Claudia pulled on Sharpe’s closed door. ‘I’d better get on with this new case. It’ll keep me occupied and out of trouble.’ She smiled. Someone might be dead, but she was actually looking forward to getting her teeth into a decent job.
CHAPTER 7
It was eerie. The building as Claudia entered it — all kitted out in her white Tyvek suit, mask, gloves and booties — was identical to the printed-out drawing she was carrying in her pocket. Even down to which windows were broken and which floorboards were smashed.
She’d pulled her officers from Simpson’s case, but they’d not yet made it back.
For now, she only had a partial team.
Russ was at her side. She’d filled him in on the drawing as they travelled to the scene, not knowing what to expect. She’d shown him the printout so he had something to compare it to when they got there. He was equally as stunned as she was.
It was incredible.
A metal bedstead was placed in the middle of the large open space. On it was a bare dirty mattress and on that was the murder victim. Exactly as the drawing depicted. Naked, laid on his front, with his arms pulled up above his head, tied to the bed by rope. His neck was twisted to the side, a look of utter horror on his face.
Claudia and Russ took a couple of steps closer on the metal plates the CSIs had laid down.
In the centre of the victim’s back, deep in his flesh, was a long blade with an intricate handle, culminating at the top with a ball of the same intricate design. All of it in a silver or steel composition.
Blood slipped down the sides of the victim onto the bed to pool beneath him, and wrapped around his feet was a single sheet. Both dirty and bloody.
Claudia looked at the man’s face. She didn’t recognise him. Other than from the drawing.
He was the exact man from the image.
‘It’s him,’ she said in hushed tones to Russ, as though the killer were here in the walls.
He turned to her. ‘What, the man in the drawing? You’re sure?’
She nodded. ‘Absolutely. He has a dimple in his chin. Look.’ Claudia pointed to the dead man’s chin and opened up a copy of the drawing she had on her, showing the same indentation.
‘Jesus,’ sighed Russ. ‘He even had his victim selected, as well as his location and MO. This is warped.’
‘He’s so young. How did he get such a young man here, in the middle of nowhere, stripped off this way without any other visible injury?’
‘Let’s hope Nadira can provide some answers.’
Claudia shook her head and looked down at the floor.
‘What is it?’ Russ had worked with her long enough to know when something was wrong.
‘I had a heads-up. I could have prevented this. I should have prevented this.’
Russ stared at the dagger plunged into the man and back to Claudia. ‘There’s no way you could have prevented this. How were you to even know it was nothing more than a weird gift from crime fan?’
‘I ignored it and threw it in my drawer, Russ. This poor guy is staked to this bed because I couldn’t pick up on the clues straight in front of my face. What the hell does that say about my detective skills?’
‘What it says about your detective skills is that you’re not a psychic.’
Claudia shrugged.
There was the sound of voices behind them as someone else entered the crime scene. Claudia and Russ turned to see Home Office-registered forensic pathologist Nadira Azim striding towards them. Though she was a petite woman, she swung a huge black bag in her hand as though it weighed little more than a feather.
‘Claudia, Russ, what do you have for me today?’
They both stepped to the side so Nadira could see.
‘Oh. That’s different. Poor chap. Can’t have been very pleasant.’
‘Obviously, what we want to know is if the blade killed him or something else,’ said Claudia, thinking about how the young man had got here.
‘And as always, I won’t be able to tell you until I get him on my table.’ She tilted her head to get a better view of the blade and its positioning. ‘Though I will inform you if there are any other signs of injury, if that helps.’
Claudia thanked her and stepped back slightly so Nadira could get to work.
As she did so she saw something underneath the bed. She bent over for a closer inspection, careful not to touch anything.
Russ saw her and followed suit to check out what had caught her attention.
Under the bed in a neatly folded pile were what would probably turn out to be the man’s clothes. Claudia couldn’t check them. They needed to be recovered by a CSI and processed properly.
‘Kind of him to leave his clothes for us,’ said Russ.
‘Not that he’s going to need them again,’ Nadira murmured.
She continued to work, taking swabs and clippings, and bagged the man’s hands before agreeing he was ready to transport to her morgue.
Claudia, along with Russ, walked outside in the bright sunshine, at odds with the grim scene inside the building.
They were at an old disused industrial site on the outskirts of the city, one of the few that had not yet been caught up in the regeneration of Sheffield. Once the steel city, it now had only one remaining steel works, the Forgemasters, which had a global reputation and was responsible for defence and marine contracts, civil nuclear contracts and many others, including all-important renewables.
Looking around her, Claudia wondered if their location would give them any clues as to the home of the killer. Was his kill close to home? Or had he gone wide of the mark to put them off?
Parked in front of the derelict building was an old, dark blue Audi A3. It was in good condition and appeared to be well cared for. Humming around it were several CSIs. They were clearing the ground around it first in order that the car could then be lifted to a garage to be forensically examined. But before a truck came in to lift the A3, investigators had to search for evidence that may have been accidentally dropped around the vehicle.
‘The victim’s?’ said Russ.
‘I’d guess so. I don’t see our killer still being here and leaving his only way out in full view of the cops.’ She grinned at him and he laughed.
Around them there were multiple buildings in the same disrepair as the one they had exited.
How, then, had the witnesses found the victim? Claudia unzipped her Tyvek suit, tied the arms together around her waist to keep it secure and pulled the printed image from her pocket. In the top right-hand corner was the clock drawn at 9 a.m., and written in a box at the side of it was the day: Friday.
Today was Friday.
How had they found the victim in this specific building out here, and on this specific date, and around the time on the clock?
She looked to Russ and pointed out the clock on the paper.
‘The young lads who found our guy are over there with a uniformed officer,’ he said, pointing to a marked car in the distance, away from the main scene. ‘Let’s talk to them and see what they have to say.’
CHAPTER 8
Claudia and Russ approached the boys. Dominic was with them. They couldn’t be more than fifteen years of age. Their faces had a damp sheen. Eyes dark. Fear emanating from them with every shaking breath.
‘I’ve contacted their parents,’ Dominic said. ‘They’re on their way.’ His notebook was out, and Claudia could see he’d already taken an account from the boys.
She looked at them kindly. The smallest of the two had arms like narrow sticks. She imagined if he got into any sort of fight, they’d break at the slightest touch. She’d never seen a kid so skinny. His mate, on the other hand, was wide. Cheeks like a hamster and fists like little meat tenderisers. There was something about them, an air of loneliness maybe, that made Claudia feel like they were both outsiders, and perhaps that was why they’d buddied up.
‘What were you doing here this morning?’ she asked, recognising they needed to be interviewed independently but need
ing the answer to her question sooner rather than later.
The two boys looked at each other. This was the reason you split witnesses up. So they didn’t confer. You wanted their individual accounts. Not a joined-up, compared, single account. Separately they could remember something the other didn’t and you could paint a bigger picture. Witnesses were invariably unreliable, but you could glean just enough information to start you on a line of enquiry that would prove helpful.
‘Hey,’ she chided quietly, so as not to scare them. ‘Don’t check with each other. Just tell me. Don’t worry that you shouldn’t be here. You’re not in trouble for that. You hear?’
The boys nodded in unison.
Dominic smiled.
‘Okay,’ she tried again. ‘So tell me, why aren’t you in school?’
The skinny-armed boy jutted his chin out. ‘It’s an inset day.’
‘So, what were you doing here?’
He stepped forward. Braver than his stature gave him credit for. ‘We were messing about on a UE website and eventually asked if anyone knew of any places in Sheffield.’
Claudia frowned. Russ and Dominic shook their heads.
‘What’s UE?’ she asked, totally showing her age, and she wasn’t even thirty until next year. It felt ridiculous.
She’d joined the force at a young age and immediately applied for the fast-track promotion scheme. That was how she was running her own unit at such a young age and probably why it was so difficult for her father to take his instruction from her.
The boy looked surprised. ‘Oh, erm, urban exploring. Where you explore abandoned, derelict buildings and tunnels and stuff.’ He waited for her to say it was okay to carry on.
Claudia had heard of urban exploring, but not UE. It was official. She was no longer down with the kids. Had she ever been? It wasn’t likely. She preferred to study, have her nose in a book. You wouldn’t catch her doing UE. Mostly because it was dangerous and often illegal. She realised the phrase ‘down with the kids’ showed how out of touch with the youth of today she was. She groaned to herself silently.
‘What does the website have to do with being here?’
The lad with the cheeks took over. ‘We got a DM telling us about a great place, and if we came at a specified time, we’d have a professional photographer do the photos for us. You see, it’s all about the images.’
‘So you were told to be here today? In that building specifically?’ She pointed back to the building they’d exited. An army of white ants, the CSIs in Tyvek suits, were crawling all over it.
Again they nodded enthusiastically. They were clearly trying hard not to look at each other.
‘Do you have a name?’ asked Russ. ‘For the photographer who DM’d you?’
DM, direct message. Claudia was aware enough to not need this explaining. A way of conversing on a website directly without everyone else seeing what you had to say.
Their previous enthusiasm ebbed away. Something akin to fear started a slow crawl across their faces, unsure if the promise of not being in trouble only stood if they gave the cops actionable information.
There was a pang in Claudia’s stomach, an uncomfortable urge to protect them. It was unlike her. She was all about the job. Surging forward to identify and locate offenders, killers, child abductors. But here she was, standing in the sunshine, wanting to mother two bewildered boys.
‘Erm . . .’ The chubby-cheeked boy couldn’t help but look at stick arms before eyeing up Claudia and yanking his gaze away. ‘He didn’t have a name. It was a random handle.’
‘And do you remember what it was?’ pushed Russ.
The boy flushed. Considered the question. ‘Yeah. He was PixPositive. One word, two capital Ps.’
Russ wrote in his notebook, then turned it around to the boy. ‘Like this?’
The boy stuck one of his thick fingers on the page in his excitement. ‘That’s it.’
They had something to work with. ‘And the name of the site you were on?’
‘Enter at Your Own Risk.’
At least they acknowledged the dangers of urban exploring straight up before anyone even posted or read anything. The title of the site said a lot. They’d have to do some research. Now, though, they needed to get the boys to the station, split them up and take their statements. Their parents were on their way and expecting to be updated. They’d be horrified by what their boys had come across.
‘Before we go and take your statements, I need one last thing from you.’ Claudia was both hopeful and doubtful about where this next question was going to lead. ‘Did PixPositive meet you here?’
CHAPTER 9
Claudia wondered what effect this would have on the boys. At this age, seeing death was not the norm — though some families might allow them to see loved ones who had passed away, murder was a different matter altogether. It was brutal and violent. And this scene had no equal.
Dominic ushered the boys into the marked police car, spoke quietly to the uniformed officer, then walked back to Claudia. ‘I’ll go with them. A friendly face. Well, someone they’ve come across from the start.’ He studied his daughter. ‘If that’s okay with you?’
It was fine as far as the job was concerned, but she wanted to talk to him. Work was not the ideal place to do it, though. ‘I need to grab you at some point if I can,’ she said.
‘I know, Sunday lunch is off.’ He scrunched up his face in disappointment. ‘There’ll be other weekends. It can’t be helped. If I didn’t work on the same unit as you I’d think you were trying to put me off.’ He laughed at his own joke.
Claudia tried to smile along with him, but it felt forced, like her skin would crack at the effort.
Concern skimmed across his face. ‘What is it, Claudia? And please don’t say nothing. I know you well enough to see when there’s something wrong.’ He looked back at the boys in the marked car. ‘And we’ve been through more than any other father and daughter for me to understand when you have a problem praying on your mind.’
Claudia hated that he worked so close to her at times like this. She wanted to work her own way through the issue, before she had to confront her father with it. As it was, she needed to tell him about the meeting with Tyler before he heard it from anyone else. She felt guilty for sharing the information with Sharpe before Dominic. Not that she expected Sharpe to disclose what she knew, but that wasn’t the point. She hadn’t come straight to her father. Why was that?
What was the reason she was putting off such an important conversation?
‘Claudia?’ He nudged her. She’d wandered off in a world of her own.
‘I’m sorry. I’ll catch up with you later,’ she said and moved off towards Russ, who was already halfway back to the primary crime scene, pulling up the Tyvek suit again ready to re-enter.
‘So it was a ruse to get the boys here at the right time,’ Claudia said as she strode up behind him. The sun was so bright it was burning through the Tyvek suit, her arms prickling with heat. Sweat was dribbling down her back and gathering along the elastic of her knickers as it went around her hips and stomach. She hated being cold, but there was nothing as disgusting as being too hot. She wriggled in an attempt to ease the discomfort of perspiration. It did little.
Russ started, his large frame jumping slightly in his skin. ‘To match the time and day on the clock in the drawing?’
Claudia pulled it out of her pocket again before she zipped up the white papery suit.
Russ and Sharpe were the only people who knew about the drawing so far. This was another question. Why hadn’t she told Dominic about the drawing? Probably because the boys were there in front of them. But before that? Before they set off. She should have informed the team before they headed out.
Her stomach twisted in on itself. She was raw with anger and guilt at how badly she’d let this victim down. It was these emotions that drove her actions, prevented her owning up to her mistake. She would, of course, have to explain everything back at the incident room. For now
they needed to process the scene. So she would hold on to her self-loathing for a little longer.
‘He needed a way to get us here at the hour he predicted. There’s no way we’d have known about him in time without the killer preparing it for us in this manner,’ she said. ‘It’s macabre, but I do think he set the boys up to find the victim, to match up to his drawing.’
‘The big question is,’ Russ said, ‘was he here, watching somewhere? Soaking up the boy’s reaction?’
‘They didn’t see him,’ Claudia replied. ‘But there’s nothing to say he wasn’t here, revelling in his work. Let’s have another look around, shall we?’
Claudia and Russ signed back into the scene and entered the building. They stared around the space with fresh eyes following Russ’s last query. Had the killer been here watching the discovery of his live drawing? The space was cavernous. It was as tall as it was wide with an open second floor you could see from the ground. Steel stairs led up from the rear of the building. It hadn’t been emptied out. Remnants of what used to fill the site before it was left to rot still remained. Huge boxes and canisters on wheels that anyone could hide behind. Vast tables and bits of machinery. Claudia was sure they would find that the bedstead the victim had been found on had come from inside the building somewhere and been dragged to its central location for its performance piece.
‘You think that might be what he needed?’ Claudia asked. ‘An audience. The boys. Poor lads. It’s grim to consider they could have been part of his entertainment.’
‘But why send the drawing to you?’ asked Russ.
Claudia furrowed her brow. It was a question she didn’t have an answer to.
CHAPTER 10
Back at the station, Claudia gathered the team together for their first briefing of the case. Graham and Lisa had returned from supporting Simpson, and she had a full complement of staff.
She paced around the incident room with the photocopy of the drawing folded in her hands. Time to let the unit in on what was really happening.
SECONDS TO DIE a totally gripping serial killer thriller with a twist (Detective Claudia Nunn Book 2) Page 3
