Fatal Legacy (12 page)

‘Hello. Are you going to be late again?’

‘Afraid so, Chris. How are you? Have you had a good day?’

Through a series of almost monosyllabic answers he learnt that his son had not had a good day but had enjoyed his tea. He was so unready for life that Fenwick worried about him constantly. How was he going to cope in a world that was cruel and twisted? Chris couldn’t even handle playground sniping without brooding over it for days. Bess helped him of course but she was only a year older and would not always be there. He was so like his mother it made Fenwick shudder.

Chris passed the receiver back to his sister and the sounds of an uneven triplet reached him, the descending notes faltering as Bess nervously either blew too hard and squeaked or too softly to make a noise. The tune never progressed beyond the first few lines but three simple notes make a tune and he could hear the wonder of it when Bess burst back on to the line.

‘Did you hear, Daddy? Did you hear? Real music!’

‘Brilliant, sweetheart; really good. You go and practise some more now.’

Moments later he replaced the receiver and stared at the wall again. Another three hours and it would be twenty-four hours
from the time the body had been found. On impulse he decided to go and join DS Gould in Burgess Hill.

Nightingale eased herself into scented hot water and rested her head back against a folded towel. The lights were off. Candles flickered as air currents caught them and sent hundreds of points of light to scatter across bright tiles and the bubbles that tickled her chin.

She waited to feel clean, imagining the heat of the water opening her pores to let in the cleansing oils so that she could then sluice away the film of dirt and poverty that coated her whole body. Setting her near-empty wine glass down carefully, she closed her eyes, held her nose and sank beneath the surface. She stayed down for as long as possible, but it was no good: the feeling of grime wouldn’t leave her.

Restlessly she drained the bath, finished her wine and then stood rigid under the shower as she swung the dial from freezing to scalding and back to ice cold again. After five long minutes she had no choice but to stop; the discomfort had become too intense for her to continue. The sense of dirt was all in her mind, she knew that, but she could still taste the smell of the streets at the back of her throat, and the sense of greasy grit on her skin wouldn’t go away.

It had been, quite simply, an awful day. At twilight she and her partner for the evening had taken a bus down to the terminus where they agreed to split up and meet on the hour, every hour unless something developed in the meantime. Nightingale walked until she stood among mean streets whose only
decorations
were the girls draped against lampposts, in doorways and on street corners. She had tried desperately not to look smart, but even her oldest jeans were tailored, and the T-shirt she wore was fresh and clean. She stood out like a beacon in the night, in
cruel contrast to those around her. Even the youngest – and she must only have been thirteen – looked used and faded when Nightingale walked by.

There would be no easy way into the conversations she needed to have. A group of four women with skin colours ranging from ebony to pasty white were standing on a corner, talking in a disjointed chatter as they kept their eyes on the passing traffic. Nightingale walked up to them and they kept on talking.

‘Excuse me, might I have a word with you?’

A plump Eurasian girl replied without once taking her eyes off the passing cars.

‘You reporter or what?’

‘No, I’m with the police.’

They all burst out laughing: not cruel, just amused at the thought that she could imagine they would want to waste any time in conversation with her.

‘We’re investigating the deaths of Tracie Grey and Amanda Bennett last night. They were pr—’ Nightingale stalled on the word, suddenly aware that she had no idea whether it would be taken as offensive or not. The group sensed her discomfort and turned their slow eyes on her. Unbelievably, Nightingale felt her cheeks glow hot; she swallowed hard.

‘They were prostitutes. Amanda lived in Sea View and we’re trying to find anyone who knew her. Tracie lived in Black Rock Heights, number three.’

‘How old’re you?’ The thin, pale one chewed gum, moving it incessantly from cheek to cheek. Lipliner had been used imaginatively to draw a Cupid’s bow on her face, even though her lips were pencil thin and pursed into a disapproving line. Thick carmine lipstick filled in the improbable shape. Nightingale dragged her eyes away from the distraction.

‘That’s irrelevant.’

‘No, I’m curious to know the experience of the officers they put on such an important case.’

‘There are over ten of us working on this.’ Nightingale realised that the interview had slipped from her control; the more she had to explain herself, the less she would achieve. ‘Did any of you know Amanda Bennett or Tracie Grey?’

A silent shaking of heads from two; loaded lack of interest from the others. She gave up and moved on. Looking back on the night, that first interview had perhaps been the least unpleasant. She’d been spat at, propositioned and ‘accidentally’ knocked into a concrete pillar. At the end of six long hours, she had found no one who admitted to knowing the murdered women and neither had her colleague.

She learnt something, though, just by watching at the railway terminus. There were the regulars: men who got off the train, walked straight through a side exit and signalled to one of the women there. The woman would return within thirty minutes. God knows where they’d gone, but it was obvious what they’d done. Then there were the ones new to the game: furtive, curious, excited, who hovered around inside for a while and ducked out of sight as soon as a police uniform appeared.

The children were the worst to watch. Knowing at thirteen or fourteen, the sharp ones recognised who might be a punter and homed in quickly, cutting out would-be competitors. Sometimes there was a courting ritual over a burger and fries. Very occasionally the buyer – whilst Nightingale was watching, it was always a man – made it clear he was interested in two and the kids would pair up – boy/boy, boy/girl, girl/girl. When they disappeared it was usually for several hours. Some didn’t return at all.

The most pathetic were the older teenagers with lank hair, acne, skeletal arms and bruises. Addicts, used and abused, they hung around, desperate for a trick, too afraid to go back to their pimp without having scored. They all had one thing in common, though: none of them knew anything about Amanda Bennett or Tracie Grey.

She could see the acknowledgement of danger in their eyes – they lived with it every hour – but she wasn’t part of their hope or solution. As one of the most articulate, tired and depressed had said to her, shortly before she gave up for the night: ‘And how’re you lot going to save me?’

‘We can find murderers and put them away.’

‘And what about the next one, and the one after him? Where’ll you be when I’m out here?’

Nightingale had nothing left to say.

‘Exactly. You can’t do nothing for us, and there’s nothing we will do for you.’

Despite her bath, it took a determined effort to relax her mind and try to sleep, but she managed it and woke, almost refreshed, when her alarm went off at eight. It was a bright, crisp morning and she decided on a jog in the small park opposite her apartment. A circuit took her five and a half minutes on a good run, and today she did five simply to make the blood flow and wake up her sluggish circulation. She was at the station, showered, fresh-faced and alert before half past nine.

There was no sign of Pink or the rest of the late-night team, so she decided to start her paperwork. Pink was determined to find the connection between the two murders, but no matter how hard she tried, Nightingale couldn’t see any, and her six hours on the streets the previous night had been a complete waste of time.

She was finishing her depressingly brief notes as Pink walked in, closely followed by two other detective constables. They each carried an oily greaseproof bag, and the smell of smoked bacon filled the room. It was just one of the many rituals that Nightingale had learnt to avoid during her short secondment; a perfect opportunity to make her feel different, either as a target for unwanted advances or by excluding her.

The smell of fried bacon made her mouth water. She had been so sickened the previous night that her supper had been two large glasses of wine and some bread sticks. Now she was famished and a bacon sandwich was exactly what she wanted. It was a quarter to ten; just enough time to go to the canteen before the briefing.

‘Morning,’ she called out as the others walked past. Her eyes left the keyboard but her fingers kept on typing. Pink looked at her suspiciously and she returned an open, neutral smile, then stood up, swinging her bag over her shoulder. It was another clear day and she had decided to wear a mint-green linen suit and ivory blouse. The outfit was cool and crisp and fitted perfectly.

‘Where’re you off to?’

‘Canteen. Breakfast.’

‘Briefing in fifteen minutes. Don’t be late.’

She ignored Pink and found her way to the basement. The queue at this time of day snaked out into the corridor. She joined it and started watching the clock. Ten minutes later she had her sandwich – toasted granary bread, brown sauce and three rashers of bacon. The heat of the bundle penetrated the paper bag and napkin, and greasy pressure points formed where her fingertips grasped it away from her suit.

The lift always took an age to arrive, so she chose the stairs, running up them two at a time to arrive precisely one minute before the briefing was due to start. She opened the door as the others were starting to leave.

‘Incident Room Two, now.’ Pink seemed in an even worse mood than usual.

Nightingale turned on her heel and was about to follow him.

‘No food in briefings, you know that. Leave it.’

It was true, that was the rule, but no one ever followed it unless the Superintendent was going to be there. The others had finished their sandwiches; hers was juicy and hot. She
swallowed
hard, her mouth awash with saliva.

‘Right.’ She walked over to her desk and left the warm bag on a pad of paper. A couple of officers grinned at her, without sympathy; others avoided her eye entirely. One, confident and good enough at his job not to care, grimaced and soft-punched her shoulder. ‘Ignore him,’ he mouthed.

Incident Room 2 was half full with a mix of uniformed police and detectives. Pink was already deep in discussion when Nightingale arrived, wire-rimmed glasses perched on the end of her nose in anticipation of notes on the whiteboard. She chatted easily with a couple of other DCs; nothing significant, but the normal conversation was a quiet relief from Pink’s usual charged remarks.

He called the meeting to order and within minutes had confirmed what she’d thought privately earlier. Despite his determination they had found no obvious links between the two cases. However, he was keeping the investigation teams
combined
and emphasised that they were still to look for connections in all avenues of enquiry. Nightingale’s brief update was as unexceptional as all the others, and Pink enjoyed every moment.
They had their duties reconfirmed and Pink told Nightingale to go off duty until she resumed her questioning of prostitutes that night. It meant that she had several hours of unexpected leisure. On the off chance she called Nick, another graduate on the APS scheme in Harlden, to see if he was free and could travel down to Brighton for lunch. Amazingly, he was.

They carried their drinks into the pub garden and he listened as she described her current case. She explained how her interviews in every pick-up area had been fruitless and
emotionally
draining. She had sensed the women’s resentment, and her presence upset the punters who either crawled the kerb or studied the lurid cards in the phone booths. It was Nightingale’s first brush with failure and she didn’t like it. She couldn’t empathise with these people, and they either distrusted her or treated her with a contempt that made her angry. She was only trying to do her job and prevent another murder, but they just didn’t want to know. For once she gave in to her frustration and had a good moan.

‘Don’t they realise I’m here to help them? I’m just doing my job!’

Nick looked at the scrupulously neat and elegant woman sitting opposite him. Perfect skin, clear eyes, manicured nails and at least a fifty-pound hair cut that had shaped her rich auburn hair into a contemporary bob. She wore virtually no make-up and didn’t need any, yet she looked as if she was ready for a fashion shoot. One slender foot, encased in a fawn suede pump, swung over the side of the bench they were sitting on.

She looked what she was, the product of a privileged,
upper-class
home and an exclusive education system. How could he tell her that for most of the people she would ever have to deal with in her chosen career she was utterly alien and would be vulnerable to any view they chose to hold of her? Yet as a policewoman she was one of the best.

‘It’s hard for them to trust you. You’re different, not just because you’re the law but also because, well, you’re from a different class.’

‘Oh, please! You can’t work in the new millennium and still be talking about class.’

‘Yes I can. That’s the reality you’ve got to deal with. You
have had a privileged upbringing and it shows. For a lot of people that means you don’t understand their problems, so why should they trust you?’

‘But I do understand, and I want to help. They must see that.’

‘People see what they want to see. Don’t get me wrong: once people get to know you it’s different, and I’m not saying you’re difficult to work with or anything because you’re not – you’re great. But you have to understand that to the average prostitute hanging out by the pier, you represent everything they don’t have. It’s a wonder you weren’t assaulted!’

Nightingale shrugged disconsolately and Nick decided to change the subject.

‘Come on, I’ll get you another drink. Same again?’

‘No, just a lime and soda, thanks. I’m driving.’

After another fruitless night, Nightingale returned to her flat at just after one in the morning. The answerphone light was blinking. Her mother had rung twice to remind her it was her brother’s birthday on Saturday. There would be a family lunch and she was expected. She erased the tape, checked her doors and windows carefully, showered and went straight to bed.

The next morning she woke gritty-eyed and stared vacantly at the ceiling. She had showered, dressed, eaten some fruit and was driving once again towards the station when an idea occurred to her. If she moved quickly she would have time to follow it up before the noon briefing.

At Division she made enquiries and found her way to the office of the local vice team, where she hung around the coffee machine. Being young and good-looking had some advantages, and she was soon in discussion with a scruffy detective constable. He had no objection to explaining the basics of vice in Brighton and suggested they have a decent cup of coffee in a nearby café. Over an excellent cappuccino he started to talk.

‘Essentially you’ve got three types of prostitutes around here: first there’s the casuals – they’re the housewives who handle a little business from home. They are low-key, modest-cost and not affiliated to any of the gangs. We hardly ever hear about them unless some neighbour complains or they get beaten up for intruding on more organised territory.