Lazybones

FIFTEEN

Carol lifted the handset and dialed, checking the number on her pad twice as she pressed each button carefully. She reached over to straighten a picture on the wall as the phone at the other end began to ring.

She had only been able to stand watching McKee tit about for so long before she'd taken over herself. Two and a half days spent on the phone, digging through records at Companies House, getting wound up. Reminding herself of how shit the job was most of the time.

'Nobody made you do it,' Jack had said. 'Nobody would think any the worse of you if you chucked it in.'

Nobody except her…

Tracking down Baxters, the company Alan Franklin had worked for in Colchester nearly thirty years before, had proved enormously frustrating. She'd discovered quickly that the company, a stationery wholesaler, had not only left the area in the early eighties, but had changed its name. She was pretty much starting from scratch. She had spoken to every company in the south of England able to provide so much as a plain brown envelope, and got precisely nowhere. Then, just at the point when Jack was starting to talk about divorce, she'd got lucky. The personnel manager of a firm in Northampton knew everybody in the stationery supply business, played golf with most of them, God help him! He was only too delighted to tell her exactly where to find the person she needed to talk to, and gave her the name of a company in King's Lynn…

'Hello, Bowyer-Shotton, may I help you?'

'Yes, please,' Carol said. 'I'd like to speak to Paul Baxter.'

'I'll put you through…'

Andy Stone sat, sweating through his white linen shirt, some small fraction of his mind on the report he was writing up… He thought about the woman he'd woken up next to. He remembered the look on her face the night before, and the look she'd given him as she'd slipped out of his bed that morning without a word… She'd been attending a tedious conference at the Greenwood Hotel a couple of weeks earlier, when Ian Welch had been killed. Stone had interviewed her, given her his number in case there was anything else she remembered. She'd remembered that she fancied him, rung and asked if he wanted to go for a drink.

He guessed that she was turned on by the fact that he was a copper. A lot of women seemed to find it exciting. The power, the handcuffs, the war stories. Whatever the reason, once the novelty wore off, most of them seemed to lose interest in him very quickly. Meantime, the sex was usually pretty good…

He wanted to control things in bed. He liked to be on top, the woman's arms flung above her head, his hands around her skinny wrists, pushing himself up and away from her while he was doing it. He'd done weights, built up his chest and arms so that he could hold the position for as long as he needed to.

Last night had started really well. She'd looked up at him, her eyes wide, and said all the right things, just the sort of words he imagined hearing whenever he thought about it. She told him he was too big, that he might hurt her. He threw back his head, gritted his teeth, pushed harder…

Then she'd spoiled things. She'd begun to moan, to grab at his sh0ulders to say that she liked it rough. Then, between ragged breaths, she'd told him that she wanted him to hurt her. In seconds he had shrunk and slipped out of her. He dropped down and rolled on to his side, listening to her sigh, aware of her inching across to her own side of the bed, so that no part of their bodies were touching…

Stone looked up at the greeting of a colleague passing his desk. He smiled and continued to type. He remembered the warm feeling of his hand, cupped between his legs, and the sound of the woman's body sliding across the sheet as it edged away from him. Carol had been put on hold…

She had probably been listening to Celine Dion for no more than a couple of minutes, but she could feel herself growing a hell of a lot older.

Moments like this, the empty minutes that made up so much of any case, made her glad she'd agreed to take the job on the clear understanding that she could work from home. She'd guessed that AMRU would not be given the swankiest office facilities, and working as they did (or were supposed to do) in teams of just two, she'd have been lucky to get a cupboard.

Jack had cleared a space for her in the spare room. They set up the old computer that his daughter had used, and shelled out twenty quid on an extra handset for the cordless phone. Her filing system consisted of yellow Post-It notes stuck around a picture frame, her husband doubled as a coffee machine, and when Carol glanced at the mirror above her desk, she saw dusty hat boxes, old lamps without plugs and a collection of china dogs that had seemed like a good idea a couple of years before.

It was cramped, but she liked her things around her.

The day she'd taken up residence in her new office, Jack had stood behind her and they'd both stared into the mirror. Carol sat at her desk and smiled at the rubbish they'd amassed together down the years, piled up on the single bed behind her. The reflection of her retired self.

'That'll stop you getting too carried away,' Jack said. The muzak came to an abrupt and merciful halt. 'Can I help you?' a man asked.

'Yes. Paul Baxter, please…'

'Wrong department, love. You've come through to accounts. Let me try and transfer you…'

Ten seconds of clicking and then a familiar voice. Carol's heart was already sinking as she spoke.

'Paul Baxter, please…'

'Is that you again? Sorry dear, you've come back to the switchboard. I'll put you through…'

The sun, blazing through even the grimiest of the big windows, had turned the Major Incident Room into a sauna by midday. Yvonne Kitson didn't really need to reapply her lipstick, but did it all the same. Any excuse to spend a few minutes in the cool of the toilets was welcome. She didn't usually wear a great deal of make-up. Just enough to feel good, but that was all. In this job more than most, people were quick to judge, to form instant opinions that would be passed around and set in stone before you'd so much as got your work-station organised. She knew very well what people thought about her. She knew what the likes of Tom Thorne thought she was, thought she did. She knew just how wide of the mark they were.

Make-up – the colours, how much, when you wore it – gave off a signal. It said you were this, or that. Concealing, lying, making it up… She stood for a few moments, looking at herself in the cracked mirror. She moved her head a few inches, until the crack ran right down the middle of her face. Until it looked about right.

She would give it one more minute…

She began to count down the time in her head. Fifty-five seconds more, then she would slam the phone down, make some tea and go and shout at her old man for a while. No, she would snatch the phone back up, call McKee and shout at him…

Carol began to swear repeatedly under her breath. Fuck, fuck, fuck. She'd turned her back on gardening, and old films in the afternoon, and the Reader's Digest, for this…

'Paul Baxter's phone…'

She almost cheered. 'Thank God. Is Mr. Baxter there?'

The woman sounded unsure. 'Well, he was here a minute ago. He might have grabbed an early lunch. Let me see if I can find him for you…

There was a clatter as the receiver was dropped, then-silence. Thirty seconds later Carol heard voices, then muffled laughter which grew suddenly louder before the receiver was picked up and abruptly replaced. Then she just heard a dial tone. Carol took a deep breath and dialed again, jabbing at the buttons as if each were the eyeball of a Bowyer-Shotton employee.

'Hello, Bowyer-Shotton, can you hold for a moment…?'

Carol shouted. 'No!'

It was too late…

Dave Holland was in a reasonable mood until the little gobshite started to get cocky.

'Listen, I don't think I have to go into the details…'

'Well, that depends, doesn't it?' Holland said. 'On just how much of a pain in the arse you want me to be.'

'I did some modeling up there. Fair enough?'

'Right. Catalogue stuff, was it? The Debenham's autumn collection…?'

'You want to know my connection with Charlie Dodd, so I'm telling you. I was booked to do some filming, all right?'

'Did you ever mention it to anybody else?' Holland asked. 'Pass Dodd's name on? Maybe you told somebody about the studio?'

There was a hollow-sounding bark of laughter down the line. 'Yeah. I was so proud of the work, wasn't I? I mean, London Cock Boys and Borstal Meat are fucking classics. Maybe you've seen them…'

Holland hung up, put a line through another name on the list. Charlie Dodd had known a lot of people. They'd worked their way through every number on his phone records and everyone appeared to have a valid, if occasionally sordid, reason for being a friend, or 'business associate'. Photographers, film developers and suppliers, video production companies, prostitutes. Each person was asked to give the name of anybody else they thought might have known Dodd and this, together with a few more contacts provided by Thorne's squeaky voiced snout, had generated another, much bigger list to be worked through.

Holland stifled a yawn. At the end of the day, it would probably result in nothing more than a handy contact list to pass on to Vice. It was certainly unlikely to provide any link to the killer as, contrary o what Thorne had said, Dodd had discovered that it did pay to advertise. One of the first numbers on the list had turned out to be a specialist S amp; M magazine. They were suitably saddened at the news that a much-valued client would not be placing any further small ads to advertise his facilities…

Holland leaned back in his chair, thrust up his arms and stretched. Wasting his time, as he'd wasted it the night before at home. Making calls that could have waited, crossing names off the list. An excuse, an escape…

Sophie had come through in her dressing gown. One hand cradling her stomach and the other holding a mug of tea. She'd put it down in front of Holland and stood looking over his shoulder at the paperwork on the tabletop, her hand resting on the top of his head. She'd laughed softly. 'Little sod's been kicking the shit out of me all day

…'

When Holland had looked up half a minute later, she'd been standing in the doorway. He'd picked up his tea, smiled a thank-you at her.

'I know you think I want you to choose,' she'd said. 'And I really don't. Yes, I sometimes hate what you do, and I get pissed off at your pig-headed boss and the fact that you worship the ground he walks on, but you know all that. Yes, I would be happy if you took some time off and, no, I don't want you doing anything stupid. Not now. I wouldn't ask you to make a choice though, Dave.' Then she'd turned to stare out of the window for a moment. 'I'd be too scared…'

For a few seconds there had been only the sound of the traffic rumbling up the Old Kent Road, and a radio from the flat downstairs. Holland had picked up the phone from its cradle, reached for his pen.

'Can we talk about it later?' He'd looked down at the papers on the desk, at the pointless list of names. 'This is really important…'

Thorne watched his team going through the motions. Holland, Stone, Kitson…

He saw dozens of other officers and civilian staff talking and writing and thinking – the impetus running out. As if the heat had thickened the air, made it a little harder to move through. Thorne stood watching from the doorway of the Incident Room, thinking about the thrashing limbs of a body near to death… It was always the same pattern. In the days that followed the discovery of a murder victim, the activity was frantic. An urgency seized the team, the knowledge that the hours, the days immediately following, would be when they had their best chance. After Dodd, they'd run around like blue-arsed flies, checking records and tracing contacts and taking statements and chasing couriers. Waiting for anything. And, gradually, as always, the flurry of activity on the case had slowed, like the movements of the victim himself as death had approached. The frenzy became drudgery. The phone was picked up and the statement taken reflexively, the small spark of hope fizzling to nothing, until the body of the investigation itself began to stiffen and cool, to swing aimlessly…

Something would be needed. The case, and those working it, needed a jolt to kick some life back into them. An external force, like the passing train that had given movement to Charlie Dodd's corpse. Thorne had no idea what it was, or where it might come from.

'Paul Baxter…'

'Am I speaking to Paul Baxter?'

'Yes, who's this?'

Carol felt a little of the tension in her back and neck begin to ease.

'My name's Carol Chamberlain, from the Metropolitan Police Area Major Review Unit. You would not believe the trouble I've had trying to get hold of you…'

'Get hold of me…?'

'You, your company…'

'We're in the phone book…'

'Right, but I was looking for Baxters.'

There was a pause. Carol could hear Baxter taking a drink of something, swallowing. 'Blimey, that was a long time ago. My dad got bought out in… '82, I think. I stayed on as head of sales when we moved up here, that was part of the deal…'

'Anyway…'

'So how can I help you?' Paul Baxter laughed. He had a low, sexy voice. Smooth, like a DJ. 'Does the Met need some new headed notepaper?'

'Do you remember an employee called Alan Franklin? He would have left in…'

Baxter cut her off. 'God, yes, of course I do. I was helping out in the warehouse when all that happened, working for my old man. Run-up to Christmas, I think…'

'When all what happened?'

She could hear confusion, suspicion even, in Baxter's voice as he answered. 'Well, I don't suppose we'll ever know for sure, but I remember the court case obviously. God, and all that dreadful stuff afterwards '

Carol realised suddenly that she was on her feet, leaning on her desk. In the mirror she saw the face of a woman who, for the first time in three long years, was feeling the buzz. Feeling it across her chest like a heart attack. In her head like a hole that sucked away the breath in a second. Rushing through her blood and bone like light. Like a lease of life.

'Hello…?'

She became dimly aware of Baxter's voice on the other end of the phone. She lowered herself into the chair, took just another second before moving on.

'OK, Mr. Baxter, when can I come and see you?'

Done and dusted…

The suggestion had come from Southern himself. How brilliant was that?! An invitation back to Southern's small flat in Leytonstone had been politely declined. He'd already decided that he would be sticking with the hotel. Southern had gone for that idea straight away – same as the others had. There was something about a hotel that gave the rendezvous an excitement for them. It was the same for him as well, of course, but then he knew just how exciting it was really going to be… The hotels he'd chosen, on each occasion so far, had suited the mood of the event, and the character of the individual concerned, perfectly. He always gave some thought to that, as well as to the necessary issues of security. Remfry, if he'd had the chance, would have done it up a back-alley, acro a rusty oil drum. The place in Paddington had the seediness that got him off,, the squalor that turned him on. Welch, on the other hand, had wanted somewhere a bit nicer. He was clearly a man with aspirations, ideas above his station. The Greenwood had fitted the bill nicely.

The place that he'd found for Howard Southern would be ideal. It was a small, country-house-type hotel in leafy Roehampton. On the outskirts of Richmond Park, there was a romantic, woodland view from some of the bedrooms.

He was sure that it would go down well. Howard Southern loved the countryside. Hadn't he brutally beaten and raped his first victim on a disused bridle path in Epping Forest?

Done and dusted.