The Career Killer Read online

  Confident that the house had little more to yield tonight, Elsie pinged Stryker, Knox and Matthews a group message summoning them all to an early morning meeting at eight o’clock sharp. For tonight, Elsie thought with another yawn, it was time for the tiredness to win.

  Chapter 8: The Major Incident Room

  It took Elsie three alarms to get up that Saturday morning. Had there not been a pressing case to attend to, she’d probably have stayed in bed until her back hurt or her stomach growled, whichever came sooner. It was neither the mobile phone alarm nor the sunrise clock that finally roused her, but the “backup” alarm, a radio which came blaring into life at six thirty on the dot summoning her from the comfort of her duvet to the hallway where the radio sat upon a high shelf. When she could ignore it no longer, she dragged herself from her bed and then got ready as fast as she could. The office was a half an hour’s drive from her home in Muswell Hill, a journey usually punctuated by roadworks and endless traffic. For once, she had a clean run, arriving only ten minutes after she’d intended to. Perhaps the other denizens of North London were, quite sensibly in Elsie’s opinion, having a lie-in.

  The clock read ten past eight, and, despite Elsie’s slight tardiness, the others were nowhere to be found. A no-show on Knox’s part wasn’t unexpected. The others had no such excuse. After double-checking that she had, in fact, sent the eight o’clock meeting details to the rest of the team, she fetched herself a large cup of instant coffee from the vending machine, pulled a face the moment she took a sip, and then busied herself with setting up the new incident room. The space she had to work with was dire. The admin staff who kept the building up to snuff had refurbished this floor only last year, and yet still the dim, flickering strip lights remained. Elsie hated the pallid glow they cast over the windowless room.

  The only thing the space had going for it was square footage. An incident room needed to be big enough to accommodate the many individuals who would be coming and going as the investigation ramped up: the finance manager, the receiver, the action manager, a document reader, two or three people to deal with indexing and registering evidence, an IT tech to deal with HOLMES support, researchers, analysts, a file prep officer, a typist and a disclosure officer. The list was almost endless. The major incident room as it was properly called, or MIR, was like a start-up with a hum of activity in the background from beginning to end. Today was the calm before the storm.

  She glanced to the far wall, a good forty feet away. It was studded with boards long since pinpricked with a thousand little holes from the documents which had been pinned to it over the years. When full, the boards would be covered in photos, documents, and anything else the team thought could be useful for the investigation. Elsie made her way to the board in the corner and pinned up a few blank sheets so she could jot down her initial thoughts. She’d have one of the junior officers digitise them later on so that everything was on the central computer. To the casual observer, the paper-based wall might appear old-fashioned but for Elsie, it was a way of collecting her thoughts in one easy-to-peruse place. Staring at a wall of evidence was much less tiring than sifting through dozens of digital folders containing the same information and it was easier on the eyes too.

  Working from the top left of the board she marked down the name “Layla Morgan” and then pinned up printouts of everything they had found out so far. There wasn’t much. Overnight, Annie Burke had uploaded photographs of the crime scene to the HOLMES 2 database. Elsie flicked through Burke’s initial report stifling a yawn. The headline discovery was a cotton thread snagged on a bush near the eastern entrance at approximately six feet above the ground which Burke thought could be important. If the lab showed the cotton was consistent with the wedding dress then they knew which side of St Dunstan the killer entered, and they could approximate the killer’s height. The physical strength required was suggestive of a male killer; few women could lug a body over their shoulder. Even if they could, that really didn’t narrow down the suspect pool; few women killed, and fewer still stabbed their victims. This felt like a straightforward crime of passion. The victim had been stabbed through the heart. It screamed jilted lover to Elsie. Why else would the killer go to the extreme of posing Layla in a wedding dress?

  Until they officially had the definitive cause of death from Valerie Spilsbury, Elsie was on a go-slow. This was the phase of the investigation that her dad called “getting the ball under control”. The energy of Friday night had fizzled out, and now Elsie had to manage everything. She had to manage her own team, that was a given, but she also needed to manage the press and the myriad support personnel collecting, processing, and logging evidence. Perhaps most important of all she needed to manage expectations. This wasn’t going to be solved overnight given that Burke’s investigations had found precious little other evidence.

  First order of the day was to get through the autopsy, rush the initial lab work, and notify next of kin. She’d dispatched Stryker to attend in person, and he ought to have something before midday. That didn’t excuse Knox and Matthews’ non-attendance. Two blue ticks on WhatsApp confirmed that they had all seen Elsie’s message. That was outright insubordination which Elsie needed to nip in the bud. She had expected someone on her new team to challenge her, she’d just expected that someone to be DI Stryker. A man having trouble with working for a strong woman was to be expected. Knox, however, was an old hand and ought to know better.

  Next to the Layla Morgan board was a second which remained blank. Elsie desperately wanted to fill it with details from the last “Lady Killer” murder victim, that of Leonella Boileau, the woman who had been dumped in a black ball gown two weeks ago and had been all over the news ever since.

  If she did officially connect the dots, she as good as admitted that this was a serial, and then she’d have to give Fairbanks the lead on the Morgan investigation. If it were a serial – and Elsie’s gut instinct said it was, no matter what she’d said to Stryker – then those details would inform how she ought to proceed.

  Without committing anything to print, Elsie reviewed the historical crime on her laptop. Leonella Boileau had been found in Chelsea Physic Garden. The similarities were immediately apparent. Leonella, or “Nelly” as the newspapers had nicknamed her, was young, beautiful, and she’d been left lying on a bench with her arm tucked under her head as if she were sleeping. Like Layla, Nelly had been dressed to the nines.

  That was where the similarities ended. Layla was Caucasian, of minute stature, thin, and had been posed in a wedding dress. Nelly had been taller, though not nearly so tall as Elsie, and she was black, curvy, and had been posed in what appeared to be a one-off black lace gown. Looking at the crime scene photos, there was a sense of déjà vu that Elsie couldn’t shake. The scenes were too similar for comfort, but they didn’t fit the sort of pattern Elsie expected. Serial killers, in her limited experience, tended to select within the same demographics. More often than not their victims were women. Assuming this was a serial killer, they appeared not to care about race or height. That struck Elsie as off.

  Perhaps then, Elsie mused, it was about access. While the autopsy results for Layla Morgan weren’t back yet, the older report for Leonella Boileau indicated a personal kill. Nelly had been stabbed through the heart just once. Her killer had managed to get up close and personal and kill her without needing to strike twice.

  Nelly had to have known her killer. She trusted them enough to get close. Elsie could tell that Nelly’s killer had been significantly taller than her from the angle of the stab wound in the autopsy photos. Odds-on they were looking for a killer who was at least five foot ten. That narrowed it down to about a third of London.

  The killer had to be strong. There were no drag marks around either crime scene which meant the victims were cleanly carried. Even with a fireman’s lift where the killer could sling his victim over a shoulder, it took some serious physical strength to move the lightest of adult bodies. Elsie flicked through her iPad to find out how mu
ch Layla Morgan had weighed. She was the smaller of the two victims coming in at a mere five foot three. Her weight was listed as forty-seven and a bit kilograms or one hundred and four pounds imperial.

  Leonella Boileau, at five foot seven, had to be a bit heavier. Again, it screamed a tall, strong man. Or a team. Elsie couldn’t rule out a duo killing together. Two could move a body with relative ease. Did that fit with the thread being found six foot off the floor? Elsie struggled to imagine a pair carrying a body at that height. Forensics would be able to rule it out easily enough; two killers would leave two sets of contact evidence.

  She didn’t know how long she’d been staring at the incident board thinking. It was long enough that she regretted taking another sip of her coffee.

  ‘Yuck,’ she muttered. It was long cold. Where on earth had her team got to?

  While she continued to wait, she absentmindedly scrolled through social media on her mobile. It was a mistake she made all too often. It was supposed to be a place to connect with old friends, keep tabs on old enemies, and remember when her third cousin’s second child’s birthday was.

  Instead, it was an endless pit of despair. She scrolled lazily with a thumb, only to see oodles of wedding and honeymoon albums, engagement announcements, and baby photos. Faces from the past – friends, family, colleagues – floated up to smile at her mockingly. Each happy snapshot stoked the green-eyed monster, and Elsie found herself falling slowly into the pit. These people had it all. They had what she wanted – the family, the loving partner, the successful career. What did she have? A sarcastic “good in bed” T-shirt to celebrate her unparalleled ability to nap?

  ‘Don’t judge people by their Facebook statuses, boss,’ Matthews said. She had appeared from nowhere while Elsie stared at her screen. ‘It isn’t real, boss. They’re just posing like for the camera like. If you compare yourself to that, you’ll never be happy. People don’t post when they’re feeling lonely or blue, do they? Here.’

  Matthews proffered a tissue from her purse. It was only then that Elsie realised her eyes must have watered, smudging her mascara down her cheeks. She snatched the tissue and turned away, desperate to pull herself together. Why on earth was she so emotional today?

  When Elsie turned back towards Matthews, her expression had hardened. She no longer had it in her to chastise Matthews for being late to the meeting. Instead, she asked where Knox was.

  ‘She’s off sick, boss.’

  An unconvincing lie. Elsie knew that Knox had a reputation for the drink. It was probably why Knox had ended up joining Elsie’s band of misfits. She wanted to give Knox the benefit of the doubt. More than once she’d heard her father say that the numbness that the bottle brought was a siren call for many officers after a long week. Too seldom did officers seek help for the stress of the job, and it was rarer still for appropriate support to be given. To show weakness by asking for help would be a death knell. If you admitted you needed help – and Elsie knew that she herself needed help too – then you’d never be trusted with a proper case again.

  But was this a drinking problem or an attitude problem? The former deserved understanding and help, the latter was disrespectful. Everything so far said that Knox fell into the latter category and for that she would pay.

  ‘Then you’ll have to cover the jobs she ought to be doing. I’m going to need you to find her next of kin and to tidy up the boards in the corner,’ Elsie said. ‘But first, take a seat, and then tell me what you found out last night.’

  Matthews gulped.

  ‘Spit it out.’

  Her face turned ashen, and she averted her eyes. ‘We didn’t make it, boss. Knox and I that is.’

  Elsie’s fingers gripped the edge of the desk she was leaning against until they turned white.

  ‘Why on earth not?’ she growled through gritted teeth.

  Matthews hung her head. ‘We’d had a few too many drinks. Knox really wanted to celebrate the new team of ours...’

  I’ll bet she did, Elsie thought. Knox was proving to be the disaster that Elsie had expected. Her insubordination was bad enough but dragging down the rest of the team was unforgivable.

  ‘Boss, I—’

  Elsie cut her off. ‘You what? You thought you could just ignore a page summoning you to a crime scene? You didn’t think to call me and tell me you were inebriated?’

  A logical voice in the back of her head backed her up. It was worse than simply ignoring the page. The girls had to have acknowledged the page otherwise the computer system would have automatically notified Elsie that her pages had been ignored.

  Matthews cowed as Elsie ranted. ‘It’s even worse than I thought, isn’t it? You acknowledged the page and then didn’t bother to show up. You know the rules – don’t answer the page if you’re not capable of responding. It’s that simple. We’ve got cover in place exactly for this kind of scenario!’

  ‘But, boss, Stryker said—’

  ‘Stryker said? On what planet does Stryker have any authority here? This is my team. You report to me and me alone. Not a man who has been on this team for less than a week!’

  Elsie spun and turned to face the incident board. ‘That victim, Layla Morgan, right there at the top. That’s who you’re letting down. The first few hours are crucial. By skipping work, you might have let her killer get away.’

  It was Matthews’ turn for the waterworks. Her mascara turned into rivers of ink streaming down her cheeks, and she buried her face in her hands. As Elsie watched Matthews sob, her anger ebbed and she sank against the table, defeated.

  Matthews looked up. ‘Sorry, I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t want to go to the pub anyway. I just... Knox is like a big sister to me. I did my placement with her and Fairbanks.’

  She was just a kid. An overgrown child with no self-confidence. Elsie’s anger quietened down. It would do no good to destroy Matthews’ self-confidence entirely. Her anger would be redirected at the woman who deserved it. ‘Everyone gets one mistake,’ Elsie said. She jabbed her index finger towards Matthews. ‘Make a second error and you’ll be looking for a new team, got it?’

  ‘Got it,’ Matthews said. She straightened up. ‘Oh... by the way, I brought us all breakfast.’

  Elsie’s eyes flicked towards the table nearest the door. Sure enough, Matthews had stopped at Gail’s bakery. That was why she had been a little late – apology bagels.

  ‘Make yourself useful. See that big board at the back? I want a map of the crime scene up there showing the most likely approach to the dump site. We need to know how the killer managed to appear in central London with a dead body in tow without being seen.’

  It seemed impossible and yet the evidence was incontrovertible. The body was there, and there was no sign of the killer anywhere nearby. Just how had he got Layla Morgan’s body to St Dunstan in the East?

  Chapter 9: Dead on Time

  Parking at St Guy’s hospital was dreadful. Stryker ended up abandoning his car in an overpriced car park by Butler’s Wharf and making his way to the mortuary on foot. If he’d known parking was going to be this bad, he’d have taken a taxi from the office instead.

  The hospital was home to the renowned Department of Pharmacy & Forensic Science. Working under contract with the Met, the department had been responsible for helping to massively improve the murder “solve rate” in London. It was an exciting trip for Stryker. He’d never had the opportunity to really get stuck into the forensics while working drug busts, so today was his first time swapping the intractability of reading people for hard science.

  Spilsbury started dead on nine o’clock as promised. A porter had pointed him in the right direction, and, after donning the appropriate plastic clothing to avoid contamination and health risks, Valerie Spilsbury had let him in to watch.

  She said little, her beady eyes fixed upon the body bag containing Layla Morgan. An assistant lurked behind her, and then, at her command, stepped forward to open the body bag.

  Layla looked waxier than the night before.
The stiffness, or rigor mortis in her limbs had gone entirely, and with its passing, she had turned completely floppy. The grimace that Stryker had noticed on her face at the crime scene had disappeared, and he began to wonder if he had imagined it entirely. He watched as the assistant struggled to shift her out of the body bag and onto the cold metal of the mortuary table. Once Spilsbury was satisfied that the autopsy could begin, she turned to speak to Stryker in a voice which was muffled by the mask over her face.

  ‘Mr Stryker, I will permit no uninvited questions while I work. Keep quiet, watch carefully, touch nothing. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  She nodded and then turned her back on him. For the next two hours, he knew that she would ignore him entirely. That was what he’d heard from the other detectives.

  The bag was left in place for the first part of the post-mortem. Under 10x magnification, Spilsbury looked over the entire body inch by inch. Her approach reminded Stryker of a grid search working left to right then top to bottom. It took forever. Every now and then, Spilsbury paused to take a sample. Hairs were removed by tweezer, dust by what looked like a fancy version of Sellotape. This trace evidence would be rushed to the lab in case the killer had left so-called “contact evidence” on the body.

  Once she was satisfied that she had collected all available trace evidence from the body whilst it was in situ, she stepped back from the table. Her assistant stepped forward once more.

  Spilsbury broke the silence. ‘Every contact leaves a trace, Mr Stryker. Oh, don’t look so surprised, I do talk. If Fairbanks told you that daft rumour that I must always work in silence, more fool you for believing him. It’s only him I can’t stand talking to.’