Biting into dry toast the image of the woman she had seen down in the Underground subway sprang inside her head. She dearly wanted it to be Rose and she dearly wanted to see her after all this time.
But before that there was other work to do. A serial killer was still out there.
Forty-one
Pulling up her face mask Scarlett entered number forty-four with Tarn following. They had been given the task that morning of liaising with the crime scene manager, retrieving any exhibits of note and bringing back to the evening briefing the status of the forensic examination. Other members of Scarlett’s team were doing house-to-house along the street, while DS Gary Ashdown’s team had gone back to the Patmore Estate over in Battersea.
Scarlett stopped in the hallway and listened. She could hear shuffling noises and voices in the rooms above. She pulled her face mask away from her mouth and called out the crime scene manager’s name. Within seconds there was a call back from the next floor. She peered up the stairway and saw Mason Gregory peering over the banister.
He called down, “And to what do we owe this pleasure?”
“Hi Mason, just come to see how you’re getting on,” Scarlett replied.
“We’ve done the cellar and ground floor and we’ve almost finished this floor. We should have the whole house done by today.”
“Found anything of note?”
With a smile he said, “Some interesting apparatus in the bedrooms up here, which you’re more than welcome to come and look at. It’s made me realise I’ve led a very sheltered life.”
“As if, Mason Gregory.”
He let out a laugh.
“Any more surprises?”
“No more bodies, if that’s what you mean. We’ve videoed and photographed the basement and done a thorough search. The evidence certainly confirms that more than one body has been cut up down there. We’ve swabbed the area and got samples, so DNA should give us an idea if more than three have been done down there.”
“And what about up there? The bathroom’s been used hasn’t it?”
“There’s certainly lots of blood spatter in the bath and on several rows of tiles above it, which looks to me as though there’s been a bit of a fight up here. An effort has been made to clean it up, but whoever’s done it has not made a very good job of it. The bathroom door’s been forced as well. If you ask me, one of our victims has taken refuge in there before being attacked, and if I were to lay my reputation on the line I’d say it was the man you found in the cellar yesterday. The bloodstains between some of the tiles look to be quite fresh.”
“Mind if we have a look round?”
“Be my guest.”
Scarlett replaced her face mask and made her way to the cellar. Pausing on the top step she recalled yesterday’s events. The coppery smell of blood had lessened. The strongest smell now assailing her nostrils was one of damp. She made her way to the bottom. Tarn was only a couple of steps behind. As before, a single light bulb lit the way. Staying away from the lime-washed walls she negotiated the thin corridor, carefully skirting past the stone and brick slab. As she passed she saw atop the slab a yellow plastic pyramid marker placed next to a dark stain and she noted that the tools she had seen on it yesterday were no longer there. They would be in a sealed exhibit bag in the back of one of the forensic vans.
At the end of the corridor Scarlett and Tarn stepped through the doorway into the main cellar chamber, where they halted and took in the surroundings. Four tripod lights had been strategically placed, one in each corner of the room, but currently they were not ablaze. Dotted around the floor were more yellow forensic markers and in the dim glow Scarlett made out more dark stains covering the brickwork. The image of the dismembered man flashed back inside her head, but the vision was weak and only fleeting. It disappeared in seconds.
Scarlett nudged Tarn. “Come on, I’ve seen what I need to see down here. Forensics have sorted it. Let’s have a look upstairs.”
The front reception room was gloomy; heavy maroon drapes were drawn across a large bay window. And it smelt fusty. Some of that smell was stale cigarette smoke. Two large sunken tan-leather settees and a wide armchair dominated the room. An eighties-style pattern carpet in garish colours, well worn and heavily stained, covered the floor. In one corner, next to a faux gas fire in a black Victorian surround was a large-screen TV on a heavy black glass and metal stand. Scarlett noticed a number of porn DVDs scattered in front of the TV, and hanging on the walls around the room she took in gilt-framed prints of Asian males and females in erotic poses. There were no forensic markers in this room but the furnishings and smooth surfaces were covered in fine metallic powder where they had been dusted for fingerprints.
Returning back to the hall, Scarlett and Tarn took the stairs up to the first floor. They met Mason Gregory on the landing.
“We’re done here. Just got the floor above to do and that’s it. Feel free to have a nosy. Except for the bathroom, where we’ve found the blood, all we’ve got is loads of semen stains and dabs.”
Scarlett watched him take the stairs up to the second floor and then stepped into the nearest bedroom. What struck her first as she pushed open the door was the colour scheme – crimson-red walls with a black ceiling. She stopped in the doorway and ran her gaze around the room. A large mirror, fastened to the ceiling above a four-poster bed covered with red-and-black satin sheets. The top sheet was half off the bed, giving her a view of a heavily sex-stained bottom sheet. A shudder ran through her and she screwed up her face. On a velvet-padded wingchair next to the bed was a black leather full-head mask and a whip. Then she took in the leather restraints at each corner of the bed.
“Can have some fun here, hey?” said Tarn, leaning over her shoulder.
“Disgusting,” exclaimed Scarlett. “Just look at those sheets.”
“You can be so picky some times.”
Scarlett elbowed her partner and backed out of the room, pulling closed the door.
“Let’s have a look at the bathroom.”
In sharp contrast to the bedroom this room was bright and airy. It was fully tiled in white, with a black border running around halfway up the walls, and contained a relatively new white bathroom suite. On some of the tiles above the bath there were fluorescent yellow stickers, and staining from the Luminol spray which had been used to find the blood. It appeared as if a lot had been uncovered, given the number of marks and streaks she could see.
She was about to close the door when a shout came from above. It was Mason Gregory.
“I think you two need to come up and see this!”
Scarlett exchanged a brief glance with Tarn and then the pair trotted up the stairs.
Mason Gregory stood in the doorway of the bedroom at the front of the house. It was the room where Ella Bloom had found Scarlett’s phone and warrant card. In his hand he held out a burgundy-coloured booklet. He said, “We’ve just found this in a coat pocket in the wardrobe.”
Forty-two
Talk in the major incident briefing room died down as DCI Diane Harris strolled to the front of the room. There was a bounce in her step and she looked remarkably refreshed given that she had been working over twelve hours. She wore a dark-blue knee-length skirt and matching jacket with a white cotton blouse. Her hair had been pulled back into a ponytail, though a few strands at the front had worked themselves loose, dangling over her ears. She made an attempt at brushing them back as she faced her team.
On screen behind her appeared the front cover of a Lithuanian passport, together with the passport’s polycarbonated personal data page, which portrayed a tanned, curly-haired young man.
“Our escaped suspect,” she announced, flicking her head backwards. “Twenty-three-year-old Andrius Machuta, and as you can see from his passport, like all our victims, he’s from Lithuania. Finding this at the house has been our first bit of good luck in this enquiry and has moved things up significantly. We’ve already faxed this to Interpol, and although we have his passport we’ve
now put out an all-ports warning, should he try and get another one and attempt to leave the country. We’ve also circulated his details and his photograph. Once we put out his photo across the media the pressure will be on him.” Pausing and issuing a smile she continued, “Forensics finished with the house in Wandsworth today and I’m told there is an abundance of material to process, including blood and other trace evidence, as well as fibres and literary dozens of fingerprints, which is not surprising given what the house has been used for. Neighbours have confirmed it is a brothel. A number of complaints have apparently been made to the local council about it, and one neighbour has been keeping the car numbers of all visitors, so we have lots to be getting on with. Some of those actions will be prioritised. As to the owners of that house, however, I’m afraid we have drawn a blank. It was bought in cash eighteen months ago through a foreign company based in the Cayman Islands. That company has issued shares which are held in Dubai, so we’ve no means of finding out who is behind the company.” Her mouth tightened. “The people behind this are no amateurs, and until we get hold of our suspect we are stuck with not being able to find out who is behind this. What I have no doubts about is that what we have uncovered here is a prostitution ring involving illegal immigrants and that the people behind it are ruthless.” She let what she had said sink in. “The only other thing of any note is with regards to the black four-by-four. The policewoman at Putney who was dealing with a hit-and-run RTC involving a black Audi Q7 has e-mailed us with details of the incident.” She glanced at some notes she had made. “The accident happened around four-fifty p.m. on the evening of the day before our first victim, the headless body in the suitcase, was found. Apparently the black four-by-four ran into the back of a builder’s van in heavy traffic on the A316.” She raised her eyes and checked a few faces and added slowly, “The location is less than a mile from the house in Wandsworth.” She held their looks for a few seconds before continuing, “The van driver was already stopped in traffic so he jumped out to view the damage and speak with the driver. As he approached the Audi, he says the driver was having some sort of fight with a young girl. The driver was leaning over the back of his seat and had hold of the girl by her hair. He got the impression that she was trying to get away and he was punching her in the head.” Diane Harris glanced up from her notes. She still held everyone’s attention. She continued, “The van driver banged on the window and the Audi driver shouted back at him to ‘fuck off’. He shouted back that he was going to call for the police and at that the Audi driver started the car and drove away. The van driver had to jump out of the way or he’d have been run over. Although he didn’t get a good look at him he has given us a basic description of the Audi driver and he also got the registration number. He describes the driver as being white with a shaven head and overweight. The number checks out as belonging to a black Audi Q7, but the last registered keeper notified DVLA nine months ago that he had sold it. We’ve contacted that owner this afternoon and he’s told us that he sold the car for cash to a shaven-headed overweight man who he believed was foreign. We pushed on the foreign bit but all he was able to say is that he believed the man to be Eastern European. We’ve arranged to get e-fits done tomorrow with both these witnesses.” She broke off, eyeing the room, and folded her note. Then she said, “With regards the description of the girl, unfortunately the van driver hasn’t been able to give us much at all. Just about as basic as before. All we have is that he got the impression that the girl was an older teenager, probably eighteen or nineteen, and that she was white, slim build, with longish brown hair. He thought she was wearing a silver-coloured vest-type top. That’s it, I’m afraid.” She finished off her briefing with a round-robin of her team. Detectives fed back on their assignments but there was nothing of significance. She gave a quick clap and said, “Okay, that’s it for today. Tomorrow it’s the actions I’ve already mentioned, plus I want someone to liaise with ANPR and feed in the reg number of the Audi, see if we can get a hit and, fingers crossed, the image will be good enough to pick the driver. And we finish off house-to-house in Battersea and Wandsworth.” As the team rose from their seats Diane Harris pulled away the elastic from her ponytail and shook out her hair. Feeding the freed tresses through her fingers she eased back her neck. She could feel the tension between her shoulder blades. It had been another long day and she could feel the tiredness creeping up. She was ready for home.
Forty-three
Skender turned off the steaming shower, dragged his towel off the hook and smoothing a hand over his recently shaved scalp he swiped away clinging water droplets before vigorously towelling his upper body. Stepping out into the drying area he began slowly strolling towards the locker room. After a few yards, checking he was the only one in the changing room, he stopped at the full-length mirror and looked, flexing his pumped-up chest and arms. He always felt tight following a weights session and liked to check his pose before finally drying himself.
The muted sound of his ringtone coming from inside his locker interrupted him. He hoped it was the call he’d been waiting for. Quickly wrapping his towel around his waist and knotting it, he hurried to where he had dumped his sweaty gym clothes before jumping into the shower. Picking out his jogging bottoms, he removed his locker key from the pocket and unlocked the metal cabinet. His mobile was still ringing. He checked the listed caller before answering; it was who he had been expecting, though the name listed wasn’t his real name.
He answered, “I hope you’re going to give me good news?
He listened to the man on the other end. When he had finished he said steadily, “Good. You let me know the minute he’s found. You make sure I get the first call before you go and get him. Understand?”
The man spoke some more. Then Skender answered, “Listen, I don’t give a fuck. I need to get to him first. If he is caught he can do us a lot of damage, including you.” He let his last sentence hit home and then followed up with, “You give me that call. That’s what I pay you for – to sort out problems. So sort it out.” Then on a menacing note he added, “You’d better not let me down.”
He ended the call and stared at the mirror. His reflection had a hardened, granite look.
Forty-four
Alex leaned forward in the driving seat of his car and cleared the misted windscreen with the back of his gloved hand. He gazed out through the smudge he had made.
“How’s the investigation going? I see on the news you’ve named a chief suspect.”
Scarlett wiped her own side of the windscreen, clearing her view of Kensington Place, where they had parked up half an hour earlier. Keeping her eyes fixed on the road outside she replied, “We had to do that. We know nothing about this Andrius. He’s well and truly gone to ground since his escape. We have no idea who his friends or associates are and to be honest we’re also struggling to track down anyone connected with the house in Wandsworth. It’s as if everyone has disappeared into a big black hole.
“What about the owner?”
“That’s another problem. The place is registered to a company in the Cayman Islands. No way of tracking them down.”
“Sounds like a real tangled web.”
“The whole investigation is tangled. Three dead bodies! We still haven’t managed to identify the first victim. We believe she’s Lithuanian, only because the other two are and of course the suspect.”
“It’ll come good in the end. It always does. Just a bit of patience and a bit of luck.”
Scarlett sighed. “Hope so.”
“A bit like this job.”
Scarlett pulled her eyes away from the road. “I’m hoping we can end this tonight.” She held a sideways view of Alex. He had his gaze fixed beyond the windscreen. “We’ve chased around enough now. I’ve got my fingers crossed she’s here.”
The windscreen was starting to mist up again. He gave it another wipe. “That’s if it is Rose we’ve been following.”
“It is Rose, I’m telling you. I know it’s been over ten
years since I last saw her, but that look she gave me on the Underground. She recognised me and I recognised her.”
“Well, we’ll soon see won’t we?” He reached for the door handle, “Are you good to go then? If we stay here much longer, someone is going to clock us and report us. Or worse still, one of that lot susses us.” He motioned his head towards the block of maisonettes. “Then we will have blown it.”
“That’s the last thing I need.”
“To be honest, Scarlett, we have to do this tonight. My council contact tells me they’ve got a court order for this place. The bailiffs’ll be here either tomorrow or the day after to evict them.”
Scarlett lifted her bag out from the footwell, delved into it and pulled out the A5 colour photograph she had secreted there before leaving work yesterday. She sprang her door, triggering the interior light.
Alex snapped into action and deftly turned it off.
Scarlett screwed up her face and mouthed, “Sorry.”
He dipped his head at the photo. “Are you sure this is going to work?”
“It should give us a foot in the door.” She pushed the passenger door wider and swung out her legs. “Come on, partner. If anyone asks, you’re a detective.”
He sprang his own door. “Do I get a badge?”
****
Scarlett and Alex made their way up the stone stairwell as quietly as possible to the fourth floor, where they stepped out onto the balcony.
“It’s the third flat along,” said Alex, nodding the way ahead. “Look: you can see the flag hanging out of the window.”
Scarlett tiptoed ahead. Yards from the flat door, she saw clearly the black-and-white anarchist flag Alex had mentioned, hanging from the opened top light. She also picked up the sounds of a couple of guitars being strummed and several people singing, coming from inside the flat. She didn’t recognise the song. It sounded like some folk ballad. With a brief look Scarlett checked Alex was okay. He returned a nod and she banged loudly on the flat door.
Scream, You Die Page 17