Playing with Bones

by Kate Ellis

  Brett thought for a few moments. ‘She liked adventure. Wanted to go round the world before uni.’ He hesitated. ‘She said she liked danger. She liked to take risks.’

  The three fell silent for a few moments. Natalie had taken one risk too many.

  There was one last question Joe couldn’t resist throwing in, just to see the reaction. ‘Ever heard of the Doll Strangler of Singmass Close? He killed four women back in the nineteen fifties.’

  Brett Bluit frowned, puzzled, and shook his head vigorously.

  Emily stood up and gave the boy a businesslike smile. ‘Thank you, Brett. We might want to speak to you again so don’t leave the country, will you?’

  He looked at her, uncertain whether she was joking or not, and mumbled his thanks before making a quick getaway.

  ‘What do you think?’ Joe asked when the constable had led him from the room.

  Emily thought for a moment. ‘I reckon the poor lad worshipped Natalie from afar but he didn’t stand a cat in hell’s chance. It wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t follow her out of the club deliberately, hoping for a chance to talk to her alone.’

  Joe looked at his watch. Almost six and no chance of getting home in the foreseeable future. Not that he was in any hurry to return to an empty flat. ‘I’ll get someone to check out that Toyota.’ Suddenly he realised the rumbles in his stomach were getting louder. ‘We’d better send out for a takeaway. Do you fancy Indian or Chinese?’

  Emily started comparing the relative calorie counts in her head. But it wasn’t long before she gave up and opted for a Chinese. With prawn crackers.

  Michele blinked at Sylvia Palmer who was looming over her, holding a tray.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ the woman asked, her face impassive, devoid of emotion.

  ‘What happened?’ ‘

  You fainted.’

  ‘Why is the door locked?’

  ‘It wasn’t locked. It’s just stiff, that’s all.’

  Sylvia placed the tray on the bed beside Michele and then stepped away. Suddenly Michele felt a little silly. There had been no reason to panic and she hoped, prayed, that she hadn’t made a fool of herself. She looked down at the tray and saw a round of toast and a cup of weak tea. But then she had to watch her weight for her new career so she’d expected nothing more.

  ‘Are you feeling up to coming downstairs now? There’s lots to do. We need to get the place ready for the shoot.’ As she said the words her gaze was focussed on the window, as though she was avoiding Michele’s eyes. ‘I’ll be back to collect your tray,’ she said, making for the door.

  Michele sat on the bed staring at the tea and toast, which suddenly seemed as desirable as a cordon bleu banquet as she sat alone in the fading light. Then, as the door closed, she heard a click. As though somebody had turned a key in the lock.

  The Doll Strangler endured the ersatz pop music on the radio and the mindless chatter of the morning DJ, waiting for the news. And when it started he turned up the volume. He had to know if it was real. He had to know if it was happening again.

  ‘Police are investigating the murder of a young woman in Singmass Close,’ the newsreader said in a voice that was verging on the cheerful. Singmass Close where he had made those women suffer all those years ago. There was no mention of a doll. And no mention of how she’d died. But the police took their time revealing that sort of thing. He knew that from experience.

  He could never understand why they’d called him the Doll Strangler. He hadn’t strangled dolls. He’d strangled women. Live flesh and blood women. He’d left the dolls there because the children told him to. They liked dolls … and he wanted to please them.

  He remembered the women’s names and he whispered them to himself like a mumbled prayer. Marion Grant, Valerie Seddon, Vera Jones, Doris Cray. And Alice of course.

  But Alice had been different. Alice had lived.

  CHAPTER 4

  Joe woke at six the next morning; as he opened his eyes and remembered he was alone, a feeling of emptiness overwhelmed him. When he’d arrived back at the flat the previous night, after trying without success to contact Natalie Parkes’s errant mother in the South of France, he’d found a message from Maddy on the answering machine. When he’d called her back at eleven-fifteen, she’d been in a bar with her friend. The interview had gone well and they’d told her they might want to speak to her again within the next few days. Joe had tried to feign enthusiasm. But he knew he wasn’t a good actor.

  When his call to Maddy had finished he’d put music on loud to drown the silence – Deep Purple to remind him of his mad teenage days when he’d played drums in a heavy metal band playing uninspired cover versions. But when the accountant next door had called round to complain, he’d turned it off. He didn’t like the man but, on the other hand, he didn’t particularly want to fall out with the neighbours. After all that excitement he hadn’t slept well.

  At seven he showered, dressed, dragged a comb through his hair and grabbed a quick breakfast of toast and coffee before leaving the flat. As he walked towards the city he considered his priorities for the day ahead. He needed to follow up Brett Bluit’s statement about the car and he’d send someone to gather up all the available CCTV footage – it was possible that the killer’s image was captured for posterity somewhere. And he needed to find out everything he could about the crimes of the Doll Strangler back in the 1950s.

  The sky was glowering grey – real autumn weather – and it looked like rain but he was well prepared in his waterproof jacket. He had lived in the north all his life and being ready for all weathers was second nature. When he reached the grey stone mass of the city walls he stopped for a while trying to come to a decision. He knew he was expected at the incident room but he felt a sudden desire to see Singmass Close again now that the circus of the crime scene investigation had departed.

  He walked under Canons Bar, catching a strong whiff of urine, and looked upwards at the wooden teeth of the ancient portcullis poking out of their stone slit like the fangs of some sleeping animal – a reminder of Eborby’s warlike past. When he emerged from the shadows he saw the cathedral’s golden towers looming above the crazy maze of narrow medieval streets and the sight reminded him that he hadn’t seen George Merryweather for a while.

  George was one of the cathedral’s canons, responsible for exorcism in the diocese, along with any other problems thrown up by the occult or the supernatural. The disorganised, rather jovial George seemed like the last person anyone would pit against the powers of darkness. But George, like his ultimate boss, moved in mysterious ways. Joe had often thought that he lulled the forces of evil into a false sense of security and caught them off their guard.

  The two men had met shortly after Joe’s arrival in Eborby, when he had investigated a burglary at the clergyman’s home. They had talked and talked back then, often into the early hours, Joe returning time and time again to unburden his soul. George had understood Joe’s grief at losing Kaitlin in a tragic accident six months after their wedding and his guilt and confusion about Kevin’s violent death some two years later. He had helped him to come to terms with what he’d lost and what still remained. Joe made a mental note to get in touch with George sooner rather than later. But in the meantime he had a murder to investigate.

  He continued down Gallowgate until he reached Singmass Close and stood in the archway for a few moments, staring at the crime scene tape and the small heap of cellophane-wrapped flowers that marked the spot where Natalie Parkes’s body had been found. A pair of elderly ladies, early risers like many of their generation, were chatting to the young uniformed constable guarding the scene. They looked as if they were enjoying the excitement, fussing over the young man like a pair of grandmother hens.

  As he marched towards the constable and his admirers the larger of the two ladies shot him a suspicious look. ‘We don’t know nothing, love. You can ask all you like but we can’t tell you nowt.’ She sounded as if she’d said those words many times before and
was getting sick of repeating herself.

  Joe smiled and held out his warrant card. ‘DI Plantagenet. Had a lot of trouble with reporters, have you?’

  The woman’s expression changed, like a dark cloud lifting. ‘You could say that, love. Won’t take no for an answer some of ’em. Mind you, Tony here’s seen them off, haven’t you, love?’ She gave the young constable a fond look and he blushed crimson beneath his helmet.

  Joe gave young Tony an encouraging smile, wondering how long it would be before the press cottoned on to the fact that four women had been murdered in exactly the same location fifty years ago. The details of the doll found by the body hadn’t yet been released but once it was made public there were several tabloid editors who would think all their birthdays had come at once. Joe could just imagine the headlines. ‘Has Singmass Close Doll Strangler struck again?’ It was a question he was asking himself.

  ‘Poor lass,’ the woman continued. ‘You’re not safe anywhere nowadays, are you?’

  ‘You’re right there, love. It’s not like it used to be in the old days,’ said Joe, giving Tony a barely discernible wink. ‘I take it you live here then?’

  ‘Oh aye. Number five just over yonder.’

  ‘Nice little houses.’

  ‘Oh aye. Very handy they are.’

  Joe noticed her shiver slightly. It seemed colder here than it had been on Gallowgate … but that might have been his imagination.

  ‘You remember what it was like round here in the old days … before these houses were built?’

  ‘It were right scruffy round here. Nowt much more than slums, so I’m told. Not that I was here. I lived in Ripon … only moved here to be nearer my daughter.’

  Joe looked at the other woman enquiringly. ‘And I’ve moved from out near Pickering.’

  Joe tried hard not to show his disappointment. Just his luck to find a couple of Singmass Close residents who hadn’t been around there in the 1950s. However, there must be hundreds – if not thousands – of Eborby residents who could give him chapter and verse on the Doll Strangler murders. There had already been a couple of calls to the incident room before he left the previous night, helpfully drawing the police’s attention to the murders in those same streets many years before. And once the press office released the details of the doll, all hell would break loose.

  Joe was relieved to leave the confines of Singmass Close. It was as though a weight had been lifted; as though he was no longer being watched by unseen eyes. He hurried on down Gallowgate and saw the cathedral looming to his right.

  It was a drizzly Sunday and too early for the tourists to begin prowling the streets or for the bells of the great cathedral to disturb the Sabbath silence. As Joe passed the soaring church, people were drifting into the south door for morning communion and he experienced a fleeting desire to join them, to sit there in the shadowy tranquillity of the huge nave listening to the familiar, comforting words that would help him make sense of life, death and suffering. He wavered for a few seconds, staring at the great oak door. But he knew he had to be at the station for Emily’s morning briefing. And then there was the postmortem. Another reminder of mortality.

  As he walked on through the morning streets he could smell the rich aroma of chocolate in the air, drifting across the city from the chocolate factory on the northern edge. He crossed the bridge over the grey, swollen river and when he arrived at the incident room he found most of the team were already there. Only Emily Thwaite herself seemed to be absent, but it wasn’t long before she bustled in looking harassed and shouting to the assembled officers that her briefing would take place in ten minutes.

  Joe followed her into her office. ‘Everything OK, boss?’ She turned round and gave him a feeble smile. There were dark rings under her eyes and she looked tired. ‘I was up half the night with our Sarah.’ She picked up a file off the desk and slumped down on her leather swivel chair. ‘Did you ever have an imaginary friend when you were little, Joe?’

  Joe shook his head. ‘Don’t think so. Why?’

  ‘Sarah’s got one … name of Grizelda. We thought it was quite cute when it started but now it’s become like an obsession. We’ve got to put meals out for bloody Grizelda and leave a space in the car and … Last night she kept coming in saying Grizelda was crying. After the fifth time, I’m afraid I lost it a bit and told her not to be so bloody stupid.’ She gave Joe a guilty smile. ‘Jeff said I’ve probably scarred her for life.’

  ‘I’m sure she’ll get over it,’ Joe said as he sat down. ‘I believe nobody’s been able to contact Natalie Parkes’s mother.’

  ‘The South of France is a big place.’ She paused. ‘I finally got hold of the father in New York before I went home last night. He took it remarkably calmly.’

  Joe raised his eyebrows. No father he’d ever known would have taken the news of a daughter’s murder calmly. ‘I take it he’s coming over.’

  Emily shook her head. ‘Said there was no point till the funeral.’

  ‘Surely there’s his son …’

  ‘Don’t tell me, Joe, tell him.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Time to rally the troops. PM’s booked at nine-thirty.’

  Joe walked out into the incident room where pictures of the dead girl in life and death had been pinned to a large noticeboard, the contrast so shocking that it almost took his breath away.

  Next to the noticeboard was a white board on which Emily had scrawled various observations. Everyone who was at The Devil’s Playground on Friday night had to be traced, interviewed and eliminated, and the car Brett Bluit had seen draw up beside Natalie had to be found as a matter of priority. And someone had to drag the original files on the Doll Strangler murders in the 1950s out of the archives to see whether there was a genuine link with the case from the past or whether reading about it had just given some sick killer a gruesome idea to copy.

  When Emily asked about the house-to-house interviews it seemed they had drawn a blank. Only Jamilla Dal had anything of interest to contribute. She had tried to call at number six Singmass Close on several occasions but nobody had answered the door, even though the neighbours had claimed there should be someone in. And the doll in the window staring down at the murder scene had made her uneasy. It reminded her of the doll found with the body, she said with a shudder. Joe told her to try again. Jamilla, the only Asian officer in CID, was a level-headed young woman, not one to let her imagination run away with her. If Jamilla felt there was something wrong, Joe knew it was worth investigating.

  He sat beside Emily and listened while she announced that first thing on Monday morning Natalie’s friends at Hicklethorpe Manor School would be interviewed. They needed all the information they could get about the dead girl. And all the gossip.

  Once the briefing was over, Joe drove to the hospital with Emily sitting beside him. She said nothing as he steered through the traffic, cursing the tourists who were circling like vultures in search of a precious parking space. It wasn’t like Emily to be silent, but he knew she was psyching herself up for the post-mortem. Joe felt the same. He still hated the intrusion into the privacy of the dead.

  Dr Sally Sharpe looked remarkably cheerful when they arrived … almost as if she didn’t mind her weekends being disturbed by the necessities of work. But for a pathologist, Joe supposed it came with the territory.

  Sally gave him a coy smile, ignoring Emily for the moment. ‘Ready?’

  He breathed deeply and smiled, ignoring the hint of promise in her eyes.

  Natalie Parkes was waiting for them on the stainless steel table. She looked as though she was asleep and Joe hesitated before accepting Sally’s invitation to draw nearer so he could get a better view of the proceedings.

  Sally began her minute examination of the naked corpse, noting every mark and scar and observing that there were marks around the neck consistent with strangulation by a ligature – something soft like a scarf or a tie … or a stocking.

  Sally spoke matter of factly into a microphone suspended ab
ove the table, nodding to her assistant when she wanted something photographed for posterity. She continued her examination, ending with the conclusion that the big toe on the victim’s left foot had been severed cleanly by some sort of sharp blade.

  Joe watched as Sally ran her gloved fingers over the dead girl’s torso before making a Y-shaped incision in the chest. He almost expected Natalie to cry out as the flesh was sliced open but all he could hear was Sally’s voice keeping up a running commentary. As he watched her going about her work, he was torn between marvelling at the wonderful creation that is the human body and feeling slightly queasy at the sight of the girl being violated in the name of science. When he glanced at Emily he saw that she was staring at the microphone, her lips set in a determined line.

  ‘She’d had a fair bit to drink,’ Sally observed as she emptied the stomach contents into a bowl. ‘If she’d kept it up at that rate, she’d have been on this slab in a few years without the help of a strangler.’

  Emily wrinkled her nose at the smell. ‘She was young,’ she mumbled. ‘Everyone’s entitled to do daft things when they’re young.’

  Joe caught her eye and gave her a weak smile, wondering whether she was remembering her own misspent youth before her wings had been clipped by marriage, kids and a career in CID. She’d never talked about her early days much but he imagined that she would have been a bubbly and attractive teenager.

  He was glad when it was over, when all the samples had been taken and the body sewn back up again, respectable for the relatives.

  ‘So what do you think? Anything we should know?’ Emily asked as they walked to Sally’s office.

  Sally didn’t speak for a while. It wasn’t until she’d sat down at her desk with the two police officers opposite her, eyes wide, awaiting her opinion, that she finally delivered the verdict.

  ‘There’s nothing too unexpected. The cause of death was strangulation, there’s no sign of sexual interference and the toe’s been cut off after death with a sharp blade – a knife or scalpel. It’s a fairly neat job … but I don’t think our friend cut up bodies for a living.’