Tony Hill u Carol Jordan 08 - Cross and Burn

to want to kill me, you’d get on with it. Not fuck about with surrogates.’ There was a grim twist to her mouth that might almost have been a smile.
    ‘You think somebody’s really killing women who look like you?’ Tony was genuinely curious. He thought he knew her well enough to predict the answer but he wanted to hear what she had to say.
    She shrugged one shoulder. ‘Other people seem to. Senior detectives with years of experience, some of them.’
    ‘But you,’ he persisted. ‘What do you think?’
    ‘I don’t think they look that much like me.’
    ‘There’s a generic similarity. Same blonde hair, blue eyes. Same haircut. Similar build. Professional women who go to work suited up. Has it occurred to you that it’s not them that look like you – it’s you that looks like them?’
    Carol frowned. This was how it had always played out between them. He said something impenetrable that she couldn’t resist and she was hooked. It had been like that since the very first case they’d worked together, all those years ago. And here he was, doing it to her again. She wanted to get to her feet and walk out, but more than that she needed to understand what he was driving at. ‘What do you mean – it’s me that looks like them?’
    ‘That’s not quite right.’ He spoke absently, as if thinking aloud. ‘It’s more that you all look like her.’
    ‘Like who?’ She almost howled in frustration.
    ‘The one he wanted to kill.’
    ‘Don’t you mean “wants” to kill?’
    Tony ran a hand through his hair. ‘No. He’s clever, he’s organised and he’s resourceful. If she was available to be killed, he’d have killed her and that would be an end to it.’ He spread his arms wide as if trying to draw her in to embrace the idea. ‘I think she’s already dead. I think he was planning to kill her, working up to it. But somehow she thwarted him.’
    ‘She killed herself?’ Carol was intrigued now in spite of herself. She leaned forward, forearms on the table. He noticed the changes in her hands – scars, bruises, broken nails. What on earth had she been doing, this woman who he remembered barely being able to manage flat-pack furniture?
    ‘Either that or she just died,’ he said, distracted by his more private speculation.
    ‘And this helps us how?’
    ‘Find her, and you find him.’ He shrugged. ‘Obviously you’re going to have to find her.’
    Before Carol could respond, the door opened and Scott stuck her head into the room. ‘Time to go, Carol. We’ll see you in the morning, Tony. Chin up. She’s never going to charge you.’

    ‘So what happens now?’ Carol asked Scott as soon as they were clear of Skenfrith Street police station.
    ‘I’m going home to catch some zeds before I have to get up and go head to head with DCI Fielding,’ the lawyer said. ‘I recommend that you not show up for that conversation. It’ll only get messy. Besides, you have plenty of other things to be getting on with. It’ll be bloody ages before Fielding gives us disclosure on Nadia Wilkowa’s work diaries. You’re going to need to pull your strings and find out when this alleged incident happened at Bradfield Moor and whether Nadia was in the building that day to bump into Captain Clumsy.’
    ‘You want me to go back to Paula?’
    Scott broke her stride to give Carol an incredulous look. ‘Well, duh. I want you to do whatever it takes to get the information that will clear my client. You always had the knack of coming up with the goods when you were working the other side of the fence.’
    Carol gave a snort of bitter laughter. ‘I did have one or two resources at my disposal.’
    ‘You still do. Human resources. You’ve got friends. So has he. Use them.’
    Carol suppressed a sigh. After the reaction she’d had from Sinead, she wasn’t so sure how much reliance she could place on her old networks. How bitter would it be to have to rely on Tony’s name to open doors? Tony, who was even more crap at intimacy than she was. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she said wearily.
    ‘And I’ll line up someone to demolish her thumbprint evidence. We’re going to leave her without a leg to stand on.’
    They entered the dank car park and headed for their cars. Before they separated, Scott put a hand on Carol’s arm. ‘Did he say anything useful after I left you alone with him?’
    Carol didn’t know where to begin to explain the way Tony’s mind worked to an outsider. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It