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Silverstone pursed his lips. ‘Hmm. What have you got?’
‘Registered sex offender Jeremy Tyler was killed in his home around seven-thirty last evening. A house fire was used to cover it up. Clever job, made to look like an accident, but it wasn’t.’
‘One suspicious death doesn’t make a serial killer.’
‘No, but the doc detected a pattern. He’s looking into it more deeply as we speak. I just heard back from him on another death, a few days ago. A bloke collapsed in the street. No obvious cause. Except, again, there was a needle mark found and no needle at the scene.’
Silverstone raised an eyebrow and sat back in his chair, fingers steepled in front of him.
‘The victim hadn’t worked in about fifteen years. So, we’ve got a dole scrounger and a sex offender. And, apparently, there’s been a string of others recently. A druggie, a drunk, a prostitute and so on.’
‘People like that die all the time.’
‘Exactly. Vulnerable. Isolated. Won’t be missed. Perfect targets. All died of plausible causes except the one that hasn’t been determined. Someone’s being very clever about it, but they’re out there – killing off the city’s undesirables. Doc Chambers is rechecking other cases to confirm. His idea, not mine.’
Silverstone stared at him flatly for a long moment, then sat forward. ‘All right. Work the Jeremy Tyler case for now. We’ll see about the serial killer angle if and when Doctor Chambers comes up with something concrete.’
What? Pete struggled to hold his tongue. Who the hell did this jumped-up Hendonite think he was? Pete had no idea whether he’d gone into the police training college at Hendon with the right degree or just the right connections, but the fact that he was on the fast track to the upper echelons didn’t make him an expert on anything, never mind pathology. Just because he’d been able to waltz in over the heads of far more suitable candidates to be in charge of this station for now, he clearly imagined he was qualified to spout forth on all sorts of subjects that he’d have been better keeping out of.
But Pete was in more than enough trouble with the DCI as it was. He didn’t need any more. He drew a long breath. ‘Sir,’ he said and turned to leave.
Back at his desk, he sat down, shaking his head incredulously.
‘What’s up?’ asked Dave.
‘I can’t believe that bloke sometimes. The arrogance of the jumped-up, clueless tit. He’s calling the doc’s judgment into question, now.’
‘Why? What’s Doc Chambers saying?’
‘He’s got a suspicious death on the table. Which is now officially ours, by the way. He reckons it’s one of a series. Except Fast-track, in his infinite wisdom, has just decided that it’s not, until the doc can “come up with something concrete”, as he put it. What the bloody hell’s that about?’
‘Reputation?’ Dave suggested. ‘He wants to be moving onwards and upwards, ASAP. Doesn’t want a serial killer on his watch – unless, of course, we can catch him and he can take the credit.’
‘Whoah.’ Jane looked at him, green eyes wide. ‘I take it all back. You’re not just a pretty face, are you?’
Dave tugged at the collar of his open-necked shirt and straightened his waistcoat. ‘Well, it’s good of you to notice, at last. Women, eh?’ he said to Dick. ‘Nothing but hormones and make-up.’
‘Oi!’
‘Ow,’ he yelped as both Jane and Jill thumped him. ‘Physical violence, boss!’
‘Sexual discrimination,’ Jill shot back. ‘Misogynist pig.’
Dick was shaking his head. ‘And you go on at Ben for not learning.’
‘I learned one thing on the Internet last night,’ Ben said, nodding towards Dave. ‘He’s more Bryan Ferry than Elvis. Only without the looks.’
‘Cheeky sod.’
‘I’m surprised you’ve heard of either,’ Pete said.
‘He hadn’t till yesterday,’ Dick said. ‘Poor uneducated boy.’
‘And he’s got you and Dave to teach him? God help the lad.’ He shook his head. ‘Anyway, we need bodies out to Jerry Tyler’s place, to canvass the area and check on friends, family, colleagues – all the usual stuff. The fire guys have given us permission to go in, but we’ll need wellies, apparently. It’s structurally sound, but a major mess. Dave, I need you to check the records. See what we’ve got for known associates, family and so on. You find anything, let me know and then go and see what they have to say. Take Dick or Jill with you, as appropriate. Ben, you can come with us,’ he said to the spiky-haired young PC as he stood up and grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair.
*
‘So, Doc Chambers reckons some sort of drug overdose, then?’ Jane asked as they went briskly down the station stairs.
‘The lack of soot in the lungs and no abnormalities in the brain or heart told him something was up. The guy wasn’t bound, but something stopped him getting out of that chair. Then he found a needle mark in the shoulder, up here.’ Pete tapped the muscle between his neck and shoulder. ‘Unusual place to inject – yourself or someone else. And there were no other needle marks on the body. He’s asked for a rush-job on the analysis, but it’ll be later today, at least, before the results come back.’
They reached the bottom of the stairs and turned right, towards the back of the building.
‘And how does it get to be part of a series?’ she asked. ‘This is the first I’ve heard of it.’
‘First anyone has. It reminded the doc of several others recently. Different MOs, if any at all but, taken together, they add up to a spike in deaths of these types of victims over the past few months. He’s got another one in the mortuary at the moment, so he’s going back and rechecking, see if he can find anything.’
Pete reached the back door, hit the security lock button and pushed through.
‘So, for now, we’ve just got the one,’ Jane said as they crossed the car park behind the station.
‘That’s right. And, whatever we think of the victim, he’s still a victim.’
‘Don’t look at me, boss. I’m with you. We can’t leave a killer out there to do it again, no matter who he’s targeting.’
Pete pressed the remote and his car bleeped, indicators flashing as the locks clunked open. ‘I might have to quote you on that. There’s going to be some who need convincing. Including DCI Silverstone.’
CHAPTER THREE
Driving out onto Heavitree Road, Pete turned left towards the edge of the city. A mile or so up the road, he turned left again into an estate of 1940s and 50s housing, the overall impression one of tidy and neat functionality.
‘So, what’s the aim here, boss?’ Ben asked from the back seat.
Pete glanced in the mirror. The baby-faced PC was sitting forward keenly, leaning on the back of Jane’s seat. ‘Time of death is around six forty-five to seven last night. We need to find out who reported it and if any of the neighbours saw or heard anything out of the ordinary around that time or just before and what they know of our victim. If they saw him coming and going, or anyone else coming and going from his house – friends, family, girlfriend, whatever. Build up a picture that might lead us to who did this to him.’
Pete turned at another junction. Tidy gardens with low brick walls, cars parked on drives rather than on the road, a grass verge between the road and the footpath, dotted here and there with small ornamental cherry trees.
‘Nice area,’ Jane commented.
‘Seems well looked after,’ Pete agreed. ‘Here we are.’ He pulled in outside a house, similar to all the others except for the blackened bricks around and above the broken-out front bedroom window and the damaged roof above it, rafters showing like charred ribs through a large gap in the slates.
‘See you in a bit, then, boss.’
‘Yep.’ Pete went to the boot as the other two headed off down the street. He took out a pair of wellington boots and a set of blue overalls. After pulling them on, he left his shoes in the boot, locked the car and went up the drive to the front door of the house; his nostrils filled with the smell of wet charcoal.
The door was open but there were two strands of safety warning tape across it. Pete ducked under them and stepped inside. The place looked like it had been through a tropical storm with no roof on. The walls and ceilings were soaked. Pictures on the walls were knocked off-kilter. The bannister railing at the top of the stairs was blackened and charred. All the doors were open, upstairs and down. The upstairs appeared to be brighter than expected, but that would be the lack of roof and ceiling, he guessed. He could see through to the kitchen at the rear and into the lounge to his left. It was dark in there, the curtains still closed from last night.
‘Hello,’ he called. ‘DS Gayle, Exeter CID.’
‘With you in a sec,’ a male voice came from upstairs.
Pete waited in the narrow hallway. A moment later, a pair of black rubber boots with yellow rings around the tops appeared at the top of the stairs and started down.
The man wearing them was in his mid-forties, Pete guessed, and the sort he could imagine on one of those firemen calendars aimed at women of a certain age and disposition. He smiled and held out his hand.
‘Pete Gayle.’
They shook hands.
‘Steve Patton. Good to meet you.’
‘So, have you got it all sussed?’
‘Hmph. They used a simple but effective delay method. Enough for the arsonist to be out and away before it flared up.’
‘So, deliberate rather than an accident?’
‘Oh yeah. Nobody’s that careless. It was set up to look like an accident, but . . .’ Patton shook his head. ‘It wasn’t.’
And the victim, if the doc’s right, was left sitting there, watching it, Pete thought with a shudder. ‘Which leaves us with the job of finding out who did it,’ he said. ‘Any damage in here?’ He jerked a thumb at the sitting room door.
‘No. Bit of water might have soaked through the ceiling, but that’s all. All the electricals were off in there.’
Pete nodded. ‘Any idea who called it in?’
Patton shook his head. ‘Anonymous. Just came through on the 999, said, “There’s a house fire at this address,” and hung up. We’ve got it on tape, of course, but . . .’ He shrugged.
‘Have you got the number, though?’
‘Dunno. I’ll have to check. I’ll let you know.’
‘OK, cheers.’ Pete shook his hand again and they both stepped out.
The fire investigator handed him a key. ‘Here. You might as well have this. I’ve finished here.’
‘Thanks.’
Pete took out his phone as the man walked away down the drive. He hit a speed-dial number and waited for the connection.
‘Forensics. How can I help?’
‘DS Gayle, Exeter CID. I’ve got a crime scene here that I need you guys to take a look at. Place has been in a fire, so time is of the essence, before the weather damages any evidence the fire crew left. We’ve got the all-clear for entry. Of particular interest is the sitting room, with a view to foreign fingerprints. The top of the TV and its power-button, a plate of food on a side table and perhaps the light switch. Also, wherever someone might have picked up a stack of magazines from in there.’
‘OK. I’ve got all that. I’ll pass it on to the team and they’ll be there as soon as they can. Are you currently on-site?’
‘Yes, but I won’t necessarily be when they arrive. If not, I’ll have an officer stationed here for security.’
‘OK. And the address?’
Pete gave it, then phoned the station.
‘Andy? Pete Gayle. I need a uniform out here to a crime scene. The fire in Whipton.’
When the duty officer had confirmed he would send someone, Pete went back into the living room where he pulled the curtains carefully back and checked for signs of disturbance. There was nothing obvious. A few magazines remained on the coffee table. He glanced through them then checked the DVD collection. The guy seemed to like comedies and action movies. He glanced around the room again, but saw nothing out of the ordinary, apart from the abandoned plate of food.
Closing the curtains, he headed upstairs.
The upstairs front room was utterly destroyed and open to the elements. Nothing remained in there but charred wreckage that stank of burning. Pete was searching the room next to it when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He drew it out and checked the screen.
Chambers.
He pressed the button to take the call and lifted it to his ear. ‘Hey, Doc. You got something?’
‘I take it you mean apart from backache and sore fingers?’
‘I was hoping.’
‘The answer is, yes, I have. I’ve just finished with the other relevant body that’s still here and found a single needle mark.’
‘Another overdose?’
‘Not in the sense you’re thinking and we certainly won’t get a measurement now, but I did a vitreous glucose analysis. The vitreous humour, the fluid in the eye, is about the only reliable source for biochemical levels in the minutes and hours leading up to death. The blood begins to degrade almost immediately post-mortem, so normal constituent levels in it wouldn’t be reliable. The result was 0.4. The only way to get that low is with an insulin overdose.’
‘And I’m guessing your victim wasn’t a diabetic?’
‘Exactly.’
Pete let go a long sigh. ‘Best send me the particulars, then, Doc. Victim file and your report.’
‘Will do.’
Pete chose not to tell Chambers of Silverstone’s reluctance to accept his theory without further evidence. There was no point now. ‘What about the other cases you mentioned?’
‘All in the ground or cremated by now, I’m afraid. I’ll check which is which, but we’ll need exhumation orders to pursue any of them.’
‘OK. Keep me posted.’
‘Of course.’
Pete returned the phone to his pocket.
Two cases didn’t make a serial killer, but they certainly started to look like one. And that was the last thing he needed to get tied up with right now.
*
‘Andrew Michaels was thirty-four years old, five foot nine and weighed seventeen and a half stones,’ Pete read from Doc Chamber’s report to his assembled team a little over an hour later.
Dick Feeney ran a hand down his cheek, skin rasping on dark stubble. ‘Big lad, then.’
‘You really are going have to reset your body clock, mate,’ Dave told him.
‘Eh?’ Jane frowned.
‘Well, look at him. If that’s not a five o’clock shadow, I don’t know what is. And it’s only . . .’ He made a show of checking his watch. ‘Twenty past one.’
‘Damn, no wonder I was feeling peckish,’ Jane said. ‘It’s feeding time.’
‘Talking of food and getting back to the matter at hand,’ Pete said, ‘Michaels worked for eighteen months in a bakery, ending in 2001. He’d been on the dole since then, living at home with his parents. He collapsed in the High Street; keeled over suddenly from a seat across from the Princesshay Shopping Centre. The attending paramedics said that witnesses reported nothing abnormal leading up to the collapse. He had just been sitting there quietly one minute and slumped on the ground the next.’
‘Presumably not from a heart attack from being a lazy, fat bastard,’ Dave said. ‘Or we wouldn’t be talking about him.’
‘Exactly.’ Pete stuck his photo – taken on the steel mortuary table – on the board alongside Jerry Tyler’s. ‘But you’re right about the intended impression. Victim two in the doc’s theorised series. In this case, the needle mark was in the back of his upper arm, the triceps muscle.’
‘So, what was it?’ asked Jane.
‘Insulin, based on the guy’s glucose level, as determined from the fluid in his eye.’
‘Ouch.’ Jill Evans cringed.
‘Why the eye?’ asked Ben Myers, across from her.
Dave glanced at him. ‘You a poet and didn’t know it?’
‘Because,’ Pete said, ignoring him, ‘it’s the one place in the body where levels of several blood constituents are stable for a time after death. It’s a filtrate of the blood serum, but it’s isolated from the bloodstream after death, so it’s not affected by the early stages of decomposition like the blood is. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help us with the actual insulin because that’s only stable for a few hours.’
‘And there’s nothing else that could cause the glucose level the doc found?’ Dave asked.
‘No. In the blood, it would drop to that kind of level fairly quickly after death, apparently, but not in the eye fluid.’
‘So, insulin jab, staged accident . . .. We’re talking about a fairly sophisticated perp, here.’
‘And one with access to insulin.’ Jane added. ‘Which suggests a diabetic. Or at least one in the family.’
‘Or peer group,’ Ben put in. ‘He could have borrowed or nicked a dose.’
Pete nodded. ‘We should check GP surgeries, the hospital and the ambulance trust – see if any thefts have been reported. It could have come from one of them as well as a friend or family member.’
‘That’s a big old job,’ said Dave.
‘I’ll do it,’ Ben offered. ‘What about vets?’
Pete frowned. ‘I don’t know.’
‘I’ll find out.’
‘Will you never learn, Spike?’ Dave asked.
‘What?’
‘Never volunteer,’ Dick told him.
‘Right.’ Pete grabbed his coat off the back of his chair. ‘Jill can give you a hand if you need it, Ben. Dick, check out the victim and see if he’s got a record of any kind. I doubt it, but you never know. Jane, you and I’ll go see his parents, see what we can get from them. Come on.’ He headed for the door, Jane’s heels clipping on the lino as she hurried to catch up.
*
Michaels had clearly inherited his height from his father and his girth from his mother. Brian and Kathy sat uneasily in the two armchairs in their lounge, leaving Pete and Jane on the sofa, the TV muted but not switched off in the corner.
‘So, why are the police interested in our Andrew all of a sudden?’ the dead man’s father asked, his hands clasped in his lap as he leaned forward in his chair.
‘The pathologist has come to us with some unusual findings,’ Pete told him. ‘Was Andrew diabetic?’
‘Why would you ask that? Because of his size?’ demanded Kathy, whose greying dark hair wafted in a curly halo around her as she moved, hands wringing in her lap. ‘Not all fat people are diabetic, you know. I’m not.’
‘We don’t judge, Mrs Michaels. It’s not our job.’ Pete felt sympathy with her defensiveness. He was still the same way with Tommy, despite all he’d learned about the boy in the last couple of weeks. All parents would be, he guessed.
After a long pause, she sighed and seemed to slump in her chair. ‘No, he wasn’t diabetic. Why?’
‘One of the pathologist’s findings suggested the possibility. You say you’re not, either. Is anyone in the family, or one of his friends, perhaps?’
She shook her head, unruly strands of hair wafting. ‘Why should it matter?’
‘Talking of friends, did you know most of Andrew’s?’
‘He didn’t have many,’ his father said. ‘Quiet lad, kept himself to himself.’
‘He was bullied at school,’ Kathy said, reminding Pete again of his own son, who was small for his age. ‘Never really got over it. We tried to encourage him to get out more, join a club or something, but . . .’ Her hands fluttered briefly then went back to her lap, where the fingers resumed their random pattern of twining together.
Evidence suggested that Tommy had reacted differently to the Michaels boy. According to both his peers and his teachers, he’d turned things around to the extent that many of the other kids were frightened of him. Too small to fight, he’d become devious, cruel and bitter. Instead of the brawn that he lacked, he’d used his brains to get back at the kids who’d previously targeted him. Not that Pete had ever noticed any of this, he had to admit regretfully. He’d always been too busy working.
‘Did he have a computer?’ Jane asked.
‘Up in his room,’ Kathy said.
‘Could I take a look? It helps to build up a picture of him – his associates, his interests and so on.’
‘He wasn’t into anything mucky,’ Kathy said quickly. ‘You won’t find none of that porn stuff on there.’
‘As I said, Mrs Michaels, I’m just interested in who he was connecting with, what his interests were, what he was like as a person. We didn’t know him, you understand.’
She grunted. ‘I suppose. Come on, then.’ She got up and shuffled towards the door.
Pete waited until the door closed behind them, then turned to Brian.
‘I’m sorry, but it’s possible your son was killed, Mr Michaels,’ he said. ‘We need to know as much as we can about him, to find out who might have done it. If anyone in his life might have had the opportunity or the inclination. Do you have any other family?’
‘I’ve got a brother and a sister, live here in the city. His mother’s an only child. Dave’s got no kids, Beck’s got a son, five years younger than our Andrew, but they don’t see each other except birthdays and Christmas. Her husband don’t come round here, either. He works down the industrial estate. Car mechanic.’
‘And your brother? David?’
‘Retired last year. Done his back in. Been troubling him for years but it finally got too much last spring.’
‘And do you see him much?’
‘Nah. He got himself one of those disabled cars, but he don’t drive it much and we don’t drive, me and Kath. Never did. Like she said – keep ourselves to ourselves.’
‘I understand Andrew was in town when it happened. Sitting on a bench up by the Princesshay.’ Pete’s mind conjured an image of the wide, pedestrianised High Street with the glass and concrete entrance to the covered shopping centre off its east side. ‘Did he do that much?’
‘Every fortnight, when he had to go and sign on, he’d spend a few hours round the centre. Got him out of the house, change of scenery, bit of fresh air, you know?’
Pete nodded. An isolated, lonely life, broken by sitting alone among the crowds on the High Street once a fortnight. Christ, talk about sad.
His phone buzzed in his pocket and he took it out, checked the screen and saw the ID flashing up: Doc. ‘Sorry,’ he said to Michaels. ‘I need to take this.’ He hit the button and raised the phone to his ear. ‘Hello, Doc. What’s up?’
‘I’ve just heard back from the lab,’ Chambers said. ‘We have the toxicology from Jeremy Tyler. I was right, unfortunately. He had been dosed. With succinylcholine, so he was paralysed but fully aware as the fire took hold around him.’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘So, what did she have to say while you were on your own with her?’ Pete asked as he pulled away from the kerb outside the Michaels’ house.
The sun was low in the sky, hidden behind a mass of heavy black cloud, leaving it near-dark although it was still mid-afternoon. Pete switched his lights on. The beams swept across other parked cars, pavements fronted by stretches of mown grass and low, neat walls protecting tidy gardens in front of suburban houses where situations like this were not meant to arise.
‘She loved her son, boss. Wouldn’t have a word said against him, even hypothetically. My guess – she was the reason he was so withdrawn. Overprotective, you know? Smothering. But essentially, he kept himself to himself. Had interests that most guys grow out of at about twelve. Trains, planes – stuff like that. The only vaguely social thing he seemed to be involved in was the annual model train exhibition at the local school. Has quite a big following, apparently. Draws people in from all over. As far as the West Midlands. And she was right. There was no porn on his computer, or any sign of it in the history log.’
He drove past the school she had just mentioned – the school his own daughter, Annie, attended. The one Tommy had gone to as well until just over a year ago when he switched to the local senior school. Cars lined both sides of the road outside, parents sitting patiently waiting for their offspring to emerge. The bright railings and heavy metal gates made it look like some kind of junior prison. His mind conjured an image of ten-year-old Annie, sitting at her desk, sucking on the end of her pen as she avidly watched the teacher at the front of the class, absorbing every speck of information they could provide.