by Kate Sten
The air grew thin very quickly inside the mazda5, and DCI Anagnale wound her window down quickly and shoved her head out of the window, emptying the contents of her belly on the hard concrete road.
She had just seen a white male in a white mask stab a woman repeatedly in the chest with a knife not large enough to do serious internal damage, right before he choked the life out of her. He did not do it quickly. After many failed attempts to asphyxiate her, he eventually succeeded on the thirteenth attempt. It was clear that he enjoyed inflicting suffering. In fact, DCI Abagnale had concluded that the man in the video was addicted to the thrill-of-the-kill with his bare hands wrapped around his victim's throat, and he enjoyed doing that to raven-haired women.
In fact, every woman on all forty five videos on the memory card had pale skin and dark hair. He had a type. There was a pattern to his madness but there were no prints, hair or matching DNA on the police database, none that belonged to the serial killer, making it extremely difficult to attach a face to the masked murderer. He had most likely never offended, or been caught offending and wasn’t on any offenders register, or was just too damn meticulous to leave any implicating evidence behind. This was starting to take the shape of a dead end case for DCI Abagnale.
TWO
ABAGNALE
The skies were scorched red and the rains exploded from above, drenching a raven-haired woman. She hobbled along cobbled streets, staggering along haplessly on her bare feet. Deep sighs and yawns bellowed from her parted lips. She grabbed at anyone and everyone that came into her line of sight but they all fell away, giving her distance - The very thing that she did not need in her circumstance.
‘Help! I need help!’ She managed to squeal, the blood drained from her face, and her eyes dim as a flickering flame.
‘You've had way too much to drink. Get off the streets, you shameless slag,’ A teenage adolescent girl heckled from behind the wall of thick mascara that covered her pubescent spots.
‘No. I need help. I am… I have been…’ the raven-haired woman tried to put the words together but couldn’t quite withstand the sharp pain that shot through her stomach.
‘Look at the state of you. Put up the duff good and proper. Was the bloke who'd done it a miracle maker? Because you flipping look like you are about to pop!’ The teenage girl scoffed, clapping both hands at the grimacing raven-haired woman.
There was no help to be had from the teenage scoffer or from anyone else in the streets, in the dark where she groped around like a leper seeking some sort of pittance from an unfeeling audience. Her luck seemed quite bleak.
Hot tears streamed down the distressed raven-haired woman's face as she sat on the cold stone of a slightly elevated pavement, her hands roaming delicately round the circumference of her protruding stomach. The white dress on her had been stained brown with her own sweat and her underwear was missing so that her breasts flopped around when she walked or waddled as was the case.
Her eyes were quick to spot a row of iron bars close to her, though that was not the thing that her frightened eyes were focused on. There was a sound in the distance. Some sort of ringing. She knew exactly what the sound meant.
To others the screeching bells were a nuisance but to the dishevelled raven-haired woman who was running out of options, those bells were a saving grace. She gripped the iron bars which were a few centimeters above her head with renewed resolve. She had not been beaten yet. Even though her body felt strained and thoroughly spent.
Teeth gritted, and face strained, she pulled her own body weight with everything that she had to give. It was enough. She was up but not completely. Her own weight was way too heavy to shift so she crawled on all fours, knees digging into the sharp stony pavements.
Her knees were bleeding and covered in scrapes and cuts by the time she got to an old fashioned door. It was ajar but most of the attendants had trooped out through the side door.
‘Hello! Are you okay? Can we help you?’ Vicar Philips and his wife crowed in unison as if they were thinking from the same brain stem.
No words came from the woman. Just faint groans. She was barely conscious and her eyes rolled back in her head, so that only the white in her eyes were visible.
‘My God! She is pregnant!’ The vicar bit his nails.
‘I shall call for an ambulance straight away, Victor,’ the Vicar's wife chirped still rubbing her eyes in disbelief.
‘They wont get here in time. Something is not right. The poor woman seems in a bad way. I am not sure that they will be able to do much for her. But I think they can save the child in her belly. Get the midwife, Mary. Go on.’ The Vicar raised his head and shouted a direct order to his wife, his voice deep and assertive.
The vicar threw his coat over the raven-haired woman, sprinting straight to her side to hold her head above his chest.
‘You want me to chase after her? She wouldn't have gone far,’ Mary asked, looking blankly at her husband.
He gave the nod twice and with that Mary sprinted into the adjacent street. She remembered the midwife usually parked on the west side of the church where the grounds were flatter, and it was easier for her to lift her portly gait into the beetle car which she drove.
It was often wondered why such a hefty woman would cram herself into a carcass of a car like the very one which she drove. The truth was simply that she was addicted to old things. She had driven the damn thing for the whole twenty four years of her career and never felt the urge to send it to the scrapyard. She just ploughed a small fortune into updating the relic on four wheels instead.
Her breath running out, and chest aching, Mary had finally caught up with the midwife. She was about to enter her cherished blue beetle when the whizzing sounds from Mary's breathless lungs irked her, causing the robust woman to look behind her.
‘Bloody hell, Mary!’
‘Forgive my language. Is everything okay?’ The midwife looked the other panting woman from top to bottom, batting her eyelids at her in bemusement. ‘You look like you have run a freaking marathon.’
‘There is a woman. She collapsed in front of the church and she is expecting.’ Mary untangled her tongue and spat the words straight out.
‘Okay, lead the way. And I will call an emergency number while we walk there.’ The midwife's face soured, as her mood switched from jovial to serious.
The call had been made to the accident and emergency wing of the Eastwood hospital. An ambulance was dispatched to the church quicker than usual on account of the midwife's influence there.
‘Get a spoon or something I can use to improvise. It looks like the baby is already on the way,’ The Midwife thundered, finger pointed at Mary who was stood haplessly behind her.
‘Whatever you need.’ Mary nodded, retreating to the residential wing of the church.
She soon reappeared with a set of spoons of varying sizes. The midwife picked one and proceeded to pry the head of the baby out of the raven-haired woman. The haggard pregnant woman was barely conscious which meant retrieval of the foetus was slightly more tricky. Luckily, the midwife was an experienced and adept hand at complicated pregnancies. She had more than two hundred successful deliveries under her belt and was able to make the best of a bad situation. The newborn plopped out, headfirst into a warm blanket that had been placed between the mother's parted feet.
The Ambulance soon arrived on the scene, sirens blaring loudly. But not loud enough to drown out the cries of the newborn. The baby's voice was thunderous and ear-piercing.
‘She is cold! She is so cold! Is she?’ The vicar asked in a muted tone, eyes watering and hands shaking - A stupefied state unbefitting of a man that was used to dealing in deaths and bereavements
‘I cannot find a pulse. And yes she has passed. Time of death is 10:30 pm, May, 2005. Died from excessive bleeding and other possible underlying complications yet to be diagnosed.’ The midwife focused on her watch, as the attending paramedics took notes.
‘Will you take care of her?’ The vicar,
shifted himself from beneath the dead woman's weight.
‘Not until the police get here. We have to call them in when a death unexplained or questionable,’ The midwife explained, flipping her phone open to make a call.
DCI Abagnale had barely handed in evidence at the office when a call was patched through to her desk from the police call centre team. She was quick to drop the backlog of cases that had littered her table to pursue a case that she thought might have more leads to work with.
‘Forensics! You guys are coming with me!’ DCI Abagnale banged on the desk of some of her tired-eyed colleagues.
Two strapping young men picked up some gear and trailed closely behind her. An unmarked police vehicle was assigned to Abagnale and her team. They arrived at Saint Johns church fifteen minutes after the call was made.
‘Abagnale! DCI Abagnale!’ DCI Abagnale flashed her badge in the faces of the Vicar and the midwife. ‘I assume you are the medic that tended to the deceased? What was the status for Jane doe over there?’
‘Yes. I was the first medic to tend to the her. There were signs of abuse in her private area and legs. She was covered in scratches and her clothes were dirty and torn. I do not think there was consent to the invasion of her privates by whomever attacked her. Repeatedly.’ The midwife locked her fingers together, her head facing her shoes.
‘You think she was raped?’ DCI Abagnale said crassly.
‘Yes. That is what I believe is the case.’ The midwife bobbed her head up and down. ‘She was pregnant. The child was in good health considering the state of the mother. Social services will have to be put in-the-know.’
DCI Abagnale gave the thumbs up, a subtle nod of approval to rubber stamp what the midwife had said. The child needed a home and a woman needed her murderer found. Laura Abagnale had not had the fortune of having a child. A tumor in her womb had put paid to that dream. She had burned through relationship after relationship only to find the men she had invested time, sweat and often unrequited affection in, only wanted her if she had a working incubator in her belly.
She was found wanting on that front, hung out to dry and chucked out in the frosty wilderness of singletons. Her job being the only constant distraction that could be counted on to keep the humiliation of the failures of her personal life from swallowing her whole. She had her own demons. Her own issues to deal with.
After all, behind the badge was a heart of flesh. A heart that had been pounded, kicked, crumpled and stomped on. But here she was, standing and unscathed by it all, or so she liked to make people believe when she donned her false smile and slapped on her can-do attitude. They couldn’t be more further from the truth - The poor sods looking at her expensive car and top of the range designer shoes with naked envy in their eyes.
How their eyes would roll back into their skulls if they knew the sad sad truth about her. She was alone and had nothing but the shiny things she hid behind and the job she could not tear herself away from. If she were to be buried that very day, there would be a case file clutched in her cold rigid hands.
A feeling of general unwellness hit DCI Abagnale square in the face. The emotion that swirled around in her tightening ribcage was overwhelming. She found it difficult to stand and nearly tumbled over as bitter memories thrashed about in her heavy head. Sick to the pit of her stomach, she gasped for air.
Something about the raven-haired woman laying stone dead in a pool of her own blood after bringing life into the world made DCI Abagnale's heart ache much more than it should have. She was meant to be somewhat indifferent to scenes of blood and tragedy. It was part of the life of being on the force. But this just felt different. This yanked her chain in a personal kind of way.
‘Do you need some assistance detective? I would be glad to look you over!’ The midwife waddled closer to the stumbling detective who had just about managed to steady herself without cracking her head open on a nearby wall.
‘No, I am not quite that incapacitated yet. I just had a small wobble, that's all. Thanks for your concern. I am sure you have more pressing things to get back to - Like filling out a witness statement for instance. We might need something like that in case her Majesty's Crown Prosecution decides to take interest in this.’ DCI Abagnale gripped the wall with her hand, directing the portly midwife elsewhere with a wave of her well manicured nails.
‘Ungrateful bitch,’ the midwife muttered under her breath, her back turned to DCI Abagnale as she trotted away in the direction of the other two officers that had accompanied the detective to the scene.
Gloves tightly fixed on her hands, DCI Abagnale was ready to probe the victim for clues. The detective stooped low, letting her heels take the weight of her body - all 70 kilos of lean muscle.
‘No scratches on your face. That is curious, considering your legs are covered in them. Eyes are rolled back and unresponsive. The paint on her fingers are fresh. Knees are looking pretty busted. She must have went through hell to get to this place. She probably thought it was safe.’ DCI Abagnale indulged herself in some constructive soliloquy. ‘Dark hair and her build may suggest this might be connected to the Redford forty five. If this is true, she must be number forty six. I don’t recall seeing this face on the Redford videos. This might be the only body to have ever been recovered. She most likely escaped him, somehow.’
‘What sort of rapist killer takes the time to paint his victims fingernails? That is something really bizarre, don’t you think?’ One of the taller forensics croaked, walking closer to the spot where the body laid.
‘A remorseful one maybe? There is probably a chance he regrets what he has done after the attacks and eases his guilt by doing something nice for his victims.’ DCI Abagnale cleared her throat and pushed herself up from her squatting position.
The detective pulled away from the body, her head still cloudy with a deluge of overwhelming thoughts - ghosts from a not so distant past. Her eyes were pasted on her bleeping phone as she turned her back on the spot where the body of the raven-haired woman laid.
There were messages. Actual messages which did not come from the police department or some call centre trying to sell her mobile phone contracts which she had no interest in signing up for. Her heart thumped as she scrolled through the phone flippantly. The name Derrick popped up on the screen after she had flicked her way through a stack of unopened inboxes. There were five messages from him.
Derrick? Derrick?
She knew that name was meant to mean something. Had her head not been too hazy from exhaustion and a numb feeling of sadness, she would probably have recollected what that name had meant to her at the click of her fingers.
She clicked her fingers three times and a her eyes widened in awe at how sieve-like her brain had become. She wasn’t that old yet and she knew she had not become demented. She had gone through a few tests to rule that out after a spell of depression forced her to seek therapy.
‘Ah… oh… The date! I completely forgot!’ DCI Abagnale squelched, her hands wrapped over her mouth to keep her loud shrieks from filtering into the ears of the gawking forensic detectives behind her.
The last message read: Been here at the Grey Horse for the last one and half hour. I am not sure how much longer I can wait. Please put me out of my misery if you are not interested in our little dalliance. The rose has slightly wilted in the time I have been here. Shame.
Her mouth sagged wider and her gloved hand raked through her hair, the shocked eyes in her face seemingly confused.
‘Detective! Do you want us to arrange for the body to be moved?’ One of the forensics guys raised his voice. ‘We have collected what we need from the body and there doesn't seem to be much else that can be done here.’
His words seemed to have fallen on deafened ears. DCI Abagnale’s whole focus seemed to be directed towards the text she was quickly cobbling together. Her mind slowed for a fraction of a second, contemplating whether she actually needed some guy coming over to hers and taking over the remote, ruling the roost which she paid
for with her hard-earned money.
‘I have got a hot date lined up! He has been waiting in the pub for over an hour and he brought a rose. Do you think I should hear him out? Give him a shot? What's your take?’ DCI Abagnale spat out the words, jumping in the faces of her work colleagues.
‘He seems old fashioned. I don’t remember carrying flowers to my last date. I would have been thoroughly embarrassed. Maybe he is an undertaker,’ The shorter forensics officer laughed.
‘Ignore him! If I had a guy bringing me flowers, I wouldn't be wasting any more time hovering around a stiff!’ The taller forensics officer clicked his fingers and rolled his eyes at the other officer contemptuously.
Detective Abagnale nodded her head, eyes focused on her phone, before nervously slamming her thumb on the send icon on her screen repeatedly.
‘Okay, done it. Hopefully he hasn’t gotten the wrong end of the stick and bailed on me. I would so hate to have driven to a posh pub for nothing but a stiff drink and carved stake.’ DCI Abagnale shook her head, as she skipped gleefully towards the black unmarked vehicle that she had driven them to the church in.
‘Are you guys going to be okay to make your own way back?’ DCI Abagnale swiveled her head sideways, catching a glimpse of her standing colleagues.
‘Don't worry about it. We will hitch a ride with the van that takes the bodies to the morgue,’ The taller forensic officer replied, enthusiastically waving a hand at her.
DCI Abagnale did not have time to go home for a shower and a quick change of clothes. She knew the perfect place to find something not too flashy but sultry enough to make a statement. A crimson dress hung precariously on the hangers, in the discount section of Diane's Range fashion shop. Click-clacking away, heels pounding on the floor beneath her, the detective's eagle eyes spied the red dress swishing away, on its lonesome, on the hanger. Her hands grabbed it before her brain could even decide whether it was the one for her or not.