Dying Breath: Unputdownable serial killer fiction (Detective Lucy Harwin crime thriller series Book 2)

by Helen Phifer

  He dragged himself off the sofa and shouted, ‘Stace?’ He was met by silence. The flat wasn’t big; he checked the kitchen, then went up to the second floor where the bathroom and bedrooms were. There was no sign of her. The bathroom door was wide open and he paused before pushing open her bedroom door, knowing she would be angry with him if she had a bloke in there and he was creeping around like some stalker. But the bed was made – it didn’t look as if she’d been here all night. So how had he got in?

  Needing the toilet now, he went into the bathroom and shut the door. The window was wide open, so he walked across to pull it shut. He must have climbed up and got inside this way last night. He looked down at the steep drop and wondered how the fuck he hadn’t fallen and broken his neck. Why didn’t he remember any of this?

  A flash of yellow appeared in his peripheral vision and he stepped back from the window. What were the coppers doing in the backstreet? Shit – had someone seen him climbing in and rung them? Or maybe Stace had come home, found him on her sofa, then phoned them. He slumped down onto the toilet; his head was a total mess. He needed to get out of here without getting caught and go get some gear, because he couldn’t think straight.

  He flushed the toilet and pulled up his trousers, just as someone hammered on the front door so loud that it made him jump. He looked out of the window again but couldn’t see any sign of the coppers. There was only one way out of the flat and that was where whoever was banging on the door was standing, blocking his quick exit. He would have to climb out the way he came in. His forehead broke out into a cold sweat. It was all good and well pretending to be Spiderman when you were as high as a kite, but when you were sober it was a very different matter. He was scared of heights at the best of times.

  A fist began pounding on the front door again, this time even more urgently, which made up his mind. He wasn’t getting caught for breaking and entering today. He couldn’t be arsed sitting in a cell all day and night waiting for court tomorrow. He took a deep breath and stepped onto the side of the bath. The he put one leg on the windowsill and swung the other through the open space. Then both legs were out and he was dangling. The drop to the flat roof underneath him wasn’t so bad if he didn’t look down. As long as he didn’t roll off the end of it when he landed, he’d be fine. Otherwise, he’d impale himself on the railings below.

  They drove to High Street in silence, both of them trying to comprehend what another body meant, but too afraid to say so out loud. They got suited and booted and waited on the opposite side of the police tape, which was the inner cordon, waiting for the all-clear from Amanda, who was already present to process the scene. There was a young man shadowing Amanda whom Lucy didn’t recognise.

  Lucy had been pleased to see that the first officer on the scene had had the sense to cordon off the roads either side of the backstreet where the body was lying. The ambulance crew had pronounced the death; she peered through the windscreen to see if it was the same team who’d attended Melanie Benson’s murder scene. Luckily for them, it wasn’t; she didn’t recognise either of the men sitting inside the ambulance. When Lucy had questioned the officer, she was pleased to learn that she’d done everything Lucy could have hoped for, including getting the death pronounced and requesting forensics. Until the scene had been thoroughly processed it was far better to seal off a large area; they could always narrow it down later.

  There were some uniformed officers and PCSOs milling around, waiting to start the house-to-house at Lucy’s request. She wanted all the flats above the shops at the back of the busy main street checked for any witnesses and CCTV opportunities. From the corner of her eye she saw Tom’s car pull up. Both he and Patrick jumped out. Amanda had already completed her filming and had just finished photographing the scene. The other CSI trailed behind her. She turned and walked along the metal footplates she had laid on the ground, to create a path to and from the body without cross-contaminating any evidence. Lucy waited for her in front of the CSI van.

  ‘Morning. I’ve asked someone to bring me a tent to cover the body with. At this rate I’m not going to have any of them left. It’s been a busy old week up to now. This scene is too open – I don’t know if the flats are occupied or not. Anyone who is up there has a prime view of the body, though.’

  She turned around, aimed her camera at the first-floor windows and took some shots; then she took some more photos of the surrounding area. ‘Just in case. You never know, the killer might be watching us right now.’

  Lucy felt a shiver run down her spine as she looked up. She scanned the windows for signs of life, but couldn’t see any. ‘Have you found anything?’

  Amanda shook her head. ‘Well, nothing that stands out. There’s loads of rubbish around because it’s a backstreet and they don’t get cleaned very often. This one is going to take hours to process. You know how it is; we can’t afford to leave anything in case it turns out it’s got DNA or a fingerprint on it that will lead us straight to our killer. It’s a good job I have my new recruit to help out. Toby Owen, meet Detective Inspector Lucy Harwin. She’ll be the senior investigating officer – or, to you and me, the SIO.’

  Lucy smiled at Toby, who didn’t make eye contact with her and just nodded. He ducked under the tape to allow Lucy through. Unsure whether it was because he was new, shy or just bloody ignorant, she tried her best not to let him see he’d annoyed her. Lucy entered the scene, following Amanda to the body.

  ‘Before you ask, I don’t know anything about him, except he’s supposed to be some kind of whizz kid. He’s a bit strange – then again, I suppose we all are or we wouldn’t do this job for a living.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it, Amanda. Let’s hope he is a whizz kid because there’re enough weirdoes already working in this force.’

  Amanda chuckled. ‘You got that right – maybe he finds women in authority intimidating.’

  A hush came over the pair as they approached the body. Lucy was horrified to see the partially naked woman in her early twenties lying on the ground amongst piles of rubbish. There were discarded wrappers and empty cans scattered all around her. Her trousers were pulled down around her ankles and there was a pair of black tights or stockings wound tightly around her neck.

  ‘Dear God. How awful to be left out in the open, exposed like that for the world to see. That’s just plain evil.’

  ‘Maximum impact, shock, horror; I think this killer is a bit of an exhibitionist. I’ll tell you what makes this scene even more odd – there’s a sanitary towel tucked under her left arm and I can’t see her shoes anywhere.’

  Lucy looked at Amanda. ‘No shoes.’ Her mind was working overtime.

  Amanda shook her head. ‘You can clearly smell alcohol on her, though, so she might have taken them off and carried them or dropped them somewhere. I can’t count how many times I’ve kicked off my shoes after a couple of glasses of wine.’

  Mattie, who had joined them, nodded. ‘Not to mention he’s either full of himself or foolish; it’s such an open place, anyone could have caught him at it.’

  ‘I don’t think this is his first kill – it’s too bold and similar to Melanie Benson.’

  Mattie looked at Lucy, who was staring at the body with her arms folded and her head tilted to one side. ‘No, I really don’t, it doesn’t look…’

  ‘Sloppy?’

  Lucy turned to face Catherine Maxwell, who had managed to walk up unnoticed from behind them, startling her. She was the finest Home Office forensic pathologist that Lucy had ever worked with.

  ‘Morning, Catherine. No, it doesn’t look sloppy at all.’

  ‘From here I completely agree, although my view may change upon closer inspection. Shall we?’

  They walked closer in single file, their paper suits rustling in unison, along the metal footplates until they reached the body. Lucy stared down at the pretty girl, whose long, dark hair was fanned out around her shoulders, and felt her heart ache. The victim’s glassy eyes were wide open, staring into the d
istance. Her mouth was open too, her tongue protruding from it. She must have gasped, trying to suck air into her burning lungs, as the ligature around her neck had restricted her windpipe. Lucy tried to block her last murder case from her mind. Back then, a woman had also been strangled. Her killer was dead, though: Lizzy Clements had thrown herself off the roof of the asylum hospital to her death. But strangulation was where the similarity ended; this was a young, pretty woman left semi-naked and dead at the back of a busy high street. Why would someone want to do this?

  Catherine put her heavy metal case down and crouched to look at the body. Her gloved hand lifted an eyelid.

  ‘She has petechial haemorrhages in the lining of the eyes and eyelids, indicating death by asphyxiation.’ She indicated the ligature around the woman’s neck and Lucy nodded. Then she pointed to the sanitary towel. ‘What’s with the calling card? That’s a bit strange, even for around here.’

  Lucy shrugged. ‘I have no idea what the sanitary towel represents.’

  Catherine continued her analysis. ‘This is the primary crime scene – she died here.’

  Lucy knew how Catherine had determined this without being told – the lividity, caused by the blood pooling after death, was a deep purple colour on the victim’s back, and appeared to be quite advanced. This meant that she hadn’t been moved after her murder; Lucy knew that lividity would generally begin thirty minutes after death, and would normally take eight to ten hours to become fixed. Even if the killer had moved the body after this amount of time, the lividity wouldn’t change its position.

  ‘The body is cool to the touch, rigor mortis has set in and the lividity is almost set,’ said Catherine.

  ‘How long has she been here?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘You know I hate it when you want specifics before I’ve done my full examination.’

  ‘I know that you do, but it’s just a rough estimate, Catherine. Please.’

  ‘Taking into account the conditions, I’ll assume the victim has been dead somewhere in the region of six to eight hours. But you know the rules, Lucy.’

  ‘Yes, I do. Don’t quote you. Thank you.’

  Catherine raised her right hand. ‘Pass me the UV light from the first compartment, please.’

  Mattie picked up the portable light and passed it to her. She shone it over the dead woman’s hand and the familiar circular logo for Aston’s nightclub glowed under the fluorescent light.

  ‘Well, at least you know where she was prior to ending up here. I should imagine they would have plenty of CCTV in there and on the exterior.’

  ‘Damn – you’re too good, Catherine. You’ll be doing me out of my job.’

  Catherine smiled. ‘No, Lucy, I wouldn’t. Actually, I could never do your job. I’m quite happy working with corpses. I couldn’t be civil to criminals and murderers, let alone try to hunt them down and catch them. You are very good at your job. Each to their own.’

  Lucy shook her head; she had never been particularly good at accepting compliments. A small, nervous laugh escaped her lips. ‘No, well, I could never cut up bodies and do what you do, so yes. I suppose we all have our own particular skill set.’

  ‘Very true. Aren’t we lucky that we’re all so bloody good at working this stuff out and catching the bad guys and girls?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose in a gruesome way we are.’ For a fleeting moment Lucy wondered how nice it would be to be good at something like baking cakes or sewing. But domesticity had never been her thing; just ask her teenage daughter Ellie. Their fairy cakes had always ended up either burnt to a crisp or soggy in the middle.

  Lucy let the pathologist get on with it, watching as she took various samples and placed brown paper bags over the woman’s hands.

  ‘Do you know when you’ll be able to do the post-mortem?’

  Catherine looked at her watch. ‘I’ve got an inquest this afternoon; how about I clear the decks for tomorrow morning? Then there’s no need to rush today.’

  ‘Tomorrow morning would be good, thanks.’

  Catherine continued with her preliminary examination, then finally stood up and snapped off her gloves. She made sure the samples she’d taken were stowed safely in the case, then shut it. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  Lucy nodded. ‘Yes. Thank you, as always, for being so prompt. I really do appreciate it.’

  ‘I know that you do, and that’s what makes the difference.’

  Catherine walked off in the direction of the CSI van to remove her protective clothing, which would be placed in a brown paper sack and checked once more for any trace evidence back at the station.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lewis almost made it. He dropped onto the flat roof without making much of a sound. He supposed if he were a lot heavier he would have made a loud thud. His diet of smack kept him looking like some waif and stray. He smiled to himself. What was he thinking; he was a waif and stray. His family wouldn’t have anything to do with him and he couldn’t really blame them. He’d stolen from and lied to them more than he was comfortable thinking about. He heard voices below him and stayed where he was, too scared to move or even breathe out too hard. The voices eventually faded and he crawled to the edge of the roof. The grimy, red wheelie bin that he must have used last night to climb up onto it was still there. He could still make out the voices in the backstreet, but he couldn’t see anyone because he was trying to keep as low down as possible. All he needed to do was to get down onto the bin, then make a run for it. Get as far away from here as possible and keep out of Stacey’s way until she was no longer mad at him.

  He turned around and lowered himself onto the bin. What he hadn’t taken into account was the fact that it was the bin from the Chinese takeaway under Stacey’s flat, and the plastic lid, which was coated in grime and grease, was as slippery as an ice rink. His scuffed Nikes found their footing on the bin at last, allowing him to let go of the corner of the roof. But then disaster struck. His left foot slid right off and he began to fall. Trying to catch his balance, he shouted, ‘Fuck!’ In a matter of seconds he hit the tarmac, landing with a huge thump. The breath was knocked out of him.

  Mattie and Lucy, who were deep in discussion, turned to see where the noise had come from. A skinny, tall figure with the hood of his sweatshirt over his head limped out of the backyard of one of the shops, near to where Stacey’s naked body lay. Lewis stared in horror at the corpse of the woman he’d loved until the heroin addiction had taken over.

  Mattie shouted, ‘Stop there! Police.’

  Lewis, who knew that he was in a whole new level of deep shit, did the only thing he could; he turned to run in the opposite direction. Mattie began to sprint after him, yelling for him to stop because he was contaminating a crime scene. Lewis did his best to outpace the man chasing him, but he’d twisted his ankle when he fell and it was slowing him down. He tried to give it his best and pushed himself to run faster, when he felt the copper behind him grab the neck of his hoodie, yanking him back. His ankle gave way and he began to tumble to the ground, taking the copper with him. The pair of them crashed onto the hard, filthy floor of the backstreet and landed in a heap just in front of the exit onto High Street, which had been sealed off with blue-and-white police tape.

  Beth, who had been the first officer on scene, was now standing there watching. She pulled out her cuffs and in a matter of seconds she was straddling Lewis and had his arms secured behind his back. She looked at Mattie. ‘Are you okay, Sarge?’

  Red-faced, he nodded. ‘Yes, thanks.’

  She winked at him.

  Lucy ran up behind them. ‘Nice work – shame you had to trample the bloody crime scene, though.’ She held out her hand and pulled Mattie up. Beth, who was dragging the skinny man to his feet, focused on his face as his hood fell off.

  ‘Fancy meeting you here at this time in the morning. Lewis Waite, you do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say ma
y be given in evidence.’

  ‘I haven’t done anything. I didn’t know it was a crime scene, did I?’

  ‘Tell it to the custody sergeant when you get back to the station.’ Beth put him into the back of the police van.

  ‘I didn’t do it! You can’t arrest me for something I haven’t done.’

  She ignored his shouts and slammed the cage doors shut.

  Mattie smiled at her. ‘Good work, Beth, thanks.’

  She climbed up into the front of the van and looked at Lucy. ‘I’ll get him booked in and leave him for you guys, if that’s okay?’

  ‘That’s brilliant, thank you.’

  Lucy finally left the scene in the capable hands of Amanda, who was now being assisted by Jack whilst they worked out the best forensic strategy to process the large area. The whole time Toby hadn’t muttered more than four words to anyone, which Lucy had put down to first-day nerves at his new job. She supposed he hadn’t really been expecting to have to work a murder scene on day one. It didn’t normally happen like that. Amanda had said she’d waited nine months before working on her first murder. Lucy wished she’d been so lucky – it was a standing joke that Lucy being on duty and sudden or suspicious deaths went hand in hand.

  As she sat in the passenger seat of the car, she massaged her temples. There was so much to do. Mattie was driving and talking about the boxing match that had been on last night. She drowned out the noise of his voice as she tried to figure out if both murders were connected.

  When they got back to the station, Lucy went to her office and shut the door. She had her head bent as she wrote out her list of tasks, which would then be uploaded to HOLMES, the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System, on which the whole investigation would now be run. She preferred to use a pen and paper first. It made her brain work harder and she found that she could focus more. A knock on the door made her lift her head, to see Browning standing there with a mug of coffee in his hand.