“Yeah, I heard.”
“He’s looking very dapper,” Rocco noted, as the DI hurried past his desk.
“His mother’s funeral, idiot. So tread carefully, he’s bound to be delicate for a while.”
“He does look good though. He’s a very attractive man under that stoic exterior. We tend not to notice — him being the boss,” said Joyce, the admin assistant.
Imogen smiled in reply. She wondered if Joyce had the hots for their inspector. If she did, she’d kept it quiet for long enough, dark horse that she was.
Calladine went to his office and discarded his overcoat. He felt uncomfortable in his black suit and tie. He loosened the thing from around his neck and went to check what they’d got.
“CCTV?” he fired at Detective Constable Imogen Goode.
“Yes, sir, but there’s not a lot to see. The camera’s positioned above the till facing the café, but it only captures a small area. It’s specifically for checking on till security, nothing else.”
“Witnesses?”
“Details were taken by the manageress, a Mrs Sandra Dobson. She’s good; she took the names and addresses of everyone in the place before she’d let them go. I’ll get on to it, but it’ll take some time.”
“We could do with more bodies to help. Perhaps Long’s team can do some of the legwork.”
“I’m looking into the Rigbys’ background,” Ruth said. “And like I thought, there’s definitely something odd about that pair . . .”
She didn’t have time to explain more, because Joyce called out to him. “Doctor Hoyle, sir.” She held out the phone.
“Doc! To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“I could do with seeing you, Tom, and pretty quick.”
“Something up?”
“I think there might be, yes. I’ve been presented with a bit of a puzzle from the pile-up this morning.”
“There were fatalities, then? I didn’t realise it’d been that bad. How many are we talking about?”
“There were two fatalities, Tom. There was one at the scene, and one later at the hospital. And there is also my little conundrum.”
“Want to expand on that, Doc?”
“No. I think it’s better if I show you.”
Doctor Sebastian Hoyle, senior pathologist at Leesdon General, was being cryptic again. But if he wanted to see him, then it had to be something important.
“See you soon, then.”
“Ruth! Fancy a trip to the morgue?”
“The details of the missing girl have gone out, sir,” she told him, picking up a pile of paperwork from her desk. “You’ve still got Anna Bajek waiting to be interviewed, remember?”
He’d forgotten. “Look — can you talk to her while I go see what the doc wants?”
Chapter 3
“She most certainly didn’t die in the pile-up, Tom. You only have to look at her to see that. In fact, she’s been dead in excess of forty eight hours,” Hoyle said.
“How did she die, then?” Calladine replied.
“Well, not from natural causes, that’s for sure.”
Calladine followed the pathologist into his post-mortem room. The body of a young woman, covered in a white sheet from the chest down, was laid out on the table. Apart from the burnt flesh, it was obvious that she’d died from a catastrophic wound to the neck.
But what immediately struck Calladine was her mouth. Her lips had been crudely sewn together with string.
“No more than twenty-one, five foot three and very thin. I’ve still to do the PM and I will check for signs of bulimia. If that’s the cause, then it should show up, but it could be she’s simply been starved.”
Calladine stared at the young woman in silence. The wounds around each of the puncture marks, made by what must have been a pretty hefty needle, had swollen hideously. Not done post-mortem then. Who could do such a thing? Who would choose to inflict such pain?
“Did she have any identification?”
“Not really. Nothing with a name and address on it anyway. She was exactly as you see her, stark naked and no jewellery. I’ve cut away one of the stitches and most of her front teeth have been broken or removed too.” He inhaled sharply. “Unless we get something from DNA or fingerprints, then we’ve nowhere to go, I’m afraid.”
“In that case we’re looking at murder. What caused the wicked looking neck injury?”
“It looks highly likely that she was garrotted, Tom. Whoever did this exerted so much force, with whatever was used, that it cut right through her trachea. I’ll look at the wound closely during the PM, but I’d say wire was the culprit.”
Poor girl. She was so young, so fragile-looking — just a few years younger than Zoe in fact. And like Zoe, she’d had all her life in front of her. What sort of maniac does this — destroys youth and innocence with such lack of feeling? Calladine shuddered. This bastard needed catching before he got a taste for it.
“Look at this.” Hoyle lifted one of her hands. “She’s been bound, or even chained. The brown marks around her wrist look like rust to me, but I’ll get Julian to check.” He was talking about Julian Batho, the lead forensic scientist. “The same marks are around her ankles.” He inhaled deeply again and pursed his lips. “I shouldn’t speculate, Tom, but it has all the hallmarks of torture, even at this early stage. Taking a guess, I’d say she’d been kept chained up, tortured over time, and then killed. Plus there’s this.” Hoyle removed the sheet to expose her abdomen
Her lower belly was badly bruised, and there was dried blood on the inside of her inner thighs.
“Her pelvis is broken in several places. You see the marks? Several heavy blows with a blunt instrument I’d say.”
Calladine flinched. This was the stuff of nightmares.
“Sexual assault?”
“It looks that way, but again, the PM will tell me more. But she certainly had intercourse shortly before death, because there is semen present. I’d say the experience wasn’t pleasant. From the bruises I’d say she’s been raped repeatedly.”
This wasn’t a crime carried out in the heat of an argument. This had taken time. Her death had been dragged out, made as painful as possible. And whoever had done this to the poor girl could well be planning to do it again.
The doctor moved her long fair hair to one side to show the inspector what looked like some sort of livestock tag hanging from her earlobe.
“Although it’s much thicker, it’s been fitted rather like a pierced earring, and there is even a number on it: the number five. On the reverse is a word, but I can’t quite make it out, or understand what it means.”
Calladine hoped that ‘five’ wasn’t an indication of her place in some nutter’s hit list.
“What word?”
“Well, I’ll clean the thing up and get the microscope on it, but for now it looks like Vida.”
Calladine shook his head. The word meant nothing to him either.
“I’ll let you have the results pretty fast, later today, except for the DNA. I’ll do DNA testing on the girl and the semen and I’ll get it rushed through.”
Just what he needed — a missing child, and now this. “Do we know which car she was in?”
“She was lying across the rear seat of a car which had one of the badly injured in it. A man — got all his details. His legs were injured in the smash, and then the car caught fire. He was unconscious when they got to him — smoke inhalation. The fire crew got there in time to put the fire out, so he was damned lucky if you ask me.”
“I’ll need his details.”
Hoyle handed him an interim report. “There was a briefcase, and I’ve handed that over to Julian’s people.”
“Thanks, Doc. I’ll speak to him before I leave. See what he remembers.”
* * *
As he left the mortuary, Calladine took his mobile from his coat pocket.
“Ruth, how did you get on with the childminder?”
“She’s pretty cut up about what happened, sir. I took her
statement and then got her a lift home. She checks out. The recommendation for the job with the Rigbys was from a local GP. I rang him and he spoke very highly of her. She blames herself. From what she told me, the child was gone in an instant.”
“There’s been another incident, so get Imogen to look at what you’ve got on the Rigbys. Then come to the hospital, and I’ll fill you in on what we’ve got here — something rather nasty, I’m afraid.”
“To do with Cassie Rigby?”
“No — to do with the body found in the pile-up this morning.”
Ruth had no idea what he was talking about, but she recognised the tone. Whatever had taken him away in such a rush was obviously big.
DS Ruth Bayliss arrived within ten minutes. Calladine was waiting for her by the entrance, holding two polystyrene cups of coffee. As she walked across the tarmac towards him he noticed something different about her. It had been niggling him for a while, and he couldn’t work out what it was. She’d grown her hair a little longer, had things done to the colour, but that wasn’t it. There was something else. For now, he’d just put it down to the ‘Jake Ireson’ effect and keep an eye on her.
“What’s this all about, sir? Haven’t we got enough on with the Rigby case?”
“This is a murder, Ruth, and a particularly brutal one at that. If my instincts are right, there may be others.” He handed her one of the cups, looking grim. “It has all the hallmarks of a really evil bastard — holding her captive, torture and sexual assault — way over the top. And her mouth has been mutilated — some of her teeth were removed and her lips were stitched together with string. String! Can you believe that? She wouldn’t have been able to talk, eat or even drink, the way she was left. So you tell me — what do we do? Shelve it until Cassie Rigby turns up, or crack on?”
His lurid description made Ruth shiver. “Where was she found?”
“Her body was in one of the cars. The driver has just come out of surgery.”
“Perhaps this isn’t so complicated after all then, sir. And you’re absolutely sure that she can’t have got the injuries in the crash?”
“Please — after what I’ve just told you, what do you think? And anyway, to finish her off, she was garrotted.”
His tone was sombre. Calladine didn’t like this one. It was giving him that feeling again, one he hadn’t had since the Handy Man case.
“So you think this guy planned to dump the body somewhere and got caught in the pile-up instead?”
“I don’t think anything. For a start, no attempt had been made to hide her, and she was stark naked. You’d imagine the boot would be a better place to hide a naked body, wouldn’t you?”
Ruth Bayliss didn’t know what to think. “This gives us a huge caseload, and we’re short on the team. The missing child and now this; it’s going to really stretch us.”
Calladine scratched his head. It couldn’t be helped. Things were what they were.
“With regard to Cassie Rigby, sir, shouldn’t we alert Central? Perhaps we should be treating it as a Category A incident from the off. Child abduction is big time and we’re delaying things.”
“No, we’re not. We’ll get the preliminaries done first. You met those people; something’s not right in that house. We need to get to the bottom of it, because it’s more than likely pivotal to the child’s disappearance. Look, I’m sorry things have got so hectic suddenly, but you know how it is. If you’d anything planned, then apologies. You’ll just have to make Jake see how things are,” Calladine said.
“He’d promised to take me to that new Italian place in Hopecross. So — yes, I was hoping for an early dart, but he’ll understand. He’ll have to.”
Calladine knew how hard it was — combining a private life with the job. He also knew that Ruth had been seeing her teacher since they met during a previous investigation. Things were at what she liked to call ‘the interesting stage.’ From this point on, their relationship would settle into something more permanent, or else it would fold. But one way or another, a relationship demanded compromises if it was to succeed. Calladine was a good example of what happened if you didn’t.
They went to find the injured man.
“You like him, then?”
“Yes, I suppose I do, but it’s not easy. I’ve lived alone for so long it causes problems. Then there’s the job. It’s a minefield, it really is.”
Wasn’t that the truth?
* * *
“He’s still groggy,” the nurse told them, as the two detectives arrived on the ward.
“What’s the damage?” Calladine spoke to a young doctor hovering over the semi-conscious man.
“Broken femur — we’ve fixed it with a nail and some screws, plus superficial burns and smoke inhalation. He’ll be hoarse, don’t expect too much. He’s had a heavy dose of morphine so he might not know what you’re even talking about.”
Alexander Stone was a rep for a clothing company based in Liverpool.
“Mr Stone . . .” Calladine shook his arm gently. “Do you remember anything about this morning?”
The man looked to be in a bad way. His face was crimson from the fire and his leg was bandaged. He was muttering. Nothing coherent, Calladine thought, as he put his ear closer to the man’s mouth. Just rubbish. That’d be the drugs.
But Alexander Stone was conscious, barely, and turned his head to look at who was bothering him.
“Bloody mess.” He coughed and spluttered. “Bastard terrified me . . .” The coughing took over again.
“Do you remember the woman?”
He screwed up his face and shook his head. “What woman? I travel alone. There was no woman — not with me anyway.”
His eyes closed and he visibly relaxed onto the pillow as the drugs finally won the battle. The nurse stuck the oxygen mask on his face and shrugged.
‘You won’t get anything else I’m afraid. I suggest you come back in a few hours, or even better, tomorrow.’
So that was that. The two detectives left the ward and strode down the corridor to the lift.
“I’ll have a word with Julian before we leave,” Calladine decided. “He has Stone’s briefcase. I want to know where he’s been these last few days and what he was doing on the bypass this morning. I don’t think he’s anything to do with this, because it doesn’t add up. It’s the way the woman’s body was just lying there on the back seat for anyone to see, and in that state too. It’s bugging me. I’ll meet you back in the car park.”
“The body was in Stone’s car so he must have put her there. He’s our man — straightforward enough, so why make things more difficult? Don’t we have enough to think about?”
Calladine watched her walk off shaking her head. He knew what she thought — he was at it again, joining up dots that weren’t there.
* * *
“Julian, did Stone have a diary, electronic or otherwise, in that case of his?” Calladine poked his head around the lab door. “Also — something occurs to me. The car with the body in it, can you determine if it caught fire on its own, or if there was an accelerant used?”
Julian Batho raised his head from a mass of paperwork, and gave the inspector one of his enigmatic little smiles.
“Got a theory, DI Calladine? Looking for more than meets the eye — again?”
“Usually right though, aren’t I? So less of the sarcasm please, Julian. Just let me know what you find, as soon as. Oh — and let me have a diagram that shows the position of the other vehicles, relative to the car you found her in.”
Julian Batho reached across his desk and handed Calladine a tablet computer. “It’s all on there — his diary, appointments, everything. There’s no password. Get Imogen to look at it for you.”
Calladine nodded his thanks. He met Ruth outside the room.
“What’s going on in your head, sir? Imogen’s been on the phone: DCI Jones has been looking for you, and Long’s team are up to their eyes with something big of their own. Things seem cut and dried to me. So we need t
o sort the missing kid thing urgently — don’t you think?”
“I’m not looking to make work for us, Ruth. We’ve got a murder on our hands. Whichever way you look at it and, regardless of what you think, I’ll lay odds that Stone isn’t our man.”
Chapter 4
Day Two
Calladine was busy removing the remains of an old case from the incident board. “Right folks — gather round. Let’s get this up and running. We’re dealing with two unconnected cases; a missing child and a suspicious death. Although I haven’t yet got the post-mortem report I can safely say that this young woman was brutally murdered.” He pinned a photo to the board. “There are one or two things that want doing urgently, so as to rule suspects in or out. We should be able to rule out Alexander Stone very soon. He was driving the car she was found in, but I don’t think he had anything to do with it.” The team exchanged looks and began to whisper. “Yes, I know what some of you are thinking, but bear with me for a little while longer.”
“All his appointments are in his electronic diary, sir.” Imogen held up a tablet for the team to see. “Everyone he’s seen for the past twelve months.”
Rocco piped up. “I hear what you say, but doesn’t finding the body in his car make it a little obvious who the killer is? His car; his crime. What other explanation could there be?”
“It just doesn’t feel right. He takes time destroying her, doing the most appalling things to her, then shoves her in his car — naked and uncovered, just laid across the back seat for all to see.”
“He’s a nutter; they panic sometimes.”
“We’ll see. I’ve asked Julian to do some tests; then we’ll know for sure. Until then we won’t make any assumptions.”
“Will you make a list of his appointments for the last fortnight?” he asked Imogen. “Then we can each take a few and check them out. Now — the murdered girl.” He shook his head. “Someone did a right job on her — the sort of job that takes time and shouts psychopath.”
Imogen Goode heard the ping of new mail, and her blue eyes dipped to her computer screen. There was a message from Julian.
DEAD SILENT a gripping detective thriller full of suspense Page 3