Cut Dead (22 page)

Fourteen.

She knew, then, what the police didn’t. Everything clear. The reason for the abductions, the killings, the reason for the number of candles on the cake. But how on earth had …?

‘Guuurrrlll!’

Paula whirled round to see a man appear from the hallway. A patch of hair sat above a round face, a mouth gaping, a bulbous tongue hanging out. She backed up and stumbled into the kitchen table. The man’s pudgy hands reached out and grabbed her around the waist, spinning her so she had her back to him. One hand moved to her mouth, stifling the scream. She bit hard, tasting salt, but felt the hand push harder, a finger forcing itself in and hooking her cheek like a gaff on a fish. She bit down again, feeling calluses against her tongue.

‘Quiet guuurrrlll!’ The arm round her waist tightened. ‘Got her!’

‘I’m here, Mikey. No need to shout.’

Someone else came through from the hall and into the kitchen. The man wore a beard on a bony face with little eyes flitting back and forth, scraggly brown hair above, gangly limbs spidering out of ill-fitting clothing. The weirdo from the park.

‘Hello, Paula,’ the man said. ‘Did you know today is the Special Day? And right now we are going to sing a little song together, so when Mikey takes his finger from your mouth you won’t scream. Promise?’

The man pulled something silver from a pocket. He flicked his thumb down and a flame appeared. Moving to the table he lit each candle on the cake and then stepped back.

‘Now then, you know the words so join in, OK?’

Paula nodded, breathing hard as the man began to sing Happy Birthday.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Plymouth. Saturday 21st June. 12.51 p.m.

After they’d reported Glastone missing, Savage continued into town. Before they reached the centre Calter took a call on her mobile from DC Enders. She listened for ten seconds, swore and hung up.

‘All units, ma’am. Tothill Avenue, opposite Beaumont Park. Two minutes away!’

‘Shit!’ Savage swung the car out into the oncoming traffic, the tyres protesting with a squeal. She shouted above the noise of the over-revving engine. ‘Tell me, Jane!’

‘Somebody spotted a birthday cake through a neighbour’s rear window. Heard some sort of bang like a gun and then screaming. She went out the front of her house and saw the neighbour’s door was ajar. Then she called us. Response are on their way.’

Savage slowed and nosed the car forward. The little MG was narrow enough to pass right down the middle of the two lanes of traffic, but around them horns blared, drivers screaming at them. Up ahead a marked police car shot across a junction, blues and twos, vehicles moving to the side, pedestrians turning their heads. Savage floored the accelerator and followed, slipping into the moving space behind the patrol car.

They raced onto Tothill Avenue almost as one and then the patrol car braked hard, turning to block the road. Savage and Calter were out before the uniformed officers, Calter beating Savage to the front gate.

The neighbour had been right. The door stood open. And then there was a popping like a small-calibre weapon. Three bangs, followed by a scream.

‘Jesus, ma’am,’ Calter said. ‘We’ve got to wait for an ARV.’

The officers from the patrol car had joined them, and one of them shrugged his shoulders.

‘Not us, ma’am, but armed response are on the way.’

‘Round the back you two,’ Savage said, gesturing to the officers. ‘We’ll go in the front.’

‘Ma’am!’ Calter said. ‘We’re unarmed. It’s suicide.’

‘I don’t think so.’ Savage moved through the front gate and up the little path to the door. She pushed the door open and a yellow balloon wafted out from the hallway, bouncing once on the step before swirling past Calter.

‘Anyone home?’ Savage called down the passage, dark after the bright sunlight outside, before stepping in. She heard Calter mutter something and then the DC was right behind her.

‘Careful, ma’am.’

Savage moved forward, a floorboard creaking underfoot. To the left the door to a living room stood open. She glimpsed something strewn across the floor, pink ribbon, a piece of wrapping paper. On a table beside the television a card, a big pink ‘7’ on the front.

Then there was a crashing sound from up ahead and a scream echoed down the corridor.

Savage ran towards the door at the end and kicked it open to reveal a kitchen, glass scattered across the floor, one of the uniformed officers at the back door, hand reaching in through the shattered pane to open it. To one side the cake stood on the table, seven candles, an older woman next to the table with her arms wrapped around a young girl, the screams turning to sobs, the officer at the door stepping back to let Savage deal with the situation.

Considering the circumstances the woman had been surprisingly calm. ‘Better safe than sorry,’ she’d said, adding, much to Hardin’s relief, that there would be ‘no solicitors’.

The little girl – Lily – got some stickers from one of the uniforms and a ride round the block in the patrol car. ‘The best birthday present I’ve ever had,’ she said. It transpired the woman in the house was Lily’s aunt. She was looking after the girl because Lily’s mum was working a Saturday shift up at the hospital where she was a midwife. Lily and the aunt had blown up a dozen balloons, popped them, opened the aunt’s present and then blown up some more balloons and popped them too.

The mother turned up after an hour, flustered at being late because of an emergency C-section, in a state when she saw the three patrol cars, camera crew and photographers, not to mention the crowd of people gawping.

Right now Hardin and Savage stood with the girl and her mother and aunt, Hardin trying to turn his grimace into something resembling a smile for the photographer from the
Herald
. Once the pictures had been taken Dan Phillips walked forwards and held out his hand to Hardin.

‘Nice one, Conrad. Always a pleasure. You and your lads must be worth a couple of dozen column inches a week. Makes my job so much easier.’

‘Why don’t you just f—’ Savage nudged Hardin and stared at the little girl. Hardin coughed. ‘F … F … find a birthday present for young Lily here. She’s the one you need to thank. Without her there’s no story.’

‘My pleasure,’ Phillips said, adding a wink and a smile. ‘And I’ll slip you a couple of fifties too. Like last time, hey?’

‘If you don’t—’ Hardin moved down the garden path and Phillips backed off, pulling the photographer after him, the two of them chuckling away.

A couple of hours later and Savage was back at the station standing in the corridor outside the crime suite, Hardin trying to explain why he’d lost his temper.

‘Media management,’ the DSupt said. ‘You go on these courses, think it’s all about dealing with some terrorist alert or an innocent civilian shot by mistake. They don’t tell you what to do in this situation. That reporter …’

‘Dan’s alright,’ Savage said. ‘Much as he annoys me sometimes, he’s only doing his job.’

‘His so-called
job
appears to be trying to put the fear of God into people. He’s in training for a position on one of the tabloids and I for one won’t be sorry to see him go. Did you see the paper this morning? Sensationalist rubbish.’

Hardin huffed a couple of times and then asked about Phil Glastone. Was there any sign of him?

‘No,’ Savage said. ‘I sent the Salcombe beat officer round to his house, but Glastone hasn’t returned.’

‘So he’s still on the prowl then.’

‘I think he knew we were following him. If he’s the killer he’d be stupid to do anything.’

‘But that’s what these maniacs are, Charlotte. Stupid. Keep at it, OK? Find the man.’

With the order still hanging in the air Hardin turned and was off to his office. Savage pushed through the double doors into the crime suite, finding most of the team inside. Legs were on desks, coffee cups scattered around, a smell of fish and chips drifting from one side where Enders was unpacking several portions from a carrier bag.

‘Plaice, chips, curry sauce and peas?’

‘Mine,’ Riley said.

‘Might have guessed,’ Enders said. ‘Fussy London-type that you are.’

‘It’s called having a sophisticated palate,’ Riley said, getting up and taking the carton from Enders. ‘Although, had there been one round the corner, I would have preferred a Lebanese.’

‘Sod off!’ Enders picked a can of Coke from a second carrier and lobbed the can across to Riley. ‘And this will have to do instead of a bottle of vintage Blue Nun.’

‘How did you know my favourite tipple?’

‘With your “sophisticated palate” it was either the frigid mother superior or Mateus Rosé.’

Savage smiled at the banter and then moved across the room towards where Calter had just answered a trilling phone. The DC bent to the receiver, the pen in her hand moving at speed across a jotter pad.

‘Ma’am?’ Calter glanced up, the tone of her voice low but insistent. ‘This time it’s for real.’

By the time Savage and Calter pulled up on Trelawney Road in Peverell, John Layton had managed to seal the front garden and fifty metres of pavement either side of the house. White-suited figures crawled in the gutter bagging every cigarette butt, crisp packet and sweet wrapper.

‘Ms Paula Rowland,’ Layton said, handing Savage a photograph. ‘Got this sent through from the school where she works.’

Savage looked down at the picture which showed a young woman in her early thirties. Slim. Long brown hair tied back. A pretty face.

‘Witnesses?’ Savage said.

‘Some twitching curtains,’ Layton said, pointing to a property a couple of doors up. ‘A neighbour spotted a car moving off at speed around four o’clock. Paula had apparently only just returned.’

‘Any idea who was driving?’

‘No, but the neighbour says the vehicle was an old thing, a van or a tow truck of some kind.’

‘And Paula was inside?’

‘Couldn’t say beyond there was at least one other person. An alert has gone out but it’s more in hope than anticipation. The bad news is that the locals had spoken to the woman Friday afternoon. She reported a possible stalker.’

‘And?’

‘And nothing. A patrol car came down the street a couple of times last night. That’s it. The alert was made by the woman’s fiancé. He arrived from Exeter, where he lives. Found the front door not latched properly, went inside and saw signs of a struggle and the cake. Called it in. He’s pretty shaken up from the sound of things.’

‘Shit.’ Savage nodded across to the front door. ‘Inside?’

‘Can’t let you in yet. You can either take a look at the video we’ve shot or scoot round the back and peer in the rear window.’

Layton nodded and then pointed to a passage down one side of the house. Savage and Calter went down the passage and turned left at the end onto a gravel patio. A number of plastic crates and toolboxes sat on the gravel and the back door was open, a white-suited figure visible inside.

The woman looked up as Savage’s feet crunched on the gravel. A blue-gloved hand came up to form a stop sign and then she gestured to the large window.

Savage and Calter went across and peered through.

‘Ma’am. The cake.’ Calter tapped the glass and then moved her hand down to her stomach. ‘Don’t think I am going to be able to look at a slice in quite the same way again. Do wonders for my training regime.’

The sponge sat on the table, a dusting of icing sugar. A slice missing. Pink candles.

‘Fourteen,’ Savage said, as she counted. ‘We’re still no nearer to understanding the meaning of the numbers.’

‘Beats me, ma’am. But then maths never was my strong point.’

‘And the colours. Victim number two had blue candles, all the others pink.’

‘Pink – blue, girl – boy isn’t it?’

‘We’re missing something here.’

‘Are we, ma’am? Couldn’t this just be some sort of ruse, something to throw us as a curve ball? I mean the person who did this is a madman. Grade one. I doubt we could fathom him even if we catch him.’

‘
When
, Jane. Not if, when.’ Savage snapped the words out but she wasn’t sure she believed them. They’d known the killer had been going to strike on the twenty-first – Paula Rowland had even tipped them off – but still he’d evaded them. For a moment a wash of abject failure came over her. Savage thought about the misery the Candle Cake Killer had already caused and the knowledge that there was still more to come angered and depressed her. Was this how DCI Walsh had felt each year when yet another woman went missing? She shook her head, cursed and reminded herself there was only one person to blame. And moping wouldn’t catch them.

She moved over to the door and called out to the CSI. Was there anything else? The CSI reached for a clear plastic container and passed it across. Inside several slivers of dried mud lay cushioned in cotton wool. One piece was in a ‘V’ shape.

‘Left behind from a boot. There’s a chance we can get the size and possibly the brand. Analysis of the soil
might
pin down the area it has come from. There’s bits of white gravel in there. Like something from a fish tank.’

The way the woman said ‘might’ didn’t lend much hope. Savage thanked her and turned to the garden. Calter had plonked herself down in a wrought-iron chair – one of four clustered round a little table which stood on a circle of grey paving stones.

‘How long,’ Calter said, looking up at the first-floor windows, ‘before Mr High and Mighty Layton allows us to get in and have a nose around?’

Long enough, it turned out, for Hardin to arrive, the DSupt stomping round the back and peering through the window, glass misting as he huffed at the sight of the cake.

‘Shit luck,’ he said, stepping back. ‘For us and the girl. Layton told me there’s a boyfriend. Can we see him doing this? Copycat?’

‘No, sir,’ Savage said. ‘The locals have spoken to him. He lives over in Exeter. He’s a PE teacher and he’d taken an under-twelve football team to Torquay this morning. He was with a fellow teacher when he came to the house. Alibi’s solid. And you’re not going to like this, but the local lads had already been out here to visit Ms Rowland. Apparently she called 101 to report she’d been followed. Advice was given, but no other action taken other than a patrol car swinging by last night.’