Dark Tides Thrillers Box Set

by Tony Hutchinson

  Climbing the stairs, Sam chewed the inside of her bottom lip as she saw blood smears on the staircase wall, blood that had undoubtedly come from the clothing, or a body extremity, of the fleeing killer. Scientific tests would establish the origin of the blood.

  All the rooms upstairs, with the exception of one, were undisturbed.

  Sam walked into Louise’s bedroom, looked quickly at what was in front of her, and then fixed her eyes on the window, fighting back the tears.

  Ed, close behind, saw his dead colleague laid there and inhaled deeply, holding the air in his lungs, giving himself a couple of seconds to absorb, and recover from, the wave of sadness.

  Each looked at the other and nodded, a silent acknowledgement that it was time to go to work.

  Louise’s bedroom had become an abattoir. She was on the floor, lying on her back, her lifeless eyes staring at the ceiling, strands of her hair across her face. The carpet around her was heavily bloodstained and there were trails of blood on the floor leading from Louise’s body back to the bed.

  Carefully walking around the room, stepping on the plates, they both kept their hands in their pockets, even though they were wearing gloves. It was a habit passed on from generation to generation of murder squad detectives.

  They could clearly see the sheets strewn over the bed, covered in deep red, almost brown, stains. There was blood on the floor, and on the cream wall, next to the side of the bed furthest from the door, suggesting the attack had continued there, probably as Louise tried to get off the bed and escape.

  Julie Trescothick joined them, and pointed out the faint footprint impressions in the carpet, which appeared to be similar to the soles of training shoes. Clearly they didn’t belong to the barefoot Louise.

  The splattered blood on the ceiling ran from above Louise, back towards the bed, the blood nearer the bed being much less concentrated, the overall pattern similar to paint thrown from a child’s brush on to paper. They both knew that for blood to fly off the blade and hit the ceiling in those linear formations needed very fast, very long, up and over arm movements. A forensic scientist would provide expert witness testimony on the Blood Pattern Analysis, but Sam and Ed could see what had happened.

  Sam shuddered, and her thoughts turned to Louise’s mother. She had met her once, many years ago at some function. To her shame, she couldn’t remember her name. From memory, she was older than she expected, giving birth to Louise quite late in life.

  What effect had walking into this bloodbath, seeing her beloved daughter lying there carved to pieces, had on her? She would never recover. How could she? That vision would haunt her until her dying day.

  ‘Christ, how many of these do I have to see?’ thought Sam. Her mind altered course, a yacht tacking in a new direction, and she thought of her beloved father, and the numbness she had felt when she saw his body in the mortuary. He had been cleaned up before she got there and looked asleep. Only the cold stiffness of his body as she held him in her arms betrayed the fact that he wasn’t sleeping. Louise hadn’t been ‘dressed’ for identification by her mother.

  Like Sam, Ed had seen these nightmares too many times, and nothing affected any of his senses any longer. His eyes didn’t turn away in horror, and the smells of death no longer made his stomach to retch.

  Louise had clearly tried to escape but cornered, alone, fighting for her life, she had lost a mismatched battle. That he knew her added to the tragedy before him, but having stared into the abyss of human depravity so many times, he was no longer shocked.

  Julie brought them back from their private thoughts by pointing to a front door key, which had been on top of the duvet, caught up in the concertina folds. Near the pillow was a black ski mask.

  Sam and Ed stood still in the middle of the bedroom and looked around, their eyes taking in everything before them, their minds trying to process everything they saw and, more importantly, make sense of it. What they were trying to do was interpret the scene, to better understand what had happened.

  The pointed blade had entered her body so many times she resembled the spinning wheel of a knife thrower’s circus act. There were wounds to her stomach, arms, thighs, and chest.

  Sam was first to speak. ‘Look at her hands. Her arms. I can’t see one obvious defensive wound. Nothing underneath her forearms to suggest she raised her arms to protect herself. No incisions on her hands from grabbing the knife.’

  They both knelt next to the body.

  ‘I agree. You’d have expected at least one defensive wound,’ Ed said, his mind searching for a scenario where Louise had been helpless to fend off the blows or instinctively reach for the blade.

  ‘These wounds can’t all have happened while she was alive,’ Sam said. ‘Nobody could live through that onslaught. And why kill her anyway? He didn’t kill any of the others.’

  ‘His mask’s there. Perhaps she got it off him in the struggle. Perhaps she recognised him and this time he used the knife,’ Ed suggested.

  ‘Possibly. But was there a struggle? I keep coming back to it… not one single sign of a defence wound, yet look at the ferocity.’

  Sam paused, her eyes locked on Louise, and said in a quiet, slow voice, her brain questioning everything: ‘And why leave the mask when he’s always been so careful, so forensically aware.’

  ‘Panic?’ Ed wondered.

  ‘Or total lack of it,’ Sam said. ‘What if he wants us to believe it’s the rapist?’

  She rose quickly to her feet. Ed stood up, his left knee clicking as he straightened it.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  ‘Look, her warrant card’s on the floor. Isn’t that a better souvenir than a driving licence? Why not take that?’ Sam said.

  She paused before asking Julie if she had seen Louise’s purse.

  ‘Try the handbag over there,’ Julie said, pointing at the dressing table.

  Sam picked up the handbag, removed a blue patent-leather purse, and flipped it open. ‘Look, her licence is still here. It’s in the first place you would look. Not taken. Why?’

  Ed looked at the purse. ‘Same again? Panic?’

  Sam’s eyes were full of doubt.

  ‘It’s possible… but I’m getting the feeling something’s not right here, Ed,’ she said, her eyes darting around the room.

  ‘Maybe something wasn’t right for him this time,’ Ed said. ‘Maybe she surprised him. Maybe she got his mask off. Things aren’t going to plan, the fantasy’s falling apart, and yet…’ He stopped mid sentence and shook his head slowly. ‘I agree,’ he said quietly, his gloved right hand slowly rubbing his forehead. ‘It’s not right. Something’s wrong here.’

  ‘Look,’ Sam interrupted, speaking quickly, pointing at things as she did so. ‘Two photographs on the wall above the bed head. Not disturbed. The bedside table lamp’s on the floor, the table’s tipped over, but everything in this room above waist height is undisturbed. Everything on the dressing table, undisturbed. Those two pictures and glass ornament on the windowsill, undisturbed. All the blood, with the exception of the blood on the ceiling, is below waist height. I don’t think Louise ever stood up. If she never stood up, surely he could have controlled her like he did the others? Could she start fighting from a horizontal position? Would she?’

  Ed concentrated, trying to play through those final moments before Louise met the darkness.

  ‘I can’t see it,’ he said. ‘She was a negotiator. If she was in a weak position, she would have talked. No doubt about that. If she got the opportunity, she would have attacked but she was too bright to launch an attack from her bed.’

  Sam nodded. ‘And if he knew that she was a police officer – and given the way he plans everything he must have done – wouldn’t he have been more inclined to tie her up? Louise is a cop. She’s not likely to be compliant. None of us know how we would react in that situation but from his point of view, why take the chance? It doesn’t add up.’

  ‘So what are you saying?’

  ‘Was she a target
of rape?’ Sam asked. ‘Or was she a target of murder?’

  ‘Okay, Sam. If you’re thinking someone wants us to believe it’s the rapist, but in fact Louise is a target of murder, and I accept we look at every possibility, what about the mask? Like you said on the phone, we’ve never put that out into the public domain. If it’s not our man, how does the killer know about the ski mask?’

  Sam stared at the mask, silent and thinking.

  ‘And that’s the crux of it, that’s where it all falls apart. But this is just so unlike the others.’

  ‘Maybe he just graduated from rape to sex murder,’ Ed suggested.

  ‘Possibly, but it just doesn’t fit those rapist typologies we discussed,’ Sam said, shaking her head.

  ‘Human behaviour, and all of its subtle individual traits,’ Ed said.

  ‘Could be, but then again…’

  Their discussions were cut short when Jim Melia, the small, slim, pathologist with the fingers of a concert pianist, came into the bedroom and greeted them. They had worked many murders together and introductions weren’t necessary.

  Jim knelt down, and Sam’s eyes were drawn to the mass of hair in his ears, like the undergrowth in an abandoned garden, something she had never noticed before.

  ‘We’ll establish how many wounds at the mortuary, but I would suggest that any one of those to the area of the heart is potentially fatal,’ Jim said.

  ‘We can’t understand the lack of defence wounds, Jim.’

  ‘Have all the photographs been taken?’

  Sam nodded.

  Melia leaned forward to study Louise’s hands and arms, moving them slowly with an unlikely grace. ‘Unusual, not what you would expect… Let’s roll her on to her side.’

  ‘Ah! There’s your answer,’ Melia said, pointing to four large stab wounds in Louise’s back, between her shoulders. ‘If she was stabbed in the back first, that could explain why there’s no defensive wounds. She wouldn’t have the strength.’

  Sam told him about the series of rapes they were investigating and how each victim described their attacker was wearing a ski mask and brandishing a knife.

  ‘Well, this poor young lady wasn’t vaginally raped,’ Melia said. ‘As you may be able to see, it appears she was menstruating. She has a tampon inside her vagina. That’s not to say, of course, she has not been anally raped. Have any of the other victims been anally raped, or was there any attempt to anally rape them?’

  ‘None,’ Sam said, already contemplating the implications of the pathologist’s findings.

  ‘Well, we’ll know more when we get to the office, so to speak,’ Melia told them.

  Sam and Ed walked outside into the damp air in silence. Sam wriggled out of her suit. Ed started to struggle out of his own.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Apart from looking like an idiot in front of that lot?’ Ed muttered, his back to the neighbours, pulling his foot out of the suit in an ungainly hop.

  Paranoid, like Sam, that someone in the assembled throng could lip read, he kept his head low.

  ‘No apparent rape, not unless he put a tampon inside her afterwards, which is a bit too far-fetched, even for someone who’s planning every step. No obvious souvenirs taken. No broken window, so has he been earlier and forced it open? Wouldn’t Louise have closed it anyway? Did he close it enough she didn’t notice it? Or did he get in some other way? Tell you what, I don’t know about you but I’m freezing. Let’s get in one of the cars.’

  Ed switched on the engine, and turned the heater up to the max. Sam took a tissue from her pocket, blew her nose and then rubbed her hands.

  ‘The key,’ Ed said. ‘Is there any significance with that? And the knife? Missing from the block. If he took it, why didn’t he bring his own? Mask and key left behind. Careless…or deliberate?’

  ‘Agreed,’ Sam said. ‘Plus a sustained attack… but the mask? You were bang on, we’ve never put that into the public domain.’

  Her voice trailed off.

  The heat in the car was stimulating their thoughts in a way the cold could never do.

  Sam shifted, turned and faced Ed. ‘The way he got in may have been refined. We’ve put a lot of information out there telling lone females to report broken windows immediately. So breaking a window earlier would just massively reduce his chances of success as a result.’

  ‘Did Louise leave the window open then?’ Ed said.

  Sam thought about it… would a sharp, highly trained cop take that risk?

  ‘Possibly, but even if she did, I can’t see our man leaving that to chance. The window doesn’t look forced, but that’s not to say it wasn’t.’

  Ed slid down the seat, splayed his legs underneath the steering wheel, and looked at the roof lining, concentrating on Sam’s words.

  ‘The killer may have opened it on his way out just for our benefit. We know he’s a planner so he may have got copy keys, or stolen them. How he’s done that, God knows. I agree not bringing a knife with him but using one from the block, if that’s how it played, fits more with a killer who’s opportunistic rather than premeditated. You go to kill, you go armed. So if we’re right about the knife, that’s disorganised rather than organised. That’s a huge shift in behaviour if it’s the same man. Leaving the mask may have been panic. The key may have just dropped out of his pocket, or may have nothing to do with him. But the rest…’

  Ed leaned forward and turned down the fan.

  ‘Ifs, buts and maybes. It’s messy, Sam. Too many variations.’

  ‘I know. Let’s make some calls as soon as we get to the mortuary. It’ll be at least half an hour before the undertakers get Louise there. I want a search team doing the drains, gardens, and flat roofs around here to try and find the knife. Check the bins as well.’

  ‘Distances?’ Ed asked as he sat up straight and reached to the back seat for his notepad.

  ‘Do it in a half-mile radius using Louise’s house as the centre. If we have no luck, we can extend the search later. Get house-to-house to knocking on the doors in the immediate vicinity.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Arrange a meeting with as many of our staff as you can muster after the post-mortem. I’ll leave it to you to pick a family liaison officer and have them discuss with Louise’s mum whether there was already a knife missing from the block. And re-check everything re that key.’

  ‘Yeah, okay.’

  ‘We’ll also need a family liaison officer to visit the ex-husband. I don’t want him finding out about Louise’s death when I do the media. I’ll call Dave Johnson and tell him where we are, and get him to tell everyone this is not necessarily linked to the rapes.’

  Sam opened the door and got out. She bent down and put her head back into the car. ‘We still need people to interview Crowther, and I want those stills from the surveillance available this afternoon. I’ll organise a press conference about Louise’s murder after the post-mortem. See you at the mortuary.’

  Ed nodded as cold air made his cheeks tingle.

  ‘Now shut the damn door, you’re letting the cold in.’

  The detention officer opened the blue interview-room door. Crowther jumped out of his seat and was speaking before the solicitor walked through it.

  ‘Fuckin’ hell, where’ve you been? Why didn’t you come last night? I’m shitting it here.’

  ‘Close the door, Terry, and sit down,’ the bespectacled solicitor said in a quiet voice. After years of custody visits, she was used to even the coolest heads reacting badly to the strains of incarceration. ‘There was no requirement for me to attend last night. The police told me you wouldn’t be interviewed until this morning.’

  ‘Fuckin’ hell, have you seen what they’re trying to pin on me? I’m no fuckin’ rapist.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell me all about it, and we can go from there.’

  Sitting down, Crowther scowled. ‘Couldn’t they have sent a bloke? This is embarrassing.’

  Jill Carver sighed, removed her te
al tortoiseshell Paul Smith glasses and stared into Crowther’s sullen face. At 37 years of age, she was 13 years his senior, but hundreds of years from the world he inhabited.

  The murder team had, as usual, given her the bare minimum of disclosure but she wanted to hear his account before advising him whether he should answer any questions in the forthcoming interview.

  ‘No, they couldn’t. Now, are you going to tell me what this is all about? Two counts of rape. The theft of underwear’s insignificant at this stage,’ she said, struggling to keep the distaste from her voice.

  Jill leaned forward, straining to hear him. Crowther was suddenly fighting back tears, staring down at the table, his voice quivering. The smell of her perfume had his nostrils twitching, and he was unable to resist sneaking a quick look at her cleavage. Old habits…

  ‘I haven’t got the bottle to fuckin’ rape someone. I’ve never had any kind of sex.’

  Jill kept her expression neutral.

  ‘Terry, the allegations are that you broke into their houses and raped them.’

  His head snapped up. ‘Are you fuckin’ stupid? Are you listening? I’ve never had sex with anyone. Ever.’

  Leaning back in her chair, she spoke quietly and slowly. ‘Are you telling me that you are a virgin?’

  He couldn’t bring himself to maintain eye contact with her attractive round face, framed by deep black shiny hair, fearing that she would be grinning at him.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I fuckin’ am.’

  Stifling a sob he continued: ‘Get them to get a doctor and do a test. I’ve never had sex.’

  Jill told him that wouldn’t be necessary, and that the police had recovered a white pair of knickers from his house, which a witness called Jamie Hampton had identified as being similar to the ones she had stolen. The police had CCTV footage from the swimming baths showing him leaving not long after Jamie.