Authors: A. Garrett D.
‘An anonymous tip-off,’ the solicitor’s tone said,
anyone can accuse …
‘You have scratches on your left hand that look like defensive wounds and abrasions on your right that look like you punched someone or something – hard,’ Simms went on.
He curled his fingers and drew them back towards his body.
‘How does that square with your daily footfall and your average weekly turnover and your pre-tax results?’ She replayed in her head what she’d just said, and did a double take. ‘Wait a minute – you’re planning to pay tax?’
‘Of course I’ll pay tax,’ he said, shocked. ‘It’s the law.’
She almost laughed. ‘Is that what they teach you at accountancy school? You don’t need to complicate your life with inconvenient concepts like morality, just so long as you obey the letter of the law?’
His flat grey eyes held hers for the first time. ‘I was like you once,’ he said. ‘When I was young enough to still feel self-righteous about such things. As an auditor, I played by the rules and worked for the common good. I uncovered misspending and poor accounting and even a few high-profile frauds, and I saved millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. Millions. Shall I tell you my reward, after twenty-six years of playing by the rules, Chief Inspector?’ His mouth twisted, as though he’d felt a sharp pain. ‘A redundancy notice. Three days before my fifty-second birthday.’ He shook his head, the memory obviously still raw.
‘So to hell with the common good,’ she said. ‘But hey, you pay your taxes, which makes you a model citizen, right?’
He shrugged. ‘It makes me someone who plays the rules to his advantage.’ He looked at her. ‘Tell me you’ve never done that.’
She hesitated and as he eyed her, curious, she tried not to think about the lies and the half-truths she had told her superintendent only that morning.
‘I thought so,’ he said with a satisfied nod. ‘I provide a service. Comfortable, clean surroundings, fair treatment. My ladies don’t get ripped off – by me or their …’ His eyes drifted away for a moment, as he searched for the right word.
‘Punters,’ she said.
‘Companions,’ he countered, his eyes fixed on her again.
‘Let’s talk about the eight hours between midnight last Thursday, and the following morning, Mr Howard.’
His eyelids flickered and he looked quickly away. ‘I told your sergeant everything I know.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘I am not a violent man, Chief Inspector,’ he told the tabletop.
‘Really?’ she said. ‘You’re sticking by that story?’
‘It isn’t a story.’
‘Think hard, Mr Howard.’ His head was still down, so she fixed her gaze on his crown, wishing she could shine a light inside his skull, see what he was hiding, because he was hiding something. She was sure of it.
He stared at the backs of his hands, a frown of concentration on his face, and she could almost see him riffling through the efficient storage and retrieval systems of his memory.
‘You maintain that you have never violently assaulted a woman?’
His eyes flicked up to hers, alarmed, and she placed an arrest sheet in front of him – the paperwork Renwick had given to her outside the interview room.
He glanced at the name on the sheet. ‘Chloe?’
His solicitor frowned: the name was obviously new to her. ‘George, perhaps we should—’
‘She was bruised black from the chest down,’ Simms said.
He shook his head.
His solicitor sat forward, placing a hand on her client’s arm. ‘George, I think we should speak in private.’
Howard brushed her off. ‘I was never even charged.’
Of course Simms knew that. If he had been charged, his DNA would already be on record.
‘You’re a practical man, Mr Howard. So maybe you paid her off, wrote it down as an operational expense.’
His hands closed into fists. ‘That’s
outrageous
.’ He’d missed the sarcasm entirely – more appalled by the suggestion that he would fiddle his expenses sheet than by the notion that he would beat a woman until her flesh was the colour of a ripe aubergine.
‘George.’
Howard finally turned to his solicitor. ‘Chloe was out of control. I struck her off my list after I found her passed out in one of the rooms, a hypodermic still in her hand. Some weeks later, her pimp boyfriend beat her up for withholding money from him.’
Which is exactly what the file said. But Simms hadn’t been looking for a confession – only to rattle him. She smiled and a muscle began to jump in his eyelid.
He pressed his fingers into his eye sockets to quell the tremor in his eyelid. ‘Look, I conduct three … interviews a week.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Nice euphemism. Do you “sample the goods” during these “interviews”?’
He shot her a brief, disapproving look.
‘Both the interviewees
and
the ladies already using my facilities are happy to allow the management to … how shall I term it?’ He gazed at a point a few inches above Kate Simms’s left shoulder.
‘Dip his wick?’ she offered.
His eyes snapped to hers. ‘There’s no need to be coarse.’
‘Hey, I’ve seen what’s on offer on your website – don’t lecture
me
about coarse.’
He sucked in his cheeks and looked away again.
‘For clarification,’ his solicitor said, ‘Mr Howard does not “offer” anything on his website. The ladies state their preferences and specialities, which are on the website for illustration purposes only. What goes on behind closed doors is a private matter between consenting adults.’
‘Mr Howard just rents out the rooms by the half-hour. Yes, that’s very helpful. Thank you,’ Simms said. ‘
For clarification
, perhaps Mr Howard can tell me who provides the condoms and the role-play costumes and the sex toys and triple-X-rated films? Oh, and let’s not forget the Viagra – compliments of the house.’
The solicitor began to speak, but Howard held up his hand. ‘Since you’ve seen the list of services, you will know that the range of experiences available is imaginative and comprehensive. And the young ladies—’
She huffed air through her nose at ‘ladies’, interrupting his flow, but he persevered anyway: ‘The
ladies
in question are far from inhibited.’ He looked directly at her, defiant and unashamed. ‘I have a constantly changing roll call of twenty attractive girls willing to indulge my every whim, to cater to my wildest fantasy. Why would I need to use force?’
‘For some men, use of force
is
the fantasy,’ she said.
He looked at her blankly.
‘Oh, come on, Mr Howard – I’ve seen your Dungeon Room.’
‘That’s for the clients. My predilections run in a different direction.’
‘So, tell me, Mr Howard – I’m interested – which way do your “predilections” run?’
She had thought to rattle him a bit more, but he gave her a long, speculative look.
‘I prefer blondes,’ he said, his eyes skimming her own brown hair.
‘Blonde,’ she said. ‘Like the victim.’
‘Blondes with nice curves and large breasts. I like them chatty, bubbly, but not too assertive.’
Another jibe at her. Time to nudge him off balance again.
‘Tell me about the men you were drinking with at the pub.’ She saw something like panic behind his eyes, gone before she was sure it was there.
He rallied. ‘Now
your sergeant
likes brunettes. He—’
‘We’re talking about you, Mr Howard,’ she interrupted.
‘I couldn’t help noticing how he looked at you.’ There was a sharpness in Howard’s eyes she hadn’t seen before, like light reflecting off a knife blade.
‘The landlord thought you knew the men.’
‘Your sergeant looks at you the way my clients look at the girls.’
The solicitor leaned across her client, a look of alarm on her face. ‘George.’
George Howard’s eyes didn’t flicker. ‘Detective Sergeant Renwick likes the athletic type. I can tell.’
‘The pub landlord says you arrived at the same time.’
‘They happened to arrive at the same time,’ the solicitor said. ‘That does not mean they were together.’
Howard leaned back to get a better view of Simms. ‘You’re quite athletic, yourself, Chief Inspector.’
The solicitor tapped Howard’s hand and muttered under her breath, ‘
George
.’
Howard twitched her hand away. ‘Would you like to know what he was thinking, while you were having your serious, professional conversation?’
‘Why won’t you tell us who you were drinking with on the night of the murder?’
He leaned forward across the table, a wicked grin on his face. ‘The one thing – the
only
thing – in Sergeant Renwick’s mind was how you would look naked.’
‘That’s
enough
.’ Simms slammed the table with her hand and Howard flinched as though she’d slapped him.
Simms breathed hard through her nose, and the silence in the room felt loaded with meaning.
Finally, the solicitor said, ‘Mr Howard has made his statement: he fell into conversation with the two men. He doesn’t know them. He doesn’t know their names.’
‘I don’t believe that,’ Simms said.
‘I’ve told you everything I know,’ Howard said, avoiding her eye again.
‘Not everything. You didn’t drive that night. Why?’
‘I went out for a drink. I didn’t want to lose my licence. As I told you, I play by the rules.’
‘You went drinking on your own, with all those lovely women to choose from?’
He said nothing.
‘Were you planning to meet someone?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘The victim perhaps?’
‘No.’
‘But you just said you don’t remember, Mr Howard. How can you be so certain you weren’t planning to meet the victim?’
He shook his head.
‘Perhaps you met her later.’
‘No.’
‘Mr Howard,’ she said. ‘If you didn’t know the victim, and you didn’t meet her in the hours before her death, why is your DNA under her fingernails?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Look at your hands, Mr Howard. Your skin is under her nails.’
His face paled to the colour of salt.
‘Why are the bites on the murdered woman’s body a match to you?’
‘I told you I—’
‘You sank your teeth into her flesh, and you expect me to believe you don’t remember?’
He flinched and screwed up his eyes as if against a sudden phosphor-flash. ‘Stop,’ he said.
‘The place must have reeked of blood, and
you don’t remember
?’
His eyes widened, and he stared past her with a look that almost made her turn to discover the horror that had melted through the walls to hover over her shoulder.
‘Mr Howard?’
He shuddered and blinked down at the scrapes and scratches on the backs of his hands.
‘Are you all right?’
Sweat beaded on his forehead like condensation on a glass, and he covered one hand with the other, thrusting them into his lap where they could not be seen.
‘Is there something you want to say?’ She looked at him, willing him to speak. ‘Something you want to tell me?’
He shook his head.
Simms kept her voice low and even. ‘Take your time.’ She waited and he looked like he wanted to spit in order to get a bad taste out of his mouth.
‘I’d like some water,’ he said.
‘In a moment.’
‘My client is requesting a break,’ the solicitor said.
Simms kept her eyes on Howard. ‘Did you remember something? Is that it?’
He shook his head.
‘Mr Howard, look at me.’
But he just shook his head again and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing convulsively. He stared at his hands in his lap and, in the silence, she heard a constant
tick
,
tick
,
tick
, as he picked at the scabs.
23
The debrief was set for 8 p.m., and many had arrived half an hour early to type up reports and complete task sheets. Those who had been canvassing saunas came in from the dark smelling of cold city air, and dripping with sleety rain, the ice still melting from the shoulder pads of their winter coats. Sergeant Renwick was the last to arrive, clipboard in hand.
‘Okay, the sooner we get cracking, the sooner we can all go home,’ Simms said.
Renwick nodded to her and hurried to his desk.
‘Who did the check on Rika?’
‘Me, Boss.’ She located the detective who had spoken. He was slouched in his chair, a paunchy, grey-haired officer in his mid-fifties; the type who should have retired on an ordinary pension after twenty-five years’ service, but was holding out for the better deal guaranteed by doing the full thirty.
‘Do you have an actual name, or d’you just go by “Me”?’
He sat up. ‘Beasley, Boss.’
‘Well, Detective Constable Beasley?’
He raised his shoulders. ‘Nothing to report, Boss,’ he said.
‘Really?’ She stared at him. ‘Nothing? So, what, you wandered the streets calling her name, and nobody answered, is that it?’
He shuffled in his seat. ‘I spoke to people – nobody’d heard of her.’
She nodded. ‘People. Is that what you’re going to write in your report?’ He gave her the truculent look of a teen, unfairly picked on, but didn’t answer. ‘
Who
did you speak to?
Names
, Constable.
Where
did you speak to them?
When
?’
One of the younger officers opened his notebook and began surreptitiously reading over his notes, which was exactly what Simms intended.
‘Details, Constable,’ she said.
Beasley suddenly realized that she wasn’t going to let him off the hook, and began thumbing through his notebook.
‘Um … I haven’t had a chance to type it up yet, but …’ He found the relevant pages and gave her a list of locations and names.
Most were street names of working girls – a lot of them would be false, but that wasn’t the point – she was sending a message that she would not accept sloppy work.
‘Times?’ she said.
‘Between about two and five, Boss,’ he said.
‘Hm.’ She looked at him. ‘So, if one of the girls works a particular street corner at a particular time, and we need to speak to her again, you expect one of your colleagues to hang around for
three hours
because you couldn’t be bothered to write down the exact time?’