The Black Widow (12 page)

Mike nodded.

“Do you wanna get through this with her, or do you want the marriage to end here?”

“I love her, dad. And I want to get through this. But, where do I start? How do I even begin to fix this?”

The ice that Mike had worried about cracking began to do just that. His voice faltered and tears stung his eyes. Ashamed of the emotions that he could no longer control, Mike lowered his head.

His father stepped forward and placed his hands on Mike's shoulders. “It's okay, son,” he murmured—and that did it.

The ice shattered completely and Mike did something he hadn't done since he was a little boy—he cried in his father's arms.

Part Two.

Seven years later...

Chapter Twelve

Finally, after months of planning and preparation, hours and hours of watching her and following her, noting her habits and timetables, he was finally ready.

He moved into the tiny kitchen of the one bedroom flat he was temporarily renting and switched the kettle on.

Patience was not one of his strongest points, especially when it came to her, and many times during the previous months he had almost put his plan into motion prematurely. His pain and rage had almost gotten the better of him, especially the day she had walked in front of his car after he'd stopped to let her cross. The urge to run her down and leave nothing but a big sticky smear on the road to mark her passing had been overwhelming. But no, that would be too easy for her.

And what he had planned would be far more satisfying.

Her torment would go on for years.

He glanced at the picture on the small ugly side table, the only picture he had brought with him. Regretfully, he looked away.

He couldn't be that man, that happy smiling man with the woman he loved by his side.

This coming week, two weeks at the most, he would have to do things,
hurt
people.

He would never again be able to think of himself as a law abiding citizen.

But he had no choice.

He gritted his teeth in rage, just the thought of what she had done to him causing his fury to boil. He wouldn't rest until she paid and he'd been following her long enough to know how to get her.

He smiled now, a genuine smile. His plans were clever yes, but ultimately she was to be the cause of her own undoing. Nothing but a greedy slut with terrible relationships with those who ought to be closest to her.

She had made his plans so much easier. He knew what and how to do it, and he'd already started the ball rolling.

Cheryl Turner was finally going to get what she deserved.

Chapter Thirteen

Detective Mike Jamison eased his car up the narrow bumpy road and came to a slow stop. It was exactly 6.05am, according to his digital car clock and bitterly cold.

Misty fog hung close to the ground, making the distant motorway invisible with only an occasional blur of twin headlights to mark a vehicles passing.

Technicians and police scurried about the scene, all looking like ghostly images in the mist and made even more eerie by the flashing red lights of their vehicles.

Mike spotted an older gentleman, bundled up in a large coat and wearing a hat and gloves as he sat sideways out of one of the patrol cars. His feet flat on the ground, he repeatedly blew into a steaming cup he held just under his chin whilst his left hand petted the head of the large black dog that sat by his side.

The dog walker who found the body
, Mike thought.

Mike had been awakened 20 minutes earlier by his partner Lee Morris. “Just got a 999 call from a dog walker,” Lee began as soon as Mike lifted the receiver. Before Mike could wonder at the lunacy of walking a dog at such an ungodly hour, Lee told him that a dead body had been found, dumped not far from the motorway.

Wide awake in seconds, Mike hung up, dressed and rushed from the house. On the way over, he'd tried to recall any recent missing persons cases. He couldn't.

As well as that, he hoped with all his soul that it wasn't the body of a child.

Mike put on his best poker face and stepped out of his car.

Passing the dog walker, Mike heard the man murmuring quietly, repeatedly uttering the words “It's okay, it's okay”, apparently to the dog which Mike recognized as a black Labrador. The dog regarded Mike solemnly as he passed before nuzzling into his owner's hand.

Even the dog appeared shaken and upset by the incident.

Camera flashes in the misty morning darkness drew Mike's eyes to the road ahead. The dirt road ended abruptly into a little cul-de-sac surrounded completely by trees. Anyone who happened to take a wrong turn down this road would be forced to turn their car around and head out the way they came.

A portion of the road had been sectioned off from the rest as a forensic technician took pictures of the ground. Tire tracks, Mike noticed as he approached.

The next step would be to make casts of the prints in the event that a suspect was apprehended and comparisons made to the suspects vehicle.

Immediately to the left of the tire tracks was a hill sloping gently downwards and Mike spotted his partner Lee standing amongst uniformed police and technicians with their flashing camera lights. A pale form was laying on the ground at their feet.

The murder victim.

Mike made his way down the embankment, hoping his face didn't portray the sudden wave of nausea he felt. He stood beside Lee who turned slightly and nodded his greeting.

Although they'd been partnered for the past 6 months and worked well together, they hadn't yet, if they ever would, formed a bond that went beyond work. Mike still mourned Carl who had lost his life to a sudden and devastating heart attack two years earlier and found he couldn't get used to working with a man so different from his friend.

Lee Morris was a handsome young man who always dressed his best. Despite the early hour, he wore a crisp suit and tie with a shirt so white it dazzled in the gloomy morning. His hair was impeccably done and his aftershave wafted off him in waves.

Mike couldn't say he disliked the younger man, he just couldn't get used to him and wondered if he ever would.

Unable to postpone the inevitable, Mike looked down at the body. A heavy sickness assaulted him and he gritted his teeth in anger. His prayers that it wouldn't be the body of a child had apparently gone unanswered. Although the nude female body sprawled at his feet appeared to be in her late teens – early twenties, she was still heartbreakingly young and in Mike's opinion was classed as a child.

The young woman lay sprawled on her back, legs crossed at the ankles and arms straight out to the sides with the palms of her hands facing up. Although Mike could see bruising on her thighs and hips, they were yellow and relatively faint.

Very fresh however were the marks that circled the girl's wrists. She had definitely been bound. Her ankles bore the same raw wounds.

An ugly bruise also circled her throat, causing Mike to immediately suspect cause of death by strangulation, but he knew enough by now to never assume anything.

The positioning of the body reminded Mike of Jesus on the cross and her hair was fanned around her head in such a way that made it obvious someone had laid it out that way.

Observing her young face, Mike could see that she had been an attractive young woman. His throat clenched.

“Dammed shame,” Lee said beside him, and Mike nodded. “Poor bloke up there is beside himself. We've asked him to go to a hospital to be checked out for shock.”

Mike frowned as he recalled the dog walker, remembering he hadn't exactly looked young, though he had paid more attention to the dog.

“What was he doing down here anyway? How come he wasn't walking on the road up there?”

“He was.” Lee shifted beside him and consulted his notes. “He says he was walking his normal route like he does every morning, when the dog suddenly stood real still and began sniffing the air and whining. He didn't pay too much attention, thinking the dog may have scented a rabbit, or maybe a cat. Then he realised that the dog wasn't following him, so he stopped and called to it. He says the dog ignored him and kind of slouched his way to the top of this slope, started part the way down, then started making a really loud whining sound. He says he knew something was really wrong since his dog is very obedient and wouldn't react like that to a cat or a rabbit. He made his way slightly down this hill before he spotted the body. He swears neither he nor the dog went very close. As soon as he realised what he was looking at, he high-tailed it home and called the police.”

Mike nodded, feeling bad for the man. His morning walks would forever be haunted by the memory of the cold misty morning when he found a dead young woman, dumped by the roadside as if she were a piece of rubbish.

Both men regarded the body solemnly when one of the forensic technicians, a young man named Martin Wong whom Mike liked well enough but felt needed a social life, a hobby or a beautiful woman, suddenly straightened up and glanced around, as if surprised to find himself in the company of others. He lowered his camera and made his way over to Mike and Lee.

“What've we got, Martin?” Mike asked.

The attractive Asian man's features frowned towards the victim.

“Female, I'd say no older than 21 years of age. Rope marks on her wrists, ankles and throat. No other visible injuries. She's been dead no longer than two hours and she was killed at this location.”

“How do you know that?” Lee asked.

Martin stooped down and gestured for the 2 detectives to do the same then pointed to the girl's feet. They were filthy and caked with mud.

“She walked from the vehicle that brought her to this place. Along with the tire tracks up there, we also found 2 sets of footprints in the mud. One of bare feet, around a size five,” he gestured again to the victim, “and another set of what appear to be trainers about size 11. Whether she was sexually assaulted or not, we don't yet know. But it seems unlikely the guy brought her here naked and didn't perform any kind of assault, before or after she died.”

Mike grimaced at the thought of a man crouched over the dead woman, doing things... He shook his head roughly and the three men stood.

“And something else,” Martin said. “She has no defence wounds. Whoever did this to her either took her by surprise very quickly and with little violence, or she knew and trusted him enough to let him close enough to subdue her very quickly. I've taken all the pictures I need of her front. I'm about to turn her over to check her back.”

Mike and Lee nodded as Martin stepped away, gesturing to a blond female forensic technician who immediately snapped on a pair of gloves and crouched beside him. Martin placed his hands on the victim's hip and the blond held the shoulder. He counted to three and the two turned the victim over.

The female technician, fairly new to the job couldn't contain a wince at the sight while Martin's features remained bland. Mike and Lee moved forward and all inspected the wound.

A large cross had been carved into the woman's back running horizontally from shoulder blade to shoulder blade and vertically from the base of her neck to the base of her spine.

“Please tell me she was already dead when he did that,” Lee said through gritted teeth.

Martin shook his head. “She was alive when this cross was carved into her back.” He inspected the ground. Blood was visible where the body had lain, but not nearly enough for such a large wound. “It was inflicted elsewhere. Find the vehicle that brought her here, and you'll find ample blood in it. Unless this guy is a smart one and laid her onto something.”

“I'll go and speak to the dog walker again,” Lee said. “He may have seen something: a car leaving the area, a person that didn't seem suspicious at the time—whatever. Hopefully he saw something useful that he didn't think was useful when he saw it.”

“Makes sense,” Martin said nodding and Mike nodded, unable to take his eyes of the body laying at his feet.

Lee scurried off and the technicians followed to retrieve the body bag.

Mike gazed into the distance, the noises from the speeding vehicles on the motorway reaching him. He wondered vaguely whether someone had seen something as they drove by, but he knew there wasn't even a slight chance of it.

Get a grip, get a grip,
he told himself over and over again as the anxiety attack tightened its grip on him.

He was aware of the young woman being subjected to further photographs before her body was then loaded into a body bag. Unable to keep his eyes averted, he caught a glimpse of her face just before the zipper was pulled up.

He swallowed the bile that threatened to come bursting from his throat at any second and watched as the body bag was carried up the slope. He carried on watching until the body bag was out of sight, but he knew that he'd see her face in his dreams for many nights to come.

Martin made his way back down the slope and extended his hand to Mike. “We'll take her in now, Mike.” Mike nodded and returned the handshake.

“How long till we know whether sexual assault took place?”

“The autopsy will probably take place around noon.” Mike nodded. “Take care, Mike.”

“You too, Martin.”

He watched Martin scramble back up the slope and wondered how the man could be so pleasant when he spent his days cutting up the bodies of the dead.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he startled when Lee suddenly appeared beside him. “Well, I've got good news and bad news,”

Mike frowned.

“I'll start with the good news. We have a positive I. D on the victim. Officer up there recognizes her. We'll run her prints to confirm it but he's positive it's her.”

“That is good news,” Mike said nodding. “It certainly gives us a good start this early on in the investigation. So, what's the bad news?”