‘Forensics?’
‘Yeah, when it comes to fires we tend to take a step back for part of it. Their forensic people can tell you a lot more about what was started, where and what was used. We’re just here for the who.’
‘You shouldn’t feel bad,’ Maddie said. ‘That’s the bit I’m really interested in.’
‘I imagine you are. I reckon they’ll tell you a similar story to what I can anyway. They set our woman alight in an upright container. She would have gone up big and bright, too, once the fat caught. Humans are an excellent source of combustion. Think of a barbecue when you prick a sausage.’
‘Jesus, Charley . . .’ Harry growled.
‘What? You don’t normally need the dumbed-down version.’
‘We get the picture.’
‘Okay then. So out here in the middle of the night it would have been as dark as a witch’s cat. Lighting her up would be like lighting a beacon. They would want to get out of here pretty quick — come and see this . . .’ Charley’s usual enthusiasm appeared to be back. She led them on a short walk that took them closer to the van but at an angle. She pointed down at the disturbed earth. Two fresh-looking gullies, now levelled out with rainwater.
‘Tyre tracks,’ Harry said.
‘Not just tracks. You see how they are much wider and deeper at that end? Those are the tracks of someone in a bit of a panic. I reckon they very nearly got stuck. Looks to me like these idiots pulled their getaway vehicle right in here, too. Probably worried that they might get seen from the road if they didn’t tuck it right in. But the rain was heavy, the ground was cutting up and it was getting worse all the time. Those tracks are from something rear-wheel drive, too — just about the worst thing you can have in these conditions. They panicked and floored it. Can you imagine the relief when they got free?’
‘So you think they made a mistake? They left the door open and the storm put their fire out?’
‘That wasn’t their mistake. They would probably have opened the door on purpose to get some air in to feed the fire. Their mistake was leaving before it had properly caught. They could have just pulled the car forward, back into the car park where the surface is much better but I reckon they decided that the big fire burning behind them was about to attract a lot of attention and they just wanted out of there. The door probably blew right open in the wind and the rain did the rest. The back of the van still smells like accelerant. Whatever they had planned, it didn’t take.’
‘So we’re not looking for professionals.’ Harry’s tone was a grumble, almost as if he was unimpressed with the amateurish nature of the crime.
‘I don’t know. There is a clear demonstration of forensic awareness. The hands have been cut off, the emphasis on removing the face and putting her in a container that bunches her up — that should have ensured the intensity of the heat was on her. On another night this could have been a perfect job.’
‘What about the hammer? Why leave the murder weapon?’ Maddie was essentially thinking out loud. Charley answered anyway.
‘Why not? We would be able to tell she had suffered blunt force trauma to the skull. Anything linking the weapon to the person holding it would be completely destroyed in the fire.’
‘So why the hands? Is that just about prints?’
‘Yeah, I’ve seen hands removed before. No hands means no quick way to ID the victim. You don’t normally get prints from badly burned victims anyway but maybe they were making sure. The lips . . . that one I haven’t seen before.’
‘The lips?’ Maddie said.
‘Sorry, did I not say? The lips have been cut off, too. It’s very early on, but I’d say that happened before she was killed too.’
‘Lips . . . Jesus . . . there’s no forensic significance to the lips is there?’
‘Not especially. Obviously in sex offences the mouth of the victim can be very significant if there has been contact but the lips are just about the first thing to go in a fire. They’re basically two clumps of fat . . . I won’t use the sausage thing again, but you get the picture.’
‘Cutting off the lips . . . that has to be symbolic.’ Harry seemed to be thinking out loud now. ‘So why do that and then burn her for no one to see?’
Charley had her palms up. ‘Another example of when I’m rather delighted to be just the CSI. I can tell you something about what happened and the order it happened in. Why is always the question I like to leave for you guys. You always seem to be pretty good at it, to be fair.’ Charley was back to chuckling again.
‘From what I saw we can get an approximate age now. We can say she’s a white female, dark hair . . . I couldn’t make out much more.’ The shock was clear in Harry’s voice.
‘She looks to me like she’s wearing a black dress. I’d put her mid to late thirties, maybe. She could be younger but . . . without a face . . .’
Maddie actually stepped back. She saw Harry react, too.
‘I know you’ll have a search team out, but may I suggest a cadaver dog?’ Charley said.
‘Cadaver dog?’ Harry turned to Charley quickly. ‘Are you expecting someone else to be out there?’
‘No. The case I mentioned before, where the hands were cut off . . . that was also in woodland and the killer threw the hands close by. The animals get them pretty quick and you don’t have the worry of driving around with them in your glove box. In that particular case, they carried them off but we were able to get one of them back.’
Harry was shaking his head. ‘Point taken.’
Maddie stepped suddenly away and pulled her phone from her pocket. She pressed at the screen and lifted it to her ear. ‘Come on, come on!’ she muttered.
Harry was looking over at her. ‘You got something urgent?’
‘Probably not.’ The phone rung out. She was just pressing to redial when her intended recipient called back.
‘You just can’t leave me alone can you, Mads!’ Vince Arnold was instantly full of himself.
‘Your friend, Marlie. What’s her description?’ Maddie scrunched her eyes shut and told herself to slow down.
‘Description? Why?’
‘She’s missing, isn’t she?’
‘She is, but we’re not putting anything official on. No one’s told us anything official. You remember that, right? That’s very important.’
‘I do. I’m not trying to compromise anyone. I’m out rattling cages is all and I don’t know who I might come across. Just in case I see her . . .’
‘Before seven in the morning? Do you ever sleep, Ives?’
‘I guess not.’
‘Okay then . . .’ Vince didn’t sound sure, no doubt picking up on her voice. ‘She’s white, she’ll be late thirties, I guess. But she looks a little older without her get-up on. Wears a lot of make-up. I’ve never seen her anything other than proper glammed up, heels, a dress always, you know the sort.’
‘What colour hair?’
‘Varies. Last time I saw her she was a dark red. I think she’s dark, naturally. Her hair’s normally some sort of variation of that at least.’
‘Any tattoos, marks or scars?’
‘Sure sounds like the list of questions that make up our misper form, Mads. You ain’t stitching me up now and putting nothing formal in, are you?’
‘I wouldn’t do that Vince, not without telling you.’
‘She has a few. She showed me one. Between her shoulders. A dove with its wings out. I stopped her coming out of the tattoo place actually. It was still raw. A few years back, that was. That one sticks in the mind, I can’t remember any others.’
‘Okay, that’s great. Thanks Vince.’
There wasn’t an immediate reply but when it did come it caught her out a little. ‘You wanna tell me why you’re lying to me now?’
‘Lying?’
‘What’s this about, Maddie? If you know something about her—’
‘I don’t, Vince. Soon as I do, I’ll call you first — I swear.’
The call ended. Maddie turne
d back to where Harry was still talking with Charley. She was only a few steps away but it was far enough for the sound of the shushing trees to drown them out completely.
‘I need to have another look!’ Maddie was close to shouting. ‘Just quickly.’
Charley’s expression was one of surprise. ‘Any reason?’
Maddie lifted her mask back over her face. She pulled her hood up and fiddled with a clear packet containing fresh gloves. She pulled on a base layer and fiddled to get another two on. ‘I just love this sort of thing!’
Charley’s smile was back but it was a little more unsure. She pulled her own mask up.
‘You don’t need to come with me.’ Maddie had to raise her voice from behind her mask.
‘I know. I like this sort of thing, too. And I like to make sure you’re not messing about with my crime scene.’
‘I need to see her back. The top of her back. Hopefully it’s not too badly burned?’
‘It shouldn’t be. The top half is pretty good.’ Charley led the way to where she pulled the back door open and stepped up first. She moved around their victim and clicked on the light. She grunted as she lifted it up, it wasn’t designed to be mobile. Maddie took more in this time. The handle of the murder weapon was pointing almost directly at her. At the business end, the blunt head glinted in the direct light of the torch while the curved claws weren’t visible at all. Around it was a black and red mass of the woman’s face. There was some white too that Maddie guessed to be pieces of exposed skull. The force of the blow had been such that her eyes were turned inwards and among the mess of the lower part she could make out a couple of teeth at obtuse angles.
Maddie shifted her attention from the face to her hair. It was long. Some of it was pushed forward, the ends clearly scorched shorter on one side where the flames must have been higher. The direct light revealed the roots as dark brown but there was a red tinge to the rest. She leaned over to see her shoulders. The tub she was sitting in was higher at the back; the front was more warped from the heat.
‘I need to move her.’ Maddie said.
‘Move her?’
‘Just lean her forward. Just for a second.’
Maddie could only see Charley’s eyes, but they were enough to show that she was scowling. ‘Okay, but just for a second. Do you want me to do it?’
Maddie shook her head and then regretted it immediately. She put her hands on the woman’s shoulders. Instantly there was that coldness that you only get from dead flesh. It leaked through both layers of gloves to caress her fingertips. She had to forage with her hands down the victim’s back to try and get a grip. She pulled the woman towards her and the hammer knocked lightly against Maddie’s midriff. It made her jump so violently that she let the cadaver go; it thudded back against the side of the container.
‘I’ll do it!’ Charley had a nervous giggle in her voice.
‘It’s fine.’ Maddie reached for the shoulders again but was rougher this time. She pulled the body forward firmly, a string of fat pulled between the lower back and the side of the container. Maddie swallowed down a gag. She had to lean forward a little more. It would just take a second.
The light drenched the woman’s back. The skin was charred black at the bottom then it merged into a pinky-red and the top was a shocking white. There were scraps of black material stuck to the skin at various points. And clear for her to see was the black ink of a dove with its wings unfurled.
‘Okay then!’ Charley said. ‘I’ll need to get a photo of that! I’ll do it later.’
Maddie put the dead woman down as gently as she could. She was careful not to touch the hammer when she shifted her grip and pulled the arms back.
‘I assume that was what you were looking for?’ Charley had her thumb up as part of her question.
‘Yeah.’
‘That’s good then. Makes my job a lot easier. Yours too.’
Maddie had that same, sudden urge to get back out into the fresh air. This time she was desperate to rip off the gloves with which she had touched the body. She moved out the back door of the van. Harry stood a short distance away. She walked a few paces past him, far enough that she felt like she could breathe.
‘Her name’s Marlie. I don’t know her surname but Vince knows her. She runs a brothel down in Langthorne.’ She could sense Harry on her shoulder.
‘You know this for sure?’
‘She’s the woman I talked about — the one who went missing yesterday after she left with a man linked to Freddie Rickman. And Rickman owns that house — she works for him.’
‘Freddie Rickman . . .’
‘Yes. And I know what you’re going to say . . . that name again and always from me, but—’ She stopped.
He had his hand firmly raised and was shaking his head. ‘I said you had to make headway. I think this counts as that, don’t you? Have we got enough to get him in?’
‘We need to head back. Speak to Vince. I didn’t have the chance to have a look at her yet, I don’t even know if Freddie and Marlie are associates on our systems. As it stands, we have hearsay. Someone saw something and told Vince off the record. I mean, yeah, that’s enough for me, but I don’t want to be bringing this fella in if it means I’m going to have to let him go again. And I promised Vince I would keep those girls safe. I don’t know how we do that right now. We can’t just be rushing in and arresting people.’
‘I agree. But we need to consider searches, forensic capture, etc. The earlier the better for all that.’
Maddie turned back towards the van. ‘Judging by what I’ve heard about him, what you told me about him, I’m not convinced he would have been up here wheel-spinning his car in the mud. Are you? Much more likely he got some of his grunts to do the dirty work.’
‘He might have been the one hitting her with a hammer and dumping her in a container, though.’
Maddie looked over towards the van. ‘Container . . . or a bin!’ She spun back to Harry. ‘A bin! Kelly Dale said her bin was missing!’
‘Kelly Dale? What are you talking about now?’
‘Last night, I found her. Kelly Dale. I managed to get to speak to her. She didn’t want to talk, I thought I got nothing out of her at all but she said she had to go — said her bin was missing! It made no sense at the time, like it was out of nowhere, but it wasn’t at all. She was trying to tell me something . . . We need to find her, Harry. We need to find her — she has all the answers.’
‘You were working on your case file last night? I know that because you told me.’
Maddie was tearing at her suit. She was so hasty she nearly lost her balance trying to get her foot out. ‘We need to go, Harry. I fibbed, okay? I was out trying to work out why a woman and a taxi driver ended up over a cliff edge. But all this is linked — I just don’t know how. But there’s something at the centre of it all, someone! Freddie Rickman. And that is headway.’
Chapter 30
Vince had none of his strut and thunder as he paced across the floor to Maddie’s desk. She stood up to greet him. Her work area was much as it was when he’d left her the night before, with exhibits still scattered across her desk and on the floor. Harry was with her, he had been standing over her while she wheeled around on her chair, pointing at exhibits and talking out her theories. She was doing her best to bring Harry up to speed.
‘What shit is going down in Major Crime, then? I got a message to report in. You got something heavy you need moving?’
Vince’s standard jokes couldn’t hide his agitation overall. His eyes flickered around the items on the floor then settled on Maddie, eyeing her warily. He obviously knew there was something for him to know. Maddie didn’t hold back.
‘We have a body. I think it’s Marlie.’
He shifted a little on the spot and sniffed. ‘Okay, then. You need me to identify her?’
‘The circumstances, Vince . . . I don’t think you can.’
‘Circumst— what did that piece of shit do to her?’ Vince’s anger consumed
him all at once, puffed his chest bigger and stood him straighter. His voice was deeper and louder and it rumbled around the open office. The general hubbub stopped. Everyone looked over to see what was going on.
‘It doesn’t matter. You just need to know—’
‘It matters.’ He puffed up bigger still, his cheeks and neck flushed.
‘Okay, Vince. You wanna take a seat?’
‘I’m not some IP, Maddie, some vulnerable witness. What did he do?’
‘There was a call, late last night. Suspected stolen vehicle. It was a van up at Farthing Common. Marlie was found in the back. We think she was dead already. Someone tried to set a fire that didn’t really take. The murder weapon was still in situ . . .’ Maddie ran out of words.
Harry stepped in. ‘She was beaten to death with a hammer. The claw end was left lodged in her skull. It was brutal but it would have been instant.’ The big man’s eyes glazed and he took a step backwards to steady himself. He dragged a seat roughly out from under a desk. It banged and clanked as he fell into it heavily. Maddie waited for him to speak. His voice came back quieter.
‘Takes a brave man to beat a woman with a hammer.’ He forced his words through a clenched jaw. ‘I assume you need help bringing this brave man in?’
‘We’re still going over what we have,’ Harry said. ‘There aren’t any offenders yet to—’
‘You’re joking, right? This is Freddie Rickman. We know that. Me and Maddie knew that last night. We sure as hell know it standing here. And her with a hammer in her skull. She was probably already dead when we sat here last night tossing it off about whether to have a coffee or not.’
‘I agree, Vince. I don’t need any more convincing. What I do need is to make sure something sticks. I can’t be bringing this man in to release him. I met him and his arrogant lawyer. Freddie will have been careful. He’ll have distanced himself from whatever has happened. I’ve been going through his record this morning. We know he’s been arrested five times but do you know how many victim or witness statements have been submitted as evidence for those arrests combined? None. Not one. If we go rushing in now it will happen again and he’ll walk.’
He Knows Your Secrets Page 26