Captives

FORTY-SIX

The rumbling of conversation gradually died down as DI Frank Gregson got to his feet.

'All right, keep it down,' he said, raising his voice, looking out at the twenty or so uniformed and plain clothes men seated in the room. The air was thick with cigarette smoke. Beside him, his colleague DS Finn was adding to the pollution, blowing out long streams from his Marlboro.

The babble gradually subsided into near-silence.

Gregson walked across to a blackboard that had a map of the West End stuck to it. There were several red-tipped pins protruding from it and an area of Soho had been ringed in red marker pen. To the left of the map pictures of Paula Wilson, plus the remains of the two dead murderers, were tacked. On the other side of the map there were several pictures which, from a distance, looked like ink blots. They were in fact the blow-ups of the print taken from Paula Wilson's thigh.

'Nine deaths, including two suicides,' Gregson began. 'All within the space of a week. The murders, as far as we can tell, are motiveless; the killers are now dead, burned to a crisp both of them. By their own choice. Nine bodies and no leads. That is the state of play at the moment.' He prodded a picture of Paula Wilson. 'You all know about this woman, how she was killed and where. What we don't know is why and by who. Now Dean Street, where he killed her, isn't exactly a quiet area; someone somewhere must have seen or heard something. And, seeing as no one has come forward with any information about this killing, I supposed we're meant to think that no one saw anything.' He smiled humourlessly. 'That's a load of bollocks.' The smile faded rapidly. 'If they won't come to us then we'll have to go to them. I want you to talk to people.' He looked slowly around the other faces in the room. 'I want pubs, clubs, clip-joints, restaurants and anything else you can think of, checked out. Talk to the staff. Two men have committed suicide within a one-mile radius of each other within a week. We've had a fucking chase through Soho and now a woman's been murdered. Somebody has seen something. Somebody knows something. I want that somebody found and I want them talking.'

'Who exactly are we looking for?' asked a plain clothes man in the front row. 'A suspicious character?'

A ripple of laughter ran around the room.

'In fucking Soho?' grunted Gregson. 'You might as well pull in every bastard who works there.'

More laughter.

'Just talk to them, find out what they've seen,and heard over the last couple of weeks,' the DI said.

'Do you think there's a link between the two killers?' a tall ginger-haired officer asked from near the back of the room.

'It's possible,' the DI said quietly, his gaze still roving around the other men in the room. 'We know it isn't a gang-related thing. Not unless London's been invaded by a bunch of fucking fireaters who haven't quite mastered the trick yet.'

Another ripple of laughter greeted this remark.

'Maybe it's the Irish Fire Brigade,' a voice added and the men laughed even louder.

'All right, all right, enough of the joviality,' said Gregson. He turned towards the map and jabbed at the red-ringed area. 'This area is to be gone over with a fine tooth-comb. You'll each be designated one particular area. We don't want to be tripping over each other. As it is, there'll be more policemen than punters on that patch.' He looked round the room. 'You'll report back to me on a daily basis. I don't care if you think you've got nothing, I want to hear what you know, what you found out.'

'Have either of the dead men been identified yet?' another man asked, puffing on his cigarette.

Gregson shook his head.

'We got a print off the second one from Paula Wilson's body, though.' He pointed to the photo of the print. 'It would seem to be just a matter of time before the man's identified.'

'You seem very sure, Frank,' Finn observed.

'Humour me, eh?' Gregson said wearily.

Should he mention the possible copy-cat overtones of the killings? He decided not to.

'Right,' he continued. 'Let's go. If you move through into the next room you'll find the area you're to work. And, like I said, I want to know everything you hear, what anyone's got to say, from the pimps to the tarts through to the doormen at the clip-joints and the managers of restaurants. Got it?'

The men got to their feet and began filing through the door on Gregson's left, muttering to themselves and each other as they went.

'What are you expecting us to find, Frank?' Finn wanted to know.

'Some answers?' he mused, none too convincingly.

'The way you talk, Frank, I'm beginning to wonder if you know something I don't,' Finn said.

Gregson didn't answer.