THE LALLYBROCH MURDERS

CHAPTER 9

The scene was much less chaotic than previous ones, mainly due to the fact that paramedics had taken control of the casualty and no one else could get in close. At first glance it appeared to be another female victim but in truth was hard to tell as an oxygen mask had been placed over the mouth and nose and it was covering most the face. As well as the head had been taped up into a neck brace, obscuring even more view.

The body was covered by a hospital issued blanket and paramedics were busy putting the straps on to enable them to lift the victim into the waiting ambulance. A quick look around the scene though told them this was fresh, even the blood on the tree was still wet. Barry could be seen sitting on a park bench along with another officer and a young woman, clearly shaken by what was happening.

Barry spotted them and made his way over.

‘Morning guys, sorry about the early call but not quite the night I had planned either,’ he said, slightly blurry eyed but otherwise immaculate as always. ‘The young woman over on the bench is 19 year old medical student named Joanna. Says she was out having a few drinks with some friends and took a short cut through the park on her way home. That’s when she found our completely naked victim lying unconscious next to the tree with blood pouring from her head. Couldn’t find a pulse so performed CPR and got her heart going again and then dialled ECC.’

‘Her heart?’ Liam asked, emphasis on the HER part and his brow rose. ‘So a female victim then?’

‘Yes Sir.’

‘Ok thanks Barry,’ Liam said, his eyes moving to the scene, followed by Hank’s before they both walked over to the bench and spoke to Joanna.

‘Good Morning Joanna is it?’ We’d like to talk to you, if that’s okay?’ Liam asked. She nodded as she looked up at them.

‘Good Morning Officers and, yes, Joanna is fine.’

‘Can you tell us what you saw?’ Hank asked. Joanna took a breath, and then proceeded to tell them the very same thing Barry had told them.

And going by the description she had given of the scene that she had encountered, they had come to the conclusion that this was identical to the scene at each of the three previous bodies they had discovered.

‘And approximately what time would this have been?’ Liam asked her.

‘Ummm, I think I left my friend’s place around threeish, so I would have arrived here roughly around quarter past, maybe half past three.’

‘Ok good,’ Liam told her.

‘Anything else you can think of, Hank?’ He asked looking at his partner.

‘No, I’m good. I’ll just get some personal details, if I may? And then we’re done,’ Hank said as he wrote her details down in his notepad should they need to contact her again, thanked her and then got forensics to take her finger prints, which she had offered to supply at the scene rather than report to the station later. They stood up, after thanking her again as the paramedics loaded the stretcher into the ambulance and forensics moved in to examine the scene closer. Hank and Liam chose to stay behind to oversee everything in the faint hope that something new would be found.

Liam and Hank walked along the perimeter of the scene, their trained eyes looking for something out of the ordinary when someone called out; ‘Got something.’ Hank and Liam both turned at the same time to look at one of the younger members of their team picking up a small piece of a bright red fabric from the ground. Could this be the breakthrough they were after? The fabric was carefully placed into an evidence bag and sealed off, ready to go to the lab for analysis while everyone else continued combing the area, looking for anything out of place.

On their way back to the station, Liam and Hank decided to stop off at a local café to get themselves a decent breakfast for what they were expecting to be another hectic day. As they entered the café, they noticed the newspapers had just been delivered and were still bundled together on the counter. As they drew closer, they couldn’t help but notice their own faces on the front page as the coverage of yesterday’s press conference began to emerge. Like it or not, the rest of the town were now waking up to the awful news that a serial killer was on the prowl.

Back at the station, afternoon was approaching when they had been given the news that, while still alive and fighting, the young woman they had picked up in the park early that morning had been taken down for emergency surgery to relieve some swelling that had occurred on the brain. The prognosis, they were told, was not a favourable one. Given the amount of trauma she had already suffered, the doctors only gave her a thirty percent chance of surviving the procedure. And even if she did survive, there was a very real chance of life changing brain damage.

Any hopes that she would recover well enough to provide a description of her attackers were rapidly dwindling away. They did, at least, have a possible ID for her though. A young woman had seen the stories in the paper that morning and had grown increasingly concerned after her roommate had failed to return home after going to watch a local band play the previous night.

The description she had given matched that of the victim to a tee, even down to the tattoo of her right shoulder. Further hopes were also dashed after she told them her roommate had gone out wearing a bright red tank top and a pair of black jeans.

‘A bright red tank top,’ Liam thought to himself, remembering the bright red fabric forensics had picked up this morning, all their thoughts centering on it belonging to the killer. ‘Yeah it would be wouldn’t it,’ he thought as he gave off a big sigh and sat back in his chair his luck yet again.

Thankfully, it hadn’t been too long before some positive news had lifted his spirits slightly. Word had gotten back from the hospital that this morning’s victim had survived the surgery. She was, however, in a coma and had been classed as being in a critical condition. But, she wasn’t expected to get this far anyway and on a day like today where it seemingly was filled with bad news and negatives, this was a bright as it was going to get on the ‘Good News’ side. The young woman who had reported her roommate missing, had also identified her as 19 year old Tania Richards.

Another file landed on his desk, although this one he was happy to see; ‘maybe things were picking up after all,’ he thought to himself. A few days ago Liam had asked a couple of uniformed officers to head down to the college campus and conduct some interviews with the students with regards to the victims. It wouldn’t have included Tania of course, but the rest would be there. His hopes were that this file would help him discover any links between the victims and decipher whether the killer was using any kind of pattern or whether they were just opportunistically picking off students at random.

‘Have we got anyone on campus looking into Tania’s life?’ he asked as he picked up the file.

‘Yeah,’ Hank replied, grabbing his photocopy of the same file. ‘Apparently uniform weren’t too happy about sending anyone over. They had two officers spend the last two days down there so Barry’s gone down himself, hopefully he won’t be too long.’

‘Good stuff,’ Liam smiled, ‘Now then what have we got?’ he asked, rubbing his eyes before flipping through the file, hoping his tired eyes didn’t miss anything yet.