Irrefutable Evidence: A Crime Thriller

by David George Clarke

  “Underwood,” said the manager.

  As Derek and Jennifer disappeared through the door to the stairs, McPherson and Bottomley stopped by the two lifts.

  “You stay here to watch that lift, Neil,” said McPherson. “In case she’s coming down while I’m on the way up.”

  Not wanting to miss out on any action, Bottomley pulled out a radio.

  “I’ll get a uniform in here to watch it, then I’ll join you upstairs.”

  Looking along the third floor corridor as he hurried out of the lift, McPherson could see Derek Thyme about twenty yards away banging hard on a door. Jennifer was standing to one side of the door, making sure that the receptionist stayed behind her.

  “Damn it!” spat McPherson as he sprinted along the corridor and grabbed Jennifer’s arm, pulling her behind him.

  “Guv—” she protested.

  “You’re not wearing a protective jacket,” he snapped. “You shouldn’t be here, so don’t even think about moving until I say so. You can follow us in once we’ve checked it.”

  Having announced his presence at the top of his voice, Derek thrust the key card into the slot and as the green light showed, he pushed open the door. He stood to one side of the door frame as best he could, feeling extremely vulnerable in the bright corridor lighting as he peered into the darkness of the room.

  “Superintendent Freneton, stay exactly where you are,” he shouted. “The hotel is surrounded by police officers. I’m going to turn on the lights and enter the room.”

  He reached over to push the card into the lighting slot and the room instantly flooded with light.

  He glanced at McPherson, who nodded at him. In one fluid movement, Derek scanned the room, the bathroom and pulled open the wardrobe doors.

  “All clear, guv,” he called. “She’s not here.”

  Ignoring McPherson’s order, Jennifer was physically right behind him, and mentally ahead of him in her assessment of the room. She quickly noted the pale grey business jacket and skirt laid out on the bed and the holdall on the floor nearby.

  She knelt by the holdall and looked up at McPherson.

  “May I, guv?” she asked, pulling a pair of disposable gloves from her pocket and slipping them on.

  “Go ahead, Cotton,” he nodded.

  She unzipped the bag and pulled on the handles to expose the contents before carefully removing them, placing them one by one on the floor next to her. It was a gold mine, although no surprise to her.

  McPherson and Derek watched as she laid out a number of polythene bags containing unused combs, a bag of surgical gloves, a syringe with its plunger pushed all the way down, a small bottle containing a clear liquid, and a medicine bottle labelled Rohypnol that rattled as she shook it. She peered into the bag and pulled out one further item. A white bra.

  “Why’d she take that off, Jen?” asked Derek.

  Jennifer hesitated as she scanned the items on the floor, unconsciously waving the bra in her hand. Then she nodded her head, puckering her lips in understanding.

  “This is a carbon copy of the Henry Silk case, down to the last detail, although I doubt she expected us to find this stuff here: she’s intending to return. But this bra would enhance her bust, and dressed as a man she wouldn’t want that. I reckon she changed into a tighter one, a sports bra probably, to help flatten her chest.”

  “Not much to flatten, as I recall,” muttered McPherson.

  Jennifer ignored him as she jumped to her feet.

  “Anyway,” she said, her voice suddenly filled with urgency, “we’ve missed her. Somewhere in this hotel there’s an unconscious man lying in his room. Freneton has left in his car dressed in his clothes. We have to find out who he is and get a trace on his car. She’s clearly intending to kill another prostitute.”

  She turned to the receptionist hovering by the door, afraid to enter the room but spellbound by what he had seen.

  “Kevin, come with us back to reception. We need a list of the men registered here tonight as single-occupancy guests, and we need it fast. Each one of them needs to be accounted for.”

  She ran from the room, hustling the receptionist to follow.

  “How many rooms in this hotel?” she called as they ran along the corridor.

  “A hundred and fifty-two.”

  “Jesus!” cried Jennifer. “How many of them occupied tonight?”

  Kevin caught her eye as they barrelled onto the stairs, shrugging as he did. “Dunno exactly, but we’re about three quarters full.”

  They ran across the lobby to the reception desk.

  “Can this thing do any refined searching?” asked Jennifer, pointing at one of the computers.

  Kevin looked at her, not understanding.

  Jennifer sighed at his lack of wit. “I mean, can we ask it to list male guests having single occupancy?”

  A light switched on in Kevin’s eyes. “Oh yeah, it can do that.”

  “Good,” said Jennifer, pushing him to the keyboard. “Get me the list.”

  As the screen changed, her heart fell. It seemed that the vast majority of the guests were in the category of male single occupancy.

  “We’ll have to refine the list,” she said. “Let’s assume that our man is British, white and aged around thirty-five to fifty, no sixty. We’ll try those first. Here, let me.”

  She replaced Kevin in front of the screen.

  “Right, Kevin, write these down as I call them out. Derek, you phone the first one on one of the house phones. If there’s no answer, he’s either out or he’s our man, drugged and in a deep sleep. We’ll make a shortlist and go banging on doors. Here’s the first one, Derek, room one zero one, Robert Johnson, aged forty-three.”

  Derek dived for a phone as Jennifer moved to the next one on the list, which she called out to Hurst.

  Over the next ten minutes, the desk was a jumble of four people making phone calls, Jennifer yelling out names and room numbers and Kevin scribbling furiously.

  As McPherson slammed the receiver down on his last irate client — there had been much abuse by people not sharing his sense of urgency who were severely displeased at being woken by the police — Jennifer recalculated their tally of possibilities.

  “We’re down to twenty-three,” she announced. “They’re fairly evenly distributed among the five floors.”

  “Right,” said Hurst, turning to the manager. “Pass keys. We need four. I’ll go with you and take the first floor, Rob, you check the second floor with Kevin here, Neil, take one of the uniforms and do the third floor, and Thyme, you go with Cotton to the fourth floor. If we draw a total blank, we’ll all meet up on the fifth floor.”

  “Boss—” Jennifer started to object.

  “Don’t argue, Cotton, you’re not going alone. Now, let’s move it!”

  Derek and Jennifer ran to the stairs. “Quicker than the lift, Jen,” he said, grinning, “if you can keep up.”

  “Stop jabbering and shift your arse, Thyme,” she said, charging past him.

  There were five rooms on their list.They knocked loudly on the doors of the first two and used the pass card to enter. The rooms were empty. As Derek pounded on the door of the third, it opened slightly and an overweight and balding middle-aged man wearing only a towel peered out nervously. Derek flashed his warrant card and announced loudly again that they were police.

  “Is everything all right with you, sir?” he asked, craning his neck to see into the room. He was concerned that Freneton might have the man under threat.

  “Yes, officer, really,” stammered the man.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I have to check.”

  He pushed past the man, stopping where the short corridor opened up into the main part of the room. Sitting up in the bed, the sheets pulled up around her neck, was a surprisingly young and slim woman, a jumble of chestnut curls falling onto her bare shoulders. Her deep brown eyes caught Derek’s and she smiled coyly.

  “Timothy,” she called to the man in the towel, her voice a husk
y purr. “What have you arranged this time?”

  Jennifer had by now followed Derek into the room. She yanked on his arm.

  “Sorry, miss,” she said past him. “Our mistake.”

  “Are you sure?” said the woman as she let the sheet slip from her shoulders.

  “What’s this all about, officer?” demanded the man.

  “Apologies, sir,” said Jennifer, quickly pulling open the wardrobe door as she pushed Derek out of the room.

  “The hotel will explain later,” she called, glancing into the bathroom. “We need to go. Sorry to disturb you.”

  She slammed the door shut and caught Derek’s eye.

  “What?” he said.

  She responded with a withering glance before looking down to check her list.

  “Four two one,” she said.

  Derek was there first and once again banging on the door, announcing who he was.

  Jennifer slipped the card into the lock, pushed open the door and activated the lights.

  From the angle at which the man was lying, she knew they had found him. She ran over to the bed, instinctively taking the man’s wrist.

  “He’s alive,” she called to Derek, “but his pulse is weak and his breathing pretty shallow. Call an ambulance; he’s going to need help.”

  As Derek punched the buttons on his phone, Jennifer looked Peter Baines up and down and gasped.

  “Derek, look! His neck. He’s got scratches exactly like the ones that Henry had on the left side of his neck.”

  “Ambulance on its way, Jen,” he said, bending down to view the scratches. “Wow! You said she was doing everything the same. It’s like a demo, a sort of masterclass.”

  “Arrogant bitch,” snapped Jennifer. “I reckon she’s really dosed this bloke up.”

  Derek was still inspecting the scratches.

  “You should be calling Hurst, Derek,” admonished Jennifer, as she scanned the room.

  Derek punched his phone again.

  “Boss, we’ve got him. Room four two one.”

  There was a pause as he listened to instructions.

  “Yes, boss,” he said. “I’ll call them.”

  “His clothes are missing,” said Jennifer, a note of triumph in her voice. “Unless he’s super neat and folded everything away.”

  She pulled open the wardrobe and then the drawers under the desktop.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Just a normal man. The clothes are definitely missing. Freneton’s wearing them.”

  Bottomley was the first to arrive, his uniformed officer in tow. Hurst blustered in immediately after.

  “Sure this is the one, Jennifer?”

  “No doubt, boss, and he looks in a bad way. We’ve called an ambulance.”

  “Good. D’you reckon she’s taken his car?”

  “I do, yes.”

  “Right, get down to reception and call up his check-in card. It should have his car number and maybe the make. Is his phone here?”

  “Haven’t seen it,” said Jennifer as she glanced around the room again. “But I reckon Freneton will have it. If she’s following the Silk scenario, she’ll have called the prostitute from it.”

  “OK,” said Hurst. “See if he gave the number to reception. If she’s left it on, we might be able to trace it. Neil, get onto the tech people. Tell them to be on standby.”

  Bursting back into reception and rekindling Anju Patel’s alarm, Jennifer didn’t even ask as she took over the keyboard.

  “Got them!” she called to Derek, who had followed her down the stairs. “There’s the car reg and type. It’s a Passat, and there’s a mobile number.”

  “Sing out the car reg, Jen,” said Derek, heading for the main door. “I’ll check the car park.”

  As he ran back in a minute later shaking his head, he saw that Hurst, McPherson and Bottomley had joined Jennifer. Hurst was checking his watch.

  “Shit,” he said, “it’s eleven twenty. We’re running out of time. How long will the techies take to trace the phone, Neil, assuming it’s on?”

  “I’ll call them,” replied Bottomley.

  Hurst ran his hands through his hair in frustration.

  “Where has the bitch gone?”

  “I don’t think we need to wait for the techies,” said Jennifer.

  They all turned to look at her.

  “I’ve been thinking about it, about where Freneton would go. Everything we’ve found this evening has shown that she’s copying her script for the Henry Silk case. Right down to changing her bra—”

  “What?” interrupted Hurst.

  “I’ll explain later. But the point is, it’s all for show. It’s all to wave two fingers at us. She knows that Baines is never going to be a suspect. She’ll have his phone, yes, but she will probably have turned it off. If she has, we won’t find her that way.”

  She looked up at Hurst to see his features sag into weary submission.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she continued, “we don’t need to. Given what she’s shown us so far, there’s only one place she’d go. In her shoes, it would certainly be my choice.”

  Hurst was still frowning.

  “Of course,” said Derek. “Harlow Wood.”

  C hapter 42

  The girl, who called herself Mandy but whose real name was Gwo Li-fen, was nervous. Some of the other girls had warned her about taking on clients who wanted to pick her up in a car. Clients she didn’t know. Miruna had gone to her death like that, even though she’d had options. Mandy had fewer options: she needed every client she could get. She wasn’t attractive like Miruna, in fact Mandy wasn’t attractive at all. Rail thin and flat-chested, with poor teeth, small eyes and plain, round features, her client list was short, comprising mostly Chinese and other Asian men, many of whom were brutal, scornful of her and tight-fisted. Some even refused to pay her at all. She had debts; she needed the cash, and whoever he was, Johnny had sounded like he had money he was willing to sling around. Mandy hadn’t yet learned that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

  Waiting on the warm August night in the shadows of the dilapidated house on Forest Road West, she took note of every passing car. She had learned to judge their speed and their driving manner, learned to look for an air of studied nonchalance on the faces of the drivers. She had also learned to spot cars that passed more than once in ten minutes and cars she had seen passing on other nights, cars that didn’t belong in the area. The police were a constant problem for her and the other girls. And she had to be especially careful because she was illegal. She had no genuine papers, and despite having paid a fortune for the fakes in her handbag — money she was still repaying at exorbitant interest rates — she knew they wouldn’t stand scrutiny. The last thing she wanted was to be sent back to China.

  She was nervous, pulling at the strap of her bag, playing too much with her hair. She envied the other girls. They had all learned to adopt that amazing air of looking busy without actually doing anything. Avoiding eye contact and gazing into the middle distance, they could pace a ten-yard patch for hours, mobile phones attached to their ears like floor walkers in a stock exchange, giving the impression that any interruption would seriously disrupt their day.

  She checked her watch. The man had called over twenty minutes ago saying he’d be only fifteen and there was still no sign of the car. Unbeknown to her, she had missed the first pass of the Passat when she had rushed back into the house to fetch her mobile phone from its charger.

  A car was coming down the road. Was that the one? Its headlights flashed; it had to be. She tottered from the shadows to the kerb on heels too high for her and bent to check. The window was down and a single word barked from the dark interior. “Johnny.” She pulled open the front passenger door, got in and the car accelerated away.

  “You’re late,” said the man. “Why weren’t you ready? You know there are patrols.”

  “Sorry,” muttered the girl. “Forget phone.”

  The man said nothing more
as they drove along Forest Roads West and East, both of them keeping an eye out for any likely interception.

  After stopping for the traffic lights, the car turned left onto the A60, heading north. Time for a question, thought Olivia.

  On cue, the girl said, “Where we go?”

  “Not far,” was all the man said, but now that Mandy was settled and taking in the surroundings of the car, his voice didn’t sound right. She needed to hear him say more.

  “How much you pay?”

  “I told you on the phone. A hundred. More if you’re good.”

  It was enough for Mandy. As the car slowed near a junction behind two others, her hand was on the door handle, but Olivia anticipated the move. The locks clicked.

  “Nervous, Mandy? No need to be.”

  “You woman.” It was a statement.

  “Is that a problem?”

  “You police?” This time it was a question.

  Olivia turned her head briefly to Mandy, her smile all reassurance as she dropped the Birmingham accent.

  “No, Mandy, I’m not police, no way. I’m someone who likes a good time, but I need to be careful. I especially like Asian girls, Chinese girls like you.” She brushed Mandy’s cheek with the back of her hand. “And I can be very generous.”

  She paused, but Mandy was still looking straight ahead, both hands clasping her handbag.

  “Surely going with a woman isn’t a problem for someone with your experience?” purred Olivia gently.

  Mandy chewed at a fingernail. She couldn’t care less but she wasn’t about to admit it. Reluctance might make this woman willing to pay more. On the few occasions she had had female clients, she’d found them far better than the men — they were more gentle, they always paid what she asked and they hadn’t beaten her up.

  The tired buildings of northern Nottingham began to thin out. Mandy was suddenly nervous again. She didn’t know this area well and she didn’t know the countryside at all. Miruna had been killed in the countryside.

  “Where we go?”

  “Somewhere nice and quiet where we can relax on this lovely evening. Have some fun in the night air. It’s not far.”