Bird of Prey Read online

  Adams leaned forward. “I mean that, if I could, I’d look at your therapist’s notes. I don’t trust you one little bit, Detective Maqsood. If I had my way, you’d be relieved of duty permanently, or at the very least, back in a uniform on the street, not here in CID. But it’s not my call. The top brass ordered me to induct you back in, so here we are.”

  Nasreen had to bite her tongue; there was so much she could say. Now wasn’t the right time. How dare he talk about trust to her? She could feel her temper rising. “Look, sir, I just want to say–”

  “Save it! I’m not interested in your excuses. Your behaviour was reckless and dangerous, not to mention selfish and unbecoming of a detective constable in this department.”

  “Selfish? I helped save twenty-four innocent civilians, risking my own life in the process. I almost died saving them, and you call me selfish?”

  “Watch your tone, detective, don’t forget where you are. You’re not in front of your beloved cameras now. We all just loved watching you on This Morning, by the way…”

  “And did I say anything negative about the force?”

  “You didn’t need to, the public already knew you’d been suspended. And now, they’re all protesting outside the office, trying to get you reinstated. The IOPC might have caved in to the pressure, but that doesn’t mean I have to.”

  “It seems it does, actually, sir,” she replied, her hands trembling with anger. The way she said “sir” was dripping with disdain. “That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? The chief constable told you to take me back, and you have to play ball, isn’t that right?”

  “That’s enough! You might think you have us over a barrel, but I can assure you, it only seems that way. I’m going to be watching you from now on. I’ve spoken to Terrence and he’s going to be submitting reports on everything you do out in the field. You put so much as a foot wrong and you’re out of here, press or no press, is that understood, detective?”

  Nasreen nodded, her leg twitching up and down. “Understood, sir.”

  “Now, go and report to Inspector Gupta – he’s waiting for you. Terrence’s already on his way to the scene.” Adams leaned back in his chair.

  “Yes, sir,” she replied dutifully.

  “Now, get out of my office. And tell Terrence I expect his report on my desk before he goes home.”

  Nasreen stood to leave; her legs were wobbly – she hoped Adams couldn’t tell. If she thought it was worth it, she would tell him she’d overheard him in the stairwell, put the fear of God in him. It didn’t serve her purpose though. Deciding to keep it to herself, she walked to the door. “Arsehole,” she muttered.

  3

  Cara opened the door to her flat, stepped in and closed it behind her. She felt great. She honestly hadn’t felt so alive since she left the bunker well over a month ago. She bent down, undid her red high heels and kicked them off, not caring where they landed. Then she took off her coat and her dress and walked naked through her lounge and into her bedroom. Her legs and hands were freezing.

  Since leaving Ryan’s, she’d taken a long walk home. When she left, it was approaching four in the morning; it was now just gone nine. She’d been out walking all that time, and she actually watched the sunrise – she loved it.

  Feeling sweaty after all that walking, Cara hopped in the shower. It was only a quick rinse this time, having showered at Ryan’s. There was very little time to put her affairs in order. Now that she’d passed the point of no return, she had to leave the flat, and the sooner the better. She knew she had a little time, but she had to make sure she was long gone before the pigs came knocking on her door. And it would happen; it was inevitable.

  The way she figured it, someone finding the body in Ryan’s flat would take time. It could be as early as this morning; he could have a cleaner, who would let herself in and find the body. Hell, Ryan could have a girlfriend, she lets herself in and finds the body. It could be later; it might take days for someone to worry enough to break into his flat. But Cara was working on the minimal time taken.

  Then the police would need to investigate, talk to friends and family. It would take a few hours, maybe a day for them to speak to one of his friends at Johanna’s Bar. Then they would need to view the CCTV footage from the bar. That was where she came a cropper. The bar had cameras. Not that it really mattered, there were cameras everywhere. Cara didn’t care; all she cared about was carrying out her plan, before the police found her. She didn’t intend on getting away with it.

  And Cara hadn’t taken precautions at Ryan’s flat, either. She could have cleaned up, wiped surfaces of fingerprints, washed up the wine glass she used after making her masterpiece, which would now have her lipstick on, and hoovered up any fibres. The thing was (a) no amount of cleaning would prevent them from finding trace evidence; she’d researched it. It was pretty much impossible to commit the perfect murder and get away with it, and (b) she couldn’t be bothered. There was no fun, no joy in working to hide her masterpiece. Ryan was her masterpiece and she wasn’t afraid to show him off.

  At least she hadn’t fucked him. There would be so much more evidence on Ryan’s body if she had. Then there was the fact she had form; she’d been arrested so many times she’d lost count, so they had her DNA and then some.

  As she stepped out of the shower, Cara thought she could wait here in the flat for the inevitable knock on the door. There were no witnesses to her slaying him. They had circumstantial evidence that she was in the flat, sure. Oh, but she kissed his forehead on leaving, so they’d probably pick up on that.

  She could wait and ride the storm, get taken to a police interview room, deny everything and go to court and testify that she didn’t kill Ryan. No, fuck that! Far too much effort, and she wouldn’t get to have her fun if she did that. Cara had many more masterpieces to make yet. No, she would stick to her original plan.

  Walking into her bedroom, Cara started her morning ritual of fifty press-ups, followed by fifty sit-ups. She’d abused her body so much with the booze and drugs that she figured she had to counter it by doing at least some exercise. She wouldn’t keep her body – or her looks – by poisoning it with that shit, without exercise.

  As she went up and down, touching the floor with her nose, she thought about Lucy. She wondered where her ex-girlfriend – ex-soulmate – was now. She wondered what she was doing, and with whom. It was part of Cara’s ritual, while keeping fit. When she went on her long runs she thought about Lucy a lot too.

  Lucy Davis was her first – and only – true love. Cara had been with so many men in her life she’d lost count. Unlike most girls, she’d started with her dad when she was just six. He used to come into her bedroom when he was drunk and get in her bed, his hands everywhere, telling her she was his “special girl”. Her sorry excuse of a mum – a junkie – never tried to stop him. Bitch!

  Cara lifted her body up and back down, with her arms crossed. She had fifty sit-ups to do. She remembered the first time she told Lucy about her abuse at the hands of her dad; Lucy had hugged her so tight in their room at the rehab centre. Thinking about it, that was also their first kiss, while she was crying on Lucy’s shoulder.

  When they’d finished their long embrace, their faces so close, Cara locked eyes with Lucy’s and moved forwards until their lips met. After the shock of the initial kiss, they had both come together for something far more passionate. It was glorious.

  She missed Lucy so much. Every day Cara woke up, rolled over in their bed and felt the empty pillow. It always took a couple of seconds for her to remember Lucy was gone; sometimes it took longer. It depended on how smashed she was from the night before. If she was only drinking it wasn’t too bad, but if she’d injected heroin it could take ages for her to remember Lucy leaving.

  Cara knew she should stop the junk. But life got in the way sometimes, and she had to drown the shit out somehow. Heroin did that for her, if only for a short while. But now, now she had a new drug, a new high that heroin couldn’t compete with in a
million fucking years.

  When she’d finished her last sit-up, her body moist from perspiration, her face slightly red from the effort, Cara got up and started getting dressed. Needing to look casual, she chose some comfy light blue jeans, a thick purple jumper, tied her long blonde hair into a ponytail and threaded it through the hole in the back of a light purple cap. She had a pair of tan Caterpillar boots she would wear too.

  Since she was leaving this shithole of a flat for good, she took one last look around. The lounge was covered with empty bottles of vodka, cans of lager, pizza boxes and other takeaway food containers.

  Wading through the mess on the floor, Cara grabbed everything she thought she needed: food from the fridge, extra clothes, including a killer black dress for tonight, and cash from under her bed. She remembered her passports, one real, one fake, put it all in a red suitcase and pulled it to the front door.

  Putting on her thick coat, she carried the suitcase down the three flights of stairs.

  Outside, she dragged the suitcase around the back of her block of flats to her car, heaved the heavy case into the boot of her red Nissan Micra and closed the door. She sighed, looking at her old home; she would never be back here again. All those memories of her and Lucy, gone. It didn’t matter, she had a new life now, and it’d only just started. Cara had plans for tonight, another masterpiece to make.

  4

  Detective Sergeant Terrence Johnson stared down at the deep gash in Ryan Bentley’s eye socket. One thing he hated about this job was wearing the PPE, the white coveralls, foot protectors and mask. He bent over and took a closer look. He felt queasy. “Just look at the amount of rage. How many puncture wounds do you count?” he asked Aldwyn Bishop, the pathologist at the scene.

  “Twenty-four. Twenty-five if you include the eye.”

  Terrence looked at his colleague. “What do you make of it?”

  “The way he’s tied up, looks like we’re dealing with a deeply troubled perp. And a powerful one at that. I’d place bets on this being a female.”

  “That’s an awful lot of anger for a woman.” Terrence looked the body up and down. The sheer volume of blood surprised him; it always did. More than the blood though, was the horrified expression on the victim’s face, his mouth open, with the one good eye looking up at the ceiling, searching for a reason why. The puncture marks were red and angry, clotting blood present inside the holes. “Why couldn’t it have been a man?”

  “If it was a male suspect, the victim would be tied facing down, if this was sexually motivated and the suspect wanted penetrative sex, that is. But looking at this, it appears there is no sexual motive, other than the victim being tied up with his shirt off. No, this is something else.”

  “If it was a woman, she’s strong. The amount of energy it must take to stab someone twenty-five times. Someone’s cut this bitch loose.”

  “I noticed a wine glass downstairs with lipstick on. My guess is the suspect picked him up at a bar somewhere, brought him back here, and had a drink before.”

  Terrence heard voices from behind him. He turned to find Nasreen and Detective Inspector Arjun Gupta entering the bedroom wearing their PPE. He turned back to the body. Poor bastard, he thought. “Good to have you back, Nas.”

  “It’s good to be back, I think.” She fiddled with her face mask.

  “How’d it go with Adams?”

  “Ask me later. I don’t want to speak ill of the man in public.”

  “Don’t mind us,” Bishop said. “It doesn’t bother me, does it bother you, Arjun?”

  Terrence smiled when Inspector Gupta agreed that he didn’t mind her badmouthing their super. He had very little respect left for Adams after the way he’d treated Nasreen. It was just unfortunate they couldn’t get rid of him. “Nasreen Maqsood, Aldwyn Bishop, Aldwyn Bishop, Nasreen Maqsood.”

  He watched as Nasreen shook Bishop’s hand. “Nas, Bishop, here, is a freelance forensic pathologist; he gets called out to cases like this by all the forces in the country, so it makes him a very busy man. We’re lucky to have him assist us on this. Now that the introductions are done, let’s get down to business.”

  “What have we got so far?” Inspector Gupta, the shortest man in the room, was a round Indian man in his early fifties. “Terrence?”

  Terrence read from his notepad. “Right, the victim’s name is Ryan Bentley. He’s thirty-six, lived here for little over a year. According to the cleaner, who found him at nine this morning, he’s an investment banker. He recently split up with his girlfriend, who lives over the other side of town. He’s universally liked by all those he knows, like I said, courtesy of the cleaner, who’s also a friend.”

  “Great. Thanks, Terrence,” Gupta said. “What do we know about the crime scene?”

  “May I?” Terrence asked Bishop, who nodded. “Bishop believes we’re dealing with a female suspect. He thinks the victim met her at a bar locally, brings him back here, has a drink downstairs, before bringing him up here, promising some action, ties him up and goes to town on him. I have to say, I agree. The way he’s tied up suggests it’s a female.”

  “Really?” Nasreen pointed at the stab wounds. “You think a woman did this? How much rage must she be holding on to?”

  “That’s exactly what I said.”

  “Aren’t female murderers rare? I mean, come on, just look at it.” Nasreen pointed at Ryan’s torso. “How many stab wounds are there?”

  “Twenty-five,” Bishop replied. “I’ve counted.”

  “Twenty-five? This woman stabbed him twenty-five times. Holy crap! Have you seen anything like this before, Bishop?”

  “Once, in the States. It happens, but not so much here in the UK. We’ve all heard of Jillian Dempsey, right? Even she didn’t stab her victims twenty-five times. No, whoever we’re dealing with, she’s physically strong, and she’s very angry.”

  “Could be the victim upset someone.” Terrence glanced at each of them. “We need to look into Ryan’s background, see if we can find something there.”

  “The first thing we need to do, is find out where he was last night,” Gupta corrected. “Did we find his mobile?”

  “No, sir,” Terrence replied. “We’ve looked all over.”

  “She took it,” Nasreen said. “That’s what I’d do. Take out the sim and destroy it. Why chance it, right?”

  “We’ll need to start with the next of kin then,” Gupta said. “Okay, so here’s what we’re going to do: we’ll leave the CS team to gather as much trace as they can. Nasreen, you and I will go door-to-door, see what we can learn about the victim from neighbours. Terrence, can you go to the station and run a background check on the PNC, also contact his family and see what they know? Aldwyn, do you mind staying on to carry out the autopsy? Okay, let’s go!”

  5

  Assistant Commissioner Peter Franks was excited; he was putting information packs together for the first project meeting at the warehouse. He had thirty packs to piece together for his participants. His home office was the best place to carry out his task. He couldn’t use the station office for this; he didn’t want any unwanted eyes going over the sensitive information.

  Since Lennox Garvey had taken care of Franks’ William Rothstein problem, the project was back on track, where it should be. He had the supplier sorted and ready to go; he had his dealers in place, and he had his new importer on standby. In addition, he had all the seized narcotics from the UK sent to the warehouse, so the project had stock to use from day one. It was the Commissioner’s idea to utilise narcotics scheduled for destruction, providing the quality was pure. Any samples with less than ninety-five percent purity were taken away and destroyed.

  Although he was satisfied that the Rothstein problem was over, now he was concerned about Garvey. He’d hired one of Zack Astor’s guys to take care of Garvey, but that hadn’t turned out how he’d wanted. Instead of Garvey dead inside the boot of the car, it had turned out to be Astor’s guy, which meant that Garvey was out there, somewhere, proba
bly plotting his revenge. So far, though, there had been no sign of Garvey. Franks hoped Rothstein’s number two had decided to go home, back to Jamaica, back to his uncle.

  Franks placed the last thirty pieces of paper on the other stacks on the floor. All he had to do now was bind the thirty packs together and he was ready to drive to the Midlands for the meeting. He glanced at the clock on the wall and saw it was 15:38. That gave him time to drive to the warehouse and set everything up, ready for his guests’ arrival.

  Dressed in full Commissioner uniform, with his trousers neatly pressed, his shoes so shiny he could see his face in them, and his shirt neatly ironed, he walked over to his desk to grab the hole puncher. His burner phone rang. He picked it up and pressed the green answer button. “Hello, Clive,” he said in a reasonably chirpy manner.

  “Peter, we’ve got a problem.”

  “Oh, what now? I’m just getting ready to leave for the meeting. You’re still coming, aren’t you?” He could feel his temper rising. Bloody Adams was such a pain.

  “I’ll be there, don’t worry. And it’s not about the meeting.”

  “What then, what is it? Spit it out, will you, I’m busy.”

  “Nasreen Maqsood, sir.”

  There it was, that bloody name was really fraying his last nerve. It was bad enough that she’d messed up his original project, but then she went on TV talking about it. Fortunately, Nasreen didn’t know what was going on, not really. She helped destroy the bunker, good for her and that NCA officer, but it had nothing to do with the project. “What about her, Clive? What’s she done now?”

  “She hasn’t done anything. Can’t we get rid of her? She’s a liability, disrespectful, not to mention reckless. Why did you force me to take her back?”

  “How many more times? I’ve already told you we can’t let her go, not with the press breathing down our necks.” He looked at the information packs, wanting to crack on with the binding. “We’ll wait for this shitstorm to blow over. She’ll hang herself before long, I guarantee it. Nasreen won’t be able to help herself. And when she steps out of line, you’ll be rid of her.”