Carnal Acts (11 page)

‘Stupid,’ he said, coming close and narrowing his eyes. ‘Really fucking stupid.’

Joni felt the knife pierce her gut once and then again. She tried to call out, but she heard no sound; felt only a rush of wind as she was shoved backwards and her head made solid contact with the wall.

Joni slapped herself hard on the cheek. She had been fighting for months to keep the memory of the raid out of her mind, but it still came back with as much intensity as ever. The tap was open now, events gushing out, swamping her. At first it had been a blank. She was in a coma for three days, the haematoma that had started to form in her brain from the blow she had sustained to the back of her skull gradually – to the surprise of the neurologists – subsiding. Then she had blurred vision and crushing headaches for a week. Then she went mad. They didn’t call it that, and the Met was very understanding, paying for psychotherapy and granting her six months’ convalescent leave. Although she had played the strong woman effectively towards the end of the course, even convincing the shrink that she was ready for duty, she had known from the beginning that she wouldn’t go back to Homicide Southwest. London was dead to her and, despite a major manhunt, Marcus Ainsworth had never been found. He had seriously injured a uniformed officer after he left her, proving that her carefully planned operation had failed to cover every eventuality – a point DCI Tinsley emphasised in his
report. She had to get out and, to her mother’s amazement, she agreed to move to Northumberland: to Corham and the newly formed Police Force of North East England.

But she still felt Marcus Ainsworth’s stony gaze on her every night before sleep begrudgingly came.

Nick Etherington slept fitfully. He was too excited by what had happened with Evie. He hadn’t really believed that she would return his feelings. It wasn’t that he was inexperienced with girls – he’d spent the last couple of years fighting them off and had been in several short-term but fun relationships. But Evie wasn’t like the others. It wasn’t just that she was older. Although she’d had plenty of friends in her year, she maintained a distance from them. He suspected it was something to do with being as different from her mother as possible. Victoria, she just wouldn’t give up. He felt like the flesh had been stripped from his bones when she looked at him and the way she called him ‘Nicholas’ – something not even his mother did – made him feel like a naughty child who needed punishment. Not that the punishment would necessarily be unpleasant…

And Evie was right. Who cared about the autumn? They had months to spend together, especially after he’d finished his exams. Evie. She was so sweet. Then he remembered the story of the slave that she’d written. No wonder she had problems with her family if that was how they had treated their workforce. ‘Their slaves,’ Evie had corrected. ‘Favon Hall was built with blood money.’ Nick agreed, but he didn’t understand why she was so worked up about it. Britain was full of big houses whose owners had exploited workers and peasants. Such was life.

He hadn’t felt so good for along time. Even gathering together his school books was a pleasure. He whistled a Coldplay tune as
he went down to breakfast. His mother and grandfather smiled at him. Gramps had realised as soon as Nick came in the door last night that something had happened. His mother was less observant. She was still upset that he’d been questioned by the police.

‘Back to work today, young man,’ Rosie said, with unusual severity. ‘You’ve had your fun. It isn’t long till exams.’

‘Yes, Mum,’ he mumbled, mouth full of bacon and egg. He saw Gramps wink at him.

A few minutes later they were in the major general’s Jaguar. An unofficial routine had set in after Michael had moved in: he took Nick to the Abbey in the mornings and Rosie picked him up in the afternoons, unless her charity work got in the way.

‘Your mother’s right, you know,’ his grandfather said. ‘You really have to nail those exams.’ He smiled. ‘Like you’ve nailed so many tackles and tries. Half-centuries too. That reminds me. Is it cricket practice as usual this afternoon?’

‘Yes. I can get a lift home if you like.’

‘No, one of us will come down.’

As they neared Corham, Nick found himself thinking about Sunday night. Even with his vision restricted by the traffic light, he’d seen things he’d rather not have – the man with the knife in his belly, the skinny bodies of the women, the one who’d run into him, her lower half bare and blood on her hand… But something else troubled him: the heavy man with no jacket who’d come down the steps after the woman left screaming. Was it really
him
? There was blood on the fingers of the hand he was holding over his upper thigh and his features were twisted in pain. No, it couldn’t be right. What would a man of his status be doing in a brothel in one of north Corham’s dodgiest areas? And then there was the hair. If it was him, he must have been wearing a wig. The problem was its length. Rather than disguising him, it made someone of his age stick out. Would he really have taken the risk of being recognised to screw one of those sad women? Nick’s eyes had met his through the slit. His heart missed a beat. What if
he
found out who’d been wearing the cardboard
costume? It wouldn’t be hard for a man in his position.

‘You look worried. Tell me what you’re thinking.’ His grandfather’s voice was a mixture of command and concern.

‘I … oh, it’s nothing. Exam tension.’

‘You can take it. You’re a hard one.’

Nick struggled to keep his lips in a straight line. He’d certainly had a hard one with Evie, not that she’d complained. He hadn’t expected her to be a virgin. That made him feel even more privileged. She had trusted him to be her first lover. He blinked away a tear.

‘Listen,’ his grandfather continued. ‘You had a bad time on Sunday night. You should talk to me, get it off your chest. Believe me, you’ll feel better.’

‘OK, Gramps. Maybe later.’

‘Whenever you want, lad.’ There was hint of disappointment in the major general’s voice.

Minutes later Nick was walking into the Abbey School. He was immediately surrounded by friends wanting to know what had happened with the police – he’d kept his phone off when he was with Evie and afterwards. He was embarrassed to find that he’d become even more of a hero. At least no one knew about him and Evie. That was one thing he was going to keep to himself. Some secrets were good.

‘All right, people, gather round.’ Heck Rutherford, grey-faced, was leaning against the wall at the front of the MCU. Morrie Sutton and his team were on his left, and Joni Pax with her people to the right. It was nine a.m. and the holiday weekend meant that things had piled up. Officers had been in since eight a.m., collating reports and making their own to-do lists for Heck’s approval.

Heck looked at Joni. ‘By some miracle the bank holiday weekend was pretty quiet – at least outside Corham.’

‘So it seems,’ she agreed. ‘Uniform were out in force and there were several arrests for drunk and disorderly and damage to property.’ She glanced at the young man standing beside her. ‘DS Rokeby has something to report.’

Heck waited for Peter ‘Pancake’ Rokeby to speak. He’d had him on his team in Newcastle and found him a solid performer. He’d taken some stick when other officers discovered he was gay, but he stood up to it well. ACC Dickie had been keen to have him at Corham because of her diversity drive. His nickname referred to his predilection for the food item, though some smartass had claimed it referred to make-up. Pete whispered something that made the guy blush like a schoolgirl, refusing afterwards to say what it was. He was a good man, Pete – discreet but deadly.

‘Em, yes, ma’am,’ Rokeby said. One of his few weaknesses was discomfort with public speaking. He could question a suspect as effectively as the next officer, but he hated addressing the morning meeting.

‘Come on, Detective Sergeant, we haven’t got all day.’

Heads turned and people took in Ruth Dickie, who had slipped into the room.

‘No, ma’am. I mean, yes, ma’am. Traffic police up in Alnwick stopped a driver in a BMW speeding on the A1. He was doing over a hundred. When they went to breathalyse him, one of the officers saw the grip of a pistol sticking out beneath the front seat. They managed to immobilise the guy and cuff him. He refused to answer questions, didn’t even give his name – just said the name of a Newcastle brief.’

‘What name?’ Heck asked.

‘Richard Lennox.’

There were groans around the room. Lennox was notorious for his list of criminal clients, many of whom he’d kept out of jail by practices that came close to getting him disciplined. He benefited from the criminals’ large financial resources, which
enabled him to hire the sharpest legal minds, as well as former detectives now working as private investigators.

‘The superintendent at Alnwick let the driver call Lennox, who arrived an hour later. By then, as well as the pistol, nearly a kilo of cocaine had been found in the BMW. The man is foreign, probably Albanian. He’s been charged with possession of the weapon and drugs and is in custody.’

‘Interesting.’ ACC Dickie walked to the front of the room and stood next to Heck, with whom she exchanged glances before continuing. ‘Albanians seem to be flavour of the weekend.’ There was a hint of excitement in her voice. ‘DCI Rutherford, you’d better send our resident Italian speaker to Alnwick to see if she can get anything out of this latest miscreant.’

Heck nodded at Joni, then looked to her side. ‘Pan … DS Rokeby, you go too.’

‘Any further developments with the Albanians here, DI Pax?’ the ACC asked.

Joni saw Morrie Sutton’s cheeks redden – he resented being overlooked, but that wasn’t her fault. She said that she’d spoken to the hospital and been told that Blerim Dost was in a stable condition. His room was still being guarded. Joni added that none of the Albanian women had been spotted overnight. ‘After we’ve been to Alnwick, we’ll stop off to interview Nick Etherington again,’ she concluded. ‘I’m sure he saw something at the brothel that he hasn’t come clean about.’

Ruth Dickie kept silent, so Heck nodded to DI Sutton.

Unlike Pancake Rokeby, Morrie loved spouting to the gathered masses. The problem was, he had absolutely no talent for it. After several minutes of chaotic rambling, Heck cut in. The upshot was that DI Sutton was told to intensify the search for witnesses and for the missing female suspect, while DS Gray was assigned to liaising with the SOCOs and the lab over their findings in Burwell Street. DC Eileen Andrews – short, plump, in her mid-forties and with a look of mild amusement permanently on her soft face – was asked about her trawl of the databases.

‘The Border Agency has Leka Asllani, Blerim Dost and the man last seen with a fork in his forehead—’

‘Elez Zymberi,’ Joni supplied.

‘All the zeds, DI Pax,’ Andrews said, smiling. ‘As I was saying, the UKBA has the three of them plus the six women as having overstayed their ninety-day visas. Apart from that, none of them appear in HOLMES or any of the other databases.’

‘Is it worth giving Interpol their names and mugshots?’ Heck mused.

‘Hold off on that,’ the ACC said. ‘We need to build more of a case.’ She looked at him. ‘On the other hand, DCI Rutherford, you should talk to your former colleagues in Newcastle – see if the names mean anything to them.’

Heck’s shoulders slumped. He’d suspected she would suggest that.

Suzana had spent the rest of the night in a park. The walls of what she took to be an old church were bathed in yellow light about a kilometre away. The red coat, almost like the cloaks the women in her village wore in winter, kept her warm and the wide-brimmed hat protected her head from the drops of dew that fell from the trees. She woke early and thought about what to do. The longer she stayed in this town, the greater the chance of being found by Leka’s friends. She was hoping he and the other pigs in the slave house would be out of action for a long time if they weren’t dead. But leaving would bring its own dangers. Taking a bus or a train – she used to hear the sound of engines and carriages clacking from her room – would mean that other people would see her, other people who might talk. She could have tried to whore herself on the roadside, but she’d vowed that no man would ever touch her again. So she had to walk; but
before that she needed to locate this Cor-ham place on a map and decide where to go. Then there were the bags of provisions. She needed somewhere to hide them after she’d eaten again.

Rolling up the coat, Suzana hid it and the bags behind a thick bush. She kept the hat on as, combined with the good-quality leather jacket, it made her look less like a person who lived on the streets. Her feet were still painful, but they were better than yesterday, as was the wound on her upper chest. As long as she kept the jacket buttoned, she would not attract too much attention. If she opened it, the sour stench of sweat and men’s fluids would cause people to gag. Heading for the town centre was risky, and not only because of the Albanians. The police would be looking for her too. She knew that stabbing men wouldn’t be seen as acceptable, no matter what had been done to her. She’d been brought up to understand that women did what they were told, respecting the superiority of their fathers, brothers and husbands. She did not think things would be so different in England.

For all that, a man with a small white dog said something to her in a friendly voice as she left the park. She kept her head down and mumbled something in return, keen to fit in. The buildings around here were smaller than the one with the small wooden house, but not as shabby as the ones in the streets around the slave house. There were trees and in daylight she saw that the leaves were bright green and that buds had begun to appear. She looked up at the sky. High cloud in narrow white strips – what her grandfather on her father’s side called ‘goose-feather heaven’.

There were few people around – did they stay in their beds so late? Then it struck her. Living in towns meant you didn’t have to rise with the sun to tend the animals. Why did they put ropes around their dogs’ necks? In the village they ran free, scavenging for food and receiving savage beatings if they nipped the goats and sheep. Here it seemed people looked after them. Why would they do that at the same time as depriving the creatures of their freedom? Truly this was a strange country.

She came to a wide road with cars moving slowly. The few vehicles in her village were driven as if they were in a race, even the big tractors that had appeared in recent years. Young men rode motorbikes with their heads lowered, never with the helmets she saw in Cor-ham and always at full speed. Two of her cousins had been killed, one hitting a wall and the other catapulting into a ravine. It had taken the men a whole day to bring his body back for burial.

Suzana came to the first shop. It was closed, but she stood at the window, her eyes wide. She had never seen so many toys: dolls, grown-up dolls with short skirts and huge hair like the street women in Tirana, trains and cars for boys. In the corner was a house nearly as tall as she was, with furniture in every room and tiny plates and cups on the tables. There was even a toilet like the one in the slave house. The first time she had used one like that was in the airport. She had asked one of the other girls, who told her to put her feet on the seat and squat. Was that what fat men and old women did too, she wondered. Leka had laughed when she climbed up on the seat in the bathroom down the corridor from her room. ‘Put your skinny ass on the plastic, bitch,’ he said. ‘You’re not a peasant now.’

No, she’d been something much worse: a plaything of men; a doll like the ones in the shop, despite her lank hair and pale skin; a vessel for their seed. She looked around, suddenly afraid that she stood out. But people walked past, the younger ones paying little attention to her and the older ones giving her tentative smiles. She nodded to them, wishing she could respond to their words. She didn’t even know how to say ‘Good day’ in English.

Moving on, Suzana came to a street full of shops and restaurants. There was a stone column in the middle of a broad square and, beneath it, a map in a plastic display case. She headed for it, jumping at the horn blast from a car and ready to bolt. The man at the wheel shook his head at her and drove on. She berated herself. This is not the mountains. Here there are many vehicles. Be careful, idiot.

She spent a quarter of an hour making sense of the map. Beside it was a tall post with signs at different heights, pointing in various directions. She followed them with her eyes and spoke the names under her breath.

‘Cor-ham Ab-bey. Riv-er Der-wyne. Tan-ning and Dis-tilling Mus-e-um. Ra-il-way Sta-ti-on. Bus Sta-ti-on. I-ron-flatts.’ She didn’t understand the words, but she found where they were on the map, seeing pictures of a train, a bus and three bridges. She worked out the location of the riverside park where she’d spent her first night of freedom. There was a red dot in the Ma-in Squ-ar-e. She realised that was where she was standing. She memorised as much as she could. Having been to school with one teacher for all the classes and very few books or writing materials, she had come to rely on her memory. In recent months it had grown weak from lack of use, but now she had a purpose. She would sharpen her memory and every other part of her mind. They would be some of her most important weapons.

That reminded her. The small plastic-covered knife she’d taken from the wooden house was in her pocket, but she needed something more lethal. Looking around and waiting until there was a gap in the increasing flow of cars, Suzana crossed back to the shops and looked for one that sold knives. She’d began to lose hope when, on a road leading to the river, she found a place with not only knives in the window, but also screwdrivers, pliers and other tools.

She went in to stock up.