How the Dead Speak

by Val McDermid

  30

  We talk about ‘gut instinct’ or ‘feminine intuition’ and often dismiss them. We say they’re unscientific, they’re not something you can take into the witness box and make a case out of. But more often than not, these hunches are reliable indicators. They’re conclusions we draw based on experience, readings of human behaviour we trust because we’ve seen them before. Of course prejudice can creep in and skew our responses, but we shouldn’t ignore those moments when our hackles rise or our spines shiver. They’re just as valuable as those moments of instant attraction that so often lead us into love affairs . . .

  From Reading Crimes by DR TONY HILL

  Paula waited till she was in her car before she rang Sophie Valente’s number. With luck, her colleague would be back in the incident room, well away from Rutherford’s ears.

  Sophie sounded wary when she answered. ‘Paula? What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’m on my way to interview Martinu. I can’t believe nobody from Fielding’s team has spoken to him. I wouldn’t put it past her to be arsey about uploading everything, just because she’s narked that we’ve snatched her case out from under her.’

  A moment’s silence, then Sophie said, ‘I take your point. Did you want to see my notes?’

  ‘That would be great, if you’ve had time to write them up. But I’d like to see Fielding’s officer’s notes too. First interview, and all that. Can you have a word with her and ask her to make them available to the incident room?’ Paula hoped Sophie’s obvious ambition would temper her apparent lack of collegiality, pulled out into the clotted city centre traffic, trying to work out which was the least congested route to Bradesden.

  ‘Is there a reason why you can’t ask her yourself when you get there?’

  Paula rolled her eyes, hope extinguished. Was this Sophie’s revenge for her casual slight in the pub after the team-building fiasco? ‘Yes, Sophie, there is a reason. Fielding hates me. I was seconded to her team before ReMIT was set up and it wasn’t what you’d call a success. If I ask for the file, we’ll both be collecting our pensions before it shows up.’

  ‘She’d sabotage the investigation just to get back at you?’ Sophie sounded curious rather than incredulous.

  ‘She wants to come out on top here, Sophie. And if she can make me look rubbish along the way, that’s a bonus. She’s more likely to help you out because, frankly, you’re the darling of the top brass because . . . ’ Paula paused, groping for the right words ‘ . . . you’ve arrived with a fanfare of trumpets. And if she does right by you, you might put in a good word for her when the kudos gets handed out.’

  ‘She didn’t exactly roll out the red carpet for me earlier.’

  ‘I need a break, Sophie. You scratch my back . . . ’ Please let her have the sense to play nice, Paula thought.

  ‘Sure. ReMIT isn’t going to work unless we pull together. I’ll call Fielding and as soon as the interview file hits the system, I’ll ping it across to you. Talk later.’

  And she was gone. Not exactly best mates, but self-interest had at least given it a start. Maybe Paula should have paired up with Sophie on the team-building day, but she’d put friendship first. She knew Stacey would struggle out in the depths of the countryside so she’d gone for standing by her pal rather than forging links with the new girl. Really, there had been nothing about that disastrous day that had been worthwhile.

  It took the best part of an hour for the initial interview notes to arrive in Paula’s inbox. She’d passed the time with a coffee in the village pub in Bradesden, a former working men’s drinking den that had been transformed into a bijou gastropub. A handful of hardbitten hacks were wolfing down assorted gourmet pies with truffle mash and roast vegetables, none of them paying her any attention as they vied loudly to share the most scurrilous piece of gossip about colleagues and rivals.

  The initial interview had been conducted by a DC whose name she didn’t recognise. It seemed pretty cursory, but then it had only been a preliminary chat, done before anyone had had a sense of the scale of what they were dealing with. All the basic details were there – Jerome ‘Jezza’ Martinu, native of Bradfield, thirty-seven. Started work at the Blessed Pearl twenty years ago as assistant to the groundsman and handyman, took over when the old man retired sixteen years ago. Bought his cottage and garden when the convent was being closed, leased another strip of land for his vegetables. Yes, he’d dug graves at the behest of the nuns, thought nothing of it. The girls were orphans, nobody claimed their bodies. Nothing suspicious about that.

  The officer had concluded Jezza was a bit simple. Paula had had enough dealings with killers to wonder who the simple one really was.

  The single truly useful piece of information from the interview was that Martinu’s property had a back gate into the lane behind the convent. If she approached from the opposite direction, she would miss the press pack that she was sure would be all but blocking the lane. More to the point, she’d bypass Fielding and her team.

  The last mile from the main road was a narrow lane that twisted between towering hedgerows, the verges overgrown and unkempt. In the distance, Paula could see the dark line of the high moors rising against a bruised sky full of the rain that was falling on Bradesden too. On a fine day, it must convince the village dwellers that they really had made the escape to the country.

  As she’d expected, there was a uniformed constable in a high-vis jacket stationed at the double wooden doors in the wall, looking miserable in the thin drizzle that had set in. Paula pulled up on the verge in front of the liveried police car and collected the cardboard cup of mocha that she’d brought from the pub. She identified herself and explained why she was there.

  ‘I’m not supposed to let anyone in this way,’ the PC said, sounding as bored and mutinous as she looked.

  ‘I’m with ReMIT,’ Paula said. ‘Not the Daily Mirror. I’m here to conduct an interview, that’s all. I’m trying to avoid the circus out front.’ She grinned. ‘I have a bribe.’ She proffered the cup. ‘Mocha. Nice and hot.’

  At once, the PC thawed. She took the cup and stepped aside. ‘Be my guest, Inspector.’ Then she frowned. ‘You OK on your own? He’s a big bloke.’

  Paula hesitated for a moment. ‘I’ll be fine.’ She patted her pocket. ‘I’ve got my Airwave handy if he turns out to be a bit of a handful. Plenty of support at hand.’

  The gate gave on to a short rutted track through the tall hedge that lined the grounds then opened out into a neat back garden with a fruit cage along one border and a substantial shed opposite. The cottage itself was squat and unprepossessing but well-maintained. Paula walked down the gravel path and knocked on the back door. She heard footsteps approaching. Boots on flagstones, by the sound of it.

  The man who opened the door looked like he’d have no trouble toting bodies around the parkland. He was stocky, muscle rather than fat revealed by a snug Bradfield Vics replica top. His thick dark hair, clean and glossy, showed the remains of a decent haircut. A couple of days’ stubble blurred his strong jaw and heavy brows formed a ledge above his broad face. He frowned. ‘Are you another cop?’

  Paula flashed her ID. ‘Detective Inspector McIntyre,’ she said. ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘I’ve already spoken to two of you. How many more times do I have to go over the same ground?’ He spoke mildly, without aggression, his Bradfield accent obvious.

  ‘Not quite the same ground,’ Paula said. ‘The more we dig up, the more we need to ask you about.’

  Wariness crept over his face. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Why don’t I come inside and we can talk out of the rain?’

  He gave a quick, sly grin. ‘I’m not in the rain.’

  ‘If I’d been digging graves for little girls, I’d be going out of my way to be nice to police officers.’ Paula smiled.

  ‘Look, I already told you people. I’ve no idea what went on inside the convent. I did what the Reverend Mother told me to do. Mow the lawns. Grow the veget
ables. Drains and gutters. And when one of the girls died, make sure they had a proper grave. I’ve got nothing else to say.’ He folded his arms across his chest.

  ‘You’ve not been out this afternoon, then?’

  ‘No. Because I can’t get any work done with you people crawling all over the grounds. Why? What am I supposed to have done?’ Now he looked defiant. It was, Paula knew, the ugly twin of fear. Something she could capitalise on.

  ‘Are you going to let me in? Or are we going to have to have this conversation at a police station?’ She leaned in. ‘What’s it to be, Jezza? Because you can bet your last pay cheque I’ll be driving past the press posse if I’ve got you in the back of a police car.’

  He shook his head, blowing air into his cheeks in an unconvincing display of exasperation. ‘Come in, then. I’ve got nothing to hide. There’s no cause to drag me down the nick.’

  She followed him into a stone-flagged kitchen, neat and clean. The dish drainer held a bowl and plate, a kitchen knife, spoon and fork in the cutlery section. Four chairs were tucked under a spotless pine table; the kettle and toaster gleamed on the work surface. On the stove, a battered pressure cooker squatted, out of place in the overly tidy room. He pulled out a chair and sat down, big hands clasped on the table in front of him.

  Paula chose a chair at right angles to him. If she wasn’t happy with his responses there would be plenty of opportunity for the head-on confrontational position. For now, she wanted to get a sense of what was going on behind Martinu’s front. Because it was a front, she was sure of that. Not for the first time, she wished Tony was part of the team. She was good at interviews, but it was always helpful to have somebody else involved who had a different style. ‘We’ve found the other bodies,’ she said.

  He frowned. ‘What other bodies?’

  Paula chuckled. ‘You’re going to have to do better than that, Jezza, You know what other bodies. You’re the man who digs the graves round here.’

  ‘You mean the ones in the cemetery? The nuns?’ Eyes innocent, the way every amateur had learned from bad Hollywood movies.

  Paula shook her head. ‘The time for playing dumb is over. What you missed this afternoon is the cadaver dog earning its keep. You know what a cadaver dog is? It’s a specially trained dog that can nose out dead bodies. Even when they’ve been buried for a long time. Even when they’ve been buried good and deep. I’m not talking about the cemetery, Jezza, I’m talking about the bodies at the bottom of your raised beds. Oh, and the couple of other ones underneath your vegetable patch.’

  His eyes glazed over. He stared straight ahead, unblinking. Then a flurry of fast eye movements, flicking from side to side and his eyelids fluttered like the wings of a moth. ‘It’s nothing to do with me.’ It sounded as if he couldn’t even convince himself.

  ‘You’re the gravedigger around here, Jezza. Do you seriously expect me to believe there were two of you at it? And that the other one just happened to choose burial sites under the very places you were growing your vegetables? I bet you win first prize at the village show every year, with all that fertiliser feeding your soil.’

  He pushed back from the table, the chair legs screaming against the stone. ‘I just did what I was told. It’s my job.’

  Time to press harder. She sensed he was close to cracking. ‘Are you saying the nuns asked you to dig a whole other set of graves? Because we already know these aren’t girls from the children’s home. Are you trying to tell me you had a bunch of homicidal nuns here? Or was it just one serial killer nun?’

  ‘You’ve got it all wrong,’ he shouted. He crossed his arms, clutching his shoulders in a tight embrace.

  ‘So it wasn’t the nuns? Was it you, then, Jezza? Are you the serial killer?’

  He stood up, backing away. ‘I never killed anybody. I just did my job, I swear. You’re not going to pin this on me.’

  Paula got to her feet. She hadn’t expected this to go so far so fast. ‘Give me one good reason why I should believe you, Jezza.’

  31

  The greatest handicap in profiling is the same as it is for any investigator – we need full disclosure of the evidence, however insignificant a particular element might seem.

  From Reading Crimes by DR TONY HILL

  Before the day was out, Carol was reminded of Bronwen Scott’s perennial refusal to take no for an answer. Her phone had rung while she was working her way through the background reading on Saul Neilson. As soon as Carol had answered, Bronwen had launched straight into her pitch. ‘I thought it would be good for you to meet some of the other people involved in the project, so I invited a couple of the girls around for this evening. We’ve got a little office at the university, courtesy of our DNA expert, Kit Salvesen, but I thought it would be good to meet more informally. So, my place, half past seven. I’ll text you the details. You can park in one of the guest spaces under the building.’

  ‘I can’t make it tonight, I’ve got something else on.’

  ‘You can’t postpone it?’ Bronwen sounded astonished. ‘Email me your availability, then, we’ll sort out another time.’

  ‘I’m not sure I—’ But it was too late. The line was dead. Bloody woman. But in spite of her irritation with Bronwen, now she’d had the chance to drill down into the file Carol had to acknowledge she was intrigued by the slenderness of the case against Saul Neilson. According to Lyle Tate’s phone records and the text messages on the phone the police had recovered from Neilson’s flat, Sugar Lyle – as he was known – had been summoned there eight times in the six months leading up to his disappearance and presumed death. That was the first brick in the shaky wall.

  One evening, he’d told his flatmate he was going to see a regular who liked it ‘full on’. A bit rough, though he paid well. Sugar Lyle never returned to his flat. Second brick.

  The flatmate, a fellow sex worker, reported him missing two days later. The investigation had been fairly desultory at first. Lyle was an adult, he lived on the margins, he had no real ties to the flat or the area. It wasn’t hard to make the case that someone might have made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. For all the police knew, Sugar Lyle was sunning himself in Ibiza with a sugar daddy. They’d found a notebook in his bedroom that listed the names and addresses of his clients along with the dates he’d been with them. That eventually took them to Saul Neilson, who was clearly freaked out by their visit. At first he denied ever having met Lyle Tate or having heard of him, but faced with the evidence of Tate’s list, he capitulated. A palpable lie always added an extra course of bricks to the wall of evidence.

  One of the officers found the twitchiness of his reaction suspicious. She knew nothing of Neilson’s closeted state; she assumed his panic was to do with what had happened with Lyle Tate rather than fear of his parents finding out he’d been paying for sex with a male prostitute. So she’d asked to use the bathroom and had a good look around while she was in there. And behind the pedestal of the sink, she spotted what looked like a streak of blood.

  She said nothing at the time but as soon as they’d left, she was on to her DCI, suggesting they should get a warrant for Saul Neilson’s flat. It was the last place Lyle Tate was known to have been, Neilson had lied about him, and there was blood in the bathroom. It was thin, but cops always knew which magistrates to go to when they wanted a warrant based on thin.

  The forensic techs did their thing with different coloured lights and found a substantial amount of blood spatter traces that had been cleaned up in the bathroom. There was evidence of a spray of blood on the laminate wood floor of the living room too. Because Lyle Tate was no stranger to selling sex and buying drugs, his DNA was on the database. It was a match with the smear of blood behind the sink pedestal.

  And Lyle Tate was still missing. Nobody had seen him since he’d gone to Saul Neilson’s for sex. A more thorough search of his room revealed that he’d left his passport, his driving licence, three wraps of cocaine and £735 in cash in the zipped pocket of the backpack in the bottom of
his clothes cupboard. So he obviously hadn’t been planning to go anywhere other than his next job. He was a potential threat to Saul Neilson’s lovely life. And his blood was all over the flat. Well, in the bathroom and the living room. You’d have to stand on tiptoe to see over the wall now, even if it was highly circumstantial.

  Neilson’s version of events was that they’d been wrestling on the living room floor. Foreplay masquerading as horseplay. Or vice versa, depending on how you looked at it. Either way, it wasn’t Carol’s idea of a good time. But then, it had been so long since she’d had any sort of a good time, who was she to judge?

  Neilson had accidentally whacked Tate with his elbow. Blood sprayed out from his nose, landing on the wood floor. Neilson had helped him through to the bathroom and it had taken a few minutes to stop the bleeding. They’d taken cocaine together earlier in the evening, so Tate’s blood pressure would have been elevated and the flow more aggressive. He’d freaked out, according to Neilson. He’d kept shaking his head, so there were drops of blood everywhere. Finally the bleeding had stopped and Neilson had put an ice pack on Tate’s swollen nose. They hadn’t felt like sex after that drama, so they’d just had a couple of beers and watched some TV. Then Neilson had paid Tate as usual and he’d left.

  It was plausible, Carol thought. It was also the kind of plausible a smart man could concoct to cover something much more sinister. It was highly circumstantial, but the blood spatter expert had testified that the blood was surprisingly widely distributed for a simple nosebleed. In her opinion, it corresponded to a much more serious injury.

  And there was the inconvenient fact that nobody had seen Lyle Tate since.

  After two days of deliberation the jury had decided by a majority of ten against two that Saul Neilson was guilty of manslaughter. Carol thought it was a borderline decision, based on the evidence alone. When you added Saul Neilson’s background to the scales, she’d have expected him to walk. Never in trouble with the police, strong family background, good job. What had happened in the courtroom to tip the balance against him? Why had the jury condemned Mr Respectable?