‘I’m not stupid! You didn’t give me the chance to step back from the fryer,’ Nina shouted above the noise of the chipper, but he ignored her and went out to the loading bay to take his break.
Nina carried on working at Santino’s throughout July. She hated the job, but she had become infatuated with Max. She discovered he was twenty-seven, and he had a bit of a reputation as a bad boy, once coming in to work with a huge black eye and a split lip. The more he ignored her, the more Nina rose to the challenge to try and get him to speak. She swapped her Santino’s T-shirt for a smaller size and stopped wearing a bra at work, and she started to time her breaks to coincide with his, but he continued to ignore her, grunting the minimal response to her questions, and not looking up from the newspaper or his phone.
As August came to a close, a gloom descended over her. She had been introduced to her mother’s new boyfriend, Paul, during dinner at a local Italian restaurant. He was alright looking, a little fat with a bald patch, and a bad sense of humour, but she could see her mother was completely in love, and that Paul would soon be moving in.
On a Wednesday night in early August, Nina left the chip shop after a long shift and got in the car to drive home. It was a short journey from Crouch End to Muswell Hill, and the roads were quiet. At the junction near the end of the high street, Nina stopped at the traffic lights. She was waiting as an old lady with a shopping trolley slowly made her way across the road, when a figure she recognised stepped off the pavement in front and stared through the windscreen. It was Max. He glanced around and then moved to her passenger door and knocked on the window, indicating to her to unlock the door. She found herself pressing the button to release the central locking.
Max climbed in and sat beside her. He wore blue jeans, a white T-shirt and a brown leather jacket. His dirty-blond hair hung down to his shoulders and he had a small cut above his left eye. He smelt of beer and sweat.
The lights at the crossing flashed amber then green.
‘It’s green. Drive,’ he said.
She pulled away, and through the back window saw a couple of police officers come running out of an alleyway, and look around. Max sank down a little in the seat, pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and lit up. Nina glanced at him, wanting to say that he couldn’t smoke, that this was her mum’s car, but she was unable to speak. Max was in her car, and it made her incredibly excited. He looked at her and then wound down the window, resting his arm on the edge. She realised she was just driving, and she’d passed the turn-off leading home. She glanced across and tried to think of something to say to him. His eyes were scanning the road. She’d never seen such incredible eyes. They had depth, and glowed, almost as if they had embers burning behind them.
‘Where are we going?’ she said, finally breaking the silence.
‘It’s your car. You’re driving. Why the hell are you asking me where we’re going?’ he said, flicking his cigarette butt out of the window. She saw him look around the car – at the stack of old Westlife CDs under the stereo, the KEEP CALM AND HAKUNA MATATA sticker on the dashboard, and she suddenly felt embarrassed and uncool. He opened the glove compartment and started to rummage through.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
He pulled out a pink square of cloth with blue polka dots, and raised an eyebrow.
‘Is this yours?’
‘No. It’s my mum’s car. It’s hers,’ she said, leaning over to grab it, but he held it out of her reach.
‘She keeps her knickers in the glove compartment?’
‘It’s for wiping the window!’
He laughed. ‘Look like knickers to me. Did she forget them after date night with your dad?’
‘My dad’s dead,’ she said.
‘Oh. Shit. Sorry,’ he said, stuffing the cloth back in the glove compartment.
‘It’s okay. She has got a boyfriend, though. He’s a real dick.’
Max smiled and shook his head. ‘The world is full of them. You haven’t got any gum, have you?’
‘No.’
He closed the glove compartment and looked out of the window at the road moving past.
‘It happened a long time ago,’ said Nina.
‘What did?’
‘My dad, dying. It was a heart attack.’
He peered up at the street signs. Nina could sense he was losing interest, and she was annoyed that she had mentioned it.
‘Drop me here,’ he said, pointing to a pub on the corner. Nina pulled up at the kerb, and watched as he put his hand on the door.
‘Where are you going?’ she blurted.
‘The pub.’
‘I’ve never been in The Mermaid,’ she said. It looked rough, with a boarded up window out front.
‘I wouldn’t expect a girl like you to go there,’ he said, opening the door.
‘How do you know what kind of girl I am? You seem to spend all your time at work judging me, and giving me dirty looks, and then you jump in my car and expect me to just give you a lift!’
‘I thought it was your mum’s car?’
‘It is. But all I mean is that you shouldn’t go around making assumptions about people, because they are almost always wrong.’ She felt her face flush in the silence after she spoke.
He looked at her with a wry smile.
‘I’m only gonna be a couple of minutes. I’ve got some business to do. Why don’t you wait?’
‘Here?’
‘Yeah. Where else were you thinking of waiting?’
Nina opened her mouth and closed it again.
‘Do you have to be somewhere?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘Okay then. Hang here for a minute. I’ll be back in a bit, and then you can tell me what kind of girl you really are.’ He gave her that sexy smile again, and Nina felt her legs go weak.
She watched as he went into the pub then pulled out her phone and dialled Kath’s number to tell her what had happened.
‘You think he was running from the police?’ asked Kath with concern in her voice.
‘I don’t know.’
‘And what kind of business is he doing in The Mermaid? It’s well rough and they keep getting raided for drugs.’
‘Are you trying to spoil this for me?’
‘No. I’m just a concerned friend. You’ll call me when you get home?’
Nina could see Max was coming out of the pub.
‘Yes, I promise,’ she said and hung up.
Max got into the car pocketing a large wad of £50 notes.
‘I know I promised you a drink, but I need to swing by The Lamb and Flag on Constitution Hill. Is that okay?’ He placed a hand on her knee and smiled. She felt a jolt of electricity.
‘Yeah, of course,’ she said, smiling back.
She drove him to the Lamb and Flag and waited outside for thirty minutes. When he returned to the car he was holding two bottles of Heineken. She started the engine.
‘Straight ahead,’ he said.
She started off up the road. It was getting dark and the streetlights were out.
‘This is for you,’ he said, offering her one of the beers and taking a chug from the other.
‘I don’t drink and drive,’ she said, primly, keeping both hands on the wheel.
‘Then don’t drive,’ said Max, raising an eyebrow. Nina could see the road was a dead end, the streetlights were out, and the houses on each side were dark. He leaned over and stroked her hair. ‘Pull over. Let’s have a drink,’ he said, with a smile.
‘Okay,’ she said, smiling back. He smelt delicious, a mixture of aftershave and damp sweat. The V-neck of his t-shirt gave her a glimpse of the taut tanned skin of his muscled chest. She felt as if she could burst with excitement as she guided the car into a spot by the kerb and turned off the engine. Max handed her the bottle, and as she took a swig the beer foamed up. She held it over the footwell and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
‘Dammit, what a mess.’
‘I dunno, I like a
girl who tastes of beer.’
Max leaned over and pulled Nina’s face to his, their lips touching. He kissed her softly, then more intense, parting her lips with his tongue. The bottle fell from her grip, but she didn’t notice. She was lost, intoxicated with lust and desire. It would be a long time before she found herself again. And then, it would be too late.
Chapter Six
Tuesday, 3 October 2017
Erika woke early to a message from Isaac Strong. The post-mortem on the male victim was complete, and the body of the female victim found in the suitcase had been transferred over to the mortuary in Penge.
Moss was appearing in court to give testimony on a knife murder, so she took McGorry with her. He was excited at the prospect of seeing the results of the post-mortem, but this soon evaporated when they entered the morgue and he saw the pieces of the two victims assembled on the gleaming stainless steel post-mortem tables.
Isaac moved to the male victim first, and gently turned over the head. ‘There are extensive injuries to the back of the skull which were inflicted with a large, heavy piece of concrete. Some of the brain tissue was forced out of the skull cavity by the force of the blows, and amongst this we found fragments of cement. Both cheekbones are broken, as is the nose, and the jawbone in two places. Again, there are fragments of cement in the skin, indicating the same large heavy piece of concrete.’ Isaac moved to the left arm. ‘You can see the skin is starting to flake away from the bone after being in the water for so long. The radial bone is broken, and the ulna fractured in two places. There are almost identical injuries on the right arm.’
He noticed McGorry creasing his forehead in confusion. ‘There are two bones in your forearm,’ he explained, pulling up his sleeve to indicate. ‘The ulna is the long bone that stretches from the elbow to the smallest finger. The second is the radial, which runs parallel, and is the larger and longer of the two.’
‘He put up his arms to protect himself?’ asked Erika, lifting hers and crossing them in front of her face.
‘That’s for you to confirm, but the injuries are consistent with that theory,’ said Isaac.
McGorry cleared his throat and took a deep breath, and put a hand to his mouth.
‘Are you okay?’ asked Isaac.
‘Yeah, fine,’ he gulped. Erika saw he was now an odd green-grey colour under the harsh lights.
Isaac went on. ‘Apart from these injuries, he was a healthy young male. No discolouration to the lungs; he didn’t smoke; he had very little fat on the liver; a strong heart; very little body fat.’
Isaac moved to the second post-mortem table, and the body of the young woman. He turned over her head. Her long straw-coloured hair was parted to show the injuries to the back of her skull.
‘Her injuries are almost identical. Blows to the back and the crown of the head with a blunt heavy object, which would have been fatal. The face has been badly battered: jaw, nose, and cheekbones all have multiple breaks and fractures. Again, fragments of concrete were found embedded in the skin and surrounding tissue, but there is one difference to the male victim. She was stabbed in the chest with a long, thin blade.’
‘And this could have been what killed her?’ asked Erika.
‘Yes, but I can’t be sure. The fragments of concrete will now be analysed against samples from the male victim, to see if we can link the piece of concrete found in the suitcase with her.’
‘Whoever did this went crazy on them,’ said McGorry. ‘Battering them, stabbing her.’
‘Although, the single stab wound is more precise,’ said Isaac.
Erika nodded. Not only had they suffered painful deaths, but even their identities had been taken from them.
‘Whoever did this wanted to make it difficult for us to identify them. There is still no ID on the female victim after two weeks,’ she said with a shudder.
McGorry suddenly retched, and clamped a hand over his mouth.
‘Toilet is outside, first door directly on the left,’ said Isaac calmly. McGorry made a dash for it, both hands over his mouth. They heard the door to the toilet slam and then heaving.
Isaac went on. ‘With the female victim, her left arm is broken in five places; the right collarbone is broken twice. There is also evidence she was sexually assaulted prior to, or even after, she was killed.’
Erika closed her eyes against the harsh lights, but when she did she could still see the outline of the two bodies lying battered and dismembered, side by side. So many questions were running through her mind: Did they know each other? Were they a couple? If so, which of them died first? Were they together when it happened?
When she opened her eyes, Isaac had moved to a storage unit at the back of the morgue.
‘I also found fifty condoms filled with cocaine in the stomach of the male victim.’
He returned with a clear plastic bag and handed it to her. It was filled with small packages, each the size of a large peanut in its shell. She looked up at him in shock.
‘These were in his stomach? He swallowed all of these?’ she said.
‘Yes. Each one contains around ten grams of cocaine, packed in a condom, then wrapped in a layer of latex. In this case, the finger of a latex glove. It’s very well packaged, and has to be, so that nothing leaks into the stomach.’
Erika looked back at the two bodies and the long stitched-up y-shaped incisions on both the torsos. ‘Was there anything in the woman?’
‘No. Nothing in her stomach; a little partially digested food.’
‘Do you think he was a drug mule?’
‘That’s for you to find out.’
Erika shook her head. ‘It doesn’t make sense. Why would someone go as far as killing him, and chopping him up, only to leave the drugs in his belly?’ She looked at the packages and did a quick calculation. ‘This is about thirty-thousand pounds’ worth of cocaine.’
‘The person who killed him might not have known. Again, that’s—’
‘Yes, I know, Isaac. That’s for me to find out,’ snapped Erika. ‘Do you know how long the bodies were in the water?’
‘Difficult to tell. The male victim could have been in the water for a couple of weeks. You can see with him there is maceration; loosening of the skin on the fingers, palms, and soles of feet, and there is discolouration on the chest and abdomen. With the female, it’s different, she was in the water for a few days, at most. Her fingers were in good enough shape to print, and they ran them through the system, but nothing came back. It says on her post-mortem that a large piece of concrete was found in the suitcase with the body; this has been sent to forensics.’
‘And the cause of death?’
‘In both victims, it was a blow to the back of the head. The lungs were filled with water, but with decapitation, the body cavity would have filled up.’
They stared for a few moments in silence.
‘Okay, thank you,’ said Erika.
They came out into the corridor, where John was waiting on one of the plastic chairs with a cup of water from the cooler. He stood up.
‘I’m really sorry, Dr Strong, boss. I’m okay with bodies, but when they’re in pieces…’ He put his hand to his mouth again.
‘Go on, get some fresh air. I’ll see you out in the car park,’ said Erika.
Isaac cocked his head to one side and watched as McGorry walked off down the corridor, and out of the main entrance. The door clanged shut.
‘He’s straight, Isaac. Has a girlfriend. I think she wears the trousers.’
Isaac grinned and sat in one of the chairs. ‘I’m sure she doesn’t wear them as good as he does. How old is he?’
‘Twenty-four.’
‘Oh to be twenty-four years old again…’ Erika smiled and nodded in agreement. ‘How’s Peterson?’ With the change of subject, her face clouded over.
‘On his way back, but it’s been a long, slow recovery.’
‘It will be. People don’t often pull through from a bullet wound to the stomach. He’s been very lucky,
even having had two nasty post-operative infections…’
‘I know what happened, Isaac.’
‘Do you know it’s not your fault? Because it isn’t. He didn’t have to follow you into that crime scene.’
‘I am his senior officer…’ Her voice trailed off, and she tipped her head back against the wall.
‘How does he look?’
‘Still very thin. His mother has been looking after him, and she’s not my greatest fan.’
‘Erika. You know the score with mothers and sons.’
‘Yeah. It didn’t help that we first met when James was wired up to all those machines in intensive care.’
Isaac put out a hand and squeezed her arm. ‘Are you sleeping?’
‘I manage a few hours a night.’
Isaac’s thin eyebrows knitted together with concern. He got up and went to the water cooler, filling a cup with water.
‘Do you want me to prescribe you something?’ he said, handing it to her.
‘No way. I can’t start a double murder investigation acting like a zombie.’
He looked at her for a long moment. ‘OK, but don’t be a stranger. You should come over for dinner soon, you look like you could do with a good meal.’
‘When I have an ID on these victims,’ she said, draining the last of the water and chucking it into the bin, ‘I’ll be in touch.’
Isaac watched Erika as she left, concerned for his friend and the way she pushed herself so hard. He was dreading the day she would break in two.
Chapter Seven
McGorry returned to Lewisham Row, and Erika drove over to the offices of Forensic Science in Vauxhall. It was housed in one of the large glass office blocks overlooking the Thames. She pulled in at the ramp down to the underground car park, and then took the lift up to the sixth floor. She buzzed at the door leading into the laboratory, and watched through a small glass window as Nils Åkerman emerged from a door at the end of the corridor. She’d worked with him on three high-profile cases, all of which had resulted in convictions, but he was still a bit of an enigma to her. He was in his late forties, with almost translucent skin, and his usually bleached blond hair was today dyed a bright blue. The little she knew about him was ambiguous: he liked both men and women (Isaac had heard rumours he had fathered a child back in his native Sweden) and Erika had no idea if he was left or right wing in his politics. None of this mattered, of course, as he was an outstanding forensic scientist.
Cold Blood: A gripping serial killer thriller that will take your breath away Page 3