Gut Instinct (21 page)

Sophie was getting ready in her bedroom, she was not looking forward to this night out
, ‘Jason’s
” was not her usual haunt but she had promised to go for her younger
Sister
Victoria’s birthday night out.

It always dumbfounded her how differently their lives had turned out. 

There was two years between
them;
a lot of people would mistake them for identical twins, although that was where the similarities ended.

Victoria was a party girl, had just as many opportunities as Sophie had and yet she had chose to work as a checkout
girl
and live in that grubby little run down cottage
rented on that terrible estate.

Their
middle class parents were astounded too; they couldn’t understand why she’d dropped out of college and chose ‘such a dismal life’ as they called it.

Sophie on the other hand
had done
really well
.  She was a
n investment lawyer
and lived in a pristine minimalistic furnished apartment in an affluent area of
Leicester.

She looked around her bedroom now and thought how she would rather lay on her Japanese style bed, snuggled up with a good book, going to sleep looking out of the floor to ceiling window
s
at the night stars.

Her boyfriend Kyle was in Paris this weekend on business, so this would be a time when she could have
had
some ‘me’ time, instead she’d let her sister talk her into this
,
what she knew would be
an
unbearable night out. 

Victoria’s friends were not exac
tly Sophie
’
s
cup of tea, getting drunk, getting laid or getting into a fight at the end of the night was the
ir
idea of a good night out and the worst thing was she couldn’t make her excuses and leave early because she'd promised to stay at her sisters so that they could spend her birthday together, shopping and having a giggle like they did as teenagers.

She looked in the mirror
at her reflection
and said “you’ll do”, donned her coat and got a cab to meet at one of her sisters favourite restaurants for a bite to eat before they headed off to the club.

**********

Seven members of the team were all collected in the main office by seven o’clock as
requested. Only Vera missing Stephen thought as he entered the office.

Just as if by magic, she tottered into the room on four inch stilettos to a barrage of wolf whistles.

“Okay, Okay” Stephen interrupted “this is not a stag and hen party. You all need to have your wits about you tonight”

They all quietened down as they always did when Stephen spoke.

“Right” he said “does everyone know what they are doing?”

A unanimous “yes” chorused around the room.

“Then go get him, I don’t care if you end up arresting fifty men tonight, as long as we get the right one amongst them. If he looks suspicious watch him, if he smiles at you watch him, if he’s hovering and looking at women watch him, if you have any hunches
watch him!  I want this bastard caught, and I want him caught tonight, is that clear?”

Another chorus of “Yes’s”

“Remember to pay particular attention to Caucasian males aged between twenty and thirty.  That is the classic profile of a serial killer” he said, avoiding all eye contact with Paul.

“There will be uniformed police in the vicinity
” he added, “anyone that you think should be pulled in; give a description on your ear pieces, and the boys in blue will pull them on their way out, they have their instructions and will find something to pull them on.” He paused.

“Any questions?”

There was no response; everyone was psyched up to go.

“Paul” he directed his conversation to Paul “I need you to stick alongside Vera all night, don’t lose sight of her, she’s a woman and therefore a potential target, is that clear”

“Yes sir” Paul responded although his face clearly revealed his displeasure at what he perceived was babysitting duties.

“Okay off you go and good luck” Stephen said ignoring Paul’s dismay.

They all left the building, all looking t
he part for a hopefully
good night out at Jason’s.

**********

There were eight of them snuggled around the table, four bottles of wine already emptied and replaced by four more
and that was
before the food had arrived. 

This was going to be a long night Sophie had thought, as the food
was eventually ser
ved.  They had ordered a mixture of finger food that they could all dip into, barbeque ribs, chicken dippers and sauces, king prawns in batter and mini filled jacket potatoes.  It looked delicious.

Victoria was on top form and centre of attention which was how she liked it.

“I don’t like these crunchy bits that
they’ve put
in the ribs” Sally, Victoria’s best friend commented.

“I was thinking that” said another.

“Nor me, they don’t usually put them in, what are they” said another chewing on something in her mouth, that seemed to take forever.

“Bloody hell” Victoria exclaimed, looking at her hands.

“What’s up now” Sophie asked exasperated.

“My nails” Victoria said “they’ve all fallen off!”

To which, everyone looked from the bowl of ribs, to Victoria’s nails to the contents in their own mouths.

Sophie was the first to realise what had happened, Victoria’s nails had fallen into the bowl of ribs and everyone was eating them.  She burst into fits of laughter, followed by everyone else.

Perhaps it was going to be a good night after all, she considered.

The meal over with they all got in
to
taxi’s to head for Jason’s, Victoria had managed to get VIP passes so they didn’t have to queue, which was a blessing as the queue was long that night.

Sophie was surprised with there being a serial killer on the loose, and rumour had it that all the girls had been to Jason’s on the night they were killed, and yet it had created a bigger crowd not a smaller one.  Some people were just ghoulish she thought or on a death wish.

She’d tried to talk Victoria into them all going to a different venue but she wouldn’t hear of it, said that she was not going to be scared off by some lunatic, so Sophie had decided to keep relatively sober so that she could keep an eye on her sister if nothing else it was one good reason she needed to be down this dump tonight.

It was ten o’clock and already Victoria was drunk and chatting to some undesirable bloke
, Sophie thought.  She had no sense that girl, tonight of all nights and here of all places.
She headed in her direction hoping to drag her away.

“Come on Vic, time for a dance with your sister” she said.

“In a bit
Soph
I’m just talking” she replied annoyed at her rudeness when she was just about to pull.

“No, now Vic” Sophie said protectively, although Victoria didn’t see it that way.

She pushed her sis
ter aside and said “Back off Sophie
.”

Sophie backed away knowing that her sister could get quite nasty in
drink
, but kept a close eye on her.

Whether she liked it or not, she was not going to let Victoria go off with any bloke tonight, not with things being so unsafe at the moment. 
Besides their parents would never forgive her if she let anything happen to her.

Sophie
ordered a Pepsi from the bar and watched her sister like a hawk annoyed at her naivety and the fact that she would have to stay here to the bitter end babysitting her.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Stephen was sat in his car, parked up at the side of the road; he was too agitated to go home, he had felt a cloud of depression fall over him and had no idea what it might be.  He felt a sense of pending doom and had heard from somewhere that this happened just
before a
heart attack, that and a need to go to the toilet.

He had received a print out of the backgrounds on all his staff earlier today and this had left him feeling shocked. He had requested this a
week or so ago after seeing Paul down Jason’s, he couldn’t be seen to be singling out Paul, so had requested background information for them all.

There was suspicion that Paul as a teenager had been involved in petty crime, but the police could never get enough evidence together to make an arrest or press charges, his name had come up repeatedly in other investigations.

However what had shocked him the most was Vera’s past, although nothing criminal she had experienced a difficult childhood, and some of her relatives had been quite dodgy.

That was his motive for putting Paul and Vera together tonight, so neither of them would go off on their own.

He had been tempted to park somewhere outside the club to keep an eye on them both but it was too risky, if he was seen by them or the killer, if it wasn’t anything to do with them it could blow the whole operation.

Stephen had been feeling that it was an inside job for some while now, he couldn’t fathom out any other reason for the killer to be taunting him.  The killer knew him and was trying to hurt him in some way. 

He knew Paul’s feelings towards him were negative and he had also noticed Vera’s face
on the night they were at Bill’s party when he had made a joke about Paul.

Also
Vera had took the scent off the killer being a woman saying that a woman would not carry a date rape drug, could she be their killer.  A woman would let her in late at night, a female police officer.

God, he thought I’m getting paranoid, suspecting my own team members.

He had gone through every arrest he had made over the years in the police force and had come up with nothing substantial and nothing that he felt would lead someone to taunt him.

He couldn’t help thinking that this murder spree was ‘pay back’ to him,
he just couldn’t work out why
and he wished he could remember where he had seen or heard that quote before.

“God gives
every bird a worm, but he does not throw it into the nest”

He knew he had, felt sure that he had seen it written on something but could not for the life of him think where.  If he could then this might lead to a suspect, or some intelligence on
who
this killer might be.

“God gives
every bird a worm, but he does not throw it into the nest”
he repeated.

It was there, he knew it was lying in his unconscious, but couldn’t raise it up.

He started his car engine and began to move back into the traffic, still trying to rack his brains.

**********

Paul was scouring the room, still feeling resentful that he was put on babysitting duties
of Vera
when he saw somet
hing, something very strange in
deed. 

It had taken him a while to recognise this person with the wig and the uncharacteristic clothes.

There was something about the suspect that he recognised, something familiar, and then it had hit him like a ton of bricks.

“What the hell!” he thought, and chewed over, what he could remember about his profile of the murder
er
.
 

It could be a match he thought.

Then he saw the scratch, about six inches long down the side of his suspects smooth cheek.

“Well, I’ll be fucking damned” he said out loud forgetting that Vera was in earshot.

“What?” Vera asked trying to match her vision with Paul’s vision to see what he was looking at.

“Nothing” he replied “just someone I thought I knew”

That had got to be more than a coincidence he thought, and everything else could match his profile.

Fuck, fuck, fuck he thought, if he was right this would be a bloody mess, it would also be karma in a big way.

Paul saw no point in telling the others, they would think he was mad, lost the plot or revengeful.  He knew where their loyalty lay and that in
its
elf
would
affect their judgment. 

He would just hover and watch, but he was not taking any risks, he was not letting this suspect out of his sight. 

And he didn’t, trying not to alert Vera he kept his suspect under surveillance for the rest of the night.