She turned those huge, owl glasses full on him. ‘Didn’t she?’
‘No. Always too busy doing some great project.’ He raised his beer to her. ‘Artistic woman, my wife.’
She noticed he had not said ‘my ex-wife’ as men did who were glad — or relieved — to have shed the burden of a spouse. ‘You must miss her.’
Surprisingly Forrest grinned, looking less the thin-haired, middle-aged Detective Inspector. Something of the boy peeped out. ‘Not any more,’ he said. Then he said, ‘But I don’t like living alone.’
Afterwards he reflected that that had been the perfect moment for her to have replied. ‘Neither do I.’ He had hesitated, hoping she would echo it. Instead she had regarded him solemnly, and said nothing.
‘Karys,’ Forrest said suddenly. ‘Something came to you. While you were doing the PM.’
She gestured with her hand. ‘It’s nothing. It won’t help you.’
‘Just tell me,’ he said.
‘It was what you said about the Cater Clinic,’ she said. ‘No more than a stupid thought. Cosmetic surgery? Breast surgery. I just wondered whether the fact that she worked at a clinic specializing in cosmetic surgery was the reason he chose to — well — mutilate her breast.’
Forrest was silent.
They drank their coffee quickly. Forrest stood up first. ‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘There’s a press conference,’ he glanced at his watch, ‘in half an hour.’
Karys gave an abstracted smile. There was yet another awkward pause. It would have been another perfect opportunity for him to have said, ‘It’s been nice. Let’s do it again.’ Careful, polite words that would have been unobtrusive, unthreatening, but he was too aware that his knowledge of her had not advanced one millimetre. She was still an enigma, still a stranger. So he said nothing but picked up his coat from the back of the chair and headed for the bar to pay the bill. Karys let him walk out, giving him five minutes to drive away from the car park before she wrapped a black wool coat around herself and followed him through the double doors.
Forrest knew he was in for a rough time even as he took his seat behind the desk and scanned the rows of waiting journalists, a surprising number for late on a Boxing Day afternoon. The full attendance underlined the newsworthiness of the case. Once a killer had struck twice he had earned the title of serial killer, add to that dark hints of mutilation and it would fill the front pages of next morning’s newspapers, both local and national. As he sorted through his notes his eyes landed on the flame-coloured hair of the girl in the central front seat, right in front of his nose, sitting bolt upright and staring directly at him. He held her eyes for a brief moment and wondered if he was mistaking the dislike he read behind her green cat’s eyes, and why he felt the emotion mirrored in his own. He didn’t even know the girl. But there was tangible antagonism between them. He had to be wrong. But a second, surreptitious glance confirmed his earlier instinct, he was not mistaken, her stare contained frank hostility. Somebody else didn’t like him, apart from Lewisham.
He cleared his throat and opened with the uncontroversial statement, ‘There has been another murder in the Edgbaston district of the city. The body of a young nurse, Rosemary Baring, was found yesterday afternoon.’
As he’d anticipated the red-headed girl was the first to pick up on it. ‘Another murder, Inspector Forrest?’ Her tone was unbelievably sarcastic.
‘Just over a month ago, you may remember, the body of Colin Wilson was found on a patch of waste ground between Queen’s Hospital and the old maternity block.’
Most of them looked up briefly and nodded. Yesterday’s news and no imminent arrest. History to journalists. Only the red-headed girl’s gaze remained sharp.
‘You connect the two murders?’ A male journalist in shirt and loosened tie was the questioner this time.
Forrest felt vague relief. ‘Yes.’
‘On what grounds?’ Again the redhead’s tone was icy.
‘There were similarities between the two killings.’
‘What?’
‘Both victims had been knocked on the head from behind and strangled.’
‘Yes?’ It was as though only the two of them were in the room.
‘Both bodies were dumped on the hospital site.’
She knew there was more.
‘Both were found wrapped in hospital clinical waste bags.’ He didn’t know quite when he became convinced that this particular journalist knew something nearer the entire story. He felt cornered. ‘Both had been mutilated, we believe with a scalpel. That’s all I’m prepared to divulge at the moment.’
It was left to a plump woman, wearing too-tight jeans and an anorak to try to tease out the information. Pen poised, for a precise quote. ‘Can you enlarge, Inspector?’
Everyone looked up then. No one was scribbling anything. They were waiting. Just waiting. You could have heard a pin drop.
Bloodhounds, Forrest thought nastily. Bloodhounds sniffing along the scent of a good story, taking delight in the horrid detail. They don’t have to deal with the family or friends, the other victims of crime.
The plump woman spoke again. ‘Can you enlarge, Inspector?’ she repeated.
‘We’re not anxious for details to be made public at this time,’ he said quietly. ‘Let’s just leave it at that, shall we? Out of respect for the relatives and the victim. At the moment I can’t see what advantage there is in giving full details of the victim’s injuries.’
He was tempted to add: apart from selling newspapers. But it didn’t do to antagonize the press. He had made his plea for privacy for Colin Wilson’s wife and child as well as for the cold man who had identified Rosemary Baring’s butchered body.
The redhead gave him a challenging smile.
He felt he had to say something. ‘As you know,’ he continued quickly. ‘Colin Wilson was a self-employed plumber. Last night’s victim was a young nurse. She worked at the privately run Cater Clinic. She was twenty-seven years old and lived with a friend in the Edgbaston area of the city.’
‘Was there any connection between the two victims?’ The questions started to come thick and fast. ‘We don’t know yet.’
‘Did they know each other?’
‘We don’t know that either.’
‘Is there any possibility this is some sort of a grudge killing against the hospital?’
‘It’s one of the lines of enquiry we’re currently working on.’
‘Was the killer known to the victims?’
‘We don’t know that either.’
‘Is there any possibility this was a personal grudge against the victims?’
Forrest shook his head and let them work out the rest.
It didn’t take them long. ‘You’re suggesting we have a serial killer somewhere round here who might strike again?’ Forrest could feel the redhead’s eyes still mocking him. ‘Someone who stalks the hospital complex looking for victims?’
Forrest tried to demur. The victims had been dumped on the hospital complex. Not picked up there. He didn’t like the angle they were taking, dreaded scanning the headlines in the morning. But he couldn’t deny it — not any of it. He tried to remember his training session last year on ‘Dealing with the Media’. Give clear, unambiguous statements. Remember your objectives; in this case to solve the case, keep the public safe, prevent a further murder, shield the relatives, avoid spreading panic.
‘We’re suggesting that until this killer is caught people in the Edgbaston district of the city should take care not to walk alone, not to accept lifts from strangers particularly around the hospital area.’ He added that extra police were being drafted in to protect the public. It was a thin whitewash. However many extra police were drafted in they couldn’t prevent the ‘surgeon’ from performing again.
The plump woman in jeans was nibbling the top of her pencil. ‘What exactly do you think the connection is with the hospital?’
Forrest hid behind a smokescreen. ‘We are at present discussing this
point with the forensic psychiatrist, Dr Lewisham.’ He gave a supposedly reassuring smile as though the psychiatrist would solve everything.
But these were journalists. The redhead spoke again. ‘And how exactly does your forensic psychiatrist connect these murders with the hospital?’
‘He’s working on several angles.’
A man in a black polo neck threw the next question at him. ‘Do we have any sort of profile of the killer?’
Forrest thought for a moment before replying. After all. It could do no harm. And there were plenty of instances where press assistance had helped solve killings quicker than police legwork.
‘An adult male. Socially isolated. With some interest in the workings of an operating theatre.’ Immediately after he said it he knew it had been a mistake. They all looked up.
Someone said, ‘An operating theatre? Are you saying that —’ then stopped.
Another voice began the sentence again. ‘Are you trying to tell us that the killer performed operations on his victims?’
He had no option. ‘There were some similarities to surgery, that’s all I’m prepared to divulge at the moment.’
There was a slow whistling of breath followed by frantic scribbling.
‘Is there any suggestion that the killer is a doctor?’
‘No.’
‘Were the mutilations identical?’
‘No.’
‘Was surgical knowledge needed?’
‘Some.’
They all looked up again. ‘Can you enlarge?’
‘No,’ Forrest said bluntly.
The red-haired girl gave him a satisfied smile. ‘You’ve already said a scalpel was used. What else?’
‘I’m not prepared to say.’
Having flushed him out the girl gave a brief nod.
‘Do you believe the killer is or was employed at the hospital?’
‘It’s a theory we’re working on.’
He stood up. The press conference was over.
Not for the girl. Even as he shuffled his way along the table she shot a last question at him. ‘Why does he do it?’
‘What?’
‘Perform surgery on his victims?’
At first he tried to argue that it was not his job to speculate, but finally he was forced to acknowledge the fact that he didn’t know. Damn it. He simply didn’t know.
Chapter Ten
27 December 1999
Forrest had always hated the first day back after the Christmas break, the endless identical question thrown at him: ‘Had a nice Christmas?’
This year was easier than the previous one, his last shared with Maggie, a Maggie so hostile towards him she had been more a stranger than a wife. This year he had the perfect excuse to growl at the festive enquirers. The discovery of Rosemary Baring’s body gave the morning briefing a sharp focus and dampened down any lingering Yuletide jubilation. The watching faces in the Incident Room quickly lost their sparkle to a wary tension. The investigation was mounting in size, expense and importance. Hours of work lay ahead. And what else?
Forrest called DS Shaw and DS Fielding over to him when the others had been dismissed.
‘Have you got any ideas?’ He would welcome anything — even Shaw’s smart-arse thoughts — but both officers shook their heads. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘if you do, don’t hesitate to come and see me.’
Shaw gave him a fleeting smile as he went out behind Caroline Fielding.
Forrest eyed the phone. There was no excuse for not calling Lewisham. But for once his mobile phone was answered by a British Telecom voice who invited him to leave a message. Feeling satisfaction at discharging his duty without having to speak to the psychiatrist, he said briefly, ‘Detective Inspector Forrest here.’ A pause before adding, ‘We’ve found another body.’ Another pause. ‘I’m afraid.’
Lewisham surfaced at lunchtime, appearing in Forrest’s doorway just as the Inspector was about to take a bite out of a Big Mac. He eyed the psychiatrist, then the burger before taking a huge bite. Lewisham screwed up his fleshy nose in disgust.
‘So, you’ve got another body, Inspector.’
Forrest chewed thoughtfully before nodding. ‘A nurse,’ he said between mouthfuls.
Lewisham sat down. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘And you still haven’t found a connection between Wilson and the hospital?’
‘No.’
Unwittingly Lewisham was echoing Karys’s words. ‘There will be a connection between the victims,’ he said sharply. ‘It’s simply that you haven’t found it yet. Might I suggest that you visit Wilson’s wife yourself?’ The words were heavy with implied criticism.
Forrest felt defensive, as though he had been accused of mishandling the case, of doing too little himself. ‘I already have — she couldn’t tell me anything.’
Lewisham ploughed on. ‘Tell me about the nurse’s injuries. I don’t suppose the report’s typed up yet?’
Forrest’s hands shuffled through the papers on his desk. ‘I don’t think I’ve received it,’ he said. ‘It generally takes a day or two. But I can remember the main points. The lethal injuries were the same as before,’ Forrest said. ‘But...’
Lewisham gave an impatient jerk. ‘The “surgeon” won’t make the same mutilations.’
Forrest was intrigued. ‘How can you know that?’
Lewisham leant right back in his seat and steepled his fingers together in a condescending, smug attitude. ‘Because,’ he said, smiling, ‘no surgeon wants to spend his entire working career operating on simple hernias.’ He moved forward in his chair. ‘Am I right?’ he asked eagerly.
Forrest nodded.
The psychiatrist’s eyes gleamed. ‘So what was it this time?’
‘He’d removed a breast.’
‘Really? Right or left?’
‘The left.’
‘Chickens,’ Lewisham said.
‘Sorry?’
‘He practised on something, don’t you think? I wonder whether it was chickens. You know. Getting to know the anatomy. Essential, don’t you think? Occurred to me while I was eating my Christmas dinner.’
Forrest felt too nauseated to point out the obvious fact that chickens and human beings possessed completely different anatomies. Maybe it didn’t matter — to a surgeon. Carving was carving. Maybe he only needed the chance to saw bones, divide ligaments, cut meat. Forrest would never feel the same about Christmas dinner in the future.
Lewisham stood up. ‘I think it’s time I paid our pathologist a visit.’
Forrest watched him go with relief.
• • • •
Karys crammed a couple of squares of chocolate into her mouth and read through her PM notes on Rosemary Baring. Forrest might be busy pursuing traditional police investigations but reluctantly she sided with Barney: the solution would lie in the killer’s motive. That was what would eventually give him away. It would make a big difference if the victims had been unknown to him or if they had known each other. Her hand reached out to break off another square of chocolate as the thought struck her, how did the surgeon feel after he had killed? Was there a guilty satisfaction followed by deep revulsion? Why did he use hospital waste bags? Poetic justice? Expediency? Availability? There must be a reason. It was obviously deliberate. She was beginning to realize it was all deliberate. That was why he had to dump the bodies on the hospital site even though with extra police and heightened public vigilance it would have proved increasingly risky. Karys frowned and shoved her glasses up her nose, cupped her chin in her hand and thought — hard.
She had the uncomfortable feeling that she knew things about this killer that no one else did. Not just the forensic detail that told her the sequence of blows, of the element of surprise, the extent of the injuries. That was natural. They had shared the corpses, handled the same body. But there was something else, something that felt like privileged knowledge, something she was meant to know. He had deliberately planted something for her to find. The trouble was she didn’t know what it was. But
the feeling was enough to chill her because it felt as though the ‘surgeon’ was pushing her towards some preordained point. He was controlling her. She sat very still at her desk and allowed her mind to drift as he wanted it to, asking the same old questions. Back to the hospital. Why dump the bodies there? Was it because this was where the ‘surgeon’ felt they ultimately belonged? Or was the killer abandoning them on the doorstep of an institution in the same way as a woman might leave an unwanted newborn on the steps of a church? Was the hospital then — sanctuary? Her mind tussled with this without seeming to arrive anywhere.
Why make a surgical incision? Answer to suture it. Why murder then mutilate? Answer to further the whole charade. But why her mind screamed again. Why the whole bloody thing?
• • • •
Brenda had taken another day off after Boxing Day. She couldn’t have worked anyway. The pounding headache and nausea kept her in bed until lunchtime and when she tried to make some coffee she noticed her hands were shaking. She wouldn’t have been much use to Pinky Sutcliffe today, she would have dropped the instruments, or thrown up over the patient. Feeling the cold she wrapped her pink towelling dressing gown round her, switched the gas fire on, pressed the remote control of the TV and lay back, eyes half closed.
She was woken by the doorbell and sat up with a start. It was dark outside. She must have been asleep for hours. All day. She had left her curtains wide open.
Anyone could have looked in and seen her lying on the settee. She stood up and wrapped her dressing gown round her. There was another ring followed by a sharp knock on the door. She staggered along the hall and turned the key before realizing she had forgotten to put the chain on.
It was only Terry. He looked her up and down, took in her dishevelled appearance in the dressing gown and lack of make-up and gave her a playful tap on her backside.
‘Hungover are you, Ma? Not been to work?’ He pecked her on her cheek. ‘I rang. They said you were off sick. I guessed.’
She led the way back to the sitting room. ‘You’re right about the hangover. Anyway, there’s no list today,’ she said, tacking on a lie to avoid being reduced in his eyes.
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