by Andrew Lowe
It took Beck less than an hour to match the objects in boxes F to J with their owners’ room numbers. Ainsworth looked down at his notes. He was pale, trembling.
‘Are you okay, Professor?’ Kelly laid a hand on his arm.
He shrugged her off and turned to Longford. ‘I’ve checked and re-checked. He has matched every object, bar one, to the location of its owner. Dean. How is he doing this?’
Longford massaged his beard. ‘I don’t know, Professor. We checked him thoroughly. He’s clean. No trickery. We can rule out prior knowledge. The bastard is on to something.’
Ainsworth turned back to the screen and loosened his bow tie. ‘I won’t accept the result until I get one hundred per cent.’
Longford nodded. He stood up and eased back in front of the screen, next to Kelly and Ainsworth. ‘He’s on ninety.’
The table in front of Beck now held nine closed boxes: B to J. Box A was still open. Beck took up the plush elephant and turned it round and round in his fingers. He bowed his head again. This time, he closed his eyes, and stayed in the position, perfectly still, for almost five minutes. They could hear his breathing over the camera microphone.
Longford looked at Ainsworth. ‘Is he asleep?’
Beck’s voice—loud and confident—burst into Ainsworth’s office, making everyone jump. ‘I think… you have not been completely honest with me, Professor Ainsworth. You said there would be no subterfuge, and that I would have all the information I required.’
Ainsworth stepped back, away from the screen. Kelly and Longford stayed fixed on Beck’s image as he turned and looked into the camera. He held up the plush elephant.
‘Professor. I am unable to make a connection with the owner of this object because the person is not in any of the numbered rooms. The person is deceased.’
Kelly and Longford heard Ainsworth slump onto the armchair. They turned. He was bent double. Sobbing. Inconsolable.
16
The oak-birch woodland of Padley Gorge had sprouted in a deep but narrow valley near Grindleford Station, and the approach road was clogged with cars wedged in by the walkers who wanted to dodge the fee from the nearby National Trust car park.
Sawyer ducked under the outer cordon crime scene tape and followed Keating through a dense clump of perimeter trees, with Maggie close behind. They emerged into a clearing, squinting at the dazzle of portable tripod lighting set in a wide surround at the borders of the inner cordon. It was a bright morning, but the canopy cast a patch of dappled gloom over the scene. Sawyer cast his eyes around. There was something stagey about the setting; as if the location had been selected for its natural aversion to sunlight.
A group of FSIs in Tyvek suits worked the area: gathering, scrutinising and consulting with Principal SOCO Sally O’Callaghan, a tall, mid-fifties woman with cropped peroxide blonde hair who had treated herself to fetching turquoise overalls and face mask, in contrast to the ghostly whites of her underlings. Sawyer counted four DCs he didn’t recognise, ducking in and out of the yellow-and-white forensic tent.
He turned to Maggie. ‘First one wasn’t too far from here. Up by Burbage Brook.’
Maggie nodded. ‘Pretty bold.’
‘Got to be local. Going with what he knows. Vicious, but vulnerable. He wants us to think he’s sure of himself, but I’m not buying it. I’d say these are his first two.’
Keating stopped before a burly figure with a black goatee. ‘DS Shepherd. You know DI Sawyer.’ Shepherd caught Sawyer’s eye and nodded; Sawyer didn’t return the gesture. ‘Who have we got, Detective?’
Shepherd swallowed. ‘Young girl this time, sir.’
Keating sighed. ‘Girl?’
‘Woman. Sorry, sir. ID in her pocket. Georgina Stoll.’
Sally joined them. She stripped off her face mask. Sawyer tilted his head; she looked like she had barely aged a few months in the four years since they had last worked together.
‘Hello there, Sawyer. DI now, I hear.’ She was high born, plummy, with a Marlboro husk.
Sawyer flashed back to a drunken conversation at the end of a Christmas party at Buxton nick. He had asked why Sally hadn’t followed the money: surgeon, consultant, specialist, something medical and prestigious. She had cracked a slow motion smile and pinned him with her cobalt eyes.
‘It’s all that fucking hope, Jake. Bloody prognoses. Prolonging. Fetishising longevity. You know where you are with a corpse. The past. And the past doesn’t change. It just sits there, waiting to be understood, to be solved.’
Back in the present, Sally turned to Keating. ‘Sir. Same MO as the Manning boy. No obvious wounds. I’d say asphyxiation. Shallow grave clearly marked. Couple of walkers called it in.’
Sawyer took out a notepad. ‘Shepherd, do you have a pen?’
‘Sorry, no.’
Maggie gave him a look. He could tell she thought Sawyer was trying to see if Shepherd would call him ‘sir’ in front of Keating. She was wrong.
Sawyer put the pad away. ‘Did he leave us anything?’
Sally glanced at Keating, then back at Sawyer. ‘No. We’re working on it. Nothing obvious. Certainly no fingerprints.’
‘Finger marks.’
Sally smiled at Shepherd’s correction. ‘Indeed.’
‘As opposed to prints. Prints are known origin. Marks are unknown.’
She jerked her head towards Shepherd, addressing Keating. ‘Just back from a course?’
Shepherd looked to Keating for support. He didn’t get it.
Keating headed towards the forensic tent. The others followed. ‘What’s inside the box?’
Sally shrugged. ‘Same cheap cardboard coffin. This fucker does not like spending money. Or he blew it all on the mini camera.’ Sawyer and Keating shared a look. ‘It’s the same type. Of camera.’
‘Filming it for himself?’ Shepherd looked uneasy as they all stepped inside the forensic tent.
‘Probably. You can only kill someone once.’ Sally slowed and leaned in close to Shepherd. ‘But get it on film, and it’s the gift that keeps on giving.’
Maggie groaned. ‘You missed your calling in victim support, Sally.’
Inside, the grave had been emptied of earth to reveal the open cardboard coffin. It was grimy but relatively fresh. The lid had been placed on the ground beside it, upturned. A mini digital camera was gaffer-taped up at one end of the lid, near the rim.
Georgina Stoll lay flat on her back with her head tilted to the side, her hands laid across her chest, fists balled, as if ready to fight. Her wrists and ankles had been bound with cable ties. She was fully dressed: T-shirt, cut-off jeans, white trainers. Her features were pinched, frozen in a contorted scowl, as if she had reacted to an unpleasant smell and stuck that way.
Sally stood over the body. ‘The grimace isn’t anything significant. It’s just the facial muscles contracting due to ATP drainage.’ She glanced at Shepherd. ‘Adenosine triphosphate.’
Sawyer moved to the top end of the grave. He crouched and looked around to the back of Georgina’s head. There was an angry red contusion towards the base of the skull, its colour contrasted with the pallid skin around her face and neck. ‘TOD?’
‘Ten to twelve hours.’
He studied the bruising. ‘Nobody has touched the body?’
Sally raised an eyebrow. ‘And risk the wrath of Drummond?’
Sawyer stood and turned, in time to see Shepherd hurrying out of the tent. Maggie followed him. Sawyer flashed a look at Keating and they both ducked outside.
They found Shepherd crouched by a tree around the back of the tent, head down, eyes squeezed shut, gulping back shallow, snatched breaths. Maggie stood beside him with her hand on his shoulder. ‘I need you to slow that breathing down for me, Ed,’ she said, her voice low. ‘I’m sure you know how this goes. It’ll pass. You know that. You know it’s not rational. There’s nothing to fear.’
Sawyer stepped closer. Shepherd was trembling, sweating, wide eyed. He stole a look up at Maggie, then fixed his
gaze back down on the tree roots. To Sawyer, it looked like an extreme form of confusion, as if Shepherd had become detached from reality.
Maggie looked up at Sawyer and Keating. She forced a sympathetic smile and nodded. ‘Let’s get those breaths slowed down, Ed. Can you hold one in for a few seconds before letting it out again?’
Shepherd made a great effort to comply, tilting his head back and forward with each inhale and exhale.
‘Are you… okay, DS Shepherd?’
Keating caught a glare from Maggie. ‘He’s fine. You’re doing fine, Ed. In for four seconds, out for four seconds. Remember, it’ll pass. It’s passing with each one of those breaths.’
Sawyer peered down at Shepherd, curious. He was trying to rise to his feet, but didn’t seem to have the strength.
The DS glanced over his shoulder at Keating. ‘Just not feeling well, sir. Sorry. It’s a bug or something.’
A couple of the FSIs wandered over and joined the audience. Maggie caught them gawping. ‘He’ll be fine. Give him a bit of space, okay?’
Keating and Sawyer moved away to a private spot at the edge of the inner cordon.
Sawyer gazed at Keating until he drew eye contact. ‘A “highly skilled DS”?’
Keating flushed red. ‘Yes. A highly skilled DS.’
Sawyer nodded. ‘Two bodies in to what looks like a serial murder investigation run by a highly skilled DS who goes to pieces at the sight of blood.’
Keating scowled. He took off his hat and scratched at his white hair. ‘There’s no old boy’s network any more, Sawyer. It’ll never make it up the chain.’
‘I’ll take the time in lieu. When we’ve caught the guy who likes to bury people alive.’
Sally joined them. She nodded at Shepherd; Maggie was helping him compose himself. ‘Something he ate?’
Keating turned to her. ‘How long here?’
‘We’ve done the snaps. No need for 3D scans. Undertaker will be here soon. Drummond is on stand-by. Forensic PM, expedited. When the body’s in the post, we’ll work on the coffin. Not a lot to bag up.’ She glanced at Sawyer. ‘Bastard really hasn’t left us much. Same as the first one.’
‘Sorry about that, sir.’ Shepherd came over with Maggie. ‘Won’t happen again.’ He was bleary eyed and pale, but alert again.
Sally smiled. ‘Looking a bit sheepish, Shepherd.’
Keating spoke to Maggie. ‘Co-ordinate family liaison. Next of kin. We don’t have an official MIT yet, but we’ll need to operate like one. Shepherd, if you’re okay, I’ll need you to pull everything together for a noon briefing. You good for that?’
Shepherd blinked and nodded: both rapid and desperate. ‘Of course, sir.’
‘You’ll probably need this.’ Sawyer held up a rugged metal pen with a textured grip. ‘You should take better care of it.’
Shepherd snatched up the pen and marched away, joining a small group of DCs. Sally and Maggie headed back inside the forensic tent.
Keating drew in a deep, slow breath and puffed it out through pursed lips. ‘You didn’t answer my question from before.’
Sawyer nodded, and stared down at a scattering of burnt-orange leaves, prematurely displaced. ‘How did I know about the camera?’
‘That’s the one.’
Sawyer could feel Keating’s eyes on him, but he didn’t look up. ‘Let’s get back. I’ve got something to show you.’
17
Keating had based the interim Murder Investigation Team in a walled-off, open-plan section on the first floor of Buxton Police Station. The group consisted of hand-picked DCs, working from a central office, with support staff in small adjoining meeting rooms customised to fit their discipline: victimology, media analysis, a couple of ‘intel cells’ fitted with HOLMES terminals connected to the Police National Computer System.
His office overlooked the grey stone outbuildings of the Tarmac Silverlands Stadium, home of Buxton Football Club. It was a modest facility, reflecting the standing of the team (mid-table in the Evo-Stick Premier Division), but on match days, the station occasionally shuddered with a goal celebration.
Keating insisted that the team conduct the main police work in the office area, and that the side room doors were kept open at all times. No cliques. No silos. And so there were a few side glances when the boss came back from the crime scene with the unknown man who had visited earlier and the two hid away in one of the intel cells, door closed.
After half an hour, they emerged and headed for Keating’s office.
As Keating and Sawyer strode, grim faced, past the main bank of desks, Stephen Bloom, the gangly, blond media relations officer, stood up and stepped forward, almost barring their path. ‘DS Shepherd on his way, sir?’
Keating nodded to Bloom but didn’t stop. ‘Be here soon. Briefing in an hour.’
Inside, Sawyer closed the office door. Keating sat at his corner desk and browsed his email. He answered a couple of messages: head forward, staring down at the keyboard, jabbing at the keys in irritation. Keating’s typing style hadn’t changed; it had always reminded Sawyer of an amateur drummer improvising a solo.
Sawyer sauntered to the window and peered through the half-open blind at the tips of the floodlights, just visible over the top of the main stand. ‘Shame you can’t see the pitch. Or maybe that’s a blessing. I don’t imagine the standard—’
‘You work with Shepherd.’ Keating swivelled his chair to face Sawyer, with almost comic timing. ‘He doesn’t work for you.’
Sawyer nodded. ‘And I work for you, right?’
Keating took off his hat and placed it back in position, beside the pile of papers. ‘You always were a quick one, Sawyer.’
Sawyer slumped into one of the facing chairs. ‘How will you sell it?’
A knock at the door.
‘Advisory. No HOLMES access. Not until your official start date.’ Shepherd entered. He looked harried but had regained most of his composure. ‘Take a seat, DS Shepherd.’
Shepherd trudged past Sawyer and took the other chair. He pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed it across his forehead.
Keating leaned back. There was no arrogance in the gesture; it was purely practical. He was broadening his angle on the two men, addressing them equally. ‘Detective Sergeant Shepherd, Detective Inspector Sawyer will be working with you on this case. Chain of command is simple. You work it out like good soldiers. Last word from me. DI Sawyer is due to officially join the MIT in five weeks, but I’m bringing it forward. You can bond in your own time, but for now, all you need to know is that Sawyer is a highly experienced detective who used to work for me in this very building and has been at the Met for the last two years.’
Shepherd turned to look at Sawyer. He narrowed his eyes, then focused back on Keating. ‘Sir, Detective Inspector Sawyer took it upon himself to remove an item from the home of the first victim’s family, without informing myself or the FLO in attendance.’ His low voice took on a shrill undertone, as he struggled with the usual suppression of his Scouse accent. ‘Technically, sir, that’s theft.’
Sawyer stared down at the floor, following the jagged stripe in Keating’s carpet. ‘He’s proud of his work. He wants to capture it for posterity. He wants the world to see it. He wanted the family to see it first.’ He looked up to catch Shepherd’s eye. ‘You call it theft. Feels like more of an intervention to me.’
‘Wants the world to see what?’ Shepherd glanced from Keating to Sawyer.
Keating sighed. ‘The cameras inside the coffins. He’s recording the victims at the moment of death.’
Sawyer dragged his hand down his face. ‘He sent Toby’s family a flash drive containing the footage. We’re looking for someone who wants his victims to die in one of the worst possible ways, and he wants them to know that it’s happening. To draw a performance for the camera. A close-up. And he’s prolific. Two dead in a week.’ Sawyer treated Shepherd to a dimpled smile. ‘This isn’t a dope dealer tiff in Toxteth, Shepherd. I’m here to hold your hand.’
‘Sawyer…’ Keating crouched forward, as if ready to stand.
Shepherd turned to him. ‘You say working with me, sir?’
‘Yes. Sawyer is local. He knows the area where the bodies were found.’
Shepherd took his time, indulged in a couple of big breaths. ‘With respect, sir, there’s no language barrier here. No local friction. I’ve worked in the Peaks for many years now.’
Keating nodded. ‘Get happy with it. I don’t want a pissing contest. Shepherd, let’s hear what you’ve got. Then we can brief the others and get to work. This case was already going nowhere, and we’ve just doubled the body count.’
Shepherd stepped up to the front of the open-plan office and turned towards the team. The faces were open and expectant, with a few suspicious squints. Keating stood off to the side, by a large whiteboard covered with notes and documents related to the Toby Manning murder. Sawyer parked himself in a neutral position, near to Keating but offstage.
‘Earlier this morning, a couple out walking in Padley Gorge woods came across a freshly dug shallow grave marked with a large wooden cross. The grave contained the body of twenty-four-year-old local woman, Georgina Stoll. SOCO estimates time of death at 0100 hours, but we’ll have something accurate after the PM. Expedited. As with Toby Manning, Georgina was buried in a cheap cardboard coffin, and her wrists and ankles had been secured with cable ties. Her purse with ID was in her pocket. A mini digital camera had been attached to the inside of the lid, with a view of the upper half of the body. In Toby’s case, we now know that the killer recorded his final moments on video and sent the footage to his family on a USB flash drive. Once next of kin is informed, it will obviously be a priority to screen incoming mail to Georgina’s family, in case this is a behaviour pattern.’
There was a rustling noise that sounded like a sweet wrapper being untwisted. Shepherd ignored it.
‘We are waiting on a full PM, but cause of death looks to be asphyxiation. It already looks likely that Toby and Georgina were killed and buried by the same person, and unfortunately, they were both still alive at the time of their burial.’
