Bolton, J. - Now You See Me

‘What will happen to Emma and her boyfriend?’ I asked, as Tulloch and I made our way downstairs.

‘I’ll give them the option of staying here for the night,’ said Tulloch. ‘If they’ve got somewhere else to go they can leave, but the flat is out of bounds until our people have finished with it.’

‘Emma’s going to run the story first thing in the morning,’ I said.

‘At the moment, she doesn’t have a story,’ replied Tulloch. ‘She doesn’t know where we found her phone or what else was there. I’ve told her there’ll be an announcement in the next couple of days and that I’ll give her fifteen minutes alone with me afterwards. As long as she continues to keep you out of the papers.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. We’d arrived at the incident room. Way after midnight, it was still full. Joesbury was in there, talking quietly to DS Anderson. As we walked in everyone looked up.

Tulloch raised her voice. ‘OK, we’re assuming there is another victim out there until we get confirmation the body part is either from an animal or a fake,’ she said to the room at large. ‘Now, here is the problem. When Flint arrived at Forest Hill earlier this evening she heard a woman’s scream. She’s pretty certain it came from inside the building, so we might be forgiven for assuming it was the voice of our victim.’

‘Seems fair enough,’ agreed Anderson.

‘So what happened to her?’ asked Tulloch. ‘I mean the 95 per cent of her that isn’t currently in the mortuary at St Thomas’s?’

‘It can’t have been the victim,’ I said. ‘There just wasn’t time. It could only have been five, maybe ten minutes from when I heard the screaming to when we found the phone and the dummy in the pool. It just wouldn’t be possible to kill someone, cut out major organs, pop one of them in a plastic bag and then leave the building with a body over your shoulder. Sorry to be glib, it just wouldn’t.’

‘You wouldn’t think so, would you?’ agreed Tulloch, before turning to Anderson. ‘SOCs found nothing else down there?’

He shook his head. ‘Nothing so far.’

‘I was wrong then,’ I said. ‘It must have come from outside the pool.’

‘We’ve got uniform still searching the surrounding area,’ said Anderson. ‘The body could have been dumped near by.’

‘There still wouldn’t be time,’ I said. ‘Wherever the voice came from, there still wouldn’t be time for him to do – what he did – and leave. The screaming can’t have been connected to what we found.’

‘Blood-curdling screams within a fifty-yard radius of a body part is stretching coincidence for me,’ said Joesbury. ‘Could you have heard a recording?’

I nodded. I hadn’t thought of that.

‘You think the killer recorded the victim’s screams and then played them back when he knew Lacey would hear them?’ asked Anderson.

‘Someone wanted her in that building,’ said Joesbury. ‘He practically pinned up arrow signs.’

Tulloch gave me one last dirty look. I still wasn’t forgiven for going into the pool alone. ‘OK everyone, if you’re not doing something essential and urgent, I want you home,’ she called out. ‘There’ll be a team briefing in the morning, depending upon what time we’re needed at the mortuary.’

Around us, people started to leave. Tulloch turned to me.

‘Your car is still at Forest Hill, isn’t it?’

‘That’s right,’ I said, wondering if perhaps Stenning would offer to drive me over. I really didn’t fancy getting a cab.

‘I’m going to have it brought back in,’ said Tulloch. ‘Just in case whoever lured you into the pool building decided to touch it when you were inside.’

Great. I was losing my car for the second time in just over a week.

Tulloch raised her voice again. ‘I need someone to take DC Flint home and check her flat out,’ she said.

‘I’ll do it,’ said Joesbury, getting up off the desk he’d been leaning against. ‘I have to drive past her place anyway,’ he added. ‘And besides, I think Flint and I need to bury the hatchet.’

‘I could get a cab …’ I tried.

‘No,’ said Tulloch, glancing my way. ‘You’re staying with someone I trust and Mark lives just across the river from you.’ She leaned over the desk to reach the phone and caught the look on my face. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Flint,’ she snapped. ‘He doesn’t bite.’

Knowing that to argue any further would make me look childish and make a nonsense of what I’d just promised Tulloch, I picked up my bag and headed for the door. As I passed Tulloch, I saw her giving Joesbury one of her eyebrows-to-the-ceiling looks. That was him told, too.

32

BEST INTENTIONS OR NOT, THERE WASN’T MUCH BURYING OF hatchets in evidence on the drive home. Joesbury turned on the car stereo as we pulled out of Lewisham car park and cranked up the volume. I sat in the passenger seat, hugging my bag to my chest, listening to a hypnotic blend of house and jazz club music. After a while the bright orange and white lights of south London started to hurt my eyes and I closed them. I was a lot more tired than I’d realized.

The city had quietened down by this time and it didn’t take us long. Joesbury slowed the car as we turned into my road and I opened my eyes.

‘Thank you,’ I said, as he pulled up to the kerb. I made myself blink, wishing my head didn’t feel so fuzzy. The hot, noisy car had acted like a drug. I needed cold air and silence. As I pushed open the door I noticed he’d turned off the engine. Without looking back, I got out and stood up. I heard a door slamming and realized Joesbury, too, was out of the car.

‘You’re not coming in,’ I said, turning to face him.

He didn’t flinch. ‘Wrong,’ he said over the roof of the car. ‘I’m not leaving you until I know there are no bogeymen under the bed and that all your entries and exits are secure. Tully would never let me hear the end of it. Would you like me to go in first?’

I turned and walked slowly down the steps. I took my time finding keys, although I knew exactly where in my bag they’d be. All the while I could feel him, inches away, hear him breathing softly.

Fuck it, nobody came into my flat. Nobody.

‘Would you mind checking the space under the basement steps?’ I asked him as I put the key in the lock. ‘I’ve had some real low-lifes hide under there and spring out at me.’

‘You’re wasting your breath, DC Flint,’ he said. ‘It’s impossible to insult me.’

I turned on the spot, looked him up and down. ‘Maybe I just haven’t seen enough of you yet,’ I replied.

For a second I thought he might laugh. Then both corners of his mouth stretched into a slow smile. He didn’t take his eyes off me. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that sounds like a bridge we should cross when we come to it.’

I turned back to the door, unlocked it, found the light switch and stepped inside. What the hell was I thinking? That was twice now I’d given this man the come-on. Even if he hadn’t been one of the most obnoxious men I’d met in a long time, there was almost certainly something close and romantic between him and Tulloch. I dropped my bag on a chair and walked over to the fireplace, automatically taking off my glasses and leaving them on the mantelpiece. Just get it over with. Let him do what he had to do and leave.

When I turned back he was standing just inside the doorway, taking in the largest room of my flat, not even trying to hide his surprise at the clean white space, the minimum of furniture and, apart from plants, the complete lack of personal possessions. When I said nothing, he got to work.

First, by checking the front door. It was a Yale lock, ridiculously inadequate by London standards, but it’s not like I have anything to steal. Then he crossed the living room and the small galley kitchen and disappeared. I heard him open the door to the bathroom and pull back the shower curtain. What he was hoping to find in the bathroom cabinet I don’t know, but I heard that open and close too. The sound of wardrobe doors told me he was in the bedroom. Then I heard the creak of the conservatory door. He’d gone outside.