Crimesight

by Joy Ellis

  For half an hour, they drove along the main routes that he and Kate driven in the last few days. Then, on the long stretch that led to the beach, he saw it. ‘Stop, Rosie! That’s it, look!’ It was exactly as he remembered.

  Rosie parked the car and they walked across to a sagging wire fence that surrounded the site. Jon stood next the battered ‘Keep Out’ sign and looked around.

  ‘What are we looking for?’ Rosie stared out across the vast expanse of flattened land. ‘And what was here before the bulldozers moved in?’

  ‘Search me,’ murmured Jon, lifting up a thin strand of rusting wire and sliding under it. He looked at the flattened area, and saw the remains of a high, shell-shaped fountain, several statues lying broken and moss-covered in the remnants of a lawn, and a crumbling red-brick wall with an arch. Roses still clung to it, their golden petals made all the more brilliant by the late summer sun. ‘This is it, but why? Why are we here?’

  He stood quietly asking the girl to come to him and make him understand, but there was nothing. No visions, no whispered voices, just a sad silence.

  ‘There’s nothing here, Sarge. We should get back.’

  Jon nodded reluctantly.

  ‘Cheer up.’ She squeezed his arm sympathetically. ‘At least you’ve found it. And it will be easy to do a search on this land from the county records.’ She pulled him back towards the perimeter fence. ‘I’ll get onto that as soon as we get back to base.’

  He allowed himself to be led away from the mysterious arch, with its cascading golden flowers, but still wondered what on earth the girl had wanted him to know. With a sigh, he took the keys from Rosie. ‘Yes, you’re right, as always, Flower. Let’s go.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  ‘You’re back! Excellent! With me, Jon,’ Kate was striding through the foyer and heading for the lifts. ‘The crime scene isn’t ready to be released yet, but Tommy has said that you and I can take another look around. And, sparing you too many details, Ted Watchman has confirmed that a large entrance in one of the walls of the chamber has been very professionally sealed up.’ She stabbed a finger at the second floor button and stood back. ‘Ted has also ascertained that the work was done from a tunnel on the house side of the area. And that means the beds and all the other stuff was brought in from Windrush.’

  ‘Which ties it even tighter to Broome.’ Jon said eagerly.

  ‘Or to the man who has spent a very long while working there.’

  ‘Mr Micah Lee.’

  ‘Exactly. God, we so need to talk to that man! I’m just about to ring Harlan Marsh and try to lean on the medical officer. How did you fare?’

  The lift arrived and Jon told her about their morning, using the privacy of the empty lift to explain about the dead girl’s arch.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about her,’ said Kate. ‘And as you are so sure she’s one of the victims, maybe we could find out which one. With her identity known, and a short history of the grounds around your arch, we maybe able to make a connection.’

  ‘Rosie is researching the land registry now. And maybe Prickles will be able to help us make an ID. We can tell him we have a local misper with my girl’s description.’

  Kate agreed. ‘Did she have any other peculiarities, other than being able to freeze-dry skin?’

  Jon raised his eyebrows. ‘Actually she did! She had something wrong with her left foot. When she walked, it turned in and caused a pronounced limp.’

  ‘Perfect. That would be all we’d need, because orthopaedic damage would be permanently in the bone.’ Kate pushed open her office door and beckoned him inside, closing it quickly after him. ‘What if you could get some time alone with the girl’s body? Do you think you may be able to ‘see’ anything?’

  ‘And what excuse would you offer up to Prickles and his forensic team? “Can you all just bugger off out for ten minutes while my sergeant communes with the spirit of one of your long dead cadavers?”’

  ‘You have a point.’ Kate said grudgingly. ‘So forget the ‘alone’ bit. We just go and see her. The Soco’s will be too busy to take any notice of us.’

  ‘I’m game, ma’am, but I can’t make any promises, and as time is running down on holding your suspects, it could be complete waste of precious time.’

  ‘I think you should give it a try. Now, go sort out anything you need to, because we have to get back to Windrush before Prickles changes his mind about our being there, and hopefully, we’ll be able to get across to Harlan Marsh nick and see Micah Lee as well.’

  Tommy Thorne was still un-naturally accommodating, and Kate decided to enjoy it while it lasted. He beckoned them over and pointed to one of the small carefully written labels that had hung above each bed.

  ‘I know that you’d already noticed these name tags,’ said Tommy, ‘…but as you were thoughtful enough not to contaminate my crime scene, you would not have handled said cards, and hence not noticed what was written on the back.’ There was a slightly smug, although not totally conceited quality to his comment. With gloved fingers he turned the cards over and revealed a line of small, neat hand-writing.

  ‘Dates of birth?’ Jon asked, immediately thinking of Toni and the man who had demanded to know exactly when she was born.

  ‘Precise dates of birth, sergeant, on each card. The day of the week, day, month and year. And observe, the weekday is underlined.’

  ‘They are all born on a Wednesday?’ asked Jon slowly.

  ‘Well, we can’t be certain about the older ones until we do lab tests, but all the ones that are legible are exactly the same.’

  ‘Right so.., “Monday’s child is fair of face, Tuesday’s child is full of grace..,”’ Jon began to recall the rhyme, then looked at Kate for help.

  ‘Wednesday’s child is full of woe.’ Kate added, shaking her head. ‘Hellfire, you can be damned sure that’s true!’

  ‘It all adds to the profile of this psychopath.’ said Tommy, carefully replacing the card. ‘I’m sure a good shrink would find it very interesting indeed.’

  ‘If we had one,’ grumbled Kate

  ‘I do have a friend,’ He looked at her over the top of his glasses. ‘Hard to believe, I know. But he’s a brilliant forensic psychologist, and he’s retired, so he may be prepared to give you the benefit of his expertise. I can ring him, if you like?’

  Kate thought for a minute, knowing the Super’s aversion to profiling, then said ‘Yes, please do.’

  ‘Good, I’m certain he’ll be a great help.’ Tommy’s face broke into an unusually broad smile, ‘Before I forget, I have to say thank you for organizing such a lovely forensic anthropologist for us. I’ll introduce you in a moment, but my, what that woman doesn’t know about bones isn’t worth knowing.’

  Jon straightened. ‘Has she by any chance noticed if one of the victims has a foot or leg deformity?’

  ‘Certainly has, but how the dickens did you know about that?’ asked Tommy.

  ‘One of our long-term missing persons has a turned in left foot.’ Jon lied blithely. ‘I just wondered if we’d found her.’

  ‘Depends, how long is long-term? The girl with the deformed foot is our oldest victim, hence the original body.’

  ‘What, the one whose corpse was disinterred after burial?’ Jon’s voice went up an octave with surprise.

  ‘The same. I’ll show you in a moment, but there is one more thing about these cards, well, about the handwriting.’ The pathologist bit thoughtfully on his lip. ‘This is by no means conclusive, although it will of course be proven by the lab, but the technician who has been cataloguing the cards is a graphologist, and he’s sure that the writing was done by a woman.’

  Kate spun round to Jon, and he knew that she was thinking the same thing as he was. Did those vases of flowers, and the neatly hung clothes, all carefully labelled, mean that Tommy Thorne had been right all along? But what of the man with the strange eyes? Could he be an accomplice? A go-fer?

  ‘Do you have any female suspects in the frame, DCI Reyn
ard?’ he asked.

  ‘Sort of. We have a woman named Elizabeth Sewell.’ Kate whispered. ‘She’s in Saltfleet Hospital at present, unfit to interview.’

  ‘Well, I’d keep a very close eye on her if I were you, Kate. I suggest that she knows rather a lot about our Children’s Ward.’ He lifted a knowing eyebrow. ‘But come and meet the oldest resident, and Professor Wallace. Everything that we can do in-situ has now been done, so she’s packing up our girl for transit.’

  Jon gave Kate an apprehensive look. If the girl’s body was about to be removed from this her second resting place, then there would be little chance of that cosy spiritual communion that they had been hoping for.

  ‘Can’t be helped,’ whispered Kate. ‘Just keep your mind open and hope we get lucky.’

  Jon approached the far bed with something like trepidation. If she was the same beautiful girl that had placed that ghostly grip on his arm, then it was very hard to correlate something that resembled a bag of yellowing old bones with a lovely young teenager.

  Tommy Thorne stopped a short way away from where the skeleton lay, and made his introductions from a distance, warning them not to get too close to the area that the professor was working on for fear of cross-contamination.

  Jon looked at the anthropologist, the expert on death, and was immediately reminded of his Auntie Hilda. “Don’t you dare slam that door, Jonathon, there’s ginger cake baking in the oven and it will sink like a stone!”

  The woman that looked out from over the face mask was short, stocky and bright-eyed. She obviously had trouble keeping her wild mane of greying hair inside the hood of her protective suit, and it gave the illusion that her head was monstrously large.

  Jon regarded her as she delicately handled one of the girl’s bones, like his mother would handle an antique hand-crafted cello, or a botanist, a rare orchid. He fought back the impulse to call her ‘Auntie’, and asked instead about the victim’s damaged leg.

  ‘I will be able to tell you more when I examine the remains under controlled conditions, but I believe that she had an ankle fracture in early childhood, one so severe that it sheared off the end of the tibia. Even now I can see distortion and fracture-related bony callus. I would say that it never healed correctly and she was either not treated properly, or suffered another later injury to the same weakened site.’ The eyes never left the dead girl. ‘Come and see me tomorrow at the morgue and I’ll tell you more.’

  ‘Do you have an approximate age for her, Professor?’ asked Kate.

  ‘I’d rather not guess, Chief Inspector, but if it’s important, I’d estimate that she was in her mid teens. Again, tests will help get that estimate closer to the truth.’

  ‘Professor? Tommy Thorne here says that she has been dead much longer than the other victims, would you be able to give us a ball-park idea of when she died?’

  The woman almost lovingly laid a creamy-brown long bone into a box, and stared at it thoughtfully. ‘A guesstimate, twenty years, maybe more?’

  They thanked her, and Jon wondered who on earth this girl was, and why she had been important enough to risk exhuming her from her legitimate grave to bring her here. It was all too bizarre to get his head around.

  Tommy handed Kate a sheet of paper. ‘I’ve had one of my techies prepare this for you, rather than wait for the full report. I thought you might be able to get on and make some preliminary searches.’ He pointed to the list. On it were all the details from the cards, and a clear description of the clothes that had been so lovingly stored from the time they died until now. Jon knew that those clothes would be paramount in final identification. It was not just the trace evidence that would no doubt still be present; it was the fact that everyone remembered exactly what a child was wearing when it went missing.

  ‘Thanks, Tommy. I appreciate that.’ Kate placed it carefully in her bag.

  ‘No problem. And I should think you will be able to have your scene back by tonight. It has been photographed, documented, swept and dusted, and everything of importance bagged and tagged. The residents themselves will be re-located into my tender care at the hospital by early evening God willing, and then our real work can begin.’ He stood back. ‘Now I must get on.’

  Kate thanked him again, and they began their trek back along the tunnel. As they walked, Kate was recapping on what the scientist had said about the young girl’s injuries, but Jon found it hard to concentrate. Her words seemed to be taking an eternity to reach him, and when they did, they seemed muffled and distorted.

  He paused, mid-stride. Now her voice was being drowned out by the sound of a pure, clear, singing voice. He spun around, but saw nothing.

  ‘Hey you, keep up.’ Kate called back. Then she stopped and turned back. ‘Jon?’

  ‘I can hear something.’

  ‘More singing?’

  Jon shivered, ‘Yeah, it’s the chorister, Kate. Just like when I went to Jamie Durham’s boathouse.’ He looked at her, with disgust in his eyes. ‘Our killer has a voice like an angel, and that pure, clear song coming from the lips of a monster, is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever heard.’

  Jon looked around him, but still the old red-brick tunnel was empty.

  ‘I think it’s time to go, don’t you?’ asked Kate, pulling her jacket closer to her body. ‘I don’t know whether it’s just the chill down here or…’ Her sentence was cut short by an odd noise.

  Jon tilted his head and listened. It was a sort of crackle, followed by a fizzing sound. It was one of those recognisable sounds that you should know instantly what it was, but for a moment you are bemused by it.

  And then the lights dimmed and he knew exactly what they had heard. The sound of electricity shorting out. The sound of light bulbs hissing.

  ‘Oh no.’ Kate grasped Jon’s hand and pulled him roughly towards her. ‘Whatever happens we’re not losing contact, right? Have you got a torch on you?’

  ‘No, I left it in my jacket in the car.’ Jon cursed inwardly.

  Kate reached into her own jacket pocket and pulled out a small Maglite. The beam was almost pencil thin and did little to help in the long, cave-like subterranean passageway. ‘Our lads have run emergency lighting the length of the tunnel. It looks like the mobile generator has failed.’ Kate swore, then shook her torch, and smacked it against her other hand. ‘Now this isn’t working! And it’s got new batteries in it. David replaced them last weekend.’

  Jon squeezed her arm. ‘Keep quiet, Kate. It’s not the generator.’

  ‘Then what…’ Kate started.

  ‘Shh, listen. What can you hear?’ Jon felt Kate begin to shiver beneath his grip.

  ‘I can’t hear anything, but why is so cold, Jon? What the hell’s happening?’

  He circled his arm protectively around her and whispered. ‘It’ll be all right, Kate. It’ll pass soon enough.’

  ‘Why am I not convinced?’ She mumbled between bouts of shaking.

  Jon knew exactly what was happening, but he needed Kate to be calm and just let him deal with whatever, or whoever, it was. ‘Someone is here, Kate. They want to communicate with me. As soon as I understand, it will leave us alone.’ He grasped her a little tighter, and then, in a loud voice, he called out, ‘What do you want?’

  In the darkness, Kate clung to Jon like a terrified child, and he heard her quietly praying for whatever it was to go away and leave them alone. But Jon knew that contact was necessary, and it would not go until its message had been delivered. ‘Tell me, what you want.’ He repeated.

  For a moment, darkness seemed to fill his mind, and for a short while, he didn’t seem to be in control of anything but his breathing. And then suddenly he saw again the rose arch, and the beautiful young girl standing beneath it. As he looked, he heard one word whispered. It was a single name. ‘Fleur.’

  In the darkness he asked ‘You’re Fleur?’ And before his words had died away, the picture vanished, and he felt Kate release her grip on him.

  Jon let out a long noisy exhalation of
breath, and the tiny beam of Kate’s Maglite torch was suddenly there again, and the emergency lights flickered for a moment, then burst into what seemed like migraine-inducing brilliance.

  He stared at Kate, relief in his eyes. ‘Hell-fire! That was powerful! But now we know our oldest victim’s name.’

  Kate’s face was a ghastly white. ‘Wonderful, but considering that was the most mind-numbing, teeth-gritting, bowel-loosening fear that I’ve ever experienced, can we please get out of here?’

  ‘Believe me, there’s nothing I’d rather do.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  As soon as Gary saw Kate arrive, he followed her into her office and closed the door. ‘Sorry, ma’am, but I think there may be something very unpleasant going on over at Harlan Marsh.’

  ‘And it involves Cade?’ She almost spat the name out.

  Gary sat heavily down in the chair opposite her. ‘He has taken personal command of the drinking club investigation, and he’s keeping things very close to his chest. However, my mate has been drafted into his team to help them.’

  ‘So does he think Cade is protecting someone?’

  ‘He thought so, to begin with, but now he’s really worried. Take a look at this. It’s is a scan of one of the pictures that Cade commandeered. My friend e-mailed it to me.’ He took a folded sheet of copier paper from his inside pocket, straightened it out and passed it across the desk. ‘Do you remember it? It’s where young Nic Barley is talking to two men?’

  ‘The one that you and Jon commented on recognising one of the men?’

  Gary nodded. ‘Look closely, ma’am. This man is obscured by the shadow from the building, but I don’t think it’s one of Cade’s buddies at all, I think it is Cade.’

  Even though the door was tightly closed, Gary dropped his voice lower. ‘And guess what? The original disappeared shortly after my friend procured this. And the CCTV tape met with an unfortunate accident too.’ He pointed to the picture. ‘No-one knows about this and now, ma’am, it’s the only copy.’