by CM Thompson
The last day of Fran Lizzie’s life had just been like any other day.
Bullface and Fletcher left the flatmate sobbing and returned to the office to spend the last two hours of their shift writing up statements and reports, conferring with their colleagues over the total lack of evidence. Bullface and Fletcher had been assigned to this case, two other Detective Constables to a rape. Tomorrow will bring more interviews, more reports and the single fading hope that this is a one off.
Why 22? What significance did it have? They briefly consider the possibilities. Fran Lizzie was 22 and, ironically, 22 days. There was a possibility that her killer knew that. But then, Fletcher decides, her killer probably didn’t know her, nothing about this murder has suggested it is a personal hate kill. Bullface would back him up here, the way Fran Lizzie was so carelessly thrown over a fence, as if she meant nothing to the assailant. It was too cold, too calculating to be the work of someone who had known her.
It could be a secret connection that only time would reveal. It could be the start of a code, although Bullface thought this was a stupid suggestion. The marks had been inflicted post-mortem so it was extremely unlikely Fran Lizzie had inflicted them herself for whatever bizarre reason. Bullface used to encounter a street crazy who carved words into himself, etching random names, a shopping list and an illegible list. Come to think of it, Bullface hadn’t seen him around lately. She had never asked him why, it seemed to her an idiot question to ask, if you take the time to permanently carve something into skin, then it must mean something, even if no one else understood the meaning. The number on Fran Lizzie has to mean something. Both of them just hope, pray, mentally plead that this does not mean that she is victim number 22. That there are 21 others out there, somewhere, screaming silently in the dark and dirt.
The pubs are quiet tonight, unusually quiet for a Saturday night. Not many women want to risk going out tonight, especially not alone. Next week the pubs will be filled again, but not tonight. Tonight people seem to be mourning a girl they have never met. Perhaps people are paranoid, thinking that he might strike again tonight. Every smooth-tongued man could be him, every drink could be spiked. Tonight, he could be there, out to get another unsuspecting victim. Everywhere the atmosphere is tense, though ironically, the pubs are the safest place to be.
The conversations are all about him. Hushed whispers as every stranger, every loner is carefully scrutinised. Inevitably, “Maybe it was The Krill,” is one joke made by several different groups, a joke always met with nervous laughter, no one wanting to acknowledge the dark truth lying behind the joke. It could be the Krill. Here tonight, and tomorrow night, even for the rest of the year, people are thinking, jumping to conclusions and that is always dangerous. It isn’t the first murder that this city has seen, not even the first this year, but the fact that it is a young girl, killed with no obvious motive. The fact that the news has covered it so mysteriously: confirming the mutilation but not giving any juicy details has sent the city into motion. Several super-sleuths are already blaming her boyfriend, romanticising the idea of a torrid affair, maybe with her boss, which had been fatally discovered. Not knowing that Fran Lizzie’s boss is actually a happily married 60-year-old woman.
Stella is still working tonight, even though she has heard about the murder, she doesn’t really care. Stella isn’t going to lose forty, sixty quid over some girl. Stupid bint probably deserved it anyway. Stella hoists her short neon skirt even higher, revealing even more tantalising thigh. The lack of girls out tonight will probably work to her benefit anyway.
The sword squelches through the green flesh, pixels of blood washing across the screen before dramatically fading as the orc falls to the ground. Another one bites the dust. Kain, even after two hundred orcs is still thirsty for more, craving that teeny rush of power derived from a kill. The power Kain so rarely feels in real life, the secret thrill of just being better than everyone else at something drives Kain to continue. It isn’t as if there was anything better to do now, just yet.
Slice, slash, and squelch. Next!
Kain inhales another lungful of smoke, heightening the heady rush of orc demise, maybe next it should be a dragon demise. Every so often just checking, making sure there is no chance. No, but you have to be sure, just have to check … no definitely not, safe for now …
Fran Lizzie’s flatmate has finally stopped wailing. She is staring blankly at Fran Lizzie’s bedroom door, just waiting for Fran Lizzie to get up. Fran’s jacket is still draped across the kitchen chair. Her dirty dishes from last night’s dinner still lie in the sink, three messages from Steve are bleeping on the answer machine. The whole flat seems to be waiting for Fran to come home. To step through that door, because everything is just fine and everything is OK and Fran will be here, any minute now, any minute now … now … now. Fran Lizzie’s flatmate just doesn’t know what else to do, so she is sitting here, waiting … waiting. Tomorrow Fran Lizzie’s mother will be here, just to check, and there will be more tears and her flatmate will finally realise. But for now she is just waiting and waiting, staring numbly at the closed door.
Brandi is listening to her mother bragging on and on about the nice young man her sister is seeing, a bright young man who just happens to earn lots of money doing some computer nonsense. Her mother will never understand the internet industry, always arguing that it is for people who have too much time on their hands … but those who are making their fortunes from such an industry, Well hello Mister and do have some tea.
Brandi can’t stand listening to her mother’s insistence: “You could also find such a man if you tried, maybe if you straightened your hair and wore that dress I got you for Christmas.” The offending unworn dress that Brandi had decided made her look like a thirty-something, has-been hooker.
Brandi sometimes wondered what her mother actually wanted from her. Why torture her every week with, “You could be like your sister if only you would …” What exactly did her mother want? Brandi had a goodish job, she didn’t want for anything (well maybe those boots she had seen, so sexily centred in the shop’s window.) But that just wasn’t good enough for Brandi’s mother, oh no. She had to be sleeping with the next nerdy millionaire and buying diamonds like candy. The resentment is enough to make Brandi want to drink until sunrise because Brandi knows, her mother knows, her sister also knows that Brandi will never be good enough, she will never date the right man, or wear the right clothes, never do anything quite right. The next door neighbour and the milkman also probably know this. So why does her mother do this to her? Why continue to torture her every week with nagging whines?
Brandi decides it is simply because her mother is Satan reincarnated.
Fletcher is cooking, it is what he does, particularly when he is stressed or worried. He doesn’t do decorating or cars, the sad kitchen will attest to that. He is standing in a kitchen that is desperately in need of a paint job, the grease-stained walls need to be re-tiled and while we are on the subject, his car needs a wash and a vacuum, and Mrs Claire Fletcher would be very happy if Fletcher would just clean out the empty crisp packets.
Tonight Fletcher is in the mood for chilli.
The chilli recipe his mother had written down was neat and precise. She has even added little explanations to each ingredient, explaining why the cumin/chilli/paprika need to be added, to flavour the meat and dull the harshness of the red chilli powder. After careful deliberation Fletcher decides that Chinese five spice and mixed herbs are just as good. He pokes around the overflowing cupboard for kidney beans, Claire had promised to buy some and they are in there, behind the tins of mixed vegetables. But Fletcher cannot see them. Giving up, he decides that baked beans are just as good and throws those in instead. Stirring the concoction briefly, he thinks the chilli is looking pretty damn fine, get a whiff of that lads! His stomach is rumbling in anticipation.
Fletcher then chops the peppers, concentrating every brain cell on not cutting his fingers, just focusing on slicing through the thick gr
een flesh of the pepper, forgetting, again to remove the pepper seeds. Trying to think only of the food and not the female, chop, now lying, chop chop, dead on the cold glass chopping board, chop chop chop, every violated piece being probed, chop chop, by the doctor’s scalpel. Examined then thrown to boil. Chop chop, trying to focus on chopping the wretched peppers and not those tiresome questions, chop chop, why no defence wounds? Chop chop chop! Why didn’t she struggle? chop! Chop! Why 22? Chop! Why aren’t there any kidney beans? Claire had promised, chop chop chop! She had promised to come straight home! Chop! Cho- the peppers have been slaughtered, the burning pan is making protesting fizzles but Fletcher is no longer hungry.
Chapter Three
Four months have passed, Fran Lizzie Taylor and her secrets have been buried, and her tombstone is still covered with flowers. Her smiling photo has haunted the city’s television screens for long enough. People have calmed down, there doesn’t appear to be any more danger. Fran has gone now, even Fran Lizzie’s part of the flat has been emptied by one of her brothers, with most of her possessions going to charity. The magazines advertising fun in the sun were recycled and the holiday to Ibiza completely forgotten. Despite this, Fran Lizzie’s flatmate is still waiting for Fran to come home.
No one has been charged for Fran Lizzie’s murder yet. Although Fran Lizzie’s boyfriend Steve was investigated and even his mother will still regard him with suspicion for a while, Bullface, to her disappointment, has proved him to be innocent. Not that Steve cares, he has lost the one person he was living for, for now anyway. Fletcher and Bullface still wait for the DNA results to be returned. Hoping, despite eyewitness testimony, that something will match Steve, just so this would be an easy open and shut case. An attempt to baffle them away from a personal kill but they know the truth, that Steve is innocent, Fran’s family and flatmate who all have been DNA tested will also be innocent. Bullface is convinced that her killer did not know her. Maybe something will be on her clothes or the cigarettes or the briefcase, a little speck of his DNA. The random objects might not be random, there is always a chance. Maybe, but the chances are low. They have got nowhere with the carved number. While Fletcher thinks it might be a code or something along those lines, Bullface believes it means Fran Lizzie is the twenty-second victim and that they should be looking for others. It just sounds so unlikely, how could there be others? So many others, surely someone would have noticed something … she wants to start searching but she doesn’t know where to start. Bullface has realised that she is just waiting for the next murder, knowing there will be another one, while Fletcher remains a little more optimistic. To him, this could still be a one-off well-disguised murder of passion. They are also investigating several other cases, which are looking a little more promising. That is not a comfort to Fran Lizzie’s mother, Jennifer Taylor, who still phones every week, wanting to hear of progress, always hanging up angry and disappointed.
Marie Eine is unremarkable. Marie is a little like Joanna Reagan, patient, still … skeletonised. Marie does not have a family wondering where she is, no one really noticed when she disappeared. No one has noticed her in all the years she has been lying here. Marie has been covered in leaves, eaten by bugs, pulled apart and scattered by animals, but she is still waiting for someone to realise that she is here. She has been waiting even longer than Joanna.
This morning, with great excitement, a child will pick up her skull and proudly show it to horrified parents. Police will be called, another investigation will start. Unfortunately Marie Eine won’t be identified to the rest of the world, she is Jane Doe 217. Most of her bones will forever remain unclaimed. Some little bone fragments will still remain here, waiting, in this part of the forest. One or two of her teeth have been trodden further into the dirt by unsuspecting police officers. They will search as much and as well as they can, but the forest will keep part of her body hidden and safe.
Marie, in another life, had been a prostitute, not a very good one. She had lasted three months before picking the wrong guy, and then she lasted two scream-filled days. He would admit later, to himself, that with her he had been too sloppy, too eager. Perhaps if she had just been found earlier, then there would have been enough evidence on her to … well it is too late for that now.
A forensic anthropologist will state that the skeleton is most likely to be female, aged between seventeen and twenty-five, he bases this on the fusion of epiphyses in the humerus. The anthropologist determines that the victim has been in the ground for anything between two and five years. Cause of death: undetermined, foul play suspected. She had been dumped naked, they are sure of that much. No fragments or shreds of clothing could be found close by, nothing that could be used to identify Jane Doe number 217. No purse, no jewellery, no shoes, no skin. Trauma to the bone was detailed, several chew marks caused by animals. Then several marks across the two of the metacarpal bones, bones that had previously formed the left hand, notches on the bones that had not been caused by a fang.
In desperation, they will hire a facial reconstruction expert, who, to her credit, will do a good job. The first time he saw the facial sketch, blaring across the screen in an appeal for information, he was shocked. He wasn’t expecting her to be found, didn’t expect any of his early ones to be found. The second time he saw the picture … the second time, well, he masturbated. He, like a million other viewers were accosted with the image of not-quite-Marie Eine, staring at them with vacant reconstructed eyes and a pronounced jaw. He and five other clients recognised her but none of them ever cared to admit it.
He is busy now, too busy to care that much about Marie Eine. At the moment he is busy jogging, he goes jogging most nights. Surveying new areas, measuring the pros and cons of the next possible dump site, planning and playing out every possible element in his head. There is another girl, a slender dark-haired girl. Who smiles at him, in that accidental moment when opposing joggers’ eyes meet. He can smell the sweet scent of her hair as she passes. He can almost sense her desperation too, the silent prayer, oh god, please let him notice me. He can see that her looks, her pleasing but not beautiful looks, are starting to blemish. That her jogging routine was only taken up recently in a futile battle against her growing bulges. She wasn’t special enough for him to waste too much time on, but she would be fun to play with for a little while. He had some big plans but they would take a little while longer to play out. He needed this now! It has been two long agonising months since his last quick fix.
Maybe for this one, he will suggest a picnic. A romantic little lunch in a secluded area, she might say yes to this, she gives off the impression she is married. The ring on the finger is a dead give-away but that smile suggests she is willing to play. Particularly if he asks the right way, really playing up the bashful yet handsome side, trick the silly bitch into saying yes. She wouldn’t say no anyway, not to him, bitch is practically begging for it. They were all begging for it. There she is now, right on time, quick check to make sure they are really alone and then slow down a little.
Smile that shy boy smile and say, “Hi there.”
Stella hoists her short red skirt higher, revealing even more tantalising thigh. Worked all day, whored all night! The white powder is calling to her and well, fuck it, she has earned it now hasn’t she? Last fucking bugger tipped her well, hurriedly shoving the cash towards her before retreating, ashamed, back to his fucking family. Maybe one more, she’s got to eat tonight. She stubs her cigarette out on a Missing poster, mashing the hot residue straight into the photograph, burning away Adelina Sasha’s features.
She poses against a wall, a wall coated with sperm and urine. Her scuffed red leather boots twisting as she slides down the slime. Her short red skirt rising higher and higher, revealing more bruised and needle poked thighs. Deflated withered breasts being slowly coated with warm blood.
She is still warm when they find her. They snap shots with camera phones before walking on with a laugh. But someone eventually will call the police. The call goes ou
t, the rats gather round. A dead prostitute surrounded by shrunken condoms, approximately twenty this time, more trash and probably a rat carcass or two. More bagging and processing to do, each bag to be sealed with biohazard tape. Each item marked, recorded and photographed before being removed. The entire scene has to be preserved, even the slime, the filth and the sperm. The officers work quietly and solemnly, despite the hazards. Despite everything, despite the hundreds of photographs, despite the many pairs of eyes searching, combing through, they miss a small tarnished object, under-trodden into the mud.
Fletcher and Bullface are on their way, despite their already full case load. Six months ago they were called to the scene of Fran Lizzie Taylor, a girl who grotesquely died with the number 22 carved in her hand. Now they have been called to the scene of Stella McQam, a contrived prostitute with a 28 hurriedly carved into her right hand.
“Victim’s name is Stella McQam, got an ID off her prints. She has been busted twice for prostitution.”
“There is a possibility we are looking at a copycat killer. Fran Lizzie’s number was carved on her left hand and her throat was cut. Stella’s number was carved into her right hand and she was stabbed, just a few inches above the heart.”
“I didn’t think the number on the previous Vic had made the news.”
“It didn’t.” If it was a copycat, then someone was betraying them.
“So where do you want to start?”
Fletcher doesn’t feel like starting, he feels like going back home. Not that he would admit this to anyone but he just wants to crawl away, hide under his duvet. Fran Lizzie had not been a lone death and now there were other issues he dared not voice. He feels disturbed, disturbed by the crowd who have gathered close by, held back by officers and tape. He catches glimpses of their conversations, their disdain for a bint, who probably deserved it. He feels disturbed by the noise of the traffic going past, as if this was just another day. His eyes are firmly stuck to the blood stain. His nose is even insisting it can still smell the coppery scent of blood, bile rises in his throat. He can hear Bullface giving orders, dispatching officers to seize camera phones, obtain warrants for any CCTV footage within a mile of the accident. The assailant was likely to be on foot, Stella’s blood anointing his clothes. He can hear all this but all he can think is that he wants to go home.
