The ambulance parked as close to the trees as possible, after a search of the area by the forensic team. They worked quietly. They all watched the news. They’d all heard of The Teacher.
At first, fascination and tantalising gossip had dominated the news, verging on sickening vicarious replay. But even that was turning sour, and the atmosphere at the Tourist Board was now one of panic. Visitors were cancelling in their thousands, and buses, boats, restaurants and bars were empty.
They wouldn’t be able to keep this one out of the news for long either. Number four.
She’d been picked at by small carnivores, which had been attracted by the open wounds around her midriff. Great slices of flesh had been removed from her belly and at first glance it looked like the cuts had been made by a seamstress, preparing to make a prom dress smaller for the excited teenager who’d lost so much weight, especially for the event. But it wasn’t a dressmaker’s dummy. It was a woman. Another woman.
The team was made up of five forensic examiners and, today, Ted Wallis had come along. Senior pathologists usually didn’t have the time or the inclination to visit scenes in the field, but this was different. Ted had autopsied every victim and this time he wanted to see her in-situ. Such context wasn’t necessary, but Ted was inextricably linked to these women now, and he wanted to see the killer caught. And he also wanted to help Kelly. Perhaps he’d see something at the scene that was new, something that he would never see in the morgue.
He looked at the soil, rummaged through bushes, and took photos. His team was perfectly capable of carrying out these tasks for him, but he worked alongside them, performing the duties he’d trained for thirty years ago. He used stepping plates, so as not to disturb vital evidence. Defence barristers were getting pickier year on year, and a tiny detail could stump him on the stand. These days, juries wanted to see the scene for themselves, in as much detail as possible.
Ted was old school, and he’d brought along with him a sketch pad and pencil, which he used to sketch the scene. It always helped to jog the memory if it was required later.
He stopped and bent down. There were tyre tracks in the mud, and despite being covered with loose soil, they were still visible. The hot weather had preserved them beautifully and they were nice and hard – perfect for plaster. He ordered an imprint. Leading from the tyre tracks were other tracks, smaller ones, and Ted couldn’t work out what had made them. He had them filled with plaster too, and they’d be sent to a track expert along with the tyre tracks.
His mind was focused, and he was unaware of members of his team watching him. It wasn’t every day that someone as senior as Ted Wallis could be studied in the field, and they were distracted by him. They watched his methodical movements, and the way he looked at certain items from different angles. It took him over forty-five minutes to get close to the body, so busy was he examining everything else around her first.
A tent had been erected around the scene, and cars could be heard in the distance. It was an isolated spot but people walked dogs here, and soon it would become a thoroughfare for animals with three hundred million nose receptors. He couldn’t allow that to happen, and the police were busy securing the area.
She’d been found by a park ranger, desperate for the toilet and caught short, looking for somewhere off the road. He’d given a statement to the uniform, first on to the scene. Ted could still smell his vomit, which lay in a pile ten feet away from the body.
Kelly Porter had been informed, and she was on her way. Ted had called her personally.
For now, his aim was to find a piece of paper.
He noted the stillness of the place. It was bewitching. He imagined a figure, most likely under the cover of night, arranging the bulky frame of this woman. Had he said anything? Had he taken his time? How long had he planned this location to be her final resting place? As always, he struggled with the motive behind the act. No matter how old Ted got, he could never rationalise such depravity. He looked at the incisions. Fat had been removed from under them, and Ted wondered if the killer thought he was doing her a favour. Plastic surgery for free. The victim was clean, Ted could tell straight away. Her nails were scrubbed, and her wounds weren’t suppurating. There were various marks all over her body, and Ted wouldn’t know what had caused them, or if they were inflicted ante- or post-mortem, until he had her on the slab. Washing indicated intimacy, he noted. He spotted marks around her neck, and they looked consistent with the other victims. He heard rustling behind him and turned around. Kelly walked towards him. She was grim-faced and she stared beyond him, towards the victim.
He wondered how close Kelly’s team was to solving these crimes, but he wouldn’t ask her. Ted knew that sometimes crimes went unsolved for decades. It was taking a toll on the young detective’s face.
‘Kelly,’ he said, simply.
‘Ted.’ Kelly’s eyes never left the victim.
‘I haven’t found a note yet, take a look. She has the same ligature marks round her neck, wrists and ankles. We found tyre tracks and another smaller track, possibly a lifting device.’
‘I know her,’ said Kelly. ‘She worked at Penrith and Lakes Hospital, she nursed my mother.’
Ted stopped what he was doing, and stared at Kelly.
‘Do you know her name?’
‘Yes, she’s called Nicola. Nicola Tower. She was a staff nurse, full of life, always joking around, perhaps a little too much sometimes. She was, how can I put it? Wonderfully tactless.’ Kelly’s voice was dead pan.
The answer was right under her nose. She’d walked the same wards, she’d said hello to the same patients, she’d probably made a coffee at the same machine as the killer, but, as she wracked her brain for images of anyone matching their profile, Kelly continually came up blank. She’d thought it might be a hospital porter, a visitor, a consultant, the man selling newspapers and chocolate bars; anyone would do. They’d been through the staff lists, the patient lists, including outpatients, and through auxiliary staff. Thousands of people went through the doors of the Penrith and Lakes Hospital. Hundreds of vehicles came and went, and any one of them could be responsible for the series of murders on the shoulders of Kelly Porter and her team. She’d thought of closing the hospital, but that was out of the question. She’d put officers on every entrance, scoured CCTV footage, and personally spoken to over five hundred people.
And still no-one knew where Timothy Cole was.
‘Why did you come down here, Ted?’ She looked away from Nicola Tower. Something gnawed at her gut.
‘Do I need to answer that, Kelly? I trust my team implicitly, but I needed to see it this time for myself, to see if I could spot something, anything significant. I can see how much this is taking out of you. I thought I could help.’
‘I’m fine Ted,’ she lied. He didn’t believe her. ‘I think we are looking at number four, Kelly. Kelly?’ He watched her, trying to get her attention, but she’d zoned out again and her face was blank. He watched as she walked towards the nurse she’d called Nicola.
‘What has The Teacher said this time? What was her crime?’
‘I don’t know, Kelly. I won’t know until I get her back to the morgue. Do you want me to guess?’
Kelly nodded. She already had her own theory.
‘Moira was missing her fingers; Brandy was missing her tongue, Aileen missing her cane, and now Nicola is missing a lot of her flesh.’
Kelly looked at the body and she hadn’t noticed before. Her mind had wandered to the women before death – and during expiry – and how they’d suffered. She was overlooking the detail that now offered itself to her.
‘Flesh?’
‘Look. He took her fat deposits, Kelly. Her hips, inner thighs, belly and some back fat.’
‘Oh, Jesus.’
‘Quite. It’s as if he’s given her a fat-reducing operation; make of that what you will.’
‘Vanity.’
‘Yes.’
‘My sister has gone missing.’
He stared at her.
‘Kelly? You don’t think it’s linked do you?’
‘I’ve spent so much time in the hospital this month, it’s like my second home. So has Nikki. So has my mother. The victims are all connected to the hospital. Each one of them seemed to have known their killer: else why would they have agreed to go with them? He needs a vehicle to do this,’ she pointed at Nicola Tower. ‘Nikki has been missing for twenty-four hours, but she’s a mother, Ted. She’d never leave her children. I have to go.’
‘Where?’
‘God knows. First I need to report it formally.’
‘You’re remarkably calm, Kelly.’
‘I’ve got no choice. Tell me when you find the poem.’
Ted nodded. He knew, as well as Kelly, that there’d be one: and it was probably lodged inside one of the botched fat removal wounds. He watched Kelly walk away, and called over a junior. He had to get the body on his slab so he could find the poem.