TOUCH: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel. Mark Sennen

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ other girls. We have a duty of care to the people who live in and visit this city, and in this case we have discharged that abysmally. How many of you have daughters at home?’ Hardin stared at Savage again. ‘Ask yourselves if you would be satisfied with our work. Go on askyourbloodyselves!’

      Hardin turned and stomped out of the room.

      ‘Phew!’ Someone whistled. ‘Wouldn’t like to be here when he got out of bed on the wrong side.’

      Savage didn’t spot who made the comment, but it brought smiles to a few people’s faces and a couple of the usual suspects began trading wisecracks. Savage could only think of her impending meeting, in her mind comparing it to a trip to a headmaster’s office to receive a beating. Still, Hardin had every right to be angry because operation Leash had become a joke, and with one of the victims dead, farce now slipped into tragedy.

      Earlier Savage had pondered the latest development on her drive to the station. Thirty minutes of typical Monday morning traffic had given her plenty of time to think. A drain had blocked on the eastern side of the Laira Bridge and the dual carriageway was reduced to one lane, vehicles crawling along and surging through the almost knee-high water. People sat in their cars looking miserable, and with the Olivárez girl dead Savage couldn’t help feeling down too.

      Twelve months ago operation Leash had been created after the police had linked a series of rapes together. Since then the rapes had continued, the victims always sharing the same characteristics of being under twenty-five and students, often foreign, picked up from clubs and bars in the heart of the city. A car ride took them from the centre to a large house where two or more men gang raped them. After being assaulted for several hours the women would be dumped somewhere in the suburbs and told if they kept quiet no further harm would come to them. The parting threat from the attackers made the Leash team suspect a number of victims remained too scared to report the crime. The girls were duped into leaving the safety of the clubs because their drinks had been spiked with gamma-hydroxybutyrate, otherwise known as GHB. The drug had a plethora of street names including the incident room’s current favourite, Easy Lay. Savage considered the tag politically incorrect, but apt. In a last ditch attempt to reduce the number of attacks uniformed patrols had taken to giving out free drug detection kits and assault alarms. With thousands of students in the city the task was hopeless. The rapists seemed to be able to carry out their plans with a boldness and impunity that was becoming a personal insult to all concerned.

      The inquiry occupied a huge proportion of Major Crimes’s time, more time than desirable or necessary, as Hardin had pointed out to the team last week. His latest brainwave was an undercover operation with as many bodies as could be mustered. They would sprinkle the clubs with officers posing as students, not as honey traps, but as discreet observers who might spot something as it happened. The Big Night Out, a name coined by some of the younger officers, was planned for Saturday and already the talk at the station was of what everyone would be wearing. Savage thought it was a waste of time: anyone over their mid-twenties would stick out and the chances of seeing anything in a crowded, noisy club were minuscule. Still, as Hardin had said, they were down to clutching at straws now. And if the Big Night Out did not produce a result then the next Monday morning he would be in a worse mood than ever and looking for a scalp or two to serve up to the ACC. Savage didn’t think she would blame him for wanting to do that either.

      With Hardin gone the noise in the room rose to full volume again with phones ringing, keyboards clattering and people bustling this way and that. At one of the whiteboards DC Enders scribbled some notes next to a new picture taped slap bang in the centre. Pride of place now rather than just one of the other nine victims. He looked up as Savage approached, his young face beaming out from beneath a dishevelled mop of brown hair. Enders always appeared to Savage more like a member of a boy band than a hard-working detective, but she couldn’t fault his passion and enthusiasm for the job.

      ‘Remind me of the unlucky girl’s details again, Patrick,’ Savage said.

      ‘Rosina Salgado Olivárez, twenty-one, Spanish national, student, lived in a shared flat in Mutley. Raped eight months ago on fifteenth February, a Saturday night. Someone dropped her outside the entrance to Saltram Park first light Sunday morning. Unbelievably, considering the state she was in, she managed to walk all the way from there back to her flat. When she got in she collapsed and slept for the whole day. Told her housemate about the assault in the evening and the flatmate phoned it in.’

      ‘What about the MO?’

      ‘Matches the others. Complained of dizziness after a couple of drinks so she informed her friends she was going home early. In a bit of a muddle she goes outside and someone offers her a lift. She gets in the car and collapses unconscious. Next thing she knows she’s tied to a bed and two men are raping her. After a few hours of hell she is untied, forced to take a shower and then she’s dumped. That and the fact that the men used condoms meant no DNA. Just like all the others.’

      Savage shook her head and sighed. Enders continued.

      ‘Understandably, after we had interviewed her, she makes plans to return home to Spain. We accompanied her to the Santander ferry on the twenty-first February, she went through passport control and we heard nothing more until we were contacted by the Guardia Civil. It appeared as if she never returned to her home town of Zaragoza. Now we know why.’

      ‘So the first question is why was she killed?’

      ‘And the second is how on earth did she get back to Plymouth?’ Enders asked.

      ‘Exactly.’

      Savage dragged herself up to Hardin’s office and found DCI Mike Garrett and DI Davies waiting. As a Superintendent Hardin had the luxury of his own space even if he hadn’t made much effort to personalise it. The obligatory picture of him in uniform at some event with his wife standing dutifully at his side sat on one side of a tidy desk. There was also a calendar of Greek islands on the wall – a year out of date – and a couple of P.D. James novels stuck in the bookcase alongside the law books and policing manuals. Hardly a home from home.

      Savage took the seat next to Davies. He had managed a shave, but still looked rough. Garrett was as smartly turned out as ever, but the older detective wore a subdued expression, fresh lines of worry on his face. As the Senior Investigating Officer on operation Leash he would have received the sharp end of Hardin’s tongue, Savage suspected. However, rant finished, the DSup had now come over all conciliatory. He even muttered some apology to Savage about his earlier behaviour.

      ‘This bloody diet plays havoc with my mood. Have you ever tried chewing a stick instead of having a doughnut with your morning coffee?’

      He held up a jar of real liquorice and offered it around. All present politely declined.

      ‘According to my doctor the coffee must be decaf, lunch is to be salad, dinner is wholemeal bread and a light soup and if the wife offers kinky sex I am to refuse.’

      Hardin had suffered a mild heart attack around six months before. Enders said it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke. The quip got a big laugh, but made Savage think of her next medical and wonder what the doctor would say to her when he checked her blood pressure readings. Especially the way operation Leash was going.

      ‘Right,’ Hardin rubbed his hands together. ‘I’m taking direct control of this operation, in effect assuming Mike’s position as SIO in all but name. I know you have worked your butts off, but the results are disappointing to say the least.’

      Too true, Savage thought, meeting Garrett’s eyes and detecting discomfort behind his frown. With Hardin as SIO in all but name Garrett was stuffed. If the investigation СКАЧАТЬ