‘And it was already off then?’
‘Yes.’
Hitchens leaned forward in his chair, as if about to leave.
‘Would it be all right if we take a look around while we’re here, sir?’ he said.
‘What for?’
‘Anything that might help us find your wife.’
Puzzled, Birley looked at his sister, whose face had set into an angry expression. ‘I suppose it’ll be all right,’ he said.
The Birleys lived in a detached limestone cottage with an enclosed garden. Fry guessed there were probably three or four bedrooms upstairs. From outside, it was obvious that the property had been created by combining two cottages whose roofs were at slightly different heights. An external chimney stack at one end suggested there might have been a third cottage in the row at some time.
Fry looked first into the kitchen and saw an enamelled range, the kind that provided central heating and hot water as well as cooking. She’d never be able to manage one of those herself. In the sitting room, the focal point had been a cast-iron stove with a carved surround, which looked equally impractical.
In the dining room, Fry paused to admire a carving of a leaping dolphin on a table near the fireplace. There was much more light at the back of the house, thanks to a sliding door that led into a conservatory, with pine floorboards covered in raffia matting. She walked straight through it and out into the garden, past a lawn and a series of raised borders, until she found a brick store place and a garden shed that had been painted bright blue. Neither of them contained the body of Sandra Birley.
Re-entering the house, Fry saw Hitchens descending the stairs from the bedrooms. She shook her head, and they both went back into the sitting room, where they were met with
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a glare from Trish Neville. Geoff himself was gazing at the carved surround of the stove, as if searching for a meaning in its decorative curlicues.
‘Is that your car parked outside, sir?’ said Hitchens. ‘The green Audi?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘Do you mind if DS Fry takes a look?’
Birley found the keys to the Audi without argument. Either he’d cottoned on by now, or his sister had explained it to him while they were out of the room.
Fry went outside and checked the interior and boot of the car. It contained nothing more incriminating than half a roll of blue stretch wrap that looked as though it might have come from the despatch department at a distribution centre.
‘I don’t know what I’ll do without Sandra,’ Birley said, as the detectives prepared to leave.
‘We don’t know that your wife is dead, Mr Birley,’ said Hitchens.
‘What? You think he might be keeping her prisoner somewhere?’ ‘It’s quite possible. Until we know one way or the other, we’re keeping an open mind.’
Birley had begun to look hopeful. But now he dropped his eyes again.
‘You’re just saying that. You’ll find her dead, won’t you? You know you will. Why else would he have snatched her from that car park?’
‘Until that happens, we can still hope for the best, sir.’
As soon as he’d spoken, Fry remembered having said something similar quite recently. But she couldn’t quite recall when and where.
Detective Chief Inspector Oliver Kessen leaned against the side of the crime scene van and thrust his hands into his
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pockets. ‘Well, this place must be dead overnight,’ he said. ‘Do many people leave vehicles in here until morning?’
Fry assumed that the DCI was talking to her, though he gave no sign of it. Scenes of crime had almost finished with Sandra Birley’s Skoda, and were moving away along the retaining wall towards the ramps.
‘Very few,’ said Fry. ‘It’s too expensive.’
She looked around for Ben Cooper to get confirmation.
‘This is a shoppers’ car park,’ he said. ‘It’s meant for short stay. But some of the office workers use it, if they need to. The other parking facilities get full.’
‘That’s what Mr Birley told us, too,’ added Fry.
Kessen kept his eye on the Skoda, as if it might do something. Perhaps he expected it to crack open its bonnet and make a confession.
‘The attacker must have known it would be empty by that time.’
Fry nodded, though she knew Kessen wouldn’t see her gesture. He’d barely looked at her yet.
‘Yes, he certainly seems to have known his way around. There are eleven CCTV cameras in here - one on each level, and two at the entrance and exit. But he must have known exactly where they were, because none of them seem to have caught him, so far as we can tell from the attendant.’
One of the SOCOs, Liz Petty, glanced over towards them and smiled. Fry thought she’d found something significant, but she went back to dusting the edge of the wall near Sandra Birley’s car. Elsewhere, DI Hitchens was supervising a search on the stairs and in the lift, followed by the concrete parking bays between them and the car. The whole of Level 8 had been sealed off, which meant no one could reach the roof level of the car park either. Apart from the Skoda, the only vehicles here now belonged to the police team.
‘Just one attendant?’ said Kessen.
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‘At that time of night, yes. He has a little office on the first level, and he monitors the cameras from there.’
‘Someone will have to go through every bit of footage.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Looking at the vehicles lined up in the multistorey car park reminded Fry that her Peugeot was due for its MoT this month. She ought to check the date on the certificate - she suspected there were only a few days left before it expired. It didn’t do a police officer’s reputation any good to be caught driving an illegal vehicle.
Sealing off the two top levels of the car park was undoubtedly causing problems. The ‘full’ sign at the entrance had already been illuminated when the first police officers arrived to look at Sandra Birley’s car. Now, frustrated motorists were continually pulling up to the barrier at ground level and reversing away again.
‘What about the lifts?’
‘They’re cleaned out every day,’ said Cooper. ‘The interiors are specifically designed for easy washing and disinfecting. It’s a familiar problem, apparently.’
‘And here I was thinking it was only a problem in high rise flats on council estates in Birmingham,’ said Fry. ‘You’ve imported some dirty habits into Derbyshire, haven’t you?’
‘Well, I got on to the cleaning contractors a few minutes ago. They swear the lift at the Hard wick Lane entrance was thoroughly cleaned early yesterday morning. So it shouldn’t have smelled of anything but industrial disinfectant with a hint of pine forest when Mrs Birley arrived.’
‘When she arrived, yes. But somebody had been up to their dirty tricks by the time she came back for her car that night.’
‘Do you think she’d have been safer using the lift?’
Fry strode in front of the DCI and gestured at the Skoda, the SOCOs in their scene suits still clustered round it. It wasn’t a murder enquiry, not without a body. So Kessen would
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disappear soon. He needed to know who had the ideas at an early stage.
‘Well, look at the layout of this level,’ she said. ‘If Sandra Birley used the lift, she’d have had only a few feet to walk before she reached her car. In fact, I think it’s likely she chose that parking space precisely because it was near the lift. But the exit from the stairs is fifty yards further on, and it meant she had to pass the bottom of the down ramp from Level 9 on the way to her car.’
‘Where her attacker may have been waiting behind the concrete barrier.’
‘Exactly.’
‘So it seems her own fastidiousness led her into danger.’
DI Hitchens trotted towards them from the stairs, red in the face and puffing slightly. He was followed by the crime scene manager, Wayne Abbott, who was about the same age as Hitchens but looked mu
ch more fit.
Abbott had recently been appointed senior SOCO for the area after finishing a scientific support management course at the training centre near Durham. Fry didn’t much like having to deal with him at a crime scene. There was something about his aggressively shaved head and permanent five o’clock shadow that suggested too much testosterone. From the first time she set eyes on him, she’d wondered why Abbott was a civilian. He ought to be kitted out in full public-order gear, wielding a baton and breaking down doors.
‘Sir, the bad news is that only half the CCTV cameras in this place are operational,’ said Hitchens. ‘The others are dummies.’
Kessen cursed quietly. ‘And Level 8?’
‘One of the dummies.’
‘Damn and blast.’
‘The camera at the exit is working, sir. We can get registration numbers for any vehicles that left the car park after the attack.’
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‘He wouldn’t have been so stupid,’ said Kessen. ‘Ten to one he was on foot.’
‘That would make the job much more difficult than just bundling someone into a vehicle.’
‘But it would be the only way to avoid the cameras. So what about pedestrian access?’
‘Two flights of stairs, one at either end. Lifts at the entrance into the shopping centre. Also, the attacker could have made his way down through the levels via the car ramps. That would be a dangerous thing to do during the day, when it’s busy. But after seven o’clock it would be so quiet that he could do it easily. And he’d have heard any car coming a long way off. Noises really travel in here, have you noticed?’
‘Yes, I have.’
‘But wouldn’t the operative cameras pick him up on some of the levels, at least?’ said Fry.
‘Yes, you’re right, DS Fry.’ Kessen looked thoughtful. ‘Who’s talked to the attendant?’
‘The FOAs. He’s got his supervisor here with him now, too. He called his head office as soon as we arrived.’
‘We need to talk to him again,’ said Kessen. ‘If it was so quiet in here last night, it makes me wonder what exactly the attendant was doing down there.’
Hitchens wiped his face with a handkerchief. He was getting very unfit if he couldn’t walk up a few flights of stairs without risking a heart attack.
‘At least he heard the scream,’ he said.
‘Oh yes, the scream.’
‘It helps us with the timing.’
‘Well, it’s a pity he wasn’t quicker off the mark getting up here, instead of staring at his little screens wondering if he was on the wrong channel.’
‘According to his initial statement, there was no one around when he did come up to check, so he thought it must be kids messing around outside.’
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‘And then he went back to his tea break, no doubt,’ said Kessen.
Hitchens shrugged. ‘Also, the mobile phone network recorded the logging-off signal from Mrs Birley’s phone. But I don’t think that will help us much, in the circumstances.’
The smashed phone had been bagged by the SOCOs, along with the bits of broken plastic scattered across Level 8 by the tyre of a Daihatsu 4x4 that had driven over it. The SIM card would identify the phone definitely, but it matched the description given by Geoff Birley - a Nokia with a soft leather case and a red fascia.
Fry walked to the outside wall of the car park and looked over the ledge at the buildings in Clappergate. Far below, a group of youths wearing rucksacks went by with their skateboards, whistling between their teeth as they entered the shopping precinct. She tugged at the wire mesh, but it didn’t shift an inch.
A movement caught Fry’s attention, and she saw Liz Petty again, walking across to the crime scene van to speak to Abbott, who was now her supervisor. She had pushed her hood back from her face, and she looked flushed. SOCOs didn’t like wearing the hoods of the scene suits if they could help it, especially the female officers. Petty brushed her hair back and tried to confine it in the clip behind her head. She saw Fry watching her, and smiled again.
‘I’ll get everything under way, sir,’ Hitchens was saying. ‘DS Fry and I have an appointment with the psychologist.’
‘The phone calls?’ said Kessen.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I don’t suppose we’ve had a call since Mrs Birley disappeared?’ ‘No. And it’s difficult to know whether we should hope for one or not.’
‘At least we’d know where we stand. You need to make the right call on this one, Paul.’
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Fry felt a little sorry for Hitchens. Nine times out of ten there were other reasons why people went missing, especially adults. They usually turned up alive and well, with surprised looks on their faces at all the fuss they’d caused. That could waste a lot of time and resources if a hasty decision was made.
For now, Hitchens was the man who had to make that judgement. He’d want firm evidence of a serious crime before he pressed the alarm button. A vague message from a disturbed individual wasn’t adequate justification - not enough to look good on paper when the DI’s handling of the case was reviewed. But add a scream in the night, a dropped mobile phone and a missing woman, and the equation became much more difficult. All Fry could hope for was that it added up on the right side for Sandra Birley.
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6
Dr Rosa Kane wasn’t what Fry had expected at all. New experts with fresh ideas were fine, but they weren’t supposed to be young and attractive, with Irish accents and the shade of red hair that DI Hitchens had a weakness for. These were factors that distracted Fry from the start, and somehow interfered with her ability to listen to what Dr Kane was saying with serious attention.
‘We can make some tentative deductions from the language he uses, of course,’ said Dr Kane, some time after the introductions had been made and the content of the calls summarized. ‘Can we?’ said Fry.
Then she realized immediately that her surprised tone might give away the fact that it was the first comment from the psychologist she’d really heard.
‘For a more detailed analysis, you’ll need the services of a forensic linguist. But some of it is fairly obvious. If you’d like my opinion, that is …?’
‘Please go ahead, Doctor,’ said Hitchens, smiling as he saw an opportunity to save on the expense of another expert.
‘Well, for a start, there’s his tendency to make grammatical switches from first person singular to first person plural,
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and then to third person. That’s very interesting. When he says “I”, “me” and “my”, he’s almost certainly telling the truth. But when he switches to the plural or third person, or to a passive form, that’s when he’s concealing something. It’s an unconscious sign of evasion.’
Intrigued now, Fry hunched over the transcript. She ran a yellow highlighter pen through some of the phrases. Perhaps I’ll wait, and enjoy the anticipation… 7 can smell it right now, can’t you? … I promise … My kind of killing … And then there was a change halfway through a sentence: as a neck slithers in my fingers …
There were a few more sentences with The’ and ‘my’. But then the entire final section was couched in the first person plural, as if to draw his listeners into a conspiracy. The question isn’t whether we kill, but how we do it. That section contained all the stuff about Freud and Thanatos, too. No ‘I’ in it anywhere.
‘I see what you mean,’ Fry said, reluctantly.
She pushed the highlighted transcript across to the DI, who smiled. A cheap result.
‘As for the second message, some of the phrases don’t fit at all,’ said Dr Kane.
Fry was taken aback. In a speech written by someone so disturbed, it hadn’t occurred to her there might be some phrases that didn’t fit. Because none of it fit, did it? Not with anything rational.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Hitchens. He pulled his reading glasses out of his pocket and looked at the transcript with an intelligent smile. ‘Which phrases were you thinking of in particu
lar, Doctor?’
‘“A cemetery six miles wide”, for example. What does that have to do with anything? It’s too specific’
‘Anything else?’
‘Yes. “Here I am at its centre.” Also “the signs at the gibbet and the rock”. The most significant thing about these phrases
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is that all three of them occur in the second message, the one which is obviously scripted. In my opinion, he was making sure that he included those phrases. They were important, for some reason.’
‘“Six miles wide”,’ said Hitchens. ‘Do you think …?’
‘They’re clues,’ said Fry suddenly. ‘He’s left us some clues to a location. It’s a location within a six-mile radius of… Well, of what?’
‘His own position?’ said Dr Kane. ‘The place where he was making the call from?’
‘Of course. “Here I am at its centre.”’
She took off her glasses, and Hitchens did the same.
‘That would suggest he knew in advance where he was going to make the call,’ said the DI.
‘Is that a problem?’
‘Well, it isn’t the scenario we had in mind. We think he had the speech prepared, but not the location.’
‘It could be that he simply inserted an appropriate figure according to where he eventually made the call,’ said Dr Kane. ‘A six-mile radius? He might have driven around a specific area until he found somewhere suitable that he knew was within that range.’
Hitchens looked worried. ‘Damn it, he might just have been guessing at the three miles, in that case. How many people know even the approximate distance from one spot to another across the countryside? I don’t suppose he’s using GPS.’
‘And that’s only if he meant the distance as the crow flies, rather than the distance by road, which people might be more familiar with.’
Fry saw from the DFs expression that he was starting to lose faith in his expert. Dr Kane seemed to be setting up more obstacles than she was helping to overcome. But experts loved to make things look more complex than they really were, didn’t they? It helped to justify their fees.
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