Captives

THIRTY-FOUR

The stench was appalling.

DS Finn pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and held it close to his nose as he peered down at the body.

'He's not as badly burned as the first one,' said Phillip Barclay, prodding the remains of the dead man's face with a probe. A piece of blackened skin came away from the cheek, exposing the bone beneath.

'Will that make identification easier?' Gregson wanted to know, his eyes never leaving the corpse.

'Theoretically,' the coroner told him. 'But his hands are very badly burned; that rules out finding him by his prints. It looks like it's going to be dental records again.'

'Provided he's in the files,' Finn added, his voice muffled through the handkerchief.

Gregson looked at his companion as if contemptuous of the fact that he found the stench of burned flesh so repellent. Then he returned his attention to the body.

'Any further progress on the first one?' he asked.

Barclay could only shake his head. He seemed more interested in his new subject. He used a probe to force the jaws open a little wider, peering into the black maw that was Bryce's mouth. Even the tongue was burned, black and swollen by the ferocity of the heat. Two fillings in the dead man's rear teeth had indeed melted and Barclay chipped away at the molten matter with one end of the probe, cursing when a whole tooth came free of the scorched gums. He retrieved it from the back of Bryce's throat with a pair of tweezers, dropping it with a dull clink into a small kidney dish.

'See the hands,' he said, lifting the first two digits of the dead man's left hand, indicating how the fire had stripped away the flesh and bone as far as the first knuckle. What remained resembled ash and Gregson feared it would simply blow away should a strong breeze fill the room.

All around them the steady hum of the air conditioning, keeping the room at an even sixty-five degrees, was the only sound apart from their voices.

'What about the girl?' said Gregson, moving to the metal table next to Bryce.

Laid out on it, her nakedness exposed for all to see, was Paula Wilson. Her skin was already tinged blue in places from loss of blood. The savage gashes made by Bryce's blade stood out even more vividly against the paleness of her flesh. Gregson stared down at the corpse, into the open eyes. He allowed his gaze to wander over the slashed throat, past the punctured chest. He looked briefly at the cuts on her hands, at the dark bruises which Covered her torso and upper thighs like ink stains on blotting paper. The flesh of her vagina was torn and swollen. Her pubic hair had been shaved off during the course of the autopsy. The Y-shaped incision from pelvis to throat had also been made by Barclay in his quest to discover more about the nature of the girl's death. It may have seemed obvious from the state of the wounds in her throat and chest, but he had to follow procedure.

Gregson saw that her entire body was a mass of cuts and bruises, some small, some huge. The fatal cuts.

'Cause of death, as you can see, was stabbing,' said Barclay. 'Although I found petechiae which would seem to indicate he…'

'What the hell is that?' snapped Gregson.

'Small haemorrhages in the blood vessels of the eyes, usually associated with strangulation or suffocation.' He pointed to her battered face. 'That would have happened when he pushed her face into the mud.'

'The wound in the throat was the death wound,' the pathologist continued. 'She lost an enormous amount of blood.'

'What about the things he stuffed inside her?' Finn wanted to know, glancing at the ravaged vaginal area, the flesh around it blackened with bruises.

Barclay shrugged his shoulders and turned to the work-top behind him. He picked up a small plastic bag and laid it beside the dead girl's body.

'I took eight separate articles from inside her vagina,' he said, indicating the contents of the bag. The stone. The ring pull.

'Sick fucker,' hissed Finn. 'What the hell would he want to do that for?'

'Was she raped?' Gregson asked.

Barclay shook his head.

'The vaginal swabs showed evidence of urine, but that was hers. The killer left no bodily secretions of any kind. Rape wasn't his motive. He just wanted to kill her.'

'Well, he made a fucking good job of it,' Finn said flatly. He nodded towards the defence cuts on her hands. 'Looks like she put up quite a fight.'

Barclay nodded slowly.

Gregson, one hand cupping his chin, stood staring down at the body.

Vagina stuffed with rubbish.

He had seen something like this before.

Coincidence?

'Was she dead when he did it?' Finn asked. 'When he shoved those things inside her?'

'No,' Barclay said matter of factly. 'The amount of bleeding from the vagina would indicate she was still alive. Aware of what he was doing. My guess is, if she'd been dead he wouldn't have bothered.'

'Like I said to you earlier,' Finn began. 'Why not torch her as well as himself?' He looked at Gregson, who had wandered back to look at the incinerated corpse of Bryce.

The DI stood as if mesmerised by the body before him.

The stillness of the pathology lab was beginning to make Finn uneasy and the infernal stench of burned flesh was repulsive. He waved a hand as if to dispel the odour. He thought about lighting up a cigarette, even reached for the packet, but Barclay's disapproving glance finally dissuaded him.

'Is your report finished?' Gregson asked the pathologist.

'Almost.'

'I want it as soon as it is.'

He turned and headed for the door, followed by Finn.

'I want to know who those two fucking blokes are,' he said sharply. 'And I want to know fast. There's two now. There might be three soon.' He opened the door and walked out.

Finn scuttled after him.

'Frank, do you know something I don't?' he said irritably as they walked towards the lift, their footsteps echoing through the corridor. 'You said something back at the murder site about the two suicides being linked.'

Gregson nodded.

'What makes you say that?' Finn demanded.

'I just think it's a hell of a coincidence that two killers should both burn themselves up after committing a crime, especially when both could have escaped.'

They reached the lift and Gregson jabbed the button to call it.

Finn lit up a cigarette and puffed on it, glancing up at the numbers that lit up in turn as the lift descended towards them.

'So what do you make of it?' the DS wanted to know. 'The way you're talking, you make it sound like some kind of fucking conspiracy.'

'Look, I don't know what the hell is going on, right?' snapped Gregson as the lift bumped to a halt at their floor. He stepped inside. 'All I know is there's something fucking weird happening.'

'Ten out of ten for observation, Frank,' said Finn, smiling thinly. 'I think I'd have to agree with you there.'

Gregson glared at his companion.

'If you've got something on your mind you should tell me,' the DS said irritably.

'I'll tell you what's on my mind. That you should go home now and leave me to check a few things out. Got it?'

'Like what?'

'Go home, Stuart. Leave it to me. If it checks out then I'll tell you. If it doesn't, it's only my time that's been wasted, right?'

'We're supposed to be working together on this,' Finn reminded him.

The lift came to a halt and the doors slid open but Finn shot out a hand and closed them once more, his finger pressed on the 'DOOR CLOSE' button.

'What the fuck are you doing?' snapped Gregson.

'Level with me, Frank. Tell me what you're thinking,' the DS said, looking his partner in the eye.

Gregson looked down at Finn's hand, his finger still on the button.

'I'm thinking that if you don't move your fucking arm I'm going to break it,' he hissed.

Finn released the button and the doors slid open. Gregson stepped out, looking back at his partner.

'Leave this to me for the time being,' he said. Then, as the doors slid shut, he turned and walked away.

***

The MO was the same.

Gregson had known it from the first time he'd seen Paula Wilson's body.

Now he was sure.

Multiple stab wounds, no rape, but the vagina of the victim stuffed with rubbish.

He flipped through the file before him, checking the photos, comparing them to those he had of Paula Wilson. The photos in the file were eighteen months old.

Three different girls, but each one had been killed the same way. Each one had been mutilated, each one had been defiled.

Gregson ran a hand through his hair and sat back in his chair. He reached for his mug of coffee and took a sip, wincing when it was cold on his lips and tongue. He put the mug down, his gaze skipping over the pictures laid out before him.

Three girls, murdered eighteen months ago. Stabbed and beaten, their vaginas stuffed with rubbish.

And now, four hours ago, Paula Wilson, stabbed and beaten, her vagina stuffed with rubbish.

The DI reached for his phone, picked it up and jabbed the extension number for the Records Office. He waited as the phone rang.

Waited.

Finally it was picked up and he heard Steve Houghton's voice.

Gregson didn't bother to announce himself.

'Steve, have you got a file down there on a bloke called Mathew Bryce?' he said, drumming his fingertips on his desk.

Houghton said that he had.

'When you've got a minute, I'd like to see it,' the DI told him.

***

It was there again.

He'd found it in more or less the same place as before. Removed it from the shattered, burned remains of the second killer's head.

Barclay looked at the blackened piece of matter in the dish; it was smaller than his thumb nail. Next to it was the portion of the mysterious substance he'd taken from the first body.

Both were blackened by the fire, both melted.

He frowned as he prodded first one, then the other with the end of his pen.

Analysis of the two pieces had shown that they were indeed composed of plastic and a number of other elements. Silicon had been found in both.

He exhaled deeply, wondering if he should include this piece of knowledge in his report, wondering if he should mention his findings to Gregson. He decided to withhold the information for the time being. Until he knew more. Until he had some idea, however vague, what these strange, melted objects were.

So far, he was clueless. And that worried him.