by Lee Weeks
Sandford slammed his toolbox shut. ‘Maybe.’
They left Sandford to it and walked down the corridor that ran almost the length of the house. On one side was a formal dining room and a study, on the other a snug room and a second lounge. At the end of the corridor a large kitchen opened out and led to a conservatory on the left. A utility room was at the back and to the right of the kitchen, a Dutch airer hung empty from the ceiling above them, and a washing machine sat with its door open and a plastic basket on top, a strange reminder that there was normal life in Blackdown Barn. Through the utility room a cellar door was open.
Carter flicked on a switch that illuminated the stone stairs and they made their way down. The smell of damp hit Ebony as she descended. The cold chilled to the bone. Carter stopped at the bottom, a large bare space, pitch black in its corners beneath low rafters and in hidden alcoves. He gave a small two-footed jump. ‘New, solid floor. I can smell sweat, rubber in the air. Maybe they had a gym down here, Ebb.’
‘Could be, Sarge.’
‘That’s what happens when you quit smoking, Ebb. You start smelling everything. I can smell a bacon sandwich being cooked half a mile away. I’ve already put on a few pounds . . . muscle, of course . . .’ He turned to wink at her but she wasn’t looking or listening to him: she’d walked on down to where the cellar narrowed. A door opened to her right. Inside was a room just big enough for a single bed and a chair. It reminded her of a place she had stayed with her mother once, reminded her of so many places. It had the same smell of damp. The corners of the rooms where mould collected. It was colourless. It was bare. She had spent a lot of her childhood sitting on a bed like that, trying hard to do her homework, her world constantly shifting beneath her feet, moving on, getting better.
‘Sarge?’
‘What is it, Ebb?’ Carter appeared beside her in the room. ‘Fuck . . . this is definitely the economy accommodation.’ He looked at the bed. ‘Forensics will be taking all this as soon as the transport gets here. Christ . . . how many people lived in this house, Ebb?’ Ebony didn’t answer – she was busy putting on latex gloves. ‘What are you doing?’ Carter watched her.
She knelt on the floor and stretched her right arm underneath the bed until her shoulder was wedged against the frame; she ran her hand along the bottom of the springs.
‘This bed wouldn’t take the weight of a pregnant woman.’ She moved her arm down the bed, sweeping the underside as she went. Ebony had spent so much of her childhood in bedsits and emergency housing that she tried to leave something for the next child wherever she went. Sometimes it was a smiley face sticker, stuck to the leg of the bed. Other times it was a cheap toy, the kind you get free in cereal packets. Other kids left her things.
When she drew her hand back, she was holding a piece of red cloth.
‘What is it, a piece of clothing?’ It uncurled in her hand. In its corner was a fleck of white and the beginnings of a golden embroidered circle.
‘Not sure. It was tied on to the springs.’
They heard the sound of the SOCOs making their way down with the exhibit removal team. Ebony dropped it into a plastic bag and put it in her pocket.
‘Let’s go, Ebb. We’ll leave them to it.’
On the way back to Carter’s car, still wearing her gloves, she took out the piece of cloth from her pocket and looked at it again. As she pulled it flat she saw the beginning of spokes inside the golden circle.
‘What football team do you support, Sarge?’
‘Tottenham, why?’
‘Who’s your biggest rival?’ He looked across at her. She stretched the cloth tight and held it up to show him. At the edge of it was the start of a golden gun barrel. ‘I think someone was an Arsenal supporter.’
Chapter 5
They arrived back at Fletcher House with twenty minutes to spare before the meeting at eight. Fletcher House was just behind Archway Tube station. An innocuous-looking building from the outside; it appeared to be like any other office block except that there was no reception area and visitors had to make it past the bombproof security and the SOCOs vans in the car park. Across London there were two other buildings like Fletcher House; together they split London into three large policing districts to cope with major incidents and served the whole of the Metropolitan Police District. Each of the buildings was home to four Major Incident Teams, MITs. Ebony and Carter were part of the Murder Squad in MIT 17. The rest of the MIT called the Murder Squad ‘The Dark Side’. They both worked in the largest room, the Enquiry Team Office (ETO). It was where the bulk of the work was done by the team: six long desks with officers sitting opposite one another.
‘I hear you had a busy night?’
Ebony’s station was diagonally opposite Jeanie the Family Liaison Officer. She was rated as the best FLO there was on any of the murder squads. She was good at making families talk, gaining their confidence; at the same time she got the best for them. She had gone through a lot of training to specialize but it was clear to all that she had found her niche. Jeanie was on the phone when Ebony sat down. She was ‘on hold’.
Ebony nodded. ‘Get the feeling it won’t be the last busy one. It’s a big area to search.’
‘Yeah, I saw the boys getting excited about all the equipment they had to order. Boys’ toys: diggers, thermal imaging, the works.’ Ebony smiled. ‘I hear you were partnered with Dan Carter. How was it?’
‘It was good.’
Jeanie lowered her voice, held her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. ‘Great guy, fantastic detective, nightmare as a boyfriend. Believe me: seriously high maintenance. I take my hat off to Cabrina for making him move up the ladder of commitment. A kid is something I could never in a million years imagine Dan having . . . Sticky fingers all over the silk sheets? No way.’
Ebony looked across at Carter. It occurred to Ebony that Jeanie didn’t know that Cabrina had gone back to live with her parents. Carter looked her way and winked. She smiled back. He went back to focusing on the paperwork on his desk. Ebony’s eyes settled on the wall behind him where there was one of several white boards around the walls of the ETO. The one behind Carter was divided into columns with the name of the investigation, the team, the date it commenced. Unsolved and current murder enquiries stayed on the board. Blackdown Barn was already up there. At the very top of the list was a case nobody in MIT17 had been allowed to forget. It was the Carmichael case; the time when a policeman’s family was murdered.
The ETO was filling up with officers all coming in for the initial meeting about Blackdown Barn. Ebony leant forward to see the corridor outside. Doctor Harding was easy to recognize – short, thin and blonde. Unmistakeable, the way she stood with her legs apart, stretching the limits of her size six pencil skirt. Harding had the reputation for being a ball-buster. She was a difficult one to fathom. There was something about her that Ebony liked, her toughness maybe, her enthusiasm for her work. She worked hard and played hard. But she was known to be ruthless in her professional and private life. She collected other people’s husbands like pairs of shoes. Someone else was there. By the way Harding was looking up as she talked, Ebony guessed it was Superintendent Davidson, the six foot four head of their department.
The door opened and Harding came in. She went to the far side of the room and sat down ready to be called on as one of the experts. She crossed her slim legs, the top one twitching as she stared straight ahead, apparently lost in her own thoughts.
Carter got to his feet and walked over to Ebony’s desk.
‘You ready to address the meeting, Ebb?’ She looked at him blankly. ‘Only joking. I wouldn’t be that mean, would I, Jeanie?’
Jeanie nodded and mouthed, ‘Oh yes.’ She was listening to the woman on the other end of the phone explain why she couldn’t help. ‘Thanks for nothing.’ She put the phone down. ‘Just ignore him.’ She made a face at Carter and shook her head, pretending to be cross.
Carter grinned. ‘She loves me really.’
He turned to
watch Davidson close the door behind him and stand waiting for the last rumble of conversation to evaporate. Carter went back to his desk. Davidson’s voice boomed over the heads of the officers.
‘Last night, at a house near Totteridge a gardener uncovered a grave that contained a woman and her infant child. DC Ebony Willis and Sergeant Dan Carter were the first detectives at the scene. Sergeant?’ He handed over to Carter. Carter had remained standing. He pinned a map up on the notice board behind him.
‘They were buried under a patio at a house in Totteridge, about eight miles northwest of here. For those of you who don’t know the area, it’s a picturesque village with farmland around it. This house is down a country lane off the main A5109 road which runs east to west. As its name would suggest, Blackdown Barn is an old barn conversion. So far we know little about who was supposed to be living there. The house appears to be empty, recently vacated. It looks likely they left two weeks ago. We know there is someone named Mr Chichester from letters in the mailbox. We’ll find out all we can today when we get hold of the deeds to the house and trace the owner. We started house-to-house in the area this morning, hoping to catch people before they headed off to work. So far most people have told us that this is a rented property and that the owner lives in the Channel Islands.’
Carter clicked on the ‘play’ button on his laptop and a virtual tour of Blackdown Barn came on screen.
‘The house itself has five bedrooms upstairs and a further one in the basement. We’ll know more when we get hold of the owner of the house and find out what furniture is his. This house could potentially house many more, but if we’re just going by the number of beds, must be five people at least.’
The master bedroom came onto the screen and Carter paused the video. ‘Whoever was living there didn’t leave in a hurry. They cleaned up thoroughly before they left. Most fixtures and fittings are still there and the beds have been taken away for DNA analysis. This room, the master bedroom overlooking the front of the house, is the exception. This room is different to the others. It has no carpet or curtains, the bed’s gone but there’s evidence of a single one having been in there.’ The video continued through the house and down into the cellar. He paused it when it came to the small room off the wine cellar.
‘There was an extra bedroom down here.’ He allowed the film to run on before pausing it again with the view of the interior of the room. ‘There’s a camp bed down there which we don’t think would take the weight of the pregnant woman but we’ll wait for the DNA results. It’s certainly not a place someone would choose to sleep. It’s cold and damp. Under the bed we found a scrap of red material that we believe to be a piece of an Arsenal football shirt, attached to the springs.’
The video switched to an outside view.
‘There is evidence of a large van having been sat on the driveway and it was there for some time. We’re having a mould taken of the imprint. Maybe they used that to transport things from the house. As we follow the film around to the back of the property we find the gravesite.’
Carter passed over to Harding: ‘Doctor Harding certified the remains and carried out post-mortems on the two victims.’
Harding stood and opened her notes. She took over the video control from Carter.
‘If you want to open the email I sent you you’ll get the photos from the burial site and the autopsy.’
Ebony was already looking at the dismembered remains on her screen. She flipped back to the burial site and the woman’s body in the grave.
‘A woman, Caucasian. Until we can identify her I’ve given her the name Silvia. Silvia was approximately five foot four, in her mid-twenties. She was buried a metre and a half below the surface of the patio. Buried face up. The manner in which she was laid out was not a haphazard act: she was placed rather than thrown. The body has been dismembered at the major joints using a power tool, probably a small hand-held circular saw. The edges are uniform; bone splintering is minimal. It’s a neat job. Very tidy. Initial soil analysis surrounding the body shows that this was probably done in situ. Small fragments of bone were found in the surrounding soil. We will have an accurate date for burial after larvae tests are carried out but I estimate she’s been in the ground five months. She was buried in summer. We found traces of bramble pollen.’
Harding moved to the next image in which the body had been washed and laid out on the mortuary slab.
‘Strong athletic build: well nourished. No previous fractures. She has a large contusion over the left eye which looks like it maybe have also been a friction burn. I have sent the skin from the area away for analysis.’ A photo of the torso came on screen. ‘Silvia has been extensively mutilated internally. She was opened up down the centre of the torso from sternum to pubic bone. Decomposition of the torso prevents us from recovering her organs or stomach contents.’
A slideshow of the autopsy shots came on screen.
‘Apart from the facial injury she doesn’t appear to have any other obvious wounds, was well fed and would have most probably been able to carry her baby to full term. She was killed shortly after giving birth by Caesarean section.’ Harding paused the slide-show at the photo of the baby. ‘Her baby is female, approximately thirty-six weeks. I have named her Fi. She was delivered but her airways were not cleared. Fi never took a breath. In all other ways the baby appeared to be perfectly healthy although a few weeks early. Fi wasn’t Silvia’s first child.’
Harding sat back down. Davidson elevated his voice a notch and fixed his eyes on each member of the team in turn.
‘Our lines of enquiry will follow these paths: get the deeds and trace the owner. Find out who Chichester is. We estimate that he has been out of the house for two weeks. Not a lot was happening in those two weeks. The snow brought the whole of the UK to a standstill. Where did he go? Get out into the village of Totteridge and ask questions about who lived in the house. Post a manned mobile unit at the end of the lane where it meets the main road and talk to passersby. We need to find out if there was a phone line in and see what that throws up. Trace the utility bills, council tax, TV licence, everything. The postman, the local canvassing politician. Anyone that might have visited this property. Someone must have knocked on the door for some reason. Right now we have a lot of groundwork to do. Missing Persons. Is there a record of a pregnant woman attending the local hospital? Does she have another child somewhere? If we find out who the victims were then we can find out why they were killed and by whom. We will be bringing cadaver dogs and thermal-imaging equipment in.’ Davidson wrapped things up. ‘Carter, can I have you in my office please?’
Trevor Bishop checked his watch again; he knew he was late for the meeting but he was still working on the prints he’d found. He loaded the last print from the master bedroom at Blackdown Barn onto his PC for scanning and cross-matching. It was a thumb, forefinger and partial palm print that he’d lifted from the bottom of the windowpane. Someone had tried to open the sash window. It had been newly painted at the time and must have been hard to shift. Someone had tried really hard. It was a great print to find. It was the best one of the night.
He sat back in his chair and took off his glasses; they sprang off his face and clattered on the desktop: unbreakable, the optician said. He couldn’t help giving them a little test every day. He could leave the computer to do its job now. One print collided with another and separated. The program scrolled through its data. Ninety ridges, bifurcations and relative locations: ninety points of similarity and the match would be made. Of course the skill would come in evaluating any calluses, dirt, cracks or scars, but first he had to let the computer do its work. He checked his watch again: bugger. He hated being late. He sat back and looked at his screensaver of Stonehenge. Somewhere inside, a zillion cross-matches were being verified: the database was being checked in cyberland and it would take as long as it would take.
Five more minutes and Trevor was about to leave it and go. He hovered the mouse over Stonehenge, ready to click the ‘shut
down’ button, and then he saw it . . . the computer told him there was a positive result.
He drew his chair back to the monitor and watched the match take place. On the left of the screen was the print from Blackdown Barn; on the right was the one matching, its fingers splayed, the forefinger and palm the clearest. The one on the right printed in blood. He shook his head as he sat back in his chair and rocked to and fro. In front of him the match confirmed. He remembered it well. Had it really been thirteen years ago?
Rose Cottage: Lydd Road, Camber Sands 17 May 1998.
The first officer on the scene had walked into a house of blood and butchery: one woman in the lounge, her naked body split open from her chest downwards; in the kitchen another woman . . . the same. Upstairs, a little girl’s arterial blood dripped from the ceiling in the bedroom, her throat cut. The first officer at the scene was Callum Carmichael. The woman in the kitchen was his wife Louise; the little girl upstairs was his daughter Sophie.
Chapter 6
Carter followed Harding into Davidson’s office. Harding sat in a chair by the window, beneath the framed portrait of Davidson meeting a retired Prime Minister. Davidson turned to see Bishop walking in behind them.
‘Trevor? You didn’t make the meeting?’
‘Sorry, got delayed. But it was worth it.’ He closed the door behind him. Davidson sat down behind his desk. Bishop put two A4 printouts on Davidson’s desk next to one another. ‘Let me show you. I ran a check on a print I found last night in Blackdown Barn. See the points highlighted in yellow? It’s a perfect match to one from a cold case.’
Davidson smiled. ‘Great result, Trevor. What was the cold case?’
‘This one—’ Bishop tapped his finger on the print to Davidson’s left, ‘was found at Blackdown Barn. And this one?’ He looked up at Davidson. ‘Found next to the body of four-year-old Sophie Carmichael thirteen years ago.’