by S A Tameez
Bureaucracy gone mad.
“Have they identified her yet?” he asked before he looked at the face of the victim.
“No,” Zoe responded, “forensics have taken the prints and DNA samples. We’re just waiting for transportation. We’ll know more after the post-mortem.” She tried to sound as professional as she could, but it was obvious she was finding it hard – he could sense the shakiness deep in her voice. Who would blame her? It’s not what you want to deal with on a Monday morning. It’s not what you want to deal with any morning. She hadn’t been exposed to even half as many dead bodies as Nick, and yet he felt reluctant to uncover the face of the victim.
“Let’s take a look,” he said and removed a pair of gloves from his coat pocket.
“You might want to brace yourself,” she warned. He appreciated the warning and took a deep breath. When uncovering a body, he reminded himself that it’s easier if you don’t think about them as people at all. The way a butcher doesn’t think of the meat he is slicing and dicing as once being alive.
This never helped.
Certainly didn’t help on this occasion.
As he lifted the sheet, nausea overcame him. His brain refused to translate what his eyes transmitted. The pale and bloated face of a young girl was heart-wrenching. Her green eyes were like a frozen lake. Her blood-stained blond hair stuck to the sides of her cheeks. The right side of her skull caved in. Dark blue lips, and neck black with bruises. It was impossible to recognise her – she barely looked human.
Who would do this? Something so evil.
“Anything obvious?” he asked with his eyes glued on the victim. He needed to continue as normal. This was a job and like any other job, he had to press forward and do what he was paid to do. He couldn’t curse at the top of his lungs. Punch the closest thing to him or tell anyone how hard he was finding this.
“Seems like trauma to the head. Her body has some bruising, but,” she paused and had that look that told him that she was about to tell him something he didn’t want to hear. Please don’t say she was raped. That would be enough to make the bile building up erupt out of his mouth. She was just a girl and he couldn’t stomach the thought of her going through something like that before being brutally murdered.
“You need to take a look at this,” Zoe gently lifted the victim's arm. He sighed in relief. Nothing could be worse than what he had just thought.
The victim’s hand was covered in a see-through plastic bag to preserve evidence. Nick craned his neck to get a better look. For a moment, he felt as if he imagined the small sailboat carved into the back of the victim’s hand. A chill coursed through him. His eyes were lying to him – they had to be.
“Surely it can’t be—”
“The Sailor.” A voice emerged from behind them. Nick didn’t need to look back to know who was stood behind him.
“It’s been over two years since we saw this symbol on a body.” DCI Harold Bishop said. “It looks like The Sailor’s back.” His expression was of both horror and excitement. Nick knew what he was thinking; a damn shame the girl was dead but they got their second chance to catch the bastard who had tormented the streets of London, and on his watch.
“I never thought I would see this again,” Nick said as he pulled the sheet back over her face. It was surreal. The Sailboat symbol had not been seen in so long that he had put it and the killer in the back of his mind. A bid to pretend that the killer never existed. The Sailor belonged in history books and novels like Jack the Ripper. No longer a person but a stark reminder that you are not safe. You are never safe. If there was one thing The Sailor achieved it was to strike fear in people. A killer without a trace – a ghost that roamed the streets, taking the souls of women and vanishing – leaving only a memento which he carved into his victims.
There was no point in trying to compare the victim's face to the photo Nick had of the missing girl, Sarah Fowler – he knew it was her by the colour of her hair and her eyes. This was not the way he wanted to find her. His ambition to reunite her with her mother alive and well was crushed.
Not being the one to inform her mother of her loss brought him some relief. He couldn’t stomach the look on her face. He thought back to when they spoke last; she was adamant her daughter was alive and out there somewhere. All they had to do was find her.
The guilt she would feel. The last time they saw each other they were at each other’s throats. She would blame the person who did this, blame the Police for not doing their jobs properly, but most of all, blame herself for allowing her daughter to storm out of the house, never to return. This could do anything to a person – push them to extremes on either side of the spectrum – from vigilante to suicide.
It never ended well. You could never wash blood with blood.
“We need to keep the press back and not let them clock onto what might be a victim of one of the worst serial killers London had seen.”
Nick wanted to correct him – London hadn’t seen him – no one had. The Sailor was no amateur, that was for sure. The killer who struck at night but with no patterns, no obvious selection process. Nothing to analyse, no scent to follow.
“Do you really think it’s The Sailor?” Zoe asked.
“You don’t?” Harold responded. His forehead creased, and his eyebrows almost met in the middle. Nick read Harold’s mind – dead girl, London, sailboat carved into the hand of the victim.
“Well?” Harold said impatiently.
“I am not sure it is The Sailor. When I looked through the cases on The Sailor and his victims, there were no obvious patterns except that they were all IC1 females. But there was a pattern of how he killed them.”
“Go on…” Harold said, his forehead now releasing.
“First of all, he was a perfectionist. He killed his victims calmly and with extreme precision. He slit their throats with a sharp knife and in a perfectly straight line, or he stabbed them accurately – not missing the vital organs. He took both pride and pleasure when killing his victims.” She stood from her crouching position and removed her gloves. “This was death by trauma to the head – violent, rage-filled – careless – even emotional. Not his style.”
“The sailboat signature?” Harold pointed out.
“The Sailor always carved the sailboat on the left hand of his victims — this is on the right hand.”
Harold nodded and sighed. “So, we might have a copycat.” He squeezed the back of his neck, “Good work,” he glanced at Nick with a look that said what Nick was thinking; she’s smart, damn smart. “I need to get back to the office and get things in order with the press release. I want you two to report to me,” he peered down to his wrist, “by 5 pm.”
The drive to the station was long. Zoe silently stared out of the window like a miserable child. She watched the world go by as if she no longer wanted any part of it. She was a fair few years younger than Nick and had that spark in her eye. The one that rookies wore like a badge. Before they saw all the bad shit. The shit you couldn’t unsee.
She would make a damn good DS, that was sure. Persistent and able to read between the lines. The problem, however, was, that was all she read, and this often got her into trouble. She spent so long reading in between the lines that she often overlooked the more obvious things – like procedures and rules.
Nick was her senior but at times it felt like she was the one calling the shots. Her tenacity was both her strength and weakness. She was a real shit magnet.
There were three significant problems with looking into things too deeply, which Zoe learned the hard way:
1. Sometimes you dig so far that you lose your way.
2. You don’t like what you find.
3. You can’t prove what you find.
In the last case they worked on, she was so adamant that Harvey Morrison, another DC in the Met, was involved in an illegal drug smuggling operation, that she made accusations based on little evidence and a lot of assumptions. CPS threw the case out and Zoe’s reputation was di
sgraced.
Most of the department lost trust in her, and the DCI was pissed. He liked Zoe, she had a copper’s nose, but he suspended her for a week; more a formality and mercy than a punishment – let her lay low until the sting wore down.
It didn’t.
She was ostracised – she had committed treason. Betrayed the sacred pact to not turn on her own and deserved to be exiled from the family.
Not many people would have stuck around – most would have left the department, asked for a transfer or even quit altogether but not Zoe – she refused to accept she did anything wrong. She was infuriated that no one believed her, which wasn’t the case, both the DCI and Nick thought she had something, it wasn’t a lot but something – the problem was in getting the evidence and following the proper procedures.
Harold made it clear she was not to investigate Harvey Morrison again and of the consequences if she made any more wild accusations. “You got off lightly!” he told her. She made no inane attempt to argue with his decision – forced to succumb that she had screwed up big time. Knowing you were right about something was never enough. Showing people the smoke meant nothing if you couldn’t show them the flames.
Nick thought to ask if she was OK but stopped himself – when a woman is upset the last thing you did was ask her if she is OK! The wise words of his wife – advice that he now lived by.
“You OK?” he asked unable to stop himself. There was a brief silence – not long enough for it to mean much but long enough for it to say something.
“I’m fine. You?”
“Look, it’s perfectly normal to be a little shaken up considering…”
She turned to face him, “Do I seem like the kind of person who gets shaken up easily?”
“What we saw back there was not easy, not for you and not for me.”
Silence filled the car. The uneasy image of the dead girl’s blue face flashed in his mind. Not that it left. Embedded in the fabric of all his thoughts – not allowing him to think about anything else.
“We let her down,” she spoke again. The words stabbed Nick in the chest, “We failed to find her in time.”
Regardless of how many murders or rapists you catch, no matter how many people you save, it is only the ones you lose that stick in your mind. They play with your emotions and make you feel worthless. And if you let them, they consume you entirely.
“We didn’t fail her,” Nick said, trying to convince himself, “We did what we could.”
“Did we?”
Of course, there was more that could have been done – more time spent on questioning people, getting more aggressive with potential leads, re-reading through statements, watching thousands of hours of CCTV footage until your eyes bled, but when do you draw the line? You must draw the line somewhere or else it will be you who needs saving. A missing person was always a hard one. Resources are tight at the best of times, so telling loved ones that they were doing everything they could was a lie. A heart-breaking, disgusting, shameful lie. But also an unavoidable one. In a perfect world, the Police would have unlimited resources – much more manpower. But in a perfect world, they wouldn’t need it.
“There’s nothing we can do for her now except,” the unusual thought of saying “pray” sprung to his mind. He wasn’t sure why – perhaps deep down, he still had faith that there was a higher being. It would simplify things – make things make sense again. “Find her killer and nick him.” He continued. “Her family deserve to see justice for their daughter. It might help give them closure.”
The fact that she was found, though it be dead, would help the family through it – as cruel as it sounded, it was true. There was nothing worse than not knowing. Living every day with someone you love missing; perhaps in trouble, in pain, suffering. This was closure – she was suffering no more – knowing that was respite.
He never shared these sentiments with Zoe or anyone else. No one would understand, not the way he did.
He wanted to say something, anything. The silence was getting too loud, and he had opened compartments in his mind he shouldn’t have.
“What’s the rush?” Zoe said, but her voice seemed so faint that Nick questioned whether she said anything at all.
“Nick!”
“Huh?”
“You’re driving crazy! What’s the rush?”
He blinked a few times and then looked at the speedo – way faster than he should be going.
“Sorry,” he released his foot off the accelerator and loosened his grip on the steering wheel. His palms were sweaty, and for a moment, he forgot where he was going. He stopped at a junction and looked in all directions, confused.
“The station is just ahead.”
“I know,” he lied, “Thanks.”
“Are you alright?”
Of course, he wasn’t alright – what a stupid question!
He took a deep breath before responding, “I’m fine.” He wanted to scream but refrained — it wasn’t her fault, she didn’t know what happened.
It was better that way.
Chapter 4
Before
Sarah’s heart pounded hard enough to burst out of her chest. The urge to run for the exit overcame here but she felt paralysed.
There’s NO Bogeyman! She screamed silently.
Get a grip! There’s no one here. Just her childhood anxiety back to haunt her. She was foolish to think she could ever escape it.
No noise – no one watching – NO bogeyman!
She was over it.
Obviously not.
The noise emerged again, this time from behind a bookcase in the opposite direction of the exit. Her mind wasn’t playing tricks. There was a noise — a shuffle, heavy breathing. Someone or something was close by – hidden. The Bogeyman had escaped from under bed and had followed her here. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
The noise emerged again.
Run.
Make for the exit and get to the corridor. Wait there until Elsa came back with Jerry. Tell them about the noise and let Jerry investigate. She imagined him storming towards the bookcase and turning back shaking his head, indicating there’s nothing there. They would laugh and joke about it. And she would leave looking like a fool – but she wouldn’t care.
The sound of loud breathing reminded her that she hadn’t moved. Her fantasising about Elsa and Jerry being here wasn’t changing the fact that she was still here – still alone. No one to help her – no one to hear her scream.
The legs of her chair scraped on the floor. The more she tried to be quiet the more noises she made. Her breathing was noisy, her heartbeat drummed loudly, and her stomach moaned – all that remained was for her to scream – she didn’t.
Her legs suddenly had no bones, and she would soon flop to the floor. She glanced at the exit and then back at the tall bookcase.
What are you waiting for? Run for the exit! But something forbade her from escaping. Stopped her from running from her demons.
Her curiosity. Her bravery. Her stupidity.
She had seen enough horror movies to know not to investigate suspicious sounds yet found herself drifting towards the bookcase. To say she was not afraid would be a dreadful lie, she was terrified but needed to know who or what was there – prove, if only to herself, that all this was all in her mind. To face the monsters that plagued her childhood and beat them.
She imagined turning the corner of the bookcase and laughing at her foolishness when she saw nothing there but then immediately imagined the opposite.
A glimpse of her childhood flashed – the nights her parents rushed to find her screaming and covered in sweat.
She thought she had left that all in the past.
It was back… or this was something else entirely. Either way, she had to face her fears or spend the rest of her life living in the shadows of her past.
She paused as she approached the corner of the bookcase. The sound was now a continuous murmur of breathing and scrunching paper. She silently counted do
wn.
3…2…1…
She poked her head around the bookcase. Her heart thumped harder as she was saw someone sat on the floor with their back turned. She should be relieved that someone or something didn’t jump out on her but she could hardly breathe and felt the adrenaline leave her body. She recognised the faded blue hooded top.
Freak… the name shot to her mind. She hated herself for associating him like that. She had to think of his name.
“Norman…” she said faintly when it came to her. A lump formed in her throat and she felt as if she was swallowing glass.
He turned and looked at her – his face was red, a paper bag held up to his mouth that inflated and deflated as he inhaled and exhaled.
That explained the strange noise.
“You OK?” she asked. A stupid question – he didn’t look OK at all. But what else could she say? You look messed up… you unbalanced, maladjusted misfit. She couldn’t because it wouldn’t be socially unacceptable, politically incorrect and an accurate description of herself.
His eyes filled, ready to explode. He got to his feet and pushed passed her.
Sarah sat back at her desk not sure what to make of everything. She reflected on the days and nights she spent hunched over, breathing into a bag – she knew what he was going through. The lack of room, lack of air, lack of sense. The walls caving in, everyone’s eyes watching you and the pain that no one could know about.
She thought to go after him – imagined him in some dark corner of the building. Gasping for air, trying to block out the noise. She would place her hand on his shoulder and tell him everything will be alright, though she knew it wouldn’t be.
“Sorry about that,” Elsa’s voice emerged making Sarah jump. She hadn’t heard her come back in. “Are you OK, my love?” Elsa asked with a suspicious look, “You’ve lost the colour in your face.”
Sarah smiled but didn’t say anything.
“Jerry’s fixing the printer and we’ll get your print requests for you in a jiffy.”