The Jigsaw Man

by Nadine Matheson

  ‘It’s not… It’s just. It’s… Shit, I don’t know.’ Pellacia straightened himself. ‘Sorry. I’m sorry. Do we have any idea who it is and why his head was dumped on your doorstep?’

  ‘We’re running his description through Missing Persons right now and an e-fit will go out this afternoon,’ said Henley. ‘Why was he dumped on my doorstep? It has to be Olivier’s way of showing he’s still in control. Wanting to screw with our investigation. Our copycat has to be working with him.’

  ‘But there was never any evidence that Olivier worked with anyone. Ryan said he was a loner, and Olivier practically admitted it himself when we saw him,’ said Ramouter. ‘It’s not as if Olivier had any friends or family to speak of. I read the statements of the officers who searched his flat and the Forensics reports. There’s no way that anyone would have missed a human head next to a bag of sausages.’

  Henley gave Pellacia a sharp look, warning him not to start laughing again. Instead he said, ‘The trainee has a point.’

  ‘Ramouter’s right,’ said Henley. ‘Then the question is, where has that head been all this time?’

  ‘Speaking of which, uniform finally spoke to your neighbour Mr Flores this morning. Turns out that he saw a motorcycle courier on your road when he left his house. He even remembered the company. Velocity Couriers. Stanford’s trial is over now, so I’ve sent him and Eastwood to check it out.’

  ‘OK. Well. We may actually start to get somewhere. But I’m going to have to see Olivier again.’

  Ramouter actually put his hand to the side of his head and started massaging his temples.

  ‘I know that Olivier is working with someone. The symbols cut into the bodies. The head of Olivier’s last victim being delivered on my doorstep. You would have to be an idiot to suggest that all of that was just a coincidence.’

  ‘But he’s in a High Security Unit. His post is monitored. He has no access to a computer or anything like that,’ said Ramouter.

  ‘Please, you really think that everyone in Belmarsh is sitting there quietly playing Connect 4?’

  ‘So, what’s your next step?’ asked Pellacia.

  ‘We’re going to go back to Belmarsh,’ said Henley.

  Ramouter groaned and put his head in his hands. ‘Do we have to?’

  ‘Yes, we do. Let’s go and pay Olivier another visit.’

  Chapter 37

  ‘Back so soon?’ Olivier was leaning back in a chair that was not bolted firmly to the floor. ‘I knew you missed me,’ he said with a ghost of a smile.

  Henley hoped that Olivier couldn’t tell that she and Ramouter were reluctant to be there. She had given Ramouter a pep talk as they walked through the prison. They had been escorted through the prison wings and underneath the suicide nets, and had to listen as prisoners called Ramouter a pig and shouted out the things they would like to do to Henley.

  ‘So, what is this, then?’ asked Olivier. ‘Information seeking, a voluntary interview?’

  ‘We want to talk to you about your last victim,’ said Henley.

  Olivier sighed dramatically. ‘We’ve already been through this, Inspector. I had no victims.’

  ‘His head was delivered to my front door on Sunday morning.’

  ‘A head?’ Olivier cocked his own head to the side. ‘A whole head?’

  ‘In a box. Addressed to me.’

  Olivier laughed, a short bark. ‘Must have been rather unpleasant. Did you think your husband was getting you flowers? Or was it Pellacia, showing you how much he cares. What do you think, Trainee? Your partner caught between two men. It must be so… romantic.’

  Ramouter didn’t answer.

  ‘I don’t think the Trainee is talking to me today.’ The smile left his face as quickly as it had appeared. ‘A head in a box.’ His voice was hard.

  ‘Your last victim,’ said Henley. ‘He’s the reason that you’re in here. You got sloppy. You didn’t take as much care as you did with the others. Someone saw you dumping him outside a community centre, you left behind your DNA and you kept his head. I didn’t think necrophilia was your thing.’

  Olivier’s right cheek puckered as though he was biting the flesh inside his mouth.

  ‘Ted Bundy decapitated some of his victims, had sex with them and kept their heads,’ Henley continued. ‘Is that what you did with victim seven? Did you keep his head in a freezer because you planned to get back to him? Did you have something romantic planned?’

  Henley steadied herself and kept eye contact with Olivier. She mentally rode the rhythm of her breath. She wouldn’t let Olivier intimidate her.

  ‘Who is it?’ she asked. ‘Who’s the person that you’ve got dropping severed heads at my front door? Doing your dirty work.’

  Olivier leaned towards her. She could smell his foul breath. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been stuck in here. I can hardly organise a delivery of seafood curry, let alone arrange for someone to find a head and send it to a mid-terraced house in Brockley.’

  Henley flinched. He knew where she lived. What else did he know about her personal life?

  ‘It would be a very nice house with a blue front door. No, no, blue isn’t your colour. You have more depth than that. You would like a colour to show how resilient you are. Not black. That would be too obvious. Maybe a deep purple.’

  Henley felt exposed. She mentally counted to ten, trying to regain her composure.

  ‘Your copycat.’

  ‘He’s. Not. My. Copycat,’ Olivier replied with crystal-clear irritation.

  ‘It must be hard for you, having no control over him. He’s working fast. Far more efficiently than you.’

  ‘Three victims and it’s only Monday,’ Ramouter said confidently.

  ‘Maybe you didn’t want your copycat to dump the head at my house. Maybe you had other plans but your copycat is doing things his own way,’ said Henley.

  Olivier’s chest rose and fell. He was growing visibly angry.

  ‘What are you afraid of? That your copycat may surpass you?’

  The plastic chair that Olivier was sitting in strained and painfully creaked as he leaned back.

  ‘Maybe these new murders are part of his plan and not yours. I know that Detective Ramouter and I are sitting here talking to you, but it’s your copycat who’s getting all the attention. Are you slowly realising that it’s not all about you?’

  ‘It’s always about me,’ Olivier sneered.

  ‘We have three victims,’ Henley said, willing her voice to remain steady. ‘Sean Delaney, Uzomamaka “Zoe” Darego and Daniel Kennedy.’

  Henley saw it in his eyes. The names had triggered something. Henley repeated them slowly. There it was again. The flash of recognition in Olivier’s eyes.

  ‘How old was she? The girl?’ he asked.

  ‘You know how old she was. It’s been all over the news.’

  ‘Eight, three and four,’ Olivier said.

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’ Henley snapped.

  ‘Not telling,’ Olivier said in a sing-song voice.

  ‘She was twenty-six years old. A nurse,’ answered Ramouter. ‘Had her whole life ahead of her until someone cut her up and carved a crescent and a double cross into her skin.’

  ‘I always find it odd when people say that of the dead. They had their whole life ahead of them. Clearly, they didn’t because they’re dead. We may not like the method of disposal but when it’s your time to go, then it’s your time to go.’ He paused. ‘Eight, three and four.’

  Henley got up and walked towards the door. ‘Come on, Ramouter,’ she said. ‘We’re wasting time.’

  ‘What about your last victim?’ asked Ramouter.

  Olivier shook his head. ‘I told you. I didn’t kill him, but it’s nice that someone is going to put him back together again.’ He laughed. A deep, crackling laugh that bounced off the walls. ‘Humpty Dumpty. Except they couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again.’

  Chapter 38

  Eight, three and four. Olivier rep
eated the numbers in his head like a mantra as the prison officer placed the handcuffs on his wrists. Maximum security. High risk. A danger to everyone, including himself. That was the part that had made Olivier laugh. A danger to himself? The possibility that he would ever think to take himself out permanently was ridiculous. Eight. Three. Four. Three murders. Three bodies desecrated and scattered across south London in some pitiful homage to him. He didn’t want to be idolised, he wanted to be feared.

  Olivier looked down at the officer’s neck as the cold metal caught the thin pale skin on his wrist and gathered up the flesh into reddening pleats.

  ‘What exactly do you think you’re doing?’ Olivier said coldly. The officer flinched as Olivier took a step towards him. There was barely an inch of space between them. The officer’s breathing grew rapid as Olivier raised his wrists in front of the officer’s face.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the officer stuttered. ‘I’m sorry, they just—’

  ‘Loosen them.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Olivier yawned impatiently as the officer unlocked the handcuffs. He looked down to see the skin on the officer’s neck straining as it whitened. This was the best time to attack, when the victim was unaware and distracted by the mundane. It had been easier than he’d imagined it to be – taking off someone’s head. Twenty bones in the human head. Only seven bones in the neck. Less muscle to cut through, not as much flesh, but there were still sinew, ligaments and tendons. Sergeant Flynn had been overweight. Fat intertwined between withered muscle and clogged heart valves. Olivier had spat in his face and pissed on his naked body before placing the saw just below his Adam’s apple and pressing the blue button. The motor echoed as the metal teeth became coated in blood and flesh, the saw catching and halting at the C3 vertebrae. Olivier laughed as he remembered how quickly the jigsaw blade had dulled. He waited for the officer to ask him what was funny as the handcuffs loosened around his wrists and they made their way back to the secured wing, but he never did.

  He moved the image of Flynn’s decapitated head from his mind and switched to her. Three. Uzomamaka Darego. Large brown, curious eyes that nervously looked at him directly. He had watched her. Tried to draw her in. He had wanted to see the nerves settle in and for her to break, but she never did. She didn’t break for him but someone else broke her.

  Olivier picked up a newspaper from the pile that had been left for him on his bed. The article about the body parts in the park had been marked with a green Post-it note. There was no mention of the symbols being left on the body and there was no mention of the other two victims. Eight, three and four.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ Olivier said as he picked up a pen and drew the symbols along the white space on the edge of the newspaper. His brand. The paper ripped as he pressed the pen hard against the page. His symbol, which wasn’t a double cross. They had been mistaken. It was a double dagger and it belonged to him.

  Is there someone trying to get your attention? That was the question that Henley had asked him in her first visit. He had enjoyed the look in her eyes. The urgency, the disgust at being forced to ask him for help. He had seen that struggle between remaining in control and being overwhelmed with hate and anger as Henley had waited for him to answer her question. Henley didn’t have a clue. She had wanted his help.

  The red-hot anger was churning inside of him, crawling at his skin. He knew that his copycat was not finished and it irritated him.

  ‘You’re not up to it, Inspector,’ Olivier said out loud as he began to pace around his small cell. There wasn’t enough space. He needed room to think. He heard a hum outside his cell door as the other eight inmates were let out of their cells for their five hours of association. Olivier walked out of his cell and on to the landing. The High Security Unit was a prison within a prison. Eight. Three. Four. He needed to find this fucking imposter for himself. He needed to get out.

  Chapter 39

  ‘I’m not his girlfriend. In fact, I was never his girlfriend and he definitely wasn’t with me last Friday night.’

  Lorelei Fosse picked up her gym bag, threw it into the boot and slammed it shut. She pulled her designer sunglasses over her eyes and leaned against her car. Ramouter squinted at her in the sunlight. They stood in the car park of a high-priced gym in East Dulwich. Chance Blaine was seriously punching above his weight. Everything about Lorelei screamed potential reality TV star.

  ‘You say that he wasn’t your boyfriend?’ he asked.

  ‘Never. I didn’t even change my relationship status on Facebook. I met him about a month ago in a pub in Borough Market. We saw each for a few months and then he blocked me.’

  ‘He blocked you?’

  ‘Yep. Can you believe it? I caught him with another woman and he’s the one who blocks me.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘God, about three weeks ago. I was randomly driving along Lewisham High Street; I was going to see my nan and I stopped at the traffic lights opposite the hospital and there he was with some girl. He was talking to her and then he went down the side road with her. Arm in arm they were.’

  ‘Can you describe her? This woman.’

  Lorelei played with her ponytail as she thought back. ‘Black. In her twenties maybe. I didn’t see her face clearly. She had long braids.’

  Ramouter pulled out his phone and brought up a newspaper article. He enlarged the photograph of Zoe Darego. ‘Was this the woman you saw with Chance Blaine?’

  Lorelei took the phone and inspected the photograph for a few seconds, then handed it back. ‘Sorry. It could be, but to be honest, I didn’t really get a close look at her.’

  ‘That’s fine. Thanks for your help.’

  ‘You’re welcome. Why are you asking about her anyway?’

  ‘She was murdered.’

  The colour drained from Lorelei’s face as she put her hands to her throat. ‘Did he do it? I wouldn’t be surprised. He was into all kinds of kinky shit.’

  Chapter 40

  Henley was walking back to the SCU from the deli across the road, lunch in hand. She took a sip of green juice, knowing full well that she was making a poor effort to counteract the vodka and fried chicken from her Sunday-night binge.

  Ramouter was standing to the side with the phone to his ear. ‘I’ve got Stanford on the phone. He wants to talk to you.’

  Henley and Ramouter did a swap with the bag and phone as they walked back to the SCU.

  ‘Right, good news,’ said Stanford. ‘It wasn’t a wild goose chase. The package had been dispatched by Velocity Couriers on Rotherhithe New Road. The booking was made online in the early hours of Sunday morning.’

  ‘Where did they pick up the package?’ asked Henley.

  ‘Manor Park. Franklin-Jones Cold Storage Facility. Does exactly what it says on the tin. Majority of their customers are businesses, restaurants and medical practices, but they also rent to individuals. Customers are provided with the security code to the front gate and a separate code and key for their rental space. Once you’ve got your codes, you can access the building whenever you like.’

  ‘What about staff?’

  ‘No more than four members of staff, which includes the manager. They work from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. The place is covered with CCTV and there’s security staff at night but that’s it.’

  ‘What does our courier say about the pick-up?’

  ‘Our courier, Vincent Tiegan, says that there was nothing unusual about it. He didn’t actually go into the building. The woman—’

  ‘A woman?’

  ‘Yes, he says that the customer was a woman. White. Mid-thirties. Brown or dark blonde hair, he wasn’t too sure. He says that he wasn’t really paying attention. She signed for the collection at the storage place and that was it. He says that was at about 6.30 a.m.’

  ‘Why didn’t the courier wait and make me sign for the package if this was all legit?’

  ‘Says that he was running late. I’ve got a copy of the contact sheet. I’m going to email it over
.’

  Henley sat at her desk picking out the onions from her sandwich, while Ramouter read through the contact sheet.

  ‘The rental agreement is in the name of Isaac Felton. He signed it two days after Olivier’s last victim was found. He gave an address, phone number and a copy of a phone bill,’ said Ramouter.

  ‘Have you run a check on the name?’ Henley asked.

  ‘Yeah, I did. The only Isaac Felton that I could find died when he was six years old in 1984 and the address is fake. Doesn’t exist.’

  ‘Great,’ said Henley. ‘This storage place is some Mickey Mouse outfit. So, we’re back to square one.’

  ‘Two and a half years is a long time. You don’t keep something like that just in case you may need it someday.’

  ‘Olivier clearly had something in mind before we interrupted his plans by arresting him.’

  ‘But why now? How is he able to control things to the extent that people are leaving body parts at your front door?’

  ‘I don’t know, but he killed seven people. So far our copycat has killed three.’

  ‘I may be wrong,’ said Ramouter, ‘but I don’t think that Olivier has got anything to do with these new murders. Look at how he responded when you said to him “your copycat”. He seemed irritated by it.’

  ‘He wasn’t just irritated. He was angry, but the names meant something to him,’ Henley replied. ‘He had that look as though as he was trying to place them. Especially when he asked about Zoe, but there’s nothing in her background or Kennedy’s to suggest any links to Olivier. Though she may have a possible link to Blaine.’

  ‘Zoe told her friend that she was harassed by a man on her way to work and Lorelei saw Chance near the hospital. I’ve asked the council for footage from that day.’

  ‘We’ll bring Blaine in as soon as we’ve viewed that footage. Until then…’ Henley thought back to the description of the woman. The one who had arranged the collection of the head in a box. ‘We need to find this woman.’

  Chapter 41