Frozen

by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

  They all sat down and PC Costello stifled a yawn.

  ‘Sorry, sir!’ he mumbled through long brown fingers.

  ‘You’ll have to excuse these two. They’ve just finished a shift,’ said Leverton. ‘I wanted to fill you in on what they’ve found out about Natalie Bailey.’

  He laid a photograph on the desk. ‘As I said to you on the phone, Megan, we’ve only just had the I.D. on this one. A social worker contacted us at the end of last week – turns out she’d absconded from the children’s home five times before, but because she was sixteen the day she finally ran off there was nothing they could do. From a legal point of view social services aren’t responsible for these kids once they reach their sixteenth birthday.’

  He handed the photograph to Megan, who had taken the newspaper cutting from her bag. The two girls looked so alike they could have been sisters. Both had dyed blonde hair, Donna’s permed and Natalie’s short and spiky.

  Megan had been in America when Donna’s body was found. The date above the newspaper article was September 21st – exactly three months ago. She stared at the two pictures in her hand. They were babies once, she thought. Had anyone in their short lives ever really loved them? The pictures blurred as she gazed at them. She was thinking about the child she might have had. It would have been a teenager now. Not as old as these girls, but almost.

  ‘We got the DNA results on Natalie Bailey yesterday.’ Leverton’s voice cut through her thoughts. ‘There were semen traces on both the vaginal and rectal swabs. We got the blood grouping of the semen early on in the inquiry, which told us that the semen in the vagina came from one man and the semen in the rectum from another. The rectal swab revealed the relatively rare AB blood group but the vaginal semen was blood group O.

  ‘The semen we got from Donna was also blood group O, but because it’s so common, we weren’t going leap to any conclusions about the two murders being linked. We had to wait for the DNA results, which are pretty conclusive. The chances of the samples coming from two different men are virtually nil.’

  ‘The semen you got from Donna Fieldhouse’s body – was it vaginal or anal?’ Megan asked.

  ‘Vaginal. The pathologist said there was no evidence of anal intercourse. I’ll show you the forensic reports in a minute but I’d just like you to hear what PC Costello and Sergeant Donalsen have been finding out. Rob, can you tell Doctor Rhys what you’ve come up with so far?’

  Sergeant Donalsen shifted in his chair. Leaning back with his arms folded, he addressed what he had to say to Leverton rather than Megan.

  ‘We know a lot more about Donna Fieldhouse than Natalie Bailey. Donna was sixteen and her last known address was a children’s home in Wolverhampton, but they say she absconded last Christmas and they never saw her again.

  ‘Donna was a crackhead – couldn’t see any further than the next rock. She’d do anything a punter wanted for the price of a fix. The other girls hate the crackheads because they drive the prices down and they’ll do sex without a condom – so Donna didn’t really have any friends. The only thing the girls did notice was that she always arrived at the beat on foot, which suggests that she lived somewhere nearby.’

  ‘Had you ever arrested her?’ Megan asked.

  ‘Yes, a couple of times.’ Donalsen looked at his notes. ‘The first time we found out she was underage and we sent her straight back to the children’s home. The second time she was covered in bruises and we offered her a medical examination.’ He sniffed. ‘Doctor found out she was three months’ pregnant, which she claimed not to know, and when we asked if she wanted to press charges against the person who’d beaten her up she said no.’ He flicked over a page of his notebook. ‘She was charged for soliciting but she never turned up in court. There was a warrant out on her when they found her body.’

  Megan looked at the chubby face of Donna Fieldhouse in the photo-booth snap. Pregnant. So whoever killed her had killed her baby too. ‘Did the post-mortem show any evidence of crack addiction?’ she asked Leverton.

  ‘Yes – they did a hair strand test,’ he replied. ‘It showed she’d been taking it for around six months.’

  ‘What about Natalie Bailey? Was she on it too?’

  ‘If she was, she’d only just started. There was a trace of it in her blood but the hair test was negative.’

  ‘That’s strange,’ Megan said, thinking aloud. ‘Donna was the crack addict – the one you would expect to be selling kinky sex without a condom – but it was Natalie who had unprotected anal intercourse.’

  ‘I know – doesn’t add up, does it?’ said Leverton. ‘The other confusing thing is that Natalie seems to have been operating out of Wolverhampton rather than Birmingham.’

  ‘Wolverhampton? Why Wolverhampton?’ Megan asked. ‘Didn’t she run away from a Birmingham children’s home?’

  ‘Yes, she did,’ said Leverton. ‘We think the connection between the girls could be a Birmingham-based pimp, but one that ferries his girls to different beats around the Midlands to evade suspicion.’

  He nodded at PC Costello, who took up the story, fixing her with his mesmerising eyes as he described what he’d found out in Wolverhampton’s red light district.

  ‘None of the women on our patch had seen Natalie soliciting and we’d never arrested her. But then we spoke to a couple of girls who’d come over to Birmingham because things were getting a bit hot in Wolverhampton – there’d been a big splash in the local paper about the prostitution problem, and when that happens the local Vice usually have a crackdown to get the media off their backs – anyway, these two girls said they’d seen Natalie on the Wolverhampton patch a couple of times.

  ‘I went over there the night before last and the two girls showed me the spot where they’d last seen her. They said she’d been dropped off by a man in an old, dark-coloured Ford Sierra, but they couldn’t describe him or remember the car registration number because it was dark both times they saw him. They reckoned he was a boyfriend rather than a punter, but they didn’t think they’d ever seen him before. He definitely wasn’t one of the Wolverhampton pimps, anyway.’

  ‘What about the local Vice Squad over there? Had they ever arrested her?’

  ‘No – which suggests she hadn’t been on the game very long,’ said Costello. He shot a sideways look at Donalsen as if uncertain whether to continue.

  ‘That’s right,’ Martin Leverton cut in. ‘The Vice Squad in Wolverhampton has something of a reputation for its vigilance.’ He looked pointedly at Donalsen. ‘Even before the recent blitz the girls over there could expect to get arrested at least once a week. Some were getting done as many as three times a night.’

  Megan sensed tension in the room and tried to change the subject, not wanting to be drawn into any private vendetta of Leverton’s.

  ‘So apart from the two Wolverhampton prostitutes and the social worker who identified the body, no one knows anything about Natalie Bailey?’ She addressed the question to PC Costello.

  ‘No, Dr Rhys. I’ve tried tracking down relatives – someone she might have run to when she left the home – but there’s no one. Her mother was a junkie who died of a heroin overdose five years ago and according to her birth certificate the father’s unknown.’

  ‘What about brothers and sisters, a grandmother or an aunt or something?’

  ‘No one. According to the staff at the children’s home the mother was the only relative.’

  ‘Have you spoken to any of the other children at the home? Anyone who might have been her friend?’

  ‘She’d only been there six weeks, so she never really got to know the other kids. She’d been transferred to Birmingham from a home in Shropshire because of her wild behaviour. She was too busy running away to make many friends.’

  When Costello and Donalsen had gone, Leverton took the forensic reports on Donna Fieldhouse and Natalie Bailey from his desk drawer.

  ‘I wanted you to meet those two before they move on,’ he said, sorting through a parcel of photographs
.

  ‘They’re both due to leave Vice in the New Year – Donalsen’s going to be a beat sergeant in Sparkhill and PC Costello’s being promoted onto the Fraud Squad.’

  ‘Isn’t that going to hamper your inquiry into these murders?’ Megan asked.

  ‘I’m telling you this in confidence, Megan, and I know you won’t repeat it – the fact is Donalsen’s more of a hindrance than a help these days. I can’t say any more than that, but I’m sure you can imagine the temptations officers face in a job like this.’

  ‘What about PC Costello? He seems to have covered quite a lot of ground since Natalie’s body was identified. I mean, considering he’s so young.’

  ‘Oh yes – the Boy Wonder!’ Leverton laughed. ‘He’s not as young as he looks. He’s in his mid-twenties and he’s got a kid – little boy, I think. Anyway, I admit I’ll be sorry to see him off this case – he’s very keen and the girls seem to open up to him.’

  Megan could understand why. She took the photographs Leverton passed across the desk and studied them while he went through the forensic report on Donna Fieldhouse.

  Her body had been discovered within hours of her death, but the body dump site was not the scene of the murder. She must have been killed elsewhere, probably in a house, because of the carpet fibres found on her heels and the backs of her legs. The cause of death was heavy blood loss – Donna had had her throat cut, the deep wound clearly visible in the scene-of-crime photograph Megan held in her hand.

  It was a chilling picture. Donna’s killer had stuffed her naked body into a black wheelie bin, feet first.

  Either he’d been in a terrific hurry or he wasn’t concerned about concealing his crime, because he hadn’t troubled to push the body down. Her bare, blood-streaked shoulders were exposed, her head lolling back against a wooden fence that ran the length of the car park he had chosen for a graveyard.

  The next photograph showed Donna lying face up in the mortuary. The pathologist had yet to make the ‘Y’ incision that would further violate her young body. Apart from the appalling crimson slash across her neck, some smaller, shallower cuts were just visible on her lower arms and shoulders.

  ‘The pathologist thinks there was a struggle,’ said Leverton. ‘The smaller cuts were made by a knife, he reckons, so it looks as if Donna tried to fend off her attacker before he finally cut her throat. There were no fibres in the wounds, so she was naked or partially clothed when the attack began. The fibres on the heels and the backs of the legs suggest that she was dragged across a carpet before being transported to the dump site.’

  ‘What about her fingernails?’ Megan asked. ‘If there was a struggle she might have scratched him – was there any blood there?’

  ‘No, there was nothing under the nails at all – they were as clean as if she’d just stepped out of the bath.’

  Megan tried to imagine how it had happened. Maybe Donna had been in the bath or shower. She pictured the naked girl, her wet curls clinging to her head as she reached for a towel. Was it someone she knew, then? Someone with whom she’d willingly had sex before he turned on her?

  Leverton picked up the post mortem file on Natalie Bailey and handed Megan a second batch of photographs. The first picture simply showed a black bundle lying beside a grass verge.

  ‘As you know, Natalie was found in a layby off the M6. It was about five miles south of Stafford and roughly fifteen miles north of Wolverhampton. She was wrapped in a couple of black binliners, but again, no real effort to conceal the body. She’d been dead for approximately twelve hours when she was discovered.’

  Megan stared at the photograph. What sort of person had done this? Two girls, hardly more than children, dumped like so much rubbish. ‘What about the cause of death?’ she asked. ‘It was different to Donna, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Strangulation this time – manual, not with a ligature. The pattern of the bruises on the throat suggests that she was strangled from behind.’

  Megan studied the second photograph. Natalie looked like a naked white angel, her spiky blonde hair a halo around the lifeless head. The photograph had been taken before the bruising had come out. The third photo, taken the following day, showed purple marks like lovebites on her throat.

  A fourth photo showed a close-up of Natalie’s wrists, both of which bore red weals. ‘What are these marks on her wrists?’ Megan looked up at Leverton, who was leaning across the desk, peering at the upside-down image.

  ‘Handcuffs or wire, the pathologist says. The marks are very recent, so he reckons Natalie was restrained shortly before she died or while she was being killed.’

  Megan shuffled through the photographs. ‘Donna didn’t have marks like this, did she?’

  ‘No – just the cuts on the shoulders and arms, which were made by a knife.’

  ‘You know, if you hadn’t told me about the DNA match between those two semen samples I would have sworn these girls were killed by two different men.’ She tried to think through the possibilities, resisting jumping to conclusions. She laid the photos down on the desk and stared at Leverton for a few moments before continuing, but he stayed quiet, eager to hear what she had to say.

  ‘To me, the motivation for Donna’s murder is very different from Natalie’s.’ She pursed her lips. ‘The way Donna died suggests a straightforward fight. Maybe with a pimp. We know she was a crack addict, so the chances are he was too, and we both know how aggressive crack-addicted males can get. Perhaps they had a row that went to far.’ Megan frowned. ‘She was pregnant. Maybe he’d just found out and didn’t like it.’

  Leverton nodded slowly. ‘And Natalie?’

  ‘Natalie’s death is much more sinister. She was penetrated anally and handcuffed or tied up. She was strangled from behind, so perhaps the killer was the man who had anal sex with her? It sounds very much like rape.’ Megan swallowed. There was a time when she had been unable to say that word without her stomach churning. ‘After all,’ she went on, ‘Natalie was no crackhead. She’d only just started on the game and she was young and pretty enough to be choosy about what she did for punters.’

  Leverton frowned. ‘But the DNA evidence?’

  ‘I know. It just doesn’t fit. Unless, of course, the man who had vaginal sex with both Donna and Natalie on the day they died was not involved with their deaths – and that’s pushing the limits of credibility a bit far, isn’t it?’

  Leverton sighed and sat back in his chair. ‘The problem for us is this guy’s DNA doesn’t match anything on our database. We picked up one good fingerprint from Natalie’s body but it doesn’t tally with anything we’ve got on file. We’ve got literally nothing to go on.’

  Megan felt uneasy. She wasn’t sure he was being straight with her. She decided to face him. ‘You’re asking me to come up with a profile?’

  Leverton nodded.

  ‘Why? I mean dead prostitutes aren’t going to get Joe Public howling for retribution.’ She watched him. His eyes immediately flicked down to the desk. ‘Martin, I hope you wouldn’t think of using me in some private battle with one of your colleagues…’

  The sound of him drawing in his breath was almost imperceptible. He looked back at her, eyes unwavering this time.

  ‘Of course not.’ He paused just long enough to make Megan feel uncomfortable. ‘Will you trust me on this one? I can’t say exactly why I’ve asked for your help. All I can say is that I need a completely independent, unbiased view of what sort of man committed these murders. Will you help me?’

  Megan’s eyes narrowed as he held her gaze. So, she thought, this is all about police corruption. Who’s he after? A cop who murders prostitutes? A cop in a pimp’s pocket?

  She felt a nudge of guilt. Was she completely independent and unbiased? ‘Okay,’ she said slowly. She had no desire to do Leverton favours but the case intrigued her. ‘I’ll see what I can come up with. I’ll give you a call, say, lunchtime tomorrow. Will you be here?’

  ‘Yes – barring any major incidents.’ He grinned and rolle
d his eyes. ‘If I’m not in the office, you can get me on the mobile.’ He scribbled a number on the back of a card and handed it to Megan. ‘Thanks – I really appreciate this,’ he said as he led her to the door.

  *

  Ceri Richardson was wrapping a Christmas present for her husband.

  It was a silk tie. Not very romantic, she thought, as she cut out a rectangle of green and gold paper. It was the sort of present a daughter might give to her father or a mother to her son.

  She thought of the gifts she had given Neil when they had first met. That first Christmas together in a rented flat. She had tried to make it so exciting; a chocolate-box couple young and in love. Except that they weren’t – at least, she wasn’t. She could see that now, although at the time she had managed to fool herself.

  She tore pieces of sellotape with her teeth, sealing the gift in its festive shroud. What should she write on the label? ‘All my love’? What a joke! Perhaps ‘Lots of love’ would do?

  Of course, what she would really like to write was, ‘Hope it throttles you, darling.’

  Chapter 3

  When she left the police station Megan took a deliberate detour through Birmingham’s red light district. She knew Donna’s body had been found somewhere in this maze of run-down streets.

  Even in daylight it was depressing. She crawled past dough-faced women standing at a bus stop, cheap coats pulled close around their hunched bodies. Despite the bitter wind the younger ones wore no tights or socks, their mottled legs stuffed into ill-fitting shoes.

  Megan looked away, scanning side roads for the street name. She pulled up at a set of temporary traffic lights. Suddenly she caught sight of it. A graffiti-covered sign on a factory wall: Inkerman Place. It was a short blind alley with the rusting metal gates of an abandoned printworks at its far end.

  The lights changed and Megan swung the car into the alley. Now she could see the high wooden fence of the factory car park where Donna’s body had been dumped. She got out of the car, walking past the padlocked gates along the length of the fence. Although many of its spars were missing there was no gap large enough to get a body through. Above the fence was a length of barbed wire, so it was unlikely that the killer had climbed over. If he had thrown Donna’s body over the fence the forensic examination would have revealed post-mortem bruises and fractures.