DEAD GONE (39 page)

Rossi motioned to a uniform to take a look.

‘Nothing,’ he said in a stage whisper, ‘looks dead in there.’

Rossi asked him to check in with the team at the rear of the property, receiving the same response.

‘Step aside, Brannon. Let them break it down.’

‘Okay.’

He climbed the basement steps with some effort. Paused at the top to catch his breath, before moving through the house. He walked past the monitoring room and checked the front of the house via the camera pointed to the entrance.

‘Oh dear.’

He grabbed what he needed and moved towards the hallway. Breathed in and out a few times and then opened the door.

‘Sorry it took me so long. How can I help you, detective?’

Murphy pushed the doorbell again. Felt stupid for not calling ahead.

What a wasted journey.

He was about to turn back to his car, when the door opened.

‘Sorry it took me so long. How can I help you, detective?’

He turned to see Professor Garner’s now familiar yellow teeth smiling back at him.

‘Please, do come in. I assume you’re here about Tom.’

‘Thanks,’ Murphy said, entering the house. ‘Not about Tom. This is a bit more of a personal visit.’

‘Oh … Intriguing,’ Garner said, shutting the door behind him.

It began with an academic paper.

Life, Death, and Grief.

It was his idea to bring Tom on board to co-write it with him, knowing if he was left alone to create it, he might reveal more about himself than he wished to.

They bonded, of a sort. They spoke often about society, life, people.

Death.

Garner had already begun thinking of something to do in his old age. No longer able to do the things he’d done as a younger man.

He’d always so enjoyed the hunt. Discovering so much about death, by inflicting it on others.

Then, he was too old, too infirm. His heart wouldn’t take the strain any longer. He needed it still however, that feeling of power.

He began thinking of ways he could achieve it.

It came to him when he was researching one day.

Stanley Milgram.

Tom had already shown he had the capability inside him. He just needed the push.

He needed someone in authority to tell him what he should do. Garner was in that position.

Garner took it slowly, spent many months, years even preparing him for the change.

He took the best of the Milgram experiments and added his own flair to it.

He started off without murder. Just the kidnapping of a young girl. Of Tom’s choice. He provided the money to buy the taxi, told him how to pick someone up. Taught him how to use the lock, so once someone was in the back, they wouldn’t be able to get out.

He was with him the whole way.

He watched the first few weeks as often as possible, waiting for Experiment Two to break. Instead, they almost lost her. Garner had acted fast, playing on what he thought would work best to get her back down into the basement. Her own compassion for her fellow kind.

A girl screaming in a room just like hers.

He’d watched via the monitors as she’d gone back down the steps, willing Tom to come back to consciousness. And breathing a huge sigh of relief when he had.

Garner had to rein him in. Work on him for a long period of time, eleven months in total, to get him ready for the next step. Destroy his old belief system, make him a murderer.

The result surprised even him.

It was as if Tom had been waiting his entire life to end people’s lives. Like he’d been born to do it. Garner had just brought it out of him, given birth to his lust for death.

Tom took to it all, eager to please, to carry out Garner’s will. There had been moments when Garner could scarcely believe his luck in discovering someone like Tom Davies.

Experiment Two was isolation. When he’d asked in the beginning, Garner had told him they’d release her after a year. Just to see how close mentally they could bring her to complete shut down.

A living death.

Tom was a good pupil, but he wasn’t as good as Garner was. He’d taught him so much, even given him his own signature victim posing, based on Vitruvian Man. Added weight to what Garner was instilling in Tom daily. He’d enjoyed playing with the detectives at the university, giving them just enough information. The rush of being right there, under their noses without them realising.

Forty years undetected, and now he had to clean up Tom’s mess.

Next time, he’d choose someone prepared to make no mistakes at all.

EXPERIMENT

I spent three days checking on the man you found this letter attached to before leaving him here. He was an incredibly interesting subject. I’ll be watching out for reports of his cause of death. As it was, I was most fascinated when I tied him by his feet and hung him upside down for

From what little information there is, I suspect it will have been a stroke which caused his death. The blood pooling in his brain as gravity took its hold. Once the blood pressure increased, risk of stroke was inevitable.

I wasn’t sure if he would in fact die from the procedure. There is no data I can find on this phenomena, this may be the first in the country in fact. I am sure you are honoured to be a part of this exploration.

It’s an experiment in

Rossi placed the letter back down, trying to work out why it was so incomplete. Brannon was standing off to her side, one hand to his mouth as he tried to block out the smell. Dust in the air was sticking to back of Rossi’s throat, the stench overpowering.

‘Jesus Christ.’

Rossi turned towards the voice, biting back an admonishment.

They’d put the door in within seconds, the smell informing them instantly what they were going to find.

‘How long?’ Rossi asked Dr Houghton, the grey-haired pathologist looking a tad disturbed by the scene. Something she hadn’t seen previously.

‘Not sure. A week, maybe two.’ Dr Houghton replied, crouching down in front of the body. ‘So this is number two?’

‘Yeah, this makes five in total. He reckons he’s number one himself.’ Rossi replied, looking over the pathologist’s shoulder. She shooed a fly away from her face.

‘I’d make a joke about him hanging around until we found him, but that seems a tad distasteful, even for me.’

‘Quite.’

The kitchen was decorated in a country-cottage style. Aga oven, a white fireclay sink with ornate taps over it. A large American-style fridge freezer, with what appeared to be an ice maker on one side. The ceilings had been stripped back, wooden beams the most eye-catching feature of the room.

Well, usually.

A man was silently swaying in the dust by his feet. Hung upside down and left to die. Flies had rested on a wound to the back of his head. The smell was overpowering.

Rossi regretted eating that half a Bounty.

‘And I’m guessing there’s little evidence left behind?’

Dr Houghton snorted. ‘A wallet. Bank cards and a provisional licence in the name of Keith Henderson. But other than that, no. Nothing of use so far. He’s good, Laura. Very good. Let’s hope I can get something useful from the autopsy. Help you along a bit. Even with a confession, unless he pleads guilty it’d be good to have more.’

Rossi nodded at the pathologist, turning away from the sight of the body. Letters piled up by the door confirmed Keith Henderson as the tenant living there. ‘Brannon, let’s leave them to it for now.’ She followed him out the room, taking one last look over her shoulder at the body as they began the process of cutting him down. She shuddered internally, the thought of the man who did this being across a table from her only a few hours before.

‘You alright?’ she said, pulling Brannon to a stop in the hallway of the semi-detached house. He was looking a wrong shade of green.

‘Yeah,’ Brannon replied. ‘But this … this is crazy. What the hell is that in there?’

‘That, is what me and Murphy have been dealing with for the past few weeks. Still pissed off he chose me?’

Brannon attempted a smile. ‘I guess not, Laura. What’s the plan then?’

‘We let them do their job,’ Rossi said, indicating the room they’d just exited. ‘Whilst they’re doing that, we go speak to the neighbours. See if they can be of any use.’

‘Was there a letter? Like with the others?’

Rossi nodded. ‘Wasn’t complete though. Most of the information was missing. Including what number it was.’

‘Hmm.’

Rossi turned away from the entrance to the kitchen, heading for the front door. Brannon followed behind her as they exited the house and took in lungfuls of clean air. There were two uniforms stationed at the bottom of the path, standing guard at the gate. Rossi glanced over to the other side of the road, noting local reporters already in attendance. She rolled her eyes, as she looked out for that bastard from the local paper. She stared towards the sky, expecting to see a news helicopter already there, but was greeted by dark clouds instead.

Rossi took the lead, walking towards the house which shared a wall with the victim’s. As they walked up the path, an unkempt and messy front patch of garden with overgrowing weeds to the right-hand side, she began to form a picture in her mind. An overwhelming sense of seclusion seeming to emanate from the bricks themselves, cutting it off from its surroundings. It didn’t fit with the rest of the street, every other house gleaming from the outside, prim and proper as a house could be.

Rossi nodded towards the uniform at the open door, and stepped over the threshold.

Cats. That was all she could smell. Seeping from the woodwork, the worn down carpets, the essence of the house was cat.

She hated cats. Evil little things.

She gagged upon entering, earning a sympathetic look from the uniform standing by the door. She rolled her eyes toward him, earning a brief smile.

‘Think I’d rather be back next door,’ she whispered to Brannon behind her, covering a cough with her hand.

‘What’s the problem?’ Brannon replied.

Rossi sighed. He was probably used to this type of smell. ‘Come on, let’s get this over with.’ They moved into the living room, where the sole occupant was holding court in an overstuffed chair, which might have been considered antique over a century ago. Another PC was stood in there, and looked relieved to be excused when they entered.

‘Mrs Andrews, is it?’ Rossi asked.

‘Yes. Please, sit down. Can I get you a cup of tea?’ she asked, holding a used tissue in one hand.

‘No that’s okay,’ Rossi replied. ‘We won’t take up too much of your time.’

‘Well I don’t know much. Just that the smell …’ she stopped, dabbing at her eyes with the tissue. Rossi noticed no tears were falling. ‘It’s been getting stronger.’

‘I’m surprised you noticed it,’ Rossi said under her breath, earning her a stern look from Brannon.

‘When was the last time you saw Keith, or Mr Henderson, Mrs Andrews?’ Brannon asked, turning back to the woman.

‘Couple of weeks ago now.’

‘Can you remember exactly?’

Mrs Andrews’ brow furrowed as she tried to remember. ‘It’ll come to me.’

‘Did you speak to him often?

‘Not really. He kept himself to himself, like everyone round here. Not like it used to be. Used to be able to talk to your neighbours and that, know how everyone was getting on and that. Not now though.’

Rossi nodded, hoping to show she was interested, when really all she wanted to do was shout at her. Talking about knowing the neighbour’s personal lives when one of them lay dead next door. ‘Have you noticed anything unusual in the last week then, anyone hanging around who you didn’t recognise?’

‘Well … there was a car?’ Mrs Andrews replied, sitting forward and digging around in the sides of the chair looking for something. ‘It was parked outside for hours about two nights ago.’

‘Do you remember anything about it, colour, registration, something?’ Rossi asked.

‘I wrote it down, just in case. Can never be too careful. Could be burglars or anything. Here it is.’ She pulled a small notebook out.

‘Silver Mercedes, here’s the registration number.’ She carefully ripped off just that information and Brannon stepped forward to take it off her.

‘Thanks very much,’ Rossi said. ‘That’s incredibly helpful.’

‘I just hope you catch whoever did it. Won’t be able to sleep at night for thinking about what happened. Just glad I’ve got my babies to look after me.’ She indicated the cats currently perched on any available surface.

‘Yes, well, if that’ll be everything …?’ Rossi said quickly, not wanting to get into a conversation about her ‘babies’.

‘No. It’s a terrible thing. House prices will go down now as well. That’s all we need.’

They stood to leave, and almost got to the front door before Mrs Andrews shouted them back.

‘It was last Tuesday. I spoke to him in the afternoon. I remember because that was Bertie’s birthday.’

‘Last Tuesday, nine days ago?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Who’s Bertie?’ Brannon asked, Rossi already knowing the answer.

‘That’s the grumpy one on the windowsill.’

Rossi leaned against her car, tucking the same strands of hair which always fell across her face, behind her ear. It was a comfort gesture.

‘It doesn’t make sense,’ she said, Brannon looking up from his phone towards her.

‘What doesn’t?’

She suffered his slowness in silence. ‘If she saw him only nine days ago, how is he number two?’

He looked back at his phone. ‘I don’t follow.’ She glanced down at it, seeing a Facebook page on the screen. Typical. Lazy bastard couldn’t be arsed to give his full attention for more than a few minutes.

‘He was already on number five by then. Why would he go back and start two?’

Brannon shrugged. ‘You think too much, Laura. That’s your problem. Between you and Murphy losing his mind, no wonder it took you both so long to catch him.’

Rossi clenched a fist. ‘Listen, think about it. Everything has been in order. Why change now?’