TOUCH: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel. Mark Sennen

volume again with phones ringing, keyboards clattering and people bustling this way and that. At one of the whiteboards DC Enders scribbled some notes next to a new picture taped slap bang in the centre. Pride of place now rather than just one of the other nine victims. He looked up as Savage approached, his young face beaming out from beneath a dishevelled mop of brown hair. Enders always appeared to Savage more like a member of a boy band than a hard-working detective, but she couldn’t fault his passion and enthusiasm for the job.

      ‘Remind me of the unlucky girl’s details again, Patrick,’ Savage said.

      ‘Rosina Salgado Olivárez, twenty-one, Spanish national, student, lived in a shared flat in Mutley. Raped eight months ago on fifteenth February, a Saturday night. Someone dropped her outside the entrance to Saltram Park first light Sunday morning. Unbelievably, considering the state she was in, she managed to walk all the way from there back to her flat. When she got in she collapsed and slept for the whole day. Told her housemate about the assault in the evening and the flatmate phoned it in.’

      ‘What about the MO?’

      ‘Matches the others. Complained of dizziness after a couple of drinks so she informed her friends she was going home early. In a bit of a muddle she goes outside and someone offers her a lift. She gets in the car and collapses unconscious. Next thing she knows she’s tied to a bed and two men are raping her. After a few hours of hell she is untied, forced to take a shower and then she’s dumped. That and the fact that the men used condoms meant no DNA. Just like all the others.’

      Savage shook her head and sighed. Enders continued.

      ‘Understandably, after we had interviewed her, she makes plans to return home to Spain. We accompanied her to the Santander ferry on the twenty-first February, she went through passport control and we heard nothing more until we were contacted by the Guardia Civil. It appeared as if she never returned to her home town of Zaragoza. Now we know why.’

      ‘So the first question is why was she killed?’

      ‘And the second is how on earth did she get back to Plymouth?’ Enders asked.

      ‘Exactly.’

      Savage dragged herself up to Hardin’s office and found DCI Mike Garrett and DI Davies waiting. As a Superintendent Hardin had the luxury of his own space even if he hadn’t made much effort to personalise it. The obligatory picture of him in uniform at some event with his wife standing dutifully at his side sat on one side of a tidy desk. There was also a calendar of Greek islands on the wall – a year out of date – and a couple of P.D. James novels stuck in the bookcase alongside the law books and policing manuals. Hardly a home from home.

      Savage took the seat next to Davies. He had managed a shave, but still looked rough. Garrett was as smartly turned out as ever, but the older detective wore a subdued expression, fresh lines of worry on his face. As the Senior Investigating Officer on operation Leash he would have received the sharp end of Hardin’s tongue, Savage suspected. However, rant finished, the DSup had now come over all conciliatory. He even muttered some apology to Savage about his earlier behaviour.

      ‘This bloody diet plays havoc with my mood. Have you ever tried chewing a stick instead of having a doughnut with your morning coffee?’

      He held up a jar of real liquorice and offered it around. All present politely declined.

      ‘According to my doctor the coffee must be decaf, lunch is to be salad, dinner is wholemeal bread and a light soup and if the wife offers kinky sex I am to refuse.’

      Hardin had suffered a mild heart attack around six months before. Enders said it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke. The quip got a big laugh, but made Savage think of her next medical and wonder what the doctor would say to her when he checked her blood pressure readings. Especially the way operation Leash was going.

      ‘Right,’ Hardin rubbed his hands together. ‘I’m taking direct control of this operation, in effect assuming Mike’s position as SIO in all but name. I know you have worked your butts off, but the results are disappointing to say the least.’

      Too true, Savage thought, meeting Garrett’s eyes and detecting discomfort behind his frown. With Hardin as SIO in all but name Garrett was stuffed. If the investigation went further downhill he would carry the can, if they got a result Hardin would take the credit. Win-win Hardin. Relegation Garrett.

      Hardin started to elaborate on the different approach the team would be taking now he had taken charge.

      ‘I just had a call from the officers attending the post-mortem. This is definitely a murder inquiry, and not a nice one.’

      ‘Is there ever a nice one?’ Garrett said.

      ‘No, but this is brutal and nasty. The pathologist believes the girl may have been killed with a, let me see …’ Hardin peered down at some notes. ‘Ah yes, a captive bolt stunner. Otherwise known as a humane killer, although I think we can agree that Olivárez’s death does not fall into a category one would call humane.’

      ‘A cow killer?’ Savage said.

      ‘Yes. Whether that is useful information or not remains to be seen. All depends on who might have access to one.’

      ‘A farmer or a vet?’ Davies said. ‘Seems the obvious line of enquiry.’

      ‘Or an antique dealer,’ Savage said. The others looked at her. ‘I came across an old one in a shop once. People collect this sort of stuff and I don’t think they require a firearms licence.’

      ‘OK, so the weapon may have come from anywhere,’ Hardin said. ‘Let’s get to the subject of catching these people. As you are all aware Big Night Out will be taking place on Saturday nights for the next four weeks. This will push us for bodies on other stuff, but until this is solved follow ups on some minor crimes are on standby. The overtime budget is going to go through the roof and there are going to be complaints, but I tell you something: if we don’t catch these brutes by Christmas then it’s not going to be a happy one. For any of us.’

      Hardin ran through his ideas for the Big Night Out and the others chipped in with a few suggestions. Garrett thought they should include Friday nights as well since two of the girls had been picked up then. Hardin disagreed.

      ‘The problem is manpower. Not enough to go round, I’m afraid. Right bloody fools we’d appear when an attack happens at a club we weren’t covering because we were spread too thin. I can visualise the headlines on the Monday morning and my bollocks nailed to the ACC’s desk by the afternoon.’

      Garrett also wanted to step up uniformed patrols, but again Hardin disagreed.

      ‘They’ll only end up going somewhere else where there are no patrols and we will miss them completely.’

      In the end they compromised on some increased presence in the city centre around a couple of clubs. That would be good publicity and provide some pictures for the papers and mean the operation could take a risk in not putting officers into those particular venues, leaving more free for the others.

      The meeting concluded and Savage and Davies left, leaving Garrett with Hardin.

      ‘Poor old fucker,’ Davies said, shaking his head. ‘Mike had high hopes of promotion next year. Been DCI for as long as I can remember.’

      ‘Hardin’s a wily devil,’ Savage said. ‘Because he’s built like the proverbial brick outhouse people assume there is nothing up top, but you don’t dare underestimate his cunning.’

      Savage grabbed another cup of something resembling coffee from the canteen and went back to the Major Crimes suite where the talk had once again degenerated into who would be wearing what come Saturday night. Not much else was happening or was likely to, Savage thought. They would be very lucky if the body on the beach yielded any forensic evidence. The corpse had been lying in the water so long anything present would have degraded to beyond the point of being useful. What they needed was something distinctive about the girl’s life that separated her from the other victims. Something to indicate why she was tracked