Black Heart: A totally gripping serial-killer thriller

by Anna-Lou Weatherley

  The teddy bear, among other things, is troubling me. Martin Delaney, my number two on the case, did some research and tells me it’s one of those Steiff Bears, quite expensive apparently, collectable. It still had the label attached to its little bear ear when we picked it up. There’s no indication that Nigel Baxter bought it himself, no receipt in his paperwork or in his wallet. I told Delaney to check out the shops where they sell them and it turns out the little bastards are everywhere, mainly in shopping centres and department stores. Apparently you can even build your own, and kids have in-store parties where they get to stuff their own bear and choose its clothes before putting it in a box with a birth certificate and taking it home. They go mad for it apparently, and I wonder if our kid, mine and Rach’s, would’ve loved these bears too. I guess we’d have found out about this kind of thing if he or she had been given the chance to live. Anyway, I tell Delaney to start digging, ask if anyone recalls this particular bear being made. He’s wearing a suit. He’s a business bear. Alan Sugar, but furry.

  The other thing that’s bothering me, aside from Kasabian who have started to grate a little now, is the perfume. The housekeeper at La Reymond gave me a list of the complimentary toiletries allocated to each room. The penthouse list reads like a Space NK till receipt. High-end stuff. Rachel was into her smellies, well, what woman isn’t? I liked buying her perfume and candles – she loved a scented candle. Jesus, maybe we were a pair of clichés after all? So, the list. The L’Occitane stuff was still there: tick. The Tigi hair shampoo and conditioner: unused, tick. The Cowshed body butter: all good, tick. Shower cap, pumice stone and one of those squeegee body puffs that you wash yourself with: all in place. Tick, tick, tick. The Jo Malone Lime Basil & Mandarin bath oil: gone. So where was it? Wasn’t in with the rubbish. There was no rubbish save for the champagne cork and wrapper. So the Jo Malone stuff is missing. Vanished. But it was used. It was in the bath water, the bloody bath water. I could smell it. And something tells me that Nigel Baxter didn’t put it there. You’ve got to ask why a man like Nigel Baxter would add a few slugs of sweet smelling oil to his bathwater just for luck? I’m not saying it’s not possible. I mean, who knows what’s going through the mind of a man about to take his own life with a razor blade? But I’m pretty sure it doesn’t have much to do with smelling good. Janet Baxter told me her husband never used ‘cologne’ – an old-fashioned word for an old-fashioned kind of lady.

  ‘I don’t remember him using cologne, or ever smelling it on him,’ she’d said, sadly, as if she’d long since given up on trying to spice things up between them. So the bear and the bath oil are bugging me. And the towel that was wedged behind his back. Come to think of it, so is the ‘suicide’ note – not much in the way of explanation from a man seemingly of former sound mind and character. In my experience, which is sadly greater than most people’s, suicide is a symptom of deep depression. Victims usually have a history of self-harm or addiction; it could be a second or even third attempt; and there’s nearly always an event that triggers it – a job loss, financial problems, an affair discovered, a loved one lost, drug or alcohol abuse and all that ugliness. It’s pretty rare that a man with Nigel Baxter’s background just wakes up one day and says, ‘enough’s enough’ and opens his veins up in the bath.

  Cyber have got his PC and his phone and I’m waiting to see what that throws up. I’m not a betting man – though I did once win a hundred quid on the Grand National – but if I was, I’d put a tidy lump on them coming back with some revelations. A double life perhaps? A mistress at the least. I’d stake our flat on it. ‘Our’. I keep thinking that like she’s still here. I suppose she is really, living on in my thoughts. When do you let go? Do you ever?

  Whenever there was an unsolved case, usually involving a man – a case that I couldn’t quite get my head around or that was causing me consternation – Rach would always say, ‘there’s a woman involved.’ Don’t get this wrong, Rachel was essentially a feminist; she loved her own sex, appreciated what it was to be, feel, love and exist as a woman. But she was a realist as well. Rach was nobody’s fool. She knew what was what and how people felt and operated. She understood humanity and life, and people’s idiosyncrasies – in fact, they fascinated her. I remember this one case I worked on: some bloke, a window cleaner, fell from his ladder to his death. It happened in some little suburban town just outside of London, a pretty unremarkable place. Anyway, when we turned up it looked like an accident, you know, a hazard of a window cleaner’s job, ladders and all of that. There was no reason to suspect any foul play. But then a nosy neighbour made a comment about him cleaning that particular house’s windows once a week. And when I told her, Rach said, ‘He’s shagging the wife, it’s pretty obvious…’ She turned out to be right. Said wife’s husband took umbrage to this, as one might, and decided to give him a friendly shove. Sadly, to his death, but you take your chances. Anyway, what I’m saying is that Rach wasn’t one of those women who thinks men are to blame for the world. I loved her for that. Among other things.

  I’m thinking about Nigel Baxter, poor old tormented Nigel Baxter, and that bear and the perfumed bath water and all I can hear in my head is Rach’s voice, soft but raspy saying, ‘mark my words, Danny, there’s a woman involved.’

  Chapter Seven

  It’s dark by the time I reach my apartment – our apartment – and I’m emotionally exhausted by the nagging suspicions in my mind about the scene that I witnessed today. I am also bloody starving. I go straight to the kitchen and open the fridge, still in my coat. Sighing as I view the contents, or lack of, I hear the words of that bloke, the nasal American one off the telly who has his own range in overpriced pasta sauces – fuck, what is his name? Anyway, his catchphrase is ‘who lives in a house like this?’ I take a ready-made chicken jalfrezi from the ‘selection’, puncture it with a fork and throw it in the microwave. Rach would’ve hated the way I eat now, she was a chef after all. Fuck, what is that American guy’s name?

  The two coppers that came to me the night she died, Bob Jenkins and Dave Smart, now I will never forget their names. I didn’t know them personally, but I do now. That kind of encounter bonds people together. Bob was a big bear of a man, Welsh with a beard and a soft lilt, and Dave was indicative of his surname, in a decent suit with slick hair. I felt sorry for them, because there’s nothing remotely redeeming about telling a person that their loved one is dead. It’s a no-good situation all round and believe me, no one, not even some of the hardest men I’ve met on the force, can say that they don’t feel anything when they draw that particular short straw. So, I kind of knew, when they turned up on our doorstep, and Bob was holding her helmet, the Triumph one, and some stuff in a sealed bag. Rach’s things. I remember just looking at them and feeling pity. That was my overriding emotion in that moment, pity. For them. For having the shitty task of telling me the woman I loved and adored was dead.

  I boot up my computer and log on to the sad singles website I joined in a mad moment of despair, and I think about having a beer. Instead, I take the last clean glass from the cupboard and pour myself a generous slug of Jack. It was Rachel’s tipple of choice so I still keep a bottle stashed away in her memory. She could drink me under the table when the JD came out, which wasn’t that often. Neither of us were big boozers, but she had a good constitution for Jack Daniels, considering she was half my size.

  I silently toast her, take a slug and check my messages. I have five new ones. Promising.

  Linda, forty-eight… nice enough face but too old, sorry Linda. There’s Elaine, forty-four, funny nose but big smile… again maybe too old, for kids anyway. And Sarah, thirty-six, age about right and— oh hang on now, I like the look of Florence. She’s a blonde, thirty-two, from North London. Local, which is handy. The picture quality is bad though, dark and grainy, and I can’t really make out her features all that clearly. Shame. In the age of the selfie, you’d think that she could manage a half-decent profile shot. Anyway, I read her blurb. It’s witty and w
arm, not too long. She says she’s got a thing about London parks, and loves to eat al fresco; she watches documentaries and hates soap operas; one of her favourite things is walking barefoot on beaches; and apparently the best thing you can wear in life is a smile, (or failing that Louboutins!). Something about her captures my interest. I think it’s the paradox of walking barefoot on beaches and wearing towering stilettoes. It reminds me of Rach.

  I send Florence a wink anyway. Nothing to lose.

  My phone rings. I swallow the rest of the Jack and answer it.

  It’s Chris Baylis, a particularly tenacious DS who doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty.

  ‘Baylis. What’s happening?’

  ‘Hello Gov. Well, quite a lot it seems. Vic’s been on the phone. She wants you to go down there. Says she’s found “something of interest”.’

  Baylis is talking fast, excited, and he’s tripping over his words like his mouth can’t keep up with his brain. I like this about him.

  ‘I think we’re looking at a homicide, boss.’

  ‘I’m on my way,’ I reply.

  ‘And there’s something else.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Cyber have thrown some stuff up on Baxter’s phone…’

  ‘And…’ I pause ‘… a woman, right?’

  ‘Looks that way, Gov.’

  I smile. Rach was right. Damn it, she always was.

  ‘Okay Baylis, thanks. I’m leaving now. Oh, and Baylis…’

  ‘Yes Gov?’

  ‘What’s the name of that American plank who snoops round people’s houses, he did a TV show and his catchphrase was “who lives in a house like this?”’

  There’s a second’s pause.

  ‘Loyd Grossman, Gov.’

  ‘That’s it!’ I say. ‘That’s the bloke!’ And I grab my coat just as the microwave pings.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Wow, this really is a beautiful apartment.’

  Kizzy, clutching a chilled bottle of Prosecco, looks around properly, inspecting the apartment like a prospective buyer might. ‘There’s so much to do in mine… a new bathroom, the kitchen needs ripping out… all of it.’ She sighs heavily as if she knows that none of it will ever happen.

  ‘Well, I’ve been here almost two years… These things take time.’ Danni-Jo places the fish-shaped dish down onto the glass coffee table along with a selection of Chinese starters, sesame prawn toast and some ribs. ‘The pork balls are on their way.’

  Kizzy beams, handing her the Prosecco.

  ‘So they got you in okay, the locksmiths?’

  ‘Yeah, £125 later.’ She rolls her eyes.

  ‘I’m in the wrong business,’ Danni-Jo replies, ‘but at least your shopping didn’t spoil – you manage to save the milk?’

  ‘Thankfully… Still, it was my own fault. Shouldn’t have been so careless.’

  ‘Don’t beat yourself up about it,’ Danni-Jo reassures her, ‘we’ve all done it, locked ourselves out. Speaking of which, was he fit?’

  Kizzy looks at her blankly.

  ‘The locksmith guy… Was he hot?’

  She blushes. ‘Fraid not… well, not my type anyway,’ she looks like she’s not entirely sure what her type is. Maybe anyone who isn’t an abuser. ‘I’d say he was pushing sixty, looked like he needed a good wash.’

  Danni-Jo laughs.

  ‘Ah well, you win some…’

  Kizzy flashes Danni-Jo that apologetic look again, the one that says, ‘thanks for being so kind to me, even though I’m such a loser.’ Shaking out her unruly ginger hair as she looks down at the platter of starters, she says, ‘This is so lovely, I really can’t thank you enough. Please let me pay for the food at least.’

  Danni-Jo dismisses her with a wave.

  ‘I wouldn’t hear of it. This is more than enough,’ she holds the bottle of Prosecco up like a trophy. ‘It’s the least I can do after the day you’ve had. And anyway, it’s just so nice to meet a neighbour… a friendly one anyway. So let’s crack this baby open, eh? I’m sure you could do with a glass.’

  She watches as Kizzy admires Danni-Jo’s apartment with wide eyes, the squishy, white L-shaped couch and pony-skin animal rug beneath it. The huge eight-armed white chandelier, similar to ones you might see in trendy bars and restaurants in London, and the Moroccan-style leather poof.

  ‘I’d love my apartment to look like this,’ she gushes, ‘it’s so… stylish.’

  Danni-Jo smiles, coming back in from the kitchen with the rest of the Chinese – including the pork balls – on a large serving tray. She notices her guest has taken her shoes off and has put her feet up on the couch. Usually such familiarity might irk her, but Kizzy clearly feels relaxed in her company and this pleases her.

  ‘Well, I can always help you do yours up if you like. If you let me know your budget, I can source some things for you.’

  ‘Wow, that would be amazing. Although buying the place practically cleared me out,’ she adds. ‘I had a nice home once… with him… I kept it nice because well, he’d freak out if he saw a speck of dust anywhere. He had terrible OCD, among other things.’

  ‘Sounds like a keeper,’ Danni-Jo remarks wryly, wondering if she too might end up knocking ten bales of shite out of Kizzy if she was forced to be in her company for more than a few hours. She was just so… insipid, so simpering and eager to please.

  Danni-Jo had doubts she’d even be missed, not like Daddy Bear. She thought of his family again, imagining their grief in that moment, the reality of his ugly death crashing through their denial like an out-of-control train.

  She had dismissed the earlier thought of poisoning her neighbour on a whim. Killing her now would be the equivalent of masturbating before sex. She was also debating whether Kizzy might not be a little ‘too close to home’, quite literally.

  ‘Cheers’ she says, chinking Kizzy’s glass, ‘here’s to making new friends.’

  ‘New friends,’ Kizzy repeats.

  Chapter Nine

  Vic Leyton is leaning over Nigel Baxter’s bloated body, her face close to the corpse’s mouth. She inhales deeply, like she’s sniffing a particularly delicious pot of stew bubbling on a stove. It’s not a sight you see every day.

  ‘Can you smell it?’

  I don’t fancy taking a whiff of dead man’s breath but I move in closer.

  Vic nods her encouragement.

  ‘Well…?’

  I look down at Nigel Baxter’s bluish corpse and reluctantly lean over him. He’s been opened up already, the ugly black blanket stiches form a Y-shape from his arms down to his pelvis, making him look cartoonish, like something from a Tim Burton movie, ghoulish and unreal. I try not to think about how the same thing must have been done to my Rachel, that she’d been cut open and her organs inspected and dissected before being stuffed back inside of her and sewn together. It had been bad enough witnessing her head injuries when I’d gone to identify her body. My once-perfect Rach broken and battered on a slab, like a piece of meat. I hadn’t wanted the pathologist to touch her, to pull her guts out with scissors or slice her skull open with a scalpel to reveal her damaged brain. I didn’t want them to stick needles in her to determine if there was alcohol in her blood (there wasn’t, of course) or to check her urine and the bile from her gallbladder, and everything else they do as a matter of course. And I really didn’t want them to open up her pelvis and expose her uterus, which was cushioning a small embryo that would’ve been our child. But it was their job to, it was a necessary evil. Just as this is. I don’t suppose Janet Baxter is over the moon about it either.

  It’s a funny old calling, cutting up dead bodies and looking inside them for a living. I imagine it must take a degree of emotional detachment. But it’s got to have some psychological impact, especially when it comes to opening up kids or horrific abuse victims, people who’ve been brutally raped and the like. To see the horror inflicted upon the human form day in, day out, that would take its toll on a person wouldn’t it? I know it would affect me. Mayb
e it’s why ‘paths’, as we call them in the business, have got a bit of a rep for being oddballs. Though Vic Leyton comes across pretty normal – comparatively at least. She’s methodical, meticulous, highly professional and even has a sense of humour. Hell, you’d need one in her game I should imagine. She’s not bad with a needle and thread either.

  ‘Almonds,’ I say, ‘marzipany.’

  She looks like she’s about to give me a gold star.

  ‘Ten out of ten, Riley,’ she says. ‘It’s one of the first things I noticed.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘You tell me, Detective.’

  I don’t know Vic particularly well, not on a personal level anyway, but well enough to know that she likes to ask you the questions before she presents you with the answer, a bit like a teacher. She loves her job, you can tell, and she wants you to be as enthusiastic about it as she is, to play a little forensic pathology game in a bid to educate you. I go along with the game because it’s to my benefit in the long run. Bombard her with too many straightforward questions too quickly and she turns into one of her subjects. She’s quid pro quo is Vic.

  I pause and she sighs. I’m not a model student I realise, and she senses my urgency.

  ‘Mr Baxter here was in fact in rather good health, considering he was overweight,’ she informs me, ‘no visible signs of heart disease; lungs, liver, kidneys all functioning pretty well, no indication of decay. He wasn’t a smoker, or a drinker really.’

  I nod, not wanting to interrupt her flow.

  ‘There were no other visible marks on his body, other than the incisions of course, no bruising, no contusions, no signs of struggle, defence marks or broken capillaries, no damage to the neck or head.’