Silent Scream

Sixty

Daniel and Keats were gathered around a folder on the table top when she entered.

Daniel moved away as Keats turned. ‘Oh, Detective, how lovely to see you.’

Kim glared at him.

‘No, seriously, I mean it. For me, absence has most definitely made my heart grow fonder. I find that my sensitive, delicate nature might actually find your acerbic tongue almost tolerable.’

‘Yes, you’ve had quite an easy week of it, haven’t you?’ she asked, raising her eyebrows.

‘I have indeed, Detective.’ He began to count on his fingers. ‘I’ve had a double stabbing in Dudley, an elderly male who collapsed into his dinner at his eighty-fifth birthday party and two medical uncertainties. Oh, and the trail of corpses you’ve left in your wake.’

‘Happy to fill the time for you but did you manage to ascertain anything remotely useful?’

He thought for a moment and then shook his head. ‘No, I’ve changed my mind. I now realise that I haven’t missed you at all.’

‘Keats,’ she growled.

‘I’ve sent the post mortem results to your office this morning. Teresa Wyatt was pushed down under the water, as you already know. There was no major struggle due to the victim already being immersed in water. I detected no other marks on the body and no sign of any sexual assault. She was in reasonably good health for her age.

‘I don’t think the manner of death for Tom Curtis was in any question but what I can tell you is that the bottle of whisky would most probably have killed him. His heart was in such poor condition that it’s unlikely he’d have made it to forty-five. Oh, and his last meal was salad and steak. Topside, I think.’

Kim rolled her eyes.

‘With Mary Andrews you most certainly did not get to the church on time and to make any reasonable deduction about death I usually need a body.

‘Arthur Connop died of massive internal trauma caused by an altercation with a vehicle. His liver was on borrowed time but his other major organs were pretty healthy for a man of his age.’

Keats held up his hands, as if to say, that’s all.

‘No evidence, no trace, nothing?’

‘No, Detective, because you’re not making a TV show. If we had an hour of titillating entertainment to make I may suddenly find that Teresa Wyatt had swallowed a carpet fibre that can be matched to the home of your suspect. I might even find a stray hair on the body of Tom Curtis that miraculously fell from the killer with the root attached. But I am not a mini-series made for television.’

Kim groaned. She’d had a tooth abscess that had been less painful than a lecture from Keats. His frown told her that he hadn’t finished quite yet.

She leaned back against the stainless steel counter and folded her arms.

‘How many women did the Yorkshire Ripper murder?’ Keats asked.

‘Thirteen,’ Dan answered.

‘And how was he caught?’

‘By two police officers who arrested him for driving with false number plates,’ she answered.

‘So, thirteen bodies later and he still hadn’t been caught by stray hairs and carpet fibres. Therefore, I can only pass on what the body tells me. Any kind of forensic evidence will not take the place of good old police work; deduction, gut instinct and intelligent, practical thinking. Which reminds me, where is Bryant?’

Kim offered him a look and he turned back to the workbench. Kim saw the label of the white jacket protruding over the collar. She reached over and popped it back inside with her index finger.

Keats turned. She raised one eyebrow. He smiled and turned back.

Kim turned to Daniel. ‘Doc, is there a denture?’

He met her gaze and Kim was struck by the tiredness in his eyes. She knew he had worked at the site until late to remove the body of the third victim. Just as she would have done.

‘What, no insults, sarcasm or cutting remarks?’

She sensed that he was like her. Once questions were posed he demanded answers and didn’t stop until he got them. On a case like this there was no rota, no clocking on and off time. There was only the need to know. She understood.

She tilted her head and smiled. ‘Nah, Doc. Not today.’

He held her gaze and smiled back.

Keats had turned his attention back to the worktop and was flicking through pages in a hardware supplies catalogue.

‘There is no denture,’ Daniel stated.

‘Damn.’

‘But there should be. She has three missing front teeth.’

Kim sighed heavily. She now had the names of all three girls. This was incontrovertibly Louise’s body.

‘Have you checked with Cerys?’ He asked.

‘It’s not there.’

‘I’ve got it,’ Keats said, quietly.

Daniel moved along the work area and looked at where Keats had laid his index finger.

Daniel nodded slowly.

‘What?’ Kim asked.

Keats turned to her, unable to speak. Kim was instantly unnerved. This man had seen bodies in the worst state of decay. He had taken in his stride horrendous crime scenes, decomposition and its subsequent life forms. She had watched him carry out a preliminary examination on a corpse while referring to a community of maggots as ‘little fellas’. What the hell could instil such horror in him now?

‘Look here,’ Daniel instructed, pointing to the pubic bone.

Kim could see there was a crack that ran through the centre of the bone.

She raised her head. ‘The pelvis is broken?’

‘Look closer.’

Kim leaned down as far as she could and saw the nicks in the edge of the bone. She counted seven in total. The one at the centre was deeper than the others. A zig-zag pattern was evident on both sides of the parted bone. Kim saw that the serration travelled for almost an inch before it met the longer crack in the bone.

Kim stepped back in horror as she looked from Daniel to Keats and back again unable to comprehend what was right in front of her eyes.

‘Yes, Detective,’ Keats offered hoarsely. ‘The bastard tried to saw her in half.’

Silence settled between them as they all stared down at the skeleton that had once been a young girl. Not an angel and not without fault, but a young girl nonetheless.

Kim stepped to the side and almost fell into Daniel.

His arms steadied her. ‘You okay?’

She nodded as she moved away from his touch. She didn’t trust herself to speak until the nausea had passed.

The sound of her mobile ringing startled them all. It galvanised the room into action as though the pause button had been depressed. It was Bryant and he was calling from somewhere in the building.

Her mouth was dry as she answered the call.

‘Guv, I’m wasting my time here.’

‘Is he still in surgery?’ she asked, looking at her watch. If that was the case it wasn’t looking good for Richard Croft.

‘No, he was wheeled back to the ward an hour ago. The knife is out and I have that bagged. He’s in and out of consciousness but Mrs Croft won’t let me anywhere near him.’

‘On my way,’ she said, ending the call.

‘Where are you going now?’ Keats asked.

She glanced down at body number three and took a deep breath. ‘I’m going to start a fight.’