Chapter 23
Mark’s steps fell in time with Helen’s as they hurried across the site.
He had made a point of driving her here from the station.
He hadn’t been drinking and seemed a bit more rested.
Perhaps Helen’s words had made a difference after all.
As they walked side by side, Helen’s eyes darted now this way, now that, processing the possibilities.
The site had been alarmed, but after copper thieves had trashed the alarm system for the umpteenth time, the decision was taken not to bother with it anymore.
Everything that was worth nicking had been taken already.
Which meant all “she” had to do was remove the chain on the main gate and drive in.
Would there be tire tracks? Footprints? The hatch at the top of the underground coal silo was easily accessible once you were on the site, and while too heavy for an individual to lift, it could easily have been yanked open by a van with a chain.
Deep tire grooves near the silo suggested that that was exactly what had happened.
That left the transportation of the victims.
“How did she get them from the van into the pit?” said Mark, reading her mind.
“Ben’s pushing six foot, but lean. What do you think? Twelve stone?”
“Sure. It’s possible a woman could drag that deadweight on her own, but Peter . . .”
“Got to be fourteen stone. Maybe more.”
Helen bent down to get a better look. The ground near the hatch opening was certainly very disturbed, but was that the result of both victims being dragged in or a terrified Peter scrambling out?
This was obviously bad practice. An experienced copper knows never to make snap, instinctive judgments about the nature of the crime or the identity of the perpetrator.
But Helen knew that this was the second murder.
Even if one ignored the evidence of sabotage on Ben’s car, Peter Brightston’s story was so close to Amy’s that the link was undeniable.
The pain, guilt and horror etched on Peter’s face when they picked him up was the same as on Amy’s.
These guys were living calling cards, a flesh-and-blood testament to somebody else’s sadism. Was that the point of all this?
It was obvious now that they were dealing with a serial killer.
Helen had done the courses, read the case studies, but still nothing had prepared her for this.
Normally the motive, the connection to the victim, was easy to fathom, but not here.
This wasn’t an antiwoman thing, wasn’t a sex crime, and there seemed to be no correlation in age, gender or status between the victims. Helen felt herself being sucked into a long, dark tunnel.
A wave of depression assailed her and she had to pinch herself to snap out of it.
She would catch the person responsible. Of course she would.
Helen and Mark approached the mouth of the pit. Helen called for a ladder to be brought over—she was eager to get down there quickly, to know the worst. The hatch was already open, so she peered inside. And there in the gloom lay the body. The man Peter had murdered. Ben Holland.
“Do you want to go down or shall I?”
Mark’s question was well-meaning and he was straining not to be patronizing. But Helen had to see this for herself.
“I’m fine. This won’t take long.”
Carefully, she climbed down the ladder into the body of the silo.
The smell was strong down there. Gas fused with coal dust and excrement.
The forensics team had found strong traces of a powerful sedative, benzodiazepine, in Sam’s and Amy’s excrement.
They’d probably find it here too. Helen turned her attention to the body.
He was lying facedown, a pool of blood congealed around his head.
Taking care not to touch him, Helen knelt down, craning round to look at the victim’s face.
Disgust and then surprise. Disgust at the bloody hole where his left eye used to be. And surprise at the realization that this was not Ben Holland.