Kill Them Cold

by J M Dalgliesh

  Tom ran his tongue along the inside of his lower lip. He could sense the pent-up frustration Drew still carried from the case and, despite his best efforts to infer otherwise, Tom felt Drew knew there was more to the girl's disappearance but he'd been unable to follow it through at the time. Sometimes there was just the tiniest link that could unravel everything but if you couldn't find it then the case could easily drift away from you. He knew he was right when he saw the pained expression on Drew's face. The man wanted Tom's validation. The idea that something untoward had happened to her after all must have had his stomach turning. Unfortunately, there was little that could be said to ease his conscience.

  Drew sank down on a bench alongside the station building, taking off his cap and holding it in his lap. Tom sat down alongside him, saying nothing.

  "I knew it wasn't right." He turned to face Tom. "At the time. It didn't feel right. I don't know how you're fixed these days but back then we were under resourced … the caseload was stacking up …" He left the comment unfinished.

  "You moved on?"

  Drew nodded slowly, looking away. "At the end of the day, she was an adult. She could choose to go wherever she liked, whenever she liked. With no evidence or motive for anything sinister, and a general impression that she'd turn up after a couple of weeks once the heat was off at home … we put it down as her choice not to be found."

  On the face of it that was reasonable but Tom still felt there were avenues left unexplored. "What about her bank account, credit cards. Did you look for any activity there?" He was careful to keep his tone neutral.

  "Nah … the decision had already been taken by then. I thought about it but there wasn't a lot of activity on that side of things … like I said, Tina did a lot of cash-in-hand stuff working in hospitality, in bars, the holiday parks and so on. Most of her money never saw the inside of her bank account. My DI didn't see the point. And to be fair, it was a tough one to argue with." He took out a chrome double hunter pocket watch from his waistcoat, opening it and checking the time. "The next train is due," he said, hefting himself up and off the bench. He walked closer to the platform's edge, looking down the track and spoke over his shoulder. "I had a decent clear-up rate back in the day, Inspector. As much as I felt we let Tina's case go too early … I stand by it that we didn't have anything more to work with." He turned back to Tom, meeting his eye. "Are you going to tell me I missed something?"

  Tom raised his eyebrows. "If you did, then I haven't found it yet."

  Drew visually deflated. "The yet in that answer is carrying rather a lot, isn't it? If it is Tina you've found. What happened to her?"

  "We found the remains of a young woman. She fits the right age profile and time frame for Tina and her disappearance; we're just waiting on a DNA confirmation. Someone broke her neck and buried her in a field."

  "Is that what you boys have been working on over at Brancaster?"

  Tom nodded. "Most likely murdered elsewhere and dumped there."

  "Then I did miss something."

  "Not necessarily."

  "That's kind of you to say but, let's be honest, if it's taken twenty years to realise a murder took place then I missed something."

  Tom was keen not to dwell on potential mistakes. It wouldn't serve them well. "In your report you recorded Tina as last seen out drinking with friends?"

  "Yes, she was at the Crown Inn, according to regulars. There was quite a party going on in there that night. There was a dig going on at the old Roman site of Branodunum, a lot of archaeologists and volunteers were staying in the area."

  "So, lots of witnesses?"

  "Yes and no." Drew frowned. "A lot of people remember seeing Tina there but no one recalls her spending time with anyone specific, when she left or who with, if anyone. You think someone there did it?"

  "No idea but the pub isn't far from where she was found."

  "That field you guys taped off is where the archaeologists were working that summer. They were finishing off around the time Tina went missing."

  "Did you speak to any of them?"

  "No, no. They were all packed up and long gone by the time Tina was reported missing. The landlord of the pub told us about it when we asked, that's all. Maybe we should have tracked them down; seen what they had to say. Maybe that was what I missed?"

  Tom inclined his head. He didn't really have an answer.

  "You'll let me know if it's her, if it's Tina?"

  Drew was dejected. Tom figured he was in for a sleepless night tonight and not just because of the relentless humidity. The shrill whistle from a steam engine heralded the approach of the next train. Drew held Tom's gaze, unflinching.

  "Yes, of course. I'll let you know as soon as I can."

  Chapter Eight

  Tom entered the ops room to find Tamara and Cassie waiting patiently as Eric beavered away at a white board. He appeared to be transcribing something in red marker onto the board from a sheet of paper held in his free hand. Tamara and Cassie glanced over their shoulders as he approached, greeting him with a smile. Eric continued beavering away.

  "How did you get on with the old guard?" Tamara asked referring to John Drew.

  "Yeah, okay. It was quite enlightening in a way but …"

  "But?"

  "Not particularly helpful." Tom frowned, pulling out a chair and sitting down. "I think something about Tina Farrow's disappearance didn't sit well with him but there wasn't a lot for him to go on and he hit a wall and, under pressure from his DI, shelved it as a runaway."

  Tamara's brow furrowed. "Do you think he dropped the ball?"

  "No, I wouldn't go that far." Tom sat upright in his seat, scratching absently at his chin. "I don't think there were many lines of enquiry that he missed—"

  "So, in your opinion, he did miss something then?"

  "Ah …" Tom was reluctant to speak of it until he'd had a chance to flesh it out himself first. The number of people who were never traced who were present at the pub where Tina was last seen alive, unsettled him. Even if she had only been reported days later it would have been prudent to speak with these people even if there was no evidence of foul play. The failure to monitor the activity in her bank account was telling, almost as if the investigator was approaching this case as a runaway from the outset rather than considering it suspicious. Perhaps he would have done the same if he'd been in his place, perhaps not. It was easy to judge with the benefit of hindsight.

  "What's all this about?" he said, gesturing to Eric's developing diagram. He could see now it was a rough layout of the Branodunum site, where the body was discovered. Eric had drawn the field's boundary in red and was now marking little rectangles of varying shapes and sizes in black, adding dimensions alongside, listing length, width and depth.

  "Eric has been doing his homework," Cassie said. "Or should I say revisiting his homework from school."

  Eric shot a snarky look over his shoulder at her, but otherwise carried on with what he was doing. However, he did answer Tom's question.

  "The plastic sheeting was bothering the DCI and it set me thinking."

  Tom looked at Tamara who nodded and indicated for him to hear Eric out before commenting, silently mouthing the words he's got something to him as she did so.

  "I used to have a real interest in history," Eric said, looking at Tom with a big grin on his face. "Mum would always be on at me to turn off the telly because I was watching the Discovery and History channels pretty much on a loop. I used to be a bit of a nerd like that—"

  "Used to be?" Cassie asked with weighted sarcasm. Tamara drew a hand back and clipped the DS around the back of the head. Eric continued unabated.

  "Still do!" he said. "And the plastic got me thinking. When archaeologists dig a site, if they find something that they are not intending to transport out to a museum, like an unbroken mosaic or something, and have to leave it in situ, they document everything they can, photograph it, map it out, and then they recover it, because that helps the preservation. But – a
nd here's where it gets interesting – they will look to protect the find. Usually by covering the area with—"

  "A sheet of thick plastic," Tom said. Eric beamed.

  "Which would explain the size of it," Eric said. "So, I looked up the site's history: modern history." He held up the marker in his hand pointedly. "It's well known and has been thoroughly investigated over the years, twice in the last two decades. Curiously enough—"

  "Here it comes," Cassie said, smiling playfully. This time Tamara merely frowned at her.

  "Curiously enough, I was present the last time it was dug," Eric said triumphantly.

  "How … why?" Tom asked.

  "I was at school, Fifth Form," Eric said. "There was a television show carrying out another dig at the site over a long weekend. They only had three days—"

  "You were helping out?"

  Eric nodded. "It was really exciting … until we got there and were largely just shovelling soil around. They didn't let us near any of the really interesting stuff but it was still fun. So, anyway, I contacted the production company who made the television programme and had them send over a copy of it. I took a screenshot of the field with all the trenches and finds once they were all documented."

  "And they were in the same area as we found the body?" Tom asked, sitting forward.

  "No, sorry," Eric said, looking dejected. "We were in a completely different area of the site. They were digging on National Trust land whereas our grave site, if I can call it that, was just beyond the perimeter."

  "That's a shame, Eric," Tom said. "And you're in your mid-twenties so that puts your Fifth Form excursion around ten or eleven years ago, right?" Eric confirmed the maths with a brief nod. "So that would rule out Tina Farrow—"

  "Yes, if she had been found in and around that dig, but she wasn't. In the programme they talk at the beginning of a previous dig and which part of the site was dug. And that does cover where the remains were unearthed."

  "Is that what you're mapping out?" Tom asked, standing and coming in front of the board.

  "Yes. The previous dig was in 2001. The same summer Tina Farrow disappeared."

  Tom wagged a finger at the board before turning to Tamara. "John Drew …" Both Eric and Cassie offered blank expressions. "The investigating officer at the time, said that the Crown Inn was packed the night Tina was last seen alive, and that was a result of an archaeological dig going on nearby. It was finishing up that weekend and none of those present were questioned at the time as to whether they knew or had spoken to Tina before she went missing."

  "Why not?" Tamara asked.

  "Because they'd all packed up and left days before Tina was reported missing by her sister. It wasn't considered a proper use of resources to track them down at the time, not without any evidence that anything untoward had happened to her."

  Tamara concentrated hard, focussing along with everyone else on the board and Eric's detailing of the dig locations. She came to stand alongside Tom, tapping the area where they found the skeleton. It was bang in the middle of a large trench the archaeological team had dug. Tom looked at the measurements. They'd dug down to a depth of one hundred and sixty centimetres.

  "Do you know what they found in this particular trench?" Tom asked Eric.

  He shook his head. "No. All I have is what came from the producers of the television show. However," he stepped back over to his desk, returning with another sheet of paper and offering it to Tom, "this is what I found regarding that particular dig."

  Tom scanned the sheet. It was a confirmation that the dig in 2001 had been commissioned jointly by teams based at the University of East Anglia and Cambridge. He looked at Eric.

  "We need to know who was in charge of the site and should arrange to speak to them—"

  "Already have done," Eric said. "Well, the admin teams at any rate. Professor William Cannell and Alexander Hart were jointly registered as running the operation. Neither is still working at either university but I did a search through Linkedin and both of them came up."

  "Local?" Tom asked.

  "Cannell is working in the field of Archaeological Consultancy, here in Norfolk. He has an office in King's Lynn," Eric said, looking between Tom and Tamara. "Shall I give him a call and arrange a meeting?"

  Tom nodded. "Yes, as soon as possible. What about the other one?"

  "He's around too, but he's gone a different way. From looking at his connections, he is working in television production of sorts."

  "Of sorts?"

  "Logistics, facilities management and such … I'm not sure what exactly. His job titles have all been a little vague but he's definitely working in and around television documentaries. He's credited on programmes across Europe and North America but looking at the time frame they're listed in, on his profile, they are sporadic, nothing consistent."

  "Excellent work, Eric," Tom said. He glanced at Cassie. "It's good that someone is able to make use of their school experiences rather than just offering up sarcastic criticism.

  Cassie tilted her head towards one shoulder, placing an exaggerated hand movement to her chest. "Who, me?"

  "Soil samples are back from forensics as well," Eric said. "The samples from in and around the remains."

  "Any word on the DNA?" Eric shook his head. "I guess that would be too optimistic. Anything interesting from the soil analysis?" he asked.

  "Yes and no."

  Tom raised his eyebrows. "Which is it?"

  "The dating was all over the place. Some of it returned dates from centuries back whereas other samples returned a date from a couple of years ago."

  "It was all mixed or contaminated?"

  "The lab team reckon it was because the site was unearthed during the dig and all the soil, once sifted for finds, ended up being bulldozed back into the trench and that's messed up the dating. Although," Eric said, scanning his notes, "they did come back with some interesting results regarding the other organic samples they took."

  "Which was?"

  "Seeds. They were in and around some of the apparently lesser-disturbed joints of the skeleton, so they thought they were worth dating. Testing dates them to around the turn of the millennium which puts them well in line with Tina Farrow's disappearance. But that's not the most interesting aspect of the testing. The seeds were phragmites australis which are—"

  "Reeds," Tom said flatly, frowning. Eric agreed. "That's a bit odd."

  "Why?" both Cassie and Tamara asked in unison.

  "The location," Tom said. "There are several thousand hectares of open fenland in Norfolk and common reeds are not only farmed here but are also a natural defence against flooding. They thrive in marshy, flood conditions but the Branodunum site hasn't been close to the water for years."

  Eric nodded enthusiastically. "When it was a Roman fort it was right on the sea, but if the seeds are dated to around the time of Tina's disappearance then I'd suggest they may have gone into the ground at the same time as she did. Maybe they were in her hair or something?"

  "Couldn't they have just as easily been carried on the wind?" Tamara asked.

  That was quite possible, Tom had to admit. He looked between Eric's drawing and a map of the local area pinned to another board nearby. "Or else we have an idea as to where Tina Farrow was murdered." He borrowed Eric's marker and crossed to the map. Locating the Crown Inn, he circled it and drew a line to the nearby water's edge roughly a quarter of a mile away and then another up to the Branodunum site. It wouldn't have taken more than a couple of minutes to drive the distance between the two points and a strong individual could carry someone the size and weight of Tina Farrow that far with relative ease, provided she was either incapacitated or deceased and they did so under the cover of darkness. "I wouldn't mind knowing exactly when that trench was refilled and by whom," he said, tapping the pen against the map. "Eric, get hold of William Cannell and, who was the other one, Alexander?"

  "Hart," Eric said.

  "Right. If anyone knows what was going on, on that sit
e then it should be them."

  Chapter Nine

  Tom and Eric found the address on King Street, a stone's throw from the Custom House and Purfleet Quay. Following the one-way system, Tom parked the car on South Quay, alongside the magnificent Great Ouse where it passed out into the Wash. He hadn't been here in years. This part of King's Lynn must have been regenerated since his last visit; modern tidal flood defences were visible and in keeping alongside the Seventeenth Century homes and warehouses around them. Crossing through Purfleet Quay and passing the statue of Charles Vancouver, they returned to the offices on King Street where they were expected at the consultancy firm owned and run by Professor William Cannell. Unable to reach Alex Hart they spoke to the other, Cannell, who agreed to see them immediately.

  The offices were set in an old timber-framed building that appeared to date to the late Tudor period, albeit with a stone façade added later, according to Eric, as they waited in reception.

  "This part of town was built as the river shifted further to the west," Eric said, eyeing the period detail. He was clearly enjoying the visit to the old town. "I'm pretty sure the old land bank, protecting the town from flooding, used to run the length of King Street. As the route of the river shifted and land became available, they built the warehouses behind us directly on the riverbank."

  Tom smiled appreciatively, checking the time on his watch. The receptionist casually looked up at them above the rim of her glasses but returned to whatever she was working on. Eric continued.

  "Did you know King's Lynn used to be one of the three biggest trading ports in England, only behind London and Southampton in importance?"

  "No. I wasn't aware of that."

  "If not for the Napoleonic Wars and then the collapse of coastal trading as a result of the advent of the railways, things could have been very different here."

  "This is still a lovely town, Eric," Tom said.