“Good morning ladies and gents,” he began. “In the words of the old adage it never rains but it pours, we have just cleared up one set of nasty murders and now we have another particularly grisly one turn up.” Pausing, he added, “This is playing havoc with my budget.”
There was a ripple of laughter around the room.
He tapped the incident board behind him over the photograph of the bloated grotesque face from the mortuary shots. “Okay on a serious note, our job is to find out who murdered this young Asian woman. As you can see from the decomposition she is unrecognisable. She was found stripped naked and with no marks of identification. We have her DNA and we have her fingerprints but at this moment in time we do not know who she is or anything about her life.” He tapped another photo. “But what we do know is that three to four weeks ago she was badly beaten, raped, had her throat cut, was bundled inside a rug and then dumped in the bottom of Barnwell lake where she lay until yesterday afternoon when two divers on a training schedule found her.”
‘Succinctly put’ thought Grace to herself. She realised that in just those few words he had made short shrift of the forensic Pathologist’s two hour post mortem.
“Our main priority is to find out who this young lady was. We also have quite a wide time frame between the murder and the body being found and as yet we don’t know where she was killed, only where she was dumped. We are up against it, but we have all been here before and I know you lot will fill in the gaps.” He tapped the incident board again, glancing behind him before resetting his gaze on the faces of the detectives. “What we do have is the rug she was found wrapped up in and the weapon that was used to slit her throat. We can all see that these appear to be foreign and these are our leads at the moment so if no one has any questions DI Scaife will give you your tasks so you can get out there and clear this up.”
There were no questions; the briefing broke up and the MIT detectives picked up their assignments for the day.
Grace was still acting DS; the DI told her that Hunter had been in touch and he wouldn’t be back for at least another three days. She collared Mike and Tony.
“Right you two we’ve got the job of checking missing persons because of our experience with the last set of murders and also finding out about the murder weapon, especially to see if there are any local outlets who sell it.” She snatched her jacket from off the back of her chair, picked up the car keys and slung them towards Tony. “Bully you’re driving,” she said and strode purposefully towards the doors.
* * * * *
North Yorkshire:
Hunter paced the hospital corridors. He was frustrated and tired. He had slept very little the previous night; they had managed to book a family room in a motel not too far from the hospital and he had spent a restless night going over the events in his head. The more he had mulled over the incident the more he made connections with yesterday morning’s clash between his father and that stranger and this aftermath.
Now he had another long day before him at the hospital unable to make any in-roads into finding out who was responsible for doing this to his parents.
Beth and the boy’s were flitting between Ward Two, where his mum was ‘comfortable and stable,’ and the side ward where his dad was resting. He was having trouble being in the same room as his father; he wouldn’t say anything. He had tried to be patient in his approach but he knew his dad was holding back on some secret and was refusing to give it up. It had got to the stage where his father lay with eyes shut, refusing to answer any of his questions.
Several times he had tried to call the number he had rung last night but it was now switched off, and on divert and his head was swimming around in circles.
He strolled down to the drinks machine on the floor below even though he hated drinking out of plastic cups and dropped his loose change into the slot. They were out of tea, milk one sugar. He kicked the bottom panel and growled. Then his mobile rang. He viewed the screen; ‘withheld’ flashed up; he guessed who this was — he would be ringing from one of the office phones.
“Hello — Hunter” he answered.
“Hunter it’s me.”
He recognised the broad South Yorkshire dialect immediately. “Have you got anything for me?”
“Afraid not. I’ve made quite a few phone calls but there’s not a whisper down here. I also went round to all of the Paynton’s houses, and the locks-ups they have access to, but there’s no sign of a silver BM. And everyone I spoke with yesterday have never seen any of the family in one. I’ve checked with Intelligence and nothing with that part registration features on our system. It’s a complete blank at the moment but I’ve put a few feelers out so if I turn up anything I’ll bell you. Okay?”
Despondently Hunter thanked him and rang off; though he knew shouldn’t feel down. If any villains from his ‘back yard’ had carried this out then he knew his source would get to hear. He would have to rely on that for the moment — well until he could get back to base and then he would shake some trees himself.
CHAPTER THREE
DAY FOUR: 27th August.
Glasgow.
Fraser Cullen kept in the shadows, pressing himself against the crumbling brickwork of the high walls at the entranceway to the derelict car park. He lit up another cigarette; he’d only just finished the last one — but then he was more nervous than normal.
He pulled up the collar of his jacket. Was it his imagination or had the temperature dropped since his arrival half an hour ago? It had to be the dampness of his surroundings he told himself.
Every time he heard the sound of a car’s engine he stuck his head out from his hiding place and scoured the partly cobbled street of Sauchiehall Lane. Fraser glanced at his stolen designer watch; he’d give them another ten minutes then he was off.
He almost missed the silver BMW; it coasted past, hardly making a sound. He took a final drag on his cigarette, dropped the burning remnant, and scrunched it underfoot, before he stepped out into the lane.
The car reversed and pulled alongside Fraser, its wheels scrunching over loose chippings, the rubber walls of the nearside tyres squealing as they scraped against the kerb. Fraser bent down dispersing the smoke from his lungs as the passenger window slid down.
The front passenger wafted a hand in front of his mouth and nose. “Fucking hell do you have to do that?” he exclaimed.
The deep gravelly tones in the voice of the man had not changed, not even after all this time thought Fraser: Though his appearance had. The hair had been ravaged by grey and he couldn’t help but notice the flash of the scar that ran from the bridge of his nose down towards his jaw. The occupant of the front seat had been a hard bastard when he known him thirty odd years ago now he looked even harder.
“What have you got for me then Fraser?”
Fraser lowered himself, resting a hand on the car door, levelling his eyes and meeting the gaze of the front passenger. “I found him Billy. It wasn’t easy mind,” he replied in his broad Glaswegian dialect. “You’ll find him drinking regularly in Lauders on Sauchiehall Street. He’s there most days. Goes in about four in the afternoon, and usually leaves about half seven. He comes down this way to get to the subway off Bath Street. I’ve followed him three times now without him knowing. And there’s nae CCTV,” he said darting his eyes around the high buildings which lined both sides of the narrow lane.