‘Okay, I’m not liking the sound of all this. Sian, can you go with uniform and get into his house? Check with relatives and neighbours to see if anyone has a key.’
Sian nodded. ‘Boss. If not?’
‘If not, it’s a forced entry,’ Drake replied.
Ruth caught Sian’s eye fleetingly. It was a look of acknowledgement. Sian knew that cases like this were difficult for Ruth.
Drake continued. ‘Let’s pull any CCTV we can find on the high street. Banks, shops, pubs. Luke, can we look at traffic cameras in and out of Bala? ANPR. Contact the Missing Persons Bureau.’
ANPR stood for Automatic Number Plate Recognition and there were ANPR cameras on most major roads in the UK.
Luke nodded. ‘Boss.’
The mention of Missing Persons took Ruth straight back to her hunt for Sarah over the years. In the first twelve months, Ruth had worked closely with the bureau.
‘Ruth. Body found on Snowdon yesterday?’ Drake said, breaking Ruth’s train of thought. Bloody hell, I was miles away!
Ruth composed herself, got up to address CID and clicked a photo of Harvey Pearson that she had found on social media. ‘The body of Harvey Pearson was found on a ridge below Miners’ Track. Nick and I were there yesterday and we suspected that the body had been moved to hide it out of sight of the footpath. The PM is later this morning so we’ll know cause of death. There was a severe injury to his head, which may have been caused by a fall. First estimates are that he died some time on Sunday afternoon or evening.’
‘Witnesses?’ Drake asked.
‘Not at the moment. The weather wasn’t great on Sunday so there won’t have been many people up there. We’ll need to do an appeal to the public and a press release.’ Ruth’s phone buzzed on the table and she glanced down to see who it was from. ‘Right, I’ve got this through from Tech who have been looking at his phone.’
Ruth tapped her phone and linked it to the computer. A moment later an attachment opened. An image of Harvey Pearson, dressed in his blue climbing jacket, appeared on the screen. It was clearly taken on Snowdon and on the day he died. He was clean-shaven, handsome and confident looking.
Ruth scrolled down and there were another three photos of Harvey waving or with his thumb up at various stages of his walk up Snowdon.
‘As none of these are selfies, by the look of things, Harvey Pearson was walking up Snowdon with whoever was taking these photos. There’re no photos of this person. Where are they now? Were they involved with what happened to Harvey?’ Ruth said.
Drake nodded and arched his eyebrow. ‘And why did they fail to report it?’
RUTH AND NICK WALKED into the mortuary where Dr Tony Amis was just starting his preliminary post-mortem on Harvey Pearson. Ruth’s shoes squeaked on the white tiled floor – the noise grated on her teeth. She was already feeling uncomfortable.
‘These places give me the shivers,’ Ruth admitted in a virtual whisper.
‘You see, boss, they have to keep it very cold in here because of all the dead bodies,’ Nick said, taking the piss.
‘Very fucking droll, Nicholas. Maybe you should do stand up,’ Ruth said, rolling her eyes. Dark humour was part of the coping mechanism of all experienced detectives.
Ruth often got spooked by mortuaries, which she knew was silly. She had been to dozens during her time as a police officer but they were too quiet, too sterile and too lifeless. The underlying hum of fans and the air conditioning added to the eerie atmosphere. The buzz of the enormous fridges at the other end of the room only served to remind Ruth of their grizzly contents. Chiller cabinets for bodies.
She hated the sterile smell of clinical disinfectants and other cleaning fluids that masked the underlying stench of death. The lighting was cold and stark. The steel scales used to weigh internal organs were unsettlingly shiny and clean.
Ruth glanced up and saw that Nick was now staring at Harvey Pearson’s cadaver, which was lying like a large white mannequin on the gurney. As a police officer, you could become immune to seeing dead bodies. The disassociation became instinctive, and by the evening, seeing a dead body would often be forgotten. However, when the body was someone you knew, the reaction was often different.
‘What have we got, Tony?’ Ruth asked. She was hoping for some clues as to what had happened to Harvey.
Dressed in pastel-green surgical scrubs, Amis came over. He adjusted his black rubber apron and turned off the microphone. He had been making a digital recording of his findings.
‘Our victim has an epidural hematoma on the left side of the frontal lobe as a result of a fractured skull.’ Amis pointed to where the skull had been cut away to examine the brain.
Ruth looked at the exposed pink-coloured brain matter that glistened under the light. ‘If you look here, you can see that the blood vessels under the skull are torn. And that’s consistent with a fall and the victim hitting their head on a rock.’
‘And that’s what killed him?’ Ruth asked.
‘That’s what I assumed. But actually no, it didn’t kill him,’ Amis said, replacing a scalpel in the row of gleaming surgical instruments.
Ruth’s was interested. ‘Then how did he die?’
Amis pointed with his blue latex-gloved hand to some purple marks around his neck. ‘Asphyxiation. You can see the bruising here on the neck.’
‘He was strangled?’ Ruth said, confused. She was a little thrown by the news that Nick’s old friend had been murdered. Their assumption was that he had been killed by the fall. And she could see that Nick was visibly shocked.
‘Er? I don’t understand,’ Nick said, his brow now furrowed.
‘The bruising shows that the asphyxiation occurred after the fall,’ Amis explained.
Ruth played out the events aloud to try to make sense of it. ‘So, Harvey Pearson fell — or was pushed — down the ridge. He smashed his head on a rock and fell unconscious. And then someone strangled him as he lay there and hid the body.’
‘That’s pretty much it,’ Amis said. ‘But no fingerprints I’m afraid – they must have been wearing gloves.’
Ruth looked over at the body. There was a dark-blue oriental dragon tattoo across most of his chest and arms, which now had black stitching through the middle where the post-mortem had cut his torso wide open.
Amis rolled the body over a little to show them Harvey Pearson’s back. It was covered in short, thick scars. ‘I also found these.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Nick exclaimed, moving closer to inspect them.
‘They look old?’ Ruth said as she leant forwards. They were the kind of scars that she might expect to see on someone who had been whipped or beaten. What was that all about?
‘Yes. Definitely historic. I would take a guess they were from childhood. They healed over a long time ago.’
Ruth looked at Harvey Pearson’s body as something occurred to her.
‘How much does he weigh?’ Ruth asked.
Amis checked the paperwork. ‘Two hundred and twenty pounds.’
‘Nearly sixteen stone,’ Ruth calculated.
‘But the victim was six foot four, so that’s normal,’ Amis said.
Ruth looked at Nick. She could see that he was distracted by seeing his old friend lying there.
‘You okay?’ Ruth asked quietly.
Nick nodded and then cleared his throat.
‘Moving a two hundred and twenty pound body would be bloody difficult,’ Ruth observed.
‘Very difficult. In fact, you would need to be fit and very strong,’ Amis suggested.
And then Ruth had a thought. ‘Or there would need to be more than one of you.’
CHAPTER 6
By mid-afternoon, Ruth was making her way over to the tiny hamlet of Pentredwr. She had left Nick at the station to continue with the Harvey Pearson case, especially now it had escalated to murder. Passing the signs to Valle Crucis Abbey – Valley of the Cross – which were the ruins of a thirteenth-century Cistercian monastery, she sang along to eighties Chri
stmas songs on the radio.
The winter sun felt hot on Ruth’s face through the windscreen. She pulled a cigarette from her bag, lit it, and wound down the window. The air outside was crisp and fresh. Better than sitting in traffic on the South Circular, she thought to herself. Even though she had been in the North Wales Police Force for a while now, there were moments where she flashed back to what she might have been doing if she were still in SE19.
An hour earlier, a call had come through to Llancastell CID that uniformed officers were at a property in Pentredwr. The owner had reported finding something unusual blocking the sewage pipe to the rear of the property. Now uniform were there, the intel was that officers suspected it was human remains that had been found. It sent a chill down Ruth’s spine. She had made a call to SOCO who arranged to meet her there.
By the time Ruth arrived at the house, there were two patrol cars and the SOCO forensic van outside. She was pleased to see that the house was already beginning to be taped off as a possible crime scene. She spotted a couple of nosey neighbours chatting and trying to see what was going on. Nothing wrong with that. They usually proved to be useful witnesses.
Ruth got out of the car and approached the uniformed officers who were manning the police cordon and crime scene. She showed her warrant card.
‘Detective Inspector Hunter, Llancastell CID. Are you the FOA, Constable?’ Ruth asked the very young female uniformed constable who was holding her notebook but gazing into space. FOA stood for First Officer in Attendance and meant the officer first on the scene.
She nodded. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
The constable looked pale and shocked. Ruth knew that finding human remains could unsettle and disturb the most experienced officers, let alone a rookie in her early twenties. Poor girl.
‘Are you okay?’ Ruth asked gently.
The constable nodded but it was unconvincing. She was a lighter shade of green. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘If you’re struggling, we’ll get a replacement officer down here. Finding that sort of thing is horrendous. There’s no shame in feeling shaky.’ Ruth didn’t want her to feel that she was stuck at the crime scene.
Ruth still remembered her first experience of finding human remains, rather than just a dead body. Someone had dismembered a prostitute in Streatham and put her body parts in bin bags in an alleyway. The image of her severed left arm falling to the wet concrete was still burnt into Ruth’s memory.
‘I’ll be all right but thank you, ma’am.’ The constable gave her a smile.
‘Okay, so what have we got?’ Ruth asked. If she wants to tough it out, then good for her, she thought.
‘There’s a manhole cover down the side of the house. That’s where the owner found the remains. SOCO are down there now,’ the constable explained.
‘Thank you.’ Ruth smiled and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. She had been a rookie once. ‘Take care of yourself.’ Ruth turned, ducked under the tape and made her way to the house.
Within seconds, a SOCO handed her a white forensic suit, mask, shoes and purple gloves. Turning down the side of the house, she could see they had erected a white forensic tent over an area in the garden. Lights had been set up, and photographs and a video were being taken. The generators for the lights juddered noisily in a haze of blue diesel smoke.
And then, over the smell of the generators, she caught the unmistakable waft of rotting human flesh. There is no smell quite like it. It is a thick, horrendous stench that can turn even the strongest of stomachs. Somehow, she had managed to get used to it over the years.
A tall man bounded over to greet her. As he pulled down his mask, she could see it was the chief forensic officer, Alexander Travis. Round glasses, floppy blonde fringe and thin lips. Travis was a little too jolly given the nature of his job, but he was good at what he did.
‘Afternoon, Alex,’ Ruth said. ‘What have you found?’
‘I’m afraid it’s human remains. Actually, it’s a veritable smorgasbord of stuff down there,’ Travis explained with an eager raise of an eyebrow.
Ruth wasn’t sure that smorgasbord was the appropriate term but that was Travis for you. ‘Are the remains recent?’
‘I’d say the oldest remains are weeks old, but some appear more recent. A couple of days, maybe. I can be more exact when we get back to the lab.’
‘Anything else?’
‘My guess would be that it’s the remains of an adult male.’
Behind Travis, Ruth spotted a middle-aged man talking to a uniformed officer who was taking notes.
‘Is that the owner of the property?’ Ruth watched the man nodding as the officer asked him more questions.
‘Yeah. Andy Gates. Says that he didn’t notice the smell until the neighbour came around,’ Travis explained.
‘How many houses feed into this sewer?’ Ruth asked, looking over the adjacent back gardens. If they could narrow that down, it would be a start.
‘At a guess, these four,’ Travis said gesturing up the street.
‘And the remains could have originated from any of these houses?’ Ruth asked.
‘Looks that way.’ Travis nodded and then looked back at the other SOCOs who had pulled something else from the manhole and were beckoning him over.
‘You’re being summoned,’ Ruth prompted him.
‘Excuse me. Back in a sec,’ Travis said as he strode away.
Ruth wandered over to where Gates was giving his statement.
‘Mr Gates? Is that right?’ she asked.
Gates looked at her and nodded. ‘Yes.’ If she was guessing, then Gates seemed to be thrilled at getting the attention of a police officer of a much higher rank.
There was something distinctly peculiar about Gates’s appearance, she thought. Maybe it was the large, tinted glasses; it seemed to her that he was hiding behind them. She had seen men like him before. Voyeurs, meddlers, creeps. It was an instant judgement, but her instinct was pretty sharp.
She showed him her warrant card. ‘DI Ruth Hunter. And you’re the owner of the property are you, Mr Gates?’
‘Yes, that’s right. As I was telling your colleague here, I don’t actually live at the property. I’m renovating it as an investment. And that’s why I didn’t notice the smell, as I haven’t been here for a few days,’ Gates explained. ‘It’s horrible what we found in there. I couldn’t believe it at first. We were shocked.’
‘And it was you that rang us?’ Ruth asked.
‘Yes, of course. Straight away.’ She could see Gates was eager to help. Maybe too eager? Sometimes that was a sign of guilt.
‘Who has access to your property, Mr Gates?’ Ruth asked. If it was only the four houses feeding into that sewer, they just needed to narrow down those who had access to the houses. It would speed up the initial investigation.
‘I’ve had some builders in to do some structural work.’
‘And when was that?’ she asked.
‘Last week. And the week before that.’
‘Do you know the name of the firm you used and what exact dates there were at the property?’ Ruth asked. Having builders in the property would increase the number of suspects and that was frustrating.
‘Dai Morris Builders from near Corwen. I’ve got all the paperwork and invoices at home. I could get you all that information if you need it?’ Gates said helpfully.
Ruth still wasn’t sure about him. She fished her card out of an inside pocket and handed it to him. ‘That would be great. If you could get me that information later today, that would be incredibly helpful, Mr Gates.’
‘Andy, please. And of course. No problem.’ Gates took the card and smiled as he read it.
Ruth noticed that Travis had appeared again and was looking her way. ‘Inspector? Could I have a minute?’ He sounded serious, which was a rarity.
Ruth looked at Gates. ‘Excuse me.’ She wasn’t sure if Gates had anything to do with the remains, but his over eagerness and general manner made her feel uncomfortable.
Travis gestured for Ruth to come over to a more discreet spot.
‘Can I have a word?’ Travis said in a hushed voice.
‘Everything okay, Alex?’ Ruth knew something wasn’t right.
‘There’s been a development.’
‘What have you found?’
‘The remains in that sewer don’t belong to just one person,’ Alex explained. The colour had drained out of him.
‘You mean you think that there are two victims?’
Alex hesitated. ‘Two, three, more. I’m not sure yet.’
IT WAS CLOSE TO FIVE o’clock as Nick made his way down to Interview Room One to talk to Jack Pearson, Harvey’s younger brother. The family liaison officer, FLO, had broken the news to the family that Harvey’s death was now being treated as a murder investigation. Until that point, they would have assumed Harvey had died from a fall on Snowdon.
The information from the duty sergeant was that Jack had come to the station to give a statement. He had been walking on Snowdon with Harvey on the day of his death. Nick was close to Jack, and given what he knew about Harv’s death, he was worried about what Jack would tell him.
Nick walked in with his files and saw Jack sitting at the table. He looked tired and lost.
‘Nick.’ Jack got up and looked a little tearful. He and Nick went back years, and even though Nick had been an usher at Harvey’s wedding, he was actually closer to Jack. They used to go drinking in Llancastell in the old days. They had planned Harv’s stag do together. They had been on the same rugby and cricket teams. Jack was the best left-hand spin bowler he had ever seen.
The Dee Valley Killings Page 4