‘Sir?’ Cross said, stopping in his tracks. ‘I wasn’t expecting you in.’ He threw a look of pure venom at Kevin Matthews.
Brandon straightened up. ‘No, Superintendent, I don’t suppose you were.’ He took a couple of steps towards Cross. ‘I left instructions with the control room that if any arrests were made in connection with the serial killings I was to be informed at once. This is going to be a high-profile case when it comes to court, Tom. I want us to be seen to be squeaky clean.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Cross said mutinously. However Brandon dressed it up, what he was saying was that he didn’t believe Cross was the man to make sure that overzealous detectives didn’t go too far. With Brandon pacing the corridors, no serial-killer suspects were going to have unfortunate accidents in custody. Cross turned to Kevin Matthews. ‘What exactly happened?’
Kevin, so pale with tiredness and stress that his freckles stood out on milk-white skin like some vicious pox, said, ‘As far as we can make out, Don Merrick came out of the Hell Hole with some bloke. One of the back-up teams saw them. Don switched his radio on to transmit, so we’re assuming he wanted this bloke picked up for questioning. They were heading for the all-night diner in Crompton Gardens, according to the back-up boys. There’s an alley that’s a short cut through to the gardens, and they went down there. Next thing the back-up hear is a scuffle going on. They leg it round there and find Don on the floor and two blokes slugging it out. They arrested the pair of them and they’re kicking their heels in the cells.’
‘What about Merrick?’ Cross demanded. For all his faults, Cross was a copper’s copper. His men were almost as important to him as his own career.
‘He’s down Casualty getting stitches in a sore head. He came round in the ambulance. I’ve got one of my lads down there with him taking a statement.’ Kevin glanced at his watch. ‘He should be back any time now.’
‘So what are we looking at here?’ Cross demanded. ‘Have we got a suspect, or what?’
Brandon cleared his throat. ‘I think we can assume that Merrick thought the man he was with was worth a chat. As for the man who attacked them, I suspect we’ll need to wait for Merrick’s statement. I suggest Inspector Matthews and one of his team talk to the attacker while you and I have a preliminary chat with Merrick’s target. That OK with you, Tom?’
Cross nodded, disgruntled. ‘Yes, sir. And as soon as your lad gets back from Casualty, Kevin, I want to see him.’ He moved towards the door, looking over his shoulder expectantly at Brandon.
Brandon said, ‘Before we go, Tom, I think we need Inspector Jordan and Dr Hill in here.’
‘With respect, sir, it’s the middle of the night. Do we really need to bugger up the man’s sleep?’
‘I don’t want to get into questioning anyone about the murders until I’ve had the chance to take Dr Hill’s advice about how the interview should proceed. Besides, the two of them are probably still out working. DI Jordan was planning to show Dr Hill the crime scenes tonight. Can you fix that, Inspector?’
Kevin glanced at Cross, who nodded slightly. ‘No problem, sir. I’ll page Inspector Jordan right away. I’m sure she’ll be delighted to lend a hand.’
Brandon smiled and walked past Cross into the corridor. ‘Just shows what happens to your bottle when you get behind a desk,’ Cross muttered, shaking his head in mock-sorrow. ‘You get so’s you need a bloody psychologist to tell you how to interview some scumbag off the streets.’
Canal Street was still busy. People came in and out of clubs, taxis dropped off and picked up, couples shared their kebabs and chips on street corners, rent boys and hookers watched the slow-moving traffic, pouncing on the least opportunity. ‘Interesting, isn’t it, how areas become defined?’ Tony said to Carol as they walked briskly along the street.
‘You mean this is the zone for public encounters, while Crompton Gardens is for the dark side?’
‘And ne’er the twain shall cross over,’ Tony said. ‘It’s really quite lively for the time of night, isn’t it? Are Monday nights quieter?’
‘A bit,’ Carol said. ‘A couple of the clubs shut on Mondays. And one of the others has a women-only night.’
‘So there’s probably not as much street traffic,’ Tony mused. As they’d driven round the streets, speculating on Handy Andy’s approach route, Tony had been struck by how very public an area he’d chosen for his first two victims. Almost as if he were setting himself challenges. Now, at the corner of the alley leading to the side door of Shadowlands, he looked along the street and mused. ‘He’s desperate to be the best,’ he said softly.
‘Sorry?’
‘Handy Andy. He just doesn’t go for the easy options. His victims are all in the high-risk category. His dumping grounds aren’t obscure, deserted hiding places. The bodies are cleaned of forensic clues. He’s smarter than us, he thinks, and he has to keep proving it to himself. I’d hazard a guess that the next body’s going to be dumped somewhere very, very public.’
Carol felt a shiver run through her that was nothing to do with the cold. ‘Don’t talk about the next body as if we’re not going to find him before then,’ she pleaded. ‘It’s just too depressing to think about.’
Carol led the way into the short dark cul-de-sac. ‘Now, the second body, Paul Gibbs, was found just down here. All there is down here is the fire exit for the Shadowlands club.’
‘It’s dark enough,’ Tony complained, stumbling over the edge of a disintegrating cardboard carton.
‘We did suggest to the manager that a security light would be a good idea, if only to prevent him being mugged when he’s locking up at night, but you can see how seriously he’s taken the idea,’ Carol replied, raking through her handbag to find her mini-torch. She snapped it on and the narrow beam revealed Tony silhouetted against a hooker in a red rubber dress giving a blow-job to a bleary-eyed businessman in the fire-exit doorway.
‘Hoy!’ the outraged man shouted. ‘Bugger off, Peeping Tom!’
Carol sighed. ‘Police. Zip your dick or you’re nicked.’ Before she’d even finished the sentence, the hooker was on her feet and heading for the mouth of the alley as fast as her stilettoes would let her. Realizing it wasn’t worth arguing now the whore had gone, the man quickly fastened his trousers and pushed past Tony. As he turned the corner, he shouted, ‘Frigid cunt!’ back at her.
‘You all right?’ Tony asked, his genuine concern obvious.
Carol shrugged. ‘When I started in the job, it really shook me when punters abused me like that. Then I realized it was them that had the problem, not me.’
‘The theory’s sound. How does it work in practice?’
Carol pulled a face. ‘Some nights I go home and stand in the shower for twenty minutes and I still don’t feel clean.’
‘I know exactly what you mean. Some of the messy heads I have to poke about inside leave me feeling like I’ll never have a normal relationship with another human being again.’ Tony turned away, not wanting his face to betray him. ‘So this is where you found Paul?’
Carol moved forward to stand beside him. She shone her torch into the doorway. ‘He was lying there, with a couple of bin bags tucked around him so he wasn’t immediately obvious. Judging by the condoms lying around, the working girls had been screwing the night away smack bang next to a corpse.’
‘I take it you’ve talked to the girls?’
‘Yes, we’ve had them all in. The one that scuttled out of here like a cockroach when the light goes on uses this spot most nights. She says she had a punter some time around four in the morning. She knows it was then because this bloke is a regular who comes off his shift at the newspaper-printing plant about then. Anyway, she was going to bring him down here, but