Cold Kill by David Lawrence Read Free Book Online Page A

had to keep, since it was absence that had made his first wife’s heart grow colder.
    He was shrugging into his coat as he went through the squad room. ‘Think he did it?’ he asked. Before Stella could respond, he said, ‘I think he did it.’
    Pete Harriman lit one cigarette from the butt of another and hit the speed-dial on his mobile. Like Sorley, he needed to check in; unlike Sorley, he didn’t expect complaints. When his call was answered, he said, ‘Did I wake you?’ There was just enough of a pause for the woman on the other end to say ‘Yes’ before he added, ‘Good. It’s so much nicer when you’re awake.’
    Stella said, ‘Nine a.m. briefing. Text everyone.’ As Harriman made for the door, she said, ‘Sooner rather than later.’
    â€˜I’ll do it in the cab.’
    â€˜You came by cab?’
    He smiled. ‘You called me at nine thirty. I’d been drinking. In fact, I’m a bit pissed, to tell the truth.’
    Which is why you kicked down the door. I understand that
.
    â€˜Do you think he did it?’
    â€˜He stalked her, he knew certain details, he’s fucking crazy, so why not?’
    â€˜He mentioned others. He said, “Same as with the others.”’
    â€˜I noticed. We could be closing a whole rack of case-files.’
    â€˜Talk to people on the squads that handled those cases. More than that, talk to anyone who’s worked on anything like the same MO. Take DC Hewitt with you.’
    Harriman smiled. He said, ‘Maxine Hewitt. What
is
her story?’
    Maxine and Harriman had worked together before and he’d hit on her. No surprise there, but she’d fended him off and he wasn’t used to that. Not rejected him outright or turned him off like a tap; just deflected him – a smile, a joke. The joke lay in the fact that Maxine was gay and Harriman hadn’t spotted that yet. Stella knew: she’d seen Maxine one night, leaving the movies with a woman. They had kissed on the street: the kind of kiss that goes way beyond skin-deep. Maxine knew that Stella knew, and that was fine; but she didn’t go out of her way to tell people any more than Harriman walked into the squad room and said, ‘By the way, I fuck women.’ Though, in truth, it was a ploy he’d sometimes thought of using.
    â€˜You mean the story that doesn’t include you,’ Stella suggested. ‘Maybe she doesn’t get wet every time you smile at her.’
    â€˜Difficult to believe.’
    â€˜It’s a first.’
    They walked out to the car park. A frost had settled and they could feel the bite of the cold on their faces. There were alarms going off somewhere: the rolling note of a house alarm and a couple of two-tone car alarms. Just part of London’s background noise; Stella and Harriman barely registered them.
    â€˜She’ll be asleep again by the time you get back,’ Stella advised him.
    â€˜I know. I’ll try not to wake her as I go in.’
    Harriman laughed at his own double-entendre. He was lighting a cigarette as he walked away. He left black footprints in the frost.
    Stella used a credit card to take the worst of the rime off her windscreen and side windows, then sat in the car for a few minutes to give the heater time to work.
    Robert Adrian Kimber… If you didn’t do it, you certainly wanted to. Like a taste, like a smell, like something right at your fingertips.
    She gunned the car out of the AMIP-5 car park and the rear wheels took a little shimmy on a patch of black ice.
    It was just after 1 a.m. and the streets were busy. People were coming and going at drinking clubs, at casinos, at all-night supermarkets; parties were working up to full volume; there were still vestigial queues outside a couple of dance venues. It was Christmas, and the Christmas story was spend, drink, dance, spend, jack up, spend, enjoy, get down, go down, spend, face off,