Lost River bcadf-10

by Stephen Booth

  ‘So did this sort of thing always happen when you lived in Birmingham?’ said Cooper when Fry explained the activity.

  ‘I didn’t live in Birmingham,’ said Fry. ‘I never lived in Birmingham, even when I was at college in Perry Barr, and even when I worked in Aston. I lived in the Black Country, at Warley.’

  ‘Okay. There’s a difference?’

  ‘You bet there’s a difference.’

  ‘I’ll try to remember.’

  ‘And another thing to remember, Ben — now you’re in the city, you can’t just go around being nice to everybody you pass in the street here. They don’t know who you are, and they won’t like it. You’re liable to get yourself killed.’

  ‘Stop being nice? Okay. I’ll try to be more like you, then.’

  Fry thought she’d misheard him. ‘What?’

  But Cooper ignored it.

  ‘So what do you think is going on, Diane? With your case, I mean?’

  ‘I really don’t know. I don’t have enough information.’

  ‘What’s your instinct?’

  ‘It’s too late for instinct, Ben. Much too late.’

  Fry looked at him. For the first time, she noticed that he didn’t look well. It wasn’t just untidiness. He was pale, and there were dark rings under his eyes, as if he hadn’t been sleeping properly for days. His hand shook when he brushed back a lock of hair. She had never seen his hands shake before. Never. He seemed fidgety, and he kicked out irritably at a pigeon which came too close. She wondered what had really made him set off and drive to Birmingham this morning. Was he trying to escape from something back in Derbyshire? Because, if so, he seemed to have brought it with him.

  ‘How is the new role going, Ben?’ she said. ‘Acting DS.’

  ‘Oh, fine.’

  But he sounded so unsure that he might as well have said the opposite.

  ‘You can ask me for advice, you know, if you want to. It’s not an admission of weakness.’

  ‘Well, it’s not the job. It’s just something I’m worried about. The family of this dead girl.’

  ‘The drowning accident on Monday?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s been bothering you all week, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but the DI thinks I’m worrying about nothing.’

  ‘Oh no, don’t tell me — you’ve found another lost cause to champion.’

  ‘I knew you wouldn’t listen.’

  Hearing his irritation, Fry immediately regretted her response. She didn’t want him to go away again.

  ‘No, I’m sorry, Ben. Go on. What about this family?’

  Standing near the incident command unit, Cooper told her about the Nield family, and his suspicions, about the ambiguity of the witness statements and his fear that their memories of events couldn’t be relied on. Exactly as he knew it would, just telling Fry about it all helped him to get things clear in his mind. He could detect the weaknesses in his own arguments by watching her face and reflecting on his words. When he’d finished, he knew what he should be doing next, what questions he should be asking. And Fry had hardly needed to say anything.

  ‘Thanks, Diane,’ he said.

  ‘I didn’t do anything.’

  A woman stepped out from behind the van. Cooper wondered if she’d been there all the time. Fry introduced her as Rachel Murchison, a member of DI Blake’s team. But he could see that she didn’t really look like a police officer.

  ‘I’m sorry, I couldn’t help overhearing,’ said Murchison. ‘You were talking about interference theory, which is an interest of mine.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to suggest that the witnesses had been deliberately interfered with,’ said Cooper, wondering if he’d said too much in public.

  ‘No, I know. It’s just a name for it.’

  ‘Are you a psychologist?’ he asked.

  Murchison smiled. ‘Let’s just say, I know the theory.’

  ‘I’ve been wanting to ask someone about this — the way witnesses perceive things. Why their memories of an incident might contradict each other.’

  ‘Well, our memories of what we’ve seen are often inaccurate. I mean, they might not actually be what happened. Everyone knows this. When it comes to a court case, your witnesses always contradict each other. Some of them are better left out of the witness box, because they only muddy the water, and then no one knows what to believe.’

  ‘But they’re not lying,’ said Cooper.

  ‘No, of course. They’re not lying, just mistaken. Some witnesses see what they want to see. Or they remember what they think you want to them to remember. In a nutshell, that’s interference theory.’

  ‘So the interference is self-imposed?’

  ‘In a way,’ said Murchison. ‘As with all memories, our eyewitness memories can be distorted by what we previously knew, which is pro-active interference, or what we subsequently learn — retroactive interference. The distortion of memories has been widely studied. Retroactive interference can result from police questioning, which is well intentioned but can lead to difficulty in accurate recall. Unfortunately, poor interview techniques are all too common.’

  ‘Yes, I’m aware of that,’ said Cooper.

  He looked at Fry, then looked away again, hoping she didn’t think that he was referring to her abilities.

  ‘If you’re interested,’ said Murchison, ‘the classic study on this subject is Loftus and Palmer. They showed eyewitness memory was vulnerable to post-event distortion. In their experiment, it came down to a difference between the questions “How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?” or “How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?” Participants asked the first question were convinced they’d seen broken glass. The use of the word “smashed” affected their recollection.’

  Cooper nodded. ‘It makes sense. It was what I was thinking anyway.’

  ‘And you,’ said Murchison. ‘How is your short-term memory?’

  ‘Now Cooper was taken aback. He hated being so transparent. But people often said his feelings were written on his face.

  ‘Not good,’ he admitted. ‘Not during these past few days. I get confused about what I saw and what I didn’t.’

  ‘It’s the result of trauma — that is, of experiencing the child’s death in the river, and being helpless to save her. Short term, you may have re-experiences — flashbacks. You may also get adverse reactions to anything your brain associates with the traumatic event. In this case, water, perhaps?’

  Cooper remembered his reluctance to go too near the river in Dovedale. He nodded cautiously, wary of admitting a weakness.

  ‘It’s perfectly common,’ said Murchison. ‘It should pass in time.’

  ‘Does it always pass?’

  ‘Well, not always. If left unacknowledged and untreated, it can develop into full-blown PTSD, and the effects of that can last for years. Occasionally, serious psychological disturbances may result from traumatic experiences in the past. But that’s quite rare.’

  ‘Now Cooper was interested.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Would it be more common in a child?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Certainly.’

  A few minutes later, Murchison took Fry aside for a quiet word. They stood at the corner of the cemetery, just outside the cordon.

  ‘Diane, your colleague has a problem,’ she said.

  ‘You noticed?’

  ‘There are a lot of small signs.’

  ‘It’s the incident earlier this week that he just mentioned. The death of the little girl he tried to rescue from drowning.’

  Murchison nodded.

  ‘There should be early intervention after a traumatic incident like that. It can prevent acute stress reaction from developing into full-blown PTSD. What was the level of your critical incident stress management?’

  ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t there.’

  Murchison shook her head. ‘Someone should have taken responsibility. Isn’t this officer part of your team?’

 
Fry looked across the cemetery at Cooper.

  ‘Do I still have a team?’ she said.

  When Fry was released by the Major Incident Unit, she took Cooper back to her hotel. He looked as though he needed a cup of coffee or two, maybe some food.

  ‘Ben,’ she said, as they parked their cars in the Brindleyplace multi-storey, ‘how much do you remember of your childhood?’

  Cooper turned to her in surprise as he keyed the locks on his Toyota. ‘I remember lots of things.’

  ‘I mean, what are your earliest memories? How old were you at the time?’

  ‘Oh, well. There’s a vague memory of crossing a street somewhere in town, with Mum and Matt. It must have been during the summer, because Matt had a wasp land on his hand. I have this picture of him standing there, with his finger out as if he was pointing at something. And he was screaming. He was terrified of getting stung by wasps as a child. I think it’s probably the sound of him screaming that impressed the memory on me.’

  ‘Matt was a child? But he’s five years older than you, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you must have been…?’

  ‘Well, Mum was standing behind me. I was in a pushchair.’

  ‘You weren’t even walking? That means you were, what…two or three years old?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘My God.’

  Cooper stopped in the exit to the car park and looked up at the office blocks in Brindleyplace.

  ‘Why are you asking something like that, Diane?’

  ‘Well, I realized a strange thing. I don’t have any early memories at all. Nothing as early as you. I don’t even remember my first day at school. That’s a bit odd, isn’t it?’

  He shrugged. ‘Not necessarily. I think you remember things that were particularly traumatic or especially enjoyable. I don’t remember my first day at school either. But I remember the second day — I didn’t want to go, and I kicked up a real fuss at home that morning. But Mum tricked me into walking past the gates so we could look at all the other children who were having to go in, and then she pushed me into the arms of a teacher. I cried then. That was a real trauma, I can tell you. But I can’t actually remember why I didn’t want to go in the first place.’

  ‘I can’t picture you crying because you didn’t want to go to school.’

  ‘I bet you can’t picture me in my school shorts and cap either.’

  ‘I’d rather not, thanks.’

  Cooper gestured at the hotel. ‘Is this where you’re staying?’

  ‘Oh. Yes. Come on in.’

  ‘So what brought this on suddenly, Diane? Has your Birmingham visit turned into a trip down Memory Lane?’

  ‘Sort of. I just keep noticing that other people seem to remember far more than I do. Their memories are clear, right down to the smallest details. I don’t know how they do that. For me, anything that happened more than ten years ago is just a blur. I’ve always taken the view that your memory can only hold a certain amount of information, so it gradually ditches all the old stuff that you don’t need any more.’

  ‘But there must be some things you remember.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Fry hesitated. ‘Yes, of course there are. A few things.’

  ‘No happy childhood memories? Well, maybe I shouldn’t ask…’

  ‘Considering the sort of childhood that I had? No. Well, I suppose you have happy memories of long summer holidays playing in the garden with your pet dog.’

  ‘Playing on the farm among the cows. But, otherwise, yes.’

  When they were seated in the hotel lounge, Cooper looked around to see who was within earshot, reminding Fry too closely of Andy Kewley, whose body now lay in the mortuary.

  ‘Anyway, I’ve got some news,’ he said. ‘An old friend came up trumps and passed on some information.’

  ‘Yes?’

  But Cooper jumped as someone walked up to their table. Fry looked up and saw Angie.

  ‘Well, look who it is,’ said Angie. ‘What a surprise.’

  Diane couldn’t bear the smile on her sister’s face when she saw Cooper. Angie pulled up another chair and joined them at the table. She looked as though she might start questioning Cooper, or making some joke that only she would find funny. She had to prevent that.

  ‘Ben was just telling me that he had some information.’

  ‘Right.’

  Cooper looked at her with one eyebrow raised, and she nodded. Angie had to be allowed in.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Well, apparently, the cold case team put all the evidence samples from your assault through the lab again for fresh DNA tests.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘And, as a result, it seems they got a new hit — a familial DNA match.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ asked Angie.

  ‘They widened the search criteria on the national database. Although they didn’t find a direct match to the person who left the scene of crime sample, they identified a family member.’

  ‘Wait a minute. That means a close relative who was already on the database.’

  ‘Yes. Probably someone who’d been arrested at some time. A CJ sample taken from a buccal swab. They didn’t even necessarily have to be charged, let alone convicted. They would still be on the database.’

  ‘It could be an innocent person, then.’

  ‘Well, maybe.’

  Fry knew the DNA database had its own internal algorithms for identifying immediate relatives on the basis of similar profiles. A one-off speculative search approach was used for conducting familial searches, which could throw up parents, siblings, or offspring. This type of search could be used to pursue two lines of enquiry — the identity of an individual who could be a sibling of the offender, or the identity of the offender’s parent or child.

  Some time in the not too distant future, she expected that a DNA profile of someone arrested could be statistically linked to more and more relatives like uncles, aunts, cousins, many of whom would not have been arrested.

  ‘So who was traced by the familial match?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Was it Shepherd, or Barnes?’

  ‘It doesn’t seem to have been either of them.’

  ‘What? It must have been one or the other. A familial match means either Shepherd or Barnes has a father or brother on the database — that’s what happened, surely?’

  ‘It seems not, Diane.’

  ‘But theirs was the only DNA recovered from the scene. Unless…’

  Cooper nodded. ‘Yes. The new series of tests produced a third DNA profile. Techniques have improved a lot over the last few years. Analysis is much more sensitive now.’

  ‘A third person at the scene,’ said Fry. ‘A third person.’

  Her mind re-ran that confused memory — a figure crouching over her, with a different feel and smell. There was no other way she could disentangle that one recollection from the rest, because it was caught up in the overwhelming flood of sensations — the pain and shock, and fear, the vicious sharpness of the gravel, the bite of the barbed-wire fence, the suffocating darkness.

  She had always known there were other figures in the background. She had seen their shadows in the streetlights, heard their voices in the dark. But a third taking part in the attack? Well, there could have been. A third member of the gang, drawn into the assault, urged on by the others. A third person leaving his DNA.

  ‘A familial match could still mean they linked the third person to Shepherd or Barnes.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Cooper. ‘It could have been that. Those are all the details I’ve got so far on the DNA evidence. I’m sorry it isn’t more, Diane.’

  ‘No, that’s great. You’ve done really well, Ben.’

  Angie looked sideways at Cooper before turning to her sister. ‘Did you leave that file in your room, Di? Is it safe?’

  ‘I left a “Do not disturb” sign on the door.’

  ‘By the way, I have these, too,�
�� said Cooper.

  He produced the PNC print-outs for Marcus Shepherd and Darren Barnes, with all their details — addresses, dates of birth, ethnicity codes, criminal records. There was also a photograph of Tanya Spiers, obtained from the police computer system. She was the witness who claimed to have known both the suspects, and heard them boasting at a club.

  ‘Why was she on the PNC?’ asked Fry.

  ‘She was arrested at some time for soliciting, and outraging public decency,’ he said. ‘Actually, I feel sorry for her.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She looks as if she’s gone through a lot of tragedy in her life. It’s her eyes — they’re very sad.’

  Angie laughed. ‘No, Ben. It’s too much crack and vodka that makes your eyes look this way.’

  Cooper lowered his head, as if embarrassed by Angie’s laughter.

  ‘So what’s next?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Angie. ‘That’s a good question. What’s next?’

  Diane gazed out of the hotel windows at the fountains splashing in the square, and the office workers moving backwards and forwards in front of 3 Brindleyplace.

  ‘Andy Kewley was killed because he knew something, and was about to give it away,’ she said. ‘And, if Andy was right, there’s one person central to all this. His name is William Leeson.’

  22

  It had begun to rain by the time they got to Digbeth. Warm, summer rain — but heavy enough to make pedestrians run for cover.

  The entrance to the sprawling Custard Factory arts complex was hidden away opposite the Peugeot dealer on the Bull Ring Trading Estate. An ancient half-timbered pub stood by the traffic lights on the corner of Heath Mill Lane — the Old Crown, its fourteenth-century origins written on the back wall. Fry noticed a martial arts academy in a yard under one of the railway viaducts, close to the campanile of Father Lopes’ Chapel.

  The buildings of the Custard Factory were painted in pastel colours. Blue, green, pink. A metallic dragon guarded a small lake. A giant living tree statue of a green man loomed over Pagan Place, with empty eye sockets and rain water dripping from his mouth.