Heart of the Demon (D.S.Hunter Kerr) Page 6

  This was another one of those bugbears that had crept into the job. Though everyone knew the computer highway was a very effective vehicle for today’s modern police service, much of the system had been abused and was filled with dross that encroached on time that could be spent better elsewhere. His mind drifted back to his early days when they had relied on the ‘yellow message’ system for briefings, which were carefully sifted and scrutinized by the morning sergeant before they even came across his desk for actioning. He only wished the computer had its own similar ‘gatekeeper’ to save him time and energy. He sighed and stretched his well-muscled shoulders. Despite his forty-six years he had still managed to maintain his fifteen stone physique from his rugby playing days.

  The previous evening he had spent a restless night fighting the adrenaline rush from the news that the latest discovery of the mummified body, murdered more than ten years ago, was now linked to the murder of Rebecca Morris. The identical marks gouged into each of the body’s stomach had confirmed it. No one had come back yet with answers as to what the marks meant. Especially puzzling had been the placing of the playing card on Rebecca’s chest. What had been the significance of that he had asked himself time and time again. He currently had officers combing the site around the latest body-find to see if a card had been left there as well.

  He had poured himself a large glass of whisky before retiring to bed, but he had still fidgeted, mulling over the fact that he mustn’t allow the latest finding to overshadow Rebecca’s slaying, but run the two murder enquiries in tandem. Finally after fighting sleeplessness and seeing the dawn light creep through the fabric of the bedroom curtains he rose early, showered quickly, and drove the eight miles to work hardly noticing what the car radio was playing.

  Closing the computer down, he scoured the handwritten sheets he had scribed late last night. They contained detailed notes on each of the murders, featuring all the relevant discoveries from the enquiries already carried out together with a list of fresh tasks that required working on today. There was a lot of work to do and he had to be very focused as he scribbled down further notes for the forthcoming briefing. He glanced up for a moment, and stared at some of his old personal photographs on the wall, particularly at the class photograph of his younger self, standing proudly in the middle row at Detective Training School at Wakefield.

  Those had been amongst some of the best days of his career. How he wished he could turn the clock back and be more hands on. He found it so difficult not to get personally involved in a case and accept that his role was no longer operational. He now ‘flew a desk’. It was his job to sift and sort the evidence; to identify new leads; pick out suspects, or break down alibis. The greatest personal satisfaction he could hope for was picking out that crucial bit of information from an action or statement through his meticulous reading and careful observation, that others had missed and which would initiate that first step to catching their killer.

  Placing the cap back on his Waterman fountain pen he picked up his notes, pushed himself up from his desk and walked out of his office and down the corridor. He could hear the familiar voices of some of his HOLMES team beginning their preparations for the day, and the aroma of freshly brewed coffee teased his nostrils. Entering the MIT office he spotted the new incident white boards that had been erected. There were timelines for each of the victims. The latest one displayed the rotted face of Jane Doe. He knew the immediate task was identifying the unidentified, placing a name to that gruesome form, which had once been a young girl. Without that how could they uncover her lifestyle; her habits; where she hung out and whom she associated with? That valuable information was the crux of the matter right now. He knew how important it was that Jane Doe became a somebody whom he could give back to her family.

  He quickly reviewed photos of the scene, looked at the dental x-rays and combed through the post mortem report. He knew behind the scenes that attempts would be being made to obtain finger prints from the corpse, and also that one of the detective’s would have the sole task of making the numerous phone calls to track down the orthodontist who did her dental work. At the same time forensic would be working with the clothing and other articles found on the body.

  His mind was finalising the day’s assignments as members of the team filtered into the briefing room. He fixed his gaze on a few of them and acknowledged their arrival with a firm smile.

  Morning briefing began at eight am. He satisfied himself that all who should be here were here, glanced at his watch, and cleared his throat.

  “Morning Ladies and Gents, you don’t need me to tell you that we have a very busy few days ahead.” Referring to his notes he began by re-visiting all the ‘actions’ so far relating to the murder of Rebecca Morris. He double-checked with detectives on confirmed sightings, revealed that the reconstruction had not brought in any new leads, and finished by bringing in DS Hunter Kerr and DC Grace Marshall to confirm the work they had done with her parents and revealing what her best friend had stated about the man who had been ‘coming on to her’ to photograph Rebecca. “It is vital we find this man. He is our main TIE suspect.”

  The detectives around the room didn’t need reminding that was the acronym for trace, interview, eliminate. It was given to every major player in an investigation.

  He slapped a hand over the blown-up photographs of the symbols gouged into Rebecca’s abdomen. “The pathologist has re-examined these marks and now confirms that the first mark should be a reversed L. She’d originally missed it because it appears the knife had not joined the horizontal to the upright. Therefore the marks on Rebecca are identical to those found on Jane Doe.” He paused; his hazel eyes peering through his spectacles surveyed the room. He stopped at DC Mike Sampson. “Mike you had the job of making sense of these; any joy?”

  “Not yet boss.” Mike cleared his throat. “Visited various web-sites, talked to the local priest for any religious link, spoken with some occult specialist that I got off the web, and I’ve also talked to a forensic psychologist recommended to me by the Met. I sent him a fax of the marks and I also sent him info about the playing card. Other than confirming what Professor McCormick has said about it being the killer’s signature, he’s not been able to help me further.”

  The SIO nodded and thanked Mike for his efforts. “Okay everyone back to the job in hand. We are currently widening the search for Rebecca’s school bag and other belongings, and the Press Office are putting out a fresh appeal this lunchtime in case our killer has dumped them. I have also got Headquarters monitoring her mobile in case it’s switched on at any time. There is still a lot of ground to cover on this murder.”

  He moved towards the second board and placed a hand over the grotesque photo of the mummified head. “Jane Doe. The only thing we know about her identification so far is that she was of teenage years when she was murdered. She was discovered yesterday in a slurry pit on the site of the old Manvers coking plant.” He paused momentarily and pointed to a large map of the Dearne Valley that had been fixed onto another white board “This site is only two miles away from where Rebecca Morris was discovered. What concerns me about this is not the fact that we are now dealing with a double murder, but the time span between the two killings. That body has been in that slurry pit at least ten years and more than likely fifteen. Why the gap between both murders? Was our killer in jail? Was he out of the area? Or worse still has he killed between those years and there are more bodies still waiting to be discovered?”

  * * * * *

  Grace couldn’t help but notice that without her make-up and now dressed in school uniform Kirsty Evans looked every inch the fourteen-year-old teenager again.

  She appeared to be looking around nervously as she crossed the road and Grace guessed she was seeking to avoid drawing attention to herself as she made her way to the unmarked police car.

  Grace watched Kirsty’s eyes scanning the line of parked cars opposite the school and then saw by her reaction that she had spotted her. Grace rai
sed a hand in acknowledgement.

  Taking a final glance around, Kirsty left the footpath and jogged towards the silver grey CID car parked discreetly in the shadow of one of the many trees lining the road.

  Grace reached across the front seat and sprang the passenger door open as Kirsty reached the kerb. She stuck her head inside the opening and despite the holiday tan Grace could see that she had coloured up. Grace recognised the sign of nervousness and trepidation. She patted the fabric of the front seat.

  “Get in, I won’t bite,” she invited.

  Whipping her school bag off her shoulder Kirsty slid in beside Grace.

  “You didn’t mind me ringing you did you?” she asked, avoiding eye contact, just staring at the dashboard.

  “Course not. I was hoping you would. That’s why I gave you my card the other day.”

  “Only I don’t want to get anyone into trouble, or for anyone to think bad of Rebecca.” She rattled out her words at pace.

  “Kirsty if what you have to tell me will help catch the person who did this to your best friend then people will thank you.” Grace rested her hand on Kirsty’s forearm causing her to turn and make eye contact. “I have a daughter your age. I know you don’t want your parents and especially the police to know what you get up or what you discuss but this is different. Someone murdered Rebecca and that someone may well have known Rebecca. You may well know that person.”

  She saw Kirsty shudder. She pulled back her arm.

  “I don’t know anyone who could be as cruel as that,” she responded.

  “Maybe not Kirsty, but let me be the judge of that, and from your phone call yesterday it’s obvious that something has been playing on your mind. And to be honest I sensed that at your house when we talked the other day.”

  Kirsty coloured up again. “Yes I suppose so.” She took on a sheepish look and started twisting her friendship bracelet around her wrist. “I didn’t want my mum and dad to know how Rebecca had changed over the last few months. They might have stopped me knocking about with her if they had.”

  “Changed? How do you mean changed?”

  “Not in a bad way or anything. She was just rebelling you know, because of how her parents were with her.”

  Grace watched the uneasiness in Kirsty’s eyes. “Every teenager goes through a rebellious phase. Just because you probably see me as a level-headed police officer now doesn’t mean I didn’t go through the same thing. God, I caused all kinds of problems for my parents, in fact I’ve asked myself many a time how I came to join the police. It’s something everyone goes through and Rebecca was no exception.” She paused, studying Kirsty’s face. “What do you mean by rebelling? What form did it take?”

  Kirsty’s gaze drifted away, shifting from windscreen to dashboard and back. It was obvious to Grace she was carefully considering her choice of words.

  She cleared her throat and went on. “She used to go on about how her mum and dad wouldn’t let her grow up. She had asked if she could have her hair streaked like mine but they kept telling her she was too young. Then a couple of months ago apparently her dad caught her wearing make-up when she was coming to our house and she told me he flipped. Told her to wash that muck off and stood over her in the bathroom whilst she did it. She was fuming when she came to our house. In fact she made herself up with my stuff. We went round town and she kept shouting to loads of lads, showing off like. She was a laugh at first but then I got bored and wanted to come back home and listen to some music. She wanted to stay out and we had a bit of a fall-out. I ended up calling her a tart.” Her voice trailed off with a hint of sadness, “I wish I hadn’t now.”

  “What’s done is done Kirsty. Don’t beat yourself up.”

  She forced a smile and then continued. “It became regular, the putting on make-up thing and going round town. She’d even spent some of her pocket money on a couple of tops and a pair of skinny jeans like mine and left them in my wardrobe for when she came round.” Kirsty faltered a second. “She’d started to smoke as well.”

  “That’s all part of growing up,” Grace returned, and yet at the same time she suddenly thought of her eldest daughter Robyn; hoping this was an avenue she was not going down. I must have a talk with her, the next time we’re alone, she promised herself.

  Grace sensed a sudden uneasiness about Kirsty. It was the same feeling she had had during their previous talk at Kirsty’s home.

  “There’s more, isn’t there?”

  “Well,” a slight hesitation in her voice, - “yes. It was when we went to the skate park once, with some lads,” her voice tailed off.

  “Come on Kirsty you’re half way there. It can’t be that bad.”

  “It’s a bit awkward,” she dropped her head and her cheeks flushed again.

  “Please Kirsty this could be important.”

  “Okay. Well, Rebecca started flirting, really awful like, with these older lads. Fifteen, sixteenish they were. She’d snog a couple of them and then touch them up in the youth shelter, you know what I mean.”

  Grace guessed what she meant and nodded.

  “Then when they tried to touch her back she’d push them away and laugh at them. A few got really angry with her; they started calling her a prick-teaser. I warned her. I tried to tell her to stop it and that someone would take it too far if she wasn’t careful. She just said it was a bit of fun. But I knew it wasn’t. I saw the lads’ faces.” She turned and faced Grace square on. “Do you think that might have happened; that someone took it too far. That’s why she was killed?”

  Grace wondered if that was the case.

  - ooOoo -

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  DAY FOURTEEN: 19th July.

  Deep below district headquarters Grace Marshall clenched her pen between her teeth and on tiptoes manoeuvred another manilla folder from the top row of the steel stacking shelves. Turning, she dropped the thick grubby package onto the table below, throwing up more dust particles to add to the dust-motes already floating around the basement room. She jumped off the metal footstool, glad now that she had chosen her flat ballet pumps to wear that morning, and unfastened the securing ribbon before shuffling out the contents along the wooden surface.

  Having fed her conversation with Kirsty Evans that previous afternoon into the system it had sparked much debate that morning in briefing, adding another dimension to the enquiry. As a result Hunter and Tony Bullars had the job of tracing and interviewing some of the boys from the skate park, whilst she and Mike Sampson had been given the task of going back over old ‘missing from home’ reports to determine how many were still outstanding, particularly if they had disappeared in unusual circumstances, and especially where teenage girls loosely fitted the description of their Jane Doe.

  Before coming down to the basement Grace had spent the early part of the morning logged onto the UK Police National Missing Persons Bureau computer network, based at New Scotland Yard, feeding in the current details they had of the mummified remains. It had been a frustrating morning with many phone calls to the operators to double-check the information she had entered. She knew the system itself was flawless, providing a cross-matching service by comparing the description of their body, with that of all long term missing persons. It also held a dental index, which was regularly maintained and allowed liaison with Interpol. She had quickly learned that each year 77,000 teenagers went missing, hence the need to double-check everything.

  The agitating part was that she quickly uncovered the fact that although the bureau had been operating since 1994, her own force had only joined the network in the last eighteen months. Therefore anything older than that had to be sought in the files, which the Administration Department had stored away in this grimy basement. It now meant that she and Mike had to physically check back over every handwritten record; and there were several thousand, in order to identify those that were marked as still missing. As she began to sift through the latest batch, Grace realised this was a task bigger than she had imagined.

 
“Nineteen-ninety-six.” she announced, a note of frustration in her voice. “How many years have we gone back now?”

  Mike Sampson glanced down at the pile near his feet “Three years,” he replied, “only ten to go,” he retorted with a wry smile.

  She scraped back an old wooden chair, which despite its battered and weathered appearance she had found surprisingly comfortable over the last three hours, and seated herself under the long oak table opposite Mike. She let out a long sigh as her eyes roamed around the huge windowless room with its floor to ceiling metal shelves, which appeared to contain just about every paper file which had been generated at the station since it was built in the early 1960s, and it seemed at first sight as though nothing had ever been thrown away. It was one of the many antechambers off the cold windy corridor, which connected the station cells to the nearby courtroom, where prisoners could be escorted to their fate without the need to be dragged in handcuffs through the streets. They were in a cold and drab room, with paint peeling in places as a result of the damp.

  From time to time she or Mike had been glad to make a welcome cup of tea, not only to stave off the cold but also clear the dust motes from the back of her throat. During one of these interludes she had discovered a large cardboard box containing the Crown Court files relating to The ‘Beast of Barnwell,’ an enquiry, which she knew, had occurred well before both their times as detectives. She had attracted Mike as to her finding and the pair had become distracted as they scoured old black and white photographs, and digested parts of the yellowing crime files revealing how during the nineteen sixties the Barnwell man had indecently assaulted, beaten, and raped several women, before being finally captured in the seventies. Back then it had been up there amongst the top of the country’s major enquiries, and remembering what the Detective Superintendent had said at morning briefing Grace now wondered if they were also on the verge of something similar.