Blood Axe

by Leigh Russell

  George, meanwhile, was speaking in his gentle, clipped tones. ‘What concerns me first and foremost is the nature of the weapon. It’s unusual, quite ridiculous in practical terms.’

  They all nodded or murmured in agreement. No one in their right mind would choose to use an identifiable axe as a murder weapon.

  ‘It’s odd, which makes it more difficult to try and work out with any degree of certainty what he’s thinking, and almost impossible to predict what he might do next,’ George went on, ‘but I suspect he’s going to kill again.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’ Eileen sounded tetchy.

  ‘Because he’s playing a role.’

  ‘Playing a role? You mean he’s deluded, or schizophrenic? That kind of thing?’

  ‘Yes. My guess is that he’s fantasising that he’s some kind of SAS soldier.’ George hesitated. ‘It might sound crazy, but I think that’s his rationale. The truth is, I’m afraid he’s enjoying this violent killing spree, or at least he’s somehow convinced himself he’s doing the right thing. Either way, he’s not likely to stop.’

  ‘Then it’s up to us to stop him,’ Eileen said.

  ‘How are we supposed to find him?’ someone asked.

  Eileen nodded. ‘We could do with some help right now.’

  Ian sighed. The detective chief inspector was right. With two victims brutally killed, they still had no suspect in the frame. The killer remained at large, and if George was right, he wasn’t going to stop at two murders.

  ‘We have to find this maniac,’ he said aloud, speaking to himself as much as to anyone else who might hear him. ‘We have to.’

  29

  ‘What the hell’s that?’ Jem called out suddenly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What’s that, just over there, by the bridge?’

  ‘Can’t see anything!’ Tommy shouted back, his thin face twisted with exertion. ‘Don’t stop – hey, watch out!’

  ‘Look, over there!’ Jem insisted, ignoring the warning.

  Their oars clashed again, and Tommy swore. They were supposed to be practising for a race. Jem couldn’t even row properly. He never took anything seriously. Muttering a curse, Tommy twisted round in his seat to stare in the direction his friend had indicated.

  ‘Now we’ve lost our rhythm... bloody hell! What is it?’

  Tommy swivelled round. He felt his hands tighten on his oars as he and his friend stared at each other in silence for a second.

  Without exchanging another word, they began sculling gently towards the bank to take a closer look at the object Jem had pointed out. It took them a few seconds to establish a rhythm and pull together again. Slowly they drew closer to a large furry object trapped in the weeds and rushes on the river bank.

  ‘It’s a dead rat…’ Tommy began.

  ‘It’s a bloody big rat!’

  ‘Or a water vole.’

  ‘It could be a cat.’

  ‘Or a dog…’ Tommy broke off with a yelp of alarm.

  ‘What is it?’ Jem whispered.

  Tommy was closest to the ball of fur. He craned forward to gain a better view of the object bobbing gently up and down on the rippling water. As he stared, the ball of fur rolled over. Entangled in river weed at the water’s edge, a human face appeared, seeming to stare back at him. It was virtually unrecognisable, the flesh bloated and ragged, the eyes wriggling.

  ‘Oh fuck. That’s disgusting!’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a dead body.’

  ‘This is so cool!’ Jem said. Further away from the floating object than Tommy, he couldn’t see the face clearly. ‘Where’s the rest of it?’

  ‘What do you mean, the rest of it?’

  ‘I can only see the head above the water.’

  ‘That’s all I can see.’

  ‘But can you see if it’s a man or a woman?’

  ‘I can’t see the body under the water.’

  ‘It’s probably been here for weeks, and it’s all been eaten, and just the bones are left.’

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ Tommy repeated lamely. He was beginning to feel sick.

  ‘Who do you think it is?’

  ‘How the hell should I know?’

  ‘Let’s go closer and get a better look.’

  ‘No,’ Tommy protested. He couldn’t think of anything worse than having a clearer view of the decomposing face. ‘We mustn’t contaminate the crime scene,’ he added, doing his best to sound grown up.

  ‘Don’t be so pathetic. I’ve never seen a real dead body before. We might never get a chance to see one again. Come on! It’ll be fun!’

  Tommy shook his head.

  ‘Anyway, we can’t just leave it there, someone might be looking for him. Or her,’ Jem pointed out, screwing up his eyes and trying to peer through the murky water.

  ‘We have to tell the police,’ Tommy said firmly.

  ‘Go on then.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Go ahead and tell them if you really want to spoil it.’

  ‘You have to come with me.’

  Jem launched into a long account of how his cousin who had reported a crime to the police had ended up going to prison.

  ‘All he’d done was tell them the shop had been broken into,’ he explained indignantly. ‘He hadn’t done anything wrong. All he’d done was be a good citizen and because they couldn’t find out who did it they locked him up instead. They have to get a conviction. It’s part of their targets. He was just a statistic to them. Best steer clear of getting into trouble with the pigs, that’s what my dad says. You could end up as one of their statistics.’

  They passed the decomposing body and drifted over to the bank, still squabbling about what to do. In the end, Tommy prevailed. Pulling out his phone, he dialled 999 with fingers that shook with excitement. By now the dead body was out of sight, hidden in the river weeds. It was hard to believe they had really seen anything so gruesome but Tommy was on his phone, gabbling to a voice on the other end of the line. He gave his name. Jem shook his head, flapping his free hand in the air too late to stop Tommy giving his friend’s name as well: Jem Nichols.

  ‘No,’ Jem mouthed, with an anguished grimace, ‘leave me out of it.’

  Ignoring his friend, Tommy tried to explain what they had seen, and the precise location where they had seen it. It sounded unlikely. He wasn’t sure the woman on the other end of the line believed him, she asked him to repeat what he had seen so many times. He did so, with increasing anxiety. At last Tommy hung up. Jem wanted to go back and have a closer look, but the police had instructed Tommy to remain where he was.

  ‘Come on,’ Jem urged him. ‘Let’s go back.’

  ‘She said we had to stay exactly where we are.’

  ‘No one will know.’

  ‘I’m not going back.’

  ‘Chicken.’

  ‘I just don’t want to look at it again, all crumbly and maggoty. It makes me feel sick.’

  ‘Wimp.’

  Tommy no longer cared about Jem’s insults. He had no intention of looking at the dead body again. It was going to give him nightmares enough already. He clung to his excuse for not moving.

  ‘The police said we have to stay where we are. You don’t want to get in trouble, do you? Remember what happened to your cousin.’

  A few moments passed in uneasy silence before Tommy was startled to hear a voice hail him by name. Looking up he saw a uniformed police officer standing on the bank staring down at him. As he answered, another officer appeared. Tommy and Jem gestured eagerly towards the bridge. One of the officers hurried away and returned a few moments later, talking busily into his phone. He nodded at his colleague who also began talking rapidly on his phone. Within a few minutes, a few more policemen arrived, followed by a team all dressed in white spaceman suits.

&n
bsp; ‘It’s just like on the telly,’ Tommy said, ‘only this lot are so slow.’

  30

  Not long after lunch the duty sergeant rapped sharply on Ian’s door. ‘DCI wants you down by the railway bridge right away, sir. SOCOs should be there by now, with a diving team.’

  ‘What’s going on? I thought we weren’t going to search the river bed. Has something happened?’

  He was on his feet as he spoke, pulling on his jacket. The killer had escaped on the river. Some new evidence must have turned up. There could be no other reason to search the river just then. He hoped another body hadn’t been discovered. He never slept well when a multiple murderer was at large. It was hardly surprising, really. The pressure to solve the case became unbearably urgent. Already they were looking for an axe-wielding maniac who had killed Angela and Timothy. That was bad enough. A third victim would mean they were officially looking for a serial killer. The papers were already full of the two victims and their gruesome deaths. Another murder would send them into a complete frenzy.

  The duty sergeant confirmed that new evidence had been found that might relate to Timothy’s killer.

  ‘But surely the killer didn’t leave anything in the water?’ Ian asked, puzzled.

  ‘Well, yes, he did leave something, sir. Everyone’s very excited about it.’

  Ian frowned. ‘How come everyone’s so certain whatever they found was left by the killer?’ The duty sergeant just shook his head. ‘I mean, couldn’t it have been left by someone else?’

  The duty sergeant spoke up. ‘Not this time, sir.’

  ‘I don’t see why. Yesterday we weren’t getting a diving team, today we are. What’s going on? Sounds like a lot of fuss about nothing.’

  ‘A couple of kids were messing about on the river,’ the sergeant went on agreeably, unperturbed by Ian’s bad temper. ‘You’re not going to believe what they found!’

  By the time Ian reached the river, a team of scene of crime officers were hard at work scrutinising a section of river bank; two divers were in the water, and a forensic tent had been erected on the path which was cordoned off in both directions. It was an inconvenience to the locals, but everyone understood the need to avoid contaminating the site where a murderer had been busy. All the same, Ian sympathised with a fat woman who shrieked every time a uniformed officer walked past her, demanding to be told what was happening, and to know when the path would be open again.

  ‘No one tells me where I can and can’t walk! I walk along this path every day. It’s a public right of way. No one has the right to stop me walking here. It’s doctor’s orders. I have to walk every day. You! You’re supposed to be upholding the law, not breaking it.’

  A uniformed officer approached and did her best to pacify the irate walker. Ian hurried past, averting his eyes. He never relished going into forensic tents at crime scenes. Although he anticipated this one being particularly gruesome, given what he had been told, surprisingly it was less disturbing than many he had seen. On the ground a head lay, worm-eaten, the flesh shredded and falling away. It didn’t look human. There was no need for a medical examiner to sign a death certificate. The identity of the head had not yet been confirmed but no one was in any doubt that this must belong to the headless jeweller. There was even some macabre satisfaction in knowing the body parts would soon be reunited. It hadn’t taken long to establish what had happened. The head had entered the water at the point where the tracker dog had lost the scent it had followed from the jewellers’ shop. That much at least was clear. After a brief look around, and a desultory chat with a scene of crime officer, Ian left.

  The head was taken to the mortuary but there was no point in following it there. The pathologist wouldn’t arrive until the following morning. Despite his impatience, Ian knew they were lucky Jonah was willing to go in to work on Sunday at all. In the meantime, Ian returned to the police station, where he spent a few hours at his desk reading through statements. He was in no rush to go home to his empty house. He was not used to spending the night alone there. When he finally packed up work and went home, the house seemed strangely quiet.

  Stacking the dishwasher, he found himself enjoying the mindless task. Bev never liked him to potter around in the kitchen; that was her territory. His chores done, he phoned her, but she didn’t answer. He supposed she was either out with her parents, or already asleep. It made him slightly uneasy, having no idea what she was doing, yet, at the same time, it felt liberating. He tried her phone once more, then gave up. There was no need to be concerned about her. It wasn’t as though she was crossing a war zone by herself. She was with her family. If there were any problems, they would contact him. He could relax, secure in the knowledge she was being well looked after. All the same he slept fitfully that night, and dreamed about his absent wife. They were in a shopping centre but he had lost sight of her. He searched in every shop but couldn’t find her.

  On Sunday morning Ian drove straight to the mortuary. Avril threw him a shrewd glance.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she asked, her blue eyes solemn. ‘You look like death warmed up.’

  ‘I’ve come to the right place then,’ he grinned.

  ‘Well, I’m not sure about the warming up.’

  ‘With you here? It’s positively hot.’

  She slapped his arm playfully. ‘Go on in. You’ll find him in there, examining your head.’

  ‘My head? I still had it last time I looked.’

  Jonah looked up as Ian entered, and a grin spread across his freckled face.

  ‘We’ve found our missing head. It’s a perfect fit!’ He stepped aside to give Ian a clear view of the decapitated victim, head carefully set in place above the shoulders. ‘It took a few strokes to hack it off completely. I’ll give you one guess what was used to cut it off.’

  Ian stared at the reconstructed corpse without answering. It was a rhetorical question.

  ‘There is one more thing might interest you,’ Jonah added. His voice rose slightly with excitement. ‘With luck it might even help you identify the murder weapon.’

  Ian raised his eyebrows. He waited, not daring to interrupt.

  ‘Wait.’

  Jonah sent one of his assistants to fetch a blown up photograph. Ian looked at it. The lab assistant shone a bright light on it. Jonah pointed to a large darkish blotch being displayed. Ian frowned and leaned closer, trying to see any significance in the discoloured patch.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked at last. ‘I don’t get what it is.’

  ‘That’s a bruise on one of Angela’s temples. But look at the marking on it.’

  Ian stared then shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t get what you mean.’

  ‘It’s not easy to make out with the naked eye,’ Jonah explained, ‘but there’s a logo of some sort, and the shape of the bruise suggests it was made with the flat of the axe head, as though the killer whacked her on the side of her head, maybe by accident. We’ll send you an image that shows the pattern more clearly. It looks like the letter y.’

  Ian nodded, puzzled but faintly excited. Although he couldn’t see how it was going to help much, any new information might possibly be the lead they were waiting for.

  ‘Send me the image as soon as you can.’

  31

  Bev arrived home late on Sunday evening. After trying her number without success in the afternoon, Ian had picked up some fish and chips on the way home and was slouched on the sofa, his feet resting on her sewing box, when he heard her key in the lock. The regional news had just begun. For a few days the local media had been dominated by the Axe Murderer. In a way, Ian sympathised with their interest. No one could deny this was a particularly gruesome case. The murderer had used an axe to kill first a young woman and then a man, within the space of three days. He might strike again at any time. No one in the area, man or woman, felt safe.

  Murder of any kind was worryi
ng enough, but the weapon used in this case had caught the public imagination. Fears were fanned by media hysteria. ‘Axe Man Strikes Again’, screamed the headlines in the local papers. Unusually, their sensationalist language was accurate. The killer had used an axe, more than once, and no one knew when he might strike again. It was still unclear who had disclosed the nature of the murder weapon to the press. Eileen was furious about the leak. Privately, Ian thought she was making an unnecessary fuss. The media would have found out about the axe sooner or later. All that really mattered was to focus on finding the killer. It was even possible that someone had seen a neighbour or acquaintance carrying an axe. The press coverage might prompt a witness to come forward.

  The media had been busy over the week since Angela’s murder. Not only had they learned about the axe, they had discovered the identity of the man who had been taken in for questioning. Frank’s release the previous day seemed to have whipped them up into a frenzy of hyperbole. One of the television reports appeared intent on causing a public panic. ‘Police Stumped’ the strap line announced, as the presenter described how Frank had been taken in for questioning, only to be released after a day. According to the reporter, the police were at a loss and the public at risk. This was followed by a discussion in the studio between a news presenter and some kind of psychologist, picking over the fact that Frank was Angela’s stepfather.

  Ian scowled at the screen as a clip of a young, happy Angela was displayed laughing in a garden. Nothing that had been stated was untrue, but the reporter had put an unfortunate spin on the news item, implying the police were incompetents casting around helplessly for clues. He leaned back on the sofa and closed his eyes, irritated by the criticism. Anyone with any sense knew that murder investigations couldn’t be conducted hurriedly. He would like to see that smug-faced reporter working round the clock to try and solve the case, instead of criticising the people who were actually doing something to try and track down the killer.