“Ice Princess” is the banner headline, above a subheading: “Missing Jodie, 15, Found Dead.” Farther below is a breathless commentary, describing the discovery of Jodie’s body and the search for clues. As expected, she is portrayed as a fairy-tale victim—Little Red Riding Hood snatched from a lonely footpath by a crazed beast who had been lying in wait for her.
There are quotes from neighbors, schoolfriends, and fellow skaters, all of whom are shocked and saddened.
“I can’t believe it could happen here.”
“This is such a nice area.”
“We look out for each other.”
“Who would do such a terrible thing?”
I often wonder how people can live in such a state of innocence. Then again, what is the alternative? Fear. Suspicion. A siege mentality.
Inside there are two more pages of photographs, some showing lines of police searching the meadow or the crowds of onlookers and the glowing white tent amid the trees. This is just the beginning. Certain crimes generate their own energy, like bushfires racing across treetops, moving faster than the wind, sucking oxygen from every other story. They consume the news cycle until they burn out or some other tragedy takes their place. Angel Face had been like that.
Overnight Guthrie has sent me some of Evie Cormac’s files. There are thousands of pages: admission records, ward notes, psychiatric assessments, escapes, and offenses.
I begin pulling up the earliest newspaper stories about the discovery of Terry Boland’s body. He was murdered in a house in Hotham Road, north London, where his body lay undiscovered for two months, until neighbors complained about the smell and the landlord was summoned. Police broke down the door and found a mound of rotting flesh tied to a chair. Fingerprints were impossible, given the state of decomposition, and whoever killed Boland had cleaned the house so thoroughly—bleaching floors, vacuuming rugs, and wiping down every surface—that only one set of prints remained, which didn’t show up on any police database until Angel Face was printed six weeks later.
It took facial recognition technology to reveal the victim’s identity. A computer-generated photograph was released to the media and triggered a call from a woman in Ipswich who identified Terry Boland as her ex-husband—an unemployed truck driver, aged forty-eight, born in Watford, twice married, twice divorced, with a history of petty crime and low-level violence.
Two Alsatians were found in a kennel in the rear garden of the house. The animals were in surprisingly good condition given how long Boland had been dead. Clearly someone had been feeding them, which generated the theory that the killer, or killers, might have returned to the house, showing more compassion for the dogs than for the man they killed.
When details of the torture were leaked, the murder took on a greater sense of urgency. Various theories emerged, including foreign crime syndicates or money laundering or a drug deal gone wrong.
Without any new leads to feed the story, the media became more interested in the fate of the dogs, which were given names, William and Harry. The Sun and Daily Mirror ran competing campaigns to find them new homes. Hundreds of readers offered to adopt the animals, while others donated money, until the Alsatians risked becoming the richest dogs in England before the deputy mayor of Barnet Council stepped forward and adopted them, promising to use the donated funds to build an animal shelter.
In the weeks that followed the story slipped from the headlines until Angel Face was discovered and the case became an international news event. A mysterious child in a secret room—it sounded more like a Grimm’s fairy tale than reality.
Among the files that Guthrie has sent to me is the original admission form from Great Ormond Street Hospital.
Gender:
Female
Name:
Unknown
DOB:
Unknown
Height:
50 inches
Weight:
57 lbs
Condition:
Underweight. Filthy. Signs of scabies, head lice, and rickets. Evidence of long-term sexual abuse, including deep perineal and vaginal lacerations that have formed fibrous connective scar tissue.
Markings:
Birthmark on her left inner forearm the size of a penny. Scar on her right thigh, four inches above the knee. Multiple lesions on her back and chest most likely caused by cigarette burns.
Property:
Eight pieces of colored glass. A large tortoiseshell button.
Clothing:
Soiled jeans. A woolen sweater with a polar bear on the chest. Cotton knickers.
The admitting officer is listed as Special Constable Sacha Hopewell. She was photographed carrying Angel Face into the hospital—an image that became synonymous with the case. I call it up on my computer. Constable Hopewell is dressed in dark gym gear—leggings and a jacket and trainers. Her knees and elbows are smudged with some sort of white powder. The girl in her arms looks filthy and emaciated, her hair a tangle of snakes, her face gaunt. She’s dressed in the same clothes described in the hospital admission form.
Sacha Hopewell was twenty-two when she found Evie. She’d be twenty-eight now. A lot of people become special constables as a stepping-stone towards a full-time career in policing. Sacha could still work for the Met. I want to ask her how she found Evie. What made her go back to the house so long after the murder?
I call Barnet Police Station in north London and negotiate a maze of automated choices before reaching a desk sergeant.
“Never heard of her,” he says, wanting to get rid of me.
“She was the officer who found Angel Face.”
“Oh, her! She doesn’t work here.”
“Where can I find her?”
“No idea. She was only a volunteer.”
“She was a special constable.”
“Yeah, same thing.”
I hang up and type Sacha’s name into Google, hoping she might have a Facebook page or Twitter account, but come up with nothing. Instead I stumble across several newspaper photographs of her leaving a house identified as being in Wembley Park—possibly her parents’ place. She is surrounded by photographers and reporters, forcing her way grimly through the pack.
Farther down the screen, I find a story from the Harrow Times. Sacha’s father, Rodney, is quoted, asking the media to leave his daughter alone. “She’s not allowed to speak to you. She doesn’t have anything to say. Please, let Sacha have her life back.”
A street name is mentioned. I try the reverse phone directories, but the family’s number is unlisted. Eventually, I call an old friend who works for the DVLA. Donna Forbes was a year ahead of me at school and is one of the good ones.
“How do I know you’re not trying to trace an old girlfriend?” she asks.
“I’m not.”
“Yes, but how do I know?”
“I’m trying to find the special constable who found Angel Face. Do you remember the case?”
“Of course. Why her?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“I’m going to assume it’s police business,” says Donna, sucking air through her teeth. “But if I get caught, I could lose my job.” I can hear her typing in the background. “Every search creates a data trail.” More typing. “There’s a Rodney Hopewell in Wembley Park.” She gives me an address and phone number.
“I owe you a drink,” I say.
“I expect dinner.”
“You’re married.”
“A girl still has to eat.”
* * *
Rodney Hopewell answers on the fourth ring. He gruffly recites his phone number before saying, “Can I help you?”
“Is Sacha there?”
There is a pause.
“Who are you?”
“A friend.”
The phone goes dead. I don’t know if he hung up or the line dropped out. I call again. The number rings off. I try one more time. Someone picks up the receiver and drops it into the cradle.
I’m listening to dead air.
* * *
CYRUS
* * *
The major incident room at West Bridgford Police Station has a makeshift feel, as if put together in a hurry. Computer cables snake haphazardly across the floor and desks are pulled into clusters. A series of whiteboards dominate the space, covered with data collected over the past twenty-four hours—crime scene photographs, timelines, and phone wheels. Some of the information is highlighted or circled with fluorescent markers or linked by hand-drawn lines, creating a storyboard of Jodie Sheehan’s final hours.
Forty detectives are working on the case, collecting CCTV footage, knocking on doors, and taking statements. Many of them have been up all night and their eyes sting with tiredness and too much caffeine. Most are men. Lenny has done her best to get more women into the Criminal Investigation Department, but politics and sexism trickle down from the top. Regardless of the difficulties, she rarely complains, although she has become more outspoken with age. Professionally and publicly, she enforces laws that she sometimes regards as being antiquated and unfair—protecting property rather than people—while privately she rails against the real causes of crime: poverty, boredom, stupidity, and greed. None of these are excuses. In Lenny’s view, deprivation doesn’t force someone to put a needle into their vein or gamble away their welfare check or put a trash can through a shopwindow or set fire to a homeless man.
“Every society gets the criminals it deserves” is her philosophy. “And the police force it’s willing to pay for, rather than the one it insists upon.”
The ten o’clock briefing is underway. Lenny is perched on a desk with her feet on a chair, listening as various detectives bring her up to speed. Some I’ve met before. Many have nicknames. Monroe gets called “Marilyn” for obvious reasons, although she does have blond hair. Her partner is known as “Prime Time” because he manages to get himself on camera so often. My personal favorite is David Curran, a sharply dressed younger detective they call “Nobody” because “nobody’s perfect.”
An estimated two thousand people were at the fireworks display on Monday, with as many as three hundred vehicles. Parking was ticketed, but anyone could walk from the surrounding streets and set up a picnic blanket for the show. There were no CCTV cameras focused on the crowd, but the rugby club had one in the parking area, and another covered the traffic lights on Clifton Lane.
A detective sergeant with a crew cut consults a laptop. “Twenty-two names have come up on the Sex Offender Register, living within three miles of the murder scene. We’ve spoken to eight of them and will get to the others today.”
“Any of them known to Jodie?” asks Lenny.
“Kevin Stokes lives three doors away. He served seven years for molesting two boys at a swimming center in Coventry. The victims were five and seven.”
“When was that?”
“He was released eight years ago.”
“Anything since?”
“Nah. He’s on a disability pension. Needs a mobility scooter to get around.”
“Check with his doctor,” says Lenny, before turning to another detective. “Where are we with the family?”
Prime Time licks his finger and flips a page of his notebook. “Dougal Sheehan drives a cab. He says he left home at seven and did a twelve-hour shift, but it’s proving difficult to track down his movements. We’re going to look at his logbooks and credit card machine. The uncle, Bryan Whitaker, teaches at the National Ice Centre. He’s a recovering alcoholic who briefly lost his coaching license eight years ago, following a complaint about inappropriate behavior from one of his students. The allegations were withdrawn.”
“What sort of complaint?”
“She accused him of taking pictures of her in the showers. He denied it.”
“Were there photographs?”
“None were found.”
“Talk to the girl.” Lenny turns to Monroe. “What about Jodie’s brother—Felix?”
“He was at the fireworks early in the evening but left with friends before eight. He says they went to a nightclub where he picked up a girl around midnight and went back to her place. He can’t remember the address or her name.”
“Convenient,” mutters Nobody.
“He seemed pretty cut up about what happened to Jodie,” says the constable I saw outside the Sheehans’ house last night.
“You talked to him?” asks Lenny.
“Yes, Guv, but he didn’t say much. I’d call him strong and silent, but it’s more like brooding and sulky.”
“Did you clock his car?” says Edgar. “A top-of-the-range Lexus. Business must be good.”
“Find out what business,” says Lenny, before turning to Nobody. “Where are we with Jodie’s phone?”
“Her mobile puts her at the fireworks until about eight o’clock, but it stopped transmitting at eight twelve. I figure she must have turned it off.”
Lenny looks at him askance. “Do you have kids, Nobody?”
“No, Guv.”
“For future reference, should you ever find a woman who wants to give birth to a little Nobody, you’ll discover that teenagers can’t go five minutes without their phones. Jodie wouldn’t have turned it off without a very good reason.”
“Maybe it ran out of juice,” suggests Monroe.
“Perhaps,” says Lenny, clearly not convinced. “Find out what sort of phone she was using. She might have had tracking software or some app that allows us to turn it on remotely.”
“Yes, Guv.”
“When and where did we lose the signal?”
“A fish-and-chip shop called the In Plaice on Southchurch Drive.”
“Talk to the staff. See if anyone remembers her. Where are we with her call log and text messages?”
“We’re waiting on her service provider to release them,” says Edgar.
“And her laptop?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary in her search history—apart from the fact that she wiped it regularly. We still managed to pull up the logs. Mostly it was homework assignments, music videos, clothes, makeup, et cetera. We’re hoping to access her iCloud account, but these tech companies treat every request like it’s an attack on civil liberties.”
“That’s because we’re fascists,” grunts Prime Time.
“The Deep State,” says Monroe.
Lenny gets to her feet, hitching her houndstooth slacks and running her hands through her hair. “OK, I want interviews with everybody who had contact with Jodie on Monday evening, and that includes friends, neighbors, secret admirers. Also look at anyone who follows her on social media and who comments on her posts.”
She divides the task force into four teams, each with a senior officer in charge. One group will concentrate on the door-to-door interviews, another will trace Jodie’s movements, a third will track down known sex offenders in the area, and the fourth will search for anyone seen talking to Jodie at the fireworks.
The briefing ends and detectives disperse, some pulling coats from the backs of the chairs and heading out. I get a nod from Lenny. She wants to talk to me privately. Closing her office door, she sits in her high-backed chair and opens a desk drawer, pulling out a scented candle, which she lights with a match, filling the room with the chemical reek of lemons.
“My personal trainer suggested them,” she says. “Apparently they relieve stress. I think they mask the smell.”
“Of what?”
“Forty detectives, fast food, and too much caffeine.”
I notice a wedding gift register open on her laptop.
“My sister is getting married again,” she explains. “You’d think after two husbands she’d be gun-shy but she’s having all the bells and whistles—a horse-drawn carriage, white wedding gown, and a reception in a manor house. The whole family has to show up and watch her pledge her undying love for some guy she met on a Caribbean cruise in August.”
“Third time’s a charm.”
“He’s a sodding dentist!”
Lenny
closes her laptop and moves away from her desk, pressing her back against the window frame. “You got anything for me?”
“Not yet.”
“What does your gut tell you?”
“Strangely, my colon hasn’t said a word since this morning.”
Lenny nods, as if to say, “Point taken.”
Despite our closeness, Lenny has never fully embraced psychology as being a science and criminal profiling as an important tool. She’s not a complete philistine, but regards it more like a dark art akin to psychic readings or ESP. Lenny doesn’t try to understand the moral insanity of a perpetrator or put herself in his or her shoes. She doesn’t want to look at the world through a criminal’s eyes or imagine their torment or sympathize with their motives because it might interfere with catching them and locking them away.
Psychologists care about motive, as do juries and actors and people who’ve lost someone to suicide. For a homicide detective “that which moves” and “that which impels” is never as important as the action itself. “Fuck the why,” Lenny would say. “Tell me the what, where, how, and who.”
Her arms are folded. She waits.
“Jodie was a low-risk victim for her attacker,” I say. “She was young and small for her age, which made her easier to subdue. The attack site was also low risk—a quiet footpath, deserted at that time of night. Jodie wasn’t expected to be there, so most likely he’s an opportunist, unless they arranged to meet earlier. More likely, it was unplanned. She was hit from behind and subdued quickly. He didn’t bring anything to bind her and made little attempt to clean up afterwards.”
“He tried to hide her body.”
“With a few branches—a token gesture. He may have panicked, or something spooked him. I think he’s inexperienced. Disorganized. He didn’t plan the rape. He didn’t plan the murder.”
Good Girl, Bad Girl Page 5
