Anna’s relationship – she snorted when the word popped into her head – with Shaw had also been complex. His daughter, had she lived, would have been about the same age as Anna, something Shaw had pointed out on more than one occasion. Thinking about it always made Anna shudder. Freud would have a field day.
Some years ago, in another life, at a time when she allowed all the shiny things that appeared on her computer screen to distract her, Anna had seen a viral video of a lioness in the wild who allowed a baby baboon – after having killed its mother – to try and suckle it and eventually escape. One of nature’s curious quirks. Anna equated Shaw with that lioness. Dangerous and capable of killing at any moment given the chance, but somehow identifying her with something in his life he’d once cared about. But, as with the lioness, she was under no illusion that if circumstances changed, the outcome could be very different. Anna’s instinct – not the weird one fed by her dreams, but the good copper’s instinct that she shared with Shipwright – was to be highly suspicious of what happened afterwards to the baby baboon.
Whatever it was Shaw saw in her, it was not a relationship she wanted to encourage or foster, but Shaw had revealed more information to Anna about his thoughts and victims in just a few short interviews than he had to anyone else in all the years he’d been in prison. She knew the authorities, Rainsford included, were hoping for more. And so, here she was on a train, a baby baboon stumbling towards a hungry lion, wondering just what Shaw wanted to say to her and knowing that she had to listen, no matter what.
She thought again of Shipwright and what he’d have thought of her analogy. In her head, she imagined his pithy reply.
Come on, Anna. You know I don’t do Disney.
It brought a smile to her lips.
Anna watched the fields and towns rush past her window, contemplating the concern she’d heard in Rainsford’s voice when Shaw came up. She’d worked hard to get where she was and was grateful to people like Shipwright and Rainsford who believed in her. But the attack on her in Badock’s Wood had taken her longer to get over than she thought it would. She was back on the horse, but so far she’d allowed it to do nothing but trot, and seeing Shaw would mean taking some jumps. Resilience was a fine thing, if only they sold it in handy, easy-to-swallow pills at Holland & Barrett.
Anna turned from the window and walked through the carriages to the buffet. She needed a cup of railway tea.
Holder was waiting for her at Worcester station an hour and a half after she left Bath.
‘Afternoon, ma’am,’ he said as she got into the car. He had the air con blasting out cold air and the radio tuned to a station playing dance anthems.
‘How come you’re on a train? What’s happened to Dave?’
‘Following his nose, Justin. We’ll see what he sniffs out. My guess it’ll be nothing but a waft of hot air, but we shall see.’
Holder nodded and pointed the car north. ‘Didn’t think we’d be coming back here, ma’am.’
Anna’s turn to nod. The last thing she’d said to Shaw when he’d tried to set up another meeting with her was that she was never going to see him again.
‘Yes, well, we all live and learn, don’t we?’
Holder threw her a glance but said nothing.
* * *
Whitmarsh was a category A prison. Britain’s prison system was arranged on several criteria including crime severity, sentence length, escape risk and degree of dangerousness to the public. Category A contained the most dangerous prisoners who’d committed the worst crimes. Within its walls there were further risk categories based on likelihood of escape. Shaw remained an exceptional risk category despite his cooperation with Anna. No one wanted him getting out.
Someone had stuck a new air freshener in the stark and familiar interview room at Whitmarsh, with its black plastic and tubular steel furniture. Anna wondered if the grey paint on the walls had a pretentious name, like Drum Dust, or Ostrich’s Breath. She’d played a game with Shipwright to come up with a few. Her favourite, by a long way, had been Lifer’s Tan. The cheap air freshener failed miserably to mask the aroma of stale sweat and urine that seemed to seep out of the floor. Two uniformed prison officers sat at the rear of the room.
Shaw looked up when Anna entered. He didn’t acknowledge Holder’s presence and instead sat with his forearms on the Formica-topped table, legs apart on the black plastic chair, his chin low.
‘Hello, Anna.’
She sat, not wanting to show him how much her legs were trembling, and placed a digital recorder on the table.
Shaw watched her do it.
‘Can we talk about Petran?’
Shaw smiled. ‘Straight to the point as always, eh, Anna? How long has it been – six, maybe seven months? I like your hair. The lighter colour is a nice contrast with your youthful face. Are you well, Anna? Fully recovered?’
‘Mihai Petran,’ Anna said.
Shaw blinked. He did so slowly, carefully. Anna had come to learn that it was a good barometer of mood. Too slow and it meant trouble. When he replied, it was to say only one word: ‘Scum.’
Holder said, ‘If you weren’t his partner in crime, how come his blood and yours turned up on Tanya Cromer’s clothes on the night she was raped?’
Shaw turned his gaze on Holder before turning back to Anna. ‘Do you have any theories, Anna?’
‘Either you and Petran were working together and Tanya fought you both, or you and he fought and your blood ended up on Tanya’s clothes.’
Shaw gave nothing away. He turned back to Holder. ‘Let’s see if the apprentice has done his homework. What do you know about Petran, DC Holder?’
Holder threw Anna a glance. She nodded.
‘Petran was in the UK on a work visa but went AWOL after two women reported he’d attempted to sexually assault them.’
‘Gold star for you, Justin. Don’t mind if I call you Justin, do you, Justin?’
Holder shifted in his chair.
Shaw kept talking. ‘Those were just the things he’d been caught doing. Petran was scum and an ignorant prick. He was in chat rooms, looking for info on pubs where he could find underage girls in different towns. He couldn’t help himself, and the younger the better. His English was crap. He left a trail that wasn’t difficult to follow. I was looking for links to the Black Squid sites. The administrators mainly. But there was some overlap with men targeting vulnerable girls. Then his name came up somewhere else. Another site.’
‘What site, Hector?’ Anna asked.
Shaw smiled. ‘We’ve got a bit of a way to go before we get there, Anna. He was a busy fucker, though. Nasty bastard. I dragged Petran off Tanya Cromer, though I was too late to stop him assaulting her.’ He let his head drop, exhaling. Anna read it as regret. ‘I wanted to make sure she was OK but I let him get away. I should have killed the bastard there and then. When I found out Tanya went missing three months later, I knew it must have been Petran. And I was right. He killed her because I ripped off his mask in the fight and the paranoid bastard was scared she might pick him out in an ID parade.’ Shaw shook his head. ‘It was too dark for her to see. He shouldn’t have done that.’
‘How do you know he killed her?’ Holder asked.
Shaw didn’t smile. ‘Because he told me, amongst other things. She was just a bit of fun for him. Nothing to do with the Black Squid. But he did show me where he’d buried her, remember? Nice little spot, wasn’t it Justin?’
Holder shook his head. ‘How do we know it wasn’t you who kidnapped her and killed her?’
Shaw’s smile was mirthless and transient. A sad ghost of a smile. ‘I’m not a rapist, Justin. And Petran wasn’t his real name. It was Krastev, Boyen Krastev, Bulgarian origin.’
Holder snorted. ‘Jesus. When are you going to give us something real?’
Anna turned to Holder. ‘Justin, give Trisha a ring, ask her to find out what she can about a Boyen Krastev.’
Holder looked annoyed, like he wanted to protest.
‘Now, please.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Holder got up. Security at Whitmarsh meant that mobiles were left the wrong side of the scanners. He’d need to use a landline. When he’d gone, Anna said, ‘What do you want from me, Hector?’