He guided the beam from his flashlight downwards until he reached the dead woman’s abdomen, at which point he almost dropped the torch. The torso had been torn open, revealing her innards. It was as if she had been ripped apart by a wild beast. A pool of blood, already congealing into a foul looking jelly, had spread out to form the dark pool in which she now lay. The victim’s miniskirt had been pulled up over her hips and there was no sign of any underwear. Another pool of thick clotting blood had formed between her open legs, although a small dune of sand had absorbed most of it.
“Who could have done something like this?” Nick asked in disbelief. He was grateful that he hadn’t eaten yet; even with an empty stomach, he felt like throwing up.
“Whoever it was, they ought to get the death penalty,” Speed said, donning a pair of latex gloves. Moving carefully, so that the crime scene wouldn’t be disturbed any more than was absolutely necessary, Speed knelt down and felt the waxen face and hands of the victim. They were cold. She had obviously been there a while. Speed stood up and carefully moved away from the body.
There was a lot to do.
“Nick, go back outside. Absolutely no one, not even the Commissioner himself, gets inside this yard without my direct authority. Get the watchman’s details and a brief statement if he’s fit enough. Then get him straight to hospital. Make sure someone goes with him, and have them seize his shoes. No, wait. We’d better seize all his clothing, just in case. Then get on the radio. I want the HAT car called and I need more units for a search. Oh, and I want the On-Call Superintendent informed at home. We might as well spoil his day too.” He gave Bartholomew a wry smile.
Speed borrowed the torch from Bartholomew. As the junior officer left to carry out his instructions, he began to examine the area in which the body had been found. There was nothing of obvious note on the floor so he let the flashlight roam up and down the sides of the Portakabin and adjacent wall to see if there were blood patterns that indicated a struggle.
There was plenty of blood all right, but not all of it was in the form he would have expected.
On the side of the cabin, in big bold letters, was a message from the killer. Unless Speed was very much mistaken it was written in the victim’s blood:
THIS IS ONLY THE START.
BE AFRAID…
JACK’S BACK.
Speed stared at the message in disbelief. He carefully read the words several times, feeling his stomach tighten a little more each time.
◆◆◆
Before long the crime scene was awash with people. The East Homicide Assessment Team (HAT) car arrived first, and they called out a Crime Scene Manager, Sam Calvin, who in turn summoned the on-call photographer.
A Blood Pattern Analysis scientist from the Forensic Science Service was en route, and when she arrived, she would be tasked to measure blood spray patterns and angles and carry out tests on depth and velocity.
The early turn divisional Scenes of Crime Officer, or SOCO, had volunteered to help out, and CSM Calvin promptly put her to work dusting for prints.
The Coroner’s Officer had been informed, and he had dispatched the two sombre looking men in dark suits who waited patiently beside a dark van with blacked out windows, and the legend ‘Private Ambulance’ along its side. at the edge of the cordon, ready to transport the corpse to the morgue.
A number of samples had already been placed in brown paper bags. In the absence of a dedicated exhibits officer from AMIP – the Area Major Investigation Pool – these were being indexed in a green A4 exhibits book by Calvin.
Outside, the area surrounding the building site had been sealed off with police tape, and over half of Ray Speed’s early shift was tied up dealing with cordon control.
Territorial Support Group officers from the Commissioner’s Reserve had been called to conduct a flash search in the surrounding area for the murder weapon.
The local crime reporter, who routinely monitored police channels, had just turned up and was snooping around outside the cordon, firing questions at Speed in the hope of uncovering some gritty details. Ignoring the man, Speed closed the gate and made sure it was secure.
A detective from the HAT car was making frantic phone calls, switching between the Serious Crime Group Reserve at the Yard and her DCI, providing updates and trying to organise further resources. The second had joined Inspector Speed and the Forensic Medical Examiner, a tetchy old Scotsman called Andrew Mackintosh, who had just arrived and was about to examine the body.
“So, what can you tell us doc?” DC Kevin Murray asked. In his early thirties, Murray seemed unhealthily thin. He had a pale complexion, cropped brown hair and a goatee beard, which took some of the sharpness out of his features. His suit was rumpled, as though he had been sleeping in it.
“I can tell you that she’s dead,” the FME said.
Murray glanced at Ray Speed and rolled his eyes theatrically. These doctors were all such prima donnas. “We worked that much out for ourselves, doc. What I mean is can you…”
Mackintosh cut him off with a raised hand. “Young man,” he said irritably, “firstly, it’s not doc, it’s doctor. That’s the title written on all the fancy diplomas hanging on my surgery wall, and that’s what I like to be called. Secondly, I am a GP, not a Home Office pathologist. My job is to pronounce life extinct, nothing more.”
“I understand that,” Murray persisted, “but if you have any idea how long she’s been brown bread it would really help.”
“This isn’t an episode of Quincy, laddie. You’ll have to wait till the pathologist gets his hands on the poor wee thing. He won’t appreciate an old fool like me making
