Tonight, though, there were only professionals about. No public in attendance who might not in such circumstances appreciate the finer points of Tommy and Ron’s almost obligatory repartee — which therefore continued fluently as the SOCOs began to carefully lift the body on to the open body bag.
‘Oooh, careful with that zip, lads,’ said Tommy. ‘Good job he’s still got his trousers on...’
‘Yeah, it’s ’is lucky day, really, only he don’t know it,’ interspersed Ron.
Rose raised her eyes heavenwards. Carmen Brown did not even seem to hear. She continued to study the victim intently as he was being zipped into the grey plastic body bag, almost as if she were asking him to tell her more. Eventually she bent down and reached into her medical bag lying on a tarpaulin sheet by her side and produced three transparent evidence bags which she passed to Rose.
‘When I took his temperature I found these little items almost hidden by his leg, close to where we found his wallet,’ she said matter-of-factly.
One of the plastic bags contained three packets of condoms. The second a small quantity of cannabis resin and the third a scrap of paper on which was scribbled a telephone number.
It was Peter Mellor, back in the Major Incident Room already set up at Southmead Police Station, who dialled the number. His call was answered quite quickly in spite of being just past midnight and in a manner which indicated that calls at all hours were commonplace.
‘Avon Escorts,’ said a voice with a strong Bristol accent.
Sergeant Mellor replaced the receiver.
‘You must have heard of Avon Escorts, boss,’ he told Rose a few minutes later. ‘They’re little better than a mobile knocking shop, and they provide boys as well as girls. A male Tom, that’s what our lad is.’ Mellor could barely keep the contempt from his voice. ‘I’d stake a month’s pay on it...’
Rose had started to feel very tired. She was, sitting at her desk, legs stretched before her, resigned now to revealing her sexy orange suit which looked just as out of place and attracted just the same sort of raised-eyebrow half-appreciative, half-amused glances in the station as she had known it would at the scene of the crime. But at least it stood less chance of being ruined at the nick than at a muddy crime scene, with a bit of luck anyway, she had been idly thinking to herself as yet another of her colleagues, called back on duty, did a double-take at the sight of her as he entered the already buzzing Incident Room.
Sergeant Mellor’s words banished all such trivia from her weary brain. The news jerked her into full alertness. She was instantly excited. Rose had quite a lot of imagination for a copper. She immediately found herself thinking about the Yorkshire Ripper and the other cases throughout history of serial murders of prostitutes. Had she possibly got a similar case on her hands with a new twist — the victims being male prostitutes? She accepted that she was probably being fanciful. The murder was more than likely a one-off. But a little guiltily she also realised she was half hoping that would not prove to be the case.
Avon Escorts had a proper office in a small prefabricated-looking building on the outskirts of the city centre alongside the A38, the main road which links Bristol with Bridgwater, Taunton, and then runs into Devon. It operated as a bona fide business, VAT rated and paying tax. The front was quite simply that it was an escort service, a perfectly legal enterprise, and if any of its employees were involved in additional activities, that was nothing to do with Avon. Rose learned that the vice boys had been keeping an eye on the outfit for years, but Avon Escorts was efficiently run and had never been involved in any kind of scandal. It and its operatives had always kept out of trouble — until now.
The agency apparently tried to run a full twenty-four-hour service. The office number Peter Mellor had called had had a divert on it, but that didn’t take long, with modem telecommunications technology, to trace. On this occasion the calls were being referred to the home of one Paolo Constantino, of 16 Clarence Terrace.
Rose knew that the correct procedure for a Senior Investigating Officer was to send a team round. But she could rarely resist taking a first-hand look at anyone she reckoned was likely to become a key figure in a case. It didn’t always make her popular.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Let’s go.’
It was 1.00 a.m. when Paolo — who liked his sleep and had been fitfully dozing between telephone interruptions — was summarily awakened by the hammering on his front door. Like Charlie, he had a nice home — a small Victorian terraced house which had been attractively renovated — in a nice area. He was horrified to discover the police on his doorstep. He didn’t need that, he really didn’t.
There were four of them. A small blonde woman in a big overcoat, a tall black man wearing a grey suit and two uniformed constables. Quite a turn-out. Who did they think he was, for goodness sake? Bristol’s Al Capone for the millennium?
It was the small blonde woman, just a slip of a thing really, who almost pushed him back into the hallway.
‘Paolo Constantino? I’d like a word with you.’
She managed to make the simple remark sound quite ominous.
‘I am Detective Chief Inspector Piper of the Avon and Somerset Constabulary and I have some news for you,’ she continued, her voice quietly controlled yet somehow extremely menacing. ‘Marty Morris is dead. He’s been murdered.’
If it had been her intention to shock Paolo, she certainly succeeded. But he did his best to look noncommittal, disinterested even.
‘Marty who?’ he heard himself say.
‘Don’t give me that shit!’
Paolo started. Paolo was as streetwise as they came, but he was confused by the contrast between the way the blonde woman looked, feminine almost to the point of frailty in his opinion, and the way she spoke and behaved.
Paolo didn’t speak. If he could stay silent for long enough, he might be all right, he reasoned. He sincerely wished that he didn’t have to deal with this in the middle of the night. Paolo, perhaps curiously in his chosen trade, was not at his best at night and did not function well at all if his sleeping pattern was disturbed. The agency phone had only been switched over to him because the old man who normally handled the night-time referrals — answering the late phone for Avon Escorts was, after all, a good all-cash pension-boosting number which involved no travelling expenses — was ill. Paolo played for time, trying desperately to gather his thoughts.
After a brief pause the woman chief inspector continued.
‘The evening before last Marty Morris was stabbed in the back in the grounds of the Crescent Hotel in Clifton and it’s my belief that he was on a job for you when he was attacked. Now, are you going to tell me about it here or would you rather come down to the station?’
Paolo was waking up now, beginning to think a little more clearly. The evening before last at the Crescent Hotel. Christ, he thought. Mrs Pattinson!
He reminded himself that Avon Escorts had never had any trouble with the filth before. Paolo himself had no police record, he had always managed to remain a step ahead. The police turned a blind eye to discreet prostitution unless there was trouble, that was his philosophy, and had been the secret of the success of Avon Escorts. Problem was, there was trouble now. You couldn’t get much bigger trouble than a murder. His partner, of whom Paolo was actually a little afraid, would have to be informed pretty smartish too — and he wasn’t going to be best pleased. Still, one problem at a time.
Resignedly, Paolo led the intimidating party of police officers into his sitting-room.
The truth was that he had already been mildly anxious about Marty. The lad should have been round the office in the morning to hand over half his fee and he’d never turned up. But Paolo hadn’t thought about him being hurt. He’d more or less assumed that the boy had gone on a binge of some sort. Marty liked his blow, Paolo knew that much about him, and his kind were inclined to go missing from time to time when they got a bundle of money thrust at them. Paolo had been concerned only because he had thought he was going to have to sort Marty out. Remind him to behave himself. Help him recollect where his loyalties lay.