‘Fine. Look, do you mind if I stick around now while you’re working? I could do with rereading some of those statements, and I’ll get no peace if I go back to Scargill Street.’
Tony looked doubtful. ‘I suppose.’
‘I promise not to molest you, Dr Hill,’ Carol teased.
‘Damn,’ Tony said, snapping his fingers in mock-disappointment. Look at you, he thought cynically. Passing for human, sure of all the moves. ‘Actually, it’s not that. I’m only hesitating because I’m not used to working with someone else in the room.’
‘You won’t know I’m there.’
‘I doubt that very much,’ Tony said. She might read that as a compliment, but he knew the truth.
Penny pressed the doorbell of the mock-Tudor detached house in one of south Bradfield’s more select streets. Even on a superintendent’s salary, it should have been beyond Tom Cross’s reach. But Popeye’s reputation for being lucky had been enhanced a few years back when he’d won a high five-figure sum on the pools. The subsequent party had passed into police mythology. Now, it looked like he’d dropped his lucky pixie somewhere along the road.
A light snapped on in the hallway and someone lumbered towards the door, turned into an amorphous lump by the stained glass. ‘Friday the Thirteenth meets Hallowe’en,’ Penny muttered under her breath as she heard the lock turn. The door cracked open a suspicious few inches. Penny angled her head round to smile at the shape behind the door.
‘Superintendent Cross,’ she said, the white cloud of her breath meeting the swirl of smoke issuing from the door. ‘Penny Burgess, Sentinel Times.’
‘I know who you are,’ Cross snarled, the slur of drink evident in those few words. ‘What the hell do you want, coming round here this time of night?’
‘I hear you’ve had a bit of a problem at work,’ Penny tried.
‘You hear wrong then, madam. Now, bugger off.’
‘Look, it’ll be all over the media tomorrow. You’re going to be under siege. The Sentinel Times has always supported you, Mr Cross. We’ve been on your side all through this investigation. I’m not some visiting fireman from London, up here to put the boot in. If you’ve been sidelined, our readers have got a right to hear your side of the story.’ The door was still open. If she’d managed to say that much without him slamming it shut in her face, the chances were that she was going to get something usable out of him.
‘What makes you think I’m off the case?’ Cross asked defiantly.
‘I heard you’ve been suspended. I don’t know why, and that’s the reason I wanted to hear your side of it, before we get fed the official line.’
Cross scowled, his gooseberry eyes seeming to pop even further out. ‘I’ve got nothing to say,’ he told her, grudging every syllable.
‘Not even off the record? You’re willing to stand by and let them trash your reputation after all you’ve done for the force?’
Cross opened the door wider and looked down his drive towards the street. ‘You on your own?’ he asked.
‘Not even my newsdesk know I’m here. I only just heard.’
‘You’d better come in a minute.’
Penny stepped across the threshold into a hall that looked like a Laura Ashley sample book. At the far end of the hall, a door was half open, the television voices distinct even at that distance. Cross steered her in the opposite direction, into a long sitting room. When he switched the lights on, Penny’s eyes were assaulted by more patterns than a knitting shop. The only thing the curtains, carpets, rugs, wallpaper, frieze and scatter cushions had in common was that they were all shades of green and cream. ‘What a lovely room,’ she stammered.
‘You think so? I reckon it’s bloody hideous. The wife says it’s the best money can buy, which is the only argument I’ve heard for staying potless,’ Cross grumbled, heading for a cocktail cabinet. He poured himself a stiff drink from a decanter, then, as an afterthought, said, ‘You’ll not be wanting one, with you having the car.’
‘That’s right,’ Penny said, forcing the warmth into her voice. ‘Can’t take chances with your lads out on the roads.’
‘You want to know why them gutless bastards have suspended me?’ he demanded belligerently, thrusting his head forward like a hungry tortoise.
Penny nodded, not daring to take out her notebook.
‘Because they’d rather listen to some poncey bloody doctor than a proper copper, that’s why.’
If Penny had been a dog, her ears would have been standing to attention. As it was, she settled for a polite raise of the eyebrows. ‘A doctor?’ she said.
‘They’ve brought this wanker of a shrink in to do our job. And he says the arse bandit we’ve got banged up is innocent, so it’s bollocks to the evidence. Now, I’ve been a copper for twenty-odd years, and I trust my instincts. We’ve got the bastard, I can feel it in my water. All I did was try to make sure he stayed behind bars till we nail down all the bloody loose ends.’ Cross downed his drink and banged his empty tumbler on the cabinet. ‘And they’ve got the fucking nerve to suspend me!’
Manufacturing evidence, then. Although she was desperate to know more about the mysterious doctor, Penny sensed that she’d better let Cross air his grievances first. ‘What did they say you’d done?’ she asked.
‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ he said, pouring another massive slug from the decanter. ‘Trouble with bloody Brandon is he’s been flying a desk for so long, he’s forgotten what the job’s about. Instinct, that’s what it’s about. Instinct and hard bloody work. Not some fucking trick cyclist with a head full of daft bloody notions like a fucking social worker.’
‘Who is this guy, then?’ Penny asked.
‘Dr Tony bloody Hill. From the fucking Home Office. Sits in his ivory tower and tells us how to catch villains. He’s got no more idea of coppering than I have of nuclear bloody physics. But the good doctor says, let the poofter go, so Brandon says yes, sir, no, sir, three bags full, sir. And just because I don’t agree, I’m out on my arse.’ Cross swallowed more whisky, his face flushed with anger and drink. ‘Anybody’d think we were dealing with bloody Mastermind here, not some fucking dumbshit arse bandit who’s had a bit of luck so far. You don’t need smartarses with bloody “doctor” in front of their name to catch scum like this. All you do is give the homicidal little fairy ideas above his station.’
‘It’s fair to say, then, that you don’t agree with the line the investigation’s taking?’ Penny asked.
Cross snorted. ‘That’s one way of putting it. You mark my words, if they let this little fucker back on the streets, we’ll be looking at another body.’
To Tony’s surprise, Carol proved to be true to her word. She sat at his desk, working her way through the pile of statements while he carried on working at his computer. Far from distracting him, he found her presence curiously soothing. He had no trouble picking up the profile where he’d left off earlier.
Like a roller coaster, each high needs to be bigger to compensate for the inevitable low that has preceded it. In this instance, there are three principal signs of escalation. The wounds to the throat have become increasingly deep and assured. The sexual mutilation has developed from a few tentative cuts in the genital region to full-scale amputation. And the bites he inflicts then cuts away have increased in number and in depth. Yet he has managed to stay sufficiently in control to cover his tracks.
It is difficult to assess whether or not the level of torture he is administering is escalating, since he seems to be using different torture methods