Tick Tick Tick (21 page)

‘No one knows, so if you’d care to get your arse down here, it would help.’

‘Do the suits know yet?’

‘No.’

Good
, I think. ‘Then let’s keep it that way. Be there in ten.’

I throw the phone onto the passenger seat in disgust. Seems every time I answer it there’s more bad news.

I flick on the siren and gun the Alfa all the way to the mortuary. I drive down the back entrance to the city hospital of St Joseph. Most morgues are located in the basement of a hospital, I don’t think too many people realise that. It’s usually far away from the lifts, the wards, and the flower stands, but usually pretty close to the kitchen; perhaps that’s why most patients don’t like hospital food.

I flash my card at the security guy and walk straight in – not a good sign; anybody these days can have a fake ID. The hallway is connected to several other doors, which lead to various sites within the hospital; again, not a good signal.  I take my time making my way down the stairs; I can hear Mack’s voice, deep and obviously annoyed. In some morgues you find that the stainless steel fridges are lined against one wall, but in St Joseph’s they have a whole room to themselves.

I open the door to hear Mack and Doc Baines arguing.

‘You mean that sometimes the door is locked, and sometimes not?’ asks Mack.

‘That’s correct,’ says Baines, although he seems agitated.

‘Why would you leave it unlocked?’

‘If someone from a funeral home was coming to collect a body, we would normally leave it unlocked for them.’

Mack sees me and shakes his head in despair. ‘The door was unlocked.’

‘So I hear. From what time?’ I ask.

Doc Baines fidgets in his blue scrubs. ‘Probably from around three to five.’

‘Don’t funeral directors have to sign to collect a body?’

‘Of course they do,’ Baines snaps. I know he feels bad, but he has to answer questions just like anyone else.

‘I’ve already got the list,’ says Mack.

‘How would the funeral director know which door to open up?’ I ask, gazing at the rows of stainless steel boxes.

Baines points. ‘On the board is a list of names, with corresponding door numbers,’ he replies. ‘Once the body has been removed, the box is ticked with name of the funeral home signing, and on the removal list a box is ticked and signed again for the morgue attendants so that they can clean out the slab.’

‘So how come Stacey Bun was found today? Was someone due to pick her up?’ I ask.

‘No,’ says Baines. ‘When the funeral directors of Springhill came in, they found that the door was open, the slab had been pulled out and her hands were missing. The pieces of bone and flesh on the floor I guess alerted them that she hadn’t died that way.’

His eyes are weary, the face pale. It isn’t often I see Baines this way; he’s a careful and sympathetic FME, one of the best, meticulous in the autopsy and I can’t imagine that he’s any other way in any aspect of the job. Obviously our killer knew the workings of the morgue carefully; could he work here? Or did he once work here?

‘Which one is she in?’ I ask.

‘Number 38,’ says Baines.

I glance down. ‘Where’s the evidence from the floor?’ I ask.

Baines gestures to another door. ‘On a slab in the morgue being analysed as we speak.’

‘You touched a crime scene?’ I ask in disbelief.

‘Look,’ he says, ‘I have over one hundred and forty bodies in here, another six are due to be picked up later tonight and taken away for embalming, God knows how many more people will die tonight, and I have to have safe slabs with a regulated temperature to keep the bodies cool.’

One hundred and forty bodies, Jesus Christ!

He continues, ‘I had no choice but to remove the small fragments of evidence. I can assure you that the crime scene has been photographed and videotaped from every conceivable angle. The floors have been checked for fibres, all evidence again is on another slab, but with the amount of traffic that we get in here you’re unlikely to find something substantial.’ He rubs his head across the creased brow lines.

‘I need a record of all employees , past and present,’

‘It’s being done,’ says Baines. I know he’ll try his best; it’s just the sheer bloomin’ amazement that our boy had been in here and taken his trophy. How can someone just walk in, pull out a body, sever the hands, and walk out?

‘I need to see her.’ Although I don’t really want to, I have no choice.

Baines walks over to number thirty-eight, opens the door and slides the tray out. She’s so pale, the face almost suspended in time; the hair which had been matted with blood and brains has now been cleaned, all the evidence collected, and washed away during the post-mortem.

‘I’m going to need you to take another look,’ I say.

‘Now?’ asks Baines.

‘Afraid so,’ I reply.

‘I’ll get David to bring her through You guys get suited up if you’re coming in.’ I swear I see Mack’s eyes light up; what is it with him and morgues?

We suit up outside, second-hand scrubs from the surgeons upstairs that have been sterilized – neither of us bother with the surgical masks. We enter. The autopsy suite is busy; with its exposed pipes in the ceiling and drains in the tiled floor it looks like an industrial unit – I guess in a way it is. She lies on the table in the centre of the room. All around us other doctors are performing autopsies; the drilling of bones pierces the air and I try my best to ignore the sounds and focus on Stacey Bun.

Baines works fast; the body still holds a form of rigidity that probably made it easier for the killer to cut off the hands. Baines places his lamp over the stumps; picking up several instruments he measures the length of the cuts, also determining the type of blade that was used. He refers to his old notes to see if there is any forensic evidence left on the body; somehow I know that there won’t be. It’s a well-known fact that trace evidence is crucial in a crime. If the killer had walked into a room he changed it – either by bringing something in, or taking something with him. Usually when two objects come into contact there is a transfer from one object to the other – find it and you can solve the crime.
Easier said than done though
.

My legs are aching. Mack gets more fidgety with every passing minute, but Baines sticks to his task. Finally he straightens up and pulls off the latex gloves.

‘I’m sorry… no evidence – nothing.’

I sigh. ‘What about the cuts?’

‘From the size I’d say a household saw, the kind you can get in any shop, anywhere.’

‘Great,’ says Mack.

Baines says, ‘He’d have to have been strong, and to know exactly what he was doing.’

‘Why?’ I ask, somewhat confused.

‘His timing. To be able to pick the body when it still held a form of rigidity means that your perpetrator knows something about the stages of death. Plus, in order to slice off the hands, he had to saw quickly through the wrist bones before anyone could have come in.’

I simply nod.

The smell of death is penetrating every pore; I notice a bottle of wintergreen oil and take a quick sniff to clear my nose. Mack just laughs. What happened to the old sayings about coppers in morgues – the bigger the copper, the faster they drop? It had never happened to Mack in all his years – perhaps he should have been an FME instead.

I watch Stacey Bun as she’s wheeled away and I feel utter disgust wash over me; not only had this young girl been brutally murdered in broad daylight, but now she has suffered the indignity of the killer coming back to collect his prized trophy. I silently promise her, right there and then, that I will catch this son of a bitch and I will make sure that he is tormented and locked up with the key thrown away. Killing him is too easy–
I want this bastard to suffer
.

CHAPTER 23

Mack and I look around, making a rough sketch of each of the entry points in and out of the morgue.

Mack ambles towards me. ‘So what’s your hunch?’ he asks.

‘I think the son of a bitch dressed in scrubs and came down through the rear stairs, easy enough to do.’ I point to where I mean. ‘That door is only ten feet from where Stacey Bun was. He could’ve been in and out in five minutes,’ I say.

Mack measures up the distance and nods.

‘No one would have seen him from the autopsy room, and any morgue attendant would have thought he was just another doctor. Once inside, all he had to do was identify the door number from the list on the wall, pull out the body and complete his handiwork.’

Mack nods again. ‘So how did he leave? Bearing in mind he had two hands to hide?’

‘He could have slipped them into a bag, hidden them in the scrubs, or simply discarded the scrubs in the bin, grabbed the bag with the trophies and walked out the back way with some fake ID.’

‘So which scenario is it?’ asks Mack.

‘Realistically, he wouldn’t have ditched the scrubs, that would’ve given us forensic evidence, and he’s too damn careful for that; my hunch is he went back out the way he came in. With the hospital at overload, no one would’ve noticed another doctor walking out the door; plenty of them leave in their scrubs.’

‘So why come in and take the hands? Why take the chance of being caught?’ Mack looks perplexed.

‘To prove to us that he can do what he likes, whenever he likes, and get away with it.’

‘We’d better call in the Agency,’ mutters Mack.

‘I’m never calling them – ever,’ I say, and I mean it.

I hear heavy footsteps behind me, and know that they’re already here. Reeves is backed up by the rest of the twats in suits. He marches up to us, the black tie flapping behind him.

‘So which idiot decided to disobey orders?’ His eyes glint like black coals.

I glance at Mack and shrug my shoulders. ‘I didn’t, did you?’

Mack shakes his head. ‘I’d never do a thing like that.’

I turn and place my best smile on my mouth. ‘That wouldn’t be us then.’

‘You two are like the goddamn Keystone Coppers,’ he growls, the suits gathering behind him.

‘Flattery will get you nowhere.’ I wink.

‘I want to know just what the hell has been going on, and I want to know now.’ He inches closer to me, aching to see my response.

‘I’ll put it all in my report,’ I say, lying through my teeth.

His face is millimetres from mine, and I can see another six suits crowding around us, trying to trap us in. He obviously likes to play safe,
chickenshit
.

‘You know Downey, this is a hell of a lonely road you’re walking,’ he spits.

Mack sidles up beside me and throws one of his great arms around me.

‘It’s not lonely. We’re a team, that’s why we walk it together.’

He’s momentarily startled. ‘I could get you kicked off this case today,’ he snarls.

‘Please feel free,’ I smirk. ‘I could really do with a holiday.’

He brushes past me, pushing me out of the way on purpose; I resist the temptation to stick out a foot. His time will come, and boy I am going to make damn sure I’m there to watch it unfold.

We’re outside heading to our vehicles when my bloody mobile phone starts rapping again.

‘Holy God,’ says Mack. ‘What the hell is that bloody noise?’

‘Some rap tune from hell that I can’t figure out how to get rid of.’ I flip open the phone.

‘Yeah?’

‘Grimes here.’ Shit, we’re going to get bollocked for holding up the suits.

‘Yes… sir.’ I wait for the tirade.

‘Get yourself over to the Samson buildings at Piccadilly; we’ve got a fresh one.’

‘Sir.’ I fold the phone and slip it back into my pocket.

‘We’ve got another body.’

Mack kicks the side of his car. ‘Bloody hell, can’t we catch a break?’

‘Perhaps this time we’ll get lucky,’ I say, not believing a single word of it.

‘We need more than goddamn luck – we need a bloody miracle.’

We both drive separately, each screaming through the traffic, sirens blaring at full blast. Mack takes the lead, and almost hits about ten vehicles that are annoying him to distraction. I know his frustration, I understand it and feel it too.

The building is relatively old;
historical
I think is the terminology used nowadays, an elegant building that had stood testament to the ages and wealth of time. Today it’s used mainly by small businesses, each scattered haphazardly through the floors, with no semblance of real order.

Police cars again surrounded the scene, and I see that the FME’s van is already here. I wonder if it will be my lovely lady again; a guy can only hope. Out the corner of my eye I see media vans screaming in our direction and quickly propel Mack through the heavy oak doors.

First things first; I scan reception for CCTV – nothing. Jesus, doesn’t anyone use cameras these days? Or perhaps the killer only picks places that don’t have them? Probably.

We flash our cards and I pray the suits are still occupied down at the morgue; the last thing I need is Reeves charging in, messing up my crime scene.