Above Suspicion (3 page)

Henson waited till it was done, then drew back the long blonde hair to reveal a dark circular bruise congealed with dry blood.

‘I’d say it was a blunt, round-edged object, size of a ten pence piece. Once again, we have maggot infestation around the perimeter and there are eggs, so they’ll give us more to go on as to the time she’s been dead.’ Henson pulled at his mask.

Langton nodded. ‘Off the cuff, how long would you say?’

‘Bloody hard to tell. Decomposition is not that bad, but if she was left during the past month, well, we’ve had freezing weather, snow and ice, etc.,
etc.
She has very dark areas over the entire underside of her body, which indicate she’s been in this position for a considerable time. Could be a few months, or a few weeks, definitely not days.’

Henson began to prise open her fingers.

‘Nails are in good condition. Looks like I won’t get much from underneath, but we’ll check, obviously.’

Henson stood back to observe the length of the body in more detail from the pink-painted toenails to the top of the head.

‘There are no scratches, or other signs she tried to fight back. Hopefully, the crack on her temple rendered her unconscious. I’d say by looking there was vaginal and anal penetration.’

Henson indicated the girl’s vagina, his fingers brushing her skin softly. ‘You see these bruises? That indicates it was pretty brutal. We’ll take swabs, obviously, but the anus is split on two sides. Basically that’s it until we cut her open and find out more, so let’s get started, shall we?

She’s been weighed: just seven stone ten, little thing. The X-rays will be coming back to us shortly. I didn’t find anything broken, but we will get them to you anyway. There’s a small birthmark on her right shoulder, but apart from that, she is blemishless. A very pretty creature at one time.’

Langton nodded. He had not glanced in Anna’s direction once and she was thankful, as she knew her face above the white mask was about the same colour. But so was DCI Hedges’s face and she was surprised when he turned to Henson.

‘Keep me updated, I want to see if forensics get anything from her clothes.’

Hedges walked out and Anna heard Langton give a soft, derisive laugh. Henson caught it and his eyes crinkled above his mask.

‘She’s already been washed down, so we’ll get started. I just need the stabilizing block under her head.’

Henson picked up the scalpel. Leaning in closely to make the Y-incision, he cut shoulder to shoulder, meeting at the sternum and then slicing down to the abdomen and into the pelvis. When the internal organs were exposed, the stench of rotting flower stalks was overpowering. As the hiss of body fluids and gasses permeated the room, Anna took fast intakes of breath, fighting to stay upright. Her head felt fuzzy. No wonder Hedges had made his exit quickly.

Next, Henson cut through the ribs and collarbone before lifting the ribcage up and away from the girl’s internal organs. Henson removed the organs individually to weigh them. After he had taken samples of fluids in the organs, he opened the stomach and intestines to begin an examination of the contents.

Despite her fuzzy head, Anna observed that Henson’s assistants worked as a tight unit. He never had to give an order and while they were doing the weighing and blood tests, he could concentrate on the corpse’s head.

As Henson probed Melissa’s eyes, Anna’s view was obliterated. Without looking back, Henson addressed the room. ‘Well, she’d had severe haemorrhaging, which is usual for strangulation and we still have a veritable feeding frenzy in her eye-sockets. Nasty little sods.’

Anna focused her mind on trying to assimilate what he was saying, rather than looking down at the sliced-open body. Though the stomach contents had almost brought her to her knees, somehow she was still standing. Henson began the incision to lift the scalp. He sliced from behind the head, then peeled the scalp forwards over the face to expose the skull. At that point an assistant handed him a high-powered, high-speed, oscillating saw to open the skull. Next he was handed a chisel to prise off the skullcap.

So far Anna had managed to stay upright. It had seemingly become easier; the stench had mingled with antiseptic which helped. The sound of the chisel finished her off. Unable to control her retching, she only just made it to the ladies’ toilet in time. Banging past the cubicle door, she gasped for breath. She knelt over the toilet bowl and heaved. After several minutes, when she attempted to stand, her whole body was still shaking.

At the basin she ran cold water and kept splashing and dabbing her face with a paper towel, but every time she stood straight, she felt her stomach heave. The stench seemed to cling to her clothes, her hair and her hands, even though she washed and rewashed them using soap from the dispenser.

Still feeling dizzy, Anna leaned against the corridor wall and waited.

Langton eventually strode out of the morgue. ‘Dead approximately four weeks,’ he muttered to Anna and pulled off his green tunic. ‘She’d been lying there all that time.’ His mask hung by its thread. ‘It’s bloody unbelievable.’

Not waiting for her response, he continued towards the gents and disappeared inside. A moment later he emerged and gestured for her to follow him along the corridor.

‘You ever done synchronized swimming?’ he asked, still zipping up his trousers.

Anna was unsure if she had heard him correctly. ‘Sorry?’

‘They have these nose clips so they can stay underwater. They’re very useful. You clip one on and it forces you to breathe in and out with your mouth.’

‘You can also suck Mint Imperials.’ Langton turned round towards Anna once they were in the patrol car. ‘Those little round mints.’ He rested his arm along the back of the seat. ‘You get used to it; when you know what to expect, it’s easier.’ He returned his gaze to the front again.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured, embarrassed. She was at a loss what to say next, or whether there were questions she should have been asking.

The smell of the soap dispenser’s liquid, an odour like pinewood forests, was making her feel car sick. As if she didn’t have enough to contend with already. She closed her eyes, praying that she wouldn’t start retching again.

‘Sorry,’ Langton murmured as she opened a window. She noticed he had a lit cigarette in his hand. ‘Can’t smoke in the station. Well, not supposed to, anyway. Can’t smoke in most places now, so …’ He shrugged, then, inhaling deeply, leaned back on the headrest. A few moments later, somewhat out of the blue, he asked her, ‘Your mother still alive?’

‘No, she died two years before my father.’

‘Right. I remember, now. What was her name?’

‘Isabelle,’ she said, bemused.

‘Isabelle? Yes. She was very beautiful, I remember.’

She watched him flick the cigarette butt out of the window. The cool air from the open window was making her feel less nauseous. To her surprise, she found herself saying, ‘I take after my father.’

He chuckled, ‘I guess you do.’

Her father had been a heavy-set man: square-shouldered, with thick red curls. Her mother on the other hand had had olive skin and deep-black hair. She had been a stunning woman, tall and slender and very artistic; a designer. Anna had her dad’s hair, which sprouted all over rather than growing in a specific direction. She wore hers cropped short. For a redhead, she was unusually dark-skinned, unlike her pale freckly dad, and had inherited her mother’s dark eyes. She was short, also rather square, but she carried no fat; it was all muscle.

Anna had ridden horses since she was a toddler. She had won so many rosettes that she could cover herself from top to toe in red and blue ribbons. Once her dad had pinned them all over her and taken a photograph; she had only been eleven years old.

Anna’s thoughts turned towards Melissa. What had her young life been like, before she was reduced to her present state? She thought of herself at that age, then younger. She realized Langton was talking to her and she leaned forwards. ‘Sorry, sir, I missed that.’

‘The reason I force myself to go through the post mortem, to see that little soul cut to shreds, disembowelled, dehumanized, is because, somehow, it makes it easier. It steadies the anger. That prick Hedges couldn’t take it, of course. Wimp!’

He closed his eyes; conversation seemed at an end for now.

Anna followed Langton to the incident room, where he threw off his coat, took a marker and headed towards the board. He began listing the information he’d received from Henson. Without turning, he called out, ‘Jean, can you get me a chicken and bacon sandwich, no tomatoes, and a coffee.’

Jean, a thin-faced constable in uniform, was working at one of the computers. She stood up as soon as he called her name: ‘You want a Kit-Kat, or anything else?’ She didn’t look as if she suffered fools gladly.

‘No, thank you. Bacon and chicken sandwich, no tomatoes.’

Mike Lewis walked in as Langton continued to mark the board: ‘Mike, it looks like our tip-off was right.’

‘OK! We got a time of death?’

‘Not yet, but she’s been dead four weeks at least. Strangled and sexually abused. Get on to the super, tell him we have a critical incident. We’ll need a Gold Group set up; we’re in danger of losing the public’s confidence. Contact the murder review team, let them know that we are now handling the enquiry. Is Barolli back yet?’

‘Nope, but he shouldn’t be long. He went over to forensics.’

‘Gather the team together, we’ll have an update at…’ Langton glanced at his watch, then checked on the wall clock. ‘It’s already three o’clock. Fuck. Say half four?’

Everyone in the incident room, apart from Anna herself, was getting ready for the meeting. None of her training had prepared her to join an up-and-running team like this one.

‘Excuse me, sir. Is there anything you want me to concentrate on?’

Langton sighed. ‘Familiarize yourself with the case histories. Find a desk, Travis, and get started.’

He pointed to the noticeboards, then waved his hand towards a section of filing cabinets which lined one wall.

‘Right, sir.’

She tried her best to look as if she knew what she was doing, but she was at a loss as to where to start and she could not figure out the filing system. Many of the cabinets had stacks of loose files balanced on top of them.

A uniformed PC passed, carrying a tray of teacups

‘Excuse me, which is the first case file?’

‘One nearest the wall,’ answered the PC, without looking back.

When Anna opened the top drawer, she found it fully stacked with rows of files. Removing an armful, she turned to survey the room. The same PC passed by with the empty tray.

‘Erm … is there a desk I could use?’

The desk in the rear of the room was cluttered with cartons of takeaway food. The wastepaper bin beside it was overflowing with empty hamburger cartons and cold chips. Anna tidied a space for herself.

Suddenly there was a bellow. Langton was holding up his sandwich, waving it around.

‘I said it not once but twice: no fucking tomatoes, Jean!’

‘I asked them for no tomatoes.’ Jean was red-faced.

‘Well, it’s full of them! You know I hate tomatoes!’

‘Would you like me to take them out?’ Jean retorted, but Langton was already chucking them into the bin.

Anna lowered her head; she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. No one here had offered her so much as a cup of tea or coffee. Her presence seemed to go unnoticed. She located her briefcase and had just taken out new pencils and a notebook when she realized it was almost four o’clock.

Teresa Booth was forty-four when her body was found on waste-ground near the Kingston bypass. She had been a prostitute, though not from that area. Teresa worked the red-light district of Leeds for many years.

With the busy road so close, not many pedestrians used the area and the victim had been found by a boy whose scooter had broken down. Wheeling it off the busy road onto the narrow pavement, he had glimpsed a foot through the undergrowth. After scrambling up the ridge, the boy found the body. The corpse’s hands had been tied behind her back with a bra; she had been strangled with a pair of black tights. The body had remained undetected behind bushes for three to four weeks. It had taken longer - four months - to identify her. This discovery was in 1992.

The mortuary photographs were attached, with pictures of the murder site. Teresa’s face in death had a terrible, haunting ugliness. Her skin was pockmarked and she had a deep scar on one cheek. Her bleached blonde hair had black roots showing. The initials ‘TB’ on her arm appeared to have been scratched or cut and she had a faded pink heart tattooed on her right thigh. She had severe bruises to her genital area.

‘TB’ had been traced to Terence Booth, her first husband. Teresa had subsequently been married three times. Though she had three children, none of them appeared to be by any of her husbands. Two were sent to foster care at a very early age, while the youngest, a boy, had been living with her mother.

Teresa looked a lot older than her forty-four years. Hers was a sad, murky history. She was an alcoholic who had spent time in prison for persistent prostitution offences and for ‘kiting’, which meant she was caught using stolen credit cards and passing dud cheques. She was identified by her fingerprints and from her photographs.

‘Travis!’ Anna looked up. Mike Lewis was gesturing at the door for her to get a move on. She had been so engrossed, she hadn’t noticed the gradual emptying of the incident room. ‘Briefing room,’ Lewis explained before disappearing.

Anna was hurrying after him when Jean called out: ‘Don’t leave the files out, please; return them to the cabinet.’

Anna zigzagged back to the desk, where she collected the half-read file and replaced it. When she asked where the briefing room was, Jean said sharply, ‘Second door on the left, one flight down.’ As Anna exited rapidly, she could hear Jean moaning to another woman. ‘I’m sick to death of him having a go at me. It’s not my job, anyway, to go schlepping out for his lunch. They’re all bloody foreign in there, don’t understand a word you say to them; “no tomatoes” and he gets layers of them!’