Free River of Souls by Kate Rhodes Page A

he cradles it. The Victorian streetlights cast a dull glow, but there’s no one around, the pub locked up for the night. He staggers down to the foreshore, wishing he could walk away, but he can’t let himself fail again. His heart thunders as he undoes the zip. The rope around the woman’s feet has worked loose and she kicks out wildly.
    ‘Stop that,’ he snaps. ‘The river’s waiting for you.’
    The man reties the rope, then binds the earthenware bottle tight around her waist with a leather string. He abandons his shoes before wading into the water. The river smells different tonight, metallic as rust, silt oozing under his feet. The woman’s limbs are rigid as he drops the noose around her neck, tightens it, then loops it under her arms. It takes seconds to attach the rope to a mooring ring on the wharf, the river’s voice rising in ecstasy. She thrashes like a line-caught fish, and suddenly it becomes easier to do his duty. The blade of his knife slices her face again and again. Then he forces her body underwater, her limbs jerking in a frenzy of movement. The river’s ecstasy sends a sheen of light flickering across its surface until the last bubbles disappear.
     

12
     
    I went for a run in Southwark Park early on Friday morning. The buildings around the perimeter looked like they had been soaked in grey emulsion, the boardwalk slick under my feet, but at least my body was glowing when I got home. I was halfway through my bowl of muesli when a text arrived from Will, inviting me to dinner that evening. The prospect of meeting his mysterious new girlfriend again was so intriguing that I accepted immediately.
    One of Guy Shelley’s statements kept nagging at me. He believed that his father’s job exposed him to danger from members of the public. Keen to check whether he was correct, I put through a call to the House of Commons just after nine a.m. Tinny versions of Vivaldi and Mozart squeaked in my ear, then the receptionist announced that she was putting my call through to Giles Moorcroft, the minister’s diary secretary. The voice that greeted me was a pleasant Etonian drawl, professionally polite, and I remembered Shelley’s sombre dark-haired assistant at the hospital, hovering in the background.
    ‘How may I help?’
    ‘Could I make an appointment with the minister please? My name’s Dr Alice Quentin.’
    ‘Can I ask the nature of your enquiry?’
    ‘I work for the Forensic Psychology Unit. I met him this week at the Royal London when he was visiting his daughter.’
    There was a long pause, as though he was trying to place me. ‘I’ll check the minister’s schedule and call you back. I’m afraid you may have to wait some time.’
    ‘It needs to be on Monday, please. This is a matter of urgency.’
    ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
    Maybe I imagined it, but I thought Moorcroft groaned quietly. Perhaps the minister had instructed him to keep me at arm’s length, to show his lack of support for the reinvestigation. The thought crossed my mind that he might be avoiding me because he had harmed his daughter, but that seemed too preposterous. Shelley’s time must have been in constant demand.
    My phone rang as I was about to leave. My heart raced as I answered, on high alert for a call from Lola summoning me to her flat. The woman’s raw East End accent was difficult to hear. Background noise was drowning it out - a car engine revving, then a babble of voices. It took me a few seconds to realise that I was talking to DI Tania Goddard, Burns’s deputy.
    ‘Can you come to the Prospect of Whitby pub straight away?’ Her speech was so terse she seemed to resent wasting a single word.
    ‘What’s happened, Tania?’
    ‘One of our officers has been found dead on the riverbank. Burns is asking for you.’
    She rang off while I was still processing the idea that the killer might have struck again. I pulled on my waterproof coat and hauled my bike into the lift; there was no point in attempting to