Cold Kill (3 page)

‘You take it,' Stella said. ‘You take the parents.'

The traffic was slowing for a red light. Stella changed down and blipped the accelerator to pull away from the line of vehicles, then cut straight across three lanes to the nearside. A chorus of horns said
Bitch
in unison. When the lights changed, she turned into a side street and made a call to the morgue. She expected to hear Sam Burgess's assistant but got the man himself.

‘I'm prepping,' he said. ‘You can be first up if you like.'

To get to Sam Burgess's world of steel and tile and frigid air, Stella descended two flights of stairs, then, down below street-level, walked through a series of rooms that held evidence of the frailty of flesh: specimens, spare parts, the body's leftovers. The rooms all had slap-flaps instead of doors, as if the trick was to get in fast and leave faster. She was always conscious, when she visited Sam, of how easy it was to die: a glitch in the machine; a bug in the system; foreign matter, like a blade or a bullet.

Sam was a small man in his mid fifties with deft hands and a monk's tonsure of white hair. He liked to work to music and today it was a symphony, Brahms 3. Sam's assistant was called Giovanni; Giovanni smiled but didn't speak. They seemed at ease in their underworld: the music, the tools of their trade gleaming and laid out for use, the body of Valerie Blake between them and waiting to be tended to. Sam had already made his preliminary, external examination. He'd taken swabs; he'd been into the secret places; he'd combed her hair. It was clear to see that she had been more than just pretty: the trim, toned body, the dark hair and pale skin, the clean planes of cheek and chin, the small, straight nose. It was possible, Stella thought, that Valerie had been beautiful, though with the life gone from her it was no longer possible to tell. In part, beauty lay in movement, in
laughter, even in anger, and those things had left her; there was just a stillness, an absence.

‘He's a big guy,' Sam said. ‘Or so it seems to me.'

‘Who's big?'

‘The killer. Strong.'

‘Why do you say that?'

‘Throttled her with a ligature: made a hell of a mess of her thorax. Small bones broken, ruptures… I could see that without cutting. No doubt about the cause of death: asphyxia by strangulation. Takes strength to kill that way, unless you hang your victim, of course.'

‘And he didn't –'

Sam shook his head. ‘Well, the abrasions and internal fractures don't seem right for that, but I'm not saying didn't until I've been in there for a better look. One thing…' He beckoned Stella over and pointed to the ligature mark. When she nodded, as if to say,
Sure, she was strangled
, he said, ‘No, just there.' He touched Valerie's neck at the very edge of the bruising. Alongside that mark, almost, in its shadow, was another, thinner line.

‘More of an abrasion,' Sam said, ‘nothing to do with the ligature.'

‘She was wearing a necklace?'

‘Something… Just a chain perhaps, given the configuration. Or something on a chain. They didn't find anything at the scene?'

‘No. Forensics are still there but hoovering and dusting. We'd have found something as obvious as a chain. He must have taken it.'

‘Not robbery, surely.'

‘No,' Stella said. ‘Keepsake, more likely.'

Sam looked up and sighed. ‘I can deal with her as a clinical puzzle. When she becomes the victim, it gets tougher.'

‘She was found just after four o'clock,' Stella said. ‘Do we know when she died?'

‘Not long before that.'

‘Not long, meaning...'

‘An hour, maybe ninety minutes. There was very little insect invasion: too cold. I'm relying on the doctor's report to some extent: she was out of rigor mortis when found. Then there's the pattern of blood-puddling and the postmortem developments in the trauma to the thorax and neck.'

‘Was she raped?'

‘Not sure –'

‘Why?'

Sam had been talking while he worked: toothcombing Valerie's body for evidence, going to places that even a lover might have been denied. He said, ‘Everyone knows about DNA these days. It's tough to leave no evidence at all, but there's no need to leave anything as helpful as semen.'

‘You mean he could have used a condom.'

‘Could have. I'll take a swab: the laboratory people will look for traces of lubricant. There's no real evidence of rape: no vaginal tearing, no anal trauma. Certain amount of bruising on the left upper thigh, but that could have happened in any number of ways. Of course, not all rape provides evidence of actual physical injury, but you know that.'

‘It depends on the level of intimidation,' Stella observed; ‘how frightened the victim is, so how ready to comply.'

‘There's another possibility.'

‘Go on.'

‘There's a significant trauma to the left temple and to the cranium over the left ear; bruising to the ear itself as well. It's in the scene of crime report and it's clearly visible. But there's also bruising to the back of the head. She was struck down before she was strangled.'

‘Meaning he could have knocked her out, then raped her, then killed her.'

‘Yes, he could.'

Sam picked up a scalpel and began the big ‘Y'-incision that would open Valerie from clavicle to pubis. Stella had seen it before, but that moment of awful drama never failed to bring a rush of giddiness. She watched as Sam worked, revealing Valerie for what she was – what we all are, Stella thought. Skin and bone, cuts of meat, a toothy smile and a hank of hair.

The music hung in the air.

Sam and Giovanni worked at the same rhythm, handling her with care. Now and then, Sam would speak into the mike, but the two men had no need for instruction or question: they were deft and practised, mechanics of the flesh. Sam was removing the thorax, the trachea, the lung-tree – all of a piece; Stella half expected to see a tap-root. He laid it out for inspection, then paused, looking back at the shell that had once been Valerie Blake. He lifted her hair away from the scalp flap and looked again at the ligature mark on her throat, then beckoned Stella over.

‘See that? I hadn't noticed before.'

Stella could see nothing but spare parts and a semi-dismantled machine. ‘What?'

‘The ligature mark stops short on either side. And I'm thinking now about that bruising to the back of the head: less of an impact bruise than a pressure bruise.' Sam picked up the SOC notes and found the place he was looking for. ‘There was a tree near by.'

‘That's right,' Stella said. ‘Inside the SOC tent.'

‘A silver birch.'

‘Yes.'

‘A tree with a narrow bole.'

Stella waited.

Sam said, ‘I think the bruising to the back of the head, the pressure bruise, is where her head rested against the tree. I could have guessed it from the way the eyeballs were turned in to the skull and from the pattern of blood suffusion, but I didn't notice the difference. I can see it now. Her torso was upright when she died. I think he stunned her, sat her up against the tree, then garrotted her – a ligature put loosely round the throat and going right round the tree, then a short length of wood or whatever inserted into the loop to twist it, using the tree as the strangling pole.'

‘A method of execution.'

‘Or a method of torture.'

‘Except she was unconscious when he strangled her.'

‘Was she?' Sam asked. ‘How do you know?'

Stella was silent on that one.

Sam continued, ‘I think it's likely that Forensics will find grains of tree bark from my combings – on her hair, on her T-shirt, on her back.'

‘How long?' Stella asked. ‘How long for her to die?'

Sam shrugged. The music came to an end and the room seemed suddenly brighter, steelier.

He said, ‘As long as you like.'

Stella entered the post-mortem information as bullet points on the squad room whiteboard and circulated Sam Burgess's initial findings. Forensics had taken a first look at Sam's combings and taken samples from the bole of the silver birch; there were grains and fibres that looked right. They hadn't been fully analysed yet, but no one was in much doubt.

Pete Harriman lit a cigarette, having forgotten the one burning in his ashtray. He said, ‘Lethal injection.'

Andy Greegan had the PM report in his hand. ‘Bullet in the brain,' he suggested.

Jack Cuddon was on his way to DI Sorley's office with a sheaf of costings-sheets. He said, ‘Crucifixion. Have the bastards lining Oxford Street. Watch the murder rate drop.'

When Stella spoke, other people's tobacco smoke fluttered on her breath. ‘Let's look at the patterns here. Five attacks on women, two of them fatal. That's excluding Valerie Blake. We've all had a chance to look at the crime-sheets: where are the similarities? All the attacks were made out of doors; in a public place. Two in parks, two in the street, one on the towpath. That fits with the attack on Valerie. In one case, the victim's clothing had been disturbed or partially removed. That was the towpath attack; the victim died without recovering consciousness. Murder weapons: a blunt instrument and a garrotte.'

‘The first incident,' Maxine Hewitt remarked.

‘The first, yes. Then came an attack in a park. The victim
recovered, but remembers nothing of what happened. Blunt instrument only. No attempt at rape.'

‘No apparent attempt,' Sue Chapman remarked.

‘Meaning?'

‘How does anyone know what was in the bastard's mind? He was disturbed.'

‘That's an assumption,' Stella said.

‘Stands to reason. No time to use the garrotte. Only reason she survived.'

‘Good point. Third attack was in the street, late at night, the victim was walking home from a local disco. Blunt instrument and garrotte. She'd said goodbye to friends just a few minutes earlier. Again, clothing disturbed but no certainty of rape. In fact, like the others, no motive that anyone can find.'

‘That's when the tabloids started talking about thrill-kill,' Harriman observed.

‘Same with the fourth and fifth attacks,' Stella continued. ‘One in a park, midmorning, lots of people about, no one saw or heard a thing. The other in the early hours: a girl who'd gone out for milk from the Eight-til-Late and was taking an alleyway shortcut back. You get a picture of this guy walking up behind his mark, taking out the hammer, or whatever, striking to the head – what –?'

‘Usually twice,' Greegan offered.

‘– okay, twice, then applying the garrotte.'

‘If he gets time,' Harriman said.

‘And does he strangle them after the sexual assault or before?' Maxine wondered.

Greegan said, ‘Well, like the others, Valerie was strangled; she was also struck.' He was reading Sam's report. ‘The PM talks about “a clearly delineated depression twelve centimetres in diameter, possibly a hammer-blow”. That puts her
alongside the others. I don't think this guy is a rapist, not really. He's a killer. He likes to display them: a way of saying I've been here; I did this. That's why their clothing is removed or disturbed.'

Harriman said, ‘Which makes it attack by stranger – thrill-kill – whatever you want to call it.'

Stella said, ‘Garrotting takes time. A hammer-blow, a stabbing, it's done and you're gone. This keeps you on the scene for a while. Why?'

‘Certainty,' Maxine offered. ‘Two victims survived the attack. Okay, one died without regaining consciousness and the second suffered memory loss, but –'

‘But it's risk,' Stella agreed. ‘Hit-and-run is a risk: his victim might survive
and
remember.' She paused. ‘And there's another possibility.'

Pete Harriman's remark tailended Stella's, as if he had been anticipating her. ‘The guy was enjoying it.'

How long for her to die?

As long as you like, that's what Sam Burgess had told her
.

‘Yes,' Stella said, ‘that's what I had in mind.'

‘There's another pattern,' Maxine said. ‘Geography. They were all in west London.'

Andy Greegan opened his mouth to speak and was ambushed by a sneeze. He turned his head aside and sneezed again.

Stella said, ‘Don't get sick.'

‘I'm fine,' he said. ‘Where's the boyfriend?'

‘Was in America. Now on his way back. We got to him through his office. He'll call in as soon as he lands.'

‘So he was in the States when she was killed?'

‘That's right.'

‘Verifiable?' Greegan asked.

‘Absolutely.'

‘This isn't a domestic,' Harriman said. ‘This is some bastard with a hammer, a garrotte and a fucked-up brain.'

Ask coppers what they like least about the job and they'll say paperwork. Everything has to be down on paper. Paper comes first and last. There's a form for everything, and everything needs its report. Paper's your back-up. Paper's your fail-safe. Paper is the all-purpose, cover-your-arse proof-positive.

Stella was hacking out a report when Sue Chapman came over with some more paper: a folder holding that day's confessions. On average, there were four confessions a day.

I did it. I killed her. Bitch deserved to die. How good it felt. You can contact me at the above address/phone number/email/try and find me fuckwit copper
.

Sue had wild hair and a calm manner: methodical, organized, a coordinator's brain. Stella could almost believe that Sue didn't mind the paper; that maybe she had worked out some kind of a relationship with the paper. It gave a whole new meaning to the word ‘ream'. She put a note down on Stella's desk.

They were all followed up, the letters from crazies, the phone calls from crazies, most often by uniform because the local guys could check the usual names, the serial confessors, the eager inadequates. But they went to the SIO and the team leader first and the originals were all forensic-tested, copied for the handwriting experts and the profiler, then bagged in clear plastic folders. The note Sue had given to Stella was a copy, but she had the plastic-covered original in her hand. Stella looked first at the copy, then at the original.