by M K Farrar
“I’m busy right now,” she said, “but I can meet you somewhere for an hour, if you think it’ll help.”
“I do, thanks. Meet me down at the coroner’s officer at four.”
“It’s a date,” she said and then cringed at herself for the turn of phrase. She managed to hold herself back from trying to retract her words, aware it would only make her seem even more awkward than she already felt.
What was she hoping, or not hoping for? That the burning of the body had no relation to one of her previous cases, so she could get the idea that someone out there might be copying them, or that it did have to do with her previous cases so she could create a link and pull in the evidence from each of them.
Right now, she wasn’t sure.
DI CARLTON WAS WAITING in the car park. He saw her car pull in, took another drag from his cigarette, and then threw it to the ground. He crushed it beneath the heel of his shoe.
Was he going to pick up the butt? As a copper, he should know he needed to pick it up and dispose of it, but he probably thought those rules didn’t apply to him.
Erica stopped the car and climbed out. “Those things will kill you.”
“I know. I quit for six months and then fell off the bandwagon again. Everyone says it’s alcohol and smoking that’ll do it, but for me it was that early morning cup of coffee. Just never tasted the same unless I had a fag with it.”
“We all have our vices,” she said, offering him a smile.
“Do we, DI Swift? Care to share yours with me?”
“Too much fast food, an addiction to hot sauce, and an inability to separate my work and home life.”
“Sounds like about ninety percent of the force.”
“You got that right.”
“Marry the force and get a divorce,” he joked, but then he must have remembered how Erica’s marriage had come to such an abrupt end and blood rushed to his face. “I mean, not for everyone.”
“No, not for everyone.” She cleared her throat and gestured to the front door. “Shall we do this then?”
“That’s why we’re here.” He appeared relieved that she’d given him an easy get out. Would she ever get to a point where she didn’t have how her husband had died hanging over her? People always seemed to feel like they had to pick their words carefully around her, in the same way an atheist might feel around someone who was highly religious—like they always thought the wrong thing was going to jump out of their mouths, unbidden.
John Hamilton was the pathologist working today. They went down to the basement, where the post-mortem examinations took place, to find him waiting for them. It would have been better if they’d been able to speak to Lucy Kim, since she’d done the examinations on Erica’s previous case, but she wasn’t in today. Erica hoped she’d be able to catch up with the other pathologist at some point and get her opinion.
“Do you have any idea who the victim is yet?”
“Not yet. There was no ID on or anywhere near the body. Once we get a better idea of their gender, age, and height, we can run it against our missing persons.”
Both detectives put on protective outwear before entering. Photographs had been taken during the post-mortem and uploaded for them, but it was always helpful to see things in real life as well.
Erica believed she’d got used to the distinctive smell of a dead body, but a body that had also been burnt gave a whole new dimension to the aroma. She did her best not to show any discomfort. Having any form of an upset stomach always felt like a weakness.
“The body is female,” Hamilton started, “and I’d estimate the age to be somewhere between eighteen and twenty-four. Height is about five-three, but again the pugilistic pose that burned victims end up in means I’ve made an estimate from the length of her bones. Time of death would have been sometime between midnight and six a.m., but that is harder to determine since the fire obviously has affected both the temperature of the body and the level of rigor mortis. Even though the body has become rigid, that’s down to denaturation and coagulation of proteins rather than ATP depletion which causes rigor mortis.”
“Was the burning the cause of death, or had they been killed before then?” DI Carlton asked.
This was his case, and though Erica was dying to ask what she viewed as being the most important of the questions, she forced herself to allow him to take the lead.
“There was no smoke in the lungs, so I’d say she was already dead when she was set fire to.”
“Small mercy. So, what’s the cause of death?”
“Strangulation. Though the skin is too damaged to show any bruises there is a hyoid bone fracture that is seen in about fifty percent of strangulations.”
Erica looked at Carlton. “One of my other cases is also a strangulation. She was left in her bed, though, and wasn’t burned.”
“Unlike your previous case,” he pointed out.
Should she confide in him that Naomi Conrad’s strangulation also reminded her of a previous case? The hairs rose on her arms, her skin turning to goosebumps at the thought. She wanted to convince herself this was all a coincidence, but, aside from that it was DI Carlton and John Hamilton in the room with her instead of Shawn and Lucy Kim, she felt like she’d been propelled back in time.
Carlton must have noticed her shudder. “Everything all right there, Swift?”
She nodded. “Yeah, it’s just weird how similar this is to my previous case.”
“What else can you tell us about the victim?” Carlton asked the pathologist.
“I’d say whoever she is, she’s led a hard life. The hyoid isn’t the only bone that’s fractured. Though the others are all healed, she has, at some point in her past, received two fractured ribs, and a fractured jawbone, and eye socket. She’s also broken several of her fingers.”
“That sounds like someone has been beating her,” Erica said.
“Yes, and from the various points of healing, I’d say it’s been over a period of time as well.”
Carlton’s brow furrowed in a frown. “Could she be an immigrant?”
The pathologist shrugged. “That’s impossible for me to say at the moment.”
“What about her organs?” Carlton asked. “Were there any missing?”
He shook his head. “No, from my examination, there doesn’t appear to be any organs missing.”
Erica glanced over at the other DI. “Then this isn’t a black-market organ case.”
He met her eye. “Is that what you were fearing?”
“Weren’t you? It had all the traits of the case I covered a few months back.”
“Except for the missing organ.”
She chewed on her lower lip as she thought. “Maybe she was killed for another reason. If she’s been beaten, and has been for some time, this might simply be a domestic abuse case. Perhaps whoever killed her had read about the other cases in a newspaper or online and used the same method to hide his own crime in the hope that we’d put it down to another black-market case.”
“Then why not remove an organ at the same time?” Carlton said. “We would have been convinced then.”
“Perhaps he didn’t have the guts for it—no pun intended. If she was someone he thought he loved, no matter how badly he was treating her, he might not have been able to bring himself to cut her open. Punching and strangling someone in a fit of passion or anger is very different to getting a knife and deliberately cutting someone open.”
Carlton gestured at the blackened shape on the table. “He had it in him to set her on fire.”
“But again, that’s something that can be done from a distance. Pour petrol on the body, light a match, and walk away.”
He huffed out a breath of air. “So you don’t think the same crime syndicate who were responsible for your previous case also did this?”
“No, I don’t, sorry. I think you’re looking for someone with different motives.” She decided to tell him. “It is bothering me, though, that this case is so similar, at least on the surface.�
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He frowned at her. “Why?”
“Because I’m also dealing with another case that reminds me of one I’ve covered before. I want to tell myself this is a coincidence, but my gut is telling me otherwise.”
“Cases can appear similar, once you’ve covered enough of them.”
“But two in a row?”
“Technically,” he said, “this is my case, not yours.”
“True. I just wonder if there’s anything, other than the strangulation, that might link this with the Naomi Conrad murder. Perhaps we could match DNA or clothing fibres that might tie them together?”
DI Carlton pursed his lips, and one eyebrow pulled down in a quizzical expression. He didn’t seem convinced. “That sounds like a very tenuous link.”
“You’re probably right, but it would put my mind at rest.”
John Hamilton cleared his throat. “I hate to throw a dampener over all this, but getting DNA off a burned body is almost impossible. The victim’s bones are highly degraded so genetic markers are hard to amplify, and any DNA the killer might have left on the body would have been destroyed.”
“Shit.” She balled her fists and resisted stamping on the floor. She was going to need something more if she could prove her theory that this was linked.
“There we go then,” Carlton said, “problem solved. Besides, running extra tests just because of some random idea that it’s related to your case seems extreme. As far as I can see, there’s no proof of that, and we’re detectives, we work on proof and facts.”
“They were both strangled,” she pointed out. “Both women of approximately the same age. Both killed in the same area.”
“Strangulation is a common murder method, especially in women.”
She sighed. “Maybe you’re right and it’s just coincidence.” She looked to the pathologist. “But will you keep an eye out for anything that might tie them together. I know it’s hard with a burned body, but DNA or clothing fibres, or hairs that match both the bodies.”
“Of course.”
“And you’ll let me know of any developments?” she asked Carlton.
“Yeah, I can do that. I’ll expect the same in return, though.”
She put her hands out either side of her. “Always happy to work together if it means finding out who was responsible for hurting these women. After all, we’re on the same side.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“You still here?” Erica said to Shawn as she got back to the office. “It’s Saturday night. Don’t you have somewhere more interesting to be?”
“Don’t you?” he quipped back.
“Not really. Poppy’s having a movie night with her cousins and will probably sleep over. She always falls asleep during a film. I’ll only be going back to an empty house.”
“I wanted to follow up some things,” Shawn said. “While you were with DI Carlton, I tracked down the taxi company that Naomi Conrad used and spoke to the driver. He does remember dropping Naomi and a man off at her flat just before midnight on the night she died. I showed him a photograph of Robert Day, and he says it’s the same man. We also have Robert on camera leaving Naomi’s flat, so that matches his story, as does the arrival of another man at the same time.”
“But we still don’t know if Naomi was alive or dead when he left her.”
“And we didn’t catch the second man leaving the block of flats either. Unfortunately, the angle of the camera doesn’t hit the front door, so he may well have left that way, but just stuck to the far side of the road.”
“We know he was on foot, though,” Erica said, “not that it helps us at all. What about forensics on the flat?”
He shook his head. “It was clean. No sign of the missing phone, and nothing in it that would suggest he murdered Naomi. There was nothing in any of the messages that the two of them sent each other that had any hint of violence or arguments either.”
“So, no motive,” she raised an eyebrow, “other than sex.”
Shawn changed the subject. “How did it go with DI Carlton?”
“Okay, I think. I don’t believe his case is linked to the black organ market, though he’s not ruling out that line of enquiry. My money is on her being a domestic violence victim.”
“No one’s reported her missing yet?”
“Not as of yet, though Carlton has his team going through misper cases. The amount of burn damage to the body is severe, though, so, as we know from previous experiences, it’s hard to make an ID.”
Previous experiences being yet another similar case that had cropped up.
Erica caught Shawn staring at her.
“What?” she said.
“Something’s bothering you, I can tell.”
She perched on the edge of her desk. “Okay, you’re right. I don’t think the case is linked to the black market one, but I do think it’s been staged to make it look like it might be. And here’s the other thing, remember how I mentioned the Conrad case reminded me of the Maher case as well? That means it’s two in a row now.”
Shawn thought for a moment and then said, “What about the attack on Brandon Skehan?”
“What about it?”
“Someone went for his eyes, didn’t they?”
A rush of cold drenched through her blood, and she sucked in a breath. Hearing Shawn confirm her suspicions suddenly made it real for her. “You don’t think...?” She couldn’t even bring herself to say it—to say his name.
“It’s a possibility.”
“I mentioned to DI Carlton that I thought our two cases might be linked, not only because it reminded me of the previous cases, but because both victims were of a similar age and both strangled. Is it possible there’s a third case, and if so, what does it mean?”
Shawn put up both hands. “Hey, I might be completely wrong. It’s a bit of a tenuous link. It wasn’t as though Brandon Skehan was abducted or anything. Someone attacked him in his home.”
“He fought back,” Erica said. “Maybe the plan had been to abduct him and cut out his eyes, but the attacker didn’t get the chance because Skehan escaped.” She ran her hand over her face. “Shit, I don’t know what to think. My head’s all over the place with this. I don’t want to be distracted by something that’s only in my mind.”
“Might be worth talking to the victim again with a different view point?” he suggested.
“Maybe that’s what I’ll be doing tonight then.”
Shawn glanced at the clock on the wall. “Tonight? Don’t you think you’d be better off getting some rest and coming back at it with a fresh head?”
She arched her eyebrows at him. “Who’s the boss here?”
“Okay, okay.” He grinned. “God forbid I ever attempt to tell the indomitable Erica Swift what to do.”
Was she right in thinking the cases were all linked? There was a difference between a big crime scene like the organ black market, where multiple people in various cities and countries might be involved, and something on a much smaller scale like an attack on a man or woman in their home? She’d already told Shawn about the Naomi Conrad case reminding her of Tristan Maher, but at that point she hadn’t considered the attack on Brandon being anything like the crimes Nicholas Bailey had committed two years ago.
Was it possible, though? If all three crimes were connected, there was one thing that made that connection.
Her.
BRANDON SKEHAN OPENED the door and blinked in surprise. Well, his one good eye blinked in surprise—the injured one was still covered with the bandage. Could it have been that he was never meant to keep that eye? If his attacker had got his way, would Brandon have found not only that eye, but the other one, too, plucked from his head? She remembered her fear of that happening, how, when she’d woken in the dark in an abandoned underground station, and hadn’t been able to see anything, she’d been certain it had already happened.
Nicholas Bailey had sedated his victims before he’d cut their eyes out and then released them to wander London’s st
reets, newly blinded. If someone was trying to replicate her previous cases, why hadn’t they sedated Brandon before they’d attacked him? Was it possible the attacker hadn’t been aware of this piece of information? Just like an organ had never been taken from the body burnt down by the canal. The crimes weren’t perfect replicas, but they were close enough.
“DI Swift. I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon. Do you have news for me?”
She could tell by the lift in his voice that he was hoping she’d say they’d caught his attacker, but she wasn’t able to do that. “No, I’m sorry. Not exactly. I wanted to ask you a couple more questions, if that’s all right.”
“Yeah, sure. Come on in. I’d give you the tour, but I guess you’ve already seen the place.”
“I have but thank you.” Was he embarrassed that she’d poked around his home when he wasn’t here? It would have felt invasive, to know strangers were poking around your belongings, even though they’d never searched through his personal things—they were only ever looking for evidence so they could find out who’d attacked him.
“It doesn’t really feel like home anymore,” he said, as though reading her thoughts. “Not because the police were in here, but more because it just doesn’t feel safe now. I only rent the place. I’ve got a couple months left on the lease and then I’ll move.” He gave a rueful smile. “In fact, I might just say screw the deposit and leave sooner. Depends on how many more sleepless nights I can stand.”
“You’re not sleeping well?” she enquired.
“Bad dreams. Nightmares really. Seems like such a stupid thing to say, and I’m embarrassed to admit it. It’s something you’d expect from a kid, not an almost thirty-year-old man. There are some nights I don’t want to switch the light off.”
“We all get nightmares, Brandon. It doesn’t matter how old we get. And after going through something like you did, it’s hardly surprising. You’ve probably got PTSD from the attack.” She still had nightmares and it was two years later.
He gestured to her wedding ring. “I see you’ve got someone to go home to, at least. I think I’d feel safer if I wasn’t on my own the whole time.”
