Team Spirit (Special Crime Unit Book 1) (30 page)

‘Joseph
Wambaugh?’

‘That’s
the one. First murder case solved by DNA profiling. Fascinating story, but it’s
become a sort of sex criminal’s bible.’

‘The
message being if you don’t shoot your wad inside your victim, you’re in the
clear?’ Jeff scratched his chin. ‘I need to have a word with my DI about this.
But if we can find out where he’s living at the minute, d’you want in?’

‘Doubt
I can swing it,’ Tom shrugged, ‘but keep me posted.’

‘Least
I can do.’ Jeff smiled. ‘You might just’ve helped a dozen-odd women sleep easier
at night.’

‘My
wife’d be a start,’ Tom said.

Zoltan was out and
Tom had to go back on patrol, so Jeff promised he’d get in touch once he knew
what was going on. The DI was expected back around two. Jeff filled in the
intervening time with some research.

When
Zoltan walked into the office Jeff was waiting by his desk. He told him about
Tom’s visit. ‘I’ve checked with electoral registration,’ he said, ‘and there’s
a Prosser, Michael R., listed on the Handcroft Estate. I’m ninety-nine per cent
sure it’s Bayliss.’

‘How?’
Zoltan enquired.

‘I
went over to the library. They’ve got back numbers of the voters’ lists. This
Prosser first appears at that address four years ago, which if he was eighteen
then agrees with the age Camberwell have for him. And there’s a Victoria
Prosser listed at the same address.’

He
was taken aback suddenly by one of the DI’s fiercest glances, but then Zoltan
sighed, took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. ‘Comes to something,’ he
moaned apologetically, ‘when I start viewing an officer’s attempts to catch a
serial rapist as procrastinating.’

Jeff
shrugged. ‘That’s all right, guv. This business has knocked us all for six.’

‘Mmm.’
Zoltan looked as if he’d been on his feet since Saturday. Even Jeff, who in his
time had slept through the Hertfordshire oil terminal explosion and an
earthquake in Turkey, had had a restless night. ‘Who’s still on this? I can’t
remember.’

‘Hiya.’
Lucky came in, brushing by them with a sheaf of statements.

‘It
was Lucky, you, me, Nina and Jasmin,’ Jeff said.

‘We
can’t spare Lucky from the other matter, really.’

‘Jasmin’s
not here,’ Jeff said, not having to look.

‘And
then there were two.’ Zoltan grinned sardonically. ‘Only question is whether
we’ve got enough to bring him in.’

‘We’ll
know when we see him.’ Jeff held out a hand at what he estimated was six foot
four.

‘Let’s
do it,’ Zoltan said without hesitation.

‘Now?’

‘Right
now.’ The DI put his jacket back on.

‘Who’s
nicked my chair?’ Lucky plonked her work down and looked around.

‘Sorry,’
Jeff called across. ‘By my desk.’ He paused by the door. ‘While you’re there,
could you fetch me my gas bill? May as well pay it on the way over,’ he added
to Zoltan.

‘This
it?’ Lucky said, bringing it over.

‘With
some scribble on the back.’

She
glanced at the bill, made to hand it to him, and froze. He tried to take it
from her but it was gripped tight in her fingers.

‘D’you
mind?’

‘Sorry.’
She relinquished it, turned and walked slowly away.

‘She
looked as if she’d seen a ghost,’ Zoltan remarked in the corridor.

Jeff
unfolded the bill and read it. His eyes widened. ‘Not bloody surprised,’ he
said.

The Handcroft
Estate was a strange example of a 1960s housing development built around
existing roads. White-boarded, flat-roofed terraced houses and small blocks of
flats seemed to have been dumped beside, or possibly across, the old lanes with
little reference to ease of access.

Albion
Street twisted around the estate like an angry man elbowing his way through a
crowd. Even in broad daylight it was easy to get lost, and subsequently mugged,
on the Handcroft and they were glad to be in a car. They parked next to a set
of large communal steel dustbins and walked across an overgrown lawn to a green
door with 32 on it in dirty white plastic numerals. Zoltan rang the bell. A few
moments later a woman with auburn hair opened the door. A look of open
hostility was already on her face.

‘Vicky
Prosser?’ Zoltan smiled like a shark and flashed his warrant card. ‘Afternoon.
I’m DI Schneider, this is DC Wetherby. Is Michael in?’

‘He’s
at work.’

‘May
we come in?’ Grudgingly she stepped aside. ‘Thank you. Most kind.’

He
walked through into an untidy lounge with a marble effect tiled fireplace. Jeff
wandered upstairs. Vicky Prosser followed Zoltan, angry and bewildered. ‘What’s
he done?’

‘Where
does he work, Mrs Prosser?’

‘He
ain’t been in trouble since he was a kid,’ she insisted. ‘You check.’

‘This
Michael?’ Zoltan took a framed photo from the mantelpiece and studied it. It
showed a tall, skeletal young man with sandy hair, bare-chested and wearing long
board shorts. It had been taken on a sunny day and the youth’s skin showed up
almost as albino. Gaunt was the word.

Jeff
came back, shaking his head. Zoltan handed him the photo. He peered at it and
said, ‘Aye, could be.’

Vicky
Prosser found her voice. ‘You got a warrant?’

‘What
for?’ Zoltan said innocently.

‘Coming
in here snooping around.’

‘We
haven’t been doing any snooping. You invited us in.’

‘What
about him?’ She rounded on Jeff, who looked remorseful.

‘I
needed the loo,’ he said. ‘Sorry - should’ve asked first.’

Vicky
Prosser snatched back her son’s photo and replaced it. ‘You bastards tell me
what’s going on.’

‘You
tell me where he works, Mrs Prosser,’ Zoltan said.

‘Carter
Engineering, on the Purley Way,’ Vicky Prosser spat, as though divulging a
state secret under torture. ‘Better get over there quick if you want him. His
shift finishes at four.’

You’d
like that, wouldn’t you? Zoltan thought. He smiled at her, lifting his radio
and switching it to talk-through. ‘All units from DI Schneider. Anyone in the
vicinity of the Purley Way, over.’

‘DI
Schneider from Zulu three-five,’ a male voice came back almost at once. ‘We’re
at Fiveways. That near enough, over?’

‘It’ll
do,’ Zoltan said. ‘Can you go to Carter Engineering and pick up Michael
Prosser, an employee there? Bring him to Croydon for questioning.’

‘Will
do, sir. What’s the beef?’

Zoltan
hesitated. He turned away from Vicky Prosser and shifted his grip on the radio.
‘Suspicion of rape, Sutton, five years ago,’ he said. ‘Just bring him in.’

Vicky
Prosser’s reaction was everything he’d feared, but she went for Jeff instead.

They were out of
luck. Fifteen minutes and a cup of possibly poisoned tea later, Zulu three-five
radioed back to say that Michael Prosser had skipped the end of his shift. He’d
received a brief phone call around the time they were swinging on the doorbell
of 32 Albion Street, and when next the foreman had checked he was no longer at
his machine. Perhaps Vicky Prosser wasn’t as thick as she made out.

A
disconsolate trio sat round Zoltan’s desk at the back end of the afternoon.
There was an APB out on Prosser/Bayliss and the brown Honda Civic that was his
current set of wheels, and they could only hope.

‘This
close,’ Jeff grumbled, holding thumb and forefinger together.

‘It
is him, then?’ Jasmin asked.

‘Going
by the photo?’ Zoltan and Jeff exchanged nods. ‘Oh, definitely.’

‘Look
on the good side,’ Jasmin said. ‘He is wanted for rape. Where can he go?’

‘Where
indeed?’

Jasmin
and Jeff sat up and looked at the DI.

‘
Surely
not?’ Jeff said.

Zoltan
smiled serenely. ‘Why do you think I let Vicky hear me on the radio?’

Sandra slid open
the gate of the ancient hospital lift and came face to face with Paul Jackson.
They stood staring at one another for a moment like two kittens in a drainpipe.
He looked so certain she was going to hit him that for a moment she was
tempted.

‘How’s
she doing?’ she settled for asking instead, biting back the selection of
insults that occurred to her.

‘Awake,’
he said curtly. ‘Hurt. Lost. Humiliated. What do
you
think?’ His head drooped
closer to his chest with every word, as though he were putting it on the block.

‘Lucia
with her?’ she asked. But he pushed past and slammed the gate shut. ‘Sod you,
then,’
 
she muttered to the
descending lift.

In
Nina’s room Lucia was on her feet, rummaging through her purse for change for
the vending machine. ‘Hi,’ she said.

‘She
asleep?’

‘Drifting.’
Lucia shrugged. ‘You gonna be all right?’

‘Mm-hmm.’

‘OK,
I’ll split.’ Gently she reached out, touched Nina’s hair. ‘Sis? Sandra’s here.
I’ll leave you for a second, but I’ll only be outside, yeah?’

After
what seemed a full minute, Nina’s head moved in an almost imperceptible nod.
Her sister turned to Sandra.

‘She’s
awake. Go easy.’ Lucia crept out of the room. Sandra advanced gingerly and sat
down.

A
tiny, unrecognisable voice croaked, ‘It’s all right. I won’t break.’

‘Hey,’
Sandra said. ‘How are you?’

Nina
turned her head on the pillow, opened her eyes and mustered a faint smile. She
still had a nasal canula which made her face look puffy. ‘Have to forgive me
lying here like this,’ she wheezed. ‘Only it hurts to move.’

‘No
problem.’ Suddenly Sandra was doubting the wisdom of having insisted on this
job. Interviewing victims of violent crime in hospital was always a delicate
business; when the victim was not only one of your own but also your best mate,
it was a potential minefield. She wondered if the guv’nor really was too busy.
Maybe even Sophia feared being at a loss in this situation. Nina had always
looked fragile, like antique porcelain. But something other than physical
damage had happened to her in the Clarkes’ back garden. The lustre of her
violet eyes, the keen quality in them that marked her down as a copper, was
missing, leaving a dull void. It was as if part of her had died.

Sandra
reminded herself Nina was tanked up with all kinds of drugs. It didn’t do any
good. She still wanted to cry, to mourn.

To
mourn
! Ridiculous. Nina was
alive
, for God’s sake. She’d pull
through. Nice and easy with the questions, lass. No rush.

‘They
treating you all right in here?’

‘Like
a baby.’

Sandra
leaned forward. ‘Mate, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to ask - ’

‘I
was exp...’ Nina’s lips kept on going, but her larynx wouldn’t co-operate.

‘Sorry?’

‘I
was
expecting
,’
she tried again, forcing the word out, ‘the guv’nor. Summerfield. Heighway,
even.’

‘Sophia’s
had the Commissioner’s office on the blower,’ Sandra said. ‘He wants to come
and see you, but he’s gonna wait a few days till you’ve mended a bit.’

Nina
scowled. ‘Got to look my best for the big guy.’

Sandra
shrugged. ‘If this is what it takes to get noticed...’ She started to smile,
but the joke had fallen on stony ground. She slid a hand onto the pillow.
‘Nina, I’ve got to ask. What the fuck happened?’

‘I
was hoping,’ Nina croaked, after what seemed like a great deal of thought, ‘you
could tell me.’

‘You
don’t know?’

‘It’s...
it’s all a blank - like a black cloud...’ she muttered. ‘I remember, um...
running out of the club. And driving Luke home. And then going to Ballards Way.
But...’

Sandra
waited for her to say something else. She didn’t. ‘Can you remember why you
were there?’

‘Debbie’s
back, isn’t she?’ Sandra nodded. Nina looked pleased with herself. ‘I figured
that out. The mugs, yeah?’

Sandra
tried to look as if she knew what Nina was talking about.

‘How
did I end up here?’

‘Pure
bloody chance,’ Sandra said, seized by a sudden impulse to stroke Nina’s cheek,
prove to herself the miracle had happened. ‘Kim was giving Lucky and Juliet a
lift.’

‘Down
Ballards Way?’

‘You
know what she’s like. Anyway, they saw your car. Thought it was a bit funny,
got worried and came back to have a look. Nick of time, as it turned out.’

‘God,
I must’ve looked a right mess,’ Nina said. She gasped and her eyes screwed
tight shut. When she reopened them, they were full of tears that spilled over
at once and flowed over her cheeks onto the pillow.