Requiem Mass (19 page)

‘… He or she lost patience – or was interrupted in the search, which is a possibility. I think he found something there.’

Fenwick stopped pacing and paid obvious attention for the first time.

‘There was an old suitcase open and a load of papers appear to have been rifled.’

‘Take me through the list.’

‘There are photo albums, mementos and diaries.’ Cooper consulted the list in the preliminary report. ‘Diaries, five: 1974,
1975, 1976, 1982, 1983 – the first three written in detail, the last two a series of notes on her final terms at school and early time at university. Some old letters—’

‘What about years 1977 to 1981. Why the break?’

‘No sign. Perhaps they were embarrassing and she threw them away.’

‘Hmm.’

‘The letters all dated from 1979 to 1985. Old photographs in albums, mainly school and family. Some certificates: O levels, A levels, Queen’s Guide, flute practical grade eight, a dried bouquet of flowers.’

‘Anything from 1976 onwards – for those missing years?’

‘Perhaps some of the photos, sir; we’d need to check.’

‘And the diaries aren’t somewhere else in the house?’

‘Well, I can’t guarantee it …’

‘Guarantee then, please. He was searching for something and so far the only items missing are old diaries. It doesn’t make sense, but let’s at least make sure that they
are
the only thing.’

‘SOCO were still checking when I came back. We’ve been promised a full report for the morning.’

‘Can you get the suitcase and contents over to forensics and then straight to the incident room when they’re done? And any photographs they can lay their hands on. I want to know what he was searching for – and whether he found it. We’ll need a relative or someone who knew her well to check out the house for us too.’

‘It wasn’t valuables, if that’s what you mean. There was some jewellery, about £75 in cash in a pot in the kitchen, TV, video, CD player – a very nice one too – none of it touched.’

‘It doesn’t make any sense. An apparently random killing, followed by an orderly search – why?’

‘Unless we did disturb him. Perhaps he had no intention of letting us know he’d – sorry, he or she’d – been there. It was very unlikely for her body to be discovered until the morning, given the weather.’

‘Well, we can’t know for sure and there’s nothing more to do
now. Sort out the rotas for the morning, will you, Cooper? I’ll see you at seven.’

Cooper stumbled into bed in the early hours of the morning. Ron Jarvis, Melanie’s boyfriend, had finally been found drunk and disorderly but he was drying out in one of the cells at the local station.

Efforts to locate the dead woman’s relatives had been unsuccessful. Her mother and father were away in the Lake District according to a neighbour, and the sister was not at home. An urgent call was due to go out on the radio in the morning. Meanwhile the dead woman’s name would not be published despite the undoubted front-page status of the story.

The post-mortem facilities were housed discreetly in a wing of the county hospital. As Fenwick returned, Pendlebury was just leaving.

‘Still here?’

‘Complaining? I thought you were desperate for my written report.’

‘What have you got for me?’

‘My full report will be with you in the morning—’

‘Come on!’

‘Don’t interrupt. Now y’re here, do you really think I’d keep you waiting that long? Come into the office, I’ve some whisky there.’

Fenwick looked doubtful.

‘It’s purely medicinal and you look as if you need some.’

When they had settled as comfortably as possible in the cramped office, with two generous doses of medicine in tumblers kept for the purpose, Pendlebury started without preamble.

‘There’s not a lot to go on, I’m afraid, no more than you heard earlier, really. She was a healthy, athletic female. Virgo intacto – yes, it still happens. Technically, she died by drowning. It would have taken several seconds before she lost consciousness. There are superficial protection wounds on her hands – not many, she appears to have tried to run rather than
fight. Bruising to her back and left sides was probably before death, which suggests she was initially attacked from behind. At one stage she fell, damaging her knees quite badly.

‘Interestingly, her right hand was badly fractured, crushed across the back. It was a fierce blow. No obvious traces so I can’t tell you what it was made of. Skin samples will go to forensics. It’s the only other wound of that type on her body, which is odd. Normally there would be several if a weapon had been used in the principal attack.’

‘Could it have been crushed in the door?’

‘Possible – worth checking for traces. It would have to have been slammed very hard.

‘She was killed by a single wound to the throat, sliced left to right, probably whilst her chin was pulled back, exposing the veins and artery. It’s probable, therefore, that the attacker was right-handed. Hard to say, from the wound, what length the blade was but we found some interesting damage to her coat. Looked like long jagged tears, could have been made by a saw or a serrated edge. I’ve sent it to forensics. I suggest you ask SOCO to check whether there was a possible source of the damage at the site. If there
isn’t
then it may be that the upper edge of the blade was serrated. That’s consistent with, say, a survival knife – very sharp-edged weapon, ideal for cutting but could snag clothing. I should get forensics to do some tests on identical material.’

‘I’ll do that. Who in your experience could have a weapon like that?’

‘Anybody really – they’re on sale in huntin’ ‘n’ fishin’ shops all over the country. And, of course, they’re standard military issue. The US aircrew survival knife is a popular one. Ideal for this sort of killing.’

‘Have you seen anything like this before?’

‘The killing or the defilement or both?’

‘Both.’

The pathologist rolled the last drops of whisky round his glass for a few moments, drained them in a sudden movement and looked Fenwick in the eye.

‘The defilement of her body – no. It’s odd. Something about it doesn’t ring true. It was done post-mortem, that’s clear, but without passion – no viciousness there. Where he cut her clothing away there were no marks on her body beneath. I would have expected some nicks and scratches at least but there’s nothing, not a scratch. That means two things.’ He counted them off on the stubby fingers of his empty hand. ‘One, the person who did this was in full control – no shakes, no sexual urge to get at her body. And two, they were an expert with a knife. And that’s consistent with the main wound by the way – neat, efficient, exactly in the right place to cause rapid, certain and virtually silent death – particularly with a hand over her chin and mouth.’

‘And you’ve seen that sort of killing before?’

‘Oh yes, I was attached to the army in the years when you were still playing in Glasgow backstreets. It’s a classic silent killing technique.’

‘That’s your hunch then – a service man?’

‘I don’t have hunches, Fenwick. You know that by now. There are merely points of similarity. Go away and detect the rest.’

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

At 7.10 the next morning a bleary-eyed, inadequately fed, detective sergeant walked into the situation room at the school, fully expecting to be first on the scene, only to find Fenwick there already. Worse still, several fresh-faced uniformed and detective constables were there too, grouped around a large Ordnance Survey map, working out details of the house-to-house. After less than four hours’ sleep Cooper had been feeling comfortably virtuous as he turned down his wife’s sleepy offer of a cooked breakfast. His mood shifted radically on entering the room to one of sulky martyrdom, which was wholly unjustified.

Fenwick looked up as his sergeant slipped into the chair by a desk in a partitioned space at the end of the room.

‘Sergeant! Good. They’ve started planning the house-to-house. Make sure they’ve got it right, would you, and then come back and help me go through these SOCO reports?’

Cooper’s mood was transformed yet again.

The first few hours passed in a blur of activity. Cooper organised a schedule of interviews with staff, pupils, friends – highlighting the ones that he thought required Fenwick’s presence. As part of the large team they’d been given Cooper spotted a detective constable he recognised, a graduate on the Accelerated Promotion Scheme on her first murder assignment.

WDC Nightingale listened intently to the briefing. Her dark brown hair was tied back in an uncompromising plait down her
back, leaving her face bare and clean of make-up; she looked seventeen. She put a pair of steel-rimmed glasses on briefly to read the report in front of her but then tucked them away again as if embarrassed by them.

Fenwick went through the detailed scene-of-crime reports in gaps between interviews. The one from the school confirmed with more precision the initial conclusions of the officers at the scene. It appeared that someone had waited for Katherine Johnstone to leave, had chased her back inside and, after a struggle, killed her in the changing room. The sprays of blood from her throat and position of the body, all pointed to the fact that she hadn’t been moved after death.

The semen had been blood typed – her attacker was type O – and sent off for full DNA analysis. The forensic lab had worked at once on the samples sent but despite the early analysis none of the spermatozoa was still alive. This marginally increased the probability that the attacker was infertile.

The photographs were excellent quality. Fenwick selected two to have copied for his office back at Division and passed the rest over to go on the display board. Johnstone’s handbag and belongings had been examined and sent back to the incident room, together with a list of contents: pocket diary, lipstick, two tissues, three handkerchiefs (she was suffering from a cold), a half-pack of Tunes, a crumpled phone message, an emery board.

He extracted the message: ‘Call Octavia – she says it’s good news’ and then a London number and a squiggle of a signature, which could have been ‘RJ’. Fenwick dialled the number, to be greeted by an answering machine and one of the sexiest voices he had heard on the end of a phone: ‘I cannot answer your call right now, but
please
try again, I wouldn’t have wanted to miss you. If it’s really urgent leave a message after the tone – which is a poor B flat, by the way, but I couldn’t find a better one.’ Fenwick duly left his urgent message, asking her to call him on a major, not minor, matter. He regretted the weak pun immediately but that was the problem with answerphones – once said, instantly recorded.

He turned his attention to the diary – only to be interrupted by Cooper.

‘The press, sir. They’ve started to arrive. Two locals and three nationals – not even eight o’clock yet and it’s started.’

Fifteen minutes later Fenwick had delivered his brief statement, polite, the bare facts, no speculation. He didn’t know how much he might need the press as the inquiry progressed so courtesy and an attempt at co-operation were key. Still, he regretted the need for the additional officers on duty around the school.

He returned to the diary from Kate Johnstone’s handbag. The entries were short and practical in a square, open hand. He saw that she had a dentist’s appointment for lunchtime and recalled that the body had yet to be formally identified. Katherine Johnstone appeared to have been a woman of neat and precise habits, even regular appointments were written out in full each week, with start times and estimated finish times. It was orchestra and choir mostly, the occasional theatre trip or dinner with friends, and family visits ringing the changes. Unremarkable – according to her diary the day of her death had been another ordinary day. Yet something had marked her out.

He flicked forward into June: a horticultural show; a brief note – ‘Drinks’ – under a reference to the last GCSE examination; open day; end of term. July was completely blank except for two references to ‘Rehearsals’. August had a firm line ruled through the first two weeks with only a ‘?’ to indicate that perhaps a holiday had not been finalised. And then, towards the end of summer things started to change.

In mid-August there was a note: ‘Planning meeting – combined choir and orchestra.’

Thereafter there were twice-weekly rehearsal dates and a weekly ‘organising committee’. On August 31st he found ‘First combined rehearsal’; on September 5th ‘Full Rehearsal’ and on the 6th, ‘PERFORMANCE!’ It did not take a genius to work out that these were notes and plans for some sort of event, a concert perhaps, given her musical interests.

‘PERFORMANCE!’ was awarded the only exclamation mark
in the whole diary. It was the only remarkable event, other than the brutal and abrupt manner of her death, in an unremarkable life. However, it was unlikely to provide any insights to her murder. He made another note, to ask Cooper to find ‘RJ’ and question him about Octavia.

The second SOCO report was slimmer and accompanied by another set of clear photographs. Fenwick looked at these first, laying them out one by one in progression from her front door to the bedroom. It appeared that his strict instructions to touch nothing had been obeyed – even her post lay undisturbed on the doormat. He studied the bedroom photographs carefully. Unlike the other rooms there were clear signs of search, with a suitcase lying open on the floor by the bed.

The SOCO team had completely changed their clothes and showered in between sites to ensure no errors, no contamination. There were few traces downstairs but wet foot marks confirmed that the intruder wore size ten-and-a-half shoes and the length of stride suggested a tall person.

The bedroom report had Fenwick sitting up and poring over every detail. They had found tiny traces of blood on the carpet and two of the larger spots appeared still to be damp when discovered; they had been sent to forensic for analysis. There was a scrap of rubber just under the bed. Fenwick looked at the photo; it was about the size and shape of a hard contact lense – that too had been sent off. And, a real prize, they had found three partial fingerprints – not the victim’s – on the staircase and four further on the diaries and a scrap of paper left on the floor. Everything had been sent off to forensic. It looked as if the partial prints were too small to be of any help in identifying the criminal but they could be valuable in completing a prosecution case. He would have to wait for further forensic reports, which despite all pleadings were not due until the end of the day because of holidays and illness in an already depleted team.