A Need To Kill (DI Matt Barnes) (35 page)

An i
nstant Plan B popped into his mind.  He plucked a baseball cap from the dressing table and headed for the stairs.

They were only just pulling away from the kerb when he nosed the van out onto the street.
The one thing that they would not expect, was to be followed.  The complacent bastards thought that their anonymity was guaranteed.

Lucas pressed the catch and rummaged in the glove compartment.  Found a pair of shades and put them on.  The events over the next three hours confirmed that he had no need to panic.
The cops were canvassing all tattoo parlours.  He was not in any danger.  They were following a line of enquiry that by itself could not lead to him.

It was five o
’ clock when the female cop who was fronting the operation got out of the Transit at a busy junction in Stockwell, waved to her colleagues and walked towards the tube.

Shit!  He wanted to stay with her.  It was a spur of the moment decision.
But he couldn’t just leap out of the van and leave it parked illegally.

There was an NCP almost opposite.  He pulled in, waited for the barrier arm to
rise, drove through and stopped.  The young Asian guy in the booth frowned as he approached him.

“
I have an emergency,” Lucas said to the attendant.  “I’d appreciate you parking my van for me.”  He fished a twenty and a ten pound note from his pocket and stuffed it into the man’s hand.  “Okay?”

He ran across to the station.  Chances were that he would not find her.  But logic told him that she would be catching a southbound train.  Had she being going back across the river, then why would she have got dropped off.  It was busy
, but he saw her queuing for a ticket, so pushed in the line four back from her, raised his sunglasses and gave the woman behind him an intimidating glare as she made to complain.  He snarled, “I’m in a real hurry, love.”

She pursed her lips and looked away, unable to meet his stare.

It was too noisy for him to hear the cop state her destination.  When it was his turn, he bought one to the end of the line and headed for the platform.

Carrie had a splitting headache.  She had planned to make the most of a rare evening off duty.  Maybe call her best friend, Viv, and go for a drink and a meal. 
All she wanted to do now was soak in the bath and chill out.  It had been a long day.  One of the other team members, Kris, had been coming onto her all day.  He wasn’t really her type, and a mild body odour was the ultimate deterrent.  The back of the Transit had smelled like boiled cabbage.  She had been tempted to say: ‘if you didn’t smell like a waste bin, then I might consider it’, but had bit her tongue.

She began to doze.  There was no fear of missing her stop.  She was going all the way to the
end of the line at Morden.

He wanted her.  From where he was standing at the far end of the crowded carriage, he could see her head dropping forward, then snapping up again as she startled herself awake.

What was to stop him following her to wherever she lived, to rape and kill her, after he had introduced himself properly and found out all she knew about the case?  There would be no reason to link her death to the case she was working.  He would not burn or strangle her.

The only problem would be if she was married or had kids.  He did not want to take any undue risks.  Hubby might be a rugby player or karate nut.  And she was not necessarily a pushover.
She was an undercover cop.  Could even be armed.

She got off and left the station.  No one was waiting to give her a lift.  She began walking along
Martin Way, and turned right into a quiet avenue.  Halfway down she stopped, opened a gate and fished in her handbag.  He stayed a long way back and loitered behind a 4x4 until she had let herself inside the maisonette.  Good sign.  If anyone had been in, then why bother with a key?  He would wait.  Give it an hour or so, and then make his move.

Carrie picked her mail off the doormat, went through to the kitchen and switched both the kettle and the radio on.  Sorted through the envelopes.  Junk, including the letter that she knew was from Frank. 
She recognised his handwriting.  He wouldn’t let go.  They were now divorced, and yet he still wrote to her at least once a month to ask her to give it another chance.  She ripped the whole caboodle up and binned it.  Didn’t even read Frank’s letters anymore.  The man was a bad memory that she wanted to forget.  He had cheated on her with any bird that would drop her panties.  And his drinking had bordered on alcoholism.  The love she had wasted on him had long since dried up and blown away.  “Wanker!” she said aloud, then smiled and headed up to the bathroom.  She had fond memories of packing his belongings and leaving them on the garden path.  He had hammered on the door and demanded, then pleaded with her to let him in.  She had told him to piss off.  Warned him that if he was still in the neighbourhood in ten minutes, she would have him picked up and thrown in a cell for the night.  Sometimes being a cop had its perks.

An hour later, Carrie sat down to a
microwave Weightwatcher’s meal.  She drank a glass of sparkling white wine with it, then washed up, refilled her glass and took it through to the lounge.  She had a stack of ironing that needed doing, but couldn’t be arsed.  She just flopped in an armchair and closed her eyes.

His dear friend, the dark, hid him from prying eyes.  He went around the side of the row of houses, walked along the asphalt path at the rear and entered the small garden.
  A light was on, and the curtains were closed.  He stood with his back against the brick wall, then moved to the left and sneaked a look through the small gap at the side of the window.  There was no turning back now.  He could see her curled up on a chair.  Her head was on her shoulder, eyes closed.  This little piggy obviously did not get enough shuteye.  And living in a brick house would not save her from this wolf.  He might huff and puff later from his exertions, but not through trying to blow her maisonette down.

The back door was locked, as was only to be expected.  The kitchen window was open though; just an inch.  Poor security.  She should know better.  Did she think that being a cop somehow made her immune?  Wrong.  He removed his cap and shades, pocketed them, and slipped a pair of
latex gloves on.

It was not easy.  He had to stand on the wheely bin and be a contortionist to
struggle through the narrow top window.  Had she woken and come through to the kitchen as he was dangling half in and half out, then he would have been in serious trouble.  But when he flipped himself down into a crouch next to the sink unit, his nerves began to settle.  She was going to be so surprised to meet up with him again so soon.  And he would get a lot of satisfaction out of letting her know that he had not been taken in by her scheming little act of entering his studio as a would-be punter.

Matt
had arrived at two-forty-five and had time to get a coffee from a vending machine before he took his place behind the glass window.  The room had a single row of plastic contour chairs, and there was already four other official observers waiting for the star of the show to be wheeled-out and transferred onto the highly polished stainless steel table.

Rita and her assistants entered the brightly lit and well-ventilated post-mortem theatre.
Matt, two trainee pathologists, and a brace of slightly pale-faced looking CID officers – who had no prior experience of the procedure – stood up, as though they were in a courtroom that a judge had just entered.

Rita turned on the overhead microphone, and a speaker in the observation room crackled.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” she said.  “For the benefit of those of you who have not attended an autopsy before, I shall quickly explain the steps taken to date.  Every suspicious death becomes the subject of an autopsy or post-mortem.  In this case, we know that the subject has been murdered, and I visited and made the initial in situ examination at the scene.  Since the body has arrived at the mortuary, I have noted its general condition. The weight, height, apparent age and signs of external injury have been duly recorded.  A set procedure has been followed inspecting the body, starting at the head and neck, followed by the chest, the abdomen, upper and lower limbs and genitalia.  The procedure is repeated for the back, and it is all photographed as it happens.  Before being cleaned by the mortuary staff, the body has had swabs taken from several key sites.  In all sexually-related crimes on women these include the vagina, rectum, breasts and mouth.  Fingernail scrapings and/or clippings are taken at this time.  Each individual wound is examined and photographed as a permanent record, including a scale to denote the size of the wound.  At this point we are ready to begin the internal examination.  Any questions so far, gentlemen?”

“
I see you are using a microphone.  I assume that everything is recorded,” DC Nick Chandler said.

“
Correct, Officer.  I subsequently make longhand notes when I know that the findings are likely to be part of a subsequent court case.  I like to have a lot of hard copy to refer to.  The underlying principles of forensic investigation were once summed up quite adequately by Rudyard Kipling when he penned: I keep six honest serving men (They taught me all I knew): Their names are What and Why and When, and How and Where and Who.

“
Autopsy simply means ‘seeing with one’s own eyes’.  I am now going to begin the ‘cut’, or the slice and dice, as many of you may informally refer to it.”

The body of Cheryl Smith was placed on the table.  Dressed in their greens, Rita and her aides could have been surgeons about to operate and attempt to save life, not a team whose sole purpose was to determine what
had caused life to be unnaturally terminated.

Rita began by making an incision from behind the left ear, curving down to the sternum and back up to the right ear.  She then opened up the body from the sternum to the groin.  This initial incision enables the pathologist to dissect away the skin of the chest and neck quite easily, to expose the organs of the neck and the muscles and bones of the chest.

Rita spent several minutes examining the neck and throat area, keeping up a running commentary.  She then used a scalpel to cut through the breastbone, explaining to her audience that in people over thirty, the bones would be tougher and would have to be sawn through. With the internal organs exposed, Rita examined them before removal for further analysis.

DC Nick Chandler swallowed rapidly and clenched his teeth. 
Matt gave the young cop another ten seconds, maximum, and began to count under his breath.  He had only reached six when Nick bolted for the door.  He did not return.

Up until the opening of the skull, the other three observers held up well.

Rita continued the initial incision across the vertex of the head, pulled the scalp forwards and backwards to reveal the bone, and started in with the circular saw.  It was when she prised the dome off by means of a chisel-headed ‘key’ that the second officer lost all composure and beat a hasty retreat.  Matt thought it fortuitous that the toilets were situated nearby.  No doubt both the young detectives had lost their lunches.

“
I didn’t find anything to add to what we already know,” Rita said to Matt, later, after she had left her assistants to reconstruct the body by reversing the dissection process, whereby packing is inserted into the cavities from which organs have been removed for analysis, and the body is tightly stitched to prevent the escape of fluids.  The aim is to provide relatives and undertakers with as aesthetically acceptable remains as is possible.  “She had recently had intercourse.  I recovered semen.  And there was subcutaneous bruising to her left temple.  I believe she was rendered unconscious by a blow, probably made by a fist, then transported to another site, but not to where she was found.”

“
What makes you think that?”

“
There was no sign of a struggle in the bunker.  I know it had been raked, but the body had been dumped there.  If he had mutilated or strangled her in that sand, then there would have been evidence of movement beneath the body.  There wasn’t.  You are looking for another two scenes.  One where he abducted her, and a second where he burned her with cigarettes and raped and murdered her.”

“
Anything else?”

“
No, Matt.  Her hands had been bound behind her.  I couldn’t detect any trace evidence under her fingernails.  Maybe some of the other samples we’ve taken might shed some more light.”

“
Thanks, Rita.  Give me a call if anything significant comes back.”

“
I will.  How’s Beth?”

“
Fine.”

“
When are you two going to buy that house you were talking about?”

Matt
shrugged.  “It’s on a back burner at the moment.  We lost the one that Beth had her heart set on.”

“
You need to get on with it.  House prices are like rockets, they go up fast.”

Matt
grinned and left the pathologist to her bookwork.  He was in the car park when his mobile came to life.

“
Yeah, Pete,” he said.

“
We may have a witness to Cheryl Smith’s abduction, boss.”