Never Forget (25 page)

F
ollowing a late night waiting up for Bill to finish work and call me, I returned to work to see what it held in store for me. The Incident Room was already filling up with DCs drinking tea and logging on to computers. I said hello to those around me and took myself off to find a desk.

No sooner had I sat down and entered my password to gain entry to HOLMES than I was approached by Catherine. ‘Nina,’ she said, ‘can you go and see Eric in his office? He said it was important.’

‘Yeah, sure,’ I said.

‘Wait a minute.’ She pointed at my computer screen, just coming to life with the words ‘Home Office Large Major Enquiry System’. ‘Don’t leave that unlocked.’

Thinking I was about to get my knuckles rapped for security reasons, I hastened to lock the keyboard. ‘Sorry, Catherine, I wasn’t thinking,’ I said.

‘No, it’s not that, see. There are some very juvenile people around here. Did the same thing last week. Went for a pee and in my absence someone sent three emails from my computer. Apparently I can’t stop thinking about the DCI in his Mr Tickle socks, I want to run away with the fella who fixes the photocopier and I would like nothing more than for Kim Cotton to slather me all over in chocolate. I’m supposed to be on a bloody diet.’

‘Right. Thanks for the warning.’

‘It’s the stress of it all. It gets to them.’ She fluttered her hands in the direction of the desks at no one in particular.

Having locked my terminal, I went to find the DCI, who was sitting in the office opposite the superintendent’s. Nottingham had been forced to find another office, as the superintendent had returned from the Caribbean early and was rumoured not to be amused with events. His door was shut; Nottingham’s was open.

‘Morning, sir,’ I said to Nottingham from the doorway.

‘Morning, Nina. Come in and shut the door.’

That wasn’t a good start. I’d been thinking since Catherine had told me the DCI wanted to see me whether I should start with an apology about the children’s home or just play dumb. I technically hadn’t done anything wrong, I’d just gone with the investigation. I wanted to stay on the enquiry more than ever now.

As I closed the door, I tried to arrange my facial features so they wouldn’t betray how on edge I was feeling. I allowed myself to smile at him, a smile that hopefully oozed ‘trust me, I’m a capable detective’, rather than a maniacal grin that shouted ‘I’m mentally unhinged, watch my every move’. Not sure of how I looked or what he thought, I watched his permanently neutral face.

He pointed at a chair opposite his desk. As I sat down, he said, ‘You and Laura did well in Birmingham. Was the hotel OK?’

‘If you’re a Bay City Rollers fan, it was just the ticket.’

‘That’s good. We have a briefing at 9am.’ He continued to stare straight at me, unflinching. ‘I thought that you should know that, in your absence, Mark Russell and Pierre have spoken to Carol McNamara and Jillian Spora.’

I remained perfectly still. The names meant nothing to me. I nodded, showing my interest even though I didn’t have a clue what he was telling me this for. His mobile phone on the desk in front of him started to ring. He glanced down at the display before hitting a button that put an end to the
sound. Someone walked by the office door, causing him to look over my shoulder in the direction of the corridor.

‘They were the two girls, now women of course, that Scott Headingly abducted. The ones he went to prison for.’ He let this sink in for a couple of seconds. ‘The rest of the team needs to be updated on what they’ve said. Come to the briefing by all means, but if you want to give it a miss Danny’s a bit behind on CCTV, you can help him.’

Not bloody likely, I thought. I did appreciate the
heads-up
on the content of what I was going to hear, though. I’d sit, listen, take notes, ask questions and carry on as always. It was a matter of behaving as if everything was normal. There was so much I’d missed while I’d been away. I knew how important it was to get back into the enquiry and make myself pivotal.

‘That’s very kind, boss, but I would like to attend. I have a couple of things to add and don’t want to lumber Laura with everything.’ I made to get up.

‘I understand. There is one other thing. You’ve probably not been told that Jake Lloyd said in his interview that the children’s clothing we recovered from his cellar came from his work: they’d been made by a costume department at his request when he was working on a drama. We’ve also had an update from the forensic lab.’ He paused again but this time he didn’t need to let the information sink in; he had my undivided attention. Lloyd was even more twisted than I’d imagined. ‘I’ll let you read the report. Get a copy from Catherine. The traces of blood on the children’s clothing aren’t a match for your blood.’

I took this in, feeling an enormous wave of relief from both bits of information, but thinking there was more to come. I wasn’t wrong.

‘There was also a small amount of blood on a man’s shirt. That has been identified as your blood. I’m sorry, Nina, it’s very difficult to age blood so there is no way of knowing with any degree of accuracy how old the blood is. Speak to
the forensic scientist who carried out the examinations. Her name’s Freya Forbes. She can explain it fully when you’ve read her report.’ Nottingham looked beyond me again to the corridor. Perhaps he was hoping someone would interrupt us and end this uncomfortable conversation. No one came to his assistance and I didn’t feel like helping him out today.

All I managed to say was, ‘DNA?’

‘We’ve tested for your DNA. That wasn’t…’ He cleared his throat and looked down at his mobile again, fiddled with the perfect knot on his tie. ‘That wasn’t the difficult part. You’re a police officer so your DNA is on the National Database. That was how we were able to match your DNA to the shirt. Apart from blood, the lab looked at contact fibres, hairs. They found a hair belonging to Jake Lloyd on one of the items.’

I decided it was best if I thought that this was good news. ‘That’s a good piece of evidence, then.’ My mouth had gone very dry. It felt as though my top lip couldn’t find it within itself to meet my bottom lip. I forced my mouth shut to stop myself saying anything else. It had got warm in the room with the door shut so I got up to leave, failing to remember having sat back down again. ‘I’ll call the scientist after the briefing,’ I said, making a move for the door.

I went the long way round to the Incident Room, deciding I wanted a couple of minutes to think about what I’d been told. Lloyd must have gone to some trouble. He’d even been to visit Henry Bastow. He’d said so himself.

I hardly dared to allow myself to register this thought. It would consume me.

I found myself wandering in the direction of the office without meaning to. I took a deep breath and went in through the door. All the seats were taken as the enquiry team were busying themselves with last-minute paperwork for the morning briefing.

Ray was once again in the centre of a small group of officers, all laughing at something he had said. ‘But that
wasn’t the best thing,’ I heard him say. ‘The funniest thing of all was that I was dreading this fella “Kong” coming back to the house because I pictured this really huge bloke. When he turned up, he was puny. I had to ask “Why do they call you Kong?” He took his shirt off and showed me his hairy back and said, “’Cos with my clothes off I look like a silverback gorilla.”…’

I made my way over to the desk I’d left my stuff on. Grabbing my notes, I headed to the conference room but was stopped by Wingsy halfway along the corridor.

‘Hello, duchess. You OK?’ he asked.

‘Great.’ I gave him a smile. ‘Off to get a good seat early. How are you getting on with Birdsall? Heard we’re going for extra time from the Magistrates’ Court to keep him in.’

‘Listen…’ He leaned in towards me. ‘They’re gonna talk about the two kidnapped girls this morning.’ He said it in an almost comical way, talking out of the side of his mouth.

I wanted to stop myself smiling at his expression, so I did a kind of crazy half-laugh, as if it was all too much for me. Really it was to give myself time to chase the happy from my face. I didn’t want him to think I found this at all funny. ‘Thanks for the warning, but Nottingham told me a few minutes ago. He said I could sit this one out but I want to stay. I like it here. I like this enquiry.’

‘Alright,’ he said, backing away in the direction of the Incident Room, ‘but I’m keeping an eye on you.’

‘Yeah, right. I know. Keep ’em peeled.’

I went and took my seat. Waited for the information barrage to begin.

Several minutes later, once more the packed conference room held everyone on the enquiry, from the DCI as senior investigating officer to the Incident Room HOLMES staff and many in between. A slight buzz in my head forced me to concentrate more than usual. I was still tired from the trip. I promised myself I would take some headache tablets as soon as we were finished.

‘Morning, everyone,’ said Nottingham from the top of the table. ‘Once again, lots to get through.’ He straightened his papers while he spoke, before opening his notebook and writing the date at the top of the page. ‘Before I start with Birdsall, I can confirm that I have declared Benjamin Makepeace a suspect following Nina and Laura’s good work in Birmingham, discovering the existence of his passport. More on him later. Now I want to concentrate on Birdsall, as he’s in custody. The interviews are carrying on today. We had a summary late last night. He’s talking and, so far, we seem to have nothing on him linking him directly to the scenes. We’re waiting for forensic results to come back.

‘Once his twenty-four hours’ detention period is up later on today, we’re going for a twelve-hour Superintendent’s Extension which will expire late tonight. The likelihood is that we’re going for a Warrant of Further Detention at the Magistrates’ Court, so that needs to be done today. That will also eat the custody time up. My main reasons are that, even though we have two other suspects, Spencer and now Makepeace, plus little directly linking Birdsall to the murders, we can’t get what we need in a day and a half. Firstly there’s Birdsall’s association many years ago with two of the victims, plus association with the cousin of one of them; he’s lied to us about his recent whereabouts and there’s a great deal to put to him surrounding the three victims around the times of their deaths. I’ve justified my reasons, but, even though we had enough to nick him, there’s not enough to charge. We need to do a vast amount of work before we even contemplate releasing him.

‘We’re using up the custody time so Wingsy and Danny may get more out of him this morning and we’ll go to court later on today. Kim’s going to speak to the clerk of the Magistrates’ Court this morning and pave the way.’

Nottingham leaned back in his chair, palms up and surveyed those in the room. ‘Anyone have any other ideas?’

A few heads shook but no one said anything.

‘Anyone disagree or want to give me something I’ve missed?’ he said.

Mark Russell was the first to speak. ‘What sort of timescale are we talking for forensics and what’s been sent, sir?’

Nottingham sought out Karen Pickering, a civilian police employee who was handling the exhibits from the enquiry. I’d had little to do with her but I’d heard her chatting in the office and knew her name. I had to see her about the stuff we’d brought back from Birmingham, to ensure we recorded who’d had it and when for continuity purposes.

‘Not much has gone off at the moment, Mark,’ she answered him, peering around another officer, who had been blocking her view slightly. ‘We sent some shoes off that possibly had blood on them and Birdsall had a zip-up jacket with what looked like hair in the bottom of the zip. Don’t know how that got jammed in the waistband area.’

That caused a juvenile snigger from those in the room. Even Nottingham smiled.

‘Oh, and it doesn’t look like it’s Belinda Cook’s hair. It’s the wrong colour,’ continued Karen. ‘Birdsall had no precons so we’ve sent his DNA to the lab and have kept his hair, blood, etc. here in the freezer. Belinda Cook consented to give her DNA as well. Understand she was more of a problem than the prisoner.’

I saw Mark roll his eyes. Clearly Belinda’s patience with the police was all used up.

‘I sent it all on a premium service,’ said Nottingham. ‘It’s going to cost thousands but there you go. If he’s not our offender, we need to rule him out and be ready when the other two come in. Wingsy and Danny are cracking on with the interview this morning.’

He glanced at his watch before continuing.

‘Right, let’s move on to telephony. We’ve had masses of phone work completed, some in quick time and some not so. We’ve had trouble locating all the phones and numbers of our three victims but we’re building up a very clear picture, via
the work of the analyst, of who called whom, at what time, and where they were when they made and received calls.’ He looked around the room at the assembled crowd, squeezing in for space around the table, spilling into the extremities of the room. His eyes came to rest on a young male DC. ‘Matt,’ he began. ‘You’re doing the phone work. Any significant update regarding our three victims? Let’s start with Amanda first.’

‘Sir, I’ve looked through all the numbers Amanda called, or was called by, from one month before she was last seen alive until the day her body was found,’ said Matt. I hadn’t expected him to speak with a South African accent. This sidetracked me briefly, putting me off what he was saying and making me pay more attention to how he was saying it, like listening to a TV weather girl with a lisp. Matt continued, ‘There are few numbers not accounted for. The numbers belong mostly to family, friends and the odd punter. One, however, has only recently been identified. It has been
cross-referenced
on HOLMES and the analyst has put this phone number down to Adam Spencer.’

A quick glance around the room at the faces of my team members told me that they weren’t too happy at this news. A couple of them glanced down, one or two shifted in their seats, and Mark Russell tutted and raised his eyes to the ceiling.