Murder Club - Mark Pearson [97]
‘No. There’s five missing.’
‘Five?’
‘Sir.’
‘Shit! You know what I’m thinking now, Sally?’
‘This isn’t about a group of men raping. It’s about a group of people taking revenge.’
‘Why John Smith, if that’s his name?’
‘Michael Robinson queered his pitch big time, didn’t he, sir? And from what Stephanie tells us, he’s not actually playing with a full deck himself.’
‘And then he went on to try it himself. So fixated with the woman that he acted out his fantasies on Lorraine Eddison at the back of the Ryan Theatre.’
‘Or tried to.’
‘What was the date Lorraine Eddison was attacked?’
Sally dug out her little black notebook and flipped back through some pages.
‘Twentieth of April, sir.
Delaney snapped his fingers.
‘Is that significant, sir?’
‘Very significant. Come on, we’re out of here.’
Kate Walker leaned against the side of the van. Her hands had been tied behind her back with the kind of plastic slip-knot cuffs the police use.
The van was moving slowly but it skidded every now and then, and Kate was thrown forward. She couldn’t use her hands to protect her belly and every movement made her almost cry with despair. She knew how fragile was the life she was carrying inside her. Particularly at this relatively early stage of the pregnancy. She silently prayed to God to save them both, but mostly she prayed for Jack.
Delaney and Sally Cartwright waited impatiently in the plushly carpeted entrance foyer of the Ryan Theatre. A couple of ridiculously tall schoolboys in their mourning outfit of a school uniform watched them curiously.
A short while later, and the theatre’s technical manager came hurrying through the entrance door, slightly red-faced and out of breath. He was about five foot eleven with curly, mousy hair, in his forties, but with a pampered, youthful look about him.
‘What kept you?’ said Delaney.
‘I was in The Castle.’
‘Haven’t you got a show on? Shouldn’t you be working?’
‘Nah.’ The man grinned at Sally. ‘I was working on a pint of Foster’s. I just open the theatre for them, lock up when they’ve gone.’
‘It’s a rep company?’ asked Delaney.
‘Yes.’
‘And you hire the place out in school holidays, I saw your poster for this show that’s on tonight when we were here the other day.’
‘Yes, we hire it out. Why? Thinking of holding another Secret Policeman’s Ball?’
Sally smiled but didn’t let Delaney see it.
‘So it was hired out last Easter?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who to?’
‘I’d have to check the records. It was a musical, though. Starlight Express.’
‘Not exactly opera, then?’
‘Not exactly musical either, if you ask me.’
Delaney grunted. ‘Sally, show him the photo.’
‘It’s his own photo, sir.’
‘I know that. Just show him the bloody picture.’
Sally handed over the photograph to Christian Peterson.
‘Any members of that visiting company look a bit like you?’
The technical director scratched his head. ‘Come to think of it, I did get mistaken for one once. A woman from the audience asked for my autograph.’
‘What did you do?’ asked Sally.
‘I gave her one.’
Sally laughed and Delaney glared at her. ‘And you,’ he said, turning back to the curly-haired man. ‘Get his bloody details, now.’
‘Can I ask what this is about?’
‘No, you bloody can’t!’
Twenty minutes later, DI Jack Delaney had his foot raised for the second time in an hour and was kicking in the front door of a downstairs flat. A woman opened the window to complain, but Sally held her warrant card,