Mutilated: A British Crime Thriller (Doc Powers & D.I. Carver Investigate Book 2)

by Will Patching

  Well, actually, yes it would.

  Jack thought it wise not to give her a lesson on basic detective work so just smiled as he said, ‘We have a name and can start working up a list of suspects, people who knew him, maybe had a motive to do this. We really do need some additional full time help now, ma’am… Incidentally, Doc’s waiting downstairs as we speak, as I wanted him involved in the team briefing.’

  Jack had hoped she would give the green light for a more substantial investigation based on the latest photos and the ever widening scope of their operation, but the victim’s name, along with his deceased status, would clinch the deal.

  ‘Right then!’ She clapped her hands together and clasped them on the desktop, her only outward sign of enthusiasm. ‘Let’s go and rally the troops. I’ll allocate some additional officers and then we’ll brief the entire team.’ She stood, smoothed her immaculate trousers, touched her immaculate hair with her immaculately manicured fingertips and said, ‘Let’s go, Jack. And don’t look at me like that — as if I never address our staff! I may delegate a lot to you but I am still a detective you know. Come on, get your skates on.’

  Carver unsuccessfully tried to stop a wry expression forming on his face. He knew exactly why she was suddenly so energized. Another murder enquiry, with possible serial killer connections, a chance to mop up six or more cold cases immediately after catching the Brentwood Beast.

  Oh yes, she was like a racehorse galloping out of the gates, jockeying for position. The prize was not a silver trophy, but the crowned epaulette of a Metropolitan Police Superintendent. Something far more precious to the ambitious ice maiden — for her acting role to become permanent. Her youth would single her out for rapid progression through the senior ranks soon thereafter.

  God, she’s obnoxious, he decided, as her svelte, and now very well protected derriere disappeared out the door. He followed.

  ‘Of course, ma’am. I’m right behind you.’

  Unfortunately.

  ***

  After DS Sam Sharpe left for the hospital, Fiona switched her attention back to her research. There was something niggling her, like an insect burrowing in her brain, while she revisited the details she had discovered relating to muti magic and what she now thought of as The African Connection. Discovering Gerald Butler’s macabre collection had been a shock to her system, a profound blow to her identity as a multi-cultural copper in multi-racial London. Frustrated, she decided to put these thoughts aside for now and pulled out the file on Judy Finch.

  She had skimmed through it last night and realised her boss had gone out on a limb for his friend Doctor Powers when she discovered the details of the woman’s bank withdrawals and credit card usage. All tucked into the file she had found in his drawer, but with one glaring omission…

  No warrant.

  Fiona was a straight cop, rarely bent the rules, which was one of the reasons she liked Carver so much. He had a reputation for being direct, honest and straight to the point. All of his team knew he occasionally took shortcuts, but only when necessary and generally merely minor infringements that would not compromise a case. Yet here he was, risking his career for his pal by obtaining information illegally, and then leaving it on the premises.

  It was likely that Sam was the source — he could get pretty much anything, legally or otherwise, if it was held in a computer network. She just hoped he had covered his tracks in case this breach of protocol ever came to Soundbite’s attention. If that happened she would ensure an enormous pile of excrement would hit an industrial sized fan directed at Carver and anyone else involved. Including Fiona…

  She ripped the offending documents in half, almost binned the pieces, thought better of it, grabbed a small paper bag from her bottom drawer, and made her way to the secure shredder instead. The machine hummed and buzzed in an oddly satisfying way as she watched the offending evidence disintegrate into tiny fragments in the transparent bin.

  Having satisfied herself her hands were now clean of Carver’s mess, she decided it was time for a decent coffee. The kitchenette was often busy, but she found it empty so took the opportunity to make herself a cafetière with grounds from her private stash. The aroma of her favourite blend helped calm her as she spooned the coffee into the glass jug full of boiling water.

  Her mind went back to the Finch woman and the evidence she had just destroyed. It was several months old anyway, so pretty useless, she decided, especially as her boss had scrawled Card not used since Jan, a barely legible note she could just make out, dated sometime in April this year.

  Other scribbled notes on the file indicated the DI had seen her late on New Year’s Eve, working as a homeless outreach program volunteer for St Mary’s Church in Brixton. After that, Finch had disappeared completely, and according to the notes, took fifty thousand pounds in cash from her bank two days after Jack met with her, having told him she did not want to be found again. She clearly meant it.

  Bollocks. This is not going to be easy. Then, Double Bollocks!

  She heard Sam’s voice, murmuring in the corridor, then another one she recognised, though she had never met the man.

  Suspect, she reminded herself.

  ‘Hi, Fifi! I thought you’d be in here when I smelt fresh coffee when we got out the lift. I hope you’ve you got enough for three cups.’ Sam grinned and asked, ‘Have you met Doctor Powers?’

  She had seen him from a distance once or twice when he had been at the Yard over the last couple of years. Usually with Jack. She put her hand out, and was about to introduce herself, but he spoke first.

  ‘Well, you must be DS Fielding. And I’m your prime suspect… Delighted to meet you, Detective.’

  Triple bollocks!

  Of course Jack had told him. She knew he would, last night, in the curry house. The moment he went from angry volcano, threatening to erupt, to bubbling with laughter rather than molten lava.

  Fiona took Doc’s outstretched hand and was delighted to see real warmth in his smile as he continued, ‘Don’t worry, Sergeant, I fully understand why you came to that conclusion. I respect an open minded detective, and Jack thinks very highly of you.’

  ‘Suspect?’ Sam was helping himself to cups and saucers — all the mugs were dirty and lying in the sink waiting for a volunteer to clean them — and spoke over his shoulder as he depressed the plunger in the coffee jug. ‘You must be joking, Fi. I just got back from the hospital — we’ve got a victim ID thanks to Doc. Bumped into him downstairs so invited him up. You didn’t tell me he should be in handcuffs!’ He chuckled then poured three cups.

  Fiona finally found her voice. ‘That’s gonna be piss weak, Sam.’ She tutted at him as the insipid liquid dribbled into the cups, then turned back to Doc. ‘Well, you do fit the criteria. You’re on the list with many other potential medical specialists we must automatically consider as suspects. In fact, now Sam’s back from the hospital, we can start narrowing things down, but I’m hoping Jack can get us some full time help. He’s with the Acting Super now.’

  ‘I know. That’s why I’m here too. And now, thanks to Sam’s facility with an archaic binary cipher system we can start working up a victim profile. We can hopefully draw some parallels with Diana Davies too.’

  Fiona had her doubts about any potential connection, but instead said, ‘Did you get anything else out of him, Sam?’

  ‘Nah, mate. Just a name. Patrick Rawlings. I was just explaining to Doc. I did a quick search on him using my smartphone in the car on the way back here. Interesting bloke. City player. Went missing almost four years ago, along with a load of funds. Made a killing from the financial crash in 2008, then some years later his clients got burned investing in his hedge fund. Was being investigated for fraud when he did a Lord Lucan… Now it seems he was abducted. I need to do some more digging, but this bloke had lots of enemies, including some big names, some of ’em decidedly dodgy. Russian oligarchs and the like.’

  ‘Mmm.’ This merely confirmed Fi’s suspicions. ‘A fifty quid
a night King’s Cross prozzie, a street walker, and a hedge fund manager? I can’t see any likely connection —’

  Carver’s voice boomed down the hall and echoed in the kitchen. ‘Oi, you two. You haven’t got time for coffee. The SIO has called a briefing. Get your backsides in here, now. I’ve got a stack of bacon sarnies for brekkers for everyone. And find Doc Powers for me. We need him in here too.’

  Carver seemed to have an uncanny knack of locating his team when he needed them, though Fiona and Sam often decamped to the kitchen like this when working together. Doc looked suitably startled that Jack knew where they were.

  ‘I think the aroma of my unique brand of coffee gave us away, Doc… He’s a great detective but he can’t see through walls.’ She took a slurp, grimaced at Sam as she tasted the brew, then chucked it in the sink. ‘Cat’s piss! You muppet, Sam. Come on, we’d better go.’

  ***

  Doc’s headcount of Jack’s expanded team now stood at sixteen, although the Senior Investigating Officer, Acting Superintendent Sadie Dawson, as she had introduced herself — just in case anybody was not sure what she was doing on their floor — was not included in Doc’s calculation. From his detective friend’s colourful description, ‘She’s about as much use as tits on a nun’, he supposed their total resources for this serial homicide investigation, including himself, reached a grand total of seventeen.

  Why so few?

  Jack had told him over forty officers had been involved in the last murder investigation overseen by Dawson, and that seemed a more appropriate figure to Doc. Perhaps she had yet to be convinced whether the other victim photographs were genuine, or if they bore any relation to Rawlings and/or the prostitute Davies. He hoped Jack had not shared his sergeant’s suspicions with this woman, but she had largely ignored Doc since he, DS Fiona Fielding and DS Sam Sharpe had joined the little group at the back of the open plan office. Dawson did not make him feel welcome at all, and he guessed she was distancing herself, unwilling to be tainted by him in the event he was a guilty party.

  After his minor wobble this morning, he had crushed the doubts he was experiencing as he consoled himself with the result Sam had achieved with the discovery of Rawlings’ identity. Doc had been chatting to a former colleague in the reception area downstairs, waiting for Jack to buzz him up, when the nerdy Sergeant recognised him. Doc had never met the officer, but Sam had bounced over, full of enthusiasm, and pumped his hand while blurting out the success he had just achieved, thanks to Doc’s Morse code idea.

  He then insisted Doc join him in the lift, and as they rode up to the fourth floor, he described his fleeting visit to the hospital. Apparently, Rawlings did not know who had attacked him, and just kept repeating ‘Kill me’ over and over as Sam tried to establish some facts beyond the victim’s name. The exertion, probably combined with the shock of finally being able to communicate, had sent Rawlings’ pulse racing and within minutes he went into fibrillation. Despite the alarm sounding, the crash team took several minutes to arrive at his bedside, an unusual response, probably reflecting an unstated do not resuscitate status for this particular patient. Meanwhile, Rawlings, aka Mister Mutilated, died with Sam looking on. The sergeant’s laconic observation, as they followed the aroma of freshly brewed coffee after exiting the lift, was:

  ‘Probably for the best. All things considered, Doctor Powers.’

  Sam seemed unperturbed by what he had witnessed, and was obviously on a high from having achieved the seemingly impossible. Doc warmed to him instantly, and, despite Fifi’s suspicious mind, she too was someone he felt comfortable with.

  The rest of the team were unknown to him, and as Jack and his boss did a double act, firstly introducing new team members then presenting information, it was clear who was in the driving seat, and who was being chauffeured.

  It had been a while since Doc had seen Carver working alongside a senior officer, and their body language told a tale of ascendancy for one and frustration for the other. Dawson’s stance was open, she stood upright and regularly spread her hands, feet planted shoulder width apart, as if trying to make herself larger than her slimline frame. In contrast, Jack was hunched beside her, arms folded, ankles crossed, making himself seem smaller, diminished next to the dominant female he now reported to.

  Doc would have to have a word with him about that.

  He had tuned out much of their presentation to the troops as he was aware of most of it from their earlier meeting at his home, but then Fiona piped up. She was hesitant, unsure of herself as she spoke, her head moving like a spectator at Wimbledon as she addressed Dawson then Jack and back again, over and over, her words hurried.

  ‘I have a theory, ma’am… I haven’t had time to run it past the DI but I think it might be relevant. You remember the headless torso they found floating in the Thames in 2001, ma’am? They called him Adam. He was never formally identified. The Met even asked the FBI for help. Their advice was to drop the case — an unknown foreign child, no fingerprints, no head, so no teeth for dental records. But the lead detective, now retired, was convinced it was a ritual killing —’

  Dawson cut her off, her voice harsh.

  ‘The little African boy? Of course I remember. It was a high profile investigation that went on for years, long before I transferred to the Met. I hardly think it’s relevant to this case. I don’t know if you noticed Sergeant Fielding, but all seven victims are Caucasian adults. All with heads… Don’t be diverted by your discovery of some ancient shrivelled ears from another continent half a world away. Let’s stay focused, people.’

  Doc was surprised at the condescension Dawson expressed as she swatted her junior down. It was not just Jack who had a problem with this career obsessed woman. Carver had warned him that she took no hostages.

  Fortunately, Doc had an advantage over the others in the group, being an outside consultant, feted by officers far more senior than this self-important ‘Acting up’ Superintendent. He decided to interject, as he started to make connections himself, thanks to feisty young Fifi. Unlike the sergeant, he refused to use the term ma’am, even though he knew it would rile this status driven careerist. He had decided Dawson was bloody rude, but probably only to junior staff, while charming those above her on the greasy promotion pole.

  ‘I think the sergeant’s right, Sadie.’ Dawson’s face was inscrutable, but her arms immediately crossed, not in a defensive gesture like Jack’s, but one that broached no disagreement. Doc continued, his own voice forceful. ‘There may well be a ritual element.’

  The Acting Super’s tone hardened. ‘The Adam case was sealed. Unsolved. I see no reason to link it with our current investigation.’

  Doc wondered if they were entering a politically sensitive minefield, and, if so, he was sure she would not willingly step foot there. She needed to be shoved in the right direction and he would have to be the one to push her.

  He was on safe ground though, as he had researched the case for his TV series before moving on to other more interesting cold cases, all with potential links to convicted serial killers. Although he had lost interest, the connection Fiona now postulated should have occurred to him too, but the letters and the nature of the photographs, including the victims’ skin colour, had diverted him. Fiona’s conclusions brought the details spinning into his mind and rekindled his interest. Too bad if Dawson was obstructive. Even so, he verbally tiptoed.

  ‘Ritual killings still take place in parts of Africa. They harvest body parts, ideally from the living. These human remains are used in a form of black magic called muti —’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Doctor Powers… Are you seriously suggesting all of these victims, including Rawlings, had to suffer for some barbaric tribal beliefs originating in darkest Africa? Do you honestly believe there’s some massive market for that sort of thing here in the UK?’ Dawson scoffed. ‘Well, I don’t think so. It’s pure conjecture, likely to take us in the wrong direction. We have far more promising leads to pursue as we’ve already discussed
.’

  The Acting Super’s political antennae were up and Doc — who hated office politics with a passion — realised he could lose the chance to find out the truth about Diana Davies and the other victims purely because he was mooting a culturally negative idea. He eyed Jack who, just out of sight from his boss, responded with a little lift of his shoulders. No immediate help would be forthcoming from that quarter. Even DS Fielding had gone quiet, and then Doc realised the whole team was silent, as if aware he was goading their boss. He tried to reason with her.

  ‘I’m not suggesting all the body parts taken from each victim were for muti magic, just some of them. This is a sophisticated killer with other motivations too —’

  ‘I’m sure Jack will be keen to hear what you have to say on this subject, Doctor Powers.’ The implication being, she was not. She opened her mouth to continue but Doc spoke over her. Her rank was of no consequence to him.

  ‘I reread the ME’s report this morning. Bob Koch’s convinced some of the Davies woman’s wounds were inflicted while she was alive, just as we know they were for Rawlings. Her arms, legs, lips, nose and eyes were taken. Her tongue — the removal of which killed her — was ripped out during the process and, although Koch was not certain of the exact order of dissection, he is convinced this was not the very first action the killer took. It could be that her agonised wailing boosted the supposed power of the muti, thereby increasing the value of her other body parts. It is grotesque, but its logic makes some perverted sort of sense.’ Doc could not help himself from adding, ‘It may not suit the politically correct brigade but this is an avenue of enquiry we have to pursue.’

  The Acting Super had taken to scrutinising the file Jack had presented her earlier, head down, fingering the photographs as if they were printed in Braille. A minute passed without a word as she made her mental calculations. Doc could hear the wall clock ticking. Some of the detectives started to shuffle their feet, uncomfortable with the delay, not sure whether to speak. Even Jack was overshadowed by his highly assertive boss. Doc wanted to push her to make the right decision, but decided to let her come to her own conclusions.