The Lover's Children

Chapter 91 – Summer’s Inferno – Part 1

KLEMPNER

Incoming on my mobile…

I check the screen.

Will Stanton…

Looking for a progress report perhaps?

Got good news for him, then…

I tap in. “Yes, Commissioner. What can I…?”

“Klempner, there’s been another murder.”

Crap…

“Send me the location. I’ll be there ASAP.”

“Sending now.”

I glance toward James, who raises questioning brows, then around the group. “My apologies

everyone,” I say. “I have to leave. But I’d like to come back later if I may, to talk.”

The hooker in the glitter-dress inhales from her cigarette, then blowing smoke, shrugs. “We’re not goin’

nowhere.” She cants her head, expression tightening. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I’m told there’s been another murder by the killer they’re calling the Surgeon. I need to go find out

what’s happening.”

“Yeah?” She draws again, looks away, looks back. “Well, go do what you have to do now, but then, you

come back here to ask your questions.”

“I will.”

Michael, thumbs hooked in pockets, doesn’t speak, but his expression is sombre.

“You want company?” says James.

“No, I want you to stay with Jenny and make sure that…” My daughter’s eyes flash... I nod James

toward her. “… Just stay here.”

He glances toward her, lifts his chin, lowers his lids. “I take your point. Stay in touch.”

*****

I’m not far from the site. This time, it’s a parking lot. Police cars are squealing in as I arrive, joining the

massed vehicles already here. Their combined light casts a bizarre blue flicker over the scene.

It’s easy enough to locate the crime scene. The area’s being cordoned off as I approach: yellow tape

stringing across. Police Line - Do Not Cross.

As I try to pass, “Can’t you read?” snaps a uniformed officer.

“I’m expected. Commissioner Stanton called me.”

He cocks a disbelieving eyebrow. “Name?”

“Lars Waterman.”

A voice booms out. “Let him through.”

The officer twists. “Sir?”

It’s Stanton, grim-faced, waving me in. “I called him. Let him pass.” The officer scowls, but steps aside.

*****

The parking lot is divided: the closer area for general use, but beyond that, a zone designated for

commercial vehicles. Stanton leads me between a pair of parked trucks, large multi-wheeled affairs.

Scrubby undergrowth further obscures the view of the area from the main entrance.

“Same as before?” I ask.

He spreads fingers. Rocks the hand to and fro. “Yes and no. You’d better see for yourself. You

understand you mustn’t contaminate the scene? Don’t touch anything. Follow only the designated

route.” He offers me vinyl gloves and a pair of overshoes. “Put these on.”

A screen is already in place, being extended and roofed over as we approach. At the entrance, an

officer draws a curtain to one side, stepping courteously aside for his commissioner. “Sir.”

Stanton thumbs toward me. “Arrange a visitor’s pass. Lars Waterman.”

“Yes, sir.”

Inside, the area is floodlit, the lighting harsh and clear. A white-overalled figure steps over…

I stop mid-stride.

Christ…

The previous scene I only saw from a distance, and indirectly, beyond a doorway when I made my

unauthorised excursion into the crime scene area. Stanton showed me photographs, and I saw the

ruined body of the victim only after she’d lain in the mortuary for some time.

This time, it’s different. I’m seeing the scene as left by the killer.

He’s staked her out. Spreadeagled her. Cable ties at wrist and ankle roped to ground pegs. Perhaps,

given opportunity, she could have worked the pegs loose.

She had no opportunity.

As with the previous victim, he’s disembowelled her, scattered her guts over the surrounding ground in

a bloody riot of red and purple. Long strands of something are wrapped around her neck. Her face…

I’ve seen corpses a-plenty. Been responsible for many of them. Sometimes I’ve used a pistol or a rifle.

If it’s up close, a slit throat does the job. It’s bloody, but sure.

I’ve never done anything like this.

“If you need to throw up…” murmurs Stanton… “there’s a…”

“Thank you, Commissioner, but no. I’ll manage.” Nonetheless, I find my hand rising to cover my mouth.

Stanton slants a look to me, pauses, then calls to the white figure. “Doctor…”

The figure raises a masked face. Glacial eyes look from above the mask. Borje. “You ready for this,

Larry?”

“I’m ready. So… what’s the same. And what’s different?”

From behind the mask, Borje’s words are a little muffled. “What is the same is the evisceration of the

body cavity. What is different is the damage to the head and face.”

In the photos I saw of the Surgeon’s earlier victims, the face was more or less untouched. In this

case…

Her face is not really a face anymore, slashed repeatedly. One eye stares blindly out, an orb of blood.

The other is missing from its socket, bone and flesh crushed, almost pulped. Her cap of short mousy

hair is stained black where blood has dried, but around the corpse, it lies spattered and spilled.

Short hair?

That’s new…

The previous women all had long hair.

I wave a hand over the ground. “This spatter pattern from the blood? I’m no expert, but…”

Borje nods. “You’re right… This isn’t passive bleeding; of the kind you get from a corpse when the

blood simply settles under gravity.” He traces a line through the air, following a bloody splatter. “This is

arterial spurting. Her heart was pumping. She was alive for at least part of the time. Conscious for at

least part of it.” His voice has the toneless quality of one drawing a firm line between self and emotional

distance.

“Conscious during the… evisceration?”

“I don’t think so. At that point he had reverted to pattern. She was dead by the time he opened the

abdominal cavity.”

I angle a closer look. “What’s that around her neck? Strands or fibres of some kind. It looks as though

he used it to strangle her?”

Another toneless reply. “It appears to be a wig.”

“A wig? He strangled her with a wig?” My mind churns. “… Her own wig, do we know?”

“I’ll have a better idea on that when I get everything back to the lab. I’ll be able to check if she’d worn it.

But off-hand, I’d say yes.”

Stanton interrupts. “Given that the previous victims were all long-haired and this one is short-haired, I

think we can make a working assumption it was her own hairpiece. Unless evidence arises to say

otherwise. Doctor, can you say yet what the cause of death was?”

Borje maintains the monotone. “I’ll need to get her back to the lab to assess properly, but I’m pretty

sure it was asphyxiation again. I doubt she’d have survived the beating to her head and face, but I think

actual C.o.D was asphyxiation.”

“From strangulation? Have you checked her throat contents yet?”

“I was just about to when you arrived.” Carefully easing open the mouth of the corpse Borje fits in

something like a dental gag, easing, then holding the jaws apart. With long-handled forceps, he

reaches inside. Then, pausing, he peers in more closely.

Stanton moves closer. “What is it?”

“Something’s different,” says Borje. “Could you move please, Commissioner. You’re blocking the light.”

Silently, Stanton shifts. Juggling the forceps in one hand, Borje angles the narrow beam of a small

flashlight with the other, then passes it to me, “Larry, could you hold that for me. Directly down her

throat.”

Straddling behind him, I aim the light, canting the beam around his hand. Again, Borje reaches in with

the forceps, before withdrawing them, trailing long fibres which glint chestnut in the torchlight.

Stanton’s brow furrows. “More of the hairs from the wig? Blocking the airway?” He exchanges a glance

with me. “Is that everything, Doctor? What about the bank notes?”

“Yes, Commissioner, there’s more.” Once more, Borje delves in. This time, he draws out crumpled

paper, sodden, trailing dark, glutinous threads. Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

Borje straightens up. “The killer’s normal signature, I’d say.” Then, blowing out his cheeks. “I’d prefer to

report fully when I’ve made the formal autopsy.”

“Fine,” says Stanton. “Keep me informed.” Then he nods to me. “Keep us both informed.”

*****

JAMES

Klempner marches away in long ground-eating strides. Lorelei follows him with her eyes, then returns

her attention to Charlotte. “So, what is it you want to know? Or… your father… was it?”

At the mention of Klempner, Charlotte seems suddenly uncertain, looking to me. I nudge Michael, who

launches his charm like turning on a switch. Ambling over, he taps into his phone, displaying the screen

with Klempner’s image of the fleeing Hoodie. “We’re helping in the hunt for the serial killer. We all know

he’s out there. Larry has reason to think this might be him. It’s you girls he’s targeting. You’re in the

best position to ID him.”

Lorelei takes a pack of cigarettes from a minute purse, glittered with sequins to match her dress. She

lights up, then draws long, blows blue smoke upward. “Yeah, we know there’s a psycho coming after

us. The ‘Surgeon’ they’re calling him now.”

“The Surgeon. Yes, that’s him. Does the photo mean anything to you?”

Lorelei peers at the images, viewing it from several angles. “Not a lot to recognise, is there? Portrait of

a man’s back. And there must be fifty guys pass by here every night dressed like that.”

“Yes, we know it’s a long shot. But right now, it’s the best we’ve got.”

“Who is the guy in the photo?”

Charlotte replies, “Someone my father saw that he was suspicious of…”

Michael continues… “And Larry has good instincts when it comes to judging people. But as you say, we

don’t have a lot to go on. What we want is for you to tell us about any men who come by that give out

bad vibes…” He twists in a half-circle, scanning the gathered group of women… “Not just you, Lorelei.

Any of you here. Any of your friends.”

Lorelei huffs, blows more smoke. “Bad vibes? That won’t be a short list. We get all sorts.”

“I imagine you do. But we want to know about any potential punter, any stalker, any man, where you

have a gut feeling there’s something not right.”

She considers, clucks, then aims a long fingernail across the road to a corner cafe - Ruby’s Roadside

Canteen. “See there?” She waves around the circle of women, trailing smoke from her hand. “We’ll

have a talk, and I’ll put the word out. Anyone with something useful can meet you in there. Your friend

too, when he comes back.”

*****