by K Leitch
She jerked her head over in their direction, ‘Found the body did they?’ she asked Frank.
‘Yeh, poor buggers they’re in a bad way, I’ve called for an ambulance, the young girl collapsed earlier,' replied Frank shaking his head.
‘Well make sure somebody’s taken all their details before they go anywhere Frank can you? Is there any light in this place?’
‘No but I have my torch, and one of the uniform boys had one of those battery operated lanterns in his car so we’ve slung that up until forensics set their own lights up. I warn you Carla this one’s not for the faint hearted, looks like he was tortured before he was killed,’ said Frank with a grimace.
There was no need to tell Carla that they were nearing the body, the stench of it was almost overpowering. What was left of a man was tied by his wrists to the wall of the barn, his naked body was covered with wounds, too many to count. They looked like knife wounds but it was really hard to tell because he had obviously made a good meal for the rats and other wildlife in the area. What was obvious though was the bullet hole between the eyes, almost certainly the cause of death. There was also a very strong smell of petrol, it seemed like the body had been doused with it, but for some reason it hadn’t been ignited…maybe whoever did this had been disturbed.
The barn itself was fairly empty of any obvious clues; there were plenty of dark blood stains on the floor round about the body and a much larger stain which must have been pooled blood on the ground at the front, where from the look of the gaping wound, it seemed the poor bastard had had his genitalia removed. There were no signs of his clothes anywhere, so presumably the murderer had taken them with him, so no ID. Carla heard Dorothy Smiles’s voice outside and went out to meet her.
‘Bloody hell Carla, I could have done without this one.’ She said coming into the barn along with her two assistants, who were carrying the large lights that would be strung up in the barn to help in the search for clues.
‘Why?’ asked Carla, ‘rough night?’
‘Dreadful,’ said Dorothy shaking her head, ‘I’ve had the mother of all toothaches…I am actually drugged up to the hilt with painkillers so don’t blame me when you get my report on this tomorrow, I’ll probably tell you that it was a four foot ten Chinese woman with a sprained ankle ok?’
‘Well perhaps I’d better get your initial thoughts now then while you’re still conscious,’ said Carla smiling, ‘you poor thing though…I hate toothache, it’s the worst.’
‘Well hardly,’ said Frank with a shiver looking at the murder victim, ‘I think you can bet this chap would have swapped your toothache for whatever hell he went through, whoever did this to him is one sick bastard.’
‘Hmmm nasty,’ said Dorothy looking him over. She felt his skin which was beginning to slip as the flesh had begun to break down. ‘His body is in quite a state of decay, with quite a bit of infestation already, I think he’s been here quite a while, one week or maybe even ten days. Obviously the animals have had a go at him, but cause of death is obvious, although if he hadn’t been shot it wouldn’t have taken him long to die once his genitals had been removed. As you can see he has virtually bled out from there, soon his organs would have begun to fail, death wouldn’t have been long. These wounds on his body look like knife wounds, something very sharp…but he was beaten with something first…look you can see here there are marks consistent with being whipped or flayed with something…leather probably but can’t be sure, but whatever it was it had some sort of metal hooks or such like studded into it…it has torn at the flesh here, see? Hmm looks like something has been put into the wounds…oh yes, look here you can just see…those whitish granules…salt in the wounds, the whole exercise was designed to cause maximum pain before death and…terror of course, why else would they dose him in petrol and not light it, I suspect they were intent on scaring the poor man out of his wits…poor chap I wonder how he ended up here?’ Dorothy mused as she went through the motions of collecting and preserving evidence.
’Have the genitals been found?’ she asked Carla a few minutes later.
‘No, not yet anyway,’ Carla said, ‘maybe they’ve been taken as some sort of macabre trophy.’
Dorothy nodded, ‘Well it wouldn’t be the first time,’ she muttered shaking her head, as she went back to what she had been doing.
The victim’s hands were still tied to the metal rings in the wall so Dorothy decided that it would be sensible to take him and the rings back to the mortuary, so as not to lose any valuable fibres or DNA that could help them piece together some sort of clues as to who they were dealing with here. So her team started drilling round the metal rings as carefully as possible until they came free, after which he was gently laid inside a body bag ready for transportation.
Luckily his hands and teeth seemed intact so hopefully they would be able to find out who this poor unfortunate creature was and how he came to this terrible end.
An hour or so later Carla and Frank watched the coroner’s van drive away with Dorothy following behind. The rest of her team were going over the barn with a fine toothcomb, searching for anything that might help, but it wasn’t looking hopeful, the killer had been very careful not to leave anything of himself behind it seemed. There were prints all over the place of course, and Carla would have to get hold of the farm’s owners to find out who may have been there recently, and also who may have been aware that the farm was now deserted and the barns empty.
‘Bloody hell Carla,’ said Frank, ‘what the hell are we dealing with here, who does that to someone else, another human being…what sort of sick fucker gets his kicks from causing such agony?’ He was smoking a cigarette with shaking hands, obviously shocked to the core at what he had just seen, as was Carla, this was no ordinary murder, this monster had taken his time to exact as much perverse pleasure as he could from his victim. They were dealing with a cruel sadist, not something that either of them was familiar with.
‘I know, it doesn’t bear thinking about, but in a way the fact that this is such a perverse and sick crime might help us out. I mean people who are sick enough to do this stuff don’t usually just strike once do they? Let’s get back to the station and have a look on the central database, see if anything similar turns up somewhere else. It seems too well thought out and planned to have been a first kill, maybe he’s done this before. I’ll get Mandy on to finding out who owns the farm, we’ll need to speak to them as soon as possible, and we’ll get the team together for a briefing at about ten, maybe we’ll have something to work with by then.’
With that they both made their separate ways back to the station at Kenley, where all was quiet. The desk was being manned this morning by Constable Martin Weir; who barely looked up from his computer screen as they rushed through the entrance and up the stairs to where the main offices were.
CID’s section was located on the first floor; it was basically one large open plan office, desks, each with a computer screen, were arranged around the edge of the room. Carla’s office was a small partitioned section at the end of the room, with glass to three sides, there were blinds which she could close for privacy but she rarely did so, she wanted to feel part of the team not separate from it.
On one side of the room were doors leading to a briefing room with white boards and a TV, and Mandy’s office. DC Mandy Hopkins, was the main ‘go to’ person in the team for searching background information, or studying CCTV footage. She had an amazingly methodical brain and was perfect for that type of task, her office was a haven of organisation and neatness and she guarded it fiercely.
This was Carla’s first port of call after she had got herself a coffee. Mandy had just arrived, but she had heard all about the gruesome body found a few hours earlier.
‘Oh my god Carla it sounded horrific, sends a shiver down my spine just thinking about it,’ she was saying as she got herself settled behind her desk.
‘Well it was awful,’ replied Carla pulling up a chair opposite her, ‘and what I need from
you Mandy is firstly, we need to find out who owns the farm that the barn is in, the whole place seems completely deserted, but someone must still own it. Secondly once we have all the post mortem details from Dorothy, and we know exactly what was done to our victim, I want you to cross reference with the national police database and see if anything similar turns up, seems far too slick to be a first kill, I’d bet you anything he’s done this before, and if he has then we might have something more to work with. There’s not much more to go on until we get a name for our victim, the best Dorothy could do was to give me an estimate age of between forty five and fifty five, I’ve got Midge looking through missing persons, something might turn up there…but there wasn’t much left of his face so…’
‘Oh god Carla don’t tell me anymore, I’m glad it’s you lot that get to do the gory jobs, I really don’t know how you stomach it,’ she said, looking around her neat little office smugly, ‘right I’ll get onto finding out who owns the farm…any idea when we’ll hear from Dorothy?’
Carla grimaced, ‘No your guess is as good as mine, but she promised she’d make it a priority. She must be really bogged down over there at the moment though with the crash and all. Which reminds me I need to speak to her about the identity of our wood’s victim as well, I have an awful feeling I might know who he is, but I’ll need her to confirm it…bloody hell poor Dotty she’s going to love me. I’m calling a briefing at ten Mandy, be good if you could have something for me by then,’ she joked, and then laughed at Mandy’s two fingered reply, she wasn’t worried, she knew Mandy would do her damndest to get her something.
Once in her office Carla tried to put her thoughts into some sort of order. She now had two murders on her hands, the body in the woods still hadn’t been identified, but they knew he was a sixty odd year old man and she had a gut feeling that it was Giles Poole. He had been shot in the head, no sign of the bullet yet but hunting through the debris of the helicopter crash site was painstaking work and frustratingly slow. Now there was also the problem of the second body, no ID again, a man of between forty five and fifty five, tortured and shot in the head, could there be some sort of connection between the two men…hard to tell until they knew for sure who they were, that had to be her main priority.
The office was buzzing with activity by the time Carla called her team together. Everyone had heard about the find and speculation was rife. Dorothy had sent over her preliminary findings in advance of the post mortem which she would carry out later in the day. Death as expected was caused by a single shot between the eyes, fired at close range. He had been the victim of the most horrific torture, his body had been slashed over and over, the wounds then opened up and salt rubbed into them, his nose and ears had been virtually sliced off and of course his penis and testicles had been hacked off shortly before death. His hands had been fastened to the iron rings using a strong rope, the sort that could be bought at most hardware stores. Blood and other samples had been sent away to be analysed, results would be back by the next day. One crucial piece of evidence had been left behind though despite the killer’s thorough clean up, a long auburn hair had been found stuck in the blood on the man’s back, so with any luck they should be able to get some DNA from that, and in the barn itself a partial footprint had been found in the blood stains that had surrounded the body and Dorothy had sent over a printout of it, along with a note.
SURPRISINGLY SMALL FOOTPRINT, 4 ½ TO 5 COULD BE OUR SUSPECT WAS A WOMAN?
This gave Carla pause for thought, she had automatically assumed the killer was a man, mainly because the victim would have been hard to move about and subdue for the average woman. Not that he was particularly big, but most men especially one who is unwilling would be able to fight off a woman. He had probably been drugged, but they would have to wait for the toxicology report to come back to be certain, and even unconscious it was still a big task to move a man about like that.
‘Right,’ Carla called her team to order. ‘Our first priority is to find out the identity of both of our murder victims. There may not be any connection between them but finding two bodies, both shot in the head, in the space of a few days is a coincidence in itself so we can’t rule it out. Mandy has come up with the name of the owners of the farm, Joshua and May Hinkly. They moved out about a year ago and the farm has been on the market for the past ten months or so, so plenty of people would have known it was deserted, not least the agents dealing with the sale. Sam you get on to them can you, see if they’ve noticed any strange people hanging around there, maybe get a list of anyone who has been up there to view it recently and then can you visit the neighbouring farms to see if anybody heard anything out of the ordinary, or noticed lights on that sort of thing? Midge can you interview the couple that found the body, was this a regular meeting place for the youngsters, how did they know it was empty, had they been up there before? Mandy I need you to keep on looking through missing persons; someone somewhere must be missing these men. Frank you and I will go over and see the Hinkly’s, we’ll pop in on Dorothy on the way, see if she’s got any more for us…right let’s get going.’
The team filed out noisily, Carla grabbed her coat and called to Frank who was chatting up one of the new women constables that had recently been assigned to CID.
‘Frank…let’s get going,’ Carla called again impatiently over her shoulder as she walked to the door.
Frank sauntered after her with a very self satisfied look on his face; Carla just rolled her eyes, Frank needed a steady girlfriend. He seemed to jump from one girl to another with mind boggling regularity. Obviously his latest fling with Sally or was it Sylvie, was waning if he was coming on to someone else, that had lasted all of three weeks then, despite his saying that she was definitely the one. He needed to settle down in her opinion; he was in his thirties now after all.
She waited until they were both in the car and then said, ‘So what’s happened with Sally? I thought you’d finally met the love of your life.’
Frank groaned he might have known he was in for a grilling, ‘You mean Sylvie? Yeh well I was wrong, oh she’s a lovely girl and all that, I just can’t see it going the distance.’
Carla sighed, ‘Nothing will ever go the distance unless you give it a chance mate,’ she said driving slowly out of the station car park and heading out of the village. ‘Don’t you like her anymore?’
‘Oh she’s alright you know, she’s just turning into every other girl I’ve met. I mean last weekend she wanted me to go to IKEA with her…I ask you IKEA! I told her straight, I’ve got better things to do with my weekends…anyway we had a bit of a row if you must know. It’s probably for the best, it’s not like I want to settle down any time soon is it?’
Carla just shook her head at him, ‘You just wait Frank, one of these days you’ll meet someone that will turn your world upside down, and when that day comes I expect I’ll bump into you in IKEA.’
‘Never going to happen, never in this lifetime,’ Frank said laughing, but Carla just smiled to herself knowingly which she knew would irritate the life out of him.
Mr and Mrs Hinkly lived in a tiny little terraced house near the small town of Whytfield, a few miles beyond Redbank, Carla had called earlier so they were expected and the door was opened before Frank had time to ring the bell.
Mrs Hinkly offered tea which they both accepted while Mr Hinkly showed them into a living room that was so stuffed full of furniture that there was very little floor space and they had to shuffle round a coffee table before sitting down on a large worn looking sofa.
Mr Hinkly was quite willing to talk about how his farm had become too much for them to cope with.
‘After our sons moved on, we had no spare cash to pay anyone, and I just couldn’t manage on my own. May tried her best to help, but what with her bad back and my stiffening joints…well we had to face the truth, and so we decided to sell. Rented this place and put the farm on the market…that was ooh ages ago, a good ten, eleven months.’
‘Do you eve
r go up there, make sure every things ok with it?’ asked Carla trying to balance a hot cup of tea whilst making notes.
‘No, not very often,’ Mrs Hinkly said putting a coaster in front of Carla and setting her tea down on it, ‘it’s very hard…to see it in such a state I mean. Josh goes up now and again makes sure the house is ok and squatters haven’t moved in, but basically we’re leaving it to the agents…that’s what we pay them for after all.’
Apart from being absolutely shocked at the thought of a murder being committed in their barn, the Hinkly’s hadn’t anything else to add. They weren’t too surprised that the barn had been used by ‘courting couples’ as they called them, but were very worried about the knock on effects of such a crime being perpetrated on their property and how it might affect the sale of the farm. So Carla and Frank took their leave, asking them to call them if they could think of anything unusual that had happened around the time that the murder was committed.
Once back in the car they headed off towards the mortuary once again, they were about five minutes away when Carla’s phone rang, it was Dorothy.
‘Hi Dorothy, funny you should call, we are just on our way to see you now,’ said Carla.
‘Oh well that’s good, there are one or two things that you might want to look at. That, however, was not why I was calling you; I thought you would want to know straightaway. We’ve been able to identify the body that was found in the woods from his dental records, you were right Carla…it’s a Mr Poole…Giles Poole.’
CHAPTER 19 - CAULDRON MEETING
‘So I walked round, just wanting to introduce myself you know, let them know that we would be moving in at the beginning of the next month and sort of apologise in advance for the noise that the builders are going to make…’ Tracy broke off as Maggie returned with their drinks, ‘Oh thanks Maggie darling…my first glass of wine for nearly a year mmmm. Well anyway, I got no further than the porch door when this old woman opened the front door and told me to ‘clear off’ said she didn’t want ‘my sort’ coming into her garden. I tried to explain that I was going to be her new neighbour etc, when she threw something at me…hit me on my arm, I was so shocked at the time that I didn’t realise what it was but I later found out that it was an egg…I know who does that? It’s mad…anyway I was getting angry now and I started shouting at her, but she just went back inside the house and slammed the door. Now though I’m getting worried, I mean I won’t bother her again but what if she is really mad and starts bothering us. Anyway I told Simon that the first thing we are doing when we move in is putting up a fucking great six foot high fence all down that side of the garden.’
