Chapter 2

They spent the day going through the case files. Susan had told them to keep things to themselves. Monday they would discuss the cases and see where they would go next. When she got home, she found Mervyn having a cup of tea in the kitchen.

“Hello, darling, how was the trip?”

“You wouldn’t believe what the guys in Scotland want us to do. They want the chocolate in the Flake bar made firmer so that it doesn’t melt when they fry it. They do the Mars bars dipped in batter, and it works because the thing is solid. The problem that they’re having with a batter dipped Flake is that while the outside is fried, the batter in the chocolate folds remains doughy. If they fry long enough to cook the batter, the chocolate is just liquid.”

“That’s one I haven’t heard, before. Do you want to cook now, or shall we go to bed and order take-away later.”

“Is there a choice?”

“Not if you want to sleep in our bed tonight. I can make up the spare room while the chops are cooking.”

Monday saw the open office abuzz with conversation when Susan walked in, being deliberately late to allow the team time to have a cuppa and ease into the day.

“Right then. Let’s start with a run-down on what we know, starting with the oldest case first.”

Terry led the discussion, and they worked through the cases as they saw them. The first victim, Dennis Fowler, had been dead about two weeks before the body was found. He was identified by his father, after a missing person’s report had been made, and the DNA had proved it. Then came three others who had not yet been identified, followed by two who had, and another one who hadn’t. The last two bodies had been the son of a builder and the son of the politician.

With the dumping places, all were in wooded or park areas. All four of the unidentifiable bodies had been found in open areas, in full view of passers-by. The ones in wooded areas were dead days, or weeks, before being found. All of these were near bodies of water. The dump sites were at Ryton Park, Codsall Wood, Mosely Wood, and Sutton Park. Five were next to reservoirs, Draycote Water (2), Chelmarsh Reservoir (2), and Edgbaston Reservoir. Only the last five had the other organs removed.

All the castrations had been done with a butcher's knife or a cleaver, with the first cut in the belly and the flesh being peeled down while the edges were hacked. The removal of the other organs was a whole lot different, with the cuts being done with a scalpel or thin knife, the kidneys taken from the back. One thing they all had in common was that all had died somewhere else.

Another common thing was that all were roughly between eighteen to mid-twenties, well built and muscled. The consensus was that they all lifted weights and worked out in gyms. The interviews with the parents had not produced anything positive, the team agreeing that the direction of the questions was enough to make them clam up.

“Maria, who did those interviews, it doesn’t look like you or Jenny had a hand in it?”

“That was two of the sergeants, Barnes, and Howard. They couldn’t find a ferret in a bag without a flashlight. If the ferret was gay, they’d declare that it was non-existent.”

“All right, we need to talk to all these people again. Make sure they know we’re taking this seriously and that we don’t think their sons were gay. Terry, can you organise that with Super, Jack and Porky. Lean, can you take Sky, Maria, and Andy to see all of the dumping places, with an eye to anything about them that seems odd. I already see one thing. Maria, was there any diving in the water near the bodies?”

“No, Boss. Nicholas wouldn’t approve the expenditure.”

“While you lot get on with what you have to do, I’ll see if we can get a couple of divers to have a look for us. Lean, when you’ve had a good look, mark any likely place where something could have been tossed from. You never know what may be down there. The bodies had to have been carried in something. Let’s get to it.”

After the others had left on their allotted tasks, she turned to her IT guru.

“Doggy, what I need is a list of all the gyms, martial arts studios, boxing clubs and associated places in a radius of fifteen miles from the city center. Then we will need a list of all the local suppliers of butchers and chefs equipment. Then, there are the cameras near the dumping places. You can estimate the days that were likely by the estimated time of death. Start with the ones found in open view, they’ll be closer to the discovery time. If we get a positive lead, we can look at the others to see what turns up.”

With everybody busy, Susan went back upstairs to find out how deep the pockets were, being pleasantly surprised when her request for a diving team was granted, the CS phoning the ‘aqualung section’ and approving it. She went off to see them at their station and looked at the satellite pictures of the sites with the Chief Inspector. She told him that they would have a closer idea of where to dive once all of the dumping sites had been looked at.

Meanwhile, in Ryton Park, DS Skinner was trying to calm a jittery Andy.

“I know that this is the first time back here, lad. You know that the body has long gone. Today it will be like looking under the bed for the monster and only seeing dust bunnies.”

Andy swallowed hard and led them to the place where he had stood, gazing on that terrible sight.

“This is where I stood while I waited for the Sarge, it was the worst time I can remember. It looks different, now, with the bushes cleared away for the searching and only new shoots coming up. I suppose that’s how I should see it, the old gone and new life returning.”

Maria put her hand on his arm.

“It will get better, Andy, it shook me to the core, and I only saw the photos.”

They circled the focal point, just to see how far the search had gone.

“I’ve got to say that the FSI boys were thorough here, but it looks like they didn’t go as far as the road, what say you, Lean?”

“I think you’re right, Sky. We need to go towards the road, passing by the lake, if you can call that mass of stagnant water that. It may show us a good place to toss a sack or two. It would be too far from Leamington Road or Oxford Road to carry a body, so we’ll guess that they came in through Paget’s Lane.”

They had come in from Leamington Road, past the Country Club and parked close to the dump point. That was where all the following FSI teams had come, as well. In hindsight, it should have been obvious that headlights would have been seen by club members, if the killer had come that way, and no interviews conducted the next day had prompted that observation.

They made their way towards Paget’s Lane, towards the pool, still buzzing with midges. They came to a path of sorts, that ran alongside the pool. Going further, they found a narrow gap in the hedge and stood on the lane. On the opposite side of the lane, it was a flat verge, wide enough to park a car or van. Of course, after two years, there wasn’t a possibility of seeing tyre tracks. Lean Skinner smiled.

“That’s a good result. I think that this is where they came in. Let’s get back to the car and go and see another wood. Well done, Andy, have you tossed the monster into the pool?”

“Yes, sir, I really think I have.”

Over the rest of the day, they visited another four of the dump sites, talking openly about their ideas, and pinpointing likely spots where something could have been tossed. The odd ones were two reservoirs, where there were several places along the water’s edge.

Terry, and his group had an interesting day as well. It took some time to break down the mistrust and animosity that the previous detectives had created. Once they had got through that barrier, they started learning new things. Two of the families had not changed a thing in their son’s bedrooms, so the detectives were able to gain more insight into the lifestyles of the victims. In one they found a small stash of weed, in another there were bottles of body-building tablets that had been bought through the internet. They showed pictures of the other victims, doctored to look nice, but didn’t get any reactions.

It took both teams most of the week to do things properly, and they gathered in the office on Friday afternoon. Sue watched as she saw a few smiles, always a good sign.

“Right, let’s hear it from the site inspectors, what have you got for us?”

“We had a successful number of visits, Cuz. I think we pinpointed five likely places where something could have been tossed. The other four are a bit more open, with a search width of about twenty feet, maximum. Those are in the reservoirs so the visibility should be good. Andy has drawn a map of each place which you can give the divers. We did see a number of likely parking places, but nothing presented itself after all this time.”

“Good one, Lean. I want Andy and Maria to oversee the dives, that should take all of next week. I’ll get to see the dive boss before I go home. We’ll start with the first victim; I think that the pool there will be the worst one for the divers. You two can take a car and go straight there Monday morning. I’ll see if I can get an FSI crew to join you in case you strike lucky. Now, Terry, how did the interviews go?”

“They were hard work in the beginning, but we got quite a lot more background on the victims. All of the parents said that their boys were straight as a die, into fitness and unlikely to have submitted to their attacker. We have to consider some drug use to subdue them, although nothing was found in any of the postmortems. I can’t offer a guess about that, but it does give us a window after they had been taken to purge their system. None of the forensic reports noted ligature damage, so they must have been free to move around or else the bindings were very soft. We did get a short list of their favourite places and the gyms they attended.”

“Give that list to Doggy to look at. Next week we need to catch up with our other cases, so it will be business as usual while the dives take priority. Good work, team, we’ll pick it up again when we get more information. I’ll head upstairs to report and then I’m off to see the divers. Have a good weekend.”

When she left the station, Susan felt that they had moved further in a week than the other team in two years. When she met the dive chief, they agreed on the order of the dives. He said that he could organise the Forensic Scene Investigators to attend, something that was usual with recovery dives.

Before they left the station, Andy and Maria exchanged phone numbers and Maria got Andy’s address to pick him up on Monday morning.

“Before I pick you up, get yourself a sturdy pair of workpants and boots. We’ll be likely needed to look closely at anything that is brought up. I’m confident that something will emerge from the waters, although that could just be that I want to go one up on my old boss. Oh! Get yourself some bug repellent, we could be some time by that water. Get a few bottles of water, as well, it may be a long day. I’ll put a couple of folding chairs in the car.”

Saturday evening, Susan and Mervyn had been invited to a Sales Dinner for his company. It was a good meal, some speeches about how the company was moving ahead with new ideas, and the best bit, she thought, was the vanilla ice cream in a hard chocolate covering. It was more than just a choc-ice, as the chocolate had been flavoured with something she couldn’t identify but loved. Mervyn told her, when they went to bed, that she had just tried a new product that they were trialling for an ice cream company. She knew that when it hit the market, she would have it in the fridge.

She also knew that, on Monday morning, every one of her team will be hard at work. It may seem odd for CID to work a five-day week, but it made up for the round-the-clock sessions that happened when they were approaching the end game. There were some, at other stations, where overtime was not allowed, due to cost constraints, but her CS was good with the budget, as long as you didn’t abuse it.

Monday morning, when Maria pulled up outside Andy’s house, she smiled as he got in the car.

“Don’t smirk, I feel strange enough already. I never expected to be a sleuth wearing stuff that makes me look as if I’m about to till the lower forty, following a horse.”

“It’s not that, Andy, it’s the old school satchel with the drinks in. We’ll stop at a camping store and get you a cheap backpack. If you turn up with that, word will get out that we’re employing six formers. The police are not nice when it comes to gossip.”

When they arrived at their destination, Andy had his drinks and bug spray in a new backpack that they had played football with, in the store carpark, to give it a less than brand new look.

They sat in the car and waited for the divers to arrive, talking about the cases that Maria had worked on. When the truck arrived, followed by the FSI officer, they helped the divers carry their gear to the edge of the water and showed them the stretch where they thought something may be. The divers got suited up and tested their apparatus, and then slid into the water, very carefully, turning on the powerful lights attached to a headband.

Andy and Maria sat, watching the two sets of bubbles as the divers moved away from them. About ten yards into the dive, an orange marker came to the surface. The bubbles carried on to the far edge of the pool, then returned, a bit further out. As they came back towards the watchers, another two markers came up. Andy was on the edge of his seat.

“Ease up, Andy, they might just be shopping trolleys or someone’s old bicycle. We have to be cool and see what actually comes to the surface before we get excited.”

The divers did another swim away from them and returned. When they came out of the water, the leader gave them a thumbs up. He had three lines, which he gave to his crew on the bank. Now was the time for the detectives to get excited. When the first line was pulled in, what came clear was that they had, indeed, found an old bike. The second line brought up a small case, while the third was a small sack.

The FSI officer had set up a table and put the case on it.

“If it doesn’t open easily, we’ll have to take it to the lab to look at. Now, let’s see if it’s locked, or not.”

The others all stood back as the FSI officer donned protective gear and put his hand on the case. It opened and he looked in it. He put his hand in and lifted out a nasty-looking meat cleaver. Andy and Maria breathed a sigh of relief. The cleaver was put into a bag, and the now empty case was put into another bag.

The sack was now put on the table. It was hessian and the divers said that it was obvious that there were a couple of rocks in it to keep it submerged. The FSI officer took a scalpel and made a slit in the top and pulled the hessian aside to have a good look.

“Sorry, boys and girls, this one is going to the lab before we do any more. I can tell you that it looks like clothing. We’ll take it with us, and I’ll send a couple of others to be with you at the next dive. That’s a good job in that water.”

The divers walked away from the lake, still wearing their equipment. At the truck, they had a small pump, and their crew hosed the gunk off them. Before Andy got in the car, he had a real feeling that he should give Maria a hug. She couldn’t get the smile off her face. It would take a couple of days before they would see the report, but they knew that they had made a great step this morning.

The second dive site was the last victim, found near to Blyth Hall, a country house. The body had been next to a walking track that workers at a nearby aggregate site would use if they cycled to work from Coleshill, along Blythe Road. They had found a small area where they could park, and the water was a little way past the dumping point. The dive started at the point closest to the dump site and was immediately a success. Another sack, weighted with stones, emerged from the murky depths. As this had been the son of the politician, Maria started hoping that the sacks would contain wallets that would double check the identification. It didn’t take long to be back at the vehicles and away to the next place, much to the delight of passing motorists who had been forced to cross double lines to get around them, a couple of uniformed from the nearest station acting as marshals.

The divers had said that they had enough for one more dive today, so they went across the city and arrived at the third dive spot. This one was far more complicated than the other two, not because the parking was hard, but because the dumping point was at the end of a narrow road, leading to a large, grassed area next to a body of water, simply called The Pool. To get there, they had to go to Codsall Wood, and then take the narrow road over the M54 to their destination. The grassed area was popular in summer, and the body was easily seen, much to the horror of the family that was first on the scene.

The road crossed a bridge that spanned an arm of the pool, but their earlier inspection had decided that it would be too shallow, there, and a better site was along the bank of The Pool, close to the dump site. The dive took place at the site deemed most likely, between a few trees and a more wooded area on the water’s edge. The divers were underwater a long time before a marker came up, quite some way from the edge. When they did climb back up the bank, they both had big grins on their faces.

“That one will have to wait until we can get a recovery truck here. There’s a car down there, I think it’s an Astra. The bottom is quite clear of snags, and we didn’t see anything like a sack or boxes. You’re going to have to be patient on this. We’ll organise something for tomorrow, say about ten. Getting a car out is a slow process, we’ll need to go down again to attach a hawser. It’s been a good day, so how about a drink before we go back to the station.”

When the divers were dry and dressed, they went back into Codsall Wood, stopping at the Pendrell Arms. This was all new for Andy, but Maria told him that they would get re-imbursed for any expenses, with the aims of improving inter-force relations. Maria rang Susan, to let her know the outcome of the day, explaining where they were. Susan told her to buy the divers a meal, and not to bother coming back to the station tonight, or the morning. She said that she would send Lean out to join them and see what the car contained.

They all had an early tea in the pub, Maria putting it all on her credit card and collecting the receipts. Andy was enjoying himself, here, among a group of professionals, listening to their talk and adding comments where he could. Two weeks ago, he was sitting at a computer in the clerical section, today he was starting to live his dream. None of the guys were heavy drinkers, you don’t dive if you are, so he was able to hide the fact that he didn’t hold his drink well. When Maria dropped him off, she smiled at him.

“I’ll pick you up around nine. Have a good sleep. We’ve done well today, more than I’d hoped. I think that the car recovery will be the only thing that happens, tomorrow. We’ll have to get back on track on Wednesday. If we get finished by early afternoon, we’ll go back to the station and write up our reports.”

The following morning was overcast and cool, exactly the sort of weather a movie would set an exhumation in. That’s what Maria was thinking when she picked up Andy and his backpack. After negotiating a uniformed police roadblock at the start of the narrow entrance, they arrived at the dive site before ten, finding Lean Skinner and Susan, standing next to the recovery site, talking. Maria parked well back, allowing room for the divers and the tow-truck, which she saw edging it’s way over the narrow bridge. The two of them walked over to where their superiors were.

“Good morning, boss, it looks like a good day for a recovery. The divers said that the car had been down there for a while, but looked as if the windows had all been closed when it went in. Whatever’s in it should be well preserved. This was where the sixth body was found, so I think we can guess that it went under nine months ago if it’s linked to the murders.”

“That’s why we’re both here, Maria. I’m running this by the book. Andy, your records show that you’re an amateur photographer. Lean has brought a video camera and tripod, can you set up and record the action for us? I don’t want anyone suggesting that we planted evidence when the case comes to trial. I had a call from FSI this morning; the sack that came up on Monday had clothes and a wallet in it. It’s a positive as items belonging to the first victim. The odd thing, he said, was that it’s as if the victim took them off, himself, and dropped them in the sack. The only things added were the stones, and nothing is missing. His watch and ring were in a trouser pocket and his wallet still had money in it. So, we can cross off robbery as a likely scenario.”

The divers were ready to go in, around ten-thirty, and it took them more than another thirty minutes before they were happy with attaching the hawser to the rear axle. The winch on the tow truck started to pull the car back into daylight, slowly and surely. It wasn’t too long before they could see the roof, but things slowed down from there. Getting it up the bank, past a small vertical lip, meant a couple of helpers up to their waists in the water, with shovels, creating more of a slope.

Finally, after an hour, the car was on the level ground, with water flowing out of a number of places. The FSI leader put on gloves and tested the doors to see if one was unlocked. He started with the rear, offside door, and it swung open, releasing a deluge of brackish water, which the opener deftly avoided. Maria could see that this was something he had done before.

When the flow stopped, he beckoned to Sue, who looked into the car to see a body in the back seat, with two sacks in the footwell beside it. Sue told Andy to keep filming and to bring the tripod to a point where he could film the inside of the car before anything was moved. The FSI leader opened the front door for him so he could get a complete record. Sue stood next to Andy and directed him to film certain parts of the car, in close-up. Andy was having a hard time filming the body. This wasn’t as bad as the other one he’d seen. What didn’t help was that the body was of a late-teen, blonde girl, naked and in the process of decomposition.

Marianne Gregory © 2023