The Devil Inside Read online

  As it entered his nostrils, he rose up from the back seat and seized his opportunity. In the split second before he acted, the dog noticed him, its backbone stiffening. But it was too late. He struck her with all the force he could muster, slamming his gloved fist into the side of her head. She fell sideways, unconscious before her head had hit the window. The dog started yapping, bouncing around feverishly.

  One strike and it was done with too; a white ball of fluff in the front footwell, now silent.

  He felt the girl’s neck for a pulse. Its steady cadence was barely noticeable through his gloved fingers, but it was there. She was out, though – lifeless, but alive.

  He clambered over her and into the front passenger seat then propped her up in her chair, lengthened the seatbelt across her chest and clicked it into place. Her head lolled against the window leaving a small smear of moisture against the glass. He took her head in his hands, a lover about to plant a kiss.

  Victim number two had been chosen.

  CHAPTER 10

  Charlotte’s phone buzzed on the table, the annoying text message tone spewing into the open air.

  God, she needed to change it.

  Rolling over and rubbing her eyes, she realised from the murky light creeping through the cracks in the blinds that it was early – way too early. When you were a detective, that was never a good thing.

  She reached for her phone and unlocked it with her index finger, squinting against the blinding screen. It was a message from her boss. She sat up as fast as her creaking body would allow and propped herself up against the pillows to re-read the message.

  Charlotte, we’ve got another one. Get your arse in here ASAP.

  Short, but hardly sweet.

  She had worked under Phil Blake-Harris – known as Dash due to his hyphenated surname – for most of her career as a detective, and he was not a man to be messed with. A supervisor straight from the old school, he wanted all work completed quickly and efficiently, and with him, the end always justified the means. He was a good copper, but in the current climate of what he called ‘political correctness gone mad’, sometimes his manner didn’t wash that well, especially with the hierarchy. Despite his gruff demeanour, in many ways Dash was what a leader ought to be, and he would back his troops to the hilt – often to his own detriment. He had long ago gained Charlotte’s trust – not an easy task – and when he said jump, she knew there was a reason. But that didn’t stop him being a jerk.

  Sliding her legs out of bed, Charlotte rubbed at her face roughly, her stomach growling, feeling much older than her forty-two years. From the moment she had left the murder site, she’d had a feeling it wasn’t going to end at just one. There was an unease about the whole crime scene that had given her an eerie sense that things were going to spiral out of control at the hands of whoever did it.

  Well trained in the art of the speed shower–dress–wig–make-up routine, Charlotte was out the door fifteen minutes later, her face still flushed.

  At 5.30 am, the streets of Gull Bay were silent and dark as she drove, the only movement the slow grind of a garbage truck lifting bins like a hopeless drunk at a bar, chugging back their contents before slamming them back down on the footpath, empty.

  Her mind whirred, fluttering between anxiousness to find out what had happened, and not wanting to know.

  ‘About bloody time,’ Dash said grumpily, when Charlotte stepped into his office ten minutes later. His manner was about as charming as the tone of his text message. ‘J.D.’s out the back; he’s been waiting for you to arrive. I don’t know what you women get up to in the mornings, honestly.’

  ‘This takes some effort you know.’ Charlotte moved her hand up and down in front of her body like a game show presenter. She exited his office, dumped her handbag on her desk, and headed towards the coffee machine, cup in hand.

  ‘Don’t think you’ve got time for that shit,’ Dash yelled after her. ‘We’ve got another body and you know perfectly well shit rolls downhill, and I’ve already copped a face full of it from the powers that be.’ He stood in the doorway to his office and jabbed his thumb skyward to indicate the all-seeing management, whose offices were fortunately located too far away to really matter, but who still stuck their noses in whenever they could. ‘They’re onto this already, and so, it seems, are the media, who will no doubt have a field day over this “serial killer” who’s allegedly running rampant. If those maggots are at the scene, tell them nothing. The last thing I want to see over dinner tonight is your mug telling everyone to lock their doors because we’ve got a predator on the loose. Are we clear on that?’

  Charlotte nodded, thumping her coffee cup down next to the sink harder than she intended. ‘No worries, Boss, I’m all over it.’

  He was already wandering off back to his desk, shouting over his shoulder as he went. ‘I want a proper sit-rep as soon as you get there – at the moment, all we’ve got is what the uniform has come up with, and they wouldn’t know shit from clay.’

  Charlotte grabbed her work satchel and got the hell out of there. Dash could be annoying at the best of times, but when he was under the pump, things had the potential to implode.

  Walking across the car park, she saw her partner waiting patiently in the gloomy light by his vehicle, arms crossed. A good copper and an even better bloke, John Darken – or J.D. as everyone knew him – had gone through the academy with Charlotte, even though he was older by eight years, and been a staunch friend and colleague ever since. She was confident J.D. would always have her back – and she’d been proven right time and again. He kept her grounded.

  As she approached him, he ran his long fingers through his disheveled, slightly greying hair.

  The name ‘Darken’ had always conjured up cartoonish images in Charlotte’s mind of a huge, ominous, caped crusader, but the reality could not have been further from the truth. A regular long-distance runner, J.D. was indeed tall, but he was stringy and slim, fit but certainly not formidable. But it was the size of the fight in the dog, not the dog in the fight, that counted, and Charlotte had no hesitation in backing J.D. against almost anyone. What he lacked in physical presence, he more than made up for in wit and intelligence – something crooks usually lacked in spades.

  ‘Did you bring breakfast?’ he mumbled, slipping on his sunglasses. He turned his back to her and reached for the car door.

  ‘Ha bloody ha,’ Charlotte said, shoving him in the shoulder. ‘Whoops, sorry, Grandpa – that didn’t break your arm did it?’

  They drove without any drastic urgency, conversation at a minimum. The scene had already been secured by the uniforms, so there was no need to go lights and bells this time. The radio – a golden oldies station J.D. liked to listen to – created a soft backing track to their scattered thoughts, their minds trying to prepare for what they might be about to see and how best to deal with it. Charlotte knew not to jump to any conclusions yet, but if it was the same killer … Well, they’d really have to up the ante then. But they’d cross that bridge when they came to it.

  ‘Did you see the article on the first murder?’ J.D. asked, staring straight ahead, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel. ‘I can’t believe you leaked that stuff.’

  Charlotte shook her head, unable to stop a grin from spreading. J.D. knew how to prod her in just the right spot, especially when it came to the enigma that was Katelyn McBride. ‘No, I didn’t see it,’ she said. ‘But I gave her nothing. As I’ve said a million times before, I don’t know how she does it.’

  J.D. kept his eyes on the road, the first rays of sunlight bouncing off the asphalt. ‘Kelpie, ah … cross by the look of it,’ he blurted, his left arm shooting past Charlotte’s face and pointing. In the semi-darkness, the dog raised its leg against a small staked tree on the parched nature strip as they rolled past. ‘Nice fella.’

  Charlotte had become immune to the way J.D. had more rapport with canines than most humans. He always greeted dogs first – down on bended knee if needed – ruffling
their heads as they slobbered on his beaming face. He said he could tell more about a person from how they treated their pet than other people. His own pooch was an immaculately presented Saint Bernard named Samson, who Charlotte swore was bigger than a pony. Charlotte knew J.D. would take a bullet for him, without a second thought. That’s how much he loved that dog. But Charlotte couldn’t blame him – after what had happened, it made sense.

  The glow of flashing red-and-blue lights became visible from some distance away. The body had been found at the rear of a large entertainment-goods store, in a laneway that ran between the building and a high-wire fence. The complex was relatively new, one of those homemaker centres where four or five chain stores popped up in the middle of nowhere like mushrooms. This one in particular had been an unpopular addition to the coastal town, and had been the subject of a clearly unsuccessful local petition to prevent its development.

  ‘Perfect place for it really,’ Charlotte said as they approached the rear delivery lane. ‘Nothing to disturb you out here except rats and mozzies.’

  They pulled up at the laneway entrance where a uniformed copper stood guard. The thoroughfare was cordoned off completely, the trusty plastic crime scene tape making an appearance for the second time in less than a week. Daylight hadn’t yet pervaded the laneway, and they tested their torches as they walked over to the guard.

  ‘Mornin’.’ The nightshift had clearly taken its toll on the uniformed copper; he looked like shit, and sounded the same. He passed them the crime scene log so they could fill out their details. ‘Saves me doing it,’ he said sheepishly. ‘You can see where the other guys are.’ He pointed. ‘The body is just in to the left, next to that shipping container.’

  Ducking under the tape, Charlotte led the way towards the flickering torch lights. As she got closer, she flinched as a beam shone directly into her face. Turning sideways, she shielded her eyes. ‘Steady on!’

  The light immediately refocused away from her. ‘Sorry, Detective … I just needed to see who it was.’

  She recognised the voice, even though her eyes were still adjusting from the glare of the torch.

  ‘Thanks a lot, Tom,’ she said, blinking the white dots away. He was standing with a female officer Charlotte had never seen before – not long in the job judging by her desert-shoulders. No stripes there. She was much older than most new recruits and very short – in fact, she looked like a housewife who had lost her way and stumbled into a police uniform.

  ‘What have we got then?’ Charlotte placed her torch between her tilted head and her scrunched-up shoulder, illuminating the page she was about to write on.

  ‘Female, deceased, looks to be in her early-to-mid twenties,’ Tom said, all business. ‘We were doing a general patrol around here when we stumbled across her about an hour ago. Didn’t see anyone around, nothing out of the ordinary before we found the body. It’s pretty secluded out here once you get in behind the buildings. She doesn’t have any ID on her, and we can’t be sure how long she’s been out here, but it can’t have been any longer than some time during the night – the delivery guys would’ve noticed her yesterday. We gloved up and had a brief look – she’s got a whopping bruise on her left cheekbone, which has started to swell her left eye shut, and there’s a fair amount of blood around. A few scratches and abrasions too, that type of thing. She’s also wearing exercise gear, which I can’t imagine she was doing out here in the middle of the night, so it looks like she’s been grabbed from somewhere else, brought out here and dumped. Anyway, you’re the experts – take a look for yourselves.’

  Charlotte walked over to where the body was propped up against the end of a rusty shipping container, J.D. following close behind. ‘What’s this here for?’ She gestured to the faded-red corrugated rectangle.

  ‘We think it’s storage for the shops – they put old boxes and used display items in there.’

  ‘CCTV?’ she asked hopefully.

  ‘Nup.’ Tom pointed to the top corner of the building where the brackets sat empty. ‘Looks like they’ve tried to save some money and cut a few corners; probably thought nothing out the back here really matters. Bloody great idea that was.’

  Charlotte and J.D. brought the beams of their torches down onto the body simultaneously, and Charlotte was not at all surprised to see the victim was another attractive woman; young, fit and healthy. As with the first victim, she was still fully clothed, her colourful exercise gear bright in the torchlight. She was sitting cross-legged, Buddha-like, a dark pool of blood seeping its way out from every part of her body that had contact with the ground. She had been shoved up against the container, her upper torso angled back in a way that looked uncomfortable. For some reason, the body’s appearance took Charlotte back to her academy days, when she had been forced to drag a life-sized human dummy ten metres as part of the physical training component. That dummy bore the same attributes as the body before her now – lifeless and limp; a dead weight.

  ‘Fuck me,’ J.D. said, not bothering to hide his disgust. ‘He’s done a number on her all right.’

  He pointed a gloved finger at the woman’s elbows and hands. They were scuffed and bleeding.

  ‘She’s been dragged at some point.’ Sadness softened Charlotte’s voice. ‘I’d be willing to bet this uneven asphalt is responsible for that. If it is the same guy, at least we’ve learnt something else about him: he had a car for sure. Probably parked just over there somewhere, then dragged her over here and left her. Bastard.’ As she spoke, Charlotte’s eyes followed her torch beam, searching for the one vital piece of information that could break the case wide open. ‘No one has touched anything?’ she asked Tom. ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘As sure as I can be,’ he said with a shrug. ‘We checked for a pulse when we found her and then had the sense to get the hell out and wait for you to arrive. Are you referring to anything in particular?’

  Charlotte was deep in thought, still working her way around the scene. ‘Locard’s Exchange Principle,’ she said, voice barely audible.

  ‘Who’s exchanged what?’ the female officer replied, itching at her temple.

  ‘Edmond Locard,’ Charlotte replied louder, her gloved hand now against the cold skin of the deceased woman. ‘He’s to modern forensics what Charlie Chaplin was to acting.’ She continued speaking as she moved around the body. ‘What he discovered is fundamental but relatively simple: When you bring something in, you take something out. When two items come into contact, there will always be an exchange, both ways. Every touch leaves a trace, and that trace cannot lie. Physical evidence doesn’t have a conscience, or an opinion – it just is. That’s why it’s so valuable; it can’t be swayed or persuaded. The monster who attacked this poor girl and dragged her across the bitumen to display her here has to have left something behind for us to find. It also means he’s taken something with him, whether he realises it or not.’

  The officer watched Charlotte, her mouth open slightly.

  Charlotte finished working through the scene, ticking off a mental checklist as she went. She poked her head behind the bulk of the container, then walked around the length of it. Nothing. Her face knotted in consideration. ‘I’m looking for a—’ But then she saw it. Kneeling down in front of the body, she leant in, her face millimetres from the dead girl’s – so close that she could smell her perfume mingled with the rank odour of decay and a hint of sickly sweetness. Euphoria by Calvin Klein, if she wasn’t mistaken. But that wasn’t the reason for her close inspection. ‘J.D., take a photo of her in situ – quick.’

  A few seconds later, the scene lit up momentarily, the flash from the camera giving the scene a movie-shoot feel.

  ‘All right, I need you guys to watch this.’ Corroboration was vital. Charlotte reached up, her right hand, covered in a bright-blue latex glove, grasped the side of the woman’s head and supported it while her left cupped the victim’s chin. With slight pressure, she forced the lower jaw down towards the chest, and the woman’s mouth slowly ope
ned. ‘And … there it is.’

  The small piece of plastic Charlotte had noticed edging its way out of the corner of the woman’s mouth protruded a little more now, allowing her to reach in and slide the contents out. A small plastic bag emerged, covered in a slimy mix of saliva and blood, a long rope of spit maintaining contact for longer than it should.

  ‘Ugh, gross,’ J.D. muttered, voicing the thoughts of everyone else. ‘What the fuck is that?’ He trained his torch beam onto Charlotte as she attempted to clean off the plastic bag. Once the liquid had been smeared off, it was clear that the bag contained a rectangular piece of white paper, folded up neatly.

  Prising the seal at the top of the bag apart, she beckoned to J.D. to remove its contents, which he did, though a little reluctantly.

  ‘Well go on, open it up,’ Charlotte said, her eyes glued to the paper.

  J.D. unfolded the paper with care to reveal another printed quote, this time accompanied by a small but detailed picture of a crucifix.

  Psalm 118:6: The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?

  In the bottom right corner, scratched in dark ink, was the message Charlotte had been hoping not to find.

  #2

  The number seemed to glow, even in the darkness. They stood in silence. Were those words some sort of challenge? A dare to them directly? The phrase sounded mocking and contemptuous.

  As Charlotte walked away, her mind shifted into overdrive. There were so many unanswered questions. Why two beautiful, young, fit and healthy women? Who was victim number two and where did she get snatched from? Why bring her out here? Was it pre-planned or just a matter of convenience? Did he live nearby? Did she? Did the killer work at the store, or know someone who did? Why the biblical notes? And the numbers … Was he expecting to kill so many he needed to keep count?