‘They didn’t see anything at the time?’
‘Not likely. They were out cold on flunitrazepam.’
Quinnell glanced around. ‘That’s the same drug that was used on the crucifixion victims.’
‘Correct.’
‘How’d they get dosed?’ Shawna asked.
‘Seems one of them was in the habit of going out for a smoke … so he used to leave the emergency door open at the back of their office. That door also connected with the kitchenette where they kept their tea-making stuff.’
Quinnell looked impressed. ‘Perps did their homework.’
‘I think there’s more to it than that,’ Heck said. ‘But we’ll know for sure when we check the security footage. If they know their way around this place
too
well …’
‘What do you mean?’ Shawna asked. ‘Inside job?’
He shrugged. ‘The public only get to see a quarter of what happens in places like this. If the perps know this zoo like the backs of their hands, it’s something to consider.’
Gemma had now consulted the large map-board in the centre of the assembly area, and strode on without speaking. The others followed.
Horwich Zoo, one of the oldest in England, having been opened in the 1930s, had a viewing area covering a hundred acres, but a total land-holding of about three hundred. It was a hugely popular attraction, and, according to
Forbes
, consistently figured among the best zoological gardens in the world. It was constructed in that typical family-friendly way, tarmac paths snaking between manicured profusions of jungle-like vegetation, branching repeatedly, ascending onto walk-overs, descending into foot-tunnels, in all cases giving maximum vantage on the numerous animal enclosures, most of which – this being the start of the summer season – were occupied: the big cats prowled their cages; giraffes tore at the overhanging leafage; chimpanzees sat in rain-damp huddles on their moated islands, watching quietly, as if aware that something out-of-the-ordinary was happening. There were also picnic areas filled with tables and chairs made from bamboo, and playpens containing climbing frames and swings. All were empty, save for the occasional GMP bobby, clad neck to toe in fluorescent green and glistening with rain.
They approached the Reptile House along a looping side-path stencilled with images of serpents and lizards. The exterior of the building had a look of faux Victoriana, with a spired roof, green terracotta tiles on the walls, and tall, narrow stained-glass windows depicting tropical flora. They halted only briefly, to gaze up at a security camera on the building’s southeast corner, the lens of which had been punctured by an aluminium arrow.
‘How close would you have to be to make a shot like that?’ Shawna wondered.
‘A normal human wouldn’t even be guaranteed to make it from here,’ Quinnell said.
‘This
is
a normal human,’ Garrickson countered. ‘Let’s not get carried away.’
No one argued with him. But no one agreed with him either.
The killers had apparently entered the Reptile House through a service door at the rear, which they’d smashed down with sledge-hammers after first deactivating the alarms by clipping the outside cables with wire-cutters; further proof in Heck’s mind that they were intimately familiar with this place. Inside, a grim-faced uniform introduced himself as Inspector Perkins from Bolton Central, and said he’d take them up to one of the viewing galleries where the intruders had not been. Rain drummed on the roof tiles as they ascended, streaking down the outside of the stained-glass windows, filling the dim stairwell with trickling shadows.
They at last came to a steel railing, where various cameras and powerful halogen lights were already in position, and gazed down through a slanted Perspex roof into a pit some ten feet deep and about thirty feet by twenty in circumference. At least two thirds of it was filled with greenish water, though now a red scum floated on the surface. Lush, equatorial vegetation grew around its fringes.
Its usual occupant, a twenty-foot-long male crocodile, had been removed to a containment area in a different part of the building, while two medical examiners, wearing waders as well as the usual Tyvek coveralls, made investigations around what remained of its last meal.
‘St George’s Day,’ Eric Fisher said, somewhat unnecessarily. ‘We should have seen this one coming.’
‘No one could have seen this coming,’ Garrickson replied. Even he had been jarred by what he was now viewing.
That the victim had once been human was evident, but only because it still had a torso, and four partial limbs, all of which were gruesomely mutilated, the skin entirely torn away, the flesh and musculature pulled from the bones. Its internal organs had been rent out in a mass of glistening, slimy ravels, and though a head was still attached to the neck, it had been crushed into something non-identifiable, shards of white bone glinting through the flaps of ravaged flesh and tufts of thick, blood-sticky hair. The face no longer existed. The single length of chain with which the victim had been bound was still in evidence, still padlocked in place in fact, while rags of gore-soaked clothing were scattered in the vegetation. One pink high-heeled sandal, containing a severed foot complete with green toenail polish, lay on a mud-bank at the edge of the pool, revealing that the victim had been female.
‘Apparently Congo just worried at her,’ Inspector Perkins said in a dull voice. ‘Or else there’d be nothing left at all.’
Garrickson glanced sidelong at him. ‘Congo?’
‘The croc that did it.’
‘What do you mean “worried at her”?’ Gemma asked.
Perkins shrugged. ‘The animals here are well fed. So he wasn’t hungry.’
It was Heck who eventually gave voice to the numbing horror they all felt. ‘You mean he just … played with her.’
Perkins nodded and swallowed. He couldn’t take his eyes off the butchered horror lying below; his face was white as a bowl of curdled milk. ‘All night, they reckon. He was still at it at six this morning, when the security lads arrived.’
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ Shawna breathed.
She hadn’t intended it as a prayer, but Gary Quinnell continued it in that vein: ‘Have mercy on us all … and this poor soul, who died here alone and in such pain.’
None of the others held religious beliefs, but none of them objected.
Overnight, Horwich Zoo became the biggest crime scene in British history, but as Charlie Finnegan had said, it was a nightmare gleaning any useful information from it. Despite the preponderance of cameras at the site, there was surprisingly little security footage that they were able to use, which appeared to reinforce Heck’s suspicion that the perpetrators had been on familiar ground.
In an observational report, he wrote:
The intruders at the zoo either had an accurate floor-plan, or already knew the procedures in minute detail. Evidence of this can be found in their highly efficient assault on the zoo’s security staff – which, owing to the complete lack of physical evidence in the security cabin’s kitchen area, was most likely achieved by a single infiltrator – and the speed with which the rest of the team moved so unerringly from their point of entry, the wall at the zoo’s northeast corner (only 8ft high and overlooking a stretch of unoccupied wasteland known locally as Red Moss), to the Reptile House, a journey of nearly 500 yards. In both cases these separate journeys were made in complete darkness and without use of electric torches.
It is also noteworthy that, in both cases, the intruders managed to avoid all the zoo’s main CCTV points. We know this because the route they chose to the Reptile House was not the most direct one. They circled south around the lion and tiger enclosures, but could have halved their journey time by cutting these out altogether. Of course, if they had done that it would have taken them past the Nocturnal Forest attraction, where there are two camera stanchions facing east and west. They also circled around the rhino and camel enclosures instead of taking a shorter route past Lemur Island. In both cases they would have been forced to pass a camera, but the camera next to Lemur Island, which they avoided, is functional, while the camera at the junction of the camel and rhino pens, which they chanced, is not.
Another clue can be found in the camera overlooking the southern approach to the Reptile House. This one was also operational, and the intruders would have had no choice but to pass directly beneath it in order to enter. Thus, the target arrow that shattered its lens and put it out of action, does not just indicate that the archer responsible is highly skilled and proficient (as also proven in the two deaths on the West Pennine Moors in February), it also proves that the perpetrators were fully conversant with the threat posed by this particular camera, and had made plans beforehand to deal with it.
All of this suggests knowledge of the zoo’s security arrangements, which goes far beyond the norm. It is my strong recommendation that every member of staff at Horwich Zoo be assessed and interviewed rigorously.
For all this, the killers hadn’t completely avoided visual detection. From some distance away, a camera perched on the roof of the aviary had captured a snippet of them proceeding along the walkway past the rhino enclosure just after two o’clock in the morning. There were five or six of them – the exact number wasn’t totally clear. All were clad in dark clothing, including hoods and masks, and were bundled with rucksacks. Chillingly, two of the figures had carried a struggling shape between them, which looked as if it had been swathed in a bed-sheet. They had clearly entered the complex from its northeast corner because, though the ladders they’d used to scale the wall had been removed, there were imprints in the ground next to the wall’s footing, plus a strand of barbed wire at the top had been freshly cut away.
As with the other murders, it seemed to take a painfully long time just for these meagre details to come to light. The team flogged through hours and hours of footage before finding what they wanted. Forensic examination of the route the killers had taken would drag on for another day at least, and so far had uncovered nothing.
Meanwhile, the world outside the besieged sanctuary that was the MIR at Manor Hill appeared to be falling apart. On every news channel there was uproar; the dailies were going crazy. Claire’s face was constantly on TV, looking ever more tired, ever more harassed. The other morning, her first reaction on seeing photographs of the obliterated corpse had been to stagger to the toilet and vomit. To be fair, she wasn’t the only one.
Thanks to the mangled state of the as-yet-unidentified victim, it was the best part of a very stressful week before a full pathology report was available. Gemma assembled everyone she could in the MIR when she finally received the information.
‘The victim is a white female, aged somewhere in her mid-to-late twenties,’ she announced. ‘You’ll be relieved to know …
possibly
you’ll be relieved to know, that most of the damage inflicted on her body was post-mortem. The actual cause of death was cardiac aneurysm. The AP, whoever she was, already had a damaged heart, probably as a result of alcohol or substance abuse. In this weakened state, it was unable to withstand the extreme anxiety she suffered when she was lowered …’ Briefly, Gemma had trouble forming the relevant words; for an alarming second, Heck thought she was going to burst into tears. ‘When … she was lowered into the crocodile pool. In other words, ladies and gentlemen, she died of fright.’
No one replied as the awfulness of such a thing washed over them. Certainly no one felt in any way relieved. Okay, it was perhaps marginally preferable to being systematically dismembered by a giant bull-crocodile over a period of several hours, but just trying to imagine the extent of terror that must have struck the poor woman was almost impossible. Just how frightened did you have to be to self-induce death?
Heck met Claire’s gaze from across the room. Her face was grey, her eyes tearful.
Gemma placed the document on a table, where everyone could read it for themselves. ‘There are firsts in everyone’s career,’ she said in an oddly conversational fashion. ‘But I don’t think I’ve ever experienced quite so many in one particular enquiry.’
‘And we’ve absolutely no idea who she was?’ Shawna McCluskey asked.
‘We’re running her DNA obviously,’ Gemma replied. ‘No hits as yet.’
‘Alcoholic?’ Eric Fisher said. ‘Druggie? Surely we’ll have her on file.’
‘Maybe, maybe not … we don’t round toms up like we used to.’
‘We sure she was a prozzie, ma’am?’ someone else asked.
‘What’s left of her clothing would seem to indicate that.’
Visuals of the AP’s clothing – ribbons of black nylon stocking, ripped fragments of black string vest and of course that pink high-heeled sandal – were already up on screen behind her. Heck observed them carefully. Sometimes in modern Britain, it was difficult to tell girls on the game from girls out binge-drinking – both from their behaviour and their scanty clothing – but there was something tawdry and lived-in about these shredded articles, suggesting that they weren’t just Saturday night attire.
‘In which case we need to start looking at missing persons reports,’ he said. ‘Focusing on prostitutes and drug addicts.’
Gemma nodded vaguely. It would take forever of course. Britain’s sex-workers were a transient population at the best of times. That said, any lead was a lead, and it wasn’t as if they hadn’t picked up other leads from the zoo as well. The chain that had bound the victim was being meticulously examined. Polished metal was always a good bet with the forensics boys. It preserved prints nicely, and in addition, if it was hinged, jointed or articulated, like a chain, there was a good chance that body traces would be retained: skin might have been pinched or hair snagged. Officers had also been dispatched to collate footage from the speed and traffic cameras in the area, and there were plenty of those.
This was all good stuff, and yet Gemma didn’t respond positively, at least not immediately. Heck watched her body-language; he’d never seen her look so dispirited.