Cut Short (21 page)

  'I wasn't watching,' Shema stammered, 'I was waiting to retrieve my blazer which you're lying on.' She could feel her face burning as she turned and ran.

  'Oh Christ! Maths coursework,' Rusty muttered obscurely at the boy beside her. Grabbing the only school blazer from the pile of coats, she hunted for her shoes.

  Shema fled, hot and disgraced. How would she explain this to her father? She passed a strange boy on the stairs. He grabbed her round the waist and kissed her full on the lips. His wet slobbery mouth tasted sour and he stank of cigarettes and beer. Shema shoved him away as hard as she could and he relinquished his hold at once with a casual shrug. She pushed past him, fighting off her tears. She manoeuvred her way past several clasping couples in the hall and found the front door. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. It was a huge relief to close the door behind her and breathe in fresh clean night air.

  Shivering with cold and shock, she set off at a brisk pace. If only she could remember the way back to the bus stop. Everything looked so different in the dark. On the way to the party she'd just followed the others. She needed to find a bus route. It was twenty past nine. She'd never been out this late before by herself. Her phone started ringing. Trembling, she answered it. Her father was angry but he sounded curiously grateful.

  'Shema, tell me you're all right, please,' he begged and she felt ashamed. Promising herself she would never cause her father to worry again, she told her lie. Her friend's mother had been delayed.

  'But why didn't you call me, Shema? I would have come straight away. Where are you now?' With difficulty she put him off. She told him the car had broken down, and she was waiting with her friend and her friend's mother. The AA were on their way. She was perfectly safe. She'd be home soon. She wasn't sure where they were, exactly. And, in the end, she gabbled, 'I'm losing my signal. Don't worry daddy. I'm quite safe.' Then she switched her phone off. She had to get home. She hoped her father wouldn't smell cigarette smoke clinging to her and shook her head violently as she walked, feeling her hair flap around her face in the cold night air.

  It was eerie walking along a strange street by herself at night. She was frightened but also wildly excited. What an adventure! She was lost and alone. And what she had seen at the party! It made her blush just to think of it. She reached a crossroads and hesitated. Behind her she thought she heard footsteps. She turned in what she hoped was the direction of a distant hum of traffic, and walked faster. Behind her, all was quiet. Until she heard footsteps again, faster now. Someone was following her.

  She hurried along until she was almost running. The foot steps were getting closer, echoing inside her head. Desperately, she fumbled inside her bag for a weapon. She clutched at her keys, adjusting them so they stuck out between her fingers when she made a fist, as they'd been shown how to do in self-defence at school. It was better than nothing. If he attacked her, she would punch him in the eyes and blind him. She knew the most important part of self defence was running away but she was out of breath and didn't know how much longer she could keep going. The footsteps were gaining on her. She could hear someone calling out. Fearfully she turned, still stumbling along, and saw Rusty, half a block behind her, trying to run in her high heeled sandals. Shema stopped, panting.

  'Shema! Shema! Stop for fuck's sake, you daft cow. I've got your blazer!' Rusty held it up. 'You deaf or what?'

  Rusty handed over the blazer. Shema put it on and thanked her friend profusely. They walked on together.

  'Where we going?' Rusty asked. Her voice was slurred. She walked erratically in her high heels, and laughed a lot. She seemed really happy to see Shema who explained that she had to get home. Between bouts of uncontrollable giggles, which started Shema laughing too, Rusty walked with her. She was a very good friend and Shema's nightmare fears vanished in a twinkling. They looked up at the stars and bitched about Alice's boobs and Ella's bright red thong. Rusty whooped, collapsing in another fit of giggles until she could hardly walk. Shema hurried her along urgently, almost regretting the company.

  The walk seemed to take forever, but finally they found the main road and followed it back to a bus stop. Shema nearly cried with relief when she saw her bus turn the corner.

  'What about you?' she asked Rusty with a sudden stab of conscience. 'What are you going to do?'

  'Party, party,' Rusty replied. She broke into a gawky jig, right there on the pavement. Shema giggled. 'I'm going to a party,' Rusty crooned. She winked at Shema, and her shiny blue eye shadow glittered in the approaching headlamps.

  'Will you be OK, walking back on your own?' Shema asked, as the bus pulled up. She was so pleased, she no longer felt scared about facing her father. She even had her blazer, thanks to Rusty.

  Rusty lit a cigarette and blew smoke into Shema's face. 'I'm fine,' she replied, teetering on her heels. 'Don't you worry about me. I'll see you on Monday.' Shema climbed aboard and leaned back in her seat, shivering with relief, as the bus pulled away. She wished she could be more like her friend Rusty who went to parties and knew lots of boys and could stay out late without getting into trouble.

37

Alone

That evening Carter caught up with Geraldine as she was leaving and arranged to meet her in the pub over the road. She was keen to mull over the case with a colleague and Peterson had gone home mumbling about having to visit his girlfriend's parents. The dimly lit bar was deserted when she arrived. Pint in hand, she gazed around and almost missed Carter behind his newspaper.

  'I'm not interrupting your reading?' she asked as she took a seat. He looked up with a ready smile. 'Be my guest. I've been wanting to have a word, Geraldine.' He folded his paper carefully and put it on the bench beside him, avoiding her eye. She started to talk about the investigation but Carter clearly had something else on his mind. 'I hear you've been staying late, working long hours,' he said softly. Geraldine suppressed a sigh. She glanced around but there was no one else seated nearby. She nodded. 'Does the boss know?' he asked.

  'Sure she knows,' she answered circumspectly, staring into her pint. 'She knows everything that goes on.'

  Carter leaned forward and spoke in a low undertone. 'I'm concerned about you, Geraldine. There's nothing wrong with being keen, but you don't want to burn yourself out. You've got to pace yourself. Remember Fielding?'

  Geraldine nodded into her glass. 'Fielding was a workaholic,' she muttered.

  'Who ended up in hospital.'

  'I'm sure we're missing something so I've been reading through some of the old files again after my shift, that's all.'

  'I hope you've been eating properly.'

  Geraldine laughed. 'Don't worry. I'm a big girl. I can look after myself. But I can't see the problem with working late. Apart from losing my overtime, now I'm a DI. It's not as though I've got anyone to rush home to,' she added, thinking of Carter's long-suffering wife with a twinge of envy. 'What else am I supposed to do? Sit at home on my own while a maniac roams the streets killing young girls? He could be stalking another victim right now and we're sitting here doing nothing.' She stopped as her voice rose in agitation. Carter must have noticed it too.

  'You sound like a reporter from our favourite local paper,' he said and Geraldine smiled sheepishly. 'Take it calmly, Geraldine, that's all I'm saying. You know these things take time. And trust the DCI. I've worked with her before. She's tough, and she likes things done her way, but she gets results.'

  'She's a control freak,' Geraldine conceded.

  'Aren't they all?' he answered, a bitter grin twisting his agreeable features. 'But she's got every right to do things in her own way – she's in charge. Just be careful, Geraldine. You've got your career to think of. It doesn't do to go getting yourself all worked up. You don't want to go making yourself ill over the investigation. You have to keep a certain distance from it. After all …' He paused. For a horrible moment, she was afraid he was going to tell her it was only a job. 'There are cases which don't reach a – satisfactory conclusion. It happens and we have to deal with it. You have to stay detached.'

  'Is that it?' she asked shortly when he finished speaking. The prospect of failure was too depressing to contemplate.

  Carter gave her a tired smile. 'One more thing,' he said and she groaned. 'Don't let Merton get to you. He's a depressing bastard, but he's thorough and reliable. He's a good officer to have on the team, even if he is a bloody misery most of the time. Don't take it personally, and you'll find he's OK. It's just his manner.' Carter scrambled to his feet, gathering up his paper and his empty pint glass. 'Remember, stay detached,' he repeated and he sauntered off to join a group of colleagues who had just arrived.

  Geraldine sat gloomily over her pint, considering what Carter had said. She hoped he didn't think the investigation was heading for failure, but that seemed to be what he'd implied. She glanced up and saw him deep in conversation with Merton. They looked over at her and nodded. She decided she ought to join them for a while before she left, when Kathryn Gordon walked in.

  'All on your own, Geraldine?' she asked, adding pointedly, 'don't you want to join the rest of the team?'

  'I was just going to the bar,' Geraldine replied, but as she stood up, she realised she was too tired to make any more effort that night. Instead, she mumbled her excuses and left.

  Geraldine punched in the code on her alarm, slid her feet into her slippers, and went through to the kitchen. She poured herself a generous measure of chilled white wine, and sank on to her new leather sofa. Leaning back, she studied the yellow liquid in her glass. Her slim strong fingers curled around the glass and put another image in her mind.

  Celia would have advised her to switch off. 'Drop every thing and take a break,' was her answer to any problem. But not even Celia would have been able to switch off from the responsibility that fell on her sister's shoulders. Not if she'd seen the victims. Geraldine had joined the force with the intention of stopping evil people preying on the weak and vulnerable. Only now, when her dream had been realised, was she was discovering how hard the reality was. The sheer slog of searching through records was endless. There was no challenge and excitement of heroic pursuit, only repeated disappointment and the sick fear of failure. If there was one small detail that would help crack the case, they had to find it. She'd studied the case until she was familiar with every sentence of every document. But she couldn't shake off the feeling that she'd overlooked something.

  Sipping her wine, she scanned through her notebook again. The two victims had been killed by the same method in the same place. It had to be the same killer. No one apart from the police and the killer knew the details of the Angela Waters' death, so Tiffany May's couldn't have been a copycat murder. The only difference was that the second assault appeared to have been sexually motivated. Each attack was likely to increase in brutality, to give the assailant the satisfaction he needed. And they still had no idea who he was.

  Resolutely, she pulled a pen out of her bag and listed the differences and similarities between the two fatalities. At school she used to enjoy comparative essays, but they hadn't been a matter of life and death.

=
victim: long hair, blonde, young

attack: from behind, arms secured, strangled,
location: park, shrubbery, body poorly concealed
rain

≠ victim: ages 21 (1st), 13 (2nd)
attack: sexual? (2nd)
location: time of day – morning (1st) evening (2nd)

She went to the kitchen and poured herself another glass of wine. She knew she ought to eat something but instead she sat, staring stupidly at her notes.

  'We must be missing something,' she'd insisted to Carter before he'd started on his lecture in the pub.

  'It's not always there to be found,' he'd warned her, but Geraldine refused to stop looking. Pumped with adrenaline, she couldn't relax. The thought that the killer might be on the street stalking another young girl kept her awake at night. She poured herself one last glass of wine and settled down to work.

  The investigation was going nowhere. John Drew had an alibi and Merton had found no record of violence in Tillotson's history. Geraldine pulled his report from the pile.

  'He's not local,' Merton had told them at the briefing. 'That much we know was a lie.' Tillotson came from Portsmouth where he'd received a non-custodial sentence for shoplifting when he was sixteen. He'd been put on a Youth Rehabilitation Programme, and duly carried out his community service. The report from Portsmouth was on the file. Geraldine had glanced through it already, after Merton had given them the gist of it. Tillotson was a liar, but that didn't mean he was a murderer. In addition to his petty thieving in his home town of Portsmouth, he'd been cautioned in North London for a minor drug offence. There was no mention of any violence on his records. His probation officer had described him as 'a charmer' and emphatically rejected the idea that he might be a killer.

  'Terry's motivated by money,' the probation officer had told Merton. 'He's an opportunist, but he's not violent. He'd talk his way into anything he wanted, con his grandmother for a tenner. He wouldn't use his fists. He's too proud of his good looks to risk a broken nose.' She described Tillotson as 'shallow and narcissistic,' but said 'he wouldn't hurt a fly.'

  'Just because he's got no history of violence, doesn't mean he didn't kill them,' Merton had concluded bleakly.

  Geraldine looked at the piece of paper in her hand, and tried to think. It didn't make sense for the killer to choose a public place for his attacks, but that line of enquiry had led them nowhere so far and the killer wasn't likely to frequent the park any longer. He'd been seen both times, if Heather Spencer and Tillotson were to be believed. Meanwhile, the council were busy cutting back shrubs and pruning trees, as though that would help. The reporter who had led the campaign to clear the bushes would cover himself in glory.
The Woolsmarsh Chronicle
was going to be all over the story: 'Killer Copse', milking the recent murders to boost sales. The editor would reassure readers that the paper was taking steps to protect them. But cutting back shrubs in the park would make no difference. The killer was still out there. He would find other places and other victims.