intercom.
Mrs Jenkins was not best pleased and took some persuading to let Anna into Sharon's flat. 'Is it still about the murder?' Mrs Jenkins asked, gasping for breath, as they climbed the stairs.
'Yes.'
'So nobody's been arrested then?'
'No, not as yet.'
'I would have thought you'd have got him by now; it's been quite a while, hasn't it?'
'Yes, yes, it has.'
Anna looked into one small room after another to the soundtrack of Mrs Jenkins's heavy breathing. Louise Pennel's old room was extremely untidy and smelt stuffy; the bed was unmade, and a bag of laundry had been left in the middle of the floor with dirty sheets dumped beside it. Anna looked into the bathroom. Discarded underwear lay on the floor next to the half-full bath; when Anna tested the water, it was cold. In Sharon's bedroom, too, the bed was unmade; clothes were strewn across the chair and the bed, and the tops were off the make-up bottles on the dressing table. In the kitchen, Anna found half a cup of cold coffee and a slice of toast; a bite had been taken out of the crust.
'Looks like she left in a hurry,' Mrs Jenkins said, peering over Anna's shoulder. 'Mind you, these young girls are so untidy. I don't think she's ever used the Hoover, you know, let alone dusted.'
Last, Anna checked the answerphone; as she had suspected, the message box was full. She took her handkerchief and pressed Play to listen to the calls that had been left. There were two calls from herself, a few from friends, and two girls answering the new advert Sharon must have put in to rent Louise Pennel's room.
'Well, my bath will be cold,' Mrs Jenkins said as she locked Sharon's front door. They headed down the stairs, and after thanking Mrs Jenkins again, Anna started to walk back to the tube station.
Relaxed after taking a long hot soak herself, and wrapped in a big bath towel, Anna made some Horlicks. She jumped when her phone rang; it was by now eleven-thirty.
'What did you get from the blonde bimbo?' Langton said.
'Nothing, she wasn't home, but I had a look over her flat and it looked like she had left in a hurry.' Anna added that the landlady hadn't seen her for a few days, but that wasn't unusual.
'Right okay, I want you and Lewis with me at the lab for the full details. Maybe he's got something, maybe not.'
'What?'
His voice was slurring, and she asked if he was still at the station. He said he was working over the statements.
He continued talking without really making any sense and it was Anna who ended the call, having to repeat twice that she was going to bed. Unable to sleep, she lay there with her eyes open. The Professor had said that their killer had made threats and they must take them very seriously because someone they had interviewed might know something that connected to him. She wondered what Sharon had not told her about the night at the club; did she know something? Had someone contacted her? The clothes strewn across her bedroom made Anna think that Sharon had been making up her mind what to wear. If she had run a bath and not got into it, made a coffee and toast but not consumed them, something had to have happened to make her leave. She sighed; thinking about what it might have been gave her a very uneasy feeling.
Chapter Nine
Langton was already at the mortuary the next morning when Anna and Lewis arrived. He looked dreadful. Everything about him was crumpled; he was unshaven, his tie was loose and his coat was even covered in dog hairs.
All three went into the lab. Lewis gave a sidelong glance at his Gov.
'Not got home last night, then?'
Langton ignored him, banging through the double doors and heading directly towards the body, draped in its green cover. Bill Smart was waiting, clipboard in his hand. He bellowed for them all to put on masks and paper suits before he would begin.
'We're not likely to contaminate anything at this stage,' Langton mumbled, irritated. 'It's not as if we haven't been here before!'
'Maybe so, but it's house rules.'
Langton, in his paper overshoes, shuffled closer to the body. Bill Smart, satisfied they were all now appropriately dressed, drew back the green cover to reveal Louise Pennel's face and torso.
'Since my last report we've done a lot of tests, so today I can give you the full monty, so to speak. It's not very pleasant.'
Anna was still taken aback by the gaping slash to Louise's mouth. Even though she had seen the photographs many times, to see the reality of the appalling injury the killer had inflicted was shocking.
'Right. We have multiple lacerations to the forehead and the top of the head. There are also multiple tiny abrasions on the right side of her face and forehead. There are further lacerations, a quarter-inch deep, at the side of her nose. There is another laceration, a deep one, from the right corner of her mouth and the same on the left: these cuts opened the cheeks. There are numerous new caps to the front teeth, but at the back there is quite an advanced state of decay. Multiple fractures of the skull are visible. There is a depressed ridge on both sides and on the anterior portion of the neck. There is no evidence of trauma to the hyoid bone, thyroid or carotid cartilage, or tracheal rings. There is no obstruction in the laryngotracheal passage.'
Smart peered at Langton. 'You asked if she had been suffocated or strangled, so the answer is no. Her upper chest shows an irregular laceration with superficial loss of skin to her right breast. The tissue loss is more or less square and measures three and a half inches transversely. There are further superficial lacerations to the chest and an elliptical opening in the skin near to the left nipple.'
Anna stared at the body as the pathologist's voice droned on. Louise Pennel had been slashed and stabbed; part of her breast had been sliced off. But all Anna could see was that terrible gaping smile.
Next, the pathologist focused on the severing of the body. The trunk had been completely severed by an incision straight through the soft tissues of the abdomen, severing the intestine and the duodenum, passing through the intervertebral disc between the second and third lumbar vertebrae.
'There are multiple lacerations on both sides of the torso and, as you can see, multiple criss-cross lacerations in the suprapubic area which extend through the skin and soft tissue.'
'Jesus Christ, it looks like he was carving out a game of noughts and crosses,' Langton said darkly.
Smart covered up Louise's head and torso before drawing the green cloth back to reveal the lower half of her body.
'The labia maiora are intact; within the vagina, we found a large piece of skin, which was from the upper torso. The anal opening is dilated and with multiple abrasions. Her missing nipple had been forced into her anal passage.'
Langton shook his head in disgust. Anna kept ramrod straight; she noticed that Lewis had quietly moved away.
Langton looked at Anna. 'This must never be released.'
Smart continued. 'There was nothing to suggest what she might have ingested as a meal or when she last ate something, so I have run further tests. Not only did we discover faecal matter in her stomach, but it had been introduced into her mouth. She had ingested it before death.'
Langton drew down the corners of his mouth in distaste. 'Is it her own?' he asked.
'I couldn't tell you: your killer removed a number of organs, including the small intestine.'
