Pop Goes the Weasel (29 page)

Sunlight flooded through the thin curtains. Charlie felt the warmth of the new day on her face and slowly opened her eyes. Memories, thoughts and feelings swirled round her fuzzy head, then suddenly she turned over, anxious to see if she’d dreamed it or not. But Steve wasn’t there – he hadn’t come home last night. It was no dream.

Charlie had tried ringing him repeatedly but it had gone straight to voicemail. Was he ok? Had something happened to him? She was sure Steve wouldn’t have left her. His stuff was all here and, besides, he was a bigger man than that. He would never walk out without an explanation.

So where was he? And why hadn’t he come home? After he had issued his ultimatum, Charlie had asked for time to think. She desperately wanted them to be together, to be a happy family, but to give up her career, give up everything she’d fought to achieve, was a huge sacrifice. But would any of it be worth it without Steve by her side? This was a circle Charlie couldn’t square.

Perhaps she’d never understood the depth of his grief over the baby they’d lost. Steve had had a name in mind for it if it was a boy. He had teased her with that when she
was first pregnant, refusing to let her in on the secret. He had never mentioned it subsequently, despite Charlie’s attempts to get him to talk about it. After a while she’d stopped asking and because he was so solid, so self-contained, perhaps she had underestimated the effect it had had on him.

Steve was so insistent. So determined that she should do something else. Something safe that would allow them to start a family together. He had swallowed enough anger, enough anxiety, enough fear. Now it was up to Charlie to decide what life she wanted.

Except Charlie didn’t know. Couldn’t decide. The only thing she did know for sure was that she hated being alone in this big house.

He was under siege. They had had to disconnect the doorbell and pull out the phones in the end, but still the barrage of enquiries didn’t stop. Journalists shouted through the letterbox, banged on the doors and the windows, asking for comments, for a photo opportunity. They were remorseless, merciless.

Robert had taken refuge with his parents, Monica and Adam, in their bedroom upstairs. They’d sat on the bed together, trying to block out the sound of the commotion outside by cranking up the radio. No one had really known what to say at first, too shocked to process the day’s events, but finally Robert found his voice.

‘Did you know?’

His first question had been tinged with bitterness and anger. Monica nodded, but was crying too much to speak, so Adam falteringly told Robert what he needed to know. His parents had known who his mother was when they’d adopted him, but they’d never wanted to know the details of her crimes, fearing that their horror would seep into their relationship with their cherished child. As far as they were concerned, the child was innocent. The slate was wiped clean and by good fortune and the Grace of God
both he and they had been given an amazing opportunity. They had always referred to him as ‘their little blessing’.

Robert didn’t feel like a blessing now. After a couple of hours of fraught, painful discussion, Robert had retired to his bedroom, needing to be alone. He had lain on his bed, his iPod turned up to the max, trying to block out the hysteria of his life. But he couldn’t, and hadn’t slept either, so he’d just spent the time staring at the clock making its slow progress through the night.

Had Helen done this to him? He’d worked out who Helen really was even before Emilia Garanita told him. He’d shrugged Emilia off when she’d collared him at the convenience store, but not before she’d laid out the basics. Helen was his aunt, his mother was a serial killer. As far as he could see, Helen had tried to protect him … but still she was the only person who knew his real identity. The only one who had a personal interest in him. Had she brought the walls crashing down on him?

His iPod lay discarded on the floor now and he could hear his parents arguing. They didn’t deserve this either. What did it mean for their family now? They had loved him unconditionally for all of their time together, but they hadn’t signed up for this. They were an ordinary, nice couple who’d never done a thing wrong in their lives.

He stole a glimpse out of the window and his heart sank. There were even more journalists out there than there had been before. They were under siege now. And there would be no escape.

Helen left the flat promptly, but the roads were already clogged with traffic and her ride to the police mortuary took twice as long as usual. She cursed herself for not leaving earlier, but she had been thrown by waking up next to Jake. It had been so long since that had happened – she always went to his place, never to hers – that she’d been unsure of the etiquette. As it was, she allowed him a shower and breakfast, then asked him to leave. Oddly, that didn’t feel awkward and their parting was friendly, even fond. They had talked into the small hours and then Helen had fallen asleep – waking fully clothed but refreshed several hours later. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, but she knew that she didn’t regret it.

On her ride to the police mortuary, Helen’s thoughts turned once more to Robert. Should she attempt to contact him? Parking up, she pulled out her phone and swiftly typed a message. Her finger hovered over the button – would he want to hear from her? What could she possibly say? What if her message fell into the wrong hands or was hacked? Emilia would certainly stoop to those levels if she felt she could get away with it.

But she couldn’t just say nothing. Couldn’t leave Robert
to face this alone. So she’d written a short text saying how sorry she was, how he should sit tight whilst she got local uniform to move the press on and asking him to text her to let her know how he was. It was inadequate, grossly so in the circumstances, but what else could she say? Blasted by the cold wind ripping through the deserted mortuary car park, Helen hesitated once more, then pressed SEND. She hoped with all her heart that it would make a difference, however small.

Jim Grieves was unusually quiet this morning, the first sign that he was aware of the chaos in Helen’s life. More surprising still, he’d patted her arm as they’d walked to the slab. Helen had never known Jim display any physical affection to anyone before and she was touched that he felt the need to let her know he was rooting for her. She smiled her thanks, then they got on with the task in hand. Slipping on their masks, they approached the desiccated remains of Anton Gardiner.

‘He’s been dead about six months,’ Jim Grieves began. ‘It’s hard to be precise. The vermin in that place have had a fine time. They’ve picked off his skin and most of his internal organs, but by dating the dried blood in his mouth cavity and nasal passage … six months is a reasonable guess.’

‘Was he murdered?’

‘Absolutely. Your man
suffered
before he died. Both ankles were broken, kneecaps and elbows too. And his
windpipe was cut deep – the blade edge severing his vertebrae. Whoever did this virtually cut his head off.’

‘Was he killed on site?’

‘Doesn’t look like it. The lack of blood at the scene, the absence of any clothes and the small hole that the body was forced into suggest that he was killed elsewhere then hidden there. Before rigor mortis set in, your killer or killers scrunched him up and buried him – his bones were already broken so he would have been more easy to manipulate.’

‘What about his heart?’

Jim paused, aware of the importance of the question.

‘Still there. Or fragments of it. And what’s left is still attached. It’s been eaten by the rats – you can see the teeth marks if you look close.’

Helen peered down at the interior of the dead man’s chest.

‘Like I say, we’ve found blood under the fingernails, in his nasal passage and in his mouth. Two blood types so far, so if you’re lucky your killer’s blood might be in there. Should have DNA for you in a few hours.’

Helen nodded but her attention remained fixed on what had once been Anton’s beating heart. So much seemed to fit with the killer’s MO, but the heart hadn’t been removed. Was Anton a nursery slope for Lyra? Did she graduate from torture to mutilation with her later victims? Was Anton Gardiner the spark that set the blaze burning in her mind?

It
was time to find out more about the life and times of the murdered pimp. Helen thanked Jim and headed for the exit, leaving the unusually taciturn pathologist alone with the man who had been eaten by rats.

‘So what do we know about this guy?’

Helen was addressing the team, who were now crowded round her in the incident room.

‘Anton Gardiner, small-time pimp and drug dealer,’ DC Grounds began. ‘Born 1988 to Shallene Gardiner, a single mum with numerous convictions for shoplifting. No father on his birth certificate and we’re unlikely to make any headway on that score. We don’t know much about Shallene, but we do know she was generous with her favours.’

Despite the subject matter, a few female members of the team suppressed smiles. There was something endearingly old-fashioned about DC Grounds.

‘Anton went to school at St Michaels, Bevois, but left without any qualifications. His charge sheet starts when he’s about fifteen. Possession, theft, battery. And then it just gets longer and longer. We never pinned anything major on him though and his times in prison were brief and to the point.’

‘So what about his girls?’ Helen responded. ‘What have we got on that?’

‘He ran girls from the mid-noughties onwards,’ Charlie
replied. ‘Had a fairly big stable. Picked up a lot of girls from care homes, got them onto drugs, then made them work for him. I’ve spoken to a few girls who had “dealings” with him and by all accounts he was a nasty piece of work. Controlling. Violent. Sexually sadistic. And very paranoid. He was always convinced that people were watching him, that his girls were plotting to leave him, and he would often inflict terrible beatings on them for no good reason. He never used a bank – didn’t trust them – never carried ID and always had a knife close at hand, even when he slept. He was a guy forever looking over his shoulder.’

Helen let that thought settle, then added:

‘Was he successful?’

‘He made good money,’ DC Sanderson replied.

‘Any known enemies?’

‘The usual suspects. No specific incidents around the time of his death.’

‘I’m guessing he wasn’t married?’

Sanderson smiled and shook her head.

‘So why was he targeted?’ Helen replied, wiping the smile off her face. ‘And why was he hidden away? He’s an unmarried, lowlife pimp, so there’s nothing to expose. He wasn’t a hypocrite with a loving family waiting for him at home. He was what he was and made no attempt to hide it.’

‘And the heart was left intact,’ DC McAndrew added.

‘Exactly
– the heart wasn’t removed. So what was the point? Why did she kill him?’

‘Because he attacked her?’ DC Grounds offered. ‘We know he used the old cinema to imprison and torture his girls.’

‘But he wasn’t killed there,’ Helen interrupted. ‘He was murdered elsewhere, then buried at the cinema. It doesn’t fit.’

‘Perhaps she bided her time – after he attacked her,’ DC Fortune said, picking up the thread. ‘Waited for the right time, then attacked him somewhere they wouldn’t be disturbed. Maybe she dumped the body at the cinema as a message to other pimps – and the other girls.’

‘Then why bury it?’ Helen countered. ‘Why hide him away if you want to make a point?’

Silence descended on the team. Helen thought for a moment, then:

‘We need to find out where he died. Do we have any addresses?’

‘We’ve got scores,’ DC Grounds replied, raising his eyebrows. ‘He liked to keep on the move. He was like a snail, moving round Southampton with his possessions on his back. Always trying to keep one step ahead of his enemies, real or imagined.’

‘Run them down, every last one. If we can find the crime scene, maybe we can link him to Lyra more clearly. We need to know the circumstances of his death. DC Grounds will take the lead.’

Helen
wrapped up the meeting and pulled Charlie aside. She wanted to quiz her on her progress tracking down the other forum users, but she never got the chance. Front desk buzzed through with a development that stopped everyone in their tracks – Angel had killed again.