Blind Fury Page 3

  “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 w
hen 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.