Brutal Pursuit

by Diane M Dickson

  “Yes, I know, Karen, but we’re stuck. She had nothing on her, no identification, nothing, so until she decides to speak to us, we can’t do anything more than we have. We’ve called the doctor, but she’s not physically hurt, so he’s not rushing. Could be ages, and I think we’ll have to bring in a psychologist if we can, make sure there’s nothing wrong with her, you know.” He made a circle with his fingers a couple of inches from the side of his forehead. “Waste of time and money, but it’s looking as though she might have to answer to a charge of assault.”

  Before she went back to the streets the PCSO peered into the cell where Ana was curled in a ball on the thin blue mattress. Her eyes were closed, her arms wrapped tightly around her body and it was clear that she was still crying. She lifted a finger to her face and wiped away the tears.

  Karen Laidlaw turned away and admitted to herself that she wished she’d let the poor woman go. She’d learn from this. Sticking to the rules was great but sometimes just keeping things simple was a better bet. She felt guilty, which was ridiculous really because she’d done the right thing.

  Back on the high street, the drama was already forgotten, the hue and cry no more than something to laugh about in the betting office.

  Karen went back to the alleyway; back to the dirty doorway. There was not much here beside dog shit and empty bottles, and a couple of discarded needles. She kicked at the door, but it was locked. She hoisted herself onto the top of the wall with her hands and saw nothing but ancient debris and dirty puddles in a depressing back yard.

  Behind the wheelie bin she found the cheap plastic shoulder bag. She took it into the road, where there was more light and less stink. She knew before she looked inside what it was. There was no point going over the top, calling in crime scene officers or stuffing it into an evidence bag – this was all about a crappy old phone really. She pulled open the zip. There wasn’t much inside, some clothes, mostly clean but worn, some tissues and bits of makeup, and a plastic folder holding four photographs. Three were of individuals and the fourth was a group shot. Karen didn’t know where it was taken but it was obviously not England. She reckoned Eastern Europe from the few buildings that were visible. In the middle of the group was the girl she had arrested earlier. There was nothing written on the back but at least they had a start.

  She trekked back to the station and presented the bag to the custody sergeant. It was frustrating to leave it with him. She wanted to take the picture in to the girl to see if she could get her to speak now and let her know that her stuff was safe.

  “Let me know what happens, will you?” she asked.

  “Aye, I will. Well done, lass. This’ll be a big help.”

  Chapter 30

  “Brian. Yeah.” As she answered the phone, rubbing at her face with the other hand, Tanya was surprised to see pale light leaking in through the bedroom blind. She didn’t feel she had slept well, she’d had vivid and disturbing dreams, but at quarter to seven, it was much later than she thought.

  “Sorry to disturb you,” Brian said.

  “It’s okay, I was up.” Okay, it was a lie, but as she spoke, she swung her legs out from under the duvet. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m out near Duke’s Cut.”

  “Oh right. Something happened?” she asked.

  “We’ve found a body. In the woods, on the other side of the A40.”

  She was fully awake now, already reaching for her jeans and sweatshirt. “Why didn’t dispatch call me?”

  It didn’t matter really, but it was the first question that came to mind, and she had blurted it out. “Anyway, never mind about that for now. Wait though, just hang on.”

  He had caught her unprepared and now she was flustered. There was a pen on her bedside table, a notepad, and she perched on the edge of the mattress and took a deep breath. She closed her eyes for a moment and tried again. “Right, sorry. Exactly, where are you, and what details do we have?”

  “I’m at Oxey Mead Lake, the other side of the A40 from Duke’s Cut. There are more woods, more small lakes.”

  “Who found the body?” She had laid her phone on the cabinet, switched it to speaker, and was dragging on her clothes one handed while trying to jot down relevant details. She knew it was ridiculous, what she should do was take the call quietly and calmly, but she felt wrong footed.

  “Jogger. I suppose we would have got to it eventually, by widening the search around Duke’s Cut, but anyway, here it is,” Brian said.

  “Have you had sight of it?” she asked.

  “I have. It’s a female, naked. I think it’s been here a few days – there’s evidence of wildlife.”

  “Ah, so – head, or no head?”

  “No, no head, no hands.”

  “I’m on my way, we need to get things in motion. I’ll call the Medical Examiner, the SOCO team,” Tanya said.

  “Yeah, I’ve got that in place, they should be here within the next ten minutes or so.”

  She hesitated, she had to be calm. “Right. Well, I’ll see you there.”

  She clicked off the phone, and finished dressing, grabbed a bottle of water and a breakfast bar from the cupboard, and was in her car minutes later.

  She was seething with anger and confusion. In the back of her mind, she re-ran Charlie’s words. “Watch your back.” She was SIO, she should have been called first. But surely there was a logical explanation for what had happened. Using the hands-free she interrogated the missed calls list. Nothing. At least that was something – she hadn’t slept through them trying to reach her. But in that case, why had they not called? She turned onto the main road, the tyres singing in the early morning damp, the sun painting wet roofs a dull pink, and she struggled to get her mind into the right place. The main thing was this body, the rest of it would have to be dealt with; later, and calmly. But it would be dealt with.

  Chapter 31

  By the time Tanya arrived the full circus was underway – tents and tapes, cars, vans, and dogs. A constable standing guard at a small iron gate noted her name and told her to stick to the safe path, pointing down at the metal walkway that had already been laid. She was irritated he felt she needed to be told, but he was just doing his job and doing it well. It wasn’t him really, she was just generally irritated.

  Paper suited, and with a pair of bootees covering her own shoes, she stepped carefully along the slippery path. The undergrowth was wet, the surroundings muddy. Maybe that would help, there could be footprints in the soft ground. As she walked, she took it all in. Part of her mind was back in that other area of woodland, to the first ever murder victim she had seen. There had been birdsong that time, and trees and shrubs, and just as now, there had been horror.

  She dipped into the blue tent. Simon Hewitt was there, bending over the corpse, dictating quietly into his machine. The flare of camera flash bounced off the plastic walls and threw the sad remains into stark relief against grass made lurid by artificial light. There was no head, and the arms ended in dirty stumps. The body lay on its back, pale and sad. Female for certain and not very old but rendered inhuman by the twisted pose and the missing extremities.

  The victim’s left breast had been torn and ruined by a bullet, the hole darkened around the edges. Doctor Hewitt saw her and raised a hand. “We’ve got a cause of death at least,” he said. “From the evidence of liver mortice and lack of blood here” – he swept a hand around him – “I would say that she has been moved after death. I have turned her, there is an exit wound in the back. So, while we can see what happened to the poor thing, we are not much further on finding out where, or indeed, why. It makes me wonder now about the body on the golf course. Indications there would be that the injury was to the head, maybe another bullet, but until we find it…” He shrugged.

  She glanced around; everyone was busy. She would read the reports when they came in, would attend the post-mortem examination herself, but right now she was nothing more than an onlooker and a latecomer. A spectator.

  Back
in the clearing, Brian Finch was addressing a group of uniformed officers, instructing them as to areas to be searched, giving them enough background so they knew what they might be looking for.

  “I suppose we’re looking for the head?”

  Tanya didn’t see which one of them had spoken.

  “No. We’ve got that, it was found earlier. We have no weapon though, no gun and nothing that would have been used to remove the head and hands,” Finch said

  Tanya walked across to stand beside him.

  “Ah, right. Detective Inspector Miller is SIO,” he said. “I’m just briefing the search team, boss. Getting things going.”

  “Yes, I heard.”

  She waited a moment until she had their attention. “Actually, we are looking for a head, guys.”

  She heard him huff beside her, knew that she was being petty but couldn’t help herself. “Not this one, as it happens,” she continued, but we have another body. It’s possibly all part of the same crime, we don’t know for certain yet. That was a male. I recognise some of you who were over there at the golf club.”

  A few of the group nodded and mumbled.

  “Well, we still don’t have the head and hands from that poor bloke, so…” She glanced at Brian Finch. “In answer to the question, yes, you need to be aware that there could be a head, maybe hands. Possibly in a sack. Okay, off you go.”

  She watched them step carefully into the surrounding undergrowth before she spoke again. “I think we have to organise a dive team for these ponds.” She indicated two more stretches of water, and from the glint beyond the trees, a smaller one some way off.

  “I’ve put in the call,” Finch said.

  She glared up at him, sighed. “Right well, I’d better get on to the DCI, he’ll need to authorise the expenditure.”

  “I had a word earlier.”

  “When earlier?”

  “Just before I called you.”

  Anger began to build, she tamped it down, spoke calmly. “Bit arse about face, wasn’t it? I would have thought your first call would have been to me.”

  “Sorry, I just thought I might as well get things moving. Bob’s cleared the dive team anyway.”

  She noted the use of the DCI’s first name. Was it to let her know there was closer contact between them than simply being colleagues? If so, it was totally unprofessional.

  “How come you were first on scene, Brian? I checked my phone, I didn’t miss any calls.”

  “I had a word with dispatch, yesterday, after you left. Just made them aware that I was first contact, with you going off home. I was trying to let you get some rest. The stupid sods must have thought I meant continually, you know, not just for yesterday evening. Oh yes, that reminds me. Nothing as yet from the image. I hung around until midnight, helping with the phones and keeping an eye on things. Just the usual stuff, people who thought they’d seen the dead woman shopping in Tesco and what not.”

  She didn’t trust herself to speak. There was no reasonable response that wouldn’t sound defensive. She turned away. “I’ll see you back at the station. Call in the team, would you?”

  “Yeah. I did that. They should be there by the time we get back.”

  Chapter 32

  “I think in future, to avoid duplication and confusion it would be best if you let me know about any major developments. You know, before you get into the nitty-gritty of arranging to call in SOCO, the medical examiner, and the rest of it, oh yes, and calling the DCI.” Tanya was walking a tightrope between sounding professional and factual and allowing her pique and annoyance to bleed through.

  “Yeah, fine. I just thought I might as well get things moving, you know. We haven’t made a lot of progress up to now, so I didn’t think we should waste time standing on ceremony.” Finch’s stare was unblinking and smug. He had the upper hand. He hadn’t done anything wrong, but they both knew he had been subversive.

  Tanya could give him a speech about being a team player, watching out for who you stood on while you climbed the ladder, and professional consideration, but really, she wasn’t the one to do it. She had always found working with others challenging but she knew that she had never done anything quite so blatantly self-serving.

  “Well anyway, as you say, the main thing is to keep things moving. I’m going to the post-mortem. I think it would be great if you could collate the reports from last night, seeing as you were so much more involved. I imagine by now there is quite a heap of calls to sort through. If you find anything that looks promising just let me know, eh? If you want to go out and speak to any of the callers, let Kate know where you’re going, in case I need you urgently. I’ll take Sue Rollinson with me to the morgue.”

  It was a small victory, barely more than an irritation to him, but there wasn’t really any way that he could squirm out of it. Not after making such a fuss about staying late to help man the phones. She stuck her head round the incident room door to collect Sue, and as she walked along the corridor, heading for the car park, a small smile crept across her face.

  * * *

  “Tanya.” Simon Hewitt smiled at her from his position behind the cutting table. “I thought for a while there that you’d left us.”

  “Sorry?” Tanya shook her head. “Not sure what you mean.”

  “When the other chap turned up this morning, introduced himself as an inspector. That’s new isn’t it?”

  “Oh right, yes. His promotion has just come through.”

  “Well anyway, it’s good to see that you’re still with us,” he said.

  Tanya felt Sue Rollinson’s eyes on her. She had long thought that Doctor Hewitt had a bit of a thing for Tanya, and had been responsible for rumours and innuendo.

  Looking at him now, his grey eyes twinkling, Tanya had to admit that it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. He had once suggested that they meet up away from the pressures of work, but she’d missed it. She had been so wrapped up in her examination of a murder victim that it had taken Rollinson to tell her it had happened. It had been so embarrassing that she’d avoided being on her own with him since then, but today she felt in need of a friend. “Yes, well it’s good to be working with you, Simon, it really is.” She was rewarded with a beaming smile as he picked up his knife.

  “Right, if we’re ready, let’s have a look at what we’ve got here.”

  He paused for a moment, closed his eyes, and stood silently beside the corpse. She had seen him do this before, she didn’t know whether he was praying or simply giving the person in front of him respect and a moment of sympathy. It was moving and it impacted on them all – there was silence in the cold, tiled room.

  He lifted his head and without another word he reached forward and began the Y incision, the cuts reaching from shoulder to shoulder and meeting at the breastbone.

  Chapter 33

  Kate Lewis had updated the boards and the team were still fielding calls about the pictures of the young woman’s face. It had been on the early bulletins and in the morning papers. “Anything?” Tanya asked.

  Dan Price raised his hand. “It’s not from the victim image, ma’am, but I have something here from the golf course.”

  “Right, well you might as well share it with all of us straight away.”

  She could have let him come and tell her quietly in the office. She knew that he would have preferred it, but he was going to have to toughen up. He was a good detective, but he would never get anywhere if he couldn’t handle a team. She wanted them all to do well. It wasn’t her place to stand in their way and it was inconceivable to her that they would accept failure. He was blushing furiously, and she wondered how he had ever managed to deal with members of the public when he’d been in uniform.

  “We have some CCTV of a white van at the golf course,” he said.

  “The same white van?”

  Hope soared, but he shook his head.

  “Not possible to be sure. It’s the same make, looks to be about the same age but there are no distinguishing mark
s, nothing like that.”

  “The registration?” Tanya asked.

  “Sorry, ma’am. The thing is, the cameras are set up to watch the junction and he came from behind. Could be the driver knew that, of course.”

  “What was it doing? I’ll look at the vid myself of course, but just give us a rundown, would you?”

  “Well again, we don’t have much. It entered the carpark then pulled around the side of the clubhouse. We could see that the rear doors were open for a while. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see exactly what was happening. The view was obscured by the building. Sorry, ma’am, it’s not very much, is it?”

  Tanya had to admit that it wasn’t.

  “Watch it again, I’ll come and have a look. See if they can get us a decent view of the driver. I’ll leave that with you, chase them until you’ve got anything at all – there must be something they can do, he was inside after all. Just gender, hopefully, skin colour, an indication of age. Challenge them, they’re egotistical bastards in the tech department, needle ’em a bit, Dan.” She knew that she was torturing him, but she needed more. “We need to find this van,” she said.

  “The report from Doctor Hewitt will be a couple of hours, but at least we know the cause of death. We know that the body was moved and though he hasn’t confirmed it yet, he is pretty convinced that the head and hands are a match for this body. It’s coming together guys, slowly I know, but every bit is a step nearer. We’ll do this. We just need to keep going,” Tanya said to the team.

  She had never been one for encouraging speeches but, right now, she needed them on her side; needed to remind them who was in charge. She was rewarded by smiles from Kate and Dan Price, and even Paul Harris gave her a nod of acknowledgement.

  “DI Finch, I think we’ll go back to the golf club again, as soon as we’ve seen the video. Get me a couple of stills of the truck would you, Kate?”

  “We could just take the video on my iPhone.” Finch had taken the handset from his pocket and waved it in the air.