The Stalker's Song

  They were met by a young officer who introduced himself as Constable Chris Stevens. With his blonde hair and ruddy cheeks, he looked all of sixteen. I’m definitely getting old, Gayle thought. He suggested they follow his car into the forest, and soon they were bumping along a narrow rutted track, with huge conifers rising on either side. After a few minutes, they could see blue police tape up ahead, and found a small clearing on the left where they parked up.

  A DCI greeted them and explained that the body had been found by a young couple, looking for red squirrels.

  ‘Amongst other activities,’ she said and grinned. ‘Two police constables were first on the scene and they immediately called for support. The duty officer, was next, and he supervised the securing of the scene before contacting me. That’s when they found the second body in the boot. The photographer has just finished. SOCO are doing their bit. The bodies are still in situ, in the car, but we need to move them to allow proper examination.’ She turned, as a man approached. ‘This is David Dawkins, the Divisional Surgeon.’

  ‘Hi, David,’ Gayle said. Their paths had crossed on other cases, so they knew one another. Gayle found him to be a jolly sort of person, given the horrible tasks he had to perform.

  ‘Hi Gayle, how’re you doing? Hope you haven’t eaten recently?’ They put on forensic suits and David led them past a tent which had been set up next to where the car was hidden under the trees. ‘Once you’re happy, we want to move them on to gurneys inside the tent, so I can take a closer look at them. I have to warn you, the bodies are not a pretty sight. There’s some decomposition and a lot of maggot activity. In the male body, there appears to be damage to the left eye – that’s where the maggots are concentrated.’

  ‘How long...?’ Gayle started to ask.

  ‘I would say less than a month. The body’s not too badly decomposed, but we’ve got the winter temperatures to thank for that. Would have been a different story in the summer. The presence of maggots, a large mass, indicates he’s not been dead for more than a month. My best guess at this stage would be three to four weeks. From what I can see, lividity suggests that the body hasn’t been moved, but I need to take a proper look to be certain. If I’m right, he died where he was found, lying on the back seat of the car. Looks to me as though he could have lain down in the back, maybe for a sleep, or because he wasn’t feeling well. Looking at that eye, I would say that could have something to do with the cause of death, but I won’t know for sure until I do the autopsy. There’s no obvious sign of any other injuries, apart from a few minor scratches on his face.’

  They reached the car, and David held the door open so Gayle could look in. She leaned in. Even though she was wearing a mask, the stench in the car was vile and filled her nostrils, seeming to cling to the back of her throat. With trepidation, she looked at the face.

  In death, he looked ghastly. His left eye area was swollen, and black, green and blue, with what looked like a large open sore beneath. The sore was heaving with maggots. At first glance, he looked very different from the man she knew as Justin Green. Remembering what Carol had told her about his hair now being very short and light, and his face clean-shaven, she took a closer look. She was pretty sure that underneath all the mess, it was him, but not one hundred percent. However, the injury to the left eye was consistent with what they would expect from Carol’s description of what had happened, so all in all, there was little doubt in her mind that it was him.

  She turned to Georgia, who was looking ashen, and said ‘I think it’s Justin Green, but I can’t be sure. We’ll need his brother to ID him properly.’ Georgia turned and fled and Gayle could hear her retching on the far side of the tent. She still hadn’t seen her first body, just smelled it.

  David led Gayle around to the back of the car. ‘This one’s not much better,’ he said. ‘There’s a large wound to the back of the skull and the maggots are doing their bit there, too.’

  It took all her resolve to look into the boot of the car. Pauline was lying on her side, facing outwards. Her eyes were open, staring sightlessly from a face that looked almost untouched. Blackened dried blood had spread underneath her head. Gayle turned away, sickened. ‘It’s Pauline Bradley.’

  ‘We’ll start the PMs this afternoon, as soon as we’ve got them to the mortuary,’ said David. ‘I’ll do the male first. For now, if you’re happy, we’ll move them to the tent?’ She nodded. ‘So you think it’s your man?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m pretty sure... especially with having Pauline’s body in the boot. We’ll need to get his brother up to do a formal ID. I’ll arrange that straight away?’

  He nodded, ‘Sooner the better. You attending the PM?’

  ‘Yes, if I can; let me know what time you’re starting it.’

  As Gayle walked by the tent, the DCI was waiting for her. ‘We’ve recovered his belongings from the car. Amongst his things were two passports, one in the name of Justin Green and the other, Terry Archer. Neither names are on the database – they’re not known to us.’

  ‘Justin Green is known to me. Terry Archer is an alias,’ Gayle explained. ‘I’m pretty sure the body is that of Justin Green; as far as I can tell, with the mess he’s in. I hope it bloody well is; he’s caused us no end of trouble. What else was in the car?’

  ‘An overnight bag, with a few clothes in it, a laptop and a mobile phone.’

  ‘We’ll need to take a look at everything. This guy, and I’m pretty sure it is him, is wanted for murder and attempted murder. One of the crimes took place in Yorkshire; but it’s our case, and the North Yorkshire team are assisting us. It’s a bit complicated, as the original crime took place in Barbados.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard quite a bit about it. Well, we’ll give you every assistance.’

  Gayle rang the Met and arranged for someone to pay Rob Wilkinson a visit and make arrangements for him to travel up at once to identify his half-brother. Then she collected a still very shaken Georgia, and they headed back to Newcastle.

  ‘Want to attend the post mortem with me, Georgia?’ Gayle asked, mischievously.

  She looked shocked ‘Only if I have to?’

  ‘No, I’ll let you off this time. I think you’ve seen enough for one day.’ Gayle laughed. ‘You’ll get used to it you know, but that was a bad one for your first body.’

  Gayle rang the Inspector on the way back, and gave him an update. By the time they arrived at the station in Newcastle, the Inspector had called the team together in the MIR.

  ‘You’ve just got time to grab a coffee, Gayle,’ DCI Patsy Mayne told her. Patsy had come into the station as soon as she’d heard the news.

  When Gayle walked into the incident room, coffee in hand, a sea of faces looked at her expectantly. The excitement in the room was palpable. She knew there’d been a lot of frustration in the team, at the lack of progress following all the activity of searching the moor and the cottage. Since then, they’d drawn a blank. It was just as though Justin Green had disappeared into thin air.

  ‘Right,’ began the Super, ‘as I’m sure you all know by now, the Peugeot we’ve been looking for has been found, hidden in Kielder Forest. There were two bodies in the car, a male on the rear seat and a female in the boot. They appear to have been there for some time. Gayle’s been up there, with Georgia. I’ll let her tell you what she found.’

  Gayle stood up. ‘The Peugeot was found by a young couple, Tony and Sandy, in Kielder Forest. They were larking about; Sandy was being chased by Tony and she ducked under some low branches and literally bumped into the car.’

  Gayle went on to describe how the young couple had opened the car door when they got no response to knocking on the window. ‘As you can imagine, they got quite a shock when they opened the back door and the stench hit them. As soon as they could get a signal, they rang the police. When the police got there, they found a second body in the boot. A woman’s.’

  She took a sip of coffee, before continuing. ‘I went up there with
Georgia. According to the pathologist, the bodies have been there for three to four weeks. He was able to arrive at a reasonably accurate estimate, based on the maggot activity on the corpses.’

  ‘Ugh...’ the involuntary sound had come from Wendy, who looked embarrassed as everyone laughed at her.

  Gayle continued. ‘On the male body, the maggots were concentrated in a large mass on an open wound to the left side of the face, around the eye. You’ll remember of course that Carol told us she stabbed Justin Green in the left eye with a stick.

  I took a look at the corpse and I believe it to be that of Justin Green, but I can’t be one hundred percent sure, due to the decomposition and the maggot activity. But everything points to it being him. His half brother, Rob Wilkinson, is on his way up from London to formally ID him. The body in the boot is that of Pauline Bradley. She has a large wound to the back of her head. Post Mortems are being held later this afternoon and I’m planning to go along to observe the one on the male.

  We recovered a computer and mobile from the car, along with an overnight bag, and these are with forensics. There were also two passports, one in the name of Justin Green and another in the name of Terry Archer. Both names have been run through the database, but don’t show up anywhere. Any questions so far?’

  ‘How sure are you that it’s him?’ A young D.S., Andy Best, who’d helped co-ordinate the search on the moor, spoke up.

  ‘Pretty sure, but we’ll have to wait for formal identification before we can start to celebrate.’ There were grins all round.

  ‘Thank you, Gayle. Now, Andy, once forensics are done, I’d like you and Georgia to look through his computer and mobile phone; see if there’s anything relevant there. Jane, you check through his overnight bag. Wendy, see if you can get anything from the passports. Once we get the ID and the cause of death, we’ll be able to put this case to bed.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  David had arranged for the body to be moved to the city mortuary in Newcastle, and by the time Gayle managed to get there, he had the post mortem well underway. She got kitted out in the ante-room and made sure her mask was firmly in place before entering the post mortem suite. David had already done the Y section and she watched as, together with a young female assistant, he carefully removed the yards of slippery intestines, before transferring them to a dish with a resounding plop. She looked at the face. The maggots were gone, and she assumed they’d been scraped off and kept as specimens somewhere. Without the presence of the wriggling mass, she got a better look, but still couldn’t be certain it was Justin Green.

  She studied the pretty face of David’s young assistant and wondered at the appeal of such a profession to a young girl, but hey, each to his own, she thought. She guessed some of her friends thought the same about her choice of career. As a detective, you certainly see the seedier side of life; things most people are only vaguely aware of and, thankfully, rarely experience, she thought.

  David was dictating his findings as he went, and she tuned out a bit, as there didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary, so far. He prised the ribs apart and removed the heart and she knew the next step would be to look at the head. This was the interesting part for Gayle.

  After he deftly made the incision to the scalp, she watched in fascination as the scalp was pulled forward, and the facial features collapsed. David put the still-saw to work and began to slice off the top of the skull. Once he’d removed the top, he carefully extracted the brain, examining it closely for any damage.

  ‘There is leakage from a small, shallow puncture to the frontal lobe, with haemorrhage and massive infection,’ he dictated. ‘The puncture appears to have been made through a transorbital route, via the roof of the orbit, through the left eye, which has a ruptured globe. This leads me to the conclusion that a pointed object penetrated the left eye and broke through the fragile bone in the roof of the orbit, and entered the brain. This injury caused a slow leakage of fluid, leading to infection. Death would be inevitable, but may have taken quite some time to take place. In the meanwhile, the person would have been able to function but would gradually become more and more disorientated and unwell. There would be total loss of sight from the left eye, severe pain in the head and extreme fatigue.’

  David was finishing up, leaving the closing and tidying up to his assistant. He and Gayle both left the room, and were removing their scrubs.

  ‘Haven’t seen one of those for a long time. Very rare injury,’ David said, shrugging on his tweed jacket.

  ‘The victim told us she stabbed at his face with a small stick she’d found on the ground. It was dark, so she couldn’t be sure exactly where, but she’s sure she made contact because he cried out in pain, clutching his face and saying something about his eye.’

  ‘That would certainly be consistent with my findings. She must have stabbed at him with some force. It’s not easy to penetrate the roof of the orbit.’

  ‘Well, thank God she did, or she’d be be lying in her own grave now. She was fighting for her life.’

  ‘I’ll be starting on the female body at three pm,’ said David.

  ‘I won’t be attending that, David. I knew her; I just couldn’t take it.’

  David nodded, ‘I understand. I’ll let you have the results as soon as I have them.’

  Once back at the office, Gayle went straight to see her boss and gave her the results of the post mortem.

  ‘Right, Gayle. That fits in with what the victim told us. I’m getting the team together for an update in about...’ she consulted her watch ‘twenty minutes. There’s been a new development... No, wait for the briefing.’ she was teasing her, but wouldn’t be drawn on what the new development was.

  When Gayle walked into the incident room eighteen minutes later, she could feel an undercurrent of excitement; there was a buzz in the room. The team members were all there, waiting for the SIO, and a lot of banter was flying about. They were teasing Wendy about a live sex show she’d gone to see on a recent trip to Amsterdam. She’d just admitted to being picked out of the audience to go on to the stage, where some twerking had taken place.

  ‘It was innocent enough,’ she was explaining, ‘I kept all my clothes on, honestly! And it was all simulation.’

  ‘You mean all penetration,’ quipped one of the PC’s (who certainly wasn’t PC).

  All banter was dropped when the door suddenly swung open and Chief Superintendent Jensen strode into the room. He asked Gayle to report on the findings of the post-mortem, which she did in some detail, and confirmed the cause of death was consistent with what Carol had told them.

  ‘The stick she stabbed at him with must have penetrated his brain, causing leakage of fluid from the brain, eventually leading to death,’ she concluded.

  ‘Go Girl,’ one of the PC’s whispered under his breath, earning a stern look from the Super.

  ‘Thanks, Gayle. Now, I think Andy has some news for us. Andy?’

  ‘Sir.’ He told them that when he examined the computer found in the car, he came across material that confirmed Carol’s contention that her husband had been murdered by Justin Green.

  ‘There are photographs of Peter Barrington, with captions saying, for example...’ Andy was scrolling down the screen ‘and I quote, This fucker’s days are numbered and further on, under a photograph of Team Ryan, The Team’s soon going to be a man down. Then there’s a caption underneath a copy of the coroner’s report that reads Easy peasy. One push and it was all over.’

  ‘Cocky bastard.’ Gayle muttered.

  ‘There are emails between Terry Archer and the captain of the hiking club, Tim Lawrenson,’ continued Andy. ‘Archer, aka Justin Green, applied to join the hiking club six months before Peter Barrington’s ‘accident’. Looks like the findings of Barrington’s inquest will have to be re-examined.

  There are also hundreds of pictures and videos of Carol Barrington on his computer. Many appear to have been recorded in her home. We know of c
ourse that he set up cameras in the house, even in the bedroom and bathroom. He’s apparently been watching her for more than a year. There are pictures of her in many different locations, on the beach, in an office, shopping, etc. So it looks like he’s been stalking her. Without her knowledge. He’s been following her every move.’

  ‘Thanks, Andy. Good work. That all fits in with the assessment of the psychologist that we were dealing with a predatory stalker,’ the Super said, before turning to Gayle. ‘Has the brother identified the body yet?’

  ‘I’ll check with David. Rob Wilkinson should have arrived at the mortuary by now.’ She picked up her phone. After speaking with David, she put the phone down and turned to the team. ‘It’s him. Rob’s confirmed it’s definitely his brother.’

  A cheer went round the room and a few high fives, too. The satisfaction of having closure on such a momentous case was obvious. There was still work to do, however. The suspected murder of Peter Barrington would have to be investigated and evidence gathered. Gayle thought to herself, Justin Green had targeted an innocent, unsuspecting woman and her equally unsuspecting husband and completely shattered their lives, murdered the husband, murdered the friend, all in order to act out his perverted and violent sexual fantasies. From what Carol had told them, there was no doubt that had he successfully disposed of her, he would have gone on to attack her daughter.

  Over the years, Gayle had learned not to be shocked by anything, but this case had come pretty close.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

  I was slumped in an uncomfortable armchair, trying to read Dan Brown’s The Davinci Code but finding it difficult to concentrate. Julia came through from the kitchen.

  ‘Fancy a game of scrabble?’ she asked.