A Fatal Cut

by Priscilla Masters

  ‘Never a hundred per cent,’ he admitted. ‘Not until we’ve got some hard evidence, or a confession. Preferably both!

  Lewisham smiled but kept his thoughts to himself.

  Forrest’s curiosity got the better of him. ‘What I don’t understand is, why does he seem to think Brenda Watlow’s still alive?’

  Lewisham’s smile grew even wider. ‘It could be denial,’ he said. ‘A powerful force of nature, denial. Protector of our sanity.’ He waved his hands around. ‘This incident will topple us into depression, anxiety, mania, therefore it did not happen. Usually we come to terms with unpleasant happenings bit by bit, our subconscious guarding the sluice gates so our sanity is not flooded. Understand?’

  Forrest nodded and moved towards the door. He hated Lewisham a little less today, because he knew pomposity had grown out of real cleverness.

  ‘Do you think Forning’s our man?’

  Lewisham turned towards him staring over the top of those half-moon glasses. ‘I couldn’t possibly say yet,’ the psychiatrist said. ‘Now what time’s the post-mortem tomorrow?’

  Chapter Nineteen

  6 January 2000

  Forrest felt he should explain or apologize for Lewisham’s presence as they filed passed Karys into the PM room. Looking at her he knew she hated the psychiatrist being there with him. For her it was the ultimate test. She grimaced at Lewisham.

  ‘Hello there, Barney. Nice to see you. Going to watch, are you?’

  It was a battle of two personalities.

  Lewisham followed Karys into the sluiceroom and Forrest heard Lewisham’s huge, uncontrolled laugh. ‘You don’t even want me to hold the retractors?’

  And Karys’s answer. ‘Oh, bugger off, Barney.’

  She sounded confident. Forrest caught sight of himself grinning in the mirror.

  So, once again, Karys stood at the foot of the mortuary slab among a ring of police officers. But this time there was something intangibly different. She could sense relief in their manner. They had the ‘surgeon’ safely in custody. No longer an unknown. Just a mere mortal. Karys slipped her gloves on and read swiftly through Paget’s preliminary notes. Brenda Watlow had been five feet five inches tall and, whatever she might have liked to think, had been slightly plump, weighing in at eleven and a half stones.

  Karys moved towards the slab.

  This time the ‘surgeon’ had made his incision right across the victim’s abdomen, a few inches below the umbilicus. Karys stared at it for a few moments before speaking. ‘They call this a bikini-line incision,’ she explained. ‘It’s a common enough cut.’

  ‘A common enough cut for what?’ asked Forrest.

  She didn’t answer.

  It was Lewisham who stepped forward to take charge, barely recognizable in a long green surgeon’s gown. The only one of them wearing a mask. ‘Hysterectomy,’ he said. ‘What on earth’s the matter, Karys? Squeamish?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ she said.

  ‘Well you’ve a job to do.’

  ‘I know.’ A small flame of anger lit her eyes. When she spoke it was to address Forrest, not Lewisham.

  ‘I’m reluctant to look beneath the sutures,’ she admitted.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I think that’s what he’s done to her,’ she said. ‘He’s been working up to the removal of a major organ. Wilson’s was minor surgery, just a hernia. Superficial. Baring’s was cosmetic stuff, the removal of a breast. Ugly but not deep. I had the feeling that next time he would go for one of the major abdominal organs.’ She half closed her eyes. ‘Get in right up to his elbows.’

  Two rookies were attending their first post-mortem. Forrest had deliberately subjected them to this. No point being soft on new officers. Their job would not ultimately be kind to them. They would see many such ugly sights. Few worse. Both of them had turned green.

  Lewisham’s voice echoed round the room. ‘I do believe you’re getting to know this “surgeon”, Karys,’ he taunted, ‘almost as well as I am.’

  ‘Not quite,’ Karys said through gritted teeth. She shot him an angry glance before bending over her work again.

  Forrest was confused. There was something going on here, some distinct rapport between the two doctors from which he was excluded. He looked from one to the other for explanation. There was none.

  Karys started the post-mortem as though she was oblivious to everyone else in the room, as usual beginning with the head and neck. Removal of the cranium, cross-sections of the brain. It didn’t take long. It was ten minutes before she looked up.

  ‘He broke form,’ she said. ‘This one wasn’t coshed. Just strangled. He got near enough for that. It was a face-to-face assault rather than from behind. The marks clearly show no ligature this time. He used his hands. There are clear thumb prints on either side of the trachea.’

  ‘You’re sure it was the same killer?’ David Forrest asked.

  Karys allowed her eyes to drop to Brenda Watlow’s torso. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said quietly. ‘And his suturing skills are improving every time.’

  ‘So why vary his method of killing?’

  Karys shrugged. ‘Maybe he got more satisfaction from the actual contact. Or maybe she knew him, and that meant he could get that close. Perhaps he’s simply gained confidence.’ She looked up. ‘That fits your suspect, David, doesn’t it? They did know each other.’

  Forrest nodded.

  Lewisham’s loud voice chipped in again. ‘Since when have you been doing psychological analyses as part of your post-mortems, Karys?’

  She flushed, but stood her ground. ‘Ever since I’ve been a Home Office Pathologist, Barney.’

  Lewisham peered at her over the top of his glasses. ‘I’m most impressed,’ he murmured.

  The thorax didn’t pose much of a challenge either. Rib cage intact. Normal, healthy heart and lungs.

  It was twenty minutes later that she tackled the abdomen, first of all cutting through the stitches with deft skill. They were all placed in a specimen bag and handed to the Scene of Crime Officer.

  The subcutaneous fat had not been sutured but it had been cut right through too, the thick, yellow layer of adipose parting easily under Karys’s probing fingers. She exposed the severed ends of blood vessels and worked deeper. Beneath the fat was the omentum, a double sheet of fibrous peritoneum which lined the abdominal cavity and connected the stomach to the other abdominal organs. The line of the surgeon’s cut was easy to trace. Karys located and removed the stomach for further examination.

  ‘There’s always a possibility that she was sedated,’ she explained to the rookies who were looking at her with horrid fascination. She followed the line of the incision even deeper, beneath the bifurcation of the aorta, underneath the loop of large bowel. Her hands were searching for the uterus. But without much difficulty she could see where the ‘surgeon’ had incised it. A finger inserted into the vagina made it obvious what was missing. He had used the traditional bikini-line incision, the route taken by surgeons for women who wished to preserve their attractiveness. Had Brenda Watlow been a living patient the surgeon would have chosen this exact same route. The thought chilled Karys. The cuts had not been absolutely precise, there was damage around the area. It had taken him a little searching to identify his target organ. In some areas his knife had slipped and he had severed another blood vessel. But of course, as with his other ‘patients’, she had not bled to death.

  Karys was suddenly struck by a thought. She had always called Colin Wilson and Rosemary Baring the ‘surgeon’s’ victims. But this time she had, without thinking, referred to Brenda Watlow as his patient.

  She was starting to think the way he wanted her to think. He was ordering her thoughts. By his work. By his presentation.

  Look, she told herself sternly. Look for yourself. Stop seeing what he wants you to see.

  ‘You’re a bit quiet.’ Only Barney would interrupt her deepest thoughts. Without flinching she faced him across the table. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I find thinki
ng, quietly, invaluable to my work.’

  ‘So what inspiration are you coming up with, my dear?’

  ‘I do wish you’d be quiet.’

  She forced herself back to a study of Brenda Watlow’s body. Something was missing. A mark. She knew what it was. That hint of humour that had been evident in the two previous murders. No funny tie around the throat, stockings ligating the neck, plastic surgery for a nurse who worked in a private, surgical clinic, a hernia repair for a plumber. Brenda Watlow’s injury had been more brutal. This time the ‘surgeon’ had not been smiling. Karys knew he had been angry.

  Unless...The idea was grim. A few months ago she could not have thought of it. Her mind would have rejected such an idea as being beyond the depths of human depravity. But doggedly Karys searched the entire abdominal cavity. Had the ‘surgeon’ played a trick, removed the womb only to hide it behind the bowel, knowing that the pathologist would be forced to join in this terrible game of hide and seek? To her relief it seemed not. Even thorough searching failed to find it. The organ had been removed.

  ‘Well, there’s a turn up for the books.’ It was Lewisham who made the comment. ‘I wonder what he’s done with it.’

  Karys glared at him. ‘Satisfied?’ she demanded. ‘Seen enough, have you? Enjoyed yourself?’’

  The psychiatrist seemed unmoved. ‘Oh yes,’ he said.

  She didn’t hear the knock on her office door. The next thing she knew, David Forrest was sitting opposite her.

  ‘Nasty business,’ she said, breaking off from writing her notes.

  Forrest nodded, hesitated. ‘I’ve got rid of Lewisham for you.’

  Karys pressed her hand to her forehead. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Knew him well, did you?’

  She nodded. ‘Look — I don’t want to talk—’

  Forrest smiled at her. ‘It’s OK.’

  Then she really studied him. For the first time in weeks, no, months, he was grinning. His eyes were crinkling round the corners. He looked...happy?

  She broached the subject tentatively. ‘You must feel much better now you’ve made an arrest.’

  Forrest nodded. But her trained eye noted some reservation. Perhaps until a suspect was convicted and behind bars there always was some doubt. ‘We’ve had a further report from the SOCOs. The bloke’s flat was stashed full of scalpel blades. He kept them in a box. Velvet-lined, would you believe.’ Forrest didn’t care that he was babbling. ‘Black velvet.’

  Karys lifted her eyebrows. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. An ex-theatre porter. A really strange guy. And yet, Karys,’ he felt compelled to share a confidence with her, ‘there wasn’t much of the killer about him.’

  ‘From what you’ve told me they aren’t usually any different from the rest of us.’

  ‘I thought,’ he was conscious he was rubbing his bald patch again, ‘I just thought — with the crimes being so — so macabre. I thought he’d be different. I thought this time I would notice something. I don’t know what. Maybe staring eyes, or peculiar habits. And all he was, was a guy who missed his job because he had to leave and nurse his mother. It was nothing more than that.’

  ‘And what does Doctor Lewisham say?’ Karys asked cautiously.

  Forrest gave an embarrassed laugh. ‘I don’t think he’s as convinced as I am.’

  ‘And how convinced are you?’

  ‘Not quite a hundred per cent.’

  ‘I see.’

  Maybe if Forrest had been less distracted he might have noted her anxiety. As it was, he was wondering when to ask her out for dinner.

  ‘Why do you think he took her womb out?’

  ‘You’re not going to draw me on that one,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to ask Lewisham. And now you have your suspect you can ask him. Only he really knows the answer.’

  An awkward silence developed between them until Forrest blurted out clumsily, ‘Look. We’ve both had a bit of a grim time lately. Have dinner with me.’

  She looked startled. ‘When?’

  Forrest did a quick calculation. Most of today he would be questioning Forning. ‘Tomorrow night,’ he suggested. ‘I’ll pick you up.’

  Karys flinched at the familiar phrase. If only Barney’s ghost would lie down and die. ‘No. I’d rather meet you there — wherever.’

  Forrest felt a vague disappointment, as though her answer had firmly put him in his place. She was telling him she did not want him to know where she lived or who she shared a flat with, if anyone. She might live alone for all he knew. But not for all he cared. The next moment he was telling himself off for being adolescent, puerile, stupid.

  Karys was looking at him strangely. ‘So where shall we go?’

  Forrest found himself embarrassingly mumbling something about ‘having to book’ and ‘letting her know’, and all the time he had the feeling that behind those thick glasses the intelligent eyes were laughing at him. At him or with him?

  • • • •

  Forning had another twenty minutes to go before yet another official meal break. A hot one this time.

  Lewisham took over the questioning. ‘Tell me about the games you play with your blades, Malcolm.’

  Malcolm stared beyond the psychiatrist. ‘Not games,’ he said. ‘Marquetry.’

  Lewisham gave a small, irritated cough. ‘Now then, Malcolm,’ he said sternly. ‘The policemen haven’t found any evidence that you do marquetry. There are no wooden pictures.’

  ‘I did try,’ Malcolm said. ‘The therapist at the hospital — after my mother died — she suggested I do marquetry.’ He paused. ‘But the wood kept splintering,’ he said politely. ‘That was why Brenda got me the blades.’

  Lewisham leaned right across the desk. ‘Tell me about the blades.’

  Malcolm’s mind began to wander. His fingers twitched, as though he was lining up the blades in a military display. He would put them in order. He would polish them until they sparkled. He would put all the curved ones together. All the pointed ones together. All the tiny ones in order of size, left to right until he got to the very biggest and fattest one. He put his hand over his mouth to suppress his giggle. The one that cut through fat people’s tummies.

  He started. The policeman was speaking to him. Not the psychiatrist. And he wasn’t talking about games. He was asking him where he’d cut the bodies.

  Pleadingly he stared back at Forrest. ‘What bodies?’ he managed to say. ‘I don’t know anything about any body. I’m sorry.’ He had thought the apology would placate the policeman. But it didn’t seem to.

  The policeman scowled at Malcolm. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘You’re tired. You’re hungry. Why don’t you tell us where you do your operations. We’ll go and clean the place up for you.’

  Malcolm felt his mouth drop open. Operations? He didn’t do operations. He had just been a theatre porter. Not a surgeon like Mr Sutcliffe. Malcolm recalled the surgeon’s brisk, condescending manner and shuddered. It had been his frantic worry every day he had worked in the operating theatre that he would do something to displease Mr Sutcliffe. In fact, he had lived in permanent terror of annoying the man, dropping something, making the tea too weak, too strong, touching an instrument or a surface that was meant to be sterile. There were so many things one could do wrong in an operating theatre. He dropped his head into his hands and remembered only the misery of the job. The failure.

  Forrest watched him despairing. ‘We must get him a solicitor,’ he said to Lewisham.

  ‘That would seem prudent.’

  Forrest ignored Forning and said, ‘How much of what we’re saying to him is getting through? Does he understand the seriousness of the charges against him?’

  ‘Oh no.’

  The psychiatrist’s answer was not the one Forrest wanted to hear. He spoke to the uniformed officer at the door. ‘Take him away,’ he said. ‘Feed him.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘There was a telephone call for you.’ The way Forrest was feeling it had better be
good news. ‘They’ve found a packet of sutures in the suspect’s flat. 5/0, they said.’

  Forrest grinned. That was good news.

  He found Shaw in the canteen, stuffing a sandwich into his mouth. ‘I want to go to Forning’s flat. Have a look round. You know they’ve found a packet of sutures there — the right size’

  Shaw stood up, abandoning his meal.

  Flat B, Varsovia House, proved to be a large, double-fronted Victorian semi, four storeys high with bay windows, halfway along a long road of similar houses. Judging by the rundown appearance most were used as student accommodation.

  They were met at the door by Sergeant Armstrong, a stocky, overweight man. He looked stolid enough. But he lacked the excitement of an officer who has unearthed some clinching evidence. ‘We haven’t found as much as we’d like,’ he began, ‘besides the scalpel blades and this one, unopened, packet of sutures. For a start this can’t have been the base for his “operations”. There’s precious little blood around except in the bathroom sink and we’ve covered most of the flat. Besides,’ he glanced through the window, ‘look around. This is hardly a quiet street nor a quiet house. Eight people live here using one staircase. There’s always someone walking up and down the street and the stairs. How’d he get the body up here without anyone seeing or hearing?’ He answered his own question. ‘Impossible. The guy on the top floor’s a taxi driver. He keeps mighty peculiar hours. I can’t believe Forning could have worked here.’ He looked almost ashamed to be saying the next sentence. ‘In fact, sir, if I was his defence I’d use that line. He’d have to be bloody lucky.’

  ‘Some nights it must be quiet.’

  For answer the Sergeant gave him a poke in the shoulder. It didn’t improve Forrest’s temper. ‘It might be quiet,’ Armstrong said, ‘if no one in the entire city of Birmingham doesn’t have a yen for a lady of the night. Second floor. Know what I mean?’ He winked and Forrest’s temper further deteriorated. ‘Besides. Does your little theatre porter have a car? Because if he doesn’t there’s no way he could have transported the bodies. It’s a few miles from where they were abducted to here.’ He tested a joke. ‘I’d lay a bet he didn’t use a wheelbarrow. And no one would know what fare to charge on the bus.’