‘Of course I did. But he didn’t spend any time with her, Alvin. He spent weeks getting alongside her, lulling her into a sense of false security. If this was about sex, he’d have kept her for days. Alive or dead, depending on his tastes. He wouldn’t have got rid of her in the time scale we’re talking about here.’
Ambrose gave Tony the look reserved for madmen and weirdos. ‘Maybe he panicked. Maybe the reality was way more extreme than he’d fantasised about. Maybe he just wanted rid.’
It was a possibility Tony had considered as he’d been dropping off to sleep. And he’d dismissed it almost immediately. ‘If that had been the case, he wouldn’t have taken the time and trouble to perform the mutilation. He’d just have killed her and dumped her. Believe me, Alvin, this crime is not about sex.’
‘So what is it about, then?’ Ambrose’s jaw set in a stubborn line, muscles tight, lower lip jutting.
Tony sighed. ‘Like I said. That’s what I don’t know yet. I can’t read it at this point.’
‘So you know what it’s not, but you can’t tell us what it is? Help me out here, Doc. How is this supposed to help us?’ Ambrose sounded angry again. Tony understood why. They’d hoped he’d wave a magic wand and make things better but, so far, all he’d done was create more problems.
‘At least it stops you wasting time in the wrong places. Like your local sex offenders. That’s not who you’re looking for here.’
‘So when will you have a profile that might help us find out who we are looking for?’
‘Soon. Later today, hopefully. I’m hoping Claire will help me understand Jennifer better. Maybe then I can get a sense of what might have motivated someone to kill her. The victim’s always the key, Alvin. One way or another.’
DC Sam Evans was glad to be back in what he regarded as fully fledged civilisation. A place where coffee and bacon butties were possible, where it never got truly dark and where there was always somewhere to shelter from the rain. It didn’t hurt that he’d had the rare pleasure of leaving everybody at the morning briefing gobsmacked.
The only problem now was following up on the small bombshell of the extra body in the lake. He had to walk a tightrope here. While he was waiting for the forensic team to come up with some leads, he had to make it look as if he was busy. If she thought he was twiddling his thumbs, Carol Jordan would reassign him to some donkey work on the live caseload. And if he was out of the office when the forensic evidence came in, someone else could pinch the case from under his nose and nick the glory. And that was something he wasn’t prepared to put up with.
Sam took out his notebook and flicked back a couple of pages, looking for the number of the Cumbrian DI he was supposed to be liaising with. He was about to call him when his mobile rang. He didn’t recognise the number. ‘Hello?’ he said, never willing to give anything away for free.
‘Is that DC Evans?’ It was a woman. She sounded brisk, youngish, confident.
‘Speaking.’
‘Are you the officer who emailed me a set of dental records?’
‘That’s right.’ CID had obtained a set of records from Danuta Barnes’s dentist back when she’d first gone missing and at the suggestion of one of the Cumbrian cops, Sam had forwarded it to the University of Northern England at Carlisle.
‘Good. I’m Dr Wilde, forensic anthropologist at UNEC. I’ve been taking a look at the remains from Wastwater. I’m not done yet, but I thought you’d appreciate an update.’
‘Anything you can give me,’ Sam said. Thank you, God.
‘Well, the good news, depending on your perspective, I suppose, is that the dental records match the smaller adult skeleton, which I am pretty certain is that of a woman aged between twenty-five and forty.’
‘She was thirty-one,’ Sam said. ‘Her name was Danuta Barnes.’
‘Thank you. I’ve got my students working up DNA for all three sets of remains. We should be able to establish whether she’s the mother of the child. Who is aged between four and six months, I’d estimate,’ Dr Wilde continued.
‘Lynette. Five months,’ Sam said. He’d been struck by the pitifully small bundle sandwiched between the two larger ones. He wasn’t given to sentiment, but even the hardest heart couldn’t avoid being touched by so early and unnecessary a death.
Dr Wilde sighed. ‘Hardly a life at all. Not much of an epitaph, is it? “Lived for five months: made a great teaching aid.” Anyway, as soon as I can confirm that connection, I’ll let you know.’
‘Appreciate it. Anything you can tell me about the other body?’ Not that he was expecting much from a bag of bones and some slurry whose components he didn’t want to think too much about.
Dr Wilde chuckled. ‘You’d be amazed. For example, I can tell you his name was Harry Sim, and he died some time after June 1993.’
Sam was thrown for a second. Then he laughed. ‘What was it? Credit card or driving licence?’
She sounded disappointed. ‘Smarter than the average DC,’ she said in a cod American accent.
‘I like to think so. Which was it, then?’
‘Credit card. A Mastercard that ran from June 1993 to May 1997 in the name of Harry Sim. That should give you something to chase. I hope you’re pleased.’
‘You have no idea,’ Sam said with heavy emphasis. ‘Will you be checking his DNA against the kid as well?’
‘Oh yes,’ Dr Wilde said. ‘It’s a wise child who knows its father.’
‘Anything on cause of death?’
‘They make them greedy down Bradfield way,’ she said, not so amused now. ‘Impossible to say at this point. No obvious trauma to any bones, so probably not shot, strangled or battered with a blunt instrument. Could have been poisoned, asphyxiated. Could have been natural causes, but I doubt it. I suspect we’ll never be able to establish a cause of death. If you’re hoping for a murder charge, you might have to settle for circumstantial evidence.’
That was never good news. But he had no grounds for whining about it, given how much Dr Wilde had already given him. Who knew what he’d find when he started unpeeling the layers of Harry Sim’s life and mysterious death? He thanked Dr Wilde and hung up, already knowing the next stop on his journey.
CHAPTER 24
The only time Carol ever minded being driven was when she was en route to crime scenes with bodies at their centre. Even with the most competent of chauffeurs, which Kevin undeniably was, the journey invariably seemed interminable. Her mind raced ahead, wanted to be there at the scene, calculating what would need to be done. It didn’t matter that the victim was beyond the constraints of time. Carol was determined not to keep them waiting.
Kevin turned on to a narrow moorland road, the twisting turns forcing him to lower his speed. Carol looked around her. Her earlier visit to Vanessa had brought her near here earlier this morning. Although this landscape had been used as a burial site in the past, most notably by Brady and Hindley, the Moors murderers, it had never crossed her mind then that she might be passing the place where Seth Viner’s killer had chosen to dump him.
‘He likes isolation, this killer,’ she said, hanging on to the grab handle as Kevin threw them round another bend.
‘You think he’s local?’
‘Depends what you mean by local,’ Carol said. ‘A quarter of the population of the UK is within an hour’s drive of the Peak District National Park. We’re not that far north of there. This place looks empty, but it’s a huge recreational area. Walkers, runners - like the ones who found the body - picnickers, orienteers, bikers with their stupid road races, people out for a drive on Sunday . . . There’s a lot of legitimate reasons for knowing the moors quite well.’