“I could have been wrong.”
“The chief constable wants to see you.”
“Why?”
“That’s his business.”
“We’re supposed to catch this train.”
“There’ll be others.”
Chief Constable Thomas Fryer is a big man squeezed into a uniform that is one size too small for him. Pink-faced with jaundiced eyes, he has an office on the top floor of Thames Valley Police headquarters. It’s a blue-sky view and daily affirmation that he’s reached the top of his chosen profession.
Removing his rimless glasses, he wipes them with a Kleenex.
“DCI Drury wants to have you arrested.”
“On what grounds?”
“You’ve made him look foolish.”
“That wasn’t my intention.”
Through the vertical blinds, I can see the outer office. Charlie is waiting for me, sitting on a plastic chair, texting on her iPhone. Drury is in the same room, pacing the floor, furious at being excluded from the meeting.
Fryer puts on his glasses.
“He’s a good detective. Hot-headed. Noisy. But he gets results.”
The chief constable takes a seat. The silver buttons on his uniform rattle against the metal edge of his desk.
“Are you a gambling man, Professor?”
“No.”
“But you understand odds?”
“Yes.”
“A true punter might wager a few quid on a long shot just to keep an interest in a race, but he doesn’t bet his house on an outsider without inside information, you understand what I’m saying?”
The answer is no, but I don’t interrupt him.
“A punter doesn’t risk his entire stake unless he gets a nod from someone close to the horse, the jockey or the trainer.”
“What does this have to do with me?”
“You’re a long shot but I’ve heard some good things.”
“Good things?”
“Detective Superintendent Veronica Cray speaks very highly of you. And I’m led to believe she doesn’t say nice things about men as a rule.”
The chief constable has risen from his chair again and walked to the window, admiring his view.
“Hell of a mess, this…”
I’m not sure if I’m supposed to answer.
“We need to tread gently. Under normal circumstances, a teenage girl dying in a blizzard wouldn’t create too many issues, but this is very different. This is one of the Bingham Girls.”
“Issues?”
“I’ll get to that. First I need to ask for your assistance. I want you to hang around for a few more days. Help us understand what happened to Natasha McBain.”
“I have a clinical practice in London.”
“We can pay for your services.”
“It’s not about money.”
Fryer places both fists on his desk, propping his body forward.
“The press are going to have a field day. That’s why we’re not making it public just yet. I’ve ordered a full media blackout. I don’t know how long it’s going to hold…”
“What about the girl’s family?”
“We’ll seek their co-operation.”
The silence stretches out. Fryer brings it to a close.
“I have questions, Professor. Do you think Natasha McBain ran away from home and chose the wrong night to come back?”
“No.”
“I thought so. Where has she been?”
“I have no idea.”
Fryer nods and glances at the folder on his desk.
“There are details that I wish to share with you, but first I need your assurance that you’ll keep this information confidential and that you’ll agree to help.”
“I can’t, I’m sorry.”
Fryer doesn’t seem to hear me. “I want you to review the original investigation. Look for any shortcomings. Assist in the new search…”
“I can recommend a good profiler.”
“I’m asking you. You see things that other people miss. In less than a day you uncovered more than two dozen detectives did in a week.”
“I’ve retired.”
“A man like you doesn’t retire. You answer the call.”
He straightens and rocks back on his heels, holding the blunt end of a ballpoint pen against his clean-shaven chin.
“We have a mutual acquaintance, you and I: Vincent Ruiz. I played rugby against Ruiz. It was a long while ago, of course. We both played in the front row. He once landed a punch flush on my jaw and I saw stars for a week. I deserved it. I punched him first.
“If you need help on the review, call in Ruiz. We can employ him as a consultant, put you both on the payrolclass="underline" a thousand pounds a day. I’m sure he’d appreciate the money…”
The chief constable has done his research. He knows that Ruiz has struggled financially since he retired from the Metropolitan Police. He has an elderly mother in full-time care and shrinking savings.
Fryer pauses. There’s something else. Resuming his seat, he opens the folder.
“Elements of this case shock me, Professor. I’ve been a policeman for thirty years and not many things surprise me anymore.”
He passes me a photograph of Natasha McBain, naked on a metal bench, her chest sewn together with rough cross-stitches.
“We do some terrible things to people after they die; we cut them open, gut them, stitch them up, but that poor girl suffered more indignities in life than in death.”
He adds a second photograph. “At a stretch, I can accept why some sadistic prick might rape a teenage girl. Maybe he’s anti-social, or impotent, or just plain too ugly to get laid. And I can almost understand why he might keep her locked up as a plaything and beat her around, getting excited by her fear. But this… this is beyond me.”
He adds a final photograph-an extreme close-up of Natasha’s groin area with her vagina shown in all its anatomical detail. Then I recognize what I’m looking at… what I’m not seeing. Her prepuce and clitoris are missing.
This is what Dr. Leece saw during the post-mortem. This is what left him speechless.
“Dead people have rights too,” says Fryer. “I don’t care what you wish had happened in the past. It’s not my concern. I sometimes wish I worked less and was nicer to people and could open a homeless shelter for stray cats, but then I realize that I’m not that sort of person, which is why I don’t give a rat’s arse about you being tired or retired. It’s bogus, a bad excuse.”
The chief constable stabs his index finger at the photographs.
“You’re going to help us, Professor, because there’s a lot more at stake here than a few bruised reputations and a DCI with his nose out of joint. There were two Bingham Girls. The job is only half done.”
12
Drury hasn’t said a word since he emerged from the chief constable’s office. With his bloodless fists clenched and a manic gleam in his eyes, he strides towards the lift, slapping his palm against the button, trying to bruise the wall.
His arguments are stilling ringing in my ears. Delivered at decibels, they had opened doors along the corridor and raised eyebrows. He demanded a bigger task force. More detectives. Greater resources. What he didn’t want was a “bloody shrink” spouting cliches and telling him the bleeding obvious.
Charlie pretended not to listen. Turning up her iPod, she swung her legs beneath her chair and hummed to herself. Now we’re half-running down the corridor, trying to catch up to Drury who is holding open the lift doors like he’s Moses parting the Red Sea.
The police car drops us at the hotel where I rebook a room. Charlie has fallen silent, picking at a hangnail, a performance of compressed sullenness. I try to kiss her cheek. She turns her face away.
“I won’t be long.”
“What about London?”
“Maybe tomorrow.”
“I can go by myself.”
“Your mother wouldn’t like that.”
Drury is waiting downstairs, the engine running.
The lift doors slide closed. I stare at my reflection in the polished steel wondering how I finished up back here-involved in another investigation. Whatever skill I have, whatever ability to understand human behavior and motives, it has turned into a curse.
People teem with their own information. It leaks from their pores, spouts from their mouths, reveals itself in every mannerism, tic and twitch. Whether they are shy, materialistic, body conscious, vain, fluent in cliche, brimming with aphorisms and tabloid axioms, they reveal themselves in thousands of different ways.