‘Well that’s really up to you, but I personally think you should give yourself a bit more time. After everything you’ve been through in the past week, I think you’re entitled to some time off.’
‘I am actually starting to feel a little better,’ Louise admitted, ‘and I’ve been getting a bit more sleep lately.’
‘Good, that settles it then. At least take the rest of the week off and then see how you feel about coming back next week.’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ Louise picked up the remote control from the coffee table and turned her TV on, switching over to the evening news and muting the volume. She read the headline scrolling across the bottom of the screen: ‘Third victim of female suspect found, killer still at large.’
‘Bloody hell, have you seen the news?’ she asked.
‘No, I’ve been at it all day,’ Ben replied.
‘There’s been another murder, that woman killer has killed another guy, someone called Daniel Taylor,’ she read the headline to Ben.
‘That’s quick work, three murders in just over a week. Guess that makes her a serial killer now huh?’
‘Yeah, I guess so. Did I tell you I know one of the copper’s working on this enquiry? We went to school together for a couple of years.’
‘You did mention it,’ Ben replied.
‘She gave me her card and said to give her a call so we could have a catch up some time. I don’t know if I want to call her though, I’m not sure we’d have anything in common now.’
‘Ok, now I know you really are not yourself! You would normally jump at the chance to talk personally to someone working on a live case like this.’
Louise laughed, ‘Yes I guess I would. I don’t expect she could tell me anything anyway.’
‘Probably not. Don’t you want to meet up with her, just for old time’s sake?’
‘Hmmmm… dunno. What if she thinks I’m weird?’
‘Well that’s a given Louise,’ Ben teased.
‘Oi! Cheeky bastard!’
‘Only joking,’ Ben’s deep, throaty laugh made her smile.
‘You know what, I will call her and see if she can see me tomorrow night. Why not eh? Could be fun to remember the old school days…’
‘There you go! That’s better. You mustn’t shut yourself away Louise, or you’ll turn into some old recluse.’ Ben was only half-joking this time. ‘Oh, looks like Derek is leaving the building. Halle-fucking-lujah! Now I can go home and not worry about the place being burnt down, or my office being desecrated by a pissed off former employee.’
‘Good! Hopefully he’ll trip going down the stairs on his way out and kill himself. That would solve all your problems, wouldn’t it? If he died?’ Louise stated.
‘It sure would, but knowing my luck he’d only sustain an injury and would then sue me for that too.’
Louise laughed and then said: ‘Thanks Ben,’
‘What for?’
‘For being a friend, for listening and for cheering me up,’
‘No problem,’ he sounded chuffed on the other end of the line; Louise wished she could see his handsome face.
‘Right, I’m going to head home now Lou. Give me a call if you want to chat at any point ok?’
‘Ok, Ben. Bye for now,’ Louise hung up the phone, feeling almost happy.
She picked up Elizabeth’s card and rang the mobile phone number printed on it; the call went straight to voicemail so she left a slightly rambling message about meeting up, apologising for the short notice, hoping Elizabeth was ok and that it would be good to catch up if she was available, but she would understand if she wasn’t as Elizabeth likely had other plans as it would be a Friday night, or she would probably be too busy working on the murder enquiry… Louise hung up the phone feeling like an idiot and hoping Elizabeth wouldn’t think she was some sort of lunatic.
She watched the news for a little while longer, shaking her head at the depravity of the world, feeling sorry for the families of the dead men. She wondered how it must feel to have someone you love taken away from you in such a violent manner. Louise had lost her whole family when she was just a young girl, but at least none of them had been murdered, and she didn’t remember them anyway. She wondered if it felt similar to being cheated on, the end result was the same after all, you still ended up sad and on your own.
When someone was murdered they were taken away from you - they didn’t intentionally leave you, they didn’t mean to cause you any pain or misery, it wasn’t their fault their life was snatched away and that their families were left behind bereft and grieving. Cheats knew exactly what they were doing, the pain they would ultimately cause, so in some ways Louise opined that losing a loved one to a murderer had to be easier than losing them to the bitch they worked with; at least their love hadn’t waned, you would always know they’d loved you.
Louise was starting to feel morose at these thoughts bouncing round her head, images of Steve and their happy times together plaguing her. She sighed and picked up the post that had arrived the previous day to distract herself, casting her eye over the envelopes as she shuffled through it. Bill, bill, letter from the bank, unwanted flyer and a handwritten envelope from an unknown sender. The handwriting was pretty, almost calligraphic; someone had taken some effort to produce handwriting this neat.
The letter intrigued Louise, but just as she was about to open it, her mobile phone bleeped, alerting her to an incoming message. Louise dropped the post back onto the coffee table and picked up her phone. The message was from Elizabeth and it read: ‘HEY! GOT YOUR MESSAGE. CAN’T TALK RIGHT NOW, BUT I CAN MEET YOU TOMORROW ABOUT 7PM. COME TO THE DUKE OF YORKE PUB NEAR THE POLICE STATION. ANY PROBS, DROP ME A TEXT. E’
Louise smiled and quickly tapped out a reply confirming that she would meet Elizabeth there, feeling a little excited but also a little nervous about the prospect of reminiscing with an old school friend.
Abandoning the post yet again, Louise prepared to head out, suddenly feeling the urge to go for a walk in the evening sun, wanting to clear her head and hoping to get some fresh perspective on her life.
************************************************
Denise’s house was swarming with police, her driveway and garden were cordoned off with blue and white police tape, officers in white suits were milling around and four uniformed officers stood in front of the cordon, keeping the media and nosey neighbours at bay. Other officers, including those in uniform and detectives from the investigative team, were conducting door-to-door enquiries, interrogating the neighbours about anything they may have seen or heard the night before.
Denise was at the police station giving her statement to Tony; her fiancé was with her trying to comfort her as best he could. She was understandably distraught; it would be bad enough finding a stranger in that way, but to find your own brother in that prone position with the blood and the filth of death all over him, must have been horrifying. She would certainly be suffering many a sleepless night as a result.
Greg and Robert were standing in the hallway, watching the scenes of crime officers work in the bedroom. They were all wearing the required sterile suits to ensure they didn’t contaminate the scene in any way.
Upon arrival they had both scouted around the house trying to get a feel for the killer’s movements, trying to piece together which rooms the killer may have been in, which items of furniture she may have touched.
Nothing had immediately struck them except for the fact that the victim had undressed in the living room; there was no realistic way of narrowing down the scene to expedite evidence recovery. Obviously the bedroom was the primary crime scene, as was the victim’s own body so they took priority.
The spectacle in the bedroom had been macabre, with the body displayed in the star-fish shape that was now synonymous with this killer’s MO, Daniel’s penis and testicles hacked away by a furious hand, his left eye ball punctured and forced into his skull, blood and body fluids all over the bed and floor around it.
&nb
sp; Although this was the third crime scene of this kind Robert had attended, they weren’t getting any easier to stomach, no easier to push out of his head when he closed his eyes at night. It was an unfortunate truth that once something had been seen, it could never be unseen, never be erased from one’s visual memory.
The scenes of crime officers were almost ready to remove the body from the bedroom and they signalled to Robert that this was so. He nodded acknowledgement.
‘Three victims in such a short space of time. This woman is getting way too confident,’ Greg said, as much to himself as to Robert.
‘Yeah, and she’s now officially a serial killer, not that that’s any surprise. She’s been collecting trophies from the beginning,’
Greg nodded and unconsciously placed one leg in front of the other in appreciation of what those trophies were.
‘She’s spiralling isn’t she? I mean usually serial killers start slow don’t they and then build up momentum as they get better at it, used to killing?’
‘You sound like Elizabeth,’ Robert said.
‘She’s rubbing off on me,’ Greg agreed.
Daniel’s body had been placed into a white cadaver bag and was now being carried into the corridor. The detectives stopped talking and lowered their heads in respect for the dead man. Robert did not recognise the man in the bag; he’d had a good look at the man’s face when he was still in situ. He’d been hoping for a spark of recognition or a gut feeling, but instead he had just felt sorry for the victim, his sister and his family.
Again, as with Janet Saunders, the family had to deal with the fact that not only had Daniel been murdered in an extremely gruesome way, but he had also been leading a double life in which he indulged his sexual fetish, and that he had cheated or had been about to cheat on his pregnant wife. Robert couldn’t imagine how anyone could deal with so much pain.
He’d also been angry with himself for not paying closer attention to the male companion of the beautiful blonde from the night before. Was this him, the big, strapping man he had briefly spoken to in the club, lying here in this bag, degraded, withered and lifeless? He wished he could recall the man’s face, but no matter how hard he tried, all he could see was the woman’s pulchritudinous visage and her amazing eyes.
He felt his stomach somersault as he thought of her; he was becoming more and more convinced that he had been in the presence of the killer that night in the club and he was becoming more and more convinced that the stunning blonde was the culprit. He had nothing to base this gut feeling on, no evidence, no reason to suspect her, but he had a nagging suspicion in the back of his mind. He hoped he wouldn’t have to carry the guilt for Daniel’s death if his gut feeling turned out to be founded.
Once Dan’s body had been carried past them Robert said: ‘Let’s go Greg. There’s nothing to be achieved by us being here. Don’t know about you but I could seriously use a drink.’
Greg was only too happy to leave the gruesome scene and so readily agreed with his boss‘s suggestion. As the officers left the house to hunt for the nearest pub Robert couldn’t help but wonder how many more men would have to die before they caught this murderous woman. So far she had not made any mistakes, had not left any significant clues at any of the scenes and the frequency of the murders was highly disturbing, her need to kill clearly as strong as it was obsessive.
Robert jumped as he felt his mobile phone vibrate in his suit jacket pocket; he extracted the device and squinted at the caller ID - it was Ian.
‘Guv,’ Ian sounded out of breath and animated, ‘I’ve got it, I’ve got a name!’
‘Fuck me, what is it?’ Robert looked at Greg, a grin spreading across his face triumphantly.
‘It’s Mina Guv’. Our killer’s name is Mina.’
************************************************
Derek Cooper was walking alone towards the council car park which was located near the Biztalk premises, having parked his car there earlier because of its convenient proximity to his old office .
He hadn’t really needed to collect anything from his former work place, he’d only gone there to wind Ben Mathews up, to see how he’d react. He’d been disappointed by Ben’s placidness, hoping that his presence might have elicited an angry reaction from the man he was intending to royally screw over. Instead Ben had simply asked him what he wanted and then told him to be as quick as he could, unperturbed by Derek’s audacity.
After whiling away a few hours messing about on his old computer and talking to former colleagues, Derek had left the office and headed to a nearby watering hole; some of the Biztalk staff had followed him, sneaking out when they thought Ben wasn’t looking, feeling somewhat traitorous for fraternizing with their boss’s enemy and not wanting Ben to catch them shame-faced.
After a pleasant and what Derek considered successful evening drinking with his former colleagues, Derek was now heading home. The evening had turned out better than he expected because most of his colleagues appeared to sympathize and support his claim of unfair dismissal, although not all of them had agreed that he should sue over it.
They had, however, proved to be a captive audience, listening to him open-mouthed as Derek told them all about Ben and that bitch Louise, and recounted what he had seen them doing at Ben’s house, embellishing every detail as he did so. ‘Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story’ was the mantra he had learnt early on in his journalistic career when he had first been employed by a local rag. He was a little more discerning now, less likely to twist the truth to make it fit with the angle of the piece he was writing, but it was still a motto he liked to apply in situations such as this.
The honest truth was that Derek had no idea if there was anything going on between Louise and Ben or not, but it suited his purposes to believe there was, and he found it much easier to spit his venom at the woman if he convinced himself that she had been promoted over him because of romantic liaisons with the boss.
He didn’t want to admit that she had been promoted because she was better at the job than he was, more likeable, more talented and definitely less megalomaniacal. What did he care if the woman was actually competent? That job should have been his and he would never forgive her for taking it away from him.
And then he’d been singled out for redundancy above all of the other writers purely because Louise didn’t like him. Bitch. He Hadn’t liked her since the day he met her, waltzing around like she owned the place, best buddies with the boss almost as soon as she had started working there; he’d been there a lot longer than her and that should have afforded him some sort of superior hierarchical status.
Now though, Derek had found a way to make all this work in his favour and the irony was that Louise had unknowingly granted him that opportunity when she had put him forward for redundancy. He had guessed that she was the voice in Ben’s ear and Ben’s face during their confrontation had confirmed it. He smirked to himself as he thought about his revenge; a court case could quite easily ruin Biztalk and then they’d all be out of work.
Derek was a little surprised that Ben hadn’t yet proposed a meeting with him to discuss how the matter could be kept out of court, to see if Derek had a price, but then Ben Mathews was known for playing hard ball. He was probably waiting to see if Derek was bluffing. He’d find out soon enough.
Derek walked into the car park and headed down toward the lower subterranean level. The car park had been rammed full when he had arrived there earlier that day and the only space available had been on the lower level; he didn’t like parking down here as a rule, finding it dingy and malodorous, the stench of old urine and human waste pungent in the stale air.
He wrinkled his nose as he descended the ramp, his head still full of thoughts of revenge and a big fat payout. There didn’t appear to be anybody else in the car park, no signs of any tramps or wasted drug addicts. Only a sprinkling of vehicles were located in this section of the car park, but Derek noticed that an old Ford Mondeo was parked close to his Nissan
; he hoped the driver had left him enough room to get into the driver’s seat.
He grumbled under his breath and as he did so he heard a soft clanging sound from the rear of the car park, as if someone had dropped something metallic.
He turned swiftly, holding his breath, but he neither saw nor heard anything. He felt goose bumps rising on his skin as he scanned the shadows for the source of the noise, sensing there was someone there, lurking in the darkness. After a moment, unable to discern any figure in the gloom, Derek continued hastily towards his vehicle which was only a few meters in front of him, a sixth sense urging him to get away from the car park as fast as he could.
He reached his car and fumbled to put the car key into the driver’s side lock, his hands shaking. He heard a movement behind him, footsteps running towards him, but Derek didn’t turn around, instead he desperately tried to get his car door open. The lock disengaged with a pop and Derek swung open the door, the metal smashing into the Mondeo beside him. As the door swung open, Derek saw the silhouette of a hooded-person reflected in the glass of the window standing behind him, causing him to gasp with shock, surprised that someone had been able to get so close to him so quickly.
Derek prepared to confront the person, knowing that the only reason someone would be standing so close to him in this dark, smelly car park, would be a sinister one; he suspected it was probably a junkie preparing to mug him, or a thief trying to steal his car. He turned in one fluid movement hands raised, fists clenched as he prepared to act in self-defence, but he hesitated when he saw who was standing behind him.
‘You…!’ he said, his sentence cut short as he was hit hard in the face with a metal object. The impact knocked him off balance and he fell onto his knees between the two cars, the assailant looming large over him.
‘Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me!’ he wailed, his voice high-pitched and full of fear.
Sweet Oblivion Page 25
