Dead Pretty: The 5th DS McAvoy Novel (DS Aector McAvoy) (9 page)

‘Keyholder?’ she asks.

‘One of the landlords. She had two. They let the place through an agency. He came to talk to her about overdue rent. Bit of an erratic payer, but he said she was no better or worse than anybody else. He shouldn’t really have let himself in but she’d been ignoring his calls and texts for a week. He’s got the number of a bloke she gave him when she moved in as sort of a guarantor. He’s contacted him a couple of times but got nowhere. Jez Gavan, he’s called. Lives up on Ings. Record going back years.’

‘Nicely played,’ she says, approvingly. ‘First stop for you and me, I think. It’s also pretty clear she has a phone. What’s the wifi hub for this building? Did she have an account?’

‘Got a broadband account that comes up as “Avascave” and which is still working, so she must have paid the bills. And according to her landlord she was a formidable texter,’ says McAvoy. ‘Not backwards in telling people what she thought. He showed me some of her messages explaining that she’d been going through a difficult time and would appreciate his empathy and patience and that she intended to make recompense.’

The two share a look.

‘Recompense?’

‘That was her word. All correctly spelled. She was a clever girl. Plenty of books in the apartment too. Poetry. Art critiques. A few crime novels.’

Pharaoh nods and waves a hand at the bins. ‘We’re bagging this up, yes? Every last scrap. If the person who did this is as thick as most murderers he’ll have dumped the phone in the first bin he saw.’

McAvoy cocks his head and gives her a look. ‘He?’

Pharaoh opens her palms, indicating that it’s bloody obvious.

‘That’s a murder that screams “hate”,’ she says, gesturing back towards the apartment. ‘That much hate comes from love, or at least some obsessive version of it. It’s a man.’

‘What happened to your rule about foregone conclusions?’ asks McAvoy, and is only half keeping it light.

‘I’m having one of those days. Maybe it’s because I picked my daughter up from a party full of boys,’ says Pharaoh, through gritted teeth. ‘And every problem in my life seems to have been caused by somebody with a penis.’

McAvoy looks hurt but can find no way of expressing it that would not lead to a blush so intense he could lose his eyebrows.

‘But you’re probably right,’ says Pharaoh, resignedly. ‘We rule nothing out. We need to know her. Family. Friends. Need her bloody phone more than anything else. Is Dan pinging it?’

‘Getting the paperwork now,’ says McAvoy. He has a sudden mental picture of the technical wizard, with his glasses and baseball shoes and his utter, all-consuming lust for Pharaoh. ‘I told him it meant a lot to you.’

Pharaoh rolls her eyes but nods in approval. McAvoy has loosened up a lot these past couple of years. There was a time when he would have allowed his request to be processed in the correct and orderly fashion and wait his turn like everybody else. Under Pharaoh’s supervision, he has learned to gently push his way to the front of the queue, using charm, persuasion and if necessary by looming over people until they get uncomfortable and will do anything to make him go away. He still fills in the forms in triplicate in case one gets lost, and blushes hugely if reproached, but he is not above using Dan’s feelings for Pharaoh to speed things up. Pharaoh reckons he’s finally becoming a proper copper, but she knows he has no real idea what that means. He just can’t fathom a world in which there could be any excusable delay in hunting down a young girl’s killer.

Pharaoh is about to suggest they go and talk to Ava’s Romanian neighbour for themselves, when she hears her name. She turns and sees the figure striding towards them and lets out a groan that she makes no attempt to hide.

‘Adam,’ she says, with a sigh. ‘You’re back with us?’

Adam Jackson-Savannah is a Home Office pathologist who has just returned from a three-year placement at an American university. Pharaoh can’t remember which one but feels sure he’ll drop it into conversation within the next ten seconds. He’s a tall, white-haired specimen in frameless glasses and a grey suit. His time in the sun has not improved his complexion. He remains deathly pale with a rash of pimples and blotches that runs down one cheek and onto his neck. The story goes that he was licked by a dog once and suffered an allergic reaction that has never cleared up. Add to this his watery eyes and thin, bloodless lips, and Pharaoh has always felt him well suited to the morgue. She would not hold his appearance against him were it not for his absolute incompetence and willingness to turn a blind eye to the occasional acts of corruption and downright evil committed by her predecessor.

‘Yale’s loss is Humberside’s gain,’ he says, and his lips form a tight, prissy pout as he speaks.

‘Gene not available?’ asks Pharaoh, in a voice that suggests she would be happier allowing a toddler with a scalpel to perform the examinations.

‘Dr Woodmansey is on holiday,’ he says primly, with a little turn of his head that suggests he finds the other man’s dereliction of duty unconscionable. ‘So you have me. And I have you. A shame for both of us, I’m sure.’

Pharaoh laughs and nods. ‘The civil service has a short memory. I don’t.’

‘I was exonerated,’ says Jackson-Savannah, with a sigh. ‘A full inquiry concluded that there should be no stain on my record.’

‘No, they found the evidence was inconclusive,’ says Pharaoh. ‘That’s not the same thing. You ballsed up on a very important investigation, there’s no mistaking that. I just don’t know whether you did it because you’re crap, or ’cause Doug Roper told you what to put on the report.’

McAvoy stiffens at the mention of the former head of CID. His involvement in the corrupt copper’s demise has left him a marked man in some quarters. Roper was popular. His clean-up rate was immaculate and the media loved him. McAvoy tried to expose him, only to be left with scars to his body and career.

‘I still receive a birthday card from Doug,’ says Jackson-Savannah, like a teenage girl showing off a signed photograph from her favourite boy band. ‘He’s doing well. Consultancy work, I believe. That’s where the money is. Still a young man. Still with very much to offer. A great shame he left without the fanfare he deserved.’

Pharaoh licks her teeth and looks up at McAvoy. ‘Do you know Dr Jackson-Savannah?’ she asks.

‘I’ve heard of him,’ says McAvoy, with the cold glare that Pharaoh has instructed him to practise at home in front of a mirror. ‘Interesting CV.’

‘I won’t hold the past against you,’ says Pharaoh, staring at Jackson-Savannah. ‘We all make mistakes. You’ve made yours. But I warn you, it would be a mistake of fucking epic proportions to presume I run my investigations like Doug Roper. I don’t want to tell you what to put in your report. I don’t want corners cutting. I want a cause of death and a time of death and I want your every finding to be completely bloody bullet-proof.’

Jackson-Savannah pulls a face, growing cross at the very suggestion that he might not oblige. He is about to speak when Pharaoh jabs her thumb at the figure to her left, who is standing bolt upright and looking at him with a thoughtful intensity, like a child wondering whether to keep watching the ant squirm under the heat of the magnifying glass, or kill it quickly with a rock.

‘The man beside me is Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy,’ she says brightly. ‘You’ve probably heard of him. He doesn’t like you. I can see that in his eyes. And McAvoy likes everybody. Thinks the best of them. I’ve only ever seen him respond this way to people who said mean things about his wife, and Robert Mugabe. So I’d do your best not to upset him. The girl’s called Ava. And you’re going to be very, very respectful with her body.’

Pharaoh is about to speak again when her phone vibrates. She sighs and takes the call. She looks puzzled for a second then tells the caller she has no idea why they think she would be interested. Informs them of her rank and advises them to piss off. Then she hangs up. Composes herself. Turns away. Stubs her cigarette out on the brick and deposits the butt in her leather jacket.

From the street comes the sound of more cars arriving. More hails and hellos from officers who know this is going to be a long night. McAvoy hears his own name, and Pharaoh’s. Hears grunts and jeers and wonders if they are from his colleagues or the drunks who are gathering at the end of Bowlalley Lane and craning their necks for a glimpse of dead flesh.

Jackson-Savannah looks about to protest but finds McAvoy still staring, hard, at the side of his head. He turns and bustles away towards the front door.

‘Wanker,’ says Pharaoh, looking up at McAvoy. ‘You’re getting good at that dead-eyed look, you know. Proper scary, if people don’t know you’re a pussy cat.’

‘Roisin says I’m about as scary as a chinchilla,’ says McAvoy, who has never felt comfortable using his size to intimidate. He has the personality of a much smaller man and would probably be working alongside Dan in the tech unit were it not for the fact that test tubes seem to break in his hands and his great big fingers press the wrong keys whenever he tries using one of the fancy tablet computers that Dan seems unable to live without.

Pharaoh considers him. ‘Even chinchillas get rabies,’ she says. ‘And I’ve seen you foaming at the mouth. It just takes a lot to get you there.’

McAvoy stares upwards through the tunnel of brick into a darkening sky. He sniffs the air. Hull cannot expect to enjoy the good weather in which the rest of country is bathing. A sea fret is set to roll in, thick and grey. There has been a warning to the ships that churn through the waters of the Humber. The fog is going to close over the coast like a corpse’s hand. The thought makes him shiver and think of Hannah, and her unknown grave: somewhere among the bluebells and the daffodils in a place that she adored. He feels the weight of it all settle in his gut. Feels the need to bring some kind of balance to things. He hates what people do to one another.

‘We’re taking this, yes?’ asks McAvoy, turning back to his boss. ‘With Hannah we haven’t got a body. Not yet. But we can link it. A crime against an attractive young woman. We can say that we’ve got the resources and a potential connection . . .’

Pharaoh smiles tiredly. ‘We’ll take it,’ she says, convinced it won’t be difficult to sell the idea to her bosses. She needs to make up for the Reuben Hollow mistakes, to remind everybody how she got where she is. Needs to take her mind off the shit at home and the red letters from the bank. More than anything, she needs to catch whoever just crushed a beautiful girl’s windpipe with a toilet seat.

‘You got somebody to watch the girls?’ asks McAvoy, looking at his watch and seeming suddenly aware that they are unlikely to get much sleep tonight. ‘You and your mum talking again?’

Pharaoh shakes her head and looks at the ground. She already knows what he’s going to suggest. She nods without looking up. Dies a little inside as McAvoy pulls out his phone and calls Roisin for help.

Chapter 5

The baby has been sleeping better since she started on solids. She manages a full seven hours some nights. She had clearly just been waiting for a decent meal. If Helen had known that earlier, she’d have stuffed a bacon sandwich in the little bugger’s face while the midwife at Hull Royal Infirmary was still waiting for the afterbirth.

Just like her mum
.

That’s what Helen’s dad had said when she phoned him and said that his granddaughter had finally slept through. That all she wanted was something she could get her teeth into.

Detective Constable Helen Tremberg had not planned on having children. When the doctor told her she was three months gone she felt as though she had been whacked across the back of the legs with a hockey stick. It had taken weeks to sink in. Weeks for her to make up her mind. She’d made the appointment for the termination on two separate occasions. Made it to the clinic on one. Even got gowned up and laid down on the bed before the tears spilled out of her. She saw them as vines, climbing from her eyes and wrapping her tight; a chrysalis of pure misery and the promise of endless regret. She had fled the clinic holding her belly. Sobbed all the way home. Ran to the bedroom and lifted her shirt and talked to the creature inside her. Begged her unborn child for forgiveness; heaving and choking on snot and spittle and picturing the tiny sea-horse in her womb as it slumbered and grew and became the very centre of her being.

Helen looks down at baby Penelope. Six months old: too young to be diagnosed as schizophrenic, though Helen still has her suspicions. She’s never met any normal person with two such wildly opposing personalities. Awake and fed, she’s a bundle of sunshine; all dribbly smiles and sparkly eyes and grabbing hands. Half asleep and hungry, she’s a demon. Even though things have recently improved, Penelope is not a good sleeper. Helen has always needed a good eight hours and a fry-up before she can consider starting the day. Penelope needs roughly twenty minutes, followed by an hour of screaming. Mother and child have done well to survive the first few months. Helen came close to utter mental collapse when the child was just a few months old. She found herself in the Co-op in mismatched shoes, leaning on her shopping trolley and staring at the back of a packet of nappies. The letters had stopped making sense. She was past tired. Past hunger. When Penelope knocked a box of cereal off the shelf and it spilled all over the floor, Helen found herself disintegrating. She sort of folded in on herself, like a flower at night-time. The staff found her on the floor, crying softly to herself and saying ‘sorry’ over and over. The assistant manager had driven her back to her little bungalow and stayed with her for a while and shared so many anecdotes about how she and her friends had been during the first weeks of parenthood that by the time she left, Helen felt like a model mum. She didn’t even cry when asked about the whereabouts of the baby’s father. Just smiled, coyly, and said it was complicated. Too right it was complicated. She didn’t even know his name. Just remembers a shape in the dark and the smell of Budweiser and Marlboro Golds.