My Name Is Not Jacob Ramsay (28 page)

A male hand shifted the gears into neutral, pulled the handbrake up and took the call.

"'Allo Dad, what's up?" boomed a deep sounding voice. It belonged to a very tall, tanned, dark-haired, handsome man behind the wheel. His name was Jason Thompson and he was Michael's middle brother. He was forty-two years old and always used to play with Michael when they were younger. He once shared a room with his brother and was always there for him, like he was at this particular time, when Edward told him briefly of the situation at hand.

"I'll be with you in five minutes," Jason said, as he shoved the vehicle into gear, released the handbrake and roared up the street into the night. Jason had once been a police officer himself, but was too young and immature to handle the responsibility, not to mention the decent wage. An incident embarrassed his father and Jason was due to be sacked, however Edward wangled it so Jason was able to resign before the damage set in too deep for those of a higher rank to realise. He'd have made a good copper now, though, probably a better spy than anything, but having spawned several young children over an equal amount of years, he had found himself in a more stable and less dangerous occupation.

The black Vitara jeep rolled onto Edward and Violet's driveway and to a halt, under a tree. It caused security lights to flare up which illuminated Jason inside.

He exited the car to be met by Edward.

"You all right?" Edward said, hugging his tall son.

"Yeah, cool. How's Mum?" he asked.

"Oh, you know. Worried."

"Of course. Shall we go in yours then?" Jason said.

"Yeah, OK," replied Edward, leading the way to his own car, another Suzuki jeep, but a dark metallic grey.

"Where do you think he is then?" Jason asked his dad, buckling his belt and adjusting the seat back as far as it would go as his father drove.

"I don't know," Edward muttered.

"If it's those bloody kids he works with... I keep telling him to get shot of that job. What's he do there anyway?" moaned Jason.

"The children tell him their problems. All sorts of stuff."

"Why Greenwich? It's nuts. It's not like it was when we were growing up round there." Jason reminisced of youth long gone.

"Oh, I know. Mike's told us all about it. I don't like him doing it either," Edward stated, as he continued to drive, heading through the streets of Crayford, a town not too far from them.

Violet sat at the desk in the office-type spare bedroom. The landline handset was in the grasp of one hand and a crumpled Kleenex was in the other, moistened slightly by tears she had previously cried.

"Hello Carolyn, it's Violet. I'm sorry to be calling you at such a late hour, but I just didn't know what else to do. I'm so sorry. It's Michael. Mike. He hasn't returned home from work to his girlfriend and she's terribly worried. We all are. Edward's been in touch with some of his police contacts and - and - and they informed him that Michael's car was found, broken into and then set on fire." She couldn't contain her emotion and began to cry. She tried to compose herself quickly. She coughed and straightened. "I'm sorry, Carolyn. I'm sorry. I know. I know. It is completely out of character, otherwise I wouldn't call to ask if you're able to check anything at work. Is it possible? We hate putting on anybody - well, you know we don't, but I don't know what else to do. Is it possible, do you think?" continued Violet, in a desperate, pleading tone. "His mobile phone number? Michael's? Yes, just a moment. I have it here," she said, reaching to the side of the desk to locate a piece of grey cardboard with rows of names and telephone numbers written on both sides of it. Neighbours. Family. Emergency numbers. Gas. Electricity. Water. Violet flipped the board round and found Michael's name and his mobile number. His girlfriend, Rebecca Samson, was listed underneath. "I have it. Oh, our mobile, too? And his girlfriend's? OK, I have them, Carolyn. Are you ready?"

Edward and Jason turned into Winn Common Road, the last place where Michael was known to be.

Jason's eyes were everywhere as the car drove down the tree-lined, pitch-black street. Only a handful of streetlamps were visible and did a poor job in illuminating even the smallest of areas around them. Jason pointed at the windscreen, looking at something up ahead and to the left, in the darkness.

"Up there, Dad. Keep going and pull in," he instructed.

Edward pulled the car to the side of the road.

"Hold on a minute," Edward said, and retrieved a couple of mini Maglite torches from the glove box. He handed one to Jason.

"Inward or outward spirals? Parallel, grid or zone?" Jason questioned, with a smirk on his face, reeling off the five different searching techniques that a crime scene investigator might decide to take.

Edward managed a smile and a chuckle, patting his son on the shoulder. "Let's just see what the situation is first, son."

They both exited the jeep and twisted their torches on, shining a bright ring on the ground in front of them. Edward rounded the vehicle and went to the boot, which he opened.

Jason was already stepping on the grass and turned to see his father retrieve a fishing tackle box from the jeep. Jason aimed his light this way and that, like a farmer cutting crops with a scythe.

Edward accompanied Jason and directed his light ahead of him, picking up Michael's burnt-out VW Golf. His eyes glazed over and he tightened his mouth, saddened to see such a sight. He stopped and stared at it for several seconds.

The rear window was smashed. Three of the rubber tyres had melted.

The driver's window had been smashed, too. The passenger windows were blackened by fire. The windscreen was cracked. The driver's side mirror dangled. The ground and bushes around it were charred black and wet.

"Dad?" Jason said, breaking his father's gaze.

"Yep?" he answered, turning to see Jason holding up a reel of silver gaffer tape with his torch.

Edward frowned. "What's that? Electrical tape, something like that?"

"Yeah, and it's dirty. Take it with us?"

"Oh yeah," replied Edward, watching Jason literally take one lengthy stride to the pavement.

Jason dropped the tape near the jeep and stepped back onto the grass to shine his torch around further. "There's another set of tracks over there, Dad," he signaled to his father, gesturing for him to look further down the road, but still on the grass.

Edward shone his light to combine the two beams of his and Jason's torches. He squinted his eyes for a better look. He turned his head to the burnt-out vehicle amongst the bushes, shining his light to cast it downwards at the ground, searching for tread marks.

"Mike's car made this set of marks," Edward noted, as he followed a twisted path with his torch.

"So what's the other one? Fire engine?" Jason asked.

"No, the fire engine would have come from that direction. Erith station is just up there. Probably would have been them. What's the other one? East Greenwich? I don't know. Either way, a fire engine would have entered the way we came and driven across. There. That's their tread." Edward pointed, casting his beam at a set of dead straight tyre marks in the ground.

"And those?" Jason inquired, curiously, as he aimed his light further down ahead.

"They're not Mike's and nor do they belong to the fire engine," Edward stated, pulling his digital camera out of his fleece pocket.

"Do you want my light?" asked his son.

"Please," answered Edward, kneeling down and opening his fishing tackle box. He retrieved an L-shaped photomacrographic scale and placed it on the ground and on part of the tyre track. He held the camera vertically, in a portrait position, and waited for Jason to cast his beam down to the ground and then took a picture of the set of car tyre marks within the mud. He stepped to a more defined patch and crouched to snap another photo, with the scale in place.

"How do they look?" Jason asked, curious to see what his father had taken.

"Good enough," replied Edward, showing Jason the display. He nodded in approval at the clearly visible tyre markings.

Edward lowered his head and then received an arm around his shoulders from Jason, who patted him on the back.

"We'll find him and he'll be fine," Jason said.

"Yeah, I know. Here, press this in would you?" Edward asked, taking a polythene bag of some sort and handing it to Jason. "Do what it says on the bag."

The bag was a Crime-Cast, a plaster casting mixture.

Jason broke the small water bladder that was housed inside and gently shook and kneaded the dough-like mixture inside the bag. Meanwhile Edward unfolded an adjustable aluminum frame which he set over a hardened tyre mark.

"How's it doing?" asked Edward, looking up at Jason's peculiar expression as he inspected the squishy bag.

"Weird. What is it?" he asked, handing it down to his father, who sprayed the tyre track with a tiny spray.

"It's a casting mixture."

"And that?"

"Hair spray. Keeps any stones or loose stuff from moving around. Fixes it all in place," Edward told him, tearing open the bag and pouring the mixture over the hardened tyre track within the metal frame. He carefully squeezed it all out and scraped the mix across to each corner and side of the frame.

Jason watched his father keenly and curiously, wondering what else was in that box of tricks of his. "Where'd you get all this stuff?"

"The internet," Edward said, glancing up with a smirk.

"I thought you got it all from work."

"I'm retired," answered Edward.

"You never retire from a job like that," quipped Jason as Edward gently lifted up the plaster cast and took out a brush from his box, dusting off any dirt.

He squinted to look as he brushed away to reveal the tyre track in Jason's beam, cast by his torch.

"Cool." Jason was impressed by the indentation on the cast.

"Not bad, eh?"

"Shall we check the car then?" Jason said, stepping to the darkness with his light source leading the way.

Edward closed his box and followed him, putting the camera into his pocket and pulling out a VW car key.

"Will that fit?" asked Jason.

"Should do. It's Mike's spare key," replied Edward, unlocking the boot of the car and opening the lid.

"Why didn't he change the wheel?"

"Don't know. He's done it before, shrugged his father, thinking to himself, glancing around and then looking back inside the waterlogged boot. He shone his light inside. Nothing was unusual at all. Apart from a couple of damp Sainsbury's shopping bags, it was empty.

Jason lifted the cover to reveal the spare wheel. He exchanged a look with his father, whose lips were firmly pressed together, tight, angered, flustered, but still very much controlled.

Edward exhaled a deep breath and rounded the driver's side, shining his torch into the vehicle. It was a sad, sorry mess; a melted dashboard and steering column.

"Whadya think, Dad?" Jason asked, once again watching his experienced father open his CSI supply box and pull on a pair of nitrile gloves. They were blue, and were latex and powder free.

He poked his head inside the vehicle and his eyes scanned around the car. He looked to the door and then switched on his torch. He twisted it so that it ejected a UV light. Evidence couldn't hide from ultra violet light. It could pick up fingerprints, body fluids, fibres and even blood. Edward put on a pair of orange goggles and shone his UV beam into the car.

Jason shuddered. It was becoming cold, especially as he was standing still, watching his father in his element, doing whatever it was he seemed to do best. Detective work. Finding evidence. Doing what was needed to find people. People like Michael.

Edward narrowed his eyes as he shone the UV light over the inside of the driver's door. The light picked up some spatter around the door handle. Edward tightened his face, almost expressing pain and hurt. He took a bag of transparent sticks of some kind. It was a bag of Heme Stix, used for detecting blood. They consisted of two glass ampules inside a plastic tube. Edward took a cotton bud-like swab from his box and moistened it with a pipette filled with water. He rubbed a stain on the door handle with the swab and then removed the cap from the Heme-Stix vial, breaking the head of the swab into the vial.

"Is it blood?" asked Jason, watching his father again, exhaling his warm breath into the cold night air.

"Could be cherryade," quipped Edward, who then pressed his finger and thumb together against the lower part of the vial, breaking an inner glass ampule. This liquid was brown in colour and when broken allowed the swab to become wet. He then snapped the clear ampule that was attached to the cap and shook it well. A blue-green colour appeared.

"It's blood," said his father softly.

"Whose blood is it? Mike's? Is it Mike's blood?" Jason blurted. There was panic in his voice as he watched Edward put the vial into the box and then retrieve another swab.

Edward rubbed the swab under the inside door handle again, all around the plastic. He retrieved a white postcard-sized blood testing card and dripped water from his pipette onto each of the four circles printed on the top of the card. Each circle was labelled, the first with 'Anti-A', then 'Anti-B', followed by 'Anti-D' and 'Control'. There was a small chart underneath which allowed for information to be written in for the person's name and blood type, etc. Edward put the swab onto the first circle and then repeated the process with three more swabs, which he had rubbed from the door handle. The water and blood on each circle reacted with whatever solution was housed within the card itself. Edward tilted the card in different directions, thus allowing the blood to spread to the edges of the circles. It revealed a different pattern in each one. He put the card down flat on the floor of the car and then retrieved a laminated card, which depicted the various blood types. He held the laminate to the four circles of blood on the cards, squinting with his aimed torch to see more clearly. The circle labelled 'Anti-A' depicted a speckled, marbled pattern. The 'Anti-B' was a full block of red. 'Anti-D' was also speckled and the 'Control' circle was the same solid red as 'Anti-B'. Edward matched the blood he'd found to the illustrations on the laminate. He identified the blood type as A positive. A+. A rhesus positive.