Wages of Sin (25 page)

That meant that she did not see him get the short length of rope out from under the driving seat. It fitted easily into the pocket of his coat.

He was glad of the oblong of orange light in the doorway of the house to guide him up the shadowed path of the garden. He had the money ready, waved it expansively at her with a grin, and put it in the fruit bowl on the sideboard, as if he had been here many times before. ‘There's ten quid extra for you to strut your stuff, Miss Whiplash!' he said with an excited giggle. With the benefit of his fantasies over the last few days and half a bottle of red wine, he had convinced himself that this buxom lady looked forward to the violence and the threat of physical damage as much as he did.

He undressed quickly, not bothering to fold his clothes, not noticing her movement behind him as she reached up the wall unobtrusively and pressed the button the police had installed after they had been round to warn her of the dangers.

She felt like a traitor immediately. This man hadn't done anything really dangerous last time, after all. Only said he fancied something a bit more violent, and called her Miss Whiplash. That wasn't so unusual: she had met a lot worse than that in her many years on the game. But the deed was done now. There was no turning back.

He wanted her to get the whip out, muttered to her that Catherine the Great used to beat her men on the bottom before she did it with them. She giggled a little at this unexpected piece of erudition from him; they watched each other self-consciously in the mirror on the wall by her bed.

She had put on black stockings and suspenders, and now she pretended to look for the whip in the drawer, though in truth she knew very well where it was. She had left the door unlocked, and found now that she could not concentrate on the business of arousing the man in the way he wanted, because she was waiting for the sounds of the police arrival.

He was between her thighs when they entered the house, telling her to treat him roughly, chuckling with sexual excitement. There were only two of them, but they burst in like a posse, yelling to him not to move, telling him that he was under arrest, warning him that it might prejudice his defence if he withheld information which he might later use in his defence.

It was noisy but swift. David Strachan stood abject and bewildered, shamed in his nakedness, watching his arousal dying swiftly before his horrified eyes. Sally Aspin wanted to apologize to him, to tell him that it was nothing personal, that toms had been told to turn in all customers who wanted violent sex, as a precaution in the period following the murder of one of their kind.

But Sally said nothing. It was only after the bewildered man had been led away that she realized that he had left her sixty pounds and received nothing.

‘T
hink I'll get one of those corner baths put into my place,' said Percy Peach ruminatively. ‘There'd be room for two of us in one of those.'

‘Wouldn't suit your lifestyle,' said Lucy Blake. ‘We'd both be late for work if you had a bath like that, and that would really set the tongues wagging. I prefer my nice modern shower, where I can shut the door on you!' She felt a little more in control of her man when they were in her neat modern flat than in the icy bedroom of his fifties house.

‘Too small for two, that little square box is,' said Percy regretfully. ‘I can't get in there with you without leaving something sticking out, and you're lethal with that sliding door.'

‘It's cosy and warm and reliable,' said Lucy primly, measuring the distance between Percy and the shower with an experienced eye.

‘Just like me!' said Percy eagerly. ‘Prove it to you again, if you like!'

‘Boasting again. And I shan't call your bluff, in view of the danger to your ageing bones!' She dropped her bathrobe to the ground and leapt quickly into shower, ignoring the moan with which he greeted her sudden nudity.

Percy lay back on the pillows and enjoyed the vision of the gradually pinkening curves amidst the steam of the two-foot square glass box. Like Rubens through a filter lens, that was. He was glad that she hadn't called his bluff and come back to bed, though he would never have admitted it. It had been quite a night; he reviewed what he could remember of its rapidly evolving pleasures.

Lucy took care to cover most of herself with towel before she emerged. She wasn't going to dress in front of him. That would lead to more erotic grunting and possibly to delays they could ill afford: they were already at the last minute. ‘I'll get you some toast, if you make yourself respectable.' She threw on her dressing gown and hurried away to the kitchen.

DS Blake, demure in plain clothes, left first in her bulbous little blue Corsa. DCI Peach, immaculate in a grey suit, drove his Mondeo away a discreet five minutes later. The retired man in the adjoining flat gave him a curious glance as he shut the door of Lucy's flat. Envy, thought a happy but not entirely objective Percy Peach. He gave the man a sly wink from an otherwise immobile face.

It wouldn't do to beat his chest and yell his joy out loud.

Peach took DC Pickering with him in search of the man who had assaulted Jenny Pitt. It was by way of reward for the young man's perceptive gathering of the evidence in Bolton. Of course, he did not tell him that.

At eleven o'clock on a Wednesday morning, a seedy night club is seen at its worst. There was a scent of stale drink in the main rooms and, through the open door of the gents', the odour of vomit permeated even through the strong disinfectant which was being liberally spread around the floor.

‘We're not at home to pigs!' The big man stood just inside the doorway of the club, with his huge hands held awkwardly away from his sides on arms that were a little too long; he looked like an unfriendly gorilla.

‘Surprising, that, when you live in a pigsty.' Peach, warming to the chase, was past the man's ritual hostility and peering into the dark and seemingly empty regions behind him.

He strode past the long and now deserted bar, across a small dance floor and the poles where lap dancers pranced during the evenings, noting how shabby the décor looked in even the modicum of daylight afforded to it by the double doors which lay open behind him. He kicked open the door at the back of this main room, and was rewarded by the spectacle of a man hastily removing his feet from the desk inside.

‘Nice of you to show such respect for the arm of the law!' Peach said pleasantly, as the man half-rose and then slumped back into his chair.

‘I was doing no such thing! Thought for a minute you were Mr Johnson,' the man protested. He reached out his left hand towards the phone, then thought better of it and folded his arms. You didn't need to phone the boss, just because the filth were here. Let them know who's in charge, behave as though you'd nothing to hide, and they couldn't pin a thing on you, the boss said.

And the boss should know: he was doing very well out of it. Ray Shepherd tried to give himself confidence by thinking how much more successful and well-heeled Joe Johnson was than the stocky little man in the smart grey suit who had just burst into his office.

Peach looked round the office, with its prints of dancers in erotic poses, its photograph of the club as a cinema in the fifties, its big empty desk in front of the leather chair presently occupied by Shepherd. He fastened his eyes on this central figure with genuine contempt. ‘You've been beating up women again, Ray. We don't like that. Don't like it at all.'

Shepherd leaned back in the boss's chair and leered up at him, his thin face full of craft and composure. ‘Don't know what you're talking about, I'm sure, DCI Peach.'

He enjoyed getting the rank right, showing the bouncy little pig that they were up to date on his promotion. The fuzz couldn't pin anything on him, he was sure. Just keep grinning and denying and watch the filth become frustrated. That was the tactic. Joe Johnson had built his empire upon it. And Joe Johnson controlled vice in this town; Joe Johnson now had clubs and casinos in other parts of the north-west and in the Midlands; Joe Johnson lived in a house a Chief Constable could never aspire to; Joe Johnson was a multi-millionaire and the police were plods; Joe Johnson ran this town and would protect his staff. Hold on to that, Ray Shepherd, and annoy them with your smiling.

Peach smiled back at him and said, ‘Keep talking big, Shepherd. Do it in court, if you like. The judge won't be favourably impressed.'

He seemed very confident, though he couldn't possibly have any evidence, could he? Like all bullies, Ray Shepherd was shaken when anyone threatened him. He said, ‘I told you, I don't even know what you're talking about.'

Peach nodded at Gordon Pickering, who said, ‘Young lady by the name of Jenny Pitt. Pretty girl. Or she was until you called in and tried to knock her head off yesterday morning.'

‘Never heard of the girl. You try to prove otherwise.'

Peach smiled at him, like a tiger taking its time over a large and succulent goat. ‘We will, Mr Shepherd. Shouldn't have let yourself be seen going into that house, should you?' There were in fact no witnesses to the visit, other than Jenny Pitt herself, but he knew how to undermine men like this. Shepherd was a cut above the ignorant muscle men that Johnson had used on the way up, but Peach saw apprehension in his thin, watchful face, and exulted in it. This wasn't a formal interview, with the man cautioned and the tape running at the station.

‘Wouldn't give much for your chances in an ID parade, with your looks – distinctive, I'd say they are, Ray, being a charitable sort of chap. No, when we add an identification to Jenny Pitt's evidence, I wouldn't give much for your chances.'

Shepherd would never have made an actor. His unease was tangible. A wiry arm lifted towards his face, then fell back to his side. His tongue flicked over the prominent front teeth to moisten the thin lips. ‘She wouldn't give evidence. She wouldn't dare.'

He realized immediately that he had made a mistake. Peach underlined it by his delighted beam, then let the silence stretch for a moment to emphasize his satisfaction. ‘Shows a surprising knowledge of this girl he's never met, wouldn't you say, DC Pickering?'

‘Amazing, sir. At least it would be amazing, if we didn't know perfectly well that he beat her up yesterday morning.'

Shepherd flashed a look of hatred at the fresh-faced young detective. ‘She won't talk anyway. And that'll be the end of it,' he said sullenly. Assurance was ebbing away from him by the second. He inched a hand towards the phone, wishing desperately that he could get the advice of Joe Johnson, then dropped his hand back again to his side.

Peach grinned when he saw the movement. ‘You're on your own here, Ray Shepherd. Just the same as Jenny Pitt was when you beat her up. That's the trouble with people like Joe Johnson. They drop you like shit off a red-hot shovel when you're going down for a long stretch.'

‘I'm not going down, Peach. There isn't the evidence. You won't get that Jenny Pitt to go into court.'

‘Her injuries are being photographed at this very moment, Ray. In glorious technicolour. The blues and the greens and the yellows should be at their best on this bright morning – bright for us, anyway. Our chief photographer's a good lad. He'll make the most of the bruises on the body, when he prints and develops. And it looks as if you might have broken Jenny's cheekbone. Shame for her, but it will help the case.' Percy didn't mind stretching the truth a fraction, in a good cause like this.

‘You won't get me for it.' But the apprehension in the thin face belied the words.

‘It was DC Pickering here who put us on to you in the first place. Bright lad, he is, though I don't suppose someone like you would give him credit for it.'

Ray Shepherd glanced at Pickering contemptuously. ‘Brains of a pig, I should think he has.'

‘Intelligent animals, pigs. But I don't expect you've read
Animal
Farm
.' Peach switched suddenly back to business. ‘I've already noticed that you're left-handed, Shepherd. But it was DC Pickering here who worked out that the man who struck Jenny Pitt so hard with the back of his hand had to be left-handed. Smarter than your average cop, isn't he?'

‘Doesn't mean it was me, does it? It could have been any—'

‘And then there's the DNA, of course. Useful new addition, DNA, when we're dealing with thickos who forget all about it. Almost unfair, it seems sometimes. We could ask you for a sample now, but there's no real hurry. I think we'll leave all that to the Forensic boys when you're safely in custody.' The DCI smiled happily, even smugly.

His attitude had its effect on Shepherd. They could hear the confidence draining out of his voice as he said, ‘You don't scare me, Peach. You won't get a DNA match with me.'

‘You really think not? Well, I'm glad to say that I don't share your view on that, Mr Shepherd. You broke the skin on that girl's face with the back of your hand: I'm sure you left a small sample of your estimable self behind. I shall be very surprised if it doesn't show up in the blood samples DC Pickering collected from the poor girl's face last night.'

It was news to Gordon Pickering, but he managed a brilliant smile when Shepherd glanced instinctively at him. Peach registered this pleasing reaction without turning towards his DC. Having lured this dangerous fish into the complex meshes of his net, he was looking now for a much bigger catch. ‘So you can look forward to at least an ABH charge, or possibly GBH, when we've assessed the injuries. With your record, a conviction for either of them should get you a nice few years inside.'

Now Peach did look at his companion; then he spoke as if they were in conference alone. ‘The question is, DC Pickering, can we now nab this bugger for murder?'

‘I should think it very possible, sir.'

‘I'm glad you agree.' The two faces turned back in unison to look at the slim man behind the desk, studying him in unblinking silence, as though he were a specimen under a microscope.