Frozen (20 page)

‘Oh, her back, definitely her back,' the woman replied, looking at Megan with a curious expression. ‘Was the bugger who killed her kinky, then?'

Megan and Costello exchanged glances at this unfortunate choice of words. ‘I'm afraid I can't comment on that,' Megan said. ‘But thank you for your information. It's extremely important.'

Leverton was on the phone when Megan went back up to his office. He waved her to a seat and she immediately noticed how flushed his face looked.

‘And she still works there now, does she?' he said to the person on the other end of the line. ‘Right, that's great – many thanks.' He put the phone down and turned to Megan. ‘You'll never believe this: Donalsen's wife works at BTV!'

‘Really? Who told you?'

‘A woman she used to work with, WPC Anderton. They both worked in the Control Room. Anyway, according to her Rob Donalsen often went to BTV to pick his wife up because she didn't have a car.'

‘How long ago did they split up?'

‘Two months. I checked the sick leave book.'

‘And when did she start working at BTV?'

‘Eighteen months ago.'

‘So Donalsen was going in and out of the place for over a year,' Megan mused. ‘He could have got to know some of the other staff reasonably well in that time.'

Leverton nodded. ‘I asked WPC Anderton if she knew about the split and she said she'd heard the gossip about Rob being separated, but didn't know the details. She thinks his wife might have had an affair with someone at BTV.'

Neil's face flashed into Megan's mind. ‘What's her first name?'

‘Helen. Why?'

‘Oh, just curious.' Megan felt a surge of relief. Although he's still not off the hook, she thought grimly.

The phone rang again and Leverton picked it up. After a moment he grabbed a notepad and began scribbling something down.

‘That was the pathologist,' he said, replacing the receiver. ‘They've just had the blood-group results on the swabs they took from Maria Fellowes.'

‘And?'

‘It's strange,' Leverton said, reading what he had just written. ‘Semen was found to be present in the vaginal and anal orifices. Anal semen was blood group AB. Vaginal semen also type AB.'

‘AB in the vagina?'

‘That's what he said.'

‘Well, I never.'

Leverton frowned at her. ‘What?'

‘When I was talking to Eileen Bunce I asked her to describe exactly what she saw Donalsen and Maria doing in the car. She said Maria was lying on her back in the passenger seat with Donalsen on top of her.'

‘So?'

‘Don't you see? Maria was the wrong way round.'

The puzzled frown lifted as Leverton realised what she was implying. ‘Of course! Natalie and Tina were raped from behind. So what the hell was Donalsen doing, then?'

‘Well,' Megan said, ‘there are two possibilities. Either the killer has changed his modus operandi or Donalsen's innocent.'

‘Innocent?'

‘Of Maria's death. I'm not trying to say he's innocent of the other things you think he's been up to, but the presence of AB semen in the vagina could mean that he had sex with Maria before the real killer got hold of her.'

‘But that would mean that two different men with the same rare blood group had sex with the same woman within hours or even minutes of each other. Isn't that a bit farfetched?'

‘Type AB isn't
that
rare. It's present in about three percent of the population.'

‘That's still only three men in every hundred,' Leverton said, rubbing his chin.

‘That first pathologist we saw, you know, Horrobin? He said the anal semen from Tina Jackson was an AB subtype present in about two percent of the population. If forensics run an enzyme test on the samples they might be able to tell us if they came from two different men.'

‘Yes, I suppose I could get that done.' Leverton frowned. ‘But an enzyme test might not be conclusive.'

‘I know. But apart from that all we can do is sit tight and wait for the DNA results. Unless…' Megan paused, her eyes narrowing.

‘Unless what?'

‘Unless Donalsen's wife feels like helping us out.'

Chapter 13

There was a knock at Leverton's door. A freckle-faced giant of a man with hair the colour of Eileen Bunce's wig strode into the room. The tight auburn curls looked so incongruous on a man of his size that Megan had to try very hard not to smile.

‘I'm just taking the SOCOs round to Rob Donalsen's place, sir.' The man shifted uncomfortably, looking at the floor. Megan sensed his embarrassment at having to search the home of a fellow officer. ‘Is there anything in particular you'd like the lads to look for, sir?'

Leverton looked at Megan.

‘A Polaroid camera,' she said, ‘and that shamrock pendant. Look for any jewellery, clothes or personal possessions that might have been taken from the victims.'

‘What about pornographic material? Magazines, videos, that sort of thing?' Leverton asked.

‘Yes. Especially anything to do with bondage or sadism. Whoever killed those women is into cruelty and humiliation, so anything you see that reflects that kind of behaviour would be extremely useful.'

The detective finished scribbling notes and hurried off to join the scene-of-crime officers waiting to scour Donalsen's flat.

Half an hour later, Leverton pulled up outside a pebble-dashed house in a quiet road where Christmas lights flashed behind net curtains. Snow had been shoveled into untidy grey heaps on the pavements and a snowman with a lop-sided head stood guard on one of the mean strips of turf that masqueraded as a front garden.

Helen Donalsen stared at Leverton when she answered the door. Then her gaze shifted to Megan. A look of recognition was swiftly followed by one of total bewilderment.

‘I'm sorry to spring this on you, Helen,' Leverton said, ‘but I need to talk to you about something very serious.' He paused for a moment, trying to gauge her reaction. ‘It's about Rob. Can we come in?'

‘What is it? What's happened? He's not dead? He can't be dead. I saw his Mum this morning in Sainsbury's.' She leaned against the door for support and Megan noticed how thin she was.

Leverton put an arm on her shoulder, ushering her inside. ‘No, no, of course he's not dead, love. That's not why we're here. We need to ask you a few questions about Rob.'

The woman frowned as Leverton introduced Megan. ‘This is Doctor Rhys –'

‘I know.' She cut him short before he could explain. She stared at Megan with a mixture of fear and suspicion. ‘I've seen your face on the trailer for that documentary BTV's made about you.'

‘Oh.' Megan shouldn't have been surprised, but she still found it slightly unnerving to be recognised by a complete stranger.

‘Doctor Rhys is helping us with the investigation into the death of the woman found outside the BTV building yesterday,' Leverton said as he sat down on a very new-looking cream sofa.

‘What's Rob got to do with it? And why have you come to me? You know we split up, don't you?'

‘Yes,' Leverton replied. ‘I'm sorry to have to involve you in this, Helen, but we're holding Rob on suspicion of murder. We have reason to believe he may have killed her.'

Helen Donalsen stared at Leverton, shaking her head. Her lips moved but no sound emerged.

‘I can understand what a shock this must be for you, Helen, but we need to ask you some very important questions about Rob. You see, he has no alibi for the night of the murder and we have a witness who claims to have seen him with the victim on the night she disappeared.'

‘She was a tart, wasn't she?' Cold rage transformed the woman's features. ‘What were they doing? Blow job on the front seat of the squad car?' She turned to Megan. ‘Do you know, he had the bloody nerve to blame me for it? Said I drove him to it when I walked out on him. He couldn't leave them alone, dirty bastard.'

The woman was shaking. Megan wondered why Donalsen had told his wife about his illicit liaisons with prostitutes. If he was the murderer, such an admission would be extremely dangerous. It certainly wasn't the behaviour of a calculating serial killer.

‘Mrs Donalsen, we don't want to pry into the reasons why you and your husband split up,' Megan said gently. ‘But we need to know if Rob ever threatened you physically in any way.' Megan paused, hoping her words wouldn't provoke an outburst.

Helen Donalsen snorted. ‘Rob? Violent? You must be joking – he's a complete wimp!'

‘So he never tried to hit you – even when you split up?'

‘No chance. He's pathetic, a real coward. I think he joined the police 'cos he thought the uniform would make him look hard.
I
hit
him
once – it was the only way I could make him realise how bad things were between us. He wouldn't talk, you see; didn't want to know. With him working shifts and me working nine-to-five, I didn't see that much of him anyway. Then I got the job at BTV and started going out with a new bunch of people. I tried to get Rob to come but when he wasn't working all he seemed to want to do was slump in front of the telly. In the end I met someone else.'

She was staring at the lights on the tiny silver Christmas tree. Megan wondered where this new lover was now. She certainly didn't have the look of a woman in the first flush of a relationship.

‘When Rob told you he'd been seeing prostitutes, what exactly did he say?' Megan asked.

‘He told me some of them were really fit and were only too willing to give him sex instead of being arrested. He took great delight in telling me how good they were, how they'd do anything he wanted.'

‘Did you feel hurt when he said that?'

‘No, not really.' There was a half-smile on Helen Donalsen's lips. ‘I almost laughed when he said it. I mean, he'd always been so straight and boring. If anything I was the one who tried to spice up the marriage by being, you know, more adventurous. I couldn't believe it when he came out with all this stuff about flavoured condoms.'

*   *   *

By the time Megan and Leverton left, curtains had been drawn on the twinkling fairy lights across the road and the snowman loomed from the shadows like a monstrous hunchback.

‘What do you think?' Leverton glanced at Megan before pulling away from the house.

‘Do you want an honest answer?'

‘You don't think he did it?'

‘From a behavioural point of view it just doesn't add up. I can't reconcile what Donalsen's wife has just told us with the picture we've been building up since Natalie Bailey's body was found.'

Leverton sighed. ‘I admit that Donalsen doesn't sound like the kind of vicious sadist we've been looking for, but how do you know he hasn't changed? What if the break-up of the marriage turned him into a completely different person?'

‘He's just not devious enough, Martin. Donalsen is incapable of concealing his emotions. He
told
his wife he was seeing prostitutes. Why? For revenge, pure and simple. The man we're looking for takes his revenge in a much more calculating, distanced way. Because he
can't
express his feelings to the person who upset him, he vents his rage on innocent victims.'

She paused for a moment but Leverton said nothing. ‘Look Martin, I think we should be taking a closer look at BTV.'

Leverton grunted.

‘What about that list of pimps Donalsen gave you?' Megan persisted. ‘Has anyone cross-matched it with the employee lists from BTV?'

Leverton didn't answer. He was silent for the remainder of the journey back to the police station. As he drove into the car park he pulled out his mobile phone.

‘Gerry? Anything interesting? Hmmm, what about his car? Okay. Ring me if you find anything, will you?'

He turned to Megan. ‘Look, thanks for coming in today. There's not a lot we can do now until the SOCOs have finished going over Donalsen's flat. Forensics have got his car and that'll take a while too. Can I call you tomorrow morning?'

‘Of course,' Megan replied stiffly. Pig-headed idiot, she thought. ‘I'm at my sister's for the next few days. You've got the number.'

Leverton nodded and Megan got out of the car. Her own was parked a few spaces away and she drove off with a curt wave to Leverton. The half-hearted wave back spoke volumes. He was tired and frustrated and she had made things worse. Just when he thought he was getting somewhere she had told him he was barking up the wrong tree. Phoning the SOCOs had been his last-ditch attempt to show her he was right. Presumably nothing of any interest had been found so far.

If only he would stop being such an arrogant shit, Megan thought as she crunched her way noisily through a handful of Maltesers. While Leverton was wasting his time with Donalsen other, more important detective work was being ignored.

Four women were dead. How many more were going to be sacrificed on the altar of Leverton's ego? She thought of the list of BTV workers Leverton had had photocopied for her. Pretty useless without that list of pimps to compare them to, she thought. But wait a minute …

She snapped on the indicator, pulling off the Expressway and heading in a completely different direction. There was another way to check out that list, and she wasn't going home until she'd tried it.

*   *   *

Megan wasn't sure if she'd be able find Eileen Bunce. She kerb-crawled the dimly-lit streets where factories loomed like sleeping giants, passing bus stops where clumps of women clutched misshapen carrier bags. Megan caught sight of frozen legs of turkey, tufts of tinsel and the glassy eyes of a doll protruding from their plastic bundles.

Where was the woman? Where would she stand? Megan cursed herself for not asking her in the interview.