Cold as Ice (3 page)

Carter and Willis returned to Fletcher House, where they were part of the thirty-eight-man Murder Squad. Fletcher House was at the back of Archway Tube station and joined onto
Archway Police Station. Just a door separated the normal goings-on of a police station from what they called ‘The Dark Side’. It was home to Major Incident Team seventeen, MIT 17, along
with three other MIT teams that served Londoners north of the Thames. Each MIT team had its own, identically laid out, floor. MIT17 was on the third floor.

‘Sir?’ Carter knocked and entered Detective Chief Inspector Bowie’s office door. Since the retirement of Superintendent Tanner, Bowie was the most senior detective in MIT
17.

‘You got a callout this morning?’ Bowie asked from behind his desk. The desk itself was messy, littered with papers and personal effects. In pride of place were photos of his wife
and kids.

Carter came to sit down opposite him. Despite his expensive suit and three-hundred-quid shoes, Bowie always had a dishevelled look; his shoes needed cleaning and his suit didn’t sit
properly on his bony shoulders. He struggled to keep weight on. He was pale, tall and blond with watery blue eyes.

‘A woman pulled out of Regent’s Canal at King’s Cross, Sir.’ Carter took off his coat and scarf and hung them over the back of the chair.

‘Any idea who she is?’

‘Not yet. She’s pretty distinctive with long auburn hair, youngish – early twenties. She has a tattoo which we’re hopeful about.’

‘How did she die?’

‘She’d been strangled. Probable sexual motive. She had a plastic bag over her head.’

‘Maybe a sex game gone wrong?’

‘I was thinking the same.’

‘Dismembered?’

‘No.’

‘Heat of the moment then – he panics and throws her into the canal.’

‘Yeah,’ agreed Carter. ‘Except Doctor Harding says the bag was put on after death.’

‘You’re SIO on this investigation. Operation Sparrowhawk.’ Carter nodded. Murder Investigations were named in alphabetical sequence, they followed groups. The last group had
been towns in Australia; this time it was birds of prey.

‘Still, I think a prostitute seems likely,’ said Carter. ‘We’ll get officers out on the surrounding streets with a photofit of her and see if any of the regulars
recognize her. SOCOs are out searching the surrounding undergrowth and along the towpath for any items of clothing or ID but I’m not expecting great results. Doctor Harding estimates
she’d been in the water a couple of months, maybe three.’

‘Was she wearing any clothing?’

‘She was naked except for a chain around her neck with two rings on it. One of them is worth money – we’re running it through lost and stolen property files now.’

‘What’s the condition of the body?’

‘The drop in water temperature has kept it from decomposing too far. Skin is still there but it’s lifted and most of her fingers are gone. But she was in a bad way before she ended
up at the bottom of the canal.’ Carter took out his phone and handed it to Bowie. ‘She has these wounds over her body.’

Bowie took the phone from him and slid his finger across the screen as he viewed the shots.

‘Nasty. Aren’t they caused by the pond life?’

Carter shook his head.

‘What does Doctor Harding say they are?’

‘She says they started out as ulcers left untreated – it’s possibly down to some contaminated heroin injected under the skin.’

‘Better see if there is some on the streets that’s capable of that.’

‘Yeah – doing it.’

‘Anyone interviewed the lad that found her yet?’

‘We took a statement from him earlier, much earlier.’ A smile crept across Carter’s face. ‘We’re holding him for a bit longer just in case we remember anything else
we want to ask him. Then maybe he’ll remember his civic duty next time and call us first instead of posting a photo on Instagram.’

‘Jesus Christ – little fucker. Let me know what you need after you talk to Robbo. Let’s get it all set up. When’s the post mortem?’

‘Harding said she’d get started in about an hour. I’m heading over there shortly.’

‘Okay, keep me in the loop.’

Carter left Bowie’s office and walked down the corridor to the largest office in the department – the Enquiry Team Office. Willis was sitting at one of the six long desks. Jeanie
Vincent the Family Liaison Officer sat diagonally opposite her. When the office was full there were twenty detective constables and five detective sergeants in it.

Ebony was scanning through Missing Persons records.

Carter stopped at her station and looked over her shoulder at the screen. ‘Anything in Mispers?’ His eyes drifted up to nod a hello to Jeanie. Jeanie smiled back.

‘Not yet, Guv.’

‘Okay, you ready? We don’t want to be late for Doctor Harding.’

‘Ready.’ Ebony stood and picked up her jacket. ‘Are we walking over, Guv?’

Carter didn’t answer so Jeanie did. ‘Don’t be silly. Of course not.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘You know he hates what the damp air does to his hair, Ebb.’

Ebony smiled.

‘And don’t forget you’re coming to Sunday lunch soon. Peter’s cooking it so you’re safe. It’ll be edible this time.’

‘Nice to know some things never change,’ said Carter as he waited for Ebony to shut down her PC.

Jeanie nodded. ‘Yep. It’s never a good thing to admit you can cook to a man – slippery slope. How are your parents, Dan?’

Carter nodded. He looked ready to say something and then changed his mind.

‘Give them my love.’ Jeanie’s eyes lingered on him.

‘Will do.’

They caught the lift down to the car park. Ebony looked across at Carter. She was used to the awkwardness between Jeanie and Carter. They had been a couple long before Ebony began working at the
Murder Squad. They still found it difficult to work together. But Ebony had seen the way Carter hesitated at the question about his parents. She knew something wasn’t right. She’d met
his parents many times when she and Carter had called in after work and been fed or given a coffee. She was very fond of them. She hadn’t been around to their home in Finchley for a couple of
months.

He turned to see her watching him.

‘My dad’s really ill. He’s got throat cancer.’ Carter smiled sadly and shook his head. ‘Cigars have done it. That and a few brandies every night.’

‘Is he having treatment?’

‘Yes. He’s having an operation to remove what they can. It’s a terrible thing to feel so helpless. I can’t do anything to help him. He can’t eat. He sits in his
chair in the lounge and he pretends to be fine about it but I can see the panic in his eyes. He’s scared.’ Carter started up the engine. ‘Still, where there’s life –
there’s hope, huh? He’s a fighter.’

‘He’ll be all right, Guv.’

‘Yeah – let’s hope so, Ebb. And at least he didn’t end up at the bottom of a freezing canal.’

The fog had cleared and the man walked away from the canal bridge and back through the new building works in King’s Cross. He stopped to look through a peep hole at the massive
construction site that encompassed the whole of King’s Cross Station and the surrounding area. The day stretched pale blue and a giant crane swung in the air. The ache and groan of steel
being driven into the earth made him feel exhilarated. He felt the blood pump around his body as he stood watching the huge machinery languidly move its metal limbs and lower and lift.

A group of Chinese students passed, all chattering together. They didn’t notice him. A woman passed walking too fast for her skirt. She was in a hurry – going somewhere. She glanced
his way; he stared back. He saw beneath the make-up, he peeled her open like an onion, folding back the layers of skin, fat, muscle and severing tendon and ligament, snapping bone.

She came level with him and he smelt her perfume. It made him want to grab her by the neck and pin her to the wall, squeeze her neck, lift her feet from the ground as he cut off the oxygen to
her brain. He would watch her eyes widen, panic, stare at him, drift and lose focus and roll back in her head and he would part her thighs and enter her at that moment and the last thing she would
feel was him inside her, the pleasure and the pain in death and ecstasy.

The woman stared back at him as if she knew what he wanted to do and was inviting him to try.
Just fucking try.
He smiled at her. She tossed her chin in the air and walked on by.

Didn’t she realize who he was? Didn’t she realize she was in the presence of greatness?
He had complete control over other human beings – over her, if he wanted it. He
had power at his fingertips that she would never know because she wasn’t worthy. He picked the women he chose to play his game very carefully. He handpicked them and he decided their fate
from that moment on. He decided how they lived and how they died.

He turned back to watch the magnificent machines he loved. The massive cranes stretched up to the sky and prepared to do battle with one another, lowering and lifting their mighty heads. His
head hurt with the pleasure of it all.

‘Got a light, mate?’ An art student from nearby Saint Martins interrupted his thoughts. The student had a hand-rolled cigarette in between his fingers. His hands were dotted with
paint.

‘Got a light, mate?’ he mimicked. The young man scowled and turned his head away for a few seconds as if considering his reaction.

‘Got a light? Got a light?’ he parroted again.

For a second the two men stared at one another.

‘Go fuck yourself.’ The young man shook his head and started walking away. ‘Fucking weirdo.’

Doctor Jo Harding had a reputation for being as cold as the corpses she cut up. She was brittle inside, steel outside. She worked exclusively for the Murder Squad. She carried
out the forensic post mortems in her laboratory in the Whittington Hospital mortuary department which was just a few minutes’ walk from Fletcher House and Archway Police Station.

Mark, the mortuary technician, knocked and entered her office as she was looking at the X-rays.

‘Inspector Carter and DC Willis are on their way over, Doctor.’

She pushed her chair back and looked up from her desk. ‘Okay – you can begin. I’ll be out in a minute.’

Mark left her office with a nod and went to get changed before going through to the body store and wheeling out the body from the canal. He waited to unzip the body bag. For him there was a
ceremonial aspect to the disrobing of the victim. He showed reverence, in deference to the deceased person. He was a sensitive soul. He already smelt the odour of advanced decomposition. He kept
his eyes lowered as he opened the zip all the way and then his eyes took in her injuries one by one and he felt a heavy sadness that was the same today as it had been the first time he’d seen
a dead body, the day he started work at the funeral home where he had worked for eight years before joining Doctor Harding. He sadly peeled the edges of the bag back and looked at the auburn-haired
woman, her face moulded into a mannequin of horror, her auburn hair snaking out and he thought how beautiful she must once have been. He moved to the top of the table and laid out the necessary
tools on the tray above the sink.

Harding picked up the post mortem forms before going through to get changed into new scrubs and an all-in-one suit, white boots. Then she picked up visor and gloves and joined Mark in the post
mortem room. The body was waiting on the stainless-steel dissection table.

She signalled to Mark to help and together they slid out and folded up the plastic sheet that the body had been wrapped in, ready to be sent to the crime lab. Harding carefully peeled away the
last of the polythene from around the victim’s neck. ‘We’ll get the preliminaries done ready to start the examination when they get here. Start by brushing and washing her hair,
eyelashes, eyebrows and pubic.’

Mark nodded that he understood and began gently combing her hair. He eased out the tangles and used a syringe to squirt water onto the scalp, flushing the debris into a bowl.

Harding was watching him from the corner of her eye. They’d been working together for three months now and were still getting used to one another’s ways. He washed the victim’s
hair as if he were in love. He tilted his head one way and another as if mesmerized by the strands of colour in her hair. Harding coughed. She saw his hands speed up – efficiency replace
sentiment – and watched as he finished up before removing the tray full of the washing liquid. He began combing through her eyebrows and eyelashes, and removed the make-up that had been
hiding the swollen cheese-like texture of her face. Her bulging eyes were lovingly wiped clean of blue eye-shadow with cotton pads, her cheeks cleaned of red stain. When he finished the face he
moved down to comb through her pubic hair.

Harding looked up from behind her plastic eye shield as Carter and Willis approached wearing full forensic suits. Harding handed Willis the camera with a querying look. Ebony nodded and took it.
She switched it on and checked it was working before moving silently around the body photographing. After Harding, Ebony knew more about forensic pathology than anyone else in the room. And,
although her degree was in criminal justice and law, forensics had been a hobby all her life.

Mark switched on the extractor fan beneath the table as Harding began official proceedings.

‘The diener here is Mark Langham; he has washed and prepared the body for autopsy,’ Harding dictated as she moved along the side of the dissection table. ‘We have collected
hair samples and will continue with the exterior examination. DI Dan Carter and DC Ebony Willis are in attendance at the post mortem examination of the victim, a woman found dead this morning,
pulled out of the Regent’s Canal. DC Ebony Willis will be recording the visual account of the autopsy. We are looking at a white female, approximately twenty-four years of age. She is five
foot six and weighs six stone seven pounds. She has yet to be identified. She’s been in the water for approximately twelve weeks. Decomposition and submersion in water for a period of several
months has caused a blackening of the skin which is lifting and separating from the muscle, on her body and limbs. Her abdomen is swollen and has a green hue.’ Harding halted at the top of
the table. ‘Her head has been encased in plastic, which has led to it being preserved; adipocere has formed, giving it a tan colour, and causing a retaining of features as the fat
melted.’