Carnal Acts (6 page)

While her parents were out doing their thing on May Sunday, the Honourable Evelyn Favon, Evie to her friends, had spent the day in the library, as usual. The table in front of her was covered in books, many of them over two hundred years old. She put carefully cut slips of white paper between the pages and made notes on her laptop. The family’s history had become her obsession.

The door at the far end of the long room opened and Cheryl came in.

‘Can I get you anything, Miss?’

‘No, thanks,’ Evie replied, glancing up briefly.

‘I’ll be off for the night, then.’ The dumpy middle-aged woman turned away.

Evie didn’t wish her good night. Although Cheryl Reston and her husband Dan had been with the family for over a decade, Evie had always sensed antipathy from them. It was a class thing,
her mother explained. Lord and Lady Favon were the Restons’ employers and provided them with a cottage on the estate. It was natural for them to feel resentment – the underprivileged always did – but completely unacceptable for them to show it.

‘But, Victoria,’ Evie had said – since she’d left school the previous summer, she occasionally used her parents’ first names, much to their disgust. ‘Isn’t it natural for the dispossessed to feel aggrieved? We have the Hall and thousands of acres, not to mention stocks and shares and the wealth our ancestors built up so … assiduously, while they have our grace and favour.’

That hadn’t gone down well. Although Victoria wasn’t born a Favon, her father had been Bishop of Tyne Tees and she’d been sent to the best schools. She was very defensive of the family name, though her behaviour could be what the mother of one of Evie’s friends described as ‘erratic’. Andrew, Viscount Favon, had given Evie a talking to, but she paid no attention to him. The accident had dissipated what little trust she had in him.

Although Evie was fascinated by the story she was transcribing, she couldn’t help thinking about the foggy morning the previous October. It was a week before she was due to fly to Nairobi to spend her gap year teaching in a primary school in the Ngong Hills. She had skipped down the Hall’s main steps for her favourite walk around the lake. The geese were honking louder than usual, probably because the factor Dan Reston’s dogs were in the vicinity. Perhaps that was why she didn’t hear her father’s 4×4 reversing towards her at speed until it was too late.

Evie felt no pain in her legs initially. She was more aware of the gravel that had been embedded in her scalp when she hit the ground. Then her father tried to lift her and she screamed before fainting. She woke up in the ambulance with tubes attached to her arms. Her mind was mushy and she kept thinking of the cries of the outraged geese. Again, her legs were not hurting … nothing was hurting at all.

That state of affairs continued in Corham General, at least until the physiotherapy started. Both her legs had been broken
above the knees. Fortunately the fractures were clean, but months of agony in the hospital exercise hall had scarred her mind, turning her from a happy and enthusiastic schoolgirl to a sceptical and suspicious young woman. She still needed a forearm crutch, but at least the wheelchair had been sent back to the hospital.

Her parents had reacted in different ways to the accident. Victoria had been surprisingly supportive, at least during hospital visits. When Evie finally got home, her mother was openly less involved, even complaining when the sewing room on the ground floor, which she never used, was converted to a temporary bedroom. Andrew had never apologised for running into his daughter and was unhappy when the cost of the Kenya trip was not fully refunded. The burden of care fell on Cheryl. Evie had thought that might bring them together, but she was wrong. The factor’s wife, heavily built with a face twisted from permanent scowling, resented what she saw as the extra work, even though Evie had insisted on doing as much for herself as she could. There were nearly five months to go until she started her course at Exeter. She had deliberately chosen a distant university for her history and politics studies.

Apart from the toxic atmosphere in the Hall – which was nothing to do with her – there was only one problem. Going to uni meant Evie wouldn’t see Nick for many months. He was planning on spending his gap year in the Far East. She wasn’t sure how she was going to cope with that.

Heck rolled over in bed, away from Ag’s warm back. It had been against his abdomen all night and the residual pain from his wound had been soothed. Then he remembered the previous night. She had been accommodating, very much so.

‘Where are you going?’ she said, sleepily. ‘It’s a holiday.’

‘Got to head in,’ he said, heading for the en suite bathroom. ‘People got stabbed in a brothel.’

‘Oh, for goodness sake,’ Ag said, sitting up and ruffling her hair. She usually confined herself to pupil-friendly expressions, though she could swear like a constable when necessary. ‘Can’t Joni and Morrie handle that?’

‘They both need careful monitoring. No, Ruth Dickie’s expecting me.’

Ag sank back on the pillows. ‘We were going to do something with the kids.’

‘I’ll try to get back in the afternoon – take them for a kickabout.’

She laughed. ‘Kat’ll love that.’

‘She will, actually. There’s nothing she likes better than sending Luke running around like a rabbit on heat.’

‘Go away, you silly man,’ she said, a smile on her lips.

Driving to Corham, Heck took in the mist rising from the fields. It was another cloudless day, the sun already a bright orb. Birds flitted across the road between the trees like small coils discharging energy. Heck enjoyed the trip every morning. For years he’d gone through the drab suburbs of Newcastle, the traffic thundering along until it ground to a halt in tailbacks. Corham was an efficient place. On the northern side the roads could handle the traffic even during rush hour, while the wide roads in Ironflatts that used to service the steel mill and other heavy industry were never congested now. Besides, there weren’t many cars around early on the first of the May bank holidays.

He saw Assistant Chief Constable Dickie getting out of her dark green Audi as he pulled into his parking place outside Force HQ. She waited for him, her black jacket and skirt immaculate and her briefcase as full as ever. Until she spoke, she appeared to be ‘Mrs Normal’, her nickname – average height, weight, looks; bobbed mousy hair in an old-fashioned Alice band; a couple of unshowy rings on her left hand. Her husband – she hadn’t taken
his name – really
was
Mr Normal: an insurance broker in Newcastle, who played golf and looked after the garden. The only thing that marked them out was that they didn’t have the standard two children – they didn’t have any. The general feeling was that the ACC didn’t do sex.

‘Good morning, Heck,’ she said, a faint smile on her unpainted lips. Make-up was surplus to requirements unless there was a press conference. ‘Busy night.’

‘Ma’am.’ Although Ruth Dickie had been a WPC when Heck was already a DI, her rise had been rapid. She was a shrewd operator, good at police politics – Heck’s bugbear – and hardworking. She had taken the weight off her then superiors during the early planning of Pofnee and had been rewarded with responsibility for crime across the whole force area.

‘Something major go down in one of the cities?’ Heck found it unlikely that she was referring only to the brothel stabbings.

‘Nothing worse than usual,’ she said drily.

Heck knew that could mean anything from running fights in central Newcastle to student bashing in Durham to drug-gang violence in Sunderland.

‘I’m interested in the Albanian connection,’ the ACC said, as they went across the entrance hall.

‘Is that right?’

‘They’re becoming a real problem in Newcastle.’ She tapped in the door code. ‘We don’t want them operating under our noses in Corham, especially if they’re being overtly violent. That wouldn’t be at all good for the Force’s image.’

Heck nodded. It was all about image. If it hadn’t been a holiday, the local press would have been clamouring for a statement.

‘My office in five minutes,’ Ruth Dickie said, as the lift doors opened. ‘You and your DIs will be sufficient.’

Heck swallowed a laugh. Why couldn’t the ACC use normal words like ‘enough’? He knew the reason – because she wasn’t normal at all, no matter how she looked. She was a woman rocketing through the glass ceiling, the chief constable’s job in her
sights. He admired her and he wasn’t envious. He’d rather have walked the Roman Wall in winter wearing swimming trunks than occupy the sixth-floor corner office.

‘Morning, Joni,’ he said, as he walked into the fourth-floor MCU suite, having taken the stairs and almost lost his breath.

DI Pax was hammering away at her keyboard. ‘Sir,’ she responded, without looking away from the screen. ‘ACC want us?’

‘How did you guess?’

Joni shrugged.

‘Where’s Morrie?’

‘At the brothel. He and Nathan are being very secretive.’

Heck called the other DI. ‘Morrie? You have a minute to get over here. The ACC’s office.’ He terminated the call. ‘That should get him moving. In truth he’s got three minutes.’

Joni went to the printer and started collating papers.

‘Anything you want to tell me before we get grilled?’ Heck asked, dumping his bag in his glass-walled office. There was no one else around.

‘Nothing that won’t wait, sir.’

‘Thanks a lot. Let’s go then.’ He looked at her. ‘Aren’t you knackered?’

‘It’s not the first time I’ve pulled an all-nighter.’ Joni’s face softened. ‘Thanks for the concern, though.’ She followed him to the stairs, knowing his habit of avoiding the lifts. ‘There is one thing.’

Heck looked over his shoulder.

‘The brothel. It’s owned by a company based in Liberia.’

He groaned.

Suzana watched the birds swarm over the park. They were like the shoals of fish she had once seen on Italian TV, circling and clustering in a dance only they could understand. She had spent the rest of the night behind the thick bushes that lined a park by a river. In the early morning she had gone through the nearby rubbish bins, finding half-eaten meat and bread and unfinished bottles – she ignored the beer and drank water and juice. Then, clutching her bent legs in her arms and leaning against the wall behind the bushes, she managed to sleep; not deeply and only in short bursts, but enough to refresh her. The wound in her chest was painful, as were her feet. She had taken off the trainers and socks and unwrapped the bandages, pouring water from a bottle she had saved over the lacerated soles. She didn’t know if it would be enough to fend off infection, but it was all she could do. When it got dark, she would see if she could find an unoccupied house to break into – there would be food and hot water, maybe even ointment and clean dressings. She wasn’t going near any hospital. Leka and his stinking friends would be there if she hadn’t killed them; she knew how unlikely it was that all three were dead. Even if they were, others would come after her. The clan could never allow a woman to get the better of it.

She kept still as children came close, a ball crashing through the foliage. Fortunately the clothes she’d stolen weren’t brightly coloured and she wasn’t seen. Eventually the shouts and screams grew distant. Suzana was thinking about the kids in her village. They had nothing, certainly not the sturdy shoes and good quality clothes these ones wore. They used the heads of hens that had been slaughtered instead of balls, the boys with their heads shaven against lice and the girls never allowed far from their mothers or elder sisters; until they became old enough to go the way of many sisters, the way that led abroad to the worst kind of slavery. She wished she still had a weapon. That would be her priority when she found a house: a knife she could use
on them when they came for her, then draw quickly across her own throat.

As the day passed, she found that sleep evaded her. She was sitting on a sheet from one of the newspapers she had taken from a bin. The print was faded and the photographs blurred. The word ‘Corham’ appeared in the title and in many other places. Was that the name of the place she had been living in for months? Cor-ham. She pronounced the word under her breath, wondering if she was saying it correctly. Cor-ham.

Then she looked closer. There was a photograph of two women coming out of a house, one of them short and white, the other tall and dark-skinned. Suzana had never seen a black person in the flesh until she was in the airport in London. This woman looked powerful, as if she was a queen, but she was different. Even though Suzana would have nothing in common with her, she felt a strange connection. She peered at the words underneath. The ones that began with capital letters were probably names. Ma-ur-een Hug-hes, she voiced. Jo-ni Pax. This was the police officer who had left the card. Pax was like Albanian ‘paqe’. Was that what the name meant? ‘Peace’? Suzana laughed silently. Peace was the opposite of what she had experienced in this land.

She fumbled in her new clothes for the wallet and took out the rectangle of card. There was a telephone number and an address under Jo-ni Pax’s name, but she wasn’t going to visit any police station. Free was what she was now, free until death. Still, this Joni woman looked capable. Maybe she really could protect her…

Suzana slapped her cheek. That was weakness. Only she could save herself. She had to plan, she had to steal, she had to be forever on the watch for Leka’s people and those who would betray her to them, she had to stay in the shadows. No policewoman, especially not a dark goddess, could help her.

Suzana put the card back in the stolen wallet and tried to understand why Jo-ni Pax was in the newspaper. She understood
some words that were similar to her own language and to Italian, but not enough to make sense of the story. If Jo-ni Pax was anything like the Albanian police, she would be taking money from criminals. Ma-ur-een Hug-hes probably thought she had been helped by her, but she would be just another victim. The police helped no one but themselves.

When the sun sank and darkness gathered, mist rising from the river as it did in the mountains where she had grown up, Suzana crawled carefully out of the bushes, having waited until the last people with dogs had left. Then she slipped away, anonymous, no longer a slave but fully committed to remaining free. And to revenge.