Murderland

by Pamela Murray

  ‘Why can’t people just ring?’ he said mostly to himself as his and Fielding’s message read exactly the same thing:

  Need 2 c u @ morgue Barnes.

  ‘And what the hell is this? We’re all supposed to be professionals here, not kids texting one another just for the fun of it. Bloody hell!’ Burton was past tired. Fielding knew it, but was reluctant at this moment to point that fact out to him. For one thing, he most likely knew it too; and secondly, the way he seemed to be at the moment, he would very likely bite her head off. Joe Burton had, in normal circumstances, the most passive personality she knew. But on the very rare occasions that he exploded, she knew that nobody was safe, not even her. No, she certainly wasn’t going to say a thing. No way.

  Burton was about to tell her to ring both Francis and Preston, to get them to go down to see Dr Barnes straight away, but then realised he’d given them and the other DCs the night off and he felt that he couldn’t contact them again under the circumstances. ‘Text him back if that’s how he wants to play it,’ he told Fielding. ‘Tell him what’s happened this evening and say that we’ll be down in the morning, first thing.’ Fielding did as she was told.

  ‘Oh Jesus, what’s this?’ Burton exclaimed as they exited the car and saw arc lights coming from the back garden of the address they’d been given. ‘Please don’t say we have another one? I wish these dispatchers would tell us exactly what we’re going to when they contact us.’

  The constable on duty at the gate lifted the crime scene tape up for them and they ducked underneath it. The feeling of déjà vu set in. As they followed the path to the front of the house, it then veered off to the right and led them to the gate of the garden’s six-foot-plus fence. Lifting the latch, they pushed it forward. It opened to reveal a big, well-stocked garden with a white tent already set-up near the centre of it, men and women kitted out in the mandatory white Tyvek suits dotted around the lawn and a couple of plain-clothed police officers hovering around them. Burton and Fielding made their way over to the tent, a sense of dread coming over them the closer they got, feeling that whatever lay inside may well be connected to the other two murders.

  Seeing them coming, two male officers met them halfway and introduced themselves as Detective Constables McKenzie and Walton.

  ‘We weren’t expecting anybody else, sir,’ McKenzie said, a little puzzled by the arrival of two additional detectives on the scene. ‘Our DS and DI said we could handle this one ourselves.’ Adding, when he realised he was addressing two detectives who outranked them both, ‘Of course, we’re very grateful, sir, considering the nature of it.’

  ‘We got a call from dispatch,’ Fielding felt the need to explain, as everyone seemed confused, including them. ‘We weren’t told that anybody else was here either. Doesn’t look like it’s just happened, though,’ she continued, knowing that to set things up to the degree they were now set-up, took some time to organise.

  ‘No,’ DC Walton told her, ‘we’ve been here for about an hour now, haven’t we?’ The last question being directed towards his colleague, who nodded in agreement.

  ‘Okay, let’s get inside then,’ Burton urged, not really wanting to stand around making polite conversation on a night that was turning colder by the second.

  The two detective constables led them into the tent, but not before DC McKenzie turned towards them and said, ‘Brace yourselves, it’s not a pretty sight.’

  It never is, Burton thought, and they weren’t wrong. Kitted up in a white suit, the ME was still bending over the body of an older woman, if her clothing was anything to go by. It looked as if her head had been completely squashed by a very heavy object.

  Fielding fought back the urge to vomit; she’d never seen a death as violent as this one before – and she’d seen more than a few violent deaths in her relatively short time on the force.

  ‘Oh, hi again,’ a familiar voice greeted them, as the ME lifted her protective goggles and positioned them on the top of her head. ‘Didn’t think I’d be seeing you again so soon.’

  How could Claire Rawlins be so upbeat at a time like this? Fielding wondered. Hazard of the job no doubt, detaching yourself so far from the very nature of it that you become impervious to any element of shock. ‘No, me neither,’ Fielding said, still battling the almost overwhelming nausea.

  ‘I would ask what have we got, but I can clearly see.’ Burton looked the body up and down, seemingly unaffected by the sight that was now disturbing Fielding so much. ‘I’m assuming it was murder and that she simply didn’t fall and bang her head on something while out in the garden?’ A somewhat redundant question, and unexpectedly humorous for him, especially under the circumstances.

  ‘Very astute, DI Burton,’ Claire Rawlins said. Did Fielding detect a hint of humour in her voice too? ‘And you’re right, of course. We haven’t found the weapon of her death at the scene, but from what I can see of her injury – and it’s a pretty severe one, as you can tell – I would say that she’s been hit several times with a very heavy object, a large hammer, mallet, club or something of that nature. Definitely wood though, as I’ve found traces of wooden fragments in her head.’

  ‘What head?’ Burton asked, staring down at what was in effect a liquefaction of blood and brains.

  ‘Well, what was the head, detective inspector,’ Rawlins replied.

  ‘What do we know about her, Claire?’ Fielding asked.

  ‘Dorothy Johnson. Lives here with her sister, Elizabeth – both spinsters, both love gardening – and that’s really all we have right now.’

  ‘Did the sister find her like this?’ Burton could only imagine what that had been like for the other sibling, seeing your flesh and blood – and lots of blood, at that – dead in such a disturbing manner in her own back garden.

  ‘Yes, she did,’ DC Walton joined in the conversation. ‘She had a heart attack after she rang 999 and has now been hospitalised.’

  ‘It’s definitely the sister then?’ Fielding asked.

  ‘Yes, she recognised her clothing,’ DC Walton replied, adding, ‘thankfully.’

  ‘There’s one more thing I think you might be interested in, DI Burton,’ Rawlins said, reaching for a poly bag from the inside of her metal forensic equipment case and holding it up for him to see. It was what he had dreaded seeing and had deliberately not asked if it had been present at the scene, but there it was now, in front of him: another playing card, but this time it was the queen of clubs. This confirmed to him that they were now dealing with a serial killer.

  Burton’s mind was now on the next press conference.

  9

  ‘So what do we have, Joe?’ The DCI was now sitting across the desk from Burton, having requested that he come along to her office the next morning.

  ‘A bloody nightmare, that’s what we have, boss,’ he responded a bit more aggressively than he’d intended, adding, ‘sorry,’ when he realised how it must have sounded.

  ‘No… I agree with you, this whole thing is becoming a media circus, especially with Simon being attacked as well. They’re now pestering the super for more information as we are – in their words, and I quote – “just sitting around waiting for the next murder to happen”. Are there no leads at all on the sketch artist’s drawing?’

  ‘Not a damned thing, boss. Nobody’s seen him, nobody knows him… we’ve hit a solid brick wall with it. I’ve got a couple of detectives down at the council offices right now, trying to find out if he’s something to do with the parks department, but in all honesty, I’m not hopeful in the least that they will bring anything back with them.’ DCI Ambleton could sense the desperation in her DI’s voice; she felt as despondent as he did.

  ‘What about the ME? I believe that he texted you last night asking you to go and see him?’ Ambleton asked.

  ‘I was going to send a couple of DCs down there yesterday evening when Fielding and I were called to the latest crime scene, but didn’t want to bring them out again, especially after what happened yesterday with Si
mon. So we texted him back to say that it would have to wait until today, and Fielding popped along there this morning. Dr Barnes wanted to tell us that he’d found a small, barely noticeable syringe mark at the base of the neck, which he assumed was to render them unconscious prior to them being killed.’

  That only served to add to their problems, but Burton was grateful that Dorothy Johnson had been unconscious before the killer had smashed her skull. That also applied to all the other victims. Although each death was equally horrendous, at least they were not aware of it.

  ‘We’ve just heard back from SOCO, and they’ve found a partial print on the second playing cards now,’ he added.

  ‘Have they managed to get anything from them?’

  ‘It’s only half a thumb print and, apparently, they can’t get any sort of identification from it; they’d already told us that about the print on the first card. But what’s curious is,’ Burton continued, ‘the same half thumb print is on the second playing card, in exactly the same position as the first one – bottom left-hand corner. And not just another print but the exact same print, identical in every way, right down to its positioning. And now there’s another card, and I’d bet my pension on that being the same print on that one too.’

  Ambleton thought for a moment before speaking. ‘Sounds like it’s been planted there on purpose then. Half a print in exactly the same place. That’s not a coincidence – or an accident. That’s deliberate. I think whoever has done this, is playing a game with us.’

  ‘I have to agree with you, boss,’ Burton said. ‘Although I’ve no idea what this game is.’

  ‘The super has said that perhaps we should enlist the help of a profiler. What’s your take on that Burton?’

  Burton sighed. He wasn’t that keen on psycho-babble, as he chose to describe it, at the best of times. Every profiler he’d ever had anything to do with always seemed to produce the same standardised idea of the type of person the killer was: white, male, within a certain age group, of above average intelligence, killing for either sexual gratification or power. He felt their clouded judgement hampered police from looking for the real killers, the ones with the most motive, rather than for someone who fit their stereotypical profiles.

  ‘You know my views on them,’ he told her.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ she said, remembering that they’d had this conversation before. ‘That’s exactly why I asked you.’

  ‘Well, we’ve got nothing else. I suppose so, if the super’s saying we should get one in.’

  ‘Right, I’ll get this organised for you,’ Ambleton said, reaching for the telephone. Burton took this as a sign for him to leave. ‘Oh, Burton,’ she added as he was about to leave the room, ‘how did you know to go to the murder scene last night?’

  Thinking that a strange question in itself as the DCI knew exactly how the dispatch system worked, he said, ‘Fielding and I got the call through from dispatch after we left the hospital last night. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Well, you see, that’s the thing,’ she said to him, hand over the mouthpiece of the phone, ‘dispatch say they have no record of anyone having called you yesterday.’

  ‘But that’s impossible!’ Fielding exclaimed when Burton returned to the incident room and told the team what Ambleton had said. ‘How can that even be?’

  ‘Sounds like someone has somehow managed to intercept dispatch calls. Easy enough to do, I suppose, if somebody really wanted to do it.’ Wayman hardly seemed surprised by what Burton had said. ‘Nothing anybody does really surprises me these days,’ he went on to say when all eyes turned questioningly on him.

  ‘But that means that the killer has led us along right from the start then.’ Fielding still had trouble processing the whole information. ‘We were led to the first death at the home by a call from dispatch, or from someone now claiming to have been from dispatch.’

  ‘We’ve been used as pawns,’ Preston commented, echoing all their thoughts.

  ‘We’ve been used all right.’ Burton slammed his fist down hard onto the desk in front of him, making one of the admin staff jump with shock and drop the manila file she was carrying. As Fielding had observed earlier, Burton’s usually mild-mannered temperament had been replaced by a new unexpected aggression, but with this case coming so hot on the heels of their previous one, it was perhaps not unexpected that it was leaving its mark on him. It was leaving its mark on all of them. Two explosions in the short space of two days just weren’t part of the DI’s character.

  ‘The DCI has suggested we get a criminal profiler in, and I’ve had to say yes. As I left, I think she was trying to get it sorted for us.’

  ‘I know a good profiler,’ Phillipa Preston offered. ‘And I’m sure she’d be happy to come in and join us… if you like, I can contact her?’

  ‘Well, I think it may already be sorted, but I agree, it would probably be a good idea to get somebody in who knows the team. These psychologists or psychiatrists can be up their own arses sometimes and think they’re way above anybody else, not even listening to what we say.’

  ‘She’s actually my girlfriend, sir,’ Preston felt obliged to say at this point after his perhaps disrespectful outburst.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Burton said, sometimes wishing that he would keep his mouth shut and keep his opinions to himself.

  ‘But I’m not just trying to push her in because we’re in a relationship. I happen to think that she’s one of the best profilers out there – and we can trust her. She’ll listen to what we have to say and won’t be going off on her own agenda. She’d be working with us and not against us, sir.’

  Burton thought her argument was an acceptable one, and he felt pangs of guilt for calling all profilers and labelling them all with the same tag. He didn’t know anybody who actually knew one. They all just seemed to come in and do their own thing in their own annoying way. But that was what he’d grown to believe based on his past experiences with them. ‘Okay,’ he finally said, ‘I’ll have a word with Ambleton and get that sorted. In the meantime, Francis get on to the media again, press and TV, and get them to run that photo as a priority by the end of the day – if not sooner. Tell them to say that this person is now wanted in connection with a murder enquiry; that should keep them happy for the time being.’

  ‘Anyone know how Simon is this morning?’ Francis asked, and everyone stopped.

  ‘Yes, I rang the hospital this morning,’ Burton told them, ‘and they say he can have a couple of visitors at a time. If anyone would like to go in during the day, please feel free to do so, just let me know beforehand when you’re going. I’ll pop in this evening… Fielding, you up to a visit as well?’

  She nodded confirmation. ‘What about the house break-in? Do you want us to investigate it, or should we ask a couple of the Altrincham officers to go out and take a look? Maybe interview the neighbour’s husband while they’re at it too?’

  Burton pondered while considering. ‘Yes, get them to look at the property, find out anything they can about it, and ask them to speak to the wife next door. We can go and see the husband this evening when we go in to see Simon. Francis,’ he said, ‘I’d like you to come with us this evening as well. I want to ask both you and Simon what you remember about yesterday – absolutely anything at all, no matter how small or insignificant it seems to you. Is that okay?’

  Francis confirmed that she’d go with them.

  10

  One of the best things about having a conservatory was the fact that you could sit in it at any time of the year to relax and enjoy the view of the garden beyond. Having thermal blinds on the windows and roof enabled this year-round comfort, making the extension both cool in the summer and warm in the winter. It was also a good vantage point to watch your pet exercising itself without having to expose yourself to the elements, especially when the uncertainty of the autumn and winter months’ weather set in. Such were the thoughts of retired NHS worker, Sandra Matthews, as she sat in the comfort of her glass house in Cleadon, Tyne and Wear, w
hile her pet golden retriever, Sammy, ran enthusiastically around the garden lawn outside. It was a well-tended space, despite the plants and trees looking a little forlorn now that the summer had passed.

  She picked up the novel that she’d set aside on the coffee table when she let Sammy out and began reading it again. About five pages into it, she heard her dog begin to bark, slowly at first but then increasing to a more hurried pace. Looking up, she saw him in the top corner of the lawn facing the fence that adjoined the next-door neighbour’s garden, barking with a sense of urgency at some unseen thing.

  Opening the conservatory door, she called out for him, ‘Sammy, come back here, boy,’ but he didn’t seem to want to stop, and even moved closer to the fence, putting his front paws up onto it and scratching frantically at the wood. Realising that something was bothering him, Sandra slipped on her wellington boots which were beside the door, pulled her cardigan across her and went out to see what all the commotion was about.

  ‘Keep the noise down, Sammy,’ she said to him as she got closer, but he still wouldn’t stop, and seemed to want to try to climb up the fence now as well. Something was definitely bothering him as he was, by nature, a very placid dog.

  There was a small gap in the fencing and Sandra put her face up against it to try and see what he was barking at on the other side. It was then that she realised what he was getting so agitated about, and she wished that she hadn’t been so curious about it.

  What she saw was her next-door neighbour, Caroline Porter, a youngish woman who she knew very well, lying on her patio. But not just lying on it. One of her planters near the French doors leading to the dining room had had the contents taken out of it and replaced with water, and she was lying face deep in it.