Nine Lives by Anita Waller (best english books to read .txt) 📗

She laughed. ‘Can you tell us when we can use this place again?’

Ian walked towards them. ‘You use this place a lot?’

‘We do. Most lunchtimes to get away from the office when we have a sandwich, and sometimes when we’re in town in the evening we come here. It’s lovely during the summer. We came here… you know… that night when the girl died.’

Ian stopped securing his waders and looked at them. ‘Did you see anything?’

She shrugged. ‘The river was too bad. We couldn’t sit down anywhere, it was way over the top of that bottom stretch. We only stayed a couple of minutes and then went home. It was pissing it down and we were soaked.’

Ian felt disappointment. ‘Can I have your name and address? My boss might want to talk to you. I know you didn’t see anything, but we like to build a picture.’

‘Yeah, sure,’ she said, and the man wrote on, then held out, a card.

‘That’s where we live,’ he said, ‘but we both work here.’ He indicated the building behind him.

Ian nodded his thanks. ‘And there was nothing to see? What time was this?’

‘Tennish,’ the man said. ‘We didn’t see anything here, but there was a car in the car park.’

‘What sort?’ Ian held his breath.

‘A small black one, oldish, maybe a Fiesta,’ the man said. ‘I only took notice of it because the driver took her top off over her head. She must have been wet through.’

‘Woman? You’re sure?’

‘You don’t get boobs like that, and in a black lacy bra, on a man, believe me.’

21

Erica listened to the excited intonation in Ian’s voice, and swiftly wrote down the name and address he passed on to her.

‘Are they still with you?’

‘No, boss. But they’ll be available whenever you want to speak to them.’

‘Okay. I’ll give them a ring, maybe get them in, although that could be a waste of time at this point. When we get a suspect, they’ll be brought in then to see if it’s the same woman.’

‘You’re not surprised, are you?’

‘That it’s a woman? No, I’m not. Don’t take this the wrong way, Ian, but when it’s a man there’s always evidence of either a condom or semen. We’ve seen nothing of that, in eight murders. This is the first glimmer of a breakthrough in all that time. Well done for talking to them.’

He laughed. ‘They spoke to us. The woman offered to help us put on our waders. Right, I’m going in the water now, and I’ll leave our couple to you.’

It was cold as Ian dropped down into the fast-flowing river, and he stumbled. This wasn’t going to be a load of laughs, he realised, unless one of the others fell flat on their face.

Mike and Will had already moved ahead, and had claimed bankside positions. He tried to keep a central line, his head swivelling, looking, seeking anything that looked out of place. They moved inexorably forward and an hour and half later saw Kev and Sam in the distance.

They clambered out when they eventually met up, and neither team had anything at all to report.

‘Dead loss really, wasn’t it,’ Sam said, a look of disappointment written on his face.

‘No. I’ve something to tell all of you, but let’s find somewhere to have a cup of tea, and I’ll fill you in. And it’s been confirmation there’s nothing here to find, so we can discount the river and concentrate elsewhere. It needed doing, and we’ve done it. Well done, lads.’

The café was warm and welcoming, despite their attire. Ian had shown his warrant card, and the café owner had set them up on a corner table, giving them some privacy. It was next to a radiator, and slowly they thawed.

Ian waited until they had bacon sandwiches and two pots of tea in front of them before telling them about the young couple he had encountered purely by accident at the pocket park.

‘A woman?’ Sam looked shocked. ‘A woman?’

Ian nodded. ‘Seems so. Unless this woman had been for a quick dip in the river fully clothed and she’s nothing to do with the murders, then it’s a woman. The car fits. They had no registration for it, but it seems the one she uses doesn’t belong to the car anyway, and that probably means she has several sets of plates. But it was definitely a black car and the man said probably a Fiesta. I’ve passed the info on to the boss, she’s going to do the follow-up. She wasn’t surprised. She’d always felt it wasn’t a man, despite us all saying he.’

They digested what Ian was saying, along with their bacon sandwiches, and remained quiet while the café owner removed their empty teapots and replaced them with fresh ones.

‘So are we finished with the river?’ Sam asked.

‘We are unless there’s more young lasses taken and killed,’ Ian said. ‘But no, we won’t be back here, I think we’ve covered every bit of it now. She’s a canny one, whoever she is. She’s leaving nothing that could take us to her, and it’s only chance that brought that young couple to us this morning. I wonder if she, the killer, knew they’d seen her. Bet she didn’t, ’cos I reckon they’d both be dead now. Thanks, everybody, for coming here with me this morning.’ He raised his cup of tea in salute to them.

‘No problem,’ Kev said. ‘I think it’s knocked us all for six, this last week. Four cracking young women all dead. And we’ve still no idea why. Is being a psychopath enough reason to start a career as a serial killer? You think it’s a case of she simply can’t help it?’

Will joined in. ‘I’m sure she can’t help it. There’s not even a real link between them other than this blessed river, is there.’

‘There is,’ Ian said. ‘I’m not sure of any details yet, and there’s a briefing at seven on Monday morning to go into this in more depth, but