Foreign Bodies

by Colin A Millar

  The other SOCO officer was already kneeling on the far side of the body, taking swabs from the copious amounts of blood surrounding it. He looked up as they entered.

  ‘We’re gonna need most of our markers just for in here,’ he had said, indicating around the room with the cotton bud he was holding. ‘No further than that please, DC Handley, we’ll need to put plates down before you can move through here. Why don’t you check out the rest of the place while we work in here?’

  Looking around, Handley had taken in the blood that seemingly covered the whole kitchen. It was no less shocking for having dried. Glad that he didn’t have to spend any more time in that charnel mess he nodded and retraced his steps back through the living room.

  Moving back through the hall he had then glanced into the dining room. A table and chairs had stood in the centre of the room: the table had been pushed aside and was sitting at a skewed angle, three chairs had been knocked over and scattered across the floor, two stood incongruously upright and appearing to sit precisely where they should have done, the final chair had canted over and come to rest on two legs, back rest leaning against the sideboard that stood under the window. A smear of blood ran along the wooden floor and through the door into the kitchen, already marked with one of the yellow numbered markers used by SOCO.

  With very little else to see, Handley had turned and headed up the stairs.

  The first floor contained a bathroom, a bedroom – as messy as the London flat – and an office. With no sign that there had been any conflict up here Handley had turned his attention to the office. It was simply laid out: a desk and chair, a small filing cabinet and a set of deep drawers. There was a power lead and monitor on the desk but no laptop or PC. The drawers contained a myriad of hanging files, each with one or two document wallets inside. Each wallet was stuffed with papers, paperback books and newspaper cuttings. Handley shut the drawers with a sigh; the sheer quantity of paperwork that would have to be gone through between this office and downstairs was already daunting, then he remembered the piles back at Julia’s London flat and the weight doubled.

  The filing cabinet yielded yet more papers in hanging files. Each file had a title written on the label but no date. Handley pushed the last drawer shut with a muttered, ‘Great.’

  As he had turned to leave and head back downstairs his eye had caught a small photo frame sitting near the rear corner of the desk. It showed Julia smiling happily out at the camera, standing in between an older but equally happy couple – her parents, Handley presumed. He realised, sadly, that he had yet to trace any of Julia’s family and that now this would have to be a priority. He had been hoping to find them to gain information as to her whereabouts but now would have to track them down only to deliver tragic, heartbreaking news.

  Returning downstairs, he had called to the SOCO team in the kitchen that he would be outside, walked out the open front door, pulled down his mask, slumped against the bonnet of his car and called Detective Chief Inspector Tanner.

  *

  Pearson had absently nodded his way through Handley’s account of the last three hours. He had spent much of the time with his eyes fixed on the upper windows of the cottage and had only turned his gaze back towards Handley to ask about the position of the body and the circumstances in which it had been found. Handley had the impression that his mind was somewhere else entirely.

  ‘So, what’s your initial thoughts Tony?’ Handley took a moment to realise it was Tanner who had asked the question. He had been watching DCS Pearson so intently that he had been ignoring his immediate superior.

  As if reading from an internal script Handley replied, ‘It’s Julia Metcalfe, no question, and she was murdered – stabbed multiple times, front and back. She’s been there a while – SOCO are unwilling to say how long but hopefully the pathologist will be able to give something of an answer. She’s on her way, by the way. Place has been turned over, there’s papers and the like everywhere...’

  Handley paused and thought for a moment. ‘Interestingly, there’s no sign of that upstairs. Whoever it was seemed to think they would find what they wanted downstairs. Or she interrupted them and they left immediately after killing her, which doesn’t really make sense. After all, if she was dead they could have spent a month going through this place undiscovered.’

  ‘True,’ Tanner said. ‘From what you’ve seen do you reckon SOCO are gonna turn up some physical? Fingerprints, shoe prints, fibre?’

  ‘Yes sir,’ Handley replied, ‘almost certainly. They’ve found hundreds of traces – we’ve got to sort them of course but it’s unlikely they are all Julia’s.’

  ‘And who else do you think we’ll find here, Tony?’ Tanner asked, voice low.

  ‘I think we both know that, sir,’ Handley replied.

  ‘93

  It had been a problem for some time, one he knew would only become more complex and harder to explain as time went on. It had become a topic of note in the office, one that generated mild ribbing or, in the case of some of the older women, sympathy. His closer friends commented from time to time and offered words of advice or encouragement but their enthusiasm would likely wane over time. It was a sticky subject for him to negotiate.

  He had never had a girlfriend, nor shown any inclination towards having one.

  He obviously couldn’t explain why this was the case to his well-meaning friends. He could hardly say that the idea of ‘normal’ sex left him cold and angry. There was no way he could tell them that his real desires lay in the killing and marking of women with the symbol of his hate, that the only sexual interaction he wanted with women entailed a knife and blood and death.

  The few female ‘friends’ he had – no more than colleagues in reality – would try to persuade him to meet with their single friends or come out with a crowd of them in order to ‘take his pick’. But he knew from past experience that even if there was a girl he liked the look of and found he got on with, her face would creep into his mind. And before long all he would see was the girl he was talking to lying on the floor with blood spilling from hundreds of stab wounds and the burning bush carved into her thigh. He would then have to make his excuses and slip away.

  He was smart enough to know that he couldn’t risk any obvious association with anyone who could become a proxy. He would soon be discovered if a close associate were killed and then connected to the prostitute murders – as yet unsolved – that were being reported in and around central Scotland. The similarities in method would soon become apparent and he could find himself on the list of suspects. There was no way he would risk the Quest over such an obvious mistake.

  He had come to realise, however, that the lack of romance in his life was drawing too much attention. That it could, perhaps, lead to friends and colleagues starting to wonder, should a news report or police statement use the word ‘loner’ or ‘unattached’.

  Besides, society generally expected a well-heeled young man to have his pick from any number of willing and attractive women. And at 28 years old, he knew it was starting to appear odd to his friends and colleagues.

  And the one thing he knew he had to be was unremarkable, he had to blend into the crowd. He needed good camouflage to be able to maintain the Quest. If he could give every indication that he was a normal man with normal tastes then he could operate more freely, become more picky about his proxies, and therefore fulfil the Urge with greater ease.

  There were, of course, rumours going around the office that he was secretly gay and trying to hide it. Perhaps they thought he worried that his career prospects might be harmed if his sexuality became common knowledge. He knew that would not be the case – several of his colleagues were openly gay and had had no trouble climbing the career ladder within the Scottish Office. He toyed with the idea of keeping that rumour alive or even proclaiming himself to be gay. It would stop the gossip, at least. But the thought repelled him and there was no way he would be able to keep that particular illusion up for long.

  The on
ly course of action, then, was to join the dating scene – to court eligible young women with apparently nothing more than relationships and sex on his mind. He might even find a suitable partner who he could stay with, maybe even marry, to completely dispel the myths and rumours. They would have to be a pretty understanding sort, he thought, in order to abide a relationship that would ultimately prove to be loveless and sterile. But, he might just strike lucky and find such an accommodating woman. The more he thought on this scenario the more he came to think that it could be the ideal solution. A married man would attract far less attention than a bachelor.

  And so he embarked on a sustained assault on dating columns and night clubs, known pick-up bars, and anywhere he could think of where he might meet women who would be interested in him. He read every piece of literature he could find on the secrets to successful dating and ‘how to find the love of your life’ type manuals. He employed all the suggestions from these books and articles and went to all the types of places they suggested. He even attended Latin dance classes, badminton, tennis clubs and a myriad of other tedious social-type groups.

  Over time he found he became quite good at it all, realising he appeared quite attractive to women and that he had developed an easy charm that they seemed to fall for on more occasions than not. He worked hard at obtaining knowledge of a wide range of subjects such that he could have long and apparently interesting conversations on just about any topic they would express an interest in. Eventually he realised – he had become quite the ladies’ man.

  The final hurdle was sex. Normal, heterosexual, basic sex.

  It wasn’t that he was a virgin exactly. He had experienced sex once and it had not gone particularly well. He had bumped into a girl he knew from university one evening a few months ago, a girl who had attempted to entice him to bed when they were there. The issue of sex had already begun to play on his mind by that time and so he had allowed himself to succumb to her advances and go back to her place.

  It had gone OK for most of the rest of the evening until they reached the actual penetrative sex. It wasn’t that he couldn’t function. He knew it all worked but once he was inside her he found that any pleasurable sensation had gone. That, in reality, this was a poor and unsatisfactory substitute for his sex. After half an hour of grunting and sweating he had simply given up and rolled off the girl, leaving her confused and frustrated.

  Now with his sexual performance with women beginning to improve he needed to find a way to give every appearance of being able to actually enjoy sex. He needed to be able to finish the job. He turned back to his old teachers, the prostitutes he would hunt and prey upon. This time, however, he used them to practise in a more regular way.

  With each encounter he would close his eyes and try to clear his mind, allowing his body to carry on with its more animal instincts. He failed more often than not.

  After a time a number of the working girls came to recognise him and would know that this was the guy who couldn’t come. There was one girl who eventually took pity on him and tried to help him overcome what she saw as his ‘affliction’. He even became a regular of hers and stopped going to any others. After several unsuccessful sessions, she suggested that rather than trying to blank his mind he should allow it to wander and slowly focus on what he found sexy and exciting. She told him that he didn’t have to share what that was with her, and that it didn’t matter how bizarre – or even illegal – his desires were, if put into action. The important thing was that they aroused him and so would allow him to climax.

  The next time he visited her he tried her suggestion. He nearly lost his erection entirely when the first image to come into his mind was her. But then he allowed his imagination to follow that image and create its own scenario. He saw her lying down and holding her arms out to him; he fell into her embrace and they kissed passionately. But then, to his horror, she laughed, that mocking laugh that had haunted him for all those years. In his mind his anger grew and the knife came to mind – he imagined stabbing and thrusting that blade into her chest and stomach. He slashed her breasts and face, cutting chunks of flesh from her arms and shoulders. He saw the knife pierce her thighs and belly. The thrusts of the knife became closer and closer together, faster and harder each time, with the blade sinking deeper and deeper. In his mind he had reached the height of his frenzy. He could see the blood spraying out and over his face, and feel its warm, slick presence on his skin.

  At that moment his face contorted into a snarling grimace and he felt the overpowering, unstoppable, thrilling wave of pleasure and release from his groin. It was a sensation he hadn’t experienced since he was a young teenager. Through the haze of blood and gore in his mind he heard the girl below him grunt and make a strange high-pitched noise. Opening his eyes he saw that he was holding her tightly by the wrists and she had a strange look on her face, one of satisfaction mixed with discomfort, with a hint of horror in her eyes. When he rolled off her she told him that he should never, ever let her know what he had been thinking about, and that the look on his face had been vicious and terrifying. He had also gripped her so tightly that there were already bruises beginning to appear around her wrists.

  He left her with a feeling of elation – not the warm and happy feelings of post-coital success but the inspiring, uplifting joy of having accomplished another goal towards his Quest.

  That evening he mulled over what he had managed to achieve. He could now associate with and have relations with women with all the pretence of normality. He could, he was sure, learn to control the more violent aspects of his fantasy such that he didn’t hurt them during the act.

  His thoughts now turned to his increasing dissatisfaction at using prostitutes as his proxies. He had found he was gaining less and less from each one he Delivered. He knew he wouldn’t find the One among their kind, had known this for some time, but had until now had no means of moving on to better, more likely candidates.

  Now he had the requisite skill. The missing piece to the jigsaw. He would now be able to approach women, women he didn’t know or have any connection to. He could entice them to offer to take him back to their place and there, in safety and privacy, he could Deliver them fully. He could work with less rush and more precision. He would, finally, be able to leave the mark that they would recognise, and finally rid himself of her.

  He would become the very epitome of a charming man.

  He smiled at the new direction the Quest would now take and began whistling quietly along to the tune playing on the radio.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Charlotte awoke, surprised to find she had no hangover. There was the mild feeling that she had slept poorly and her mouth appeared to believe she hadn’t drunk any water for a month, but aside from that she felt surprisingly fine – certainly nothing a couple of cups of tea wouldn’t cure.

  Rising from bed, her mind wandered back to the previous night. Had Agatha really called Marcus a twat? And had Sir Frederick made some sort of pass at her? Or was that a terrible misinterpretation of his attempt to show he cared? And what was she to make of the police’s new-found interest in Marcus?

  As she slowly came around, her mind took her back to her own thoughts and considerations of the previous night. Marcus had been, at best, untruthful and, at worst, up to something that the police were now taking an interest in. She knew now that her husband of 12 years was not the man she’d thought he was and that he had been callous and deceitful enough to hide it from her all that time. She knew if she looked hard enough she would find proof of this: receipts and mileage returns, diary dates, emails and texts would likely all support her belief. But what would she do if she did find all this? What would any of it prove? It would prove she wasn’t entirely stupid and that she hadn’t lived blindly following a fantasy world of her own invention. It might just help find him and solve all the conundrums she still faced. It might, as Agatha had so eloquently pointed out, also let her get her due and move on.

  In the end it took three cups
of tea and a shower before she felt able to face the world. Picking up the phone she dialled DC Handley.

  When he answered, Handley sounded as though it was he who had spent the evening drinking whiskey. Charlotte told him as much.

  ‘Well, I’m glad you had a chance to let your hair down Mrs Travers,’ he replied, his voice quiet and lacking energy. ‘And yes, it was a long night and a very long day, yesterday, for that matter. I’m glad you’ve called however. It’s saved me a job.’

  Charlotte remained silent for a while. Handley sounded very subdued, which could have been the rigours of a long night, but it sounded to her like he had bad news for her. Had he found Marcus? In what state? Why, though, did he sound so matter-of-fact? There was little – if any – sympathy in his voice. Whatever the job was that she had just saved him from, it was likely not going to be good news for her.

  ‘What job was that, Detective Handley?’ she asked, keeping her voice even and calm. Handley’s tone worried her but she had learned enough over the last few months to hide what she could of her feelings from her voice, as long as she needed to.

  ‘I need you to come into the station Mrs Travers,’ Handley said, flatly. ‘There have been a number of developments regarding your husband.’

  ‘Have you found him?’ Charlotte rapped straight back. She was really beginning to hate the police’s tendency to be opaque in their communications. They would never simply tell her what to expect or what they wanted, relying instead on inviting her to the station for some obscure, as yet to be disclosed, reason.

  ‘No, Mrs Travers, we haven’t found him,’ Handley said, voice still lifeless. ‘But I need you to come down as soon as possible. I can send a car if that would help? Shall we say half an hour?’