York shook his head. ‘You’re not going down this road again, are you?'
‘Do you not agree, though? Where’s the anger, the rage? The bodies are –’
‘Forget the bodies. Background noise only. Look around, tell me what you see.’
‘How am I supposed to –’
‘Forget the bodies!’
Newport took a deep breath. ‘Okay, the room is sparse, dirty. Minimalistic hotel bedroom, used for prostitution. Been a couple of drug problems here in the past, but this doesn’t speak drugs to me, or gangland retribution. This has an almost random element to it. The place is probably irrelevant.’
‘I disagree,’ York cut in, edging his way to the window. ‘I think this room tells us something very pertinent. Why have the victims been left to wallow in this pit?’
Newport thought the answer was obvious. ‘Opportunity?’
York pulled the trilby back on and glanced out the window. The rattle and reverb of slow-moving black cabs and occasional double-deckers stalked the clear morning somewhere over the building tops, causing minor vibrations to pulse through the floorboards, though nobody mentioned it. From the window he moved to the wardrobe and began rifling the contents. ‘Man’s Armani suit, woman’s Gucci pencil skirt and jacket, it’s all here down to the underwear and shoes. All stored away nice and neat.’
‘ID?’
‘Nope.’
Newport's rogue strand of hair popped free again. ‘Okay, so the type of clothes here, assuming they’re not imitation, tell us that our John and Jane were well to do.’
York’s eyebrows lifted. ‘So what are they doing in this shithole?’
She couldn’t answer that one. ‘Uniforms are knocking on doors but so far no luck. People are in and out of here quickly.’
‘What about the manager?’
‘Guy named Liam Grayson. He’s on his way here now.’
‘Uh-huh, what do we know about him?’
‘Couple of priors, nothing major, and nothing in his past to indicate he was capable of something like this. Few raids here since he’s been running the place, but he’s managed to stay off the radar.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Denies all knowledge of anything that goes on in the rooms.’
‘Scumbag?’
‘Oh yeah, grade A. But this still doesn’t smell like him. He’s small time.’
York adjusted his trilby; a seemingly common development.
‘So what about the smashed mirror? The work of our guy?’
York glanced up at his distorted reflection, fragmented eyes leering back at him. ‘No.’
Newport awaited clarification.
‘The mirror was broken before the killer stepped foot into this room. Our man would have no reason to break it.’
‘Care to clarify?’
‘Because he likes looking at himself,' said York. 'Look at the bodies: very precise, very clinical, this is not the work of an angry person. You said yourself it’s not a crime of passion. That very notion would go against the killer acting calmly. He’s playing God, and I wouldn’t’ve thought God shies away from His own image.’
‘You don’t believe in God.’
‘I believe in this one.’
A forlorn calm fell over the room.
‘Okay, your favourite bit,’ York continued. ‘Tell me about the bodies.’
Newport's stomach turned again as she took in the cadavers. She switched on her blankness, her coping mechanism. Scanning victims this way was an art form. DCI York was an expert and she was getting better.
‘The obvious thing is the lack of blood,’ she offered.
‘I see blood.’
‘But it’s restricted to the bed. For this type of butchery I’d expect splattered walls, floors, but there’s nothing. If you lifted the bed out of here right now, you’d never know a crime had happened at all. It could suggest that the procedure took place post mortem – lack of struggle.’
York shrugged. ‘Nobody wants a squirming patient.’
‘And?’
‘Who says there’s an “and”?’
‘There’s always an “and”,’ Newport said.
The corners of York's mouth lifted slightly. ‘And I don’t see butchery, I see surgery.’
Both detectives viewed the still figures. The ashen nudity of each victim, in stark contrast with the crimson linen, begged attention. But those facts paled in comparison to the gaping holes in the chests, the heart of each victim cleanly cut out.
‘The hearts?’ he asked.
‘Not here. Taken as a souvenir, we think.’
‘People don’t do Big Ben ornaments anymore?’
‘Not this person.’
‘Okay,’ he muttered, ‘what else?’
The first thing York noticed when he arrived on scene was the heads. The head of the female lay straight on her pillow, closed eyes to the ceiling. The male’s head faced towards the bathroom, eyes wide. Following the victim’s line of sight, he'd found the voice recorder in the bathroom.
‘It’s clear we’re being tormented,’ she suggested. ‘Like a game or something. This guy wants us to look for him.’
York waited.
‘Remember Marc Durham?’
‘Nope.’
‘Come on! That guy who went on the killing spree around Loughton and Dagenham when he found out his girlfriend had been an escort for more than three years.’
‘Oh yeah. So?’
‘When the girlfriend found out what he’d done, she killed herself, couldn’t handle the guilt.’
‘Your point please,’ York pressed.
‘That wasn’t nearly as calculated but there are similarities. Durham wanted us to catch him. He admitted when we caught up with him that the guilt was eating away at him. He showed no remorse over the four people he’d killed but he couldn’t handle the fact that his girlfriend had committed suicide.’
‘There’s a big difference. This killer only wants to play with us, I don’t think he wants to be caught. Can you imagine this guy feeling guilty about what he’s done here? I think you’re right, this is a game to him. Guess what that makes us.'
Newport shrugged. 'Inferior players.'
Crouching closer to the bed she inspected the sheets, stained and encrusted with more than one kind of bodily fluid. In amongst the dense clogging of blood, semen splatters were prevalent.
‘What do you make of this,
