‘So he’s had formal training of some description?’ Jon asked, relieved to look away from the mutilated corpse.
‘He’s got surgical knowledge, without a doubt. The key to surgery is all about finding a plane — the layer between the dermis, or outer layer of skin, and the sub-dermal tissue. Once you’ve found your plane, you make your incision along it and the skin lifts away quite easily. But to find your plane and keep it while navigating all the contours of the face and its delicate arrangement of muscles? That’s quite a feat.’
Jon nodded his thanks and turned away. When he got his hands on whoever was doing this, the bastard had better admit to everything straight away. Otherwise it would take more than the duty officer to stop him visiting the sick fuck in his cell and beating a confession out of him with his bare hands.
By the time McCloughlin showed up, the body was shrouded by a white tent. The pathologist and photographer were inside and flashes kept going off, making it appear like they were in there enjoying a particularly morbid party.
‘DI Spicer,’ McCloughlin announced, rubbing his hands together. ‘First to the scene again?’
The comment wasn’t accompanied by a smile. On the Chewing Gum Killer case, Jon had arrived at a crime scene ahead of McCloughlin and the observations he’d made had eventually led him to the killer. It still bristled with McCloughlin.
‘Sir, I picked up the call to your desk phone,’ Rick intervened.
McCloughlin didn’t seem bothered and Jon glanced at Rick. So, the arrangement you have with McCloughlin extends to taking his phonecalls?
‘And Jon took the opportunity of teaching you how to crack a case all by yourself?’ McCloughlin walked off without waiting for an answer.
Rick spoke from the corner of his mouth. ‘Someone got out of bed the wrong side.’
Jon’s hands were clenched tight in his pockets. ‘I guess that’s our cue to bugger off.’
As they set off back to the car Jon spotted a petite figure with tousled black hair hurrying across the grass towards him. She was struggling slightly with what looked like a large plastic toolbox: Nikki Kingston, the crime-scene manager. He’d used just to fancy her, but with what they’d gone through during the Chewing Gum Killer investigation, the bond between them had deepened to a level he’d never dare let Alice know about.
‘Nikki, you’ve got this one?’
She smiled up at him. ‘Jon Spicer. My lucky day.’ Her eyes lingered on his for another heartbeat before she turned to Rick.
Jon coughed. ‘Nikki Kingston, crime-scene manager. DS Rick Saville, my new partner.’
Rick’s businesslike exterior underwent a fractional softening, and Jon noticed a lightness in his touch as he clasped her hand.
Nikki turned back to Jon. Something was sparking in her eyes and jealousy jabbed him in the chest. ‘So, am I reporting to you?’ she asked.
He shook his head, ‘I’m on another part of the investigation. Carol Miller, mainly.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You mean this one’s connected to the
Butcher? I was just told it was a naked body in a field.’
‘It is. Except her face is about two feet away from the rest of her.’
‘Oh, Jesus,’ Nikki winced.
Jon gave her a grim smile. ‘See you in the incident room.’ She turned and started towards the crime scene again.
The walk back to their car took Jon and Rick past a makeshift ramp made from an old door and a few breezeblocks. Bicycle tyres had scoured the grass in front of it and left muddy tracks across the door’s surface. As they stepped round it Jon spotted something.
‘Nikki!’ he called.
She turned, saw the urgency of his wave and came back.
‘Is that a latex glove?’ Jon said, pointing. It lay in the long grass beneath the door, fingers slightly curled as if caught in the act of trying to crawl from their sight.
She squatted down to get a closer look. ‘Yes, and that looks like blood covering it.’ She examined the ramp. It had been knocked out of alignment with the breezeblocks. Treading carefully, she scrutinised the area around the door. Pointing to a heel mark in the muddy patch by the foot of the ramp, she said,
‘Looks like someone could have bumped into it.’
Jon looked back at the tent covering the body. With a finger he drew a line in the air back towards the road. The ramp was right in the way.
‘What are you thinking?’ asked Rick.
‘Our man dumps the body and sets off back to his vehicle. Only it’s dark. He walks full into this ramp, stumbles and drops the glove.’
Nikki was nodding with excitement, ‘Don’t go any nearer. There’s another footprint there, too. We need to get this area taped off.’ She turned towards the main crime scene.
‘Nikki!’ He caught her hand. ‘When McCloughlin asks, it was Rick who found the glove.’
‘No way,’ Rick protested. ‘It was your find.’
Jon didn’t take his eyes off Nikki. ‘You heard me?’
‘Whatever,’ Nikki replied with a frown, twisting her fingers from his grip and running away.
In the car Jon began indicating to do a U-turn, then changed his mind. ‘Let’s go for a coffee. If we get back to the incident room now, everyone’s going to be pumping us for information, and there’s no way I’m taking the wind out of McCloughlin’s sails.’
‘Why’s he got it in for you?’ Rick asked.
Jon ran a hand over his knee, wondering how much Rick knew. ‘It’s old history. I had a stroke of luck.’
‘The Chewing Gum Killer?’
Jon looked out the side window and nodded.
‘That was the favourite topic of conversation last summer in
Chester House.’
‘Well, there you go. You know already.’
‘Yeah, but it was McCloughlin’s case. He was SIO, he gave the interviews on the TV and to the press when it was all over.’
‘His case, but my collar. You know how it is,’ Jon said guardedly.
‘So why did you tell the CSM to say it was me who found the glove?’
‘We shouldn’t have even been there before him. The last thing I needed was to find what may turn out to be a crucial piece of evidence.’
‘So you got her to tell McCloughlin it was my find?’
‘Yeah,’ Jon answered, hating the fact that Saville now had something on him.
In the coffee shop, Jon tipped a sachet of white sugar into his black coffee. Rick carefully tapped half a sachet of brown sugar into his latte, then reached for the pot of chocolate powder to dust the foam on top. When he spotted Jon watching him, he suddenly changed his mind.
‘Anyway, back to the present,’ said Rick, sitting down. ‘First victim.’
Jon took a seat opposite him. ‘Angela Rowlands.’
Rick sat forwards. ‘Forty-two years old. Divorced for just under two years. Got the three-bedroom semi in Droylesden as part of the settlement. Worked part-time as a legal secretary in a solicitor’s just off Deansgate.’
Jon nodded. ‘You’ve done your homework.’
‘That’s just surface stuff. I’m hoping you know something more interesting.’
Jon took a sip of coffee and grimaced slightly with pleasure at its sharp taste. ‘Her daughter, Lucy, lives down near Castlefield, doing very well in web site design. Lucy told us her mum had been very lonely since the divorce. Hurt too. The husband dumped her for a “younger model”, to use Lucy’s words. Rowland’s stage in life: mid-forties, married for twenty years. She was in a routine. It was safe and comfy, but totally devoid of single men. Lucy had encouraged her to get out and start trying to meet someone, but apparently the idea terrified her.’
‘Don’t blame her,’ Rick leaned back. ‘Playing the field after being out of it for that long?’ He shook his head.
‘Exactly. Apparently, Lucy took her to a singles’ night at a bar in town. Lucy did very well, but her mum didn’t get a second glance. After that Lucy suggested she try dating agencies — but only the upmarket ones.’