The Infirmary (DCI Ryan Mysteries prequel)(51)

He bobbed his head in the direction of the front door.

“Let’s start at the point of entry. I can walk you through what I think happened,” he said, as they congregated in the narrow passageway. There were pictures on the wall of Nicola with a variety of friends; smiling, happy.

Alive.

“There’s no sign of forced entry, so my bet is that he used her door keys to come and go,” he said. “Unlike the last two, we haven’t found them yet.”

“He’ll still have her keys, unless he’s thrown them in the Tyne by now,” Phillips said.

Ryan said nothing but thought privately that her killer might choose to keep them as a trophy. A small memento, to remind himself of the power he’d wielded.

Faulkner indicated a small yellow marker on the wall in the narrow hallway.

“We found some fluid here,” he said. “There’s a slight scuff mark, too. We don’t know whether it belongs to Nicola or her killer yet; time will tell.”

He turned and faced the flat’s interior.

“Straight ahead, you can see one of the picture frames on that little console table has been disturbed at one time or another,” he said, pointing to the next yellow marker. “If we presume the same pressure syringe was used on Nicola as the others, it’s possible he knocked the picture while he moved her into the bedroom.”

They said nothing, imagining the struggle.

“There’s no sign that she was injured in any room other than the bedroom,” Faulkner continued. “We found traces of semen on the living room sofa but it’s old, embedded in the material. If the flat is a furnished rental, it might be older still.”

“Test it anyway,” Ryan said.

Faulkner nodded.

“There were trace fibres on the bedroom door frame. I’ve sent them for testing, too. There’s usually a decent chance of finding some LCN DNA,” he said, referring to Low Copy Number DNA, found on the tiniest samples of trace evidence. A feat of forensic science but notoriously unreliable in court.

“What about on the bed, or the frame?”

Ryan watched two CSIs dressed in white hooded suits rustling around the small bedroom Nicola had painted in a sunny yellow.

“We’re looking now,” Faulkner said. “It’ll take hours, yet.”

There was a long pause while they surveyed the evidence of Nicola’s captivity with heavy hearts. Blood and other fluids matted the bedclothes, which had once been a pretty floral cotton. The curtains were closed at the single sash window overlooking the garden but the last of the day’s rays filtered through the heavy linen and lent the room a sinister orange hue. Small, tightly wound circles of plastic hung from the slatted bedhead, coloured pink from Nicola’s struggle to free herself.

“What’s that?” Ryan asked.

“We think it’s surgical tape,” Faulkner said. “That’s another deviation from the previous two, where he didn’t need to tie them down at all.”

“This one was a keeper,” Ryan muttered, in disgust. “Can we get a line on the brand used?”

“It’s possible,” Faulkner said. “It’ll take a few days.”

Ryan thought of their stretched finances and of the politics, then overrode any potential objections. He’d put his hand in his own pocket, if need be.

“Draft in more contractors to cover the lab work,” he said. “I’ll approve the resources. Just get it done.”

Faulkner nodded, thinking of his own staff workload and coming to the same conclusion as Ryan. Public safety overrode any other objections.

There was no sign of body parts having been left in the bedroom.

“She had digits missing,” Ryan said, heavily. “Have you found them?”

Faulkner sighed and fiddled with his glasses.

“We found them in the freezer,” he said. “We always check in there…just in case. Killers aren’t all that original, I’m afraid, and the old methods are the best.”

Neither Ryan nor Phillips bothered to ask why; they’d seen enough to understand the logic.

“I’m surprised he couldn’t get his hands on some formaldehyde,” Phillips said. “Seems more clinical.”

“Even for someone working at the hospital, it’s hard to get hold of,” Faulkner explained. “It’s a protected substance, so he’d need to fill out all kinds of forms. Harder to fly beneath the radar.”

Unless you were a pathologist, Ryan thought suddenly.

“They keep a locked box on the wards, including A&E,” he said. “One or two people have a key for it, depending who’s on shift at a given time. If it’s on rotation, it’d be easy enough to swipe a few vials here, a few vials there, whenever the opportunity arose.”

The other two nodded in agreement.

“There’s the hospital pharmacy, too. He’s using lorazepam at a steady rate—he might need a bigger supply,” Phillips put in.

“Or someone who could get their hands on it,” Ryan said, then came to a decision. “Tell Lowerson to bring Will Cooper in for questioning. I want it official, all whistles and bells. He needs to feel afraid enough to tell us who his contacts are.”

“The lad’s been dying to play Bad Cop,” Phillips chuckled. “Might be a good time for him to try.”