by Lisa Cutts
As I closed the door, I tried to arrange my facial features so they wouldn’t betray how on edge I was feeling. I allowed myself to smile at him, a smile that hopefully oozed ‘trust me, I’m a capable detective’, rather than a maniacal grin that shouted ‘I’m mentally unhinged, watch my every move’. Not sure of how I looked or what he thought, I watched his permanently neutral face.
He pointed at a chair opposite his desk. As I sat down, he said, ‘You and Laura did well in Birmingham. Was the hotel OK?’
‘If you’re a Bay City Rollers fan, it was just the ticket.’
‘That’s good. We have a briefing at 9am.’ He continued to stare straight at me, unflinching. ‘I thought that you should know that, in your absence, Mark Russell and Pierre have spoken to Carol McNamara and Jillian Spora.’
I remained perfectly still. The names meant nothing to me. I nodded, showing my interest even though I didn’t have a clue what he was telling me this for. His mobile phone on the desk in front of him started to ring. He glanced down at the display before hitting a button that put an end to the sound. Someone walked by the office door, causing him to look over my shoulder in the direction of the corridor.
‘They were the two girls, now women of course, that Scott Headingly abducted. The ones he went to prison for.’ He let this sink in for a couple of seconds. ‘The rest of the team needs to be updated on what they’ve said. Come to the briefing by all means, but if you want to give it a miss Danny’s a bit behind on CCTV, you can help him.’
Not bloody likely, I thought. I did appreciate the heads-up on the content of what I was going to hear, though. I’d sit, listen, take notes, ask questions and carry on as always. It was a matter of behaving as if everything was normal. There was so much I’d missed while I’d been away. I knew how important it was to get back into the enquiry and make myself pivotal.
‘That’s very kind, boss, but I would like to attend. I have a couple of things to add and don’t want to lumber Laura with everything.’ I made to get up.
‘I understand. There is one other thing. You’ve probably not been told that Jake Lloyd said in his interview that the children’s clothing we recovered from his cellar came from his work: they’d been made by a costume department at his request when he was working on a drama. We’ve also had an update from the forensic lab.’ He paused again but this time he didn’t need to let the information sink in; he had my undivided attention. Lloyd was even more twisted than I’d imagined. ‘I’ll let you read the report. Get a copy from Catherine. The traces of blood on the children’s clothing aren’t a match for your blood.’
I took this in, feeling an enormous wave of relief from both bits of information, but thinking there was more to come. I wasn’t wrong.
‘There was also a small amount of blood on a man’s shirt. That has been identified as your blood. I’m sorry, Nina, it’s very difficult to age blood so there is no way of knowing with any degree of accuracy how old the blood is. Speak to the forensic scientist who carried out the examinations. Her name’s Freya Forbes. She can explain it fully when you’ve read her report.’ Nottingham looked beyond me again to the corridor. Perhaps he was hoping someone would interrupt us and end this uncomfortable conversation. No one came to his assistance and I didn’t feel like helping him out today.
All I managed to say was, ‘DNA?’
‘We’ve tested for your DNA. That wasn’t…’ He cleared his throat and looked down at his mobile again, fiddled with the perfect knot on his tie. ‘That wasn’t the difficult part. You’re a police officer so your DNA is on the National Database. That was how we were able to match your DNA to the shirt. Apart from blood, the lab looked at contact fibres, hairs. They found a hair belonging to Jake Lloyd on one of the items.’
I decided it was best if I thought that this was good news. ‘That’s a good piece of evidence, then.’ My mouth had gone very dry. It felt as though my top lip couldn’t find it within itself to meet my bottom lip. I forced my mouth shut to stop myself saying anything else. It had got warm in the room with the door shut so I got up to leave, failing to remember having sat back down again. ‘I’ll call the scientist after the briefing,’ I said, making a move for the door.
I went the long way round to the Incident Room, deciding I wanted a couple of minutes to think about what I’d been told. Lloyd must have gone to some trouble. He’d even been to visit Henry Bastow. He’d said so himself.
I hardly dared to allow myself to register this thought. It would consume me.
I found myself wandering in the direction of the office without meaning to. I took a deep breath and went in through the door. All the seats were taken as the enquiry team were busying themselves with last-minute paperwork for the morning briefing.
Ray was once again in the centre of a small group of officers, all laughing at something he had said. ‘But that wasn’t the best thing,’ I heard him say. ‘The funniest thing of all was that I was dreading this fella “Kong” coming back to the house because I pictured this really huge bloke. When he turned up, he was puny. I had to ask “Why do they call you Kong?” He took his shirt off and showed me his hairy back and said, “’Cos with my clothes off I look like a silverback gorilla.”…’
I made my way over to the desk I’d left my stuff on. Grabbing my notes, I headed to the conference room but was stopped by Wingsy halfway along the corridor.
‘Hello, duchess. You OK?’ he asked.
‘Great.’ I gave him a smile. ‘Off to get a good seat early. How are you getting on with Birdsall? Heard we’re going for extra time from the Magistrates’ Court to keep him in.’
‘Listen…’ He leaned in towards me. ‘They’re gonna talk about the two kidnapped girls this morning.’ He said it in an almost comical way, talking out of the side of his mouth.
I wanted to stop myself smiling at his expression, so I did a kind of crazy half-laugh, as if it was all too much for me. Really it was to give myself time to chase the happy from my face. I didn’t want him to think I found this at all funny. ‘Thanks for the warning, but Nottingham told me a few minutes ago. He said I could sit this one out but I want to stay. I like it here. I like this enquiry.’
‘Alright,’ he said, backing away in the direction of the Incident Room, ‘but I’m keeping an eye on you.’
‘Yeah, right. I know. Keep ’em peeled.’
I went and took my seat. Waited for the information barrage to begin.
Several minutes later, once more the packed conference room held everyone on the enquiry, from the DCI as senior investigating officer to the Incident Room HOLMES staff and many in between. A slight buzz in my head forced me to concentrate more than usual. I was still tired from the trip. I promised myself I would take some headache tablets as soon as we were finished.
‘Morning, everyone,’ said Nottingham from the top of the table. ‘Once again, lots to get through.’ He straightened his papers while he spoke, before opening his notebook and writing the date at the top of the page. ‘Before I start with Birdsall, I can confirm that I have declared Benjamin Makepeace a suspect following Nina and Laura’s good work in Birmingham, discovering the existence of his passport. More on him later. Now I want to concentrate on Birdsall, as he’s in custody. The interviews are carrying on today. We had a summary late last night. He’s talking and, so far, we seem to have nothing on him linking him directly to the scenes. We’re waiting for forensic results to come back.
‘Once his twenty-four hours’ detention period is up later on today, we’re going for a twelve-hour Superintendent’s Extension which will expire late tonight. The likelihood is that we’re going for a Warrant of Further Detention at the Magistrates’ Court, so that needs to be done today. That will also eat the custody time up. My main reasons are that, even though we have two other suspects, Spencer and now Makepeace, plus little directly linking Birdsall to the murders, we can’t get what we need in a day and a half. Firstly there’s Birdsall’s association many years ago with two of the victims,
plus association with the cousin of one of them; he’s lied to us about his recent whereabouts and there’s a great deal to put to him surrounding the three victims around the times of their deaths. I’ve justified my reasons, but, even though we had enough to nick him, there’s not enough to charge. We need to do a vast amount of work before we even contemplate releasing him.
‘We’re using up the custody time so Wingsy and Danny may get more out of him this morning and we’ll go to court later on today. Kim’s going to speak to the clerk of the Magistrates’ Court this morning and pave the way.’
Nottingham leaned back in his chair, palms up and surveyed those in the room. ‘Anyone have any other ideas?’
A few heads shook but no one said anything.
‘Anyone disagree or want to give me something I’ve missed?’ he said.
Mark Russell was the first to speak. ‘What sort of timescale are we talking for forensics and what’s been sent, sir?’
Nottingham sought out Karen Pickering, a civilian police employee who was handling the exhibits from the enquiry. I’d had little to do with her but I’d heard her chatting in the office and knew her name. I had to see her about the stuff we’d brought back from Birmingham, to ensure we recorded who’d had it and when for continuity purposes.
‘Not much has gone off at the moment, Mark,’ she answered him, peering around another officer, who had been blocking her view slightly. ‘We sent some shoes off that possibly had blood on them and Birdsall had a zip-up jacket with what looked like hair in the bottom of the zip. Don’t know how that got jammed in the waistband area.’
That caused a juvenile snigger from those in the room. Even Nottingham smiled.
‘Oh, and it doesn’t look like it’s Belinda Cook’s hair. It’s the wrong colour,’ continued Karen. ‘Birdsall had no precons so we’ve sent his DNA to the lab and have kept his hair, blood, etc. here in the freezer. Belinda Cook consented to give her DNA as well. Understand she was more of a problem than the prisoner.’
I saw Mark roll his eyes. Clearly Belinda’s patience with the police was all used up.
‘I sent it all on a premium service,’ said Nottingham. ‘It’s going to cost thousands but there you go. If he’s not our offender, we need to rule him out and be ready when the other two come in. Wingsy and Danny are cracking on with the interview this morning.’
He glanced at his watch before continuing.
‘Right, let’s move on to telephony. We’ve had masses of phone work completed, some in quick time and some not so. We’ve had trouble locating all the phones and numbers of our three victims but we’re building up a very clear picture, via the work of the analyst, of who called whom, at what time, and where they were when they made and received calls.’ He looked around the room at the assembled crowd, squeezing in for space around the table, spilling into the extremities of the room. His eyes came to rest on a young male DC. ‘Matt,’ he began. ‘You’re doing the phone work. Any significant update regarding our three victims? Let’s start with Amanda first.’
‘Sir, I’ve looked through all the numbers Amanda called, or was called by, from one month before she was last seen alive until the day her body was found,’ said Matt. I hadn’t expected him to speak with a South African accent. This sidetracked me briefly, putting me off what he was saying and making me pay more attention to how he was saying it, like listening to a TV weather girl with a lisp. Matt continued, ‘There are few numbers not accounted for. The numbers belong mostly to family, friends and the odd punter. One, however, has only recently been identified. It has been cross-referenced on HOLMES and the analyst has put this phone number down to Adam Spencer.’
A quick glance around the room at the faces of my team members told me that they weren’t too happy at this news. A couple of them glanced down, one or two shifted in their seats, and Mark Russell tutted and raised his eyes to the ceiling.
‘There are several calls, but the time of the last one from Spencer to Amanda was 10.12 am on the 16th.’ Matt glanced down at his notes and added, ‘That was four days before her body was found. Spencer’s number had also called her two days before that, an hour before she went to the travel agents with an unknown male. There are no outgoing calls after 10.12 hours on the 16th and the only calls coming in were either of a very short duration or went to voicemail.’
Nottingham pointed at Matt from across the table. ‘It looks as though she didn’t make or receive any further calls after Spencer’s one.’ He looked across to Danny. ‘Any luck enhancing the stills from the town centre CCTV of Amanda and the unidentified male?’
Danny came straight back with his answer. ‘No. They’re no clearer even with a lot of help from our technical support. Even if we think it’s Adam Spencer, we can’t do facial recognition because there’s no good shot of his face. It’s just the back of his head.’
‘OK,’ said Nottingham. ‘Before we move on to the telephone work for Jason Holland and Daphne Headingly, how are we evidencing that the phone number we’re saying is Adam Spencer’s is actually Spencer’s?’
‘Myself and Ray dealt with Alf Spencer,’ said Kim Cotton. Lucky old Alf, I thought to myself. If it’s not bad enough that everyone thinks his son is a serial killer and a lunatic, then the county’s most miserable bitch turns up on his doorstep. Talk about kicking a man when he was down.
‘After a great deal of decision-making and policy file entries by yourself, sir – ’ she directed a smarmy smile and flutter of her eyelashes at the DCI ‘ – we went to Alf’s home address. He gave us a lengthy statement and spoke openly about his son Adam, detailing his time in a children’s home in Birmingham.’ Her unflattering smile didn’t extend to me as she sought me out around the table. If I’d been in possession of a mirror, I would have held it up to avoid looking directly at her. ‘Adam had made no mention to Alf about the child dying at the home, and soon afterwards he went back to live with his mother. Alf can confirm, though, that the number he has for his son is the same as the number Matt’s referring to. It’s the number ending 837. Adam also gave the same number to Mrs Makepeace in Birmingham, which Nina and Laura have.
‘Alf has frequently called his son or Adam has called him from this number. It was registered in Spain in 2005. Now we have the number, Matt’s doing some more work around it.
‘The last time Alf said he saw Adam was about three months ago, when he was home in England for about three days. He hasn’t seen him since, or spoken to him for about two weeks. That’s not unusual, and he doesn’t think that he has any plans to come back to the UK, as Alf is planning on staying in Spain with his son for the winter.’
Kim continued to talk about how Alf had been affected and how he couldn’t believe that his son could possibly have murdered three people. My head was beginning to hurt, largely because I was tired. I put my pen down and rubbed my temples. It didn’t seem to help in the slightest.
I felt a kick under the table. I sought out the source of my sore shin. Pierre was pitching across the table towards me. I saw him mouth, ‘You OK?’
I nodded, tapped the side of my head and mouthed back, ‘Headache.’ Kim was still droning on so I tried to block out her voice while maintaining a façade of interest. I’d already decided that after the briefing I would locate Alf’s statement and read it for myself. Her voice was beginning to sound like someone was rubbing a kitten up and down pebble-dashing.
Before I knew it, we were back with Matt. There had been no update regarding Holland. His phone had already been looked at as part of the Missing Person enquiry, so, other than cross-referencing phone numbers to make sure none had been missed, there was nothing further regarding him. Daphne Headingly didn’t have a mobile, so Matt had little more to add other than landline calls, which took us no further. There had also been nothing interesting or significant in relation to Benjamin Makepeace’s newly recovered phone, which was a bit of a disappointment.
Then it was Mark and Pierre’s turn. I concentrated again. It was nothing personal
. So I told myself.
‘We went to see Carol McNamara first,’ said Mark. ‘Nice woman, lives in Surrey now with her husband, a doctor and their two children. She told us what she could remember about her kidnapping. Even though she was only five at the time, she remembered a lot of detail.’ Mark pulled at the side of his shirt collar. He ran his tongue across his top lip. Perhaps I should have stayed away. He was more pent-up than I was. At least I was hiding my discomfort. He continued, ‘Carol had read about the murders in the paper and, when she saw the name Headingly, she thought it would only be a matter of time before we approached her. In terms of Scott Headingly, she described him as…’ he glanced down at some photocopied notes, parts highlighted and quoted ‘…“a sick, twisted, depraved bastard”. Carol has not been contacted by anyone out of the ordinary, definitely not the Headingly family, has no ties with Birmingham or children’s homes and was sorry not to be of more help.’
Pierre then took over. ‘We next went to see Jillian Spora. Quite a different story there. She took some finding. We tracked her to a hostel in Hackney. She’s a drug addict, had her two children taken away from her, series of violent relationships. She lives a pitiful life and didn’t want to talk about what happened to her and Carol. She said no one had dropped in on her lately from her past or unexpectedly. Wanted to put the whole thing behind her, hadn’t heard about the murders, didn’t know where Carol lived and had made no effort to contact her. Being so messed up by heroin, she didn’t have much of a clue what was going on. Her being kidnapped as a child may have had an effect on her turning out the way she did, but Carol is doing well for herself, and so is Nina.’ Pierre turned his head in my direction as he said his last words. I had been looking at him anyway but the mention of my name brought me to full alert. ‘You’re alright, Nina.’
My headache seemed to be lifting and I was back to paying full attention. I was aware that most people in the room were looking at me, although one or two stared down at the table.