Flesh Evidence: a heart-stopping crime thriller

by Malcolm Hollingdrake

  “We’re close, my young friend, very close. Then, for you, it has ended but for us, the game will truly begin.”

  ***

  Detective Sergeant David Owen carried two coffees into Cyril’s office, one in a mug that Cyril suggested bore more stains than a neglected public urinal and the other in a bone china cup and saucer. A sheaf of papers was wedged between his teeth.

  “Have you any idea as to the number of soiled hands that have held those papers, Owen?”

  David Owen had always been known as Owen since Police College as there were a number of students named David on the course. Many people now assumed it to be his Christian name.

  Owen simply removed the offending papers and smiled, moving his lips as if ascertaining the answer from the taste. He lifted his shoulders. “I’m getting a touch of sweat maturing into a slight sense on the palate of urine…no, that might be the fried bread I had for breakfast.” He simply smiled at his boss. “You’ve got to eat some dirt every day to enhance the immune system. That’s what my grandmother always said.”

  “Right!” Cyril looked at Owen’s huge frame and thought that she might have been right. They had now worked together for at least five years and although they were like chalk and cheese, they made a formidable team, Owen, in Cyril’s mind, was as keen as mustard and a bloody good copper even though he always looked as though he had entered through a hedge backwards and not through the office door.

  “We have a record of a Fair not far from Knutsford but it was the week prior to Joseph Fairclough’s disappearance and we have a large Ferris Wheel and a few carrousel rides at Liverpool One, a large shopping centre that was opened in 2008. Busy at that time of the year, very busy.”

  “So we’ve a connection with some sort of Fair for every missing youngster. Surely the connection was made during the initial investigation on each occasion?”

  Owen nodded.

  “And nothing?”

  Owen shook his head.

  Cyril cupped his hands and looked across at Owen. His focus was aimed at small drops of coffee that fell from Owen’s mug onto his soiled tie. He tapped the desk. Owen looked down and noticed the coffee. He lifted his tie and sucked it totally unaware of Cyril’s expression of disgust.

  “I want all the reports regarding these fairs and I want them by tomorrow. I also want the names of any known paedophiles from all the areas mentioned. ”

  Cyril checked his watch, lifted it to his ear then shook it before checking it again. “I’ve an appointment with a Black Sheep in fifteen minutes. Let’s say that she’s an alcoholic extract of hops with a bit of yeast and water…could, if you’re not careful, make you sick!” He grinned. “Want to meet her?”

  “Love to.” Owen could always murder a pint on a Friday.

  Chapter Four

  Late August 2015

  Donna Mather had seen enough of the school summer holidays to know that enough was clearly enough and even though the sun was shining and a laughing throng of people surrounded her, the thought of another two weeks of the kids at home clouded her mood. All she really wanted to do was curl up and weep. As a child she had looked forward to the long summer holidays with eagerness, not that she spent much time in school in her teenage years; given half a chance she would find any opportunity to abscond. Roaming the shopping precinct had held greater attractions, but now she had kids, it was all so very different. Time at home brought out their worst, they were always under her feet, always demanding this or that, squabbling over the most trivial things. It simply brought her to the end of her limited patience.

  Donna looked at the six year old pulling her towards the trestle table that looked precariously full of home made cakes. Tears crawled in her eyes. A crusty cry constantly hanging in her small, whinging throat only matched the congealed snot that seemed a permanent feature beneath her right nostril. Donna had now decided that she no longer hated the long summer holiday; at this moment in her young life, she found that she loathed this compulsory time together. Infanticide had crossed her mind on more than one occasion but then she felt weak and hated herself even more for considering it.

  She grumbled under her breath as the tug-o’-war with the little one continued. Where Kylie, her eight year old was, God only knew. Donna just wanted to join in with the younger child and scream her frustration at the top of her voice, cry real tears and if possible run…run as far away from this miserable life that she suddenly found claustrophobic and impossible.

  “Mum, mum!” Donna felt Kylie tug on her free arm. “Look what I’ve been given. He said he’d made it…its honey from bees and it’s all mine!”

  “Who gave you it?”

  “A nice man. He said if I gave him a kiss like the bees kiss flowers he’d give me a present. He gave me this.”

  Donna frowned quizzically and looked back in the direction from which she thought her daughter had come. Her heart leapt as Adele’s scream diminished. Her intense stare appeared to mute all her others senses. The area was full of people mingling at stalls. Donna’s eyes moved through the crowds looking at the men, focussing on each face. She had no idea what she was searching for, maybe someone looking in her direction, maybe a man carrying jars but nobody stood out.

  “What have I told you about strangers?” Donna’s voice was raised and a number of people turned disapprovingly in her direction. They saw her slap the child before grabbing the jar. The child crashed to the floor adding another scream to the mother-child conversation. The younger one stopped pulling and crying before moving close by her mother’s legs. She stared at her sister.

  “It’s mine, he gave it to me.”

  “Donna bent down whispering in her ear, “Wait till your stepdad hears what you’ve done, young lady. You’ll need more than honey to sweeten his temper.”

  Kylie stopped screaming and turned her gaze towards her mum. She moved her head from side to side, her eyes pleading.

  “Stop this tantrum and promise to share this.” She waved the honey jar as if she were offering a white flag with which to surrender. “Share it with your sister and we’ll say nothing else about it.”

  Kylie slowly got up. She nodded whilst holding out her hand for the jar.

  “Sorry!” she whispered.

  ***

  Kylie and Adele sat at the table in the kitchen.

  “We can all have some of my honey, even dad,” Kylie announced, as she looked at her mum, a thin, guilty smile on her small lips, hoping that the promise would be kept.

  The jar sat in front of Donna who read the hand-written label, ‘Bees’ Kiss Yorkshire Honey, 2015’. She turned the jar and focussed on the amber contents. There seemed to be something written on the reverse of the label. She looked more closely; there was something in the jar. She had seen honeycombs in jars of honey before but this was not a comb. She twisted the lid and peered through the surface.

  “Can we put our fingers in?” Kylie asked as she pretended to lick her finger in anticipation.

  Donna leaned towards the children proffering the jar. Each child put in a finger and immediately popped its sticky, amber contents into their mouths. For the first time in what seemed an age Donna heard the girls laugh together. She too put her finger into the jar and laughed in concert.

  “Mummy this honey is so sweet and yummy.” They both laughed out loud. “It’s yummy mummy, yummy mummy.”

  “What’s going on in here?” Paul swayed into the kitchen.

  The laughter stopped as quickly as it had started as the children looked down at the table.

  “We all think this honey is mummy yummy honey, don’t we girls?” Donna chuckled, offering Paul the jar.

  They cautiously laughed again watching for their father’s facial clues.

  He leaned over and pushed his finger into the jar before licking it.

  “Mummy…that is yummy honey!” His demeanour surprised the girls.

  They all laughed. Donna looked on. She so wanted to capture the moment, a real family enjoying a simple
pleasure, her family; it was rare. Sometimes she caught a glimpse at Christmas if Paul was sober and maybe occasionally when on holiday but from a simple jar of honey? A sense of warmth swept through her as she looked at the laughing girls. A tear came to her eye.

  She picked up the jar. “There’s something in the honey, Honey.” She smiled and winked at her partner suggestively. “I don’t think it’s a honeycomb.” Donna held the jar to the light before passing it across the table.

  Paul took the jar and collected a fork. He put his finger in again and dotted a spot on the girls’ noses. They responded with a chuckle whilst looking at Donna for approval.

  “Get that with your tongues if you can, no hands mind, as I find out what’s in this …Yummy Hon…” He stopped speaking.

  He dropped the jar holding the object on the fork.

  “Jesus Christ!” he squealed and stepped back as if something had bitten him. He let the fork and the object fall onto the table. The girls instinctively cowered.

  Donna leaned away as the jar hit the table, the contents folding out of the jar’s gaping mouth, almost controlled and deliberate onto the table. The amber, viscous honey crawled slowly as if trying to recapture the roughly torn square of honey-covered flesh that lay a short distance away. The girls squealed too as the honey gradually dribbled from the skin’s surface, revealing the coloured markings of a section of tattoo that gradually became more visible as the mucilaginous fluid moved from the surface to spread around it like a golden moat. Donna’s involuntary gasp added to the children’s sudden fear.

  Chapter Five

  The spit seemed to bubble as it collided with the black surface. Cyril loaded the cloth with polish and rubbed the saliva and polish in circles. If he had a pound for every time he’d performed this evening ritual he’d be a wealthy man. The final buff of the shoes proved worthwhile; there was a real depth to the leather’s surface. He always bought his shoes with a polished binder, it gave him a head start in achieving the desired shine. His colleagues had always said that criminals could tell he was a copper by the shine on his shoes. He smiled at the thought.

  Shoe cleaning had always been a Sunday evening ritual at home as a child and the habit had stuck. He took a drink from the glass of Black Sheep before inhaling the sweet menthol vapour from the electronic cigarette. He glanced at the small painting on the wall. The dark mills looked gloomy, the tiny orange lights reflecting across the wet surface brought to mind an old case. Hades, he mouthed, Just above Hades. He shivered at the thought before moving to the window, a small cirrus cloud of vapour hung in his wake. He opened the Venetian blinds fully allowing light to flood the room. Robert Street was quiet. The sun illuminated the front gardens of the houses opposite; the yellow-coloured stone garden walls seemed to be absorbing the low sun’s soft hue. It had been a lovely summer’s day. He moved back placing the shoes on a rack before collecting the laptop bag that leaned against the wall.

  He opened the laptop and prepared to go through the files he had requested. He had been putting this off and yet he experienced a slight flutter of excitement. There had been something missed in the initial stages of the investigation he felt sure and now all he had to do was to find it.

  ***

  The gloved hand held the jar to the light and the trapped object slid as if in slow motion across the bottom of the jar. It was added to the other identical ones on the shelf. The hand turned them precisely so that the labels all faced in the same direction. Five remained. All would have gone had the child not drawn so much attention to herself, but there would be other opportunities tomorrow and the next day. Besides, what was the rush? More jars would be added to the shelf before the end of the week. They would hold the same contents but be addressed with a different label. The cupboard door was closed.

  ***

  The light drizzle had spoiled Cyril’s daily walk to Harrogate Police Station but the umbrella had at least kept him from the worst. He peered at his shoes. The polish had done its job; there was nothing that a tissue couldn’t solve. Cyril placed the saucer holding his china cup and a digestive biscuit onto the mat on his desk and set down his laptop before hanging up his jacket. Instinctively he straightened the objects on the desk whilst sipping his tea. He stared at the bagged object perched on the ‘in’ tray and raised an eyebrow. David Owen knocked on the door and entered.

  “Morning Sir. Good weekend?”

  Cyril continued to look at the object.

  Failing to get an answer, Owen tried a different tack. “Good brew, Sir?”

  “You’re blocking the light, Owen and yes to both questions. Do sit down and explain… this.” He nodded towards the object. “A present maybe from an admirer, is it evidence or am I required to give a sample?”

  Owen laughed. “It was a jar that contained honey. A rather distressed and upset chap brought it in. Contained also a piece of tattooed flesh.”

  Cyril nearly lost the contents of his mouth but managed to swallow the tea with a choking splutter. He turned to Owen whilst returning the cup to the saucer.

  “What?”

  “Skin, Sir, probably human, it might yet prove to be pig. It’s with Forensics at present along with the honey. The jar’s been checked but should remain bagged. They wanted you to look at the label, thought you’d be interested.”

  “What a good start to a wet Monday, an empty jar in a plastic bag.” Cyril recovered his composure and lifted the jar from the tray. He read the hand written label out loud, Bee’s Kiss Yorkshire Honey, 2015. He turned the jar and peered through the bag and the glass on the reverse of the label. “Is that a ‘V’, Owen?”

  “Either a ‘V’ or a Roman numeral for 5.” Owen felt Cyril’s eyes burn into his face. Why did he tell him what the Roman numeral corresponded to? He knew better, he had worked for him long enough.

  “If you look at the bottom left corner there are two faint letters, they are, and I’m accurately informed, ‘D’ and ‘Q’ and written in pencil.” Owen pointed with his finger in the general direction.

  “What was the tattoo?”

  “Looks like another letter, rather ornate, but there’s a small part missing suggesting that the flesh was torn rather than cut. There’s a high probability that it could have been torn away using teeth. We’ll know for sure once Forensics have played with it.”

  “And the letter?”

  “Another ‘V’ in a Gothic style. Looks more ‘O’ to me than ‘V’ having a scribble-type surrounding shadow but I’m assured it’s a ‘V’. Someone is chasing up the possible font.”

  “Where has the jar come from?” Cyril lifted his cup. “Are they sure its flesh?”

  Owen nodded. Cyril looked at the remains of his tea but decided to leave it.

  “Are you leaving that Digestive?” Owen asked, already leaning across the desk.

  Cyril offered the saucer to Owen whilst shaking his head. “Don’t drop crumbs.”

  It was too late; the whole biscuit had already vanished.

  “It was given to a child at the Summer Country Show held at the Yorkshire Showground yesterday. Report is there.” Owen pointed to the buff file. “Mother says the girl was given it by a man.” Owen put on a staged voice. “For a kiss like a bee.” He picked up the report and read the statement using the same tone. “If you kiss me like a bee kisses a flower, the exact words the little girl told her mum, whatever that means. “

  “Did the mother see the man?”

  Owen shook his head.”

  “You have a list of all the tradespeople at the show and all the local apiarists?”

  Owen stood and came round to Cyril’s computer. “May I?”

  Two lists appeared. There were three people linked with bees and honey. “They’re being questioned today. This list is of all the beekeepers. There were a good number of volunteers at the show and members of the Bee Keeping Associations can sell their own produce there. However, they don’t wander around swopping kisses with kids for a jar of contaminated honey. They also have t
o put their honey in 1lb or 12 oz jars and that, Sir, is neither.” Owen pointed to the jar. “It neither meets their standards of size nor labelling.”

  “The contents would also cause upset, I guess,” Cyril murmured.

  Chapter Six

  12th August 2015

  The choice of music was a conscious gesture that some might consider to be sensitive and caring, whilst others would argue that it was callous and controlling. Either way, the sound of Bring Him Home from Les Miserables echoed within the steel chamber as the gloved hand brushed Tony’s hair away from his now cold, pale forehead. His eyes didn’t move, they simply stared dimly into the unknown.

  “You will like this part, Tony,” a voice whispered reassuringly into his deaf ears. “Can’t hear me? But then you never could and that, my foolish, young friend, that was your fatal error. That is how you became my boy. Music blasting in your ears made my job so much easier.”

  The hand smoothed the dead flesh on Tony’s right inner forearm; even through the glove it felt cold and taut. Carefully Gaffer tape was wrapped around the elbow and then the wrist, already severely marked by weeks of straining against the tape that had secured the arm to the wooden commode. The corpse’s head lolled forward as if staring at the side table filled with strange, almost surgical pieces of equipment. Gel was squeezed onto the arm and smoothed onto the flesh bringing with it a light sheen. Next, a stencil was applied containing eight letters, each running into the other owing to the intricate surrounding shading. It was left for a moment to allow the ink to mark the skin. Once lifted, it was clear to see that the spirit master ink had been transferred. It was then time for the tattoo to be applied.

  “Like it so far Tony? It doesn’t look much now but you wait… after all, you’ve all the time in the world now, so be patient. You’ll like it and I’ll be gentle, you’ll not feel a thing, I promise.”