3

‘OK,’ SAID DI TULLOCH. ‘GO SLOWLY AND KEEP TALKING.’

I set off, my feet rustling on the pavement. Tulloch had taken one look at me and insisted that a Tyvek suit and slippers be brought. I’d be getting cold, she said, in spite of the warm evening, and I’d attract much less attention if the bloodstains were covered up. I was also wearing a pair of latex gloves to preserve any evidence on my hands.

‘I’d been on the third floor,’ I said. ‘Flat 37. I came down that flight of stairs and turned right.’

‘What were you doing there?’

‘Talking to a witness.’ I stopped and corrected myself. ‘A potential witness,’ I went on. ‘I’ve been coming over on Friday evenings for a few weeks now. It’s the one time I can be pretty certain not to see her mother. I’m trying to persuade her to testify in a case and her mother isn’t keen.’

‘Did you succeed?’ asked Tulloch.

I shook my head. ‘No,’ I admitted.

We reached the end of the walkway and could see the square again. Uniform were trying to persuade people to go home and not having much luck.

‘Guess there isn’t much on TV tonight,’ muttered Tulloch. ‘Which case?’

‘Gang rape,’ I replied, knowing I could probably expect trouble. I didn’t work on crime involving sexual assault and earlier that evening I’d been moonlighting. A few years ago the Met set up a number of bespoke teams known as the Sapphire Units to deal with all such offences. It was the sort of work I’d joined the police service to do and I was waiting for a vacancy to come up. In the meantime, I kept up to speed on what was going on. I couldn’t help myself.

‘Was the passage empty when you came out of the stairwell?’ Tulloch asked.

‘I think so,’ I said, although the truth was I wasn’t sure. I’d been annoyed at the response I’d got from Rona, my potential witness; I’d been thinking about my next move, if I even had one. I hadn’t been paying much attention to what was going on around me.

‘When you came out into the square, what did you see? How many people?’

Slowly, we retraced the last time I’d walked this way, with Tulloch firing questions at me every few seconds. Annoyed with myself for not being more alert earlier, I tried my best. I didn’t think there’d been anyone around. There’d been music, some sort of loud rap that I hadn’t recognized. A helicopter had passed overhead, lower than normal, because I’d glanced up at it. I was certain I’d never seen the blonde woman before tonight. There had been something, for a second, as I’d looked at her, something niggling, but no, it had gone.

‘I was looking back at this point,’ I said, as I turned on the spot. ‘There was a loud noise behind me.’

I met Tulloch’s eye and knew what she was thinking. I’d looked back and had probably missed seeing the attack by seconds. Split seconds.

‘When did you see her?’ she asked me.

‘I was a bit closer,’ I replied. ‘I was fumbling in my bag as I was walking – I thought I might have left my car keys behind – then I looked up and saw her.’

We were right back in the thick of it. A white-suited figure was taking photographs of the blood spatter on my car.

‘Go on,’ she told me.

‘I didn’t see the blood at first,’ I said. ‘I thought she’d stopped to ask directions, that maybe she thought there was someone in the car.’

‘Tell me what she looked like. Describe her to me.’

‘Tall,’ I began, not sure where this was going. She’d just seen the woman in question for herself.

She sighed. ‘You’re a detective, Flint. How tall?’

‘Five ten,’ I guessed. ‘Taller than both of us. And slim.’

Her eyebrows went up.

‘Size twelve,’ I said quickly. ‘From the back I thought she was young, probably because she was slim and well dressed, but when I saw her face, she seemed older than I expected.’

‘Go on.’

‘She looked good,’ I went on, warming to my theme. If Tulloch wanted endless detail I could oblige. ‘She was well dressed. Her clothes looked expensive. Simple, but well made. Her hair had been professionally done. That colour doesn’t come out of a bottle you buy at Boots and there was no sign of roots. Her skin was good and so were her teeth, but she had lines around her eyes and her jawline wasn’t that tight.’

‘So you’d put her age at …’

‘I’d say well-preserved mid forties.’

‘Yes, so would I.’ There was movement all around us, but Tulloch’s eyes weren’t leaving my face. There could have been just the two of us in the car park.

‘Did she have ID?’ I asked. ‘Do we know who she is?’

‘Nothing in her bag,’ said a man’s voice. I turned. Tulloch’s companion of earlier had joined us. He’d pushed his sunglasses on to the top of his head. There was scarring around his right eye that looked recent. ‘No ID, no car keys, some cash and bits of make-up,’ he went on. ‘Mystery how she got here. We’re some distance from the Tube and she doesn’t strike me as a bus type.’

Tulloch was looking at the large blocks of flats that surrounded the square.

‘Course, her car keys could have been stolen along with the car. A woman like that probably drives a nice motor,’ he said. He had a faint south London accent.

‘She had diamond studs in her ears,’ I said. ‘This wasn’t a robbery.’

He looked at me. His eyes were blue, almost turquoise. The one with the scarring around it was bloodshot. ‘Could have been fake,’ he suggested.

‘If I was slitting someone’s throat and cutting open their stomach to rob them, I’d take any visible jewellery on the off-chance, wouldn’t you?’ I said. ‘And she had a nice-looking wristwatch too. I could feel it scratching against my hand as she died.’

He didn’t like that, I could tell. He raised his hand to rub his sore eye and frowned at me.

‘Flint, this is DI Joesbury,’ said Tulloch. ‘Nothing to do with the investigation. He only came out with me tonight because he’s bored. This is DC Flint. Lacey, I think, is that right?’

‘Which reminds me,’ said Joesbury, who’d barely acknowledged the introduction. ‘Lewisham want to know when you’re bringing her in.’

Tulloch was still looking at the buildings around us. ‘I don’t get it, Mark,’ she said. ‘We’re surrounded by flats and it isn’t that late, dozens of people could have witnessed what happened. Why would you murder someone here?’

From somewhere near by I could hear a dog barking.

‘Well, she wasn’t here by chance,’ replied Joesbury. ‘That woman belongs in Knightsbridge, not Kennington. Thanks to DC Flint’s knowledge of jewellery, we know that robbery seems unlikely, although we do need to find her car.’

‘Kids round here wouldn’t kill for a car,’ I said as they both turned to me. ‘Oh, they’d steal it, no question, but they’d just snatch the keys, give her a shove. They wouldn’t need to—’

‘Slash her throat so deeply they cut right through her windpipe?’ finished Joesbury. ‘Cut her abdomen from the breastbone down to the pubic bone. No, you’re right, DC Flint, that does seem like overkill.’

OK, I was definitely not getting good vibes from this bloke. I took a step back, then another. For some reason, probably shock, I’d talked much more than I would normally. Maybe I just needed to quieten down for a while. Keep a low profile.

‘How?’ said Tulloch.

‘Sorry?’ said Joesbury, who’d been watching me back away.

‘She was still on her feet when DC Flint saw her,’ said Tulloch. ‘Still alive, although horribly injured. That means she was attacked seconds before. Probably even while Flint was wandering around fumbling in her bag for her keys. How did he do it? How did he inflict those injuries then disappear completely?’

Wandering and fumbling? Tulloch had made the attack sound like it was my fault. I almost opened my mouth again and remembered just in time. Low profile.

‘There are no CCTV cameras in the square,’ said Joesbury. ‘But the high street is just yards away. Stenning has gone to round up any footage. If our villain left the estate, he’ll have been picked up on one of them.’

Maybe it had been my fault. If I’d had my wits about me, I might have seen the attacker before he struck. I could have yelled for help, summoned local uniform on my radio. I could have stopped the attack. Shit, that sort of guilt trip was all I needed.

‘Whoever did it would be covered in blood,’ said Joesbury, still looking at me. ‘They’ll have left a trail.’ He glanced behind. ‘Sounds like the dogs are here.’

We looked towards the car park. Two dogs had arrived. German Shepherds, each with its own handler.

‘Not necessarily,’ I said, before I could stop myself. They both turned back to me. ‘If her throat was cut from behind, whoever did it might have escaped being splashed. All her blood spattered forward. On to my car.’

‘And then on to you,’ said Joesbury, his eyes dropping away from my face to the bloodstains that were just about visible through the Tyvek. ‘Are we done here, Tully?’ he went on. ‘You really need to get DC Flint back to the station.’

Tulloch looked uncertain for a moment. ‘I just need to make sure Neil—’

‘Anderson knows exactly what he’s doing,’ said Joesbury. ‘He’s got six officers taking witness statements, the traffic has been redirected and they’ll start the door-to-door as soon as the dogs are done.’

‘Can you take her back?’ asked Tulloch. ‘I want to have a good look round when things quieten down.’

Joesbury looked as though he were about to argue, then smiled at her. He had very good teeth. ‘Do I get to drive the Tully-mobile?’ he asked.

Shaking her head, Tulloch pulled down the zip of her pale-blue suit and dug into her pocket. Glaring, she handed over her car keys. ‘Prang it and I prang you,’ she warned.

‘Come on, Flint, before she changes her mind.’ Joesbury had put a hand on my elbow and was steering me towards the DI’s silver Mercedes.

‘And make sure she keeps that suit on,’ called Tulloch, as Joesbury held the passenger door open and I climbed inside. The interior looked showroom new. I sank back against the leather seat and closed my eyes.