A uniformed constable suddenly held a hand to his mouth and dashed out of the room.
I followed him out.
Not the start to the weekend that I had planned.
Chapter 16
‘WHO’S BEEN ASSIGNED to processing the body?’ asked Dr Lee.
She was looking at the sallow-faced DI who was pointedly not looking at the horror show that lay at his feet.
Ken Harman gestured as a tall woman entered. Wendy nodded at her pleased. Doctor Harriet ‘Harry’ Walsh had been her assistant at the time she had left the FSS when she’d been seduced by Private. And Wendy had never regretted her change of employer. Sure, she may not actually process the bodies at scenes of crime any more, but that was just data collection, after all. And it wasn’t the collection that was important – it was what you did with it afterwards that mattered. And Wendy Lee could now crank that data faster than the FSS by an order of magnitude.
‘What have you got for me, Ken?’ asked the pathologist as she snapped on the obligatory latex gloves and walked over. She dipped her head forward and tied back a glorious tumble of red-gold curls, causing them to sparkle momentarily in the bright artificial light before hiding them under a protective cap. She stood up again and at five foot eleven in her flat-soled shoes she made Wendy Lee feel dwarfed, not for the first time that evening.
‘Looks like a Jane Doe,’ said the detective. ‘Hard to tell for a layman like me. Whoever it is has been feeding a family of Rattus norvegicus for quite some time, by the looks of it.’
‘You don’t look too well,’ said Harriet Walsh.
‘Just finished a large doner kebab when the call came in,’ he explained. ‘Wish I hadn’t had the extra chilli sauce now.’
Doctor Walsh gave Harman a brief sympathetic smile and nodded to Wendy Lee.
‘What do you think?’
‘Just got here, Harry. But female … looks to be in her early twenties.’
Doctor Walsh looked down at what was revealed of the body and sighed. ‘And out of hunting season, too.’
She gestured to a couple of her SOCO assistants who were standing by, waiting for the nod. Then she kneeled down to peel back the plastic sheeting that partially covered the dead body. Using a scalpel to slice the plastic and peel it back as delicately as possible.
Any evidence could be vital – the merest speck of fabric or mud or blood. Nothing could be taken for granted. The whole scene would be processed, photographed, recorded, analysed. And it all took time.
Some half an hour later the plastic sheet that had once wrapped the body now lay either side of it. The gruesome package opened up like some macabre gift.
Adrian Tuttle moved in closer, the flash mounted on his camera making the bright light intermittently even more glaring as he shot photo after photo. The white skin of the dead woman almost bleached in the flashes.
It was now quite evidently a woman, likely in her early twenties as Doctor Walsh had concurred. Impossible to tell her exact age without proper forensic analysis. But the long dark hair, the exposed pelvic bone, the remains of her breasts that hadn’t been mutilated or cut or simply eaten away, all pointed to the sex of the victim.
A young woman. Taken. Murdered. And left for rodents to feed on in the squalor of a backstreet lock-up.
Chapter 17
‘WHAT?’ CHLOE WILSON practically shouted the word but she might as well have whispered for all the difference it made.
Loud music still played continuously in the underground student union bar and the noise of it reverberated off the thick walls like a swelling, bouncing wave of sound, making it hard for Chloe to think, let alone hear what her friend was trying to say to her. She had to shout again even more loudly against the music and the raucous conversation that surrounded her. ‘I can’t hear you! What did you say?’ she said, feeling the strain in her throat.
Her friend Hannah leaned in closer, attracting the attention of two young first-year students. Flushed with acne and alcohol, they tried surreptitiously to peek down her low-cut blouse at her ample bosom. Hannah flicked them a finger and put her arm around Chloe’s shoulder. ‘I said it’s my shout, Chloe,’ she said, her accent pure West Coast of America – the rich part of it. ‘Fancy another vodka?’
Chloe took a sip of her half-finished drink and shook her head. She was a little dizzy again. Feeling the heat flash through her face, she put a hand on the cool marble surface of the bar to steady her balance. ‘I need something to eat,’ she said. ‘I’m feeling a little light-headed. Let’s get a pizza first and then hit some bars in Soho.’
‘Good thinking, girlfriend,’ said Hannah. ‘Bunch of goddamned horny schoolboys in here, is all.’
Chloe nodded again, not quite as vigorously this time.
‘I need to pee first, though, honey.’
Chloe watched as Hannah looped her arm through the arm of her other friend, Laura. She dragged her away from a shaggy-haired gangling youth wearing a tweed jacket with elbow patches, who was attempting to chat her up, and headed off to the ladies’. Chloe took another small sip of her drink and flapped her hand in front of her face. Christ but it was hot in here, she thought for the hundredth time in the last half-hour. Maybe it wasn’t food she needed, just some fresh air.
‘You all right, love?’
A male voice, friendly enough – but Chloe would have snapped back, telling the guy to get lost. Not in the mood for being chatted up herself. Then she saw that it was just the barman who was speaking to her. A reasonably good-looking guy, she supposed, in his mid-twenties or thereabouts. A postgraduate student reading history of art, if she remembered correctly. He was quite smitten with Laura if Chloe was any judge, watching her with puppy-dog eyes whenever they came into the union. And who could blame him? Laura was gorgeous. Bright, clever, gorgeous. Dangerous things in a woman, as Chloe’s godfather would say – thinking himself quite the comedian.
She shook her head at the barman, trying to remember his name. ‘I’m fine, thanks. Just need some air.’
‘Sorry, we don’t sell that.’
Chloe laughed and regretted it immediately. The room seemed to spin a little more again and she took a deep breath and steadied herself. Back on the wagon tomorrow, she thought. She couldn’t afford to get drunk. ‘No, I’m good, Ryan,’ she said, finally remembering his name.
‘Have a glass of water,’ the barman said, handing her a glass he had just poured out.
‘Cheers.’ Chloe said, taking a grateful sip of the water.
‘Chloe, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Reading psychiatry and law?’
‘You been researching me?’
The barman flushed a little. ‘No, your friend Laura told me.’
‘Come on, Chloe, stop chatting up the help,’ Hannah called out to her as she led Laura through the heaving masses towards the door. Chloe caught Ryan watching the two of them leave, Hannah putting on the extra bit of wiggle, giving it the Shakira shimmy – knowing that Ryan would be watching. Chloe felt a twinge of sympathy for the barman. He wasn’t even watching Hannah, his gaze was fixed on Laura. Fixed on her with the wet-eyed, puppy-like devotion of the truly lost cause. Chloe smiled ruefully. Laura was going to break a lot of hearts at CUL over the next two years before she finally tossed her mortar board in the air. Hell, Hannah would too. The pair of them drew attention from the men in the bar as they passed like a powerful magnet draws iron filings. Some of them getting an angry look or an elbow in the ribs for their trouble from unhappy girlfriends.
‘Catch you later,’ Chloe said to the still-distracted barman. Finishing the glass of water, she turned to leave but her right leg seemed to give out under her and she crashed towards the floor.
Chapter 18
‘DAN CARTER,’ I said to the willowy blonde standing imperiously behind the counter at the reception of Scott’s restaurant.
Might seem strange to some to come straight from a murder scene in King’s Cross to a swanky restaura
nt in Mayfair. But the sad truth was that you got used to it. You had to. Otherwise you didn’t function. It wasn’t that you didn’t care. It was that you couldn’t make it personal. You couldn’t afford to.
Scott’s had always been popular, but the currently highest-paid actress in the world – you know, the brunette with the killer smile – had recently declared it her favourite restaurant in London. And now Scott’s had taken over from The Ivy as the place to be seen dining.
I flashed the receptionist a charming grin. She didn’t exactly sneer as she looked down at her bookings list but the fraction of a millimetre that her left eyebrow moved conveyed just the same emotion.
I looked down at the deck shoes I was wearing. Maybe she thought I should have been wearing socks?
‘Don Cotter?’ said the receptionist.
‘That’s Carter,’ I said. ‘Dan Carter.’
She beckoned us forward, led us into the restaurant proper and up to our table.
‘See, Alison?’ I said. ‘As good as my word. Private appreciates the business you throw our way.’
‘You and your associates do a good job, Dan. It’s that simple. Keep doing it and we’ll keep hiring you.’
Alison Chambers was the niece – and the apple of his eye – of Charles William Chambers of Chambers, Chambers and Mason. Private London operates in a number of diverse areas. Personal security and detective work for people rich enough to afford us and who don’t want police involvement for whatever reasons. And on the other side of the coin we worked with the Metropolitan Police on contract with our forensic division. But we also did a great deal of financial and corporate investigation. Industrial sabotage, intellectual theft, fraud. Computer forensics.
So it suited us well to keep in with the firm that occupied the offices below and it suited me to keep in with Alison Chambers. Her uncle might have had his name on the front of the building but Alison was the powerhouse in the firm.
I watched her studying the menu, multicoloured reading glasses perched delicately on the end of her shapely nose like an exotic butterfly ready to take flight. Her large, brown eyes as she considered the entrées as intent as if she had been scrutinising a million-pound contract.
‘I’ve heard the prawn cocktail is good here,’ I said.
She didn’t laugh. ‘How about you make yourself useful and order some wine? Something with bubbles in it,’ she said instead.
I held a finger discreetly in the air and beckoned a waiter across. He smiled professionally as he approached and then for real as he saw Alison.
She has this effect on men. Even gay men. Especially gay men, come to think of it. And this in a restaurant where three tables across Liz Hurley was sitting with some actress whose name I couldn’t place. But she was tipped to be Doctor Who’s next travelling companion and was wearing a skirt even shorter than that worn by the current one.
I notice details like that. It’s my job. I’m a detective.
‘Could we see the wine list?’ I asked the smiling waiter. ‘And what beers do you have?’
Alison Chambers tutted pointedly. ‘I don’t need the wine list,’ she said. ‘Do you still have any of the Henriot Enchanteleurs 1990?’
The waiter positively beamed. ‘Indeed we do, madame.’
‘Then I’ll take a glass of that.’
‘I’m afraid we only sell it by the bottle.’
‘We’d best have the bottle, then,’ she said.
‘And a bottle of Corona for me,’ I said. ‘If you’ve still got it?’
A short while later the waiter returned with a chilled bottle of three-figured fizz for the lady and a bottle of ice-cold beer for me. I poured it into a glass, at least.
‘How’s the honeytrap case coming along?’ she asked me.
‘Let’s not talk shop, Alison. This should be about pleasure, not business.’
She pointedly held up the ring finger of her left hand.
Did I mention that she was married? Alison and I have been best friends since university and flirt with her I might, but I’d never do anything to jeopardise that friendship.
I pulled out a digital voice-recorder that Suzy, one of our operatives, had given me earlier and pushed the play button. Suzy was speaking, her voice husky. The honey in the trap smoked with hickory chips. Whatever she was selling men were going to buy it.
Alison listened to Suzy working the guy. She was good.
A couple of minutes later and she had heard all she needed to.
‘The video footage has already been emailed to you.’
‘Good. Let’s celebrate,’ she said. ‘I’m going to start with something to go with the excellent fizz. My friends tell me the beluga is very good here with blinis and sour cream.’
‘What about a drop scone and a dollop of jam?’
Her smile broadened. ‘What say we go with the fifty grams?’
My own smile held, just about. Six hundred smackeroos in and she hadn’t even got to the main course yet. But dinner was on Private so what the heck, we could afford it. I flashed her a couple of kilowatts of smile. I could afford that as well.
The weekend was definitely getting better.
Chapter 19
CHLOE PUT A hand out to the bar and steadied herself, brushing away the arm of one of the rugby players who had come across to help her up a minute or two earlier.
‘I’m okay now,’ she said, irritated. ‘Was just a bit dizzy, is all.’
The rugby player held his hands up in the air and moved aside.
Chloe fought her way through the crowds to try and catch up with her friends. They were at the other end of the room now. Arm in arm and singing ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ at full volume, as if the ale-fuelled rugger buggers in her way needed any more encouragement! A group of them had linked arms too, and were joining in the song at full volume, blocking her way through to the door. It took her a while to fight past. She had to slap away one highly amused prop forward who took the opportunity to push up against her in a manner that was just a shade short of criminal assault in her book. Another day she would have done more than just slap the idiot, but she wanted to get out and get some air.
She finally made it to the entrance and closed the door firmly behind her. The noise thankfully muted as she walked up the steps leading to the quad above. The cool night air clearing her head a little. Her friends’ raucous singing, some distance ahead of her now, was echoing loudly around the quad. No doubt setting the ghost of the Cardinal spinning in his grave.
‘Hang on. Wait for me,’ Chloe called out, but her voice was hoarse now from all the shouting she’d done in the bar and her friends showed no sign of having heard her. She shook her head a little to clear the vodka cobwebs from her brain and quickened her pace as she climbed the stone steps. She was glad at least that she didn’t have high heels on. At five foot ten she didn’t need them. In the main men didn’t like her towering over them – she had found that out at fifteen years old when she was the same height as she was now.
Out on the quad she could see her two friends turning right into one of the passages that linked the warren of buildings. Chloe stumbled a little as she started to run to catch up with them and had to take a moment to steady herself. But she soon came up to the turning and moved quickly round the corner. It was darker as the lights from the quad fell behind her. The lane dog-legged after a few yards and cut off the lights from the college quad entirely. One of the Victorian street lamps that dotted the lanes in seemingly random fashion was out at the elbow of the bend. Chloe looked up at it unhappily. The university had a duty to keep the area lit. The tall buildings on either side of the narrow street made it darker than it would otherwise have been. A muffled scream ahead snapped Chloe out of her thoughts, sobering her in an instant. She charged round the next corner, breathing quickly to pump some oxygen into her blood.
Ahead of her was a group of five hooded and dark-clothed men, three of whom had grabbed her friends. Two had hold of Laura and one had a chokehold on Hannah. T
he remaining two were leaning against a black van.
‘Let them go, you bastards,’ Chloe tried to scream, but her voice came out in a hoarse, painful croak again. Adrenalin kicked in. She ran towards them. One of the men turned to face her. A disdainful sneer on his lips, although she couldn’t see his eyes that were shaded by the hood he was wearing. She kicked him hard in the groin and the sneer vanished as he crumpled, groaning, to to the ground.
She felt an arm pulling her back and she spun round, knocking the arm away, spearing a hard fist into her assailant’s sternum and then uppercutting him as he doubled forward. But she was sluggish, far more sluggish than she should have been. The uppercut was off target, and the man moved aside so that her punch only grazed the side of his head. He snapped a blow straight back at her. But Chloe had anticipated it – she stepped inside his swing, grabbing his arm and using the momentum of the missed punch to pull him forward towards her. She lowered her head as she did so and smashed her forehead into the bridge of his nose. There was a satisfying crunch of cartilage. The man squealed like a stuck pig and dropped to his knees, hands cradling his wrecked nose that was now spilling blood.
Chloe breathed deeply and turned towards the van. Two of the remaining three men moved towards her – more cautiously than their colleagues had. One of them holding Laura tight to his body with a muscular arm wrapped around her. She saw the flash of steel as that man pulled a long-bladed knife from his jacket, watched Hannah stumble, heard a scream. Laura fell down and was yanked rudely up.
‘What do you want?’ Chloe shouted at the men, holding her hands forward ready to strike.
‘Just leave now and you won’t get hurt,’ came a quiet hiss from the hooded figure who now held a terrified Hannah against the side of the black van.
Chloe shook her head. ‘Just let them go!’ she said, putting one foot forward, hands held like blades as she moved slowly towards the two men facing her. Her head was clearing now. Something the man holding Hannah had said triggering some kind of memory. She tried to catch hold of the thought but couldn’t, the synapses in her brain still not firing at a hundred per cent – despite the adrenalin that was coursing through her blood now.
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