Doors Without Numbers

by C. D. Neill

  The suspected crime scene was a hive of activity. With the area now sealed, a thorough search of the area could begin. DS Dunn was stooping within the cramped space of the tent. There were whitened flood lights erected inside on both sides of the shallow grave. From outside, Hammond saw her slim silhouette against the tent sides as she watched the pathologist closely, impatient for information. The pathologist, Dr Ed Henderson was well known to them both, having worked with him numerous times before Hammond knew him as very thorough. Henderson was arrogant and not one to care about making a good impression of himself but he was well respected as being one of the most efficient contributors to the Kent Police. Henderson ignored Dunn but continued looking over the body in silence. It took a few minutes before he stood up, gesturing for Hammond to approach.

  “Male Caucasian, I estimate 50 plus years of age. There were a set of keys but no identification or wallet in his pockets. It looks like repeated blunt force trauma to the upper body, but I need to take x-rays. I will let you know for sure after the autopsy. There are several wounds to the arm, here...” He bent down and pointed with a gloved finger at a bruise on the body’s left arm where a sleeve had ridden up above the wrist. “...there are also wounds to the thigh; I need to turn the body over to get a look at the face. Can I get some more light down here?”

  The pathologist shouted to a crime scene officer who hastily offered Henderson a small black case. With apparent impatience, Henderson made a performance of dragging the case to the side of the hole, and opened the case withdrawing a torch, a coloured lens and a pair of goggles. He motioned for Hammond to do the same, completely ignoring Dunn who leant across the pathologist and helped herself to goggles from the case. The ultra violet glare from the torch was directed on the contents of the shallow grave. “There is blood loss but it is unlikely he bled to death, there is not enough here.”

  Henderson signalled for his assistant to approach closer and pointed to areas that needed photographing.

  Hammond turned to Dunn. “We need to trace where each path leads. If the victim was here when he was attacked, we need to understand why he was off the main path. There is nothing here to see, unless he was trying to take a short cut across the field.”

  Dunn shook her head. “That wouldn’t make sense; the barbed wire would have been too much of an inconvenience when there is another path that goes along the edge of the field anyway. If he was trying to take a short cut, this wouldn’t be the place.”

  Hammond turned to Ed Henderson. “Has the white light picked out any footprints?”

  Henderson looked up at Hammond; he was now standing with one foot wedged against the body in the recess, balancing his weight on the other leg which was positioned on the upper level as he took the body’s temperature.

  “There were a few traces of prints, but no complete shoe prints that we can determine. The rain hasn’t helped, any DNA evidence will have degraded from the earlier frost and subsequent thaw. The leaves have been disturbed since he has been down there. There are more animal prints, other than the dog that made the discovery this morning, probably foxes.”

  “Can you tell if the body was moved?”

  “There are no drag marks, and nothing to suggest he was brought here any other way other than walking here. We’ll compare the soil samples taken here with the soil on the shoes later just in case. There’s some soil in his nostrils which suggests he was breathing whilst he lay here so it is likely the death occurred in the spot where he fell.”

  “He fell? So it may not be foul play?”

  Hammond had automatically presumed that the death was the result of an attack. The absence of a wallet suggested a motive of robbery. But now he realised that the torn clothes and blood could have been due to foxes post mortem.

  “I won’t give you a definite answer, not until I can get the body back for a thorough examination, but I will hazard a guess that this is due to foul play or at least misadventure with another person.”

  Hammond looked at him with anticipation. “Really?”

  “There are traces of semen on his hands”.

  “So you think maybe the death was accidental, that a sex game went wrong, and his lover panicked and dug a grave?”

  If someone had dug the cavity as a grave, they did so quickly and without attention. It wasn’t deep enough to conceal a human corpse, being no deeper than two feet deep. If it had happened spontaneously, it was unlikely they had anything to dig with. The only tools being branches to loosen the soil and their hands to scoop out the debris. This would be too time consuming and too risky. Although the site couldn’t be seen from the main path, it wasn’t far enough from it to be completely hidden, especially if someone wanted to avoid the mud and walk up the bank.

  “I can’t answer those questions; that is your job. I can only tell you what I find on the body. The hole was undoubtedly already here, there are no fresh soil mounds to suggest it has been recently dug. (Other than where the dog was this morning).”

  He tutted and pointed to claw marks that burrowed into the depth of the depression towards the underside of the body. “There is too much insect activity beneath him from what I can tell so it is likely he fell into the hole following a surprise attack.”

  Hammond thanked him, he knew it was pointless to ask for a time of death at this stage of investigation but wanted an estimate. “Can you give a time of death?”

  Hammond was surprised to see Ed Henderson smile.

  “There’s fixed lividity on the right side of the body and full rigor mortis...”

  Henderson’s eyes appraised the body in front of him. “The bad weather would have affected the decomposition rate and the temperature of the body but I would guess between twenty to thirty hours ago. Any longer than that and the muscles would have returned to their flaccid state, which isn’t apparent here yet. I am not going to give a definite report at this stage. You have an idea to help you start enquiries but be patient. I will call you when I have the full picture.”

  The watch on Hammond’s wrist showed it was now 8am Tuesday, which would mean that the victim had been attacked any time between 2am on Sunday morning and lunchtime on Monday. It had rained heavily throughout the night on Sunday, but had been dry earlier throughout the day. Typical for mid November, it got dark around 4.30pm, an hour later and it would be virtually impossible to see anything in the woods. It would certainly be too dark to attempt to hide a body leaving no trace. It would be too risky, there was a chance that if something had fallen from a pocket of the attacker, or if they had accidently left something behind, there would be no way of reclaiming it at that time. If there had been a meeting in the woods between the victim and a friend, it was logical to assume that it would have occurred during the day of Sunday or Monday morning in daylight. Hammond looked to see if Henderson could give any further clue but Henderson had already turned his back on him and continued his examination. Hammond was dismissed.

  Back at the police station, a meeting with the investigative team was scheduled for early evening. It was more practical to use the station rather than set up an incident room in Saltwood since it was so close. Hammond wanted to give SOCO every opportunity to collect evidence from the scene before the briefing later. The autopsy would take longer but he hoped there would be enough information from the external examination back at the morgue to start the investigation. In the meantime, He wanted to look at the file on Mark Callum and find out as much information about the suicide as he could. The computer database could not promise to offer Hammond any more information than he had already, but Hammond could not take it for granted that Harris had been correct in his assumptions. Harris had behaved oddly, Hammond surmised. The man he had met at the Golf Club had seemed confused and erratic in his thinking. It was more than possible that Harris had seen a connection that wasn’t there, but Hammond owed his former colleague the benefit of the doubt. He unfolded the paper that Harris had handed him the day before. The paper was small, but heavily marked with line
s and crosses against a list of names. Harris counted five in total. This wasn’t much to go on, but it was a start. Of course, Hammond mused, it may be awkward explaining why he wanted to investigate a suicide that was not local to him; after all, the suicide of Mark Callum had occurred nearly four months ago. The inquest had confirmed the manner of death so as far as the police were concerned, it was a closed case. Hammond sighed and hoped, rather ashamedly, that Lloyd Harris was simply being paranoid.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The coffee handed to him was tepid warm but Hammond sipped it appreciatively. He had spent an hour at the Ashford Police Station looking at the file in front of him. The photographs of Mark Callum’s body were detailed and the investigation had been thorough. Hammond knew that a death caused by suffocation would always be treated as suspicious until proven otherwise and the investigating team had left no stone unturned. Mark Callum had been found slumped against a wall. The bag over his head was a strong, clear plastic, like the type wrapped around home delivery parcels. The parcel tape which had been around his neck was excessive. From the photographs it looked like a whole roll had been used with the empty cardboard inner roll left still attached. Hammond considered that a roll of tape usually measured 10 meters. As there had been no tape left elsewhere, it appeared that all of it had been used. This fact alone added credibility that the act of wrapping the tape over the opening of the bag was a sincere attempt to make the seal impenetrable. At the same time, it also added doubt that there would have been enough air to have lasted the several minutes it would have taken to have wound this amount of tape repeatedly.

  The photographs showing the apartment were a surprise to Hammond. It was clean and tidy, which was rather uncommon for a man living alone (if Paul and his male friends were anything to go by) but what was so significant was the lack of personality in the room. There was nothing to show who Mark Callum had been. Hammond viewed the map of the apartment drawn up by the scene officers whom had placed a red X in the position where the body had been found. The apartment consisted of a kitchen, a bathroom with a toilet, basin and a small bath and the bedroom. There were only two windows in the flat which explained the dingy light shown in the photographs. One was above the bed in the bedroom in line with the front door. The galley kitchen had a small rectangular window above the sink. A fridge and a small cooker were the only items of furniture in the room with a bare white veneered counter-top. Hammond considered the items in his own kitchen. There were the cooking books that Lyn had left him, stacked up under the boiler (still unread), several tea towels hanging over the oven door, coasters of various shapes and sizes. He remembered that an odd pair of socks were still waiting to be re-homed from their place on the radiator. He had accumulated several magnets over the years and automatically put them on the fridge door, they had no use other to secure the loose postcards he would occasionally receive. The kitchen in the photograph was a stark contrast to his own living conditions. It had no clutter at all. It was bare in all the rooms. The bedroom housed a single bed with a duvet covered in a plain beige sheet and a pillow encased in a matching plain pillow-case. A three drawer chest and a wooden chair in the corner were the only furniture. All rooms were devoid of pictures. There were no posters, no photographs, not even a pin board. Light bulbs hang from the ceiling uncovered. Judging from the photographs Hammond was viewing, Mark Callum hadn’t been alive even when his heart had been beating.

  He read the pathologist report several times. Dr Karen Leyland had confirmed the cause of death using the evidence of high levels of carbon dioxide in the blood and bloodshot eyes. Hammond peered closer at the autopsy photograph of Callum’s neck. There were traces of glue residue from the tape and tracks where the tape had been wound so tight, but there were no finger nail marks or anything to suggest an attempt to remove the tape in a last minute panic.

  Hammond leafed through the photographs, taken at different angles of the body. On one photograph, showing the back of Callum, a small scar was visible on the left shoulder-blade. Rulers beside and underneath the scar showed it measured four centimetres across and three centimetres in depth. Although the camera had taken a good clear photograph of the scar, Hammond found himself peering closer to the photograph. The scar was bright pink and looked like a bubble. It had a shape to it, as if it had grown outwards from the centre of the shoulder blade. It would have been noticeable if Callum had been shirtless. In her report Dr Leyland had described the raised area of scar tissue as a hypertrophic scar. A name Hammond had been unaware of until now. She had hypothesised in the report that Callum had sustained an injury to the shoulder blade during childhood that had caused an overgrowth of fibrous tissue.

  Footprints of a man’s shoe found at the scene had been identified as belonging to the delivery man who had raised the alarm. Hammond read the witness account. The Courier’s name was Brad Kelsey, aged 57 years. His story had been checked by the investigative team who confirmed Kelsey’s story. He had been employed by Parcel Force for the last eighteen months. Kelsey had been delegated to deliver a parcel to Callum’s neighbours. The neighbours had been away and therefore he had used his common sense to leave the parcel with Callum. He had sworn in his statement that Callum’s door had been open which was why he had ventured inside. It was luck that Callum had been found when he did, mere coincidence.

  Hammond looked again at the scene photos. Callum had died seated on the floor with legs outstretched, his back leaning against a plain wall, his hands resting with open palms beside him. The skin was devoid of any scratches or defence marks. There wasn’t even a graze on the bag to suggest he had attempted to rip open the plastic covering that enveloped his head. Hammond looked over the report numerous times, flicking from one account to another. There had been no foreign fibres found anywhere on the body, the only foreign evidence found in the apartment was a hairbrush found in a drawer with Salima Abitboul’s passport. Hammond already knew from his conversation with Harris that the hairs found on the brush were Salima’s. He leafed through the pages looking for more information on this but found nothing so instead he returned to the original report. The door to Callum’s apartment had been left ajar, which was certainly unusual but perhaps only attributed to Callum’s certainty that he wouldn’t have visitors. No other fingerprints other than the deceased, the delivery man Kelsey and paramedics had been found in the apartment. This corresponded to the neighbour’s accounts that Callum had lived as a recluse. Forensic graphology had compared samples of Mark Callum’s writing with the suicide note found tucked into his sock and confirmed he had written the note with his own hand. Hammond looked at the photograph of the note; “I have to kill myself before someone else does it for me.” The words had been written in blue biro, the writing was small but done with a steady hand. Hammond sipped his coffee that was now cold. Although the note suggested Mark Callum had been threatened in some way, he could understand why the verdict of suicide had been reached. There was no other evidence to suggest anything sinister in the cause of Callum’s death, only the idea that he had been persuaded to take his own life. That would hint toward murder but it could also be a paranoid interpretation. In his experience, no crime was committed without leaving a trace of guilt. If someone had forced Callum to kill himself, surely they would watch him do it or at least stay close to ensure Callum carried out their instructions. And, if they did, there would be some evidence of their presence at the scene. There would be something, however small, that could correlate the death with someone else’s involvement. Hammond considered for a moment that if anyone was forced to take their own life against their will, there would instinctively be rages within them, fighting against the other’s will. Surely Callum would have shouted out, done something to point guilt at the assailant, even made a mark on his body to show that his death had been forced. But there was nothing on Callum’s body, nothing in his flat to suggest he had had unwanted interaction with anyone else.

  Detectives had attempted to substantiate the note’s content
s by investigating possibilities of someone else being at the flat at the time of his death, they had interviewed neighbours asking if they had ever seen Callum with anyone within the apartment blocks or elsewhere or if anyone had been seen exiting Callum’s apartment. No-one had. Hammond eventually admitted defeat with a sigh. In this case, he could find nothing to authenticate Harris’s suspicion.

  Hammond picked up his empty cup and returned the file to the officer at a nearby desk. At his request, a copy of a photograph of Mark Callum was produced. It was unfortunate that the only photographs they had of Callum were taken post-mortem but it could help with identification later if necessary. The officer smiled at Hammond, and this polite response to his presence encouraged Hammond to speak aloud his curiosity. “Who investigated the suicide of Mark Callum?”

  The officer pointed to the file, just returned to him. “Their names are in the report Sir.”

  “Yes, I know, but I meant are they here? I wouldn’t recognise them.”

  He was directed to a young woman seated at a desk, tentatively tapping at a computer keyboard as if she were intimidated by the technology. She looked at him as he approached and smiled shyly. He introduced himself. “I understand you were part of the investigative team that looked into a suicide a few months ago?”

  “I didn’t investigate as such; my partner and I were first on the scene.”

  She identified herself as WPC Manvell. Hammond was familiar with her name as he had read her report only an hour earlier, but he proceeded with his questions regardless.

  “I’ve seen the photographs and read the reports but I am curious what your personal reaction was when you first arrived.” Hammond was aware his question was unorthodox but he was sensitive to his ex-wife’s belief that every room had a story to tell. He had laughed at her when she had said it, but he had since understood what she had meant. Every building had a memory, as if the walls retained energy. He had first felt this when he had entered a house, seemingly normal from the outside, but upon entering, he had inexplicably felt frightened, like a child scared of the dark. He hoped that WPC Manvell would have had the same feeling if something had been amiss.