02-Shifting Skin (6 page)

At last they turned on to Mount Road and a couple of minutes later they pulled up by the Belle Vue Housing Office. Council workers were crowded in the car park, staring through the metal struts of the fence. The mist had burned away, and across the grass several uniformed officers were attempting to keep a small gathering of locals at bay. Jon and Rick started across the grass, warrant cards ready.

‘Has someone been killed?’ A council worker in a shiny grey suit called through the fence. The eager note in his voice riled Jon. ‘It looks like a corpse.’

Jon paused and stared at the man, took in his pallid skin and fish-like eyes. ‘So do you.’ He carried on, leaving gasps of shock behind him.

Without turning his head, Rick murmured, ‘Please, don’t mince your words.’

He smiled to indicate sarcasm but Jon’s face remained stormy.

‘One thing I hate is members of the public getting a thrill from this sort of thing.’

As they reached the rendezvous point in the outer ring of tape Jon noticed a young man nearby lining up the crime scene in the viewfinder of his camera phone. ‘If I hear that click, I’ll impound your phone as evidence.’

The man lowered the phone, an uncertain expression on his face. A uniform stepped over and, as he noted down their names, Jon nodded towards the man with the phone. ‘Take his name and address.’ Then, louder, ‘The perpetrator of a crime often returns to where he committed it.’ The man looked as if he wished he’d stayed at home.

Jon and Rick proceeded to the inner cordon. The pathologist and crime-scene manager had yet to arrive, so no one was entering the circle of tape. Beyond it was the body. Like the first two victims, she was naked except for a pair of knickers. Unlike the first two victims, her face had been removed.

Jon felt his throat contract. Shit, we’ve got an evil bastard on our hands.

Rick looked away first. ‘That’s grotesque. It’s like something from that exhibition.’

Jon turned his head. ‘What exhibition?’

Rick looked up at the sky. ‘What’s his name? Von Hagen, that’s it. He removes the skin from corpses, preserves them, then puts them in various poses. The exhibition was down in London not long ago.’

They turned back to the dead woman and regarded her for a little longer before Rick added, ‘She seems too young to have lost that many teeth.’

Jon nodded. The smooth and supple skin that remained on the corpse’s limbs was that of a young woman, yet half of her teeth were missing. Keeping his eyes on the body, Jon began walking round the perimeter. With each step the sense that he was viewing some sort of display increased. ‘You should investigate that.’

Rick looked at him enquiringly.

‘That Von Hagen thing. It occurred to me when looking at Carol Miller’s body – why risk dumping it in the middle of a public park? He must be trying to make some sort of a point. I thought it was a warning, but maybe it’s a display.’

He looked around. Once again houses bordered the grass: a council terrace down one side, more-expensive-looking properties with large rear gardens on the other. Several worried owners stood behind their fences, exchanging comments. Above the roofs he could just make out the tops of the floodlights that ringed the greyhound track. A solitary phone mast towered over the scene, topped by ugly panels of grey metal. ‘If only there was a camera on that.’

About five minutes later the Home Office pathologist arrived.

‘Fast mover,’ observed Jon as the pathologist folded his long limbs into a white suit.

‘The call came through when I was on my way to work. It was easier to come straight here.’ He slipped on white overshoes and, laying down footplates before him, approached the body.

While Jon waited for him to complete his initial examination, the major-incident wagon pulled up in the Housing Offices car park. Several officers approached the crime scene, carrying poles and a white plastic canopy. As soon as the pathologist had properly surveyed the body Jon said, ‘What do you reckon?’

‘Well’ – the pathologist stood up, one knee popping loudly

– ‘she’s been here most of the night. There was a heavy dew and some mist this morning. I don’t know when the dew point occurred – I noticed my car had a light covering when I took the dog out for a walk at about eleven o’clock last night.’ He looked at the sun, still low in the sky. ‘The side of the body still hidden from the sun is soaking, as is her hair.’

‘Any idea on time of death?’

‘Rigor mortis is pretty well established. The facial muscles are stiff, though whether the fact that they’ve lost their layer of skin is relevant I’d have to find out. Despite that, the limbs are also going. Her being out here all night would have delayed its onset, but I’d say she was killed a good twelve hours ago, maybe more.’

‘And the lack of blood around the body. She was moved here?’

‘Just like last time. One thing I’m not sure about is the damage to her abdomen. The wounds are very rough.’

‘Dog bites,’ said Jon.

The pathologist looked dismayed and Jon was pleased to have broken through his professional detachment.

‘What’s your opinion now on this guy’s medical skills?’ Jon asked, hands in his pockets.

The doctor looked at him, regret tugging at the corners of his eyes. ‘To remove a face in its entirety like this takes a lot of time and skill.’ He crouched, extending a finger to the victim’s hairline. ‘He’s created a coronal flap by cutting from one ear, across the top of the forehead to the other ear. Then he’s peeled the skin away – not particularly hard where the forehead is con- cerned, since the peri-cranial flesh is quite loose and you only have the frontalis muscle to worry about.’ He pointed to his own forehead and raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s the one that lets you do that. Next, I imagine he made incisions down the sides of the face and right along the jawline. This is where it would have got complicated. The muscles in your body are attached to your bones by tendons. Your facial muscles differ from all your other muscles in that they attach directly to other muscles or to the skin, which is why the human face is capable of such an amazing array of expressions. The movement of one muscle has an effect on its neighbour – a kind of ripple effect, if you like.

‘Whoever did this has divided the skin from the ocular muscles – which surround the eye – almost perfectly.’ He pointed to an exposed eyeball. ‘Just a tiny nick here, then he’s carried on down the face, leaving all the muscles around the nose perfectly intact – I forget their names,
levator
and
Compressor naris
or something. Next, he reached the mouth. He’s removed her lips, with the result she now looks like she’s grinning for kingdom come. Perhaps that’s what he wanted.’

‘So he’s had formal training of some description?’ Jon asked, relieved to look away from the mutilated corpse.

‘He’s got surgical knowledge, without a doubt. The key to surgery is all about finding a plane – the layer between the dermis, or outer layer of skin, and the sub-dermal tissue. Once you’ve found your plane, you make your incision along it and the skin lifts away quite easily. But to find your plane and keep it while navigating all the contours of the face and its delicate arrangement of muscles? That’s quite a feat.’

Jon nodded his thanks and turned away. When he got his hands on whoever was doing this, the bastard had better admit to everything straight away. Otherwise it would take more than the duty officer to stop him visiting the sick fuck in his cell and beating a confession out of him with his bare hands.

By the time McCloughlin showed up, the body was shrouded by a white tent. The pathologist and photographer were inside and flashes kept going off, making it appear like they were in there enjoying a particularly morbid party.

‘DI Spicer,’ McCloughlin announced, rubbing his hands together. ‘First to the scene again?’

The comment wasn’t accompanied by a smile. On the Chewing Gum Killer case, Jon had arrived at a crime scene ahead of McCloughlin and the observations he’d made had eventually led him to the killer. It still bristled with McCloughlin.

‘Sir, I picked up the call to your desk phone,’ Rick intervened.

McCloughlin didn’t seem bothered and Jon glanced at Rick. So, the arrangement you have with McCloughlin extends to taking his phonecalls?

‘And Jon took the opportunity of teaching you how to crack a case all by yourself?’ McCloughlin walked off without waiting for an answer.

Rick spoke from the corner of his mouth. ‘Someone got out of bed the wrong side.’

Jon’s hands were clenched tight in his pockets. ‘I guess that’s our cue to bugger off.’

As they set off back to the car Jon spotted a petite figure with tousled black hair hurrying across the grass towards him. She was struggling slightly with what looked like a large plastic toolbox: Nikki Kingston, the crime-scene manager. He’d used just to fancy her, but with what they’d gone through during the Chewing Gum Killer investigation, the bond between them had deepened to a level he’d never dare let Alice know about.

‘Nikki, you’ve got this one?’

She smiled up at him. ‘Jon Spicer. My lucky day.’ Her eyes lingered on his for another heartbeat before she turned to Rick.

Jon coughed. ‘Nikki Kingston, crime-scene manager. DS Rick Saville, my new partner.’

Rick’s businesslike exterior underwent a fractional softening, and Jon noticed a lightness in his touch as he clasped her hand.

Nikki turned back to Jon. Something was sparking in her eyes and jealousy jabbed him in the chest. ‘So, am I reporting to you?’ she asked.

He shook his head, ‘I’m on another part of the investigation. Carol Miller, mainly.’

Her eyes widened. ‘You mean this one’s connected to the

Butcher? I was just told it was a naked body in a field.’

‘It is. Except her face is about two feet away from the rest of her.’

‘Oh, Jesus,’ Nikki winced.

Jon gave her a grim smile. ‘See you in the incident room.’ She turned and started towards the crime scene again.

The walk back to their car took Jon and Rick past a makeshift ramp made from an old door and a few breezeblocks. Bicycle tyres had scoured the grass in front of it and left muddy tracks across the door’s surface. As they stepped round it Jon spotted something.

‘Nikki!’ he called.

She turned, saw the urgency of his wave and came back.

‘Is that a latex glove?’ Jon said, pointing. It lay in the long grass beneath the door, fingers slightly curled as if caught in the act of trying to crawl from their sight.

She squatted down to get a closer look. ‘Yes, and that looks like blood covering it.’ She examined the ramp. It had been knocked out of alignment with the breezeblocks. Treading carefully, she scrutinised the area around the door. Pointing to a heel mark in the muddy patch by the foot of the ramp, she said,

‘Looks like someone could have bumped into it.’

Jon looked back at the tent covering the body. With a finger he drew a line in the air back towards the road. The ramp was right in the way.

‘What are you thinking?’ asked Rick.

‘Our man dumps the body and sets off back to his vehicle. Only it’s dark. He walks full into this ramp, stumbles and drops the glove.’

Nikki was nodding with excitement, ‘Don’t go any nearer. There’s another footprint there, too. We need to get this area taped off.’ She turned towards the main crime scene.

‘Nikki!’ He caught her hand. ‘When McCloughlin asks, it was Rick who found the glove.’

‘No way,’ Rick protested. ‘It was your find.’

Jon didn’t take his eyes off Nikki. ‘You heard me?’

‘Whatever,’ Nikki replied with a frown, twisting her fingers from his grip and running away.

In the car Jon began indicating to do a U-turn, then changed his mind. ‘Let’s go for a coffee. If we get back to the incident room now, everyone’s going to be pumping us for information, and there’s no way I’m taking the wind out of McCloughlin’s sails.’

‘Why’s he got it in for you?’ Rick asked.

Jon ran a hand over his knee, wondering how much Rick knew. ‘It’s old history. I had a stroke of luck.’

‘The Chewing Gum Killer?’

Jon looked out the side window and nodded.

‘That was the favourite topic of conversation last summer in

Chester House.’

‘Well, there you go. You know already.’

‘Yeah, but it was McCloughlin’s case. He was SIO, he gave the interviews on the TV and to the press when it was all over.’

‘His case, but my collar. You know how it is,’ Jon said guardedly.

‘So why did you tell the CSM to say it was me who found the glove?’

‘We shouldn’t have even been there before him. The last thing I needed was to find what may turn out to be a crucial piece of evidence.’

‘So you got her to tell McCloughlin it was my find?’

‘Yeah,’ Jon answered, hating the fact that Saville now had something on him.

In the coffee shop, Jon tipped a sachet of white sugar into his black coffee. Rick carefully tapped half a sachet of brown sugar into his latte, then reached for the pot of chocolate powder to dust the foam on top. When he spotted Jon watching him, he suddenly changed his mind.