by Dylan Young
For a second Woakes’ remark threw Anna completely. She could have smiled, been deferential, joined in the joke, but all she truly wanted to do was give him a slap.
‘For God’s sake, this is neither the time nor the place,’ she said. ‘We will meet up—’
‘OK—’
Before he could finish, she added, ‘With the rest of the team.’
He did something with his mouth and shoulders that might have been a shrug. A ‘that’s up to you’ gesture she didn’t like much.
Anna went behind her desk and sat. ‘Why did you muscle in on Holder and Khosa?’
Woakes looked surprised. ‘Is this about the golf club?’
‘Why?’ repeated Anna.
‘I didn’t muscle in. I happened to be there and thought I’d lend a hand.’
‘OK. So, if I ask you who it was you were there with and I contact him or her, they’ll vouch, will they?’
‘Why would you want to do that?’
‘Because, sergeant, I haven’t worked you out yet, whereas those two out there have worked their arses off on this case. I trusted them to get a job done and now they’re pissed off with me because you stuck your nose in and worse, told them I’d sanctioned it.’
‘Well…’
‘No, not “well”. Did you or did you not say that?’
Woakes turned around and looked through the door at Holder. ‘Justin been telling stories, has he?’
‘He’s told me what I wanted to know in response to me asking him for an operational report. Why wouldn’t he tell me? It’s the truth, isn’t it?’
‘Listen—’
Anna tilted her head. ‘Don’t “listen” me, sergeant.’
Woakes dropped his chin and seemed to take stock. ‘What I was trying to say to him was that since we got the result, I thought you wouldn’t mind.’
‘It’s not the same thing at all, and you know it.’
Woakes sighed. ‘OK. Fair enough. You know your squad but I don’t. Not yet. So, I thought I’d go along and keep an eye on things. It just so happens I was in the right spot at the right time and made a call. A good call as it turned out since we got a result. And I don’t understand why it is I’m getting grief for it.’
‘You’re getting grief because I didn’t ask you to do that and you made it look like I did. It’s not the way we work here. And your brief is to get to grips with the Dawson case. Do I have to remind you that we have a chance of finding some real answers for her family? And last but not least, I really don’t like being used.’
‘K… Got it.’
‘Good. Here’s the icing on the cake. Peter Morton went AWOL after his shift yesterday. We think it’s because you were seen collecting samples at the golf club.’
Woakes sat, sullen and silent.
‘I’m waiting, Dave.’
Woakes crossed his legs. ‘Looks like I cocked up.’
Anna wrinkled her nose. ‘I think what you’re trying to say is that you made a big error of judgement which may have lost us the opportunity of apprehending a suspect in a historical rape case.’
‘That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it, Anna—’
‘Today, Dave, and until I tell you otherwise, it’s Inspector Gwynne or, much as I bloody hate it, ma’am. What bothers me here is your motive. There’s no logic to this. You lied to Holder, used me and muscled in on a case for what I have to assume were nothing but self-serving reasons.’
Woakes’ face reddened.
‘So now two things are going to happen. You are going to go out there and apologise to Justin and Ryia for not trusting them and explain how it was all you and that it had bugger all to do with me. We are going to let them run the rest of it themselves unless, and only unless, they want your help.’
Woakes stood, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. The smile had gone and his eyes had drifted into a kind of vacant stare.
‘The words you’re looking for are, “Yes, ma’am”.’
He snapped back, nodding. ‘Yeah. Yes, of course, ma’am.’
Anna studied him, her frown deepening. She got up and moved to the door. ‘Am I going to regret Superintendent Rainsford agreeing to take you on, Dave?’
‘No, I uh, I talk a lot, I know. Talk too much and sometimes I overthink stuff and do things maybe I shouldn’t. So, I am sorry and I’ll put things right with Pinky and Perky.’
Anna sighed. ‘It’s not who they are.’
‘Sorry. With DC Holder and DC Khosa… ma’am.’
‘Right. And once you’ve done that we’ll go and meet Hawley. Bath wasn’t it, you said?’
* * *
She pretended to work while Woakes ate humble pie with the two DCs, anxious to get on with things. As Woakes walked to his desk later, Holder looked across to her and nodded. Small, appreciative. She got nothing from Khosa.
Anna made no further reference in the morning briefing. Though Woakes had badly messed up, they’d wasted enough time already. She addressed them all, standing near the whiteboard.
‘Right, let’s get things moving. Justin, Ryia, great work in following up on the Morton case. I will get the official sample premiumed today, but it’s water under the bridge.’
They both nodded. Anna did not include Woakes in her eye contact. She turned to the images on the whiteboard. ‘I want us all to concentrate on Rosie Dawson. Ryia, Justin, let’s search for any likely offenders who weren’t known at the time of Rosie’s abduction but who have come to light subsequently and who might have lived in and around the area.’
Khosa and Holder both nodded.
‘We need to look at the military link because of the rucksack and the army connection because of the fatigues. And missing persons under fourteen years of age.’
‘Just mispers? Not actual murder victims then, ma’am?’ Khosa asked.
Anna nodded. ‘As well as, obviously. I keep coming back to the way he disposed of the bones. I’ve been down to the abduction site. He was careful. Planned everything. He’s organised. So why leave the bones in a plastic bag out in the open like that?’
‘We got nothing back on the HOLMES search on Down’s syndrome, ma’am,’ Holder said.
‘And I’m waiting for Hi-Tech to get back to me.’
Anna asked Woakes, ‘Forensics?’
‘We’re in the queue.’
No one had any answers. Not yet.
Anna sighed, her frustration still simmering. ‘Right, Dave, let’s go and see this Hawley.’
* * *
In the car on the way to Bath, Woakes drove and they talked business. Saturday’s little escapade and the Milk Thistle were put firmly to bed. Anna found out Woakes had been down to Clevedon to the abduction site, too. It brought a welcome smile to her lips.
‘What did you think?’ Anna said.
‘Knew what he was doing. Chose the spot. Might have waited several days for the right moment.’
‘Agreed. He’s a stalker and a planner.’
‘Add in the forensic nous and I’d say we were looking at someone who thinks he’s smarter than us.’
Anna glanced across. She knew where Woakes was coming from. The planning and the boiling of the bones as well as the hypochlorite all pointed to a dark intelligence. ‘They went over Hawley pretty thoroughly at the time,’ she said.
Woakes nodded. ‘I’m sure they did. But maybe not thoroughly enough.’
She stomped on the sudden urge she had to laugh. Woakes was an arrogant sod, but she didn’t know him well enough to work out if this was mere bravado based on his track record or misplaced confidence.
Anna scanned the traffic on the M4. All these people going to normal jobs, day to day, humdrum, passing their car and not giving it a second glance. None of them, unless they were extremely unlucky, would ever need to be involved with a major crime. And yet she knew, too, that inside one of those vehicles there was a mind capable of the worst kind of horror. Somewhere out there were monsters contemplating perpetrating the most heinous, depraved, unspeakable
acts. And yet one of them might walk past you on a street, or overtake you doing 80 on the motorway and you’d have no idea.
As part of her degree, she’d studied physiognomy, the pseudoscience of judging a person’s character from their outward appearance. As late as the 1930s people were claiming murderers tended to have straight hair, and that meat-faced mesomorphs were most prone to criminality. All claptrap. There were as many fine-featured thieves as there were troglodytes. And all they knew about Rosie’s perpetrator from a physical standpoint was that he was big and strong enough to carry a child.
But the next inevitable stop for this train of thought was Hector Shaw. A perfect case in point. He wasn’t an ugly man, and if you looked beyond the physical, there lurked a highly intelligent brain. She could think of nothing that made him stand out as the multiple killer he was. The age gap between them, though never in her experience a barrier from a man’s hormone-driven perspective, meant that Anna had never seen Shaw in any way other than a prisoner in standard-issue greys. But now, as her mind played games, she wondered if in another iteration he’d have been easy to interact with. He might have been ordinary, pleasant even, and she might have talked to him if he’d spoken to her, though she was also sure a passing nod might well have sufficed. The fact was he would have appeared normal. Perfectly camouflaged like a screech owl against the bark of a tree, waiting for dark, for the small animals to emerge as prey. He would have seemed unremarkable. There was no warning label stuck to his forehead, though she’d wondered more than once what she might have read had she been able to examine the being beneath. A killer with zero empathy for his victims, manipulative, coldly intelligent with a plasma serotonin level low enough to make him prone to extreme violence. Shaw was the most dangerous being Anna had ever met. And she was not looking forward to seeing him later.
The point was that stereotyping, physical or otherwise, was a dangerous game to play when it came to crime. Especially well-thought-out and clever crime. She hoped Woakes had an open mind. So far, he had done nothing to make her believe that.
Hawley had agreed to meet them in the Bath Hilton on Walcot Street. His choice, and Anna saw why when she walked through the modern entrance. It was big, but not cavernous, and had modern seating in neutral colours offset by orange cushions arranged around tables and little nooks with L-shaped sofas. At a minute after nine thirty in the morning it was empty. They grabbed a table with two chairs set behind a screen and Woakes fetched another chair. A waiter appeared after a few minutes and asked if they wanted coffee. Anna said they’d wait. At ten before the hour, a man appeared in the lobby, looking around expectantly.
‘Oy, oy,’ said Woakes under his breath before standing up and motioning.
Hawley raised a hand and walked across. Medium height, clean-cut and when he got close enough, wary brown eyes. A worn leather messenger bag hung over one shoulder. Woakes stood and made the introductions but did not offer his hand, and from the way he sat immediately, Hawley didn’t expect it.
‘Thanks for agreeing to meet with us, Dr Hawley,’ Anna said. ‘I understand you’re coming off shift?’
Hawley nodded.
‘Are you back on today?’
‘Three days off. Time for some sleep and R and R.’
‘Would you like some coffee?’ Woakes signalled the circulating waiter, who nodded an acknowledgement.
‘No thanks.’
‘We’re taking a fresh look at the Rosie Dawson case,’ Woakes said.
‘So you said.’ Hawley’s eyes remained wary but narrowed through inquisitiveness. ‘Have you found any new evidence?’
‘I’m not at liberty to say,’ Woakes said. ‘But we’re talking to people who were involved at the time.’
Anna sensed the obvious friction between the two men. Hawley’s was borne out of the unpleasant experiences he’d had so far with police over anything and everything to do with Rosie’s case. And Woakes’ stemmed from his default bluntness. She was quickly realising subtlety was not the sergeant’s strong point.
‘I wasn’t involved,’ Hawley said.
‘But you were questioned. Extensively.’
‘Yes, I was.’
‘Could you remind us what your involvement with Rosie was, exactly?’
Hawley smiled and shook his head. He knew Woakes’ decision to continue using the word ‘involvement’ was no accident and was unable to stop a resigned sigh from escaping his lips. ‘As I’m sure your records show, four weeks before the abduction, I saw Rosie with her mother as a patient.’
If Hawley was hoping this brief summary would be enough, Woakes’ expectant silence told a different story.
‘I was working in the A and E at Cheltenham General. They asked me to see Rosie because she felt she had something in her eye. I examined her, found a small scrap of shell under her lid. I instilled some anaesthetic drops, removed the offending foreign body and that was it. People generally improve instantly when it’s subtarsal—’
‘Sub what?’ Woakes asked. The question was sharp. Woakes didn’t like Hawley’s confidence, that was obvious.
‘Under the lid,’ Hawley said. ‘It had been a windy day. Rosie and her family had been visiting Sudeley Castle. Sometimes little fragments get caught on the wind. Tiny shell fragments are especially light and can be cup-shaped. They can embed under the lid quite easily. She was a great patient. Better than most adults. She didn’t flinch as I put anaesthetic drops in.’
‘And then what?’
‘And then, as I was writing her up for some antibiotic drops, she walked over to her mum and whispered something in her ear. Mrs Dawson smiled and said Rosie wanted to give me a hug. I stopped writing and before I knew it, Rosie ran across the room, hugged me around the neck and kissed me on the cheek.’
‘How did you feel about that?’
‘Nothing. Embarrassed if anything. Both the nurse and Mrs Dawson were laughing. Rosie was smiling. It was nothing more than a spontaneous act of gratitude from a little girl. Something she probably did a dozen times a day with her dad or her uncles. I was young. It didn’t happen to me often—’
‘Often?’ Woakes sat forward.
‘OK, never. I didn’t quite know how to react, but it had happened and everyone was fine with it. I finished writing the prescription and they left. I thought no more about it until a week after Rosie went missing when the police turned up at the hospital wanting to see me.’
‘And you understand why?’
‘Of course I know why. I let a child hug and kiss me in public.’
‘So, it didn’t come as a surprise to you when you were questioned?’
Something, a shadow of remembered pain, passed across Hawley’s face. ‘What do you think?’ he said.
Woakes shrugged. ‘I think you were probably pretty shocked.’
‘That’s putting it mildly. I went with them to the station and they held me there for two days. They searched my flat, took my laptop and my girlfriend’s. Wanted to see any computer I had access to in work. They did it twice. The first time when she went missing. The second time when they found her remains more than a year later.’
‘They wanted to be thorough.’
‘That’s what they kept saying. They wanted to be thorough. To be sure. That I should realise I was a person of interest and if I had any information it would be better for me if I told them.’
‘But you had no information.’
Hawley had a habit of grinding his back teeth. Anna wondered if it only happened in stressful situations.
‘Correct. I had no information. I still don’t have any information. I have no idea who took Rosie, but it wasn’t me. I had a room in the doctor’s mess. Luckily, there were CCTV cameras outside the hospital. On the day Rosie was abducted, the cameras showed me entering the hospital accommodation and not leaving. Though, there was a back entrance, but I’d left my phone on and it showed I hadn’t gone anywhere. Again, I could have left my phone at home and gone all the way to Clevedon. But I was on an ev
ening shift at seven and that was the clincher, I think. They had no evidence showing me getting out or back into Cheltenham by road or rail. They eliminated me by default. But they took their time.’
Woakes nodded. The waiter arrived, laid out three cups and left a pot, a silver milk jug, sugar and some thin biscuits wrapped in cellophane. Woakes poured out two cups, topped his up with milk and stirred it. ‘Sure you don’t want any?’
Hawley shook his head. He looked a little sick to Anna. Not the kind of white-faced, sweating look she saw on liars, more the unhappy look of someone traumatised by something in the past, desperately hoping the same thing was not going to happen again.
‘The thing is, Dr Hawley,’ Anna said, ‘time can sometimes help or hinder cases like this. Memories fade. Or sometimes memories surface after they’ve been buried for long enough.’
Hawley waited, jaw working. ‘What do you want from me?’
Woakes spoke again, the bit between his teeth. He picked up his coffee and sipped before saying, casually, ‘Do you know that 50% of child abductions are by family members and another 30% are acquaintance abductions? Stranger abductions are pretty rare.’
‘I did as a matter of fact. I learned all sorts of things I didn’t want to know back then… and since.’
‘But you were known to Rosie. She liked you.’
‘We’d met once. Twenty minutes for just the once. As doctor and patient.’
‘And she hugged you and kissed you.’
‘Jesus.’ Hawley sat forward, let his head drop.
‘You can’t deny that.’
When Hawley looked back up again his expression was drawn and sour. ‘No, I can’t. I didn’t then and I can’t now. I’ve explained the circumstances. They were confirmed by the clinic nurse and Rosie’s mother.’
Anna said, ‘But Rosie told you her grandmother used to pick her up from school and take her to the park, didn’t she?’
Hawley nodded, a thin wry smile now on his lips. ‘No, she didn’t. She was chatty and while I was getting bits and pieces ready, she talked. She told the nurse she’d been to the castle. She told the nurse the name of her dog. She told the nurse she liked going to the park and that her grandmother used to take her every day after school. It wasn’t me she told, but of course I heard it all.’