The Unseen
grunts.
     
    “Hi,” Victoria answered, her hand sweeping to the assembly, her expression unchanged.

    Sean cleared his throat and tried a different approach. “As a DI with Met CID, Victoria investigated the London murders. She’s volunteered information vital to our operation. Please consider her a team member.”

    Again a chair scraped.

    “If it’s any consolation,” Victoria said. “I do buy my round.”

    “On this team, bribery gets you everywhere,” Jan winked.

    Victoria smiled. “Spooks at MI5 can be useful,” she said. “Mistrust and rivalry lead to a lot of cross-references being neglected or hidden. During this op I’d like to prove co-operation and trust between services can work for the benefit of all. I’ve been Wendy on the beat, CID and SOCA. The game rules at the Box, MI5, are also tight, but they have a different field of play. Off the record, I can access information this team would normally be denied.”

    “And buy your own round, sounds too good to be true.” Simmy stretched long legs towards her.

    “Prove it,” Diane said.

    “There’s a positive DNA match between the sexual assaults on Helen Carter, Lizzie Sinclair, and Sarah Finch.”

    “How come it’s not on record?”

    “Ask Creech.”

    “I’m asking you.”

    “Spooks have secrets, as I’m sure you have too, Diane.”

    “Thanks for sharing yours.”

    Sean watched Victoria lean to retaliate and intervened. “It’s on record now,” he said. “Victoria has saved a lot of groundwork and given this enquiry a head start. Which means you can spend more time on our other objective, Operation Back Door. In all honesty, I don’t think Poor Girl is involved with organised crime. These murders are too savage. Unless of course, we have a sado-psychopath as hit-man. It is not unknown. We roll with Sarah Finch. Diane,” he called and waved her to the floor. She rose, arms folded over her bosoms.

    “As expected, Suffolk CID regarded us as city posers. However, after Simmy bought two of them lunch and a couple of pints they did show us the file.”

    “Simmy spent his own money?” Jan was pointing, mimicking shock. The others clapped.

    Sean waved all to silence and let Diane continue.

    “The file revealed little, but we did lift names and addresses. We interviewed two of her girlfriends, plus Ben, the boy who did her garden. He was, and still is, prime suspect. My first impressions say he’s a good-looking, but harmless country boy. Sarah was the kind of woman Simmy dreams of - model looks, intelligent, successful and single. Her house will sell for over two million. She had tennis courts and a Ferrari. The business, Finch Distribution, is valued at seven million.”

    “The car,” Simmy said. “Men are suckers for a fast car.”

    “Perhaps because of guys like Simmy, she had no known close relationships with any men. She satisfied basic instincts using the gardener, though I doubt her circle ever suspected. For a better insight, I pushed the gardener on sex. He told me one thing the Suffolk boys didn’t get. Sometimes Sarah liked to go out of the ordinary, way out. Role-playing, but mainly sex in the open, places where others might see. The boy complied, anything she wanted. But he wasn’t invited on her last trip. His alibi is ninety-nine percent. My point is, this unconventional trait of Sarah’s may have been the reason she went alone to Rattlers Wood, maybe looking for unusual sex in unusual circumstances. Maybe she met someone over the Internet. Outside of sex and business, all other energies were spent on horse riding and computer games. She was the principal sales distributor for a number of leading software companies, including Starways Systems and PKL, for whom she distributed through a network of home-based agents. According to her parents, she spent hours playing PKL computer games. She became league champion. But then she also sold them, so her efforts could have been for publicity. Starways

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