Perfect Silence Page 3

  ‘That’s just fuckin’ great,’ Lively muttered. ‘We’ve got a deranged Zorro impersonator in the city.’

  The top line of the Z ran from the bridge of his nose to the outer edge of his cheekbone, with the diagonal following down to the corner of his mouth and the final line reaching right back to his ear lobe.

  ‘Lucky they didn’t cut his neck,’ the paramedic said. ‘Mr Parsons, are you in any pain?’ he asked loudly.

  Parsons groaned. His face was sweaty in spite of the chill and he seemed oblivious to his wounds.

  ‘What’s he taken, do you think?’ Salter asked.

  ‘I’d put my money on Spice,’ the paramedic said, sticking butterfly plasters every few millimetres along the slash to hold the sides together. ‘We’re seeing an epidemic of it at the moment. The accident and emergency room is stretched to capacity and it’s freaking members of the public out seeing people standing in the middle of the street like zombies. The drug causes hallucinations and psychosis. Total oblivion like this is common. It can render the user completely incapable of normal communication. If Mr Parsons is still in there, he may well be in agony. No sure way of knowing.’

  ‘Who notified you?’ Lively asked.

  ‘A shopkeeper walked past this morning, saw the blood, called it in. We didn’t realise what had happened until we got a proper look at his face. He was trying to hide his head in a bin when we first arrived.’

  ‘Well, it’s not accidental,’ Salter said. ‘What do you think, Sarge? Row with his dealer, unpaid debt, or a fight gone wrong?’

  Lively took out his phone and got a few close-up shots of the wound as the paramedic finished up, then added a few more of the general area for good measure.

  ‘Not a fight,’ Lively said. ‘This is more of a branding. The lines have stayed pretty neatly on one side of his face and they’re quite straight. It was planned. Any blood on the ground around here?’ he shouted across to one of the uniformed officers.

  ‘Over there, by the pile of bin bags,’ came the response. ‘We think that’s Mikey’s stuff.’

  Salter and Lively walked across to the mound of stinking clothes and cardboard that constituted Mikey Parsons’ home. An arrow of spattered blood decorated the external wall of a shop, a metre from the ground. Lively completed his portfolio of pictures with the images.

  ‘If he’d been sitting down on the cardboard there, the spatters would have been level with his cheek,’ Lively said. ‘Given that he’d have been hard pressed to have rolled a joint with half his skin hanging off, I’m going to put my money on him being well and truly stoned before he was attacked.’

  ‘You think someone just walked up to him while he was out of it, and decided to slash his face open?’ Salter asked. ‘Could it be another Spice user? If the drug causes psychosis, it’s possible they looked at Mikey here but saw something completely different.’

  ‘I strongly suspect that we’ll never find out,’ Lively said. ‘Mr Parsons here doesn’t seem to want to cooperate or go to the hospital, and he’s sure as hell not going to be giving any coherent statement to us about it. Have you done all you can?’ he asked the paramedics.

  ‘Everything we can out here. Ideally we’d have taken him to the hospital to clean the wound, administer antibiotics and stitch him up properly, but he won’t get in the ambulance and we’re not going to try restraining him.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Lively said. ‘Salter, I hope you’re not wearing your best frock. You and I are about to get Mr Parsons here into the back of the squad car. Could we borrow a couple of pairs of gloves?’

  ‘Be my guest,’ the paramedic replied, handing over scrunched-up rubbery balls to each of them. ‘Good luck.’

  They slipped the gloves on. Parsons remained in place, staring off into the distance, his mouth opening and closing as if trying unsuccessfully to speak. Salter went to one side of him and Lively took the other, guiding him slowly towards their car. It took some time to get him to fold his body into the right position to get in the rear seat, but eventually he was in. Salter closed the door and sighed.

  ‘It’s almost as if you planned this for me on my first morning back to put me off,’ Salter said.

  ‘Did it only take eight months for you to forget how glamorous and fun our job is?’ Lively replied. ‘I’m driving. You watch our guest.’

  Salter checked out Mikey Parsons in the mirror. His head was bouncing up and down like a nodding dog with the movement of the car, and the white butterfly strips over his dark red wound resembled ghoulish Halloween face painting. He looked up suddenly, his pupils contracting as his eyes met Salter’s.

  ‘Hey, Mikey,’ she said. ‘Do you know where you are?’

  He let out a long, whistling breath. The sourness from his mouth wafted through the vehicle. Fighting his seatbelt, Mikey threw himself forward to bash his head against the dividing screen at the rear of Lively’s seat, then thrust backwards to slam the back of his skull into his headrest. Back and forwards he went, hammering his head harder each time.

  ‘Stop the car,’ Salter said. ‘We’ve got to do something before he knocks himself out.’

  ‘No, we’re getting back to the station. If he’s unconscious by then, we’ll call an ambulance. I’m not touching him while he’s like that and neither are you. We’ve no idea what he’s capable of with that crap in his system. An officer got bitten last month during an arrest.’

  ‘How much do you know about this Spice drug?’ Salter asked.

  ‘They market it as an alternative to cannabis, only it’s completely synthetic. Supposed to work like cannabinoids but the effects are more like LSD from what I’ve seen. Each brand is made using different chemicals so users don’t really know what they’re smoking.’

  ‘Where are they getting it?’ she asked, trying to ignore the thumping from the backseat.

  ‘Everywhere. It’s relatively cheap to produce, they package the stuff so that it looks professional, and it’s less risky than trying to import heroin or cocaine. We won’t get this stuff off the streets for a decade. Unless the anti-Zorro scares the crap out of users so badly, they stop.’

  ‘Come on Sarge, don’t go calling whoever did this the anti-Zorro. The press gets a whiff of that and it’ll be everywhere.’

  Mikey turned his head to the side for one last monumental smash against his headrest and split all the butterfly stitches open. Blood began to pour down his cheek in horror movie tears fashion, and Salter raised her eyebrows at Lively.

  ‘Whoever’s in charge of the carpool these days isn’t going to like us very much,’ she said.

  They got him into the station fairly easily until the desk sergeant stopped them. ‘You’re not expecting me to process him, are you? He’s straight for the hospital and you know it.’

  ‘He’s refused medical assistance, but he’s drunk and incapable, needs a few hours in the cells. We’ve got to try to take a statement from him when he’s slept it off,’ Lively said.

  ‘Stop the bleeding,’ the desk sergeant said. ‘Clean him up. If I’m satisfied, I’ll book him in. Good to see you back, Salter,’ he added.

  Lively nodded at her. ‘You go upstairs and report in with the boss. Someone should be back by now. Update the team with what we’ve got. I’ll be up as soon as this mess is sorted. And have a cup of tea. That’s enough for your first morning back.’

  ‘Right you are, sir,’ Salter said, heading for the stairs.

  ‘Oh yeah, not arguing with me now. Let me do all the dirty work,’ Lively mumbled.

  ‘Stubborn and stupid are two different things, Sarge,’ Salter grinned as she disappeared.

  As soon as she entered the upper corridor, the buzz from the incident room electrified the air. Ava Turner appeared from the opposite end of the hallway and stopped, a smile spreading slowly across her face as Salter walked closer.

  ‘Detective Constable Salter, good to have you back with MIT,’ Ava said.

  ‘Good to be back, ma’am,’ Salter said. ‘There’s a
murder, I gather.’

  ‘Looks like it,’ Ava said. ‘I’m not warning you off any particular duties. You’ve been declared fit to return and that’s good enough for me. Just communicate with me if you need anything. Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed,’ Salter said. ‘And congratulations on the promotion ma’am, even if I am a few months late saying it.’

  ‘I’m not sure congratulations is the right word. Feels more like a punishment most days. Where have you and DS Lively been this morning?’

  ‘Someone slashed the letter Z into the face of a homeless drug addict. He was found this morning covered in blood. No witnesses, no leads. The victim’s taken a drug – it’s sufficiently strong that he’s still unaware of what’s happened to him. Lively’s downstairs now booking him in as a drunk and incapable, in the hope that we’ll be able to take a statement in a few hours.’

  ‘Spice?’ Ava asked.

  ‘That’s Lively’s theory. Paramedics seemed to agree,’ Salter said.

  ‘The city’s riddled with it,’ Ava said. ‘Let the drug squad know. If there’s a new batch on the streets that’s turning users violent, they ought to start checking it out.’

  ‘Salter,’ Callanach said, walking out of the incident room to join them. He hugged her and Salter blushed.

  ‘Sir,’ she said. ‘Nice to see you again, but I’d better get going. I need to write up my notes, and DS Lively’ll go off on one if there’s no coffee ready when he comes up from the cells.’ She hustled away into the kitchenette.

  ‘Wow,’ Ava said, turning to Callanach. ‘Are you okay? That’s the most emotional I’ve seen you since … ever, actually.’

  ‘You’re funny,’ Callanach said. ‘Should she be back so soon, though? After all she went through and the loss of the baby.’

  ‘Give her time,’ Ava said. ‘I suspect she’s pressing the bruise to see how much it hurts. Keep an eye on her. Let me know if you think there’s a problem. Salter’s a good detective. We need officers like her.’

  DC Max Tripp poked his head out of the incident room and called to them. ‘Ma’am, we’ve got some background on Zoey Cole and her stepfather, Christopher Myers. You’re going to want to hear this straight away,’ he said.

  Chapter Four

  Zoey Cole lay on a trolley beneath a sheet. Ava and Callanach stood silently, waiting for Jonty Spurr to join them. A worker from the domestic violence shelter had provided an up-to-date photo, and attended the previous evening to positively identify the body.

  ‘Good morning to you both,’ Jonty said, snapping on gloves as he entered. ‘Public records have Zoey as eighteen years of age and I would concur with that. In addition, I spoke to the shelter worker who attended yesterday.’ Jonty flicked through his notes. ‘Here we are, a Miss Sandra Tilly. She explained that Zoey had complained of pain in her hands from badly reset finger fractures on her left hand. I found three old breaks, I suspect from two separate incidents in time. In addition, four healed rib fractures and a probable broken nose, although that one is always harder to be sure about.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ Ava said. ‘Zoey was living at the shelter having left home. She claimed that her stepfather had been violent to her over a number of years. Mother was aware but did nothing to correct the situation.’

  ‘There was never a police investigation?’ Jonty asked.

  ‘No. Zoey didn’t want to press charges because her mother was still living there,’ Ava said.

  ‘MIT hasn’t spoken to the stepfather or mother in person yet,’ Callanach added. ‘Uniforms went round yesterday and notified them of the death. That was before we had the full story. We wanted to get the facts from you before following up with a formal interview of the stepfather.’

  ‘You may want to hold fire on that. I’ve been making my own enquiries overnight, but they’ve come up blank so far. Let me show you what we’re dealing with.’

  Jonty removed the sheet to reveal Zoey’s naked body. The skin on her abdomen that had peeled back and lost its form had been laid back down and repositioned to reveal an outline.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Ava said, stepping closer to look directly down onto it.

  ‘My exact words when I began laying the skin flat,’ Jonty said.

  Dried blood around the incision added a freakish outline to the miniature figure cut from Zoey’s skin. A head shape had been taken from the area between her ribcages. Tiny arms spanned out to her sides and the legs extended down towards the top of Zoey’s thighs.

  ‘Was she pregnant?’ Callanach asked. ‘Is this supposed to represent a baby?’

  ‘That was the first thing I checked when I identified the shape, but she wasn’t pregnant at death, nor has she ever given birth. That doesn’t exclude the possibility that she hadn’t ever conceived and decided on a termination.’

  ‘In which case we might be looking for a boyfriend. Someone who resented her decision,’ Ava said. ‘You said you were doing some research overnight, Jonty. What were you looking for?’

  ‘Other similar cases. I found nothing, I’m pleased to say. In twenty-five years, I’ve not come across anything so outrageous. Will you help me turn Zoey over, Luc?’ Callanach stepped forward and assisted. ‘It’s exactly the same shape, cut out of the skin in her back. That would have been a more difficult procedure as the skin is tighter and there is less loose flesh.’

  ‘Tell me she wasn’t conscious when this was done,’ Ava said.

  ‘There’s good and bad news on that front,’ Jonty said, pointing at a few places along the cut line. ‘I believe she was conscious, although the likelihood is that she would have passed out quickly from shock if she could see what was happening. You can see at these two points that an outline was drawn onto Zoey before the incisions were made. The ink is still just about visible although hard to make out.’

  ‘What was the cut made with?’ Callanach asked.

  ‘A scalpel, medical grade. Easy to get hold of. We ran some tests on the skin around the edge of the incisions and have found substantial amounts of topical numbing cream. I think your murderer rubbed the cream into Zoey’s abdomen and back over several days in advance of doing this to her.’

  ‘They couldn’t just have killed her first?’ Ava asked.

  ‘Not what they wanted, apparently,’ Jonty said. ‘There are also four injection sites. I’ve sent off tissue samples to the lab and confirmation will take a couple of days, but given the proximity to the incisions,’ he pointed at tiny pin pricks at each shoulder and leg area of the cut-out shape, ‘I’d say the surgeon – and I use that term as loosely as possible – injected Zoey with a local anaesthetic before starting. Both sides have the same marks.’

  ‘Why bother?’ Callanach asked. ‘And before you say it, Jonty, I know that deduction is our remit, not yours. But if torture was the idea, surely there was no point alleviating the pain.’

  ‘As a medic, the answer is simple. If Zoey had felt the full extent of the cuts, she’d have moved her body in a way which would have made cutting clean edges impossible. Also, she’d have died from shock, I think. Her heart wouldn’t have coped. Her breathing would have suffered. The small amount of anaesthesia allowed her to live through the operation, and to make it easier to cut out the baby shape.’

  ‘Then the killer packed her wounds and drove her somewhere public to die?’ Callanach asked.

  ‘That’s where you take over,’ Jonty said. ‘The incisions were made not long before dumping her at the roadside. The wound packs wouldn’t have stemmed the blood flow for long, and the loss of an area of skin that size would have killed her sooner or later whether infection had kicked in or not.’

  ‘Where would the murderer have got the local anaesthetic from?’ Ava asked.

  ‘A contact in the medical profession. Theft from a hospital or GP surgery. Quite possibly from the internet. There are sites that specialise in providing medical supplies no questions asked, and this wouldn’t normally be regarded as a high-risk item to sell. Tracing it will be almost impossible,
which brings me to the gown she was wearing when she was found.’

  ‘It wasn’t a dress?’ Ava asked.

  ‘No. It was difficult to establish at first because of all the blood, but the opening is at the back, with three ties evenly spaced from the top down, which would have given easy access to her abdomen and back as necessary. No branding or label, and a very standard cheap cotton mix material, often found in clothing transported from China.’

  ‘The chances of tracing its source?’ Luc asked.

  ‘Several thousand to one, I’d say,’ Jonty replied.

  Ava sighed. ‘You said surgeon, but loosely. So is this a medical professional? What’s your opinion on the surgical skills?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s not butchery, but it’s not anyone who’s been trained. They made a poor job of lifting the skin away – all layers, epidermis, dermis and the subcutaneous fat. At one point the depth is one centimetre, but it thins out at the ends of the arms and legs to three millimetres. If you look closely you can see some hacking with the blade to lift the skin section out,’ Jonty said, pointing.

  ‘I’ll take your word for that,’ Ava said. ‘What about the restraints? I can’t see anything obvious.’

  ‘That’s because it was cleverly done. There’s an area of skin worn off the ankles and wrists, between two and three inches wide with no knot mark. I’m assuming a binding was used to secure the limb against an immovable object like a pole. That would explain the lack of obvious bruising. A thinner binding would have chafed. Under a microscope you can see that the binding has left green fibres on Zoey’s skin.’

  ‘Her captor didn’t find that out by chance,’ said Callanach. ‘Either they’ve done it before, practised, or they spent a long time researching. Any DNA or prints on the body?’