Team Spirit (Special Crime Unit Book 1) (35 page)

‘Tip
of the iceberg,’ Zoltan murmured. He knew the same thought was going through
Summerfield’s mind. Twenty-one unsolved rapes, minimum, all down to the same
man. In this forensics-dominated day and age it was almost inconceivable. He
shuddered the thought away. ‘Got an inventory?’

Summerfield
thrust a hand into his breast pocket and slapped a folded photocopy down on the
table. ‘Prosser’s little trophy cabinet.’

Expressionless
behind his glasses, Zoltan read slowly through the list. ‘This last but one
thing,’ he remarked. ‘Bit of a stretch to see that as phallic.’

The
DCI shrugged. ‘Depends how your mind works.’

Zoltan
stroked his beard. ‘How old is Lucky?’

‘Twenty-two,’
Summerfield said, puzzled. ‘But you know that.’

‘I’m
being Socrates,’ Zoltan said, unsurprised at Summerfield’s blank look.
‘Youngest of the known victims by a couple of years. Young enough still to be
living at home and to have a lot of childhood stuff still knocking around. You
may want to direct someone,’ he said, ‘to get her on the phone and find out if
she took pottery classes at school.’

This
time the blank look faded quickly. Summerfield pointed to the list and said,
‘If she did, can we prove it’s hers?’

‘Quick
call to Human Resources should do it.’ Zoltan grinned like a crocodile. ‘And I
just can’t wait to hear what his lordship has to say about this.’

Michael Prosser’s
legal representative, an articled clerk called Shinners, had been called in
only this morning, in his client’s own interests but against his wishes. He was
busy boning up on the case as the two policemen came in, and seemed hardly to
notice them.

‘A
DI
and
a
DCI,’ Prosser said, eyebrows raised as Summerfield identified himself for the
tape. ‘I am honoured. You must want summink tasty.’

‘That
what you’re sitting on, Michael? Something tasty?’ Zoltan looked at him
askance. Clearly he was going to be as talkative this morning as he’d been
taciturn yesterday.

‘For
you to prove, innit?’

‘We
have proof.’

‘I
been in here well over twenty-four hours,’ he challenged them. ‘Either charge
me or I walk.’

‘You
haven’t looked at your PACE code of practice very carefully, have you?’
Summerfield said. ‘Thirty-six, we’ve got you for. After that, if you haven’t
given us the goods, we take you to a JP and ask for a remand. Anything up to,
say, a week. Seven days’ questioning, Mike. We’ve got a lot to cover. Feeling
up to it?’

‘Keep
me here seven months if you like,’ Prosser said. ‘I ain’t giving you nothing.’

‘I’m
not interested in you giving me things, Michael,’ Summerfield said. ‘You know
and I know you raped those women.’

‘They
wasn’t raped.’

‘Weren’t
they?’

‘What
I hear.’

‘It
might not be rape in law,’ Summerfield said, ‘but if using those implements the
way you did isn’t rape, I’m a Chinaman.’

‘What
implements?’

‘Mr
Schneider’s been over this with you, Michael,’ Summerfield said. ‘So far we’ve
found twenty-one mostly phallic-shaped souvenirs hidden in your house and
garage. Some of them have already been identified by their owners.’

Twenty-one
terrified women, Zoltan thought, all scarred for life because you couldn’t just
burgle. You had to go on a dominance trip.

‘And
I know, you know, you can’t prove shit,’ Prosser countered. ‘That stuff’s all
just junk. You won’t find my prints on none of it.’

‘No?
Bit strange, isn’t it? Found in your loft; you’re the only man in the household.
Don’t make your poor old mum go up there, do you?’

Prosser
sneered.

‘I
doubt it,’ Summerfield said. ‘Because I dare say we won’t find her prints
either.’

‘Maybe
not. And you sure as fuck won’t find them women’s.’

‘Because
you wiped them off.’

‘Shit’s
been up there since before we moved in. You can’t prove none of them women even
touched them.’

‘We
don’t need proof, Michael.’

It
was Zoltan who spoke. He’d been brooding, nudging the interview on, letting
Summerfield build up a head of steam.

‘There’s
a term in law: “beyond reasonable doubt”. Ever heard of that? It means even if
the prosecution hasn’t got hard proof, you can still be convicted on
circumstantial evidence. For God’s sake, Michael, do you seriously think you
can get away with rape just because you didn’t do it in front of a hundred
witnesses with your name and address tattooed across your bum? So far we’ve
reunited twelve women with items from your collection they say are theirs. You
can read their statements. Twelve, so far. More to come, I shouldn’t wonder. No
jury,’ Zoltan smiled and shook his head, ‘is going to swallow twelve
coincidences.’

‘That
little lot,’ Summerfield added, ‘you’re looking at life.’

‘No
remission, if we can match up all twenty-one.’

It
was unfortunate that the smirk finally disappeared from Michael Prosser’s face
at the same moment his legal representative chose to come to life. Shinners
told him, ‘Mike, this jury exists inside the officers’ minds and nowhere else.
Don’t let them badger you.’

Prosser
nodded, his expression thoughtful. ‘Mind you, don’t want me for them ones, do
you?’

‘Don’t
I now?’ Zoltan savoured the moment. He’d lost count of how often Prosser had
tried to goad him. Well, this time...

‘You
want me for Stephenson. And you won’t get me ‘cause I was never there. I told
you what really happened. I know what a jury’s gonna think, her word against
mine.’

‘Fingerprints,’
Zoltan said. Without warning he deposited a polythene-wrapped lump of crudely
shaped, glazed brown clay on the table. ‘I don’t think you’ve been formally
introduced. Mike, meet Weezle.’

‘You
what?’ Prosser peered at the thing with scorn. ‘Think you’re gonna find my
prints on that, you’re – ’

‘You
remember,’ Zoltan interrupted him chattily. ‘You liked him so much you took him
from Larissa Stephenson’s bedroom after you’d raped her. Obviously you weren’t
about to cut off your own penis and frame it, so you chose Weezle because you
guessed, rightly, he was precious to her.’

‘Get
real.’

‘This
is
real,
Michael.’

‘It’s
a lump of fucking mud. Could’ve come from anywhere.’

Zoltan
picked Weezle up. ‘Larissa Stephenson made this with her own hands when she was
twelve years old. It doesn’t matter a toss whether you wiped off every
fingermark and every speck of dirt, because
her
fingerprints are all over this
clay where it set hard ten years ago.’ Prosser’s eyes were cast down. ‘Now you
can tell us your version of events any way you like. This little chap,’ he
brandished Weezle one last time before putting him back under the table, ‘is
going off to Forensic, and if they find prints that match Larissa Stephenson’s,
it puts you in her bedroom, it renders her account of things more believable
than yours, and we’ll charge you with raping her.’

He
sat back, folding his arms. Prosser didn’t move.

‘Now,’
Summerfield said, ‘how about saving us all some time?’

‘Fuck
off,’ Michael Prosser snapped.

It was something
HOLMES excelled at, putting two and two together to make five. It was why, as
far as Kim Oliver could see, no computer would ever take the place of human
detectives on a major enquiry. Real live coppers must use their knowledge,
experience and intuition to discern when the electronic sleuth really did have
something and when it was in cloud cuckoo land. That said, this particular
copper wasn’t sure, at the moment,
what
HOLMES was telling her.

She
stared at the screen, feeling helpless. Like most of the team, she was finding
it hard to focus. Lucky’s rape, on top of the attack on Nina, had cast a pall
of shock over them all. Rumours of Special Crime being wound up were creeping
round the nick. Everyone knew the right body was in the frame but the current
whisper was that any charges were far from certain. With AC Parmiter breathing
down their necks, they needed a result badly.

Giving
up, she clicked print and went to seek higher counsel. Sophia listened
patiently while she explained what HOLMES had found. ‘I really, really dunno if
it’s anything. This kid two streets over from Ballards Way, coming home from a
night out clubbing, says he saw a bloke get in a minicab and ask to go to
Ladyhall Road. And we checked and there’s no Ladyhall Road in Greater London so
we figured he’d misheard, right? But then Grace Carmichael reported being
threatened in Lady
well
Road, Lewisham, yeah? And I’ve just had a word with Quaife’s probation
officer. This heavy metal band he’s been humping gear for, they’re called
Ladywell.’

‘Did
the probation officer tell you anything more about the band?’

Kim
shrugged. ‘Not even names, guv. Apparently this was just casual work, cash in
hand. Till he got summink better, I guess.’

Thoughtful,
Sophia examined her fingernails for a moment. ‘Do you know of this...
Ladywell?’

‘No,
guv.’ Kim was faintly amused that Sophia thought metal might be her bag.
‘Thousands of small-time bands like that.’

‘Possibly,’
the DCI frowned. ‘Must be one or two headbangers in this nick who might know.’

Kim
couldn’t think of any off the top of her head. Police haircuts were a great
leveller. She said, ‘Brian knows a bit about music.’

He
was at his desk. Sophia called his name and beckoned. As he ambled over with
his customary half smile, she asked him, ‘Ever heard of a metal band called
Ladywell?’

‘Sounds
a bit seventies.’ He went blank for a moment, searching his memory. ‘Rings a
vague bell. Not really my sort of thing.’

‘You’ve
heard of them, though?’

‘Somewhere,
yeah.’

‘We’re
just trying to find names of band members,’ Kim said.

Brian
chuckled indulgently, as though she were asking for the Holy Grail. ‘Have you
looked them up on Facebook, MySpace?’

‘Yeah.
No lineup listings that I could see.’

‘You’re
a bit buggered then,’ Brian commented. Then he brightened. ‘Tell you what. You
could try ringing
Kerrang
.’

‘The
hard rock magazine?’ Kim said.

‘Yeah.
See if they’ve heard of them. They might be able to tell you.’

‘Good
thinking.’ Sophia flashed him an approving glance. To Kim she said, ‘Get onto
it.’

She
was in luck. The journalist she was put through to had not only reviewed a
Ladywell gig at the Mean Fiddler two issues ago, but also had a list of dates
for a forthcoming tour of Germany. If Quaife and/or Porter were in need of a
low profile way out of the country, this could be it. The journalist was able
to provide a lineup that was complete except for the drummer, whose identity
had eluded him in a haze of lager. Grabbing the London residential phone book,
Kim looked them up one by one. Beaded plaits are too heavy to stand on end, but
she still had a crawly feeling on her scalp when she came to Malcolm Kavanagh,
the group’s bassist, and discovered a Kavanagh, M. listed at 289A Ladywell
Road, SE13.

Her rational mind
was still telling her what a stretch this all was when Marie Kirtland walked
into the office at half past four, several hours later than she’d been expected
back from a court appearance, and headed straight for her, a writeable DVD in
her hand. Marie explained that on her way out of court she’d had a phone call
from DC Scott Cooper, the Lewisham CID officer who’d taken the complaint from
Grace Carmichael. Spurred by the connection to a major investigation of a case
that had seemed the epitome of the mundane, he’d been combing through CCTV
footage and had found what appeared to be a dreadlocked white man talking to
another white male in Ladywell Road at about the same time that Grace had
reported being threatened by Quaife there two Fridays hence. After about three
minutes, the dreadlocked man had suddenly half spun around as if startled and
then sprinted out of shot. Marie had driven over to Lewisham to view the
footage. She hadn’t needed more than a brief look to identify the sprinter as
Philip Meredith. She’d needed a bit more time than that to recognise the other
individual, and would need to run the tape past Kim to be definite, but she was
pretty sure it was the man who’d been parking at Grace Carmichael’s house the other
week just as they had been leaving.

So much of the time
passed in long periods of shallow sleep that Nina had given up trying to keep
track. She woke now and opened her eyes, and there was low early evening
sunshine slanting in through the window, and Paul sitting at her bedside, his
body turned away from the light so it didn’t dazzle the pages of his magazine.
She exhaled deeply to let him know she was conscious.