Stop Dead

by Leigh Russell

  ‘But I don’t think we can read too much into the blonde hair,’ Reg went on, ‘not until we get the results of the DNA test.’

  ‘Amy was blonde,’ Sam pointed out, and Reg groaned.

  They all agreed the DNA results were crucial. They would be available soon, expedited for the murder team. The discussion was beginning to go round in circles. Until they had more information they could only speculate. Just as Geraldine was about to suggest returning to her desk to double-check Desiree’s statement, the door opened and the psychological profiler, Jayne, entered the room, her long skirt sweeping the floor behind her. Geraldine had been disappointed with the profiler’s contribution to their last case. Nevertheless, she listened closely as Jayne gave a brief overview of what they had been considering.

  ‘What can you bring to the table, Jayne?’ the detective chief inspector asked.

  Jayne spoke very slowly.

  ‘One thing we can be sure of is that this is a hate crime. The nature of the injuries tells us that. Whoever killed the two restaurant owners –’

  ‘We’ve got three victims,’ Geraldine corrected her, struggling to control her impatience.

  ‘Whoever committed these murders was making the attacks very personal. Inflicting injuries after death is a different kind of assault to one where the perpetrator just wants to dispatch the victim, to get him or her out of the way as efficiently as possible, without leaving any clues behind. Some murders are really quite functional in that sense, a means to an end, where the victim is killed for his or her money, for example. In this instance the violation of the bodies is probably the killer’s end in itself, or why would he hang around to mutilate them, increasing the risk of discovery? There’s something going on here, some expression of loathing, a venting of a deep-seated anger.’

  ‘You mean the killer didn’t like his victims?’ Sam asked.

  She turned her head to wink at Geraldine, who ignored the signal. Geraldine had very little respect for the profiler, but she did her best to hide her disdain, and her irritation that Reg set so much store by what Jayne said. The profiler was only doing her job.

  ‘I think the killer is driven by more than mere dislike,’ Jayne replied evenly.

  ‘We wouldn’t have thought of that, would we?’

  Sam appealed to Geraldine who hesitated, tempted to support her sergeant in disparaging the profiler. Instead, she deflected the conversation to a new topic.

  ‘Do you think the killer’s a male then?’ she asked.

  It was a straightforward question, but Jayne looked unexpectedly flustered. Her naturally pinkish complexion turned deeper red as though she suspected Geraldine might be intending to catch her out.

  ‘That’s a tricky one –’ she hedged. ‘Was there anything at the scene to suggest the killer could have been a woman?’

  Reg explained about the DNA found on Patrick’s body.

  ‘Flecks of skin on his cheeks and under his fingernails, suggesting defence wounds or at least close contact of some kind, and evidence of sexual activity shortly before he died, although that wasn’t conclusive because of his injuries.’

  Jayne nodded.

  ‘In the light of that, we had more or less decided we were probably looking for a woman. And there’s more, but also inconclusive, confusing even,’ he added with a sigh.

  Geraldine explained about the hair found at two of the scenes.

  ‘So it looks rather like two women might have been involved, one dark-haired, one blonde, yet the injuries are virtually identical, and singular.’

  Jayne shook her curly head. ‘That doesn’t rule out one killer. The hair evidence could easily be misleading. The woman – if it was a woman – might have dyed her hair.’

  They proceeded to discuss the third victim, who didn’t seem to have any connection to Henshaw and Corless.

  ‘Let’s assume for now that the first two men had some sort of connection to the killer,’ Jayne said. ‘Having killed twice might have released some impulse in the killer who then went on to attack again, perhaps even selecting the next victim at random.’

  ‘Bradshaw was an easy target,’ Sam agreed, persuaded by the sense the profiler was making.

  ‘Perhaps the killer gave in to some long suppressed urge –’ Geraldine said.

  ‘And having started found himself, or herself, compelled to kill again,’ Jayne finished the thought.

  No one put into words the obvious conclusion that they were dealing with a serial killer. Once the desire to kill had been triggered, the murderer might be unable to stop.

  CHAPTER 49

  Given her reluctance to view cadavers, Sam was surprisingly keen to accompany Geraldine to the morgue again.

  ‘It gets easier, doesn’t it?’ she asked as they donned their protective clothing.

  Geraldine nodded as she dabbed underneath her nostrils with a small tube of Vic. The pungent smell helped to mask the stench. For her, bodies had always held a clinical fascination. She had never felt in the slightest bit queasy until she had seen Corless. That had been an aberration.

  The pathologist had confirmed what they could see for themselves, that the third victim had been mutilated in the same way as the other two bodies. The gruesome details had not yet been revealed to the press and the singular nature of the fatal assaults left the police in no doubt that they were looking for a serial killer. Although they had several suspects for the murders of Henshaw and Corless, Bradshaw was another matter altogether. With no apparent link between the first two victims and the third, it appeared the killer was extending the area of his or her attacks, possibly settling old scores. A team of constables were busy checking into Bradshaw’s history. So far they hadn’t found anything even faintly interesting.

  The long blonde hair found on Bradshaw’s body had been sent off for analysis. Its owner had to be the killer or else a key witness. The results of the DNA testing hadn’t yet arrived but the pathologist was able to tell them that evidence of bleach suggested the owner wasn’t originally blonde. That meant the blonde woman might easily be the same woman whose dark hairs had been discovered in Henshaw’s car. If that turned out to be the case, that same woman would be implicated in the murders, even if she wasn’t actually responsible for them. They had to find her.

  While they waited for the all-important results, Geraldine decided to look into the woman whose DNA appeared to have been found on Henshaw’s body, the woman who had been in prison for twenty years. Arriving back at the station she joined Sam for a rushed coffee in the noisy canteen before settling down to work.

  ‘Aren’t you having lunch?’ Sam asked, seizing on a jacket potato. ‘I’m starving.’

  Geraldine shook her head. She wasn’t hungry. After a hurried coffee she returned to her office to look up Linda Harrison, the female prisoner who had been locked up for murder twenty years earlier – whose name had mysteriously turned up again in connection with the current investigation when her DNA had appeared on a murder victim.

  In her mug shots, Linda looked rough. Her dark hair was matted, as though it hadn’t been combed for weeks, her lips hung slightly open in a slack snarl, and her eyes bored through the screen, seeming to follow Geraldine when she shifted her position. But more striking than signs of neglect in her appearance was the coldness of her eyes. She looked like a woman who had given up on life. Geraldine stared back, trying to fathom the strange expression on the woman’s face, almost triumphant.

  Geraldine printed out the image and went back to the canteen. Sam had gone. Geraldine found her deep in conversation with a female constable in a corner of the incident room. The two fell silent when Geraldine joined them. She felt as though she was intruding on a private conversation.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Nothing,’ the constable muttered.

  Sam was more forthcoming.

  ‘We’re talking about Nick Williams,’ she replied in an undertone.

  ‘Sam,’ the constable hissed.

  ‘It’s
OK,’ Sam reassured her colleague. ‘Geraldine won’t say anything.’

  ‘Then perhaps you’d better not tell me,’ Geraldine retorted.

  She didn’t like secret gossiping in corners.

  Dragging Sam away from her conversation, she showed her Linda Harrison’s picture. Sam glanced at the grainy image and shook her head.

  ‘No, I can’t say I recognise her, but the trial was a bit before my time! All the same, there is something vaguely familiar about her. It’s odd, but I could swear she reminds me of someone. No, it’s gone. But I could have sworn I saw her picture recently.’

  Geraldine returned to her desk, puzzled.

  ‘Something up?’ Nick asked, leaning back in his chair to indicate a readiness to converse.

  Nick listened to her account of Linda Harrison being linked to the crime scene, despite being incarcerated.

  ‘She couldn’t have been there.’

  ‘Yes, I know that, but how do you explain her DNA being found at the crime scene?’

  ‘Parole?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Did she have an identical twin? It has been known.’

  ‘She had one sister who died thirty years ago.’

  ‘How about a daughter then? Can’t DNA be strikingly similar in some cases?’

  ‘She didn’t have any children.’

  Nick gave a sympathetic grin.

  ‘I see your problem.’

  Geraldine wondered what Sam and the constable had been saying about him. He struck her as committed and professional.

  ‘The funny thing is,’ she went on, ‘I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about her that Sam found familiar.’

  ‘Did she recognise her?’

  Geraldine shrugged.

  ‘Kind of. But not really –’

  Nick nodded.

  ‘I’ve had that exact same sensation with offenders in high profile cases years back. And it must’ve been a very serious crime if she got life.’

  Geraldine nodded.

  ‘So twenty years ago this woman’s face would have been all over the press, in the papers, on the news. Seeing her picture probably triggered Sam’s memory of what she saw when the case came up all those years ago. The thing is, these cases can make a huge impression once the media get hold of them.’

  Overlooking the fact that Sam would have been about five at the time Linda Harrison was convicted, Nick turned back to his desk with an air of finality, as though he had cleared up Geraldine’s problem. She considered what he had said. Linda had no children. All the facts indicated that Nick’s theory must be right. Sam’s mind was playing tricks on her, throwing up an image from the past as though she had seen it only yesterday. With a sigh she filed the printout of Linda Harrison’s face and went to find out what the constables’ research into Bradshaw had thrown up. There must have been more to his existence than his shabby flat, his dog, and his occasional trips to the pub.

  CHAPTER 50

  Removing her long blonde wig, she shook her own hair free as she kicked off her outdoor shoes and placed them neatly, side by side, on the rack by the door. Wearing her indoor shoes, she went to the bedroom to put her wig away. Her head felt light without it, as though she was floating. She liked the strange empty feeling in her brain. Remembering the pills her doctor had given her, she smiled. Life was too difficult to face with a clear head. Better to be cushioned from it, unable to think about anything. She had already had her medication for the day but she swallowed just one more pill, knowing they were good for her. The stillness calmed her. Nothing disturbed the order of her rooms. Everything remained in position, precisely where she had placed it.

  Her eyebrows twitched with annoyance as she noticed a picture had shifted so that it no longer hung exactly parallel to the wall. She reached forward and gave it a little nudge. Straightening up, she stepped away so she could scrutinise it with narrowed eyes until she was satisfied the picture was back where it belonged. She would have to be more careful in future. It must have shifted when she walked past, touching it with her arm without noticing. Unnerved that she had unwittingly displaced the picture, she turned her attention to the rest of the room. She had the same problem with the rug, which had moved a fraction out of place. It was almost brand new, because her dog had pissed on the last one. That was the final straw. She had bought the dog for protection, but the animal had become unbearably unpredictable, jumping up at her with dirty feet and barking. To begin with she had loved it, but in the end she had to get rid of it.

  It took her twenty-eight minutes to take all her cutlery out of the drawer, wash and dry it, and replace it tidily in the drawer. Each knife, fork and spoon was stacked tidily in its own compartment, lined up with the rest of the set. It was an uncomplicated part of her daily routine, and necessary. Germs could find their way through the smallest cracks. People picked up all sorts of nasty diseases by eating with cutlery that wasn’t clean. As a teenager she had refused to eat out. Even at home she wouldn’t touch metal knives and forks, throwing the plastic ones away after one use. Once it occurred to her that she should wash plastic knives and forks before they came in contact with her food, there seemed no point in wasting money on plastic cutlery. So she had to be satisfied with washing all her cutlery regularly. At first she had carried out the task at least five times a day, just to be sure, but she had managed to reduce this to twice a day, along with brushing her teeth. It was important not to let these daily chores take over her life. There were other demands on her time that were equally important.

  She finished washing her cutlery and consulted her list. Usually she knew what to do without checking, but her mind wasn’t feeling very sharp this morning. It was her day for wiping the paintwork, which she did once a week. It helped keep her mind quiet if everything was clean. She went into the bedroom and sat down for a moment, overwhelmed with tiredness. While she sat, immobile, something stirred right on the periphery of her vision. It was barely a movement, more like a faint twitch of an eyelash but in that still room any activity was impossible to ignore. She folded her damp cloth neatly and hung it on the side of the plastic bucket before standing up and walking across to the window. A tiny creature was wriggling across the window sill. She leaned forward to look at it more closely. It was a round grey speck. As she watched, the mite uncurled and curled up again, to progress slowly across the sill, looking like a minute caterpillar or the larva of a tiny fly. To her surprise, she noticed a second insect, then a third. She fetched a chair and sat beside the window, watching, counting the tiny creatures as they appeared. Small enough to crawl through invisible cracks, they seemed to appear from nowhere, in growing numbers. She counted twelve of them while she sat there in silence, transfixed by the only living creatures visible in the place apart from her. She could scarcely believe what she was seeing.

  There was something devastating about their minute crawl into the light. To them one wall must seem like an entire universe. If they only knew what else lay out there, beyond their wit to understand, they would never crawl out of the cracks in the woodwork to make their slow journey across the painted window sill. Had they travelled across it before, or were these pioneers, searching for a new life? Either way, it made no difference. She fetched her cloth and wiped them away. This was her domain. She wouldn’t brook any intrusion, however small. Having given the sill and its surrounds a thorough scrub, until some of the paintwork flaked away, she rinsed the cloth, changed the water in the bucket, and prepared to start again. The paintwork still had to be washed down before she could relax. While she worked, she glanced over at the window sill from time to time, checking to see if any more little grubs had surfaced. None did.

  When she had finished cleaning she went straight out to buy insect spray. The assistant in the supermarket wasn’t helpful when she asked which spray could be guaranteed to eliminate her infestation.

  ‘This should do the trick,’ was all he would say. ‘Without knowing what the insects are, it’s impossible to offer a
ny guarantee. But there shouldn’t be a problem.’

  She felt like screaming at him, because there already was a problem: there were bugs in her bedroom. Having read all the instructions, she settled on six different sprays, between them claiming to kill all flying and crawling bugs. The insecticides might not be healthy, but at least she knew what she was dealing with. She glanced down the list of contents: Permethrin, Tetramethrin, Cypermethrin, Imiprothrin. She had no idea what any of them were, but they sounded toxic. They all warned that they must be used in a well ventilated area. Of course they would say that, thinking they were being clever. Opening the window would entice more insects to fly in, so she would end up having to buy even more of their products. It was hard to believe most people were stupid enough to fall for that. She saw through it straight away.

  She considered trying the insecticides one at a time to discover which worked best. The drawback with that plan was that the sixth one might be the most effective at eliminating her particular infestation, and it would take her nearly a week to reach it. There was no guarantee any of the sprays would work for the bugs she had found earlier in which case she would have to contact the pest control people who would tramp through her bedroom in their outdoor shoes, spreading dirt and germs. Rather than risk that, she decided to spray all six insecticides around the window sill and hope at least one of them worked. Clutching the cans, she went into the bedroom. There were no insects in sight. That made her nervous because she knew they were waiting, out of sight, until she was in bed. As soon as she lay down, they would come back. And when they did, they would hurt her. Unless she stopped them.

  CHAPTER 51

  Geraldine was only five minutes away from home. Tired and dispirited, all she wanted to do was get in, kick her shoes off, put her feet up and watch some rubbish on television. When she heard the shrilling of her phone she had a horrible presentiment that another body had been discovered. The thought made her feel slightly nauseous. She desperately hoped she was wrong as she drove on, doing her best to ignore the fact that her phone was ringing. Nothing could be so urgent it wouldn’t wait for five minutes, but knowing someone was trying to contact her spoiled her anticipation of reaching home at the end of a frustrating day and relaxing with a glass of wine. Closing her front door she went into the living room, reluctantly fished her phone out of her bag and sat on the sofa. She resisted pouring herself a glass before she had found out who had called. Allowing herself to relax would be tempting fate.