DEAD GONE (13 page)

‘Anything?’ Rossi asked when she’d finished. She had dark circles under her eyes, but still seemed to exude energy, bouncing from one foot to the other.

‘Not really. She’d been moved here, as we thought.’

‘Post-mortem?’

‘In the morning. Until then, let’s try and find out who this girl was.’

He watched as they moved around his handiwork. Assured of their roles, of the tasks they had to do.

He had to hide a smile from the other gawping passersby who had stopped at the police cordon to see what had happened.

He knew.

The two officers in uniform, their big flak jackets beaming fluorescently in the dark night.

They knew.

But this was power. Standing here in plain sight. No one had the first idea it was him who had brought them all here.

His work.

He’d waited so long, and then two in the space of a few days. All that planning, now coming to fruition.

What one person can do to another. Fascinating.

The smaller of the two officers in bright uniform, a hardnosed female, wearing no make-up, her hair hidden by her hat, was scanning the small crowd. The man with her seemed more interested in what was going on behind him in the park.

He’d wait a little longer and then leave. See if he could catch a glimpse of who was investigating.

Not too long though.

Murphy’s eyes stung as tiredness threatened to overwhelm him. The long night drifting into the early mist of a late winter morning.

The picture of the new victim, fresh in his mind, made him push forward and carry on.

So different to the first victim.

The thought of her grieving parents came back to Murphy, and he pushed it down. He couldn’t deal with what came with those thoughts. His mind was racing, the coffee he’d been downing at regular intervals taking effect.

It had been bitterly cold out there at the scene. Murphy was glad to be in the relative warmth of the major incident room at the station. It was quiet, the early morning changeover hadn’t kicked in yet. Rossi had been wearing the same smart trouser suit as the previous day and Murphy thought she’d probably ended up at her parents’ the previous night. They hadn’t worked together as much as others had, but he knew some of her habits.

He’d sent her home in the early hours to get some more sleep, but decided to stay on himself at the station waiting for a copy of the latest letter to arrive.

Murphy busied himself going through missing person reports, finding preliminary matches. He looked at the description Rossi had noted down of the woman again. The victim had been around twenty-five to thirty years old, five foot five inches, dirty blonde hair, dressed in black bra and jeggings. Whatever jeggings were. He sent a text message to Jess, his usual contact for anything modern he didn’t understand.

‘What in the name of fuck are Jeggings, Jess?’

Send
.

He put his phone back in his pocket, and continued going through the list. Local reports first, discounting the long list of teenagers instantly. They had south of fuck all to go on and her face wasn’t going to help much in its present state. The rest didn’t match any last descriptions of what women the same age had been wearing before going missing. He wondered if those who’d cared enough to report them missing would ever get resolution. A lot did; most missing persons turn up within seventy-two hours. Too many don’t.

His phone vibrated in his pocket and Murphy took it out.

‘Like leggings but they look like jeans, numb nuts.’

Murphy shook his head and left his phone on the desk, putting off the reply for later. Once he’d gone through some more possible names.

He reached over and turned his computer on as fresh faces arrived in the room, taking coats off, chatting animatedly with others. The room was shared across the whole of CID for Liverpool North. One whole floor of the building, most walls knocked through. At that moment, as well as the two murders which had occurred in the area, they were also dealing with a spate of armed robberies in off-licences in the area, various sexual assaults, and two stabbings, both victims thankfully on the mend in the Royal Hospital. Neither saw anything, meaning it’d be pretty difficult to get a conviction.

Murphy wished he was on those cases. At least they were alive.

‘Have I missed anything?’ Rossi said, appearing at his desk.

Murphy jumped a little when she appeared. ‘Can’t you wear a bell or something, Laura, announce your arrival. Fuck’s sake.’

She was carrying two cups of coffee in paper cups. Costa Coffee rather than canteen downstairs. Which meant they’d at least be palatable.

‘Sorry.’

Murphy shook his head, taking the proffered cup from Rossi. ‘We’ve got the PM at nine, so we best make a move.’

‘I’ll drive.’

It was the smell, as clichéd as that was, which always bothered him about these things. The cold, hard air which inhabited the room only conspired to make it worse. Sterile, absent of anything real. He had the same feeling about hospitals, but at least there was life in a ward or bay almost all of the time.

Here, there was only death.

They’d stood back as numerous photographs had been taken, every inch of the woman captured over and over.

Murphy watched as Dr Houghton gave way to his assistant, who was around Murphy’s age but with a better tan. He was studious looking, stern, thin as a rake. Houghton introduced him quickly, Murphy only hearing his surname. Lawrence. Listened to Houghton’s instructions carefully as they meticulously circled the body, taking fingernail scrapings and more.

Much more.

Murphy turned away when it became more intimate.

‘Hmm. Difficult one,’ Dr Houghton said without looking up. ‘No distinguishing features, birthmarks or tattoos. We’ve taken some scrapings which could be of interest. We’ll send samples off to see if it’s of any use. There are thirty-one stab wounds inflicted on the body, all with the same weapon. Numerous bruises. Defensive wounds to both hands, but only bruising and what appears to be a fractured wrist. Nothing from the weapon used to the rest of the body.’

‘That’s interesting,’ Murphy said, moving a few steps closer. ‘He beat her up, and then what? She was unconscious and he stabbed her repeatedly?’

‘Possibly. There are no head wounds consistent with a brain injury. It’s more likely one of the stab wounds inflicted was incapacitating early on. My money is on the one to the neck.’

Murphy went to rub his beard, but thought better of it. ‘Type of weapon?’ he said instead.

‘Looks like a standard knife wound. Could be a typical household implement. You find the knife, David, I’ll match it.’

Murphy nodded. ‘We’ll get right on that. We can take a copy of the letter with us?’

Dr Houghton looked up from the body. ‘Leaving us so soon? You know you’ll have to get over yourself at some point. It’s just a dead body. You scared or something?’

Murphy smirked, not rising to the bait. ‘I think we’ve got all we need for now. Laura, you need anything else?’

Murphy turned to Rossi, who was looking ten shades paler than when they’d entered the room. ‘Let’s go,’ Rossi replied, already turning to head out.

EXPERIMENT FOUR

Detectives,

Do we call you detectives in this country, or have I been watching too many American cop shows? Never mind, that’s what I’ll call you until I find out your names. I assume there’s more than one of you, in fact I imagine there’s a whole team. A whole team tripping over themselves, trying to find any rhyme or reason for two young lives snuffed out.

Two now. In just a few days. Unfortunately, unlike the first body you found, I can offer no grand announcement to the nature of this one’s death. No results to share, no past experiment improved upon, expounded research … nothing.

She just is.

I had plans for her of course. You may want to Google ‘Unit 731’. The books are surprisingly light on the subject and I can’t imagine you have a very sufficient library there (think Josef Mengele on a far eastern tour! Ha Ha!).

If you’d like a suggestion, the library at the City University has a vast selection of psychology books.

Alas, I couldn’t do what I wanted to with this subject.

Far too much racket, screaming and yelling, she even tried to bite me. No respect for others these days. What has this country come to? Distressing to say the least. She had to be terminated I’m afraid to say.

I may have to revisit this experiment with a new victim at some point. I so want to find out how that would pan out.

Sorry for the brevity of this message, but there is not a great deal to tell. The experiment had to be terminated.

The blood was glorious though. All that blood, from one wound. I think I could have severed her entire head given the inclination.

Anyway, must dash. You see … I’m already working on number five.

Unsigned again, handwritten in large sloping letters. Murphy had no doubt it was the same writer. He turned his head to see Rossi making a few notes. ‘What are you writing?’ Murphy said.

‘Just the main bits. “Unit 731”, what do you think that is?’ Rossi replied.

‘Balls if I know. Maybe we should do as he says, and Google it.’

‘Okay, you know how to do it?’

Murphy snorted. ‘Be my guest, but just because you’ve got a few years on me, doesn’t mean I don’t know how to work the internet, Laura.’

‘I didn’t mean you couldn’t, was just saying … you know.’

‘Just do it. I’ll do some proper work on finding out who she is. Was.’

Fingerprints had given them no match to anyone in the system, so Murphy went back to the missing person reports.

Hannah Reid – Dark Brunette. Not her.

Carrie Wearing – Aged forty. Strike two.

Another twenty minutes and Murphy had got precisely nowhere.

‘How do we narrow this down?’ Murphy said, looking over his screen towards Rossi.

Why don’t you check if any missing person reports have come in for students?’

Shit. Why hadn’t he thought of that? ‘Good thinking. I was just going to suggest the same thing.’

Rossi hesitated and then thought better of saying anything. Good. He was the one in charge.

Within five minutes he had two names. One a bit younger than twenty-five, at twenty-two. The other, twenty-seven. Could be either one.

He walked across the room towards the corner where DCI Stephens was in her small office. Stephens spent most of her time in there, believing in a hands off approach to management, which suited Murphy fine. Two murders in a couple of days meant he had to keep her updated however.

Murphy rapped on the office door, causing heads of those close by to turn around.

‘Come in.’ Stephens’ voice came through the closed door.

Murphy entered, taking stock of the layout. Everything in its place as usual, Stephens was an incredibly neat person, right down to the slicked-back dark hair, tied in a perfect bun. Immaculate suit, green eyes like lasers, which could spot something dodgy at fifty paces.

‘Hello, boss, just thought I’d give you an update,’ Murphy said.

‘Of course, David.’ Always the first name, the only person around the place who called him by it. To say it annoyed Murphy would be an understatement, even if she were his boss. Murphy brought the DCI up to speed on the night and morning’s events, telling her about the contents of the letter.

‘Do we have any possible names for the victim yet?’ Stephens said.

‘Two. Possibly. We’re working on the theory it may be another student.’

‘We need to be more proactive. You and Rossi pick one of them and go and visit the next of kin, or whoever reported her missing
.
Send Brannon to speak to the other one.’

‘Okay.’ Brannon going to see a relative of a missing person, possibly to tell them they’d been murdered. Murphy could see that going very badly.

‘I want you at the press conference.’ Stephens continued.

Shit. He’d forgotten about that. He was supposed to be sitting with Donna McMahon’s parents asking for information in a few hours. Murphy hated doing the media thing, he always looked huge next to normal-sized people.

‘Yes. Best spruce myself up a bit before that.’ Keep it light. Nothing wrong with him at all.

‘Don’t worry, we’ll have the parents do most of the talking.’

‘Understood, boss. I’ll get right on it.’

‘Good. And how are you feeling, David, you finding this difficult at all?’

Murphy shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘Not at all. You’ve been DCI here the whole time I’ve been a DI. You know I’ve worked murders before.’

‘Not since what happened though, David. And this is the first since the unfortunate incident last year.’

An awkward silence filled the room. ‘Which
unfortunate
incident
are you talking about?’ He smirked as she shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

‘That business with the Phillips girl.’

Murphy stopped smirking as he remembered. Flick. The image front and centre instantly. Nineteen years old. Her whole life ahead of her. Lying on her back, her face a mask of blood.

The man cuddled up to her, his dirty fingers stroking her hair.

‘That won’t happen again.’

Stephens smiled thinly. ‘Look, David. I know the past year has been tough on you, but you have to move forward. That’s why you’re leading this investigation. I want you to know my door is always open, if you have anything you need to get off your chest. I don’t believe in bottling things up. But if you want to carry on in this job, you need to be able to handle everything that comes with it.’

Murphy bit back on his initial desire to snap. He swallowed it down and instead went for a conciliatory tone. ‘I can handle it, boss. I appreciate your concern.’

‘Very good,’ Stephens replied. ‘Anything else?’

Murphy shook his head and left the office. The aroma of the perfume Stephens wore religiously, still in his nostrils. The fresher air outside the office relaxed him slightly.