Stranglehold (23 page)

The other man on Kemp's side of the table was a ‘wholesaler', as Kemp was planning to be. He operated somewhere in the Black Country. He and Kemp did not know each other's names, and did not want to learn them. Anonymity meant safety when the police across the world made their occasional indentations into this wall of vice.

Ostensibly the four met to fix a price. But each of them knew within five per cent what that price would be when they came into that low, airless room with its harsh fluorescent lighting. They were token negotiations, and not much time was wasted over them.

What Kemp did not know was the quantity he would be offered. It was three times what he had expected. The quality was ‘guaranteed', though both he and the man beside him were too eager to acquire the drugs to digest quite what that word meant. They had dealt with these men before, and showed handsome profits. They knew they were the ones taking the greatest risks, for it was they who had to set up the network of retailers, and every
extra
person involved was a potential leak. But that was the way of these things, when the demand they had created outstripped the supply.

Kemp tried hard to conceal his excitement as he arranged for three hundred thousand dollars to be transferred to a Swiss bank account which he knew only by number. His quick brain calculated even as he agreed the deal that he would make two hundred per cent profit if he sold on the streets at the rates he intended.

The Greek could have told him that more experienced middle men would have expected more.

But Kemp drove away happy. The Greek and the Levantine would be out of the UK before midnight. But the stuff he had bargained for was already in the country; he must alert his network of dealers. Charlie Kemp was in the big time now, all right.

The big red Mercedes was well out of the city before he remembered that other business which the excitement had temporarily driven from his mind. He had better get on with the task of arranging an alibi for those hours when Hetty Brown and Amy Coleford had died: it was obvious to someone of his experience that the police were suspicious.

But he had outwitted them before, and he would do so now. Pigs were stupid, and he would prove it again.

Whatever Charlie Kemp's views might be, the Chief Constable was no fool. Media conferences called for four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon were not likely to be prolonged, with cynical pressmen and television staff anxious to get away to relax in what remained of their weekends.

George Harding kept it as low-key as possible, for he had nothing worthwhile to report. He dealt courteously but briskly with the expected questions. No man was ‘helping the police with their inquiries', though the press officer would give them the impressive numbers of those who had been interviewed. No vehicle which had been seen near the scene of the crimes was being sought. No woman other than the three victims had reported being threatened. (The tabloid reporter who had just agreed to give a local lady of ill repute a thousand pounds for a story headlined WAS IT THE STRANGLER WHO HAD HIS FINGERS ON MY THROAT? decided that Monday's edition could still carry the piece.)

The Chief Constable and the press officer did most of the fencing with the members of the third estate. Lambert's main role was as a tangible link with the routine of the investigation itself, an assurance to the media that the men engaged in detection were anxious to keep the public informed about their efforts as well as determined to give women whatever protection they could against further bloodletting. He gave a terse account of the progress of his team, explained with a grim smile that of course he could not give the names or other details of the men who particularly interested them.

Trying to ignore the hand-held television camera which seemed to be moving right into his face, he said with confidence that they were hopeful of an arrest ‘within the next few days'. He could almost feel the Chief Constable's eyebrows rising behind him. He told himself resolutely that George Harding was too skilled a diplomat to allow himself any facial expression which might be so revealing.

Lambert wondered if the killer would be watching the telecast that night, and what he might make of that statement. Would he be watching alone, or with some unsuspecting woman at his side?

It was when he was called up to the Chief Constable's office after the conference that Lambert received the shock which drove such conjecture from his mind.

George Harding introduced the woman with brisk formality. ‘Superintendent Lambert, this is Detective-Sergeant Ruth David.'

She was tall, with the willowy figure of an athlete but a shape which must have given her some difficulties with the raw young constables who had been trained alongside her She had ash-blonde hair and eyes of a deep green, set either side of a nose which was a fraction too definite for perfection. Even in her sensible police issue shoes and dark stockings, her legs were inescapable as she settled herself in an armchair at the Chief Constable's bidding. She looked to Lambert no more than nineteen.

He learned in the next few minutes that she was a graduate entry to the force, that she had served three years, that she was in fact now twenty-six: he was getting old. They sat in three of the armchairs in the CC's panelled, well-furbished office, nibbling biscuits and drinking tea, while Lambert waited for Harding to reveal to him what connection this attractive member of the force had with his investigation of the Strangler killings.

Was there to be the suggestion of a reconstruction of one of the crimes? Hardly likely: they had decided earlier in the week that such an exercise would be a dissipation of their resources, with little chance of anyone coming forward with new information. And this striking girl did not look much like any of the victims, even allowing for the addition of the right wig and clothes. She was too tall, for a start.

The CC was probably watching him and taking a small pleasure from his uncertainty, for he eventually said, ‘Well, John, time to put you out of your misery. We have a suggestion to offer, Sergeant David and I. The right of veto is yours, as always, but we'd like you to consider the idea very seriously before you decide whether to use it or reject it.'

Beneath his easy, almost teasing urbanity, he was a little uneasy. He had not so far had many dealings with this most senior of his superintendents, and he did not want any public outburst from him about the unorthodoxy he was proposing. But then you could hardly call anything public when it was said in front of one sergeant in the Chief Constable's office.

Lambert felt as though he was trying to help things on when he said, more stiffly than he would have liked, ‘We're willing to try anything, sir. You know the state of the inquiry. We have four leading suspects, but still no absolute certainty that our efforts should be confined to them.'

‘We also have a suggestion that our killer might even come from within the ranks of the force,' said Harding grimly. Probably he caught Lambert's involuntary glance at the woman opposite him, for he said, ‘I have taken the decision to brief Sergeant David fully on the state of play. If she is to be involved in an attempt to trap your murderer, she needs to know everything we know.'

Lambert said without looking at her again, ‘May I ask exactly what part it is suggested that Sergeant David might play in our investigation?' He was disconcerted again by the stuffiness of his own reaction: this development had caught him off guard.

‘I thought we might plant her at the
Roosters
and see what she can pick up.' Harding smiled at the grim ambivalence of the phrase, which he had not intended.

‘With respect, sir, I think that is far too dangerous. I shouldn't like to take the responsibility for putting anyone in that situation.' Let alone an inexperienced young girl like this, he thought; he had just enough sense to realize he should not offer up any such hostage to feminism, but only just.

George Harding smiled. He had relaxed from the brisk, confident chief he had presented in the media conference; he looked older and more tired. His frizzy hair was almost white at the temples, more untidy than it had been in front of the cameras. He was a fit man for his age, in a well-cut uniform, but beneath it what had been hard muscle was relaxing a little into a natural plumpness. He said, ‘That was my reaction too, at first, John. I didn't think the risk was justified. But now that we're in private, we can agree that this is a pretty desperate situation, warranting desperate remedies.'

‘Hardly desperate, sir, surely. We're –'

‘We're no closer to an arrest than we were two days ago. And we all think time is the key factor on this one. If we go another week, we'll have another woman dead – perhaps more than one.'

‘All the same, there must be other possibilities. If I could just discuss this one with some of my senior officers –'

‘No!' The negative came from Harding like a pistol shot. ‘Look, John, I've read your report of your conference this morning. I noted the views of your forensic psychologist. He suggests we might have a professional man involved: possibly a police officer. Do you disagree with that?'

‘No. Not as one possibility among others. It was I who brought the forensic psychologist in. But that wasn't the only thing he said.'

‘I'm aware of that, John. But if there's even the possibility that one of our officers might be a psychopath, it means that we must keep any new initiatives we take within as small a group as possible.'

Lambert nodded glumly. While the two men stared at each other, Ruth David finally spoke. ‘May I be permitted a word or two? First of all, the suggestion that someone might do this came from the Chief Constable, but I was the one who volunteered for the job. Secondly, I didn't do it impetuously: I've thought out the odds. If your man was killing with a knife or a pistol, I wouldn't be offering you my services. But he's a strangler; possibly a rapist too, but even that now seems uncertain. I've got a brown belt for judo, and I hope to take the black before too long. I'd back myself against the Strangler.' She allowed herself a tight little smile at her bravado, almost apologizing that she should put forward her virtues so immodestly. That was the attitude expected in this man's world.

Lambert muttered, ‘I'm still not happy about it.'

Harding said, ‘Would you allow a man to take a calculated risk to try to catch this man?'

Lambert smiled. ‘Yes, I suppose I would. Are you saying I'm being sexist?'

‘I'm saying my first thought was exactly the same as yours. That I had to convince myself that anyone, male or female, should take this kind of risk. But if we really think there are going to be more killings, we have to take a chance.'

Lambert said, ‘All right. But let's discuss the details before we finally commit ourselves.' He looked at the contrasting faces opposite him and said hastily, ‘I'd want to do the same if it was a man I was putting in.'

Ruth David grinned. ‘I'm glad to hear it. I wouldn't want to work for anyone who threw me in without calculating the odds. I thought about them carefully myself before offering my services.' She could not tell them how she thought in bed at night about these women being killed, and no woman involved in the hunt for this madman: that romantic nonsense was no more objective than old soldier Lambert's instinctive rejection of the idea that a woman should be involved. ‘I'm already a member of the
Roosters
, because I happen to be a football fan. They've got a good team, despite Charlie Kemp. But I've never let on there that I'm in the police: it's not an occupation to win you friends among the regulars these days. And as I work in Bath, no one there has rumbled me.'

‘But are you –' Lambert fumbled for words – ‘are you the kind of woman our man is going to go after?'

She grinned at him, enjoying his discomfort. ‘Am I a Tom, you mean? No, not even on a part-time basis. Though Cambridge gave me the chance to build up a lucrative future clientele, if I'd been inclined. But with a new wardrobe and a bit of assistance with the right make-up, I can give a very good impression of a tart. Anyway, as I understand it, the Strangler might go for any unprotected woman. The first girl was raped and murdered, but she wasn't on the game, was she?'

‘No. But there is a possibility that there might have been some kind of previous relationship with her killer. It's a lead we're working hard to follow up at the moment.'

The Chief Constable said, ‘Sergeant David has done a lot of acting in the past, John.'

‘But with due respect, amateur dramatics are hardly the preparation for playing games like this, sir.' Lambert noticed how he brought out the ‘sirs' only when he was uneasy. He knew now that he was going to accept this ploy, but he still wasn't happy about it. He couldn't see how he was going to protect this girl. She reminded him too much in her bright confidence of his own younger daughter, Jacqueline. ‘What exactly is it that you plan to do?'

Sergeant David looked at the Chief Constable and was given a brief nod of acquiescence. ‘Paul Williams of the drugs squad will be in the club at the same time as me. He won't act unless there is an emergency, because it's vital for his own investigation that his cover is preserved. I don't think there will be any crisis at the
Roosters.
When our man strikes – and we aren't even certain that he frequents the club – it will be when he has a girl on her own in some isolated situation, judging by the previous killings.'

Lambert nodded a reluctant agreement. ‘Williams could listen to the talk when you weren't there. If they were suspicious of your new persona, he would be likely to pick up the talk.' He realized as he voiced that thought that he had now acquiesced in the scheme.

‘Yes. He could report the reactions of the people in the club when I wasn't there. They might be of considerable interest.'