The Blood Whisperer (17 page)

She almost lost her nerve in the time it took the phone to connect and start to ring at the other end, and again with every unanswered second.

“This is such a bad idea,” she muttered.

But then the receiver was lifted, a mumbled greeting given and it was too late to go back.

“Mrs Douet?” she said. “Please don’t hang up. This is Kelly—Kelly Jacks.”

She heard the woman’s sharp intake of breath and rushed on. “I just wanted you to know that I didn’t hurt Tyrone. He was my friend. I know what they’re saying but I wouldn’t do that. Not to him—not to anyone.” She heard the break in her own voice and took a breath to steady it. “Please believe me.”

There was a long pause, to the point where Kelly feared Tyrone’s mother had let go. She had a brief remembered image of a careworn woman with a permanent stoop that added a decade or more to her probable age. Kelly wondered how much extra weight Tyrone’s murder would add onto her shoulders and her throat tightened.

“Why you running then child?” Mrs Douet asked almost gently. “Why don’ you just give in—talk to the policeman—let the law decide?”

“Because I’ve been here before and the law decided wrong.”

“You know? Or you think?” she asked, her voice slightly disconnected as if she’d been given something to take the edge off her grief. “I can’t talk to you now child. I should, I know . . . but I can’t. I’m sorry.”

Kelly wondered almost angrily about the woman’s friends, neighbours and family who were letting her field calls at all in that state . . .

Oh shit.

“Look I know you have to go,” Kelly said quickly. “I just wanted to tell you—that I’m innocent. I
did not
do this to Tyrone. And I don’t believe I killed anyone before, either.” She spoke past Mrs Douet to the people she knew were also listening. “That girl who was beaten to death all those years ago. It wasn’t random bad luck—she was murdered to silence her. Nobody would believe me and when I kept asking questions they found a way to shut me up too. Well it won’t work again. And if the police won’t find out who
did
do this to your son, I will.”

DI O’Neill reached across very gently and took the receiver out of the woman’s nerveless fingers. Her dulled eyes, red-rimmed from weeping, swivelled in his direction.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you said if she called to keep her talking but I just couldn’t . . .”

“It’s all right Mrs Douet,” O’Neill said. He looked to the technician sitting at the dining table. The man gave him a brief thumbs up. “You did enough. I know how difficult this must have been. We’re very grateful to you.”

She nodded vaguely. “I met her a few times—Kelly I mean,” she offered. “She seemed so . . . nice. And she say Tyrone is her friend. Why would she—?”

“I see people hurt—killed—by their closest friends all the time.”

She nodded again, starting to fade as the nervous energy receded. One of the neighbours, a big strident woman, glared at O’Neill and hustled across to envelop Mrs Douet in a protective cloud of shawl and scent. She guided her to the floral sofa where the other children sat—a younger boy and a girl. They were huddled together watching with wide eyes every move of the police personnel around the cramped flat. At the moment they were scared and maybe even a little excited. Only later, O’Neill knew, would it sink in that their big brother wasn’t ever coming home.

He moved through to the tiny dining area. “Where is she?” he demanded of the technician, keeping his voice low.

“Just the other side of Battersea Park,” the man said scrawling down an address and handing it over.

O’Neill glanced at it, his brows drawing down. “You have to be kidding me.”

The technician wisely said nothing to counter this disbelief in his abilities, just gave a quick shake of his head. “She didn’t even withhold the number.”

O’Neill reached for his phone, stabbed at the buttons with growing anger.

“Dempsey!” he snapped when the call was answered. “Where the hell are you?”

“Sitting outside the bird’s flat boss. Where else would I be?”

“And you haven’t been off for a slash or a kebab—even for five minutes?”

“Of course I haven’t.” DC Dempsey’s voice was righteous. “There’s been nobody in and nobody out since I got here.”

“Well how come she’s just made a phone call here from her home number then?”

“What? There isn’t a back way boss. I checked.”

“Well check again. Get yourself up there—right now!”

Kelly scanned up and down the street before opening the door and sliding into the passenger seat of the Aston Martin, dumping a small backpack into the footwell as she did so.

Behind the wheel Lytton turned down the radio and twisted towards her, his eyes hidden behind slim designer sunglasses. “How did it go?”

Kelly tipped her head back against the leather and let out a long breath. “Better than it might have done,” she said. “She didn’t call me a murderer outright if that’s what you mean.”

“But?”

“She wasn’t alone.”

“You think the cops are watching your place?” Lytton glanced over his shoulder automatically.

“I imagine so.”

“Did they see you?”

Kelly smiled. “Not unless they were watching by helicopter or satellite.”

Lytton raised an eyebrow. “Where now?”

Kelly sighed. He’d already put on hold his plans for first thing this morning in order to swing past the forensics lab in Lambeth. It might have been Kelly’s old ties that called in the favour to begin with but it was Lytton’s cash that secured the promise of a fast-track service. She picked up the backpack, suddenly wary. Was this bout of helpfulness merely a way of keeping a close eye on her?

“Look it’s enough that you gave me a place to bunk down last night—not to mention paying for the lab tests,” she said awkwardly. “I can hardly expect you to play taxi driver for me all day as well.”

“One of the nice things about being the boss is that I’m answerable to myself for how I spend my time,” he said. “Besides, if I get some answers about Vee from all this it will be worth it.”

Kelly was aware of that stab of doubt again. If he was involved he was good at maintaining a convincing facade. She found herself unwillingly believing him, believing
in
him.

“Even so,” she argued, stubborn, “you must have commitments on your time.”

He checked his watch. “I’m supposed to be meeting with my business partner at the racecourse after lunch. Vee was organising corporate hospitality for us.” He paused. “Why don’t you come with me? It would give you a chance to see what she did—get a feel for how she worked. You saw things at the house that the police missed. Maybe you’ll do the same again.”

Kelly glanced down at herself ruefully. She had taken the opportunity to grab some more clothes from the flat. The borrowed silk shirt, beautiful though it was, was folded neatly in the backpack ready to return to him. She was now wearing a set of desert cam combat pants and a clean halter top under the hoodie. On her feet were old Red Chili climbing shoes.

The contrast with Lytton’s quiet affluence was marked. She was aware that anyone glancing in at the pair of them could be forgiven for the assumption she was carjacking him.

She ran a hand through her choppy hair, scowled. “Yeah ’cause I’ll fit in
so
well with corporate hospitality.”

“We can soon fix that.” He twisted in his seat and smiled at her. “Besides, I could point out that I’ve done you some favours and now I’m calling them in.”

“But you wouldn’t do a thing like that,” she said gravely, hiding the jolt his words provoked.

“You might see the surface trappings of success and mistake me for a gentleman,” he said and Kelly remembered again her first impression that here was not a man to cross.

“Aren’t you forgetting that I’m a wanted fugitive?” she said, almost a taunt.

“I think of little else,” he drawled. “But I can live with it if you can.”

“Bit of a cock-up all round, Vincent, wouldn’t you say?” remarked Chief Superintendent John Quinlan.

DI O’Neill hated being called Vincent. Only his mother used his full given name—usually when he’d disappointed her in some way. These days she used it a lot when she reminded him of his increasing age and lack of prospective wife, never mind the patter of tiny O’Neills “while she was still young enough to cope with grandchildren”. He wondered if she and his boss had been talking.

“Yes sir,” he said stiffly.

The chief super was standing with his back towards him, apparently transfixed by the view out of the narrow window of his office. As soon as O’Neill had got back to the station after his abortive attempt to track-and-trace Kelly Jacks he’d received the summons from on high. Quinlan had a good quality carpet up here and he liked to put people on it.

In truth O’Neill was just as pissed off about the way things had gone this morning. Dempsey had gone straight up to force entry into Kelly Jacks’s flat. He’d found clear signs that she’d been there only minutes before, including the clothes she’d undoubtedly been wearing at the warehouse.

The only clue as to how she’d managed to get in and out without being seen from the street was an unlatched skylight. Even that might have gone unnoticed had O’Neill not recalled a snippet from Jacks’s conduct record while she’d been inside. About how much time she’d spent on the prison climbing wall.

A climbing wall—in prison for Christ’s sake! Why not just let them build a glider in Handicrafts and have done with it . . .

Quinlan turned away from the window and caught O’Neill’s scowl of irritation. He let his breath out fast down his nose like a snorting horse.

“Oh take that bloody stick out of your arse and sit down Vince, for God’s sake. No way could that young idiot Dempsey have known he was dealing with Spiderwoman.”

“No sir,” O’Neill agreed tightly. He paused. “
I
should have figured it out as a possibility though.”

The chief super snorted again louder this time. He was a lean man with the whippet-thin stringy build of a marathon runner and movements to match—quick and impatient. No-one would ever accuse John Quinlan of being handsome but his features had improved a bit with the cragginess of age.

He moved over to the ever-present coffee pot, sloshed liquid dark as coal tar into two cups and handed one to O’Neill.

Quinlan had joined the Met earmarked as a high-flier with a rich wife and all the right social connections to sit in the chief constable’s chair. But now only a month or so from retirement he was destined to see out his service at chief superintendent. Rumours said the old man liked to get stuck in to the sharp end of policing too much to ever have ridden a desk all the way to the top. It was hard to tell how Quinlan himself felt about it one way or the other.

“So what do we know about all this business with Jacks?” Quinlan asked settling back into his chair behind the desk. “Was she having a tumble with the lad Douet d’you think? Was it friction over the job—lover’s tiff gone bad?”

“He was practically half her age,” O’Neill pointed out.

Quinlan grinned from behind his cup. “Since when did that ever stop anything?”

O’Neill shrugged and took a sip himself. The coffee was thick as treacle but twice as bitter. He only just held back a cough.

“That’s true enough sir. And Jacks is not looking bad for someone who’s done time, I’ll say that for her,” he allowed, adding lightly, “Maybe claiming innocence kept her youthful.”

Quinlan’s face was brooding. “You’re not going to drag up the Perry case again are you? That kind of thing never reflects well on the force.”

“No sir.”

“Is that ‘no sir’ it doesn’t or ‘no sir’ you’re not?”

“Either—or both.” O’Neil sighed and rubbed a hand around the back of his aching neck. “Still, it’s weird that she went so far as to leave a bag of blood at the scene for us to test.”

Quinlan cradled his cup in his lap and rocked the chair a little, lips pursed.

“Bit on the macabre side,” he agreed. “Do we even know for sure it’s her blood?”

“Not yet sir.” O’Neill forced a smile. “We
are
always having it drummed into us about the cost of lab work.”

Quinlan’s answering grin was brief. “Don’t get cute with me, sonny,” he warned. “OK. Let’s get it tested—‘get the cat a budgie and hang the expense,’ as my old gran used to say. See if we can match it to Jacks before we go any further.”

“What about the tox screen?”

“Hmm. The obvious stuff to start with. After all it’s pretty bloody clear she was there and it’s not as if this is the first time she’s gone off the rails.” He put his empty coffee cup down onto the desktop. “We tried like hell to prove she didn’t do it last time. I know—I was there. But that didn’t work out well for any of us in the ‘mud sticks’ department. And this time around there’s racial implications to add to the mix as well. We all need to keep our wits about us this time around—including young Dempsey.”

“Yes sir.”

Sensing dismissal O’Neill put down his coffee cup and rose.

Quinlan nodded. “All right Vince. Keep me up to speed on this one. The press are already having a field day but I’ll keep them off your back as much as I can. The longer it goes on the more they’re going to parade out Jacks’s record and wave it in our faces. Let’s try to put a lid on this thing before that happens and we all end up in the brown sticky stuff, eh?”

“Yes sir,” he repeated.

Somehow, O’Neill reflected as he jogged down the stairs, it made it worse that the chief super hadn’t chewed him out over letting Jacks slip through their fingers. He hadn’t needed to—O’Neill felt bad enough about that without any help from on high and the headache tightening its grip around the base of his skull was proof of that. There was a packet of cigarettes already gripped in his hand like a weapon as he headed for the fire exit prepared to bite the head off anyone foolish enough to get in the way of a nicotine fix.