Shaw introduced himself to the women. The one he didn’t know in a smart blue Customs amp; Excise uniform introduced herself as Christine Pimm. Shaw might not know her face but he knew all about her — Tom Hadden had sent over her file when they were setting up the mass screening. Christine was twenty-six and worked at Stansted Airport, checking passports. She had three GCSEs, a certificate in advanced hair care and an IQ of 122. Pretty quickly it had become clear she had a genius for her job. In April 2007 she’d recognized a terrorist posing as an academic en route to an international conference at Cambridge University. Sadik al Habib was listed as the US’s sixth most wanted target — the Jack of Spades in the pack. She’d routinely memorized his face from a circular she’d seen a month before he’d stood in front of her, checking his mobile phone. He’d had minor cosmetic surgery, no beard, a pair of heavy black-rimmed glasses and false teeth. But she’d still recognized him.
Shaw shook her hand, realizing that she was one of the few people in the world who shared his own obsession with the human face. The difference was that he’d had to learn his skills while hers appeared innate. She was here for a very simple reason: if the killer really was amongst the men called to the mass screening then there was one high-risk option he could take to evade capture: he could send someone else to give the DNA sample. Christine Pimm’s job was simple: check documents, match faces to documents and be a hundred per cent sure they had the right person on the day.
The other woman was Tom Hadden’s deputy as head of CSI, Dr Elizabeth Price, dressed in a crisp white SOC suit. Dr Price was sixty and would never get the top job, due to a burning lack of ambition and an unhealthy zeal for her real passion in life — teaching promising young pianists how to play Bach. Shaw liked her: she was efficient, cheerful — joyful, even. She was living proof the job didn’t inevitably lead to a cynical world view.
‘So how does this work?’ he asked, accepting a coffee from Dr Price’s thermos flask. She’d brought a little stack of six plastic coffee cups — a typically thoughtful gesture. Shaw had left the on-the-day detail of the DNA sampling to the CSI unit, so he wanted to know what was happening. Hadden had been involved in a similar operation to catch a golf course rapist in Hertfordshire in the nineties. On that occasion they’d taken nearly 12,000 DNA samples before catching the culprit, but catch the culprit they had.
‘Well, it’s pretty simple,’ said Dr Price. ‘As you know each of the seventy-four holidaymakers taken off East Hills in 1994 — those still alive — was visited by the police and invited to attend. Early slots went to locals — those in East Anglia. Most are travelling from London, East Midlands, a family from Scotland. They can all claim for travel expenses. The women are re-interviewed and invited to make new statements if they wish. The men start with Catherine here, who makes sure they are who they say they are. We take a DNA sample. All thirty-five male DNA samples — that’s thirty from today, plus the five taken from close relatives of those who have died — will be taken by courier to the FSS laboratories in Birmingham after lunch, first batch, then late tonight, final batch. A twin set of matching samples will be kept at St James. If a case comes to court it will be these samples, the ones we don’t send to the FSS, which will be tested again and will underpin any conviction. The FSS should complete the whole mass screening in under forty-eight hours — they run a 365-day 24/7 operation. All samples will be checked against the East Hills sample — Sample X, which is already on the National DNA Database and has never triggered a match, so we know our killer hasn’t given a sample before.’
It was a clear and confident summary, thought Shaw, but he knew that if they did get someone into court the first thing any defence lawyer would attack would be the DNA evidence. ‘Matching’ DNA samples involved scientists making judgements on probabilities. It only took a moment of doubt in the witness box to destroy a case. If they did identify their killer through the mass screening they’d still have to provide evidence of opportunity, not to mention motive, but at least they’d have a name, which would give them a fighting chance of getting the rest, and securing a conviction.
Shaw sipped coffee as Dr Price explained the rest of the procedure. After they’d got the DNA samples the men would be invited to join the women for interview, to reread their original statements and give new ones if they wished. Giving them this option was a barely disguised trap. If one of the suspects did alter their statement — perhaps to include the possibility that they’d talked to the victim — then it was, probably, an attempt to undermine any potential DNA link. They would later no doubt argue that their DNA had innocently come in contact with the victim’s own skin, or the towel. But by changing the statement they would be alerting the police and inviting the closest of scrutiny. Shaw had juggled the pros and cons in his own mind and come to a clear decision: if he was the killer he’d rewrite his statement, blur the DNA link, and hope the police had no other evidence.
Shaw checked his watch. The first batch of six suspects — due at eight — were already being processed. Three men were giving DNA samples, three women rereading their original statements. Dr Price said they’d had one call on the emergency line they’d set up for the mass screening: an elderly woman now living in Norwich said she couldn’t make it due to an acute attack of shingles. She was housebound on doctor’s orders so they’d despatched a team with her original statement. Otherwise everything was running like clockwork. If they had a ‘no-show’ they had instructions to alert one of Shaw’s team immediately.
‘You think that might happen?’ asked Dr Price. She hugged herself, suddenly vulnerable to the excitement around her. He could see that what this woman had in part, which he lacked completely, was an ability to detach herself from what was going on around her. She was a professional, here to do her job, and that was all.
‘Maybe,’ said Shaw. He’d always thought failing to turn up was the least smart option open to the killer. But if someone panicked it was still a possibility, probably followed by an attempt to disappear. That was Valentine’s favoured option. His view of the criminal mind always shaded towards the chaotic, the visceral — cock-up over conspiracy.
Out in the main yard Valentine got on the mobile to check on the inquiry’s progress up at The Circle where the incident room was now in place outside Marianne Osbourne’s house. Shaw checked out the Portacabins then went back into The Ark, pushing through the doors into the chapel itself. It was a building he liked — the space still redolent of prayer and clarity. His own religious beliefs were insubstantial. He felt a life spent in pursuit of divine insight was a life wasted. It had been a point of friction with Lena and her family, who had been brought up as Catholics and still kept the faith, however intermittently. Occasionally Lena had managed to suggest, subtly, that Shaw’s inability to float free of the world of work was in some ways a symptom of his lack of faith. Shaw thought it was due to lack of time. But none of that meant he lacked any concept of the spirit. He loved churches and the feeling he got that they radiated a kind of compressed devotion. If he’d been alone now he’d have sat for a while and enjoyed that sense of place. Sun streamed through the original green glass of the narrow lancet windows, splashing the interior with an eerie underwater light. Shaw always imagined that if he wanted to he could just float into this space, swim through it, rising up to join the stone angel with its hands to its face.