‘I know, but this isn’t a decision you should take lightly, and it isn’t something you should decide without speaking to those involved and those who care for you the most.’
‘You can’t tell them, Kate.’
‘I said I won’t. But you can’t keep something like this from him. Or your mum.’
‘I’ll tell them, but when I’m ready.’
Kate suddenly remembered the time. ‘Where do they think you are now?’
‘I told them I was going to stay with a friend, so they’re not expecting me home. I don’t suppose…?’
The last thing Kate wanted was to be caught in the middle of this drama, but she couldn’t send Tara back out into the rain either. ‘You can sleep in my daughter’s bed. But tomorrow you need to speak to your parents.’
Tara reached out and pulled Kate into an uncomfortable embrace. ‘I knew you’d understand. Dad always says how great you are. A real role model.’
Kate wasn’t convinced the supe had ever described her in that way, but gently rubbed Tara’s back, hoping Chloe would never feel too scared to tell her anything.
18
NINE DAYS MISSING
‘A package for me?’ Kate murmured into the phone.
‘Delivery driver says it’s addressed to you specifically, care of this address,’ the constable on the front desk replied. ‘You want me to send it back?’
Kate nodded towards Patel who had just arrived in the incident room wrapped in a thick grey coat and dark scarf. He mimed the action for a drink and she thrust her thumb into the air. Although she’d already had two cups since she’d arrived just after six, she had a feeling it was going to be another long day.
‘Who’s it from?’
‘There’s no card with it. You want me to open it?’
Kate sighed, annoyed by the interruption. ‘No, I’ll come down. Tell the driver to wait.’
Kate hung up the phone, and made her way across to Patel.
‘You’re in early, ma’am,’ he commented as the coffee machine whirred to life.
‘Couldn’t sleep,’ she lied. ‘I wanted to have another look at the statements we took from Daisy’s teachers. I have a feeling there’s something we’re missing, but I can’t put my finger on what.’ She thanked him as he handed her over her mug. ‘Be honest, Patel, do you think I’m wrong in treating this as just a runaway case? Do you think something bad may have happened to Daisy?’
He considered her for a moment. ‘You’re the one always telling us not to accept everything at face value and to explore every investigative lead. Humberidge is a pessimist, but there’s some truth in his point worth exploring.’
‘You think Val or Barry Emerson has killed her?’
‘No… well, not necessarily them. But it just strikes me as odd that nobody has seen her since she left Georgie Barclay’s house.’
‘What about Alfie Caplan?’
‘Honestly? No, I don’t think he has it in him, but then nothing would surprise me these days.’
‘If not the boyfriend, the best friend? Could Georgie Barclay be lying about when Daisy left her house?’
‘We only have Georgie’s word for it. Daisy was supposedly there from 6 p.m., but what if she didn’t stay long, what if she didn’t stay at all? Perhaps we should expand the current time window.’
‘But her mobile phone signal has her in Abbotts Way until twenty past nine.’
‘Maybe she left it with Georgie to throw us off the scent.’
Kate wasn’t convinced. ‘Doesn’t explain why nobody’s seen or heard from her since.’
‘True.’ Patel paused to sip his coffee. ‘Back when I was just starting as a DC here, there was an incident where a teenage girl was grabbed on her way home from a pub. Not far from where Daisy was last seen, actually. We managed to trace the guilty party back then, and I’m not suggesting the same person is involved, but maybe an opportunist predator driving around saw her and attacked?’
‘Would you mind following up on that for me? Check the open Missing Persons database and look for profiles similar to Daisy’s: young and vulnerable.’
She headed for the door.
‘You want me to prepare for the morning’s brief?’
‘I’ll do it in a minute when I’m back.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘There’s a package for me at the front desk, apparently.’
‘Secret admirer?’
She grinned. ‘Who knows? Let everyone know to wait for my return before getting on with their assignments.’
*
Kate hurried down the corridor, ignoring the lift and taking the stairs down to the ground floor. The constable she’d spoken to moments before buzzed her through to where the delivery driver was standing, bearing a brown cardboard box, big enough to hold something like a motorcycle helmet.
‘I’m Kate Matthews,’ she said, showing him her identification.
The guy looked barely old enough to drive, his cheeks brimming with acne and a wispy beard looking like a chin strap. ‘I was supposed to deliver it yesterday, but my van broke down. Better late than never, huh?’ He held the box out for her. ‘I’ll need you to sign for it.’
She rested the brown box on the counter and signed her name on the driver’s digital pad. She watched him leave the building, climb into his van and drive away, before lifting the box and giving it a little shake.
It didn’t weigh a lot, and whatever was inside rolled slightly as she moved it from side to side, and gave off a floral, fruity smell.
She smiled to herself. It had to be a gift from Ben. ‘Can you pass me some scissors?’ she asked the desk constable.
He did, and she cut through the parcel tape sealing the flaps of the box. She found a second box inside, this one wrapped in colourful wrapping paper: white with little pink hearts in glitter. Some of the glitter fell from the paper as she rested the second box on the desk.
‘Someone has a secret admirer,’ the desk constable teased. ‘Is there a card?’
Oh Ben. The romantic fool didn’t know what kind of trouble such a gesture could get her in. She did the maths in her mind, working backwards to try and calculate whether she’d missed a significant anniversary since they’d started dating, but came up with nothing.
Kate turned the box over in her hands. ‘Doesn’t look like it, but I think I know who it’s from.’ Reaching for the scissors again, she carefully cut through the Sellotape sealing the wrapping paper and slid out an old cardboard box which had once been used to hold packets of printing paper. The sickly-sweet scent of flowers and strawberries grew nauseating as she slowly began to lift the lid, the first tinge of dread trickling through her. She looked inside and dropped the box in horror.
19
‘Get SSD down here now,’ Kate shouted at the constable.
He looked at her curiously. ‘What is it?’
Kate stepped away, fighting the urge to bring up her breakfast.
‘Just get them down here,’ she managed to blurt, as she desperately tried to control her breathing.
‘Okay, okay,’ the desk constable replied, picking up the phone and dialling the extension. ‘What should I tell them?’
Kate edged back towards the counter, daring herself to look again then reaching for a pair of latex gloves in a box on the desk. She took a deep breath before lifting the lid slightly once more. Nestled within the box, surrounded by stained rose and strawberry-scented car air fresheners, was a grey and shrivelled heart.
‘Tell them someone has sent me a heart and that I need to know whether it’s human.’
The desk constable leaned forward, not quite believing what he was being told, but as soon as he saw the greying tissue, he grabbed the phone and started repeating Kate’s instructions.
Kate used a pen to prod the organ, and as she did, she noticed something scrawled on one of the strawberry-scented air fresheners. Careful not to disturb the organ, she lifted it out and read the message. ‘I’m sorry.’
*
Ben lowered his face mask. ‘Well, it’s definitely human.’
Kate took a step backwards, her worst fears confirmed. ‘Can you tell when it was extracted?’
‘Based on my initial observations, the lack of blood within it and its temperature, we’re talking a few days, maybe a week since it stopped beating.’
Kate braced herself for the answer to her next question. ‘Is it Daisy’s?’
‘I can say with one hundred per cent certainty it isn’t.’
Kate breathed out a huge sigh of relief, but caught herself as the reality of what he was saying bubbled to the surface. ‘So, if it’s not Daisy’s, is it a match to our foot victim?’
‘No, it isn’t. I’ve passed the bloodwork to SSD to process and compare against DNA profiles in the system, but in the meantime, I can tell you that it belonged to a man in his late thirties or early forties.’
‘Male? How can you be so certain?’
‘The size and mass are the clearest indicators. A woman’s heart is about two-thirds the size of a man’s, and as a result weighs an average sixty grams less. This particular heart came in at about 178 grams, which is pretty average for the sex. Then there are other tell-tale signs such as the thickness of the veins, and the sensitivity of those veins too. We’re looking at a male heart for sure. Given the state of the tissue, there are preliminary signs of degradation, which led to my prediction of the age, but what’s also interesting is this heart was once attached to a pacemaker.’
‘A pacemaker.’
He nodded, stepping back to the table and lifting a flap of tissue. ‘If you look here, you can see leads that were used to send electrical impulses to the heart muscle to maintain a suitable heart rate and rhythm. I would guess that your victim suffered with bradycardia: when the heartbeat is slower than normal.’
‘But I thought pacemakers were something people had fitted after heart attacks and the like. You said he was a reasonably young man.’
‘Of the pacemakers installed each year, the vast majority are fitted to those over the age of sixty-five as you observed, but a small percentage are also installed in younger people suffering with certain conditions. It will take further examination to determine exactly why the pacemaker was fitted in this individual, but it should certainly help narrow your list of possible victims.’
‘But what does this mean? It seems too coincidental that a heart is sent to us in the same week we find a severed foot. Are they connected?’
He considered her question. ‘Whoever extracted this heart from the victim didn’t use surgical tools to do it. The vena cava, pulmonary arteries, and pulmonary trunk were cut using some kind of shearing instrument; maybe scissors? You can tell by the tear in the tissue. A scalpel would have left a different indentation. The reason we use scalpels for making cuts and incisions is they offer greater control and cause less damage to the tissue. Whoever made these cuts wasn’t worried about preserving the organ for further study. It was quite heavy-handed, shall we say. Given the type of saw used to remove the foot, it’s possible you could be looking for the same individual, but there is nothing concrete to tie them together.’
Kate pulled off her face mask as she headed for the door. ‘Call me as soon as the bloods are done. And thank you.’
*
Kate paced in front of the gathered team of detectives who’d heard the rumour of what had been discovered and were eagerly awaiting confirmation.
‘I want one of you at that delivery depot immediately,’ Kate began, without breaking her stride. ‘I want to know exactly who deposited that box with them. Get me any security footage they have too, because we need to nail the person responsible for this as soon as possible.’
DC Freeborn raised his hand. ‘I’ll go, ma’am.’
‘Thanks, Ewan. Don’t let them give you any shit about confidentiality laws, and don’t tell them why we need the information. The last thing we want is this leaking to the press. And that goes for you lot as well. I know the local journos will pay through the teeth for something like this, but this one stays under wraps. Is that clear? If it gets out, someone will hang for it.’
Freeborn grabbed his coat and made for the door.
‘The killer scrawled an apology,’ Kate continued. ‘It was written on a strawberry-scented car air freshener, identical to those we saw in the gymnasium on Friday night. These air fresheners are common, so I don’t think we should waste too much time trying to identify where they were purchased. Kate stopped and fixed the room with a serious look. ‘We have to act before this sicko gets a chance to strike again. It seems more than a little coincidental that the same rose and strawberry-scented air fresheners were used at the school and in this package. Let’s not rule anything out, but I also want you to investigate any links between the crimes. This heart belonged to a male victim, the foot a female. How many other victims’ body parts are going to turn up? If there is a new serial killer on our patch, we’re not going to stop until we catch him.’
20
With everyone’s duties assigned, Kate was about to log onto the Missing Persons database when her desk phone startled her.
‘Matthews.’
‘Ma’am, it’s Jenson on the front desk again—’
‘Tell me there isn’t another delivery,’ she interrupted, her shoulders tensing.
‘Not exactly. There’s a young man down here, wanting to speak to you. He says he’s Daisy Emerson’s brother.’
Kate had yet to meet Richard Emerson as he was away at university but she had seen pictures of him in the family home, and Val had mentioned that they’d told him to stay where he was and concentrate on his studies. Kate had been meaning to send one of her team down to Exeter to speak to him, but there hadn’t been time yet. Looking around the office, the team all seemed busy.
‘Can you put him in the soft interview room and I’ll be down in a minute.’
Locking her screen, Kate fixed two coffees, and headed down the stairs.
*
Richard Emerson wasn’t what she expected. In the photograph she’d seen of him, he’d had big stocky arms and shoulders, thick, curly hair and an early onset middle-aged paunch. But the young man perched on the edge of his seat was trim with shaved, short hair; gone was the excess weight around his face and neck, and there were defined muscles beneath his shirt. Here was a young man who looked like he’d spent a lot of time in the gym.
Kate placed the mugs on the table between them, and offered her hand. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Kate Matthews. You must be Richard?’
He leaned forward and shook her hand, his palm clammy.
‘Are you just back from uni for the weekend?’ Kate asked.
When he spoke, Kate could hear the raw emotion in his voice. ‘My professor told me I should come home and be with Mum and Dad.’
Sensing his anxiety, Kate said, ‘Remind me, Richard, what are you studying?’
‘Computer Science.’
‘At Exeter University, right?’
‘Yeah, I’m in my final year.’
‘And what next when you graduate?’
‘I’ve got a post-graduate internship lined up with IBM.’
‘Your mum and dad must be thrilled!’ She paused. ‘How are they coping?’
He looked away. ‘How do you think? They’re devastated. They just want Daisy home. We all do.’
‘As do I, and my whole team are working non-stop to bring her back, I assure you.’
‘But what are you lot actually doing?’
Kate had expected him to be upset – given the circumstances anyone would be – but she hadn’t anticipated anger. ‘We are appealing for witnesses who may have seen where Daisy went—’
‘Don’t be ridiculous! My sister didn’t run away from home. Why can’t you lot see that?’
Kate kept her tone even in an effort to diffuse his anger. ‘We are exploring every possibility.’
‘Bollocks! It’s obvious what happened, why won’t you just admit
it?’
Kate narrowed her eyes. ‘What exactly do you think has happened to your sister?’
‘It’s obvious! Some dirty paedo has snatched her. You’d be better off rounding up all the perverts on the sex offenders register and checking where they were that Friday night. You’ll soon find out which of them snatched her.’
‘I’m sorry, Richard, but we have no reason to believe any kind of sex-motivated crime has—’
‘Don’t give me that! You read about it in the papers all the time. I get that you don’t want to say it in front of my parents, but I can take it. She’s dead, isn’t she?’
The question threw Kate. ‘What on earth makes you think—’
‘Common sense. I know she wouldn’t run away; she was a good girl who worked hard and kept out of trouble. I spoke to her on the Wednesday before… and there was no way she was planning to run away. And nobody has heard hide nor hair of her for over a week, so what other conclusion is there?’
‘In my experience, these situations are never as simple as they first appear.’ He was about to interrupt her again, but she raised her hand to cut him off. ‘I will not believe that your sister is dead until I have incontrovertible proof. Every day my team move closer to discovering what happened.’
He shook his head with an angry smirk. ‘You’re kidding yourself if you think you’ll ever find her.’
Kate didn’t like where the conversation was headed, but she wouldn’t allow herself to return his volleys of anger. He was grieving.
‘You and Daisy were close, right? So, you probably know more of what was going on in her head in the days leading up to her disappearance. What did the two of you discuss when you spoke on the Wednesday?’
‘I don’t know… I can’t remember.’
‘Did you call her, or did she call you?’
‘I called her. There’s a band she really likes, and they just announced they’re going to do a gig down in Exeter. I phoned her to let her know that I was going to buy her a ticket for her birthday. I figured she could catch a train down, I’d meet her at the station, we’d go to the gig and then she could crash in my room before catching the train home the next day.’
‘That’s sweet. How did she react to the news?’
Cold Heart: Absolutely gripping serial-killer fiction Page 10
