Grievous Angel

Nineteen

‘Where do we take this?’ Alison asked, once Telfer’s forensic samples had been taken and we’d charged him.

There was only one answer to that, and I knew it; I couldn’t avoid it. Well, I could have. I could have gone to Alf Stein, told him the whole story and asked him to put two other senior officers on the case. No, scratch that; I should have done that. But I didn’t; instead I ploughed on, taking what was in hindsight a reckless risk, not only with my own career but with Alison’s. ‘We have to bring her in,’ I told her.

She surprised me. ‘I’m not sure about that. She’s a rape victim, and she’s well known. If we arrest her, on the back of the charge against Telfer, and bring her in here, she’ll be recognised, and her right to anonymity could be compromised.’ She held up a hand before I could say anything. ‘I know, I’m sounding like Martina Chivers, but it’s a fact. I think we should go to her. Or I should, since you don’t want to be involved.’

I made another decision. ‘No, I can’t dump this one all on you. We interview her together.’

‘Okay. Where?’

‘I don’t know, but not the fucking Sheraton, that’s for sure.’ I flicked through the options. The radio station? Hardly. That left only one. I took out my phone and called her, mobile to mobile. She must have recognised my number but she answered nonetheless. ‘Hello, Bob,’ she murmured; she was using her radio voice on me, damn her. ‘Do you want to start with a fresh page?’

‘I need to see you,’ I replied.

‘Now?’

‘It can’t wait.’

‘Then I’m at home.’ I ended the call and told Alison that she’d given me her home address.

Cross-town at midday, a journey that might have taken as little as ten minutes, took twenty-five. Duplicitous to the last, I parked well away from the house and made a show of checking the numbers. I was nervous as I rang the bell, in case Mia answered in nothing but her T-shirt, but she must have been looking out for me, for she was fully dressed and showed no surprise when she opened the door and found two of us there.

‘Mob-handed,’ she murmured, with a quick glance at my companion as she ushered us in. ‘I’m honoured. It’s a pity you didn’t bring that dishy detective constable though, Bob. I took a shine to him.’

‘A female officer was necessary, Mia. This is DI Higgins.’

She frowned. ‘Why would that be?’

‘Think back three weeks,’ I said, ‘and the reason may begin to dawn on you. We’ve arrested Donald Telfer, and charged him with rape.’

Her eyelashes flickered, but only slightly. ‘Who’s Donald Telfer?’ she asked.

I sighed. ‘Please. Have some respect for me as a police officer, if nothing else. You know who he is. He’s one of three guys who kept you prisoner overnight, while they raped and sodomised you, repeatedly. The four of you were at school together, and Telfer was getting even for the scars that your brother Ryan left him with, twelve years ago.’

‘Wait a minute,’ a woman hissed, a woman I’d seen revealed once before. ‘I didn’t make a complaint. I told that inspector that it was a party that got out of hand, and that it was probably my fault.’

‘Your blood was clean, Mia. No drink or drugs. What you say doesn’t matter anyway, unless you’re prepared to repeat it under oath, and that won’t be necessary. Telfer’s made a full statement, admitting the whole thing. He’s even told us that McCann and Weir stopped him from finishing his revenge by killing you. He’ll go to the High Court for sentence and he’ll do time, but you don’t have to worry, because the law will give you complete anonymity.’ She sat down, we stayed on our feet.

‘That brings me to the real reason we’re here. You’re by no means an idiot; you’ve got a degree in journalism and you must have known that rape victims’ identities are protected, so why not make a complaint?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose I felt sorry for them.’

‘Don’t make us laugh. After what they’d put you through? If Telfer told us the truth about what happened to him at Maxwell Academy, you didn’t feel sorry when he tried it on with you then. He reckons you sent your brother to cut him after he tried his hand with you.’

‘Then he’s wrong. I told Ryan, but I was laughing about it. Telfer was a spotty wee tyke. I’d no idea that Ryan would decide to defend my honour. Mind you, I suppose I should have. I knew what he was like. My little brother was a psycho, Bob.’

‘And your Uncle Gavin,’ I added.

‘No, Gavin wasn’t; he’d never have done anything as stupidly gratuitous as that. Gavin had aspirations, he wanted to be Mr Big, but he was never in the same league.’ She said that with feeling. ‘In the end he turned out to be Mr Remains Never Recovered.’

‘Ryan did defend you, though, psycho or not. Which leads us to ask, who have you turned loose now?’

‘What the hell are you talking about, Bob?’ she challenged, coolly; too damn coolly, too damn confidently.

‘I’m talking about the man who’s been taking out the rapists. Andy Weir, attacked a few days afterwards, died ten days later, just after Albie McCann was stabbed to death. Two down and one to go. Telfer was offshore and out of reach or I’m sure he’d have been the first to go. So who was it, Mia? You’ve run out of brothers, so who’s your avenging angel this time?’

‘I have no idea what you mean, and I have no knowledge of these things. There must have been a queue of people waiting to kill those three.’

‘But not with your immediate motive. Who’ve you got in your life that we don’t know about?’ And yet, as I put the question I remembered her saying that it had been a while since she’d had a man in there properly, a man in her bed. I’d believed her then, and I still did. ‘Or did you pay someone? Is it as simple as that?’

She shook her head. ‘Stop these allegations, please. I’m a victim, pure and simple. You’re barking up the wrong tree. I’ve paid nobody, and I’ve asked nobody, to do anything to those poor sad clowns.’

‘If only I could take your word for that,’ I told her, honestly. ‘But I can’t. I tell you now that we’re going to be looking at your bank accounts for cash withdrawals, we’re going to be looking at your phone records for contacts and we’re going to be following up every possibility.’

‘Then do that,’ she snapped, ‘but you’ll find nothing, I promise you. Now please leave. I have to get ready to broadcast this afternoon.’ For the second time running she was throwing me out of her house.

If Alison had sensed any frisson between Mia and me, she said nothing about it. ‘Do you think we’ll come up with anything?’ was the only question she asked.

‘Honestly? No. But we’ve got to do it.’

‘Is it possible,’ she wondered, ‘that she doesn’t have anything to do with the murders?’

‘They say that time travel’s possible,’ I replied, ‘but don’t go booking your trip to the twenty-first century and expect it to take any less than three and a half years to get there.’