The Shadow Maker Read Free Page B

prisoner. He said the first one fought him off that night, but not me. I was going to be defeated. It was freaky. I went for the Mace in my handbag but he hit me before I could get to it. I fell against the bed and felt my ribs go - then I was out of it.’
    ‘Did you ever see his eyes?’ Rita wanted to know.
    ‘No. He kept them hidden behind the glasses, then the mask.
    I never got a really good look at his face.’
    ‘The mask,’ said Rita. ‘What sort was it?’
    ‘Like those ancient theatre ones.’
    ‘Ancient, as in Greece or Rome?’
    ‘Yeah, that’s it - bronze coloured.’
    ‘All these details are good,’ said Rita. ‘They’ll help us track him down. Is there anything else you remember?’
    ‘No, not till I woke up and felt what the bastard had done to me. Tell me, please, I’ve got to know - are the doctors going to be able to save my sight?’
    Rita swallowed hard and couldn’t answer. Strickland looked away and the girl’s mother bowed her head, weeping again. The doctors hadn’t broken the horrific news to their patient. They wanted to keep her calm and sedated for as long as possible, to help with her recovery. They hadn’t told her that her eyes had been burnt and gouged out - and that she would never see again.
    A uniformed constable nodded gravely to the two detectives and closed the door of Emma’s private room before resuming his seat on a nearby chair. As they walked from the ward, Rita flipped through her notes before shoving the pad and mini-disc recorder in her pocket. Something was bugging her, and Strickland knew what.
    ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Spit it out.’
    ‘Are we going to question Kavella?’
    Strickland sighed and rubbed his eyes. It had been a long day.
    ‘Look, I want to go after him as much as you.’
    ‘Then we’ve got a perfect excuse,’ Rita insisted. ‘Emma was at his club. Her attacker even mentioned “the cave”. Surely that’s no coincidence, and we know Kavella’s into designer violence, organised rape. For God’s sake, did you know he was selling tickets to that vice ring he was running?’
    ‘I know you take the injustice personally because you were the arresting officer. The girl was at his club, yeah, about an hour before she was picked up on the other side of the city. Where’s the connection?’
    ‘She could have been followed.’
    ‘It’s possible. But you know as well as I do we’ve got to be careful.
    At this stage we’re only justified in checking out the club’s customers.’
    He pressed the button for the lifts. ‘We can’t make a move against Kavella without evidence or his lawyers will have us for harassment.
    It’s as simple as that.’
    They rode to the ground floor in silence, but the lift doors opened on a clamour of voices.
    ‘Oh, no,’ said Strickland. ‘The dingo pack.’
    Journalists. They’d invaded the hospital’s reception area - radio reporters, photographers, newspaper hacks, a couple of camera crews
    - and it was too late to avoid them. Among them was someone who was more unwelcome than the rest: TV crime reporter Mike Cassidy. He winked at Rita as the media scrum converged on the two detectives.
    ‘I’ll do the talking,’ said Strickland from the corner of his mouth.
    The arc lights came on and the cameras flashed - along with the questions.
    ‘Is it true a woman’s eyes have been put out?’
    ‘Is she a prostitute?’
    ‘Has anyone been arrested?’
    Strickland held up his hands, ‘Okay, okay. A brief statement, that’s all.’ He waited for the microphones to jostle into position. ‘I can’t give many details at this stage, so let me just confirm a woman has been the victim of a vicious attack in the early hours of this morning. It’s one of the most sickening I’ve had to deal with in more than twenty years on the force. And yes - she’s been permanently blinded as a result. As you’ll appreciate, she’s traumatised and heavily sedated. We’ve just come from talking to her. As yet she’s