The Burning (36 page)

‘Katy,’ I said instantly. ‘Is she—’

‘Fine. Better than you, actually. Bumps and bruises and a burn mark from the stun gun.’

I breathed out slowly. I hadn’t dared to ask anyone else, not that I’d thought they would tell me anyway. But Rob was telling the truth, I was pretty sure. ‘So it was him, then.’

‘Oh yes. Most certainly. The Burning Man in all his twenty-four-year-old glory.’

‘You’re kidding.’

He shook his head. ‘Remember all those briefings from the psychologist about how he was in his late thirties to mid-forties, lived alone, likely to have a history of violence, blah blah blah? Not quite right.’

‘Who is he?’

I listened, rapt, as Rob told me all about Razmig Selvaggi.

‘He’s his mother’s darling – can do no wrong. She lets him get away with doing whatever he wants, according to his sister.’

‘I have literally no idea what that would be like,’ I said seriously.

‘Razmig has what amounts to a self-contained flat in the loft conversion and the rest of the family aren’t allowed to go up there. Plenty of privacy. The parents work until all hours in the takeaway and the sisters don’t keep track of where he is or what he does. And of course the scooter belongs to the business so he doesn’t even have to pay for his own petrol.’

‘Just what you want if you’re out a-murdering.’

‘Indeed. And he uses the pizza as his opening gambit – offering free food is a good way to get girls to stop and chat.’

‘Did he confess?’

‘He didn’t have much choice,’ Rob said frankly. ‘The search of his house turned up items of jewellery that match the missing pieces belonging to the victims, not to mention a bloodstained hammer.’

‘Everything that we were looking for.’

‘Exactly. Even his solicitor didn’t have much to say when they whacked the photographs of what they’d found on the table in the interview room. When you’re that screwed, there’s nothing much to do but talk, and good old Razmig did.’

My mind was racing. ‘Did he confess to all of them? What about Rebecca Haworth?’

Rob leaned back and grinned. ‘Nothing wrong with that brain of yours, is there? No, he didn’t confess to Rebecca’s murder. He’s got an alibi. His cousin got married the day Rebecca died, and Razmig was at the wedding reception all evening and into the night. There’s a video of it and everything. Not only was he very, very drunk by about nine o’clock, but the wedding was in Hertfordshire. He’d have to have mastered bi-location as well as murdering women in five easy stages.’

‘I
knew
it.’

‘He was a bit fed up with whoever stole his MO. Couldn’t wait to tell us it wasn’t him.’

I was still stuck on his age. ‘Did you really say he’s twenty-four?’

‘Yep. Never had a girlfriend.’ Rob leaned over to reach into his back pocket and produced a colour print-out of a picture. ‘There’s the custody image. That’s Razzi.’

It was a close-up of a thick-necked young man with soft, woebegone dark eyes and a slack, wet mouth that was startlingly red, like a child’s. He had short black hair with an inch-long gelled fringe that was combed forward over a low forehead, and his nose was long and narrow. Not by any stretch of imagination could he be described as attractive, but he wasn’t hideous either – except that somehow, you had the sense that there was something missing when you looked at him. But then, anyone would look a bit dispirited when they were arrested for four murders.

‘He lifts weights in his spare time,’ Rob observed, reaching out for the photo. ‘That explains the neck. You should see his arms.’

I was more interested in Rob’s. As he stretched to take the picture, his sleeve slipped back and showed a white bandage that was wrapped around his forearm from the wrist back to the elbow. ‘What happened to you?’

He grimaced. ‘It’s no big deal. They got a bit over-excited when they were bandaging it.’

‘What did you do to yourself?’

‘You know how my radio wasn’t working the other night? When you interrupted Razmig’s big night out, I didn’t hear you press your red button. The first I knew of it was when I saw Sam waddling past at warp speed, puffing like a walrus. He headed around to the gate you’d gone through, and I hiked over the railings to come at it from the other side.’

‘Did you gouge yourself on them? Ouch.’

He shook his head. ‘It gets better. So I’m running around in the dark, trying to find you without making too much noise, and when I finally spot you, you’re on the ground and there’s a lad in motorcycle leathers standing over you. You’d curled up into a ball, which was sensible. I legged it across the lawn and jumped on him. Not in time to stop him from booting you in the face, though. Sorry about that.’

I waggled my fingers dismissively. ‘It’s the least of my troubles. Apparently it’s looking quite pretty today.’

‘Mmm,’ he said. ‘You haven’t been looking in any mirrors lately, have you? Best to keep it that way.’

‘You still haven’t told me what happened to your arm,’ I reminded him.

‘Yeah. Well. Before the uniforms caught up with me, I got in a few good punches. I was a bit annoyed, to be honest. Katy looked to be in a bad way, and you were lying there—’ He broke off and shook his head. ‘I thought I was too late.’

‘Poor Rob.’

‘I know. Get out the violin. So I was having a bit of a wrestle with Razzi, and the next thing was, he
bit
me.’ He sounded totally disgusted. I couldn’t help laughing. ‘I’m glad you think it’s funny.’

I stretched, feeling a tiny amount of energy coming back into my arms and legs. ‘Thanks for rescuing me.’

‘Any time.’ He saw me looking sceptical. ‘I mean it. If you’re ever out on an op again, I want you to be paired up with me. If it had been up to Sam to intervene, you’d be in the mortuary now. As it was, he had to have a little sit-down once all the excitement was over. Someone even made him a cup of tea.’

‘I’ll ask specially for you. But I like Sam.’

‘Sam is the reason there should be a compulsory annual fitness test,’ Rob said bluntly. ‘The sooner he retires the better.’

‘Everything worked out fine in the end.’ I shut my eyes again, but not for long. ‘Wait a minute. I can’t believe I forgot. What happened with the Haworth case and putting pressure on Gil Maddick? Did they search his house?’

‘Yep. Nothing strange popped up. They found a few items of women’s clothing, a hairbrush, some cosmetics – but nothing’s come back to Rebecca. Bit of a ladies’ man, isn’t he? Is he good-looking?’

‘If you like that sort of thing. Is Louise OK?’

‘Fine, as far as I know.’

Now that Selvaggi was under arrest, there would be time for the focus to shift from the Burning Man murders to Rebecca’s death, and I hoped the extra attention would gather the evidence we needed to arrest Gil Maddick. I didn’t feel as if I was Louise’s only line of defence any more, and that, frankly, was a relief.

A nurse poked her head into the room, saw Rob and tapped her wrist meaningfully.

‘I’d better go before they kick me out.’

I put out my hand without thinking. ‘No. Stay.’

‘You need to get some rest, and I have to get to work.’ His voice was gentle but firm as he stood up. ‘We’re following up on a few things – making sure the case is watertight. The CPS don’t want anything to jeopardise this one.’

‘Right. Of course not.’ I found myself blushing. We were colleagues, first and foremost. We had been talking about work. Rob probably didn’t see me in any other light. Of course he would assume I wanted to keep talking about the job. ‘If you have to go, you have to go. I wish I could join you.’

‘Time enough for that. When are they letting you out?’

I shrugged. ‘No one tells me anything.’

‘Are you going back to Primrose Hill?’ Rob’s voice was deceptively casual, but I saw the glint in his eye.

‘As you probably noticed, Ian was saying goodbye. We’ve broken up. I’m going home to my parents to recuperate.’

‘That should be nice. Comforts of home.’

‘I’ll get better quicker because I’ll be desperate to leave.’

‘When they discharge you from here, let me know. I’ll give you a hand with moving to your parents if you like.’

I was thinking about something else. ‘Rob, what did Ian say to you when he was leaving?’

A slow smile spread across his face. ‘I’ll tell you some other time.’

‘Rob!’

He patted my hand. ‘Don’t get excited. Think of your blood pressure.’

‘You utter tosser, Langton.’

He stood up and stretched. ‘Proper Gurkha, aren’t you?’

It was police slang for officers who never made arrests. I frowned up at him. ‘Because I didn’t collar Razmig Selvaggi?’

‘No. But it is because you take no prisoners.’ He leaned over and surveyed my face. ‘There is literally nowhere to kiss you that isn’t bruised.’ In the end, he settled for a peck on the tip of my nose. And before I could think of an adequate response, he was gone.

I had a steady stream of visitors the following day, but even so I was heartily sick of being in hospital by the time I was discharged. I left with my mother clucking in attendance on me, half a pharmacy’s stock of pills, and a file under my arm. It was the gift Superintendent Godley had given me when he came to see me, sitting by my bed and chatting easily with my father as if he had known him for years instead of having met him when he went to my parents’ house on Saturday morning to tell them what had happened. He had driven them to the hospital himself. I wasn’t altogether comfortable with my two worlds colliding like that. My mother, from the black look on her face, couldn’t understand why Godley was asking me to spend my sick leave working on a case file. But there was nothing I wanted more than a chance to help find out what had happened to Rebecca Haworth, and the file was the best get-well-soon present I could have imagined. It would help me to feel useful, and it would stop me from trying to return to work before I was fully fit. Godley knew his man-management.

‘We’ll get everything else boxed up and sent over to you. And I’ll come and see you,’ Godley had promised. ‘Give me a call when you’ve got something you want to discuss. If you want anything followed up, Peter Belcott is available to do it. You know this case better than anyone on my team. I want your knowledge of the players, your understanding of their characters. I know you have your own suspicions about who killed her, but if you can, put them from your mind and start looking at the evidence with an open mind.’

‘DI Judd was in charge of the investigation into Rebecca’s death,’ I began, but the superintendent shook his head.

‘Don’t worry about Tom. He’s busy with other things. I didn’t get the impression that he was giving this as much attention as you were, anyway. I have a feeling you’ve got the answers, Maeve, if you just give yourself a chance to realise it.’

‘I appreciate your faith in me, but I’m not sure I do,’ I stammered, feeling anything but insightful.

‘You might surprise yourself.’ He caught my mother’s eye. ‘Don’t work too hard, of course.’

I had promised not to tire myself out, but I was determined not to let him, or myself, down. If that meant having to sit on the file in the car and sleep with it under my pillow so Mum didn’t get a chance to spirit it away – well, that was just what I had to do.

Back at home, in the inhumanly tidy surroundings of my parents’ semi-detached house in Cheam, I took over the mostly unused dining room. I spread out the contents of the file on the table, organising things into neat piles as if that would help to make sense of them, as if by making a pretty pattern I could see the truth. Two boxes arrived a day later, delivered by Rob, who watched me rifle through them with a resigned expression on his face. He thought, and said, that I shouldn’t be trying to work, for which my mother absolutely adored him. I sent him off to have a cup of tea and indulged in an orgy of organising. One pile was interviews that Judd had ordered other officers to do with Rebecca’s neighbours, her ex-clients and a couple of old flatmates. One pile dealt with Oxford. I wavered over it – I still wasn’t sure it deserved to be so prominent – but in the end, Tilly Shaw’s words, and her serious face, came back to me. ‘She said she owed her life for someone else’s and she’d have to pay sometime.’ If Adam’s death had set Rebecca on a path that led to her murder, I wanted to trace her footsteps. One pile was the material from the investigation into Rebecca’s death: forensic reports, the autopsy notes, photographs, CCTV logs, witness statements, mobile phone records, financial documents. Lastly, there were my own notes from the interviews I’d done. I needed to review it, all of it, in case there was something I’d missed, something someone else had noted and not understood. Godley was right. If I couldn’t find the answers he needed, no one would.

Rob poked his head in halfway through. ‘I’m going to head off.’

‘Oh.’ I sounded far too disappointed. I forced myself to smile. ‘OK. I thought you might have had enough by now. Prolonged exposure to Mum will do that for a person.’

‘What are you talking about? She’s a poppet,’ he said with a grin.

‘Oh yeah? If you ever see Ian again, ask him about her. He’ll tell you the truth.’

‘I’ll make up my own mind, thanks. Good luck with the work and take it easy.’ He waved from the doorway and disappeared.

I caught up with him as he unlocked his car. ‘You still haven’t told me what Ian said to you at the hospital.’

‘No, I haven’t.’ He looked down at me for a moment, then leaned in for a kiss that took me completely by surprise. I managed not to splutter but couldn’t stop myself from turning when it was over to check whether anyone in the house had seen us.

‘Don’t get cold,’ Rob said, as calm as if nothing had happened. ‘You aren’t dressed for being outside.’ He sat into the driver’s seat and turned on the engine.

I wrapped my cardigan around myself more tightly, trying to match his composure even though I was tingling all over. ‘I’m fine. Tell me what he said. I mean it, Rob.’

‘If you must know, he wished me luck. He told me I’d need it.’

I didn’t know what to say, and Rob didn’t help me. With a raised eyebrow he shut the car door and reversed out of the drive, speeding away leaving me with a million unanswered questions and a stack of paper to read through.