The Vault

by Karen Long

  Toby sat quietly on the bus shelter bench opposite the boy’s apartment building and pretended to study a newspaper. He had been sitting there patiently for the best part of an hour and knew that any time now he would get a glimpse of the child he was so desperate to call his own. He’d made a quick recce of the site earlier, making sure that he never strayed too far from the public right of way. The Banks’ apartment appeared to consist of a living area off a shared hallway and a small shuttered bathroom window to its left. The building was long and counting the doorways indicated that it probably consisted of twenty apartments, ten along the ground floor. Cutting between the buildings was a short alleyway, which opened onto a small car park, festooned with ‘Private! Residents only!’ signs.

  Pulling a set of keys out of his pocket, so he’d appear to any nosy soul as though he belonged, he wandered over to the back of the Banks’ apartment. He had been pleased to see that there were no air conditioning vents attached to the rooms, which indicated that bedroom windows would have to be opened during the evening. Giving himself less than a minute to examine the layout, Toby peered into the first room, which obviously belonged to a young woman. He scanned to make sure there wasn’t an adjoining door to the second bedroom and then slid over to the second room. He felt a frisson of relief when he saw the train set, child’s bed with a Buzz Lightyear duvet cover and neatly folded shorts and T-shirts on the small pine chest of drawers. Of the grandmother’s room there was no sign and he surmised that it must be located somewhere between the living area and her daughter’s bedroom. A quick glance at the base of the sash window revealed a homemade security lock, consisting of a wooden jam that was pushed into one side of the frame to prevent the window being opened higher but strong fingers and a stretch would release it in a moment.

  ‘Little Tommy’, as Toby was beginning to think of him, looked exhausted and tearful as he kept up with the woman. He’d seen them both alight from the tram, Rosheen carrying a heavy plastic bag full of groceries. Little Tommy was reluctant to hold her hand and he’d smiled as the boy folded his arms petulantly across his chest and twisted his mouth down in a comic gesture of unhappiness. Rosheen had tried reasoning with him for several moments before grabbing one of his wrists and dragging him in the direction of her apartment. As they scurried across the road, Toby understood that all his searching for the perfect family was about to come to fruition. He had never doubted that his Olivia would make the perfect mother and now that marriage was to be consummated with a son. A son who would never grow old; never argue with his parents or cause them concern for his well-being.

  Toby felt elated.

  I wanted to do some initial checks before identifying this lady,” said Dr Hounslow.

  “Identifying?” butted in Eleanor.

  She was rewarded with a scowl and pursed lips from Dr Hounslow. “Perhaps I could speak first detective, before you bombard me?

  She pulled back the green morgue sheet and invited everyone to move a little closer. “Now, there are clues here. What do you see?”

  “She’s abnormally tall and her limbs are slightly elongated,” ventured Laurence. “She has a genetic disorder… A syndrome of some description, which is why you believe you can identify her.”

  Dr Hounslow smiled. “Care to take a stab at which syndrome?”

  “Marfan?” he replied.

  “Excellent. You are correct on all counts. Marfan, for those amongst us not fully conversant with the condition, is a genetic disorder that affects fibrillin production, ultimately leading to the excessive growth in limbs that you can see here…” She pointed to the hands and feet of the victim. “And can cause heart defects and lens dislocation. As the eyes have already been removed this is not something that we can check. However a scan may reveal any damage to the aorta and, if it is Marfan, then I have reason to believe that this may be a young lady who disappeared approximately three years ago called Michelle Brown.”

  “How’d you know this?” asked Eleanor, ignoring her expression.

  “First, Marfan is unusual, affecting one birth in every five thousand and second because I autopsied her mother, who committed suicide following her daughter’s disappearance and presumed murder. She was a Marfan sufferer but in a mild form. Now, I imagine you detectives have a great deal of work to do investigating this and as this autopsy is going to be unusual if not…”

  “How did you know her name?” asked Laurence.

  “Because her mother worked here as an office cleaner for ten years.”

  Detective Smith was not in a particularly positive state of mind. Up until this morning he had been enjoying life as the primary on a case involving stolen vehicles, schedule three and four drugs and a gang of criminals who, much to his pleasure, always resisted arrest. In fact, Smith was just preparing to attack the mountain of paperwork this sort of case generated, when he was dragged back into the Michelle Brown saga by Eleanor Raven. Smith had worked the Brown case for six months, off and on, finally having to place it in the ‘cold case’ files when every single lead went cold. Periodically he’d open the file and make a couple of phone calls, or check on a ‘Jane Doe’ that appeared in some distant morgue but he knew that nice girls like Michelle Brown didn’t just walk away from their lives on a whim, particularly not for three years. He had tried, unsuccessfully as it turned out, to keep a little flame of hope alive in her mother Liza for no other reason that it did no-one any harm to live optimistically but the woman hadn’t clung to that; instead she’d celebrated Michelle’s twenty-first birthday with a pack of diazepam. Having only a peripheral knowledge of Raven’s latest case, he found it difficult to grasp the information as presented to him by Matt Gains, the mortuary assistant. He shifted the phone from one ear to the other and tried to formulate a sentence. “So, you’re saying what exactly?” he managed.

  Matt began again, this time a little slower. “Doc Hounslow seems to think that this might be the daughter of Liza Brown. She’s scanning the body due to its condition, so there shouldn’t be a problem with the father identifying whether it’s Michelle or not.”

  Smith took a moment or so. “So, when does the doc think she was killed?”

  “Could’ve been a few years ago I guess. Maybe you should see the body yourself,” suggested Matt, helpfully.

  Smith sat in the car and rubbed the back of his head vigorously. He had formulated several opening gambits but he couldn’t see how any of them would take the insanity out of the situation for Bob Brown. Turning off the engine and steeling himself, he walked up the narrow steps to the small house and tentatively knocked. He could hear Bob’s halting tread as he hesitated over whether or not to open the door. Smith allowed him the few seconds before his world was turned upside once again and straightened his tie.

  “It’s Detective Smith here Mr Brown. I called you earlier.”

  Bob Brown raised his eyes and looked at Smith with a mixture of ferocity and hopelessness. “You’ve found her then?” he lifted his chin and squeezed his lips together, as if afraid some inappropriate remark would escape.

  “This isn’t the place Bob. I need you to let me in so we can talk.”

  Smith followed Bob along the corridor and into the small kitchen, which he’d remembered as being filled with photographs of Michelle at various stages of her short life. The fridge had been stripped of these memories and now stood starkly functional next to a small, uncluttered worktop. Sighing heavily Smith pulled a chair out for Bob Brown and encouraged him to sit. “We’ve found her Bob,” said Smith quietly.

  Bob nodded slowly. “Where?”

  Smith sighed and launched himself into the story. “Michelle’s body was buried in the Westex Landfill site…”

  Bob made a small involuntary yelp and then tightened his hands onto the sides of the chair in an effort to maintain some sort of anchorage. “When was…”

  Smith was determined to present the information in one large dose. “At the moment Doctor Hounslow isn’t sure but it’s likely that she had
been dead for some considerable time. Possibly around the time she went missing.” He let this small glimmer of hope give Bob the strength for the next stage. “It seems that the person who murdered Michelle also… preserved her body in some way.”

  “What? How do you mean?”

  “She was embalmed.”

  “Like at a funeral? I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

  “We think that whoever murdered her embalmed her and kept her in his house for a while before disposing of her remains.”

  “What the fuck for?” yelled Bob launching himself to his feet, his hands shaking uncontrollably. Smith wiped his brow and neck with his handkerchief. “We don’t know yet. There’s no obvious sign of how she was killed.”

  Bob slowly sat back onto the chair. His shoulders sank and his arms moved protectively round his chest. His breaths were irregular and caught in his throat.

  “Bob you have to do one more thing for Michelle… You have to identify her for us.”

  “Is she… viewable?” Bob asked carefully.

  Smith nodded. “Doc Hounslow and me will be with you.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Eleanor stood on the highest point overlooking the excavation site and watched as the cadaver dogs swarmed over the mountains of tamped down waste, followed less enthusiastically by their overheated handlers. A private company was setting up a grid for the ground penetrating radar team and a group of police cadets were being instructed and equipped by a uniformed officer. The initial premise that Michelle Brown’s body had been put into a dumpster and then transported, along with other waste to the site, had been dismissed by crime scene, who had analysed the disturbance to each layer and found evidence of later digging and re-covering of the trash. That implied that the murderer had brought the body to the landfill site and personally disposed of it there. That, Eleanor thought, was taking quite a risk.

  Laurence was picking his way up the hill to meet her. She held out her bottle of water for him, noting with interest that he didn’t bother to wipe the neck as he drank down to the last inch. She indicated he finish it. “Thanks. “ He caught his breath.

  “Who’s winning?” she asked.

  “My money’s on Samuelson. City authorities have now cited health and safety and world health organisation guidelines as their argument for not closing the site in its entirety. The boss is going to put his views on the matter to the mayor, who’s siding with his buddies, particularly as not collecting trash in summer is a major vote loser. So, I’m guessing there’ll be a compromise and the west quadrant will be re-opened this afternoon and we’ll have access to others for at least two to three days.”

  “It’s not enough time,” said Eleanor, shaking her head.

  Laurence shrugged. “Unless they get wind of another body in the next forty-eight, we’ll be restricted to this spot only.”

  Eleanor chewed her lip. “Maybe, this is all the space we need.”

  “You think they’re all here, in this stretch?” asked Laurence.

  “We are pretty certain that the body we’re calling Michelle Brown, was not brought in by an unknowing third person.”

  “So the perp brought the body in and buried it,” stated Laurence.

  “If he brought in one body, then why not more?”

  “But how’d he get them in here?”

  “Has Johnson looked through the tapes?” she asked.

  “He’s doing it now but they only get stored for ten days before erasure, so unless we find a newly buried one, that can be linked to a car arrival, they’re not going to help.”

  “Ok, but assuming he got one in by himself, let’s find out how,” she said, handing him a map of the site.

  Laurence and Eleanor made their way down towards the concrete-pillared, steel-meshed security fence that separated the landfill site from the link road and its surrounding industrial units and fields. It was at least a quarter of a mile from Michelle Brown’s grave to the fence. Eleanor looked at the map of the site, which had the definite body find marked in red and a larger green circle that indicated where Mackenzie thought he’d found Giselle, which conveniently overlapped. She looked at the length of ten-foot-high panelling that ran for half a mile to their left and connected to the official entrance and at least two miles to their right. Picking her way through the increasingly dense foliage, she put her hands on the mesh and shook it. It was solid and didn’t budge an inch. “He can’t have gotten through here,” she said. “But that’s not to say that they’re all like that.”

  “I’ll go left,” said Laurence, shielding his eyes and gazing at the overhead helicopters.

  “Call me if you make a find. Press will be listening to the radio channels.”

  He nodded, checked his signal and headed off.

  Eleanor had examined nine sections before she hit pay dirt. The panel was identical in every way from the others, apart from a slight yielding when she applied pressure to the sides. Whereas the others had no give as they had been welded to the steel uprights, this panel made a clanking sound when it was shaken. As she examined the panel she could see that there were a number of flat-headed bolts. She pushed her fingers through the links and felt along the bar. Every half meter or so she could feel but not really see, even with her cheek pressed against the wire, a small bolt standing proud of the post. She reached for her phone but waited while a helicopter’s drone overhead diminished. “I think I’ve got it!”

  She took a step backwards and assessed the panel. The mesh was too narrow to get a booted foot into but if she braced herself with her feet and knees she could pull herself up to the top and slide between the panel and the wire lip that lapped the fence. She zipped up her jacket and slipped on a pair of leather gloves. Pulling herself to the top, she was forced to pause and wait for a surge of energy to propel her over. As she flung her right leg laterally, she felt a sharp tug on her waistband and then felt two strong hands grip her leg.

  “Come down. I’ll do it,” Laurence said, in a manner just shy of condescending.

  Eleanor felt a sudden overwhelming surge of anger “I am not a fucking invalid. This is my job!” For a moment she felt like laughing at her over reaction then took a measured breath. “I’m fine,” she managed, in a more controlled tone.

  Laurence sighed and loosened his grip on her leg. “At least let me help you.”

  Eleanor needed to move, her leg was burning and her hands beginning to throb as they took her weight. “I’m fine, just make sure I don’t snag on the wire.”

  With three irritatingly confident bounds, Laurence pulled himself up to the top of the panel and pushed the wire as high as it would go, enabling Eleanor to slide between it and the panel. As she lowered herself through she felt his hand run along her back, smoothing her jacket down. She glanced at his face, which betrayed nothing more than sibling concern. “Thanks,” she snapped, easing herself over and letting her shaking legs brace her as she established her grip with both hands. Lowering herself to the ground, clamping her jaw tightly closed so as not to betray the discomfort she felt, Eleanor began to study the edges of the panel. “The others have all been welded to the uprights. It looks as if someone’s angle-grinded the join open and then drilled –” she counted the bolts “– five holes on either side and used nuts and bolts to fix it to the upright. She patted her pockets but Laurence, anticipating her need, pushed his Leatherman through the mesh; he’d already opened the pliers for her. Removing the nut, she wiped the glove against its edge and sniffed. “Smells like a mechanical grease.”

  “Ok, let’s get Crime Scene down here and see if there are any…” A car speeding along the link road applied its brakes and mounted the grassy divide, heading straight for Eleanor. The SUV shuddered to a halt and Claddis McAvoy, the Toronto Times journalist, eased himself out of the passenger seat and made his way over to them. “De-tectives, what a pleasure,” drawled Claddis, beckoning his photographer to get into position behind them. “Is there a problem with your phone detective?”<
br />
  “Not that I’m aware of,” she snarled.

  “Because I’ve been leaving you messages regarding a deal we made last year and here you are top cat on a new front pager and me not getting first dibs on the coverage!” He sighed dramatically to emphasise his disappointment. “I put my neck on the line to help you and repayment included an exclusive interview.”

  “You broke the law McAvoy and the only reason you have a job to put your neck on the line for, is because we didn’t press charges,” said Laurence, angrily.

  Claddis waved a hand dismissing the relevance of this. “No-one gave a shit about that but lying to the press has consequences.” He raised his eyebrows and wagged a finger in Eleanor’s direction. “So when am I getting face time with you?”

  Eleanor felt her pulse rate escalating. “There is no interview.”

  “You took hell of a beating at the hands of Lee Hughes didn’t you? Off work for six months and still under the regular care of psychiatric services, I’m surprised that you’re allowed to be the primary on such a case. How many now? Two bodies found here and by the looks of the images they were all buried recently!” He slipped his hand into his satchel and brought out a pile of aerial photographs documenting the morning’s efforts. “That helicopter’s a godsend. Nothing escapes it… certainly not you Detective Raven!”

  Eleanor was becoming aware that her breathing had changed and that both her fists were balled tightly. In an effort to regain control she drew in air through her nostrils and let it out slowly through her mouth. Claddis turned to his photographer who was fiddling with a camera setting. “Make sure all of this is documented will ya? Perhaps some engaging pics of Detective Raven here looking battle torn but ready to take on the bad guys for the City once more.” With improbable alacrity, the photographer positioned the camera to his face, focused the lens onto Eleanor and began to gather images mechanically. Claddis leaned towards her, bombarding her senses with coffee fumes and body odour. “Maybe,” he whispered theatrically, “unburdening yourself to our readership might have a cathartic effect. ‘What I Suffered at the Hands of a Psychopath’,” he suggested, blocking out the headline with his right hand and nodding vigorously at the concept. Eleanor felt her stranglehold on impulsive behaviour beginning to slip away and in an effort to regain control she turned her back on Claddis and the camera lens and focused her attention on Laurence whose red cheeks, stiff jaw and flared nostrils mirrored her own inner turmoil.