TOUCH: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel

I still care, Harry. I really do.

Maybe they did care all those years ago, but they never stayed long. A few months at most and his father and his wandering hands became too much for them.

He was disgusting, Harry. Dirty!

So they left. Went. Decayed.

I left, Harry. Yes. But decayed? No. Never. You never forgot me and I never forgot you. I’m still here, am I not?

Yes, Trinny was still here. Part of his collection. His growing collection.

Harry? I’m the one. You want me, not the others.

True. He did want her. And he’d had her too. Many times. Not good. Not right. Shameful.

Shameful? Harry, you are wrong. Sex is beautiful. I mean the stuff you did to me last night … I loved everything. Every minute. Every inch!

Trinny’s words ended with a dirty cackle. This was bad. She had become too much of a handful, not like he expected her to be. He needed to deal with her once and for all. Trinny seemed to read his mind because her voice became serious with a scolding tone that sliced into his heart.

Harry, do you still love me? I mean like before, like back then?

He didn’t know. He clenched his teeth and tried to hold back the saliva building in his mouth. But he should know, shouldn’t he? It was his business to know. If he didn’t know something he got a little edgy, panic set in and he began to breathe too fast and he didn’t like that. He really didn’t like that.

Harry?

He swallowed the spit and mucus and sucked in air. In, out, in, out, in, out. Last night he shut Trinny away. Downstairs. So he didn’t understand why she was still pestering him. She wasn’t the girl he was looking for because she was too dirty. She knew. He’d told her.

You did tell me. You called me a slut. And after you called me a slut you screwed me. How does that work?

He couldn’t explain. It was too complicated.

Complicated?

Yes. Complicated. Trinny wouldn’t be able to understand. Nobody understood. Nobody knew about being mad but him.

Yes Harry, you are mad. Not to mention bad and sad. You can’t go around—

Harry couldn’t stand the wittering any longer so he reached out and pressed the button on the clock radio next to his bed and Trinny’s voice vanished beneath the local station’s jingle. Top of the hour and the news. The usual regional mediocrity had been abandoned and the headline spewed out a tale of rape, violence and murder. The police had found a body of a woman down on Wembury beach.

He turned off the radio. Fast. Not good. Not good at all.

Carmel, Harry! Carmel is back! Yuk! I bet she doesn’t look so pretty now.

Trinny sounded excited. Hysterical. But could it really be Carmel? Nausea began to rise within him like dirty water overflowing from a blocked toilet. He fought back the urge to vomit.

Carmel. You didn’t get her, did you? She is lost forever now. Decayed.

He ignored Trinny and wondered if the story signified something. Carmel back from the dead. Telling him he was on the right track, but also reminding him that Trinny didn’t compare to her. Couldn’t be the one.

Harry, what do you mean?

He’d kept her because he hoped she would change. She had been fun at first. Cute, lovely, bubbly. But now she went on yapping and nagging. And she was dirty. Very dirty. He had slapped her a couple of times, but it hadn’t made any difference. The simplest thing would be a clean break. Splitting up would be for the best. For both of them.

Harry! You bastard! I am your girl. Me. Not Carmel. She is dead. Rotting. Mitchell killed her. Remember?

Mitchell.

Harry didn’t like to hear that name. Not after what Mitchell had done to Carmel.

Mitchell was your friend!

Mitchell had once been his friend, true, although Harry didn’t really know what a friend was supposed to be like and he didn’t want to ask Mitchell straight out in case he had got it all wrong. Still, Mitchell had been good to him. Kind. He had told him to stop taking the pills.

Bad idea, Harry. Those pills kept you normal, didn’t they? Stopped you from seeing things?

Trinny’s tone of voice was mocking, but she was right. The pills kept him cocooned in his own little world. Snug. The pills stopped the voices too. Like the doctor said they would. But the clever doctor smiled with too many teeth and had an arrogant manner along with a flash car and a pretty secretary who wore a skirt just short enough so when she bent over you could see the tops of her stockings. Harry liked the skirt even as he despised the man.

Who is the dirty one now, Harry?

It was always the same way with women. When they dressed like dolls with flesh poking out his eyes went wandering. Still, no harm done, he only took a little peek, a brief gaze at something forbidden.

There are things beyond looking, Harry. That is the problem.

Yes. A problem. One he blamed Mitchell for. Mitchell was out of control. Saturday nights. Drunk girls getting into trouble. Party time. Harry was disgusted with himself for playing Mitchell’s games, but then disgust was becoming a habit now.

No, Harry? Why is that?

Mitchell let him touch the girls. Harry didn’t want to at first. Later on he couldn’t stop.

And then?

And then Mitchell went and killed Carmel which meant Harry didn’t have any friends anymore.

Harry thought about Carmel. He hadn’t liked her dying, hadn’t liked it at all. Seeing the blood spoiling the girl’s pretty hair made him angry. Pretty things should not be spoilt. They should be kept. Forever.

Like me!

No. Not like Trinny at all. He wouldn’t keep Trinny forever. He needed to get shot of her and soon. Maybe even tonight. They would drive somewhere together and on the way he would tell her in the nicest possible manner. If he let her down gently perhaps she would forgive him. You had to be cruel to be kind, didn’t you? A sad way to end their time together, but Trinny wasn’t right. And anyway only yesterday he noticed she was no longer beautiful. Some of her skin had gone a bit saggy. That happened when you got older, but even so Harry didn’t think he could make allowances. Not now. Not when there were others waiting their turn.

Chapter Three

Crownhill Police Station, Plymouth. Monday 25th October. 8.30 am

Davies had been right about Hardin’s reaction, and the shit hit the fan first thing Monday morning. Savage had just grabbed a cup of coffee and taken it to the Major Crimes suite when it all kicked off.

The double doors crashed open and Detective Superintendent Conrad Hardin entered the room as if leading a drugs raid. Although unarmed and lacking a battering ram, his entrance could not have been more dramatic. With the muscles and build of a heavyweight street-fighter he had the language and temper to match. His face burned bright red and he looked as if he would explode as he barrelled onwards, pushing past anybody foolish enough not to move out of his way.

‘Rosina Salgado Olivárez,’ his voice boomed out, the delivery of the words sounding official, like a vicar performing a wedding ceremony or a judge addressing a guilty prisoner. The noise level in the room dropped to zero and Hardin marched forward holding a large sheet of paper in his hands. Savage hoped he would save his anger for the briefing of senior officers, scheduled to take place later that morning. Her hope was misplaced.

‘What sort of fucking piss-taking amateur outfit are we running here?’ Hardin sneered and slammed the piece of paper against one of the whiteboards, holding it up for everyone to see.

‘A source emailed me the afternoon special the Herald are printing. An eight-page pull-out with the headline “Sex Crime City: Now It’s Murder”.’

Hardin looked around the room, his eyes picking out each individual, one by one. Savage drew breath, bracing herself for the next onslaught.

‘This morning I’ve had the ACC on to me. He in turn has had the mayor, both city MPs, the university Vice Chancellor, some worm from the Foreign Office and, of course, the Chief Constable on the phone. To say he’s not happy would be the bloody understatement of the year. Neither, you will not be surprised to learn, am I. Nor are the poor parents of Ms Olivárez or any of the 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 went further downhill he would carry the can, if they got a result Hardin would take the credit. Win-win Hardin. Relegation Garrett.

Hardin started to elaborate on the different approach the team would be taking now he had taken charge.

‘I just had a call from the officers attending the post-mortem. This is definitely a murder inquiry, and not a nice one.’

‘Is there ever a nice one?’ Garrett said.

‘No, but this is brutal and nasty. The pathologist believes the girl may have been killed with a, let me see …’ Hardin peered down at some notes. ‘Ah yes, a captive bolt stunner. Otherwise known as a humane killer, although I think we can agree that Olivárez’s death does not fall into a category one would call humane.’

‘A cow killer?’ Savage said.

‘Yes. Whether that is useful information or not remains to be seen. All depends on who might have access to one.’

‘A farmer or a vet?’ Davies said. ‘Seems the obvious line of enquiry.’

‘Or an antique dealer,’ Savage said. The others looked at her. ‘I came across an old one in a shop once. People collect this sort of stuff and I don’t think they require a firearms licence.’

‘OK, so the weapon may have come from anywhere,’ Hardin said. ‘Let’s get to the subject of catching these people. As you are all aware Big Night Out will be taking place on Saturday nights for the next four weeks. This will push us for bodies on other stuff, but until this is solved follow ups on some minor crimes are on standby. The overtime budget is going to go through the roof and there are going to be complaints, but I tell you something: if we don’t catch these brutes by Christmas then it’s not going to be a happy one. For any of us.’

Hardin ran through his ideas for the Big Night Out and the others chipped in with a few suggestions. Garrett thought they should include Friday nights as well since two of the girls had been picked up then. Hardin disagreed.

‘The problem is manpower. Not enough to go round, I’m afraid. Right bloody fools we’d appear when an attack happens at a club we weren’t covering because we were spread too thin. I can visualise the headlines on the Monday morning and my bollocks nailed to the ACC’s desk by the afternoon.’

Garrett also wanted to step up uniformed patrols, but again Hardin disagreed.

‘They’ll only end up going somewhere else where there are no patrols and we will miss them completely.’

In the end they compromised on some increased presence in the city centre around a couple of clubs. That would be good publicity and provide some pictures for the papers and mean the operation could take a risk in not putting officers into those particular venues, leaving more free for the others.

The meeting concluded and Savage and Davies left, leaving Garrett with Hardin.

‘Poor old fucker,’ Davies said, shaking his head. ‘Mike had high hopes of promotion next year. Been DCI for as long as I can remember.’

‘Hardin’s a wily devil,’ Savage said. ‘Because he’s built like the proverbial brick outhouse people assume there is nothing up top, but you don’t dare underestimate his cunning.’

Savage grabbed another cup of something resembling coffee from the canteen and went back to the Major Crimes suite where the talk had once again degenerated into who would be wearing what come Saturday night. Not much else was happening or was likely to, Savage thought. They would be very lucky if the body on the beach yielded any forensic evidence. The corpse had been lying in the water so long anything present would have degraded to beyond the point of being useful. What they needed was something distinctive about the girl’s life that separated her from the other victims. Something to indicate why she was tracked down and killed when the other girls had been let go.

Savage went over to where DC Jane Calter sat at a desk trying to piece together some intel on the girl’s movements in the days following the assault. Calter was young, mid-twenties, and like Enders her appearance didn’t shout ‘detective’. She wore her hair in a shoulder-length blonde bob and dressed right on the ‘casual’ limit of the recommended dress code. Today that was a black denim skirt and jacket and shiny black boots. With Calter though appearances were deceptive: she was hard as nails, ran marathons and some years back had won a national junior title at Taekwondo.

Calter looked up at Savage and started to explain that her task was a waste of time: the girl had no contact with anyone but her flatmate and police officers before she left for Spain.

‘She spent some time at the Sexual Abuse Referral Centre, ma’am,’ Calter said. ‘The doctor examined her and a sexual offence liaison officer did her bit too. Then she went back to her flat and the SOLO stayed with her until she departed. I interviewed her several times over the next few days as we tried to make sense of what had happened and get a coherent statement. She was never alone.’

‘And you accompanied her to the boat?’

‘I did, ma’am. With DC Enders. At least we took her through check-in and passport control. She had a single room on the boat and we know it was used. Her father is disabled and requires constant care so there was nobody to meet her at Santander and she was going to make her own way home to Zaragoza, but she seemed quite happy about that.’ Calter paused for a moment before continuing, a noticeable trace of emotion in her voice. ‘You know, I liked her. She was a strong girl, confident. The assault affected her badly but I sensed she would get over it. That she wouldn’t let what happened go on to destroy the rest of her life.’

Calter didn’t say anything more. She didn’t need to, the inference was obvious: somebody else had destroyed Rosina Olivárez’s life.

Chapter Four

Malstead Down, nr Buckfastleigh. Monday 25th October. 4.41 pm

Gordon Isaacs was fed up with people telling him he was lucky to be a farmer. Everyone said it must be great to have such a varied existence with all the changing seasons and different challenges. In reality, one day was very much like the next and in Isaacs’s mind that meant today had been bloody awful. People didn’t realise it was a hard life. Bloody hard work and no days off and no knocking off at five thirty and having a drink with some cute blonde in a posh wine bar.

It just wasn’t fair.

Isaacs whacked the starter motor with the hammer once more, squirted a burst of EasyStart into the air intake and used his screwdriver to bypass the ignition. The Landrover spluttered a couple of times, backfired, and then burst into life, coughing a plume of black smoke from the exhaust in the process.

‘About bloody time you useless heap of shit,’ he said, slamming the bonnet down and lumbering round to the door. He swung a leg to try to kick his collie as it went to grab the hammer. The dog jumped out of the way and leapt up through the driver’s door and across to the passenger seat.

‘Look what you bloody done now!’ Isaacs eyed the muddy prints all over the seats. He got in anyway and rammed the gearstick forward, flooring the accelerator. The Landrover slewed round in the mud and he pointed it out of the farmyard and down the rutted lane.

‘Lil’ acre, Fly. That’s where we’re off to.’