TOUCH: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel. Mark Sennen

leaving her in the dark little wood.

       Right? The whole thing wasn’t right!

      No, but his desire had been uncontrollable. Evil. Not his fault. Which was why he needed to find someone like the girls who had looked after him when he was a kid. The ones who held him close. He had never wanted them. Not like that.

       Harry. Let me tell you about the birds and the bees. Something happens when you get older …

      Harry ignored Trinny. When you got older you got wiser and when you got wiser you stopped taking the pills. It was then he started to see them. Everywhere. He would catch sight of Trinny at the bus stop. The lovely Carmel serving in Starbucks. Lucy crossing the road and running into college, the naughty girl late for a lecture no doubt. And it wasn’t only those three, it was the others as well: Deborah, Emma and Katya. It was a miracle how they had all appeared. The pills must have hidden them somehow, but they were there all along. Waiting.

       Crazy Harry!

      Crazy. Sure he was crazy, but he also knew what he was seeing. The trouble was that the girls on the street didn’t look right. Bits of flesh poked out everywhere and they wore make-up. Not good. Not clean. But there was one place he’d worked where the girls knew how to care, how to cuddle, and from the clothes they wore Harry didn’t think they were likely to be dirty either. He began to spot familiar faces there too. He’d go home and look at the old pictures and then he would begin his observations and tests. If the girls were really lucky he might take it one step farther.

       Like you did with me?

      Yes. He discovered Trinny some months back. She had been the first he had collected and he’d got it a bit wrong. There had been a misunderstanding.

       And I was half naked. Was that a misunderstanding?

      He wanted a few more pictures, wanted her dressed like he remembered.

       Something else as well.

      When her clothes slipped off he had seen the curves. He needed to touch them, feel them, stroke them.

       Fuck me, more like.

      No. That was the last thing he had wanted to do.

       But you did.

      Yes. Afterwards. When the girl had been quiet. When she had gone through the cleaning process and he knew she hadn’t been right.

       And all that was Mitchell’s fault?

      Mitchell had dragged him into his little circle of depravity and from then on in he had been slipping downhill. Actually it was like he was plummeting now. Freefall. Groundrush.

       Drag, Harry? I don’t think the police would see it that way.

      Of course they wouldn’t. Because they wouldn’t make allowances for his sensitivities. And the police didn’t know Mitchell and his way of twisting everything to his own advantage. That was how Harry had got involved with him in the first place. Mitchell had spotted Harry on the Hoe with his camera and guessed what he was doing. He followed Harry into the shopping centre and watched him take upskirt shots on the escalators. Mitchell had confronted him and sprung his trap.

      At least his time with Mitchell made him realise about the other type of girls. The sluts. The ones struggling on Mitchell’s bed may not have been begging for it, but they knew the risks. They went out for the night with their flesh on display, just waiting to be touched.

       Touched, Harry? They were raped.

      Like he had been.

       You expect sympathy? After what you have done?

      Harry knew that it wasn’t his fault, that somehow, somewhere, everything had got all mixed up. Wrong. Broken.

       So what are you going to do to fix things, Harry?

      That was a good question. Harry pondered it for a few minutes. He had tried to fix things with Trinny. Only that hadn’t worked out and he’d had to get rid of her. There was also the little matter of Lucy.

       Juicy Lucy! That slut! She makes me look like a nun.

      Lucy had come back from the past the same way as Carmel and Trinny had so he had collected her too. He couldn’t risk losing her in the way he had lost Carmel. Now she was tucked away downstairs. Safe. The sad thing was that she was just about the same as Trinny. Dirty.

       I told you, Harry. And the new girl will be no different.

      Emma. Sleeping upstairs.

      Thinking about her made him smile. The time with her on Monday had been such fun. They chatted and joked like old friends. He suggested a drink and they talked some more. She laughed and giggled and giggled and laughed and began to get a bit confused. After that she started to look a little tired and he had offered to take her home.

      She accepted.

       Chapter Seven

       Crownhill Police Station, Plymouth. Wednesday 27th October. 9.03 am

      The vista from the operation Zebo incident room took in a line of white police vans and a few squad cars sitting on the car park. A crap view was no bad thing, Savage thought. At least all eyes would be on the job and not on the people walking past two floors below. Eight terminals, twice as many screens and a decent amount of spare desk space crammed into a few square metres. Cosy. DS Gareth Collier had been Hardin’s choice for office manager and Savage approved of the way the setup had progressed so far. Collier, always a stickler for procedure, liked things neat, well organised and locked down tight. He looked like he behaved, and with his greying hair trimmed in a parade ground cut he resembled a regimental sergeant major as he prowled the office searching for unfiled scraps of paper or terminals which had been left unattended but not logged out of. Luckily he also had a great sense of humour. The opposing facets were a perfect match and ensured smooth progress and a happy team. One without the other made work either dull or frustrating, and if both were missing an investigation didn’t stand a chance.

      Gordon Isaacs was banged up in the custody suite at the station in the centre of town and according to DS Darius Riley he was looking pretty miserable after an uncomfortable night brooding. Riley sat at a desk fussing over a crease in his expensive jacket and then fingering his collar where his black skin contrasted with brilliant white cotton. Savage knew the shirt would most likely be from an outfitter on Jermyn Street in London – Hawes and Curtis or Thomas Pink – rather than from the local M&S, which was the brand the other male detectives favoured. When Riley had arrived in Plymouth a year or so ago those officers old enough to remember the US TV show Miami Vice had taken to calling him Tubbs after the show’s stylish detective. Riley had borne the practice with good humour until someone from Human Resources had got wind of it and panicked, detecting a lawsuit and headlines. Nicknames were now banned, the penalty a day on an attitude reorientation course.

      Riley undid the button on his collar and made some comment about the central heating being way too high before explaining what they had on Isaacs.

      ‘He has confessed to removing the girl’s underwear and wan—, um, masturbating over the body, but swears blind he knows nothing else about her. For the moment we can do him under sexual offences section seventy. Turns out he’s got previous though, sex with a minor, however it was over thirty years ago. He was in his late twenties, the girl fifteen.’

      ‘The case was still on file?’ Savage asked.

      ‘No, he admitted it. There was no sexual offenders’ register or anything like it at the time, but I found the original records. He got off with a suspended sentence because according to the judge – and you’ll like this – there were extenuating