Where the Truth Lies

by M J Lee

  The room had changed. Pictures of the dead woman were pasted on the walls, including close-ups of her neck, the tattoo on her arm and wider shots of the scene beside the canal. The same faces were here from last time. He looked across at Sarah Castle. She looked away without acknowledging him.

  Charlie Whitworth strode right to the front. ‘Right, you lot. John Gorman’s been on the blower. He wants this cleared up asap. No pissing about, understand? Luckily, thanks to young Tom Ridpath over there, all the attention from our friends in the press is focused on his missing body. Thanks for that, Ridpath.’

  All the detectives turned to look at him. He pretended to be making a note in his notepad.

  ‘So we’ve got a window of opportunity to crack this case in the next couple of days without having to deal with a rabid pack of would-be novelists queering our pitch. Let’s make good use of it. Harry, anything from the local toms?’

  ‘Besides the clap?’ said somebody from the back.

  A buzz of laughter went around the room.

  ‘Aye, Harry would know – wouldn’t you, Harry?’

  Harry didn’t answer, looking down at his notes. ‘Nothing from the locals. Apparently, this girl was new. They remembered seeing a young one with a swan tattoo on her arm, but you know how protective they are of their patches.’

  ‘Worse than coppers?’ asked the same voice from the back.

  ‘Much worse,’ said Harry. ‘They had a few words with her and moved her on to the end of the street. None of the pimps or drug dealers were looking after her, so she was fair game for the hyenas.’

  ‘Any name?’ asked Charlie Whitworth.

  Harry checked his notes. ‘One of the toms thought she was called Christine, another said Angie. One thought she was called Harry.’

  Another rumble of laughter.

  Charlie Whitworth raised his arms. ‘Let me remind you a young woman has been murdered here. It’s not a joke.’

  The room instantly went quiet.

  Charlie Whitworth stared out across the room. ‘Continue, Harry,’ he muttered.

  ‘Not much left.’ His voice perked up. ‘One of the toms did say she thought the girl was Scottish from her accent. Definitely not local.’

  ‘Get on to Police Scotland, check out their National Resources unit and send them the pictures of the tattoo.’

  ‘Will do, boss.’

  ‘And how about the CCTV?’

  ‘There was a camera on the marina building overlooking the parking area and part of the path, but guess what?’

  ‘It’s not working.’

  ‘Got it in one, boss. As the owner said, it was more for show.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘We’ve taken footage from the Chester Road cameras going towards Sale and to central Manchester. Where she was found is just 60 yards from the main road, but perhaps 10,000 cars an hour use the road. Until we have a tighter time frame…’ He left the rest of the sentence unsaid.

  ‘I’m meeting the pathologist at 10.30. We should have a time frame for you once I see his report. Dave, how was the house-to-house?’

  ‘Not great, boss. All the houses face away from the canal and there’s not many of them. The people who live in them saw nothing, heard nothing and spoke even less. We visited all the local workshops and warehouses, but they were as much use as a gallon or whisky at a teetotallers’ convention. I asked a couple of the plod to hang around and approach any walkers, anglers or anybody on the path, but got nothing. If I wanted to choose a spot to dump a body, this is the place I’d choose.’

  ‘What about the dog walker who found her?’

  ‘Checked him out. Works the late shift at Tescos, married, two kids. No record except a bit of shoplifting as a kid. A United season ticket holder.’

  ‘Poor bastard,’ said a voice from the back.

  ‘Did you get anything out of him?’

  ‘Not a lot. He was walking the dog as he always does when he gets home from the night shift, before making the kids’ breakfast. His normal route is down by the canal, because he doesn’t have to pick up the dog’s shit there. The dog went racing off into the undergrowth at the side of the fence separating the canal from the backs of the houses along Haig Road The dog started barking and he thought maybe one of the anglers had thrown away a fish or summat. Anyway, he saw the body, said he didn’t touch it and immediately rang 999.’

  ‘OK, thanks. Keep the local plod down there for a couple more days. I want them interviewing anglers, runners, cyclists, dog walkers, anybody and everybody who uses the tow path. Got it?’

  ‘Got it, boss.’

  He looked around the room. ‘Chrissy, where’s Chrissy?’

  A tiny woman put up her hand.

  ‘Anything on HOLMES or PNC?’

  ‘Not a lot. Seems to be a dearth of serial killers or kidnappings at the moment. Swansea may have a case, but they haven’t classified it at the moment. Newcastle is the same. But it’s not surprising, after Manchester last year and then London, most resources have gone into anti-terrorism. Intelligence on common or garden crimes like murder has taken a back seat. When that’s coupled with 21,000 fewer coppers on the beat, not to mention the cuts in Police Community Officers and support services, well, I’m not surprised we—’

  ‘We all know about the cuts, Chrissy ,’ DCI Whitworth interrupted the woman forcefully,’ but moaning about them here isn’t going to help us track down our murderer. Let’s stay focused on what we can do, shall we?’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘Get on to Swansea and Newcastle. I want the files on their cases on my desk this afternoon.’

  ‘I’m on it.’

  ‘And pull anything you have on serial killers in England in the last ten years.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘All of them. And check if anybody on the sex offenders’ register has been released recently. Screw it, check if anybody has been released who committed any sort of assault against women. Period.’

  ‘Could be a lot of files, boss.’

  ‘We’ve got the people to check them. Just do it.’

  He looked around the room once more. Most of the detectives avoided his gaze, concentrating on something in their notebooks.

  ‘What about foreigners? Any reports of Eastern Europeans on the game in Manchester?’

  ‘I’m still looking into it, boss,’ answered Chrissy. ‘There were some reports of girls from Bulgaria working the airport hotels.’

  ‘Follow it up, and quickly.’

  He let out a long sigh of exasperation. ‘Right, so we’ve got nothing. Close to 20 officers on this and I have to go back to John Gorman and tell him we have bugger all? Do you lot want to put me forward for early retirement right now? Or would you prefer me to wear my balls around my neck when he hands them to me?’

  Silence from the team, everybody finding something interesting to look at in their notebooks, on the floor or on the ceiling.

  ‘I want you lot to shake things up. Fred, bring a few toms in with their pimps and charge them.’

  ‘What with, boss?’

  ‘I don’t know – breathing will do for starters. I want them to know we will shut down the whole bloody street unless we get some answers. No more pussyfooting around. Rattle a few cages and see if anything falls out, Fred. Now is not the time for softly-softly.’

  ‘Right, boss – cages being rattled,’ Fred said, with a certain amount of enjoyment.

  ‘Harry put his hand up. ‘You going to get the press involved?’

  Charlie Whitworth thought for a moment. ‘Not yet. If we do a press conference asking for information, all the bloody nutters will come out of the woodwork and we’ll be flooded with useless leads. Let’s play our cards close to our chest. The rest of you, shake the trees. Ask around, see if anybody’s heard anything. Even if it’s the slightest whisper. Somebody must know something, somewhere.’ He paused for a beat. ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’

  The room became active. Detectives stood
up and talked with their counterparts, others rushed towards the door. Others went to check with Chrissy.

  A smile came over Charlie Whitworth’s face and he raised his arms. ‘Hang on, hang on. We’ve forgotten one thing, one important thing.’

  Everybody stopped what they were doing and the room went silent.

  Charlie turned to Sarah. ‘DS Castle.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You had a theory the murders were somehow linked to James Dalbey. You were going to check on the Beast for us?’ He let his eyes wander over the detectives, sharing the joke with them.

  ‘I was, sir…and I did.’

  The smile became a leer now. ‘Well?’

  Sarah Castle’s face became bright red. ‘He’s still in Belmarsh, sir.’

  ‘Safe and secure, is he? Did you check where he was when the body was found?’

  She went even redder. ‘I did, sir.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘According to the deputy governor, he was either in the library or in his cell.’

  He turned to the rest of the detectives, wide-eyed with fake joy. ‘Well, lads, we should thank DS Castle for her work. We now have one less suspect. Only 18 million other men to go.’

  The room erupted into laughter. Sarah Castle looked across at the picture of the tattoo, staring at it, avoiding all the other detectives.

  Then for a split second, she looked back at him. And, with hardly a movement of her head, she nodded.

  An almost imperceptible movement, which nobody else would have seen, but Ridpath knew its meaning.

  Charlie Whitworth picked up his files and hustled out of the room. Ridpath took the opportunity to stop him for a second. ‘I hear you’re off to the mortuary for the post-mortem. All right if I tag along?’

  ‘You got nothing better to do than watch a young woman being cut up?’

  ‘It’ll help with my report to the coroner. She’s needs to open an inquest into the girl’s death.’

  The DCI shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s your funeral. Or hers. We’re leaving in five.’ He then bustled past him, back to the Bubble.

  Ridpath took one last look at Sarah Castle before he followed Charlie Whitworth. She was staring at the picture of the murder scene, her eyes fixed on the battered face of the murdered girl.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The mortuary where the post-mortem was to take place was located in the middle of the Manchester Royal Infirmary complex just off Oxford Road. The building was relatively new, constructed from the ubiquitous red brick of all government buildings of the 1990s.

  As soon as he stepped in and started walking down corridors to the post-mortem room, Ridpath noticed it. An acrid chemical smell crept into his nostrils and constricted his throat. Not the antiseptic smell of a hospital, but something harsher, more acerbic.

  Charlie was waiting for him outside the room. ‘You’re an observer – you don’t say nothing in there. Understand?’

  Ridpath nodded.

  They both moved back to the wall as a gurney with a green body bag lying on it was pushed past them by a bald porter.

  ‘We come into the world crying and screaming and we go out of it silent and alone, wrapped in a green plastic bag.’ Charlie stared at the gurney as it was pushed away from them down the corridor. As if embarrassed at being caught speaking his thoughts out loud, he pushed Ridpath ahead of him through the door into the room. ‘Let’s get a move on. I hate this place.’

  The door led out onto a viewing gallery above the post-mortem area. Below them a gleaming stainless steel table with a sink at one end was placed in the middle of the floor. To its right, a steel tray held a variety of instruments: circular saws, bone saws, knives and scalpels. Another tray on the left had a reddish-brown liver on it. Ridpath could see the lumps of creamy fat covering its surface. A drainage tube led from the tray down to a container. Inside was a dark, viscous substance.

  An assistant, a young woman, from her shape beneath the mask and white post-mortem protective clothing, was handing the pathologist a saw.

  On the table, the body of a young woman lay, her chest opened from her neck to her vagina, the two flaps of skin folded back to reveal her ribs and intestines. The back of her head had been completely smashed in. It was almost as if Ridpath was looking at half a head. On the right arm, the tattoo of a swan was clearly visible.

  ‘Good morning, gentlemen. I wondered when you would arrive. As you can see I started without you.’

  The voice whispered from a speaker mounted on the wall. It had a slightly detached tone as if this was just another day and another dead body.

  Charlie Whitworth leant into a microphone. ‘Good morning, Dr Lardner, anything so far?’

  ‘Not so far, Charlie. Who’s that with you?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Ridpath, Doctor.’

  ‘I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?’

  Ridpath blushed. He was hoping the pathologist wouldn’t remember him. ‘I’m now on temporary secondment to the Coroner’s Office. I’d like to have a chat after you’ve finished, if that’s possible.’

  ‘Say hello to Margaret for me. I’m due to start a drowning at 2 p.m., so we can chat before then.’

  Charlie Whitworth leant forward to the microphone again. ‘Could we crack on, Doctor?’

  ‘Of course, Charlie. I see you’re as patient as ever. I’ve just removed the liver.’ He pointed to the red fatty mass in the tray. Not the healthiest I’ve ever seen. Our Jane Doe didn’t treat her body well in the time it was on earth. I would estimate she’s between 26 to 28 years old, 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighing 99 pounds. Despite her relatively thin appearance, she has a fairly high body fat percentage, indicating unhealthy eating habits. No distinguishing marks except the tattoo of a swan on her arm. The tattoo has been professionally drawn and does show some artistic merit. Probably the easiest way to identify her, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘We’re working on it.’

  ‘There was no evidence of sexual activity in the hours before her death—’

  ‘You don’t think she was a sex worker?’

  A slight irritation entered the pathologist’s voice. ‘I didn’t say that, Charlie. I said there was no evidence of sexual activity. No sperm or lubricants in either her mouth, vagina or anus.’

  ‘That’s a strange one. A tom who doesn’t have sex.’

  ‘She could have showered that morning. Or…’

  ‘Or?’ asked Charlie.’

  ‘The killer could have cleaned her body before it was placed beside the canal. I’ve taken swabs of her skin and asked the lab to test for cleansing agents such as soap.’

  ‘He was removing all traces of himself on her, wasn’t he, Doctor?’

  ‘It would seem that way, Charlie. We have an extremely clean killer.’

  Charlie didn’t say a word, just stared at the woman’s body.

  The pathologist coughed. ‘Shall I continue?’

  ‘Yes,’ was the single-word answer.

  Dr Lardner pointed to grey flesh in another tray. ‘From the condition of her lungs, she was a smoker: tar deposits are quite evident even to the naked eye. But tobacco wasn’t the only drug she used. From the condition of her teeth and the severe acne around her mouth, I believe she was a crack cocaine user. Toxicology will confirm my belief, and the presence of any other drugs in her system. But I’ve seen this type before and I’m pretty certain crack cocaine was her drug of choice.’

  ‘No track marks?’

  ‘No evidence of needle marks in the usual places on her arms or feet. It doesn’t mean she wasn’t using heroin, only that I can’t find needle marks. Again, toxicology will come back with the answers.’

  ‘Any epithelials beneath her nails?’

  ‘As with her body, her fingernails have been scraped clean.’

  ‘This killer knows how we work, Doctor.’

  ‘It would appear so, Charlie.’

  For the first time the doctor looked away from the body and up at them, then quickly ret
urned his gaze to the body. ‘No wedding ring or signs she has ever worn one. The middle finger was broken before death, perhaps in the initial struggle with the killer.’

  ‘Not after death when the body was dumped?’

  ‘From the bruising and presence of broken capillaries beneath the surface of the skin, I would say definitely before death. Fingerprints were taken at the crime scene. Is she on the database, Charlie?’

  ‘No, she hasn’t been arrested in the UK. We’re checking abroad.’

  ‘I have a feeling she’s from the UK.’

  ‘Why do you say that, Doctor?’

  ‘Her teeth. Despite half of them being smashed in, I can still see the presence of multiple fillings. The dentists of the NHS have a particular fondness for them which most other countries seem to lack. This woman has at least seven fillings in her molars and canine teeth. Not the work of the most skilled dentist.’

  ‘Could we find her identity through her dental records?’ Ridpath asked, receiving a stern look from Charlie Whitworth.

  ‘You could, but it would be like looking for a single tooth in a denture factory. Possible but time-consuming. And while we are dealing with her head, it is not the prettiest sight. The back of it has been attacked repeatedly with a blunt instrument…’

  ‘A hammer?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘I don’t know at the moment. It’s a possibility, but it could have been anything hard enough to produce this damage. A metal bar, a heavy wrench or even a police truncheon; I’ll know more once we do some lab tests.’

  Charlie checked his watch. ‘Let’s move on, Doctor. Time of death?’

  ‘The perennial question, Charlie. Any time between 2 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon and 8 a.m. on Wednesday morning.’

  ‘Can’t we narrow it down a little, Doctor?’

  ‘No, we can’t, Charlie. That’s the time I’m reporting.’

  Another silence from Charlie.

  The pathologist continued speaking. ‘Despite everything, the injuries were not the cause of her death.’

  ‘How did she die, Doctor? asked Ridpath.

  ‘She was strangled, manually, with a thin metal wire.’ He held up a short length of thin steel cord like a cheese-cutter. ‘This was still embedded in her throat.’