DI Enver Demirel opened the bedroom door in the student flat off Gower Street. He ushered Hanlon into the small room and gently closed the door behind them.
‘This is her room, Hannah’s room,’ he said. Hanlon looked around her. It was quite spartan. The room had a bed with a table beside it, a built-in wardrobe, a sink and another table that would serve as a desk. There was a bookcase and Hanlon bent forward to examine its contents. There were a few philosophy books, that was to be expected, and a shelf full of self-help books. There was Deepak Chopra, Coelho, Anthony Robbins, Men Are From Mars, that kind of thing. There were books about how to organize your day, your life, your relationships and your career. The optimism of the books’ subject matter emphasized the sad squalor of Hannah’s death. It was the library of a hopeful optimist, of someone determined to get ahead. Hanlon hated murderers. She despised their overwhelming, shallow egotism.
She wanted revenge for Hannah Moore.
There was an open book on the shelf. ‘Can I look at this?’ she asked.
‘Sure, ma’am,’ said Enver. ‘We’re done here.’ Enver was delighted with Hanlon’s promotion. His own increase in rank, to DI, had put him temporarily on a par with her and he had secretly been dreading the unlooked-for equality.
He couldn’t work out what that meant; was he slavishly addicted to following the woman around or was it because it showed their relationship could be rekindled? Oh, who cares, he thought. He did know he felt radiantly happy to be back in the presence of the monosyllabic Hanlon, currently sporting a vicious-looking black eye.
He leaned against the closed door, his muscular arms folded across his expanding midriff, with almost proprietorial pride.
The inquiry into the deaths of the child traffickers in Norfolk had completely exonerated him, and the rescue of the kidnapped child had resulted in his promotion to Detective Inspector. Hanlon’s evidence had cast him in a heroic light while taking any blame for breaches of procedure upon herself. Enver had kept Assistant Commissioner Corrigan’s part in the matter to himself. He had been rewarded with this promotion. It was deserved, he knew that, but he still had to contend with snide remarks from some of his colleagues that he’d only got it because he was a Muslim, or because he was non-white. Enver placidly asked them if they’d been shot in the line of duty, or how many paedophile rings they had broken up.
Hanlon picked up the Dr Suzy Kirschbaum book that Hannah had been reading. Self-realization through the power of dreams. The contrast between the hopes of Hannah Moore and her sad, undignified death was total. Hanlon felt again a surge of almost homicidal rage against her killer. How dare they do this. It wasn’t just the crime, it was the arrogance behind it. It was the way Hannah had been swatted out of existence like an insect.
I’m like the Duracell bunny, she thought, except I’m powered by anger, not by a battery, and I’ll keep on going.
I want you, she thought of Hannah’s killer, I want you and I’m going to get you.
Enver studied Hanlon covertly while she leafed through the book. She looked fully recovered now from the killing fields that the island had become, he thought. Since that night he had only seen her a couple of times and in all honesty that had hurt. He had felt she was evading him and he didn’t know why. But here they were back together as if nothing had happened. He was pleased to see her looking so well and overjoyed to be working with her again.
The dark, tight trousers she was wearing emphasized her long, slim legs. Her white blouse was partially unbuttoned and he could see her collarbone and the sharply defined muscles in her neck as she bent her head. Stray corkscrew curls of her dark, coarse hair fell over her face.
She closed the book and looked at Enver expectantly. He cleared his throat.
‘She was found face down here, ma’am, on the bed.’ He showed her the relevant photograph on his laptop.
Hanlon looked at the image of the dead girl. Enver stared at the photo mournfully and used the end of a biro as a pointer to indicate the relevant features. Her head was invisible, covered in a black velvet hood like a bag.
‘We found several hairs on the outside of the bag that didn’t belong to the victim. We have Fuller’s DNA on file after a drink-driving conviction five years ago; the hairs were a match.’ Hanlon nodded. All of this was in the report she’d read, but she liked to hear it to confirm she’d processed the important facts. Reports tended to be over-detailed in her view, officers worried that they may not have spelled something out clearly enough and so erred in the opposite direction, burying you in
a pile of unnecessary details. ‘Cause of death?’ ‘Strangulation, ma’am. Not with a ligature, manually.
There’s no sign of any struggle and we’re assuming that the killing took place during some sex game. A consensual sex game. There were marks on the victim’s buttocks consistent with being beaten, whipped, with something narrow, a cane maybe or a riding crop. There is no evidence of penetration, however, and no semen or other bodily fluids.’
Hanlon looked at Enver for clarification.
He said, ‘According to her Facebook wall, her status was that she was in a relationship with two people, male and female, both married. The killing could have been committed by a woman. I’m assuming the victim was face down, the killer sitting on top of the body. She couldn’t really struggle. Death wouldn’t have taken long, according to the pathologist. Unconsciousness through strangulation can be as quick as fifteen seconds, a minute would be ample.’
‘Any ideas as to whether it might be murder, or a sex game gone tragically wrong?’ asked Hanlon.
Enver shook his head. ‘No. I’d like to think if it was an accident then the other party would have come forward, but these days that’d be too much to ask. Taking responsibility for your actions seems very old-fashioned these days.’
He was an old-fashioned kind of man. Because he had once been a boxer, people assumed he’d be aggressive, in your face. Enver was neither. He’d drifted into boxing as a youth because he’d been shy and timid and his father, a traditionalist from the countryside, a man of simple views, had thought it would make a man of his quiet son. He’d been a very good fighter, a rock-solid chin and a formidable puncher, but never quite good enough. Deep in his heart he knew he lacked that vital something to ever be a champion. He was a good journeyman fighter, top ten maybe, but he’d never strap a belt on. When injury, a detached retina, forced his retirement, he’d gone into the police. Anything but the family restaurant business.
Hanlon nodded. ‘Do we have anything else on Fuller?’ A sudden image of the man’s good-looking but essentially weak face came into her mind. He looked just the kind of person who’d try and evade responsibility.
Enver nodded. ‘Hannah Moore was writing a blog about Fuller, claiming that he was an active sexual predator and she was going to stop him. She said that Fuller is into S&M and that he was partly responsible for the death of another student, an Abigail Vickery, some seven years ago. Either a sex game gone wrong or murder, she claimed.’
‘So, like this,’ said Hanlon.
Enver nodded and continued. ‘She also said that when Fuller has sex with a girl he likes to keep a trophy, a cutting of pubic hair and underwear.’
Hanlon looked questioningly at Enver.
‘The dead girl had a section of pubic hair absent that had obviously been cut away. Her pants were missing too.’
‘Does Fuller have an alibi?’ asked Hanlon.
Enver shook his head. ‘The murder took place in the after- noon; Fuller says he usually has a siesta at that time. So, no alibi there. Anyway, to cut a long story short, we took him in for questioning, but he lawyered up and we had to release him without charge.’
‘So no other evidence, forensic or otherwise?’
‘No, ma’am. There used to be a CCTV camera that recorded the street door to this place, but that was removed as an infringement of civil liberties, after a student complained. So, we’ve no way of knowing who came and went. As for forensic, no. Nothing.’
Enver stroked his moustache. It was full and drooping. He looked at Hanlon. ‘Fuller did not dispute the fact that the hood was his, but he said it had gone missing from his briefcase which he keeps unlocked in his office, to which most of the faculty, staff and students have access. He would neither confirm nor deny rumours of his sexual habits, but he emphatically denied having Hannah Moore as a sexual partner. I would have dearly loved a search warrant for his house, to see if that underwear/souvenir collection existed, and if so, was there anything traceable to Hannah? But no way would I have got it.’
‘And what about this Abigail Vickery allegation?’ asked Hanlon.
‘I looked into it, ma’am. The history is appended to the report.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s as Hannah said, but the coroner recorded an open verdict. She was found hanged and she did have a taste for S&M-style bondage sex, but whether or not it was suicide, or a sex game gone wrong, well, who knows? Fuller was her lecturer; he was said to be having an affair with her. Her father kicked up a stink, claimed Fuller had murdered her, but no one seriously believed that.’
Hanlon said speculatively, ‘And do you think he did it?’ She had a very high estimation of Enver’s intelligence.
Enver shrugged. ‘I really don’t know.’ He paused. ‘I’ve inter- viewed a fair few people and I like to think I’m good at it, but he seemed more outraged than anything that we should think he’d be having sex with Hannah Moore. It was as if she wasn’t good enough for him. He certainly showed no sense of pity or sadness that a girl he knew had died, more irritation at having his day disrupted. I do think that if he had done it, he’d have maybe tried harder to cut a more sympathetic figure. Well, you’ll be able to judge for yourself tomorrow, anyway.’
‘Anything else about him worth mentioning?’
Enver shook his head. ‘For what it’s worth, I think we should have breath-tested him before we interviewed him. He stank of booze. It would have potentially made anything he did say inadmissible. As it was, his brief took a while to arrive and he didn’t say anything anyway, but if he does have a drink problem, it could be relevant. The drink-driving could be symptomatic. It would explain an accident or, if he had a propensity to violence, it might heighten it.’
‘That’s true,’ said Hanlon. ‘Well, anyway, I get to meet him soon enough. I’ll come back with you now and we’ll go through my story again. Corrigan has arranged some business cards and other Home Office related stuff for me, like my work pass and things, so I’ll look the part.’
‘What are you going to say about your eye, ma’am?’ said Enver. Hanlon’s left eye was badly swollen and the skin under- neath it turning an interesting colour. Enver guessed more or less correctly what had happened, but it was undoubtedly unfortunate timing.
Hanlon raised a shapely dark eyebrow. ‘Nobody will dare ask, Detective Inspector. Believe me.’