The Mermaids Singing

Back in the office, Tony slid the first set of photographs out of their folders. ‘Before you start, could you fill me in on how you want to pursue this?’ Carol asked, notebook at the ready.

‘I’ll go through all the pictures first, then I’ll ask you to take me through the investigation so far. When we’ve done that, I’ll work through the paperwork myself. After that, what I usually do is draw up a profile of each of the victims. Then we have another session with these,’ he said, brandishing his forms. ‘And then I walk out on the high wire and do a profile of the offender. Does that sound reasonable to you?’

‘Sounds fine. How long is all that likely to take?’

Tony frowned. ‘It’s hard to say. A few days, certainly. However, Handy Andy seems to work on an eight-week cycle, and there’s no sign that he’s accelerating. That’s unusual in itself, by the way. Once I’ve studied the material I’ll have a better idea of how in control he is, but I think we’ve probably got a bit of time to spare before he kills again. Having said that, he may well have already selected his next victim, so we’ve got to make sure that we keep any progress we make well away from the press. The last thing we want is to be the catalyst for him speeding up the process.’

Carol groaned. ‘Are you always this optimistic?’

‘It goes with the territory. Oh, and one more thing? If you develop any suspects, I’d prefer not to know anything about them at this stage – there’s a danger that my subconscious will alter the profile accordingly.’

Carol snorted. ‘We should be so lucky.’

‘That bad, is it?’

‘Oh, we’ve pulled in anybody who’s got form for indecent assault or violent offences against gay men, but none of them looks even a remote possibility.’

Tony pulled a sympathetic face then picked up the photographs of Adam Scott’s corpse and slowly started going through them. He picked up a pen and moved his A4 pad nearer to him. He glanced up at Carol. ‘Coffee?’ he asked. ‘I meant to ask earlier, but I was too interested in what we were talking about.’

Carol felt like a co-conspirator. She had been enjoying their conversation too, in spite of a twinge of guilt that multiple murders shouldn’t be a source of pleasure. Talking with Tony was like talking to an equal who had no axe to grind, whose primary concern was finding a path to the truth rather than a way to boost the ego. It was something she’d missed on this case so far. ‘Me too,’ she admitted. ‘I’m probably approaching the point where coffee is a necessity. Do you want me to go and fetch some?’

‘Good God, no!’ Tony laughed. ‘That’s not what you’re here for. Wait there, I’ll be right back. How do you take yours?’

‘Black, no sugar. In an intravenous drip, preferably.’

Tony took a large Thermos jug out of his filing cabinet and disappeared. He was back inside five minutes with two steaming mugs and the jug. He handed Carol a mug and gestured towards the Thermos. ‘I filled it up. I figured we might be some time. Help yourself as and when.’

Carol took a grateful sip. ‘Will you marry me?’ she asked, mock romantic.

Tony laughed again, to cover the lurch of apprehension that shifted his stomach, a familiar response to even the most idle of flirtations. ‘You won’t be saying that in a few days’ time,’ he said evasively, turning his attention back to the photographs.

‘Victim number one. Adam Scott,’ he said softly, making a note on his pad. He went through the photographs one by one, then went back to the beginning. The first picture showed a city square, tall Georgian houses on one side, a modern office block on a second and a row of shops, bars and restaurants on the third. In the centre of the square was a public garden, crossed by two diagonal paths. In the middle was an ornate Victorian drinking fountain. The park was surrounded by a three feet high brick wall. Along two sides of the garden was deep shrubbery. The ambience was slightly seedy, the stucco of the houses peeling in places. He imagined himself standing on the corner, taking in the view, smelling the fumid city air mixed with the stink of stale alcohol and fast food, hearing the night sounds. The rev of engines, the sound of high heels on pavements, occasional laughs and cries borne on the wind, the twitter of starlings, conned out of sleep by the sodium light of streetlamps. Where did you stand, Andy? Where did you watch your ground from? What did you see? What did you hear? What did you feel? Why here?

The second photograph showed a section of the wall and the shrubbery from the street side. The photograph was clear enough for Tony to make out the little iron squares on the top of the wall, which were all that remained of railings that had presumably been removed during the war to make guns and shells. A section of the bushes showed broken branches and crumpled leaves. The third shot showed the body of a man, face down on the earth, his limbs splayed at strange angles. Tony let himself be drawn into the picture, trying to put himself in Handy Andy’s shoes. How did it feel, Andy? Were you proud? Were you scared? Were you exultant? Did you feel a spasm of regret at abandoning the object of your desire? How long did you allow yourself to drink in this sight, this strange tableau that you created? Did the sound of footsteps move you on? Or did you not care?

Tony looked up. Carol was watching him. To his surprise, for once he didn’t feel uncomfortable to have a woman’s eyes on him. Perhaps because their relationship had so firm a professional base, but without direct competition. The tension in him relaxed a notch. ‘The place where the body was found. Tell me about it.’

‘Crompton Gardens. It’s at the heart of Temple Fields, where the gay village and the red-light district overlap. It’s poorly lit at night, mostly because the streetlights are always being vandalized by the sex vendors who want a bit of darkness to cover their activities. There’s a lot of sex goes on in Crompton Gardens, in the bushes and on the park benches under the trees, in the office doorways, in the basement areas of the houses. Rent, prostitution and casual pick-ups. There are people around throughout the night, but they’re not the sort who are going to come forward about anything unusual they might have seen, even if they noticed it,’ Carol explained while Tony took notes.

‘The weather?’ he asked.

‘Dry night, though the ground was pretty damp.’

Tony returned to the photographs. The body was shot from various angles. Then, following the removal of the body, the dumping ground was pictured in close-up sections. There were no visible footprints, but some scraps of black plastic were lying under the body. He pointed at them with the tip of his pen. ‘Do we know what these are?’

‘Bradfield Metropolitan Council bin bags. Standard issue to businesses, blocks of flats … anywhere wheelie bins are inappropriate. That grade of bag has been in use now for the last two years. There’s apparently nothing to indicate whether they were already there or if they were dumped at the same time as the body,’ Carol said.

Tony raised his eyebrows. ‘You seem to have assimilated a helluva lot of detail since yesterday afternoon.’

Carol grinned. ‘It’s tempting to pretend I’m Superwoman, but I have to confess that I’d already made a point of finding out what I could about the other two enquiries. I was convinced they were linked, even if my boss wasn’t. And in fairness to my colleagues, the inspectors leading the other two enquiries had an open mind. They didn’t object to me making the occasional trawl through their stuff. Ploughing through it all overnight just refreshed my memory, that’s all.’

‘You’ve been up all night?’

‘Like you said, it goes with the territory. I’ll be fine till about four this afternoon. Then it’ll hit me like a sledgehammer,’ Carol admitted.

‘Message received and understood,’ Tony replied, turning back to the photographs. He moved on to the series of shots from the postmortem. The body lay on its back on the white slab, the hideous wounds visible for the first time. Tony went slowly through the whole sequence of pictures, sometimes flicking back to previous shots. When he closed his eyes, he could picture Adam Scott’s intact body, slowly breaking out in wounds and bruises like alien blooms. He could almost conjure up the slo-mo vision of the hands that brought flesh to such a pass. After a few moments, he opened his eyes and spoke again. ‘These bruises on the neck and chest – what did the pathologist say?’

‘Suck marks. Like love bites.’

A head descending, predatory, a bizarre parody of love. ‘And these sections of the neck and chest. Three places where the flesh has been cut away?’ Tony asked distantly.

‘They were removed postmortem. Maybe he likes to eat them?’

‘Maybe,’ Tony said doubtfully. ‘Was there any trace of bruising in the remaining tissues, can you remember?’

‘I think there was.’ Carol’s surprise showed in her voice.

Tony nodded. ‘I’ll check the pathologist’s report. He’s a clever lad, our Handy Andy. My first reaction is that these aren’t souvenirs, or indications of cannibalism. I think they might have been bite marks. But Handy Andy knows enough about forensic dentistry to realize that identifiable bite marks would be enough to put him away. So once the frenzy’s spent, he’s cooled down and removed the evidence. These cuts to the genitals – pre or postmortem?’

‘Post. The pathologist remarked that they seemed quite tentative.’

Tony gave a small smile of satisfaction. ‘Did the pathologist say what has caused the trauma to the limbs? The shots at the site look like a rag doll.’

Carol sighed. ‘He didn’t want to be pushed to an official conclusion. All four limbs were dislocated, and some of his vertebrae were out of alignment. He said …’ She paused and imitated the pathologist’s portentous delivery, ‘“Don’t quote me, but I’d expect to see injuries like this after the Spanish Inquisition had put someone on the rack.”’

‘The rack? Shit, we’re really dealing with a messy mind here. OK. Next set. Paul Gibbs. This one’s yours, I think?’ Tony asked as he replaced Adam Scott’s photographs and took out the contents of the second folder. He repeated the process he’d gone through before. ‘So where is this scene in relation to the first one?’ Tony asked.

‘Hang on a minute. I’ll show you.’ Carol opened one of the boxes and picked out the large-scale map she’d thought to bring with her. She unfolded it and spread it out on the floor. Tony got up from his desk and crouched down beside her. She was instantly aware of the smell of him, a mixture of shampoo and his own faint, animal scent. No macho aftershave, no cologne. She watched his pale, square hands on the map, the short, almost stubby fingers, with their neatly trimmed nails and a sparse scattering of fine black hairs on the bottom section of each finger. Appalled, she felt a stirring of desire. You’re pathetic as an adolescent, she savagely chided herself. Like a teenager who fancies the first teacher who says anything nice about your work. Grow up, Jordan!

Under the guise of pointing out the sites on the map, Carol inched away. ‘Crompton Gardens is here,’ she said. ‘Canal Street is about half a mile away, over here. And the Queen of Hearts pub is just along here, about midway between the two.’

‘Is it safe to assume he knows the area well?’ Tony asked, making his own mental map of the murder sites.

‘I think so. Crompton Gardens is a pretty obvious dumping ground, but the other two imply quite a high degree of familiarity with Temple Fields.’ Carol sat back on her haunches, trying to work out if the pattern of sites implied an approach from one specific direction.

‘I need to take a look at the scenes. Preferably around the time the bodies were dumped. Do we know when that was?’ Tony said.

‘We don’t know about Adam. Estimated time of death is an hour either side of midnight, so not before then. With Paul, we know the doorway was clear just after three a.m. Gareth’s time of death is estimated at between seven and ten p.m. the evening before his body was found. And with Damien, the yard was clear at half past eleven,’ Carol recited, closing her eyes to recall the information.

Tony found himself staring at her face, glad of the freedom her shuttered eyelids gave him. Even without the animation of her blue eyes, he could see that she’d be classified beautiful. Oval face, broad forehead, clear pale skin, and that thick blonde hair, cut slightly shaggy. A strong, determined mouth. A furrow that appeared between her brows when she concentrated. And his appreciation was as clinical as if she were a photograph in a casebook. Why was it that, faced with a woman any normal man would regard as attractive, something in him closed down? Was it because he refused to allow himself to feel the first stirrings that might lead him to a place where he was no longer in control, where humiliation lurked? Carol’s eyes opened, registering surprise when she saw him watching her.

He felt his ears tingle with a blush and turned back to the map. ‘So he’s a night owl,’ he said abruptly. ‘I’d like to take a look at the area tonight, if I can. Maybe you can get someone else to show me round so you can catch up on your sleep.’

Carol shook her head. ‘No. If we can get through here by five, I’ll go home and grab a few hours’ shut-eye. I’ll pick you up around midnight and we can go then. Is that OK?’ she asked, belatedly.

‘Perfect,’ Tony said, getting to his feet and retreating behind his desk. ‘As long as you don’t mind.’ He picked up the photographs and forced himself back behind Handy Andy’s eyes. ‘He’s made a real mess of this one, hasn’t he?’

‘Paul’s the only one who’s been beaten up like this. Gareth has cuts to his face, but nothing as extreme. Paul’s face has been smashed to a pulp – broken nose, broken teeth, broken cheekbone, dislocated jaw. The anal injuries are horrendous as well; he’s been partially disembowelled. The degree of violence is one of the reasons why the Super felt we were looking at a different perpetrator. Also, none of his limbs are dislocated, unlike the other three.’