Stop Dead (DI Geraldine Steel)

he had been injured at some time between leaving school at four on Wednesday and leaving home around eight on Thursday morning. The entire Visual Images Identification and Detection Office was tasked with following Charlie after he left school the previous day. There was much interruption as he travelled unwittingly from camera to camera, until he was picked up turning into Todds Walk, not far South of his home.

     
    ‘He entered the estate all right,’ the VIDO officer said, ‘but he didn’t arrive at Birnam Road for nearly an hour. It’s less than half a mile. It shouldn’t have taken him more than ten minutes at the most.’
    ‘Was anyone else around on the Hornsey Road who might have seen something? Could he have fallen over …?’
    ‘The only other figure there at the same time was this – hang on –’
    The officer rewound the tape back to the point where Charlie went into Todds Walk. A woman had turned off a few seconds earlier.
    ‘He was hanging around for a few minutes before he turned off,’ the VIDO officer said, ‘almost as though he was waiting for her.’
    ‘Or for someone. According to his mother he’d been mugged twice on his way home from school. She insists it’s all the fault of the school, but the Andover Estate is notorious for its gangs and she knows that. She told him not to cut through the estate but to go the long way round along the main road. Perhaps he just didn’t want to go in there on his own.’

     
    ‘I’ll check back and find out who else was around,’ the VIDO officer said.
    ‘If there was anyone else there,’ Sam muttered under her breath.
    She turned back to her colleague.
    ‘Before you do that, I want images of the woman, enhanced to give as clear an image of her figure and her face as possible, and send them to me as a priority.’
    ‘But –’
    ‘Now please!’
    Picking up the urgency in Sam’s voice, the VIDO officer set to work.

     
    Sam called Geraldine but there was no answer. With growing unease she rapped at the detective chief inspector’s door and brought him up to date with the CCTV evidence.
    ‘So it’s looking like this singer might be responsible,’ she concluded. ‘It looks like a woman, at any rate.’
    ‘We don’t know the woman who assaulted the boy in the tunnel has got anything to do with the murders,’ Reg pointed out.
    ‘But it’s a possibility. Shall I go after her?’ Sam asked.
    ‘Who?’
    Sam explained that Geraldine had gone to question Ingrid Tennant. She hadn’t returned and wasn’t answering her phone. Reg listened closely, frowning, and nodded when she finished speaking.
    ‘Go on then,’ he agreed. ‘Take a couple of constables and go over there. And let’s hope this singer can tell us something useful.’

CHAPTER 67
     
    G eraldine waited outside Ingrid’s flat for almost an hour. It hadn’t taken long to scan through the sketchy information the intelligence unit had dug up on her. By contrast there was a lot of background detail on Linda Harrison. She read and reread it while she waited, familiarising herself with the prisoner’s history. Comparing pictures of Ingrid and Linda, there did seem to be a resemblance, although the pictures she had of Ingrid weren’t very clear and it was impossible to be sure.

     
    Absorbed in her reading, she almost missed her target. It was drizzling and the woman walked so quickly up the path she had reached the front door before Geraldine spotted her black raincoat and grey scarf. She had only ever viewed a picture of the singer online and could see nothing of the woman’s face as she unlocked the door and hurried inside. Geraldine barely caught a glimpse of the black coat, grey scarf and large bag slung across one shoulder before the figure vanished inside. Nevertheless she felt a thrill of anticipation. She was almost sure she had just seen Ingrid Tennant. Deciding not to stop to summon Sam, she climbed out of the car and scurried across the road. She didn’t want to risk losing her suspect now. The rain was falling heavily in fine drops that swept sideways under her umbrella, and by the time Geraldine reached the front door, her ankles and shins were soaked. Clutching her jacket closer to her chest, she reached out to ring the bell. As she did so, Jeff Parker opened the door.

     
    ‘Oh it’s you,’ he greeted her, surprised but pleased. ‘Come to speak to her at number 26a about her bloody racket, have you? About time too. Number 26a, it’s that door