‘You stupid bitch!’ he hissed. ‘I’m under orders not to mess you up until this is all over, but I won’t hesitate to do it afterwards! So don’t try that shit again!’
‘My name is Louise Samantha Jennings,’ she said in a quaking but determined voice. ‘I am thirty years old. You may think my family are rich because I work in the City and live in South Buckinghamshire. But I was born in North London. My father is a taxi-driver, my mother a day-care worker. I have two older sisters and one little brother. We see each other all the time. We’re a very close-knit family. I also have a niece and nephew, one on my side and one on my …’
‘What am I supposed to do?’ he snickered. ‘Fall on the floor blubbing?’
‘I’m a human being. I don’t care what you think you’re going to get from this, you can’t treat human beings this way …’
He slapped her across the left side of her face – not hard; to humiliate rather than hurt. ‘How about this way?’ he wondered. Then he slapped her across the right side. ‘How about that way?’
She mashed her lips together, determined not to cry out, trying desperately to show that she wasn’t the crumpled wreck she must have appeared. But her mouth trembled and fresh tears brimmed from her eyes. ‘I … I want to speak to your boss …’
‘Really?’
‘If I can’t reason with the oily rag, I’ll try with the engine driver.’
He gazed down at her for several long moments, licking his lips with a sharp, pink tongue. ‘Well … who knows,’ he finally said, ‘you may get that chance.’ He seemed excited by the resistance she’d shown: sweat greased the flesh around his eyes; he panted rather than breathed. But perhaps thinking that he was starting to enjoy himself too much here, he now released her and rose slowly, reluctantly to his feet. ‘Not yet though … first you’ve got some business to attend to. These clothes, these undies.’ He pointed at the jumbled garb. ‘Get yourself something sexy and pretty on.’ While Louise watched in amazement, he reached down and pulled a foot-locker out from under the rack of dresses. ‘There’s make-up in here, perfume and what-not.’ He kicked at a second locker. ‘This one’s jewellery. Help yourself. Just make sure you look and smell good.’ He moved to the door, but turned to face her one more time. ‘You’ve got two hours. Do not disappoint us.’
‘Dis— disappoint you?’ she stammered in near-disbelief. And then she laughed, though it was actually more like a deranged cackle. ‘And … and if I do?’
‘Ask the women all this stuff used to belong to.’
He closed the door behind him. And locked it.
The National Crime Group was based at New Scotland Yard, where it shared several floors with the Metropolitan Police’s Specialist Crime Directorate. Its own Serial Crimes Unit, whose remit was primarily to consult on nationwide crime sprees and, where necessary, to elicit and organise multi-force cooperation, was on the sixth floor, and basically comprised one corridor. The DO – or Detectives’ Office, the hub of all activity – was located part way along it, next door to the admin room where the NCG’s civilian secretaries worked. At this late hour on a Sunday afternoon its various desks and computer monitors were deserted, with half the unit off duty and the rest out on enquiries. In fact, the only person present when Heck began humping his sacks of paperwork and boxes of disks up from the car park was DI Palliser, who, given his age, was these days more a duty officer than an investigator, and tended to remain at base, working as coordinator for all SCU operations.
At present, he stood, hands in pockets, in the doorway to his own office which, like the offices belonging to the other three detective inspectors in the department, was separated from the main area by a glazed partition wall. ‘That the lot?’ he asked.
Heck dumped down the last heavy bag of documentation, and nodded. He mopped sweat from his brow. ‘It’s in no particular order, I’m afraid.’
‘Don’t worry. We’ll sort it.’
There was a brief silence as they surveyed the immense pile of materials now spilling out all over the floor of the department’s tea making area.
‘You know, none of this work will get wasted,’ Palliser said. ‘All these cases will continue to be investigated.’
‘Yeah, but as the lowest of low priorities.’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘You know they will,’ Heck said glumly. ‘I spent months zeroing in on each one of these, and now they’ll just get thrown back in with the runaway teens and the absentee fathers.’
‘Well … it’s not your problem now.’
‘The trouble is, Des, it won’t be anyone’s problem. Apart from the families who are missing their loved ones.’
Palliser didn’t even try to argue with that assessment. ‘Whatever … the Lioness wants to see you.’
Heck nodded and went out into the corridor. Detective Superintendent Piper’s office was at its far end. He knocked on the door and when she called him, went in.
She was seated at her desk, writing what looked like a lengthy report. ‘Take a seat, Heck. I’ll not be a moment.’
There were two chairs to one side. Heck slumped down into one. He glanced around. It wasn’t a particularly showy office for so senior a rank. In fact, it was quite small. With its row of filing cabinets, single rubber plant and dusty Venetian blind over the window, it was like something from the 1970s; the only concession to modernity being the quiet hum of the air-conditioning. It was a far cry from the palatial residence upstairs enjoyed by Commander Laycock and his PA.
‘Our office at Deptford Green has now been closed down, yes?’ she asked.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
She continued writing. Heck waited, ruminating on whether or not, if he’d centred his investigation here at the Yard and had not set up a separate incident room down at Deptford, thus saving them some expense, it might have bought him a little extra time. The problem was that the first cluster of disappearances he’d linked together had all occurred, probably by coincidence, in South London – Peckham, Greenwich, Lewisham and Sydenham – and he’d wanted to be ‘on-site’. At the time, of course, he hadn’t realised the enquiry would soon widen to cover most of the country.
Not that any of this mattered now.
‘Is that it, ma’am?’ he asked.
She glanced up. ‘You got somewhere else you need to be?’
He shrugged. ‘Well … I presume I’m being reassigned.’
‘Yes you are. You’re being reassigned to Cornwall. Or the Lake District. Or Spain or the Florida Keys, or even your own back garden. Anywhere you fancy taking a long vacation.’
‘I don’t get you.’
‘You’re going on extended leave.’ She pushed the top sheet of paperwork she’d been working on across the desk towards him. ‘All I need now is your signature on the request form.’
Heck stood up as he read it. Only slowly did the reality sink in.
‘December?’ he said. ‘That’s three months off.’
‘I don’t want to see you back a day sooner.’
‘But three months!’
‘Heck, your willingness to work, work and work is well known. But it’s hardly