Eventually I was able to get at the car. It would have been just too complicated to sample the footwells adequately in the yard, so I asked the exhibits officer to bag all the mats and record them as exhibits. I also removed the rubber covers from the clutch, accelerator, and brake pedals. I brushed the footwells with my small stiff brush, using a new one every time I sampled a different surface, and put the sweepings into labelled plastic bags. I examined the whole of the interior, including the boot, taking samples wherever I thought there might have been an opportunity for trace evidence to be deposited. I would normally examine the chassis, and all cross members, but there was little point in doing that here because, of course, the vehicle had not been anywhere near the crime scene. It had simply stayed parked on a road while the victim had been marched to his death on that little island, deep in the woodland, back in the south-east of England.
Gleaning as much as I could out of the car had taken all afternoon. The police officers had been milling around in clouds of cigarette smoke, obviously bored, willing me to get on with it and get out of there. Eventually, there were smiles all round when I announced I was ready to go. The next major hurdle was to overcome the resistance of the local police to our meticulous way of doing things. Our officers had informed them that I needed to go to the main suspect’s family home in Albania to collect samples so that I could separate that place from the original woodland grave site. There are nearly always some overlaps in the pollen and spore profiles and it is pivotally important to know what may have contributed to the results obtained from the various exhibits.
In a country like Albania, where the world of forensic detection is very different from our own, convincing local police of the importance of our methods proved to be an unnerving struggle. They simply refused the request to take me to the remote village where the suspect had lived. This was where he had fled after the murder had become news in the UK. The victim’s family lived just a few hundred metres from that of the suspect, and now a deadly feud had developed between them. Everyone knew everything in those remote places.
On and on, their protests fell like hailstones:
‘It was miles away; the roads were bad; there was no need to do this; we don’t even believe you can make links with the grave; it is impossible – you are being stupid; it would take all day.’ ‘We will take her on a trip around the town a few times so that she will lose her bearings – she won’t know the difference.’
Dougie just grinned. ‘Oh yes she will.’
So a convoy of badly maintained, scruffy vehicles set off the next morning to this feudal village in the hinterland.
I still do not know where they took me, but I do know that the journey made me lose the will to live. As this strange convoy bumped and swayed up the centre of the dirt-track road through the village, with billowing clouds of buff-coloured dust in our wake, heads were turned from the fields, eyes peeped from windows, and we were watched intently from doorways. We eventually arrived at the main suspect’s family home. By this time, he was incarcerated in the jail we had left the previous evening. I wondered about him at mealtimes because this village was a long way from Tirana and the village where he was born, and I doubted that he would get many visitors. How would he get fed? This thought did not engage me for long as I was pleasantly surprised when we arrived at the neat, well-presented little farmhouse, with a yard bordered by vines, and an abundance of vegetables in the plots out front. People appeared as if from nowhere.
Several women of various ages, all looking rather weather-beaten and work-worn, silently edged forward accompanied by a flock of olive-skinned children. All were led by an older man, possibly in his late fifties. Everyone was dressed adequately in their daily work clothes, the man in faded cotton trousers, an old polo shirt, and a loose, leather waistcoat, the women in long, drab, cotton skirts, overtopped by loose, faded blouses; they wore head-scarves that just covered the back of the heads and their long hair. This was a Muslim country where one might expect women to be all but hidden but, presumably, because of their hard work in the fields, having to wear something that covered the full head was just impracticable. The children seemed to be dressed in any old thing, obviously mostly mismatched hand-me-downs, with no hint of coordination, or of preference. I contrasted these quiet little boys with the fashion-conscious, demanding ones I knew back home. The difference was stark. This family lived by subsistence, their grimy nails a testament to their hard-working lives. I could now understand the desperation felt by the illegal immigrants when the money they so wanted to send back home had been squandered by their compatriot.
The family was obviously in deep distress at the eldest brother being in prison for the murder of a neighbour’s son. They all crowded around us and the father suggested that we move into the main room so everything could be explained. Why were we here? What had this to do with them? The son, brother, and uncle of the family was in prison, but ‘he had done nothing wrong’. There was an uncomfortable hiatus in proceedings when the head of the household was told that I wanted to ask some questions. I knew by the face and body language directed towards me that I was the crux of the problem. No woman was allowed to sit with men for discussion in the main room. But, without me, no one knew what was needed; I was the only one who knew what questions needed answering. The situation was explained to the family and they all agreed that I should be bestowed with honorary manhood while I was their guest. Honorary manhood … I sighed inside.
Immediately past the threshold, the house was as clean as a hospital, and every surface gleamed, even the floor. The table in front of us was covered with an old but beautiful lace and embroidered cloth; cups appeared and, not long after, a pot of coffee. I was surprised that they also produced some tea for me. The British and Albanian officers, the father and I sat around in this special little room while the women and children all crowded into the doorway, not daring to pass the threshold.
Straight away, there were exchanges between one Albanian officer, the translator, and the father. We had no idea what was being said but there was plenty of animated gesticulation and anger seemed to be rising. I cut across the translator’s diatribe. The men’s heads jerked around. The sound of a woman’s voice was obviously startling.
‘I am only here to find the truth. If your son is innocent, then I will be able to say that he must not be convicted. I am not on the side of the police. I am neutral.’
That, of course, was absolutely true and I have often thought it was only my sincerity that helped pacify everyone that day. The father then looked at me, and what I had said obviously hit a chord; he said he would help us ‘so that we could find his son innocent’. I had a lump in the pit of my stomach which lay there for the rest of the day.
I explained that I needed to take some samples of the soil in the garden to compare with the soil from the crime scene. They were so confident of their son’s innocence that they helped me as much as they could. While I crouched along the well-worn paths in the garden, the children followed my every move and took it in turns to approach me, smiling, each with a flower. Again, I felt the lump, but this time it had reached my throat. They were such lovely people – very simple and hard-working. This family was different from the people I had met in the city and at the prison. I very rarely interact with any family involved in casework. There would be a danger of favouring a suspect because of sympathy, or even empathy, and these could lead to cognitive bias. Subconsciously, I might want him to be innocent, and this must be avoided at all costs. It was hard but impartiality is imperative.
When I had sufficient samples to represent that place, I asked about the whereabouts of the nearest woodland. The suspect’s father waved towards a ridge of steep hills on the horizon. My gaze followed the sweep of his arm. They seemed forever away. But it was imperative that I make a list of species in any woodland within striking distance of the house. From what I had already been told, it would be impossible to get a species list from the university, and my previous atte
mpts at searching the Internet for information about the country’s botany, and distribution of its plant communities, had proved futile.
There was nothing else for it, we had to get there so that I could assess the environment myself. After exchanging pleasantries with the troubled and anxious father, our scruffy, dust-covered convoy set off towards the mountains on the horizon. The drive seemed interminable and my eyes were constantly scanning the vegetation. The mountains were delightful and I would have liked to spend a holiday in relaxed and solitary botanising but, as it was, I was driven for miles and allowed to alight only occasionally; when I got back, my notebook was full. The most striking outcome was that within reasonable distance of that neat little farm, nothing came even close to the composition of the vegetation surrounding the crime scene in England.
I had accomplished all that I could except one thing. For elimination purposes, I needed to have some footwear from the family so that I could compare its botanical profile with that collected from the arrested gang members, the main suspect, and the crime scene itself. With the translator in tow, Dougie asked the family if he could buy a pair of shoes, trainers, or boots normally worn by the family during their daily routine in and around the farm. A grubby pair of trainers was eventually proffered by the main suspect’s sister, and she was compensated with a sum that might have bought her a pair of Manolo Blahniks or Jimmy Choos. But I now had another set of critically important samples to process and analyse. Could I eliminate any of the suspected exhibits? Were any of the exhibits sufficiently similar to those of the comparator samples that they were implicated meaning that even more scrutiny would be necessary?
The initial scans proved invaluable. A relatively high proportion of footwear bore no resemblance to the crime scene and could be disregarded. The state of the pollen and spores themselves and the background material on the preparation were both useful in eliminating samples. If all the grains are pristinely preserved in one soil, and badly corroded in another, it is unlikely that the source is common to both. The presence of fly-ash particles from combustion engines, or masses of fungal hyphae, or residual cellulose and lignin, can all help to characterise a sample. Pollen and spores are not the only important identifiers of place – the background ‘grot’ on a slide can be very informative.
Many did not need full analysis, but some certainly did indicate temperate, mixed deciduous woodland with bracken fern. Each of these then had to be subjected to laborious counting.
To my amazement, the samples from the vehicle had obviously retained traces from a place very like the crime scene, and few, if any, like any of the places I had visited in Albania. I was worried though – the picture was becoming bizarre. It was the footwear sold to us by the suspect’s sister that was puzzling. How on earth could it yield results that were similar to those from the car and the crime scene? The pattern of trace markers on the trainers was not to be found in any of the Albanian soils with which she would have had daily contact. More work was needed. I asked for another pair of Albanian shoes to be brought over to the UK, and another pair was purchased from another member of the family. This pair had obviously picked up its pollen and spore load from the suspect’s father’s garden and there was no overall similarity to the Hertfordshire woodland.
When I reported this to detectives, after inquiries, they came back with an intriguing bit of information. The sister had said that her brother had given her the trainers that the police had originally bought – the final jigsaw piece fell into place. The brother seems to have worn the trainers to the grave site and they had retained the woodland profile, even such a long period after the offence. I suspected that after he had given them to his sister, she had only worn them around the house, or not worn them at all. If this were not the case, I would have expected to see more traces of the Albanian farm on them. One can only surmise but, after leaving the woodland of the crime scene, the suspect probably got into his car, drove to his home in London and, soon after, left for Albania. I know from my own experience that when driving long distances over Europe, and eager to reach a destination, one’s feet usually tread on urban streets, paving and tarmac, then carpets or indoor flooring. None of these offer rich palyniferous surfaces, and the original profile could be preserved in the nooks and crannies offered by virtually any kind of footwear.
I produced a matrix of results for the police and, although they were fragmentary in some respects, it could be seen clearly that footwear from several of the main suspect’s associates had either been to the crime scene or somewhere very like it. The biological trace evidence picked up from the woodland had been carried back to the foot pedals and footwells of the very car that had transported the victim to his execution. Furthermore, the large number of items showing links with the woodland site could be explained; there were several illegal Albanians involved in the murder and, because the grave had been dug long before the execution was carried out, and then had to be re-excavated to provide a grave, more than one person had been there at least twice. So, there were several pairs of footwear and a car that could be linked to the suspect, his associates, and the crime scene. No one could claim that the pollen and spores had been transferred to the car and shoes in Albania because the profiles just did not match the soils there.
The suspect was already in prison in Tirana and, as nearly all the witnesses were unhappy about going back there again, the trial was held in the UK, but with four Albanian judges presiding. I was already standing to give evidence as the four judges entered the room. The demeanour of three, one of whom was a woman, was severe and serious, but one, in a shiny blue suit and rather flashy tie, was smiling and seemed full of charm. I later learned that he was the senior judge. All four were broad and squat, dressed in an exceedingly old-fashioned style, and nodded frequently as proceedings progressed. More and more, the unsmiling triumvirate became tough, no-nonsense apparatchiks.
Giving my evidence was slow and sheer tedium because everything had to be translated in detail, and very accurately. I was subjected to a slow-motion bombardment of questions. It was obvious that palynology, botany, and soils being used as evidence was quite outside any of the judges’ experience. The verdict was ‘guilty’, and a lengthy sentence was doled out in spite of the absence of a jury – but there was something wrong. It was only after I had escaped the courtroom that it dawned on me: I had been examined, but not cross-examined. There did not seem to be a defence lawyer. Later I was told that one of the male judges was acting on behalf of the defendant – but he had not challenged me with a single question. This was surreal. The evidence against the illegal Albanian immigrant was strong in palynological terms, but I came away feeling decidedly uncomfortable; the conviction seemed too easy. My skills have been honed by being battered and bruised in court, and having to engage in mental gymnastics to counteract the tactics of skilled barristers. No judicial decision in the UK would ever have been achieved as easily as that.
I thought back to the little island in the stream gurgling through that quiet woodland. The murderer had planned his retribution, not doled it out in anger. The grave site had been chosen carefully so that it would be easy to find again, excavated many months in advance of the murder, and prepared specifically for that purpose. It must have seemed remote and safe to the killer, but he had not reckoned with the ubiquity of the British dog walker.
Even so, as I drove away from the court, my mind kept drifting back to the prison in Tirana and to all those women with baskets of food for their loved ones incarcerated inside. How would our illegal immigrant fare? I suspect not much better than the little cat.
14.
ENDINGS
Reading books is never enough. The most important reservoir of information for an ecologist is the field. I have many exhilarating memories of lying in the heather, or long grass, watching and thrilling at the sound of skylarks rising almost vertically from the moorland, singing at great height before plunging dramatically back to Earth. The sight of oceans of purple moor
-grass forming synchronous waves in response to the breeze moving over it, and the warmth of the heather bushes in full sun, with the buzz and hum of foraging insects all around me. There were also times when I sweated inside waterproofs, horizontal rain penetrating every little gap, hair plastered to the scalp, sodden socks squelching in boots, and soggy, illegible notes. But how else could one see things in real life?
The key to interpretation is experience of real places and honing and crafting one’s skills by walking, scrambling, climbing, and wading through bogs, ditches, fields, and woodlands. I spent years visiting archaeological excavations from Hadrian’s Wall to Pompeii and managed to recover valuable samples from pits, ditches, or anything that might provide information. They are messy places, but there were always keen, young people wanting to learn a new skill and by teaching and supervising them I could get what I wanted without getting too dirty myself. I know that I have been the source of mirth on sites by arriving in a white jumper and it being just as pristine when I left.
By the time I found out about the others who had done some forensic palynology work, I had, in isolation, already invented my own sub-discipline of forensic ecology. I had worked successfully on several cases, established a code of best practice for various aspects of the work, and was well on the way to writing up my work for publication. Then I found out about others in the field; I was very pleased and eventually managed to contact them. It was a surprise to me that a colleague in the UK, Tony Brown, whom I had known for many years, had done some cases but was a busy university professor with other fish to fry. Looking back, it is sad that we did not get together and join forces. Another, Dallas Mildenhall, was operating in New Zealand and had been involved in forensic work for several years. Then, through him, I discovered a professor in Texas, Vaughn Bryant. What was so interesting is that none of us operated in the same way, or on the same kind of cases. Over the years, we have become close pen pals and we help each other as much as we can. I have visited Dallas in New Zealand and he has stayed with me several times in the UK. I have never met Vaughn but I feel he is a friend whom I know very well as we write to each other regularly.
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