by Mark Roberts
‘6.13 pm was the time I was born many years ago. To arrive home any earlier or any later strikes me as too early or too late.’
‘I see what you mean. One other thing. Twentieth-century political doctrines. How were they influenced by ancient and classical ideas? It sounds fascinating.’
She smiled and lit up like the seafront at Blackpool in early autumn. ‘Where, oh, where do I begin?’
47
3.15 pm
The violent snowstorm that had hit Garston in the previous hour, had not yet arrived in Aigburth Vale. Needle-like arrows of sleet fell slowly and in random diagonal lines, tossed by the wind that whipped from the River Mersey.
As Detective Chief Inspector Eve Clay parked her car at the top of Jericho Lane, she noticed tyre-width indentations in the snow, and guessed that whoever had parked there had performed a three-point turn to get away from the place. She looked at the broad marks and was sorry that a coating of fresh snow from the on-off showers had covered the tread of the tyres.
Dipping under the crime scene tape at the Aigburth Vale entrance to Otterspool Park, Clay looked at the email, and eight attached videos Poppy Waters had sent to her iPhone as she travelled from Trinity Road to the scene at Aigburth Vale.
Grim news, Eve. The words in Poppy’s email ran around her head as she hurried deeper into a park that was part woodland. But great news for the inquiry. Eight pieces of film of Marta in captivity.
She felt like a malicious hand had fallen from the sky, splitting her through the centre of her being.
It’ll have to wait, thought Clay, frustration rising, prioritising the new murder scene over the films.
Up ahead on the snow-locked path, Clay saw something small that drew her full attention. It was a robin, the natural blush of redness on its breast in life made vivid in death. The wound was deep and, as Clay passed, she observed that it had been made by another, larger bird.
Clay headed towards the gathering of officers at the bottom of the bank near the railway bridge. On the bank, there was a white tent in which a dead and burnt body lay. In the group, she picked out Detective Sergeant Karl Stone talking to a paramedic at the back of an ambulance.
The paramedic walked away from Stone and into the back of the ambulance.
Above the group, she saw the top of the bridge and thought for a moment she was seeing things. Lined up along the straight line of the bridge’s top were several crows, a macabre audience standing in the balcony, watching a real-life tragedy unfolding as they perched on the wild ivy that hung down in ragged clumps.
‘Karl?’ she called, slowing to a vigorous walk as he walked towards her, away from the small crowd. He turned and, as their eyes connected, the small light of hope that someone somewhere down the line had made an error was snuffed out.
‘Walk with me, Karl.’
‘Sorry, Eve,’ said Stone. ‘It’s a female, thirties, forty maybe, naked and face down on the embankment close to the railway bridge. She’s been set alight. There’s a distinct smell of petrol in the air.’
‘Same as our Picton Road scene then? Only one body less and a different gender. Where’s the woman who found her?’
He nodded in the direction of the ambulance. ‘I’ve called Doctor Lamb. She’s already sent the APTs down here.’
‘Where are they up to with the Adamczak brothers?’
‘She’s done enough work in both autopsies to leave it for a colleague to dot the is and cross the ts. She’s ready to work on our Otterspool Park victim as soon as she arrives at the mortuary.’
‘Any obvious racial indicators with the victim?’
‘Her skin, the skin that hasn’t been burned, is dark olive. She’s not white.’
Clay observed the rear of the ambulance, the doors closed against the fierce cold and said, ‘OK, Karl, we’ll leave it at that for now.’
She knocked on the ambulance door and said, ‘DCI Eve Clay...’
The door was opened by a female paramedic and, as Clay showed her warrant card, she looked past her at the woman sitting on the bed wrapped in a blue blanket, shivering and face beaded in moisture.
‘Kerrie,’ said the female paramedic. ‘This is DCI Eve Clay.’
The woman didn’t speak or look up from the space she was staring into.
‘Hello, Kerrie,’ said Clay. ‘Thank you for alerting us to your discovery.’
Slowly, Kerrie turned to Clay and looked through her as she struggled to find words.
‘I need to have a quick word with you, Kerrie. Did you see anybody else around in the park?’
‘No. I saw the odd dog walker on the prom but I didn’t see anybody at all in Otterspool Park. It was desolate. It was just me. And her.’
‘What drew your attention to her body?’
‘It was pretty well-hidden, high in the bank between the trees... It was the crows eating her, their hunger, their noise...’
Clay turned to the paramedic, spoke softly with compassion borne from the depths of unbridled hope. ‘Has she said anything to you? Anything?’
‘Nothing.’
‘If she does say anything, try to record it on your iPhone or write it down, please. Kerrie, just one thing before I leave you. This is your regular running route?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was anything out of place? Did you notice if anything was not right or different?’
‘The... writing... on the wall, on the inside arch of the railway bridge. I missed yesterday. Killing Time Is Here Embrace It. It’s very recent.’ She sounded like a spirit trapped in a bottle. ‘And that strange looking circle, that’s brand new.’
Kerrie closed her eyes and her chin dropped to her collarbone.
‘I’m sorry you had to see this. But thank you for alerting us to it.’
Walking towards the bridge, Clay said to Stone, ‘I want you to call Barney Cole and get him to pull any CCTV from Otterspool Promenade and Aigburth Vale. Whoever’s done this had two ways in. Top end of Jericho Lane facing the shops in the Vale. And from the prom.’
Clay walked under the arch of the bridge and saw the words Killing Time Is Here Embrace It spray-painted just above the tarmac on the lower right hand wall. The writing was identical to the graffiti she had seen at the Picton Road murder scene. Above the writing on the wall was the geometrical Black Sun logo.
As Clay walked away from the bridge and up the bank towards the tent, the victim’s body was partially concealed by Detective Sergeant Terry Mason crouched on his haunches and taking close-up photographs of the murdered woman.
‘Terry?’
He looked over his shoulder and, as he stood up, he nodded to Clay as she saw the extent of the fire damage to the woman’s body.
All of her hair had been burned away and her scalp was blackened. Clay looked above her neck, and knew that her head and face had been doused in petrol, that this was where the fire had started. She looked down the length of her back and saw a huge burn-mark down her spine, stretching out to either side of her ribs, a wound that exposed her bones to the cold air. Where her flesh had melted, it gave her the appearance of a small fire pit in the earth.
Clay looked around up and down the woman’s body and saw blood on the ground between her upper thighs. As she crouched to get a closer look at the woman’s charred face Clay worked out the grim maths that, in a direct line, her home in Mersey Road was around eight hundred metres from the murder scene.
Clay scrutinised her scorched profile, lifted her head gently to get a view of her whole face and said, ‘Karl? Come and look at this.’
Stone crouched beside Clay and looked at the victim’s upturned face. He groaned as Clay lowered the woman’s face to the frozen earth.
‘What do you think, Eve?’
‘I think they’ve targeted her face with petrol to disguise her identity and make life tougher for us.’
Stone turned and looked at Clay.
‘Karl, give Scientific Support the heads up. I strongly suspect our victim has been subjected to a
sexual assault.’
She pointed at the bush and the ground near it.
‘Please stay here with Scientific Support and organise a finger-tip search of the embankment, both sides. There are tyre imprints as you come out of the park. Get them sectioned off, please.’
‘Where are you going?’ asked Stone.
‘Poppy sent me some footage from the phone Terry found in the Adamczak brothers’ box room. I’m going to look at it in my car.’
Clay walked carefully in a diagonal line down the frozen embankment and away from the bridge, watching her feet and hoping that she wouldn’t tumble in front of the growing body of police officers.
As Clay walked along the path leading out of Otterspool Park, Poppy’s words, Grim news, Eve. But great news for the inquiry, rolled around the inside of her head like a blessing housing a curse. Reaching the door of her car, she felt the temperature drop suddenly and with the savage touch of the west wind, the snow storm arrived, and the wind that came with it knew no mercy.
48
3.18 pm
Walking away from Trinity Road Police Station, Lucy Bell was aware of the return of an old fear she thought she had long conquered: the irrational fear that she was being watched or followed.
She glanced over her shoulder and saw that there was no one behind her, only a CCTV camera mounted above the front door of the police station, pointed at her back. Looking ahead, she saw a wing mirror on the passenger side of a black car that she recognised immediately as her father’s ancient Ford Orion. Reaching the door, she opened it and said, ‘Dad, thanks for...’
‘Sorry, it’s not your Dad, it’s me,’ said Jack, smiling. ‘Your father asked me to pick you up – gave me the keys.’
He turned on the engine to try to generate a little warmth in the cold car. She sat next to him, closed the door and said, ‘Oh, no, I’m... I’m very happy to see you, Jack. I always am, you know that.’
‘Likewise, Lucy.’
A painful silence fell between them and Jack read the depth of Lucy’s neediness in her eyes.
‘You’re like a sister to me,’ he said. ‘Remember that conversation we had.’
‘It’s platonic,’ she said. ‘Our relationship.’
She felt a blush rising and knew that within seconds her face would be crimson.
‘Tell me what happened in the police station?’
‘I’m frightened I’m making a fool of myself. You’re a very handsome young man and there are other women out there who’d agree with me...’
‘There are loads of women out there but, my mother excepted, you’re the only one who stood by me in my darkest days.’ He changed the subject. ‘Want me to drive you back to the uni?’
‘Yes, please, Jack.’
‘You seem very tense. Relax, Lucy.’
She looked in the wing mirror. ‘I keep thinking we’re being watched.’
‘By?’
‘I don’t know. My father. The police.’
‘That’s not the case, Lucy. Trust me.’
‘Please drive away, Jack.’
He pulled away from the pavement and felt the momentary touch of Lucy’s fingers on the back of his hand as he shifted into second gear and turned the corner.
They travelled in silence for a few blocks and Jack recognised a catch in Lucy’s breathing, the fighting down of tears.
‘Do you remember when we first met, Lucy? When I was in the Young Offenders Institute at Altcar and you used to come and visit me, even though I was a complete stranger to you? You used to write to me, telling me never to give up hope, and that the time might drag but one day I’d be free. It wasn’t any of those women out there who kept me sane when I was locked away. You were one of the few people in this world who believed my side of the story, and you told me over and over that one day I’d be vindicated. You showed me by the things you did and said that there is a God of love, and that God loved me.’
Jack kept his fingers on the gearstick, but he could still feel the weight of Lucy’s hand on the back of his hand.
‘I’d love you to be my boyfriend but I understand. The love you have for me is the love of a brother for a sister. Do you think that might change one day?’
Jack pulled up at a red light outside St Austin’s Church, and smiled at her. ‘How can I ever be your boyfriend? I’ll never have a full-time job. I’ve got no prospects. I can’t afford to take you out. Things are the way they are...’ Jack pulled away as the lights turned green. ‘Did Clay interview you?’
‘No, it was a man. He was polite, well spoken, and took a keen interest in history. He asked me questions about my thesis. He was exceptional for another reason. He was a black officer.’
‘A police constable?’
‘No, a detective constable.’
In silence, Jack pulled up at a red light at the junction of Aigburth Road and Jericho Lane. Lucy looked straight ahead at the two police officers in high visibility jackets pointing a speedometer and a camera at the traffic coming towards them.
‘Are you all right, Lucy? You look a bit anxious?’
‘Why are they taking pictures? They don’t normally do that at speed traps.’
‘Look!’ Jack pointed at three officers dressed in white protective suits emerging from Otterspool Park. ‘It’s a crime scene.’
Lucy glanced up at the red light.
‘I’m going to be late for work.’
‘Lights are changing already. There, green, go...’
‘It’s just...’
‘Just what, Lucy?’
‘I’m sick to death of seeing police officers.’
‘Everything will go back to normal, really soon. Trust me.’
49
3.38 pm
With the engine running and her windscreen wipers working at top speed, Clay prepared to look at the footage from the Adamczak brothers’ phone.
As she pressed play, a black mortuary van pulled up at the scene-of-crime tape. Clay drew the passenger window down and called to Harper at the wheel of the van, ‘You’ll have to wait there until Scientific Support give you the all-clear. You’ll probably have to carry the body from the railway bridge to where you’re now parked. You know the drill.’
Looking back at her phone, the camera panned down, past a bare light bulb and a blank wall and straight into the face of Marta Ondřej, her mouth covered and silenced with a black gag. Marta blinked hard, the bright light hurting her eyes after the complete darkness she had endured. The end.
She pressed play on the second film and saw a direct close-up of Marta’s face and head, this time without a gag. Marta opened her mouth to speak and an androgynous voice shushed her harshly, waving the black gag before her eyes. Marta closed her mouth, and her eyes filled with tears as the film ended abruptly.
Ragged snowflakes danced in the wind above the empty passenger seat and Clay shivered as she wound the window up.
As she pressed play on the third film, Clay guessed correctly that it would be another close-up of Marta’s face. This time a black-gloved hand appeared on the right of Marta’s hair, slapping and prodding her cheeks viciously. The girl sat in silence, blinking when the fingers came near her eyes. Although she appeared unafraid, Clay could see she was numb with terror. There was a final freeze frame on Marta’s face as the hand vanished off-camera.
Eight days missing, thought Clay, and eight pieces of film. A video diary of oppression.
The fourth day’s footage was a close-up of Marta’s face with the gloved hand snipping and cutting her hair, the black gag on her mouth forcing her to scream in her throat as her eyes bulged with terror.
She was now halfway through and Clay feared the worst was still to come.
In the fifth sequence, in the close-up of her face, her head was shaven save for the patches of stubble that Clay had first noticed in the Wavertree Mystery. She paused the film, looked closely at Marta’s face. Her cheekbones were now sticking out and dark circles were forming around her eyes. After three seconds, t
he film ended.
They didn’t feed you. Clay couldn’t help but imagine Philip in Marta’s place. Bleak anger rose up inside her. ‘Who would do this to a child?’
‘Why did you do it to her?’ Clay could hear outrage in each rising word.
On the sixth day, Clay noticed that Marta’s face was now in the early stages of emaciation, and her lips were dry and cracked. The black-gloved hand came from the left this time with an uncapped bottle of water. Marta raised her hand to take the bottle but it was snatched away. Then it reappeared, Come and get me!
Clay wound her own window down, this time to allow the cold air and snow into the car, to cool the prickly heat in her face.
She called Hendricks on her iPhone. ‘Bill, it’s me.’
‘What’s wrong, Eve?’
‘I’ve got the footage of Marta Ondřej from Václav Adamczak’s phone. There are eight pieces. I’ve just finished the sixth.’
‘Bad?’
‘Bad, and getting worse by the day. I’ll send it to your phone. I need to get back to Trinity Road and sweat down Aneta Kaloza. Has she said anything since I left?’
‘No. Sorry, Eve. She’s refused to leave the station. She’s sitting in reception, telling everyone she’s going to clear her friends’ names.’
‘She’s not going to do it. You’ll see why when I forward these films to you. But for now, their contents stay between you and me.’
‘OK, understood.’
She sighed as she prepared to play the seventh piece of film, terrified to see what pain and suffering awaited her.
50
6.00 pm
When Jack opened the front door of his mother’s house the smell from upstairs was so bad that he thought Raymond had died and was decomposing in a room full of electric fires, but he quickly dismissed this as wishful thinking, and smiled when he heard Jasmine barking for his attention. He opened the kitchen door and she trapped her face between his ankles, licking his feet.