He looked round, took in the scene once more. ‘What’s the damage?’
Anni, bundled up in her parka and scarf, put her hands in her pockets, exhaled steam in the darkness. ‘Nasty, boss,’ she said. ‘Stating the obvious, but there you go. It’s him, though. She was pregnant. No baby. No sign.’
Phil nodded, his eyes on the threshold of the house. ‘Where’s the husband?’
Anni pointed along the street. ‘Ambulance,’ she said. ‘He found her.’
‘Poor bastard,’ said Phil. ‘Any children?’
‘Two. Twelve and ten. They’ve been bundled off to Grandma’s.’
‘Right.’ He made to cross to the ambulance. Anni stopped him.
‘Boss,’ she said. ‘The husband. He’s holding something back.’
‘Any idea what?’
‘Just being a bit secretive, that’s all. Bit vague on his whereabouts this afternoon.’
Phil gave a grim smile. ‘I think we know what that usually means.’
Anni returned the smile. ‘Maybe thought I would prejudge him. Probably happier sharing with another bloke.’
Phil walked over to the ambulance. The night was properly dark now, autumn changing to winter. He had once read somewhere that a writer had suggested six seasons instead of four, with the extra two either side of winter. Locking and unlocking, he had proposed they be called. A time when the world closed itself up, clutched itself in something more like death than hibernation. Looking around at the stunted, denuded trees at the fringes of the estate and feeling the icy wind blowing towards him, he had to agree. The world was locked, holding itself in. Itself and its secrets.
He reached the ambulance. A man, mid-forties, Phil guessed, overweight, balding but disguising it and wearing a suit that looked expensive but still didn’t seem to fit very well, was sitting on the gurney, a foil blanket draped over his shoulders. He held a mug of something warm in his hands, absently, as if unaware that it was there. As if unaware that he had hands.
Phil remembered his name, spoke to him. ‘Mr Eades?’
The man looked up. It was as if his eyes were at the back of a long, dark cave and he was having trouble seeing out.
‘I’m Detective Inspector Brennan.’ Phil offered his hand. The man detached his from the mug he was holding, absently shook it. ‘I’m sorry about what’s happened.’
Graeme Eades nodded.
‘I’m going to have to ask you a few questions, I’m afraid.’
Another slack, absent nod.
Phil started in on his questions. He knew this was often the worst time to be asking them, but he pressed on because he didn’t have time to wait. Sometimes he got lucky: a witness in shock would remember something with startling clarity, and like a thread that could unravel a jumper, it was something that could be worked on, teased out.
Graeme Eades was clearly in shock, struggling to give answers, to be consistent. The more Phil went on, the less he thought there would be some kind of revelation, but he still kept plugging away. He also bore in mind what Anni had said while he asked the same things over and over: where were you this afternoon, what time did you get home, did you speak to your wife during the day, if so what time . . . and each time he received the same vague answers. He was about to give up, leave the questioning for later, when Graeme Eades looked up, grabbed his arm.
Phil, surprised by the action, looked down at the fingers. The grip was strong; not, Phil thought, because Graeme Eades’ strength was returning, but more likely because the shock was bubbling up inside him, building him up to some kind of mania.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘You’re sorry?’ said Phil, his heart skipping a beat. A confession would be too much to dare to hope for. ‘What for?’
‘It’s my fault. I’m sorry . . .’
Phil sat down next to him once more. ‘What are you sorry for?’
‘I was . . . I was . . . with Erin. I should have been home and I was with Erin . . .’ And then the tears started in earnest.
Phil could work out the rest from that. Graeme Eades was a liar. But he clearly wasn’t a murderer. Just an adulterer. A very remorseful - and guilty - adulterer.
Phil stood up. He doubted there would be anything more Eades could tell him. Not in that state. Not at the moment. He left the ambulance, spoke to a uniform waiting by the back door chatting to a paramedic.
‘See if you can get a statement when he calms down,’ he said, then walked over towards the house. He couldn’t put it off any longer.
Marina was standing by his car. She was already suited, the hood pulled tight round her face, paper overshoes Velcroed round her legs. She was taking several deep breaths, her arm once again round her stomach, he noticed, her other arm on the bonnet of his car for support.
‘You sure you want to do this?’ Phil said, getting his own suit out of the back of his car and taking it out of the plastic bag.
She nodded, without making eye contact, keeping her focus on the front door. She didn’t say anything.
‘You don’t have to,’ he said, slipping into the suit. ‘No one expects you to. No one would blame you if you waited until the body had been cleared out.’
‘No.’ She still didn’t look at him, kept her eyes on something he couldn’t see, something he wasn’t even sure was there. ‘I want to do it.’
‘I should warn you. Once you step over that threshold, you’re in hell. You might step out again, but it’ll never leave you.’
‘I know.’
‘Well if you’re sure. I don’t want it messing you up, though. So much so that you can’t function when we need you.’
She looked at him, right in the eyes. ‘I won’t mess up.’
He kept eye contact with her for perhaps longer than he should have done. His voice softened slightly when he spoke. ‘I know you won’t.’
He saw the ghost of a smile on her face. They both looked away at the same time.
Anni came to join them, similarly attired.
‘Right.’ Phil pulled his hood up, fastened his boots. He was ready. ‘Let’s go.’
54
Phil had been right, thought Marina. It was hell.
She had hoped that seeing Claire Fielding’s apartment would have prepared her for this, but it hadn’t. Nothing could have done. She had seen the flat after it had been cleared, the bodies removed. She had looked at the crime-scene photos, tried to imagine the two together. It still wasn’t enough.
She had a flashback to when she was little and her mother used to wash her hair over the sink, rinsing it through with jug after jug of warm water. The school announced they were taking her year to the local swimming pool for lessons. Marina had never been swimming in a swimming pool before. She imagined it would feel like jug after jug of warm water over her head. But that gentle feeling was nowhere near the experience of plunging head first into the pool: the sheer weight and pressure of the cold, chlorinated water bearing down on her, pushing her under. She had felt like she was going to freeze and drown simultaneously.
Walking into the house had felt exactly the same. Viewing the photos, going round Claire Fielding’s had just been a dry run. Now she saw first-hand the way an ordered, regular life had been torn apart and destroyed in the most horrific manner imaginable. She could feel the violence, the hatred and - there was no other word for it - the insanity in the atmosphere of the house. It was like an indoor fog had descended and refused to move. Her legs weakened and she stumbled. Phil looked at her, concern on his face.
‘You okay?’
She nodded, kept her eyes away from his. The hall was carnage. The wallpaper, beige with gold designs, had bloodied handprints smeared down the length of it, showing signs of a desperate struggle, one she had no trouble imagining. The crunch of broken glass underfoot, a smashed light fitting helped her see it. But it was the bloodied spray over the walls, floor and ceiling that brought it to vivid life. The slaughterhouse decoration caused her to see the knife enter, break skin, slice mus
cle and tendon, watch as the bright arterial blood fountained and geysered out . . .
‘You sure?’
‘Yes.’ Her throat was hot and dry, her voice cracked.
He didn’t move for a few seconds, so she went on ahead of him. ‘Let’s . . . let’s see the rest.’
He looked at her once more, decided he had to take her at her word and moved on. ‘Must have been a struggle here,’ he said aloud. ‘She answered the door, he . . . what? Takes a swing at her? Cuts her?’ He looked down at the carpet. The bloodstains had been flagged, samples taken for analysis.
‘Looks like it,’ Anni said. ‘Why, though? That’s changing what he did last time.’
‘Serial killers . . .’ Marina took a deep breath. ‘Serial killers will do that sometimes.’
‘We’re saying that?’ said Phil. ‘Calling this the work of a serial killer?’
‘You think there’s any doubt now?’ said Marina.
‘And there’s no chance Brotherton could have done this before we brought him in?’ said Anni.
‘Highly unlikely,’ said Phil.
‘So why’s he done it like this?’ said Anni, getting them focused once more. ‘This serial killer? To throw us off? Make us think it’s someone else?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Marina. ‘They do that. Or they might find a . . . a different way of working. Something that . . . that . . . suits them better.’
‘Let’s find out where he cut her,’ said Phil. ‘Might give us more of a clue.’
Phil leading, they followed the bloodied trail into the living room. And stopped dead.
‘Oh God . . .’ said Marina. ‘Oh Jesus . . .’ She screwed her eyes tight shut, but not before the image had seared itself on to her retinas.
What was left of Caroline Eades’ body lay in the centre of the room, on the floor. Her stomach had been slit in a crude circle from her groin to beneath her breasts. The baby had been removed. That was horrific enough, but whoever had done it hadn’t stopped there.
‘Throat cut,’ said Phil.
‘Not just cut,’ said Anni. ‘He’s nearly taken her head off.’
The cut went right through her neck. Marina could see the glistening white bone of the woman’s spine in amongst the gore.
‘Maybe she started to scream,’ said Anni. ‘Had to keep her quiet. That accounts for the amount of blood in the hall.’ She looked again at the body. ‘What’s . . . what’s he done with her arms and legs?’
‘Broken them,’ said Phil, trying to sound as neutral as possible, failing to keep the revulsion out of his voice. ‘Then . . . held them down . . .’
Caroline Eades’ arms and legs were splayed out at impossible angles to her body. Heavy objects from around the room held them in place. Hardback reference books. A vase. The DVD recorder. The coffee table.
‘Oh God . . .’ said Marina again. ‘Oh God . . .’
Phil turned to her, grabbed her by the shoulders. Eye-to-eye contact. ‘Marina, look at me.’
‘But, but I . . . I know her . . .’
Anni joined Phil in staring at Marina. ‘How?’ asked Phil.
‘Oh God . . .’
‘How?’ Phil asked again, his voice managing to be both soft and firm.
‘Yoga . . . she was at yoga . . . She . . . she asked me to go for a coffee . . .’
Phil needed Marina to concentrate. He couldn’t allow her to slip into emotional memories. ‘Marina, that’s awful. Horrible. But I need you to focus now. To put that to one side and focus. I want to know what you see.’ His voice was calm, solicitous. ‘Tell me what you see.’
She glanced at the body again, then quickly back to Phil, her lip trembling.
‘What Marina Esposito the trained psychologist sees. What this means to our investigation. What you see on that floor that’s going to help us catch whoever did this.’ His voice dropped even lower. ‘Look again. Tell me what you see.’
She took a deep breath, steeled herself. Looked again. Tried to take in the scene dispassionately, clinically. Put aside her feelings, her emotions, work analytically. Put those years of theory into practice.
‘He’s . . . I say he, I don’t . . .’ She shook her head. ‘I’ll leave that one for now. The perpetrator came in through the front door; she . . . she answered it; he wanted to silence her. Maybe she started to scream . . . maybe he didn’t want to take that chance. So he did it fast. He’s . . . he’s in a hurry. On a schedule? Wants it over quickly?’ She shook her head. ‘No.’
Another look at the body on the floor, the bloodstained walls. ‘He’s here to do a job. He wants that baby. No time to mess about. He’s escalating again. More ferocious this time, less focused.’
She then did something that she wouldn’t have believed herself capable of doing. She knelt down before the body, peered at the stomach wound. ‘He knew what he was doing. This is controlled. The cutting isn’t frenzied or hurried. The rest of the attack is.’
She let her eyes rove over the other injuries. ‘He didn’t have time to tie her down, to control her as he did Claire Fielding. The restraints, the spreadeagling. I bet there’s no drugs, either. Maybe he couldn’t get them in time. Maybe he’d run out.’ She looked again. ‘Or maybe he doesn’t want to use them any more. Maybe he’s really getting a taste for this. He’s doing a job, but he’s starting to enjoy it. Really, really enjoy it . . .’
She checked the position of the body. ‘Right. So he pushes her down . . .’ She saw the action on her mind’s eye. ‘Not content with that, he smashes her arms, her legs. She’s not going anywhere. Then he . . . he wants her to stay still, be controlled. No drugs, so he improvises. Finds what’s at hand to do the job of keeping her in place. Then he gets to work.’
‘What does that tell us?’ asked Phil. ‘What’s your impression? ’
She kept staring at the body, thinking. Phil and Anni waited. ‘I don’t think it’s an escalation in the sense of him getting out of control,’ she said eventually. ‘But this is a fierce attack and it’s come right after the last one. Usually in cases of this nature there’s some time between them. The perpetrator likes to rest up, let his lusts die down, play with his trophies until the urge builds again. There’s nothing like that here.’
‘Why not?’ asked Phil.
‘Because . . .’ An idea struck Marina. She felt cold and empty as it took hold of her. ‘The baby’s dead. The last baby he took. Claire Fielding’s. That’s it. That’s why he’s back again so quickly. He wants a replacement.’
‘And this baby could still be alive?’ said Anni.
‘Not my department. But I hope so. I’d guess so.’
‘And the position he’s left the body in?’ said Phil.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Marina, staring at the body. ‘I don’t think there’s any significance. He’s got what he wanted and he’s off.’
‘So this confirms things,’ said Phil. ‘That it’s not the woman who’s the target; it’s the baby.’
‘Right,’ said Marina. ‘She’s just a . . . a husk, a carrier. He doesn’t care what happens to her. Like you don’t care what happens to an eggshell when you crack it and take out the egg.’
Phil and Anni stared at the body, taking in what Marina had said.
Eventually Marina turned to Phil. ‘Can we step outside now, please?’
‘Certainly.’
They did so. Marina was surprised at what she saw. Teams of white-suited police were going about their jobs in what was once a peaceful suburban street. Now it looked like it was the centre of a chemical attack. Nothing had been spared. Fingertip searches were taking place. The house and surrounding area were being examined in forensic detail. She saw door-to-door inquiries being carried out. A mobile police station had been set up by the end of the turning for anyone to give information anonymously. Nick Lines and his pathology team had arrived.
The press were behind the barriers at the end of the road, erected to stop them actually seeing anything, their cameras and lights adding to the police lig
hts, creating an unreal film-set atmosphere. They were getting restless, hovering, hoping for that one glimpse, that overheard remark, the mistake that would provide them with their story.
Phil stopped walking. Spoke to the other two. Started to take charge once more. ‘Anni, chain of evidence. Follow the body to the mortuary. Get Nick Lines over here now. I want timelines established for Graeme Eades, for Caroline Eades and for this Erin woman. I want her found and questioned. See if she wanted a baby and he wouldn’t give it to her. I want Forensics working overnight, I want everything double-checked. He must have left some trace here, he must have done . . .’
Philip Brennan 01 - The Surrogate Page 25