Cold as Ice (Willis/Carter #2)(9)
‘Maybe the killer used a length of something smooth, rubber tubing perhaps,’ said Carter.
‘Yes, perhaps,’ Harding answered. ‘It would have to be wrapped several times around the neck and then squeezed slowly to achieve this kind of result. Almost like a blood pressure monitor when it squeezes your arm – even, strong pressure all round.’ She spoke as she worked at opening up the neck and separating the fused bones. ‘Even her collarbone is broken, snapped under the weight of whatever it was that crushed her slowly, cutting off oxygen to the brain simultaneously.’
Ebony looked up at Carter from behind her visor.
‘Not done by the canal’s edge then, Guv? He couldn’t have done this there and taken the time he needed. What about the make-up?’
Mark answered: ‘I took a photo of her face and then I removed what was left of the make-up and I’ve bagged up the swabs to send to pathology to analyze, but I’m sure it’s what we used in the funeral home. It’s semi-permanent, waterproof. It’s really thick and the pigments are much stronger than normal make-up.’
‘So the person who killed her wanted it to be seen,’ said Carter. ‘Why else would he go to the trouble of preserving the head in a watertight bag?’
‘And he didn’t choose to weight her down, either,’ added Ebony. ‘She was always going to rise to the surface.’
‘But then we are crediting him with a lot of planning,’ said Carter.
Harding looked down the body of the woman with the Titian hair.
‘None of this happened overnight. Wherever she’s been, she’s been through immense pain and suffering in the last few months of her life – she’s been to hell.’
Chapter 6
The icy wind blew down Blackstock Road in Finsbury Park. It was three-thirty and dusk. Danielle pulled up her fur-trimmed collar against it as she stood waiting for a number four bus to take her to Holloway Road. She bent over the pushchair and checked Jackson’s gloves were still on. She pulled them up and tucked them inside the cuffs of his coat. She knew he was watching her. She looked at him when she finished and kissed his cold cheek.
‘Who’s going to see Father Christmas?’ Jackson grinned, his eyes watering from the cold. She tickled him through his padded all-in-one suit. He squirmed and giggled. Danielle looked up to see a woman who had come to stand at the bus stop. She was watching them, pity in her eyes. Danielle scowled at the woman as she bent back down to Jackson and pulled his hat further down over his ears. Danielle had Jackson out of the buggy, and the buggy folded in an instant, as soon as the bus arrived. She held his hand and pulled him up onto the bus.
The driver winked at Jackson. Danielle swiped her oyster card and deftly made her way through the vehicle, leaving the buggy in the luggage rack. She sat Jackson on her lap and pulled out a tissue. He squirmed as she wiped his nose. He watched her. She mouthed the words ‘good boy.’
They alighted halfway along Holloway Road and Jackson stood on the pavement waiting as Danielle took one seamless kick and flex of the buggy to make it ready for him. Jackson was slow getting into it; he was straining to look past Danielle and pointing to the window display across the road in the department store where a massive animated Father Christmas was waving at him. Jackson waved back, star-struck. Danielle looked at her watch. She had a half hour to kill. She crossed the road and stopped outside Simmons department store. Danielle pretended to look at the window display as Jackson sat watching Father Christmas wave his arm and mouth the words ‘Ho ho ho’. But her eyes went beyond the display and she searched the cosmetics counter. She watched a woman working on one of the counters that she just knew was Tracy; she felt it inside. She’d stopped at the window many times in the last two weeks. Now she felt a flutter in her stomach. She didn’t want to be spotted too soon. She wanted things to go as she had imagined, and so she kept her head down and pushed the buggy on, steering it through the street towards the Christmas market.
The cosmetics department of Simmons was hectic in the build-up to Christmas. The atmosphere was good. Tracy loved coming into work to be rushed off her feet. With so much talk of hardship and recession, takings had been down all year. This was her chance to try and prove to herself and to her bosses that, given the opportunity, Tracy Collins could sell ice to Eskimos.
She looked at her watch. It was ten minutes to four. She looked across anxiously at her colleague Jazmina on the other side of the make-up counter. They were both so busy; how could she possibly leave? Tracy had watched the shoppers pour in through Simmons’ doors – all day it had been a steady stream. She had kept her eyes open for someone who might be Danielle. Once she could have sworn that it must be her when she saw a blonde woman who looked like a younger version of herself, immaculately turned out, bubbly, pretty, a little overweight, pushing the cutest-looking child: all golden curls, immaculately dressed – and Tracy imagined that could be her daughter and grandchild. But no, they had bought their special Christmas purchases of perfume and make-up and they had disappeared from her counter.
‘You go . . .’ her colleague Jazmina said as she wrapped a package for a customer, pulling the ribbon into swirls with the blade of some scissors. ‘It’s five to four – you said you had an appointment?’
‘You sure?’
Jazmina nodded – she looked as excited about it as Tracy.