Death Wish

by Maureen Carter

  ‘Yeah and deep down, Sally knows that.’ She popped in the last bite then pulled down the visor, squinting.

  ‘How was she when you left?’

  ‘Guilt-tripping big time.’

  He nodded. ‘Bound to, when someone close decides they’ve had enough.’

  Had enough. Bev turned her head, mulling the phrase over as she gazed through the passenger window. Sounded harmless, didn’t it? ‘Had enough tea, vicar?’ ‘Yeah, ta, had enough.’ For Hilary Cash and the like the euphemism was anything but benign. When suicides had had enough it meant they’d eschewed everything and everyone on God’s green earth – forever and ever, end of, amen. Thing about death, innit? It’s so bloody final.

  ‘Gonna share, boss?’

  ‘Mm.’ Still facing away. ‘I’m just wondering if it’s the coward’s way out.’

  ‘Depends on, why. It can take a lot of guts.’

  ‘I guess.’ Even after Byford’s brutal death, Bev hadn’t seriously contemplated taking her own life. Okay, maybe once or twice for a second or two. In her heart, she knew she couldn’t go through with it because of her mum. Christ, the pain of losing Bev would see Emmy off quicker than a cardiac.

  ‘Course the bottled version helps. Dutch courage.’ Mac sniffed. ‘Did you hear what Stacey Hardy was saying?’

  Still pensive, she shook her head as he passed on the tale about some woman who’d died after downing her own body weight in booze. Booze. Bev’s thoughts flitted to the night Curran poured a litre of scotch down Byford’s throat. With that much alcohol sloshing round the big man’s system, the mad bastard probably hadn’t needed to pull the trigger. Yuck. Even now the smell of whisky made her want to throw up.

  ‘Is there anybody in there?’ Quavering falsetto. Madame Mac Arcati. Bev rolled her eyes. ‘Ground control to Major –’

  ‘Pack it in, mate,’ she snapped, flapped away the hand slowly waving in her air space. Mac’s other hand had cut the engine and was poised to open the door.

  ‘Didn’t hear a word I said, did you, sarge?’

  ‘Every syllable, mate.’

  Like she’d noticed they’d arrived. Not.

  Bev spotted Powell soon enough. Ditto, him registering their presence. Stony-faced, he strode towards them across what once would have been the kids’ playground. The way his jacket flapped, she’d not be surprised to see him take off.

  ‘Any minute now he’ll be a hazard to airlines,’ Mac murmured.

  Two minds with but a single. Bev masked a smile. Masked another when one of his Italian loafers got stuck in the tarmac and he almost went flying.

  ‘What’s so bloody funny, Morriss?’ Powell growled.

  ‘Nothing.’ Maybe she needed to work on the masking lark. ‘What’ve we got, then?’

  ‘You’ll see soon enough.’ He sounded grim. ‘Come on.’

  Bev cut Mac a bemused glance as she ducked under the Do Not Cross tape. They trailed after Powell mini-crocodile fashion towards a squat redbrick structure complete with bell tower. She didn’t know about bats, but it must be a favourite hangout for seagulls. A bunch of the bloody things was lined up on the roof auditioning for the avian equivalent of The Voice.

  No one needed to play detective to work out Saint Jude’s Junior School had seen better centuries, let alone days. AD 1899 had been helpfully carved into a now soot and bird shit encrusted concrete block set into the pock-marked facade. Thanks to more stonemasonry, Bev also learned that back in the day the building had separate quarters for boys and girls. The info was spelled out over two sets of boarded-up double doors either side of the main entrance. She was pretty sure the garish graffiti daubed across the brickwork had been added much later by a considerably less skilled hand. The words, though composed of four-letters, were not what she’d call educational.

  Wherever they were heading, it wasn’t inside: Powell led them straight past the entrance and round the back. Bordered by metal railings with mean-looking spikes, the grounds weren’t big: half the size of a football pitch. Judging by the state of it, she’d bet there’d not been much fancy footwork there lately. Great swathes of dry cracked earth had been churned over; bricks, rubble, sacking, street litter lay everywhere. Sunlight glinted off the odd shard of glass, like diamonds in the rough. Plant machinery and its operators stood around idle. Though God knew how much damage the crews might already have caused in terms of crime scene contamination. She wondered vaguely in passing why JCBs and Caterpillars were always painted yellow. Looked like big boys’ Lego to her.

  ‘Watch it, Morriss,’ Powell snapped. Not her fault she’d nearly bumped into him. Shouldn’t have pulled up so sharp, should he? Using a hand as a sunshield, he glanced around, clearly trying to spot something or someone. ‘The path man must still be in with the body.’

  Which would explain the various groups standing back at respectful distances from a hastily-erected forensic tent. The bag-and-tag guys were passing round a steel flask; uniforms in blue coveralls were on their marks ready for a fingertip search. She took a wild guess the bloke in a hi-vis vest wasn’t from Health and Safety. Not given the colour of his complexion. If he’d not just barfed, she’d eat the hard hat tucked under his elbow.

  Bev returned a few nods and issued a subdued, ‘Wotcha.’

  ‘Hang on here a min,’ Powell said. ‘I’ll go check if he’s happy with a bigger audience.’

  ‘Doc King, is it?’ Bev asked, dead casual. The newest pathologist on the block hadn’t long stepped into Gillian Overdale’s overshoes. His predecessor had retired early on medical grounds.

  ‘Yeah. Why?’

  Let’s think. Joe King looked like a younger thinner hotter version of Joey from Friends. Overdale put Bev in mind of Vera the bag-lady cop on the telly. Add to that King could charm the fuzz off a kilo of peaches, whereas Overdale’s social skills were less refined than Frankie Boyle’s. Go figure. Her one-shoulder shrug didn’t convey all that, but it went over Powell’s head anyway. He was on the way to have a word with the doc, presumably through the tent flap. He’d need protective clothing if he wanted to go in again. Clearly, the DI had already seen enough.

  Nothing to stop her suiting up ready. After a rummage in her shoulder bag, she pulled out a sealed plastic holdall. Without being asked, Mac proffered his arm as leaning post. Watching Bev’s perennial struggle into a white nylon onesie had become something of a spectator sport. Even with assistance she still did a fair bit of hopping round, muttering ‘Sodding bunny suits’ through clenched teeth.

  ‘What you reckon’s lodged up Powell’s nostrils then, boss?’ Mac asked.

  ‘Haven’t got a clue.’ Maybe a lack of clues was the DI’s problem, too. A young person’s death, especially if it turned out to be suspicious, would take top billing over most ongoing cases. It was the sort of inquiry that meant mounting pressure, mostly from the media. Doubtless that was why Powell had called Bev in – so she could share the load.

  She sniffed. Mind, there was a funny smell in the air. Exhaust fumes and fast food aromas were par for the course this near Stirchley High Street, but among the customary pongs her wrinkled nose detected something less palatable and a damn sight more pungent.

  ‘Bev?’ The DI called softly, beckoned her with a finger.

  First name? From Powell? That bad. Shit.

  10

  The stench grew as Bev neared the tent. Raising the mask did little to quell her increasing unease. Powell held the flap open, met her eye-line, but didn’t speak as she passed. Once inside it took a while to adjust to the lighting. With hindsight that would be no bad thing. Nor the slight delay as the pathologist and police photographer stepped aside to reveal the body. The reek barely hit her radar compared with the view. Eyes stinging, she struggled not to clap hand to gaping mouth. After a brief pause and shallow breath, she steeled herself to venture further in.

  ‘I’ll be with you in a tick, Bev. We’re about done here.’ She gave an absent nod as she brushed past, vaguely registering the voice as Joe King
’s.

  She squatted down near the body and slowly swept her narrowed gaze over what remained, vaguely conscious of the muted conversation behind her, barely noticing when the lens man took his leave with a muted, ‘Laters, sarge.’

  Blood, body fluids and human waste had leaked, seeped and dried, blackening the earth around the corpse. The corpse itself was blue-grey and bloated; skin marbled, blistered, beginning to slacken. Worse was where huge chunks of flesh were missing from the thighs, lower legs and upper-arm, ripped away like much of the clothing.

  Swallowing hard, Bev shifted her focus higher; would have to come back to that aspect when she felt less like hurling. Ten seconds later she realized the sick feeling wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry.

  She cut King a glance. ‘How long’s he been dead?’ Unwittingly brusque. Not a hard opener for the pathologist, though – as well as the putrefaction, the teeming bug life around the body was a fairly reliable indicator and he’d already have factored in the heat speeding rate of decay. Even overnight the temperature hadn’t dropped into single figures for a while.

  ‘A week to ten days in my estimation.’ He hunkered down beside her. ‘But the victim’s not male, Bev.’

  ‘What –?’

  ‘It’s an easy mistake: decomposition, slight frame, the hair.’

  What there was of it. She’d put the buzz cut down to a long-sighted barber with a blunt razor.

  ‘Why would she do that?’ Voice so soft, Bev might have been asking herself.

  ‘I very much doubt she did. Look.’ Her gaze followed his latex-gloved finger as it traced a network of fine lines, tiny dots darkening the already mottled skin over the scalp. Almost as if a really shit artist had used it as a canvas, but whose palette had only one colour.

  ‘Dried blood?’ Tentative. Hoping she was wrong, knowing she was right and that the victim would have been alive when her head was shaved.

  He nodded. ‘And some of the cuts are quite deep. It would’ve hurt like hell. I can’t see anyone doing that to themselves, let alone a young woman.’

  ‘How old? Roughly.’

  ‘Mid to late-teens, I’d say.’ He stood, offered her a hand. Thank God for that. The circulation in her legs had been in danger of packing up completely.

  ‘No ID, I take it?’ Not as far as he knew.

  ‘The tooth might help.’

  ‘Tooth?’ She frowned. Hadn’t noticed anything amiss.

  ‘The left front incisor has a gold filling.’

  ‘Right.’ The cops would still have their work cut out putting a name to the face. As to the lower limbs, Bev girded mental loins and studied the rancid wounds as closely as she dared. So much flesh had gone from the right hip the femur was visible in places.

  She jumped a mile when King snapped off a latex glove. Christ, she wished he wouldn’t do that.

  ‘I guess you’ve seen it before?’ he asked. ‘That sort of damage?’

  She nodded. To the animal world, a rotting cadaver is a ripe carcass. Rich pickings for foxes, feral cats, rats, most vermin. What with all the food joints and overflowing bins round these parts, the urban wildlife was rife. Eyes closed, Bev censored the picture in her head, cursed a vivid imagination. What a way to end up – a frigging human picnic. She cleared her throat, felt tears prick her eyes.

  ‘You okay there?’ King stretched out a hand.

  She stepped out of reach smartish. ‘Peachy, me.’

  ‘Good.’ He snapped off the other glove. ‘That makes two of us.’ Audibly not. Through narrow slits between matching hoods and masks, they held eye contact for the first time.

  ‘Yeah.’ Slow nod. ‘I can see that, doc.’ Neither broke the connection.

  ‘Reckon it ever gets any easier?’

  Clearing up other people’s shit? Doing jobs most people would run a marathon to avoid?

  ‘Nope.’ Nor would she want it to. In her book, a cop hardened to the crap wasn’t far from not giving a toss.

  ‘Thought not.’ He raised a palm then knelt and fastened the locks on a metal case. ‘I’ll prioritize the PM.’

  ‘Great.’ Pinpointing how she died was crucial, but with the body in such a mess it wouldn’t reveal its secrets until King opened it up on the slab. What she couldn’t work out was how it had lain undiscovered for nigh on a fortnight. With decay so far advanced, it had to have been left open to the elements. So why had no one seen and reported it?

  It? Christ, she gave Powell a hard enough time when he dehumanized a corpse. Bev looked again at the remains. What lay festering there had once been a young woman: someone’s daughter; someone’s sister, someone’s girlfriend; a ‘her’, a ‘she’, not an ‘it’. Lose sight of that and –

  ‘Bev?’ She glanced round, seeing King look about ready to leave. ‘I should’ve mentioned it before, but she was found under that lot.’ Tilting his head towards a corner of the tent.

  She moved nearer, took a closer look. Frayed hessian sacking, filthy, smothered in dust. It explained why she’d lain undisturbed by human hand at least. The sacking rang a bell, somehow, but she couldn’t pin down why. One for the back burner.

  ‘Oh, and bear in mind,’ King said, ‘it’s just conceivable she was sleeping rough and died from natural causes. Maybe there is no murderer on the loose.’

  Yeah right. As exit lines go, it was a killer.

  As for the crackpot theory, if King was on the money, she was the Queen of Narnia.

  11

  Tuesday. 18.15. Brief. Highgate.

  ‘A girl can’t just go missing and no one bothers reporting it.’ Powell raked both hands through hair already uncharacteristically mussed. Dark damp patches under his pits revealed the heat was getting to him. Could be the still strongish sunlight streaming through the office windows, more likely the fact the inquiry hadn’t budged an inch.

  Rightly or wrongly, the DI had decided to throw everything at the case on what was still only the assumption of murder. Bev, who was sitting at the front twirling an ankle, reckoned it was a good call. If a killer was out there, the squad was already on the back foot playing big boys’ catch-up. Which was why half-a-dozen detectives had spent the last six hours trawling missing persons’ records, following every lead it threw up; others were out with uniforms, still knocking on doors near Saint Jude’s and canvassing passers-by. In addition, a news release and witness appeal had been released via the police press officers, and regular posts were popping up on social media pages. So far? As Powell had just pointed out: not a sniff.

  That reminded Bev. Soon as she got home, the navy bootcuts were going on a boil wash. On second thoughts, make that in the bin.

  As to the blond’s blithe assertion about kids not vanishing into thin air, she begged to differ. She’d run the 2014 stats, found that someone was recorded missing every two minutes in the UK. A whopping hundred-and-forty-thousand cases involved youngsters. The likeliest age group to go AWOL? Fifteen- to seventeen-year-olds. And the numbers had increased since then. Go figure.

  Course the vast majority of bods who take off without so much as a ‘Bye for now’ are located safely within twenty-four hours, but three per cent never show up. And these were known cases: it didn’t look as if their Jane Doe had even been reported missing …

  Bev tapped a pen against her teeth. Somehow, she didn’t think the DI would thank her for sharing. She’d just watched him stroll over from the white board, take a perch on a desk and spread his thighs. Being in pole position, Bev averted her gaze, thankful for once her X-ray vision was on the blink.

  ‘Come on, you lot. Give.’ The DI’s glance flitted from cop to cop. ‘Why’d you think we pay you?’

  Bev bit back a line about digging the brass out of a hole. Honestly, sometimes Powell had the management skills of an amoeba. She caught Mac’s subtle eye-roll at Carol Pemberton, whose top lip gave an almost imperceptible twitch. Bev masked a smile of her own. She liked and respected Pemberton, who had people skills coming out of both ears. She reckoned the slightly older woma
n could walk the sergeant’s exams if she’d half a mind to. Sashay down the catwalk, too, with the classy looks and signature ink-black bob. What’s more, Pembers effortlessly combined a demanding DC job with looking after two school-age kids. And still rarely let plonkers wind her up. God, they had a lot in common.

  ‘Help me out here, guys.’ Powell’s palms were spread now as well. ‘I need something to work with, I want ideas, I want input, I want …’ Castration. Well, he was clearly struggling to come up with another want. Bev leafed though her notes while Carol put him out of his misery.

  ‘Maybe her parents don’t realize?’

  ‘That they’re a kid down?’ Powell drawled. ‘Now why didn’t I think of that?’

  Carol’s shrug said that was his problem. Bev reckoned Powell was pushing his luck.

  ‘No, do go on, detective.’ He folded his arms. ‘Enlighten me.’

  ‘The pathologist reckons she died a week to ten days ago, right?’ Carol paused just in case he’d seen the point and wanted to run with it. As if. ‘It’s summer, sir. People go away.’

  ‘And leave kids home alone?’

  ‘Sure, if they’re old enough. And we only have an estimate for her age.’ Carol tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘Either way I know teenagers who loathe being in the same room as their parents, let alone want to go on holiday with them.’

  Bev hoped that wasn’t the voice of personal experience speaking. It’d be a bugger if Carol was having trouble on the home front.

  ‘Course, silly me.’ Powell slackened his tie another couple of inches. ‘Never heard of phones, Pemberton?’

  ‘Remind me, sir.’ Carol doing dead polite. ‘Do you have teenage children?’ It was a tad below the belt. Everyone knew the DI’s domestic arrangements. Rumour had it he’d not had a long-term relationship since his wife ran off with a woman five, six years back. ‘And tell me,’ she prompted, ‘are they big on communication?’

  Bev, who’d rarely seen Powell blush, helped him out. ‘Carol might be on to something there, gaffer. Lots of people switch off when they’re away, mobiles included. And if their kids are of an age, why check up on them every five minutes?’