopted ‘grandmother’, Lady Bray. She lived down at Brayfield in Hampshire, and would welcome the chance to see Daisy’s children. Vanessa had raised Daisy for the first part of her young life and she adored Matthew and Luke.
Ruby had been thinking about this a lot, and it seemed like an ideal solution. An extended stay with Vanessa deep in the country would be a treat, a holiday for the kids. And it would give Daisy time to pull herself back together again. Hopefully. If she ever would. Right now, Ruby doubted it.
‘Matthew and Luke should be with Vanessa for a while. Jody will drive them down there, stay on for a couple of weeks. That’ll give you a break, and Vanessa will love it. So will the twins.’ She expected an argument. An objection. But Daisy merely nodded.
‘OK. If you think that’s best.’
Christ, Daisy! Ruby eyed her daughter, thought of saying something cutting and then thought again.
All Daisy’s dreams had been destroyed. She was right to feel this way.
‘I’ll go phone Vanessa, and tell Jody. There’s no reason they can’t go today.’
‘Yeah. Fine,’ said Daisy.
Ruby left the room and Leon sauntered in, closing the door after him. Daisy looked up at him in surprise. Leon rarely addressed a word to her. ‘Something you wanted?’ she asked.
Leon nodded. ‘Yeah, there is. I wanted to know what the fuck you were playing at the other night. You could have got Daniel in big trouble. Terrible trouble.’
Something in Leon’s tone penetrated the fog in Daisy’s brain. She stood up.
‘How dare you speak to me like that,’ she said in her crispest, coolest Home Counties voice.
‘I’ll speak to you how I bloody well like. Fact is, girl, you got to get a grip. Dan didn’t want to tell me what you were up to, but I got it out of him. I have to say, I am fucking appalled. Your mum won’t tell you this because she’s too soft with you, but I will. Shape up, will you? Way I see it is, Kit ought to have kicked your arse when you dragged Dan into your games. I would have, for sure.’
Daisy stared at him, seeing the gleam in his eyes. He’s enjoying this, she thought. Tearing me off a strip gives him a hard-on. The tosser. ‘I’m not listening to this.’ Daisy was heading for the door.
‘Yeah, you are.’ Leon grabbed her arm and dragged her to a halt. ‘You need someone to tell you this, Daise.’
‘Don’t you dare call me that.’ Only Kit had ever called her Daise. And Rob, of course. The pain of it all lanced through her yet again, fresh and raw and hungry, biting into her head, her guts. Rob would never call her that again. ‘Let go of me,’ she said icily.
‘Uppity little tart.’ Leon let go of her arm. ‘You know I’m right,’ he said.
Without uttering another word, she swept from the room.
52
They got the call from local uniform. SOCOs were summoned and by ten thirty Romilly and Harman were at the scene of Tanya Bellifer’s discovery in the woods. They showed their warrant cards and ducked under the POLICE – DO NOT CROSS tapes that had been strung up around the edge of the wood beside the road.
There were arc lamps set up at the body site in its small clearing, and a white forensic tent. Romilly spotted Derek Potts there, dressed in white coveralls. Four of the forensics team were carrying a stretchered something into the tent. Derek raised a hand to Romilly and stepped inside, following the SOCOs and their grim burden. Moments later, he emerged and came over.
‘Romilly,’ he greeted her.
‘What have you got?’ she asked.
‘Small female, twenty to twenty-five years old. Strangulation. Very sad.’
‘Is it our girl, you think? The burlesque dancer?’
‘Almost certainly. Dog walker found her. Always the way, isn’t it. Dogs and their keen noses. There’s one odd thing.’
‘What?’
‘All her teeth have been removed. Post-mortem.’
Romilly stared at him.
‘Fingerprints can vanish with time,’ Derek shrugged. ‘Teeth don’t.’
Their misper had turned into a murder enquiry. ‘OK to . . .?’ asked Romilly. She indicated the clearing.
‘Yes of course.’ Derek moved into the clearing and Romilly and Harman followed. He pointed out the grave Crystal Rose had been buried in. ‘She was in there, wrapped in black plastic bin bags. Couple of weeks, I think, which ties in with our vanishing burlesque girl.’
‘OK to look around now?’ Romilly stared at the shallow grave and tried not to shudder. The thought of that poor girl in there, rotting.
‘Fine. All marked, all photographed,’ said Derek, and turned and left her and Harman to it.
‘Christ, what a way to end up,’ said Harman.
‘Tragic,’ said Romilly. Giving the grave a wide berth, she moved around it, brambles catching at her jeans. She paused, taking in the scene. The wind whispering through the bare boughs of the trees. Sunlight shimmering through on to the forest floor. Far enoug
h from the road and the surrounding bustle of housing estates to hear nothing but the sweet sound of birdsong.
It was idyllic.
And tainted by murder.
‘What’s that?’ she said. The slanting sun was highlighting something vivid, something blue.
‘Hm? What?’ Harman’s gaze followed hers.
Romilly moved off, crushing ferns underfoot and releasing their dusky scent into the air. The brambles thickened, catching at her jacket, scratching her hands. She surged on. Stopped by a tree. There was a small length of rope hanging there. Electric-blue nylon rope, tied to a low branch. In the shape of a noose.
‘Kids messing about? Playing hangman?’ suggested Harman.
‘The loop’s too big for a noose. Particularly a kid’s one.’
Harman was looking at the ground beneath it. ‘Bits of old fruit down here, by the look of it.’
Romilly took plastic gloves out of her pocket and snapped them on. Taking out an evidence bag and a scoop, she picked up some of the mouldy remains of the fruit and bagged it up.
‘What the fuck’s that?’ asked Harman, peering closely at a scrape mark along the tree branch, near where the rope was tied on.
Romilly gave it a close inspection. Then she looked at the noose, the fruit. ‘You got a penknife on you?’ she asked.
‘Sure.’
‘What d’you think it is?’ asked Harman, handing over the penknife.
‘You ever see that film with Edward Fox? Day of the Jackal?’
‘Can’t say I did.’
Romilly was digging at the tree bark now, working her way around the scrape mark.
‘Well, you missed a treat.’
She dug deeper, eased the knife right in, and yanked it back. A brass-coloured cylinder popped out and fell into her waiting hand.
‘Shit,’ said Harman, taking back his knife, staring in surprise at the bullet.
