Flesh and Blood

by Emma Salisbury

  ‘There’s a staff kitchen downstairs,’ the manager informed them when Coupland’s gaze fell upon a kettle plugged in beside the TV, an unused Pot Noodle beside it.

  Hands shoved into his pockets, Coupland moved to the window. Not much of a view, unless you got a thrill watching NHS vans pull up outside the loading bay. ‘So what can you tell me about her?’

  Harkins had been hovering in the doorway. He blushed, his hand moving to his crotch once more. ‘I tend not to get too involved with the staff,’ he admitted, ‘Jobs like these – with live-in accommodation – tend to attract people who are starting again, maybe after a relationship breakdown or a downturn in their finances. It pays not to delve too deep. I’m their boss, not their agony aunt, after all.’

  ‘Surely you want to know they are safe to be let loose on your patients?’

  ‘All the appropriate criminal checks are done; I don’t take on anyone who isn’t squeaky clean.’

  Coupland didn’t need to take Harkins’ word for this. Turnbull and Robinson had checked out all the staff and nothing untoward had been flagged up.

  Alex moved around the room taking photographs on her phone and making notes. They’d removed their CSI suits before walking over to meet Harkins but both had kept their shoe protectors on and stuffed their nitrile gloves into their pockets. Coupland retrieved his and slipped them on. He opened the drawers beside the single bed. Underwear. Paracetamol. A half-eaten Twix.

  ‘Anything in the chest of drawers behind you?’ he asked.

  Gloved up, Alex was already sifting through the top drawer. She frowned in his direction. ‘There’s no handbag anywhere, yet I can’t see a purse or any personal items like make up or a hairbrush.’

  ‘She may have left them in her locker over in the residential block, saves them having to return to their rooms if they need something while they are working.’

  ‘I’ll make a note to check whether the lockers have been damaged,’ Alex said, scribbling into her notebook.

  Coupland sauntered over to check what else she’d written: ‘Electoral roll’ and ‘DVLA.’ ‘Did she drive?’ Coupland asked.

  The manager shrugged.

  ‘Doesn’t mean she’s never had a car,’ Alex reminded him.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I spoke to Barbara’s previous employer – you never followed up her references, did you? She says she’s never had that happen before.’

  Harkins’ hand moved to his crotch once more, a nervous reaction or he had trouble with his waterworks; Coupland couldn’t be sure. ‘I-I kept meaning to get round to it, but she seemed a decent sort, and once she’d started, her work was a high standard…’

  ‘Yeah, you said.’ Coupland’s voice was monotone. He eyeballed Alex who was already ahead of him. She turned her pad to show a love heart underlined several times. If Harkins had the hots for this Barbara it would explain his lack of diligence during her recruitment.

  ‘Come to think of it, how come the contents of this room haven’t been bagged and tagged?’ Coupland asked.

  Alex whipped her phone from her bag. ‘I’ll check with Turnbull.’

  ‘Never mind the reason why, tell him to get his backside over here sharpish.’

  Alex nodded, searching for Turnbull on her contacts list before hitting ‘dial’. There would be time enough for recriminations but right now this room needed to be treated like a crime scene.

  ‘I need to ask you to step outside,’ Coupland told Harkins. ‘There’s an officer coming to remove the contents of this room.’

  Harkins didn’t seem bothered. Most people who kept up to date with their favourite crime shows expected it these days. ‘I’ll be downstairs if you need me,’ he said, stepping out onto the landing.

  ‘Hey, not so fast, is this her?’ Coupland called out, his finger pointing to a photo of a woman Barbara’s age on the wardrobe door. Harkins paused, his gaze following the trajectory of Coupland’s finger before nodding.

  ‘We can get a copy of that for the incident board,’ Alex said, waiting until she heard Harkins’ tread on the stairs. ‘He’s a lazy so and so with a thing for the hired help. Perhaps you weren’t that far off the mark when you said it could be a case of unrequited love.’

  Coupland said nothing.

  Alex moved towards him, placing a hand on his arm. ‘We should leave, too, let Turnbull get on with it.’ Still, Coupland didn’t move. It was as though he couldn’t hear her. He hadn’t budged an inch, just stood stock still, staring at the other photographs Blu-Tacked around the one he’d been pointing to. In one a fat kid scowled at the camera. The kid was even fatter in the photograph beside it, a solemn face with join the dot pimples starting to show. Coupland stared at another photo, a younger one of Barbara sat with a group of friends raising a glass to the camera, then back to the kid again.

  He pulled out his cigarette pack, looked at it for a minute before putting it away. He shifted his gaze to a photograph of a gap toothed boy grinning up at the camera. The boy looked about six years old, wore corduroy trousers and a jumper with a hole in. Yet it wasn’t the boy that held Coupland’s attention. It was the Scalextric set beside him, the red car with a broken front light on top of it. Something inside him quickened. ‘Help me find more photos of her,’ he barked, blood draining from his face. ‘Older ones would be better.’ He opened drawers hurriedly and searched through the contents.

  ‘What is it?’ Alex asked, doing as he’d requested even though she wasn’t sure why.

  ‘The fat kid in the photo is me,’ he muttered. ‘Which unless I’m mistaken means that Barbara Howe is my mother.’

  Chapter Nine

  Alex stopped what she was doing and stared at Coupland for several seconds while she worked out what to say. She was trying to remember if he’d ever spoken of his mother. There was no reason why he should, she supposed, he was so full of Lynn and Amy, though for all she knew they spent every Sunday with her, a roast dinner followed by him doing DIY jobs around the house. Alex wasn’t close to her own mother, but still, the shock if anything happened to her. ‘Are you sure?’ she managed at last, though the look he gave her told her she needn’t have bothered.

  ‘Of course I’m not bloody sure!’ he spluttered, causing Alex’s brows to knit together in confusion. ‘She left when I was a kid,’ he explained, ‘Dropped me at school one morning and never came back.’

  ‘Oh God, Kevin I’m so sorry!’ Whether she meant for his mother buggering off or being dead, he wasn’t sure.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he said anyway, his head already working overtime.

  ‘She changed her name then?’

  Coupland shrugged, ‘Howe could be her maiden name I suppose. Could have remarried for all I know. We need to go through the contents of this room with a fine tooth comb, see if there are more photos, letters even.’

  Alex was already shaking her head. ‘Kevin you can’t work on this case if you’re related to a victim.’

  ‘Yeah, but I don’t know that yet, do I? But I need to find out, Alex, and I need to find out now.’

  *

  Coupland was on his third cigarette by the time Turnbull arrived. He watched from the cordon as Alex went over to brief him before he followed her indoors. Her facial expression was neutral, her body language controlled, even though the news about his mother seemed to have shaken her as much as it had him. She’d agreed to keeping quiet about the potential link until he had the chance to show the photos they’d found to his sisters. There’d been no other photographs of him, nor any of the girls for that matter, but they’d come across one of Barbara as a young woman, long haired, slim, with a spark in her eye he didn’t remember. He’d taken a picture of it with his phone, along with a couple of the other photos. ‘I remember these being taken,’ he’d told Alex, his finger jabbing the wardrobe door, ‘and I spent hours playing with that car set, drove my folks bloody mad.’ Mad enough for his father to smash the red car against the wall when he was late to the table for dinner, but he kept that m
emory to himself.

  ‘And your mother, though, Kevin?’ Alex had persisted. ‘Does she look how you remember?’

  Coupland closed his eyes. She looked like the woman who’d waved him off to school that morning, but still…

  Coupland used to hope that she’d left for a reason. A purpose that justified abandoning a surly kid with a bully. When he got older he wondered if another man had been involved, and if so, whether more children had appeared further down the line, half brothers or sisters that made him redundant, something else to forget about, along with the tosser she’d been married to. His early years in the force brought him into contact with domestic violence and he’d realised for the first time that was the environment he’d grown up in. The treasured quiet nights when his dad was on shift, when his mother would come into his room and read to him, or let him stay up with her to watch her favourite soap. When his father came home Coupland would slope off to his room, develop strategies to keep out of his way like a religious fanatic warding off evil. Yet even that effort couldn’t prevent the inevitable. The temperature in the flat dropped the moment his father’s key could be heard in the lock. The raised voices, one angry, one trying to placate. The sound of furniture being upended. A thud, followed by silence. On those nights there’d be no story. His mother would walk past his bedroom, pausing briefly behind the door to listen out for him, as though it was possible for him to sleep through the racket they made. He played along though, stayed silent in his bed, tears forming damp patches on his pillow. He understood now the need to escape, the urge to survive. The last thing she probably wanted was another man. Had she planned it? Or had she woken that morning and decided today was the day? His memory of their last morning was etched on his brain. The ruffle of his hair when she came into his room to wake him, the extra-long hug she gave him at the school gates. She’d called after him, he remembered later, but he’d been in a hurry to get a game of football in with the older lads that he hadn’t bothered turning round. Would she have stayed if he had? Would she have taken him with her? He’d forgiven her, hoped long ago that her new life had been worth the pain she’d caused. And now, to discover she’d been living a short bus ride away, a humdrum existence working for folk that didn’t know what day of the week it was. He’d always though he’d meet her someday, have the chance to ask if she was happy. He’d been prepared to lie if she’d asked him the same thing.

  Alex had insisted that he kept his distance while Turnbull did his work, so as not to muddy waters. Coupland had nodded; keen to be amenable if it kept her silence. When she didn’t accompany Turnbull as he emerged from the building half an hour later he saw an opportunity too good to miss. Stubbing out his cigarette on the tarmac of the car park, he headed towards the DC as he loaded evidence bags into the boot of his patrol car. ‘Let’s have a look at the inventory,’ he said, taking the clipboard from him and scanning down the list of items removed from Barbara’s flat. The items catalogued were hardly substantial. Letters. Bills. Clothing, underwear, toiletries. Not much to show for a life. Jewellery: a thin gold chain, a stainless steel watch with a leather strap and a wedding ring. So, had she married again? Surely she hadn’t kept the one that had shackled her to his old man. He handed the inventory back to Turnbull, his gaze falling on an evidence bag crammed with letters. ‘Let me take a look,’ he said, automatically reaching for them when a voice behind him stopped him in his tracks.

  ‘Let’s do that back at the station, eh, Kevin?’ Alex asked, her eyes narrowing when he turned to face her. Coupland sighed, his gaze settling on the evidence bag she was carrying. ‘Her locker hadn’t been damaged,’ she told him, ‘there’s a shoulder bag containing make up and a purse, a couple of bank cards.’

  He wondered if she paid her bills on time. Or did she leave things until the last minute like he would if he didn’t have Lynn to keep him right?

  ‘Shall we get back then?’ Alex asked. ‘Harry Benson’s office has been on; the colleague he’s been waiting for arrived early so they’re keen to start.’

  Coupland knew that Alex was speaking to him but her words sounded muffled, as though he was listening to her from the bottom of the ship canal.

  ‘Kevin, they’re ready to go ahead with the post mortems.’ She glanced at Turnbull as he added the new evidence bag to his inventory, unaware of the tension around him. ‘You still want to attend?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I?’ Coupland’s mouth felt dry, making him trip over his words. He could feel Turnbull lift his head to study him, oblivious to the grenade that had been hurled into his life.

  ‘You OK Sarge?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Coupland growled.

  Though in truth he was anything but.

  *

  ‘I’m only really here as an extra pair of eyes, a subtle steer at most,’ Kate Faraday said as she nodded at the detectives. Medium height with a gaunt face on a skinny frame, she reminded Coupland of the teaching skeleton in Harry Benson’s science lab, only with hair, which she had tied back in a ponytail. Professor of Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology based at the University of Exeter, she had shared a flat with Benson during their student days. That alone should have sent her screaming into the light, Coupland thought, but then most people were different away from the day job and maybe Benson made a bit more effort when he wasn’t wearing his surgical scrubs.

  ‘Ah, I see you have met,’ the brusque pathologist stated as he entered the theatre, tilting his head up to the gallery where Coupland and Alex stood to observe the proceedings. He spoke into the microphone above cutting table 1. ‘We’re lucky Kate’s schedule permitted her to be here.’ Benson’s mouth turned up at the edges, ‘She’s a leading force in her field.’

  ‘Charmed, I’m sure,’ Coupland said, trying to match Benson’s smile but failing.

  ‘I’m here to help Harry reunite each victim with their name,’ Professor Faraday explained, ‘which shouldn’t be too burdensome given we have the same number of unaccounted for patients as we have bodies, though one can never take anything for granted.’

  ‘Patients and staff,’ Coupland corrected.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘One of the victims was a member of staff at the home, not a patient.’ His mouth felt dry as he spoke.

  ‘Duly noted, DS Coupland,’ Benson acknowledged, muttering something out of earshot once he’d turned away from the microphone. Coupland felt Alex’s gaze slide in his direction, settle on him for a moment before returning to the theatre below.

  During the introductions a technician with tattoos up each arm wheeled in three trolleys and lined them up against a wall. Despite being sealed in stay fresh bags there was no mistaking the smell of incinerated meat. Each body had been labelled 1 through to 3 with enough space left on the label to write their name once it had been confirmed. The technician wheeled in two more bodies, placing them a short distance from the others. Instead of numerical labels the name of both victims had been written on in ink: Catherine Fry and Ellie Soden.

  ‘I’ll carry out the examination of our two named victims as the end of this session; I don’t want to keep Professor Faraday longer than absolutely necessary.’

  Coupland nudged Alex and rolled his eyes but kept any smart comments to himself. It was safer that way, especially with the complaint hanging over his head. Instead he busied himself picking dirt from under his nails. He watched as the three burned bodies were placed onto cutting tables. Twisted limbs that had fused into blackened torsos. Hideous masks where their faces used to be. He swallowed.

  Benson pointed toward the first body. ‘My role this afternoon will be to distinguish between the normal effects of fire on a body and evidence that may have a more sinister explanation. As you can see, heat causes the muscles of the body to seize up, the resulting loss of water shortens the limbs and the torso bursts, creating tears.’ His hand moved to the solid mass as the centre of the table. If Coupland stared hard enough he could see slits on the surface, like the cuts made into pork skin to giv
e it a crackling effect. Benson continued: ‘I need to confirm these are not wounds inflicted prior to death.’ His hand hovered over the upper and lower parts of the blackened lump. ‘The flesh here, and here, has been burned clean away, leaving bones that have been made brittle by exposure to heat. In the case of badly charred victims, it is often impossible to tell their sex. To establish this with some confidence we will be studying each fragment of bone to be certain of the location in the skeleton they came from.’

  Professor Faraday began to nod and stepped towards the mic. ‘When fire damages a body to this extent, teeth, DNA and fingerprints are incinerated. Normally the pathologist would rely on dental records that could be sent to local practices to help identify who is who but that’s not possible in this case. I will be examining areas of the skeleton that show the largest discrepancies between the sexes. The shape of the greater sciatic nerve in the pelvis, the prominence of the nuchal muscle markings at the back of the neck, the size of the mastoid process behind the ear and the presence of supra-orbital ridging under the eyebrows all hold important clues. Of course any information you can give me would be helpful, whether the women had gone through childbirth, any operations…’

  Benson singled out Coupland when he spoke next: ‘I’m hoping you lot have pulled your finger out and have something to tell us, or why else would you be here? Not like there’s much of a floor show in these cases.’ The contents of Coupland’s stomach rose as his gaze fell onto the three charred masses.

  ‘We know Roland Masters suffered from Alzheimer’s,’ Alex offered when Coupland remained silent. ‘But there’s nothing in his medical history that refers to any operations. Sarah Kelsey had three children. She was only at Cedar Falls for respite care, her medical records are still with her GP but I could give them a call.’

  Benson smiled his thanks. ‘And the third unidentified victim?’

  ‘Barbara Howe,’ Alex informed him.

  ‘She was 65,’ Coupland added.