Cold Sacrifice

by Leigh Russell

  ‘I wonder if he can come up with an alibi for that,’ Ian commented grimly.

  37

  ‘WHAT CAN YOU TELL us about the victim?’ Rob asked when they were all assembled in the Major Incident Room that had been set up in the police station in Herne Bay. It was cramped, but saved travelling time and more importantly meant they wasted less of the precious few hours they had to question suspects before they had to release them.

  It was not much more than a week since they had last gathered together as a team to investigate Martha’s murder. Now a second body had been discovered ten miles away in Margate, that of a woman closely associated with the case. The mood in the room was unusually solemn.

  ‘You met the victim, didn’t you?’ Rob added.

  Everyone on the team knew by now that the woman who had provided Henry Martin with his alibi was dead. What had yet to be established was how she had died, and whether he was again their number one suspect.

  ‘The victim’s name was Jade Higgins. She was known as Della. That was what she called herself when I met her last week. She was barely twenty.’

  All eyes turned to gaze at the image of a young woman, her flesh deathly pale and already discoloured with the early signs of decomposition.

  ‘She was born in Clacton and brought up in care after one failed adoption,’ Ian went on.

  An eager young constable raised his hand to request clarification, as though he was still at school. Ian explained that a couple had applied to adopt Jade as a baby and had then changed their minds. After that she had gone to a succession of childcare institutions. None of it made any difference now. By the time she was sixteen she had moved to London and was earning her living on the streets.

  ‘She had a sugar daddy for less than a year and when that came to an end she found a job as a dancer in a strip club, which is where I met her.’

  The hushed atmosphere erupted with whistles and jeering, and a few colleagues called out suggestive comments. While Rob scowled at the light-hearted ribbing, Ian felt reassured. They couldn’t afford to be overwhelmed by the scenes they witnessed in the course of their duties. Each officer had to find a way to remain emotionally detached from the case if they were to cope with the job at all; inappropriate humour wasn’t a bad way of dealing with the horror.

  Briefly Ian went over what they already knew. Jade had been involved in the investigation into Martha’s murder.

  ‘So Henry’s lost his alibi in a car crash,’ a constable said. ‘Where does that leave him then?’

  ‘We’ve still got her statement,’ someone pointed out.

  Rob reminded them that Jade had never gone to the police station in Margate to make a formal statement. She had given her story to Ian, but they didn’t have her signature or anything in her hand writing. In a court, there was a risk Ian’s account might be dismissed as unreliable, despite his detailed notes on the interview.

  ‘It’s not that detailed, sir,’ Ian muttered. ‘She wasn’t exactly forthcoming.’

  He had asked her where she had been on Friday evening. Without hesitation she had confirmed that she had been with the man in the photograph Ian had shown her. She said she never knew his surname.

  ‘He was just Henry. I don’t ask no questions. Why do you want to know anyway? What’s he done?’

  Although she had been adamant she had spent Friday evening with Henry, she had been vague about times, and claimed not to remember where he had taken her.

  ‘But we was together the whole evening,’ she had insisted.

  Ian gazed at a picture of the dead woman. Her face looked horribly pale. Her eyes were closed but it was obvious she wasn’t sleeping. She looked inhuman, like a dirty doll that had been thrown on the ground and left there. She hadn’t looked much better when he had seen her alive, but she was only twenty when she died. If she had lived, she could have changed. There had still been some hope for her, however slight.

  ‘Does Henry know she’s been run over?’ someone wanted to know.

  A couple of constables were whispering together somewhere behind Ian.

  ‘She wasn’t run over,’ he said loudly and the muttered conversation stopped.

  Everyone was listening now.

  Carefully Ian went over what had happened. As far as they could make out, kids had taken Henry’s car from right outside his house on Sunday morning, with Jade’s body in the boot.

  ‘Her body was in the boot when the car was stolen?’ a constable repeated.

  ‘SOCOs are still examining the car, but that’s how it appears, yes.’

  ‘So these kids jacked a car, not knowing there was a body in the boot, and then had an accident,’ Polly said with a hint of a smile.

  Someone laughed.

  ‘And we think the body somehow fell out of the boot of the car in the crash?’ Rob asked.

  Ian nodded, slightly irritated by the reaction in the room. What made it worse was that he had to agree the story sounded unlikely. But recalling the stench in the boot of the Honda, he affirmed there was little doubt the body had been kept there.

  ‘The boot and back nearside door flew open on impact,’ he added.

  When Ian had finished, Susan, the constable who had spoken to the children in the Honda, gave her report. According to their statements, they had found the car in the car park in Margate with the keys in the ignition. Both children had insisted they had not driven the car away from outside Henry’s house where he claimed to have left it.

  ‘There was no reason for them to have gone to Herne Bay, and I don’t think they even had enough money for the bus to get them there. They said they never took the car out on the road, only round the car park.’

  ‘They might have been covering up the fact that he drove on the highway,’ Rob said.

  ‘Henry said it was taken from outside his house,’ Ian reminded them. ‘He was quite clear about it. He told us he left the car there on Saturday evening and on Sunday morning it had gone.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what he said,’ Rob agreed. ‘But someone’s lying. Henry, suspected of murder, with a second victim stashed in the boot of his car, or these kids out joyriding not wanting to get in trouble for driving on the road. Take your pick who to believe.’

  ‘I think those kids were telling the truth,’ Susan repeated. ‘They understood how important it was not to lie. We explained it all very carefully to them and they appreciated what was at stake. There was no reason for them to lie. We made it very clear they wouldn’t be in any trouble over it.’ She paused. ‘They weren’t bad kids, sir. They’ve learned their lesson.’

  ‘Let’s say Henry killed Jade, in Margate or Herne Bay,’ Rob said after a short pause, ‘why would he drive around with her body in the boot, leave the car in Margate, make his way back home and then alert the police to look out for it?’

  No one answered for a moment, then people all started talking at once. There were so many possible reasons for him acting that way: guilt, panic, confusion, or a misplaced optimism that he might somehow get away with it by claiming his car had been stolen.

  ‘With the doors unlocked, and the keys in the ignition, the car could have ended up anywhere.’

  ‘It might even have been taken out of the country.’

  ‘The plates could have been changed – it’s possible he might even have hoped that, by the time the body was found, the car might not be traced back to him.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have been long before the body was discovered,’ Ian said, remembering the smell. He grimaced. ‘Another day or two and no one could have missed it.’

  38

  DR MILLARD WAS IN the morgue leaning over the body. He raised his head and straightened up as Ian and Polly entered. Placing gloved hands on his narrow hips, he bent backwards and winced.

  ‘It’s back-breaking work,’ he greeted them. ‘Good timing on your part, anyway,’ he added, his face brightening. ‘I’ve just finished. You know the victim’s identity. You met this young lady, didn’t you, Ian?’

 
; He squinted across the table at the sergeant and grinned, one eyebrow raised quizzically.

  ‘I questioned her as a witness,’ Ian replied curtly.

  He tried to put Della’s voice out of his mind, but couldn’t help remembering the jerky way she had spoken, her heavy cheap scent mingled with the smell of her sweat when she was alive. Tacky and stupefied by alcohol or drugs, she had been a living human being. Given different opportunities in life, she could have been standing in Polly’s place.

  The doctor shrugged and looked down at the body. The greenish blue tinge was more evident, spreading upwards from her belly, while her limbs had taken on a marbled pattern.

  ‘Right then, let’s get on with it. As you know, the victim was about twenty. She was generally in a pretty bad way before she was killed, due to her unhealthy life style: poorly nourished, a heavy smoker, and her liver’s suffered severe damage as a result of frequent binge drinking and other substance abuse. She had an abortion, not recently, and suffered from arthritis in her left arm, probably due to a fractured ulna and dislocated radius some years ago, and there’s scarring from an infected navel piercing. She had breast implants and cosmetic surgery on her face. She was killed by strangulation with a rough narrow green cord, probably garden twine. You can see the marks on her neck quite clearly.’

  ‘How do you know it was green?’ Polly failed to hide the excitement in her voice.

  ‘We found a few threads, too tiny to be seen with the naked eye, caught in the hair at the back of her neck. They’ve gone off to be identified in case there’s anything they can tell us – like a trace of Henry Martin’s DNA.’

  The three of them stood around the body for a moment, thinking, before the doctor continued.

  ‘It looks like she might have known her killer. Either that, or he crept up on her unawares from behind, which is possible, because it would have been dark and there’s every chance she might not have been completely compos mentis, given her life style. Whatever the reason, there are no signs of defence wounds.’

  ‘That’s exactly what you said about Martha,’ Ian said quietly.

  ‘Indeed, but the methods of killing are very different,’ Millard replied. ‘One stabbed, the other strangled. From the post mortem results alone there’s nothing to suggest the two murders are linked.’

  ‘Are you saying you don’t think the same person killed them both?’

  Millard shook his head.

  ‘That’s not for me to say. If I could tell you who killed them, that’d be you out of a job, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Is there anything else you can tell us?’

  ‘She was dragged along the ground, probably while she was unconscious, since there’s no indication of a struggle.’

  He pointed to bruising underneath the tops of her arms, and then to some scratches on her heels and lower calves.

  ‘These bruises on her arms were caused by someone grabbing hold of her here. She was wearing shoes when she was found, but they must have fallen off during the attack because the backs of her feet were grazed as she was pulled along the ground. The shoes must have been replaced afterwards, when she was packed into the boot of the car. She was shut inside a protected environment until Sunday morning, where it was dry and cold, good conditions to preserve the body. There’s no insect activity yet.’

  He touched the dead woman’s hair lightly, in a gesture that was almost a caress.

  Having gathered as much information as they could from the pathologist, Ian was pleased to leave the morgue. The antiseptic smell that failed to mask the stench of dead flesh made him feel sick. It didn’t help that Polly kept glancing at him with a concerned expression all the time Millard was talking to them.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked before they had even left the building.

  ‘Of course,’ he answered shortly. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

  Ian knew perfectly well she must have noticed him turning pale in the morgue.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he repeated and was rewarded with a grin.

  ‘Thank God for that,’ she said happily. ‘I thought for a minute back there –’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing, sir.’

  ‘It was just really strange, seeing her like that. I’d been speaking to her less than a week ago.’

  He turned away. Polly was right. At one point he had nearly succumbed to the nausea he always experienced in the morgue. He could just imagine Polly and Millard’s reactions if he had run to the toilets to throw up. The doctor was bound to make some quip: ‘Was it something I said?’ Polly would look concerned and embarrassed. He wondered if she would tell all their colleagues. Word might even reach Rob, who was writing a report to support Ian’s application for promotion.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

  ‘I said I’m fine,’ he replied sternly, his tone warning her to back off from this familiarity with a senior officer.

  Leaving the morgue, they went to the hospital to speak to the driver of the Mini, Sandra Brice. She had been kept on the ward for observation for twenty-four hours, and was due to be discharged later that day, once the doctor had done his rounds. From the doorway she appeared to be reading a woman’s magazine, but as they approached they saw that her eyes were closed. One of her wrists was in a cast, but there was no visible sign of any other injury above the bed covers. A nurse bustled past without challenging them as they crossed the ward. Reaching the bed, Ian hesitated.

  ‘Do you think she’s asleep?’ he whispered.

  Polly leaned forward.

  ‘Sandra?’ she said softly. ‘Sandra Brice?’

  The woman’s eyelids flickered and she opened her eyes. Briefly Ian introduced himself and his colleague.

  ‘There was no way I could have avoided a collision,’ Sandra said quickly. ‘The other car drove straight at me. He didn’t even try to avoid hitting me. If he’d swerved, the accident might never have happened. I turned my wheel, and skidded, but he just kept on coming straight at me. It was crazy. He must have been drunk or on drugs or something. There was nothing I could do to avoid it. He drove into me. If anyone wants to pin the blame on me, or say it was fifty-fifty – ’ She broke off, frowning. ‘I did nothing wrong. I’m the victim. Now I’d like you to go please. I’ve got nothing more to say to you.’

  ‘No one’s saying you were at fault, Mrs Brice,’ Ian reassured her. ‘We’re not here to throw any accusation at you.’

  She glared suspiciously at him.

  ‘The driver of the other vehicle was underage.’

  ‘Underage?’ She sat up, an alert expression on her face. ‘You mean he didn’t have a licence? He was driving illegally?’ She leaned back against the pillow again and closed her eyes. ‘Yes, I seem to remember he looked young, but it’s all such a blur.’

  ‘He was thirteen.’

  Sandra’s eyes flew open in alarm. ‘Oh my God. Was he hurt?’

  ‘No. He and his young passenger were badly shocked, and shaken up, but they weren’t seriously injured. Just a few bumps and scratches.’

  She closed her eyes again.

  ‘Thank God for that.’

  Sandra confirmed the circumstances of the accident. Everything she said agreed with the account the two youngsters had given of the crash, apart from the boy indignantly blaming the collision on the other driver. None of them had noticed anyone other than the drivers of the two cars and the passenger in the Honda.

  ‘You’re sure you didn’t notice anything fall from the boot of the Honda when the cars hit?’

  ‘When he drove into me, all I saw was the airbag.’

  ‘And you didn’t hear anything?’ Ian asked, aware he was clutching at straws.

  ‘Apart from a deafening crash?’

  They thanked Sandra and left. Neither of them had expected to hear anything that would move the investigation forward. They were just ticking boxes while they waited for the forensic report on Henry’s car.

  As they drove away from the hospital, Rob called. Henr
y was in custody in Herne Bay and a warrant to search his house had been granted. Proof that Jade’s body had been kept in the boot of his car was all the evidence they needed.

  ‘We’ll go and take a look at his house,’ Ian said, ‘and then we’ll have a word with Henry himself.’

  ‘Can’t we leave the house to a search team, and go straight to the interview?’

  ‘No. The more pressure we can put on him, the better,’ Ian said, aware that he was dodging the question.

  The truth was that if incriminating evidence was discovered at Henry’s house – a hidden bloody knife, or length of green garden twine – Ian wanted to be there when it was found. He would be happy to discover he had made a mistake in doubting Henry’s guilt. Much as he hated to be proved wrong, seeing justice for Martha and Jade was more important than anything else.

  39

  BY THE TIME IAN and Polly arrived the search team was already hard at work, scouring Henry’s house for evidence to link him to the killing of two women.

  ‘What if we find evidence there were more murders, sir?’ Polly asked as they walked up to the front door.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, if he’s killed two women, there could have been more. We might find –’

  ‘If,’ Ian interrupted. ‘We don’t even know he’s guilty, so let’s not start jumping to conclusions. It’s vitally important to keep an open mind.’

  ‘Yes, I know all that. But what if he is guilty, and these two aren’t the only victims, and we find evidence of more murders?’