She looked around. ‘The depths of hell.’
‘If you mean Hollytree, that’s perfect. Come around to the shops. I have someone here I think you’re going to recognise.’
‘Shit,’ Kim said, getting into the car.
She’d wanted Keats to give her something but another body wasn’t what she’d had in mind.
Seventy
‘Someone really should have listened to that kid,’ Penn said, putting down the phone.
‘Well, you more than made up for it. You’ve been gassing to him for half an hour.’
‘Yeah, well, he wanted me to know how unjustified his speeding ticket was but just look at this, Stacey,’ he said, getting Route Planner on the screen.
‘Todd Marsh came on the motorway here, at junction 1, drove for about three miles. He saw a vehicle up ahead, flashing lights and changing lanes. He slowed down thinking it was a police vehicle pulling someone over, which was kinda prophetic in a way, then continued to hang back in the fast lane. The vehicle behind then turned off all its lights cos our guy said the brake lights went out, so he knew it wasn’t police. He sped up and passed them. Got the feeling it was some kind of road rage thing and didn’t want to get involved. Thought the van had been cut up somewhere and was making a point.’
‘Van?’ she queried.
‘Red transit,’ Penn said. ‘And even better, partial plate. Ends in ZZ5. He thought it was funny and reminded him of sleep.’
‘So, you think this guy in the van was actually trying to kill Saul Cordell?’ she asked, doubtfully. A part of her still pictured him driving home late at night to see his family after learning about his father’s death. Tired, emotional, not concentrating as much as he should have been. Didn’t see the cones or the motorway vehicle until it was too late.
‘Or it could even be that speedy boy had it right first time and it was some kind of road rage incident and nothing to do with the case,’ she offered.
‘Bringing us back to the theory of coincidence in which neither of us believe. And even if that was the case…’
‘Someone should be trying to find the van,’ she finished for him.
He shrugged. ‘Let’s try tracking this guy down and find out,’ he said.
Stacey stared at the screen. ‘He ploughed into the motorway vehicle just past junction 2, didn’t he?’
‘Yep,’ Penn answered.
‘So, there’s a good chance our guy exited there, yeah?’
‘Makes sense,’ Penn agreed.
They both started tapping away furiously focussing all efforts on CCTV in that area.
If they were dealing with a third murder, the boss needed to know. Now.
Seventy-One
‘Yes, it’s definitely her,’ Kim said, looking down into the ashen face of Nat Mansell.
Despite circulating the woman’s photo to every constable, sergeant and PC she could reach, someone else had found her first, murdered her and dumped her behind a row of abandoned shops, amongst rotting rubbish that had been putrefying for weeks.
She had already assessed that CCTV wouldn’t help them on this one. Of the six properties behind which they stood only two were not boarded up. One was a newsagent who had no coverage as he paid handsomely for the protection of the gang that ran Hollytree, and the other was the part-time community centre that opened a few hours a couple of times each week. They had one camera on the front door but nothing around the back.
Kim shook her head, sadly. Only a few hours ago she had been chasing this woman for answers across a patch of grass. And now she was dead. If only she’d stopped and talked, Kim knew she could have protected her.
‘She wasn’t killed here,’ Keats observed. ‘Not nearly enough blood.’
‘Any significance in this place being the dump site?’ Bryant asked.
‘Maybe it’s a statement,’ Kim said, looking around ‘Places don’t come much grimmer than this. Even after death he’s telling us how he feels about her. A final insult. Or it was just the easiest, quickest place to dump her body,’ she concluded.
‘Multiple stab wounds,’ Keats said, lifting up her slashed shirt to reveal a torso bloodied and slashed.
‘Jesus, he hated her,’ Kim said. Lines of blood had seeped from the minor wounds before death and trailed around her sides to her back.
‘Why the rookie moves?’ she asked, turning to Bryant. ‘Why risk unnecessary contamination with the body by moving it if the sites mean nothing to him? Why take Cordell all the way to the park instead of killing him right there in his flat?’
Bryant shrugged. ‘Either knows exactly what he’s doing and is sure he’s leaving nothing of himself behind, or is a complete novice who doesn’t understand the Locard principle of leaving something of yourself at every crime scene.’
‘But he is leaving stuff behind, isn’t he?’ she said. ‘So far we have a boot print, a hair and fibres, so he’s actually proving that Locard was on the money,’ she said, turning to Keats. ‘Time of death?’ she asked.
‘I’d estimate five to six hours,’ he said.
She turned to Bryant. ‘Fuck. Within an hour or two of us spotting her at the retirement home,’ Kim growled as a shudder ran through her. They had been so close to saving the woman’s life and her damn leg had let her down. On a normal day she could have caught Nat Mansell and wrestled her to the ground if necessary. Anything to keep her safe.
Her brain followed the chronology of the day. ‘And right before we turned up to find a damp Mancini clad in bath towels,’ she observed.
‘You’re convicting the guy because he took a shower?’ Bryant asked.
‘Would have got pretty bloody from this, don’t you think?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, let’s round up everyone who took a shower around that time, or even a bath or a quick wash in—’
‘Mitch is after you,’ Keats said to her across the body. ‘Wants to show you something at the lab.’
She nodded and began to walk away. She frowned and turned back.
‘Keats, lift up her top for me again,’ she said, only just registering what she thought she’d seen.
He did so carefully.
She studied the picture before her for a moment. ‘Okay, Keats, thanks,’ she said, turning and heading for the car.
‘Didn’t get your fill the first time, eh, guv?’ Bryant asked.
Kim shot him a look and took a few steps to the side. Away from listening ears. He followed.
‘Bryant, I’d like to apologise,’ she said, through gritted teeth.
He looked genuinely perplexed. ‘For what?’
‘Whatever it is I did that made you think I’d put up with these small digs indefinitely. Clearly it’s my mistake, so I apologise and you knock it on the head right now.’
His eyes blazed with whatever bee was buzzing in his bonnet but whatever it was now was not the time. And he knew that. ‘Got it, guv,’ he said, moving back towards the body. ‘So, what are you thinking?’
Kim followed. Whatever was brewing between them hadn’t been put to bed, but it was at least having a nap.
‘Potentially almost thirty stab wounds to her body,’ Kim said, thoughtfully. ‘And seventy per cent of those were aimed at the woman’s stomach.’
‘You think that means something?’ he asked, doubtfully.
‘You already know my answer to that, Bryant. Everything means something.’
Seventy-Two
‘Boss says leave it for tonight,’ Penn said, putting down the phone.
Stacey had just heard him update her on the lead they were following. They’d got nowhere so far on the CCTV but they’d identified sixty-three vehicles with a number plate ending in ZZ5 Looked like they were going to be busy on the phones tomorrow.
Penn reached for his Tupperware container and put it into his man-bag.
‘Listen, Stacey, before I go I want to mention something that’s been bothering me,’ he said, peering down at her.
Oh, here it comes, she thought, bracing hers
elf. He was going to tell her he was upset about the way she’d treated him. He was going to go above her head and complain about her attitude, claim that he couldn’t work with her because she was a bitch. Explain that he’d tried countless times to bridge the gap, even blame her for any mistakes on the case. He’d probably already written a letter of complaint and mentioned the nickname she’d given him on top of everything else.
Tomorrow she’d be called in to the boss’s office and reprimanded for not making friends with the new guy. It wasn’t something she relished and it wouldn’t change how she felt about him. She’d just have to learn to hide it better. Maybe she could have tried a little harder but it was too late now. The damage was done.
‘Go on,’ she said, sticking out her chin.
‘That three-year gap,’ he said, scratching his bandana.
‘Huh?’ Stacey asked.
‘In Jessie’s health records. How does the kid go from so many health problems to practically nothing for three whole years? Doesn’t make sense.’
Well, that wasn’t what she’d been expecting at all.
Seventy-Three
‘What you got?’ Kim asked, entering Mitch’s makeshift lab down the hall from Keats’s office.
The small space didn’t compare to the state-of-the-art laboratory at Ridgepoint House in Birmingham which counted as the West Midlands Police Forensic Headquarters but it was used by a couple of the senior techies when basic, urgent analysis was required.
Kim had only visited Ridgepoint House once and was thankful for the tour guide who directed them around a labyrinth of interlocking rooms set out with lasers, lamps, microscopes and cameras. She had felt like a lab rat herself as she’d wandered through the maze of sterile white walls.
She remembered the fingerprint lab where they were told that the team had lifted prints from more than 25,000 separate exhibits including firearms, mobile phones, documents, broom handles, car doors, windowpanes, handcuffs, sex toys and fruit.
Mitch had been stationed several floors above the fingerprint lab, as part of an elite team of experienced investigators and crime scene coordinators, the faces of the team that liaised with detectives to oversee the forensics on major crimes such as murder, rape, and arson.
And Mitch was as thorough as they came.
She had no idea of the state of his private life but she did know his work ethic often matched her own.
She remembered one of her first cases as a DI. The victim, an elderly woman, had been smothered by a pillow in her bed. Her son had claimed to be out shopping for his imminent holiday, something they could not disprove. Mitch had worked from seven in the morning until eleven that night when he’d called her with a DNA match from droplets of saliva on the pillow that had come from the victim’s son. They had arrested him two minutes before he boarded a plane to Spain and, judging by his luggage, he’d not been planning a return flight any time soon.
Without Mitch’s determination and skill, Mr Longton would now be languishing in Mallorca instead of Winson Green prison.
‘Please tell me it’s my footprint,’ she said, hopefully.
He shook his head. ‘Tomorrow, hopefully, but in the meantime, take a look at these little beauties,’ he said, moving away from the microscope.
‘Sounds like the best offer we’ve had all day,’ Bryant quipped.
She sat down in Mitch’s seat and took a look.
‘That’s a fibre?’ she asked, doubtfully. Mitch had magnified the fibre so she could see that it was constructed like a pie that had been cut and the pieces spaced out as opposed to the clean smooth surface of fibres she’d seen before.
He nodded.
‘Okay,’ she said.
He replaced the slide with another.
She looked again.
‘Same?’ she asked.
‘Identical. First batch were the ones taken from the lips of Phyllis Mansell. Second batch were a bit harder to distinguish from the blood found around the wound of Doctor Cordell, which is what I was trying to do when I received a request earlier today from some crazy police officer.’
She turned to her colleague. ‘Bryant, he means you.’
Mitch chuckled. ‘They match,’ he confirmed.
‘Bloody hell,’ she said. ‘So, we have forensic evidence to tie those two murders together?’
He nodded.
Up until now the tenuous link between Cordell and the dead nurse’s mother had been at the very best circumstantial.
‘Tell me more,’ Kim said, resting back in his seat.
‘Textile fibres fall into three categories: Natural, manufactured and synthetic. Your natural ones come from animals, plants, and minerals like wool, silk, hemp and the most common which is cotton. Undyed white cotton is so common it’s of little evidentiary value.
‘Manufactured fibres come from rayon, acetate, triacetate, raw cotton and wood pulp. Synthetic fibres come from polymers which are substances made up of a series of monomers, single molecules strung together to make longer molecules that can be thousands of monomers long. Nylon and polyester are synthetics.’
Kim knew that, contrary to most popular TV programmes, fibres were lost quickly from a crime scene. The stats said that after four hours you’ve lost approximately eighty per cent rising to ninety-five per cent after twenty-four hours. Anything finally lifted with tape or a vacuum was like gold dust.
‘So, I used my scanning electron microscope—’
‘Bloody hell, Mitch, even I’m growing old over here,’ Bryant moaned.
Kim crossed her arms. ‘Aww, let him talk, Bryant. He doesn’t get out much.’
Mitch smiled and continued.
‘So, using dispersive X-ray spectrometer with gas chromatography and mass spectrometry I discovered—’
‘That you could make up your own words and we wouldn’t have a clue?’ Bryant asked, as the door opened.
‘Mitch, it’s almost eight and I’m heading… oh, sorry to interrupt,’ Keats said, straightening up his overcoat.
‘Okay, see you in the—’
Damn it, Kim thought, realising the day had got away from her. She was going to be in some serious trouble tomorrow.
Unless.
‘Keats, can you hang on for one minute?’ she asked. ‘Need to talk to you urgently about something once we’ve finished with Mitch.’
‘Inspector, I’ve been here since—’
‘It’ll take just a minute,’ she assured him. ‘I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t urgent.’
He huffed. ‘Five minutes,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait for five minutes and then I’m leaving.’
‘Thanks, Keats,’ she said to his back as he left the lab.
Kim ignored Bryant’s questioning glance as Mitch continued with his explanation of what he’d found.
‘The chemical composition of the fibre and any pigments or treatments added during or after manufacture. These chemical determinations can point to the manufacturer of the fibre or match one fibre to another.’
He stopped speaking.
‘Please tell me this is where we get rewarded for our patience,’ Kim said.
‘Oh yes. I can tell you that the microfibres are manufactured by Hollings in Merseyside and they are cloths, Inspector: blue, square cleaning cloths.’
Seventy-Four
Stacey stared down at the meatball she’d been pushing around the plate for a good two minutes, afraid to look up. One meatball in particular resembled a head with strands of spaghetti flowing from it like a wig.
She could feel Devon’s eyes on her and she knew what was coming. Had been expecting it for a few weeks.
The meatball shimmered through her blurred vision as she heard Devon’s fork come to rest on her plate. She suspected the woman had eaten little more than she had.
Stacey tried to brace herself against the inevitable.
‘I’m losing you,’ Devon said, quietly.
Stacey said nothing and continued to stare.
‘I’m trying to hang on, babe,�
�� she whispered.
Stacey knew she couldn’t raise her head. In those eyes she would see all the love and concern that Devon felt for her. And it would break her in half.
Stacey had been unable to believe her luck that Devon had been interested in her after she’d blown her off months earlier.
But when they’d met again during an investigation into illegal workers, Devon had made her interest clear. And after much prompting from Dawson that she was good enough for this gorgeous, sexy, confident woman, she had found the courage to try again.
And she’d been happy. Happier than she’d ever been or even imagined she could be. Despite demanding jobs, they had made it work. Sometimes Stacey had cancelled due to a pressing case, and sometimes Devon had been called in for a surprise raid or to cover the shift of a fellow immigration officer. But they’d both understood. And Stacey had fallen in love. It had been perfect. Until six weeks ago.
‘I love you, babe,’ Devon said, gently. ‘And I’ll fight for what we had, but I can’t do it if I’m the only person in the ring.’
Stacey knew she was right. She made hardly any effort to see Devon any more. And when she did she was usually silent throughout. The days themselves took all that she had to give. Turning up for work, concentrating, adjusting, fighting off the grief took every ounce of energy she had. Normality had never taken so much effort.
‘Stacey, I know how much you miss him. He was a great guy but he wouldn’t have wanted this.’
Stacey fought the tears that were now stinging her eyes.
For a second she was tempted to swallow down the emotion and assure Devon she was okay, that the woman was imagining things and life was fine and dandy, but the words were nowhere to be found. If it was over between them, she had nothing left to lose.
‘I don’t know how to let him go,’ she said, as a sob rose up and choked her.
She felt Devon’s arms fold around her and allowed herself to be lifted from the seat and guided to the sofa.
Fatal Promise: A totally gripping and heart-stopping serial-killer thriller Page 19