Kill Chase (A Detective Ryan Chase Thriller Book 1) Page 2

  He did notice something, though. A hole had been torn at the bottom of the bag.

  “You were right in assuming the arm was weighted down with something, maybe rocks. It must have got caught and ripped or simply worn through. Whatever had weighted it down must have fallen out, and when the bag started to float, it got moved up or down the river and that’s when the fishermen caught it.”

  Banner nodded. “Sounds about right.”

  “Where are the two fishermen now?” Ryan asked. “We’re going to want to talk to them.”

  Banner nodded back the way they’d come. “They’ve been taken to separate police vehicles until they could be questioned. You probably passed them on your way in.”

  “Okay, thanks. Are there any other witnesses?”

  “Not direct ones, but there were plenty of other people in the park when the body part was found. I’ve got some of my uniformed officers doing the rounds to see if anyone saw anything unusual.”

  Ryan gestured to the carrier bag. “I hope the coroner will be here soon. We don’t want it sitting out in the sun for much longer. At the very least, there needs to be a tent over it.”

  “Good call,” Banner said. “I’ll get that done.”

  Ryan turned to Mallory. “Let’s go and talk to the fishermen.”

  She nodded, and they both followed the path back to where a couple of police cars sat outside the outer cordon.

  “You take one, and I’ll take the other,” Ryan said.

  “No problem, boss.”

  Mallory turned and walked over to the older of the two men, Paul Merchant, to take his statement, while Ryan would interview Evan Fraser. It would save them some time doing it separately.

  Ryan highly doubted the men’s story had been fabricated, but until they ensured their stories matched up, the two men would be kept apart. He approached one of the police cars where a man in his fifties sat sideways on the back seat, with the door open, and his feet on the ground.

  “Mr Fraser,” Ryan said as he approached, “my name is DI Chase. I’d like to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right?”

  Evan Fraser was a good decade older than Ryan, but in Ryan’s mind looked at least twenty years his senior. Or perhaps Ryan had just got to that point where he thought everyone his age was much older than him, but he was actually in denial.

  The older man sat forward, his elbows on his knees. “Yes, of course. I don’t know what good I’m going to be to you, though. I can’t tell you much.”

  “Sometimes the smallest details can help.” Ryan took out a pocket notepad and a pencil. He liked to jot things down—not only what the witness said, but also his own thoughts. If he didn’t get them down, they’d likely be gone again only a matter of seconds after he’d thought them.

  “What time did you arrive?” he asked.

  “Just before nine. We set up and cast our lines and then settled back for the day.”

  Ryan remembered the open beer can beside one of the fold-out chairs. “You were drinking?”

  “It was a bit early, I know, but it was just the one beer.”

  “Do you come to the park often?”

  “Are you asking me out?” Evan quipped and then shook his head at himself. “Sorry, terrible joke. Yeah, we come here once a month or so. Whenever we can get away from the families for the day.”

  “And how long were you here before you fished out the bag?”

  “An hour at the most, maybe not even that long.”

  Ryan scribbled it down. “So, you fished out the bag. Who caught it with the net?”

  Evan glanced over at the other squad car. “Paul did.”

  “Is it his net?”

  “No, it’s mine. I realised it was too heavy to pull in on my own, and I got him to use my net so it didn’t fall back into the water.”

  “You pulled it up onto the riverbank, and then who opened the bag?”

  Evan grimaced. “That was me, but I wish I hadn’t. It’s going to take a long time before I wash that image off my brain.”

  “Did you touch anything other than the outside of the bag?” Ryan asked.

  “God, no. I wasn’t going to touch that...thing. I wanted to get away from it as quickly as possible. You’ve smelled it, haven’t you?”

  “It’s not pleasant,” Ryan agreed. “What did you do once you’d realised what it was?”

  “I called nine-nine-nine from my mobile and explained that I’d found an arm in the river. Your lot showed up within ten minutes, and the rest is history, as they say.”

  “Did you see anyone else hanging around? Anyone already here when you arrived?”

  “No, no one. There are some small boats farther down the river, but the dog walkers and runners tend to stick to the path. We parked in the carpark and then carried our stuff down.”

  Ryan straightened back up, and a trickle of sweat ran down his spine. It was hot out here, and he was desperate to take off his jacket and have a drink of cold water.

  “Thanks for your help,” he said. “I will need you to go down to the station for a formal interview, and we will need to take your fingerprints to eliminate you from the forensics.”

  “No problem. Whatever I can do to help.” Evan paused and then asked, “Have you got any idea who the arm might belong to?”

  “Not yet, but we’re working on it. The fingerprints should give us a good idea if we get lucky and have them on file.”

  He shuddered. “Don’t think I’m going to be fishing from this part of the river anytime soon.”

  “Our police divers will cover every inch,” Ryan tried to reassure him. “If there are any more parts, we’ll find them. You’ll be safe to fish as soon as we’ve reopened the crime scene.”

  “Thanks, though I think I’m going to be finding myself a new fishing spot.”

  Ryan left the witness and crossed the carpark to where Mallory had finished interviewing Paul Merchant and was now waiting for him. They set back off down the path, towards where the body part had been found, and compared notes as they went.

  “Looks like they’re both telling the same story,” Mallory said. “They don’t really seem the type to be dismembering bodies and pretending to fish them out of rivers.”

  “You never know. Plenty of people aren’t who they seem. But I do agree with you. I believe them, too.”

  A distant shout came from farther up the river. “We’ve got something!”

  Ryan and Mallory exchanged a glance and hurried along the riverbank, downstream of where the two men had been fishing. They ducked trees and pushed through foliage, but eventually reached the spot where the police diver was wading out of the river, a second carrier bag held up in one hand.

  They got to the bank at the same time, and Ryan put out a hand to help the diver climb up the bank. The diver placed the bag on the ground, and Ryan put on a fresh pair of gloves from his pocket. Sweat dribbled from his temple, and he used the back of his arm to wipe it away and prevent it stinging his eyes.

  “Let’s see what we’ve got then.” He used his phone to take a couple of pictures of the bag, then dropped to one knee beside it. From the stink rising off the bag, Ryan didn’t need to check to know it contained another body part, and from the shape of the contents, he assumed it was another limb. The plastic had been wrapped around, so to open it he had to tug on the bag and let it unroll a couple of times. With his gloved hand, he pulled at the mouth of the bag, widening it to give him access.

  Ryan grimaced. Pale flesh bloated from the seepage of river water. The fingers curled inwards to the palm like a strange sea creature.

  “It’s another arm,” Mallory said from over Ryan’s shoulder.

  “I can see that. But unless our original victim had two right hands, we’ve got a problem.”

  Mallory moved closer. “Oh, shit. We have two victims.”

  “Looks that way. Until we get a postmortem on the body parts, we won’t know for sure, but I’d say this one has been in the river longer than the first.
”

  “You think the pathologist will be able to get fingerprints from the hands?” she asked.

  “I hope so. It’ll make identifying the victims a hell of a lot easier, assuming they’re even in the system. Finding out who they are will go a long way to figuring out who did this to them.”

  Mallory pointed into the bag. “That’s not the only thing in there. It’s been weighted down with some rocks.”

  She was right. A couple of large rocks sat nestled behind the arm at the bottom of the bag.

  “What have we got?” Banner called out to them as he approached at a brisk walk.

  Ryan ran through what had been found. “Looks like we’re going to need all hands on deck with this one,” he quipped.

  Mallory groaned.

  “Sorry,” he apologised. “Couldn’t help myself. Until we’ve got an idea how long the body parts have been in the river, it’s going to be difficult narrowing down the times we should be focusing on. Are we looking at days or weeks here, or even longer?”

  Banner crouched to get a view of the second hand. “I’d say with the first one it’s been days or maybe weeks, the second one is going to be weeks or even months. A body left in water for any length or time will eventually start to lose its skin, it’ll just slide right off there.”

  “Even if it’s been protected by plastic?” Mallory asked.

  Ryan twisted his lips. “I imagine that will have slowed down the process.”

  Were they going to find anything else? Two arms and no other body parts? Surely there wasn’t someone out there just cutting off people’s right arms. Unless it was some kind of gangland punishment, but he’d come across fingers and toes being removed, never entire limbs. While he was sure losing a limb was survivable, it would be touch and go and would need some serious medical treatment—not normally something people in gangs were trained in.

  Ryan exhaled a breath. “Until we get every inch of this area searched, we’re going to have to shut the whole river down.”

  Chapter Three

  “Here you go, Kevin.”

  Clara Reed dished pasta onto the tray and added a bread roll and an individual square of butter.

  “Got any of those juice cartons left, Clara?”

  She glanced to where the cartons had been stacked at the start of the shift, but the spot was now empty.

  “Yep. Give me one sec.”

  She left her post at the kitchen bar and hurried out into the stockroom. Sure enough, there were still plenty of boxes of juice. Picking one up, she carried it back out to the front where Kevin waited patiently.

  The older man smiled, revealing more gaps than teeth. “Good thing you’re well-built if you need to carry round boxes like that.”

  Automatically, Clara hunched her shoulders and dropped her head lower. At almost six foot, she’d always been horribly conscious of her height. It wasn’t only her height either; it was her body shape—with shoulders as broad as any man’s and hips that went with it. She imagined that if she were slight and delicate to go with her height, it wouldn’t have bothered her so much, but since she’d had to shop in the men’s department since she was thirteen years old, it was enough to give her a complex.

  Not replying to Kevin’s comment, she forced one of the juices out of the plastic packaging and handed it over to him. He hadn’t meant anything by it and had no way of knowing how his words would play over in her head for the rest of the day. She checked herself. If that was all she had to worry about, she should be grateful. Just like the rest of the people who’d come into the soup kitchen today, Kevin didn’t even have a home to go to. Unless they were able to get a bed in one of the hostels, these men and women spent the night sleeping under railway bridges or on park benches, with only newspapers or cardboard to keep them warm. Even though it was summertime, the temperature still dropped at night, and during the winter, it wasn’t unheard of for one of them to freeze to death out there.

  They all had their stories—runaways from violent homes, people with drug and alcohol problems whose addictions had lost them everything, those who’d served their country in the army and had returned changed by the things they’d seen and done and had never quite managed to find their footing back in normal society. Those were the ones Clara found herself drawn to the most. She understood what that was like, to give everything you had to something you believed in, only to be cast to one side, used up and spent. Worth nothing to no one.

  Wendy Lasseter bustled up beside Clara, her hands full of a steaming-hot tray of treacle sponge pudding. The sweetness of the dessert filled the air, so strong Clara could almost taste it. Where Clara was tall, Wendy was wide, a giant bottom swaying from side to side as she walked. Though she was several decades older than Clara, she never spoke down to her and was always warm and welcoming to anyone who came into the kitchen.

  “Have you seen Kyle today?” Wendy asked, peering over the stainless-steel counter to the rows of tables and chairs that were already filled with people eating.

  Many of the homeless population knew each other and caught up on conversations, while others were more wary and sat alone. One of the other volunteers moved between the homeless, handing out leaflets offering free courses in anything as basic as reading and writing, to how to fill in a CV and computer training. The way society worked—especially these days—was particularly hard for those who didn’t have a permanent place to stay. Not only did they not have an address to put down on job applications, but they didn’t have phone numbers or email addresses—all of which were expected by potential employers. Many job applications needed to be done online, and when they didn’t even know how to work a computer, never mind have an internet connection, it was near impossible for them to dig themselves out of the situation they’d found themselves in.

  Clara cast her gaze across the numerous unruly haircuts and those covered with hoodies, searching for the regular. “No, I don’t think he’s been in.”

  Wendy frowned. “That’s not like him. He’s normally first in line, waiting at the door.”

  “Maybe he heard there was a better choice of food somewhere else in the city.”

  “He’s been coming here for months. I don’t know why he’d move on.”

  Clara shrugged. “How can we ever truly know what’s in the minds of others?”

  Wendy let out a long sigh. “True. I can’t help but worry, though.”

  Clara placed her large hand over Wendy’s meaty one. “You’re a good person, Wendy, but you know it’s impossible to help all of them all of the time.”

  “I know, love. It’s hard to switch it off, though.”

  They got back to work, finishing serving up everyone who had been waiting. This would most likely be the only real meal these people would get today, and Clara liked that she felt useful. It was the only time in her life when she did.

  Once everyone had finished and they’d cleared up and made sure no one had snuck in and secreted themselves in some nook, hoping to get locked in for the night, the women said their goodbyes to one another. Clara’s stomach dropped, and she smiled brightly and said, ‘see you tomorrow’ to everyone. This was her worst part of the day—not including the nights. At least when she woke in the mornings, she had the focus of coming here to aim towards, but when she got home, hour after hour stretched ahead of her with nothing to occupy her thoughts.

  Though she had a car, she lived walking distance from the soup kitchen, so there was no point in driving. Besides, the soup kitchen was on the main road, and she’d probably take longer trying to find somewhere to park than she did walking.

  She stopped by the corner shop on her way home, the guilt already twisting inside her. Maybe she should have a night off, just this once? It would probably do her good. But she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep that night, and that her thoughts would be a coiling mass of snakes, ready to strike.

  The Asian man behind the counter offered her a smile of recognition as she pushed through the door, a bell above her head
dinging to announce her entrance. She huddled down, trying to make herself smaller. Even when she’d been a teenager, she’d been able to get served booze without being asked for ID. It was the one and only thing that had made people want to hang around with her, and she was happy to take it. Anything was better than being bullied, though somehow, the kids back then had managed to do that while also getting her to do things for them, throwing her little scraps of hope that maybe they did like her after all. But then they’d laugh, making her the butt of yet another joke, and when they said they were only kidding and could she go and get those cans of cider for them, like an idiot she’d taken their money and run off to do their bidding.

  Friends were never something she’d come across easily. Even now, at twenty-eight years old, she still struggled. There was no one in her life who she could call on for a night out. Occasionally, she braved the pubs and bars alone, hoping to meet someone who would end the ache of loneliness inside her, even if it was just for one night.

  Could she call her work colleagues friends? They weren’t even work colleagues, not really. It wasn’t as though she got paid for her time there; it was all on a volunteer basis.

  Clara forced herself to smile at the man behind the counter and walked up the aisle, looking at groceries she didn’t really need. She selected a pint of milk and a packet of croissants—though she had plenty of milk in the fridge and the pastries would most likely go stale before she got round to eating them—and carried them up to the counter. The shop owner rang the two items through the till and, trying to act as though it was an afterthought, she pointed at the rows of bottles behind him.

  “Oh, and a small bottle of vodka, please.”

  He turned to where she’d pointed. “Any one in particular?”

  “Whatever’s the cheapest.”

  Her cheeks heated in shame. Not only was she buying vodka to drink alone, but she couldn’t even afford to buy a decent bottle.