The Principle of Evil: A Fast-Paced Serial Killer Thriller

As she hung upside down, tethered to a steel framework attached to the ceiling, her arms hung down, hands grasping at nothing but air. She knew she was too far from the mobile to reach it but still she tried.

She saw his big black boots come into view. He placed his foot on her mobile, then raised it high before bringing it crashing down. The cracking sound from her only source of help resounded in her ears. Her eyes clamped shut, her mouth pinched, as she fought back fresh tears.

Her senses were tingling. She was so cold. A draught was coming from a gap under the wooden door to the building. She’d been stripped naked and was now hanging precariously from the rafters, open to whatever torment was to come.

Her blood rushed to her head and she prayed she would black out.

The man watched her, eyes looking like dark holes. The pits of hell set deep in his pale face. She pleaded with him as he drew nearer but it was pointless. He held the knife at his side for her to see. The best she could now hope for was that it would be over quickly. She closed her eyes tight, bracing herself.

Then she felt the blade.

*

08:46 a.m.

‘We’ve got to go to the police.’

‘And tell them what?’

Olivia was now losing patience, and paced the room. Rachel was already getting dressed, stumbling as she pulled her trainers on her feet.

‘I’ll tell them Nola’s missing and about the call,’ she rushed, grabbing her coat as she made her way to the front door. ‘They’ll help.’ Olivia, following behind, reached out and grabbed her hand as she touched the door handle.

‘We’ve got to work, Rach,’ she said, her eyes looking deadly serious. ‘Daryl wants to see us.’

Rachel was frozen by her words. Daryl wanting to see them suddenly meant one thing – trouble. ‘What’ve you told him, Livi?’

‘Nothing,’ she said, averting her glance from Rachel.

‘You’re lying to me.’

Olivia was silent, but her face gave her away. Rachel’s body tensed and she raced back into her bedroom and went to the bed. ‘I can’t believe you’ve told him what’s been going on, that I’ve lied to him.’ She reached under her pillow and pulled out a knife.

Olivia’s eyes widened. ‘What the fuck, Rach? You’re not taking that out with you. I’m not letting you.’ She grabbed her wrist, squeezing hard, but Rachel refused to drop the blade.

‘Don’t you remember how long it took me to heal the last time Daryl messed me up?’

‘He won’t touch you this time, I promise.’

‘I’m going to help Nola. I’m going to help myself.’ Tears were now falling down her cheeks. ‘I need to get away from Daryl, from all of this.’

‘You don’t know if the voicemail’s real or fake, Rach. Wake up!’

‘I heard her screams in the background.’ Her words ensured a long desperate silence between them both, until Rachel managed to find her voice again.

This time she spoke softly. ‘I heard her. She was crying for help. She said he was going to kill her, whoever he is,’ she said, dropping her knife to the floor. ‘I can’t ignore that. She wouldn’t joke about something like this.’

Olivia’s face softened. ‘I’ll go with you to the police, but let me call Daryl first.’

‘No!’

‘All right, no phone call,’ she said, putting her mobile back in her pocket, ‘but you got to talk to him sometime.’

Rachel nodded. ‘I know… Let’s just find Nola first.’

CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_de545cbf-2d01-5f2a-a924-46b72943a80d)

Present Day

6

November

Ice crunched under her feet as she walked over the grass verge, towards the lake where the body had been pulled from the water. Smoke from the fireworks still hung heavy in the air.

The winter sun was just beginning to break through the darkness, lying low on the horizon, and as she walked towards the white incident tent ahead, she stifled a yawn.

It had been a long night for forensic pathologist Dr Danika Schreiber, having been on call, and she could barely keep her eyes open. She was met by Claire, who was shivering in the cold, puffing on a cigarette.

‘Thought you were giving up?’ Danika said as she placed her case on the ground next to her. Her faint German accent was still audible, despite the fact she had lived in England for several years.

‘It’s been a long night.’ Claire stomped her feet against the ground, trying to revive her frozen toes.

‘For us both. That’s why I’m late. The last job took longer than expected.’ She peered over Claire’s shoulder and stared out towards the broken ice floating on the water. ‘Is that where you found the body?’

Claire flicked her cigarette from her fingers and it rolled across the ground. She nodded as she exhaled a plume of smoke. ‘Yep, and it wasn’t easy dragging her up either. You’re bloody lucky it’s only one body as well.’

‘Yes, I heard you had to rescue a boy who’d fallen through,’ she said, pulling the hood of her Tyvek paper suit over her long black hair. ‘Where is DI Fletcher? OK, I hope?’

‘He’s gone with the boy to the hospital until we can locate the boy’s parents. From what information we got out of those drunken friends of his, the mother’s a lush and the father’s not much better. We’re having trouble finding them.’

They walked under the police tape and towards the incident tent. Danika pulled on a pair of overshoes, then thin blue plastic gloves, and followed Claire inside the tent. She was careful not to disturb any potential evidence, keeping to the plastic walkway which led towards the body. She squinted under the glare of the large spotlights, one in each of the four corners of the tent.

Both women looked down at the body. The face of a young girl stared back at them. Her body was naked, with a thick chain around her ankles. Danika stared at the heavy coiled links.

‘Someone weighted her down,’ she said, kneeling next to the body. Her eyes glanced over the girl’s face and down to her toes. Then she returned to the deep cut to the side of the neck. The remains of dried blood were partially spattered down the dead woman’s neck and chest, still visible despite having been in the lake. The water had given the blood a dull hue against the skin.

‘How long do you think she’s been under the ice?’ Claire said.

‘It’s hard to say at this stage. When someone has been in cold storage, it slows the process of decomposition. It will be hard to pinpoint a time of death.’

‘She’s not been in a fridge, Danika.’

‘Yes, but being under the ice has had the same effect to some degree. If she had been found elsewhere, there would be larvae, maggots… I could pinpoint the time period. There are no obvious signs of scavengers having tampered with the body, although I’ll know more when I’ve examined her properly, but it suggests maybe she’s not been in the water very long.

‘There’s a little orange tinge to the skin, which is to be expected as she’s been submerged, but it’s minimal. Again this would indicate she’s not been here long.’ She paused, frowning hard. ‘That chain’s a bit excessive. Even with it weighting her down, she’d have risen to the surface eventually, but you were lucky to find her now before the skin started to peel.’

Danika looked up. ‘It’s looking likely loss of blood is the cause of death.’ Claire cocked her head, looking at the body at a new angle as Danika continued. ‘She has a deep laceration to the side of the neck, most likely severing a jugular vein, carotid artery and the trachea. Death would have occurred within seconds, but she was probably killed somewhere else and dumped in the lake.’