‘The second week of March last year. She was cremated at Edendale. An awful day, it was, too. It sleeted all afternoon.’ Ellen Walker shivered at the memory. ‘There’s nothing worse than sleet, is there? It makes you feel cold and damp right through to the bones.’
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10
Liz Petty was already waiting in the DPs office when Fry entered. She looked cheerful, as though she might have good news to share. But Fry watched her uncertainly as she took a chair. SOCOs were civilians, and therefore unpredictable, in her view.
‘We’ve had an initial technical analysis of the two phone calls,’ said Petty. ‘I thought you’d be interested in what we’ve come up with.’
DI Hitchens turned and raised an eyebrow at Fry. ‘Was there anything interesting in the background?’
‘The background noise has been enhanced. Technical Support say they need a bit more time to work on it, but they’ve sent a few notes through, in case they’re any use.’
‘Anything might help us at this moment.’
Petty tugged at her sweater and fiddled with her hair as she looked down at the papers she’d brought. Watching her closely, Fry was reminded of some of the suspects she’d interviewed over the years, who gave away their nervousness with little mannerisms. After all, Petty couldn’t really care all that much about how she looked at work. That navy blue sweater worn by scenes of crime officers wasn’t intended to be flattering - though it looked better on Liz Petty than on some of her middle-aged male colleagues.
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‘I’ll try not to take up too much of your time,’ said Petty, and handed round copies of the analysis.
Fry took the copy she was offered. She saw references to traffic noise, bird song, a barking dog. And there was a puzzling reference to a loud, echoey voice, like someone shouting in the background, but inside a building - and not really shouting as such.
‘Do the boys in Technical Support never go to church?’ she said.
‘Sorry?’
‘The shouting they refer to would be the eulogy for the deceased councillor, delivered by the vicar from his pulpit. That means the funeral service had already started when the call was made.’
‘It has to give us a better chance of identifying him, if we decide to follow that route,’ said Hitchens.
Fry sighed as she recognized one of the phrases the DI used to avoid commitment.
‘They’ve done well to bring out that amount of detail from the tape,’ she said. ‘I didn’t notice any of it. The quality of the recording is too poor.’
‘But how is he disguising his voice?’ asked Hitchens. ‘Don’t you need special electronic equipment to do that? How did he manage it in a public phone box?’
‘I’m coming to that,’ said Petty. ‘Technology makes it a lot easier these days. He used a telephone voice changer. Probably something like this ‘
She produced a tiny aluminium device no bigger than a pocket watch, with a couple of buttons on top. It looked almost like a miniature computer mouse.
‘This is a voice changer?’ asked Hitchens sceptically.
‘It has six voices to choose from. You select the one you want by using the button on the casing. Then you simply hold it over the telephone mouthpiece and speak into the microphone on the top. There are more sophisticated devices on
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the market, but for most ordinary purposes this is sufficient. You can pick one up for less than twenty pounds on the internet.’
‘It’s easily small enough to carry in a pocket,’ said Hitchens.
‘Certainly. There’s even a little chain, so you can attach it to a key-ring.’
‘And most people would take it for a garage door remote.’
Petty laid two small handheld dictation machines on the table. ‘This one has a tape of the original phone call in it,’ she said, pressing a button. A familiar voice filled the silence, metallic and vibrating with artificial echoes.
Soon there will be a killing. It might happen in the next few hours.
‘That’s enough, I think. Now listen to the second recording. I borrowed this from one of my colleagues.’
She pressed the ‘play’ button on the second machine.
Soon there will be a killing. It might happen in the next few hours.
‘What do you think?’ she said, turning it off.
‘They sounded identical.’
‘If we’d recorded a longer piece, you would probably have noticed the difference. Actually, the second voice was mine;’
‘You’re kidding.’
Petty held up the voice changer again. ‘It was pretty close, wasn’t it?’
‘Close? It was uncanny.’
Petty passed the voice changer round.
‘How is it powered?’ said Fry.
‘An ordinary three-volt lithium button cell battery, exactly the same as you might use in an electronic keyfob or a watch. I can’t confirm the battery life yet, but the manufacturer says an hour. More than enough for the calls made so far, anyway.’
‘So we can’t even hope that he’s going to run out of batteries,’ said Hitchens.
But Petty just smiled as she put away her dictation machines.
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‘I think there was a particular reason you recorded the trial message yourself, Liz,’ said Fry. ‘You wanted to make the point that our caller could be a woman, didn’t you?’
‘I’m afraid so. We wouldn’t want to start out with closed minds, would we?’
Ben Cooper leaned back on his desk, wondering when it would be reasonable to phone the hospital again. He’d only just come in, and was waiting for Fry to finish talking to the two support officers. It looked as though she was making sure they knew who was boss.
‘Well, keep trying, Ben,’ she said when he explained the outcome of his visit to Ellen Walker. ‘You’ll get a better result, given time.’
‘You think so, Diane?’
‘Mrs Walker was obviously misled by a superficial resemblance. These facial reconstructions are an art, not a science no matter what the experts might try to tell you. It doesn’t matter whether they’re done by hand or on a computer. A lot of it is guesswork.’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact, that’s exactly what ‘
‘So it’s hardly surprising that you’ll get a false hit now and then. Just put it down to experience. And, like I say, keep trying.’
‘Right,’ said Cooper. ‘Keep trying.’
‘What else have you got there?’
‘I’ve had the dental mapping done by the odontologist. Now I need a dentist who can match the chart to his records.’
Cooper had found a copy of the postmortem dental chart on his desk. Most of the dark areas where work had been done seemed to be in the sides of the mouth, in the molars and pre-molars. The front teeth were almost free of fillings, and were described by the odontologist as ‘regular’.
‘I wish it was as easy as they make it look on TV,’ he said.
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‘Like all we had to do was enter details for any set of teeth into some huge database and get an instant identification.’
Fry was no longer listening, but Gavin Murfin looked up from his desk.
‘You mean it isn’t like that?’ he said. ‘The BBC has been lying to me, then.’
Cooper remembered the moments that Ellen Walker had spent staring at him while he tried to recover from his surprise at hearing Audrey Steele had been cremated. All he’d been able to think of to do after that was to ask her for a recent photograph of Audrey.
‘You mean, from not long before she died?’ she’d said.
‘Preferably.’
‘I wouldn’t have one normally. Nothing since we were in our twenties, anyway. But her mum had some cards done for the funeral. They were like a memorial tribute, with a bit of a poem on them. Do you know the sort of thing I mean?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Well, I kept mine, so it should be around here somewhere. The quality isn’
t too bad. I think Auntie Viv spent quite a bit of money on having them done. But then, she would do. She thought the world of Audrey.’
‘Viv is her mother, I take it?’
‘Vivien Gill. Auntie Viv is my mother’s sister.’
‘Would you be able to find the memorial card for me, Mrs Walker?’
Ellen had hesitated. ‘I don’t know why you want to see it. What use can it be to you?’
‘I’m not really sure myself. But, all the same, if it isn’t too much trouble …?’
‘All right. But it might take me a minute, so sit yourself down while you’re waiting.’
‘Thank you.’
She’d gone through into the next room, and Cooper had heard her opening a drawer.
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‘Here we are. It didn’t take long, after all.’
‘Thank you.’
The photo of Audrey Steele had been in colour, with a little too much red tone, but printed on good quality card, with a gloss finish. Audrey was smiling, enjoying herself somewhere in the sun, with a cocktail on a table in front of her and a patch of blue sea in the background. She was wearing a white, sleeveless T-shirt with thin straps that revealed her shoulders, pink from the sun.
‘Audrey always had boyfriends when she wanted them,’ Ellen Walker had said. Then liked her.’
‘Yes, she looks … Well, she looks fun.’
‘That’s exactly right. That’s what she was. Everybody liked Audrey, because she was such fun.’
‘Was she an only child?’
‘No, she has a brother and sister.’
Cooper had hesitated, more questions burning in his mind that he was almost afraid to ask.
‘I don’t suppose she ever had any children?’
‘She had a little girl when she was with Carl - that’s the oil-rig man. But the child was born premature and died before they could get her home from the hospital. It was a real shame. I think those two would have settled down together if Corinne had lived.’
‘Can you remember if Audrey ever broke her arm?’
‘She might have done. Or was it her leg? No, I’m not sure.’
‘Or had a head Xray?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
Ellen Walker had started to look uneasy then, and Cooper had known she would either clam up, or demand an explanation. ‘One last thing. Could you let me have an address for your Auntie Viv, please?’
‘Yes, if you like.’
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Finally, Cooper had stood up, still troubled. ‘Ellen, are you certain?’
‘Certain?’ Mrs Walker had looked at him as if he’d challenged her on her prediction for the weather. ‘Of what?’
‘Are you certain your cousin was cremated?’
‘Well, I didn’t think there was much doubt. Why else would they have taken her to the crematorium?’
‘We could try a different eye colour,’ said Suzi Lee reluctantly, when Cooper phoned her at the university later that morning. ‘I can do that on the computer, if you like. Or a change of hairstyle. Glasses, perhaps.’
‘Would that make a lot of difference?’ asked Cooper.
‘As I said before, it’s the bone structure and tissue depth that decide the shape of the face. And I’m confident that’s accurate.’ She paused. ‘Why do you think it isn’t?’
‘A wrong identification.’
‘I see.’ She sounded unreasonably disappointed. But Cooper knew how she felt.
‘I’m not suggesting there’s anything wrong with your reconstruction,’ he said.
‘No, of course not. You’re just saying it looks like the wrong person.’
Cooper studied the photograph for a moment. Its eyes were fixed on the middle distance, and the face held no expression. But it didn’t need to. He wondered if Suzi Lee was doing the same thing at the other end of the line.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she said.
‘In your own mind,’ said Cooper, ‘do you feel the first reconstruction is as accurate as you could have got it?’
She was silent for a moment. ‘Yes, I am. Not in my mind, but in my heart. I feel sure that’s Jane Raven Lee.’
Cooper nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s my feeling, too.’
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Audrey Steele’s mother lived on the Devonshire Estate, in a cream rendered semi that had a washing line full of sheets billowing in the back garden, You didn’t see many washing lines these days, but maybe Vivien Gill was the old-fashioned type.
Inside, a rustic-effect brick fireplace had been set into one wall of the sitting room, and a central heating radiator on another. Above the picture rails, the ceiling was coved and artexed. At the back of the house was a kitchen smelling strongly of disinfectant. When he followed Mrs Gill into it, Cooper became aware of a sickeningly sweet scent that might have several sources he didn’t want to think about. A baby sat in a high chair at the table, its mouth smeared with something sticky and yellow. Doidy Cup and Bickiepegs were set out on the counter.
‘This is my granddaughter,’ said Mrs Gill. ‘Isn’t she gorgeous?’
‘She’s beautiful,’ said Cooper, giving the child a brief wave. He might learn the attraction of babies one day, but for now the appeal was lost on him. Once they could walk and talk, and look after their own toilet arrangements, he had no problem with children. But babies made him a bit nervous.
In the sitting room, Vivien Gill made him sit down in one of the armchairs, though he told her he couldn’t stay long.
‘Mrs Gill, I don’t know whether you’ve spoken to Ellen Walker today …’
‘I talked to Ellen last night. She had some idea about a picture in the paper. An artist’s impression, or something.’
‘A facial reconstruction, yes.’
‘I thought it was a daft idea myself.’
‘Did you see the picture?’
‘No. I don’t get the evening paper.’
Cooper looked out of the window and saw a man watching the street from a house opposite. Maybe that was why Mrs Gill had wanted him to sit down, so that he couldn’t be seen
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by nosey neighbours. She hadn’t otherwise seemed particularly hospitable. Of course, this was the Devonshire Estate, where residents were practised at recognizing a police officer, even out of uniform.
‘It was on the TV news, too,’ he said.
‘I’ve got the child to look after. I don’t spend all my time watching telly.’
‘May I show you a copy of the photo?’
Mrs Gill squinted at the picture he handed her, held it up to the light, then put it down while she found her glasses. ‘It doesn’t look human,’ she said. ‘It’s just a clay model, painted up.’
‘Does it bear any resemblance to your daughter?’
‘No. It’s daft.’
She handed the photograph back dismissively. But Cooper noticed that her hand was shaking a little more. The baby was snivelling and getting ready to start crying, but Mrs Gill ignored it.
‘What about these items of clothing?’ said Cooper gently. ‘I’m sorry about the condition of them. Do they look familiar at all?’
Mrs Gill barely glanced at the second set of photographs. They had been taken in the mortuary after the remnants of clothing had been removed and laid out on a table. They were stained and partially rotted, and they had an air of squalor despite the mortuary lights.
The old woman turned pale, but shook her head, perhaps a little too vigorously. She looked at Cooper, then out of the window.
‘No, they mean nothing to me.’
‘One more thing,’ said Cooper, ‘and then I’ll get out of your way. Could you tell me what doctor your daughter went to?’
Mrs Gill breathed an audible sigh of relief. Now she was on safer ground, and she didn’t question why Cooper wanted to know such information.
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‘Doctor? Well, the same one as me. Crown House Surgery, here in Edendale.’
‘And a dentist?’
‘M
oorhouse’s in Bargate. He’s NHS, so you have to go for a check-up every six months or you get kicked off his list. Audrey always went regularly. She was a nurse - she knew about looking after her health.’
Cooper smiled as he gathered the photographs together. ‘I bet she took regular exercise, too.’
Mrs Gill stood and gazed out of the windows as she waited for him to leave.
‘She swam as often as she could,’ she said. ‘Audrey competed in the county championships when she was a youngster. Her brother was a good swimmer, too - this is his child I’m looking after.’
‘Audrey also has a sister, doesn’t she?’
‘Oh, her. She doesn’t live around here any more.’
There was something about the way Mrs Gill said ‘her’ that reminded Cooper of Tom Jarvis, as though there was a name that mustn’t be spoken. But there had been a gruff affection in Jarvis’s voice when he referred to his wife. There was none in Mrs Gill’s when she spoke of her daughter.
‘Has there been some kind of rift in the family?’
‘Eh?’
‘You’ve fallen out with your other daughter?’
‘We just don’t see as much of each other, not since she remarried. I don’t trust that new husband of hers. A leopard doesn’t change its spots so easily - no matter what she says.’
Cooper just had time to call in at West Street before he was due to meet Professor Robertson. But the moment he walked into the office and sat down, the phone rang on his desk. It was Tom Jarvis.
‘The old girl’s dead,’ said Jarvis. ‘Somebody shot her.’
Cooper sat bolt upright.
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Dead? Have you called 999, Mr Jarvis?’
‘Nay. But I thought you’d want to know.’
‘Where - ? I mean, where’s the body?’
‘I laid her out on the porch. But I’ll bury her by and by. I thought I’d put her in the orchard. She always liked it there.’
‘No, Mr Jarvis, don’t touch her. Just wait until someone gets there. I’ll send the paramedics, and a doctor. We need to get scenes of crime there. And she was shot, you say? My God, we need the armed response unit as well. You really should have called 999 straight away.’
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