The first lucky star was three. What’s special about three? Wicca! The power of three! Whatever you put out into the world — for good or evil — you’ll receive back threefold. But the clincher was star forty-nine. It trumped integrity. It trumped everything. It told her what to do.
Her mum had been forty-nine when she’d died from breast cancer.
Well, she fully intended to follow her mother’s advice and do unto others. With £88,000,000 she, Ellie, could start to rule the world.
CHAPTER THREE
Death is inevitable. Cruelty is not.
Mia hated Travel Lodges. Too much of her life these days was spent in stark cold hotel rooms; the words of her favourite song rolled through her tired mind, and the endlessness that you fear . . . Pulling off her shoes, she pushed open the bathroom door and was pleased to see an actual bath; although experience told her the fixed showerhead above it would probably be useless. She stared down at a crack in one of the floor tiles as she waited for enough water to fill the bath so that she could add her own designer bubbles.
Every now and then she found herself slipping into something of a mental quagmire; a waiting, repetitive anxiety that flickered at the edges of her sight would seep into her conscious mind. It wasn’t a deep, dark, pit-like space — more of a gently sloping bank with a deceptively steep gradient, and once over the edge her mental decline would gather speed as she rolled down to a place of infinite sadness.
Photographs of the beaten body scrolled through her mind and combined with ‘context’ images of holocaust victims she’d used in her thesis. They formed a depressing montage of individual and industrial-scale acts of human cruelty.
What is the point of life when it’s held so cheaply?
She collected a bottle of Waitrose red from the bedroom — a happy replacement for the garage-bought stuff she’d been forced to drink in Norfolk.
Throughout her hectic, academically successful life, she’d always wanted something more. But the something was intangible; undefined and therefore unattainable. In the beginning she’d assumed this ‘something’ would be ‘a someone’, but none of the many men she’d met and slept with had ever come close to filling this shifting void.
She gave the bathroom glass a good rinse.
Did she possess the same warped flaws as the people she hunted? Was she the flip-side of the same coin? If pushed, could she commit the same acts of savagery as her prey? And, most importantly, was it this darkness that kept possible soulmates at bay? An innate sense of self-preservation keeping them hidden, unnoticed, as she passed by.
Twisting open the cap on the bottle, she found the crack comforting. It heralded respite from anxiety and eased the pain of acute loneliness. Wine was becoming her . . . what? Friend? No. No one with an iota of intelligence would think that. An associate perhaps? Something that allowed her to keep a lid on Pandora’s box.
She’d already looked, and knew what was inside.
Mia smiled when she saw the scattering of Costa coffee cups. The Leeds incident room was a long way from the Norfolk porta-cabin, in both mileage and equipment. It was a home she recognised, another city centre hive of permanent activity which would never be left insecure. Fifteen detectives buzzed around, collecting and disseminating information like bees on a honey high.
She started to work her way through reports and photographs that someone had stacked on a spare desk in preparation for her arrival. This latest case had strong Norfolk overtones: planning, effort, vicious treatment of an unidentified body and an animal connection to the location. What was that black smudge near the man’s left hand? She knew it was a hand only because of its location at the end of an arm, but all that remained was a lump of mauled, raw meat. The man had been found in a deserted hill-farm sixteen miles from the centre of Leeds.
‘They’re not pictures I’d want to spend time scrutinizing.’
Mia felt Mark Johnson’s breath on her neck as he leant over her shoulder. He was still using the same inexpensive aftershave.
She turned her head and glanced up at the SIO, giving him her warmest smile. He reminded her of Brian in some ways: they were both in their mid-fifties, had complexions the colour of raw dough and wore off-the-peg suits. But there the similarities ended. Apart from rank, Mark Johnson was a bloody good detective with a proven track record of catching bad guys — really bad guys.
‘What’s that small black thing, there, next to the left hand?’ she asked. Mark was close enough to kiss her moving lips, but instead he shifted his hazel eyes from hers to the photo.
‘God knows. Is it important?’
‘Without knowing what it is, I can’t tell. Any chance of getting this one blown up?’
Mark stood and shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
‘So, Detective Chief Superintendent — congrats by the way — walk me through these pics.’
He pulled up a chair, dragging it so close that their thighs brushed when he sat.
‘As you can see,’ he picked up one of the bound photo albums, ‘a dog-fighting pit’s been dug into the floor of an old hay barn and, from the vast amount of dried blood-spatter around the original plywood lining, it’s been heavily used.’
‘Bastards! Why do people still do this sort of thing?’
‘You tell me. You’re the expert.’ He breathed in her familiar perfume.
‘Depressingly, it’s probably in our DNA.’
‘But it’s more than just bloodlust. Dog fighting feeds bank accounts as well. It’s no different from drugs, prostitution, or people-trafficking — endless opportunity for endless misery and endless wealth.’
‘What else do we know?’ Mia asked.
‘It doesn’t need forensics to show you the pit’s been recently extended to a depth of ten feet. The bottom hasn’t been lined with anything other than that poor bugger’s guts. Blood spatter and pooling indicate he died crouched in the top right hand corner but was dragged into the centre post-mortem, when most of the chewing occurred.’
‘The report says four dogs?’
‘The bite marks indicate they were big.’
‘But why do we think four?’
‘Apart from the human blood, there were four separate, contained pools of canine blood. It looks like the dogs were shot after they were fed.’
‘Expertly?’
‘The blood pools indicate single shots.’
‘But they weren’t left in the pit. Why remove them? More effort.’
‘Effort?’
‘To extend that pit to human size, for a one-off killing, costs time and money.’
‘Perhaps it was worth it to send a message?’
‘What message?’ Mia allowed the SIO a glimpse of her cleavage as she leant forward to reach for another album.
‘It’s obvious, isn’t it — stay the fuck off my turf!’
‘You think this is gang-related?’
‘You don’t?’
Mia shook her head. ‘No, I don’t. It’s too personal, too vindictive. Gangland murders are generally swift executions — a business transaction conducted in the most efficient, cost-effective way.’
‘Coffee?’ One of the busy-bees approached with a pad and pen.
Mark looked at Mia who nodded and reached for her handbag. Putting his hand out, he gently squeezed her wrist. ‘You’re all right. I’ll get these.’
‘Two cappuccinos please, Lesley — cinnamon topping for Mia.’ He got out his well-worn wallet and handed the DC a tenner.
The last time she’d seen that wallet, Mark had being paying for a very expensive dinner. She had rewarded him with a kiss. Their first. Leaning back in her chair, she crossed her leg and slowly twirled her foot, gazing down at her favourite shoes. Mark’s gaze followed hers and she let him look, just for a moment, before she raised her eyes and forced him back to the present.
‘So, tell me more about dog fighting.’
‘The day-to-day business is mainly left to council estate numpties who steal pets from outside shops and back gardens
to use as wind-up bait for the bigger dogs. But it’s organised crime that bankrolls the operations, finds the locations and runs both the actual fights and the betting — big time betting.’
Mia’s jaw tightened. ‘Like medieval bear-baiting.’
‘Yep. The same people go in for badger-baiting too. Back in the day, we once broke up a bait in a high-rise block of flats.’
‘Bastards. If I had my way I’d shoot the lot of them!’
‘Bad bastards, and, as with drugs and prostitution, it doesn’t do to go trespassing on someone else’s turf.’
‘This is not gang-related, Mark. If they want someone dead they’d just put a bullet in the brain.’ She looked directly at the SIO. ‘Any DNA from all this blood and gore?’
Mark shook his head. ‘Still waiting, and we’re also waiting on three patches of urine and two pools of congealed vomit found just outside the pit.’
‘So, there were reluctant spectators?’ Mia sat up straight. ‘That puts a spin on it.’
‘How?’
‘Suppose this murder isn’t an execution but a form of torture — for those made to watch.’
‘To what end?’
‘Information — to get information.’
‘But you’ve just said a simple gun to the head would get that.’
‘Not necessarily. A bullet is quick and painless. Being torn apart by a pack of dogs is not. It holds all the horror and terror of a medieval torture chamber. We’re in Game of Thrones territory here.’
‘Why doesn’t it surprise me you’re a fan?’
‘Recommended viewing, Mark! Lots of gratuitous sex and violence but with bloody, literally, good storylines.’
‘Too much of a busman’s for my taste. I’ve got more than enough violence in my life. Haven’t you?’
‘I know how to compartmentalize.’
He looked at her and wondered. As much as he lusted after Doctor Mia Langley, since the sacrificial baby murder eighteen months ago, he sometimes wondered what effect her work had on her. She had a hard edge that some found sexy but he found worrying. People in their line of work hardened or left, but they were seldom untouched by what they saw. He knew instinctively that she would be exciting in the bedroom, but he also wondered if she’d turn out to be a bit of a bunny boiler.
The DC returned with two trays of coffee and Mia took hers from the proffered cardboard holder. ‘So what level of information requires torture, do you suppose?’
‘With organised crime it could be anything — locations, times, cargo.’
‘But that’s just logistics, Mark. The type of info you get by a gun to the head. This whole,’ she waved her coffee cup over the gruesome photos, ‘smacks of far more than that. Know what it reminds me of?’
‘What?’ Mark sipped his own coffee.
‘The Spanish Inquisition — this is an attempt to change someone’s belief system. It’s the work of a fanatic not a career criminal. We need to find those who peed and vomited. They’re the key to this.’
‘You think they’re still alive?’
‘Almost certainly. Say the right thing to a Jesuit priest and you become a convert not a corpse. If there were no converts we’d be looking at three more corpses. Find the converts, Mark! Find those converts.’
Mark tried to ignore the sparkle in Mia’s eyes. ‘When the DNA comes back, my money’s on us knowing them.’
‘Mine too. So, about getting this blown up?’ Mia waved the photo with the black smudge.
‘You know how tight budgets are. I spend as much time balancing the sodding books as investigating the actual crime. Have a word with Sandy first — she took the photos and might remember what it was and tell you if she bagged it.’
‘Cheers. Is she on duty?’
‘No idea. Check with control room. It’s feeding time at the zoo.’ Mark stood and reached for his crumpled jacket. ‘The bloodiness of this murder is like shark-bait. The press are circling, waiting to be fed.’
Mia beckoned him closer, and as he leaned in she straightened his lapels. ‘Are we still on for dinner tonight?’
‘We most certainly are!’ He strode from the room wearing a hugely inappropriate grin, and was followed by the pretty press officer who’d been waiting with growing impatience by the door.
Mia called Control and was relieved to hear Sandy was on duty but out on another job. She left a message for the crime scene investigation officer to ring her as soon as she could.
She wondered what ‘values’ it was the perpetrators had wanted to change in their victims. Some cruelty found its source in ritual. The three cases of human sacrifice she’d worked on had all involved barbaric elements, but they had all been a means to a specific, identifiable end, carried out with an almost loving precision. There was nothing personal between the killer and victim. This was not that. And the animal connection was relevant — important even.
Her various studies had provided her with many examples of human barbarism; she’d even flown to the States to interview a real-life Hannibal Lecter. But she worried that human-on-human savagery had less impact on her than animal cruelty. Why was that? She’d always been appalled by man’s capacity for the enjoyment of such cruelty and the scale of these deaths for entertainment was staggering — three million animals in the Coliseum alone. She still wondered what would be worse — entering the arena as a human, with full knowledge of what was about to happen, or entering as an animal with only the terror of the present and the ability to continue fighting through the pain. She couldn’t even watch nature programmes on TV; watching one animal kill another was not her idea of entertainment.
Her mobile rang.
‘Hiya, Mia, what’s up?’
‘Hi, Sandy. The dog killing murder, Mark said you took the photos?’
‘Yeah. Is there a problem?’
‘Not as such. One of the stills shows something small and black near the body’s left hand, can you recall what it was?’
‘Yeah, it was weird — a feather.’
‘What sort of feather?’
‘No idea, Mia — not my field of expertise.’
‘Did you bag it by any chance?’
‘Of course . . . hang on, I’ll check the exhibit number.’
Mia could hear a notebook being flipped on the other end of the phone.
‘Here it is, SAB/15. It’s not been sent to the lab as far as I know, so it should still be in the property store.’
‘You’re a star!’ Mia rang off and, collecting the exhibit’s officer en route, headed straight to the secured exhibits room. The DC punched in the code and started rummaging through the neatly stacked grey plastic boxes which contained the smaller exhibits. He quickly produced a small plastic bag with a triumphal grin.
Exhibit SAB/15 was a large black feather. Its green-blackness gleamed under the fluorescent lights, its rounded end making it almost heart-shaped.
It had once belonged to a turkey.
CHAPTER FOUR
Ambition can soar like an eagle or creep like a cat.
The following night Ellie entered the Red Dragon. She was not a drinker and only ever went to the pub to buy crisps when the shop was shut. She used this pretext now to see what locals were saying about the UK win.
Paul was sitting at the far end of the bar; his snout shoved halfway down a pint glass. He didn’t bother looking up.
‘I tell you, Huge. that ticket could have been the winner.’
‘Right you are, Paul — and my Daisy could have been Miss World.’ The barman shook his head. ‘I tell you what; if you won £88,000,000 you’d be dead inside a year from the booze. It’s just as well you lost that winning ticket!’
Ellie paid for her crisps and left.
The next morning she went to Llanidloes library to research what happened when you claimed a lottery win.
I’ll wait a couple of weeks before claiming the money.
Glad you’re not thinking ‘my’ money.
Let all the hullabaloo die down. God, I can�
��t wait to run my own shelter — shelters! I could set up one in each country; the main one here in Wales and then one in Scotland, England and Ireland. Big, impressive –leading the way in animal welfare. Like a chain of supermarkets!
Only you won’t be able to put your name on any of them, you’ll have to hide in the shadows — a thief in the night.
For God’s sake, Mum — give it a bloody rest! I’m going to be doing good, real good, for hundreds of helpless animals and all you can do is bang on about Paul bloody Cummings — who actually abuses animals. If you’re not going to support me in this just piss off!
You’re changing …
Damn right!
So much bad language; you never used to swear.
Now, let’s see how to go about a claim.
She tapped away at the keyboard.
So, the purchase location won’t be revealed unless I give my consent, or I fail to collect and time is running out. I’ve got time.
Time to do the right thing.
I’ll have to give notice; they’ll need time to replace me.
Time for you to rethink, Ellie.
I’ll obviously be ticking the ‘no publicity’ box.
She tapped ‘Rightmove’ onto the keyboard and entered her search criteria.
I need somewhere isolated, the Brecon Beacons perhaps.
That’s far enough away for the locals not to recognise you.
It needs to have enough land but I’ll keep the house small. It’s the land that’s important; land and out buildings. The animals come first . . . God! It’s bloody impossible! Why can’t I find a two bed property with forty plus acres? Suppose I’ll have to look at four beds.
Perhaps there’d be room for Paul?
I’ll have to have help, obviously not arse-Paul kind of help, and they’ll need somewhere to stay when the snows come, so perhaps four beds will be okay. Then all I’ve got to do is find some like-minded people. You’ll like that, Mum, I’ll be able to pay them ‘a living wage’.
After several weeks of trawling through Rightmove, Ellie was ready to make her own move with the ticket. She phoned the relevant number and found herself speaking to a very nice lady who, research had shown, was based on an industrial estate in Watford.
She Will Rescue You Page 3
