NO KISS FOR THE DEVIL (Gavin & Palmer 5) (2 page)

Riley forced
herself to look at the woman’s face, passing over the slack mouth to the
half-open, dulled eyes. They contained no discernible expression, simply two
darker areas in an otherwise bloodless skin. But Riley fancied she could see a
pleading glint deep inside, as if asking for something.

She felt her
gut heave and swallowed hard.

‘What was done
to her?’ she asked finally, eyes on the taped wrists. It was the first thing
she could think of, familiar with images from Belfast to Baghdad of torture
victims found tied up, as if death alone was not enough.

The forensics
man didn’t answer immediately, but gave her a studied look. He shook his head. ‘It’s
too early to tell.’

‘Anything?’ It
was Pell, shifting about at the top of the slope, restless for an answer.

It was Riley’s
turn to shake her head. Yet there was something chillingly familiar about the
woman’s face. But she wasn’t about to commit herself to these men without a
moment’s thought. Whoever the dead woman was – had been – she deserved more
than that. If Riley got it wrong, the thought of some thoughtless copper
blundering upon an unconnected family with terrifying news was something she didn’t
like to contemplate. As she looked beyond the glare of lights, trying to make
the connection to where she might have seen her before, she noticed two other
figures in the background beyond the canopy, standing against a gleam of
polished metal half concealed in the bushes. As her eyes acclimatised to the
change, she recognised the shape as a small car. The men were checking under
the bonnet.

‘Why me?’ she
queried, to buy herself some time. ‘What made you think I’d know her?’ The car
the men were examining had been driven with considerable force into the ditch
and beyond, burying its nose into the undergrowth and churning up a burrow of
earth as it went. As Riley’s eyes became accustomed to the pattern of light and
dark, she was beginning to realise that the crime scene was far more than just
this woman’s body.

‘Are you saying
you don’t know her?’ Pell was champing at the bit, plainly having to hold
himself in check.

‘I don’t think
so. It’s hard to tell. Is the car hers?’ She guessed they must already have an
idea, unless the car was stolen, of course. Or rented. The question remained,
though: out of all the inhabitants of the greater London metropolitan area, why
had Pell called her?

‘Yes.’ He
beckoned her back out of the ditch, holding out a hand to help her up. He let
go as soon as she was on safe ground, as if prolonged contact might be
misconstrued. When she was standing alongside him, he produced a plastic
evidence bag and angled it so she could see the contents.

‘This was found
in the foot-well,’ he explained. ‘You might not have known her, but she seems
to have known you.’

Riley studied
the bag. Inside was a single square of yellow paper. A Post-it note, common in
every household and office in the country. In spite of a smear of moisture on
the outside of the plastic film, there was no mistaking what had been written
on the paper in bold handwriting.

It was Riley’s
own name and telephone number.

**********

‘I don’t
understand.’ Riley was slumped in the passenger seat of Pell’s car, holding a
cup of coffee. It was lukewarm and sweet, like stewed caramel. But a welcome
distraction from the scene outside. She was still wearing the white SOCO suit,
and in spite of the lightweight fabric, she felt hot and constricted, as if
swathed in cling-film.

‘It’s never
easy,’ Pell replied. His tone was of a man who’d been here too many times, seen
this often to be surprised anymore.

The car smelled
of dog and damp. Sweet wrappers and wet-wipes were crushed haphazardly into the
door pockets, some tumbling out onto the floor around her feet. A pair of men’s
ancient trainers lay in the foot-well, faded and curled like dried banana
skins. The two available cup holders were jammed with polystyrene mugs, each
filled with rubbish. A mobile skip, office and taxi all in one, she thought.

‘You don’t
believe in cleaning, do you?’ she said.

‘I don’t have
the time.’

Outside, the
night and the weather and the dark continued, interspersed with the comings and
goings of the forensic and search teams combing the area around the body.

Riley stared
through the windscreen, wondering how long it would be before the press showed
up. Not long, if their usual contacts were on the ball. Journalists had a nose
for a story and-

Journalist. Her
stomach went ice-cold as her thoughts suddenly fixed with glaring precision on
the awful realisation that Pell had been unwittingly right; the dead woman had
known her.

She kept her
eyes to the front in case Pell should interpret her expression. She needed time
to think it through.

The dead
woman’s face had looked vaguely familiar, yet without that spark of absolute
recognition. It was like seeing a celebrity in the street, but not being sure.
It hadn’t helped that, down in that hollow and under the glare of the lights,
any notable characteristics had been flattened, leaving a uniform blandness
like a shop-front mannequin.

Now she knew
who she’d been looking at, she felt sick.

Pell had taken
a phone call moments after getting into the car. From what little he’d said,
she knew he’d been hearing confirmation of the dead woman’s name and details.
She got the impression it hadn’t come as a surprise.

‘Turns out she
was a journalist,’ Pell muttered finally, half to himself. ‘Name of Helen
Bellamy.’ Under the dull glow of the interior light, his face was less angular
than she’d first thought, but still with a determined quality, as if hewn from
a lump of wood but with the edges softened. He was also smooth-shaven, and his
eyes were surprisingly dark, perhaps with Latin origins. With the hood of his
slicker down, she saw his medium-crop hair was peppered with grey. Late
thirties, she guessed. Stressed.

‘A journalist
like you,’ he continued pointedly. He drummed strong fingers on the steering
wheel, a tattoo of frustration. ‘You sure you don’t know her?’

‘I… might have
met her. But that’s all.’ Riley had to force the words out, aware that
deliberate lies now might come back to haunt her. She hoped Pell hadn’t noticed
her hesitation.

‘She could have
got your name for business purposes, I suppose.’ He didn’t sound convinced, as
if randomness simply didn’t happen. His tone was reinforced by the expression
in his eyes as he turned to watch her. ‘The thing is, why would she have it on
her? Did you have a meeting arranged - maybe to work on something together?’ He
let a few beats go by, then said flatly, ‘Did you know her or not?’

‘If I knew her
well enough that we were going to work together, I think I’d have remembered by
now, don’t you?’ Riley was irritated by his probing, as if he was reluctant to
extend his investigation much beyond the close confines of this car. Right now,
all that her memory would give her of Helen Bellamy was a vague image of an
elegant, willowy woman, friendly and self-assured. A freelance reporter like
herself. No more, no less.

‘Do you know
anyone else who might know her, then?’ He was clearly trying a different tack.
‘Circle of friends, work colleagues, boyfriends… girlfriends?’

‘No. I’m
sorry.’

‘You’re in the
same profession.’

‘Pell, I know
lots of journalists, but none of them particularly well. Like you and other
coppers - you’re not all best buddies, are you?’

He pulled a
face in wry acknowledgement. ‘Good point.’

‘Why,’ asked
Riley impulsively, ‘do you think her hands were tied?’

‘We don’t know
yet,’ he admitted, echoing the forensics man. ‘She’d been restrained and
possibly hit, that’s all we can tell right now. The tape on her wrists might
have been to subdue her while they were on the move. You didn’t get that from
me, by the way.’

‘Of course.’
She focussed on the dashboard, trying to process the image of Helen being alive
but restrained, unable to free herself or offer any resistance. The idea was
macabre. Awful. ‘You don’t normally drag people out to crime scenes in the
middle of the night – especially journalists. Why couldn’t this have waited
until the morning?’ She waited, but he didn’t answer. ‘Particularly as you had
an idea who she was before I got here.’

Pell opened his
mouth, then shut it again. The expression in his eyes was indecipherable. If he
had any ulterior motives, he was keeping them to himself. ‘She was discovered
just after midnight by a man walking his dogs. He said the car definitely
wasn’t there earlier in the evening at ten o’clock, when he last came by, so it
must have been dumped after that time. That’s confirmed by a residue of warmth
on the engine block. We’re still trying to narrow down the timing.’

‘I see.’

‘I needed quick
confirmation of her ID - from you if I could get it - so we could back-trace
her movements.’

‘You knew I was
a journalist?’

‘One of the
SOCO team recognised your name. He’d read your stuff. He’s a fan. I figured it
was worth a try calling you. We’ve got a hell of a caseload at the moment and
we need all the help we can get.’ He scrubbed at his face with his fingers,
suddenly looking bone-weary, as if any energy he’d been harbouring until now
was seeping away with the approach of daylight. Riley guessed he had broken
with procedure by calling her in at this stage and was now regretting it. His
next words confirmed it. ‘I’ll be in deep shit if my boss knows I did this.’

Riley felt a
flicker of sympathy, and glanced across to where the man in the forensics suit
was stepping carefully around the edge of the ditch, pointing a large
flashlight at the ground. ‘Is that why he was so unfriendly?’

‘Yes. I had to
lean on him to let you in.’

‘Will he tell
anyone?’

‘No. He owed me
a favour. Now I owe him a bigger one.’

Pell eventually let
her go, with instructions not to publish anything and to call him if she
thought of anything relating to the dead woman. In spite of a reluctant smile,
which softened his face considerably, the implications behind the first
instruction were clear: the presence of her name on a piece of paper at the
death scene meant that Riley was far too close to this case to be allowed any
leeway as a reporter.

She climbed out
of the white suit and returned to her car. As she drove away down the track,
she passed other vehicles, some with interior lights on behind misted windows.
Crime-scene members snatching a quick break in an attempt to dry off and down
some refreshments. As she hit the main road, more cars were arriving and
heading up the lane. Probably the press pack, all vying for an exclusive on the
story. That was going to make Pell even more unhappy.

She checked the
dashboard clock, surprised to see it was already gone five. A pale dawn was
nudging through the heavy clouds like a wash. With the arrival of daylight, the
investigators would be able to get a clear scan of the surrounding area. She
didn’t envy them the hours to come. For once, she was relieved not to be part
of the press melee.

She pulled in
at the first lay-by and dialled a number. The recipient wouldn’t thank her for
waking him this early. But circumstances warranted it.

What she hadn’t
told DI Pell was that she was aware of one person who had known Helen Bellamy a
lot better than she did. Just a few months ago, Frank Palmer, a former military
policeman, now a private investigator, had for a brief while been close to
Helen. Work had thrown them together by chance and something had clicked.
During that time, Palmer had gone around with a soppy smile on his face. Then
circumstances and the pressures of their respective worlds had tugged them
apart.

The other thing
she had avoided telling Pell was that she had met Helen a couple of times,
although both occasions were fleeting, and there had been no time to gain more
than the briefest of impressions. Frank Palmer liked Helen, which was good
enough for her.

The phone rang
four times before switching to Palmer’s voice-mail. She didn’t leave a message;
she couldn’t trust herself not to sound like the voice of doom. Instead, she
switched off and thought about what to do next. Sooner or later, Pell and his
colleagues would unearth something to show that Palmer had known the dead woman.
When they did, they would descend on him like vultures on a corpse. Ex-army
man, a bit of a loner, private detective and security consultant, for which
some would read bodyguard and therefore no stranger to violence; they’d
salivate and find plenty of precedents for making all the wrong assumptions.

She wondered
what Palmer’s reaction would be when he heard.

She dialled
another number. This one was in Finchley, north London. It rang twice and was
answered. She said simply: ‘I’ll be with you in forty-five minutes. Can you
trace Palmer? It’s urgent. There’s been a murder. He knew the victim.’

The man on the
other end sounded not the least bit surprised at being called so early in the
morning with such news. ‘Will do,’ he replied, his voice plummy and rich. In
the background she heard a high-pitched electronic two-tone and the purr of
another phone. ‘I’ll get some croissants and coffee on the go.’

‘Good idea.
Make it strong, will you? I need the hit.’

She switched
off the phone and headed towards Finchley.

********

Donald Brask
listened intently while Riley explained what she had seen in the dark wetness
of the Essex countryside. He sat with Buddha-like stillness, absorbing her
words like a sponge, his plump chins clustered above a shimmering silk dressing
gown and fat hands clasped over his stomach. A mug of coffee and a croissant
sat untouched beside him, forgotten in the shock of her revelations. For once,
Riley had stolen a lead on a breaking story before one of Donald’s contacts in
the Met had been able to drop a whisper in his ear.