Torn Apart

by M A Comley

  She’d only driven a couple of hundred metres when she heard the distant sirens of the emergency services. Her stomach churned as she thought about the youths’ reactions. She felt relieved that none of the locals had left their homes to see what had happened. These boys gave her the impression that they didn’t give two hoots about being caught in the act. They had done little to disguise the fact that they were moving between the cars. Anyone looking out a window would have seen the youths acting suspiciously. Maybe someone had called in the incident before the cars had ended up as balls of fire. Maybe the police had shown little interest. She could come up with a lot of scenarios, but they all came down to one thing. The gang had once again displayed how dangerous they could be.

  A plan was already forming in her mind by the time she arrived home. All she had left to do was work out if she had the guts to go through with her intentions. It would take an immense amount of planning on her part, but after witnessing the evening’s events, her determination was gnawing at her conscience.

  In the dead of night, when the rest of the household was asleep, she made herself a coffee and took it up to bed. Beside her bed was a notebook and a pen. She spent the next hour or so writing things down and crossing them out again until a eureka moment arrived that caused her pen to fly across the paper with lightning speed. The plan, horrific in parts, made her shudder several times during its formation. But she knew it was imperative that each stage of the plan, particularly the gruesomeness of it, be meticulously planned out in order for it to work.

  In the early hours of the morning, her plan moved into another stage. She booted up her laptop, and once she’d entered her obscure password, she typed in certain words for the research she had to carry out before she could finalise her plan.

  Knives. Forensics. Pathology.

  Notes jotted down, she ventured out into the night once more.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Hero arrived at work feeling light footed, as if the floor beneath him had a cushioned layer of air. That day, his marriage and indeed his family life started over. However, as soon as he stepped into the incident room, the expressions on his team’s faces wiped the smile from his own.

  “What’s up?”

  “We’ve got another one,” Julie shouted from her desk.

  Hero walked over and stood beside her. “Another what?”

  “Prostitute murder.”

  Hero slumped down on the empty desk behind him. “Where? The same place?”

  “Nope. In one of the other locations around the Brickfields Estate.” Julie handed him the map they had been using the previous evening, and marked with a huge cross was the location where the second prostitute had lost her life.

  “What do we know about it?”

  Julie sighed. “Nothing much yet, sir. Looks like the same sort of thing. The girl was the only one left in the road after the others had been picked up by punters. That’s what the uniforms reported. Do you want to take a ride out there?”

  “Maybe later, if there’s nothing much to go on. I’ll ring the pathologist, see if Susan can shed any light on what’s happened. Maybe it’ll turn out to be a coincidence.”

  Julie turned back to her computer and mumbled under her breath, “Yeah, and there’s a pig flying past the window now.”

  Hero heard her, but chose to ignore the sarcastic comment. He left the incident room, grabbed a coffee from the vending machine, and rushed into his office. Flinging his jacket over the back of his chair, he picked up the phone and dialled the pathologist.

  “Hi, Susan, it’s Hero.”

  “You took your time calling. I wasn’t aware that coppers—or DIs, should I say—worked part time in this day and age.”

  “Right, and pathologists always work longer hours than us, don’t they?”

  “Ahem, this one does, Patch.” The banter over with, Susan got down to business. “I suppose you’re ringing about the murder last night.”

  “That’s right. What can you tell me, if anything?”

  “I think Polly Arnold was stabbed the same as the other girl. She bled out. I can’t tell if the murderer is a novice or whether they like to see these girls suffer before they die. Polly died in the ambulance en route to the hospital. Looking over the post for Sara Brown, she would have suffered in the same way also.”

  “Torture, you mean?”

  “The jury is still out on that one, Patch. Let’s just say it’s not cut and dried, excuse the pun. Something is puzzling me, and I’ve yet to discover exactly what that something is.”

  “Have you completed the PM yet?”

  “I have. I was here at six this morning. Unlike others, my day invariably starts at dawn and ends way after dusk has descended.”

  “All right, Susan. Hey, I was out until about nine last night myself,” he retorted, harsher than he had intended.

  “Exercising your right arm down the pub doesn’t count, sweetie.”

  “Christ, you have a low opinion of me sometimes. Actually, I was out and about questioning the other prostitutes about the first murder. We, Julie and I, drew a blank and called it a day.”

  “Maybe the killer was watching your movements last night,” Susan said.

  Hero could tell by the quiet way Susan had voiced her opinion she was saying what was running through her mind more than she was giving him an observation. “Christ, I never thought of that. Any chance you can send the two reports over to me ASAP, so my team can go through them?”

  “Sure. As far as I know, no one has informed the family of the second girl yet. I would have thought that would be at the top of your priority list this morning, Hero. Not that I’m trying to tell you your job or anything.”

  “I’ll get on to it straight away. Thanks for the nudge, Susan. Let me have the reports by the end of the day if you can, huh?”

  “You’ve got it.”

  Hero hung up and immediately picked up the phone again. He called the desk sergeant to obtain the address of the latest victim and checked to see if anyone at the station had been out to inform the family of the girl’s death. No one had, so he pulled on his jacket and marched through the incident room again. “Get your coat, Julie.” He called out just before leaving the room.

  He heard his partner’s heels clicking on the concrete floor behind him as he started to descend the stairs.

  “Sir? Where are we going?”

  Hero waved the sheet of paper at her on which he’d written down the victim’s address. “We’re on our way to inform the victim’s family. Is that all right with you, Shaw?”

  Out of breath already, after trying to keep up with Hero’s long strides, Julie replied, “Yes, sir. Sorry, I should have thought about that before and looked up the address myself.”

  “Yes, you should have. Don’t let it happen again,” Hero told her as they got in his car in the car park. He knew by the sour look on his partner’s face that he was in for another round of the silent treatment. He was grateful for that at least because he wanted to prepare what he was about to say to the victim’s family. The victim had lived on the edge of the Brickfields Estate, close to the area where she’d been plying her trade.

  Pulling up outside a row of council houses, most of which were boarded-up, Hero looked for the number he was after. Number twenty Jackson Way turned out to be one of the better properties in the row. Surprisingly, the windows still had glass in them, but as the detectives walked up the path, they had to dodge numerous obstacles blocking their path. When Hero saw the child’s bike and the plastic doll’s house, which were shabby and appeared to be on their last legs, his heart sank. Had Polly been a young mother? Or was she sharing this house with other women who had children. He prepared himself for an onslaught of words. No one liked the coppers turning up on their doorstep, and by the looks of their surroundings, he had a feeling their arrival was going to be met with mixed emotions.

  He rang the doorbell and whispered, “Are you ready for this? Whatever happens, remain calm and sympathetic
at all times.”

  Julie shot him a disgusted glare as if questioning his perception of her in such situations. He shrugged an apology as the front door opened.

  A woman in her early forties stood in the hallway. She had a sobbing toddler balancing on her hip. The child’s right hand was gripping the woman’s rather large breast, tugging her T-shirt to one side, exposing the old dingy grey bra beneath. “Yeah, what do you want?” The woman placed the cigarette she was holding in her free hand into her mouth and shifted the child to a more comfortable position.

  Hero cringed at the thought of the baby being burnt by the cigarette, but he knew it would make no sense to suggest that the woman not smoke in the child’s company. Instead, he withdrew his warrant card from his pocket and showed it to the woman.

  She squinted at his ID before her gaze drifted back to him. “What’s she done now? I knew she’d been banged up. I told Maureen last night on the phone that she was up to no good again.”

  “Mind if we come in?” Hero asked, taking a step forward.

  “Like I have a choice,” she snapped at him. She turned and stomped up the hallway, which was scattered with rubbish of one form or another, mostly advertising leaflets people had shoved through the letterbox, the type most people throw in the bin as soon as they arrive. This woman apparently did not.

  “Am I right in thinking that you’re Polly Arnold’s mother?” Hero asked once the three of them had walked into the lounge-cum-dining room-cum-kitchen, which was also littered with toys.

  The woman sat in an easy chair by the window and bounced the crying toddler on her knees. The TV in the corner was blaring, making it difficult for Hero to be heard or even think straight. He searched for the remote control, then switched off the TV, much to the woman’s annoyance. He asked his question again. “Are you Polly Arnold’s mother?”

  “I am. Mother, unpaid babysitter, general dogsbody, you name it. The girl treats me like shit from first thing in the morning till the time she goes out enjoying herself at all hours of the night. What’s she done, I asked ya?”

  “Is that her child?” Hero asked, purposefully delaying telling the woman the bad news.

  “Yeah, this is Tinkerbelle, with an e. She’s usually as good as gold, but today she’s teething. Have you got her mother locked up at the nick? Only the little ’un is missing her.”

  Hero inhaled deeply and slowly let it out through his teeth. “I’m afraid I have some bad news for you, Mrs. Arnold. Last night…your daughter…died.”

  The child stopped mid-bounce as the woman glanced at him in horror. “You’re having a laugh, aren’t you?”

  He shuffled awkwardly on the spot and shook his head. “I’m sorry, no.”

  “How? How did she die?” she asked as tears silently slipped down her flushed cheeks. She crushed the child to her breast and began rocking back and forth in the chair.

  “I think it would be better if my colleague took the child into another room.”

  “No! She’s staying with me. What happened?” the woman insisted. The child started crying harder, appearing to sense the unexpected bad vibes in the room.

  “The actual events aren’t known as yet. All I know is that your daughter was stabbed on the streets near here.” He was being cagey about the events in case the woman wasn’t aware her daughter was a prostitute. From what she had told them about her daughter’s activities so far, the idea that she might be a street girl hadn’t cropped up.

  “It’ll be that tongue of hers. I’ve told her before not to get into arguments with people. She wouldn’t listen to me, and now this.” Her voice had started off loud, then trailed off.

  Hero nodded and was about to apologise when the woman spoke again. “Have you got the person who knifed her?”

  “I’m sorry, not yet. Like I’ve said already, the investigation has just begun into your daughter’s death.”

  “Was she coming out of a nightclub or somethin’?” the woman persisted, despite Hero’s side-stepping.

  “No. it’s all very sketchy at the moment. It’s the second murder we’re invest…”

  The woman cut him off. “The second murder? Last night?”

  “No. In the last few days.”

  The woman remained silent, and Hero could tell she was thinking things over. He had a feeling he knew what she was about to say next.

  “Two murders. Both girls? In this area?”

  He nodded and watched the pain on her face turn to anger. “The only murder I know about around here in the last few days is that prostitute girl.”

  Hero gave her a slight smile. “We better be going now. The sooner we get out there, the more chance we have of catching the culprit.”

  “Wait just a minute.” The woman stood up and shoved the crying child into Julie’s arms. Julie held the child away from her as though it stank like something that had been dragged out of a sewer. The woman continued, “I’ve only heard of one murder being reported in this area in the past couple of days. The victim was a prostitute. That’s what the papers said. What are you telling me? That Polly was also a prostitute?” Her hand covered her mouth as if voicing the word was a sin.

  When Hero stayed quiet, the woman staggered back to her armchair and threw herself in it. She stared out the window in a daze. Hero and Julie looked at each other in puzzlement, both of them unsure how to proceed. In the end, Hero asked the woman, “Is there someone you’d like us to call to come and be with you?”

  “I have no one…Polly and the little one are my only family, and now that’s…” She buried her head in her hands and sobbed.

  Hero held out his arms to take the baby from Julie. “Go next door to the neighbours. See if one of them will come in and sit with Mrs. Arnold.”

  Julie left the room, and Hero awkwardly bounced the baby in his arms, because she had started crying again after seeing her grandmother distressed. They weren’t alone long before Julie returned with a woman around the same age as Mrs. Arnold. The woman ran across the room and flung an arm around Mrs. Arnold’s shoulders.

  “Tina, I’m so sorry, love.”

  “She’s gone, Miriam. Gone. Now they’re telling me she was some kind of prostitute.”

  The neighbour glanced up at Hero. He gave a regretful nod. The neighbour looked saddened by the unsavoury news.

  “We better be going now. Will you take care of Mrs. Arnold?”

  “Of course I will. She’ll be next door with me if you need her.”

  In the car, Julie turned to Hero. “How did the mother not know her daughter was on the game?”

  “I haven’t got the foggiest idea, Julie. Maybe I should have asked more questions, like how long had she been going out at night et cetera, but I didn’t want to intrude on her grief any more than was necessary. We’ll check the station records when we get back to see if she has been picked up at all.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The dining chair flew across the room, missing Jez Barrett’s leg by a few inches. “I’m getting pissed off with this.”

  “With what?” Barrett asked Crabbie.

  “Dickhead! You never fucking listen, do ya?”

  “What have I done wrong now?” Barrett whined, which only infuriated Crabbie more.

  “That’s approximately a grand we’ve lost per week now. Somebody is screwing with us.”

  He approached the next chair and aimed a kick at it, only to be thwarted by Stuart throwing himself into it. “Calm down, bro. We’ll sort it.”

  “How?” Crabbie snarled at his younger brother and ran a hand over his close-shaven head. “We need more girls to replace the ones we’ve lost.”

  “That’s the easy part,” Stuart replied. “What we really need to do is find out who’s knocking the girls off.”

  Crabbie looked at Jez and nodded towards his brother. “Listen to Mr. Plod over here. All right, shit for brains, tell us how we go about that?”

  His brother wriggled in his seat before he responded. “We keep our ears to the ground an
d our eyes open.”

  “You’re right. Jez. He’s right, you know. Why don’t we carry out some covert operations while we’re at it, too?” Crabbie said in an animated taking-the-piss kind of way.

  “All right, bro, it was just a suggestion. No need to go off on one!”

  Crabbie ran at him, grabbed him by the scruff, and hoisted him to his feet. “Well, stop fucking stating the obvious then. Of course we’re going to keep our ears and eyes open on this one. Take a day off now and again from being a prick, will ya?” He slammed his brother back in the chair after he’d finished scolding him. He turned and walked over to the window. He took in the sight of the estate he ran and puffed out his chest with pride. “I want you guys out there pounding the pavements. That means on foot to you, bro,” he aimed at Stuart before he continued, “Ask around the girls, see what they know about the murders. Go talk to your so-called friends to see if any of the other gangs have let it slip that they’ve done this. I want answers today. You hear me?”

  “Yeah, but the girls don’t start work until later,” Jez said warily.

  “You know where the fucking squat is, don’t ya? Go and fucking wake the slags up if you have to. Someone knows what the fuck went down out there. One way or another, I’m going to find out who the fucking culprit is and string him up by his knackers. Now get on to it. Get outta my fucking sight, the lot of ya.”