Lazy Bones (26 page)

'Listen, I don't think I have to go into the details...'

'Wel , that depends, doesn't it?' Hol and said. 'On just how much of a pain in the arse you want me to be.'

'I did some model ing up there. Fair enough?'

'Right. Catalogue stuff, was it? The Debenham's autumn col ection...?'

'You want to know my connection with Charlie Dodd, so I'm tel ing you. I was booked to do some filming, al right?'

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'Did you ever mention it to anybody else?' Hol and asked. 'Pass Dodl's name on? Maybe you told somebody about the studio?'

There was a hol ow-sounding bark of laughter down the line. 'Yeah. I was so proud of the work, wasn't I? I mean, London Cock Boys and Borstal Meat are fucking classics. Maybe you've seen them...'

Hol and hung up, put a line through another name on the list. Charlie Dodd had known a lot of people. They'd worked their way through every number on his phone records and everyone appeared to have a valid, if occasional y sordid, reason for being a friend, or 'business associate'. Photographers, film developers and suppliers, video production companies, prostitutes. Each person was asked to give the name of anybody else they thought might have known Dodd and this, together with a few more contacts provided by Thorne's squeaky voiced snout, had generated another, much bigger list to be worked through.

Hol and stifled a yawn. At the end of the day, it would probably result in nothing more than a handy contact list to pass on to Vice. It was certainly unlikely to provide any link to the kil er as, contrary o what Thorne had said, Dodd had discovered that it did pay to advertise. One of the first numbers on the list had turned out to be a specialist S & M magazine. They were suitably saddened at the news that a much-valued client would not be placing any further smal ads to advertise his facilities...

Hol and leaned back in his chair, thrust up his arms and stretched. Wasting his time, as he'd wasted it the night before at home. Making cal s that could have waited, crossing names off the list. An excuse, an escape...

Sophie had come through in her dressing gown. One hand cradling her stomach and the other holding a mug of tea. She'd put it down in front of Hol and and stood looking over his shoulder at the paperwork on the tabletop, her hand resting on the top of his head.

She'd laughed softly. 'Little sod's been kicking the shit out of me al day . . .'

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When Hol and had looked up half a minute later, she'd been stand

ing in the doorway. He'd picked up his tea, smiled a thank-you at her. 'I know you ithink I want you to choose,' she'd said. 'And I real y don't. Yes, I sometimes hate what you do, and I get pissed off at your pig-headed boss and the fact that you worship the ground he walks on, but you know al that. Yes, I would be happy if you took some time off and, no, I don't want you doing anything stupid. Not now. I wouldn't ask you to make a choice though, Dave.' Then she'd turned to stare out of the window for a moment. 'I'd be too scared...'

For a few seconds there had been only the sound of the traffic rumbling up the Old Kent Road, and a radio from the flat downstairs. Hol and had picked up the phone from its cradle, reached for his pen. 'Can we talk about it later?' He'd looked down at the papers on the desk, at the pointless list of names. 'This is real y important...'

Thorne watched his team going through the motions. Hol and, Stone, Kitson...

He saw dozens of other dfficers and civilian staff talking and writing and thinking - the impetus running out. As if the heat had thickened the air, made it a little harder to move through.

Thorne stood watching from the doorway of the Incident Room, thinking about the thrashing limbs of a body near to death...

It was always the same pattern. In the days that fol owed the discovery of a murder victim, the activity was frantic. An urgency seized the team, the knowledge that the hours, the days immediately fol owing, would be when they had their best chance. After Dodd, they'd run around like blue-arsed flies, checking records and tracing contacts and taking statements and chasing couriers. Waiting for anything.

And, gradual y, as always, the flurry of activity on the case had slowed, like the movements of the victim himself as death had approached. The frenzy became drudgery. The phone was picked up and the statement taken reflexively, the smal spark of hope fizzling to

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nothing, until the body of the investigation itself began to stiffen and cool, to swing aimlessly...

Something would be needed. The case, and those working it, needed a jolt to kick some life back into them. An external force, like the passing train that had given movement to Charlie Dodd's corpse.

Thorne had no idea what it was, or where it might come from.

'Paul Baxter...'

'Am I speaking to Paul Baxter?'

'Yes, who's this?'

Carol felt a little of the tension in her back and neck begin to ease. 'My name's Carol Chamberlain, from the Metropolitan Police Area Major Review Unit. You would not believe the trouble I've had trying to get hold of you...'

'Get hold of me...?'

'You, your company...'

'We're in the phone book...' '

'Right, but I was looking for Baxters.' ,

There was a pause. Carol could hear Baxter taking a drink of something, swal owing. 'Blimey, that was a long time ago. My dad got bought out in... '82, I think. I stayed on as head of sales when we

moved up here, that was part of the deal...'

'Anyway...'

'So how can I help you?' Paul Baxter laughed. He had a low, sexy voice. Smooth, like a DJ. 'Does the Met need some new headed notepaper?'

'Do you remember an employee cal ed Alan Franklin? He would have left in...'

Baxter cut her off. 'God, yes, of course I do. I was helping out in the warehouse when al that happened, working for my old man. Run-up to Christmas, I think...'

'When al what happened?'

She could hear confusion, suspicion even, in Baxter's voice as he

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answered. 'Wel , I don't suppose we'l ever know for sure, but I remember the court case obviously. God, and al that dreadful stuff afterwards '

Carol realised suddenly that she was on her feet, leaning on her desk. In the mirror she saw the face of a woman who, for the first time in three long years, was feeling the buzz. Feeling it across her chest like a heart attack. In her head like a hole that sucked away the breath in a

second. Rushing through her blood and bone like light. Like a lease of life. 'Hel o...?'

She became dimly aware of Baxter's voice on the other end of the phone. She lowered herself into the chair, took just another second before moving on.

'OK, Mr Baxter, when can I come and see you?'

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Done and dusted...

The suggestion had come from Southern himself. How bril iant was that?! An invitation back to Southern's smal flat in Leytonstone had been politely declined. He'd already decided that he would be sticking with the hotel. Southern had gone for that idea straight away - same as the others had. There was something about a hotel that gave the rendezvous an excitement for them. It was the same for him as wel , of course, but then he knew just how exciting it was real y going to be...

The hotels he'd chosen, on each occasion so far, had suited the mood of the event, and the character of the individual concerned, perfectly. He always gave some thought to that, as wel as to the necessary issues of security. Remfry, if he'd had the chance, would have done it up a back-al ey, acro a rusty oil drum. The place in Paddington had the seediness that got him off,, the squalor that turned him on. Welch, on the other hand, had wanted somewhere a bit nicer. He was clearly a man with aspirations, ideas above his station. The Greenwood had fitted the bil nicely.

The place that he'd found for Howard Southern would be ideal. It was a smal , country-house-type hotel in leafy Roehampton. On the outskirts of Richmond Park, there was a romantic, woodland view from some of the bedrooms.

He was sure that it would go down wel . Howard Southern loved the countryside. Hadn't he brutal y beaten and raped his first victim on a disused bridle path in Epping Forest?

Done and dusted.

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SIXTEEN

Two Bs and a C. Two Bs and a C...

The results she needed to see when she opened that envelope at the end of August. The offer from the 'university she wanted. The grades that she had to get if she was going to take up her place on the drama course in Manchester. Two Bs and a C. It had become Fiona Meek's mantra in the weeks since her final paper.

Most of her friends were stil celebrating the end of the exams. One or two of those with parents richer than her own were away travel ing, and the rest were pissing it up the wal in one way or another. There were only a couple, like her, who had decided to put a bit of money away and take summer jobs. She knew she could be a bit too sensible sometimes, but she didn't mind missing out. She didn't care if her friends took the mickey. They wouldn't be laughing when their student loans ran out halfway through the first term.

It was the perfect job, and plenty of people wanted it. A friend of her dad's was the corporate hospitality manager and had put in a good word. Working the two shifts suited her. It was an early start, but she

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was finished mid-morning and not on again until teatime, so she had her days to herself.

Fiona waved as, further up the corridor, she saw one of the other girls coming out of a room, dumping dirty towels into the laundry hamper. She parked her own trol ey, began loading soap and shampoo into a smal basket. The smel was familiar from the mountain of stuff she now had in her own bathroom at home.

The seven-to-ten bedroom shift was the hardest. She'd been amazed these last couple of weeks to see just what pigs some people lived like when they weren't at home. She hadn't had any real y bad ones yet - no used condoms, or what have you - but stil , some people behaved like animals. Equal y weird were the rooms that barely looked lived-in at al . Towels neatly folded and beds made. These were the sort of people, Fiona supposed, who tidied their houses before their cleaners came round.

Either way, as she moved around the bedrooms, replenishing toiletries and coffee sachets, smoothing sheets and checking mini bars, she tried to get inside the heads of these people whom she rarely ever met. She tried to flesh out lives she could only guess at by the labels . strangers' shoes, the smel s in their bathrooms and the paperbacks by the sides of their beds.

It was al good practice, she reckoned, for being an actress. If she ever got the chance. Two Bs and a C. Two Bs and a C...

She slid the plastic pass-key into the lock and shoved open a bedroom door.

A lot of murders went unsolved, but compared to the clean-up rates for burglary, Thorne reckoned that he, and others like him, were doing pretty bloody wel .

'For fuck's sake, Chris, it's been nearly three weeks. You must know most of the likely lads in the area...'

On the other end of the phone, Chris Barratt laughed like a drain. It sounded to Thorne as if this conversation was making the Kentish Town crime-desk sergeant's day. 221

'You're not a punter, Tom,' Barratt said. 'You know what it's like. This early on a Saturday morning, you want to count yourself lucky there was anybody here to answer the bleeding phone...'

Thorne knew how stretched things were in many areas. Violent street-crime was, quite rightly, being targeted, and uniformed manpower was being taken away from such everyday London trivialities as common housebreaking. He was aware that because he was on the job, they were probably making twice the effort they would normal y be making to lay hands on whoever had turned his flat over. He also

knew that twice nothing was pretty much fuck al . 'Three weeks, though, Chris ...' 'We found your car.'

'Yeah, and got nothing off it...' 'It was burnt out...' 'Only on the inside.'

The Mondeo had been found on an estate behind Euston Station. The inside had been torched, the wheels nicked and the words eoIiCE WA>a:ERS spray-painted or{ the roof. Yet more cause for amusement around the Incident Room at Beck+ House...

'What about fences?' Thorne asked. 'The bastard should have got something for my CD system...'

'Duh! We never thought about that...'

Thorne sighed. He took the gum he'd been chewing out of his mouth and lobbed it out of the open window. 'Sorry, Chris. Any kind of fucking result would be good at the minute, you know?'

'You're sorted with the insurance, aren't you?' Barratt said.

'Yeah, fine.' Thorne was stil waiting for the money to come

through, car and contents, but there was no reason why it shouldn't... 'So are you real y that bothered?'

A clammy Saturday morning. Working up a sweat in slow motion. The arse-end of a week that felt like a tight space he was too big to squeeze through.

'Yes, I'm bothered,' Thorne said. 'So should you be. And when you

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eventual y catch the little toe-rag who used my bedroom as a khazi, he's going to be very fucking bothered...'

A guest in a smart suit hurried past her towards the lift. Fiona said good morning and put the back of a rubber-gloved hand across her mouth to stifle a yawn. She moved up the corridor towards the next bedroom, thinking about what she might do later on.

The early evening shift was usual y a bit of a doddle. A chance to flirt with her favourite waiter as she cleaned the tables in the bar, or to gossip with the girls in reception while she hoovered. A couple of times she'd managed to finish al her jobs double-quick and find a quiet corner, somewhere out of sight, where she could sit and open a book.

If she wasn't too knackered, she might go out for a couple of drinks, catch up with some of her mates. Maybe she could slip away from work a few minutes early...

No such luck the evening before. There was a dose of summer flu going around and the place was short-staffed. She'd had to do .ahe whole of main reception herself and was just thinking she might finay be able to get away when she'd been roped into lending a hand up in the Conference Room, laying the table for a Saturday-morning business breakfast the fol owing day.