The Essence of Evil

by The Essence of Evil (retail) (epub)

  ‘What? No. I just… I expected more similarities in the deaths.’

  Because wasn’t a single killer the most likely explanation here, given that the victims were linked to each other?

  ‘Similarities? Well, they are and aren’t there. Natalya was stabbed in a quite straightforward manner – in and out wounds. She died from blood loss but it took quite a few minutes, I’d imagine. Reeve, on the other hand, took a horrendous blow to his gut. Now, this might surprise you, but in a normal in and out stab wound, it’s very difficult to cut into the intestines. A bullet to the gut, well that cuts through anything in its path. But the speed and pressure of a knife is usually too small and the intestines just bounce about and slide around the blade when it penetrates the area. Here, though, we have massive damage not just to the intestines but to the abdominal aorta too. The knife was pulled about inside his body. Now that was no accident.’

  Dani shuddered at the graphic words, but tried to remain focused.

  ‘For Reeve the killer wanted to make sure there was significant damage that would result in a quick death,’ Dani said.

  ‘That’s a hypothesis consistent with the wounds, yes.’

  Dani’s brain was racing with different thoughts.

  ‘So do you think killing Natalya might have been a mistake? That the attacker didn’t want to kill her? Just subdue her? Or that the killer, her abductor, panicked and stabbed her?’

  ‘I simply can’t answer those questions with a yes or no. I speak facts, it’s for you to put the story of those facts together.’

  That was fair enough. They were questions she’d have to just keep in her head.

  ‘These two victims are linked. We believe they knew each other. Which is why I’m keen to understand if they could have been killed by the same person.’

  ‘You know it’s not possible for me to draw such a conclusive opinion. And as I’ve just explained, the wounds, on the face of it, do appear to be quite different in their delivery. But, having said that, based on the nature of the wounds, the damage caused, the size of the incisions, the clean cuts with little tearing, I do think that a very similar knife was used to kill both people. Could it be the same knife and the same person? Absolutely it could.’

  Dani simply nodded at that and Ledford looked slightly disappointed that his moment of revelation hadn’t caused a bigger reaction. Yes, the news was exactly what Dani had been gunning for, but until they had a killer locked up or at least some tangible evidence – the murder weapon, DNA – they were just putting two and two together.

  ‘And the type of knife?’ Dani asked.

  ‘Something rudimentary. A kitchen knife perhaps. Something with a long, thin, single-edged smooth blade. I think I said before, one and a half inches wide, maybe as much as two, and at least five inches long. Probably a relatively dull point to it.’

  Dani was taking all of Ledford’s words in, but as she took a deep inhalation of breath her mind went foggy, queasiness setting in as she stared at the two bodies right there in front of her.

  ‘Toxicology results aren’t back yet so that’s really all I have for you right now, but you’re welcome to take a look at my detailed notes. I was just writing them up.’

  What Dani wanted was to go and get some fresh air. She was glad when she heard her phone vibrating.

  ‘I’d better take this,’ Dani said. ‘I’ll wait until you’ve got the full report completed before I take a proper look. Thanks for your time, Jack.’

  ‘Very well. Just doing my job, Detective.’

  Dani grabbed her phone and pressed the green button as she headed back out into the corridor. She took a massive lungful of air as soon as she stepped out, the rush of oxygen together with the still present death smell swirling around inside her and making her feel dizzy for a few seconds.

  ‘DI Stephens,’ Dani said as she lumbered along, searching for the exit.

  ‘Dani, it’s me.’

  Jason?

  She was about to end the call, she didn’t need this right now, but Jason spoke again before she got the chance.

  ‘You need to get over here right away,’ he said. ‘It’s DS Easton. He’s been attacked.’

  Chapter Thirty

  With the help of paracetamol and vast quantities of water, Grant was thankfully feeling more human by the time his final lecture of the day came around at four. He’d woken up earlier that Thursday morning at five a.m. with a stinking hangover. It wasn’t like him to drink so much during the week, and especially not like him to have drunk so much so early in the day with those early beers after golf, followed by him and Mary finishing what she and Julie had earlier started. Namely a litre bottle of gin and a bottle of Chablis.

  Annie had been faintly amused, though also slightly embarrassed, when she’d returned home from her friend’s house to find her parents merrily sloshing the wine in their glasses and the words in their mouths. She’d made the sensible decision to shut herself in her bedroom for the rest of the evening.

  Grant and Mary hadn’t much minded that. Annie would get over it and Grant knew it was good for him and Mary to both let their hair down, and spend an evening giggling and flirting with each other like they were carefree twenty-somethings rather than middle-aged parents with a violent loser for a son.

  Inevitably, though, the alcohol had done its work and by ten p.m. Grant was fast asleep on the sofa in the lounge. He wasn’t sure what time he’d dragged himself to bed, but his confused body clock had woken him up at five, and all in all he felt horrendous for it.

  He’d left Mary gently snoring in the bed – she always slept better than him, which really riled him – and after a shower and some plain buttered toast he’d arrived at the university campus just after seven. He’d missed out on an entire day’s work the previous day so it seemed sensible to catch up on some lost time before the grind started again.

  After his first lecture in the morning, when he’d staggered about like a zombie, looking and feeling as ropey as the gaggle of students did, he’d steadily worked through his backlog. Now he just had one lecture to go until finally he could call it a day.

  That lecture, a specialist criminology module that Grant had titled Deviance, Youth and Culture, was an optional module that students from a variety of degree subjects, ranging from sociology through to politics, were eligible to take. As with Grant’s other modules, the class was generally filled with a mishmash of students from different backgrounds – Birmingham was a renowned multi-cultural city after all. The one uniting similarity of the majority of the students was their inability to pay full attention to proceedings.

  Grant by now recognised the faces of the small group who would actually sit with genuine eagerness, and he knew that one of those students for the module was Jessica Bradford. This would be the first time he’d seen her following the brief fangirl moment earlier in the week.

  Which was why he was feeling slightly anxious as he headed inside the theatre and over to the podium. He really didn’t want the embarrassment of her swooning over him again.

  When he spotted her in her usual position on the front row, she gave him a coy smile and he quickly averted his eyes and tried to clear his head. He carried on through his patter, and was part way through discussing Robert K. Merton’s strain theory of deviance – a theory that attempted to explain how societal pressures lead to criminality – when he noticed his phone, which he’d left on the podium, light up with an incoming call from Mary.

  He thought about answering. Would the students care? Would they even notice? Grant thought about which of Merton’s five responses to strain could be used to describe his action if he did answer the phone. Rebellion, probably, exhibited by people who rejected both cultural and social goals.

  Actually, no. Rebellion might be the response that best described the simple action of answering a mobile phone at an inappropriate time, but Grant knew the social response that his reaction to pressure fit perfectly; ritualism. This described the response of people who
rejected society’s goals (largely because they were unable to achieve them), but still accepted and adhered to society’s means of achievement and social norms. Like Grant, people who exhibited ritualism were most commonly found in dead-end, repetitive jobs.

  Dead-end? What was he thinking? Many people would consider being a professor of criminology an upstanding and rewarding profession. So why didn’t he?

  Grant carried on with the lecture but couldn’t quite shake the feeling of a lack of fulfilment in his life. He wrapped up the session five minutes early, intent on calling Mary back. As usual the room cleared within seconds. Not fully, though. Jessica came idling up. Her friend, this time, hadn’t bothered to wait.

  ‘That was fascinating,’ she said.

  ‘I’m glad you thought so.’

  ‘I’ve had some further thoughts about my thesis. Could we chat about it again when you have some time?’

  Grant looked at his watch. ‘I really can’t today,’ he said. ‘Perhaps later in the week?’

  She looked disappointed, but she had more than two years before she’d need to hand it her thesis. She could surely wait a day or two.

  There was a bang at the top of the stairs as the doors to the lecture hall opened. Grant looked up and did a double take when he saw Mary standing there.

  ‘Honey?’

  She didn’t look happy as she stomped down the steps towards them. Jessica looked from Grant to Mary and back again, looking sheepish all of a sudden.

  ‘I tried calling you,’ Mary said.

  ‘I was in the middle of a lecture,’ Grant said. He looked at Jessica.

  ‘Let me know,’ Jessica said, before turning and, scuttling up the stairs and out of the room, avoiding eye contact with Mary as she went.

  ‘Keen student?’ Mary asked, sounding a little aggravated.

  ‘Apparently so,’ Grant said, feeling a little embarrassed.

  ‘The police came around again this afternoon,’ Mary said, and Grant wasn’t quite sure whether he was happy about the abrupt change of subject or not.

  ‘Ethan?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Grant had absolutely no doubt as to which of Merton’s responses to strain Ethan most closely aligned with; retreatism, used to describe people who rejected both cultural goals and means, and who committed acts of deviance to achieve things outside of normal society’s values. Basically drop-outs. True deviants, some would call them.

  ‘What’s he done now?’ Grant asked, putting his hand on Mary’s shoulder to offer comfort.

  ‘He was arrested last night for drunk-driving and possession. Again. He was released on bail this morning. Apparently your lawyer got him out. You didn’t know?’

  ‘What? I had no idea!’

  But then Grant did remember that he’d seen a missed call and voicemail on his phone earlier. He’d been in the middle of something else at the time though and, not recognising the number, had forgotten all about it.

  ‘That isn’t what the police came over for today, though.’

  By now Grant’s mind was racing with confusion. Where would the problems stop with that boy?

  ‘So, what then?’ he asked.

  ‘They were looking for him in connection with two murders – that woman who was stabbed and was on the news the other day. And a man, too. One of Ethan’s friends. Paul Reeve. But they also asked about a Jimmy Colton and what we knew of him.’

  She didn’t need to say anything more than that. Grant had never met Jimmy Colton, as far as he was aware, nor Paul Reeve for that matter, but given the conversation he and Mary had with Annie the other day about Ethan’s no-good friend Jimmy, the police’s questions surely couldn’t just be a coincidence? Grant put his hand to his forehead and squeezed his temples as hard as he could until the pressure caused a stabbing pain at the front of his brain.

  ‘What should we do, Steven?’

  ‘I think at this stage the real question is; what else can we do?’

  Chapter Thirty-One

  With the sun edging down beyond the high-rises in the distance, Dani looked around as she approached, noticing the police cordon, the ambulance, the three squad cars and riot van that all had their lights flashing, and the collection of yellow-coated bobbies swarming about the place. No sign of Jason now, she realised. Easton was perched on the back end of the ambulance, its doors wide open, his legs dangling. He had a cut above his left eye and his swollen nose was plugged with cotton wool.

  ‘Quite some drama you’ve caused here, DS Easton.’

  ‘I’ve always been a bit of an attention-seeker,’ he said.

  ‘Can you get up to show me what happened, or do you need a wheelchair?’

  ‘Perhaps a few weeks of paid leave first? I hear the Bahamas is nice this time of year.’

  ‘Easton, get off your lazy arse before I give you something far worse than those two scratches.’

  Easton smiled, then got to his feet and he and Dani walked across the street. The police response to hearing of an attack on a fellow officer was swift and strong, as it should be, but on this occasion, as Dani had figured out on her way over to Handsworth, it was also largely unnecessary. Easton was fine. McNair had called a few minutes after Jason and confirmed that his injuries were not serious, which Dani now presumed was why Jason hadn’t hung around. Dani had felt massive relief at the news, but then she’d had to suck it up when McNair had openly laid the blame for Easton’s attack at Dani’s door, for sending him out chasing the lead without her – as though Dani were Easton’s mother and should chaperone him twenty-four hours a day. He was a sergeant, for god’s sake! And a pretty damn competent one at that. Dani had wanted to remind McNair of that fact, but in the heat of the moment, with McNair giving her the hairdryer treatment, she’d realised it was probably not the wisest move.

  ‘That’s the address there,’ Easton said, pointing.

  Dani took in the largely grubby-looking terraced row. On the ground floor was a small parade of shops; a newsagent, a downtrodden Caribbean cafe, a barber shop and a nail bar. The nail bar looked glitzy and shiny compared to everything else there, clearly the newest and most thriving of the small businesses. Above, on the first floor, were flats, reached by a door from the street, which was standing open.

  Looking at the building, Dani felt that this was such a vast world away from the well-to-do village of Knowle with its array of executive homes, where Ethan Grant’s parents lived. How had their son wound up here?

  ‘The flat is rented,’ Easton said as they stopped by the open door. ‘Current registered tenant is a James Colton.’

  ‘You’re kidding?’ Dani said.

  ‘Not at all. The landlord turned up when he saw the police cars. Mr Assad. He lives across the street. His tenant background checks aren’t exactly thorough, given the documents he showed us, so it’s still anybody’s guess as to whether there really is a James or Jimmy Colton.’

  What on earth was the story with Colton? Dani wondered.

  ‘Ok, that’s all good info, Easton, but tell me what happened to you. Who did this?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know. DC Constable and I—’

  ‘He’s here?’

  ‘Yeah, he's over there.’

  Dani followed Easton’s line of sight to the young man, who was talking to a uniformed female officer. Talking? More like flirting, Dani thought.

  ‘Hard at work, I see,’ Dani said.

  ‘Yeah,’ was all Easton said to that. ‘Anyway, we were just approaching the door here. I was reaching out to ring the bell when the door suddenly sprang open. There was a man standing there. But I didn’t get a good look, it all happened so quickly.’

  ‘Any description at all?’

  ‘I didn’t really see his face. About my height, build. Blue hooded sweatshirt. White trainers. He looked like a… a normal guy.’

  ‘Age?’

  ‘I really can’t say.’

  ‘Well that’s pretty bloody useless, isn’t it?’ Dani said, her harsh tone unintentiona
l.

  Easton frowned and Dani shook her head and looked away. Had it really been such a sudden attack, or had Easton been too distracted by something else to have taken notice?

  Perhaps he and Constable had spotted a young lady in a short skirt crossing the street, she thought, glaring over at Constable for a second, though she’d come to expect more of Easton than that.

  ‘Are you ok, boss?’ Easton asked.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Dani said, sounding anything but.

  She quickly thought about her pills. When had she last taken them? Standing on the street she could feel her mind fogging over, her irritability peaking, her mood taking on a sharp edge.

  ‘The guy must have clocked us as police,’ Easton said. ‘These buggers have a sixth sense even when we’re not in uniform. We didn’t get the chance to say anything. He headbutted me and made a run for it. I was down on the ground and had no chance of catching him.’

  ‘And Constable? He doesn’t look injured to me. Didn’t he give chase?’

  ‘Kind of funny, really,’ Easton said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. ‘As I was falling back, I barged into Constable. He then tripped over an old lady’s trolley bag. She was just walking by. Nothing more than bad timing.’ Easton pointed to a shaky old woman who was still being consoled by two uniformed officers. ‘She must be a hundred and fifty at least. The trolley fell, knocked her to the ground. Kind of like dominoes, or so the gawkers were saying. I mean, I was dazed, seeing stars. Dan, I mean Constable, he went to pick the old lady up. He thought he’d broken her leg or something. She was screaming and screaming.’

  ‘Meanwhile, whoever attacked you had the easiest getaway ever.’

  ‘I know what you’re thinking. Keystone cops.’

  ‘You said it, not me.’

  ‘But we did the right thing,’ Easton said with absolute conviction. ‘I mean, turns out she’s fine, but if we’d left that old lady injured on the ground with a smashed leg, the result would’ve been a massive lawsuit slapped on the Super’s desk.’

  Easton was probably right about that. Was that approach called damage limitation or plain old rose-tinted community spirit? Dani wasn’t sure, but she did know her instincts in that situation would probably have been very different. She would have been up and after the guy in a flash.