A Dark Redemption by Stav Sherez

from this morning at the morgue, his suit smelling faintly of sweat and vomit. ‘Most of you already know that Grace Okello was discovered dead in her flat at 87 King’s Court on Queensway at 10.34 yesterday morning.’ He looked down at his hands, trying to stifle the sensation in his throat, the sick memory taste of her blood in that small hot room, the pathologist’s final revelation.
    ‘Ms Okello was brutally beaten then tied down to her bed. The perpetrator raped her several times, secreting O-positive semen. It seems he bit her as he was doing this.’ He paused, watching the silent faces of his squad, the realisation in their eyes of what they were dealing with. ‘When he was finished, he used a curved blade to open up her chest, then reached inside and extracted her heart. We can only presume he took it as a souvenir.’
    Jennings and Berman were shaking their heads, trying to look anywhere but the walls. The photos had been bad enough but now they knew the sequence of events that had produced this abstract display of horror and atrocity it was much worse.
    ‘The SOCOs are just finishing up in the flat now so we should get the preliminary results soon. The HOLMES team are coming in this afternoon. Berman, I want you to go through the CCTV footage from the building’s entrance. The porter handed over the tapes from the last seven days; after that they record over the old ones.’ He’d checked the camera on his way out. Trying to save money, the management of the building had installed only one CCTV camera at the front entrance. It recorded who came in and who went out, but gave no indication of whom they were visiting. ‘I know it’s a pain in the arse, I know we probably won’t get anything from it, but we need to do it.’
    Berman nodded, his fingers already tapping furiously at the keyboard.
    ‘Jennings, run a list of the tenants against the PNC – also, talk to the porter. He was drunk, way beyond drunk actually, when I approached him. Find out if he’s a lush or he only got blotto that night. Check him out too, most of these porters have form of one kind or another. Talk to the neighbours; they won’t be very cooperative but push them – someone must have seen or heard something.’
    ‘We tell them it’s a murder enquiry?’ Jennings asked hesitantly.
    Carrigan shook his head. ‘I know, this makes our life harder, but not a word as to why we’re asking about Grace. The super was very adamant about that. The papers find out about this, we’re all fucked.’ Everyone laughed at Carrigan’s rare lapse into profanity, the tension in the room dissipating for the briefest of increments. ‘DS Miller and I will be looking at the victimology, trying to find out what we can about who Grace was, why anyone would want to do this to her.’
    Karlson had his hand up. In the other, an unlit cigarette jumped like a child’s toy. ‘She was a pretty girl, isn’t that enough?’
    Carrigan rubbed his temples. ‘We don’t want to start making too many assumptions yet, John.’ His words sounded false to him, he knew they all had their theories, and that often it was those primary assumptions, based on nothing more than a feeling, which opened up a trail of clues that would eventually lead to the killer. ‘On the surface this does indeed look like a sex killing. He raped her brutally. The force of the injuries, the anger and personal nature of the attack, the fact he took a souvenir. What we have to ask ourselves is whether this is a one-off, perhaps someone known to Grace, or is this the first in a series? There were no marks of forced entry so we have to assume that either Grace knew this person or he got in under false pretences. The SOCOs found two half-drunk glasses of milk in the kitchen – hopefully we’ll get the DNA results before the end of the next millennium. In the meantime check all the usual utility companies, see if they report anything strange, stolen uniforms, that sort of thing. I’ll