Nine Elms: The thrilling first book in a brand-new, electrifying crime series (Kate Marshall 1) Read online

  ‘Sir,’ they said in unison.

  ‘What’s going on, Marsha?’ asked Peter.

  ‘All exits in and out of the park are sealed, and I’ve got local plod being bussed in for a fingertip search and house to house. Forensic pathologist is in there already, and she’s ready to talk to us.’

  Cameron was tall and gangly, towering above them all. He hadn’t had time to change, and looked more like a louche teenager than a detective in his jeans, trainers and a green winter jacket. Kate wondered fleetingly what he had been doing when he got the call to come to the crime scene. She presumed he’d arrived with Marsha.

  ‘Who’s our forensic pathologist?’ asked Peter.

  ‘Leodora Graves,’ said Marsha.

  It was hot inside the glowing tent, where the lights were almost painfully bright. Forensic pathologist Leodora Graves, a small dark-skinned woman with penetrating green eyes, worked with two assistants. A naked young girl lay face down in a muddy depression in the grass. Her head was covered by a clear plastic bag, tied tightly around her neck. Her pale skin was streaked with dirt and blood and numerous cuts and scratches. The backs of her thighs and buttocks had several deep bite marks.

  Kate stood beside the body, already sweating underneath the hood and face mask of her thick white forensics suit. The rain hammered down on the tight skin of the tent, forcing Leodora to raise her voice.

  ‘The victim is posed, lying on her right side, her right arm under her head. The left arm lies flat and reaching out. There are six bites on her lower back, buttocks and thighs.’ She indicated the deepest bites where the flesh had been removed, deep enough to expose the girl’s spine. She moved to the victim’s head and gently lifted it. The length of thin rope was tied tight around the neck, biting into the now bloated flesh. ‘You’ll note the specific knot.’

  ‘The monkey’s fist knot,’ said Cameron, speaking for the first time. He sounded shaken. Everyone’s face was obscured by the masks of their forensic suits, but Kate could read the looks of alarm in their eyes.

  ‘Yes,’ said Leodora, holding the knot in her gloved hand. What made it unusual was the series of intersecting turns, like a tiny ball of wool, almost impossible to replicate with a machine.

  ‘It’s him. The Nine Elms Cannibal,’ said Kate. The words came out of her mouth before she could stop them.

  ‘I’ll need to conclude more from my post-mortem, but . . . yes,’ said Leodora. The rain fell harder, intensifying the thundering thrum on the roof of the tent. She let go of the young girl’s head, placing it gently back where it lay on her arm. ‘There is evidence that she was raped. There are bodily fluids present, and she’s been tortured, cut with a sharp object and burned. You see the burn marks on her arms and outer thighs? They look to be caused by the cigarette lighter from a car.’

  ‘Or a white van,’ said Kate. Peter gave her a hard stare. He didn't like being corrected.

  ‘Cause of death?’ he asked.

  ‘I need to do the post-mortem, but off the record, at this stage I would say asphyxiation with the plastic bag. There are signs of petechial haemorrhaging on her face and neck.’

  ‘Thank you, Leodora. I look forward to the results of your post-mortem. I hope that we can quickly identify this poor young woman.’

  Leodora nodded to her assistants, who brought in a pop-up stretcher with a shiny new black body bag. They placed it beside the body and gently turned the young woman over onto the stretcher. The front of her naked body was marked with small circular burns and scratches. It was impossible to tell what she looked like – her face was grotesque and distorted under the plastic. She had large pale-blue eyes, milky in death and frozen in a stare. The look in her eyes made Kate shiver. It was devoid of hope, as if frozen in her eyes was that last thought. She knew she was going to die.

  CHAPTER 3

  Viewing the young woman’s battered body left Kate disturbed and exhausted after what had already been a long day, but an investigation of this scale had to move fast. As soon as they left the forensics tent, Kate was assigned to head door-to-door enquiries on Thicket Road, a long avenue of smart, detached houses on the west side of the park.

  Despite there being a team of eight officers, it took almost five hours to work their way down the street, and the rain didn’t let up. Their lead question, Have you seen a 1994 Citroën Dispatch white van and/or anyone acting suspiciously? sparked fear and curiosity in the residents of Thicket Road. The search for the white van had been widely reported in the press, but the police weren’t allowed to comment on the details of the case. Even so, most people Kate spoke to knew she was investigating the Nine Elms Cannibal, and had their opinions, questions and suspicions. All of which generated endless leads, which would have to be followed up.

  Just after midnight, Kate and her team were called back to the rendezvous point at the station. The young woman’s body was now at the morgue for the post-mortem, and the fingertip search of Crystal Palace park was being hampered by poor visibility and pouring rain, so they were told to stand down for the night and that things would resume the next morning.

  The officer Kate had been working with went to get a bus back to north London, leaving Kate alone in the car park. She was about to call a cab when lights flashed on a car in the far corner, and she saw Peter walking towards his car. He saw her and stopped, waiting for her to catch up.

  ‘Need a lift home?’ he asked. He was soaked through and looked tired, and Kate gave him points for rolling up his sleeves and not sitting it out in one of the support vans with a cup of coffee. She looked around the car park. There were three squad cars left, but she presumed they belonged to the officers who had drawn the short straw to stay up at the park.

  He saw her hesitate.

  ‘It’s no problem, and you left your bags in my car,’ he said. His lack of enthusiasm at the prospect of driving her home made her more willing to accept the lift.

  ‘Thank you. That would be great,’ she said, suddenly craving a hot shower, tea and toast slathered in butter and honey, and then her warm bed. He opened the boot of the car and took out a stack of towels from a laundry bag.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, taking one and wrapping it around her shoulders and wringing out her wet ponytail. She opened the passenger door and saw that her shopping bag was still on the floor. Peter opened the driver’s door and, leaning across, pulled open the glove compartment. He rummaged around, pulling out a car manual and a bunch of keys, until he found a box of baby wipes. He quickly cleaned off his hands and chucked the dirty wipes under the car.

  ‘Anything from the fingertip search?’ she asked.

  ‘Some fibres, cigarette ends, a shoe . . . but it’s a park – who knows who they belong to?’

  He arranged a towel on the passenger seat, then took a Thermos flask from the central console and handed it to her before draping another towel over the driver’s seat. Kate watched in amusement. He seemed so domesticated, bustling and tucking the towels into the corners of the seat cushions with an unconsciously camp manner, making sure the improvised seat covers were neat and would stay in place.

  ‘I think you’re the first person who I’ve seen attempt hospital corners on a car seat,’ she said.

  ‘We’re soaked, and it’s a new car. You don’t know how hard I had to fight to get it,’ he said, frowning.

  It was the first time that evening he’d displayed any emotion. His dirty car seats gave him real anxiety. Kate wondered if that’s what happened after a long time in the police. You shut yourself off from the horrific stuff, and you sweated the small things.

  They were silent on the journey back to Deptford. She stared out of the window. Torn between trying to get the image of the young girl out of her head and trying to keep it there. To make sure she didn’t forget her face, to file every detail away.

  Kate lived in a ground-floor flat behind a long, low row of shops just off Deptford High Street. The front door was accessed through a potholed gravel car park, and Peter’s car boun
ced and bumped its way through the waterlogged holes. They came to a stop at her front door under a sagging awning, next to the delivery entrance of the local Chinese restaurant where there was a pile of crates filled with empty soft drink bottles. The car headlights reflected off the pale back wall of her building, illuminating the interior of the car.

  ‘Thanks for the lift,’ she said, opening the door and stepping out widely to avoid a puddle. He leaned over and handed her the shopping bag.

  ‘Don’t forget this, and it’s ten o’clock tomorrow morning at the station.’

  ‘See you then.’

  She took the bag and closed the car door. His headlights lit up the car park as she rooted around in her pocket for her key and opened the front door, and then it was dark. She turned to see his tail lights vanish. She’d made an idiotic mistake in sleeping with her boss, but after seeing the dead young woman, and knowing there was still a killer on the loose, it seemed to pale to nothing.

  CHAPTER 4

  It was cold inside the flat. A small kitchen looked out over the car park, and she quickly closed the blinds before switching on the lights. She took a long shower, staying under the water until the warmth came back into her bones, then pulled on a dressing gown and came back into the kitchen. The central heating was doing its work, pumping hot water with a gurgle through the radiators, and the room was warming up. Suddenly starving, she went to take a microwave lasagne from the shopping bag, and saw nestled on top of her groceries the bunch of keys and the Thermos flask from Peter’s car. She put the Thermos on the counter and went to the phone on the kitchen wall to call his pager, so he wouldn’t get all the way home before he discovered he didn’t have his keys. She was about to dial, when she noted the keys in her hand. There were four, all substantial and old.

  Peter lived in a new build flat near Peckham. The front door had a Yale lock. She remembered this clearly from that second night when he'd invited her over for dinner. She’d hesitated outside the door, staring at the Yale lock, thinking, What the hell am I doing? The first time I was drunk. Now I’m sober and I’m back for more.

  The keys in her hand were mortise keys for heavy locks, and a small length of rope was tied around the key ring. The rope was thin, with a red and blue woven pattern – heavy-duty rope, or cord, tough and well made. She turned the loop of rope over in her hand. Tied at the end was a monkey’s fist knot. She replaced the phone on its cradle and stared at the keys.

  Kate felt as though the room was tilting under her feet, and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. She closed her eyes and the crime scene photos of the dead girls flashed behind them – bags tied tightly round their necks, vacuum-formed, distorting their features. Tied off with the knot. She opened her eyes and looked at the keys and the monkey’s fist.

  No. She was exhausted and letting her imagination run away.

  She pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table. What did she know about Peter outside work? His father was dead. She’d heard odd bits of rumour about his mother being mentally ill and in hospital. He’d had quite a difficult upbringing that he’d struggled to extricate himself from, that he was proud to extricate himself from. He was highly thought of by top brass. He didn’t have a girlfriend or wife. He was married to the job.

  Perhaps the keys belonged to a friend, or his mother? They were the type that fitted a large door, or a heavy padlock. There had been speculation that the killer would need a place to keep the van and his victims – a lock-up or a garage. If Peter had a lock-up he wouldn’t have mentioned it, but she remembered him complaining about the building where he lived. He said he paid a fortune for a space in the underground car park, and that didn’t include a garage.

  No. It had been a long, stressful day and she needed sleep.

  She put the keys on the counter and retrieved the lasagne from the bag. She peeled off the outer packaging and placed the small plastic box in the microwave and keyed in two minutes. Her hand hovered over the timer.

  She thought back to when they had brought in an expert, a retired scout master who explained the monkey’s fist knot to the incident room. What made the knot stand out was that it could only be tied by someone with a level of expertise. The monkey's fist was tied at the end of a length of rope as an ornamental knot, and a weight, making it easier to throw. It got its name because it looked similar to a small bunched fist or paw.

  The lasagne spun slowly in the microwave.

  The retired scout master had told them that most young boys learned to tie knots in the scouts. The monkey’s fist knot had little practical use, but it was a knot tied by enthusiasts. Everyone in the incident room had attempted to tie the knot under the expert’s watchful instruction, and only Marsha had managed it. Peter had failed miserably, and he had made a joke out of how bad he was.

  ‘I couldn’t tie my own shoes until I was eight!’ he’d cried. All the officers in the incident room had laughed, and he’d put his hands over his face in mock embarrassment.

  The keys were old, with a little rust. They’d been oiled to keep them in good use. The rope was shiny in places, and the monkey’s fist knot looked old, with oil and grime worn into it.

  Kate chewed on her nails, not noticing that the microwave had given three loud pips to say it was finished.

  She sat down at the kitchen table. The first three victims had been schoolgirls between fifteen and seventeen years old. They had all been abducted on a Thursday or a Friday, and their bodies had shown up at the beginning of the following week. The victims had all been sporty, and in all three cases had been grabbed on their way home from after-school training. The abductions had been so well executed that the killer must have known where they would be, and lain in wait.

  They had questioned PE teachers across the boroughs, and brought several in for questioning, and done the same with a couple of male teachers who had 1994 Citroën Dispatch white vans registered to their names. None of their DNA had matched. They then looked at the parents of the victims, and friends of the parents. The net kept getting wider, the theories wilder as to how the victims could be linked to the killer. Kate remembered a question that had been written up on the white board of the incident room.

  Who had access to the victims at school?

  A thought went through Kate, like a jolt of electricity. There had been a list of teachers, classroom assistants, caretakers, lollipop ladies, dinner ladies – but what about the police? Police officers often go into schools to talk to kids about drugs and anti-social behaviour.

  On two occasions Peter had roped her in to join him on a school visit, to talk to some inner-city schoolkids about road safety. He had also worked on an anti-drugs presentation given around London schools. How many schools had he visited? Twenty? Thirty? Was it staring her in the face, or was she just tired and overwhelmed? No . . . Peter had commented that he had visited the school of the third victim, Carla Martin, a month before she went missing.

  Kate got up and looked in her cupboards. All she could find was a bottle of dry sherry she’d bought to offer her mother on her last visit. She poured herself a large measure and took a gulp.

  What if they had no leads because the Nine Elms Cannibal was also Peter Conway? The nights they spent together moved to the front of her mind, and she pushed it back, not wanting to go there. She sat, shaking. Did she really have the balls to accuse her boss of being a serial killer? Then she spied Peter’s Thermos flask sitting beside the microwave. He’d drunk from it in the car. He would have left his DNA on it.

  Kate got up, her legs trembling. Her bag was on the floor by the back door, and it took some effort to get the clasp open. In one of the inside pockets she found a new plastic evidence bag,

  The flask has Peter’s DNA on it. We have the Nine Elms Cannibal’s DNA. I could quietly put in a request.

  She pulled on a clean pair of latex gloves and approached the Thermos like she would a wild animal needing capture. She took a deep breath, plucked it off the counter and dropped it into
the evidence bag, sealing the bag. She placed it on the tiny kitchen table. It felt like a betrayal of everything she believed in. She stood in the silence for a few minutes, listening to the rain hammering on the roof, and took another swig of the sherry, feeling it warming her insides and taking the edge off her panic.

  No one needs to know about it. Who could she ask who was discreet? Akbar in forensics. She’d bumped into him once coming out of a gay bar in Soho. It had been an awkward moment. She had been with a guy and so had he. He’d invited her for a drink the next night after work and she had assured him that his secret, if it was a secret, was safe with her.

  She would call him first thing in the morning, drive it over early and get the flask swabbed. Or maybe, if she got some sleep, this would all seem like a crazy theory in the morning.

  There was a knock at the door and she dropped the glass. It shattered, spraying glass and brown liquid across the linoleum. There was a pause and then a voice said: ‘Kate. It’s Peter, are you okay?’ She looked up at the clock. Almost 2 a.m. The knock came again. ‘Kate? I heard breaking glass. Are you okay?’ He hammered on the door harder.

  ‘Yes! I’m fine!’ she trilled, looking at the mess on the floor.

  ‘You don’t sound it. Can you open up?’

  ‘I’ve just dropped a glass on the floor, by the door. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Have you got my keys?’ he said. ‘I think I might have dropped them in one of your bags.’

  There was a long silence. She stepped over the shattered glass and quietly put the chain on and opened the door. Through the gap, Peter stood, soaking wet, the collar of his coat pulled up. He smiled a broad white smile. His teeth were so straight and white, she thought.