by Graham Smith
O’Dowd lifted her warrant card so the mayor could see it. ‘DI O’Dowd and DC Young. We’re here because we need to talk to you about a number of cases we’re investigating.’
Forster’s smile slipped from his face, and the way he took a half step back made Beth think he was going to slam the door in their faces and dash through the house so he could escape via a rear exit.
She was wrong. Instead of slamming the door he pulled it wide open and stood to one side.
‘Then I think it’s only right that I invite you in.’
Beth followed O’Dowd as the mayor led them to his kitchen. The house had been decorated with taste, and while original features such as picture rails and decorative cornices remained, the house had an element of contemporary styling to it.
When they entered the kitchen there was the same mix of traditional and modern. A red Aga was surrounded by granite worktops laden with a variety of cooking gadgets.
Either Forster was a keen cook, or he was a gadget freak. When researching him before leaving Carleton Hall, Beth had learned that the mayor was unmarried and he wasn’t currently in a public relationship.
‘Can I offer either of you a coffee?’
Maybe it was the man’s manners, or his relaxed attitude to the fact he had two detectives turn up at his door to question him that jangled Beth’s internal alarms, but she could tell that they were either on the wildest of goose chases, or they were about to take down a serial rapist and murderer.
‘Mr Mayor.’ O’Dowd waited until Forster looked her way before continuing. ‘In the course of our investigations, we have received intelligence and have evidence that leads us to believe that you may have raped and murdered three women over a five-year period and that you have recently killed a fourth woman. At this time it isn’t known if this fourth victim was also raped. Out of respect for your position in the community, we’ve not come mob-handed, but there are several officers stationed around your house who’re listening to us on an open channel.’ O’Dowd tapped the radio in her hand to emphasise her point.
Beth knew O’Dowd was uneasy about the risk they were taking if Forster was the killer, and she applauded the way she’d warned him against taking any aggressive action.
‘This is preposterous. I have done no such thing.’ Forster’s head gave violent shakes as he denied the allegations. ‘I wouldn’t. I’m not a rapist, nor a killer. It’s not me you’re looking for. Look, you must know I didn’t do it. I understand you have to go through the motions, but believe me, I’ll do whatever it takes to prove my innocence.’
‘It’s not as simple as that, Mr Mayor. I have to arrest you and we will have to impound all of your computers, phones and tablets as part of our investigation. Derek Forster, I am arresting you on suspicion of…’
Beth tuned out as O’Dowd read the shocked mayor his rights. Her focus was on the second part of his denial. The mayor was under the assumption that he’d be allowed to assist in the proving of his innocence. That he’d be able to sit and explain what they found and his whereabouts at the time of the assaults. He was only half right. He’d be able to answer their questions, but not in a comfortable office or his showroom kitchen: he’d be sitting across a table from them in an interview room.
O’Dowd lifted her radio and gave the instruction to proceed.
Beth went to greet the team who’d take Forster to Durranhill Station. Once the mayor was gone, another team would collect his phone, computer and any other communication devices he possessed. Another team would enter his chambers at the council offices and remove any hardware he had there. Digital Forensics would analyse everything and find anything which might implicate or exonerate the mayor.
As Beth returned to the kitchen, O’Dowd was pulling out her handcuffs. ‘Would you like to leave via the back door, Mr Mayor?’
‘Absolutely not. I have nothing to hide and will not skulk around like a common criminal. I shall leave via the front door so the world can judge me and find me innocent. Do not worry, Inspector, I know you are doing your job; and for the thoughtful consideration you’ve shown me, I bear you no malice.’ Beth felt the mayor’s eyes bore into hers. ‘Nor you, my dear.’
Those last four words and the look in his eyes chilled Beth. In that one exchange she’d witnessed another side to the genial bonhomie the mayor presented to the world. His look had been that of a predator assessing its next meal. She had no idea how things would play out from here, but she was confident the connections she’d found between the mayor and the four victims would help them secure a conviction.
‘Right, Beth. Off you go to the hospital.’
Before leaving Carleton Hall, O’Dowd had suggested Beth bring her own car as Forster’s house was only a mile from Cumberland Infirmary, and she wanted Beth to attend the post-mortem of the unknown victim.
As she walked to her car, Beth tried to brace herself for the grisly task ahead of her.
Five
Beth marched along the hospital corridor. As she eased to a walk, seeing Hewson emerge from his office, she still had some last traces of music rattling her brain.
Pop music and the latest dance tunes weren’t something she listened to much any more, not since she discovered eighties hair metal. Bands like Poison, Def Leppard and Bon Jovi were what she listened to now when she wanted to relax her brain and give it a chance to run free. Their music was fast and upbeat, it gave her an energising buzz that left her invigorated.
When she wanted something more enduring, she’d listen to heavier rock music like AC/DC, Guns N’ Roses or Metallica. Her journey from Carleton Hall to Forster’s house then the hop to Cumberland Infirmary had seen her select Appetite for Destruction on her iPod.
Guns N’ Roses’ anger-fuelled debut album not only matched her mood, it was ideal music to crank loud and drive fast to. She’d sung alongside Axl Rose and had rejoiced in the way Slash could always make the hairs on her arms stand up with the opening riff from ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’.
Now she was out of the car and the world was silent by comparison, she was trawling her brain to see what, if anything, had been shaken loose.
There was the kernel of an idea, but it wasn’t developed yet, and she didn’t want to pursue it until she had more facts.
Hewson threw a side nod her way. ‘C’mon then. Let’s do what we have to do.’
As they walked to the pathology suite, Beth put a smear of VapoRub onto her top lip to combat the nauseous smells she knew were coming.
‘I’m going to start by giving this lady a non-invasive examination. If I’m right with my thinking, you want two key questions answered: Has she been raped? And was she strangled?’
‘As always, you’re on the same page as I am.’
Hewson gave a curt nod as he reached up and took hold of an X-ray machine on a mechanical arm that reminded Beth of the anglepoise lamp her mother used for reading. Now that the pathologist was beside the stainless steel table he was all business.
Beth watched as he directed the nozzle of the machine to the woman’s throat, placed an X-ray plate underneath her neck and then waved at Beth to join him behind a glass screen. He took images from three different positions, changing the plates after each one.
Once he’d taken the images, he peeled the metallic film from the plates and fed them into a lightbox attached to one wall.
‘Hmmm.’ Hewson pursed his lips and walked back to the table. ‘The hyoid bone is intact, but the bruising on the throat indicates asphyxiation as do her bloodshot eyes.’ He flicked his eyes towards Beth. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be able to establish from testing her muscle tissue if she died of strangulation; although considering how the cancer has ravaged her body, it’s possible her heart gave out before she died from lack of oxygen.’
When Hewson opened a cabinet drawer and pulled out a speculum, Beth retreated to the head end of the table.
As much as she wanted to know whether or not the victim had been raped, she felt the woman was due some respect and con
sideration. She wouldn’t learn anything more by gawping over Hewson’s shoulder than she would from standing by the woman’s head.
Hewson bent to his task and Beth tried not think of what he was doing.
In this room, he was the solver of medical mysteries and the cracker of cases. His findings would implicate criminals and point the finger of blame at misdiagnoses. How the man kept a spring in his step and a general air of affable bonhomie had been beyond her until she realised that, like her, Hewson was driven to solve puzzles. For him the mystery would be everything, and as long as he had one to solve, he’d be able to disassociate himself from the horrific nature of his work.
‘DC Protégé, I think we have a problem.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘This woman wasn’t raped, as such. From what I can tell, she has been penetrated both vaginally and anally, but not by a human being.’
Beth didn’t follow what the doctor was getting at, so she raised an eyebrow and rolled her hand so he’d continue.
‘She has internal injuries that go deep inside her. She also has significant tearing which is synonymous with violent, forced intercourse, but it’s one of the worst I’ve ever seen. And I’m afraid it happened post-mortem.’
Beth nodded rather than spoke in case the anger that was washing over her was given a voice. All thoughts of the earlier jests she’d shared with Hewson had been driven away by the knowledge of what had happened to the woman on the table.
She had been strangled and had then had something pushed into her orifices to give the impression she had been raped. The object in question didn’t matter, but Hewson shared his opinion that it was most likely a sex toy of some description. If that wasn’t a terrible enough fate, she’d been dumped by the side of the lake as if her life had meant nothing.
Her life as she’d known it may have been over the moment the doctor had given her the news about her cancer, yet some cruel, vindictive pervert had stolen her last hours and then defiled her corpse.
A knock snapped Beth’s head towards the door as a man in a checked shirt and cords walked in and headed straight towards the table. ‘Morning. This your victim?’ The man stood at the side of the table and looked down at the woman. His eyes closed and his jaw set as he dealt with the death in front of him. ‘That is Felicia Evans. She was a patient of mine. If you need me to sign anything to verify her identification, you know where my office is.’
Felicia’s doctor strode to the door. Beth dashed after him. He’d known Felicia, dealt with her and seen her at what would have been her lowest moments.
‘Wait up, Doctor. I have a couple of questions for you.’
‘You’d better be quick. I have the parents of a six-year-old girl waiting for me to give them her biopsy results.’
Something in the doctor’s eyes told Beth the parents weren’t going to hear the news they’d surely have been praying for.
She understood what he was going through. As the bearer of bad news, you found yourself torn between wanting to procrastinate so you never had to say the words that don’t want to be heard, and wanting to get the horrible experience over with as soon as possible so that you can pass the terrible burden on to someone else.
‘You obviously knew Felicia Evans to some degree, what was she like as a person?’
The doctor pulled a face. ‘She was tough. She faced her diagnosis without shedding a tear.’
‘I sense there’s a “but” missing from what you’ve just said.’
‘Is it that obvious?’ He splayed his fingers as he spread his arms wide. ‘I don’t want to speak ill of the dead and all that. She was a difficult woman to deal with. Very forthright with her opinions, and her opinions were generally that there was only her way to do anything. She gave the nurses a rough time and when the hospital chaplain visited her she sent him away with a flea in his ear.’
‘Sounds like she was quite a character. Do you know if she had any visitors? Family members, or friends perhaps?’
‘Not a soul. I suggested she bring someone to accompany her when she had her chemo, but she told me she neither needed nor wanted anyone to hold her hand.’
Beth thanked the doctor and left him to his unenviable task of passing on the biopsy results to the girl’s family. Now that she had this information, the idea she’d had earlier was starting to develop into a more recognisable shape and it wasn’t pleasant whichever way she looked at it.
Beth bade Hewson goodbye and set off for Durranhill Station. Not only would O’Dowd want an update, but the mayor would need to be interviewed.
Six
The interview room at Carlisle’s Durranhill police station wasn’t in the best of conditions, but at least it was fit for purpose and had the necessary audio and visual recording equipment.
It was a nuisance for the FMIT to have to travel to a different building every time they wanted to conduct an interview, but they were a roving team and, as such, tended to conduct their interviews in the nearest station to wherever their suspects lived. Their base in Carleton Hall was purely because the top brass wanted FMIT in the same building as them.
Carleton Hall was a former manor house on the outskirts of Penrith and had been used as the police headquarters since being purchased in the 1950s. More an administration centre than an operational station, apart from the FMIT, the Roads Policing Unit had their garages in the outbuildings at the rear of the south-facing building. The frontage of the building was dominated by two semi-octagonal bay windows and the rooms they belonged to had been claimed by those furthest up the ranks.
To Beth, Carleton Hall was an ugly building as she only ever saw the functional rear, rather than the decorative front. She knew it was a mistake on her part, but as much as she loved the prestige which accompanied those who worked out of Carleton Hall, she also despised the fact that the building was unattractive and its systems were all make-do-and-mend.
Where other teams around the county had purpose-built offices, with all the relevant communications systems installed as a matter of course, Carleton Hall had been adapted on a regular basis for the best part of seventy years. Every new technological advance, such as the intranet and Internet, saw a different bunch of cables and sockets being added to a house that was first wired for electricity more than a century ago.
It had been decreed by O’Dowd that she and Beth would have the first contact with Forster and their interview would be followed up by one featuring DS Thompson and the final member of FMIT, DC Paul Unthank. O’Dowd had explained her reasoning and it had made sense to Beth. Lots of rapes were about the rapist’s power over the victim and by having the two women go first, it would unbalance the mayor by not having the power in the room.
The biggest issue Beth had with the plan was whether the tactic was subtle enough to trip up someone who’d thrown themselves into political life. It was an open secret that when Forster’s two years as mayor were over, he intended to run for MP.
She expected the man to be difficult to pin down and that he’d try and charm his way out of the situation. He maybe wouldn’t lie, but Beth was expecting a war of words that would be a series of thrusts and parries from both sides.
As she pulled into the car park, she prepared her mind for an interview that she expected to be fascinating and frustrating in equal measure.
Seven
When Beth followed O’Dowd into the interview room the first thing she noticed was Forster’s lawyer.
Someone in Forster’s position in life didn’t settle for the duty solicitor, they used their phone call to summon their lawyer. Forster’s lawyer was a Mancunian who’d moved to Carlisle and established his own practice in record time.
Neville Vaughan was the kind of lawyer the police dreaded going up against: he knew every trick in the book and while he may have a cultured air about him, he was quite happy to get down and dirty when the need arose. His practice specialised in criminal law and she knew she should have expected that Forster would use him.
O�
�Dowd recited the names of those present and the reason for the interview for the benefit of the recording equipment and then fixed Forster with an enquiring stare.
‘Before we begin, Inspector, my client would like to state for the record that he is an innocent man and that he will do everything in his power to prove that to you.’
‘Thank you, Mr Vaughan. Your client’s cooperation will ensure this process is carried out as smoothly and quickly as possible. I should, though, like to point something out in return.’ O’Dowd pointed her pen in Forster’s general direction. ‘Almost everybody who sits in that seat says they’re not guilty and that they’ll do anything to prove it.’
‘Touché, Inspector. Let’s cut to the chase, shall we?’ If Vaughan’s smile had been any oilier, Greenpeace would be protesting about the pollution he was causing. ‘You have made an as yet unfounded allegation against Mayor Forster. The burden of proof lies with you, and as my client is innocent, you will not find the necessary evidence to charge him, let alone proceed with a prosecution.’
‘That’s the whole point of this interview. To establish your client’s innocence. Or guilt, whichever is appropriate.’ O’Dowd turned to look at Forster. ‘The evidence we’ve uncovered tells us that you raped and murdered four women. In order they are: Christine Peterson who was murdered and raped five years ago; Joanne Armstrong, three and a half years ago, Harriet Quantrell, almost two years past, and finally, Felicia Evans.’
Forster’s face scrunched in concentration. ‘You think I’m responsible for poor Harriet’s death? You presumably know she interned for me for a fortnight as part of her college course when I was deputy mayor? I didn’t kill or rape her, I went to her funeral for God’s sake.’
Beth hadn’t expected Forster to be so open. She’d thought he be guarded with his answers and that there would be a lot more verbal fencing before they got to this point.