‘Caution maybe,’ Dr Wilton said. ‘Making sure the mistakes of the past don’t tarnish him.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Fennimore remembered. ‘He’s new to the post, isn’t he?’
‘Still got the shine on him,’ she said.
Fennimore misted the filter paper with distilled, de-ionized water, then placed it damp-side down on the skirt and laid a second sheet of plastic over the top, firmly pressing the area of staining as he spoke. ‘So behind closed doors they are talking about mistakes?’
‘You wouldn’t want me to spoil the surprise, would you?’ she said, folding her hands neatly in front of her, smiling behind her mask.
Fennimore lifted the filter paper and hung it in the fume cupboard to the side of the room, before misting the entire sheet with acid phosphatase reagent.
‘I’m going to apply the Teesside Protocol,’ he said. ‘Is that okay with you?’
‘Knock yourself out,’ she said.
The acid phosphatase test was introduced by Stuart Kind in 1957. A colour change from orange to purple indicated the presence of semen. No colour change after two minutes meant no semen. The method had remained unchallenged for half a century – until 2013, when two Teesside University scientists proved that over three-quarters of ‘press test’ samples gave a false negative in the two-minute cut-off period. Horrifying to think of all those men who had got away with rape because of an arbitrary choice made nearly sixty years earlier. But in Fennimore’s eyes that was the beauty of science: it wasn’t bound by doctrine or belief; all it took to change half a century of accepted practice was for someone to ask the right question. So they waited way past the two-minute cut-off, and at twelve minutes and thirty-one seconds, several purple blotches appeared on the filter paper.
The AP test was presumptive only – a few other bodily fluids could yield the same result – so he followed up with a microscopic examination. The staining was old, and most of the sperm had lost their tails – but they were there all right.
Next, he took samples directly from the linen: wet, dry and control swabs which he would take away for DNA testing. Dr Wilton stepped back to give him more room to work, and when he’d sealed and labelled the last of the samples, Fennimore began packing them into plastic bags for transport.
‘I’m guessing you’ve already submitted your DNA samples for profiling?’ he said.
‘I have,’ Dr Wilton said. Since the point of the exercise was to find out if the semen belonged to Mitchell, her lab would do a one-to-one comparison of the sample profile with Mitchell’s DNA already on the national database, and those results would come through days before Fennimore’s.
He cocked an eyebrow. He didn’t like being behind in the game. ‘I’ll leave my contact details, in case you feel like sharing – in the interests of collegiality.’
Carl Lazko had agreed to drive over from Chelmsford for a lunchtime meeting. The venue was a country pub a few miles outside of Cambridge. It was sunny, and after the sterile atmosphere of the lab, Fennimore breathed deep of the unfiltered air. The place was busy with retirees and a few business types, but schools weren’t out for the summer break just yet, and he managed to find a quiet spot in the beer garden. He had missed breakfast and ordered immediately, tearing quickly through a sandwich and half a pint of the local brew. Forty minutes later, and still no sign of Lazko, Fennimore’s phone buzzed. He checked his text messages: ‘In bar. U? – Lazko.’
‘I’m outside,’ Fennimore texted, properly spelling and punctuating his message. ‘You’re late.’
The reporter emerged from the pub a few minutes later, pale and blinking in the sunshine, carrying a laptop bag and a pint of bitter, already a third down. He moved to the table without comment and dropped on to the bench seat, lifting his right and then his left leg over the rough-hewn timber as though they were dead weights, before swivelling to face Fennimore. He looked gaunt, as if he’d lost pounds in the few days since they last met.
‘Are you all right?’ Fennimore asked.
‘My flat’s a wreck,’ Lazko said. ‘And dealing with the insurance company is a bloody nightmare.’
‘Would some good news cheer you up?’
Lazko leaned forward, gripping his glass with both hands. ‘You found semen stains on the skirt?’
Fennimore patted his shoulder bag, stashed in the shade under the table. The journalist’s eyes glowed as if he already saw himself installed in the London offices of one of the nationals.
‘How long till we know?’
‘Under a week,’ Fennimore said. ‘Can you stay till tomorrow?’ Lazko asked. ‘I could introduce you to Andrew Haverford, Mitchell’s solicitor. He’s done most of the donkey work on Mitchell’s review.’
‘Let’s see what the DNA database comes up with first,’ Fennimore said. He checked his watch. ‘Anyway, I need to head north. It’s a four-hour drive to the lab in Chorley and I want to get there before their offices close.’
In fact, he’d chosen to drop the samples into Cellmark in Chorley because he knew the lab was processing the letters from the Myers abductions. He was friendly with a couple of scientists there and might be able to wheedle some information out of them.
Lazko downed the last of his pint. ‘I’d better get back myself – I’ve got the loss adjuster coming in a couple of hours. But before I go’ – he lifted his laptop bag on to the table. ‘That bloke, calls himself Josh – the one with the anger management issues?’
Fennimore eyed the reporter coolly. ‘What about him?’
‘Well, his name isn’t Josh, for starters.’
Fennimore didn’t react, and Lazko said, ‘You already knew.’
Fennimore inclined his head.
‘Well, there’s a hell of a lot more I bet you don’t know.’ Lazko fished in his bag and drew out an A4 document wallet bulging with papers. ‘Here – see for yourself.’ He placed the folder on the table next to Fennimore’s empty plate.
Fennimore slid it back to him. ‘Josh’s private life is none of my business.’
‘You keep it, mate – I don’t want it,’ Lazko said, holding up his hands.
‘Not a good enough story?’
Lazko snorted. ‘Oh, it’s dynamite. But I wouldn’t want some of the faces in that folder to think I’ve been poking my nose into their affairs.’
The journalist’s dark eyes found his and Fennimore saw a shadow of fear behind the bravado.
‘Lazko – I didn’t ask for this.’
‘Well, you got it.’ The journalist extricated himself, clumsily swinging his legs back over the seat. ‘Just be careful how you use it.’ He walked away without looking back.
Fennimore regarded the folder with distaste. He tapped his fingers on the stiff card, wondering if he should follow Lazko into the car park, chuck the damn thing in his face, but finally he scooped it up and jammed it into his shoulder bag.
19
Never take no for an answer.
ANON
The drive northward was easy under blue skies dotted with white summer cumulus, but turning westward, the clouds gathered, crowding the horizon and blurring the hilltops. As Fennimore skimmed Manchester’s outer ring road it began to rain, and by the time he reached the A6 into Chorley a thunderstorm was raging overhead. The windscreen wipers couldn’t cope with the sheer volume of water and he slowed to a crawl. Even so, he nearly missed the turn-off to the lab. Rain bounced six inches off the tarmac and he got drenched just rolling down the window to announce his presence at the security barrier.
He signed over the evidence to one of the scientists from the DNA lab at ten minutes to five. A fresh-faced kid who looked young enough to be one of his students.
‘Is Bob Levert around?’ Fennimore asked.
‘Doctor Levert’s out,’ the youth said.
‘Is he likely to be back soon?’
The youth shrugged.
Fennimore mentioned another contact, but apparently she had left two months earlier. It looked like he was out of luck. He
wondered how Kate Simms would react if he rang and invited her out for a drink, but she was under orders to report his activities, and Kate always saw through his lies and manipulations. He was almost ready to give up, when the doors opened and a man in a leather hat and calf-length raincoat swept in out of the storm. Fennimore recognized Bob Levert instantly, but as the automatic doors slid shut, cutting off the hammering of the rain on the pavement outside, Levert bent forward, dripping water from the brim of his hat to join the growing pool at his feet. He cursed softly, flicking more from the arms of his raincoat, sending a rainstorm of his own on to the linoleum floor of the foyer.
‘Well, look what the rain washed in,’ Fennimore said.
Levert straightened up, grinning. ‘You’re looking a bit on the spongy side yourself, chum,’ he said, extending a wet hand. ‘What brings you south of the border?’
‘Actually, I’ve been travelling north most of the afternoon. I was in Cambridgeshire, collecting evidence for a case review I’m working on.’
‘And you just dropped by for a cuppa?’ Levert’s eyes twinkled.
‘It breaks the journey,’ Fennimore said. ‘But the fact is I’m using your lab for the analysis.’ He nodded in the direction of the youth who, still holding the bagged evidence, was eyeing the two men with open curiosity.
Levert seemed to notice him for the first time. ‘Where’s your manners, leaving Professor Fennimore standing in the foyer?’
A flush of colour chased across the youth’s face and he began to stammer an excuse. Levert shook his head impatiently, sending a fresh spatter of droplets left to right, in an arc. ‘Never mind.’ Then, to Fennimore, ‘Let’s get that brew.’
In the kitchen, Levert hung his dripping coat and hat on a chair and ruffled his fingers through his hair. At sixty years of age, there was still plenty of it, though he had turned quite grey. Fennimore wondered how he had taken that: Levert had always been rather vain about his thick black thatch. The room was big enough for four tables and was equipped with a fridge, microwave, kettle and cafetière. With the thunder still growling overhead, Levert brewed fresh coffee and they caught each other up on teaching schedules and university politics – Levert was a visiting professor at Manchester University.
‘I hear you’ve moved to a plush new campus,’ Levert said.
Fennimore rolled his eyes.
Levert wrinkled his brow. ‘New office, riverside setting – what’s not to like?’
‘Smaller office, busier setting,’ Fennimore said.
‘Sounds like you’re having trouble adjusting.’
‘I haven’t even moved in yet.’
Levert laughed. ‘There speaks a man in denial,’ he said, handing Fennimore a mug.
‘Good coffee,’ Fennimore said, refusing to be drawn any further.
‘One of the perks of privatization.’ Levert watched him speculatively. ‘Worth travelling fifty miles out of your way?’ Coming to Chorley rather than dropping the samples off at LGC’s lab in Wakefield had added at least an hour to Fennimore’s journey time.
‘We both know why I’m here, Bob,’ Fennimore said.
‘The Myers case.’
‘The letters, yes.’
Levert seemed momentarily surprised, as if he had expected something else. ‘You know we got Mrs Myers’s DNA from the first one?’
Fennimore nodded. ‘It’s the second one I’m interested in. I actually received that first. He must have posted it the day before he abducted Julia and Lauren Myers. I was hoping he took less care over it.’
Levert shook his head. ‘We got nothing, Nick.’
Fennimore felt his eyebrows twitch. ‘The seal on the envelope?’
Levert pulled out a chair and sat opposite. ‘Moistened with distilled water.’
‘The brown stain on the flap?’
‘Chicken blood,’ Levert said.
Fennimore experienced a dull thud somewhere deep in his chest. Another taunt. Varley was right – the abductor planted the blood, just as he’d planted Julia Myers’s DNA on the other envelope.
‘We ran all the fingerprints – partials, the lot – through IDENT1,’ Levert said. ‘No matches. No indented writing on the envelope or paper. No fibres, no hairs, no mould spores.’ He paused, giving Fennimore a moment to digest this.
‘So the mould spores must be in the environment where the abductor is holding Julia Myers and her little girl.’
Levert inclined his head.
‘What do we have on the spores?’
‘A mixture of aspergillus and some kind of rust,’ Levert said. ‘We’re culturing them so the mycologist can give us a better identification, but it all takes time.’ He glanced out of the window after another rumble of thunder. ‘And by then it could be too late for the little girl.’
Fennimore stared at the older man’s profile. ‘You mean the girl and her mother.’
Levert’s eyes snapped to him and Fennimore felt a second thud. ‘Julia Myers is dead?’
‘You didn’t know?’ Levert said. ‘I thought that was why you were here. Nick, they found her body two hours ago.’
‘There was nothing on the radio news,’ Fennimore said, his voice sounding hollow to his own ears.
‘The police are keeping it quiet till we’ve gathered what evidence we can from the scene.’ He jerked his chin towards the window. ‘But this isn’t helping.’
Fennimore stared glumly at the storm raging outside, and imagined fibres, fingerprints, biological trace floating in muddy rivulets away from the body.
He checked his phone. There were four messages from Kate Simms. He speed-dialled her number and launched straight in: ‘I hear our man’s been busy.’
‘Did you pick up my messages?’ she said.
The question seemed like an evasion and her voice sounded tight.
‘I’ve been driving. I called you as soon as I heard.’
‘Where are you now?’ she asked.
‘On my way back to Scotland – I’ve been down in the south-east today, gathering evidence for the Mitchell case review.’
‘Are you driving?’
‘No. Look, Kate – what was the message?’
‘The mother – Julia …’ she said, and again he had the sense that she was hedging – delaying what she had to tell him.
‘Just say it, Kate.’
She took a breath. ‘Julia was found in a pool on marshland near Rivington Reservoir.’
Fennimore saw a flash of Rachel, his wife. A crime-scene photo – her body pale and bloated, draped in pond weed at the edge of a marsh pond. Five years ago – nearly six – but it still had the power to knock the wind out of him.
‘Nick, are you all right?’
‘Why wasn’t I told?’ His voice sounded thick to him.
She hesitated. ‘You haven’t heard from your FLO?’
The investigation into Rachel’s murder and Suzie’s disappearance was still open: Fennimore should have heard from his family liaison officer. Any discovery that bore even a passing resemblance to the case would qualify for an update.
He checked his notifications again; the only messages were from Kate. ‘I haven’t heard from anyone since I sent in the first letter,’ he said, tasting bitterness at the back of his throat. ‘Were they waiting for me to hear about it from some journo wanting a reaction quote?’
She didn’t answer.
‘Who’s the pathologist?’ he asked, damping down his temper.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘And even if I did, I wouldn’t say. This is not my case, Nick. There are protocols – you know I can’t go poking about in a case I’m not assigned to.’
He knew it all right. Helping him to meddle in the investigation into Rachel and Suzie’s disappearance had stalled Kate Simms’s career for four years. But he needed that information. So he forced himself to relax his shoulders, and caught Levert’s eye. He even managed a smile.
‘Great,’ he said. ‘Thanks, Kate, I appreciate it.’
‘Nick, what are you
up to?’ Simms demanded. ‘Is someone there with you?’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘It’s good to know she’s in capable hands.’
‘Nick, I’m telling you—’
He cut her off mid-warning and slid the phone into his suit pocket. ‘So …’ he said, turning his full attention to Levert.
‘She told you Cooper’s doing the post-mortem?’ Levert said.
Fennimore tilted his head, not wanting to tell an outright lie.
‘He’s a good man,’ Levert added. ‘Thorough.’
‘Yes,’ Fennimore said. ‘Yes, he is.’
20
Oldham, Near Manchester, Tuesday
Kate Simms pulled into the staff car park of the Royal Oldham Hospital mortuary at five-thirty. She had visited the place before, but even if she had been new to it, she would have known the building’s purpose from its generic design: mudcoloured brick and high windows, the white concrete stack of its incinerator chimney a grim indication of the work that went on behind the discreet façade.
She backed into a parking space so she could keep an eye on the roadway and turned on the radio to pass the time while she waited. A drive-time show was playing listeners’ requests – oldies, mostly. REM’s ‘Losing My Religion’ had just segued into Billy Joel’s ‘River of Dreams’ when a grey Audi sport swung in off the road with Fennimore behind the wheel. He drove nose-in to the chain-link fence and she strolled over while he was gathering his belongings from the passenger seat. As he reached to open his door, she slapped her police ID on the side window.
He was startled, but only for a second, then he smiled sheepishly and buzzed the window down. ‘Are you going to arrest me?’
‘I damn well ought to.’
‘I’m just dropping in on an old friend,’ he said.
‘Don’t lie to me, Nick.’
His eyebrows twitched. ‘How about you? You said you didn’t know who was performing the post-mortem.’
‘I didn’t need to,’ Simms said. ‘All forensic PMs in Greater Manchester are done here. All I had to do was drive over and wait.’
Truth Will Out Page 10
