Kim agreed. The absence of blood or rage or obvious violence was puzzling.
‘It’s almost like it wasn’t personal,’ Penn observed.
‘But why her, then?’ Bryant asked. ‘If the object was only to kill, there were easier subjects out and about in Brierley Hill yesterday lunchtime.’
‘And what about that?’ Kim asked. ‘Time of day she was murdered?’ In her experience most murders happened in the dark.
‘Strange time to kill someone,’ Stacey offered. ‘Busy time of day, shoppers around, potential witnesses. Maybe a thrill-seeker?’
Kim shook her head. ‘The murder wasn’t ostentatious enough for that.’
‘So maybe it was about Katrina,’ Penn answered. ‘Perhaps it was just about her, and all the murderer wanted was this particular woman gone.’
‘Maybe,’ Kim answered.
Between them her team had put into words the thoughts and confusion that had been swirling around her head all night. Why take the unnecessary risk of luring away a young mother in the middle of the day if that wasn’t the specific person you wanted?
‘Okay, Penn, you’re on post-mortem duty, which is first thing.’
‘Yay,’ he said, rubbing his hands.
Kim had long ago become used to Penn’s enthusiasm for the grisliest part of their work. It wasn’t a thirst for macabre entertainment. He genuinely enjoyed the science behind the process. He relished a puzzle and seeing what the body could reveal.
‘Stace, check on Katrina’s health records. She suffered with depression. We need to know if she’s spent any time away and how bad her problems were. Also liaise with Inspector Plant on witness statements.’
A team of PCs had been tasked with talking to the stores and potential witnesses.
Both of those jobs Stacey could do while still working on the rape case from the day before. She was confident the constable knew how to prioritise her work.
‘And us?’ Bryant asked.
There was still so much about the events of the murder that she didn’t understand.
‘We, Bryant, are going back to the scene of the crime.’
Eighteen
Stacey set about completing the tasks issued by the boss before continuing her investigation into the rape of Lesley Skipton, who had been on her mind for most of the night.
She couldn’t get her head around Lesley’s feelings towards her rapist. She’d read enough about Stockholm syndrome to understand the psychology of how a victim can grow attached to their captor.
Famous cases of the syndrome had been documented, most notably the infamous Patty Hearst, granddaughter of American publishing magnate, William Randolph Hearst. Patty had been kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974. After nineteen months in captivity, the woman was arrested for committing serious crimes along with her captors.
Even more startling had been the case of Colleen Stan, who was abducted by a husband and wife, Cameron and Janice Hooker, while hitch-hiking in 1977. The woman had been kept as a domestic/sex slave in a box beneath the couple’s bed for seven years and did not attempt to escape. When freed by Janice, Colleen remained silent about the abuse, as requested by her captors.
But any case of Stockholm syndrome that Stacey knew of involved the victim spending time with their captor, and the attachment growing over a period of years, months, even weeks. She’d never heard of it with a rape victim.
She put the thoughts aside as a constable appeared at the door.
‘First statements will be up in a couple of hours,’ he said, throwing the post on the spare desk.
‘Cheers, John,’ she said as he went out of view.
She typed up an email to Katrina’s doctor and hit the send button. Gone were the days she could get medical information over the phone.
Okay, jobs done, she reached for the file of Lesley Skipton, and yet what she really wanted was the file of Gemma Hornley. That hadn’t been sent to her, as the case was solved and Sean Fellows was doing the time.
She searched for the case electronically. If Sean Fellows had raped both of them, why hadn’t his first victim had similar feelings to Lesley?
She read through the initial statement given by Gemma on the night of the attack.
She had been leaving a pub in Hagley, again with only a short walk home. Just like Lesley, she’d been hit on the back of the head, rendered unconscious and dragged into someone’s property. She’d regained consciousness to find her head being held into the dirt by a hand and a foreign object being inserted savagely into her vagina.
Stacey skipped forward to the medical report which bore out Gemma’s description. The bruising and cuts to her vagina and thighs had indeed been the result of a brutal attack.
There had been no words spoken, just like Lesley’s attack, but there was one significant difference. After the sexual assault, Sean Fellows had taken a knife and cut into the flesh of Gemma’s buttock. The wound was only an inch or so, made up of a few small cut marks. Why had Sean Fellows not done the same to Lesley?
The more she read about Gemma’s attack, the more confused she became. The cases were so similar yet different.
Sean Fellows had been identified by Gemma Hornley herself. She’d had sex with him earlier in the evening in the club toilet. He’d approached her as she was leaving, asking for a repeat performance. She’d refused, and he’d got angry. CCTV had shown a heated argument between them, Gemma storming off, and him heading away in the same direction.
Gemma had been convinced it was him, so had the police and so had the jury.
Stacey suddenly had a ridiculous thought that Brierley Hill didn’t even appear to have considered: what if Sean Fellows wasn’t responsible for the attack on Lesley Skipton? What if they’d been chasing the wrong man for it all along?
Stacey knew she needed to talk to Gemma, his first victim. Having already spoken to Lesley, she would then be in a position to compare the attacks on both women.
She reminded herself that Gemma was a solved case and that Brierley Hill wouldn’t be thrilled to have her sniffing round, asking questions of one of their victims.
But whether it made her popular or not, it was something she was just going to have to do.
Nineteen
‘There she is,’ Kim said, stabbing the screen with her finger.
The store detective at the Shop N Save had kindly burned the relevant CCTV footage to disc, which they were viewing right now.
They watched as Katrina Nock and her child entered the store. Mia immediately began pulling at her mother’s hand to go in the direction of the toys located at the back of the shop. Katrina appeared to protest for just a few seconds as she looked towards the card stand located at the entrance, but then gave in and followed her daughter out of camera shot.
The CCTV operator had had no cause to follow them on camera, so they disappeared from view within seconds.
The screen went blank as the computer jumped to the next snatch of footage on the disc. This was a visual of both mother and daughter looking around the toys in the background of the main shot. The camera was focused on a teenage male wearing a hoody and loose jeans.
‘Fair play,’ Bryant said, and she knew what he meant.
The CCTV operator had pored over every bit of footage they’d recorded to find any instance where Katrina or Mia had appeared on camera. His efforts had saved Stacey or Penn hours of work.
The camera moved away from the mother and child as the operator had followed the known shoplifter out the door.
The camera rested there for a moment, and Kim could visualise the store detective putting out a radio message to other stores warning them of his presence.
The camera then swept the length of the store to return to its resting position close to the tills.
‘Play that bit again,’ Kim said.
Bryant rewound and slowed the footage. On its journey back, the camera’s gaze had caught Katrina perusing the toiletry aisle and Mia still hovering around the toys.
> Kim took a good look. Katrina was interacting with no one and no one appeared to be showing her any undue attention.
The screen went blank again before the final piece of footage filled the screen. The angle was back to the fixed camera at the entrance. Katrina was picking out and reading greetings cards at a stand just inside the door. A basket of small purchases was at her feet. She placed a card back before looking over the top of the stand to the rear of the store.
‘Checking on Mia,’ Bryant observed. Obviously satisfied that her child was safe, she reached to pick out another card, but paused and turned her head to look out of the shop.
‘Slow it,’ Kim said.
In slow motion they watched as she appeared to listen to someone on the outside of the shop.
She nodded and began using her hands to point.
Kim had the urge to try and turn the camera to capture who had been outside the store, but of course it wasn’t live time: it was an historic piece of footage that couldn’t be altered. ‘Directions,’ Kim said, watching Katrina’s mannerisms. ‘Someone was asking for directions.’
Kim watched as Katrina glanced back up towards the toys before taking a step towards the exit of the shop.
Kim had the urge to shout out not to do it, not to take those last few steps that were going to end her life.
Her mind screamed the words as Katrina continued to move towards the door.
She stepped over the threshold and out of sight.
Kim knew she had just witnessed the last time that Katrina Nock had been seen alive.
Twenty
‘Err… mind stepping back a little, Penn,’ Keats said, moving towards the weighing scales with a kidney in his hands.
‘Oh, sure,’ Penn said, moving away from the body of Katrina Nock.
‘I can honestly say I’m flattered by your diligent interest in my work, but very few observers want to get this close to the process.’
Penn shrugged and waited. If that was the pathologist’s indirect way of calling him weird, it wasn’t the first time the observation had been thrown his way. And it didn’t bother him one little bit.
His analytical brain was interested in the mechanics, the detail of a subject: how the sum of the parts made something work. He remembered one of his friends in school falling from a tree while on a school trip. Kids and teachers had gathered around out of concern, and Penn had gathered too. Once the screaming from Jimmy had assured Penn his friend was alive, he had focused on the angles of the broken limbs, captivated by the picture of flesh ripped open by splintering bones, picturing the twisted muscle and sinews hidden from view. So engrossed, he’d been disappointed when the paramedics had whisked Jimmy away to hospital.
It wasn’t that he didn’t feel empathy for the victims, but he’d never been one to dwell on things he couldn’t change.
If he could have prevented Jimmy Ryland from falling out of the tree, he would have done so. If it was in his power to resurrect Katrina Nock and send her home to her family, he would do so in a heartbeat, but he couldn’t and so it was best to learn all that he could so they could catch the person who’d killed her and offer some comfort to her loved ones.
Luckily, he’d never been squeamish and was able to dispassionately view the sight before him and see the body for the complex and miraculous sequence of parts that had once worked together to form a life.
Keats noted a measurement before carefully placing the organ back into the body. Had there been any doubt as to the cause of death, Keats would have taken samples from each organ and sent them to the lab for testing.
‘Normal,’ Keats said out loud.
Just like everything else, Penn thought. So far, there had been nothing not normal about Katrina Nock. She’d been in decent physical shape and all major organs had been functioning correctly. She’d never smoked, had no broken bones, good teeth and had eaten a bowl of cereal for breakfast.
Samples of blood and urine had been taken for toxicology to determine drugs, medicines and other natural body chemicals, but Penn didn’t expect anything out of the ordinary there.
Clean was the word that kept going through his mind. Everything about it was clean. The murder itself had been clean: confirmed by Keats as a broken neck. He had explained that when the neck breaks near the skull, three things happen – you can’t move, you stop breathing and your body loses the ability to control your heart – resulting in instant death.
‘But it’s not as easy as they portray it in the films,’ Keats had explained. ‘The neck bones and muscles offer some resistance, so we’re talking considerable physical strength to execute this method of murder, if you’ll excuse the pun.’
Penn had seen the fatal injury before in traffic collisions, but never as a result of murder.
There was no blood, no messy wounds, no bruises, no suffering, no emotion. It was almost like a different class of murder: polite, well-mannered, genteel. Without excessive violence. There was no mess.
‘Okay, Penn, I’m going to close her up now,’ Keats said, disturbing his thoughts.
Penn reached around to remove his face mask.
‘Okay, Keats, thanks…’
‘Didn’t say I was finished with you yet, did I?’ he asked, expertly bringing the flesh back together with the sailmaker’s needle and the heavy twine, which was much coarser than normal stitches. The end result always reminded Penn of a baseball.
‘Eager beaver,’ Keats said, glancing his way.
Oh, how Penn loved the cat-and-mouse games they played.
‘I’m a bit pushed for—’
‘It’s this I’m not sure about,’ Keats said, laying the needle onto the flesh that covered the rib cage. He went back to the scratches he’d noted on the left wrist close to Katrina’s watch.
‘I thought you said they were probably marks left by the watch,’ Penn questioned. It was the first thing he’d noted during the procedure, and Penn had written off their relevance.
‘It was definitely my first thought that at some point this girl was grabbed around the wrist, but I’d like to take another look.’
Penn watched as the pathologist took out a hand-held magnifying glass and peered closely at the scratches, even though they were obvious to the naked eye.
‘Hmm…’ he said, viewing the flesh at every conceivable angle.
Penn knew better than to prompt the man until he was finished, and so looked over his shoulder. He had agreed that the few small sticks and arcs had come from rough handling of the watch and had attached no further significance to the finding.
‘Hmm…’ Keats repeated. ‘I appear to have been mistaken.’
‘I’ll be sure to let the boss know,’ Penn quipped.
Keats peered over his glasses before continuing.
‘It’s no longer my opinion that these scratches were caused by the watch.’
Penn waited.
‘I believe these scratches were inflicted post-mortem.’
Penn considered his words. Scratches or marks received before the attack meant nothing. Wounds suffered during the attack spoke volumes about the struggle, physicality, physical ability and positioning. Wounds inflicted after the crime meant something else entirely. They were a message to someone.
Finally, with a strange sense of relief, he began to remove the protective garments Keats had forced upon him.
The murder was not so tidy after all.
Twenty-One
Kim stood in the exact same position that Katrina had stood when she’d been gesticulating. Bryant was standing outside, where Katrina had been looking to from the card stand.
She moved towards the door, just as Katrina had, and looked around, watching people go in and out of shops: looking down, looking at where they were heading, looking at phones. Why here? Why Katrina? Kim wondered for the hundredth time.
She stood in the middle of the pavement and did a 360-degree turn and saw what she hadn’t noted yesterday: between the Shop N Save and the chemist next door was a gap, joined
together by an old white gate. Right now, the gate was closed.
‘Come on, Bryant,’ she said as she opened the gate and peered up the alley. In the distance, she could see the back of a white van she knew well. A forensics van.
‘Shit.’
Bryant moved towards her to follow. She held up her hand to stop him.
‘Wait a minute. Let’s act it out,’ she said, taking Bryant’s position just outside the door. ‘You be Katrina,’ she instructed. She was the killer and knew what she was going to do. Bryant was the victim and had no idea what was in her mind.
Bryant stepped out of the shop and took a couple of strides towards her, moving his arms around as Katrina had been doing.
The second he was out the door, she grabbed his elbow, guided him forcefully to the alleyway and kicked the gate shut behind her.
‘Guv, what the?… aah,’ he said as he followed her gaze to where Mitch was taking something from his van.
Bryant had not known what she was going to do and had had little time to act in the three strides it had taken her to remove him from view. Despite the physical differences between them, the element of surprise had been on her side.
‘No clue this was here,’ Bryant said as they headed towards Mitch, who appeared surprised at their direction of travel.
‘Neither did he,’ Kim noted as he tapped a techie on the arm and pointed.
The techie grabbed a role of incident tape and nodded as he passed.
‘For all the good it’ll do,’ Mitch said, stroking his freshly trimmed beard.
‘Play with that too much and it’ll drop off,’ Kim said.
‘My mum told me that once when I was a little boy. Actually, now I come to think of it that had nothing to do with my beard.’
Bryant groaned and shook his head.
‘Hope you didn’t make a special journey,’ Mitch continued, pointing to the clear plastic evidence boxes. ‘Empty. Absolutely nothing of interest so far.’
Deadly Cry: An absolutely gripping crime thriller packed with suspense (Detective Kim Stone Crime Thiller Book 13) Page 6