The Unseen (8 page)

Sean agreed with Victoria’s suggestion they should meet in an Italian café off Church Street, Stoke Newington. He considered it close enough to the crime scene and neutral enough for neither to lose face. The clink of spoon on cup, the scrape of a chair and hiss of espresso steam, along with the chatter of echoed voices, gave no chance for eavesdropping. Mothers, kids, workers, students, all gave the place normality. Victoria presented the same image he remembered, a good figure, smart clothes, her eyes bright and inquisitive. It was the same image that had tempted him two years ago to love the person beneath. In the first seconds of eye contact he realised her appeal had not diminished.

“I recommend the cappuccino,” she said, and without waiting for a reply called his order to the counter.

“Black coffee,” he countermanded and sat in the chair opposite, watching the twitch in her smile.

“When we did our undercover training together, you always drank cappuccino.” The smile became warm and seemingly innocent, if he hadn’t known her from old.

“Times change. You still sleep in clam-tight pyjamas?”

“Only when I’m on operations with a large hairy male beside me. Other times I have a preference for silk.” She paid the waitress three pounds. “My treat.” She smiled again, raised carefully plucked eyebrows and snapped closed her purse.

One up to her, he thought and felt himself mellow.

“How are the girls?”

“Rebecca’s in rocket mode. I swear her skirt hitches higher by the hour. Sophie, thank goodness, is still a child.”

“Trouble is, little girls grow bigger every day. Hope they’re not giving you too hard a time.”

Sean sipped from his cup and detected the sensual smell of her perfume over the aroma of coffee. “I have a mature nanny, she keeps house and looks after the girls with best friend love. She’s French and her cooking is magnificent.” Victoria eyes widened in mock surprise. She knew that, he thought, and wondered what else she had researched on his personal life. That his bank balance was always stretched by school fees, his clothes past their throwaway date and his mortgage hovering on arrears. “How’s it with you?” he asked. “Hear you left the job.”

“Principles are hard to live with. I’m now a spook; K Branch, serious crime.”

“Active or administrative?”

“Covert mainly. Not a lot different from SOCA.” She sipped coffee then touched a napkin to her lips.

“And this operation?” Sean watched her eyes come up, big, brown eyes that locked onto his. Cups clattered on nearby tables and the espresso machine again hissed steam.

“Business … in a very personal way. Like it or not, MI5 hacks all main police computers including the Met Crime Report Information System. When Sinclair, and then Cobbart, lifted details on my casework, I got an automatic e-mail. Out of the blue came an opportunity to clear the record. I talked to Cobbart, made downtime, and here I am.”

“You want to screw Creech?”

“In a most unsavoury manner.”

“So, where do we start?”

“Sinclair was murdered,” she whispered, glancing at those who sat nearest.

“No proof.”

“He was a serious alcoholic and probably suffered from acute depression, but you must remember, he was also a member of the old school. A good Mason, in the right lodges; a good club member, and for most of his career, a good copper. He may have shot himself, may have taken a long swim out to sea, but jump from the window of a derelict council flat in Stoke Newington, never.”

That’s what the Old Boys would think, Sean thought. That’s why they started this. “Still need proof though,” he said.

“No one took a serious look.”

“Two of my lads are there now.”

“It gets worse, now I have another case for you. A woman has been murdered in Suffolk, the similarities too close to ignore. The murder of Sarah Finch occurred a few days ago. An attractive, charismatic and successful businesswoman in her late thirties. “Big country house, smart car, substantial bank account. She lived a full social life, but her men friends were all kept at arm’s length. She was a private, independent person. At the same time, she had eight computer cash and carry warehouses plus a vast army of sales agents spread all over the country. She shifted more computer games than any other dealer. For her, everything was business. Her one weakness was a young lad who looked after the garden and who confessed he was her toy-boy.”

Sean watched her eyes momentarily close as she shuddered, then let go of her breath while looking round the bustling café, looking to the people lost in the buzz of conversation over TV, football, the price of petrol and the scratch on their car.

“He cut open her stomach, disgorged her entrails and cut off her breasts. Suffolk CID believe he tried to imitate Jack the Ripper. However, so far they drawn a complete blank. Over one thousand people have been interviewed, including all male associates, all possible enemies. They have no linkable forensic evidence, no prints, no comparable DNA, no hate-mail, no stalkers, no nothing. Their conclusion is she met her killer by chance. Someone who then slipped back into darkness.”

“Suffolk won’t like our interference,” Sean said.

“We play hoping for their help with shared info. SOCA going to the local boys for assistance is good for their image. SOCA pushing in will make you no friends.”

Sean glanced as the café door burst wide under power of a baby buggy. It preceded a woman wearing a short T-shirt and baggy tracksuit, her blancmange body quivering with each movement. She occupied one hand with a cigarette, the other with three, pre-school children, all of them whinging.

“Poor woman,” Sean said.

“Stupid woman.” Victoria rose to leave.

“You ever talk to Sinclair?” he asked, when they emerged into the warm sun, heading for Abney Park Cemetery.

“On the phone. He grew to be a nuisance, always telling me how I should run the investigation. I know the girl was his daughter, but the man became obsessed. In the end I refused to accept his calls. An assistant faxed him weekly. When Creech arrested the wrong suspect and looked no further, I think it broke Sinclair. That’s when he started his one-man crusade.”

They passed through high cemetery gates, into an area of clipped lawn sprinkled with winos and the homeless. Sean let his solid frame guarantee their disinterest. Beyond the inner gravel path lay mausoleums, crosses and marble angels, a necropolis overgrown with vegetation and stunted trees. Nothing was visible of London save at the far perimeter. A council block thrust its roof above tree level.

“Jesus, this is ghost forest,” he said, looking either way along a track which followed the walled boundary.

Victoria hoisted the strap of her shoulder bag. In bright sunlight he noticed she shivered. “London cemeteries are a world within a world.” She started to walk. “This one is no longer used except for the occasional family interment. The council has no money. They can’t look after the living, never mind the dead. But it’s patrolled occasionally.”

He followed along the path. They saw no other human being, only scraggy shrubs and graves. Even noise of traffic failed to penetrate save as a distant rumble.

“You came here, without protection?” he asked.

“Only once. I got flashed within twenty seconds. We may appear to be alone, but I guarantee there’s a concealed masturbator every ten yards. Necrophilia is in vogue at the moment.” Victoria turned from the main path to a sidetrack, hitching her skirt to step carefully between the undergrowth. “Grown back a bit since last year,” she said. “I should have worn trousers.”

Sean was tempted to take her hand and offer easier balance. Instead he side-stepped in front and trod down the brambles. He observed nice legs, her feet stepping delicately to save her tights. Either side, graves lay amidst tangled creepers that snaked over stone and marble. Nothing lay visible beyond the immediate surroundings. At the path’s end, remnants of a hacked out area gave moveable room around a flat, granite top sarcophagus. Disregarded police tape still marked the crime scene.

“This place is macabre,” he said. “I can’t believe a bright, intelligent girl completing her PhD would run a gauntlet of winos and wankers to come here. Even to meet someone.”

“That’s one of the mysteries and unfortunately, graveyard tossers don’t make voluntary witnesses. We carried out twenty interviews and kept a presence here for a month, undercover cops playing at winos. Everyone disappeared. It really did become a place for the dead. My guess is, she came with someone she trusted. I interviewed all her known male friends, even girl friends I judged bi-sexual or suspicious. All volunteered DNA, none matched her rapist.”

“Maybe she picked someone up,” Sean said, glancing to dark stains discolouring the lichen-spotted stone.

He watched Victoria shake her head, her lips pressed tight.

“She died between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. She had no known association in this area. Even prostitutes stay out.”

“Maybe an all night party, a one night stand. Let’s do it on a grave before breakfast. Girls are bold these days.”

She grimaced. “Possible, but out of character. Lizzie was a good-looking young lady, but her interests lay solely in gaining a PhD. All her girlfriends, her boyfriends, spoke of her as dedicated. She didn’t smoke, drink, party or go clubbing. Her only relaxation was interactive computer games, but then they were the subject of her thesis.”

“Same as Danielle, my housekeeper,” Sean said. “She’s into the physical stimulation and mental influences imposed by intense concentration. According to Danielle, computer games can be as addictive as drugs.”

“Friends say Lizzie spent thousands of hours on games. She was highly ranked, British South East champion. PKL, the game-makers, even funded a portion of her PhD. She went to head office to collect and made the national papers.”

“These companies have leagues? I didn’t realise.” Sean surreptitiously looked her over but had a sense of reciprocal observation, her eyes on his hair, face, hands. She was weighing him, judging what, if anything had changed. He wondered if she recalled lying beside him in bed when they had played Mr and Mrs undercover, she locked tight in pyjamas, he in a tracksuit. She Miss Cool, he ready to explode as he strained against base instinct.

“They have leagues for everything,” she said. “And before you ask, my investigation into PKL was incomplete, except I found they do minor research for Starways, the American systems provider. Creech closed me down before I got further. Starways probably operate sixty percent of all computer systems worldwide. That makes them ultra clean, and by association, PKL also.”

Sean shrugged. “Still doesn’t answer why she came here.”

“I doubt we’ll ever know.”

“A walk in solitude, like the Suffolk girl. If the place was full of weirdos, it could have been a chance encounter.”

“Again, possible.”

She held herself and he recognised a gesture of self-protection, as if she felt unconsciously threatened. It gave an insight. She was not so detached as she pretended.

“If it was chance, it led to her being raped and butchered,” she said, and paused. “Disembowelled, each organ cut out and placed separately. This guy knew female anatomy. Parts were missing, taken by the killer or some animal, no-one knows. The same thing that happened with Sarah Finch and Helen Carter.”

Sean lifted both hands from the embellished stone and the dark stains. “Poor girl. No one saw, no-one heard; here in the middle of London.” He indicated the council block, its top windows facing where they stood. The rest of the building was hidden by leaf-heavy branches.

Victoria followed his gaze. “The place is being emptied for demolition. Top flats have been deserted a year. The window you see is the one Sam Sinclair supposedly jumped from. Unbearable grief as he looked down on the site of his daughter’s death. That’s what Creech put forward. I’ve checked the whole building. It’s the only place where you can see the crime scene. Lizzie had been put out by chloroform, gagged, tied then spread-eagled, her clothes cut off. If consciousness returned she would have been helpless. And if someone saw, they’re saying nothing.” A tight grimace appeared. “I have one factor though. One very definite, very positive identification. The DNA sperm sample from her killer matches that found at the Helen Carter crime scene.”

“Why wasn’t that in your report?” he asked, trying to fathom what lay in her mind. “You telling me no comparative DNA tests were run through records?”