Kill Them Cold

by J M Dalgliesh

  "Any indication of trauma?"

  "Potential causes of death? No. At least nothing obvious."

  "What about the broken leg?" Tom glanced back towards the road but his view was obscured by a line of wind breaks staked into the ground at the edge of the dig site to shield their finds from the onlookers. "I'm thinking of the potential for an accident on the road there, and someone panicking and dumping the body here?"

  Dr Williams shook her head. "We located the patella end to the broken femur but I think that was a break that happened long after death, so more likely a result of the ploughing as opposed to the point of death – a collision with a car or something. No visible injury to the skull either, aside from the recent damage done by the plough's blade, or to any of the other bones as far as I can tell. Once the remains are catalogued and photographed on site, we'll bag them up and transport them back to pathology and x-ray them. If there are any abrasions, scrapes or similar that could be the result of a knife blade or another weapon, that's when we will find them. There is more to see though," she said, gesturing for him to move to his right."

  Tom did as requested and Fiona pointed to some remnants of fabric to be found beneath one of the hands and an arm.

  "Clothing?" he asked.

  "I would say so, yes. Much of what is here has degraded beyond use in terms of identifiable fashions, brand or retailer, probably due to the high volume of peat in this area. It retains water and rots the fabric, particularly organic fibres but we haven't found shoes, which I would expect to, seeing as they are often substantial enough to ensure long term preservation ahead of light-fitting garments for example. However, that's the least interesting of all that I wanted to show you. Look here, at the wrist." Tom moved closer. There was a braided cord looped around the forearm, perhaps only five millimetres thick with a circumference suggesting it must have been worn around the wrist. Despite being covered in mud, colour was visible beneath the grime. Tom could see braids coloured blue, yellow and green, all intertwined to form a colourful rope. All three met at one point where they were tied, leaving a loose mix of tassels hanging free.

  "Just the one wrist?"

  Fiona nodded. "Nothing on the other."

  Tom frowned. "They don't look robust enough to be used as restraints."

  "Agreed. Man-made fibres as well judging from the lack of decomposition. Coloured nylon strands braided together. Simple, cheap. Easy to mass produce, and definitely not Roman."

  Tom scanned the area seeking more tell-tale clues as to how the victim came to be here.

  "I sense you have more to tell me."

  "You know me well," she said, pointing to his left.

  Beneath what he thought was a shoulder blade he could see the unmistakable texture of black plastic. It was discoloured through a residue of dried mud and Tom wondered if their victim had been wearing some black PVC clothing, a skirt perhaps, but it didn't seem to be connected to the body with a layer of earth in between.

  "Tarpaulin," Fiona said. "And that's definitely not branded Hadrian or otherwise."

  "Used to wrap the body in prior to transportation and dumping?"

  She shook her head. "Doubtful. It stretches out beyond where we found the body, two metres in each direction. More than one sheet as well. A second overlaps the first but neither was found on top of any part of the skeleton."

  "Sounds weird. Have you ever seen anything like it before?"

  "No. I can't say I have. Certainly, a bit peculiar but clearly puts your victim in the modern era."

  "Is it basic tarpaulin or are we talking that which is used in construction, say, as a damp-proof membrane?"

  "It's thick, certainly much thicker than the grade used for domestic refuse sacks."

  "Speaking of the modern era, can you hazard a guess as to how long she's been in the ground?"

  Fiona thought on it. "Judging by the lack of soft tissue remains, I reckon you're looking at fifteen to twenty years. The lab techs can run a soil analysis on the surrounding organic material and give you a far more accurate figure to back up the dating of the bones, but I dare say I won't be far off."

  "Okay, thanks."

  Tom excused himself and walked away, leaving the team to catalogue the finds. Taking out his mobile, he called Tamara Greave. She answered immediately.

  "Hi, Tom," she said. From the sound of her voice, he could tell she was not in the house, most likely she was in her garage tinkering with the car as she often did on her days off. "I guess you're not calling with good news."

  "I'm afraid not. This is looking very suspicious to me. Fiona Williams has it as a young woman, put in the ground at some point in the last fifteen to twenty years."

  "That covers a lot of ground," Tamara said.

  "It does. No indication of foul play yet—"

  "Other than having been concealed in a field… which doesn't speak to devoted love and affection."

  "Agreed. I have Eric compiling a list of unresolved missing persons as we speak. We are probably looking at someone in their late teens or possibly through to their late twenties. We'll have to wait for the full autopsy assessment to be sure."

  "Right. Anything else?"

  Tom turned to look back at the scene. The sun was low in the sky and a warm breeze drifted across him. "It would appear she was dropped into a hole, deep enough to keep from her being uncovered until now and I think that only happened through chance. No ID, handbag and scant clothing remains. No shoes either. All of which suggests to me she was killed elsewhere and brought here. You could slip in here without anyone seeing you. It's a small village, easy terrain."

  "Local?"

  Tom thought on it, eyeing the perimeter of the field. "Not necessarily. The location is readily accessible to anyone passing through. There is another thing I've yet to get my head around."

  "What's that?"

  "I'm not sure of the significance. Let me think on it," he said, turning his mind to the black plastic sheets found beneath the body. It seemed out of place, odd, and yet there must be a reason.

  "Okay. I'll give Cassie a call and meet you in ops."

  "Yep. See you soon," Tom said, hanging up. He touched the mobile to his lips, looking back at the crime scene technicians hard at work, the scene lit up by irregular flashes of their cameras. "Let's find out who you are," he whispered.

  Chapter Four

  Entering the ops room, Tom found Eric standing before a white board adding information. He knew the team were coming in and had made a start on setting up necessary equipment. The detective constable didn't hear Tom's arrival and was startled as he came to stand behind him, reading the first name, underlined, at the head of the board.

  "Claudia?" Tom asked.

  Eric took a breath, stepping to one side.

  "I thought Jane Doe was too boring… and seeing as she was discovered at the Branodunum site…" Eric said, looking sheepish. "I can change—"

  "No, don't worry. I like it."

  Eric smiled.

  "But she's not Roman. Fiona thinks we have a time frame of fifteen to twenty years," Tom said. Eric's face dropped. He was disappointed. "But she's still dead and needs a name. And we also need to find out why she's buried there."

  "Yes, of course… Sorry," Eric said, stumbling over his words. "It's just, I sort of hoped Fiona Williams was wrong. I like history, you know. I thought it was exciting."

  "Still is, only in a different way," Tom said. "How did you get on with compiling the list?"

  "Four possibles," Eric said, gathering a sheet of paper from his desk and passing it across to Tom who accepted it.

  Tamara and Cassie entered ops together, Tamara making a beeline for them while Cassie went straight to the coffee machine – a recent addition to the ops room they were all grateful for. Both Tom and Eric acknowledged them, and Tom indicated for Eric to continue. He turned back to the white board where he was entering the details of the missing persons. Only two names had been added so far.

  "I started with the
local missing persons who were in the age bracket Dr Williams defined – late teens through to thirty –and that gave me four," Eric said. "There are more but the others are likely either older and not particularly close to here or men, which I think we are ruling out?" He looked at Tom who nodded. "If we strike a blank with these four, then we can return to those names later."

  "Can you give us the headlines on the four please, Eric?" Tamara said, perching herself on the edge of a desk. Cassie came over, passing a cup of steaming black coffee to Tamara and pulling out a chair for herself. Eric looked at the sheet in Tom's hand and he passed it over. Eric smiled his thanks.

  "I'll start with the furthest back, which is Tina Farrow. She was nineteen, local girl, went missing in 2001," Eric said, reading from his notes. Tina wasn't up on the board yet. "She had a fractious relationship with her parents, a bit of a chequered upbringing. Flitted from job to job, all casual work and was prone to pulling a disappearing act every once in a while. No evidence to suggest anything untoward happened to her at the time."

  "Who reported her missing?" Tamara asked, reaching for her coffee cup.

  "Her sister," Eric said, glancing down at his notes. "Angela Farrow."

  "Not the parents?" Tom asked, surprised.

  Eric shook his head.

  "Next up, Marta Kowalska. Polish national, aged twenty-six, moved to the UK in the late nineties and eventually settled in Hunstanton," Eric said. "She was reported missing in 2006 by her partner, Pavel."

  "Investigated at the time?" Tom asked.

  "Yes. Nothing was considered out of place. The couple had few friends, having not been in the area for very long. She worked in one of the local supermarkets and he was a mechanic. Both were well regarded by their employers and liked by their colleagues."

  "And the boyfriend, Pavel, where is he now?" Cassie asked, before sipping at her drink.

  "Still local. On the electoral roll, at least," Eric said. "No arrests or convictions."

  "We'll need to have a word with him," Tom said. "The other two?"

  Eric pointed to the white board where two names were already added: Sophie Reading and Harriet Croix.

  "Both of these can potentially be ruled out because they went missing in the last decade, so don't necessarily fit the timeline."

  "But they do fit the age profile and location," Tom said.

  Eric nodded.

  "We need to follow up on each possible, contact the relatives and see if anything uncovered can point towards them. What happened to Sophie and?" Tamara asked.

  "Harriet," Eric said. "Sophie was twenty-eight when she went missing. She was already estranged from her family and was known to us."

  "What for?" Tom asked.

  "Petty crime: shop lifting; that type of thing. The file implies she was a known drug user stealing to feed her habit, spent time in an addiction clinic and was on the methadone register."

  Tom stepped forward, folding his arms across his chest and scanning the board. Pointing to Cassie, he said, "Look up her old haunts, known associates and see if any of them are still on our radar."

  Cassie made a note.

  "Users tend to have unreliable memories," she said without looking up.

  "Do the best you can," Tom said. "What about the last?"

  "Harriet Croix," Eric said. "Twenty years old, working as an au pair for a family living just outside Holt. She's a dual national, French and British. She had been in the country for two years, living and working for the family in the eighteen months prior to her disappearance. Seemingly upped and left one day without warning. The family returned from a long weekend away to find everything cleaned out of her room, all her clothes and belongings were gone. No one’s heard from her since."

  "Family?" Tamara asked.

  "Erm..." Eric looked down, scanning through his notes. "Parents living in the south of France, sister in London, at the time of her disappearance. Not sure where they are now."

  Tom gave Eric an appreciative nod and drew breath.

  "Okay," he said, turning back to face them, "we will be able to extract DNA from the remains and if we can obtain samples from family members then we will be able to identify our victim. What I don't want to do is offer anyone false hope that we've found their loved ones. To offer them closure and then immediately dash their chances a few days later would be cruel. Eric, Cassie, I want the two of you to make contact with the next of kin, or closest family member you can track down if the registered next of kin have moved on and try and find a link to what we've found at the Branodunum site. Tread lightly, note it as a follow-up call if you like. Reassure them their relative's case is still very much active. If you turn up anything useful to match the missing person then we can follow it up with a personal visit. While the two of you are making headway with them, I'll look into the choice of the burial site."

  Tamara met his eye as Eric and Cassie went to their desks to begin their unenviable task: contacting families and reopening old wounds that may not have healed, but the passage of time usually hardens emotions. A telephone call out of the blue could undo all of that in seconds.

  "You think it is particularly significant?" Tamara asked.

  Tom scratched absently at his cheek. "It could be an abstract place to dispose of a body but… something came over me when I was out there… I don't know. Maybe it was the isolation, a good choice by the killer. After all you'd have to be really paying attention to see something going on out there. It could be that simple but, then again, there might be more to it. It just struck me as an odd location. There are plenty of hollows, or ponds around these parts that are virtually inaccessible. If you stashed a body there, they would be unlikely to be found—"

  "You're assuming the killer is local. From what I can see on the map it is just off the through road. Anyone passing could have seen it as a decent dump site, so as not to run the risk of carrying the body further. Statistically, killers try to minimise the length of time they spend with the body in tow, thereby minimising their chances of being caught with it," Tamara countered. "And you're also assuming that we are dealing with a murder, while you're at it."

  "Murder or not, someone disposed of a body for some reason. It's a historical site, one likely to be revisited. A body is likely to be discovered, so it's not a clever choice in my opinion."

  Tamara thought about it for a moment, looking over at Cassie and Eric on their phones.

  "You make a good point. Perhaps the killer didn't realise. Any idea when the site was last excavated? Presumably, it has been previously."

  "Next on my list," Tom said. "It's a National Trust managed site, so you'd need to apply for licences to dig there. Should be easy enough to find out when the site was last dug."

  Their attention was drawn by Eric raising a hand and snapping his fingers enthusiastically, followed by his beckoning them over to his desk. He was trying to dampen his excitement because he was still on the phone but it was clear he had something. Cassie hung up on her own call and pushed off her desk with her feet, allowing her chair, on casters, to slide towards Eric. Tom and Tamara came to stand beside his desk.

  "And where would she have got the wristlet from?" Eric asked. "Can you be sure?" He listened to the reply, looking up at Tom and then Tamara and nodding furiously. "I see … right, yes. Listen, I know this is short notice but I think we need to come and see you, discuss it further so to speak. Would that be okay?" He nodded again to his silent audience. "Today, preferably. Can you do that? Great … can you confirm your address for me."

  Moments later Eric thanked the recipient and hung up. Slowly putting the receiver down, he turned to the expectant team and grinned.

  "If you don't say something soon, I'm going to brain you, Eric," Tamara said, gently tapping the back of his head.

  Eric brushed her hand away, still smiling. "The braided cord on the wrist. She thinks it was something purchased, or handed out, at a music festival the week before her disappearance. If she's right then we may well have a name for Cla
udia."

  "Who?" Cassie asked.

  Tom waved away the question. "Who might it be?"

  "Tina Farrow," Eric said, glancing at the phone. "That was her sister, Angela, I was chatting to. She says Tina came back from a festival wearing something similar a few days before she went missing. She described it perfectly; said her sister was buzzing from the experience for days."

  "And Tina went missing when did you say?"

  "2001," Eric said. "It was late summer, at the end of August to be precise. The telephone number I had for the parents rang out. Angela says both parents moved house when they split, getting divorced five years back. But her mobile, Angela's, was on the file, so I tried her. She still lives nearby in Hunstanton."

  "Good work, Eric," Tom said. "And she's happy for us to drop by today?"

  He nodded. "Yes, she has the day off work, so she's home. We can call in whenever we like. I got the impression she was keen for us to do so."

  "Come on then. You and I can head over there. Make sure you've got a DNA sample kit, then we'll have something for pathology to compare with."

  Tom looked at Tamara for confirmation and she agreed. Tom went back to his desk to retrieve his wallet, mobile and keys. Cassie patted Eric on the shoulder as Tamara moved away.

  "Nice one, Eric," Cassie said. He grinned. She leaned in closer so only the two of them could hear. "Listen, I gather I dropped you in it last night. I'm really sorry if I'd known you were planning—"

  "It's fine." He held up a hand to stop her apology. "I was working myself up about it and decided the best thing was just to ask, so I did."

  "You did?" Cassie said, failing to hide her surprise. Eric frowned.

  "Yes, I did!"

  "And … what did she say?"