Crimesight

by Joy Ellis

  A few seconds more and they would be in. He moved from foot to foot impatiently, and then looked up. He had been trying to avoid looking at the carefully painted sign that hung over the door and he really didn’t want to guess as to what the CHILDREN’S WARD meant.

  ‘We’re through!’ The call echoed down the tunnel, and Jon’s heart lurched in his chest. He moved quickly to Kate’s side and steeled himself. Okay, bring it on.

  The flashlights did not help. Nothing seemed real in the flickering shadows of their torches, and Kate felt as if she had been thrust into some freakish nightmare. Logic had declared that she would find either a girl’s body, or a terrified teenager, maybe injured, but certainly tied up and gagged.

  But it was nothing like that. Because Kate found herself in the Children’s Ward.

  The room was big, some seventy feet long, and along the entire length of far wall stretched a row of metal-framed hospital beds.

  Beds with pillows.

  Beds with covers.

  Beds with occupants.

  Kate clapped her hands over her mouth to stop a cry from escaping. Her wide eyes unwillingly travelled down the row. How many were there, for God’s sake? The silver beam of her Maglite caught the pillows and revealed decaying flesh and pale skulls.

  Behind her, Kate heard cries, prayers, blasphemies and at one point, the sound of vomiting. Then she heard her own voice. And to her surprise, it was rock steady. ‘Stay where you are! Keep back, all of you. I want no one contaminating this scene.’

  ‘There’s a light bulb!’ A torch beam shone upwards and someone called out, ‘My God, there’s electricity down here,’

  ‘How the devil...?’ Another voice added incredulously.

  ‘There’s a switch here.’ Kate recognised Gary’s voice. ‘Ma’am, shall I?’

  Kate thought in the midst of all the madness, that Gary Pritchard was a thoughtful man. Un-nerved as they all were, he had still taken time to consider his actions. He’d known what the shock of illuminating the scene without warning could have done.

  ‘Do it. We’re ready.’ Kate’s voice was still strong, with no hint of emotion. ‘Just think about Emily, we have to find her as quickly as we can.’

  Gary flicked the switch, and thankfully the light was dim. A string of low wattage lamps swung from the ceiling, although they did little to soften the horror that surrounded them.

  ‘Get that bloody camera working, Mr Watchman!’ Kate called out. ‘We need to locate her without contaminating the whole place. If you’ve got the stomach for this, just find out which one is still alive, and if you haven’t, give me the camera’

  As Ted lifted the camera, she called Jon to her side, and together they appraised the crime scene.

  All the beds, barring one, held a body. Beside each of them was a small bedside cabinet, each holding a small glass vase and some freshly picked flowers? The ‘patients’, some very small and young, some older, lay silently, hands folded peacefully over the top of the sheets, and their heads resting on faded dusty pillows. It was only the difference in their appearance that determined how long they had been there.

  Jon counted out loud. There were thirteen. Some were like sleeping dolls, some bare bones and fleshless skulls, others had the translucent parchment skin of a mummy, whilst others were still putrefying, which accounted for the sick-making stench.

  ‘I’ve picked her up!’ yelled Ted lowering the camera. ‘She’s the third bed from the end!’

  ‘Get the medics! Jon! With me.’ Kate ran down the row, and saw rich dark hair that cascaded over a still white pillowslip.

  ‘Oh Emily,’ Kate breathed. ‘We’ve got you. We’ve got you now.’ She took the girl’s hand in hers and looked up at Jon. ‘It’s cold, but not deathly cold.’ She called to Ted. ‘Could you face checking the other beds with the camera? Most of them are all long gone, but maybe..,’ She left the sentence unfinished.

  ‘Is she..?’ Ted called back ‘I mean, I saw heat still in her, surely she’s not…?’

  ‘I have no idea, Ted.’ Kate touched Emily’s neck, desperately feeling for a pulse, but she was picking up nothing that she could swear was caused by a beating heart. ‘She may be alive, but I think she’s been heavily drugged.’ Kate stroked her hair. ‘She has to have medical attention, and fast.’

  Ted swept the room, the heavy camera trembling slightly in his hands. ‘She’s the only one, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Okay.’ Kate stood up. ‘I expected nothing else, but we needed to check. Thank you, Ted.’

  ‘Not quite the kind of discovery I’m used to unearthing.’ he said shakily, then added, ‘Thank God.’

  ‘Ma’am.’ Jon indicated to where most of the other officers were standing, wide-eyed and slack-mouthed, in the doorway.

  ‘Okay, non-involved officers, everyone other than Jon, Rosie and Gary, get back!’

  The words had barely left her lips when she saw them obey. If asked, they would have said it was to preserve the scene, but in honesty, they wanted to get as far away as they could from the horror in that stinking room.

  But Kate’s team couldn’t afford that luxury, and as boss, she slipped straight into top gear.

  ‘Jon, check whether there is another way in or out. The rest of you, get back down the tunnel. Tell the sergeant that this whole area, the house and the grounds are to be sealed. No-one in, and apart from the medics and an escort, no-one out.’

  She spun around and saw Rosie looking at her for instruction. ‘Call in, Rosie, we need the pathologist. Get Tommy Thorne personally, and tell him to muster as many Scene of Crime officers as he can. He’ll have to ask other areas for help. To avoid cross-contamination there has to be one Soco for each victim, so he’s going to need a truck-load. And somehow we have to get Emily to safety and still try to preserve the integrity of this scene for forensics.’

  She paused, then ploughed back in. ‘Gary, I want Benedict Broome and Micah Lee picked up immediately. Arrest them on suspicion of murder and of abduction. We can’t have them talking to each other, so I suggest you take Broome to Saltfleet where we can interview him, and send Lee to Harlan Marsh. They still have a custody suite, don’t they, Gary.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Then do that.’ She turned to the waiting uniforms. ‘The sergeant and I will stay with Emily, everyone else get out.’ As they turned to leave, she added, ‘And not a word about this to anyone, especially to either of the suspects, understand? I need to debrief you before this gets out. We do not know what we are dealing with here.’

  ‘Other than a murdering, son of a bitch monster.’ muttered a shaky voice.

  ‘Exactly. So talk to no-one. No-one at all.’

  As the echoes of footsteps in the tunnel died away, she and Jon went over to Emily’s bedside, and stared down at her pale face.

  ‘There’s no other entrance that I can find.’ Jon gently touched her cheek with the back of his finger. ‘So, your instincts about Toni were right, Kate. She was telling the truth. Emily does exist.’ He looked up at her. ‘And the spirits were right, when they directed us here.’ He paused, ‘And just in the nick of time.’

  ‘Let’s pray that the paramedics shift their arses, because I’m really not sure that she’s going to make it.’ Kate still held Emily’s hand in hers. ‘Poor kid, what she’s suffered, I can’t begin to imagine.’

  Jon tilted his head to one side. ‘The time span from her being abducted to our finding her is thankfully, fairly short. She’s pretty bruised, but she seems to be relatively unharmed…,’ he paused, and Kate knew that he was wondering if that were strictly true. Then he said, ‘Well, on the surface at least.’

  His attention then turned to the rest of the silent bodies, and in a soft voice he began to sing.

  Kate heard the words, “Rock-a-bye-baby, on the tree top.” Then he stopped and said ‘I think I’m beginning to understand about the singing. My God, Kate, what on earth has gone on here?’

  Kate didn’t look away from Emily, but
said, ‘If I knew or understood that, I’d be worried. And you’ve yet to tell me about this bloody singing, Jon Summerhill, so I’m more in the dark than you are!’ She looked down the row of beds. ‘It’s totally beyond comprehension what the human mind can dream up.’

  ‘Human? Are you sure about that?’

  ‘Look around you, Jon.’ Kate pointed down the ward, her hand waving randomly. ‘Their beds are neat and tidy. Their hair, what’s left of it, is brushed. There are flowers beside their beds, and the lockers look clean enough to be on a fucking Cillit Bang advert. He’s taken more care of these poor souls than some people do a sick relative.’

  ‘Shame he had to kill them first.’ growled Jon.

  ‘Which makes it too twisted to get your head around.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘You’re not kidding.’ He shivered and glanced back uneasily towards the doorway to the tunnel. ‘Where’s that sodding ambulance crew?’

  Kate said nothing, then her gaze left Emily and she sighed. ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry, Jon. I’ve been so caught up with all this that I didn’t give you a second thought.’ She gave him an apologetic smile. ‘You must be going half crazy down here. For me, this feels like a night in at the wax museum, but for you, it must be like being buried alive in a crypt. Are you okay?’

  ‘I am for the time being. But I’m not sure how long I can keep myself protected from everything that’s happened here.’ He gave her a weak smile. ‘But it’s all right; I’m not surrounded by the spirits of dead woman and children, all baying for revenge and retribution. Well, not yet.’

  ‘Go back, Jon. I’ll wait with Emily. The medics will be here in no time. Just get yourself out of here before you drop your guard.’ And Kate meant it. For some reason she wasn’t frightened by the horrors around her. She had no idea why, but she seemed to be strangely detached from it. And Jon looked a long way from detached, or anything remotely like it, but she knew exactly what he’d say.

  ‘You have to be kidding!’ He blurted out. ‘And leave you here in the Kingdom of the Dead? As if!’

  ‘I’m alright, honestly.’

  ‘Yes, and any moment shock could set in and you’ll be running like a loon up that tunnel, yelling for the men in white coats to take you away.’

  ‘I mean it, Jon. You know that we are different. I’m not a sensitive. I can cope with this, to me it’s just a really grim crime scene, but it’s no place for someone like you.’ She looked at him admonishingly. ‘You don’t want me to pull rank, do you?’

  He threw her a defiant look and folded his arms. ‘I’m not leaving you, Kate.’ Then he turned back towards the door. ‘And we can stop arguing. I can hear footsteps.’

  For all her protestations about being fine, Kate felt mightily relieved to hear that. She knew as well as Jon that minds don’t always react as you think they will in a given situation. Who knows? Given another ten minutes alone in that chamber of secrets and Jon’s scenario of men in white coats may have become a reality.

  Two green-clad paramedics, led by a uniformed constable, entered the room. ‘Oh sweet Jesus!’ the first man sighed, bundling his equipment bag under one arm, and swiftly crossing himself with his free hand.

  ‘Over here!’ Kate called. ‘This is Emily. She’s in a bad way.’

  The two ambulance men hurried towards them, the second man pulling a trolley behind him and looking from side to side as a horrified expression slowly crept over his face.

  ‘Look, I know this is not easy, lads, but just forget what’s surrounding you, and do your best for this girl, okay?’ Jon stared down at her. ‘We have reason to believe that her condition is mainly due to being drugged.’

  ‘Phew! Right.’ The medic made an effort to gather himself. ‘So, if you’d just stand back, we’ve got her now.’ Professionalism thankfully kicked in. ‘Do we know what she’s been given?’

  Kate shook her head. ‘There’s nothing around here to indicate, but another girl who was with her recently was given some sort of benzodiazepine. A new kind of ‘roofie’, possible street name, Ooblie, if that helps?’

  ‘Oh, that lethal bloody stuff.’ murmured the medic. ‘It’s possible, her symptoms concur, but I’m pretty sure that’s not all she’s had. Still, we’ll do what we can here, and then get her to ITU on the blues and twos.’

  It took ten minutes to get a line in, some fluids going and a heart monitor in place, and then Emily, or Aija Ozolini as they believed her to be, was carefully secured to the stretcher, and was wheeled away from hell. The paramedic lifted a hand to them as he left, and gave them a thumbs-up sign. Kate knew then that she had a chance of survival, a slim chance, but it was a chance.

  After Emily had gone, the silence in the underground room fell like a thick cloak around them and Kate decided that they shouldn’t wait there for the pathologist.

  Jon quickly agreed. There was no one left for them to help. It was time for Tommy Thorne and his cohorts, to pick and prod and scrape and swab, and hopefully persuade the dead to point their bony fingers to the man who had both killed and cared for them so thoroughly.

  Kate took one last look around at the gruesome line of dead youngsters, sleeping peacefully in their neat beds, and suddenly something hit her. ‘Why the hell didn’t I notice that before?’

  Jon halted, one foot already through the door, and looked over his shoulder at her. ‘Notice what?’

  ‘There are names over the beds. Look! Little plaques, with a single name in it.’ She began to walk down the long line of ancient hospital beds. ‘Corrie, Tessa, Annie, Lucy...,’ She stopped, rooted to the spot. ‘Shit! The killer has left us their names! I’ve been so involved with getting Emily to safety that I seemed to have forgotten my basic scene of crime protocol.’

  ‘Save lives and ensure safety. Well, you’ve done that.’ said Jon. ‘And you’ve made the area safe and preserved the evidence. Ah, record the details.’ Jon nodded. ‘Fair enough, but I think we could be forgiven if we allow forensics to do that for us.’

  ‘No, let’s check each bed.’ Kate stopped at one of the much older corpses. ‘Sod it, they have faded with age, we do need the lab.’ She let out a long sigh as the enormity of what they had found swept over her. ‘Come on. Let’s get out of here.’ Kate moved towards the door. Jon was beginning to look very tired, and she guessed that holding back his gift was becoming more difficult by the minute. Much longer in that dreadful room and God alone only knew what might happen to him.

  They practically ran along the tunnel, and as they immerged into the humid warm evening on Hobs End Marsh, Kate felt tears slowly begin to ooze from beneath her eyelids. She’d seen some sincerely bad shit in her time on the Force. She seen the massacred farm workers at Red House Farm; the bodies in Dovegate Lane, and although she hadn’t attended, she’d seen the horrific forensic photographs of Simeon Mulberry and his wife Charlotte, but today was on a different level altogether.

  She roughly brushed the tears aside. She had far too much to do to start blubbering now, but whatever was expected of her could wait until she’d rung home. Death on such a grand scale had made her ache to hold her two sons and her husband. And as she couldn’t do that, the best that she could do was talk to them and tell them that she loved them.

  As she punched in ‘Home’ on her mobile, she felt an intense sadness tug at her chest. And unexpectedly, the emotion was for David. If he really knew the things that his wife dealt with in her day to day working life, then he would never cope. Every waking moment, he would be waiting for that call, the one that would mean his sitting down with their beautiful sons, and telling them that their mother wasn’t coming home. And if he knew about the things that Kate had seen, indeed if he ever saw for himself any of those terrible things, then he would probably never let her within a mile of their boys, for fear of what she might one day say, or do. Because surely the fragile mind can only cope with so much, before…? She saw in her head, the house on Dovegate Lane.

  ‘David?’ Kate pressed the phone closer to he
r ear and smiled. ‘Hi you, and yes, we are up to our necks as usual. In fact, more so than usual, so don’t wait up. This is going to be a very long night.’

  He asked her if she’d found her girl.

  ‘We’ve found her.’ Kate couldn’t say more for obvious reasons, and for once she didn’t need to, as David understood by her tone that all was not well. He said that she wasn’t to worry about anything at home, he had everything under control and that he’d see her as and when.

  ‘Tell the boys I love them, even if they do make retching noises and tell you to bugger off. Sleep well.’ She paused then added. ‘Love you too.’ She closed her phone and stared at it. It took moments like this to put her sometimes rocky personal life into perspective. When you got involved in some of the darker things that went on in the real world, it made you realise how petty it was to argue over who forgot to clean the bath, or who used the last of the coffee.

  It was tough. All she really wanted to do was slob out in front of the TV with her kids, and what she actually had to do, was track down a killer of women and children.

  She pushed her phone back into her bag, and inhaled deeply. So, if she wanted to see her boys again before next Christmas, she’d better get on with it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  Even Tommy Thorne’s acerbic tongue was for once silenced by what he found in the underground room. The forensic pathologist did not hassle Kate with questions as to whether police boots had compromised his precious crime scene, and he didn’t rush her away so that he could proceed undisturbed with his all important work.

  Instead, and probably for the first time ever, he asked her if she was alright.

  ‘I was working with a team of American forensic anthropologists for a while,’ he said quietly. ‘A human rights investigation in Iraq. Mass graves of Kurdish teenage boys, all executed in order to gain control over the Kurdish population.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘But the difference was that we knew exactly what we were looking for, and what we’d find. It was no ghastly shock, not like this.’ He looked at her seriously. ‘You were looking for one kid, and you walked into this charnel-house, DCI Reynard, so if I were you, I would accept any offers made to you regarding counselling.’