by Michael Kerr
Vince was a fifty-nine-year-old tub of lard, who fuelled his obese body with a diet of junk food and vast quantities of Tetley’s bitter. His tar-caked lungs wheezed as he stopped in front of the limestone cave and leant back against the waist-high railings that kept the punters at bay. Looking out over the river, he lit a cigarette and watched as five swans flew low over the glassy surface of the Nidd, their ghostly white forms appearing out of morning mist that would soon be burned off by the rising sun. They looked like a squadron of planes wing tip to wing tip, purposeful, on a bomb run of the bridge farther up the river. As they vanished around a bend in tight formation, he turned to look up at the array of articles hanging in various states of stone-clad petrifaction.
Vince’s brain took long seconds to accept and recognise what his eyes beheld, and he dropped the cigarette and clenched his hands in white-knuckled horror as the realisation of what the new addition was rocked him on his feet.
She was naked, and her vacuous, blue eyes stared down at him, unconcerned of her condition or plight. His mind took in everything, as in stupefied fascination he studied the corpse that was suspended over the escarpment. He saw that her throat had been cut; the gaping maw a gleaming blue, purple and raw-meat red. Her mouth was a sealed line of glinting metal, and her nipples were missing from breasts that pointed towards him, weighed down by gravity. A noose of blue nylon rope encircled her right ankle and snaked upwards to vanish over the ridge above. Her other leg hung loose, down behind her, and his gaze lingered on the protuberant pubic mound and the wispy, sodden curls that matched the blonde colour of her hair.
The shock was too much for Vince. It was as if a gin trap had snapped its steel jaws around his chest, crushing his lungs and tearing at his heart, causing him to cry out in agony as he staggered a couple of steps before falling to crack his skull on the concrete walkway. A plume of gossamer-thin cigarette smoke drifted out from his mouth, to be carried away by the gentle breeze as a massive cardiac infarction robbed him of life.
Lying beneath the hanging corpse, Vince appeared to be engaging Shelley Stroud in a staring contest, their sightless eyes unblinking, and expressions impassive as they faced one another in mutual disinterest.
Neil Frampton, a newly appointed assistant manager at Mother Shipton’s Cave Ltd, found the bodies as he searched for the errant security guard, who had not signed off duty. Neil was young, fit, a non-smoker, and although badly shaken by the scene in front of him, was not struck down by a heart attack, only the worry of how much revenue would be lost.
Standing back, Laura and Hugh waited for the duty pathologist to finish up his ‘on scene’ inspection of the corpses. Above them, where the rope had been tied to the security fence, a fingertip search was being conducted by officers. Shelley’s body had been lowered to the ground after the forensic photographer had taken shots of her from what seemed a thousand angles. Both of the deceased now lay side by side under cover of an Arctic-white Incitent.
“You want to take a closer look?” the young pathologist asked, appearing at the front of the tent, holding back the flap as he addressed Laura and Hugh.
Laura walked over to a concrete litter bin, pushed her cigarette end into the sand-filled receptacle mounted in its top, and returned to enter the bright canvas shelter.
“What can you tell me?” Laura asked Ken Matthews, who she knew fancied her almost as much as his boss, Brian Morris, did.
“The security guard appears to have suffered a heart attack,” Ken said. “The shock of seeing the corpse hanging there could have brought it on. Looking at him, I would say he was in pretty bad physical shape; a prime candidate. As for the girl, the cause of death will no doubt prove to be the cut throat. The blade has severed her jugular and right carotid artery, cutting completely through her larynx and vocal cords. She’s drained of blood, and you can see the other injuries. Your boy has been busy again.
“The only other thing is this,” he continued, hunkering down to wield a pair of what looked to be long eyebrow tweezers as he eased the thighs apart with a gloved hand. Protruding from the vagina was a piece of paper, wrapped in cellophane. “It looks as though it might be a note. Do you want it removed now or back under more controlled conditions?”
“Now,” Laura said.
The pathologist drew the folded packet from the orifice with his tweezers and opened it out so that they could read the message that was written in bold, black capital letters, clearly visible through the slick, transparent protective covering. It read:
PLEASE FIND ONE (1) WELL NOURISHED BODY – SLIGHTLY DAMAGED.
LATE TENANT WAS SHELLEY STROUD. MISSING RIGHT EAR ALREADY IN YOUR POSSESSION. REMEMBER, THIS ONE DIED FOR YOU, LAURA.
JOHN WAYNE GACY XXX
Laura knew what Ken or Brian Morris would find when they got Shelley on to the autopsy table and commenced cutting, probing, measuring and weighing; turning what had been a human being into marbled meat and assorted excised bloody organs. It had the unmistakable signature of the Tacker, without need of the note. The stapled mouth, missing nipples and cut throat were his trademarks.
“Thanks, Ken,” she said. And to Hugh. “Come on, let’s go. There’s nothing here that will help us. The sad bastard is just playing games, getting his jollies again by putting his work on display and trying to provoke us.”
“He’s succeeding, isn’t he?” Hugh said.
Laura shook her head. “Not really. He’s baiting us, but every dog has its day. Between you and me, Jim Elliott is advising on this, unofficially. He’s already worked up a profile, and has played this game for a lot longer than the dickhead that we’re after has. Jim never gave up. He was like a Mountie; always got his man. It’s not a case of if we catch this piece of shit, Hugh. Just a matter of when.”
“I hope you’re right, boss. So far we’ve got nothing. He leaves a clean kill. We’ve never found one single worthwhile clue.”
“Are you forgetting the bite marks? Odontology can match his teeth to the last victim. And now he’s done it again on the Stroud girl.”
“We still need a suspect. The teeth marks don’t help if we have nothing to compare them with. And I don’t see how Elliott can be of any help. I heard that he’d cracked up and quit the FBI. He couldn’t cut it any more.”
“It wasn’t that he couldn’t cut it, Hugh. He walked because he’d had enough. He was sick of being in their minds, tainted by the evil and sickness that makes these monsters tick. He may never get involved again, but he’ll see this through, now that he’s committed himself to it. And that means our sicko is on borrowed time.”
The following morning, Hugh came up with eight possible suspects in the area that Jim had homed in on, and arranged for uniforms to check them out.
Laura phoned Brian Morris, who had performed the autopsy on the Stroud girl, and could hear the undisguised disappointment in his voice. She just hadn’t had the time or the inclination to visit the mortuary that day. She knew that the pathologist enjoyed seeing her, and that he probably visualised her being as naked as one of his cadavers every time she stopped by. But on this occasion, he would just have to make do with her voice. The unbidden thought of the lecherous, middle-aged little man sitting in his white-tiled office with his glasses steaming up as he jacked off whilst talking to her, almost cracked her up. It was hard to keep from chuckling as she spoke.
“Anything new, Brian? Or is it the same as the last one?”
“It may not be of any help, Laura. But he exsanguinated this one more thoroughly. Hung her by the ankle to bleed out, instead of by her neck. Also, the laceration to the throat was significantly deeper. From the angle of the cut, I believe he strung her up before inflicting the wound. I also think it fair to assume that the teeth marks will match those left on the Cullen girl, as will the staples. For some reason, he used twice as many this time. Oh, and the ear that you received did belong to this victim. I also found a residue of white powder on various parts of her body, where the water from the cave hadn’t wash
ed it off. It’s gone for analysis. She may have been moved to the site in a container or sack that the powder had originally been stored or supplied in. If it turns out to be a specialist material, then you might just have a worthwhile lead.”
“What do you think it is, Brian? Any ideas?”
“I think it might be some kind of fertiliser or ground up mineral, probably lime. But that needs confirming. The only thing that I’m one hundred percent sure of, is that the same lunatic is responsible for all these murders.”
“Thanks. Next time I call by I’ll bring cakes from Betty’s, and we can pig out. How does that sound?”
“You sure know how to make an old man happy. I’ll even stop working to eat them.”
Laura winced. “Last of the romantics, eh, Brian?”
Only three of the men that were checked-out fitted Jim’s profile. One had claimed to have been in Canada for the last six weeks, visiting his sister and brother-in-law. The second had no such checkable alibi for the pertinent dates, and had seemed very nervous and tight-lipped. The fact that he was confined to a wheelchair – paralysed from the waist down – and had been in that condition since a motorcycle accident back in oh-seven, was his saving grace. It was the third guy who interested them the most. He was too cool, slightly arrogant, and proved to be very vague when asked his whereabouts at specific times on relevant dates.
“The Canada story was on the level,” Hugh said as Laura studied the reports on the three suspects, who all resided within the area Jim had indicated. “He was in Winnipeg, Manitoba for six weeks. He’s clean. And the second guy will never walk again, and doesn’t drive. So without an accomplice, he’s in the clear. It’s the last one, Derek Cox, who rings all the right bells. He lives alone on a smallholding. He’s six-two, built like a brick shithouse, has hair the colour of corn, and eyes as blue as Paul Newman’s were. The uniform that spoke to him says that he came across as evasive and unhelpful. He wasn’t fazed at all and appeared to find the situation quite humorous.”
“Tell me about him, Hugh.”
“He sells organically grown produce and plays around with stocks and shares via the Internet. He has no real friends, no social life to speak of, and even the people in the village only see him when he drives through. He never uses the local pub or shops. The guy’s a shadow. Oh, and both of his parents are dead. They bought it in a house fire that he walked away from with just mild smoke inhalation. That was twenty years ago.”
“Bring him in,” Laura said. “Let’s talk to him, and if we don’t get alibis that check out I’ll get a warrant and we can take his place apart. Maybe we just got lucky.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TRISH sat alone and sipped at her glass of medium dry dealcoholised white wine. The Mousseux was as near as she permitted herself to get to alcohol. She had seen what booze could do to people and their careers, and was not going to allow herself to be ruled by the bottle, as her mother had been. Trish had watched her mum, Hilda, turn into a lush and age prematurely as she slurred and staggered through the last fifteen years of her life. Liver failure had taken her on her forty-eighth birthday, and Trish had been relieved when the source of her continual embarrassment had finally been reduced to ash, to be spread somewhere in the rose gardens of the crematorium in Hull, where all the late and never lamented Pearsons’ wound up. Blood may or may not be thicker than water, but the effects of gin proved stronger than both and had quickly driven Trish from home, hating a mother who, to her way of thinking, was a weak-willed and pathetic specimen of human detritus.
As a child, Trish had been heartbroken and bewildered when her father walked out. Later, she understood why he had left. It had not been another woman who’d enticed him away, but his inability to live with a chronic alcoholic.
The Studio Bar was a cubby-hole compared to the likes of those at any of the major television companies. And as Trish sat nursing her drink in the shabby and dimly lit lounge, she decided that it would be advantageous to her career to let Jason Godwin screw her. Godwin had been drooling around her for months, copping the odd feel and making it clear that he was in lust with her. He was an executive producer at the station, and had been offered a lucrative deal by Channel 4. If he was prepared to take her along with him, and look after her interests, then spreading her legs was a small price to pay. She could fake orgasms as easily as she feigned emotions for the camera. Jason might just prove to be her best chance of getting the hell out of this one horse town and attaining the fame that she deserved, on national TV. It pissed her off to see some of the wooden, over-the-hill newsmongers making fat salaries. Her only fear was of letting the little shit dip his wick, to then tire of her before moving on.
Timing was everything. She needed to keep him interested and thinking with his cock, not his head. Touch wood, so far it was working.
“Trish, sweetheart, why not come down south with me? You know I adore you,” Jason said, appearing as if conjured up by her thoughts of him. She was not to know that he was determined to get into her panties before leaving Yorkshire, without her.
Trish fluttered her eyelashes. “Jason, darling. You know how much I love my job. I want to be with you, but I couldn’t function down there without work. I’d have to be sure that there was a contract for me. I already front a show, so I wouldn’t want to have to start again from square one.”
“I’ll have a word with Gerald Archer,” Jason purred, dropping into a seat opposite her. “He pulls the strings at C4. If he says jump, the only question is, how high? I’ll show him some of your best material, including VT of this serial killer stuff that you’re currently involved with.”
Under the table, Trish stroked his leg with the side of her foot, and watched his eyes roll back a little as beads of sweat escaped from the front of a toupee that seemed to squat precariously on his head like the pelt of a dead animal. What remained of his hair at the sides was ash-grey, in stark contrast to the ginger tom-coloured rug that was taped or glued to his bald pate.
“I think we should spend the weekend at your place in the Dales and chill out,” Trish said, her shoe now off, and her toes caressing the bulge at his crotch as she wondered whether he removed the wig and put it on a poly-head on his dressing table before humping. The thought of him standing naked and then ripping the piece off before leaping into the sack almost made her choke on the wine.
Jason had a large Scotch before heading back to the production office to tie up some loose ends for the following morning’s six a.m. breakfast news. Trish had almost made him come in his boxers, then upped and gone, leaving him on the edge of more than just his seat. He knew the bitch was trying to play him like a fish on a line, but she was a challenge. What she didn’t know was, that he would be gone the following Tuesday, and that the weekend at his rented cottage in the Dales would be the last time she would ever set eyes on him. She was a good regional presenter, but that was as far as she was going. She just didn’t have the indefinable zing that it takes to command a national desk; that X factor that you either had or hadn’t. Being attractive and competent was a requisite, but not enough. True, the camera liked Trish, but didn’t love her. He was surprised that she was still naïve enough to believe that sleeping with a boss would open up anything more than her own shapely legs. It was apparent that ambition and the lure of fame and greed lent credence to at least some blondes being dumb.
Trish left the building and followed the paved path to the small car park that lay beyond a landscaped belt of mainly conifers that were set among strategically placed rocks in a bed of weed-smothering shredded bark. She was reasonably confidant that Jason would keep his word. He was besotted. And after a weekend of her energetically catering to his every need, however deviant, he would undoubtedly want more. She would own him, emotionally, and dump him as soon as she was set up. She knew that Gerald Archer was in his late-sixties, and married, which to her made him a prime target for the flattery and not so subtle charms of a good looking woman who was young enough to be his da
ughter. Older men were susceptible, needing to prove that they were still desirable, still in the game, and still had the power to pull.
The first spots of rain dappled the concrete as she stepped off the path and angled across to her Scorpio, that was now, at eleven p.m., one of only a dozen cars still standing under the yellow glare of the perimeter lights.
Jogging as the dark sky began to hurl spears of summer lightning at the earth; Trish triggered the remote on her key fob and heard the metallic clunk as the door lock buttons popped up.
“Ms Pearson,” he shouted as she pulled open the door and slid into the driver’s seat.
She hesitated, squinted into the rain, then recognised him and relaxed a little.
“Yes?” she said when he reached the car, his jacket collar up against what was now a heavy downpour.
“I’ve got a lead on the Tacker that I think the media should know about. Are you interested?”
“Get in,” she said, surprised, but eager to hear anything that would be a scoop and give her a high profile. Something like this could help her career as much if not more than fucking the brains out of Jason, who was currently the station’s resident trouser snake. Everyone needed a stroke of luck as well as talent, and this could be her big break. The Tacker was beginning to make Sutcliffe – The Yorkshire Ripper – look like a saint. Sutcliffe had battered mainly prostitutes to death, but hadn’t put the fear of God up the general public like this one. The Tacker was a nightmare, who made even the worst fictional serial murderers appear lightweight. This was reality, not a Hannibal Lecter, who was just a figment of the author Thomas Harris’s dark and fertile mind, and ultimately a good vehicle for the acting talents of Anthony Hopkins. Fate had put her in the middle of one of the biggest ongoing crime stories for years, and being out in the sticks at this moment in time might just give her the chance to strike the mother lode. She could stay on top of it for as long as the killer remained free and continued to mutilate and murder teenage girls. So far, she had only suffered one setback; the ballsy female cop. The bitch had fucked-up what was going to be a scathing attack on the police’s shortcomings, by somehow turning the interview around. She had said her well rehearsed drivel on air and then walked, leaving Trish looking like a dumb rookie.