Nine Lives

by Anita Waller

  Becky didn’t sleep. The balance of their home had been put out of kilter, and this was their second night with only three of them there. She didn’t like it. It had been good to walk through the door before; now she knew the absence of one of them would be an ongoing fact for the rest of their time in the house. Forty-three Crookesvale Gardens had changed forever.

  She heard a door open, then the flush of the toilet, and knew that she wasn’t the only one unable to sleep, they were all feeling the loss deeply.

  5

  Ivor wheeled out the trolley holding Susanna Roebuck’s body, and rolled the sheet covering her to one side. ‘You ready?’ he said and Erica nodded.

  He lifted the girl’s right hand and turned it so that it was palm up, indicating that Erica should move forwards.

  She did, and Ivor waited for a moment before rolling Susie slightly to one side, revealing a small puncture wound in her neck.

  Seconds later Erica breathed an almost silent, ‘No…’

  The briefing room noise subsided into silence as Erica moved to the front. She had talked the results over with Beth, and her sergeant accompanied her to the whiteboard.

  ‘Morning, everybody. First of all, thank you for the initial work you all took on yesterday, and major acknowledgement goes to everybody who went down the culvert into that bloody river. I want two of you down there today, so make sure you’ve got waders, because you’ll also be heading upstream. We need to know where Susanna Roebuck’s body went into the water. I know it’s still pissing down, but hey, nobody ever said being a copper was an easy job.’ She flashed a quick smile around the room.

  There was a brief round of applause at her words, and then silence fell again.

  ‘What I’m going to tell you now I’m hoping is so far off the mark that you’ll all laugh me out of the room, but unfortunately I don’t think it’s a laughing matter. Who was here in July twenty-fourteen?’

  Four hands were raised including Beth’s.

  ‘I was a DS at the time,’ Erica continued, ‘newly appointed to the position and keen to make my mark. In April we had a death, a young girl called Leanne Fraser. She was twenty, worked in Marks and Spencer’s, had a boyfriend who initially came under suspicion of course but had a strong alibi, and she was a regular sort of girl. Didn’t take drugs, didn’t even smoke, liked a drink on a Friday night unless she was down to work the weekend shift, a nice girl. She was strangled with tights that the murderer brought with him, and she was carefully posed in Boden Hostead woods. She wasn’t hidden or covered in any way, he wanted her to be found. He hadn’t placed her far into the woods, and it was a child on their way to school who found her. The seven-year-old boy thought it rather exciting, his mother was distraught. The post-mortem revealed one or two clues, but it was only later we realised what we had.’

  Erica glanced around the room. Everybody was silent; they all seemed to be holding their collective breaths.

  ‘There was a small puncture wound in her neck, and a drug called Propofol was found to be in her body. It’s the drug that’s used to sedate or knock you out prior to an operation. It depends how much you’re given as to how it affects you. This was somebody who knew the dosage to give. She was then strangled with the tights, but we don’t know whether it was in his car, or where she was found. It was definitely the cause of death though. After she died he slashed her right palm with a line running from the base of her palm to the bottom of her middle finger, and he removed the tip of her right little finger from the first knuckle joint.’

  DC Ian Thomas held up a hand. ‘Is it definitely a man?’

  ‘We don’t know. All the victims were slim, not tall, a woman could have manoeuvred them as all the bodies were placed on show not far from the roads adjacent to the murder scene. I’m using the term he loosely, you need to keep an open mind. There were three more victims before the end of July twenty-fourteen, Lucy Owen, Laurel Price and the final one, Lilith Baker-Jones. They were all left, carefully posed, in different wooded areas around the city. In every case Propofol was used, and the right hand was mutilated, but differently.’

  Erica took a sip of water. ‘He still removed the tips of the right little fingers, but on Lucy the slash on the palm was two parallel lines, on Laurel it was three, and by the time he’d finished with Lilith it was an IV. He was using the roman numeral system to do the body count for us. We had also realised all his victims had a Christian name beginning with L, and that he was posing every one of them. He was proud of what he was doing. All of them were naked, no evidence of rape, and we didn’t find the clothing. This,’ she said, as she stuck a photo on the whiteboard, ‘is the hand of yesterday’s victim, Susanna Roebuck. As you can see, the tip of her little finger is missing, and the palm cut is a V.’ She put up a second picture. ‘And this is the puncture mark on her neck.’

  There was a muted chorus of shits, buggers, fuck me, from around the room. Erica sat down and Beth stepped forward.

  ‘Questions?’

  ‘It’s almost as if it’s an obsessive compulsive thing with him, isn’t it? Do you think we’ll have more victims? That he’s missing the killing?’

  ‘It’s a strong possibility,’ Beth said. ‘We’ve certainly got to bear it in mind. It’s been five years since the last killing, and now we have this. The press at the time added two and two together when they realised all the girls had L in common for their names, so called him the L-killer, but it was eventually filed as a cold case because we had nothing to go on. No CCTV, no eye-witnesses, even the victims were ordinary average everyday nice girls. The slashes on the hands were never released anywhere, so it’s a good indicator that it is the same killer and not a copycat. By the end of today I want everybody here up to speed on this cold case. Nobody ever saw even a car in the wrong place, no DNA was ever left at the scene, and the killer was definitely forensic savvy. Both the boss and I were part of the investigation in twenty-fourteen and the overriding feeling was that it was a pattern he was following, and every victim had to be dealt with in the same way. Unless he is thinking of victims all with the initial letter S, we can have no clue as to where he or she will turn next, or even if it’s a one-off.’

  Erica stood. ‘I’m leaving Beth to sort everybody out. I want this river covered every stretch of the way, we need to know where she went in. I also want everybody on this team to become familiar with the cold case that’s suddenly become a hot case. I don’t want one word of this leaking to the press. I have to go and meet Mr and Mrs Roebuck now, they’re here to identify their daughter officially. Sort out what you’re doing. If anything urgent crops up, shout straight away. Don’t forget he killed four girls in three months last time he was active, we don’t want a repeat of that.’

  Erica left the room; immediately a crowd gathered around Beth, ready for a rain-soaked day that could involve splashing about in a river in full spate. She handed out instructions, aware that suddenly things had changed between her and Erica. They had shared an hour-long discussion before the briefing, and tossed around ideas as they relived the time in twenty-fourteen that seemed to be coming back to haunt them again. But there had been a camaraderie that had certainly not been there before, and despite the horrors of the case and the abysmal weather that was hampering them, she felt a sense of relief.

  Harry and Olivia Roebuck were devastated. They clung to each other, and eventually Harry nodded. ‘That’s Susanna. That’s our Susie.’

  Erica led them to the relatives’ room, and made them all a cup of tea. ‘The girls are waiting for you,’ she told the ashen-faced parents. ‘They are aware you want to see them.’

  Olivia’s head dropped. ‘Are they okay?’ she mumbled.

  ‘No,’ Erica said. ‘They’re far from okay, I won’t try to soften it. Be prepared for tears. They were a team, and Susie was a quarter of it. She will be missed. It’s been a real shock for them almost as much as you, because they came to report her missing, and found out we had already discovered her.’

&nb
sp; ‘Can I see where she died?’ Harry asked. ‘I’d like to spend a bit of time there if it’s possible.’

  ‘We don’t know yet where she died,’ Erica said. ‘We have teams out today all the way up the river looking for anywhere that would give us a clue. The river is five miles long, and we are looking for obstacles that would stop anything the size of a body from traversing the full length. If we find anything like that in the higher levels, we can narrow down our search.’

  ‘Where does the river start?’ Harry was persistent.

  Erica realised it would only take a quick Google search to give him the information. ‘Ringinglow, on the outskirts of Sheffield. It’s normally a gentle river, lots of little waterfalls on its course downwards, and was actually instrumental in starting the manufacture of steel in Sheffield. Water power from this river drove big engines, and there’s a huge working water wheel still in use. At the moment, of course, it’s in full spate and it’s quite scary the amount of power in water. I have to ask, Harry, that you don’t go there at the moment. You could potentially contaminate a crime scene and get in the way of my team. I promise, once we know the location where Susie went into the water, I will personally take you and give you all the time you need, but you can’t go there yet, we don’t know the location, or even where Susie died. We have so much to find out before we can tell you what we know.’

  ‘Was she raped?’ Olivia’s voice was hardly above a whisper.

  ‘We don’t believe she was. All DNA was washed away because of the water, but there are no obvious signs such as bruising or cuts. I don’t think rape was the intent. When you spoke to Susie, did she tell you of anything or anybody who was troubling her, or giving her any grief?’

  Husband and wife shook their heads in unison.

  ‘No,’ Olivia spoke, ‘she seemed incredibly happy and settled. She loved Sheffield, loved sharing the house with the girls, was enjoying the course – I don’t think she complained once about anything. Student life really suited her.’

  They finished their drinks and Harry and Olivia followed Erica out to the car park. ‘Take care,’ the DI said, as she watched them fasten their seat belts, ‘and I promise to keep you fully informed.’

  6

  The rain was almost relentless. There had been a brief spell of dry weather during the afternoon, but the pitter patter of more of the promised downpour began in earnest after only an hour of respite. Erica replaced the receiver after speaking to Olivia Roebuck, confirming that she and Harry had spent a couple of hours with the girls before returning home.

  ‘I spoke for some time with Clare,’ Olivia had said. ‘She told me of her relationship with Susie, so we don’t need to avoid the subject.’ Her voice had sounded strained, and when Erica disconnected, she breathed a sigh of relief. She was pleased it had come out now in case it became accidental knowledge further along the line. She made a note to tell Beth Machin, expected in at any moment after an emergency dental appointment for a tooth she had managed to chip on a piece of bonfire toffee, and Erica walked across to stare out of her tiny office window at the car park, almost a floodplain in its own right.

  She scribbled a note telling Beth she was going to the search areas on the river, put on her dried out coat and ran to the car park. She skipped across, jumping over puddles until she reached her car, standing entirely surrounded by water. She waded through it, and almost fell into the driving seat.

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ she grumbled. Her coat was wet once more, and her boots were squelching. She took out her mobile phone and rang Ian Thomas to see where his team was, then reversed out of her parking place. It briefly occurred to her that sails might be a better idea than an engine.

  Ian had said that he was nearing the stretch of river running by the Porter Brook Pocket Park, so she headed there, aware of how little traffic was on the roads. The rain was certainly keeping people indoors.

  Getting the image of Susie Roebuck out of her mind was proving difficult. Had she been a random target, or did her killer know exactly where she was going? And had Clare Vincent had a lucky escape? Although they hadn’t found anybody to confirm the theory, it was felt that for some reason Susie had got into a car, maybe to shelter from the blessed downpour that had met her on exiting the theatre. That meant she would have known the driver; surely she wouldn’t have got into a stranger’s car? The more Erica turned over things in her mind, the more her headache increased.

  She parked the car as close as she could to Ian’s targeted area and changed into her waders before walking across to the pocket park to find him. He was actually in the river, struggling to keep his balance, and staring up towards the little park.

  He held his hand up in her direction and climbed out.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, waving his arm around. ‘Why is it here?’

  She laughed. ‘My feelings exactly. I’d no idea it was here. According to Google, the council had to remove a culvert, so decided to smarten up the area where the culvert had been and built this. It’s called the Porter Brook Pocket Park, and they made it like a little amphitheatre as it’s built on the slope into the river. People bring their sandwiches on the lunch break, and eat them here by the side of the water. It’s also part of the new flood defences. As you can see, when the water rises, it overflows into this park. Won an award a couple of years ago, did this little beauty.’

  ‘Huh,’ Ian said. ‘Nobody will have been eating their sarnies here for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘Exactly. Deserted in the rain. Perfect place to throw in a body, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s why I was standing staring up at it. Is there CCTV on it?’

  ‘If this killer is who we think it possibly is, it won’t help other than to confirm this was the spot Susie was thrown in. Definitely a smart arse, this chap.’

  ‘You think it’s a man?’

  ‘I have no idea but I get so cheesed off saying him or her. Help me down, and I’ll stand and stare at it as well.’

  It was difficult to balance standing in the turbulent waters, and they stared up to the top of the pretty little park holding on to each other.

  ‘You know, we’ve no proof, but if I was going to throw a body into the Porter, I’d choose this place. There has to be CCTV somewhere around, surely.’ She looked up towards the right, to the high building about a hundred yards from the park. ‘I’ll get Beth to go there, see what they have.’

  They battled their way up river, doling out words of encouragement to the team as they reached them; nobody had anything positive to report.

  Back at the pocket park, Erica sat with Ian on one of the seats, wet through and cold. Both of them looked miserable, hair flattened to their scalps and feeling quite desperate for a cup of tea. They turned around in unison as they heard the engine note signifying the arrival of the refreshment van, followed by a small truck bearing a single toilet unit. Ian immediately used his transmitter to tell everybody to come and get drinks and food.

  The men and women of Erica’s team began arriving from upriver and downriver, using the pocket park to sit down, knowing they couldn’t get any wetter anyway.

  ‘Thank you, everybody,’ she called. ‘I know it’s a lousy job, but a necessary one. We’ll carry on until four, then it’ll be too dark to see anything much. Back again tomorrow at eight, but we’ll be higher up. I want four to start at the source, up at Ringinglow, and the rest to start where we finish off today. I’ll leave Ian to sort out the logistics of who is where, and we’ll have the refreshment van in the lower reaches, so the ones up at the top, bring a couple of flasks.’

  Several thumbs were held up, and she responded in kind. A quick phone call to check on Beth’s tooth issues resulted in Beth saying she would find out what the building was, and head down there straight away, before finding Erica to tell her.

  The team drifted back towards the areas they had left for their break, leaving Erica to sit deep in thought, nursing her second cup of tea. Tonight would be a night for reading through the c
old case of twenty-fourteen; a night for trying to get into a killer’s mind and for pondering the whereabouts of the killer for the last five years. If Frannie was going to be in, she would talk it over with her; two brains are better than one any time, and she trusted Frannie’s level-headed judgement completely. She smiled as she thought of the difference Frannie had made to her life; she had brought a calmness with her, a sense of order, and an ability to listen and let Erica work through the issues and frustrations her job created. Erica took out her phone.

  Will you be in tonight? xxx

  She waited for a couple of minutes, and received the response she needed.

  I’ll be home around eight. Lasagne? xxx

  Erica smiled and typed her response. It’ll be waiting. Love you xxx

  She slipped her phone back in her pocket and turned as she heard Beth’s voice. Beth was standing at the refreshment van, miming drinking. Erica held up her paper cup to show she had one, and a minute later Beth joined her on the saturated seat.

  ‘This is wet,’ she announced, wriggling around.

  ‘You should try standing in that lot.’ Erica nodded towards the turbulent waters of the Porter only feet away from them.

  ‘You been in?’

  ‘Yes, with Ian. We walked upstream a bit, to see what, if anything, was happening. We both feel this is a good spot to chuck in a body, but there’s nothing that we’ve found that would indicate that was right. You been to that building?’

  Beth nodded. ‘I have. Yes, they have CCTV. No, it doesn’t work. Hasn’t worked for six months, but they’ve not rushed to sort it because they’ve never needed it.’