Concrete Evidence (10 page)

The doors opened on the fifth floor, which was the home of the Major Investigation Team. The sound of chatter greeted him; some voices were on the telephones and some in conversation with other officers. He could see that Google’s team were busy at their desks and decided to leave them to it for now. Getting involved in an in-depth conversation with Google was the last thing that he needed. Google would take thirty minutes to say what others could say in ten.

The coffee station looked to be fully functional and stocked up with a fresh brew, which made a pleasant change. He walked over to it and filled a mug with the steaming liquid, debating whether to add three sugars or stick to his diet and use sweeteners. The diet lost. He needed the calories. Today would be a long day.

“Those phone records that you asked for are on your desk, Sarge.”

“Cheers,” he said with a thumbs up. Putting the mug down, he struggled out of his leather jacket and hung it on the back of his chair. There were a stack of brown manila files on his desk and he sifted through them as he sat heavily in his swivel chair. Preliminaries from forensics, which basically listed everything that needed testing. Until the results came back, it was of little to no use so he put them to one side. Beneath them was the record of Jackie Webb’s mobile phone account, calls, text messages and the PIN code to access her voice mail. He glanced over the first page and took a slurp of coffee. There were some landline calls and some mobile numbers. All the calls were incoming but the majority were from withheld numbers. That didn’t seem too odd for a mobile beautician. The numbers wouldn’t tell them much until they could be traced. He took another sip, slouched back in his chair and turned the page.

His eyes widened when he read the first text message and almost choked on his coffee when he read the second. The text messages ranged from suggestive to pornographic. They were enquiries about the services that she provided but not the type that he was expecting. She hadn’t replied to a single text. He’d worked enough cases to know that prostitutes didn’t communicate via text message. Her business card had said ‘beauty therapy’ but Stirling had serious doubts about the type of therapy that she was offering.  He sat and read two pages of smut before he decided to skip straight to the voice mail.

“You look flushed,” Annie’s voice disturbed his thoughts. “What’s up?” she pointed to his half filled coffee cup. “Do you want that topping up, I could murder one?” she frowned at her pun. “Wrong choice of words, do you want another?”

“Yes please, Guv.” He put the receiver down and waited for her to return. She placed his cup on the desk and then took the seat adjacent to him, sliding her coat off as she settled into the chair. He noticed that her scar reddened and became more obvious when her skin was exposed to the wind. Her false eye was the elephant in the room whenever they were alone together. They had never really discussed the attack by Richard Tibbs. He had often wanted to tell her that she was still an attractive woman despite her scars but he didn’t want her to take it the wrong way. They had a good working relationship and he wanted to keep things that way. She smiled and rubbed her hands together and breathed onto them.

“It’s gone cold out there now,” she said. “So what has got you so hot and bothered?” He felt her gaze on him, studying his expression, which always made him feel uncomfortable. Sometimes he thought that she could read his mind. “Come on spill the beans.”

“Have a peek at them,” Stirling said handing over the text messages. “I think Jackie Webb was offering more than a manicure.” Annie glanced over two pages, raised her eyebrows and nodded in agreement. “I was just dialling her voice mail when you walked in.”

“Dial away,” Annie said reading on through the records. “It certainly appears that she received more enquiries about the price of a blow job than a blow-dry. It would explain how she could afford that apartment.”

Stirling dialed her voice mail box and punched in the code to access her messages and then sat back and listened. “They’re running latest message first,” he informed Annie. He listened for a few moments. “The first three are the same guy asking if she is coming or not. He doesn’t sound very happy.” Annie flicked through the pages of messages as he listened. Her face blushed at some of them. “Two abusive calls from another bloke calling himself, John. He wants to know why she’s wasting his f-ing time and he won’t be using her again.” He frowned. “And he called back to tell her that she had a fat arse anyway, apparently.”

“Oh dear,” Annie said sipping her coffee. “At least she’ll never have to hear that.”

“Two more calls asking why she didn’t turn up for their appointments.”

“Men?”

“Yes.”

“I’m guessing that they weren’t booked in for a conditioning treatment.”

“We’ll need to track all these callers down,” he said growing more convinced that his hunch was right. “Not a single female voice or mention of waxing or nail extensions. Obviously Jackie Webb has gone off the grid so we can assume our first victim is her and that she was a call girl.”

“Hmm, I wonder if she kept it from her best friend because she was a Special Constable or if she knew?” Annie thought out loud. “Or maybe she did know and Jayne Windsor just didn’t tell her mother what her friend did for a living.”

“Maybe.” Stirling agreed. “Her card clearly states that she’s a beautician. Having said that, if you were in that game what else would you have on your business card?”

“The mind boggles.”

“This changes things.” Stirling frowned. “They could have been a client.”

“Could be. It was planned out too well for it to be random.” Annie looked at the messages again. “My money is on a client.” She nodded.

“If not, did the killer know she was on the game?”

Annie tapped the desk with her index finger. “Have you spoken to Google yet?” She looked over her shoulder to where the teams were busy analysing the crime scene photographs.

“Not yet,” Stirling said with his phone trapped between his left ear and his shoulder. He was marking the number of callers on a pad as he listened. “I thought I’d leave that to you,” he grinned. “I wanted to get this out of the way before I got distracted with riddles.” He shrugged. “I’ve never been good at riddles.”     

“So you said,” Annie frowned. “I’ll go and see where we are at.” She looked at her coat and decided that it could stay there. It had her purse and car keys in the pocket but it was also surrounded by thirty detectives. Her mobile was another matter and she picked it up as she headed to where Google and his team were working. As she approached, the officers stopped what they were doing. “How is it going?”

“Well this is very exciting,” Google picked up several pieces of paper and held them up as if they were trophies. “We started by ruling out the more popular ancient scripts, Hebrew, Greek, Samerian,” Google began his thesis. “I knew it was a type of Cyrillic but not the most popular text used. It’s different.”

Annie held up her hand and grimaced. “Stop, stop,” she said loudly. “Listen Google,” she joked. “Please don’t think that you have to detail exactly how you’ve arrived at every conclusion.” His three team members grinned widely. He didn’t look offended by the use of his nickname. He deemed it a compliment about his intellectual prowess. “All I need to know is why the killer used it and what it says.”

“Sorry, Guv,” he took off his glasses and wiped them on his tie. “Firstly, it’s a script called Glagolitic. In the days when it was used, it was sometimes called the ‘witches language’.” He paused. Annie’s expression told him that she wasn’t in the mood to be spoon fed the findings crumb by crumb. Although he wanted to go into as much detail as he could muster, he thought that a summary would be better for his career. “It became popular in about eight hundred, along with other Old Church Slavic languages but Glagolitic was also used to record spells and ceremonies so that prying eyes couldn’t decipher them. Bearing in mind that for centuries before it became widely used, there was paranoia about witches, which led to the burning of hundreds of women, you can see why some would seek a text which couldn’t be translated if their writings were discovered. It was a method of hiding information.” He shrugged matter-of-factly as if what he was saying was obvious.

“Slavic?” Annie raised her eyebrows.

“Yes, it’s part of the old ‘Eastern Block’.”

“I know where Slavic refers to, Google!” Annie sighed, slightly annoyed.

“Of course you do, Guv. Sorry.” He blushed and carried on nervously. “It was used in parts of Russia, Ukraine, Serbia and even some of the Mongolian tribes used it.”

“Okay,” Annie said slowly digesting his words. “Why carve that specific script into our victim?”                    

“You’ll have to ask the killer that,” he said putting his spectacles on the end of his nose. “At first, I thought it was linked to a satanic ritual because of the pentangle daubed on the wall but the more we translate, the less likely that is.”

“Go on.” Annie said intrigued.

“Get this,” Google said excitedly. “‘We are each our own Devil, and we make this world our own hell, amen.’” 

“The bible?” Annie guessed.

“Oscar Wilde.”

“Oscar Wilde?”

“Not what you were expecting, I know but when put it together with the other stuff, we have a theme and some numbers that don’t make any sense yet.”

“Numbers?”

“Yes, although I can’t see anything that they relate to yet.”

“Do you know what he’s trying to say?”

“On its own, it means nothing to me,” he held up his finger, “but listen to this, ‘As evil as the Devil and twice as pretty.’” He looked over his glasses. “He’s berating women.” He paused. “‘The Devil became a serpent and tempted Adam, his male descendents are still tempted by snakes this day. They will tempt you and then destroy your world.’” He shrugged. “He’s quoting text relating to women being the root of evil.”

“Who said that?”

“No idea but he’s got a point.” Google added. Annie raised her eyebrows in mock offence. Google was oblivious and continued. “Then we have the numbers 3-71-73.”

“That means nothing to me.”

“Nor me, Guv.” 

“I’m assuming he means ‘women’ when he refers to snakes?” Annie asked.

“He seems to think of them as one and the same. I don’t think he’s paying homage to an evil entity. In fact, quite the opposite.” He picked up another sheet of paper. “On her chest it says, ‘The finest skill the Devil has, is to make us believe that he is male and there is only one of him. In truth there are millions of them everywhere we look.’ Followed by 4-76-77.” He shrugged. “Can you see where I’m going with this?”

“It’s as clear as mud.”

“Sorry,” Google reached for another pad. “‘If there is a God, he will spit in your face. He will take your deal with the Devil, the whore of Babylon and he will let you burn.’”

“Oscar Wilde said that?” Annie frowned.

“That wasn’t him,” Google shook his head. “Not as far as I know but he may have,” he added flatly. The others exchanged amused glances and raised their eyes to the ceiling. “That is followed by 37-68-75. The numbers don’t fit any obvious sequence so we’re leaving them to work on later. We’re trying to pinpoint where all the quotes are taken from but we haven’t found all the sources yet.”

“I’m still not sure that I can see a message here,” Annie grimaced. “Is it just the ramblings of a lunatic?”

He pointed to another line. “‘The world ceases to believe in God yet it still believes in evil. And so it should for ‘you’ are proof that the Devil acts through you. Then 6-71-72.’” He took his glasses off again and looked for her reaction. “Do you see?”

“He’s obsessed with Devil worship?” 

“He is obsessed by evil, not the devil.” He shook his head. “He is not worshiping the Devil, he is denouncing him. But everything he is saying is written as if it is aimed at the victim personally. It’s accusing ‘her’ of being evil. In his mind, women are evil personified.”

“You’re sure?”

“The more I read, the more certain that I am,” he nodded, “‘The Devil pulls the strings that make you dance, you are entertained by loathsome things that they do.’ I think ‘they’ in this case, are females.” He shrugged. “I can’t see anything but accusations of collusion with evil rather than admiration of it.”   

“So you think it’s personal,” Annie asked thoughtfully. “I mean is it aimed at her specifically?”         

              He shook his head and turned a page searching for something. “‘While men desire women, women will never be at a loss and the Devil will stand beside them for desire is his bait.’” He sighed. “Some of it is aimed at ‘women’ in general so I can’t be sure that it is aimed at your victim specifically. It is written by someone who has little respect for women. I would go so far as to say he hates them.”

              “The crime scenes would back that up,” Annie nodded. Her new found knowledge that Jackie Webb was a prostitute slotted right in with the evidence carved into her flesh but until forensics made a positive identification, she couldn’t share that. “What he did to them shows that he hated our two victims for sure.”

              “Hates them or blames them?” Gwen joined the conversation. She pushed her ginger hair from her forehead as she spoke. “I’m sensing blame in the text. Accusations and blame.” She picked up a piece of A4. “‘Bring food to a dog and watch it wiggle and dance. Buy a gift for a woman and watch her do the same. When the food is eaten and the gift tarnished by time, both may bite your empty hand and then dance and wiggle for another. Such are the attributes of women and dogs and Satan himself.’” She paused and scoffed. “This is from a satanic website although it could have been written by my ex-husband.”