by John Harvey
At first she’d gone along with what they wanted, thinking if she did, they’d let her go, but when it became obvious that wasn’t going to happen, she’d tried to get away. Which was when it had all changed. Turned nasty. Really nasty. They’d tied her up and done things to her. Not the one called Shane so much – in fact, he’d tried to talk the other one out of it, some of it – but then, in the end, he’d joined in much the same.
Here Tina had broken down, crying, broken by the all too recent memory, and sobbed her heart out; Simone needing to be at her most patient, most consoling, before steering Tina back to her story.
She must have passed out, Tina said – fainted maybe, she didn’t really know – but when she came to, Shane was shaking her by the shoulder and whispering in her ear, telling her he was going to untie her and let her go, and that she had to get as far away as she could and promise never to tell anyone what had happened.
‘And that was what she did,’ Sherbourne said, ‘made a run for it?’
‘Apparently. But it was dark and she had no real idea where she was. Must’ve spent ages just stumbling around, frightened of her own shadow. Till, somehow, she arrived at the motorway.’
‘All in all,’ Sherbourne said, ‘not a bad outcome. When you consider the other possibilities. She’s still alive, at least.’
Simone nodded.
‘And she identified both Keach and Donald?’
‘From photographs, yes.’
‘Good. Now we just need to catch the bastards before they can do any more harm.’
But by early evening, when Sherbourne phoned Elder to keep him in the loop, as promised, there had been no further sign. The two men seemed to have disappeared into the earth.
‘The young woman,’ Elder said. ‘How’s she doing?’
‘Physically, not as bad as might have been expected. But beyond that …’
There was no need to say any more. Elder, he knew, was more than capable of filling in the dots for himself. He had seen Katherine that afternoon, the story of Tina Morrison’s capture and subsequent release the second item on the news, squeezed between a one per cent rise in the rate of inflation and a fatal stabbing in south London, the second in the past three days.
Katherine had reached out and squeezed her father’s hand. ‘It never stops, does it?’
‘It can seem that way.’
For the news broadcast, Colin Sherborne had been filmed making a short statement in front of the Central Police Station in Nottingham; Tina Morrison’s mother had been interviewed earlier, incoherent and weeping, outside Doncaster Royal Infirmary. There were photographs of Tina herself, happy, smiling; a snatch of video taken the year before, on holiday with friends on Ibiza. This was followed by photographs of Adam Keach and Shane Donald, head and shoulders both … police are anxious to speak to … the public are advised not to approach … two numbers to call.
Katherine shivered and looked away.
Elder reached for the remote and the picture disappeared.
‘At least …’ he began.
‘At least what?’
‘At least he’s nearly two hundred miles away.’
‘You don’t know that. Not for certain. And it’s obvious the police haven’t got much of a clue.’
‘They’ll find him, don’t worry. And meantime, the last place he’s going to come is here. London. Somewhere he doesn’t know.’
‘How can you be so certain?’
‘He’ll stick with where he’s comfortable. Confident. Notts, South Yorks, Lincs. Somewhere out towards the east coast. That’s where he’ll be. Not down here in the south. Too chancy. Too much of a risk.’
They went for a walk in London Fields, wandering around the Saturday market and snacking on falafels packed into pitta bread; Katherine hesitated over a velour top at one of the vintage clothing stalls; Elder asked her advice over a sea-glass necklace on a silver chain he thought he might buy for Vicki and, after much umming and aahing, chose a poppy brooch in red enamel instead.
‘Missing her, are you?’ Katherine asked, teasing.
Elder just grinned.
‘You can’t stay here for ever, you know. And anyway, there’s no need. Not now. Not any more.’ She pulled at his sleeve. ‘I’m fine, really.’
‘Are you?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘You don’t think it might be worth getting back into contact with the therapist?’
‘No, Dad. No, I don’t. I really don’t.’
‘And if the police want to speak to you again …’
‘Do you think they will? After last time? I think they believed me, don’t you? Even without more of an alibi or anything.’
‘Probably. I hope so, but it’s difficult to say.’
‘Well, either way, I’ll be fine. Honest. I was just wobbly for a few days, that’s all. You don’t need to babysit me any more. And I don’t need a bodyguard, either. You said yourself, Adam Keach is over two hundred miles away.’ She reached up and kissed him on the cheek. ‘But I’m glad you came. Truly. I am.’
As they walked away, she slipped her hand into his.
When Vicki called Elder was half-asleep, the book he’d been reading face down on the bed. Not long back from a gig, she sounded loud, elated.
‘It went well, I assume?’ Elder said, laughing at her exuberance.
‘Great. Fantastic. You should have been there.’
‘I wish I had been.’
‘When are you coming back?’
‘Soon. Soon, I think.’
‘Kate, she’s …’
‘She’s doing okay. Better than I expected. Either that or she’s putting on a pretty good show.’
‘Having you there will have helped steady her.’
‘I hope so.’
Silence, just the sound of Vicki’s breathing.
‘I am missing you, you know,’ she said.
‘That’s nice.’
‘How about you?’
‘Am I missing you, d’you mean?’
‘Uh-hum.’
‘Not one whit. Not for a minute.’
‘Bastard.’
Elder laughed.
‘Come home.’
‘Home?’
‘You know what I mean.’
He hesitated, uncertain. ‘Tomorrow. Maybe the day after.’
‘Promise?’
‘I promise.’
Without being able to see, she knew he had his fingers tightly crossed. Knew that was always the way it was going to be.
‘Want me to sing you to sleep?’
Elder smiled. ‘The way you sing, I doubt if sleeping’d be what I had in mind.’
After the first verse of ‘I’ll See You in My Dreams’ he blew a kiss into the phone and said goodnight.
40
The Sunday papers were having a field day. Some enterprising crime reporter on the Telegraph had made the connection and most of the others had followed suit. Elder picked up a discarded copy of the Mail from someone’s table when he went into the hotel dining room for breakfast; Hadley and Rachel read the Observer over avocado and toast and flat whites, Rachel’s treat, in their local coffee shop in Crouch End.
Victim of escaped killer questioned in murder case.
For no doubt a sizeable backhander, someone had leaked the information about Katherine being formally questioned by the police in relation to Anthony Winter’s murder and the reporter had taken it from there. Along with a profile of Adam Keach, there was a résumé of the crimes for which he had been convicted, a rerun, more salacious in some cases than others, of the treatment Katherine had suffered at his hands. Just when she seemed to have been gaining in confidence, the last thing she needed.
The account of Anthony Winter’s murder was accompanied by unauthorised reproductions of the paintings for which Katherine had been his model.
There was an up-to-date photograph of Katherine, taken from her Facebook page, several others of her at sixteen which came from various newspaper files. T
he same pictures of Tina Morrison that had been used before were rolled out again, in addition, somewhat incongruously, to one of her wearing her Greggs’ uniform and smiling.
The image of Elder that appeared in most papers was at least ten years out of date and made him look stern and unforgiving. In the Sunday Times, it was suggested that he was actively involved in both investigations, the Midlands-based one into Adam Keach’s escape and the subsequent attack on Tina Morrison, as well as the London-based hunt for Anthony Winter’s murderer.
Cornwall cop comes out of retirement to help solve two major crimes.
Aside from being grossly inaccurate on most levels, what angered Elder particularly was that it successfully identified the area of the Penwith Peninsula where he lived.
When he rang the flat, Chrissy answered. No, she told him, they never have a Sunday paper, not any kind of paper really. But the story he was worried about was all over social media. Katherine hadn’t seen it yet, she was still sleeping, but she promised to keep an eye on her when she did.
‘Ask her to call me,’ Elder said. ‘Okay?’
‘Okay.’
In the café, meanwhile, Hadley was following up her flat white with a macchiato, anger etched across her face.
‘If I find out it was someone at Holmes Road who took the Telegraph’s shilling, I’ll have him up on charges and out the door before he draws another miserable breath, so help me.’
‘You don’t think,’ Rachel said, ‘unpleasant as some of it is, all this coverage might help in some way?’
‘You are kidding, right?’
‘Mightn’t it make it more difficult for this Keach person to stay under the radar? And I suppose it’s not inconceivable someone might come forward with new information about Anthony Winter.’
‘And Katherine Elder? How about her? Having all that dragged through the papers again.’
‘I know,’ Rachel said. ‘It won’t be easy for her. Not easy at all. With everything else that’s going on especially. I just hope she gets the support she needs.’
When Katherine made her way to the bathroom a good couple of hours later, Stelina was at the table wearing noise-cancelling headphones and working on an overdue essay, and Chrissy was sitting out on the balcony answering emails on her laptop. As usual on Sunday mornings, Abike had headed off to a concert at Wigmore Hall.
It wasn’t until she was out of the shower that Katherine switched on her phone and, having checked her messages, flicked across to the news.
‘Fuck,’ she said quietly and closed the screen.
When her phone went some fifteen minutes later, she thought it would be her father, but it was Vida.
‘Kate, are you okay?’
‘Yes, why?’
‘I’ve just been reading all this stuff in the papers. I had no idea.’
Katherine didn’t know what to say.
‘I just thought,’ Vida said, ‘right now you probably didn’t want to be on your own.’
‘It’s fine. Chrissy’s here. And Stelina.’
‘Okay, that’s good. Only I was going to say, if you wanted to come over and spend some time with Justine and me …’
‘Really, it’s nice of you, but I’m fine.’
‘If you change your mind, it would be good to see you. You could come round some time with Chrissy, maybe?’
‘Yes, thanks, I’d like that.’
When she broke the connection, Katherine was surprised to find there were tears in her eyes. Why was it some people were so nice when they didn’t have to be?
She texted her dad and assured him she was all right, made herself tea and toast and joined Chrissy out on the balcony. Perhaps, once all the fuss had died down, it was going to be okay …
41
Monday morning. The sky a marbled blue. Hadley had set off for work deliberately early, bought coffee from the new establishment close by the Assembly House and carried it the short distance to the station. Spurred on by the weekend’s unwanted flush of publicity, Detective Chief Superintendent McKeon had insisted on a meeting first thing.
Alone in the incident room, she stared at the accumulation of items on display – photographs, diagrams, names and times, images snatched from CCTV – searching for a clear connection that refused to come.
As she was certain McKeon would be at pains to remind her, it was three weeks since she had taken the call from the Homicide Assessment Team and made the short journey from Holmes Road to Anthony Winter’s studio; since when most of what they’d learned, herself and her team, had served to do little but tease; lead them so far and no further. If you removed Katherine Elder from the equation, which she was increasingly prone to do, they still had no credible suspect. No one in the frame.
No clear motive, either. Sex or money? Someone with a grudge? Jealous of Winter’s relatively new-found wealth, his new-found fame? Chris Phillips had interviewed the aggrieved Rupert Morland-Davis at Abernathy Fine Art, who was still intent upon pursuing some kind of legal challenge against Winter’s estate, but, Phillips judged, about as likely to have attacked Winter with that degree of force as he was to vote Labour in the next election. Besides which, he had an alibi, doubly confirmed, for the weekend in question.
Hadley prised the lid from her coffee: good crema, still warm.
The photographs on the board made clear the extent of Winter’s injuries. The result of a deliberate attempt to do as much damage, cause as much pain as possible, or, as Mark Foster had suggested, had his attacker simply become caught up in the moment, lost control? Could it be the result of a sex game that had gone savagely, wildly wrong?
Winter’s recently discovered home movies were still being pored over – sometimes, Hadley suspected, with more relish than was strictly appropriate – in an attempt to identify the participants.
She stepped away from the board.
Sex or money? Which was the most likely? Knowing what she did of Winter’s life, his art, she’d go for sex every time. She finished her coffee, dropped the cup down into the bin, and went off to meet her boss.
All too soon she was back in the incident room, smarting from McKeon’s thinly veiled accusations of incompetence and lack of leadership, lack of direction.
Conversation hushed as she entered.
‘Right,’ she said, ‘you’ll have read the weekend papers and for all I know, we’re trending, and not in a good way, on social media. So you can imagine how the conversation just went with the Detective Chief Super. Which means that if you’ve got anything, anything at all, that’s going to progress this investigation further, now’s the time.’
Howard Dean and Chris Phillips exchanged glances.
‘I think Howie’s got something,’ Phillips said.
‘Then for God’s sake let’s hear it.’
Dean got to his feet. ‘I’ve been going through all those videos we found on Winter’s hard drive …’
‘It’s a tough job,’ Terry Mitchell remarked to no one in particular, ‘but someone’s got to do it.’
Phillips silenced him with a look.
‘And there’s one face that crops up several times …’ He moved across to one of the computers. ‘If you look here … before they really get into it …’
All eyes were watching the screen.
‘And here … It’s the same woman, I think you’ll agree. Tall, dark hair, slim build, not an ounce of extra fat on her …’
‘All the exercise she’s been getting,’ Mitchell suggested.
‘Shut it, Mitch!’ Chris Phillips snapped.
‘Two things,’ Dean continued, unfazed. ‘One, she looks an awful lot like the woman caught on CCTV close to Winter’s studio the night he was killed …’ Readied in advance, that image appeared on the screen alongside the first.
Murmurs of agreement; nodding heads.
‘And second, I think I know who she is.’
‘Do tell,’ Hadley said with a smile.
Dean grinned back and a close-up image, slightly unfocused, filled
the screen: an attractive brunette with a slight overbite, looking seductively at the camera.
‘Meet Sorina Nicolescu from Bucharest, twenty-four years of age and, according to the description, feminine, sensitive and emotional. And always open for communication with interesting people. This is from a website advertising, as it puts it, hot Romanian women and girls looking for love, romance and marriage. She also appears on several other sites of a similar nature, including this next one which sets out to appeal to people with certain specific tastes.’
The image showed Sorina in form-fitting PVC, a heavily studded dog collar tight about her neck, holding a riding crop at a menacing angle and smiling provocatively.
‘And there’s no doubt,’ Hadley said, ‘that this is the same woman as in some of Winter’s nasty little home movies?’
Dean shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. None at all.’
‘Then the sooner we get to speak with Ms Nicolescu from Bucharest, the better. One of you had better log on to a website or two, present yourself as an interesting single male urgently looking for love and friendship and open communication. Mark, something for you maybe?’
All too predictably, Mark Foster flushed a deep shade of red.
42
After years of waking shy of six, stumbling blearily to the bathroom then back to get dressed for work; kettle on downstairs for tea, take a cup up to the wife before leaving – Back the usual time, duck, don’t do owt I wouldn’t – Gary Talbot found it impossible to sleep in of a morning, even now both work and wife had gone.
By half past the hour, he had his pack-up made and wrapped, thermos filled and ready, notebook, binoculars. Pat had never been able to understand his fascination with birds. She’d go with him on occasion, take along a book or a magazine, more than a few times her knitting; do her best to squeeze out a scrap of enthusiasm when he’d pointed out a flock of Arctic terns circling overhead before flying east, or a marsh harrier collecting material for its nest.
Yes, love, very nice, she’d say without really looking, and recover a dropped stitch, turn a page. He missed her like bloody buggery and he didn’t care who knew it. There’d been no more mention of those blokes as had kidnapped that poor lass on the morning news.
