It was time to leave. The crazy fool was still watching, the curtain only vaguely hiding his naked form. For his sake as well as hers, she’d better go. So she revved the throttle and sped off down the road. As the wind whipped her body, she realized that today she was feeling decidedly unusual.
She was happy.
49
Martina pulled off her bra and thrust her naked breasts towards the other girl. Caroline – was that her name? – responded, licking her nipples with feverish, theatrical desire. Martina threw her head back groaning – and her eye was immediately caught by a dent in the roof of the van. How had that got there?
She’d done this so many times that it was impossible to keep your mind on the job. Whilst your body was bucking and cavorting for someone else’s pleasure, the brain disengaged and you found yourself wondering whether you could make it to the pub before closing time or whether you should go to Egypt on holiday or how much the other girl had paid to have her boobs done. It was amazing how mundane your thoughts could be really, especially when the girl – perhaps it was Carol, not Caroline – was going down on you. Martina moaned right on cue. The punters never guess of course. They are so consumed by the idea of what they are seeing – two large-breasted women devouring each other – that they don’t spot the tell-tale signs of ennui. Wouldn’t care if they did anyway.
Still this job was slightly different to most. Usually it was played out in front of a lonely businessman masturbating before his lesbian fantasy made flesh or more profitably in front of two rich guys who couldn’t wait to get involved. The lesbian bit was just the amuse-bouche for them – they couldn’t wait to get stuck into the girls, riding them in tandem, silently and mutually congratulating themselves on their wealth, imagination and depravity. They were tossers to a man, but they paid well, so those gigs were always welcome.
It was much rarer for a woman to hire two girls. Especially such a well-dressed one as Cyn. Rarer still for the woman not to get involved. Most women who hired female prostitutes were happily married, but sexually unfulfilled. Women who wanted the status and trappings of normal family life, but yearned to be touched by another woman. For them the show wasn’t important, but the contact was. But Cyn was different. This was her fourth time now and she’d never so much as laid a finger on them. Never touched herself either. Each encounter was the same – she’d pick them up in her van, drive them out to the New Forest and then watch as the two girls pummelled each other with strap-ons and more. They’d been a bit suss at first – was this some kind of pseudo dogging thing? – but actually she was totally harmless. Martina often wondered what was going on in that head of hers though. What was she getting out of it?
The final peculiarity was the payment. She’d established early on that Martina was a party girl, a clubber. And since then she’d never paid her in cash. Instead, she’d offered Martina drugs. She must have good access because the street value of what she gave easily outstripped the cash payment she owed. Somehow she must be getting them cheap – or free, lucky cow.
They finished – a frenzy of feigned mutual orgasm – then seconds later were slipping their clothes back on. Martina’s body was athletic and strong – she was tall for a girl – and Cyn ran her eyes over her form, before saying:
‘Something special for you today.’
Cyn held out a little transparent bag of pills. Martina took it from her for closer examination. It was full of large white pills with an eagle insignia on them.
‘Just in from Odense. I think you’ll like them. No need for an upper with these little beauties, believe me.’
Martina poured half into Caroline’s eager hands, then without hesitation they both popped one down. Unusual taste – almondy, sweet – then Caroline asked where they were going to go tonight.
Martina was about to brush her off – she was off to visit her sister tonight – but the words wouldn’t come out. She felt a sudden light-headedness. Martina swayed as if she’d got up too quickly, losing balance and coherence. She laughed and righted herself. Cyn was talking to her – checking she was ok – but already her voice was sounding muffled and distant. A hand was on her arm, which suddenly felt so heavy, in fact all of her suddenly felt heavy. What the hell was going on? And then there was Caroline lying prone on the floor of the van. How did she get there? What wa-
Then suddenly everything went black.
50
Helen made sure she was first in the office. Having abandoned herself so completely with Mark the previous day, doubts had subsequently set in. Helen’s default position of caution – the closed circle – was assailing her again. She fought it off – for once determined not to give in – but she wasn’t sure how her mask would be when she first saw him, so she got in early to give herself time to prepare.
Mark came in promptly and got straight on with his work. By now most of the team were in. Helen shot a surreptitious glance Mark’s way – she wondered if anyone else within the team noticed how much better he was looking these days. He’d lost weight, gained colour and the whole haunted look had completely disappeared. Helen wondered if it was going to be a day of politely tiptoeing round the subtle change in their relationship, but Charlie soon put paid to that. She came round early in the day to update Helen on the latest developments.
Helen had done her old trick – keeping the suspect in custody long enough to arrange a search warrant – so that Hannah Mickery had had no time to prepare her defences or dispose of any evidence. They’d taken her computer – she flipped at that – and most of her diaries, journals, etc. They obviously couldn’t touch her case files – these were confidential – but there were ways of getting information on patients if one had a mind to. But that was for later.
One thing was clear straight away. She knew an awful lot about these killings. She had all the cuttings about Sam’s death, Ben’s, Marie and Anna’s, but also pictures. And not just those culled from local papers (which had in turn been taken from Facebook, school albums, etc.). No, these were photos she’d taken of Amy and Peter after the event. Helen also found Amy’s phone number scribbled in her journal. Why did she have this number, when she had neither met Amy nor according to her testimony ever been allowed to talk to her?
She had Peter’s work details, email addresses and most intriguingly a work schedule for him, though irritatingly this was from after Peter had returned to work, so it couldn’t in any way be linked to his abduction.
The computer was a harder nut to crack. Hannah had been asked to volunteer her password, but had refused, so they’d had to do it the hard way. People think these things are secure but they are not and although they should strictly have waited for the relevant paperwork, Helen decided to press on and the IT guys soon opened up her system.
Charlie had done most of the legwork, so sat in as Helen navigated her way through the files on Hannah’s MacBook Air. Most of it was dull – business and home admin – but a treasure trove was lurking inside. Hidden away from view in the computer’s Finder was a locked file, simply named ‘B’. Tantalizing… but again it didn’t take long to open.
Helen sat bolt upright as she saw what it contained. A word-for-word transcript of Amy’s formal statement, as given to Helen in the custody suite. Helen’s eyes narrowed, disbelieving. She clicked on the RealPlayer icon that was also in the ‘B’ file and her worst fears were realized. There in perfect definition was the video footage of the traumatized Amy giving her statement to Helen. Whoever she was – whatever she was – Hannah clearly had a copper onside. A copper who had given her this footage. But for what end?