by K Leitch
Anyway enough speculating, the whole morning had been a complete waste of time apart of course for the juicy bit of information that she now had to share with Maggie…oh boy she was just going to love this!
CHAPTER 30
Vanessa looked around at the little group of ‘am dram’ students that sat in the dusty church hall waiting for their teacher Andrea to arrive, she was late again!
Andrea was one of those flaky, arty types that lived in her own time frame, drifting from one thing to another with a seriously irritating lack of any urgency. She even spoke in an abstracted drawn out way that just made you want to finish her sentence for her; it had taken ages to enrol for these classes simply because Vanessa couldn’t stop Andrea from talking. She had given Vanessa a script for the play that they would be putting on at the end of the term. Andrea had written the script herself, a fact that she felt the need to mention a number of times.
‘It is my take on how we are corrupted as a society, by capitalism and greed,’ she had said importantly. Vanessa thought it was more like a badly written, puerile version of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ meets ‘Finding Nemo’…but she had nodded at her and said all the right things, or enough anyway for Andrea to think she had another fan.
The woman herself finally arrived, trailing scarves and bags behind her.
‘Sorry everyone,’ she said as she piled a multitude of bags onto the little stage at the back of the hall, ‘I got caught in the traffic coming out of Kenley…a lorry trying to turn round in that tiny street…can you imagine.’
She spent another few minutes rummaging around in her enormous bag, mumbling to herself, ‘I know there in here somewhere…oh don’t tell me I’ve left them at home…oh how stupid…ah here they are.’ Before producing an enormous pair of glasses, which she put on the end of her nose and stared round at the little group looking for all the world like Mr Magoo. Vanessa heard a giggle next to her and turned to smile at her companion, a young girl of about nine or ten, who looked back at her guiltily.
‘I think she needed the glasses, to find the glasses,’ whispered Vanessa making the girl smile again and then drop her head shyly.
‘Right,’ said Andrea at last, ‘have you all read through your scripts?’ The group all nodded and one of them (Selina Scrimpshaw, who was obviously the ‘suck up’ of the group) piped up with, ‘And may I say Andrea that I thought it was a work of genius, the way that you have portrayed the miseries of the world as a rabbit was, I thought, especially clever.’
Andrea, not one to hide her light under a bushel, smiled serenely, ‘Thank you Selena, I have to say that was one of my more inspired ideas…many people have commented on that.’ She turned to the group again, ‘Now I know many of you younger girls will be wanting to play Hermione the beautiful princess, but there is only one part, so I will be auditioning after the lesson today, and may I remind you that there are many other parts all equally important. So why don’t we spend this session reading through with partners so that I can get a feel for which part belong to which person. Let’s start with you Gregory, and your partner can be…’ she looked owl like round the room until her gaze settled on a rather nervous looking woman who had been keeping her head down in the back. ‘Mary…come on Mary, you come and sit next to Gregory…that’s it don’t be shy, good good. The rest of you pair up and choose a character to read and I will walk amongst you to see how you are getting on.’
Vanessa smiled to herself and turned to the little girl next to her.
‘Well I think I want to be Countess Vonderbot, how about you…no don’t tell me Princess Hermione.’
The girl blushed and nodded, ‘I’ve been practicing all night…I know all the words off by heart,’ she stammered.
‘Well that beats me,’ Vanessa said, ‘I only looked at the script this morning before I came, so perhaps you can help me? I’m Sally by the way, what’s your name?’ she held out her hand.
‘Rosemary,’ the girl said shaking Vanessa’s hand, ‘Rosemary Right but you can call me Rosie, everybody does.’
‘Well Rosie it’s nice to meet you, and I think you would make a perfect Princess Hermione, so let’s practice your lines again so that you can knock spots off the rest of them this afternoon.’
Rosie nodded enthusiastically, and soon the two had their heads together.
‘Sally’ waited around with Rosie to help her through the auditions and was the first to give her a high five when she got her dream part.
So it was a glowing Rosie that James picked up later from outside the hall in Godstone, full of how she had sailed through the auditions all with the help of her new friend Sally.
CHAPTER 31 – CARLA
‘Shit!...oh jees…’ said Jay walking round the remains of the man tied to the wall of the derelict building.
Carla had received a call from the DI in Redbank police headquarters just as she had been leaving to go home. A man, walking his dog along a footpath near a disused engineering work shop had discovered the gruesome remains of yet another victim.
‘Thought you’d like in on this one Carla,’ said DI Steve Lucton when he had phoned. ‘It looks like our girl has struck again I’m afraid…it’s a bloody mess.’
Technically this murder had been committed outside of Carla’s area, but nearly all of the Surrey and Kent police forces were aware of the hunt for this killer so mutual co-operation was vital.
The murdered man had been tortured and emasculated before a single bullet had nearly taken his head off. The same M.O. as the others, but it seemed that this had been a much more frenzied attack. Stab wounds covered his entire body almost cutting through to the bone in some places; his skin had been torn from his stomach and chest where he had been flayed with a spiked leather whip of some sort and a couple of his fingers had been cut off.
All of this was very worrying; it seemed almost as if he or she had needed to use even more savagery to appease whatever it was that was driving them. It was like an addict that needed ever increasing doses of a drug to get the same high. Carla just couldn’t imagine what more their killer could do to these men…it didn’t bear thinking about, this maniac had to be caught and fast!
‘Carla…over here,’ shouted Frank from near the door of the building; she went over to where he and Jay were crouching over something on the ground.
‘Looks like our killer’s getting careless,’ said Frank with a big smile on his face. On the ground, half hidden by the dust on the floor was a man’s wallet, it had fallen open onto the ground and Carla could see without touching it the picture of a man on a driving licence, several credit cards and some crumpled money stuffed into the back.
‘Well, well, well,’ Carla returning Frank’s smile, ‘at least we know who we’re dealing with this time and we can trace his recent whereabouts with his credits card,’ she put on a pair of gloves and picked up the wallet, the name on the driving licence said ‘Warren James’, she looked at the photo of a handsome smiling man…and then at the bloody mess in the corner…what sort of animal was capable of destroying a man like that, and what sort of anger was driving them?
She took the wallet over to DI Lucton, ‘Not so clever this time was she Steve…the silly cow left this behind.’
Steve took the wallet and looked carefully at the name on the driving licence.
‘Well that is interesting,’ he said looking thoughtfully at Carla, ‘we’ve been trying to get hold of Mr James for about a week now, left him umpteen messages at his flat and on his phone, guess now we know why he didn’t get back to us don’t we?’
Carla snorted, ‘Can’t get a much better excuse than that for avoiding the police I suppose,’ she said nodding towards the body on the floor. ‘What had he done anyway?’
‘Oh nothing as far as I’m aware,’ Steve began, ‘no it was a lady friend of his that we were trying to find. Apparently she assaulted one of the waitresses at a restaurant where they had been having a meal…knocked her about quite a bit then stabbed her…punctured her lung.
Poor girl was a mess, but she was adamant that it was Mr James’s dining companion that had attacked her. I mean she could be wrong of course, she was rambling a bit when I spoke to her…she’d had a nasty blow to the head, but anyway the only name we had was his and like I said we couldn’t get hold of him so…’
‘My god Steve that could be her, the woman I mean, she could be our killer…when did the attack take place?’
Steve thought for a moment and then called over to his sergeant, a pretty dark haired woman who was questioning the man that had found the body, ‘Lindy! When was that girl attacked… which night, can you remember?’
DS Lindy Ford came over, smiling at Carla as she did so, ‘Hi Carla, when did you turn up?’
Carla and Lindy had trained together and were old friends, ‘Lindy Ford…fancy meeting you here…how are you love?’
‘Oh you know the usual, man trouble, money trouble but on the up side I lost 10lbs last month, I’m doing the Atkins diet you know all meat and no carbs, it’s hard but…’
‘Well you are definitely looking good on it love, even in that paper suit and they are just so unflattering. You should hear Dorothy going on about it…’
‘Bloody hell you two, if I listen to this much longer I’ll be growing a uterus,’ interrupted Steve, ‘can we just concentrate on the job at hand please,’ he looked sternly from one girl to the other, they both nodded shamefacedly.
‘Thank you…now Lindy what the Detective Inspector here would like to know is when was that poor girl attacked…you know the waitress, Tina something…which night?’
‘Thursday,’ said Lindy, ‘I know that for sure because that was meant to be my night off but I had to work because someone…’ she looked pointedly at Steve, ‘asked me to swap shifts so that he could get some action…remember?’
‘Oh yeah right, ok so Thursday that’s about a week then…’
Dorothy Smiles the coroner turned up a few minutes later and confirmed that the man had been dead for about a week.
Carla and Steve looked at each other, ‘Right,’ said Carla, ‘we need to talk to the waitress and anyone at the restaurant that may have seen our couple.’
‘Can we look through the police report on the incident?’ said Frank when Carla had brought them up to speed.
‘Was this girl examined by a medical examiner,’ said Jay coming over, ‘I mean do you guys do that over here?’
Carla just gave him a look, ‘Of course we do that, we are quite civilized you know, we even have proper doctors and everything. And yes I assume she would have been but you’ll need to ask DS Ford for the details, she was the officer in charge that night.’
Despite this not being Carla’s patch, Steve was happy to let her lead the investigation as her team already had so much information to go on.
‘Just catch this nasty bitch Carla,’ he had said as his team packed up to leave them to it.
Carla had just nodded grimly at him, before speaking to Dorothy who had finished her preliminary examination of the body.
Death was caused, as before, by a gunshot wound to the head, but in this instance it seemed the bullet was still lodged in the skull somewhere, which might mean that they could identify the gun that had fired it. Carla gave Dorothy the wallet to bag up and noticed for the first time that there was some blood on the edge of it, it was probably the victim’s but you never know they may get lucky.
Once they had talked to Dorothy and had a last look around the scene, Carla, Frank and Jay made their way back to the station. They had all clocked off earlier but Carla wanted to go through everything that they had so far before they went home.
She called everyone concerned into the incident room where a whiteboard had been erected and pictures of all the dead men had been stuck onto it with various facts written about each man and lines drawn to indicate any links that had been found.
Some of those links were very clear, namely the way they had all died and the various forms of torture they had all suffered. But more helpful links were now appearing, like the fact that all the men had been drugged with the same drug, Rohypnol, and all the men had at one time been looking for love, just the fact that they were all divorced now seemed significant, it was becoming obvious that these men had been targeted specifically, so even the smallest of details could be important.
Dorothy had indicated a reason for the use of Rohypnol as the killer’s drug of choice. ‘It’s not called the date rape drug for nothing,’ she had said, ‘anyone ingesting this drug, would still be capable of walking for a short distance and be so disorientated that they would be pretty malleable for a while, long enough for our killer to get them to and from a car and then undressed and tied up. They would also be aware of everything that was happening to them, but be incapable of doing anything to stop it…it’s a horrible drug, the stuff of nightmares,’ she had finished with a shudder.
There was an air of excitement as Carla called the team to order this evening though, word of the waitress’s assault had gone round and it finally felt as if they may be on the verge of a breakthrough at last.
‘Ok everybody listen up,’ shouted Carla over the hum of conversation. ‘As you may or may not have heard a wallet was found at the crime scene belonging to a Mr Warren James of 26 Lime Street, Redbank. Tomorrow, Frank and Jay, I want you to go round to Mr James’s residence and see if we can shed any light on who this woman is that he’s been seeing. Midge and Sam you can go to his office, he worked for an accountancy firm in Epsom…um…Linden and Sons…see if he mentioned anything about her to anyone there, maybe someone from his office had already met her you never know…we need to find a name. I will be meeting DS Ford and we will be talking to the waitress that was assaulted…Mandy has that police report been sent over yet?’
‘Not yet Ma’am,’ said Mandy looking up from her screen, ‘but I guess we won’t get it till the morning now.’
‘Ok well when you do I need a couple of copies made ok?’ Mandy gave her the thumbs up.
‘DS Ford and I will then be going over to the restaurant but first I need you…Trevor, and take Carole with you, I need you to find out ASAP if there are any cameras anywhere near that restaurant and if there are we need the tapes here ok? Right any questions?’
‘Any news on the websites yet Ma’am, have we come up with any matches…you know the same face coming up on each computer?’
‘I’ll let Jay answer that one…Jay.’ Said Carla as her mobile started to ring.
Jay walked up to the whiteboard. ‘It seems like it’s almost impossible to get any information out of these companies, these guys seem to be governed by some pretty ball busting privacy laws and any data they do have they routinely get rid of every few weeks…so basically what we have is what’s on the guy’s computers and so far it’s all pretty random. I mean they were all dating but there are no similar women on two different websites as far as we can tell, but then not all these women have posted photos on their profile…you would not believe how many women don’t post a picture…’
‘Well if you saw the state of some of them you wouldn’t be surprised,’ Frank laughed, ‘talk about mingers are us.com…’
‘Oh yeh and how would you know Frankie,’ shouted Mandy over the laughter, ‘been getting some internet pussy have we?’
This caused more laughter with Frank belligerently trying to deny that he had any need to resort to the internet.
‘Right,’ said Carla coming back in after her phone call and trying to get everyone’s attention. ‘I’ve just had Dorothy on the phone again, there was a tyre track found not far from the crime scene, looks pretty fresh so forensics have made a cast of it…what with the wallet and now this looks like our killer is getting a bit sloppy so let’s make the most of it. I want you two, Jackie and Max, to start knocking on doors first thing tomorrow morning, someone must have heard or seen something, this building is only half a mile or so from ‘Buttercup’ and there are always kids hanging around those old buildings.
‘Mandy you keep at it with the credit card companies and check out that gym membership card as well…you never know maybe he talked to someone there about any women he was seeing, maybe he even took her there…I know, I know, it’s not my idea of a good date either but it takes all sorts maybe this woman is a fitness freak, who knows, check it out anyway. Ok you lot, that’s it for tonight, but I need you back here bright and early and full of ideas tomorrow, so get a good night’s sleep ok?’
That produced more laughter and a few more calls to Frank, ‘Not to spend too many hours on his computer’, as the team all went their different ways.
Carla pulled into her drive half an hour later; she took a deep breath as she tried to dispel the awful images that she had witnessed earlier. She could see James through the kitchen window; he had obviously given up waiting for her to get home for dinner and was clearing plates into the dish washer, talking to Rosie as he did so. Looking at her husband and daughter Carla was filled with such a rush of love for them both and such a feeling of gratitude that she had this wonderful family to come home to. Still feeling euphoric, she walked into the kitchen and wrapped her arms around James and gave him a hug, Rosie gave her mum a smile ‘hello’ and went into the living room.
‘Sorry I’m so late darling; something came up just as I was leaving,’ she said kissing James on the cheek; he just raised his eyebrows.
‘Well if we had a dog, dinner would be in it I’m afraid,’ he said rather tersely. ‘Did you forget that Rosie needed picking up from Godstone hall this evening, I told you this morning that I had a meeting in Redbank and couldn’t do it…as it was I had to leave the meeting early to go and get her…’
‘Oh god I’m so sorry,’ said Carla mortified, she had completely forgotten. ‘I would have been home in plenty of time, but another body was found and…’
‘Yes well there’s always a good reason why you can’t make it Carla, but I wish that you had called me if you were going to be late, I could have asked Tracy or someone…as it was Rosie tried calling your mobile, but couldn’t get through so eventually she called me…’