Death Call (18 page)

‘Yeah – why?’

‘It’s her killer we’re after – you’d be doing us all a big favour if you just sat down and told us what happened....’

‘Us – who’s us?’

‘My partner is in the car over there – we won’t keep you more than a few minutes – would you like to get out of the cold for a while – maybe go for a drink?’

‘What’s in it for me then?’

‘Twenty.’

‘Okay.’

Eileen was about thirty, thirty two, she wore a short skirt and a pair of heels, along with a low-cut T-shirt. She must be freezing, Carroll thought, as they walked to the car.

As she got into the car, Carroll began to understand why she wasn’t cold – she was out of her head on some or other drug, and wouldn’t have felt it if you had beaten her black and blue.

Her face was gaunt. It was the face of a junkie, with sunken and blackened eyes surrounded by a pale, almost yellow skin – she probably had hepatitis, and maybe another few diseases too, he thought.

Somewhere in her past, this young Irishwoman had probably come over from Dublin or one of the other bigger towns in Ireland in search of work and had fallen in with the wrong crowd. Simple as that, he thought. It could happen to anyone.

Grant turned around to Carroll, who had taken a seat in the back of the car with Eileen.

‘Take us up to the Exmouth Arms behind Euston Station – Eileen has agreed to tell us what happened.’

‘Right,’ Grant said, feeling something like a chauffeur, and unsure as ever about Carroll’s idea of how to get information.

In Grant’s book you picked up whomever it was you wanted to talk to and you took them down to the station for a little chat. If they didn’t want to come, all you did was threaten to arrest them for being an accessory after the fact, or for withholding evidence. It worked, sure, but it also meant a lot of paperwork, and Carroll wasn’t very fond of that. Besides, he fancied a pint and he hadn’t been to the Exmouth for quite a while. It seemed like the logical solution.

The Exmouth was your garden variety English pub – nothing special – but the landlord was a bit of a character. For some unknown reason he always called Dan ‘Tip’ and Dan never knew why, but presumed it was because he had mentioned that some of his family were from Tipperary and still lived there. So it was no surprise to him to be greeted as ‘Tip’ by the shaven-headed landlord, who stood towering above his staff, behind the bar.

‘Howya, Con – how’s the Rolls these days?’ Carroll inquired with a smirk.

‘Just had her in for a service today and she’s running as sweet as ever – sure they’re the best cars in the world. I see you’ve got company – is this an official call or will you have a pint?’ Con said, eyeing up Dan’s partner and the young whore that accompanied him.

‘Well, it’s business, but I couldn’t turn down a pint of your stout, Con,’ Carroll said, turning to the young woman. ‘Eileen, what’ll you have?’

‘A large vodka and coke.’ Dan nodded to Con, who had heard the order.

‘And you, Sam – what’ll you have?’

‘I never drink when I’m on duty....’

‘And an orange juice for the copper here....’ Dan said with a smile. Con went to work, and the three took a seat over by the window.

The pub was fairly full, with the left-overs of the Friday evening after-work brigade still sloshing back the pints of lager before getting the tube train home. Most of them were office workers, and some were train drivers from across the road in Euston station. It was a nice mix of clientele, not that it would have worried Carroll much either way.

Eileen looked a little nervous. The last time she had been with a copper was the night before, and she hadn’t spoken more than about three words to him – it’s difficult to talk when you’ve got something in your mouth. Now here she was, sat between Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, twiddling her thumbs. Con arrived with the drinks and placed a small whiskey in front of Carroll, along with the pint of stout he had ordered.

‘I only wanted the stout, Con,’ Carroll said, smiling.

‘Ah, get it into you, Tip – get it into you – you look like you could do with it....’

‘Cheers, Con.’

Grant opened up the proceedings this time, by introducing himself.

‘I’m Detective Grant – I’m Detective Carroll’s partner. We spoke to Tracy Goode earlier and she told us about how you were attacked last week. Can you tell us more about it?’

‘That friggin’ cow should learn to keep her mouth shut.’

‘What sort of man was it that attacked you – can you describe him?’ Grant asked.

‘He was around thirty or thirty five, medium build, I suppose.’

‘What colour hair did he have?’ Dan asked.

‘He was going slightly bald, and had a sort of reddish-blonde hair – he was a nasty piece of work, no messing....’

‘Tracy said something about a tattoo on his arm?’ Grant said, leaving the statement hang like a question in the air.

‘Yeah – he had a tattoo on his left arm – it looked very familiar – I’ve seen the same design a few times before.’

‘What was the design?’ Carroll asked.

‘A dagger with a scroll wrapped around it – it was a military thing I think....’

‘What were the words?’

‘Who dares wins, I think. Is this going to help you?’

‘It may very well, Eileen – get that drink into you and we’ll get you another, okay?’ Carroll said, turning to his partner. ‘An SAS man – or at least maybe he was an SAS man. It’ll be difficult trying to access the files on the guy, you know what those fucking army guys are like about confidentiality....’

‘What about the car he was driving – what make was it?’ Grant asked, turning to Eileen, who had thought that question time was over.

‘I don’t remember – I think it was an estate – a purple estate car....’

‘Any distinguishing marks – any bumps or scrapes?’

‘No, but it had two aerials – I thought it was you guys at first – the cops, you know? One of the aerials was magnetic, with a piece of cloth wrapped around the base, like taxis have, you know....’

‘So it was a taxi?’

‘I dunno, but he had a radio in it, like a CB or something.’

‘Were there any distinguishing marks on his face or body?’

‘He had a plaster on his face – it went up over his ear.’

‘What did he want you to do?’ Carroll asked, in an effort to confirm the story that Tracy had given them.

‘He wanted a BJ without a rubber – no one does that anymore – not with the risk of AIDS....’

‘So he forced you – how did he force you?’

‘He had a knife – a big thing it was, with teeth on it like a saw – one of those Rambo knives that they’re always trying to ban, you know. I jumped out of the car the minute he was finished, because he went crazy when I spat out his paste.’

‘Yeah, Tracy told us. You’ll have the same again, Eileen?’ Carroll asked.

‘Yeah, but make it pineapple in the vodka this time – a large vodka....’

Carroll got up and walked over to the bar, ordered the drinks from Con and let the pieces fall together in his mind. Whoever it was they were looking for was driving a purple estate car with a two-way radio and he was army or ex-army. It certainly narrowed the field somewhat, but it would still prove difficult trying to nail the guy.

Chapter 19

Sarah was having problems. Although she’d been diagnosed as having MS nearly ten years ago, she still had trouble living with the condition and minimising its effects on her nervous system.

Over the years, she had gone through more doctors and quacks in the alternative medicine scene than anyone else she knew. If there was an avenue to be explored that may help her live more comfortably, then she wholeheartedly explored it. And despite the fact that Dan wasn’t always around to help her, Sarah never had a problem getting to where she wanted to go. The social services people had seen to that. Even though the carers they sent to her weren’t all that efficient or even friendly, she was ultimately very glad to receive their help – it left her feeling a little less isolated.

But over the last couple of weeks her symptoms had been getting worse, with a definite sign of slurring in her speech and an exaggeration of her shaking – especially in her hands.

Having gone through numerous periods of remission, which ultimately led to a return of her debilitating symptoms, Sarah had gotten used to disappointment – although it had taken time.

A recent examination of her cerebrospinal fluid, or CSF, as she had begun to call it, revealed that changes were taking place in her body that would inevitably lead to a worsening of her condition. Although she had always been quick to tell her husband about such problems, Sarah had so far neglected to.

The CSF was acquired by means of a painful procedure known as a lumbar puncture, and gave a pretty good indication of what was happening with regard to the nervous system. The test could also highlight abnormalities in the protein content, which was what had happened.

Changes in the protein content of the CSF, she had been informed, indicated that there were abnormalities in her immune system and that would account, to some degree, for the worsening of her symptoms.

Dan had made every effort to understand his wife’s condition, but it was just beyond him. Multiple Sclerosis just seemed so damned complicated and uncertain. Sure, everyone knew it was a progressive disease that affected the nervous and immune systems, but no one knew the causes, or why some people were more likely to suffer from MS than others.

Carroll, like most of his police colleagues, liked a clear-cut reason for things happening. Only with MS, he had never really received any answers that ever helped him to understand the disease.

Sarah had attended all of the relevant meetings in the early days, when the local support group offered her hope and an outlet for her feelings. It was a god-send for her and for Dan, who had had a great deal of difficulty in coming to terms with his wife’s affliction. But after three years of hearing the same stories, Sarah had called it a day and retreated to a semi-solitary life in their north London home.

It had been four years before she had needed to get a wheelchair and she had been more or less confined to it ever since. Only during the early periods of remission had Sarah left the chair. But by now she was so used to life in the chair, that the muscle wastage in her legs denied her any real mobility – even during a remission period.

Dan had been working late for many nights now in an effort to come up with the goods on the escort killer case and he had done his best to get back as early as was possible. Only it just wasn’t really possible of late.

The information that he and Grant had received from Eileen had opened up all sorts of possibilities for them – and as a result they were to be found working into the wee small hours of the morning for most of that week. And it was at night that Sarah needed her husband the most.

It was fine during the day, when the carer from social services came to clean up or to cook some food, but later in the evening, when the daylight had faded, Sarah began to grow heavy of heart, with the grey gloom of depression coming over her. Daytime TV and the early evening news gave some interest, but the quiet of the house, the feeling of isolation and the fear of having an accident when no one was around, preyed on her mind. Several times she had knocked over pans of boiling water and she was once very close to setting fire to the house, when a chip pan overflowed onto the cooker. Only her quick thinking saved the house and, no doubt, her life.

No more would she tackle the chip pan – at least not until Dan came home from work – or the pub, where he was apt to spend much of his free time these days.

Despite his tendency to come home drunk, Sarah loved her husband with all of her might. Lesser men would have left their spouse in similar circumstances, she thought, but Dan had stood his ground, offering whatever help he could in an effort to make her life a little easier. He had even suggested giving up his job on the force in order to look after her, but she had refused. There was no way she could let her disease rob him of his career. It had already robbed her of her old life and she refused point blank to lose anything else to it.

She had often felt as though she were a burden on her husband, a dead weight that stopped him from living a fulfilling life. He hadn’t always been such a heavy drinker, Sarah thought, as she watched the clock on the kitchen wall. It was eight thirty and there was still no sign of her husband. He had left the house at seven thirty that morning, and hadn’t even had breakfast – despite her protestations.

No, Dan would be home when Dan would be home – there were no two ways about it. And he would probably be slightly drunk. Sarah knew why this was, but couldn’t bring herself to discuss it with him. Their sex life had all but vanished two years before and, since that time, Dan had taken to the bottle. It was almost as if he was seeking satisfaction in alcohol, rather than in a normal sexual relationship. Sarah couldn’t discuss the problem with him. She just wasn’t able. And despite many attempts on Dan’s half to get them some professional help to deal with it, Sarah wouldn’t have anything to do with counsellors or sex therapists.