The Blood Detective (6 page)

He didn’t know the song; it was piped through the stereo via his personal music player, a small metallic gadget no bigger than a matchbox. There were more than a thousand tracks on it, few of which he knew.

One of the guys at the station had downloaded them for him a few months before. You didn’t have to build your own record collection these days, merely annex a friend’s or even a complete stranger’s off the Net. He couldn’t remember what had happened to the boxes of vinyl he assembled as a teenager. His first single? ‘Indiana Wants Me’, R. Dean Taylor.

The simple fact that the protagonist was on the lam infuriated his father, which is probably why he treasured it so. God knows where the record was now.

He made a mental note to download it.

The car was warm, the lights on the dash illuminated against the dark. He felt cocooned, as if he could recline the seat and sleep for hours. But, when the song finished, he turned the volume down to a murmur, picked up his mobile and called Khan to tell him to meet Heather at the FRC the next morning.

Khan did not sound too enamoured at the prospect but Foster was beyond caring.

He climbed from the car, walked up the small

paved path to his front door and unlocked it, flicking on the lights in the hall. He was relieved to see and smell that Aga, his Polish cleaner, had been that morning. He thumbed through some mail, found nothing interesting and added it to a growing pile of similar letters, then hung his coat up, took off his tie and jacket and went straight through to the kitchen, where he pulled the cork out of a half-drunk bottle of red wine that stood on the pine table in the middle of the clean tiled floor. He filled a vast glass. It was a ‘62 Cheval Blanc that had tasted a damn sight nicer the previous evening, but was still drinkable. Taste didn’t matter so much: these days he needed at least a few glasses to ease his mind and body’s nightly fight against sleep.

The wine wasn’t his. None of the bottles were. His father, once he had retired from the force, sought a new passion and found it in wine, specifically Bordeaux. He collected bottles from all the best vintages, laying them down proudly, cataloguing them in a ledger. Occasionally, on special occasions, he would toode off to the cellar, blow the dust off one he thought may drink well, open it up and serve it to his guests, offering alongside it a description of the vintage, the maker, whether it had been a good year and why, and some of the wine’s characteristics. Then he would sip and savour just one glass during the course of a meal, sometimes making it last a whole evening. Among the last phrases he remembered his father saying to him — before he took the cocktail that ended his pain - was, ‘Look after the cellar, son.’

‘Sorry, Dad,’ he muttered as he took another large slug, wincing at the acidic bite created by being left open twenty-four hours.

He wandered out of the kitchen and back into the hall, then turned into the sitting room. Occasionally, when he walked through the door, he detected a lingering hint of the lavender that formed part of the small bowls of potpourri his mother had left dotted around the place. They were one of the first things he threw out when he moved back into the house, on that drab November day a few weeks after his father’s death. And they remained among the last.

The walls bore ghostly imprints, grey-white traces of now unwanted photographs and pictures. The sideboards were bare apart from a few well-thumbed magazines, the odd book and a couple of empty candleholders. The only photograph on display in the room — in the entire house, as it turned out - was of Foster at his wedding, grinning with an insouciance he no longer recognized beside his best man and best mate, Charlie. They had been inseparable.

He cast his eyes around the room. Seven years ago he’d moved in. It still looked like he was lodging.

He thought about the day, the murder, the body; then he thought about Barnes. He’d asked Foster whether he was aware of his own family history. He wasn’t, and he’d said as much. What was the point?

But Barnes’s question reminded him of his father.

Of those last few days. That was his significant family history.

He headed over to the bureau in the far corner of the room, the place where his father used to sit and pore over his paperwork, glasses perched on the end of his nose, a cigarette balanced on the rim of an ashtray, spiralling smoke. He lowered the lid for the first time in years, the past leaping out. There was a cup with his father’s pens, a half-shorn pad of writing paper, a Metropolitan Police paperweight detailing his years of service, 1954—1988, a letter opener in the shape of a sword and a photograph of Foster in short trousers, with his mum on Camber Sands. He stared at it for a few seconds then closed the bureau lid.

Closed the past.

He collapsed on to the sofa and turned on the

television, immediately muting the sound. He was tired, but he knew he was not yet ready to sleep.

First he needed to switch off mentally, which meant emptying his head of all the thoughts swirling around in it.

They had nothing. The killer had left no detail, no trace, clue or weapon at the scene. No witnesses had yet come forward. There was no obvious motive.

They had a reference carved on a chest, a number left on a mobile phone, a missing, severed pair of hands. That was all. They were still fumbling for a way in. Foster wanted to find the detail, the piece of information that would flick the switch and illuminate the investigation.

The house was silent, save for the odd creak from some shifting floorboard or the rattle of an ageing radiator. The first spots of rain spattered against the bay window. Foster took another hefty slurp of wine, and then went back into the kitchen to make sure there was more. There was: he could see the bold vermilion lettering of a Petrus, albeit one of the 1980s bottles, which he found a bit underwhelming compared to the complex vintages of other years, but that was why it was one of his favourites among his dad’s collection. Who wants wine that tastes the same every year? Not him, and not least when there were another six years downstairs to drink.

The wine was doing some good, smoothing the

edges. He looked around for something else to do, an activity to help the wine take his mind off the day so that he could sleep, wake up in the morning and get this case out of neutral. He sat at the kitchen table and fired up his computer, a sleek silver laptop dormant. Then he uncorked the Petrus and poured himself a glass without allowing it to open up, an act he knew would make oenophiles swoon. It tasted tight. He knew he should buy in some lesser-priced, easy-drinking wines for times like these, but he never remembered. He glanced at the clock on the wall. It was nearing eleven.

The computer was primed and ready for action.

He opened his Internet connection and was straight on to the Net. Once online, the question was where to go. None of his favourite distractions appealed: Formula One racing websites, luxury car dealers and makers, spoof news sites. He checked his email but found only unsolicited invitations to enlarge his penis. As he pondered what to do, the images of the day seeped back into his mind, like smoke under a door.

One detail in particular: Why would someone not only commit murder but also sever the victim’s hands while he was still alive, if not to inflict maximum pain? Someone truly hated Darbyshire.

His mobile rang, vibrating and trilling next to the bottle of wine on the sideboard. He answered it.

‘Sir,’ Drinkwater said.

‘Yes, Andy.’ Foster admired his young colleague’s stamina. He’d been the first at the scene that morning and was still at it.

‘Notting Hill have picked up the tramp who lived in the churchyard. Sheena Carroll, aka Ciderwoman.

She went back to the churchyard for the night.

They’ve got her at the station now.’

‘What state is she in?’

‘Roaring pissed, apparently. I could go and have a word with her tonight. If I don’t get anywhere, we could always try again in the morning.’

Foster was tempted to let him handle it. It meant he could get some rest. If the call had come ten minutes later, he might have already been asleep. As it was, he was dressed and still - hopefully, at least under the limit. And he knew he could force himself to stay awake for another hour or two.

‘I’ll meet you at Notting Hill in half an hour,’ he said eventually.

Foster walked into the interview room at Notting Hill police station and was almost floored by Cider woman’s pungent scent, an unholy trinity of booze, grime and urine. She was sitting at the table, slouched back in her chair. Guessing her age was impossible.

Her ravaged, pink face might have been anywhere between forty-five and sixty-five. Her sagging skin looked as if it had tired of being attached to her body and was heading south. Her black hair was matted and few of her teeth were their original white. She looked up at Foster when he entered and scowled, her piggy eyes boring into him.

‘What the fuck do you want?’ she spat out, the

words tumbling into each other as they fell haphazardly from her mouth.

Inwardly he smiled: he knew immediately that

she was a frazzled, cantankerous drunk, and not mentally ill - though it was too early to gauge the effects of a two-litre bottle of cheap cider a day on her psyche.

‘And what the fuck are you keeping me here for?’

she asked before he could answer. Her voice sounded as if she had been gargling with gravel.

‘Well, you might be able to help us, Sheena,’ he explained, sitting down. ‘Which’d be a first.’

‘It’ll cost you a fucking cigarette,’ she said.

‘That’s a price I’m willing to pay.’ He turned to Drinkwater and motioned for him to purloin a few fags from someone who smoked.

‘So, how can I help, Officer?’ The last word was hopelessly mangled.

‘You’ll have noticed that your bedroom is closed to the public. That’s because we found the body of a man there earlier today. In exactly the same spot where you usually class down. He’d been murdered.’

‘Nothing to do with me,’ she said instantly.

‘Didn’t say it was, did I, Sheena? Does anyone else class down there?’

She shook her head vigorously. ‘Wouldn’t fucking dare,’ she said. ‘It’s my pitch. The only other people who go in there are a couple of kids. Smoke dope in the middle of the night.’ She smiled, a train wreck of a smile - all mangled, with yellow teeth or blackened stumps. ‘And the little bastards never give me any.’

There was a wheezing, rattling sound that seemed to emanate from the ground. It was Ciderwoman laughing. It culminated in a coughing fit, which ended with her spitting violently into her hand just as Drink water walked in with a couple of John Players. Once she had wiped her mouth, Ciderwoman tugged both from his hand and lit one. She inhaled mightily, like a diver about to go under.

‘Yes,’ Foster said, once the charade was over. ‘They found the body. The question is, Sheena: where were you? I’ve been led to believe you sleep there every night. Why not Tuesday night? Or last night, even?’

In three large drags she had smoked almost half the cigarette. She blew the smoke upwards. ‘Because I was told not to,’ she said.

Foster leaned forwards. ‘By who?’

‘A man.’

‘Which man?’

‘How the fuck should I know? Some gadgey like

you.’

‘What do you mean? Did he look like me?’

She shrugged. ‘Can’t remember,’ she said, taking another drag.

‘What did this guy say?’

She paused to think. ‘He said there was going to be some sort of clean-up. That they were gonna come down like a sack of shit on all the people sleeping rough, so I’d better clear off for a couple of days.’

‘And you believed him?’

‘Why the fuck not?’ she said, looking indignant.

‘He said he worked for Shelter, or something like that, and he didn’t want to see me banged up.’

‘Did he show you a card?’

She shook her head. Before she extinguished her cigarette, she put the second one in her mouth and lit it with the stub of the first.

‘When was this?’

‘I’ve only been away for two nights, so it was …’

‘Tuesday,’ Foster said, helping her out.

‘If you say so.’

‘Listen, Sheena, we think the guy who spoke to

you might have been linked to this murder. Can you remember anything about him?’

She puffed silently on her cigarette. ‘It was early afternoon,’ she said. ‘I’m never at my best then. He wasn’t wearing a suit, because I would’ve thought he was the Old Bill and told him to fuck off. No disrespect.’

Foster made a gesture with his hands to indicate none was taken.

‘He was dressed sort of casual,’ she added.

‘Any distinguishing features?’

She thought some more. ‘He didn’t smoke,’ she

added hopefully. ‘I think I asked him for a ciggie and he said he didn’t smoke.’

That narrows it down, Foster thought.

‘He gave me a quid, too. Or, at least, I think he did.’

‘Really,’ Foster said eagerly. ‘Do you still have it?’

‘What the fuck do you think?’ she said. ‘I don’t have much in the way of savings.’

He knew there was nothing more to be garnered

from the conversation. ‘My colleague will go

through a description with you,’ he told her, avoiding Drinkwater’s eye. ‘Try and remember as much as you can.’

He got up and left. Outside he sucked in the night air. The black sky was clear, though not clear enough for him to make out the stars above the London smog. He remembered his unease that morning over the use of a churchyard as a dumping ground for murder, and how it did not seem right - not with all the houses overlooking the scene. Now he knew the killer had cased the place because he knew how difficult his task would be.

Yet he still went ahead with it.

Nigel was sweating as he bustled his way along Exmouth Market, lazily coming to life in the chilly spring sunshine. He was late. The centre would already be open and he was wasting police time. I’ll blame the tube, he thought, not the fact that my alarm clock requires winding, and last night I forgot.