Annoyingly Paolo, who as the front man for Avon Escorts actually sent boys and girls out to clients, did not have the same ability to wriggle. His lawyer protested valiantly that Paolo was not responsible for what his escorts got up to beyond the call of duty — that was their affair. But the jury obviously did not believe a word of it. They were however quite taken in by the obsequious Terry Sharpe.
Paolo was found guilty and went down for twelve months. Sharpe was cleared.
Outside the court, and already smarting, Rose had to endure a confrontation with the former policeman. Sharpe looked smugger than ever.
‘Next time pick on someone your own size, Rosie darlin’,’ he leered at her.
Rose supposed that slapping his face would not help her position in life a great deal, but wondered fleetingly if it wouldn’t be worth it.
Summoning the last vestiges of her self-control she walked away in what she hoped was dignified silence — and without resorting to violence. But for the first time in her working life Rose began to wonder if her future really lay with the police force.
She made a conscious decision that she was going to do everything in her power to unearth the truth about the rent boy murders, even if it meant bending the rules, and whoever she might upset — including Superintendent Titmuss.
The opportunity came more quickly than she might reasonably have expected.
The next day Constance Lange tried to kill herself by making a noose from her bedclothes which she suspended from the light fitting in her cell. Predictably the make-shift arrangement collapsed when Constance kicked away the chair on which she had precariously balanced. Her weight at once pulled the light fitting from the ceiling and she fell heavily on to the tiled floor. She was bruised and shaken but remained very much alive — her greatest injury a badly sprained ankle.
And she had asked to see DCI Rose Piper.
Rose arrived at Eastwood Park late that afternoon accompanied by Peter Mellor. She thought that for the first time during their association Constance looked really vulnerable — as if the act were finally over and she knew it. She had a nasty black bruise on her forehead and her eyes were dark with pain. Mental pain. Rose was pretty sure she would barely be aware of any physical pain.
The inspector again felt a bond with the woman lying helplessly before her. This time she sensed it more strongly than ever before, and there was something in the way Constance was looking at her that made her suspect, also for the first time, that Constance might feel it too.
‘I’m glad you’re still with us, Constance,’ she said quietly.
The other woman smiled wanly. ‘I’m not, I’m really not,’ she said.
‘Why did you want to see me?’
Constance looked uncertain. ‘I’m not sure,’ she murmured eventually. ‘There are things I could tell you, but I don’t know...’
Rose was aware of Sergeant Mellor by her side shifting impatiently in his seat.
‘We should be formally re-interviewing the bloody woman in a tape room with her brief there, or not at all, boss,’ he had said quite correctly during the drive from Bristol.
‘I don’t know if she’s ready for that,’ said Rose. ‘She just asked for a visit, that’s all...’
Peter Mellor had mumbled something about how murderers should be given not what they asked for but what was good for the rest of society and, in his opinion, life would be a lot less troublesome if Constance Lange had succeeded in killing herself.
Mellor continued to believe in Constance’s guilt as much as did everyone else, Rose knew, and he didn’t really want to waste any more time on the deaths of a few male hookers, either. She had overheard him grumbling to that effect on the telephone only the previous day — having quickly recovered, it seemed, from any lurking guilt he might have felt following the murder of Charlie Collins. Mellor was fed up with his boss’s obsession with raking over old ground, and he had made that quite clear to Rose, who had only brought him with her to Eastwood because she so wanted to have him on her side. The man could be infuriating, but she had great respect for him — and liking too, although at that moment she did not like him as much as she usually did. She had rather hoped that this bedside visit might throw up something to shake her sergeant’s certainty — but to begin with, at any rate, it did not seem that that was going to happen.
‘Don’t you think it would help if you told me the truth?’ prompted Rose.
Constance had resignation written all over her.
‘It won’t help me,’ she murmured.
‘It might help someone, though, mightn’t it, Constance? I still think you’re the only person who can stop all this. Isn’t that why you asked to see me?’
Constance half-nodded.
Rose, ignoring Mellor’s fidgeting, was gently persistent. Eventually Constance eased her bruised body in her bed. She looked as if she had just made a decision.
‘Can I talk to you alone?’ she asked the Chief Inspector.
Rose agreed at once, aware instantly of the further disapproval of her sergeant whose body language was more articulate than that of anyone else she knew, she thought. Nonetheless she waved him out of the room.
Afterwards back in Bristol she went straight to see Superintendent Titmuss.
‘Constance Lange wishes to be formally re-interviewed, sir,’ she told him.
‘Rose, what did I tell you?’ Titmuss demanded of her angrily.
‘Prisoner’s rights, sir,’ responded Rose. ‘I’m just the messenger. Oh, and it won’t cost anything sir, will it?’
Rose knew she was pushing her luck but she was past caring. At least he wasn’t likely to be calling her Rosie for a bit.
Superintendent Titmuss left her in little doubt that he would deal with her insubordination later, but agreed for arrangements to be made for a new interview. He had no choice and Rose had known that.
All she cared about was that Constance Lange’s new statement be put on the record as soon as possible. Rose only had the merest outline of it so far. But she had learned enough to realise that the story Constance had to tell would shock even the most case-hardened copper.
Alone in her hospital bed, Constance pondered her decision. It was the hardest she had made so far — much harder than deciding to confess to murder. She was about to completely break her own heart, to cause herself even greater agony than she had so far suffered, she knew that. But once again she was quite sure of herself. Again she was certain she was doing the right thing.
Nothing could end her own torment, not even death. All that was left in the world for her was pain — but she could not let this go on. She was actually glad that her pathetic attempt at suicide had failed. Perhaps she had not really wanted it to succeed. She had one final task, and it was a vital one. She could not be responsible for any more deaths, and she was becoming increasingly certain that there would be more. She hadn’t believed that at first — but now she believed it absolutely.
Twenty-Two
Constance Lange looked pale and ill.
‘There was a game I liked to play...’ she began.
Her voice was very quiet. Rose had to remind her that the interview was being recorded.
‘I’m going to have to ask you to speak up, Constance,’ she prompted her gently.
Constance carried on as if she had not been interrupted, but she raised her voice very slightly.
‘When I confessed I thought that would be the end of it all. I thought it would be over. I never dreamed there would be another murder. Charlie should not have died.’
Constance stopped abruptly then, as if she did not know what to say next. Her solicitor was with her in the interview room at Eastwood Park. He seemed content to let his client have her say, at least at this stage.