Where the Innocent Die

by Where the Innocent Die (epub)

  His years on the job had given Barnes insights into human nature which made Ridpath wince.

  ‘Well, don’t go proving your manhood with my career and pension, DI Ridpath.’

  ‘You finished?’ was all Ridpath said.

  Barnes stayed silent.

  ‘So the room was sealed off while forensics went to work, what happened to the detainees?’

  ‘We sealed off the whole floor. The detainees were taken upstairs and kept together in a common area. They were allowed back at 13.30 after the forensics had finished.’

  ‘But not all of them were allowed back, were they?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know exactly what I meant. Why didn’t you interview the people on either side of the woman?’

  ‘Because by the time I wanted to interview them, the Centre Manager said they were no longer in the country. They had already been deported. Home Office rules apparently – their departures had been scheduled for that day. And besides…’

  ‘Besides what?’

  ‘It was obvious it was a suicide. She cut her own throat, didn’t she? Probably didn’t want to go back. Would’ve been a waste of time and money going abroad to interview them.’

  ‘Not all of them.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Room 9 wasn’t deported.’

  ‘The Chinese man? But they told me he had already gone.’

  ‘To another Removal Centre, not deported.’

  Barnes stayed silent.

  Chapter 20

  After his interview with DS Barnes, Ridpath drove back to the Coroner’s Office, turning over the elements of the case in his mind.

  Why was the SIO not called to the scene until 6.02? Was it a question of police resources as Barnes stated? Was there simply nobody available to go to the detention centre to look into a possible suicide? Or was there something else going on?

  He had a lot of questions for Ms Bagnall. Perhaps it was time to pay her another visit.

  DS Barnes worried him too. He was obviously a competent detective, so why was his investigation so shoddy? Was he more concerned with putting on his slippers than on investigating properly? Or had he simply gone through the motions believing it to be another suicide?

  Perhaps this was all a waste of time. The woman, Wendy Chen, had taken her life because she didn’t want to be deported back to her own country. Having visited Wilmslow IRC, he could understand how such places could make a person so depressed and downhearted they would end it all.

  But it was like the coroner had said. They had to know for certain. They owed it to the family to let them know the truth about their daughter.

  Even the pathologist’s report had been perfunctory. It was like he had already made the assumption that the woman had committed suicide and was looking for information and proof for that theory instead of performing a proper examination. Where was the toxicology report? Where was the examination of the body?

  Ridpath couldn’t help but think everybody was just going through the motions. Just doing enough to cover their individual and corporate arses without caring about the woman or her family.

  One other question occurred to him as he was parking the car at the Coroner’s Office. Where had the knife come from? Lucy Bagnall had said it didn’t belong to the Centre so where had Wendy Chen obtained it? Did she smuggle it in?

  He was still thinking about this as he ran up the stairs to his office.

  Sophia was waiting for him inside.

  ‘Stuart sent over the CCTV from inside the IRC. Not much use I’m afraid.’

  ‘Stuart is it now?’

  ‘A touch of charm and friendliness helps get what you want. You should remember, Ridpath.’

  ‘He was obliged to turn over the tapes, otherwise I would have served her with a writ.’

  ‘But he wasn’t obliged to hand over this.’ Sophia held out a sheet of paper. ‘It’s a list of outside calls on the day before our victim died; who made them and what number they called.’

  ‘Why did you ask for this?’

  ‘Because I remembered my cousin saying the only contact with the outside world was through a pay phone. Visits were difficult to arrange at short notice and they confiscate any mobile phones during the admission process. The public phone is the only way to contact friends or a solicitor to appeal against a deportation. The Centre logs all the calls.’

  ‘So he gave it to you…’

  ‘I don’t think he knew its importance.’

  ‘And?’

  Sophia placed the sheet on the table. ‘There were 73 calls listed for August 19th and three from our victim. She arrived at Wilmslow IRC at 9.15, was processed and made a call within an hour of her arrival. See.’ She pointed to the seventh name on the list. ‘I’ve checked the number using a reverse directory and it was to a cake shop in Chinatown, Madame Wong’s Bakery.’

  ‘Perhaps she fancied some cake…’

  Sophia missed the irony in Ridpath’s voice and continued on. ‘The second call was an overseas number. China apparently, but they don’t keep a record of overseas calls, just the country.’

  ‘Ringing home? Or a boyfriend, maybe?’

  ‘But it’s the third call six hours later that’s more interesting.’ She turned the page. ‘See, this one. I rang this number and you’ll never guess who answered the phone.’

  ‘You’re right, I’ll never guess.’

  ‘It was the front desk sergeant at Rowley Police Station.’

  Ridpath frowned. ‘She rang Rowley? The same station which investigated her death twelve hours later?’

  Sophia nodded.

  ‘Who did she talk to?’

  ‘I don’t know, Ridpath, only that she rang the station and the call lasted seven minutes and thirty-three seconds.’

  Chapter 21

  Ridpath’s mouth opened once but no words came out.

  ‘I think you were about to say “Good work, Sophia.”’

  He paused for a moment and then said it. ‘Good work, Sophia. But why was she ringing Rowley station and who did she speak to?’

  ‘Again, I don’t know, Ridpath.’

  He thought quickly, his eyes darting left and right, before he said, ‘Perhaps a better question would be what did they talk about? The desk sergeant would keep a log of all incoming calls. I’ll have to go back and chat with him.’

  ‘You could call?’

  ‘No, they’d just blank me, a personal visit would be much more useful. This has to be done one on one.’

  As he was speaking, Ridpath knew this was the second place he would have to return. There was so little time available in this inquiry and he had none of it to waste going back to places he had already been.

  ‘There’s one other thing on this list. See here, and here and here?’

  Ridpath checked the list and found her finger pointing to the name Liang Xiao Wen.

  ‘He made four calls. One to this number, a solicitor with an office in Chinatown, and three other calls to this mobile number.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘I don’t know, the number isn’t listed to anybody.’

  ‘A burner phone? Why was he calling a burner phone?’

  ‘And who answered his call?’

  This case was getting more and more complicated. ‘Have you had time to go through the CCTV tapes?’

  With her foot, Sophia pushed a box out from under the table. Ridpath glanced down and could see it was full of black plastic recording cassettes.

  ‘There are 36 CCTV cameras in the IRC, each one has 24 hours of material on it. Stuart told me six of the cameras were inoperative…’

  ‘Which ones?’

  ‘He didn’t know, or wouldn’t tell me, you take your pick.’

  ‘We already know one of them was in the corridor outside the victim’s room. I asked Lucy Bagnall when I visited.’

  ‘That leaves five others, but we’ll never know which ones weren’t working.’

  ‘How convenient. Ha
ve they checked these tapes and that’s why they’ve released them to us?’ Ridpath said.

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘But they might have missed something useful.’

  ‘It still means, if I watched every tape, it would take me 35 days.’

  ‘We don’t have the time. And the boxes are not marked with a location just a number.’

  Ridpath frowned. ‘Is it just me or do you get the feeling the staff at the Removal Centre are playing with us?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, they went from being cagey with information, to now suddenly giving us far too much of it.’

  ‘You mean burying us under too much stuff?’

  ‘It’s a technique. They know there’s only two days to the inquest too. Instead of being obstructive, they’ve decided to be helpful, too helpful.’

  ‘Knowing we’ll never be able to go through it all in time.’

  ‘Right again, Sophia.’

  She held up more papers, this time with a slightly blue tinge. ‘That explains why Stuart gave me these too.’

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Plans of the centre. From the entrance right up to the fourth floor. He even marked out the position of the woman’s room on this one.’

  ‘He was being helpful.’ Ridpath’s eyes narrowed. ‘Can you open one of the plans?’

  Sophia took the top one and from a single square it opened out to a sheet four feet long by three feet across. She laid it down so it covered her table and the desktop computer. She checked the rubric on top. ‘Apparently this is a schematic of the boiler room and related facilities.’

  ‘Good.’ Ridpath leant across the table and stared at the technical drawing. He stubbed his finger at the document and said, ‘There it is.’

  Sophia tried to see where he was pointing but Ridpath was already rummaging through the tapes in the box. He finally pulled one out and held it up. ‘The CCTV cameras are all numbered on the schematic. It’s the same number on the box.’

  ‘But how does it help us, Ridpath?’

  ‘You mean how does it help you, Sophia.’

  His assistant stayed silent.

  ‘Because they have given us the tapes, even though they said they didn’t keep copies. Through the numbers we can plot a map of the cameras working that night…’

  ‘…and the cameras out of action. We’ll know the locations of all the cameras in the Centre, the ones working and those that weren’t.’

  ‘One of the first rules of detective work, Sophia: the absence of something is sometimes just as important as the presence of something.’

  ‘The dog that didn’t bark in the night.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Sherlock Holmes. The adventure of the Silver Blaze. The dog didn’t bark so he had to know who the thief was.’

  ‘Great, Sophia. I would keep it in mind when you’re going through the schematics and finding out the location of the inoperative cameras.’

  ‘And what are you going to be doing, Ridpath?’

  ‘I’ve got a date with a dead body. We are re-doing the post-mortem on the victim this afternoon.’

  Sophia’s eyes brightened. ‘Can I come?’

  Ridpath tapped the schematic. ‘As soon as you have found the dog who didn’t bark, or in our case, the cameras that didn’t film.’

  Chapter 22

  She had to get out.

  She hadn’t eaten since last night and she was starving. She’d been through the flat looking for food and found nothing. Not even a tin of out-of-date mackerel.

  She put on her coat. If she was quick and ran to the main road, she could check her account at the ATM of the bank on the corner. If she had any money, she could nip into the Tesco Express next door and pick up some bread and some pot noodles, maybe even a few apples.

  She longed for some fruit. It had been so long since she had bitten into a crisp apple, feeling the juice drip down her chin. She would get six today. No, maybe ten this time, so she could gorge on fruit.

  She slipped on her shoes. Five minutes there. A minute to check the account. Three minutes to buy some food. Five minutes back. She would be out for fourteen minutes maximum. Surely, he wouldn’t see her?

  She slipped on her shoes and opened the door, peering out onto the landing.

  It was quiet. The woman next door had gone to work already.

  She stepped outside and stopped.

  If he was waiting for her, now is when he would attack.

  She listened for footsteps on the stairs.

  Nothing. Only the sound of a cat wailing for its mate in the garden.

  She had to go now. If she waited any longer, she would lose courage and rush back into the flat, slamming the door behind her.

  She took a deep breath and rushed down the stairs to the front door.

  Again, she peered out.

  The path and garden in front of her was empty. On the road, a car raced past.

  She checked again.

  A woman with a pushchair, her child asleep inside.

  Now. Go now.

  She raced out of the three-storey building, running down the short path to the entrance. Go left, it’s quicker.

  The woman with the push chair was staring at her as she ran past.

  Ignore her.

  She kept running, feeling the damp road beneath her feet, the first falls of leaves making it slippery underfoot.

  She missed Shanghai at this time of year. The long heat of summer had given way to the cool of autumn. The leaves of the Plane trees lining the streets, planted so long ago, beginning to turn grey before the storms of October finally blew them from their branches.

  She stared ahead. The main road was just 200 yards away.

  Keep running.

  Her legs were weakening, but she had to keep going.

  Left. Right. Left. Right. Keep going.

  She reached the main road. The traffic was busier now. Cars, white vans, buses and bikes trundled along in both directions. The bank was on the other side of the road on the corner.

  She judged the speed of the traffic and ran out between the onrushing cars. A white van screeched to a halt and she heard a loud burst of swearing but she was across.

  There was a queue outside the ATM! What was she going to do?

  She looked at the Tesco Express. There were two ATMs there.

  She ran down the street, dodging another mother with a pram. Had everybody just given birth in Manchester and were they all on the street now?

  She stuck her card in the ATM. The usual ads appeared followed by the list of services. She jabbed the check balance square three times.

  The machine whirred and chortled. She had twenty pounds and fourteen pence! She pressed the button for more options and took out 20 quid, looking over her shoulder left and right as the machine counted out the money.

  Nobody watching her.

  Nobody taking any notice at all.

  She grabbed the money and went into the shop. Quick, grab some bread, some pot noodles and some apples, don’t spend more than ten quid. Save the rest in case she decided to go to work tomorrow. Liang needed paying and if she didn’t turn up with the money, he would come looking for her.

  One bastard on her back was more than enough.

  She found an empty till, bagged her stuff and paid with two fivers. 9.78.

  She grabbed the change and ran out of the store.

  All she had to do now was get home.

  Across the street, car horns blaring. Down the road, dodging the prams, panting now, legs tired, the Tesco bag banging against her leg.

  Keep going.

  The flat up ahead, on the right.

  She ran faster, her heart beating harder.

  Onto the path, key in the door, and into the lobby. Up the stairs two at a time.

  Fumbling for the key for the front door, why wouldn’t it go in?

  Made it. Turning the lock. Slamming the door behind her.

  She was safe again.

&nbs
p; The man in the car parked on the street took another drag of his cigarette. He thought this was where she might hide.

  Chapter 23

  As soon as Ridpath entered the morgue, a familiar sense of dread suffused his bones.

  He didn’t know where it came from. Perhaps it was the shine of the white tiled walls. Or the peculiar smell of formaldehyde and disinfectant. Or the sound of his shoes on the polished floor. Whatever it was, his body knew what it was going to feel and, like Pavlov’s dog, began to react immediately when he entered the place.

  Dr Schofield the pathologist was bending over the body speaking aloud into the microphone in his high alto voice. ‘Left ventricle normal. Heart is comparatively healthy…’ He stopped, hearing Ridpath behind him. ‘Good afternoon, Ridpath, I’m so glad you can make it.’ He stood up and automatically stuck out his hand.

  Ridpath looked down at it, covered in gore and dried blood. He waved back. ‘Good afternoon, Dr Schofield and Vera.’

  Vera was Schofield’s rather dour assistant who helped him during the post-mortem, typing up the notes later.

  In the background, he could see another man dressed in the usual pathologist’s uniform of green apron, mask, hair net, whites and green wellingtons.

  ‘This is a representative from Dr Ahmed, an observer if you like, Dr Waterstone. DI Ridpath from the Coroner’s Office,’ he absentmindedly waved his bloodied scalpel introducing them to each other.

  Was that ethical? Inviting another pathologist to attend the second post-mortem?

  ‘And before you ask, Ridpath, I asked Dr Ahmed to send an observer. We can contrast his notes with my findings and agree on a conclusion together. I know you would much prefer it the doctor’s office and mine were at each other’s throats,’ he paused, glancing at the woman lying on the stainless steel post-mortem table, ‘but we’ve known each other a long time and respect each other’s work.’