by Mark Roberts
Norma looked at Francesca, whose eyes were fixed on a point in the distance, and said, ‘That’s better. You’re smiling. I’m joking with you. Now go wash your face and sell some houses for me.’
At the door of Norma’s office, Francesca stopped and turned on hearing, ‘Fran? Make Mine The Moon. Brad Howard and Elaine Tomeski. It’s on at the Odeon in Liverpool One. I think I might treat myself. Are you interested?’
‘I’ve seen it.’ Not a beat of hesitation. ‘They were better in The Fourth Wish.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘Norma, I really am sorry about using your laptop for non-work-related purposes.’
‘Don’t apologise. Just don’t do it again, Fran.’
There was no sign of blood in Francesca Christie’s knuckles as she grasped the handle of Norma Maguire’s door to open it.
‘Keep safe, Fran. Promise me. Keep safe.’
7
9.46 am
‘I called the pathologist in Warrington about the autopsy on Sandra O’Day in the River Irwell,’ said Doctor Lamb.
As Clay walked from the gowning room into Autopsy Suite 1, she felt the flickering of a faulty overhead fluorescent light, which induced a tightness beneath the top of her skull.
Doctor Lamb looked at Clay, read her eyes, and glanced up at the faulty light above them. She turned to her ATP and said, ‘Harper, please turn that light off or we’ll all be going home with migraines.’
‘What did the pathologist from Warrington come up with, Doctor Lamb?’ asked Detective Sergeant Bill Hendricks from the theatre viewing gallery.
The intensity of light in the autopsy suite dimmed and Clay stood at the foot of the aluminium board on which lay Annie Boyd’s disfigured corpse.
Doctor Lamb looked at Hendricks, a tall man with dark cropped hair and eyes full of sharp intelligence, and addressed him.
‘First of all, whoever’s done this is skilled at what they’re doing. In the case of Sandra O’Day, the scalping and removal of facial tissue was done with infinite care and skill.’ Doctor Lamb shone torchlight over the dead woman’s jawline, at the cleanest of cuts. ‘Just like in this case. Cause of death, strangulation. There’s a note on Sandra O’Day’s autopsy report. An NB. Warrington Police know that she met the man who murdered her through an internet dating site called Pebbles On The Beach. They learned this from a forensic search of her laptop. Her iPhone was never recovered.’
Clay looked at the young woman and despite the faulty light now being off, she felt the sensation in her head tighten up a notch.
This raises the possibility, thought Clay, processing a jet-black thought, that there are other, undiscovered victims in the north-west of England. And most certainly, there will be more to come.
‘Doctor Lamb, if the person doing these scalpings was a football team, where would you place them?’
‘Top of the English Premiership, potential European champions.’
Clay made a mental note to ask DC Cole to trawl through the missing persons of other constabularies in the north-west of England in search of blonde females, in their twenties, who’d gone missing and had not reappeared.
‘Have you ever come across anything like this in the past, Doctor Lamb?’ asked Hendricks.
Doctor Lamb turned her torch off and looked to the viewing gallery.
‘I’ve seen countless body parts taken for trophies, some taken with care, many taken with savage brutality. But, no. I’ve never seen scalping and facial tissue removal on this scale.’
Doctor Lamb stooped and placed her face close to the discoloured marks that ran around the flesh on the woman’s throat just beneath the red raw muscle where her face had once been. Clay observed her counting down silently from five to one.
Standing to her full height, Doctor Lamb looked directly at Clay.
‘Same pattern as Warrington. The two marks that you can see at the centre of her throat are the bruises from his thumbprints. The four marks I’ll show you either side of the centre back of her neck just below the place where her hairline was, they’re the perpetrator’s finger marks. The scalping was performed post-mortem.’
The news came as a crumb of comfort to Clay but she was compelled to ask, ‘Are you one hundred per cent sure of that, Doctor Lamb?’
‘If she was alive when this was done, the person who did it would have to have had access to extremely powerful anaesthetics, which places the hunt for the killer directly in the NHS or in a pharmaceutical company. I’ll be able to tell if she’s been given an anaesthetic. In the Warrington case, Sandra O’Day wasn’t.’
Harper lifted the woman’s head from the table and Clay saw the fingerprints either side of her neck, the bluntness of the dark marks and the comparatively large thumbprints at her throat. In her mind, she made a pair of hands strangling thin air and worked out the position of the killer to his victim.
‘Base of her neck,’ said Clay, ‘is his baby finger. Rising up, next finger’s his ring, middle finger next sticking well out of the group and at the top of the line it’s his index finger. My hunch is he’d turned her into mental rubble in the days he held her captive and strangled her face to face. Up close and personal and looking right into her eyes as he squeezed the life from her.’
She looked at the network of interconnected muscles where the woman’s face should have been and focused on her eyes bulging from their sockets, shocked in death and without the tender mercy of her eyelids to block out the gaze of strangers.
Clay turned back to see Doctor Lamb looking at a colour photograph of Sandra O’Day on the board in another autopsy suite and then at Annie Boyd’s body on the board in front of her.
Doctor Lamb looked at Clay and, through over a hundred encounters in the autopsy suite with her, she was pretty certain what was running through the pathologist’s mind.
‘I know,’ said Clay. ‘I know. He needs to be caught before he does this again. I’ll do everything in my power to do just that, Doctor Lamb.’
Harper combed Annie’s torso with torchlight, starting at the top and working his way down. He hummed a tuneless song through clenched lips, his eyes riveted to the illumination on her skin.
‘The past. Straight off, can you see any differences this time to the Warrington victim, Doctor Lamb?’
‘No.’
Clay pictured Annie’s mother and father sitting in the public gallery as this information emerged in court and felt a weight like a paving stone sink to the core of her being.
She imagined the months and years following, their sleepless nights as the information played out in their heads, each time the horror never diminishing, each time falling further down a bottomless pit of grief.
‘I’ll confirm the cause of death as strangulation by taking out her larynx and hyoid bone. Deep tissue contusion and fracture damage to the laryngeal bone will confirm the external evidence of strangulation. Then, we’ll have to open her up and assess the contents of her stomach and internal damage, if any.’
Clay’s iPhone vibrated on a nearby aluminium table, rattling the metal with each pulse.
‘Better get it, Eve,’ said Doctor Lamb.
She saw COLE on display, connected the call.
‘Barney?’
‘I’ve had a call from DCI Dave Ferguson, SIO on the Sandra O’Day case in Warrington. He wants to know when you’d like him to travel in to see you?’
‘Ask him when he can make it in.’
‘I already have done. He can be there in three hours.’
‘Tell him I’ll be there and thank you very much.’
As she placed her iPhone back on the aluminium table, there was a tentative knock on the door. A middle-aged man in blue scrubs entered the autopsy suite carrying a brown envelope in his hands, trying hard to look anywhere except at the dead woman on the table.
‘I’m William Wilson,’ he said. ‘I’m Annie Boyd’s dentist.’
His compulsion to see overwhelmed his instinct to look away. Clay drank in the expression on the
dentist’s face as he looked at Annie’s body with growing horror and disbelief.
‘Jesus,’ said the dentist. ‘Poor woman. Poor Annie. My God.’
‘When did you last see her, Mr Wilson?’ asked Clay.
‘Last week. Tuesday. I whitened her teeth.’
Pearly whites, for the benefit of the man who went on to kill you, thought Clay.
‘What’s in the envelope, Mr Wilson?’ asked Clay, showing him her warrant card.
‘My notes on Annie’s teeth and her dental X-Rays.’
‘Can you send a copy of your notes to Detective Constable Barney Cole at Trinity Road police station, please.’
‘Harper,’ said Doctor Lamb. ‘Show Mr Wilson her teeth.’
As Harper pulled her mouth open, the dentist approached, looked closely at the dead woman’s teeth for many moments.
‘It’s Annie Boyd. She had a V-shaped indentation on her upper left canine.’ He turned to Doctor Lamb. ‘Do you have access to a mobile X-Ray machine?’
‘I’ll request one from the Dental Hospital.’
‘I’ll confirm it beyond any doubt using that.’
‘William,’ said Clay. ‘I’m going to have to communicate this information to family liaison. They’re going to have to break it to her parents…’
‘In my view, it’s definitely her, DCI Clay.’
‘How long will you be working on Annie, Doctor Lamb?’ asked Clay.
Harper resumed his torchlit inspection of the surface of Annie Boyd’s skin.
‘I estimate eight hours,’ replied Doctor Lamb. ‘But I’ll flag up anything significant that comes to light directly to you.’
Clay looked around the autopsy suite, saw that there had been changes to the specimen jars. A human brain darkened by syphilis had been replaced by a twenty-week-old foetus floating eternally in formaldehyde. Gone were the lungs lined with asbestos and in was a damaged heart, swollen and diseased by decades of cigarettes.
Babies and lonely hearts, thought Clay. Life and loneliness, as she headed for the dressing room to remove her blue scrubs and white rubber boots.
‘Eve!’
Clay stopped at the door leading into the dressing room, turned and looked at Doctor Lamb.
‘Good luck,’ said Doctor Lamb.
Clay felt a cold electricity down her spine, as if someone were standing on the spot where she would one day be buried.
8
10.45 am
In the staff restaurant of the Stanley Abattoir, Edgar McKee watched Wren as he opened his Captain Cyclone lunch box. Across the table from his new charge, Edgar drank coffee from a disposable cup and weighed Wren up.
There was no visible emotion in the teenager’s face, no change in colour from the moment they had met and in the hours they had worked together, showing him what to do and what not to do, explaining the hygiene issues and the correct working techniques.
‘Captain Cyclone?’ asked Edgar. ‘That’s one superhero I’ve never heard of.’
‘Why should you have heard of him? He only exists here.’ Wren touched the side of his head.
‘You made him up?’
Wren nodded.
‘And painted the lunch box?’ The artwork looked professional and polished. ‘You’re a great artist, Wren.’
Edgar looked into the lunch box and saw two double-finger Kit-Kats sitting neatly in line with two Cheese Straws with two small white triangular ham sandwiches, without crusts, next to two Petits Filous yogurts.
Wren picked out one of the ham sandwiches and, lifting it close to his nose, sniffed it and plunged it whole into his mouth.
‘Won’t you get hungry this afternoon if you eat your packed lunch now?’
‘No,’ replied Wren, chewing slowly, the food packed into the left-hand side of his mouth. He swallowed, looked directly at Edgar and then back into his lunch box. Taking the second ham sandwich from the box, Wren sniffed it and stuck it into his mouth, eating on the right-hand side of his mouth. ‘I always eat my lunch at a quarter to eleven in the morning.’
‘Two of everything, Wren?’
‘Pairs. Even numbers. Don’t like odd.’
‘Fair enough. What you’ve been learning from me hasn’t put you off your food?’
‘No. Why should it?’
‘You didn’t look a bit bothered.’
‘I don’t like animals, Edgar. A dog bit me when I was five. A horse kicked me when I was seven. Therefore I do not like animals. This is literal. This is logical. The body is a machine, sinew, muscle, bone. Like the animals who walk in here and are carted off in various juicy cuts. There is nothing to be sorry for. There is nothing to fear. I told this to Mr MacArthur, Dad’s boss, when he interviewed me for the apprenticeship. He told me I was unlike sentimental people of my own age and shook hands with me immediately on the deal.’
Wren looked around the staff restaurant and asked, ‘Why?’
‘Why what, Wren?’
‘Why does everyone who works here have tattoos?’
‘Not everyone who works here has tattoos. You don’t have tattoos, do you?’
‘Do you have one, Edgar?’
‘Just the one. For my mother. She’s dead and gone.’
‘My mother died also. It was an awful cancerous thing, Edgar McKee. But it doesn’t mean I have to tattoo me.’
Edgar saw something melt in Wren. He held up a fist and bumped his knuckles into the flesh and bone of Wren’s clenched hand.
He laughed and Wren smiled back at him.
‘Are you going to be with me all day, Edgar?’
‘I’ve got to slip off to make a phone call later this morning.’ Edgar saw tension flash through Wren’s face. ‘But I’m going to tell your father just how well you’re doing, and just how clever you are.’
Wren beamed with happiness.
‘I’ve got some time off booked this afternoon. I don’t think you should be left alone in the abattoir. I’ve got to go on a message. I’ll speak to your father. I’ll drop you off at home after I’ve been on my message. You live in Gateacre, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Would you like to come with me for the ride? How does that sound?’
‘Sounds great. Thanks, Edgar. What car?’
Wren peeled and bent a Cheese Straw, and popped it into his mouth, mashing the food between his teeth on the same side of his mouth as he had chewed the first ham sandwich. Edgar had no doubt the second Cheese Straw would be devoured on the other side.
‘Not a car, Wren. A white van. It’s nice to sit up high and look down on the tops of people’s heads. Eat up, Wren. Soon we have to go back to work.’
Edgar leaned closer into Wren and whispered, ‘Wren, I need to know everything there is to know about Captain Cyclone. Who are the good guys?’
‘The good guys are the enemies of the enemy agents,’ said Wren.
‘Damn it to hell, I knew it!’ replied Edgar. ‘Tell me more. Tell me everything there is to know, Wren!’
Edgar watched a light go on inside Wren and it caused his eyes to shine.
‘Wren, start at the beginning and don’t leave anything out. I get you. In the name of Captain Cyclone, I get you every single step of the way.’
9
10.48 am
DCI Eve Clay stepped back from the doorstep of 358 Melbreck Road and looked up at the bay window at the front of the house, and the smaller one next to it. She imagined the atmosphere behind the front door.
As she waited for the bell to be answered, she looked over her shoulder at the white Honda Civic parked outside and recognised it as family liaison officer Sergeant Samantha Green’s car.
The front door opened and Green spoke in little more than a whisper.
‘Hello, Eve.’
‘What did you tell them, Samantha?’
‘I showed them the images of the mole and the bluebird tattoo on her arms. She had the tattoo done when she just turned eighteen. It caused merry hell when she came home with it. I told them they were from
a body discovered in the River Mersey when the tide was out. Her father identified the mole and tattoo as Annie’s.’
Clay stepped over the doorstep and closed the front door as quietly as possible.
‘When did you have this conversation?’
‘Half an hour ago. Her mother’s upstairs with their GP. He’s given her a sedative. I’m in the living room with her father.’
Clay heard a brief bout of sobbing from behind the closed door of the living room, and felt something merciless spear her heart.
‘Are the results back from the dental records, Eve?’
‘Her dentist came to the mortuary. Mobile X-Ray. It’s Annie. End of.’
On the wall to the right of the living room door were three framed pictures. Annie as a ten-year-old girl in a school photograph. Annie as a proud young woman wearing a black mortar board and gown. Annie at the centre front row of thirty junior school children, smiling and at ease around their young form teacher.
The beginning, middle and end of a brief life in education.
‘Her parents worship her, Eve,’ said Green.
Clay nodded, knocked on the door.
‘Come in…’ A voice from the void.
Clay entered the room, saw a thick-set man in his late fifties sitting bolt upright in a black leather armchair.
‘Bobby,’ said Sergeant Green.
‘Yeah?’ He stared ahead of himself into the middle of the room.
‘This is Detective Chief Inspector Eve Clay. I’m going into the kitchen to make a cup of tea.’
As Sergeant Green closed the door, Clay made her way to the sofa and picked out the best place to get an eyeline with Bobby Boyd. The silence in the house was broken by a sudden hopeless sobbing that leaked down into the room through the ceiling.
‘Bobby?’
‘I want to go to the mortuary. I want to see my daughter.’ He looked directly into Clay’s eyes. ‘Is there any way another young woman could have the same mole in the same place and the same tattoo. I mean, is it definitely her?’
‘The dental records have confirmed for certain that it’s her.’