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  Kate listened intently to Simone’s words and she saw she was being truthful. She really was trying to be helpful. ‘I understand that, but if that’s the case, then what the fuck do you think happened to Candy Cane? Why her? Who killed her?’

  Simone wasn’t rattled, and Kate knew that wasn’t because she didn’t care, it was because she didn’t want to show her feelings.

  Simone shook her head in denial. ‘I don’t know. I don’t even know who half her customers were. She entertained out of office hours, if you get my drift. She had her private customers and I don’t know who they were. Why would I? She looked after the house, she lived there, rent-free. All I do know is that she should have been alone the night she died. No one was in the book. Whoever she let in, she let in without a second’s thought. It was either a private regular or a newbie. Take your pick. But I can tell you now, categorically, that whoever killed her only got into the house because she trusted them.’

  Kate looked at Simone. ‘So what you’re saying is that she knew the man who killed her?’

  Simone nodded. ‘Yeah. Maybe not as a customer at that house specifically, but they were someone she had seen before.’

  Kate was disappointed, but she persevered. ‘So you haven’t seen anything that you would class as untoward with any of the other girls in the house? None of them getting a hard time from somebody, or being given preferential treatment? Let’s face it, lunatics come in all shapes and sizes. He may even be someone the girls like, someone they would never guess could be so violent.’

  Simone again thought long and hard about what she was being asked, but finally she shook her head. ‘Nothing springs to mind, but I’ll ask the girls, and if they can think of anything I’ll let you know.’

  Annie said evenly, ‘Is there anyone who helps maintain the houses? Can you think of anyone the girls might have in common?’ It was a long shot, but she thought it was worth a try.

  Simone shrugged. ‘Valerie was like a lot of the girls, she came out of the care system. A few of my Brookway House girls were even away together. Myself, I came from a home in Wales. My mother was a nut-bag, my brothers were out of control, and my father was a bully who didn’t care who he punched as long as he could punch someone. We’ve all done the halfway houses and the social worker route. Is it any wonder we end up as outcasts? We’ve all felt like outcasts all our lives.’

  Kate didn’t know what to say. This was such an honest depiction of so many young people’s lives. Was it any wonder that the papers were full of children murdering children? If they were brought up like animals, was it any wonder that they acted like them?

  ‘Thanks for coming in, Simone. We’d appreciate it if you asked the girls to try and think of anyone they think might stand out from the crowd.’

  Simone shrugged. ‘With our clientele that might be asking a bit too much. They ain’t exactly the norm.’ She laughed quietly. ‘Let’s face it, if they were, they wouldn’t be coming to the likes of us, would they?’

  Kate smiled. As Simone left the room she looked at Annie and they both shook their heads in bafflement. They were no further in their quest to find the man responsible for the murder of so many young girls. It was as if he was a fucking ghost. He left nothing behind, not even a fractured memory.

  Margaret Dole was looking at all the information she had found on the dead girls. All their lives were there, in black and white. She was staring at it all, willing it to give her some kind of a clue, desperate to be able to see something that might give the merest hint about the person responsible.

  She’d placed all the girls’ lives into numbered files. It seemed fitting somehow because that was exactly how they had been treated. They had always been at the mercy of the social services system. None of them had ever had the luxury of a caring family. None of them had been wanted. They were just a number in a file on a social worker’s desk.

  Margaret glanced at the clock on the wall opposite her desk. It was nearly midnight, and she stifled a yawn with the back of her hand. She had finally learned that these girls were not robbers or violent thugs, they were a product of their environment. Without their early lives, and without their childhood dependence on the welfare system, these girls would never have turned out this way, their lives would have taken a very different path.

  She now understood Kate’s attitude to these women. She now knew Kate was actually far more savvy than all the people around her, and that included herself. Kate had experience and, alongside that, she also had something she knew could only ever be earned. She had genuine respect, not just from her peers, but from the outside world. Margaret felt ashamed as she remembered that she had tried to mock her, had seen her as an old fool, when she should have been grateful to be taken on board in the first place. That she had forced Kate to make her a part of the team now rankled. She wished that Kate had invited her to be a part of it because she wanted her. That would have meant more to her than anything else in the world. But she had to live with the choices she had made, and she realised that now she had to make not only Kate, but also Annie, glad she was part of their team.

  Margaret’s psychology degree told her that this killer was dominant in their private life, but passive in their daily life. This was a person who people were easy with, a person who people felt they were safe with. He accessed people through this veneer of niceness. He was someone these girls would have believed was on their side. They would have never once suspected him of anything even remotely dangerous. It was this persona that had gained him easy access time and time again, even after the first murders. He came across as unthreatening, the people around him saw him as someone they could trust. As someone they thought was on their side.

  As Margaret yawned once more, she heard the door open and saw Kate standing there with a slight smile on her face. Margaret knew Kate had not expected to see her there so late at night, and this hurt her. She wanted Kate to think she was willing to put in as many hours as she did. She’d learned that it was by working as part of a team that would eventually get them that arrest. It was now important to her to be classed as one of the gang, as someone worth listening to. For the first time in her life, Margaret Dole wanted to be a part of something, part of a team.

  ‘You still here?’

  She smiled and said softly, ‘This is everything I could access on the dead girls, I’ve been able to hack into more sites than I originally thought possible. What I’ve done, Kate, is given them all a timeline. It charts the girls’ lives through the information I’ve gathered on them from the databases. I was amazed by how easy it was to hack into their private records. It’s as if they don’t warrant any kind of real protection. Most of the files were not even encrypted. A child could have accessed them, it’s laughable.’

  Kate knew Margaret was trying to play down her role in the gathering of so much information, she already saw by the thickness of the files that this girl had left no stone unturned. She also sensed that something had happened to Margaret and it had caused her to see Kate in a completely new light. Kate had a feeling that this wasn’t a bad thing. In fact, listening to the new, humble timbre to the girl’s voice, it could only be a good thing.

  Kate picked up the files and said with genuine amazement, ‘It looks like you’ve really been working hard on this. Well done, Margaret.’

  It was a genuine compliment, and it made Margaret feel that she really was being included.

  ‘How did you get on with Simone?’

  Kate shrugged nonchalantly. ‘How do you think? She didn’t have anything of any real use. She was as honest as she could be, given the circumstances. Like all those girls, she had to think twice before responding to the simplest of questions. It’s strange, really, Margaret. As the years go on, you find yourself pre-empting them. You know the answers before you even ask the bloody questions. But she tried, she really wanted to tell us what we needed to hear. But I feel as if I’ve heard it all a hundred times.’

  Kate went to a chair and opening her Burber
ry bag, she took out a half of Grant’s whisky. She then emptied a Styrofoam coffee cup into the bin, and poured herself a generous measure.

  Margaret had heard about Kate’s legendary all-nighters with only a bottle of hard and all the evidence laid out in front of her. She was known for her absolute dedication to the job in hand. As she watched her scanning the papers and placing them in orderly piles on the empty desk by the window, she understood she was watching an expert at work. Kate instinctively knew what was important and what was worthless. Margaret watched her, enthralled. It was as if, after her speech, she had forgotten she was not alone.

  Margaret sat back in her chair and wondered when this kind of innate knowledge would be hers. She knew that experience was the key word, Kate had honed her instincts through each and every different case.

  Margaret had looked up all the newspaper coverage of Kate’s career, had become engrossed in George Markham’s story and the vicious murders he committed.

  Margaret now wanted to be like Kate Burrows more than anything else in the world. She knew that it was the Kates of this world who, in their inimitable way, made the most difference. And she wanted to make a difference. She wanted to know that she was making the world safer for the average person.

  Kate looked up from the desk and seemed surprised to see Margaret still there. Smiling widely, she said, ‘Can I interest you in a drink?’

  Margaret nodded happily, her heart filled with pride that she was finally being invited into Kate’s world. She finally felt the warmth of Kate’s attention to her and what she had achieved.

  ‘Get yourself a cup, and then I want you to look up some things for me. Do you think you can get back into those databases?’

  Margaret grinned. ‘I can access anything. You just tell me what you want, and I’ll get us in.’

  Kate laughed. ‘Oh to be a young woman again! Don’t waste it, before you know it, girl, you’ll be just like me.’

  Margaret looked her straight in the eye, she had taken the words as a compliment. ‘I can think of worse things to be.’

  Kate poured herself another stiff drink and said sadly, ‘No, you can’t. You think you can, but take it from me, you really can’t. I have a daughter on the other side of the world, and an empty bed. This is all I ever wanted, and now it’s all I’ll ever have. Life has a way of kicking you in the teeth, and it hurts, it really hurts. Remember that for the future when you find yourself sitting here day after day, night after night. When you suddenly realise that your whole life is peopled with the dead, the poor, or the missing. When you wake up one day and wonder why the fuck you even care, but for some bloody reason you do and, somehow, that seems to be enough.’

  Margaret didn’t answer her, she didn’t know what to say.

  Chapter Twenty

  Annie listened to Margaret extolling Kate’s virtues and hid her cynical smile. She understood the girl’s excitement at seeing Kate at work, up close and personal. She knew that, like Margaret, she herself had only really understood the pull of detective work after seeing Kate’s dedication. The men in the force made every step forward into a major event, they celebrated every little thing with a piss-up. Kate just got on with it, and it was her determination to get to the truth that made people sit up and take notice. Even in this enlightened day and age, the men still reacted like their counterparts from the sixties. It was like watching a rerun of The Sweeney, they just wore nicer clothes, and knew how to turn on a laptop. But they basically had the same attitude.

  Kate got her kudos from Kelly and his reputation. Like all Filth, the men here appreciated him as a genuine Face. They respected him for that, and they respected Kate because she had the sense to see what they saw. Margaret was still green enough to think that Kate had earned her reputation by herself - well, she wasn’t about to disabuse her of that notion.

  Instead she said, in as friendly a voice as she could muster, ‘Kate knows what she’s doing. I heard her arrive home in the early hours. She won’t surface until lunchtime, and then she’ll expect us to be as wide awake as she is.’

  Margaret heard a note of reprimand in Annie’s voice, it was as if she had somehow criticised her in some way. But she was still determined to make herself liked, make herself wanted, so she swallowed down her annoyance and said loudly, ‘Have you heard about Lionel? He’s taking early retirement.’

  Annie nodded. She whispered, ‘About fucking time and all, he’s as bent as a fucking corkscrew. You do realise it was Kate who put the hard word on him, don’t you?’

  Margaret was stunned, not at the words and what they conveyed, but more by Annie’s saying them to her in the first place. Annie was enjoying what she saw as the girl’s first real sojourn into police force politics.

  ‘He was a frequent flier by all accounts; he was Candy Cane’s best customer.’

  Annie saw Margaret’s eyes open to their utmost, saw the shock and the disbelief on her lovely face. She assumed it was because Margaret had not heard the gossip. Annie couldn’t resist the urge to taunt her and said nastily, ‘Fucking hell, Margaret. Everyone knows about Lionel and his little peccadilloes, it’s the joke of the station. He used to be first in line for the new WPCs at one point. He’s never had a real fucking case, got a real collar, never arrested anyone of importance. He’s a career Filth, he’s climbed the ladder through arse-licking, combined with his association with the people he was supposed to be arresting. And yet he’s only going now because Kate put the hard word on him.’

  Even though she had known all about Lionel and indeed had secretly given Kate the information, Margaret was surprised at Annie’s candour, and it showed. But she felt honoured that Annie felt she was important enough to say all this to, even though she knew about it all anyway. Police stations were like any other large establishment, they thrived on gossip and innuendo.

  ‘Did Kate seem interested in your research?’

  Margaret nodded. She was back on her own turf now. When it came to computers and such like she knew there was no one to beat her. No one here anyway. She had a real knack for searching in cyberspace. She had been computer literate from a girl, and she enjoyed the challenge. She was a natural-born hacker and she loved the feeling she got when she found out what she wanted to know. She had understood a long time ago that policing was now more about paperwork, than actually going out and finding the people necessary. She had unobtrusively taken over Kate and Annie’s. Paperwork irritated them, but she liked to put it in order and enjoyed collating it all. Margaret was determined to become indispensable to them, and by doing that she knew she could truly earn her place in their team.

  She decided to come clean. ‘I couldn’t resist it. I hacked into Lionel’s bank accounts, he earns fuck all in comparison to his lifestyle. He is definitely getting a second income from somewhere.’

  Annie grinned. This was more like it. The girl was learning, slowly but surely.

  ‘Not exactly front page news, everyone guessed that years ago.’

  Margaret didn’t answer her.

  ‘But by the same token, it’s gratifying to have it all proved true. I hope whoever takes over from him is someone we can at least respect, if not like.’

  Margaret had hoped that would be the case too, but she knew it wasn’t to be. She had also hacked into the police database, she had been hacking into it for months. She knew that, sadly, the man who was to take over was as bad as Lionel Dart, if not worse. But she decided to keep that gem of wisdom to herself.

  ‘Did you make any copies of the files you gave Kate?’

  Margaret shook her head ‘Most of the information was hacked. I hardly want that circulating around the station, do I? Kate can photocopy what she deems important. I’m sure she’ll bring us both up to date on her thoughts when she judges it necessary.’

  ‘Did you see anything of value?’

  Margaret said truthfully, ‘No, it was all basically the same thing. They were all in care and, at sixteen, they were dumped into a halfway house. Then they end
ed up dead through their involvement with brassing. It’s as if they were enrolled in the school for the unwanted, the unneeded and the uncared for. I never realised how many kids are out there on their own, no one to claim them, no one for them to turn to. It puts Miriam and her old man into perspective, I mean, at least they cared. Which is more than I ever did. But I tell you something now, I’ll take more interest in the future.’

  Margaret looked sad and Annie knew exactly how she was feeling. She also knew that, once this case was over, she would forget all her good intentions, and do what they all did. Forget all about the girls and why she cared about them in the first place. It was the only way to survive in their job. You had to concentrate on the task in hand, and emotion couldn’t come into it. Otherwise you couldn’t make any rational decisions. They made you vulnerable, and that was something you daren’t feel in their game. You had to put your emotions away, and start afresh with each new case.

  But Margaret would learn all that in her own time. Until then, she would leave her in blissful ignorance. Margaret had not yet encountered the young men and women who were so damaged they were capable of the most heinous crimes. She hadn’t yet been threatened or attacked by someone who had no kind of real feelings. Who saw everyone around them as a mark, as somebody to either rob, blackmail or harm. She had only got herself put on this case because she was a computer whiz-kid.

  Annie wondered how Margaret would fare on her own with the scum and the detritus they encountered on almost a daily basis. The wife-beaters, the child-molesters, all of them liars, all of them trying to justify their own failings. These were predators who saw a chance to make a few quid, and pounced on it without a second’s thought. She had seen pensioners battered and children slaughtered, and she had seen the people responsible walk away because they had manufactured themselves a good sob story.