An intermittent trill pounded Scarlett’s ears, forcing open her eyes. For a second the noise confused her. It wasn’t a sound she was familiar with. Then last night’s episode tumbled inside her head and she remembered that she’d had to set her morning wake-up alarm on her work’s BlackBerry. Her own phone had been in her shoulder bag.
She rolled over and groaned as a sharp pain registered in her left shoulder. Another vision of last night flashed inside her head. Closing her eyes for a second she speedily relived it, then flashing them open, propped herself up on one arm and snatched up her BlackBerry. She tapped off the alarm and flopped back onto the pillow. Pain wracked the left-hand side of her body.
Taking a deep breath she hoisted herself up, threw aside her duvet and slung her legs over the edge of the bed.
Still got to go to work.
Groggy and sore, for a couple of seconds she sat there, her eyes roaming around the bedroom, waiting for the pain to subside, simultaneously summoning up enough strength to make the dozen or so steps to the bathroom.
The room was in gloom and she could tell from the dull coruscating light coming through her curtains and the sound of traffic sloshing through puddles outside that she faced a lousy day ahead.
Placing her hands on her thighs, easing herself up, she spied last night’s clothing on the bedroom floor. It still looked wet. Then she spotted the tear over the knee of her jeans.
My best Armanis. Cost me the best part of two hundred quid. I’ll kill the wankers if I ever catch them!
Pulling away her stare she shook her head.
This is not doing any good. Focus! Get your arse in gear!
She limped into the bathroom, turned on the shower and while waiting for it to warm up checked her face in the mirror. There had been the odd occasion when she had been told that she bore a striking resemblance to Taylor Swift, but no one would make that comparison this morning. The reflection staring back was not a pretty sight. Her mane of dyed copper red hair was knotted and clumped, and her normally intense hazel eyes were bloodshot and surrounded by dark rings – stark symbols of the few hours’ sleep she had managed. Her left cheek was grazed and swollen; she could feel the soreness without even touching it.
At least there was no lasting damage
, she told herself. Then, taking one last look, she stepped into the shower.
****
Twenty minutes later, hair dried and make-up applied, Scarlett examined her artistry in the dressing table mirror. There was still some swelling and faint evidence of bruising but she’d done a pretty good job with foundation and concealer. Satisfied with the result she chose a white cotton blouse and a pair of dark blue slacks from the wardrobe and made her way downstairs. In her galley kitchen she made herself coffee and toast, and with mug in one hand and a buttered round in the other gazed out through the French doors into the garden. Beyond her ghost-like reflection she could see the rain had stopped, but uniform grey clouds dominated the sky and everywhere was damp. The trees at the bottom of the garden still held their leaves, but this morning the autumn colours appeared only as a variety of dull browns. She was just thinking that her garden could do with tidying up the next time she had a day off when the sudden chime of the front door bell made her jump. She shot a glance at the wall clock. It was her lift.
Trotting down the hallway, clenching her half-eaten slice of toast between her teeth, she answered the door. Her colleague Tarn Scarr stood on the flagstone path looking dapper as always, his short fair hair styled with wax, and wearing a grey suit, white shirt and striped tie. In spite of his stocky build he looked more city banker than the front-line murder detective he was. An image flashed inside her head – her first day as a fledgling detective sergeant entering the office at Richmond CID. Tarn had welcomed her with a cuppa and shown her a vacant desk opposite his. That was four years ago, and since then they had become a formidable partnership; they had spent so much time together on investigations that they could virtually read each other’s thoughts.
His blue/grey eyes lingered over her face for several seconds. Then narrowing his brow he dipped his head towards her. “That’s new. Get that last night?”
Scarlett pointed to her left cheek and tightened her mouth.“You’ve not heard what happened then?”
He returned a puzzled look while still examining her face. “Am I missing out on something here? The last time we spoke was in the pub last night. I said it was my round, went to the toilet and when I came back you’d gone. So how did you get the bruise then? Did you go on to somewhere else?”
She took on a disappointed look. “I hope you’re not insinuating what I think you are?”
He offered a mischievous smile, “Well, you have got form.”
She gave him a playful punch on the arm. “That was below the belt. I’m a reformed character now.”
“Yeah, okay, I believe you.”
She held his gaze for a few seconds. “One more word, DC Scarr, and you’ll be getting a move you hadn’t planned on.”
He let out a hearty laugh.
She stabbed a finger towards the grazing. “If you’d like to know, I was frigging mugged last night.”
“Mugged?”
“Yes, I know! Me of all people, mugged! And I’m pretty pissed off about it, I can tell you. And it especially doesn’t help when your partner accuses you of falling down drunk.”
Tarn met Scarlett’s gaze and held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry.”
With a flick of her head she beckoned him inside. “And so you should be.”
Stepping into the hallway Tarn said, “Come on then, Sergeant, tell me all about it.”
Walking back to the kitchen, she downed the remaining dregs of her coffee, and put the mug in the dishwasher. “To be honest I left early because I just couldn’t face another drink. I was knackered and hungry, and I’d planned to grab a pizza and have an early night. But I’d only gone a couple of hundred yards from the pub when these two scrotes came from nowhere, decked me from behind and took my bag. My mobile, purse and warrant card was in it. I can do without my purse, but part of my life’s in that phone and you know the issues regarding losing my warrant card?”
Tarn nodded.
“I was up until two this morning cancelling my cards and filling out forms in Richmond nick.”
“Didn’t catch them then?”
She told him about the chase and how it ended.
“Ouch! You eyeballed them though?”
Scarlett shook her head. “Both wearing masks! But I’ll tell you one thing they weren’t your average muggers. They were too big for the teenage gang members we have round here and too well made to be junkies.”
“So you think you might be able to ID them?”
She pursed her lips. “I’m hoping so. There’s CCTV dotted around the area, so I’m hoping we can track them to a vehicle or a house.” She pulled her jacket from off the back of a chair and slipped it on, wincing as she put her left arm through the sleeve. “I’m sore as hell.”
In the hallway she gave herself a final once-over in the full-length mirror, then, setting the house alarm and locking the front door, she followed Tarn down the path. “Anyway, did I miss anything? What time did you call it a day?”
“You didn’t miss a thing. I think everyone else was in the same boat – it was the end of a very long day. I wasn’t too long following you out. Half an hour tops, at the most. I finished my pint and left with George and Phil. There was only Ella and Gaz in the bar when we left, and they said they were finishing off their drinks and following us.” Tarn popped the locks of his car and went around to the driver’s side. He called back over the roof and pointed inside the car, “We made the front page this morning.”
Opening the passenger door Scarlett spotted a folded copy of the
Richmond & Twickenham Times
on the front seat. She picked it up as she climbed in and after fastening the seat belt flipped it open across her lap. Emblazoned across the front page was the headline, “BRUTAL RAPIST CAPTURED”. For the past two months the Homicide and Serious Crime Unit, of which she headed up Syndicate One, had been investigating a series of sexual assaults and three reported rapes involving female students attending Richmond University. The man they had dubbed the Lycra Rapist, from the descriptions witnesses had given, had attacked at least half a dozen females over a two-month period, during September and into October, especially targeting lone girls walking through the college grounds in the early evening. On every occasion he had grabbed his victims from behind, dragged them into nearby dense undergrowth and while holding a knife to their throats carried out his attacks. For two of the girls the consequences had been devastating and they were unable to continue with their courses. Scarlett had spent hours trying to persuade them to change their minds but the girls were too traumatised, and so she had given them her personal mobile number and made them a promise she’d keep in touch.
After the third attack they firmly believed it was a male at or living close to the university, and initially they focussed on this aspect, questioning a couple of male students whose names had been put forward as well as a number of sex offenders in the area, but no one emerged as a central suspect. Then, because of the description, it had been aired that the rapist was someone posing as a jogger who might live close to the tree-lined grounds, such was the speedy nature of his disappearance after the attacks, and the enquiries were redirected. That was until something had struck a chord with Scarlett while examining one of the witness questionnaires, given by a twenty-year-old female student who, having been especially diligent because of the attacks, noticed that a cyclist at the Queens Road entrance to the park appeared to be in the act of repairing a puncture on two occasions over a three-day period and it had made her suspicious. Scarlett had thought this too much of a coincidence, and shared her findings at briefing, expressing to the team that they should set their sights on this unknown cyclist. Two nights ago her hunch had paid off – the rapist had been caught following a sting operation. Detective Constable Ella Bloom, posing as a student, had been pounced upon by him, and members of the squad, secreted around the grounds, had been on hand to apprehend him as he’d tried to flee. He had been revealed as twenty-six-year-old James Green from Twickenham.
She and Tarn had spent the majority of the previous day interviewing him. Over three probing interrogation sessions he had refuted responsibility for any of the assaults, denied being the cyclist seen repairing a puncture and denied ever being in the grounds, other than on the night of his arrest. When pressed for an alibi for each of the attacks he had repeated that he was a single man who lived alone. Coming to the part when he had attacked undercover detective Ella Bloom he had calmly replied that it was she who had approached him, offering herself, and he had thought her to be a sex worker, and being offended by her proposition he had “merely grabbed hold of her and pushed her away,” insisting “he hadn’t attacked her”. She and Tarn had pressed and pressed but they had been unable to budge him from his story and mid-afternoon, drained and frustrated, they had led him back to his cell.
Scarlett had become even more frustrated when she had presented the evidence to CPS and requested a holding charge of attempted rape with an application for a remand to prison. The CPS lawyer turned it down without hesitation, and it had led to some intense debate, during which the lawyer told her if she could get some supporting evidence he would reconsider. Scarlett scrambled back to the office and allocated Tarn and the other members of her syndicate the task of poring back over the witness statements and video evidence, while she searched out the female student who had seen the cyclist by the campus gates. She finally tracked her down to her boyfriend’s house in Richmond and sent a car for her, and while that was ongoing she hastily assembled a series of video mugshots for an identification parade. The twenty-year-old student viewed the footage twice, picking out James Green without hesitation. They had charged him yesterday evening and in celebration the squad had decamped en masse to the pub.
Suddenly feeling buoyed, Scarlett settled back into the seat and began to read the newspaper report as Tarn pulled away from the kerb to begin the journey into work.
On the way to the station Scarlett and Tarn called off at a deli for a tall latte each before continuing on their way through Wimbledon on heavily congested roads. In steady bumper-to-bumper traffic Scarlett bemoaned her previous night’s mugging again until Tarn interrupted.
“If it’s any help, as soon as we get done on this job, I’ll help you find your muggers, personally torture them and then dump their bodies in the Thames. Now, will that shut you up?”
Scarlett glanced sideways at her colleague. He was steering the car one-handed. In the other he gripped his cardboard cup of coffee.
“Am I going on?”
“Sergeant, you’re going on.”
“You want me to shut up about my mugging?”
“We’ve got a remand file to do for this afternoon’s court appearance. And we’ve got a fair bit of evidence to go through. I think we’ve got enough to worry about.”
Scarlett pulled back her gaze, fixed her eyes on the slow-moving traffic. After several seconds of silence she said, “I promise I’ll not say another word about my mugging. And I’d be very grateful for your help when we’ve finished this job, but will you promise me one thing?”
“What’s that?”
“You’ll let me do the torture?” Out of the corner of her eye she caught Tarn cracking a grin.
****
The Homicide and Serious Crime Unit occupied the top floor of Sutton police station – a grand Victorian redbrick building on Carshalton Road. Two years ago the station had been renamed Patrick Dunne House in memory of a PC who was shot dead while following up the sound of gunfire in a street in which a nightclub bouncer had been murdered.
Tarn managed to find a slot in the rear yard to park his car, and still clutching their coffees he and Scarlett made their way up the back stairs to the office.
They entered a squad room exuding an atmosphere of unusual calm. The phones for once were silent. Scarlett noted that not everyone had made it in yet. Those that were in were chatting across desks, nursing warm drinks. No one had even booted up a computer. As she made her way to her desk she smiled to herself. She knew that in another half an hour all this would change, with everyone in full flow, each member playing their part in delivering justice.
Dumping her bag on her desk and slipping her outer coat off she thought she’d take up the initiative of being the first to start up a computer, but as she reached across to switch on her desktop a voice from the back of the room stopped her in mid-action.
“The DI wants to see you.”
She recognised the voice of DS Gary Ashdown, her counterpart and supervisor of the other syndicate of detectives in the squad, but she still glanced over her shoulder to where he was seated. As usual, Gary’s wavy mop of dark brown hair was fashioned Liam Gallagher style and the knot of his tie hung below an unbuttoned collar. He was reclining back in his chair, holding a mug two-handed against his chest. A wry smile was playing on his lips. “Said to tell you as soon as you came in, and he didn’t sound best pleased.”
She met his gaze. Something about Gary always made her shore up her defences. Sure, he was cheery enough and a good DS who got results, but there was this other side to him, this cocky air, as if he was better than everyone else, which grated on her. And he was always sucking up to the detective inspector, which she couldn’t abide.
Scarlett dropped her bag onto her desk and rolled up her eyes, “When is he ever in a good mood?”
“You’ve not been up to anything, have you?”
“Nothing that you wouldn’t do, Gaz.” She returned with her own sardonic smile. Then, with a heavy sigh, she picked out a green elastic hairband from her top drawer, dragged back her hair from her face, gathered it into a ponytail and flicked the bunch over the back of her collar. As she strode towards the door she called back, “Best make myself presentable for Mein Führer.”
Detective Inspector Hayden Taylor-Butler occupied an office two doors down from the squad room. As Scarlett approached she could see his door ajar. She stopped a metre before it and took a deep breath, trying to compose herself. She could feel her heart banging against her breastbone and she wasn’t even in his office yet. She dreaded being in his company, especially on her own. It wasn’t just that he was a bigoted, sexist, set-in-his-ways gaffer: they had history. The first time she introduced herself to the team he had made a snide comment about her being in the fast-track promotion system. She had occasionally experienced this during her time in uniform and in her early days in CID, and knew that to some, especially those in the latter years of service, her being groomed for early promotion was an irritation. Although it grieved her deeply that they should respond so bitterly she had learned to live with it. So when the DI had had his dig she had laughingly responded with, “We can’t all be blessed with brains as well as beauty.” It had been intended as light-hearted repost, but from the look on his face she knew she had pissed him off. Since then he had taken every opportunity to demean her and that had recently manifested into him sexually assaulting her. Four months ago, at Gary Ashdown’s barbeque, which she had reluctantly agreed to attend, he had pinched her bottom and told her that he could help her get her next promotion. She’d reacted by throwing lager all down his shirt and pretending it was a drunken accident. Half an hour later he confronted her on the upstairs landing when she came out of the toilet, pressed her against the wall and leaned in close to her face, his drunken and stale tobacco breath assaulting her nostrils. In a menacing tone he made it quite clear he had the power to destroy her career should she ever make anything of it. There had been many days since when she had considered calling it a day, but she reminded herself she had joined the job for a reason, and she had reached her position not just because of her law degree, but because she was a bloody good copper.
She took another deep breath, held it for a good few seconds, exhaled slowly until she stopped shaking, and then stepped forward, rapping lightly on the DI’s door.
Upon hearing a low muttered “Come in,” she pushed the door open.
In the small narrow room, DI Taylor-Butler was seated behind his sizeable desk. It took up a good proportion of the room and was a desk quite the opposite of her own – neat and uncluttered – and every time she viewed it, it always made her wonder what he actually did on a daily basis, especially when a job wasn’t running.
She stepped into his office, already beginning to feel claustrophobic. “You wanted to see me?”
The DI lifted his head slightly and gave her a scornful look. He didn’t offer a seat.
Eyeing him carefully she couldn’t help but think that his heavily lined moustached face and balding head, with its pelmet of greying hair, gave him the appearance of being older than his forty-two years.
He dropped his gaze to a piece of paper he was holding across his jotter. “I found this on my desk this morning. A copy of a report, by you, into the loss of your warrant card. You don’t need me to remind you that losing your warrant card is a discipline offence.”
She knew only too well the problems that could arise were it to fall in the wrong hands. “Of course. But I didn’t lose it – it was stolen. In fact, if you’ve read my report properly you’ll see that I was robbed.”
He shot up his gaze. “I hope that isn’t insolence, Detective Sergeant!” He flicked the sheet of paper. “Of course I’ve read it, that’s why I wanted to see you.” He locked eyes. “Is this really how it happened?”
She bit her lip. “What do you mean, ‘Is this how it happened’? Of course that’s how it happened.”
“Not pissed up? You were out celebrating last night.” He dropped his gaze back to Scarlett’s memo.
“No I wasn’t ‘pissed up’! I only had two halves of lager. You can check with the team if you want. In fact, Detective Chief Inspector Harris was there – ask her if you don’t believe me.” She speared a finger towards the document he was holding. “That’s exactly how it happened. And for your information I haven’t been pissed up, as you put it, in years. That was a long time ago – unlike some of us.”
His balding head shot up like a bolt. He fixed her with a vicious stare. “And what is that meant to infer?”
Scarlett wanted to mention the incident at the barbeque but knew that wouldn’t be a good move.“Nothing.”
“And it had better not be.”
There was a few seconds of uncomfortable silence. The DI glared across his desk.
She saw his eyes drift downwards and felt that he was looking at her cleavage. She immediately felt uncomfortable. She pulled her waist-length jacket tighter and folded her arms protectively. “Now that we’re settled this did happen, can I go?”
He returned his gaze to meet hers. “Can I go
what
, DS Macey?”
“Can I go, Sir?”
“That’s better. You may be the blue-eyed darling following this latest job but just you remember your position in the team, Sergeant. And before you go back to the office tidy yourself up.”
“Tidy myself up?”
He pointed towards her face. “What have I said about that muck you insist on trowelling on each day? This is a place of work, not the cosmetics department of Debenhams. Now go and make yourself decent and look the professional you’re paid to be.”
****
In the ladies washroom Scarlett gripped the edge of the vanity unit and stared into the mirror. She was livid. Her face and neck were covered in blotches and tears welled in the corners of her eyes. She fought back the urge to cry, taking a deep breath and holding it in, in an effort to regain her composure. Examining her reflection, she cursed herself for allowing that low-life shit of a DI get under her skin. Scarlett reminded herself again why she had joined this job.
Keep it together. Don’t do anything silly.
Out on the streets she could easily handle the likes of Taylor-Butler, but his superior rank prevented her from publicly tearing a strip off him. And she knew if she reported him it might make things worse – it was her word against his.
What did Dad used to say?“Revenge is a dish best served cold.”
Within a minute she could feel the calm returning. Releasing her vice-like grip and watching the colour return to her fingers she picked off a paper towel from the pile by the hand basin and dabbed at her lower lids. Then she returned her gaze to the mirror. Examining her face, it sometimes felt as if she was looking at another person. A little bit like Eleanor Rigby, from the Beatles song, “wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door”.
And I’m buggered if I’m going to remove my make-up for that arsehole. He can just go and fuck himself!
She cracked a grin back at her image. Feeling sorry for herself wasn’t going to get her work done. She had a complex court remand file to prepare and a pile of exhibits to sort out.