Part 11 (1/2)

Before Victor had the opportunity to respond, Philippa knocked gently on the door.

'What?' the DCI shouted.

'The young lady would like to give her report and leave, sir. She has a training session this evening, so hasn't got time to hang around.'

'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l! Does she want us to catch the guy who attacked her or not? Go, you two, and don't come back until you've got some answers.'

Tom didn't need telling twice, and on the way to the interview room Philippa filled him in. The girl had come in to report that she had been attacked the night before in her room at the university. She had called in the attack immediately, but it was only after she had gone through the standard interview process that anybody realised the incident might be related to the two murders.

'How's she coping?' Tom asked.

'She seems more angry than frightened by the fact that, in her words, ”Some b.a.s.t.a.r.d tried to kill me,”' Philippa said. 'She's also annoyed that although she went through it all in the early hours of this morning, she's now having to do it again.'

They pushed open the door to the interview room, and Tom tried not to let the surprise show on his face. Sitting in a chair was a girl who looked remarkable similar to their first two victims. Pretty, blonde, hair in a bob, but the similarity ended when she jumped up from her chair, clearly glad to see that finally something was happening.

'h.e.l.lo,' she said, extending a hand and shaking Tom's vigorously. 'My name is Freja Blom. I'm Swedish. You are going to catch this nasty b.a.s.t.a.r.d, yes?'

Tom was impressed by her anger. Her mouth was set in a hard line, and he couldn't decide how much of it was her way of dealing with the fear that she must have experienced. But there was no sign of that just determination to catch the man who had tried to kill her.

Once they had convinced her that unfortunately she was going to have to repeat her version of events to them, she needed little prompting to tell her tale as quickly as she could. She started to speak before Tom and Philippa had the chance to ask her a question.

'I sleep on the ground floor of the halls of residence, but it was a warm night and I left the window open a little. n.o.body would steal from me I don't have much. I don't know what woke me, but there was a change in the feeling of the room. I don't remember a noise. More like any sound was being absorbed by another body and the air had become more dense.'

Tom remained silent and signalled the enthusiastic Philippa to say nothing either. Freja was staring into thin air, her whole body concentrating on the memory.

'When I opened my eyes, he was standing there a man with a stocking over his face. His features were squashed, but I can tell you now that I would know him again. I am used to people's faces looking distorted, but still I know who they are.'

Tom made a note. They would need to come back to that one.

'He was holding my spare pillow. Before I could scream he pushed it down over my face and held it there. I fought him, but I couldn't get to any flesh to get his skin under my nails. So I held my breath and let my body go limp.'

She took a long drink from a bottle of water she had been clasping since she arrived, then continued her story.

'He held on for longer than I thought, and I felt myself begin to drift to become semi-conscious. I felt the pillow lift, but I just lay there. By then I had kicked off all the covers, and I was only wearing a T-s.h.i.+rt. I thought he was going to rape me.'

She leaned forward, her folded arms resting on the table, her face inches from Tom's. 'The sick b.a.s.t.a.r.d thought I was dead! He lifted the bottom of my nightie and he cut me with a knife. I show you.'

'It's fine, Freja we can get the doctor to look,' Tom said.

She shrugged. 'It's no problem for me.'

Freja pushed her chair back, stood up and without hesitation lifted her short skirt to reveal the edge of a pair of white cotton knickers and the evidence of what had been done to her. There was one long deep cut high on her left thigh. 'I screamed, and he leapt back from the bed. He seemed more frightened than me, because he thought he had killed me. So I screamed and screamed some more, called him a dirty f.u.c.king pervert and a stream of other Swedish words, and he bolted.'

Christ how does a girl of this age learn to be so self-possessed? Tom thought.

'Freja,' Tom said, 'you've had a lucky escape and you've been incredibly brave. Do you think you can you tell me anything about the man at all?'

'He was more a boy than a man, I would say,' she replied. 'He was tall, but not heavy or muscly.'

'And you said you are used to seeing people's faces distorted. Why's that?'

'Oh, I'm a swimmer. I see people under water. n.o.body looks normal when they're swimming.'

Tom realised that her ability to hold her breath for so long had saved her life, and was about to tell her so when she said something that made him freeze.

'Sorry, Freja. Can you say that again, please?'

'I said I thought I would recognise him, but I am not so sure about the man standing outside the window, watching.'

25.

Three lines carved into a leg. Three original victims, even if one did escape. Unless, of course, there had been more victims, ones they had never found.

The more Tom thought about the victim found yesterday Hayley Walker the more convinced he was that she had to be linked to the murders of Sonia Beecham and Tamsin Grainger. While Hayley bore not the slightest resemblance to the previous victims, the placing of the three lines on the leg had to be significant. Did that mean that Hayley was going to be the first of three?

He stood up from his desk, grabbed his Barbour jacket from behind the door and checked he had his phone and car keys. There had to be a common factor, surely, between those victims and this one, but it had all happened so long ago, and even though he had read and reread the files, the words conveyed only the facts. He needed images pictures that might spark off something, a little nugget deeply entrenched in his memory, and for that he needed to go back to where it all began. He remembered making the same trip then but hoped this time it would be more productive.

Tom headed west on the Mancunian Way, around the city and onto the main road leading to Old Trafford, turning off to the right towards the strip of wasteland that he hadn't visited for nearly twelve years. He pulled the car up behind a couple of other vehicles parked in the dead-end street. No doubt a few dog walkers would be around whatever the weather, some things just had to be done.

The double gates that allowed vehicles through to the island were closed and padlocked, but a pedestrian gate to one side was open, and Tom walked through it barely aware of his surroundings. There were so many thoughts running through his head. Where was Leo? Had she gone away without telling anybody, or had something happened to her? Images of her in the best of their times together, memories of her warm laughter or her gentle hands, hit him whenever he allowed his mind to stray from the murder of Hayley Walker.

Right now, though, he wanted to know why they hadn't been able to solve those crimes twelve years ago. What had they missed? Was any of it his fault, because his head had been full of his worries about Kate and the future of their marriage? Had he failed to give the murders the attention they deserved? What could the past tell them that would help them find the killer this time? One thing was certain: he wasn't going to fail in this investigation. He had never stopped believing that they had let Sonia and Tamsin down badly, and had been relieved when there were no other victims. At least, not that they knew of.

He walked across the island to where Sonia had been found. He stared at the spot for a few minutes, remembering the warm day and the pretty girl sitting upright against a tree stump, looking for all the world as if she were taking some sun. At least, she would have had it not been for the eyes, staring sightlessly ahead of her and the thick line of dark red blood around her neck. That day the earth was baked and wild flowers were blooming. Today, the ground was soggy underfoot and the island didn't look so beautiful.

He turned to look across the river. It was wide here and the water was choppy. Pivoting on his heel to look in the opposite direction, the previously derelict mills beyond the narrow Bridgewater Ca.n.a.l that bordered the other side of the island were now mainly renovated and converted into apartments, and only this sliver of land remained unclaimed by modernisation.

Tom remembered the mills. Twelve years ago he had wanted to search those most accessible to the island by bridge. He had found a narrow footpath from this tiny sc.r.a.p of wilderness that led back over the ca.n.a.l towards the deserted buildings. It was closer to where they had found Sonia's body than the main footpath. On Tom's insistence, the DCI had asked uniforms to check if entry to the old mills was possible, and they had returned to report that the buildings were secured, with all doors padlocked. So Victor had declared it a dead end not worthy of further investigation. Any traces of those murders any blood or DNA from the girls would by now have been eradicated during the renovation work, and Tom was angry with himself for not persisting with that line of enquiry.

He searched his memory for a kernel of an idea that might make everything start to make sense. It was there. He knew it was. And he was going to find it.

He thrust his hands into his pockets and walked determinedly back towards where he had left his car. Coming here hadn't given him the answer he craved, but it had reminded him that the past held secrets the previous investigation hadn't uncovered. And he was d.a.m.ned if he was going to be beaten this time.

As he drove back to the office, Tom's mind was only partly on the road enough to avoid him hitting the car in front but mostly he was in another time, another place, rifling through every fact, every impression that he'd had. He was only vaguely aware of the woman standing alone on the side of the road opposite police headquarters.

Indicating right to turn across the busy road and into the car park, a flash of colour caught his eye. It was an emerald-green scarf that had attracted his attention, and it was worn around the neck of a woman with long, dark hair and bright red lipstick wearing a black raincoat.

'Leo!' Tom almost gasped out her name.

He glanced back to where the woman stood, staring at the offices from across the road as if unsure whether to cross or not. Unable to stop in the middle of the road, Tom drove as quickly as he could into the car park. Typically there were no s.p.a.ces close to the entrance. He muttered an expletive and pulled into the first available slot, jumped out of the car and ran back towards the road.

As he reached the visitors' area of the car park, a door opened and he heard his name. 'Tom? Do you have a moment, please?'

He didn't stop to see who it was. 'Just a minute,' he called over his shoulder.