Songbird

by Peter Grainger

  Reeve nodded but said nothing about the tattoo – it becomes an unconscious habit not to over-share, to keep new developments within the closed circle of those directly involved in an investigation. She said, ‘Anything else here, Sally?’

  ‘We’ve taken all the broken twigs, all the thorns with anything like a trace on them. It’s worth telling Robinson that; there might be something on or in the body that matches our samples. Nothing in or on the grass. We got Fraser to take some pictures but it had been a bit trodden on by people before the potential significance had been realised, I’d say.’

  ‘Fair enough. How was Gervaise this morning?’

  ‘His usual, cheerful self. His daughter’s getting married tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh. That’s nice…’

  Sally was married, too – Reeve could see the rings through the plastic glove. She wondered what the husband of a senior scenes of crime officer might do. You work with these people but you know surprisingly little about most of them.

  Sally said, ‘Is Dr Robinson moving the body soon?’

  ‘Yes, within the hour, I’d guess. As I said, if you could nip back up there I’d be grateful. I’ve left Chris Waters in place until you’re done.’

  Sally smiled and said, ‘He’s sweet, isn’t he?’

  One can respond with professional distance to such remarks, or one can choose not to do so. Reeve said, ‘Yes. But I understand he’s spoken for these days.’

  ‘Shame. A pretty young police constable, I suppose.’

  Gossip, or did Sally Lonsdale actually want to know? Reeve felt the senior investigating officer reasserting herself, and said, ‘No idea. How has the sergeant been doing? Boyd, isn’t it?’

  ‘Fine, ma’am. I think he’s kept a record of everything.’

  ‘Good. I’ll take a look, and then get back to the site office. If you do come across anything else, let me know. How long to process what you’ve already got?’

  The SOCO thought for a moment and then ventured, ‘The end of next week?’

  ‘That’s great – Tuesday or Wednesday then.’

  When Reeve arrived back at the Pinehills office, there was already a short queue of men outside, a couple of whom had their wives with them for moral support. These, she hoped, were the people due to be leaving today but if the constables had got around quickly the two groups might be mixed together. There were also more cars parked here than there had been – she’d better check these belonged to the specialist officers from Norwich. Experienced journalists have the knack of wandering about and looking as if they belong. And another thing – if they were getting all the holiday-makers in one place, it would be wise to ask them the standard questions, such as whether they’d seen or heard anything unusual last night. In fact, the constables should have been told to do just that as they were knocking on every door – a chance missed that would have saved a lot of time.

  She saw Terek come out of the office. He said something briefly to the waiting people and then took out his phone – it must have been ringing. Reeve got out of her car, her mind also on what was happening over in number fourteen; she needed to check in with Ann Crisp as well. They had plenty of uniforms but were light on detectives.

  Terek saw her and walked over as he talked into his mobile. As he got closer, she heard ‘…right, just a minute, she’s here now. Hold the line.’

  Then he said to Reeve, ‘Detective Constable Butler, ma’am.’

  There were many alternative and less formal modes of address between the two of them but Reeve had months ago given up making suggestions.

  ‘Good, I was just thinking about her. I expect she’s itching to get out here, isn’t she?’

  Terek looked momentarily surprised.

  ‘I don’t know, ma’am. She called to warn us there’s something about this on the Hunston Community Facebook page. Lots of police activity reported at Pinehills, that sort of thing. I doubt if we can keep a lid on it for very long.’

  ‘No point trying. Tell her to pass it on to Chief Superintendent Allen’s office. Is John Murray still on holiday?’

  ‘Yes, two more weeks, ma’am. Why?’

  Reeve watched as two more men joined the queue – when the testing began one of them, either Terek or herself, needed to be inside in case there were awkward questions being asked. Then her own phone buzzed with a message from Ann Crisp – Things getting a little tense here. Can you call me, please?

  She said to Terek, ‘We need more bodies here so we can start initial interviews. As Chris is here, we might as well get his lot involved. So you can tell Serena and Richard Ford to join us as soon as. Wilson’s team are still on the warehouse arson thing? OK, that’s been going on forever – we might need to pull out a couple of his people as well. Who’s that?’

  A female officer she did not recognise was standing in the doorway to the office and looking in their direction. She was wearing pink gloves.

  Terek said, ‘One of the team from Norwich. I think they’re ready to make a start, ma’am.’

  ‘Let’s push on, then. Can you sit in on that while I speak to Ann Crisp? And can we make sure everyone is asked whether they saw or heard anything last night? I-’

  Terek rarely interrupted her but he did so on this occasion.

  ‘Already underway, ma’am. The two uniformed men delivering the letters are doing that and I’m repeating it here. Did the pathologist indicate when he would carry out the autopsy?’

  ‘Yes, I should’ve said. Monday morning. That gives us tonight or over the weekend to get someone to formally identify her first. Good, on the routine questions, I mean, and on getting all this sorted.’

  He nodded, turned and walked towards the office. I still can’t read him, she thought, after nine months. As she had said to herself earlier, he’s a good organiser but she still wasn’t sure that Simon Terek was a good detective.

  The two of them met outside the caravan first, and Ann Crisp said, ‘The girls have been asking where Auntie Michelle is this morning. It’s obvious the older one has worked out that something’s wrong. Mum is struggling a bit now. She wants to get in touch with the menfolk – her husband and Michelle’s. I’ve got her to hold back up to now but she’s going to ask you about that, ma’am.’

  It’s completely understandable and completely natural – when there’s a family crisis, we turn to the family itself for support. Ann Crisp had done the right thing in persuading Michaela not to do so up to now, in not allowing the woman to call others and say that Michelle had disappeared and that a body had been found, without any sort of identification being made, but the image was on Reeve’s mobile phone now. She had to show it to the sister. Then Michaela’s world would come tumbling down like a stack of Jenga bricks, and the rest of the immediate family would have to be told.

  Reeve said, ‘Where are the men, the husbands? Do we know?’

  ‘Both in Luton as far as I can tell. That’s where the sisters live, anyway.’

  ‘So that’s about a two-hour drive…’

  She looked at her watch and worked it out.

  ‘One or both could be here early this afternoon. She’s going to need some support, Ann. What I’ve got on my phone makes it virtually certain it’s her sister who’s been murdered. What’s the best way to handle this? I’m worried about the kids seeing her go to pieces.’

  There’s a play-park on the next-door site, Ann had said. The girls had told her about it – she could take them there for half an hour, get them to show her around the rest of the Pinehills place or something. Michaela Fletcher would guess what was happening straight away but at least she’d have some space in which to deal with it.

  Reeve said, ‘OK. Had we better have somewhere we can keep the children, keep them out of it if their mother does fall apart? Until their father gets here?’

  Ann Crisp shook her head and said, ‘I doubt it. She’s going to want them back with her, isn’t she? She’ll want to keep them close to her. Only natural, isn’t it?’

  Is
it? Reeve was dimly aware that she didn’t really know the answer to that question. But she straightened her back, took a breath and said to the family liaison officer who apparently did, ‘Ready, then?’

  Michaela Fletcher had looked at the image of the tattoo for a long time, stared at it for so long that Reeve had thought fleetingly, my God, she doesn’t recognise it – her sister is alive and suffering from a hangover in a café or some strange man’s bedroom. But then what colour the woman had left slowly drained from her face, and she sat down at the small dining table. She’d made breakfast for her daughters but they had hardly touched it – there was a half-empty bowl of cereal and a piece of toast with one corner bitten off. Reeve realised that she had forgotten to send any food or drink up to Detective Sergeant Waters.

  ‘Mrs Fletcher – Michaela? I’m sorry, but I have to ask. Is that your sister’s tattoo? Is it Michelle’s?’

  Just a slow nodding of the head and the refusal to look back at the detective chief inspector, the eyes fixed now on the cheap, plastic-papered wall of the caravan. But her breathing remained steady and that’s the thing to watch out for; if there’s going to be hysteria, that’s the early warning. Reeve waited and watched. She’d done this before, and people need the space in which to process the worst news they are ever going to receive in their life.

  Finally, the woman said, ‘How?’

  ‘Mrs Fletcher?’

  ‘How did she die? Was it some sort of accident?’

  The best investigators are able to view a situation from multiple perspectives almost simultaneously. Reeve had seen the body and the obvious marks upon it. She had asked one of her officers and the pathologist literally to manhandle it; she had herself lifted the dead sister’s clothing so she could take what would normally be considered an intimate photograph of it. Michaela Fletcher had seen none of this – she was aware only of what the detective had told her, that her sister was dead. For all she knew, Michelle had been knocked down by a drunk driver. Reeve took a moment to view the matter from that perspective before she answered the question.

  ‘We don’t think so.’

  Now the eyes came to her own – it’s important not to look away.

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘We’re still in the early stages, Mrs Fletcher. We have to gather together the evidence. We don’t jump to conclusions.’

  ‘But?’

  And yet, even in these early stages, opinions begin to form about the people involved. Michaela Fletcher was not a weak individual, she was not a weeper nor a wailer. She looked to be the opposite – a tough character who would rather have the truth. Reeve wondered how alike the two sisters had been; forming an understanding of the victim’s personality is crucial in a case like this one.

  ‘The first indications are that Michelle was the victim of an attack.’

  All the associations of the word were there in an instant, and Reeve thought, she’s closer to tears now but she’s also angry.

  ‘An attack? Was she…?’

  ‘It’s too soon to say, Mrs Fletcher.’

  More time, allowing this to sink in, aware simultaneously of Terek supervising the DNA screening, Ann Crisp taking the girls for a walk, Waters helping to arrange the removal of Michelle Simms’ body, Sally Lonsdale and her team packing up their gear and of it being a Friday – always a bloody Friday, with the weekend delaying work on their samples – and of a couple of keen young detectives who would be arriving shortly and who would need deploying in the most effective way possible. Beyond that, she’d have to speak to Detective Chief Superintendent Allen soon, and where is DCI Cara Freeman today? Has she got wind of this one yet?

  Michaela Fletcher interrupted Reeve’s thoughts.

  ‘You haven’t arrested anyone? You don’t know who you’re looking for?’

  ‘No, we don’t. We have experts examining the place where Michelle was found. Shortly, she will be taken to Kings Lake. Everything is done…’

  There were tears at last, reluctant and few in number, but the woman’s eyes had finally brimmed over onto her pale cheeks. Reeve had prepared for this – she took a couple of tissues from her bag and offered them to Mrs Fletcher. It was Mrs Simms, too, remember. There were others to be informed now.

  ‘What were you saying? Everything is done?’

  ‘As respectfully as possible, Michaela.’

  ‘Where will she go, though? Where in Kings Lake?’

  ‘In the first instance, to the police mortuary at Kings Lake Central police station.’

  You cannot hide the connotations of that word – they are as cold as its own steel tables and marble slabs. And these days everyone knows what goes on in such places, thanks to all those CSI series – or at least they think they do. The reality, of course, is much worse.

  Michaela Fletcher said, ‘Then what? What happens once she’s there?’

  ‘On Monday the pathologist will carry out a number of tests. We have to know exactly what caused her death.’

  ‘You mean an autopsy. They’ll cut her up, that’s what you’re saying.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Some people want lots more words, they want it sugar-coated, but Reeve’s judgement was that Michaela Fletcher wasn’t one of those. She watched and waited, with at least a dozen important questions needing to be asked. The sooner they got past this, the sooner she could begin the really important business of finding out about Michelle Simms and her final hours.

  ‘Are you the one in charge of this? Detective Chief Inspector you said.’

  Michaela Fletcher was looking at her differently, measuring her, making an assessment now. Reeve wondered whether she looked the part, looked up to the job – she usually did, she thought, but it was the first time she’d worn this jacket and skirt for work.

  ‘Yes, I will be.’

  ‘Alright. But I… I want to see her, before they do that. Sorry if that sounds stupid.’

  She was crying again, more freely now. That’s how some minds handle it, drip-feeding sorrow to avoid being swept away by a tidal wave of grief.

  ‘Not at all, Michaela. We will need a family member to identify her. It doesn’t have to be you but if you wanted to do that for her, I can arrange it. That’s not a problem at all.’

  A nod and a wiping away of the first proper tears. There would be many more. Ann Crisp had promised at least half an hour, and Reeve estimated how many minutes she might have left before she said, ‘Is there anyone you’d like to call, Michaela?’

  This is a significant step, the next stone thrown into the pool of many interconnected lives. Yes, she said, but with a note of uncertainty which had to be confronted. Reeve said, ‘You don’t have to do that, not yet. I’m just thinking this is a lot to deal with on your own.’

  There was a pause before Mrs Fletcher said, ‘It is her, isn’t it? There hasn’t been some terrible mix-up? A mistake? Only I can’t…’

  Reeve said, ‘The woman we found has red hair. My detective sergeant said straight away that he thought the lady in the photograph you gave me was the same person we’ve found. How certain are you about the tattoo, Michaela?’

  There hadn’t really been any doubt, Reeve knew.

  ‘That tattoo… We argued about it. She only had it done a few months ago, and I told her she was old enough to know better. We argued a lot as kids, cat and dog mum used to say. How am I supposed to, you know…? Who’s going to tell our mum?’

  ‘How old is Michelle?’

  It doesn’t matter how you ask the question – whichever tense you go with sounds wrong. Reeve had concluded that to say “was” now would be too soon, that’s all.

  ‘Just turned thirty-seven. Three years older than me but I’m the responsible one, that’s how most people see it. I had the kids, stayed at home being the housewife. Shelley, she’s still up for…’

  There was a space in which Reeve thought, that’s my age next birthday, and then she said, ‘She still liked to party?’

  On one level it was a couple of
women chatting about one of their sisters, but Michaela Fletcher understood what the detective was doing. She didn’t answer, and then Reeve said, ‘Sorry, but there will be a lot of questions, when you’re ready. I’ll need to go over every minute since Michelle arrived. There could be something that didn’t seem significant, someone you passed once on the site, someone who chatted to her in the bar last night. And if anything like that is already worrying you, tell me straight away.’

  A shake of her head and then Michaela took her mobile out of her handbag. She placed it on the table in front of her. Reeve said, ‘Who will you call first?’

  ‘Graham, my other half. I can’t call Barry, not just like that. Maybe Graham’ll go and find him, so he’s with him when, you know – not on his own. Maybe it’s better if Graham tells him. I don’t know how I’m going to say this to anyone.’

  She was trembling a little. Reeve put out a hand, touched her arm and said, ‘If you’d rather, I can do it. I’m not saying we get used to it but – if you want me to make the first call, I can. You said Graham is your husband?’

  Michaela Fletcher nodded but picked up the phone again.

  ‘It’s down to me. I’ll tell him first, see what he suggests. But…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘If you could stay? So I’m not… He might have some questions or something.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Reeve, ‘I’ll be here. If you need me to step in just say and…’ But she wouldn’t, Michaela Fletcher. Must be good to have someone to turn to like that, a husband, someone who has promised to love and comfort you through the good times and the bad, and through this, the very worst of times.

  Chapter Nine

  Detective Chief Inspector Reeve called a briefing at four o’clock that Friday afternoon, and they held it in one of the caravans vacated earlier in the day. Shirley Salmon said they could have another van for the rest of the weekend if they needed it, and she had arranged for a local café to supply food and drink as it was needed, all they had to do was pick up the phone. It was, Waters thought, a novel sort of incident room but needs must, and being here on site made it ideal in more ways than one.