Scream: A DCI Mark Lapslie Investigation (23 page)

‘Yes, I’ve seen the video.’ Rouse sniffed. ‘You don’t think you were a little … overbearing?’

‘No.’

‘The girl’s father does. He’s raised a complaint with the IPCC. We need to work out how to respond.’

‘Firmly,’ Lapslie said, ‘and quickly. This is rubbish. An over-protective father and a clever daughter who knows more than she’s letting on. If we let them get the upper hand we’ll never get any traction on this case.’

‘And if the IPCC agrees with the father that you were intimidating his daughter then I’ll have to remove you from the case and get someone else to take over.’ He paused, and pursed his lips. ‘I hear that Dain Morritt is free at the moment.’

The worm in Lapslie’s gut began to wriggle more strongly, as if it were trying to get itself off a hook the size and nature of which it could barely comprehend. ‘Sir …’ He took a breath, aware that he didn’t even know what to say. What might get him off the hook.

‘This drug you’re on to control your mental problem … could it be affecting your judgement?’

‘Sir, as you are well aware, it’s not a mental problem in the same way that depression or bipolar disorder is a mental problem, it’s a condition. That’s number one. And number two, no, the drug I’m on does not cause confusion, aggression, paranoia or any other issue that might have made me act strangely in the interview.’

‘These are the kinds of questions that the IPCC will have to consider,’ Rouse said as if Lapslie hadn’t spoken. ‘We’ll need an independent medical statement, of course. You need to tell us your side of the story, Mark. We know what you said, but we need to know what you felt. What you were thinking. What you were trying to elicit from the girl. Margarita will take you through it.’

Lapslie spent the next hour going over the entire interview, once from memory, then again from a transcript of the videotape that the woman had with her. Rouse, bored, moved back to his desk after ten minutes and buried himself in paperwork. In her calm, repetitive, uninvolved way she made Lapslie feel like a suspect, like he was saying things that she didn’t believe, and all she was doing was looking for holes in his story that she could use to break it apart. By the time she’d finished, and was packing the transcript and her notes away in her bag, he felt drained. Tired. Old.

‘Thanks for coming in, Mark,’ Rouse said without looking up from his paperwork. ‘We’ll be in touch.’

Feeling like he wanted to lash out at someone, but aware that he’d only be making things worse for himself, Lapslie headed out to the car park. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to go back to All Hallows Church, drive out to the incident room on Canvey Island to see where the other strands of the Catriona Dooley investigation had got to, head across to the hospital and prowl around the internet café or sit on Sean Burrows’ desk
until Forensics came up with something. A dark, primal part of his mind even wanted to go to Stephen Stottart’s house and goad the man into taking a swing at him, just so he’d have the satisfaction of breaking his nose, but he managed to keep that desire in check by turning it into a daydream that he could console himself with if he got too tense. In the end he decided to go and bother the forensics lab staff, if only because it was on the way home, and he wanted to get changed out of his suit before he headed over to Charlotte’s flat.

The drive to the isolated, fenced-off area of land that marked out Sean Burrows’ fiefdom did nothing to relax him, and he found himself stomping up the path that led past the small hills of the old Napoleonic fort to where the single-storey buildings of the laboratories were set. He felt ready for a confrontation. A squirrel ran across his path, breaking his concentration for a moment. He stopped and looked around. The mid-afternoon sun was filtering through the trees, casting dappled patterns on the path. Moss was growing up the sides of the oak trees. There was no traffic around, and the hush was suddenly magical. An acorn dropped at his feet, startling him.

He took in a deep breath of the nature-scented air, feeling it penetrating deep into his lungs and driving out the diesel and petrol fumes that characterised Chelmsford town centre; driving out also the feelings of impotence that a meeting with Rouse always managed to engender in him. Fuck the man. Lapslie had a job to do.

He was smiling when he knocked on the door of Sean Burrows’ office. Unexpectedly, Jane Catherall was there as well.

‘Mark,’ she said, ‘we were just talking about you.’

‘I came looking for a fight,’ he admitted, ‘but the walk up from the main gates calmed me down.’

‘Then can I pour you a small Irish whiskey, to improve your
mood even further?’ Burrows suggested. ‘I was just about to offer Jane one as well.’

‘That would be … most welcome. What’s the occasion?’

‘Let’s just say it’s my birthday and leave it there.’

As Burrows poured three tumblers of soft, golden liquid from a bottle that he kept in a filing cabinet, Lapslie took his coat off and sat down. ‘I know it’s early days,’ he said, ‘but are there any initial results from the All Hallows Church crime scene?’

‘We pushed it through as a rush job,’ Burrows said, ‘knowing that you would probably be up here asking that very question. I’ll let Jane go first.’

Doctor Catherall sipped at her whiskey first. ‘Very smooth,’ she said judiciously, ‘but without much depth. The alcoholic equivalent of the music of Ludovico Einaudi.’

‘If you don’t like it,’ Burrows said, ‘I’ll take it back.’

‘Not at all. There are times when a lack of complexity is exactly what is needed.’ Turning to Lapslie, she continued, ‘DNA tests on the blood and the scraps of flesh indicate that they all came from the same person. It will be a while before I can actually compare the DNA to that of Catriona Dooley, but the blood is certainly of the same type. I am minded to say that she was the only person who was either injured there or died there.’

‘Okay.’ Lapslie took his tumbler and sipped cautiously at the liquid inside. For years now he’d drunk mainly water for its simplicity of taste. Now that the thorazitol was apparently suppressing his synaesthesia, he was gradually introducing flavours back into his life. With alcohol he’d started off with fairly subtle white wines like Chenin Blancs, Pouilly-Fuissé and Pouilly-Fumé, then moving on to similar reds, but he hadn’t risked spirits yet, let alone beer. The Irish whiskey that Sean Burrows had poured for him seeped into his mouth like a spreading warmth flavoured with orange, leather and linseed,
with a peppery aftertaste. Odd, and yet the disparate flavours blended together to form something rich and vibrant that left a line of fire behind it as it slipped down his throat. ‘I’ll await the DNA comparison. Sean, what about you? Any forensic samples you could retrieve from the church?’

‘Interestingly,’ Burrows replied, ‘although the perpetrator of the crime had done a good job of cleaning up after himself, we did manage to retrieve some soil samples from where he had set up his recording and mixing desk. The soil is inconsistent with the local soil in Bishop’s Stortford, so our working assumption is that the perpetrator tracked the soil in himself, possibly from wherever he’d been keeping the girl captive, or from where he lives.’

‘I don’t suppose,’ Lapslie asked, ‘that you can identify where the soil comes from, like Sherlock Holmes always could?’

‘It would be nice,’ Burrows said, ‘but there’s nothing particularly distinctive about it. Except – ’ he paused, obviously enjoying their reaction – ‘that the soil contains traces of pollen. We did a quick scan to identify the plants that produce that pollen, in case that could help narrow down the location, and it turns out that the plants aren’t indigenous to the UK.’

‘So, what?’ Lapslie asked. ‘The murderer works in a garden centre where they sell exotic plants?’

‘Not quite. It’s actually a wheat. Garden centres don’t sell wheat.’

Lapslie shook his head, still puzzled. ‘Okay, so he’s a farmer or farmworker. That helps narrow it down, but there’s still a lot of farmland in Essex to check.’

Burrows had an irritatingly superior smirk on his face. ‘Actually, it’s better than that. We checked in the reference books, and this particular variety is actually part of an experimental batch of genetically modified plants.’

‘Genetically modified?’

‘They’ve had a DNA sequence artificially spliced into them that’s supposed to make them resistant to frost and snow. Good thing, given last winter. And that—’

In an attempt to actually get control of the conversation back from Burrows, Lapslie interrupted, saying: ‘Okay, so what you’re going to tell me is either that a British company based in Essex is marketing the wheat across the UK, or that a company based somewhere in the UK has sold this wheat to a farm, or a number of farms, in Essex, yes?’

‘One or the other,’ Burrows replied with a trace of sulkiness. ‘We’re still trying to find out.’

‘Well, let me know when you do.’ Lapslie got up and reached for his coat. ‘Oh, and happy birthday.’

Back at Chelmsford Police HQ, Lapslie heard someone call his name in the car park. ‘Yes?’ he snapped.

‘Boss?’ It was Emma Bradbury.

‘Emma. Sorry – I was expecting it to be someone else.’

‘I’m guessing Chief Superintendent Rouse, judging by your tone of voice.’

‘You’re right, which means it wasn’t a guess, it was a deduction. You’ll never make inspector if you don’t understand the difference a word can make. Did you manage to grab some sleep?’

‘A couple of hours. I’m feeling better now.’

‘So – what’s up?’

‘Well, firstly you asked me to check up on where Stephen Stottart and his daughter were at the time Catriona Dooley’s body was dumped at the kids’ play area.’

‘Go on – amaze me,’ he growled.

‘Turns out the father was rehearsing. He’s in a band – a load
of middle-aged men getting together to relive their youth and pretend they’re fifteen. “Weekend Warriors”, I think you’d call them.’

He felt his heart sink like a stone. Yes another potential lead cut off.

‘He’s in a band?’

‘Plays bass guitar, apparently.’

‘What do they call themselves?’

There was a pause, as Emma consulted her notes. ‘‘“Blue Croak”, apparently.’

Lapslie laughed.

‘What?’

‘It’s a reference to the title of a book about synaesthesia,’ he explained. ‘
The Frog Who Croaked Blue
, by a guy called Jamie Ward. Must have been Stephen Stottart’s idea.’ He shook his head. ‘The murder victims are singers, the church is strung up with piano wire and Stottart’s a wannabe rock star. This must be making sense, but I can’t see how.’ He took a breath. ‘What about the daughter?’

‘She plays on the school netball team. They had a match that evening. She was definitely there.’

‘Okay. This is all very depressing. What else can you say to ruin my day?’

‘Well, just a couple of things. First, I’ve checked with the firm who run that BeBo thing, and after a bit of prompting they confirmed that Tamara was using the site at round about the time she said she was.’

‘Round about the time?’

‘I got lost in the explanation. Something to do with “internet time” versus “real time”, and the lag in messages going around the world.’

‘Great. And secondly?’

‘Secondly, I’ve been back over the files, like you asked me to.’

‘Yeah?’

She paused before continuing. ‘You’re not going to believe this. I’m not sure
I
believe this, but I reckon there are another six missing people out there who connect to our case. Cas
es
.’

‘
Six
?’ Lapslie was stunned.

‘Six people aged between sixteen and forty who have good singing voices and who have disappeared in Essex in the past six months with no obvious explanation or suspects. Each of them was either in a choir or a band or sang solo in a professional or semi-professional capacity. We’ve got a gospel singer, a cabaret artiste and a member of the chorus at the Royal Opera House, as well as two lead vocalists with jazz groups and a singing teacher. One soprano, two altos, a tenor, a counter-tenor and a bass. Not in the same order, obviously.’

‘
Six
?’ He still couldn’t believe it. ‘I asked you to check as a long shot, and I expected one or two, if any, but not this. My God, what’s he
doing
with them?’

‘Apart from preparing an entry for the Eurovision Song Contest, you mean?’

‘Emma!’

‘Sorry, boss.’ She looked contrite. ‘The surrealism of the situation is getting to me.’

‘He’s
auditioning
! That’s why Catriona Dooley and the other two were discarded. For some reason, they failed the audition.’

‘But the torture? The skewers and the ripping apart of the arm and the running through the wires? What’s that got to do with an audition?’

Lapslie’s brain was spinning. ‘That’s part of it, somehow. The torture is an integral part of the audition process.’ He felt a chill running up his neck and across his scalp as his brain caught up with what was going on. ‘There’s potentially six kidnap
victims still out there. Still
alive
! We need to pull all the information together into one incident team. I’ll brief Rouse. You get us some real estate. Move!’

‘I want you to follow up this genetically engineered wheat angle,’ Lapslie snapped.

‘What are you going to do?’ Emma asked him. The Essex Police HQ building loomed above them both. Cars drove past, their drivers looking for non-existent parking spaces.

‘I need to notify Rouse that we’ve got a multiple kidnap and multiple murder case on our hands. He’s going to require some convincing that this is all connected. I know what he’s like. Then I’m going to go and see Jane Catherall and get her to compare the autopsy reports on the three other dead bodies you picked up on. Now we know they’re part of a larger case there might be some similarities, some connections she can make.’

He was looking tired. There were grainy shadows under his eyes, and he kept running his hand through his hair. Emma didn’t think she’d ever seem him this distracted.