The Woman Who Lied(48)

Emilia calls an ambulance and sits next to Louise’s body, waiting for them to arrive. She holds her friend’s hand and talks to her, even though she knows it’s fruitless. ‘I’m so sorry I didn’t get your call in time. I’m so sorry, Louise. Hang in there, the ambulance is on its way.’ Her mind is whirring. Her first overriding thought on finding Louise had been to help her friend. But now, like a chink of sunlight struggling through a cloud, her thoughts push through the shock. Before she’d rolled Louise over, she’d noticed a gash to the back of her head, blood matted into her dark hair. If she’d fallen and banged her head she would be on her back, wouldn’t she? But she’d been on her front, as though hit from behind.

Emilia looks down at her friend’s pale face and gently smoothes away the hair from her forehead. She’s like a waxwork figure, no longer like Louise, and another sob escapes her lips. There is a spot of blood on the pale llama. Maybe she shouldn’t have moved her. If someone did this to Louise, the police will be looking for evidence. She carefully releases Louise’s hand and stands up, pushing down her hysteria. Just being here she could be contaminating the crime scene. She knows this from all the times she’s written about it in her books. She’ll have to remember to tell the police about the position Louise’s body had been in when she found her.

A chill creeps over her body and she breaks out in goosebumps. She feels as if she’s in a nightmare and is trying to wake up. This can’t be happening. She thinks of little Toby and her heart breaks all over again.

And then she glances down at Louise’s bare feet and horror washes over her as she notices something on her ankle. It can’t be …

She bends down for a closer look. But there’s no mistaking it. On Louise’s ankle there is a crude marking of an insect’s head.





32





I’m hoping to get out early for once. I need to see my father and check on how he’s coping, as we have finally persuaded him that it’s best for my mother – as well as himself – that she goes into a nursing home. I’m just packing up my stuff and turning off my computer when Saunders bursts into the office without knocking.

I open my mouth to give him a piece of my mind but stop when I notice the look on his face, the mixture of excitement and horror I’ve come to recognize when he thinks we have a lead on a case that seems unsolvable.

‘A call has just come in. It looks like there’s been another victim. The praying-mantis murderer’s struck again.’

I stare at him in shock. I realize my mouth is hanging open and I close it. It’s been over a year now since Trisha Banks was killed and, despite our best efforts, we’ve never been able to pin down Martin Butterworth for the crimes, even though he remains our prime suspect and we’ve been watching him like hawks.

‘Where?’ I say, pulling on my coat.

‘Well, that’s the weird thing,’ he says. ‘It’s out of our jurisdiction. But we’ve been called in because of the similarity to past cases.’ He reels off an address. It’s going to take us three hours to get there, maybe more. And it’s already 6 p.m. But we have to go. There’s no doubt about that.

‘Come on, then,’ I say, already getting out my phone to call my sister to ask her to visit Dad instead, and to let my girlfriend, Kim, know I won’t be home for a few days.

It’s late by the time we reach the quiet, narrow street. We can tell straight away which house it is because of the hubbub outside. Police tape is stretched around the small front garden, and the uniformed officer who is guarding it lifts it up so we can get through. I’m already exhausted, and spending all that time in the car with Saunders has given me a headache but I try to push it aside as we walk down the steps and into the basement flat.

‘It’s through here, ma’am,’ says another officer. Plain clothes, bald with unusually red cheeks. He introduces himself as Detective Sergeant Shawn Watkins from the Metropolitan Police.

A woman is lying on the carpet in the front room. She’s youngish, mid-thirties at the most. Slim, around five foot two, with short dark hair.

‘How was she killed?’ I ask DS Watkins. I turn to see Saunders rushing from the room with a hand clamped over his mouth and frown. That’s unlike him. I turn my attention back to Watkins.

‘It looks like a blow to the head,’ he says. ‘So, not your usual MO of a stab wound. We wouldn’t have called you but then we noticed this …’ He points to the woman’s ankle. I crouch to get a better look. It appears to be a drawing of an insect’s head. But it isn’t the same as the others: this one isn’t carved but has been drawn on with what looks like biro.

This can’t be our guy. Yet whoever did this knows about the praying-mantis etchings and only the police have this information.

‘Excuse me, are you DI Janine Murray?’ Another officer is approaching me. Young with mousy brown hair and a freckled face.

‘Yes.’

‘I’m DC Anthony Haddock. I came as soon as I heard about this.’

My headache is getting worse as I try to make sense of what’s going on. ‘Okay?’

‘The victim is one of our own, ma’am.’

I look back at the woman on the floor. Her eyes are closed, her face is still, and if her body hadn’t been showing signs of rigor mortis she’d look like she was just sleeping. She is wearing a sweatshirt with a llama on the front. ‘She’s a police officer?’