Erika returned home late on Tuesday afternoon and slumped onto the sofa, attempting to grab a few hours’ sleep. She dozed fitfully: her dreams were filled with the battered faces of Janelle, Lacey and Ella, and then she found herself in a high-walled car park. It was night, and the car park was empty apart from a black dumpster in its far corner. A small man in a baseball cap was hunched over it. She ran at him, her feet slipping on the snow, and grabbed his shoulder, spinning him around, yanking off his baseball cap…
But he had no face. Where his face should have been was a blur of shadows. She stepped back and looked into the dumpster. She saw herself, lying battered and bloody amongst the bags and the eggshells and rotting food.
* * *
She woke with her phone ringing. It was dark, and she fumbled for it in her pocket. It was Isaac.
‘I’ve finished the post-mortem on Ella Wilkinson,’ he said.
‘I’ll be right there,’ she replied.
There was a fine drizzle when she parked her car outside the mortuary in Penge, and she made a dash inside. The weather had warmed a little and rain was mingling with the melting snow. Isaac met her at the door and they went straight through to the mortuary. His team was just finishing up; a DI and a CSI, plus a photographer and an exhibits officer. They left, nodding at Erika on their way past. Ella Wilkinson’s body lay on the steel mortuary table, covered in a clean white sheet to her neck.
Erika didn’t know if she could do this again. She knew what was coming, knew that this girl had been tortured in the most gruesome fashion.
‘I’ll make this as swift as I can,’ said Isaac softly, seeming to read her thoughts. He moved to the body and peeled back the sheet. ‘As with Lacey Greene and Janelle Robinson, she suffered multiple incisions, some of which had started to heal. There are also tears to the left nipple which are consistent with her being bitten.’
‘Bitten? He didn’t bite the other victims?’
‘No. Unfortunately there is not a clear impression to examine. The left cheekbone, cranium and the wrist in the right arm are broken, and she has three broken ribs to the left side of her body… There is an incision in the right upper thigh, which severed the femoral artery. As with the other victims, this would have been fatal.’
Erika closed her eyes and placed her hand to her forehead. When she opened them again, she looked at the y-shaped incision sewn neatly but crudely up the victim’s sternum. She suddenly felt light-headed, and gripped hold of the edge of the mortuary table; her knees gave way a little and Isaac rushed around to support her.
‘It’s okay,’ he said, hooking his hands under her arms. His two assistants looked up at her curiously.
‘I’m fine,’ she said. But as he let go, her knees buckled again.
‘Come on, come to the office and let me get you a glass of water,’ he said.
* * *
Isaac’s office was warm and inviting in comparison to the cold mortuary, and Erika sat down on one of the cosy armchairs. He went to a small fridge and pulled out a bottle of water, handing it to her. She took a long gulp and sat back.
‘You look pale.’
‘I always look pale,’ she joked.
He took her wrist and felt her pulse. ‘What’s your resting heart rate?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Do you exercise?’
‘I rush about,’ she said.
‘When was your last health check?’
‘Um, couple of years ago. Do you remember when that kid bit me at Lewisham Row? I had to have a screen, bloods, the works.’
‘And?’
‘And it was all clear.’
Isaac came and sat in the armchair opposite.
‘Have you been sleeping?’
‘A little, but with this case, sleep isn’t something I have the luxury of doing.’
‘That’s no way to live.’
‘That is how I live,’ she snapped and took another swig of water. ‘Sorry,’ she added. To her horror she started to cry.
Isaac reached out and took her hand, and she let him hold it softly.
‘As I said, this is no way to live, Erika.’
‘I don’t know how to live anymore. When I met Mark, I resisted him. Not that I didn’t want to be with him, but I felt how easily we became a unit. There was always someone to come home to. Someone to go out with, to share things… I need it, but even then I could see it was a weakness, if that makes sense?’
‘You thought being in love was a weakness?’ said Isaac, raising one of his thin eyebrows.
Erika nodded. ‘Isn’t it easier in the long run to be alone? It’s just you, there’s no vulnerabilities, nothing can be taken from you.’
‘That’s a deeply depressing way of looking at life, Erika.’
‘You know what it’s like to lose someone. When Stephen died last year? Don’t you feel vulnerable?’
Isaac straightened up a little; he looked as if he was feeling uncomfortable. ‘I loved Stephen, but we were only together for a couple of years, and as you remember it was… tumultuous.’
‘It doesn’t matter how long you loved someone. It doesn’t mean you miss them any less when they’re gone.’
He nodded. Erika wiped a tear away.
‘It’s one of the reasons I resisted having kids with Mark. I kept putting it off… He wanted them.’
Isaac sat very still and just listened.
Erika went on: ‘When Mark died… I tried to be practical. I thought that if I could get past one day, one week, month, a year, it would get easier, but it doesn’t. And not only is there the loss to deal with, which threatens to crush you every single day, you’re left with all this life left to lead. Alone. No one really talks about that, do they?’
Isaac nodded.
She went on: ‘Getting over the loss, that bit people can sympathise with and understand, but moving on, trying to fill the gap the loss has left, is impossible… You know I’ve been seeing Peterson – James – since before Christmas.’
Isaac nodded. ‘You like him, don’t you?’
Erika nodded and got up, grabbing the box of tissues from the desk opposite.
‘He just wants to be with me, and I keep pushing him away. He’s such a good guy… Like Mark, he was the one everyone loved. I just don’t know why Mark had to die and I’m still here. He was a great guy. I’m just a bitch.’
Isaac laughed.
‘I am, it’s not funny.’
‘You’re not a bitch, but you have to act like one sometimes. It helps you get the job done.’
‘Isaac, this case, it’s going to be the one that gets away. I know it. I have nothing. And I have to bring Ella Wilkinson’s parents here later to formally identify her body… And I have to go to Sparks’s funeral tomorrow… He’s left behind two small kids.’
‘Erika, you need to get a grip on all this. Do you want to come and stay at mine for a few days? You can come and go as you please, and it helps to have someone to come home to… I promise to keep my hands to myself.’
Erika laughed. ‘No, thank you, but I just want to be alone.’
‘No, you don’t… Every day I have to do post-mortems on people, and so many of them had their whole lives ahead of them. They probably died wishing they could have done things differently, wishing they had been nicer, loved more, not stressed so much. Go and see James. You could be dead tomorrow, and lying on that slab in there.’
‘Brutal, but true,’ said Erika. ‘You should give advice more.’
‘I do, but most of the people I see at work can’t do anything with it. They’re dead.’
Erika held on to him again and gave him a long hug.
Chapter Fifty-Two