Bolton, J. - Now You See Me

Tulloch was still looking at the buildings around us. ‘I don’t get it, Mark,’ she said. ‘We’re surrounded by flats and it isn’t that late, dozens of people could have witnessed what happened. Why would you murder someone here?’

From somewhere near by I could hear a dog barking.

‘Well, she wasn’t here by chance,’ replied Joesbury. ‘That woman belongs in Knightsbridge, not Kennington. Thanks to DC Flint’s knowledge of jewellery, we know that robbery seems unlikely, although we do need to find her car.’

‘Kids round here wouldn’t kill for a car,’ I said as they both turned to me. ‘Oh, they’d steal it, no question, but they’d just snatch the keys, give her a shove. They wouldn’t need to—’

‘Slash her throat so deeply they cut right through her windpipe?’ finished Joesbury. ‘Cut her abdomen from the breastbone down to the pubic bone. No, you’re right, DC Flint, that does seem like overkill.’

OK, I was definitely not getting good vibes from this bloke. I took a step back, then another. For some reason, probably shock, I’d talked much more than I would normally. Maybe I just needed to quieten down for a while. Keep a low profile.

‘How?’ said Tulloch.

‘Sorry?’ said Joesbury, who’d been watching me back away.

‘She was still on her feet when DC Flint saw her,’ said Tulloch. ‘Still alive, although horribly injured. That means she was attacked seconds before. Probably even while Flint was wandering around fumbling in her bag for her keys. How did he do it? How did he inflict those injuries then disappear completely?’

Wandering and fumbling? Tulloch had made the attack sound like it was my fault. I almost opened my mouth again and remembered just in time. Low profile.

‘There are no CCTV cameras in the square,’ said Joesbury. ‘But the high street is just yards away. Stenning has gone to round up any footage. If our villain left the estate, he’ll have been picked up on one of them.’

Maybe it had been my fault. If I’d had my wits about me, I might have seen the attacker before he struck. I could have yelled for help, summoned local uniform on my radio. I could have stopped the attack. Shit, that sort of guilt trip was all I needed.

‘Whoever did it would be covered in blood,’ said Joesbury, still looking at me. ‘They’ll have left a trail.’ He glanced behind. ‘Sounds like the dogs are here.’

We looked towards the car park. Two dogs had arrived. German Shepherds, each with its own handler.

‘Not necessarily,’ I said, before I could stop myself. They both turned back to me. ‘If her throat was cut from behind, whoever did it might have escaped being splashed. All her blood spattered forward. On to my car.’

‘And then on to you,’ said Joesbury, his eyes dropping away from my face to the bloodstains that were just about visible through the Tyvek. ‘Are we done here, Tully?’ he went on. ‘You really need to get DC Flint back to the station.’

Tulloch looked uncertain for a moment. ‘I just need to make sure Neil—’

‘Anderson knows exactly what he’s doing,’ said Joesbury. ‘He’s got six officers taking witness statements, the traffic has been redirected and they’ll start the door-to-door as soon as the dogs are done.’

‘Can you take her back?’ asked Tulloch. ‘I want to have a good look round when things quieten down.’

Joesbury looked as though he were about to argue, then smiled at her. He had very good teeth. ‘Do I get to drive the Tully-mobile?’ he asked.

Shaking her head, Tulloch pulled down the zip of her pale-blue suit and dug into her pocket. Glaring, she handed over her car keys. ‘Prang it and I prang you,’ she warned.

‘Come on, Flint, before she changes her mind.’ Joesbury had put a hand on my elbow and was steering me towards the DI’s silver Mercedes.

‘And make sure she keeps that suit on,’ called Tulloch, as Joesbury held the passenger door open and I climbed inside. The interior looked showroom new. I sank back against the leather seat and closed my eyes.

4

IT WAS GONE NINE O’CLOCK BY THIS TIME, BUT THE STREETS were still busy and we didn’t make great progress. I was still smarting from Tulloch’s comments about wandering and fumbling, so I kept my eyes closed and asked myself what I could have done differently. Joesbury said nothing.

After ten, maybe fifteen minutes of silence, he switched on the car stereo and the eerie notes of Clannad filled the car.

‘Oh, you are kidding me,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Is there anything in the glove compartment?’

I opened my eyes and, still wearing latex gloves, pulled out the only CD in the small compartment. ‘Medieval plainsong,’ I said, reading the cover.

Joesbury shook his head. ‘If you get chance to speak to her about her taste in music, go for it,’ he said. ‘She had me listening to Westlife the other night.’

He lapsed into silence again as we reached the Old Kent Road. Occasionally, as the streetlights caught the car windscreen at the right angle, I could see his reflection. Nothing out of the ordinary. Late thirties, I guessed, brown hair cut short. He hadn’t shaved for a couple of days. His face and bare forearms were suntanned. His teeth, I’d already noticed, were even and very white.

Another ten minutes passed without either of us speaking. I had a sense, though, partly from the way his head kept tilting, that he was watching me in the car windscreen too.

Wandering and fumbling .

‘If I’d got to her sooner, would she have lived?’ I asked, as we turned off Lewisham High Street and into the car park behind the station.

‘Guess we’ll never know,’ replied Joesbury. There were no spaces left so he parked directly behind a green Audi, completely blocking it in.

‘She was still alive seconds before the ambulance arrived,’ I said. ‘I should have put something against the wound, shouldn’t I? Tried to stop the bleeding.’

If I was hoping for any sort of comfort from this guy, I was wasting my breath. ‘I’m a police officer, not a paramedic,’ he replied, switching off the engine. ‘Looks like you’re expected.’

The station’s duty sergeant, a scene-of-crime officer and a police doctor were waiting for us. Together we walked through the barred rear door of Lewisham police station and my arrival was officially recorded. I’d worked for the Metropolitan Police for nearly four years, but had a feeling I was about to see it from a very different perspective.

Some time later, I sat staring at dirty cream walls and grey floor tiles. My left shoulder was sore from where I’d fallen on it earlier and I could feel a headache threatening. Over the past hour, I’d been asked to undress completely before being examined by a police doctor. After a shower, I’d been examined again, and photographed. My fingernails had been clipped, my saliva swabbed and my hair combed thoroughly and painfully. Then I’d been given a pair of orange overalls normally issued to prisoners in custody.

I hadn’t eaten that evening and, whether it was due to low blood sugar, shock or just a cold room, I was finding it hard to stop shivering. I kept seeing pale-blue eyes, staring at me.

I could have saved her. If I hadn’t been in my own little world, we might not be kicking off a murder investigation right now. And everyone knew that. It would be my legacy, for as long as I stayed in the service: the DC who’d let a woman be stabbed to death right in front of her.

The door opened and DI Joesbury came in. In the small room he seemed taller than he had on the street or even in DI Tulloch’s car. DC Gayle Mizon, the detective who’d assisted the police doctor in examining me, was with him. The two of them had been laughing at something in the corridor outside and he was still smiling as he held the door open for her. He had a great smile. Then he turned to me and the smile faded.