Читать книгу Tennison - Lynda La plante - Страница 13

CHAPTER NINE

Jane was enthralled as Harker continued his lecture, even when he said that the pictures he was about to show the class may be quite distressing and he understood if anyone felt the need to look away. Jane reckoned everyone was so worked up about what was coming that no one would be able to resist the urge to look, no matter how gruesome the slides were.

‘Every crime scene is different and, like a roll of film, tells a story with a beginning, middle and an end. We all like a happy ending, but if you fail to deal with a crime scene properly, in a slow, methodical manner, you will make critical and irreversible mistakes.’

He walked over to the carousel projector and brought up the slide which he said was of the mother’s bedroom.

There were gasps round the room. A woman wearing a nightdress, dressing gown and slippers was on a wooden chair in the corner, tied up with a white sheet that was stained crimson red from her blood. Bloody footprints were all over the floor and blood splatters covered the two corner walls and ceiling area either side of the seat. Harker explained that the blood had come from the beating she had received, which had also left her face black and blue and totally unrecognizable. Brown packing tape was wrapped round her mouth and hands.

He then moved on to the next slide which was taken in the daughter’s bedroom. On top of the bed there was a woman lying face down. As Jane scanned the body she noticed that the woman’s legs were apart, her dress had been lifted up over her bare buttocks, and her underwear had been ripped in half. Harker didn’t need to say anything as it was clear from the photograph that she had been raped and murdered. There was a stunned silence and Jane could see some of her fellow officers looked horrified. She didn’t feel squeamish, more fascinated by the scene and eager to hear from Harker about the items and clues recovered for forensic examination.

Harker continued, ‘The pathologist estimated that both women had been dead since early to late Wednesday evening. The mother in the chair suffered a repeated beating to her head and face with a blunt object, but that didn’t actually kill her. She was physically sick, but the packing tape round her mouth forced her to try and swallow her vomit back down and she choked to death. Her attacker stabbed her in the heart after death and further multiple injuries were also discovered at the post-mortem. She had many minor stab injuries to her neck, chest, arms and legs, none of which would have killed her, but would have caused intense pain.’

He took a long pause before he continued.

‘The daughter’s hands were taped together at the front and her mouth gagged as well. She was strangled from behind, most probably while the assailant raped her, though this may have occurred after the strangulation. There were no traces of semen so the suspect either failed to ejaculate or wore a condom.’

There were more gasps around the room at the suggestion of necrophilia.

Harker moved on to the next slide which was a close-up of the daughter’s face and neck revealing her bulging, bloodshot eyes.

‘The red pinpoint-type marks in her eyes are petechial haemorrhages and this is a classic sign to the pathologist of asphyxiation due to obstruction of the airway. The haemorrhages occur when blood leaks from the tiny capillaries in the eyes, which can rupture due to increased pressure on the veins in the head when the airways are obstructed. The red abrasions on her neck were caused by the assailant’s fingers and you can also see some fingernail marks. However, these can sometimes be caused by the victim themselves when trying to pull the attacker’s hands from their throat.’

Jane held up her hand. ‘I was wondering about fingerprints.’

Harker looked at his watch. ‘I was going to cover that after lunch, but seeing as you ask I’ll do it now. A fingerprint at a crime scene could be evidential gold, especially if whoever left it already had a criminal record meaning their fingerprints were previously taken and retained on file. We then have something to physically search against, and hopefully get a match providing us with a suspect’s details.’

Jane raised her hand again, and he glanced towards her.

‘Could some people’s prints be at a scene innocently? I mean what if they’d just visited the premises for—’

‘Yes, yes, I am just coming to that.’

He went on to explain to the class that every fingerprint recovered from the scene was sent to the fingerprint bureau at Scotland Yard and manually searched against the many thousands of criminals’ fingerprints on record. Prints were also taken from everyone known to have visited the premises for elimination purposes.

‘We discussed fibres from a suspect’s clothing.’ Harker stared at Jane. ‘If his clothes are covered in blood he would probably burn or throw them away, so what use are fibres then?’

Jane thought he was testing her knowledge, but he didn’t know what she had learned so far on the Julie Ann Collins case.

‘Well, if the suspect went to and from the scene in a car there may still be traces of the car fibres at the murder scene and traces of the victim’s and suspect’s clothes in the car. There may even be traces of the victim’s blood in the car.’

‘That is a good point, because I did find a large amount of blue cotton fibres on the daughter’s top, skirt and legs, which could not be traced back to anything in the cottage and therefore must have come from the suspect’s clothing when he lay on top of her and committed the rape and murder.

‘As you can see, the interpretation and assessment of a crime scene is constantly evolving as more evidence is uncovered and examined at the forensic lab. At the time we actually knew quite a bit about our suspect, but sadly not who he was. We considered, from the evidence, the possibility of a tradesman that owned, or had access to, a car, wore size 8 Gazelle trainers and a blue boiler suit. While shoe size is a poor predictor of exact height, there is a relationship between the two and without going into mathematical detail the suspect could have been between roughly five foot six to five ten, assuming he had stopped growing. I should also add that we did find one fingerprint that we were sure was the suspect’s and in doing this we did something that was quite unique.’

Like the rest of the class, Jane was transfixed. She was enjoying testing herself and applying her new-found knowledge to the Collins case.

*

After a couple of pints and a chat with the drug squad officers in the Warburton Arms, Bradfield and Gibbs went for a late lunch in the canteen. Their shepherd’s pie and chips was greasy, and even with heavy dollops of HP sauce the food was still unpalatable.

‘I can’t eat this shite,’ Bradfield said, pushing his plate to one side.

Gibbs ploughed on, shovelling forkfuls into his mouth, but both were frustrated as the drug squad officers had not heard of a Big Daddy, or a sidekick called Dwayne.

Gibbs wiped his mouth with his napkin. ‘Looks like that little turd Eddie Phillips was lying about Julie Ann Collins again . . . and has done a runner.’

‘Yeah, I know that, thank you, Spence, but the drug squad guys will keep digging and hopefully they’ll find out something positive for us. I want that little bastard Eddie found and dragged back in here.’ He stood up and replacing his chair under the table gripped the top of it.

‘I’ll be in my office going over everything, but I got to tell you, Spence, it’s not looking good and DCS Metcalf is constantly wanting updates.’

‘I thought he was supposed to be running the investigation,’ Gibbs remarked.

‘He’s busy on another case so he’s overseeing it and entrusting me with the investigation, but I’m telling you, Spence, right now this case is flat-lining.’

*

‘Now comes the most fascinating part of today,’ said

Harker as they settled back into their seats after lunch.

‘The ever charming and helpful suspect Brian Hall agreed to come into the station. Meanwhile, two officers attended his uncle’s premises making enquiries about Hall’s movements during the week of the murder. Low and behold his work records revealed he’d delivered and assembled a new double-sized wooden bed and mattress on the Wednesday morning to the two women’s address.’

Everyone in the class sat bolt upright, listening intently as Harker put up a slide of the mother’s bedroom and pointed out that, although the wooden headboard was new, no one had noticed or thought about it at the time. When asked if he had heard about the murder Brian Hall had looked totally shocked and said that he hadn’t, but he could have been to the premises on a delivery but wasn’t sure as it was months ago. Hall was confronted with the delivery and cash payment invoice that his uncle had given the police, but he remained calm and said he must have been to the premises, but had totally forgotten about it as he did so many deliveries every week and could not remember every person he met.

‘It was as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. He wasn’t at all nervous and had an answer for everything. He accounted for his movements after work by saying that he was at home all evening with his father, who just happened to be suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s, thus his alibi couldn’t be disproved beyond doubt. The DCS decided to arrest Hall on suspicion of murder, and obtained a warrant to search his house and car and go over everything with a fine-tooth comb.’ Jane yet again put up her hand and asked about the blue fibres and if they came from Hall’s boiler suit.

‘Good question. I recall you brought up the fibre possibility earlier,’ he remarked.

Harker continued by saying they were a match, but sadly the suit was very common and the one Hall wore didn’t have any blood or fibres from the victim’s clothing on it, and both his company van and car were spotlessly clean and the latter had new seat covers and rubber mats. Hall was also asked if he owned Gazelle trainers and he said he didn’t. It seemed that he had every angle covered and their only hope was he’d slipped up or was being too clever for his own good.

He indicated for the next slide to be brought up. It was a large colour close-up of a smiling Brian Hall, a keen angler, on a riverbank. He was crouching down and proudly holding up a first-prize cup with a very large freshwater carp on the ground by his feet.

‘Taken two weekends before the murders and found hanging in his living room – this was mistake two. Remember I told you every picture tells a story, but can you spot it?’

There was total silence as everyone looked at the picture, tilting their heads this way and that to try and see it from different angles, but no one was forthcoming with an answer.

Harker dropped another clue. ‘He said he’d never owned a particular type and brand of trainer?’

Everyone’s attention was instantly drawn to Hall’s feet and there were repeated echoes around the room of the words ‘Gazelle trainers’, which he was wearing in the photograph.