by M J Lee
‘When did you start the post-mortem?’
‘Almost immediately. As you can imagine, there was a certain amount of pressure to reach some quick conclusions, which I ignored. It was important to get it right, not to get it quickly.’ He chuckled audibly. ‘Turnbull was being his bullying self over the time of death. It gave me great pleasure to remove him from my examination room.’
‘I bet he didn’t take too kindly to being asked to leave.’
Another chuckle. ‘He didn’t. Threatened to have me removed from the police list of approved examiners. As if such threats could ever influence me.’
Ridpath was always amazed at the single-minded focus of Dr Schofield. The only thing that mattered as far as he was concerned were his clients lying on the table in front of him.
The doctor whispered a few words that Ridpath didn’t catch and then slowly folded down the white sheet to reveal the young boy’s body.
Ridpath caught his breath. On such a small, frail, thin body, the Y-section looked more horrific than usual. He looked away for a second before forcing himself to look back as Dr Schofield began speaking.
‘You’re looking at the body of a perfectly healthy seven-year-old boy. Or at least, he was perfectly healthy until somebody put a noose around his neck and strangled him.’
‘I don’t understand. I thought a noose was used in a hanging?’
‘There is some evidence to suggest he was hung before he was strangled.’ The doctor produced a long metal pointer. ‘See here, the bruising around the neck and jawline close to the ear?’
Ridpath leant forward to look. There was a marked discolouration of the skin. ‘I see it…’
‘Classic evidence of a hanging. I also looked at both pedicles of the axis vertebra, the ones closest to the head, which show signs of compression. The mechanism of an injury by hanging is forcible hyperextension of the head, usually with distraction of the neck. The weight of the body has sufficient force to cause the fracture. Survival from this fracture is relatively common, as the fracture itself tends to expand the spinal canal at the C2 level. It is not unusual for patients to walk in for treatment and have such a fracture discovered on X-rays. Only if the force of the injury is severe enough that the vertebral body of C2 is dislocated from C3 does the spinal cord become crushed. This was not the case with this child.’
‘Could the fracture happen during strangulation?’
‘Possibly, but I don’t think so. The classic signs of strangulation are also there. There’s an abrasion to the front of the neck, there, and evidence of regional venous obstruction in the neck, petechiae in the skin, conjunctival hemorrhages, and a deep internal rupture of the organs of the head and neck. This child also bled from the ears; the veins are obstructed at the level of the stranglehold, but the arteries are still open, allowing the distal capillaries and venules to overfill with blood, and rupture.’
He stepped back from David Carsley’s body and looked at it dispassionately. ‘If I were to hazard a guess, which as you are well aware I hate to do, I would say this child was hung and then killed by a chokehold or shime waza. As practised, illegally I might add, by many police officers seeking to quickly quieten prisoners.’
‘So let me get this right. You’re saying this boy was both hung and strangled?’
‘Didn’t you read my report? I thought I made that clear.’
‘Yes, Doctor, but I’m trying to understand. Why would a killer do both?’
‘I would have thought that is a job for the police to discover?’
‘Of course, but…’
‘If I were to hazard a guess again – the hanging didn’t kill the child so the murderer finished him off with a chokehold.’
‘I see…’
‘Shall we move on? We have so little time.’
Ridpath nodded.
‘I made three other major observations. Here,’ he pointed to the boy’s mouth, ‘there is bruising and a cut on the right upper lip as well as the musculus nasalis. These injuries are usually produced by a punch or slap to the face.’
‘And the injuries were not old?’
‘Definitely not – recent. They were perimortem.’
Ridpath raised his eyebrows, uncertain what this meant.
The doctor explained. ‘Around the time of death. I found some grass seeds lodged in the hair and evidence of insect activity on the feet but nothing anywhere else. I checked the skin and a strong soap had been used to clean it, including the area around the mouth and nose.’
‘So you concluded the body had been washed and cleaned to remove any DNA evidence before it was deposited at Chorlton Ees?’
‘Correct. Normally, I would expect to see blood from such a cut on the face or lodged in the nostril but there was none. Nor was there any evidence of clothing fibres anywhere on the body.’
‘Interesting. It suggests somebody who knows about forensic evidence.’
‘Everybody knows the basics of forensics these days, you don’t have to be a professional. I call it the CSI effect.’
‘It hasn’t helped our work.’
‘No, but it was inevitable. Fortunately, our killer was unable to remove the toxicological evidence as easily.’
‘Your report said there was evidence of triazolam in the bloodstream.’
‘Quite a heavy dose. This boy had been heavily sedated before he was murdered. There was also the remnants of a meal – spaghetti and a tomato sauce – in the stomach. The food remains showed evidence of another drug, temazepam. Again, in a significant dose.’
‘Our killer laced the food? When did he eat?’
‘Our estimate is between eight to twelve hours before death.’
Ridpath nodded, trying to work out a timeline of the abduction in his head.
Schofield carried on. ‘And now we come to the most distressing part of the post-mortem. Distressing for me even though I have performed over 1500 previous post-mortems.’ The doctor took a deep breath. ‘The boy was sexually assaulted multiple times both pre- and post-mortem.’
He reached forward to turn David Carsley onto his front.
Ridpath noticed the boy’s hands for the first time, slightly curled inwards with the nails bitten down to the quick. ‘I don’t need to see, Doctor.’
Schofield stopped and stepped back. ‘There is multiple evidence of anal penetration over a period of time.’
Ridpath didn’t understand. ‘Even before he was kidnapped?’
Schofield shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so. There is anal tearing but it occurred sometime in the twenty-four hours after his abduction. Some of the tears had already begun the process of healing before death.’
Ridpath was desperately thinking of a question but couldn’t formulate the words. What sort of animal would do this to a young child?
Finally, he decided he had heard enough. ‘Can you tell me the time of death?’
‘Not accurately. It had been a cold morning even though it was summer. Typical Manchester. The closest I can give you is the same as I told DCI Turnbull. Between four and eight hours before the discovery of the body.’
‘So between two a.m. and six a.m.?’
‘Correct, but it could have been another hour either way. Time of death is not an exact science. It’s the closest I ever come to guesswork and that’s why I hate doing it.’
‘Thank you, Doctor. Anything else?’
‘That covers the main points of my post-mortem.’ He snapped his fingers as if remembering something. ‘Not in my report but something I noticed later: the boy has bruising on the top of his arm.’
‘Done by the killer?’
‘Maybe during the abduction. It is much earlier than any other injury on the body.’
Ridpath made a note in his book. ‘Finally, Doctor, if you have completed your examination of the child, could I release him back to the family for burial?’
Schofield stared down at the small body in front of him. ‘I don’t see why not. I’ll send the release form to Sophia
after my class. How is she, by the way?’
‘Fine, I think. To be honest, we haven’t seen each other much since my return.’
The doctor nodded as if understanding how work sometimes got in the way of human relationships. ‘One last thing, Ridpath, and I don’t normally say this. But the man who killed this child, and it was a man, needs to be caught and stopped. You have to catch him before he does it again.’
‘You think he will?’
The doctor nodded. ‘I’m sure of it.’
Chapter 25
Ridpath left the mortuary desperate to remove the stench of the cleanliness from his nostrils. He was tempted to cadge a cigarette from one of the passers-by, but didn’t, walking briskly to let the diesel-tinged air of Manchester clear his lungs.
The image of the boy dwarfed by the stainless steel table stayed with him. The way the fingers curled as if trying to hang on to life.
He shook his head, driving the image from it, alternately tapping his fingers on his shoulders and thinking of his safe place.
He strode down Oxford Road, past the Students’ Union and turned left before the museum. He hadn’t been in this area for years, not since a school trip had taken him to see the Egyptian mummies. He should bring Eve here one day – she might enjoy all the beetles pinned and stuffed in row upon row of identical wooden cabinets.
They had arranged to meet in Christie’s Bistro. Emily came here often but neither Ridpath nor Chrissy knew it even existed. As soon as he stepped through the doors, he understood why. The cafe was set in the middle of an old library, with paintings of famous luminaries, soaring plasterwork ceilings and pristine whitewashed walls, all in a gothic building created in a far less utilitarian age.
Emily was already sat at a table waiting for him. ‘I ordered you a latte, Ridpath. I hope that’s what you wanted.’
Actually what he wanted was a total nose and lung transplant to get rid of the smell of the mortuary. What he said as he sat down opposite her was, ‘Great, exactly what I need.’
‘Chrissy messaged. She’s going to be late, trying to find somewhere close to park.’
‘I know the problem.’
‘Should get a bike, it’s easier. Just lock it against railings.’
He saw a helmet on the seat next to her and realised she wasn’t joking. ‘You bike in every day?’
‘When I’m working in HQ. Keeps me fit… sort of.’
Ridpath sipped his latte and brought out his notes from last night. ‘How did you get on with the responses to the photofit appeal?’
‘Still going through them. I’ve done about half but 3000 is not something you read in a day. Most were followed up and checked. A couple of things cropped up.’ She checked her notebook. ‘A man, Mr Peter Davies, rang through saying he was in the park that day walking his Alsatian. He gave a number but didn’t want to leave an address. Either it was false or the operator took it down incorrectly, but he couldn’t be contacted. He’s sort of dropped through the net for follow-up.’
‘Could be worth checking out. The Alsatian cropped up before.’
‘OK, I’ll try but Davies is such a common name, might be hard to find him. There’s one other thing I’ve found interesting. One of the new boys was supposed to check it, but he seems to have been busy on something else. A woman walking in Chorlton Ees in the mornings before David Carsley was discovered reported a couple walking together with dogs. I checked the description against that of the man who found the body and it matches.’
‘Jon Morgan?’
‘That’s him.’
‘I interviewed him yesterday. He didn’t discover the body alone. He was with another woman.’
Emily raised an eyebrow.
‘Hence the reluctance to come forward. He’s going to ring Turnbull and make a fresh statement this morning.’
‘Turnbull will go apeshit.’
‘But at least it clears up the mystery woman.’ He looked across at Emily. ‘You never bought into this Myra Hindley and Ian Brady story, did you?’
She frowned. ‘That’s newspaper bullshit, but you asked me to look for anomalies and that was one. But it looks like it isn’t any more.’
As she finished speaking, Chrissy Wright bustled through the door, using her walking stick to open it, spotted them and waved. ‘Hiya, sorry I’m late, not the quickest on my feet at the moment.’
‘A coffee, Chrissy?’
‘No thanks, never touch the stuff. If I have coffee in the morning, I’m wired for the rest of the day. Not a pretty sight. Like a hamster on speed.’
Emily took the time to explain what she had discovered as Chrissy settled herself down. ‘Sounds interesting, you want me to find Mr Davies?’
‘Can you?’
‘Should be possible. Despite the surname being common, if he was walking his dog in Wythenshawe Park my bet is he lives close to there. I’ll start with the area around the park, ringing anybody with the surname Davies, widening the search till I find him. Any other details from the contact report?’
Emily checked her notes. ‘A male aged thirty-two, that’s all.’
‘Perfect. Narrows it down considerably. You can find anybody these days, if you know where to look.’
‘Remind me never to get on your wrong side, Chrissy,’ said Ridpath.
‘I thought you already knew that. Anyway, I went through the HOLMES 2 result again, checked the police database for crimes against children in the last ten years and went over the Sexual Offenders Register, cross-checking it with recent contact reports.’
‘And?’
Chrissy frowned. ‘It’s a nightmare. In the last five years there has been a 75 per cent increase in the number of child sex offences in Lancashire, Merseyside and Cheshire.’
‘What about Greater Manchester?’
‘We didn’t report any figures for the period. The only data I have is for 761 online child sexual abuse offences in 2019–20.’
‘Jesus, so many…’
‘Why didn’t we report any figures?’
Chrissy shrugged her shoulders. ‘Perhaps because we were investigating the closure of Operation Augusta?’
Emily coughed. ‘I have a friend who worked on that investigation. For some obscure reason, in 2005 senior police prematurely shut down Operation Augusta, an investigation into sexual abuse in children’s homes. The report into why this happened was finally published in January 2020, nearly fifteen years later. It wasn’t pretty reading. Many of the same men involved in Augusta were charged in the Rochdale grooming scandal in 2013. God only knows how many children could have been spared years of anguish if we had investigated properly earlier.’
‘I tried to find the figures for child sexual exploitation for the UK. The only place I found anything was the NSPCC. According to them, last year there were, on average, more than two hundred child sex offences every day. In all, there were 73,518 recorded offences including online grooming, rape, and sexual assault against children in the UK in 2019–20. And those are just the ones that are reported. The tip of the iceberg, I think. Most crimes are not reported either because the family is ashamed or the child themselves keeps it quiet.’
‘Jesus,’ said Emily.
‘I didn’t realise it was so many,’ added Ridpath.
‘According to the latest figures, there were 62,435 people on the Sexual Offenders Register, but it’s not up to date, people move and the police have problems keeping track of new addresses. The changes to the probation service by that idiot Grayling didn’t help. There were 3,411 of them living in Greater Manchester.’
‘So you’re saying?’
‘All the literature tells us that killers progress. They start young, torturing animals, bullying other children. Most come from broken homes or abusive backgrounds. They move on from minor offences, becoming more and more aggressive as their psychopathy takes hold.’
‘So it could be one of the people in the Sexual Offenders Register?’ asked Ridpath.
Emily answered him dir
ectly. ‘But Turnbull checked everyone. It was the first place he looked.’
Ridpath thought of what the doctor had told him that morning. ‘We still need to follow up. Can you go over Turnbull’s checks, Chrissy?’
‘OK, will do. But our perp might not be on the Register.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, it could be someone who was let off with a caution, given a fine or who simply was never caught. Since the Saville case and the Rochdale grooming scandals, there has been far more awareness of child abuse, but there are still legacy cases we haven’t got to. Look at Manchester City, for example: they had a child molester working as one of their youth coaches in the 1990s. He was only discovered when he was caught in Florida.’
‘Shit.’
‘Or our man has broken the law and was on the Register, but has moved to the area recently and not notified the authorities of a change of address. It’s against the law, but who’s going to follow up? Not the probation service, and we have enough on our plate dealing with day-to-day crime.’
‘I’m beginning to see the problems that Turnbull faced.’
‘And he had a team of thirty detectives to do the work. There’s only three of us, Ridpath.’
‘We can’t think like that, Chrissy. We have a job to do…’
‘And just three days left to do it,’ added Emily.
‘Two days, actually. We have to report back on Saturday to Claire Trent.’
Emily rolled her eyes.
‘What about HOLMES 2, Chrissy?’
‘I rechecked the report. The Liverpool case was the closest to ours in terms of an attack on children. A young boy. Alan McCarthy, abducted on his way to the shops, his body found four hours later about a mile from where he was kidnapped. But the MO was different; he was stabbed and wasn’t sexually molested. Plus the Scousers have a suspect who’s confessed. A man called Lawrence Scully. He has a history of sexual offences against children. And get this, he’s demanding chemical castration.’
‘What?’ asked Emily. ‘I thought we don’t do that any more.’