M. Arlidge - Pop Goes the Weasel

Jim Grieves was unusually quiet this morning, the first sign that he was aware of the chaos in Helen’s life. More surprising still, he’d patted her arm as they’d walked to the slab. Helen had never known Jim display any physical affection to anyone before and she was touched that he felt the need to let her know he was rooting for her. She smiled her thanks, then they got on with the task in hand. Slipping on their masks, they approached the desiccated remains of Anton Gardiner.

‘He’s been dead about six months,’ Jim Grieves began. ‘It’s hard to be precise. The vermin in that place have had a fine time. They’ve picked off his skin and most of his internal organs, but by dating the dried blood in his mouth cavity and nasal passage… six months is a reasonable guess.’

‘Was he murdered?’

‘Absolutely. Your man suffered before he died. Both ankles were broken, kneecaps and elbows too. And his windpipe was cut deep – the blade edge severing his vertebrae. Whoever did this virtually cut his head off.’

‘Was he killed on site?’

‘Doesn’t look like it. The lack of blood at the scene, the absence of any clothes and the small hole that the body was forced into suggest that he was killed elsewhere then hidden there. Before rigor mortis set in, your killer or killers scrunched him up and buried him – his bones were already broken so he would have been more easy to manipulate.’

‘What about his heart?’

Jim paused, aware of the importance of the question.

‘Still there. Or fragments of it. And what’s left is still attached. It’s been eaten by the rats – you can see the teeth marks if you look close.’

Helen peered down at the interior of the dead man’s chest.

‘Like I say, we’ve found blood under the fingernails, in his nasal passage and in his mouth. Two blood types so far, so if you’re lucky your killer’s blood might be in there. Should have DNA for you in a few hours.’

Helen nodded but her attention remained fixed on what had once been Anton’s beating heart. So much seemed to fit with the killer’s MO, but the heart hadn’t been removed. Was Anton a nursery slope for Lyra? Did she graduate from torture to mutilation with her later victims? Was Anton Gardiner the spark that set the blaze burning in her mind?

It was time to find out more about the life and times of the murdered pimp. Helen thanked Jim and headed for the exit, leaving the unusually taciturn pathologist alone with the man who had been eaten by rats.

‘So what do we know about this guy?’

Helen was addressing the team, who were now crowded round her in the incident room.

‘Anton Gardiner, small-time pimp and drug dealer,’ DC Grounds began. ‘Born 1988 to Shallene Gardiner, a single mum with numerous convictions for shoplifting. No father on his birth certificate and we’re unlikely to make any headway on that score. We don’t know much about Shallene, but we do know she was generous with her favours.’

Despite the subject matter, a few female members of the team suppressed smiles. There was something endearingly old-fashioned about DC Grounds.

‘Anton went to school at St Michaels, Bevois, but left without any qualifications. His charge sheet starts when he’s about fifteen. Possession, theft, battery. And then it just gets longer and longer. We never pinned anything major on him though and his times in prison were brief and to the point.’

‘So what about his girls?’ Helen responded. ‘What have we got on that?’

‘He ran girls from the mid-noughties onwards,’ Charlie replied. ‘Had a fairly big stable. Picked up a lot of girls from care homes, got them onto drugs, then made them work for him. I’ve spoken to a few girls who had “dealings” with him and by all accounts he was a nasty piece of work. Controlling. Violent. Sexually sadistic. And very paranoid. He was always convinced that people were watching him, that his girls were plotting to leave him, and he would often inflict terrible beatings on them for no good reason. He never used a bank – didn’t trust them – never carried ID and always had a knife close at hand, even when he slept. He was a guy forever looking over his shoulder.’

Helen let that thought settle, then added:

‘Was he successful?’

‘He made good money,’ DC Sanderson replied.

‘Any known enemies?’

‘The usual suspects. No specific incidents around the time of his death.’

‘I’m guessing he wasn’t married?’

Sanderson smiled and shook her head.

‘So why was he targeted?’ Helen replied, wiping the smile off her face. ‘And why was he hidden away? He’s an unmarried, lowlife pimp, so there’s nothing to expose. He wasn’t a hypocrite with a loving family waiting for him at home. He was what he was and made no attempt to hide it.’

‘And the heart was left intact,’ DC McAndrew added.

‘Exactly – the heart wasn’t removed. So what was the point? Why did she kill him?’

‘Because he attacked her?’ DC Grounds offered. ‘We know he used the old cinema to imprison and torture his girls.’

‘But he wasn’t killed there,’ Helen interrupted. ‘He was murdered elsewhere, then buried at the cinema. It doesn’t fit.’

‘Perhaps she bided her time – after he attacked her,’ DC Fortune said, picking up the thread. ‘Waited for the right time, then attacked him somewhere they wouldn’t be disturbed. Maybe she dumped the body at the cinema as a message to other pimps – and the other girls.’

‘Then why bury it?’ Helen countered. ‘Why hide him away if you want to make a point?’

Silence descended on the team. Helen thought for a moment, then:

‘We need to find out where he died. Do we have any addresses?’

‘We’ve got scores,’ DC Grounds replied, raising his eyebrows. ‘He liked to keep on the move. He was like a snail, moving round Southampton with his possessions on his back. Always trying to keep one step ahead of his enemies, real or imagined.’

‘Run them down, every last one. If we can find the crime scene, maybe we can link him to Lyra more clearly. We need to know the circumstances of his death. DC Grounds will take the lead.’

Helen wrapped up the meeting and pulled Charlie aside. She wanted to quiz her on her progress tracking down the other forum users, but she never got the chance. Front desk buzzed through with a development that stopped everyone in their tracks – Angel had killed again.

‘Looks like it was quite a struggle.’

Charlie and Helen stood together in the freezing cargo yard, looking at the carnage in front of them. A young man – mid-twenties and heavily tattooed – lay on the tarmac, a large pool of blood encircling his head. A deep cut in the centre of his face was being photographed by the SOC team, but what interested Helen was his torso. It had been slashed to ribbons in what looked like a frenzied knife attack, but his internal organs remained untouched.

Helen drew her eyes away from the grizzly sight in response to Charlie’s comment. She was right. There was blood all over the place, splattered against the crates where someone had landed heavily, smeared over the ground where the struggle had taken place and spread in short bursts along the connecting pathway as the surviving party had fled. The footprints were small and looked to have been made by high-heeled boots – Angel.

‘I guess she met the wrong guy this time,’ Charlie continued.

Helen nodded but said nothing. What had happened here? Why hadn’t she drugged him like the others? It looked like a desperate fight to the death. Perhaps Charlie was right. Perhaps Angel’s luck had finally run out.