The Jigsaw Man

by Nadine Matheson

  Stanford, Ramouter and Henley began to walk towards the bushes. ‘Over the past couple of weeks there have been reports of a flasher,’ continued Stanford. ‘Stelian Vacarescu, forty-eight years old. Aisha had split the women into small groups, was walking around, and who does she see in the bushes?’

  Henley ducked under the tape. ‘Surprise me,’ she said.

  ‘Vacarescu, with his dick out. She runs towards him and tells him to fuck off and that she was calling the police. He zips up and starts to run, but he trips and takes a fall. Wonder Woman Aisha thinks her luck is in and decides to make a citizen’s arrest. She reaches Vacarescu, looks down and sees what he’s tripped over.’

  The caramel-coloured leg was slim and streaked with dried blood. Three toenails, polished bright blue, had pushed through the black netting of a pair of tights, which had gathered at the foot.

  ‘Shit,’ said Ramouter.

  ‘She thought it was the leg of a mannequin at first until she noticed the dried blood and Vacarescu started screaming like a man possessed.’

  Three feet from the leg, an arm and a head had been dumped against a tree stump. The head was covered with long black and purple braids. There was a bald spot, the size of a two-pound coin on the right side. Her forehead was criss-crossed with grazes and bruising pocked her right cheekbone. Traces of red lipstick cracked across her lips. Two blackened holes where her eyes used to be. Ramouter put a hand to his mouth and looked away as a woodlouse crawled into the left eye-socket.

  ‘Where’s Linh?’ Henley asked Stanford. ‘And why aren’t you at court?’

  ‘Sick juror, and Linh is on her way.’ Stanford turned his back on the body. Henley knew how he was feeling. They thought they had seen it all, until life presented them with a fresh kind of hell.

  ‘How are you doing?’ Stanford asked Henley.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Henley replied. ‘Nothing for you to worry about.’

  Henley had prepared herself for the moment that they would find the rest of the girl. There was no anxiety, no tremors but there was an overwhelming torrent of anger at the thought that someone could dump this girl like rubbish.

  ‘We had a case up in Bradford last year,’ said Ramouter, his expression taut as he tried to regain control. ‘A PCSO found a woman, nearly half dead at the back of a corner shop. Gouged her own eyes out. She was a drug addict. High on crystal meth. But look at our girl… It doesn’t look like she gouged her eyes out, but why would someone take them out?’

  ‘Where’s Vacarescu now?’ Henley asked.

  ‘Sitting with a couple of uniforms on a bench. Shock got the better of him,’ Stanford replied as he pulled a crumpled tissue out of his pocket and blew his nose.

  ‘Ramouter, go and talk to him. If he’s a regular around here, then he must have noticed something that was off. Remember, it doesn’t matter how big or irrelevant it may seem, make sure that he tells us everything.’

  ‘And tell him to keep his dick in his pants,’ said Stanford. The smile on his face quickly disappeared when he turned around and looked down at the woman’s body. ‘Poor thing.’

  ‘How long until Forensics get here? We need to get a tent put up ASAP. Too many amateur photographers around here as it is.’ Henley turned to face the small crowd that had increased in size since she arrived. Teenage boys, their bikes discarded on the grass, stood holding their phones in the air. ‘CCTV?’

  ‘Would you believe it? There’re loads all over the place. Hopefully, we’ll get something.’

  ‘God willing.’ Henley put her hands on top of her head and took a breath. ‘Who the hell would do something like this?’

  Stanford shrugged. ‘Jealous lover perhaps?’

  ‘Maybe. We need to get an ID on her. We’ll have to go through Missing Persons if she’s not on the DNA database.’

  ‘OK. What do you want from me next, boss?’

  Henley looked up to the sky. The sun was already at its zenith and the heatwave had resumed, bringing with it the humidity and the stench of the city. ‘I need you and Eastwood to pay a visit to Sentinel. Kennedy was on a tag which he removed. The hostel has CCTV and we’ve got his phone. It’s dead. We need to get the tech guys to take a look at the phone and the broken tag, but I want to see what Ezra can do it with it first.’

  ‘I’ve got you.’

  Stanford nodded and gave a Boy Scout salute as Henley beckoned Ramouter over. A police BMW X5, blue lights flashing but no sirens, closely followed by a transit van and a silver Hyundai, was heading in their direction.

  ‘How was our flasher?’ Henley asked Ramouter as he put his notebook in his pocket.

  ‘Useless. My budgie speaks better English than he does.’

  ‘You have a budgie?’

  ‘My son’s. He’s four.’ Ramouter gave Henley a look as though this was information she should know.

  ‘Vacarescu? Romanian?’

  Ramouter nodded. Henley pulled out her car keys, handed them to him and then took out her phone. The transit van, police car and the Hyundai came to a stop next to Henley’s car. ‘The most that I could get out of him was his name, that he lived in Sydenham and that he was sorry. I had to use Google Translate just to get that. Then he kept saying “the girl, the girl”. Everything else after that was in Romanian and I can’t type that fast.’

  ‘Fine. Take Vacarescu down to Lewisham,’ she said, scrolling through her contacts and pressed call. ‘If I can get hold of Bianca, that’s the interpreter, I’ll ask her to meet you down there. If we wait for the Witness Care Unit to sort one out, you’ll be there all day.’

  Bianca picked up the phone and told Henley that she was just finishing a job at Thames Magistrates’ Court and that she should be there in about an hour.

  ‘Right, it’s sorted. I’ve sent her your number. She’s going to call you once she’s at the station. The last thing I want is for her to be kept waiting at the front desk for ages.’

  Ramouter’s phone began to ring and he walked back towards Vacarescu. Henley turned and looked back at the area where the body parts had been dumped. Ladywell Fields was open twenty-four hours with various entry points. Just like the first victim, whoever it was knew the area. The location wasn’t somewhere you came to by chance. At some point the woman, whoever she was, was bound to be found. Two bodies in two days. Both cut into pieces and displayed. Male and female. Black and white.

  ‘Well, I would say that it’s nice to get out of the office now and again.’

  Linh’s voice pulled Henley out of her thoughts. ‘I was told that we’ve got another one.’

  ‘Not that I’m one for assumptions, but I think that it’s the rest of what we found at the river yesterday. Like you said, she looks… looked between twenty and thirty years old.’

  ‘OK. Well, let me have a look at her. I don’t know how long she’s been out here, but this heat will accelerate decomposition quicker than a stripper picking up fifty-quid notes.’

  ‘You know that you’re not funny, right?’

  Linh grinned and adjusted the bag strap on her left shoulder. ‘Doing this job, can you blame me? Are you staying?’

  ‘For a bit. I’m going to have a word with Aisha, the woman who found her, and then get one of the uniforms to drop me back to Greenwich.’

  ‘I doubt I’ll be long. The sooner they get her back to my place, the better. If you hang on, after I’m done, I’ll give you a lift back and maybe we can finally sort out a date for a girls’ night out. It’s been too long, Anjelica. I’m starting to feel neglected.’

  Twenty minutes later, Linh was tapping Henley on her shoulder. She had just given the go-ahead for Aisha to be taken home.

  ‘I need a word,’ Linh said. The grin on her face had been stripped away. Her forehead was creased with concern as she rubbed at the bags under her eyes. She held Henley’s arm and led her towards the tennis court away from the Forensics team gathering evidence in the bushes, away from the small crowd of thirty that had increased to fifty in the last hour.


  ‘First, the eyes. Foxes, stray cats, I’m not sure which, have already been at her but the eyes, they look like they’ve been cut out. I need to get her back to the mortuary to get an idea of time of death.’

  ‘How long do you reckon she’s been out here?’

  ‘Hard to tell. If I had to take a rough guess, she’s been dead a few days at least, but how long she’s actually been out here, waiting to be found? No idea, but that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. She has a mark,’ Linh said, her voice hushed.

  ‘What?’ Henley’s mind started to race, stalling on one explanation. Bile had already risen from her stomach and was tickling the back of her throat.

  ‘A symbol cut into the skin, Anjelica. She has one on her forearm. Not an old cut but new. The blood looks like it’s coagulated. My guess is that it was done post-mortem.’

  ‘Is it a…’ Henley didn’t need to finish the sentence. Linh knew. Nevertheless, she finished the question. ‘A double cross with a crescent on top?’

  ‘Yes, about two inches in length.’

  ‘What about Kennedy?’

  ‘There’s evidence of what looks like self-harming, old scars on his arms and his torso, but what we’ve got of him is covered in tattoos. Detailed, intricate tattoos. If I’m honest—’ Linh shook her head, ‘no, no way. I doubt that I would have missed something like that.’

  ‘Maybe you didn’t miss anything. Maybe there isn’t anything there.’ Henley put her forehead against the fence, hoping that she was talking rubbish.

  ‘Fuck, I’m going to have to pull him back out of the freezer. Just for my own peace of mind. I’m going to call Theresa. Tell her to get him ready and to take photos of every single inch of him.’

  ‘I’m coming with you. If he has the mark, I want to be there when you find it.’

  ‘If we find it. Then there’s her.’

  Henley and Linh both looked in the direction of where the Forensics team were gathered in the bushes.

  ‘Who is she?’ asked Henley as the image of the woman’s head flashed in her mind.

  Chapter 10

  ‘You took your time,’ said Henley as Ramouter walked into the SCU. It was almost 4 p.m. He looked frazzled. He had rolled up his shirt sleeves and his forehead glistened with sweat.

  ‘Sorry. Had to get something to eat before I dropped.’ Ramouter held up a wet takeout bag with a chicken burger and chips. ‘So, first thing first. Vacarescu likes to talk. A lot. I then went to see the local council offices, they’re only down the road from Ladywell Fields, and I spoke to the person responsible for park maintenance. Sorry, I should have told you.’

  ‘No, that’s fine,’ Henley replied. ‘I’m the last person who will ever have a go at you for actually using your initiative. So, what did Vacarescu say?’

  ‘Well, he was adamant that he wasn’t going to talk until I promised him that he wouldn’t be charged with exposure. I may have agreed to that, but technically no one had bothered to actually arrest him for flashing, and Aisha hasn’t reported it.’

  ‘Once she saw the body that would have been the last thing on her mind.’

  ‘Aye.’ Ramouter scooped a couple of chips into his mouth. ‘So Vacarescu said that he got to the park about 10.30 a.m. He went to the café, had a cup of tea, read his book and afterwards went for a walk. He then said that he was desperate for a piss and went into the bushes.’

  ‘He couldn’t use the toilets in the café?’

  Ramouter shrugged. ‘Apparently, he needs to go a lot because he caught an STD from his ex-girlfriend.’

  Henley pulled a face as Eastwood, who had just walked into the office, started to laugh.

  Ramouter wiped his hands with a napkin. ‘Anyway, he said that he was just taking a piss not wanking, so he didn’t see anything in the bushes until Aisha started screaming at him. He also said that he was there yesterday around the same time.’

  Henley nodded as she opened the photographs of the crime scene onto her computer screen.

  ‘The body was found slightly further back and to the right.’ Henley pointed to the bushes on the left of the park. ‘Impossible to be seen from where the boot camp was but visible from where Vacarescu would have been standing. So, what did the council say?’

  ‘Well, they’ve had issues with fires in the parks because of the really hot weather. Dry grass and idiots throwing cigarettes into the bushes and not disposing of those cheap barbecues properly is not a good combination. They said that the fire brigade was called out yesterday afternoon at 5.48 p.m. because there was a fire in the bushes next to the tennis court.’

  Henley clicked onto the next photograph and zoomed in on the scorch marks that were visible a few feet from the girl’s head. ‘Did our killer want the body to be found or was he just looking for a way to dispose of her?’ she asked.

  ‘Why bother dumping her in the park or Kennedy along the river?’ Ramouter asked. ‘He’s already cut the bodies up so why not put the pieces in bin bags and dump them in the nearest wheelie bin? Rubbish men would have picked it up and we probably would have been none the wiser.’

  Henley thought back to the marks that Linh had seen on the girl’s forearm. The marks were significant and not something that she could keep from Ramouter.

  ‘There is something else,’ Henley said. ‘Our girl has two symbols cut into her skin. Peter Olivier cut those same symbols into all seven of his victims.’

  Ramouter’s eyes widened and brightened with recognition. ‘The Jigsaw Killer?’ he said through a mouthful of bread and chicken.

  Henley shuddered. She hated the moniker that the press had given Olivier. It had unsettled her to see the trivialisation of a serial killer.

  ‘Whoever killed our mystery girl has branded her the same way that Olivier did,’ Henley explained. ‘A crescent and a double cross.’

  ‘But Olivier is in prison, right?’

  Henley repeated the words that the sentencing judge had spoken to reassure herself. ‘He’s serving seven life sentences. Whole life tariff. No chance of parole. He will die in prison.’

  Henley looked down at the crime scene photos. Scattered dismembered limbs across south-east London. Her home. One of the victims had a name but this young black woman who had once been full of life was still nameless and had been murdered, butchered and then discarded like a broken doll.

  ‘Who are you?’ Henley said out loud. The photograph of the woman revealed empty eye sockets; the absence of the milky film of death that usually covered the eyes of a corpse. Henley shivered involuntarily. It wasn’t lost on her that a few years ago she could have been the woman in that photograph butchered and left for dead in a park.

  ‘Still ain’t got a name yet?’

  Henley looked up to see Stanford standing in front of her desk. She had been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn’t even realised he had walked into the office.

  ‘We’ve run her prints and DNA through the database, but we haven’t got anything back. What did Sentinel say?’ asked Henley.

  ‘That it would take a few days to get a full report.’ Stanford pulled off the red tie he wore every time he had to appear in court and threw the jacket that only came out for weddings, funerals and the occasional disciplinary hearing onto his desk.

  ‘You didn’t have to come back here. You could have gone home. I would have done.’

  ‘And have to put up with Gene shoving another tile sample in my face. No thanks.’

  Henley laughed as she imagined Paul’s partner trying to convince him to join him in another house renovation project.

  ‘So, what you’re saying is that you thought you’d check up on me,’ said Henley.

  ‘Never. He said to invite you around for Sunday lunch. You don’t have to bring Misery Guts with you, just you and the munchkin.’

  ‘You really want to spend Sunday with a toddler?’

  ‘No, I plan on getting drunk in the kitchen with you.’

  Stanford picked up the bottle of water that had been sitting on
his desk for more than a week and unscrewed the top. ‘So, I heard from Eastie that we’re keeping this one and that you’re running it?’

  ‘I wasn’t given much of a choice.’ Henley began to straighten up her already clean desk. She rearranged the pens in the mug and made sure that her files were together six inches from the edge of her desk, listening to Stanford rattling on about the trial and complaining about the latest Met Police protocol announcement.

  ‘So, where is he then?’ asked Stanford. ‘Your trainee. Thought he would have been with you. Clipping at your heels.’

  ‘He’s supposed to be your trainee.’

  ‘No thanks. He seems a bit wet if you ask me.’

  ‘You were like that once,’ Henley replied with a smirk.

  Stanford pulled a face. ‘Never.’

  ‘As much I love our chats, Ramouter’s waiting for me downstairs. We’re heading to Camden to speak to Daniel Kennedy’s brother.’

  Stanford raised a thick eyebrow. ‘North of the river? Rather you than me. So, how far have we got with this case?’

  ‘Linh found a mark on the girl’s body.’

  ‘A mark?’

  ‘A double cross with a crescent on top.’

  The humour drained from Stanford’s face. ‘And the other one. The body found on the river?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s checking now. I’m just waiting for her to come back to me.’

  ‘Well, it can’t be…’

  ‘We’ve been here before, Paul.’ Henley picked up the iPad. On screen, the double cross and crescent cut into her skin.

  ‘Olivier was out and rampaging all over the place back then, but this is different. Olivier is sitting in a prison cell. This could be down to anyone.’

  ‘After everything that Olivier did, are you seriously saying that we should dismiss the possibility that this has something to do with him?’ Henley said anxiously.

  ‘Sit down, Anj.’ Stanford pulled a chair across and sat down himself.

  ‘I know what you’re going to say, Paul, and there’s no need.’

  ‘There’s every need.’

  Henley sighed and sat on her desk as a compromise.