Walk Like You

by Linda Coles

  “Have you found Susan?” he demanded. It was not a question that the officer could answer, not yet anyway.

  “Mr Smith,” Alan started, trying to take control. “We have to follow procedure and that’s why I’m here today. I will make notes and take some of Susan’s belongings away with me to compare DNA to, if I may. But let me say this first off, I completely understand how you must feel that everything seems to be taking time. I feel for you, I really do. We have to do this the right way so please can you start off by telling me what Susan was wearing on the day that she boarded the train?”

  Marcus looked at Julie. He had no clue, but neither did Julie. He turned back to the detective and said, “I’ve been away on business, I really have no idea what she would be wearing, but if she was going off shopping, she wouldn’t be in her best finery, now, would she?”

  Julie watched as Marcus tried to dominate the interview. Upset at the current circumstances or not, he was being rude.

  Marcus piped up again, “And I believe you’ve already got some shoes and a mug for her DNA comparison. We sent those down by courier, or Julie did, I was still in Hong Kong.” Julie nodded that yes that had in fact happened. Again, the detective nodded his approval. Trying to keep some control of the situation, DS Alan Davies changed the subject to the need for a photograph.

  “Now, it would be really helpful if you had an up-to-date photograph of your wife, preferably one where she is smiling,” he said, locking eyes with Marcus and holding them.

  Marcus turned away with a deep sigh. When he was ready to speak, he asked, “Why do you need a smiling photo?”

  Julie knew he was being awkward; everything seemed too hard for the man.

  “For dental comparison. It makes the process that bit quicker. With facial-recognition software we can scan the photograph of her teeth and check it against any victims that could be a match. It just saves time if we don’t have to get full dental records, but if you prefer, we could. Just let me know who we need to contact.”

  Marcus sat back in his chair, somewhat satisfied with the answer though he didn’t reply.

  The detective went back to his checklist. “Did Susan have any distinguishing marks at all? Maybe a tattoo, perhaps?” he questioned.

  Marcus rolled his eyes and Julie caught the look. She wasn’t aware of her friend having a tattoo, she’d seen her at the spa in her swimsuit often enough, and didn’t think Marcus would allow her one. Unless there had been a tiny one hidden somewhere, only visible to her husband, which she doubted very much, she thought not.

  Alan Davies was still waiting for a reply from Marcus who seemed to be finding more entertainment gazing out the window.

  Julie said, “I don’t think she does, but, Marcus, can you confirm?”

  They both watched as Marcus shook his head – negative.

  The detective ticked a box. “How about any fractures? Has she ever broken an arm, or a leg, or her wrist, perhaps? Again, something for comparison, just to speed up the process.”

  Marcus shook his head again.

  Julie confirmed with the little knowledge that she had of her friend’s private life.

  “Why don’t I just find that photograph,” Julie said helpfully, standing. “Where will the photo album be Marcus?”

  “In the cupboard in the dining room, second shelf down, you’ll find them there,” he said helpfully, though sounding disinterested.

  Julie made her way out and pulled out a photo album, flipping through it as she walked back to the two men. She saw quite a few of Susan in various poses at various events before she finally found one that was relatively recent. It showed Susan’s expensive dentistry off elegantly. Like Julie, Susan spent good money on her appearance and her mouth was no different.

  “Here you go,” she said, taking the image out and passing it to Alan.

  He took a moment to look at the woman and then slipped it into his folder without saying a word.

  The rest of the interview went by reasonably quickly with no more awkward questions. Just as the detective was about to leave, Julie asked if he needed anything else, beyond the shoes and mug she’d already sent, for DNA testing.

  “Yes, I’ll take another item of clothing. More shoes will be fine.”

  This time it was Marcus’s turn to go up to the bedroom and rummage through the wardrobe, and Julie took the opportunity to have a quiet word without him in earshot.

  “How long do you think this will take now?” she asked.

  “I know it’s hard,” he said. “It may take some days. But at least now we have a photograph. That will make immediate comparison easier and then the rest should just follow through, but DNA does take a little while longer. As soon as we have some news, rest assured we’ll be in contact with Mr Smith directly.” His smile was gentle and encouraging, and Julie was thankful for his presence. Marcus was coming down the stairs, his feet thumping on each step. Alan took the shoes from him and slipped them into an evidence bag, and with everything complete made his way to his waiting vehicle out the front. Julie bid him goodbye from the door; Marcus didn’t say another word. When the door was closed Julie followed him back into the living room, not quite sure if she should leave him be or sit with him for a while.

  “We should hear something in a couple of days, Marcus. Now they have a photo hopefully it will speed things up a bit.” She was trying to stay positive, just like Chrissy had told her to.

  But as with their phone call, Julie felt like he’d already hung up.

  “I’ll see myself out.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The makeshift mortuary was a series of refrigerated containers arranged in an empty hangar at a nearby airbase. As with any disaster, there simply wasn’t room at local hospitals and funeral homes to look after so many victims all at once. And positive identification was each pathologist’s main concern. Worried and expectant friends and relatives desperately sought confirmation as to whether or not their family member was either deceased, and while it might sound like a crude set-up, the makeshift mortuary worked surprisingly well. It was a basic template now used at disasters all over the world. The team that staffed the temporary centre were all part of the Disaster Victim Identification unit, or DVI, and attended the scene from all over the country. No one ever knew where or when the next disaster would strike, and so these temporary locations were earmarked and semi-prepared across the length and breadth of the country – just in case. If London itself ever had another large-scale disaster on its hands, the city had a designated area ready to go at a moment’s notice. And that was all thanks to learnings from other disasters around the world, something that before the events of 9/11 most of us had never thought about.

  Dean Duffy was a local, and only one of the many crew members that worked around the clock trying to identify the deceased that were now safely stored and awaiting identification. Body parts, and thankfully there were few, awaited their return to their rightful owners. Travel safety improvements in recent years had prevented more fatalities, though had each seat in that train been fitted with a seatbelt, there would no doubt be fewer waiting patiently in the mortuary. At least tables and chairs were fixed to the floor in modern-day trains, and passengers being crushed or asphyxiated by their movement were not commonplace as before. Most of the injuries and deaths in this disaster had been caused by passengers being flung from their seats and hitting, with some force, a window or other part of the train. Maybe, one day, trains would be fitted with safety seatbelts too. It would cost a fortune. But then trains were never supposed to come off their tracks.

  Nearly two full days after the crash, the team had identified almost a quarter of the now thirty-five victims, largely through visual identification, if appropriate, and fingerprints, though full DNA comparisons and post-mortems would be performed to confirm. The old days of simply checking for appendices or the gall bladder were long gone, cause of death and identification had to be accurate. If someone had indeed suffered and died from a heart attac
k unrelated to the crash, their death would be recorded as such. Males tended to have their ID on their person in the form of a wallet, making things easier, but with females this was not often the case.

  “I think this could be Susan Smith,” Dean said to his colleague Liz. Both were pathologists though Liz worked in the north of England and had responded to the call after the initial disaster struck. The photo he held in his hand certainly appeared like the deceased female, but death changed the way a person looked. As did a rail disaster. “Let’s scan her teeth and compare first off, though I can see she’s had extensive work to the incisors, maybe even the right canine,” Dean said, examining her mouth gently. On first observation, they were a close visual match. The scan would tell them for sure. “And we’ll do a DNA swab anyway though visually she fits. I’d say she looks a little older, but we’ll see,” he said, reaching for a testing kit to swab the inside of her mouth and wiping the long cotton bud around. Slipping it back inside its narrow tube, he labelled it and handed it over to his colleague. They moved on to the next victim they had a photograph of and surmised the same, an accurate visual fit. By the end of the morning, they had possible names for another ten victims, each awaiting either dental or DNA confirmation. It was a huge step forward. But it was easy enough to make a ruling when comparing victims to photographs the team had already gathered and were working with. Too tall, too short, too fat or too thin, some bodies simply didn’t fit the description of who they were looking for. Among the bodies still awaiting identification, there were no other possible fits for Susan Smith and the two pathologists were comfortable with their conclusion so far.

  It was a complete surprise then when the dental scan gave a negative result.

  “Well, I didn’t expect that one,” Liz said, dumbfounded. “She looks so like the photo that I’d have put my own little finger on it.” Dean and Liz stood open-mouthed at the result, not quite believing it.

  “Let’s get the dental records while we wait for DNA then, try and speed this up for her husband. I had the pleasure of speaking to him yesterday.” He put air quotes around the word ‘pleasure’ as he spoke, his colleague understanding exactly what he meant. In times of absolute stress, it was easy for family members to forget their manners as they struggled with anxiety or grief. It went with the territory.

  “Will do. But if they come back negative for our un-named here, there’s nobody else that fits anywhere near her description awaiting identification. Do you think we may have an error somewhere?”

  Dean scratched at his chin where salt-and-pepper, two-day stubble needed attending to. “I don’t see how though, do you? This female is the only one that bears any resemblance whatsoever to this photo,” he said, pointing at the picture of a woman with a bright, happy smile. Liz shrugged in response. It didn’t seem possible, yet there had to be an explanation.

  “Well, until we have a watertight positive ID, we can’t release her name to her family. We’ve no choice.”

  “And if DNA is negative too, we’re left with an anomaly, a mystery female. And since no one has contacted the helpline looking for her, who the hell could she be?” Liz voiced what Dean was already way past thinking.

  “And where the hell could Susan Smith be?” he said, holding up the photograph again. “Because she got on that train in London.”

  “Let’s take a look at that passenger list again. There’s got to be a simple explanation.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “I’m telling you, Chrissy, that man is weird.” Julie sipped on an iced tea, though had she not been driving, her glass would have been topped up with gin and tonic. Her sports car parked outside Chrissy’s house was saving her liver. They were sitting out on the small rear patio, the late-afternoon sun a delight to be out in.

  “He’s just upset, I’m sure. Grief and worry make you do things or act out of character, as he appears to be doing.”

  “I’m not so sure. I’ve only met the man a couple of times, and he’s always been aloof, but now I just think he’s actually bloody rude.”

  Chrissy smiled slightly at her sister’s use of a curse word – she almost never swore, not ladylike she said. And while Chrissy swore it was only in private. To herself. And during road rage. But who didn’t then?

  “When will you get some concrete news? Did they give you any indication when it might be?”

  “None, but I half expect Marcus to forget about letting me know when the news does come through. He’s awfully distracted. As well as rude.” She sounded like a sullen teenager again, something she easily fell back into. “She was my friend. I want to know what’s going on.” Realising that she’d used the past tense, Julie covered her mouth as if it would stop more past tense words from leaving.

  Chrissy caught her horrified look. “I think you should face up to it, sis, it’s been too long. She probably won’t be coming home, not now.”

  “I know. I’m trying to get my head around it. But I keep hoping, as you would do too.”

  The front door slammed shut and two sets of footsteps could be heard heading through the house towards the kitchen and back patio. Harry and Thomas were home from school and would need feeding. Chrissy rose from her chair to greet her boys.

  “Muuum,” Harry protested as usual as he tried to brush her affectionate kiss off. Chrissy knew it bugged them both, it wasn’t cool, but she would never give up being their loving mother. Julie watched on, amused. Her own children, two girls about the same age, were at boarding school, out of Julie’s way for most of the time. She missed them, particularly when she was around Chrissy and her boys, but a decent education was what was required, and that was just what they were getting. Richard had been pretty clear on that when she’d fallen pregnant.

  “What’s for tea?” asked Harry, making his way across to the fridge and opening the door. Jam and margarine were taken out and Thomas grabbed the bread from the cupboard. On returning home, a jam sandwich was the staple for both boys before anything else was done. Chrissy shook her head in wonder and amazement at how much food the two of them consumed on a regular day, their slender athletic frames evidently needing the calories though they never wore them. They’d start to fill out soon enough. Age did that to you.

  “Don’t you have any contacts that could find out for me?” Julie asked.

  “And why would I have contacts at the police or mortuary?

  “Because of your job? I thought you were a bit of a private investigator nowadays?”

  Chrissy felt the barbed comment, “a bit of a PI”. She was a full-on PI, even had her licence now, though Julie clearly thought she was playing at it. But then Julie lived in a Nancy Drew kind of world where everything and everyone had a happy ending. Life wasn’t like that. As she was discovering. The harsh reality of dealing with a train crash and identifying bodies in real life was a far cry from Murder on the Orient Express or The Great St. Trinian’s Train Robbery. This was real life and could well have an ending that Julie didn’t want to experience.

  “That may be so, but the desk sergeant at my local constabulary is not going to hit the mark with this scenario, sis, this is big time serious stuff. The last report I heard asked if terrorism was involved. I wouldn’t rule it out, not these days.”

  Julie acknowledged her sister’s response with a petulant lower lip, returning to her thoughts as she sipped on her iced tea. A slice of cucumber floated on the remains of the golden liquid and Chrissy watched it bob and settle itself as Julie placed the tall glass back on the table in front of her. Julie stood to leave, straightening her pale pink blouse and bending down to retrieve her bag from the side of the chair she’d been sat in. In the kitchen the two boys were making their second sandwiches. A jam-pot lid clattered loudly to the floor, spinning before it settled.

  “Marcus will keep you informed, I’m sure,” Chrissy carried on and stood beside her. The two sisters walked out towards the front door where Julie’s Mercedes was parked. The top was lowered. It was a smart-looking car, it suited
her, and with the amount of hair lacquer Julie used, her hair wasn’t in any danger of being blown out of style any time soon.

  “Chin up, sis. Keep me posted, eh?”

  A light nod from Julie as she slipped into the driver’s seat and pulled away, leaving Chrissy wondering just how she could help. There must be someone she could contact to speed things along.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Pathologists Dean Duffy and Liz Morgan pored over the passenger list one more time. Beside each name was a tick for those that had been identified. Some remained works in progress, still waiting on results and family members to be informed. Dean followed his finger down the list. Susan Smith was on it but the body that they had didn’t match the photograph. Not from the dental scan at any rate. What was the explanation? It was confusing to say the least.

  “I don’t understand,” Dean said, scratching his chin again. The bristles irritated him, a normally clean-shaven individual who was desperately in need of some rest. And a clean-up.

  “The only thing I can think of is we have this woman here,” Liz said, pointing to the name of Tabitha Child that still hadn’t been ticked as identified. “We don’t have any more bodies and there’s nobody else in the mortuary that fits Susan’s description, and yet we still have an unidentified female on the list. The bodies that are still awaiting ID are all male. We must’ve made a mistake somewhere.” She began to pace up and down, scratching her own head as if stimulating her scalp would bring an answer to the surface, like birds stamping the ground for worms. “We’re going to have to look at them all again. There is no other way, we can’t possibly have missed somebody, can we?” she enquired. Her eyes were filled with worry that they’d messed up somehow.