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Scent of a Killer
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Текст книги "Scent of a Killer"


Автор книги: Kevin Lewis


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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

Anderson’s face became deadly serious. ‘Stacey, I don’t know if I can allow you to work this case. I mean, you must know what the possibilities are. Protocol demands that you be taken off all duties. This is a very difficult situation.’

‘For fuck’s sake, this is my daughter we’re talking about. You don’t really expect me to sit around on my arse all day and do nothing. And if you don’t let me work this case officially, you know that I’ll just go off and continue on my own. I have plenty of friends in the department who’ll pass information on.’

Anderson shook his head. ‘It doesn’t work like that.’

‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ said Collins, exploding in fury. ‘You told me that no one was better placed to handle this case than me. You said that my special relationship with Matthews was the reason that this case was going to get solved. And now you’re telling me that none of that matters – that I should just abandon the case.’

‘This changes everything,’ said Anderson. ‘When I said those things you weren’t personally involved the way you are now. It’s your own daughter that’s been taken. How can anyone else on your team trust you to get their back, to look out for them, if you’re looking out for her all the time?’

‘Look, sir, we know the timescale here. We know it isn’t very long. If this follows the same pattern as that of the police officer she snatched, we only have a matter of hours to track her down.’

‘But, Collins, we don’t know if her intentions are the same. Sophie doesn’t fit in with her usual pattern at all. For one thing she’s a child and for another she’s female.’

‘But nothing fits in with the pattern any more. The pattern has completely changed. Chadwick wasn’t a paedophile; he was probably someone who just pissed her off. Detective Sergeant O’Neill wasn’t a paedophile, he was a serving police officer, and we know she would have checked his wallet and papers before she killed him, but that didn’t put her off either.’

Collins shut her eyes. Immediately the ghastly pictures – of the bodies in the back of the car, the open ribcages, the marbled flesh, the tiny white maggots gathered around the neck where the head had been severed – came into her mind. Would that be how she would find Sophie?

‘I think we’ve reached the point where she’s so unstable that we can’t rely on her to do anything that she has in the past. I think we have to assume the worst.’

Anderson sighed. He could see he wasn’t going to win this argument. ‘Is there anyone else you need to contact – Sophie’s father for instance?’

‘Don’t worry,’ she said softly. ‘He already knows.’

‘Are you sure you don’t need some time to deal with this?’

‘What I need is the chance to get out there as soon as possible. Just before I found out about all of this I had a lead I was working on. I think it might be something worth checking out.’

‘Do you have any idea where she might have taken her? Are we any closer to knowing where the killings took place?’

‘Right now we don’t have squat.’

Rajid Khan felt as though his eyes were going to pop out of his head. He had been staring at his screen intently for the past four hours without a break and felt almost as though he and his screen had become one.

He was working a puzzle, a puzzle that he had no idea how to solve. How on earth was Jessica Matthews able to hook up to an instant message system but leave no trace of the ISP address she was using?

It was important work. An ISP could lead them to a computer, which in turn could lead them to the actual, physical, real-world address she had been using for her communications. This, the team had surmised, would likely be the same address that she had been using to murder her victims.

Rajid had tried a variety of techniques using similar versions of her screen name to try to re-create the same set of data he received whenever he attempted to run a trace on Matthews. If he could produce a similar result, he figured, it was likely he had stumbled upon a similar method of disguising the signal’s origin. So far none of them had been successful.

He was working on a 24-inch widescreen monitor that gave him plenty of space in which to operate. The main box was to his right. In the lower-left-hand corner was a document file with a list of protocols that he had yet to try. Above that was a screen from the online role-playing game he was trying to keep an eye on. His character was mining rare ore from a distant planet in a dangerous Level 2 star system – a long and laborious process. He had set up a series of bots – automated programmes – which meant he could mine even while he was sleeping, but he had to watch out for pirates.

Rajid blinked twice when the message first appeared on his computer screen. Surely there had to be some kind of mistake? He checked his network protocols and the source of the connection. Both seemed legitimate.

His next thought was that one of his old hacker friends was playing a trick on him, getting him all wound up and trying to make him look like a bit of an idiot among the top brass at the police. They knew he had begun working there only because he had been caught vandalizing the local police website and, though he enjoyed the chance to crack codes, he couldn’t shake the feeling of shock at finding himself sleeping with the enemy.

His fingers hovered over the keyboard as he worked out how to respond. He hit the return button on the instant message screen and his online identity – Geekking – appeared. He paused for a moment or two, trying to work out what to do next. He quickly decided that the direct approach would be best.

Somehow – he couldn’t work out exactly how – they had managed to learn the screen name that he had been using during the last exchange he had been working on. Very clever, but not something he could appreciate at a time like this.

Geekking100: Fuck off, Ben, I’m busy

shygirl351: I’m disappointed in you, Rajid. I was always

hearing how smart you were.

Geekking100: Mate, this isn’t funny. All sorts of shit going on here.

shygirl351: I know, it can’t be easy trying to work out how

she blocked your trace on her Ims.

Geekking100: How do you know about that?

shygirl351: Come on, Rajid, put two and two together. And

when you do, you might want to run and get someone else.

I’ll give you exactly 45 seconds. Starting now.

Rajid sat staring at the words on the screen for a few more seconds before bolting up from his seat and rushing across the incident room towards the office of DCI Anderson. He pushed open the door without bothering to knock.

‘Sir,’ she’s on my computer.’

‘Doesn’t anyone in this station know how to knock on a door?’

‘She’s on my computer, right now.’

‘Who is?’

‘Matthews.’

The two men arrived back at the screen just as the first sentence popped into view. Anderson immediately glanced through the conversation up until that point and decided on the next move. There was no time for specialist help. There was no time for anything. He sat Rajid back down and instructed him to type what he told him to in reply.

shygirl351: Time’s up. Has the penny dropped?

Geekking100: Who is this?

shygirl351: Don’t play the idiot, Rajid. It doesn’t suit you.

Geekking100: What do you want?

shygirl351: To trade.

Geekking100: I don’t understand

shygirl351: I’ve got the girl. What will you give me for her?

Geekking100: What do you want?

shygirl351: It’s not fun if I make it too easy for you.

Geekking100: I don’t follow.

shygirl351: You have to guess. And you get only one shot at it. Or Sophie Collins is dead. You have exactly twenty-four hours. Starting right now.

Anderson and Rajid looked at one another. Time was running out and the pressure was building. No one seemed to have a clue where Matthews might have taken the child. And unless they found one soon, Collins would never see her daughter again.

25


Sophie Collins stared blankly out of the window of the fast moving car with dry eyes that she could not close even if she wanted to.

She was as still as a china doll. She couldn’t even feel herself breathing. She was absolutely terrified. Deep down, part of her knew she had to remain calm if she was going to survive, but it was impossible. She was only thirteen. She couldn’t deal with any of this.

She knew nothing about this woman who had attacked her and could think of only one reason why she had been taken. It had to be something to do with her father. It had to be something to do with his past. They were taking her to get to him.

Jack Stanley had been dying. That’s how it had seemed. He had been on the ground, struggling to breathe. After that everything had gone so fast.

The woman seemed to react strangely when she realized that Jack was her father.

What on earth had she been thinking before? That he was her boyfriend? She had moved away from Jack and then come towards her. Sophie had tried to run but something sharp pierced the back of her leg and she fell to the ground. The woman picked her up, carried her to the car and then set off.

The more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that she was correct. The woman had taken her to get to Jack. Far better to kidnap his daughter to get him to bend to their will. She was determined to be as brave as she possibly could. She knew that her father would never let anything bad happen to her. He would be there to rescue her. He would make everything all right.

The drive seemed to last for ever. Eventually the car turned off the main road and travelled through a series of small villages before finally heading up a narrow wooded path to what looked like a farm complex and finally drawing to a halt.

Her body was frozen rigid in an unnatural position and she was starting to ache all over. She comforted herself with the thought that her suffering would not last much longer. Her dad would soon be there.

There was no need to use the winch.

For once Jessica Matthews had selected a victim who was small enough for her to carry to the makeshift operating theatre on her own. But for every plus there was always a minus.

Sophie Collins was by far the smallest person she had ever used her paralysing drug on. Matthews had only been able to estimate the correct dose for a child.

Sophie was still fully immobilized and Matthews worked quickly, laying her down on the stainless-steel table and fixing a series of stick-on monitors to her heart and head in order to check her vital signs. The drugs were dangerous in large doses and could easily stop the heart or prevent the lungs from filling up with air. It would be tragic if that were to happen with Sophie, she thought. Where would the fun be in that?

Sophie watched the woman move about in the room, examining various pieces of equipment, occasionally glancing at her. The woman had no idea that she was starting to get feeling back in her legs and arms. She had even been blinking. She waited until the woman had turned her back and was in the furthest part of the room before she slipped off the table, pulling the monitors from her body, and bolted for the door.

She had managed only a few steps when she felt something tighten around her throat. To her shock, she realized she was being choked. She twisted around and saw the woman with a piece of yellow nylon rope in her hand. The rope was knotted; she was tightening it to cut off Sophie’s air supply. The woman’s eyes were penetrating, cold-blooded steel.

Sophie struggled to breathe, pulling at the rope and asking the woman what she was doing. The woman was apparently determined to finish the job: she pulled Sophie down to her knees and increased the pressure against her neck, getting better leverage so the rope could not slip from her grasp. She was strong, but Sophie was fighting for her life; this knowledge gave her a shot of adrenalin that helped her to resist being placed in a more vulnerable position.

Determined to try anything that might help, Sophie kicked her attacker and attempted to ease the pressure of the rope, but this woman seemed to know what she was doing. In addition, she was strong, despite her size. She managed to avoid being thrown off and regained her advantage, never letting go of the rope. Using her full weight, she pulled and pulled.

Sophie did not give up easily. She dragged them both across the floor, trying to find something with which to hit out against this woman, but the rope was doing its work; everything around her started to go black. She passed out.

The girl had proved far more feisty and resourceful than she had imagined. She was truly her mother’s daughter. But Matthews had still managed to prevail. She had never been concerned that the girl might actually escape but she had not been fully prepared for the attempt. However, if anything, the little escapade had added to the general excitement of what was going on that evening. Sophie’s death would be an event like no other. It could eclipse everything that she had done up until now. Even Gilbert, her first. Even O’Neill.

Killing O’Neill had brought her a thrill like nothing she had ever known. She realized it was his very innocence that had proved such a boost to the sensations – the fact that he did not deserve to die.

And what could be more innocent than a child, a little child? Untouched, unsullied by the world. The thrill of taking the life of a child would, she imagined, be the greatest thrill of all. Killing without justification, without reason, without a care in the world. What could be better than that?

26


They knew who the killer was. They knew who her next victim was going to be. They knew in terrible detail exactly how she was going to die. A newly installed countdown clock on the wall of the incident room meant they knew exactly when she was going to die. The one thing they did not yet know was where on earth Jessica Matthews had taken Sophie Collins and just where she was planning to carry out her next murder.

Collins was feeling sick with worry and guilt and grief. The prophetic words of Tony Woods were now ringing in her ears. So far as Matthews was concerned, her campaign of violence had started out for noble reasons, but now, now that she had begun to run out of legitimate targets, she had widened her net. Now, in her eyes, everyone and anyone was guilty of something. No one was safe. Even little Sophie.

At some point in the past Collins and Matthews might have occupied the same moral high ground, but Matthews had since fallen from grace. The simple truth was that she liked killing for the sake of it. There was nothing more to it than that. And now that she had a real taste for it, nothing in the world was going to stop her. The only hope Collins had of getting her daughter back alive was to track her down. And fast. The clock was ticking and Sophie would be dead in less than sixteen hours.

The background research Collins had done showed that at the age of twenty-one Matthews had gained access to a sizeable trust fund, which was now all but depleted. As Matthews had always lived a relatively modest existence, the betting was that she had spent it on property. But where? They were back to looking for a needle in a haystack.

All around her the incident room was buzzing with activity as every last officer attached to the case followed up leads and reviewed case papers in a desperate effort to find a fresh lead.

Part of Collins felt it was wrong to be stuck inside – that she should be out and about, searching for her daughter. But where to start? The truth was, as awkward as it felt, the incident room was the best place for her to be. It was the best place to start looking for her daughter.

She shut her eyes against the increasing level of background noise in the room but immediately opened them again. The image that had burned itself into her mind at the beginning of the inquiry, the first time she had seen Chadwick’s body, had returned with a vengeance.

But the headless, handless body, the gaping hole in its chest, its internal organs ripped out, the marbled flesh clinging to the ribs – now it all belonged to Sophie. Knowing the fate that awaited her and not being there to help was the worst part of it. Her sweet darling little girl was going to be brutalized, reduced to something less than human. Turned from an adorable creature into a shocking carcass.

And then the same thought she had experienced when she first saw the bodies came flooding back to her: that they all looked so much like animal carcasses. And that’s when it hit her.

She opened up a web browser on her computer and typed a few words into a search engine. It took several more attempts, with various combinations of words, before she finally found what she had been looking for.

The video was small and grainy but it took only a few minutes of viewing for Collins to begin to feel that her theory might have some validity. Everything was starting to fall into place; a possibility was slowly beginning to reveal itself.

‘Tony, come here for a minute,’ she called out. ‘I need you to look at something.’

When Woods appeared and perched on the edge of her desk, she ran the video again.

‘What is this?’ asked Woods.

‘Just watch it and tell me if it reminds you of anything.’

The first few seconds were completely black. Then a logo for a well-known animal rights group appeared on the screen. Woods raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘Guv …’

‘Just wait, Tony. I really need you to see this.’

The logo faded and the screen was filled with the image of a man, wearing bright yellow dungarees, white Wellington boots, a long white apron and a white hat, walking towards the back of a large, brightly lit room. There was no sound.

The tiles were the colour of sand and the walls seemed to be made of stainless steel. At the back of the room stood a huge metal contraption. The camera followed the man as he moved to one side of this contraption, where the head of a cow stuck out through a hole. He reached to one side and picked up a device that resembled a gun but for the fact it was connected by a flexible metal pipe to a machine on the wall. The man held the barrel of the gun against the forehead of the cow and pulled the trigger. The cow shook visibly.

‘Ah Jesus! Why are we watching this?’ gasped Woods.

‘Please, Tony. Just bear with me.’

More men wearing similar costumes appeared and pressed buttons on the side of the contraption, which made it fall sideways, spilling the body of the cow on to a platform directly in front of it. Immediately, one of the men stepped forward and, using a long sharp knife, made a clean incision across the throat of the animal.

A torrent of blood poured out from the wound and the animal began twitching wildly. Every man on the team seemed to know his job off by heart. The blood washed over their shoes, and splashed on to their aprons and trousers, but none of them seemed to mind. It was clear that they had gone through this exact procedure many, many times.

While the man with the knife continued cutting his way through the neck, one of his colleagues moved to the rear of the animal, cut off the rear hooves and then attached two metal clamps to the rear legs. Another man removed the front hooves, while the remaining worker held up the head to make it easier for the first man to remove it completely.

As the head came away from the body, one of the workers reached up and grasped a bright blue box that was hanging down from the ceiling on a thick wire. There were buttons at the top and bottom of the device, and he pressed the uppermost one. Immediately the metal clamps began to rise up into the air, taking the cow with them. It rose higher and higher, until the remains of its rear legs were well above head height and the blood stump of its neck was swinging a foot or so above the ground.

The flow of blood had completely stopped; the blood that had spilled out over the tiles seemed to have drained away. Even the aprons and clothes the men were wearing showed little sign of what had happened just moments earlier.

The man who had been operating the clamp and crane now produced a knife of his own and made a deep slit from the centre of the cow’s belly all the way down to the top of its ribcage. A cloud of steam seemed to hiss out from the wound, which the man, assisted by two of his co-workers, quickly pulled apart to make even wider. What appeared to be a shiny grey sack began to emerge from the wound, followed by masses of pink and grey coils. One of the men reached inside the animal’s belly right up to his elbow and pulled out its internal organs, using a knife to cut away whatever parts remained. The animal’s guts were lowered into a wheelbarrow and immediately taken away.

Collins paused the video. The frame showed one of the yellow-costumed men directly to one side of what remained of the cow. It was hanging upside down, legs splayed, empty inside but for the marbled flesh of the inside of its ribcage.

When Collins looked over at Woods, his mouth was open in shock.

‘Before they cut them open,’ said Collins, ‘they use a special gun to stun the animals. It doesn’t kill them. It’s supposed to render the animal completely senseless so that when they cut its throat, it doesn’t feel anything. The heart has to still be pumping when they cut the throat to prevent clots building up inside the animal’s body. Death is from –’

Woods was ahead of her. ‘Exsanguination.’

‘Clearly a place like this is used to dealing with huge amounts of blood. Just look at how quickly it’s all drained away. Now take a look at the device attached to the back legs. It’s called a yoke. Sometimes they use clamps; sometimes they push metal hooks through the flesh of the calves. The yoke is the wrong shape to work on a human body, but it wouldn’t take much to, say, hook a strong piece of wire around it and use that to raise it up. It would also explain how a woman of slightly less than average height and weight could manipulate full-grown men into the positions she needed in order to do this to them.’

‘It would also explain the marks around the ankles,’ said Woods.

Collins pointed at the computer screen. ‘Then we have the removal of the internal organs. Yet another very strong parallel. Now the next stages are clearly different to anything that we’ve seen with our victims. From here the video goes on to show the animal being skinned and then being completely sawn in two to create two sides of beef. But do you know what happens after that has been done?’

Woods shrugged his shoulders. He was still taking in the details of what he had just seen. The similarities between the end result on the screen and the bodies they had found were remarkable. Truly terrifying.

‘They place the sides of beef in cold storage,’ said Collins flatly. ‘Every slaughterhouse has a huge room just for that purpose. It all fits. It has to be what she’s doing.’

‘But there’s no way anyone could carry out a murder in an abattoir. Too many witnesses, too many people around.’

Collins tapped the screen with her knuckles. ‘Everything about the way the killings has been carried out suggests that she’s been using a very similar set-up. Besides, the other alternative is that she could be operating absolutely anywhere in the country. At least this gives us somewhere to start. It’s got to be better than nothing.’

‘Well, you’ve convinced me, but I don’t count. It’s Anderson you’re going to need to get on side.’

‘Then let’s get him over here to watch this video.’

Moments later, the video having played through once more, DCI Anderson’s face twitched with confusion.

‘I know it sounds crazy,’ said Collins, ‘but it really fits in with the evidence that we have so far. We know that Matthews needs a place that gives her the freedom to kill at her own pace. It would have to be somewhere where large quantities of blood would not cause suspicion and finally somewhere with access to cold-storage facilities. And right now it’s the only possible lead that we’ve got.’ Collins leaned forward and placed her palms flat on the desk. ‘You yourself said that the killer was just as likely to be a butcher as they were to be someone with medical training. I think you were more right than any of us realized at the time.’

Anderson was nodding. ‘You’re right, it does fit. But it’s unlikely to be anywhere that’s being used on a regular basis. It would be too difficult to hide this kind of thing.

See if there’s some kind of trade association. Get a list of all the slaughterhouses within a hundred-mile radius. Find out which ones are closest to the place where the bodies were dumped and let’s pay them some surprise visits. Time is short and if anyone from this industry is involved, I don’t want them having a head start.’

It turned out to be a far less daunting task than anyone on the team had expected. With the vast majority of Britain’s farming community located well outside the capital, there were only a handful of slaughterhouses to be found unless you travelled deep into the Home Counties. Of those some dealt only with chickens, while others operated under religious guidelines and had little or no automated machinery. That left three premises: Anderson and Porter would visit one, Cooper and Hill another and Collins and Woods the third.

They drove in silence, Collins deep in thought and Woods unable to say anything useful.

They arrived at the abattoir on the edge of an industrial estate in Crawley just after 2 p.m. Collins glanced at her watch. They had only fourteen hours to find Sophie. She hoped to God they were not on a wild-goose chase.

The slaughterhouse was a large windowless building that sat on the edge of a field adjacent to a corrugated-metal structure where the animals were kept prior to being taken inside. Large gates to the left of the main entrance led to the loading bay, while a small door at the front led to a neatly furnished reception area.

‘I don’t know what I was expecting,’ said Woods. ‘But this wasn’t it.’

‘I know what you mean.’

But as soon as she stepped out of the car, Collins was immediately hit by a combination of sounds and smells that made her feel queasy.

Both officers heard the sounds of cattle coming from behind the building. Not the usual gentle mooing that you hear strolling down a country lane but a frantic, rapid kind. Collins had heard it once before, as a child, when she and her parents had gone to the country for the weekend and stopped off at a farm for some fresh produce. Right before the eyes of the horrified nine-year-old, one of the cows was attacked by some stray dogs. The sound the animal made at that moment was almost identical to what Collins was hearing right now. It was the sound of panic. The sound of terror.

All of a sudden Collins felt herself go slightly weak at the knees. It had been one thing watching the silent video and thinking about how it related to the case; it was quite another being in the midst of it all. Actually experiencing the screams and the smell of the blood and the flesh and the guts made it all too real. If she and the others didn’t manage to find Sophie in time, the horrors that were taking place in the building in front of her would be almost identical to what her daughter would be going through. Seeing it up close and personal might be too much for Collins to bear.

‘You all right, guv?’ said Woods, placing a steadying hand on her shoulder. ‘You’re looking a little pale.’

Collins sucked in a silent breath. She needed to be strong. This visit to an abattoir might well provide the missing piece of the puzzle and lead them to Jessica Matthews. It might lead them to Sophie. And as long as there was a chance, she could not back down.

‘I’m fine, Tony. Let’s go.’

The manager of the plant, Ronald Hale, was a tall, affable man with the kind of rounded belly that showed he liked his food and his red meat in particular. To say he was taken aback to be visited by two detectives on a murder inquiry would have been the understatement of the year.

‘I really think you’re barking up the wrong tree if you’re looking for anything like that here. We’re at the upper end of the market. We supply the likes of Tesco and McDonald’s. I don’t think you’ll find so much as a single wellington boot out of place, let alone some psychopathic serial killer on the loose.’

Collins looked around at the pens full of animals on their way to be slaughtered. All she could see was Sophie’s face.

‘This place is guarded round the clock,’ continued Hale. ‘The killing floor has to be washed clean at the end of each session, and that’s a job that takes at least five men to do. There can’t be any blood there first thing in the morning, there just can’t. We’re subject to random inspections every couple of days and the animals are inspected almost constantly. Believe me, if there was any way this place could be used to commit the perfect murder, I’d be a widow by now.’

‘What about cold storage?’

‘We’re in the business of selling meat, not storing it. The longer we keep it here, the more the price goes down. The freezers we have are emptied out at the end of every day. There isn’t room to keep anything here, and nowhere to keep anything where it wouldn’t be seen. This isn’t some Victorian mansion full of hidey holes and secret passages; everything is out in the open. This place is purely functional. Every slaughterhouse in the country is. But how far back do these killings go?’

‘Maybe ten years.’

‘And you think we’ve got a corner of our cold-storage room where no one has been for the best part of a decade? Do me a favour, love. You’re barking mad if you think anything sticks around here for that long.’

Collins could feel the panic starting to rise up within her. Her phone had been in her pocket the whole time, set to maximum volume. If any of the other teams had discovered something at one of the other abattoirs, they would have called her by now.

This had been the strongest lead that they’d had and now it seemed to be coming to nothing. Time was running out, Collins had nowhere to turn. Her little girl was going to die and she was never, ever going to be able to forgive herself.


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