The Embalmer, page 11
part #3 of Mullins & Sullivan Series
Rose prised the lid off the jar. The air was filled by the stench of rotting meat. Both Rory and Francis took a step back. They watched, repulsed, as she used a narrow steel spatula to gently ease the contents out of the jar onto a stainless-steel tray. At first, white crystals – natron, as they now knew. Then the crystals became dark. Rust-coloured. Globules of . . . leathery meat, crusted with bloodstained natron. Francis looked away, feeling sick. If it was what he suspected, they’d found Alicia Russell’s missing liver.
And it had been sitting on Tom Fitz’s desk for the last three days.
22
Tuesday, 7 November 2017
Francis
Francis stood in front of the whiteboard in the incident room. He had two dead women on his hands. Both murdered. He had no idea still how the mummified woman had died, or even who she was. But Alicia Russell was another matter. Saying she’d been eviscerated seemed something of an understatement. What had happened to her seemed like a form of ritualistic torture. That the killings were linked, he had no doubt. The Booth Museum connected them, even though they didn’t yet know the identity of the mummified body.
The team were assembling behind him, and he could sense the buzz of energy in the room. Another killing meant another victim. But their clients weren’t just the dead. They served every potential victim. When they caught a killer, they were saving somebody’s life and that was just as powerful a driving force as the need to seek justice for those they were too late to help.
Rory came in and the undercurrent of excited whispering stopped. The sergeant still commanded more respect with the long-serving members of the team, and Francis wondered if he could do something on this case to improve his standing with the old guard. Probably not, given that he had a superior and a subordinate who had turned undermining him into a joint enterprise.
The murder board was filling up with pictures. There was the mummy, still wrapped, and then all the separate images of her tattoos. There was Alicia Russell in a corporate head-and-shoulders shot, and also spread-eagled, naked and bloody, on the clifftop. There were pictures of the other staff members at the museum. Were they potential killers?
At the other end of the board, divided from the Booth Museum case by a thick black line, an image of Thierry Mullins scowled straight at the camera. It had been taken a couple of years before by a police photographer when he’d been pulled in under suspicion of drug dealing. Beneath it, there was a similar photo of Marni, taken on her arrival at the station the previous Tuesday. Francis avoided looking at them, the one of Marni in particular.
‘Boss?’ It was Angie. ‘Everyone’s here.’
‘Sure,’ said Francis. ‘Let’s get started.’
He turned to face the room. Kyle was still chuntering to the crime researcher sitting next to him, but Gavin was facing the front, all ears.
‘We’ve got our work cut out for us,’ said Francis. ‘Two apparent murders that are linked to the Booth Museum. Alicia Russell’s body was discovered at the top of Peacehaven Cliffs on Sunday. Her liver had been removed. The killer packed it into a Canopic jar and delivered it to the offices of The Argus late on Saturday.’
‘So why didn’t they call us then?’ said Kyle.
‘Tom Fitz was covering the Booth Museum story and he was away for the weekend. One of his colleagues left it on his desk.’
There was a collective groan as this piece of information was digested.
‘Gavin, can you go back to The Argus and try and pin them down on time of delivery and any other details. If the killer’s sending messages to them, we need them on our side. I want you to act as liaison with them so they come to you first if he contacts them again.’
‘On it,’ said Gavin.
‘The jar came with a piece of parchment attached – the same as the parchment we found at the museum, same hieroglyphs, but also with a message in English.’ He pointed at a photo of the scroll on the board.
‘Sir?’ said Kyle.
‘Yes.’
‘Information back from forensics. The scroll from the Booth has been identified as being a piece of papyrus.’
‘You can still get that?’ said Angie.
‘Apparently so,’ said Kyle. ‘On the internet. Ten ninety-nine for thirty-two sheets. CSI are digging into the source of it for us.’
‘Good work, Kyle. Get them to check whether the two messages are on the same material. Angie, anything new on Alicia Russell’s last movements?’
‘Yes, boss. A woman who lives diagonally opposite saw her putting her bins out last Tuesday morning.’
‘She’s sure about this?’
‘We’ve checked – Tuesday is bin day in that street, and the woman said she was in a blue sweat top, leggings and trainers. The clothes she described were on a chair in Alicia’s bedroom.’
‘What time was that?’
‘She wasn’t totally sure – sometime after she got out of bed at seven thirty, but before the bin lorry came, which was usually at about eight thirty.’
‘Okay, that’s the last sighting of Alicia Russell to date,’ said Francis. He wrote the time and place up on the whiteboard. ‘We need to pin down exactly what happened between then and her death, which we presume to have been at some time on Saturday.’ Then he pointed to the image of the mummified woman. ‘It’s too early to have had any DNA test results back from the mummified cadaver, but we’re looking for a heavily tattooed middle-aged woman, who must have been missing for at least a month and a half, if not considerably longer.’
‘Gavin, how many possibles have you got on the mis-per list?’ said Rory.
Gavin had been tasked with identifying missing women who fitted the information they had on the mummy.
‘Taking it back to women who’ve been missing for up to a year, and who disappeared from Surrey, Sussex or Hampshire, there’s nudging three hundred,’ said Gavin. ‘I’ve ruled out a few as too young or too old – but of course, she could have been missing longer, or from further afield. I haven’t started on hair colour yet. It’s too easy for people to change their hair colour when they go missing, so I don’t see that as reliable.’
‘What about DNA?’ said Rory.
Gavin pursed his lips in a rueful expression. ‘We don’t have DNA samples for most of the missing women on the list.’
‘Seriously?’ said Angie.
Gavin shook his head. ‘It’s a fact. There’s no central database of DNA of people reported missing. There needs to be, but there isn’t.’
‘Needle in the proverbial,’ muttered Kyle.
‘Well, keep at it,’ said Francis. ‘Rule out those that you can. Talk to Rose about the cadaver’s natural hair colour, check the missing list for any tattoos like the ones on our body, and get Rose to take an X-ray of her teeth as well. Start looking at their dental records. Use anything you can to rule people out.’
‘What about an appeal to the public?’ said Angie.
Francis crinkled his nose. ‘We don’t have much to give them. I’m not releasing a picture of the cadaver – the mummification process has distorted the facial features too much to be of any use for identification purposes – and I’m not convinced the woman had the tattoos before she went missing.’
‘And if she’s been missing a month and a half at least, anyone close would have reported it by now,’ added Gavin.
Francis pointed at the pictures of the two dead women. ‘The big question is: were these two women killed by the same person?’
‘Same MO?’ said Kyle.
Francis shook his head. ‘We don’t know how the mummy died. There’s a chance that it could have been accidental, but given that we’ve got a mummified corpse and a presumably unregistered death, I think it’s a fair assumption that she was murdered.’
‘There are similarities, aren’t there?’ said Angie. ‘Organs removed, Canopic jars – can’t see that there would be two killers in the area doing that at the same time.’
Francis nodded. ‘One issue is how the killer gained access to the Booth Museum to set up his Egyptian tableau – there were no signs that he broke in, so either he had keys or someone let him in. It’s probably fair to assume that person was Alicia Russell. Was she simply his victim or was she more than that? Angie, can you look into who had keys for the museum, and where, in particular, Alicia’s keys are.’
‘Yes, boss.’
‘Her car showed evidence of her having been kept in the boot for some time, which means the killer presumably drove it up to Peacehaven. CSI is combing the car for forensics, but we’ve got nothing concrete yet. It’s critical that we trace the vehicle’s movements over the period since she was last seen emptying her bins on Tuesday until her body was discovered on Sunday. Now, you’ve all got more than enough to keep you busy, so let’s get to it.’
Francis left the incident room humming as the team digested the new information. He made his way up the stairs to Bradshaw’s office feeling unspeakably weary. A session with the chief would suck out all his enthusiasm for the job, and all the belief he had that he could get the cases solved. But he’d promised an update and it was better than having Bradshaw at the team meeting.
Furthermore, this made the perfect opportunity to brief Bradshaw on the cases away from the rest of the team.
DCI Martin Bradshaw had the corner office two floors above the incident room. The door was open when Francis arrived, so he gave a courtesy knock and waited on the threshold.
The chief beckoned him inside with a wave of his hand. His face, although jowly, bore the perennial tan of a man who aspired to spend more time on the golf course than behind his desk.
‘Sit down, Sullivan.’
This was new. Francis couldn’t ever remember being invited to sit in Bradshaw’s office. He generally liked to keep his minions standing while he lectured them on their shortcomings.
‘Thank you, sir.’ Francis took one of the two hard wooden chairs that stood in front of the desk.
‘I want to have a little chat, Sullivan,’ said Bradshaw, eyeing him across an empty blotter. ‘But get me up to date on your case first, please.’
‘Certainly, sir.’ What was the little chat going to be about? Momentarily distracted, Francis launched into the details of the investigation so far. He slipped a small nugget of information into his narrative that he’d purposefully kept back from the rest of the team. A not entirely accurate snippet.
‘The mummified woman had a small clay figure called a shabti in each hand.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The ancient Egyptians buried their dead with figures that could act as servants for them in the afterlife.’
‘Interesting. Where do you think they came from?’
Francis shrugged. ‘They’re pretty crude. The killer could have made them. We’re having all the artefacts and linen strips analysed to find out where they might be from and what they’re made of.’
No interruptions so far. No sharp rebukes for doing things wrong or for not having identified a suspect yet. The chief was on his best behaviour. Was he ill?
‘Right, you need to keep at it. The identity of the dead woman is critical and somewhere, in that whole Egyptian display, your killer must have left a trace of himself.’
‘That, and finding out the meaning of all those tattoos.’
‘Don’t waste your time looking at those. Not until you know for sure they’re something to do with why she was trussed up like that.’
‘Fair enough, sir.’
He went on to update Bradshaw on Alicia Russell’s murder. Bradshaw took notes but didn’t ask any questions.
‘And what about the Mullins case? How’s Rory getting on with preparing that for the CPS?’ The way he said it, slowly drawing out each word, put Francis instantly on his guard.
‘Rose has found an unidentified partial footprint in the blood on the kitchen floor. Whoever it was went out by the back door and into the garden.’
‘Probably one of the crime-scene team,’ said Bradshaw.
‘They’ve all been ruled out. Everyone who we know was at the scene has been ruled out. This is an unidentified individual who was present at some point after Thierry Mullins was stabbed.’
Bradshaw considered the implications in silence.
‘It means the defence will be able to argue reasonable doubt,’ said Francis, joining the dots for him.
‘And what do you think? Would you say there’s some doubt that Marni Mullins did it?’
‘Yes, I would, sir. In my opinion, Sergeant Mackay jumped the gun by having Mullins charged and arraigned. Marni Mullins claims that Thierry’s twin brother, Paul, is responsible.’
‘Paul Mullins? She’s just trying to shift the blame. But she’s got form for stabbing and the knife’s covered in her prints.’
Bradshaw stared at Francis. It was a look of utter disdain. He drew in a heavy breath.
‘Listen, Sullivan. Like I said, I wanted a chat with you. You’re an intelligent officer. You’ve got lots of potential. But I’m seeing a pattern starting to develop here. Every case.’
‘Sorry, sir. You’ve lost me.’ Francis could guess what was coming, but that didn’t mean he was going to make it easy for Bradshaw.
‘You’ve been working for me for over a year now, and in several high-profile cases you’ve been . . . ’
‘Yes?’
‘You get too personally involved. You need to maintain a professional distance from the people you’re investigating.’
‘If you’re suggesting there’s anything other than a professional relationship between myself and Marni Mullins, you’d be very wrong.’ It was true. There was nothing going on between them now. ‘She came on board during the Tattoo Thief case, and her help and later her evidence were critical in securing Sam Kirby’s conviction.’
‘For manslaughter.’ Like a dog, worrying at a wound, rather than letting it heal. It seemed like he was never going to forgive Francis that verdict. It should have been murder, rather than manslaughter due to diminished responsibility. ‘I understood you were friends with the woman.’
The emphasis he put on the word ‘friends’ made Francis wince. Anger made him tighten his diaphragm and sit up straighter in his chair.
‘The woman – Marni Mullins – saved my life.’
‘So now you feel you owe her, so you’re trying to get her off a murder charge.’
‘No, sir. I owe her nothing. I’m doing for her what I’d do for anyone in the same circumstances. I’m making sure we take full account of all the evidence, not just the evidence that suits the narrative certain team members want to build.’
He’d claimed the moral high ground, and Bradshaw was going to find it tough to argue against that.
‘You’re a witness in this case. Don’t sabotage it, Sullivan.’
As if.
‘No, sir.’ He pushed back his chair and stood up.
‘You know Mackay was in the running for the DI job when you joined the team, don’t you?’
‘He might have been in the running, but let me remind you, sir. I got the job.’
‘Mistakes happen.’
‘It wasn’t.’
They locked eyes.
‘That remains to be seen.’
23
Wednesday, 8 November 2017
Rory
Rory, Gavin and Angie stared at the names on the screen. They’d created an Excel document which listed missing women and matched them against things they knew about the mummified cadaver. They had precious little information to go on – her height, her natural hair colour. Only a few of the sets of details being held on the missing women included dental records. This had allowed them to rule a few people out. The mummified cadaver had several amalgam fillings in her back teeth and none of the dental records they did have access to showed a match.
The tattoos might prove useful if they’d identified someone on their list who had the same tattoos, but there was no one with anything remotely similar. They had been useful in ruling out a couple of women on the mis-per list who had different tattoos. There had been a young woman, too young probably, who they’d dismissed as she had a Finding Nemo tattoo on one ankle, and a few butterfly and flower tattoos had resulted in their owners being struck off the list of possibles.
‘We’ve got a choice,’ said Rory. ‘We can assume she had all those tattoos after she went missing, that whoever mummified her was also responsible for tattooing her, or – if we think she had those tattoos already – we can widen the search area and check the mis-per lists for the whole of the UK.’
‘And if that doesn’t throw up anyone, what then? Europe? The world?’ said Angie. ‘I still think we should issue pictures of the tattoos to the press. Someone is bound to recognise them.’
‘Not if they were the work of the killer,’ said Gavin. ‘What about a two-pronged approach? We widen the list to check primarily for anyone with the tattoos, but at the same time drill down into this list,’ he pointed at the screen, ‘on the assumption that the tattoos were done after she went missing.’
Angie grimaced. ‘You really think that could be it? Someone held her long enough to do all those tattoos, then killed her and mummified her? Why would someone do that?’
Gavin shrugged.
‘That works. Gavin, can you get onto Missing Persons for a wider list?’
‘On it, boss.’
Gavin went back to his own desk, leaving Rory and Angie studying the list of women who’d gone missing in the local area. It was a simple process of elimination to delete women who were the wrong height, although Rose had suggested they allow a greater margin of error than usual, given that the desiccation of the body would have made the mummified woman appear shorter than she probably was when alive.
They weeded out a few women on the basis of distinguishing scars. Another handful were ruled out on the basis of ethnicity. Although the mummification process had darkened the woman’s skin, Rose had confirmed that she was Caucasian.
