Force Of Habit v5 (13 page)

North figured that if you were exposed to anything long enough you could get used to it, even cutting up putrid cadavers, but he could never get used to working in a room like this day in day out, like the lab tech’s did. He’d been stuck in an open plan office with floor to ceiling windows for six weeks and he had been going stir crazy. He couldn’t begin to imagine spending his days inside a windowless box, his light and air being fed into him. He had to be out and about. On the move.

The initial photographing, measuring, the cutting of skin tissue and drawing of blood samples took up most of the time. Once that was done it wasn’t long before a Denise Lumsden body suit was lying there, zipped open, the contents in a couple of steel bowls. North had been amazed the first time he had seen insides cut free, from neck to pubis, and removed in one huge piece, though they generally separated the intestines into their own bowl first.

He watched the pathologist work. He was chocka with self-importance. Had that look about him that made you want to punch his face without ever having spoken to him. The lab technician worked silently, efficiently; she had obviously suffered him before. The pathologist began a thorough, technical explanation. It might as well have been in Mandarin.

‘So her death was caused by severe blood loss?’ North cut in. It was the only part he thought he got.

The doc didn’t like being cut in on. His jaw tightened as his face flushed but he said nothing.

‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ said North.

He gave North a contemptible eye.

‘Have you been listening to a word I've said?’

‘Tell me as if I was the Neanderthal you think I am.’

He looked at North like he would an unpleasant specimen on a Petri dish.

‘How long do you think she was tortured for?’ North asked. He couldn’t give a shit what faces were pulled at him.

‘Several hours,’ the doc finally decided to play ball. How else would he get to show how smart he was? How superior. He pointed out some of the bruising. Some of the cuts. Some bruises were deep blue and some of the cuts had started their healing process. He showed everyone marks that had been made later. They were not as advanced. He explained how the earlier marks couldn't have been made by accident, by her simply walking into a coffee table before the killer arrived. He explained how they were all part of a long and sustained attack, inflicted by the killer or killers. She'd also been violated, vaginally and anally, with something sharp and wooden. There were splinters.

‘A broken chair leg?’ asked North, picturing the scene he had found.

Full of himself nodded. ‘That could match.’

‘Semen?’

He shook his head. Forensics hadn't found any externally either. No pubic hair, no hair period. Nothing. The chair leg could have been a replacement for sex. That’s what the shrinks would report. North had been there and got that tee-shirt. There would be DNA extracted, there was no way you could create that kind of mayhem without leaving plenty of DNA, but DNA without a suspect to match it against was a bit like having a degree in Art History: fucking useless. They’d check current records but North wasn’t expecting anything.

Time of death was sometime the night before last. Late. Midnight to early hours of the morning. She bled to death on her living room floor as a result of multiple lacerations, incisions, wounds and contusions.

‘So it is reasonable to expect that she would have made a lot of noise while all this was going on?’

He nodded. ‘When conscious, but there were traces of material in her mouth.’

‘He gagged her?’

‘I can only report the facts as I find them.’

Forensics would check the fibres. See if they could find what had been used. It might help. Finding out
why
something had been used would help more. A sadist or psychopath would fit a scenario where Denise Lumsden was slowly tortured to death and the heroin was ignored and no search was carried out for anything worth stealing, like twenty grand in a frozen chip bag - but he would want to hear her pain. To hear her beg. In North’s experience they wanted the full sensory experience and took them to places that allowed them to scream. Why hadn’t he? There was always something at odds with any one particular motive.

‘The hypodermic syringes were introduced post-mortem.’

That intrigued North. They hadn’t been a part of the sadistic act.

The doc went on.

There hadn’t been anything in them, they had been stabbed into the body, not used to inject anything into it. They were all old. Used. Some had taken more than one go to stay in, leaving additional point of entry marks and scores on the bones they had connected with. Several tips had broken off and were lodged in her body. There were also old track marks. The body was so mutilated it couldn’t be determined if she had recently been injecting herself but she had been in the past. There were no drugs found in her blood.

‘The alcohol level was point two. That may have offered some relief.’

My arse, thought North. Judging by the vodka bottles he’d seen she probably couldn’t get a buzz on until she reached point two.

‘Have you ever seen anything like this before?’ He felt stupid saying it but he had to ask.

‘No, Inspector. I have seen many violent deaths and many of the victims had been sexually abused, but nothing like this. I have seen hatred manifested in many different forms, but never so many at the same time. It is most interesting.’

That was one way of putting it, and North agreed with him. It just didn't sit right.

EIGHTEEN

Dave the Desk made a beeline for North as soon as he entered the station.

‘When did you last have a drink?’

‘Eh?’

He repeated the question. ‘And how much did you have?’

‘What's going on, Dave?’

‘You're being random tested for alcohol.’

‘What?’

‘And drugs. I have to make sure you go straight for testing and report if you leave without doing so.’

‘He needs reasonable cause to suspect...’ North faded out. ‘Okay, fair-do's on the grog, but drugs?’

‘He says your fair game for testing as you fall under both the safety critical and vulnerable post categories as you're licensed to carry firearms and work under cover.’

‘Not here I don't.’ That was in his real job.

‘Sorry. It's not just you,’ he tried to put a positive slant on things. ‘He'd probably have everyone tested if he could in light of Al Winter.’

‘He couldn't have had a PC like Winter random tested anyway unless he had cause to suspect he was a user and no one suspected him. When did they last random test anyone here anyway?’

Dave the Desk shrugged, ‘Long time. Definitely not for a couple of years.’

‘He's chasing his tail.’

‘You going to be okay?’ he seemed genuinely concerned. North stopped at the door leading to the stairwell.

‘I'll be right back.’

The Sergeant poked his head into the stairwell to see North legging it up, two at a time.

‘Hey!’

‘Just making sure!’ He ran all the way to the top and back down again as fast as he could.

‘Let's go find out,’ he said. ‘I had a bit of a skinful last night but I have had plenty of sobering moments since.’

‘What was that all about?’

‘Running up a couple of flights of stairs can take a quarter off a reading, but it doesn’t last long so I have to shift. Where is it at?’

Dave showed him the way.

North's blood stream passed waste matter into his lungs and he exhaled carbon dioxide and who knew what else into the spectrograph.

‘Oh dear,’ said the nurse. ‘The Chief won't be at all pleased.’

North stiffened. He had tried all he could but he was still over.

‘You passed.’

North breathed a sigh of relief, took the woman’s head in his hands and kissed her forehead. She returned his smile and took a swab for the drug test. Dave the Desk slapped him on the back and he was off down the corridor.

***

‘He is an ex-cop.’

North looked at Mason.

‘He worked over the river, left, no cloud, sound record, it just wasn’t for him.’

‘Why didn’t he say something?’

‘He doesn’t exactly want it known on the street. If some of his present clientele had found out the place would have been burned down with him in it before now. You know how it is, half of them have been inside at least once and the other half haven’t been quite naughty enough, yet.

‘I checked with his employer. He is currently the manager and licensee of the Pond House, has worked for the company for eight years, joined them straight after leaving the force. He seems to have been some kind of trouble-shooter for them. They picked up rough houses on the cheap, sent him in and he sorted them out, had a knack for it apparently, and then he got moved on to the next one. He’s been at the Pond House for a couple of years as they haven’t been taking any new ones on, just closing them down right, left and centre on account of the recession. He will be residing with his dear old mummy if we need him again.’

‘You don’t think he was earning a bit extra on the side, dealing drugs, or holding them, or something? Maybe coerced into it?’

‘I don’t think so. He admitted to selling cigarettes he buys from people who bring them over from the continent, evading duty and all that, it makes him a bit of pocket money. He also sticks his own bottle of vodka on an optic and doesn’t till the sales. All low level stuff, but let’s face it, he wouldn’t be owning up to drugs if he was involved after last night but I don’t fancy him for it.’

‘Well, they’ll know that he’s been in here and from what we’ve seen so far I’d bet that if he is involved they will take him out, whether they believe him saying that he kept schtum or not, so if he is still alive tomorrow I guess he was telling the truth.’

‘Have you got anything from Rawlins’ family or the autopsy?’

North gave him what he had.

‘Something will give before long,’ said Mason. ‘Right, I have to go meet with the Chief about Deacon, the Lumsden crime scene and her light fingered friend.’

He left and North went into the incident room.

‘What a jobsworth!’

‘Having fun, Just James?’

James stuck her hand over the receiver.

‘I'm onto the mobile phone company Denise Lumsden was using. The pub landline had one call to a mobile number at five-thirty yesterday evening. Denise Lumsden's phone had the same number in its memory.’

‘Then we need to get another warrant for that phone, too.’

‘Already sorted, your boss got it pushed through. I tried all the numbers from Lumsden's phone. They are all dead. The guy I'm speaking to confirmed that they were all unregistered mobile phones using the same network and none of them made or received calls to or from anything but other unregistered phones. The only exception is yesterday's call from the Pond House. They have all gone offline, probably destroyed, and so we can't get their current locations.’

‘Shit, every time we find a door to open it gets slammed right back in our faces.’

‘This guy is wasting my time,’ she indicated the phone. ‘The self-important ass keeps putting me on hold to deal with other, ‘more important’, business.’

North leaned over and pressed the mute button.

‘Keep wearing the mask and use his ego to our benefit.’

‘This nerd has got my mask slipping. His boss gave him instructions to co-operate and a copy of the warrant I faxed over and he’s still reluctant to give me any detailed info because I could be a pretexter.’

‘You could be the jealous wife trying to bust her cheating husband, eh?’

‘Mr Strickland,’ she spoke into the phone.

North hit the button to release the mute and James repeated herself. ‘I appreciate that Mr Strickland and I agree that you can't be too careful.’

North made caressing movements with his hands.
Treat him gently
.

‘We could use you looking after our servers over here,’ said James.

North gave her the thumbs up. She let the nerd go on about data security and the Data Protection Act.

‘I'll give you my number.’

An exasperated look came over her but she managed to keep the smile in her voice. ‘Good thinking, you look for our main number. I'm at Gateshead High West Street station. Excellent.’

She grasped an invisible cock with her right hand and moved it up and down. It looked out of place and made North smile. Try and try as she might she was never going to be just another one of the lads.

‘Oh, and Kevin - can I call you Kevin? Thank you, Kevin. We are looking for the killer of the woman who was murdered last night.’ She paused. ‘That's the one.’ She made some noises of agreement. ‘Kevin, it's clear that you have just the attitude and experience that could help us make significant progress in the hunt for the killer. Could I ask you a favour?’ She nodded to herself. ‘That's all I ask. These numbers could be key to the investigation. Could you look at the data you pull and see if you can see any patterns? We could really do with a professional eye analyzing the data for us. I appreciate that you are a busy man and if you can only send the information to us, then that's fine, but I think you could be an invaluable source of help to this high profile investigation.’ She made a puking face at North, said some minor pleasantries into the receiver and then hung up.

‘Well?’

‘He isn't promising anything, but he'll see what he can do.’

‘He'll do plenty. Sanctimonious prick like that will now be thinking he can solve the case all by himself. I've met those IT types. They think they are the keepers of the Holy Grail. That they alone know its secret.’

‘What secret?’

‘I've no idea. They seem to think that computers control the universe and that as the computers’ masters they are vastly superior to everyone else. Geeks. He'll be right on it. You did good, Just James.’

‘Don't use your Jedi mind tricks on me, sir.’

‘That's the stuff, talk Jedi to him. Them geeks love that shit. That sexy voice you were emphasising more and more will already have you down as his wank of the week. If he isn't gay.’

‘Do you always stereotype people like this, people you've never even met?’