The Puppet Maker: DI Jack Brady 5 Read online

  Ainsworth walked over to Brady and Conrad, scowl still in place. But this time it was not directed at Conrad. ‘Trouble has a nasty habit of following you around!’

  Brady thought of Annabel Edwards. Of Macintosh. He shrugged. There was nothing he could add.

  Ainsworth shook his head as he looked over at the illuminated furnace. ‘You’ve excelled yourself with this one.’

  ‘Like to keep you on your toes!’ Brady replied.

  ‘Well, you’re bloody doing that, I can tell you.’ Ainsworth’s black beady eyes bore into him. ‘This is some sick bastard.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Why is it never bloody straightforward? I’ve got better things to do than be tramping around in a basement freezing my balls off for the next God knows how many hours!’

  Brady was surprised. He had always known Ainsworth to be keen, too keen if he was honest, to get his hands on a crime scene of this magnitude. ‘What’s wrong with you? Getting too old for the job?’ he joked. But he soon realised Ainsworth wasn’t laughing. His look was enough to worry Brady. ‘You’ve still got years left in you, you stupid bugger.’

  ‘Maybe you’re not seeing what I see every morning when I look in the mirror?’

  ‘No, I see what you see. A bad-tempered fool but one at the top of his game.’

  ‘Am I?’ Ainsworth mused.

  Brady looked at him. The humour had gone. His already ravaged face looked even more haggard and aged. He wondered whether it was just the pressure of the job that was getting to Ainsworth. This was the second serious murder investigation within a matter of days. It was atypical and Brady was sure Ainsworth was feeling the strain. Policing now came down to politics and the budget. A budget that, under the current government, had shrunk by twenty per cent in the last five years. It was challenging times for police forces across the UK and Northumbria was no exception.

  ‘Yes you are. And you bloody know it! You’re the best Crime Scene Manager we have. I could have called in Matt Johnson and his team from Newcastle. Or Annette McCabe from over in Gateshead. But they’re not good enough! They’re not you. And I needed you here if we’ve got any chance of finding this bastard. All you’ve got to do is look at what he’s done to those women. Locked up here alive until their organs fail. Then when they’re dead their killer revisits them and dresses them up and arranges them like macabre life-sized puppets. And his latest victim? Who I found just in time? You tell me why I wouldn’t want you here to help catch whoever’s responsible?’ Brady demanded.

  Ainsworth looked at him. Brady could see he still didn’t look convinced. He had never known Ainsworth to be so defeated and wondered whether there was more to it than he realised. ‘We all have shit days where we wonder why the hell we bother.’

  Ainsworth didn’t agree or disagree. Instead, he turned away from Brady and appraised his team. ‘I’ve seen some sick shit in my time. But . . .’ he shook his head, ‘nothing comes close to this. Not even what that crazy bastard did to his probation officer and his family.’

  ‘It’s all sick,’ Brady muttered as he followed Ainsworth’s gaze. He realised that the Crime Scene Manager and his team had their work cut out. Brady was depending on them finding something – anything – that could give him an idea as to who was responsible for this grotesque collection. He was at Ainsworth’s mercy.

  Brady watched Conrad’s shocked reaction as he stared at what had been carefully staged inside the large furnace. Brady felt the same raw horror.

  ‘Christ!’ Conrad shook his head as he continued to stare.

  ‘Yeah . . .’ muttered Brady.

  ‘Twelve. There are twelve of them, sir,’ Conrad said.

  Brady had just done the maths for himself. And it was twelve too many, in his books.

  ‘How has someone got away with abducting women and then . . .’ Conrad turned to look at Brady.

  Brady was more than aware that his deputy was struggling to cope. The bright, garish crime scene lights behind them penetrated the furnace, highlighting in macabre detail the victims’ remains. But it was what had been done to them that had shocked Brady. He swallowed hard. He could feel the bile still lingering at the back of his throat. When he had first seen them, he had not fully understood the full nature of what they had endured while alive and then the indignity they had suffered in death.

  To Brady’s eye it looked like a crude procedure. One that had not taken place under a doctor’s skilled hand, let alone in a hospital. The killer had lobotomized each and every one of them. Systematically. Drilled a hole into either side of their skulls and then, Brady imagined, taken a scalpel to their brains. He had also dressed them in identical clothing. An old-fashioned, Victorian style, white cotton nightgown. The harsh light penetrated the fabric, showing them to be naked underneath. Around their necks, a white gold name necklace had been hung.

  Brady turned around. ‘Can I use that for a minute?’ he asked the SOCO closest to him. ‘Yeah . . . that Crime-lite you’ve got there.’

  The SOCO handed it over to Brady. He then hoisted himself up into the furnace and shone the light on each victim, looking at their necklaces.

  ‘Sir?’ Conrad objected.

  ‘I’m not touching them. I’m just getting a closer look.’ He then shone the light over each victim. ‘They’re not the same, Conrad. I can’t make out the names but I can tell that each engraving is different.’

  ‘You think their actual names are engraved on the necklaces?’ Conrad asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t make that out. All I know is that they are different. Whether the killer has named them individually or it is actually their real names, we will have to wait to find out.’

  Brady thought back to the victim he had found. Alive – barely. But she didn’t have a white gold name necklace around her neck, suggesting that the perpetrator returned to his victims. Dressed them in clean nightgowns – hers was torn and bloodied, covered in old soot and other debris from the floor of the furnace. Cleaned them up. Adorned them with a gold necklace. Then arranged them. Identical to each other.

  For a moment, Brady looked at each victim. All sat facing him in a half-circle. Expectant. Waiting . . . Waiting for whoever had done this to return.

  He shuddered involuntarily, unable to continue looking at their blank, lifeless expressions.

  He handed Conrad the Crime-lite before levering himself down.

  ‘Why do you think he has done that to them?’

  ‘I don’t know. We’ve just got to make sure we prevent whoever is responsible from getting their hands on another victim.’

  ‘If he hasn’t already got one,’ Conrad added.

  It was a scenario Brady had already contemplated. After all, the killer had no idea – yet – that the police had found his collection. There was a chance that the perpetrator already had his sights, if not hands, on a new woman. And that worried Brady. Worried him a lot.

  Brady took a last glance at the twelve victims. All facing him, wearing what he could only describe as a death mask. Whether the cast of their faces were taken while they were alive or dead, he couldn’t say, but what he did know was that each one was unique. The bodies may have been identically dressed and positioned, but each mask was original to its wearer. However, there was one common denominator – they were all young and extremely malnourished. The thickly applied make-up did not hide the sunken cheeks and eye sockets of each mask. If anything, the garish paint embellished the pronounced bone structure.

  ‘Why the make-up? It makes them looks so . . . so . . . unnatural?’

  Brady laughed suddenly at Conrad’s comment. But he soon wished he hadn’t when it echoed around the basement. A couple of SOCOs close by looked over. Young. Female. Clearly not impressed at Brady’s cavalier attitude. After all, these women had been butchered. One by one, he had lobotomised them. Brady cleared his throat and turned back to Conrad. He made a point of keeping his voice low. ‘More unnatural than skeletons wearing a mask and a wig?’

  Co
nrad didn’t look overly impressed. ‘You know what I mean. And the wigs and the mask? It’s just . . .’ he faltered, at a loss as to what to say.

  ‘Christ! That’s what you get with a bloody university education, Jack! Bloody idiots. The lot of them!’ Ainsworth snapped from behind.

  Brady shot Conrad a look, which told him not to react. Not that he would have expected Conrad to, but with the sour mood Ainsworth was in he didn’t want to take any chances. Brady knew that Ainsworth had a gripe about the new breed of SOCO – most of them recent graduates from university. Cheaper to employ than a copper like Ainsworth who had been in the force for years. It was a career that was now seen as slick and sexy thanks to CSI. These graduates were now very much a part of life. His life. Not that Ainsworth was too happy about it.

  ‘I have enough problems with those slow-witted idiots who work for me without you two stood around gawping,’ Ainsworth grumbled. ‘So if you’ve seen enough, I’ve got a job to do.’

  Brady ran a hand over the new growth of stubble on his face as he took one last look at them. All he felt was horror.

  DAY TWO

  SUNDAY

  Chapter Twelve

  Sunday: 12:13 a.m.

  Twelve of them; mutilated, then murdered. The thirteenth victim he had found – just in time. Or had he? That was the question that was plaguing him. She was the reason he had visited Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary. He had needed to know whether . . . Brady stopped himself. She had been sedated and hooked up to various machines and drips in the ICU. He knew she was very ill. Expected her to be suffering from malnutrition and severe dehydration. But he hadn’t quite realised how bad. Her five-stone body had suffered systematic physical abuse. She was covered in abrasions and bruises. Some were recent, others indicative of long-term abuse. She had also been examined and DNA swabs had been taken. The level of sexual violence carried out upon her body was staggering.

  A wave of nausea came over him. He put it down to hunger. And tiredness.

  When was the last time you slept? Let alone ate?

  He decided there was nothing more he could do. He needed to drive home. While he still could. Grab something from the freezer. Microwave it and then force himself to eat. Whatever perishables had been in the fridge would have crawled out by now.

  He turned the engine over. Sat with it idling while he stared straight ahead at the slick, contemporary hospital. Radically different from the mausoleum of a mental asylum he had found her in. He prayed to God that she would survive. But he knew from what the doctor had said that her prognosis for a normal life wasn’t good. In fact it was zero. An MRI scan had shown that parts of her brain had been cut out with a sharp object such as a scalpel. Brady ran a hand through his hair as he thought about that.

  Why do that first and then kill them? It was so cruel, so sadistic . . . Why? Or was that the answer.

  It didn’t make any sense to Brady. Unless it made the victim more docile, compliant? Easier to break into a derelict building with them and hide them. But why leave them to die locked up inside that old furnace? Left to starve to death, surrounded by the disturbing remains of his other victims. Some of whom Brady believed had been there for years.

  He let it go – for now. He needed to sleep. He pulled out of the parking space and headed for the exit. He suddenly remembered that he had asked Conrad to run some checks for him in connection with the Macintosh case. He had asked him to find out what he could about a Lucy Macintosh born in 1960. Then there was Eileen Macintosh, James’ mother, who had allegedly emigrated to Australia shortly after her son’s conviction. Whether he had actually managed it before he had attended the crime scene was in doubt. But Brady had a new case. A new priority. One that would keep him too damned busy chasing his own shadow to even have time to think about Macintosh.

  Brady unlocked the front door and just stood there. The house was shrouded in darkness. Behind him he could hear the roar of the North Sea as it battered the rocks down on Brown’s Bay.

  Finally he forced himself to walk inside and close the door. He hadn’t been back since he had found out from Conrad that Claudia had gone. That was last Wednesday evening. Four nights ago and still he was reeling from the news. He stepped over the pile of mail lying in the front vestibule. Flicked on the light and walked past the answering machine on the hall table, ignoring the flashing red light. His eyes were on the kitchen. He walked into the large, contemporary space.

  The coffee he had made her, still there. The note, untouched. She had already left him and he had not realised. He turned to the fridge. He needed a drink. Anything. He pulled out a bottle of Sancerre. Uncorked it and poured a generous measure into a large wine glass. Then drank a third of it straight down. The citrusy flavours didn’t have a chance to hit his palate. All he knew was that it was cold and alcoholic. He then rummaged through the freezer. He needed to eat. Not that he wanted to, but he had no choice. He found a microwavable risotto. It would do. Bland, glutinous, tasteless. He set it going in the microwave, topped his wine up and then headed upstairs.

  He made a point of not looking at the guest room – Claudia’s room. He made his way into the bathroom and turned the shower on. It blasted out hot spray. He pulled his clothes off and dumped them in the wash basket. He turned and caught himself in the mirror. He had lost weight. Not surprisingly. His body, lean and well-muscled, was even leaner now. His dark brown eyes lingered on the scar on his chest where a bullet had ripped through, narrowly missing killing him. Two Eastern European gangsters had been responsible. But Brady would be the first to admit that he seemed to attract trouble. He thought about what the media were saying about him. In the past week his name had become synonymous with ‘fuck-up.’ He sighed, dejected, then walked into the large shower cubicle. He stood for as long as it was going to take to rid him of the contempt he felt for himself right now. He bent his head down and leaned his hands against the tiled wall as he let the scalding water pummel his back. Brady remained there. Head down. And waited for the overwhelming sadness he felt about Claudia not being here to pass. He didn’t hear the answer machine clicking on downstairs. Or the voice.

  Claudia’s voice.

  Brady had lain awake for what seemed like hours before he had eventually dropped off. But at least he had succeeded in getting a few hours’ uninterrupted sleep before coming back to the station. He had wanted an early start. Had no choice. He sighed and ran a hand back through his hair as he thought about the call he had just taken. It was 6:38 a.m. Early to be receiving calls. But this one was important. He thought about the relevance. He didn’t want to raise his hopes. But it was definitely something.

  He picked up his coffee and took a drink. He was feeling physically better than he had done in a long time. However, psychologically he still felt crap. Not that he expected any different. He thought about the security guard, Dave Baxter. He had asked him to come in to the station. Brady was sure he had done nothing. Interviewing him was simply a process of elimination. He was scheduled to take a statement in twenty minutes. Then he would release him. Let him get back to his kids where he belonged. The man wasn’t a serial killer. Not to say he hadn’t killed, in his time. But this was different. This wasn’t a war zone.

  But there was something else bothering him. He couldn’t stop himself thinking about Macintosh and whether what he had found in the suitcase at Mill Cottage yesterday, in particular the photograph of his sister, Lucy Macintosh, held any significance.

  There was a knock at the door. Brady looked up just as Conrad walked in.

  ‘You wanted to see me, sir?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Brady said. He gestured towards the seat in front of desk. ‘Sit.’

  He waited as Conrad closed the door and then walked over to his desk. He sat down.

  ‘I was too preoccupied last night to ask if you checked those names I gave you,’ Brady said.

  ‘I came back to the station after the crime scene to run those checks,’ Conrad replied.

  Brady was surpri
sed at this, as he had ordered Conrad to go home. Then again, Conrad knew how dogged he could be and realised that Brady would still want to have verification of Lucy Macintosh’s birth – despite the new case. So, he couldn’t now understand the reluctance in Conrad’s voice. ‘And?’

  ‘Lucy Jayne Macintosh was born on the third of July, 1960. Place of birth, Mill Cottage, Hartburn, Northumberland. Parents, Eileen and Raymond Macintosh.’

  Brady sat back. He had been waiting for this news but still, he felt surprised by it.

  He had been right after all. James David Macintosh had a sister . . . A sister who had an uncanny resemblance to Macintosh’s two young victims – Ellen Jackson and Annabel Edwards.

  ‘Have you seen the photographs that I found in the attic in Mill Cottage?’

  Conrad nodded. ‘There is a likeness between the suspect’s sister and his choice of victims.’

  ‘More than a likeness, Conrad! They’re virtually identical.’

  Conrad didn’t agree. Or disagree. His expression remained impassive.

  ‘What has Gates threatened you with?’ Brady asked. It was clear that something was wrong with him.

  ‘My job,’ he replied.