by Sarah Flint
What the girls would never do, however, was commit any information to paper and Charlie and Hunter knew this. Everything they heard remained strictly off the record. As Charlie stared down at the dead girl with the ginger hair, she wondered what rumours would already be circulating.
‘It’s Grace Flaherty,’ she turned to Hunter and Paul who stood next to her. ‘Redz. I’m as sure as I can be, but we could do a check on her PNC record. She’s bound to have some marks or scars that will match. She’s one of Razor’s girls.’
Paul pulled out his phone and tapped in a number, spelling out the girl’s name and age to the control-room staff.
Hunter shook his head. ‘If it is Redz, then Razor will be in the thick of it. I know him of old and he’s a really nasty bastard. He’s done quite a bit of time for violence; in fact, he revels in it. He gets his street name from carving up his enemies with razor blades.’
‘Which would fit in nicely with her hair being cut off.’ Charlie could feel the adrenalin starting to build. Everything was making sense. ‘Shit, guv. Do you remember Caz? She was the prostitute who was good friends with Tanisha Fleming, the girl who was murdered a while ago? Caz was the one who helped us find Cornell Miller, remember?’
Hunter nodded, looking slightly bemused.
‘Well, Caz is one of Razor’s girls too, along with another girl called Dutch. Coincidentally, I saw Caz this morning when I dropped Ben off at Anna’s for his counselling session. Anna is her shrink too. She was sitting on Anna’s doorstep freezing and looked absolutely awful, like something had happened. If she’d just heard that another of her closest mates had been killed, then no wonder she was traumatised. Word gets round the streets quicker than it ever gets to us. She would have known straight away if it was Redz. She might even know who had done it, whether it was one of Redz’ punters…’
‘Or whether it was Razor.’ Hunter’s eyes were alight. ‘And, I can tell you now, my money would be on him.’
‘That’s if it is Redz, or Grace Flaherty, or whatever she’s called,’ Paul interrupted. ‘Right, if you can fold back her left sleeve, Charlie, Grace Flaherty is shown as having a triquetra symbol, whatever that is, on the inside of her left arm, just above her wrist.’ He googled the name and they all peered down as Charlie carefully lifted the sleeve on the young girl’s jacket and they saw a symbol that appeared like three interlinking ovals, tattooed in black ink on her pale skin. Paul held out his phone and the same symbol filled the screen. He squinted down and read out its meaning. ‘It’s a Celtic symbol, also known as the Trinity Knot or the Celtic Triangle. Triquetra just means “three-cornered”. It has represented various threesomes throughout time: the Father, Son and Holy Ghost; mind, body and soul; past, present and future.’ He paused, sighing heavily. ‘Apparently it also symbolises equality and eternity.’
They stood in silence, knowing that, without doubt, they had the correct identity for their victim, before Charlie pulled the blanket back over the young girl’s bloody face and sighed.
‘Neither of which apply to Grace Flaherty, unless you count nineteen years living this sort of existence as an eternity.’
Chapter 13
The Punter opened his eyes and stared at the prostitute’s blood and hair spread throughout his car, as the full implications of his night of violence became clear. The heady exhilaration of the night before was gone, replaced with a growing realisation that he was in deep shit.
He’d completely lost control. Now he needed a way out. He switched the car radio on and listened to the first crackly news reports of the body of a prostitute having been found in the backstreets of Streatham. The death was being treated as suspicious.
He closed his eyes and swore silently. Shit, the whore was dead. He’d killed her. He really had gone too far. As he tried to concentrate, flashes of the night before kept coming to him – the blood and thrashing of the first slag, her face pulped and fleshy, her screams goading him. Then the second, pressed against the fence, struggling, with his hand across her mouth while he’d thrust, hard and deep. It had been the best climax of his life and it would be repeated. It had to be… but not yet.
There were people about now; he could see them out with their dogs, walking their kids to school, going about their normal lives. Little did they know what horrors lay hidden within his vehicle, parked in the furthest corner of the car park. He was safe though; nobody need come close, there were plenty of spaces. He checked his watch. It was nearly eight-thirty. His wife would be wondering where he was, worrying, as she followed the morning routine in their quiet, respectable suburban home, with their enchanting twins. Everything would be arranged: doctor’s appointments, shopping trips, family visits, games with the children. Even his marriage had been arranged. Everything in his life was bloody well arranged.
Out on business for the night and too late to return. The lie formed easily in his mind. He picked up his mobile and phoned his wife, speaking the words in his head, daring her to question him. She didn’t. She never would.
‘Yes I love you too, babe. See you later.’ He finished with the obligatory words, his jaw clenching as he spoke. It made him angry that he was forced to speak untruths, that he was trapped in a joyless marriage. She didn’t excite him, like the paid hookers did. She would never give him the violent sex that he craved.
His finger hovered over his lip, feeling the slight swelling from the whore’s bite. The dead whore. It was sore to the touch, which served to concentrate his mind on what needed to be done. His main consideration was the car and its contents.
He started up the engine, waiting while the windscreen cleared and the heater started to warm. He was gambling on the fact his registration number had not been taken. It had been extremely dark in the alleyway, the main opportunity to see the index plate therefore being fleetingly as he left. At the speed and instance of turning, and in only the red lights from the brakes, however, he estimated the chances would be negligible. After that he’d stuck to the backstreets, away from the High Road, aware these were normally free from CCTV cameras, getting far enough away from the area before he risked the main roads to King’s Cross. It was only as he’d left the second hooker gasping for breath that he realised the necessity of disposing of the car, but he also understood that to do so on the same night as the attack might provoke suspicions. A day later, in a different area and hopefully the connection would not be made.
He started to drive off slowly as a plan began to solidify.
A short distance away he found a secluded spot, in a quiet street, masked by overhanging trees and remote from driveways and house fronts. He parked the vehicle correctly against the kerb and went to the boot, taking out a picnic blanket and newspaper and spreading them over the front passenger seat and dashboard. He cleared the car of any personal items, gathered up his belongings and locked the doors. Lastly, he took off his long black leather coat and stashed it in the boot, before checking his hands and face to make sure there were no blood spots obvious to an observer.
That done, he walked off; knowing that his next move would bring even greater risk.
The police station was half a mile away. As he entered the foyer, his pulse quickened. With a click, the waiting room door opened and he was called to the desk by a uniformed station receptionist. A small group of police officers filed into the office behind where she worked and stood booking in property and filing reports. The Punter stared at their uniforms, listening as their radios sparked into life. He thrust his hand into his trouser pocket, feeling his growing erection, and then turned and nodded towards the female station officer.
‘Good morning, officer,’ he said confidently. ‘I’d like to report that my car has been stolen.’
*
Razor woke from a fitful sleep to the sound of the news headlines blaring out from his TV. He’d achieved nothing on his return from Viv’s. Caz was not there and Dutch had been too spaced out on crack to make sense of anything. He stretched and swung his legs off the sofa, flippi
ng a cigarette into his mouth and inhaling deeply on his first draw of nicotine. Christ, he needed that.
The presenter changed to the usual pretty Asian woman who introduced the news in the South East. The scene switched to an alleyway he recognised only too well. A fresh-faced young reporter with an earnest expression stood to the side of a uniformed policeman and read from an autocue.
‘The body of a young woman was found last night in this alleyway at the rear of a block of flats in Streatham Hill. The woman, who has yet to be named, was discovered after a nearby resident reported hearing screams. She was rushed to hospital with severe head injuries but was pronounced dead on arrival.’
Razor ran his hands over his shaven head, the stubble feeling coarse and rough against his fingers, and watched as contact numbers appeared on the screen. So Viv had been right. The girl was dead. Beaten to death. And it was Redz’ alleyway. It couldn’t be anyone else. He inhaled again on his cigarette, allowing the smoke to fill his mouth, before angrily switching the TV off.
He looked around at the squalor of his flat and tried to concentrate. A small wooden table glistened with the dried remains of spilt beer and a stinking ashtray leaked ash out on to the tarnished surface. The remnants of last night’s hits – metal spoons, kitchen knives, aluminium foil and scraps of cling film – covered the remaining space. Dutch had clearly been scoring hard.
He went to the window, pulled back the makeshift curtain and peered out through the grime. He didn’t know exactly what he was looking for, but he had the distinct feeling someone was coming after him. For a minute he stared down from his fourth-floor window, surveying the concrete walkways of the Poets Estate, each tenement block grandly named after an English poet, even though there was nothing remotely poetic in the concrete towers of run-down housing.
He let the sheet fall back over the daylight and walked carefully across the room. Nobody was about outside and the flat was silent. Where the fuck was Dutch or Caz? He needed to prepare an alibi, and it had to be sorted now.
The door to the smallest bedroom hung open. It was where Caz kept her stuff. Shoes, bags, make-up and a few other personal belongings lay around, but there was no sign of Caz.
Razor swore again, moving along the corridor to the end bedroom. Dutch was lying across the double bed in exactly the same position as when he’d last seen her a few hours earlier. Her arms were outstretched in the shape of a cross, one leg on the bed, the other hanging down towards the floor. Her skirt was hitched up across her thighs, showing the dark shadow of her pubic hair. Her shoulder-length straightened black hair stuck out from underneath a large afro hairpiece, which had slipped from its position half on to the pillow beside her. It was her ostentatious alter-ego when she walked the streets and one that gave her the confidence she required.
Razor reached down and shook her. ‘Dutch, get up I need to speak to you… Wake up, you lazy bitch… Dutch.’
He brought his arm back and unleashed it towards the girl’s sleeping face, hitting her hard with the back of his hand. The large ring on his middle finger caught the skin of her cheek, gouging a deep graze from which blood began to surface. Nothing. Dutch lay immobile, her chest being the only part of her body to move even slightly, her rib cage barely registering each breath. Razor grabbed hold of her hair and lifted her head up from the pillow, panicking slightly. He slapped her twice more across the face hard, the impact jerking her head from side to side. As he released her hair, her head dropped heavily back down on the bed.
‘Dutch, wake the fuck up, will you?’
A thin smile appeared on Dutch’s face, her rouged red lips opening slightly. Her eyelids flickered, opening to reveal glazed, glassy pupils.
‘What do you want, Razor? I’m trying to sleep.’ She wasn’t with it.
‘It’s about Redz.’
‘What about her?’
‘I need to talk to you. The cops will be round soon.’
Dutch closed her eyes and smiled again. ‘Fuck off,’ she said, turning away from him and pulling her legs up into her chest.
Razor swore loudly as her breathing slowed again, before grabbing his jacket and car keys and slamming out of the door. There was no way he was going to get any sense out of her in this condition. He needed to find Caz, wherever she was, and get his story straight.
Chapter 14
A carrier of officers was sitting in the yard at Lambeth HQ when Charlie, Paul and Hunter returned from the mortuary.
‘Ready when you are,’ the uniformed sergeant called out. ‘And we can be at your beck and call all day if you need us for anything else. We’ve already been briefed about the job on the brothel by your girls upstairs and have our instructions.’ He grinned. ‘It’s like home from home.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Hunter raised his eyebrows. ‘With the exception of Paul here, I’m pretty much surrounded by women.’
‘You know you love it.’ Charlie smiled and dipped her head towards Paul. ‘Anyway, he’s a bit of an old woman, as well.’
‘Oi, I’m not an old woman.’ Paul put on his campest voice and feigned affront. ‘I’m an old queen!’
They all laughed, Charlie feeling her positivity growing. After the sights they’d witnessed in the morgue, a bit of humour was what was needed and Paul’s self-effacing comments were always guaranteed to make them smile. He was gay and proud… and respected as such by them all.
‘Cheers, Sarge,’ she called across. ‘In that case, we’d better go and be given our orders too. We’ll be with you shortly.’
Naz, Sabira and Bet were waiting as they entered the office. Not only had they got the intelligence and the warrant for the brothel, they had also mobilised a few other detectives to do some early research on Redz and her pimp, Razor. Depending on how the warrant went, Hunter had made it clear an early visit to Razor wouldn’t go amiss.
‘Excellent work, team,’ Hunter effused. ‘I’ll update the DCI on our progress and be back with you in a minute.’ He disappeared, leaving Naz and Sabira to go through with them what intelligence was known around both crimes.
Naz flicked through the briefing notes on the brothel. ‘We don’t have much intel’ on the brothel, but what we do have is interesting,’ she began. ‘Several neighbours have reported an increase in visitors to the venue, predominantly men. At first, the neighbourhood policing team thought there might be a new drug dealer starting up, but the locals have seen men of all ages and classes, some on foot and some in quite upmarket cars, turning up. They stay for longer than would be the case if it was just nipping in to buy drugs, sometimes several hours.’
‘And at all times of the day and night,’ Sabira added. ‘But it’s busiest in the late evening and early hours of the morning. The policing team have detailed what’s known on a report and were beginning to suspect it to be a brothel. But the information from the DSU has confirmed their suspicions nicely, so we’ve had no trouble getting a warrant.’
‘There seems to be two guys running it.’ Naz peered at the notes again. ‘One is a white guy, mid-thirties, very large build, but muscular, not fat. We think he’s probably the security, but we’ve no idea of his identity. The other is also white, slimmer but still muscular and shaven-headed. He’s probably the Russian guy, Dimitri, who Angie has mentioned, but we can’t confirm that for definite either. A few girls have been seen inside the premises and they can be heard on occasions, but it appears that these two keep them pretty much under lock and key.’
Charlie grabbed her kitbag and hauled it up on to her shoulder, just as Hunter returned. ‘OK. Let’s go,’ she said. ‘I know it’s a bit of a long shot, but in the absence of anything else, it’s worth a try. Right area, right trade and the right motivation for ending an unplanned pregnancy.’
She headed towards the door, beckoning the others to follow on. ‘And if they are connected to our dead baby, then I, for one, want to find out quick.’
*
Caz opened her eyes, squinting as the harsh lights of Anna’s office struc
k her pupils.
‘Can’t you turn these bleeding lights off?’ She covered her face with her hands, suddenly embarrassed as she became aware of the wetness of her thumb against her forehead. Sucking her thumb was a habit that had stayed with her since childhood, but these days it only surfaced at times of trauma, as did the ragdoll.
‘How are you today, Caz?’ Anna asked softly, moving towards the light switch. ‘You’ve been asleep a long time.’
‘I’d be bleedin’ better if you weren’t tryin’ to blind me.’ Caz squinted through her fingers, watching as Anna turned the main light back off, leaving just the table lamp on her desk still lit. She took the opportunity to hide the doll back inside her jacket as Anna pulled the blinds shut and the office descended into half-light.
‘Are you well?’ Anna tried again.
‘As well as I can be on an eighty-quid-a-day habit,’ she replied sarcastically.
