Mack ground his cigarette with the toe of his wingtip shoes, pulled down his fedora and rucked his collar up against the lashing rain.
“Of all the places I coulda ended up,” he grumbled, “I had to land in this two-bit joint.”
He looked at the body lying on the pavement, a pool of blood surrounding the exit wound. It looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to the back of the victim’s head. From the inside.
“Give me the SP, Bill,” he said.
“Female, forty-two, gangland bookie’s runner. Name of Wilkes, Myra Wilkes according to her driving licence. She’s known to us. Nasty piece of work,” Bill said.
He glanced at the figure leaning over the body, “Doc?”
“Low entry point,” said Doc Tolbert, “he was probably hiding behind those bins.”
Tolbert pointed at a cluster of wheelie bins standing in front of the entrance to a strip club.
“Let’s take a look,” said Mack. “Hey Bill, I think I have something.”
He pulled tweezers from inside his coat and bent down, retrieving a cigarette butt from the floor.
“Maybe not a ‘he’ at all,” he said indicating the lipstick stain on the butt.
***
“It’s the butterfly killer again,” Bill said the next day, “the lab report just came back. Same DNA on the butt as the handkerchief in Mulberry Lane, the glove in Tottenham, the cup in Whitechapel Starbucks…”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Mack cutting him off, “I don’t buy it. I think we have another Phantom of Heilbronn.”
“Phantom of Heilbronn?” Bill queried.
“Yeah, between 1993 and 2009, Euro-cops believed they were dealing with a female serial killer. Her DNA was found on diverse crime scenes throughout Austria, France, and Germany; it turned out it was contamination at the labs.”
“So, you’re saying we need to look at the technicians,” Bill replied.
“Quick on the uptake, Bill,” said Mack. “Get on it.”
They tested the technicians, and one came back positive, a young scientist called Janie Wilmslow. An intelligent, but unremarkable woman, she joined the forensic service a week before the Butterfly crime wave started; clearly, she was the contamination source. Importantly, her alibis checked out.
“Back to square one,” said Mack, “unless you reckon Wilmslow is our woman.”
“Square one it is then,” Bill confirmed.
***
Janie sat on the chair in front of her boss, who was busy ripping her professional standing apart. She was telling Wilmslow she would see to it that she never worked in forensics again and Janie had just about had enough. She stood up.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Her boss demanded. “We haven’t finished here.”
“I have,” said Janie pulling a silenced .357 from her satchel. Two to the head, one to the chest and she was out of the office, locking it behind her. Her fake passport, money and airline tickets were in her bag and her luggage was at Heathrow waiting for her arrival. The butterfly had decided to fly.
