Murder Club - Mark Pearson [77]
Marian Clark’s expression was replaced with something a lot less kind. ‘Yes, this is a homeless centre, Constable. I think you will find we know exactly how it is.’
‘Have any of your regulars not turned up for a day or two?’ asked Bob Wilkinson.
‘Sometimes we don’t see them for days, particularly in the summer when it is hot outside, even through the night.’
Bob Wilkinson looked out of the small office’s window. It was getting darker now as the clouds thickened even more ominously overhead and the snowflakes were falling more intensely.
‘A young woman, you say?’ The shelter manager picked up on the constable’s unspoken point.
‘Yes, early twenties maybe.’
‘Child-like. Blonde-haired, blue-eyed. Delicate skin?’
Bob Wilkinson looked down at his notebook. ‘Face like an angel.’ He read out the quote.
‘Oh my God,’ said Marian Clark.
‘You think you might know her,’ asked Danny Vine.
‘This man who says he murdered her …’
‘Bible Steve,’ answered PC Wilkinson.
‘Is he much older than her? Grey matted hair, tall. Always quoting from the Bible or some such?’
‘Hence the nickname.’
‘She came in with him a few times. We don’t have men here. I had to ask him to leave, and he became quite …’
‘Violent?’
‘Not violent as such. Abusive. He left with her.’
‘When was this?’
‘Friday afternoon.’
‘And you haven’t seen her since?’
The woman didn’t reply, but PC Bob Wilkinson didn’t have to be CID at any level to read the answer in her eyes. He pulled out his radio phone and thumbed the Call button.
‘Foxtrot Alpha from Thirty-Two.’
55.
JACK DELANEY WAS sitting in the right-hand room of The Holly Bush pub in Hampstead.
Danny Vine would not have been at all surprised to learn that Jack was there with a drink in his hand. He might have been surprised at what he was drinking, though.
‘What’s that, sir?’ asked DC Sally Cartwright as she perched herself on the stool alongside him. ‘Bloody Mary?’
‘Bloody half-a-chance would be a fine thing,’ replied her boss with a grimace. ‘Virgin Mary. All the goodness, apparently. None of the vice.’
‘I’m sure the sisters would approve.’
‘Not if they were drinking it.’
‘So, no movement, then?’
‘No, been stuck out here twiddling me thumbs watching the snow fall. Came in here for a bit of a warm.’
‘Couldn’t you have waited inside the hospital?’
‘I hate hospitals, Sally. And I figured it wise to give White City a wide berth for a while.’
‘Don’t blame you, sir. The super is strutting up and down like a cock who’s had his henhouse raided.’
‘You got half that right. Anyway, I just took a call from Diane. Seems like Bible Steve might not be quite so delusional after all.’
‘Go on.’
‘A young woman’s gone missing off the streets. Pretty much matches Bible’s description of the woman he claims to have murdered. Another homeless person been seen in his company a lot lately.’
‘He might be telling the truth?’
‘It’s unusual, I grant you, but it wouldn’t be the first time.’
‘Jesus! I would never have had him down for that.’
‘It happens. Who knows? Maybe God told him to do it.’
‘Paranoid schizophrenics who kill sometimes do say they had God talking to them.’
‘Or the Devil.’
‘True. But Bible Steve isn’t a paranoid schizophrenic, is he?’
Delaney shrugged. ‘Seems to me that people sometimes get labelled properly after the event. After is usually much too late.’
‘I still don’t have him down as a murderer.’
‘Maybe he saw someone else. Maybe there was a fight. Maybe he got in the way. A lot of maybes, I know. Time will tell, I guess. Meanwhile, what have you got for me?’
‘I’ve been going through the records we got from Northwick Park Hospital the other night.’
‘Going through it with Tony?’
‘No, sir. On my own. DI Hamilton’s headed up to Suffolk with DI Halliday.’
‘Catwalk, eh?’ Delaney raised his eyebrow, knowing it would annoy his young assistant.
‘DI Emma Halliday, yes sir. I don’t know why people have to belittle the woman’s intelligence just because she is six feet tall.’
‘She’s over six feet tall and gorgeous, Sally.’
‘Can you just get me one of those drinks please, sir,