Danuta Reah - Night Angels

Lynne pushed. ‘Why do you think she was on the game?’ she said.

‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘But I think she might have been. The Blenheim’s a bit of a giveaway. And she was wearing some specialist gear – one of those corset things, laced. Bondage stuff. And the room wasn’t booked out to a woman. It was a man, single booking, made that evening by phone. A sales rep, apparently.’ He checked his notes again. ‘Name of Rafael. That’s with an “f”, not a “ph”.’ He read the question in Lynne’s face. ‘No luck yet. He scribbled something in the hotel register. We’ve got someone looking at it, but I don’t think it says anything. The phone number doesn’t exist, and he didn’t give a car registration. He booked in as normal, paid his bill – they do that if they want to get off first thing – and that’s all anyone saw of him.’ He rubbed between his eyebrows with his thumb and index finger. ‘Anyway, the name – Angel Escorts, Rafael…’ He looked at Lynne. ‘There’s an archangel called Rafael.’ Lynne knew. She was surprised that he did. ‘Client’s joke or killer’s joke? Or are they the same person?’ He frowned. ‘We found this card.’ He pushed it across to Lynne. She looked at it. International women. That was why Farnham thought she might know it. She kept her eyes on the card, letting her mind wander over the possibilities as she listened to him. No address. No URL. Just a phone number.

‘The phone’s a pay-as-you-go,’ Farnham said, anticipating her question. ‘We’re waiting to get some location information on it – at least find out where it’s been used. Nothing so far. We need an ID.’

She was about to ask how far they’d got with that, when he pushed a photograph across the table to her. She looked at it, looked away then looked more closely. ‘Christ.’

Farnham nodded. ‘He beat the shit out of her.’ Lynne looked at the photographs, at the woman’s destroyed face. The body was small and slender; the hair, which had been brushed back from the ruined face, hung in loose curls. Lynne tried to imagine the features that had been obliterated, and the faces of dead women from her past flickered in her mind. And more recently. Anonymous, dead women. The woman at Ravenscar, Katya, and now…she heard Farnham’s voice in her mind. The Sleeping Beauty.

Saturday evening found Roz at the entrance to the block containing Joanna’s flat. The building was low – three stories – and set back from the road. The front overlooked the park and the back looked on to a wooded hillside. It formed an enclave of rural seclusion in the centre of the city. Roz sometimes wondered how Joanna afforded to live here on an academic salary. She rang Joanna’s bell, and gave her name as the intercom crackled incomprehensibly at her. She straightened her shoulders and pushed the door open. She found Joanna’s parties a bit of an ordeal, and she wasn’t sure why she had been invited to this one. She’d queried this with Luke as she left work on Friday. ‘You’ll be the cabaret,’ he’d said, without looking up from his screen. ‘Take your fancy knickers.’

Thanks a bunch, Luke! She was at Joanna’s door now, and Joanna welcomed her with the social kiss she never used with Roz at other times. She took the wine that Roz had brought with a quick glance at the label. Bringing wine was probably a faux pas , Roz reflected as she and Joanna exchanged meaningless social pleasantries. Joanna was wearing a black dress of impeccable elegance and looked beautiful. Roz told her so, and for a moment a look of genuine pleasure appeared on her face. ‘We’re in here,’ she said, ushering Roz into the lounge. Roz envied Joanna this room with its huge windows that filled the whole of the far wall. She had spent an afternoon here before Christmas when the Arts Tower was closed, going through some spreadsheets in preparation for the finance meeting, watching the winter sunset turn the clouds grey and brilliant red, the sun an orange fire through the trees.

She felt the cloudy softness of the carpet under her feet as she crossed the room, nodding to one or two familiar faces as she followed Joanna to where a small group was admiring one of the paintings. Joanna performed the introductions quickly. There was Mark Bell who Roz knew by sight; an influential member of the grants committee, one of the new breed of industry-based academics. ‘And this is Petra, Mark’s wife,’ Joanna went on. ‘I don’t think you’ve met Jim, Jim Broadbent. Jim’s with Ashworth Lawrence.’ One of the biggest legal firms in South Yorkshire. Roz had recognized the name – another man with influence in both the legal and academic worlds. She found herself wondering if Joanna had any friends who were just that – friends. Presumably, Roz’s role tonight was to sell the Law and Language Group to these people whose influence stretched beyond the confines of the university.

‘And you may have met Sean Lewis,’ Joanna was saying. ‘He completed his doctorate at MIT. He’s with Martin Lomax’s team.’ The computer department. ‘Sean, this is Rosalind Bishop.’

Roz found herself looking into the appreciative eyes of a very young man. ‘I don’t think we’ve met,’ she said.

He smiled. ‘I’m sure we haven’t.’

Joanna pressed a glass of wine into her hand and Roz, tasting its almost astringent coolness, decided that her bottle of supermarket Chardonnay had certainly been a gaffe. She looked at Sean Lewis, wondering why Joanna had made a point of introducing them. ‘MIT,’ she said. ‘That’s an impressive alma mater.’ Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She wondered what someone with a doctorate from that institution was doing in Sheffield.

He seemed to pick up her unspoken question. ‘It’s where it’s all happening,’ he said, ‘but it’s a bit one-sided. Great if you’re a total geek – they’re all like, “Work, work.” I’m more, “Get a life.” There’s a lot of places I haven’t been yet. They don’t understand that over there.’ He shrugged.

Roz nodded, amused. She had spent most of her early working life focused on getting her toe-hold and pulling herself up the ladder. So had most of her contemporaries. It had seemed, then, possible to put other things on hold. She found Sean’s attitude refreshing.

They talked for a bit longer, then she did her duty and circulated, talking about the politics of the health trust with Jim Broadbent, and the importance of PR with someone she knew she knew, but whose name she couldn’t remember. Then the groups reformed and she relaxed for a moment as she listened to the swirl of chat around her; something about hospital funding on her left, something about the current state of theatre in Sheffield to her right, something about the plight of the universities and the role of research in modern technological societies from a group in front of her. Roz listened to them talking about the new Home Office regulations, about the hidebound administration of the university, before Joanna took them through to where food was laid out.

The dining room was a minimalist contrast to the soft comfort of the lounge, with a polished beech floor, and a table that gleamed with crystal and candlelight. Roz looked at the impressive buffet and wondered again where Joanna found the time to do all the things she did.

Joanna came towards her with the young man, Sean Lewis, in tow, and Roz wondered what she was up to. Whatever. It was just for an evening, and Sean was attractive and entertaining company. Their talk was impersonal, work-based, but there was a subtext that Roz was aware of inherent in the way he stood slightly closer than necessary, the way that when their eyes met he maintained the contact, the way he stood forming a barrier between Roz and the rest of the room. You’ve pulled, Bishop. Luke’s voice, in her mind. It made her want to smile, but she kept her face serious.