STALKER ON THE FENS a gripping crime thriller full of twists

by Joy Ellis

  Her voice was steady. ‘The scene is uncontaminated, Superintendent Woodhall. I entered, found the body of Helen Brook, and left immediately by the same route. No one has approached her since. With respect, sir, after the doctor, I want Professor Rory Wilkinson to be the first to go in. We can’t afford to contaminate anything. This is no ordinary murder.’

  The superintendent stood beside her, his eyes narrowed and his jaw set forward at an almost impossible angle. ‘You are certain she’s dead?’

  A small bark of a laugh spilled from Nikki’s lips. ‘Oh yes, sir. Quite sure.’

  ‘And the rest of the house? Did you check it?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I rang for assistance immediately after discovering the body. Then, without going near the treatment area, I did a room-by-room check. There was no one here. Thing is, sir, there are only two entrances, and both are locked.’ She allowed the implications to hang in the air.

  ‘Is there any way this could have been a suicide?’

  Nikki was forced to choke back a nervous giggle, then hung her head and sighed. ‘Perhaps you’d better see her, super. Just don’t let uniform in here with their size twelves. Then I think you’ll understand why I don’t want the world and his brother trampling all over the crime scene.’

  Nikki stood aside and allowed the superintendent to pass. She had no intention of accompanying him. She would wait until Rory arrived, then she’d return to her friend’s side. She waited for the senior officer’s reaction. She hoped it would be dramatic in some way, to make her own horrified response seem a little more acceptable. After a while he returned to her side. She could see that his stomach was stretched taut and his chest pushed out, straining on the buttons of his uniform jacket, as he fought to breathe normally.

  He swallowed hard. ‘I had no idea. I think you could have warned me, Nikki.’

  You had more fucking warning than I did, sir. ‘Sorry, sir, I thought you knew me well enough to know that when I say something is out of the ordinary, I mean it. And now you know why I want our pathologist in there as soon as possible.’

  ‘Damn right I do. I’ll go and check on his ETA.’

  It was cold comfort, but Nikki noticed that his smooth complexion looked like wet putty.

  After the doctor had confirmed life extinct, she remained standing at the bottom of the stairs. No one who saw her would dare to pass. She stared at the floor and tried not to think of Helen lying there behind her. Tried not to think of how badly she had let her friend down. But she wasn’t the only one. They had all let her down, especially Andrew. They had dismissed her fears as unfounded, or maybe delusional, and now she was dead. Hey, Helen! Well, well, so you were right all along.

  A hand touched her arm and she jumped.

  Rory was staring earnestly at her through his wire framed glasses. ‘I’m so sorry. Are you all right?’

  He’s the only one who’s thought to ask, she said to herself, and tears formed in her eyes.

  Blinking them away, she lightly touched his hand. She nodded. ‘I’m fine now. Had a bit of a wobble back there, but . . .’

  He spoke gently. ‘It’s allowed, but in your case only once every ten years. Now, shall I go deal with this alone? Matthew will be here in five, along with a couple of SOCOs. We can manage.’ He raised his eyebrows.

  ‘No. I need to look at her properly. Now you’re here, I’ll be able to face it.’ She drew herself up, straightened her shoulders and ushered him forward with a sweep of her arm.

  Together they ascended the steps and moved across the room to the screen.

  Rory stood at the open end of the screened off area, and for a moment did not speak. Then he stood back, bit hard on his bottom lip and stared at Nikki. ‘Do you understand any of this?’

  She shook her head and exhaled. ‘No, none of it.’

  Nikki really did not want to look at her friend’s defiled body, but she knew she had to. She had to catch her friend’s killer. It would never make amends, but it might ease her conscience just a little.

  Helen lay on her back on her own massage table. Her body had been stripped naked and her clothes neatly placed on a chair close to the table. On top of her carefully folded sweatshirt was her wrist watch, two rings, a delicate gold chain with a small gold cross attached, and a single Indian moonstone, from her collection of crystals and minerals.

  One of her own white fluffy towels had been rolled into a pad and placed under the back of her neck, raising her chin upwards. Her arms were straight alongside the body, palms up, with the hands and wrists protruding slightly over the edge of the table. The legs were chastely close together and the feet and toes gracefully pointed.

  Nikki looked away for a moment, then reluctantly allowed her eyes to return to the dead woman.

  Helen would have looked perfectly at peace, but for the fact that her throat had been sliced neatly from ear to ear, and because of the odd angle of the head, the wound gaped open like a second mouth. This was bad, very bad, but not nearly as terrible as what the killer had done to her body, after her heart had stopped pumping and the blood had stopped flowing.

  Nikki heard her colleague whistle softly through his teeth. ‘Never, in all my years in forensics, have I seen anything so mesmerizingly beautiful.’

  ‘And at the same time . . .’

  ‘Yes, I know. I also feel like a ghoul, or a voyeur. Look at the work!’

  Nikki looked, and thought randomly of Lydia, the Tattooed Lady. When she was a child her father had sung the old Groucho Marx song to her to make her laugh. She wasn’t laughing now. She swallowed and tried again to understand what she was looking at.

  The whole torso had been painted with the most intricate design. She had no idea what it meant, but it consisted of a series of circles that began at Helen’s navel and worked outwards to cover her abdomen, chest and breasts. There were scrolls, leaves, flowers, symbols and signs, all delicately painted in deep turquoise green. Part of the artwork was incisions in Helen’s flesh, into which the killer had carefully inserted a variety of her semi-precious stones. Nikki saw rose quartz, amethyst and citrine glinting in the overhead light, and many others that she did not recognise. She looked at Helen’s face, and felt thankful that the eyes were closed.

  Not only were they closed, but covered with two round polished stones that were the deep blue colour of the night sky.

  ‘This has to be photographed in great detail, Nikki. And I suspect . . .’ He leant gently across the body and slipped a gloved finger between the slightly open lips. ‘Ah yes. I can’t open it any further until the rigor passes, but there is a stone in her mouth as well. Someone has spent a lot of time and effort with your friend.’

  ‘And she should have been with me, but I was too busy with work.’ Her voice cracked.

  ‘Hey! If you’re going to start beating yourself up, do it when I’m not around, will you? You are ruining the marvellous image I have of DI Nikki Galena, super cop. Detective Inspector, whoever did this had planned it down to the last brush stroke. If it hadn’t happened today it would surely have happened at the next available opportunity, would it not? And you couldn’t watch her 24/7.’

  ‘When you put it like that, Rory, I can hardly argue. But I still feel like shit.’

  ‘She was your friend. As I said, it’s allowed, even for super cop. Now, I see my team has arrived, so I need to get on. This is a big apartment, and I want every hair, every fibre and every tiny particle of anything at all that should not be here. I’ll get my prelim report to you just as soon as I can, but this is not going to be straightforward.’

  ‘For once, Rory, no pressure. You just do whatever you have to do. I know I can rely on you. Just look after her, will you?’ Nikki gave him a rueful smile and left.

  CHAPTER NINE

  As Nikki unlocked the door to Cloud Fen Cottage the enormity of what she had just been through hit her. She threw her coat down and fought back the tears, but only until she reached her kitchen. With sobs racking her body she grabbed a box of ti
ssues, and the brandy bottle from the cupboard. The rich amber liquid splashed across the table as she poured it out with shaking hands. She took a sip and coughed. There was no pleasure in that first taste of the expensive liqueur. Tonight it was purely medicinal.

  She wasn’t sure how long she cried for, but there was a small heap of tissues beside her when the tears gave way to sad hiccupping sighs. How could she have let her friend down so badly? Why had she not taken everything Helen said as gospel right from the very beginning? Helen had known she was in mortal danger, and Nikki had decided to play psychologist. Big mistake. Deadly mistake.

  She glanced at the kitchen clock. Midnight. Sorry, Joseph. I know it’s late, but I really can’t help that. The last thing she wanted was for him to find out about Helen’s death from someone else.

  He answered on the third ring, listened, then said, ‘Unlock the front door. I’m on my way.’

  Nikki smiled sadly. She hadn’t told him anything yet. She hadn’t asked him to come, but he had known instinctively that she needed him. Thank God for Joseph.

  She got up, took another glass from the cabinet and poured him a generous measure. She placed it next to hers and went to open the door.

  * * *

  Joseph grabbed a torch and sprinted along the marsh lane from his home at Knot Cottage. The moon was full and bright, but heavy clouds kept scudding across it, plunging the path into darkness. He slowed his pace. He didn’t want a twisted ankle. That wouldn’t help things at all.

  Part of him was still on a high after a very pleasant evening with Tam. The rest was dreading what Nikki was going to tell him. From the sound of her voice, he knew exactly what that was going to be.

  He stood for a moment outside Cloud Fen Farmhouse and waited for his breathing to calm. Then he knocked and went inside.

  He saw the two brandy glasses, and then he saw Nikki’s red eyes and the pile of tissues. ‘Oh no.’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  He went over to her, squatted down on his haunches next to her chair, and took her hands in his. He looked up into those eyes, sadder than sad. ‘Tell me. Tell me everything.’

  And so she did. ‘I’m beginning to feel like some kind of Jonah. Everyone I care about dies.’

  Joseph raised an eyebrow, and saw her expression change as she realised what this implied.

  ‘It’s okay. Tamsin and I are the exception to the rule. The powers of evil have already had a bloody good go at us and failed.’

  ‘Sorry, but sometimes I really do wonder.’ She took a sip of her drink. ‘I keep seeing Helen lying there, and those blue stones covering her eyes. What on earth was that all about? It was grotesque and terrible, and yet . . .’

  ‘There was a perverted kind of beauty in it?’

  ‘Exactly. Other than the blood and the fact that she was dead.’

  Joseph inhaled. Then he tentatively said, ‘I hate to say this, but because you were so close, are you going to be able to cope? It’s going to be distressing beyond words. Would it maybe be better to hand this case over?’

  Her face told him he’d just wasted his breath.

  ‘You think I’d let anyone else deal with Helen’s murder? When hell freezes over! This is our case, Joseph. I let my friend down, and the only thing I can do to make some miserable kind of amends, is to catch the bastard and give the CPS the tightest case they’ve ever had. I want the killer in the nastiest prison we have to offer, and serving life, with no chance of parole, until he rots.’

  DI Nikki Galena was back. Joseph heaved a sigh of relief. ‘Well, that’s me told.’

  She flashed him a sheepish smile. ‘Okay, so maybe that was a little extreme, but this one’s mine, until the bitter end. First thing, I’ll clear it with the super, make him aware that the team is totally committed to catching Helen Brook’s killer, and then we start the most efficient murder investigation we’ve ever mounted, okay?’

  ‘You can count on us, Nikki, one hundred percent. But what about the body in the river? Do you think we could offload it back to Gill Mercer’s team?’

  ‘Probably not, with her present workload, but let me talk to Greg Woodhall tomorrow. We have a full complement now Dave is back. Maybe I could beg or borrow Yvonne and Niall from uniform again. And there is always DC Jessie Nightingale. She’s floating since her old team got disbanded. If we can rope her in, we could handle the two cases in tandem.’

  Yes, DI Nikki Galena was well and truly back. ‘Okay. Now, are you going to be okay on your own tonight? My spare room is always made up.’

  She rubbed her eyes. ‘I’m all right now. It was the shock of finding her like that. I’ll probably have nightmares for months, but the dramatics are over. I’m back on track. And I have a very important job to do, don’t I?’

  He frowned at her, almost fiercely. ‘We do. There’s no ‘I’ in this team, remember?’

  ‘True, but this one is personal.’

  Again, thought Joseph, but he remained silent. ‘Then I’d better get home and top up with some sleep. We are going to be flat out for the duration.’

  Nikki nodded. Then she looked at him. ‘Sorry, Joseph, I should have asked. What did Tamsin want that was so urgent?’

  He let out a little laugh. ‘I’ll tell you when things have calmed down. It’s actually quite funny, and it didn’t cost me a penny.’

  Nikki finished her drink and stood up. ‘Okay, maybe you’ll tell me tomorrow? But for now, thanks for coming over like that. I needed to offload, and as always, you took the brunt.’

  ‘I’d have it no other way.’ He stood up and went around to her. He gave her a hug and lightly kissed the top of her head. ‘Get to bed. I won’t be silly enough to say sleep. But rest anyway, we are going to be pretty busy for a while.’

  As he walked home Joseph wondered how Nikki was really going to cope with her friend’s murder. She valued the few friends that she had, and he knew she would be eaten up with guilt that they had not immediately believed what Helen had told them. He pulled his jacket tighter around him, and wondered what he could do to help. He’d be there for her, of course, that went without saying, but other than that? Solve the case, find the killer, what more could anyone ask of him? His mood darkened as he trudged across the moonlit fen, because if the truth be told, it wasn’t just Nikki who felt a stab of conscience. They had all let Helen Brook down.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Nikki felt physically sick as she entered the room for the morning meeting. Having a friend as the murder victim was a new experience. It wasn’t a pleasant one.

  As she had expected, the superintendent had asked her if she would like to hand the case over to another team, but she had declined. She was not related or intimate with Helen, so she was quite within her rights to work on the investigation. She had noticed that Greg Woodhall seemed far from displeased at her decision. In fact there had been considerable satisfaction in his tone when he had told her to proceed. He knew better than she did that CID was in disarray. One team had been hit with some kind of virus, another was in the process of being reshaped after several retirements, and DI Mercer’s team was temporarily fragmented by staff conflicts and restrictions from above.

  Nikki told her team the basics, managing to hold her emotions in check.

  Eric Barnes raised his hand. ‘The boyfriend, ma’am? Conveniently away at the time of the murder?’

  Nikki bit her lip. Eric’s supercilious tone was beginning to irritate her almost as much as it did Cat Cullen. ‘Yes, Detective, and I have already spoken to his company. They have confirmed that he was required to work with their Swiss clients. Unfortunately, his boss has been unable to contact him, and neither have our people. His cell phone is switched off, and he always makes his own hotel reservations. Sadly, on this occasion he omitted to tell his secretary where he was staying. So, perhaps you’d like to begin by checking out his flight, and trying to locate him for me. And DC Barnes, when you find Andrew Gregory, I want to be the one to break the news about his partner’s death. Understood
?’

  The detective nodded unenthusiastically. ‘Yes, boss.’

  Joseph stood up. ‘Ma’am? Can we now assume that Miss Brook’s claim about the man in the accident and what he told her is a genuine route for enquiry?’

  Nikki looked around the room, her gaze resting on each officer in turn. ‘You will regard her claim that her life was being threatened as completely legitimate. She could hardly have done any more to prove its validity than get herself killed, could she? As to the mystery man? Yes, I believe he exists. Whether he’s responsible for her death, that’s down to us to find out. I have no need to tell you that we are pretty stretched, but Joseph and I are going to head up the ongoing case of the unidentified man pulled from the river, and the death of Helen Brook. We do have extra officers in place, so once I’ve set up a work rota, I do not foresee any problems. For this morning, we’ll deal with getting together everything we can regarding Helen Brook, then later I’ll allocate teams to work specifically on one case or the other. Cat? I want you and Dave to go over the accident reports again. And while Dave mans the office side of things, you take Niall Farrow and go and talk to everyone who was there. Every rescue worker, every witness, the safety officers who checked the building once it had been cleared, even the demolition men. I want some sort of solid corroboration of Helen’s story that she was not alone in that cellar, okay?’

  Her gaze roamed around the room then came to rest on her new, albeit temporary recruit, a slim blonde girl with her long hair caught back in a tidy ponytail. ‘DC Nightingale, you and Yvonne check all deaths recorded on or immediately before the day of the accident that refer to married women. Helen Brook told me that the man’s name was Paul and the woman he had killed was his wife. And I also want the young man that had been watching the houses along Westland Waterway questioned again. Make sure his excuse was authentic and not a cover for something else. And we will need Miss Brook’s database of clients carefully checked, both at the Willows Clinic and her private clinic. And anyone who shows up as a possible stalker or too flaky for comfort, we pull them in and interview them.’