Текст книги "Scent of a Killer"

Автор книги: Kevin Lewis

Соавторы: Kevin Lewis
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‘This is Dr Jessica Matthews. Sorry I’m not here at the moment …’

Oh God.

Stacey was sitting down but that didn’t stop her feeling her knees buckle. The moment she heard the voice of Jessica Matthews, her stomach seemed to rise up inside her, making her gag, and she could hear a rushing sound pounding away inside her head. She felt as though she were going to faint. A jigsaw puzzle of scraps of information instantly came together in her mind and formed a crystal-clear picture of the face of her friend.

Stacey held the phone at arm’s length and stared at it, mouth wide with astonishment, as though it were some alien piece of technology she had never seen before. Fragments from the profile of the killer flooded into her mind.

Intelligent. Methodical. Close links to the police. Possible medical background. Able to blend in perfectly.

It couldn’t be. Could it?

The bodies had been dumped in the area Jessica covered. She had been oh so pleased that Stacey had been assigned to the case and had helped her identify one of the victims – was it all part of a desire to play games? Scenes and snippets of conversations the two had shared in recent weeks replayed inside her head.

‘No one really gives a shit about people like that, do they? I know I don’t.’

‘I’ve always been fascinated by the workings of the human body.’

‘It’s nice to have someone on the team that I trust.’

‘Some men need to be taught a lesson.’

Could this really be happening? She had known Jessica for years; they had eaten dinner together less than a week earlier. They had shared jokes about men and work and other girly topics. They had worked together on dozens of cases. Could she have been hiding such a ghastly secret all this time?

Stacey thought back to the moment at the end of their last meal together when the waiter had dropped a tray. Everyone in the restaurant had jumped at the shock. Everyone except Jessica.

Now she heard Jacques’s voice in her head once more: ‘Research has shown that psychopaths and serial killers have a greater fear threshold, and are less likely to respond to fear-inducing stimuli or sudden shocks. Some researchers think they are virtually immune to those kinds of emotions.’

And that moment there was a heavy click on the line and a real voice sounded in her ear. Jessica Matthews had switched off the answering machine and answered the call.

‘Hello, is anyone there?’

Stacey said nothing. The seconds ticked by slowly before Jessica Matthews spoke again, first with a small giggle and then with a few softly spoken words. ‘I know you’re there. I can hear you breathing.’

Stacey was taken aback by the friendly tone. This just couldn’t be right. She had to be crazy. It couldn’t possibly be right.

‘Hi, Jessica. It’s Stacey.’

‘Stacey. How lovely. I was just thinking about you. What can I do for you at this late hour?’

Stacey did her best to think on her feet but too many things were happening at once, events were moving too fast for her to keep on top of them all. She was listening hard, trying to detect signs of – what? What exactly did psychotic serial killers sound like?

‘Oh, I was wondering if we could meet up in the morning. Maybe I could pop round. We could do that coffee we were going to do the other day.’

‘Sure, why don’t you come along to the hospital? I’ve got a meeting just before lunch but you can join me for elevenses. Hey, there’s a great new café near here called the Stone Bridge. The guy behind the counter is gorgeous.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh, yes. The moment I saw him I thought to myself, wow, who do I have to kill to get to go out with him? You know what I mean.’

‘Uh huh. Right.’

There was a pause before Jessica spoke again. ‘You and me, we’re the same, aren’t we, Stacey?’

‘Are we?’

‘Yeah. That’s why we get on so well. That’s why I’ve always tried to help you out. You remind me of me.’

‘Jessica … I … ’

‘I have to go now, Stacey. Way past my bedtime. I’ll see you soon.’

The line went dead. Stacey shuddered, then dialled a new number, an extension at the office where she knew the night team would be staffing the incident room.

‘DC Cooper speaking.’

‘Natalie. It’s Stacey. Do you have the toxicology reports from the case?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Why the hell not?’

‘They never arrived. We never got them.’

‘But you’re supposed to chase them up. That kind of thing should get flagged up. That’s what HOLMES is all about.’

‘They did get flagged up, and I made a manual adjustment to the file. I knew they weren’t going to contain any pertinent information so I cancelled the alert. I was just trying to save time.’

‘Who the hell told you? Who said they weren’t worth looking at?’

‘I … I … ’

‘Was it Jessica Matthews?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘It wasn’t.’

‘Then who?’

‘It was you. You told me. Last week.’

Stacey again thought back to her dinner with Jessica Matthews, the one when she had casually mentioned that the reports were not worth looking at, a fact Stacey had happily and trustingly passed on.’

‘Get hold of them now. And not from the pathologist’s office. Don’t even call them. Go direct to the lab. I want the originals. Nothing else. And I want them as soon as possible. I’ll call you later and let you know where to send them.’

There was one more call to make. Edward Larcombe was a veteran forensic pathologist whom Stacey had known for almost as long as she had been in the force. He could have retired years ago, but his skills and experience were in such demand that he felt almost obliged to continue working.

He answered the phone with all the world-weariness of a man who had become accustomed to having his sleep interrupted.

‘Hello?’

‘Edward. It’s Stacey Collins. Sorry to wake you up.’

‘Not a problem, my dear. If I wanted to only work nine to five, I should have become a filing clerk. What can I do for you?’

‘I need your help on a case. But this has to be off the record, strictly between the two of us.’

‘That sounds highly irregular.’

‘I know I’m asking a lot. I can’t explain right now, but you’re the only person I can trust. You’re the only person I can turn to.’

Stacey waited while Larcombe coughed noisily away from the phone. ‘What do you need?’

‘I need you to meet me at the mortuary at Guy’s as soon as you can. But you can’t tell anyone where you’re going or why you’re going there. Can you do that?’

‘Well, frankly I think I’m getting a little too old for all this cloak-and-dagger stuff, but, as it’s you, I should be able to be there in thirty minutes.’

By the time Edward Larcombe arrived at the hospital, Collins had made all the preparations. She led him through the entrance and past several bemused security guards to the mortuary, which was entirely deserted.

They made their way through the double doors and into the main room, where Collins pulled open one of the storage drawers on the far wall where the bodies were kept. Inside was the chilled corpse of Raymond Chadwick.

Larcombe looked at her intently, then peered down at the body in the drawer.

‘You’re a bit late, Stacey,’ he said softly. ‘Someone’s already done an autopsy on this body. Twice by the look of things.’

‘I know this is highly unusual,’ said Collins, ‘but I need you to look at this body and tell me as much as you can about how this person died.’

‘You don’t trust the opinion of the first doctor?’

‘Let’s just say I’d be very interested to hear what you have to say.’

‘Then I suggest you don’t tell me anything more until I’ve finished my own examination. When I’ve finished it would be good to see the original reports for comparison.’

‘I’m having them sent over. They should be here soon.’

‘Then I suggest you make yourself comfortable. This could take quite a while.’

Collins sat in a corner while Larcombe went to work with gloved hands, probing and prodding at the body, a look of intense concentration on his face. Half an hour later the reports arrived by courier and he asked for them to be placed on a desk close to the examination table so that he could read them after his examination. It hadn’t taken long for Larcombe to finish. He snapped off his gloves and tossed them in the nearest bin while making his way over towards Collins.

‘It hasn’t been easy. There wasn’t a lot to work with in the first place,’ explained Larcombe, ‘and there has been more decomposition since the first post-mortems were carried out. That said, two things stand out. First, the incision to the chest cavity was made by someone not only with medical training but also with a great deal of experience. There are no hesitation cuts, and the amount of pressure used was correctly varied from the top of the thorax to the top of the pelvis to avoid damaging any internal organs. I know student doctors two years into the job who still can’t manage to get that right.

‘Second, the victim was given intravenous medication while they were being cut open. I’m going to assume it was some kind of anaesthesia or paralytic, most likely a combination of the two. That’s the kind of procedure you only ever get in a medical environment. I’ve never seen it in a crime victim. What was particularly interesting is that the entry point for the IV needle was at the base of the neck. A very unusual site, though a highly effective one. I found the mark quite easily but it seemed that it had recently been covered up. By make-up. Fresh make-up, applied since the body has been in the morgue. I have no idea why anyone would want to do that. So tell me, Stacey, what exactly is going on?’

Collins nodded towards the desk on the other side of the room. ‘I think it’s time for you to read the reports.’

Larcombe nodded and glanced at the large clock above the desk. ‘I hope I’m going to be able to get overtime for this.’

‘Edward, if you help me crack this case, I’ll make sure you get a medal.’

Larcombe read the report in absolute silence with Collins looking on intently. When he had finished he removed his reading glasses and folded them neatly on the desk beside the tightly bound sheets of paper that made up the report. He pinched at the bridge of his nose with his fingers before he spoke. ‘Well, Stacey, I’d have to say that ninety-five per cent of what has been put in the autopsy report is absolutely accurate. Dr Matthews did her job very competently. Very competently indeed.’

‘Ninety five per cent, you say. So what was she keeping back?’

‘Well, there’s no mention at all of the IV puncture mark – which is either a sign of enormous incompetence or a deliberate omission.’

‘Anything else?’

‘The toxicology reports are rather fascinating.’

‘I was told they held no relevant information.’

‘That couldn’t be further from the truth. They’ve come back positive for an analogue of rocuronium.’

‘Which is?’

‘In a nutshell, it’s a muscle relaxant and is used in surgery as part of the general anaesthesia when patients need to be intubated.’

‘You’ll have to spell this one out for me.’

‘Of course. If a patient has trouble breathing, we do what’s called an endotracheal intubation. You see it all the time on hospital dramas on TV. They use a metal pole with a curved stick a little like a sword on one end and slip it into the throat to hold the airways open, while a plastic tube is inserted down into the lungs.’

‘I’ve seen that. I know what you mean. But I don’t understand the relevance. Are you saying the killer has been intubating the victims?’

‘Not at all. The difficulty with trying to intubate a patient who is still conscious is that the gag reflex is still active. Anything inserted into the throat makes the patient cough violently. The throat tightens up and it’s impossible to get a breathing tube down there. It’s a huge problem.

‘Rocuronium is one of a family of drugs that instantly make the muscles relax. Within seconds of receiving the drug, the patient will be as limp as a ragdoll and their gag reflex will be disabled. They can be intubated without difficulty.’

‘So it’s like a tranquilizer.’

‘Not exactly. It doesn’t make people unconscious. It doesn’t prevent pain. It just prevents people from moving. It would render them totally and utterly paralysed. Any decent hospital would only ever administer it alongside other drugs so the patient would be asleep during the procedure. By all accounts, being given the drug on its own is a pretty scary experience. Because it paralyses all the muscles including those of the chest, those who are on it can feel like they are suffocating to death. It’s said to be akin to having a severe heart attack, only you can’t tell anyone about it; you can’t even scream.’

‘Did the tests find the presence of any kind of anaesthesia?’

‘This was the only drug present in all three victims. Nothing else was being used. Nothing at all.’

‘Are you telling me,’ said Collins, stuttering as she tried to get the words out, ‘that our victims would have known they were being cut open, operated on?’

There was a pause before Larcombe replied. ‘You have to understand, Stacey, that after a minute or two these people would have been in so much pain that their brains would not have been able to handle it. They would have blacked out to prevent them dying of shock. But up until that time they would have felt every single incision.’

20

DCI Anderson ignored the phone for the first few rings, convinced that he must be dreaming. It was only after his long-suffering wife leaned across and elbowed him in the ribs that he reached across and lifted the handset from the cradle.

‘Hello?’

Collins was determined to extract every ounce of pleasure out of being able to phone Anderson at 2 a.m.

‘I’m not waking you up, am I, sir?’

‘What the hell do you think, Collins? What do you want?’

She couldn’t help but smile at the grumpy, hoarse tone of his voice.

‘It’s Jessica Matthews,’ she said firmly. ‘She’s our killer.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘This case. Chadwick and the others. I believe Matthews is responsible.’

She could almost hear Anderson blinking furiously in disbelief at what he had just heard.

‘Did you say Jessica Matthews?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Dr Jessica Matthews.’

‘Yes.’

‘The forensic pathologist?’

‘Yes.’

‘Your friend.’

‘Well, yes.’

‘Are you out of your mind?’

‘Sir, I’ve gathered a lot of information. I know it sounds unlikely at first but all the evidence points towards her.’

‘It better do for you to have woken me up at this time. Tell me what you’ve got.’

‘I can do better than that, sir. I can show you.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Outside your front door.’

Collins heard Anderson emit a noise that was halfway between a grunt and a roar. She knew he wasn’t going to be happy to see her, but for once she didn’t care.

‘Give me a few minutes,’ muttered Anderson, before putting the phone down.

Ten minutes later Anderson opened the front door of his home and ushered Collins inside. They sat on opposite sides of his dining-room table, and Collins pushed a sheaf of papers across at him.

‘Let me get this straight,’ he said, leaning forward intently. ‘You’ve come here to tell me that Jessica Matthews’ – Anderson said the name slowly, each syllable heavy with sarcasm – ‘is a serial killer? Have you lost your mind?

‘Yesterday you were convinced the killer was Dr Bernard, one of the leading forensic psychologists in the world. Today it’s a top Home Office pathologist. Are you doing any actual police work or are you just working your way through Who’s Who?’

Collins moved a hand up to her hair and, realizing how unkempt it was, tried to smooth it down. ‘Okay, I know I sound crazy. I know I probably look crazy …’

‘You got that right. You’re seeing guilt everywhere. Are you sure you’re not just trying to find a suspect to fit the facts, instead of the other way around? You’ve got too many years in the job to make an error like that, surely.’

Collins shook her head. ‘But I also thought I was crazy when this idea first came to me. But it all fits. She has the right kind of background and the right level of knowledge. She fits the profile.’

Anderson tossed the papers back on the table. ‘Dozens of people fit the profile. That’s the way they’re put together. Deliberately vague. It doesn’t mean anything. Pretty much everyone on the team fits the profile. For crying out loud, I fit the profile! You’re going to need a lot more than that.’

‘There are errors in the autopsy, major omissions.’

Now it was Anderson’s turn to shake his head. ‘That’s the best you have? You might have misheard her. It could be nothing more than a simple mistake. She’s a highly respected doctor. She’s virtually part of the inquiry. She’s a close friend of half the senior staff down at Scotland Yard. Oh, and in case it’s somehow slipped your attention, she’s also female.’ He threw his hands high in the air in frustration. ‘Female serial killers are pretty much non-existent.’

‘They’re rare but not unheard of. Look at Rosemary West – ten murders over a period of sixteen years – or Myra Hindley – five murders. You’re making the classic mistake of dismissing her because she’s female.’

‘Yes, but in both those cases the women had male accomplices …’

‘And who’s to say that’s not the case with Matthews? There are things that she has said to me, things that have happened when we’ve been together.’

Anderson sat back and put his hands in his lap. ‘It’s all theory. Nothing concrete.’

‘There’s reasonable doubt.’

‘Not enough to make me want to touch this with a barge pole. It’s all very well when we’re dealing with the likes of a Billy-no-mates, of whom Billy Moorwood is a prime example. Spending a couple of days in a police cell makes precious little difference to his shitty life. For all we know it’s probably the highlight of his year.

‘But someone like Jessica Matthews. We can’t go around arresting people like that just because you’ve got some kind of stupid hunch about them.’ Anderson sat back in his chair and put the palms of his hands together, touching the tip of his nose with the tips of his fingers. ‘What I want are facts, not speculations. I can’t do anything based on theories pulled out of the air. You have to take into consideration all of the potential consequences of what you’re saying. Dr Jessica Matthews is one of the best pathologists there is. She’s been the lead examiner on literally hundreds of high-profile cases over the past few years. If we’re not a hundred per cent sure about this, the shit will really hit the fan.

‘Even if she’s cleared of any involvement in the murders after we’ve arrested her, the mud will stick to her name for years to come. Not only will she not be able to get any work but anyone who has ever been convicted on the basis of her evidence, anyone whose case file she’s even simply looked at, will have instant grounds for an appeal. We’re talking major, major disruption to the entire criminal justice system here. This needs to be entirely watertight. We can’t afford to fuck up, not even for a second.’

‘You’re right,’ snorted Collins. ‘You’re absolutely right. It’s much too big a risk. God knows what damage we might do to our careers if we carry on down this route. I’m sure Mrs Anderson would rather be the wife of a superintendent who played it safe than someone who actually cared about doing his job properly.’

A horrible silence hung in the air and Anderson narrowed his eyes for a moment. Then he snatched the papers out of Collins’s hand. He studied them carefully, his brow furled in concentration, while she stood up and paced impatiently back and forth in front of the dining table. At long last he looked up at her. ‘This part here, I don’t understand what I’m reading.’

Collins walked over to Anderson and he pointed at the paragraph he was reading.

‘It means she’s been giving us false information,’ said Collins. ‘I had Edward Larcombe take a look at one of the bodies. There are significant differences between the actual condition of the bodies when they arrived at the morgue and what she told me about them at the scene and during the autopsy.

‘Matthews told me it was possible the bodies had been frozen, that temperature readings were far below ambient. It’s true that the bodies must have been kept in cold storage – it’s the only way to explain the lack of decomposition – but by the time the bodies arrived at the morgue they had all thawed out. They were at room temperature and must have been for some time. There’s no way the bodies could have warmed up that fast.

‘And that’s just the start. There are dozens of other omissions. Needle sites not documented, toxicology results not passed on, details about the incisions not properly recorded. The only reason anyone would miss out that level of detail is to stop the finger of suspicion pointing back at them.’

‘Could just be mistakes, innocent mistakes,’ said Anderson.

‘She’s not that incompetent.’

‘So why lie? What was the point?’

‘She was playing games. Giving us a head start. ‘You have to remember what Dr Bernard said about the personality types who get involved in this type of crime. They are desperate to prove that they can outsmart the police. They want that level of confrontation. They want to be right there in the middle of the investigation. To some extent, they want to be suspects because they believe they’re clever enough to get away with it. That’s Jessica Matthews to a T.’

‘I don’t know, Collins. It’s a bit of a jump. We all take short cuts, we all makes mistakes with paperwork. If that alone were grounds for suspicion, half of MIT would be banged up by now.’

‘Even if you think that, we should at least talk to her, ask her about the anomalies in the autopsy reports.’

Anderson looked down at his watch. ‘Okay, let’s talk to her. There’s no harm in that. But let me do the talking. I don’t want to accuse her of anything just yet.’

‘And we should get Edward Larcombe to reexamine the bodies officially.’

‘Let’s not run before we can walk. One step at a time.’

Matthews did not answer the phone at her office; nor did she answer her mobile or the landline at her home. It took only a few more calls to establish that, despite having both an autopsy and a meeting scheduled for later that morning, Matthews had not been seen since the night before.

A check with security staff at the hospital showed that Matthews had entered the building shortly after Collins and Larcombe had made their way inside to carry out a second examination of the victims. Suddenly it all fell into place. Matthews had seen the pair together, guessed what they were doing and fled.

Collins was using the phone in Anderson’s study on speaker setting. He had been pacing back and forth as she made one call after another in an attempt to track Matthews down but stopped and stared intently at her as news of the pathologist’s sudden flight emerged. Collins did not meet his gaze; she did not want to be blamed for tipping off the main suspect but knew there was no way she could possibly avoid it.

‘I spoke to her last night, sir,’ she said sheepishly. ‘I said nothing about the case or my suspicions, but she must have sensed something in the tone of my voice. I think that’s partly why she’s taken off.’

It took a few minutes more to establish that Matthews had left the hospital by the rear security gate and that her vehicle was no longer in the car park.

Much to Anderson’s frustration, details of the vehicle itself were not available. Matthews had changed it a couple of weeks earlier and, despite requests from the head of security, had yet to submit the form giving details of the new make and model. There was nothing on file with the DVLA either.

Collins was not surprised that they had nothing. She had got over the shock of having tipped Matthews off. That wasn’t important. They seemed to have found their killer – why else would she go on the run? Now all they had to do was bring her in.

Anderson had been barking orders into his mobile phone. He finally finished and turned to Collins. ‘We’re all set. Let’s get to the main entrance. The Territorial Support Group are going to pick us up there.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘No more softly, softly. We’re going to make a house call on Dr Matthews.’

The driver killed the flashing lights as they approached their final destination: a small row of terraced houses in an affluent part of West London, just as the sun was breaking over the tops of the trees and the first rays of light fell across the road like spindly fingers.

Two teams of heavily armed officers from CO19 – sixteen in all, representing the entire Armed Response capability Anderson could muster in such a short space of time – were crammed into two vans that drew to a halt at the far end of the street, engines idling and waiting for the go-ahead.

No one had any idea what they were going to find inside Matthews’s house and no one was willing to take any chances.

The car carrying Collins and Anderson pulled up behind the van at the rear. The unit commander emerged from the side and came over to talk to Anderson.

‘We’re not expecting any kind of armed resistance but we’re going in fully prepared just in case,’ said the unit commander. ‘Whoever is in there, we’ll have them subdued for you in no time at all. We’re just waiting for your signal.’

‘Go ahead when you’re ready,’ he said.

Within minutes the house was surrounded; all the armed officers were pumped full of adrenalin, awaiting the final order. Each member of the team carried a Heckler & Koch MP5 carbine as their main weapon, along with a Glock 17 9mm automatic pistol, more than a match for anything the crooks might have. A few yards from the entrance the team split into two, half moving around to cover the windows and rear entrance.

Then to the cries of ‘attack, attack, attack’, the men and women of Blue Company, dressed in black combat trousers and bullet-proof vests, moved in with such ferocity that no one would have stood a chance.

Collins watched in awe, butterflies rising in her stomach as members of the first entry team took up positions on either side of the door and cleared the way for a man carrying an enforcer, which reduced the door to splinters.

Now the team were moving inside using skills they had perfected hundreds of times before. With the door gone, one officer flung himself down on a heavily padded knee and raised his gun to his eye, activating the flashlight slung just below the barrel.

There were muffled shouts of ‘armed police, don’t move’ and ‘put your hands out in front of you, on the floor now’ mixed with the sounds of screaming, breaking glass and the dull pop of stun grenades. Flashes of light could be seen through the windows on each floor as the team made their way through.

At last there was silence and then, after a few minutes when nothing at all happened, one of the junior members of the team came out of the house. He was somewhat unsteady on his feet, gulping down lungfuls of air. He moved to one side of the garden path, bracing himself against the wall; then, swinging his gun out of the way just in time, threw up violently again and again.

‘What the hell have they found in there?’ breathed Anderson, as the commander of the entry team, his face pale with shock, emerged through the doorway and approached the two officers.

‘We’re ready for you now sir. The building is secure.’

‘Any trouble?’ asked Anderson.

‘I think you’d better come and see for yourselves,’ came the sombre reply.

Collins knew they were going to be dealing with a dead body the moment she entered the narrow hallway. The familiar stench that she had come across time and time again during her career was hanging heavy in the air.

She and Anderson followed the firearms team leader as he made his way to the back of the house into the kitchen. The stench grew stronger with each step.

Collins saw the far side of the dinner table first. An empty bottle of Bordeaux was standing next to a white china plate that held the remains of a meal – a few small bones, dried-up sauce and a few scraps of green vegetable matter. A silver knife and fork were neatly placed in the centre of the plate and an empty wine glass still had drops of condensation clinging to it.

It was only when Collins took a few steps further forward that she knew what had made the young officer react so violently. At the opposite end of the table sat a man whom she instantly recognized to be Detective Sergeant Patrick O’Neill, or at least what remained of him.

He was naked and had been propped up in the chair so that the palms of his hands were lying flat on the table in front of him. His head was still attached to his body despite a massive gaping slit like a thin-lipped second mouth that smiled out across the width of his neck. His chest had been split wide open all the way down to his belly button and beyond, and inside Collins could see the now familiar marbled fat on the inside of his ribs, all too reminiscent of the hanging carcasses she saw in the trucks that pulled up outside the butchers’ shops to make their deliveries.

O’Neill still had his face. His eyes were wide open, seemingly in shock, his mouth was twisted into what seemed to be a horrific silent scream. The skin around his cheeks was as thin as tissue paper and had started to tear and peel as decomposition settled in.

A second plate of food and glass of wine had been placed in front of him as some kind of grotesque joke. It was clear that Matthews had eaten her own meal while staring at this macabre sideshow.

It took a team of twenty specialist officers the rest of the day to complete a search that ultimately yielded scores of items that needed to be followed up.

Then there were boxes and boxes of books, research papers, dissertations, newspaper and magazine clippings in the top-floor room that Matthews used as a makeshift home office.

Every item would have to be tagged, read and reported on to see if it could shed new light on the case.

In the past, days like these filled Collins with adrenalin and she would feel strong enough to keep going and never ever have to stop. Today was different. Today she felt completely and utterly exhausted. She knew deep down that nothing would have been left behind that was of even the slightest significance. Matthews had been too clever, right from the start. It was almost as if she had been planning all of this, right down to the dumping of the bodies in an area that would ensure the case was taken on by MIT South for at least six months, perhaps even longer.