Couple of hours?
£150 for two hours.
Okay.
Cash.
Sure.
See you later, Paul.
See you later, Melissa.
XXX.
End of conversation. Tony caught himself smiling. He was in his own bloody kitchen. Instant messaging prostitutes. Still, it wasn’t the kind of thing you could do in a café, so...
Tony switched off the computer. Nicola’s mum would be here soon and she didn’t need any more ammunition. Best go and get some rest.
He had a big night ahead of him.
54
Charlie was in full flow when Helen entered the incident room. The team had broken from their tasks to hear the latest developments.
“We’ve had a trawl through Gareth Hill’s hard drive. His computer seems to have been his one and only window on the world—he used ita lot. And one of his favorite sites was the Bitchfest Web forum.”
She had everyone’s attention now.
“This prostitute rating site was also visited by Alan Matthews and Christopher Reid—they used the pseudonyms ‘BigMan’ and ‘BadBoy.’ Gareth Hill’s moniker was ‘Blade.’ They entered into extremely graphic conversations with other men about the girls in Southampton. They were particularly interested in girls up for denigration and rough sex and received various pointers from other users, specifically from ‘Dangerman,’ ‘HappyGoLucky,’ ‘Hammer,’ ‘PussyKing,’ ‘fillyerboots’ and ‘BlackArrow.’ Several girls were discussed, but the one who came up time and again was a prostitute who calls herself ‘Angel.’”
Helen felt a shiver inside. Could this be their killer?
“Interestingly,” Charlie continued, “Angel doesn’t advertise, doesn’t have a Web site. She’s totally offline. She gets her punters by word of mouth alone, current clients tipping off other men about where to find her. She’s elusive and, it should be said, expensive, but she’s clearly willing to do anything if the money is right.”
“So she’s hard to find and a closely guarded secret?” Helen interjected.
“Exactly.”
“Good work, Charlie. So top priority is to find these other forum users. Let’s focus on those who’ve used Angel’s services and who might have chatted with Matthews, Reid and Hill. These men can lead us to Angel, so let’s find them fast. I’m going down to the surveillance points, but want to be kept up to speed with developments. DS Brooks will run things in my absence.”
As Helen departed, Charlie set about organizing the team. It had cost her a lot to come back to work, but perhaps it had been the right choice after all. “DS Brooks”—she liked the way that sounded, and knew there and then that she wanted back in.
55
Helen stopped in her tracks the moment she saw her. Anger flared inside her at the sight of Emilia Garanita leaning casually against her Kawasaki in the bike park outside the station.
“You’re in a restricted area and currently obstructing police business, Emilia, so if you wouldn’t mind?”
It was said politely, but without warmth. Emilia smiled—always that same Cheshire cat smile—and slowly peeled herself off the bike.
“I’ve tried calling you, Helen, but you won’t answer. I’ve talked to a number of my uniform friends, I even had a quick heart-to-heart with your boss, but nobody seems to know what’s going on. Are you clamming up on me again?”
“I don’t know what you mean. I gave you the tip-off about the DNA and much more besides.”
“But that’s not the whole story, is it, Helen? Harwood feels it too. Something’s going on in that team of yours and I want to know what it is.”
“You want to know what it is?” Helen replied slowly and with maximum sarcasm.
