Cold Death (D.S.Hunter Kerr) (13 page)

DAY THIRTEEN: 5
th
September.

Barnwell:

Standing in the lounge of the pub holding onto a near empty beer glass Hunter’s thoughts drifted away, his inner vision somewhere else; his mind was revisiting the images he had seen on several occasions that morning.

The bound book of colour photographs had been waiting for him on his desk and he had viewed them the minute he had got in. He had been so impressed with the finished look of Frankie Oliver’s work. Especially at the life-like features she had managed to form on the reconstructed head of their victim.

He had marvelled at the artistry of the work so-much-so that he had immediately phoned her up, and as one artist to another he had applauded her skills.

The photo’s had been referred to at the morning’s briefing. The Chief Superintendent had told the team that these were going out on the local news broadcast later that evening.

That announcement had caught Hunter by surprise and he had shot out straight after briefing to get a set over to Zita at The Chronicle; the last thing he wanted was for her to see them on the TV when she hadn’t got her own copies as he had promised.

As he hung around the bar he wondered if his partner Grace would be on the local news broadcast. He recollected the conversation they had had three days previously. He recalled how nervous she had been as she had told him that the boss had requested that she should join him for her first experience of a press conference at the scene of a crime. And he hadn’t spoken with her since. He’d been so wrapped up in the incident with his father that he had forgotten to ask her how it had gone.

“Penny for them Hunter.”

He hadn’t spotted Grace coming towards him until she spoke.

“Crikey you made me jump!  I was just thinking about you and your fifteen minutes of fame.” He pointed to a large wall mounted plasma TV playing without sound. He could see that the National news was on. “Are we going to see your bright cherubic features then this evening?”

She dug his arm.

“Hey less of the cherubic. That means fat doesn’t it?” She took a drink from her glass of white wine. “After spending all morning with Mr Robshaw the other day I didn’t even get a look-in with any of the TV crews. It was a waste of bloody time. And I’d got myself all done up for it as well.”

Hunter broke into a smile. He knew what his partner was like for her make-up and fashion, even on a normal working day. He guessed she would have spent hours the night before sorting out a suitable wardrobe for her debut TV appearance.
Here she was telling him that she hadn’t even managed to get a look-in.

“That’s because to the press you’re a lowly detective, whilst he’s an interesting, high ranking, Detective Superintendent, who’s running a murder enquiry.”

“Are you saying I’m uninteresting?” She dug Hunter again. “It’s us who does the leg work and solves the crime.”

“Ha but that’s not what the public think.” He lifted the pint glass to his mouth and drained the last dregs of his beer. He thrust forward his empty glass. “Fancy another?”

He watched her swill the remnants of the Chardonnay around the bottom of her glass before swallowing the last mouthful. “Just get me a coke. I’ll have that then make tracks home, I daren’t be late this evening I made a promise to take the girls out for a bite to eat. Besides I need to catch up with Dave, things have not been easy over the past couple of weeks.”

“Know that feeling. The job just gets a hold of you doesn’t it? I sometimes wonder why Beth puts up with me.”

“Must be those rugged good looks!”

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” he said taking the empty wine glass from her. “One more won’t do you any harm.”

“Oh, go on then, you’ve twisted my arm. Then I definitely must go.”

Hunter yawed his way to the bar. The MIT team had virtually taken over one half of the lounge. They had broken away from work early to have a couple of swift drinks, and to watch their SIOs appeal on the local news broadcast, before they all headed for their homes.

Some of them were hanging on to another funny story from Mike Sampson, whilst others were chatting in general.

He knew it was these moments that bonded a team.

Hunter squeezed himself between a small group of regulars who had congregated at the bar and caught the eye of one of the bar staff. He ordered a pint of Timothy Taylor for himself and a glass of Chardonnay for Grace.  As he thrust his hands into his pocket for loose change a loud cheer and several wolf-whistles went up behind him. He spun round to see a sea of detectives faces all transfixed on the television screen. Someone shouted to the bar-staff ‘to ‘turn it up’ and Hunter began to decipher the sound. The shot was panning in on their Senior Investigating Officer, Detective Superintendent Michael Robshaw, and the announcer said they were speaking from the lakeside at Barnwell Country Park. The newscaster was dubbing the storyline ‘The Lady in the Lake.’ 

The SIO was commenting on the status of the enquiry and as he began to make his plea for witnesses the scene panned out and was replaced by the stills of the reconstructed face of their victim. Blown up and backlit by the television the result looked spectacular.

Someone just has to recognise this lady he thought.

- ooOoo –

DAY FOURTEEN: 6
th
September.

Barnwell:

Hunter never heard Grace approaching, his thoughts were elsewhere and he jumped as she slapped a fresh sheet of paper on top of the small pile of vehicle enquiry forms he was checking. The paperwork had been left on his desk from the previous day’s tasks carried out by Mike Sampson and Tony Bullars and he was checking if all the outstanding enquiries had been completed before he handed them over to the DI.

“Come on get your lazy butt in gear, we’ve got a prime witness to interview.” She stabbed at the pink coloured form she had deposited across his papers.

A
s Hunter started to read she snatched it up. “Isobel from the HOLMES team has just handed this to me, she said it’s the breakthrough we’ve been after.”

He tried to grab back the paper she was waving but she spun quickly away snatching her jacket from the back of her seat with her free hand. She fixed him a look. “What are you waiting for Sarge?”

He picked up his own coat and wrestled the car keys out from a pocket before following on her heels out of the office.

* * * * *

“Are you going to tell me what we’ve got then?” Hunter asked as he swung the CID car out through the gates of the station’s rear yard and drove towards the traffic lights that gave them access to the main road. “All you’ve said so far is drive to the hospital.”

Grace pulled down the passenger seat visor and checked her make-up. She smoothed a hand across her nose and cheek before exchanging looks with Hunter. “We’re off to see a junior doctor name of,” she paused and took a quick glance at the paperwork that the DI had handed her earlier, “Chris Woolfe. He works on Medical Ward Three at the General. Isobel says that he rang in last night after the late news and said he’s certain he knows who the victim from the lake is.”

* * * * *

Taking the back roads through the woods Hunter was able to push the car faster than the speed limit because there was no traffic and he made the hospital in just over quarter of an hour. He parked the car in one of the mortuary visiting bays, took the POLICE VISITING card from out of the glove box and slid it on top of the dash and then he and Grace took a rear entrance to one of the lift areas. They knew the hospital layout like the backs of their hands.

“Ward Three you say?” asked Hunter pressing the button for the lift.

Grace double-checked the document and returned a nod.

They rode the lift in silence. It squealed and juddered up the two floors before opening up to a directional sign for the ward they required. They followed coloured coded tramlines painted on the corridor floor, taking a sharp left when the yellow line they were following peeled off from the red and blue ones. Medical Ward Three lay behind a double set of closed doors; Hunter could hear voices and activity beyond them and they were still a good ten metres away. Dispensing a large dollop of hand wash he pushed through the doors with his shoulder rolling his hands together as he entered the bright fluorescent-lit ward.

It seemed as though he had entered a world of chaos; there was so much activity and it stopped him in his tracks.

For a split-second it reminded him of his experience a fortnight ago to the day when his mother and father had been seriously injured and rushed into Scarborough District Hospital. The thought of it again caused a state of panic to sweep over him. He felt his stomach turn turtle.

Yet even though if gave him bad memories he couldn’t help but continue to watch, mesmerised by it all. Everything seemed to be happening behind a screen around one of the beds on the ward.

He shook himself out of his trance, exchanged looks with Grace, shrugged his shoulders and widened his blue eyes. He gave her a ‘something’s obviously going on’ look before stepping towards the nurse’s station.  That was busy as well.

After a few seconds he caught the attention of an auburn haired plump woman dressed in dark blue. He snatched a glance at her name badge pinned above her breast pocket; it stated, Helen – Ward Sister. His wife Beth was a sister; he knew she was in charge. He finally caught her gaze and flashed his warrant card. “I bet the last people you want to see right now is us?” he said, rocking his head backwards where he could still hear the commotion.

The Sister let out a sigh. “They brought in a twenty-two year old girl in the middle of the night, suffered a stroke just after she’d had a baby – looks like we’ve just lost her.”

He
offered a look of empathy as he pushed his warrant badge back into his jacket inside pocket. “We contacted the hospital this morning, we were told a Dr Woolfe would be on duty here.”

“That’s right. He’s tending to the girl behind the screen.”

Hunter and Grace took another look down the ward. The activity behind the shielded bed appeared to be dying down.

“We need to speak with him I’m afraid,” said Grace returning her gaze back to the ward sister. “We can disappear for half an hour for a coffee and then come back.”

“Is it urgent?”

“Could be. He contacted us last night.”

“Okay, just give him a couple of minutes. It looks as though we can’t do anything else for her anyway. They’ve been working on her for over ten minutes now, he’ll be calling it time soon and so he should be out in a bit.” Her response towards the young girl’s death was so matter-of-fact, devoid of any feeling. Hunter guessed her job was very much like his, in times of crisis you remove the emotion in order to cope.

They hadn’t even taken a seat in the sister’s vacant office before Dr Woolfe tracked them down. Dressed in a white, open necked shirt tucked into a pair of jeans he looked very young. In fact if it hadn’t been for his nametag and the stethoscope draped around his neck Hunter would never have guessed he was a doctor. He remembered Grace mentioning he was a junior but this guy didn’t even look as if he had started shaving yet.

The doctor shook both their hands and dropped into the ward sister’s empty seat behind her desk and then beckoned them to sit in low-set seats positioned next to a filing cabinet opposite.

“We’ll try not to take up too much of your time, we can see how busy you are,” opened Grace.

“A bit like your job eh? No rest for the wicked.” He ruffled his fingers through his light brown, collar length, curly hair, leaned back in his seat and crossed his legs. “Is this about my phone call last night?”

“You left a message with one of our teams stating that you think you know who the victim is?” Grace passed across one of the colour photographs taken of the facial reconstruction.

He accepted it and took a long lingering look, gulped several times, then nodded his head. “The guy on TV said this is the girl who you’ve found at the bottom of Barnwell lake right?” He sounded nervous.

“Yes a couple of weeks ago. She was murdered and dumped there.”

“I can’t believe that.” He shook his head. “I had a right shock last night when I saw it on the news believe me”

“Do you recognise her?”

“Well it certainly resembles a girl I used to go out with. It looks like Samia, but I can’t believe it, she’s such a lovely girl – or was - if it’s her.”

“Samia?”

“Yes, Samia Hassan. She lives – or rather she used to live with her parents in Hoyland before we went out together.”

“Are you absolutely certain about that?  That photo as you know is just a facial reconstruction, the body was in a bit of a mess I’m afraid,” interjected Hunter.

“Even so it’s an incredible likeness of Samia. Has anyone else phoned in – her mates from uni, and given Samia’s name since you showed it on the news yesterday?”

“You’re the first.” Hunter paused gathering his thoughts. “You said you used to go out
with her?” he pointing towards the photograph Dr. Woolfe was still holding.

“We were at Sheffield Uni together. I was in my last year when she came. I took her round on her first student’s rag week, that’s how we met.”

“When was this?”

“Year before I started my training – two thousand and six.”

“Do you know how old she was then?”

He thought for a moment. “I’m twenty-three now so I would have been twenty-one back then,” he appeared to be talking to himself. “She would have been eighteen – nineteen.” He paused and then blurted out. “We went out for a short time - well until we had all that bother.” He gulped again.

Hunter directed a quick glance at Grace. She was looking engrossed.

“Bother?” Hunter enquired.

“Yeah from her cousins.”

“You’ve got me hooked doc, tell us more.”

“Call me Chris please. Where do you want me to start?”

“From where you think best. I’ll stop you if I need to ask a question.”

“Well as I say we met on rag week. She was with a couple of girls and she joined our group to go round town. We got chatting – she was doing her first year medicine and she wanted to know what to expect. We just hit it off you know and she’d come round to my place from time to time to borrow some notes and chat. After a couple of months I asked her to go out for a meal and she agreed. Things just worked out for us from there. I was in students accommodation and she was in halls of residence and one night after we’d been to the cinema I asked her if she wanted to stay at mine. After that night she’d stay on a regular basis. Sometimes even at weekends when she should have gone home. That’s when the trouble started.”

“What trouble?”

“Let me just give you some background. Samia’s parents are Pakistani but she was English. She told me they owned a shop in Hoyland and lived in the flat upstairs. She had her heart set on being a doctor but she said that they continually badgered her to go to Pakistan for an arranged marriage to her cousin. Apparently the only way they allowed her to come to University was because she promised she would go to Pakistan to meet the cousin during the summer break. She told me she was dreading this because she had never been to Pakistan in her life and didn’t want to marry any cousin. She’d seen a photograph of him and he was a lot older than her – in his thirties I think she said, and she didn’t fancy him. She wanted the freedom to chose who she married. I heard her a few times on her mobile having a row with her father over this.”

“What about the trouble?”

“That was about a year ago now. I had just finished uni and had started my medical training. She had moved in with me into a newer flat. She hadn’t told her parents because she was so scared, though she had told them she was seeing me. They had another blazing row. She told me they were threatening to disown her and that she was bringing shame on the family and that she should marry the cousin in Pakistan. I know it upset her a great deal. She tried to speak with her mother a few times but she would hang up on her. Then one night we had just come out of this bar and this car pulls up. Two Asian guys get out and just set about me, gave me a right hiding. They tried to drag Samia into the car but there were quite a few people about that we knew, thank God and they intervened and phoned the police. The two guys took off before the cops arrived. Samia told me they were relatives; she’d seen them before at her house. She didn’t like them. She said one of them had been in trouble with the police. She persuaded me not to make a complaint and that she’d sort it. She guessed it was because her parents had found out about us sharing a flat.”

“So you never made a complaint?”

“I wanted to. My face was in a right mess. I couldn’t work for a couple of days and I got a rollicking from my consultant for turning up to work all bruised. Said I didn’t set the right image for a doctor.”

“Was that the end of it?”

“Christ, no. There was a couple more. One night we came home and the flat was trashed, and I mean trashed. Everything was in pieces and they had cut up all of Samia’s clothes.”

“Did you report that?”

“I did that time. I had to for the insurance. We told the police about Samia’s relatives but there were no witnesses and they didn’t find any evidence to connect them, so that was that. The final straw came when I was on lates one day. I finished my shift about midnight and I was just walking across the hospital car park when the same two guys waylaid me. They’d wrecked my car. And they told me in no uncertain terms I had to finish with Samia or I would end up at the bottom of a lake. Those were their exact words.”

* * * * *

Stirling, Scotland:

DCI Dawn Leggate
had finally got home at midnight. It had been another long day. She took a quick shower, checked her answer machine; there were no messages, and fell into bed.

The alarm woke her at six-thirty am and despite having only had five and a half hours sleep, it had been undisturbed and she felt remarkably refreshed. It was strange, she thought to herself, as she brushed her teeth, but she always felt like this when a big investigation was running. It had to be the adrenaline rush she mused.

She made herself coffee, placed bread from the freezer into the toaster and then dialled Alex McBride’s mobile.