by Joy Ellis
CHAPTER TWO
Joseph sat in his tiny cramped office, drawing up the action programme for the team. Outside in the CID room the others were talking about the grim discovery of the night before. It never ceased to amaze Joseph how quickly news travelled in Greenborough police station.
‘Everyone here?’ Nikki called out.
He stood up and stretched as Nikki’s voice echoed around the big room. For some reason he felt very low, an emotion he was neither used to nor comfortable with. Joseph was not just a glass half-full kind of man, he was a “Hey! What luck, we have a glass!” type. And with his only daughter getting engaged to one of the finest young police officers in Greenborough, he should have been feeling good.
‘In your own time, Sergeant Easter! Don’t worry about us, we have nothing to do.’ Nikki tapped impatiently on the whiteboard beside her.
He grinned apologetically, gathered up the work rotas and hurried out. ‘Sorry, ma’am.’
‘Right, let’s get started.’ Nikki stood up straighter and folded her arms. ‘Two items to deal with this morning, and I’ll get the quickest one out of the way first. Although that’s not to say that it isn’t a very important piece of information. Superintendent Woodhall has received intelligence that Freddie Carver has been seen in this county.’
Joseph frowned. Carver hadn’t been a particular problem to the Fenland Constabulary, but his dirty dealings had been plaguing the Met for years. Then a local case that he had been involved in had backfired, sending the filthy rich villain scurrying away to live in Spain. Word had got back that he hated it. He was a big city criminal, he liked the sun and sangria for holidays, not forever.
‘Most of you won’t recognise the name, but I urge you to do your homework on this man. He is utterly ruthless. I wouldn’t like to count how many suspicious deaths and disappearances in London and the south-east can be attributed to him or his henchmen.’
‘What is he doing in the Fens?’ asked DC Dave Harris, the team’s oldest and shrewdest detective. ‘Surely we can’t offer him more than the city does?’
Nikki shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine, Dave. We have no idea why he’s here. But,’ she ran her hand through her hair and looked at her team anxiously, ‘When I mentioned his henchmen, you should know that I’m talking about two men we have had dealings with — two very unpleasant men who go by the names of Mr Fabian and Mr Venables.’
This time a low murmur of recognition rippled around the room.
‘Mmm, I thought you’d know those names. And after the last murder case, we do not, under any circumstances, want that toxic pair on our patch. So we need to find out exactly why Freddie Carver is here, and what he’s up to. Dave — I’d like you to put out an attention drawn to all the other stations in the area. We need to keep a close eye on his whereabouts and so far, we know SFA, okay?’
Dave nodded. ‘Wilco, ma’am. And I’ll get Niall and Yvonne to see what the word is on the street about him.’
Uniformed officers PC Niall Farrow, soon to be Joseph’s son-in-law, and WPC Yvonne Collins were the team’s eyes and ears on the ground. There was little that went on in the high streets, back alleys, the pubs, the clubs, and the homes of Greenborough, that Yvonne and Niall didn’t know about.
‘That’s good, Dave. Keep me up to date on anything and everything you uncover.’ Nikki took a deep breath. ‘Now, as you will have heard, the body of a young woman was found last night out on Carter’s Fen. The consensus is that she was held captive for a period of time before being murdered. She was white, a natural brunette in her early twenties, and Professor Rory Wilkinson, the pathologist, believes she has been dead for about three days. He has promised that we will have his preliminary findings later today.’
‘Any form of identification on her, guv?’ DC Cat Cullen interjected.
‘The girl was wearing an anklet engraved with the name Lilli. Now, this could mean nothing. It could have been stolen, given as a token by a friend, belonged to a dead loved one, anything, but we can’t ignore the fact that it might also be her name. The other important thing about her, until we get the forensic report, is that one finger had been removed.’
DC Jessie Nightingale shuddered slightly. ‘While she was alive?’
‘Most certainly. Professor Wilkinson’s description was most unclinical. Hacked off were his words.’
‘Lovely.’ Cat absent-mindedly ran a finger down the long scar that stretched from her temple to her jawbone. ‘She really got mixed up with some sweet people.’
‘I want you to start checking the PNC for any missing females, especially ones suspected of being abducted. We think the finger was the usual token — cut off and sent to whoever was expected to pay the ransom. Cat, check everything local and national that involves missing women with the name of Lilli, Lily, Lilly, Lilian, Lili, you know the score. It’s not a bog-standard spelling, so it may be a variant. Jessie, could you get onto the Missing Person’s Register? I’d like a printout of all the women between the ages of nineteen and twenty-seven.’
Jessie groaned. ‘I’ll probably need a shopping trolley for all the paper that will throw up. Perhaps I should start locally then extend the range?’
‘Sorry, I know the Misper list for that age group is horrendous, but it’s not as bad as the teenagers. As you say, start local and concentrate on the hair colour and the name. I’ll let you all know the minute the reports start to come in, both from the crime scene and from forensics, then you should have more to go on.’ She gave them a cool smile. ‘I know I don’t have to ask this of you guys, because you always give one hundred per cent to everything you do, but I need a fast result on this. The super is shitting hot bricks over the news that Freddie Carver is back from the continent, and now we have this unfortunate girl to deal with. Joseph will pass around the action programme and what little info we already have, and then, pals, get off your arses and get to it.’
Nikki beckoned to Joseph. After handing out the sheets, he followed her back to her office and closed the door behind him.
‘You don’t think this could have something to do with Freddie Carver, do you?’ he asked. ‘No one’s ever been able to get any hard evidence on him for anything, but we know from the Met that he’s quite capable of torturing or topping someone.’
Nikki flopped down in her chair. ‘As you say, he’s certainly capable of it, and I’d dearly love to nail him for something like this, but Freddie’s big league and way too clever to instantly shit on the doorstep of his new home.’ Nikki pulled a face. ‘This doesn’t seem like a very professional job to me, it reeks of desperation. As in, get rid of the body, and fast. Carver’s way would be to make her disappear without trace. Still, who knows? Let’s get all the evidence on Lilli first, and if he fits the bill, then maybe we should run with it.’
Joseph bit his lip. ‘You’re right, of course, but it just seems a bit of a coincidence, doesn’t it? Carver is seen in the locale, and a dead body turns up.’
Nikki nodded. ‘Oh how I hate coincidences.’
* * *
True to his word, Rory Wilkinson had gone directly from the crime scene to the Greenborough Hospital morgue to await the arrival of his deceased guest. Something about the dead girl had touched a nerve and he needed to know that everything was in place for the following day.
By the time Matthew, his lab technician, arrived in the morning, Rory had already completed the external examination. He had carefully noted every feature, mark and scar. He had listed her hair and eye colour, her height, weight and general condition, checked her dental work, taken her fingerprints, and extracted material from under her fingernails. He had also photographed her in the remains of her clothes, and then again naked.
‘Ah, Matt, my lifesaver! Before we start dissection, just pop down to the canteen and get me a bacon sandwich, would you?’
Matthew looked down at the mutilated body on the autopsy table, almost unidentifiable as human. ‘With or without ketchup?’
‘Brow
n sauce, please. And a strong coffee would be nice.’
As Rory waited for his breakfast to arrive, he sat on a high stool, tilted his head on one side, and stared at the naked woman. It was strange to think that this putrid, stinking heap of flesh and bone would soon begin to tell him the frightening story of what had happened to someone’s daughter. He already knew a lot. He knew that she had been held prisoner, bound and unable to move freely, for a long time. He knew that she had been beaten and regularly abused. And although he did not know the exact manner of her death yet, the cheap, gold coloured identity bracelet round her ankle had given him a name. That made the whole thing much more personal. Of course the anklet could have belonged to anyone, but he liked to find some way of personalising his cadavers, so to him she was Lilli.
Mathew returned, and Rory took his food to his office, but left the door open so he could talk to his technician. He sat staring out — industriously munching on his sandwich, while his assistant began the top to bottom internal examination. As he began the Y-shaped thoracic-abdominal incision, he looked across to the professor. ‘You know, the smell is making me want to puke.’
‘You’ll get used to it in time, my boy. A dab of Vicks under your nose always helps.’
‘I don’t mean this.’ He jabbed his knife towards the corpse. ‘It’s that bacon!’
* * *
Three hours later Rory finished the prelim report, sat back and lifted his phone. Nikki answered almost immediately.
‘Your place or mine, Inspector? I’ve cobbled together everything I have so far.’
In just under twenty minutes Nikki and Joseph were sitting opposite him in his office.
‘This is the bare bones of my preliminary report, if you’ll forgive the unintentional pun, without the lab and toxicology test results, of course. I’ll get them to you as soon as they come back.’ He laid the file on the desk in front of her and sighed. ‘It makes grim reading, but before you begin, I can tell you what I know for certain, and give you my opinion on what has yet to be confirmed.’
‘I’d appreciate it, Rory. Then we can immerse ourselves in this little lot.’ She flicked swiftly through the series of appalling photographs.
‘Okay. She is aged between twenty-three and twenty-five, has had no children, was five feet seven inches tall and her weight prior to being confined was probably in the region of eight stone. I believe, from the multiple injuries, and the degree of scarring and tissue damage, that she must have been some sort of prisoner for anything up to six months. Her condition was poor, almost emaciated, prior to death.’
‘Do you know the actual cause of death?’
Rory frowned. ‘Yeah, and here’s the bummer, it’s not what you’d expect. It was a pulmonary embolism, a fatal complication following a deep vein thrombosis in her calf.’
‘So it’s technically not a murder?’ asked Joseph incredulously.
‘Whatever, the poor kid was killed as surely as if they’d stuck a knife through her heart, just in a much slower and crueller manner. The clot in her leg occurred either because she had been injured, or because she had been tied up and was inactive for very long periods of time. Part of it broke off, travelled to her lung, and bang! Oh yes, and I suggest that whoever held her was mighty jarred off when she died. She is covered in post-mortem bruising.’
‘Could that have occurred earlier, or maybe when she was moved?’
‘Absolutely not. There is a very different presentation of contusions administered after death — the blood isn’t flowing, you see. My findings will show that she was kicked, repeatedly, after she died. It’s this part that disturbs me so much. I’ve never seen such a vicious attack post-mortem, and believe me, I’ve seen a lot.’
Nikki’s eyes narrowed. ‘You said her ring finger was cut off. At what point over her six month period of imprisonment did that occur?’
‘Early on, it was not a new trauma.’
She drummed her fingers on the table. ‘So it seems that she was abducted, the finger was sent to the family, or whoever, as a means of identification, but they didn’t or couldn’t pay up. So her kidnappers kept her for six months? That’s ludicrous! They’d either top her or let her go, not hang onto her. Can you imagine trying to keep a secret like that for months on end? It’s far too risky.’
‘I agree, but that’s what appears to have happened. Our Lilli must have been very important to them, alive that is. She must have been very well hidden too. Sorry I haven’t been able to give you any positive help yet. I’m hoping some of the forensic tests will be able to place where she was held. She was covered in detritus. Soil, dirt, fibres, animal hair, that kind of thing, and although I have been able to distinguish their nature, their origins will take considerably longer, I’m afraid.’
Nikki glanced down at the report. ‘I’ll take what I can from this, Rory, if you can let me have the rest as soon as they come in. Until we know if this is a local crime, or whether we’ve just been the recipients of a kind donation from out of the area, it’s going to be a bloody needle in the haystack job to know where to start.’
‘If it helps, I’ve got a student of mine working on a facial reconstruction. It’s one of our laboratory’s new super-duper hi-tech gadgets. The laser beam scanner and a computer should give us a digital likeness in no time.’
‘Great, that will make life easier. In the meantime, if we get a missing person that seems to fit the general description, I’ll send you a photograph, so you can do one of your superimposing jobs, is that right?’
‘Yes, no problem there. That’s a simple procedure. We photograph Lilli’s skull, superimpose the skull over the head of the Misper and hey presto, if it’s our girl, we’ll have an exact match.’
Nikki sighed and stood up. ‘So all we have to do is find you a picture. Simple enough . . . I don’t think.’
Rory looked up at her. ‘Nil desperandum, Inspector, you’ve had much worse than this. A few more pieces and the puzzle will come together, it usually does.’
‘I don’t like the sound of that word, usually.’
With a grin, he said, ‘Sorry, I forgot I was talking to the great DI Galena, naturally I meant, always.’
CHAPTER THREE
His jacket was worn and faded, and he noticed that the cuffs of his shirt sleeves had begun to fray, but it was not out of keeping with the other working men in the public bar. The only difference was that they sat in groups, conversing and sometimes laughing together, whereas he sat alone. He did nothing to encourage others to sit with him, and his small table was entirely taken up with a selection of daily papers, and a pint of local ale.
Maggie, the publican, looked across as she polished a beer glass, and threw a weak smile in his direction. He returned it, as he always did, with a nod, and then returned to scanning his newspapers. The foreign news, the weather, even the sport did not interest him. It was the national stuff, home affairs, that he read — every word.
An hour later, he carefully folded the papers, placed them on the bar for Maggie to use for fire-lighting, and without a word to anyone, buttoned up his jacket and went outside. It seemed as if the season had changed overnight, and today was the first day for months when he felt really cold.
He blinked quickly as he strode along the street. The sun was bright, but it was the east wind that brought tears to the eyes. He glanced at his watch. He had a job to do, and he wasn’t looking forward to it. The only thing in its favour was that it paid his rent. He almost laughed aloud when he considered what he was paying for. It was hardly a dream home. Still, it would not be forever. He rubbed his eyes, smarting from the brisk wind, or were they real tears? He wasn’t sure. Sometimes, he thought, you had to do things you detested, in order to have the things that you truly wanted. And there was something he desperately wanted. Something he would do anything for. The image of a woman’s face floated into his mind and he swallowed hard. On to work.
* * *
Nikki sat in the comparative quiet of her office and steele
d herself to go through the photographs of Lilli. As she stared at the images, a multitude of feelings flooded through her. The mutilated hand affected her most. The ring finger had been crudely excised, but the stump had managed to heal, after a fashion. It was clear that this girl had been given no medical attention of any sort, which led Nikki to assume that the amputation had been done without anaesthesia. She pushed the pictures away. They were very hard to look at, especially when you knew that the child, because she was little more than that, must have suffered beyond all comprehension. Suddenly she knew why Joseph was so affected by this case. It was the juxtaposition between the intense happiness of his daughter Tamsin and the awful suffering and sadness of Lilli. Two girls, both in their twenties, one on the brink of a bright new life, and the other lying mutilated in a mortuary. Fragile, he had said, life is so fragile. It’s a game of chance, Nikki thought, it’s win or lose. And poor Lilli had been dealt a rotten hand.
She looked again at the pictures and wondered where the girl had come from. Because if she was local, was someone out there going to be looking for a replacement? Would another young woman go missing? Or was it just Lilli who was so very important to him? There was little point in mulling this over, and she knew it, but it was hard not to. Waiting for forensics to come back was nail-biting stuff. Nikki Galena was no good at waiting. But until something found on Lilli’s body could tell them roughly where she had been imprisoned, it was all guesswork, and she would just have to exercise patience.
Nikki gazed through the window and watched Joseph talking earnestly to Dave.
Maybe she should consider taking him off the case and let him work on the search for Freddie Carver. She pulled a face — as if he’d stand for that! And anyway, he’d still be seeing the photos on the evidence boards and hear the others discussing the case. Nikki exhaled. Oh well, he’d get through it, they always did. But she would be watching Joseph Easter very carefully over the next few days.
* * *
Jessie stood up and stretched her aching back. Hours over a computer did little for the posture, and made her shoulders ache like blazes.