The Jigsaw Man

by Nadine Matheson

  ‘What’s the crystal next to it?’

  ‘Oh, I’m not sure. It was a get-well gift.’

  ‘Your boyfriend?’

  ‘Something like that.’ Karen sat back in the bed and held out the chain in front of her. ‘A good friend.’

  Henley left Karen in her room and made her way to the nurses’ station.

  ‘Excuse me—’ Henley held out her warrant card to the nurse sitting at the desk. ‘I need to ask you a question about your patient Karen Bajarami in room six.’

  ‘I’m not allowed to disclose any information about our patients,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t want information about her specifically. I just want to know if she’s had any visitors. I’ll go downstairs and check with security, but if you were here—’

  ‘She’s had a few,’ said the young nurse who was sitting next to him. Her nametag said Isma. ‘I think her mum came again yesterday and a couple of her work friends. I had to tell them there were too many in the room.’

  ‘Is there anyone else?’ asked Henley.

  ‘Oh, there was a man who came first thing this morning. Do you remember, Julien?’ said Isma. ‘He bought her a bunch of M&S ready meals and asked if there was somewhere we could keep them.’

  ‘Oh yeah, him,’ said Julien, ignoring the phone ringing on his desk. ‘I buzzed him through. He wasn’t too impressed about the menu. Can’t say that I blame him. I wouldn’t feed it to my cat and I don’t even like my cat.’

  ‘Can you remember what he looked like?’

  Julien looked across at Isma and shook his head. ‘Not really. He was white, tall. Maybe in his forties. He was very nice, gave us some chocolates to say thank you. If my gran was here, she would say that he was charming.’

  ‘He’s clearly got a plan,’ said Henley. ‘I doubt very much he’s hanging around just because he’s concerned about his girlfriend.’

  ‘So why even visit her?’ Pellacia asked, frowning. ‘What use is Karen Bajarami to him now? She’s helped him escape and she nearly lost an eye for it. Why didn’t she scream blue murder when Olivier came to see her?’

  ‘You didn’t see the look on her face when I asked her about the necklace. She was pleased.’

  ‘We need to bring her in.’ Pellacia was unequivocal.

  ‘I know that, but I’m stuck until a doctor says that she’s fit to be discharged,’ said Henley.

  ‘PACE guidelines don’t actually say that she has to be interviewed at a police station and it doesn’t mean that we haven’t got grounds to search her flat. For all we know, Olivier could be staying there. Where does she live?’

  ‘Kidbrooke. It’s going to take me about an hour to scrape an application together and then I’ve got to find a judge or magistrate to hear my application.’

  Pellacia checked his watch. ‘You’ve got time. Get the application done and then show yourself at Camberwell Green Magistrates’ and get before a judge. As soon as we get the warrant, we’re searching Bajarami’s flat and then we’re arresting her. I don’t give a shit if she’s declared fit or not.’

  Chapter 80

  Henley printed off a second copy of the application for a warrant to search Karen Bajarami’s flat. She doubted that she would find Olivier sitting in the front room with his feet up, but she was praying she’d discover concrete evidence of Bajarami’s involvement in Olivier’s escape.

  Her phone rumbled. Linh was calling.

  ‘Hey, you,’ said Henley. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘He used a rip-saw.’

  ‘He used a what?’

  ‘A rip-saw. You know, a carpenter’s saw. Google it. I bet that your dad probably has one.’

  Henley’s mind flashed back to an image of her uncle Joel holding down the branches of their apple tree while her dad attacked it with a saw.

  ‘Who used a rip-saw?’ Henley asked. ‘Olivier?’

  ‘No, not him. Your copycat,’ said Linh. ‘Remember, Olivier’s cuts were always clean because he used an electronic saw. A jigsaw. Which is exactly what he used on Varma. This other loon is using a good old-fashioned saw.’

  ‘But that would take… Well…’ Henley couldn’t think of a more delicate way to phrase it. ‘Isn’t that just hard work?’

  ‘Not really. I mean the middle phalanx is going to be much easier to cut through than the femur but then again, the simplest place to cut is the joint; like you’re jointing a chicken.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ Henley muttered under her breath as she placed the search warrant application into a folder.

  ‘If you are cutting through bone then, depending on how fit your victim was, the bone may not even be that hard. God forbid if any of your victims were skiers or climbers – then your copycat would have had one hell of a job. Their bones are as hard as… They’re just incredibly hard. Personally, I would have started with a hacksaw instead of a rip-saw, but I can’t really determine if he used both.’

  ‘And our copycat used the same method on the last three victims?’ Henley imagined Kennedy, Zoe and Delaney sitting motionless, unable to close their eyes as a man, his face darkened by shadows, sawed off their limbs.

  ‘I’ve got a wound expert preparing a full report for you,’ said Linh.

  ‘Thank you, Linh. I appreciate it.’

  ‘Not a problem and come over to mine if you’re at a loss tonight. It’s been ages since we got drunk, had a good old bitch about life and danced to the classics of ’95.’

  ‘Why ’95?’ Henley laughed for the first time in days.

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve lost count of the number of posters that I’ve seen advertising a “Back to ’95” club night. So I’ll see you later?’

  ‘You will.’ Henley ended the call with immense gratitude for her friend.

  ‘It’s a bit savage, isn’t it?’ said Ramouter after Henley had told him how the copycat had been dismembering his victims.

  ‘I think that’s an understatement,’ she said.

  ‘I mean his whole MO is savage. Our copycat paralyses them, makes them watch as he cuts off their limbs and even after they’re dead, he stabs them,’ said Ramouter.

  ‘You’re not suggesting that Olivier is more humane, are you?’ Henley asked with surprise.

  ‘No, not humane,’ Ramouter mused. ‘He’s just a bit more clinical about it, isn’t he? Efficient.’

  ‘Lauren Varma wasn’t about efficiency,’ Henley said sadly. ‘He doesn’t care, which is why he made such a display of her.’

  ‘But he made such a big deal about this being a miscarriage of justice.’

  ‘To him it probably is. The miscarriage to him is that he was caught.’

  Henley had seen the photographs of Lauren Varma’s flat that the forensic team had emailed over to her. Even though Ramouter had worked CID back in Bradford, she doubted that he had ever come across scenes like the one Lauren Varma had been killed in and the one in which she had been found.

  It had only been two weeks, but she could already see the pressures of working in the SCU on his face. They had no real support. It was just them. A unit that had been positioned as a reward, but was really a way to keep their old boss out of trouble. Now Rhimes was dead, and even though she had absolute faith in Pellacia to run the SCU, Henley worried the department was running on fumes.

  ‘Salim.’

  He looked up, aware that this was the first time Henley had used his first name.

  ‘Talk to Mark Ryan. Believe me. You don’t want to get too deep inside the head of these psychopaths. This sort of work will screw with your brain and it will hit you when you least expect it. Mark’s good to talk to.’

  ‘I don’t want anyone to think that I can’t hack it.’

  ‘No one would ever think that.’

  ‘OK. I’ll give him a call.’

  ‘Good. It won’t hurt. What was your plan for the rest of the day?’

  ‘Just to go over the statements, see if we’ve missed anything and then home.’

  ‘Fancy a trip to the seasi
de?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The witness who said that he saw Sean Delaney being put into an ambulance.’

  ‘Leon Merrick?’

  ‘He’s in a rehab facility in Hove, isn’t he?’

  ‘For at least three months.’

  ‘Leon is the closest that we’ve got to a possible identification. I want you to go and see him.’

  ‘What? Now? It’s almost 5 p.m.’

  ‘Yes, now.’

  ‘I don’t think that my Oyster card will get me as far as Hove.’

  ‘Take my car.’

  Ramouter stared at Henley as though she had temporarily taken leave of her senses. ‘Are you sure? I’ve never been to Hove.’

  ‘Hove is not the end of the world, Ramouter.’

  Henley walked back to her desk and flicked through the file until she found what she was looking for. ‘Take these.’ It was the custody pictures taken of Alessandro Naylor and Dominic Pine.

  ‘These photographs are a couple of years old,’ Ramouter said as he grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair.

  ‘They’ll have to do. We haven’t got any recent pictures of Pine and Naylor, and they haven’t changed that much,’ Henley replied. ‘Either the photo will trigger something in Leon, or it won’t.’

  Chapter 81

  The journey down to Hove was quite straightforward, and if he was honest, Ramouter was glad to get out of the office. The intense feeling of the SCU, and Henley, were making him feel claustrophobic.

  As he stepped out of the car in front of the Elysium Clinic, he had to admit that the coastal air felt different. For the first time since he’d left Bradford and the pressures of looking after a wife amid her denial of early onset dementia, he could breathe.

  The reception area looked as though it belonged to a spa hotel, with expensive-looking white sofas and armchairs in front of a large bay window that looked out to the sea. It was a far cry from the public rehab centre where Sean Delaney had worked.

  ‘Good afternoon. Can I help you?’ said the woman behind the reception desk.

  ‘Hi. I’m Detective Ramouter.’ He didn’t feel the need to tell her that he was still a few months away from being signed off as a fully-fledged detective. ‘I’m here to see one of your patients.’

  The red-lipsticked smile on the receptionist’s face quickly disappeared as she looked at Ramouter’s warrant card.

  ‘Do you have an appointment? We pride ourselves on confidentiality. We just can’t have anyone walking in.’

  Ramouter straightened himself up. Maybe he didn’t say the word ‘detective’ loud enough. Henley wouldn’t have this, he said to himself. She never had to say much to get what she wanted. She had an authoritative presence about her, something that they didn’t teach you in police training.

  ‘As I said, I’m Detective Ramouter and I want to speak to Leon Merrick.’

  ‘We get a lot of journalists coming in here, pretending to be family, friends and—’

  ‘Look, do you want my boss to call your boss? Believe me, I doubt that would be a good thing for either of us. I’ve shown you my warrant card. I’ve told you who I am. I know that Leon Merrick is here. I want to see him now.’

  The receptionist looked down at her computer. After what seemed like the longest minute in Ramouter’s life, she said, ‘He has a group therapy session which is finishing in about fifteen minutes. I’ll have someone take to you to one of the visitors’ lounges. Would you like a tea or coffee while you wait?’

  Ramouter had to stop himself from asking if he should take off his shoes when he was led into the visitors’ lounge by another member of staff. He had just eaten his second shortbread biscuit when a tall dark-haired man walked into the room. His collarbone stuck out sharply as he extended his hand.

  ‘I’m Leon,’ he said with a smile, revealing teeth that had been chipped and stained by a crack pipe.

  ‘How are you?’ Ramouter asked, his eyes following the track marks and yellowing bruises on Leon’s arm.

  ‘Doing OK.’ Leon sank into an armchair.

  ‘Anyway, Leon, I’m not going to take up a lot of your time.’

  ‘Nah, it’s fine, mate. My options this afternoon are yoga, mindfulness or Reiki.’ Leon screwed up his face. ‘Not even a trip down to the pier. Apparently, I’m not ready for that yet. Have you caught him, the person who killed Sean?’

  Ramouter shook his head.

  ‘He was nice, you know. Decent. Not patronising like a lot of them. He actually cared. He didn’t deserve to die like that.’

  ‘I wanted to ask you some more questions about that night. I thought that things might be a bit clearer now that you’re…’

  ‘Not as high as a NASA spaceship. What do you want to know?’

  Ramouter took out his notebook and flicked through the pages. ‘You said that you got to the centre about eight.’

  ‘It might have been later than that because I remembered that I sat in the pub for a bit and the football was on. Sunday night. It must have been Spanish footie. Seven thirty kick-off and I left when it finished, so it must have been around 9.30 p.m.’

  ‘And you went straight to the centre?’

  ‘Yeah. I was clucking and when that happens you get one thought in your head and you just focus on that. I remembered thinking that I needed to see Sean because he would help me. Sometimes… I mean… He’s not supposed to, but if he had it, he would have given me some methadone, to take the edge off. Calm me down.’

  ‘What time does the centre usually close?’

  ‘Officially, nine.’

  ‘Even on a Sunday?’

  ‘They have group therapy sessions. If you’re really lucky you might get a jammy dodger and a cup of tea. Not like this place. Every posh herbal tea known to man and pastries that no one eats.’

  Ramouter looked down at his own cup of tea next to the bone china teapot.

  ‘Anyway,’ Leon continued as he picked up a biscuit from the plate. ‘I remember walking past and the light was still on.’

  ‘How do you get into the centre?’

  ‘You have to be buzzed in. They’ve got one of those intercoms with the security camera on the front and then there’s an emergency exit at the back. I think that it’s supposed to be the fire escape.’

  ‘Were you buzzed in?’

  Leon leaned back as he chewed on his biscuit. ‘Couldn’t have been, otherwise I wouldn’t have gone around the back.’

  ‘What made you go to the back?’

  ‘Sean smokes. Usually out the back by the car park. I went to the back, saw his motorbike was there and then I saw the ambulance car thing.’

  ‘And it was definitely an ambulance?’

  ‘Yeah. Not a big one but like I told you on the phone, one of those car ones.’

  ‘Too much to ask if you could remember the number plate?’

  ‘Ha, chance would be a fine thing. The car door was open and my crazy head thought that someone might help me or that there might be drugs in there.’

  ‘You said last time that you saw a man in the back of the car?’

  ‘Yeah, I did. He was slumped down. I couldn’t see his face. He was at a funny angle and the man was putting his legs in.’

  ‘Is there anything that you can remember about the man in the back seat?’

  ‘Like I said, I think that it was Sean, but I couldn’t be a hundred per cent sure.’

  ‘What about the man? You spoke to him?’

  ‘Yeah, but he shoved me out of the way.’

  ‘Can you describe him?’

  There was silence, occasionally filled by the sounds of seagulls flying by and Leon munching on a biscuit.

  ‘White. A little bit shorter than me, and I’m six feet three, so he was at least six feet. He was wearing dark clothes. Could have been green. Trainers, I remember that. Dark hair, short. He was bigger than me but not as big as you.’

  ‘I didn’t think that I was that big,’ Ramouter said with a grin.

  ‘N
o, you’re not. He was just between the two of us. Put it this way, if he was a boxer, he would be a light middleweight.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Broken nose. Well, it looked disjointed to me. Stubble.’

  ‘I want you to take a look at these photographs,’ said Ramouter. ‘Can you see the man who was in the car park of the drug centre on 8 September 2019 at around 9.30 p.m.?’ He pushed aside the bone china tea set and the plate of posh biscuits and fanned the photographs across the table. He had printed off photographs of twelve other men who had volunteered to have their images taken and used in an ID parade and had mixed them up with the photos that Henley had given him. ‘Take your time.’

  Leon kneeled down and inspected the pictures.

  ‘Not him, not him, not him,’ Leon picked up three of the photographs and put them on the floor.

  ‘This one,’ Leon said, picking up a photograph and handing it to Ramouter.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Ramouter took the photograph of Dominic Pine from Leon’s shaking hand.

  ‘I’d put money on it. Definitely.’

  ‘That’s the man you saw in the car park?’

  ‘A hundred per cent.’

  Ramouter had been thinking about getting fish and chips and eating it on the pier before heading back to London, but as he put the photographs in his pocket, he found he had lost his appetite.

  Chapter 82

  ‘Where’s Ramouter now?’ asked Pellacia.

  ‘Somewhere on the M23.’ Henley pulled out her phone to check if there had been any more messages from Ramouter.

  ‘Well, at least we’ve got an ID on Pine.’

  ‘At best it’s someone who looks like Pine who was possibly putting someone who looked like Delaney into an ambulance.’

  ‘No CCTV of the car park?’

  ‘Nothing there. I don’t think the council are that interested in the security of a bunch of recycling bins outside a drug centre.’

  ‘What about the ambulance service?’

  ‘I’ve been chasing them, asking them to confirm if there were any paramedics dispatched to the drug centre or surrounding streets on the night that Delaney disappeared. It’s like you said. The evidence is flaky at best. An eye-witness who’s a drug addict is not enough to wipe Naylor and Blaine’s name off the board.’