12
Karen Oaten stood on the viewing ramp overlooking the autopsy room. Beside her, John Turner was visibly struggling to keep his breakfast down. The pathologist and his assistants were working on the incomplete body of Evelyn Merton for the second time, at Oaten’s request.
“Doesn’t get any better, does it, Taff?” the chief inspector said, her face only slightly less pale than his.
“I can’t…I can’t believe that someone could do this to an old lady.”
Oaten nodded. “That’s not the worst of it. According to Redrose, the perpetrator showed considerable skill in amputating the arm. Which means he must have had practice.”
“A butcher?” Turner suggested.
“Certainly a possibility, but we’re not exactly narrowing down the field. There must be thousands of them in Greater London.”
“A surgeon?”
“Plenty of them, too.” She looked at the scene below. The former teacher’s corpse was no longer covered in blood as it had been the day before in the house in Chelmsford, but it was still hard to take. “Anyway, we’ll never find the killer by going through the professions. He could be a butcher, a cook, an ex-soldier, a farmer…We need to work the evidence. That’s why we’re down here.”
The inspector glanced at her. “What is it you think they didn’t find the first time round?”
“I want to know if there was sexual activity.”
Turner swallowed hard. “Jesus.”
Oaten nudged him with her elbow. “Bring me up to speed.”
“Right, guv.” The sergeant opened his notebook. “I put the people you got from D.C.I. Hardy’s unit on the street in Chelmsford, working with the locals. So far they haven’t found anyone who saw a suspicious individual in the vicinity yesterday. We’ve also started looking at the victim’s background. Not much to go on. She was a retired primary schoolteacher. No close friends or relatives. The neighbor says she used to live with her brother. He died in a gardening accident two years ago.”
“She worked in the East End, didn’t she?”
Turner nodded. “Bethnal Green. At a Catholic school.”
“Not far from where Father Prendegast, aka Father O’Connell, messed around with little boys.”
“The second quotation from that play makes it clear enough that it’s the same killer.”
Karen Oaten’s brow was furrowed. “Someone who was taught by Miss Merton and went to church at St. Peter’s. How are those lists of boys coming?”
“We’re getting there. Lewis and Allen are already checking alibis. Simmons and Pavlou are going to help them.”
“They’re also going to find out what kind of person the victim was, whether she was popular or not, aren’t they?”
“That’s what I told them.”
Oaten jerked her head away as the pathologist inserted an instrument between Evelyn Merton’s legs. “Thanks for doing that, Taff. I think they take it better from you. I’m not exactly their idea of a caring, sharing boss.”
Turner shrugged. “No problem, guv. They’re okay really, just a bit old-fashioned.”
“A bit out of line, to be precise,” she said. “But I’ve learned that diplomacy is sometimes the best way to play things.” She blinked as a loud voice came through the speaker set into the ceiling.
“Chief Inspector?” The pathologist was looking through the glass at her, speaking into a hanging microphone. “It’s very hard to be sure, but there are contusions in the vagina that may well not have been made when the message was inserted.”
Oaten leaned forward to the microphone in front of her and switched it on. “No semen?”
“Not that I can identify at this stage.” The medic’s voice was dry and mechanical. “As you can imagine, there are several fluids. We’ve taken swabs for analysis.”
Turner looked at the chief inspector. Her lips were pressed tightly together and her hands were gripping the wooden shelf beneath the window. “Guv? Are you all right?”
She turned to him slowly, her eyes widening. “No, Taff, I’m not fucking all right. Some bastard cut an old woman’s arm off, cut her throat and then maybe molested her.” She started walking out of the mortuary. “I’m going to get the scum who did this if it’s the last thing I do.” She glanced back at him. “And if I have the chance, I’m going to make him hurt.”
Turner caught up with her. “Careful, guv,” he said in a low voice. “You sound like you’re turning into one of those people in the play. A revenger.”
Karen Oaten kept her eyes off him. “Revenge is a powerful motive, Taff. That’s what’s driving our killer, I’m sure of it. If we want to catch him before he slaughters everyone who ever wronged him, we have to get inside his head. I’ll see you later.”
“Where are you going?” he called after her.
“I had an appointment with an expert in Jacobean tragedy yesterday, remember?” she said over her shoulder. “Had to postpone because of what happened in Chelmsford. But now, after the second quotation, it’s even more pressing.”
The chief inspector strode toward her car, trying to blink away the sight of the schoolteacher’s mutilated body. The man-she was sure it was a male-who killed her had left his calling card in the poor woman’s most private place. She’d sworn an oath back there in the morgue to catch him, and she felt the power of her words burning in her veins.
If she had to go to hell to catch this devil, she would gladly do so.
I finished the rewrite of my tormentor’s latest chapter and sent it off to him at four in the morning. That meant, at least in theory, that he might be delivering the next payment any time. I tried to sit up and watch the road below from a gap between the curtains, but it wasn’t long before I fell into a blood-dripping, demon-filled dream. When I awoke with a start, I saw it was daylight. Shit. I ran downstairs. There was no package on the mat. Panting with relief, I went slowly back upstairs to my flat.
I wanted to get the newspapers to find out the latest on the Chelmsford murder, but I couldn’t leave the house in case he showed up. I thought about it. Even if I did catch him, what did I think I was going to be able to do? Take on the man who had killed at least four people? With what? My Swiss Army knife? I realized I was trembling. I remembered the Devil’s taunts. I was a crime writer who was now deeply involved in real-life crime. He was right. I couldn’t cope. Then I thought of Lucy. I had to protect her. What would my life be worth if something happened to my beautiful little girl? And Sara? Could I live with her being hurt?
It was Saturday. By nine o’clock it was warm, the birds in the gardens between the houses making a colossal amount of noise. The usual arrangement was that Caroline had Lucy on Saturdays and I had her on Sundays. That suited me. I could wait for the Devil’s delivery. I logged on to my e-mail program. There was no message from him. What did that mean? Was he on his way here or was he tearing some other poor soul to pieces?
I dressed quickly, not taking a shower or shaving so that I could keep an eye on the road. The usual laid-back activities of a Saturday morning were going on-men wandering off to get the papers, with small children running around them; couples walking their dogs; families loading up people carriers for expeditions to the country. No one or nothing out of the ordinary. The postman came along the street with his buggy. I knew him. He dropped a couple of bills through the flap and continued on his way. Nothing else happened.
I unplugged my laptop and brought it over to the window, keeping the Internet connection attached. If I couldn’t go out to get the papers, I could at least check their Web sites. I wished I hadn’t. The details about the old woman’s murder, especially in the tabloids, were horrific. I went to the Daily Independent and found Sara’s story. She was co-credited with a colleague. Apparently there had been a late-night press conference at which Detective Chief Inspector Karen Oaten (“tight-lipped and barely controlling her outrage”) had described the modus operandi. But there had been no mention of the quotation from The White Devil. Either the bastard had lied about that, or the police were keeping it quiet. If the latter was the case, they might as well not have bothered. The tabloids were already linking the murders and splashing the words “serial” and “killer” about their copy liberally. At least no one had spotted the similarities to the murders in my novels. There hadn’t even been any e-mails to me from fans. So much for my presence in the public imagination.