Cruel Justice (DI Lorne Simpkins (Book one)) (7 page)

An unexplained sadness swept over Lorne. Doreen was quick to spot the change in her, "What's wrong, dear? You look as if you've just discovered you have a flat tyre or something."

"I was just thinking how magical that must be, to be so close to a twin like that," Lorne said, totally at ease with the woman, briefly forgetting Pete was in the room.

He cleared his throat reminding, her why they were there.

The astute woman asked, sensitively, "I take it you're an only child, my dear?"

"No, I have a sister, but our brother died when he was four days old, he was my sister's twin. My parents found the experience very traumatic, they refused to try for another child after that." Her eyes filled with tears.

"A great loss for both you and your parents, I would imagine," Doreen said, quietly, echoing her grief.

Reality pulled Lorne back in line. She took a deep breath and pushed the family secret back to where it belonged, locked in the vault of her memory bank.

"It was a long time ago," she said.

Doreen straightened, and asked, "Is there a particular reason you've come here, today?"

"That'll be your psychic powers kicking in then, Doreen." Pete laughed at his own stupid, insensitive joke. Lorne glared at him.

He shrugged a silent apology and Lorne cleared her clogged throat.

She gathered the woman's right hand in her own, it was cold to the touch.

"After studying the photos you've shown us, Doreen, I'm afraid I have to tell you we may have found your sister after all."

Doreen stood up and began firing questions as she paced up and down her living room, momentarily forgetting about her aching hip. "Oh, my God, where? Why didn't you tell me sooner? Is she all right? When can I see her?"

Lorne felt the bile rising in her throat, she glanced at Pete for support. He gave her a 'you're the boss'
,
kind of look. She was on her own as usual when this type of situation cropped up.

"Doreen, I need you to sit down, love." The woman sat. "Like I said, we were unsure until you showed us the photos. Now … Well, now we think that the body found last night in Chelling Forest is that of your sister, Belinda."

 "I don't understand. Body, you said body, is she
dead
? Why wouldn't you have made the connection as soon as I opened the door? She couldn't have changed that much in a month, everyone can tell within seconds we're identical twins, why couldn't you?"

Lorne didn't think telling Doreen her sister had been decapitated was a good idea.

"I understand how upsetting this must be, Doreen and I regrettably have to inform you that we believe your sister was murdered."

"What?" The old woman gasped for air as the two detectives looked helplessly at each other.

"My tab…lets. Over there …" The woman's blood had drained from her face, she anxiously pointed to the small bottle of pills sitting on the mantelpiece.

Pete was the first to react. Grabbing the bottle, he asked Doreen how many tablets she needed.

"One," she replied, breathlessly.

The bottle had a child safety cap on it. Pete's large hands fumbled over it without success. Lorne snatched the bottle from him and quickly tipped a handful of the tiny pills into her palm.

Doreen's hand shook as she grabbed one of the pills and tucked it under her tongue.

The change was dramatic. Seconds later the woman became calmer. Lorne ordered Pete to fetch a glass of water from the kitchen.

He returned with the glass to find his boss rocking the woman back and forth in her arms as if she were a child.

"I have angina, the shock must have brought on an attack."

Once she'd recovered, Doreen insisted they tell her about her sister's death, but the detectives refused to divulge the horrifying injuries her sister had sustained, fearing the shock would bring on another attack. Lorne did however, ask the woman if it would be possible to take a DNA sample from her, so they could use it to formally identify the victim. Doreen agreed.

Pete telephoned Arnaud, who dispatched a colleague immediately to the woman's address.

In the meantime, Lorne telephoned Doreen's daughter, explaining briefly what had happened and arranged for her to come over to be with her mother.

Ten minutes later, a blonde dishevelled-looking woman let herself into the bungalow. Instead of make-up there were smudges of chocolate and flour on her face, her eyes were swollen and red.

"Mum, are you all right?" Dropping to one knee, Colleen picked up her mother's hand and tenderly kissed it.

Doreen weakly introduced the two detectives as she lovingly wiped away the chocolate from the younger woman's cheek with the corner of her apron.

"Oh, Colleen, whatever am I going to do? She's dead. Your aunt is dead." She babbled as tears rolled down her wrinkled cheeks.

"I know, Mum, we'll get through this. I promise we will."

 Colleen showed the two detectives to the door.

"Your mother had a slight turn, we had to give her one of her tablets," Lorne gave the woman one of her cards. "When someone arrives from pathology, they'll take a buccal swab, instead of a blood sample. Ring me if I can be of any help."

"That's a sample from the mouth, isn't it? When will the results of the DNA come through?" The young woman's voice shook with emotion.

"That's right, it's less invasive and it's supposed to yield a higher amount of DNA. Results should be back in the morning. We'll let you know as soon as we have them. Will you be staying here with your mother?"

"Yes. My husband is going to look after the children. A neighbour's sitting with them at the moment. I'll stay here for as long as Mum needs me. Oh my God, what about Oliver, my cousin? Who'll tell him?"

"If you'd rather we did, that's fine. I'll sort it out. Let's leave things as they are for now. As soon as the results are back, I'll contact you first, then give him a call. We have his number at the office."

They shook hands and the detectives left the grief-filled bungalow. As they walked down the path, the blood red roses edging it, bowed a graceful farewell in the breeze. In the distance a dog barked at its elderly owner who was teasing it with a gushing hose-pipe. It was a relief to hear the hum of normal healthy lives being led.

"How come you never told me you had a kid brother who died?" Pete said, as they got in the car.

"It was no concern of yours, Pete, it still isn't." Lorne promptly changed the subject. "We'll drop by the Doc's office on the way back, see if the report's ready."

One thing her father had taught her long ago was never to mix work with your personal life.

Pete threw her a thunderous look, but thankfully thought twice about challenging her.

Chapter Ten

They picked up the report and returned to the station. When they arrived, the incident room was a hive of activity, even Molly was busy tapping away on her computer.

"Give me five minutes to go over this report and I'll summarise it for you. Then, before we call it a day, we'll recap what we have or haven't achieved today, okay?"

The team shouted, "Yes, ma'am," in unison. Work had been non-stop lately for all of them and their spirits rose at the thought of knocking off early.

The report did little to raise Lorne's spirits. In fact, it proved to be a total disappointment, full of conjecture and uncertainties. It emphasised the need and urgency to recover the missing limbs before the cause of death could be ascertained.

Doctor Arnaud suggested there was a distinct possibility the body may have been placed in a freezer for a week or two before they'd discovered it. He also stated that, although the torso had suffered many blows with a blunt instrument, none of the injuries sustained would have been considered fatal.

The skin around the neck was jagged in some areas and torn in others, a sign that it had been removed impatiently by the perpetrator with some kind of saw. It appeared that this had been carried out around the time of death, as the extent of blood loss incurred, from what he could gather, had been maximum. The fingertips of the left hand would appear to have been removed in the same way.

The victim had suffered four broken ribs and during the assault the sternum had also sustained several fractures.

She read on and was horrified to find that a piece of wood five inches long and three inches in diameter had been discovered wedged deep inside the victim's vaginal vault. This would suggest that the crime had been a sexually motivated one, although no semen was found in, on or near the corpse.

The doctor had finalised his report by saying: if, and it's a big if, the victim had lived, the internal injuries she suffered would have meant she would have had to endure months of recuperation and numerous corrective operations. Putting it bluntly, the victim's death had proven to be a blessing in disguise.

Stunned and disgusted, Lorne slammed the report shut. If the victim was verified to be Belinda Greenaway, what kind of sick animal were they dealing with? The woman was sixty-five years old for Christ's sake. No one in their right mind would subject a woman of that age to such a horrendous ordeal, or any age, would they?

She had to concur with Arnaud's view, that death had been the better option for this poor defenceless woman.

A sudden urge to call home and hear a friendly voice overtook her.

"Hello?" the young voice answered.

"Hello, darling, did you enjoy your sleepover?"

"It was all right, Susie had another fight with her Mum and…"

"And?"

"And, I love you, Mum."

Her eyes misted up instantly and her throat felt restricted. She cleared it with a slight cough. "Oh, Charlie, I love you, too. Did you have a good day at school?"

"Not especially, one of the teachers was off sick and the deputy-head stepped in for Maths. A bummer really."

"Charlie, you mind your language," she chastised, holding back a laugh. "Is your father there?"

"Yeah, where else would he be?"

 
Where indeed, but for how much longer?

"I hear Charlie just gave you a sample of the latest word she's picked up at school," Tom said light-heartedly when he picked up the phone.

"God knows where she's getting it from. Anyway, I'm just about to wind things up here. Fingers crossed I should be home within the hour, shall I pop by the off-licence on the way?"

"Nope, I took care of that earlier. Just hurry home, I've made Lasagne for dinner."

Lorne didn't have the heart to tell him she'd eaten pasta for lunch. He'd obviously made an effort; any doubts she had of her marriage coming to an abrupt end diminished rapidly during the call. He'd spent time preparing her favourite meal. Perhaps he'd had time to think about their circumstances and decided to forgive her for not being around much lately.
Or is that purely wishful thinking?

She quickly tidied her desk, then, with the report tucked under her arm stepped back into the incident room. The team listened without interruption as she read out the report, every gruesome detail.

Despite their best efforts, the group had come up with nothing further at the end of the day. Without a positive identification of the body, it was impossible for them to come up with any kind of motive for the crime. Lorne was sure now they were on the way to making a formal ID, things would start falling into place soon.

"Okay, we might as well call it a day. John, can you do one final job for me before you head off?"

"Sure, what's that, boss?" he asked, delighted to be singled out for the task.

"Organise a press conference for the morning, TV, newspapers and radio, we should have an ID on the body by mid-morning, so around eleven would be ideal."

"What about an incident van at the scene?" Tracy said, phone in hand poised ready for action.

"Good idea. I'll leave that with you, Tracy."

The young officer nodded, already dialling a number.

Lorne dismissed the team and made her way out to her car with Pete tagging along beside her.

 "It's been a helluva day, boss."

 "That it has, Pete. Hopefully, things will look a little clearer, tomorrow."

"Ah … hum … You don't think you're getting a bit too involved in this one, do you?"

She stopped abruptly. Frowning at him, she enquired, "What gives you that idea?"

They were outside the building now, there was still a lot of activity around the station, fewer officers clocking on than those coming off shift. Pete leaned forward and said in a hushed voice, "It's just that, well when you were giving us the low down on the PM report … um … you seemed a tad emotional. I was there today remember, you know, when you told Doreen about your little brother…"

"You're reading things into it, Pete. I'd say I was seething about the case rather than upset, every case touches us in some way, you know that. Be honest, hasn't this one affected you?"

"Not really, boss."

Flabbergasted by his admission, she asked, "Is that because the victim is a woman and not a man?"

"I can't believe you said that, boss. You know damn well, I treat every victim the same, no matter what gender they are."

 "I apologise, I was out of order. There's a lot going on around me at the moment Pete, things I can't go into, but let me assure you,
I'm not getting too involved
, as you put it. This is the worst case we've had to deal with in a long time, even you have to admit that."

He nodded in agreement but didn't interrupt her.

"I have a feeling we haven't seen the last of this bastard, call it women's intuition, if you like. That, my dear chap, is why maybe I'm a little bit more emotional about this case than I should be."

He held his hands up. "I was just making sure, boss. I guess I've never seen you like this before, it's bound to make me wonder what's going on."

"Wonder away, Pete, but remember I didn't get to be an Inspector without some professionalism under my belt. Now if you don't mind, I have a husband and daughter I'm eager to get home to."

"You and Tom have made peace then?" he said nodding at the plaster still sitting above her eye.