Authors: Rebecca Bradley
5
Huge
suction cups hung from the ceiling made effort to decrease the odours
of the mortuary, but I never liked the place. In the changing room I
thought about what we had, or rather, at this point in time, what we
didn't have. We had a dead child; no age, no name, no family.
Later today we could have a cause of death. I slipped out of the jeans
and trainers I still wore from my early morning call out and shoved
them in the allocated locker, pulled on the usual green protective garb
and entered the Queen's Medical Centre mortuary.
The
room was all grey metal with white tiles that covered the floor as it
sloped towards drains. What looked like medieval instruments of torture
lay aligned on steel work surfaces along the two walls either side of
the entrance doorways. It was large and well lit with several
post-mortem tables in the centre. Already laid out on a table, prepared
by the mortuary technician, Paul Marchant, was our girl. Paul was stood
to the side talking to Doug, who was here to visually record the
post-mortem. Jack had agreed to this. Though the more people he had
under his feet, the tetchier he got, he understood the need to do
everything we could to identify the child and bring her killer to
justice. And the PM being recorded was another of our tools in the
investigation. Paul's persistent smoker's cough was like a staccato
bass underlying the atmosphere of the clinical room.
Jack
pushed his way in through the plastic swing doors followed by Sally who
still sported the pallor from earlier. She refused to catch my eye as
pleasantries were exchanged.
Seeing
the girl's small body under such bright unforgiving light gave a fuller
picture of what she had gone through. She was covered in bruises, more
vivid than could be seen in the darkness of the alley. She seemed
smaller and more vulnerable and so, so alone.
A
short rotund woman came into the room and took dental impressions
without making conversation with anyone. Sally made sure to take her
name and details, but she had such a stern face, and I wasn't in the
mood for making new friends, so I left her to her business.
Jack
completed a body plan diagram with each mark measured and recorded
along with an appendix scar. DNA was collected for a profile and
fingerprints taken. X-Rays had already been done and were examined.
Jack peered down his nose at the images on the light box, taking in the
visual evidence.
If
I didn't know better I would have thought Sally was recovering from a
night on the tiles. She was quiet. Not even half a dozen words had
passed between us on the drive over. This concerned me. She had been on
my department for about six years and never baulked at jobs. Yet today,
she seemed to have some difficulty. As the exhibits officer it was
important for her to be focussed and in control. We couldn't take the
risk that evidence would be disallowed at a later date, so she needed
to log every single exhibit Jack created correctly. I paid close
attention to her; watching and following Jack as he worked then writing
it up. There was no clothing for her to seize as the girl had been
naked. Jack was doing all the work. As far as I could see Sally was
performing up to scratch but something was off. I made a mental note to
talk to her about it later.
The mood in the room was solemn as Jack progressed through the PM.
There
was more than an indication of sexual abuse. She also had welts around
her wrists and ankles consistent with ropes having been tied around
them. There was bruising around her neck. It wasn't the twine of a rope
though, it was wide and flat, with an intermittent pattern along the
centre. Circles maybe. As well as these, she was covered in black,
purple and yellowing bruises. Some in the process of healing. This
child had suffered over a prolonged period of time.
Jack
completed the PM, looked at me and snapped off his gloves. “My
preliminary report will read homicide by asphyxiation.” He wiped his
brow with the back of his right hand, though there were no obvious
signs of sweat gathering. “Her windpipe was crushed by what looks to be
some kind of belt. She was bound by rope around her ankles and wrists
and she has adhesive around her mouth, indicating some kind of tape was
used.” His gloves went in an evidence bag. He sealed it and signed the
label. “I'll send all swabs and the toxicology samples off today and
let you know as soon as I get any results, but you know they can't be
rushed.” Jack put the pack down on the side and looked me square on,
his age lines pinched. “I do hope you get this animal, Hannah.”
“I won't stop until I do.”
He nodded. A silent understanding.
After thanking him for his time, I told him I'd speak with him later and went to change.
Sally had left the minute she could. It's hard to take, seeing such inhuman things first hand.
As I relieved myself of mask, footwear and gown my phone rang.
“Han, it's me. I want to talk to you about the murdered girl.”
6
Entering
that mortuary, on that day, in those circumstances, Sally figured they
amounted to one of the worst days of her life so far. It was inhumane
what had happened to the child and it made her whole body ache. It took
absolutely everything she had to keep it together in there. Today
wasn't going to be the day she fell apart. She wouldn't give anyone the
satisfaction of believing she wasn't fully up to it.
She
had stood there. Staunch. Breathing as little as possible. Staring at
places that didn't involve the girl: Jack's patterned socks under his
scrubs, the huge plastic slabs for doors at the opposite end of the
room, and her own feet on as many occasions as she could get away with.
As well as the post-mortem there were the stark images on the
light-boxes, like glowing announcements of violence. The ones visible
on the child's skin not enough alone, they had to be photographed, high
definition, X-rayed and analysed. The incisions were made, the girl's
organs removed, weighed and measured. The slow decisive breakdown of
what once used to be a child, but was now a medical evidence gathering
exercise seemed to go on around her in slow motion. Her stomach
pitched, watching a girl so small be taken down to the basics of what a
human being was. Flesh and bones.
As
it rolled heavily again, she clenched her teeth. Her mind wandered to
Tom. Tom would hate this. To know she was here. She wouldn't tell him.
She had to keep the difficulties down to a minimum if she was to be
able to cope with the web of lies she was slowly weaving.
7
“Ethan, you can't call me at work like this.”
“I'm sorry Hannah, I thought you might have some time free by now. I waited a while before calling. How are you?”
I
wasn't sure he wanted to know how I was, that he wanted to hear about
the pounding head induced by red wine and lack of sleep, or that he
wanted to hear I was hurt that he had, yet again, sneaked away in the
night. “How do you think?”
“I think you must be knackered. Want me to bring a bottle round later, we can talk, wind down?”
His
answer to any emotional problem and my downfall every time. I sighed
into the handset “What do you want?” Tiredness now made it difficult to
mask how I felt. A pause.
“I heard it was a tough case, so called to see how you were?”
“I'm tired, Ethan.”
“I can imagine. Have you found out who she is? Who her parents are?”
“Seriously?
You're asking me about my case?” I couldn't do this with him. Not now.
Not stood, half out of my PM gown, with the stench of death crawling
all over me. I needed to shower and clear my head. “I'll talk to you
later.” I ended the call. I could do with someone to talk to tonight,
some comfort, but not like this, not when I didn't know who I was
getting: Ethan the bloke I was sleeping with or Ethan Gale, the
Nottingham Today
reporter.
8
Walking
back into the incident room a heaviness settled over me. Sally brought
up the rear. There was the beginnings of an awkward silence between us,
or at least from Sally, and I didn't understand it, but time was pushed
and I would have to address it when I had the chance. As of yet, there
was no problem with her work to give me cause for concern.
“Give
me something I can work with, Ross.” I said to Ross Leavy, the newest
member of the team. He was young, both in age and service and he was
always eager to please. After five year's service he had gone from
uniform, to CID and now here at Divisional Headquarters, Central Police
Station, Major Crimes Unit. A testament to his work ethic. He
pulled himself up in his chair as he started to tell me what he had.
“We're
running through the Missing Persons database, checking for female
teenagers between the ages of thirteen and nineteen years.”
“And?”
“We
have more than I expected to be honest. Too many for divisional cops to
deal with seriously when they're gone for the eleventh time and it
looks as though they're taking the piss.”
“But
they're not taking the piss are they? That girl I've seen is definitely
not taking the piss,” my voice rose. “She’s so far from taking the
piss, she's laid on the slab.” Ross looked down at his desk. I had
reacted on an emotional level. I took an intake of breath and tried
again. “Let me have the list of the current ones, Ross and I'll see
what we've got.”
He nodded “Ma'am.”
I
left him printing out sheet after sheet of paper with the awful
statistics of our current missing children and walked to the kettle
perched on top of a fridge in the corner of the office. The statistics
were bad. Front line cops were overstretched and the regular kids flew
far below their radars. Children's services were pushed. We were in a
constant battle with them about actions, responsibilities and who took
the lead on preventing further missing episodes. Kids whom it was felt
would return of their own volition were given minimal time by the cops.
The attitude was that the low risk, street wise kids were too much
trouble and time, when radios were a constant chatter in a response
cop’s ear with control room operators waiting to send them out to the
next job. The officer doing the required return home visit would be
satisfied with the fact they had seen the child home and safe and
wouldn't always push for information on where they had been, who they
had been with and what they had done, especially if the child was surly
and uncooperative. Their supervising officers often did limited checks,
enough to tick the boxes of the computerised COMPACT system software,
set up in response to some government report into a kid who didn't
return and ended up on a slab like ours.
The
kettle boiled and broke my thoughts. “Who’s for tea, coffee?” I shouted
across the rumblings of work. Several shouts of “Me!” went up and I
shook my head. They had probably sat there waiting for me to get back
and make the drinks. A senior officer making drinks is unheard of, but
tea is a weakness and I'm always refilling my cup.
With drinks made, I sat at my desk with the missing person reports Ross had printed out.
Sixteen children missing. On our division alone. And these were the
kids who had matched the wide age criteria. I knew if the child wasn't
in this pile, we would have to look wider than the city centre. The
reports were dismal to read. Each one was pretty basic on its own.
Child's name, address, age, and date, time and circumstances last seen.
Whether they had prepared by taking anything with them and also how
many times they had previously been missing. I reached out for my drink
as I let my eyes scan the information, but quickly focused on my cup as
fingers hit scalding tea. It jettisoned across my desk and left a line
of drops in its wake across the documents. “Fuck.” I looked around my
office, but had nothing to hand, so I pulled on the drawer of the
printer in the corner of my office. I yanked out a few sheets of blank
paper but they failed to mop up the tea, simply moving the watery mess
around further. I could do without this. There was so much here, so
much to get my head around.
I
binned the paper, sat back down and continued to read. It absorbed me.
All I had wanted to do was check to see if our girl was in here, but
the mess of the children's lives had caught my attention and I had sat
and I had read them all and then cross checked other police systems to
see what else was known about them and other people in their lives. It
was heavy going. A pattern emerged for some of our regular missing
kids. Alcohol issues,
boyfriends
over twenty-five for kids as young as thirteen years. Some kids
returned home with money or clothes with no explanation, as well as
jewellery and mobile phones. Secrets and lies.
Eventually
I noticed the time on the computer monitor. Three hours had passed. I
looked at the paper mountain on my desk, with lists and mind maps all
over as I'd attempted to make some sense of what I'd read. Alone, in
isolation these kids looked to be unruly and insolent, railing against
the rules of adults. Adults they only saw as being there to make their
lives miserable, when the reality was, these parents were beyond the
end of their tethers and were asking for help but being stonewalled
because their kids ticked the too difficult box. I needed to move
forward.
I
picked up the printouts I had accumulated and carried them through the
major incident room, down the dreary grey carpet-tiled corridor to the
office of Evie Small. Not only was Evie a brilliant researcher, she was
my closest friend. She always had an ear, was energetic to the extreme
and made me smile even when I thought it was no longer possible. Today
though, I needed her skills; she had the ability to search multiple
databases and absorb huge amounts of information, which she would then
use to produce some brilliant research packages and statistics to work
with. She was the darling of our working world. As I walked through her
dirty blue door, I could see she was engrossed in what she was doing as
she leaned over her keyboard, her hair a mass of spirals, hung around
her head. She heard me enter, peered up from what she was working on,
turned her head and looked over the top of her bright angular glasses,
smiling a greeting at me.
“I heard you had a tough one Hannah, how goes it?”
I
dropped onto the chair next to her and sighed. “Shit Evie. We've got
little to go on and we're waiting on a lot of results from the CSU. We
don't have an identification. DNA was taken at the PM but, again, it's
something we have to wait on and it won't automatically give us an
answer if she's not a misper or her DNA hasn't been taken. We even have
to consider she may not have been reported yet.” I ran my hands through
my hair as I spoke. “The possibles feel limitless. I've read through
some of our misper reports.” I waved the mass of paper at her. “The
lives of these kids are incredible, the way they live and survive, but
I think I became a little sucked in and got disorganised when reading
through them. Can you have a look and see if any of them could be our
victim or if there are any potentials? There's a description of her in
there somewhere that will help you. I'm not sure what I've managed to
do with it, but it's in there. If you could find potential matches I'd
be grateful.” I looked her in the eyes. “Please?”
“Grey's
got me pulling figures on the recent spate of aggravated robberies
we've had in the city centre, but I can shove them to the side for
this. Let me see what you've got.” She held out her perfectly manicured
hand, which was done in a dark purple today, and I gave her the stack
of work I had created.
“Thank you. I owe you. You know that don't you?”
“You
bet you do. Next time we're out, it's mojitos all the way for me
courtesy of a very grateful Hannah.” She grinned. I leaned forward and
wrapped my arms around her.
“Thanks Evie.”
“No
worries sweetie, I'll let you know what I get. Oh and next time you
come in; fetch coffee, not just handfuls of the rainforest!”
As
I left Evie's office I nearly collided with Sally who was walking with
her head down and pushing the palms of her hands down her jeans as
though drying them off.
“I'm
sorry.” She lifted one hand up to her chest as she jumped. Her face
looked drawn. Pale. Worried. Something was wrong, but I couldn't put my
finger on what it was. She was distracted. I needed to talk with her,
so this was as good a time as any. If I talked with her while we
walked, at least I wouldn't make any concerns obvious to the rest of
the team or make her feel singled out in front of them. Being such a
close team, it was difficult to keep doubts private or below the office
gossip radar. Every cross word, personal call or bad mood is seen,
heard and remarked on. Even well intentioned concerns voiced could make
a work day hard. I understood that.
“Are you okay?” I asked as we dropped into step beside each other.
“Yes Ma'am. Why, is something wrong with my work?”
“No,
not at all. I've noticed you seem a little off today.” We stopped and
faced each other. The office door not far away. “Not quite yourself.”
She
dropped her eyes to the floor and crossed her arms over her chest.
There was something she didn't want to tell me. If it was something the
force needed to be aware of, to protect itself and Sally, then I needed
to know what it was. I also wanted to know if I could help.
“Sally?”
She
seemed to consider her response before she opened her mouth to
speak. I could hear the chatter of the office beyond the door.
“I'm
sorry. There are a few things at home.” She raised her face as she
spoke, her eyes glistened. Swallowing hard and blinking, she dropped
her head back down.
We
all had personal lives outside work. We have to try and leave them at
the door and focus on the task at hand when we come into work. “Is
there anything you need from us? From me?”
“No. Work will do me good. It will keep me occupied. I thought it was.”
She thought she had kept her issues hidden, she meant. “Are you okay to carry on today or do you need some time?”
“I'm good.”
There was more troubling her than she wanted to let on. I would keep an eye on her.