by BIBA PEARCE
“This is DI Rob Miller from Putney MIT.”
A pause. “All right. I was told to give you a bell ’cos I’ve got something you might want to see.”
“Stab victim?”
“Yeah, it’s a homicide with multiple stab wounds. He’s a bloody mess, mate.”
That was enough. “Give me the address,” he barked. “I’ll be there in half an hour.”
* * *
The council block in Southwark was dark and gloomy. The street lamps did little to illuminate the hulking eight-storey brick building. He followed the flashing lights to the front where the south entrance had been cordoned off. Two police vehicles were parked diagonally in front of the building along with a SOCO van and an unmarked ambulance waiting to take the body away.
Rob parked the car and glanced up at the block of flats. Lines of glass windows, each with black metal frames, looked back at him, most of which were in darkness. At the south end, lights blazed on the fourth floor. He bet that was where the homicide had taken place. Above the block, the sky had turned a deep indigo as it does the hour before sunrise.
“DI Rob Miller, Putney MIT,” he told the policeman guarding the darkened entrance. The officer shone a torch on his warrant card, then nodded and let him through the door. An icy blast whipped at his face as soon as he entered the stairwell. The vertical shaft was a natural wind tunnel. He reached for the railing and hung on as he climbed to the fourth floor.
It was even more frigid up here. Several police officers, their faces mottled by the cold, stood in the corridor informing any curious residents that they were to remain in their apartments. Two other policemen had secured the crime scene. Rob gave his name a second time and was handed the standard protective paper suit in plastic wrapping. He tore it open and pulled it on, along with the gloves and shoe protectors, then ducked under the tape into the flat.
Jesus, what a shithole. The carpet was so threadbare you could see the flooring below. Dust and God knows what else lurked in the corners and there was a substantial amount of mould creeping up the walls. The whole place smelled dank with an underlying odour of stale takeaways and urine. He shuddered and walked into the bedroom. Clothes were discarded over the floor like someone had just stepped out of them and left them there. Judging by the dust and the state of the windows, the place didn’t look like it had ever been cleaned and there were visible damp stains under the wallpaper. But there was no body.
“In here,” called a voice. Rob recognized it as belonging to the man he’d spoken to on the phone. He poked his head into the bathroom. It was a tiny cubicle only big enough for a toilet and a shower. “Cooper?”
“Yeah, you Miller?”
Rob nodded.
“I’ll come out. You can’t swing a cat in here.” He shuffled out into the hallway, which wasn’t much bigger, and shook Rob’s hand. “Victim’s name is Doug Bartlett according to his driver’s licence. Someone’s had a right go at him.”
Rob stared past him into the bathroom. “Mind if I take a look?”
“Go ahead. I’ll be over here.” He nodded to the lounge.
Rob went in. A pathologist, a young woman in a headscarf, was examining the body.
“Hi,” he said. “DI Miller.”
She gave him a nod. “Farah Ebrahim.” He noticed she had a large camera slung around her neck.
A man lay on his side as if he’d tried to crawl into the foetal position, possibly to protect himself. There was blood everywhere — on the basin, spread out on the grimy tiles, on the rim of the toilet seat. His dirty wife-beater shirt was drenched with it.
“Christ,” he muttered, taking it all in.
“Not a very dignified way to die,” she said.
Rob peered around her and saw that the man was naked from the waist down. He’d obviously been going to the toilet when he’d been attacked.
Rob remembered seeing a pair of tracksuit pants, as well as discarded underwear, on the bedroom floor among the pile of clothes. He asked one of the SOCOs to bag the lot, just in case.
The victim was smaller than average for a man, around five foot nine with skinny, hairy legs. He had the start of a belly, which wasn’t unusual for a man in his forties, and extremely dirty fingernails. The rest of him was similarly unimpressive.
His hands were calloused and etched with old scars. Rob was betting he worked in the construction industry, possibly as a brickie. “You going to take a sample of the dirt underneath his nails?” he asked, though they were so filthy it would most likely be impossible to tell whether he had any of the killer’s DNA beneath them.
The pathologist gave him a really? look.
“Sorry.” He backed off a little. This wasn’t his crime scene. If he wanted the case, he’d have to request it via Detective Superintendent Lawrence, but given that it was the same MO as their killer, he didn’t think it would be a problem. As it was, DS Cooper probably had his hands full. Southwark was the second most dangerous borough in London with one of the highest knife crime rates. He had his work cut out for him.
The pathologist lifted the dead man’s top and inspected the puncture wounds.
“How many?” Rob asked.
“Twelve, at least.” She leaned back on her knees to inspect his back. “More on this side, so maybe fifteen in total. I can’t be sure at this stage, there’s too much blood. Once I get him cleaned up, I’ll have a clearer picture.”
Fifteen. Rob exhaled slowly. Was the killer escalating, or was this victim of particular significance? There was no crime scene photographer, but the pathologist was taking photographs as she worked. In all fairness, it was the early hours of the morning and they were probably short-staffed.
“Any idea when he died?”
“Rigor mortis has set in,” the pathologist replied. “So, eight to ten hours ago. I can’t be more specific now, I’m afraid.”
That would make the time of death between six and eight o’clock the night before.
“Had he had sex before he died?” Rob asked. The guy had it all hanging out, after all, and the bed wasn’t made.
She shook her head. “It doesn’t look like it, but as I said, I can’t be specific until after the PM.”
“Okay, thanks.”
Rob walked around the apartment, taking his time. He asked the forensic officer if there were traces of semen on the bed, but he said no. Even so, the bedding had been taken away for further analysis.
He found DS Cooper on the phone in the lounge, standing with his back to the room, staring out of the window on to the concrete car park four storeys below. “I’ll be home as soon as I can,” he was saying into the phone.
Rob cleared his throat. Cooper turned around. “Sorry, the wife gets worried when I’m out too late.”
Rob grunted. “I know the feeling.”
Yvette hadn’t said a word to him as he’d got dressed and left the house. She’d simply rolled over and gone back to sleep.
“Any sign that he had company?” Rob scrutinized the lounge. The old sofa was stained and grubby, and there was an armchair that looked like it belonged in the last century. The worn coffee table was cheap pine covered in ring marks, but there were no glasses or bottles anywhere. If Doug Bartlett had had a visitor, he hadn’t offered them anything to drink.
“Not that we could find,” Cooper said. “The shower had been used — there was water on the walls — so we think he washed and got dressed, then let his killer in. There’s no sign of a break-in. And then, we’re not sure. Maybe he went to the toilet, but why take his tracksuit pants and underwear off and leave them in the bedroom?”
“Maybe he was going to have sex?” said Rob, who couldn’t think of why a man would walk around half-naked while there was someone else in the flat unless they were going to get it on. He also knew something Cooper didn’t — that the perpetrator was a woman.
“In this dump?” Cooper shuddered. “It’s not a very nice place to bring a lady, is it?”
“No, it’s not.” But some peo
ple didn’t care about that. “Did you find a mobile phone on him?” Rob asked.
Cooper shook his head. “No.”
“He must have had one.” Who didn’t these days? “The killer must have taken it.”
“Why?” asked Cooper. He seemed puzzled, but he didn’t have the advantage of knowing about the other cases.
“Because it may have had his or her number on it.” He spoke loosely about the gender of the killer, not wanting to give away too much at this stage. They hadn’t released that information yet.
“Aah.” Cooper nodded, but his expression told Rob he had more questions than answers.
“Any witnesses?” Rob asked.
“My officers will do a door-to-door in the morning,” the DS said. “Most of the other residents will be asleep now.”
Rob would have preferred it done right away, but he didn’t press the matter. Not his crime scene. If he could get this case transferred, he’d send his own team to do the house calls. “Will you keep me posted?”
“Yeah, sure.” Cooper hesitated. “Is this similar to something you’ve got going on?”
“We have two victims with multiple stab wounds,” Rob said. “It could be connected.”
Cooper looked thoughtful. “As soon as our dispatch manager logged the call, it flagged an alert in the system to contact you. Do you think it’s the same guy?”
Like him, Cooper had also assumed it was a man.
“It’s possible,” he said carefully. “The MO’s the same. I’m going to talk to my boss to see if we can get the case transferred.”
Cooper spread his hands. “Be my guest. I’ve got enough going on.”
“Thanks, mate.”
Rob shook his hand and left the crime scene. There wasn’t much more he could do now, and he wanted to get home, shower and change, then get to the station early to talk to Lawrence. The sky glowed in the distance as he descended the stairs, not that it made any difference to the arctic temperature. He nodded to the officer on the ground floor and headed to his car.
Before pulling out of the parking spot, he looked up at the unattractive building one last time. Why here? What did this guy have in common with Yousef and Patterson? Tony had said it could be the type of person that the killer was going after, rather than the person himself. But as far as Rob could see, the three victims couldn’t be more different. Yousef was a drug dealer, Patterson a sales rep and family man, and now Bartlett, who was . . . ? What? As soon as he got control of the case, he would find out.
His skin prickled as he drove out of the car park like it does when someone is said to be walking over your grave. Three victims, all with the same MO. It looked like they officially had a serial killer on their hands.
Chapter 17
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” bellowed Lawrence after Rob had briefed him later that morning. Several officers glanced nervously towards the office.
Mallory shuffled from foot to foot, but Rob stood his ground. “It’s the same MO. Fifteen puncture wounds this time, covering the victim’s back and stomach.” He left out the bit about Bartlett being in the toilet at the time of death. “Sir, this is our case. I want to send some of our officers over there to do house visits. Someone might have seen something.”
Lawrence frowned. “Are you sure, Rob? Southwark is a little bit of a departure for our West London killer, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but it’s definitely her, there’s no doubt about it. That’s three murders now.” Rob gave him a pointed look.
Lawrence held up a hand. “Don’t say it. Don’t bloody say it.” Not saying it wasn’t going to make it any less true.
“Say what?” asked Mallory.
Rob shook his head.
Lawrence gave a dramatic sigh. “Okay, Rob. You win. I’ll get on the phone and let them know. From now on, the case is yours. Get those officers out there. I want this thing tied up ASAP. I’ve had enough now. We can’t have this woman running around wreaking havoc. Let’s hope to God the press don’t get wind of it. We can’t have them linking this to the other two stabbings.”
“Yes, sir.” Rob gave a curt nod.
“What was that all about?” Mallory asked on the way out.
“Serial killer,” said Rob, looking over his shoulder at his DI. “Lawrence is allergic to the phrase.”
Mallory chuckled. “I should have thought he’d be used to it by now.”
As soon as everyone was in, Rob called a meeting. He’d googled Doug Bartlett but had come up empty-handed. Bartlett was, however, on the police criminal database.
Rob faced his team in the incident room. “The victim, Doug Bartlett has form. He spent eighteen months inside due to armed robbery and assault but was released last July. We need to get the details of that case. Let’s find out who he assaulted and why. This could be a retaliation.” Not that he thought it likely given the two previous murders.
“Also — and I have no idea if this is relevant — he was going to the toilet when he was attacked.” Heads bobbed as everyone turned their eyes to the front.
“Seriously, guv?” said Mike.
“Yep. He was found on the bathroom floor, naked from the waist down. There were fifteen puncture wounds — more than either of our other victims.”
“Was it sexually motivated?” asked DS Jenny Bird.
Rob shrugged. “It doesn’t appear to be, but we’ll know more after the post-mortem. He was walking around naked, however, so maybe they were about to have sex when she attacked him.”
“Do you think our killer could be a sex worker?” Jenny asked. Jo had suggested the same thing. “He could have arranged for her to come over, willingly let her in, then been caught unawares when she went for him.”
“It would explain why Bartlett had his pants off,” said Mike.
“And why Yousef offered her a drink,” Mallory mused.
Rob narrowed his eyes. “What about Patterson? He wasn’t the type to hire a prostitute. He was married with kids.”
“But he was a travelling salesman. He was away from home, his wife would never know.” Mike warmed to his theory. “Who’s to say he hadn’t done that sort of thing before?”
Rob fell silent for a moment. He pondered this new theory. It made sense on several levels, but on others it didn’t add up. “I didn’t see any calls to unknown numbers on his phone records. I doubt he had a prepaid SIM, he wasn’t the type. He had two phone contracts, one for himself and the other for his wife. He was a good guy. Didn’t have so much as a parking ticket.”
Mike shrugged.
“Okay, let’s consider that angle,” Rob said. You never knew. It was worth following up. They didn’t have much to go on. “Jenny, you and Mike follow it up. Check if any of the neighbours noticed a strange woman on the premises the evening he died.”
“Maybe Forensics will find something,” said Mallory hopefully.
Rob raised an eyebrow. “You should have seen the state of his flat. I doubt they’ll find anything useful in that squalor. Besides, our killer is forensically aware. She hasn’t left anything behind yet.”
“They all make mistakes eventually,” Mallory said.
Rob pasted on a grim smile. “Let’s hope so.”
* * *
“Oh my God. You’re not serious?” Yvette echoed Lawrence’s sentiment from earlier that day. It was late, he was tired, and the last thing he felt like was a flaming row, but he could see his wife was gearing up for one.
“It’s not like before,” he told her, keeping his voice even. He knew where she was going with this. “This time it’s a woman, and the victims are all male. You’re not in any danger.”
But she’d pulled her dressing gown tight around her slim frame and was jutting her head out. “How do you know it’s a woman?”
Rob regretted telling her that. The DSI would be incredibly pissed off if he found out. “DNA found at one of the crime scenes.”
“But you don’t know for sure? You can’t know for sure.” Her voice rose sever
al notches.
“No, we don’t know for sure, but we’re pretty certain it’s a female killer.”
Yvette looked like she was trying to push herself back into the wall. “What if this woman comes after you?” she said.
“She won’t. She doesn’t even know I’m in charge of the case.”
“It’s in the papers. All she has to do is look.”
“But we haven’t released any information on the killer. Nowhere does it say we’re looking for a woman — so please don’t tell anyone,” he added, as a precaution.
Her eyes blazed and for a moment she looked like the old Yvette. “Of course I won’t. I don’t talk about your cases. You never tell me anything, anyway.”
“I’m telling you now.”
She pouted and reached into her pocket for her cigarettes. She lit one, took a drag and exhaled. “I’m scared, Rob. I don’t like this. What if she finds out you’re hunting her and comes after you?”
“She won’t.” Rob sat down on a kitchen chair. God, he was tired. He’d spent most of the afternoon looking into Doug Bartlett’s background. He’d been arrested as a kid for mugging an old man, then he’d progressed to burglary and assault, followed by his period of incarceration, and for the last six months he’d been working for a construction company as a forklift driver, among other things. Tomorrow morning he was going to speak to Bartlett’s boss. “You’re overreacting.”
That was it. Yvette gave him a cold look, tossed her hair back and stormed upstairs. Rob leaned back and sighed. He knew she was frightened, but there wasn’t much he could do about it other than reassure her nothing was going to happen. Last year had been a one-off, an anomaly, an unfortunate incident. He caught lots of criminals — they didn’t all come after him, or his wife. Wearily, he got a beer out of the fridge and went to sit in the lounge. There was no dinner. Yvette hadn’t cooked. He’d make himself a sandwich later.
He was just resting his head back on the headrest when his phone buzzed. It was DS Bird.
“Hi, Jenny.”
“Guv, you’re not going to believe this.”