Ness reaches up and switches off the microphone above his head and turns away, grimacing in pain when he puts weight on his right leg.
“Everything OK?”
“Gout,” he mutters, as if no other explanation were needed. “My doctor wants me to give up smoking, drinking, and eating rich foods. I think he’s in cahoots with my wife. Maybe they’re sleeping together.”
“If she wanted you dead she wouldn’t care so much.”
“True.”
Another assistant approaches with a clipboard, needing a signature. Ness signs with a flourish. “Tell the lab I want those bloods done by the morning.”
“What did you find?” I ask.
“More questions than answers.”
He moves around the bench and picks up a white sheet, which he draws over Jodie’s body, leaving only her face exposed. Tucking the sheet beneath her chin, he strokes her cheek like a father saying good-bye to his daughter.
Finally, he moves away, as though not wanting to speak in front of her.
“The semen in her hair will give us a DNA signature. She had nothing internally, but a small trace on her right thigh, along with evidence of a lubricant, which suggests a condom was used. There was no evidence of vaginal tearing or bruising, so the intercourse may have been consensual—at least at first.”
“Why have sex with her and then ejaculate in her hair?”
“That’s your area not mine,” says Ness, drinking from a bottle of water, not letting the plastic touch his lips. He wipes his mouth. “Jodie had dirt under her fingernails, but no skin cells or obvious defense injuries. The scratches came from brambles and branches.”
“You mentioned a blow to the head.”
“Some sort of blunt force trauma, which caused a hairline fracture of the parietal bone but no internal bleeding.” Ness indicates the back of his skull. “She might not have seen it coming. Most likely it knocked her unconscious or disorientated her. She had water in her lungs and pondweed in her hair, which suggests she either fell or was pushed from the footbridge.”
He tosses the empty water bottle in a bin. It rattles around the edge before it drops.
“Jodie didn’t remove her own clothing. Her jeans were pulled down while she was lying on her back. She didn’t get up again.”
“How did she die?” I ask.
“That’s a good question,” says Ness, in no hurry to answer it. He walks to a nearby bench and begins swapping his shoes. “Have you ever heard of dry drowning?”
“No.”
“When we inhale water into our lungs, we cut off oxygen to the body, which begins to shut down. Once we take a lungful of air, we cough up the water and usually begin breathing normally again. Everything is fine . . . except for when it’s not.”
Ness can see my confusion.
“There is a condition called secondary or delayed drowning. With young children it can happen in a matter of seconds, but the process typically takes longer in adults—hours or days. It tends to affect people who have damaged lungs or pulmonary illnesses. Jodie Sheehan suffered a bout of pneumonia eight months ago and was hospitalized.”
“You’re saying she drowned on dry land.”
“Possibly. Theoretically. I think she fell or was thrown from the footbridge. Maybe the cold water brought her round. She crawled out but was struggling to breathe because her diaphragm couldn’t create the necessary respiratory movements. This made her sluggish. Slow. Disorientated.”
“An easy target.”
“Just so.”
Ness slides his arms through the sleeves of his coat. “I can’t tell you the exact cause of death, but the temperature on Monday night fell to below freezing. Jodie was cold and wet and barely conscious. She was always going to die unless someone found her.”
* * *
As I’m leaving, I pass the viewing suites and the waiting room. A lone figure is sitting on a plastic chair, bent forwards with his elbows on his knees and his eyes fixed on the floor. Even without seeing his face, I recognize Felix Sheehan. He’s dressed in baggy jeans and a hooded sweatshirt that hang so loosely on his lanky frame they could be draped on a wire coat hanger.
“We haven’t met,” I say. “I’m Cyrus—”
“I know who you are.”
“I’m sorry about your sister.”
“You didn’t even know her.”
“That’s true—but I’m still sorry for your loss.”
“Are you a copper?”
“A psychologist.”
I notice a cigarette tucked behind his ear. He touches it occasionally, before lacing his fingers in his hair.
“Have you been waiting long?” I ask.
“I want to see Jodie.” The words catch in his throat.
“Can I ask why?”
“She’s my sister. Isn’t that enough?”
“I didn’t mean to upset you. The postmortem has just finished. They’ll be getting her ready.”
I can picture them dressing Jodie in clean night-wear and brushing her hair. Afterwards, her body will be arranged in a supine position, covered in a white sheet with only her face and hands visible.
“When did you last see her, Jodie?”
“At the fireworks.”
“What time did you leave?”
“More fucking questions,” he snarls, rattling off the same answers he gave to the police about visiting a nightclub and picking up a girl. “First I knew about Jodie was when Mum phoned me.”
“Did you get on well with your sister?”
“What sort of question is that?”
“I’m trying to learn more about her.”
His eyes narrow, fixed on mine. Black. Hard. “You think I killed her.”
“No.”
He can’t hold my gaze. Relaxes. Shrugs. “We got on OK. I saw less of her when I moved out of home. She had her skating. I had my shit to do.”
“What is it that you do?”
“I buy and sell stuff, on eBay mostly. Somebody’s trash is somebody’s treasure, right?”
“Is there much money in that?”
“You’d be surprised. People throw all sorts of shit away. I picked up a box of vinyl the other day and came across a mint copy of Sticky Fingers, you know, classic Rolling Stones. Sealed. Unopened. Worth three grand, at least.”
He’s watching me closely as he relates the story, as if gauging my reaction.
Suddenly, he changes direction. “Was she raped?”
“She was sexually assaulted.”
He swallows. “Did she suffer?”
“I don’t know.”
His fingers are opening and closing into fists, while his knee jiggles rhythmically. A nurse interrupts. Jodie’s body is ready for viewing. Felix hesitates. His lower lip disappears as he bites down.
“I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to see her.”
He brushes past me, striding along the corridor, jabbing impatiently at the button on the lift, desperate to be outside, away from this place. It’s like he’s holding the sick in his mouth, looking for somewhere to vomit. As the lift’s doors close, his arms form a tent over his head and his eyes shine like gemstones in a dark cave.
11
* * *
CYRUS
* * *
Silverdale Walk is a different place with the sun shining. Trees blaze orange and red, while others stand naked and grey, as if the artist ran out of paint on his palette before he could finish the landscape. Daylight has given context to the location, revealing landmarks and lines of sight. A thickly wooded ridge. A grass-covered coppice. The brown pond fringed with weeds.
It has taken me twelve minutes to walk from Jodie’s house to the clearing where her body was found. A young police constable is standing guard at the scene, stopping bystanders from getting too close. A makeshift memorial has sprung up, a mound of flowers, cards, and soft toys. Someone has made a sign saying, “Justice for Jodie.” Remnants of crime scene tape flutter in the breeze.
A team of poli
ce divers are packing up their gear, loading air tanks into wooden racks and hanging damp wetsuits over railings. The last of their number emerges from the water. Dripping in wrack and weeds, he looks like a prehistoric sea monster, crawling before he can walk.
He stands and pulls off his mask, letting his respirator dangle against his chest. Clad in a wetsuit, his short, barrel-shaped body appears to be made of granite or ebony. He swings his air tank to the ground and unhooks the harness.
Ducking under the tape, I clamber down the now muddy embankment and join him beside the pond. The diver gives me a momentary glance and peels back the hood of his wetsuit, revealing a nest of shaggy hair.
“Dr. Haven,” he says.
“Sergeant Thorndale.”
We shake hands damply and I fight the urge to wipe mine on my thighs.
Jack Thorndale is a former patient, a hostage negotiator who came to see me after a sixteen-hour police siege went south. A disgruntled employee gunned down four of his workmates before turning the weapon on himself. Jack took the failure personally and it almost cost him his marriage and his career. Eventually, he retrained as a police diver, saying he’d “rather wade through filth” than negotiate with madmen.
“Any news?” I ask.
“The more we dive, the more shit we stir up. If she dropped her phone it could have drifted downstream or be deep in the mud by now.”
He points to a tarpaulin that is covered in a pile of trash retrieved from the pond. There are bicycles, a shopping trolley, broken concrete, metal pipes, half bricks, and nondescript machinery parts, all caked in mud.
“Forensics are coming to take a look. Maybe we’ve stumbled upon a murder weapon, although I doubt it.”
Someone yells from the van. His colleagues are cold and want to go home.
Jack holds up a thumb. “You working this one?”
“Yeah.”
“I’d wish you luck, but you don’t believe in it.” He grins.
During our sessions I talked to Jack about the difference between chance and luck. Chance is a random outcome in the real world whereas luck is the value we place upon it when we label it good or bad. Whether the police find Jodie’s phone isn’t lucky or unlucky, it’s the same chance event.
Slinging the tank over his shoulder, Jack makes the embankment look easy as he rejoins his team. I walk to the footbridge and lean over the side. The brook, swollen by recent rain, is running freely and foaming as it enters the pond.
In this quiet, lonely place, two people came together and one of them died. There must have been an interaction, however brief or violent. What did they say to each other? How did they spend their last moments together? What relationships and experiences shaped their personalities?
No two people respond to the same situation in the same way. If Jodie met a stranger on the path on Monday night, would she automatically see him as being dangerous, or would she smile and say hello? Would she start up a conversation or respond to a question? Would she turn her back? Would she run? Fight? Plead?
Perhaps it was someone she knew. She could have been brought here, or lured by somebody she trusted. She was picked up in a car earlier in the evening. She had a second mobile phone. This suggests a secret liaison—a boyfriend or a casual hookup.
At some point Jodie was struck from behind, most likely without warning. She had turned her back. She either trusted this person or she was trying to flee. Barely conscious, she fell or was pushed off the bridge. The cold water shocked her awake. She swallowed some of it. Almost drowned. Her attacker dragged her from the pond or followed Jodie after she saved herself. She ran, disorientated by the darkness. Branches and brambles tore at her face and skin. She collapsed, close to death. Dying.
He undressed her hurriedly, clumsily. He unwrapped a condom . . .
No! It doesn’t make sense. Use of a prophylactic by an attacker suggests forensic awareness. He wanted to conceal his identity. But why use a condom and then ejaculate into her hair? That’s an act designed to humiliate or mark his territory or signify unconditional acceptance.
Maybe they had sex and she denied him a second round. More likely he couldn’t maintain an erection and grew frustrated? Which means he’s not experienced around women. He’s a loner. Socially inept. He wants a girlfriend, but nobody wants him. He knows this area. This place.
Some rapists panic and kill victims to protect their identity. Others take pleasure from abusing a victim at the moment of his or her death or afterwards. The timing of the penetration reveals clues about them. I don’t know the exact sequence of events, but this man and his corrupt lust sacrificed a human life for an orgasm. Afterwards he left her to die, or he watched her take her last breath. He covered her body with branches, trying to hide what he’d done.
He went home. Showered. Changed his clothes. Tried to forget. But he won’t stop thinking about this. Part of him will be horrified, but another voice will tell him that she deserved it, that she led him on, that she was like all the other women who ignored him, belittled him, laughed at him . . .
My knees are hurting. I’ve been squatting on my haunches for too long. I straighten, drinking in the cold air, and begin to move away from the footbridge, walking in a widening circle, feeling the softness of the ground beneath my feet.
Everywhere I see signs of the police search—evidence markers, broken twigs, boot prints—but I’m not looking for the same things they were. A psychologist views a crime scene differently from a detective. Police search for physical clues and witnesses. I look at the overall picture and the salience of certain landmarks and features. Where are the obstacles and boundaries that alter behavior? How quickly does someone disappear from sight? How far can I see in each direction? What are the vantage points and the shortcuts?
Ahead of me, I glimpse something straight-edged through the trees, embowered by ferns. It’s an old ground keeper’s cottage or hunting lodge, which has fallen into disrepair. Grey with age, the walls are streaked with rust from the downpipes, and creepers have twisted around the spindle wood railings that fence in a small front veranda.
The path is overgrown but not unused. There are muddy boot prints and torn cobwebs. The police must have searched here yesterday. Stepping inside the derelict cottage, I take a moment to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. The wooden floorboards are splintery with age and stained by innumerable spills and leakages. Trash is strewn across the floor and the walls are covered in graffiti, none artistic, some of it obscene or as harmless as initials inside a heart. An old mattress yellowing with age has been positioned in front of a hearth, which is full of crushed beer cans, blackened by a recent fire. A half-drunk bottle of apple cider is within reach. Two more empties are nearby.
I move to the next room—a kitchen that reeks of damp and decay. Trash floats in an ankle-deep puddle. Chip packets and condom wrappers. Someone has ripped out the copper pipes, scavenging for scrap metal. The final room, most likely a bedroom, has a roof that has partially collapsed, giving me a glimpse of blue sky and the tops of trees.
I understand instinctively where I am—not the original purpose of the building, but what it has become; a place where youngsters can avoid the gaze of adults. Where they break up, make up, hang out, and make out; where they experiment with alcohol, drugs, and sex. Did Jodie ever come here? Did this place mean something to her or her killer?
The police have searched the cottage, but I doubt if any of them recognized the likely salience. Detectives don’t understand the ley lines that teenagers use to navigate their world. The shortcuts. The meeting places. The secret language.
Later I call Lenny from a phone box opposite the school. It goes to her voicemail.
“The killer is in his late teens or twenties. Physically strong, but not overly intelligent. He’s local. This is his territory. He knows the area. He knows the footpath and maybe the cottage. Look for someone who’s been arrested or questioned for lesser offenses like exposing himself to women or stealing their underwear.
“He’s going to feel bad about what he’s done. Ashamed. This is the first time for him. His first murder. He’ll be following the police investigation closely, frightened and appalled, but also fascinated, which means he could return to the scene as an onlooker or bystander. Look for his face in the crowd. He’s somewhere close by. Watching.”
12
* * *
ANGEL FACE
* * *
I hear a knock.
“Are you decent?” asks Davina.
She’s a big woman with colored beads woven into her dreadlocks that tumble to her shoulders, curling at the ends like pigs’ tails. She leans on the frame, thrusting out one hip.
“You have a visitor.”
“Who?”
“Dr. Haven.”
I feel a surge of excitement. Tossing aside my magazine, I swing my legs off the bed and go to the mirror, touching my hair and brushing my fingertips along my eyebrows. I reach for my makeup bag.
“He’s not your boyfriend.” Davina chuckles. She’s still standing in the doorway.
I want to slap her for being a bitch.
“Shall I tell him you’re coming? I could throw rose petals in your path.”
“Fuck off!”
“That’s a red card.”
I pull the hood of my sweatshirt over my hair and follow Davina down the hallway, less certain than before. Normally, I don’t care about shrinks and social workers. I’ve dealt with so many. But this one unsettled me the last time. It was nothing he did or said. He didn’t ask about my family or my real name or where I came from or what happened to me as a child. Instead he seemed to hold up a mirror to me, wanting me to look.
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