Lee Weeks - Cold as Ice

‘You still seeing her then? Thought it was over when it lost you your job?’ Mark asked, a smile creeping across his face.

‘Of course.’ Mathew grinned sheepishly.

Harding almost stamped her foot as she waited irritably for Mark to finish observing and start laying out the tools of dissection on a tray. The stamp was transmuted to a series of toe taps. She had a nervous, irritable constant twitch in her demeanour – a coiled spring. She lived on her nerves. But Mathew had been right. She hadn’t given up hope of bedding Mark so she kept her eyes soft as she watched him prepare for the autopsy. Patience.

‘Ready?’ He nodded. ‘Ah, just in time,’ she said as she saw Willis and Carter walked in, suited up in protective gear. ‘Take hold of the camera please, DC Willis. I am about to start the autopsy examination of the female body found on Hampstead Heath yesterday morning. Height: five foot eight inches. Weight: five stone one pound. Colour of hair: dyed black, originally mid brown. Ethnicity: Caucasian. She was wearing a charm bracelet around her right wrist which has been removed.’

She stood back to record the general condition of the body: ‘Severely malnourished. Yellowing of the skin possibly due to hepatitis B infection or liver failure. She has several gangrenous wounds on her that have maggot infestation.’

Mark went to switch on the extractor beneath the table. She held up her hand to stop him. She leaned over the body and breathed in the smell.

‘Rat’s urine,’ she said. ‘Mixed with the smell of gangrene from her infected wounds.’ She nodded to Mark that he could turn it on now. Carter breathed out again as the smell was carried from below the body.

‘Injuries: skin peeled up from over both breasts, done by using a scalpel or razor blade to cut the skin on the underside of the breast. It has then been pulled by hand, cut again around the nipples. The stripping of the skin has led to a feathered tearing around the edges of the flesh.’

Harding ran her gloved hand down the arm; she turned the hand over to expose the inside of the forearm and the irregular sections of missing flesh. She shone a light down and examined the injury.

‘These are bite marks here from rodents; the action is one of gnawing as opposed to tearing. The scars are at many different stages of healing – these bites were inflicted on living flesh. There are other puncture wounds, pairs of fine needle punctures. The chafing in the skin around the ankle is uniform. Wounds are not deep.’ She carried on as she moved up to the wrists. ‘Soft tissue damage here at the wrists too, same type of wound, same width, deeper though. The damage to the flesh is angled as such: it cuts in where there was weight pulling against it.’

‘So she was suspended again – same scenario as with Emily Styles, held with her arms above her head, you mean?’ asked Carter.

‘Yes.’

Harding moved up to Pauline Murphy’s head and examined her neck. ‘There are scars here, tissue still repairing. Not made with the same force as with Emily Styles. They concentrate more on the sides of the neck, over the carotid artery.’ Harding looked up from her examination. Ebony held her gaze. ‘Looks possible that there were previous attempts at killing her or that it wasn’t the first time she’d been strangled in the weeks before she died. Maybe not with the intention of causing death.’

‘Asphyxiophilia,’ said Ebony.

Harding nodded. ‘I agree. ‘An intentional cessation of oxygen to the brain for sexual arousal.’

‘And exact cause of death, Doctor, please?’ asked Carter.

‘The flaying of the skin on her breasts was the last injury inflicted on her. We need to examine her heart to tell whether it gave out but I think the shock, the pain killed her.’

‘One of the oldest forms of torture,’ said Ebony. ‘In Medieval times they used to try and get the skin off in one piece.’

‘He looks like he tried to make an item of clothing out of it,’ Mark said.

‘Yes,’ agreed Carter. ‘He masks and he reveals. He covers the skin in make-up as thick as a mask or he peels back the bare skin to show the raw flesh beneath.’

‘The female form defaced, reviled,’ said Mark.

‘It seems like the actions of someone young to me. Someone finding their way through a minefield of emotions,’ Harding added.

‘Someone seriously mad,’ Carter said. ‘And getting progressively worse. He takes a step further with each woman. He’s a work in progress. He wants us to see that.’

On the way back to Fletcher House Carter looked across at Willis.

‘I’ve been thinking about it, watching that post mortem. I’m not sure I’m happy for you to go into this without knowing more about the man we’re up against.’ Ebony didn’t answer. ‘We could wait till we are further into the investigation to send you into it.’ Ebony still didn’t answer. ‘You know, Ebb, you might understand what it’s like to have a difficult childhood but it doesn’t make you the best at coping with the man when you find him. You’re going to have to act like these women, be sociable, flirt even – that’s a first.’ He joked but his eyes stayed on hers; they were full of concern.

‘I understand, Guv.’

‘Really… you are going to have to lay yourself bare for this one. If you don’t he’ll spot you a mile off. Ebb – you’ve just seen what he’s capable of. He shows no mercy and he eeks out every drop of pain from his victims, but something… something made them trust him. He’s clever, manipulative, like I’ve never seen before. My head and my heart says I don’t want you anywhere near him.’

She looked across at Carter. ‘I would agree – but I believe that Danielle is still alive and I think that from inside that coffin, she’s praying we’re going to find her.’

Carter shook his head and looked at her incredulously.

‘Christ! I don’t think I’ve ever heard you so emotional. You must want to do it.’

‘I do and I think it’s worth me trying. We know that something about his choice of victim says that he grew up either without a mother or with a mother who was a destructive influence rather than a nurturing one. I understand what that’s like. Makes me a good target, Guv.’

Carter turned away for a few seconds to gather his thoughts. He looked back at her. He could see her eyes were hungry for it.

‘Yes.’ He turned back. ‘It does.’

‘Her legend is going to have to be watertight,’ Bowie said to Robbo, who had joined Carter in Chief Inspector Bowie’s office. ‘Can you do it this fast? The training alone for a UC would be two weeks normally.’

‘We don’t have two weeks.’

‘Ebony has a ready-made legend,’ Robbo said. ‘She would be difficult to trace even if she used her own name.’

‘Whose name will you give her? We can no longer use the names of dead infants.’

‘Ebony’s legend will closely follow her own life. We keep her Christian name so that anyone who might know her and see her in the street won’t blow her cover.’

Carter shook his head. ‘To be honest you don’t have to worry about that; Ebony lives a very sheltered life: she works and then she goes home. She doesn’t have any social media accounts, she doesn’t even have a credit card.’

‘We’ll change her surname to Wilson,’ continued Robbo. ‘Doctor her birth records, issue a new passport and driver’s licence. We’ll keep her childhood in children’s homes – it suits our purposes very well – but we have her come out of them at the age of twelve and move to Jamaica to live with her grandparents, returning six months ago. She returned to get Archie into school here and because this is her home. She’s been on benefits. She’s obviously bright but a bit unsettled in her life – big potential but finds herself a bit out of her depth at the moment. Life’s changing, new prospects, going solo.’