The Calling (28 page)

Marks pushed the last corner of the chicken tikka sandwich into his mouth and reached to answer the phone. Suddenly his door burst open and he withdrew his hand, letting the phone continue to ring.

Goodhew waved a newspaper, with his arm outstretched.

‘There’s been another one, sir.’ He spread the paper open on the table and pointed to the photograph. Marks scanned the text: ‘Fears grow for missing teenager, Lisa Fairbanks, last seen on Saturday morning in Sheringham. She disappeared before 9 a.m. and was last seen by her boyfriend in the course of his paper round.’

‘We’ve already had it flagged up, but there’s nothing to indicate a connection. What are you thinking, then?’ Marks scowled.

‘Marlowe Gates noticed it first, but just study the girl’s face. She’s got that same look again.’

‘Oh, for goodness sake, so have lots of girls.’ Marks began to close the newspaper. ‘If there’s been any foul play at all, I bet her boyfriend did it.’

‘I bet he didn’t.’ Goodhew laid the newspaper out flat again. ‘We may have a lead, here. It seems Walsh hired a car the weekend Helen Neill disappeared. If he’s hired cars each time, then he would have hired one in the course of the last week to snatch this latest girl. It’s an ideal way of distancing himself from forensic evidence. But if we find the car quickly enough, then we may still find enough forensics there to link it to Lisa.’

Marks twitched his nostrils in reluctant agreement. ‘Well, that
sounds more reasonable,’ he conceded. ‘And if this really is another linked crime, there’s a chance that she’s still alive.’

‘Yes, that’s possible, but tonight will be the fourth night for her. Even if she is alive, we won’t necessarily have much longer. Gully is checking out car rentals, Clark and Charles are visiting his ex-girlfriends, Paulette and Donna, to see if they remember him hiring a car at any time. Gully is also searching the crime database for yet another murder.’

‘Another one? This is because of your one murder per girlfriend theory?’

‘Yes, that’s it. I just wanted to keep you informed.’

‘I thought you’d already checked, though?’

‘We have, but only regarding the original profile. We know the approximate dates of Walsh’s relationship with Julie Wilson, so the last time Gully checked she was looking for the discovery of a body within two weeks of him splitting up with her. We’ve also been looking at victims within a particular age range and subjected to the same MO as all the others.’

‘So?’ Marks wondered.

‘Well, as it would only have been the second murder in the sequence, he may have still been refining his methods. This time we’ll widen the search for other causes of death, as well as ages and locations.’

‘OK,’ Marks raised his hand, ‘that seems fair enough. And what about Kincaide?’ Marks noted a look of stubbornness appear in Goodhew’s eyes.

‘Well, he believes that Marlowe Gates is in on it together with Peter Walsh, and merely leading me in totally the wrong direction,’ Goodhew replied with unmasked irritation. ‘He’s now off doing his own thing.’

‘Leave him to it.’ Marks sighed. ‘We don’t want to burn all our bridges, do we?’ He waggled a finger at Goodhew. ‘But if you’re following the wrong line of investigation, we’ll have wasted one hell of a lot of time.’ He really hoped Goodhew’s faith in this Marlowe girl wouldn’t prove misguided. ‘And if you are right, then it’s a bonus that he’s out of your hair.’

‘I’m sure I’m right,’ Goodhew replied, but the remark only intensified his boss’s scowl.

“‘I’m sure I’m right” will not cut it in court, Gary.’ Marks started strumming his fingers on the desk. ‘You need evidence, above all, and what do you have so far? No forensics, no sightings, no connections – nothing to even put him in the right place at the right time.’

‘That’s not—’ Goodhew began, but Marks raised a hand to silence him.

‘I don’t care what it’s not,’ he growled. ‘I want to know
why
he did it.
How
he did it. And carved-in-stone proof that he
did
do it. Only then will I agree to an arrest, so if your next question was can you make one, no you can’t.’ He jabbed the desktop with his index finger. ‘He is not likely to crack and tell us where this Lisa victim is, especially if she’s dead or nearly dead already.’

Goodhew hadn’t expected Marks to be so obstinate. Lisa’s photo was another of those where the eyes followed you around, and she watched him now as if waiting for rescue. ‘I want to search his house,’ he persisted, ‘look for fibre matches against other victims, prove it’s him and make him tell us where she is.’

Marks closed the newspaper and handed it back to Goodhew. ‘Look, Gary, this is my call, and I do not believe that someone this organized will crack in time to save the girl, and maybe he never will at all. You’ll just have to find some other way.’

‘OK,’ muttered Goodhew and headed towards the door. He paused as Marks spoke again, but didn’t turn around.

‘My advice to you,’ Marks continued, ‘would be to study his motivation. How exactly is he benefiting from each death?’

Goodhew returned to the incident room to find Gully sitting at his desk. ‘You look pissed off,’ she began. ‘What’s up?’

‘Marks won’t let us arrest him.’

‘Why should he? We don’t have any evidence.’

Goodhew opened out the newspaper again, but Gully interrupted. ‘Even so, we’re getting there.’ She slapped a hand flat on the newspaper, just to make Goodhew listen to her. ‘It seems Tony Vitale insures his car with Dunwold Insurance, and Peter Walsh has hired cars at least five times. Always rented from Budget, because Dunwold Insurance has a discount deal for its staff. The first time
corresponds with Helen Neill’s disappearance, the third and fourth times with Kaye Whiting and Stephanie Palmer, I’m currently running a match for any disappearances that coincide with the second rental, which just leaves the fifth one which he hired—’

‘Last Friday,’ Goodhew finished for her, and lifted Gully’s hand from the page. ‘Lisa Fairbanks disappeared first thing on Saturday.

Lisa stared up at them both from the photograph.

‘Phone them at Budget and get hold of the car. Don’t let anyone touch it and, if it’s been cleaned already, get the vacuum cleaner too. I’ll get down there with Forensics. Oh, and speak to the police at Sheringham. We’ll need her hairbrush or the like, for DNA.’

Fiona’s voice murmured from the receiver, ‘I miss you, Pete.’

‘I miss you, too,’ he replied. ‘Are you sure you can’t get back tonight?’

She laughed. ‘Don’t be silly. It doesn’t finish until tomorrow lunchtime. But I don’t have to go back to the office in the afternoon.’

‘OK, come round as soon as you’re back,’ he said.

‘You can get the time off?’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll sort it. But I still don’t see the point of them keeping you there for another half day. Just leave tonight.’

‘I can’t. Don’t be ridiculous!’

Pete prodded the cushion at the far end of the settee with his outstretched foot. He held the phone in his right hand while the remote control rested in his left. ‘So what are you doing?’

‘I’m just going out to dinner with some of the other delegates, then off to bed, I guess. And you?’

‘Oh, I don’t know – maybe watch a video, take a shower and then bed. Nothing exciting.’

‘Hmm,’ she purred, ‘sounds exciting to me.’

‘Flirt!’

‘Are you complaining?’ she breathed.

‘No, not at all so long as you’re good and naughty for me tomorrow.’

‘Good or naughty? Or both?’

‘Good at being naughty will do. Can you do that for me?’

‘Of course.’

‘Practise now?’

‘Don’t be silly.’ She gave a nervous giggle.

‘Come on, Fiona, you’re in the mood, aren’t you?’

‘I might be.’ The worm of uncertainty had begun to wriggle in the pit of her stomach.

‘Whisper to me, Fiona. Tell me what you want me to do to you tomorrow.’

Fiona hesitated. She’d started this teasing, hadn’t she? She pressed her fingers against her cheek, as if to push aside the blush on it.

‘Come on, Fiona, tell me.’

It was just the two of them. It was crude, but did it really matter? ‘I want you to fuck me, Pete.’

A few minutes later, Pete replaced the handset. He turned the sound up on the video, as it was coming up to one of his favourite scenes. A bottle smashed against the wardrobe door. The picture wobbled, because the impact had shaken the camera. The picture settled again as the auto-focus adjusted to Julie’s skin. She wiped away her tears.

Pete liked hearing his own voice. He’d achieved a satisfactorily calm and encouraging tone, considering the stress he’d then been under. ‘Come on, Julie, you’re being silly, aren’t you?’

Julie pursed her lips and nodded. She knelt on the bed, resting her naked buttocks on her heels, then arched her back, pushing her small breasts out towards the camera. She shuffled her knees further apart and slid her right hand between her bare thighs.

Pete took a slow blissful breath as a tremor of her tears shook her voice. ‘I want you to fuck me, Pete.’

The film flickered where he’d edited it. He was pleased that he’d spent time cutting out the less entertaining parts.

And he liked the next scene best of all.

The blood from Lisa’s eyebrow had congealed and dried, leaving her right eye sealed shut.

Overnight her eyelid had puffed out like a bullfrog’s throat, and she’d woken with a pain like a knitting needle twisting in the back of her eye socket. The entire right side of her face pulsated with fever.

Her other eye functioned normally, but at first she’d closed it against the streaks of daylight shafting between the branches. Even this meagre light made her head pound.

Lisa had fallen asleep on her back, and now her arms felt dead. Slowly she curled herself at the knees and, twisting at the waist, she rolled on to her side. As the feeling rushed back into them, it sent her muscles into a painful seizure. Spasm after spasm shot through each gradually reviving limb and finally, as that faded, she felt a new pain: the throbbing in her ankle.

She forced her left eye open, and raised her head just enough to squint towards her feet. Blood from her injured leg caked the rope like too much coating on a toffee apple, and it hung in thick, dried ripples from the knots. Her ankle had swollen till the rope was embedded in its own furrow of engorged flesh.

Fever burnt the same way in her leg as on the side of her face.

And what was that white stuff?

Her single eye widened.

Sprouting like new growth were countless little white dots. They were clustered like miniature grapes.

Eggs? She was encrusted with flies’ eggs.

Both on her leg and in her eye; incubating maggots.

The smell in the interview room reminded Donna of school: cheap disinfectant amid a hint of BO. She rubbed the tip of her finger across the gouged table top and wondered whether some chewing gum would coat the underside.

She also wondered whether she could slip outside without being noticed. But she’d given them her name and address already, and she certainly didn’t need them visiting her home on top of everything else.

DC Siobhan O’Callaghan returned and seated herself opposite. ‘Donna King?’ she began.

‘Yes, that’s right.’ Donna’s voice croaked with nerves, so she coughed to clear her throat. Siobhan O’Callaghan’s hair was short and greying, and added no softness or warmth to her angular features. God, with a name like that she was going to be a staunch Catholic, too. Donna checked Siobhan’s fingers. No wedding ring … no rings at all, in fact. A virgin Catholic spinster? Frigid O’Callaghan.
I’m going to deserve to rot in hell as far as she’s concerned.

‘Take your time and just tell me what happened, in your own words,’ Siobhan encouraged her.

Donna picked the last but one Silk Cut from the current pack, before she offered the final one across the table. Siobhan shook her head. ‘You can’t, not in here.’

Donna said nothing for a moment, just turned the forbidden item over in her fingers. ‘I don’t know where to start.’

‘Start anywhere. It doesn’t matter. We’ll go over anything that doesn’t make sense. And don’t worry about shocking me. I’m not a beginner at this, you know.’ They both then smiled.

‘Shit.’ Donna still fiddled with the unlit cigarette, holding it between her fingers, then tipping her head back as if she imagined blowing smoke towards the bare bulb overhead. ‘I met him at work and then we started seeing each other. I saw him before he ever noticed me and I fancied him, and I suppose I chased him. We were going out together for almost five weeks.’

‘How serious did your relationship become?’

‘Sex, you mean? Yes, there was plenty of that, at first. But he wasn’t like I thought he’d be.’ Donna shook her head. ‘I can’t explain, but there were subtle things. I felt uneasy with him …’

‘Unsafe?’

‘No, no, like there was someone else for him, maybe. And so I sneaked into work when he was there all alone. It was a Friday, third of June, and I thought I’d do something flirty – take the lead.’ Donna rolled the cigarette between her fingers. ‘You know, I really thought that he’d find me …’ she shrugged ‘… irresistible? Something like that. What a stupid cow I was.’ She dropped the unlit cigarette back into the box before slouching back in the chair.

Siobhan looked up from her statement pad. ‘And is that when the attack occurred?’

Donna shook her head again. ‘No, he just didn’t want to know. I felt so humiliated. There I was, dressed to kill and going off home on my own. Next day I sat at home all day, and then on Sunday he called me. I was so relieved.’ She snorted. ‘So relieved, what a fool. I met him later that evening and that’s when it started.’

Donna’s forefinger returned to the damaged table top, and she studied it for what seemed an eternity. One corner of her mouth twitched and, as she struggled to stop it, the tears of frustration welled in her eyes. With a jagged gasp she inhaled. ‘I wouldn’t have come here except you’re now looking for him. After you sent someone to Dunwold Insurance, asking questions, my friend rang me and promised you’d take me seriously.’ She gulped in another lungful of air. ‘I’d blamed myself, but she says it’s all about him. That’s why I came.’

Siobhan frowned. ‘Do you know who was asking these
questions
?’

‘DC Goodhew, I think.’

‘And your ex-boyfriend’s name?’

Goosebumps rose on Siobhan’s arms as Donna replied, ‘Peter Walsh.’

Siobhan leant closer and pinned Donna to her seat with a grave stare. ‘You can say no to my next suggestion, Donna, and that will be absolutely fine, but in the circumstances I would like to invite DC Goodhew to sit in with us.’