Without Conscience

by Michael Kerr

  “I’ll come in my greens, masked, wearing my wellies and gloves and wielding a scalpel.”

  “Better than a strippogram...unless―”

  “Stop, Barnaby. Don’t even go there.”

  “Too late, Jane. I just imagined you slicing and dicing a roast, swinging your hips to some raunchy Tina Turner number, and wearing a black lacy bra, matching panties and fishnet stockings.”

  “In a changing world, you’re a constant,” Jane said. “You make Dirty Harry look positively clean.”

  Barney laughed aloud. “I’ll take that as a compliment. What happened to the decedent?” The preamble of small talk was over.

  “It’s the same M.O. as the last one.”

  Barney studied the pale, blood-spattered corpse. The young woman’s emerald eyes were staring, as though she could see through the canvas roof, up to some distant point far above it. Her mouth was drawn back in a frozen grimace of terror and pain; an indelible moment sculpted on to her alabaster-white face. Looking down from her head in a slow sweep, Barney saw that the girl’s sweat top had been pulled up to her neck, revealing small breasts – their nipples taped over, presumably to prevent the friction of movement against material causing soreness. Why not wear a bra? – and a gaping rent below her sternum that was awash with blood.

  “He took her heart,” Jane said in little more than a whisper.

  Barney nodded and continued his visual inspection. The pants were down to the corpse’s ankles, knees apart. A length of branch protruded from between her legs: Excalibur in the stone.

  “The sick bastard,” Barney said, his voice thick with anger and disgust. “Anything else?”

  “No. What you see is what you get,” Jane said, hiking her shoulders. “She’s been in the lake. Probably attempted to get away. He then impaled her with the branch, strangled her, and hacked her heart out. She hasn’t been dead for too long. Anything else will show up when I do the cut.”

  A little later the corpse was tagged and bagged and taken to the mortuary in Holborn, where Jane was based.

  “Are you thinking what I am, boss?” Mike said after they had pushed through the gathering crowd of media vultures, who could smell blood and death with more acuity than any carrion eater on an African plain.

  “Yes. But I wish I wasn’t,” Barney said as they drove out of the park and became a small segment of the steel serpent that was traffic moving in slow motion. “We have two murders that may or may not have been committed by the same maniac. And we need to explore all possible avenues before jumping to the conclusion that a serial killer has started up.”

  “The tabloids will have a field day,” Mike observed, giving a cab driver the finger and hitting the horn as he was cut up. “As soon as they know how this one died, they’ll write it up as ‘The Ripper of Regent’s Park strikes again’, or something along those lines.”

  Barney lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. “That’s Detective Superintendent Hotshot Pearce’s problem, not ours,” he said, exhaling the blue smoke onto the dash and inside of the windscreen. “He loves to head up press conferences, and he’s pretty good at deflecting the shit that the media throws at us. He knows the MIM chapter and verse.” The Murder Investigation Manual covered all aspects and procedures of strategy regarding murder cases, including a section on how to ‘work’ the Fourth Estate.

  “He’s a royal pain in the arse?” Mike said, screwing his face in lemon-sucking fashion.

  “No sweat,” Barney said. “He doesn’t like to get his hands dirty. It’s down to me, you and the squad to collar this nutter. Pearce’ll take any kudos going, and we’ll take all the flak, as per usual.”

  “We’ve still got zilch on the first one.”

  “I know,” Barney said. “I know.”

  The following morning at ten-thirty a.m., an orderly ushered them into the white-tiled autopsy suite in which Jane Beatty had just finished up with the green-skinned cadaver of a middle-aged woman, who had been strangled to death by her husband and left to rot under the matrimonial bed of their Deptford maisonette. The guy had taken off with his teenage mistress for a two-week holiday in Tenerife. The late woman’s sister had become suspicious after repeatedly phoning and calling at the house. After several days of not being able to contact her sister, she broke a window to gain entry. The smell had led her to the bedroom, as surely as the Bisto Kids were drawn along the curling vapours of a gravy trail. The corpse was on its back, stuck to the floorboards, and maggots had been free ranging, feasting undisturbed on the overripe flesh.

  Mike looked away from the abomination, which had its face peeled back to disclose the plum-coloured bruises that her husband’s fingers and thumbs had left on the throat tissue, as silent witness to his act.

  “Over here,” Jane said, beckoning them across to a gurney at the end of the room, on which the covered corpse of the young woman found in Regent’s Park reposed. Jane pulled the sheet back to partly reveal the naked body. The ‘Y’ cut and unrelated chest wound had been roughly stitched, and the aluminium table on which the PM had been performed would shortly be hosed down by an assistant, for the runoff pans below it to be awash with a melange of blood and other noxious body fluids.

  “You’re late,” Jane continued. “I got through with her five minutes ago.”

  Barney hiked his rounded shoulders. “Have you got anything new for us?”

  “Not much more than you already know,” Jane said, holding up the bloody sharpened stake that she had removed from the body. “This was rammed up into her stomach ante mortem, and would have caused death by massive internal haemorrhaging, had she been left to die. The removal of the heart was clumsy but effective. It had been cut partially free and manually ripped out in a hurry. I think that a knife with approximately a six-inch serrated blade was used. Liver temp’ taken at the scene and back here, plus the lack of any significant lividity, indicate that she had only been dead for a short period of time when I got to her.”

  “Had she been raped?” Barney said.

  “No evidence of vaginal, rectal or oral penetration, other than the branch. And no traces of semen. Toxicology might find something, but I doubt it. I don’t think she was drugged. This seems to have been a frenzied attack, with the sole purpose of inserting the stake, strangling her, and removing the heart. I’ll get the paperwork to you ASAP.”

  “Is that it, Jane?”

  “I’m afraid so, Barnaby. She had a little water in her lungs. I would guess she fell, or maybe threw herself into the lake in a bid to escape. She was impaled on the bank next to the water and then asphyxiated before he did the wet work. Do you have an ID on her?”

  “Yeah. Her mobile phone was found at the scene. We’ve confirmed that she was Karen Perry, a twenty-three-year-old. She was single and lived nearby. Running in the park before dawn was something that she’d been doing most mornings for several years.”

  “I hope that you find whoever did this before he does it again,” Jane said, letting her eyes play on the young woman’s face, that until so recently had been animated and vital, and was now just cold and set, bereft of life. “It’s the same psycho that killed the last one.”

  “Is that definite?” Barney said.

  “Yes. No doubt. He’s also right-handed; the knife cuts tell me that. And I think that tests will show that he used the same knife on both of his victims.”

  “Thanks, Jane, it all helps,” Barney said, smiling weakly and heading for the door, where Mike was already standing, waiting, fighting with the waves of nausea that the smell of disinfectant and underlying corruption always conspired to make him suffer.

  Back on the street, Mike put his hands on his knees and took deep breaths, trying to push the mostly imagined stink of death from his nose and lungs.

  The tabloids had not been slow in picking up on the similarity of the two murders.

  Headlines included: VLAD THE IMPALER-STYLE GHOUL STRIKES AGAIN IN HEART OF CITY. And: BUFFY THE VAMPIRE KILLER MANIAC IS LOOSE IN CAPITAL.
r />   “I want you to work with Dr Mark Ross,” Clive Pearce said, marching into Barney’s office without knocking.

  “Who the fuck is he?” Barney said, not bothering to stand up.

  Mike picked up the nearest file on his desk and decamped, knowing that his boss and the Detective Superintendent were like oil and water at the best of times.

  “He,” Clive said, “is amongst other things a psychologist, lecturer, and probably the foremost criminal profiler in the UK at this present time. His expert assistance might just help us close this case before any other young women get mutilated and murdered.”

  Barney stared at the balding little man, whom he had known and disliked since they had both pounded the beat as rookie coppers almost thirty years ago.

  Clive tried a smile. “C’mon, Barney, lighten up. This guy is the real deal. He used to be with the FBI. He has a gift for tracking down serial killers.”

  “If he’s that good, why did he leave the bureau?”

  “He never said why he’d walked. He married an English girl and ended up living this side of the pond. I think she had a lot to do with him quitting, but I don’t know for sure. He now works at a maximum-security hospital for the criminally insane, down in Kent somewhere.”

  “We have home-grown psychologists that consult on this kind of case. Why bring a Yank on board?”

  “Because Ross has been instrumental in putting away more serial killers than you or I have had hot dinners. He didn’t learn his trade from reading books on human behaviour, swatting for degrees, or by just talking to patients, like most of the British consultants have. The guy has a gift that can’t be taught. This sort of crime is rife over there. It’s all part of the great American Dream that turned into a fucking nightmare. And this isn’t a request, Barney. If Dr Ross agrees to help us with this, then I expect you to accord him all due professional courtesy and work with him. Okay?”

  “Okay, Clive,” Barney sighed, reining in his irritability, which manifested itself in him vigorously twisting his wedding band with his right index finger and thumb. “It might be interesting to see what he can do with what little we’ve got.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “You got hazelnuts?” Mark asked the deli owner, whose turban sported an assortment of badges and pins, mainly of Warner Brothers and Disney cartoon characters.

  “I have walnuts, almonds, Brazil, coconuts, peanuts...in or out of shell. I have―”

  “Whoa, Asif, just hold it right there a second. I said hazelnuts. I don’t give a shit about pistachios, betel nuts, beechnuts, or any other goddamn nuts. Have you got hazelnuts?”

  “Alas no, Dr Ross, that is the only nut that I am sorry to admit I have no stock of at the present time.”

  “Can you order some in?”

  “Yes, indeed,” Asif beamed. “I will consider it a priority and contact my wholesaler directly.”

  “Fine. Just give me some of your honey-roasted ham. I’ll call back for the nuts in a couple of days.”

  Mark drove back to the flat with the wrapped, sliced ham secure in the folded thick wedge of Sunday newspapers that were lying on the passenger seat next to him. He parked up, walked across to the rear entrance and pressed the bell. Amy buzzed him in, and he took the stairs up to the third floor. The lift worked, but he opted for the exercise, intent on keeping as many muscles in his six-one frame as supple as possible, to maintain a certain level of fitness.

  “Did you get the hazel nuts?” Amy said as he entered the kitchen, before going to him, interlocking her hands around his neck and kissing him on the lips.

  He put his arms around her slim waist, let his hands drop to her buttocks, and enjoyed both the taste of her mouth and the feel of her shapely butt.

  “No,” he said when she broke away. “Asif tells me that most of Europe is in the throes of a Balkan hazel weevil infestation. It started in Turkey last year and has decimated eighty percent of all commercial growers. The tree rats will just have to dig up a few of the thousands that they’ve buried and forgotten about.”

  “They are not tree rats, they’re gorgeous,” Amy said, sticking her bottom lip out in a feigned pout.

  Mark nodded. “You’re right, they are gorgeous. They’re like me, natives of the good old US of A.”

  Amy smiled. “I like them despite that. And I’ve never heard of Balkan hazel weevils.”

  Mark shrugged. “I’d never heard of Dutch elm disease, AIDS, SARS or Coronavirus until they caused so much havoc. Had you?”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “How about coffee on the balcony, while we browse through these?” Mark said, removing the ham from the newspapers and putting it in the fridge. “It’s mild outdoors with the sun out.”

  “Fine. The java’s ready. You pour while I go get my robe. I’m not hardy enough to sit out there like this.”

  “Shame,” Mark smirked, admiring her figure, which was only covered by a thigh-length Buzz Lightyear nightshirt that proclaimed ‘To infinity and beyond’ across where her breasts punched the material out above the Toy Story character’s visor-clad head.

  “It’s not that warm,” Amy said, stepping out onto the small balcony to sit on a chair that Mark had dried the morning dew from with a wad of paper kitchen towel.

  “I thought you Brits were hardy types, used to bad weather?” he said, wanting to go and put a sweater on, but not prepared to lose face.

  “Not all of us,” she said, shivering slightly and idly flicking through the pages of the morning’s lie sheets. She felt her stomach clench as the craving for a cigarette did battle with her willpower. She was cutting back, with a view to quitting the habit, and was at her weakest in the morning. Her body demanded a fix to accompany that first cup of caffeine-rich Colombian blend filtered coffee. Damn it. She went in for her cigarettes and came back out feeling like a wimp, but lit up anyway.

  They both read about the current investigation into the Regent’s Park murders, dismayed at the tacky headlines that labelled the killer a stake-wielding monster; a night prowler who ripped the beating hearts from his luckless female victims’ chests, probably to eat the organs raw and further feed his foul bloodlust.

  They refrained from discussing the crimes. They both knew now, after this second slaying, that a pattern murderer was at work, and that the body count would rise until he was stopped. Mark had numerous physical and mental scars, which were vivid reminders of his confrontations with such brain-damaged individuals. He fought the inclination to go down that road again. It was chilling enough to read about violent death, without being personally caught up in the sordid machinations of murder.

  “So, what’s today’s plan?” Mark said, folding his paper and tossing it on to the top of the small cast-iron table, sick of the doom, gloom and mass of puerile content that was deemed news.

  “I thought we might go for a walk,” Amy said, getting up from the chair and then hesitating to look down and watch a squirrel run from the trees that bordered three sides of the eight-flat complex, to cross the large lawn, climb up onto the bird table and search in vain for hazelnuts, before hanging upside down on the bird feeder and making do with peanuts.

  “Where to?” Mark said.

  “Around the lake. Then we could go for a pub lunch.”

  “Sounds fine. Are you staying over tonight?”

  Amy gave him a ‘we’ll see’ kind of shrug of the shoulders, picked up the empty mugs and padded back into the kitchen, her rubber-soled slippers squeaking on the new parquet flooring that they had laid themselves as a shared project just the weekend before.

  Mark brought in the papers. Set them down on the coffee table in the lounge, and his eye caught the name of the cop heading up the park murders’ investigation. He knew the guy, and had once helped him in an advisory capacity, and had made it clear that it was a never to be repeated exercise, and that in future the cop should use another consultant. Now, sitting on the edge of the settee, he quickly read the small print. His old instincts and considerable
experience in the area of these types of crimes was still simmering on a back burner in his mind, and it was almost impossible to completely ignore what had been his field of expertise for such a meaningful part of his life. It was obvious that the unknown subject had an agenda. They always did. As so many of his kind, the killer was on a mission. Mark was sure that the two young women had not been taken just because they were alone and isolated. They fitted the killer’s requirements, conforming precisely to predetermined parameters. The method of dispatching them also had an as yet hidden significance, which no doubt made sense to the mind of a lunatic. That the press had so many details of the M.O. was disturbing.

  “Why are you reading that stuff?” Amy said, appearing behind him and looking over his shoulder.

  “It still interests me, honey. I can’t pretend that it doesn’t. I loathe that dark world, but a side of me is still drawn to it.”

  “I know what you mean,” Amy said. “I’ve been keeping up with the case, even though it scares the hell out of me.”

  “At least we’re not involved. We can be voyeurs and play at being armchair sleuths. Treat it the same as though we were watching a TV movie, or reading a whodunit.”

  “Yes. It’s terrible, but not our problem,” she said. “I’ll go get ready, and we can take that walk.”

  Amy took a quick shower, almost unconsciously checked her breasts for lumps, and then let her finger trace the dimpled scar tissue that was a permanent reminder that she would never have children. She had been a detective constable, working undercover vice, talking to local prostitutes and trying to connect with a pimp who was getting too big, too violent, and was into everything from child pornography to bent saunas. The guy was a Rasta; all dreadlocks and gold-capped teeth. His sobriquet was Shadow, due to his being as elusive as one. All went well until an ex-con recognised her. Word got back to Roland De Silva, (The Shadow), and shortly after, on being invited to a meet with him on the pretext of joining his string of girls, she was shot down in an alley. De Silva had just spat in her face, drawn a pistol and fired. Being wired assured an immediate response from other team members, who had been less than fifty yards away in an unmarked van.