Born in a Burial Gown

by Mike Craven

  ‘Same as me so far.’

  ‘But she wakes up and knows what’s happened. Reports it. There’s DNA evidence and traces of the Rohypnol still in her blood. The rapist finds out and panics. They track her down and kill her. Might have been the rapist, might have been a team effort. But one of them bastards did it.’

  Fluke agreed entirely. He’d keep his mind open until they had more but he couldn’t really see any other explanation at present. ‘Works for me. I think she came back home to hide from someone. Can’t see any other reason for the cosmetic surgery. Might have been here a few weeks, might have been a year. But she was hiding. And then she runs into a Diamond and she has a whole new set of problems.’

  ‘You want a hard arrest?’

  Fluke considered it. Towler’s hard arrests were something to witness. Professional Standards had investigated him three times over them but they were all above board. Sort of. All three of them had involved child sex offenders, all the victims the same age as Towler’s daughter. Fluke thought they’d got off lightly. ‘No, but I want it coordinated. We’ll do it by the rules, but we go in early and fast. Take them all in before they can warn each other,’ he said.

  ‘We won’t get them all. We don’t know who they all are. They’re like a virus. Spread all over the fucking city. Best we can do is get as many as we can, take their DNA and then sweat them for the rest if our man’s not in the first trawl. Longy’s got some new genogram software he wants try out. He’ll plot out their family tree as we go along. Make sure we don’t miss anyone.’

  ‘Shit, Longy. How’s he getting on? I’ve forgotten about him. My phone was switched off after I’d been to the hospital,’ Fluke said.

  ‘He’s still got her. Says he wants to speak to you. Thinks she’s surveillance-aware. Illogical routes, doubling back, the works. Her face isn’t on camera, not really. Only long shots, where she has no control. She’s on foot though, which is making it easier.’

  ‘But he’s still following her?’

  ‘Yeah. He’s had to change systems a few times and commandeer a couple of private ones. Thought he’d lost her down by the station but one of the takeaways on the Crescent had an outward-facing camera. They’d had some bother with racists and were scared of getting their windows put through. Anyway, it picked her up heading towards the viaduct.’

  ‘Tell him this is a no-go-home situation. Anything he wants. All overtime. I need an address,’ Fluke said.

  Towler rang off just as Fluke pulled into HQ. Dark skies, light rain turning heavy. A cold wind grumbling its way down from the fells. Fluke was hungry and he was tired.

  He’d never felt more alive.

  Chapter 19

  Fluke visited Jiao-long and caught up with the passive data investigation. To be fair, Jiao-long hadn’t seemed to notice the hours he’d put in. He was another one who would keep going until the job was done. Fluke’s apology for not checking in on him was wasted. He confirmed what Towler had told him. The victim seemed to be surveillance-aware and he’d nearly lost her a couple of times but the city simply had too many cameras and Jiao-long knew them all. It annoyed him that he had to ask to commandeer private CCTV sometimes but his winning personality normally got him through the door.

  Jiao-long made him laugh sometimes. The only real culture clash they’d had since he arrived was over the rights of the public. He couldn’t get his head round the fact that people weren’t legally obliged to help the police. He couldn’t get his head round criminals getting free legal, and more importantly, independent advice. He couldn’t believe the UK police had so few rights. Fluke got the impression that in China, being a policeman was a little different. He also got the impression most of FMIT envied Jiao-long.

  DC Kay Edwards from Carlisle CID was waiting for Fluke in his office. A woman whose age he wouldn’t be able to get within ten years of. One of those women whose hair had turned grey before she probably wanted it to but she still managed to look youthful. Probably never occurred to her to dye it. Good for her. Coppers, male and female, who were too bothered about their looks got on his nerves. It was an outside job predominantly. Save the make-up and the highlights for your nights off.

  She stood up as he entered and reached for his offered hand with a smile that showed confidence but not cockiness. Her handshake was warm, dry and firm. He liked her immediately.

  ‘DC Edwards. May I call you Kay?’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  ‘You’ve heard what we have so far?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘It looks like you’re one of the last people to have seen her alive. What can you tell me I don’t already know? Half an hour ago I didn’t know her name. Now I have a name and a suspect,’ he said.

  Edwards took out a notebook but spoke without referring to it. Good, if you couldn’t be bothered to memorise facts before a briefing then you weren’t a proper cop as far as he was concerned.

  ‘On paper it seemed fairly straightforward, sir. She says she went out for a quiet drink last Thursday. Wasn’t meeting anyone but was sick of being on her own. She can’t remember anything at all about the night. Doesn’t even remember leaving home.’

  ‘Did she say home or flat?’ Fluke asked. Little details, he thought. Good detectives had an eye for them. Little details solved crimes. For the first time, she looked through her notes.

  ‘Flat, sir. She said, and I quote, “I had no recollection of leaving my flat.” Is that important?’

  ‘It may be,’ Fluke said. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Next thing she knew, she was waking up in her bed with no idea how she got there. Said her vagina was sore. Knew straightway she’d been raped. Walked into Durranhill first thing Friday and reported it. I was on duty. Just going off actually, but I’ve been trained to work with victims of sexual assaults.’

  Durranhill was Carlisle Area’s headquarters. It was on an industrial estate and some of the firms might have cameras that would help Jiao-long. He made a mental note to let him know. ‘Had she been assaulted?’ he asked. ‘Apart from sexually,’ he added quickly.

  ‘Didn’t look like it. Me and a colleague took her straight to the SARC in Preston.’

  Sexual assault referral centres were fairly new concepts and all Cumbrians went to Preston. They were basically one stop shops where victims could access everything they might need but where a forensic chain of custody was in operation at all times for any subsequent prosecution. Doctors, nurses, counsellors all worked from the SARC and it was open twenty-four hours a day.

  ‘And she was examined there?’

  ‘Yes, sir. The doctor confirmed she’d had sex recently, there was slight tearing in the vagina and the swab for semen was positive. There were foreign hairs recovered from her pubic hair and she had skin under her nails. It’s possible she’d scratched her attacker. Something to look out for anyway.’

  She looked at him for affirmation. Fluke nodded for her to continue.

  ‘The doctor took bloods and they came back this afternoon. Same time as the DNA hit, as it happens.’

  ‘Why take blood? Is that routine?’

  ‘It is, sir. They have to test for STDs and HIV. It’s a victim’s number one fear after a rape. That, and pregnancy. With date rapes being so common, and her saying she had no recollection, they screened her for all the common drugs. Came back positive for flunitrazepam.’

  ‘Rohypnol?’

  ‘Rohypnol’s a trade name for flunitrazepam, sir. They aren’t the only manufacturer.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ Fluke said. Most officers, himself included, used Rohypnol as a generic name the same way people used Hoover to describe vacuum cleaners and Sellotape to describe sticky tape, regardless of who made it.

  ‘Anyway, it’s not the best drug to use for date rape. Stays in the system for three days so it’s not used that often anymore. GHB or zolpidem have the same effects as flunitrazepam but stay in the body for just a few hours. Gone by the time the victim wakes up, usually. Makes drug-facilitated
rape much harder to prove.’

  He grimaced. Even rapists were evolving. What type of world was it? No wonder Towler’s sex offenders always seemed to resist arrest. ‘Okay, so we got lucky. We were due something. What else?’

  ‘Obviously, she was terrified. Very upset as you can imagine. Said she came to Cumbria because of the low crime rate. Was the first time she’d been out and this happened. Wouldn’t give me her address and didn’t have to. Rape victims are entitled to anonymity, as you know. Said she’d report to the station as much as we wanted her to. I didn’t want to push it.’

  ‘You check on PNC or DVLA?’

  ‘Wasn’t really supposed to, sir. I’d been asked by the victim to not take down her address.’

  ‘That’s not what I asked,’ Fluke said.

  She paused and Fluke knew that he’d find out what kind of cop she was. Whether she was curious enough to go beyond her statutory responsibilities. There was no such thing as a detective who was too nosey.

  She looked directly at him, gauging what she should tell him. Whether she could trust him. She came to some sort of decision. ‘Nothing, sir. Nothing that fitted anyway. Plenty of Samantha Farrars. Plenty of Sam and Sammy Farrars too. But they’re either too young to be on DVLA or they were too old. Checked for a credit rating but she didn’t have one. Checked every database I have access to. Even checked Facebook, Twitter and a dozen other social media sites. Nothing. Either she gave me the wrong name or she lives off the grid.’

  Fluke said nothing. Living off the grid was virtually impossible in the UK. The only real way of doing it was to have more than one identity.

  ‘Can I speak freely, sir?

  ‘You’re in my part of the building now. Everyone’s allowed an opinion here.’

  ‘Something didn’t quite add up, sir. She was upset, yes. And I’d never put this on paper, but she didn’t seem upset enough. I’ve been to maybe a dozen of these and every reaction’s different obviously so maybe it was just her way of dealing with it.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But there was just something about her, sir. Intangible almost. She was given a leaflet when she arrived explaining what would happen but I didn’t see her read it, and I was with her the whole time. I dunno, there was just something not quite right. Like when you’re watching a film and the sound’s slightly out of sync.’

  Curious.

  It may, of course, be nothing, but he’d learnt to trust people’s instincts. Fluke was impressed with Edwards. Good insight and only once had she needed to check her notebook. Time to bring her inside.

  ‘We’ll keep that in mind, Kay. As you’re going to find out, nothing about this case is straightforward. The first thing you should know is that what she gave you was almost certainly a false name.’

  She looked at him. Expecting more, knowing she’d passed some sort of test but not sure how.

  ‘The second thing you should know is that she’s had extensive cosmetic surgery, all done to drastically change her appearance. Blonde hair dyed brown, coloured contacts. The CCTV that one of my detectives has her on shows she’s surveillance-aware. We have a working theory that she was in hiding, and chose here. It’s also possible she was originally from Carlisle.’ He explained what they knew and what they thought they knew.

  ‘We know who she’s hiding from?’

  ‘Not a clue,’ Fluke said. ‘But if you’re in hiding, you don’t give your real name, no matter what’s happened.’

  ‘Then why give it at all then?’

  ‘Too odd. Raises suspicion. Address, understandable not giving that out, but your name? No, better just to give a false one and hope no one checks. Anything else you can think of?’

  She looked at her notes. She shook her head. ‘Not really, sir. Some of her answers did seem a bit evasive but I wasn’t interrogating her, you understand. I talked to her on the way down in the ambulance. We’re supposed to. Theory is that the more you can get them to talk the less they will dwell on what’s happened. We’re part of the healing process, according to the course instructor. Don’t know if it’s true or not but I’ve never seen any reason not to try. I asked where was she from, what she did, how long she’d been here, that type of thing. Looking back, all I got were superficial answers. No depth to any of them.’

  ‘You think she was telling the truth about the rape?’

  ‘Again, not sure. I think she was raped, definitely. Hard to come to any other conclusion really.’

  ‘Did she ever report back to get an update on the investigation?’ Fluke asked.

  ‘No, sir. I asked her to come in on Monday but I never saw her again. But then again she may have been murdered soon after.’

  ‘Times don’t work,’ Fluke said. We have a TOD we’re happy with, and there’s four days between the rape and the murder. There was no evidence to suggest she’d been abducted. We think this was a hit. In and out, same night. But I think you’re right, there was something she wasn’t telling you.’

  ‘If you say she was in hiding then why did she even go out at all?’

  The same thought had occurred to Fluke. He was in no doubt that Samantha – Fluke would think of her by her first name, it helped remind him the crime involved humans and was more than just an intellectual exercise – had been scared of someone. Surveillance aware, extensive cosmetic surgery, false name, no address. She was doing everything right to stay hidden.

  And then she goes out.

  In a public place. Not to meet someone. Just out, on her own.

  Said she was lonely. Fluke doubted it. Women that scared didn’t get lonely.

  ‘That, Kay, is a detective’s question.’ He thought quickly. He’d have to take over the rape investigation and absorb it into the murder. No point in having the two running parallel. The original team would stay on the rape line of enquiry but he’d need liaison between both. He needed someone working from FMIT who knew the rape.

  ‘I’m going to bring you across to my team for the rest of this investigation, Kay. I’ll clear it with your super. Go back over the night she came in. Speak to the ambulance driver that took her down to Preston. Go to Preston and speak to everyone who saw her there. It’s a murder investigation now, so don’t worry too much about hurting anyone’s feelings. Get as much footage as you can. I want to see if she is as aware of cameras when she’s suffering from trauma. See how controlled she was. I need to know more. Before you go though, read the murder summary. Sergeant Towler will give you a copy.’

  Find out how the victim lived and you’ll find out how they died.

  After Edwards left, Fluke looked for something to eat. When night ops were being planned, there was always plenty of it lying around and he found it in the incident room. Towler was there, in his element. An extension of a military operation, it was something he excelled at. Yelling and organising. Classic sergeant tasks. Military or police, the role never changed. Every officer reporting was given a number and a briefing pack and were told where to be and at what time. As Towler was doing all the briefings himself, they were all at different times. Some officers were therefore able to disappear again for a few hours. Most didn’t, however. The chance of closing off a rape and a murder in one noisy dawn raid was like a caffeine shot.

  There was a contingent of armed response officers standing in a group on their own, dressed in black combats and peaked baseball caps. They would draw their weapons from the armoury later. As a firearm had been used in the murder, each arrest team would have armed response securing the premises.

  The air smelt of fried food and curry. A few years before, it would have been thick with cigarette smoke as well. Things moved on, often for the better, but he didn’t think making people stand outside freezing their bollocks off every time they fancied a ciggy was one of them.

  Phones were ringing and keyboards were clicking. The closer an investigation got to being solved, the faster people typed. The faster they answered the phone. The louder they got.

  He wandered over to see Towler t
o make sure they were both in the group that was taking down Nathaniel Diamond. On paper, he was the most violent, the most likely to resist and Fluke wanted to make sure he was taken down quickly and efficiently. Although not a suspect for the rape, if a Diamond had indeed killed Samantha, then Nathaniel would know who. He may have even authorised it. At the point of arrest, emotions ran high and unguarded comments sometimes slipped out before the suspect had a chance to lawyer up. If they did, Fluke wanted to be there.

  Towler looked up from what he was doing and saw Fluke.

  ‘Be with you in two, boss. Just sorting through this crap. Got one man reported sick this evening so one of the teams is gonna be light.’

  ‘How many we got going out?’ Fluke asked.

  ‘About eighty in total, not including half of every TPT on standby to provide urgent uniformed assistance if we need crowd control. They’ll be in reserve, dotted around the city in vans.’

  Territorial Policing Teams were the bobbies on the beat, but could be drafted in to support operations when extra resources were required. Fluke knew they would have a better knowledge of the city than FMIT did. If things went wrong, their help would be crucial.

  ‘Longy’s not going out, is he? I need him working on her address.’

  ‘No, and you know what he’s like. Kicked up a right stink, wanted to be in on it. Told him you needed him where he was but he wouldn’t have it. Says he’s going to speak to you about it. Told him good luck and, in the meantime, shut up and stop acting like a fucking marine.’

  Fluke smiled, refusing to take the bait. The rivalry between the Royal Marines and the Parachute Regiment was infamous. The Royal Latrines and the Parasite Regiment were the nicknames they bestowed upon each other. In reality, they were both elite units, and there was nothing to choose between them so Fluke always took Towler’s piss-taking in the manner it was given – lightly. He’d never intended to be a career marine, saw it as a job, something he had to get out of his system before he settled down and did something normal.

  Towler, on the other hand, had been serious about being a Para. He’d served most of his time with 1 Para and had been part of Operation Barras, when the Parachute Regiment and SAS had fought the West Side Boys in Sierra Leone before rescuing the five Irish Rangers being held hostage.