Team Spirit (Special Crime Unit Book 1) (27 page)

The black Mini was
gone. They could see two Astras, but in the improving light it was plain
neither was dark blue. Suddenly Lucky’s arm lunged out. ‘Look!’ They followed
her pointing finger. There was a man on the pavement, just a silhouette under
the streetlights. He’d spotted them, now he was running. ‘Go, sarge!’ Lucky
said. ‘We can cut him off.’

‘No,’
Kim said firmly. ‘Got a civilian with us, remember? No offence,’ she added,
turning to Juliet.

‘No
problem,’ Juliet said.

‘Did
you see where he came from?’ Kim asked Lucky.

‘Out
from one of the driveways, I think.’

She
peered ahead again, but the running figure had gone. ‘Definitely nobody else
with him?’

‘Not
that I saw.’

‘I
don’t like this.’ Kim unclipped her belt and opened her door. Lucky followed
suit, as, a hesitant moment later, did Juliet. Kim stopped her. ‘You’d better
stay in the car. I’ll leave you the keys and you can lock yourself in, you’ll
be OK.’

‘What
if I need to come and find you?’ Juliet said.

‘She’s
got a point, sarge,’ Lucky said over the roof. ‘We don’t know what the picture
is here. She’d do better sticking with us, in case.’

Reluctantly,
Kim agreed, with a fierce warning to Juliet to keep at least one of them in
sight. As an afterthought, she reached down for the baton she kept under the
seat. You just never knew.

Lucky
led them to where she’d seen the figure emerge. It was not a drive but a
narrow, chalky alleyway, plunging into the gloom under some trees. Ordering
Juliet to stay close behind, Kim and Lucky advanced side by side, Kim trying to
keep quiet and upright in impractical shoes. Presently they reached a
t-junction. Kim indicated that she should explore to the right and Lucky the
left, then turned and whispered in Juliet’s ear.

‘Stay
here. We won’t go far. Keep both of us in sight and shout if you have to.’
Juliet nodded, looking scared. Kim felt able to give her a reassuring smile. In
her white dress they, at least, weren’t likely to lose her. ‘Let’s go.’

They
stepped out and went their separate ways.

Juliet
didn’t have to wait long.

‘Sarge!’

The
taut cry froze Kim’s blood. She gripped her baton, turned and ran towards where
Lucky was kneeling by a clump of ground elder, stumbling and almost falling as
a heel gave way on the chalk. As she approached the spot Lucky glanced up,
mobile already to her ear, other hand outstretched towards something on the
ground. She looked like a ghost, her cinnamon complexion drained and ashy. Kim
realised she was not looking at her but beyond, to where Juliet had followed
Kim and was standing, horrified at what she couldn’t see but what she, too,
knew was there.

‘Go
back to the street,’ Lucky snapped. ‘Knock on the first door you come to, get
somebody out of bed. Don’t take no for an answer, get towels, a first aid kit,
anything they can give you.’

Juliet
stood and stared. Kim took a step back towards her. ‘You’ll be all right,’ she
said. ‘Go!’

Juliet
went, running. Kim joined Lucky and looked down.

‘Jesus
Christ.’

It
hardly seemed adequate.

The
sprawled mass in the weeds was Nina. Kim was standing in a pool of her blood,
and it was spreading.

Her eyes saw only
coloured light. Her lips, touching, sought out warmth and found it on his neck,
his chin, then his mouth which they encircled, searching hungrily. He groaned.
He waited until he felt her grip relax and began to increase the rhythm once
more, taking his lips away from hers, across her cheek to her ear as her head
turned to one side for him. He raised himself up on his elbows and watched her.
Her face, an expression of joy, eyes closed and mouth open, seeking out his
arms and touching them, tasting the skin stretched over his biceps. He looked
down at the firm roundness of her breasts. At the smooth skin of her belly,
sequinned with beads of perspiration. The tight, wide hips to hold and caress.
The shiny, muscled thighs spread to receive him. The dense black delta of curly
fur that decorated the entrance to the heaven of which he was now a part. She
was beautiful. Not just, as the saying went, a pretty face but now, her guard
down, abandoned to him, in everything. Her closeness, her body, her trust, her love
given in return for his. He looked at her. He loved her. All those long months
of waiting, watching, listening to her, gearing himself up to speak and then
backing out for fear of rejection; hanging on her every word for any clue, any
hint she felt towards him the same way as he to her. And now, here she was.
Here
they
were. He was making love to Jasmin. He was making love to Jasmin. Surely it was
a dream, as it always had been.

He
pushed deeper into the dream, building steadily as he fed her his body, his
being. And she accepted, whimpering now, wrapping her legs around his back, and
she came again with a scream, pulling him down, his hands on her breasts, his
body with her body, and her orgasm was his trigger, as all his feelings
suddenly canalised, withdrew with an electric purr from his every part and
extremity and fed themselves like a lightning bolt out through his groin as his
climax detonated, erupting into her womb with a soft warm splash. He cried out
after it; then he sank down, exhausted and satisfied at last, into her tender
embrace.

He
sighed. She kissed his cheek.

‘Stay
tonight,’ she asked.

‘All
right.’

Hovering
on the edge of sleep, they’d no way of telling how long had passed before
Jasmin’s mobile ruptured their idyll.

‘Winter,’
she said, nuzzling back into the warmth of his embrace. They grinned in unison
at their secret. He put his ear close to the phone but all he could hear was
someone squawking. Jasmin said, ‘Kim, hi. No, we - I wasn’t sleeping. What is
it?’

She
listened. Then, suddenly, he felt her every muscle tense.

‘
Moeder
Gods
.’ She
tore herself free, sat up and crossed herself. ‘She is - ? No... slow down.’
She turned to him, but he could read nothing behind her deep frown. ‘OK. Twenty
minutes, we are there.’ She rang off and sat bolt upright, clasping a hand to
her mouth.

‘What’s
wrong?’

‘We
have to go in,’ she said. She told him why.

‘Fuck,’
he said. ‘What happened?’

‘I
don’t know. Kim found her. That’s all she said. Sophia is calling the whole
team in.’

For
a moment, despite their shock, they pondered the question uppermost in their
minds.

Jeff
voiced it. ‘Should we arrive separately, d’you think?’

‘You
are kidding?’ She threw herself into his arms and held him tight. They were
both shaking. ‘I’m not letting you out of my sight just now.’

‘We’d
best get dressed, then.’

‘Uh-huh,’
she said. ‘But it might take some time.’ She took one hand from under the
bedclothes and held it out, palm down. He put his beside it. They were doing a
creditable impression of leaves in a high wind.

Kim had gone with
the ambulance, leaving Lucky the keys to her car, instructions to drop Juliet
and go on to the nick. Now they were parked outside Juliet’s house. Lucky had
made no move except to slump forward and rest her forehead against the steering
wheel.

‘Now
I know why you joined the police,’ Juliet said, with something approaching awe.
‘That was impressive back there.’

Lucky
looked up. Her face was pinched, as though on the verge of tears. ‘Thanks.’
Juliet tried not to notice the vivid, bloody handprint on one cheek, the dark
streak on the other where she’d wiped her jaw.

‘You
OK?’

‘I
don’t know.’ She sighed and shook her head. ‘I just don’t know any more.’

Juliet
waited, but Lucky suddenly seemed intent on studying her clothes, which had
blood on them as well. It didn’t look as if she was going to get any more out
of her. She unclipped her seatbelt and opened the door.

‘Look,
Larissa, I’m your best mate,’ she ventured. ‘Something’s bothering you.’

‘Of
course
something’s bothering me!’
Lucky shouted, smashing her fists down on the wheel, making her friend jump.

‘Yep.
Right. Sorry.’ Cowed, Juliet got out. But she wasn’t fooled. Those clenched
fists, like a frustrated child’s. Shocking though her discovery had been, this
wasn’t about a murderous attack on a colleague she’d barely met. Juliet bent
down to the open window. ‘Before you dash off and don’t ring me again for a
month...’

‘I’ll
ring.’

‘I
want to know if Nina’s going to be all right, whether they’ve caught that
bloke.’

‘He
might not’ve had anything to do with it.’

‘Yeah,
right.’ She laid a hand on her friend’s arm. ‘Not from the newspapers or off
the telly. From you, all right?’

‘Soon
as I hear.’ Lucky, impatient to be away, almost smiled.

‘Better
let you get on.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Sure
you’ll be OK? The amount you’ve had to drink.’

‘Look,
if
that
didn’t sober me up,’ Lucky gestured in the rough direction of Ballards Way,
‘what will?’

‘Just
drive carefully,’ Juliet said.

‘Yes,
mum.’

The office looked
like a scene from the middle reel of a disaster movie. There were Zoltan, Jeff
and Helen, still in their party gear which was starting to look dishevelled. In
contrast, Jasmin had changed into a grey sweater and green chinos, and Lucky
still wore her top and jeans from last night. A thick silence reigned. On faces
the prevailing expression was stunned disbelief; anger had yet to take hold.

All
but four of the team were present. Sophia had elected not to tell Sandra Jones
or Marie Kirtland, her reasoning being that anything they knew would be likely
to filter back to Anne White and, although she was bound to hear eventually,
the DCI had no wish to spoil her memories of her farewell knees-up just yet.
Her intention was negated rather by putting Zoltan Schneider in charge, but not
having been at the club there was no way she could have known about their
relationship.

Zoltan,
who’d had his back turned, rang off and slammed the phone back on its cradle.
‘Right,’ he said, ‘everyone here?’ No-one answered. ‘Good. Kim’s rung back from
Mayday. The verdict’s in from A and E, the results of which I’ve just relayed
to the guv’nor.’

He
paused, expecting some response, anything but the complete, deathly quiet, the
blank faces that stared at him like a Greek frieze.

‘At
the moment the prognosis seems to be that hoary hospital cliché, too early to
say. They’ve done some running repairs and she’s gone to theatre. She’s very
poorly; someone, to put it bluntly, has had a good go at gutting her like a
fish. She’s been stabbed four times: once over the breastbone, twice just
underneath the ribs and once on the upper right thigh. Three of these wounds
are superficial; of greatest concern are the internal injuries caused by the
fourth, which looks as if it missed her heart purely by chance.’

‘Bloody
finishing her off,’ Jeff growled, turning to Lucky. ‘If you and Kim hadn’t - ’

‘Was
she awake at all? Did she say anything?’ Helen demanded. ‘About who did it?’

‘Pardon
my French, sarge.’ Lucky stood up and indicated her gory clothes. She’d washed
her face but not thoroughly; there were still one or two reddish-brown smears.
‘Fucking
look
at me! We were wading in this. She arrested when they were putting her in the
fucking ambulance. What do
you
think?’

‘Sorry.’
Helen lowered her head. ‘Next question.’

Jasmin
voiced what no-one wanted to ask. ‘Was she raped?’

‘First
thing they checked for once they’d stabilised her,’ Zoltan said, mustering a
faint smile. ‘Rest assured, Nina was not raped or otherwise sexually
assaulted.’

‘He
spared her that, at least,’ Helen muttered, chin in hand.

‘Don’t
ask me
why
he didn’t.’ The DI shrugged. ‘It seems he had ample opportunity. Perhaps
because she was wearing jeans with a sturdy belt. I don’t know. Whatever it
was, he left her inviolate.’

‘Big
fucking deal,’ Lucky said.

‘Nail
scrapings we have,’ Zoltan continued. ‘Dirt. What good it does us I don’t
know.’

‘Skin?’ Jeff said. ‘She must’ve put up a - ’

‘I
don’t think she got the chance,’ Zoltan retorted, finding himself too shocked
for his customary sarcasm. ‘Although Nina was on call last night and should’ve
had all her service gubbins on her, Kim’s been through her stuff and can’t find
her phone, warrant card or handcuffs. There are marks on her wrists which
suggest,’ he added heavily, ‘she was restrained with them.’

‘Bastard,’
Jeff muttered in the pindrop silence.