Dead Lands

by Lloyd Otis

  ‘Bedroom,’ he whispered.

  She begged him. ‘Don’t hurt me, don’t rape me.’

  ‘This is just business.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Shhh.’

  He pulled a heavy-duty pipe wrench from his pocket and began to flip it up like a toy, wondering how best to finish her off, and happy that the location of the bedroom deescalated the volume of the music the closer they got to it.

  Once inside, he could barely hear vocals, the drums or the guitar, but the heat distracted him. It began to welt his skin so he removed the mask. Geraldine scrambled around on all fours and when she found her purse she pulled out forty pounds in cash and handed it to him.

  He never asked for it.

  Did she believe that she could buy her freedom?

  He popped the ‘tip’ into his pocket and decided to play on it. ‘I want more. Write a cheque now.’

  Somewhere inside Geraldine had hope after he said that and with cheque book and pen ready, she battled to stop her hands from shaking.

  ‘Who should I make it out to?’

  ‘Mr Alexander Troy and sign it.’

  She tried to recall the name but couldn’t. ‘How much do you want?’

  ‘Leave it blank and bring it here.’

  Geraldine tore the cheque out of the stub and brought it over. She handed it to him and expected her escape route. It never happened. He knocked the cheque away.

  Geraldine tried to run.

  He grabbed her hair, spun her around then squeezed her throat. She wanted to fight and scratched his face but it had little effect. He raised her up onto the tips of her toes and imitated her voice.

  ‘Please let me go.’ Then changed it back to his own. ‘You’ve seen my face.’ And back again. ‘I’m good at forgetting faces, please don’t hurt me.’

  He increased the pressure around her throat and kept increasing it until the struggling stopped. Until her body became limp.

  He threw her away and ignored the thud of the floor because at that point he thought about her boyfriend, and wished he was there. He’d provide more fun. And while he thought this, Geraldine crawled across the floor, scared and shaken. She could only find the wall.

  He couldn’t bear to see the suffering, so out of frustration he threw the wrench at her to end it. Geraldine raised her hands to protect herself but the tool bullied them out of the way. The wrench struck her head. To watch her roll over and clutch the dent in her skull fascinated him. The Messenger drew closer and kneeled over her, showing no emotion as he returned his hands to her throat. Geraldine couldn’t even muster a scream as the colour drained from her. And he examined the process while being a part of the process. Squeezing and squeezing until her eyes threatened to pop out of their sockets.

  Then it was over.

  He repositioned her head on the floor in the way a father would place the head of a newborn child onto a pillow. Then he stepped away and collected the wrench, leaving the written cheque on the floor. She would never have a family or get married, never enjoy the right to experience old age or see her loved ones again.

  ‘I’m just the one that has to bring the message,’ he whispered to her, knowing that if it wasn’t him, it’d be someone else.

  There wasn’t any cellophane to use like before. Took too long to wrap the body last time so he kept things simple.

  Geraldine scratched him. She had the skin from his face but he knew how to fix the problem. The Messenger pulled a paper bag from his pocket and lifted up her hands to inspect her fingers. He could see beyond the chipped multi-coloured nail polish that they were perfectly shaped, but that did little to deter him as he said to himself, ‘Right then, where were we?’, and pulled out his knife.

  TWENTY FOUR

  Since Breck had asked her to go easy on Beatrice, Kearns decided to conduct the mortuary visit herself, to show that she had a heart. It wasn’t her favourite thing but she liked the idea of Beatrice being unable to bad mouth her due to her kind gesture.

  Kearns zeroed in on the red brick exterior in the knowledge that it housed one hundred and twenty refrigerated storage spaces with one perhaps waiting for her.

  She left the car to be surrounded by a blustery wind and accepted that she should be more awake for a pathological examination seeing as the rest of the country had woken up a long time ago.

  Kearns waited at the entrance for around a minute or so before being met by Home Office Forensic Pathologist Bart Redmaine. He liked the look of Kearns but she always rebuffed his approaches. He was a handsome man with inviting eyes, shored up by thick eyebrows, and he offered her a warm smile.

  ‘How are you, Patricia?’

  ‘Not too bad, and you?’

  ‘Busy, so many bodies to look at nowadays.’

  ‘Keeps you in a job.’

  Bart offered a thoughtful nod. ‘Yes, there is that.’

  Kearns followed him into the briefing room, while his assistant entered the storage area where the bodies of the dead were cocooned. She stood before a seven-foot door marked with the numbers, twenty-six to thirty-one, and extracted number twenty-eight. The corpse of Janet Maskell. With help from another assistant, she brought the body through to the examination room.

  They had covered the corpse from head to toe in a white sheet and when Bart removed it flashbacks of the crime scene met Kearns head on. The collar of Bart’s baby blue overall, covered in part by a green protective plastic pinny, flapped up around his shoulders and Kearns looked a little queasy. He noticed that Kearns’ eyes darted back and forth as she fought to control her anxiety.

  ‘Don’t worry we’ve all been there,’ Bart said in an effort to calm her.

  ‘I’ll be all right. I will,’ she tried to convince herself.

  The assistants fetched a few instruments from the other side of the room while Bart lifted the white sheet and moved a hand towards Janet’s face. The assistant returned and placed the instruments in a tray. Bart began.

  ‘There’s bruising to the temple and also here.’ He moved around the victim’s face and ran a gloved finger just above the brow, tracing the crown of her head. ‘The blow caused severe internal bleeding around this region.’

  ‘Damage assessment? In layman’s terms I mean.’

  ‘Her skull was cracked like a walnut, Mrs Kearns.

  ‘It’s Ms Kearns, I reverted back to my maiden name.’

  The mistake embarrassed Bart. ‘I see, apologies. Her skull was cracked in several places and the sacrum destroyed. My guess is from a blunt instrument, judging by the circumference of the marks.’

  Kearns knew they already had an approximate time of death from Frank Cullen’s early estimate. It had allowed them to proceed with their investigations but they still required confirmation.

  ‘What’s the official time of death?’

  ‘Judging by the body temperature when I recorded it at the scene after you left, I estimated it as being between 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. on the day found. Pretty precise I know but I like precise.’

  Kearns knew that Frank wasn’t in the habit of getting things wrong so she welcomed Bart’s confirmation.

  After it ended, Frank was on hand to deliver his findings as a fast-track measure and recorded asphyxiation as the cause of Janet Maskell’s death. Upon leaving, Kearns pondered over the timescale it happened within, aware it coincided with the exact period the fugitive Troy failed to provide an adequate alibi for. She realised that in different circumstances it would be perfect. Instead, it still left him chained to the crime and wouldn’t deter Breck from chasing him. Not one little bit.

  *

  Breck’s decision to stay away from the post-mortem somehow led him into the station’s yard, kicking around an empty coke can, pretending he was playing in the FA Cup Final. When he heard a light giggle from behind he turned to see Beatrice. He had no idea how long she had been there watching.

  ‘Having a schoolboy moment are we?’

  ‘Don’t be cheeky.’

  �
��That’s right, she shouldn’t be cheeky.’ Riley appeared from around the corner like a contagious bug, stopping in between both Beatrice and Breck, an unwanted obstacle in the way, puffing on a cigarette. ‘You need to learn the ropes, darling, so you’ll have what it takes to be a good detective.’ Beatrice held her tongue because of Riley’s seniority. ‘Fancy a bit of extra tuition over at my place? I’m always willing.’

  ‘You’re allowed to tell him to piss off,’ Breck told her.

  Beatrice fired the words towards Riley. ‘Piss off.’

  ‘I’ll let you have that one but normally you wouldn’t be able to talk to me like that DC Beatrice whatever-your-name-is. With Prince Charming here looking after you, I guess you’ll have an easier time, perks, promotion....’ he said, letting his words linger.

  An incensed Breck bowled forwards and balled his fist. Riley tensed up. Breck snatched the cigarette from his mouth and stubbed it out. Now wasn’t the right time for Riley to get his comeuppance. Yet his nemesis felt humiliated in front of the DC and stormed off.

  ‘Bea, if he gives you any hassle, let me know.’

  ‘Will do…I didn’t know you cared anymore.’

  Breck pretended that he didn’t hear the last part of her sentence and made sure they stayed in work mode. ‘How’s the professional services search for Ceinwen progressing?’

  ‘It’s still ongoing. I’m still wading through a list and waiting for some people to get back to me but there’s something I need to discuss. It’s about my job.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘As I mentioned when we spoke in the post room, you’d be a good mentor. I want a bigger role in things.’

  ‘In this investigation?’

  ‘I suppose, yes.’

  Breck slipped both his hands into his pockets. ‘That’s not possible, you know that. I’m leading and Patricia is my deputy.’

  ‘Patricia’s got her eyes on the Flying Squad but I want to build a career with the SCU.’

  ‘Your time will come Bea, just be patient. We can look at the set up on the next case.’

  ‘It feels like I’ve been waiting for long enough,’ she moaned. ‘Can you trust Kearns like you can trust me? I’d be a better partner for you and you know it!’

  ‘I can’t believe you just said that.’ Breck released his hands from his pockets and aimed another kick at the can. It flew up into the air and bounced off the wall.

  ‘It’s true. Remember, I did some good surveillance work on the European criminal operation.’ Breck struggled to recall the fine details of that so Beatrice helped him out. ‘We wired up a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow which belonged to a big figure in the Eastern European underworld named Aychm. We found out that several of his businesses were scattered around Europe and had been set up an age ago as safety nets.’ Breck began to remember it now. ‘Riley decided that it was nothing that we could arrest him for. He led the investigation.’

  ‘Do you think he knew he was being listened to?’ A suspicious look spread across Breck’s face.

  ‘I doubt it.’ Although she said it, Beatrice began to wonder too. ‘He used coded language. We believed he was making reference to someone that betrayed him. Body parts were wrapped and buried somewhere we believe.’

  ‘Come on let’s go back inside. This Aychm fella sounds like a nasty piece of work.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be wrong there. He’s a Slovakian Roma of Polish descent with criminal contacts all over Europe. The Polish cops have an unsolved murder of two Ukrainians in Wroclaw which he had a hand in. He also ran a prostitution racket in the city of Lviv. But he has never even been charged with anything.’

  Breck ruffled his hair as they walked back inside, impressed with the sharpness of mind which Beatrice displayed.

  ‘Please don’t worry about your career,’ he told her while being as sincere as he could. ‘I think you’re an asset. Just keep doing what you’re doing and your chance will come eventually. I’ll catch you later.’

  Beatrice watched him walk away, still hearing the words… ‘your chance will come eventually,’ but she didn’t want to wait. She wanted it now and had a few things up her sleeve. The chance to stick two fingers up at Kearns and show Breck that she’d be better placed as his partner. Beatrice hadn’t told the full truth. While they had struggled to locate Ceinwen Phelps she had found her, in a loose sense of the word, along with an astonishing discovery. One she couldn’t wait to reveal.

  TWENTY FIVE

  Anil Bashir brushed down his uniform before he went in to see his boss Patrick Rose. Rose was visiting the borough on his way to a meeting in Birmingham. He started his career in the same year as Clive Bird, yet while Bird reached the level of custody sergeant, Rose catapulted himself to the role of detective chief superintendent. That gave a little insight into his character. Rose wasn’t one to sit down and let life pass him by.

  Bashir and Rose often never agreed completely but Bashir mastered the art of knowing when to put up and shut up. It was something he had become an expert in as soon as he suspected that Rose wanted to reform the SCU, meaning redundancy for him.

  ‘Anil, fancy a drink? Tea or Coffee?’

  ‘Drink? No thank you.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yes, absolutely sure.’

  Over time Bashir had learned how to respond in a way Rose would understand. He still had his eye on his pension and wasn’t going to give Rose an excuse to destroy all his hard work.

  ‘So what have we got this month?’

  ‘Quite a lot has been going on and we’ve made inroads on a majority of things.’

  ‘Give me the detail Anil, that’s what I want.’ Bashir opened his file and angled it so that Rose could see what he’d be referring to. Rose took it from him and read the first page. Bashir expected to get it back because he wanted to run through it line-by-line. It wasn’t going to happen.

  ‘Give me the stats. As Detective Superintendent I expect you to know these off the top of your head. You’re on a good wage as we all are, so we have to earn it, don’t we?’

  Bashir found Rose’s attitude infuriating but kept a lid on his emotions. Being tested like this could only mean one thing. Rose planned to discredit him as part of his latest set of mind games.

  ‘Where do you want me to begin?’

  ‘Give me Cransham’s crime statistics for the current year.’

  ‘So far we’ve had fifty-four robberies to date and…’

  Rose cut in. ‘Is that on business or persons and do we have suspects for those robberies?’

  ‘The split is twenty-five per cent on businesses and seventy-five per cent on persons. Muggings are a problem but my investigating officers have identified suspects in forty per cent of those cases overall.’

  ‘Go on.’

  There have been four armed robberies but the stand out one involving a councillor is being looked at as a priority. The investigating officer is close to making an arrest.’

  ‘Who is that officer?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Raymond Riley.’

  ‘So he’s still serving with us. Hasn’t he got an attitude problem?’

  ‘His conviction rates are amongst the best in the department.’ Bashir waited for a reaction from Rose. None came. ‘There are so far just eight reported incidents of gun crime for the area, twenty reported incidents of motor vehicle crime, and a spike in racist and religious hate crimes.’

  ‘You haven’t mentioned murder yet Anil.’

  ‘I’m getting to that, sir.’

  ‘There’s one in particular I’m thinking of.’

  Bashir stopped to think about it but Rose liked to throw a red herring in every now and again to win those bloody mind games. So far, so good. Bashir had recalled the correct data from the file.

  ‘Can you be more specific?’

  ‘I’m talking about the death of Janet Maskell.’

  ‘Everything has been complicated by the instruction to…’

  Rose stopped him. ‘We don’t
need to discuss any complications. I’m the one that first gave you that instruction so informing me of it would be a waste of time would it not?’

  Bashir gripped the side of the chair. The blood drained from his fingers but he kept his smile intact. ‘Yes. I have two of my best officers on it in Arlo Breck and Patricia Kearns.’

  ‘The suspect escaped from the custody of Patricia Kearns so how can she be one of your best officers? For many different reasons it makes us look inept.’ Bashir tired of the hard ball game. It was put up and shut up time. Rose pressed his long fingers together to create a triangular shape which he then balanced in line with his chin. ‘I want an answer.’

  ‘There were mitigating circumstances. A fight had broken out in reception and the suspect took his opportunity to escape.’

  ‘And Breck, is he being a good boy with what we need done?’ Rose released the file onto the table, not interested in reading any more. Bashir thought of the amount of time he had taken to compile it and wanted to cry. Rose only read the first page.

  ‘No problems with Breck. He’s being steered in the right direction.’

  ‘What about Kearns?’

  ‘She’s fine, sir.’

  Not for the first-time Bashir felt uncomfortable. Rose hadn’t permitted him to discuss the situation with anyone else. He expected him to manage everything from afar but he didn’t believe he could. Not without having Kearns onside. Bashir’s mind wandered off somewhere.

  ‘Are you not with it today, Anil?’

  ‘Sorry, I’ve just got a lot on my mind, sir. It’s all under control.’

  ‘Good, glad to hear it.’

  A light knock on the door followed and Gloria, Rose’s secretary, entered the room with his prep paper. She was in her mid-forties, straight-laced and pragmatic. Rose continued the conversation after she had left.

  ‘Be careful with this Troy case,’ Rose warned. ‘Van Bruen has a lot of influential friends and the problem he has now, is the very type the SCU was designed to solve. We should be in control of this, all the way. Instead, we have suspects and POI’s running around all over the place. Get this to a satisfying conclusion.’ Rose raised his eyebrows as a warning. ‘Let’s not get the wrong man eh?’