Touch (7 page)

‘You’ll have some tea?’ Mrs Isaacs asked.

‘Thank you. That would be great.’ Savage said.

Mr Isaacs went over and slumped in the armchair nearest the fire, but made no invitation to Savage or Enders to sit. The two of them took the sofa and Savage began to ask about the discovery of the body. Mr Isaacs wasn’t interested. He had explained to the response team what had happened and was buggered if he was going to go through it all over again. Savage pressed him.

‘The problem is you said you discovered the body last night and yet you didn’t call us until this morning. I am wondering why you took so long to phone us?’

‘Work to do. Things to sort. Animals and the like. Farm’s got to come first. Always has and always will. I still had loads of jobs to do and I thought if I called you lot I wouldn’t get the chance to finish any of them.’

‘But a dead girl, Mr Isaacs? Wasn’t that more important? Do you realise you have committed an offence by not reporting the discovery straight away?’

‘She wasn’t going anywhere was she? I could see she was dead because I...’ Isaacs paused and huffed. ‘Well, I touched her, didn’t I? Had to, see? Didn’t know, did I?’

‘Didn’t know what, Mr Isaacs?’

‘I didn’t know if she was dead, did I? She might have been sleeping.’

‘So when you realised she was dead, why didn’t you call us? I mean she was hardly likely to have died of natural causes, was she? It was obvious a crime had been committed.’

‘You’d know that, being police. I wouldn’t. I am a farmer. Just a farmer. Anyway, I see death all the time. It’s not something alarming when you’ve got animals. Only yesterday I had to collect a ewe from down by the brook. Daft bugger had drowned herself, see? Brought her up here for disposal.’

‘We’ve seen the sheep. It’s not legal is it? Burning them like that?’

Isaacs huffed again and started a rant on the European Union and politicians and how they knew bugger all about anything apart from lining their own pockets. Savage wasn’t unsympathetic when it came to the government meddling in affairs they didn’t understand, but the conversation was leading nowhere so she asked Isaacs if he had seen anyone yesterday, noticed anything suspicious, something out of the ordinary?

‘If I had seen anyone on my land they’d have known about it, so no, I didn’t see anyone.’

As Isaacs spoke Savage heard a tap, tap at the window and she turned to see Calter’s face beaming through. Calter motioned at Savage to come outside. Savage left Enders to continue the questioning and let herself out of the front door.

‘Over here, ma’am.’ Calter stood by the corner of one of the barns next to a bulging, blue fertiliser sack.

Savage went over to join her, squishing through mud and God-knows-what on her journey across the farmyard.

‘Something interesting?’

‘Oh yes!’ Calter held the sack open for Savage.

The sack bulged with various items of farm rubbish and at the top she could see a couple of syringes complete with needles along with an empty dispensing bottle. There were some wood offcuts, a few dirty rags, sheep daggings, bent nails, a length of rubber tubing, an old piece of rusty iron...

‘My eyesight must be going, Jane, I can’t see much of interest.’

Calter grinned and took a pen from her pocket. She poked one of the rags, looped it on the pen, retrieved it from the sack and held it out in front of Savage.

‘Oh no.’

The material had a bit of dirt on, but now it was free from the rest of the bundle Savage could see it was no rag, it was too clean for that. The pure white cotton wafted in the breeze as if drying on a washing line.

‘Girl’s panties, ma’am. Sainsbury’s own brand. The Isaacs don’t appear to have any young children and they are a wee bit small for the Mrs.’

Savage heard a noise and looked round to see the farmhouse door open. Mrs Isaacs’s shrill voice sang out across the mud.

‘Milk and sugar, Inspector?’

Harry lay on the bed watching the ceiling rotate above him. The plaster ceiling rose with the bulb hanging on the twisted wire went one way and the corners of the room went the other. After a while they each slowed down and almost synchronised before going in opposite directions again. Stagecoach wheels in cowboy films came to mind. He closed his eyes to remove the dizzying effect, but that only served to make him think about what he had done and what he had become.

Harry thought it was the blood that pushed him over the edge. If he was caught he would tell the doctors that. The blood from Carmel poured over his hands the way his own blood stained the sheet on his bed when he was a child. The doctors would like that, he knew they would. Regression or something they would call it. There were the pills as well. They had done evil things to him he was sure. When he stopped taking them he had flipped. And that was Mitchell’s fault.

All in all he reckoned he was as much a victim as anyone. He remembered the woman he had seen on the TV. The lawyer. Maybe he should try and get her phone number. He could give her a call. Maybe she could help. Maybe she even wore stockings.

Poor Harry, do you expect me to feel sorry for you?

Jesus, it was Trinny! Harry pulled a pillow over his head and chewed his tongue. He thought he had dumped her and shut her up for good, but somehow she was back. What the hell?

There is no peace, Harry. Not for you and not for me.

No, he understood that. Sunday night hadn’t worked out as it should have and Trinny wasn’t at peace because he hadn’t been able to leave her where he wanted to. There had been too many people. Cars parked around the green, a huge pyre of burning pallets, hot drinks being served from the church and children running everywhere. A stupid bonfire night being held a few days early. In the end he found somewhere nearby. It was quiet and secluded, but at the time he thought it hadn’t been right leaving her in the dark little wood.

Right? The whole thing wasn’t right!

No, but his desire had been uncontrollable. Evil. Not his fault. Which was why he needed to find someone like the girls who had looked after him when he was a kid. The ones who held him close. He had never wanted them. Not like that.

Harry. Let me tell you about the birds and the bees. Something happens when you get older...

Harry ignored Trinny. When you got older you got wiser and when you got wiser you stopped taking the pills. Since he had started to tip the blue and white capsules down the toilet instead of down his throat he had begun to see things. His girls. Everywhere. He would catch sight of Trinny at the bus stop. The lovely Carmel serving in Starbucks. Lucy crossing the road and running into college, the naughty girl late for a lecture no doubt. And it wasn’t only those three, it was the others as well: Deborah, Emma and Katya. It was a miracle how they had all appeared. The pills must have hidden them somehow, but they were there all along. Waiting.

Crazy Harry!

Crazy. Sure he was crazy, but he also knew what he was seeing. The trouble was that the girls on the street weren’t right. Harry could tell that just by looking at them. Bits of flesh poked out everywhere and they wore makeup. Which meant they wanted it and that wasn’t good. But there was one place he had worked where the girls were the real thing and not like the girls on the street at all. They knew how to care, how to cuddle, and from the clothes they wore Harry didn’t think they were likely to be dirty either. And the miracle was he began to spot familiar faces there too. As if they had travelled in time. He’d go home and get his shoebox out and look at the old pictures and sometimes he would be sure. Then he would begin his observations and tests and if the girls were really lucky he might take it one step farther.

Like you did with me?

Yes. He discovered Trinny some months back. She had been the first he collected and he had got it all a bit wrong. There had been a misunderstanding.

And I was half naked. Was that a misunderstanding?

He wanted a few more pictures, wanted her dressed like he remembered.

Something else as well.

When her clothes slipped off he had seen the curves. He needed to touch them, feel them, stroke them.

Fuck me, more like.

No. That was the last thing he had wanted to do.

But you did.

Yes. Afterwards. When the girl had been quiet. When she had gone through the cleaning process and he knew she hadn’t been right.

And all that was Mitchell’s fault?

Mitchell had dragged him into his little circle of depravity and from then on in he had been slipping downhill. Actually it was like he was plummeting now. Freefall. Groundrush.

Drag, Harry? I don’t think the police would see it that way.

Of course they wouldn’t. Because they wouldn’t make allowances for his sensitivities. And the police didn’t know Mitchell and his way of twisting everything to his own advantage. That was how Harry had got involved with him in the first place. Mitchell had spotted Harry on the Hoe with his camera and guessed at what he was doing. He followed Harry into the shopping centre and watched him take upskirt shots on the escalators. Mitchell had confronted him and sprung his trap.

At least his time with Mitchell made him realise about the other type of girls. The sluts. The ones struggling on Mitchell’s bed may not have been begging for it, but they knew the risks. They went out for the night with their flesh on display, just waiting to be touched.

Touched, Harry? They were raped.

Like he had been.

You expect sympathy? After what you have done?

Harry knew that it wasn’t his fault, that somehow, somewhere, everything had got all mixed up. Wrong. Broken.

So what are you going to do to fix things, Harry?

That was a good question. Harry pondered it for a few minutes. He had tried to fix things with Trinny. Only that hadn’t worked out and he’d had to get rid of her. There was also the little matter of Lucy.

Juicy Lucy! That slut! She makes me look like a nun.

Lucy had come back from the past the same way as Carmel and Trinny had so he had collected her too. He couldn’t risk losing her in the way he had lost Carmel. Now she was tucked away downstairs. Safe. The sad thing was that she was just about the same as Trinny. Dirty.

I told you, Harry. And the new girl will be no different.

Emma. Sleeping upstairs.

Thinking about her made him smile. The time with her on Monday had been such fun. They chatted and joked like old friends. He suggested a drink and they talked some more. She laughed and giggled and giggled and laughed and began to get a bit confused. After that she started to look a little tired and he had offered to take her home.

She accepted.

Crownhill Police Station, Plymouth. Wednesday 27th October. 9.03 am

The vista from the operation
Zebo
incident room took in a line of white police vans and a few squad cars sitting on the car park. A crap view was no bad thing, Savage thought. At least all eyes would be on the job and not on the people walking past two floors below. Eight terminals, twice as many screens and a decent amount of spare desk space crammed into a few square metres. Cosy. DS Gareth Collier had been Hardin’s choice for office manager and Savage approved of the way the setup had progressed so far. Collier, always a stickler for procedure, liked things neat, well organised and locked down tight. He looked like he behaved, and with his greying hair trimmed in a parade ground cut he resembled a regimental sergeant major as he prowled around searching for unfiled scraps of paper or terminals which had been left unattended but not logged out of. Luckily he also had a great sense of humour. The opposing facets were a perfect match and ensured smooth progress and a happy team. One without the other made work either dull or frustrating, and if both were missing an investigation didn’t stand a chance.

Gordon Isaacs was banged up in the custody suite at the station in the centre of town and according to DS Darius Riley he was looking pretty miserable after an uncomfortable night brooding. Riley sat at a desk fussing over a crease in his expensive jacket and then fingering his collar where his black skin contrasted with brilliant white cotton. Savage knew the shirt would most likely be from an outfitter on Jermyn Street in London – Hawes and Curtis or Thomas Pink – rather than from the local M&S, which was the brand the other male detectives favoured. When Riley had arrived in Plymouth a year or so ago those officers old enough to remember the US TV show
Miami Vice
had taken to calling him Tubbs after the show’s stylish detective. Riley had borne the practise with good humour until someone from Human Resources had got wind of it and panicked, detecting a lawsuit and headlines. Nicknames were now banned, the penalty a day on an attitude reorientation course.

Riley undid the button on his collar and made some comment about the central heating being way too high before explaining what they had on Isaacs.

‘He has confessed to removing the girl’s underwear and wan–, um, masturbating over the body, but swears blind he knows nothing else about her. For the moment we can do him under sexual offences section seventy. Turns out he’s got previous though, sex with a minor, however it was over thirty years ago.’

‘The case was still on file?’ Savage asked.

‘No, he admitted it. He’s pretty ashamed of himself now and I think he is so terrified of what the wife is going to do to him he just wanted to come clean.’

‘So to speak,’ Calter said.

Savage had selected Riley and Calter for the initial interview. She had figured the combination of Riley, tall, black and disarming, and Calter, who in her own words described herself as a ‘hard-nosed bitch’, would unsettle Isaacs. In fact, the interview plan had gone a little astray because Mr Isaacs claimed he had a history of mental illness and was on medication. A check with his GP had confirmed the fact and they had to get someone along from Social Services to sit in as an appropriate adult. Still, Savage was pleased with the results even though they’d had to adopt a softer approach than she would have liked.