Settled Blood (25 page)

‘Don’t go on, boss. I feel bad enough.’

‘And so you bloody should! Andy had no choice but to pull you out. Fortunately for you, everyone in there took you for a pisshead. You’re not a pisshead, are you?’

‘No! Of course not, I—’

‘You sure about that?’

Carmichael didn’t reply, just sat with her head in her hands. Daniels pushed the toast across the table towards her and she immediately pushed it back.

‘You going to tell Naylor?’

‘No. But don’t think for one minute it’s to protect your arse, because it’s not! Your mistake could have cost you – not only your livelihood, but your life. Hank
will have to know, obviously. But I don’t want your cock-up reflecting on Naylor, not on his first day with us. He doesn’t need it and, frankly, neither do I.’

‘I’m sorry, boss. I never had much to drink, I promise you. Two vodkas, that was it. Someone definitely spiked my drink and I’ve a good idea who. Trouble is, I just can’t
picture him.’ Carmichael shut her eyes, trying hard to remember. But it was no use. She opened them again, her face a sickly shade of grey. After a few minutes, she said: ‘He was an
older guy, I think. Smart, I think—’

‘You think? You’re going to have to do a damn sight better than that!’

‘I’m not sure.’ Carmichael met Daniels’ steady gaze across the table, fiery eyes that could cut through steel. ‘Maybe it’ll come back to me.’

Without saying another word, the DCI stood up and went out into the hallway. She leapt up the stairs two at a time, turning left when she reached the landing. Her leather jacket was hanging
untidily over the back of a chair in Carmichael’s room. In the right-hand pocket she found Brown’s mobile. Returning to the kitchen, she accessed the photographs he’d taken at
Fuse, found a particularly good one, zoomed in on the man’s face and showed it to Lisa.

‘Is that him?’

Carmichael gave a little nod, her eyes misting up. She turned her head, suddenly interested in the patio doors and a well-tended garden beyond, a greenhouse, a little shed and fruit trees on the
boundary fence. It was a dull, grey day outside. Depressing, much like the mood in the room.

‘Get dressed,’ Daniels said. ‘We’ve work to do. And by the way, you’d better eat that bloody toast. I don’t make breakfast for just anybody!’

Carmichael managed a weak grin. She pointed to the living room, asking Daniels to wait there while she went upstairs to get dressed. Daniels got up. Taking her coffee with her, she wandered
through into a pleasant room with a wooden floor, an open fireplace with a rug in front of the hearth. Two comfy red sofas sat at right angles to one another and there was a second, even bigger,
plasma television screen fixed to one wall. On either side of the fireplace, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves housed a massive collection of DVDs – the biggest she had ever seen outside of a shop
on the high street.

It was like a mini cinema.

Carmichael’s movie taste was diverse: everything from romcoms through to sci-fi, horror and all drama in between. One DVD stuck out slightly from the rest. Assuming the disc was in the
player, Daniels pulled it down. The cover featured Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck and Helen Mirren. It was one of her favourite thrillers:
State of Play.

The muffled buzz of Carmichael’s hair drier reached her through the ceiling. A few minutes later it stopped, replaced by the sound of feet running down the stairs a lot quicker than they
had gone up. Carmichael entered eating cold toast, made up and ready to go, her hair tied back now, no longer hanging loose around her shoulders.

A Herculean effort in anyone’s book, Daniels thought.

Carmichael just stood, waiting for Daniels to make a move.

‘Sit down, Lisa.’ The DCI’s tone was a little softer now. She wasn’t angry with Carmichael. Her outburst had been more akin to that of a caring mother scolding a child
and hugging it at the same time for running out in the road, a mother overcome with relief that she had come to no harm. ‘I want to find the man who drugged you, and to do that I’d like
to take you through a cognitive interview. It’s vital we find the bastard.’

‘Will that work? Given the drugs, I mean?’

‘You still have a memory. All we have to do is access it.’

‘S’pose.’ Carmichael sounded unconvinced even though she had been among the first batch of detectives Daniels had trained in cognitive interviewing, a technique proven to
enhance eyewitness recall by up to forty-five per cent.

‘OK, you ready?’ Daniels asked.

Carmichael nodded. She knew the drill. Taking off her jacket, she sat down and made herself comfortable. Daniels did likewise and spent the next hour mentally walking the young DC through her
encounter the previous evening, going over and over it until they were both exhausted. Carmichael’s recollection was understandably patchy. But she remembered that the man she’d met was
a lecturer called Steve and vaguely recalled a girl named Bryony somewhere along the line.

She wasn’t sure where.

Or even how.

‘No good?’ Daniels sat back.

Carmichael shook her head, visibly disappointed with the results of their efforts.

‘OK, let’s knock it on the head.’ Daniels yawned. The heat in the room was getting to her. If she didn’t make a move soon, she was sure to nod off. ‘It’s a
good start, Lisa. You did really well.’

Daniels yawned again and stood up.

Carmichael did likewise. ‘Boss?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘I have a question. I know what you’re going to say—’

‘Oh really? Then why ask?’

‘I can get him. Just give me another chance and I won’t let you down this time, I promise. You said yourself, people didn’t bat an eyelid when Andy pulled me out of there. Let
them think I can’t hold my drink. Let me at least try.’

‘No,’ Daniels said doggedly. ‘You talk a good job, Lisa. But you just proved you’re not ready to go it alone. My fault for believing you were.’

Carmichael looked as if she’d been slapped. She swallowed hard, her eyes filling up. She tried to get Daniels to change her mind but she was having none of it.

‘Boss?’ Carmichael was almost begging. ‘Will you at least hear me out?’

‘I said no! So don’t be an even bigger pain in the arse.’

Pulling on her leather jacket, Daniels stuffed Brown’s mobile phone into her pocket and made a move to leave the house. Carmichael followed her, reaching the front door first when she
paused to pick her car keys off the hall table where she’d stashed them the night before. But Carmichael’s attempt to block her exit was futile. The DCI stood firm, waiting for her to
move out of the way, a steely expression on her face.

‘You’re wasting your breath, Lisa. I won’t let you do it, it’s too risky. Besides, you need time to recover from your ordeal, physically as well as mentally. You’re
in no condition to go back in there.’

‘That creep was coming on to me, I do know that much. If he’s involved in either the prostitution racket or the murder of Amy Grainger, I’m still your best shot at catching
him. Nothing’s changed since yesterday. At least think about it.’ Daniels took a step forward but Carmichael didn’t move. She was frantic. As a parting shot she added, ‘You
know it makes sense. You can do background checks on him, but we both know that takes up a whole lot of time. Meanwhile he could be back there, preying on another girl tonight. If not for me, then
do it for Jessica.’

Even Daniels found that one hard to argue with.

By now Jessica Finch would be in a very bad way.

J
essica
was
in a very bad way.

Still alive.

But deteriorating rapidly.

He knew she would be.

A lesser person would have copped it by now.

She hung there, zombie-like, her lips blue, her cheeks striped where black mascara had run down her face. Blood from her wrists had travelled in tiny red rivers down her forearms, staining the
sleeves of Amy Grainger’s skimpy mini-dress. Her eyes didn’t respond to the torch-light. But he was taking no chances. With gloved hands, he blindfolded her before forcing a bottle of
water into her mouth. She gasped suddenly, nearly choking as the liquid gushed into her gullet, her mouth chasing the neck of the bottle like a baby trying to find a nipple.

He let her drink, knowing that she’d be doubled up with stomach cramps if she took too much at once. They’d never find her. He’d watched them trying, but they didn’t have
a clue. Give Daniels her due though, she’d made the connection to his hiding place and that was impressive. Smart cookie, she was. Less than an hour ago, she’d faced the local media in
order to find the girl alive. He’d watched her striding confidently to the podium, blinded by flashbulbs as she made her appeal.

She was wasting her breath.

‘Please let me go,’ Jessica whimpered.

He slapped her hard.

His voice was low pitched and venomous.

‘Blame your father,’ was all he said.

D
aniels rapped on the door and waited. Two hours ago she’d left Carmichael to get some rest and gone home. She’d taken a quick shower and changed her clothes before
driving to the station in no condition to face a press conference scheduled for ten o’clock. Press conference? Media scrum, more like. The nationals were using bully-boy tactics, muscling in
on the action due to a lull in newsworthy stories to report. Television and newspaper journalists were like vultures picking over the bones of the dead, sensationalizing her murder case and trading
on people’s misery in the name of public interest.

The flash of cameras had hurt her eyes. She had been seated at a table next to Naylor, the force logo carefully positioned on the wall behind them for the world to see. Such blatant
self-publicity made her blood boil and she had decided there and then not to play ball. She kept the conference short deliberately, feeling Naylor’s concern as she sidestepped questions from
the floor.

And afterwards he’d come right out with it. ‘Kate, what’s wrong?’

Not wanting to dob Carmichael in it, she’d sidestepped that too.

Still thinking about her ordeal, Daniels rapped on the door again. The music coming from Bryony Sharp’s flat was loud enough to wake the whole neighbourhood. Gormley raised his eyes to the
ceiling and tried the door handle. It didn’t budge, so he knocked as hard as he could, then got down on his honkers and shouted through the letterbox:

‘POLICE! OPEN UP!’

But there was no reply.

Gormley stood up again. ‘I’m still uncomfortable with your decision,’ he said.

Forced to concede that she too had reservations about using Carmichael undercover again, Daniels locked eyes with him. ‘What choice do we have, Hank? I know you’re worried about her.
So am I. But you’ve got to admit, she has a point. If Stevie-boy is our man, we don’t have time to fuck around. And this girl may be able to tell us more, if she ever answers the bloody
door.’

‘Use someone else undercover. Someone more experienced—’

‘And what would that do for Lisa?’ Daniels said. ‘I don’t want to pull rank here—’

‘But you’re going to anyway.’

‘Hank! I’ve made my decision.’

Gormley was sulking now, but before he had time to argue, a girl opened the door. She was dressed in frayed denim hotpants over black leggings, and a skimpy purple ribbed T-shirt that
hadn’t seen a washing machine in weeks – let alone an iron.

Daniels held up ID. ‘Bryony Sharp?’

The girl studied Daniels’ warrant card, a look of panic on her face.

‘She’s gone home for the weekend.’

‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Kate Daniels. And you are?’

‘Vanessa . . . Bry’s flatmate.’

‘Vanessa?’ Gormley waited.

‘Wilson, Vanessa Wilson.’

Daniels said,‘Well, Vanessa Wilson, I need to contact Bryony right away.’

‘What for?’

‘None of your business.’ Daniels looked past her into the flat as a young man poked his head around a doorway. Their eyes met and he made a hasty retreat. ‘Just as it’s
none of my business what you and your mates are doing in there. I could make it my business, if you insist.’

‘You could try her mobile,’ Vanessa suggested.

Daniels waited for her to reel off a number, confident that Bryony Sharp
was
the girl she was looking for. In a rare stroke of luck, a member of the university admin staff had confirmed
that there was only one student presently on campus with that name. But Vanessa just stood there, leaning against the door stanchion, too spaced out to realize what further assistance she could
possibly be.

‘Er . . .’ Gormley pulled a face showing his irritation ‘. . . a number might help!’

His words took a moment to register. Then, realizing what he was getting at, Vanessa wandered off, leaving them standing on the threshold. There were sounds of whispering from inside the flat.
Then she reappeared with Bryony’s number scrawled on a scrappy piece of lined paper.

Daniels took it from her, thanked her and turned away.

‘Chief Inspector?’

Daniels swung round.

Vanessa paused. ‘Look, she’ll kill me if I tell you this, but Bry had a bad experience last night – like creepy, y’know. I told her to ring you guys, but she
wouldn’t. She should though, because she’s in a
really
bad place right now and she needs help.’

Daniels wanted more. ‘What do you mean, creepy?’

‘She thinks she was drugged by a bloke she met at Fuse last night.’

‘Thinks?’

‘She was pissed, we all were.’

‘This bloke wasn’t called Steve by any chance?’

Vanessa’s reaction was her answer.

‘That’s why we’re here,’ Gormley said. ‘Did you meet him?’

‘Briefly. I went home early.’ Vanessa paused again, pointing over her shoulder. ‘My boyfriend, Nick, stayed over. Bry seemed to be having such a good time when we left. Anyway,
she didn’t come home until mid-morning. Says she woke up in some park in Newcastle in the early hours, freezing and on her own. Doesn’t remember getting there, doesn’t think,
y’know, he
did
anything to her. She was scared to death. Just showered, grabbed her stuff and went home to be with her folks, get her head round it.’