Scream: A DCI Mark Lapslie Investigation

by Nigel McCrery

  ‘But is it still a pig?’ Emma asked. ‘It’s all very well to say that the pig plan hasn’t changed, but if I have a plan for a garden shed, and I add on a bell-tower, the building is still there but the centre of gravity has shifted upwards. It’s going to be more unstable in high winds and earthquakes.’

  He nodded approvingly. ‘Well done. It takes some of my students weeks to spot that flaw in the argument. Yes, adding genes onto an existing length of DNA might affect the way it operates. That’s one of the main objections to the widespread use of genetically modified foods.’

  ‘But the GM organism can be tested, surely? There are ways of checking that the pig is still a pig?’

  ‘Yes-ish.’ He shrugged. ‘Just by splicing a section of DNA into a larger DNA sequence, you’re moving the bits that are already there further apart. This might mean that particular proteins that were previously made correctly might now be made wrongly. This might not affect the animal or plant directly, but might affect whoever eats it. Or, worse, only affects them if something else happens – maybe if another protein is introduced from somewhere else and the two react with each other. You just can’t easily test for that kind of thing.’

  ‘Hence the protesters.’

  ‘Hence the protesters. They’re campaiging about fields of genetically modified wheat that have been planted in Essex as part of a research project. The company conducting the research – Tolla Limited – say they need to grow the genetically modified wheat in real-world conditions so they can harvest it, make it into food products, feed it to various animals and then check the health of the animals generation after generation against a control group that hasn’t eaten the GM foodstuff. The protesters say that it’s too dangerous to grow the GM wheat under real-world conditions, because pollen might get picked up by the wind and spread to unmodified wheat in neighbouring fields where it could reproduce and spread. The company says in response that the gene they’ve introduced isn’t expressed in the pollen. The protesters say that this is irrelevant, because the gene they have introduced might have an indirect effect on the production of pollen, just because it’s moved existing parts of the DNA further apart. And so it goes on.’

  ‘I presume the company have records of where these fields are?’

  ‘Yes, and they’ve got monitoring stations set up around the area to check the drift of the pollen. They’ve also made sure none of the fields is anywhere near existing wheat fields, so even if the pollen drifts it shouldn’t contaminate anything, but this is an inexact science. The fields are surrounded by fallow fields or fields growing something that doesn’t interact with wheat pollen – cabbages, potatoes, that kind of thing.’

  Emma tried to pick the bones out of what Professor Wilkinson had said. ‘There’s no easy answer, is there?’ she said eventually. ‘The ways of getting genes into DNA seems pretty rough and ready, and even to me the research into the long-term effects of eating the food made from the GM organisms is not as comprehensive as it should be, but I can’t really see how it can be improved. And going back isn’t an option. We can’t pretend that genetic modification hasn’t been invented, and we obviously need it to improve food yields to feed starving nations.’

  ‘And that, in a nutshell, is a ten-week course on GM foods,’ the professor said. ‘Congratulations – by realising that there is actually no way ahead you’ve passed the course.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Well, there is a whole lecture about the idea of ownership – if you snip a piece of DNA into an existing wheat genome, does that mean you’ve invented a new type of wheat and should get paid by anybody who uses it?’

  ‘What kind of percentage of the DNA are we talking about?’

  ‘Minuscule. Less than one per cent. Much less.’

  ‘Then no. If you make that small a change, you shouldn’t own it. It’s like putting new tyres on a Toyota Prius and claiming you’ve built a whole new type of car.’

  ‘With the proviso,’ he pointed out, ‘that the change you’ve made has cost you a lot of money, and will arguably provide a huge benefit to the grower of the plant, or whatever it is. If you don’t get some kind of reward or recompense, then why would you do it in the first place?’

  ‘Ah,’ she said.

  ‘So, not a distinction, then. Let’s call it a good pass and have done with it.’

  ‘Professor Wilkinson, you’ve been very helpful.’

  ‘Peter, please. And it’s nothing.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you have a map showing the locations of the fields where Tolla Limited are growing this genetically modified wheat?’

  ‘I do.’ He smiled. ‘I probably shouldn’t, but I do. Would you like a copy?’

  ‘Please.’

  He moved his computer mouse and clicked a couple of times. A printer on the far side of the office whirred into life, spitting out several sheets of paper.

  ‘The information you need is there, along with the address of the Essex branch of Tolla Limited.’ She flashed him a bright smile. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘If you really want to thank me,’ he said, ‘you could let me buy you a coffee.’

  ‘Best not to,’ she said reluctantly.

  The smile faded from his face. ‘Jealous boyfriend? I’m not worried.’

  ‘You should be,’ she said. ‘You really should be.’

  Driving away from the Essex University campus, Emma found herself regretting the polite brush-off she’d given him. He was devastatingly good looking, after all. But she was with Dom, for better or for worse, and she had a dark feeling that she would not be the one who was allowed to call the relationship off.

  Perhaps she should have listened to Lapslie’s warnings.

  But then, by the time he had found out about her and Dom McGinley, it was already too late. She was in too deep.

  Her mobile rang while she was driving. She clicked the Bluetooth button on the dashboard.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Emma Bradbury?’ a voice asked.

  ‘Yes. Who is this?’

  ‘This is James Grimshawe, from the Independent Police Complaints Commission.’ The voice was cultured, polite and had a tone buried within it that suggested its owner was used to getting his own way. ‘Are you free to talk?’

  ‘I’m driving at the moment.’

  ‘I won’t take up more than a few seconds of your time. I just wanted to arrange a time and place where I can interview you.’

  She felt her heart sink. ‘Can I ask what this is about?’ she asked, although she already knew.

  ‘Of course,’ the voice said. ‘We’re investigating a complaint that has been raised concerning Detective Chief Inspector Mark Lapslie. I believe you know him.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘And you were present at an interview he held recently with a girl named Tamara Stottart.’

  ‘Has the interview already started?’

  He laughed. ‘Not yet. I just need to know that I have the right person.’

  ‘Yes, I was at the interview, and yes, I know Mark Lapslie.’

  ‘Then shall we say ten o’clock tomorrow? I can come to you. I believe you’re working out of Canvey Island at the moment.’

  She was just about to tell him that she was on a case and couldn’t tell whether she’d be free at the time he wanted, or at any time if it came to that, and that the focus of the investigation had moved away from Canvey Island, but she stopped herself. If she could drag this Grimshawe away from wherever Lapslie happened to be then she might be doing her boss a favour. ‘Yes, Canvey Island Police Station at ten o’clock tomorrow.’ She paused, then added innocently, ‘Shall I get you booked in at the front desk?’

  ‘No need,’ Grimshawe said with a trace of amusement in his voice. ‘I can get in to any police station I need to. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.’

  ‘Looking forward to it,’ Emma replied, but he’d already broken the connection and she was talking to dead air.

  She parked her car back at Chelmsfor
d Police HQ and went in search of Lapslie. She found him in the centre of a large, empty, open-plan room.

  ‘I like your new office,’ she said. ‘It’s bigger than Rouse’s, isn’t it?’

  ‘Much bigger. Sadly, it’s only mine until we solve the case.’

  ‘He accepted that the murders and the kidnappings were linked?’

  Lapslie nodded. ‘It took a bit of doing, but he’s behind us on this one. He’s given us an incident room here, plus all the staff we need. And he’s made it clear that if the IPCC investigation finds that I was too heavy-handed on Tamara Stottart in any way then he will personally pull me off and replace me with Dain Morritt.’

  ‘Then let’s make sure the investigation clears you.’ She took a breath. ‘They want to talk to me tomorrow. At Canvey Island.’

  ‘Good,’ Lapslie said. ‘That’ll give you a chance to close things down there and bring all the paperwork and maps and stuff here. Oh, and the computers as well.’

  ‘I’ll rent a van,’ Emma murmured.

  ‘And I’m having Sergeant Murrell reassigned temporarily to us. He seemed competent.’

  ‘I agree,’ Emma said, wondering why it always seemed that she was a step behind Lapslie, rather than by his side or even, God help her, a step ahead.

  ‘Let’s think about it as a whole, rather than as a load of individual parts,’ he said suddenly. ‘Is there some commonality in the way the people disappeared? Something that all the kidnappings share that might direct us to the perpetrator?’

  Emma considered the question. ‘I’ve had all the files sent through,’ she said, trying to remember the details. ‘Lorraine Gregory was taken while walking back to her digs after a band rehearsal. She fronted a jazz-fusion band, and her walk back took her along an unlit canal towpath. The suspicion was that someone came up to her from behind, knocked her out and then dragged her to a car, but there’s no evidence.’

  ‘Any bruising to suggest she’d been knocked out?’

  ‘No, but there were no traces of chloroform or anything similar in the blood or the lungs.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said moodily. ‘What about the next one?’

  ‘Alison Traff. She disappeared after filling her car up at a petrol station after spending a couple of hours at choir practice. Her car was found abandoned by the side of the road in an area that barely sees two cars an hour.’

  ‘So we know the abductor and murderer chooses his location carefully. He obvious reconnoitres beforehand, and finds locations where he won’t be disturbed.’

  ‘There were no signs that her car had been forced off the road – no swerving tyre tracks or skid marks. She’d just slowed to a stop and vanished.’

  ‘The abductor lay in the road, looking like a jogger who’d collapsed, waiting for her to come along?’ Lapslie guessed.

  ‘How did he know it would be her?’

  ‘Maybe he followed her in his car from the church hall, then accelerated past her and drove up the road, parked out of sight then quickly lay down. If it wasn’t her who stopped then he could just stage a miraculous recovery and leave. But it was her.’ Seeing her sceptical expression, he went on: ‘Or he overtook her, pulled over a few miles down the road and raised the bonnet of his car as if he’d had a breakdown, then flagged her down as she drove up.’

  Emma felt her face settle into even more sceptical lines. ‘Hey. I do Tae Kwon Do but I wouldn’t stop at night for a man with a broken-down car. Too risky.’

  ‘Maybe it wasn’t a man,’ Lapslie pointed out.

  ‘What, Tamara Stottart again? It wasn’t her, boss. She’s fifteen. She can’t drive. How would she get to all of these locations by herself?’

  He sighed. ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘You just want it to be her.’

  ‘She’s got something to do with it. Mark my words. She knows something.’

  Emma considered for a moment. ‘Then what about the third victim? David Cave? A bit of a hard man, by all accounts. I can’t imagine a fifteen-year-old girl subduing him. Not even with chloroform.’

  ‘What’s the story there? How did he disappear?’

  ‘He’d been playing snooker at a late-night club. Left at three o’clock in the morning. Twenty-minute walk, but he never made it home. Somewhere along the line, he vanished.’

  ‘What was that stuff the Russian Special Forces used in the Moscow theatre siege?’ Lapslie asked.

  ‘Dunno. Some kind of veterinary thing, I think. I’ll find out.’

  ‘Could have been that,’ Lapslie continued, ‘or he could have been bashed over the head with a baseball bat and shoved into a car. Any signs of damage to the corpse?’

  Emma shuddered. ‘There were sufficient signs of damage to the corpse to obscure almost anything that might have knocked him out, according to the autopsy. He really was messed around with.’

  ‘And that brings us to Catriona Dooley.’

  ‘Returning from a night out with the girls. At some point between getting off the bus and her parents’ house, she disappeared.’

  ‘Again, the attack from behind with the chloroform pad seems the most likely means.’

  Emma nodded. ‘Which takes us to where? All the attacks took place at night—’

  ‘—implying that the abductor either lives alone or has reason to be out of the house after dark without anyone being suspicious—’

  ‘—and occurred as far as we can tell in badly lit locations—’

  ‘—suggesting a degree of prior reconnaissance—’

  ‘—with the probable use of an anaesthetic of some kind—’

  ‘—indicating some chemical knowledge on the part of the kidnapper, along perhaps with some physical weakness which means he had to subdue them quickly—’

  ‘—following which captor and victim vanished into the night—’

  ‘—which tells us that he has a car.’ Lapslie snorted explosively. ‘We’ve got nothing!’

  A uniformed constable entered the bare room and walked up to Lapslie. He handed over a sheet of paper. Lapslie scanned it quickly, then again more slowly. He rubbed his chin, considering, then nodded at the constable. ‘Okay, tell them we’ll be there right away. And tell them that I’m the senior investigating officer. Make sure they understand that although their investigation is already under way, they’re reporting to me now.’

  The constable nodded and left. Emma frowned up at Lapslie.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  He was gazing straight ahead, out of the windows. ‘It’s happened again,’ he whispered. ‘A family, this time. An entire family. Father, mother and two sons, all abducted from their house in Loughton last night. The police were alerted by the cleaner this morning. She found the dog dead in the kitchen and the family missing.’ He seemed to come to a decision. ‘Right, let’s get over there before the local plod tread dirt all the way through and wipe any fingerprints away with their fat arses as they rest themselves against all the work surfaces. Get Burrows and Catherall down there straight away.’

  ‘Doctor Catherall? I thought you said the family were kidnapped, not killed?’

  ‘They were. I want Jane to take a look at the dog.’ At her questioning gaze, he explained: ‘It’s like that Sherlock Holmes thing – the strange case of the dog in the night time. The strange thing was that the dog didn’t bark, suggesting that it knew the criminal. Well, here we have another strange case of a dog in the night time. The strange thing here is that the dog has died, and we don’t know why. Not a mark on it.’

  ‘One question, Sir?’

  He glanced at her in irritation. ‘What? Time’s ticking away.’

  ‘How do we even know that this case is connected to ours?’

  ‘Didn’t I say?’ He swung back. ‘They’re a folk group evenings and weekends. They call themselves the Singing Baillies.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Baillie house was located at the end of a narrow and winding road in the area of Loughton known locally as Little Cornwall. The driv
e through the town took Lapslie and Emma up and down steep hills and past weatherboard houses, along narrow lanes and past high holly hedges, as well as occasional outthrusts of the nearby brooding mass of Epping Forest. It also took them past Loughton Underground station, which was overground at this point. The station was located four stops from the end of the Central Line and a reminder that despite the ever-present trees and the bushes they were less than fifteen miles from the centre of London. Every now and then, as they crested another hill, Lapslie could see past the houses and across the tops of the forest: a sea of bubbling green canopies.

  The house was huge: two wings either side of a central block, the whole thing a relic of the Victorian era updated with a satellite dish on the roof and a garage off to one side. Creepers covered most of the sides. The house sat in its own small grounds, walled around and connected to the road by a short gravel drive. The gravel crunched under Lapslie’s wheels as he brought the car to a halt in front of the main portico, next to a set of other police cars and a CSI van. People were moving back and forth between the vehicles and the house like bees foraging for pollen and then returning to the hive.

  ‘Nice place,’ Emma said as she got out of the passenger side. ‘I might get Dom to buy me one like this for my birthday.’

  Lapslie scowled at her. He knew she was winding him up, but he wasn’t in the mood. ‘Paid for by the blood money he’s obtained as the unjust gains from a hundred armed robberies?’

  ‘He told me he won the lottery,’ she said, smiling. ‘Numerous times in a row.’

  Lapslie didn’t reply.