by SE Moorhead
He placed the mini-screen on the table, his eyes imploring. ‘I can’t let him get away, Kyra. I need to wrap this one up, especially before I call it a day with the job.’ He spoke into his Commset, ‘Detective Inspector Morgan …’ as he walked out of the door.
Kyra could hear the buzz of his deep voice in the hallway, but not make out any of the words he was saying. Despite her protestations, her mind was already turning over the details, still fresh even after fourteen years. Her brain warned her not to look, screamed for her not to get involved but, automatically, her finger reached out and started swiping at the screen.
The need to know was so strong, irresistible.
Images of an autopsy room, the horizontal shiny white tiles and dark grout that reminded her of the swimming baths when she was young, pulling on Emma’s armbands.
Her head started spinning.
Caylee Carmichael … female Caucasian … 160cms … aged twenty-four … identified via dental records … and …
Next there was a photograph of the body at the deposition site.
… distinctive features – scar on right shoulder, mole behind left ear, tiger tattoo on left thigh …
She swiped to the next photograph – the tattoo – the slightly blurred blue of old ink, the tiger’s claws drawn to look as though they had dug into the skin, three inscribed scratches.
Appendix and Caesarean scars …
Her stomach roller-coastered at the thought.
She swiped again – Caylee’s face unwrapped, expressionless, a bluish tinge to the eyelids and lips. Her porcelain skin was marked with striations from the tight banding of the duct tape which had been cut off by the scalpel and lay at the side of her head. Kyra could see clumps of dark hair stuck to it.
How dare Tom pollute her sanctuary by bringing these abhorrent images to her home – to the table she ate at! She would never be able to sit here again without thinking of these pictures.
But her heart went out to Caylee. That poor woman. The caesarean scar.
Why should she put herself through this? She didn’t owe Tom anything, did she?
A few minutes later, Tom came back into the room. Kyra would not look at him. Seeing the autopsy report and the photographs had opened some long-hidden wound inside her. The swarm of bees in her blood raged through her body, her nerves buzzing, reaching the very ends of her fingertips.
Tom glanced at the mini-screen. Was he going to leave it there until she agreed to do what he wanted?
He stood by the doorway for a moment, watching her. Did he expect her to give him an answer now? Her mind was a mess of memories and emotions and those bloody images. She couldn’t have spoken even if she’d wanted to.
He picked up his bag. ‘I have to go.’ He paused. ‘Have a think, call me later?’
The door closed quietly behind him.
This was the case – the one that never left you, the one that kept you awake at nights, roamed about in your mind at your lowest points, that would haunt you in retirement.
Was Lomax the Mizpah Murderer? Had they got the wrong man? Had she got justice for Emma? Would she find out anything about her sister’s last moments – the thing that haunted her most of all?
Maybe this was the way to exorcise the ghosts.
Panicked by her own decision, but determined to see it through, she braced herself and ran out after him.
‘Tom!’ she yelped, leaning over the banister, her voice reverberating around the communal stairwell.
He stopped mid-step and stared up at her, his mouth set in a hard line.
‘I want to help.’ Her heart threshed.
She couldn’t take it back now.
He sighed heavily and then gave a brief smile. ‘Thank you. I know what this means to you. I’ll drive. We can talk on the way.’
A micro-expression flitted across his features. What was that, fear? Concern for her? She brushed it aside. She was here now, ready to face these ghosts and lay them to rest.
Once and for all.
Chapter Thirteen
SATURDAY 3 FEBRUARY
9.35 a.m.
ISABEL
Pain explodes in her skull, forcing her awake. She peels open her eyes, but the darkness is thick and unrelenting. Lifting her arms to rub her face, her muscles feel weak and heavy. She is in a deep dream and cannot rouse herself. Where is she? Where has she been? She blinks and widens her eyes, but she is still blind.
What time is it? How much did she drink last night? She had only meant to have a few. She should be studying today. How can she do that with a hangover? She reaches out a hand for her Commset, to put the light on, but instead of finding her bedside drawers her knuckles hit something hard and resistant.
Feeling a growing panic rising and desperately trying to find some light, she raises her head, but it makes contact with something above her and a metallic hollow rumble terrifies her.
She lies still for a moment, listening to her own heart as it slowly beats out time, feeling doped, wondering if she’d been spiked at the pub. Where is she? Tentatively, she raises her arms above her head. She doesn’t have to reach far to find ice-cold metal, smooth beneath her fingertips; it stretches as far above her body as she can feel. In fearful clarity, she recognises that she is surrounded, enclosed by unrelenting steel.
She can hear screaming, bouncing off the metal casing, and it’s only when her throat burns that she realises the howling sound is coming from her own mouth.
Suddenly there is movement nearby and the clanging, banging sounds terrify her. She struggles harder to move her body, but her muscles will not respond.
The door of the metal box is thrown open and brightness floods in, scorching her eyes. She thought she would be relieved when she finally saw the light.
Instead, there is no escape from it and she is completely vulnerable in her blindness.
There is someone there with her.
Her slight body trembles as the metal tray is pulled out, the vibrations of the wheels rattle through her bones. The thin sheets and the cold make her feel even more vulnerable; laid out on the table, she reaches down, not understanding why she can’t move her legs, and feels thick straps across her waist and the lower half of her body. She raises her hands weakly in a futile attempt to shield herself.
An antiseptic smell fills her nostrils, as a shape blocks the light and her fear peaks. Her ears still ring with her own terrified screams. Her pupils, flooded with light, are useless, but she half-closes her eyes and tries desperately to focus, to see something to help her understand. When she looks behind her, she sees the receptacle she has been held in – so familiar to her at the hospital – a mortuary fridge.
And she thinks: I’m going to die.
10.00 a.m.
‘Right, I’ll introduce you to the rest of the team,’ Tom said, leading Kyra into the Hub.
Things had changed at the station — the security pad was long gone, but she could still recite the door code by heart even after fourteen years. She watched as Tom approached the door to the Hub and it opened automatically via a Behaviour ID reader that scrutinised his movements. She was impressed; they had still used iris scanners in the lab. Since the crime wave associated with Chinese Lè and the terrorist attacks over the last ten years, the government had finally heeded the warnings and put money into the system.
Tom ambled in, held up his hand and everyone in the room immediately stopped what they were doing. There was an uncomfortable shuffling at the stranger in their midst. Only Alex, who had shown her in yesterday, gave her a small nod, but then eyed her suspiciously like the others. Alex stood next to Tom, her arms folded across her armoured vest, so thin and lightweight that they could be worn most of the time. She wore her fair hair in a plait over her shoulder which gave her a girlish look. Kyra noted she must be nearly twenty years younger than her. Young enough to have been her daughter. The thought gave her a jolt.
‘First things first.’ Tom’s eyes swept round the room at the people who had ga
thered. ‘Be aware of the Amber threat at the Hallgate factory near the docks. The press have recently outed them for flaunting emission regulations and there have been a few rumblings of an eco-terror threat. It doesn’t affect our work but be aware.’
He took a deep breath. ‘Now, on to the Lomax situation.’ He inclined his head towards Kyra. ‘This is Doctor Kyra Sullivan, a behavioural psychologist who worked on the original case. I thought it would be helpful to invite Kyra onto the investigation due to her extensive knowledge of the case. Please treat her as one of the team.’
She felt Alex’s scrutiny, her eyes running up and down her civilian outfit of jeans and sky blue jumper. Was it obvious how out of her depth she was – a victim’s sister pretending her interest was professional, just because she was the only one that Lomax would talk to? What would Alex make of that if she knew?
Behind Tom a computer was noting and recording everything he was saying, his words appearing on a screen. There were over twenty officers in the room, many of them uniformed, men and women of different ages and ranks. Most of them stood, but some leaned against the angled stools that sat in front of chest-height sloping desks on one side of the room. They were mainly empty as the body-cams and constant computer auto-logging meant there was less need for paperwork and writing. Kyra remembered the advertising campaign when she was last there: Let the computers log and report, we’re fighting crime!
‘Right,’ Tom said, his eye twitching slightly, ‘as you know, we’ve got a body – Caylee Carmichael, who was reported missing yesterday morning. Caylee lived with her sister Chloe who saw her last when she left for work on Thursday morning. She told Chloe she was doing a double shift at the Gainsborough factory on Fairfield Road and that she’d be back after midnight. She failed to return home. As we all know, Lomax was out on our ground at the time of the killing. It would be obvious to make the assumption that Lomax was responsible for Caylee’s death due to the striking similarities. However, this particular murder is proving to be more complex.’
One of the officers, a sandy-haired man, locked his eyes on Kyra, his jaw going up and down as he chewed gum, and she was relieved when he finally looked away. She studied him out of the corner of her eye; his pale eyelashes, his belly pushing at his shirt buttons, his cynical expression.
‘Lomax’s bio-tracker has pointed to the fact that this case might not be as straightforward as it first appeared.’ Tom pulled up a tracker-map on one of the screens behind him. It clearly showed the area around the Scrambles overlaid with a red dotted line. ‘He appears to have made his way into the estate and into one of the houses,’ Tom said, pointing towards the screen, ‘and then looped back and out again. He said he spent the night here.’ He indicated a red x on the map. ‘In one of the local prostitute’s houses.’
‘Has she corroborated that?’ asked a tall, dark-skinned officer. He was softly spoken for such a big man. A gentle giant, Kyra thought.
‘Yes, Will,’ Tom told him.
‘Not exactly a reliable alibi,’ said the sandy-haired man.
‘Possibly not, Harry, but when we brought her in for interview, she said that he was with her all night when Caylee was murdered.’
‘I’m surprised she spoke up,’ Alex said. ‘Won’t she be charged with harbouring a criminal?’
‘She’s got bigger problems than that,’ Will said. ‘Do you know what happens to grasses at the Scrambles?’
Kyra had a brief memory of a young man hanging from a lamppost, a scrawled sign around his neck.
She flicked at her fringe with her hand to swat away the thought and turned her attention back to the screen again.
‘Yes, but imagine what Lomax would do to her if she didn’t give him an alibi?’ said Harry.
‘He’s in the nick,’ said Will, shrugging, his brown eyes scanning the room and catching Kyra’s briefly. ‘There’s not much he can do to her now.’
‘The tracker chip shows he didn’t go anywhere near the rubbish dump at the body deposition site,’ Tom said, pointing to the screen to the red x where Caylee’s body had been found. ‘We need to sort this mess out and find out what’s going on.’
‘It doesn’t mean he didn’t do it,’ said Harry, still chewing. ‘The chip might have been faulty.’
‘I’ve had it checked.’ Tom answered him directly. ‘Although Lomax had it blocked so the prison couldn’t find him, the tracker itself was untouched. He’d had a go at trying to remove it, but it was embedded quite deep into the thigh and he couldn’t get to it. He made a right mess trying to get it out. We had one of our doctors remove it and then it was sent to the lab. It’s an older version but it was accurate. He didn’t go near where she was found.’
The bio-tracker made Kyra think about Jimmy.
Damn, she still hadn’t called him back.
‘Right, you’ve all read the brief on the original murders so I’m not going to go through the whole thing, but let’s look at the evidence that convicted him.’ Tom turned back to the main screens on the walls. ‘Prisoner 573804 David Lomax,’ he commanded. A photograph came up, repeated over and over around the room. Kyra had to force herself not to look away, aware of the officers’ scrutiny.
Tom waved a hand at the nearest image in a sweeping motion and the face immediately appeared to come out of the screen and become larger. Tom turned his finger in a circle and the 3D image did a complete rotation of Lomax’s head so that he could be seen from all angles.
‘Life, full-term sentence, no possibility of parole. The court were convinced. It took us three years to make an arrest – less than three hours for the jury to convict. We had difficulty finding the killer because we didn’t have his bio-matter on database to make a match. However, it was an attack on a prostitute in April 2021 that led us to Lomax. When his bio-matter was uploaded after that assault, a match came up with DNA that was found on two of the Mizpah victims.’
‘Pretty convincing evidence,’ said Harry.
‘Yes. It is,’ Tom replied. ‘Lomax’s record points to violence against women. There were numerous complaints of domestic violence against this man, but these accusations were always withdrawn when we tried to take them further, the victims no doubt coerced by Lomax himself. There was an arrest for violent disorder back in 2015, but his sample wasn’t loaded to the bio-database, probably because it was unusable, but the case was never followed up.’
‘Domestic violence doesn’t lead to serial murder, though,’ said Alex, arms still folded, eyes on the screen.
‘Kyra?’ Tom pointed at her and immediately her throat tightened. She stepped forward.
‘No, that’s true,’ she said, her voice shaky. She cleared her throat. ‘But frequently killers indulge in different types of criminal behaviour before they escalate to murder. No one becomes a serial killer overnight. There will have been indicators – possibly cruelty, petty crime, theft, sexual offending.’ She sensed members of the team working out whether or not they rated her, Harry still chewing, Alex’s face inscrutable.
She straightened her back. ‘So, yes, it is possible. However, Lomax doesn’t show many of the psychopathic traits one would expect in such a case as this.’ Harry was fiddling with the buttons on his shirt. ‘I assessed him, briefly, after his arrest,’ Kyra said quietly.
Alex raised her eyebrows. Was she impressed or surprised? Harry looked up.
‘In my professional opinion,’ Kyra continued, ‘Lomax, although a violent criminal, is not a psychopath. He wasn’t calm under pressure; in fact, he was quite the opposite. He was very angry, claiming he’d been stitched up. He lacked charm and didn’t appear to be smart enough to be manipulative. Lomax uses brute force to get what he wants. He did not fulfil a serial killer profile in a number of ways.’
‘That could be how he was manipulating you,’ suggested Alex. ‘He hid his psycho-ness from you by pretending to be normal.’
Harry smirked, but it had been a serious comment.
Kyra liked her.
Everyone turned back
to Tom when he began to speak again.
‘Looking at the original conviction, it was sound. We even had witnesses and CCTV that placed Lomax near one of the dump sites. Only near, however, not at. Maybe there were presumptions, but the jury were convinced by the DNA.’
The team studied the screens. Harry broke the silence. ‘What’s the point in wasting time and resources when it’s clear from the evidence in the original crimes that Lomax did it?’
There was a murmur of agreement around the room. Tom appeared weary but squared his shoulders.
‘There are still some questions that need answering,’ he said. ‘To start with, Lomax has always protested his innocence. Nothing unusual about that. He has an alibi which, although shaky, is corroborated by the tracker. Obviously we know now that he wasn’t at the body dep site. However, Caylee was found like the others: black plastic, duct tape, heart and hands removed.’ He rubbed his forehead. ‘There’s no way Lomax could have gotten the items he used or got rid of the body without help.’
‘Yeah, you can’t exactly buy those things in the local shop without drawing attention to yourself,’ said Harry.
‘He certainly wouldn’t be able to get his hands on a sternal saw,’ said Alex.
‘Unless he had them stored somewhere?’ suggested Will.
‘It’s always a possibility’, Tom said, ‘… but back in the day we tore apart all the properties he owned.’
‘And with no real friends or associates … no visitors that we can trace yet … he was an angry, nasty man who seems to have had a history of pissing people off and being an alpha – those sorts of people don’t tend to have close friends,’ Alex added.
When Kyra nodded in agreement, she saw the corners of Alex’s mouth twitch.
Tom said, ‘When the SOCOs cleaned him down, they had found no evidence of Caylee on him. He hadn’t got any scratches, or blood, no injuries from someone who was defending herself. According to the lab, he hadn’t appeared to have washed since he had left prison, so I think we should have found some evidence on his body but there was none.’