by C. S. Barnes
‘Okay, good work,’ Edd said, trying to mimic the soft support that Melanie would have offered. ‘Funnily enough, Burton and I found our own victim connection at Jenni’s college yesterday. Chris?’ He invited her to present their findings.
Chris moved to the front of the room and grabbed a board marker on her way. On the white surface behind her, she wrote: Gibbons, Eleanor Gregory, Patrick Nelson, and Alistair House. She circled Gibbons’ name. ‘College principal, stuck up, thinks his students are little shits but also believes he can change them. We had a good chat with Mr Gibbons ahead of talking to the students themselves and he introduced us to the name Alistair House.’ She paused to circle this name. ‘It looks as though he had a major thing for our victim, he was class swapping to try to spend some more time with her, that sort of thing. But the most interesting piece of information yesterday came from these two.’
She paused again and sketched a messy line linking Eleanor and Patrick together on the board. ‘These were, as far as we know, the last two people to see Jenni alive. They were at Eleanor’s house doing a dress rehearsal for Halloween. When we asked for details of their costumes, Ellie told us that her and Patrick were pairing up as Freddy and Jason from the horror films, meanwhile Jenni…’ Chris crossed to the other side of the board where Jenni’s pictures were pinned. Chris underlined the victim’s name. ‘Jenni’s Halloween costume was a victim.’
A murmur of something – confusion? – travelled around the team, resulting in a final outburst from Read. ‘A victim? A victim of what?’
Newspaper clippings spilled from the box like lifeless confetti. The package had been inspected by the station’s resident explosives expert and opened carefully by forensics. DI Melanie Watton was sifting through, her gloved hands wading through one news article at a time, many of which dated back years to the original Michael Richards’ killings. There were newspaper profiles of the victims, ranging from the early reveal of their identities to later anniversaries of their deaths, and there were several interviews with Richards himself that had been dissected into smaller snippets, so Watton found them one paragraph at a time as she continued her search. The papers were spread across the Granthams’ dining room table, meanwhile the couple were being detained in their living room, with DC Dixon offering them lukewarm explanations for what was happening one room over. Melanie didn’t envy him the job.
‘Zach?’ the DI said quietly, pulling back the attention of the forensics officer who had been dispatched to help her. They’d worked together before – closely enough to be on a first name basis – and she was grateful to have someone she could trust handling such delicate evidence. The man – gloved, aproned, with a covering still over his mouth – came and stood next to her, staring at the mess of papers in front of the DI. ‘You know what you’re doing with this, yes?’ Melanie asked, her eyes still fixed to the table.
‘Bag and tag,’ he said, sounding altogether too cheery. ‘I’ll collect each sample separately and we’ll run them through everything we can. We’ve already got the box bagged, so we can check that for fingerprints when we’re back at the centre as well.’
‘Brilliant, thank you,’ Melanie said, snapping the latex gloves away from her hands.
‘Anything in particular that I’m looking for?’
With a heavy sigh, the DI said, ‘A suspect, Zach, you’re looking for a suspect.’ She turned away, readying herself for a potential confrontation with the grieving parents next door but–
‘Mel?’ Zach called her back toward the papers. She turned to see him holding one of the many scraps of paper close to his face, as though inspecting it. ‘It might not be a suspect, but this looks a lot like your victim.’ He handed Melanie a fresh pair of protective gloves, closely followed by a low-resolution image that had been inexpertly printed on regular paper, rather than anything professional or high quality. It took Melanie a hard look to be certain but yes, it was an image of Jenni Grantham, hidden inside this mess of Michael Richards and his victims.
‘But why–?’ Melanie started but her colleague cut across her.
‘Wait, there’s something on the back,’ Zach said, taking the image back and flipping it.
Melanie read the short bittersweet note, written in what looked to be the same handwriting as the note found on Jenni’s body.
Now you see me.
13
DI Melanie Watton had always felt out of place at the Medical Examiner’s office; in her years of policing, being around dead bodies had never become a normal part of the job for her. So when she walked into the sterilised space to find George Waller whistling, meanwhile liberating a cadaver of their intestines, something in Melanie’s own gut turned over. A gentle heave escaped from behind her paper face mask which pulled George’s attention away from the task at hand.
He looked up, mouth still positioned in a perfect O though the whistling sound had ceased, and without a word he looked at the clock pinned to the wall on his left. He frowned at the DI, then, after retrieving his hands from the body in front of him and peeling back his gloves, he crossed the room to meet Melanie. He silently dumped the gloves in a yellow bin and followed that with the plastic spattered apron he’d been wearing.
‘I told you to come tomorrow,’ he said, staring down the DI.
‘I know you did, George, and I’m sorry–’
‘No, you’re not.’ He stepped around her, making his way to his desk that was tucked away in a back corner of the room. ‘You’re never sorry, DI Watton, it’s part of your–’
‘Charm?’ Melanie offered before George’s insult could land and, to her relief, he laughed. George pulled out his chair and sat down heavily in its seat as Melanie closed the distance between them. ‘I know you said tomorrow, but what you don’t know now you won’t know then, and as it stands, we know fuck all about this girl.’ George sighed and shot a look at the officer in between her speeches. ‘I’m sorry, I know how you feel about cursing but sometimes the occasion calls for it.’
‘It’s the end of the day, Melanie.’ George lifted one pile of papers from his eyeline to make way for another. ‘This really couldn’t wait until tomorrow?’
‘You’re still working anyway.’ Melanie pointed a thumb to the body behind her.
‘It hardly counts.’ George followed Melanie’s gesture with a point of his own. ‘It was a heart attack. I’m just being thorough.’
‘Well then, you have the time to discuss something more pressing.’
‘Having the time and having the inclination are two different things, officer,’ he said, pulling on his reading glasses. A handful of tense seconds followed as George skimmed through the handwritten notes that were laid out in front of him. Having reached the bottom of a page, he looked to Melanie. ‘I haven’t even written up my results yet, so you’re getting the rough and ready version, okay?’
Melanie nodded. ‘I’ll take any version.’
George ducked down behind his desk for a handful of seconds before reappearing with a stuffed file in tow. He heaved the pile of documents onto the desk and let out a hard puff of air, as though the act had exhausted him. Without a word, he proceeded to skim through the papers at a speed, while Melanie sat patiently awaiting whatever verdict would come.
The two had worked together on a number of cases and Melanie knew that George would have something good for her – or bad, depending on your perspective. But there would certainly be something of use here; there had to be, the officer thought. The first time she had met George, he’d introduced himself as the man with all the answers – she was still in uniform, acting as a glorified security guard for a nightclub killing in the town centre. The case had been a messy one, but it took George all of fifteen minutes to develop a workable theory on the death itself – and he’d turned out to be right too.
‘See, all the answers,’ he’d told her, tapping the side of his nose and flashing a smile.
The two had been on good terms since and, even though she knew not to rush the man
– more than she already had, of course – she felt a sharp pang of irritation for how long he was taking with these latest results.
‘George–’ Melanie started but he cut her short with a sharp glance over the top of his glasses. He flashed a wide smile at the sheet of paper in front of him before spinning it round for the sheet to face Melanie. The officer scanned the opening paragraph of the paper and quickly discerned that it was an autopsy report from one of the Michael Richards’ victims.
Melanie flitted her eyes to the top of the page to locate the specific name: Penny Evans, victim number three. Melanie darted through the details until she reached the end of the report and then looked up to the medical examiner, who appeared much smugger than she felt at that moment.
‘We already know there’s a Michael Richards link here, George, the problem is not knowing what it is.’ She nudged the paper as she spoke. ‘You already told me that she’d been killed the same way as these other women.’
‘I did, but what I haven’t told you yet is that I was wrong.’ The smile on George’s face didn’t quite match his announcement and Melanie felt stumped. ‘All of the women that were murdered by Michael Richards were starved of oxygen, you see.’ George gestured to the sheet of paper that sat askew between them both. ‘That’s why the bags were over their heads still; it was his weapon of choice, it’s how he actually killed them. But Jenni Grantham is different, was different. The method was all different.’ George took on a tone of excitement the further he ventured into his explanation and, while it seemed an inappropriate thing to be excited over, there was something contagious about the idea of a breakthrough. Melanie took on a slight smile herself as she followed George away from the desk and across the room, to the dreaded wall of drawers. Without warning, George opened a door and rolled out the young Jenni Grantham, and Melanie’s chipper smile gave way to another involuntary heave. She snapped her head away.
‘Jesus, George, shouldn’t you warn people before you do that?’ she said, still facing away.
‘If you don’t look, you won’t see.’
When Melanie turned back around, George was already gesturing to the young girl’s neck. Her skin had been mottled and dirtied the last time Melanie had seen her, but she was clean. If it weren’t for the slight abrasions and the blue cobwebs laced over the body, Melanie could almost think the girl was made of porcelain, and that thought saddened her.
‘Do you see it?’ George asked, pulling Melanie back into the room.
‘I see a body, George. What am I meant to see?’
‘See this, here?’ He pointed to a thickened purple band around the young girl’s neck. Melanie nodded and held her eyes fixed on the bruising. ‘She wasn’t suffocated, she was strangled.’ Melanie heard the explanation but struggled to draw a conclusion from it; she shook her head and tried to smooth out an advancing frown. ‘One is cutting off air supply, to the nose or mouth, say, with a bag for example.’ George explained slowly, as though talking to a child.
‘But that’s not what happened here?’ Melanie looked again at the body.
‘She was strangled, not suffocated, which means pressure was directly applied to the neck and therefore the windpipe, blocking her airway for a prolonged period of time until–’
‘She stopped breathing.’ Melanie finished the explanation as George’s findings clicked into place. ‘So she was already dead when the bag was placed over her head?’
George held up his hands in a defensive gesture. ‘Now, that I can’t say. She may have been strangled first, bag placed after; she may have been strangled with the bag already in place. But I wasn’t there when the bag was put over her head.’ Melanie winced at his frankness. ‘My report will read manual strangulation. From the bruising here, it’s impossible to draw another conclusion and any ME worth his salt would agree.’ He rolled Jenni away, closing the small door firmly behind her. ‘Of course, given the evidence for strangulation, it means that she actually wasn’t killed in the same way as the Richards’ victims. Now, I’m no detective,’ he said, leaning back against the wall of closed doors behind him. ‘But to me it looks a lot like someone wanted you to think this girl had been suffocated.’
Melanie thought back to the rumpled bag, the tape that had fixed it so firmly in place. ‘There’s no chance that bruising came from the tape?’ the officer asked, throwing in her one last reasonable doubt.
George shook his head. ‘When you get my digital recordings on the matter, you’ll see photographs that clearly show thumbprints around that neck of hers, plus an x-ray that shows structural damage consistent with strangulation. The tape didn’t do it.’ George sidestepped Melanie and wandered back to his desk. ‘There’s no doubt in my mind, Mel, but I’m happy to have a colleague look over the results if it’ll set your mind at ease. You already know what this means though, don’t you?’
Melanie caught up and seated herself in the chair opposite from him. ‘Jesus Christ, George.’ She rubbed at her eyes as she spoke, the tiredness of three sleepless nights catching up with her at once. ‘The crime scene was staged.’
14
DI Watton, DS Carter, and DC Burton were positioned around a recently emptied desk, their early evidence laid across it. Melanie had shared the latest update regarding the crime scene with her colleagues, much to their collective confusion, but it still hadn’t given them much to get started with.
‘Why would someone go to so much effort?’ Carter asked, his stare fixed on a wide shot of the playing fields that lay on top of a pile of photographs. ‘Michael Richards didn’t even kill his victims in an impressive way, did he, I mean as killers go…’
His voice trailed off as he noticed his DI’s stare, her eyebrow raised to create an unimpressed look.
‘I was just saying,’ Edd added.
‘Don’t,’ Mel replied, her voice flat.
Chris cleared her throat with a deliberate cough before asking, ‘What about the handwriting?’
‘What about it?’ Melanie snapped back.
‘Is there anything of use there, do you think? Can we get some kind of expert in?’
Melanie sighed and glanced at Edd who shrugged.
‘Are you prepared to tell the superintendent that we’ve got nothing to go on?’ Melanie asked but when Chris opened her mouth to proffer an answer, the DI held a flat hand up to halt the DC from speaking. ‘It was rhetorical. The handwriting would be useful if we had something to compare it to. We can’t compare it to the originals because what would be the point, and we have no other samples to use because that kind of database doesn’t exist yet.’ Chris looked visibly deflated by the explanation and Melanie felt a pang of guilt at having responded so curtly. ‘Under other circumstances, it could work. But I don’t see it working here,’ she added, trying to soften her rejection.
‘Okay, so what will work?’ Edd pushed, growing impatient.
‘What bright ideas do you have?’ Melanie stood as she spoke which left her looking down on her junior officer. Edd physically retreated, leaning back in his seat to put a safe distance between him and the DI. ‘We need to talk to Jenni’s friends again, I think that’s our best move from here on out.’ Melanie paced the room with two fingertips pressed to her temples as she spoke. ‘We’ll need their parents’ permission for a formal interview, so I suppose that’s the next hurdle. Did the college provide you with any details or does someone need to chase that?’ Melanie directed the question to Chris, who flashed a nervous look at Edd before answering.
‘We’ve got their contact details already; Gibbons sent them over, along with the details of one or two other kids who might be useful.’
‘We’ll pull in the two Jenni was with the night she died, and we can work out from there with one or two others.’ Melanie turned to address Edd, who had retreated entirely into a small corner of the room. ‘Can you make those phone calls? Try to get through to the parents of the first two, ask them if they’d mind helping us with our enquiries, make it sound as neutral as possible.’
Edd nodded by way of a response. ‘We’ve got Read and Fairer going through the CCTV footage from various points around the city, Morris is still working with the tech team. We need something from these college kids,’ Melanie said aloud, but Carter felt as though his superior was talking to herself rather than addressing them.
‘Chris, can you get onto Gibbons? See if he’ll let us talk to these other kids he’s mentioned; we should see how the ground lies there.’ Melanie waited for a sign of confirmation from her DC before turning to her DS. ‘Can you try to get both Patrick and Eleanor in later this afternoon?’ she said to Edd.
The DS agreed. ‘Any particular time?’
‘Straight after college? That’ll make it what, four? Four thirty?’ Edd and Chris shrugged in unison and Melanie continued. ‘Ask one to arrive earlier than the other; book one in for four thirty, if you can, and the other for five thirty. We don’t want them to re-write anything while they’ve still got the chance to.’
‘Are we treating them as suspects, boss?’ Edd questioned with a hint of scepticism.
‘Not necessarily, but we are treating them as the last people to see our victim alive, college kids or not.’
Melanie and Chris stood outside the college, confronted by the same security measures the DC and DS had faced last time. In an impatient gesture, Melanie made a point of looking at her watch and tapping her foot, hoping that there would be a security camera somewhere to see her.
A static crackle pulled the DI’s attention back to the intercom. ‘Sorry, detectives, I couldn’t find Mr Gibbons to verify your appointment, but he’s corrected my error. Please come straight through the gates…’