The Alice Murders

by James Arklie

  This is for all of you, he thought. I need to bring you back from the dead and you need to help me, because I’ve got sod all else.

  He reached up and wrote, turned to Angie who nodded her approval.

  A case was born.

  The ALICE Murders.

  *

  Diary entry for DI Joseph Kline

  I’m disappointed in myself, Joe. Angry even. But you made me do it. You forced me to make a point. To you. This is how you kill, Joe. It is a blank canvas on which you can paint any picture you want, be as creative as you want.

  Sometimes, simple is good. Sometimes violent is far, far better. Trust me, I can be far more shocking than that. Far more. Except I’m getting tired, Joe. Neither of us is getting younger. I work out, my muscles ache. I kill, my muscles ache. The effort is hard sometimes.

  I used to be able to carry a body over one shoulder, I can’t even lift them now because I worry about my back. A serial killer worried about his back, how about that? Perhaps I’m not as immortal as I think I am.

  Here’s a thought for you, Joe.

  If love is destructive then, surely, our only way to fight back is to destroy love. Is that possible? To destroy such a powerful emotion?

  Think on it hard, Joe. It’s different to what most killers driven by emotion do. They simply thrash out, flail and kill the person causing the emotional pain. I’m talking about destroying love itself. Erasing it from inside of you.

  Yet, you have no choice. You will have to destroy what burns inside you if you want to flick that switch. And what kind of person does that make you? Me?

  I’ve left another little message for you, Joe. Just a reminder.

  Because you know, that I know, your big secret. The one that you’ve kept from everyone all these years. The reason you really hate me and want to destroy me.

  But you have to catch me, don’t you, Joe?

  Get to me first.

  Before I get to you.

  Before they all find out.

  Chapter Four

  Kline remembered that he’d promised Angie a few drinks in the pub, but before he settled down to putting more toxins into his body, he had two more visits he wanted to make.

  The first was to Andy Johnson who would have carried out the autopsy on Audrey Waters, the latest victim. By now Andy would also have the initial forensic report and be trying to match, compare and look for cause and effect between them. Kline knew protocol had it that he should have called DI Pete Simpson and cleared the visit with him, except this case was now also part of his case, so to hell with the protocol.

  Angie went with him and Andy Johnson was waiting for them in white boots, green scrubs, and plastic shower cap. A mask hung loosely at his neck. The air temperature in the autopsy room was cold. Angie zipped up a bomber jacket and Kline stuck his hands deep in his pockets. Andy’s gear rustled as they made their way across the room and between stainless steel slabs to one covered with a white sheet. Kline started taking deep breaths.

  Andy started with a deep sigh, which Kline always viewed as a homage to the dead person, another victim of unnecessary and senseless violence.

  ‘Audrey Waters. Nurse at the Private Hospital out in Shirley, fifty-four years old. Last seen on a bus on her way home from the night shift. Looks like she was abducted from her house, but she died on site. Probably round four a.m.’

  Andy took back the sheet in careful folds, laying the final one to rest on her hips. For several seconds they stared at the marble grey body in silence. Andy had now sewn her abdomen together with large stitches.

  Andy sighed again and waved a hand the length of her body. ‘No signs of a struggle. We’ve scraped her nails, swabs over the body, but don’t hold your breath. Body organs removed and not found at the scene.’

  Angie asked, ‘Which ones?’

  ‘Those easily accessible. Liver, pancreas, kidneys, took the appendix as well.’

  Kline said, ‘Knew his way round a body?’

  Andy shrugged. ‘Not really. Open up a body with biology GCSE in your back pocket and you’ll know what you’re looking at.’ He looked from one to the other. ‘The difficult part is having the mind that lets you take a scalpel down the length of someone’s body.’

  Kline couldn’t suppress the shiver as Andy pulled the cover back up over Audrey and led them to a steel bench. He held up a specimen jar. ‘Lilies. I’ll let you know the name when the botanist gets here.’ He raised a second jar.

  ‘Alice Doll. Tiny.’

  ‘Hers?’ Kline was trying to sound hopeful.

  ‘Doubt it. See here. These are tiny teeth marks. I reckon a youngster teething has been having a good chew at this. She’s a bit too old to have child of this age, so maybe a grandchild.’ He gave Kline a loaded look and knowing smile. ‘Pete’s looking into it.’

  Kline felt the weight of the silence from Angie. She said, ‘Carly had one like that. She had her first two teeth coming through and used to chew on hers.’

  Andy was completely unaware of Angie’s history. She went on, ‘Have you swabbed it?’

  ‘Angie.’ Kline had to step in. He couldn’t let her go down a new pathway of pain. ‘Not now.’

  Kline could see the emotion welling in her eyes. They needed to leave.

  He moved the conversation to the end. ‘The cause of death?’

  ‘Her killer used a massive dose of Propofol to knock her out.’ He pointed to a carotid artery and a red blemish. ‘Straight to the brain. Instant. Knew what he was doing. No signs of a struggle so she may have been sleeping at home and…’

  Andy led them back to Audrey Water’s body and again folded the sheet to her waist, revealing the stitches from her sternum to her pubic bone.

  Kline said, ‘And what? Transported her to Lord’s Wood.’

  ‘That’s the current theory. They’re doing all the usual with house to house and CCTV, but you’ll have to liaise with Pete on that.’

  Kline waited, looking at Andy, knowing there was more. Andy said nothing, just watched the dark light of reality creep into Kline’s eyes. He couldn’t keep the horror from his voice. ‘What, he cut her open while she was still alive?’

  Angie turned and walked away, but there was worse to come.

  ‘You should also know that Propofol may be a powerful anaesthetic, but it does not relieve pain.’

  Kline followed Andy’s gaze to the stitches. He wanted to slam a steel barrier between what he was seeing and what his brain was feeling and imagining. His hands inside you, a killer’s hands. Dismantling you piece by piece. Would she have known?

  Kline jammed the barrier open, letting his senses ride the horror. The more he hated this man the better it would be. The more it would help with the outcome he was driving towards.

  Behind him, Angie left the room and the plastic swing doors slapped loudly as they flapped shut.

  *

  Angie was waiting for Kline in the car. He dropped into the driver’s seat saying nothing.

  She reacted angrily. ‘Don’t give me your silence.’

  ‘Angie, that doll did not, does not, belong to Carly. It’s a message to us from a serial killer.’

  She was simmering. ‘You don’t know that. What if he…..’

  ‘Angie. He murders and mutilates women.’ Kline pointed back at the building. ‘What did you not see? You think he’s got a side-line in babies and young girls?’

  Kline started the car. ‘I tell you what. One more stop before the pub. You can ask an expert.’

  Ten minutes later Kline swung the car onto the semi-circular tarmac drive of a large Victorian house on Oxford Street, Southampton’s version. The house had managed to retain its presence and grandeur despite the more modern buildings round it.

  As they approached the front door, Kline saw Dr Cassie Mcguire through a bay window. She rose from behind her desk, raised one hand and came to greet them. She opened the large front door and waved them in with a smile.

  She was in her late forties, tall, lanky eve
n, skinny, so clothes hung off her. Her hair was pulled back and held by a large tortoiseshell clip. A pair of blue-framed reading glasses had been pushed up to the top of her forehead.

  She greeted Kline with a peck on each cheek and an appraisal that looked deeply into his eyes. She shook hands with Angie.

  ‘Office on the left, consultancy on the right.’

  They went right and Kline and Angie sat either end of a green leather sofa. Cassie Mcguire checked her watch. ‘Drink?’ They both declined, she poured a small whiskey and then perched herself on the edge of a matching wing-backed chair.

  Cassie Mcguire had been Kline’s first police partner when he was in Southampton. But they had a more important bond; she had been with him at the time of the murder of Evie Arnold. She’d seen Evie nailed out on, or more like, nailed into, the oak floor of her expensive country house kitchen.

  She’d held onto Kline and helped him hold on to his sanity and contain his outrage. Made sure he’d kept it together for Jenny. ‘Save it for another day’, she’d said repeatedly. And Kline had. And now he felt that day was coming.

  But then it had been Cassie’s turn to crumble. For her it was one murder too far. One scene too many that show-cased, in a very literal sense, the amoral brutality of humankind.

  One month later, it had been Kline’s turn to support and admire her as she stood strong and turned to face the brutality in a different way. She walked away from her career with the police and started all over again, deciding that what she wanted to understand, what she wanted the answers to, was the ‘what, why and how’, that can enable a person to commit such atrocities.

  She ran from the physical results of wanton brutality and instead challenged the emotional and psychological drivers.

  Kline had watched and supported her as she spent the next six years retraining and transforming herself into a qualified clinical, and then a respected forensic psychologist. It had been and still was mutual, as she now supported Kline and the emotional traumas he’d been fighting for the last two years.

  She was also now one of the Hampshire force’s outsource profiling experts.

  Kline spent ten minutes briefing her, then decided a drink would be good after all and accepted a small beer. Cassie twisted off the cap and handed it to him. Kline saw her glance at Angie and make the assumption that if Kline had included her, then anything could be said.

  ‘You all right with this, Joe?’

  Kline gave her a lopsided smile. ‘I haven’t come for counselling.’ Angie stirred beside him. Cassie glanced at the movement.

  ‘This must be exciting for you.’ She looked between them. ‘Knowing that Evie wasn’t a one off. That there is a serious killer out there.’

  Angie said abruptly. ‘I’d rather he wasn’t. Another predator…’

  Kline interrupted. ‘I, we, would value your thoughts.’ He smiled back into the dark brown eyes that fixed on him.

  Cassie eased herself back in her chair, folded her legs, rested her whiskey on her knees and reset the clip in her hair. ‘You know he’s a psychopath. Probably exhibits sociopathic tendencies as well.’

  Kline nodded. That much was obvious to everyone.

  ‘But your real question to me, based on this ten minute conversation and no files or pictures, is can this be the same person? Is this the person who killed Evie?’

  Kline took a swig of his beer. Angie took it from him and did the same. They both knew her opinion in their favour would count for a lot.

  ‘Setting aside copycats, the answer is ‘yes’. Without question.’ Cassie sipped her whiskey and they waited while she organised her thoughts.

  ‘High level, first impressions to give you a framework to work off? This is a man who took on the police forces of the world.’

  Kline interrupted her. ‘A man?’

  ‘Definitely. It was a game. Moving from one country to another. He killed. He waited for one year for the police to catch him. They couldn’t. They closed their files. He will have smiled at each victory and moved on.’

  ‘You’re saying, you think he will wait round for another year?’ Kline could see a trail of bodies pinned across Lord’s Wood.

  ‘I’ll come back to that. What does it tell you about him?’

  Kline tilted his head, made a face. ‘Confident? Cocky? Thinks he’s clever?’

  ‘That applies to all psychopaths. This is pure arrogance. Look at me. I’m a globe-trotting serial killer. This man is seriously arrogant. That also makes him very intelligent.’

  Angie said, ‘But he stopped.’

  Cassie shook her head. ‘No, he got bored. He won the game five nil. Wouldn’t you get bored?’

  Angie added, ‘But he’s just killed again.’

  ‘I said he is arrogant. He killed in an era when the three most powerful investigative techniques were fingerprints, footprints and aggressive interrogation techniques. Plus, some luck.’

  Kline knew she was right. Looking round a murder scene in the nineties was like looking round a bare room. Now, every object on every surface and every molecule of dust floating in the air was important. Every room was a treasure trove overflowing with gold.

  Cassie said, ‘One take on his reappearance is that it’s his arrogance that has brought him back. He wants to take on a modern police force. He wants to beat the modern technology.’

  ‘This is the start of new cycle of killing?’

  ‘Arguably.’

  ‘Why here?’

  She shrugged. ‘First thought? Because this is where he left off. Maybe he’s going to work the countries in reverse. Maybe it’s a new circle.’ She leaned forward, whiskey glass twirling between the palms of her hands.

  ‘What was this woman’s name?’

  ‘Audrey Waters.’

  ‘You see. ‘A’. Already he has us guessing.’ Cassie scrutinised Kline’s face.

  ‘But then again, perhaps that’s what he wants us to think.’

  Kline frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  Cassie shrugged. ‘We are throwing guesses into a dark room, which is what he wants. But perhaps he’s killed again for a specific purpose. Come back to finish something. Or maybe he’s been here all the time and this is a random venting.’

  Angie said. ‘What reason? Like something changed in his life? Or something or someone has pissed him off?’

  ‘That kind of thing. You have to find what’s driving his actions.’

  Angie was bitter, dismissive. ‘And just where do we find that?’

  ‘This will sound trite, but in the actions themselves.’

  ‘You could try hatred of women as a good starter.’ Angie’s voice was still sour, making Kline glance at her.

  Cassie heard it as well and swirled the whiskey round her glass. Kline realised she’d pretended to drink it but had barely touched it. Nothing more than a prop, he thought.

  ‘I’m not so sure of that, but now you have five murders, not one.’

  ‘Six.’ Angie was still chewing the pith.

  Cassie conceded her mistake with a nod of her head. ‘I need to see the pictures and read the full reports. We all need to study them because there will be answers in there. Until then, we are doing exactly what he wants us to be doing.’

  Angie was sounding exasperated. ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘Guessing.’ Then Cassie sat back. ‘And, just like you, right now, getting totally pissed off.’

  *

  Kline parked outside the Admiral pub, just off Ocean Way. They sat outside at a bench table with the late sun on them and a chill gathering in the air. He got a bottle of Sauvignon for Angie, thought about joining her, but he was desperate to visit Jenny so stuck with an angostura bitters and lemonade.

  The Alice doll had messed with her mind. Kline knew a bottle of Sauvignon wouldn’t solve anything, but he also knew she needed some form of release and from here she only had a ten-minute walk home.

  He split open a bag a crisps, then took her hand and waited until she let out a resigne
d sigh and looked up at him.

  ‘It’s not him, Angie. He didn’t abduct Carly.’

  She slowly withdrew her hand and gave him a look that was both vengeful and recriminatory, even though he’d done nothing wrong.

  She downed half a glass of wine in three gulps anyway. ‘What if his sick, bored mind moved on? Cassie said it, five nil, I’ve won, time to try something new.’ The bottle glugged as she refilled her glass.

  Kline reached for her hand again, knowing physical contact can be calming, but she just snatched it away. ‘Angie, if this is the kind of person we think it is, ten month old babies are not where his interest lies.’

  ‘But that Alice Doll, Joe, I know it was hers.’

  ‘If I proved to you that there were a million manufactured, would that convince you?’

  She turned narrow, angry eyes on Kline. ‘And if I told you that no-one in the world has ever come back to life after being declared brain dead, would that convince you?’

  Kline sipped his drink letting the bitterness clear his head before accepting her comment with a sigh. Neither of them had a partner to take this home to, so they were using each other as surrogates.

  It was Angie’s turn to lean forward. ‘It’s a new line of enquiry, Joe. This may be the way we get him. Perhaps this is the weak point in his arrogance. His mistake.’

  Kline shook his head. ‘Angie, no. He left the doll there deliberately. It’s a message from him, not some random coincidence or evidence that dropped out of his pocket.’

  She took a mouthful of her wine. ‘A message with a double meaning.’

  Kline took her hand again. She let him and it was clammy with emotional panic.

  ‘Angie. He’s messing with our heads. Trying to confuse our thinking.’

  She shook her head and Kline knew he might as well leave. ‘Joe, he knows. I can tell. He knows all about me and he knows all about you. He knows our pasts. He understands our pain.’ She nodded towards the car.