Thorn In My Side (15 page)

'Huh,' she
said, not meaning for it to come out loud, as she held out her hand
to Evan.

'Sorry?' Mike
looked at her.

'Nothing,' Jill
said quickly, giving Mike a look as if he was hearing things.

Withdrawing his
gaze from his shoes, fully aware of the undercurrent between the
two of them, but wanting to get this over and done with, Evan said,
'Pleased to meet you – but can we get it over with, please?'

He swallowed
hard past the lump in his throat as, with a small smile, Jill
nodded, and stepped closer to the table. She lifted the sheet and
neatly folded it over, exposing the pale face of the unknown
girl.

Evan
gasped.

For a moment he
was stunned. Nothing had prepared him for this. Even though, deep
down, he’d half-expected it, on the way here neither of the coppers
had mentioned that it could be Alicia. Even though he had a
feeling, he had been too frightened to ask outright.

'It’s her,' he
whispered, then louder as he knuckled tears from his eyes, 'It...
It’s Alicia… Ohh, my God, Alicia. No, no,' he wailed. He felt his
legs give way as the blood drained from his face. The next moment
he was being helped from the floor by Mike’s strong arms, his hands
under Evan’s armpits. He was led to a chair in the corner and
handed a drink of water by the policewoman. 'Sip it slowly,' she
cautioned.

Evan nodded
automatically, before taking a sip then handing the plastic cup
back to her.

Mike stared at
him, almost convinced that Evan was innocent. Either that, or a
fantastic actor and liar. He saw no reason to show him the state of
the girl’s back.
If this man’s innocent, then to see
what’s been done to the woman he loved would be sadistic
torture. If he’s guilty, well, then the bastard already knows
what state he’s left her in.

Mike had
already tossed around the idea with Kristina that Danny and Evan
could be in it together, but he wasn’t sure about that any more
either. He needed a motive and, although he’d slacked off on the
idea that it was Evan and Danny, they still weren’t in the clear.
Jealousy was one of the main reasons in the world for murder, right
up there with greed. If the four of them were bed-hopping then that
could have triggered the murder.

He put a hand
on Evan’s shoulder. 'When you’re ready, we’ll go back to the
station.'

Evan nodded,
staring at the table. A small sigh, when Jill covered the body and
pressed the button to take Alicia back into the dark, turned into a
large sob.

Danny lay on
the bunk, his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling.
Shelly, dead. No way, man!

It’s all a
dream. No. It’s not a dream, it’s a fucking nightmare!

Everything
seemed surreal. This wasn’t happening to him. He shook his head in
denial. He’d never in his whole life been in a cell. No way could
he ever let his mother know. The shame would kill her. But it
looked like some of these guys had been here more than once. Dates
and names, scrawled and scratched all over the walls. One
enterprising idiot had even managed to leave his signature on the
ceiling.

'Must have been
a bloody giant,' he muttered.

Robbie Magee,
whoever he was, had at least four entries. A frequent visitor then,
just piping Allan Johnson whose signature was scrawled in
three-inch high italics.

Shelly’s not
dead. She’s not. No way.

She can’t
be.
He shook his head adamantly.

So who the
hell is that lying in my bed, pretending to be Shelly?

He saw the long
black hair, so much like Shelly’s, and his mind shied away from the
only other possibility he could think of.

No way,
man.

The hatch
opened, and a tray, containing what looked like a bowl of soup, two
slices of bread and a cup of tea, was pushed through. 'Dinner,'
said a disembodied voice on the other side of the door.

'Thank you,'
Danny whispered, not wanting to upset the guard in case he put him
in a cell with a mass-murderer, or worse, a rapist with a liking
for men.

You see things
like that all the time on the telly.

The hatch
slammed shut with a loud clang and Danny jumped, banging his elbow
on the wall. Wincing and rubbing the offended joint, he got up and
went to the door.
It smells all right
, he thought, looking
at the tomato soup.

'Hope there’s
no basil in it,' he murmured. Danny hated his food interfered with,
as he kept reminding Evan and the girls. Lifting the tray, he took
it over to the bunk. Hungry, he sat down and was about to put a
spoonful in his mouth when he thought, O
h my God
…
they
might have spit
in it.
Slowly, he stirred the soup
around in the bowl.

It looked all
right,
and I’m friggin’ starving, shit, I gotta eat.
He put
a spoonful in his mouth.

'Bastard!' he
yelped, as he burned his mouth. Staring at the hatch, he quickly
slapped his hand over his mouth. Visions of a huge hairy prisoner,
with a dick swinging down to his knees, being thrust into his cell
by the guard, pushed all thoughts of Shelly out of his mind.

After taking
deep breaths to calm down, and sitting with his eyes shut for a
moment, he opened them and looked around.

Still
here!

He sighed, and
it welled up from deep inside. The tiny cramped cell had not
miraculously changed into his kitchen, his table, his soup bowl,
filled with the wonderful ham broth his mother made every Monday
night through the winter.

No such
fucking luck.

But thank
God there’s no huge hairy inmate sitting next to me
either.

He tried the
soup again. Still hot, but he could sip. He dunked one of the
slices of bread and found that easier. He was famished, and spooned
the rest in as if it were his last meal.

Dinner over he
put the tray on the floor and lay on the bunk with his hands behind
his head.

How long can
they hold me here without charging me?

Was it
twenty-four hours, on ‘The Bill'?’

Or was that
how long you had to be missing, before…? God,
my head
hurts.

Shelly’s the
soap fan, she would know.

Shelly’s
dead!

'She’s not,
she’s not.' He rolled onto his stomach. Tears streaming down his
face, he began punching the mattress, yelling over and over, 'She’s
not dead… Shelly is not dead. No way.'

Suddenly he
yelped, as someone touched his shoulder. He had been making so much
noise he hadn’t heard the guard come in.

'Splash some
water over yer face, young ’un, and follow me.' The guard, an Asian
with long Elvis Presley sideburns, spoke gruffly, but not
unkindly.

'Where, where
to?' Wide-eyed, Danny stared at the man, his mind assaulted with
horrors.
God, I could end up anywhere.
Never to be seen
again.

'Back to the
interview room, where the hell do you think? Some time today,
OK?'

Danny got off
the bunk, washed his face, and hurried after the guard. It was the
same room, with the same damp spot on the far wall, and the same
two coppers. Only these two didn’t play good cop, bad cop. They
were both bloody nightmares.

Barely waiting
until Danny had sat down, Mike said 'You’ll be pleased to know that
the lady in your bed was not your girlfriend Shelly An----'

'What?' Danny
interrupted, his mouth hanging open.

'The body isn’t
Shelley’s.'

'Not Shelly?'
He jumped up. 'You mean, it’s not her? Not my Shelly?'

'That’s what I
said.' Mike couldn’t keep the amusement out of his voice.

'Yes!' Danny
yelled. He punched the sky, went to sit down, missed the seat and
fell on the floor.

Grinning like a
fool, he scrambled back onto the seat. 'Not Shelly,' he repeated,
looking at Kristina as if she was a long-lost friend, and not the
monster he’d thought she was.

Shaking his
head, he kept muttering, 'Not Shelly.' After a moment, he looked up
at Mike, who was standing beside the window. The fear back in his
eyes, he asked, 'So, er, so who is it?'

'I’m sorry to
have to tell you this, but it’s your mate Evan’s girlfriend.
Alicia.'

'Oh, God no.'
Deflated, Danny fell back in his chair.
Alicia,
he thought,
poor, poor Alicia… Poor Evan.
He looked up at Mike. 'Where’s
Evan?'

'In a room down
the hall, waiting for you. The time of death has been established,
and you’re in the clear. You were both at the hospital.'

'Does that
mean…'

'Yes,' Kristina
put in, 'you’re both free to go.'

'Don’t
disappear, though,' Mike said as he opened the door. 'We still need
to know what the dead woman was doing in your bed. Leave
information about where you’ll be staying at the desk. For obvious
reasons, you can’t go home.'

Danny
shuddered. 'I’ll be with Evan. I’ll have to stay with him, can’t
leave him on his own.'

'Thought so.'
Mike nodded, and patted Danny’s back as he passed him.

He closed the
door and looked at Kristina, his face grim. 'OK. We have to get to
work. We have a mutilated body with no motive and no suspects.'

Kristina
nodded. 'You’re adamant it’s neither of those two now?'

'Pretty much so
at the moment.'

'Yeah, me too.'
She took the photographs of the dead girl and pinned them all on
the board, stepped back and stared at them. A moment later she
puffed out her cheeks and said, 'We’ve got to get this one, Mike.
What’s happened here has not been a moment of sudden rage, jealousy
or greed, not even downright caveman, spoilt brat, temper. Believe
me, the bastard’s enjoyed this. Boy, has he… He’ll strike again. I
wouldn’t be surprised if she’s not the first. Looks like a
disciplinary action gone wrong. Or some sort of crazy sex
game.'

'Where,
though?' Mike shook his head. 'You say it’s happened before, but we
have no precedent for this at all. I’ve never come across the likes
of this in my life. Someone so terrified that they basically bleed
out of their skin?'

Still staring
at the photographs, Kristina sighed. 'It’s a power thing, gotta
be.'

'I’m more
inclined to agree there. A sex game wouldn’t go this far. Deaths
have occurred when someone got over-excited, but they’ve mostly
been accidental. To me, this was intended to cause death… It’s a
punishment for something.' Mike nodded at the photographs.
'Definitely.'

'But why put
her in Danny’s bed?'

Mike shook his
head. 'Pass.'

'Do you think
maybes Danny could have pissed someone off? Or maybes
she
has.'

'But why Alicia
and not Shelly? None of it makes any sense.'

'And where does
Evan fit in?'

'Jesus Christ.
A riddle within a riddle.' Mike patted his pockets. 'Got a
fag?'

Kristina walked
back to the desk, opened her bag and gave him a packet of Regal
King-Size.

'Light?' he
asked, grinning, as he took a cigarette and put it between his
lips.

'God!' Kristina
snapped, 'no change here, is there? Don’t you know where the shops
are?'

Mike smiled.
'Here, love.' He handed the lighter and cigarettes back, then went
over to the window, opened it wide, had a look round and stuck his
head out.

Kristina shook
her head as Mike blew smoke rings into the sky. Like Mike, she’d
seen enough human depravity, things that never left the police
station, the kind of stuff that you never took home with you, or it
would shadow your life forever.

Walking over to
stand beside him, she squeezed his arm. 'Don’t worry, Mike. We’ll
get him,' she said quietly.

Having hidden
at the back of the garden for over an hour, knowing there was
someone inside, Shelly watched a man and a woman leave the cottage
and drive off. She waited a further five minutes, just in case they
forgot something and came back, before creeping up to the window
and looking in.

The cottage was
at the edge of the village, its nearest neighbour an easy fifty
yards away, with the back garden leading onto the field. The window
Shelly was looking into gave her a view of a small, but very neat
kitchen.

'So where’s the
key?' she muttered.

Having never
broken into anywhere before, she didn’t have a clue where to start.
But she had to get in. Her need for food was building rapidly, and
she desperately needed some footwear. She started to shake. The day
was certainly warm, but the heat she was feeling belonged somewhere
in the tropics.

She tried the
plant pot outside the door. No joy there. It had been a long shot
anyhow. Likewise, the dustbin held nothing underneath but a half a
dozen snails.

She would have
to break in – and the place was covered with burglar alarms.

Must be
guarding the crown jewels,
she thought. Looking around, she
spotted a half-brick lying on the grass near the shed. Picking it
up, she weighed it in her hand as she studied the shed for a
moment. She decided to try the door. It was open.

Cautiously she
peeked inside. The usual garden shed implements covered the walls.
There was a bench running along the window wall that looked out
onto a garden planted with neat rows of carrots, potatoes and
leeks. She’d eat the carrots raw if she had to but balked at the
leeks. She nearly missed the envelope, but her eyes skittered back
to it.

Still being
very cautious, her senses tuned for the slightest noise, her body
poised and ready for flight, she stepped into the dark interior and
walked over to the bench.
For Katie,
it said on the
envelope. Who the hell Katie was didn’t matter to her. Shelly’s
need at this moment was greater than any Katie could have
.
Ignoring the shaking, which had suddenly become a lot worse, she
quickly tore the envelope open. If she thought there might have
been some nourishment in it, she would gladly have swallowed it
whole.