Cold Revenge (Willis/Carter #6)(14)
‘Jesus,’ said Carter.
‘We want to keep this simple,’ said Willis. ‘It’s about one woman and her murder, not about the backstory. Whatever she did in life she deserves justice in death.’
‘I’ll try to word it like that. What have you got for me to work with?’ asked Janice.
‘She was motherless from the age of four, her dad brought her up,’ said Willis. ‘She did really well in her exams and was headed for a great career in farm management when she fell into Douglas’s path.’
‘That’s still about Douglas,’ said Janice, taking notes.
‘Okay, well, talk about how she is one more statistic of prostitutes dying,’ Willis suggested.
‘But she is special,’ Janice replied, ‘she isn’t just one more, is she?’
‘Okay, let us think about it,’ interrupted Carter. ‘We’re headed into a meeting. We’ll be in touch afterwards.’
They walked into the inquiry team office and set up a monitor at the end of one of the six long tables that housed the majority of the thirty-six detectives that made up MIT 17.
Willis addressed the assembled team, showing them the photo of Millie and Yvonne outside the pub on the screen.
‘This is Millie Stephens, thirty-three. Her body was found in the river in Lee Valley Park yesterday morning. We believe she was in the water from sometime soon after the nineteenth of September, three weeks ago. If we take a look at the map on the screen, we have a stretch of water along here beneath the two bridges, and that’s where we are pretty certain she must have gone in. We have been told that one of the bridges has yielded some results forensically – traces of blood – we’re waiting to hear about that. We have yet to recover her phone. The post-mortem has been carried out and we believe she didn’t drown; she was dead before she hit the water. We think she died from stab wounds to the neck.’
Willis passed out the diagram of Millie’s injuries. ‘She was also assaulted with two other weapons.’ She pulled up the photos from the post-mortem on screen. ‘The hammer used on the blunt force trauma leaves an unusual pattern on impact.’ She showed some more photos of the injuries to Millie’s skull. ‘There are ridges on the head of it, they seem to have caused limited shattering, and have created a small concave in the skull. The other weapon, a claw weapon,’ she changed the photo on the screen, ‘is two centimetres wide at its base, and was much more invasive. We are looking for all of these weapons still. We are hoping the divers can get into the water in the next few days. Here is a picture of the knife we are looking for.’ Willis brought up an image. ‘It’s a widely used knife, multi-purpose, it can be bought in many outlets, it gives us nothing except this is not a knife that a professional killer would use.’
Willis took a breath. ‘She didn’t go quietly; she has defensive wounds to her arms and hands. A public appeal for witnesses will go out today.’ She paused as they were joined by someone new. ‘We have a new profiler to bring into the team today,’ she said. ‘Chris Maxwell?’
He held up his hand by way of greeting to the rest of the team.
‘Take a seat,’ said Willis.
Maxwell was a clean-shaven man in his early thirties with good skin and neat features.
‘You’re French, is that right?’ asked Carter. Both men were around five nine, both keen on their presentation, but Maxwell had gone for neutral colours: camel overcoat, dark tan loafers, burgundy turtleneck sweater. Neat blond hair, cut short and parted to the side. He was very much going for a ‘Mr Understated’ look.
‘Dual nationality, I’ve been working here for two years,’ answered Maxwell.
‘Was there not enough work in France to keep you busy?’ Carter asked with a smile.
‘Plenty, I just fancied a change.’ He smiled back, confidently. ‘I hope I can be of help.’
‘Yes, so do we,’ said Carter. ‘Welcome to MIT 17.’
Willis continued. ‘We are building up a picture of a lonely woman, struggling with addiction. Her life still seemed to revolve around her past and Douglas, as all the photos we found in her flat were from that time. The only recent one we identified was that of Millie with Yvonne Coombes. We are searching for an address for Coombes at the moment.’
‘Any of the sex workers been able to help us with this? Anyone worried, or heard about someone who might have done this? Or did anything come up on recent attacks on women in the area?’Carter asked Hector, a detective in his early thirties who liked his suits light grey and his shirts cream-coloured or pink. He was a graduate who had found his niche in the ever-expanding and complex world of intelligence: laptops, mobile phones and social media. ‘What about the national site for sex workers?’
‘There have been two rapes this year, eight violent attacks,’ answered Hector. ‘None that involved taking a victim to a park though. They’ve been warned to stay off the streets until we solve this but that’s unlikely to be heeded. We are looking through Millie’s phone data and CCTV is being analysed of all the cars that have visited the car park nearest to where she was found going back to the beginning of September.’
‘We will step up patrols in the area,’ said Carter, ‘and get some undercover officers to walk the streets, try to keep the women safe.’