“I’ll call you later Mum, yeah? Find out how you got on.”
Zoe hung up and pulled into a space. She sat in the car for a moment, wishing she’d checked the caller ID before picking up. She felt a twinge of guilt, but pushed it aside. Talking to Annette had rattled her, as if she wasn’t rattled enough already.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Zoe stared ahead as she was sworn in as a witness. Here goes, she thought. She was aware of Ian in the dock, his gaze on her. She didn’t meet it with her own.
The prosecution barrister gave her an encouraging smile. Zoe had seen Fiona Hegarty in action before, in the Canary trial. The woman knew what she was doing, and she had thirty years’ experience sending people down.
Zoe stood straight and shuffled her shoulders. She took a breath.
“DI Finch. Please can you tell the court how you know the defendant?”
“He was a member of my team in West Midlands Force CID. That’s the unit that investigates major crimes.”
“Was that how the two of you first encountered each other? In Force CID?”
“No. I was the Senior Investigating Officer when his children were kidnapped last October. At that time he was working in local CID in Kings Norton. He joined Force CID after we returned the children to the family.”
“You were sufficiently impressed with him during the course of the kidnapping investigation to request that he be transferred to your unit?”
“I received a request from the Professional Standards Department to have him move into my team. We had a vacancy.” Mo had been temporarily moved into Dawson’s team. It felt like a lifetime ago.
“Why did the Professional Standards Department want him in your team?”
Zoe scanned the courtroom. No sign of Randle. He was due to give evidence after her; he’d have to sit outside until then.
“It was in connection with another ongoing investigation. I’m afraid I can’t say anything more about that.”
She glanced at the jury, knowing that keeping information out of her testimony would dispose them against her. But there was no way she could divulge the fact that PSD were investigating Randle.
“So PSD, if you don’t mind me calling them that, placed the defendant in your team so he could report back to them?”
“Yes.”
“Why did they pick him in particular to do this?”
Zoe resisted a glance at Ian. “There was evidence that Ian – DS Osman – was involved with organised crime. He had connections to a particular group, he would be trusted by them.”
“Tell me more about that.”
“We’d been investigating a man called Trevor Hamm. Three of the men working for him are now serving prison sentences. Kyle Gatiss for illegally imprisoning a police officer, Simon Adams for the same, and Adam Fulmer for people smuggling. There was another man Hamm employed to do building work for officers who provided him with information. This man did some work on DS Osman’s house.”
“In return for giving Mr Hamm information about police operations?”
“I don’t know the details, but that’s what PSD officers told me, yes.”
“So Sergeant Osman joined your team and was working cases with you as well as this undercover operation for PSD.”
“Yes.”
“How much did you know about his undercover activities?”
“Nothing other than that he was doing something. I wasn’t given the details.”
“Moving on, can you tell me how you and the defendant came to be together at Birmingham airport on the afternoon of the bomb on Pakistan Airways Flight 546?”
“I was in the office, working on paperwork. My DCI, Lesley Clarke, was called away to the New Street incident. Then Detective Superintendent Randle, who’s the Head of Force CID, told me to go with him to the airport. It was Ian’s day off, I didn’t expect to see him. But when I arrived, he was already there.”
“Had he had a call from the station?”
“He didn’t tell me who’d contacted him. I was surprised, given that he had apparently been on a shopping trip with his family.”
“And was off duty.”
“Yes.”
“In the event of a major incident like the bomb attacks that day, is it normal for officers to be called in from leave at short notice?”
“It happens, yes. But normally their line manager would be involved in notifying them.”
“And you weren’t?”
“No. I had no idea that DS Osman was aware of the incident until I saw him at the airport.”
“Do you have any idea who might have called him?”
Zoe hesitated, thinking of Randle. “He didn’t tell me. It was all very rushed, chaotic. He didn’t tell me, and I was busy with incident response.”
“So after you encountered him at the airport, did the two of you proceed to work together on incident response?”
“I was Bronze Command. Ian didn’t have a formal role but he joined me.”
“Doing what, specifically?”
“We went to the aeroplane with orders to preserve the scene. So that investigators would have the best possible forensics.”
“Did you carry out those orders?”
“Firefighters were still on board, it was an active rescue operation. We were told to stand down until it was safe to go on board.”
“Were you frustrated by that?”
Zoe heard a sob. She looked round to see an elderly male juror with his head in his hands.
The judge put up a hand, indicating for Zoe to stay quiet. Zoe watched the man, her muscles tense. After a few moments he sat up straight, taking a tissue from another juror and insisting he was OK to go on.
“Were you frustrated, DI Finch?” the barrister asked again.
“We wanted to ensure the evidence was preserved, so there would be a better chance of identifying who had planted the bomb. But the rescue was more important.”
She had been frustrated at the time. She’d been so focused on the police work that she’d lost sight of the rescue. She’d even argued with the firefighters. Looking back, she felt ashamed. She certainly wasn’t about to tell a jury how she’d reacted.
“So you left the plane, and where did you go?”
“I went to where the pathology team was working.”
“You and the defendant?”
“He was already there. He was bending over one of the deceased when I arrived there.”
A raised eyebrow. “Were you able to identify the deceased?”
“None of the bodies had been identified at that time.”
Zoe swallowed as she heard a sniff from the spectators. This was all so raw. Two bombs detonated in the city. She wondered if there were people in the gallery who’d lost loved ones. If that happened to her, she’d want to be at this trial.
“So you didn’t know who it was that the defendant was bending over?”
“No.”
“Can you remember anything about the person? Sex, ethnicity?”
Zoe took a breath. She’d run over this moment again and again in her mind. She’d even dreamed about it. But each time, the face was a blank.
“I’m afraid not. We were disturbed by the pathologist, who asked us to move away.”
“Did you see the defendant place anything on the body he was bending over?”
“I didn’t.”
This was the crux of it. Ian was accused of planting explosives residue on the body of Nadeem Sharif, an innocent victim of the attack. They’d assumed the man had detonated the bomb, until Adi had worked out that the timings meant he couldn’t have. The poor man had been killed and then his family had to go through the indignity of being questioned and having their house torn apart by police.
“Nothing at all?” the barrister asked.
“I didn’t see anything leave the defendant’s hand.”
“But you did see him paying close attention to one of the bodies.”
“Bending over one, yes.”
“No further questions.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Connie swallowed as the pathologist arranged the unidentified body laid out before them. She had her fists clenched at her sides and her toes curled in the boots they’d made her wear.
Hold it together, she told herself. If Rhodri could do this, so could she.
It wasn’t even as if this was her first post-mortem. She’d been to eight before. Three in Uniform and five in CID.
But she’d never seen a body quite like this.
It was impossible to tell whether the man had been overweight in life, or if it was just the bloating that made him look that way. His flesh was puffed up as if someone had blown into his mouth and inflated him. The skin on his stomach and chest was greenish-black but his legs were a purple-yellow colour, like a two-day-old bruise. His face had bite marks to the left cheek and the chin, and his teeth were visible through the tears in the skin and muscle.
Connie looked away, maintaining control over her stomach.
“Starting with external injuries,” said Dr Adebayo.
“Yes,” said Connie.
“This isn’t for your benefit,” the pathologist told her, pausing the movement of her hands on the victim’s face. “I record it.”
“Of course. Sorry.” Connie clamped her lips shut.
“Subject has deep wounds to his left cheek and his lower jaw. Flesh has been torn away from the bone and mangled in places. Consistent with animal bites.”
Connie kept her gaze on the pathologist’s hands. She breathed through her mouth, not easy in the surgical mask.
Dr Adebayo turned to her. “Tell me you’re not going to pass out.”
“I’m not going to pass out,” Connie mumbled.
“If you do, make sure you go that way.” The doctor used her free hand to indicate away from the body. Connie nodded, hoping it wouldn’t come to that.
“Right, where was I? Yes, animal bites.”
The pathologist cut at the flesh surrounding one of the bites. She dropped a sample of the man’s flesh into a metal tray and screwed up her face as she leaned in to get a better look.
“No sign of knife wounds to the head. Only trauma is teeth marks.” She put her scalpel on the tray and picked up a swab, then wiped it across the bite wounds. She placed it in a bag, sealed that and picked up another which she ran around the man’s teeth and gums before securing it. She stood back to let her assistant take photographs, then leaned in again.
“Moving down, subject has intensive greening to the abdomen. Indicative of post mortem interval of a week to ten days. Bloating of soft tissues confirms this.”
“Would he have been overweight before death?” asked Connie.
“On balance, I would say yes. On a slimmer adult, bloating wouldn’t be this severe.”
Connie nodded. That might help with identification.
“Moving on to the legs. Hypostasis is present on the backs of the calves and thighs. Subject was found in a prone position lying face down, which would indicate the body was moved after death.”
“Can you tell how long after death he was moved?”
The pathologist frowned. “Not with much certainty, but hypostasis normally kicks in around 30 minutes after death and becomes most prominent around twelve hours later. Temperature and environment will affect this, and as we don’t know where he died…”
“But he was probably moved at least twelve hours after he was killed?”
“Given the post mortem interval and the fact he wasn’t spotted until yesterday, I’d imagine he was moved later than that. But that’s something for your forensics people to ascertain.”
Connie nodded.
“OK. Time to open him up.”
The pathologist picked up a scalpel and made the familiar Y incision into the man’s torso. Connie gagged as the smell of rotting flesh rose from the bench. His flesh bulged under the knife, making squeaking noises. She could hear fluids seeping into the drain at the end of the table.
Connie turned away and cleared her throat.
“You OK?”
“Fine.” Connie forced herself to turn back to the body.
“Right. Let’s take a look.” She clamped back the man’s skin to reveal his internal organs. The bright red of his insides contrasted with the green skin.
Dr Adebayo glanced at Connie. “This isn’t the worst I’ve had this week.”
“No?” Connie couldn’t imagine anything much worse than this.
“Burn victim. Arson attack on his shop. Horrible.”
Connie nodded. She didn’t need to imagine a body more ‘horrible’ than this one.
The doctor moved around the table and bent down to get a closer look. She straightened abruptly.
“Can you smell that?”
“What?” Connie leaned forward, sniffing, then instantly regretted it.
“That smell.”
Connie sniffed again. There was a strong and familiar smell, like cooking. She shook her head.
The doctor crouched down further, inserting her fingers into the man’s chest and examining his organs. Connie couldn’t see what she was looking at from this angle. The technician approached and the two pathologists muttered to each other.
Connie’s eyes widened. “It’s like… garlic?”
“A garlic-like smell. It indicates the presence of…”
The assistant, a tall black woman of whom Connie could see only her eyes, nodded.
“Of what?” Connie asked.
Dr Adebayo held up a hand to shush her. “It’s the same as…” She put her hand to her mask. “I need to tell them about this.”
“Who?” Connie said. “I can tell DI Finch.”
The pathologist stood up. “Not your DI. Sorry.”
“What is it? Was he poisoned?”
Dr Adebayo looked Connie in the eye. “I’m sorry about this, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“I’m fine. If I was going to throw up I’d have done it by now.”
“It’s not that. DC Williams, please can you leave?”
“The boss will want my report.”
“And she’ll get it, as soon as I’ve spoken to Superintendent Rogers.”
Rogers? He was DI Whaley’s boss. Connie looked back at the body.
“Can I at least tell her the cause of death?”
“Tell her it’s arsenic poisoning. That’s what killed him.”
“Arsenic?”
“I’ll talk to her after I’ve spoken to Superintendent Rogers.”
“Doctor, please—”
“DC Williams. I’ve already asked you to leave once. Please, don’t make my job any harder.”
Chapter Forty
Ian’s barrister was a willowy Asian man in his forties. He looked down at his notes, pushed his glasses up his nose and turned to look at Zoe. She pushed her thumb into the palm of her hand, determined not to let him rattle her.
She knew the evidence she had against Ian was flimsy. There would be other evidence that Carl and his team had gathered, evidence that definitely showed Ian leaving explosives residue on the body of Nadeem Sharif. Not to mention the evidence connecting him to Trevor Hamm and Stuart Reynolds, the builder he’d employed.
How much of it was circumstantial, she didn’t know. There was enough for the CPS to have charged Ian, but enough to convict him?
She glanced across at Ian. She didn’t know for sure he was guilty, but her gut told her he was guilty of corruption at least, if not of planting evidence.
All she had to do was tell the truth. It would be for the jury to decide what that meant. She took a deep breath through her nose.
“Detective Inspector Finch,” the barrister said.
She nodded.
“How would you describe your relationship with my client?”
“We had a good professional relationship.”
“You weren’t resentful of his presence on your team?”
“No.”
“Who did he replace
as your sergeant?”
“He replaced DS Mohammed Uddin.”
‘Who is now back in your team, is that correct?”
“It is.”
“So DS Osman gets a brief spell in your team, you accuse him of planting evidence and then you get your old pal DS Uddin back.”
“No.”
“No? So what did happen?”
“DS Uddin was given a move to another team. It created a vacancy and I agreed to take DS Osman.”
“Reluctantly, perhaps?”
“Ian Osman was a good detective. I was happy to have him on the team.”
“When you were investigating the disappearance of his children, did you have reason to suspect Sergeant Osman?”
“Suspect him of what?”
The barrister raised his eyebrows. “I ask the questions here. Did you suspect him of being the person who took his own children?”
“There was a brief period during which we thought that he and his wife might have—”
“Based on what evidence?”
“The woman who took the children was masquerading as Alison Osman, Ian’s wife. We had no idea she existed so when we found evidence pointing to her, we naturally—”
“You assumed Mrs Osman was guilty, and you lumped my client in with her. Did your evidence point to him as well?”
Zoe licked her lips. “He’d been behaving strangely. We later learned that this was because he was connected to an organised crime gang.”
“I know I’m sounding like a stuck record here, but on the basis of what evidence did you suspect him of involvement with this gang?”
“He had improvements carried out on his house by Stuart Reynolds, the man Trevor Hamm employed to do building work in lieu of payment. He disappeared on a number of occasions and we believed he was visiting members of the gang.”
“You believed? Did you follow him to these meetings?”
“No.” They had tried, but failed. Zoe thought of the evening Mo had borrowed Rhodri’s ancient Saab, which had broken down before he was able to tail Ian.
“So you believed he was connected to organised crime, you took him in for questioning, and he was later released because there was no solid evidence backing up your theories.”
Deadly Fallout (Detective Zoe Finch Book 6) Page 13