CUT DEAD: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel

by Mark Sennen

  ‘Done with care?’ Savage said.

  ‘No care for the victim, obviously, but care for the precision of the line, yes.’ Nesbit looked up at Savage. ‘We considered the cuts with the Glastone woman, wondered about the date, the summer solstice. Some sort of ritual. To be honest, back then I thought it was the stuff of fiction, but …’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘This girl. The two others. Could be something to ponder.’

  ‘Was she …’ Savage began to think on Nesbit’s words. Had the girl been sacrificed? Perhaps tortured? ‘Was she alive?’

  ‘See there and there and there?’ Nesbit indicated dark brown splodges on the abdomen. ‘Blood has come from all the cuts but here it has flowed rather more freely and stained the skin. That couldn’t have happened after death.’

  ‘Shit,’ Hardin said. ‘I just remembered why I don’t like attending these things. I’ll need a couple of extra glasses of sherry this evening.’

  ‘You’ll be lucky to get home in time for drinks, Conrad. We’ve a few hours to go before I finish up.’ Nesbit glanced at Hardin and then across to Savage. ‘If it’s any consolation she might not have been conscious when the cutting took place, but unless the killer tells us we’ll never know.’

  ‘We can hope though,’ Savage said. ‘Can’t we?’

  Nesbit didn’t answer. Hope, Savage thought, probably didn’t play much of a part in his professional life because invariably there was none for the people who appeared before him. Hope was an emotion for the living, those left behind, those praying for some sort of resolution.

  Nesbit was poring over the cuts, making measurements and counting the number. The way he moved the spatula, the tape measure, was ordered, done with care. The killer had done the same, Savage realised. She was wrong earlier, Nesbit right as usual. There was no frenzy here, only purpose. The killer wasn’t driven by a homicidal rage, they were driven by their craft. Was it possible the art angle which Dr Wilson, the psychologist, had suggested at the time of the earlier disappearances was correct? Unlike an artist though they didn’t worry about whether anyone would see their endeavours. Their work displayed the pleasure they took in the task at hand, but to do it was all they needed.

  Savage wondered what sort of person could kill in such a way? Maybe a better question was what sort of thing? Surely not anyone with a scrap of humanity. For a moment she looked heavenward, an almost involuntary action, and the harsh overhead lights made her blink. What had this woman and the other victims done which could merit such violence being done to them?

  ‘Charlotte?’ Nesbit walked across to her. ‘We’ll open her up now. See what else we can find. Are you OK?’

  ‘Sure, Andrew,’ Savage said, not feeling at all sure. ‘Never been better.’

  Towards the end of the PM Savage took a call from Calter. She muttered her apologies to Nesbit and headed from the room, glad of a breather. After the cool of the autopsy suite the heat of the summer evening outside the building hit her like a wave.

  ‘Phil Glastone, ma’am,’ Calter said. ‘The first victim’s husband. I’ve just spoken to him. To say he sounded aggrieved that we want to talk to him about the latest developments would be an understatement. He was bloody livid.’

  ‘Abusive?’ Savage said.

  ‘Yes, although I’ve heard worse. The gist of it, once the swearing was over, is that he can see no reason to cooperate with us this time round. I told him he had no choice. Made an appointment for tomorrow morning, OK?’

  Savage said it was fine, congratulated Calter on dealing with Glastone and hung up. She found a nearby bench and sat down. She’d go back in a bit, but the PM room, self-evidently, was a place of death. Out under the sky with the late sun on her skin and a gentle breeze flicking through the trees, she could think of nicer things for a few minutes.

  Inevitably though, having been in the mortuary, her mind turned to Clarissa, Samantha’s deceased twin. Clarissa had died as a result of a hit and run accident on Dartmoor. A dreamy summer picnic beside a stream had turned into a nightmare from which Savage and her husband had never fully recovered. Partly this was because the driver of the car which had killed Clarissa had never been traced. But earlier in the year, having done a favour for Kenny Fallon, Plymouth’s crime boss, she’d received a promise. He’d get her a name, he’d said. A name, she thought, could change everything, bring closure. So far though, Fallon had been silent and other than a couple of texts to tell her he was still working on identifying the culprit, there’d been nothing.

  Come on, Kenny, get your act together, she thought. Perhaps, when the first few frenetic days of the case had passed, she’d call him. A dangerous business considering Fallon’s status, but she couldn’t wait on him forever.

  Half an hour later and she was back inside, but the body had gone, Hardin too, a mortuary technician sluicing away the only sign the woman had been there at all: grey sludge and body juices.

  Nesbit came out of the mortuary office wielding a set of notes and shaking his head.

  ‘I’ll not be able to give a cause of death, but we can hypothesise it was from the torture. Either blood loss or maybe a heart attack. Not much else, I’m afraid. The body was remarkably well-preserved considering, but no way of knowing much about the weapon from the cuts. Not after this length of time. The head was removed with something like an axe. I can see the crushing of one of the vertebrae. In the woman’s pelvic region a great deal of flesh has been cut away – genitals, everything. It’s not much comfort but I believe the removal happened after death.’

  ‘Any useful forensic?’

  ‘Apart from the material at the base of her throat?’ Nesbit reached for a plastic container. ‘I’ll wager it’s the same as found in Mandy Glastone’s oesophagus.’

  Earlier Nesbit had cut up from the stomach – or what remained of it – and found a cylindrical lump of clay. He’d hypothesised the clay must have been forced down the throat of the victim before the head had been removed.

  ‘Apart from the clay.’

  ‘Yes, although I’m not sure it’s relevant.’ Nesbit smiled at Savage and then patted his stomach. ‘She’s had a baby, Charlotte.’

  ‘What?’ Savage was hearing Nesbit’s words but not understanding.

  ‘A child. Amongst all the cuts there’s the faint sign of a Caesarean scar. At some point this woman has given birth. I expect there’ll be medical records you can check should you be of a doubting nature.’

  ‘No, Andrew,’ Savage smiled. ‘I’ll take your word.’

  ‘We’ll be doing the other two tomorrow. They’re in a bad way, but we’ll try to tease out what we can.’

  Savage thought of the grey forms which had lain in the bottom of the trench alongside the first body. Wondered what story they might be able to tell, the secrets they might give up, the secrets they would hold on to forever.

  Chapter Eight

  Bere Ferrers, Devon. Tuesday 17th June. 9.11 a.m.

  Savage got hold of her old boss first thing Tuesday; Walsh’s soft burr as he answered her call hinting at a modicum of surprise. He was, as she expected, keen to be involved, keen to see the scene out at the farm. The experience, he admitted, would provide some sort of closure. He’d meet her there within the hour.

  Savage was waiting in the farmyard when Walsh drove in and tucked his little Fiat between Layton’s Volvo and the big tractor.

  ‘Morning, sir,’ she said as Walsh got out and retrieved a pair of wellies from the boot.

  ‘You don’t have to call me sir, remember?’ Walsh pulled on the boots, steadying himself on the car. He was only in his early sixties, but with his hair long gone grey, if anything, he looked older. Retirement could be cruel to some people, Savage thought. Shorn of the excitement of the job ex-officers searched around for something to replace the adrenaline rush, but nothing could. A sort of mental deflation often followed. It was sad to think of Walsh going that way.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said, smiling to try and deflect her mood. �
��I mean, of course. It’s easy to forget.’

  ‘You know, Charlotte?’ Walsh made a half glance towards the edge of the farmyard where a white-suited figure struggled with a wheelbarrow, atop which sat two plastic boxes filled with mud. ‘Sometimes I wish it was.’

  ‘This time we’ll get him.’

  ‘We?’ Walsh chuckled. ‘Hands up, last time I failed, but this time catching the bastard isn’t down to me, is it?’

  ‘No.’ Savage shook her head and they began to walk out of the farmyard, following the aluminium track down across the field. Away in the distance, up close to the boundary hedge, the white tent stood in the centre of the muddy patch, like some sad remnant of a festival. Only nobody had partied here.

  ‘Odd,’ Walsh said. ‘The location, I mean. Far easier places to dispose of a body or three. Risky too. Does the farmer have dogs?’

  ‘Yes, she does, but they’re shut up at night. If they bark it’s usually at foxes or cars in the lane.’

  ‘She?’

  ‘Women have got the vote, sir. In case you haven’t noticed.’

  ‘Only joking, Charlotte.’ He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. ‘And does she have a gun?’

  ‘Yes, a shotgun. The farmworker too. He occasionally goes out at night to shoot a few rabbits. He’s seen nothing suspicious though.’

  ‘This guy wouldn’t want to take risks. You know his form. We believed, back then, that the victims had been targeted weeks in advance. He was careful not to be disturbed, not to leave fingerprints or anything else. The kidnappings had been planned to a T.’

  ‘Dr Wilson? I’ve been reading his reports. I’m supposed to meet with him.’

  ‘Fuck Wilson,’ Walsh raised a hand and tapped his forehead. ‘This was common sense, nothing you couldn’t work out with half a thimbleful of intelligence and a couple of true crime books as reference material.’

  Common sense or not, Savage knew Wilson had identified the killer as a highly organised psychopath. Intelligent, educated, he was in control of the situation. Wilson had gone further: the lines on the body of Mandy Glastone were akin to the final brush strokes on a canvas, he’d said. Beforehand the artist had to prepare by deciding on the subject, gathering the materials, preparing the canvas, arranging the materials. Wilson stressed in this case his ideas were not metaphors; the killer actually was an artist of some type, he would view the killing as a project. The head and genitals of the victim he would keep as a trophy, part of the post-crime re-enactment cycle.

  However, the actual evidence for the killer having any connection to the art world had been circumstantial: the cuts on Mandy Glastone could have been caused by a craft knife. Equally the PM report said they could have been made by any blade with a razor edge. The patterns themselves were interesting; whether one had to be an artist to create the swirling forms was a matter of conjecture. Finally there had been the material found in the victim’s oesophagus, stuffed down her throat before the head had been removed. Clay. Could the killer be a potter or regularly work around potters, maybe in some communal studio somewhere?

  ‘What about the arts and crafts theory?’ Savage ventured. ‘Was that common sense?’

  ‘No,’ Walsh said. ‘Total lunacy. Where these guys get their ideas from I haven’t a clue. I was against committing resources to that particular angle, but as you know the Chief Constable disagreed. Personally I think Wilson was leading us a merry dance. Down the garden path to a potter’s shed.’

  ‘You think he was deliberately misdirecting you?’

  ‘Charlotte,’ Walsh grabbed Savage’s arm and stopped walking. ‘When you get to meet Wilson you’ll realise the guy is a charlatan. They all are, psychologists. Circus tricks to impress the common people. They make the stuff up as they go along and then couch it all in terms you and I can’t understand. The longer the report, the more obtuse and difficult to fathom the better.’

  ‘Leading to a bigger bill?’

  ‘And a bigger ego.’ Walsh stared to laugh and then carried on walking. ‘You know I reckon all the pseudo-scientific garbage these people come out with is just something to cover up their inadequacies.’

  They left the metal track and followed a row of scaffold boards which in turn led to some industrial-sized stepping plates which Layton had managed to procure to replace the pallets. Savage pointed out the railway line and told Walsh how she believed the killer had come across the bridge.

  ‘Now that does make sense,’ Walsh said. ‘But we still need to work out why here?’

  ‘“We”, sir?’

  ‘Ha! No, “you” and it’s not sir.’

  Walsh began to ponder the history of the farm. They’d need to find out about disgruntled farmworkers, neighbouring farmers, villagers who for some reason bore a grudge.

  Savage explained about Joanne Black and her uncle. The farm had been an inheritance, before that the uncle had in turn inherited it from his parents. There didn’t seem to be any other relations involved. If the killer had a connection to the farm it wasn’t through his family.

  ‘It’s not exactly convenient though, is it?’ Walsh said as they approached the tent. ‘There has to be a reason.’

  Savage gave a little cough to alert the two CSIs in the tent and then introduced Walsh. Both nodded a greeting and then went back to trowelling through the layers of silt. Despite the fresh breeze blowing through the open ends of the tent, the stench was still appalling. A sweet, sickly odour which cloyed at the throat.

  ‘Jesus!’ Walsh said.

  Walsh would have been to many crime scenes, so Savage guessed the reaction was to the size of the hole rather than the smell. Leaning forwards, Savage pointed out where the bodies had lain. The sides of the hole had been shored up with more scaffold boards and to the left a yardstick stood upright. Alongside, pinned to the boards at differing heights, little numbered labels marked the depths of various finds.

  Noting her interest, one of the CSIs pointed to the lowest label, which was some thirty centimetres from the bottom of the pit.

  ‘Reckon we’ve reached the limit now,’ the CSI said. ‘The last thing we found was a ring down the foot end of body number one. The Kendle woman apparently wore a ring on a toe. The thing has gone off for the poor next-of-kin verify.’

  ‘Poor next-of-kin’ wasn’t a term you could apply to Phil Glastone, the first victim’s husband. Glastone had been a suspect on account of his record of domestic abuse, he hardly deserved sympathy. Might he, Savage wondered aloud to Walsh, deserve a second look?

  ‘Tosser,’ Walsh said. ‘Arrogant beyond belief Mr Glastone was. We had him pegged until he came up with an alibi for the day Sue Kendle went missing. We tried to disprove it but couldn’t make headway.’

  ‘What about the third? Heidi Luckmann?’

  ‘No specific alibi for that day, but by then Wilson’s theory had gained credence. Glastone’s solicitor was canny and somehow the Chief Constable got to hear about the pressure I was applying. Since Glastone was a programmer and hadn’t been near a paintbrush since primary school, the Chief told me to steer clear.’ Walsh nodded towards the far end of the pit. ‘Glastone liked women. You know, really liked them. The type of guy who won’t take “no” for an answer. He’ll have found himself a new squeeze and if he’s knocking bells out of her then maybe she’d be keen to spill a few beans. Of course just because he likes to get a bit heavy-handed doesn’t make him a killer, but nevertheless it might be worth a word for this latest one.’

  Walsh began to tell her some more about Glastone, how he’d been clocked more than once picking up toms in cities across the UK. His car registration had been recorded kerb-crawling in Bristol and Nottingham and he’d received a caution for an incident involving an escort in a travel tavern in Birmingham.

  ‘This goes back, mind, but I doubt he’ll have found God in the intervening years.’

  ‘What about his alibi for the Kendle murder?’

  ‘Brick wall that, Charlotte. Unless he had an accomplice.’

/>   ‘Two of them?’

  ‘Many hands.’ Walsh turned away from the tent. ‘Could explain how he was able to kidnap them so easily.’

  ‘Did you think this before, back when you were SIO?’

  ‘Toyed with the idea.’ Walsh nodded down towards the railway line. ‘But the bridge has got me thinking. It’s a long way across and this hole is bloody deep. Having somebody to help makes a lot of sense.’

  ‘Shit,’ Savage said. ‘If this is a double act Hardin won’t want that to get out. We’ll have a full-scale panic on our hands.’

  ‘If the media reaction last time around is anything to go by, full-scale panic won’t be the half of it.’ Walsh began to walk away from the tent and up towards the farm. He stopped half a dozen stepping plates later and turned back to Savage with a smile on his face. ‘As I said, Phil Glastone probably hasn’t found God, but if you think praying might be a good idea then it’s not too late for you.’

  When Riley arrived at the crime suite on Tuesday morning he found Davies beaming from ear to ear.

  ‘Big fan of the Chief Constable, Darius,’ the DI shouted across the room. ‘We’re both off Maynard’s bloody bird-watching excursion, thank fuck. Missing screws are apparently more important than a couple of litres of illicit diesel.’

  When Riley came over Davies explained Hardin had no option but to pull them from Operation Cowbell. Simon Fox had requested a couple of experienced officers be permanently assigned to the Corran misper investigation as a personal favour to the Governor at HMP Dartmoor, and every other available detective seemed to be dealing with the Candle Cake Killer.

  Davies took Riley’s elbow and steered him to the corner of the room where the DI had set up a mini incident room. A small whiteboard rested against the wall. On it an aerial photograph showed Princetown and HMP Dartmoor, the buildings within the circular walls of the prison looking like spokes on a bicycle wheel. There was also a mugshot of Devlyn Corran in uniform and an array of Post-its, Davies’ handwriting scrawling across them. The DI had obviously been hard at work.