A Deadly Compulsion (11 page)

He sat forward, with a plate of ham sandwiches on his bare knees and a glass of milk in his left hand, grinning at the scenes being shown on the six o’clock news.  It was giving updates on the previous night’s fun and games at Long Hutton prison.  It transpired that the screw who’d gone off his rocker had been the father of one of his mother’s incarnations.  It gladdened his heart that so many of the worst cons in the system had been offed in a twisted form of revenge, at his instigation.  It was one of those days that seldom come along; almost equalling that long gone morning when he had been standing in the rain, watching his father die under the tractor, his body crushed and his last minutes full of pain and a fear that was so profound that he had almost been able to taste it.

The regional news came on, and Trish Pearson’s head and shoulders filled the screen.  “Last night,” she said dramatically – as if she gave a fuck – with her eyes not making contact with his, but reading from an autocue next to the camera lens, “a tragedy took place inside one of Britain’s top security jails.  A warder, his mind crippled by the recent rape, mutilation and murder of his only daughter, lost control, and in a state of unimaginable mental anguish proceeded to shoot twenty inmates to death in their cells, before killing himself.  There are two issues here.  Firstly, how could a warder be able to walk into a prison with a shotgun and boxes of cartridges?  And secondly, I think it safe to say that the real blame for what happened can be squarely placed at the feet of the mad-dog killer who continues to prey on young women in the York area.  The sick and twisted coward who has been nicknamed the Tacker must be caught and caged for the rest of his natural life.  And now we go to our outside...”

“You’re next, you bad-mouthed bitch,” he screamed at the set, shooting to his feet, causing the plate of sandwiches to fly off his knees to the matted carpet, as did the glass of milk, which slipped forgotten from his hand.  “You’ve gone too far.  It’s time we met face to face… again.”

HE
waited for his strongest ally, which was nightfall, and then loaded the blue plastic fertiliser sack and its contents into the boot and drove west, into the city and out of it towards Knaresborough.

Crossing the bridge over the River Nidd and passing the entrance that led to Mother Shipton’s cave, he left the road on to a forestry path, cutting the lights and driving at little more than walking pace, aided by pale moon glow.  He parked in thick bracken among trees that hid the Mondeo completely from sight of the road.

He had reconnoitred the area, planned this novel disposal days ago, and was now excited at the prospect of his work being found.  Detective Inspector Laura Scott and her posse of nose-blocked bloodhounds would get even more bad press as his reign of terror struck even deeper into the hearts of the population of North Yorkshire.

By the time he reached the edge of the rock cliff that overhung the cave below it, his shoulders were aching and his calves and thighs burned.  The body was a dead weight, literally.  And as he shrugged it off, for it to thud on rock that was only sparsely covered with a paper-thin layer of lichen and weed, he stretched and rolled his shoulders, twisting his neck from side to side, grunting at the complaining of his tight muscles.  Hefting the sack over the spiked, six-foot-high iron poles of the security fence had tested him to the limit.

Fifteen minutes later, he was finished.  He had taken the corpse from the sack and lowered it over the edge by a rope that was tied to one of its ankles at one end, and secured to one of the sturdy railings at the other.  The cadaver hung, a grisly, ashen, spectral form against the wet limestone, to drip with water that was so rich in minerals that if the body were to be left, it would form a rock coating; a cast that would be as fine as any sculpture.  It was a shame that the tourists – who would flock here in the light of the following day – would miss this new addition to the famous petrifying wall.  But he was sure that it would be found, and that the attraction would be closed as the plods searched in vain for clues.

Thirty minutes later he pulled back out on to the A59 and headed for home with Tina Turner belting out that he was
Simply the Best
through all four speakers, and at a volume that inflamed his spirit and assaulted his eardrums with a decibel level that, given time, would have damaged his hearing permanently.

At the house, he stripped off his clothes to sit cross-legged on the bedroom floor, shuffling a thick pack of Polaroids as though they were playing cards, to turn them over one by one and place each face up on the pair of panties that had belonged to the pictured prey.  Each was unique, generating sublime memories of his past exploits.  His breathing became quick and laboured; pulse racing.  Sensory overload made him dizzy.  Selecting a pair of stained, black satin panties, he draped them over his erection and gently barrelled his fist around the silky material.

“The ones on the list were all taken within a ten mile radius,” Jim said, drawing a circle on the map that encompassed an area with the village of Wheldrake at its centre.  “He’s in there somewhere.  Now that he’s giving the bodies up, he’s started taking them from farther afield.  He won’t expect us to put it together.”

“That’s still a hell of a big area to check out,” Laura said as she studied the map.

Jim was unfazed.  “Think positive.  We have the technology.  The electoral roll will throw up all single men living at outlying addresses.  And then it’s just a matter of elimination.”

Laura frowned.  “You really think it will be that simple?”

“Yeah.  Once you’ve got a list, a house-to-house will find him.  There’ll only be a few six-footers that fit the description.  And with just a handful of suspects it will be easy to do background checks.  I think he’ll stick out like a sore thumb.”

Laura reached for the phone and called Hugh.

“I’ll see to it,” Hugh said after Laura had run through the plan that she and Jim had formulated.

“I really think we’re getting close, Hugh.  He was careless with the ones he took earlier.  He didn’t bother going too far from his home for them, because he was sure that they were never going to be found.  I imagine that when we locate him, we’ll find the remains of more victims nearby, probably buried on his property.”

“It sounds too neat to be that easy, boss.  But I’ll get right on it.”

It was daylight when Vince Hopkins ambled along the concrete path that curved down towards the streaming face of the cave.  He had been asleep in the small hut since before midnight, failing to carry out the required hourly patrols of the tourist attraction, complacent over his role as security guard, having only twice in ten years experienced minor problems with trespassing teenagers.  And they had not caused him any grief. Just ran off when he shouted at them.

Vince was a fifty-nine-year-old tub of lard, who fuelled his obese body with a diet of junk food and vast quantities of Tetley’s bitter.  His tar-caked lungs wheezed as he stopped in front of the limestone cave and leant back against the waist-high railings that kept the punters at bay.  Looking out over the river, he lit a cigarette and watched as five swans flew low over the glassy surface of the Nidd, their ghostly white forms appearing out of morning mist that would soon be burned off by the rising sun.  They looked like a squadron of planes wing tip to wing tip, purposeful, on a bomb run of the bridge farther up the river.  As they vanished around a bend in tight formation, he turned to look up at the array of articles hanging in various states of stone-clad petrifaction.

Vince’s brain took long seconds to accept and recognise what his eyes beheld, and he dropped the cigarette and clenched his hands in white-knuckled horror as the realisation of what the new addition was rocked him on his feet.

She was naked, and her vacuous, blue eyes stared down at him, unconcerned of her condition or plight.  His mind took in everything, as in stupefied fascination he studied the corpse that was suspended over the escarpment.  He saw that her throat had been cut; the gaping maw a gleaming blue, purple and raw-meat red. Her mouth was a sealed line of glinting metal, and her nipples were missing from breasts that pointed towards him, weighed down by gravity.  A noose of blue nylon rope encircled her right ankle and snaked upwards to vanish over the ridge above.  Her other leg hung loose, down behind her, and his gaze lingered on the protuberant pubic mound and the wispy, sodden curls that matched the blonde colour of her hair.

The shock was too much for Vince.  It was as if a gin trap had snapped its steel jaws around his chest, crushing his lungs and tearing at his heart, causing him to cry out in agony as he staggered a couple of steps before falling to crack his skull on the concrete walkway. A plume of gossamer-thin cigarette smoke drifted out from his mouth, to be carried away by the gentle breeze as a massive cardiac infarction robbed him of life.

Lying beneath the hanging corpse, Vince appeared to be engaging Shelley Stroud in a staring contest, their sightless eyes unblinking, and expressions impassive as they faced one another in mutual disinterest.

Neil Frampton, a newly appointed assistant manager at Mother Shipton’s Cave Ltd, found the bodies as he searched for the errant security guard, who had not signed off duty.  Neil was young, fit, a non-smoker, and although badly shaken by the scene in front of him, was not struck down by a heart attack, only the worry of how much revenue would be lost.

Standing back, Laura and Hugh waited for the duty pathologist to finish up his ‘on scene’ inspection of the corpses.  Above them, where the rope had been tied to the security fence, a fingertip search was being conducted by officers.  Shelley’s body had been lowered to the ground after the forensic photographer had taken shots of her from what seemed a thousand angles.  Both of the deceased now lay side by side under cover of an Arctic-white Incitent.

“You want to take a closer look?” the young pathologist asked, appearing at the front of the tent, holding back the flap as he addressed Laura and Hugh.

Laura walked over to a concrete litter bin, pushed her cigarette end into the sand-filled receptacle mounted in its top, and returned to enter the bright canvas shelter.

“What can you tell me?”  Laura asked Ken Matthews, who she knew fancied her almost as much as his boss, Brian Morris, did.

“The security guard appears to have suffered a heart attack,” Ken said.  “The shock of seeing the corpse hanging there could have brought it on.  Looking at him, I would say he was in pretty bad physical shape; a prime candidate.  As for the girl, the cause of death will no doubt prove to be the cut throat.  The blade has severed her jugular and right carotid artery, cutting completely through her larynx and vocal cords.  She’s drained of blood, and you can see the other injuries.  Your boy has been busy again.

“The only other thing is this,” he continued, hunkering down to wield a pair of what looked to be long eyebrow tweezers as he eased the thighs apart with a gloved hand.  Protruding from the vagina was a piece of paper, wrapped in cellophane.  “It looks as though it might be a note.  Do you want it removed now or back under more controlled conditions?”

“Now,” Laura said.

The pathologist drew the folded packet from the orifice with his tweezers and opened it out so that they could read the message that was written in bold, black capital letters, clearly visible through the slick, transparent protective covering.  It read:

PLEASE FIND ONE (1) WELL NOURISHED BODY – SLIGHTLY DAMAGED.

LATE TENANT WAS SHELLEY STROUD.  MISSING RIGHT EAR ALREADY IN YOUR POSSESSION.  REMEMBER, THIS ONE DIED FOR YOU, LAURA.

JOHN WAYNE GACY XXX

Laura knew what Ken or Brian Morris would find when they got Shelley on to the autopsy table and commenced cutting, probing, measuring and weighing; turning what had been a human being into marbled meat and assorted excised bloody organs.  It had the unmistakable signature of the Tacker, without need of the note.  The stapled mouth, missing nipples and cut throat were his trademarks.

“Thanks, Ken,” she said.  And to Hugh.  “Come on, let’s go.  There’s nothing here that will help us.  The sad bastard is just playing games, getting his jollies again by putting his work on display and trying to provoke us.”

“He’s succeeding, isn’t he?” Hugh said.

Laura shook her head.  “Not really.  He’s baiting us, but every dog has its day.  Between you and me, Jim Elliott is advising on this, unofficially.  He’s already worked up a profile, and has played this game for a lot longer than the dickhead that we’re after has.  Jim never gave up.  He was like a Mountie; always got his man.  It’s not a case of if we catch this piece of shit, Hugh.  Just a matter of when.”

“I hope you’re right, boss.  So far we’ve got nothing.  He leaves a clean kill.  We’ve never found one single worthwhile clue.”

“Are you forgetting the bite marks?  Odontology can match his teeth to the last victim.  And now he’s done it again on the Stroud girl.”

“We still need a suspect.  The teeth marks don’t help if we have nothing to compare them with.  And I don’t see how Elliott can be of any help.  I heard that he’d cracked up and quit the FBI.  He couldn’t cut it any more.”

“It wasn’t that he couldn’t cut it, Hugh.  He walked because he’d had enough.  He was sick of being in their minds, tainted by the evil and sickness that makes these monsters tick.  He may never get involved again, but he’ll see this through, now that he’s committed himself to it.  And that means our sicko is on borrowed time.”

The following morning, Hugh came up with eight possible suspects in the area that Jim had homed in on, and arranged for uniforms to check them out.

Laura phoned Brian Morris, who had performed the autopsy on the Stroud girl, and could hear the undisguised disappointment in his voice.  She just hadn’t had the time or the inclination to visit the mortuary that day.  She knew that the pathologist enjoyed seeing her, and that he probably visualised her being as naked as one of his cadavers every time she stopped by.  But on this occasion, he would just have to make do with her voice.  The unbidden thought of the lecherous, middle-aged little man sitting in his white-tiled office with his glasses steaming up as he jacked off whilst talking to her, almost cracked her up.  It was hard to keep from chuckling as she spoke.

“Anything new, Brian?  Or is it the same as the last one?”

“It may not be of any help, Laura.  But he exsanguinated this one more thoroughly.  Hung her by the ankle to bleed out, instead of by her neck.  Also, the laceration to the throat was significantly deeper.  From the angle of the cut, I believe he strung her up before inflicting the wound.  I also think it fair to assume that the teeth marks will match those left on the Cullen girl, as will the staples.  For some reason, he used twice as many this time.  Oh, and the ear that you received did belong to this victim.  I also found a residue of white powder on various parts of her body, where the water from the cave hadn’t washed it off.  It’s gone for analysis.  She may have been moved to the site in a container or sack that the powder had originally been stored or supplied in.  If it turns out to be a specialist material, then you might just have a worthwhile lead.”

“What do
you
think it is, Brian?  Any ideas?”

“I think it might be some kind of fertiliser or ground up mineral, probably lime.  But that needs confirming.  The only thing that I’m one hundred percent sure of, is that the same lunatic is responsible for all these murders.”