Naked Cruelty. Colleen McCullough

what an English colleague of mine would call a brick. High praise! Try to get some rest, and don’t worry about cerebral anoxia. Your brain’s in great shape.”

      After a little more talk with Maggie—she was determined to instruct him about this and that, evidence of a methodical mind and a good memory—Carmine left the hospital in a dark mood, thankful for one thing only: that the Dodo had chosen a victim whose fighting back wasn’t limited to their actual encounter. Maggie Drummond was such a fighter that she was genuinely thirsting to testify against him in a court. But she wasn’t the first of the Dodo’s victims. His act was far too polished for that. How many had there been, all too terrified to speak up? The Dodo—what a name for a rapist to give himself! Why had he chosen it?

      “How many have there been?” he asked his two detective sergeants, Delia Carstairs and Nick Jefferson, the next morning.

      “At least this answers the true purpose of the Gentleman Walkers,” said Nick, a scowl on his handsome face. “Someone’s girlfriend is out there in Carew too scared to report what happened to her, hence the Gentleman Walkers.”

      “We have to persuade the other victims to come forward,” said Delia, “and the best way is to remove men from the cop equation as much as possible. Give me Helen MacIntosh and I’ll guarantee to prep her well enough not to put her aristocratically narrow foot in her mouth. I’ll go on Luke Corby’s drive-home program this afternoon, and Mighty Mike’s breakfast show at six tomorrow morning. By noon, I guarantee I’ll have winkled almost all the victims out of the Carew woodwork. Between those two programs, I can reach every age group in Holloman.”

      “Oh, c’mon, Deels!” Nick exclaimed. “Take Madam MacIntosh as your assistant, and all you do is shoot yourself in the foot.”

      “Horses for courses,” Delia said, looking smug.

      “Save it, Nick,” Carmine advised. “You can have your turn with our trainee over lunch today in Malvolio’s—on the Division, so eat up. Helen’s been living in Talisman Towers ever since she quit the NYPD eight months ago, so she has to know a bit about life in Carew, including the Gentleman Walkers.”

      “Didus ineptus! Hardly flattering,” said Delia. “We still use the phrase ‘dead as a dodo’ in ordinary speech—is that what he’s after? A glorious death shot down while raping?”

      “We won’t know until we catch the bastard,” Carmine said.

      “It’s in-your-teeth contempt,” Nick said. “Kind of like ‘catch me if you can’. It’s hard to believe he’s done that to other girls and not been reported.”

      “I think Maggie Drummond is an escalation, Nick,” Carmine said, “one more reason why we have to find his earlier victims. Until we see how he’s progressed, we don’t know anything about him. Delia, when you have time, I think you should talk to Dr. Liz Meyers of the Chubb rape clinic. She’s going to have more work shortly, I predict.”

      “A naked rapist!” Delia cried. “That is so rare! Invasive rapists have to keep some clothes on in case they’re disturbed. A man without clothes is so vulnerable, yet this fellow doesn’t seem to feel at all threatened Was he wearing shoes?”

      “Miss Drummond says not. It’s possible, of course, that he has a cache of clothes somewhere, but he’s still very vulnerable. What if he gets cut off from them?”

      “His degree of confidence is extraordinary,” Delia maintained.

      “He takes fine care not to be marked or scratched,” Carmine said. “Socks on their feet, fingernails pared and the clippings collected, Miss Drummond said. She described his skin as quite flawless—not even a freckle. He was tall and extremely well built. Like Marlon Brando, was how she put it.”

      “And no hair, even around the genitals?” Nick asked.

      “So she said.”

      “Then he has his body hair plucked,” Delia said decisively. “The skin there is too sensitive for depilatories and too hard to negotiate with a razor.”

      “Who in Holloman caters for that kind of hairlessness?” Carmine asked. “There’d be talk, and I’ve never heard Netty Marciano mention a beauty parlor half so adventurous.”

      “New York,” said Delia. “The homosexual underground. They are beginning to come out of the closet, but not every kind. If the Dodo’s been having the hair plucked for some years, what hair does grow back would be minimal. All he would require would be occasional touch-ups, and I doubt anyone in that world is going to assist in police enquiries.”

      Carmine’s face twisted in revulsion. “Pah!” he spat. “This guy isn’t a homosexual. He’s not straight either. He’s a one-off.” He nodded a dismissal. “Spend the morning working on your tactics, but Nick, don’t try to see any Gentleman Walkers. Lunch at noon in Malvolio’s, okay?”

      His own morning was spent with his two lieutenants. Abe Goldberg was in the throes of handing off the Tinnequa truck stop heist to the Boston PD and would proceed to a series of gas station holdups that had seen two men killed for reasons as yet not entirely apparent. Abe and his two men, Liam Connor and Tony Cerutti, were a good team firmly bonded; Carmine worried about them only as a conscientious captain should, because they were in his care and sometimes too brave.

      Lieutenant Corey Marshall was rather different. He and Abe had been Carmine’s old team sergeants, moved up to occupy a pair of lieutenancies only nine months old. For Abe, a piece of cake; for Corey, it seemed a leaden weight. Corey had inherited Morty Jones from the previous lieutenant, which handicapped him from the start; Buzz Genovese had just joined him after his second-stringer dropped dead at forty-one years of age, and while Buzz was a very good man, he and Corey didn’t see eye to eye. Not that Corey valued Morty any dearer; he occupied his position as if he could work his cases unaided, and that, no man could do, no matter what his rank.

      “Word’s come to me,” said Carmine to Corey in Corey’s office, “that Morty Jones is both depressed and on the booze.”

      “I wish you’d tell me who your divisional snitch is,” Corey said, his dark face closing up, “because it would give me great pleasure to tell the guy that he’s wrong. You and I both know that Ava Jones is a tramp who screws Holloman cops, but she’s been doing that for fifteen years. It’s no news to Morty.”

      “Something’s happening in that home, Cor,” Carmine said.

      “Crap!” Corey snapped. “I talked to Larry Pisano before he retired, and he told me that Morty swings through cycles with Ava. It’s a trough at the moment, that’s all. The crest will happen in due time. And if Morty chooses to drink in his own time, that’s his business. He’s not drinking on the job.”

      “Are you sure?” Carmine pressed.

      “What do you want me to say, for Crissake? I am sure!”

      “Every Thursday you, Abe and I have a morning meeting to talk about our cases, Cor. It’s intended to be a combination of case analysis and a forum for bringing our problems into the open. Every Thursday, you attend. To what purpose, Cor? With what effect? If I can see that Morty is a drowning man, then you must see it too. If you don’t, you’re not doing your job.”

      The glaring black eyes dropped to Corey’s desk and did not lift. Nor did he say a word.

      Carmine floundered on. “I’ve been trying to have a serious discussion with you since you returned from vacation at the end of July, Cor, but you keep dodging me. Why?”

      Corey snorted. “Why don’t you just come out with it, Carmine?”

      “Come out with what?” Carmine asked blankly.

      “Tell me to my face that I’m not Abe Goldberg’s bootlace!”

      “What?”

      “You heard me! I bet you don’t hound Abe the way you hound me—my reports are too scanty, my men are on the sauce,