Carmichael’s kitchen-diner was at the back of the house: a light, airy room, ripe for entertaining. It had been two rooms once, knocked into one in order to maximize the available space. It had an island in the centre separating the eating area from newly fitted kitchen units and enough electrical gadgets on show to put John Lewis to shame: microwave, digi radio, three iPods no less, docking station and a huge, flat-screen, high-definition TV mounted on the wall at the far end.
Using a remote, Daniels turned it on.
The picture was crystal clear, the sound quality superb; hardly surprising, given Carmichael’s interest in all things digital. The DCI listened to the headlines while making a pot of coffee and some toast. She’d woken up in a chair in Carmichael’s bedroom with a very stiff neck and a paperback book on her knee: The Giant Book of Dangerous Women, edited by Richard Glyn Jones. An intriguing read she’d dipped in and out of during the night, a book about the most murderous women in the world – including Ma Barker, Myra Hindley and Ruth Ellis – a woman the author claimed had killed in an emotional frenzy but was hanged for premeditated murder. The resultant outcry had led to a majority vote in the House of Commons to abolish hanging in 1956.
Daniels wasn’t opposed to capital punishment per se. An eye for an eye seemed fair and reasonable to her. But miscarriages of justice did happen and – even though Britain’s prisons were bursting at the seams – one innocent person put to death was more than her conscience could stomach. No. On this emotive issue the law makers had got it right.
For once.
Daniels’ wristwatch bleeped. She’d set it to go off at fifteen-minute intervals in order to keep a close watch over her young DC, make sure she didn’t choke on her own vomit during the night. But Carmichael had slept peacefully, occasionally stirring, but never fully waking up. Daniels felt suddenly fatigued. Her eyes were sore, gritty, the way eyes felt when you had to get up at some ungodly hour to catch an early flight with a ridiculous check-in time. Or, worse still, travel during the night.
No wonder they called them red-eye flights.
Lisa Carmichael looked no better than Daniels felt when she appeared in the doorway fresh from the shower. She was barefoot, dressed in a navy towelling robe, her hair in a turban to match. The cocktail of drink and drugs had taken its toll on her appearance. Her skin was sallow and dehydrated and she could hardly stand up on her pins. From the look of her, she wanted to curl up in a ball and die.
‘Sit down,’ Daniels said.
Obediently, Carmichael pulled a chair out from the dining-room table, grimacing as it scraped across the hard wooden floor. Flopping down on it, she made no attempt to speak.
‘Here, drink this,’ Daniels said.
Placing a mug of steaming coffee on the table, she walked back to the kitchen area to get toast. She had no interest in giving her young protégé any sympathy. Carmichael had fucked up big style and deserved all that was coming to her. Question was, would she get back on her bike and start pedalling, or would she fade away like a puff of smoke?
Daniels had known it happen before.
Walking back to the table with a plate of toast, she sat down too, trying to keep her temper in check. She was boiling up inside, angry with Carmichael for making such a mess of things, for allowing a man who may or may not be of interest to them to slip through her fingers.
Carmichael looked up expectantly, waiting for the tirade.
It didn’t take long to arrive.
‘You never do that again. Do I make myself clear?’ Daniels didn’t wait for a reply. ‘I take it you’ve heard of Rohypnol? ANY woman with ANY sense watches her drink in a club, doesn’t she? Jesus, Lisa! First rule: you buy a drink that comes in a bottle with the top on. Second: you open it yourself and never, EVER put it down! Third: you keep your finger over the mouth of the bottle the whole time.’
‘Don’t go on, boss. I feel bad enough.’
‘And so you bloody should! Andy had no choice but to pull you out. Fortunately for you, everyone in there took you for a pisshead. You’re not a pisshead, are you?’
‘No! Of course not, I—’
‘You sure about that?’
Carmichael didn’t reply, just sat with her head in her hands. Daniels pushed the toast across the table towards her and she immediately pushed it back.
‘You going to tell Naylor?’
‘No. But don’t think for one minute it’s to protect your arse, because it’s not! Your mistake could have cost you – not only your livelihood, but your life. Hank will have to know, obviously. But I don’t want your cock-up reflecting on Naylor, not on his first day with us. He doesn’t need it and, frankly, neither do I.’
‘I’m sorry, boss. I never had much to drink, I promise you. Two vodkas, that was it. Someone definitely spiked my drink and I’ve a good idea who. Trouble is, I just can’t picture him.’ Carmichael shut her eyes, trying hard to remember. But it was no use. She opened them again, her face a sickly shade of grey. After a few minutes, she said: ‘He was an older guy, I think. Smart, I think—’
‘You think? You’re going to have to do a damn sight better than that!’
‘I’m not sure.’ Carmichael met Daniels’ steady gaze across the table, fiery eyes that could cut through steel. ‘Maybe it’ll come back to me.’
Without saying another word, the DCI stood up and went out into the hallway. She leapt up the stairs two at a time, turning left when she reached the landing. Her leather jacket was hanging untidily over the back of a chair in Carmichael’s room. In the right-hand pocket she found Brown’s mobile. Returning to the kitchen, she accessed the photographs he’d taken at Fuse, found a particularly good one, zoomed in on the man’s face and showed it to Lisa.
‘Is that him?’
Carmichael gave a little nod, her eyes misting up. She turned her head, suddenly interested in the patio doors and a well-tended garden beyond, a greenhouse, a little shed and fruit trees on the boundary fence. It was a dull, grey day outside. Depressing, much like the mood in the room.
‘Get dressed,’ Daniels said. ‘We’ve work to do. And by the way, you’d better eat that bloody toast. I don’t make breakfast for just anybody!’
Carmichael managed a weak grin. She pointed to the living room, asking Daniels to wait there while she went upstairs to get dressed. Daniels got up. Taking her coffee with her, she wandered through into a pleasant room with a wooden floor, an open fireplace with a rug in front of the hearth. Two comfy red sofas sat at right angles to one another and there was a second, even bigger, plasma television screen fixed to one wall. On either side of the fireplace, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves housed a massive collection of DVDs – the biggest she had ever seen outside of a shop on the high street.
It was like a mini cinema.
Carmichael’s movie taste was diverse: everything from romcoms through to sci-fi, horror and all drama in between. One DVD stuck out slightly from the rest. Assuming the disc was in the player, Daniels pulled it down. The cover featured Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck and Helen Mirren. It was one of her favourite thrillers: State of Play.
The muffled buzz of Carmichael’s hair drier reached her through the ceiling. A few minutes later it stopped, replaced by the sound of feet running down the stairs a lot quicker than they had gone up. Carmichael entered eating cold toast, made up and ready to go, her hair tied back now, no longer hanging loose around her shoulders.
A Herculean effort in anyone’s book, Daniels thought.
Carmichael just stood, waiting for Daniels to make a move.
‘Sit down, Lisa.’ The DCI’s tone was a little softer now. She wasn’t angry with Carmichael. Her outburst had been more akin to that of a caring mother scolding a child and hugging it at the same time for running out in the road, a mother overcome with relief that she had come to no harm. ‘I want to find the man who drugged you, and to do that I’d like to take you through a cognitive interview. It’s vital we find the bastard.’
‘Will that work? Given the drugs, I mean?’
‘You still have a memory. All we have to do is access it.’
‘S’pose.’ Carmichael sounded unconvinced even though she had been among the first batch of detectives Daniels had trained in cognitive interviewing, a technique proven to enhance eyewitness recall by up to forty-five per cent.
‘OK, you ready?’ Daniels asked.
Carmichael nodded. She knew the drill. Taking off her jacket, she sat down and made herself comfortable. Daniels did likewise and spent the next hour mentally walking the young DC through her encounter the previous evening, going over and over it until they were both exhausted. Carmichael’s recollection was understandably patchy. But she remembered that the man she’d met was a lecturer called Steve and vaguely recalled a girl named Bryony somewhere along the line.
She wasn’t sure where.
Or even how.
‘No good?’ Daniels sat back.
Carmichael shook her head, visibly disappointed with the results of their efforts.
‘OK, let’s knock it on the head.’ Daniels yawned. The heat in the room was getting to her. If she didn’t make a move soon, she was sure to nod off. ‘It’s a good start, Lisa. You did really well.’
Daniels yawned again and stood up.
Carmichael did likewise. ‘Boss?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘I have a question. I know what you’re going to say—’
‘Oh really? Then why ask?’
‘I can get him. Just give me another chance and I won’t let you down this time, I promise. You said yourself, people didn’t bat an eyelid when Andy pulled me out of there. Let them think I can’t hold my drink. Let me at least try.’
‘No,’ Daniels said doggedly. ‘You talk a good job, Lisa. But you just proved you’re not ready to go it alone. My fault for believing you were.’
Carmichael looked as if she’d been slapped. She swallowed hard, her eyes filling up. She tried to get Daniels to change her mind but she was having none of it.
‘Boss?’ Carmichael was almost begging. ‘Will you at least hear me out?’
‘I said no! So don’t be an even bigger pain in the arse.’
Pulling on her leather jacket, Daniels stuffed Brown’s mobile phone into her pocket and made a move to leave the house. Carmichael followed her, reaching the front door first when she paused to pick her car keys off the hall table where she’d stashed them the night before. But Carmichael’s attempt to block her exit was futile. The DCI stood firm, waiting for her to move out of the way, a steely expression on her face.
‘You’re wasting your breath, Lisa. I won’t let you do it, it’s too risky. Besides, you need time to recover from your ordeal, physically as well as mentally. You’re in no condition to go back in there.’
‘That creep was coming on to me, I do know that much. If he’s involved in either the prostitution racket or the murder of Amy Grainger, I’m still your best shot at catching him. Nothing’s changed since yesterday. At least think about it.’ Daniels took a step forward but Carmichael didn’t move. She was frantic. As a parting shot she added, ‘You know it makes sense. You can do background checks on him, but we both know that takes up a whole lot of time. Meanwhile he could be back there, preying on another girl tonight. If not for me, then do it for Jessica.’
Even Daniels found that one hard to argue with.
By now Jessica Finch would be in a very bad way.