by M J Lee
‘What?’
‘The whole area is closed off for a month from next Monday. Some experiment they’re conducting. Nobody’s allowed in.’
‘But you’re the coroner, can’t you order them to keep it open?’
‘I’ve already tried. They’ve said no – scientists coming from all over the world apparently. I could get a court order but…’
‘But…’
‘They’ve said we can come today. I’ve arranged a forensics team from Preston run by a man called Davis. Do you know him?’
‘He’s good, meticulous.’
‘Great. You have to be with him, of course.’
‘I guessed. When is he going to be there?’
‘In two hours. You have to leave now.’
Ridpath thought for a moment. Polly would kill him for missing the appointment at Christie’s again. He would have to make it up to her somehow. ‘I’m on my way. But where is it? Don Brown didn’t tell me.’
‘I’ll email the address for your satnav. They are expecting you at ten.’
Ridpath checked his watch. 8.45. He would have to drive quickly. Preston was almost an hour away. ‘I’m leaving now.’
‘Thank you, Ridpath. I’ll remember this.’
He put the phone down and rushed upstairs to change into his suit. He hoped Polly would forgive him. She would understand, wouldn’t she?
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
The TRACE facility was heavily guarded; an eight-foot tall security fence surrounded the site and was topped off with three vicious coils of barbed wire. A thick strand of cable and the ubiquitous sign of a lightning flash of live electricity were attached to the fence.
One narrow road led into the facility, blocked by a red and white painted barrier, watched by a single CCTV camera and guarded by a burly man in uniform. A single white sign with the words University of Lancashire painted on it in black letters was the only indication of who or what owned the land.
Ridpath stopped at the barrier. He had driven up the M61 as quickly as he could without attracting the attention of the motorway police or of the cameras monitoring the road. The last thing he wanted was to be pulled over for speeding.
The security guard donned his hat and approached the car. Can I help you?’
‘Tom Ridpath, the coroner’s officer. I have an appointment with a Mr Downey.’
‘You’re in the book. Park behind the security building over there. Please do not leave your car until Mr Downey comes for you and do not go past the red sign in the car park.’
The security guard lifted the barrier and Ridpath drove round the corner to see another building which, up until now, had been hidden from view. He parked in the area reserved for visitors and waited.
The area looked like the rest of rural Lancashire; woodland on the left skirting the bottom of a hill. Drystone walls separating areas into fields. The luscious green of grass and trees undulating off into the distance.
It could have been any other farm where animals grazed, lambs frolicked and wild rabbits bred to their hearts’ content. Except this was a place where experiments were carried out to monitor the rate of decay of animal bodies, where insects fed on remains and wild rabbits were electrocuted if they came anywhere near.
A man in a white coat, carrying a clipboard stepped out of the admin building and approached the car. Ridpath opened the window.
‘Mr Ridpath?’ he said, looking at his clipboard.
‘Detective Inspector Ridpath, actually.’
‘Hmm.’ The man made a note on his clipboard. ‘The forensics team hasn’t arrived yet. But you can wait in admin if you like.’ He indicated the building he had just come from.
Ridpath stepped out of the car. ‘You are…?’
‘Patrick Downey, facility manager. The man held out his hand.
Ridpath looked at it for a moment before shaking it. Had this man been handling dead bodies this morning? A shudder went down his spine.
‘I have to ask you what this is about. The coroner,’ he checked his clipboard once more, ‘Mrs Margaret Challinor, didn’t explain much.’
‘We are looking for the body of an Alice Seagram, one of the victims of the Beast of Manchester—’
‘Her body wasn’t in her coffin,’ he interrupted, ‘I saw it on the news. But what’s that to do with us? We do not test human remains here. This facility only conducts tests on animal bodies – pigs mainly.’ He made another note in his clipboard. ‘Actually, in the UK, there are no body farms, as the Americans like to call them,’ he sniffed twice. ‘We are dependent on them for all our information on the effects on the human body of environmental factors.’
He said the last sentence with a note of regret.
‘I am aware of what your establishment does, Mr Downey, but we have information that a body may have been left here without your knowledge.’
‘Impossible. I’ve been the manager of this facility for the last 20 years. No human remains or cadavers have been ever used as long as I have been in charge.’
‘Our case occurred ten years ago.’
‘Then it’s impossible, Inspector, I would know if any bodies had been placed here and I would have rejected any such proposal from one of our scientists without the express permission of the university authorities.’
Ridpath realized he was getting nowhere, so he tried a different tack. ‘Do you keep records of everybody who comes to your facility Mr Downey?’
‘Of course, Inspector. Every delivery of a carcass to the facility is recorded before it is moved into the cold store. Obviously, we have to keep track for the scientific records, we can’t just dump them willy-nilly in the grounds.’
Ridpath was fed up of being treated like an idiot by this man, but he kept his temper in check. ‘Could I see the records?’
The man hummed and hawed for a moment.
‘If I could see the records then we may not even need the forensics team to search the facility. Particularly when you have such an important experiment taking place in a couple of days.’
Ridpath watched as Downey weighed up the problem. Finally, the man’s shoulders relaxed. ‘OK, come this way. The records are confidential but I’m sure the university would approve if it meant minimal disturbance to our work.’
They walked to the admin building. Inside it had all the charm and warmth of a mental asylum. Downey was obviously proud of his facility, giving Ridpath a guided tour. ‘On the left are three state-of-the art labs; beyond them are the insect and mammal buildings. Obviously, we need ready supplies of flies, insects, mice and rats. We can’t rely on nature.’
‘Who would?’
‘On the right, we have the cold stores where we keep the animal bodies, mainly pigs, before using them for the experiments.’
‘Let me get this right. You are looking at the decomposition rates of bodies?’
‘That’s just one of the research areas we pursue. Environmental effects on carcasses, insect pupae and their role. The effect of heat and cold on rates of decay. One of our researchers is looking into the effect of predation on animal cadavers. In other words, how long it takes rats, in our case, to discover and devour a pig’s carcass.’
‘Charming. Quicker than humans at a barbecue?’
‘You may joke, Inspector, but our work has a valuable role in the solving of many crimes.’
He opened a door. Ridpath half expected to see a row of pig carcasses being attacked by horseflies. Instead, there was a row of filing cabinets.
‘Now what year were you looking for?’
‘March 2008 – the 22nd, to be precise.’
‘Good. I like precision.’ He unlocked a cabinet on the left and shuffled through a series of files before taking one out. ‘Here we are. There was a delivery that day.’ He opened the file. ‘The delivery was from Manchester. A pig’s carcass. Number 246834. The driver’s name is printed here, a Mr Donald Brown. See, there’s his signature.’ He pointed to a scrawled signature.
‘But who sent it?’
Downey checked along the line. ‘This company. We get deliveries from them occasionally for research.’
As Downey reached for another file, Ridpath peered over the man’s shoulder to see the name.
Prospect Limited. Where had he seen that name before?
Downey spoke again. ‘You’re in luck, Inspector. For some reason that particular pig’s carcass has never been used for research. It’s still in the cold store.’
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
The forensics team under Davis had finally arrived at 10 30 and he had put them to work immediately examining case number 246834.
The pathologist came out of the cold store within ten minutes.
‘Is it Alice Seagram?’
‘All I can tell you is it’s the body of a young woman. She seems to have undergone some sort of post-mortem in the past, displaying the classic Y section. After being frozen for ten years the features are degraded and there seems to be evidence of acid being applied to her body. Her fingerprints may be unusable, but her DNA should be OK. Once we have her back in the lab, we’ll be able to give you an answer pretty quickly.’
Ridpath had rung Mrs Challinor. ‘I’m think we’ve found Alice Seagram’s body.’
‘Well done, Ridpath. After a truly shitty week, it’s the best news I’ve had for a long time. I’ll get on to the family straight away.’
‘Can we postpone the inquest?’
‘Impossible. The warrants to give evidence have already gone out.’
‘Gorman and Whitworth will not be happy.’
‘Their happiness is the least of my worries.’ There was a moment of silence. ‘Why do you want to postpone the inquest?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘I can’t talk over the phone. Can we meet tomorrow morning?’
‘Why not this evening?’
‘I need to recheck something in the files of the 2008 investigation.’
‘Of course, ten o’clock at the Coroner’s Office tomorrow morning.’
‘I’ll see you then.’
‘This is all extremely cloak and dagger, Ridpath. Can’t you tell me what’s going on?’
‘Sorry, Mrs Challinor, I need to be sure.’
Downey was hovering nearby, so Ridpath lowered his voice.
‘Can I call you back, Mrs Challinor?’
‘See you tomorrow, Ridpath. I hope it’s good ne—’
Ridpath switched off his mobile.
‘I was thinking about the 2008 delivery and realized we had a similar delivery two weeks ago.’
‘Who sent it?’
‘The same company who sent the pig’s carcasses. See. Prospect Limited.’
‘Who delivered it?’
Downey tried to remember. ‘The researcher himself, I think. It wasn’t a busy day for deliveries.’
‘What was his name?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Think, man.’
‘I can’t remember the name of every researcher who turns up here. But we have the record.’ He produced a new file marked ‘2018’. Inside, a document showed another pig’s carcass being delivered to TRACE two weeks ago. A signature was scrawled across the bottom of the page in a blur of blue. It could have been anybody.
‘Can we find this delivery?’
‘Of course, it’s in the cold store next door.’
Ridpath called Davis to join him and both of them were shown to case number 578459 by the facility manager.
A blast of icy air hit them as he opened the door and stepped back. According to Downey, the delivery was in the second drawer from the bottom on the far right-hand side.
Davis went first, pushing past the frozen bodies of pigs, covered in a hard white rime, hanging from hooks in the ceiling. The pigs swung gently to and fro as Ridpath ducked past them
On the left the assorted bodies of other animals fought for space on a metal bar: two mongrel dogs, a group of ginger cats, a fox, three badgers, all still enclosed in their frozen fur, eyes like glass marbles. Next to them, the two larger, skinless bodies of what looked like cows, ghostly in the frozen air.
‘It’s over there.’ Davis’s words came out hard and visible as two clouds of white frost. Ridpath felt his ears begin to tingle beneath the thin covering of the Tyvek cap. They couldn’t stay here long.
Davis opened the drawer. Inside were blue body bags stacked one on top of the other.
‘It should be the third one down.’
Ridpath rubbed his hands together in their nitrile gloves trying to put some feeling back in them. With Davis’s help, he removed the top two bags, placing them on the floor.
‘Is this it?’
Davis nodded.
Ridpath reached out to pull down the zip on the bag. A white cloth stared back at him.
He pulled the cloth away to reveal a woman’s face, the right side crushed and broken, the edges of the bones rimed in white.
‘I think we’ve just found another victim ,’ said Ridpath, his breath forming clouds of white vapour.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
Ridpath’s mind was racing. The killer was clever – too clever. Deflecting attention onto an innocent man in James Dalbey and now finding a fall woman in the shape of a psychiatric nurse, Lesley Taylor. Although from what Charlie Whitworth said, it seemed she may not have been that innocent.
He accelerated into the outer lane of the M61, passing a slow moving white van and then moved back into the middle.
His mind flashed back to that first day on patrol with Sergeant Mungovan. Chasing after James Dalbey, running through the streets of Chorlton, fighting on the floor of the lock-up, the great feeling of triumph as his fist smashed into the man’s temple.
How could he have been so wrong? How could what seemed so true have been such a lie?
The traffic increased considerably as he neared the M60, coming to a virtual standstill, cars and lorries edging forward and then stopping.
What he needed now was the siren and lights of a police car to force his way through. But he’d had to give them back nine months ago. It seemed an age and half a lifetime away.
As he stopped in traffic, waiting for it to start moving, a busload of questions ran through his mind.
Who was the other woman they had found in the ice store? Could it be Irene Hungerford, the sex worker missing from Moss Side? He could release pictures of her but it would be better to use DNA for a definitive identification.
Even without an identification, the woman’s body at TRACE showed two things. Firstly, the killings in 2008 and the recent murders were linked. And secondly, Lesley Taylor had not acted alone: she had been guided by the same man who had committed the murders in 2008.
He knew who the Beast of Manchester was, and it wasn’t the man who’d been locked up for the last ten years in Belmarsh Prison.
How could he prove the murders were committed by the same man?
He remembered something in the police files. Something said by James Dalbey on the day he was arrested. It was in his interview with Charlie Whitworth and John Gorman What was it? He needed to check the files of the police investigation in 2008.
The profiler had been close to the answer. His profile had given them more clues than any of the police realized at the time. He was a man, he was clever, he was obsessed with water and he was ruthless.
However, the answer to one question eluded Ridpath and the profiler had come no closer to answering it.
Why?
Why had he killed the women? What perverted pleasure did he obtain from it? And how had he managed to set people up to take the fall for his crimes?
He found himself gripping the steering wheel, his knuckles white against the black leather. No women would suffer again. Not here. Not in his city
The traffic started moving.
Ridpath put the car in gear and edged home. The answer was waiting for him there. All he had to do was check the files.
Thirty minutes later, he parked the car in the driveway, noticing Polly’s Pol
o wasn’t in its usual place.
As he opened the door, he expected both her and Eve to rush out to welcome him back.
Nothing. The house was dark. Empty.
He switched on the lights and rushed into the living room. On the mantelpiece next to the mirror was a short note written in capitals with a thick black marker pen.
I’VE HAD ENOUGH.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
He stood there staring at the note, reading it again and again.
I’ve had enough.
Just three words, but they took all the breath out of his body.
He rushed upstairs, checking the bedrooms. Polly’s was empty and the suitcases were missing from the top of the wardrobe. Her favourite jeans and all her work clothes were gone. He ran into Eve’s room. Her school clothes were no longer there and the travelling case in the shape of a hippo on wheels wasn’t in its place in the corner.
He rang Polly’s mobile.
No answer.
Then her voice. ‘Hello, you’ve reached Polly Ridpath’s phone. I’m busy right now but I’ll get back to you just as soon as I can. Unless you’re a cold caller, then I won’t get back to you at all and you can bugger off. Byeeeee.’
He flopped on Eve’s bed as if all the bones had been removed from his body.
She had finally gone.
Seventeen years they had been together. She was serving in her father’s Cantonese restaurant, her kooky green hair and black fishnet tights a stark contrast to the peonies, red lanterns and Chinese characters decorating the walls.
He had gone there with two friends before a night on a pub crawl.
‘Chinese food lines the stomach, so you can drink more,’ one of his friends had said.
So there they were. She approached them with her order pad.
‘Number 24 is off and I wouldn’t eat number 37,’ she said without looking at them.
‘Why wouldn’t you eat number 37?’ he asked.
For the first time her brown eyes stared at him. ‘Because it’s off.’
‘Oh,’ was all he could say.
She spoke with a clear Manchester accent with no hint of her Chinese heritage.