‘Keep to the right if you wouldn’t mind, ma’am.’
The main aisle had been taped off, but she could walk up the right hand side of the pews and go behind the choir stalls to view the chancel.
As she emerged from behind the stalls she caught sight of the girl’s body. It was lying tumbled on the floor, half-covered by a white sheet or cloth. Savage looked at the face. Simone Ashton, no question about the identity this time. Simone’s beautiful blonde hair contrasted with the horrific mess of flesh at the mouth and Calter’s earlier comment about escalation came back to her.
‘Worse than last time, isn’t it?’ The voice belonged to Rod Oliver, unrecognisable behind the mask. No sign of his stupid assistant. ‘Same cut in the belly too, but like before it hasn’t bled and there is nothing else suggesting trauma.’
‘The CSM said the body had been moved?’
‘The casualty was underneath the body. The paramedics didn’t have a lot of choice. We believe it was on the altar wrapped in the white cloth.’
‘And Foxy’s mother-in-law pulled the cloth off?’
‘Yes, seems that way. Under UV we might be able to get some idea of how it was positioned. Turin shroud sort of thing.’
Savage left Oliver and wandered back the way she had come. A third CSI knelt on the floor near the entrance and he beckoned Savage over, pointing to a set of muddy footprints.
‘They are good prints and we believe the church was cleaned yesterday so they could well belong to whoever brought her here.’
‘They are certainly too large for the flower lady.’
‘Yup. And the print is something like a welly boot.’
The CSI told her they would be doing a fingertip search of the church once Rod Oliver had finished taking his photographs. In the meantime she could walk around if she didn’t touch anything and kept away from the entrance, the aisle and the chancel.
Savage moved towards the rear of the church to view the whole tableau. At the back there were several stacks of chairs and a little play area with a soft rug and some plastic toys she thought would have occupied Jamie for precisely two and a half minutes. Next to the play area the font stood atop a stone pedestal. The font itself was an elaborate marble affair with many carvings on the outside. The wooden lid lay half-open, balanced on the edge in a precarious position.
Savage reached to move the lid back into place before remembering she shouldn’t touch anything. Then something soft and white inside the font caught her eye. Material of some kind. She peered in.
The lid cast a dark shadow but she could distinguish what the material was now. Cotton. A pair of white cotton knickers and a plain white cotton bra. Something else too, wrapped in the knickers, reddish-pink with little rivulets of blood. Something resembling a small piece of steak if you wanted a slim-line dinner for one.
Chapter 30
Crownhill Police Station, Plymouth. Monday 8th November. 10.14 am
Despite the latest developments Savage had managed to take Sunday afternoon off. She had been glad to spend half a day away from the case at home with the kids. They had played some board games, romped in the garden, made a big chocolate cake and watched a DVD. The rest of the weekend had been taken up with administration. These days each case produced a mountain of tasks to complete, forms to fill in and procedure that had to be followed. Hardin had dumped the lot on her, pleading a weekend long engagement he couldn’t get out of. Golf, Savage suspected.
Monday morning brought her back to earth with a bump. The elation from the conclusion of the Leash case was proving short-lived now operation Zebo had another body to contend with. Over the weekend more staff had been drafted in and the incident room was becoming rather crowded. An extra-large photograph of Simone Ashton now adorned the main whiteboard. Blonde tresses, cuddly jumper, a pout on her lips like she had blown the room a ‘thank you’ kiss. And startling eyes, deep blue, intoxicating. Those eyes had seen the killer when she had been picked up, when she had willingly gone with him. Those eyes had gazed upon someone who had reassured her. Those eyes had been deceived. But by who?
The post-mortem on Simone had taken place over the weekend and Nesbit confirmed signs of freezing were present. Worse, the girl’s mouth had been mutilated with a knife and Nesbit had identified the piece of flesh Savage had discovered in the church font as the girl’s tongue. Nesbit had also, in his words, ‘double fast-tracked’ the toxicology. The results only served to further dampen the mood: As with Kelly, Simone’s hair had traces of GHB in and the segmentation analysis suggested that she had only lived for between seven to fourteen days after it was administered.
‘Alice Nash went missing two weeks ago this afternoon. Time is running out. We need a lead and fast.’ Savage sat at a desk with Calter and Enders, indulging in a spot of brainstorming. ‘Kelly, Simone, possibly Alice. All disappeared without any sign of an abduction. No struggle, nobody notices anything, in broad daylight?’
‘They knew the abductor?’ Enders said.
‘Thank you, Patrick, that much is obvious. But the problem is who?’
‘There are so few male staff at these places. We’ve eliminated them all.’ Enders scanned a printout of names and Calter peered over at the sheet.
‘Different places anyway,’ Calter said. ‘We are looking for connections. Someone who can access all the nurseries and who arouses no suspicion.’
‘OfSTED?’ Enders said, a half-smile on his face.
‘I want you to check when they made their inspections and get a list of the people involved,’ Savage answered. ‘No stone as they say.’
Enders groaned and now Savage went off on one. She wanted lists of cleaners, caretakers, plumbers, builders, entertainers, anyone who might have cause to visit more than one of the nurseries. She got up and crossed the room to one of the whiteboards on which she drew a checkerboard of lines.
‘Names of nurseries along the top, possibles down the side, a cross where we get a result. Two crosses and we are interested, more than two and we have a definite suspect. We put the data in the system and this is what the results will look like graphically. The important thing will be not to miss anybody.’
‘They’ll have been CRB’d, ma’am,’ Calter said.
‘Good, the CRB check will make it all the easier to find them and eliminate them.’
‘How are we going to be sure we get everyone?’
‘We will start with the accounts. Staff and other workers will all get paid. Anyone from outside doing work at the nursery, like builders for instance, send in invoices and the details will be in the ledger. After that we can develop any other possibles. Like OfSTED.’
‘Ma’am?’ Enders said. ‘One group of people who use the nurseries won’t have been CRB checked and that is the parents.’
‘You are right and we mustn’t overlook them. But the nurseries should hold accurate records so we will be able to see any correlations.’
‘You think some dad took a fancy to one of the girls?’ Calter asked.
‘That is entirely plausible.’
‘At different nurseries?’
‘People move house, children are unhappy, lots of reasons to change nurseries.’
‘But you think a parent could do what this guy has done?’
Savage paused. Parents killed, of course they did, but in this situation? You drop your little Jake off, wait outside and when one of the girls comes off duty you pick her up, take her somewhere and rape and kill her?
‘I would hope not, but if you put a stop sign at the end of an avenue you can’t drive down the road can you? We can’t start with any preconceived ideas about who we are dealing with.’
At that moment DS Riley came into the incident room. He stood at the door with his hands on his hips, out of breath. He had sweat on his forehead and worry on his face, but excitement in his eyes.
