It was almost eleven thirty when he tumbled out at Ladbroke Grove. Drinkers, revellers, winos and nutters thronged the area in front of the tube. The place stank of chip fat, booze and piss. People passed on their way from bar to club, or spilled from the tube to their homes. A nearby bus stop swelled numbers. Car stereos blasted out cavernous bass tunes, young couples laughed and argued. Nigel normally did all he could to avoid being in such places at a time like this. But here he didn't care: he stood for a few seconds and wondered which way to head - apart from one squad car parked a hundred yards down the street, there was no sign of any police presence.
He walked up the grove, under the railway bridge.
A tube rattled into the station above. He stopped once more to look around. Nothing unusual. He started walking again, to where he didn't know.
Then he heard a scream.
It was a piercing, wounded cry that tore through the night. At first he put it down to a drunken fight, but it continued. No one else seemed to notice, or felt it too commonplace to act.
Nigel felt his blood thicken.
The screaming was coming from the right, behind the tube station. There was a short alley, along the side of a bar. He headed down it. The pavement widened into a road. Above him loomed the monstrous concrete Westway; the white noise of its traffic a background thrum. Yet the screaming got louder.
Nigel quickened his pace to a jog. Fifty yards down the street, he could see a young woman. Her arms were spread wide and, as she screamed, she bent double with the effort. Beside her a car was parked diagonally in the road, its driver's door open and headlights shining. From the billow of fumes from the exhaust, he could see the engine was running.
Nigel sprinted towards her.
The woman didn't see him coming; she just continued to scream. As he arrived, she backed off. He had his hands up to show it was all right, for her not to panic. He looked around but couldn't see what she was screaming at. Her shouts decreased to a whisper. Her left hand went to her mouth; her right hand pointed to a garage door, half open. The beams lit the door; the gap beneath was in darkness. Nigel walked towards it. All he could see was white graffiti on the door: 'Fuck Chelski'.
The street was deserted. Nigel licked his parched lips and bent down to see under the door. Too dark.
The woman had stopped screaming and started to keen.
Nigel got up and walked to the door. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and used it to take hold of the handle. He began to lift carefully, inch by inch, so that the car headlights and the floodlit glow from the Westway slowly illuminated the interior of the garage. He was hit with a pungent combination of oil and turpentine. As the light grew, the shape of a body was revealed. A young woman. Nigel let go of the door and checked to make sure it wouldn't fall. Then he stepped inside.
Close up, he could see she was blonde, dressed in jeans and a shirt of several colours, torn open to reveal a pair of bloodied, mutilated breasts. The blood around them seemed to have solidified, become gelatinous. She was laid on her back, arms stretched out. Nigel's eyes went to her face. It was pristine, untouched. But where once her eyes had been, there were instead two gaping holes, congealed blood and matter garnishing the empty, cavernous sockets that still seemed to stare, baleful and black.
Nigel knew the scene would stay with him until his final breath, that it would play in his mind like some macabre screensaver whenever he closed his eyes at night. He stepped out and slowly lowered the garage door, as if to try and protect what remained of the young woman's dignity.
Two or three people had gathered in the road; one was attempting to calm the woman. Another was on his mobile phone.
'You all right, mate?' one black guy shouted.
Within a few seconds the crowd was in double figures.
Nigel nodded. Slowly he sat on the ground in front of the garage door, blocking the path to it.
In the distance he could hear sirens.
8
The monotone whirr of the police helicopter above echoed through the night, its searchlight swaying and lurching futilely on the surrounding streets. It was too late, Foster knew that. The killer had slipped in, dumped his cargo and retreated back into the vast anonymity of the city. All the while he and his team had been waiting at the wrong tube station. It did not top his list of worries -- there was a killer still to catch -- but he knew that fact, regardless of whether the murder could have been prevented, would not be welcomed by his superiors. Particularly if it came under the baleful scrutiny of the press. Following the investigation into his father's death, Foster had exhausted much of the goodwill he had accumulated with the top brass as a detective; he had few remaining allies, if any.
He stood in the middle of Malton Road. He had lost count of the nights when he had stood on some godforsaken street in the wee small hours of the morning, illuminated by the stark glare of arc lights, over the body of some poor unfortunate. When you've watched your father take his own life to prevent himself from being wracked by future agonies, some of the venom is drawn from dealing with the murder of strangers. Yet this woman's death hit him in the pit of his gut. They had matched the killer's stride only a few hours before he was due to strike, and that had been too late.
Foster looked at the woman, her eyes cut out and her chest torn apart. Carlisle was examining the body.
Noticing the detective, he glanced up and the pair acknowledged each other, their tight faces conveying the bleakness of the scene. Neither spoke. Foster cast his eyes around the garage while Carlisle completed his checks. He saw nothing out of the ordinary.
'I'd say she was in her late twenties, early thirties.
Time of death was around five or six last night,' the pathologist said eventually.
Foster nodded. That answered one of his main questions.
'Cause?'
'Too early to say. Presumably one of the wounds to the chest, but I'll need to get her back for a proper look.'
'The eyes?'
'Could have been pre-mortem. I hope, for her sake, it was post. They were removed carefully, with some precision and not just gouged out, which would indicate she was at least unconscious. The optical nerve remains but is severed.'
An eye for an eye, thought Foster. Darbyshire had lost his hands. Was the mutilation symbolic, rather than ritualistic? Had this woman's eyes seen something, or Darbyshire's hands performed some act that required them both to be severed? And where did that leave the 'tramp' whose body remained intact?
'What about the chest wounds?'
'Yes, interesting. Seems like he has carved the breasts open. She had silicone implants. They have burst, hence all the mess. When we get her back I'll remove what's left, see if we can get a serial number.
There are no other forms of identification on her anywhere. Other than a rather distinctive tattoo on her right shoulder blade.'
Foster bent down. Carlisle carefully rolled the woman so he could see her right shoulder. There was a symbol of some sort, obviously professionally done. It appeared oriental. Foster sketched it in his notebook.
'Know what it means?' he asked Carlisle.
'No. But I'm pretty certain it's Japanese. I spent some time out there years ago. Fascinating place.'
'That the only markings you've found?'
'Yes. Aside from the chest, of course.'
Foster stared at the bloodied mass that was once the woman's breasts and upper chest. It was impossible to make out any deliberate markings. He would have to wait until she was cleaned. Yet the state of the chest, the severity of the wounds, did not indicate careful precision. It suggested frenzy.
The missing eyes did not.
