thanked him and headed across the main office.
‘Look at the size of this place,’ Donnelly complained jealously. ‘If we can get out the Yard, maybe we can get a decent-sized office too.’
‘You want to travel from Swanley to Hendon every day?’ Sean asked.
‘No, but there must be a police building somewhere south of the river we can use.’
‘You want to go back to Peckham?’
‘I was thinking Bromley,’ Donnelly answered as they reached the open door to the office.
Sean took a look inside and saw a woman in her early forties sitting at her desk. He knocked on the frame.
‘Yes?’ she said, eyeing them with a degree of suspicion.
‘DCI Morris?’ Sean asked.
‘Yes,’ she repeated herself and brushed her short, almost black hair from the side of her attractive, but stern-looking face. He guessed she was on accelerated promotion – just passing through on her way to better and bigger things. At least she’d have added heading up a Murder Investigation Team to her CV.
‘DI Sean Corrigan,’ he told her. ‘SIU.’ He let Donnelly speak for himself.
‘DS Dave Donnelly – from the same.’
‘I know who you are,’ she replied, looking directly at Sean to let him know she was addressing him and only him. ‘I’ve seen your face in the newspapers – after you caught the Jackdaw.’
‘We didn’t catch him,’ Donnelly jumped in. ‘I killed him.’
‘Yes,’ she stuttered slightly. ‘I remember.’
‘That was quite a while ago,’ Sean told her, keen to move on. ‘I haven’t been in any newspapers since then.’
‘I have a good memory for faces,’ she explained. ‘I take it you’re here about the Tanya Richards murder,’ she got down to business. ‘In which case you’d better come in and take a seat.’ They accepted her invitation and sat in the chairs on the opposite side of her desk while she leaned back and watched their every move until they were settled. ‘I’m not happy about losing the investigation,’ she told them frankly. ‘It was an interesting job – a bit different from the normal rubbish. It had potential.’
Potential, Sean thought. She meant potential to get her noticed. ‘As soon as it became apparent it was linked to another murder it became a matter for the SIU. A murder series would stretch a local MIT too much,’ he told her. ‘Believe me – I know. These things are best investigated by a central unit.’
‘We could have handled it,’ she argued. ‘We were making progress.’
‘You were concentrating your efforts on finding her pimp,’ Sean reminded her.
‘He’s not been seen since the day she was killed. A prostitute is tortured and killed and her pimp disappears – I’d say that’s good reason to concentrate on him as the prime suspect.’
‘Understandable,’ Sean agreed, knowing diplomacy not conflict was the best way to get what he wanted, ‘and he still needs to be spoken to.’
‘If you can find him,’ she said. ‘Mehmet has a history of going underground when he knows we’re looking for him – and that’s a pretty regular occurrence.’
‘Much form then?’ Sean asked.
‘A lifetime of it,’ Morris told him. ‘Everything from rape and attempted murder to false imprisonment and blackmail. I wouldn’t be too quick to dismiss him as a suspect.’
‘He’ll be spoken to,’ Sean assured her, although instinctively he knew Mehmet wasn’t his man. ‘Tell me about the scene.’
‘Haven’t you seen the report?’
‘I’ve seen it,’ he answered, ‘but I want to hear what it was like from somebody who was actually there. You did go to the scene, didn’t you?’
‘Of course,’ Morris assured him.
‘And the body was still in situ?
‘Yes.’
‘What did you see?’
‘I saw a young woman who’d been horribly murdered. She’d had her throat cut almost to the bone and the side of her neck sliced open, causing her to bleed to death. Her fingernails and some of her teeth had been removed, and there were clear signs of sexual assault.’
‘Such as?’ Sean pressed.
‘Her skirt had been pulled up and her underwear ripped off. Her legs were apart when she was found.’
‘So,’ Sean added, ‘he killed her immediately after he raped her or she was already dead.’
‘Surely he raped her while she was alive?’ Morris said. ‘Rape is a crime of power and humiliation. He’d want her alive when he did it or what would be the point?’
‘You’re assuming the attack was sexually motivated,’ Sean told her.
‘It has all the hallmarks,’ she replied, waiting for him to agree. ‘You don’t think it was?’
‘Maybe not,’ he admitted.
‘Then what?’
‘I don’t know,’ he told her. He could see no point in sharing his true thoughts with someone who was no longer to be involved in the investigation. ‘Not yet.’ He quickly moved on. ‘And he made no attempt to cover her?’
‘No,’ Morris confirmed.
‘Then he felt no compassion for her,’ he explained. ‘No guilt or mercy. If he had, he’d have repositioned the body and at least pulled her skirt down.’
‘Or he panicked and ran,’ Morris suggested. ‘Maybe he was disturbed.’
‘This one doesn’t panic,’ Sean said before he could stop himself. He kept talking to prevent her from coming back at him with any questions. ‘The scene report said she had her mobile phone and some cash on her?’
‘Yes,’ Morris confirmed, spreading her hands apart to show her confusion. ‘So?’
‘Just going back to your pimp theory,’ he explained. ‘Did it not seem strange to you that he’d leave her phone and cash behind? It would have been second nature to him to have stripped her of anything of value.’
‘Whether she was killed by her pimp or some sexually motivated madman, it’s possible they were disturbed, panicked and ran,’ she argued. ‘But of course you don’t believe that could have happened.’
Registering her irritation, Sean reminded himself that he needed her absolute cooperation and that wouldn’t be forthcoming unless he could get her onside. ‘You could well be right,’ he said. ‘I’m just
