‘That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it, Anna—’
‘Today, Dave, and until I tell you otherwise, it’s Inspector Gwynne or, much as I bloody hate it, ma’am. What bothers me here is your motive. There’s no logic to this. You lied to Holder, used me and muscled in on a case for what I have to assume were nothing but self-serving reasons.’
Woakes’ face reddened.
‘So now two things are going to happen. You are going to go out there and apologise to Justin and Ryia for not trusting them and explain how it was all you and that it had bugger all to do with me. We are going to let them run the rest of it themselves unless, and only unless, they want your help.’
Woakes stood, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. The smile had gone and his eyes had drifted into a kind of vacant stare.
‘The words you’re looking for are, “Yes, ma’am”.’
He snapped back, nodding. ‘Yeah. Yes, of course, ma’am.’
Anna studied him, her frown deepening. She got up and moved to the door. ‘Am I going to regret Superintendent Rainsford agreeing to take you on, Dave?’
‘No, I uh, I talk a lot, I know. Talk too much and sometimes I overthink stuff and do things maybe I shouldn’t. So, I am sorry and I’ll put things right with Pinky and Perky.’
Anna sighed. ‘It’s not who they are.’
‘Sorry. With DC Holder and DC Khosa… ma’am.’
‘Right. And once you’ve done that we’ll go and meet Hawley. Bath wasn’t it, you said?’
* * *
She pretended to work while Woakes ate humble pie with the two DCs, anxious to get on with things. As Woakes walked to his desk later, Holder looked across to her and nodded. Small, appreciative. She got nothing from Khosa.
Anna made no further reference in the morning briefing. Though Woakes had badly messed up, they’d wasted enough time already. She addressed them all, standing near the whiteboard.
‘Right, let’s get things moving. Justin, Ryia, great work in following up on the Morton case. I will get the official sample premiumed today, but it’s water under the bridge.’
They both nodded. Anna did not include Woakes in her eye contact. She turned to the images on the whiteboard. ‘I want us all to concentrate on Rosie Dawson. Ryia, Justin, let’s search for any likely offenders who weren’t known at the time of Rosie’s abduction but who have come to light subsequently and who might have lived in and around the area.’
Khosa and Holder both nodded.
‘We need to look at the military link because of the rucksack and the army connection because of the fatigues. And missing persons under fourteen years of age.’
‘Just mispers? Not actual murder victims then, ma’am?’ Khosa asked.
Anna nodded. ‘As well as, obviously. I keep coming back to the way he disposed of the bones. I’ve been down to the abduction site. He was careful. Planned everything. He’s organised. So why leave the bones in a plastic bag out in the open like that?’
‘We got nothing back on the HOLMES search on Down’s syndrome, ma’am,’ Holder said.
‘And I’m waiting for Hi-Tech to get back to me.’
Anna asked Woakes, ‘Forensics?’
‘We’re in the queue.’
No one had any answers. Not yet.
Anna sighed, her frustration still simmering. ‘Right, Dave, let’s go and see this Hawley.’
* * *
In the car on the way to Bath, Woakes drove and they talked business. Saturday’s little escapade and the Milk Thistle were put firmly to bed. Anna found out Woakes had been down to Clevedon to the abduction site, too. It brought a welcome smile to her lips.
‘What did you think?’ Anna said.
‘Knew what he was doing. Chose the spot. Might have waited several days for the right moment.’
‘Agreed. He’s a stalker and a planner.’
‘Add in the forensic nous and I’d say we were looking at someone who thinks he’s smarter than us.’
Anna glanced across. She knew where Woakes was coming from. The planning and the boiling of the bones as well as the hypochlorite all pointed to a dark intelligence. ‘They went over Hawley pretty thoroughly at the time,’ she said.
Woakes nodded. ‘I’m sure they did. But maybe not thoroughly enough.’
She stomped on the sudden urge she had to laugh. Woakes was an arrogant sod, but she didn’t know him well enough to work out if this was mere bravado based on his track record or misplaced confidence.
Anna scanned the traffic on the M4. All these people going to normal jobs, day to day, humdrum, passing their car and not giving it a second glance. None of them, unless they were extremely unlucky, would ever need to be involved with a major crime. And yet she knew, too, that inside one of those vehicles there was a mind capable of the worst kind of horror. Somewhere out there were monsters contemplating perpetrating the most heinous, depraved, unspeakable acts. And yet one of them might walk past you on a street, or overtake you doing 80 on the motorway and you’d have no idea.
As part of her degree, she’d studied physiognomy, the pseudoscience of judging a person’s character from their outward appearance. As late as the 1930s people were claiming murderers tended to have straight hair, and that meat-faced mesomorphs were most prone to criminality. All claptrap. There were as many fine-featured thieves as there were troglodytes. And all they knew about Rosie’s perpetrator from a physical standpoint was that he was big and strong enough to carry a child.
But the next inevitable stop for this train of thought was Hector Shaw. A perfect case in point. He wasn’t an ugly man, and if you looked beyond the physical, there lurked a highly intelligent brain. She could think of nothing that made him stand out as the multiple killer he was. The age gap between them, though never in her experience a barrier from a man’s hormone-driven perspective, meant that Anna had never seen Shaw in any way other than a prisoner in standard-issue greys. But now, as her mind played games, she wondered if in another iteration he’d have been easy to interact with. He might have been ordinary, pleasant even, and she might have talked to him if he’d spoken to her, though she was also sure a passing nod might well have sufficed. The fact was he would have appeared normal. Perfectly camouflaged like a screech owl against the bark of a tree, waiting for dark, for the small animals to emerge as prey. He would have seemed unremarkable. There was no warning label stuck to his forehead, though she’d wondered more than once what she might have read had she been able to examine the being beneath. A killer with zero empathy for his victims, manipulative, coldly intelligent with a plasma serotonin level low enough to make him prone to extreme violence. Shaw was the most dangerous being Anna had ever met. And she was not looking forward to seeing him later.
The point was that stereotyping, physical or otherwise, was a dangerous game to play when it came to crime. Especially well-thought-out and clever crime. She hoped Woakes had an open mind. So far, he had done nothing to make her believe that.
Hawley had agreed to meet them in the Bath Hilton on Walcot Street. His choice, and Anna saw why when she walked through the modern entrance. It was big, but not cavernous, and had modern seating in neutral colours offset by orange cushions arranged around tables and little nooks with L-shaped sofas. At a minute after nine thirty in the morning it was empty. They grabbed a table with two chairs set behind a screen and Woakes fetched another chair. A waiter appeared after a few minutes and asked if they wanted coffee. Anna said they’d wait. At ten before the hour, a man appeared in the lobby, looking around expectantly.
‘Oy, oy,’ said Woakes under his breath before standing up and motioning.
Hawley raised a hand and walked across. Medium height, clean-cut and when he got close enough, wary brown eyes. A worn leather messenger bag hung over one shoulder. Woakes stood and made the introductions but did not offer his hand, and from the way he sat immediately, Hawley didn’t expect it.