Over the Edge (21 page)

‘Cause of death?’ Gilbert enquired.

‘Hyoid bone fractured,’ I said, ‘indicating that she was strangled. Any suggestions?’

‘Illegal immigrant,’ Jeff stated.

Pete Goodfellow turned on him. ‘How do you know she was illegal?’ he demanded.

‘Because she hasn’t been reported missing.’

I jumped in with: ‘We don’t know if she’s been reported missing or not. When we have more on the second body we’ll ask missing persons.’ I went on: ‘Body One’s jewellery has gone for analysis. The gold content can indicate where it comes from, and casts are being made of her dental work, or lack of it. Somebody might recognise their handiwork. Initial thoughts are that she is of East European origin. Oh, and she was pregnant. Probably about three months gone. Any questions?’

‘When will we know about the second body?’

‘This afternoon. There’s just one other thing: Body One’s head has been removed and will be taken down to Oxford for a cranio-facial reconstruction, so then we’ll know what she looked like. The bad news is that it could take a fortnight.’

Gilbert walked into the main building with me. ‘Do you want some help from HQ?’ he asked.

‘Not yet,’ I replied. ‘We won’t be spending much time on these two until we have an idea who they
are. Makes you wonder how many more bodies are buried up there.’

‘Nine-nine will find them, if there are any.’
Nine-nine
was the helicopter, which we had quartering the moor, scanning the ground with its thermal imaging camera. ‘So what’s the latest on Krabbe?’ Gilbert asked.

A youth was banging the drinks machine with the flat of his hand. He latched on to us, complaining: ‘Hey! It’s kept my money.’

‘Now you know how it feels,’ I said as we walked by. ‘We’ll give it a reprimand. Krabbe?’ I repeated. ‘We’re making slow progress. Indications are that he had lots of enemies in the climbing fraternity. He’s not the golden boy we all thought he was. He’d suddenly jumped on the conservation bandwagon and was upsetting some of his former climbing friends by campaigning against the way anyone with sufficient money can be taken up Everest. Some of them earn their livings that way. Unfortunately they’re all spread far and wide, but we’re getting there.’

‘And what’s happening with Wallenberg? Any progress in that quarter?’

‘Nigel thinks he had Crozier killed, and I’d agree, but Jones is keeping schtum on that one. We know Wallenberg was involved in the car racing, through his connection with Dale Dobson. Apparently he likes a flutter, so they were probably gambling big
sums on them. It looks as if Duggie Jones was going to be his new ace driver.’

‘Anything to be gained by leaning on Jones?’

‘Everything, but he has a good brief. I’d rather wait until I had something to feed him that would make him reconsider his position. If he knew he was looking at a murder rap he might suddenly begin to see things more clearly.’

‘Well, try to keep it within the guidelines, Charlie,’ Gilbert advocated.

‘Of course, Gilbert. Of course,’ I assured him.

Ludmilla brushed at the creases in the dress she was wearing and looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. Too much lipstick, she thought, and wiped it off with a tissue. Five minutes later it was as she wanted. She combed her hair to one side, half off her face, half on, as she’d worn it at the village dances when she was small, and fixed it with the clasp she’d worn on the journey here. Everybody said it suited her that way. She brushed her teeth and dabbed the cheap perfume on her neck. This was the third time today that she’d made these preparations, but she was determined to look her best when he came. Her sexiest, most alluring best. Last night she hadn’t looked good, and she hadn’t given value for money, of that she was certain. Phone-calls will have been made, complaints passed along the line. He was sure to come.

She was dozing when she heard the key in the door, and sat up with a start. What was it she was
going to say? She’d learnt more English in the three weeks she’d been here but still felt awkward using it. And what if it was Duggie who came? She was no match for him. He’d beat her and rape her, probably bring a friend or two, and she’d have planned all this for nothing. She jumped to her feet and stood at the far side of the bed, one hand clutched to her breast and her mouth and eyes wide with fear.

The door was flung back against the wall and Wallenberg was standing there, the long package containing his
little electric friend
in one hand.

‘What the fuck do you think you’re playing at?’ he demanded, striding into the room and locking the door behind him. He threw his coat and jacket on the floor and flicked the plastic bag off the prod.

‘I explain,’ Ludmilla protested. ‘I explain.’

But he wasn’t listening. He switched the prod on and jabbed it against her outstretched hand. Ludmilla screamed as the electricity pulsed through her. ‘Please please!’ she whimpered. ‘I explain. Please let me explain.’

‘Explain what?’ he shouted at her. ‘There’s nothing to explain. You’re costing me a fortune; you know that? Duggie says you can’t be trusted, so we have to keep you locked up and fed. And now this. Do you know how much he was paying, last night? And for what? An evening with a frigid little
cow like you. I’d have thought you’d learnt your lesson, but it looks like you didn’t. We’ll have to teach you some manners, young lady, and then Duggie will want to give you a lesson of his own.’ He jabbed the prod against her neck and it felt as if her head had been blown off.

‘No! No!’ she screamed, clutching her throat. ‘Not your little friend. Ludmilla not know what he wanted. I try, please, I try. Me not used to this. I work hard for you. But he difficult. He an old man. I not know what to do.’

‘Well you should have used your imagination, shouldn’t you?’ He pointed the prod at her, waving the end around, avoiding her hands held up defensively as he tried to touch it against her body.

‘Ludmilla not have imagination. Why you not show me? I work hard for you. I do my best. But I am young. I need lessons. I learn very quickly. Why you not show me, then I earn lots of money? You pay me, one day, maybe, if I do well? I earn lots of money for you. For us.’

‘Show you?’ he repeated, suddenly interested. The straps of her dress had slipped down her arms and her hair was pinned to one side, making her look more sophisticated than any of his other girls. Sophistication was a quality he didn’t normally expect from them.

‘Ludmilla a good girl,’ she said. ‘You show me what to do. Please.’ She stood helplessly in front of
him, tears running down her cheeks. ‘Ludmilla only want to please you.’

He grabbed her shoulders and slid the dress down. She put her hands on his waist and started to pull his shirt from his pants. Soon her hands were on the small of his back and his were fondling her breasts. She turned her lips to his and their mouths fused together. Wallenberg was filled with amazement. Prostitutes don’t normally kiss their clients. It was an unwritten rule, and this was beyond anything he’d experienced before with one. He pushed her back onto the bed and they rolled into the middle. She came out on top, astride him, and began to unbutton his shirt.

She hated every second of it. She hated the smell of him and his bristly chin and the ripple of his ribs down his chest. She hated the greasy hair and the curve of his spine. She hated his fingers probing and exploring her, and the thick wet lips as they chewed at hers. Most of all she hated herself for making him believe, for just a few minutes, that she could ever enjoy this.

Her left hand fell on the fly of his trousers and she could feel his hardness inside them. She rumbled with the top button as her tongue slid alongside his, until she withdrew it, teasing him, prolonging the pleasure, and allowed the tip to follow the curve of his jaw towards his ear. He turned his head to accommodate her, wondering
what other delights she held for him, turned away from the electric cattle prod he’d left leaning against the bed, oblivious of her right hand as it slowly walked across the sheets, towards it.

Wednesday morning Dave was holding court when I entered the big office, with the others showing varying degrees of interest. He was just coming to the punch line of one of his stories. ‘And the gynaecologist handed the woman the box of chocolates and said: ‘These are from Brian in the burns unit, to say thank you for his new ears.’’

Some laughed, most shook their heads and turned back to their desks. I said: ‘Is this all you have to do?’

‘Raising morale, Chas,’ he replied. ‘Something that’s lacking from your style of leadership.’

‘I’ll bear it in mind. Put the kettle on, please. Anybody any biscuits?’

A manila envelope that I’d been waiting for was on my desk. I dialled Heckley Grammar School, jammed the phone between my chin and shoulder like I’d seen busy people do on TV, and tore the envelope open.

‘Could you tell me if Miss Barraclough is working?’ I asked the school secretary when she answered. I think it was the school secretary, but from her attitude and accent it could have been the Minister for Education on a state visit.

‘I’m sorry, but I’m not at liberty to release any information on staff members.’

Jesus Christ, I thought. I want to know if she’s working, not where she banks and her PIN number. ‘This is Heckley CID,’ I said. ‘My name is Inspector Priest. If she is working would you be good enough to ask her to ring me?’

‘Oh, the police,’ she stumbled. ‘Um, I suppose it’s alright, then. Miss Barraclough rang in on Monday, said she was sick.’

The envelope contained a summary of the
post-mortems
on the two bodies. I’d driven past Rosie’s a couple of times, but there was no sign of either her or her car, and she hadn’t answered the phone when I rang.

There was little in the reports that the Home Office pathologist hadn’t told us at the time. Both girls were about the same age and had died approximately one year apart. The earlier corpse was wearing all British clothing but her trainers were of continental origin. The later one was wearing a mixture of makes but no shoes. Both had undergone some dental remedial work with amalgam fillings and several extractions. The earlier corpse had a freshly healed broken left ulna and an old fracture of the right fibula that had healed badly. Causes of death were uncertain, but the broken hyoid bones indicted strangulation.

It’s what a report doesn’t say that is most
eloquent. I rang the professor at the General who had assisted at the post-mortems and caught him between jobs. ‘Would I be right in thinking East European, or ex-Soviet Bloc,’ I asked.

‘I’d say so, Charlie,’ he replied. ‘The dental details have gone to the forensic odontologist for his comments, and we should get something from the jewellery, but it’s looking like it. Interpol might be able to tell you about the trainers and those jeans.’

‘I’ll prepare a submission to them, and ask if they fit the profiles of any missing persons. Is there anything else, off the record, that occurs to you?’

‘Not directly, but they’d both had hard lives and knew what it meant to go hungry. They’d be easy to lure over here and force into a life of prostitution. Perhaps the toxicology report will tell us something.’

‘The West was hardly the Land of Opportunity for them, was it?’ I said.

‘No, I’m afraid it wasn’t,’ he replied.

At lunchtime I went for a walk into the town centre. A ridge of high pressure had parked itself above Heckley, so it was cold in spite of the bright sun. The town was bustling with shoppers looking for bargains in the run-up to Christmas and office workers collecting their sandwiches or sneaking into the pub for a quick uplifter. I walked towards the mall and gave the
Big Issue
seller a pound coin,
told him I didn’t need the magazine. A beggar was sitting in the doorway with his dog, a handwritten cardboard sign saying he was homeless, God bless. They all drive BMWs, according to popular belief, but I don’t know where his was parked.

I strolled up into the food court, using the stairs instead of the escalator because I needed the exercise. The choice was Chinese, KFC, Burger King, Massarella’s, fish and chips, pizza, jacket potato or Yorkshire pudding with a filling. Nearly all the tables were taken, mainly by young women with babies in buggies and toddlers bearing names straight out of the celebrity trash magazines. A snotty-nosed infant called Timberlake was doing his best to destroy his portion of the planet while his mother spoon-fed a baby with goo from a jar. I committed his face to memory, then decided I’d be long-gone before he was old enough to be deemed responsible for his deeds. The place was buzzing with conversation and reprimands and the scrape of chairs on the hard floor. I hesitated outside Massarella’s then decided not to bother. I’d take a sandwich into the office.

Art of Asia was still closed, ‘Until further notice’ according to the signs in each window. We’d got the keys and the place was preserved as evidence, but for what we had yet to decide. Wallenberg had not declared himself the owner, and the rent had been paid, so nothing was spoiling. Jeff Caton came
down every morning and checked the mail but nothing of interest had turned up. I peered through a window and a big fat Buddha smiled back at me. A lithe Indian lady was sitting on his lap in what might be termed a compromising position, so his smile was well justified.

I strolled out of the mall into the town square. Some of the office workers were wearing sunglasses and a hardy few had shed their jackets. Everybody walked purposefully, cramming as much as possible into their hour of freedom. Two girls in identical skirts and blouses were huddled in the doorway of HSBC, pulling on cigarettes like drowning sailors, while two more, in fishnet tights and grammar school blazers, drew on their cigs more furtively. The travel agents were offering short breaks in Malta for the price of a pair of designer jeans, and Specsavers would give you two-for-one.

L’Autre Place
was busy. There was a lunchtime menu in a frame in the doorway, listing two courses for 9.99 or three for 11.99, and they weren’t short of takers. They weren’t policemen, of that I was sure. The Malta offer was tempting. I could go in and book it, get myself to the airport Saturday morning and have a week of sunshine, cheap wine and relaxation. I bought a chicken tikka sandwich at Greggs and took it back to the office, content that Heckley was functioning normally and a safe place for women and children.