Stop Dead (DI Geraldine Steel)

Once the desire to kill had been triggered, the murderer might be unable to stop.

CHAPTER 49
     
    G iven her reluctance to view cadavers, Sam was surprisingly keen to accompany Geraldine to the morgue again.
    ‘It gets easier, doesn’t it?’ she asked as they donned their protective clothing.
    Geraldine nodded as she dabbed underneath her nostrils with a small tube of Vic. The pungent smell helped to mask the stench. For her, bodies had always held a clinical fascination. She had never felt in the slightest bit queasy until she had seen Corless. That had been an aberration.

     
    The pathologist had confirmed what they could see for themselves, that the third victim had been mutilated in the same way as the other two bodies. The gruesome details had not yet been revealed to the press and the singular nature of the fatal assaults left the police in no doubt that they were looking for a serial killer. Although they had several suspects for the murders of Henshaw and Corless, Bradshaw was another matter altogether. With no apparent link between the first two victims and the third, it appeared the killer was extending the area of his or her attacks, possibly settling old scores. A team of constables were busy checking into Bradshaw’s history. So far they hadn’t found anything even faintly interesting.

     
    The long blonde hair found on Bradshaw’s body had been sent off for analysis. Its owner had to be the killer or else a key witness. The results of the DNA testing hadn’t yet arrived but the pathologist was able to tell them that evidence of bleach suggested the owner wasn’t originally blonde. That meant the blonde woman might easily be the same woman whose dark hairs had been discovered in Henshaw’s car. If that turned out to be the case, that same woman would be implicated in the murders, even if she wasn’t actually responsible for them. They had to find her.

     
    While they waited for the all-important results, Geraldine decided to look into the woman whose DNA appeared to have been found on Henshaw’s body, the woman who had been in prison for twenty years. Arriving back at the station she joined Sam for a rushed coffee in the noisy canteen before settling down to work.
    ‘Aren’t you having lunch?’ Sam asked, seizing on a jacket potato. ‘I’m starving.’
    Geraldine shook her head. She wasn’t hungry. After a hurried coffee she returned to her office to look up Linda Harrison, the female prisoner who had been locked up for murder twenty years earlier – whose name had mysteriously turned up again in connection with the current investigation when her DNA had appeared on a murder victim.

     
    In her mug shots, Linda looked rough. Her dark hair was matted, as though it hadn’t been combed for weeks, her lips hung slightly open in a slack snarl, and her eyes bored through the screen, seeming to follow Geraldine when she shifted her position. But more striking than signs of neglect in her appearance was the coldness of her eyes. She looked like a woman who had given up on life. Geraldine stared back, trying to fathom the strange expression on the woman’s face, almost triumphant.

     
    Geraldine printed out the image and went back to the canteen. Sam had gone. Geraldine found her deep in conversation with a female constable in a corner of the incident room. The two fell silent when Geraldine joined them. She felt as though she was intruding on a private conversation.
    ‘What’s going on?’
    ‘Nothing,’ the constable muttered.
    Sam was more forthcoming.
    ‘We’re talking about Nick Williams,’ she replied in an undertone.
    ‘Sam,’ the constable hissed.
    ‘It’s OK,’ Sam reassured her colleague. ‘Geraldine won’t say anything.’
    ‘Then perhaps you’d better not tell me,’ Geraldine retorted.
    She didn’t like secret gossiping in corners.

     
    Dragging Sam away from her conversation, she showed her Linda Harrison’s picture. Sam glanced at the grainy image and shook her head.
    ‘No, I can’t say I recognise her, but the trial was a bit before my time! All the same, there is something vaguely familiar about her. It’s odd, but I could swear she reminds me of someone. No, it’s gone. But I could have sworn I saw her picture recently.’
    Geraldine returned to her desk, puzzled.
    ‘Something up?’ Nick asked, leaning back in his chair to indicate a readiness to converse.

     
    Nick listened to her account of Linda Harrison being linked to the crime scene,