The Puppet Maker: DI Jack Brady 5 Page 15

  ‘Well, Jack, all I can say is I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes right now. Watch your back. For me?’ He suddenly started coughing.

  Brady waited. Tense. He relaxed slightly when Wolfe seemed to get it under control. He still shot a concerned glance at Harold, who looked as uptight as Brady felt. It was enough to tell Brady that this was a common occurrence – too common.

  ‘Have you been back to the doctor yet?’ Brady asked.

  Wolfe shot him a wry smile. ‘What? With all the bodies you keep sending my way? Tell me, when I would get the time to see a doctor?’

  ‘Seriously Wolfe, you need to get another health check-up. You sound like crap!’

  ‘Well, you look crap so it makes us equal,’ Wolfe stated good-humouredly. He fumbled around on his person until he found his Becotide inhaler. He took three deep lungfuls of the medication, held his breath for a minute, then breathed out. ‘See? Fine. Got it under control!’

  ‘Yeah? How often are you having to use that?’ Brady asked. He shot another look at Harold. Harold’s expression told Brady, a hell of a lot.

  ‘Not often. Now, will you stop acting like my bloody wife?’ Wolfe ordered.

  ‘You don’t have a bloody wife!’

  ‘And I thank my lucky stars every day that I don’t. Because if I did, she would act just like you! Constantly nagging me about my weight, my smoking and the rest.’

  Brady noted that he had missed out the drinking part of his self-destruct regime. Easier to ignore the problem than acknowledge it. Brady knew that better than anyone. His relationship with Claudia was a classic example of avoidance. Of not accepting what was staring you in the face.

  And when he did, it was too little, too late.

  ‘Right,’ Wolfe began. ‘You’ve got a problem on your hands, laddie.’

  Brady looked at him. Frowned. ‘Tell me something I don’t know?’

  ‘I’m serious!’ Wolfe shook his head and sighed, turning away from the victim on the slab. ‘I had a look at Hannah Stewart’s medical records before you arrived and then managed to get hold of her consultant. And we both agreed that some of the injuries that lassie has sustained date back eighteen months—’ he stopped and shook his head as Brady was about to interrupt. ‘Hear me out first, laddie.’

  Brady did as instructed. He waited. But he was shocked at the news. It suggested that Hannah had been held captive for eighteen months without anyone reporting that she was even missing. It also conclusively ruled out Dave, the security guard. Eighteen months ago, Dave had been serving in Afghanistan. Brady had the team running checks on the other hospital security guards, but as of yet, they had nothing.

  ‘Hannah Stewart has a hip fracture in the top end of the femur that dates back eight months. Around the same time she suffered a fractured ankle and a patella fracture. Or a broken kneecap, in layman’s terms. There is a significant horizontal crack across her kneecap which means it is impossible for her to straighten her knee. All untreated. I would suggest that they both occurred at the same time, more than likely caused by a fall.’

  Brady listened. He could see from Wolfe’s intense expression that there was more to follow.

  ‘But these injuries are only the beginning. She also suffered two broken ribs. Perhaps two to three months later than the first injuries. Around this time she also had a broken left wrist. Two fractures. Then recently, she suffered a dislocated right shoulder and fractured right arm.’ Wolfe looked at the skeletal remains on the slab. ‘Hannah Stewart’s injuries are consistent with the fractures I found on this victim here,’ he said. He looked down at the remains and then at Brady. ‘Again, the oldest injuries are a fracture to the hip and fractures in both kneecaps.’

  Brady knew what Wolfe was suggesting. That the injuries indicated that she had suffered fractures from falling down stairs – or being thrown down.

  ‘The reason I’m telling you this is because there is a pattern. The other eleven victims have suffered nearly identical fractures. Hip and knee or ankle fractures. Some have broken legs as well. It suggests that they all suffered significant falls.’ Wolfe looked up at Brady, frowning. ‘As if they’ve been thrown down somewhere.’

  Brady nodded. He had already reached that conclusion.

  ‘And . . .’ Wolfe paused as he raised his eyebrow at Brady. ‘From the condition of this poor lassie here, I would say that she has been dead for twenty years.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Conrad asked.

  Brady looked over at him, surprised. Conrad barely spoke when he was in the morgue. But Brady felt the same shock that had prompted his deputy to question Wolfe’s findings – twenty years seemed inconceivable.

  Wolfe gave Conrad a dismissive look. ‘Not that I am a forensic anthropologist, and I must add that it is difficult to tell when all that is left is skeletal remains, but I believe that she died roughly twenty years ago. Of course we can get an expert in to examine the skeletons. Give you a more conclusive answer. But I would suggest that your serial killer has been collecting women for a couple of decades now.’

  ‘Shit!’ Brady shook his head as he looked down at what remained of one of the victims. The fact that someone had been killing for so long and had gone undetected troubled him. His choice of victim was obviously high-risk, vulnerable young women. People who society did not notice. Or chose not to notice. Whether they were the unwanted homeless who wandered the streets begging, or prostitutes who traded their bodies for money, drugs or alcohol. These were the women that society turned their backs on. Including the police. Until it was too late. Until they ended up a statistic in the morgue.

  ‘Can you tell me anything about the wigs he used?’ Brady asked looking at the long, dark brown wig beside the skeletal remains.

  Wolfe looked at him. ‘No, laddie. That isn’t a wig.’

  Brady looked at him. ‘I don’t understand?’

  ‘He scalped them, Jack. That there is this poor lassie’s own hair.’

  ‘What?’ Brady replied, shocked. He had come across a lot of sadistic crimes but never a killer who scalped his victims.

  ‘Whether they were alive when he did it, I can’t tell you. But nonetheless, he scalped them and then preserved the skin.’

  Brady looked across at Conrad. He looked as sickened by this new information as Brady.

  ‘How did he preserve the scalps?’ he asked as he stared in disbelief at the victim’s hair.

  ‘A liberal amount of non-iodized salt to the skin. He would need to work it thoroughly through the skin, and repeat the process a couple of days later when the salt became saturated with moisture. This technique is also knowing as curing and it lasts about ten to fourteen days. From the small puncture marks, it looks as if he tacked the scalp down and stretched it while it cured, making sure he had no folds in the skin.’

  ‘Christ! It’s sick,’ Brady muttered.

  Wolfe shot him a droll look. ‘That’s one word for it, laddie.’

  Brady shook his head. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing, let alone seeing. The fact that the suspect had scalped all his victims, apart from the surviving victim, Hannah Stewart, left him speechless. He was trying to make sense of it. But knew that he never would. The suspect’s MO was driven by some need, some compulsion, that Brady could never understand and would never want to.

  ‘All DNA samples from the victims have been sent off to the lab. Hopefully you’ll be able to identify them.’ Wolfe shook his head, adding, ‘at least for the sake of their families.’

  But Brady didn’t reply. That was the part that was troubling him. He was certain that no one knew that these victims were missing. So how could they have ever hoped to be found? If Wolfe was right, and Brady was certain he would be, then the suspect had eluded the police for two decades. If the police were unaware of the missing women, they would be equally unaware of the suspect’s crimes. Not only was it the murders of these women that affected Brady, and the physical and psychological torture they would have endured while held captive, it was also t
he knowledge that they would have lived with every day. The fact that no one would come looking for them, because no one knew, or cared, that they had gone. Disappeared. For good.

  ‘The hair will obviously be forensically examined. Along with the necklaces and nightgowns found with each victim. They’ve already been sent off to the lab. If you’re lucky, they might be some trace evidence from the suspect.’

  If we’re lucky . . . Brady resisted the temptation to say it loud. At this point in his life, his luck seemed to have well and truly run out. The police laboratory had long gone. Draconian cuts in the police budget had resulted in all forensic evidence being outsourced to the cheapest private lab. In instances like this, there was no one Brady could ring to speed up the process. It was a Sunday. He had no choice but to wait. Regardless of how crucial the evidence could be. He knew that there were fingerprints on the necklaces. He had seen it when he had shone the Crime-lite over one of the victim’s necklace. But fingerprints and other DNA evidence were only helpful if their perpetrator was already in the system. If he had no priors, then they would be no further forward.

  ‘Did Ainsworth find anything at the crime scene?’ Wolfe asked him.

  ‘No,’ answered Brady as he shook his head. ‘At least, not yet.’

  ‘Like I said, maybe the lab will find something. The suspect clearly took care of these victims. He dressed them. Washed and brushed their hair. So in all likelihood he must have left some trace evidence behind.’

  ‘Why not embalm them?’ Brady suddenly asked. ‘To preserve them forever? If he went to the lengths of scalping them and curing the skin, why not the bodies?’

  Wolfe looked at him. ‘It’s not as easy as you think. You would need a machine to inject fluids laced with chemicals, primarily formaldehyde, into an artery of the body while the majority of blood is emptied from a vein. Then a chemical known as humectant is added, which helps to fill out the body and adds a degree of moisture. But then there would have to be periodic injections of humectant to keep moisture in the tissues. Make-up is also used to disguise the discolouration of the skin which would typically turn brown. But as you can see here, that wasn’t necessary.’

  Brady followed Wolfe’s gaze. The suspect had made a face mask of each victim. Brady presumed the mould had been placed over the flesh after they had died – not before. So, they had a face for each victim. Each mask was different.

  ‘What is the mask made out of?’ Brady asked.

  ‘Alginate mould,’ Wolfe answered.

  Brady shook his head. ‘What is that? Some kind of plaster?’

  ‘Alginate is the stuff dentists use to cast teeth. It’s commonly used for face moulds.’

  Brady stared at the mask lying on the slab next to the victim’s scalped hair. He was surprised at the detail. He could make out small acne scars across the victim’s cheeks.

  But every mask was different. Unique to each victim, like the scalps. Brady thought of what the press had named the serial killer – the Puppet Maker. It fitted. Perfectly.

  Brady was certain that someone had leaked details about the macabre nature of the serial murder case to the press. That worried him. A lot. But right now what troubled him even more was the fact that he had no idea who could be responsible for carrying out these unspeakable acts on these women.

  He shuddered involuntarily as his mind filled with an image that would haunt him to the day he died: twelve deceased victims, all sat in a semicircle wearing hideously painted face masks and cured scalps with long dark hair was an image that would remain forever burned in his mind. They had looked eerily alive dressed in long white nightgowns. The only thing that had jarred was that all that existed beneath the clothing were skeletons.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong here, Jack. You can try and preserve a body for a long time but you need to apply highly concentrated amounts of the chemicals I’ve mentioned. It is also a much slower process and must be done very carefully. And it requires periodic maintenance. But I must stress that indefinite preservation doesn’t really exist. Embalming a body cannot stop decomposition. And remember Jack, he would need to have the means to keep the body refrigerated.’

  Brady caught Conrad’s eye. He looked like Brady felt. Sick to the stomach.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sunday: 1:34 p.m.

  Brady had driven Conrad back to the station and left him there to deal with the media. There was a press call scheduled for 2:00 p.m. About the Puppet Maker. Brady didn’t have the stomach or the inclination to take any more crap. Especially not from the scavenging rats that called themselves the press. TV crews were already setting up in the allocated press room. The station was on edge. Every officer worried about the next onslaught of media coverage.

  He had literally dumped Conrad with a list of orders and left. Conrad was good at public relations. Brady knew his personae suited the media’s perception of the police. More significantly, the public’s expectation of them. Professional-looking, trustworthy and ultimately the antithesis of DI Jack Brady. He had scheduled a briefing for later – to catch up with the team and vice versa. But first he needed to cover every angle. Which meant heading off to Emily Baker’s address. He needed to know whether he should be adding her to the Puppet Maker’s list. He had just finished a call with Gates in which he had updated him on what he knew so far. And to say that Gates was in a foul mood was an understatement. Gates’ team were still no closer to finding Macintosh or Annabel Edwards. The lead that they had been chasing in London had turned out to be a dead end. There had been no signs of Macintosh or the girl in the house that had been raided. Nothing to suggest that he had ever been there. The likelihood of the police finding her alive was diminishing with each passing hour. Brady was more than aware of the pressure Gates was under, not only from his bosses, but also from the glare of the media. And now they had a new serial killer – the Puppet Maker – at large. Someone who had eluded the police for years, it seemed.

  But Brady still couldn’t let go of James David Macintosh. If only he hadn’t released him. If he had somehow detained him until the forensic laboratory had come back with the DNA evidence that conclusively tied Macintosh to the seventies Joker killings. Brady’s hands had been tied. Yet, he was being castigated for it. He could cope with the press and public hysteria. At times, it was part of the job description. It was your colleagues and your boss whose opinions mattered. They were the ones who would protect you when your back was against the wall. But Brady had never felt so alone. So isolated. And ultimately, held accountable by those he ordinarily counted on, for actions beyond his control.

  Gates had made it clear that he wasn’t interested in Emily Baker. That Brady had enough on his hands without trying to add to the victim list. His point – Brady had no proof apart from the ramblings of a lobotomised girl. One who would be lucky if she could manage to independently feed herself one day. So he had ordered Brady to focus on the facts he knew about. And not to go looking for more trouble.

  Brady’s response had been to keep his mouth shut. And when he did talk, he made sure it was what Gates wanted to hear. By the end of the call, his boss had seemed confident that Brady would keep his head and follow orders. Not that Brady could blame Gates. His boss had his hands full as it was chasing false leads in the Macintosh case. The last thing he needed was to be worrying about Brady wasting time following up hunches. The ever-decreasing police budget didn’t allow for the luxury of mistakes.

  He looked up at the first floor flat. 12b Whitley Road, Whitley Bay. Emily Baker’s address. He had thought about Gates’ orders to dismiss her from the investigation and decided against it. He had a feeling that something wasn’t quite right. Hannah Stewart had been saying her name for a reason. Brady was worried that just maybe, Hannah was saying her name because she had been held prisoner with her. That Emily was a new victim. From what Brady could understand, it seemed to him that the killer held these women captive for eight months and then moved on to a new victim. The time frame regarding the fractu
res sustained by the victims seemed to support Brady’s hypothesis. And high-risk, vulnerable young women were perfect targets for his crimes, making it hard to track him down. Hannah Stewart had no family or friends that he could contact. No one to talk to who could give him a description of the victim. Where she would hang out, who she socialised with – all crucial elements in narrowing down a suspect. It was the victim’s story, their life choices that could help track down their killer. Without that information, it made Brady’s life as the SIO difficult, if not impossible. Because then he was reliant on DNA evidence. If he was fortunate, the lab might find traces of biological evidence that could tie the suspect to the murders. However, the attacker’s DNA would need to be on the police database, or his identity would remain unknown. As for witness reports, the suspect had managed to kill over a period of twenty years and store the bodies in a derelict but guarded psychiatric hospital without ever being noticed, let alone stopped.

  Brady sighed. He had instructed Harvey and Kodovesky to go through the list of missing persons in the last twenty years or so. They had photographs of the face masks that the serial killer had made of each victim. Whether it would help, Brady had no idea. He was still waiting for the lab to call back with the DNA details of each victim. If he was lucky, the victims’ DNA, like Hannah Stewart’s, would be in the police database. But he wasn’t holding his breath.

  He got out the car and walked up the short path to the dilapidated Victorian terraced house. It had seen better days. It had once been a large three-storey house. But now it had been converted into flats, accommodating some of Whitley Bay’s most vulnerable. Brady had recognised the address. It was a regular dumping site for ex-offenders who had successfully completed their six-month parole at Ashley House. They needed accommodation, just like anyone else. However, most of the residents in Whitley Bay had no idea that ex-offenders of this ilk lived within such close proximity. These were rapists, wife batterers, murderers and paedophiles; some were also child murderers.