The Fragments That Remain

by Tim Ellis

  ‘I went back to the Lloyd’s house.’ He pulled out his wallet and passed her a 2 x 2 inch evidence bag. ‘I found this.’

  She stared at the number and initials on the dry-cleaning tag:

  67076

  PES

  Her head turned to stare at Di Heffernan again. ‘This is what initiative looks like, Hefferbitch. Etch the picture into your memory banks. Smell the scent of drive, energy and ambition. Feel the quality of a detective on an upwards trajectory. The clock’s ticking – find me something I can use.’

  Stick’s face reddened. ‘Do you really think . . . ?’

  ‘Come on, numpty. Let’s see if your theory of everything holds water.’ She headed back into the Donald’s bedroom. ‘You search the dresser and I’ll look in the wardrobe.’

  ‘What are we looking for?’

  ‘You’ve not been paying attention, have you?’

  ‘Oh, of course, a dry-cleaning tag!’

  ‘I knew you’d get there in the end.’

  Doc Paine ignored them as she directed her assistant and a forensic officer in the task of moving the bodies of Oscar and Patricia Donald off the bed and into body bags ready for onward transmission to the ambulance waiting outside.

  Xena soon found a yellowing dry-cleaning tag on the floor at the bottom of the wardrobe:

  49320

  CV

  And Stick found two in a small pot in one of the two top drawers of the pine dresser:

  38356

  LI

  37503

  SLK

  Stick scratched his head. ‘If our theory is right . . .’

  ‘Our theory?’

  ‘My theory . . . then there are five people who work at the same dry-cleaners.’

  ‘Your theory is beginning to leak like a sieve, numpty.’

  ‘It is, isn’t it?’

  Chapter Fourteen

  After visiting, interviewing and eliminating the remaining two female suspects from their enquiries, they’d returned to the station, and were now sitting in the incident room drinking coffee and staring at the incident board.

  ‘What now, Sir?’

  ‘Now, we sit here and pretend we know what we’re doing. We also drink lots of coffee, because coffee nourishes oxygen-starved brain cells and helps ideas ferment and develop.’

  ‘Is there that much coffee in the station?’

  ‘You’re young and meant to be full of optimism, Richards.’

  ‘Oh, I am. It’s just that . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Optimism is no good without ideas.’

  Parish took his feet off the table and said, ‘Let’s go back to the beginning, shall we? Maybe we missed something. Maybe there’s a lead we’ve forgotten to pursue. Maybe . . .’

  ‘. . . The killer is staring us in the face?’

  He gave her a humourless smile. ‘Exactly. Okay, the first victim was a married man called Patrick Carroll who worked as a manager in the sofa section of Furniture World at The Spires shopping Centre in Broxbourne.’

  Richards turned the board over and began writing. ‘He was abducted by a woman who looked like a . . .’

  ‘Was he?’

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘You’re still making the assumption that Carroll was abducted by her, but he may not have been. He could have given her a . . .’

  ‘. . . I don’t think we need to know what he could have given her.’

  ‘. . . A kiss, and then began walking back to his car.’

  ‘If that was the case, who abducted him?’

  ‘My point exactly. It could have been the KGB, the Kurdish rebels, or Mossad. Maybe Furniture World is a hotbed for zealots and extremists.’

  Richards shook her head. ‘You’re forgetting one thing.’

  ‘Only one?’

  ‘That tart looked into the camera.’

  ‘You’re seething with jealousy?’

  ‘I am not.’

  ‘Maybe I’ve misinterpreted that look. Put the recording on again.’

  ‘You just want to letch.’

  ‘And you have an extremely dirty mind for a young woman, Richards. I’ll have to interrogate your mother about where you might have got that from.’

  They watched the recording of the pick-up in the bar of The Stag Inn again.

  Richards paused it at the point the woman looked into the camera. ‘Well?’ she said.

  He stared at the woman’s eyes for a handful of seconds and then said, ‘I didn’t misinterpret it, did I?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Also, it’s hard to imagine when she’s wearing so little, but it’s probably a disguise . . .’

  ‘And let’s not forget the van driver – he was wearing a disguise as well.’

  ‘I’m guessing, but I think that’s the woman disguised as a man.’

  ‘It’s a very good disguise.’

  ‘It is, isn’t it? Okay, so that was Friday night. Where did she take him when they left the pub? And is that where she kept him between Friday night and Sunday morning?’

  ‘We have no way of knowing,’ Richards said.

  ‘She stole a van from Brookman’s Park in the early hours of Monday morning. What was she driving between Friday and Monday? We know it wasn’t Patrick Carroll’s car, because that was still parked up in The Spires car park.’

  ‘Or was it?’

  Parish rubbed the stubble on his chin. ‘Is it possible that she was using his car over the weekend, and then parked it at the shopping centre car park again before stealing the van?’

  ‘I’ll make a note to get the CCTV security footage from the shopping centre,’ Richards said. ‘But even if we do discover that she was driving his car, will it help us solve the case?’

  ‘Probably not, but it won’t hurt to have it.’ He took a swallow of coffee. ‘At some point, she drained the blood from Carroll’s body.’

  ‘Why? What’s she doing with it?’

  ‘That’s a good question. Maybe she’s opening up her own blood bank . . . What are the common factors between the two murders that we know about?’

  ‘Both victims were drained of blood.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘They were hung up and arranged to look like . . . I was going to say people in history, but The Hanged Man isn’t a historical figure, is he?’

  ‘Ah, that’s where you’re wrong. He depicts a traitor being punished in fifteenth century Italy. The card is also related to Christianity and the upside-down Cross of St Peter.’

  ‘So you think that both murders might be to do with religion?’

  ‘I think that’s unlikely, but we can’t rule it out yet. Also, St Julia was crucified in Corsica, which is where?’

  ‘Geography was never one of my strongest subjects.’

  ‘I’d like to know which subjects were.’

  ‘You don’t want an answer right now, do you?’

  ‘Corsica is governed by France now, but it used to be part of Italy.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Not really. How does that help us?’

  He stared into his empty coffee cup. ‘I’m not saying it does, but it might be relevant.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Are there any other common factors between the murders?’

  ‘If Doc Riley finds another piece of paper in the woman’s heart, then that would be a common factor.’

  ‘Yes, it would.’

  ‘I don’t understand what that’s about.’

  ‘It’s a message.’

  Richards pulled a face. ‘Maybe it’s just part of a message. I mean, on its own, 31 doesn’t mean anything, does it?’

  ‘It doesn’t mean anything yet in the context of this investigation – that we know of. But on its own 31 is a prime number, the atomic number of gallium and the number of days in a 31-day month.’

  ‘Are any of those related to the investigation?’

  ‘Who knows?’ he said. ‘Maybe we’ll know more after
Doc Riley has done the post mortem and we have the second piece of paper.’

  ‘If there is one.’

  ‘Of course. Are there any more common factors?’

  ‘The victims appear to be totally different – young and old, male and female, married and unmarried . . . I say she was unmarried because there was no mark on her finger from a wedding ring, and there was no physical evidence that she’d had children either.’

  ‘I’ll go along with that.’

  ‘No clues as to their identity were left at the crime scenes.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘The locks were picked to enter the locations, and ropes and pulleys were used to suspend the victims in the positions they were left in. And, of course, no forensic evidence was left that could be used to identify the killer.’

  ‘What have we got then?’

  She smiled. ‘I’d say we have a modus operandi mixed in there somewhere.’

  ‘Good. Start a list.’

  Richards held the marker pen over the whiteboard and said, ‘Shoot.’

  ‘Abducts victims;

  Drains blood from the bodies of victims;

  Experienced climber;

  Suspends victims in buildings using ropes and pulleys;

  Possibly something to do with another country (Italy);

  Possible uses disguises;

  Experienced at picking locks;

  Paper/message inserted into the heart of victims.’

  Richards finished the list and then said, ‘What about the blood bags and cannula she uses to drain the blood?’

  ‘We don’t want to make the list too restrictive.’

  ‘All right. Does she always abduct her victims?’

  ‘There’s abduction, and then there’s abduction. I imagine she abducts them using her feminine charms.’

  ‘What about the last victim?’

  ‘Maybe a lesbian.’

  ‘Do you think?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘Maybe we shouldn’t restrict it to just Italy,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe you’re right.’

  ‘I am?’

  ‘I can be magnanimous sometimes.’

  ‘Name me one other time that you’ve been magnanimous?’

  ‘I have a list of the other occasions on the back of a postage stamp in my wallet. I’ll show you once we’ve finished what we’re doing.’

  ‘I can’t wait.’

  ‘So change that to: Possibly something to do with another country, and in brackets put Italy.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Write another list.’

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘The killer’s profile:

  Female 20 – 35 years old;

  Lean, fit body;

  Experienced climber;

  Knows how to pick locks using a pick gun;

  Probably very attractive;

  Experienced phlebotomist;

  Experienced at using disguises.

  ‘Anything else you want to add?’ he asked her.

  Richards stood back and read the list. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Okay. I want you to update the SCAS Questionnaire and communicate the changes to them, see if that makes any difference to their database queries. After you’ve done that, contact Interpol and ask them to issue a Blue Notice to UN member states. Then, request a database search from Europol.’

  ‘And what will you be doing while I’m pretending to be an octopus?’

  ‘I’ll be shouldering the burden of making sure that you do as I’ve asked you to do.’

  ***

  Xena laid the five dry-cleaning tags out on the counter, placed her warrant card next to them and said, ‘What can you tell us about these?’

  After battling through the press outside the Donalds’ house, she and Stick had driven to the nearest shops on Ware Road – opposite the cemetery – and entered the Crown Dry Cleaners.

  ‘I can tell you that they didn’t come from here,’ the middle-aged woman behind the counter said. She had frizzy ginger hair scooped into a ponytail at her neck, and her hairline began half-way back on the top of her scalp, which was about in line with her ears.

  ‘What about the numbers?’ Xena asked.

  ‘They’re numbers.’

  ‘All right, what about the letters?’

  ‘European fabric abbreviations . . . except the SLK – someone’s added the L by mistake. It’s easy to do. The correct abbreviation is SK for Silk.’

  She glanced at Stick. ‘Fabric abbreviations?’

  ‘That’s right,’ the woman said. ‘PES is polyester; CLY is Lyocell; LI is Linen; CV is Viscose; and SLK – we’ve already done that.’

  ‘They couldn’t be people’s initials?’

  ‘They can be whatever you want them to be, but it doesn’t get away from the fact that they’re fabric abbreviations.’

  ‘Shit!’ What it meant was that their only lead had just been washed down the plughole. ‘You said these tags weren’t yours?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  The woman reached under the counter, pulled out a book of tags and placed it in front of Xena. ‘We only use blue tags, and ours are specially made with CROWN and our telephone number printed on them.’ She opened up the book. ‘Each item gets one tag pinned to it. The matching tag is stapled to the bottom of the ticket, which is then torn off and handed to the customer. No tag, no clothes – that’s what we tell people.’

  ‘And what about these fabric abbreviations?’

  ‘Very few shops write them on the tag.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, most people in the dry-cleaning business know those abbreviations off-by-heart. I bet you have some abbreviations in your line of work that other people would need to look up, but you know off-by-heart.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose we do.’

  Stick began reeling off some abbreviations: ‘ABH, GBH, ACC . . .’

  ‘Yes, all right, numpty. I think she gets the idea.’

  He grinned. ‘Sorry.’

  She turned back to the woman. ‘So, who would write the abbreviations on the tags?’

  ‘Maybe someone who was new to dry-cleaning, so that they’d become familiar with them.’ The woman shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine. I can’t say I’ve ever seen tags with the abbreviations written on them before.’

  ‘So you have no idea where these tags might have come from?’

  ‘None at all.’

  ‘Thanks anyway.’

  ‘No problem. Anything else I can help you with?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Are you sure? Those clothes you’re wearing are looking a bit grubby.’

  ‘And your wrists look a bit empty without my handcuffs clamped around them.’

  They made their way out of the shop and sat in the car.

  Stick turned the key in the ignition so that the heating would come on. ‘It looks like my theory of everything is actually a theory of nothing,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘If we don’t have the dry-cleaning tags, we have nothing.’

  ‘Will you shut up – I’m thinking.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Xena stretched her legs out, so that the heater would blow on her feet. ‘There’s still a chance that the tags might be useful.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘You heard what the woman said: Very few shops write the abbreviations on the tags.’

  Stick smiled. ‘And what we need to do is find the shops that do?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘How are we going to do that?’

  ‘By publishing the tags. We’ll get Jenny Weber to organise a campaign – newspapers and television – and ask the public for their help. Somebody must know which shop these dry-cleaning tags came from.’

  ‘Good idea. Back to the station?’

  ‘Unless you have somewhere else to go?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ***

/>   Joe and Shakin’ had the same lectures as she had. Except, Shakin’ decided to skip a Political Science lecture on Feminist Political Thought, so that he didn’t miss any of the fun.

  ‘I can’t believe George Peckham was murdered and I missed it,’ Shakin’ said. ‘Joe said there was no blood, but I bet there was. What was it like, Mrs K?’

  ‘It wasn’t very nice, Shakin’. And Joe was right, there was no blood. George Peckham was poisoned while we were there. He began frothing at the mouth, turning a dark blue and jerking as if he was having a fit. No, it wasn’t very nice at all.’

  ‘Joe thinks that we might be next.’

  ‘It’s a distinct possibility. Are you all right with dying an agonising death, Richard?’

  ‘Bring it on, Mrs K. Mind you, it wouldn’t be so bad if you, me and Joe could have a threesome before we go to that great big courtroom in the sky. I think that might make it a bit easier to take.’

  ‘I’m sure it would, but it’s never going to happen, Richard.’

  ‘Oh well! You can’t blame a guy for trying.’

  ‘I don’t. In fact, I’m flattered that you two young boys are attracted to a withered old crone like me.’

  Joe and Shakin’ grinned at each other.

  ‘Me and Joe like playing “Grab a Granny”,’ Shakin said.

  ‘Just when I was getting to like you two boys, as well.’

  They’d walked to Temple underground station, hopped onto a train to Embankment on the Circle Line, and then changed to the Northern Line where they caught the train to the Oval. Outside the station, they slid into a black cab and directed the driver to take them the short distance to Cardigan Street.

  ‘What about lunch first?’ Joe said, looking through the window of the Windmill Fish Bar.

  Jerry pulled a disappointed face. ‘Fish and chips?’

  Shakin’ licked his lips. ‘Now you’re talking, Mrs K.’

  ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like some fresh vegetables?’

  ‘That sounds like something healthy people might eat,’ Joe said. ‘Are we healthy people, Shakin’?’