CUT DEAD: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel Read online

  ‘The latest body,’ she said. ‘The clay was in the woman’s oesophagus and stomach. Dr Andrew Nesbit is performing the remaining PMs today as we speak, but he’s not hopeful of getting much so we might not be able to find out whether the killer did the same with the other victims.’

  ‘Interesting.’ Wilson reached for the catch on the gate and swung it open. As they walked down the metal tracks, he began to elaborate. ‘The killer is trying to silence the woman. Or should I say women. Shoving the clay in the victim’s mouth would be a symbolic act. Using the materials of his trade he strives to deny the woman, all women, a voice. The victims speak to him, plead even, but he doesn’t want to listen. Women are an abomination to him, he can only think of them with heads or limbs missing, bodies contorted, genitals deformed or absent. He wants to remove their lies, remove their identity, most of all, remove evidence of their womanhood. I’m telling you, clay is the answer, the clay. Find the clay and you’ll find the killer. Do you understand?’

  Jesus, Savage thought, thinking of the bodies in the trench. No heads, no genitals, certainly no longer recognisable as women. Wilson was spot on. Perhaps the force had made a huge mistake when it had abandoned the investigation and put aside the psychologist’s theories.

  Wilson continued, getting into his stride, a stream of consciousness filled with words Savage didn’t understand. She wanted to stop him and ask how much of this was new information, lessons he’d learnt in the US. The FBI had much more experience in such things and she knew the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime in Quantico, Virginia were experts in identifying the signature aspects in serial killings. Had Wilson picked this up there? Maybe even, as he’d suggested, contributed himself?

  ‘… and will seek to achieve self-actualisation, the peak experiences needing to be more frequent to satiate his needs.’ They were nearing the crime scene tent now and Wilson stopped and looked around. ‘During all this you can be sure he’ll be watching us. We need to be aware of that.’

  Savage glanced around too, seeing the nearby hedges and beyond, only mist.

  ‘Not here, surely?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Wilson picked his way across the stepping plates to the tent. ‘Killers return to the crime scene for many reasons. To have sex with the bodies or to retrieve trophies, to relive the moment of the murder, even more prosaically to clean up and ensure they’ve left no incriminating evidence.’

  ‘So far we’ve found nothing.’

  ‘And you won’t.’ Wilson lifted the flap of the tent. ‘My goodness. Wonderful.’

  ‘Really?’ Savage’s mind flitted back to the first time she’d seen the hole on Saturday. Shorn of the ghoulishness of the night the hole was just an excavation, the temporary resting place for three souls, yes, but nothing wonderful about it.

  ‘Yes. Even my friends in the FBI would be impressed with this.’ Wilson peered into the hole and then back at Savage. ‘This might seem a strange request, but could I be permitted a few minutes on my own? I need a little space to work.’

  ‘Sure.’ Savage moved away from the tent and walked back to the metal tracks. The first night she too had needed space to focus. She’d had to blot everything from her mind. Today Wilson had the luxury of peace.

  Savage looked around the field and thought about the psychologist’s idea about the killer revisiting the scene. If the killer was going to return to the site he’d be conspicuous. So far there’d been some sort of police presence twenty-four-seven but it wouldn’t continue for much longer. Savage wondered about posting some sort of watch. Decided it was worth asking Wilson about.

  Back in the tent Wilson had a small camera out and was taking pictures, the flash firing in the low light. Fifty metres past the tent Savage could see Layton and two other CSIs working a new area of ground marked out with tape. Beyond them the mist had thinned and the river was now visible. A solitary rowing dinghy drifted on the Tavy, slipping beneath the columns of the bridge as the oars dipped and left circles on the water.

  The noise startled Narr and he jerked awake, knocking the garden table and spilling his second cup of tea. He cursed. The policewoman had not long gone, leaving him in a bit of a state, and now he glanced around the garden, almost expecting the murderer to come at him with an axe.

  After a moment he realised somebody was at the front door. He got up and went inside, surprised when he opened the door to see Joanne Black and her farmworker standing there.

  ‘Joanne.’ Narr smiled and then nodded at the man alongside. ‘Jody. This isn’t, I guess, a social call?’

  ‘No, Adam.’ Joanne shook her head. ‘Can I have a word?’

  Narr showed the two of them in, holding the door and admiring Joanne from the rear as she walked past. Not a bad arse, he thought. Wouldn’t say no to rutting with her. Out the back, Jody slumped down on one of the garden chairs. Joanne stood gazing out over the fields.

  ‘Rum do,’ Narr said. ‘Those bodies turning up on your land.’

  ‘You could say that.’ Joanne didn’t move. ‘But they didn’t just turn up. Someone put them there.’

  ‘And you know who did?’ Narr glanced down at Jody, but the farmworker shook his head. Narr smiled at Jody and then went and stood beside Joanne. ‘No, you don’t have a clue. But you think I might.’

  ‘You’ve lived in this house all your life, Adam.’ Joanne glanced across and then back at the fields. ‘You’re as much part of this village as the church or the pub. I said as much to Jody. If anyone knows, you do.’

  ‘I can tell you I don’t know the killer. I’ve had the police come knocking twice. Told them the same. Who from round here would do such a thing? Can’t say I’m much enamoured of most of the people in the village, but even I don’t suspect any of them of murder.’

  ‘But the farm, my farm. You know all about that, don’t you?’ Joanne waved her hand in the direction of the river. ‘On my land there’s a concrete plinth. There used to be a bungalow standing on the site, but Jody says he and my uncle demolished the building twenty-five years ago. Back when I visited the farm as a little girl I was looked after a few times by a young lass who lived in the bungalow. Her name was Laura or Lauren. Something like that.’

  ‘Lara.’ Narr grinned. ‘She were my age. Fit. Every red-blooded male in the village and beyond was after her. She were like a young bitch coming into heat for the first time. We all had our tongues hanging out over her, but she wasn’t interested. Gossip said she liked them older.’

  ‘Really?’ Joanne looked at Narr again. Held his gaze this time. ‘When I returned to the farm one year she and her family had gone. My uncle didn’t give a reason other than they’d moved away.’

  ‘Moved away. That’d be it. Crafty old sod.’

  ‘So there was more to the story then. I thought as much. What happened?’

  ‘Your uncle was sweet on Lara. Very sweet. But he was twenty years older and she was young and flighty.’

  ‘And she liked older men?’

  ‘She may well have done, but not your uncle. Plus her parents weren’t happy about it.’

  ‘Are you saying …?’

  ‘I’m saying when the bee comes after the honey you best keep the lid on the jar. The family upped sticks and left and I guess that were the reason.’

  ‘My uncle wasn’t married to my aunt back then?’

  ‘No. Soon after Lara left he married a woman around his age – your aunt. As you know, she died a few years before your uncle. They never had any children.’

  ‘Which is how I came to inherit the farm.’

  ‘Yes.’ Narr shook his head. ‘Lucky bugger.’

  ‘You might say that.’ Joanne looked out over the fields again. ‘But I’m not feeling so lucky now, am I?’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Crownhill Police Station, Plymouth. Thursday 19th June. 9.00 a.m.

  When Savage walked into the crime suite Thursday morning Gareth Collier’s number countdown had reached ‘2’.Keyboards clattered in a frenzy as the index
ers hunkered down at their workstations, Collier moving between desks like a lion circling his prey. Every now and then he’d pause at somebody’s shoulder and raise an arm and scratch the stubble on top of his head. Then his arm would shoot down, a finger jabbing at a screen. The office manager knew all too well that this was where the murders might be solved, but a wrong entry or a piece of data misfiled could lead to disaster.

  The big news evidence-wise was the SUV Adam Narr recalled seeing on the Plymouth side of the railway bridge. Phil Glastone owned two cars, one an Alfa Romeo 8C Spider, the other an SUV in the form of a Volvo XC60. On hearing the information, several members of the team had reacted as if Glastone was as good as convicted. Savage wasn’t so sure. Narr had identified the type of car, not the make or model. And there was no way he could pin down the exact date he saw the car. She explained to the team that they needed to work at the alibi Glastone had given for the Sue Kendle murder. They also had to make sure the vehicle info was watertight. Finally they needed to understand his motive and why he took a break from the killing. Glastone had been living and working in Salcombe the whole time, so there had to be a reason for the hiatus.

  After she’d finished her mini-briefing Collier came over to Savage.

  ‘Knife edge, ma’am,’ he said. ‘If we take the vehicle picture book out to Narr and he says the car he saw was a Volvo XC60 then we’re rocking. Anything like that could pin Glastone down and link him to the bridge. We build a case from there, bit by bit. Forensics, phone traces, additional witnesses. On the other hand, we get the wrong piece of information and he could be above suspicion.’

  As if in response to Collier’s statement a phone rang. Across the other side of the crime suite DC Calter reached for the handset and answered. She nodded, wrote something down on a pad and hung up.

  ‘Confirmation that two of the victims are Sue Kendle and Heidi Luckmann,’ she said to a room all of a sudden silent, every officer hanging on her words. ‘And as for the third, well we’ve got an ID for her too.’

  Body three turned out to be a woman by the name of Katherine Mallory. Samples collected by Nesbit at the PM had resulted in a DNA match relating to a missing person inquiry up in Bristol. The woman in question had been cautioned as regards a cannabis possession charge a couple of years ago and her DNA was still on file.

  Following the ID Calter worked the phones for an hour and then briefed Savage.

  ‘I’ve spoken to somebody from the Avon and Somerset force. The girl went missing last year. Twenty-first of June.’

  ‘Shit,’ Savage said. ‘That confirms it then. Anything about a cake?’

  ‘Not according to the material on the system.’

  The inquiry hadn’t been high priority, Calter said. The girl was over eighteen, not in any way thought to be vulnerable, and after an initial investigation the Bristol team concluded she went walkabout after a tiff with her lover. The file was still open, but the officer on the line had been keen to notch up another result once the formalities had been dealt with.

  ‘They solve their misper and we get a murder,’ Calter said. ‘Hardly seems a fair exchange.’

  ‘Not very fair on the girl either,’ Savage said. ‘Let’s hope there’s at least a few red faces up there.’

  Savage took the sheaf of papers from Calter and began to read through the material. She headed out of the crime suite and up to Hardin’s office, where a grunt like something from a wild boar greeted her knock at the door.

  ‘The unidentified woman, sir,’ Savage said as Hardin looked up from a copy of The Sun which sat beside a plate with a stack of chocolate cream biscuits. ‘She went missing up in Bristol, but was originally from Dartmouth. Her name’s Katherine Mallory. Katie to her friends, Kat to her lover.’

  ‘And who is he, the lover?’ Hardin said. ‘Should he be on our radar as a person of interest?’

  ‘She, sir. He is a she.’

  ‘Oh.’ Hardin glanced at his computer screen and reached for his mouse, possibly, Savage thought, for a directive on dealing with lesbian suspects or next-of-kin. After a couple of clicks, he continued. ‘Well, you’ll be having words, won’t you? Don’t think Mike Garrett would be up to the job.’

  Savage outlined what else they knew about Katherine Mallory’s disappearance, including the absence of the killer’s motif: the cake.

  ‘I’ll be visiting her parents first and then going up to Bristol later this afternoon,’ Savage said. ‘To see if we can get to the bottom of it. I’ll speak to the local force and Mallory’s lover. The parents will have no idea, Katherine not being linked in any way to the Candle Cake Killer.’

  ‘What I want to know,’ Hardin said, picking up a chocolate cream and turning it over in his hand, ‘is where was the bloody cake? I mean this girl goes missing, a victim we now know of our man, but there’s no cake. Do you think the Somerset and Avon force could have made an almighty balls-up?’

  ‘I can’t see how they could have missed it, but you’re right, if they did then someone’s for the chop.’

  ‘Chop?’ Hardin said, pausing as if he was about to come up with a witty pun. Nothing doing he continued. ‘Phil Glastone. I want you to find out if he’s got connections to Bristol. Whether he could have possibly known the Mallory girl. You said she was originally from Dartmouth?’

  ‘Close by, yes, Dittisham.’

  ‘Nice.’

  Savage could see from Hardin’s expression that the thought of Katherine Mallory living in Dittisham was far from nice. He was probably trying to resolve the girl’s sexuality with the picture-postcard image of the riverside village stuffed with million-pound houses.

  ‘The local connection is possible,’ Savage said, ‘although Glastone is nearly twice the girl’s age. Maybe he knew her through the parents. As to Bristol, well I wouldn’t be surprised if Glastone visits the city to do with his job.’

  ‘Remind me,’ Hardin said.

  ‘He’s a database programmer. Freelance. Well paid. He lives in an expensive house, drives a new Alfa, takes several holidays abroad each year.’

  ‘Right.’ Hardin’s face creased again. Well paid IT professionals didn’t appear to command any more respect than lesbians. ‘Well, get up there and find something. Anything.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And remember, Charlotte, we need results.’ Hardin turned to a calendar on the wall where June’s picture showed a Dartmoor brook, several children playing in the water, the whole thing bathed in warm light. He jabbed his finger at the twenty-first. ‘Within the next two days, got it?’

  When Marion Mallory opened the front door and saw the two people on her step she knew something wasn’t quite right. The woman, late thirties, with red hair tied back, looked hesitant. The man, a good deal younger and with a pleasant, open face, wore a smile which wasn’t really a smile. Their expressions spoke volumes.

  The pair were too neat to be selling anything, their suits – a grey knee-length skirt and a jacket for the woman, charcoal for the man – somehow too official for debt collectors, God-bods or political canvassers. It was as the woman reached into her jacket and extracted a card, the word ‘Savage’ jumping out, that Marion realised.

  ‘Oh, you’ve found something then?’ she heard herself say, the sentence phrased as if the pair were reporting the recovery of a stolen car.

  Then she was stepping back into the house, a hand reaching out to the wall for support. Wishing her husband was home. And crying. The tears running down her face hot and angry and futile.

  Savage had driven east in the early afternoon, accompanied by Calter and Luke Farrell, the family liaison officer she had brought with her as much for her own comfort and support as for Katherine Mallory’s mother. Farrell came in his own car so Savage and Calter could continue on to Bristol and a meeting with Katherine’s lover.

  The village of Dittisham sat on a great curl of the river Dart a couple of miles above Dartmouth. Dittisham, pronounced ‘Ditsum’ by those in the know, wasn’t so much a playground f
or the rich as a retirement complex for those affluent enough to be able to afford to live there. A mixture of thatched cottages, bungalows and huge detached houses clung to the slopes above the river and the Mallorys lived in one of the latter, halfway down Riverside Road. Savage had to admit the view was close to priceless. With the tide in, the Dart was as picturesque as ever with boats frittering this way and that. A ferry was making the crossing from Dittisham to the quay at Greenway House and Savage pointed out the place to Farrell as the two of them walked up to the front gate, Calter remaining in the car. Three was definitely a crowd in this situation.

  ‘Know who used to live there, Luke?’ Savage said. Farrell shook his head. ‘Agatha Christie. We could probably do with her help now.’

  ‘I don’t think Miss Marple would help soften the blow, boss,’ Farrell said. ‘Stiff upper lip, cup of sweetened tea and all that crap.’

  Farrell had been proved correct and Marion Mallory’s initial matter-of-fact manner had vanished into tears and sobbing. The anguish had increased when Farrell broke the news that Katherine had likely been a victim of the Candle Cake Killer. Over the year Katherine had been missing Marion had obviously prepared herself for the worst, but the worst turned out to be nothing compared to the truth. In the last few days she’d seen the news, the TV pictures of Tavy View Farm, the endless recounting of events; she’d never imagined her daughter caught up in it all.

  The tears, though, had come and gone with the tea and now there was only a bleak recounting of the events, the little snippets of information which Marion would remember long after she’d forgotten her daughter’s smile.

  They were in the living room which, size excepted, was no different from a million others. Television, sofa and armchairs, a coffee table with the morning’s papers still spread out alongside a pile of post and three teacups, now drained of their contents. A clock on the mantelpiece and next to it a photograph of a girl. Not a girl, a young woman, twenty-seven, maybe a little younger in the picture, but frozen at that age forever now.