Body Heat

by Candy Denman

  “How’s it going?” she asked him. “Have you managed to find any of our victims on there?”

  Nigel cleared his throat and looked round the almost empty room guiltily. No one was paying them any attention.

  “We’ve confirmed that the second victim was registered on the site, Dr Hughes, like you told us, but, um...”

  Callie had a slight panic, what if he had found her on there and recognised her?

  “That was because her name came up as a possible match to my want list and she had used her own picture and her middle name,” he continued. “But I haven’t managed to be matched with any of the others so far, as far as I know.” He looked round guiltily.

  “You’ve gone on as a client?” Callie was surprised and quickly went through the list of people she had contacted from there. The last thing she wanted was for her alter ego Vicky to be having covert conversations with a policeman.

  “Um, yes, well, the website owners haven’t yet responded to our request for a client list, so in the meantime…”

  “And did you find anyone else interesting on there?”

  But Miller came into the room before he could reply.

  “Dr Hughes?” he looked surprised to see her and she was saddened to see how tired he looked. His sleeves were rolled up and he had loosened his tie to undo the top button, and his hair looked as though he had been running his hands through it. The strain of this investigation was definitely beginning to take its toll.

  “I was seeing a prisoner and I just thought whilst I was here, well, um, could I have a word?”

  He ushered her into his office and cleared a chair for her.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked.

  “I promised Mark Caxton I would speak to you.”

  He couldn’t disguise a flash of irritation.

  “Please, tell me you haven’t been seeing him alone.”

  “He is my patient and we have a very good system for summoning help in the surgery.” She didn’t add that it only worked if there were staff there to be summoned.

  “He has told you he is no longer a suspect, hasn’t he?”

  “Yes, of course. And he knows that you just keep asking questions because you think he must know the killer or have had some contact with him.”

  Miller relaxed.

  “Good.”

  “But he is still finding it quite stressful having to answer all your questions. He feels you don’t believe him when he says he can’t remember.”

  Miller sighed and rubbed his face.

  “I know. It’s not that I don’t believe him, it’s just incredibly frustrating that he can’t seem to tell us what he was doing only a few days ago.”

  “The more pressure you put on him to remember things, the less he can. He gets into a panic and his mind goes blank. Look, if you want to talk to him again, why don’t you get Helen or me to be with him. Just so that he feels like there’s someone there to support him.”

  “Of course. Yes, I’ll do that. Where it’s possible, that is.”

  “I realise that it won’t always be practical,” she conceded, “but please, don’t let Sergeant Jeffries anywhere near him.”

  He nodded his understanding and stood to show her out, but hesitated when she didn’t immediately stand herself.

  “I was just wondering how things were going?” she asked and he hesitated for a moment, before deciding to answer.

  “We’re trying to get a warrant to get the records of the company that runs the website, but with only one confirmed victim on there, well, who knows if we will get it?”

  “Won’t the company co-operate without a warrant? Surely they don’t want to be the reason another woman gets murdered?”

  “I spoke to the owner, a Ms Hepton-Lacey, but she felt her hands were tied. Her lawyers had advised her that without a warrant she could be sued by anyone who felt she had breached their right to privacy by letting us see their details.”

  Callie could see the problem.

  “Could you not issue a warning? That you think he meets his victims online, at least, even if you can’t name the specific website?”

  “Apparently not. We don’t want to frighten the public, or damage anyone’s business, do we? We might end up getting sued ourselves.”

  Miller was unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.

  “That’s just ridiculous,” she retorted angrily. “The public are pretty scared anyway and if a woman dies tonight and the police have not done everything possible to stop it, I would imagine you might be in trouble anyway.”

  Miller threw his hands up.

  “You don’t need to tell me.”

  “Who do I need to tell, then? Because, believe me, I am quite happy to give the Chief Constable a piece of my mind if that’s what it takes.”

  Looking at the righteous indignation on her face, Miller could quite believe she would too, and he couldn’t help but smile.

  “What?” she asked, angry that he didn’t seem to be taking her seriously.

  “God, but she’s beautiful when she’s angry, isn’t she, boss?”

  Both Miller and Callie turned guiltily at the sarcastic voice from the door interrupting them and then scowled when they saw Jeffries standing there.

  “But don’t let me stop you, Doc,” Jeffries continued, coming into the office. “I’d pay to see you give the Chief Constable a piece of your mind, especially as the CPS just turned down the request for a warrant to get SusSEXtra’s client list.”

  * * *

  “The women of Hastings are locking their doors and staying in tonight, frightened to go out, knowing that a vicious killer is stalking the streets, picking them off, one by one.” The reporter finished as the camera panned round at the near empty streets in the town centre.

  Callie pushed her plate of prawn stir fry away from her in disgust. It wasn’t that it tasted awful, it was the endless ghoulish speculation about the possibility of another death that seemed to be on every television channel that was putting her off her food. Would there be another Saturday night murder? She sincerely hoped not but she knew she wouldn’t sleep tonight, expecting to be called at dawn to pronounce another woman dead. At least the female population were staying in if the report was true, although Callie wouldn’t put it past the reporters to have just shifted everyone out of sight for effect.

  Callie switched channels as the special feature news programme cut back to the studio. She didn’t want to watch the picture parade of victims she had come to know too well, and the endless sanctimonious platitudes about them: good wife, perfect mother, best friend ever, I’ll never find anyone like her again. She had heard it all before, the women had become saints overnight, no one willing to speak ill of the dead. Everyone who had ever met any of the victims, or who thought they might have, queuing up for the fifteen seconds of fame, weeping and wailing in an effort to convince the world of how traumatised they were. Callie chastised herself for being so cynical and channel-surfed hoping to find something different, something interesting enough to distract her from her tense wait for the telephone to ring, but she couldn’t find anything and switched the television off in disgust.

  She would have liked to chat to Kate, even over the phone, but Kate was out at a dinner party given by one of her many friends. Kate was funny and gregarious and found herself in almost constant demand at dinner parties to balance any single men who had been invited. Callie found herself invited by friends as well, but usually because they were trying to pair her off with some completely awful relative they were desperate to see settle down, so she rarely accepted.

  Callie checked her watch. Nine o’clock and the killer was probably meeting his victim, buying her drinks, GHB at the ready, planning how to get her into the pre-stolen car he would have waiting outside. A thought occurred to her: if he was busy with his fourth victim, even with texts and instant messaging on his phone, he wouldn’t be able to manage a conversation whilst he was chatting up another victim. She hurriedly fetched her lapt
op and signed in to the SusSEXtra website, sending messages to all those who had messaged her and then sent instant messages from her phone to any that she had conversed with, including the unlovely Lee, and waited to see which of them got back to her.

  By ten-thirty she had chatted with ten men, mainly using WhatsApp as this seemed to be the messaging service most favoured by the majority. She was surprised that the list of men responding included Lee, who seemed completely unabashed by her previous put downs. Like a puppy he was up and bouncing, full of energy, wanting to meet, and do a lot of other things which he described in great detail, but which Callie quickly deleted. She kept on her flirty sexting with each of the men long enough to convince herself that it was unlikely that they were also holding a conversation with a woman who was with them. Not a woman they were trying to chat up, anyway. They could, of course, be with a long-term partner and were just ignoring them and concentrating on their phones, as seemed to be the norm nowadays, even when out for a drink or dinner. Callie drew up a list of all the men who had contacted her and crossed off the ten names she had managed to get responses from in the last hour. Only another twenty-two suspects then.

  * * *

  He sat, furiously playing with his glass. How dare she be late. The bitch. How dare she stand him up like this? He checked his phone again, at least he had developed his relationship with Vicky whilst he waited, but that was scant consolation for a wasted night. He stood up to leave the packed pub. It seemed full of people who were there because it wasn’t a town centre pub and they thought they would be safer. Such stupidity. He had never used a venue in the town centre because of the ubiquity of CCTV. He checked his watch again. He had given the whore enough time, she clearly wasn’t coming. He ignored the comments from the couple who had been waiting for his table as they slid into his seat the moment he left it. Perhaps it was a good thing the bitch hadn’t turned up: sitting alone and blocking a table, they would have been able to remember him if she had eventually arrived. He made a note to himself. If the place was packed, do not occupy a table until the date had arrived, even if that meant there were none free. They could always find a space outside.

  He had to think about what to do with the car. He could leave it somewhere, open, hoping that it would be stolen, but what if it wasn’t? It would have his DNA all over it without the cleansing effect of fire. If he held onto the car, hid it in his garage for the next time he needed it, that was a risk as well. What if anyone saw it there? Or him driving it back? How could he explain away a stolen car with fake plates? It was too direct a link to the murders. No, he had to get rid of the car, stick to the plan, burn it like the others. Only this time, the car would be empty.

  Chapter 18

  Callie woke with a start and looked at her watch in surprise. It was nine o’clock on a Sunday morning and she could hear church bells as well as the usual raucous screech of the seagulls. She reached across and quickly checked her phone. Perhaps she’d slept through the ring, or the battery had died overnight, but no, the screen burst into life and showed she hadn’t missed anything. There had been no early morning call to pronounce life extinct.

  As she picked out her clothes for the day she thought through the implications of her unbroken sleep. There had been no call. Therefore, there had been no killing. Unless they just hadn’t found the body yet. The killer might have chosen somewhere so remote that it would take a while before the body was found.

  She picked up the pile of clothing and hurried back into the living room, grabbing the remote from the coffee table and switching the television on. She wasn’t sure why she was checking as there wouldn’t be anything on the news if they hadn’t found the car or a body yet, would there?

  She watched the headlines as she made a pot of English breakfast tea, using loose leaves and warming the pot carefully in her regular Sunday morning ritual. She might even walk down to the seafront for a leisurely coffee and a read of the Sunday papers. Except that the papers would be full of the murders.

  On the television news channel, there was a lengthy discussion taking place on whether the killing spree had stopped. The debate consisted of more speculation than fact, and Callie was just pouring herself a second cup of tea when there was some breaking news and the anchor woman cut to a reporter rushing breathlessly into a country car park. Callie sat forward and gripped her bone china mug so tightly there was a danger it would break.

  Having got the wreckage of a burnt-out car into frame behind him, the reporter continued his story. Callie looked closely and could make out the blackened remnants of what appeared to be a small hatchback and tried to work out where the car park was, but she didn’t think it was anywhere she knew.

  “Another Saturday night and another burnt-out car, Laura, and as the fire brigade and police responded early this morning, they feared there had been another murder. Thankfully, when they got here, they found out that this time, there wasn’t a body inside.”

  Callie hadn’t realised she had been holding her breath until then, but let it out in a huge sigh of relief, and put her tea down. She imagined Miller must have reacted in a similar way when he was told that there wasn’t another burnt corpse of a woman inside the car.

  “Are the police connecting this to the previous incidents?” Laura the anchorwoman was asking her colleague.

  Callie could see Colin the crime scene manager in the background, well away from the car and indicating to a constable that he should move people back. The moment he realised he was on camera, Colin ducked out of sight and a police constable appeared from off camera rolling out crime scene tape, forcing the reporter and camera man to move further away from the car. As they moved back, Callie saw Chris Butterworth, the fire investigator, standing, hands on hips, and looking around the area intently. Then the camera moved and focussed on the reporter again.

  “The car park venue, in an isolated area of the countryside, would suggest that this is the work of the same man, Laura, but the police are keeping an open mind at this stage.”

  Somehow, Callie doubted that any police officers had spoken to the reporter, let alone told him that they were keeping an open mind and she suspected that the only reason he knew there was no body in the car was the lack of a mortuary van, or herself, at the scene. And remote car parks were often where cars were dumped and torched. The killer wasn’t the only arsonist to use them.

  “Thanks, Giles,” Laura said to the reporter before turning back to the studio camera, her face serious and focussed. “We will, of course, keep you updated on developments in Hastings as they occur,” she said, before finally allowing herself a little smile. “And now over to Casey for the weather.”

  Callie switched the television off and wondered about why the killer hadn’t added to his victims. The car could be coincidental, of course, just left by a bunch of joy riders this time. If so, it wouldn’t take Colin and Chris long to uncover the discrepancies. Callie rubbed a hand across her forehead, she just hoped Mark wasn’t involved. He torched cars for pleasure and to relieve stress, and he had undoubtedly been under stress recently. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed possible that if this car wasn’t the work of the killer, then Mark might be the culprit and she knew he would find himself under a whole lot more pressure pretty quickly if that was the case, and even if it wasn’t. Although she wasn’t on call as a GP this weekend, perhaps a pre-emptive visit was in order.

  * * *

  Callie knocked at the door of Mark’s home and waited. She could hear him inside and called out.

  “Mark, it’s me. Dr Hughes. Can you open the door please?”

  There was a bit more shuffling from inside and then the door opened and Mark peered out. He looked relieved to see she was alone and opened the door wider to let her in.

  He showed her into the untidy sitting room and she sat, or rather perched on the worn and stained sofa after he had cleared her a space.

  Mark sat on an armchair and began the in-depth study of his cuticles again.
r />   “I wondered if you had heard the news this morning?” she asked tentatively.

  He shook his head, but looked up for a moment, interested.

  “Was there another one? Another woman burnt, like?”

  “No, well, there was another car fire, but there wasn’t anyone in the car this time.”

  Mark nodded.

  “That’s okay then.” He went back to picking at his fingers.

  Callie was more than a little anxious about her next question.

  “Um, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way,” she started and leant forward with what she hoped was a reassuring smile as he looked at her at last. “I don’t suppose it was you this time?”

  For a moment he didn’t understand what she was saying but then his eyes widened as it finally registered.

  “What!” he shouted. “You think I done this?”

  “No, no. Not necessarily.” She tried to reassure him. “I don’t think that but I just need to be sure so that I can head the police off–”

  “The police, no!” He was really agitated now and, too late, Callie realised that her visit was having the opposite effect to the one she had hoped for. “Dr Lambourne was right. You’re trying to stitch me up!”

  He jumped up and Callie forced herself to sit still, hoping that this would help cool the situation down.

  “Calm down, Mark. I came here to help you. The police are going to have to question you, they are probably already on their way, but if we can–” But he wasn’t listening and ran out of the room and out of the house, slamming the door behind him.

  With a sigh, Callie got up and headed for the front door to leave, berating herself for having made matters worse rather than better. She heard some shouting and as she opened the door came face to face with Miller and Jeffries, who seemed to be holding a struggling Mark in a bear hug.

  “Dr Hughes!” Miller looked surprised to see her.

  Callie nodded to him but went straight to her patient and went to touch him gently on the arm before remembering that this might trigger a more violent reaction and hastily dropping her hand.