them their warrant cards.
‘What’s happened?’
‘You here to see Alistair Lloyd? The surgeon?’ asked one of the uniforms. A petite woman in her mid- twenties.
‘Yes.’
‘You’re too late, I’m afraid. He performed a…’ she hesitated ‘… a minor procedure, then topped himself.’
‘What kind of procedure?’
The other officer grimaced. ‘He cut off one of his fingers with a samurai sword. And then fell on it. The sword, not the finger.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Yeah. There’s quite a bit of blood.’ She nodded at DI James. ‘Your boss has been trying to get hold of you. He’s inside.’
The two DIs, walked into the house. It was a bungalow, almost open-plan. A small hall led into a large lounge-and-kitchen area. Several doors led off it. The one on the far right was open and bursts of bright light flashed from the room behind it.
A medium-sized man, balding, overweight, with a scruffy jacket and a skew-whiff tie came out as they walked over. He rubbed his hand over a chin that was dark with more than just a five o’clock shadow. It made a rasping sound and he shrugged apologetically.
‘I was halfway through my Sunday lunch when I got the call. Slow-roast shoulder of pork. Dauphinoise potatoes. You must be DI Webb?’ He stuck out his hand.
Kirsty shook it. ‘Yeah.’
‘Chief Inspector Holland.’ He turned to DI James. ‘Tried to get hold of you.’
DI James took out her phone and looked at it, unlocking the keyboard. ‘Must have been out of range at the time.’
Holland nodded impassively and turned to Kirsty. ‘And yours? Spoke to your governor at Paddington.’
‘It’s in the car, charging.’
He nodded again. ‘Either way it don’t much amount to a hill of beans, I guess – as your man in the hat once had it.’
‘Sir?’
‘No glory due on this one. Your serious-crime gang are on their way over. But this, as they say, is a done deal. See for yourself if you’ve the stomach for it.’ Holland rubbed his own stomach absent-mindedly, probably regretting starting his lunch at all. He ushered the two DIs into the room.
There was a plain black teak table in front of a window with open venetian blinds, also in black. Matching cabinets stretched left and right along the wall in front of the desk.
A Japanese suit of armour stood in one corner of the room.
There was a chopping block on the desk and a white handkerchief was laid neatly next to it. Beyond that on the desk was a wooden holder. Ceremonial. On the handkerchief a small pool of blood had soaked through. A severed finger lay in the middle of it.
Chapter 89
Alistair Lloyd was lying on the floor.
The samurai sword that should have been sitting in its holder was stuck through the centre of his body. He had toppled sideways and there was blood pooled around him on the floor. A lot of it.
The SOCO photographer took more shots in a quick burst and left the room, leaving the forensic pathologist to go to work.
‘He left a note,’ said Chief Inspector Holland.
‘Typed?’ asked Kirsty Webb, thinking back to Colin Harris’s supposed suicide.
‘Handwritten. And, judging by other materials here, it looks authentic to me. Signed, and fingerprints on the paper, no doubt, which I have every belief will match his own.’
‘Right.’
The CI nodded down the hall to where more white-suited SOCOs were bagging evidence in the kitchen. ‘And we found human remains in his freezer. Individually bagged-up organs.’
‘The Jane Does’?’
‘We need to check, but yeah, probably.’
‘What the hell did he take their organs for?’
Chief Inspector Holland spread his hands. ‘This guy was all kinds of nutter. For all we know, he was going to make a casserole with them.’
‘What did he say in the note?’ asked Kirsty.
‘He confesses to the four killings.’
‘Why did he do it?’
‘He was part of a group. Exchanging photos.’
Kirsty nodded. She’d seen the photos. ‘And what happened?’
‘One of the people gathering the photos. A Romanian nurse…’
‘Adriana Kisslinger?’
The CI looked puzzled. ‘How did you know that?’
‘I didn’t. I guess you just confirmed it, though. It was a line of enquiry.’
Holland looked for a moment as if he might press her on the matter but shrugged it off. Not his problem. ‘Anyway, she started blackmailing the group – a teacher, a social worker, a surgeon. Figured the surgeon in particular could be the jackpot.’
‘So, what – he killed them all?’
‘And then he killed himself.’
‘Guilt?’
‘Who knows?’ Holland gestured at the Japanese armour. ‘He was obviously a sick fantasist. Doubt we’ll ever really know what was going through his head. He says he was confronted with what he really was, according to his suicide note, and couldn’t deal with it any more.’
‘Very Japanese.’
The chief inspector nodded. ‘Looks like he was a big fan of the culture.’
‘And the fingers?’ asked DI James.
Holland shrugged. ‘No idea.’
‘Japanese again,’ said Kirsty Webb. ‘The Yakuza. They have a tradition of cutting off a finger if one of them does something wrong.’
‘You seem to know a lot about this stuff.’
Kirsty shook her head. ‘Only from films. Robert Mitchum was in a movie about it. Cut off half his finger in it.’
‘Seems particularly appropriate in this case, then,’ said the chief inspector.
‘Sir?’ asked DI James.
‘Kiddy-fiddlers,’ Holland said, anger sparking in his eyes. ‘It’s not all I’d cut off.’
Chapter 90
Suzy was leaning against the wall by the door to the three girls’ apartment.
Tim Graham was sitting on the couch, holding a bloodied handkerchief to his nose. He was glaring at me.
‘You’re not going to get away with this.’
