“A sailor. Probably foreign. Probably unmarried. An odd choice for her.” Helen spoke out loud, as she surveyed the strange tattoos on the body of the corpse.
“Perhaps victims are getting harder to find.”
“But still she can’t stop,” Helen replied. It was a sobering thought.
Charlie nodded but said nothing. The body was partially clothed and Helen examined it more closely now. Presumably Angel had been disturbed by the encounter and had been unable to go to town on her victim in the usual way. His chest looked like it had been hacked at—there was none of her usual precision here. Just a frenzy of brutality.
“What have you got for me?” Helen asked the chief SOC officer.
“Deep laceration to the face. Virtually stabbed him through the eye. Death would have been instantaneous.”
“Anything else?”
“Looks like he was involved in some kind of sexual activity tonight. He’s got traces of semen on his penis and his hips are heavily bruised. Which suggests the sex was violent, possibly even rape.”
Unbidden, Helen felt a flash of sympathy for Angel. Even after all these years, nothing affected Helen like sex crimes, and she only ever felt pity for the victims, however degraded they were. The aftermath of rape is like a slow death, a cancer eating away at you from the inside, unwilling to let you go, unwilling to let you live. Angel was unhinged, mad even, but an attack such as this would have plunged her further into the abyss.
She would be heavily bruised, perhaps badly injured too. Would she retreat from the world now and be lost from them for good? Or would she go out in one last blaze of glory?
88
The rain fell steadily and hard. It was attacking the city, not cleansing it, bouncing up off the pavement in angry bursts. Deep puddles were forming, blocking her path, but she didn’t hesitate, marching straight through them. Water seeped into her trainers, soaking her aching feet, but she didn’t stop. If she hesitated, she would lose her nerve and turn back.
She was frozen to the bone, her head pounding, her body screaming as the shock began to wear off. Sure that she stood out like a sore thumb, she quickened her pace. The faster she walked, the less she limped. She had a hoodie on and a baseball cap too, but still an observant passerby would clock the heavy bruising around her eyes and nose. She had a cover story ready, but she didn’t really trust herself to speak. So she marched on.
Eventually the building came into view. Instinctively she hesitated—through fear? shame? love?—then hurried toward it. She had no idea what to expect, but she knew that this was the right thing to do.
The place looked drab but friendly. She hammered on the door and waited, casting around to see if anyone was watching. But there was no one. She was alone.
No answer. She hammered again. For God’s sake, every second made this worse.
This time she heard footsteps. She stepped away from the door, bracing herself for what was to come.
The door slowly opened and a stout, matronly figure emerged. She looked at the hooded figure and paused.
“May I help you?” Her tone was polite but cautious. “I’m Wendy Jennings. Have you come to visit someone?”
In response, the woman pulled back her hood and removed her cap. Wendy Jennings gasped.
“Dear God. Come inside, you poor girl. You need to have that looked at.”
“I’m fine.”
“Come on now. Don’t be afraid.”
“I don’t want anything for me.”
“Then what do you want?”
“This.”
She unzipped her coat and brought out the soft bundle that had been hidden inside. Wendy looked down at the slumbering baby, swaddled in a warm blanket, and realized what was being offered to her.
“Take it, for God’s sake,” the woman hissed.
But now Wendy Jennings was drawing back.
“Listen, dear, I can see you’re in trouble, but we can’t take your baby just like that.”
