Her body tensed as he reached into his pocket and produced what looked like a small black box. He unzipped it and drew out a small pair of nail scissors, which he used to slowly cut away her sick-stained top. She didn’t bother fighting him this time. Instead, she sat in the dark, shivering in her bra. He had scissors in his gloved hands, and her ankles were still bound to the chair: she couldn’t go anywhere. Fighting him would only anger him further, and then where would that leave her?
‘Please,’ she said, as he pulled the last strip of cut fabric from her body. ‘Please say something.’
The man pulled a chair that matched hers in front of her and sat before her, taking her left hand in his. When his eyes met hers, briefly, she wondered why she hadn’t seen it before. Of course it was him.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said.
Her nails were long and painted. He cut them methodically, filing each right down to the skin. At the third finger, he realised the nails were false. The realisation enraged him and he ripped at each furiously, bending them back and tearing the glue from the nail beneath. She cried out in pain. The noise only encouraged him.
He left the room.
The girl looked around her, desperately searching for something she could use to try to hit him with.
He returned. He sat back down in front of her. There was a pair of pliers in his hand.
‘No,’ she pleaded, hot tears stinging her eyes once more. ‘Don’t. Please.’
She struggled with him, but her efforts were futile. He hit her across the face, once, with an open hand, a blow hard enough to send her body reeling and the chair toppling back to the floor. He straddled her fallen body, reaching again for her hand. One by one, he ripped the real fingernails from each of her fingers.
At some stage, she passed out. She couldn’t remember everything that had happened between then and now, only that she had woken to find all her nails missing and her hands caked in dried blood. Her wrists were bound to the chair again; this time, at her sides where she could see them. She had screamed at the sight of her bloodied hands, at the memory of the pain and at the pain she still endured in the aftermath of what had been inflicted upon her, but her screams had gone ignored and she had finally fallen silent, still thinking about how she might escape this place.
Still knowing that she couldn’t.
When she had calmed slightly, she managed to shuffle the chair across the room, dragging it over the exposed wooden floorboards. She made it to the door, but when she got closer she could see it was locked. It had taken all her energy just to cross the room and a wave of frustrated tears swept over her, engulfing all hope and drowning her future.
She waited for death, praying for it, but it didn’t come.
Upon his last return, he finally spoke to her. He dragged her in the chair back to the side of the room where he had originally placed her and stood behind her, his hands resting on her shoulders, weighing her down. She heard him remove something from his pocket before she felt him take her long ponytail in his hand. The next thing she heard was the sound of scissors slicing through her hair, cutting the ponytail loose from her head.
‘I thought you might be different,’ he said, ‘but you’re just like all the rest.’
Her breathing had quickened upon his return to the room. Now, with him standing behind her and with her own hair tossed, severed, into her lap, she felt her heart slow until she was sure it would stop.
His hands tightened on her shoulders.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said quickly through her tears. ‘Tell me what you want from me… tell me what I’ve done wrong. I’ll do anything, I promise.’
She didn’t mind begging now. Not when death seemed this close.
He was disappointed in her words. She was going to say anything she thought it might take to appease him. Her desperation – her pathetic snivelled words – only made him hate her more.
She waited for him to say something. She thought that if he spoke to her again, she might be able to get him to stop what he was doing. If she could get him to talk, and properly, she thought maybe she could talk him down. She thought maybe all hope wasn’t lost.
Then he cut her throat, and all her thoughts left her.
Chapter Three
Alex crouched alongside what was left of the body at the water’s edge. The river was high that morning and faster than usual, gushing south with an urgency that implied danger, as though the water wished to rid itself of something; which it had earlier that morning, spitting the corpse on to the riverbank where it was later discovered by an unsuspecting jogger who had ventured between the trees seeking privacy to relieve himself.
Alex turned her head and tried to find a clean pocket of air to inhale through the mask she wore. She felt sick to her stomach, yet the scene of crime officers milling around the tent and on the path along the park beyond seemed unaffected, as though young women washing up on riverbanks was an everyday occurrence in the city. She knew that after seventeen years in the force she should have become more inured to the realities of death, but it was yet to happen. She would shake it off, put on the face she wore to work each morning and move the images of what she’d seen to the back of her mind, from where they would later resurface to haunt her.
The north end of Bute Park had been shut off; the rubberneckers who had gathered to gawp at the drama unfolding had been moved along by officers. In the summer months, this area of the park would be packed with families and students, the stretch of widening river just a couple of hundred metres or so along becoming a swimming pool where, on better days, sun worshippers could cool off. Teenagers would jump from the bridge, competing with one another, showing off to friends.
At this time of year though, not even the most foolhardy would brave the water.
A tent had been erected to protect the body from the elements – though it had already been subjected to a prolonged assault in the water – and uniformed officers were now performing zone searches of the surrounding areas of parkland and riverbanks. Photographs had been taken, documenting the decomposition of the corpse and the abuse that had been inflicted on the young woman’s body both before and after death.
Alex had never seen a victim such as this. Her body was blistered and swollen, the water having ravaged and bloated her. Her ankles were tethered with cable ties; her wrists, the same. From them, tattered scraps of plastic carrier bags lay like litter on the ground, torn by rocks and the weight of water.
Something had gnawed at her skin, chewing through the girl’s flesh until angry red welts scarred her body. She was covered in bruising. On both hands, every nail was missing. The river might have ravaged her, but unthinkable horrors had been inflicted long before the water had its way with her.
What sort of person could do this to another?
Alex stood for a moment to ease the pressure on her calves, but found herself unable to turn away. Turning her face from the victim seemed disrespectful, as though doing so would mean leaving the girl alone in this state of degradation, abandoning her when she most needed someone to stay. She might have a weak stomach, but Alex refused to walk away from someone in need, and quite often the dead needed her help more than the living.
‘Who did this to you?’ She spoke softly, as though the dead young woman – this girl –might somehow find a way to respond.
Did she know her killer? Most did, and random attacks tended to be frenzied. This seemed premeditated, methodical. Why were her nails torn from her hands? Was she alive at the time? Why was she brought here?
There was a gust of breeze as the pathologist re-entered the tent.
‘Don’t take it the wrong way, but I was hoping not to see you again so soon,’ Helen said.
Alex’s path had crossed with Helen Collier’s during two other recent cases, and Alex shared her sentiments. She had been hoping for a quiet new year, but was beginning to think ‘quiet’ was destined to be something unknown to her and the rest of the team.
‘Barbaric, isn�
��t it?’
Alex said nothing. A pair of lifeless eyes stared up from the hollows of a water-eaten face.
‘The fingernails,’ Helen said, crouching beside the body and tentatively taking the left hand in her own. ‘I’d say this was done while she was still alive.’
Alex winced. ‘The markings to her wrists, you mean?’
The flesh at the young woman’s wrists was cut in angry stripes suggesting a struggle to free herself from wherever she had been held. Alex scanned the length of the young woman’s body – her top half in just a muddied bra, her bottom half wearing a pair of leather-look leggings that had been torn in the river – and felt sadness sweep over her. How frightened must she have been when facing her own death? How brave she had been to continue to struggle, even when she must have realised she was fighting a battle she couldn’t possibly win. There was no question of whether she was already dead when her body had been put in the river. The deep cut of her throat clearly marked her final moments.
‘Looks as though she put up a good fight. As much as she was able to, anyway.’
Helen Collier crouched at the body. ‘Here,’ she said, gesturing to the young woman’s head. ‘Her hair’s been cut.’
She worked her fingertips gently beneath the head, moving it slightly to one side so that Alex was able to see the tangled hair that lay stuck to the girl’s scalp, matted with dirt from the riverbed. ‘I’m no hairdresser, but I’d say that’s been cut off at a ponytail.’ She lifted her gloved hands to the back of her own head and motioned a snipping action, as though Alex had been otherwise unable to imagine what she’d meant. ‘I’d say your killer kept himself a souvenir.’
‘How long do you think she’s been in the water?’
Helen lowered the dead girl’s head, letting it rest back on the ground. ‘Not as long as someone was hoping. The stage of decomposition suggests no more than two weeks. These,’ she said, moving a gloved hand to the scraps of plastic tethered to the victim’s wrist, ‘were probably intended to keep her down longer. Presumably long enough for the body to decompose altogether.’
They discussed the remnants of the carrier bags attached to the victim’s wrists. It seemed likely they had been loaded with weights – rocks, perhaps – in order to pull the body beneath the water and conceal all evidence of the crime. That would explain the choice of point of entry where the girl’s body was placed into the river. This was one of the deepest parts, and in most cases where bodies were submerged in water they resurfaced at or near the place where they had entered.
If the woman had been put into the water here, how had someone managed to get her to this point? The park was inaccessible to public vehicles. It would have been impossible for someone to carry a corpse this far into the park without being seen, even at this quieter time of year. The gates were locked at ten o’clock, meaning no one was able to gain access at night.
Helen seemed adamant that the body would have entered the water close to the place where the young woman had been found, but how had that been possible?
Alex looked back at the dead girl lying on the riverbank. Her heart swelled with a sickness she knew would stay with her until they caught whoever had been responsible for the brutalities inflicted upon her.
Until they did, this face would remain with Alex, the horrors of the girl’s final minutes haunting her.
Chapter Four
There were six people at the support group that evening: two volunteer leaders and four group members. Everyone was sitting in their coats because the hall was so cold; the three-bar electric heater that had been pulled as far as its lead would allow was offering little but the smell of burning dust, and the row of windows that lined the far wall was intent on letting in the cold, despite the ancient velvet curtains pulled to shut them out.
Sean Pugh gave a spurt of chesty coughs, as if to demonstrate how cold the place was.
‘Rachel,’ Tim said, giving the shy girl at the far curve of their circle a smile. ‘Hope you’re feeling better this week.’
Rachel’s pale face coloured pink at the acknowledgment, and Tim turned his attention to the rest of the group.
‘Would anyone like to get us started?’ he prompted. ‘What sort of a week have we all had?’
‘Shit.’
Tim turned to Carl. Six feet two on a short day, Carl Anderson’s legs seemed to fill the space in the centre of the circle.
‘Why’s it been shit?’
Carl shrugged. ‘Groundhog Day, innit? Same shit, different day.’
‘How’s the new job going?’
Carl gave another shrug. ‘All right.’
His words may have been few, but Carl’s anger radiated in an aura around him. The other members of the group seemed indifferent to his festering rage; all except Rachel, who was careful to keep her distance and always made a point of sitting to the side of him, and never opposite where she would be forced to look directly at him for prolonged periods of time.
Before Christmas, Carl had told the group he would be starting a new part-time job as a bouncer at a club in Pontypridd. Now just a few weeks in, Carl already seemed disaffected by his new employment. He wasn’t the type of person Tim Cole and Connor Price had had in mind when they’d started the support group. The group had been started with the aim of helping young people in the local area overcome anxiety and depression, yet Carl didn’t seem to suffer with either. Nor was he that young. He was just angry, and his anger was starting to make everyone else’s anxiety tangible.
‘Anyone do anything different this week?’ Connor asked, keen to take the focus away from Carl. ‘Last week we talked about meditation.’ Christ, he thought. Meditation. Another of Tim’s hippy-dippy theories. Come spring, he’d have them all out in the street hugging the nearest available tree. Still, if it kept the focus off Carl and away from Tim for at least five minutes, it was bound to be worth it. ‘Anyone try it?’
Carl gave a snort which went ignored by the rest of the group. Rachel shifted awkwardly in her seat, and Connor considered the idea that perhaps it was time this man left for good. He was making people uncomfortable and if they were unable to be comfortable here then the whole purpose of this group was lost. He might agree with Carl’s scepticism about Tim’s proposed remedies, but at least he was attempting the politer thing by hiding his derision.
Connor was adept at hiding his true feelings. It was becoming quite a skill.
‘I tried it,’ Sarah said. She flicked a long length of blonde hair away from her face. ‘It was good. Really good.’ She dragged the vowels in her words, stretching their meaning into ambiguity.
‘What did you try?’ Tim asked, reaching for his beanie hat from the floor. He put it back on, protecting his bald scalp from the snapping cold of the village hall. Beside him, Connor shifted. Sean shot him a look that went unnoticed by Connor but, for Sarah, demonstrated the intended effect of her words.
‘You know… just breathing. In and out… slowly.’
Her eyes stayed fixed on Connor, challenging a response.
‘I found meditation really useful when I first came out of prison,’ Tim said, oblivious to the looks that were being passed between certain other members of the group. The volunteer leaders encouraged group members to be honest about themselves and their pasts, always starting with themselves and their own experiences in order to develop an atmosphere of trust. There was nothing Tim had held back: he had shared stories of his drug addiction, his brief period of homelessness; his even longer period of residence as a detainee at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Connor wondered if he shared too much. Being honest was good; being too honest could be fatal.
‘The funny thing is,’ Tim continued, ‘people assume that being in prison is the difficult bit, but if you keep your head down and don’t make yourself any enemies, it’s not. Actually, it’s being released that’s the hard part. You come back out into the world, you think you’ve got nowhere to go and nothing to live for. It’s tough. Sometimes just being able to step away f
rom things makes life a lot clearer. You need that time for yourself. Did you find that, Sean?’
Sean Pugh had sat quietly taking it all in, or appearing to. Tall, skinny, and with a sleeve of tattoos that depicted the array of things he believed were to blame for his life’s early downward spiral (he had given the group a guided tour of his arm at his second meeting, proudly declaring that what he carried with him and could keep an eye on could never defeat him), he had spent three years in prison for car theft and armed robbery and was now, still only twenty-two, unemployed and living back at his mother’s house.
‘Uh? Sorry, what did you say?’
‘When you left prison. Did you try meditation to help yourself readjust?’
Sean looked at Tim as though he’d just spoken to him in a foreign language. ‘Uh… no. I listened to a lot of music though. You know, to chill out.’
Connor Price let the conversation pass over him. He kept an eye on Sarah, his mouth fixed in a grimace. Rachel’s attention was distracted from Tim’s next question about what sort of music Sean had listened to; instead, she found herself engrossed in the silent exchange taking place between Connor and Sarah: in the twitching of jaws and the narrowing of eyes that seemed to form their own muted conversation. Carl pulled his phone from his pocket and checked the time.
‘Are we going to the pub tonight?’ Connor asked, interrupting the debate.
Invariably, the group sessions often began in the hall and ended in the pub. The cold was usually a good enough excuse, although they never seemed to need one. Carl never went. Connor presumed he didn’t want to be seen out in public with them in case Carl saw someone he knew. Explaining he was out with his support group likely wouldn’t help the hardman image he seemed so keen to project.
‘I’m up for it,’ Tim offered.
There were a few nods and mutterings from the remaining members of the group. Connor got up from his chair and turned the heater off, unplugging it and moving it back to the far side of the room. The others returned their chairs to the corner, stacking them noisily.
The Girls in the Water: A completely gripping serial killer thriller with a shocking twist (Detectives King and Lane Book 1) Page 2
