Sleep Tight

by Caroline Mitchell

  ‘But nobody cared,’ Mary wailed, digging her fingers into Ruby’s forearm as they both stood. ‘It’s because she was a prossie, isn’t it? That’s why you’d rather sit on your arse instead of going out to look for my girl. This is all your fault.’

  Ruby thought of her colleagues who worked merciless hours, often completing full shifts without finding the time to eat. She thought of the endless paperwork, along with the pressure to gain detections, and the colleagues who risked their necks every time they walked the beat. She glanced around the flat littered with empty wine bottles and takeaway cartons; the air so stale you could cut it with a knife. She felt sympathy for Mary Mason just the same. Blaming the police was a knee-jerk reaction, and less painful than facing up to the fact she had let her daughter down.

  Ruby wished she could have told her that they had pulled out all the stops, but she knew that the report of Ellie Mason would have been filed along with all the other missing person notifications they had received that day. Most of the time, such girls turned up of their own accord. There was nothing to indicate that Ellie Mason would be any different. But now, as her body lay on the cold slab of the mortuary, Ruby wished there was something more she could have done. It always came down to the same thing. They had to prioritise their work by a matter of urgency because they didn’t have the manpower to deal with everything the same day.

  Ruby had read the newspaper headlines for Lisa Caldwell, the young university student with a promising future ahead. She wondered what story would be created, if any, for Ellie Mason.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ Danny Smedley said, looking panicked at the prospect of being questioned about Ellie Mason’s death. But Ruby knew better than to be lured in by his pleas of innocence. She breathed in the faint smell of cheap paint that hung in the inoffensive room: the result of some recent prison renovations.

  Danny was currently being detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure pending trial for the murder of Lisa Caldwell. He was a different picture to the outspoken man she and DC Ash Baker had encountered in Shoreditch police station. Now, as they sat across from him for the second time, Danny’s arrogance melted away. So too had his long hair and shaggy beard. Clad in a grey prison issue tracksuit, a buzz cut exposed slivers of white lines on his scalp as old scars were revealed. Ruby wondered if he was wearing them as a badge of honour now he had returned to prison.

  She, on the other hand, had worn her smartest designer suit, teaming it up with a pair of sharp black heels in the hope of being taken seriously. Her work wardrobe usually consisted of blazer jackets, tight-fitting black trousers and whatever blouse was clean on that day. Her Ted Baker tailored suit was reserved for special occasions only, and today she felt as if she meant business. She loosened the single button of her jacket.

  DC Ash Baker was by her side, having both gone through the rigmarole of searches and scanners as they arrived. Police officers were checked the same as everybody else gaining entry, much to Ash’s disconcertion. The short first account interview was designed to accomplish the facts quickly while they awaited the autopsy results of their latest murder victim. Timing was everything, although Ruby had been warned it was impossible to ascertain the exact time of death, checking out Danny’s alibi would give them something to go on in the meantime.

  Danny’s lips parted in an anguished moan, his yellowed teeth exposed as he pleaded his innocence from across the table. ‘You’re not pinning that on me.’

  Ruby had heard of his change of plea. The evidence had mounted up against him, and his solicitor would have advised pleading guilty in the hope of a shorter sentence. Given the crime, Ruby hoped that was unlikely to occur.

  ‘So where were you on the night of Ellie’s murder?’ she said.

  He took a deep breath, exhaling his words. ‘I was in the hostel. This is the honest to God truth. I didn’t kill that girl.’

  ‘Killed which girl?’ Ruby said, wondering if he could remember the name of the life he had snuffed out.

  ‘Neither of them.’ He rubbed the bristles of his shaven head. ‘I coughed to that Lisa bird because I was on a promise, but I’m not owning up to this, no way. I’m no serial killer.’

  Ruby’s grimace was set by the disgust she felt inside. ‘So let me get this straight. You denied murdering Lisa then pleaded guilty. Now you want to change your plea to not guilty?’

  ‘Yes. I didn’t kill either of those girls.’ Danny’s voice rose an octave. ‘Speak to the hostel, I. . .’ His voice trailed away and his eyebrows knit together in a frown. ‘Ask the black woman on reception, the one with the dreads – she’ll remember me.’

  ‘If we find forensics on Ellie after you plead not guilty to her murder, the judge will come down hard.’

  ‘You won’t find nothin’ belonging to me.’ Danny shifted in his chair. In the distance, a bell shrilled – a reminder of the schedule that would rule his life for years to come.

  ‘What did you mean when you said you were on a promise?’

  ‘I came across Lisa in the park. Her body was still warm. At first I thought she was passed out, drunk. I was a bit bladdered meself, you see. . .’ He cleared his throat. ‘I took her jewellery. I figured she didn’t need it anymore. I didn’t kill her, I swear.’

  ‘Are you taking the piss?’ Ash said. His complexion had taken on a deep pink hue. Up until now, he had seemed happy to remain silent, scribbling Danny’s responses onto his notepad.

  Ruby glanced at her colleague, whose knuckles had curled over his pen. Repressed anger oozed from every pore. But Ash had dealt with murderers and abusers many times in his career. Why was he letting it get to him now?

  Danny glanced from Ash to Ruby. ‘It’s true.’

  ‘So why did you change your plea?’ Ruby said, willing to humour him.

  ‘Because I had a message from someone you don’t say no to. He said he’d look after me if I coughed to Lisa’s murder. I figured I was already in the frame, so I agreed.’

  ‘Who?’ Ruby said, her brows knitted in confusion. Just what was Danny Smedley playing at now?

  ‘I can’t tell you who it was. That’ll get me killed.’

  ‘So you’re telling me you confessed to rape and murder because someone pressured you into it?’

  Danny shrugged. ‘I get hot meals, a bed for the night, and that lovely lady from the church comes and visits me.’

  Ruby’s face soured. She placed her clenched fists on the table, leaning forward as she stood. It took every ounce of her self-restraint not to smack him in the face. ‘You don’t feel the slightest bit of remorse, do you? How much pain is this going to cause the victim’s family if they’ve got to watch this go to a full trial? The least you can do is plead guilty and put them out of their misery.’

  He glanced around the bare walls. ‘I was all ready to, until you tried to pin this other murder on me. I swear, I’m telling you the truth.’

  Ruby sat back as she mulled things over. She glanced at Ash, who responded by rolling his eyes. But a small voice niggled at the back of her brain. There was something eerie about the way Lisa’s body had been laid out. Arms outstretched, hair splayed. And then there was the unnatural curve of Ellie’s chest. Latest updates stated she had received stitches, which suggested a recent operation. This was information not yet made public knowledge.

  With both Lisa and Ellie’s autopsies due soon, Ruby needed to get back. What if Danny Smedley really was telling the truth? What if the killer was still loose on the streets?

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘Sorry I missed the autopsies.’ Ruby closed her office door as the buzz of her team’s activity filtered through. ‘Traffic was a nightmare leaving prison. It seems like everyone wanted to visit their nearest and dearest today. Can you give me the lowdown?’

  ‘Nae bother,’ Vera said, a hint of a Scottish accent travelling down the phone. ‘Your DI was able to make it after all. I’m putting together my report now, but I’m happy to give you the salient points in th
e meantime.’

  Ruby smirked. DI Downes was a pure delegator. DCI Worrow had requested the presence of a member of the team, and Downes had volunteered Ruby to accompany her, citing he had an urgent appointment elsewhere. Appointment, my arse, Ruby thought. He was able to wriggle out of it quickly enough when push came to shove. She knew him well enough to recognise his little habits. Lately, he had been hinting that he would like her company, and not just in police time. She liked Jack, and it would have been easy to fall into a relationship with him, allow it to develop into something more. He rarely made demands on her, accepting her for who she was. But it wouldn’t have been fair on either of them. Both their heads were filled with ghosts; his with his wife who had died the year before, and hers with Nathan Crosby, a man she was better off without.

  Taking a gulp of tea, she listened as Vera ran through her observations. ‘Given what your DI has said about him, I don’t think Danny Smedley is your suspect.’

  ‘For Ellie’s murder?’ Ruby said, recalling their Snow White girl.

  ‘For either of them. Smedley’s MO is rape, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but such things have been known to progress to murder,’ Ruby said, wondering where this was going.

  ‘But Lisa wasn’t raped,’ Vera said, matter-of-factly.

  ‘What makes you so sure?’ Ruby said. ‘I mean, I know there’s usually bruising but what if he did it after she passed out?’

  ‘Lisa was a virgin. Evidentially, she hadn’t had sex with anyone, let alone our killer. She died from asphyxiation. The thumb marks on her windpipe demonstrated the killer knew exactly where to press for maximum results.’

  Ruby rubbed her forehead. What started off as a straightforward case was now proving to be anything but. ‘But I saw the bruises on her body.’

  ‘There are signs of a struggle and, given the girl was naked, there’s nothing to say the killer wasn’t disturbed before he did the deed.’

  ‘Yet he took the time to remove her earrings and the rest of her jewellery without making a mark.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Vera agreed. ‘Such things are often ripped off. There’s no sign of that.’

  ‘But Danny Smedley’s remanded in custody. He confessed to her rape and murder.’

  ‘It’s not up to me to tell you how to do your job, but I don’t believe he murdered Ellie. Whoever killed this girl knew how to handle a scalpel.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ruby said, ‘there was mention of a scar on her chest.’

  ‘It’s too fresh to be a scar, the stitches were still in place,’ Vera said. ‘They’ve gone to significant efforts to change her appearance too. Her hair has recently been clipped short, and her bodily hair – all of it – was removed.’

  ‘When you say all. . .’ Ruby said, her words trailing away as she tried to comprehend the news.

  ‘I mean all. Eyebrows, eyelashes, arms, legs, pubic hair, the lot. The closeness of the shave would suggest a cut-throat razor was used or perhaps wax,’ she mused, ‘although I’d be more inclined to go for the blade.’

  ‘That must have taken a fair bit of time,’ Ruby said, scribbling the words undisturbed location on a piece of scrap paper.

  ‘Not only that, but they’ve then glued on false eyelashes and drawn on a pair of eyebrows to boot.’

  Ruby took another sip of tea. It tasted bitter as it hit her throat, but it was down to Vera’s words rather than the quality of teabags. What sort of ghoulish makeover was this? She grasped for a semblance of normality. ‘Couldn’t she have done that herself? She was a working girl, and there’s a bit of a trend for the fake look at the moment.’

  ‘It’s doubtful. Ellie was hair-free in places she could never have reached on her own. And then there’s the skin bleaching. It would have stung like hell in her intimate areas. This was more than the disposal of forensic evidence, they’ve gone way beyond that.’

  Ruby nodded into the phone. ‘Any signs of a struggle?’

  ‘The welts on her wrist suggest she was restrained.’

  Echoes of the door-knocker killer found their way into Ruby’s memory. Despite having solved the case, she could not rule out a copycat killer. ‘Any rope burns? What about her ankles? Any lesions in her mouth?’

  ‘No cuts. No rope burns – more like thick belt marks, and only on her wrists. She’s got a few puncture marks and faded bruises, but that’s not uncommon for a girl with her way of life. The trick is separating what happened before she met the killer. We can only surmise.’

  ‘Any forensics on either of the girls?’

  ‘It’s early days. It’s my estimation that Ellie may have been in captivity for a couple of days before she was murdered. Blood tests have been requested, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she were drugged throughout.’

  Ruby sighed, hoping that was the case if only to spare her the horrors of her ordeal. ‘Time of death?’ She knew how much Vera hated being pinned down on such things.

  ‘Ach! I guessed you were going to ask me that. Lisa wasn’t dead very long before being discovered. But Ellie. . .’ She exhaled loudly. ‘Sometime in the last twenty-four hours. Will that do you?’

  ‘It definitely rules out Danny Smedley,’ Ruby said. ‘Although I won’t be letting him off the hook just yet.’

  ‘Looks like you need to cast your net wider,’ Vera said. ‘When your suspect finished cleaning up Ellie, and I mean deep cleaning, he conducted a little invasive surgery, hence the stitches on her chest.’

  Outside a siren blared through the streets of London, and Ruby raised her voice to be heard. ‘Surgery? I presumed she’d been injured and he’d stitched her up after she died.’

  ‘More like he took a keepsake. He’s removed some of her internal organs, her liver and lungs to be exact.’

  Ruby frowned. She didn’t like the sound of this. ‘And done what with them?’

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine. DI Downes is going to brief the team when he gets back.’

  Ruby shuddered, thinking of a horror movie she had recently watched. ‘I hope we don’t have one of those cannibal killers on the loose.’

  ‘I think you’d best be researching the origin of your story first.’

  Ruby recalled the black wig, the ivory white skin. ‘The Snow White theme?’

  ‘Yes, we found the remnants of an apple in her stomach. We’re analysing the remains for poison.’

  Ruby sighed. If the apple was poisoned, it meant that Ellie would have been conscious for part of the attack. So much for being spared. ‘No signs of sexual attack?’

  ‘Not forced, although she was sexually active. But that’s hardly a surprise given her profession. Oh, and there’s one more thing.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Ruby said, adding to her notes.

  ‘She had rat droppings in her hair so perhaps you need to direct your search into areas that would be likely to carry vermin.’

  Ruby thought it over. The killer’s invasive deep clean could not have been solely born from the need to dispose of evidence. But why go to so much trouble to bleach skin and remove hair, then allow vermin to invade the body? Unless Ellie had been left alone for periods of time in a place where rats frequented. Questions flooded her mind, but Vera was still talking.

  ‘Whoever the killer is they took great care in transforming her. She was almost unrecognisable from the photo that DI Downes supplied. Perhaps it was one of her clients who held a grudge, but then I’m not going to tell you how to do your job.’

  ‘Let’s hope it was a one-off,’ Ruby said, a dragging feeling growing in her stomach. With briefing due in half an hour, it was going to be another late night.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ruby stood at the head of the briefing room, hands on hips as she surveyed her team. It had taken her just minutes to bring them up to speed. They had been busy making enquiries of their own, evidenced by the countless updates being placed on the computer system at a rate of knots. It was a job to keep up with them, along with the endless amount of checking, approving and chasing up
she had to do.

  Eve sat to her left, the only other female in her room. Wearing a black linen dress, her pregnancy bump was barely visible.

  With DCI Worrow and DI Downes being called away, it was up to Ruby to lead briefing. She wasted no time in getting stuck in. ‘How’s your workloads?’

  The question invoked a low murmur of laughter and it rippled around the room. The Metropolitan Police Central Communications Command handled over twenty thousand calls each day. It was virtually impossible to keep up, due to the very nature of their role. Ruby knew that as well as they did, but she still insisted on asking the question.

  ‘I’ll rephrase that,’ she said, conscious their time was precious. ‘Everyone managing OK?’

  DC Ash Baker tugged on his earlobe, the tips of his fingers yellowed from his nicotine habit. The most senior of detective constables, he was used to speaking on their behalf. ‘No worries this end. Uniform have been giving us a dig out with some of the lesser enquiries, leaving us to progress the investigation.’

  Ruby nodded. Of this she was aware. The Serious Crime Team had a decent overtime budget, unlike other departments in the force, but it was not a bottomless pit and the pressure for results was growing by the hour. She glanced at the board behind her. On one side was university student Lisa Caldwell, and on the other, young prostitute Ellie Mason. Even without the thick black line dividing the two cases, the gap between them could not have been any wider.

  ‘DI Downes has reiterated that Ellie’s case isn’t linked to the murder of Lisa Caldwell.’

  Despite Danny Smedley’s change of heart, the court case was going ahead. But now Ruby was less convinced of his guilt. All she could do was comply with her superior’s wishes and hope further evidence was unearthed. It was bizarre to say the least. Her eyes fell on the photograph of Ellie Mason in her vivid yellow, red and blue gown. The tombstone beneath her appeared drained of all colour, apart from the weeds creeping up at the base. ‘Are we any closer to finding out the motive behind Ellie’s body being staged?’ she said, turning to her team for answers.