by Tania Carver
‘Nick. Good to see you again. What you got for us?’
Nick Lines got slowly to his feet. ‘Quite a bit since yesterday, actually. Nothing more on the DNA front yet, unfortunately, and there won’t be for a while, I don’t think. So I took a journey down some other avenues. I checked the physical description we had of Adele Harrison against the body we’ve got. Looked for any distinguishing features.’
‘And?’ said Phil.
‘Well, we didn’t find anything at first. So I persevered. Adele Harrison had a tattoo on the base of her spine. You know what I mean. Popular among a certain type. Some kind of curlicue. Arse antlers, I believe they’re called.’
Despite or perhaps because of the tension in the room, everyone laughed.
‘Tart tats, you mean,’ said Mickey.
‘If we were less politically correct,’ said Fenwick, glancing quickly at Rose Martin to gauge her reaction.
‘Please,’ said Phil, ‘can we?’
The laughter died away. Nick Lines continued.
‘It wasn’t an easy match. There wasn’t much of her lower back left.’
Silence, tinged with guilt for the earlier laughter.
‘The skin’s been flayed off. Whether that was deliberate to stop us identifying her or whether it was just frenzy, I don’t know.’
‘Maybe both,’ said Phil.
‘Perhaps,’ said Nick, continuing. ‘But they hadn’t done a complete job. There were still traces of the tattoo left. I was able to reconstruct a partial impression from that.’
‘Julie Miller doesn’t have any tattoos,’ said Rose.
Nick nodded.
‘So you think that confirms it?’ said Phil.
‘As I said, we won’t have the DNA back for a while, but…’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe we should think about bringing her next of kin in for an identification.’
A depression settled over the room. He had all but confirmed what they suspected. But there was no sense of triumph or even achievement at it.
‘I found something else, too,’ said Nick. ‘Stomach contents analysis. Her last meal. As far as I can tell, dog food.’
‘Oh Jesus,’ said Phil, vocalising what the room must have been thinking. ‘It gets worse.’
‘Can we get a match on that?’ said Fenwick. ‘Find the brand, the make, maybe even the batch?’
Nick Lines nodded. ‘We’re already ahead of you. We’ve contacted all the major pet food manufacturers. Shot in the dark and may take a while, but stranger things have happened. Also. Suzanne Perry’s blood sample. They phoned me with results. Traces of pancuronium.’
‘That’s not good, right?’ said Phil.
‘Not good at all. It’s a muscle relaxant. Taken in large doses it paralyses the body. They can still feel but not move. It’s given to death-row inmates in lethal injections in the States.’
‘Charming,’ said Phil. ‘Well, let’s follow that up. See where a supply could be found. Check-’
The door burst open. A uniform rushed in.
Fenwick was first to react. ‘This is a-’
‘Sorry, sir,’ said the uniform, out of breath, ‘but this is urgent.’
‘What?’ said Phil.
‘The prisoner, sir, Anthony Howe…’
‘Yes,’ said Phil.
‘Tried to kill himself.’
58
Anthony Howe had managed to rip his sheets up to make a rope. Then, knots tested, pulled strong and tight, he had looped it round the light fitting. Lassoed in place it hung there, a hangman’s noose. He had placed it round his neck, pulled the slipknot tight. Stepping off the bed, the sudden jerk expelled what air there was from his body, forcibly denied access to any more. The jolt and drop weren’t sufficient to break his neck so he had hung from the ceiling, legs thrashing and air-cycling, hands grabbing at his throat, dangling and strangling. His face had turned purple and his bladder and bowels evacuated.
The makeshift gallows hadn’t held for long, his weight being too much for the electric cord, and it had given way, the noise of his body hitting the floor and alerting an on-duty uniform.
‘Get the paramedics in here!’
Phil ran into the cell. A uniform had removed the noose from Howe’s neck and was attempting CPR on him. His body was in a state and there was no trace of the cultured, arrogant university lecturer.
‘What’s happening?’ said Phil.
The uniform looked up, fingers locked together, hands pressing down hard, rhythmically, on Howe’s chest. ‘Still breathing, sir…’ Breaking off to count the presses. ‘… just trying… to revive him…’
And back down to breathe more air into his lungs.
Phil stood up, looked around, felt impotent rage inside him. The light fitting was on the floor in pieces, bulb and casing shattered. The noose was lying in a corner where the uniform had thrown it, a venomous snake, once dangerous, now dead.
The doorway was full: the whole team from the briefing room having followed him down, now crowding round, trying to get in, winning the world record for most number of people crammed into a door frame at one time.
‘Who was looking in on him?’ Phil said. ‘Who was checking him?’
Another uniform, standing by the door, keeping the press of bodies back, glanced nervously at him. ‘We did, sir, we checked in on him regularly. Looked like he was sleeping.’
‘Well, he wasn’t, was he?’
The uniform recoiled. ‘No… but we weren’t given any special orders. No suicide watch or nothing…’
Suicide watch. Phil looked down at the body, thought of Howe’s words in the interview room the previous night:
I can’t go in a cell, please… I’m claustrophobic… please… please… I’m scared…
Phil hadn’t listened to him. Ignored him, in fact. He heard stuff like that all the time, thought nothing of it. Looked again at the mess on the floor.
I’m losing it…
At that moment the paramedics arrived, ushering everyone out of the way, taking over. Phil allowed himself to be led from the cell along with everyone else. Now the corridor was full of bodies.
Fenwick pushed his way over to Phil, placed an arm round his shoulder. ‘A word.’ He separated him from the rest of the group, walked him away to a quiet spot round a corner.
As Phil went he turned, saw Fiona Welch’s face. She was staring into the cell, her eyes lit up, a smile on her face. Fascination? He didn’t know. Didn’t have time to think about her now. He turned to Fenwick.
‘What the fuck just happened here?’ Fenwick’s voice low, angry.
Phil shook his head.
‘Where was the risk assessment? Why wasn’t this flagged up? Why didn’t you do that?’
Anger was still swirling around inside Phil, looking for an outlet. It had just found it. ‘Me? This is all my fault, is it?’
‘You interviewed him.’
‘You observed.’
‘Yes,’ said Fenwick, finger jabbing in Phil’s face. ‘And I said you didn’t look up to it. You were off your game in there, not thinking for yourself, doing whatever she told you too.’
Phil’s anger jumped up a gear. ‘Don’t make out this is my fault. Don’t you try and make me take the blame for this.’
‘Whose fault is it, then? That profiler’s?’ Fenwick sneered. ‘We all know you do whatever a profiler tells you, don’t we? She the next in line?’
Phil couldn’t stop himself. His fist was coming towards Fenwick’s face before his brain had a chance to stop it.
It connected. Fenwick’s head snapped back and round, taking his body with it. His legs went too, tangling and tripping over each other, taking Fenwick to the floor.
He lay there, looking up at Phil who just stared down at his superior officer. Shocked, stunned and amazed at what he had just done. His mouth was open, flapping with words that wouldn’t emerge.
Fenwick’s hand went to his mouth where Phil’s fist had broken the skin, blood pooling there. He stared upwards, as shocked
as Phil was.
Anni appeared in the hall behind Phil. ‘Boss-’ She stopped dead at the scene before her.
Phil, aware that she was there, put his arm out to help Fenwick to his feet. Fenwick accepted.
‘It’s all right, Anni,’ said Phil. ‘Everything’s OK.’
Fenwick made it to his feet, staggering slightly. Phil couldn’t meet his gaze, turned to Anni.
‘Yes.’
‘I, uh, just wanted to tell you that the Super’s on his way. From Chelmsford. Said he wants to speak to you.’
‘Thanks, Anni.’
She looked between the two men, wide-eyed, then turned and rejoined the rest of the team in front of the cell door.
Phil looked at Fenwick. ‘Sorry,’ he said, eyes hitting the floor.
Fenwick nodded.
‘I’ll go.’ Phil turned to walk away.
‘Wait.’
Phil turned. Fenwick was still rubbing his jaw. Mouth working, trying to find words that wouldn’t come easily.
‘Go and lead your team. We’ll deal with this later.’
Phil nodded, turned, walked away.
He rounded the corner, back to where everyone else was. The paramedics were taking Anthony Howe out on a stretcher. Fiona Welch was still staring, fascinated, as his body went past her.
‘Fiona,’ said Phil, ‘geographic victim profile. Can you do that?’
She looked up at him. ‘Of course I can.’
‘Then do it, please.’ He looked at the rest of the team. ‘Right, upstairs. Back to work. It’s our job to make sure there aren’t any more deaths. Come on, excitement over.’
He turned, walked away. Thinking about what Fenwick had said, that this mess was all his fault.
Thinking that he might be right.
59
E xcitement over.
Phil was off, taking the stairs two at a time. Mickey walked back up the stairs to the bar along with the rest of the team. With a day of looking through vehicle registrations to come, that phrase went doubly for him.
He bumped into Anni. She looked up, startled.
‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘miles away.’
‘Don’t blame you,’ said Mickey. ‘What just happened…’
She looked sharply at him. ‘You saw-’ Her features changed. ‘Oh. Right. Yeah.’
They walked together in silence.
‘Look,’ said Mickey.
A ghost of a smile played round Anni’s lips. ‘Is this going to be an “about last night” thing? Don’t worry. It doesn’t matter.’
‘It wasn’t like that.’ Even as he spoke he felt himself reddening. ‘I didn’t mean it that way.’
She gave him a quick look, eyes mischievous. ‘What way did you mean it, then?’
He glanced round, seeing who was listening. Jane Gosling was right behind him, behind her Rose Martin and Ben Fenwick, deep in conversation, Rose’s face angry.
‘Not here,’ he said.
‘Man of mystery,’ she said, smiling again. ‘Giving me a key to your house of secrets then, are you?’
Mickey sighed, shook his head. He thought he could trust Anni. Out of all of the team she seemed the most approachable, the one with less of an agenda, the most honest.
They reached the top of the stairs, turned the corner. Anni put a hand on his arm. He stopped, turned.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Just winding you up.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I’ve got to go out, follow up those client list leads of Suzanne and Zoe’s from the hospital. But I’ll be around later.’ She smiled again. ‘Or you could phone me.’
Fiona Welch came past, walking double time, self-importantly, like she was in an episode of The West Wing.
‘I’ll talk to you later,’ he said and turned, went back to the bar.
Hoping he wasn’t blushing too much.
He reached his desk, sat down. Sighed. Looked round. Fiona Welch was at her desk on the other side of the room, looking at her screen, energised, lips moving in a dialogue only she could hear.
He just might give Anni a ring.
He looked at his own screen, at the scrolling numbers, the lists. Knowing in theory why his work was so important but wishing there was a more exciting way to do it.
Fiona Welch laughed to herself, went on staring at the screen.
He hoped the thing he wanted to talk to Anni about would keep, hoped he was right.
But hoped more that he wasn’t.
60
Anni stood on the doorstep and rang the bell.
The house was way out in Coggeshall, one of the most photogenic villages on Essex. Anni had always had a problem with the place and others like it, though. Because its main street and offshoots consisted of the kind of old, beamed, uneven houses, thatched roofs, Regency-windowed pubs and quaint, red-brick cottages that spoke of a certain kind of intractable tradition and held a natural attraction to a certain kind of reactionary mindset, being black, female and a non-Daily Mail reader made her feel uncomfortable there.
The bell she rang was only comparatively modern, 1970s as opposed to the rest of the house that looked like it belonged more in the 1870s. It was slightly less well maintained than the rest of the row, the paint round the windows chipped and peeling, the door needing a fresh coat of varnish, the front garden less manicured. She checked her list. It belonged to a writer.
Suzanne Perry and Zoe Herriot’s list of clients from the hospital. In need of speech therapy. Luckily, they hadn’t been there for a long time so the list wasn’t huge. But it was extensive and far-ranging. Socio-economically and geographically. Anni had ruled out the children. She didn’t regard them as a priority and would only start looking at them if the adult list didn’t pan out. There might be a vengeful parent or family member involved somewhere but she doubted it, really. So the adults were where she was starting.
She had cross-referenced the ones that she had flagged up with Julie Miller’s list. There were three that stood out and she was calling on the first one now. He had been referred to a speech therapist following a stroke. Anni had the bare essentials of his medical notes. Writer. Early fifties. Heavy drinker, heavy smoker. Mild to medium stroke. Responded well to treatment, discharged after three months of regular sessions, expected back for a check up in three months time.
She waited for the door to be answered.
The scene in the cell earlier that morning had stunned her. Horrible. Awful. She had heard of things like that before but never witnessed it for herself. Especially to someone she herself had questioned and fingered as a suspect.
Anthony Howe. When Fiona Welch read out the profile his name had jumped out at her. A perfect match. There had been such a sense of jubilation when she had brought him in, the exhilaration of a job well done. Or a good job about to be done. And then this. A total unravelling. Had he done it because he was guilty or because he was innocent? She didn’t know. She hoped he came round so they could ask him.
But the real shocker had been the follow-up she had witnessed. Her boss striking a superior officer. Their superior officer. She had seen arguments before, differences of opinion, sure. On an almost daily basis. Strong personalities clashed all the time when under pressure, no big thing, part of the job. But to actually go so far as to take a swing at a superior officer and to see Phil Brennan be the one to do it, that was unprecedented. Admittedly, there had been times she had felt like doing that to Fenwick herself, but still…
She hadn’t said a word. Knew she shouldn’t, it wasn’t in her best interests to. Knew Phil wouldn’t want her to either. And no matter what had gone on between them recently, she was still loyal to her boss.
And then there was Mickey. With his spiky hair, cocky smile and sharp suit she had dismissed him as just another ambitious young officer, thinking he was a master of the universe and a shag magnet because he had put away a couple of villains, won a few fist fights and made it to DS. That was how she had taken the previous night’s phone call at first, but the way he had behaved on the stairs
earlier was different. He seemed serious, intense, even. Worried. In fact, she was beginning to think she had misjudged him.
And the way he had blushed when she had touched his arm. Sweet. She smiled at the memory.
But not too much. She didn’t date guys she worked with. Not after last time.
But maybe he did have something important to say to her. Maybe he would ring her.
The front door opened, putting all further thoughts of Mickey Philips out of her mind. In front of her was a man. Small, grey-haired, portly. He looked old enough to be the father of the man she was calling on. He looked at her, warily.
‘Keith Ridley?’ she said, folding out her warrant card.
‘Yes?’ His voice held a tremor that matched the one in his hand holding the door open.
‘Detective Constable Anni Hepburn. Can I have a few words?’
He slowly stood aside to let her in, closing the door behind her.
She entered and all thoughts of her fighting bosses, Mickey’s tongue-tied attempts to talk to her and the condition of Anthony Howe were forgotten and pushed from her head as she concentrated on the job she had to do.
Forty minutes later she was back out in the sunshine, striking him off the list.
He was a writer of crime fiction, she had discovered, although she hadn’t read any of his books. However, it would have been more accurate to say his real calling was self-destruction as he had sat in front of her chain-smoking cigarette after cigarette with a can of lager on the arm rest of his chair while she questioned him, his shaking hand alternating what he put to his lips.
He told her he didn’t know why he had suffered a stroke, must have been something hereditary. His wife was out at work teaching and he was home alone. Working on a new novel, he said, although he had turned off Homes Under the Hammer when they entered the living room.
He had nothing but praise for the work of Suzanne and Zoe, though. And, Anni thought, genuine shock and regret when he saw on the news what had happened to them. And, most importantly, a verifiable alibi. She had thanked him and left.
Walking to her car, feeling the kind of imagined, malevolent eyes on her that all outsiders were treated to in remote villages, especially black ones, her phone rang.
