Page 9 of Watching You
People avoided making eye contact with her and shuffled paper on their desks until someone too junior to know better raised their hand.
‘Because that’s more dead bodies than we normally deal with in a twelve-month period, if you exclude domestic murders.’
There was a sufficient mass intake of breath that some of the air was sucked out of the room.
Overbeck stood and, as one, officers pressed themselves back in their chairs, shrinking away from her. She walked slowly to the detective constable who’d just spoken, picking up a metal ruler as she went and holding it out in front of her.
‘Go and fetch the first aid kit from the kitchen,’ Lively told a uniformed officer who was passing in the corridor.
‘Domestic murders,’ Overbeck said softly. Her voice was a dart flying towards the bull’s-eye. ‘Like a domestic animal. Something tamed that we hit with a rolled-up newspaper if it pees on the carpet. Domestic like the cleaner we pay less than the legal required amount per hour in cash because then they don’t lose their paltry benefits. Domestic like men buying their wife a vacuum cleaner in the 1950s because shouldn’t the little woman be thrilled with that?’
‘Errr …’ The detective constable was having problems controlling the undulations of his Adam’s apple. ‘Errr …’
‘Do you think it hurts less somehow because it’s only a domestic murder, constable?’ She pointed the ruler at him. ‘Hold out your hand.’ He put it on the desk palm up. Lively ran his fingers over his eyes and swore silently. ‘It’s like this. When we add the word domestic in front of a noun relating to violence, we soften it.’
No one moved a muscle.
‘In my hands, this simple item of stationery might function as a weapon. If I bring it down hard enough on your hand it will hurt a great deal. It would be an act of violence, am I right?’ There was enthusiastic nodding from the officer. ‘But if I rename this a domestic ruler, the blow I issue with it hurts less. Correct?’ An equal amount of head shaking.
Overbeck turned round holding the ruler in the air. ‘Learn the statistics and think about them every day. Every year only about six per cent of women are killed by a stranger. The others, these atrocities we call domestic, are committed by people women know. Boyfriends, fathers, husbands, brothers, former partners. Sixty-eight per cent of those deaths occur where women should feel safest, in their own home.’ She returned her focus to the detective constable who hadn’t dared move his hand from the table. ‘If I had my way, we’d remove the sexual organs from every man who killed a woman, but apparently I’m not allowed to express that sentiment publicly. So I’ll settle for this. No one in this police station is to preface any violent noun with the word domestic. Not if you don’t want to experience the difference between a normal knee to the testicles and a domestic knee to the testicles.’ She dropped the ruler and flicked her ponytail before returning to her desk perch.
‘What was it you wanted to talk about, specifically, ma’am?’ Lively asked from the safety of the hallway.
Overbeck brushed a speck of dust from her lapel. ‘To help, in fact. We’re short-staffed, I appreciate that, but the recent spate of deaths is attracting some unfortunate media attention. I know we have two notable officers missing at present and that you’re all having to act in more advanced roles. With that in mind, I’m bringing in some outside help.’
‘Does it come in the form of a pay rise and better overtime rates, because I think that would be what we really all need right now, ma’am,’ Lively said.
‘What you need is a personal trainer with no sense of smell,’ Overbeck snapped back. ‘I’ve actually diverted some of our media budget into engaging a team we worked with some time ago. Dr Woolwine, a forensic psychologist, andher partner, Brodie Baarda, who’s a former Met officer, are specialist investigators. Woolwine’s a profiler by trade but she’s experienced in all types of criminal investigations, has worked extensively with the FBI and she’s familiar with the territory. She’ll be consulting in all three murder investigations in the absence of Detective Chief Inspector Turner and DI Callanach. Make Woolwine and Baarda welcome. They’ve been granted full security access. DS Lively, you’ve worked with Dr Woolwine before. Did you need a moment to rail against the idea of having her brought in to oversee your work, or are you going to play nicely with the other children?’
‘My sandpit, my rules,’ Lively said.
‘It’s good to know who’s in charge here. Cancel the entire squad’s leave until someone has been arrested in each unlawful killing case. I want a progress report on my desk at six p.m. every day from you personally. Liaise with the media office because it’s going to be your face the public associates with these, as yet, unsolved crimes. Any problems, officers, refer them directly to your leader DS Lively.’
She made for the door and put on a show of pinching her finger and thumb over her nose.
‘You set me up, ma’am,’ Lively muttered.
‘If you don’t like it, you shouldn’t make it so easy. Your first report is due on my desk in just a few hours so you should probably get one of the younger members of your team to show you how to switch your computer on. And God help you if any more murders occur on this patch before you’ve solved the outstanding ones.’
Lively felt the tempting of fate like the lure of a pub on a Friday night and crossed his fingers in his pocket as Overbeck’s heels clattered away down the corridor.
‘So what’s this Dr Woolwine like then, sarge?’ someone shouted, once Overbeck was out of earshot.
‘Imagine an all-American cheerleader with Einstein’s IQ but who enjoys the company of the dead more than the living, and who thinks no rules apply to her at all. That’s Woolwine in a nutshell.’
Chapter 10
26 May
Dr Connie Woolwine wandered through the woodland where the Weeping Girls had witnessed a man being attacked, dragged and buried in earthy airlessness, and wondered what had been in Laura Ford’s beautiful, brilliant mind when she’d designed the statues.
Crime scene tape, that flimsiest and most arresting of barriers, warned visitors away from the death site, and it was due to be removed as soon as Connie had spent all the time she wanted there. The crime scene technicians had worked their magic, and a flag marked the spot where they’d found a solitary blood spatter on a rock at the base of a tree that had, miraculously, remained protected from the elements throughout the winter. DNA testing had linked the blood to the victim so that was where she stood, waiting for Brodie Baarda to approach her from behind.
She whirled around to face him. ‘You’re still five metres away. Were you not trained to be quieter than that in the police?’
‘You were waiting for me and listening. Plus you werestanding in place, so not making any noise with your own feet. And I was a kidnapping specialist. When I wasn’t negotiating, we were entering buildings by force rather than silently.’
Connie was being unfair and she knew it. Baarda was several inches over six foot tall, with broad shoulders and feet of a size ill-designed for silent passage over twigs and leaves. Since she’d started working with him, he’d lost the soft edges of a too-comfortable but bad marriage, and reclaimed the body of his younger self who’d played rugby for his county and lifted weights to exorcise his daily demons. Baarda, his short hair curly if not regularly cut, with cheekbones that women stared at even if he never saw it, was entering his prime in his fifties. He made Connie feel safe in a way she refused to admit even to herself.
