Frozen (15 page)

‘Just about. There's another body – it was found first thing this morning in the car park at BTV. Bastard had chopped her feet off!'

‘What?' Megan gasped. ‘Who is she?'

‘No idea yet. Head of security found her lying in a skip almost covered in snow. Look, can you meet me at the mortuary? I'm on my way there now.'

‘Yes, of course.' Megan looked at her watch. ‘It'll take me about half an hour, though.'

‘No hurry. They won't be able to start the post mortem until they've thawed her out.'

God, Megan thought, inching out of her space in the packed car park, is that what was going on during the wine-bar stake-out?

She was ushered into the mortuary by the same acne-scarred girl she had seen last time, but the figure standing next to Leverton was definitely not the objectionable Ed Horrobin. Taller, plumper and with almost white hair, it was the pathologist she had met on the Metro rapes inquiry.

Leverton stepped forward when he saw her enter the room. ‘Megan, you know Dr Jefferson, don't you?'

‘Yes.' She shook hands in lieu of any further pleasantries: to say ‘nice to meet you again' seemed wholly inappropriate in the circumstances.

‘You were quick,' Leverton said. ‘I got caught up in the traffic in the city centre. Christmas shoppers! You'd think the snow would put them off.'

‘Martin,' Megan said when the pathologist had disappeared to change into his overalls. ‘Did Delva see the body?'

‘No. It wasn't until after she'd gone into the building that my lot found out about it. The boss of the security firm must have driven in literally minutes before the guys following Delva pulled up. They heard screaming and when they got round the back they found the security chap's mother next to the skip where the body was found. Evidently he'd brought her in with him so she could go and do her Christmas shopping. She was in a terrible state.'

‘Where's Delva now?'

‘Don't worry – she's okay. She was pretty shaken up when she found out about it, but she's being looked after by one of the other women who works in the newsroom. We had to play things pretty carefully because we didn't want anyone at BTV to twig why we were on the scene so soon after the body was discovered. Anyway, her colleague took her home and she's going to arrange for her to catch a train to her mother's place in London. She was going there for Christmas anyway.'

‘You don't think there's any danger of her being followed down to London, do you?'

‘Yes. That's why I'm sending a couple of plain clothes people on the train as well.'

‘I've been thinking. We need a list of exactly who was in the BTV building the night Delva found that photo on her desk. Do you remember when we went to her house, she said whoever put it there could only have done it during a ten-minute period when the night sub popped out for a sandwich?'

‘Yes, I know. We're working on that at the moment. Unfortunately the place was crawling with people that night. There was a Christmas party for all the technical staff, so at the time the envelope was left there were about sixty people on the premises.'

‘Oh, right,' Megan sighed. ‘One more thing. Have you got the blood grouping from the semen sample on the photo yet?'

‘No. They're having trouble collecting enough to do the test. Sod's law, isn't it?'

Megan looked at him. He'd probably been up half the night but she wouldn't have guessed it from his appearance. ‘Is there any chance of whoever dumped this body being caught on a security video?'

‘You'd think so, wouldn't you? The first thing we asked for when we got inside the building was last night's tapes. But surprise, surprise, there's one missing: it would have covered the period from nine o'clock until midnight.'

‘So whoever dumped the body stole the tape?'

‘Exactly. Everyone who was in the building last night's going to have to be questioned.'

A trolley was wheeled through the doors and in its wake came the pathologist. The dead woman was still zipped up in the body bag used to transport her corpse from the BTV car park.

Martin and Megan watched as the opaque outer layer of the bag was unzipped, revealing a clear plastic layer over the woman's face. Normally her features would have been clearly visible but the inside of the plastic was clouded with melting snow. As the inner zipper was pulled down and the plastic parted, Megan gasped.

Leverton had noticed it too. ‘My God! It's her, isn't it?'

They were both staring at the woman's left breast. The snow that had covered the upper torso at the crime scene had melted to reveal a butterfly tattoo. A glance at the face confirmed it – although the hair was matted and the skin frosted over, it was definitely the woman in the photograph.

The pathologist looked up in surprise. ‘You know her?'

‘We don't know her name,' Leverton said, ‘but we have a photo of her. She could be a local prostitute. One of my men was checking it out.'

He told the pathologist about the origin of the photograph. ‘Doctor Rhys thinks the man who sent it was probably involved in the murders of the two other prostitutes and the Jacksons. The woman in the photo looked as if she'd been restrained in the same way Natalie Bailey and Tina Jackson were; her arms were twisted above her head and she was lying on a bed. If this is the same woman – and I'm pretty sure it is – she should have marks on her wrists.'

‘Well, I won't be able to do a post-mortem for a few hours yet – the body's still partly frozen – but we might be able to see something on her wrists…' He drew back the flaps of the body bag and the technician eased the body onto the table. Megan shuddered at the sight of the legs with their rough white stumps of bone.

‘I can see something here,' the pathologist said, cradling the woman's right hand in his own. ‘There's an abrasion on the skin inside the wrist consistent with something thin and rigid like handcuffs.'

‘What about cause of death?' Leverton asked. ‘Was she strangled?'

‘I can't say yet. Her hair's frozen to her neck in places so there could be bruises concealed underneath.'

‘How long has she been dead?'

‘Hard to say until we open her up. The extremities are frozen solid. She could have been killed several days ago and left outside.'

He examined the hair, pulling some of the matted strands apart. ‘There are fragments of dead leaves in her hair: I didn't see any organic waste in that skip, so as a preliminary guess I'd say she'd been dragged across a garden or a park. When did it turn cold? Sunday night, wasn't it?'

Megan glanced at Leverton and they both nodded.

‘So she could have been killed as long ago as last weekend.' Jefferson straightened up and turned to face Megan and Leverton. ‘The state of the internal organs will give us a better idea: they're unlikely to be frozen – she'd have to have been put into a deep freeze for the cold to penetrate there. The amount of decomposition will give us a reasonable idea of how long ago she died.'

Megan had been waiting for Leverton to finish quizzing the pathologist before asking any questions of her own. ‘What do you make of the legs? We haven't seen mutilation in any of the other victims.'

‘The feet were severed after death. Obviously I can't say what was used to do it until I carry out a proper examination, but the absence of any blood loss from the wound suggests that the woman had been dead for some time when it happened.'

‘Why cut off the feet?' Leverton mused, ‘Are we looking at some bizarre fetish or what?'

‘It could be something much more mundane.' Jefferson perched on a stool next to the body. ‘In my experience the likeliest explanation for severed limbs is ease of disposal.'

Megan frowned. ‘So you think he did this because she wouldn't fit into his car or van or whatever?'

‘I'd say it was a distinct possibility, yes. We'll get a clearer picture if there are any fibres attached to the body. If she was transported in a car boot she's likely to have picked something up off the floor. The lab can usually distinguish between domestic carpeting and the stuff you get in cars.'

‘What about semen traces? Will they have been preserved?' Leverton asked. ‘I mean, is there any chance of picking up enough to do a DNA test?'

Jefferson rubbed his chin, thinking for a moment before replying. ‘If she was sexually assaulted, the presence of semen will depend on how long after the attack the body froze. If it happened within a couple of hours there's a good chance of semen remaining in the body. You'll have to give me time to allow the body to thaw before I can take any swabs, though.'

Leverton asked Megan if she would follow him back to police headquarters. It was frustrating having to wait for the post-mortem to be carried out, but there was little else the pathologist could tell them until it was done. Megan felt faintly sick, wondering how long a woman took to thaw.

*   *   *

David Simon sat in a waiting room at the police station. There were two empty coffee cups beside him. He got up, pacing the floor impatiently. They'd taken his mother to hospital. Suffering from shock, they said. Not bloody surprising, he thought. He was angry. Angry at what she'd seen and angry at having to wait so long to be questioned.

‘Mr Simon?' A uniformed officer appeared round the door. ‘Shouldn't be long now.'

He didn't like the look on the policeman's face. It was condescending, typical of the way cops acted when dealing with security guards. In his experience they always distrusted the likes of him, never sure if they were ex-cons or ex-cops.

He wondered who would be coming to interview him. Perhaps it'd be the one he'd seen on telly yesterday. What was his name? Leverton. Three dead bodies in a week. Things must really be hotting up in this place, he thought. They might even wheel in that Dr Megan Rhys.

*   *   *

‘The first thing I want to do is get hold of Rob Donalsen,' Leverton said as he showed her into his office. ‘Remember what I said about him being a liability?'

Megan nodded, watching Leverton's face. The mention of the Vice Squad sergeant's name made her go cold. Ever since the horrible discovery in her fridge she'd been telling herself it couldn't be him. That he didn't fit the profile for AB. But he'd been in on this right from the start. Knew she was involved. And he was screwing prostitutes.
What if she was wrong?

‘I showed him that photo this morning just to see his expression,' Leverton went on. ‘He went as white as a sheet. I'm sure it's a girl he's knocked off in the past, but he made out he didn't recognise her. Anyway, I told him I wanted a name by this afternoon.' He looked at his watch and smiled grimly. ‘It's ten past twelve already – shall we?' Leverton stood up and opened the door.

As they descended the staircase to the ground floor Megan caught sight of PC Costello in a doorway. He wore a hooded jacket and his mouth was muffled by a thick woollen scarf so that the only part of his face that could be seen were his hypnotic brown eyes. There was snow on the hood of his jacket and it was beginning to drip onto his forehead. He wiped it with a gloved hand and grinned as he saw Megan and Leverton coming past.

‘Afternoon, sir. Ma'am,' he said.

‘Oh, Costello – you just starting a shift?' Leverton asked.

‘Yes, sir. I've been off since Tuesday but I'm on over the weekend.'

‘Hmmm,' Leverton said. ‘Could have done with you this morning, really. Never mind.'

Costello followed wordlessly as Leverton carried on down the corridor, ushering Megan through a fire door. As they reached the Vice Squad office, Megan nearly collided with Donalsen, who hurtled through the door in front of her. He looked terrible: puffy-eyed and red-faced. She backed away.

‘Going somewhere, Rob?' Leverton asked in a tone of voice Megan had never heard him use before.

‘Er … No, sir. Just a call of nature, sir.'

‘Well, it'll have to wait! I want that name!'

Donalsen looked sheepishly back at him. ‘I've tried, guv, really. I mean, there's hardly anyone out on the beat in the mornings. I couldn't find anyone to ask. I've been all through the files and none of the mug-shots look anything like her!' There was a note of desperation in the way he said it, as if pleading with Leverton to believe him.

Leverton fixed the sergeant with a piercing glance before walking past him into the office. ‘Well, perhaps PC Costello can throw a bit of light on the subject.' He handed Costello a copy of the photo. He studied it for a moment, his hood and scarf concealing the expression on his face. Then he looked at Donalsen, but the sergeant looked away.

‘It's, er, hard to tell because of the hair over the face,' Costello said. ‘But it might be one of ours,' he faltered. ‘The tattoo, though … that looks familiar – although butterflies are quite popular tattoos to have. If she was on our files that tattoo wouldn't show 'cos it's too low down. They come in wearing these low-cut tops but we only get head and shoulders photos.'

Costello took off his coat and scarf and walked across to the filing cabinet, pulling out a photo after a search that took a matter of seconds. ‘There's this girl, sir,' he said, showing it to Leverton. ‘What do you think?'

Leverton turned so that Megan could see it too. To her, there was absolutely no doubt that it was the same woman. The grim expression she wore for the police photographer couldn't conceal her high cheekbones and full lips. Her skin was a tawny colour – a shade darker than in the other photograph – and her hair stood out around her face, glistening like black candyfloss.

Leverton read out the name at the top of the card. ‘Maria Fellowes. Aged 27. Hmmm, last arrested six months ago.' He turned to Costello. ‘Are you sure this one's still on the game?'