Souls of Men

by A. R. Ashworth

  SOULS OF MEN

  An Elaine Hope Novel

  A. R. Ashworth

  NEW YORK

  This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by A. R. Ashworth.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.

  Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.

  Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.

  ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-68331-117-1

  ISBN (ePub): 978-1-68331-119-5

  ISBN (Kindle): 978-1-68331-120-1

  ISBN (ePDF): 978-1-68331-121-8

  Cover design by Lori Palmer.

  www.crookedlanebooks.com

  Crooked Lane Books

  34 West 27th St., 10th Floor

  New York, NY 10001

  First Edition: April 2017

  To Anna, Ryan, and Hilary, my family, for their encouragement and patience

  CONTENTS

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Acknowledgments

  ONE

  The girl’s half-naked body sprawled at the edge of the ditch, facedown. Her deathly white skin seemed to glow against the dark mud, a forlorn beacon signaling, “Here I am. Find me.” One arm twisted crookedly at her side while the other angled over her head, obscuring her face. If she had been lying on a beach, a passerby might have thought she had died in a shipwreck. But this was East London, and her death had surely not been an accident.

  Detective Inspector Elaine Hope stalked the lifeless form, circling in an arc five meters from the corpse, mud squishing under her wellies with each careful step. She took her time, scanning the scene with her large brown eyes. Hadn’t anyone been looking out for this child? She couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen years old. Elaine imagined the girl ensconced in an upstairs bedroom with three friends, gorging on chocolate and gossiping about boys. What could she have done to deserve this?

  She turned to Liz Barker, the young detective constable who hovered just behind. “Just a teenager. Certainly still in school. She should have been with her mates on a Friday night.”

  A cluster of purple splotches trailed down the girl’s back. “See the bruising? Beaten, stomped most likely.” She pointed at a thin stream of crimson that had flowed from under the girl’s face. “And that. Dr. Kumar will confirm what killed her.”

  At last Elaine completed her circuit of the corpse and stood straight, stretching to her six-foot height, gazing up and down the disused railway line that extended several hundred meters in both directions. A week of rain had filled the hollows on each side of the tracks with standing water, which appeared to be knee deep in some places. Jettisoned appliances heaved out of the mud. The charred carcass of a burnt-out automobile provided surreal testament to what passed for juvenile fun in this neighborhood.

  Farther down, a line of uniformed police picked and poked its way along the abandoned tracks. Elaine recognized the stocky frame and jug ears of DC Jenkins loitering behind the line.

  A dead girl, cold rain, and Jenkins—a poor start for a Saturday.

  The temperature had dropped several degrees since her arrival, but at least the rain wasn’t pounding down in sheets anymore. Elaine pulled her worn, black donkey jacket tighter around her and turned up its wide collar. The ancient jacket was something of a joke among her colleagues, but it spoke to her of the working-class neighborhood in Glasgow where she grew up. The dense woven wool and old-fashioned leather shoulders denied the cold and shed the misty rain. It had never failed to keep her warm and dry. She plunged her hands deep into its huge pockets and assessed the crime scene yet again.

  “What a godforsaken cesspit to die in,” she muttered. “Why was she out in this bloody cold rain?”

  A discreet cough interrupted Liz before she could answer. Elaine looked up to see a group of white-suited forensic technicians gathered at the edge of the water-filled ditch. One carried a collapsible tent while three others were laden with steel stepping plates and large portable lights. They wanted access to the body, but Elaine shook her head. They could wait another few seconds. She raised her eyebrows at Liz, who hesitated at first, then answered with some conviction.

  “A couple of possibilities. If she was on the game. Or a boy. Most likely a boy.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking. And I don’t think she was killed here.” Elaine swept her hand in an arc. “There’s no sign of struggle, no footprints. But it rained overnight, so . . . what do you think about that?”

  Liz sloshed to the edge of the gray water. “Not deep enough to float to where she is. Maybe he stood in the water and just dumped her.” She made a hunching motion as if she were lifting a heavy sack off her shoulder. “It was a he.”

  “Oh, yes. I’d bet on a strong male. He had to carry her from somewhere.” Where was that somewhere?

  “Inspector?” The forensic technicians were eager to get started. Elaine couldn’t learn any more right now, so she opened her hands to indicate she was finished. The technicians set out the stepping plates around the girl and began unfolding the tent.

  She motioned to Liz, and together they waded to the bottom of a steep bank that rose from the mire. The bank was crowned by a grassy ledge and a red brick wall that separated the wasteland from the modest terraced houses on the other side.

  Elaine pointed to a labyrinth gate in the wall. “That gate we came through is the closest access point.”

  The women scrabbled up the bank to the grass-covered ledge and stood by the wall. From there, Elaine could overlook the entire scene. Across the wasteland, the ground rose to a bedraggled wire fence that served as a screen for blown paper and plastic bags. The fence separated the wasteland from what appeared to be a derelict industrial estate. She couldn’t see any breaks or holes in it. Halfway between where Elaine stood and the fence was the railroad embankment with the white forensic tent sheltering the girl’s body. She was familiar with the setting, if not the exact details. In her career, she had been to many derelict places like this, both in London and in her native Glasgow.

  “Go out to the street and get some uniforms organized for a house-to-house,” Elaine told Liz. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Elaine couldn’t help but smile when Liz’s face brightened at the new responsibility. The young woman was eager, no doubt.

  Liz had no sooner disappeared through
the gate in the wall, than the dark bulk of Detective Chief Inspector Marcus Benford emerged, followed by Dr. Kumar, the police pathologist.

  “Good morning, Chief. Dr. Kumar.” Elaine stuck to protocol. “It’s a girl, fifteen or sixteen at most. Beaten. I can’t see much of her face, but it looks like she took a lot of damage.”

  Kumar acknowledged Elaine’s comment with a brief nod and continued down the bank into the water. His business did not lie by the wall.

  Elaine heard Benford breathing heavily as they watched Kumar struggle through the muck toward the body. She glanced at the older detective. His face seemed to sag. “Here?” he asked.

  Elaine shook her head. “Dumped. It’s still too dark to see much. The lights will be on in a minute.” Under the tent, two white-suited technicians were busy erecting large battery-powered lights.

  Benford didn’t look at Elaine. “Any idea where from?”

  Five years his partner and not even a hello, Elaine thought. Typical. She pointed at the gate in the wall. “That’s my first guess,” she said. “Maybe he carried her through that gate. There’s one at the end of each street. He might have come from the industrial estate, through that wire fence, but I can’t see a break in it.”

  “So he came through here, where we’re standing,” Benford stated.

  “I didn’t say that. But I don’t think he would have come from very far up or downstream. Why walk farther than he had to in this muck? He could drop her anywhere. Come to think of it, why did he carry her at all? He could have just dropped her here, at the top, and she would have rolled down the bank into the water.”

  Benford again didn’t look at her as he spoke. “A dog walker found her, right? Funny how many bodies are found that way.”

  Elaine didn’t think it was funny at all. “It’s a wonder anyone walks their dog anymore. We’ve gotten his statement. Should we go see what Kumar turns up?”

  Under the tent, Kumar was ready to turn the girl’s body over. Benford started to frame a question, but Kumar cut him off and launched into his lecture.

  “No identification. Do young girls carry purses these days? I don’t see one about. Perhaps the uniforms will find something. She has a tattoo of a green butterfly on the back of her neck that may help. The photographer took snaps. Okay, let’s roll her over.”

  Kumar and an assistant gently turned the girl over. A uniformed officer hurried away and Elaine heard the sound of retching. Thick smears of blood covered the girl’s face and upper body. Below her swollen eyes and crushed cheekbones, a mass of pulverized flesh and broken teeth marked where her mouth once was. As if that were not enough damage, a deep incision had been slashed from her right temple, down her cheek, and all the way to her jawline. Looking lower, her breasts and abdomen were a mass of crimson and purple contusions. Judging from the shape of the bruising, Elaine had been correct. The attacker had stomped the poor girl.

  Benford groaned. “Oh, bloody hell.” His voice trailed off into a deep sigh, and he wiped his hand across his face. “What can you tell us about the time of death?”

  Kumar didn’t hesitate. “Given that it’s cold and she’s lying in water, body temperature may not tell us much. Cold affects lividity and rigor too, but as a guess, I put her death between one and four this morning. I’ll know more once I get her back to the lab. It looks like you’ll need the tattoo for identification. Do you want my opinion?” From experience, Elaine knew that their answer to that question did not matter.

  Kumar continued. “Whoever did this beat her somewhere else and then dumped her here immediately afterward. From the amount of blood under her face, I’m thinking she was still alive when she got here. She was close to death, but she wasn’t dead yet. See the pooling? She bled here.”

  Kumar’s observations were always acute, and his opinions were most often proven correct. Elaine turned to Benford. “If there’s nothing else, sir, I’ll get started with the house-to-house.”

  She sloshed back to the wall and through the gate. The light was better now than when she had arrived, so she could take stock of the neighborhood. She was walking down a street like so many others, a lower-middle-class London vignette of tarmac and concrete lined with cars and bordered by waist-high hedges. Gates interrupted the hedges at regular intervals, one gate for each terraced house that marched along the sides of the street in orderly procession. Some of the houses were less tidy than others, but none appeared neglected or derelict. At each house, a small front garden was overlooked by a sitting room window on the ground floor and two bedroom windows on the first floor.

  A dozen uniformed officers waited expectantly at the end of the street with Liz.

  Elaine nodded at Liz and spoke. “We need to house-to-house this street and each street that borders the wall, in both directions. Ask about a slender girl, fifteen or sixteen, average height, shoulder-length dark hair, with a tattoo of a green butterfly on the back of her neck. Did they notice anything late last night or early this morning—lights, people, vans, noises, talking, screams, splashing, you name it. Focus especially on the houses that overlook the wall. Let DC Barker know if any of the residents act suspicious or uncooperative. Or overcooperative. The girl may have lived in one of these houses. Any questions?” There were none, so she nodded to Liz. “Okay, get to it. Sniff for smoke, boys and girls.”

  Elaine stood for a moment after the officers dispersed. Give me strength, she thought. Who gave her the strength, she really didn’t care. All murder investigations took an emotional toll, and she could compartmentalize most of them, as did every detective she had ever worked with. But when a young girl met death on her own, it chewed at Elaine. In those cases, she would take the gnawing mystery home with her. She would sit alone at her kitchen table, pondering what-ifs. What if someone had been watching over the poor girl? What if Dad had been watching over Moira and me? What if.

  Now what’s he doing over there?

  Jenkins was standing at the wall, talking to Liz. His team had moved down the tracks, inspecting the embankment and ditch. As Elaine watched, Liz tried to walk past him, but Jenkins shifted to stand immediately in front of her, trapping her against the wall.

  Elaine scowled. She had developed a thick skin in her years with the Met and could work professionally with any bog-standard misogynist. Her maturity and tall height discouraged most of the bullies. But Liz was only twenty-four, slightly built, with red hair and blue eyes. She appeared vulnerable, and Jenkins was malevolent. He relied on his shaved head, perpetual three-day stubble, and foul-mouthed aggression to intimidate anyone who he thought was against him. And that included women. For the life of her, Elaine could not understand how he had ever been accepted into the Metropolitan Police Service, much less how he had stayed employed for as long as he had. He’d survived several professional standards enquiries. Sometimes it seemed as if he didn’t care if he got sacked.

  Jenkins was talking too fast to notice Elaine approaching. She stopped just to the side of the pair.

  “Don’t believe his lies, Liz. Pure fantasy. Lust and cheap bravado. He’s giving you his standard chat-up.” She turned to Jenkins. “Isn’t that right?”

  Jenkins laughed and looked her up and down. “Well, if it isn’t Hopeless. I see you’re still spending more on your makeup than you do on your clothes. How would you know what I say to women? I’ve got too much good taste to chat you up.”

  “And I give thanks for that every day. What has your team found?”

  Jenkins sneered at Elaine and lapsed into a sing-song voice. “Ohhh, this and that but nothing much, luv. To me, it looks like the vic levitated to where she is . . .”

  Elaine was furious. “Jenkins, on your best day you’re a damned waste of space! What the hell is . . .” She caught herself before she completely exploded at him.

  Jenkins smirked and kept silent. Liz was frozen in place, but two other officers who had been eavesdropping suddenly found new duties farther along the wall.

  After a few breaths, Elaine stepp
ed up to Jenkins, close enough to cause him to tilt his head back to look her in the face. “You’re not some gutter-puking yobbo; you’re a police detective, and you need to act like it. Another thing. The girl lying over there is not ‘the vic,’ and this isn’t a half-baked crime show. She’s a young girl who was murdered and possibly raped and who spent her last moments in pain and terror. Don’t you have a sister? Or a mother? Don’t talk about her like she’s rubbish washed up on a beach. You disgust me. Now go back to your team and get some real answers.” Elaine kept her eyes focused on Jenkins. “Liz, if DC Jenkins tries to chat you up again, please let me know immediately so I can personally requisition his balls on a plate.”

  She turned and strode away. Behind her she heard a muttered “That dyke needs a good fucking.” She ignored it. She’d see to it that Jenkins would get what he deserved. Besides, men only ever said that about a woman they feared.

  Elaine met Benford at the morgue van and watched the medical team load the girl’s body into the van. “Anything new?”

  Benford shrugged. “She had an unopened condom packet, a house key, and an Oyster card in a pocket in the waist of her skirt. So she could have come to this area from anywhere in London. Order CCTV recordings from the stations and buses near here, and call in her description.”

  “Right, sir. If there’s nothing else, I’ll go back and get the incident room set up and enlist some more noses for us.” Elaine phoned in the girl’s description on the way to her car.

  As she passed under the police boundary tape, Liz fell into step next to her. The young detective looked a bit red-faced. “He wouldn’t let me get away. Thanks for stepping in, guv.”

  Elaine didn’t look at Liz, but her voice was stern. “I don’t usually give personal advice, but here’s a bit of it. You’re not in school anymore. Don’t be afraid to hand out a few choice words to bastards like him. Stand up for yourself, and you’ll feel better at the end of the day. Jenkins is a knuckle-dragger. Let’s call him an unbloke—uncouth, unevolved, and unredeemable. Does that cover it?”