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

by Bill Rogers

  ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Detective Inspector Stuart has graced us with her presence. What a pity you were late, DI Stuart. I was on excellent form today.’

  Gordon and Nick turned to look up at her. Gordon nodded solemnly. Nick grinned. Jo knew it was a waste of time explaining or apologising. Flatman would only seize on that as another opportunity to demonstrate his wit. He moved closer to the observation window, hands on hips.

  ‘And I suppose that you would like me to repeat everything just for you.’

  Jo was determined not to let him faze her. She leaned into the microphone on the ledge in front of her.

  ‘If you could see your way to giving me a summary of the salient details, Sir James, that would be most generous of you.’

  The Home Office pathologist raised his eyebrows, and half turned towards Dr Hope, who was watching the verbal exchange with an amused smile.

  ‘The salient points!’ he said. ‘Now what would those be, do you think, Dr Hope? It does rather suggest that our efforts here today may be reduced to a morsel or two. Rather like asking what the best bits of Laurence Olivier’s rendition of Hamlet are.’

  He turned back to Jo.

  ‘However,’ he said, ‘for you, Detective Inspector, I am prepared to make an exception.’

  ‘That is most considerate of you, Professor Flatman,’ Jo said. She pointed to the three overhead video cameras recording the proceedings. ‘And for the record, it is Senior Investigator now. I am currently with the National Crime Agency.’

  Four rows below, Gordon Holmes had his head in his hands. Even from behind she could tell Nick Carter was smirking.

  ‘La-di-da,’ Flatman exclaimed. ‘National indeed. How we have risen, Miss Stuart. And how quickly. It seems like only yesterday that you first sat there, hanging on to DCI Caton’s coat-tails, fresh-faced and bursting with youthful zeal.’

  Jo smiled sweetly back at him. ‘My zeal is undiminished, Professor,’ she said. ‘Which is why I’m bursting to hear your findings.’

  He laughed, taking it with good grace, then folded his arms. He adopted a more serious tone. ‘There were no obvious marks to indicate a struggle other than a pinprick of blood below the right ear. There was a folded lock of hair in the vestibule, extending into the oral cavity, one hundred and twenty-one millimetres long, knotted in two places. It was inserted post-mortem. It is not the victim’s hair. The cause of death is manual restriction of the airways. She was strangled with what I suspect, from the marks on the skin and tiny traces in the grooves, to have been a twisted and knotted rope of hair. The pressure marks on one side of the neck suggest that the perpetrator is right-handed. The fact that the ligature appears to have moved vertically several times also suggests that the perpetrator may have repeatedly released, and reapplied the pressure. There is historical vaginal and anal scarring consistent with her profession. Internal bruising and absence of seminal fluids suggest that the victim had had protected sex at some time close to her death. There is no evidence of incipient disease. From the stomach contents, Dr Hope has adduced that the victim’s final meal was probably chow mein. I concur.’

  He unfolded his arms, and placed his hands back on his hips. ‘DCI Holmes. Have I in your opinion missed any of the salient points?’

  ‘No, Professor,’ said Gordon. ‘I believe that covers everything.’

  Flatman beamed. ‘Splendid. Do any of you have any questions?’

  The two detectives shook their heads. Jo leaned forward. ‘I have one,’ she said.

  The pathologist folded his arms again. ‘Why am I not surprised?’

  ‘When you examined the deceased’s hair, did you find any evidence that a lock of hair had been removed?’

  The pathologist frowned. ‘I thought I had made it clear that the lock of hair in the deceased’s mouth was a foreign body. It did not belong to her.’

  ‘You did, Professor. I am curious as to whether a lock of hair may have been removed to create another ligature. Or to place on his next victim. Or as a trophy.’

  Flatman nodded thoughtfully. He eased the latex gloves down over his wrists, and turned back to the dissection table. The technician stood back to give him room. Dr Hope brought him a stainless-steel comb, with which he proceeded to comb through the victim’s hair, beginning on the crown. When he reached the back of the skull on the right side, he paused, bent closer, and then straightened up.

  ‘A close-up on this please,’ he ordered.

  On the overhead screens they watched as the cameras zoomed in. It was obvious that a small rectangular section had been removed from the hair. Flatman held out his arm, and Dr Hope placed a ruler on his gloved palm. Dr Hope then held a sheet of white card beneath the fringe of hair while the pathologist measured the missing section.

  ‘Fifty-two millimetres by seventeen millimetres,’ he said. ‘A clean cut.’

  Benedict took a series of photographs with a digital camera.

  Flatman handed back the ruler, and turned towards the gallery.

  ‘Congratulations, SI Stuart,’ he said. ‘I can see why you made detective. It is not often that I miss something as significant as this. What I can tell you is that if this was the work of the killer, the section that has been removed could not possibly serve as a ligature. Nor is it of the dimensions of the knotted hair inserted in the victim’s mouth.’

  At least, Jo reflected, we now know what he took as a trophy.

  Chapter 12

  The incident room buzzed with energy and anticipation. This was the largest single syndicate Jo had seen in her time with GMP. Every chair and desktop was spoken for. She and her three colleagues were forced to stand. The jury in the trial Max had been involved in was still out, and so he had been able to join them. All eyes were on the television monitor.

  A hush fell over the room as Helen Gates, the Assistant Chief Constable, responsible for Serious Crime, Counter Terrorism, and Public Protection, drew her microphone towards her. Beside her loitered Greg Dunsinane, the newly elected Mayor of Greater Manchester, and the female Head of the GMP Press Office.

  ‘Got the heavy guns out,’ someone observed from the back of the room.

  ‘Shut it!’ Gordon ordered.

  ‘I can confirm,’ Gates began, ‘that the body of a young woman discovered close to the Mancunian Way yesterday morning has been identified as that of Mandy Madden, twenty-seven years old, a single parent, from Ancoats, in Manchester. Following a post-mortem carried out this morning, I can also confirm that we are investigating her death as a suspected murder. Relatives have been informed, and the investigation is ongoing. I will take questions, but I am sure that you realise that at this early stage there is a limit to the amount of information I can share with you.’

  The screen showed a forest of hands in the packed press room.

  ‘How was she killed?’

  Helen Gates frowned.

  ‘Don’t tell them,’ Gordon muttered. Earlier they had agreed to hold that information back, but the ACC was known for flying by the seat of her pants.

  ‘She was strangled,’ said Gates.

  ‘Bugger!’ said Gordon.

  ‘Had she been sexually assaulted?’

  ‘There was no evidence to suggest that she had been sexually assaulted,’ Gates replied.

  ‘Or that she hadn’t?’

  Jo recognised the voice.

  ‘Ginley,’ she said. ‘The investigative reporter who caused us so much trouble during Operation Juniper.’

  ‘Stirring it as usual,’ said Max.

  Helen Gates ignored the question. Unfortunately the implications were not lost on the rest of the assembled reporters.

  ‘Was the victim a prostitute?’ someone asked.

  The Mayor looked alarmed. Gates, the Head of Crime, calmly placed her hand over her mic, and inclined her head towards the Force press officer. A whispered conversation ensued.

  ‘She may as well tell them,’ said Nick. ‘They’ll already know she was.’

  Gates turned bac
k to the mic.

  ‘I can confirm that the victim was a known sex worker. However, I want to remind everyone that this in no way lessens the gravity of this despicable crime. Outside of her work Mandy had a life like everyone else here. She has parents and friends, who will mourn her, and a three-and-a-half-year-old child, who has lost his mother.’

  ‘Nicely done,’ said Jo.

  Andy Swift shook his head.

  ‘It won’t make any difference. The right-wing papers will use it to push for draconian action against prostitution, and the gutter press will say she should have expected something like this to happen.’

  ‘Are you linking this to the deaths of the two prostitutes in Wigan?’ asked the crime reporter from the Manchester Evening News.

  ‘Here we go,’ said Gordon.

  ‘There are sufficient features common to all three crime scenes to suggest that they may be connected.’

  ‘What are these features, Assistant Chief Constable?’ asked the woman from the Guardian.

  Gates shook her head. ‘I am not at liberty to disclose those details. To do so would compromise the investigation.’

  All of the hands were waving now.

  ‘You’re looking for a serial killer then?’

  ‘Is this Ipswich all over again?’

  The press officer leaned forward.

  ‘One question at a time! Through me please.’ She pointed to someone in the front row. ‘Mr Grice. BBC North West.’

  ‘Are you looking for a serial killer?’

  An expectant hush descended on the room.

  Even though she must have anticipated the question, Helen Gates took her time, choosing her words carefully.

  ‘At this stage of the investigation we are working on the assumption that all three murders were committed by the same person.’

  The room erupted. The panel waited for the noise to subside.

  ‘Ms Gates will take one more question?’ said the press officer. ‘John Delaney, ITN.’

  ‘What reassurances can you give to the public, ACC Gates?’

  The Mayor cupped his hand over his mouth and whispered urgently to the Head of Crime. Helen Gates frowned, and sat back, her hands folded over her chest. The Mayor leaned forward.

  ‘I can assure you that GMP will be accorded every resource necessary to bring this killer to justice,’ he said. ‘The largest team of detectives ever deployed by the Force is already working on the case, and an elite team from the National Crime Agency is working alongside them. The Chief Constable has assured me that he is determined to bring this investigation to a speedy conclusion.’

  ‘No pressure there then!’ murmured Gordon.

  As far as Jo was concerned, whatever external pressure might be brought to bear, none of it would compare with her own determination to catch the killer.

  Helen Gates held up an imperious hand.

  ‘I would now like to appeal directly to the public,’ she said.

  ‘In your dreams,’ said someone in the MIR. ‘Certainly doesn’t appeal to me.’

  Both Gordon and Nick turned to see if they could identify the culprit. Jo was sure it was the same detective constable she had met at the crime scene. What was his name? Hen something or other?

  Gates had already begun her appeal. ‘. . . anyone who may believe they have any information, however small, that may assist us in this investigation, to contact us directly by dialling 111, or by speaking anonymously with Crimestoppers on 0800 555111, or going online at www.crimestoppers-uk.org. We are particularly interested in anyone who may have seen someone acting suspiciously in or around Fairfield Street, Crane Street, Raven Street, Helmet Street, and Pin Mill Brow, in Ardwick, between the hours of midnight on Sunday the 30th of April 2017, and 2am on Monday the 1st of May 2017. No one need feel anxious about coming forward. We are not interested in why you may have been in one of these locations, only in catching the person who murdered Mandy.’

  ‘Tell that to the punters,’ murmured the office comedian. ‘You want to wake up, love, and smell the coffee.’ This time he won a few sniggers.

  But not from Gordon Holmes. ‘DC Henshall!’ he growled. ‘What did I warn you?’

  Morton Henshall. That was the man’s name. The one who had questioned their use of the term ‘unsub’. He was treading a fine line, Jo realised, even though on this occasion he was probably right. Most of the punters who had been there that night would be keeping their heads down in the mistaken belief that their dirty little secret would stay that way.

  Chapter 13

  ‘Welcome to Operation Firethorn!’

  Gordon Holmes took his jacket off and draped it over his chair. ‘I brought you in here because we’d never have been able to hear each other with all the phones going, the conversations, and the keyboards tapping away.’

  Jo looked around. She was impressed. The small room had been turned into an office for himself, and a space for meetings. Through the magic of digital technology, facsimiles of the information on the whiteboards in the MIR appeared on the three of their own back at The Quays. A large chart on the left-hand wall headed Investigative Strategy documented actions taken and planned.

  Gordon sat down. ‘We’ve brought together the two small syndicates that were dealing with the investigations into what we now know were victims one and two, together with my own larger syndicate. At this rate we may need to requisition a sports hall.’

  Jo had been involved in several cases where they had done just that. Gordon drew their attention to the first of the boards. ‘Victim number one, Jade Scott. Twenty-three years of age. Single. Living with a male partner the same age. Both heroin addicts. A freelance prostitute, she started working the streets just two months before her death. Her body was discovered on a patch of waste ground off Cemetery Road, in Ince-in-Makerfield, Wigan, at 3pm on Saturday, 25th of February this year, by a man out walking his dog.’

  He gave them a moment or two to take in the images. A young pale face, bottle blonde, cropped hair, brown eyes that stared at the camera with an air of bemusement, and a half-hearted attempt at a smile. From the clarity of the eyes, and complexion, Jo guessed this was a photo selected by someone close to Jade, taken before the ravages of her addiction set in.

  Beside the photo were others that had been taken at the scene. A crumpled body lay on its side on a pile of broken bricks colonised by grass and weeds. A long shot showed the position of the deposition site, eighteen yards from the road, accessed through a gap between blue railings.

  There was a post-mortem photo of the victim’s head and shoulders. A ring of bruises around the neck appeared to mirror those around the neck of Mandy Madden. In this photo, discounting the fact she was now a corpse, Jade Scott appeared to have aged a decade in just a few years.

  Gordon pointed to the second set of photos on the neighbouring whiteboard. ‘Victim number two. Kelly Carver. Twenty-one years of age. Single. Still living at home with her mother and two siblings. Also a drug user. She had a previous for possession of crack cocaine. She had a pimp, whom we have now established was also her supplier. Her body was found in woods at Aspull Common, Lowton St Mary’s, again by a dog walker, at 7.12am on Saturday, 19th March this year.’

  The first photograph, almost certainly the mugshot taken when she was charged with possession, showed a defiant, hard-faced young woman with long emerald-green hair. In the crime scene photo the hair was black, straggly, and plastered to her face as though soaked by rain. The now-familiar band of bruises encircled her neck.

  ‘Victim number three, Mandy Madden. Twenty-seven years of age, a single mother. She was found on the morning of Monday, 1st of May, on Lime Bank Street by a sous-chef who lives on the Viaduct Street estate, as he cycled to work.’

  On the third whiteboard Mandy Madden’s face stared back at them. It was the photograph slipped into Jo’s hand at the mortuary by Mandy’s mother after she had identified her daughter. Taken on her twenty-first birthday, it showed an attractive young woman, happy in the moment,
and full of hope. There was so much about that face – the eyes, the nose, the quirky smile – that resembled little Sean. Jo clenched her fists, the fingernails biting into the palms of her hands, choking back the tears, deepening her anger and resolve.

  The door opened. Max stood hesitantly on the threshold.

  ‘Come in, why don’t you?’ said Gordon. ‘You haven’t missed much.’

  Max took a seat beside Jo.

  ‘How did you get on?’ she mouthed.

  ‘Unanimous verdict,’ he whispered back.

  ‘Congratulations,’ said Gordon. ‘I can lip-read, so there’s no need to whisper.’

  He nodded to Nick, who proceeded to distribute manila folders across the table to the members of the Behavioural Sciences Unit.

  Gordon flipped open his folder. ‘This is what we have so far,’ he said. ‘The investigations relating to victims one and two – Jade Scott and Kelly Carver – have so far drawn a blank. From what I’ve seen, you can’t fault the two syndicates involved. The searches of the crime scenes were exhaustive. Hundreds of statements were taken from door-to-door enquiries, from motorists, dog walkers, joggers, and cyclists who frequent the area around the deposition sites. Family, relatives, friends, and acquaintances have been interviewed. Known associates, including other sex workers, drug dealers, and pimps, have also been questioned. Over three thousand hours of CCTV from traffic and ANPR cameras, and domestic and business premises have been scrutinised. They have not unearthed a single lead. Conclusions?’

  ‘Chummy is either very clever or very lucky,’ said Nick.

  ‘Or both,’ said Max.

  ‘Probably the latter,’ Andy Swift observed. ‘As you know, psychopaths are generally of above-average intelligence, and extreme high-risk takers.’

  Gordon nodded. ‘Unfortunately for Mandy Madden,’ he said, ‘but fortunately for us, a critical mass of evidence is beginning to form. If nothing else, we have been able to identify the features common to these three murders. As I understand it, this is where your expertise can assist us.’