The Shadows in the Street (16 page)

There was a long silence. Cat heard the phone ringing in the reception area, voices, someone going into the surgery next to hers.

‘OK,’ Abi said. She got up, took hold of the buggy, looking as if she couldn’t leave fast enough now, embarrassed rather than upset.

‘Make another appointment at the desk – and can we get in touch with you? It might only take me a couple of days to fix something up.’

‘I got the mobile.’

‘Would you give me the number?’

Mia jerked awake suddenly and looked around in bewilderment. Abi leaned down to her.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ll come back. Thanks, Doctor.’

The door banged shut behind her.

Cat added a line to Abi’s notes on-screen, jotted a reminder on her memo pad and called the next patient. She was still catching up two hours later.

‘One of those mornings,’ Bronwen said, coming in with coffee and a sympathetic smile as the last patient left. ‘Oh, your brother wants to know if you can have lunch.’

‘My brother’s on a Scottish island.’

‘Not any more. He’ll be in the King’s Oak at Stanton from one o’clock.’

Cat glanced at the clock. ‘I can’t,’ she said, ‘I really can’t. Not today.’

‘Of course you can,’ Bronwen said firmly.

Twenty-six

It felt good, he thought, looking round the room, and Taransay was in another life, though he still felt its effects; his energy was up, he was focused. He had driven through the day, stopped in a hotel off the motorway for supper and a short night and had been back in Lafferton in time to drop his things at the flat and book lunch with Cat. They had caught up but not entirely. He would try and spend part of the weekend with her at the farmhouse. Then he had gone to see the Chief Constable. Now, he was back, in the small meeting room with half a dozen senior CID officers, the sun shining in, the new DS, Ben Vanek, looking, as Paula Devenish had said, bright, alert – and cocky. ‘He’s very keen to work with you,’ she had said, ‘so encourage him, Simon – just don’t let him run before he can walk.’

Recognising something of his younger self in the new sergeant, he agreed, knowing how easily the edge could be taken off enthusiasm and ambition by the setbacks of the daily grind. Time he spent with Vanek now could encourage the new boy, as he knew it had encouraged his former sergeant, Nathan Coates – now a DCI in Yorkshire and as committed to the job as ever.

‘As you know, the media are all over us at the moment. I’ve called a press conference tomorrow because I need tonight to get up to speed with all the details. If you have any problems with them, speak to the press officer. I am now OIOC and I want to stress that for the time being and until we have any evidence which may cause a reassessment, the two cases are being kept separate. DI Franks is heading up the Chantelle Buckley investigation. DI Drummond, I want you in charge of the Marie O’Dowd team from now. Of course you’ll talk to one another about any common factors but there are just two at this point – both women worked as prostitutes, Marie here in Lafferton, Chantelle only in Bevham, so far as we know, until the one occasion just before she disappeared. And they were both strangled. Marie O’Dowd had some injuries to her face consistent with there having been some sort of struggle. Chantelle didn’t. What we don’t want is any more stuff in the press about a serial killer of girls on the street. Unofficially, though, I’m keeping an open mind. If anything comes in to link the two killings which is more than just vague and circumstantial, the SIO of each team will want to talk to one another. Right, Dave, what do we have so far?’

DI Franks handed out some A5 sheets on which were a photograph and a few typed sentences. ‘This is Leslie Blade. DS Vanek and DC Mead went to his workplace and questioned him, and he was then brought in here, not under arrest, and interviewed by DS Vanek at some length.’

He went through the background.

‘Did you get anywhere with him, DS Vanek?’ Serrailler said.

‘Sir?’

The young man sat forward, almost bursting out of himself with eagerness, his bright blue tie swinging back and forth, his face flushed.

‘Welcome on board. What’s your take on this librarian?’

‘I think he’s as guilty as hell, sir, I’m sure he is, I’m convinced he did it.’

‘Did what?’

The flush spread up from his neck.

‘Murdered Chantelle and Marie, sir.’

‘You’re investigating the killing of Chantelle, DS Vanek. Leave the other case to the other team.’

‘Yes, but, sir, he could easily have killed both of them and I think he did.’

Serrailler paused before replying. He didn’t want to nip enthusiasm in the bud or put the new sergeant down before a roomful of more experienced officers. On the other hand …

‘What grounds have you got for believing Leslie Blade killed Chantelle Buckley?’

Simon sensed an atmosphere in the room. He’d known it often enough before. They were up for a game, waiting for Vanek to be sat on, bear-baiting. It happened, especially in the middle of a difficult investigation. Winding up Vanek would be a safety valve, but he was not about to let it happen.

‘Something funny, DC Shastri?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Good.’ Serrailler waited as the mood in the room changed again. He turned back to Ben Vanek. ‘You were going to say … ?’

‘Well, he’s obsessed with these prostitutes, he’s around them most nights, he’s had every opportunity. And he’s hiding something.’

‘Such as?’

‘Not sure.
And
he’s the type.’

‘Ah. The type. Now that’s an interesting observation. Have you done a profiling course, DS Vanek?’

‘I did work with a profiler in my last force, yes.’

‘All right. What type of man kills two prostitutes?’

‘Well, this guy is sexually suppressed, he has no relationships, he lives with his elderly mother, he doesn’t seem to have many friends … a loner in other words. He’s buttoned up, but he goes and chats to toms on the street at night …’

‘All of that may well be true. But we need more. Do we have anything? Blade’s movements on the night Chantelle was last seen?’

‘Says he was at home with his mother.’

‘Have you corroborated that with her?’

‘Not yet, sir, no.’

‘Better do so.’

‘Sir.’ Vanek stared down at the floor.

‘Any CCTV?’

‘Nothing. There’s a camera focused at the printworks gate and it does have footage of Chantelle talking to one of the other girls and going to the Reachout van. Nothing with Blade on it.’

‘His car?’

‘No, sir, not on the night Chantelle was killed. We’ve got it from the previous night when Blade was questioned by a patrol on suspicion of kerb-crawling. There’s actually no indication he’s ever picked up any of the girls. The thing is, he just doesn’t ring true with me, guv, he’s pretty weird.’

‘Doesn’t make him a murderer.’

‘No, sir.’

‘He’s still here?’

‘Yes, sir, but I don’t think we’ve enough to charge him.’

‘Anyone else in the frame?’

‘A punter came forward – he’d been with one of the other girls that night and he’d seen Chantelle. He didn’t recognise her so much as her green jacket, he’d remembered that. He gave us a statement. There’s nothing on him – he was on CCTV but much earlier that evening. We’re going through every inch of the tapes for the whole week.’

Someone groaned.

‘And you go on doing it and if you half spot anything, rewind and look again – this is the sort of case where anything and everything could well be on camera.’

‘With regard to the pathologist’s report on Chantelle …’ DI Franks turned over a couple of pages in his folder. Serrailler watched him. Boring copper, dutiful, patient, a bit resentful that he wasn’t a DCI but probably realistic about his chances because, once made up to DI, he had shown no further signs of ambition or outstanding capability. Just competence. And they needed competence.

‘All right. Let’s move on. Marie O’Dowd. She had a boyfriend, Jonathan – Jonty – Lewis. Drug addict, small-time dealer, lots of previous – GBH, assault – he’d apparently been violent towards Marie on and off, never reported but one of her friends confirms it, and he probably wrecked the caravan she lived in. Finding Lewis is a number-one priority.’

‘How long had she been dead when she was found?’

‘Pathologist reckons three to five days, settle for four.’

‘Sir?’

There was another faint frisson through the room. They’d got him down as a show-off, the kid who always has his hand up in class. Serrailler wanted them to be wrong, guessed that they were only partly so, but he didn’t want them gloating.

‘Sergeant?’

‘Look – two prostitutes, on the same beat, both been out there at or around the same time. One goes AWOL, found strangled and her body in the canal, the second one goes AWOL, found strangled, not in the canal but right by it. I know you say we’re keeping the two inquiries separate but I’d bet they’re not.’

‘I’m not a betting man, Sergeant, but all the same, I wouldn’t bet against you. It’s as I said – the two teams investigate separately but that doesn’t mean my mind is closed to the possibility that we’re looking for one person. Just to pursue your hunch, Sergeant Vanek – if the same man killed both girls, would you definitely pin it on Blade?’

Vanek looked worried. But the flush was not rising to his face now, he had gained confidence, sensed that Serrailler was more with him than against him. He waited a moment. DI Franks was putting papers into his folder, clearly uninterested in the theories of a very young new sergeant.

‘Yes,’ Ben Vanek said.

‘Thanks, Sergeant. Now – the public. Although we’ve had a man in for questioning he hasn’t been under arrest and he isn’t being charged. We need to ensure that the public has confidence in us, confidence in what we’re doing and confidence not only that we will find the killer or killers of these two girls but that until we do our priority is everyone’s safety – the general public and the girls working the streets. As from tonight, we are putting a large and very visible presence out there – in the red-light district, in the centre of town. I have the Chief’s backing on this one for as many as it takes. Here’s what’s happening.’

They listened as he gave them the outline of what and where the uniform presence would be, including information points, leafleting and stop-and-search patrols. It would not involve CID directly but the investigation teams needed to be briefed.

As the meeting broke up, Serrailler called DS Vanek back.

‘Everything all right so far?’

‘Sir. I’m really enjoying it actually. This is great for my first one here.’

‘From whose point of view? No, you’re right. It’s interesting now – and it could go either way.’

‘Open-and-shut, Blade killed them both.’

‘Or Lewis killed them both.’

‘Or …’

‘Exactly. Or neither of them killed anyone. Is that the outcome you’re praying for, Sergeant?’

Ben Vanek grinned. ‘Not at all.’

‘Good. You take your orders from DI Franks of course – but tread carefully with Leslie Blade.’

‘Guv.’

Serrailler did not leave the station until after seven, by which time the teams were already rolling out, vans packed with uniform heading for the streets, ‘a strong visible presence to calm and reassure’, as the Chief had put it. He took the long way home, noting the yellow fluorescent police jackets everywhere, the information van setting up with lights, the groups of officers waiting to be sent this way or that. The minute anyone was charged, the temperature would drop and the overtime hours of uniform reduce, but until that happened people wanted to be reassured and to feel safe, to see something being done.

He felt buoyed up as he swung into the Cathedral Close, enjoying being in the thick of an operation, determined to get it right. He wondered about Ben Vanek’s hunches. He had them himself, though he had learned never to rely on them alone, only to see them as one small component in a complex set of mainly standard procedures. Hunches were never dull and when they were correct they gave you a lift which saw you through any amount of pedestrian routine. Some people never had them, or if they did dismissed them at once; others he knew had acted on one, it had come good, and they had over-relied on them for the rest of their careers, believing they had some special knack their colleagues did not possess, like a healing touch or the ability to dowse.

He had dropped his things off at the flat earlier but scarcely looked around. Now, when he walked in, he did not put on the lights but went straight to the long windows overlooking the close. The daylight had gone and the lamps were lit, shining gold through the autumn trees that lined the path on either side. The floodlights were on the cathedral tower. He opened the window to let in the cool evening. The air on Taransay had been salty and fresh – here there was no sea, no salt, but the grass had been cut, probably for the last time that year, so that the smell of it came to him as if from deep in the country. But even though the close itself was quiet at night, the sound of traffic was always faintly in the background. He had wondered if it might take him a few days to adjust but he felt immediately at home. No jet lag.

He switched on the lamps and looked around. At home.

Cat had been in every week to sort out his post and forward the few things that had seemed urgent. The rest was in neat piles on the table and she had even roughly organised the piles so that what was obviously business mail, bank and bills was in one, personal in another, catalogues and circulars in a third. The smallest pile had the personal letters. A blue airmail envelope from an old friend in Canada. A card from Nathan and Emma Coates in Yorkshire. A card from Nepal. He turned it over and read the message from Jane Fitzroy. Read it twice. Looked at the picture of mountains. Jane. A sudden picture of her came into his mind, as vividly as if he had seen her a moment before, Pre-Raphaelite red hair, heart-shaped face, generous mouth. Jane.

The cathedral clock struck the half-hour, the sound reverberating round the close and beyond. Whenever he was away it took him a while to adjust to not hearing it; the moment he returned it made him feel somehow settled and rooted again.