Cross and Burn (33 page)

I
t was infuriating. Why were women so stupid? You didn’t have to be Einstein to work out that, if your husband was dead, you’d better make a good impression on the man who was willing to take his place. But that didn’t seem to have penetrated her thick skull. He’d left her in peace all night so she could get Marco out of her system and get used to her new reality, but he might as well not have bothered.

He’d set his alarm especially early so he could provide her with her first lesson before he set about the business of the day. But when he opened the lid of the freezer, she barely reacted. No panic, no terror, no offer of obedience. She remained huddled at one end of the freezer, knees against her chest, arms wrapped around her head. He shouted at her but she didn’t flinch. It didn’t seem to register at all. He’d heard about catatonic states, but he couldn’t believe he was seeing one for real. He was convinced she was putting on an act, so he slapped her a couple of times to snap her out of it. But all he achieved was to sting the palm of his hand. She made no attempt to protect herself or to fight back.

He tried tasering her and throwing her on the floor of the garage but she remained where he dropped her, sprawled in an ungainly way across the concrete. He shouted at her to get up, but she stayed where she was. He booted her in the midriff; she rose and fell like a sack of meat. She made no protest, not even a whimper.

He didn’t have time for this. Not now. So he tasered her again and threw her into the freezer. ‘You need to buck up your ideas,’ he said. ‘You could have a great life with me. Or you could end up in the mortuary like the other ones. It’s your choice. When I get home tonight, I expect you to have had an attitude readjustment. Marco’s dead. Get used to it. You can join him or you can join me. I’d say it’s a no-brainer. But people make shitty choices all the time. Still, you’re supposed to be a clever bitch. Show me how smart you really are. Choose life, bitch. Or pay the price.’

Then he’d slammed the freezer shut. Rage burned like acid in his throat. Who the
fuck
did she think she was? Failure was one thing, but defiance was another. That’s where the first one, the original, had gone wrong. When things came to a head between them and he made it clear her behaviour was unacceptable, she’d flouted his instructions to improve herself. She’d thought she could go against him. Take his children and walk out the door. She’d thought she was escaping.

Instead she’d driven so bloody badly that she’d ended up in a pile-up on the M62. That she was dead was fine with him, even though there would have been more satisfaction in dealing out death himself. But she’d destroyed his kids with her treachery. His kids. His son and his daughter, still in the process of being moulded into a pair of children anyone would be proud of. And she’d taken herself beyond revenge at the same time. He’d cheerfully have killed her again and again and again for the affront of leaving him. The outrage of taking his children from him was worse; for that, he’d have tortured her slowly, grimly, gruesomely for as long as he could possibly make it last.

Well, this one would discover the price of defiance soon enough. First, though, he had to go to work.

T
he dog had greeted her so rapturously on her return that Carol felt obliged to take her for a walk. She hadn’t fancied stumbling over the rough pasture in the dark, so she’d stuck to the margin of the field where the ground was relatively even. Flash didn’t seem to mind. She raced off in random directions before returning at regular intervals to make sure Carol hadn’t lost her way. ‘A bit like my brain,’ Carol said once she’d recognised the pattern.

Even when she’d finally gone to bed, her mind was still racing, running over the same problems in the hope of finding a solution. In the end, she’d pummelled the pillows one last time and managed to drift off to the sound of the World Service. When the alarm roused her a few hours later, the same thoughts were still rattling round her head.

There was no time to take the dog for a run; she had to meet Bronwen Scott at eight so they could go over things once more with Tony before Fielding arrived to interrogate him again. Scott had redoubled her suggestion that Carol avoid the interview itself. ‘I’m sure Fielding will know by then that you’re on the team, but I don’t want to feel she’s got something to prove because you’re in the room.’ It was a good point. It was also a way of protecting Paula.

Carol might not have known much about dogs, but even before Stacey had weighed in, she had realised it wasn’t acceptable to leave the dog alone for long periods of time. They were supposed to keep each other company, after all. So she opened the rear door of the Land Rover and spread a couple of blankets on the floor. Flash jumped aboard as if it was routine. Carol added a litre-bottle of water and a plastic bowl to her dog-walking kit of leash, training treats and plastic bags, and they were ready to roll. One way or another, she’d find time to walk the dog.

She beat Scott to Skenfrith Street by five minutes but she didn’t go inside, thinking it more sensible to wait at the car-park entrance. Scott was perfectly groomed as ever, immaculate in a fitted charcoal-grey suit over a sharply tailored blue-and-white pinstriped shirt. The narrow skirt, coupled with teetering heels, showed off her legs to distracting advantage. Carol felt like a frump in her best black trouser suit and flatties, both from the Hobbs’ sale a couple of years ago. This time, they were shown to an interview room away from the custody suite, fitted with recording equipment and a long narrow wall mirror. It had the familiar grey walls and the mingled smell of stale bodies and cleaning chemicals. Without thinking, Carol headed straight for the chairs that weren’t bolted to the floor. Scott laughed. ‘Old habits die hard, Carol. You’re on the wrong side of the table.’ As Carol made to stand up, Scott waved her back down. ‘It’s OK, it’s only us here. Stay where you are for the time being.’

Scott sat down and put on a pair of rectangular glasses with thin black frames. They made her look like a sexily strict headmistress. She opened a file and studied the contents page by page. When Tony was shown in a few minutes later, she closed the file and stood up. As he approached the table, she moved towards him and put a hand on his arm. ‘How was your night?’

He looked across at Carol, who had not moved. ‘It passed,’ he said, moving past Scott to sit down opposite Carol. ‘I don’t know how long we’ve got here, but there are a few things I need to say. I think he’s local. Given that men tend to go for women younger than them and he chose Bev as a possible surrogate, I’d say he’s at least thirty-five. One thing that bothered me was that the women don’t seem to have tried to escape or draw attention to themselves after he loads them in the car. I’d have thought if there had been any reports of pedestrians hearing someone kicking or shouting in the boot of a car Paula would have said something about it. So I wondered if what he’s got in that metal case is a portable anaesthetic kit. Like paramedics carry. That would explain both why he’s carrying the case and the women’s apparent passivity. It’s because they’re unconscious. So maybe it’s worth checking if any of the local hospitals have lost one?’

‘Given the professions of the victims, he might even be a paramedic,’ Carol said.

Tony ran a hand through his hair. ‘I don’t think so. I’d put him in a white-collar job. But you could be right,’ he added hastily.

Trying to suck up. Pathetic.
Carol made a note. One for Paula to suggest to Fielding, maybe. To make it look like she was on her boss’s side. She looked across at Scott. ‘Could I have a sheet of paper?’ Scott tore a blank page out of her legal pad. ‘I need you to write me a letter of authority to Bradfield Moor, asking them to give me access to any entries in the incident log involving you. We’ve got the dates when Nadia Wilkowa had appointments there and if we can match them up, we can undermine Fielding’s case.’

Even before she’d finished speaking, he was writing. ‘If we can do that, they’ll have to let me go, right?’

‘Not necessarily,’ Scott said. ‘Especially since somebody’s bound to leak to the internet or the local media that they’ve arrested someone as high profile as you.’

‘High profile? Me?’

‘In crime terms, you’re the bee’s knees. A profiler gone rogue? It doesn’t get any better than that.’

He looked shaken. ‘They’re going to put me all over the papers, right? Like that poor bloke in Bristol who got demonised for nothing more than having a weird hairstyle.’

Scott sighed. ‘Probably. So far, I’ve not had any calls. But Fielding kept this very quiet and the overnight custody sergeant is notorious for hating the media. That won’t last once the dayshift briefing happens. You’re almost certainly going to get screwed over. All the Jacko Vance stuff will be raked up again.’ She nodded towards Carol. ‘They might come after you too.’

‘I’ll enjoy that,’ she said grimly.

Tony signed the letter and passed it across to Carol. ‘Ask for Maggie Spence, the Assistant Director. She likes me, she’ll be helpful.’

‘Unlike your boss,’ Carol said drily. She knew the history between them. Power never forgives those who know its dirty little secrets.

A wry smile. ‘Hard to believe how much pleasure this will give him.’ He swept his arm to encompass the depressing room.

‘They’ll have a search warrant by now,’ Scott said, impatient to get on with the serious business of the morning. ‘They’ll be going through your home and your office. If there’s anything you don’t want them to find, now’s the time to tell us.’ She cocked an eyebrow at him.

Tony shrugged, spreading his hands in a gesture of openness. ‘Good luck to them. If they find the data CD for Tomb Raider 3, I’d be eternally grateful.’ He gave a strained smile. ‘I really don’t have any dark secrets. Hidden shallows, that’s me.’

Carol had had enough. She pushed her chair back and folded Tony’s letter away in her bag. ‘Unless there’s anything else you think I need to know, I’m going now. I’ve got inquiries to make and the clock’s ticking. And my dog needs walking.’

‘Dog?’ Tony looked bemused.

‘I’ll fill you in later,’ Scott said to her retreating figure.

Tony’s spirits sank as Carol walked out of the interview room. Bronwen Scott made him feel nervous and inadequate; a woman for whom he could never have enough right answers. He watched the door close then said, ‘She’s got a dog?’

Scott looked baffled, but in an amused sort of way. ‘I have no idea what Carol’s domestic arrangements are.’

Tony pulled a face. ‘Neither do I, apparently. So, what’s going to happen now?’

‘Fielding will interview you again. Unless she’s got something new we don’t know about she’ll just try to rerun yesterday’s questions and you’re going to go “no comment” to everything she puts to you. She’ll try to unsettle you, to provoke you. But you mustn’t let her get to you.’

‘I’ll pretend she’s a patient. They generally try to divert attention from what’s ailing them by asking me questions. I’m quite good at avoiding the answers.’ He stared down at the table. ‘I know I shouldn’t take this personally, but it’s hard not to feel hurt by how quick off the mark Fielding has been to arrest me. Call me sentimental, but I’d have expected her to cut me a bit of slack. I mean, I’ve been at the heart of so many investigations, I’d have thought they’d think twice before they jumped to the conclusion that I’m a serial killer.’ He met her eyes, his expression pained.

‘Fielding’s showing the brass her independence. And maybe trying to take some of the gloss off Carol’s achievements at the same time. That’s why she’s so keen on having Paula on the team. Fielding wants to be seen as the rehab unit for officers contaminated by the maverick tendency.’

Tony managed a tired smile. ‘And I thought I was the psychologist. So, do you think they’re going to charge me?’

‘I think she’s going to keep you hanging on till the last possible minute. She’ll get another DCI to authorise an extra twelve hours’ detention, which will take us up to tomorrow morning. Then she’ll either charge you or let you go, or, if she thinks she’s got enough with the DNA and the thumbprint, she’ll go to the magistrates for an extension. At which point we’ll wheel out all the undermining evidence that Carol will have assembled plus something from the fingerprint expert my office is lining up, and they’ll order your release. Probably on police bail. If we hang on and do it that way, your exoneration is more public.’

‘That sounds good.’

Scott held one hand out flat and swivelled it at the wrist. ‘Yes and no. The exoneration is more public, but the downside is that the media and the twittersphere will have had a full twenty-four-hour news cycle to rip you to shreds.’

‘They’re going to rip me to shreds anyway by the sounds of it, so the more publicly I’m taken off the hook, the better, surely? Or are you thinking the mags won’t let me go?’

Scott twisted her mouth in an expression of uncertainty. ‘I’d be very surprised if they backed Fielding on this one once her so-called evidence is thoroughly undermined.’

Before Tony could respond, the door slammed open. Fielding stood in the doorway, a tiny ball of barely contained fury. Her mouth was tight, her eyes narrowed and her hands curled into fists. ‘A word, Ms Scott,’ she said. It wasn’t a request.

Scott took her time, pausing to give Tony’s shoulder a quick squeeze. ‘I’ll be right back, Tony.’

She’d barely closed the door behind her when Fielding stepped into her personal space and hissed, ‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’ Today, Fielding’s accent had abandoned charm in favour of blunt threat. It would have made nobody want to visit Scotland.

Scott smiled sweetly and looked over Fielding’s shoulder to where Paula stood, frowning with worry, trying to melt into the wall. Scott nodded a greeting to Paula then made a deliberate show of looking down at Fielding. ‘You’re going to have to give me more of a clue, DCI Fielding.’

‘You know exactly what I mean, lady. Bringing Carol Jordan in here to meet your client under the pretence of being your intern. Do you think my head buttons up the back?’

Scott’s expression was of amused condescension. ‘I don’t understand why you’re so upset. Carol isn’t a serving officer. She’s entitled to explore new career options. She approached me asking for the opportunity to shadow me to decide whether a career in the law might be for her. I was willing to take that at face value and not assume she was trying to infiltrate my office on your behalf.’

‘On
my
behalf?’ Fielding sounded like a gasket about to blow.

‘It wouldn’t be the first time your colleagues have tried to undermine my attempts to provide my clients with the best possible defence.’

‘That’s a disgraceful allegation,’ Fielding spluttered.

‘No worse than your imputation of inappropriate motives to me and Carol.’

‘So why was she here, if not to try and compromise my operation?’

‘How could she do that? Are you suggesting your officers are going to sneak around behind your back and leak things you should be disclosing to the defence anyway? All out of some misplaced loyalty to a retired colleague? It must be depressing to have such little faith in your team, DCI Fielding.’ Scott turned away, her fingers on the door handle.

‘I trust my team,’ Fielding spat, her words like sharp little darts aimed at Scott’s heart.

‘Good. Then shall we get on with our “no comment” interview? And perhaps I could have disclosure of the fingermark evidence?’ The last word and the last smile to the defence, Scott thought as she sailed back to her client’s side.