Cross and Burn (29 page)

H
e stood in the garage doorway and stared at the freezer. He had high hopes of this one. She was, he reckoned, the right raw material for his project. He’d been too hasty, and that had led him into error. He’d been impatient to find the right replacement; he’d forgotten what it took to break a woman in from scratch. Like horses and dogs, it was always easier to work with one that had been taught some of the basics already.

That was where he’d gone wrong. That Polish bitch didn’t even have a live-in boyfriend. She had no idea of what it took to be a perfect wife. How could she? She couldn’t even speak English properly, for starters. He hated her stupid accent. If he’d realised she was a foreigner, he wouldn’t have chosen her. Her looks had confused him, tricked him into thinking she was the one. That had always been what let Sirikit down. Her English was good, but she still had a bit of an accent, which grated on him. But more than that, she was dark. He wanted a blonde. He’d always wanted a blonde. Ever since he’d seen Lauren Hutton in
American Gigolo
when he was barely a teenager, that was what he’d wanted. That was what he’d married, and the replacement would have to be blonde too.

It was naïve to think that a woman who didn’t already know how to take care of a man could be broken in easily. The Polish bitch had fought him every inch of the way. He’d made it plain to her that, just like in
Star Trek,
resistance was futile. He’d tried every trick in the book, every technique he could think of before he finally had to concede you couldn’t alter their fundamental nature. This one wouldn’t give in and she wouldn’t give up. In the end, the only satisfaction for him had been the final beating. He’d stripped everything from her that defined her and in the process he had made it clear what she really was – a lump of faceless, useless meat. No use even for sex. He’d washed her clean of any trace of him, made sure nobody else could get any use out of her then kicked her to death.

At least it had confirmed that there was, as he had suspected, genuine satisfaction to be had from finishing with the ones who let him down. He’d planned it for the very first one but he’d been thwarted. He’d fantasised about doing it, but the reality had outstripped the fantasy. That heady, drunken moment of absolute power when life finally leaked away was the best feeling he’d ever known.

But still. He was an optimist. He wanted to believe there could be as much delight in the perfect wife as there was in the perfect dealing out of death. And so he’d tried again. But the next one had been no better. He should have known. He’d hoped that the reason she was divorced was that her husband had been a poor excuse for a man, giving her no opportunity to demonstrate what she was capable of.

It didn’t take long for him to realise she was probably divorced because she was a crap wife. He’d been hopeful when he’d tasted the steak she’d cooked. But the potatoes had been unforgivable. If she’d reached that age without being able to boil a potato properly, there was no hope for her. After that, the sex had been a formality. Even if she’d been the most exciting shag on the planet, it was too late for redemption. Perfection was always going to be out of her reach. All she was good for by that point was killing.

In spite of that, he was still hopeful. Sirikit had shown him that it was possible to find a woman who could be what he demanded. This latest one was married, that was a start. Just so long as she hadn’t fallen into irreversible bad habits thanks to a weak and indulgent husband. He blamed other men for letting women get away with too much. It was like what they said about dogs. There was no such thing as a bad dog, only a bad master. Well, he was the good master. And this new one would be best in show, he felt it in his heart.

For now, she had to learn the first lesson. He was master. This time, he’d leave her locked away in the freezer for longer. Then she’d be properly grateful when he eventually let her out. Gratitude went a long way, in his experience. It was the same at work. You gave a little, and because people had such low expectations, you got a lot. It was one of the secrets of his success. Now all he had to do was teach it to the woman in the freezer.

T
he reception area of the custody suite was without comfort. It smelled, bizarrely, of stale sausage rolls and rotting fruit. Behind the scarred and untidy counter was a middle-aged man with a tonsure of chestnut stubble and a white shirt that strained over a barrel chest. The custody sergeant had a face like a rumpled Boxer, all creases and jowls. Carol almost expected him to slobber as he looked Bronwen Scott up and down. ‘You’re a bit late tonight, Ms Scott,’ he growled. ‘Will it not wait till morning?’

‘The clock’s running, as you well know, Sergeant Fowler. My client’s facing very serious charges and we need to make a start at clearing his name.’

‘Funny, he never mentioned having a solicitor. And he never made a phone call after he was brought down here. You developing telepathy as one of your skills?’

Scott leaned on the counter and produced a menacing smile. ‘I don’t think my means of communicating with my clients is any of your business. Now, I want to see my client. And in an interview room, not some nasty little cell that smells of piss and vomit.’ It was an impressive performance, Carol thought, remembering all the times Bronwen Scott’s production numbers had driven her to distraction. Being on the same side was a lot more fun.

Sergeant Fowler made great play of consulting his watch and comparing it to the clock on the wall behind him. ‘Let me see. DCI Fielding will be wanting to interview at nine, and your client is entitled to eight hours’ rest, and it’s half past eleven already. So I reckon that gives you an hour with your client, tops.’

‘I’ll take as long with my client as I need. If that means DCI Fielding has to rearrange her plans for the morning, that’s the way the cookie crumbles, Sergeant Fowler. Now, are you going to produce Dr Hill?’

‘One moment,’ he said ponderously, his forehead corrugating. He scratched his armpit then pointed at Carol, who had been hanging back in the doorway. ‘Is she with you?’

Scott gave a nonchalant glance over her shoulder. ‘My intern? Of course.’

‘Do you think I’m daft? Your intern?’ He leaned forward, his mouth moving as if he was chewing a wad of tobacco. ‘It’s DCI Jordan, as was, right?’

‘With the emphasis on “as was”, Sergeant Fowler. I don’t think our paths actually crossed while I was still working.’ She stepped forward and produced her most winning smile.

‘What am I supposed to call you, anyway?’ he asked Carol.

‘Ms Jordan will do nicely, Sergeant. It’s my name. I don’t have a rank any more.’

He scratched the band of stubble that ran round his head, frowning. ‘Well, Ms Jordan. I can’t let you sit in on an interview between a prisoner and his solicitor. You’re just a civilian, you’ve no cause to be there.’

‘I’m shadowing Ms Scott. I’m planning on a career in the law, Sergeant Fowler. It’s a shame to waste all that hands-on experience. My role here is purely as an observer.’

‘But you know him. You used to work with him.’ He threw his hands in the air, a gesture that threatened his shirt buttons. He was clearly struggling for a valid reason why Carol shouldn’t be involved. ‘It’s not… appropriate.’

‘Oh, behave, Sergeant. Anybody would think you were still wet behind the ears,’ Scott said. ‘I’m always dealing with people I’ve encountered before. Defence witness one week, accused the next. And who do you think defends bent coppers? Criminal lawyers like me. So get down off your high horse and give Ms Jordan some credit for choosing an exciting new career path.’

‘It’s not as if I can leak confidential information to the defence, is it?’ Carol wondered whether she was laying it on too thick, but Sergeant Fowler looked relieved at the thought.

‘So can you fetch Dr Hill for us? The sooner we get started, the quicker we’ll be done and the happier DCI Fielding will be in the morning,’ Scott said in the kind of tone it was hard to argue against.

Fowler hauled himself to his feet and emerged from behind the counter. ‘You can use the interview room at the end of the cell corridor. Follow me, ladies.’

He set off past the steel doors. Scott turned to Carol and winked. ‘Overture and beginners,’ she said under her breath. ‘Let’s do it, Carol.’

No turning back. She’d spent months literally working Tony Hill out of her system. And now she was about to discover whether she’d succeeded.

T
ony had taken off his jacket and folded it under him to make the bed a more comfortable seat. Though it left a lot to be desired, at least he could sit cross-legged with his back to the wall in a relatively relaxed posture, eyes closed and hands loose in his lap. He didn’t know whether he could sleep sitting up, but he was absolutely certain he couldn’t do it lying down on that pallet. Still, buoyed up by his realisation of how his DNA had ended up on Nadia Wilkowa’s jacket, he could finally chill a little.

The window in his cell door opened with a sharp metallic clang, startling him with a jolt. It clanged shut again before he had composed himself enough to work out what was happening. Then the door opened and the sergeant who had checked him into the cell stood in the doorway, hands on hips to make himself look bigger, eyebrows lowered to add to his threat level. All textbook stuff. ‘Wakey wakey, Hill. Your lawyer’s here for a conference.’

He understood the words but they made no sense. ‘I’ve got a lawyer?’

‘Don’t you bloody start. I’ve had enough from her end. If you didn’t have a lawyer, she wouldn’t be in the interview room asking me to produce you, would she?’

Paula.
She must have ignored him and decided to sort him out with a lawyer regardless. It wouldn’t hurt to sit down in a more comfortable room and tell them that he really didn’t need legal representation now he’d worked out how to explain the key evidence against him. Still, it would pass some time. So he unfolded his legs and stood up. He picked up his jacket and tried to put it on both arms at once, like Martin Sheen always did in
The West Wing
. As usual, he got into a tangle. It needed more practice, that was all. He caught the eye of the custody sergeant, who was struggling not to laugh. ‘A man needs a hobby,’ Tony said, stepping gratefully out of the cell into the corridor. He was about to head for the counter where he’d emptied his pockets earlier, but the sergeant blocked his path, directing him towards a door that stood ajar at the end of the corridor.

Feeling surprisingly jaunty, Tony pushed the door open. At first his brain denied what he was seeing. Bronwen Scott, he accepted that. She was the sort of person he’d expected to see. But the blonde head facing away from the door – it couldn’t be. He was hallucinating. Or delusional. Then she turned her head and something inside him lurched and twisted. The ground beneath his feet seemed to tilt and he stumbled. ‘Carol?’ His voice held a mixture of wonder and doubt. So much for cutting her out of his heart. Apparently his heart hadn’t got the message.

‘You’ve got an hour,’ Sergeant Fowler grunted as he closed the door firmly behind him.

Bronwen Scott got to her feet and greeted him with a wide smile. ‘Dr Hill. I didn’t expect to encounter you in circumstances like this, but we’ll have this sorted out in no time at all.’

He ignored her and walked round to the far side of the table like a sleepwalker. ‘Carol?’ He grabbed the back of the chair for support and subsided into it. He wanted to reach out and touch her, to confirm that he wasn’t lost in some psychotic break.

Carol pushed her hair off her forehead, her eyes flinty, her face forbidding. ‘I’m not here for you. I’m here because Paula knows how stupid you can be. You need Bronwen to get you out of this mess. Otherwise more women will die. If you’d thought about something other than yourself for five minutes, you would have understood that. So don’t fool yourself that you’re the big draw tonight. I’m here for Paula and for justice and for the women whose names we don’t even know.’

Right then, he didn’t care why she was there. All that mattered was that they were sitting in the same room again. The edifice he’d built to protect himself from his feelings for her was already a crumbling ruin. How could he have considered for a moment the possibility of excising her from his life? It was like rediscovering a limb he’d been managing without. A limb he’d thought amputated for ever. He couldn’t keep the grin from his face, even in the teeth of her unflinching glare.

He was aware that Bronwen Scott was speaking but he had nothing to spare for her. He drank in every detail, checking it against the mental checklist he hadn’t even known he’d been keeping. Her hair was styled differently – the lines more blunt, the shagginess thinned out more. The lines around her eyes were deeper, the new traces in her face from sorrow rather than laughter. Her shoulders seemed broader, the seams of her jacket straining slightly where before there had been ample room for a shrug. She’d always been self-contained; now she was like a door slammed in his face.

‘Dr Hill?’ Scott had raised her voice and finally penetrated. ‘We don’t have long. I need your version of events so we can set about getting you out of here.’

‘And finding out who killed those two women,’ Carol said.

‘That’s not my job,’ Scott said briskly. ‘And actually, Carol, it’s not your job any more either.’

Tony found his voice. ‘Maybe not, but I’d put my money on Carol without resources ahead of Alex Fielding and her murder squad.’

Carol rolled her eyes. A familiar gesture but denuded of the tolerant affection he’d grown used to. ‘I couldn’t be less interested in flattery. Like I said, I’m here for Paula.’

Her disdain was hard to take. It made something inside him clench in pain. But it was still better than not having her in the room at all. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Do you know why DCI Fielding has arrested you?’ Scott thrust herself back into the driving seat.

He nodded. ‘Because she’s one of those cops who can’t see past the evidence. You remember Alan Coren, the humorist? He once told his son, “Don’t write the first thing that comes into your head – the dim kids will have had that idea. Don’t write the second either – the clever boys will probably have thought of that one. Write the third idea – that will be yours alone.” Well, Alex Fielding’s never bothered to give the third idea house room.’

‘Very entertaining, Dr Hill.’ Now it was Scott’s turn to roll her eyes.

‘Tony, please.’ He knew he was showing off but he might never get another chance to remind Carol of what he could be.

‘I appreciate you see the world through the prism of the psyche, but could we focus on the evidential reasons why Fielding arrested you? Tony?’

When he’d sat in the observation room and watched Bronwen Scott in action, Tony had often wondered how different she was with her clients than when she was an opponent. Tougher than he’d expected, was the first answer. She wasn’t falling for his practised skills and she wasn’t indulging him. Time to return her moves in the same style. ‘The bodies of two murdered women have been found this week. For the record, I didn’t kill either of them. They were both brutally beaten, to the point where their faces were unrecognisable. Their labia were shaved and glued together. There’s no obvious connection between the two of them, although there might be a professional link. Nadzieja Wilkowa was single and Polish, she worked as a rep for a pharmaceutical company. Bev McAndrew was divorced, mother of a teenage son, and she was the pharmacist in charge at Bradfield Cross Hospital.’ He stopped. ‘You’re not taking notes.’

‘I’ll get all this in disclosure from Fielding. At this point, it’s interesting to have the background but I want to know where you come into the picture. And your version of events, of course.’

Carol raised a finger, indicating she wanted to speak. Scott nodded briskly. ‘How much of this did you know before Fielding questioned you?’

She hadn’t lost a yard of her pace, he thought, impressed with the question. ‘I knew quite a bit about Nadia Wilkowa. And I knew Bev was missing. She’s a friend of Paula’s and she asked my advice about her disappearance. I wasn’t much help. But in the course of that conversation, we talked about Nadia.’ He gave Carol a pained smile. ‘Actually, she took me to Nadia’s flat.’

‘Oh, Christ,’ Scott said. ‘So your prints and DNA are going to be all over the victim’s flat?’

‘I was gloved up,’ Tony said. ‘I’m not entirely hopeless. There shouldn’t be any obvious DNA traces. But DNA is one of the issues. There’s a bloodstain on Nadia’s jacket that has tested positive for my DNA.’ Carol nodded wearily, but Scott merely looked resigned. ‘When they interviewed me, I had no idea how that happened. But I’ve had time to think, and I can explain it.’

‘I’m pleased to hear that. So how did it come about?’ Scott leaned forward, fixing him with her attention.

‘As I think you both know, I do most of my work at Bradfield Moor Secure Hospital. I deal with a wide range of patients who come to us because they are either a danger to themselves or a danger to society. Their lives are often car crashes and they’re left stranded in the wreckage. When they first come in, they’re often frightened and angry and violent. About a year ago, I was called out to assess a young man who had run amok with a machete in his school staff-room. Luckily, he’d been tackled by a very brave teacher before anyone had been seriously injured.’

Tony clasped his hands in front of him, running his thumbs over each other again and again. ‘He’d been sedated before he came to us, but what I didn’t realise was that he’d been growing increasingly agitated before I went in to talk to him. He seemed calm on the surface but as soon as I started asking him to talk about what had happened, he managed to free one arm from its restraints and he punched me in the face. My nose was bleeding copiously and I left the room to get it stopped and cleaned up.’

Carol gave the barest of nods. ‘I remember you telling me about it.’

He looked straight at her. ‘You know how clumsy I am, Carol. I stumbled out into the corridor and through a set of swing doors, not really looking where I was going, paper towels up to my face. And I crashed into a woman coming the other way. She put her arm up to protect herself.’ He closed his eyes, replaying the scene. ‘I’m pretty sure it was her left arm. I apologised. She said, no harm done and went on her way.’ He opened his eyes. ‘She was a pharmaceutical rep, right? That’s what it said in the paper. So she had a reason to be there.’ It sounded thin. Artificial. Even to his ears. But that was often the way with the truth.

‘You bumped into a woman a year ago when you were having a nosebleed? And she still has your DNA on her sleeve?’ Scott sounded almost amused, as if this was the most outrageous attempt at exoneration she’d ever heard.

‘I’m just telling you what happened.’

‘You think she went a year without having her work clothes cleaned? Without realising she had your blood on her jacket?’

‘All I know is what happened. Now I’ve had my memory jogged, it’s quite clear.’

Carol’s investigative instincts cut in. ‘Was the incident logged in the Bradfield Moor accident book?’

‘It will have been,’ Tony said. ‘Because I needed an ice pack from the nursing team.’

‘We need to check that date and then we need to cross-check it with Nadia Wilkowa’s work diary,’ Carol said, tapping a note into her phone. ‘I’ll chase that up with Paula.’ He loved watching her doing what she’d always done best.

‘It’s a pity there’s no way of telling how old the DNA sample is. That would have resolved it on the spot,’ Scott added.

‘Even more of a pity that the blood ended up on something that gets dry-cleaned rather than shoved in the washing machine. If it had been through the hot wash a dozen times, it would be so degraded it would be obvious that it wasn’t made this week,’ Carol pointed out, not to be outdone in the DNA knowledge stakes.

‘Next time, I’ll aim for the blouse. So you think we can demolish the DNA evidence if we can prove the nosebleed incident?’

‘It gives reasonable doubt a helluva knock, that’s for sure,’ Scott said. ‘Was that it, then? Was that all she had?’

Tony shook his head sorrowfully. ‘Then there’s the thumbprint.’

Carol closed her eyes momentarily as if in pain. ‘What thumbprint, Tony? I thought you said you wore gloves at her flat?’

‘No, not on Nadia’s stuff. My thumbprint is on Bev’s phone.’ He tried the pitiful puppy smile again. This time, both women scowled at him. ‘I was completely baffled when they interviewed me about it earlier. Clueless. I’ve no recollection of ever clapping eyes on Bev in the flesh, never mind touching her phone.’

‘Was it a clear print?’ Scott asked.

Tony shook his head. ‘It was a bit smudged on one side and a bit distorted by the shape of the phone. But when Fielding showed it to me, I could see the points of similarity.’

‘Can you remember how many points of comparison were highlighted?’

‘I think it was six.’

Scott smiled. ‘I’m not worried about a fingerprint ID like that. I can put up half a dozen experts who’ll discredit it. These days, unless you get a crystal-clear fingermark on a flat surface, you can knock the feet from under any prosecution expert witness. Fingerprint comparison is so subjective it’s not even regarded as a science any more. All you have to say in court these days is “Shirley McKie” then watch the prosecution shrivel and die.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Tony said. ‘Who’s Shirley McKie?’

‘She was a Scottish police officer. Her fingerprint was wrongly identified inside a murder scene where she swore she’d never been. The Scottish forensic experts stuck to their guns and she was charged with perjury,’ Carol explained. ‘And then it all fell apart. Turns out that while it’s true all fingerprints are unique, identifying them is riddled with human error.’

‘So we can kick their fingerprint evidence right into the long grass,’ Scott said. ‘It’s history.’

‘That’s good,’ Tony said. ‘Because as it turns out, I was in Bradfield Cross on Monday afternoon. When Bev went missing.’

Carol groaned. ‘Why am I not surprised? Are you going to share it with us? Or shall we just play twenty questions?’ She shook her head. ‘Nothing changes.’

‘Actually, Carol, you might be surprised on that score. But this isn’t the time or the place for that conversation.’

‘There is no time and place for that conversation. Monday?’

Slapped down again. Tony took a deep breath and picked himself up. ‘I was at a meeting in Bradfield Cross Hospital late Monday afternoon. I tend not to agree with the consultant there, Will Newton. The man’s a moron. I think he got his qualifications by saving up Coco Pops box tops. By the end of the meeting, I was furious. I stomped out of the meeting room. All I wanted was to get out of there before I said something that would only make everything worse.’