A Tapping at My Door: A Gripping Serial Killer Thriller (The DS Nathan Cody Series) (6 page)

The investigators take all this in as they jockey for position around the body. But one thing above all others keeps vying for their attention. One thing demands to be seen and discussed and puzzled over. It is undeniably the scene-stealer here.

A bird. A large black bird. Its beak is slightly open as if it’s about to cry out. Its soft, glossy feathers ruffle slightly in the breeze. The eye facing out stares vacantly at the humans surrounding it.

It’s dead. As lifeless as the woman across whose face it lies. Its huge wings have been unfurled and spread across her eyes and cheeks, as if it is embracing her, comforting her, protecting her.

Says Webley, ‘What the frigging hell’s that?’

Says Blunt, ‘I hope that question isn’t indicative of your detective prowess, DC Webley. It’s a bird.’

‘I know. I mean . . . Well, it’s bloody huge. And scary. What the hell’s it doing there?’

‘Well, I don’t think it dropped dead in the sky and just happened to land on her, do you? It’s been placed there. A message of some kind.’

Webley shakes her head in disgust. ‘Gives me the creeps.’

‘I think . . .’ ventures Cody, ‘I think it’s a raven.’

‘
Boys’ Book of Birds
?’ says Blunt.

‘No, ma’am. Saw some at the Tower of London. Clever rascals, apparently.’

‘This one doesn’t look too clever.’ She turns to the pathologist. ‘Can we shift this thing, Rory?’

Rory Stroud is a big man. Gargantuan. Although a medical practitioner, he seems not to acknowledge the health benefits of dieting. However, his bulk has done nothing to diminish his self-confidence with the opposite sex. To Stroud, any female he encounters is fair game, and rumour has it that he enjoys a reasonable amount of success in that endeavour.

Stroud turns his jowly face on Blunt and beams her a lascivious grin. ‘For you, my dear Stella, anything is possible. Just bear with me for two ticks.’

She nods briskly, and it seems to Cody that she is blushing slightly. Seems to be a day for it.

They wait while Stroud directs the taking of some more photographs. Close-up shots of the head area, with a ruler laid alongside to show scale. When he’s satisfied, he reaches out his blue-gloved hands and begins to lift the bird away.

Cody is the first to react to what’s underneath.

‘Oh, Christ!’

They all see. They see that the victim has no eyes. Not gouged out, exactly, but stabbed into the back of the eye sockets, as if pecked to mush by the bird.

‘Oh, God,’ says Webley. She turns, takes a step away, her hand covering her mouth.

‘Don’t you dare step off the plates,’ warns Blunt. She throws Cody a look that asks him to keep things under control.

Cody moves across to Webley. He lowers his voice so as not to compound her embarrassment.

‘You okay?’

She nods, but her hand is still over her mouth. And it seems to Cody that there are tears forming in her eyes.

‘Hey,’ he says. ‘Don’t worry about it. Sometimes they can be pretty bad. I once had—’

‘No,’ she interrupts, removing her hand. ‘It’s not that.’

‘Okay,’ says Cody. He thinks she’s about to make an excuse. Not eating properly or something. Whatever. It’s fine with him.

‘No. It’s not okay. I know her. The victim. I know her. She’s one of us.’

‘What? What do you mean?’

‘Her name’s Terri. Terri Latham. She’s on the force. She’s a bobby.’

6

So this changes everything. And perhaps it shouldn’t. In an ideal world, perhaps it should make no difference whether the victim was a police officer or a prostitute. Perhaps it should be the case that exactly the same effort would be put into investigating the murder irrespective of the victim’s occupation.

But it does. It does change things. It makes it personal. An attack on a police officer is an attack on all police officers. It’s clear from the way the atmosphere suddenly changes that the assembled investigators have digested the new information and can taste the bile it causes to rise in their throats.

Blunt searches the faces around her. ‘Why wasn’t I told this? Did we know it?’

Nobody owns up. Nobody admits to knowing or not knowing.

‘All right,’ she announces to the throng. ‘We do this by the book, okay? No mistakes. No stone unturned. Bag and tag every blade of grass if you have to. I want the sick bastard who did this.’

‘Boss,’ says Cody.

He is either unheard or ignored.

‘And I shouldn’t have to say this, but I will. This story is going to be big. It’s going to hit the headlines. Everyone will hear how a policewoman was murdered here last night. What I don’t want them to hear is any detail from any of the people at this crime scene. Any leaks, and you will have to answer to me. Got that?’

‘Boss,’ Cody says again.

She rounds on him. ‘What is it?’

He points to the bird, still in the pathologist’s hands.

‘A message.’

‘Yes, I know, Cody. I already said that.’

‘No. On the bird’s foot.’

Everyone leans forward. They peer at the tiny blood-stained scrap of paper wrapped around the bird’s scrawny leg.

‘Open it up,’ says Blunt.

Stroud looks up at her. ‘I’d rather it were done in a lab. I could destroy vital evidence opening it up here.’

Which is a good point, thinks Cody. He watches while Blunt considers this and then reaches a decision.

‘I need to know what it says. Any delay might cost us. Do your best, Rory. If it falls apart, you can blame me.’

Stroud places the bird onto an evidence bag, then takes two pairs of tweezers from his kit. Slowly and carefully, he uses them to pull away the elastic band that holds the message in place. He drops the band into another evidence bag. Then he slips off the message and teases it open with the tweezers.

It contains a single line of printed text:

NEVERMORE

The pathologist reads it aloud.

‘Never more what?’ says Webley.

‘Nevermore,’ says Cody. ‘One word. It means never again.’

‘Okay, so never again what?’

Cody feels a crawling on his skin. He looks at the dead bird, half expecting it to jump up at him and start pecking and clawing at his face.

‘It’s linked to the bird,’ he says.

‘What do you mean?’

‘“Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore.’”’

‘Sorry, Sarge, but I don’t know what you’re saying to me now. What was that first word?’

‘“Quoth”. It means “said”. The raven said nevermore.’

He can see he’s making little sense to Webley, but then Blunt adds a contribution.

‘Edgar Allan Poe.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ says Cody. He turns back to Webley. ‘It’s a famous poem by Edgar Allan Poe. About a man who’s alone at night. He hears a gentle tapping on his door, but when he opens it nobody’s there. Then he hears the tapping again, but it’s at his window this time. He opens it, and a raven comes in. It sits in his study, staring at him, and all it keeps repeating to him is the single word “nevermore”. Drives him batty in the end.’

Webley’s expression is a combination of fascination and fear. She looks down at the dead bird again.

‘They can talk, then?’

‘Yeah. They sound pretty freaky when they do it, too.’

He follows her gaze to the bird. He can sense Webley’s unease. The raven is a bird of folklore and mystery and dark happenings. And it looks the part.

‘What does it all mean?’ she asks.

The response comes from Blunt. ‘That’s what we’re going to find out. Come with me, you two.’

She leads them back down the tunnel. Gets out of earshot of the others.

‘Latham was on the force. Right now we don’t know if that fact is related to her death, or just coincidence. There could be a lot of people out there who might be ecstatic to see her dead. It also means there are going to be hundreds of other coppers who want a piece of whoever did this. If they start walking all over our case, they’ll bugger it up. This stays with us, with MIT, got it? We’re going to solve it, because we’re the only bastards around here who know what they’re doing. But it means working like we’ve never worked before. Forget sleeping. Forget eating. Forget seeing your loved ones. This is your main priority right now. In fact, it’s your only priority. That a problem for either of you?’

Cody shakes his head immediately. Webley takes a little longer, but gets there.

Blunt looks directly at Webley. ‘Tell me about her. About Latham.’

Webley clears her throat. ‘We worked together for a while. Over in Birkenhead. This was about three years ago. We only overlapped there for six months or so, but I got to know her quite well. We went out together a few times. Had some laughs.’

‘Have you seen her since?’

‘Once or twice, but nothing recent. I didn’t even know she’d moved here. She was living with a boyfriend in Wallasey when I knew her.’

Blunt goes silent. Cody knows there are other questions that ought to be on her lips. Obvious questions. But something is clearly bothering her.

‘Latham,’ she says. ‘PC Terri Latham. Why do I know that name?’

Now it’s Webley’s turn to go strangely quiet. She seems unable to hold her superior’s gaze.

‘Spit it out!’

‘The Vernon incident. She was Paul Garnett’s partner.’

Cody watches as this sinks into Blunt’s mind. He can tell that all the ramifications of this new knowledge are being churned up in her head.

‘Oh, God,’ she says. ‘That’s all we need.’

Cody remembers the case well. Most coppers do. Kevin Vernon was arrested when police were breaking up a brawl outside a pub in Birkenhead. As it later turned out, Vernon wasn’t one of the troublemakers. He was just passing by. This was confirmed later both by witnesses and CCTV footage. What they could not attest to, of course, was what was going through the minds of the attending officers at the time.

It’s what happened shortly after the police arrived that is the subject of contention. Vernon moved away from the centre of the fracas, out of shot of the security camera. Two police officers – one male and one female – went after him. That’s when the timeline split, leading to two accounts that were not merely at variance but in direct opposition. Both plausible, but only one of them could be true.

The first account – the account given by the officers concerned, and the story to which they stuck throughout the whole of the ensuing investigation – is one in which two dedicated coppers were risking their necks as they so often do. In the face of extreme adversity they were striving to restore order and prevent bloodshed. And when someone – they can’t remember who, exactly, given that they were in the midst of a pitched battle – told them that Kevin Vernon was one of the ringleaders, they had to take that information seriously. Of course they did. And when that same person – whoever it was, because you have to understand that it was pretty chaotic out there – told them to ‘Watch yourselves with him’, they had to take that seriously too. Of course they did.

And even though they were armed with all this information, but armed with little else except a baton each, they remained paragons of restraint. They challenged the man, and he ignored them. They issued commands to the man, and he ignored them. And when they became more vociferous, he became more aggressive and threatening. And so they tried to arrest him. Minimum force was what they hoped to apply. But he was strong, this man. And he was large. And then he began swearing at them. Saying things that suggested he was not going quietly. And all around them was violence and hatred and abuse, and people were being hurt, police officers were being hurt, and what were they supposed to do? How could they just stand there having a discussion with this man who might be about to attack them, while some of their colleagues were in such danger? How could they not react to the immediate threat to their well-being? And, in any case, all they did was bring him to the ground. Yes, he hit it a little heavily. Things don’t always go to plan. Real life isn’t like the textbooks. He banged his head, and unfortunately it turned out to be fatal. But they had to get him under control. Had to bring him down quickly. Anyone else would have done the same. Well, wouldn’t they?

That’s one version of events.

The other version is one in which the two police officers decided to vent their anger and frustration on a random member of the public. An innocent citizen, just going about his business. They accosted him, they assaulted him, they brought him to the floor. Heavily. So heavily he suffered a head injury that resulted in bleeding into the brain.

And then he died. As a consequence of the unprovoked, brutal attack by two people who are charged with keeping us safe on the streets, this man died.

To be more accurate, it was the male officer who did most of the physical work. He was the one who leapt at Vernon, grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him head first into the unyielding pavement. He was the one who then sat astride Vernon, twisting the man’s arm behind his back as he leant on his head and swore angrily into his ear. Doesn’t excuse the female officer, though. It was clear whose team she was on. She’s as guilty as he is.

That’s exactly how it happened. Swear to God and hope to die.

There are other complications. It was later revealed that Vernon had severe learning difficulties. Those who knew him claimed that he was never violent, never aggressive, and that he would not have even understood the situation he was in or what was being asked of him. The two officers begged to differ. They knew nothing of his learning problems. To them, he was an immediate risk. He was where he shouldn’t be, acting unpredictably, saying things that were largely incomprehensible but certainly containing some threatening language. He posed a danger that needed to be nullified. In the most controlled way possible, of course.

So there you have it. Two stories stacked against each other. One from witnesses at the scene, who were for the most part profoundly anti-police. And one from upholders of the law with a previously unblemished record. Who are you going to believe?

Those carrying out the investigation knew whom to believe. To be sure, there were a few rumours that proved problematic. Suggestions that Paul Garnett could be a little heavy-handed at times. But these were easily discounted. Especially once the shiny-bright Terri Latham gave her side of things. Her record was spotless. In the interview room she exuded veracity. You couldn’t doubt the word of someone as dedicated and trustworthy as PC Latham.