What Lies in the Dark (4 page)

“Something the matter?” Bullface asks, with little actual concern in her voice.

“Just wondering what she was doing out here. This is a very secluded area.” Bullface shrugs, as if to say if we knew why she was out here, we wouldn’t be out here.

“Do you think she is connected to Fran Taylor and Stella McQam?” Fletcher asks quietly.

“Right now we don’t even know if Fran and Stella are connected. There is a possibility though as the victim sustained trauma to her left hand, insect damage has made it impossible to tell if she also had a number carved into her hand. But then that picture …” her voice trails off before quietly stating, “… there is a possibility they are connected, the victim in the photo had a number 2, Fran a 22, and Stella a 28. If the photograph was left by the same killer, then he is not just carving their ages. But without knowing what number had been carved into this victim’s hand …” another pause, there are some things Bullface just doesn’t feel like spelling out to Fletcher. She wants to know he is capable of doing his job “You do know what this could mean, don’t you?”

“What?” Maybe Fletcher does know, but he doesn’t want to say, saying it out loud could make it true.

“There could be another twenty-four victims already.”

“Shit.”

There seems little to do now, the night shift is slowly taking over, Michaels is still ploughing through
Missings
, and the victim would not be autopsied until the morning. Both officers are tired, tomorrow morning is already beckoning
with more work. Fletcher heads home, but Bullface, well Bullface doesn’t head home, there seems little point. At home there will be a husband more interested in the television than her, and two sons who are usually absent. On the rare occasions they are home, the house is rocked with blaring music and arguments. She can stand them on most nights but tonight, for a while, she needs silence. She needs to think.

Instead Bullface goes to her second home. She and her husband buy several old houses a year, slowly reviving them for rent or resale. Her husband retired a few years ago and it seems to keep him occupied. He plasters, she paints.

Usually Bullface likes painting, an activity that allows her to be perfect and precise, allows her mind to wander, time to run through her active cases, looking for mistakes, missed leads and time to reanalyse actions. Tonight is different. She can feel the eyes watching her again, eyes of so many female ghosts hiding just out of sight. Every brush stroke echoes the same question in her head. What is the point? Splat! What is the point? What is the point? Until she gives up, wearily sitting down on the dust sheets, head lying in paint splattered hands, just trying to go on.

The night brings forth whispers, stronger allegations against The Krill. Fran Lizzie has been brought back to life by gossip. The police phone lines are again jammed with anxious relatives and journalists eager for more insight. The focus is on the mutilated victim apparently found in a church graveyard/skip/forest/lake rather than on the prostitute Stella McQam. Fear has returned, wives refuse to walk to work alone in the morning, mothers argue with daughters, the restriction for protection always misunderstood and always ending in door slams.

The morning brings an identity for Jane Doe. Michaels has spent most of her night going through page after page of smiling vacant faces on her screen contrasting them against a close up of Jane’s decomposing features. Michaels was rarely bothered by these images, she’d been injured two years ago and was now desk bound, so most of
the missing came to her. It was something for her to do, just a job. At first, the
Missings
’ smiling faces had bothered her but now she is used to it. The decomposing face however, that is something she wants to get off her desk as soon as possible. But now Michaels is owed gratitude because thanks to her, the numberless nameless victim can be identified as Adelina Sasha.

Adelina’s husband Jack Sasha will confirm her identity. Jack, Adelina’s widower, but he will always call himself her husband. Later on, much later, ten years later he will still say he is married. He will rarely add “But she is dead now,” not wanting to see the gleam of sadness, pity or even hope in the questioner’s eyes. Not wanting to encourage a, “How did she die?” Or an, “I am sorry.” Or even an, “Are you seeing anyone now?” asked playfully, while thrusting shrivelled breasts forward, as if to encourage the asking of a phone number.

The morgue assistants try to be tactful. They have been careful not to show him anything other than her face, but the sight of her lying there, eyes closed, sparks a flame. Jack has spent his life as an angry man, in some ways the passionate anger was what had made Adelina originally fall for him. Maybe she considered cheating on him just to reignite that dying flame, but even she would have known to move away very quickly when that vein throbs on his temple, when the left eyebrow twitches. Unfortunately no one around him now knows those warning signs, but they will learn. Jack is led into an interview room, to become someone else’s problem.

Fletcher offers him a drink, offers to call someone for Jack, but such offerings are barely acknowledged. Jack sits, forcefully holding himself down to the chair, shaking slightly. Fletcher gives Jack silence and time, time to realise what is going on. Fletcher is also a little impatient, time cannot be wasted. Finally, he breaks the sullen silence, announces the time and date of the interview into the awaiting video camera and begins.

“I am Detective Sergeant Aaron Fletcher and this is my partner Detective Sergeant Victoria Bull … rush.” Fletcher quickly continues before Bullface notices the pause. “We will be investigating your wife’s case. We need to ask you a few questions.” Fletcher pauses uncertainly, Jack still barely acknowledges his existence. His anger slowly deflating second by second, leaving behind an empty hollow man.

“How long were you and Adelina married?”

“Thirteen years.” A defeated mumble.

“Were you having any problems in your marriage?”

Jack’s eyebrow twitches again, “No.”

Fletcher thinks this may be a sensitive subject for him, rarely did someone answer so abruptly.

Jack’s posture hints that he might be waiting for the right moment to strike.

“OK, let’s talk a little bit about the day she disappeared.” Fletcher hopes to calm Jack down before coming back to his previous marital issues. There is nothing on record to say that they had an unhappy marriage, no charges of assault, no divorce pending, but still, there are always some secrets hidden away. He chooses to use words such as ‘disappeared’ rather than ‘left’ as it implied she had wanted to leave. Little points to try and reassure Jack Sasha that, at the moment, Fletcher is on his side.

“The morning she disappeared, do you remember what had happened?”

Silence.

“Mr Sasha?”

Silence.

“Was she getting ready to go to work?”

“My wife takes Fridays off, so she didn’t have to go to work. She still got up with me and we had breakfast together.”

“What did she have to eat?”

“Grapefruit.” Evidently Jack Sasha is a man of few grunts.

“What was she wearing?”

“She was still in her nightgown.”

“What time was this?”

“’Bout eight, eight fifteen.”

“Had she told you what she planned to do that day?”

“She was going to clean and then meet a friend for lunch – like I said in the Missings’ Report.”

“Had she said who she was meeting?”

“No.”

“Did she usually go out for lunch on her own?”

“Yes.”

“Had she seemed emotional that morning?”

“She was an emotional person,” Jack Sasha does not want to relinquish the last private memories of her, doesn’t want another man to see the emotions she always showed him in the morning. Jack half sighs, half chokes an unwanted tear before continuing. “She was happy. She liked the mornings.”

“So she was in a good mood? She didn’t seem tearful or upset?”

“No!” a whisper of anger is laced in that line, Jack Sasha’s eyes meet with Fletcher’s in a flash of venom, not liking what Fletcher could be implying.

“Where did your wife like to spend her time?”

“She is at work five days a week, she works Sunday to Thursday. She usually comes straight home, most nights she will go out for a jog, Fridays she meets up with her friends, Saturdays she spends with me.” He talks mechanically, Jack is giving Fletcher the I-don’t-like-you-but-I-will-answer-your-questions look.

“Did she have any reason to be out in the countryside?”

“No.”

“Not even to go jogging?”

“I don’t know her jogging route.”

“Are any of her items missing? Like her toothbrush or any of her favourite clothes?”

“She wasn’t going to leave me.” Jack snaps.

“Please answer the question.”

“No, the only thing missing is her car.” The police have already been alerted about Adelina Sasha’s missing car. Michaels is contacting the breakdown companies.

“When did you realise she was missing?”

“She wasn’t there when I got home at six. She is always home before me.”

“Even on her days off?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do?”

“I phoned some of her friends and family, made sure she wasn’t running late. Tried her mobile too but that went straight to voice mail.”

“Did anyone say where she was?”

“No.”

“When did you contact the police?”

“The next morning, when she still hadn’t come home.” Jack’s voice is shaky now, it is beginning to hit him that his wife would never be coming home.

“Who was your wife particularly close to? We would also like to interview them, if possible.”

Jack hesitates, his grief-infused mind can only recall Adelina’s face not her friends. It takes a few silent minutes while his face visibly works for a name.

“Who is she close to in her family?” Fletcher decides to help him a little.

“Her mother, Adelina is an only child. She and her mother are pretty close.”

“Is she close to anyone at work?”

“I don’t … I don’t think she is.”

“Any of her friends?”

“Anna.”

“What’s Anna’s last name?”

“Stevenson.”

After a few moments of silence, Fletcher asks, “Did your wife know Fran Lizzie Taylor?”

“I … I don’t know, my wife has many friends.”

There is a swish as Bullface pulls out a photo of the living Fran Lizzie.

Jack barely glances at it before replying. “I don’t recognise her.”

“What were you doing on March 9th?”

“I don’t remember, how is this important?”

“It was a Friday night. Please try to think.”

“If it was a Friday night I probably was with Adelina. What does this have to do with anything?”

“Did your wife know Stella McQam?”

“She has a friend called Stella, I don’t remember her last name, I don’t think it’s McQam though.” There is a pause, Jack is trying to figure out what this idiot might be implying. “Why? What do these women have to do with this?”

“We think they might be connected.”

“Are they suspects? Do you think these women killed …” Jack chokes on his wife’s name.

Fletcher takes advantage of the pause to interrupt. “No, we don’t think they are suspects. Do you recognise this woman?”

Bullface pulls out another cropped photo, the picture that had been found in Adelina Sasha’s purse. They have cropped the image carefully so only the victim’s face can be seen.

“No, what do these women have to do with my wife?” Anger re-laces his voice. He looks up at the two grim faces.

“Mr Sasha.” Fletcher begins quietly.

“Do you believe him?” Fletcher asks Bullface tentatively.

“For now,” she mutters. They are watching Jack Sasha leaving the station, his escorts closely shielding him from the waiting press. Jack still looks angry, like he might go for anyone who gets too close. He just needs an excuse to take a swing.

Through the open window, the calls of the press drift in.

“Mr Sasha! Is it true they found your wife?”

“Was she mutilated?”

“Mr Sasha! Mr Sasha!”

“Do you have anything to say to your wife’s murderer?”

Jack Sasha stops despite the urging of his escorts,
slowly turns to face the luckless reporter.

Bullface holds her breath, readying to run to the escorts’ aid.

Sasha faces the camera. “I will find you,” he hisses. Every word is uttered clearly. “Everything you did to her, I will do to you.” He leans closer into the camera, the footage picking up every throbbing vein around his bloodshot eyes. Flecks of spit hit the lens as he thunders. “I will find you.” He is hurried into an awaiting car by two very anxious escorts. The footage will make the six o’clock news, along with film of Adelina’s mother weeping hysterically for twenty seconds.

Jack Sasha had, before he exited so dramatically, graciously provided the officers with Anna Stevenson’s contact details. She sits now in Jack’s place in the conference room. Her mascara has run in thick black lines down her face, smearing into foundation with every tissue wipe. Little drips of make-up cascade onto her bright yellow shirt as Anna’s face falls apart with every tear.

“I just can’t believe anyone would hurt Adelina. She’s such a great …”

Fletcher clears his throat slightly nervously. Bullface fidgets in a slight discomfort.

“Ms Stevenson, I would like to ask you a few questions about your relationship with Adelina Sasha, if I may?”

“Of course, anything to help Adelina.”

Bullface rolls her eyes inwardly at the cliché, she does try to be sympathetic but thinks maybe Anna Stevenson is a little too much. Particularly since Anna seemed almost flirtatious in her grief. Flirtatious to Fletcher by the way, not to Bullface.

“How did you meet Adelina Sasha?”

“I met her when we were in university, we both took business studies together.” The tears are slowly drying up. Anna rubs her face with a tissue as if suddenly self-conscious. Bullface almost wants to tell her that Fletcher is
married.

“So how long have you known her?”

“Nearly erm … nearly twenty years now.”