Free Cold Kill by David Lawrence Page B

called. Ive used her a few times. Shes got a room upon the Strip. They dont all have rooms some want to do you in the car or in a doorway. Some go into the cemetry. They suck you off there just inside the gate. I tried following her but it didnt work. There wasnt any danger in it. Danger for her I mean. I followed her back to where she lives and I took a photo through the window but what good was that when she had already taken her clothes off in front of me? Also they are prostitutes and any-body can do anything they want to them.
    See my Irene walking to the tube station. I’m a long way off. Supertelephoto 500 F4. Long way offand right up close. See the way the wind lifts her hair.
    I will call this one Jennifer.
    I will call this one Katherine.
    I will call this one Lavinia.

11
    Stella and Maxine Hewitt passed Jack Cuddon on their way to the interview room. ‘He’s had a chicken curry,’ he told them, ‘and he’s had his rest period and he’s all yours.’
    Stella started the tape, gave the date and time, then announced herself and Maxine. She let Kimber know that they’d found his flat and they’d looked at the walls. He smiled at her. She told him they’d found the locks of hair. He smiled again. He said, ‘Is that all you found?’
    A breath of the ice-wind crept into the room. ‘What did I miss?’
    â€˜My little keepsake.’
    It was the same word that Duncan Palmer had used. Stella let the tape run. She could feel the pulse in her own wrist. ‘A keepsake –’
    â€˜Valerie’s cross. Gold cross on a chain. Gold chain.’
    Stella lowered her head as if in thought; she was pacing herself, trying not to rush him or offer a lead. When she looked up, she asked, ‘Where is it?’
    Kimber smiled at her, then redirected the smile to Maxine. He looked pleased and excited. ‘Where is it?’ he said. ‘That’s for me to know.’
    They went back to the flat with a full crew; they took the place apart. Maxine went as a fresh pair of eyes. She looked at the photos on the walls and what was written beneath them. She didn’t speak until she and Stella were back in the car. Then she said, ‘It’s a man’s world.’
    They’d pretty much dismantled the flat and everything in it. Under the floorboards they’d found a collection of dull porno tapes and a trunk-tracking police-base scanner, but they hadn’t found a gold cross on a gold chain.
    â€˜He knows about it, that’s the important thing. The jogging sweats and the chain.’
    â€˜He was logging police calls,’ Sorley said. ‘He’s got a hundred-channel, twelve-band Bearcat scanner, for Christ’s sake. He probably knew what the scene of crime guys were
thinking
. Look at the transcripts. See if there’s anything on them about the sweats and the chain.’
    â€˜There couldn’t be anything about the chain. Sam Burgess picked up on that and Duncan Palmer confirmed it later.’
    â€˜About the sweats, then.’
    â€˜He did it,’ Stella said. ‘He’s playing a game. Maybe he thinks he can withdraw the confession later, get a smart counsel.’
    â€˜Has he signed a statement?’
    Stella shook her head. ‘That’s something else… he’s teasing. But the chain’s real evidence: on the tape, loud and clear.’
    â€˜DNA,’ Sorley observed. ‘That’s
real
evidence.’ He glanced at his watch and lit a cigarette. Stella wondered whether the two events were causally connected: a sixteen-hour, forty-cigarette day would allow him a cigarette every twenty-four minutes. He looked hungry for it. ‘What else do we know about this guy – apart from the fact that he’s a self-confessed killer?’
    â€˜Nothing. No form, no social services record. He lives up on Harefield. His neighbours have collective amnesia. But it’s not his background I need