by Mark Romain
“Who could have done something like this?” Nick asked in disbelief. He was grateful that he hadn’t eaten yet; even with an empty stomach, he felt like throwing up.
“Whoever it was, they ought to get the death penalty,” Speed said, donning a pair of latex gloves. Moving carefully, so that the crime scene wouldn’t be disturbed any more than was absolutely necessary, Speed knelt down and felt the waxen face and hands of the victim. They were cold. She had obviously been there a while. Speed stood up and carefully moved away from the body.
There was a lot to do.
“Nick, go back outside. Absolutely no one, not even the Commissioner himself, gets inside this yard without my direct authority. Get the watchman’s details and a brief statement if he’s fit enough. Then get him straight to hospital. Make sure someone goes with him, and have them seize his shoes. No, wait. We’d better seize all his clothing, just in case. Then get on the radio. I want the HAT car called and I need more units for a search. Oh, and I want the On-Call Superintendent informed at home. We might as well spoil his day too.” He gave Bartholomew a wry smile.
Speed borrowed the torch from Bartholomew. As the junior officer left to carry out his instructions, he began to examine the area in which the body had been found. There was nothing of obvious note on the floor so he let the flashlight roam up and down the sides of the Portakabin and adjacent wall to see if there were blood patterns that indicated a struggle.
There was plenty of blood all right, but not all of it was in the form he would have expected.
On the side of the cabin, in big bold letters, was a message from the killer. Unless Speed was very much mistaken it was written in the victim’s blood:
THIS IS ONLY THE START.
BE AFRAID…
JACK’S BACK.
Speed stared at the message in disbelief. He carefully read the words several times, feeling his stomach tighten a little more each time.
◆◆◆
Before long the crime scene was awash with people. The East Homicide Assessment Team (HAT) car arrived first, and they called out a Crime Scene Manager, Sam Calvin, who in turn summoned the on-call photographer.
A Blood Pattern Analysis scientist from the Forensic Science Service was en route, and when she arrived, she would be tasked to measure blood spray patterns and angles and carry out tests on depth and velocity.
The early turn divisional Scenes of Crime Officer, or SOCO, had volunteered to help out, and CSM Calvin promptly put her to work dusting for prints.
The Coroner’s Officer had been informed, and he had dispatched the two sombre looking men in dark suits who waited patiently beside a dark van with blacked out windows, and the legend ‘Private Ambulance’ along its side. at the edge of the cordon, ready to transport the corpse to the morgue.
A number of samples had already been placed in brown paper bags. In the absence of a dedicated exhibits officer from AMIP – the Area Major Investigation Pool – these were being indexed in a green A4 exhibits book by Calvin.
Outside, the area surrounding the building site had been sealed off with police tape, and over half of Ray Speed’s early shift was tied up dealing with cordon control.
Territorial Support Group officers from the Commissioner’s Reserve had been called to conduct a flash search in the surrounding area for the murder weapon.
The local crime reporter, who routinely monitored police channels, had just turned up and was snooping around outside the cordon, firing questions at Speed in the hope of uncovering some gritty details. Ignoring the man, Speed closed the gate and made sure it was secure.
A detective from the HAT car was making frantic phone calls, switching between the Serious Crime Group Reserve at the Yard and her DCI, providing updates and trying to organise further resources. The second had joined Inspector Speed and the Forensic Medical Examiner, a tetchy old Scotsman called Andrew Mackintosh, who had just arrived and was about to examine the body.
“So, what can you tell us doc?” DC Kevin Murray asked. In his early thirties, Murray seemed unhealthily thin. He had a pale complexion, cropped brown hair and a goatee beard, which took some of the sharpness out of his features. His suit was rumpled, as though he had been sleeping in it.
“I can tell you that she’s dead,” the FME said.
Murray glanced at Ray Speed and rolled his eyes theatrically. These doctors were all such prima donnas. “We worked that much out for ourselves, doc. What I mean is can you…”
Mackintosh cut him off with a raised hand. “Young man,” he said irritably, “firstly, it’s not doc, it’s doctor. That’s the title written on all the fancy diplomas hanging on my surgery wall, and that’s what I like to be called. Secondly, I am a GP, not a Home Office pathologist. My job is to pronounce life extinct, nothing more.”
“I understand that,” Murray persisted, “but if you have any idea how long she’s been brown bread it would really help.”
“This isn’t an episode of Quincy, laddie. You’ll have to wait till the pathologist gets his hands on the poor wee thing. He won’t appreciate an old fool like me making wild guesses, that’s for sure.”
“Please, doctor,” Speed intervened, “you’ve been doing this a very long time, and you’re highly respected. Any observations you make would be gratefully received.”
“Are you playing to my vanity, Inspector?” Mackintosh asked with a raised eyebrow.
Speed shrugged, “I’m just asking for some help.”
Mackintosh sighed. “I’m not sure how valid any opinion I express here is, but if you really think it could help then the least I can do is indulge you.” Squatting down beside the dead girl, he carried out a visual examination in silence. When he was satisfied he had seen all that he needed to, he gestured towards the lifeless figure with an open hand. “I’d say that she was in her early to mid-twenties. I can tell from the needle marks in her arms that she had a substantial drug problem.” Mackintosh turned the girls left arm a fraction for them to see. Track marks ran the length of it. “If you look very closely you will see the walls of the veins in this section of her arm have collapsed, undoubtedly caused by over injecting. I’d expect to find similar track marks along the upper legs and in the groin.”
Speed winced. As a man with a needle phobia, he could never understand how people did that to themselves.
Gently lowering the arm, as if wishing to spare the dead girl any more pain, Andrew Mackintosh continued with his clinical observations. His voice was calm, professional, and both officers found themselves hanging onto his every word. “The injuries are truly horrific. I’ve seldom seen worse. Look at her neck. The wound appears to have been caused by a single, powerful, cut. The incision goes clean through to the vertebrae and has severed the carotid. There are bruise marks around the jaw area. One assumes these were caused by finger pressure, where the killer held his victim during the act of slitting her throat.” He pantomimed the action for them. “Whoever did this is either very strong or very mad.” His eyes locked with Speed’s.
“Maybe both,” Speed suggested.
Mackintosh nodded slowly. “Aye, maybe,” he agreed.
“I take it that’s the cause of death, doctor?” Murray asked, making rapid notes in his blue day book. There were other injuries on the body, but he figured they were all inflicted post-mortem.
“Not for me to speculate,” Mackintosh said firmly.
“What about the other injuries, Mack?” Speed asked, thinking this was all so surreal, the gruesome tableau before him could easily have been a waxwork scene depicting Whitechapel circa 1888 lifted straight from The London Dungeons.
“They are interesting,” the doctor allowed. “The main abdominal wound appears to be a single incision that runs from just below the sternum at the top to the pubis at the bottom, although there are at least two additional transverse cuts. The cutting appears anything but random, and I can’t help wondering why the killer did this unless he wanted to access the organs inside.”
“M
y God,” Murray exclaimed, “Do you think this girl was killed so they could steal her organs to sell on the black market?” He’d read about cases where this had actually happened but didn’t know anyone who had ever dealt with one.
“Highly unlikely,” Mackintosh said. “I think anyone harvesting organs to sell would be much better organised. For starters, they would want to operate in a secure, sterile, location, not in the open like this.”
“I take it those are her intestines?” Speed asked, pointing at the loops of bowel protruding from her lower abdomen.
Mackintosh nodded sombrely. “They are, yes.”
“What’s the story with all the blood and gore coming out of her fanny?” Murray asked, oblivious to the look of disgust that appeared on the two older men’s faces. “I mean, it’s obviously not just a case of having the decorators in, is it?”
“Having the decorators in?” Mackintosh asked, and his voice was acid.
“You know, on blob. Having her period,” Murray explained.
“I would suggest that the haemorrhaging was caused by a large bladed instrument being rammed into her vagina with tremendous force,” Mackintosh said, slamming his fist into his open hand several times to demonstrate.
“Jesus,” Murray said, now regretting his earlier flippancy.
Mackintosh, who was still kneeling down beside the dead girl, stood up. After dusting his clothes down, he turned to face Speed. “I hope you catch the bloody swine that did this.” The outrage in his voice was evident.
“I know it’s asking a lot, but can you estimate a time of death for us?” Murray asked.
Mackintosh shook his head slowly. He adjusted his tortoiseshell glasses and sighed.
“Sorry laddie. They don’t provide us with crystal balls on the NHS. We’ve asked for them, but, apparently, the budget just won’t stretch.”
“Just your best guess,” Speed cajoled. “We won’t hold you to it if you’re wrong.”
Mackintosh pulled a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp. “You know, I’m not even supposed to be on-call until this afternoon,” he complained. “But Dr Sadler is indisposed this morning and he somehow conned me into swapping shifts with him.”
“I bet Dr Sadler would have been willing to give us a rough time of death,” Murray said, raising an eyebrow and staring pointedly at the cantankerous FME.
The Scotsman snorted derisively. “Trust me, laddie, Dr Sadler wouldn’t have given you the time of day.”
“Which is why we’re really glad we got you instead,” Ray Speed said quickly.
Mackintosh gave each of the officers a long, hard, stare. They were persistent, he’d give them that, but he couldn’t blame them for trying to do their job. Perhaps a guess wouldn’t hurt.
“Sometime between midnight and three o’clock at a guess, and that’s all it is, sorry.” He shrugged, waved farewell, and turned to leave.
A devout Christian, this was one aspect of his work that Andrew Mackintosh didn’t enjoy. Even after all the years he’d worked as a police Forensic Medical Examiner, he still felt shock and anger at the sight of such needless and brutal death, drained by the knowledge that his fellow man, made in God’s own image, could inflict such terrible evil upon his own kind.
What a world we live in, he thought. The sooner he retired from his London practice and got away from this dreadful carnage, the better it would be.
“Your boys are gonna have their hands full with this one, I don’t envy you,” Speed said, as he and Murray walked back towards the site entrance.
“Thankfully my team won’t be keeping this. The bosses are probably arguing over who gets it as we speak,” Murray said.
At that point they noticed young Grier escorting a middle-aged man of medium height and build towards them. Grier looked distinctly nervous. He was clearly uncomfortable in the older man’s presence.
The man, whose wavy fair hair was thinning on top, was a power dresser. His tailored grey suit, red braces, and gleaming Oxfords were very Gordon Gekko. Speed didn’t recognise the man but he certainly recognised the type. Even before being told, he knew that this man was top brass. Well, well, well, Ray thought. I guess bad news travels fast.
He noticed a subtle change in Murray’s demeanour as the senior officer approached. The detective had obviously recognised the newcomer. “Speak of the devil, that’s DCS Holland, the head honcho at AMIP,” he whispered to Speed. “What the fuck is he doing here?”
Speed was pretty sure he knew what Holland was doing here. A working girl had just been spectacularly butchered in Whitechapel, and the killer had left a gloating message for the police. Holland was here to make sure the organisation was fireproof before the media got wind of what had happened.
“Good morning sir,” he said, accepting the hand that was offered. “I’m Inspector Ray Speed, the early turn Duty Officer.” While speaking, Speed discretely nodded to Grier, letting him know that everything was okay, that he could go back outside.
“Inspector Speed, allow me to introduce myself. I’m Detective Chief Superintendent Holland from the Area Major Investigation Pool.” The man held up his warrant card for inspection before continuing. “I’ve asked for the In-Frame team to be notified and I expect them to arrive shortly. Until then, no one is to touch anything inside the scene.” Putting an arm around Speed, he steered him a few steps away from Murray. “Who on your team, apart from you, has seen the message on the Portakabin?” he asked.
“No one. The CSM and the crew of the HAT car didn’t want anyone near the body or the porta-cabin while the evidence recovery is ongoing.”
“Well, I’d like to see it for myself, if you don’t mind. I’ll clear it with the CSM first, of course.”
CHAPTER 5
Jack Tyler was cocooned in a deep sleep when his bedside telephone rang. The harsh noise distorted the fabric of his dream; spreading outward, like the ripples from a stone that’s been cast into the still waters of a pond. He instinctively rolled over and rammed his head under the pillow, but not in time to prevent the beautiful woman entwined in his arms, and the golden Caribbean beach on which they frolicked, from turning to dust and blowing away.
Ring-Ring.
Jack’s eyes flickered open, and he cursed the telephone for dragging him away before he had even stolen a kiss.
Ring-Ring.
Bollocks! Tyler angrily threw the pillow onto the floor and sat up. He looked at his watch through bleary, half open, eyes. What was the world coming to when you couldn’t even enjoy a dream in peace?
Christ! It was only seven o’clock! “This had better be good,” he growled, reaching unsteadily for the phone. “Hello?” he snapped, his abrupt tone reflecting his mood.
“Detective Chief Inspector Tyler?” a voice at the other end of the line inquired after a moment’s hesitation.
“Speaking.” Tyler immediately recognised the caller’s voice. It was Derek Peterson, George Holland’s Staff Officer at AMIP.
As he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, he experienced that familiar sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. In his line of business, things were generally bad when the office tried to contact you at home, and always worse when they succeeded.
“It’s DS Peterson, sir.” Peterson was a crusty old detective on the brink of retirement.
“What is it Derek?” he asked without enthusiasm.
Peterson briefed Tyler on the day’s gruesome discovery and explained that AMIP was taking on the investigation with immediate effect.
“What’s that got to do with me, Derek?” Tyler pointed out irritably. “My team’s not in the frame, DCI Quinlan’s is.”
“Sorry sir, Mr Quinlan’s team picked up a job in Hackney a few hours ago – two winos fell out over a can of Tennent’s Super, so one killed the other and tried to hide his body in a wheelie bin. Luckily, the old biddy that lived opposite saw the whole thing and called it in. Locals got there just as chummy was trying to force the bid lid down on his dead mate’s head. As your lot are second in t
he frame Mr Holland said to call you.” Sensing Tyler’s displeasure at not having been informed the moment his team moved into the frame, Peterson hurriedly explained that he hadn’t put Jack on notice sooner because the chances of anything else happening overnight were so slim. “I was going to call you bang on seven,” he assured Tyler.