by Nick Brown
‘S1 2’ screeched to a halt by the van, its door flew open and a stocky man with a polished shaved head and wearing a too tight black suit climbed out. He paused long enough to shout at the tanned blond woman who had come out to greet him, then disappeared at running speed round the side of the hall. Giles parked up by the police cars and as the woman began to ask him who he was he pointed to the cars and said:
“I’m with them.”
Then he rushed off after Carver, ignoring the cry of:
“How long is this all going to take?”
The sound of shouting directed him to a patch of dug-up-earth by the old Davenport chapel. An area was taped off and a small tent had been erected. Two disgruntled men in work clothes stood by a bulldozer, smoking and watching the altercation between Si Carver and the police. But it was less an altercation than a harangue.
“What are you doing on my property wasting public money? Your Chief Constable’s a friend of mine: we do things for charity together see, and he’ll be pretty bloody angry when I tell him about this.”
Giles recognised the officer in charge, he had good reason to: it was the same man who had interviewed him twice about the series of attacks round Skendleby last Christmas. He obviously resented being shouted at by Carver, but was doing a good job of keeping his cool.
“Mr Carver, we’re here because of your wife’s phone call. Your men working on this area have uncovered human remains. These have to be investigated.”
“Bollocks! They’re right outside an old church, what would you expect to find there? You never heard of graveyards?”
The officer, DS Anderson (Giles suddenly remembered his name and rank), started to reply and Giles could tell his patience was beginning to wear thin.
“Mr Carver, all I can say is.....”
He broke off, having noticed Giles standing behind Carver; he looked almost pleased to see him.
“Dr Glover, thanks for coming so quickly.”
Whatever he might have said next was lost as Si Carver turned round and saw Giles.
“What you doing here? Who let you in? I told you last time, if I ever saw you again you’d regret it, remember, yeah? Last time cost you your job.”
Carver’s face was swollen red with rage. Giles knew he was an aggressive bully but it flickered through his mind that even for Carver this was an overreaction. It seemed to Giles that this wasn’t just anger: the man had become unbalanced. However, he didn’t need to respond as Anderson stepped in.
“Dr Glover’s here because we asked him to come: he can verify that the remains belong to an historic context and then this ceases to be a crime scene. The sooner he does that the sooner we can get out of your way.”
This didn’t appease Carver.
“What, let him poke his nose about? You must be joking. You don’t know how much trouble he caused last time. There’s no way I’m having him on my land.”
“Well, in that case, Mr Carver, you would be obstructing the police in carrying out an investigation of...”
Carver cut him off.
“Oh, I get it: this is a fix up, innit. This is part of the fucking conspiracy to stop me bringing this place into the 21st century. Well, let me put you fucking straight…”
But he never got the chance to put him straight as Anderson’s mobile rang.
“DS Anderson. Yes Ma’am, we’re near there now. Ok, we’ll get over straight away. We’re more or less finished here.”
It was clear from the look on Anderson’s face that whatever he was being told was serious and Giles and Carver, in the way people do at such times, just watched and listened. Anderson finished the call and, ignoring Carver, shouted across to his team.
“Pack up, we’ve got a real one: looks like it’s starting again.”
He moved off and then hesitated. Turning to Giles, he said loud enough for Carver to hear:
“Check the site over to confirm our diagnosis, please; if you encounter problems we can come back with a warrant.”
Then he was gone and within seconds Giles could hear the sound of engines starting up. Carver and Giles looked at each other, frozen in a moment of neutrality. What they’d heard hadn’t specified what was starting to happen again, but they were both pretty certain they knew what it was. Behind them, over by the silent bulldozer, they heard Dave mutter to Jed:
“Been better if we’d left them buried.”
Chapter 3: Investigating Officer
Vivian Campbell checked her lipstick in the mirror and saw her strong black face staring back at her with a familiar questioning look. In five minutes she would have to face the press: tell them it had all started again. So why was she so bothered about how her hair looked? Maybe it was a mental self-defence mechanism, but all the same it irritated the hell out of her. The options open to her were limited. She’d hoped that the retro Whitney Houston look circa the mid 1980s would have complimented her strong jaw line and high cheekbones, but it hadn’t. It looked a mess, stuck out over her ears. Thank God she hadn’t had it lightened, that would have drawn everyone’s eyes to the mess.
She thought again of the irony of being back in Manchester just as her career in the Met had been taking off. The aftermath of the Stephen Lawrence case had certainly made things easier: although there was an element of whispering that people like her only got on because of their skin colour rather than their ability.
This didn’t bother her much; she had no doubts regarding her ability. In fact, she hadn’t experienced much racism herself, at least not in the way it was conventionally conceived. It was racial conflict of a different type that had driven her family south from Oldham to London. Negative interaction between the Afro-Caribbean and Pakistani communities which culminated in the torching of the Caribbean club in Glodwick. This had been the last straw for her dad: he was a maths teacher and there was plenty of demand for those in London.
Her family had had aspirations for their kids; two of her brothers were doctors and the third had served in Afghanistan along with Prince Harry. She’d been good at school, loved sixth form college and got a first from the London School of Economics. But her decision to join the police, the Met in particular, had surprised everyone. In fact, some of her more political white friends had been quite hostile. It was her dad who had helped her to make the decision. He’d taken her to the park they used to go to when she was little and they’d sat on a bench. She could still see the sun sinking behind the buildings across the river as she heard him say:
“This is our country, Vivian. We’re English, a new type of English and as such we need to take some responsibility for the way the old place is run.”
It hadn’t quite worked out like that but in general, she guessed, he’d been right in the way that quiet, good men often are. Ironic all the same that the reason she’d been catapulted back to Greater Manchester had been her high profile role in ‘the headless body in the river’ investigation. A murder case with its convoluted roots deep in African witchcraft. Seems you can never entirely escape the tentacles of history. What she’d had to deal with there still gave her nightmares and in a strange way she felt it had somehow cast a stain on her inner life. Another reason she didn’t want to be here dealing with this. But, as always, it was politics that pulled the strings.
Pressure had been put on the Chief Constable by the press and by prominent citizens who felt threatened by the previous year’s unsolved killings. As a result a deal had been done. So here she was. She touched up the glossy lipstick and walked out to face ordeal by the press.
DS Anderson was standing by the entrance to the briefing room. He’d been part of the team who’d failed to get any results and she wondered if he, like others, resented her presence. If he did she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of showing him she was nervous. She stared straight into his face as she walked past and was surprised when he gave her a thumbs up, smiled and said:
“Good luck, Ma’am.”
She mumbled a quick “thanks Jimmy” and, feeling s
lightly better, walked into the briefing.
Once inside, seated with the others behind the long table that seemed to feature in all such briefings, professionalism kicked in. She watched the assembled journalists twitch with impatience as the Chief gave his plodding and pedantic introduction: they knew something had happened and they wanted to pitch into the new girl. He sensed this, came to a stop and then said:
“Now, to brief you on the new development, I’d like to introduce Detective Inspector Campbell who has been seconded from the Metropolitan Police on account of her experience. She will be heading up the case.”
A rustle of expectation ran round the room and all the cameras were trained on Viv. She knew she looked good on camera so smiled and held the moment until she knew they were all ready to listen. Then she tried to explain the inexplicable.
Yes, she could confirm there had been another attack and that it had been fatal. She could also confirm that the victim was a young woman of unknown identity, and that they believed the attack was linked to the ones that had occurred at the end of the previous year. Yes, she could confirm that there were particular and disturbing features to this crime. No, she would not reveal what these were.
She was asked if the police had any leads and paused, wondering whether to give the normal guff about a number of promising lines of enquiry, but found herself saying that there weren’t. Then came the question that she both expected and dreaded.
“Amanda Gordon, Sky News. Is it the case, DI Campbell, that you have been seconded from the Met because of your experience with witchcraft?”
“I wouldn’t have put it like that, Amanda, but it is the case that I have experience with a team who successfully cracked a ritual murder.”
“Well, yes, but it was a ritual involving witchcraft, wasn’t it? And that’s why you are here. So my question is: are we dealing with some type of satanic group?”
“We have no evidence of that and I would advise against attempts to talk up a scare story.”
“But people are scared! Sorry, Geoff Oates, the Mail. Following the outbreak of attacks at the end of last year, which the police failed to solve, there were rumours of a mysterious curse and now you’ve been put in charge. Your most high profile case was concerned with an African witch cult. What are we to read into that?”
“Look, I admit that this is a complex case, Geoff, but all I’m prepared to say is that this was a frenzied attack and the public need to keep calm and be very careful. However, this will not be possible if wild speculative rumours are aired.”
She wanted to shut this down now and could tell that the Chief did too: he was sweating, but the question he most wanted to avoid was shouted out.
“What does this say about the effectiveness of the local police if they have to bring you up from London?”
She was ready for this.
“It demonstrates the effectiveness of partnership and co-operation between branches of the modern police service.”
A bureaucratic cliché but it worked as a conversation stopper. The Chief rasped into her ear:
“Take one last question. Take his, Jim Gibson’s, he’s from the local rag but he’s steady and relies on our co operation more than the nationals.”
Viv looked where the Chief indicated and saw a heavily built middle-aged man in a sports jacket with his hand raised.
“I’ll take one more question and I think it would be appropriate to give it to the local paper, Mr Gibson?”
The reporter seemed surprised to be recognised but asked:
“Is it true that the attack took place near to the Skendleby estate?”
Viv was relieved at the banal and non-searching question and answered:
“Yes, I believe that it was fairly near.”
“Do you understand the significance of that location in the last spate of attacks?”
There was something here that Viv didn’t understand, but the Chief obviously did and didn’t like it. He blustered:
“Right, that’s it. We’ve said all we’re prepared to say now but we’ll keep you informed. Thank you very much, ladies and gentleman.”
He stood up and shepherded Viv out of the room, saying as much to himself as to her:
“These bloody things have got worse since they moved all those BBC buggers into Salford.”
Viv made no reply and he began to move off then checked and said, almost as a throwaway through gritted teeth:
“You didn’t handle that too badly.”
She watched him shamble slowly off to deal with the rest of the day’s back-to-back crises, feeling grateful that she didn’t have his job. The feeling didn’t last: Anderson was waiting for her and she could tell by his face the news wasn’t good.
“Well done in there, Ma’am, could you to come to the morgue? There are things you need to see.”
Unlike in TV series, the forensic pathologist had no quirky or endearing characteristics, just a bedside manner entirely appropriate to her environment.
“Sorry this took so long, it’s been a complicated one, but I can give you some preliminary findings. I can’t fully vouch for any of them yet, it’s too unorthodox. I think there’s enough hard evidence though to link this with the attacks last Christmas.”
Viv watched Anderson put his hand to his head as he listened. She took in the artificial brightness of the lighting in this grim chamber and knew that what came next would be bad.
“For one thing the knife wasn’t metal; it was made of some type of stone.”
“Just like last time. It must be linked, we never released any of this stuff to the press.”
The interruption came from Anderson. The pathologist ignored him and carried on.
“There were traces of stone - some form of flint, perhaps obsidian from the colouration - left in the body. I’ve sent it off to the labs for petrological analysis and they’ll probably consult the archaeology research unit in Sheffield. They have a high degree of specialisation.”
Viv wanted her to shut up about this and get on with the summary: her body language must have been eloquent as she resumed it.
“It was a frenzied attack. Death wasn’t instantaneous and yet the victim appears to have put up little resistance: no evidence beneath the fingernails to help with DNA. However, the body was moved after the initial attack, which must have taken place near a patch of brambles judging from the evidence on the clothes.
“The wounds of the initial attack comprise of a tearing of the left ear. It was done by human teeth, but surprisingly there’s no trace of forensic evidence for you there. There is a stab wound to the lower stomach, which may have been intentionally targeted as the victim was in the early stages of pregnancy and a series of puncture wounds to the neck and shoulders. That concludes the first phase of the attack.”
Viv cut in:
“What do you mean, first phase? Wasn’t that enough to kill her?”
“Oh yes, more than enough: one of the neck wounds alone was sufficient for that.”
“So, what do you mean by second phase?”
“The second phase was a type of harvesting. Look, you need to see this.”
The pathologist pulled back the sheet covering the pathetic remains.
Viv had been through this many times before and after the torso in the river, thought that nothing could shock her. But this, this was different. The torso had lacked features, resembled a butcher’s carcass, been anonymous. But this was so…so pathetic, fragile, vulnerable. The face looked so young, so surprised, it wasn’t right. She felt a hand on her shoulder; Anderson’s, his skin was ashen. He shouldn’t have been so familiar to a superior, particularly a woman, but she appreciated it and for a few seconds they were human beings. But they had work to do. Work that could stop this happening again.
“Thank you, I think we’ve seen enough, perhaps you would summarise your findings on the second phase.”
“Certainly, if you think you’re ready for it.”
Viv could see this wasn’t meant kin
dly, the pathologist was barely suppressing a smirk. She wanted to slap her but instead said:
“Get to it as quickly as possible, please.”
“Well, as you’ve seen in the second phase, the killer cut out selected bones and removed them, again using a stone knife. I think this was done in two stages. A couple of finger joints were removed where the attack took place. Then it looks like the body was moved for the extraction of the more complicated ones, probably to avoid being seen. Whoever did this must be very strong.”
“Is that all?”
“It is until I get the test results back. I’ll let you know as soon as I can.”
Viv nodded then turned to walk out followed by Anderson. She was glad to be out and needed some space to think. But before she could get that Anderson said:
“Christ, I was dealing with the skeletal remains at Skendleby Hall when this job was called in.”
“And you think the two are linked?”
“No, I’m not saying that. Well, not now anyway, that’ll wait until Glover gets back with his findings.”
“Who’s Glover?”
“A local archaeologist we use. Interestingly, he was on our ‘to interview’ list during the last spate of attacks. Only circumstantial though.”