Tony Hill u Carol Jordan 08 - Cross and Burn

from your local supermarket to speed cameras to mobile phone networks. I could track you from your front door to the office without your knowing.’
    Rob laughed nervously. ‘Pay no attention to him, he likes to wind us all up, does Nige.’
    Creep , she thought. ‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ she said mildly, not making it clear which one she was responding to.
    ‘I was just making sure Rob’s coming along tonight. A bunch of us are going out to celebrate landing a tasty new contract. We’re going to Honeypots, do you know it?’
    You didn’t have to be a lad about town to be aware of Honeypots, Bradfield’s biggest and brashest lap-dancing club. Marie would rather have nailed her hand to the wall than spend an evening there. Not for the first time, she counted her blessings and was grateful for her Marco. ‘I never go out on a school night,’ she said.
    Nigel raised one side of his mouth in a sneer. ‘You ladies and your beauty sleep. Another time, maybe. On a Friday?’
    Marie gave her sweetest smile. ‘I’ll bring my husband. He likes a good laugh.’ She gathered her papers and stood up. ‘Rob, perhaps we could finish this when you’re free?’
    Twat , she thought as she marched back to her office. It didn’t seem to matter where you worked, you couldn’t escape them. More’s the pity.

12

    T he mobile incident room was bedlam with the volume turned down. A constant stream of police officers, CSIs and civilian support staff tramped in and out, covering all the bases from grim and grumpy to crass and chirpy. One look told Paula it was the worst possible place to examine evidence that might end up as a key plank in a court case. Clearing it first with Fielding, she left the crime scene and headed back to Skenfrith Street to find a quiet corner. And if she was honest, she wanted to put some distance between herself and the dead woman.
    During her years with Carol Jordan’s Major Incident Team, Paula had confronted a wide range of the hideous things human beings could do to one another. The things she’d seen had disturbed her nights and her days, but she’d always managed to put them in a box in her head where they couldn’t contaminate the rest of her life. She’d known what it was to be at risk herself, and she’d lost colleagues to the job. It was only by chance that she’d escaped the act of violence that had destroyed Chris Devine’s future during the hunt for Jacko Vance.
    All of this horror she’d got through. Maybe a few extra drinks on the bad nights, a spike in her cigarette consumption on the bad days. Still, she’d absorbed the pain, dealt with the anger. Deep down, she’d learned to live with it. But today’s victim had messed with her head. There was no escaping that. The brutal beating on its own would have been hard to stomach, but she’d have got past that without too much trouble. The other thing – she could hardly bear to articulate the act, even in her head – was somehow infinitely worse. It was as if her killer wanted to deny her everything that made her who she was. Wrecked face, ruined body, not even any use for sex. He’d rendered her utterly worthless. It spoke of a contempt that chilled Paula’s heart. This, she suspected, was a murderer who wasn’t going to stop at one.
    The rest of the team would be gossiping and speculating about it. She knew what cops were like. And for a little while she wanted not to be part of that. Putting together a profile of the victim based on the contents of her bag would be a good enough excuse.
    In the unfamiliar territory of her new base, she managed to find the canteen and set herself up with coffee and the comfort of Jaffa Cakes. And because the canteen staff always knew what was what, she acquired directions to a small meeting room on the fourth floor where nothing was scheduled for the rest of the day.
    Gloved and masked, her coffee and biscuits on a separate table, she finally addressed the dead woman’s life. The bag was businesslike – black leather, worn in but not scuffed, decent quality and capacious. It looked a bit like a scaled-down briefcase, with its neat compartments and pockets. Methodically, Paula emptied the contents on to the table, not pausing to study anything till she was sure the bag was completely empty. She was impressed with the relative absence of crap and made a mental note to clear her own bag of the accumulated detritus of everyday living.
    She went with the obviously female stuff first.