The Tangled Lock (The National Crime Agency Series Book 3)

by Bill Rogers

  ‘Come on, Andy,’ she whispered as she grabbed her jacket and shoulder bag. ‘You can forget about your beloved scooter. I’m driving.’

  Chapter 4

  ‘Bloody ghouls!’

  Cars and vans crawled bumper to bumper up Pin Mill Brow as drivers rubbernecked. Two Traffic policemen stood at the junction with the Mancunian Way, frantically waving them on. Jo activated the blue flashing lights behind her grille and the whoop of the siren as she tried to force her way between a van, and a new Mini Cooper.

  ‘Look at this idiot!’

  She gesticulated at the woman in the Mini, who, oblivious to the siren, had stopped dead, and was filming the scene on her smartphone.

  ‘Why do they do this?’

  ‘The American psychologist Carney Landis conducted experiments back in the ’20s,’ Andy told her. ‘He concluded that there are many reasons why we have this compulsive need to observe the macabre. Part of it is down to the resultant flood of chemicals into our brain that make us more alert and curious.’

  ‘I’ve got another theory,’ she said. ‘It’s called Thank God it’s you, and not me.’

  ‘That too,’ said Andy. They watched impotently as the woman calmly placed her phone on the passenger seat before driving slowly forward, all the while deliberately avoiding eye contact.

  Jo drove through the gap and on to a narrow tarmacked lane. She stopped at a metal gate strung with blue-and-white crime scene tape.

  ‘I could understand if there was something to see,’ Jo muttered, releasing her seat belt, and lowering her window.

  Behind them two police vans, two unmarked cars, and a mortuary van were parked on the pavement at the entrance to the lane. Ahead, a white plastic partition had been placed across the path that led down to the woods. She handed their IDs to the crime scene loggist, who recorded them on her clipboard, and handed them back.

  ‘You’ll have to back up, and pull over to the left I’m afraid, Ma’am,’ the officer told her. ‘And you’ll need to suit up and boot up before you proceed any further. If you don’t have your own, I have a supply here.’

  Beyond the gate they followed one of two sets of metal plates that marked the common approach paths. Rounding the incident screen, they came to an abrupt halt. Less than five yards ahead, two men, their backs towards them, stared down at a woman on her knees beside a body partly hidden from view. Jo coughed discreetly. They turned.

  ‘Jo, glad you could make it,’ said the older of the pair with a grim smile. ‘You too, Mr Swift.’

  ‘Thank you for inviting us, Gordon,’ Jo replied with a wry smile. ‘And congratulations on your promotion. Not before time. Did I miss the party?’

  Gordon grimaced. ‘Haven’t had time for one. This came through straight after I heard.’

  Jo turned to the younger, taller man. ‘Good to see you too, Nick.’

  ‘Likewise.’

  ‘This is Andy Swift, our resident crime behaviour analyst,’ Jo said. ‘DCI Holmes, you’ve met, Andy. And this is Detective Sergeant Nick Carter. We go back a long way.’

  ‘Come and join us,’ said Gordon. ‘Dr Tompkins was just finishing up.’

  The body lay at the side of the track at the foot of a grassy bank beneath overhanging trees, whose buds had newly burst. It was a woman in her late twenties. She lay on her back, her arms by her sides. Long auburn hair formed a halo around her head, which was tilted backwards. Her eyes stared blankly skywards. Her mouth was open. Her lips were drawn back, exposing a full set of unnaturally bright white teeth. There was something other than the normal rictus of a violent death about her face, but Jo was damned if she could place it. The victim wore a brown fur-lined parka that had been unzipped. Beneath it was a white silk blouse, and a burgundy miniskirt that exposed long, bare, tanned legs, slightly parted. A red stiletto hung from the left foot. The other shoe lay several yards away beside a yellow plastic crime scene marker.

  Carol Tompkins, the forensic medical examiner, sat back on her heels and tucked an errant lock of silver hair beneath her hood. ‘I’m done,’ she said. ‘I suggest you erect a tent to preserve the scene until Professor Flatman gets here.’

  ‘Before you go,’ said Gordon, ‘could I trouble you to give SI Stuart and her colleague here a headline summary?’

  Tompkins sighed, stood up, and turned to face them. ‘I arrived at 8.27am. At 8.28am I confirmed that the victim was deceased. According to the senior crime scene investigator, the ambient temperature at that time was 7.3 degrees Celsius. Because of the likelihood that there had been sexual activity before death I took a reading from the external auditory meatus to establish the internal body temperature. This was 27 degrees Celsius. Allowing for a lower ambient temperature of around 2 degrees during the night, I estimated the time of death as somewhere between midnight and 2am this morning. This is consistent with the degree of rigor mortis. The body was warm and stiff, suggesting that death had occurred between three and eight hours prior to my arrival. The state of dress was as you see it. As to the cause of death, there were traces of blood in the nostrils and the ears.’

  She turned and bent over the body, gently moving the collar of the parka to expose the neck.

  ‘These marks around the neck are consistent with the use of a ligature.’

  Gordon stepped back so that their NCA colleagues could move closer. There was a faint ring of bluish-purple discolouration around the neck approximately two centimetres wide.

  ‘She was strangled?’ asked Andy.

  The FME smiled wearily. ‘SI Stuart knows better than to jump to conclusions,’ she said. ‘There was a foreign object placed around the victim’s neck that constricted sufficiently to cause bruising. Whether or not that amounted to deliberate strangulation, and whether or not it was the cause of death, will have to wait on the post-mortem results. The cause may have been asphyxia, vagal inhibition, venous congestion, or cerebral anoxia as a result of strangling or something else entirely.’

  She sat back on her haunches, and looked up at them. ‘If you look closely, you’ll see that there is a foreign substance in the mouth. If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say it looks like hair. The quantity is such that it may have obstructed her airways enough to cause suffocation.’

  ‘Could it be the victim’s own hair?’ Jo asked.

  The FME stood up. ‘It’s impossible to determine without removing it for comparison. My initial impression was that it is not. But don’t quote me on that or anything else I’ve shared with you. As ever, my advice is to wait for the post-mortem. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back and file my report.’

  Someone else’s hair? Jo reflected. What the hell was that all about?

  Chapter 5

  ‘The victim’s name is Mandy Madden,’ said Gordon. ‘She’s a known sex worker. Never convicted but frequently moved on, in accordance with current practice. Her body was discovered by a security officer on his way back home to the estate. This was found right here, close to the body.’ He held up a sealed evidence bag containing a large brown small-grain leather designer tote bag.

  ‘Not the real thing of course, but all of her possessions are inside. A pair of trainers, two hundred and sixty-eight pounds sterling in a side compartment, purse, mobile phone, two pairs of women’s panties, two packs of condoms, a self-defence spray, and a rape alarm.’

  ‘Much good that did her,’ Nick Carter remarked.

  ‘She has a decent enough watch on her left wrist. There is no evidence to suggest that the motive was robbery. And although it’ll be a miracle, given her occupation, if the post-mortem doesn’t find some evidence of recent sexual activity, there is nothing to suggest that she was raped or otherwise seriously sexually assaulted at the scene.’

  ‘So, you are assuming that this was where she was killed rather than the deposition site?’ said Andy.

  Gordon raised his eyebrows. ‘Not assuming, Mr Swift. We have good reason to believe that this was where she died. There are no drag marks. Then there is the prese
nce and position of the bag and the shoes. Furthermore, Dr Tompkins found that the only area of lividity visible without removing the clothing completely was on the back of the legs, thighs, and buttocks. Nothing around the ankles or on the sides or upper surface of the legs, where you might expect to find it had she been carried here or been lying in any other position post-mortem.’

  Jo remained silent and expressionless. She was well aware that, like herself, Andy had comprehensive knowledge of such matters, and had only been trying to elicit the detail. To his credit, he had kept that to himself. ‘Thank you for explaining,’ he said without a trace of sarcasm.

  Two suited and booted men approached. Jo recognised the taller as Jack Benson, a Major Incident Team senior crime scene investigator.

  ‘SI Stuart,’ he said. ‘It’s good to see you again. Please tell me you’re joining the investigation.’

  ‘Just assisting the DCI,’ she said tactfully.

  ‘Brilliant!’ Benson beamed at Jo and Andy, but the smile fell from his face the moment he looked at Gordon.

  ‘Is this a social visit?’ asked Gordon. ‘Or was there something you wanted to tell me?’

  Jo had no idea if Gordon was miffed because Jack was so pleased to see her, or because the CSI’s manner was inappropriate this close to the body.

  ‘Neither, Boss,’ the CSI replied. ‘I merely wanted to ask if it was okay to erect the tent now. Only, the wind is picking up, and if it starts blowing leaves and other debris around it’s going to play havoc with our attempts to lift any meaningful trace evidence from the body.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ Gordon told him. ‘But for God’s sake don’t do anything that’s going to piss off Sir James Flatman, or there’ll be hell to pay.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Benson. He turned, gave the thumbs up to a group of his technicians standing by the gate, and waved them forward.

  ‘Do you mind if I have a look around?’ Andy asked. ‘I’ll stick to the common approach path.’

  Gordon shrugged. ‘Feel free.’ He turned to Jo. ‘I need to wait for Flatman to arrive, but then I suppose I’ll have to go to the victim’s house, and break the news. I wondered if you’d come with me.’ He shrugged apologetically. ‘She lives alone, except for her son.’

  ‘He’s on his own in the house?’

  Gordon shook his head. ‘There’s an Eastern European nanny looks after the kid along with another kid belonging to Tricia Garbett, one of the other working girls. Garbett reported her friend missing about an hour or so before the body was discovered.’

  Jo knew from experience how awkward Gordon was with other people’s children. It didn’t help that he looked like a cross between a rugby player and a nightclub bouncer.

  ‘No problem,’ she said. ‘I’ll be with Andy when you’ve finished.’

  Andy stood to one side of the plastic screen across the path. He had his tablet in his hand, and was making notes.

  ‘What do you see?’ she asked.

  ‘What do you see, Jo?’ he said without looking up.

  Jo recalled how her mentor, DCI Caton, had first introduced her to what he called visualisation and playback. A mental walk through the scene that, when vocalised, was as easy to recall as video footage and even more meaningful. She turned west to face the road.

  Several more vehicles crowded the entrance. A van bristling with antennas and a satellite dish, a radio car, and an estate car. A female uniformed officer was holding back a bunch of cameramen, sound technicians, and reporters.

  ‘For a start,’ she said, ‘I can see that the circus is in town.’

  She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she began the playback, turning slowly through 360 degrees as she did so.

  ‘I see large grey windowless retail units on the far side of a busy dual carriageway. There is a central reservation with two sets of traffic lights. Immediately ahead of me is the tarmacked entrance to the path on which I am standing. There are street lights on either side of the entrance. There is a blue-and-green footpath signpost, and a larger black-and-white sign on one of the street light stanchions. Looking down the tarmac, away from the road, I see a green metal gate, beyond which the path broadens out into a sandy track approximately five yards wide that after twenty yards follows the River Medlock south in a curve that takes it out of sight among trees on either side. To my left, a low sandstone wall borders the river as far as the gate, beyond which a low iron fence continues the task of separating path and river. On the far bank of the river is a wood consisting of a variety of deciduous trees, including wild fruit trees full of blossom. To my right, a grassy bank beside the path rises steeply. Mature silver birch trees populate the bank. Beneath the trees, on both sides of the river, bushes have created dense undergrowth. The body of a deceased female is lying on its back at the side of the path. The head and shoulders are on the grassy bank, beneath overhanging branches. There is a faint musty smell from the river, and a metallic taste of diesel fumes in the mouth. The grass is damp from dew.’

  She paused, and turned full circle.

  ‘It feels as though there is a choice to be made standing here halfway between the hum of the city, and the promise of tranquility just around the corner, beside the river, and among the trees. In the dead of night, from the victim’s perspective, that choice must have been between the relative safety of the streets, and the dark menace of the woods. It is self-evident why the perpetrator chose the latter.’

  Andy looked up from his tablet. ‘I’m very impressed,’ he said.

  ‘I was taught by the best,’ Jo replied. ‘You have to immerse yourself in a crime scene. Especially when it’s where a murder has taken place or a body has been deposited.’

  ‘Because it raises so many questions?’ he said.

  ‘And possibilities.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Apart from the obvious ones, such as camera footage from the ring road and the Mancunian Way, and drivers who may have witnessed either the unsub or the victim making their way here? Take the vegetation. There will be millions of potential transfers from here to the unsub’s clothing. Leaves, twigs, seeds, plant hairs, pollen, algal cells from the river.’

  Andy nodded. ‘And the questions?’

  Jo began to count them off on her fingers. ‘Why was the body left where it is when there was an opportunity to drop it in the river or hide it in the undergrowth? Why was this place chosen, in plain sight of the road? He – if it is a he – was taking a hell of a chance.’

  ‘Not so much a chance, more a risk,’ said Andy. ‘GMP suspect that this is the unsub’s third killing. He is supremely confident. What better display of his omnipotence than to do it in plain sight? That would be wholly consistent behaviour for a psychopathic unsub.’

  ‘Why do you guys use the term unsub?’

  They turned to find Jack Benson behind them. Alongside him was the shorter male detective who had been with Benson earlier.

  ‘Good question,’ said Andy. ‘Because “unidentified subject” is more appropriate than “suspect”. We don’t yet have any suspects, but we do have good reason to believe that the same person has committed at least three identical killings. That person is the unidentified subject of our investigation.’

  ‘Why not “person of interest”?’

  ‘Because that term,’ said Jo, ‘is often applied to people who have been identified in some way or other but have yet to come forward or to be arrested.’

  ‘Or is it just because you’re wannabe FBI?’ asked Benson’s companion.

  It sounded light-hearted, but Jo could tell there was an element of rancour. From the outset, she had been surprised that most of the animosity towards the NCA came from the junior ranks.

  ‘Watch it, DC Henshall,’ said Gordon, coming up behind him, ‘or you’ll be back in uniform before you know it. Go up to the road, and wait for Professor Flatman to arrive. Make sure he isn’t hassled by any of the press, or the media.’ He waited until the detective was out of earshot and turned to Jo. �
��Thinks he’s a joker. But he’s not in DC Hulme’s league.’ He rubbed his chin with the heel of his latexed hand. ‘I’m going to have to wait for the pathologist. Apparently Flatman is stuck in traffic on the M6. I told him Dr Tompkins has done a great job, we’ve documented the scene, got all the photos and video footage, but he said he’s not prepared to do the post-mortem unless he’s seen the body in situ. It’s all about context apparently.’ He shook his head dolefully. ‘That’s Home Office pathologists for you.’

  Jo wasn’t the least bit surprised. She also knew what Gordon was leading up to. She decided to save him the trouble of asking. ‘If you like, I’ll do the home visit for you,’ she said. ‘I assume you have a specialist search team on standby.’

  Gordon’s face lit up. A weight lifted from his shoulders. ‘They’re on their way. And I’ve asked for a family liaison officer.’

  ‘I’ll drop Andy off at The Quays,’ she said. ‘Tell them to wait till I get there.’

  Jo and Andy walked back towards the road and shouldered their way, tight-lipped, through the crush of reporters beyond the crime scene tape. As Jo opened her car door, a woman appeared beside her. She was petite with ash blonde hair, and striking blue eyes.

  ‘I believe I may be able to help you,’ she said, pressing a business card into her hand. ‘Call me.’

  Jo glanced at the details. Agata Kowalski. Investigative News UK. Reporter. There was a press accreditation logo in one corner. When she looked up again, the woman had melted into the media scrum. Jo pushed the card inside her jacket pocket, and ducked inside the Audi. As she waited for Andy to fasten his seat belt, she gripped the steering wheel, and took a deep breath. Performing a home visit with the family of the deceased was a task she always dreaded.

  Chapter 6

  One patrol car, and two unmarked cars were parked outside a row of tired maisonettes. Jo deadlocked her Audi, walked over to the lead vehicle, and showed her ID.

  ‘Who’s in charge?’ she asked.