CUT DEAD: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel - Mark Sennen

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to him about the latest developments would be an understatement. He was bloody livid.’

      ‘Abusive?’ Savage said.

      ‘Yes, although I’ve heard worse. The gist of it, once the swearing was over, is that he can see no reason to cooperate with us this time round. I told him he had no choice. Made an appointment for tomorrow morning, OK?’

      Savage said it was fine, congratulated Calter on dealing with Glastone and hung up. She found a nearby bench and sat down. She’d go back in a bit, but the PM room, self-evidently, was a place of death. Out under the sky with the late sun on her skin and a gentle breeze flicking through the trees, she could think of nicer things for a few minutes.

      Inevitably though, having been in the mortuary, her mind turned to Clarissa, Samantha’s deceased twin. Clarissa had died as a result of a hit and run accident on Dartmoor. A dreamy summer picnic beside a stream had turned into a nightmare from which Savage and her husband had never fully recovered. Partly this was because the driver of the car which had killed Clarissa had never been traced. But earlier in the year, having done a favour for Kenny Fallon, Plymouth’s crime boss, she’d received a promise. He’d get her a name, he’d said. A name, she thought, could change everything, bring closure. So far though, Fallon had been silent and other than a couple of texts to tell her he was still working on identifying the culprit, there’d been nothing.

      Come on, Kenny, get your act together, she thought. Perhaps, when the first few frenetic days of the case had passed, she’d call him. A dangerous business considering Fallon’s status, but she couldn’t wait on him forever.

      Half an hour later and she was back inside, but the body had gone, Hardin too, a mortuary technician sluicing away the only sign the woman had been there at all: grey sludge and body juices.

      Nesbit came out of the mortuary office wielding a set of notes and shaking his head.

      ‘I’ll not be able to give a cause of death, but we can hypothesise it was from the torture. Either blood loss or maybe a heart attack. Not much else, I’m afraid. The body was remarkably well-preserved considering, but no way of knowing much about the weapon from the cuts. Not after this length of time. The head was removed with something like an axe. I can see the crushing of one of the vertebrae. In the woman’s pelvic region a great deal of flesh has been cut away – genitals, everything. It’s not much comfort but I believe the removal happened after death.’

      ‘Any useful forensic?’

      ‘Apart from the material at the base of her throat?’ Nesbit reached for a plastic container. ‘I’ll wager it’s the same as found in Mandy Glastone’s oesophagus.’

      Earlier Nesbit had cut up from the stomach – or what remained of it – and found a cylindrical lump of clay. He’d hypothesised the clay must have been forced down the throat of the victim before the head had been removed.

      ‘Apart from the clay.’

      ‘Yes, although I’m not sure it’s relevant.’ Nesbit smiled at Savage and then patted his stomach. ‘She’s had a baby, Charlotte.’

      ‘What?’ Savage was hearing Nesbit’s words but not understanding.

      ‘A child. Amongst all the cuts there’s the faint sign of a Caesarean scar. At some point this woman has given birth. I expect there’ll be medical records you can check should you be of a doubting nature.’

      ‘No, Andrew,’ Savage smiled. ‘I’ll take your word.’

      ‘We’ll be doing the other two tomorrow. They’re in a bad way, but we’ll try to tease out what we can.’

      Savage thought of the grey forms which had lain in the bottom of the trench alongside the first body. Wondered what story they might be able to tell, the secrets they might give up, the secrets they would hold on to forever.

       Chapter Eight

       Bere Ferrers, Devon. Tuesday 17th June. 9.11 a.m.

      Savage got hold of her old boss first thing Tuesday; Walsh’s soft burr as he answered her call hinting at a modicum of surprise. He was, as she expected, keen to be involved, keen to see the scene out at the farm. The experience, he admitted, would provide some sort of closure. He’d meet her there within the hour.

      Savage was waiting in the farmyard when Walsh drove in and tucked his little Fiat between Layton’s Volvo and the big tractor.

      ‘Morning, sir,’ she said as Walsh got out and retrieved a pair of wellies from the boot.

      ‘You don’t have to call me sir, remember?’ Walsh pulled on the boots, steadying himself on the car. He was only in his early sixties, but with his hair long gone grey, if anything, he looked older. Retirement could be cruel to some people, Savage thought. Shorn of the excitement of the job ex-officers searched around for something to replace the adrenaline rush, but nothing could. A sort of mental deflation often followed. It was sad to think of Walsh going that way.

      ‘Yes, sir,’ she said, smiling to try and deflect her mood. ‘I mean, of course. It’s easy to forget.’

      ‘You know, Charlotte?’ Walsh made a half glance towards the edge of the farmyard where a white-suited figure struggled with a wheelbarrow, atop which sat two plastic boxes filled with mud. ‘Sometimes I wish it was.’

      ‘This time we’ll get him.’

      ‘We?’ Walsh chuckled. ‘Hands up, last time I failed, but this time catching the bastard isn’t down to me, is it?’

      ‘No.’ Savage shook her head and they began to walk out of the farmyard, following the aluminium track down across the field. Away in the distance, up close to the boundary hedge, the white tent stood in the centre of the muddy patch, like some sad remnant of a festival. Only nobody had partied here.

      ‘Odd,’ Walsh said. ‘The location, I mean. Far easier places to dispose of a body or three. Risky too. Does the farmer have dogs?’

      ‘Yes, she does, but they’re shut up at night. If they bark it’s usually at foxes or cars in the lane.’

      ‘She?’

      ‘Women have got the vote, sir. In case you haven’t noticed.’

      ‘Only joking, Charlotte.’ He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. ‘And does she have a gun?’

      ‘Yes, a shotgun. The farmworker too. He occasionally goes out at night to shoot a few rabbits. He’s seen nothing suspicious though.’

      ‘This guy wouldn’t want to take risks. You know his form. We believed, back then, that the victims had been targeted weeks in advance. He was careful not to be disturbed, not to leave fingerprints or anything else. The kidnappings had been planned to a T.’

      ‘Dr Wilson? I’ve been reading his reports. I’m supposed to meet with him.’

      ‘Fuck Wilson,’ Walsh raised a hand and tapped his forehead. ‘This was common sense, nothing you couldn’t work out with half a thimbleful of intelligence and a couple of true crime books as reference material.’

      Common sense or not, Savage knew Wilson had identified the killer as a highly organised psychopath. Intelligent, educated, he was in control of the situation. Wilson had gone further: the lines on the body of Mandy Glastone were akin to the final brush strokes on a canvas, he’d said. Beforehand the artist had to prepare by deciding on the subject, gathering the materials, preparing the canvas, arranging the materials. Wilson stressed in this case his ideas were not metaphors; the killer actually was an artist of some type, he would view the killing as a project. The head and genitals of the victim he would keep as a trophy, part of the post-crime re-enactment cycle.

      However, the actual evidence for the killer having any connection to the art world had been circumstantial: the cuts on Mandy Glastone could have been caused by a craft knife. Equally the

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