Mark Sennen - Touch

‘Right, Charlotte, I can tell you Zebo is going to be ramped up. Garrett stays on Leash but will lose some bodies to you. I will be SIO, but you’ll get a fair crack of the whip.’

Hardin began to run down a checklist on the screen in front of him, clicking items with his mouse as he went. He started waffling on about the PR angle, telling Savage everything had to go through the press officer. She wondered if he was more concerned with the image being projected than catching the killer.

‘I don’t need to tell you of the imperative to handle this one with care. We have already got massive media interest due to the discovery that Rosina Olivarez was murdered and now this.’

‘They like the naked girl bit. Spices things up.’

‘Creepy bastards. If I had my way I’d release nothing, keep them in the dark. It doesn’t make our job any easier having them snooping around, so the less we tell them the better. OK?’ Hardin looked at Savage, his head cocked on one side, his eyes expectant.

‘I’d like to put a national appeal out for David Forester to come forward.’

‘What? Damn!’ Hardin seemed to mull the idea over for a moment and a pained expression spread across his face. A finger quivered over the mouse button as he weighed up the pros and cons. ‘Do you think an appeal could work?’

‘It might. He has been on the run for weeks now and must be getting pretty fed up. If he is not fed up himself then I bet the person or people who are hiding him are. From what Riley came up with it seems as if Mr Forester wasn’t much liked.’

‘OK, go ahead.’ Hardin did some one-fingered typing and then paused. ‘Can he be connected with Leash?’

‘I don’t know. We have got nothing to link him yet. Forester is involved in all of this somewhere, but I am not sure he is Kelly Donal’s killer. As one of my DCs pointed out to me it doesn’t seem his style.’

‘Which is?’

‘GBH. In your face aggro. If he had killed Kelly, by accident or premeditated, she would have had bruises all over her. Then he’d have dumped the body in the river or the sea. Taking her over to Malstead Down doesn’t fit with what we know about him.’

‘What about this photography link?’

‘Forester was the member of the same club Kelly’s dad belonged to, the Plymouth Snappers. The club is legit, hundreds of members, everything above board. Anyway, according to Forester’s mother, he had moved into video, which explains the download Riley found out about at Tamar Yacht Fitters and the information coming out of North Prospect. It seems as if he was part of a porn movie-making operation. We don’t know where Kelly’s murder fits in as yet.’

‘Some sort of snuff film?’

‘It is the stuff of fiction, respectfully, sir. There is very little evidence of real snuff movies ever having been made. Certainly not for distribution.’

Hardin was quiet again, his big frame still, an elephant acting like a snail. Then he spoke with a whisper.

‘You alright about this, Charlotte? I mean Clarissa, Kelly and everything?’

The sudden interest in her personal life took her aback for a moment. She had never considered Hardin as in any way empathetic. Perhaps he had picked up something from one of the management weekends he always seemed to be attending. Or perhaps she had misjudged him and the question showed genuine concern. Either way she was grateful for the chance to put the record straight and to stifle the idea that she wasn’t up to the task because of her overemotional behaviour. Such a label was unlikely to be applied to a man.

‘Fine. I am just going to do my job.’

‘Ah, er… excellent!’ Hardin shuffled some papers on the desk in front of him and made a couple of clicks with his mouse as if Savage was an item to be marked ‘done’.

The meeting was done too and Savage left Hardin to his liquorice stick and bottled water lunch.

Back in the Major Crimes suite a whole bank of the overhead lights had gone on the blink, leaving the windows and the monitor screens as the only source of illumination. The weak daylight and the computer glare washed out all the colour in the room and left people looking pale and half-dead. An electrician stood on a stepladder and fiddled with a ceiling panel. Savage went to her desk where a Post-It note stuck on the monitor said that John Layton had called. The CSI had got some information about the tyre tracks in the field at Malstead Down. Savage called him back.

‘Bridgestone,’ Layton said. ‘D689 size 265/70S15.’

‘Don’t keep me in suspense, John. Give me the make and model of car,’ said Savage.

‘What do you think we are, miracle workers?’

‘To put it bluntly, yes.’

‘The tyre is a road type, often fitted on a late model long wheel base Mitsubishi Shogun. We have checked the turning circle in the field and the other data indicate a Shogun as well.’

‘Anything else?’

‘The vehicle is black.’

‘How the hell did you find the colour from the tyre size?’

‘Didn’t. That would be a miracle. We had help from a piece of barbed wire in the fence. A tiny speck of paint got caught on a barb as it scraped down the side of the car. We are still waiting for the analysis on the sample, but I will bet my physics O Level the paint is from DuPont and commonly used by Mitsubishi.’

‘John, if you were here I would kiss you!’

‘I’m coming right over!’

Savage hung up with Layton laughing down the line and stood up to address the room. The information from Layton would go onto the system, but sometimes old-fashioned communication worked best. Her voice was instant, couldn’t be overlooked, nor misinterpreted.

‘Black Mitsubishi Shogun,’ Savage shouted out. ‘Ring bells with anyone?’

‘Boss,’ replied Riley. ‘Could belong to Forester. At least his employer told us Forester had one. Julie Meadows in North Prospect mentioned something about a 4x4 too. Need to check with DVLC.’

Riley was already tapping away at his keyboard, accessing the car licensing database. Meanwhile Calter looked worried, pale even, as if Savage had given her some news she really, really didn’t want to hear.

‘Jane? Have you got anything for me?’

‘Just checking, ma’am. Some detail I remember from yesterday.’ Now Calter was busy at a terminal as well, fingers a blur as she typed, tabbed and clicked. ‘Shit, I am right! Alice Nash, the sixteen year old girl missing from Ashburton, we had her at number one on our misper list. Remember? She was seen accepting a lift from a man in a large black 4x4.’

‘A Shogun?’

‘The witness’s statement mentions a Japanese marque, so possibly.’

The clatter of keyboards stopped and a hush descended. A pin-drop silence lasted until Savage choked out a ‘well done everybody’ before slumping down in her chair to think on the implications of it all.

Forester had Alice Nash. Right now he might be raping her and soon she could be dead. Savage picked up the phone to call Hardin and hoped that given his lack of a proper lunch she wouldn’t find him in too bad a mood.

Alice tried not to breath in too deeply because the room reeked of fermenting urine. She only had herself to blame. The glimmer of light coming from under the door had revealed a plastic bucket in one corner and she needed to go so she used it as a toilet. With nothing to act as a lid the air had become thick with the stench of piss.

A bad smell is the least of your worries, girl.

She still had no idea where she was. After she had tried the door and found it locked she crept back to the bed and pulled the duvet cover around her. Her limbs throbbed with a washed-out sort of tiredness, but the ache in her head wouldn’t let her sleep so she lay in the gloom thinking about her predicament.