Eyes of the Wicked

by Adam J. Wright

Between the two boards was a third that held no photos, and had only three words written on it, in red ink.

  Link Between Victims

  A silhouette of a man’s head with a question mark where the face should be had been drawn in the centre of the board. As far as anyone knew, this man—Tanya Ward’s killer and Abigail Newton’s abductor—was the only link between the two.

  They would look for other possible connections, of course, but Battle couldn’t see how a 15-year-old girl in Derbyshire was connected to a 37-year-old woman in York who kept herself to herself, by all accounts.

  It had probably been pure chance—or bad luck—that had caused Abigail and Tanya to end up here, on the same incident room wall.

  Both of them had encountered the unknown subject of the investigation, the man with the question mark face. And both had paid a price for that meeting.

  Abigail still wasn’t talking to anyone, not even her parents. The last Battle had heard, the girl was still under heavy sedation.

  Battle scowled at the question mark face. When a real face finally replaced that question mark— when they knew who had done this—there’d be a price to pay all right…

  The door opened and a slight man in a dark blue shirt and black trousers entered the room. He was in his forties, with collar-length hair and stubble that Battle couldn’t decide was there because the man hadn’t had time to shave or was an affectation.

  “DCI Battle?” the man asked.

  His voice was friendly enough, if perhaps a little nervous. Battle decided the stubble was the result of the man forgetting to shave this morning.

  “That’s me,” he said.

  “Ah, great.” The man held out his hand. “Tony Sheridan. I’m with the Murder Force. As are you, of course. I mean, I’m the psychologist.”

  Battle shook the man’s hand. “Glad to have you on board. You’ll have your work cut out for you with this one, though. I assume you’ve seen the crime scene photos.”

  Sheridan nodded. “The posing of the body is interesting indeed. The killer is either mocking or revering his victim. Or at least mocking or revering the person she was playing in his twisted little one act play.”

  “The person she was playing?”

  “Well, not willingly, of course. Tanya wasn’t playing a part. She was probably fighting for her life. But in his mind, she had some role or other. That’s why he chose her; she reminded him of someone else.”

  “Chose her? You don’t think this could be random?” Battle had worked with forensic psychologists before and he wasn’t sure how much store he put in their theories.

  He was willing to give Sheridan the benefit of the doubt, though. At this stage, he needed all the help he could get, and the crime certainly seemed to have some sort of psychological element to it. If Sheridan could untangle it, then more power to him.

  “Oh, I’m sure of it,” the psychologist said. He gestured to the pictures of Tanya Ward on the whiteboard. “He went to a lot of trouble and risk to stage that scene. He wouldn’t do that with just any old victim. This wasn’t your average killer dumping a body in a river to erase forensic evidence or burying a victim in the woods to keep the body hidden for as long as possible. This is a statement. A message. He would have chosen his victim carefully.”

  “Can you write me a report on what you’ve gleaned from the information we have so far?”

  Sheridan nodded and grinned. “It’s already written.”

  “Excellent,” Battle said, clapping the man on the back. “In that case, come with me.” He headed for the door.

  Sheridan looked confused. “Where are we going?”

  “Well, since your report’s already done, you can help with the search of the moors. We need every available pair of hands.”

  Sheridan hesitated.

  “Come on,” Battle urged. “We’ll get you a decent pair of boots. Those shoes won’t last five minutes out there.”

  Sheridan looked down at his expensive-looking shoes and then back at Battle. Then he shrugged and said, “All right. I’ll help any way I can.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Battle said, leading the man to the locker room.

  * * *

  An hour later, hundreds of police officers and volunteers, all wearing Hi-Vis jackets over their clothing, stood at the edge of the moors . The sun hadn’t melted the snow as Battle had hoped. The white expanse stretched out before the search team, sparkling beneath the clear sky.

  The searchers had been split into groups, each group having a warden in charge. Any findings were to be reported to the warden, who would bag and document the items.

  “Everyone’s ready to go, guv,” said a uniformed officer who was acting as warden to the team closest to Battle.

  “All right, let’s do it,” Battle said. “Slowly and methodically.”

  The officer blew a whistle. In answer, the wardens down the line did the same. Hundreds of people stepped forward onto the snowy moors.

  Sheridan was somewhere among them. Battle had allocated him to a team upon their arrival. At least the psychologist was mucking in.

  Battle joined the line and inspected the ground in front of him. Nothing but snow. He kicked at it and examined the grass underneath. Moving forward a step, he repeated the action. More snow, more grass.

  This was going to be a very long day.

  Chapter Twelve

  Dani parked and got out of her Land Rover in the car park of Whitby Hospital and found Matt waiting by the hospital doors.

  She’d woken up to a text from Battle that said, Searching moors today. Check on Abigail, so here she was.

  “Morning, guv,” Matt said, stamping his feet against the cold. The day was sunny and crisp.

  “Been waiting long?” she asked him.

  “About half an hour,” he said.

  She checked her watch. This was the exact time she’d told Matt to meet her here. She wasn’t late; he was early. “Couldn’t sleep?”

  “It’s Charlene,” he said. “She was up at the crack of dawn. Thought she’d heard a noise in the garden. So I had to check, of course.”

  “Anything there?”

  He shook his head. “Just next door’s bloody cat.”

  “And then you couldn’t go back to sleep,” she said, entering the hospital through the automatic doors.

  “Not only that but even after I told Charlene it was the cat, she was lying there fretting. She wasn’t making a sound, but I could feel the anxiety coming off her in waves.”

  “Have you told her about Murder Force?” Dani asked as they reached the lifts.

  “Yeah, I told her last night before we went to bed. Told her I’d hopefully have a chance to be on the team.”

  “Well there you are, then,” Dani said, getting into the lift. “That’s why she’s worrying.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean, guv?”

  “She’s worried about you, Matt. Working the Snow Killer case was one thing but if there’s a chance you might be on a team that constantly deals with high profile serial killers, that’s something else entirely. It’s dangerous.”

  He looked worried for a moment. “Dangerous?”

  “Haven’t you seen Silence of the Lambs?”

  “We’re not going after Hannibal Lecter, guv.”

  “Not exactly,” she admitted, “but there are people out there who are just as deadly. Real people, not characters in a book or a movie. Charlene is probably worried that you might put yourself in danger.”

  “But I won’t.”

  “I’m sure that’s what Clarice Starling thought…until she ended up in Buffalo Bill’s basement.”

  Matt’s eyes widened.

  The lift doors opened, and they stepped out onto the floor where Abigail’s room was located. A uniformed officer stood outside. He knew both Dani and Matt but perfunctorily checked their warrant cards anyway before allowing them into the room.

  Abigail was sitting on the bed, dressed in jeans and a dark blue jumper. She looked a hundred
times better than she had the last time Dani saw her. The fear was still in her eyes but now it was dulled—probably by drugs, Dani thought—and the girl had obviously had a shower and washed her hair, which was currently tied back in a ponytail.

  A vase of yellow roses sat on the windowsill, lending their sweet fragrance to the air in the room. A dark-haired woman who looked like she was in her forties but had been aged by worry sat in a high-backed chair by the bed.

  When Abigail saw Dani, her lips curled into a slight smile.

  Dani smiled back and said, “Hey, how are you, Abigail?”

  “She’s doing all right, considering what she’s been through,” said the woman in the chair.

  “I’m Detective Inspector Danica Summers and this is my colleague, Detective Sergeant Matt Flowers.”

  “I’m Sarah Newton, Abigail’s mother. Nice to meet you. I believe you’re the person I have to thank for getting my daughter back alive.”

  “Not me. Some kind-hearted members of the public.”

  “But you’re the person we’ll be thanking when you catch whoever did this,” said a bespectacled man—obviously Mr Newton—standing in the doorway. He was holding two plastic cups of tea in his hands. He came into the room and handed one to his wife.

  “I hope that’s the case, Mr Newton,” Dani said.

  “Do you have any leads?”

  “The moors are being searched at the moment and we’re following a number of lines of inquiry,” Dani said, giving him the stock police answer that elicited neither despair nor hope.

  “Does that actually mean anything or are you lot clutching at straws?”

  “Eric!” his wife chided.

  “I’m only saying that someone has hurt our daughter,” he said. “And he should be locked up.”

  “They’re doing everything they can,” Sarah Newton said, shooting him a look.

  “I’ve seen enough true crime documentaries to know what that means,” he said, carrying on regardless of his wife’s unspoken warning. “Things get missed. The bad guys get away. Even if they’re caught, they slip through the legal system and they’re out on the streets again in no time.”

  “I can assure you, Mr Newton, that we’re doing everything we can,” Dani said.

  A sudden scream from the bed made everyone turn to Abigail. The girl’s eyes were wide, transfixed to a silent TV that was bolted to the wall. Abigail was backing up on the bed, as if trying to get away from the television set and sink into the wall behind her.

  “Abigail, what is it? What’s wrong?” her mother asked, her face anguished.

  Dani turned her attention to the TV. The News was on and a photograph of Tanya Ward’s face filled the screen. A caption beneath the photo said, Missing Woman Tanya Ward Found Dead.

  Turning to Abigail, who was being comforted by her mother, Dani said, “Abigail, do you know this woman?”

  Abigail didn’t answer. Her eyes were still fixed to the screen, her body rigid in her mother’s embrace.

  Eric Newton marched over to the TV and turned it off. “Am I the only person in this room with any sense? The News upsets her so don’t let her see it. It isn’t rocket science, for God’s sake!”

  “Mr Newton,” Dani said, facing him, “Abigail is going to need to talk about her experience at some point. Ignoring the fact that something bad has happened to her is going to do more harm than good. And it won’t help us catch whoever did this.”

  “That wasn’t even about her,” he said, gesturing angrily at the black screen. “It was about that other woman. The one they found dead.”

  Abigail whimpered and buried her face against her mother’s chest.

  “Mr Newton, we believe there is a link between Tanya Ward and Abigail,” said Dani. “The same person may be responsible for both crimes.”

  The anger fell from his face and was replaced by a look of confusion. He stared at the dead TV. “But…that woman they found. He…” The rest of the sentence was left hanging.

  “He murdered her,” Dani said.

  Eric Newton’s gaze crept across the room to his daughter. “Then how is Abigail here? How did she..?”

  “We think she escaped,” Dani told him.

  He leaned heavily against the wall and tears sprang into his eyes. “Oh my God.”

  “You might want to sit down, sir,” Matt said, taking the man by the arm and leading him to a plastic chair in the corner of the room.

  Eric Newton sat down heavily, his eyes fixed on the floor. Until this moment, he hadn’t been aware that the person who’d taken his daughter was a murderer. He hadn’t known how close to death Abigail had come.

  He placed his face in his hands and his chest hitched as he released emotions that had probably been pent up for weeks.

  Dani turned her attention to Abigail. She wasn’t going to get anything out of the girl at the moment; Abigail’s emotions were too raw.

  The door opened and a tall woman with blonde hair cut into a shoulder length bob entered the room, followed by DS Morgan.

  The blonde woman wore a dark suit jacket and trousers and had an officious air to her. She took in the scene before her and looked at Dani. “What’s going on here?”

  “DI Summers and DS Flowers,” Dani said. “North Yorkshire Police. We’re investigating the murder of Tanya Ward.” She could tell the woman was in law enforcement herself.

  “DCI Cormoran,” the woman said in clipped tones. “Derbyshire Police. I’m investigating Abigail Newton’s abduction.”

  “Then our cases are linked, ma’am.”

  “Yes,” Cormoran said. “It would seem so.” She didn’t seem too pleased about the idea.

  “Well, we were just leaving,” Dani said, eager to get away before she became embroiled in inter-force politics. She headed for the door, followed closely by Matt.

  DS Morgan gave them a smile as they passed her. Cormoran, without turning, said, “Make sure DCI Battle keeps me informed of all progress being made regarding the Tanya Ward case. As you say, it’s linked to our investigation. We don’t want to be left in the dark.”

  “I’ll be sure to tell him, ma’am.” Dani said, pushing through the door.

  As she and Matt made their way through the hospital and back to the car park, he said, “Is it me or did the temperature in the room plummet when the DCI walked in?”

  “She doesn’t seem very friendly,” Dani admitted. “At least we got something useful out of our visit before she arrived.”

  “Something useful, guv?”

  She nodded. “Abigail’s reaction to the News report.”

  “We already knew there was a link, guv. The blood on Abigail’s nightgown.”

  “Yes, we knew there was an evidentiary link but now we know more than that. Abigail recognised Tanya’s face. That means she wasn’t blindfolded or kept in a pitch-black room. What else did she see? Did she and Tanya talk to each other? If Tanya knew who the man was, she might have told Abigail his name.”

  “You think it could be that easy?” Matt asked. “So all we have to do is get her to tell us who he is, and we’ll get the bastard.”

  “She’s been through a traumatic experience, Matt. Any information she may know is locked inside her for now. It might come out eventually, but we can’t rely on that happening. We have to throw everything we’ve got into the investigation and find the man who did this.”

  “Of course, guv. So what’s our next move?”

  They were standing in the hospital foyer now, just inside the main doors. Outside, the sun was beating down and glaring off the cars in the car park.

  “I want to have another look at Brambleberry Farm. Holloway pulled me away from the scene yesterday before I had a chance to really look around.”

  They left the hospital and got into their cars. As Dani started the Land Rover, her phone rang. The name that appeared on the hands-free dashboard display said SOCO, which probably meant that Ray Rickman was calling her.

  She answered as she followed Matt’s Kodiaq o
ut of the car park and joined the traffic on the road. “DI Summers.”

  Ray Rickman’s voice came from the speakers. “I’ve got some of the test results back from Tanya Ward’s body. Luckily, our man either isn’t forensically aware or he’s just not bothered about leaving DNA everywhere.”

  “Sounds good. What have you got?”

  “Well, first of all, we found hairs belonging to both Abigail Newton and a person unknown on Tanya’s body. We also found traces of cereal grains mixed with animal fat and canola oil.”

  “Something she ate?” Dani asked.

  “Not unless she was fed pellets that are meant for chickens. The substances were compacted. It’s animal feed, so I’d venture a guess that she was at a farm at some point. We only found minute amounts of it, so it probably fell from her killer’s clothing or hair.”

  “Okay. It’s something to go on, at least.”

  “He most likely wore gloves when he nailed her up. There aren’t any fingerprints on that section of the wall. However, the rest of the barn is full of them and we need prints from the builders that were working there for elimination purposes. So our man might have left a print somewhere but going by the absence of them in the immediate vicinity of the body, I doubt it.”

  “So he doesn’t care about his DNA being discovered but he doesn’t want us finding his fingerprints,” Dani mused. “Maybe his prints are in the system somewhere.”

  “Perhaps,” Rickman said. “He’s been sloppy with the hairs and chicken feed, so his DNA probably isn’t on record anywhere. He probably knows we can only use that if we find out who he is and get a sample from him to connect him to the crime. He seems cocksure of himself.”

  “Or maybe just forensically unaware, like you said.” Dani hoped that was the case. Despite the amount of coverage DNA got these days, she was constantly amazed to discover that many criminals were unaware of the fact that they were leaving forensic signposts at every crime scene. It was good for the police, of course, but the lack of awareness still surprised her.

  “Anything else?” she asked Rickman.

  “Nothing else so far but we’re still waiting for some of the results.”