'Next week, eh.' She shifted her thighs, squeezing him backward and leaned over to pick her thong. Silk, diamanté-studded, eighty-five pounds from Agent Provacateur. She stood up and the man looked at her hopefully.
'Could you at least leave me the knickers?'
The call she had just received could very well turn out to be the best break of her career and so she was suddenly feeling very generous. She tossed them into his eager hand.
'I want them replaced.'
She closed the door behind her. The look of gratitude in her boss's eyes was proof, if she needed it, of just how weak men can be.
Kate walked down the corridor, wrapping the long scarf around her neck and heading for the stairs. She was happy to have put the briefing behind her, her mind wasn't on it. Much as she felt for the murdered woman, she had her own problems today. She headed down the broad staircase and walked to the police surgeon's room. She dreaded what she was about to hear. When she had worked as a police surgeon Kate had had to deal with many cases of rape. She knew that the cases reported were just the tip of the iceberg too. She'd been giving a lecture not many weeks past addressing the issue. She'd been horrified to look at the women against rape website and seen that if anything the situation was getting worse year by year. Ninety-eight per cent of domestic violence goes unreported. Two women a week murdered by their partner or ex-partner. One in six women in the country has been raped and yet only six per cent of reported rapes result in a conviction. And now, most likely, she was one of the statistics. She had no evidence that the man in her bed had assaulted her last night; it was a gut feeling, and the news that he had done it before just made her all the more certain that she had been violated. The thought of it made her feel nauseous again, her stomach lurching as though she were on a particularly choppy Channel crossing. She paused at the water cooler outside the police surgeon's office to take a drink and try and stop herself from hurling her lunch on the smooth tiles of the corridor.
Melanie Jones was standing outside in the car park of the London Apprentice. She was holding a large glass of red wine in her left hand and a Lambert & Butler Superking dangled from her perfectly painted lips.
'Shit,' she said looking at her mobile phone, which was staying frustratingly quiet. 'Ring, you bastard!' She sucked in a lungful of smoke and paced over to look at the river.
The recent heavy falls of rain had sluiced mud from the banks of either side of the Thames, and the strong winds had stripped dead leaves and detritus from Eel Pie Island, further upriver, to wash down and swirl in the dirty, brown water. Melanie looked at it, her lip curling. Bloody thing was like an open sewer. It was a metaphor for London she thought, she couldn't wait to put the stinking city behind her. The phone call earlier though, if it was genuine, was a career-making opportunity and could have her in America sooner than you could say world exclusive. That had been her ambition ever since she had done a presenting course at Bournemouth University a few years ago. She was born for Fox News. As a teenager she had wanted to be a model, but she was too curvy as an adult, too womanly. Her legs were long for a woman but too short for a supermodel. She'd taken Ulrika Jonsson as her inspiration. So she had started off as a weather girl before being talent-spotted by a Sky News journo at a fund-raiser for victims of the Boxing Day Tsunami. She'd rogered him senseless that night on a king-size waterbed and as a consequence he had made the right calls for her and just like that she was in with Rupert Murdoch. Not that she'd ever met the man, but maybe all that would change, and soon. The phone buzzed in her hand and she almost dropped it, her palms suddenly moist with perspiration. She already had the title of her book in mind. Intimate Conversations With a Serial Killer.
She took a deep breath and pushed the answer button, her voice like gunpowder soaked in honey.
'Melanie Jones. Talk to me.'
Caroline Akunin was standing at her window drinking a cup of white tea when Kate walked into her office. She found herself standing a lot more often these days, the baby was definitely making its presence felt. Sitting behind the sturdy police desk for any long periods of time was just not possible any more. She ran a thoughtful hand across her stomach and smiled sympathetically at Kate as she came in through the open door.
'I hope I haven't kept you waiting?' Kate asked.
'Of course not.' The police surgeon's perfect teeth flashed in a dazzling smile.
'I had a briefing to attend first. It went on longer than I thought.'
Caroline Akunin gestured to the chair in front of her desk as Kate shut the door behind her. 'Why don't you sit down, Kate?'
Kate sat in the chair and gestured at the woman's prominent belly. 'How's it going? The pregnancy.' It seemed to her an inane thing to say but suddenly she wanted to talk about anything other than the reason she had come. Now she was sitting in the police surgeon's office she didn't want to hear anything that would confirm her worst fears. If you don't name the bogeyman he can't get you, after all. That's what her mother had always told her. But, as in a lot of things, she had lied.
Caroline smiled again; Kate could easily see why her Russian husband had fallen in love with her. 'You know how it is. The first nine months are the worst.'
Kate forced herself to return the smile. The truth was she had no idea how it was. Motherhood was not high on Kate's agenda. Just thinking about the modern world, the pollution, the global warming, the disaffected hopelessness and the violence of youth, the gun deaths and knifings, the rape, assault and mutilation of women throughout the country, the fear, as essential and as constant a part of London life now as the Victorian smog used to be, and she didn't think it ever would be. Who would want to bring a child into this world? But as she looked at her friend Caroline's beatific face, a living sculpture in maternal happiness, she knew she could never convey the darkness of her thoughts to her, so she changed the subject back to what she feared the most.
'What can you tell me about what happened last night?'
Caroline Akunin sighed and pulled another chair across closer to her friend. 'I can tell you what our tests have shown so far.'
'Go on.'
'There are no physical signs of rape. No bruising, no abrasion.'
'I know that.'
'Of course, sorry.'
'Don't apologise, Caroline. Just tell me straight. I need to know.'
'Okay. Well, there are no pubic hairs.'
'None at all?'
'Just yours, Kate.'
'And there are no traces of semen?'
'None.'
Kate blew out a sigh. 'Thank God for that, at least.'
'I guess.'
Kate leaned her head back and looked at the ceiling. 'Doesn't mean, of course, that nothing happened.'
'No, it doesn't.'
'Any traces of lubricant?'
'Nope.'
'Lubricant- and spermicide-free condoms are readily available.'
Caroline nodded. 'Let's face it, Kate, he could have put a condom through a dishwasher before he used it.'
'Reused. Nice image.'
Caroline shrugged sympathetically.
'Don't tell me there's traces of Fairy Liquid power-ball?' She tried to smile but couldn't manage it this time.
'There's nothing, Kate.'
'What about date-rape drugs? Rohypnol, one of those?'
'I'm still waiting on the blood work.'
Kate clenched her hand angrily. 'There must be something he used, Caroline. Something has to show up. If this was taken to the CPS they'd laugh in our faces.'
'Let's see what the blood tests show.'
'You said he's already been charged?'
'Cautioned, charged, released on police bail and due in court this week.'
'Can you give me the details?'
Caroline stood up and shook her head sadly. 'Sorry, Kate. You know I can't do that. Completely against the rules. Client confidentiality and all that. Not to mention that it could jeopardise the case.'