by Adam Croft
Number twenty-nine was on the corner at the roundabout where Meadow Hill Lane was bisected by another road, effectively giving the owners an impressive corner plot. The low crime level in the area meant that they tended to leave the side gate into their garden unlocked — something which they were now regretting very much.
Culverhouse glanced his eye over the dead body. It appeared to be a woman in her forties, her legs drawn up, knees splayed and her left arm placed across her chest. It struck Culverhouse as being almost sexual, although Janet Grey had assured Culverhouse that it seemed there was no immediate sign of sexual interference. Her abdomen had been slashed open, but it seemed that the cause of death was the deep laceration to her throat.
Again, a murder seemed to have been carried out within spitting distance of Mildenheath Police Station, which was barely a quarter of a mile further down the road.
‘Looks as if she was attacked while standing,’ Dr Grey said. ‘See the fence there? The blood starts higher up and is smeared down. I’d say she fell or was pushed against the fence and slid down it, smearing the blood.’ The pathologist demonstrated the likely direction of the fall with her hand.
‘And it was the injury to her neck that killed her?’
‘I’d say so. Can’t be certain just yet, but judging by where most of the blood has come from I’d say so.’
‘Any idea who she is?’ Wendy asked, having been briefed by one of the first response officers while Culverhouse was talking to Dr Grey.
‘Lindsay Stott, according to her driving licence,’ the pathologist replied. ‘She lives on James Street.’
Wendy shot a look at Culverhouse. James Street was parallel to Albert Road, where the body of Keira Quinn had been found. Culverhouse looked closely at the driving licence that Dr Grey had just handed him.
‘The constable didn’t say anything about this,’ Wendy said, gesturing at the young officer who she’d been speaking to moments earlier.
‘That’s because he didn’t ask,’ Dr Grey replied. Technically speaking, the constable’s main priority would’ve been to protect and secure the scene while CID and forensics arrived.
Wendy decided to leave Culverhouse to deal with the forensics side of things while she went to speak to the homeowner, a couple in their mid-sixties who were sat in their conservatory, the husband comforting his wife with a mug of sweet tea. The constable had told Wendy that the wife had discovered the body when she went out to empty the kitchen bin that morning and had been inconsolable ever since.
She’d already been told the couple’s names — Dennis and Cheryl Vincent — so she introduced herself and sat at the wicker dining table in their conservatory.
‘I know this must be very distressing for you, Mrs Vincent, but I’m afraid I do need to ask you a few questions.’
‘I told Dennis we should lock the side gate,’ the woman said. ‘Nowhere’s ever completely safe, I told him. I told him.’ Cheryl Vincent broke down in another fit of sobbing.
Wendy placed her hand on the woman’s forearm. ‘If it helps, it wouldn’t have made any difference to what happened. It looks like whoever did this was hell-bent on doing so. Even if you had locked your gate, it would have happened elsewhere. There’s nothing you could have done.’
The woman nodded slowly and gently.
‘It seems the woman’s name is Lindsay Stott,’ Wendy said, looking at both Mr and Mrs Vincent for any sign of recognition. ‘Did you know her at all?’
They both shook their heads, but only Dennis Vincent spoke. ‘No, not that I know of. Should we have?’
‘I wouldn’t have thought so,’ Wendy said, ‘but we need to check anyway. It’s likely that it was just bad luck that it was your side gate that was open, but I’m sure you’ll understand that we need to check every line of enquiry.’
‘Yes. Yes, of course.’
Wendy continued. ‘I’m afraid I need to ask you to go through what happened this morning, Mrs Vincent. I know it’ll be difficult for you but I need you to tell me everything in detail.’
Cheryl Vincent swallowed hard before speaking. ‘I came down into the kitchen and put the kettle on, as I do every morning. I knew the bin needed emptying so I took the bag out and went into the garden to put it in the wheelie bin, which is next to the gate. I don’t think I really noticed at first, but while I was putting the bag in the bin I sort of became aware of this... shape... by the fence at the end of the garden. That’s when I looked more closely and I went over and saw the blood. And her face. The look on her face.’ Cheryl Vincent’s shoulders started to bob up and down as she sobbed in her husband’s arms.
Back in the garden, Culverhouse was being briefed on what else Janet Grey had ascertained about Lindsay Stott’s death.
‘I’d say she definitely died at the scene,’ the pathologist said. ‘Again, it looks as though our killer’s got some anatomical knowledge. The cuts to her abdomen aren’t just random. They’re careful and considered. Almost as if he’d planned in advance what he was going to do. There’s no anger or frenzy that I can see.’
Culverhouse nodded slowly. A frenzied attack would be straightforward enough. Sudden violent crimes always left clues. Carefully planned and considered murders didn’t.
‘Interesting thing is the handkerchief around her neck. Apart from the fact that it’s huge, it seems like it was tied there afterwards. There aren’t any slash marks to the material. We’ll need to do some tests on it, but it’s possible it might have been used as a gag and then pulled down over her neck after she died.’
‘Right. We’ll start looking into her background,’ Culverhouse said. ‘If it’s carefully planned it’s likely to have been someone close to her.’
‘Perhaps,’ Dr Grey said, ‘although I’d be skeptical. Look at this.’ The pathologist lifted up Lindsay Stott’s hand. ‘Looks as though she had some rings on her fingers. You can see here the marks where they were, and it looks like they were tugged off pretty violently. You can see the lacerations and bruising to the fingers.’
‘You’re thinking a robbery?’ Culverhouse asked.
‘It’s your job to join the dots,’ the pathologist replied. ‘I just show you where the dots are.’
18
8th September
By the time Culverhouse had managed to assemble everyone in the incident room for the briefing on Lindsay Stott’s death, they’d already managed to fast-track DNA testing on the handkerchief which had been found wrapped around her neck. The results showed that — unsurprisingly — the blood on the handkerchief matched that of Lindsay Stott, but also that large amounts of saliva on it also belonged to her, indicating that the handkerchief had perhaps been used as a gag or at least inserted into her mouth at some point.
Knowing the identity of Lindsay Stott from the outset had been a bonus. It had allowed them to radio in to the station to have her details run through the Police National Computer. This would show them any details the police had on file for her.
Frank Vine had run the PNC check and was looking pretty proud of what he’d found.
‘No convictions, but a fair few incidents. Four calls to a previous address related to domestic incidents. All involving a Paul Stott, her husband. The last time was just over three years ago, by which time they’d apparently separated and were going through a divorce. The husband had apparently come to pick something up from the house and things had turned violent.’
‘Did they get divorced in the end?’ Culverhouse asked.
‘No idea. Nothing on our records. Would have to check Births, Deaths and Marriages.’
‘Right. Either way, he’s got to be our first suspect.’
‘I wouldn’t say so, guv,’ Frank replied, chuckling to himself. ‘He died a year and a half ago. I thought the same thing as you, so I looked him up. Died in a skiing accident in Saalbach-Hinterglemm in Austria while he was on holiday with his new family.’
‘Blimey. There’s a family that attracts good luck,’ Culverhouse replied.
‘I don’t think
Paul Stott’s new family would have been all that close to Lindsay, guv. Not looking at our records. Apparently she was a heavy drinker. They both were, but it seemed to cause more problems for her. Indications of violence on both sides. He believed she’d been sleeping around and that seemed to cause most of the fights. Looks like one of those couplings that should never have been allowed to happen.’
Culverhouse nodded. He knew exactly the sort of one he meant. ‘So who’s left family-wise?’
‘That’s what I’m trying to find out. Looks like she lived alone, though. According to the electoral register, anyway.’
‘Right. Keep digging,’ Culverhouse said. ‘Luke, Debbie, can you start door-to-door enquiries with the neighbours? Find out if anyone was seen coming or going from her house over the past couple of days. See what you can find out about her work. Steve, I’ll get clearance for a search on her house. See what’s there in terms of payslips or any indication of regular connections. We need to build up a picture of who Lindsay Stott was and what sort of life she lived.’
‘Will you need me in contact with the Vincents, too?’ Debbie asked, knowing the poor unsuspecting couple would need a family liaison officer to help them come to terms with finding a mutilated dead body in their pristine back garden.
‘Yes,’ Culverhouse replied, bluntly. ‘It’s only round the corner from James Street. And from here.’
Before anyone could say anything else, Luke Baxter jumped in. ‘Are we looking at any connection between Lindsay Stott and Keira Quinn, guv?’
Culverhouse sighed. ‘In terms of whether they knew each other? Worth looking into, but where do you begin? But I presume that wasn’t what you meant, was it?’
Luke Baxter simply returned a cheeky smile. Wendy knew that any other superior officer would’ve wiped the smile off his face, but Culverhouse’s infuriating soft spot for Baxter meant otherwise.
Culverhouse continued. ‘There’s nothing at all, concrete or otherwise, to link the two. Absolutely nothing. I don’t even want the possibility mentioned outside of this room and any press enquiries or anyone asking about links, just play dumb. Shouldn’t be too tricky for some of you. But within these four walls? Two single women being killed within ten days of each other and dumped in residential areas? Well, it doesn’t take fucking Einstein to find that a bit weird, does it?’
19
9th September
Wendy could always more or less tell the outcome of a morning briefing before a word had even been spoken. As she walked into the incident room that morning, she could sense an atmosphere of solemn frustration.
The surviving family of Lindsay Stott had been looked into, but other than an aunt in Somerset and a few cousins dotted around the country, Lindsay had no close family. She’d been born in London, her parents both being in their fifties when she was born and both now long dead of natural causes.
The door-to-door enquiries and chats with her neighbours had proved pretty fruitless, too. None of them seemed to have known Lindsay personally other than saying hello over the front wall occasionally, although a couple mentioned that she had a pretty solid routine of leaving her house around six-thirty each evening and coming back between eleven and midnight. It was assumed she had a local pub that she frequented, and Steve Wing had graciously volunteered to visit all of Mildenheath’s pubs in person to see if anyone recognised her.
The local newspapers had, predictably, already been tipped off and would no doubt be running their own stories on the discovery of Lindsay Stott’s body, but the debate now was on whether or not Mildenheath Police should hold a formal press conference.
‘It’d help us find people who might have known her,’ Wendy explained. ‘You don’t live in a town like Mildenheath for long without getting to know and recognise people. The six degrees of separation don’t come into play here. It’s more like two degrees in Mildenheath.’
‘Only problem with that is that we don’t tend to hold a formal press conference every time someone dies. It’ll raise eyebrows,’ Culverhouse replied.
‘We do when we can’t find out enough about the person ourselves. People will just assume we’re looking for more information.’
‘What, barely a week after another body was found? We’ve got nothing on that and we’ve got nothing on this. People’ll automatically assume we’re linking the two.’
‘But we are, aren’t we?’
‘That’s not the point, Knight. If there’s even so much as a sniff of a rumour that we’re looking for a serial killer, there’ll be pandemonium. I’m not risking it.’
‘You’d need three for it to be a serial killer, guv,’ Luke Baxter piped up from the back of the room. ‘This’d just be a double murder.’
Culverhouse stared at Baxter for a few moments. ‘Fuck off, Luke.’
Wendy couldn’t help but let out a snort and a laugh. Culverhouse pretended he hadn’t heard and carried on speaking. ‘The last thing we want to be doing is panicking people. We have enough trouble sorting the wheat from the chaff as it is. I’ll give it another twenty-four hours. See what Steve finds from the local pubs and get all of the records checked and double checked. If we’re really stuck, then perhaps I’ll consider it.’
The sensationalist local media had a nasty habit of blowing stories out of proportion in their clamour to flog exclusives up to the national papers. Culverhouse knew from experience that they could often do far more harm than good by creating their own theories and trying to find a scapegoat, whether that be their own theories as to a suspect or simply blaming the police for incompetence.
Wendy was well aware that handling the media was one of the biggest challenges facing modern policing, particularly now that the line between the media and the general public had blurred. With the advent of smartphones and everyone having a camera and potentially a direct link to worldwide social media in their pockets, a photo of a crime scene and an accompanying theory could be sent all over the world within seconds. The protection and control of sensitive information in the digital age was now a major priority.
Only a few months earlier, Mildenheath Police had been embroiled in a scandal in which a raid on a suspected paedophile’s home had been filmed by a passer-by on a smartphone, only with the added complication that the custody van had been parked a good hundred yards down the road, meaning that the handcuffed suspect had been paraded down the street in full view. By the time the case was later dropped due to insufficient evidence, the man had already seen his face plastered all over social media and had found his property vandalised and his life ruined. Six weeks later he took his own life and the police had come under intense scrutiny as a result.
20
9th September
As DCI Culverhouse blew across the top of his mug of steaming black coffee, the phone rang.
‘Culverhouse,’ he said, barking into the receiver.
‘Ah, Jack. The sun is shining high above the town of Mildenheath this morning, yes?’ came the familiar Spanish lilt of Antonio García.
‘No, it’s fucking raining.’
‘It is? That is a shame. I must tell you, it’s very nice here. I’m walking along the beach as we speak. Must already be twenty-eight degrees.’
‘Well I hope you’re ringing me to tell me you’ve booked me a first-class ticket, otherwise you can fuck off.’
‘No ticket, but some juicy information. Juicier than the juiciest orange in Sevilla. I spoke with all the local municipal police departments in southern Spain and they have no record of your wife. Not under her real name, anyway. It’s possible she used a pseudonym, of course, but if she had been living in Spain for so many years she would have needed to visit a doctor at some point. Or rent a house, or buy a car. Anything which would have needed official papers. If she had spent so many years in Spain her passport would have run out while she was over here, for example. So she would have needed a new one — either a British or Spanish one. The Spanish authorities have no record of issuing a passport. The interesting thing
is that they have no record of her in terms of social security details either. That means she must have gone eight and a half years without visiting a doctor, buying a car, anything.’
‘Could she have used false papers?’ Culverhouse asked.
‘No chance. This isn’t the 1970s any more, Jack. We’re in the EU now. She’d have no more luck using fake papers here than she would in England. To put it simply, if she really has been living in Spain for eight and a half years, there’d be a record.’
‘So what are you saying, Antonio? That you think she’s lying? That she hasn’t been living in Spain all that time?’
‘Jack, it’s not for me to cast aspersions on your good lady wife. I’m just here to give you the facts.’
Culverhouse nodded, more to himself than anything. He’d had his suspicions, but this just seemed to confirm it. He was angry, both at himself and at Helen for lying to him and wasting his time, which could have been used far more effectively right now. ‘Thank you, Antonio. That’s very useful. Tell me, though. How certain are you?’
‘Oh, not certain at all. A police officer can never be completely certain, as you know. There are some very clever people out there. The question you must ask yourself is whether Helen is one of those people.’
That was something Culverhouse had long wondered himself. He said his goodbyes to Antonio and put the phone down. This was one of those times when he felt as though the world was moving much faster than he was. He tended to consider himself pretty adept at keeping one step ahead of the game, but right now he was starting to doubt himself. He had two unsolved murders with absolutely no leads to go on and an ex-wife who was seemingly wrong-footing him at every opportunity. He was a man who often felt isolated in his views and opinions, but now he felt completely alone.
