Free The Witness: A Novel by Naomi Kryske Page A

She can’t handle anything more.”
    “Colin, we can’t ask for a twenty-four hour commitment from our men.”
    “If you’ll excuse me, sir—we bloody well can, on a short-term basis at least. Are you willing to lose this witness? Scott will never confess, and without Miss Jeffries’ testimony, we can’t link any forensic evidence to him. The more control we have over her, the better it is for us. And sir—I want these officers to be armed.”
    “Armed officers? Is that necessary?”
    “Sir, Scott is determined and desperate. I believe his methods will escalate.”
    “Recruiting’s down on the specialist units. Don’t know if I can get support from them, but a smaller team may be an easier sell. Anything else?”
    “A young PC here—Sullivan—was on the spot tonight. If he’s firearms qualified, he should be considered.”
    “What’s your timeline?”
    “Forty-eight hours, if I can convince the doctor to discharge her.”
    “We’ll need to brief the team tomorrow then,” Graves concluded. “Give us a bell in the morning.” He put the phone down.
    Sinclair breathed a sigh of relief. He had seen to Jenny’s immediate safety. He notified Bridges of the incident then rang Andrews at home and told him to meet him at Paddington Green. He hadn’t even left the hospital when the SOCOs called him back. They’d found a man unconscious in the psychiatrist’s office who matched the description given by the nurses. Sinclair headed downstairs at the double.

CHAPTER 16
    T hursday night stretched into Friday morning. Marcus Bates, the hospital assailant, required medical treatment, causing the preliminary interview to be delayed. When Sinclair saw him, however, he didn’t think that Bates’ pale face and nervous manner were the result of his injury. Cecil Scott was the only man Sinclair knew who wanted Jenny dead, and this man, Bates, had failed in his effort to please his employer. An attempted killer in pain with a cast like Jenny’s—to Sinclair’s eyes it was a welcome sight. Mr. Bates’ request for a brief was not.
    He pressed his thumb and forefinger against his forehead in a futile attempt to settle his thoughts. The attack on Jenny in hospital changed everything. He had known from the outset that Scott had the money to go after her. Bates was proof that Scott had the intent.
    He snatched only a few hours’ sleep before accompanying Graves and uniformed police to Scott’s flat. No one responded well to an early morning arrest, but Sinclair was still surprised that Scott’s breeding did not moderate his outrage. He cursed at the intrusion and at the officers watching him dress, not heeding their courteous warnings to watch his language. He cursed Sinclair when he recognised him and threatened legal action against all of them. When the handcuffs were applied, Sinclair saw his own grim satisfaction reflected on Graves’ face.
    The detectives on the cases of the six murdered women—and there were scores of them—had a wealth of forensic data, but contrary to the popular view of crime solving, scientific evidence didn’t generally break a case. It took old-fashioned policing: thorough, painstaking, often tedious work. Yet despite their best efforts, they had been unable to locate any witnesses or find a common thread amongst the victims. Deposition sites had varied, and there were no CCTV cameras in the areas where the bodies had been found. Appeals to the public had yielded nothing of use. Jenny’s identification of Scott had been the breakthrough they’d needed to breathe new life into their investigations, and they had been elated. Copies of her initial statement had them all champing at the bit, but they had been ordered to temper their eagerness. Impatience could tip off the very individual they planned to arrest. Now that Scott was in police custody, there would be plenty of time to gather supportingevidence of his guilt in the other crimes.
    He rang the lease agent as early as he dared