No Place to Die (38 page)

‘I’ll be there in ten minutes. Anything else?’ he asked, already walking out of his bedroom, down the hallway, grabbing his jacket and coat as he passed.

‘No. Ballinger is the DI on call, so he’ll fill you in when you arrive. I’ve called the team in. Do you want me with you, or shall I get things prepped here, for when you get into the office?’

‘You stay put. I’ll brief everyone as soon as I arrive.’ He was about to hang up when he heard her clear her throat. ‘Is there something else, Jane?’

There was a slight pause on the other end of the phone. ‘The chief asked me to tell you . . . to mention that he wants the scene processed ASAP. He doesn’t want . . . in his words, “a media circus” invading Peckham again.’

‘I’m sure he doesn’t,’ Lockyer said, slamming his front door, a gust of freezing wind hitting him full in the face. ‘I’ll see you in a sec.’

Lockyer zipped up his jacket as he approached the officer in charge of the outer perimeter. He couldn’t help but be slightly amused as she struggled to hold the police tape aloft for him. The scent of her perfume filled his nostrils as he brushed past. It was strong, way too strong for 4.30 in the morning.

‘Thank you, Officer,’ he said, trying not to breathe in any more of the musky odour.

A thin layer of ice crunched beneath his feet as he crossed the road. The temporary traffic lights were on red, the ice reflecting the colour onto his shoes and legs. It looked like he was walking through a pool of blood.

East Dulwich Road was deserted, apart from four police vehicles, the SOCOs’ van and a redundant ambulance. The squad cars’ flashing lights cast an eerie glow over the supermarket car park. A low muttering was coming from the alleyway that ran alongside the Tesco Metro, a squat red-brick building. It had only opened three months ago and already its reputation was tarnished by violent crime. A sixteen-year-old had been stabbed two weeks ago for his mobile phone and last week three young people lost their lives in the car park in a gangland dispute over territory. Nothing stayed unblemished for long; not in his experience, anyway.

The Tesco itself was fronted by a wall of glass. The shadowed panes seemed to watch him, distorting his tall frame into a ghastly image. His head looked tiny, his torso stunted and his legs stick-thin and fun-house long. He looked away and veered towards the alley.

Three dead girls.

Phoebe Atherton, twenty, body found on 14 December on the edge of Camberwell New Cemetery. Katy Pearson, twenty-two, body found on 4 January by a group of twelve-year-olds in New Cross. An image of Katy Pearson’s body, discarded like a piece of rubbish on scrubland behind the Hobgoblin pub, flashed into his mind. His team weren’t dealing with the case but he had seen the crime-scene photographs. The poor girl had been no more than twenty feet away from help during the entire attack.

Both of the girls had had their wrists cut, then they were raped and finally their throats were slashed. The wrist wounds hadn’t been the killing stroke, but the more the girls struggled during the sexual assault, the faster their blood would have been pumped out of their bodies. The thought made his palms sweat. He stopped and took a lungful of the January air, grateful now for the bite of cold on the back of his throat.

There was no confirmation of a link between Katy and Phoebe, not officially, but the whispers around the squad were getting louder. This body wasn’t going to do anything to quieten the rumours. All three murder sites were within two miles of each other. If the modus operandi was consistent with the others, he and the murder squad could potentially be dealing with south-east London’s first serial killer. It felt like he had wandered onto a film set instead of an unremarkable suburban street in East Dulwich.

He approached the inner cordon at the mouth of the alleyway and dragged on some shoe covers held out to him by another young officer. It was only then that the smell hit him. The cold would have slowed down the first stages of decomposition but there was no mistaking the sweet, metallic odour of blood.

The scene of the crime officers had laid down numerous three-by-two platforms of toughened plastic to protect the site. He stepped up onto one of them, aware that he was inches away from vital evidence. The platforms criss-crossing the piles of debris made the scene look like some sick collage, the forensics team hovering around the body, obscuring Lockyer’s view. All he could see were two bare feet.

‘Mike, delighted you could make it. I was entering rigor myself waiting for you.’ Dave Simpson stood and walked towards him, removing his gloves.

‘David. What have we got?’ Lockyer asked, resting a hand on his friend’s shoulder. Dave was the senior pathologist for Southwark. His district included the boroughs of Greenwich, Lambeth and Lewisham. It was a massive area to cover and meant a lot of overtime. He dealt with everything: gang-related shootings, a young girl stabbed to death for twenty pounds, a mercy killing in New Cross, a man beaten to death by his neighbour because of a kid’s bike, and that was a quiet week. Every hour the poor sod had worked seemed etched on his face.

‘Female, Deborah Stevens, eighteen years old . . . and we’re looking at the same MO as the others. It’s too early for me to officially confirm but . . . unofficially, you’re looking for the same man. Wrists, rape, throat.’ Dave shrugged.

He stepped over to another platform to get a better look at the shrouded body. ‘How long are these guys gonna be?’ Lockyer motioned towards the SOCOs.

‘They’re almost done. Five minutes. Once they’re done I’ll talk you through what I have so far and we can discuss the . . . differences.’

‘Differences? You just said it was the same MO?’

‘It is, bar a couple of things.’ Dave put his finger to his lips. ‘I’d prefer to talk to you about them when this lot have gone. Lot of ears here.’

‘Can we get this scene cleared, now?’ Lockyer’s tone left no room for interpretation. The group of bent figures finally acknowledged his presence and began shuffling out of the alley, their papery outfits crackling as they went. ‘So? Come on. I don’t want to waste any time if you’ve got something I can move on.’ He took a step towards the body but Dave stopped him. ‘What’s up with you?’ he asked, looking at Dave and the firm hand holding his arm.

‘Before we go and look at her, there are two things,’ Dave said.

‘And they are?’

‘Firstly, there are two additions to the MO. It appears that the attacker used a knife to initially subdue the victim and then drugged her. I won’t know for certain until I have her on the table, but she has a puncture wound just below her ribs and an entry site and bruising on her neck.’

‘I’ll need confirmation on that ASAP. If the suspect bought or stole prescription drugs, it could be a great lead.’ Lockyer was already thinking who in the Serious and Organized Crime Division would be the best person to ask about purchasing or stealing prescription medication. ‘And . . . the second thing?’ Dave didn’t answer. Lockyer looked down at the hand still holding his arm. ‘What the hell is up with you?’ he asked, trying again to shake free of his friend’s grip.

‘I just want you to be prepared before you see her. She . . . I mean . . . there’s a resemblance to . . .’ Dave drifted into silence and seemed to be looking everywhere but at Lockyer.

‘Come on, Dave . . . what resemblance?’ He wrenched out of Dave’s grip and stepped towards the body. Her bare feet were smeared with mud and filth from the alleyway. Her scraped knees were splayed outward, her right leg lying at an awkward angle with what looked like badly torn tights stuck to her thigh. Her skin was translucent. A sheet covered her torso but Lockyer could still see the blood. It looked viscous, like oil. It had pooled around her wrists where they had been cut.

As he took another step forward the victim’s face came into view. Her auburn hair was plastered against her right cheek. He squatted next to her and tilted his head to look into her lifeless eyes. ‘Oh my God,’ he whispered.

‘That’s what I was trying to tell you,’ Dave said, pulling him to his feet. ‘I’m sorry, mate. I almost had a heart attack myself, when I arrived. Took me a couple of seconds to realize it wasn’t her.’

Lockyer tried to focus, to move or speak.

‘Mike . . . are you all right?’

The iron clamp crushing his heart suddenly released its grip. He swayed as his senses rushed back to him. ‘. . . I’m fine. It isn’t . . . it isn’t her,’ he said, touching the chain around his neck, rolling the ring back and forth beneath his shirt.

‘No, it isn’t. I’m sorry, I handled that badly. I wasn’t sure what to say,’ Dave said with a shake of his head.

‘It’s fine, just knocked me off for a second, I’m fine . . . what else have you got for me?’

He tried to listen to Dave’s preliminary report but all he could think about was Megan. All he could see was her face.

Praise for Clare Donoghue

‘An assured and shocking debut from a talent to watch’

DAVID HEWSON
, author of
The Killing

‘An atmospheric, authentic police story . . . a cracker of a book’

ELIZABETH HAYNES

‘Clare Donoghue has joined my list of “must read” authors’

www.crimesquad.com

‘Tension so delicious you’ll feel your scalp tingle as you read far, far into the night. A compelling debut’

SHANE GERICKE
, author of
Torn Apart

‘
Never Look Back
is heartfelt, riveting, and as suspenseful as they come. Highly recommended for fans of nail-biting thrillers and classic whodunnits’

www.crimefictionlover.com

‘Donoghue writes with a clear eye to the ironic, in a smooth and addictive style, all the while adding substance and clarity to her characters as we get to know them. The final resolution is perhaps one of the best ones I have read’

www.lizlovesbooks.com

After ten years in London, working for a City law firm, Clare Donoghue moved back to her home town in Somerset to undertake an MA in creative writing at Bath Spa University. In 2011 the initial chapters of Clare’s debut novel,
Never Look Back
, previously entitled
Chasing Shadows
, were long-listed for the CWA Debut Dagger award.
No Place to Die
is Clare’s second book.

You can say hello to Clare on

Twitter @claredonoghue or Facebook

www.facebook.com/claredonoghueauthor

Also by Clare Donoghue

Never Look Back

First published 2015 by Pan Books

This electronic edition published 2015 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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ISBN 978-1-4472-3935-2

Copyright © Clare Donoghue 2015

Art Direction and Design by Neil Lang/Pan Macmillan
Cover Images: figure © Silas Manhood, all other images © Shutterstock.

The right of Clare Donoghue to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This book is a work of fiction. names, characters, places, organizations and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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