Blind Fury

Chapter One

Detective Inspector Anna Travis held up her ID to a uniformed officer who directed her along the narrow muddy lane. Parking up on a gritty area alongside numerous other police vehicles, she stepped out of her Mini and swore as her foot was immediately submerged in a deep puddle. Opening the trunk, she took out a pair of Wellingtons and, balancing with one hand resting on the roof, she removed her shoes and put on the boots.

“Talk about off the beaten track,” she muttered.

Despite the heavy traffic thundering by on the M1, the field had been hard to reach, even though it was not far from London Gateway Services. Anna could see the group of men at the far side of the field, and she recognized Detective Chief Inspector Mike Lewis; standing beside him was the rotund figure of Detective Sergeant Paul Barolli. Both men turned to watch her plodding toward them.

“What’s the shout?” she asked as her feet squelched beneath her.

Mike gave her a brief rundown: the victim was a white female, discovered by a van driver called Brian Colling-wood who had parked on the hard shoulder to relieve himself up against the hedge. Collingwood told the police that he was just turning to go back to his vehicle when he spotted the body lying in the adjacent field. At first he thought there had been an accident, so he climbed through the hedge and crossed over the ditch. It quickly became obvious that the girl was dead, so he did not approach but immediately rang the police on his mobile phone, then went back to wait beside his van until the traffic police reported the discovery.

“Is that him?” Anna nodded toward the man being questioned. He was making a lot of gestures, pointing back at the motorway.

“Yeah. By the time we got here, he was pretty agitated. He knew he was illegally parked on the hard shoulder but continued to explain that he had been busting for a piss. He’s been unable to give any further details, having seen no other vehicle or witnessed anything suspicious. He also said repeatedly that he had not gone right up to the body but had remained about four feet away from her. When he’s finished giving all the details, I’m going to let him finish his journey to Birmingham.”

“You think this is one for us, then?”

Mike nodded. “We’re waiting for the forensic team to arrive. We’ve made only a cursory check of the victim, as I think the less contamination of the area, the better.”

Barolli rubbed his hands together. It was icy cold out here. “You are going to freeze,” he said to Anna. “Didn’t you bring a coat with you?”

“If I’d known we’d be in the back of beyond, I would have. Luckily, my wellies were in the boot.”

“Here you go.” Barolli took off his fleece-lined jacket and hung it round her shoulders. Anna was wearing a black suit and white collared shirt. Her wardrobe was full of similar suits, almost like her own uniform.

“Oh, thanks.” She hugged it around herself as Barolli turned to the lane.

“We’ve had Traffic cordon off one motorway lane to allow the police vehicles access... Here come the lads now.”

A forensic van drew up, followed by an ambulance.

“So what are you not telling me?” Anna wanted to know, and smiled as she said it. Having worked together on previous cases, the three of them were very relaxed with one another, and she knew there had to be an agenda.

Mike said the reason they had answered the shout was because on two of his previous, unsolved cases, it appeared to be virtually the same MO. The two earlier victims, discovered a year apart, had both been dumped beside the motorway. Their first victim had been hard to identify due to decomposition, but they had checked her prints and found she had a police record as a prostitute; the second girl remained unidentified.

“Is she on the game?” Anna asked, looking over at the corpse.

“No idea. She’s young, though — I’d say late teens.”

Anna watched the forensic team suit up and bring out their equipment. “Can I take a closer look?” she asked.

“Yeah, go ahead. We’ve put some stepping plates out, so keep to them. It’s a flipping mud bath.”

Anna headed toward the victim, carefully moving from plate to plate as if using stepping stones. There were two flags positioned where the van driver had stood, a few feet from the body, and the closer Anna got, she could see that from his position on the motorway’s hard shoulder, he would not have been able to see the body.

The dead girl lay on her right side, half in and half out of the ditch, one arm outstretched as if she were trying to claw her way free. Her left leg was crooked over her right, again appearing as if she had tried to climb out of the ditch. She was, as Mike had suggested, very young; her long red hair, worn in a braid, was similar in color to Anna’s. The girl was wearing a pink T-shirt, a denim miniskirt, and a denim bomber jacket with a bright pink lining and an unusual embroidered motif of silver flowers on the front pocket. She wore one white sandal. There was no handbag and, from their initial search, nothing that could identify her.

Anna returned to Mike, who by now had a cup of coffee in his hand.

“You say you’ve had two previous cases?” she asked quietly.

“Not me personally. I had the most recent, but the first was a couple of years ago. So then we also took on the first discovery as a possible linked double murder. If this has the same MO, that’ll make three.”

“Were the first two girls killed in the same way?”

“Yes. They were strangled, raped, no DNA, no weapon, no witness — and like I said, my girl remains unidentified.”

“Both found beside motorways?”

“Yep.”

“And the first victim was a prostitute?”

“Yes. She worked the service stations, picking up lorry drivers, doing the business in their cabs, and then often getting dropped off at the next service station along the M1 to find new clients before heading back to the first.”

Anna stood watching while photographs were being taken of the victim and the area, before a tent was erected around the dead girl.

It was two hours later before they arrived at the incident room. This had been set up at the police station closest to the crime scene, in a new building in Hendon, North London, with an entire floor given over to the murder team. Already a group of technicians were setting up the desks and computers. Anna was pleased to see she’d be joined by DCs Barbara Maddox and Joan Falkland. Mike Lewis and Paul Barolli had also worked with the women on previous cases, and it promised to be a friendly atmosphere.

“Nice to see you again,” Barbara said to Anna as she prepared the incident-room board.

“Long time. I’ve been on three other cases,” Anna told her.

“Joan and I have sort of stuck with Mike and Paul.” Barbara nodded over to Joan.

“Were you on the other murders Mike told me about?” Anna asked.

“Yes, both of us were. I’m going to get the board set up with all the previous case details, as apparently, this one looks like it’s got the same MO.”

Anna shrugged, since until they had the postmortem report, they wouldn’t know for sure.

“Mike said she was very young,” Barbara commented.

Anna nodded. She was taking her time arranging her own desk, relieved to have such new equipment at hand.

“They’ve got a terrific canteen,” Joan informed her as she wheeled in a trolley stacked with the old case files.

Anna had time to sample the canteen at lunch, and it was not until early afternoon that she began to select files to catch up on the two earlier cases. By now the board was filling up with photographs and details. Anna still felt they might be presuming too much without confirmation. Although the victim had been removed to the local mortuary for a postmortem, Anna was told they would have to wait twenty-four hours before they would get any further details.

Meanwhile, Mike Lewis had set up his office, and Barolli had installed himself at the desk opposite Anna. “How’s life been treating you?” Barolli asked affably.

“Okay — I’ve worked a few other cases. How about you?”

“Well, we’ve been on the other two for about a year, and then I went on to something else over at Lambeth.”

“So to all intents and purposes, the cases were shelved?”

“Yeah. Without getting one of the victims identified, it was tough. The first one” — Barolli turned to gesture to a photograph — “was Margaret — or Maggie — Potts, aged thirty-nine, string of previous arrests for prostitution, drug addict, and known to work the service stations. We had no handbag, no witness, but got her ID’d from fingerprints. She was raped and strangled.”

Anna looked at the mug shot posted up. Maggie Potts had been a dark-eyed, sullen-faced woman, her bleached-blond hair with an inch of black regrowth.

When she sifted through the crime-scene photographs, she could see the similar pattern. Potts’s body had been dumped in a field not far from the M1 motorway. She had been wearing fishnet stockings, which were torn, and her shoes were found beside her body. She had on a short red jacket and a black skirt that was drawn up to her waist, and her knickers had been ripped apart. The satin blouse was stained with mud and wrenched open to reveal a black brassiere.

Anna glanced at the thick files representing the hundreds of interviews with people questioned about the last sightings of Maggie Potts. The team had interviewed call girls, service-station employees — from the catering staff to the petrol-station attendants — lorry drivers, and others in an endless round of inquiries and statements.

“This is the one we never identified,” Barolli said, tapping the second victim’s photograph. “We tried, but whatever we put out came back with fuck-all. We had her picture on the TV crime programs, in missing-persons magazines — you name it, we tried it to find out who she was — but with no luck. She was a pretty little thing, too.”

Anna turned her gaze on the Jane Doe, and as Barolli had said, she was exceedingly pretty, with long dark hair down to her shoulders, bangs, a pale face with wide-apart blue eyes, and full lips. She didn’t look jaded or hard; on the contrary, she looked innocent.

“How old was she?”

Barolli said they couldn’t be certain but had her aged between twenty to thirty.

“Looks younger, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah, that’s what made it so tough to deal with, that no one came forward, no one recalled seeing her at any of the service stations. According to the postmortem, her body was very bruised, and there were signs of sexual activity suggesting she was raped. She was also strangled. She had nothing on her — no bag, no papers, nothing. If you think we made extensive inquiries on that old slag Potts, with this girl we tried every which way to find out who she was — Interpol, colleges, universities, but after six months we flatlined.”

Anna looked over the details of the young woman’s clothes. They were good labels, stylish but not new, and she had been wearing black ballet-type shoes; she had tiny feet, a size three.

“I hope to Christ we get this new girl identified,” Barolli said quietly.

“You reckon the same killer did both previous cases?”

He shrugged. “Same MO, but who knows without any DNA? Only thing we got was a few carpet fibers, but where she came from, who she was, how she came to be murdered are still unknown.”

“Did you check out the Jane Doe’s clothes?”

“What do you think?” Barolli glared. “Of course we did, but it didn’t help. We actually traced where the shoes came from, but they sold thousands.”

“Yeah, they were quite fashionable a year or so ago; now it’s all stacked heels.”

Anna continued to read the files all afternoon, but when it got to five-thirty and there still had been no word from the mortuary, she went home. It was quite a drive from the station to her flat over at Tower Bridge, and although it had not been a particularly tough day’s work, she felt tired. She meant to read up on more details about the previous cases but instead watched some TV before going to bed. There was nothing on the news about their victim. Anna sincerely hoped she would not turn out to be another murdered girl who would remain unidentified.

The following morning the postmortem details still had not come through. Anna did not get asked to join Mike Lewis and Barolli when they went over to the mortuary, so she spent the entire morning examining the extensive files, reading the thousands of statements culminating in no arrests. She constantly looked up at the incident board, where the two dead women’s faces had been joined by their new victim’s crime-scene pictures.

It was after lunch when Mike Lewis called a briefing. Their victim had died from strangulation, he announced. She had been raped and had extensive bruising to her vagina and abdomen. There were no signs of drug use. Her last meal had been a hamburger and chips and Coca-Cola. She was in good health. A fingerprint search had proved negative, but it was hoped that dental work would bring a result, as she had very good teeth, with two caps that appeared to have been done recently. These were her two front teeth, so she could have been in an accident; that again might narrow the field. Her hair was in good condition, and she had no broken nails or defense wounds.

The dead female’s T-shirt was from Miss Selfridge, and her skirt from Asda. Her white sandals, the second of which had been found under the body, were hardly worn and still had the price tag on the left sole. Again, this would mean they might get a clue to her identity. Mike Lewis said that her age was between sixteen to twenty-five, and they would be going to the press to try and get a result.

By late afternoon the press office had sent out cleaned-up photographs of the victim and requests for anyone with information to come forward. The details were also passed on to the television news, while officers armed with the victim’s photograph were still questioning everyone at the nearest service station. They had given out a direct line for anyone with any information to call. Usually, after such press coverage, they would be inundated with callers, but though they had a small number, none gave a clue as to who the young woman was. Many were time-wasters, but the team nevertheless had to take the personal details and information of every single one.

Two days later, and with continued requests for anyone able to identify the victim to get in touch, the team still had no clue. It was unbelievable to think that, like the second case, the third girl appeared to have no one reporting her missing, no one seeing her at the service station or perhaps thumbing a lift. As the team continued to question drivers and service-station personnel in an attempt to identify her, they felt deeply disappointed that they were getting no result.

On the fourth day, Anna received a letter. Barbara placed it on her desk, raising her eyebrows as she did so. “Fan mail?” the DC asked.

Anna turned over the envelope; stamped on the back was the address of Barfield Prison. She looked up at Barbara and joked, “It’s probably from someone I helped get locked up.”

Anna slit open the envelope and took out a blue-lined thin sheet of writing paper. Typed in the right-hand corner was the prison’s address and the name CAMERON WELSH, Prisoner 6678905 Top-Security Wing.

She knew who it was immediately: Cameron Welsh was an exceptionally evil sadistic killer given two life sentences — with no possibility of being released — for the murder of two teenage girls five years previously.

Anna had been on the case with the then-DCI James Langton. The latter was now detective chief superintendent, and as usual, whenever his name cropped up, she felt a surge of emotion. Having been in love with him, lived for a short time with him, helped him recover from a terrible wounding, and then split up with him, she had been through a lot of hurt and painful self-analysis. His intensely strong hold on her had been almost impossible to get over for a long time — in fact, up until the last case they had worked on; however, they had at last reached a more amicable relationship, one born out of her admiration for him, even though at times the situation was still tough for her to handle. It was only during the last year that she had truthfully been able to put their past relationship behind her and to treat Jimmy Langton as a confidant. And he had, as he had promised, been supportive at all times during her recent cases.

Barbara rocked back in her chair. “Who’s it from?” she asked.

Anna wafted the letter in the air, saying, “As I suspected, from a real shit bag. I’ve not read what he wants yet.”

She opened the single folded page. Written in felt-tip pen, the writing was looped and florid. It read:

Anna’s blood ran cold. Welsh had made her skin crawl when she had been present at interviews with him. He was extremely well educated, and she knew he had gained a degree in child psychology while in prison. She also knew he had been held in solitary, as he had refused to be placed on a wing. He had been moved into the prison within a prison at Barfield due to his constant antagonism of other inmates. While in prison, he had also had many altercations with officers, and even in the small secure unit, he still managed to be a loner. Anna knew because she had received three previous letters from Welsh and had even called the prison to gain further details about him. But there had been no contact for at least a year — until this letter.

She was about to toss it into the rubbish bin beside her desk but then stopped herself. She stared at the blue-lined paper and the looped felt-tipped writing, flattening the crease out with her hand. Could this creature really have something that might be, as he said, beneficial? She doubted it. In the end, Anna decided that she would discuss the letter with Mike Lewis. On previous cases, she’d been warned by Langton that she hadn’t acted like a team player — and she had no intention of making that mistake again.

Mike Lewis was not in his office, so Anna returned to her desk just as Barbara came past, wheeling the tea trolley with some donuts and buns.

“You want a coffee?” the DC asked. “It’s fresh.”

“Yeah, thanks, and I’ll have one of those,” Anna said, pointing to a bun.

“I’ve lost four pounds,” Barbara said, turning to indicate her flat stomach. She was still a little overweight, with a round, pretty face, and she had lightened her blond hair and had it cut short.

“You look good.”

“Thanks. It’s been hard. I’ve got my old man working out with me as well. He’s lost half a stone, but he doesn’t have the canteen goodies where he works. It’s the donuts that do me in.”

Anna helped herself to the pink-iced bun and placed it on a napkin on her desk as Barbara poured her coffee and passed it over.

“What did the letter-writer want?”

“It was, as I suspected, from someone I played a small part in putting away for the rest of his life.”

“Gets me, you know, how they are allowed to write letters. In the old days they’d never let a prisoner have a stamp, never mind bloody phone cards. Was it something unpleasant?”

“Thinks he can help with our inquiry. Cheeky sod wants me to visit.” Anna bit into her iced bun.

“I wouldn’t go anywhere near him. Go on, chuck his stupid letter in the bin.” Barbara started to move off.

Anna stopped her. “There was a lot of press about the two previous victims, wasn’t there?”

Barbara nodded. “All we could get, to try and find out the second woman’s identity — but nothing. Beggars belief, doesn’t it, that not one person has come forward. I think she was maybe an au pair or foreign, you know, over here on some kind of work... Still, didn’t make sense that no one recognized her, and she was lovely looking. Not the kind you’d forget.”

Barbara went off to give Joan her morning coffee as Anna finished her iced bun and sipped her drink. Unlike a lot of the stations she’d worked in, the canteen here was well-organized, with a good breakfast and lunch menu. While it didn’t solve cases, it certainly helped with morale.

It was over lunch with Barbara and Joan that Anna told them more about Cameron Welsh and his imprisonment at Barfield.

“That place is all new and streamlined, isn’t it?” Joan asked.

Barbara shook her head, saying in disgust, “It’s bloody better equipped than my son’s secondary school. They’ve got computer courses, exercise classes, gymnasiums, and it was at Barfield that one of the feckin’ prisoners almost caused a riot because he said that being forced to wear the colored shoulder band that shows who’s a prisoner and who’s a visitor was an invasion of his privacy. The world’s gone bloody mad.”

“Cameron has gained a degree in child psychology,” Anna said thoughtfully.

“See what I mean? Don’t tell me he murdered kids?”

“No, they were two teenagers.”

“Boys?”

“No, girls — and apparently, he’s held in the secure unit inside the main prison, refused to ever go on the wing, and keeps himself to himself.”

“So what can he tell you if he’s shut away in that unit?” Joan queried. “I mean, what can he know about the cases? If I were you, I’d contact the prison governor and say that no more letters from Welsh are to be forwarded to you. Sick buggers, all of them.”

Anna nodded, still undecided whether she should try to bring it up with Mike Lewis.

“What was he like, this Welsh?” Barbara asked curiously, then gave a laugh. “Apart from being a scumbag, that is.”

Anna tried to recall what Cameron looked like physically. “I remember he was very tall, sort of gaunt almost, and his face was very pale. Well, he’d been hiding out for some time, so whether that was why he was so thin, I’m not sure. All I can really remember clearly about him was that he had very penetrating dark eyes. I hated the way he looked at me. He was well spoken, though, and he held his own throughout the interviews. I never heard him raise his voice — he had this cool manner, as if we were almost beneath him. That was until DCI Langton came on board.” Anna sighed. “Langton was heading the inquiry, and he had a really hard time cracking him. In fact, I don’t even recall that he did, but we had enough evidence against the bloke — DNA, clothes fibers, and eventually even a witness — to go to trial, and although he still maintained he was innocent, thankfully the jury found him guilty.”

“How did he react to the sentence?”

“He smirked and shook his head, Joan. That was about all the reaction he gave.”

Joan pulled a face. “I’d stay well clear of him,” she advised. “Remember what’s-her-name from Hannibal Lecter, the way he tormented her?”

Anna laughed. “Cameron isn’t exactly in the same category,” but then she thought again and added, “Well, perhaps not far off. He tortured his two victims but used them for sex slaves rather than his dinner menu. When he tired of one, he went and found another. But I couldn’t compare him with Hannibal or myself with Jodie Foster, and anyway, after what we’ve just discussed there is no way I would agree to seeing him.”

By the time they returned to the incident room, Mike Lewis was in his office, so Anna decided to see what he thought.

Mike had only recently gained promotion, and Anna knew he was playing it strictly by the book. His office was very sparsely furnished, with a number of photographs of his twin boys and one of his wife in a leather folding frame. A row of sharpened pencils and a large notepad sat beside his computer and telephone. She often didn’t notice that Mike was in actual fact rather good-looking, with thick, close-cropped blond hair. If she had to describe his looks, she would use the words nice and ordinary, because he was both. He had also been a strong right-hand man for DCS Langton. Mike was quiet and methodical and a calming influence. Anna knew he was a dedicated officer, if not an exceptional one.

She watched him reading the letter without much enthusiasm. As he handed it back to her, he asked, “How long has he been inside?”

“Five years, almost six.”

“Mmmm. Well, I can’t see what he would know about our case, unless he talked to another prisoner and got some information via him, but I doubt it. You say he’s in solitary?”

“No, he’s in the secure unit at Barfield. That’s the prison within a prison; usually, they are only placed in there if they have been trouble or they’re terrorists. I think they also place heavy drug dealers in there, but there are only about six cells.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, but like I said, I doubt he has anything to offer us. He’s probably just after getting a visit from you.”

Anna agreed and folded the letter. “So I ignore it?” she said.

Mike sighed. “It’s really up to you, Anna.”

“I’d prefer not to see him.”

“Okay, just make a note of it, file the letter, and thanks for bringing it to my attention.”

Anna returned to her desk and put the letter in her briefcase. Barolli caught her eye. “The postmortem’s in on our Jane Doe.”

Anna went over to the incident board to read up on the details as Barolli joined her.

“Doesn’t give us much, does it? Just that she was dead about twelve or so hours before the body was discovered.”

“Still no ID?”

“Nope, but we’re getting a lot of coverage on the case, and we’re looking into dental records. Mispers have also been contacted, but no female of her description has been reported missing. You’d think with that red hair, someone would recognize her, wouldn’t you?”

Anna stared at the victim’s pictures and bit her lip. “Unbelievable. Someone somewhere has to know who she is.”

“Right, but we held out hopes on that last case, the brunette, and we got zilch back. We’re covering the nearest motorway service stations to see if anyone remembers her, see if she was hitchhiking, exactly as we did before, but it’s bloody time-consuming.”

“She doesn’t look the type to me,” Anna murmured.

“Type of what?”

“Girl who’d hitchhike or hang out, like Margaret Potts. I don’t think she was on the game.”

“Well, we didn’t think our brunette was a tart, but nowadays you never know.”

“How about Interpol?”

“On to it, but so far nothing’s come in.”

Barolli sucked in his breath. Both of them could see the truth from the notes on the board, the arrows joining each victim’s injuries. They knew they had a serial rapist killer. But what they couldn’t ascertain until the last two girls were identified was if there was a connection apart from their murders. If the victims had known each other, it would help the police to focus their inquiries. All they had were three dead women, all tossed aside like garbage close to the M1, and yet no witnesses.

“What about Margaret Potts?” Anna gestured to the first victim. “I see the team interviewed a number of known associates. Did they give any indication of a usual night’s work?”

Barolli gave a shrug. “Yeah, but nothing that helped us. She worked between two motorway service stations. She’d either do the business in the guys’ lorries or hitch a ride, especially if there were two drivers, and she’d do the pair of them en route to their next stop, then get out and turn the same tricks on the other side. Been at it for years.”

“Can I talk to this girl?” Anna tapped the board where the name Emerald Turk was written up as helping inquiries. “Who is she?”

“Emerald — yeah, she shared a flat with Potts.”

“Is that her real name?”

“I doubt it.” Barolli gave a short laugh. “We had four different aliases for her, and she was a real bitch; didn’t give us much — just how Potts earned her money.”

“So she was doing the same circuit?” Anna persisted.

“No, she had a pimp and said the motorways were not her style.”

“I’d still like to talk to her.”

“Why?”

“To try to get a handle on who Margaret Potts was. On the whole service-station game. I’m not trying to tread on anyone’s toes here, Paul, but you’re all sort of ahead of me.”

“Help yourself.” He shrugged. “I doubt you’ll get anything more than we did, though. She’s a right tough cow, and tracking her down was a headache.”

Barolli’s tracing of Emerald Turk’s whereabouts had been a problem because she changed flats or rooms constantly, but eventually, he’d got a contact address through Social Services and her phone number via Strathmore Housing Association. Emerald had two children, so he was able to gain more information, as the children had been fostered out twice. Now that she had a council flat, the kids had been returned to her, and for the past two years, Social Services had seen no signs of neglect on their home visits.

Anna did not make an appointment with Emerald but decided to call on her unannounced and see if she would agree to talk. She drove to Hackney and found the address on a high-rise council estate. Emerald lived on the third floor. The lift was not working, so Anna walked up. From the amount of garbage strewn in the corridors and urine stinking out the stairs, she didn’t think that by any standards this was a well-appointed flat, as Social Services had claimed.

Emerald lived in number 34. Anna rang the bell, waited, and then rang it three more times before the door was finally inched open.

“Emerald Turk?” Anna asked.

“Yeah.”

Anna showed her ID. “Can I come in and talk to you?”

“What about?”

“There’s no problem, Emerald. I’m simply attached to a team investigating the murder of Margaret Potts.”

The chain was still on the door as the woman looked at Anna and grumbled, “Listen, I already told the cops every-thin’ I knew. I got nothin’ more to say, so piss off.”

“Please, Emerald, I just want to talk. We’ve not been able to move the investigation forward, for lack of evidence. I’m new to the inquiry and just wanted to—”

“Like I said, I got nothin’ to tell you.”

“Just give me a few minutes, please. You knew Margaret, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, and I told ’em everything, so fuck off.”

Anna couldn’t even see what Emerald looked like, as the door was almost closed. She wedged her shoe inside the door frame. “She was murdered, Emerald. All I want to do is just try and find out who she really was. You knew her, so you can help me with this. Please let me in. I don’t want to have to come back.”

There was a short silence. Anna would have given up, but then the chain was unlinked and the door opened wider.

“All right, you’d better come in, then. If this place smells cops, they’ll get nasty, and I don’t want no trouble from me neighbors.”

Emerald stood back to allow Anna to enter. She was tall and skinny with a pale, narrow face, and she was wearing an expensive-looking gray velvet tracksuit with large fluffy rabbit slippers. “You’ll have to come through to the kitchen,” she said. “I’m ironing.”

Anna followed her along a toy-strewn hallway and into a modern, well-equipped kitchen. It was bright and clean, with long white blinds at the window. Dishes were stacked tidily on the draining board. Emerald picked up the iron and nodded for Anna to take a stool by a breakfast counter. There was a basket of clean clothes beside the ironing board.

“This is very nice,” Anna said, looking around.

“Yeah, all new mod cons, and I’m doin’ me best to keep the place spic-and-span. Those nosy cows from Social Services drop in whenever they feel like it, and I ain’t gonna give them any reasons for takin’ me kids off me again.”

“Are they at school?”

“Yeah, little local primary. They’re there, thank Christ, until three in the afternoon.”

Anna looked at the fridge, which was covered with bright-colored plastic magnetic numbers and letters. There were also numerous children’s watercolor paintings stuck on a wall with Blu-Tack. One had big orange splashes of paint, and “Mummy” was painted as a stick figure with big feet.

Anna shifted her weight. The high stool was uncomfortable, and her tight skirt kept riding up her thighs. Stashed beneath the breakfast bar was a big red plastic bucket full of dirty nappies, and it smelled, as the lid was left off. Emerald caught Anna looking at it and gestured for her to put the lid on. She explained that her youngest child was still a bed wetter and that these were nighttime Pull-Ups that had to be put out with her recycled items. From the smell of urine that wafted in Anna’s face, they hadn’t been put out for a while. She secured the lid and inched it farther away from her stool.

The iron hissed steam as Emerald pressed pillowcases. She was fast, far more adept than Anna. “I got a babysitter helping me out of an evenin’.” The woman continued ironing while she lit a cigarette from a packet taken out of her tracksuit pocket. “And I don’t smoke in front of the kids.”

Anna smiled, “I’m not with Social Services. As I said, I am on the inquiry relating to Margaret Potts’s murder.”

“I’ve not read anythin’ more about her,” Emerald commented. “Shame, ’cause she was a real nice woman. In fact, this is her tracksuit. She left a suitcase full of her gear with me, you see. Well, she wouldn’t know I’m wearin’ her things, would she, but I think of her often.”

“I know what she did for a living,” Anna said quietly.

“In which case you probably know what I do. I got a bloke that takes good care of me, not like Maggie. She had it rough due to her age, but she was a good person and didn’t deserve to end up the way she did.”

Emerald smoked and continued ironing as Anna asked if she could explain how Margaret worked.

“She’d sort of got her own patch out at the London Gateway Services. She’d travel there by bus or sometimes thumb a lift, then she’d chat to her regulars — truckers, mostly — but sometimes she’d pick up a punter in a car.”

“Did she do her business in the car parks?”

“She had to be careful, you know — the security blokes could give her a real hard time. I think she’d bung them cash to lay off her, and then she’d just either do it in the lorries’ cabs or travel up to the next service station — the one at Toddington, ’cause that has a bridge over the north-and southbound services, then she’d do the same thing there, coming back on the opposite side.”

“Always at night?”

“Not always. Sometimes she worked a day shift, but she didn’t like it. Well, you know — it was a bit obvious what she was doin’, and they’d move her on or call out the cops.”

“Did she ever talk about any of her clients?”

At this, Emerald laughed. “Nah. I doubt that’d be a popular topic of conversation. She was always knackered and slept late. One time we shared a place, but she got behind in the rent, so I left. She’d turn up sometimes wherever I was and kip down, but to be honest, I never really liked it, and these housing associations think you’re renting out a room if you got anyone stayin’.”

“But you liked her?”

“Yeah, I liked her — but I used to find it depressing, like I was lookin’ at what could happen to me all the time, know what I mean? And then I had a spot of trouble — the bloke I was with at the time was doin’ drugs and they took me kids off me, but I never done crack or brown. Maybe smoked the odd spliff — who doesn’t? — but I left the hard stuff alone.”

“What about Margaret?”

“Yeah, she’d take whatever she could lay her hands on — coke, mostly — and she’d drink. Can’t blame her, really, having to drag her arse out to the friggin’ M1 most nights, and sometimes it was freezing cold. She got knocked ’round a couple of times as well.” Emerald sighed and dug into her laundry basket.

“Did she ever report it?”

“Nah. She was on the game — you get used to it, but you know, some of them wouldn’t want to pay. Some bastard chucked her out of his cab once.”

“Did she tell you about it, like who had done it?”

“No, just waited until her black eyes healed up.” Emerald sighed more loudly. “I said all this before, you know. I’m just repeatin’ myself.”

“Did she have a pimp? Someone looking out for her, maybe?”

“No, she was a loner. Like I said, she wasn’t young and knew all the tricks, so why shell out her hard-earned cash?”

“But you do.”

Emerald’s face tightened. “I’m in a different league ’cause of me responsibilities. I work out of a massage parlor, I’m not touting for business on the effing motorway, and my man takes good care of me.”

“So she worked solo... What about other friends?”

“I never knew them. Listen, Maggie was a tough old boiler. She knew the risks, and she’d got the number of the blokes that had knocked her around, and like I said, she didn’t always go with the truckers. Sometimes she was flush from a few punters she’d had in posh cars. She looked out for herself, and she even took down the license numbers.” Emerald gave a strange laugh. “Said she couldn’t remember their faces, but she’d remember their reg numbers — had ’em all written down.”

“What, in a diary or notebook?”

“Yeah. Reckoned if they got nasty, she could tip off friends to beat them up.”

“You mean other working girls?”

“Nah, strong-armed blokes. We all know a few. A couple are ex-coppers workin’ for bailiffs who can run a trace on license plates so they can get their addresses.”

Anna could hardly contain herself. “You wouldn’t know where this notebook was kept, would you?”

“No idea, but it could have been in her stuff, I suppose. Did they find her handbag? It’d be in that, I expect.”

“No. There was nothing to identify her — we ID’d her from her fingerprints.”

“Oh, right. She’d done a few stretches.”

“Would it be among the things you said she’d left with you?”

“No, I never saw it. There was just clothes and bits and pieces.”

“Did you mention that you had some of her belongings when you were previously questioned?”

“Yes. The police looked through it all back then. To be honest, at the time I’d forgotten I had the suitcase. Well, I moved around a lot before I got this place. I even had gear stashed all over London, but when the Social Services found this flat for me, I collected it all. A few times she turned up, but like I said, I didn’t like her bein’ here when it had all been done up nice.”

“Could I see the case?”

Emerald lit another cigarette. “I don’t have it no more,” she said, and shrugged. “It wasn’t worth keeping.”

“But you said it had good clothes in it, like that track-suit?”

Emerald unplugged the iron, mumbling, “I gotta go and do some shoppin’.”

“You just threw it out?”

The young woman turned on Anna angrily. “Yeah. Like I said, it wasn’t worth keeping, and your lot didn’t want it, so I chucked it out onto a skip. There were just some blouses and skirts and shoes and this tracksuit, all right? There was nuffink of value.”

Anna could feel Emerald’s growing animosity from the way she banged the ironing board closed. It showed she was getting her temper up.

“I’m sorry if you think I am accusing you of anything, because I’m not. It’s just that if we could find Margaret’s notebook, it would be of great value, as we would be able to question the men she picked up. I’m not interested in anything else that was in her suitcase.”

“Well, there was nuffink else. Now I gotta go out.”

Anna stood up and placed the stool under the breakfast shelf. “I really appreciate you giving me your time, Emerald. By the way, is that your real name?”

“I wasn’t christened with it, but me great-grandmother worked as a cleanin’ lady for a high-society woman called Emerald. She’d given her some nice things, and it’s me favorite color. Turk is the name of my father, but it was never on me birth certificate because he pissed off before I was born.” Emerald stood with her hands on her hips. “Anything else you want to know?”

“No. Thank you for seeing me.”

Heading back along the rubbish-filled corridor, Anna suspected that Emerald was lying about the contents of the suitcase, but there was little she could do about it now, as the original investigating team had already looked through it and found nothing of importance. She had a feeling, if she was correct and Emerald did still have the suitcase, that it would be thrown out as soon as she left. There was nothing for it but to return to the car and set off back to the station.

The moment she’d checked that the policewoman’s car had gone, Emerald was on her hands and knees beside her wardrobe, dragging out boots and shoes as she reached for the suitcase. It was a cheap make, and the zipper had already been broken when she had used a pair of pliers to unlock the small padlock holding it shut. Margaret’s name was printed on a travel label attached to the handle.

Opening it up on her bed, Emerald started to remove the few items she’d left inside. Tossing them out of the way, she felt along the lining, digging inside the side pocket, and took out a small red notebook. She didn’t even look at it, but put it into her tracksuit pocket. Next, she stuffed the suitcase into a black plastic binliner, tying it at the top. To begin with, Margaret’s suitcase had also contained two thousand pounds in ten- and twenty-pound notes, and a red velvet jewel case. Inside this there had been two small diamond rings, a gold moonstone pendant, looped gold earrings, and a thick gold bangle. Emerald had kept the gold bangle but got five hundred and ten pounds for the jewelry from a guy she knew in Berwick Street Market. She’d put the money to good use, buying the fridge-freezer, the kitchen stools, and the steam iron. She had intended getting the zipper on the suitcase fixed, but now she just wanted rid of it.

An hour or so later, Emerald carried the bag out of the flat. She had not far to walk before she saw a half-filled skip near a building site and threw the bag into it with some relief. She then hurried off to the local Tesco to pick up some groceries for the kids’ tea. By the time she’d fed and bathed her two children, it was time for her to get changed and ready for work. Her babysitter arrived, and Emerald went off to the massage parlor, where she could forget all about the events of the afternoon.

The notebook was left in the pocket of the tracksuit. Emerald didn’t want any repercussions. Even though Anna had explained the importance of the contents to their investigation, she could think only of the trouble she might get into for having sold the jewelry. She certainly didn’t want anyone showing up claiming the money. It had all been spent anyway.