FORTY-FIVE
Travis had been writing in his notebook during the whole journey to the hospital. He closed it as she turned off the ignition. She waited for him to make a move. It was obvious that any progress they’d made yesterday had been erased.
He continued to stare forward.
‘Do you ever consider that sometimes you’re not right?’ he asked, suddenly.
She considered for a moment. ‘Rarely,’ she said.
Had they progressed or even maintained that brief harmony of the previous day she might have been tempted into honesty. But now she would continue to act in the role she’d been given.
‘There are times when you just get it wrong, you know.’
‘Did I do something in the briefing?’ she asked, defensively.
‘No, the briefing went well, I thought,’ he said, rendering her speechless.
He unbuckled his seatbelt, and looked at her.
‘I’m just saying that sometimes you’re wrong and people suffer.’
‘Travis, what the hell are you going?—’ She stopped talking when the passenger door slammed shut in her face.
She shot out of the car and faced him across the roof.
‘Travis, what was that supposed to mean?’ she snapped. Either he wanted to talk or he didn’t but baiting her with obscure comments and questions was just downright annoying.
‘Either consider it or don’t. I’m saying nothing more.’
Right now that was a bloody relief if all he was going to offer was cryptic one-liners.
They walked through the hospital hallways in silence. Kim pushed her way into the morgue and greeted Doctor A.
‘Nice to see you, Inspector and the sergeant too,’ she said pleasantly, as Travis’s expression soured. Kim knew she shouldn’t have found it funny, but she did.
As she watched Doctor A pull on a pair of blue gloves Kim noticed the freshly applied nail polish. Red and gold on alternate fingers.
She could only wonder at the de-stressing rituals of a woman handling cadaver bones by day and painting her nails by night.
‘Inspector, I think you are going to love me a lot when I show you this,’ she said, handing over a sheet of paper containing a photograph with measurements noted beneath.
The subject of the photograph at the centre of the page was a bullet.
‘From the pit?’ Kim asked.
Doctor A nodded.
‘Is it here?’ Kim asked.
‘No, it is gone to ballistex,’ she said.
‘What, the cold sore cream?’ Travis asked smartly.
‘Yes, because that would make perfect sense,’ Doctor A said, cuttingly.
He closed his mouth.
‘Marina thought it was a bullet but I didn’t want to tell you before I had chance to clean it properly.’
Kim couldn’t help her excitement. Ballistics would be able to detail the composition of the bullet. Some were made of soft material, like lead, designed to expand on impact. Steel based bullets penetrated further into thicker targets.
Any information could help them potentially age it. Newer bullets used materials such as aluminium, bismuth, bronze, copper, plastics, rubber, steel, tin and even tungsten.
‘And I have some information about our first victim,’ she said, moving to gurney one. Kim could see that the other two skeletons were beginning to fill out, and another box of bones was waiting on the side.
‘I think this gentleman here was Negroid.’
Kim knew the other two anthropological classifications were Caucasoid and Mongoloid. A term to describe a broad division of humankind native to Asia but had been turned into a sickening insult over the years.
‘Do you see here?’ she said, pointing with a pencil. ‘The skull is high and square. The face is straight and the eye socket is triangular.’
Kim did see a definite disparity between the skull of the victim on gurney one and gurney two.
‘Also, Negroids have proportionally longer arms and legs and their femurs are straighter.’
Kim accepted the woman’s expertise.
‘These characteristics diminish in mixed-race people but are significant here.’
Kim looked to Travis, who, for once, wasn’t writing the detail down. She was grateful for the information. It would help narrow the search on missing persons.
Kim walked along the bottom of the gurneys holding the other two victims.
‘Nothing to indicate any more victims?’ she asked, hopefully.
Doctor A shook her head. ‘I think three is our final count.’
Kim paused at the end of gurney three.
She lowered her head and peered closer at the fibula bone. The thinner lower leg bone lay beside the tibia but there was a marked difference in the texture of the two bones.
The tibia appeared smooth and even, whereas the fibula displayed dozens of nicks and grooves along its entire length.
Kim pointed. ‘What are these marks?’
Doctor A rolled her eyes dramatically. ‘Further inspection is one of the seventeen next jobs I have to do, Inspector.’
Kim ignored the dig and smiled. ‘Anything you can tell us would be helpful.’
Doctor A placed her hands on her hips. ‘And once I’m done I’ll go and solve this crime for you,’ she said.
‘Feel free, and I’ll stay and finish your jigsaw.’
Her mouth began to twitch. ‘Inspector, you better get out of here before I…’
‘I’m going. I’m going,’ Kim said, heading for the door.
Travis was already on the phone, giving his team the updated information.
‘How the hell did that woman get the job?’ Travis asked when he’d ended the call.
‘Because she is very intelligent, dedicated, knowledgeable and bloody good at her job,’ Kim replied.
‘With a very poor bedside manner.’
‘Her customers don’t mind that too much,’ she offered, drily. ‘But since you mention her bedside manner, Tom, I’ll give you an insight. She was once the attending tech on the body of a nine-year-old boy found in the grounds of a listed building in Romsley. He was discovered late in the evening on New Year’s Eve and we couldn’t get him removed until early the next morning.’
She paused, remembering that night four years earlier.
‘I left around eleven and she was still there. I got back at seven in the morning and yep, she was still there. Right alongside her sleeping bag and a flask of chicken soup.’
He looked unimpressed. She shook her head. She supposed it was difficult for a clock-watching man like himself to understand that, dead or not, Doctor A just hadn’t been able to leave that young boy on his own.
She sighed heavily. ‘I think we need to head straight back to the station,’ Kim said. ‘Trying to identify a missing black male anywhere from the last thirty years is a task too big for just Penn and Gibbs.’
Travis nodded and glanced in to the main reception as they passed by en route to the car.
She realised why and stopped walking. ‘Wanna go and check on him?’
You didn’t just forget the life of a man you’d helped to save. The fact that the road traffic incident had been passed to another investigation team would not stop Travis from seeing the man’s face in his mind’s eye for a long time to come.
He shook his head. ‘Intensive Care,’ he answered. ‘On life support.’
Kim nodded, and they carried on walking.
‘You know, I shouldn’t be surprised that you’ve already—’
Kim stopped talking as Travis’s phone began to ring.
Travis listened intently as the voice talked on the other end.
He stopped at a bin and rested the leather wallet expertly on the top with one hand and began to write. Kim tried to see but his fist was in the way.
‘Good work, Penn,’ Travis said, ending the call.
‘No need to return,’ he said, with a flash of pride. ‘Our first victim has been identified.’
Kim
couldn’t help but be impressed. Finally, victim one was about to get a name.
FORTY-SIX
18 OCTOBER 1989
Jacob James woke to a sniffling sound coming from the other side of the room.
It took him a few seconds to think through the groggy haze in his mind and realise that this whole thing was no nightmare. He was still naked, bound and cold in a pitch-black room.
He heard a sob somewhere to his right.
There was someone else in the room with him.
‘Hello,’ he offered tentatively.
A sharp cry of surprise came from that direction. He realised the voice was female. He had no idea if it was a girl or a woman.
‘Please don’t be frightened,’ he said as gently as he could manage. He wanted to reassure her immediately that she was in no danger from him.
‘O… okay,’ she said, timidly.
‘What’s your name, love?’ he asked.
‘D… Devorah, Devorah A… Abramovich,’ she answered.
Jacob wondered if it was the fear making her voice sound young. He hoped so.
‘How old are you, Devorah?’ he asked.
‘S… seventeen,’ she stuttered.
‘Did you get taken too?’ he asked.
‘Y… yes, I think so. I remember leaving shul…’
‘School?’ he asked.
‘No, no, synagogue. I was studying away from college for the day and… oh… tell me what’s going on, please,’ she said as the panic clutched at her voice.
‘My name is Jacob,’ he said. ‘And I was taken as well. I’m not sure how long I’ve been here. Have you been given anything to drink?’
‘No, they took me from the van and threw me in here. I didn’t see…’
So they hadn’t drugged her yet.
‘Were you conscious for the journey?’ he asked. He had been knocked out. They had obviously felt no threat from this young girl.
‘Y… yes,’ she answered.
He wondered if he could glean any information to help him clarify how long he’d been in this place.
‘Devorah, can you tell me what time you were taken?’
‘I left the synagogue at about two o’clock. Please, tell me, what are they going to do to us?’
Jacob closed his eyes and shook his head. He wished he knew.
What he did know was that he’d been taken around 6 p.m., which meant he had been gone for almost twenty-four hours. Adaje would have missed him by now. She would have raised the alarm but what details would she have been able to offer? She hadn’t even known he was going to get fish and chips.
The hopelessness settled heavily on his heart.
‘Did you hear them say anything when you were in the van?’ he probed, gently.
‘No… oh wait… no, I heard the word “appetiser” but they were just talking about food,’ she said and then began to cry. ‘I just wish I knew what I’d done,’ she sobbed. ‘What do they want us for?’
He ached to move forward, but his own nakedness prevented him from trying to offer her comfort. There was something obscene about moving his bare body closer to this poor, terrified girl.
From her voice he guessed they were just about fifteen feet apart.
He began to move closer towards her.
‘Hold out your hand,’ he said.
She moved to her left, and he stretched his bound wrists towards her. His hand found hers in the darkness.
A pang of emotion shot through him at the sensation of the small, soft hand encased in his own.
Adaje, his beautiful Adaje.
A tear forced its way from his eye and travelled down his cheek as he wondered if he would ever see his daughter again.
‘It’s okay, Devorah. Everything will be okay,’ he said, soothingly.
He stroked the flesh of her hand with his thumb as he had done many times with his own daughter. Her cries began to subside.
How quickly a bond had been formed between himself and a young girl who he would probably never have met, if not for the bastards that had plucked them both from their lives.
They sat in companionable silence until the key sounded in the lock.
‘Jacob?…’ she whispered. The panic dripped from that one word.
He squeezed her hand as two torches shone into the small space.
‘Grab her,’ said a voice.
‘No,’ Jacob cried, launching himself to his feet, clumsily. His body still fighting the effects of the drug he’d been given. His bound hands restricting his movement.
He lunged forward into the torchlight, not sure what he was hoping to achieve but he had to try and stop them taking her away. He couldn’t even imagine what they were going to do to her.
‘Fuck’s sake, this one’s a liability,’ said one of the voices.
Jacob felt himself being pushed back to the ground.
‘Don’t be too eager to get out there, fella. Your time is coming soon enough.’
The door closed behind the voice but not before Jacob heard Devorah’s sickening screams and pleas receding into the distance. His shackled fists met with the wall in frustration at being unable to protect her.
‘Damn you, you fucking bastards,’ he screamed into the darkness.
FORTY-SEVEN
Stacey had the sudden urge to close the office door. Justin’s computer was open and positioned to her right. Someone would have to come close to see what she was doing, and yet she still felt as though she was doing something wrong.
She wondered, for the hundredth time, why she hadn’t just mentioned to her boss that she wanted to dig around a little on Justin Reynolds. But she knew why ‒ if the boss said no, she would have no choice but to let it go. This way, she was not going behind the boss’s back. Not really, she told herself.
She could see from the front screen that Justin had an icon for every app available including Snapchat and Pinterest. But the one she really wanted was Facebook. Still the most widely used sharing platform, people treated Facebook like it was their lounge or bedroom. Users felt comfortable posting their entire lives on what they thought was their personal space.
The globe icon told her Justin had almost two hundred notifications. She clicked in and began to scroll through them. The majority were dated since Monday. The day he had died.
The earliest ones were expressions of disbelief. Pleas for Justin to make contact. The newer ones were expressions of grief and RIP posts. None of these posts had made it to his timeline, because of his privacy settings. Stacey had implemented the same on her own page. She had never liked that people could tag her in a post which automatically appeared on her timeline, especially after a less than flattering photo of her throwing some drunken moves at her cousin’s twenty-first birthday bash.
Clearly Justin had felt the same way.
She clicked on the message icon. She saw that the top message was from someone called Floda. No last name, just Floda. She frowned. What kind of name was that?
She briefly considered continuing the message stream but guessed Floda would be freaked out if he suddenly got a message from a dead friend. But the last person Justin was in contact with was definitely someone she’d like to speak to.
She opened her phone and sent a friend request from her own Facebook account. Once they responded, she’d explain exactly who she was and see if they could tell her anything about Justin, and especially about his state of mind in those last few days.
She was about to click on the message when the one below caught her attention. And then the one below that.
She began to scroll down and the frown on her face deepened.
A whole batch of angry messages screamed ‘unfriended’ followed by angry emojis. Some just said ‘wanker’. As she scrolled through them she counted some seventy messages that were all abusing Justin with one-word insults. The abuse went on for weeks prior to his death. None of the messages had been replied to or even opened ‒ except for one. From a girl named Kirsty Littlejohn.
Stacey opene
d it. Unlike the others, this one asked for an explanation and pleaded for a reply. Possibly an ex-girlfriend, she wondered.
She scrolled back up to the first message and the only one he’d responded to. She opened it, and read, from the beginning.
‘Are you coming on the 19th?’ asked Floda.
‘Yeah, can’t wait,’ replied Justin.
‘You know you need the photo to get in?’ Floda asked.
‘Oh yeah won’t be a problem,’ replied Justin.
‘Will we meet?’ Justin had added as a separate message.
The question had remained unanswered.
Stacey knew that this Floda person was the one she needed to speak to. From what she could see it was the last person Justin had had any type of conversation with.
She had no choice but to wait. She could send Floda a message from her own account but it would automatically be sent to his other folder to gather dust.
She clicked onto Justin’s timeline. Maybe she could learn more from what he’d been posting. Perhaps she could discover what had caused so many people to send him abusive messages.
She began to scroll down, and her blood turned cold at what she saw.
For a moment, she couldn’t turn her head from the screen. Only when her phone beeped did she lower her eyes.
She’d received a notification.
Floda had rejected her friend request.
FORTY-EIGHT
Kim spotted the property she was looking for. The small boutique was located on the Soho Road, nestled between a fruit and veg store and a small coffee shop.
‘Bloody hell,’ Travis said as they reached the store, which was awash with brightly coloured garments and accessories.
Kim had always loved the vibe of Handsworth, located north-west of Birmingham city centre. It had become the hub for Birmingham’s Afro-Caribbean community following a post-war demand for both skilled and unskilled workers. But the area had suffered from racial tensions since the sixties, and different riots over the years had damaged its reputation. Despite all that, the carnivals and parades that passed through the community were a celebration of life and joy.
Kim took a deep breath before pushing open the door.
Dead Souls: A gripping serial killer thriller with a shocking twist Book 6 Page 17
