Angels Bleed (Fallen Angels Book 1) (10 page)

‘’Beautiful’, she said, simply, looking back up at me briefly, a wicked smile on her lips, before her gaze returned down below.  She leaned over slightly and lowered her head down between my thighs and I gave out a small shriek of anticipation at the thought of what she was going to do.  She looked up at me again, her smile broadening before she puckered her lips and blew a breath of ecstasy ever so gently over my yearning clitoris.  The sudden sensation was statically erotic, my whole being tensing with the intensity of the feeling.  She continued, blowing gently around my slightly parted lips, down to my perineum and all the way back to my clitoris, my groin pulsing with the waves of pleasure that were rising from the depths of me, starting to surf on the wave of orgasm.  ‘She is so, so beautiful.’ she said, raising her head for a second and looking at me again.  I could see her sucking the moisture out of her tongue, could hear the dry barbs of her taste buds rising as she stuck it out in the cool air, going down once more and licking upward from my perineum.  The second her tongue touched me, I started to come, my body wracking, panting heavily, moans getting louder and louder.  Slowly, the dry, coarse buds of her open tongue smothered my hot, moist lips, sending searing pleasure coursing through me, rapturing an already flowing orgasm.  Upwards she continued, rolling her tongue, reaching the top of my lips, where it engulfed my exposed, throbbing clitoris and sucked it.  I exploded, my body bucking and tensing, screaming as the orgasm overwhelmed me.  I grabbed her shoulders and held her tight against my vulva until the last wracking wave abated and I flopped back into the sofa, hands dropping away from her, utterly sated.’

‘She looked at me, smiling, her lips glistening with my pleasure.  She moved up and placed a tender kiss on my still quivering mouth as she stood up.  She unzipped her suit slightly, down to the curve of her cleavage, reached inside and took out a small, white mobile phone.  She leant down and pulling my leather corset forward, placed the phone against the swell of my left breast.  ‘That was delicious.’ she said. ‘I’ll call you.’ she finished as she zipped her suit back up and started to back out of the room, slowly.  ‘Absolutely delicious.’     

‘Wait!’ I said, a little too eagerly, ‘Don’t go just yet.  I don’t even know your name?’ I implored.  She continued to back out of the viewing area, her body through the curtains now, only her head remaining.  She smiled at me and said, ‘Call me Evangeline: Madame Evangeline.’

8:33 am

Shadows slowly elongated and evaporated over the brooding Cheviot Hills as the sun started its ascent beyond dawn, dancing through the morning mists which clung to the upper slopes of the range.  Dew glistened on the fading purple heather that coloured the otherwise dour brown and green landscape which was interspersed with exposed rocks and shale landslides. 

The bottom of the slopes gave way to open fields, most of them sewn with winter crops which were just starting to rise through the carpet brown landscape.  The odd green field, sheep or cows languidly grazing, were dotted throughout the vista.  Half a mile in front of the hills sat Featherstone Hall in its dishevelled grounds, an ugly blot on the natural beauty of the surrounding countryside.

Saul stood at the window inside the MIU, looking out over view, deep in thought.  The open space in front of the Hall was bustling with activity, vehicles coming and going constantly.  Strange finished filling his coffee cup from the bubbling percolator on the bench beside the various officers and tech staff beavering away at the computers.  He walked to the window and stood beside Saul, the two of them standing in silence for a moment, before Strange wrinkled his nose.

‘You stink of piss John.  If that’s your aftershave, I would take it back.’  Strange wryly said.

‘It was that bigoted bastard’s dog.  Used me as a lamppost.  Ripped my trousers too.  It took all my self-restraint to stop myself kicking it.’   Saul answered with evident anger, lifting his leg to show Strange the damage.   ‘Mind you, I wanted to kick Bentley even more.  What a waste of space.  I have no confidence at all in any evidence that he may have gathered.  He’s all for an easy life, and Rebecca confessing to this murder meant he didn’t have to probe deeply into this case.  I’m beginning to understand what our ‘Unknown Caller’ was getting at now.  There are dozens of inconsistencies.  Everyone seemed to put them down to Rebecca’s condition.’

‘That’s as maybe John, but it still doesn’t get us any closer to identifying anyone else involved in Michael’s murder.  We’ve got to focus on facts now.  We don’t have the luxury of time.’

Irritated, Saul replied, ‘I know that Sir, and I don’t have facts at the moment.  But I can tell you I don’t trust Bentley, and I trust Ennis even less.’

‘Let’s see what you do trust then John.’ encouraged Strange, putting a hand up to the back of Saul’s neck and rubbing it gently, ‘And try and get rid of some of this tension along the way.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so uptight.  Come on, pictures first, tell me what you think.’

Strange gently ushered him around to the table where Saul picked up the photos and photo fit Dr Ennis had given him.  Saul stuck the first one, of Rebecca before she had been committed, up below her name on the board.  The second photo, of Rebecca’s scarred and bruised body, he put down next to the words ‘Person in the Crate’.  He pursed his lips, gently shaking his head.  ‘I don’t think its Rebecca in the crate Sir.  Look at her skin, just about every visible surface has some kind of lesion on it.  The skin of the person in the crate looks smooth and unblemished.  It makes no sense that our ‘Unknown Caller’ would put her in there, not when he is trying to clear her name.’ 

‘That poor lady.’ said Strange sadly.  ‘Whether she did or didn’t kill him, whether she is mad or not, to feel so desolate, so bereft as to inflict that kind of pain upon yourself is unimaginable.  I agree.  I don’t think it is her in the crate, but let’s keep the photo there for now, until we know any different.  What about her?’ he asked, pointing to the photo fit in Saul’s hand. ‘Where do we put her?’

Saul took a marker and wrote the name ‘Madame Evangeline’ just to the right of Rebecca and stuck the picture under it.  ‘I know Ennis thinks she is just another personality inside Rebecca, but as I said, I don’t trust one jot the thoroughness of his assessment.  I believe we have to treat her as real.  We already have the potential corroboration of Rebecca’s story about this place.’ he said, glancing out of the window to the Hall.  ‘We know there is a huge inconsistency with how Rebecca remembers leaving the party on New Year’s Eve and the evidence the police found.  I think we have to work on the basis she is real and figure out how we prove that, and more importantly find her.’

‘True, but is that enough to go on, is that enough for us to get any evidence to suggest she is real in the next 16 hours, let alone find her?’ started Strange, before being interrupted.   

‘Right,’ said Reynolds, interrupting Saul, ‘The C…C…CCTV footage is ready now Sir.’

‘Excellent, thank you Steven.’ answered Strange, turning and walking past the table which was covered in documents from the Evidence files provided by DI Bentley.  Saul turned from the white board and followed Strange to the far wall, where one of the plasma TV’s started to show a clear black and white image.

‘So, you can see the high street clearly with a taxi waiting.  Lots of revellers passing by, quite a few in fancy dress.  It is New Year’s Eve after all.’ Strange said, relaying the footage.  ‘There, pause there please Steven.’ he finished, then approached the screen.

‘Okay, we have what looks to be a male in an all-black Gimp outfit being led by a woman dressed in similarly black attire approaching the taxi.  She certainly looks like Rebecca.  That’s a very clear shot of her face.’ said Strange.  ‘There’s not another woman there John.’

‘I see that!’ said Saul abruptly, pondering, and moving closer to the screen. ‘She’s on a mobile.  Can you see that?’ prompted Saul, pointing to her right arm which was raised towards her ear.  ‘Reynolds, just move that forward a few frames.  Great.  Now stop.  Look, you can see a white mobile in her hand.  Now who is she calling?’ mused Saul.

‘It is New Year’s Eve John, not too far off midnight, she could be calling anyone.’ answered Strange.

‘Yes, possibly, but she had no family, very few friends, and her son is with her.  Play on Reynolds.’ instructed Saul. They watched as the two of them got into the taxi and it started to drive off. ‘Stop, there again.’ Saul said quickly. ‘Look, clear as day, she’s laughing.  Whoever she is talking to, she’s laughing.  Does that look like the face of a woman who is going to rip her son’s heart out to you?’

Saul turned to the table, eyes scanning the various documents until they settled on one poking out of a small pile.  ‘They would have inventoried and checked any mobile phones and calls.’ he said, picking up a bundle of papers headed ‘Flat Inventory’ and running his finger down the first page, then flipping to the second.  ‘There it is.’ he said, looking up from the papers to Strange, his tone slightly perplexed.  ‘The inventory lists her mobile as a Nokia Lumia, a
black
Nokia Lumia.’  He flicked further through the bundle, stopping on a page near the back.  ‘There’s a list of calls to that mobile.  The last was to her son’s mobile at 4:48pm for 15 minutes. And then no calls at all after that.’

Strange was back at the whiteboard, and wrote ‘White Mobile Phone?’ underneath Rebecca’s name.  ‘What does that tell us then?’ he asked, turning to Saul.

‘The main thing it tells me is that I am even more concerned about how thorough the original investigation was.  There’s no notes at all about that phone in the files.’ said Saul, picking up one of the main documents at the front of the table: Rebecca’s original statement.

‘She makes no reference to it either.  Yet it’s there.  Rebecca mentions being in a limousine with Madame Evangeline and her Gimp.  Why didn’t she refer to him as her son?’ he mused, before continuing. ‘She doesn’t mention anything about the two of them getting into a Taxi.  Reynolds, play the video of them getting out of the Taxi.’ Saul instructed.

Reynolds did so, and the image changed to a Taxi pulling up on a street with a few shops, all of them closed.  No one was visible apart from Rebecca and the Gimp getting out of the Taxi.  They linked arms and started to walk off down the street, in a direction away from the camera.  They were visibly swaying from side to side as they walked.

‘What’s the name of that street, can you zoom in on the sign Reynolds?’ asked Saul, pointing to a blurry name plate.  Reynolds did so, the words ‘Settle Avenue’ coming into view.

‘Reynolds, bring up a map on your computer and punch in the addresses of that street and Rebecca’s flat.’ Saul said brusquely.

‘What are you thinking John?’ asked Strange, looking at Saul, whose eyes were darting from the notes he was reading, to the screens in front of him. 

‘I’m wondering why they didn’t get dropped off at her flat.  Reynolds, can you also overlay the locations of known CCTV camera’s onto that as well?’ he enquired, moving towards the screen as a map appeared of the Leith area. 

‘I’ll try.’ answered Reynolds as he entered the address information, two red pins appearing on the screen about a centimetre apart. 

‘They seem to be heading off in the direction of her flat, but it’s about a half a mile away.  Why?’ Saul pondered, drawing his finger over the route between the two pins.

‘John, they may just have wanted a bit of fresh air.  If you look at the way they were staggering, there’s no doubt they were intoxicated.  How do you think this helps us figure out if Madame Evangeline is real?  Please remember we only have sixteen hours left and we have to focus our efforts.  I know you are seeing inconsistencies, but are they material in a way that will help us?’  Strange stated in a soft, conciliatory tone.

A look of frustration shot into Saul’s eyes as he quickly turned to look at Strange, but it abated almost immediately as he recognised the openly honest, challenging demeanour of his superior.  ‘Sorry Sir.’ he said.  ‘We have a half mile trip within which we don’t know what happened.  What if it was Madame Evangeline she was talking too on the phone, arranging to meet up?  If this woman is real, she is someone who likes to maintain her anonymity, she is someone who likes to cover their trail.  It’s half a mile where they could have possibly climbed into a limousine and headed here.  If we can get other CCTV footage of their short trip?’ Saul finished, the last words half statement, half question.

‘Possibly, John, being the operative word.  We still have no conclusive evidence to suggest this is the location Rebecca was talking about.  It’s just as likely that our ‘Unknown Caller’ has set this up based on openly available information in the case documentation: we have to consider that.’ posed Strange.

‘I understand that Sir.  But either way, we were led here, in particular,
I
was led here on the basis of there being evidence which would point us to an alternate ‘killer’.  If that alternate ‘killer’ is Madame Evangeline, we have to try and find out who she is and how she was involved.  We have to find a link between both this location and how they arrived here.’

‘Sir,’ interrupted Reynolds, ‘I’ve managed to map all the CCTV cameras in the area.’

Saul and Strange turned back to the screen, dozens of purple pins now highlighting camera locations, the immediate radius around the red pin of Rebecca’s flat clear, the nearest camera being the red pin on Settle Avenue.

‘Shit.’ shouted Saul in frustration, realising there were no other cameras on the trip to the flat.

‘Well, I guess that rules out getting any images of the two of them closer to the flat, which is possibly where Bentley and our Leith colleagues got to in their investigation.’ said Strange firmly, addressing the still brooding, calculating countenance of Saul.

On the screen just to the left of the map, Harris nervously edged himself into the empty seat in the Path Lab Video Conferencing suite.  ‘Hello gents.  Can you hear me?’ he asked, uncomfortably staring into the camera.

‘Ah, Ian, what news have you got for us?’ asked Strange, his tone turning jovial again.

‘We’ve got results back on the other blood samples taken.  One really odd, the other interesting.  The odd one is the blood spatter.  Initial tests showed it was animal blood, which subsequent tests confirmed.  The odd thing is that the animal is snake.  Now, it would have taken a large number of snakes, I’m talking a couple of hundred, to create the amount of blood that was splayed around the room.  I would suggest checking exotic pet suppliers to see if any registered keepers have been on a buying spree recently.’ 

‘That’s promising Ian.’ nodded Strange, walking to the whiteboard and writing ‘Snake Blood’ under ‘Unknown Caller’.  ‘Phyllis, could you start looking into breeders and suppliers in the area please?’ he asked, coming up behind her and placing a hand gently on her shoulder, smiling appreciatively down at her.  She nodded, a fleeting smile crossing her stern features.