Pop Goes the Weasel | страница 77

Her life was over, but Sally’s was just beginning. And that would have to sustain Jessica for now.

Christopher Reid lay on the slab, his glassy eyes staring up at the stained ceiling panels. None of the killer’s victims deserved their fate, but Helen couldn’t help feeling that Christopher deserved it less than Matthews. Matthews was a nasty hypocrite who enjoyed dominating women. But Reid was a guy who missed sex. Why hadn’t he talked to his wife? Found a way to rediscover their intimacy instead of resorting to paying for sex? Did he view his wife as prudish or innocent? In Helen’s experience women were just as sexually imaginative as men, if they were given the chance to express themselves. Had a simple failure of communication condemned Christopher to a repellent death?

‘So this guy is the same as but different to your first victim,’ Jim Grieves announced as he approached the trolley. ‘He was incapacitated with chloroform, administered with some sort of soaked rag. Forensics might be able to give you more. There’s no evidence of restraints being used in this case, nor anything to suggest he was hooded this time.’

‘So he must have been comfortable in her presence.’

‘That’s for you to decide,’ Grieves continued, shrugging. ‘All I would say is that the “surgery” was more skilled this time, so perhaps your girl is getting better at this and doesn’t need to use so much force in either the initial attack or the mutilation.’

Helen nodded.

‘Cause of death?’

‘Well, he was incapacitated in the car, but killed in the ditch. Too much blood for him to have been killed elsewhere. He was killed by a single knife wound to the throat that severed his carotid artery.’

‘Just one wound?’

‘Yup. She didn’t spend any more time on this guy than she had to. Heart was removed relatively cleanly, even though she probably began the procedure as he was dying.’

Helen closed her eyes – the awful image planted itself in her brain and refused to budge. She expected Jim to carry on but he said nothing. She opened her eyes again and immediately saw why he had stopped.

Detective Superintendent Ceri Harwood had joined them.

Grieves made his excuses and left – he didn’t really do stroppy women. Harwood was simmering and Helen braced herself for the onslaught.

‘Have you seen the paper?’ Harwood said, slapping the ‘Tart with Your Heart’ headline down on the table.

‘Yes,’ Helen replied simply. ‘I picked it up on the way over.’