‘Inspector Gwynne,’ Shaw said with mock indignation.
‘You know I can’t change anything here. I can’t get you any privileges.’
Shaw shook his head. ‘All I want is for you to do your job, Anna. Look at me as the oil for your engine.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘You got Willis, didn’t you?’ Shaw paused before adding dramatically, ‘The Woodsman.’
‘He almost killed me.’
Shaw beamed. ‘But he didn’t, did he? Besides, he’ll be inside soon, with all the other monsters.’
His Mancunian accent had a nasal edge as he dragged out the syllables.
Anna said, ‘I doubt it’ll be here.’
‘Nah, his snake barrister will get him into Rampton or Broadmoor for a couple of cushy years, but then he’ll come out and join the rest of us somewhere. And then we’ll see. Be patient, Anna. Be patient.’
She tried to suppress the little shudder that went through her but failed, shifting in her seat instead in an attempt at concealing it. For someone as astute as Shaw was in reading signals, she might as well have screamed in protest.
For inmates to have influence in other prisons and outside prison with illicit access to phones, even in a maximum-security unit, was not unheard of. And someone as intelligent as Shaw must have known all the angles.
She looked away and then back again. ‘So, do you have something else to show me?’
‘Just say the word, Anna. It’s summer, there’s lots of light. We can stay out until it’s late.’
A tendril of horror flickered along her nerve endings. She became aware that her fingers were icy cold. She squeezed them together under the table. The pain helped her stay in control.
‘Where?’
‘Sussex. That gypsy bastard Krastev used to work in a pub over that way. Never been there myself. I’m looking forward to it.’
‘Who’s there, Hector? Do you have a name?’
‘No. But Krastev drew me a map.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I asked him to. Trouble was, I had paper but no pen. Why is there never a pen when you need it? So, we improvised. I suggested his blood. There was plenty of that.’
Anna took a deep breath in through her nose and let it out slowly. ‘Why did Krastev kill this victim in Sussex?’
‘Because he was told to by those Black Squid bastards.’
Anna made herself swallow. ‘You have an approximate location? Why don’t you let me have it?’
Shaw smiled. His teeth were yellowing but still all there. ‘You know why. Because I don’t have to. And I need to see if Krastev was telling me the truth. I’d be disappointed if he hadn’t been. How’s work, Anna?’
She didn’t answer, kept her eyes on her notebook.
‘Have they replaced that ugly sod Shipwright, yet?’
She looked up then. She could have been offended but Shaw’s delivery had been almost tender.
‘I expect you miss him, eh? He was good for you, Anna, wasn’t he?’
Don’t, Anna. Don’t.
‘But you don’t need him, Anna. You don’t need anyone.’
She closed her notebook and picked up the digital recorder.
‘Just say the word, Anna,’ Shaw said to her departing back. ‘You know where I’ll be.’
* * *
She found Holder in the reception area.
‘Have we finished, ma’am?’
Anna nodded. ‘For today.’
‘Did he say anything else?’
‘We’ll swap stories in the car.’
Holder drove. She let him have his droning anthems, low enough so she could tune them out of her own head when she needed to. Shaw was eking out his relationship with her, she knew that. Even so, if what he’d said was true, it was highly significant.
Twenty minutes into their journey home, Trisha rang.
‘Hi Trisha, what have you got for us?’
‘I ran a check on the European Information System, and Boyen Krastev is a Europol reoffender. Wanted in Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands for abduction, sexual assault and drug-trafficking offences. According to the Border Agency, he has never entered the UK. I’ve requested more information from the National Unit.’
Anna knew how this worked. She’d been involved in reciprocal information exchanges before. Europol ran the EIS but also had national units facilitating cooperation between its EU partners. In the UK it was the International Crime Bureau that coordinated the service.
‘Whereabouts unknown, I presume? They must think he’s still at large.’
‘Yes. There are warrants out for his arrest.’
She thanked Trisha and pondered this new information. If Petran was Krastev, and they’d need the police in Bulgaria to confirm it, then those warrants should be ripped up. You could not arrest a dead man.
‘How come someone like this guy, Petran or Krastev or whoever he is, was let in, ma’am?’
‘EU laws for sharing information on criminal records did not come into force until 2012. Petran was a petty criminal. His record would have been deemed of low risk. I suspect Krastev knew this.’
‘Do you think Shaw’s telling the truth?’
Good question. Great question. More to the point, what the hell did Shaw actually want? Anna’d had enough time to think about that. What Shaw had done, killed at least half a dozen people in the most abhorrent of ways, made him a dangerous psychopath. And he seemed to have no issue with admitting to more murders. What’s another sentence to add to life in prison? Was he doing it because he liked her? Or because he trusted her to carry on trying to find the people behind his daughter’s suicide? If it was the latter, Shaw had a very roundabout and macabre way of approaching it.
‘I do. I think he has an agenda and only he knows what that is, but for now, I’ll take what he’s prepared to give.’
* * *
Back in Portishead, Anna checked in and thanked Trisha for her efficiency with getting information on Krastev so quickly. Trisha held her eyes for a moment longer than was necessary for the exchange. Anna returned a questioning smile.
‘How was it, ma’am, seeing him again?’
Trisha was not a warranted officer. She was civilian, a single parent, and the mother of two teenage boys. A dozen years older than Anna, attractive and trim. She brought efficiency and professionalism and like now, a very welcome dollop of emotional intelligence to the squad. She knew more about Holder’s and Khosa’s personal lives than Anna ever would, because she was an easy person to share those things with. Not a gossip, just a sounding board. Anna, on the other hand, kept her personal life and its details in one of the many compartments in her head marked ‘private and confidential – not for public consumption’.
Trisha’s question had concern stamped all over it and caught her off guard. Not because she didn’t want to answer it, but because it demanded a little bit of self-analysis.
‘Always a pleasure,’ she said, and winced because it was glib and a lie and there was no hiding the truth from Trisha whose penetrating gaze did not drop. Anna sighed, forcing herself to open the box and look inside. ‘The truth? It was very unpleasant,’ she said. ‘Like handling a pet snake. You know it’s dangerous. You know it doesn’t have any feelings for you but you kid yourself that the need it has to coil itself around you is affection, when all it craves is warmth. And that warmth could just as easily be a rock in the sun as your shoulders.’
The corners of Trisha’s eyes had drawn down and Anna saw muted horror there.
‘I don’t know how you can face him. After what he tried to do…’
Anna was alarmed to see moisture gathering in Trisha’s eyes. It was common knowledge that Shaw was a killer and that his meddling in the Charles Willis case had almost got her killed. It was all in Anna’s report. What wasn’t in those reports were the personal communications from Shaw that turned up like an unwanted rash. The letter and the card she’d received while in her hospital bed. The occasional untraceable email…