Authors: Kate Rhodes
‘The boss headhunted me. Last time I saw you I was full steam ahead planning my wedding. It went okay, thank God, apart from one bridesmaid getting rat-arsed at the reception and making a tit of herself. I’ve had some luck at work too – they’re putting me up for my inspector exam next year.’
‘Burns must be thrilled to have you.’
‘I bloody hope so. It’s been full-on since I arrived, and now this happens.’
Angie was as excitable as I’d remembered, but she silenced herself when Burns’s deputy arrived. Tania Goddard towered over us, so glossy she looked like she’d been airbrushed; her black fringe bisected her forehead in a geometric line, lips a vivid crimson. Only the bleak look in her eyes revealed her state of mind.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked.
‘I’ve had better days. The victim’s WPC Amala Adebayo, thirty-four years old. She’d only been with us six months. Her body was found tied up twenty metres west along the riverbank. The men who found her brought her up here; they were worried the river might carry her away.’ Her voice tailed into silence. ‘You’d better go through, Alice. Burns is waiting.’
The wide sweep of the river greeted me when I got outside, acres of charcoal sky with the warehouses of Shad Thames lining the opposite bank. But no one was admiring the view. A white tent had been erected in the patio garden, a police photographer disappearing through the flaps. Burns had his mobile clamped to his ear, his accent growing steadily more Scottish. A business-like young scenes of crime officer scribbled my name on her checklist, then handed me a sterile suit and plastic overshoes. I was about to put them on when a tear dropped from her eye onto the sheet of paper. She wiped it away hurriedly, as though emotions were a weakness best ignored.
‘Did you know Amala well?’ I asked.
The girl gave a miserable nod. ‘We started the same week.’
‘I’m so sorry. What was she like?’
‘Lovely.’ Her eyes were still brimming. ‘You could tell her anything. I can’t believe anyone would hurt her.’
When I turned round, Burns was facing me. His expression warned me that whatever lay inside the tent wasn’t going to be pretty.
‘This is worse than Jude Shelley’s attack.’ He pulled a police ID card from his pocket. ‘That’s how Amala looked yesterday. I want everyone to remember that.’
‘She’s stunning.’ A young black woman with high cheekbones and flawless skin gazed back at me.
‘Not any more.’ His scowl deepened.
Burns pulled back the tent flaps and I stepped inside. The temperature seemed to fall by several degrees, rain drumming on the plastic roof. Amala Adebayo’s corpse was clothed in black shoes and trousers, white T-shirt in tatters. Her hands were bound so tightly that the rope had chafed her wrists. Her legs were constrained too, binds round her knees and ankles. I glanced across at Burns then forced myself to study her face. There was evidence of a frenzied attack. The policewoman’s cheeks and forehead had been slashed apart by wounds so deep that white glints of bone were exposed. A single cut had sliced through her eyes, continuing across the bridge of her nose. The river had taken its toll too, her skin grotesquely bloated. A thick rope hung from her neck like a hangman’s noose.
My head swam as I stepped back into the open air. For once the rain felt like a blessing, washing away my nausea. ‘Did he leave a calling card?’
‘It was tied round her waist. Do you want to see it?’
One of the oddest objects I’d ever seen lay on a plastic tray inside a clear evidence bag. It was an earthenware bottle, about three inches long, made of dark brown pottery, with the face of a bearded man embossed on the side. The ceramic features were hard to read, lips almost hidden by his beard, his smile either kindly or malevolent. I leant down to take a photo with my phone.
‘What the hell is it?’ Burns murmured.
‘I need to find out. Tagging the victim’s bodies is a big part of his killing ritual. Can I see where she was left on the riverbank?’
He shook his head. ‘I’ll have to show you from here.’
He led me to the railing and pointed west. The river was moving rapidly, shallow waves scudding along the embankment. A row of buoys marked the spot where the policewoman’s body had been found at the foot of a staircase. When I looked back at Burns, his face was tense with frustration. Not only had he lost one of his team, the river had scoured every scrap of evidence from the crime scene.
The rain made me abandon my bike and accept Burns’s offer of a lift back to the station, but people kept accosting him with questions. He seemed to be succumbing to shock, his eyes stretched a little too wide. I thought about Whitehall’s reaction when they learned that the killer had struck again – their efforts to keep the investigation quiet would be blown sky high. Burns’s car smelled as if it had been valeted that morning, the air heavy with polish and lemon detergent. Normally we’d have talked about everything we’d seen, but the atmosphere was still bristling with tension as he explained the arrangements for the case.
‘Tania’s leading the forensics team and liaising with the media. I’ll look after evidence and operations, with help from Angie.’ He stared at the road ahead. ‘It was like déjà vu when I saw Amala. The style’s identical to what happened to Jude.’
‘Whoever’s doing this seems obsessed by the river. He ran a big risk to carry Amala’s body through a built-up area, even in the middle of the night. It would have been a damn sight easier to drive out of town and dump her on waste ground. All the attacks are heavily ritualised.’
Burns didn’t reply, and I couldn’t help looking across at him. The attraction was difficult to pin down; it might have stemmed from his hulking build, the determined set of his jaw or the fact that he was so focused on doing the right thing. But wherever it came from, I wished I could turn it off at source and concentrate on doing my job.
The atmosphere in the incident room was leaden. Officers from the Met pride themselves on greeting every disaster with gallows humour and a stiff upper lip, but both strategies seemed to be failing. A middle-aged woman was weeping uncontrollably, and I saw Burns crouch down to squeeze her shoulder. Poster-sized photos of Amala had already been posted on the evidence board. I studied one of them closely. She looked much younger than thirty-four, beaming for the camera in a bright green dress, a gold cross dangling from her neck.
Burns waited until the senior investigation team returned from the crime scene to start his briefing. I recognised most of the dozen officers from previous cases, but had never seen them this subdued. Even Pete Hancock looked upset, the station’s senior SOCO, who prided himself on being inscrutable. Angie’s chatter had lapsed into silence, and Tania stood at the front of the room, gazing straight ahead, arms folded. Burns sounded so outraged when he began to speak that he could have been talking directly to the killer.
‘We lost one of our best new recruits last night. Amala Adebayo. She came to the UK from Ghana at eighteen and did nannying jobs until she’d earned enough qualifications to join the Met’s training scheme. I know feelings are running high, but you need to keep a lid on them until her killer’s put away.’ Burns glared at the faces in the front row. ‘We know Amala left work yesterday around three p.m. – we have film of her on the front steps. She normally took the bus to her rented house in Barnsbury. I want you to check number-plate recognition and CCTV cameras for the entire journey. Talk to colleagues, friends and family to see if anyone was pestering her. Find out if she visited chat rooms, or did Internet dating. We owe it to Amala to learn all her secrets.’ He turned and nodded at Tania to take over.
‘This is a manhunt for a serial killer. Father Kelvin Owen was found on the riverbank at Westminster on Monday morning, just three days ago. The hallmarks of that attack are exactly like Amala’s. Most of you will remember Jude Shelley being attacked twelve months ago. She survived, but the MO was identical. Her face was destroyed, then she was thrown into the river fully clothed with a piece of metal round her neck.’ She glanced down at the papers in her hand. ‘One of the investigation team thought the object was an arrowhead. A piece of glass was tied to Father Kelvin’s wrist, and a ceramic bottle around Amala’s waist, all on thin strips of leather. This guy’s so organised, he’s even got time to tag his victims.’
My desire to understand the objects’ symbolism stepped up a gear. There must be a factor uniting them with the Shelley family, and they had to hold a personal resonance for the killer. Unlocking their meaning would bring me closer to understanding his identity.
There was a ripple of whispers as the team absorbed the information, then Tania and Angie began allocating duties. Search teams were organised to return to the river, another group checking road cameras, the next arranging house to house. The forensic team were conducting a fingertip search of the stairs leading down to the foreshore and part of Wapping High Street, which was still cordoned off. The detectives looked more purposeful as they hurried away, relieved to have something specific to do. Only Pete Hancock looked as concerned as before, black monobrow lowering a centimetre above his eyes, his mouth a thin horizontal line.
I was about to leave when Burns caught up with me. ‘Can we have a quick meeting?’
His office had been redecorated. The walls were pristine white, his desk empty, an exercise bike standing in the corner. It made me wonder where the old chaotic Burns was hiding. His hands were buried deep his pockets as he stood by the wall, staring at me.
‘Are you with me or against me, Alice?’
‘Sorry?’
‘I know I’m not your favourite person, but you’re the only shrink I trust to work on this.’
‘We’re after the same perpetrator. That means we’re in this together, whether I like it or not.’
Burns looked exasperated. ‘Then stop snapping and start communicating. Or are you too angry?’
‘Don’t patronise me, Don. My role here’s professional, not personal.’
‘We have to be able to talk openly.’
His tone hovered somewhere between a plea and an order. We stood there for a full minute, like contestants in a staring match. It took considerable effort to swallow my pride.
‘I don’t appreciate being lectured on how to do my job, but you’re right about communication. We need to work together as closely as before.’
Burns gave an emphatic nod, but his expression clouded again as his eyes fell on the stack of papers in the centre of his table. A photo of Amala Adebayo from the crime scene lay on top of the pile, her sightless eyes gazing at the ceiling.
13
Traffic made me late for my 5.30 p.m. meeting with Jude’s mysterious ex-boyfriend that afternoon. The taxi dropped me on the Strand and I studied the façade of King’s College as I trotted across the road. The colonnaded building was more like a palace than a seat of learning, constructed during the last days of empire, when the economy still held enough cash to support huge architectural projects. I rushed inside, afraid that Paul Ramirez might have left already. Most of the academics I knew were elusive creatures, keen to bury themselves in their books at home.
The law department was on the ground floor, its offices lining a corridor so well used that undergraduates’ footsteps had worn a groove in the black and white floor tiles. The building seemed deserted, but Dr Ramirez’s door was open by a fraction, and I peered through the gap. The scene inside fascinated me. I’d expected him to be attractive enough to gain a cult following, but he was in his fifties, pepper and salt hair trailing over his collar, dressed in a shapeless linen jacket. A pretty blonde girl sat beside him, staring up at his face, their shoulders almost touching. They were so absorbed by their flirtation that they didn’t notice me spying. I wondered whether Ramirez had ensnared Jude in the same way, inviting her to private tutorials after his colleagues had gone home.
I rapped loudly on the door and the girl looked startled, as if her mother had caught her misbehaving.
‘Please forgive my lateness, Dr Ramirez,’ I said calmly.
He muttered a quiet dismissal and the girl blushed fiercely as she scuttled out. The academic was too cool to reveal his irritation. His bone structure indicated that he must have been handsome once, but now his face was careworn, and there was something unpleasant about his body language. He stood much too close as he offered me a chair. It was only when he spoke that I understood his attraction. His voice was a mellow London drawl, resonating with sex appeal. At least he wasn’t pretending to be single: a thick gold wedding band adorned his ring finger.
‘Like I said on the phone, Dr Ramirez, I’m reviewing Jude Shelley’s case. I’d be grateful for some information.’
‘I still don’t see how I can help.’ His shoulders stiffened. ‘What happened is tragic, but she wasn’t in my seminar group.’