Katrin already had several downloaded files about the Stephen Jenkins murders, so was able to pass them on to Tim quickly. She told him she’d look for more information the following day.
What Tim was most interested in was the manner in which Jenkins had killed his victims. The pathologists’ reports weren’t among the files Katrin had on her computer. When she could get hold of them they might yield additional information, but the official account of the trial was detailed enough to be going on with. Each of the corpses had been examined by a different pathologist; all three had arrived at the same conclusion about the victim’s cause of death: in their opinion, both women and the girl had died from multiple stab wounds. This was indisputable in the case of the girl, whose name was Tanya Jones, more a matter of probability where the two women were concerned. There was an outside chance that they had been decapitated while still alive, but none of the pathologists believed this. Medical evidence suggested that at least one of the women had had her head hacked off some time after she died. ‘Hacked’ was the appropriate word: Jenkins had almost certainly used a rusty hacksaw that was later retrieved from the canal.
Jenkins had done a good job of cleaning up, but nevertheless forensic tests carried out in the bathroom of his flat revealed small shards of bone and some blood, suggesting that he’d cut the heads off the bodies there, possibly having killed his victims somewhere else. More traces of blood were found on the landing outside the flat, but this could have been deposited either when he moved the bodies into the flat or moved them out again afterwards. The girl’s blood was not found either inside or outside the flat, nor was there any other evidence that she’d been there. It seemed likely that she’d been killed on the canal path, or perhaps somewhere else altogether and then transported to the canal, in either instance without entering the flat.
The reason for her death had puzzled the prosecution: the only explanation they could think of was either that she’d stumbled on Jenkins while he was disposing of one of the bodies or she’d found out something about him that could lead to the discovery of his crimes. Tim wasn’t entirely convinced about this. Men like Jenkins developed a taste for killing: Tanya Jones may just have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Tim was now on his way back to Lincoln, planning to arrive as soon as he could after Professor Salkeld started work on the autopsies again. He knew Salkeld had intended to carry out the young girl’s autopsy the previous evening. He’d been asked to focus on her first in the hope of finding clues to help establish her identity. Tim assumed that the Professor hadn’t found anything too exciting: if he had, he would have been sure to call Michael or Tim himself.
It was Tim’s first visit to the morgue in Lincoln. He didn’t like morgues, and this one was possibly the most dingy and cheerless he’d ever visited. The staff, however, were helpful. Jerry, the male assistant who greeted him, assumed that he’d come to watch the autopsies through the observation window, but when he explained that he’d like to be present in the mortuary room, Jerry was happy to sort out some scrubs for him. As Tim was putting them on, Jerry went to ask the Professor’s permission to admit him.
‘Professor Salkeld says you can go in,’ he said guardedly, when he returned. The tone of his voice made Tim look up and catch his eye.
‘And?’ he said.
Jerry smiled.
‘Is it that obvious? Well, perhaps I should warn you that he’s not in a very good mood today.’
‘He never is,’ said Tim. ‘Don’t worry, I’m used to him.’
‘DI Yates!’ said the Professor sardonically, as Tim entered his inner sanctum. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure? Except for your natural propensity to get in my hair on occasions such as this, I mean.’
‘Good morning, Professor Salkeld. I know I get in your hair sometimes. I promise to behave today. I wondered if you’d let me watch, perhaps at the same time talk to you about the autopsy on the girl you carried out last night?’
‘I think that might be a trifle confusing for Paula, don’t you? She’s supposed to be taking down notes from what I say about this cadaver, not last night’s.’
‘Who?’ said Tim. He looked beyond the Professor and noticed for the first time the young woman perched on a stool close to the top of the gurney bearing the victim’s remains. She was holding a notebook. A camera stood on the bench in front of her.
‘Hello, Paula.’ Tim gave her a brief nod and turned back to the Professor. ‘Well, perhaps I can watch you for a bit and talk to you about last night’s autopsy when you take a break.’
The Professor sighed deeply.
‘No peace for the wicked,’ he said. ‘I take it you know what the term ‘break’ means? It refers to time off, usually brief. As in a break from work.’
‘If you’re too busy, I can come back…’
‘Perish the thought!’ said Professor Salkeld. ‘You’ll still be in my hair if I know you’re coming back. Let’s get it over with, shall we?’
‘Thank you,’ said Tim. Although not as squeamish as some of his colleagues, he didn’t enjoy post-mortems. He watched cautiously as the Professor slit the torso of the body from the crotch almost to the neck, then plunged his hand into the cavity he’d made and pulled out a large dull red organ.
‘Her liver?’
The Professor plopped the mass into a steel dish and prodded at it with a latexed finger, peering at it closely.
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Not in very good shape, either. It’s quite inflamed – see here – and considerably bigger than it should be.’
‘Alcohol?’
‘Possibly, though it doesn’t have the classic oak-leaf appearance associated with cirrhosis. My money’s on drugs. Heroin, to be precise.’
‘An addict?’
The Professor straightened up and turned to face him.
‘How many people do you know of who take heroin and aren’t addicts?’
‘Stupid question, I suppose.’
‘Aye.’
‘Can you tell how old she was?’
‘I can’t be very exact. It would be much easier if she’d kept her head.’ The Professor chuckled grimly at his own gallows joke. ‘Probably quite young, but she’s no teenager. I’d put the age range at twenty-five to thirty-five.’
Tim thought back to the court report he’d been reading the previous evening. Both Stephen Jenkins’ decapitated victims had been in their late twenties.
‘Interesting.’
‘Why’s that?’ said Professor Salkeld suspiciously. ‘Most serial killers’ victims are young women, aren’t they?’
‘I supposed that’s generally correct, though there are other groups at risk as well: children and gay men, for example, sometimes the very elderly. But I wasn’t referring to the demographic so much as the overall profile of the case.’
‘Come again? You’re getting almost as good at using big words as I am.’ This observation seemed to lift Professor Salkeld’s mood. Capitalising on the change, Tim smiled self-deprecatingly.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like a criminologist. What I meant was, there are some unusual aspects of this crime that makes it like another set of murders that were committed six or so years ago. It was Katrin who first spotted the similarities.’
Professor Salkeld was continuing to make steady progress, delving several times into the cavity to extract more organs from the body and placing them methodically in steel dishes for Paula to photograph. Tim could tell, however, that his curiosity had been piqued.
‘Aha. You policemen are keen on seeing patterns in things, aren’t you? Which murders would those be, then? I don’t recall having worked on anything like this before.’
Tim forbore to point out that the Professor wasn’t the only pathologist operating in the country.
‘They weren’t committed in this region. I’ve been reading about the case I mean – there were three pathologists working on it, none of whose names I recognised.’
‘Yes, but which case was it?’
‘Does the name Stephen Jenkins ring any bells?’
The Professor paused, holding his scalpel aloft in mid-air.
‘Stephen Jenkins? Vaguely. I half-recollect that there was an outcry when he was sentenced, because he was suspected of being involved in several other assaults and the police decided not to pursue it further.’
‘You’re right, but that was after he was sentenced. Do you remember any details about the case itself?’
‘Six years ago, you say? No, I’m afraid I don’t – but I wasn’t… myself then. It may have passed me by.’
Tim remembered that around the time he’d joined the South Lincs force someone had told him that Professor Salkeld had lost his wife in tragic circumstances. He knew no more about it – the Professor was a man who liked to keep his personal and professional lives entirely separate – but Tim assumed this was what he was referring to now.
‘You may just have been too busy,’ he said brightly, side-stepping the subject. ‘As I said, I spent some time yesterday evening reading up on the Jenkins case. Jenkins murdered two prostitutes and decapitated them before throwing them into the canal in Burnley, at a spot not far from where he lived. The heads of one of the women was subsequently found, buried close to the canal path; the other woman’s head was never found. Jenkins’ third victim was a schoolgirl, who wasn’t decapitated. According to the pathologists’ reports, all three died of multiple stab wounds.’
Professor Salkeld let out a low whistle.
‘I have to admit there’s something in this notion of yours,’ he said. ‘Paula, let’s knock off for a while. Give the man the break he’s been after since he arrived. We’ll have some tea, talk a bit more about the lassie we worked on yesterday.’
‘Tea would be great,’ said Tim, bestowing one of his winning smiles on Paula.
‘Aye, well, she’s not the tea-lady,’ said Professor Salkeld, with some severity, ‘but I’m sure she’ll show you where the stuff is kept so you can make your own.’
Tim had the good grace to look abashed, even though Paula then made tea for all of them anyway. The morgue didn’t boast a proper staff room, but a modest rest area had been half-walled off from the rest of the mortuary room. It was furnished with a few easy chairs, as well as a sink, a kettle and a small fridge. As it was part of the operating room, it was kept at the same chilly temperature. Tim was grateful to be able to wrap his hands around the mug of hot tea.
‘Now,’ said Professor Salkeld, ‘don’t tell me any more about your Jenkins case just yet, because I don’t want to rush to conclusions. Let’s focus on the wee lassie we opened up last night. She probably was stabbed to death, though some marks on her neck suggested that her killer may have tried to strangle her first. It’s difficult to say, but she didn’t lose as much blood from the stab wounds as might have been expected. She did lose some blood, though. My guess is that he tried to strangle her, she lost consciousness and then he finished it off with the stabbing. There are a couple of odd features: the first was picked up by Ms Gardner, when she made a preliminary examination at the scene. The girl wasn’t wearing the clothes she was found in when she was stabbed. Either she had been wearing other clothes which the killer discarded and replaced, or she was naked when he stabbed her, except for her knickers. We can’t know for sure if she was wearing the same ones when she died, but my best guess is she was. I can tell you she wasn’t sexually assaulted.’
‘I don’t understand why the killer would want to change her clothes.’
‘That’s been puzzling me, too, but maybe you hold the key to it, if you’re right about it being a copycat murder. If you want me to, I can get hold of the autopsy report of the girl killed by your Stephen Jenkins, see if it can throw further light on it for us.’
‘Thank you. I’d really appreciate that.’
‘It’s my job,’ said the Professor gruffly, brushing off gratitude as he always did. ‘After what you’ve told me, it would be remiss of me not to suggest it. The girl was probably Roma, by the way.’
‘Roma? You mean she was a gypsy?’
‘If you like. I prefer the term Roma. I can’t be certain, but she has all the characteristics. If the parents don’t come forward, we will establish more about her background by carrying out blood and DNA tests.’
‘Is that the other odd thing you mentioned?’
‘No. Why would it be? Plenty of Roma in this area, either living here or passing through. If I’d said Inuit, you might have had a point. The other odd feature was that there was nothing frenzied about the knife blows, even though there were thirteen of them. Knife crime is both barbaric and, unless the perpetrator is totally depraved, requires some courage. Unlike firing a gun or launching a missile, even running someone over with a car, it necessitates physical contact. Perpetrators therefore have to psych themselves up to it, often making themselves go berserk in the process. It’s as if they’re at once horrified by what they’re doing and determined to see it through. Hence they often use unnecessary force and may keep on stabbing the victim after it’s clear that he or she is dead. Sometimes they stop only when the knife blade breaks in the victim’s body. This killer didn’t subject the girl to that kind of attack. Although he stabbed her thirteen times, the knife entered her body gently, almost tenderly. Unique in my experience.’