“The soup. I meant the tomato soup. Its home made tomato and basil.” Tasha innocently held up her flask.
“Thanks.” Yvonne said through clenched teeth.
“I really am sorry, you know.” Tasha looked it and Yvonne relented. The soup really was good – thick with a spicy hint of nutmeg.
“I’m sorry Tasha, it’s not you. It’s this investigation. I’m just on edge.”
“I fed Tabitha, too.”
“Oh god yes. Tabitha. Did you? I…” The rest of the DI’s words were lost as there was a call from the tent.
“Okay, that’s us!” A plastic suit called out.
Yvonne sighed with relief. “Thank Goodness. Let’s get the coffin to the labs.”
71
The room had a mingled smell of old wood and chemicals. Yvonne, fascinated, looked around her at the shelves loaded with specimen jars and old shoe boxes which were held together with perishing elastic bands.
“Is this all strictly necessary?” She asked as Dr. Samuels, the forensic anthropologist. He was painstakingly, bone by bone, reconstructing the skeletons of Emma Shilton and her baby.
Like pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle, the bones lay in the approximate positions they would have done in life except there was only air where once there would have been tendon and ligament.
“I’m afraid it is necessary, yes. How else can I be sure that I have the right bones for each skeleton? Tiny toe or finger bones of the mother might otherwise be mistaken for a tibia of the baby for instance.” The scientist grinned at her, his demeanour staying only just the right side of supercilious.
The DI wasn’t sure whether he was being serious with her or not, but it sort of made sense. She remained silent and continued to watch as the skeletons of the deceased unfolded. The pathetic sight of the tiny foetal skeleton created hard knots, like stones, in her stomach and throat.
The tiny bones, with the exception of the skull, could have been those of an ‘Action man’ or a ‘Barbie doll’.
The doors at the back of the laboratory swung open with a clang. A flushed young woman, wrestling with her lab coat, rushed into the room.
“Ah, Jo. Nice you could make It.” Samuels said without looking up.
“Sorry Richard. Got held up in traffic…” Jo glanced over at Yvonne, grimacing as though she had been expecting more in the way of rebuke from her boss.
“This is Jo Stevens who’s doing her PhD with me. Jo, meet Detective Inspector Giles.”
“Yvonne.” The DI smiled and shook the student firmly by the hand.
“Nice to meet you. Sorry I’m late.”
“Jo will be helping to clean the bones before the test can be carried out.” The doctor continued placing the bones as his assistant took out a box containing delicate brushes of varying sizes.
Samuels stood back from the table frowning.
“What is it?” Yvonne asked, moving forward.
“Well, I’ve almost finished here, but I don’t have all the bones.”
“Really?” Yvonne scanned the skeletons, trying in vain to see which were missing.
“Yes really. There are two ribs and the left radius and ulna missing from the foetus.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure!” The anthropologist looked incredulous that she could ask such a question.
“Well, you have everything that was in the coffin. So if the bones are missing, then they must have been missing when the bones were discovered the first time.”
Yvonne was thinking hard. Perhaps the dog took them. Or maybe they are still there in the original resting place. The alternative was a much worse scenario - that the bones could have been taken from the foetus at the time of the murder. That thought made her feel sick.
“We don’t need the other bones for the purposes of the DNA tests,” Samuels reassured, “we can get what we need from the femurs of the child which are both present. As for the missing bones, well occasionally the action of earthworms causes tiny bones and teeth to be found several centimetres beneath the base of the grave. The only way to find out is to actually carefully sift the base of the original grave dug by the killer.”
Yvonne sighed - she could just see Peterson agreeing to that.
When she arrived back at base, she decided that she wouldn't have to ask. It appeared that the file contained all the notes from the original and thorough excavation of the pit where Emma's body was found.
That first dig had involved a forensic anthropologist, a forensic archaeologist and a forensic pathologist. The report was thorough and specific. The original grave had been fully investigated and sifted. There had quite simply been no other bones. Yvonne studied the photographs hard. The location, the marked out position of the grave and the photographs of the remains in situ all helped to build a picture of the original find.
One thing was clear, the original police investigation had centred on the mother, with the dead foetus being mentioned only in respect of her pregnancy. That was the reason the missing bones had not been noted. It simply hadn’t occurred to them to check.
She was sore all over, inside and out. She could feel the volcanic ulcerations on her back and buttocks oozing as they itched and hurt in equal measure. She tried not to scratch too much. She realised she was filthy and knew that the caked dirt beneath her finger nails would cause more infection. She thought instead of her mother singing her to sleep when she was a child. Her father reading her stories of princesses and princes and dragons and happy endings. She sobbed.
“Crying won’t help you, slave girl.” His voice in the blackness set her nerves firing off once more. He'd been working. She could hear him scraping at something in the background. If she tilted her head back as far as she could, she could see beneath the blindfold just enough to make out his shape as he hammered, sawed and sanded.
Earlier that morning he had forced her to sign a contract. She'd been unable to make it out as the words had blurred and swum on the page in front of her, when her blindfold had been removed. But gradually, as her eyes adjusted to the light, she was able to see enough to sign it.
Her one accession to defiance had been to write someone else’s name in a fast indecipherable squiggle. Should her family ever see it they would know that it was not her signature and therefore signed under duress.
“Now stand, Slave.” His voice was as hard as the cold, stone floor she had sat on since her capture. Her legs painful and weak, she rose slowly to stand - whimpering at the sharp twinge, when her knees clicked their complaint.
“Good. Now show me the special bow.”
She wretched and clutched her stomach, then saw his hand, a fleshy blur, as it launched towards her face. The dull crack as it connected with her jaw coincided with a shooting pain which numbed the side of her face and shot like lightning down her neck.
“I won’t ask again.” The menace in his voice and the fear of his violence gave her no option. She lay on her back with her knees up, the heels of her feet against her buttocks. Slowly she placed her hands, palm down next to her ears and lifted. They had called this the ‘crab’ in school. Then, they had worn their gym clothes. They were not naked, cold and wretched in the dungeon hell-hole of a psychopathic maniac. His lips curled in sadistic satisfaction.
72
The envelope had stood out like a beacon to Yvonne who could so readily recall the last note from the killer. Ignoring the rest of the mail in her pigeon hole, and knocking half of it to the floor in her haste, she snatched at a box containing latex gloves - pulling them on roughly. She cursed as her nail went through one of the fingers and she reached for a fresh glove.
This time there was no direct communication from the killer, only a photocopied document. Her hands shook as she read the sick missive.
Contract of Slavery.
I the undersigned do solemnly swear and affirm that I have willingly and lovingly given myself in devoted slavery to my Master so that he shall forthwith, and without any hesitation or resistance from mys
elf, have the full use and control of everything that I am both physically and mentally. I also solemnly avow that I will without reservation give my body over to his absolute control and will suffer his abuse and torture even unto death.
Signed: ************
Dated: 12th November 2012
73
On the reading of the note, the blood ebbed from her face. She now knew he was holding another girl.
Frenzied activity at the station followed as the place became awash with barely controlled panic. The problem was, where did they start?
“I can’t make out the name,” Yvonne sighed. “Brian, ask forensics if they can decipher the signature as well, when they examine it, will you?”
“Yes, ma’am.” At times like this, Brian was glad he didn’t have to shoulder the responsibility. At times like this, he was more than happy to be a detective Sergeant.
Music thumped, glasses chinked and people whirled around, as Emma leaned silently against the wall at the back of the room. From where she stood, she could see Graham spin Catherine around to the music. He was animated, laughing as he opened his mouth to speak. They made a stunning couple, she sighed, in their perfectly fitting clothes. Perfectly fitting clothes; perfectly fitting lives.
She took a long sip of her sweet Martini and smoothed down the blue satin gown, which shimmered against her curves. She headed slowly to the door. Outside, she breathed in the sweet smell of honey suckle. It cleared her head as she finished her drink. Every now and then laughing, stumbling, groups of students wandered out and off towards the marquee.
She moved away, further towards the back of the building. Thinking. Thoughts that churned and divided her. Thoughts that dried her mouth in the way that stressful thoughts can. Her unborn child. To have or not to have? How many times had she argued against abortion? Yet here she was contemplating exactly that. For how could she bear his child? How would everyone react? Her friends. Her family. Him.
So deep had she been in thought that she was no longer sure how long she had been standing outside but she was feeling the chill. She shivered and stepped back towards the door. That’s when she saw him.
He was standing outside in the cool night air and looking more detached than she had ever seen him. In the overhead lighting she thought she saw a haunted loneliness in his gaze and posture which she did not understand but which she was drawn towards. He smiled, relaxing his handsome features and held out a hand – a gesture to come dance. She glided gracefully over and took it.
He moved in close, running a hand slowly along her abdomen and she flushed, remembering her drunken disclosure the previous week. He had listened with dispassionate interest when he heard about the baby, but something in his frozen stare afterwards had frightened her. There was nothing frozen about his gaze now though. His grip was firm and he moved her around between the trees with consummate ease.
As the dance track ended, he wandered off without a word. She felt deflated, but she needn’t have. He was back within a couple of minutes with a fresh Martini for her. The haunted look was gone. Emma took a large gulp of the Martini and pulled him to her for another dance.
When his face began to swim, she found it funny. Actually, she found it hilarious. She was aware of his hand in the small of her back, edging her towards the trees. He caught her as she slipped and lifted her up into his arms, walking swiftly towards the car park.
74
The fire cracked, sparked and spluttered complaint about the damp logs from the woodpile. Yvonne set down her wine glass and fired up the laptop which she had borrowed from the IT Unit.
“Are you prepared for the possible consequences?” Tasha searched the DI’s face as she seated herself next to her. The changing light from the fire rendered the DI even more beautiful, as the shadows played around her face. It was with a twinge of regret that Tasha forced herself not to stare.
“Well, I realise there is some risk, of course.” Yvonne was already logging in.
“Yes Yvonne, but you must understand that the risk is psychological and not just physical. This man will try to control your mind. He will mess with your head: find your buttons and push them ‘til they bleed.”
“But, unlike his victims, I know what he’s up to and that gives me the edge.”
“With a man like this, you can never be guaranteed to have the edge. Now, remember, don’t say too much or speak to long. You must be hard to convince if you are going to be his chosen one.”
Yvonne nodded. Only the soft drumming of the fingers of one hand betrayed her nervousness as she logged into Lady Firebird’s chat room.
It was hard going. Very hard going. His interest was piqued. She knew this, and it was exactly what she wanted, but it still felt uncomfortable. All the time she was terrified he would see through her.
Although careful not to ask too many questions, the police officer in her was continually fighting to hold itself in check as the conversation unfolded. She tried to avoid appearing too naïve about the things that mattered to him. This was tough when the only real information she had to go on, was that being supplied in short, sharp bursts by Lady Firebird.
He wanted her to describe herself in ever increasing detail and she could almost hear him salivating over each new nuance.
Every once in a while, Tasha gave her a reassuring squeeze on her shoulder – just enough to temporarily bring her back to reality and stop her sliding too far into the murky thought-mire of the Master.
He was good. Very good. With frightening clarity she saw why young women might have their heads turned. How they could be made to feel so special. Several times she needed to tell herself that he did not know her because of the uncomfortable accuracy of some of his statements.
By the end of the fifty minute conversation, the DI’s head throbbed from the enormous effort it took to stay ahead. She was not entirely sure that she'd managed it.
She coyly terminated the conversation, claiming that she had to get ready to go out. It had become just a bit too uncomfortable as he had now gotten around to asking her specifics about her state of arousal. Her pulse was racing. She wanted to believe it was more from fear than anything else. Tasha noted the rose colouring on the face of the DI and part of her wished that it was of her making and not that of some lunatic on a chat site.
The team gathered in nervous anticipation as the results from the DNA tests on the foetal femurs were opened. True to their word, the labs had returned them on the fourteenth day. One day more and they would have owed the team a case of wine.
Yvonne held her breath and with a steady hand belying the way she felt, ripped it open. It took her a good few minutes to make her way through the data sheet. ‘Give me a name, give me a name’, she thought impatiently and could feel the same thoughts going through every single head in the room.
“I don’t believe it.”
There was a collective intake of breath.
“Believe what?” Brian asked for everyone, with barely masked impatience.
“We have a result.”
Mike sensed disappointment. “So what’s the problem?”
“I don’t know why I didn’t think of that as a possibility before.”
“Of what as a possibility? For God’s sake Yvonne what does it say?”
“Sorry, Brian, basically we have a choice: the father of Emma’s child is either Graham or Michael Swann. They are identical twins.”
“Identical.”
“The possibility hadn't occurred to me before, as they don’t dress alike and their hair is so different. But identical they are.”
“Oh I don’t believe it. Well, I suppose on the bright side, at least now we have two firm suspects for Emma’s murder.”
Yvonne didn’t answer. She was deflated and not just because of the outcome of the paternity test, but because she had been so sure that Dr Jeffries had something to do with the pregnancy. Evidently, the College rumours had been way off.
“Shall we bring them in for questioning?” Debbie
cut through Yvonne’s desperate thought processes.
“No. Not yet, Debs. I want to have another chat with Gerald. These results put things in a new light and since Gerald was Graham’s best friend he may be the only one able to tell us more about what was going on between the twins and Emma.”
75
Tasha pulled on her favourite white silk blouse. This dinner had been her suggestion. Yvonne was going to talk to Gerald and Tasha felt that a glass or two might help jog his memory about the evening Emma disappeared. It might also help to soften his inhibitions towards discussing his former best friend. If she was honest with herself, she was also curious - and perhaps a little jealous - because of the light that had flittered in Yvonne’s eye when she discussed her first encounter with him.
They met Gerald outside of Brown’s. He was in Oxford for several days at an International Symposium organised at St. Catherine’s College. He smiled warmly at them both and shook their hands, saying that it was worth missing out on a seven course college dinner for the pleasure of the company of two such lovely ladies. Yvonne coloured and beamed back at him. Tasha hovered from foot to foot, feeling like the gooseberry.
There was something very gentle about the way he had shaken hands with the DI. The handshake he had furnished on Tasha was far more of the man-to-man variety, she thought. Not for the first time, the psychologist wondered whether he had been influenced by the length of her hair.
Everything, from the weave of his tie to the leather of his shoes spoke of expensive styling, tastefully done. Tasha’s eyes wandered from Gerald to the DI and back again, as they were seated by the young waitress who took their drinks orders. The psychologist's instructions had been to observe and to ask subtle questions only when necessary. Yvonne stretched out her legs.
DI Giles BoxSet Page 14
