Helen Fields - Perfect Silence

‘The dolls are a calling card, then. An announcement of intent. Zoey’s killer wants us to know what’s in store for Lorna.’

Sirens followed by a knock at the door signalled the arrival of the SOCOs, who appeared white-suited and ready for action.

‘I need a bag straight away,’ Ava said. ‘This doll and the pram need to be logged into evidence, then I’m taking the doll directly over to the mortuary. Somebody contact the pathologist and tell him we’re on our way. I need him there, and I’ll need access to Zoey Cole’s body at the same time.’

‘What about that?’ One of the officers motioned towards the baby blanket that Ava had in her hand.

‘Yes, this too,’ Ava said. ‘The pram needs a complete DNA, skin cell and foreign fibres check. Someone put their hand down inside the blanket and sheet, and tucked the doll out of sight at the baby’s feet. We only found it by accident.’

Ava’s hands were stripped with sticky tape to make sure she hadn’t removed any crucial trace evidence from the pram, then she and Luc left the room. They found Arnold Jenkins, the unit director, in an office with four female staff members. He introduced each in turn – a nurse, an administrator, a catering manager and one of the other residents. Each had handled the pram at some point, moving it or lifting the baby, and every one of them was tearful and shaken. Ava was glad they had no idea quite how bad the situation really was. Uniformed officers took over to record statements as Ava and Luc headed back towards the car park.

‘You don’t need to come to the mortuary with me,’ Luc said. ‘I can handle this alone.’

‘I know,’ Ava said. ‘But I feel like I owe it to Zoey. We’re taking part of her back. I know it sounds stupid, but I want to be there with her when we take this monstrosity in.’

‘I understand,’ Luc said. ‘Sometimes it’s personal.’

‘It is,’ Ava nodded. ‘I can’t even explain why. Dr Spurr, the temporary pathologist – you dealt with him before. Is he good? I mean as good as Ailsa, because if not I’m calling her back in. I need answers, and I’m not risking any mistakes.’

‘Jonty Spurr is excellent,’ Callanach said. ‘Don’t worry about that.’

They drove their cars in convoy to the city mortuary. Dr Spurr met them in the reception area, already gowned and gloved. Ava and Callanach suited up, handing the bagged doll to Jonty, who peered at it with undisguised revulsion.

Without exchanging a word, they filed into the autopsy suite, where Zoey was waiting for them, sheet pulled back to reveal her skinned abdomen. Jonty took the doll from the bag, laid it on a sterile tray and photographed every aspect of it, recording each measurement and dimension as he went. With immaculate care, and making sure he preserved the knotted parts of the thread, he opened the stitching and separated the two sections of material.

Holding the material up to the light, he turned it over and around. ‘That’s human skin, without a doubt,’ he said. ‘I can clearly see the follicles, lines and pores.’

He walked slowly to Zoey, holding the front section of the doll by the ends of each arm. A sheet of plastic had been placed over Zoey’s abdominal wound, and he placed the first section of skin flat over the top of it, smoothing out the parts that had been folded over at the edges. It almost perfectly filled the shape that had been stolen from Zoey’s body.

‘It’s shrunk as it’s dried out,’ Jonty said, ‘which accounts for the size difference, but you can see where there are tiny imperfections in the cuts. They match both the wound edges on Zoey’s body and on the doll. There is no doubt at all that what you’ve found was made from Zoey’s skin.’

‘Thank you, Dr Spurr,’ Ava said, talking a step forward and gripping Zoey’s cold hand for a few moments. When she walked away, Luc could see tears in her eyes. She dumped her gloves in the bin and left.

‘When Ava finds the person who did this, I think she might be serious about killing them,’ Luc said.

‘I believe you might be right,’ Jonty said. ‘You’d better just make sure you get there first.’

True terror was exhausting. That sliver of knowledge was just one step on the steepest learning curve of her life. Twenty-four hours earlier, she had woken at 6.45 a.m. with her baby in a cot at her bedside, and wondered what to cook for breakfast. Now she knew how it felt to sleep strapped to a table in the dark, smelling dirt and rotting leaves. Lorna lifted her head, but the immobility of her arms and legs made it pointless. Through dirty, green-stained glass, a waning moon cast cold shadows. The blanket over her naked body was making her itch, but it kept off the insects that buzzed and flapped through the dark. Beneath her, the table stretched longer than her frame head to toe, and was a foot wider at either side, as if it had been taken from the dining room of some grand old house. What she couldn’t believe was that she had slept. How was it possible to fear for your life and still fall into dreamless sleep? Lorna remembered crying. Being made to eat and drink. Screaming uselessly for as long as her voice held out. Then nothing. At some point she had simply burned out.

Beyond the creaking walls of her prison, she could hear the rustle of leaves and the movement of branches in the wind. It was a cruel parody of the few holidays she had enjoyed as a child, before drugs had reduced her mother to a silent, shadowy creature. They had borrowed a tent and trekked out with friends or family to sleep in a field and toast marshmallows for a night or two in the summer. It had been all her mother could ever afford, and it was uncomfortable – usually freezing cold – but Lorna had loved it. So much adventure could be found just by stepping beyond the walls of their tiny flat, even if they did have to pee behind trees and wash in a cold stream each morning.

Pins and needles prickled her skin from inactivity as she flexed her legs. With ankles tied fast to the table legs, the best she could do was slowly clench then relax each muscle to get some blood flowing. Her breasts throbbed. It was two in the morning then. Like a farmyard cockerel, baby Tansy awoke hungry at the same time each night. This would have been the moment when Lorna would have plucked the baby gently from her cot, quickly enough so that the crying didn’t wake the other mothers who were grabbing precious hours of sleep, and held her to a breast. Tansy’s warm snuffling as she grabbed Lorna’s hair would have been worth the lack of rest. For a moment, she could actually smell her baby. Milk, talcum powder, a fresh Babygro after her bath, and the slight acidity of a nappy as yet unchanged after six hours’ wear. Lorna was determined not to cry for her. If she started crying, then it was as good as an admission that she would never hold her girl again. And she would. She would escape, get help, and find her way back to the mother and baby unit. If she could get clean of drugs and persuade a judge not to take her baby from her, then she could do this. The bastard who had abducted her had no idea what he was up against.

Tansy – her pride and joy – had also been her Achilles heel. The man had seemed harmless enough, following her through the lanes from the unit to the shops, whistling and texting on his phone. As he’d got nearer to her, he’d said a cheery good morning, stopping to peer into the pram and exclaim at the bonniness of the wee girl. Lorna had been delighted. No matter how many times she heard it, a compliment about the baby was affirmation that finally she had done something right. Her first selfless act, she often thought. She had given life to another human, and giving up her vices for the baby had made it even sweeter.