The Death Collector

by Neil White

  ‘Are you all right, Joe?’

  He took too long to reply.

  ‘You need a break,’ Sam said.

  ‘I can’t afford to take a break.’

  ‘Everyone needs a holiday.’

  Joe shook his head. ‘Do you know how stretched everything is in my world? I’m the only criminal lawyer in the firm, and we’ve got the other departments screaming at us to make more money. The recession is affecting how much commercial work there is and everyone wants lower fees. If I take any time off, the figures will suffer, and then my job will suffer. The way things are in criminal work, if I lose my job, I won’t find another one, so I’ll end up trying to stretch road traffic injuries into something worth paying out.’

  Sam paused, and then said, his voice soft, ‘You were never the one to feel the pressure. That was me. I’m worried that you’ve got cracks showing. You look tired. I mean, really tired.’

  ‘I’m fine, Sam, don’t worry about me.’

  ‘And what about Carl Jex and Aidan Molloy?’

  As Joe thought about what Sam said, he remembered Gina’s advice and realised that there was only one answer.

  ‘I’m going to forget about it.’

  Thirteen

  Carl leaned against the wall, his eyes closed, not wanting to open them again or to see what was in front of him. He felt dizzy. But he had to look, he knew that.

  He steeled himself, the air filled with the fast drum of his heartbeat and the nervous rasp of his breath. He could do this. He scrabbled around on the floor for his torch, clicking it on when he found it and then opened his eyes.

  His stomach rolled.

  She was lying on her back, her head to one side, her dark hair fanned over the floor. She was much older than he was. In her thirties, he guessed, and pretty, but her face had lost all personality. He looked for injuries, like bumps and bruises, a cut, dried blood, some kind of hint as to how she had ended up in the cellar. All he could see were small brownish bruises around her neck, like spots. Her face was turned to one side, expressionless, her legs jutted out, stiff, so that she was like a mannequin thrown to the floor, the tarpaulin loose over her body.

  He stepped closer, nervous, even though he knew she wasn’t about to grab him. Her clothes weren’t there, but then Carl remembered the clothes in the wardrobe, how one set looked familiar. From the night before.

  He reached out, even though he knew he didn’t want to, but it was like a compulsion, just to reassure himself that it was real. As his hand touched cold flesh, like something fat-coated from the butcher’s window, he recoiled. He wanted to cover her up, make her decent, even though he knew it was pointless.

  There was a noise. It was barely audible but something about it warned Carl that danger was heading his way. He stopped and listened out. Then he recognised it as the rumble of a car engine. The man was back. There was the crunch of tyres on the short driveway, followed by the open and close of a car door and then the slow click of footsteps.

  Carl faltered. He might be caught if he left the cellar. Perhaps he ought to wait it out and sneak out in the dead of night. But what was the man going to do with the body? He would have to come into the cellar to dispose of her, and then he would be trapped.

  He ran for the stairs, his torch off now and back in his pocket, needing both hands free, feeling his way along the walls. He had left the back door unlocked; he could make a dash for that. He didn’t care about the noise. It was all about getting out. The front door opened as he ran upwards, his footsteps echoing in the cellar space.

  As Carl burst through the door and into the hallway the man was already running forward, shouting. Carl put out his hands, ready for the impact.

  Carl was winded as the man’s shoulder caught him under his ribs. He was knocked backwards, but the man kept on pumping his legs, so that Carl was propelled backwards, his arms knocking against the walls, his feet struggling to keep his balance. He was pushed back towards the cellar, and his hands reached out for the doorframe but there was too much momentum against him. The man gave a final hard shove and then Carl was falling backwards, his arms out.

  Carl knew the impact was coming, but it seemed to take an age. All he saw was the glare in the man’s eyes as he braced himself for the collision. When it came, it was just a crack and then a bright light of pain. He heard someone scream as he carried onto the bottom of the stairs, rolling, jarring as he hit each step, realising belatedly that he was the one screaming.

  When he hit the bottom, as his head hit the wall, the hot fire of pain was blotted out by the quick merciful descent into darkness.

  Fourteen

  Sam was eating his breakfast of buttery toast and hot coffee when he got the call. The morning sun was bright, adding extra gleam to his daughters’ blonde hair. Alice was overseeing the routine of sugary cereal that seemed to decorate most of the table and the glasses of milk that painted white horns onto the corners of their mouths.

  He put down his cup and took his phone from his pocket. It was Charlotte. She had been Sam’s first real ally when he moved there from the financial crimes unit and they’d become their own little team, watching out for each other. Sam didn’t play office politics. He caught crooks.

  He felt a jolt of anticipation as he clicked the answer button, but it was taken away by immediate guilt. If you’re on the Murder Squad and you get a call when you’re off duty, someone has died and it’s serious. But he couldn’t avoid that feeling of excitement about what lay ahead, or the trepidation about what it might involve.

  ‘Hi, Charlotte. I take it this isn’t a friendly wake-up call?’

  ‘Sorry, Sam, but they’ve found a body on the moors.’

  ‘The moors? Saddleworth?’ His mind raced with the potential press clamour, knowing the infamy of the location. Alice paused to look at him.

  ‘Yes,’ Charlotte said, but then added quickly, ‘It’s not what you think. Nothing to do with Hindley and Brady, but we need to get there.’

  ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘Just leaving home.’

  ‘Can you pick me up on the way? No point in taking two cars up there.’

  ‘No problem. I’ll be ten minutes.’

  Sam threw his phone onto the table and drank his coffee quickly to shake himself awake, but threw the rest of his toast into the bin. He knew he would regret it later; seeing a dead body on an empty stomach was never a good idea, but that didn’t make him any hungrier. He knew the routine afterwards. Bacon sandwiches from a roadside van just down from the station. It was life-affirming, that on seeing an end to a life the team had urges to celebrate their own and suspend the diets and good intentions.

  ‘Rushing off?’ Alice said.

  ‘Yes. There’s a body.’

  ‘There’s always a body,’ she said, turning away. ‘You’ll be late, I suppose.’

  Sam sighed. It was too early for this. ‘You know how it is.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ she snapped. ‘You remind me every time and it’s up to me to take care of everything.’

  ‘Alice, don’t be like this.’

  ‘What, feeling like I live on my own sometimes? Just go, Sam.’

  Sam thought how to respond, but he decided to leave it. He wasn’t ready for another argument.

  By the time Charlotte’s car, a neat grey Golf, appeared on the street outside his house his fatigue had disappeared, replaced by a keenness to get to the scene. Alice didn’t say anything as he kissed Erin and Amy on their heads, before heading outside. When he climbed into Charlotte’s car, he was met with a blast of her perfume, strong flowers that he felt seep into his clothes.

  ‘Sorry about the early start,’ she said. ‘Hunter called and told me to get everyone together.’

  Sam frowned. This was a murder, nothing unusual in Hunter being involved, but he remembered the discussion from the night before.

  ‘Why Hunter?’ Sam said.

  ‘Why not? It must be something newsworthy. He’ll be deciding on his press confe
rence suit as we speak.’

  ‘They ought to let you do it,’ Sam said. ‘You look like you’ve been getting ready for hours.’ And he meant it. Not yet thirty, the energy of youth gave a shine to her soft brown skin.

  ‘You must have sleep in your eyes,’ she said, smiling.

  As Sam watched the familiar sights of his neighbourhood rush past, open-plan lawns and bright new bricks, he said, ‘So, what do we know about it?’

  ‘Nothing yet,’ Charlotte said. ‘Hunter just told me where to go.’

  ‘Why didn’t he call me too?’

  ‘Because he’s sleazy. I think he likes the idea of talking to me when I’m still in bed.’

  ‘Really?’ Sam said, laughing.

  ‘Hey, it’s not funny. You know he made a play for me, when we went for that drink at Christmas.’

  ‘No, I didn’t know that. And he’s married.’

  ‘That’s what I told him. It gave me a reason to say no, which sounded better than I didn’t like the way he dyed his hair, or his tan, or his cigarette breath, or the fact that he’s just too bloody old.’

  The journey settled into small talk as they rounded southern Manchester and then started to head upwards, the land rising to the flat plain of the Pennine moors, a landscape of heather and rough grass, brown and barren of trees, except for where it fell away to deep ravines and glinting reservoirs. The sprawl of council estates and new developments built on the sites of torn-down cotton mills gave way to grey stone, some of it in the form of small cottages, but others were grand detached houses with imposing bay windows. Even that was lost eventually, as they started the long rise to the moors, where the road twisted and climbed and the city sprawl of Manchester was lost to the stillness and mist higher up.

  Sam pointed at a cluster of cars and vans ahead, where a uniformed officer was stationed to wave on those who wanted to slow down and look. Sam pulled out his identification as they drew close and they were directed to a semi-circular patch of gravel that served as a car park. The view one way was spectacular, over a deep valley that ran to a reservoir in the distance, the morning sun glinting starburst flashes. It was where people went who wanted the moors but without the walk, so that they could take in the splendour from their car bonnets whilst eating an ice cream from the van that parked there on summer weekends. Straight ahead, though, it was just a long expanse of moorland, the white paper suits of the forensic teams the only bright spots.

  As they stepped out, Sam wished he had brought a coat. The wind was sharp and damp, so he buttoned his jacket and thrust his hands into his pockets.

  The main crowd was well away from the car park, although Hunter had stayed back from it, in deep conversation with DS Weaver, his sidekick, recruited into every investigation Hunter conducted. He was like a cheaper version of Hunter himself, his hair grey and scruffy, his cheap polyester shirt straining against the paunch of his stomach.

  Sam and Charlotte set off walking. It wasn’t easy. The ground was spongy and rutted and with long moorland grasses that were made slippery by the morning dew. As they got closer to Hunter, Sam said, ‘Morning, sir.’

  Hunter turned round. He looked pale.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Sam said.

  Hunter didn’t answer at first, just exchanged glances with Weaver. ‘It’s a bad one,’ he said eventually.

  ‘Are you the SIO?’

  Hunter nodded, although being the Senior Investigating Officer didn’t look like it was a good start to his week. ‘It’s just on our side of the boundary so the Yorkshire boys were happy to hand it over,’ he said. ‘Looks like we’re the lucky ones.’

  Charlotte had walked over to a box containing the forensic suits and was slipping one on over her clothes to prevent contamination of the scene. Sam followed her lead, leaving Hunter and Weaver by the road, and once they were both ready, with white paper bonnets and masks over their nose and mouth, they walked towards the crime scene tape that had been stretched over the moors.

  Their suits rustled as they walked. Even that early, and at a murder scene, the view was breathtaking. The moors stretched for miles ahead, no trees on the top, so that it looked ominous, secretive, the browns and greens broken only by the occasional black scar, where the peat soil shifted and exposed itself. The ground was never still.

  The place was timeless, unchanged, blighted only by the occasional electricity pylon and the rumble of traffic. It was the high barrier between the two warring factions of Yorkshire and Lancashire, sometimes impassable in winter, so that they grew up as rivals, not neighbours.

  Ahead the movement of more white paper suits breached the serenity. They were clustered around a white tent, bright and incongruous against the dark heather. Sam and Charlotte walked together but they didn’t say anything. When they got to the tent, Sam looked in and then blew out noisily.

  There was a woman’s torso, pale, with the red and white of muscle and bone showing where the legs had been hacked away, and the same with the arms. The limbs weren’t missing, though. They had been placed alongside the torso, so that the legs spread out from where they had been positioned just above the hips, the arms the same, so that her body made a grotesque X shape.

  He backed out of the tent and lowered his mask to suck in some clean air. Charlotte did the same.

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’ Charlotte said eventually, her voice quiet.

  Sam shook his head. ‘I don’t know, but it clearly means something. A lot of care has gone into the placement of the body.’

  ‘But why up here? So desolate.’

  ‘That might be the whole point. Who’s going to see you putting her here?’ Sam glanced back at the woman’s face, illuminated by the occasional flash from the crime scene photographer. ‘We’ll be able to get fingerprints from her, and DNA, and look at her ankle.’ He pointed. ‘There’s a tattoo, a small butterfly. If she isn’t on any database, that might help to identify her because a missing person report will mention it.’

  ‘I don’t get the point of the deliberate display, though,’ Charlotte said. ‘Why go to all the trouble of cutting a body apart to make a statement and then display it somewhere so remote?’

  Sam looked around and saw what she meant. There were walking trails across the moors, just small snaking gaps in the tangle of heather, but none near the body. You wouldn’t come across it unless you ventured from the trails.

  ‘So how was it discovered?’ Sam said. ‘Her body looks freshly dead, no real decomposition, and whatever slim chance there was of her body being discovered, it happened straight away.’

  One of the crime scene officers looked up and pointed further along, back towards the road. ‘There’s a trail just over there, not far from where you parked. Someone came up here this morning looking for some birds or something, was scouting the hills with binoculars when his lenses picked up a flash of white. He walked over for a look, and this little display spoilt his morning.’

  ‘What’s Hunter been like?’ Sam said. ‘He seems quiet.’

  ‘He’s been bloody useless. The body was probably brought along the path that you walked along, but he’s just let everyone trample all over it. It was buggered as a crime scene a long time before you trampled it a bit further.’

  ‘So what now?’

  ‘We get her to the lab. Once we move her, we might find something left behind, but we’ve heard nothing about search teams coming up here.’

  ‘She won’t have been killed here though, will she?’ Sam said. ‘This is just a dumping ground.’

  ‘So what’s the most crucial thing?’ the CSI said. ‘The route the killer took, of course, from wherever he parked to where he placed her, but people have wandered all over here in their boots and even parked their vehicles in the layby. We don’t know what is new and what is old.’

  ‘That doesn’t seem like Hunter,’ Sam said.

  ‘He’s losing his touch. He retires next year. Perhaps he’s thinking of the beaches too much.’

  Sam looked back to
where Hunter was standing. He was apart from everyone else, his hands thrust into his pockets, looking towards the scene as if he didn’t want to get any closer, Weaver pacing behind him.

  Something wasn’t right.

  Fifteen

  The morning had started slowly for Joe, his waking head filled with thoughts of Carl Jex and Aidan Molloy. It was the Aidan Molloy case that intrigued him. Carl Jex was really just another small piece of strangeness in a world that was often filled with oddities.

  It had been a long time since Joe had looked forward to getting to work.

  The decline had set in slowly for him. A year earlier, Joe’s profession had defined him. It wasn’t just what he did but it was what he was. A lawyer. And not just a lawyer, but a criminal defence lawyer. He helped people. They didn’t always deserve the help, Joe knew that. Not everyone could blame their past for how their lives had turned out. Sometimes it was about greed, or impulsive stupidity, and occasionally it was pure wickedness, where people with a skewed moral compass expected Joe to help them stay free so that they could do it all again. Joe understood that and had learned to rationalise it. A fair society needed someone like Joe to maintain its balance. Everyone deserved fairness, and the state shouldn’t pick and choose who deserved it and who didn’t.