Tommy sighed, leaving the rest of the walk in silence. As we got further from the clearing, I noticed that someone was sitting against a tree, her bare legs all that showed. The rest of the body was masked in darkness.
I breathed out and continued to the body, unsure of exactly what we would find.
At one point the girl had been beautiful. But as I looked down on her blood-soaked form, I saw that her beauty had been contorted with pain and fear, until there was no beauty left. The back of her head rested against the tree's trunk. Her bare arms were tied behind the trunk with black plastic ties. Her skin was scratched and torn as she'd tried to fight her way free. There were no marks on her face, but her clothes were soaked through with blood. Leaves had stuck to her as the wind picked up.
'Untie her,' I said softly.
'We can't until the LOA have finished.'
I knelt in front of her and moved her blouse, which had once been light blue and was now a dark red, up from her stomach. The ragged wound it had hidden looked like her abdomen had been ripped open. I took a deep breath and lifted the blouse higher, exposing the entirety of what had been done to her.
The gash in her stomach stretched from one side to the other. Some intestine fell out with a wet noise and landed on the ground. I allowed the blouse to drop once more and got back to my feet. 'I'm going to put money on her liver and kidneys being missing,' I said.
'Like the others,' Tommy said.
'Let's go,' I said.
Tommy stared at the young woman a moment, then mimicked my nod before we walked away in silence, neither of us wishing to say anything until we reached Olivia.
We found her talking to the agent who had pointed us in the direction of the body. He saw me and smiled, offering his hand. 'Martin Reid,' he said.
'Nate,' I said. 'Nice to meet you.' I removed the latex gloves and shook his hand. 'Shame it had to be tonight.'
He nodded his agreement as Olivia gathered more agents, including Greaves, over to her. 'So, Mister Garrett, please tell us what you found.'
'Trial by fire,' I said and looked around the dozen agents, most of whom certainly weren't that interested in knowing what I'd found. 'Fair enough, but are you sure you want the audience?'
'I've explained to my agents that you will be helping with the investigation. And I'd rather you ask questions here than trying to find people at a later time.'
'I do have a few questions, first,' I said and Olivia motioned for me to continue. 'The woman's car.'
'It's the blue piece of shit in the corner,' Greaves said.
I turned to follow his directions and spotted the small blue Chevrolet something or other, their version of the Mini. I ignored Greaves' glare which followed me as I walked over to the car and examined it, checking the interior and doors. The keys were still in the ignition, the driver's side door was open and her purse visible under the seat. 'Well, it wasn't a robbery,' I said as I rejoined the group.
'Good one,' Greaves said. 'How long do we have to listen to this idiot?'
Olivia shot him a glare and he shut up, but maintained his unhappy expression.
'She drove here herself,' I said.
'Fucking idiot,' Greaves whispered loud enough for everyone to hear.
My patience was wearing thin. 'She was murdered where you found her, and once she was finally caught, she fought like crazy.'
Greaves slow clapped.
'Look at the footprints in the soil here, the toe indentation is deeper than the heel. She was running. But the footprints from the passenger side are flat, normal. He stepped out of the car and then stalked after her. He was in no hurry. He knew she'd never get away.'
'Anything else?' Olivia said.
'He wasn't alone. As I said before, there are at least two people doing this. One is getting the victim here, and one is killing them. That's probably why he was in no hurry to chase after her — he knew someone was waiting inside the woods. All the other victims were the same, apart from Amber. Her heart wasn't torn out.
'Also, it would have taken two people to tie her to that tree. She was fighting as they did it, the arm wounds show that. It's far too much hard work to do it alone, you might as well knock her out and do it then, but there's no head wound that I saw. You’re looking for at least two men, not including Neil, who are working together. Amber is the only victim not eviscerated, and she didn’t have any organs removed. This all goes back to Vicki.”
“That’s nothing we couldn’t have gotten for ourselves,” Greaves said. “We’re not fuck-ups.”
“Well that’s great,” I snapped. “Because you have five dead women and a missing agent. Most people in your position would want every bit of help they could get, and right now you’re more interested in point scoring. I’d say fuck-up sums you up quite nicely, wouldn’t you?”
Chapter 13
While agent Greaves shouted at Olivia about wanting to punch me, I'd taken the few moments alone to read more of the files that Olivia had presented me with back at my house. Each murder scene had the same details. The victims had driven themselves to the crime in their car, and any footprints around the scene showed one person running and another walking slowly.
'Don't care,” I said as Olivia came toward me. “Greaves is a fucking idiot.'
“He’s also a good cop and you pissed him off.”
We had more important things to discuss. 'We're dealing with some highly dangerous people here. Stroking egos can wait.'
Olivia sat on the bonnet of a Ford Focus RS, a bright orange car owned by one of the agents, and motioned for me to continue.
'People don't like you sitting on their cars like that,' I said.
'It's Agent Greaves' car; he deserves it for being a dick.'
I sat next to her.
'And you're right,' Olivia said. 'We need to stop these people before they kill again.'
'We know that Neil is involved. He took the photos of those women, but like I said, he's not killing them. They're too different from his frenzy of violence. These are well planned and executed.'
'We got an I. D on this latest victim,' Olivia said.
'That was fast.'
She passed me a tatty passport. 'We found it in her glove box.'
The name on the drivers' license said Hilary Bingham. Her picture was one of smiles and beauty, and it was a face I recognised. 'Fuck,' I said softly and passed the license back. 'She's in the photos on Neil's wall. He's taking pictures of these women for someone else to kill.'
'It certainly appears that way, yes. But why go to the trouble of freeing Neil, giving him the money to buy a penthouse and letting him live like a king, just so he can take a few photos for serial killers? And another thing. Why call the human authorities for the first few murders, before changing over to calling Agent Greaves? They must have been aware of our involvement, so why not start with the LOA?'
'They might have wanted more time before they had to deal with Avalon searching for them. The longer they had to content with only the human police, the better for them.'
A dark blue Honda pulled up beside us, and Doctor Grayson stepped out. He appeared tired and haggard, his weariness etched into every line of his face.
'Good-evening,' he said with as much enthusiasm as one could muster when having to examine murdered women.
'You two need to talk,' Olivia said, pushing herself away from the car. 'Tell him what's missing from the report, Doctor.'
'Now, what could she be talking about, Doc?' I asked. Olivia had joined Tommy in whatever discussion was
