Dead Wrong (11 page)

“Look, I don’t want this to sound too forward, but can we meet sometime, when I’ve had time to think about this some more?” he asked.

Even better! Ruth couldn’t recall the last time a man had asked her out — if that’s what this was.

“We could get together at the weekend perhaps — have something to eat and a drink. In the meantime I’ll rack my brain, go back over the school records, look at some faces, and then I can give you a better overview of what happened. What do you say?”

Ruth raised her eyebrows. “Are you asking me out, Mr Ireson?”

He shrugged and buried his face in his coffee mug. “Suppose I am . . . Is that okay with you, Sergeant?”

Ruth nodded. Yes it certainly was . . . though against regulations, but she knew plenty of male officers who met women, while on the job.

Chapter 10

“DCI Jones is looking for you, and Doctor Hoyle’s rung.” Rocky said the moment Calladine entered the incident room.

That was good — well, the doc part was. He wasn’t so keen on talking to Jones. He’d gone ahead and visited Fallon without his say-so. But that was only because Jones was too pedantic. If he’d waited for permission it would have been Christmas before he got clearance to speak to his cousin.

The case couldn’t wait. They needed to make some headway, and fast. Hopefully there would something from the post mortems. He could do with a break. He stared at the board. The faces, the images — they weren’t talking to him. He couldn’t get a handle on this at all. They were looking at murder — more than one, possibly serial murder. But why? What was the motive? He could understand why Edwards and Hurst weren’t popular, but on the Hobfield they were vital. They were part of the very fabric of the place. Now they were gone a very real gap would have opened up. Who’d take over the business, who’d sell the dope? Perhaps he should have asked Ray Fallon.

“I’ve got a date,” Ruth announced on her return. “Don’t look at me like that . . .” Calladine’s head had shot up and he gave her a questioning stare. “It does happen, you know. A sort of dishy teacher is taking me out to eat at the weekend.”

“Only
sort
of dishy? Are you slipping?”

“Okay then — a
really
dishy teacher is taking me out. This is the first date I’ve had in ages, so I think I would have accepted no matter what. With my track record I can hardly afford to be too choosey. I’m a lot like you — no damn time for relationships.”

“Well, have a nice time. But don’t stay out too late, we’ve a lot on, remember?”

“It’s a date but it’s work related. He could be helpful. He was at the comp. when David Morpeth was killed, and he taught those two.” She nodded at the board. “If nothing else, it’s a different slant on their lives.”

“In that case don’t tell me anymore,” he advised. “If it does turn out that your teacher knows something then he could be called as a witness once this little lot comes to court,” he shook his head. “You can imagine what the defence would do with the knowledge that the pair of you were embroiled in some hot romance.”

“It’s not a
hot romance
, as you put it. I hardly know the guy,” she frowned. “Wish I hadn’t said anything now,” she decided looking almost petulant.

“The way the case is going Ruth, so do I. So don’t tell me anything else.”

Calladine doubted anything from so far back would help and legal issues aside, he was glad Ruth was getting out. She tended to bury herself in her work, very much like he did, and this place could get claustrophobic if you didn’t dip into the normal world every now and then.

“Bought Monika’s present yet? Because if you haven’t, you’re leaving it very late. If you don’t get a move on, it’ll have to be flowers after all, and she’ll know, she’ll see right through you.”

Calladine coughed. She had him there. He’d forgotten all about it — again. This damned romance business was too difficult. He had a job to do, and it didn’t leave time to go bloody shopping.

“Doc Hoyle has something. I’ll give him a ring.” He retreated into his office.

He couldn’t keep doing this, letting Monika down — not really caring. She was a problem he didn’t want to face right now, but he’d have to come clean at some point. He’d get that present, he’d take her out, and once he’d got on top of this case and it wasn’t her birthday, he’d speak to her properly.

“Doc, what’ve you got?”

“I’ve run some initial toxicology tests and got a whole mishmash of results. Both young men were full of Lorazepam. In large doses it’s a sedative and can, in sufficient quantity, induce coma. But there were traces of other drugs too, and they are more perplexing.”

“How do you mean? What did you find?”

“Risedronate for a start. I didn’t expect that, it’s usually prescribed for women suffering from osteoporosis. It would have no sedative effect at all. There was also Tramadol, a strong morphine-based painkiller, and then there was the real mystery.”

There was a pause. Calladine could picture the man studying his notes and adjusting his reading spectacles.

“Aricept, Tom. A rather expensive drug used in the treatment of Alzheimer’s.”

“Is it a sedative?”

“No, not at all. The only two sedatives would be the Lorazepam and the Tramadol, and they are commonly prescribed by GPs.”

“So why the other two then?”

“I can’t even hazard a guess. Nor can I suggest where your murderer got the drugs from. Commonly used or not, they’re all only issued on prescription. Unless, of course, they were bought online. But that still doesn’t explain the choice.”

“Thanks, Doc. Anything on the time of death, or how they died?”

“Difficult, but they’ve both been frozen at some time.” He cleared his throat. “Unpalatable as it sounds, they were cut up and frozen in the plastic bags that were found around the scene.”

“Method?”

“Stabbing, blow to the head, drugged . . . Given the state of the bodies it could be anything; so take your pick. I did find very fine slivers of metal from the implement used for the dismemberment. I’ve got Julian looking at them, so he may be able to tell you what was used.”

“Good work. If anything else comes to light, let me know straight away.”

Calladine went back into the incident room and wrote the names of the drugs on the board. This was something they could get their teeth into. It shouldn’t take long to get a list of local people who’d been prescribed this little lot.

“Gather round folks! Before we call it a day, I’ve got something for you all to think about.” He tapped the board. “Take a good look at this list of drugs. I want to know who, when and why. Speak to the local GP surgery. I’m told Lorazepam and Tramadol have a sedative effect but the other two . . .” He shook his head. “Doc Hoyle has no idea why our man would use them. That could be to our advantage. The Aricept is expensive and used to treat Alzheimer’s. That might give us something.”

“Does that mean we’re looking for some off-his-head OAP?” Rocco smiled. “Looks like that from the list.”

A ripple of laughter went around the room, until they caught sight of Calladine’s unsmiling countenance.

“We’re two days in, and no closer. I know this isn’t drugs-related, so no turf war.”

“How can you be sure, sir?” Dodgy asked. “Those drugs, it’s the kind of thing a stupid kid, who knew no better, would dish out. It might be a case of the more pills he gets down them the better, regardless of what they are.”

That would explain the strange concoction of drugs, but Calladine had spoken to Fallon. So it wasn’t that simple. Whatever the reason for the pills, it wasn’t about some kid using anything he could get his hands on.

“Julian is analysing the plastic bags. Fragments of metal were found on the bodies, so we might learn something about the implements that were used. Oh — and they’d both been frozen prior to dumping. That signifies a large freezer. In fact this entire thing required plenty of space and no interruptions. So it’s safe to presume we’re not looking at a flat on the Hobfield, not with their tacky construction. And it’s another reason I don’t think this is drugs related. The only places the crew on the estate have got is their own flats. There’s little or no privacy. So we need to look further afield.”

The pills, a breakthrough of sorts, presented them with another problem. There was only one GP practice in Leesworth and it had thousands of patients. Then there was the walk-in centre on the outskirts of Oldston that folk used out of hours, plus the ED at the hospital. The Aricept was their best bet.

“Message for you, sir,” called out Joyce as he made his way back to the quiet of his office. “There’s a woman waiting to see you downstairs. She asked for you by name, says she has some information.”

Ruth looked up from her desk. “Want me to come; another pair of ears?”

“No, it’s okay. You get on. We need to make some headway on this. But you could give whoever’s watching Kelly Griggs’s flat a ring and see if she’s turned up yet.”

Calladine pulled on his suit jacket as he bounded down the stairs to the reception area. A uniformed police officer was dealing with an irate man, who sounded drunk — trying to point out that it wasn’t police responsibility to dictate when the local shops closed.

* * *

“Miss Holden! I intend to arrange a press briefing for some time in the next two days. So I still can’t tell you much I’m afraid.”

“That’s okay, Inspector.” She smiled. “I’ve told you before — call me Lydia. This time I’ve got some information for you.” She held up what looked like the front page of the following day’s
Leesworth Echo
.

What Calladine saw made his blood run cold. She had it all: their names, every gory detail, from the severed digits to the remains left strewn across the common, as well as a description of the mark left behind by the perpetrator. Not only that, the newspaper had given him a name. It was the headline for the piece she’d written.

Handy Man.

Calladine shook his head in disbelief. “You can’t print that!” “Why not, Inspector? It’s all true, you know it is. I got this first-hand, excuse the pun.”

“What do you mean? Where did you get this? Who gave you this information?”

What Lydia Holden had done with the information was shocking. Surely she wouldn’t jeopardise the case by flaunting that — that horror — in front of the public. Leesworth would be in turmoil. There’d be panic and mayhem. “I got it from the man himself. Well, I presume it was him. It came via email. To my email address at the newspaper this morning, along with a snippet of film you might find interesting.”

“You can’t print it. You can’t let that go out.”

She was looking at him with a smug expression on her pretty face. The sort of expression he’d seen women use when they knew they had the upper hand and intended to use it.

What the hell was going on? This wasn’t the usual behaviour of murderers. They usually craved anonymity, at least if they expected to get away with it. They certainly didn’t broadcast their misdemeanours to the press in glorious Technicolor!

“Calm down, Tom. I can call you Tom, can’t I?”

Her blue eyes were sparking with mischief. She watched him, the puzzlement in his eyes. How his expression softened slightly. Yes, she had him on the run. She ran a hand through her blonde hair, fluffing it over her shoulders.

“Yes. But you still can’t publish that.”

“I don’t intend to,” she admitted. “See, this is a mock-up of what I could do. I don’t want you under any illusions, Detective. I want this story. I want access to all the details the minute you are free to release them. This is a big deal for me, and probably for you too. Tell me, Tom, when was the last time you had a serial killer in your sights? I’ve never reported a case like this before, and I don’t intend to mess it up, because it could be my ticket to bigger things.”

“We don’t know he is a serial killer, not yet. He might just have wanted to rid the world of those two.”

“We’ll see. We have to hope there are no more, but I bet you don’t believe there won’t be. Now, do you want to see this film?” She smiled, and handed him the sheet of newsprint. “Shall I come up to your office, and I’ll access it from your computer?”

“Yes, yes, come up.” What was the use? She was going to get her own way regardless.

He’d take her into his office, but he didn’t want her seeing the incident board. But then again — she knew everything they did anyway. She had it all neatly packaged on that damned front page.

But why tell the press? And more particularly, why her? If their man wanted the police to know, then why not just tell him? It had to be the publicity. Whatever information Lydia Holden had, it wouldn’t help the case, he realised. The killed would have given her no more than they already knew — which wasn’t much. But he’d be hoping the gory detail would carry the story.

“Show me.” Calladine had seated the reporter in front of his PC.

Lydia tapped away for a few seconds, and then leaned back, allowing him to look at the long list of emails.

She opened one of them.

What Calladine read made his flesh crawl. It was all there. No embellishments. The names, the brutality, and where he’d left the body parts. But there were no clues as to who he might be, or where all this had taken place.

“And the film?”

She clicked on a link. “It doesn’t make good viewing, believe me, Tom. It’s horrific, but fortunately the youth is unconscious throughout.”

The film was very dark and shaky, but the cutting of the fingers could be seen clearly enough. Each cut was made with what looked like a pair of secateurs, and the digits were left to drop onto the dirty floor.

“Forward the email to me. I’ll get my people on it straight away.”

He knocked on the partition window between his office and the incident room and beckoned Ruth to join them.

“This is Lydia Holden from the
Leesworth Echo
. I don’t think you two have been formally introduced. Ruth Bayliss is my sergeant. We work closely together, so anything you divulge to me will be passed on to her.”

Ruth smiled and nodded at the woman. Calladine could see her clocking the reporter’s expensive clothes and designer handbag. Lydia was lithe, tall and had gorgeous hair. Ruth wasn’t bad-looking or overweight — well not much — but she was probably borderline, and the clothes she wore did nothing to hide it.