CUT DEAD: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel

by Mark Sennen

  Unhinged.

  Like your mother. Not your mummy. You use the word mother as a purely biological term. The woman from whose womb you emerged all those decades ago. A seed spat out and then cast onto foul ground. Picked up and loved, cared for and nurtured by Mummy. Until Daddy used the Big Knife on her.

  Years later, not long after you’d been released, you exacted revenge on Mother and really that should have been the end of it. But you began to wonder about the other children. Hundreds of them. Every one put in the same situation as you. Discarded as if some piece of worthless rubbish. Of course, not everybody suffered in the same way as you, but the perpetrators didn’t know that, did they? They didn’t know how things would turn out. They were reckless. Any reasonable person would conclude they’d done wrong.

  A reasonable person?

  You know the phrase is a legal term, but legally these people have been getting off scot-free for years.

  One night, soon after killing Mother, you’re outside for a cigarette under a chilled night sky. Stars up there. Millions of them. So many you can’t count the specks of light. Worrying, stars not being counted, crimes not being accounted for. You voice your concerns to the universe. What if these bitches didn’t get off scot-free? What if they were brought to book? What if they all fucking paid? Two wrongs don’t make a right, but in this case they might. Yes, God willing, they just might.

  But how to find them?

  In the end, of course, they came to you.

  The list. A new name and address on it each year. Mandy Glastone, Sue Kendle, Heidi Luckmann. Then a stay of execution, enforced. Five years when no new name appeared, all the time you wanting so much to continue the killing but a voice inside imploring you not to:

  You’re not crazy, are you? Not an animal? You need to control your urges. Stop letting the past determine the future.

  Week after week, the same voice nagging:

  Concentrate on your work. Look after Mikey. Forget about what happened. Mummy and Daddy are history. Live your own life.

  Nagging, nagging, fucking nagging:

  It’s too risky. Anything goes wrong and you’ll be caught. You don’t want to go back inside, do you?

  You listened and, although you were tempted many times, you obeyed. Until the voice had a sudden change of heart:

  I think this year we might start over.

  Which was when Katherine Mallory skipped along. Black ink on white paper. The ink you were unsure about, but the paper definitely ninety GSM. And now Paula Rowland, things moving along nicely once again. Shame you have to wait a whole twelve months until the next one.

  You sigh and adjust your grip. Tiger Woods. No, maybe not him all things considered. Rory McIlroy, a good boy. Then you swing the axe again.

  Thuck.

  The flap of skin is cut through and Paula’s head thuds as the skull falls and hits the ground, rolling over a couple of times until it faces upwards, the eyes still staring at you as if you’ve done something terribly, terribly wrong.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Crownhill Police Station, Plymouth. Tuesday 24th June. 9.55 a.m.

  After a meeting with Hardin first thing Tuesday, Savage went to the crime suite. A few minutes later an ebullient Collier came in, waving a couple of sheets of paper in the air.

  ‘Only got two confirmations so far,’ the office manager said. ‘But it could be you’re right with your theory. Mandy Glastone, née Fullsome. She had a nervous breakdown in 1991, long before she met and married Phil Glastone. Pregnant at the time, she couldn’t deal with the baby after the birth. The father did a runner and the baby was taken into care and later adopted. Fifteen years later, when she was murdered, the information about the baby never came out.’

  ‘Say that again,’ Savage said. ‘How many years later?’

  ‘Hey?’ Collier narrowed his eyes. Looked at Savage. ‘Fifteen.’

  ‘We’ve cracked it. Well done, Gareth. Fantastic,’ Savage said, tapping Collier on the back. ‘What’s he called, the killer?’

  ‘Sorry, I don’t—’

  ‘Jesus, ma’am!’ Calter jumped up from her desk. ‘The Candle Cake Killer.’

  ‘Fifteen,’ Savage said. ‘Fifteen candles on the cake left at Glastone’s house.’

  ‘But …’ Calter shook her head. ‘Doesn’t work. There were only eleven candles on the cake Katherine Mallory’s girlfriend found and the child is twelve now.’

  ‘Yes,’ Savage said. ‘Eleven candles, but that was last year. Plus one and you’ve got twelve. What about the other victims, Gareth?’

  ‘Got an FLO round with Paula Rowland’s parents now,’ Collier said. ‘It’s a sensitive issue, but they’ve said Paula did give up a baby for adoption. Heidi Luckmann and Sue Kendle were both born out of county and I’m still chasing their records. At least now I know when they might have given birth.’

  ‘Well done, Gareth,’ Savage said. ‘Even without confirmation for the others this is a brilliant result. I really feel we’re making progress.’

  ‘We are?’ Collier said, shuffling the sheets of paper around. ‘There might be a link between victims, but how does it help us identify the killer?’

  ‘He’s somebody who doesn’t like the fact that the women gave away their children.’

  ‘That’s the motive?’ Collier shook his head and then he turned to the whiteboard. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Neither do I, but for some reason the killer finds the thought of adoption so abhorrent he or she is prepared to torture and kill. Perhaps they were adopted themselves, but we can’t assume so. The killer might simply be following some perverse moral or religious code.’

  ‘There are plenty of crazies out there, ma’am,’ Calter said. ‘And as you always say, all we can do is find ’em and bang ’em up.’

  ‘To which end we have a whole new investigative avenue. One which will require a great deal of sensitivity.’

  ‘Narrows the victim down though. If you didn’t give up a baby for adoption you’re safe. We might even be able to provide protection for the others.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure. Killers aren’t rational thinkers. We might have got hold of the wrong end of his warped stick, but we’re beginning to get somewhere. We need to get the information on Sue Kendle and Heidi Luckmann. If they both have some connection with adoption then we can proceed, with caution, in that direction.’

  ‘I can see a problem, ma’am,’ Collier said. He moved across to a free terminal and sat down. ‘Look.’

  Collier’s fingers blurred over the keyboard. A couple of websites flashed on the screen. Then Collier was bringing up a calculator and inputting some figures.

  ‘As I suspected,’ he said. ‘The number of adoptions under the age of one each year is tiny. There’s hundreds of thousands of births so only a very small percentage of those children will end up being adopted. How’s the killer going to find these people? As far as I can tell they can’t just trawl through birth certificates looking for matches for their demented plan. They need to request individual certificates by supplying certain information such as the name and birth date of the adoptee. Coming across one by random would be highly unlikely.’

  ‘Which means,’ Savage said, ‘the individual has some sort of privileged access or can gain it.’

  ‘Glastone, ma’am,’ Calter said. ‘He’s into databases, remember?’

  ‘We’re done with him, Jane,’ Savage said. ‘I hope.’

  Mid-morning, and Riley managed to get through to the Deputy Governor of HMP Full Sutton, a man by the name of Greg Adamson.

  ‘Good officer,’ Adamson said after giving Riley some background on Corran’s work at the prison. ‘Developed a rapport with the prisoners. Essential that. Especially here, where many of them have no future beyond prison.’

  Riley asked about Corran’s contact with particular prisoners, his personal life, any problems he had either at home or inside, the reason for the transfer.

  ‘Played away from home,’ Adamson
said. ‘A bit on the side, allegedly. Easy to do when you’ve got changing shift patterns and irregular overtime. The Governor didn’t want to see Corran’s marriage break down, not when he had a little kiddie, so he agreed the best thing would be for him to leave the area.’

  ‘And there was no other reason for the move? Nothing to do with the prisoners?’

  ‘Far from it. As I said, he had a good rapport.’ Adamson paused for a moment. ‘Sometimes almost too good.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You said Corran got too close to the prisoners.’

  ‘Did I? Well, I meant one needs to keep a certain distance. Like I mentioned Full Sutton is different from your run-of-the-mill prison. Many prisoners with problems. Corran did a lot of work with serious offenders. Got right inside their heads. Maybe got a little too friendly. I should think Dartmoor would suit him far better.’

  More dead air, Riley thinking it sounded like Corran being three hundred miles away from Full Sutton suited Adamson too. He wondered if the personal problems Corran had were mixed up with Adamson’s own life. Did Adamson have a wife who might be someone’s bit on the side, or was the man himself part of some sex triangle involving Corran?

  ‘I hope Corran turns up.’ Adamson was speaking again. ‘Mind you, I doubt you can spare the resources to look for him, what with all that’s going on down there.’

  ‘No,’ Riley said. ‘We’re pushed.’

  Adamson hung up and Riley kicked back in his chair. The conversation had been a waste of time. Adamson had confirmed what Mrs Corran had said about her husband’s affair, but that was it. Riley reached for the phone again to call Davies but it rang before he’d dialled.

  ‘Doug Hamill,’ the voice said. ‘Hi-Tech Crimes Unit.’

  Hamill explained he’d extracted the material from Corran’s laptop. If Riley wanted to he could pop up and take a look.

  Five minutes later and Riley was sitting alongside Hamill in the lab as the technician talked through what he’d found and then brought a document up on the big monitor. Riley leant forward and looked at the huge letters written across the screen.

  I know who you are.

  ‘Who?’ Riley asked, thinking aloud. ‘Who does he know?’

  ‘No idea,’ said Hamill. ‘Not my job. Now look at this.’

  Hamill closed the first document and opened another one. Riley read the words.

  There’s a plastic container under a flat rock at 50.2847 North 03.8977 West. Put £5000 cash in it by Friday.

  ‘This was created at the end of May,’ Hamill said. ‘All the files I’m showing you were in a folder named “Revenue”.’

  ‘GPS coordinates,’ Riley said, thinking he could have done with Enders who was into geocaching big time. ‘Where is this?’

  ‘I checked the location and it’s on Burgh Island over at Bigbury-on-Sea.’

  ‘Bigbury? That figures. Corran’s wife said he went fishing there on the day he went missing. He might have taken his tackle with him as cover but the note tends to suggest he had a much more lucrative reason for going there.’

  ‘There’s other documents with coordinates in too,’ Hamill said, pointing out the icons in a window on the screen. ‘Lower amounts of money. The first one was created in January this year. The way I’m thinking is that your man wasn’t known to the person he was blackmailing. Hence this rather convoluted way of doing things. I’m guessing, from what you’ve told me, this guy would send out the letter and then wait a few weeks to go and collect the money. No way anyone could stand and watch the drop-off spot for that long.’

  But they had, Riley thought. Corran had played a very dangerous game. If you were going to blackmail someone it was better to do it all in one go, not give the victim a chance to ponder each time a new demand came. And Corran’s demands were getting bigger all the time. Greed had literally been the death of him.

  Savage was back home by six-thirty Tuesday evening, the investigation now at the stage where things were beginning to fall into place. Paula Rowland’s parents had confirmed she’d had a baby when she was eighteen and the child had been adopted. With three out of the five victims known to have given up children the motive, if nothing else, had been established. Savage’s team had spent the whole day chasing information: on Glastone and whether there was any possibility he might have gained access to adoption records through his work; trying to find the whereabouts of Lara Bailey’s relatives – specifically her parents and any child she may have had; accessing the medical and social records on the other victims. Hardin’s team concentrated on the search for Paula Rowland while Garrett did several media briefings.

  Dr Wilson called her soon after she’d got in, her mobile vibrating on the tiled worktop in the kitchen as she buttered a slice of toast for Jamie. White bread with chocolate spread. Good parenting intentions had gone out the window once Jamie had reached the age where he could argue.

  ‘This history stuff you’ve been researching,’ Wilson said as Savage tried to scrape the remnants of spread, one handed, from the near-empty jar. ‘I’m not sure you’re on the right track.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. But I’ve got another idea or two.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘It’s to do with the burial site and the placement of the bodies. Best if I met you there.’

  Savage peered through the kitchen window. Throughout the day the cloud and humidity had been building and now the rain had come. Banks of white tumbled in from the other side of the Sound, squalls whipping the surface of the sea.

  ‘Can’t it wait until tomorrow?’ she said.

  ‘Prefer to do it now. And for Paula Rowland’s sake the sooner the better.’

  ‘Fine. Eight o’clock OK?’

  Wilson said it was and hung up. Savage finished preparing Jamie’s snack, took it upstairs and remonstrated with him about eating all his dinner. Along the corridor Samantha was Skyping with a friend who lived not a quarter of a mile up the lane.

  ‘Out again, Mum?’ Samantha said when Savage told her she had to go to work. ‘Hope he’s as good-looking as Dad.’

  ‘Don’t be cheeky,’ Savage said. ‘There’s no one quite like your dad.’

  ‘You can say that again.’

  Savage found Pete in the living room, charts of the coast of Brittany spread over the floor.

  ‘The summer holidays. Guernsey, Jersey, St-Malo and then work our way westwards,’ Pete said without looking up. ‘If the weather’s suitable, the Îles Chausey before St-Malo. What do you think?’

  The trip looked like too much work for Savage, especially considering it was only a week or so since they’d scuttled back from Brixham. She guessed for Pete the hard work was the point. A busman’s holiday for a bus driver who no longer drove a bus. Savage touched him on the shoulder affectionately and explained she needed to go out. Pete nodded, but he was already engrossed in a Channel Islands pilot book as she left the room.

  An hour and a half later and she drove into the farmyard at Tavy View Farm and parked next to the green tractor. Joanne Black opened the front door and shouted through the rain, asking if she wanted a cup of coffee. Savage said she’d call in on her way back.

  There was no sign of Wilson, but then Savage remembered he had a 4x4. Maybe he’d driven down the metal track.

  She pulled on her waterproof coat, stuck a torch in one pocket and grabbed her wellies from the boot. Then she set off on the trek to the scene.

  The clouds had lowered even farther since she left home, dark shapes scudding in. Although sunset wasn’t for another hour and a half, the lights down in Plymouth were visible across the water, twinkling in the rain. She trudged down the track and across the field. The white forensic shelter stood down the far end, sheltering the hole, but no light emanated from within. There was no sign of Wilson’s car either. By the time she reached the tent the rain had begun to get heavier, the sky darker.

  She peeled back the door of the tent and secured
the tie. The generator, pump and lights had been removed and inside, water lapped the sides of the hole a metre or so from the top edge. Without the pump to remove the runoff from the rain the hole had half-filled, the water brown and opaque.

  Layton had said something about keeping the area protected for a few days in case they needed to do any more analysis, but Savage couldn’t see what else might be gleaned from the mess. The ground penetrating radar and additional aerial shots suggested they’d pretty much got the excavation right; there were no more bodies.

  She turned from the tent and looked down to the estuary and Plymouth again. The lights glowed brighter now, presaging an early dusk. Where the hell was Wilson? She took out her phone, but saw there was no signal. She tapped in a text message, pressed ‘send’ and held the phone in the air. There was a beep as the message found a stray carrier and zipped off into the ether. A minute or so later her phone vibrated. Savage peered at the screen. A reply from Wilson.

  Emergency consultation with patient. Have to cancel. Tried to phone. Sorry.

  Damn.

  Savage shoved the phone in her pocket and gazed around at the tent and its surroundings. Wondered if she could do anything useful here. Now she was alone perhaps she could take a moment to get into the mindset of the killer. Night was coming. This could be just the sort of time of day the killer would have carried the bodies over the railway bridge and put them in the hole.

  Layton’s stepping plates had been removed after an extensive fingertip search had taken place, and a thick gloop of mud surrounded the scene. The CSIs had walked everywhere but as Savage moved around the outside of the tent she saw a distinct set of footprints leading down towards the railway line. They appeared recent, the rain only just beginning to fill the imprints with water. Savage moved closer and now she could see there were two sets of prints: one coming and one going.

  She crouched next to one. The print was large and from the simple pattern looked like a wellington boot. The footprints led up and into the tent.