The Mermaids Singing. Val McDermid
conclusions, but the paper he’d subsequently written hadn’t included all of them. Some he’d left out because they were too off the wall, others because he feared they might reveal too much about his own psyche. That included his conviction that the response of a man who had previously called a chatline to a dirty phone call from a member of the opposite sex would be radically different to that of a woman in the same situation. Instead of slamming down the receiver, or reporting it to Telecom, most of these men would be either amused or aroused. Either way, they’d want to hear more.
All he had to work out now was why, unlike the chatline workers, this woman found telephone sex with a stranger so appealing. What he needed was to satisfy the intellectual curiosity that was at least as strong as his urge to explore the sexual playground she had opened up for him. Maybe he should consider suggesting a meeting. Before he could go any further, the phone rang. Tony started, his hand stopping halfway in its automatic journey to the receiver. ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ he muttered impatiently, shaking his head like a high-diver surfacing. He picked up the phone and said, ‘Tony Hill.’
‘Dr Hill, it’s Carol Jordan here.’
Tony said nothing, relieved that his thoughts had failed to conjure up the mystery woman.
‘Inspector Jordan? Bradfield Police?’ Carol continued into the silence.
‘Hello, yes, sorry, I was just trying to … clear a space on my desk,’ Tony stumbled, his left leg starting to jitter like a cup of tea on a train.
‘I’m really sorry about this, but I’m not going to be able to make it for ten. Mr Brandon’s called all the squad together for a briefing, and I don’t think it would be politic to miss it.’
‘No, I can see that,’ Tony said, his free hand picking up a pen and unconsciously doodling a daffodil. ‘It’s going to be hard enough for you to act as go-between without making it look like you’re not part of the team. Don’t worry about it.’
‘Thanks. Look, I don’t think this briefing is going to last that long. I’ll be with you as soon as I can. Probably around eleven, if that doesn’t interfere with your schedule.’
‘That’s fine,’ he said, relieved he wouldn’t have too long to brood before they could get down to work. ‘I’ve no meetings in the diary for today, so take your time. You’re not putting me out.’
‘OK. See you then.’
Carol replaced the phone. So far, so good. At least Tony Hill didn’t seem a prisoner of his professional ego, unlike several of the experts she’d had dealings with. And, unlike most men, he’d perceived her potential difficulty, sympathized without patronizing her, and had happily gone along with a course of action that would minimize her problems. Impatiently, she pushed away the memory of the attraction she’d felt for him. These days, she had neither the time nor the inclination for emotional involvement. Sharing a flat with her brother and finding the time to sustain a few close friendships took as much of her energy as she could spare. Besides, the ending of her last relationship had dealt her self-esteem too serious a blow for her to enter on another one lightly.
The affair with a casualty surgeon in London hadn’t survived her move from the Met to Bradfield three years before. As far as Rob was concerned, it was Carol’s decision to move to the frozen north. So travelling up and down motorways to spend time together was down to her. He had no intention of wasting any of his valuable off-duty time putting unnecessary mileage on his BMW just to go to a city whose only redeeming feature was Carol. Besides, nurses were a lot less stroppy and critical, and they understood long hours and shift work just as well as a copper, if not better. His brutal self-interest had shaken Carol, who felt cheated of the emotion and energy she’d invested in loving Rob. Tony Hill might be attractive, charming, and, if his reputation was correct, intelligent and intuitive, but Carol wasn’t about to risk her heart again. Especially not with a professional colleague. If she was finding it hard to get him out of her mind, it was because she was fascinated by what she could learn from him about the case, not because she fancied him.
Carol ran a hand through her hair and yawned. She’d been home for precisely fifty-seven minutes in the previous twenty-four hours. Twenty of those had been spent in the shower in a futile attempt to inoculate herself against the effects of no sleep. She’d spent a large chunk of the evening out on the knocker with her CID team, pursuing fruitless enquiries among the nervous inhabitants, workers and regular customers of Temple Fields and its gay businesses. The men’s reactions had ranged from total noncooperation to abuse. Carol felt no surprise. The area was seething with a mass of contradictory feelings.
On the one hand, the gay businesses didn’t want the area swarming with police because it was bad for cash flow. On the other hand, the gay activists were angrily demanding proper protection now the police had belatedly decided that there was a gay serial killer on the loose. One group of customers were horrified to be questioned, since their gay life was a deep secret from wives, friends, colleagues and parents. Another group were happily playing macho men, boasting that they’d never get into a situation where they were slaughtered by some glassy-eyed maniac. Yet another group were eager for details, obscurely and, in Carol’s eyes, obscenely excited by what could happen when one man went out of control. And there was a handful of hardline lesbian separatists who made no secret of their glee that this time, men were the targets. ‘Maybe now they’ll understand why we were so outraged during the Yorkshire Ripper hunt when men suggested single women should have a curfew,’ one had sneered at Carol.
Exhausted by the turmoil, Carol had driven back to headquarters to begin her trawl of the files of the existing enquiries. The murder room was strangely quiet, since most of the detectives were out in Temple Fields, pursuing different lines of enquiry or taking advantage of a few hours off to catch up on their drinking, their sex lives or their sleep. She’d already had a quick word with her opposite numbers on the other two murder investigations, and they had reluctantly agreed to give her access to their files provided she had the material back on their desks first thing in the morning. It was exactly the response she’d expected: superficially cooperative, but, in real terms, calculated to cause her even more problems.
When she’d walked through her office door, she’d been appalled by the sheer volume of paper. Stacks of interview statements, forensic and pathology reports, files of photographs virtually buried her office. Why, in God’s name, hadn’t Tom Cross decided to use the HOLMES computer system for the earlier murders? At least then all the material would be accessible in the computer, indexed and cross-referenced. All she’d have had to do then was to persuade one of the HOLMES indexers to print out the relevant stuff for Tony. With a groan, she closed her door on the mess and walked through the empty corridors to the uniform sergeant’s office. The time had come to test the ACC’s instruction to all ranks to cooperate with her. Without another pair of hands, she’d never get through the night’s work.
Even with the grudgingly granted help of a PC, it had been a struggle to get through the material. Carol had skimmed the investigation reports, extracting everything that seemed to hold the possibility of significance and passing it on to the constable for copying. Even so, there was a daunting pile of material for Tony and her to work through. When her assistant knocked off at six, Carol wearily loaded the photocopies into a couple of cardboard cartons and staggered down to her car with them. She helped herself to full sets of photographs of all the victims and scenes of crime, filling in a form to requisition fresh copies for the investigating teams to replace the ones she’d taken.
Only then had she headed home. Even there, she had no respite. Nelson waited behind the door, miaowing crossly as he wove his sinuous body round her ankles, forcing her to head straight for the kitchen and the tin opener. When she dumped the bowl of food in front of him, he stared suspiciously at it, frowning. Then hunger overcame his desire to punish her and he wolfed down the whole bowl without pause. ‘Nice to see you missed me,’ Carol said drily as she made for the shower. By the time she emerged, Nelson had clearly decided to forgive her. He followed her around, purring like a dialling tone, sitting down on every garment she selected from the wardrobe and placed on the bed.
‘You really are the pits,’ Carol grumbled, pulling her black jeans