by Conrad Jones
“Guv.” Stirling grunted and headed towards the stairs. “The smell is stronger here, Guv.” He said on the landing. Annie looked around, sniffing but couldn’t see anything obvious that explained the fumes.
“I’m ready for you, Annie,” Kathy’s voice called from the master bedroom distracting her. Annie took a last look around and noted other obvious items missing. Bleach, soap, shower gel, shampoo, toothpaste and conditioner. Minimum requirements for a young woman’s bathroom. Had the killer taken them? Her toothbrush was lonely on the basin, accompanied only by a tub of cold cream and bactericidal hand wash, which was on the window sill. A loofah mitt hung from the shower hose. The chrome drain trap sparkled as if it had been cleaned recently. Annie thought that any killer that thorough wouldn’t leave any clues behind for free. In hindsight, she couldn’t have been more wrong.
CHAPTER 3
Tod Harris woke up feeling guilty although the feeling wasn’t as intense as it had been days before. The day after it had happened, he was panic stricken. He had expected the police to kick his door in and drag him off to jail at any minute. The urge to run was overwhelming. Despite all the planning and promises, he couldn’t sit and wait. He had to go before he drove himself insane. Within an hour of waking up, he was on a train heading south to Birmingham and from there he had taken a cab to the airport. His budget ticket to Alicante had cost him less than he expected, having said that, he would have paid ten times the amount to escape the fear of being caught. He’d had a three hour wait for his flight, which he spent pretending to read a newspaper while keeping an eye out for approaching police officers. Paranoid wasn’t a strong enough word to describe his state of mind. He waited until the boarding gate was empty and double checked that there were no detectives waiting for him before approaching the stewards with his passport and boarding card. He had only relaxed when the aircraft had left the runway.
On arrival, he took a bus from Alicante and found an apartment at the third time of trying in the busy resort of Benidorm. Tod had calmed down somewhat since then. His head felt fuzzy as the previous night’s alcohol clung to his nervous system. The sun was blazing through the balcony doors making it impossible to sleep any longer. Despite drinking himself into a stupor the night before, he’d spent hours in a nightmare filled daze somewhere between sleep and consciousness. There was no escape. The images that haunted his dreams remained with him through his waking hours. He couldn’t outrun them.
There was no explanation for his actions, certainly no excuses. Once the intense wave of lust that drove him had waned, all that was left was guilt and remorse. What he had done made him feel physically sick. He had crossed a line from which he couldn’t return. If they caught him, not only would he go down for a long time, his family and friends would be horrified and devastated. They would be destroyed. He couldn’t bring himself to think of what effect it would have on the health of his elderly mother. Her beloved son a monster? It was inconceivable.
He climbed out of bed and looked out across the balcony. The view of the sea was obscured by a forest of towering hotels but the pool area and the narrow streets beyond were pleasant enough to look at. The ‘Old Town’ of Benidorm was quiet in comparison to newer parts of the resort a mile or so away, which were plagued with stag and hen parties yet it was busy enough for him to remain anonymous. The beer was cheap, the tapas bars were excellent and he could spend all day on his sunbed by the pool scouring the British newspapers for information. So far so good. Whatever was going on at home, he didn’t appear to be a known fugitive just yet. Maybe they would never link him to any crime. Maybe pigs would fly over the Spanish resort too.
Tod walked into the bathroom and tried to make himself feel human again. The man in the mirror didn’t look as bad as he felt. His skin was already tanning and his dark brown hair looked neat and well groomed. He showered and shaved and then pulled on a pair of black Nike shorts and a matching vest before gathering his wallet and sunglasses and heading down to the lobby. He had placed his mobile in the room safe the moment he arrived and he was determined to leave it there too. Switching it on would be like waving a big flag saying ‘I’m over here. Come and get me.’ Although the urge to turn it on was overpowering, he couldn’t. He valued his liberty too much to take any risks. Once everything had blown over, he could go back to his normal life. It would take time but he had plenty of that.
He opened the door and looked up and down the corridor. He thought about armed police officers hiding in doorways waiting for him to leave his room. It was ridiculous yet it was a real fear. Taking a deep breath, he stepped out and closed the door with a click. He twisted the handle to check that it was locked. It was. Relax, he told himself. You’re on a long holiday, nothing more, nothing less. He placed his forehead against the wood and it felt cool and refreshing. A full English breakfast, some orange juice and a few laps of the pool would sort him out. He turned and headed for the lift. There was never a car waiting. The hotel was sixteen floors high and as the summer months disappeared, families were replaced by a tide of British pensioners. They wouldn’t or couldn’t walk up the stairs unless they absolutely had to. He was convinced that if the hotel caught fire, hundreds of nearly dead people would sprint down the stairs like a herd of aging Olympians without giving their arthritis a second thought but on any normal day they were crammed into the lifts from dawn to dusk.
He pressed the call button and waited nervously. He could hear the cables rattling in the shaft although it gave him no indication of how long it would be before a car empty enough for him to squeeze into arrived. On the first night, he had waited fifteen minutes before a car with room in it came. It was almost comical. The lift doors opened four times to reveal a car full of wrinklies staring at him with inane grins on their faces, barely an inch between them. The third time that the doors opened, he was positive that the same geriatrics were just cruising up and down for fun. They all looked alike, blue rinses and grey comb-overs. He had taken to using the stairs since but today his hangover had stolen his energy. As he pondered walking, the bell dinged. The doors opened to reveal an empty car. Relieved, he stepped in and pressed the button for the ground floor.
The reception area was dull, cramped and full of shadows. Tod peered around before stepping out of the lift. There were three armchairs on either side of the reception desk, each had a sleeping pensioner on them but apart from that, there was no one around. He put on his shades and walked confidently across the marble tiles heading for the revolving doors which led out onto the streets of the Old Town. The warmth of the sun was still bearable. It was early and that side of the hotel was in the shade in the morning. An hour later, the sun would be so intense that he wouldn’t be able to move far away from the pool unless he chose to sit inside in the air-conditioned recreational areas of the hotel. That would mean watching the other residents enjoying their daily activities, waltzing, playing bridge, bingo, sleeping and dribbling. He couldn’t bring himself to do that, even as an observer. He would stay on his sunbed and use the pool to regulate his temperature but first, he needed some food and the newspapers. The newspapers were important. Vital to keeping his sanity. Well almost.
It was a short walk across the town hall park to the cobbled lanes of the Old Town. Local school children were rattling down the paths on their skateboards, the smell of fresh cut grass was in the air. Flowers every colour of the rainbow were still in bloom and their fragrance drifted on the warm breeze. At the far side of the park, he crossed on a zebra, which the local drivers ignored. He was convinced that the Spanish were taught to speed up wherever there was a marked crossing especially if a pasty faced tourist was on it. He bought twenty Marlboro from a tobacconist shop that he had found on his first day and then went next door to buy the British papers. The Mirror, The Mail and The Express. They would keep him going most of the day. He barely glanced at the front pages as he paid for them; his focus was on the smell of bacon, which was drifting from the café next door. He weaved his way between
a myriad of Day-Glo rubber rings that hung from the ceiling and an assortment of inflated killer whales, dolphins and crocodiles before stepping over a basket full of bucket and spade sets to get to an empty table. He was pleased that his favourite table was free. He had sat there every morning since his arrival and being a creature of habit, he had become attached to it.
“Back again?” a Scottish accent asked with a chuckle. The man had served him every day so far. His name was Gordon and he and his partner, Gordon owned the café. Gordon and Gordon were a gay couple, who had emigrated to the sunshine a few years before. They made much of the fact that were the ‘Gay Gordons’, which they explained at length was a Scottish country dance group in the nineteenth century. They were like a comedy double-act. ‘I’m Gordon,’ one would say, ‘and I’m Gordon too,’ the other would add with a chuckle. “We must be doing something right with the food or is it my charming personality that brings you back?”
“Definitely the bacon,” Tod quipped.
“You can go off people quickly you know!”
“Don’t make me go and eat egg McMuffins.”
“Heaven forbid,” Gordon frowned and stuck his index finger down his throat. “I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.” He smiled and patted Tod on the back. The other Gordon watched his partner flirting with undisguised distaste all over his face. “Are you having your usual?”
“Yes please.”
“Coming up!” Gordon paused and frowned again. “Now why don’t you have a bit of square sausage too?” he asked coyly. “It’s a Scottish delicacy.”
“Is it extra?”
“Of course,” he giggled. “We have a pool to maintain you know.”
“Okay, square sausage it is.”
“Juice or tea or both?”
“Is that extra too?”
“Of course!”
“Both.”
Tod couldn’t help but smile as Gordon walked away with a strange wiggle of his hips. If anyone could make a success of a café bar in the sunshine, it was them. One Gordon was an amazing waiter, the second a great cook. He sat back and lit a cigarette, allowing the sun to warm his face. Gordon placed a pot of tea and a glass of juice next to him and he gulped the orange down in one swallow. Unfolding the papers, he scanned the headlines. A sex scandal on Big Brother, financial instability in the stock markets and Muslim against Muslim in the Middle East. Nothing new there. He slurped his tea and speed read the main stories. It wasn’t until he got to page two of the Mirror that the blood in his veins turned to ice. Suddenly he wasn’t as hungry as he thought.
CHAPTER 4
Kathy Brooks had her hands on her hips and she was biting her bottom lip thoughtfully. Her auburn hair was tied tightly into a bun where it couldn’t cross contaminate the scene. Her photographer stepped aside to let Annie into the room. The air was rank with the stench of decay. Kathy acknowledged her with a nod and began her summary into a voice activated recorder, which she used to recount the details when she came to typing up her reports. She smiled thinly at Annie without looking up from her deliberations. Jim Stirling stepped into the room and gave a thumbs up signal. He folded his arms and waited for Kathy to begin.
“Friday morning, second of October. We are at the home of one Jayne Windsor. In the main bedroom we have the body of a young female, age twenty five to thirty five. There is deep bruising and lacerations to the wrists and ankles indicating that she struggled violently against metal restraints. The pattern of the scarring indicates the killer probably used handcuffs.” She took a breath. “She has massive facial trauma. The mandible or lower jaw bone has been removed as have the ears, teeth and facial skin tissue. The nasal bones, orbital surfaces, glabella and frontal bones have been shattered. Blunt force trauma with a heavy object,” she turned to Annie for the first time. “All the phalanges or fingers and thumbs have been severed with a sharp two sided implement like rongeurs or bone scissors and removed from the scene. The body appears to have been redressed in a police officer’s uniform and posed into the shape of a crucifix postmortem. I need to take a good look at the garments to continue my assessment. There is something unusual about them,” she turned to Annie and raised her eyebrows in question.
Annie nodded and stepped to one side of the double bed, while Kathy went to the opposite side. They bent lower and looked closely beneath the limbs. Kathy glanced at Annie and frowned. “Can you see what I can see?”
“I think so,” Annie nodded and pulled gently at the material which covered the extended left arm. The material came away easily. “The tunic and trousers have been cut in half and placed over the body.”
“Then the killer has tucked the material underneath the body to give the impression of her being dressed.” Kathy added. “Can you give us a hand here please, Graham and bag the uniform as we remove it.” The photographer stepped forward as they lifted the material from the corpse. “Jesus Christ!” Kathy hissed.
“What the hell?” Stirling whispered beneath his breath. He had seen some sights in his time but this one took his breath away.
Annie inhaled sharply and looked at Kathy confused. At first she thought the victim had been wearing a strangely patterned body-stocking but as she focused on the details it became clear. “What the hell is that?” the photographer bagged up the clothes and then snapped dozens of shots from all angles. Stirling took a step closer and stared at the intricate scabbed carvings.
Kathy was visibly shaken and she swallowed hard to compose herself before continuing. “On removal of the uniform we can see that some form of ancient text, may be Greek or Hebrew in origin, has been scratched into the skin from the wrists to the neck and down to the ankles, covering the entire body. At first glance there are several thousand words carved into the victim with a very fine implement. There appears to be huge tranches of text ‘written’ on the body.” Kathy paused and pointed to a bedside table next to Annie. Annie turned to look at it. There was a glass tumbler placed on it and a thin bloodstained handle protruded from it. “On the bedside table we found a tumbler which contains liquid and blood. The liquid has an odour of antiseptic. Placed into the tumbler is a dental implement called a skin hook. First impressions are that the skin hook was used to ‘carve’ words into the victim’s skin.”
Annie stood up and stepped back from the bed. She blew out a lung full of tainted air reluctant to breathe it in anymore. “Tell me she was dead when he did this.”
A brief shake of Kathy’s head indicated the opposite. “No she was alive through all this,” she sighed and pointed to the deep welts which cut into her wrists. “She fought hard to get free. This would have taken days to complete,” she said shaking her head in disbelief. “When was she last seen alive?”
“Saturday night,” Stirling answered. “She worked an early shift and told a colleague that she was going out that night with a friend. A neighbour said she saw her leaving about seven o’clock. She said that she was dressed to go out for the night. We’re still trying to trace where she went to and who with.”
“Her sergeant didn’t miss her at work?” Annie frowned.
“She called in sick, Guv.”
“What?”
“She wasn’t due back on shift until Tuesday lunchtime. They have a sick call logged on Monday night saying she had food poisoning.” Stirling shrugged. “Unfortunately, there is no record of who made the call. Could she have been dead already?”
“Between rigor, lividity and her decomp, I would say she’s been dead for less than seventy-two hours.”
“So she was alive Monday night when the call was made.”
“Which gives the killer at least three days alone with her?”
“At least. The severe bruising here on her thighs indicates repeated sexual assaults.” She pointed to a dark patch on the bed. “We could have a break here. I’ve swabbed some seminal fluid from the bed but apart from that, I can’t be more specific until I get her back to the lab.”
“He left fluids?” Annie frowned. “That’s odd
. The place has been cleaned down. Are you sure it’s seminal?”
“I think I can safely say so but,” she shrugged and turned to her CSI.
“I know,” Annie said. “You can’t say until you get her to the lab?”
Kathy shrugged. “Let’s get her to the lab.” The CSI nodded and walked out of the room to fetch assistance and a body-bag. “I really need to pick this room apart with my team, Annie,” she lowered her voice. “I am not a happy bunny.”
“What are you thinking?”
“The entire scene except for the pentagram on the wall has been wiped,” she looked around, “but the killer left the skin hook and fluids for us to find. I’m not feeling right about any of this. The carpet looks spotless yet the mattress is saturated with blood. Take off your glove and touch the carpet.”
Annie hesitated and then knelt to feel the fibres of the carpet. She removed a glove and touched it. “It’s damp,” she said looking at Stirling. He frowned and knelt down to follow suit. She smelled her finger and frowned. “Bleach?”
“That’s what I think but watch this.” She sprayed Luminol onto a square of carpet and then took an ultraviolet torch from her belt and pointed at the carpet where Annie was crouched. “It’s everywhere.”
Annie’s jaw dropped to her chest. She stood up quickly almost staggering backwards. She looked at Kathy wide eyed with shock. “Oh my God!” The light revealed detailed writing on the fibres.
“That script is the same as on the body,” Stirling mused. “Daubed onto the carpet in blood and then scrubbed clean?”
“Exactly,” Kathy agreed.
“That would take time,” Annie shook her head. “This guy had no fear of being here for days. I want every inch of this photographed, Kathy,” Annie said. “Do you think this is part of a ritual?”