Little Boy Blue: DI Helen Grace 5 (A DI Helen Grace Thriller) (3 page)

The small space was a hive of activity. Meredith Walker, Southampton Central’s Chief Forensics Officer, was already on her hands and knees, diligently searching the floor space. The club’s owners clearly didn’t spend much on cleaning and it was going to be a mammoth job for Meredith and her team to bag all the detritus. The footfall in this room was evidently large – Helen feared it might be easier to work out which of the club’s members
hadn’t
been in this room than pin down those who had – further complicating the task that lay in front of them.

Helen caught Charlie looking at her and, putting these defeatist thoughts aside, moved cautiously forward. The victim lay in the middle of the room, bound to a metal chair with duct tape and wet sheets. Helen presumed he was a man, given the height, but it was hard to be sure. The victim’s entire head was encased in silver tape, not a strand of hair or patch of skin visible anywhere. The wet sheets clung to him, bolstering Helen’s sense of the paralysing immobility the victim must have felt. It was a horrific way to die.

There had been S&M deaths before of course – auto-eroticism and sex games gone wrong – but this one felt different. A pair of sturdy panic shears lay on the floor next to the body, circled by Meredith’s team and
tagged for inspection. Whoever did this then had the means to release their victim, but had
chosen
not to. Instead, they had left the room, closing the door behind them and walking away without once attracting anyone’s attention. This was no accident then. This was a deliberate, calculated attempt to kill.

The police photographer gave Helen the nod and she now moved forward. Slipping her gloved hand beneath the victim, she raised him from the ground. The chair wobbled a little, then righted itself, settling into position in front of her. The victim’s head lolled downwards, eventually coming to rest on his chest.

‘Could you give us a couple of minutes, guys?’ Helen said quietly, but firmly.

Meredith and her team withdrew, leaving Charlie and Helen alone with the deceased. It was time now to reveal the victim and begin the process of trying to identify him – a task that didn’t require an audience.

Gripping a pair of sterile scissors, Helen snipped through the wet sheets that bound the legs and torso. She was unlikely to be able to ID him from the sight of his feet, but she wanted to release his arms and legs from their constraints. This would allow her a better line of attack on the duct tape that bound him from the chest up. She knew she could ill afford to inflict any post-mortem injuries on him by hacking blindly at the tape, so though every instinct urged her to remove the tape from his eyes, nose and mouth, she resisted for now.

Patiently, Helen cut through the stiff sheets, releasing
his body from its purgatory. The sheets fell away, revealing the ribbon that secured his ankles to the chair legs. Helen untied this, bagging it along with the sheets, but the body didn’t respond at all. Rigor mortis was setting in – their victim looked like a man frozen in time.

Pressing on with her unpleasant task, Helen stripped off the upper sheets, passing them to a rather pale-looking Charlie. Now she slipped one scissor blade underneath the tape on his chest, sliding it over the soft leather of his suit without marking the surface. She slowed her progress as she cut upwards towards his neck – every mark, every bruise on his body, might provide them with vital clues and Helen was determined not to stymie their investigation through human error.

The tape covering his throat came away easily – only his head remained covered now. Downing the scissors, Helen decided to finish the last, most delicate stage by hand. Teasing her fingers along the top of his head, she soon found what she was looking for. The end of the tape had been stuck down firmly, but with a bit of coaxing, it came free.

This was the moment of truth then. Grasping the loose end, Helen began to unwind the tape. Slowly at first, then faster and with more confidence, until finally it fell away altogether.

The sight that greeted her took her breath away. Not because she was disgusted by the victim’s waxy, lifeless face, but because she
recognized
him. This poor wretch was her friend. Her dominator.

It was Jake.

Helen stumbled up the stairs, her hand clamped over her mouth. She could feel the vomit rising in her throat and she needed to be
away
from this underground hell. The green exit light could be glimpsed up ahead and she took the final steps at speed, barrelling through the exit and out into the night.

Ignoring the startled looks of the uniformed officers on guard, Helen hurried over to the chain link fence that bordered the club and clung on to it. Her breath was short, her heart was racing and the waves of nausea just kept coming. She gulped in huge lungfuls of air, desperate to avoid drawing attention to herself, but to no avail. She vomited now, hard and loud, her stomach cramping over and over again until there was nothing left inside.

Nobody made a move to help her, so Helen remained staring at the ground, empty and drained. It
couldn’t
be Jake. A small part of her was tempted to return to the crime scene, to prove to herself that she’d made a stupid mistake. But in her heart she knew it
was
him. His face was distinctive and familiar and, besides, the tattoo on his neck sealed it. The man whose company she’d paid for on numerous occasions over the years, who’d beaten her dark introspection from her many times during their S&M sessions, was dead. Jake was the only person who knew the
real Helen, and his sudden death left her feeling disoriented and confused.

The last time she’d seen him he was happy and settled. He was dating a new boyfriend, had relinquished his crush on Helen and seemed to be making a decent fist of his life. What had gone so terribly wrong that he had ended up here, in an after-hours club, falling into the clutches of a brutal and pitiless killer? Helen would have given anything to be able to turn back time, to step into that small room as Jake was being attacked and drag his assailant away.

‘Are you ok?’

Helen looked up to find Charlie standing nearby, framed by the darkness. No one else would have spoken to her so informally or with such affection and it knocked the stuffing out of her now. Normally she would have blustered a response and sent them away, but she and Charlie had been through too much together for her to be dismissed like that. A large part of Helen wanted to blurt out that she knew the victim, that he was a friend. But as she opened her mouth to speak, her tongue refused to obey.

‘What is it, Helen? What’s wrong?’ Charlie persisted.

Still Helen said nothing. To admit that she knew the victim would mean confessing how they met. Instantly she recoiled from this – she didn’t want to offer Jake up to them like this – and, besides, how could she look any of her colleagues in the eye once the details of her private life were laid bare? She’d be a laughing stock, the butt of endless ribald jokes, but more than that they
would
know
. Her sessions with Jake had always been private, discreet and special – a space where she could reveal her historic wounds and confront her feelings of guilt. If she opened herself up like that she’d be exposed, humiliated and in all likelihood taken off the case – and that was something that Helen was not prepared to countenance.

‘I’m fine. It was just a shock,’ Helen replied, straightening up.

‘Not a pretty sight, was he? If you want me to handle this –’

‘It’s ok. I’m good now,’ Helen said quickly. ‘Let’s get it over with, shall we?’

Her jaunty tone sounded forced, but Charlie didn’t comment. So swallowing down another wave of nausea and putting her best foot forward, Helen walked back towards the club’s gaping entrance to perform her grim duty.

He slipped into bed and turned his eyes to the wall. He could tell Sally wasn’t asleep – though she was pretending to be – and he wondered what she was thinking. Could she hear his heart beating sixteen to the dozen? Could she sense his excitement?

He had taken his time returning home, hoping that he would be in a calmer state of mind on his arrival. But the adrenaline coursed through him still, and even though he had taken a long shower, he felt sure the stain of the night remained on him.

He sometimes had the sense that Sally wanted to say something, as they lay together. That his increasing absence from her life had been noted, that her patience was reaching breaking point. If he was honest, he wanted her to ask. Not just so that he could apologize and make amends for the cruel way he’d treated her. But also because he wanted to explain – to make sense of his wanton, self-destructive actions. He was playing with fire, risking everything and everyone he held dear, and he wanted to share this burden with her.

Should he seize the initiative? Tell her himself? As soon as the thought entered his head, he dismissed it. Where would he begin? What would he say? Sally was no doormat, she was an intelligent and spirited woman – why
couldn’t
she
tackle him on it, demanding an explanation for his actions?

She wouldn’t, of course. Theirs was a marriage sustained by silence now. So nothing would change, while with each passing night
everything
changed. He was slowly becoming a different person – someone new and unfamiliar. It thrilled and scared him in equal measure, such was the strength of his obsession. And this was why he wanted someone to talk to him, challenge him. Because he knew instinctively that, left to his own devices, he would never, ever stop.

It was only 7 a.m. but Emilia Garanita had been working for several hours. Journalists are often up at odd times, but crime reporters have it particularly bad – murderers, rapists and kidnappers having no respect for those who have to chronicle their deeds. Emilia was used to it and, if she was honest, rather enjoyed her lifestyle. She loved her bed as much as the next girl, but the buzz of her mobile phone in the middle of the night always presaged something exciting, something new.

She had been called at 4 a.m. by PC Alan Stark, a tame officer who was happy to accept cash payments for information. There had been a murder during the night – an unusual one – which is why Emilia was now ensconced with him in a transport café near the Torture Rooms, huddled over a bacon sandwich.

‘Did you see the body?’ Emilia asked, cutting to the chase.

‘No, but I spoke to a mate in SOC and they gave me chapter and verse. This place is something else.’

‘Meaning?’

‘It’s a fetish club and tonight was their “Annual Ball”. So they were all out in force – poofs, dykes, gimps, devils, angels –’

‘Did you recognize anyone?’

‘I’m sure they were all there,’ he laughed grimly. ‘City councillors, BBC folk, vicars, but you can bet your bottom dollar they scarpered before CID turned up. Those that did hang about were wearing masks, helmets and such, so –’

‘Did you pick up anyone with a criminal record?’

‘We’re still processing them.’

‘And who owns it – the club, I mean?’

‘Pass. But the manager – if that’s what you can call him – is talking to CID now. Sean Blakeman.’

Emilia wrote the name down.

‘Tell me about the victim.’

‘White guy in his early forties. Tied to a chair, before having his head taped up from chin to crown. I’m guessing the poor bastard suffocated.’

He continued to describe the scene, giving what details he could about the victim and the clientele of the club. Emilia was only half listening, writing his testimony down in her crisp, efficient shorthand, her mind already spooling forward to the story she would write. Sex, murder, torture, titillation – this case was kinky with a capital ‘K’ and would go down a storm with her editor. It had everything going for it and the icing on the cake was Stark’s confirmation that the case would be handled by Emilia’s erstwhile friend, now nemesis.

DI Helen Grace.

Helen walked briskly along the corridor, her heart sinking lower with each step. She’d been up all night, heading straight from the crime scene back to the incident room. She’d secretly hoped that the team might have made some quick progress, but in reality she knew it was too early for that – the peculiarities of this crime meant that they would have to be patient. Eyewitness reports were thin on the ground, and with no surveillance systems in the club they would have to garner amateur shots from mobile phones and piece together some kind of timeline. This might yield something and, of course, Meredith was still working her team hard on the forensics. Meanwhile, there was one very valuable piece of evidence that was as yet untapped – Jake’s body.

Helen reached the mortuary doors and buzzed herself in quickly. If she hesitated, she would lose her nerve and turn back. Jim Grieves, the pathologist, turned as Helen now approached. He didn’t offer much of a greeting and Helen was glad of it. She hadn’t the mental capacity or emotional strength for small talk. She just wanted to get this over with.

‘He’s a Caucasian male, late thirties to early forties, with a keen interest in body art, piercing and masochism. Lots of old injuries associated with the use of restraints,
including a fractured wrist sustained a few years ago and a dislocated ankle that has never fully healed. Some evidence of STDs and I also found historic semen residue – not his own – on parts of his clothing.’

Helen nodded but said nothing – it was upsetting to hear her friend dissected in such a cold, clinical way.

‘We’ve done preliminary bloods – alcohol, ketamine and a small amount of cocaine, but that’s not what killed him. He died of asphyxia. You can tell by the petechial haemorrhages on his cheeks and eyelids and also the cyanosis, which is what gives his face that blue discoloration. There are no bruises or marks on his torso, so we can assume that the duct tape around his head was sufficiently tight to cut off oxygen to his airways and that his killer had no need to apply any pressure to his throat or neck. The bleeding and bruising to his lips suggest that he was trying to bite his way through the tape when he lost consciousness.’

Helen shut her eyes, overwhelmed by the horror of Jake’s predicament.

‘He suffered severe dehydration thanks to a massive rise in his body temperature, which eventually led to a cardiac arrest, but he wouldn’t have known much about it. His brain was starved of oxygen – it was this that did for him rather than anything that came after.’

‘How long?’

Helen’s voice sounded brittle and tight.

‘Four to five minutes to lose consciousness, a little longer to die.’

‘Would he have known what was happening?’

‘Until he blacked out. Perhaps that was the point. There was no attempt to torture or harm him physically, even though he was at his killer’s mercy. Which might suggest your attacker wanted his victim to be cognisant of what was happening, to
feel
his helplessness as his oxygen failed.’

Helen nodded, but said nothing in response. She was riven with emotion – anger, despair, sickness – as Grieves laid bare the brutal details of Jake’s death.
Did
his assailant stick around to watch him die? Was being there at the point of death important to him? Beneath her fierce outrage, Helen now felt something else stirring – fear. Fear that the darkness was descending once more.

‘Anything else? We’re light on hard evidence at the moment,’ Helen went on.

‘Given the environment his body was found in, his clothing is surprisingly clean. I did find some fresh saliva on his cheek and right ear, however. I doubt it’s his own, given the position of it.’

‘Can we fast-track the analysis?’ Helen said quickly. ‘We need something concrete we can work with –’

‘I’ll do what I can, but I’ve got three other cadavers to process and everyone wants things yesterday, don’t they?’ Grieves grumbled.

‘Thank you, Jim. Quick as you can, please.’

Helen squeezed his arm and turned on her heel. Grieves opened his mouth to protest, but he was too slow. Helen was already gone.