Grave Doubts E-Book

Elizabeth Corley

• Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Serie: DCI Andrew Fenwick
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 782

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

He was only a pupil, learning from a master who was uncompromising about the rules of the game he had invented. Normally he obeyed them, but with her the temptation had been too strong. Perhaps tonight he might...eveN...kill her. Having survived a terrifying attack as part of an investigation, Sergeant Louise Nightingale retreats to her remote family cottage to lick her wounds, comforted in the knowledge that her attacker is behind bars. But when a serial killer starts terrorising the country, her colleague, DCI Andrew Fenwick, questions whether or not they have the right man. For Nightingale, the true nightmare has only just begun...Spine-tingling suspense with a dark underbelly of psychological terror - this is a book you dare not put down.

Leseprobe

PRAISEFORGRAVE DOUBTS

‘A meticulously plotted novel that is deeply unsettling’

The Scotsman

‘From the outset, this disturbing crime thriller grabs you and doesn’t let go… Chilling’

Bookshelf

‘If you fancy a thrill-packed suspense story that will have you burning the midnight oil to find out what happens next, then this is the one for you’

Peterborough Evening Telegraph

‘Unusual and intelligent…described with great subtlety. The detection element is cleverly done and the story genuinely exciting’

Jessica Mann, Literary Review

‘Chilling…disturbing…compelling’

shotsmag.co.uk

For Kathleen and Robert. With love.

FEBRUARY

He watched the woman from his hiding place deep in the bushes. It would be dark soon and the remaining occupants of the park would leave. The chill evening and threat of rain had driven most away already but he knew that she would wait because she had an appointment, with him.

It pleased him that he had this power over her. The first time he’d suggested that they meet she’d been eager. She had lingered in the rain for nearly an hour while he waited in the warmth of his car. When she finally gave up he’d followed her home, delighting in the glimpse of her long calves as they flashed from the confines of her winter coat. He should have taken her soon afterwards, that had been the dare. Instead he’d hesitated. Hours of delay had turned into days, days into a week. He let opportunities pass, happy enough with his fantasies and the pleasure of anonymous proximity. He had brushed by her in the street, smelt her perfume and pondered over her solitary, idle existence. She never went to work.

After a week his points were forfeit. He should have abandoned her and moved on to someone else. Instead he’d asked her out for a second time, something he had never done before but she was special. He knew that she’d be better than all the rest, worth the danger, and the punishment he was risking because of his disobedience. It was forbidden to go back for the same woman twice, completely against the rules.

He glanced at his watch, pulling down the cuff of new leather gloves to study its luminous dial. Not long now. Slowly colour drained from the sky leaving it ashy and featureless, like the underbelly of a great bird of prey that was circling the earth, waiting. The woman was pacing now, stamping her feet to keep warm in the chill winter evening. He studied her clothes: the long black coat concealed her figure but he knew what she looked like. With the aid of binoculars he had penetrated the privacy of her bedroom. Stupid woman, to imagine that because she lived on the top floor it was all right to leave her curtains askew. He’d seen glimpses of pale skin, the pink of a nipple and once perhaps the dark suspicion of pubic hair. In her rubbish he’d found discarded underwear and kept it, breaking another rule. ‘No traces.’ If his souvenir were discovered he would be in serious trouble.

He was only a pupil, learning from a master who was uncompromising about the rules of the game he had invented. Normally he obeyed them but with her the temptation had been too strong. Otherwise he was an adept pupil, becoming more skilled every time. This one would be his best, he was certain. Perhaps tonight he might…even…kill her.

Just thinking the words made him shake. He knew that it was what was expected of him and that, until he had proved himself, there would be secrets unshared. He wanted those secrets badly. Once he had them he would truly belong.

The young man shuddered in anticipatory pleasure. His breathing grew faster, the excitement bringing an uncontrollable flutter to his throat. He imagined closing his hands about her neck and heat spread through him.

‘No!’ It was a hiss through clenched teeth. He despised his lack of self-control. It was always over too quickly, not like… He stopped the thought. Once he began making comparisons his confidence would evaporate, like before.

At last. The courting couple on the bench at the far side of the rose garden stood up to go, glancing at the solitary woman as they passed. She was worth a second look. Pale, perfect skin, full lips that would burst in his mouth like ripe fruit as he bit into them, and hair so black it would bury his darkest thoughts.

He started to flex, stretching to ease his muscles so that he would be fast and strong. Streetlights came on beyond the stone wall, spilling deeper shadows in pools across the gardens and into the park. His hiding place in the leaves grew darker. When she finally gave up she would have to walk along the flagstones towards him and his ready hands. He stepped a few inches closer to the path and waited.

She looked at her watch again. He wasn’t coming. Relief and disappointment battled within her and relief won. Accepting this blind date had not been her idea. Others had put her up to it and she’d fallen victim to their persuasion. When he stood her up the previous week she’d hoped that it would mark the end of her being the butt of other people’s bright ideas. Then he had emailed her again with a new time and place and here she was, feeling a fool.

An easterly wind whipped across the grass throwing scraps of dead rose petals against her legs. She’d waited long enough. It was time to admit that he wasn’t coming and go home. As she turned to retrace her steps the young woman looked around her, hoping to find others still in the park, but she was alone. She pulled her thick woollen coat tighter and wrapped her arms across her chest against the encroaching night. Her shadow walked before her along the flags, a comforting companion that promised lights and safety in the darkening night. It disappeared as she turned onto a path where tall bushes flanked a tunnel through shrubbery.

Some vandal had smashed the bulbs in the ornamental lamps that were supposed to light her way. Her boots crunched on newly broken glass as she walked, more quickly now. The wind was tormenting the shrubs that enclosed her, mimicking the rustle of predators in the night. Her shoulder blades twitched and she started a funny half-trot, eager to reach the safety of her car.

He was on her without warning. A dark shape leaping out and covering her mouth before she could scream. They went down together, his weight on top of her driving the air from her lungs and with it any ability to cry for help. The back of her head struck the ground and she blacked out for a second. When she forced her eyes open his masked face was inches from hers, a black leather horror that showed only his eyes and mouth. He was biting at her shoulders that were somehow bare. Her coat had been ripped open and the neck of her jumper torn.

‘No!’ She yelled as loud as she could, disappointed that the sound was so pathetic. ‘Get off me, you bastard!’

She aimed a punch at his head but he slapped her hand away and brought up a knife from nowhere. He wasn’t meant to have a knife, no one had warned her about that.

‘Shut up, bitch. Stay quiet and you might live.’

She tried to concentrate on his voice, to memorise the accent and cadence so that she would make a good witness, but fear dominated her mind making it hard to concentrate.

‘Get off!’ She cried out again, appalled at the tears on her face. When his hands went for her bra she fought like a wild thing, terrified of what he would do when he found what was hidden beneath. She managed to scratch his face near the eye and felt skin beneath her nails. DNA, but that would be a hollow victory if they scraped it from her corpse.

He gave up on her breasts and ripped open her jeans, using the knife to slice through the fabric in his hurry. Somehow his trousers were already undone and he rubbed himself against her. At the touch of his flesh she screamed loudly, a sound of terror, despite the threat of the knife at her throat. Surely someone must come soon. Her thighs were locked tight against his groping fingers and the beating of his fist. He jabbed the blade against her neck.

‘Stop fighting me or you die. Open your legs!’

She ignored him, clamping her knees together as he punched her thighs. The pounding grew harder and seemed to radiate up from the stones beneath her. Then there were other noises, shouts, bright lights and his weight was lifted away. She kept on shouting, unable to comprehend that the threat was over.

Her shaking body was wrapped in a plastic sheet and bags were placed over her fingers routinely, as if she were already dead. Hands reached for her out of the lights.

‘No.’ She shook them away. People stood back.

‘Was there any penetration, Nightingale?’

‘What?’ She stared at the familiar face in disbelief.

‘Was there any penetration? It’s just that if there was we’ll need a urine sample. It’s routine procedure, Sergeant.’

She heard a voice mutter ‘for God’s sake,’ as she brought up her fist in a swing that connected with a satisfying crack on the side of Detective Inspector Blite’s jaw.

‘You bastard!’

Somewhere, somebody laughed.

‘Wayne Griffiths you are under arrest…’

The words reached him from across the grass as he watched them take his friend away. He’d been in hiding for hours, long before Wayne and the woman arrived. His plan had been simple: to observe and critique Wayne’s latest efforts to graduate into his world. But now the boy was gone and there was nothing he could do to save him. He was angry and confused. The capture had reversed his sense of world order. How had this happened? How had the police traced Wayne? That woman, who was she? They’d called her ‘Sergeant’ – was she police? How could the boy have been so stupid?

He’d succumbed to the oldest trick in the book, to grow so fixated on a woman that he’d fallen into her trap. Admittedly she was almost perfect but part of the testing was to build up immunity to their enchantments and his pupil had disappointed him. If it hadn’t been for her…he stopped the thought. There wasn’t time for regrets.

He needed to reach the flat and clear up before the police found out the address. If he removed all traces there was still a chance that the evidence would be too weak to gain a conviction. There were ways to destabilise even a strong case, particularly if it depended on a sting by the police. Provided there was no other evidence a good defence should be able to plant sufficient seeds of doubt in a jury’s mind.

He had the money and contacts to arrange the best legal advice available. It would be a show of support, not that he had any concerns about his partner’s loyalty; it was absolute. But he wouldn’t seek bail. Some punishment was appropriate for such stupidity and a long wait in prison might teach the boy a much-needed lesson.

Meanwhile he would disappear. He’d have to go away until the trial. If and when the prosecution collapsed, they could be reunited and resume elsewhere.

Satisfied that he was once more in control, the watcher sprinted away across the grass and disappeared into the night.

ONE YEAR LATER

‘Do you want to go alone? I think I should go with you, but…’ He looked away, ashamed of his fear of what lay inside.

‘No, I’ll do it myself. Wait here though, for when I come out.’

She pushed open a heavy iron door painted an industrial red and walked past signs in a foreign language that meant nothing to her. An unpleasant chemical smell penetrated her clenched mouth and filled her throat with an acid-sweetness that made her want to retch. The air was cold, the corridor empty. A bare window at the far end let in harsh light that sent her shadow fleeing back towards the door.

A sign bearing the stylized outline of a chapel hung from steel chains in the middle of the ceiling with a black arrow pointing to a turning on her right. She followed its mute instruction and turned, losing the sunlight from the end window. Wall lights with bare bulbs now lit the way.

Another solid door stood closed ahead of her, the little chapel sign stuck to it on laminated plastic, peeling at one corner. She tried the handle, the door was locked. There were no signs of life but then she heard the sound of fingers dancing lightly on keys and she followed them to an office door. Tapping lightly to announce her arrival she pushed it open.

‘Si?’ A heavy-lidded, dark-eyed girl looked up at her, clearly annoyed at the interruption.

‘Excuse me, I’m English. Louise Nightingale. I’m here to see my parents.’

At the mention of her name the girl’s eyes softened and she stood up.

‘Scusi.’

She left her standing alone in the office, staring out over a metal desk to the clear sky beyond. That’s why her parents had come here after all, in search of late winter sunshine. She turned away feeling sick again.

A man came into the room wearing an immaculately tailored black suit, red tie and sunglasses.

‘Miss Nightingale, we expected you yesterday. If you would come this way.’

The man walked back to the chapel door swinging a key on a slender silver chain like a rosary.

‘They are in here. I am so sorry. Perhaps you would like to be alone?’

‘Yes please.’

She pushed the door open; it was heavy and seemingly resentful at the intrusion. A thick leather curtain hung as a second barrier behind it. Inside the air was even colder, the light dim. There was a smell of flowers and incense and she remembered belatedly that she was in a Catholic country. A crucifix, complete with the agony of Christ in painted plaster on wood, hung on the crimson far wall. Two coffins lay open before it. As she walked towards them she was overpowered by the smell from a vase of lilies. In the cool dark they seemed eternal, perfect ivory petals clutching at the sterile, recycled air.

The faint hum of air-conditioning was the only sound to break the silence. Behind her the door clicked shut and for a moment she fought an irrational impulse to rush back and beat against it and her imagined entombment. Instead, ever the controlled and collected Englishwoman, she walked forward and placed her hand on the oak of her mother’s coffin.

Someone had clothed her in her best summer dress. A pure white sheet covered her body to her breast. Her hands were folded beneath it and she felt cheated of one last look at those long fingers and the narrow pink nails that had always been so clean.

A memory came back to her of the warning delivered by the British police on behalf of their Italian colleagues: ‘They were both severely injured. Your father died at the scene, your mother two hours later.’

She wondered what carnage lay beneath the cotton shroud and swallowed hard to prepare herself for the sight of her mother’s face.

It was beautiful. She always had been. Miraculously the wreck had left her face intact. Even more incredible, the undertaker had resisted the temptation to paint her in colours she would never have worn in life.

Her light brown hair, no sign of grey nor need for unnatural colourings, fell soft and straight around her face. The small worry lines and the mark of a frown she’d always had when she concentrated had disappeared from her brow leaving her looking younger than she could remember. The cruel irony of seeing her so youthful in death made her choke.

Only her mother’s lips showed death. Held closed tight despite redundant muscles they were pale, almost blue. The mortician should have coloured those, she thought, but perhaps he’d wanted the naturalness of her beauty untouched in the grave.

She bent and kissed her mother’s forehead, both her eyes and lastly, delicately, her mouth in an unconscious sign of the cross. Then she stood and walked to her father.

The winding sheet was wrapped to his chin, impossible to tell what clothes he was wearing. His eyes were closed but she knew their colour, the harebell blue of a clear summer sky. There would be no danger of her ever forgetting what they looked like as she had only to look in the mirror to see them again. Pure white bandages bound his head from chin to crown and across his forehead, bordering his eyes, nose and mouth in a tight frame. Even so, they could not hide all his scars. One ran from the very centre of his bottom lip in a vivid diagonal into the lower bandages. Another, delicately stitched and almost camouflaged, stretched from beneath the outer corner of his left eyebrow, across and up into the only wisp of hair that showed against his right temple.

It was a Frankenstein scar and the sight of it made her giggle in shock and suppressed hysteria until she had to press her mouth shut with both hands. Then the sounds dropped to whimpers as she stood looking at the corpse that had been her father. There was so little to see she wondered why they had left the coffin open but she was glad they had.

She reached out a hand and stroked the top of his bandaged head.

‘Oh Dad,’ she whispered, ‘what bloody rotten luck.’

Then she kissed him lightly, as she had her mother, and turned to leave struggling to retain her self-control. There was no point in delaying her departure. What more could she do?

As she reached the leather curtain she felt the skin between her shoulder blades crawl. For one crazy second, she was sure that they were both sitting up, looking at her, willing her to turn around, bidding her goodbye. The sensation was so strong that she looked back. The only eyes on her were those of Christ, agonized, pitying and alone. She turned around, opened the door and walked away.

Outside in the sunshine of the car park her brother was waiting for her on a bench by the car, grey-faced, pink-eyed.

‘You were a long time.’ He sounded apologetic, ashamed that he had been unable to bring himself to view his parents’ bodies.

‘There were a lot of forms to sign but it’s done now.’

‘I just couldn’t come with you. I’m sorry.’

‘It’s all right, really.’

‘Were they, I mean, the coffins…?’

He had heard the police warning as well.

‘They were open. They both looked very peaceful, at rest. There was no horror.’

He hugged her tightly and she felt her throat harden. She pulled away, unable to look at him, afraid of the weight of tears she felt inside her. If she once let them out, she was sure they would flow forever, like a dam breaking.

‘Come on, let’s go. I could do with a drink.’

Her brother kept his arm loosely around her shoulders and guided her towards the car. The sun burnt into her dark suit as they walked slowly away from the mortuary, their shadows sharp on the gravel.

Until today, their deaths had not been a reality. She had coped with the formalities, buying the air tickets, arranging for her parents’ belongings to be packed and sent to her hotel. Even the insurance forms required for repatriation of the bodies had been a welcome distraction. There was the funeral still to organise, and the headstones. Then…

Her brother shut the car door firmly and she fastened her seatbelt. The sound of it slamming to had a finality that echoed her thoughts. Her parents were dead. She was an orphan. Whatever unfinished business had lain between them would forever be unresolved. Future possibilities had closed in the split second that an offside wheel punctured, sending their car spinning through the air and into the picturesque ravine she was sure they would have been admiring moments before. Regrets had replaced reconciliations in her future, guilt would have to fill a void where explanations and forgiveness might, eventually, have rebuilt their relationship. All the potential of what they might have been to each other expired with their last breaths.

The sense of lost opportunity was overwhelming. For so assured and self-possessed a person, the realism of powerlessness was suffocating. She felt damaged, detached, out of control. Her world would never be the same again. For the first time in her life she stared into an empty future and felt fear.

PART ONE

NIGHTINGALE AND CLAIRE

A man is seldom ashamed of feeling that he cannot love a woman so well when he sees a certain greatness in her: nature having intended greatness for man.

GEORGE ELIOT

In this new experience you may find temptations both in wine and women. You must entirely resist both temptations, and while treating all women with perfect courtesy, you should avoid any intimacy.

KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM AND BROOME

CHAPTER ONE

‘And?’

The barrister for the defence leant forward, his nose as sharp as his tone, his wig knocked askew in the passion of his assault. Nightingale tried to form a sensible reply but her mind froze. All she could remember were her mother’s remarks uttered in response to some school-age failure: ‘Fancy forgetting your lines. Your brother would never have let us down like that.’

The memory robbed her of confidence and she felt sweat dampen her blouse beneath her suit. She breathed deeply and pressed her fingers hard against the wood of the witness stand. For thirty long minutes she had been cross-examined. Her evidence was crucial as the rest of the prosecution’s case was circumstantial. She reminded herself that it was simply a matter of telling the truth, without letting this bully of a man confuse her.

‘We’re waiting, Sergeant.’

‘Yes.’ She coughed as if to clear her throat and focused her eyes on a point just above his right shoulder.

‘Yes what.’

Nightingale squared her shoulders, not aggressively she hoped, but politely, as if respectful of his role. She knew how successful witnesses behaved: firm, confident but without assertiveness. As a police officer, every member of the jury would see her profession first and then the person. Whatever prejudices they’d brought into the courtroom would affect their interpretation of everything she said. If they had been brought up to trust the police, then they would want to believe her. Should they consider the Force corrupt or prejudiced, anything she said would be viewed with scepticism. For all of them, she had to be Louise Nightingale, victim of a serious sexual assault by a man capable of rape.

‘Could you repeat your question please?’ Her voice was level again.

‘I asked how you came to encounter the defendant and so far, despite repeated requests for elaboration, you have said only that you replied to an Email that eventually led you to exchange electronic messages in a chat room.’

‘That is correct. We conversed electronically over the Internet about THE GAME.’

‘And how did you come to meet in this way?’

‘I’ve already gone through this several times, sir.’

‘Then tell us again.’ He was angry with her. His defence was to prove entrapment by the police and if he could force Nightingale to give her testimony in the wrong way he might yet succeed.

Details of how THE GAME was played had already been covered in previous testimony by experts from the company that had created it. They’d made THE GAME sound harmless fun, a challenge of skill and quick-wittedness, but every rape victim had played it. Eventually, when other leads failed the police investigated it as a potential link with the rapist.

‘The senior investigating officer had recovered evidence that the victims of a series of rapes had all participated in an online contest called THE GAME. There are several sites and chat rooms dedicated to it.’

‘And you entered one of these chat rooms with the express purpose of luring the defendant into an exchange of messages which you, Sergeant, made increasingly incriminating and licentious!’ Spittle flew from his tongue and he dabbed at his mouth.

‘Objection!’ The prosecution barrister was on his feet. Reginald Stringer QC was deadly in defence, with a reputation for having a particular dislike of police witnesses. The judge upheld the objection and Nightingale answered a rephrased question.

‘To join certain chat rooms you have to be given the full web address and a password. I was invited into this particular chat room by the defendant.’

Nightingale felt stronger now. The police had three computer experts who’d all confirmed the Email trails between herself, the defendant and the chat room. As she described her electronic conversations the judge leant forward to interrupt.

‘I still find this use of terminology confusing and I imagine some of the jury might as well. We had an explanation of what a chat room was earlier but I wonder if you could refresh our memories.’

‘Certainly, My Lord. The chat room is an address on the web, sometimes public but in this case private, where one can engage in a digital conversation by typing and sending messages to other participants. Many people can join in; the message is identified by sender. It is like having a public conversation. One person talks, i.e. writes a message, and someone else responds while others watch, i.e. listen. Participants can decide to leave public chat rooms and engage in private conversations using personal addresses, rather like going into another room.’

The judge was satisfied with the explanation and Stringer resumed his cross-examination.

‘Tell us about the characters in THE GAME.’

Nightingale pointed to the board version of THE GAME on the evidence table. It was one of a dozen spin-offs from the original computer game that had made the teenage inventors multi-millionaires. The film was due out in a year.

‘There are six major player-characters and hundreds of minor ones. Sometimes combatants…’

‘Combatants?’

‘Players – they call themselves combatants.’

‘And which “combatant” did you elect to become, Sergeant?’

‘Artemesia 30,055.’

‘Artemesia is based on the Greek Goddess Artemis – the huntress – is she not? Very appropriate, given what you then set out to do.’

‘Objection.’

‘Sustained.’

‘And the number, what does that signify?’

‘I was the thirty-thousand and fifty-fifth person to join THE GAME as Artemesia. That became my ID. She’s one of the less popular characters as she has fewer obvious powers.’

‘So, Artemesia 30,055, how did you encounter the defendant?’ Stringer smiled at his own attempt at a joke but it didn’t fool Nightingale.

She would have preferred to be called by her name. If he focused on her game character he would inevitably highlight the huntress’s dark side. She was one of the players who gained strength and new powers from tracking and killing demons and trolls. The two other female characters – a healer and a sorceress – succeeded by using less aggressive tactics. Nightingale had been an exceptional Artemesia, rising quickly through the league tables. It was the reason that the defendant had noticed her. He played the Demon King, the most challenging and dangerous role, but the one with highest points potential. She looked across at him now, a mousy-haired man in his twenties. Hardly someone who would stand out in a crowd.

‘Sergeant, we’re still waiting.’

‘I first encountered the defendant in the chat room. He called himself Demon King 666. He’d worked out how to by-pass the automatic character numbering and chose the one he wanted – the devil’s number. He was considered an expert on THE GAME, not just on his own role but others as well. The Demon King is the target for everybody else. If you capture or kill him, you automatically win THE GAME and maximum points. Demon King 666 had never lost. He was considered invincible.’

From the corner of her eye she could see the defendant shift. He was staring at her and smiling. Nightingale shuddered. Despite his situation, he was enjoying the dialogue about THE GAME and his own superiority. It was one of the reasons she’d found it so simple to engage him in electronic conversation. The more successful she became in THE GAME, the more attention he’d paid her.

‘Demon King 666 was very clever. Most of the time he gave out misinformation. After all, many of the people he was advising aspired to kill him in a future game. But he also wanted other Demon Kings to be killed so that his lead in the rankings would continue, so he gave out enough genuine clues to keep people asking for more.’

‘Including you?’

‘No, I never asked him directly for advice. It can reveal too much about your own game. I scanned the public dialogue, adding the occasional comment. He sent me the first personal message, not the other way round.’

‘I find it hard to believe that you would rely on the possibility of him finding you.’

‘That’s what happened. All the records prove it.’ She avoided a smirk. Of course he had come to her, she’d made herself irresistible by winning and remaining silent. It had just been a question of patience.

Nightingale looked at the clock on the opposite wall. She’d been on the stand nearly an hour now and regretted her sleepless night and lack of breakfast. The timing of the cross-examination was perfect for the defence. Outside, it was an unseasonably sunny day. The windows were set along the east wall, framed by columns of carved oak that matched the heavy courtroom furniture. English air-conditioning, unused to coping with real heat, was already starting to fail. London in April was not meant to be warm. The first fingers of eager yellow light were advancing across the blue carpet towards the witness stand. Defence and prosecution tables were set further back, in the relative comfort of the shadows but she would soon be in full sun.

‘Might I have some water, please?’

The judge took pity on her and a plastic glass of tepid tap water was brought to her. She sipped it and continued with her never-ending testimony. Most of it she knew by heart, but she referred to her notebook anyway to remind the jury that she was a policewoman engaged in a serious investigation, not a computer-game hobbyist.

The sun reached her. There was a hiatus when the judge ordered the blinds to be tried again, but they remained broken, sitting stubbornly at half-mast.

‘You may remove your jacket should you wish, Sergeant.’ He was solicitous, apologetic.

Even without a jacket, the hair at the back of her neck grew damp, then wet. From time to time, the air-conditioning groaned and seemed to redouble its effort to chill the room but its only effect was to make defence counsel and witness shout over the noise. Nightingale began to lose her voice.

In contrast Stringer blossomed in the heat. His face was pink and shiny but his rhetoric sparkled. It was as if he could sense her growing weakness. Bands of shadow inched across the floor distracting Nightingale, as the colonnade of mock-Grecian columns outside barred the sunlight. Her throat was sore and her head ached. Stringer was trying once again to imply that she was a ruthless huntress of innocent prey. She fought him with every calm, considered sentence or gentle shake of her head, her temper held under tight rein. Throughout her testimony she hoped that the judge and jury could see the truth, that she’d been the hunted. A drop of sweat dripped from her fringe making her left eye smart.

‘Come on, Sergeant.’ We haven’t got all day to wait for your answer!’

‘I’m… I’m sorry. Could you repeat the question?’

‘What?’ His voice echoed in her head, louder than the air-conditioning.

‘I said,’ she swallowed, trying to find saliva, ‘please could you repeat the question?’

She put fingers to her cheek, surprised at the heat she found there. It disconcerted her and she rested her free hand on the hot varnish of the dock. Black spots formed in front of her eyes.

‘…said that you…stretching credibility if you think…’ His voice oscillated in and out. She blinked again and tried to focus but the black dots grew larger. Somewhere, the judge was speaking.

‘…think the Sergeant may be a little faint.’

‘No, I’m fine,’ she said, and promptly pitched forward to be caught by an anonymous pair of hands.

As the blood rushed to her head her vision cleared and she could hear again. She drank the water that was handed to her and stood up slowly, resting heavily against the witness stand.

‘Are you all right, Sergeant?’

‘Yes, it’s just the heat. I’m so sorry. Could I have a few minutes to sit down somewhere cool?’

In the corridor outside, the prosecution hugged her briefly.

‘I’m so embarrassed, I…’

‘That was brilliant. The show of vulnerability, reminding the jury that you’re a woman. Fantastic! It was an inspired move.’

Nightingale sat down, stunned into silence. What sort of person did he think she was, to be able to behave like a machine in the course of duty at no matter what personal cost? The advice of her counsellor had been that she should not be compelled to take the stand as a witness. The woman rightly suspected that the trauma of the attack was deep-seated and had little to do with the physical injuries themselves. It was the memory of her helplessness, his strength and the weight of his body on hers, his fingers groping, touching her. That was her horror. She felt defiled and unworthy, but she’d been prevailed upon to testify, to relive it all, and the confidence placed in her had so far been proved right.

‘Ready to go back in?’

‘I don’t think so. I feel very shaky. Could it wait until tomorrow?’

She felt trapped. The corridor was as stuffy as the court room. Sunshine burnt through the grimy windows, intense between the black bars of shadow. She shifted sideways into the dark and leant her head back against the wall, eyes closed.

Around and above her voices gathered to persuade her that she should continue. If the defence was left to regroup and reconsider tactics their advantage might be lost. She capitulated and pushed herself to her feet. As she entered the courtroom her knees started shaking and she felt dizzy. It was only nerves she told herself, not a premonition.

She risked a glance towards the gallery. Her brother was sitting there beside a suntanned stranger with curiously bright eyes. They both smiled back and she took a deep breath.

‘Sergeant?’

Stringer had noted her glance away and raised an impatient eyebrow, anything to undermine her confidence. If only he knew how little she had left! But her smart suit and careful make-up presented a perfect, professional picture. Impervious camouflage.

‘Let us turn to the night of 12th February last year. The night that the prosecution alleges the defendant attacked you.’

‘The night he tried to rape me.’ Stringer bristled. ‘Yes sir, I remember it well.’

‘Then use that recall to describe your version of events to us.’

Nightingale took a deep breath. Her mouth was dry. All the remaining moisture in her body seemed to have collected in chill pools around the waistband of her skirt and under her arms.

‘It was the second time that the defendant invited me to join him for a date. On the first occasion he didn’t turn up, although it was from that night I had the sense that I was being followed.’

‘A “sense”, Sergeant, is not evidence as you well know, and the facts are that despite a significant police presence, there were no sightings of the defendant following you. Is that correct?’

‘Yes, sir.’ She resisted the desire to tell the jury that her car had been vandalized and her rubbish searched. It had all happened in the five days between the first and second invitations but as there’d been no trace of the defendant it was purely circumstantial.

‘On February 12th I followed the directions I’d received from the defendant. I arrived at the meeting point, which was by the bandstand in Harlden Park, three minutes late at five thirty-three p.m. I waited until six fifteen and then left. To reach my car, I had to walk back through the rose garden and along a path through rhododendron bushes.’

‘Why didn’t you choose a better lit route? It was dark, after all.’

‘That would have taken me fifteen minutes instead of five and normally the path is well lit.’

‘Continue.’

‘As I entered the shrubbery, there was a noise from the bushes so I looked around to find another way. There wasn’t one so I walked on.’

‘You make yourself sound alone but you were, in fact, surrounded by police and were carrying a wire, is that not so?’

‘I was wired. However, the problem with the bandstand rendezvous was that it meant the officers watching had to remain on the edge of the park. There were two posing as a courting couple, and another three playing football on the grass, but as the light went they had to leave. Four other officers were in the car park, two on benches in the rose garden – they were the closest – and the rest held a loose perimeter.’

She felt the slightest tremor start in her throat. Despite the counselling, this was the most difficult part of her testimony. Memories of the attack infested her sleep, creating vivid nightmares overlaid with images of his other victims. She lost the momentum of her narrative and waited for him to ask a question.

‘You have a remarkable physical resemblance to the victims of the attacks you were investigating. Did that cause you any particular distress?’

‘No.’

Nightingale sensed that he was changing tactics. Perhaps Stringer wasn’t confident that he’d be able to convince the jury the police had used THE GAME to entrap his client so now he was going to attack her account of the attempted rape. It was a moment that she had been dreading. Apart from the police account of the attack on her and the traces recovered from her fingernails there was no other physical evidence. The rapist had never left semen, saliva or even a hair follicle on his victims. When they’d searched his flat SOCO had found it pristine, without even fingerprints and with nothing to connect him to the crimes. Faced with such lack of evidence, the CPS had decided to concentrate prosecution on three rapes that were identical in method to the attack on Nightingale. Four others, including one that had resulted in the victim’s death had been left on file. In these the victims had been attacked in their own homes, not outside, and none of them had been able to pick the defendant out of a line up.

‘Let us turn to the “attack” in which the defendant, by the way, sustained material injuries. I put it to you that it was you who approached the defendant and encouraged him into a physical embrace, which you subsequently rejected, violently?’

‘No, that is not true.’

‘Do you exercise regularly?’

‘Pardon?’ She was thrown by the question. He repeated it tersely.

‘I run.’

‘Have you engaged in self-defence classes?’

‘Only as part of routine police training.’

‘But you are fit and strong, are you not? Quite capable of taking the fight to a man.’

He was deliberately baiting her and would use any show of emotion to his advantage. The thought made her angry but in a way that sharpened her wits and drove all signs of emotion beneath the surface.

‘I didn’t attack the defendant. He leapt out at me and knocked me to the ground. There’s evidence to prove that he lay in wait within the bushes for some time.’

‘How tall are you?’

‘Five ten.’

‘How much do you weigh?’

‘I really don’t know.’

‘Come, come, Sergeant, I thought all ladies knew to the ounce what they weighed.’

‘I don’t.’

‘I see.’ His tone implied that she was avoiding the question.

‘Would you take a look at the defendant, please.’

Nightingale licked her dry lips. She had avoided meeting his eyes since she had taken the stand. With a slight twist of her head she directed her gaze to the defendant’s chest. His chin and mouth were just at the top of her vision and she flicked her eyes down a fraction.

‘How tall would you say he was?’

‘A giant,’ she thought. ‘I don’t know.’

Another exasperated sigh.

‘He’s five foot nine, Sergeant, shorter than you are.’ He left a significant pause. ‘Hardly an overpowering assailant for a fit, tall woman like you.’

‘From the ground, with a knife at one’s throat, all men look tall…sir.’ Some of the women on the jury nodded in sympathy and Nightingale pressed her advantage. ‘And as for my attacking him, I was in no fit state to do so. I received a concussion – the X-rays show deep bruising to the back of my skull,’ she felt again the crack of her head as it made contact with the paving, ‘a sprained wrist and dislocated shoulder, bruising to my face and thighs,’ his strength had been terrifying, ‘and I had to have dental work on two of my teeth.’

‘So you say, Sergeant, but how does the jury know that those injuries were not inflicted by yourself or your colleagues in an attempt to build up evidence against my client?’

His callousness made her gasp and to her horror tears filled her eyes, yet when she risked a glance at the prosecution table they were hiding smiles. Confused she turned to the jury. Five women, seven men; all looked shocked, one openly angry. Stringer had miscalculated.

‘Excuse me,’ she whispered as she took a shaky sip of water.

‘Are you all right?’ The judge leant forward solicitously. ‘I’m sure,’ he said with a meaningful glance towards Stringer, ‘that this cross-examination is nearing its end.’

It was. The defence asked a few more questions but the heat had vanished from his attack. After ten minutes Nightingale left the stand and the judge called a recess for lunch.

As she drove home she replayed the prosecution’s words of praise but they meant nothing to her. She worried over every hesitation and weak answer, convinced that she could have handled the cross-examination better.

On the top floor, high enough to have a view over the trees, Nightingale slipped her key into a sturdy Yale lock and was home at last. This was her place. The only tiny blessing from her parents’ death was that she was now financially independent. They had not left her so much that anybody would consider her wealthy but sufficient to be able to put down a deposit and start buying her own home. She raised a hand to ward off a fly and brushed aside the unwelcome reality that there had been a benefit from their deaths. The thought filled her with guilt and her stomach ached in physical response.

A light was blinking on her phone; three messages. Her brother had called, sounding exactly like their late father.

‘Look, come and spend the weekend. I’m off on Sunday and Monday for a change.’ At twenty-seven, he’d qualified and was dutifully serving his time before moving on to try and become an orthopaedic surgeon.

She shook her head. He was her only family now, but she found Simon and his wife Naomi depressing company. They inhabited a world where domestic bliss was commonplace and Nightingale felt like an alien whenever she visited. They also insisted on calling her Diane, her mother’s chosen name for her, despite the fact that she had determinedly called herself by her middle name since senior school.

The new message light was still flashing. She felt too exhausted to care who else had called but dragged her mind away from memories of childhood arguments and pressed the play button for the second time to be greeted by silence and heavy breathing. The third message was the same. She deleted them both, cursing the crank caller who must have selected her number at random, and abandoned herself to sleep.

CHAPTER TWO

The prisoner smoothed out the three-day old newspaper and folded a crease precisely around the article he wanted, before jerking the page sharply. The cheap paper parted obediently and he repeated the motion to isolate the exact columns with a small grunt of satisfaction. He wasn’t allowed scissors. They had him on suicide watch given the length of his sentence and the results of a psychiatric profile.

His psychiatrist had leapt at his vague hints of interest in the reporting of his crimes and had suggested the scrapbook. Griffiths found maintaining it surprisingly satisfying. He laughed at some of the ridiculous theories they’d printed about the motives for his crimes. They made him sound dangerous, erratic, a man to keep well away from. It had helped to build his reputation in here, though being inside for rape was a dangerous ride. Although he was hated, as sex offenders always were, he was no longer attacked. There was a man still recovering in the infirmary who served as a lesson to the others. But the guards made sure that he suffered and the other inmates turned a blind eye.

He’d accumulated every printed inch of coverage since the trial but press comment had reduced to almost nothing now and the realisation that he was already old news depressed him almost as much as his confinement. How could he keep his demand for an appeal public? He placed the small clipping on a page beside a scrap of his own writing. His observations on life helped to keep the dark side away. As he dabbed the non-toxic glue carefully along the edges of his latest cutting he tried to decide what to do next. A few short weeks into his sentence and he was already planning. Not like the rest of them in here. Perhaps a conversion to some religion would help his appeal; a born-again Christian was always popular.

He rehearsed whole conversations in his mind. At one point he was almost moved to tears. He was a masterful role player, it was why he’d been invincible playing THE GAME but they wouldn’t allow him near a computer. One of the guards had told him it was the last privilege he would ever be granted. He knew that there were websites on him because the press reported on them. A few were vile, defamatory, set up by family and friends of the victims as acts of revenge. News of them left him cold. The one of more interest was the site that critiqued his ‘crimes’ and proclaimed his innocence. He recognised the prose.

His door was opened without warning and he glanced at his watch, confused. This wasn’t right. When he saw Saunders’ grinning face he felt fear and hoped that it didn’t show.

‘Visitor. Come on, move your arse.’ The guard kicked him hard on the buttocks, reawakening old bruises. He was one of the worst abusers and the others just turned their backs whenever prisoner 35602K was the subject of Saunders’ close attention.

He walked into the visitors’ room and glanced around, studying the occupants openly until Saunders nudged him in the back. Desks were arranged so that the guards could walk among them, the tatty orange plastic chairs bolted to the floor.

The presence of other inmates and the curious eyes of their guests disconcerted him.

Saunders directed him to the empty chair at the end of the line opposite a tall figure in a smart jacket who was bending down as if tying a shoelace. He tried to control his rapid blinking and squared his shoulders despite the acute sense of exposure at his back. His mysterious visitor started to straighten. The shape of the head and line of the chin were as familiar as his own. His heart lurched and his throat tightened with nerves. They hadn’t spoken since before his arrest. Tripping over his left foot in his anxiousness he hurried over to the empty chair.

‘You shouldn’t have come! Not here, among all…this.’ The person sitting opposite regarded him silently with eyes the colour of arctic ice. ‘It’s not appropriate for you to be here. It’s beneath you.’

‘As it is you, yet here you are.’ The implied criticism was clear, despite the carefully controlled tone.

‘I let you down. I had no idea she was filth.’

‘You broke the rules.’

‘I…I wanted to meet her properly.’

‘Rubbish.’ His visitor looked away in disgust. ‘You were lazy, admit it.’

‘I was lazy.’

‘Say it again, “I was lazy”.’

‘I was lazy.’

‘I was stupid, say it.’

‘I was stupid. Look D—’

‘No names. Are you a complete idiot?’

‘Sorry.’ Griffiths hung his head, not daring to say more until bidden to do so.

‘I watched it all in court, every day.’

‘I saw you. You cared enough to be there for me.’

The man didn’t acknowledge the remark but he smiled in a way that made Griffiths wince.

‘Until the end, I thought you were going to win. The policewoman’s evidence was a travesty. It should have been disallowed.’

‘If it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t be here now. I never made a mistake.’ There was a plea in his tone. ‘All I did was invite her for a second time.’

‘But that was against the rules. You know what happens when you get too involved. You did it once before but I was able to get you out of the mess you made in time. Remember?’

‘It wasn’t fair. She trapped me.’

‘I know, most inconvenient. After all the efforts I’ve made on your behalf it would be a shame to see it…wasted.’

‘What are you going to do about her?’

‘Don’t worry. I’m dealing with it in my own way.’

‘Once I’m back with you I’ll do anything, everything you want and I won’t ever break the rules again.’

‘We’ll see.’

Griffiths felt his ego shrivel. One look from those eyes could crush him. If the man opposite wanted him free then there was hope, but he had to make him believe that he was worth the effort. One of the guards walked over, stared at them pointedly and walked away slowly.

‘Who was that?’

‘Saunders, a sadistic bastard. One of the worst. He’s abusive and pays me particular attention.’

The visitor’s eyes followed the guard’s back across the room, their expression unreadable.

‘He’s abused you?’

‘Regularly.’

‘You’re not his property to spoil as he wishes. I dislike people who have so little personal power that they have to find positions of authority to exploit. You say his name is Saunders. I imagine he lives locally.’ The visitor stared at the guard, lost in thought.

Griffiths pawed at the table.

‘I can’t stay in here. I have to get out.’ There was a rising note of hysteria in his voice.

‘Careful. You can’t show any weakness. I’m working on it, don’t worry.’

‘An es—?’ The visitor raised a hand and Griffiths shut his mouth.

‘Impossible but an appeal…that’s far more promising.’

‘But it’ll take years and my lawyer says it may fail – 50:50 at best.’

‘Have faith. If there are fresh…developments, shall we say, in the meantime your chances will be much greater. Leave it with me, I’ll soon convince the public that the police arrested the wrong man.’

‘How will I know what’s going on?’

‘Do you remember when we were at school, how we used to send notes to each other in code? I’ll send you some books but you’ll need to be patient. Some things take a while to sort out, though,’ he looked at Saunders and smiled, ‘I’ll see what I can do to make your time in here a little more bearable.’

His visitor rose and left without another word.

Griffiths was returned to his cell, his emotions a scrambled mess. One moment he felt the most intense excitement and pleasure, the next numbing inadequacy. When he was positive he was sure that something would happen because the visit proved he was too important to be left to rot. Then he would remember that look, the eyes tearing into his soul revealing the depths of his failings. He paced his cell, muttering out loud against the betrayals and wounds inflicted on him since childhood. Self-pity slid into anger, familiar and warming, then rage as he thought of all the people who deserved punishment and of the scores he would settle once he was free.

CHAPTER THREE

DCI Fenwick’s secretary looked up from her keyboard and gave him a broad grin of welcome.

‘So you really are back. The case at the Met’s finished?’

Fenwick shook his head and the light caught new hints of grey at his temples. That was what a secondment to the Metropolitan Police could do to a man.

‘My part is, Anne, but Commander Cator is the expert on money laundering and he’ll complete the evidence. It’ll take a long time for all the strands to come together and we may never know the whole of it. But the Assistant Chief Constable has finally agreed to my return.’

‘The Superintendent wants to see you.’

Superintendent Quinlan was on the phone but beckoned him into his office. He finished the call abruptly and stuck his hand out.

‘Andrew, good to see you. Place hasn’t been quite the same without you.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. Frankly I’m looking forward to some proper police work.’

Quinlan frowned.

‘Shut the door, would you. Look, I’ve been meaning to talk to you for some time. Are you sure that you want to turn this transfer down? It could be the making of your career…’

‘I think you mean the re-making, don’t you?’

Quinlan hurried on as if Fenwick hadn’t spoken.

‘Commander Cator is going right to the top in my opinion, and he’s asked for you specifically. It’s a compliment and a great opportunity that won’t come again.’ Fenwick opened his mouth to speak but Quinlan hadn’t finished. ‘There’s no such thing as a guaranteed promotion, of course there isn’t, but with a move to his team and your track record, you’d have a shot at making superintendent.’

‘More than I would have here, you mean?’ It was said with one of Fenwick’s attempts at a wry grin but Quinlan grimaced anyway.

‘I won’t be drawn into that,’ he snapped, and Fenwick was sorry for his sarcasm. It hadn’t been aimed at the Superintendent. He knew that his boss was his strongest supporter, but his boss, the ACC of West Sussex, Harper-Brown, disliked him intensely and Fenwick knew that he’d never win his endorsement. He simply wasn’t servile enough.

‘Sorry that was a stupid remark, and it wasn’t meant for you. Look, the Met really isn’t for me.’

‘Is it the, er, commuting that’s a problem because…’

‘No, it’s not the children.’ Fenwick substituted the word that was the real point of the question, preferring there to be no prevarication. Everyone assumed that being a single father of a nine- and seven-year-old was a major handicap to his career but he had a live-in housekeeper who managed his household brilliantly. The children appeared to have settled at long last, and some health insurance on his wife had meant that he’d been able to pay off the mortgage more quickly. Even visiting Monique in hospital had settled into a routine, sad to be sure but no longer traumatic.

‘So it was the politics, then. I thought as much. You never will make the extra effort to be a diplomat.’

Fenwick laughed out loud and his boss looked at him in surprise. In the months before his secondment he’d rarely seen him smile. He had changed during the time away and something of the old Fenwick, the one that had disappeared with the onset of his wife’s illness, was beginning to reemerge.

‘I hated the politics and the soft-peddling way things had to be done, but I coped because I had to. In fact Commander Cator made a point of congratulating me on my performance. He’d expected far worse.’

‘So what is it then? Why are you turning your back on almost certain advancement?’

Quinlan looked at him in exasperation. He was an old friend and ally and Fenwick realised that he deserved an honest answer.

‘It’s all too remote. The investigations take years and the layers of subterfuge these criminals construct make unravelling the evidence like solving a Rubik’s cube blindfolded. The syndicates are better funded than we are! And anyway I’m not very good at pursuing crime in the abstract.’

He stopped short of adding the strongest negative. The complexity of the crimes frequently baffled juries and the rate of conviction was depressingly low as a result. He was a man who needed to win.

‘Yet Cator says in his note to me that you have a natural talent. He called you “remorseless and determined” I seem to recall.’

‘Don’t misunderstand me, I want to see Wainwright-Smith destitute and in jail. It’s what the bastard deserves.’ The venom in Fenwick’s tone caught both of them by surprise. There was a silence, then Quinlan nodded slowly. He understood.

‘Of course. It wasn’t a faceless crime for you, I was forgetting. Very well,’ he took a deep breath, ‘I’ve said my piece and I won’t mention it again. There’s more than enough for you to get stuck into here.’

‘The Griffiths case must have stretched the team to the limit.’ Fenwick had already noted the new lines of tension on Quinlan’s face. ‘You took charge yourself I understand, towards the end.’

‘The ACC insisted. Derek Blite handled the investigation into the first attack but then that poor girl was killed, in her own home and within days of the previous rape. I had to take over. But despite all our work we were only able to persuade the CPS to prosecute three of the seven crimes we think Griffiths is responsible for. It’s galling to leave the other files open.’

‘But you got a result. He’s been found guilty and he was given life.’

‘Thanks to Nightingale. She did a fantastic piece of work. Without her evidence I think he might have walked. You should have heard the defence’s close. He reminded the jury that they could only convict if they were sure of guilt beyond reasonable doubt and said that in his opinion, her testimony raised very grave doubts indeed.’

‘Doesn’t matter. He lost, we won. She deserves to feel pleased with herself.’

‘Maybe.’ Quinlan looked unconvinced. ‘You know she lost both her parents in a car crash two months ago? Sad business.’

‘I had no idea. How is she coping?’

‘Seems to have taken it in her stride. I offered her compassionate leave but she decided to come straight back to work after the funeral. Sometimes I think she’s too plucky for her own good.’

* * *