Lethal Intent (DI Matt Barnes Book 2)

by Michael Kerr

  He carried the flat to the boot. “If you pull the carpet back, I’ll stow this and you can be on your way,” he said, stopping, holding the wheel in front of himself. “And don’t forget to have this repaired tomorrow. If you don’t, and you have another puncture, you’ll be in the brown stuff.”

  Judith laughed and pulled back the carpeting. She wondered whether she should offer him some recompense for his assistance, but worried that if she did he might be offended.

  He dropped the wheel into the pre-formed well.

  “Uh-oh,” he said, rubbing his hand over the treaded rubber. “I’m afraid you’ll need a new tyre. Just look at the rip in this.”

  As Judith leaned over to inspect the non-existent damage, he brought the edge of his hand down hard on the side of her neck, immobilising her, temporarily paralysing her body and scrambling her senses. As she fell forward, he grasped her legs above the knees and swung them up and over the lip of the boot, looking around quickly to check that no witnesses had appeared. There was no one. The area was deserted and still, save for the distant sound of a car backfiring. He removed the tape from his pocket and wound it around her head, biting through it when he was satisfied that her mouth was completely covered. Within seconds he had also secured her ankles and wrists. He covered her with a tartan throw from the rear seat of the car, then feeling safe and in complete control of the situation, pushed the lid down on his fettered catch.

  Driving west and picking up the M40, he anticipated a prolonged and bloody episode with the bitch. This one, he thought, would go a long way to make up for the shrink who had slipped through his fingers.

  Reaching the Chilterns, he left the motorway, followed a suitably quiet back road, and on impulse turned off when he saw the sign for the Rockwell Reservoir. Another narrower road led into the forest. The moon was high, just a sliver less than full, casting enough illumination for him to cut the car lights as he left the road and headed up what he decided was a fire-break or a logging trail bordered on both sides by walls of sixty-feet-high firs. The ground was rough, bone-dry ridged earth, more suited to forestry vehicles and 4x4’s than the small Subaro, forcing him to drive at little more than walking pace in the wheel ruts that were well-defined grooves in the frozen dirt. After driving for perhaps a hundred yards in low gear, he pulled off the trail into frost-burned bracken that burgeoned in the spaces between the tree trunks, and killed the engine.

  Standing outside the car, he lit a cigarette, then leaned back against the cold metal of the bodywork. He savoured the sound of silence, broken only by the tink of the car’s engine cooling, and relished the fresh night air, raising his face to the satin-black heavens above to gaze at the dark firmament that was peppered with entrancing pinpricks of twinkling light, and constellations full of symbolic designs and cryptic meaning. This was a view that could only be fully appreciated away from the artificial illumination and smog of towns and cities. He was at peace with himself, ready to take pleasure from the helpless woman who lay so close to him in the back of the car, and was his to service, mutilate and finally deliver up to a better place; her spirit to perhaps become another spark of light in the cosmos. He dropped the glowing cigarette end and directed a glob of spittle onto it, causing it to splutter and fizzle out. A forest fire was not a consideration, as the pine needles were coated by hoar-frost. Although as a youth, arson had been a pastime he had committed with feverish relish on several occasions.

  He stripped, folding his clothes neatly and placing them on the driver’s seat, with a knife laid on top of his jeans, ready. The cold invigorated him as it pimpled his skin and made him gasp.

  The bitch’s purse yielded the princely sum of just forty pounds. He ignored the plastic; monetary profit being only a bonus to his premier motive of human spoliation.

  She was awake when he pulled back the throw, and fully aware of her plight, staring up at him in stark terror, her bound body shaking. The sight of his newly acquired possession – combined with the near painful pleasure of the chill night air – brought him to a state of acute readiness.

  Lifting her from the boot, he carried her a few feet from the car, to lay on the white, lacy bed of frigid ferns, before leaving her momentarily to retrieve his knife.

  Carefully, with swift, deft strokes he cut the clothes from her body with the razor-sharp blade, slitting the sides of her jeans from waistband to cuff, slicing through the tape that pinioned her ankles together, to then remove the ruined Levi’s that she would have no further need of. The thick sweater followed, and with a flick of steel, the flimsy bra unleashed her small, firm breasts. Just her brief, cream, shiny silk panties remained, and with the dexterity of a surgeon wielding a scalpel, he cut through the thin band of material at each hip, then pulled the garment away from her crotch, leaving her naked, apart from the silver tape that covered her mouth and bound her wrists, and a pair of ankle socks and Nikes. Pushing the blade into the almost rock hard ground at his side, he stroked and explored her shivering body, before entering the warm, velvet depths of her.

  There was no resistance. She was passively acquiescing to each silent command of his hands and body. Changing position, to place her kneeling as though in fervent prayer, he admired the lines of her shoulders, back and buttocks, that gleamed an icy blue in the moon’s crisp light.

  Finished, he gently pulled her over to be able to see her terror-stricken face. It was only then that he noticed the small tattoo on her upper left arm. It was a cross, its intricate and interlaced design Celtic in appearance; a minor work of fine art – to Paul’s appreciative eyes – expertly worked into her skin. It was a worthy trophy to take, in lieu of a photograph; one that would help him to vividly recall the acts he was committing.

  Judith was praying. Praying that he would let her live; rape her again, do anything to her, however degrading or obscene, but let her survive the ordeal. She knew that she could not escape or fight him off, and so there was little point in struggling or being awkward and defensive. She was sure that any level of resistance would only incite violence, so tried to withdraw into herself and find a niche in her mind, where she could disassociate her psyche from what was being done to her body. He was invading her, defiling her, but if she could just escape with her life, then she would somehow put the episode behind her, and with time, get past it.

  The pain shot through her; a sudden and burning sensation of fiery agony that wrenched her from the mental cocoon she had tried to enmesh herself in. She screamed against the tape; the noise whistling out through her nostrils in a loud snorting whine that reminded Paul of the sound a cat had once made, many years ago, when as a child he had pushed a sharpened tree branch through the animal’s temple.

  She saw the knife in his hand, and at first could not understand why he had cut her arm, until he held the sliver of tattooed flesh in front of her eyes. The degenerate bastard had cut off her tattoo and was waving it in front of her face, smiling broadly at her with a demonic, crazed expression as he exhibited his prize.

  All control now gone, Judith was consumed by blind panic. She tried to bring her legs up to kick him, but he was between them, happy for her to struggle and lash out with her raised feet. She pulled away, dug her heels into the hard ground and scrambled backwards, succeeding in detaching herself from him, but still at his mercy.

  He dragged her back to him, hand gripping the meat of her thigh. Sat on her stomach and pulled the nipple of her left breast up, stretching it before quickly severing the fleshy button with his knife, and then repeating the operation on the other. Blood bubbled and poured – like lava gushing from the craters of twin volcanoes – from where Judith’s nipples had been joined to her since birth. Then came the pain, coursing like fork lightning through her breasts to penetrate her chest wall: a spiking, sharp staccato of agony that felt as though nails were being driven deeply into her with a thousand hammers.

  Unheeded tears streamed down Judith’s cheeks as the pain was superseded by the undeniable realisation that she woul
d not see another day dawn. She was in no doubt that this inhuman monster was going to kill her. The fear of imminent death was a tangible writhing mass in her stomach. With eyelids clenched shut, her body became rigid as her consciousness fled into a state of near catalepsy, closing down her senses to a level that spared her even feeling him rip her nose away with his teeth, sucking and then swallowing the gristly lump, to take that part of her into him to digest.

  Judith’s eyes snapped open, but were expressionless, unblinking and fixed, staring in dilated disinterest at a point somewhere among the stars that shone above, as if studying some far off reach of the universe. She was no longer sane, and the only signs of life were the shallow rise and fall of her mutilated chest, and a wet popping sound as bubbles of blood burst on exhalation from the pulp where her nose had been.

  Spontaneously, Paul thrust the tip of the wide blade up under Judith’s jawbone, to drive it through her mouth, tongue and upper palate and into her brain. He twisted the knife, and with considerable effort, wrenched it free. Sitting back in the blood that coated her torso, he watched in fascination as his victim’s head shook from side to side repeatedly, as if in denial of the outrage. He tore the tape from her mouth and chuckled at the inane, ‘nu..nu..nu..nu’ sound that was being transmitted from her devastated cortex as it filled with blood and ceased to function.

  Judith saw a brightness so intense that it seemed to her that she was looking directly into the midday sun, which then entered her and exploded inside her skull. A pure blinding white landscape appeared in her mind’s-eye, then imploded, closing like the petals of a black rose on a desert night, enveloping her in everlasting darkness.

  He sighed, enraptured by the glorious fulfilment his actions had afforded, and after a few minutes returned the now floppy, sagging corpse to the boot of the car, then wiped the excess blood from his body with the girl’s sweater and jeans before moving his own clothes to the passenger seat.

  Naked, still crimson with gore that appeared black in the colour-robbed obscurity of night, he drove out of the forest and along an access road that led to a derelict concrete pier, not far from a dam.

  Parked at the edge, he got out and climbed down a rusted metal ladder that clung, bracketed to the side of a piling. He entered the freezing, ebony water, swilling away the drying blood, cleansing himself of all outward signs of the butchery that he had just performed.

  Shaking uncontrollably, his skin tight and overrun with goose-flesh, he gripped the bottom rung and hauled himself back up to where the car was parked above him.

  Removing his clothes from the vehicle, he dressed, lit a cigarette and dragged on it deeply, filling his lungs with the soothing warm smoke and revelling in thoughts of the wonderful time he had just had.

  With windows open and handbrake off, he pushed the Subaro over the edge of the pier, to watch enthralled as it hit the surface of the water twenty feet below. He found an aesthetic beauty in the spectacle of it slowly upending, filling with a rushing gurgle and slipping into the depths like a sinking ship, to throw up a final spume of glistening water.

  Jogging at a steady pace, breathing evenly, content and more than satisfied, he headed back to the road, followed it and stopped on the outskirts of a village to switch on his pay-as-you-go mobile and use it to call for a private hire car to take him to within walking distance of where he had left the Nova.

  The tattooed piece of Judith Palmer was wrapped in her panties in his pocket; a much valued souvenir of a rewarding evening’s work.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  THEY waited for over twenty minutes, not leaving the car until Marci and Chris had cruised the immediate area and were satisfied that no one had followed them from Roehampton.

  “The area’s secure, boss,” Marci said into her phone.

  “Good. Once we’re inside, you and Chris stand down and get some shuteye,” Matt said. “I want you back here bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at eight in the morning.”

  Tom met them inside the door and they went up to the second floor of the remodelled and now upmarket Georgian property.

  “Nice,” Beth said as DC Dean Harper opened the door and stood aside for them to enter. “Who do you usually stash in a place like this?”

  “The last occupant was a film producer who was receiving death threats,” Tom said. “After his mansion in Highgate was firebombed, he came to us for help.”

  “Did you find out who wanted to barbecue him?”

  “Yes. It was an ex-girlfriend he’d dumped. A ‘Fatal Attraction’ type who decided that if she couldn’t have him, or his wealth, then nobody else was going to.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “She went down for torching his pad. We couldn’t prove attempted murder.”

  “So when she gets out, he may need to move back in here.”

  “No. He moved to LA lock, stock and barrel. By all accounts he’s holed up in one of those Beverley Hills canyons, behind high walls and with an army of bodyguards.”

  Beth went off to explore the apartment. There were three reception rooms, four bedrooms, all with en suite bathrooms, and a kitchen that any TV chef would have felt at home in. It was as grand as any suite in a first-class hotel. It may not be home, but although she resented having to be protected, the surroundings could not have been more sumptuous. She had to accept that certain areas of her life were on hold. Attending the hospital was out of the question. She would have to immerse herself in the case that she was now a part of. She did not think that Sutton would target her, but agreed with Matt that it was a real possibility. This was an added incentive to find the killer quickly.

  “How’s she dealing with it?” Tom said to Matt.

  “Better than I expected. She hasn’t forgotten the close call with Gary Noon. She knows what Sutton is capable of, and so would rather be safe than sorry, or dead.”

  “She could be cooped up here for a while. We still haven’t had a single sighting of Sutton. We could be wrong in thinking we know the area he’s in.”

  “We’re not. It’s a lot of ground to cover, but I think we’ll hit pay dirt.”

  “Sooner the better. I feel for Ray Preston, but he’s driving me fucking crazy. He’s on the blower three times a day, bending my ear and threatening to come back on duty. I think he wants to head up the case, but he’s too personally involved. He’d be a liability.”

  “If...When we lift Sutton, you need to keep Preston out of the picture. He won’t be satisfied with his daughter’s murderer being given a life sentence. He’ll want to rip the guy’s heart out.”

  “I know. If I were in his position, I would too.”

  Matt sighed. There were no winners. It was a damage limitation exercise, and the best they could hope for was taking another nutter off the street for taxpayers’ to keep in relative comfort for the rest of his days. With a little luck, Sutton would give them the opportunity to save everybody a lot of time and money. The cost of a bullet was all the no-good little psycho was worth. It would no doubt come down to being Sutton’s call. In Matt’s estimation, he wouldn’t be the type to give up without a fight. His sort were more apt to go out in a blaze of glory. But not always. The thought of Saddam Hussein’s fate crossed his mind. The sadistic dictator had always vowed that he would save the last bullet for himself, rather than suffer the ignominy of being captured and paraded by his enemies. Though when it came to crunch time, dying was not an easy choice to make. The survival instinct kicked in and the old tyrant had meekly surrendered himself up, to face the gallows.

  “You staying over with Beth?” Tom said.

  Matt nodded. “Yeah, until we get a break I’ll be using this as a base of operations. I know you’ve got the place locked-down as tight as a duck’s arse, but I’ll feel better if I’m with her.”

  “Right. I’ll be off, then,” Tom said. “I haven’t seen Jean for twenty-four hours. I need some downtime.”

  After Tom and the others had gone, Matt let Beth give him the grand tour. He was su
itably impressed. In other circumstances he would have been happy to be staying in such luxurious environs. There was a forty-two inch flat screen TV in the lounge, with a choice of DVDs to suit most tastes. The oversized and brushed-steel Yank fridge/freezer in the kitchen was packed with enough food to survive a siege of moderate duration. And the master bedroom was almost obscenely large, to the extent that the king-size bed appeared to be lost in the surrounding space.

  “Check this out,” Beth said, opening a door that led into an en suite bathroom with a separate walk-in shower room tiled in black and with dolphin-themed gilded fittings.

  “Looks inviting,” Matt said, eyeing up the sunken spa bath.

  Beth embraced him. She felt vulnerable and in need of as much TLC as he could give. “You want to try it out?” she said. “Or are you leaving?”

  “Yes, and no, I’m not leaving. I’ll be sticking like glue until we know where Sutton is. Think of me as your personal bodyguard from hereon in.”

  Beth plugged the bath, turned the mixer taps on and poured half the contents of a bottle of herbal Radox into the water before slowly disrobing. Matt closed the bathroom door and locked it, then undressed and placed his clothes on the top of a marble-topped cabinet, with his handgun within easy reach.

  “Yours is the nicest body I’ve ever had the pleasure of guarding,” he said as Beth grasped his hands and pulled him towards the bath full of steaming, foamy water.

  Pete Deakin took the call. He had just been on the phone with Gayle – the lab assistant who worked in ballistics, and who he was currently in lust with – to let her know that he was working through the night and would not be staying over at her place. They arranged to meet for lunch the next day. As he stood up to go and refill his mug with coffee, his phone rang. It was a call from Shirley Roberts. She was crying and talking too fast.

  “Try to calm down, Mrs. Roberts,” Pete said. “Take your time and tell me what has happened.”