Death Call (5 page)

Chapter 5

Things never seem to work out the way they’re supposed to, Carroll thought, as he arrived for work. Waiting on his desk was a little note from the Detective Chief Inspector, who was anxious to talk to him. Whatever it might be about, Carroll thought, it certainly wasn’t a promotion.

Grant was already in the office when Carroll knocked and entered. DCI Jones sat behind his desk with a smirk on his bearded face.

‘I’m so glad you could join us, Carroll. Grant here has been bringing me up to date on your lack of a breakthrough on this murder inquiry. Have you anything to add to what he’s already told me?’ Jones asked.

‘Well, we’ve identified the victim and what she did for a living....’

‘Yes, yes, man, I know all of that,’ Jones said impatiently. ‘What I need to know is if there is any chance of you guys coming up with the goods on this one in the near future.... Do you have any new leads that I should know about?’

‘I’ve put the word out on the street that she was killed, so I’m expecting some sort of comeback today. She was working in one of the local escort agencies, so it shouldn’t take long for the news to filter through.’

Jones sat back in his chair. His mind was elsewhere. He never gave any of his officers a chance to make a mistake. It had been the way he was taught, and it was the way that worked, according to his way of thinking. Carroll didn’t exactly appreciate having to second-guess his boss at every corner, but it was becoming something of a necessity. Jones had a marked dislike of Carroll, and he wasn’t too fond of Grant either. It made for interesting times in the office, where Grant seemed most at home and was apt to spend most of his time.

‘So, we have a dead hooker in a middle-class house, working from an escort agency, and there’s no obvious connection with the owners of the house?’ Jones said, matter-of-factly.

‘And we have entry marks on the kitchen window which seem to indicate that someone gained entry to the building forcibly, sir,’ Grant added.

‘Speak in English man, speak in plain English!’ Jones pleaded, ‘this isn’t a fucking report, this is a brainstorming session....’

Carroll rubbed his chin like he did when he wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else. Brainstorming session? Jones hadn’t had a shit for a few weeks, Dan thought, sitting back with a grin on his face. Jones, he thought, was full of it. Brainstorming? What sort of crap was this?

‘I’m glad you find all of this amusing, Carroll. Perhaps you’ll find it less amusing when I tell you that the progress made on this case is pathetic....’ Jones said with a glare in his eyes.

‘Well, I was told last night that I’d be contacted today by one of the girls I was talking to. She said she’d find out who Jo Mac was working for,’ Carroll said.

‘Well, we do need some help....’ Grant added, as Jones stood up and walked out from behind the relative safety of his desk.

‘Have you been on to forensics this morning?’

‘Not yet sir,’ Grant replied, ‘but I think they should have something for us by now – it has been a few days after all....’

‘Don’t waste any more of my time, gentlemen, get out there and start working this case!’

Carroll and Grant left the DCI’s office in a less than ecstatic mood. It was bad enough having to work with Grant, Carroll thought, without having the DCI on your back too. Jones, like Grant, was a by-the-book man, and this irritated the hell out of Carroll.

Carroll had been working on the case of a missing young woman a few months previous to this and believed that her parents had something to do with the girl’s disappearance. Jones didn’t agree and had sent Carroll off on a wild goose chase in search of a non-existent boyfriend with whom she might have left the area. As it turned out, Jones was wrong, and the girl’s father had been responsible for the rape and murder of his little girl. She was only fourteen, and the sight of her naked body lying dead in undergrowth made Carroll sick. The father had gone down for fifteen years and the mother had been sectioned and sent off to a mental home, following several attempts to take her own life. He wasn’t always right, Carroll thought, looking over his shoulder at Jones, who was now drinking a cup of coffee and flicking through case files. It had been over five years since the DCI had actually worked the streets himself and, as a result, he had lost his touch, Carroll thought, upon reaching his desk.

Grant sat across from his partner. His face told the story that his mouth wanted to. He was unhappy. To be precise, which Grant always appeared to be, he was unhappy with his new partner and the way he worked. If there was one thing that Grant hated, it was Carroll’s desire to ‘go it alone’ and work away from his partner. He didn’t feel like wasting his breath or starting another argument with Carroll, so he adopted the sort of civilised tone that implied all beneath the surface was bubbling like old oil.

‘So, you’re expecting a call from one of your sources today?’ Grant asked, unsuccessfully trying to hide the sarcastic tone in his voice.

‘Correct. She said she’d try to get me before lunch, so I’d better stay by the phone for a while....’

‘So, this source of yours is gonna find out where Jo Mac was working from?’

‘That’s the plan....’

‘Wouldn’t it be easier to just ring the agencies and ask for her by name?’

‘Well,’ Carroll stuttered, ‘you could do it that way, but in my experience, people working in escort agencies don’t use their real names, and if they do, they don’t tend to broadcast them over the phone to people who claim to be detectives, you know?’

‘So, I take it you haven’t tried?’

‘Not directly, no....’

‘Right, I’ll give it a whirl, shall I?’

‘Be my guest, pal, be my guest....’

Grant started to get all enthusiastic about his idea and went off in search of local magazines and phone books, where the agencies would be listed. As he was flicking through the pages and making a note of the telephone numbers, Dan received a call. It was Jenny, one of the women to whom he had spoken the night before.

She sounded a little unsure at what she was doing. After all, Carroll thought, prostitutes are not known for ringing the police with information. In fact, it was probably the last thing that a hooker would want to do. Yet, strangely, the woman on the other end of the line seemed almost relieved that she had made the call.

‘Jo Mac used to work for the Dream Date Escort Agency. The number’s in the book, okay?’

‘Right, Jenny, thanks for helping me out on this, I’ll do you a favour sometime....’

‘Yeah, sure....’ came the reply, before she hung up. The silence was deafening. It was also very, very pleasing.

Grant was just beginning to make his first phone call when Carroll placed his fingers on the cradle, cutting him off.

‘I’ve got it, smart-ass. I’ve got the name of the agency....’

‘Right,’ Grant said. It looked like it hurt him to speak. ‘Well, I suppose we’d best pay the place a visit then, eh?’

The Dream Date Escort Agency was located on the first floor of a retail unit on Essex Road. The floor was split up into two offices, one for a taxi-cab company, and the other for the escort agency. Handy, Carroll thought as he knocked on the door of the agency.

A panel slid back and a young and rather tired looking woman peered out at Carroll.

‘Can I help you?’ came the weary voice.

‘Yes, is this Dream Date?’

‘Yes, what can I do for you?’

‘I’m Detective Sergeant Carroll, and this is Detective Constable Grant, we’d like to talk to you for a minute, please....’

‘About?’

‘About one of your girls. She’s been found dead.’

‘You’d better come in,’ said the young woman, unsure at how she was feeling on hearing the news.

Carroll stepped inside, followed by a suspicious looking Grant. His eyes wandering all over the room, Grant turned to the woman who had just let them in.

‘Jo Mac, or Joanne McCrae, was found murdered in a house two days ago. We’d like you to help us piece together her last known movements....’

‘Well, you’d best speak to Lynn, she’s in charge,’ the young woman said, going through into the next room.

Carroll and Grant looked around them. The room was what could be described as a reception area, with a couch and some awful Japanese sex prints on the walls. A coffee table was filled to overflowing with porn magazines. The whole room had a sort of sad, oppressive feel to it. It was as though whatever happened in the room happened only because it could, and not because it should. It smelled of expectation and stale semen.

A woman, presumably Lynn, beckoned the two detectives through into the next room, asking them to take a seat by her desk. Three other women sat lazily on a sofa by the window.

Lynn was around forty, maybe forty five, with a face that had conceded in the fight against gravity. She had strong features and mistrusting eyes that scoured every inch of the two men in front of her. The last thing in the world she needed was a couple of cops on her doorstep. That was, of course, unless they were interested in doing business. Just one look at them, however, suggested otherwise. This was official.

‘You told one of my girls that Jo Mac was found murdered?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ Carroll replied, ‘she was found strangled two days ago in Horseferry Road. We need your help in piecing together her last known movements....’

One of the girls on the sofa had begun to cry. Grant turned to her and spoke softly.

‘Did you know Jo well?’

‘She took my place on Monday, because I had to leave early. She filled in for me, and now she’s dead....’

Carroll looked at Lynn and made an effort to coax more information from her.

‘So Jo stayed on for a little longer to cover for a friend?’

‘Yeah,’ Lynn replied. ‘Maggie had to go out for a few hours and asked Jo to cover for her. We got a call at about ten on Monday morning looking for a girl, and Jo was the only one on duty....’

‘So you sent Jo out? What was the last address she called on?’

‘I’ll just check,’ she said, fingering through a large diary on her desk. ‘14 Horseferry Road, in the name of Gibson. We did the usual call back check to establish whether the call was genuine. You see we get a lot of hoax calls in this business – from schoolboys and the like, you understand?’

‘And the name used at the address was Gibson?’

‘Yeah, we looked it up in the phone book, just to check it out. It pays to check these things, you know....’

‘It didn’t help Jo much,’ Maggie sobbed.

‘So what time did she leave for Horseferry Road?’ Grant asked.

‘Around ten-fifteen.’

‘Do you have any idea who might have wanted to kill Jo?’ Carroll asked.

‘The world is full of psychos, detective. Every second guy who rings up a place like this is a weirdo. You just learn to deal with them, you know?’