Chain of Evidence

21

The atmosphere crackled on Tuesday morning, affecting everyone in the Waterloo police station, uniformed officers, detectives and civilian staff alike. It was most evident at the briefing, the mood heightened and expectant as Ellen began to talk. Ellen herself was fierce, dynamic, showing sorrow, disgust and anger. Those seated close to her saw that her eyes were damp as she described the house, the room, the small, abused body.

Then, unwinding, she got down to business. ‘As you can see, there are fewer of us today.’

She didn’t need to explain why. Word always got around the station quickly. Now that Katie Blasko had been found alive, Superintendent McQuarrie wanted those uniformed constables who had been on the search detail back on regular duties, and was allowing Ellen only a small team to investigate the abduction. Van Alphen and Kellock were not obliged to attend, but had offered their services, arguing that they knew the case and could allocate uniformed assistance from time to time.

‘Let’s start with the house,’ she said. ‘Our man was taking a chance, using the shire’s emergency housing.’

She looked around the room, inviting reasons for that. It was van Alphen who answered. ‘Those houses are sometimes empty for days, weeks,’ he said. ‘People move on without informing their social workers, parole officers or the shire.’

‘You’re saying that many people could have known about that particular house, and that it would be empty for a while?’

‘Yes.’

Scobie supplied another detail. ‘I spoke to the shire housing officer. There’s been a sudden increase in demand. The order to clean De Soto Lane came in yesterday morning. Clearly our man wasn’t expecting that.’

John Tankard stirred as if making a vital point. ‘Meaning he could come back.’

Kellock smiled at him without much humour. ‘Unlikely. Have you seen the publicity? But I’m sure we can roster you to watch the place.’

‘Senior Sergeant,’ Tankard muttered, going red.

‘What scenario are we looking at here?’ demanded Ellen. ‘They keep her prisoner for a few days, dress her up in school uniforms, frilly underwear, nighties, film each other having sex with her, then let her go?’

‘Or kill and dump her,’ Scobie said.

Ellen made a brief, bitter gesture. ‘Meanwhile the neighbours can’t tell us a thing.’

She’d examined the house last night and again early that morning. It was well chosen, for there were no neighbours to speak of. The builder erecting the market gardener’s new house had recently gone bankrupt and so no one had been working at the site. The few workers employed in the timber yard and the market garden had seen nothing, owing to trees, shrubbery and high fences. The elderly couple living in the little house opposite were used to seeing cars come and go at 24 De Soto Lane, and had paid no attention to recent activities there. ‘So long as they aren’t noisy and aren’t going to murder us in our beds, we leave them be,’ the old woman had told Ellen.

‘But didn’t they think about what they were seeing?’ Scobie Sutton demanded now. ‘Didn’t they hear anything?’

Because of his height, he sometimes sprawled like an arrangement of twigs, but this morning he sat stiffly upright, as if too distressed to concentrate. Ellen didn’t want that. ‘Scobie, take Constable Tankard and question everyone again. Are there surveillance cameras on the timber yard or the packing shed? Did the mailman deliver to the house late last week and again yesterday? Track down anyone who bought timber or fruit and vegetables in De Soto Lane over the past several days-go back prior to the day Katie was abducted. Did the old couple have visitors during the past few days? All right?’

Scobie stared at the coffee rings on the incident room table. He gave a shuddering sigh.

‘Scobie!’

He blinked and jerked. ‘Yep. Sure.’

Ellen saw Kellock and van Alphen watching her appraisingly, the former built like a wrestler, the latter slender and hawkish and surprisingly like Hal Challis. Then van Alphen dropped his scrutiny, the narrow planes of his face relaxing into a slight, commiserative smile. ‘Forensics, Ellen?’

She shook her head bleakly. ‘Not as much as I’d hoped for. We’ve got a handful of prints and partials, but most of those will match people who have recently lived in the house, some of whom will be in the system for a range of unrelated offences-mothers jailed for dealing, kids for burglary, etcetera, etcetera. But all will have to be eliminated, which will take time. On the other hand, the cleaners do a pretty good job between tenants, and the last tenant, a battered wife, says she cleaned pretty thoroughly after herself, so we might pick up fresh prints.’

‘Only if our guy didn’t wear gloves,’ Kellock said.

‘True.’

Van Alphen was watching her again but not seeing her. ‘What is it, Van?’

‘He might have got careless.’

‘How?’

‘When he’s finished with her, is he going to kill her? Take her somewhere and release her? Either way, he’s not going to leave her in the house, is he?’

Ellen nodded. ‘You’re right. He knew the house would be vacant. He knew he had a few days. Whether he released her alive, or killed and dumped her, he would clean up after himself, with the obvious benefit of the cleaners coming along afterwards and accounting for anything he overlooked. It means he knew about the house and the emergency housing scheme. It was bad luck for him that the cleaners came along sooner than expected.’

‘Yes.’

‘An insider, someone who works for the shire or social services,’ Ellen said. ‘Scobie, can you look into that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Thank you. Now, forensics. We have a blanket, towels, a mattress, a chain and manacle, a range of clothing. And dog hairs.’

‘Dog hairs,’ Kellock said, throwing down his pen. ‘Could have come from anywhere. She patted a dog on the way home from school. A friend took a dog to school. The neighbours have a dog. Maybe it’s cross contamination: the cleaners carried dog hair in on their clothing or shoes. Can we get DNA? Do we have a dog to match it to? Dog hairs,’ he said in disgust.

‘Look,’ Ellen said, ‘I know we’re all frustrated by this case. But we don’t have much to go on, and the dog hairs were found at the scene and have to be accounted for.’

‘I heard there was blood, Sarge,’ John Tankard said.

‘Yes, but it might all be from the child.’

Of course, they were hoping otherwise. They were hoping their abductor had been scratched by Katie, or suffered a nosebleed. If his DNA was in Crimtrac, the national database of DNA, fingerprints, palm prints and paedophiles, then they could make an arrest and move on. In the best-case scenario, Crimtrac would give them a specific name, face and record, but Crimtrac was also proving itself helpful in solving cold cases, where identities were unknown, for most crims were repeat offenders, and most graduated from low-level to serious crimes. They cut themselves on glass pulling a modest burglary, and years later found themselves arrested for leaving DNA at a rape or murder scene. And Crimtrac was national, which helped in a country where the population was highly mobile. Twenty per cent of fingerprint inquiries lodged through Crimtrac led police to crimes committed hundreds, even thousands of kilometres away.

‘Semen?’ said Scobie. A good churchgoing man, it was a word he tiptoed around.

‘The techs ran a black light over the whole house but didn’t find any.’

‘He used a condom.’

‘Or washed everything. Bathed the girl afterwards,’ van Alphen said. ‘Ask her, Ellen.’

Ellen winced. She was not looking forward to that.