Touch (DI Charlotte Savage)

by Mark Sennen

  ‘Colin and Jessica Abbott are their names,’ Garrett said, turning a page in his notebook, ‘and I am still waiting for the results. Using one of our own testing kits we got a negative, but we will have to wait for the full analysis to come back.’

  ‘So we think the drink contained what?’

  ‘Sugar. Mr Abbott said he poured a sachet into the drink. When his wife returned from the toilet she tasted the drink had been spiked with something and role-played as if she had been drugged.’

  Hardin bit his top lip and grabbed one of his liquorice sticks.

  ‘And they maintained the whole thing was a mock kidnapping scenario, a game?’

  ‘Consensual, yes. If we hadn’t intervened they would have woken up Sunday morning with the papers as usual.’

  Hardin ruffled his notes, scanned his monitor screen for inspiration and shook his head. No wonder, Savage thought, he would be having a hard time understanding this one. Especially since the couple hadn’t been charged.

  ‘Resisting arrest and trying to run Charlotte down?’ Hardin said, turning to Savage and sounding hopeful.

  ‘He thought Mike and I were carjackers,’ she answered. ‘That’s what the solicitor is going with. Mr Abbott wasn’t even over the limit. To be honest we will be lucky to get away with just a car repair bill.’

  ‘Bugger.’

  Hardin made a hissing noise between clenched teeth, the big man diminishing in front of her eyes like a balloon with a leak, before perking for a second.

  ‘Never mind. Let’s hope the VODS data gets us somewhere.’

  Hardin paused and any remaining signs of the euphoric mood from earlier slid away as he read the agenda on his screen.

  ‘Now to something as pressing, if not more so. Alice Nash and Zebo. We located Forester, but he is dead so there is no chance he is our man. That would have made things easier all round, hey Charlotte?’

  ‘Not really, sir,’ Savage said. ‘I mean, Forester was killed by someone. He didn’t volunteer to go for a jaunt on the moor. Whichever way you view it a brutal murderer is on the loose.’

  ‘Ah, yes, I suppose you are right.’ Hardin hissed again. ‘Where are we at then? Any news on the girl?’

  ‘Last week she was seen getting into Forester’s 4x4, but Forester has been dead for weeks so we are mystified as to who was driving. You probably watched the appeal her father made on TV over the weekend. So far that has produced nothing but crank calls. No reliable sightings of her or the Shogun.’

  ‘She is only sixteen?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the forensics from over at Malstead put Forester’s car at the scene?’

  ‘I am afraid so. Tyre tracks and paint match. Whoever dumped Kelly’s body in the field picked up Alice a day later. Nesbit has a theory and if it is correct then things don’t look too good for Alice.’

  ‘Theory?’

  ‘He reckons Kelly was kept alive for anything up to fourteen days before she was killed. So far Alice has been missing for seven days.’

  ‘Jesus. This really can’t get any worse.’ Hardin pinched his top lip between his thumb and forefinger and made a sucking sound as he let it smack back against his teeth.

  ‘Let’s hope not, sir.’

  ‘What about Forester? You attended the PM this morning?’

  ‘Yes. The PM suggests Forester was run down and then beaten. There was little other forensic evidence and Nesbit isn’t hopeful of getting anything from the lab reports because the body had been out on the moor for some time and the foxes and rats have got at it.’

  ‘Lovely!’ Davies let out a little snort and grinned. ‘Wonder what the press will make of that when they find out?’

  ‘Quite,’ Hardin sighed. ‘If we hadn’t put out the appeal then they wouldn’t be able to make a connection between the Donal girl and Forester. They may have assumed his murder was some type of lowlife punishment killing.’

  ‘Still possible it is, sir.’ Garrett said. ‘The actual murders may not be linked at all. We’ve been picking up intelligence in recent months about some Bristol lads planning to make a move down here. They think the city is easy pickings; bit of a pushover is the word on the street.’

  ‘What, us?’ Hardin’s face creased, thinking about the headlines again no doubt.

  ‘No, sir,’ Garrett laughed. ‘The No Prospect lot. A complete bunch of smackheads. We can’t even produce any decent crimos round here.’

  ‘You could be right.’ Hardin looked hopeful for a moment. ‘Let’s keep our fingers crossed Doctor Nesbit can get some meaningful toxicology to give us something else to go on.’

  It seemed to Savage that Hardin wanted to cling to anything that would steer them back to charted waters. He wanted something he understood, something he could deal with by piling in resources. A lone nutter was unfathomable and even a gang selling heroin to twelve year olds was better.

  ‘We wondered whether Forester was mixed up in a porn or prostitution ring,’ Savage started to explain. ‘We’ve despatched his computer to hi-tech crimes and are awaiting results, but for now we know both he and Kelly were into glamour photography and he had managed to persuade her to do some hardcore videos. He’s done that before with other girls so what the difference is with Kelly we don’t know.’

  ‘Did the shoot go wrong somehow?’ Garrett said. ‘Could she have been killed by accident? Or deliberately, some sort of snuff film?’

  ‘I don’t buy the snuff angle, ‘Savage said,’ but an accident is possible. However, whatever the reason for Kelly’s death Forester couldn’t have dumped her body. He’s been dead for weeks. A couple of my people are working up something around Mr Donal. Perhaps he killed Forester in revenge for Forester killing Kelly. How the theory fits in with Malstead Down, Kelly’s body being frozen and the picture that resembled Rosina Olivárez though...’

  Hardin shook his head and made a final hiss, all the air gone out of him now. He didn’t move for a minute or so and Savage and the others sat waiting. Then he opened a drawer and fumbled in his desk for a moment. Savage half-expected him to pull out a bottle and offer it around. Instead he brought out a newspaper.

  ‘I am aware you guys laugh about my obsession with the media, but in this case it is no joke. Did anyone see this morning’s Sun?’

  Hardin held up the paper in front of them. The headline wasn’t one of the clever ones, it was just three words, but they took up the whole of the front page and the effect was chilling. The words had been superimposed over an outline map of Devon and Cornwall and said: ‘West country ripper?’

  Chapter 21

  Crownhill Police Station, Plymouth. Monday 1st November. 2.05 pm

  Hardin had said thank God for the question mark, and when Savage returned to the incident room and told Riley, Calter and Enders they burst out laughing.

  ‘What does he think they are questioning,’ Riley said, ‘the fact it is in the West Country or the fact there is a ripper?’

  ‘He’s going to doctor the page using Photoshop,’ Calter chipped in. ‘He’ll put a “T” in front of “Ripper” and tell the CC we might be expecting a good tourist season next year.’

  That had them in stitches, apart from Enders who scrunched up his face in bemusement.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Keep taking the pills, Patrick,’ Calter said.

  The banter was still going on five minutes later when a couriered package arrived for Calter.

  ‘The dump from Forester’s hard drive, ma’am.’ Calter opened the package and read the accompanying letter. ‘Seems hi-tech had an easy job. Forester didn’t take any special measures like encrypting his files or anything. They’ve written all the stuff to DVD, documents, emails, images and a bunch of movies. We’ve got a load of disks here, must be a couple of hundred gigabytes of material in total.’

  ‘Sounds like an interesting afternoon ahead of us,’ Enders said.

  Calter turned up her nose. ‘If you enjoy filth.’

  ‘Depends if you are the mai
n feature, babe.’ Enders put on a camp American voice and held his hands up, making a rectangle shape with his fingers and thumbs and peering through, like a film director working up shot angles.

  ‘Now, now folks,’ Savage said, ‘let’s get started on this then. And I don’t want to come over all politically correct, but remember we are dealing with rape and murder here so save the banter for the piss up we are going to have after we have caught this guy, OK?’

  Savage grabbed every spare body and managed to get eight of them working on the material, two to a monitor. Text began to scroll across screens and images flashed by, movies played in little windows and the sound of sex filled the room. At first everyone concentrated, focussing on the task with an intensity Savage admired, but as the hours dragged, chairs tipped back and feet went up on desks. This much porn was just plain boring.

  DC Carl Denton made the breakthrough. Denton had popped along from the Leash incident room and became ensconced at one of the screens with Calter and Enders. They had found a set of videos showing some very graphic imagery with girls blindfolded and tied to a bed in what appeared to be a mock rape scenario.

  ‘Fuck.’ Denton exclaimed.

  ‘I think the language you should be using in your report is sexual intercourse,’ Enders said, causing Savage to cast him a warning glance.

  ‘No, I mean she’s one of them. I am sure she is.’

  ‘One of who?’

  ‘Wait a moment.’ Denton jumped up and dashed from the room.

  ‘Did I say something?’ Enders held out his arms, palms up.

  A few minutes later Denton returned, brandishing a piece of paper, a victim sheet with a little picture of a pretty girl stuck in the top right corner.

  ‘Georgina Wilkinson. It’s bloody well her!’

  Denton appeared stunned as well as pleased with himself, but nobody else seemed to know what the hell he was going on about.

  ‘Who the heck is Georgina Wilkinson?’ Enders said.

  Savage sussed it.

  ‘Carl is from operation Leash, work it out!’

  ‘Georgina Wilkinson is one of the Leash victims? Bloody hell!’ Enders understood now and soon everyone else in the room did too.

  Once the implications of the discovery sank in all hell broke loose. Some officers began crowding round the screen, others ran up and down the corridor and started to brag they had solved the Leash case. The atmosphere was one of fevered chaos and Savage tried to bring some order back to the situation. She dispatched Denton back to the Leash incident room to obtain pictures and info on all the girls involved. Then she called Garrett, telling him they now had hard evidence that the rapes the Leash team were investigating were in some way connected with the murder of Kelly Donal. The next thing was to get everyone back at their screens and concentrate the team’s effort on looking at video files only, searching out those that depicted rape scenes. Finally, she decided Hardin needed to hear the good news.

  By mid-afternoon they had reviewed seventy of Forester’s video files. Sixty four of those were sex scenes which, although graphic, did not seem to involve any coercion. The remaining six files involved rape and it didn’t appear to be simulated. In four of those they were able to identify victims already known to the Leash team.

  Hardin came down to the incident room to congratulate the troops on their work and he was gushing in his praise.

  ‘Christmas has come early this year. First the success on Saturday night and now this. It’s good policing. Bloody good. Well done everybody.’

  ‘There’s more, sir,’ Savage said. ‘I saved the best until last.’

  She motioned for Hardin to take a seat next to Enders and called for quiet.

  ‘Patrick?’

  ‘Right, ma’am.’ With a couple of clicks of the mouse Enders had cued up a movie. ‘This isn’t pleasant, sir, but don’t watch if you would rather not. Just listen to the audio track.’

  The video started to play and Hardin flinched at the sight of a girl tied in the centre of a double bed. A black sash cut across her face covering her eyes and as she struggled her image was reflected in full-length mirrored wardrobes on one side of the room. A couple of masked figures passed in front of the camera, both men, both naked. One of the men moved to kneel on the bed near the girl’s head and said something to the girl, but the words were muffled and indistinct, however the look on her face changed and she fought against the ropes again. Then a strange rumbling came from the speakers followed by a sound like the wind on a stormy night and Enders paused the video, the naked images frozen in time.

  Hardin crinkled his brow and puffed out his cheeks, mystified.

  ‘I couldn’t hear what he said to her.’

  ‘No, sir,’ Savage said, ‘neither could we. But that doesn’t matter, we are not interested in their speech.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘The date stamp, sir. Note the date stamp on the bottom right of the screen.’

  ‘Twenty-fifth September, 4.27 PM.’

  ‘Yes, the girl is Mandy Stilson. If you remember she was the odd one out because she was picked up on a Sunday lunch time.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Charlotte, you have completely lost me,’ Hardin said, shaking his head and smiling. ‘Too many years away from the sharp end I expect.’

  ‘It’s the noise at the end we are interested in. Play the segment again please, Patrick.’

  Enders clicked the mouse and played the last few seconds of the clip again. Hardin’s expression changed from one of puzzlement to a look of revelation.

  ‘A train!’

  ‘Yes, but not just any train. We are guessing it is the Sunday 4.16 departure from Plymouth to London Paddington. The house must be close to the railway.’

  ‘I don’t understand how you know which train it is, and even if you did there must be hundreds, if not thousands, of houses backing on to the line.’

  ‘You are right, sir. But we took a list of all train departures on the date from all stations within a twenty-five mile radius. We then worked out roughly where each train would be at 4.27 – the time on the date stamp. Also, according to several of the victims, we are looking for a large, luxury house with a gravel driveway.’

  ‘I don’t see how that helps us. There still must be hundreds of houses, we need something to narrow...’ Hardin paused and then looked astonished. ‘Bloody hell, the VODS data! You haven’t?’

  ‘We have, sir,’ Savage said, smiling. ‘I realised we could use the VODS data for the car spotted by the specials cross referenced over the geographical areas we came up with for the train times. The database gives us only two results. One of them is a terraced cottage on the outskirts of Saltash. We don’t think the property fits because two of the victims talked of a big house and garden. The other location is number nine Moor Vale, a large house on a select development surrounded by woodland and situated just outside Plympton. The development backs onto the main railway line.’

  *

  It was late Monday afternoon when three squad cars full of bodies raced across town to Moor Vale, screaming their way through the rush hour traffic. Savage sat in the rear of a vehicle, merely along for the ride as this was to be Garrett and Davies’s shout. That suited Savage fine. She’d already got her fair share of kudos for using the VODS data to find the address of the owner of the BMW, one Mr Richard Trent, a lecturer at the University of Plymouth.

  Off the A38, skirting the eastern end of Plympton and onto an industrial estate. It seemed like they had taken a wrong turn as they drove between the bleak monoliths, but soon they were leaving the estate and on a country road which dived down the side of a wooded hillside. Their sirens sent a startled dog walker leaping for the verge and then the trees ended and they entered a parkland setting with perhaps a dozen large houses scattered around. Big gardens, double garages, the glimpse of a swimming pool behind one of the properties. The epitome of middle class desire.

  Moor Vale was a misnomer. Woods and a hill blocked any glimpse of Dartmo
or proper, which lay several miles away. Like the rest of the development number nine appeared to be only a few years old and was all glass, steel, wood and concrete; what one would call ‘architect designed’ as if normal houses came off a production line, which perhaps they did. The style did nothing for Savage but the place looked nice enough. A powder blue BMW was parked in front of the garage.

  The cars halted at the brick driveway, one taking up a position to block the road. Davies and DC Denton jumped from their car and walked to the front door. Garrett and two officers from one of the other cars skirted round the back of the property. Savage and the others got out and stood waiting by the cars.

  A pheasant called out a warning from somewhere in the woodland and then silence for a moment before Davies rapped on the door, the sound echoing around the estate.

  There was a pause and Savage was aware of her heart beating fast. The door opened and a woman stood in the porch. She was short with dark hair. Her features were plain and her face was etched with a sadness and a faraway expression.

  Motion. Davies pulling the woman out of the way so that she stumbled and fell down the step and then he was dashing into the house with Denton following.

  ‘Go! Go! Go!’ A crashing sound came from the rear of the property as the backdoor was smashed in. Savage and the other officers ran from the cars to the front door and into the house.

  Large entrance hall, wide stairs twisting upwards to a sort of galleried landing where Davies stood shouting.

  ‘Bastard’s in the bathroom trying to top himself!’

  There was another crash and a scuffle and a shout.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Davies disappeared from view and Savage directed two of the officers up the stairs.

  ‘Man down! Man down!’ Davies shouting again, hysterical this time.

  Savage followed the officers up the stairs. A man lay in one corner of the landing, trying to protect himself by wrapping his arms around his head. Davies was kicking the shit out of him.

  ‘You fucking wanker. I’m going to throw you over the banisters when I have finished and no one here is going to say you didn’t jump.’