Dead of Winter Tr (21 page)

‘Yes, sir?’

‘A Manhattan, and put my lovely companion’s on my tab.’

He turned to Harding. ‘Let’s move to a table.’ He picked up her drink and turned to the waiter: ‘Have my drink brought up.’ Then he led the way upstairs to the
restaurant.

After they had ordered he sat back and smiled at her. ‘What’s it been – three years? You look younger than ever. You had some work I don’t know about? I need to know who
the surgeon is if so. I need to congratulate him.’

‘That’s a backhanded compliment if ever I heard one but I think I should thank you. No work, and no chance I actually look as good as you’re implying.’

He smiled and reached over to touch her hand. ‘It’s good to see you. I hope it wasn’t a problem to tear yourself away tonight.’

‘How could I turn down an invite from the mighty James Martingale . . . I’m honoured.’

‘Please . . . and it’s not as if we don’t know one another.’

She laughed. ‘Is there something I don’t remember? I apologize if that’s so. Obviously I wasn’t that bad if you’ve come back for more, even if you did leave me
waiting three years.’

Martingale laughed. ‘No, don’t worry. I am far too much of a gentleman to take advantage of a woman who has drunk too much. Plus . . . it’s too boring. I like the challenge of
seduction. I like to know I’ve earned it.’

‘Is this what this is? A lesson in seduction?’

He sat back and allowed the waiter to unfold his napkin onto his lap. He smiled at the waiter, made eye contact. ‘Perhaps.’ He looked back at her. ‘You didn’t get married
again? Last time I saw you were in the middle of a divorce.’

‘Yes . . . a bad place to be.’ She rolled her eyes.

‘Happens to us all. You didn’t remarry?’

‘You must be joking. I’ve tried it twice. Both times I’ve managed to screw it up.’

‘Never blame yourself . . . that’s always my motto. Besides, some of us aren’t meant to be monogamous.’

‘Faithful, you mean?’ She laughed.

‘Call it what you will. Did you stay friends with them?’

‘My last one I see sometimes for a drink. He’s a criminology lecturer here in London. I don’t see much of the first one, Simon, unless I see him at one of your dinners. He
still works for the Mansfield Group, I take it?’

‘Yes. Simon is one of our originals. He’s got to be one of our highest paid surgeons. He’s the housewives’ favourite. Does all breast implants now.’

‘Always thought he was a tit. I should have had a better settlement.’

Martingale laughed. ‘You’re a funny lady. We’re the same types, you and I. We are demanding of ourselves and others. It’s not always easy to live with unless you’re
the same type . . . cheers.’ They clinked freshly filled glasses. ‘On the subject of work . . . you will tell me if you are in need of any more equipment in your laboratory. You know
I’m always happy to write off a bit more tax for a good cause. Also . . . I wanted to ask you whether you knew anything you could tell me about the new lead in my daughter’s
case?’ Harding now knew why the dinner invite; why the sudden interest after three years of not so much as an email. ‘I had a visit from two police officers; they told me about the
recent murders in Totteridge. They wouldn’t tell me much more than the fact they are somehow forensically linked to my daughter’s death. Is there anything more you can tell me? I
don’t want to get my hopes up.’

‘I can tell you – it’s all in the early stages. Yes, we did find a link.’

‘The fingerprint? Sergeant Carter told me. It can’t have been my late wife Maria then? I always thought Maria could have done it . . . she went quite mad.’

Harding was nodding; she had her most sympathetic expression on her face. She felt awkward.

‘No . . . she can’t have done it. Is that a relief?’

‘Yes it is. It really is. It’s haunted me all these years. How I might have contributed to her madness by rejecting her. How I should have tried for a better relationship with
Chrissie. But . . . it leaves a massive question over the whole investigation, doesn’t it? What’s happening now?’

‘We’re looking into the case again, under a new light, new team. We’re hoping we solve this new case at Totteridge and then we’ll catch whoever murdered your
daughter.’

‘After all this time?’

‘Yes. We don’t know why they’ve come back. Sorry. It still hurts: I can see. But there is a real chance of catching them this time.’

‘No need to apologize. Of course it still hurts. It will always hurt. In my darkest moments I feel somehow responsible: something I did, something I didn’t do. I failed my daughter,
that’s for certain.’

‘Since her death you’ve given life and hope to so many people through her foundation.’

‘Yes. I hope so.’ He reached over and covered her hand with his. ‘I am hugely reassured that
you
are part of the new investigation. Please will you keep me
informed.’

‘Of course.’

‘I just want to be kept up to date, discreetly; in private, without the world and his brother watching. I don’t want policemen knocking on my door. I don’t want the press
hounding me. But I will never mind a late-night call from a beautiful pathologist to talk shop or sex or the state of the universe . . .’

He picked up his glass and drank his wine and poured them another. The bottle was nearly gone. He called the waiter over. ‘Another one.’

Five minutes later the waiter returned to apologize. ‘Sorry, sir, that was our last one.’

‘What? For Christ’s sake . . . what kind of service is that? Where’s the manager?’ The waiter hurried off. Martingale looked across and shook his head. ‘I’m
sorry. It just pisses me off. Hate incompetence.’

The waiter returned, anxious to please. ‘Sorry, sir. I do apologize. We have another bottle, considered to be a superior vintage. I will bring you that one at the same charge.’

Martingale consented with a wave of his hand.

He poured the last of the bottle of wine into her glass.

‘You know, Jo . . . I have a fantastic house near Cape Town, overlooking the bay. You should come out and visit me . . . I could do with the company. All expenses paid, of course; just say
and I’ll send you a ticket. When was the last time you had a holiday?’

She shook her head. ‘Can’t remember.’

‘You should accept my offer of more private work too.’

‘I don’t mind dipping my toe in it. Can’t argue about the money side of it, but I need to have the adrenalin rush, the challenge.’ She looked at Martingale and thought:
smug bastard.
‘So, Mr Martingale . . . no dreams left? You have it all.’

His pale blue eyes shone in the candlelight. ‘I have a dream of not dying alone.’

‘Ha—’ Harding just about managed to stop herself from full-on laughing in his face.
Was this a wind-up?
She searched his face for the sarcasm she expected and saw none.
His eyes were shining as he picked up his glass and saluted her.

‘To the most beautiful pathologist I know. Someone I’d definitely like to see more of. If she’ll let me. I hope you’re not feeling too tired tonight. I have a lot of
skills I need to practise on you.’

‘I’m all yours, Doctor; can’t wait.’

The next morning, on the outskirts of London the snow was melting from the hard shoulder of the M25. Two men were working their way up the verge, clearing up the rubbish and
debris thrown out by passing traffic. Barry was in charge. Barry was going to be looking after Tom on his first week of work. They had been due to start last week but couldn’t because of the
weather. Now it had warmed up a few degrees overnight and they were back to work.

Tom was starving. They’d already been working for two hours when the motorway maintenance van stopped at the services. He bought himself a full breakfast bap, reheated in the microwave in
the garage: sausage, egg and bacon, ketchup, mustard and soggy bread. He didn’t care; he was so hungry.

Tom shook his head and laughed. ‘Get it down you, son . . . you’re gonna need all the energy you can get. It’s bloody freezing out there. We got three hours till we stop again.
I’m going for a piss.’

By the time he came back Tom was aiming the wrapper at the bin and wiping the ketchup from his mouth.

‘Ready?’

Tom nodded. The traffic was post rush hour, lorries mainly. They headed along the hard shoulder, stopping every fifty metres to backtrack and check the verge. They split up, starting either end
to meet in the middle.

Tom had his orange bag in his left hand, his metal claw pick-up device in his right. He prodded his claw into the gorse at the side of the verge to pick up the piece of black plastic that
flapped in the wind every time a lorry raced past. His pincher clasped the black plastic and he pulled. A woman’s grey face turned from the snowy gorse as her body rolled down onto the
tarmac.

His scream was lost in the whoosh and wail of a lorry as it passed.

Barry looked up to see Tom walking backwards towards the motorway traffic. ‘Watch out, mate . . .’ he called and screwed up his face at the icy wind that buffeted him as the lorry
thundered past.

‘Oi, Tom . . . get your arse back, son,’ he shouted. Tom turned and looked at him, but didn’t answer. Standing in the path of an approaching lorry, he bent over, staggered
backward and then a projectile vomit of full breakfast landed on the tarmac. The lorry swerved.

The woman’s head turned towards the road as if she were watching the passing traffic.

Carter had hardly slept when he’d finally made it back to his flat to make sure everything was still there and to get a few hours’ proper sleep and a change of
clothes. Cabrina was on his mind here especially. He felt as if he were grieving. He reached out and slid his hand along the cold space in the bed next to him. Oh God . . . his mind went round and
round and came back to the beginning and always Cabrina was in the centre of the circle, shaking her head at him and knowing that he just didn’t get it . . . what had he done wrong? Now the
flat could stay a mess; nothing mattered any more.

The phone rang. It was Ebony.

‘There’s a woman’s body found on the hard shoulder at Junction twenty-three of the M25. Doctor Harding’s meeting us out there.’

The M25 motorway was closed between junctions. It was causing chaos in the morning traffic.

Carter approached. ‘Ebb?’

‘Woman’s body, sir. Thought you would want to see.’ She turned to point out the van parked nearby. ‘These motorway maintenance engineers found her.’

Carter stood in front of where the gorse had been cut and cleared to give better access. The woman’s naked body was lying on black plastic. He could see the white-grey of her body, and in
its centre, shards of white bone protruded from the black gaping hole where her insides should have been.

Carter squatted beside Doctor Harding. ‘What do you think, Doc? She been here long?’

‘Less than twenty-four hours.’

Harding pulled back the plastic and revealed the rest of the woman’s body.

‘This has all the hallmarks of the others.’

Carter stood and looked down the lines of traffic on the other side of the carriageway; their tyres noisy on the wet tarmac. ‘So they left her just hidden, chucked in the bushes. She
didn’t die here. Someone tied enough plastic around her to transport her in the boot of a car, not to make a mess, but they must have expected her to stay on the side of the road a bit
longer.’

‘Animals could have started on her any time,’ said Harding.

Carter turned to Barry. ‘How often do you come along this strip and clean it?

‘Once every two months. But our schedule’s up the swanny on account of the weather. We were supposed to come along this section last week and we didn’t make it.’

‘So if someone knew your schedule, they’d think she wouldn’t be found for two months?’

Barry nodded. Tom was sitting in the police car with a blanket round his shoulders.

‘Did he move her at all?’

Barry shook his head. ‘You must be joking . . . frightened the life out of the boy . . . puked everywhere.’ He glanced over at the puddle of bright-coloured vomit on the black
tarmac.

Carter went across to wait in the car and get warm for a few minutes. He was in danger of throwing up, too.

He watched Ebony as she knelt beside the body, taking a photo with her phone. He selected a number on his mobile and hit the call button.

‘Cabrina?’

‘I told you, Dan, I just need to think things through.’

‘You’re alright though, aren’t you? You’d tell me if you weren’t.’

‘Of course. Baby is kicking away. Keeps me awake at nights.’

Carter closed his eyes and felt for a moment as if he was about to sob.

‘I want you to come back, Cabrina. I miss you. I want us to plan the baby things. Start painting the nursery, you know, get things – pram . . . and stuff . . .’

‘Not the pram. It’s bad luck. Anyway Mum and Dad are going to buy that . . . as a present.’

‘Of course . . . how are they . . . okay?’

‘So excited about the baby . . . Look, Dan, I know you’re missing me and I know you’re trying your hardest to be pleased about the baby. Maybe you are, in your own way, but
I’m not sure if it’s all enough. I need more. I need to feel secure and I don’t. I never know where you are.’

‘At the moment I’m sat looking at the traffic on the motorway. We’ve got a corpse by the side of the road.’

‘I don’t mean it like that . . . you know what I mean . . . you’re never around.’

‘I’m working. You know that.’

‘Yeah, but what if there was an emergency? What if the baby was sick and I couldn’t get hold of you? And I don’t know whether you’re ready for dirty nappies and
breastfeeding and I just don’t want another baby to look after, Dan. One baby will be enough. You always like things to be just
us
. . . I understand: but it will never be just us
again. I’m not sure you can adapt to that.’

‘You aren’t giving me a chance. I want you, Cabrina, and if that means the baby comes as part of it then I’m ready.’

‘You see what I mean, Dan . . . you’ll have it, if you have to. It’s not the same as wanting it . . .
really
wanting it.’