I pulled the zipper across the bag and dropped it on the floor near the door. As I was packed and waiting for Aaron I poured myself a quick glass of red wine. It tasted good as it slid down my throat, smooth and warm. The built-up tension that had been gathering over me like a hurricane cloud dissipated with a couple of slugs. A car horn sounded. We were off to Norwich and the dead girl’s parents.
14
There was a reserved quietness about the trip. Aaron drove the works’ Skoda Octavia estate. It was in pristine condition and still had that new car smell about it. He was fastidious about keeping it clean. You’d find him at the end of every week, washing and polishing in preparation for the following week. If someone had left food wrappers inside when he went to use it, he would talk incessantly about how dirty it and they were, for at least five minutes. It was rare that wrappers were left in cars now. I sat beside him as he drove.
My work bag was on the back seat. It was stuffed with note books and reports which included initial house to house inquiry results and post-mortem notes. I had the missing person report Norwich had emailed laid out across my lap. My overnight bag had been slung into the boot along with Aaron’s.
“Seeing anything?” he asked of the misper report I was attempting to read.
“A lot of fuzzy lines.” I squeezed my eyes together, opened them and tried again. It was no good. I hated reading in cars. “What do we have to say this Norwich girl is ours?” I asked for the third time since I’d heard she could be our victim.
“As our missing persons database didn’t bring about any matches, Ross contacted the National Missing Persons Bureau, who are now a part of the Serious Organised Crime Agency. It was a bit of a long shot as their system is only as good as the forces who comply with the requirement to update them with high risk MISPERS within forty-eight hours.”
He listed off the facts I already knew, keeping his focus on the road.
“Their database brought up several potential matches in various parts of the country, on basic details such as height, ethnicity, hair colour and approximate age, but then the DNA results from the post-mortem came in and Ross submitted it to the Bureau who conducted a speculative search on their DNA database, which again has its own teething problems. Do you realise how few officers seize a toothbrush or hairbrush on the first report of a missing person, thereby slowing things down?” He was off on a tangent. I didn’t know if he expected an answer. He didn’t look across at me, but kept his eyes on the road and his hands in the ten, two position. “The Bureau holds a huge physical collection of body parts as well as having the massive database of missing people and unidentified dead bodies. Seriously. Body parts.”
It was time for me to push him forward. “And our girl?”
“Well the DNA we submitted came back with a match.”
That was it. The one sentence I wanted, but he hadn’t finished. “The local cops on the missing girl must have done a great job because her DNA was on the database within required time limits, which goes to show they were serious about the investigation and graded her as high risk, so what does that mean to our case and how she got here?”
I didn’t know the answer. “Our match, does she have a name?” I asked.
“Yeah. She’s Rosie Green. Fifteen years old, model daughter and student until the few weeks in the run up to her going missing. First time missing, turns up murdered in our city. It’s a long way from home, Hannah, how’s she ended up here?”
The question bothered me. How did a child from Norwich turn from model child to a dead body, badly beaten and tortured, behind a dumpster in Nottingham, some one hundred and twenty miles away?
15
It was nearly eight p.m. when we landed at Bethel Street Police Station, Norwich. Though it was dark, I immediately liked the look of the building. It was a substantial construction made with two different sized bricks, and white, worn wooden window frames giving it an old build look. The genteel feel the place had was compounded further by the lights dotted down the street, black painted, round posts, with old fashioned glass tubes emitting the light providing a picture postcard image.
The front of the station had minimal parking outside, reserved for police vehicles. Aaron steered the Octavia into a space and we walked into the station.
DI Clive Tripps, the SIO running the investigation, met us at the front counter. We shook hands and introductions were made. Clive was a thin and wiry man. His handshake was firm, though his hands rather cool. His green eyes met mine and he smiled.
“I’m glad you managed to come down, I know the family will appreciate it. She’s been missing two weeks and they need some answers.” As he talked he opened internal doors by punching numbers into keypads on the walls. Green lights and a beep indicated access had been granted. We walked down the corridor until we came to some stairs on our right. We started to climb.
“I suppose the main issue for the family is they need to be told we believe we have her body and they need to identify her. What do they know about this?” I asked.
“I phoned ahead and let them know I needed to see them this evening and that I’d bring someone else involved in the investigation with me. But I haven’t told them any information past that. I didn’t want to end up in a difficult conversation on the phone. I thought it better to speak with you first. As you’d expect, they’re in pieces.”
We walked into a well lit room with an array of desks and chairs, each with its own computer terminal and, besides those, piles of folders I knew contained more jobs, more injured people and more affected lives.
“Family consists of Mum and Dad, no other children, so once they know she’s gone, they’re going to have to try and support themselves through this. It’s all too difficult for them to take much in at the moment, but I get the feeling they’re expecting to hear bad news.”
We pulled a few chairs together and sat as a group around the largest desk in the centre of the room. Two detectives from Clive’s team joined us. They were introduced as Nima Khan and Michael Lane, both involved in the investigation into Rosie’s disappearance. Nima had a considered calm about her, a practicality and pragmatism I liked. Michael, though older, had an enthusiasm for the job I rarely saw in such a long serving detective. Between them they organised drinks and a couple of bars of chocolate. I liked the pair; they rolled off each other well. Clive Tripps had a well run team. We discussed what each force had in relation to their respective investigations before we made the house call none of us wanted to do.
“What’s her family history like?” Aaron questioned.
“It’s a good family home. Regular school attendance. No social services involvement. No criminal history on the parents, or Rosie. School gave glowing reports, but said she let her school work slip for the last few weeks. She became sulky and uninterested. She snubbed her friends and she became very isolated. Mum and Dad both say she continued to go out after school. She told them she was with friends, when in fact she wasn’t, and her friends didn’t have a clue about where she went,” Nima relayed from memory.
“Can we talk to her friends again, and her teachers? Maybe in the morning before we head back?”
Nima nodded. “Of course. We’ll set it up with the school as soon as they open tomorrow.”
I rubbed my head again. A habit I seemed to have acquired, but it had been a long and exhausting day. I turned to Aaron. “I think we need to go and do that knock on the parents. The sooner the better for them I think. If I go with Clive, can you stay and collate all the paperwork they have here, and make copies for us to take back?”
“Absolutely,” he nodded, straightening his tie. Michael eyed him over, his own tie loose and pulled to the side. He kept any thoughts he had to himself.
Clive spoke to Nima. “Are you okay to help DS Stone with the file for Rosie and also get him the number for the school ready for tomorrow?”
“Yes, doing that now,” Nima replied leaning forward and grabbing a folder from the desk in front of her.
<
br /> The team ran well. I took a breath, “Okay, Clive, let’s go and see Mum and Dad.”
16
The Greens lived in a small terraced cottage in Lakenham, South Norwich. The wooden front door was old, with paint peeling around the edges and in the grooves of the panels. Tiny flakes of blue were scattered along the doorstep. There was a family car parked in front. With the glow of the sodium street light I couldn’t make out its colour. It bore the same worn look the house had.
The door was opened by a stout man, hair thinning on top, his soft grey eyes asking a question he didn’t want an answer to.
“Mr Green, thank you for seeing us. This is DI Hannah Robbins. May we come in?” asked Clive.
George Green looked dazed and uncertain. He stepped aside.
“Yes.” He paused. “I’m sorry. Come in.”
The house was neat, though I could see a layer of dust settled across the furniture. A sign it hadn’t been cared for since Rosie had gone missing. It had the feel of a family home. Family photographs adorned the walls on faded floral wallpaper. Happier times captured and memories held in thin frames. Smiling faces, arms wrapped around each other. Three people whose lives were now shattered. I could see Rosie as she had been, not the cold grey corpse in the alley – or that lay on the steel table of Jack Kidner. This was a girl full of hopes and dreams, full of love and joy, secure in the arms of her parents. Parents who no doubt had dreamt of a future for their daughter, a future with a career, aspirations and a grandchild maybe. I looked at the woman in the chair in front of us. From the pictures I saw she had aged ten years. She looked down at her hands grasped in her lap, fingers tightly wrapped together. She didn’t want to look at us. She knew why we were here and she didn’t want that moment to come. George Green went over to her, crouching down as though to a small child you want to reassure. He took her shaking hands into his. She raised her head to him, eyes red and swollen. Fear vibrated off her. I took a deep breath and tried to steady myself, quell the emotion building inside me. Somehow it was possible to work with the dead and hear their stories through the eyes of a pathologist, but being so close to the emotional pain of the family was something different entirely. It latched onto me, worked at my throat and pushed up from the inside out. I had to breathe through this. This was their pain, not mine. I had to breathe.
17
Informing someone you believe their child to be dead is one of the most difficult jobs I ever have to do. Dealing with the bodies is something you can attempt to detach from. You have to, otherwise you will always be haunted by the last moments of their lives and it doesn’t help anyone. You have a job to do and you need to do it well. People’s lives are important. But the grief and pain of those left behind is heartbreaking. For me, it’s temporarily impossible to separate myself from. The feeling is raw and tangible and I’d be more concerned by anyone who didn’t feel some effect themselves. It was hard but I had to be strong for George and Anne Green. To tell them the facts as we knew them. Death is shocking in a child, but a violent death is unimaginable for a parent to face. Mr Green had clenched his body, holding it all in. Mrs Green had crumbled, falling in on herself like a pack of cards touched by the faintest of breezes. The moment Rosie’s killer put his hands around her throat and squeezed the life out of her, he had done the same to her parents.
Clive started the engine and pulled away from the curb. As we went out of view of the terraced cottage, I put my head in my hands and allowed myself a moment to feel. A child was dead, her parents’ lives shattered and as of yet, we were nowhere near knowing who or why.
I needed some human warmth. Strong arms and comfort. Ethan. I pushed the thought away. This wasn’t the time or the place.
“It’s hard, I know.” Clive broke into my reverie and I remembered where I was.
Half an hour later I found myself in a small Italian restaurant, the Trattoria Rustica next to the city cathedral. Its wooden beams, brickwork, the occasional waft of warm garlic on a passing plate and the cosy atmosphere soon helped to relax my mood. Around the table sat Aaron, Clive, Nima and Michael, along with Chris Stewart, another detective from the team. In front of me was a plate of tagliatelle and a glass of Southern Comfort on the rocks. The idea of food hadn’t crossed my mind for most of the day and I hadn’t considered I might be hungry, but now I really was. I looked around the table and saw heavy eyes within friendly faces. I needed some rest but the couple of drinks I’d had warmed me and mellowed the hardship of the day. Picking up the glass I knocked back the remainder.
Chris chewed on his food and spoke through it. “So the Greens are going to see Rosie tomorrow morning and do the official identification. I’ll drive them.”
“Who’s the official FLO?” The FLO was a family liaison officer assigned to a family during serious investigations. They would get to know the family well.
“I am,” Chris continued. “They’re struggling to find reasons behind why she went missing. They blame themselves.”
“Which, as we know, often happens,” interjected Michael.
Chris swallowed his food and continued. “They said they tried to talk to her. Well Anne did, George doesn’t find it easy to have the serious conversations; he’s been more of the silent hand holding type. He left the talks to Anne. He said Rosie talked more to her mum, so he was happy for it to be that way, but it was an easy excuse for him. You can see it eating away at him now.” More food went up on a fork to his mouth as he continued to talk. “Anne tried, but said Rosie would clam up. Anne thinks there was a lot of competition amongst the girls to look good and make an impression. Anne and George didn’t like her wearing make-up for school and Rosie was struggling to fit in with that level of competitiveness.” I watched as Chris moved his food around his mouth as he spoke, like a washing machine on a slow cycle. “She clammed up and shut down to them.”
I raised my hand to attract the attention of the waiter.
“Another Southern Comfort please. Anyone else?”
“A pint please.”
“Make it two.”
“Three.”
“Wine,” requested Nima.
“So she’s troubled at school, she’s not talking to Mum and Dad. Who’s her closest friend?” I asked.
“I talked to her friends,” responded Nima. “Caroline Manders was her friend from infants, through juniors and up to the secondary school. When we interviewed Caroline she stated it was very recent, Rosie’s behaviour being a bit out of kilter. When Rosie went missing, Caroline found it hard, she was absent from school a lot of the time herself. Her parents said she wasn’t coping and they didn’t feel they could send her in the way she was. It’s hit her hard.”
“Will Caroline’s mother allow us to talk to her again? We could do with a chat in the morning if possible.”
“They’re pretty protective and Caroline appears to be quite cloistered by them, but I don’t see an issue with that. Give me a minute and I’ll call her mum and let her know you will be dropping by.”
The drinks arrived as Nima left the table to call Caroline’s parents. It was late and I wasn’t sure how happy they would be with a late night call, but that was the difficulty when a murder investigation crossed county lines. We usually found we upset a few people. I hoped we could counter this tomorrow when we spoke to them. I waited until Aaron picked up his pint and took a slug of my drink, its warmth, soothing.
Nima returned. “All set up with Caroline’s parents. They were a little reticent at first but said they want to do all they can to help. They asked if you could be there about eight a.m. as they will be dropping Caroline off at school about eight-thirty a.m. She’s still feeling fragile after all that’s happened to her friend and they want to maintain some semblance of normalcy for her.”
We continued to eat our food as we talked about the case in hushed tones so as to not upset the few other diners present at nearby tables. The conversation slipped into small talk of family lives and career aspirations and I felt the wearines
s wash over me. It was time to go.
I drained the rest of my drink and stood. After nods and good nights all round I departed, leaving Aaron still with his drink in his hand at the table. Outside I wrapped my scarf around my neck against the bitter winds and pushed my chin down deep into it, clenching my fists up tight in my pockets, as I still had no gloves, for the short walk to the hotel on the Prince of Wales Road.
Breakfast was hot and greasy, a good enough way to start the day. Aaron’s usual piercing blue eyes looked lacklustre. I’d pulled my hair back, tied it in an elastic band and attempted to cover the dark circles and dull skin with a smattering of foundation.
Though my phone had some missed calls and a couple of text messages, there had been nothing from Ethan through the night. It was possible he was busy, but I didn’t like uncertainty.
By seven-thirty a.m. we were at the Bethel Street station. Chris, Nima and Michael were at their desks. I walked into Clive’s office to discuss the morning’s actions with him.
“Good morning.” He smiled, his face friendly and open. I was finding he was a man I could work with.
“Morning, Clive. Thanks for last night.”
“You’re more than welcome. Did you sleep okay in the hotel?”
“Not bad.” I sat in the chair opposite him, crossing my legs at my knees, work bag on the floor to the side. “Are you happy coming to see Caroline with me if Aaron and one from your team go to the school to chat to some of the other kids? If Aaron and I split the tasks we need to do we can get it done in half the time and then catch each other up later.” Even though I preferred to do everything myself, I trusted Aaron and his judgment. Sometimes I wished he would think before he spoke, but he was a bloody good cop and I was glad to have him on my team.
The DI Hannah Robbins Series: Books 1 - 3 (Boxset) (Detective Hannah Robbins Crime Series) Page 4