Rooney looked through the statements and tossed over the file he had been given by Colin Sparks. ‘Have a look at that, Josh. I want the blood group checked out against that girl we got and on the Hastings guy.’
Bean left the office, but returned immediately with a lengthy internal fax. ‘You better look over this, it just came in.’
Rooney nodded. ‘Angela Hollow. It’s a fucking hammer again.’
As he went out, Bean heard Rooney swearing. The fax sheets were the result of his previous evening’s calls. Three more girls, in different areas over a period of seven years, had all been killed by hammer blows to the back of the head, and suffered severe facial injuries. All were hookers of different ages, their bodies left in the trunk of a stolen vehicle. No witnesses. Each case left open on file. Three murders, Angela Hollow made it four and Maria Valez five, the woman from the wreck, still unidentified, six, and if the killer had also murdered Norman Hastings it was now seven. If they had all been killed by the same man, as Rooney began to suspect, he had better start gathering the evidence to link them together. He was now about to launch a multiple murder inquiry.
Later that afternoon he got the first verification. The blood found inside the stolen Hastings car matched the retained blood sample from the murder case handed to him by Sparks. The killer of Maria Valez had left no other incriminating evidence behind, but Rooney made a note that she had, like the woman in Hastings’s car, put up a struggle. According to the autopsy reports, she had clawed and scratched her assailant: blood samples had been taken from beneath her fingernails. None of the other women had struggled: they had been killed by the blow to the back of their heads.
Rooney summoned Mr and Mrs Summers again, hoping they would be unable to identify the corpse from Paradise Apartments as the woman they had seen in the mall car park. If it were not her, then what they had witnessed in the car park, the woman in Norman Hastings’s car, was a failed murder attempt, possibly by the same killer. It also meant that Cinderella was still alive and, once again, a vital witness — or accomplice.
As they had been throughout, Mr and Mrs Summers were eager to give every assistance. They had never been to a morgue before or played a part in any criminal investigation let alone a murder inquiry. Rooney decided they should see the body together, and he accompanied them into the viewing room.
‘Okay, she’s behind the curtain. We can turn her around, get any side you want to see, right or left. You just take your time...’
He pressed the buzzer for the curtain to move away from the screen window.
The dead woman had been cleaned up, her hair washed and combed, and they had also had her face repaired, covered and filled in by a qualified cosmetic mortician. A little trace of make-up served only to enhance the deathly pallor and her eyes were closed.
Mrs Summers let out a gasp. She stepped closer, but her husband remained where he was, staring through the window. It was the husband Rooney concentrated on; he had been close to the woman for longer and had spoken to her.
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Summers.
‘I don’t know...’ said her husband.
It’s her — look at her hair, it’s the same hair.’
‘Maybe.’
Mrs Summers turned to Rooney. ‘I’m sure it’s her.’
Rooney nodded, then looked at Mr Summers. ‘What do you think? We can turn her round if you like?’
‘No, no, I think my wife is right. She’s the woman I saw.’
Rooney asked if he was positive that it was the woman he had tried to help in the parking lot that afternoon.
‘Yes,’ Mr Summers said firmly.
Rooney returned to his office. Bean was waiting for him: he had received confirmation via police records, and they now had an ID of the victim. The dead woman Mr and Mrs Summers had just identified was Helen Murphy, aged thirty-nine, a prostitute, mother of three children, all in care. Murphy had been reported missing three weeks before she was found.
The Summerses’ mistaken identification left Lorraine in the clear yet unaware of how valuable a witness she was, just as it meant that Rooney and his team were no longer looking for her. Instead they focused on trying to find a link between the dead women and Norman Hastings.
But Rooney was still not satisfied. He looked over the report and asked if dental records were available, remembering that the cab driver had said the woman had a front tooth missing. Helen Murphy had false teeth. Rooney was anxious to bring the cab driver in to view the body. He was not as positive as the Summerses: she was similar and had the same colouring, he said. Eventually he agreed that it was probably the woman he had picked up. Rooney conceded that Helen Murphy was the woman from the car park, which meant there would be no further visits to Rosie’s address. That line of inquiry was now closed.
It was five o’clock when Rooney faced his team. He had requested extra officers and and incident room. They waited patient as he shuffled his papers. ‘Okay, this is Helen Murphy,’ he began. ‘Prostitute, blonde, aged thirty-nine, body found in the vicinity of the derelict Paradise Apartments in the trunk of a wrecked car, she had been there for approximately two to three days.’
The men stared at the blow-up pictures. Next to appear were Angela Hollow and the stolen vehicle, then Maria Valez, and three more unidentified females. Lastly there was a photograph of Norman Hastings and his car.
Rooney paused as the men murmured and made notes. ‘Okay. Obviously the Norman Hastings killing is different because he’s male. Maybe the car was stolen and Hastings managed to see or catch the thief. Either way, he was killed with a similar weapon to that used on each of the others: a claw hammer. We know it’s not the same weapon — some of the impressions taken from the women are of different dimensions, but all of them have been hammered in the face, and the claw section used for one blow at the back of the skull, near the base. When the victim is face downwards, the claw hammer strikes and gets drawn upwards, leaving — as you can see — one hell of an open wound.’
Rooney waited as they took it all in, then began again. ‘The women are all prostitutes, all with records, obviously all blonde. No witnesses. Nobody has ever come forward with any motive, and so far we haven’t found a link between the women, apart from their line of business and the fact they were tall, blonde and — apart from the last girl, Angela Hollow, nicknamed Holly — all dogs.’
Rooney continued for another hour, explaining the Summerses’ part in the inquiry and Hastings’s missing wallet. He concluded with the description of the man driving Hastings’s stolen car. The man they were hunting, he pointed out, would have a bad bite mark on his neck, close to the jugular, according to Helen Murphy.
‘Our first hammer killing comes in 1986, the next 1987, then 1988, 1991, which was Maria Valez, and the last two, Helen Murphy and Angela Hollow, plus Hastings, are all within months, if not days of each other. We’ve got a gap between ‘88 and ‘91, unless more come to light. Let’s hope to God they don’t — and let’s give this all we’ve got.’
One young, eager-faced officer asked where they were going to start and Rooney, unsure himself, snapped that as the victims were hookers, they should start by asking on the streets, in the brothels. To begin with he wanted it kept low key and, until they had more evidence, he wanted the press kept out for as long as possible.