Tony Hill u Carol Jordan 08 - Cross and Burn

guardianship to her ex-husband; an exchange of lawyers’ letters arranging the terms of Tom’s contact with his son; a bundle of Christmas and birthday cards to Bev from Torin; a folder of Torin’s school reports; and finally, right at the bottom, a battered old address book.
    Stacey appeared in the doorway, waving a small silvery box in the air. ‘A copy of Bev’s hard drive. And nobody will ever know I was in there. I’ll take a quick look tonight and forward her emails on to you. The rest I’ll let you have as soon as I can.’ She glanced at a slim gold watch that Paula reckoned must have cost a few months’ salary. ‘If I shoot off now, I’ll still have time for dessert.’
    ‘Good luck with that.’ Paula shovelled everything back into the drawer except the address book. ‘Thanks for this, Stacey. It’s looking darker and darker.’
    ‘I’m sorry, for your friend’s sake. I’ll be in touch.’ She half-turned to go then paused. ‘Have you heard from the DCI, by the way?’
    Paula shook her head. ‘Not a word. I don’t even know where she is or what she’s doing.’
    ‘I expected her to come home to BMP once the dust had settled.’
    ‘Ha. You have to be joking. The brass don’t want her. She makes the bureaucrats look like a bunch of useless wankers. No, they were thrilled when she handed in her notice so she could move to West Mercia. But she never turned up. She resigned before she even started.’
    ‘I know. That’s why I thought she’d come back. For the sake of familiarity. And Tony, of course. He’s still at Bradfield Moor, isn’t he?’
    ‘Oh yes. They were over the moon when he said he wasn’t leaving after all. He’s living on a narrowboat down at the Minster basin. But he hasn’t heard from her either.’
    Stacey slipped the hard drive into her pocket. ‘Maybe she’s the one you should be treating as a misper.’

22

    Day twenty-five

    F ielding definitely had presence, Paula decided. She appeared different in almost every respect from Carol Jordan, but the one thing they had in common was the ability to hold the attention of a room full of hard-arsed coppers. Nobody was whispering to their neighbour or texting their girlfriend while Fielding was running a briefing. She might be petite and pretty, but when she started talking you forgot those fleeting fantasies and focused on what she was saying. It reinforced Paula’s desire to make the right mark on this firm.
    It was a kind of performance. DCI Fielding did her briefing on PowerPoint. She had one of those soft Scottish accents that took the harshness out of her words and made her audience want them not to stop. ‘The body of Nadzieja Wilkowa, known as Nadia, was found yesterday morning in a squat in Rossiter Street, Gartonside.’ A picture of the exterior of the house. ‘She had been beaten to death.’ A shot of the body in situ. Fielding clearly didn’t believe in sparing the squeamish or the hung-over. ‘A blow to the head from a pipe or a baseball bat, then battered and kicked. We think she was killed here, judging by the blood spatter. Our killer’s finishing touch was to superglue her labia together.’ An explicit photograph that made Paula feel angry and nauseous. ‘As we can see, her genital area had been shaved. When we find a boyfriend, I want to know if the shaving was her usual practice or if it’s something our killer likes to do.’
    The next shot showed the bathroom. Fielding used the laser pointer as she went through the key information. ‘The victim’s clothes and bag were stuffed down here. Not really hidden, just out of the way. It’s possible he may have made her wash in the bath. Or washed her himself. The water to the property has been cut off, but the squatters have rigged up a rainwater catchment system that provides a limited water supply. There was a puddle of water in the bath.’
    Back to the exterior shot of the house. ‘Gartonside is no-man’s-land. So there are no cameras on the approach to Rossiter Street or the surrounding area. I’m thinking the killer knew that. He seems too careful an offender simply to have got lucky. One of the many interesting questions is how he knew that the squatters would be gone for the weekend. Black, Hussain, I want you to talk to them. Find out exactly who knew they were going to be away. And who knows they live there.’ She flashed a smile at the two detectives, the kind of smile that Paula reckoned made you feel the love.
    ‘Nadia