by Carole Pitt
Patterson came to the rescue. 'You go.' He turned to Eldridge. 'I'll call in a few uniforms and we'll search the immediate area.'
'One thing,' Daly said. 'I don't like this tense atmosphere so I suggest before this investigation gets underway, you three sort it out. We've been in the new place less than a month. I know it's not been an easy change but we'll have to get used to the idea. Since we moved I feel like I'm working in a bloody massive goldfish bowl and most mornings when I leave the house I want to head back to Park Road.'
'I'm leaving now,' Elizabeth said, tempted to tell him she felt the same.
When she reached the road Carstairs was crossing the road. He didn't notice her as she slid into the driver's seat. She watched as he walked in the opposite direction. She wondered whether to follow him but then she'd never get home and her priority was not to let Dean down. She turned away for a second to get her keys and when she looked up, Carstairs had disappeared.
CHAPTER FIVE
Sunday March 16th 10am.
The radio woke Elizabeth and when she opened her eyes was grateful for no signs of a hangover. By rights, she should at least have had a headache thanks to the bottle of red wine she'd polished off. In fact, the evening turned out well. Fate had intervened and prevented her from cooking the long awaited Chinese meal, so when Dean had arrived and she'd explained her predicament he immediately phoned the best Cantonese restaurant in Cheltenham and booked a table for six.
Afterwards they had ended up at Gray's club and stayed until one o'clock in the morning. Dean had persuaded her to dance, something she hadn't done since David had taken her to a posh do at the Queens Hotel almost two years ago. The hour or so of dancing had loosened her up, eased the tension out of her body and calmed her mind. She turned over, stretched and realised Dean wasn't there. She felt almost languid as she watched the curtains billow out into the room, the warm breeze brushing her bare arms. Downstairs she could hear him moving around in the kitchen and she hoped he would give Bagpuss his breakfast. Elizabeth didn't want to get out of bed and wished Dean was still lying beside her. Then she remembered he had to get back to the pub as they were catering for a fortieth wedding anniversary that afternoon and into the evening. Suddenly she realised she'd promised Daly she’d get into work early. Just as she was about to take a shower, Dean sidled through the door carrying a tray.
'I thought you might need a fry up, plenty of calories to absorb the alcohol.’
Elizabeth smiled. 'You are the only man who has regularly brought me breakfast in bed.'
'That's because I believe in starting the day on the right note.'
He placed the tray on her knees and kissed her on the forehead. 'I've got to get going. We've got approximately a hundred guests arriving about three o'clock.'
'I'll be right in the shit. Daly was expecting me in early. Grayson should have completed the post mortem by now.'
Dean checked his appearance in the mirror. 'Try not to antagonise him; it doesn't do you any good. If you finish early, come and help me at the party. About thirty of the guests are staying, including the happy couple. There's plenty to do and I'd like to spend today with you, we get little enough time together.'
'What you have to remember is the onset of any investigation is fraught with difficulties.'
Dean sat on the bed and pulled her closer. 'I do understand. When we first got together, we had plenty of discussions about our jobs and time management. It's not ideal, but what I don't want to happen is for you to get so stressed our time together suffers.'
Elizabeth dragged herself out of bed and opened the wardrobe door. 'I need to go shopping. My clothes situation is deplorable.'
'I'll take a day off later on in the week and drive you to London. What about staying overnight, we could go to show.'
'I'd like nothing more,' Elizabeth said. 'But I have to see how the land lies. Daly will have to fit if I announce I want a day off.'
'Friday would be a good day for me. So try to keep in his good books until then. I've really got to go now, I'll ring you tonight.'
Once Dean had left, Elizabeth felt mildly depressed. She wondered why she was still suffering mood swings even when Dean was around. No one could be more attentive or caring and she knew she was lucky to have found a man who was prepared to put up with her job. She moved to the window and opened it wider, stretching out her arms to test the temperature. Another warm day forced another dilemma about what to wear. It took her twenty minutes to get ready once she'd chosen her oldest dress, a simple black sleeveless linen shift. As soon as she zipped it up she realised she'd lost weight since last autumn when she'd worn it to a friend's birthday party.
Elizabeth sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to remember when her symptoms first started. Was it before Christmas or after? When had she felt the first discomfort in her joints? She concentrated for a few minutes hoping to pinpoint a specific date, but couldn't. She lifted up her left arm and examined her wrist. The incident in the Chinese shop had not been the first time she'd had a problem lifting heavy objects. Once or twice, the pain had woken her during the night and she'd assumed it was because of her sleeping position. Now this morning she'd felt a slight ache in her right knee. Elizabeth heard a noise and turned around, Bagpuss stood by the door giving her the evil eye.
'What's going on here cat?' She asked him.
Bagpuss meowed and brushed against her bare foot. After she shooed him away she rubbed her ankle and felt an overwhelming urge to scratch it. She wondered if it was an insect bite and when she took her hand away noticed a red bump. In the bathroom cabinet, she found a tube of cream for wasp stings and applied a tiny amount. When she stood up, she felt her ankle give way. It only lasted for a few seconds but the pain was intense. 'This is not normal,' she told Bagpuss and hobbled downstairs to feed him.
It still felt odd turning into Gloucestershire Constabulary's new headquarters. They had waited a long time to move in due to delays with the design and construction of the building. Daly wasn't wrong when he said it was like working in a goldfish bowl. From the outside, it resembled an extremely large and impossibly curved greenhouse. Inside, you needed a GPS system to find your way around and the darkest sunglasses to avoid something akin to snow blindness. There was an air of a very expensive hospital about the reception areas and corridors. Every time she walked through the main entrance, Elizabeth expected to see doctors and nurses waiting to greet her. CID had taken over the fourth floor, closeted away in its ivory tower with panoramic views as far as the Malvern Hills.
Rather than take the lift she climbed the stairs, taking it slowly as her ankle had started to throb. She stopped at the top of the third flight to catch her breath and as she bent to look down, she thought she might faint. A uniformed officer stopped and asked if she was okay.
Elizabeth shook her head. 'Not really, this place feels like an iceberg. Is the air conditioning turned up to maximum, because it certainly feels like it?'
'There's loads of teething troubles still. Last week the heating was belting out for hours on end until someone almost fainted. Why don't you use the lift?'
The last thing Elizabeth wanted to do was get inside a lift, especially ones with glass doors. 'I'll just sit on the stairs until it passes.’
'You're DI Jewell,' the officer said smiling at her.
'I'm sorry. I don't think I've met you before.'
'Colin Jessop, I wasn't at Park Road for long before the move.'
The dizziness was beginning to ease. Elizabeth held onto the handrail and hauled herself up. 'I think I'll grit my teeth and try the lift. I hate the damn things but I'd rather take my chances than fall down these bloody stairs.'
Sergeant Jessop helped her down and pointed to the lift. Fortunately, there were a couple of people waiting so she didn't have to figure out how it worked. When she finally reached the CID suite Daly was reading out the autopsy report to the gathering. She tried to slip into the room quietly but Daly spotted her. Over the past couple of weeks
, she'd noticed he'd had his hair closely cropped. His bald patch had gradually spread, but hadn't seemed so noticeable. This morning it looked as if he'd used a shaver. He wasn't completely bald, but almost. 'There you are. I thought maybe you decided to give us a miss as it was Sunday.'
Sunshine poured into the room and she wished someone would pull down the blinds. 'I'm not feeling so good Sir. If I could just sit here for a while, I'll be alright in a bit.'
Daly put down the sheet of paper he was reading and walked towards her. 'You do look pale. Not another bad hangover?'
Elizabeth could hear the sniggers and wondered why any mention of a hangover seemed to incite hilarity. She felt like mentioning his newly shaved head, but thought better of it. 'Not this time Sir.'
The sniggers turned into full-scale laughter and rather than upset her, it actually made her feel better. 'How is our corpse this morning?’ she asked Daly.
'According to Joe she's proving to be a puzzle. Crime scene failed to find any identification in the culvert or the surrounding area. However, that's not his biggest problem. He can't determine cause of death.'
'If you give me a copy of his initial report I can catch up.'
'Gardiner, print off a copy for DI Jewell,' Daly ordered as he went back to his position.
Elizabeth read the autopsy report quickly to confirm Daly's observations. Not that she doubted Joe Grayson's word but Daly often missed the minute detail. According to Joe's estimation, the victim had been under water between eight and ten weeks. In order to be more specific he was enlisting the aid of an expert in the decomposition of bodies. He had observed the lack of water in her lungs, but that didn't necessarily rule out accidental drowning. Grayson went on to point out he hadn't discovered any major trauma to the body other than from decomposition. He'd examined all the organs and had placed her age between forty and forty-five. He could find no ante mortem injuries or evidence of any surgery. Further observations suggested she had been a very healthy woman prior to her death. Elizabeth was just about to put the report down when she noticed he'd added a postscript. Initially he had presumed she was of Caucasian descent, but after a couple of DNA tests, he'd established Indian and Chinese links in her ancestry.
Daly moved onto another of Grayson's suggestions. With no identification and no reports of a missing person matching their victim, any appeal might be useless. He went on to explain how an anthropologist could attempt to recreate the face in clay taking into account such things as the size of the eye sockets, shape and angle of the nose, width of the mouth, depth and height of cheekbones and other measurements. The statistics were good using this forensic procedure, he told everyone. It had successfully identified victims many times.
'Do you know anyone who can do the facial recon?' Eldridge asked.
'Grayson’s got someone in mind. The process takes quite a while, but I consider this a worthwhile option. This woman has been missing for possibly up to three months. In that period, we haven’t had anyone reported missing who has not subsequently turned up. Darren has checked all UK databases and so far hasn't found a potential match. Most women in her age range have been accounted for, one way or another. It's like our victim never existed.'
Elizabeth thought about the hundreds who went missing every year. Despite charities and other organisations who offered to find these people, some of them never surfaced again. What happened to them all she wondered? Were they too lying buried somewhere, never to be discovered, even by intrepid dog walkers or observant construction workers? She found it immensely sad these human beings remained lost forever. They were born, they lived a life and no doubt had families, yet no one seemed to care.
Daly turned to the interactive board and asked everyone to study the enlarged photographs. 'This is the static mobile home site that was evacuated at the end of January. Thirty-two homes were severely flooded and the owners re-housed in council accommodation in and around Tewksbury. Eldridge has organised a team to interview them. Then he pointed to the second photograph. 'Just under a mile away is this gypsy encampment.'
Elizabeth interrupted. 'That's not quite correct Sir. It's a traveller's site.'
'There's no need to nitpick. In my eyes there's not much difference.'
She expected the others to accuse him of racism, but they didn’t. When she thought about it long enough, Daly's metamorphosis was truly superficial. Inside he was the same black and white character of old.
Daly continued. 'Unfortunately the people living there elected to stay put, so God knows what the conditions are like. They refused help from the social services, even though there are several small children amongst them. The paddock belongs to Roxbury Farm, no longer a working farm I add and owned by Lillian and Calvin Fowler. I spoke to Mrs Fowler earlier; she explained she is currently fighting a battle with the council to have these illegal campers evicted. She's also upgrading access to the farm to enable the bailiffs to do their job. As of this morning, she will have finished constructing a makeshift road using rolls of chicken wire and tons of straw. Liz, I want you, Patterson and Gardiner to head over there straight away before the buggers get wind of us coming and try to shore up their defences. From the reports I read there are a few undesirables amongst them.'
Katie Gardiner stood up. 'Sir, I've had some experience with travellers. I worked with a heritage site eight years ago where there was a similar problem.'
'I'm sure that hands on approach will come in very handy Gardiner, we don't want to alienate them just yet.'
Elizabeth said. 'You say undesirables but do we know if any of the gypsies, as you call them, have a criminal record?'
Daly was gathering up his bits of paper. ‘There are only so many hours in the day Jewell. I suggest you sort out those details first thing tomorrow. It might be a good idea to have that specific information on your person before you visit these people. Standard police procedure, in case you’ve all forgotten what that means.'
CHAPTER SIX
I didn't want to come back, but in the end, I did. At first, the place appeared the same, but of course, that wasn't possible. The passage of time had changed everything.
The subtle alterations to the landscape seemed wrong at first. Was my initial observation tainted by a twisted perspective or had nature made the tiny adjustments to deliberately deceive the eye? Sometimes it’s difficult to remember every detail.
When the questions begin, who will ask and who will answer?
I'm finished here now that the others have gone. They have left behind an atmosphere filled with speculation and distrust. It's not surprising, as they are all prisoners of a greater power, the one they call justice.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Monday 17th March
Elizabeth instructed Patterson and Gardiner to search criminal records while she accessed as much information on the history of the traveller's site at Roxbury Farm. She discovered that every previous owner had tried to get rid of them.
It had begun in nineteen eighty-two, when a couple of young hippies by the name of Deena and Joel Walker bought the run-down farmhouse and twenty acres for five thousand pounds. The house was in fact almost derelict and not been farmed for almost a decade due to an ailing recluse who had refused all offers of help. After he died, the place stood empty for almost two years until the Walker's and their three young children passed through the area and saw the for sale sign.
Elizabeth was surprised that such a property could fall into ruin as quickly, during a period of relative prosperity. Those days you could buy a modest house for a lot less than she had paid for her second-hand Saab.
The Walkers were the topic of much speculation by the curious inhabitants of the nearest village. According to a newspaper report about them and the enduring hippie culture a journalist had asked why they'd decided to settle down. Their answer was simple. After travelling the South West of England and living in various communes, they wanted a more stable life for their children. Nothing was further from the truth, by late September the first
caravans and camper vans began parking in the paddock, a short walk from the house. Their guests arrived late at night or in the early hours and almost always disturbed the nearest neighbours. This anti-social behaviour spawned the first complaints to the council, of which there were many. Over the following months, the Walkers did little to improve the property and the constant arrivals and departures resulted in mountains of rubbish, which in turn caused insanitary conditions. The council, now under pressure had no choice but to tackle the problem. When they eventually launched legal proceedings, Joel Walker's response was that they were within their rights to invite as many of their extended family on to their land as they liked. After the social services discovered the children weren't attending school, they used that as a lever to help with the eviction process. The discord raged for years with neither side prepared to capitulate. Each time the council secured an eviction order for the campsite, the couple hired a solicitor who counteracted it. Then in June of nineteen eighty-four, the family suddenly appeared to have upped and left without any warning.
Elizabeth sat for a while, digesting what she had read then pulled up the initial police report into the investigation of their disappearance. She noted that other files pertaining to the case were currently unavailable, which seemed unusual
The first enquiries focused on the couple's finances to determine whether they had left due to mounting financial problems. Their bank had confirmed there were no irregularities and had never once fallen behind with their mortgage. The police took the house apart and dug up the surrounding land certain they were the victims of a heinous crime. Most of the travellers remained on the site after the family disappeared and the police targeted two of them, both known to abuse drugs and did their best to get them to confess. Over the months, Gloucestershire CID made several arrests and subjected the individuals to intense interrogations, to no avail.
