Dead Sweet: A D.I. Turnbull mystery (3 page)

Entering the air conditioned room - the only one in the station - was always a relief in the summertime and Todd took a moment to enjoy the breeze on his skin before walking to the civilian CAD controller.

"Good morning Mark." Todd addressed him.

"Guv."

"What have we got?"

"Pretty bad one Guv; A woman was found in her bedroom by her boyfriend this morning. Coroner believes she's been tortured and killed."

"How was she killed?"

"Sherbet." Mark raised an eyebrow as he spoke, knowing his statement would be difficult to believe.

"Sherbet? What? How?"

"Funnel in mouth, force fed sherbet until it filled her lungs guv." Mark grimaced. "Death by sherbet."

"Holy fuck," Todd exclaimed, "I better get down there, how many are on the scene?"

"Duty Inspector, Coroner, SOCO, Photographer, two uniforms and there's a PCSO on the door."

"That's good; looks like all the bases are covered."

"Yeah well they've been there an hour Guv." Mark turned to him, accusation in his eyes as to Todd's tardiness.

"Fucking phone," Todd checked it again. It now displayed a full service. "I was only in my office; you should have sent someone to look for me earlier."

"We did Guv; you weren't there about three quarters of an hour ago."

Property store, Todd remembered; definitely no hope of reception down there.

"Alright, print out the CAD for me, I'll get down there, is the body still in situ?"

"Yes Guv. They are waiting for you."

"Ok." Todd waited by the printer for the computer aided dispatch machine to printout the address of the murder and details of investigations so far. It gave details of the boyfriend's call to the station, assignment to the relevant officers and made plenty of mention about failed calls to his phone
. Great
, he thought,
that will look really good on my appraisal.

"Come on Candace, I'll drive."

D.I. Todd Turnbull and D.S. Candace Whelan got into Todd's police issue Vauxhall Astra car; unmarked and unloved it did its job adequately and Todd was in no rush to replace it with any other. They made their way to the crime scene at a flat on the Fern Bridge Estate. The Fern Bridge was a large council run housing estate, giving homes to five percent of the population of Elisworth, a small town in the Borough of Olinsbury, West London. It was served by Olinsbury as that was the main station for five different towns in the borough and Todd had found himself on many an occasion hot tailing it from one end of the borough to the other.

Being home to such a large amount of people, Fern Bridge was a constant destination for the police; domestics and burglaries being the most prevalent of crimes but it was not without the odd murder, in fact Todd had investigated the disappearance, rape and murder of a little girl on the borough about two years previously. He still had flashbacks of seeing her little body cold and lifeless on a riverbank in the arms of what he later found out was her killer.

Todd didn't enjoy his trips onto the estate; the four tower blocks cut out any natural light for the houses huddled below, giving a shadowed and claustrophobic feel to the whole area. It was a scene set for any crime, just awaiting a nefarious figure to position him or herself into the dramatic backdrop.

The blue flashing lights and growing crowd of bystanders made it easy for Todd to find the flat which held its macabre contents. Todd parked his Vauxhall on the pavement behind a marked police car and he put the logbook in his front window to mark his car as police issue.

Todd and Candace got out of the car and made their way through the crowd, offering a polite excuse me here and there as they went and flashing their warrant cards at stubborn non-movers who didn't want to lose their place in the spectator's section.

"Come on, out of the way." Todd moved past the most forefront watcher, a large male who seemed particularly intent to remain where he stood. Todd gave him a gentle push then held his warrant card up in the male's face as he started to protest.

"Fucking pigs," the male whispered as Todd passed. Todd did nothing about it; he had more important things to deal with in the coming minutes.

When they finally got to the front door of the flat in question, Todd nodded at the Police Community Support Officer who stood, arms crossed, at the door, a human barrier to the prying eyes.

"Hello," Todd smiled at her as Candace and he were pulling on latex gloves.

"Sorry sir, this is a crime scene, you can't go in there." The PCSO held out her arms to stop Todd crossing her two handed barrier.

"D.I. Turnbull; the gloves aren't just for show." Todd introduced himself, holding his warrant card up yet again for perusal.

"Oh sorry," the now embarrassed officer said, moving out of the way to grant access to Todd.

"DS Whelan," Candace smiled waving her own card as she passed, pausing only to pull on the blue plastic shoe covers which would prevent her shoes contaminating the new crime scene.

"Yes, yes, you may go in." the PCSO smiled back.

Todd and Candace walked along the corridor of the ground floor flat; laminate floor loudly proclaiming their arrival. A white clad woman in overalls poked her head out from a door a little way along the corridor. Todd walked towards her, noticing an unkempt living room to his left and an even more unkempt kitchen to his right. A quick assessment told him it was a one bedroomed flat, so Todd assumed it was occupied by one or two people and the lack of any toys or photos of children made him believe it would be a single person or a couple. These assessments were made in a blink of a policeman's eye which was now on alert and looking for clues and evidence everywhere Todd went.

"Jan," Todd greeted the woman in her white overalls. She was one of the Scenes of Crime Officers for Olinsbury nick, always quickly on scene and hardly ever perturbed by the gruesome scenes which were her place of work. A cast iron stomach and a thirst for knowledge were Jan's best friends in her business of evidence collection. She acknowledged Todd as he greeted her with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

"This is a bad one Guv; there are some sick people out there." Jan said, giving a shake of her brown hair as she pulled her paper hood away from her head.

"I just don't know where they get their ideas from," she mused as she walked up to Todd, stopping him before he could enter what he assumed was the bedroom.

"Tell me," Todd ordered.

"White female, early twenties," Jan began, ticking points off on her fingers as she spoke.

"How was she killed?" Todd asked, "Mark said something about sherbet?"

"Yes Guv. She's had a funnel pushed down her throat and her lungs have been filled with the stuff until she died from suffocation.

A loud wail came from the living room Todd had passed; he looked enquiringly at Jan.

"That would be her boyfriend Guv, he found her."

"Not pretty." Todd sympathised with the male he was yet to meet.

"If only it was
just
that." Jan continued.

"Oh god, was she raped?" Todd asked.

"Of a sorts Guv; I'm afraid she's been pretty badly mutilated with sweets."

"What?" an incredulous Todd asked. He couldn't even begin to imagine how a person could be mutilated with sweets. Candace stood beside him looking equally incredulous. "It's better if you look for yourself Guv." Jan said, stepping aside to allow Todd and Candace to access the bedroom. What Todd saw next was an image which wiped out all bad images Todd had ever held before. No other body Todd had seen murdered had been in such a totally horrific state.

The young woman lay spread-eagled on the bed before him; her hands hanging from handcuffs either side of her head. She was naked but appeared to have white spikes poking out of her skin all over her body. Closer inspection showed Todd that cuts had been made in the female's skin and the sticks were poking out of these holes.

"Lollies Guv," Michael the coroner said as he came to stand beside Todd. He reached over to one of the white sticks and pulled at it, a red ball came out of the cut with a sickening squelch as it was released from its fleshy casing. Michael looked at the sweet, "Strawberry," he proclaimed as he gave it a sniff before placing it into a plastic police evidence bag.

Todd's face crinkled in disgust, "That is sick." He voiced his feelings as his eyes continued their travels along the body. More white sticks protruded from the body and he could see that there were also sticks visible in the vagina and the anus of the young girl. There were longer cuts at intervals along the torso and Todd looked to Michael for explanation.

"Liquorice twists." He told him, Todd could just see the shine off the black twists as they nestled in their bloody slits. What were infinitely worse than all of this were the girl's eyes which had been previously hidden by the plastic funnel which protruded grotesquely from the mouth. Todd had to walk right up to the body so he could view the rest of her face. The girl's eyes appeared to be missing, now replaced by what looked to Todd to be toffee pennies, still encased in their shiny golden wrappers. A small amount of blood oozed from the eye socket, eventually making enough to drip onto the girl's flesh, its splash marking another moment in time of the decomposition which was now in progress. Todd could smell the sweet almost metallic aroma of the blood intermingled with a burnt sugar smell, closer inspection showed this to be hot caramel which had been poured over the victim's hair.

Todd heard Candace gag behind him. A clench of his stomach told him that he was in the same mind set of disgust and Todd moved quickly away from the body before his stomach contents came up and defiled the crime scene.

Todd grabbed Candace by the arm and they walked out of the bedroom and into the hallway, taking deep breaths to clear their noses and minds of the sights and smells they had just witnessed.

Michael came out to speak to them in the corridor, similar disgust still displayed on his face, his extra time at the crime scene not being able to dampen the picture of horror which had been etched onto his brain.

"Was this done before or after she died?" was Todd's most urgent question. He needed to know the full extent of the girl's suffering.

"There's not a lot of blood Guv." Michael told him, "Which tells me the cuts were made post mortem; after the heart stopped beating."

"Well that's something at least." Todd was consoled by the fact the poor girl hadn't suffered the pain of the horrific mutilation to her body.

"I'll be able to tell you more when I get her back to my table," said Michael.

"Ok, I've seen enough, where's the boyfriend?" Todd asked.

A uniformed officer appeared in the corridor, two pips on his epaulettes letting Todd know it was the duty Inspector. Todd nodded at him, "Hi Callum," he said and followed the officer's pointed hand into the untidy living room.

A young male sat on the brown leather sofa, head in hands, streams of snot snaking their way through his fingers. "Mr Walton," The Duty Inspector said to the male, shaking him gently on the shoulder.

"Mr Walton, this is Detective Inspector Turnbull, he has come to talk to you about what happened."

Mr Walton brought his head up and wiped the snot away from his face with his hands, smearing the shiny substance onto his trouser legs. His brown eyes were swollen and red from crying.

"Hi Mr Walton, I'm sorry for your loss." Todd said to him. The Duty Inspector passed Todd a notebook with information about the dead girl on it. Todd saw her name was Amanda Thomas, 21 years old. Mr Walton's first name was Tony. "Mr Walton, may I call you Tony?"

Tony nodded his head silently.

"Tony, tell me what happened when you got here today."

Taking a deep breath, Tony relayed his story to Todd as he continued to wipe his hands up and down his trouser leg. He told Todd that he had a day off work and had arranged to meet up with Mandy and go out for a walk in London. Tony informed Todd that they often went for walks in London, it was one of Mandy's favourite past times.

"She wanted to be a model," Tony explained. "She thought she would get spotted if she walked around London. We always go up to Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square, Soho." Tony paused and looked at the floor before giving a loud sigh and starting again; "Hyde Park, Kensington, Chelsea. Harrods; she loved to go to Harrods, was absolutely convinced that someone would spot her there. Then we used to go to..." Tony continued to reel off place names in London. In ordinary circumstances Todd would have butted in and asked Tony to get on with his story, considering he was in shock at his findings this morning and feeling very sorry for the snot filled man in front of him, Todd decided to allow the soliloquy to continue. Eventually Tony's voice trailed away to nothing and he sat with his head hung low, lips mouthing the well-known London streets over and over again.

"Tony." Todd finally cut in.

"Yes?"

"I know you've had a terrible shock." Tony guffawed at Todd's statement, Todd continued; "It has been really tough for you, but we need to know what happened if we have any chance at all of finding out who did this to Amanda."

"Mandy, she liked to be called Mandy." Tony informed Todd.

"Mandy, sorry, please tell me what happened when you got to the flat today Tony?" Todd gently asked him.

"Well I came around as I always do; we were going to go for a walk in London as I said. I have a key to her flat, we were starting to get serious, I may have moved in you know?" Tony looked up at Todd, tears beginning to form in his eyes once more.

"Please," Todd said, "Carry on."

"I let myself in; there's no point knocking on the door, Mandy spends forever getting ready and she wouldn't bother with the door if she was putting on an eyelash or straightening something. So I let myself in, shouted her name, looked around, went in her bedroom and found... found.... Her" Tony once again put his head in his hands, a fresh batch of snot making its way from his nose to the floor.

"Was the flat disturbed in any way?" Todd asked. "Is it usually this messy or is this unusual?"

"No, no she wasn't very tidy; it's always a little messy." Tony looked around; "I can't see anything out of place. I really don't know, sorry."

Sensing he wasn't going to get any further useful information from Tony, Todd decided to get searching the flat to see if he could come up with any evidence from address books, diaries or even discarded business cards that may be lying around the flat. He asked one of the uniformed officers to take Tony away to the police station so a formal statement could be made and then set about searching the front room for any clues.

"Guv we are ready to move her body if you're finished." Michael stood in the doorway of the living room.

"Yes that's fine, have all photographs been taken?"

"Yes and she has been un-cuffed from the headboard."

"Go for it, get the poor mare out of here, and let me know if you find
anything
that may give me a clue where to start looking please because I haven't got a fucking clue." Todd grimaced. "Who
does
that to someone?"