‘Far as I know. Maybe you were mistaken about this Janklow and maybe it was Mathews attacked you in the gallery when you were working together, hanging up pictures, the night Holly died.’
She sighed. ‘That’s stupid. He’s right-handed.’
‘What?’
‘Art Mathews is right-handed. The guy who attacked me was left-handed, according to all the forensic and pathology reports and even the reports from Andrew Fellows. The killer is left-handed, opens the glove compartment with his right, holds their heads down with his left...’
Rooney looked at her, then turned away. ‘Get dressed. We’re out of here.’
‘No. You sit right where you are.’
He pouted and then tugged a bottle of bourbon out of his pocket. He slowly unscrewed the cap and took a heavy pull. He dangled the bottle towards Lorraine.
Rosie eyed it and then eyed Lorraine. She was walking towards it.
Rooney watched Lorraine. ‘Want a drink?’
Lorraine snatched the bottle and marched to the sink, about to pour it down the drain, when the smell suddenly hit her. She wanted a drink, everything started to crystallize, all she could think of was reaching for a glass and drinking. She didn’t care about Art Mathews or Steven Janklow, she wanted a drink. She slowly lifted the bottle to her lips, closing her eyes in anticipation.
‘Don’t do it, Lorraine.’ It was Rooney. ‘Chuck it out, don’t do it. I’m sorry, Here, Lorraine, give it to me.’
Rooney had to prise her hands away from the bottle. It shocked him, made him feel wretched. He leaned on the sink pouring the booze away, as Lorraine tried to wrest the bottle from him. He turned on the taps so the water splashed into the sink and over him. ‘Shit. I’m soaking wet.’
‘Aren’t we all?’ snapped Lorraine. ‘Old washed-up soaks,’ she said as she took down coffee cups. ‘I suppose it’s black coffee all round?’
There was a sudden hard tap at the front door. Rosie went to open it but Rooney stopped her. He peered out of the window and told Lorraine to get into the bedroom. She obeyed immediately, closing the door behind her as the front door was tapped hard again.
‘Don’t say anything,’ Rooney said quietly to Rosie. ‘Just leave this to me.’
The two officers framed in the doorway asked for Lorraine Page. Rosie held the door wider to reveal Rooney standing in the centre of the room with a cup of coffee in his hand. They seemed fazed by his presence and made no move to enter the room.
‘Captain Rooney.’
‘You come to pick her up?’
They nodded, and one passed him a warrant for Lorraine’s arrest.
‘I’ll hang on to this. I’m staying put until she shows. Go back to base. Soon as I got her I’ll call in.’
Rooney pocketed the warrant, carried his coffee towards the sofa, and sat down. ‘Unless you want to hang around here.’
‘We’ll leave it to you, Captain.’
A few moments later Lorraine came out of the bedroom. She leaned against the doorframe, looking at the squat Rooney. ‘Why did you do that, Bill?’
‘Christ only knows, I must be nuts.’
She cradled her coffee cup in her hands and sat in the easy chair opposite him while Rosie hovered, uncomfortable and ill-at-ease with them.
‘I’m sorry for bringing the booze in,’ Rooney said.
‘That’s okay,’ and Rosie wandered to her bedroom, feeling in the way.
‘She seems a nice woman,’ Rooney said.
‘Rosie’s great.’ Lorraine got up for a refill. She leaned over the back of the sofa towards Rooney. ‘You wanna hear my developments? What ‘I’ve come up with this evening?’
He wanted to say no but he didn’t. Instead he let her talk without interruption, listening intently as she pieced together her talk with Nula, then her meeting with Craig Lyall.
Lorraine’s face was expressionless as she explained clearly, emotionlessly, what had happened when she had been attacked. She described walking up to the car, how he had driven her to the parking space, how she had fought him, bitten hard into his neck, hung on for her life as he tried to push her away from him. He was strong, she said. The grip on her hair had been like a vice, and it had taken all her strength to lever up her body to turn and bite. She was sure if they hadn’t been disturbed by the Summerses, she would have been dead. She then told Rooney that she had also taken Norman Hastings’s wallet.
Rooney closed his eyes and kept them closed. He was scared that if he opened them he’d charge at her like a mad bull with fury.
There’s something else. At first I didn’t think it was important. It was his cufflinks. They had a logo. I didn’t think it was important until I saw the same logo on a letterhead. At my husband’s place — Mike, you remember Mike? He has nothing to do with this, I know that, but it gave me the first clue to the killer.’
Rooney was fighting to control his temper. She looked directly at him and continued. She described how she and Rosie had gone to S and A’s garage, how she had narrowed the list of cufflink owners down and taken photographs of suspects. None resembled the man who had atacked her. She took the photographs out and passed them to Rooney and leant close to him as he examined the one of the blonde woman.
‘I think this is Steven Janklow. I think he’s a transvestite, and that he had a photographic session with either Mathews or Lyall. It could have been as far back as nine to ten years ago, maybe when he was just daring to come out. I think Mathews subsequently discovered who he was and started blackmailing him, realizing he’d found the golden goose. I think Art and Didi may have worked as a team. She was used or hired to do wigs and make-up. She made up Norman Hastings, fixed his hair for the photo session. Maybe she even tipped off Art, as Lyall said most of his clients always took the negatives. You interviewed Lyall, too, didn’t you?’
Rooney nodded. They’d come up with nothing as concrete as Lorraine. He couldn’t help but give a tight smile: she was good, always had been good. Now she began pacing up and down. There was something about the way she moved, tensing, relaxing her hands, and she rubbed her body, sexually, her face becoming more and more alive. She was exciting to watch, as she became increasingly animated.
‘I’ve got Hastings linked to Janklow — maybe they discussed the blackmail. Who knows what they discussed? Possible theory is, when Hastings went to the bank that morning, was he going to pay off Mathews? Pay off somebody? The strange thing is all his bank statements have been checked and the major transactions are accounted for.’ She suddenly stopped and clicked her fingers. ‘Unless Hastings was also tapping Janklow for money. It seems strange that he was allowed to park his car in the hangar. Nobody seems to know why he should have been when he no longer owned one of their cars. Did you know that at one time he owned a vintage car? Maybe that was where he could have found out that he and Janklow were the same kind of men. Whatever, we know they’re linked, and linked to Mathews through Didi. She’s very important. She may not have collected from Mathews’s blackmailing activities, but I’m beginning to think she may have been the go-between or, and this is a wild guess, maybe she was the person Janklow believed was blackmailing him. So that brings me to the last bit of guesswork.’
Lorraine took out the victims’ photographs and laid them along the sofa for Rooney to look at. ‘They have one thing in common apart from prostitution. Look at the make-up, the type of clothes they wore. Now, look at the morgue shots of Didi... Put her beside each one. You didn’t believe me earlier but what if Janklow was only after her — was only interested in tracking her down and killing her? He’s a Thorburn, right? His mother was a big society hostess, his brother is holding all the purse strings. What if Janklow has been paying out blackmail money because he’s scared his family will find out and it might be made public? Just as Hastings hid his private life from everyone who knew him.’