by Linda Coles
Chapter Fifty-Six
Jordan was climbing out of his pride and joy, a navy-blue F-Type Jaguar, a two-seater sports car that he loved almost as much as he loved himself. Almost. He was a polarising character; most men he came into contact with loved him and his extremely generous ways, though women found him one big slime-ball and gave him a wide berth. He was oblivious to either fact. Jordan was a flashy man, but good-spirited with it, and he did a great deal of good in the local community with afterschool clubs and events. For some reason he couldn’t fathom, he’d never found the right woman to settle down and share his life with; they never stayed around for long. And so he’d almost become a self-made bachelor and short of going on The Bachelor to find a bride, he’d resigned himself to his own company. And the company of his friends.
Scrolling through his newsfeed as he walked up to his house, he smiled at some of his friends’ posts, sharing typical ‘lad’ pranks and videos, funny memes and comments. Didn’t they do any work all day? By the time he had reached the front door of his red brick detached, he’d spotted the post that would stay burned in his mind for the rest of his life. Sebastian Stevens, long-time friend and confidant, was posed in a grotesque style, fresh blood seeping from a neck wound, eyes firmly closed, his skin the colour of pallid cheese. Jordan stood motionless by his front door, frozen to the spot, the colour draining from his own face, just like his friends had. His hand shot to his mouth as bile surfaced from an empty stomach and he heaved the foul-tasting liquid on to the lawn beside him. When the spasm receded, he dared himself to look again, and note the time it had been posted. It had been just seven minutes ago. With trembling fingers, he searched for Sebastian’s number and pressed the call button, knowing it would simply ring out until it went to his recorded message. There was no point in leaving a message; he knew his friend was gone.
The next call he placed was to the police. With a trembling voice to match his fingers, he gave the operator the details he knew: Sebastian’s address in Manchester, his work contact details and his own contact details. He’d no idea where his friend lay but at least now they had two places to start looking for him. He got himself inside and made a beeline for the sofa where he sat down heavily, the air sucked out of his sails. A decanter of brandy and matching crystal glasses sat on a small table. With heavy legs he moved towards it and poured himself a hefty glass. He knocked it back in a couple of gulps, wincing as the amber fluid burned its way down his throat and hit his empty stomach. In a strange way, the smarting felt good and he poured himself a chaser, though not as large, taking it back to the sofa to sip on. And think. Who would do such a thing, and why? Two questions were burning to be answered, but Jordan had no clue where to begin.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
“Looks like we’ve got one of our own,” Rick said into his phone. “Just like the same thing they had down in Croydon—the victim’s picture posted online, throat slit.”
Duncan, Rick’s partner at the Greater Manchester Police, rolled over in bed to listen and grunted into his phone, “Shit. We need that like a hole in the head on top of everything else we’ve got going on. Tell me more.” He flicked the bedside lamp on. It was past 11 pm, and his wife stirred grumpily at the intrusion.
“The victim is Sebastian Stevens, the same Sebastian Stevens that was in the news for all the wrong reasons only a few days ago. He’s the hunting fundraiser guy that showed that kill video at a dinner and grossed everyone out. And while he’s a bit of a prick, he’s now very dead. Someone got him at his home address on Blackfriars Street, one of those nice penthouse-type places. Shall I pick you up or meet you there?” Rick gave him the address on Blackfriars.
“Meet you there. I’m on my way.” The phone line disconnected and Duncan swung his legs out of the bed. He dressed in jeans and his normal hoody, grabbed a jacket off the back of his chair and headed out.
It wasn’t hard to see which building it was as he approached. The flashing blues lit up the whole street. The distinctive morgue van was already parked up, so that meant the doctor on call was probably already inside. Rick parked his BMW and slipped out onto the street as Duncan locked his own car. They met in the middle of the tarmac and walked towards the building together.
“Who’s the doctor on call? Any idea?”
“No idea. Guess we’ll soon see,” said Rick. Let’s hope it’s not ‘Stanley Stanley.’ It’s too late in the day for his cantankerous moods. We should be still tucked up in our beds.”
Duncan grunted in agreement. Dr. Stanley Winstanley was not a well-liked man. He was, in fact, a real pain in the ass for the majority of his waking hours. Thinking about what Rick had just said, he added, “And who in their right mind would call their kid Stanley when your surname is Winstanley? That’s just cruel. I bet he had a crap childhood. Bullied, I’d bet. Probably why he’s so damn grumpy all the time now. Never got over it.”
It was Rick’s turn to grunt. They ducked under the crime scene tape that cordoned off the front entrance to the building and foyer beyond, and strode up to a couple of uniforms stationed at the door. Both Rick and Duncan flashed their IDs and opened the main door.
“Top floor,” added one of the uniforms helpfully as they went inside. “Only seven flights up the stairs.” Both detectives grimaced at the thought of hiking all the way in the absence of a usable lift. It was being dusted for prints; the black powder was evident around the floor buttons.
“Finding a usable print on a lift button has got to be like finding two hens teeth, hasn’t it?” Duncan grumbled.
Rick ignored his partner’s observation but did note his wheezing.
“You need to keep your fitness up Duncan. You sound like an old man climbing these stairs. Not good for you.”
“I’d rather be a bit wheezy than pound the pavements like you do for jollies. Plus I like the odd pint.”
“And you can have both, you know—fitness and a bevvy occasionally. They aren’t exclusive to one another,” retorted Rick, and sprinted the rest of the way up showing off.
At the top floor, they greeted the uniform on the door and stepped into Sebastian Stevens’ suite. Duncan whistled through his teeth as they emerged into the main living area, which had a spectacular view out over the city through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows. Duncan walked past Sebastian’s body and stood looking out at the night. The city was lit up like a Christmas tree.
“Wowza! What a cracker of a view.”
Rick waited for a moment for his partner to finish being in awe and then cleared his throat. “Now that you’ve got that out of the way …..”
“Alright buddy, I’m on to it.”
“Evening,” thundered a familiar voice behind them.
Both men turned in the direction of a short, rotund balding man. As usual, Stanley Stanley was wearing a white paper crime scene suit that made him look like a giant golf ball, his head a speck of dirt on the top. Stanley had lost the battle of the bulge a long time ago.
“Evening, Stanley,” said Rick. “Just arrived ourselves so can’t tell you much more than you probably already know. Sounds the same as the woman from Croydon a couple of weeks ago—throat slashed and posted on his own newsfeed for his friends to see. In fact, it was a friend that phoned it in.” Rick flicked through to the last page of his notebook where he’d written the name. “Yes, here it is. Jordan Jenkins.”
Stanley Stanley looked nonplussed and made his way over to the prostrate body. He knelt awkwardly down at Sebastian’s shoulders and peered closely at the gash in his neck, breathing heavily as he took in the detail.
Rick wondered if he’d make it back to a standing position unaided and hoped the older man wouldn’t need to lean on him as he clambered back up. Duncan watched from nearby, smiling to himself, knowing exactly what Rick was thinking; they’d both been there before.
“Hunting style of knife, I’d say at this stage. Have you found the weapon yet?”
“No, not yet,” said Rick evenly, biting back the retort tha
t they’d only just got here. “Doesn’t seem to be much blood, do you think?”
“Leave the thinking to me, son. It’s more my area than yours.”
“I’ll leave you to it then,” said Rick curtly. “Let me know the time of death when you’ve estimated it. I’ll be here a while yet.” He made his way off to look around the apartment in more detail, muttering to Duncan as he passed, “Sanctimonious old git. Isn’t it about time he retired?”
Duncan replied with a faint, knowing smile. “Come on, let’s get this processed until his lordship has something for us. You want to interview the friend by phone or shall I?”
“I’ll speak to the friend. Probably have him go into Croydon tomorrow to fill out a full statement, but I’ll get what he knows down now.”
“Uniforms will do the neighbours. I wonder how the killer gained access. Maybe he knew them?” He looked around the big lounge area. There was no obvious sign of a struggle and since the victim was laid out on the floor close to the hall, he surmised the perpetrator might not have gone into the lounge at all. And then there was the lack of blood. In his experience, that meant not everything was quite as it seemed. The loose facts dropped into Rick’s head in random deposits; nothing made any sense yet. But they would. Rick Black was one of the best young detectives in the GMP, and that’s why he was on the fast-track program. With two victims, they now had a possible serial killer and it was going to be his job to make sure he or she was caught and put away for good.
He turned back to Duncan. “Come on. Let’s get this show on the road then.”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Rick hated watching post-mortems. And Duncan knew it, and sometimes fed on it, just for fun. Like now. They both stood in the cold, clinical room filled with steel gurneys and sinks, the pungent smell of cleaning fluid drifting up their nostrils. Duncan watched as Rick’s colour gradually left his already pale face. Was he going to fall over again or manage to hold it together? Rick caught his eye and steadied himself nonchalantly with a hand on the tiled wall, like it was the most natural thing to do. Duncan smiled his way and Rick did his best to return one though it looked more like a grimace. Poor bastard was really suffering.
Stanley Stanley was babbling on about an old case a couple of decades ago where a victim’s throat had been cut and the similarities between the two cases, but neither man was really paying attention. He’d get back on point eventually and they’d re-engage. Dressed head to foot in surgical scrubs today, Stanley Stanley looked like a giant pale green marrowfat pea in white Crocs. His voice finally took on a different tone and the men knew to tune back in to present day-discussions. Duncan cleared his throat to speak.
“So he was dead before his throat was cut, then. How did he actually die?”
Stanley Stanley pointed to the puncture wound on his shoulder. “He was injected here and it’s my guess that whatever is in his system—and I won’t know until later today exactly what that was—it probably incapacitated him and ultimately killed him. He was a tall, fit man; he’d have been a challenge for anyone to apprehend. Then, for whatever reason, the throat was cut, and with an extremely sharp, smooth blade. Not something out of the kitchen drawer, I wouldn’t think. The average household’s knives wouldn’t be sharp enough to make a quick clean cut like this.”
Rick turned away as Stanley Stanley ran his gloved finger along the incision, opening it a little.
“No, you’re looking for a blade of about six inches long with a pointy tip,” Stanley Stanley said, almost lovingly. “And deadly sharp.”
“Anything else?” Rick had found his voice, for a moment at any rate.
“Not a lot, I’m afraid. The killer was very thorough and didn’t leave anything behind. I expect he wore gloves and maybe coveralls. Not a hair to be found on the body, either, though I’d be surprised if you didn’t find any in the apartment. He had a bit of a reputation with the ladies by all accounts, but you’ll know more about that than me when you get digging.”
“Do you think the knife could have been a hunting style of knife, then?” asked Rick.
“Quite possibly. Hunters would keep their knives sharp, more so than your average thug on the street looking for trouble. No,” he said, scratching his stubbly chin in thought, “I’d say someone knowledgeable on hunting and knowledgeable about looking after their gear.”
“That fits with the other victim, the woman, the one from further down south,” said Duncan. “I rang Croydon station this morning and spoke to the detective handling the case, DS Amanda Lacey. I’m betting the drug is …” Duncan checked back in his notebook for the name, “etorphine, I believe. Could knock out an elephant, apparently.”
Stanley Stanley scratched some more and added, “Well, that would do the job, alright. Probably a bit of overkill, if you’ll pardon the pun. Nothing surprises me anymore so I won’t even wonder how someone could get hold of such a drug.” He turned back to Sebastian’s body and pointed to his shoulder. “The puncture wound being where it is probably meant that he was taken by surprise while his back was turned. The confined space would have been ideal to strike, and that stuff is active in seconds. Damn lethal, as you can see.” He waved his arm over Sebastian’s lifeless form. “I’ll confirm whether it’s the same drug later when I know for sure.”
“Well, if it is, this could get interesting, because the perp obviously has an axe to grind about something. At least we can check for a link between the two victims, though hunting seems the obvious line currently. The DS, a woman called Amanda Lacey, is headed up here today, so she should be in early afternoon. We’ll confer then.”
Rick had returned to a more normal colour and ventured away from the tiled wall that was supporting him, keen to get back to more common ground and away from dead bodies. “Right then, coffee I think, Duncan, then we’ll go over what we know again so we’re ready for our visitor later. Let’s hope she can throw a bit more light on things. I’ll go over the statements of the other residents. Did you manage to get the CCTV footage from the building and surrounding areas?”
“Still waiting on the building footage, and there’s nothing of any value on the street cams but we’ll go through them again, perhaps. There were a couple of women enter the building at around the time of death, but it’s hard to make a visual from the footage. Their faces aren’t visible. I’m hoping the building footage will be better. A couple of the neighbours were also out and about but no one was acting obviously suspiciously. All looked like they knew where they were going; no one was loitering.”
Rick made his move towards the door and thanked Stanley Stanley, who nodded in reply, barely looking up from his own area of expertise.
“It would take some guts for a woman to knock him out,” Rick continued, “or someone who knew exactly what they were doing and could be sure of when to do it. Sebastian Stevens is a big, strong-looking man, and catching him by surprise in the hall would only give a minute window if the jab was what knocked him down.”
“Can’t rule anyone out at the moment but I’d be keen to find those that were nearby inside. And Amanda said they hadn’t had any luck with cameras at their end because it was down a quiet suburban street, in the victim’s home as well. A camera-free zone.” Duncan grabbed the door and held it open for Rick. “It doesn’t help when your victim isn’t a well-liked man either. Could be a whole list of enemies, though the hunting knife angle seems the most obvious. We know for a fact the guy hunts.”
“He did, but he won’t be anymore.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Ruth headed over to Amanda’s, a takeaway from Wong’s in her hand, a bottle of white in the other. While they both abstained from drinking during the week normally, self-imposed rules were there for the breaking when the need arose. And the need had arisen. When Amanda wasn’t working on a taxing case, it was easy, but throw a murder into the mix, and a glass or two of wine was a decent crutch on which to balance the crap of her day. And who liked drinking alone? The bag of Amanda’s favo
urite, sweet and sour pork, was heavy in her hand, the pleasant smell of tasty food wafting invitingly into her nostrils as she unlocked the front door and went inside.
“Hi hun, I’m home! And I’ve been out gathering and came across dinner! Hope you’re hungry,” she called.
“Be down in a minute,” Amanda called back. “And yes, famished.”
Ruth could hear water running in the bathroom and helped herself to wine glasses and plates in the kitchen. A moment later a damp-looking Amanda stood in the doorway wearing track pants that never saw the track. She was rubbing the side of her wet head with a towel. Her short blonde hair was at all angles.
“Hey,” was all she said. They never needed much more than that after a long day, except a hug.
“Hey back. I’ve brought wine, too,” Ruth said, handing her a glass. “I know it’s technically a school night, but I thought you’d appreciate a glass, so sit down and I’ll serve up. Got your favourite.” Amanda stepped forward from her spot in the doorway and landed a light kiss on the back of Ruth’s neck as she got to work filling two plates.
“What did I ever do to deserve a woman like you? You spoil me rotten and I really appreciate it, you know. Thank you.”
“As you do me, too, when I’m working hard. It works both ways. Here, eat it before it goes cold,” she said, passing a plate to her. Amanda took it and sat down at the kitchen table. Taking her first mouthful, she groaned in pleasure.
“That. Is. So. Good!”
Ruth waited a moment before tucking in herself, watching as Amanda chewed ravenously on crispy pork balls now covered in sticky sauce. “I met Dad for coffee today. He still seems so lost on his own.”