Wild Thing: 'a chilling cold-blooded killer' (Ted Darling crime series Book 7)

by L M Krier

  'If it were not so tragic, this would be fascinating. Deliberate drownings are really quite rare, except in children. We'll come to those marks I showed you in due course. But for now, the lungs are telling me that this is a definite drowning. There's a fine froth in both them and the air passages, which is what I expected to see. That's consistent with similar froth that I noticed around the mouth and nose yesterday, which gave me the early indication. The lungs are quite water-logged.'

  'Would it have been quick? Would he have known much about it?'

  Bizzie lifted her gaze from her work and looked directly at Ted. Although normally bluntly-spoken, she could be surprisingly sensitive when the occasion called for it.

  'I won't lie to you, Edwin. Drowning is not a particularly quick or peaceful way to die, as the body's primeval instinct is to fight against it, to try desperately to get vital oxygen. So, sadly, he would probably have been very frightened and struggled. It takes a particular type of person to hold someone, especially a child, under water until they die. It's not physically easy to do, for one thing, unless the killer is much stronger than the victim.'

  Ted reached for another lozenge before he had even finished the one already in his mouth, biting down on it hard. He needed something, anything, to focus on as he took in her words. He had his own bad memories of the terror provoked by near drowning. He couldn't bear to think of what the boy had been through in the final minutes before his death.

  'Was he abducted from his home?' the Professor asked as she continued with her work.

  'We're not really sure yet exactly what happened. I'll know more when I've spoken to his mother in greater detail. It seems he may have wandered off out of the back garden while she was on the phone, but whether that was alone or with someone, we don't yet know. The garden backs on to the park, so anyone could have been passing.

  'It would help a lot if you could let me know roughly how long he was in the water. Kevin Turner's beating himself up that he didn't call in a dog team sooner than he did but I don't think anyone was expecting this outcome, certainly not his mother. I hope, in a sense, for Kev's sake, that it wouldn't have made much difference.'

  'My initial examinations showed he'd been in the water for perhaps six hours, if that helps? Although as I am repeatedly telling you, it is actually very difficult to pinpoint the exact time of death from autopsy findings. Sadly, any degree of exactitude only happens in books and on television.'

  'That suggests that he was killed not long after he went missing so yes, it probably means we'd have been too late, even with a dog team. I doubt if Kevin could have got dogs there in that time, unless he'd fallen lucky, like I did yesterday with Ricky. So it probably wouldn't have changed anything, except that we may have had a better lead on the killer, if Tyler been found sooner. At the moment, all we have to go on is whatever the footprints tell us, and anything you can give me from the marks on his neck.'

  Bizzie was already carefully positioning the body so they could both get a more detailed look at the finger marks on the neck, still clearly visible against the delicate white skin.

  'Any chance of finding the killer's DNA from those?'

  'Highly unlikely, Edwin, given the length of time the little chap was in the water. I'm not ruling anything out at all, though, and we will try for any trace we can give you. I can tell you immediately, as you can see for yourself, that the hands which did this are small. Another child, perhaps?'

  She again looked intently at Ted who returned her gaze, his face showing his mounting horror as he exclaimed, half under his breath, 'Dear God, I hope not.'

  'There is precedent though, in the UK,' she reminded him. 'Children as killers of other children.'

  He nodded, his mind racing with the prospect of what it all might mean.

  'There was Mary Bell in Newcastle, in the sixties, I think, and Thompson and Venables, on Merseyside, in the nineties. Their victims were other children. Can you give me as much detail as you possibly can on the hands? I don't know why it makes it any less horrific but somehow I almost prefer to think of a small adult doing this than a child killer on my patch.'

  'There are some rather interesting marks here near his hips, too,' the Professor said, pointing them out to him. 'They look rather like scratch marks. There is some sign of scratching on his neck, as you can see.'

  She turned her attention back to the boy's hands, examining the fingers and nails in detail.

  'This is nothing very scientific, I'm afraid, just my best guess. It looks as if someone was pulling down his pants, and their nails, possibly their thumb nails, caught his skin and left marks. He doesn't have long enough nails for it to be likely that he did it himself. If your killer keeps their nails quite long, that would explain both sets of scratches. I'll do a more detailed analysis of the scratches later, take some swabs, see if we can find anything.

  'So now I need to do a detailed rectal examination and take samples from there and the genital area, so I think the phrase might be look away now, if you prefer.'

  Bizzie didn't often make light-hearted remarks during her examinations, but Ted was grateful for the warning and needed no second bidding. Some parts of the PM process he always found harder to deal with than others.

  The Professor worked quickly and silently, while Ted kept his eyes averted, looking around the suite, trying to distract his thoughts. The spotlessly gleaming walls reminded him that he needed to give the kitchen at his home what his mother would call a good 'bottoming'. Trev's latest baking session had yielded its usual delicious outcome but rather a lot of cake batter had insinuated itself into the grouting on the tiled splash-back.

  'Well, I'm satisfied that there was definitely no sexual assault involved,' she said finally. 'I realise that it's not very much comfort, in the greater scheme of things, but it is at least something. I've now done all that you need to be here for, I think. I need to get the various samples tested next, and I'll email you my findings in detail as soon as I can.'

  Ted hadn't had anything more than his customary green tea with honey before the PM. He generally preferred to face the horrors on an empty stomach, to save embarrassment. He'd expected to be hungry, having given his supper a swerve the night before, but he still couldn't face any food. To go through the motions, he stopped to buy himself a sticky bun for a sugar boost, which he'd eat later, when he felt more like it.

  He greeted the team, told them he'd be with them shortly, then headed for his kettle to top up on tea before he began. He checked his emails and messages while he gulped down the hot drink, and gave the Ice Queen a quick call with the details so far.

  'Oh, dear heaven I hope not.'

  Her response was exactly like his own.

  'Whatever you need, in terms of personnel for this one, you've got it. To hell with budgets. The death of any child needs to take priority, but the prospect that the killer is also a child means you pull out all the stops and you wrap it up as quickly as you can.'

  Someone had already written the name Tyler Bradbury on the white board, with the basic details they had so far, when Ted went back to the main office for the briefing. It looked like Rob O'Connell's writing. He had really stepped up to the mark since his promotion to DS.

  Ted quickly filled the team in on all they had to date, ending with the news that, because of the size of the footprints and hand-marks, they could be looking at another child being the perpetrator. There was a shocked silence from all the team members at the news.

  'Right, initial thoughts, everyone. The mother, first, clearly. She's not a suspect at present, but we need to check her out in case. Megan, if it's all right with you, you and I will take her again, now she at least knows us by sight. We'll talk to her informally first, at the sister's place, with her present. Can you phone and set up a meeting, preferably later today, please?'

  As Megan nodded, Océane put in, 'Boss, do you want me to check for anything similar in other areas? Free the team up to do the routine groundwork? I can break off for now and
do that, if it would help?'

  Ted went quiet for a moment as the implications sank in. Their first experience of a young offender being the killer would be bad enough, but if they had struck before and were still at large, going on to kill again, it was the stuff of nightmares.

  'Yes, great, thank you. But let's not get hung up on our killer being a child just yet. It could be a small adult. We'll get a better idea when we have full details of the footwear and the hand prints when the Professor's report comes through. So, what else? Other possible lines of enquiry?'

  'Do you want me to check kiddy fiddlers on the patch, boss?' DC Maurice Brown asked. 'Even if there was no sexual assault, it might have been the intention and the killer just got interrupted.'

  'Sex offenders or paedophiles, DC Brown,' Ted corrected him. He wouldn't allow disrespect in any form from his team, especially during a briefing, even towards convicted offenders. 'But yes, thanks, get on to that. Can someone also check if we have any young persons on the patch with a history of anything at all like this? Any type of assault or attempted assault on anyone, especially on younger children.'

  'I can take that, sir,' Steve Ellis put in. 'Is it worth checking with local schools, and perhaps even children's homes, about any particularly nasty bullying incidents lately? Especially towards younger children?'

  'Good idea, Steve. Do that, please. If I get time to go to the self-defence club tomorrow, I can ask some of the children there. After all, a lot of them come because they've been victims of bullying in school so they may know what's going on.'

  Ted and Trev ran the club for local children, an initiative they'd started to help combat bullying, which they'd both experienced when they were younger. It was a huge success, always well attended.

  'Do we know who the boy's father is yet, boss?' Jo asked. 'We'll need to eliminate family and close friends early on.'

  Ted shook his head. He didn't yet have that information but it was something he would find out when he and Megan went to interview the mother.

  The handler and his dog had found the missing clothing for them before they'd knocked off for the evening so that had been sent for testing in the faint hope it might give them some sort of a pointer. It was a slim chance as, like the boy himself, it had been found in the river. After six hours in the water it was unlikely to yield much information.

  'Boss, this isn't meant to sound flippant but, babysitters. I know some of the child carers I get for Tommy freely admit to feeling like strangling him sometimes when he's being particularly difficult, so it might be worth checking out.'

  Jezza's younger brother was autistic and could be difficult. Talking of throttling him was just a figure of speech for most people, but it was something that might lead them somewhere, and with a case like this, they needed any line of enquiry they could find to start on. If the boy was used to a particular babysitter, he might well go off happily with them, but not with a stranger.

  'Boss, stating the obvious here, but it would help to know if the little lad went off by himself or if he was deliberately taken,' DS Mike Hallam put in. 'I know you'll have more detail after you've spoken to the mother, but when we start house-to-house, we could ask if he'd ever been seen going off on his own. Do you want me to organise that?'

  'Thanks, Mike, yes, that would be a big help. He was four, would he have started school yet?'

  Mike and Megan answered almost in unison, both parents.

  'Depends on when his birthday was.'

  'Find out from the neighbours; you might get an earlier lead, depending on when Megan and I can see the mother. If he was, check the school, of course. If not, is there somewhere else he might have gone to? Pre-school, or whatever they call it?

  'There's another thing, while I think of it. It may be nothing. His mother said he had some sort of flying Batman toy which he always carried with him. He couldn't sleep without it. I don't think it's turned up yet, so keep an eye out while you're round and about the area. I'll also make sure Inspector Turner knows to tell his Uniform officers that it's missing and needs to be found.'

  Oceane's long fingers were, as ever, still flying over the keyboard as she spoke up.

  'Boss, this may be crazy, but I'm just looking at those toys now online. You put Batman onto a sort of launcher, pull a cord and off he flies. What if he flew out of the garden and the little boy went looking for him? Then just bumped into his killer by chance?'

  'Anything is worth looking into as a starting point, Océane, thank you. In fact, can one of you get one of those toys for us? I'll sign an expenses form for it. If we don't get any other indication of why he might have gone off, we could do worse than try the theory for ourselves. I know the early information from the mother was that he never went off by himself, and certainly never with strangers.

  'Right, this one takes priority for now, but I don't want to drop the ball on anything else. So, Maurice, once you've checked sex offenders, back to cold cases, please. Sal, stick with the Sabden House case for now; I want that wrapping up tight.

  'Has anyone had chance for a fresh look at the Luke Martin file, and do we have any new ideas on that?'

  'I had an idea, boss, but it may be way off.'

  'Let's hear it, Jezza. I'll take anything going on that one; it's been an ongoing case for far too long.'

  'Well, I know all his friends, schoolmates and people who played in orchestras with him were spoken to at length. But what I didn't see mention of in the files was who actually got the scholarship after he was killed? I mean, it was taken as a given that he would get a place. But was there strong rivalry for the places? Enough competition for someone to want him out of the equation?'

  Ted looked at her appreciatively. Jezza was definitely a thinking outside the box sort and could often bring fresh new ideas to a case. He and the team had thoroughly investigated all those close to Luke Martin. The angle she'd suggested had not been gone into, and he mentally kicked himself that he'd not thought of it before.

  'Good, Jezza, you follow that up, see what you can find out, please. But it will need some tact and sensitivity. We can't just go barging in accusing a promising young musician of having killed their rival for a scholarship, without something solid to go on.'

  'Boss, you cynic, are you suggesting I can't do diplomatic?'

  Ted smiled, despite the seriousness of the situation. He didn't mind a bit of banter. The job was hard enough to get through, without keeping it serious all the time.

  'Right, you all know what needs working on, please get on with it. I'll let you know as soon as I have the Professor's report in full, with details of shoe sizes and any other results.'

  Before he did anything else, he was anxious to go and have a word with Kevin Turner. Kev looked up expectantly when Ted went into his office.

  'What news from the PM, Ted?'

  'Definitely a deliberate drowning.'

  'Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I should have called a dog team in sooner. We might just have been able to save him. By the time I did call the dog section, all the handlers were tied up and we had to wait. I made a bad call.'

  'Kev, the PM showed he was killed within a couple of hours of disappearing. Even if you'd called in the dogs as soon as he was reported missing, it would probably have been too late. And there's no guarantee a team would have been available earlier on. You know we can't always get one when we need one. Not your fault, don't blame yourself.

  'Something very unsettling showed up, though. The killer had very small hands and feet, so we're looking at either a small adult or ...'

  'Oh, bloody hell, Ted, no. Not that. Not on our patch.'

  Chapter Four

  'Shall I get your official car, boss?' Megan Jennings asked as she and Ted were getting ready to go and interview Tyler Bradbury's mother. 'And I could drive, if you like? That is, unless you object to being driven by a woman?'

  Ted opened his mouth to protest at her implying he might be sexist, then saw from her smile that she was teasing him. He liked that. It
showed she felt relaxed in his company. Knowing her previous senior officer, it must have made a pleasant change for her.

  'I'll just suck on my menthol sweets if you scare me too much. I'm nearly ready. If you go and get the car, I'll come and find you in a couple of minutes. Oh, and Megan? That funny stick thing between the seats is what you use to change the gears with,' he grinned back at her.

  Kevin Turner would be pleased. He was always going on at Ted about using the car he'd been allocated, pointing out that designated cars were getting like hens' teeth with the never-ending round of budgetary cuts.

  'Use it, or lose it,' was his endless refrain.

  Ted hadn't made any changes since his promotion to DCI; he just carried on as he always did. He had his own ways of getting respect from the officers under his command without relying on turning up, chauffeur driven, in a big, official car.

  He wanted a quick word with Jo before he left, putting him in charge in his absence.

  'That poor young woman. I can't imagine what she must be going through. My six can be a proper handful at times, especially when they all start fighting between themselves. But I've no idea what the wife and I would be like if anything happened to any one of them. You don't seriously suspect her for it, do you?'

  Megan asked the same thing as Ted slid into the front seat next to her and made a show of fastening and double-checking his seat belt, like a nervous passenger. It was not an enviable task which lay ahead of them. Any note of humour they could inject without being flippant would help both of them.

  'You know the statistics as well as I do, Megan. Murder by random strangers is mercifully rare, so we have to start with immediate family and work from there. We wouldn't be doing our jobs properly if we didn't.

  'I don't want to disclose too much detail at this stage, for obvious reasons, even to the mother. I wondered if you could have a glance at her hands and feet, and the sister's too, see what you think about sizes. I'm still waiting on exact details of the footwear - size and make - but Professor Nelson said at the scene and at the PM that whoever held him under the water had small hands and feet, and possibly long nails.'