Tick Tick Tick (15 page)

My mobile phone rings; it’s John Price, who’s been keeping the lead role in watching Ernie Taggs. It would appear that our man was in the area of the killing last night; he’d slipped in and out of a few sleazy pubs, and then managed to give John the slip. Christ, could it have been him all along? I yell at John for losing him, in fact I yell at him for just about everything, and then tell him to get Ernie in for questioning. No one is to go near him at the station except for Mack and me; I want this one all to myself.

I know I’m close by the file of media vans parked haphazardly down the street, reporters rushing to talk to anyone. I see Mack’s car and figure that he’s already inside; better with the dead, than the vultures of the living. Sometimes he has more brains than I credit him with.

I park way past the vans, flip up the hood on my raincoat and manoeuvre my way inside the police tape. By the time the press realise, I’m already out of reach and zipping up the old protective suit.

The hallway is damp, dark and smells of death; I know the smell of rancid blood before I even reach the body. I find Mack outside the bedroom door, his face pale with the two red scratches raw against the drained pallor, and the eyes bone tired and weary.

‘Jesus Downey, it’s bad, really bad.’

I nod and walk inside. Forensics are crawling all over the place, one of them is photographing the body, another photographing the crime scene. Then I see her. She’s lying on the bed staring at the ceiling, stark naked. Her breasts have been hacked off and are missing; he’d gone all the way down to the bone. Dead tissue stares at me as if waiting for an answer. Her throat is snapped and I can see the all too familiar bruising around the throat. Her hands are also covered in a range of ligature marks, so at one stage she had been tied up – this isn’t a case of a quick kill. He tortured this woman and he took his time; cuts are slashed haphazardly over the rest of her body, blood has seeped and pooled from each wound, so she would have been alive when this occurred. Blood splatters around the hacked-off breasts are also indicative of the woman being alive when he slashed into them. Jesus Christ, this is probably the worst so far. How can one sick bastard do all this to an innocent human being? It’s almost beyond comprehension. I feel a wave of nausea and try to blank it out. My stunning lady FME is back on the case. Thank God for small mercies. She sees me and walks over.

‘We have to stop meeting like this, hon.’ I try a smile instead of throwing up at her feet.

‘My feelings exactly.’ She flips open her notes.

‘What have you got, apart from the obvious?’

‘She’s been dead about three days, the hyoid bone has been cleanly snapped, but that was done nearly at the end.’

‘What do you mean nearly?’

‘He tortured her, raped her, and cut her before he killed her.’

‘Anything else?’

‘He sodomised her, raped her, then cut out her uterus, and placed it back in the body.’

I lean against the nearest wall before I pass out. I don’t give a shit if forensics glare, let them.

‘Fucking hell,’ I say.

‘That about covers it. You’ve got one out of control killer now, and he’s on a massive rampage.’

‘The bruises on the hyoid?

‘They match the others; I took the liberty of sticking the previous ones in my file.’ She’s good.

I nod to forensics, who simply shrugged their shoulders in disgust. No evidence yet as usual; this is getting way out of hand. So far I now have five mutilated bodies, and not one single shred of evidence, not a hair or a fibre out of place; I’m starting to think we’re dealing with a professional. Could it be a hitman hired by one of the scum that I’ve put away? No, this guy is now way out of control; a hitman would have been in and out in thirty seconds, no mess and no fuss, just a straight clean kill. This guy is making Hannibal Lecter look tame.

I march back outside the door to Mack, who still looks like he’s going to vomit any second; I know just exactly how he feels.

‘Who was the friend?’ I ask.

‘Louise Dean.’

‘How did this Louise come to find her?’

‘She said that Lucy should have turned up for lunch two days ago. It was kind of a regular thing, but she didn’t show and she didn’t call to apologise, so she came down to see if she was alright.’

‘Did she go in?’

‘No, she had no key, but she smelled the body, and knew something was up. Thought perhaps she’d had a bad fall or something.’

‘If only.’

Mack and I are lost and we both know it.

‘Anybody hear or see anything?’ I ask.

‘So far we’ve only got one woman who heard a car door banging shut several times about three nights ago. She thought it was kids hanging around, so she just ignored it.’

‘Find out if traffic or headquarters ever received any calls, just in case someone else reported it.’

‘Okay. How you feeling after last night?’ asks Mack, lighting up a cigarette. I almost feel like asking him for one myself.

I rub the bump on my head without thinking. ‘Like we got lucky. Have forensics turned up anything there?’

‘Traces of Semtex, but the rest of it was too far gone to find anything. The Fire Department Investigators are still working on it.’

‘Semtex – that’s not a normal explosive round these parts.’

‘Face it, after 9/11 and 7/7, it proves anyone can pretty much do what they like.’ Mack rubs at his wounded face.

‘Have we got anything back from the GCHQ yet?’ I’m the eternal optimist.

‘Not so much as a squeak.’

‘Are they supposed to be helping or what?’ Irritation flickers again.

‘Grimes says it’s being worked on, but they are inundated with terrorist threats.’

‘Christ, ain’t the world a cheerful place?’

My mobile phone rings – I’m getting to the stage where I didn’t want to answer the bloody thing. This time it’s good news; they’ve got Ernie and he’s in a holding cell at the station waiting for us. He’s not bothered with a lawyer, at least not yet. He doesn’t know what we’ve pulled him in for; John came up with the excuse of drunk driving, which he probably was anyway. I nod to Mack. ‘Let’s go, our boy Ernie is sitting waiting just for us.’

‘That sounds like fun.’

‘You know what, he just made my day.’

If Ernie Taggs is our killer, then I’m sure as hell going to find out, before he slices up anyone else. Oh yes –
he’s all mine.

CHAPTER 17

At the station I almost run through the hallway like an Olympic sprinter to get to him. It seems as though every blood vessel in my body is pumping at high level; I can feel the adrenaline kicking in, feel the rush as it courses through my body. I feel no pain from last night, only anticipation, that finally we might have the son of a bitch right here waiting just for me. John stands guard outside the interview room, letting Ernie sweat it out alone inside. Mack is out of breath by the time he gets to me, but I can see in his eyes that he’s as ready as I am. We suck in breath and nod to each other – we each know how the routine works.

I calmly open the door, holding it open for Mack; we slowly pull out the Formica chairs and sit down. Ernie Taggs is sweating across the other side of the table; small beads of perspiration dot across his forehead.  His nicotine-stained fingers drum, a sure sign of someone who’s anxious. Good, that’s just how I wanted him to be. I have to tread careful though, we haven’t got enough on him for an arrest, so he can pretty much pull out of the interview anytime he likes; we have to go back to our usual way of questioning him without letting him get away. I nod to Mack as I slot the tapes into the machine and hit the record button.

‘Hey, what you doing that for? I ain’t done anything.’ His hackles are already rising.

‘Just routine.’ I assure him.

‘Yeah, I’ve been done before you know.’

‘You don’t say,’ snaps Mack, glaring at him.

‘You don’t stick in tapes for a drunk drive charge.’

‘Have you ever been done for drunk driving before?’ He shrugs his shoulders, looks at the two-way mirror, then finally back at me.

‘Nope.’

‘Then how would you know? I think you’ll find it’s customary to tape all charges nowadays.’ I keep my tone level but firm; I’m talking bullshit but how is he to know?

‘Detective Inspector Robert Downey and Sergeant David Mackay interviewing Ernie Taggs, time 11:15 a.m.’ I continue through the preliminaries, before trying to phrase my first question.

‘Now Ernie, you were spotted at various bars last night on Elm Street, is that correct?’

‘So what if I was, it’s a free world ain’t it?’

‘That it is Ernie. How many pubs did you visit?’ I gave him my dashing smile.

‘Don’t know, can’t remember.’

‘Try,’ says Mack leaning over the table, his great paws gripping the edge. I see Ernie looking at them nervously and don’t say a thing.

‘A couple.’

I jot down notes. ‘So why were you in the area?’

‘I got old buddies there, so what – is it a criminal offence to go see them?’

‘No, but it’s an offence to drive whilst under the influence of alcohol,’ I say.

‘So charge me.’ His fingers drum the table and I can tell he’s having alcohol withdrawal symptoms; his body is starting to tremble and shake – brilliant.

‘All in good time. Now have you visited these pubs any other nights?’
Keep it calm and steady
, I think.

‘Sure, I was there a couple of nights ago.’

Bingo!
John obviously had a record of his visits but didn’t know that Lucy Watts had been killed about three days ago in this area, so this is a dream come true – finally.

‘You visit anywhere else around the area?’

‘Nope.’

‘You didn’t go to any friends’ homes, any after-hours drinks party perhaps?’

‘No. What the fuck is this?’

‘You been seeing any girls lately?’

‘None of your damn business!’ he lashes back. Have I hit a raw nerve?

‘Everything you do is our business,’ says Mack.

I lean carefully across the table. ‘Back up to your old tricks again?’ His face changes, I see the killer eyes flash past in an instant.

He sits back into his chair and laughs. ‘You arseholes ain’t got nothin’ on me; otherwise you would have charged me by now.’

‘How about Kathy Garland, did it feel good? Did she feel soft when you crushed the breath from her; was she still warm inside when you raped her? Or how about Lucy Watts? Did you get what you wanted? Did you get your rocks off, slicing though flesh; was the blood flowing, was your dick good and hard like your fucking heart?’ I can hear my voice spinning out of control.

‘You’ll just never know now, will you Downey?’  The bastard smiles at me.

I snap… my hand reaches across the table and I catch him by the throat. Mack quickly flicks the tape off as my fingers slowly tighten around his throat; more than anything right now I want to throttle the damn life out of him. I’m pushing, crushing his neck and I can hear him croaking for air, his face was bright red; I can feel him buckle as he starts to lapse into unconsciousness. Suddenly Mack’s paws are around me and he’s pulling me back.

‘Downey don’t, he isn’t worth it.’ Reluctantly I let go, and Ernie slides to the floor sucking in air.

‘You’ll pay for that,’ he croaks.

I sink back into my chair, surprised at my own venom. Jesus, now I’m the one getting out of control. Is this how I’m supposed to be? Is that what he wants?  As I kick back the chair and haul open the door, I glance at Ernie, who’s sitting there on the floor looking as smug as a pig in muck.

‘Book him, Sergeant,’ I say to John.

John blinks. ‘What for, sir?’

‘On suspicion of murdering Lucy Watts.’ I have the pleasure of watching Ernie’s mouth gape open and hang there. I bang the door hard behind me. Mack comes out and grabs hold of my collar.

‘What the hell were you doing back there?’

‘Interviewing a suspect.’

‘He didn’t kill Lucy Watts and you know it.’ I get eyeball-to-eyeball with Mack; I guess I’m still pretty worked up.

‘He’s killed prostitutes, dismembered them don’t tell me you think he’s a reformed character?’ I snap.

‘No I don’t, but neither do I think he has the intelligence to have committed these crimes; he’s just not that smart,’ says Mack.

‘A man can learn a lot of things in a mental hospital.’

Mack nods his head. ‘I don’t doubt it. But even if he is your number one lead, we don’t have a single shred of evidence. You can’t hold him for long.’

‘I know that, I’m hoping forensics turn something up today.’ I’m glaring, I know it.

‘We’re due for a meeting with Grimes, the profiler has finally arrived,’ says Mack. We walk along the corridors, each caught up in our own thoughts.

‘Nice stranglehold though, on Ernie. I was impressed.’ Mack tries to lighten the moment.

I laugh out loud. ‘You know, the things a guy has to do to impress his partner these days.’ I smile as Mack pushes me through the door and straight into Grimes. He turns and frowns, debating whether to go for me now or later. As he finally moves off, it’s obviously going to be later.