I’m on my feet and hurrying towards her before I can stop myself.
I don’t say what I’m feeling, I just take her in my arms and hold her like I had on the stairwell.
Is this love? I really don’t know. But we are drawn to each other. I’m a moth, ever dancing around her dangerous flame, and the fire she brings isn’t easy to quell. She makes me feel weak and strong all in one go.
I take her into the bedroom and she goes willingly. I strip her clothing away and my mouth traces soft kisses over her face, neck, shoulders and breasts.
‘Are you cold?’ I ask when she shivers under my hands and lips.
‘Not when I’m with you,’ she says.
Then she opens for me, giving and responding and touching me back with the same urgency. Pulling away my clothes as I had removed hers.
I lay her on the bed, taking the lead, and she doesn’t object: for control between us is something that neither of us ever worries about.
Afterwards I hold her against my chest. We fit together in comfort and it feels so right to have her here despite all my concerns and suspicions. I stop thinking. We don’t talk. We sleep. And it is the best rest I’ve had for a long time.
When I wake, Neva has gone. But for the ruffled bedsheets, and the smell of her lingering on the cotton and on my skin, I could almost believe that our meeting was imagined. It’s only then that I realise she hasn’t told me what news she had about the mysterious missing flight. I’m left wondering if this was just as I’d suspected: an excuse to be around me. I decide it doesn’t matter and then I turn over and drift back into sleep.
Breathing in her scent I carry her with me into my dreams.
Chapter Fifteen
Beth
It’s just gone 9 a.m. on Monday when Beth parks her car and hurries inside the medical centre which holds MI5 and MI6’s private mortuary.
Elliot had emailed on Friday evening explaining that the autopsy had been postponed until Monday – unavoidable but a pain, as it meant that Beth had to spend the weekend doing ‘motherly’ and ‘householdy’ things which she detested.
She shows her badge, and hands over her gun for security, before passing through the security scanner. The security guard gives her a key to her storage box so that she can retrieve the weapon before she leaves.
She takes the stairs down to the basement and walks along the corridor to the mortuary. When she arrives, she presses the bell and the daytime diener, Cyrus Fencher, comes to the door and lets her inside.
‘Hi, Cyrus, I’m here for the autopsy.’
‘PPE in there ready for you,’ Cyrus says, pointing to a side room where all the personal protective equipment is stored. ‘You’ll need some Vicks under your nose too, though she’s been on ice all weekend and that helps.’
‘Thanks.’
When Beth is ready, she smears the strong menthol ointment under her nose and then covers the lower half of her face with a surgical mask. She follows Cyrus into the mortuary.
‘Hi, Beth. Just in time!’ says Elliot. ‘She’s been swabbed and cleaned. Clothing sent off for analysis.’
The corpse is laid out on the examination table. It’s naked but Elliot has a sheet over her, up to the shoulders. Beth likes how respectful this is, but knows that throughout the process the victim’s body will slowly be revealed and the cover pulled back.
‘I couldn’t see this when she was foetal in the car, but it was the first thing I noticed when I cut her free from the ties.’
Beth moves closer to the body. For once her curiosity outweighs the sickness that death often makes her feel. Elliot’s gloved fingers point to the woman’s neck.
‘You see the bruising here. Finger marks. She was semi-strangled before being dumped in the back of the car. She’ll have been unconscious, but not dead.’
‘How do you know?’
‘No sign of cyanosis around the lips. So, we can rule out asphyxiation.’
‘What killed her, then?’
‘I don’t know yet, but I’m hazarding a guess at dehydration. She was locked up unconscious and basically left to die in the back of the car.’
‘Jesus! How long would that have taken?’ Beth asks.
‘About a week. Maybe sooner because we’ve had such hot weather of late. The heat would have been intense inside the boot and garage, despite that small air vent. She may have lost more moisture through perspiration. She could have been conscious for some of it, probably aware she was going to die, but completely unable to raise the alarm that might have saved her life. That’s the most awful and cruel thing about all this. She was so tied up, she couldn’t move. There would have been pain in her limbs from the enforced positioning, headaches as she became more dehydrated. The only blessing is that she would have been unconscious through the worst of it,’ Elliot says. ‘Of course, when I cut her open, I may be proved wrong on all of this.’
But Elliot isn’t wrong. His assessment is confirmed throughout the autopsy. The Jane Doe’s stomach is empty, there are serious signs of dehydration and, in the end, it was major organ failure that finally killed her. Beth is left with the knowledge that this woman’s death hadn’t been easy.
‘There are marks on her wrists and ankles that don’t match the cable ties. It looks like long-term injuries from being restrained,’ Elliot notes. ‘Look here too. Stretch marks on the lower abdomen. She’d either put weight on and then lost it, or it’s a sign of pregnancy. I’ll know more when I examine her uterus.’
As Elliot finishes weighing and measuring the corpse’s organs and samples are taken and sent away for analysis, Beth removes the PPE, throwing it into the bin provided in the small gowning room. Then she waits in Elliot’s office.
‘Can I have your written report as soon as possible?’ she asks when he joins her.
‘I’ll send over a preliminary then a final when we get the toxicology report back.’
‘Thanks. I’ll need to show all of your findings to my colleague who is a profiler. So, the sooner the better.’
‘I need a break first, but I’ll get to it and have it over this afternoon. I’m just going to take a walk to the canteen. Can I buy you a coffee?’ Elliot asks.
Beth is surprised by the offer but the idea of getting to know Elliot better over coffee appeals to her. She can’t deny that she finds him attractive and interesting.
‘Sure,’ she says. ‘Maybe something more will occur to us both on the way.’
‘I think we’ve talked enough about the body for now,’ Elliot says.
Beth picks up her handbag and follows him out of the mortuary towards the canteen, which is on the ground floor of the building near the entrance.
The canteen is large and has clean, white, modern furniture scattered around the room. Like any medical facility canteen, staff are on hand, cleaning and sterilising the tables as they are vacated because this place caters for all of the medical, admin and security staff in the building. There’s a long counter serving hot food, and two large fridges full of sandwiches, salads and cold drinks.
Beth glances at her watch. It is just gone 11 a.m. and she skipped breakfast, feeling that seeing a dissection on a full stomach might not be the best idea. The hot food counter is full of eggs, bacon, sausages, beans, tomatoes and stacks of toast, because it’s still serving breakfast.
They join a line of medical staff as they queue.
‘Something to eat?’ says Elliot. ‘I recommend the sausage butty.’
Beth laughs. ‘Sure.’
‘My treat,’ Elliot says. ‘Grab us a seat and I’ll bring the coffee and food.’
‘I should be treating you by rights,’ she laughs.
‘I think you deserve this. You handled all that really well.’
‘Okay. Since I agree with you, I accept your kind offer.’
Beth leaves Elliot to order the food and then she walks towards the window overlooking a small garden. She chooses a table and sits down. She’s pleased that the autopsy hadn’t upset her. It was, in
part, because Elliot was so interesting to listen to during the examination.
The facility caters for security and special agents’ health needs, as well as having the ‘special cases’ mortuary for deaths that the secret services need to deal with themselves. Anyone working here has been through major security checks, and will also have signed the Official Secrets Act. Beth feels as much at home here as she does in the Archive office block. She is surrounded by people who, like her, work for the government.
Carrying two butties and coffees on a tray, Elliot walks over and places them down. He has brought a knife and fork for each of them, and he has plastic pouches of ketchup and brown sauce, and even small packets of sugar. Beth observes that he’s covered all the bases.
Beth reaches for the brown sauce. Elliot smiles as he takes some of that too. Neither of them touch the sugar.
‘You thought of everything here,’ she says.
They both smear brown sauce on their sausages. Beth cuts her bap in half to make it easier to eat, but Elliot picks up the whole thing and takes a bite from it.
‘When did you start here?’ Beth asks. ‘I hadn’t seen you before the other day.’
‘I transferred from Manchester two weeks ago,’ Elliot says. ‘After the sudden vacancy left by Doctor Lancaster.’
‘Yes. I heard he left for health reasons,’ Beth says. ‘Hope he’s going to be okay.’
‘It was sudden and no one has discussed it – obviously for privacy reasons.’
‘Are you here for a while then?’ Beth asks.
‘Well, I’ve just accepted a permanent role. So it’s turned into a relocation!’
‘That’s great!’ says Beth, then she blushes realising her enthusiasm might be misunderstood.
‘I think so too,’ Elliot says. ‘So, what about you? How long have you worked for MI5?’
Beth glances out at the lawn. It’s empty though she’s certain it’s used to allow patients to get some air at certain times of the day.
‘I’ve been doing this job for years.’
‘I was recruited at medical school, before I was halfway through,’ Elliot tells her. ‘I suppose they brought you in when you were at uni too?’
Beth nods. ‘You know how it is. One night you’re at a frat party, some hot guy gets you on your own and the next thing you know he and his uncle are putting the Official Secrets Act in front of you.’
Elliot smiles. ‘They used a hot girl on me…’
They both laugh. ‘Not very original then,’ Beth says. ‘Anyway, I was doing an intense IT course, and suddenly I’m also being added to Counter Terrorism courses and I’m not just learning about programming, I’m also being taught how to hack pretty much anything.’
Beth stops talking and her eyes flick around.
‘I shouldn’t really have told you any of that…’
‘Believe me, you’re not revealing anything I don’t know about,’ Elliot says. ‘I had to do that Counter Terrorism course too!’
‘Really?’
Elliot nods. He finishes his sausage bap. Then takes a swig from his coffee. ‘Feeling a bit more human now after that,’ he says.
‘Me too. But if you’d told me at the beginning of the examination that I’d feel like eating anything – let alone a sausage sandwich – afterwards, I’d have called you insane.’
‘You get used to it. And I find I need to eat afterwards. Like to remind myself I’m alive and still kicking,’ he says. ‘That I can still smell the coffee,’ he finished, taking a deep sniff at his own cup. ‘Delicious!’
‘It’s weird,’ says Beth. ‘Sometimes when I’m surrounded by the death and ghastly stuff we investigate, I find it’s important to do something ordinary too. There was this case I was working on last year – I can’t go into it much – but the stuff that came up, involving kids – it knocked me sick. I had to just go home and hug my two boys. And believe me, I’m not that maternal.’
Beth is surprised at how easy Elliot is to talk to.
‘So you’re married then?’ he asks.
‘Separated. Though I haven’t exactly shared that with anyone else outside our home yet…’ Beth says.
‘Don’t worry. I won’t discuss it with anyone. I’m divorced myself. This job doesn’t quite work out well with relationships. My wife got fed up with me having to stay late when an emergency came in. Talking of which, sorry I had to cancel Saturday. I had to go back to Manchester because my mother took ill.’
‘I’m really sorry to hear that. Is she … okay?’
‘No. Not really. She has dementia. She doesn’t even know who I am. She keeps asking if I know her son. It’s pretty awful. Especially for my dad, who still has all his marbles,’ Elliot explains.
‘That must be really hard,’ Beth says.
‘But on a more cheerful note … I’d better get back and do that report.’
‘Thanks. I really appreciate that.’ Beth drinks the last of her coffee. ‘Better get back to the office myself.’ She stands up. ‘Thank you for the brunch.’
‘You’re welcome. Maybe we can make it dinner sometime?’
‘That would be nice,’ Beth says.
She’s blushing as she walks away.
Chapter Sixteen
Michael
‘Hi, Mike,’ says Beth as she enters my office. ‘How you doing?’
‘All good here. Did you need me to do something?’ I ask.
‘I’ve emailed you a preliminary autopsy report. Will you look at it and give me your thoughts? Leon and I found a body on Friday.’
‘Good grief. Where? How?’ I ask.
Beth takes a breath. ‘At the moment I can’t tell you much. But she was found in the boot of a car in a suspect’s garage.’
‘Okay,’ I say.
‘I’d like you to review the photos, the pathologist’s initial findings and come up with a profile for the kind of person who would … do this to a person.’
I agree to look and Beth leaves. The moment isn’t as awkward as some of the discussions I have had to have with Leon. Beth is trying hard to be normal. I open my email handler and find the report. I print the document, then flick through the photographs on the screen and compare the comments made about them. The pathologist is good, his instincts sound. I digest the information and then go into Beth’s office to talk it through with her.
‘I’ve looked, and I’ll draw up an official profile but I thought I’d share my initial reaction to the information. First of all, the calluses and bruising on the wrists and ankles of the victim. Those are very interesting.’
‘I thought that too,’ says Beth. ‘Elliot – the pathologist – suggested she could have been into bondage. There was both old and more recent scarring…’
‘I’ll come back to that shortly. Let’s talk about the bruising on her throat, which looks like an attempted strangulation.’
‘Could they have believed they’d killed her before they’d placed her in the boot?’
‘I don’t think so. This semi-strangulation was intentional and the perpetrator knew just how much force to use. There was, I saw, no rupture of the throat. This could buy into your pathologist’s theory that the victim liked being restrained, and may have had a few other S and M fetishes. But I’m going to explode that idea now. Usually strangulation of this sort accompanies penetrative sex. But your pathologist says there was no evidence of sexual activity. Furthermore, strangulation of this sort wouldn’t render the victim unconscious because you wouldn’t squeeze that hard. Yet there is evidence that enough pressure was applied to do just that. She was put down, then the cable ties were used. When she was unable to resist.’
‘Do you think she struggled?’ Beth asks but I know she’s just testing me. She already knows the answer.
‘The wounds on her hands. Defensive, yes, but I reckon some of them were from her fighting for her life too. She may well have wounded her attacker. It might be why they half strangled her to regain control.’
‘There was no skin under
the nails,’ Beth observes.
‘No. There was nothing under the nails. The perp scraped them clean. Your pathologist says there was a chemical smell coming from her hands and they swabbed them prior to cutting the cables and washing her down. It’ll be interesting to see what that chemical was. But I’m sure it will be some form of bleach. They were making sure there would be no traces of themselves on her.’
Beth is thoughtful for a minute and then she asks, ‘What sort of person kills someone by starving and dehydration?’
‘Someone who gets a kick out of what they do,’ I say. ‘This was a calculated and cruel death.’
‘One of the Network’s assassins?’
‘Possibly,’ I say.
In the past, we’ve discussed the way some killers disintegrate after a time and begin to enjoy what they do. I remind Beth of this as we talk more about the identity of the possible killer.
‘The stretch marks were interesting. Baker observes that the uterus was swollen, consistent with a recent full-term pregnancy,’ I say, continuing my observations. ‘It is likely she was detained until she was full term. Maybe she was taken because she was pregnant. She gives birth. Her captor has no further use for her, but they take the kid. It’s not usually the Network’s MO, but things might have changed since Beech was brought down.’
Beth is about to speak but she stops herself. I can tell she knows more about this woman than she’s saying.
‘We might learn more if we discover where they kept her,’ Beth says choosing her words carefully. ‘And if Elliot’s observation of stretch marks proves to have been a pregnancy, your observations are sound based on what I’ve been able to tell you.’
‘What do you know that might help you find this place?’ I ask.
Beth glances towards the door leading to the corridor and Ray’s office.
‘It’s all right,’ I say. ‘I understand. Need to know basis. Though it would help with the profile if I could have some more context.’
Beth thinks for a moment. ‘I agree. I’m going to go out on a limb here. We had a report of a missing person. According to her employment history Angela Carter started her new job six months ago. She also rented a flat in Slough. The woman we found matches her description. I have a theory that she is Angela. But I don’t just think she was kidnapped for the child she was carrying. I believe she was imprisoned and she was replaced by someone who looked like her.’
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