A Passion So Deadly

Sixteen

Rose continued to build on an already perhaps unwisely close relationship with Charlie. That evening she met him again at the Portway Towers hotel. It was the second evening running. She had given up caring what Simon thought. She told herself that she needed to keep her best hope of any kind of witness in the case sweet. And Charlie was running scared.

‘She’s out there somewhere right now, looking for me, I’m damned sure of it,’ he told Rose over a third Campari and orange.

‘But who is, Charlie?’ asked Rose.

‘Mrs Pattinson, of course.’

Rose sighed. ‘We don’t know that. We don’t even know who she is.’

Charlie had lost much of his bouncy self-confidence and Rose was sorry to see that, although she didn’t understand quite why she should be. He was still staying at his mother’s house in St Paul’s, still afraid to go home to his smart flat overlooking the Floating Harbour, and he confided to Rose that relations with his much loved mother were becoming strained.

‘She knows something’s up, you see,’ he said. ‘I mean, it’s pretty obvious innit? It’s been nearly two months now. That’s a hell of a lot of rewiring. I just don’t know what I’ll do if she finds out...’

On occasions Rose thought that Charlie seemed as scared of his mother learning the truth about the son she was so proud of as he was of being killed by the madwoman he remained convinced was hunting him down.

‘Come on, Charlie, I’d better go home,’ she said without a great deal of enthusiasm after another hour spent giving as much solace as she could manage.

Charlie’s car was being serviced, so she dropped him off at his mother’s house — well, just around the corner, actually, as a precaution, although she was of course driving her own car, a seriously unofficial-looking silver Scimitar and even Charlie, obsessed with his own problems as he was, had remarked more than once how little like a police officer she appeared. Which remained all for the best in St Paul’s.

Not for the first time he pecked her on the cheek as he said goodbye. It was a familiarity that had somehow seemed quite natural from the first time he did it and Rose had not pulled him up on it, although she knew she should have done.

She watched him walk away from her down the street. His stride was still quite jaunty in spite of everything. Fleetingly she wondered whether Charlie Collins might have by now attempted something a little more serious than a peck on the cheek were he not staying with his mother. A blush touched her cheeks, even within the privacy of her own car. The boy’s a male hooker and you’re a married woman, she told herself sternly.

But perversely the thought made her smile.

Rose had been lying awake at night for weeks trying to work it all out. There was nothing else to keep her awake nowadays, that was for certain, Simon hadn’t wanted to touch her in ages.

During the day she worked ceaselessly. She had been at her desk by 7.30 a.m., often earlier, ever since the case began. Weekends did not exist. The murder of Wayne Thompson had increased the pressure. On the Sunday after his death she was in her office at Staple Hill as usual, going over and over in her mind everything that had happened and the progress that had been made so far, such as it was.

The DCI wanted desperately to find Mrs Pattinson, although, in a curious way that she couldn’t fully explain to herself, she didn’t actually want Mrs Pattinson to prove to be guilty. She continued to resent the simplistic attitude of most of her colleagues which seemed to be that any woman bizarre enough to pay young men for sex was therefore pretty damn sure to be a serial killer as well.

Rose did believe that she now had a fairly clear impression of Mrs Pattinson. Her conversations with Charlie made her feel that she may not know who Mrs P was, but she did know a little bit about what she was. Certainly there was now a definite visual image — of a strong-looking, well-preserved woman in her forties, tall, good body, slim but shapely, good skin, startling deep-green eyes, blonde hair shaped in a long glossy bob — and, thanks both to Charlie and Janet the receptionist at the Crescent Hotel, a computer picture had even been put together. This had been published in newspapers and shown on television, and an appeal made for anyone who recognised the woman to contact the police. There had been a number of responses. Several had turned out to be little more than mischief-making and none provided a helpful lead. One was from a fourteen-year-old boy who said he was sure it had been Mrs Pattinson who some months previously had kicked a football back into his local playing field from the road alongside. The woman had made quite an impression, apparently. The playing field was in the Clifton area of Bristol not far from the Crescent Hotel and the date and timing of the incident checked out with the little that was known of Mrs Pattinson’s movements. It had added somewhat to Rose’s conception of Mrs Pattinson’s personality; as a self-confident woman, charismatic, physically agile, athletic even, someone who appeared to enjoy life to the full — or at least had done until recently, thought Rose wryly. However the schoolboy footballer had not actually seen the woman park or leave a motor car, and his information in no way assisted the search to find the real Mrs P.

Rose had not been as disappointed as she might have been. For a start it seemed likely that Mrs Pattinson had made at least some attempt to disguise her appearance. Charlie admitted that he always reckoned the blonde hair was a wig, and that he had never seen Mrs Pattinson’s real hair. And when confronted with the possibility Janet had said she’d never thought about it, but now she did, yes, perhaps that sleek blonde bob was just too perfect to be Mrs Pattinson’s own hair.

‘It was always exactly the same length, too,’ Janet had remarked in a wondering kind of voice, almost as if she were a member of some weird religious sect who had just seen the light. ‘I mean, I saw Mrs Pattinson virtually every month for the three years I’ve been at the Crescent. I suppose you might have expected her hair to have varied occasionally in all that time, mightn’t you?’

Rose sighed, going over all the conversations, all the different lines of enquiry, seeking to weave the threads together into something constructive. Every statement taken by her team was on the HOLMES system. Sometimes there seemed to be almost too much information, too much to take in.

She wandered out of her office in the direction of the coffee machine across the yard in the main body of the police station. She wasn’t alone in the investigation centre, of course, even though it was a Sunday. This was a major crime and a number of officers were at work, but Staple Hill was quieter than on a weekday. Rose wasn’t sure whether that helped or hindered the remains of her thought processes.

Not without difficulty she persuaded the machine to part with a polystyrene cup containing a lukewarm khaki-coloured liquid masquerading as coffee. Back in her office one sip of it was enough. She pushed the cup to one side, grimacing in distaste.

For the umpteenth time she tried to put herself inside Mrs Pattinson’s head. Was sex really all there was to it, was that Mrs P’s only driving force, or was there something more?

Rose attempted to imagine the kind of life the woman led when she wasn’t cavorting with the boys from Avon. She must have money — the Avon boys didn’t come cheap and neither did the Crescent Hotel, and both Charlie and Janet talked about how beautifully she dressed in expensive designer suits. Presumably she either lived somewhere within easy reach of Bristol, or travelled regularly to the city, perhaps on business. What was her home life like, Rose pondered. Did she have a husband and a family? And if so, how did she explain her absences? There were so many unanswered questions.

The only evidence against Mrs Pattinson continued to be circumstantial. But Rose just wished there were not quite so much of it. She also wished fervently that she could find more to incriminate Terry Sharpe.

By the following morning Rose had her wish. Painstaking inquiries into the life and times of Sharpe conducted over the weekend had gradually compiled some very helpful material. Paolo eventually admitted that Terry Sharpe was his ‘sleeping partner’ — an appropriate choice of phrasing for an escort agency, Rose thought.

Meticulous checking of records also revealed that, in addition to all his other dubious activities, Terry Sharpe was also a part owner of the Crescent Hotel. To Rose this indicated at once that the hotel was probably not quite as respectable as it had at first seemed to be, its façade of exclusivity perhaps a front for all kinds of activities. Indeed she had half suspected from the beginning that might prove to be the case — but she had been honest enough with herself to be aware that her hunch was based more on her instinctive dislike of the hotel manager, Henry Bannerman, rather than anything more substantive. The Terry Sharpe connection firmly established a link between the Crescent Hotel and Avon Escorts — a link which before Sharpe came on to the scene, her team had not been able to prove.

There was more too. Telephone records showed that Sharpe and Henry Bannerman kept almost constantly in touch. Bannerman, it seemed, received a regular bi-monthly payment from Sharpe, paid directly into his bank account. Terry Sharpe was actually a director of the Crescent Hotel’s holding company. In addition he was not only Wayne Thompson’s landlord but also provided accommodation for several other young men and women on the books of Avon Escorts. And it seemed it was Sharpe who had put Avon Escorts together — a modem escort agency functioning within a shaky semblance of respectability — and then left Paolo and his people in charge of the everyday operations while he took a hefty slice of the profits.

The name of Terry Sharpe kept reappearing, and Rose actively wanted to believe that he was responsible for the murders. Perhaps the whole Mrs Pattinson scenario was just a remarkable red herring? She pondered that question, not for the first time, as she and Peter Mellor breakfasted on rather good scrambled egg in her favourite Staple Hill cafe.

‘It doesn’t really hang together, boss, that red herring thing, you know that, don’t you?’ mumbled the sergeant through a mouthful of buttery eggs.

Rose nodded. ‘All the same, I think we’ve got enough new information to have another go at Sharpe. What do you reckon?’

Mellor shrugged. It was less than forty-eight hours since the first thoroughly unsatisfactory session. The sergeant’s lack of enthusiasm was patently obvious.

‘If you want the truth, boss, I don’t believe it’ll get us very far. He’s tough as old boots. But, by God, I’d like to get the bastard!’

In an unusual display of emotion, his second in a surprisingly short period of time, Mellor thumped the table so hard with his clenched fist that tea slopped from both their cups.

Rose grinned, ‘I wish you’d stop messing about and say what you mean, Peter,’ she remarked drily.

This time Rose gave instructions that Terry Sharpe be brought to Staple Hill. Many suspects are completely intimidated by being taken to a police station, and are inclined to roll over once they find themselves shut in a formal interview room with two officers and a tape recorder. Terry Sharpe, Rose had realised before even starting this line of attack, was highly unlikely, with his police background and dodgy track record, to fall into that category. But it had been worth a try. And she certainly had not expected him to remain quite as smug as he did.

A very public pick-up at his office, a high-speed race to the station, and as much of a mauling as she and Peter Mellor dared hand out failed to shift his cool one jot.

‘I’m a businessman, darlin’,’ he said, his pale face giving nothing away. ‘I have fingers in a lot of pies...’

‘Everything you do is centred around the vice trade,’ said Rose, ignoring, although with some difficulty, his use of the term ‘darling’ because she knew it had been his deliberate intention to rile her. ‘Vice is the basis of your entire so-called “business”.’

Terry Sharpe’s features hardened. The ever-lurking smirk merely twitched around the corners of his mouth.

‘Prove it,’ he said.

‘I intend to,’ replied Rose.

Linking Sharpe with the vice trade was one thing. Seriously linking him with murder was another.

Rose was eating again. Alone this time, she had nipped out of her office for a curry. The last thing she needed after that big breakfast earlier, she knew only too well. She suspected she was finally putting on weight although she hadn’t dared go near the scales. There might have been a couple of supperless nights at home with Simon but once at work she seemed to snack and munch all day. Comfort eating, she supposed dolefully. She couldn’t quite understand herself. One minute she was bristling with excitement, adrenaline pumping, because she was heading a major murder enquiry, and the next minute she was slumped into deep depression convinced that nothing was ever going to be solved and that she would merely leave a string of dead bodies in her troubled wake.

She piled some more mango chutney on to her already loaded plate. Damn Terry Sharpe, she thought. Even the circumstantial evidence was totally unhelpful. The barman at the Portway Towers had passed on a message to Colin Parker from a woman — and he was quite certain it had been a woman’s voice on the phone — calling Colin into the car park where he met his death minutes later.

And Paolo remained adamant that it was Mrs Pattinson who called him asking for Charlie on the night Marty was murdered at the Crescent Hotel.

‘No it wasn’t just a woman saying she was Mrs Pattinson,’ he had told Rose yet again when she had telephoned him a few minutes earlier. ‘It was Mrs Pattinson. I’ve heard her voice on the phone enough, haven’t I?

‘And I hope to God I never hear from her again.’

Rose finished every mouthful of her curry. It didn’t give her much comfort though. She felt bloated and even more depressed than before she had started on the meal.

That afternoon provided only hours more of plodding police work and certainly no miracle solutions. The evening which followed was a total disaster.

Rose hadn’t wanted to go to Bill Jamieson’s farewell party in the first place, and didn’t know why she hadn’t stopped Simon from accompanying her, the way things were between them. She supposed it was habit really. Simon had always come to these dos in the past, and Bill, her first station sergeant when she had joined the Avon and Somerset Constabulary all those years ago, was one of the few policemen her husband really liked. They shared a love of jazz for one thing, and indeed Bill would probably have made a better teacher than he had ever made copper, she thought disloyally. He had been lucky to be promoted to sergeant, they always said. The older man had never had the push and shove you needed to get on in the force nowadays, and was probably all the nicer for it. Both Rose and Simon were fond of him.

However, within minutes of arriving at the Compton Arms, Rose realised that the whole thing was going to be a big mistake.

She was aware of a few leers, a certain muttering, and a lot of laughter as soon as she and Simon entered the bar. Rose knew that she had been the subject of a joke or two around the station lately because of the time she was spending with Charlie Collins, but normally nobody would dare make any comment in front of her — let alone in front of her husband. Alcohol changed all that, and several of her colleagues were already fairly drunk. She reckoned that some of them must have been on the booze for most of the afternoon to get into that state already and half wished she had had the time to do the same.

She steered Simon into as quiet and safe a corner as she could find and ordered them both a drink. The corner turned out not to be safe enough.

‘She’s left the toyboy tart at home tonight then...’ she heard one detective — not on her team but she made a mental vow to get him all the same — to another.

‘Worn out probably,’ muttered the other to an outbreak of only vaguely subdued laughter.

The men, well oiled as they were, thought of course, that their voices were low and did not realise that Rose and Simon were standing right behind them. They did not really mean to be overheard, Rose realised that, but you did not need her exceptionally acute hearing in order to do so. In their drunkenness they had lost all sense of sound level as well as all other kind of sense. And in any case the damage was done.

Rose felt Simon freeze beside her and she was aware of him glaring at her throughout the rest of the evening. He did not speak to her again while they were in the pub. She had, of course, wanted to leave as soon as the incident happened — but she decided that she wouldn’t give her blabbing colleagues the satisfaction. That might indeed have made matters even worse. Instead she did not suggest to Simon that they leave until what she considered to be the first respectable moment — after the farewell speeches were over — and he silently complied.

The taxi ride home was also conducted in stony silence, while Rose reflected that she could have saved the fare by driving herself as her mood had been such that she had barely drunk anything at all. Simon, however, had done his best to drown his sorrows. In little more than an hour and a half he had downed several pints of beer and a couple of large whisky chasers. Gloomily Rose reflected on how that wasn’t going to help either, and she was right.

Once inside the bungalow, and indeed more than a little drunk, Simon let rip.

‘You cow!’ he screamed at his wife. ‘You thoughtless bloody cow. What kind of a fucking fool do you take me for?’

At first she tried reason, then she joined in the slanging match. She really had had enough. It became the worst row they had ever had. Afterwards Rose remembered vividly her own stupid hurtfulness as much as she remembered his.

‘And if I am screwing him, what’s it to do with you?’ she yelled. ‘At least he’s interested. What do you care?’

There were even one or two moments when she had thought he was going to hit her, something he had never done. But it was she who ultimately lost control, picked up a vase off the table in the hall — which was as far into the bungalow as they got before the fight started — and threw it against the wall where it smashed to smithereens.

Then she stormed out of the house, with Simon’s parting shot ringing in her ears.

‘Have a good time with your rent boy, you slut! I’d make sure he wears something though...’

Rose began to cry as she climbed into her car — thankful only that the car keys were still in the handbag she was carrying and that she was quite sober enough to drive.

With tears streaming down her cheeks she swung the car out of the driveway and headed back into Bristol city centre. She had absolutely no intention of going anywhere near Charlie Collins, but she certainly wasn’t going to tell Simon that.

In fact she drove straight to Jury’s Hotel, which was both big enough and anonymous enough to suit her purposes and not as expensive as the ludicrously overpriced Portway Towers, and checked in for the night. More than anything else she longed for at least a few hours peace and quiet.

Yet again, though, as she desperately sought sleep which continued to elude her in spite of her emotional and physical exhaustion, it was not anxieties about her troubled marriage that plagued her. Instead her last conscious thoughts were once more of Mrs Pattinson.

She thought that the next day she would ask for the computer pictures of the elusive woman to be reissued, this time doctored with a selection of different hairstyles and colours.

As it turned out, she did not need to bother.