Chapter 15: Chapter 15

TWENTY-NINE

‘We could do without this, with all that’s happening lately,’ Jacob said as he and Gina passed the large, flustered looking man in the garden.

‘The man said it was a hand,’ Gina replied.

Bernard’s lanky frame blocked the sunlight as he approached. He pulled down his mask, allowing some of his long grey beard to escape. ‘We beat you to it. The bad news is, the hand has been dried out, due to being exposed to the sun. We found gnaw marks on the bones from the wildlife. The good news is, if you can call any of this good, we have found the rest of the body and it wasn’t too far away. More bad news though, it is in a shallow grave, resulting in some of the limbs being missing. As you know, this happens quite a lot. The wildlife gets a whiff of death and comes looking for a meal. We have crime scene investigators searching for the rest along with the officers that arrived first.’

She gazed into the woodland and watched the CSIs in their white suits erecting a tent. ‘Is that where the grave is?’

‘Yes. The tent is to preserve the body as much as we can. It’s not a pretty sight. Both of the left limbs were taken and have since dried out as has the rest of the body. The animals in question probably caught the scent of the cadaver, dug a little,

exposing the body, leaving it out for the elements and heat, and it has been hot for a while now.’

‘Can I see?’

‘Yes, suit and boot, then head over. I’ll come with you.’ ‘Thanks.’ Gina grabbed a forensics suit, boot and hair

covers, and gloves. ‘Jacob, will you go and take statements from Bryn Tilly and Jack Dunn? Find out what they were doing here and who owns this house. Find out who’s keeping a scene log and make sure they have Bryn and Jack’s shoe sizes and prints etcetera.’

Jacob nodded. ‘Will do, guv.’

As she zipped the forensics suit up, she began the walk over to the tent, being careful to step on the plates that had been laid down.

Bernard beckoned her over. As the investigators were finishing off with the tent, Gina stood back. She could see the grave and the body. One CSI walked around with a camera, taking photos of the exhibits they’d discovered. ‘The left femur is over there, exhibit two. The radius is over there.’ He pointed into the distance.

‘They weren’t scattered too far.’ ‘Thankfully not,’ Bernard replied.

‘Right, talk me through your initial observations.’

‘I’ve had a chance to see the body close up. The hip formation shows that of a girl, I’m estimating fifteen at the youngest, possibly up to adulthood. It’s hard to tell and I’ll know more when we’ve taken her away from here and examined her properly. As you can see, she is lying on a blanket, which will also be taken away and analysed for

forensic evidence once we’ve carefully removed her bones. Look at what’s left of her hair.’

Gina leaned to the side as the crime scene photographer walked in front of her. ‘The hair looks red.’

‘Yes, pheomelanin adds the orange colour to the hair and this doesn’t break down with oxidisation. The red pigmentation has been left behind. She had shades of red in her hair.’

‘Height?’

‘Again, a good estimate. As you can see, she’s been scrunched up into that position, almost like a very compressed foetal position. She would have been buried very soon after death otherwise she’d have been too stiff to bend. Between five foot four and five foot seven. As you can see, what was once a white nightdress was pulled over her body. She is also wearing underwear. Stating the obvious, but this will also be sent to the lab for analysis. I don’t know what we’ll get from it. At least three months have passed for the body to be at this stage, could be as many as six. Given the weather patterns, extreme wintery conditions to heatwave, and the geographical location, the soil etcetera, I would say it’s more likely to be about four months. Further testing is needed, so don’t take that as exact.’

Gina nodded as she made further notes. Her gaze locked onto the grave. The girl looked as though she’d been carefully placed, dressed in a decorative white nightdress with broderie anglaise around the neckline, cuffs and hem. She had been dressed in underwear. There had been a certain amount of dignity applied in her burial suggesting that the victim may have been cared for.

‘Jennifer over there is just taking samples of the soil.’ She focused on the CSI kneeling down and placing the sample in a tube, before filling out the evidence bag and placing it in her box. ‘We will be looking at the soil concentration as this will help in pinpointing the time of death. The soil’s make up varies with how decomposed the body is. There is a little muscle attached to the bone, which we will also be testing. There are also nails to swab. There may be traces of something telling underneath. Teeth may identify her through dental records but you know all that already. Her bones will be examined, giving us an even better indication of her age,’ Bernard said.

‘Thanks for that and don’t let me keep you. The quicker this is all done, the better.’

Bernard nodded and waved at one of his assistants. ‘I’ll be back in a moment. Just going to have a close look at the limbs. Do you need anything else from me?’

‘Like I said, only for all these tests to be done immediately. We need to identify her. Someone out there is missing a daughter.’

He laughed. ‘I’ll do my best. I know you always need things now but we’ll work as quickly as we can. We have a lot of staff booked out on holiday, trying to get it in before the kids break up. The samples will be taken to the lab in a short while. This is a big job though.’

‘Do your very best. I’ll see you at the next briefing with at least some results to share? I’ll call you later.’

He nodded and left her in front of the tent. The canvas was now pulled completely over the grave, shading what was left of the body from the sun. The general public weren’t a worry as the woodland was far out from the town. She listened as a

tractor chugged in the distance. About thirty yards from the main road, there was a small pull in place on the single-track country road. That particular road provided a barely used cut through, just on the outskirts of Cleevesford. One person could just about manage to drag a body alone for that distance.

Not many people would know the cut through existed and whoever brought the body would probably know that they wouldn’t be disturbed. Someone with local knowledge had to have buried her there. They chose this location for that very reason.

Another girl. The girl who had died in hospital had been found only three miles from the body in the shallow grave. Could they be linked? Both estimated to be in their mid-teens. Maybe the lab results might throw up a connection. Maybe both were taken at the same time and one died or was killed. The other girl could have escaped. From what and who? Gina’s brain was alight with all the possibilities. Maybe they weren’t even connected. Two girls of a similar age was a coincidence though.

‘All right, guv?’ Jacob called.

She turned and walked back. An officer walked past her with a roll of cordon tape. ‘What did we get from the two men working on the house?’

Jacob removed his jacket then wiped the beads of sweat from his brow. The midday heat was at its hottest and the heatwave was set to continue. ‘Bloody hell, it’s boiling. Updates. I’ve just spoken with them. They’re heading to the station now to make a formal statement. I’ve called Wyre and prepped her for their arrival.’ She glanced over at the younger man of the two, probably in his mid-fifties, and watched him pulling his sweat drenched vest over his head before heading

towards his car with the older man. ‘The older man, the one on the right, he is Jack Dunn. Friends with Bryn Tilly. He was hired today to come along with a mini digger to help level this land off. They were just about to start clearing the shrubbery when they spotted the bones. The hand to be more precise.’

‘Bryn Tilly, he had access to this property before?’

‘Only since mid-April, the twentieth to be precise. He bought this property at auction with another two investors, a couple called Stan and Elizabeth North. Their aim was to do it up as quickly as possible and make a quick quid.’

‘I suppose he could have come at any time before now, for a look. Entering from the road by foot through the woodland. Who owned it before?’

‘From what he says an elderly lady died in the property about a year ago, of natural causes. From what he heard, she was ninety-six and lived downstairs as she had mobility problems. The place had stank when he started work and it was fairly rundown. He was told that the estate passed to the Crown and was subsequently auctioned.’

‘The Crown?’

‘Yes. She had no surviving relatives and hadn’t left a will.

She had no one to leave it to.’

‘I see. Can you call the team and ask someone to verify that? So, the only person who had access to the property was an elderly woman in her nineties, with no family. Maybe the council can help us find out if she had help from carers or if social services had ever been involved.’

Had Bryn Tilly and the Norths had their eye on the property before and had they chosen this property for a

reason? She struggled with her thoughts. If they had any involvement, why would Tilly call the police?

‘Oh and, guv, Tilly looked well fed up about us being here, saying we were going to set the work on the house back and they wouldn’t be able to sell it. Jack Dunn kept going on, saying that reporting it was the right thing to do.’

Now her mind was ticking. Maybe Tilly hadn’t wanted Dunn to look too closely. Dunn had spotted the hand and wanted to report it. ‘Where does Bryn Tilly live?’

‘In Cleevesford, near the centre. He has done most of his life. Born and bred, he said.’

‘So he’d know the area well.’ ‘What are you thinking?’

Gina turned and headed towards the car. ‘Lots of things, lots. Is that the time? We need to get over to Worcester to speak with Mrs Dawson. Our girl who fell from the van may just have a name.’

THIRTY

Gina drove past Ronkswood Hill Meadows in Worcester. The smell of cattle and cut grass filled the car. She remembered bringing fifteen-year-old Hannah for a walk over the meadows in an attempt to reconnect with her. By the end of the walk, she realised it was too late. The girl spent most of their time together texting on her phone, asking when they were going home and moaning that she was missing out on what her friends were doing.

Back then she was working hard in the police to give them a better life. That day had changed things. Gina realised that she had to do things for herself. People told her the teen years were difficult and that she’d see the funny side of it one day. They also said that as Hannah aged a few more years, they’d become really close. She was still waiting. Maybe Gina had been selfish and put her work first – she still did and she knew it riled Hannah, especially as Gina was her only parent.

‘You just missed the turning into Mrs Dawson’s road,’ Jacob said.

‘Sorry, I was miles away just then.’ Now was not the time to dwell on her past and present problems with Hannah. She continued down the road and pulled up outside Mrs Dawson’s small end of terrace house.

‘Take a seat in the living room,’ Mrs Dawson said. Roy sat beside his partner on the small sofa. Jacob perched on the edge of the tiny footstool, leaving Gina with the only other chair. The rims of the woman’s eyes were a flaming red colour. Several mascara dabbed tissues were strewn on the floor. The man placed a protective hand around her shoulder. Her gaze moved over to Roy Fisher and his light red hair. The girl they had found in the shallow grave had red hair. ‘This is her, well how I want to remember her.’

Gina took the photo as she flicked her pad over and checked the brief notes she’d taken that related to the case of missing Christina Dawson. Roy Fisher was not her father. Maybe the red hair was a coincidence or maybe there was more to Christina’s disappearance than appeared on the surface. She cast her gaze across the photo. Christina had brown, shoulder-length hair but there was a definite reddish- chestnut tone to it. She could see the tones as the sun shone through the frizzier strands that gathered in a curl by her ears. The girl had her mother’s features and hair colour, a perfectly symmetrical nose and a thinner top lip. ‘Are you related to Christina, Mr Fisher?’

‘No. We, Julia and I, have been together a couple of years and I moved in last summer.’

Jacob made a note. She had to stop and think. Julia thought her daughter was the girl that had passed away in the hospital and here she was, considering that she might be the girl they found in the shallow grave. She glanced at her notes again. The girl in the shallow grave could not be Christina as she’d been there longer, or had she been? Weather conditions all play a part in decomposition and Bernard wasn’t one hundred

per cent sure how long she’d been there. It had been dry, especially over the past several weeks. The girl she’d seen in the hospital also had red toned chestnut hair. She felt her skin prickle. There was a very real possibility that the girl in the hospital could be Mrs Dawson’s daughter. She glanced at the photo again. The girl that was looking back at her looked healthy, slightly round in the face, smiling with a set of white teeth. The girl in the hospital had looked like she was dying. Thin, sunken. Is that what Christina looked like after being on drugs for a few months?

‘Is the girl on the news my daughter?’ The woman pulled a tissue from her sleeve and began dabbing her nose.

‘I can’t be sure, Mrs Dawson. I really am sorry for all that you’ve been through. We would need a DNA sample from yourself.’ The woman said nothing, then her bottom lip began to quiver before she began to weep.

‘I want to see her!’ ‘You don’t have to—’ ‘I do.’

‘Of course. I can arrange that.’ Gina knew the formal identification would be useful and would be quicker than waiting for test results to come back. Maybe seeing the girl would be best for both of them.

‘When?’

‘Hopefully, later today. I’ll need to call you in a while to confirm arrangements.’

‘Thank you. I need to see if it is Christina. You do understand, don’t you?’ The woman wiped her cheeks and the damp tissue began to break up, leaving specs of white on her eyelashes. Roy gripped her hand.

‘Did Christina have any tattoos?’

She shook her head. ‘Not when she left. But she didn’t tell me everything, she never did.’

Jacob scribbled more notes.

‘Do the initials E Ho, mean anything to you? Maybe they are initials or short for something?’

‘Her middle name begins with an E.’ The woman blew her nose. ‘The Ho means nothing at all.’

‘I see from the case that the last time you saw Christina was on Wednesday the fourth of April. You say you have some new information relating to her disappearance?’

Julia leaned forward. ‘Westley. I think she left with him, I don’t know how old he is. Her friend said Christina told her to keep it a secret.’

‘Do we have the friend’s details?’

‘Her details were lodged when I called. She’s gone on holiday with her parents for a couple of nights, camping. She’ll be home late Thursday night.’

‘We’ll make sure we speak to her as soon as she’s back.

So, what do you know about Westley?’

‘Christina met him in Worcester and they hung around by the river. She must have gone with him. I don’t know what he did to my Christina after that,’ she cried as she flopped back. Roy pulled her head towards his shoulder and began stroking her hair as she wept. Gina made a note of the name, Westley.

‘I’m so sorry. I know this is difficult for you.’

‘This person might be a paedophile and he’s probably looking for his next victim as we speak,’ Roy spat as he held

Julia. ‘She went off with him. We have no idea who he is, how old he is, where he’s from or if he targeted her.’

The room was intensely hot with the four of them crammed in. Had Christina felt this crammed in? Maybe she’d felt like an outsider in her own home, the home she and her mum had lived in before Roy invaded their tiny space. ‘Mrs Dawson, where does Christina’s father live?’ That was a piece of information that seemed to be vague in the notes. He was noted as living in a bed and breakfast establishment after being evicted from a flat in Penzance.

She pulled away from Roy. ‘Cornwall, at the moment. She has nothing to do with him. I have checked and, because of what’s happened, I have to keep in touch with him. He left us when she was four. Got a young woman pregnant, one he’d been seeing while working away. He was a salesman, a bad one at that. She even saw sense and threw him out. He lives in a room in a converted barn now after being of no fixed abode for months.’

‘Did Christina keep in touch with him?’

‘She tried but he wouldn’t always call her back. She gave up in the end. It’s funny how he calls all the time now, asking if I’ve heard from her. Some people just don’t know what they’ve got until they lose it. He’s one of those people. Me, I’ve always been there for her.’

‘I can see that.’ Gina looked at all the photos on the bookcase against the far wall. They were full of framed photos, documenting Christina’s whole life. They started at the top with a baby photo, followed by a little girl in a pink tutu. A whole shelf was dedicated to school photos and there were a few of mother and daughter. They had once been so close.

‘We’ll arrange a time and I’ll give you a call in a short while. Is there anything we can do for you in the meantime?’

‘Tell me it’s not her.’ Roy pulled her closer to him and began stroking her hair.

Gina wished she could. She hoped their girl wasn’t Christina but if she wasn’t, she was somebody’s daughter. Someone will feel like their world has come to an end when they eventually get the news. She didn’t want Mrs Dawson’s world to come to an end though.

‘Was anything said before she left? Arguments?’

‘No,’ Roy said as he held Julia and gazed in her direction.

Something didn’t ring true. Teenagers were epicentres for volatility. She would have expected a fair amount of conflict within any family. She’d also scanned over the reports on her case. Christina had been in trouble at school on numerous occasions and the neighbours had opened a case with the council about the noise coming from the Dawson’s home.

‘Everything was fine when she left,’ Roy said as he pulled away from Julia. ‘Thank you for asking though.’

‘That was tough,’ Jacob said as they buckled up and pulled away.

‘I’d be devastated if that were me. I don’t know why, I don’t quite trust Roy. No one has no arguments when there’s a teenager in the house, especially one with Christina’s record. The family had the council on to them about her noise and the school was always calling about her playing truant.’

‘You think he might have something to do with it?’

‘I’m keeping that thought in my mind. He has a guilty look about him but I can’t arrest him for that.’ The times she’d only temporarily lost Hannah, those nights when she’d come home in the early hours, when she hadn’t answered her phone – on many of those occasions, Gina had thought something bad had happened. For Mrs Dawson, that had been a reality. She had lived the devastation and anguish that came after that. ‘Two dead girls and there’s a chance that one of them is Christina. I can’t wait for today to be over.’

THIRTY-ONE

Gina grabbed a pen and headed over to the board. The photos of the girl in the shallow grave had been pinned up on a separate board to the girl who fell from the van. Gina threw Wyre a pen, knowing her handwriting would be more legible. ‘As you all know, we have two major cases on the go involving two dead girls. We’ve talked at length about the girl who fell from the van. Any updates?’

‘No further updates, guv,’ O’Connor replied as he swivelled back and forth in his chair, in a half-circle motion.

She grimaced as he spun. ‘Can you stop spinning? I’m struggling to think.’

‘Sorry, guv.’ He stopped and concentrated on what she was saying.

‘Updates?’

Jacob leaned in. ‘Only the blood traces that didn’t belong to the girl in the van, but we already know this. The full report hasn’t come back yet. I chased this up and forensics said it would definitely be tomorrow. As always, they are understaffed and have a backlog on the go.’

‘Nothing new there, then. Jacob and I have just got back from interviewing a Mrs Dawson. Her daughter, Christina,

went missing on Wednesday the fourth of April this year. From their photos, both she and her mother have a natural auburn tone in their chestnut brown hair. It was confirmed at the scene that our shallow grave girl had red tones in her hair. Just to confuse matters, the girl who fell from Darren Mason’s van had dyed red hair.’ Her mind ticked over. Their cases didn’t feel so separate any more but she had to keep in mind that the hair colour of the girls may be purely coincidental. ‘We need to keep going through missing persons. We have two teenage girls and only one possible identification, which is unconfirmed at the moment. If the forensics report isn’t in until tomorrow, we work with what we’ve got.’ She leaned across and pushed the two boards closer together. ‘I want you all to consider that these two cases may be related. Two girls dead, both with red tones to their hair, both in their mid to late teens. Both of them turned up in Cleevesford. What are the chances of that over a few days?’

‘Anything back on the girl found in the shallow grave?’ Wyre asked as she finished updating the board with the hair colour connection.

‘There’s still a lot of ground to cover. Bernard and Keith are there with the team and I don’t think they’ll be finished today. We’ve extended the cordon and they’re searching everything. As you all know, this is a painstakingly slow process but as always, we hope they’ll find something that will either lead to the girl’s or the perpetrator’s identity. Her clothing and the blanket she was lying on have been sent to the lab.’

Briggs entered from the back with Annie and took a seat. Gina’s heart rate began to pick up as they both cosied up to each other.

‘We’ve been preparing the press release,’ she continued. ‘We need the public coming forward on this one. After discussing it with Annie, we agreed that issuing a holding statement would be the best course of action. No details. We’ll keep it simple, give nothing about the scene away and make an appeal for witnesses.’

Annie flashed a smile at Briggs as she made notes. He looked up at Gina with a grin on his face. She could tell he was loving the attention and he was loving the fact that she was noticing.

Gina cleared her throat and looked away. ‘Thank you. Let’s hope someone knows something and calls in, at the very least, someone else who is missing a teenage daughter might contact us. Problem is, we still don’t have the time of death. We don’t know if she was killed in the woods and buried close by or if she was transported to the woods to be buried. If so, where had she come from?’

‘What do we know?’ Briggs asked.

‘We know that a potential killer could have managed alone if they’d pulled up on the road nearby. The distance from the pull in area off the small country lane wasn’t too far from where she was buried. The grave wasn’t deep or long enough, maybe her killer didn’t have much in the way of physical strength or maybe they were just sloppy. She was found half- wrapped in a blanket, wearing a white nightdress that had been pulled down. Some care had been taken with her burial but not enough to make sure the local wildlife couldn’t get to her.’

‘Right, good job all,’ Briggs said. ‘Get moving on this one. We’ll let the press know and offer up a formal appeal tomorrow. Cleevesford is going to go mad when it hears we have a second dead girl in the same week. Parents will be

worried and so they should be.’ Briggs stood and Annie followed him out.

Gina gazed around the room. Everyone was deadly quiet, waiting for her to speak. ‘O’Connor, would you call all the local schools, put out an alert. I know this will cause a bit of panic but we need our teenage girls to be a little more vigilant until we get to the bottom of what is happening. I’d love to stay longer but Mrs Dawson wants to see the body of the girl who fell from the van. At least we’ll know either way if the girl is her daughter. My only fear is, if she isn’t Mrs Dawson’s daughter, we need to consider that the girl in the shallow grave may be. The timings don’t quite fit but it has been exceptionally hot, and decomposition could have happened a lot faster than expected. We’ll know more when the pathologist’s report comes through. Wyre, look into the Norths and Bryn Tilly. Dig a little deeper and anything you find, update the system immediately as I’ll be working from home tonight. They bought the property at auction on…’ she checked the date she’d noted down earlier, ‘Friday the twentieth of April. Had they visited the property alone beforehand? Both the Norths and Bryn Tilly live in Cleevesford. They have local knowledge and know the roads. The road that led to that part of the woods isn’t well used by people who aren’t local. Check with the auction house too. See if anyone else was unusually interested in the property.

Look at the time, I have to get going.’ Gina scooped up her things. She wasn’t relishing the idea of meeting Mrs Dawson to view a girl who may be her daughter, but it had to be done. She had to be there.