Cold Light

Forty-seven

The briefing room was cramped and airless, too small for the number of officers clustered inside. Pinned along one wall, stretching away from a color photograph of Nancy Phelan, smiling and alive, were grainy black and white 8?10s of her in death. Other photographs showed the location where her body had been buried, strips of colored tape pinned to them, marking spots where tire tracks had been found, so far unaccounted for, a boot mark, incomplete and etched into a hardened ridge of soil. A map of Lincolnshire and East Anglia showed the two roadside restaurants where the ransom money had been left, the locations north and south of a line that swung gently eastwards as it traced, inland, the curve of the coast around the Wash. Almost directly between, circled in red, was the spot where the pig farm was situated and where Nancy’s body had been found.

“Stinks of stale farts in here,” Cossall said, moving towards the rear of the room.

Divine looked offended. “Only just let that one go.”

Along the corridor in the computer room, extra civilian staff were in place, entering and accessing the information obtained so far, including what Helen Siddons had retrieved from the investigation into Susan Rogel’s earlier disappearance. All this would be checked against the national Holmes computer. Once connections were established, it was from here that fresh action would be generated.

“More sodding paper,” as Cossall liked to put it, “than you’d need if you had four hands, two arses, and a bad case of diarrhea.”

Jack Skelton had recently returned from a press conference where he’d come within an inch of losing his temper. To listen to the most prevalent line of questioning, you’d imagine that Nancy Phelan had been abducted and murdered by a combination of the city’s police force and the Conservative government through the good offices of the Home Secretary.

Wearing a black suit, hair pinned back, shoes with a slight heel, Helen Siddons was leaning slightly towards him, talking earnestly.

Resnick sat with eyes closed, arms folded across his lap, trying to ignore the way his stomach was rumbling while he marshaled his thoughts.

Skelton nodded to Helen, who stepped smartly away, got to his feet and signaled for silence. “Charlie, what have we got so far?”

Notepad in hand, Resnick got to his feet, moving towards a more central position. “Right, preliminary pathologist’s report states death by asphyxiation; bruising consistent with the use of a leather belt or similar, no more than a centimeter and a half across. Marks under the hair, towards the back of the skull, left side, consistent with a fierce blow to the head. Whichever weapon was used, it may have been padded or covered in some way, as, although the bruising’s severe, there are only minimal cuts to the skin. Other bruising, particularly to the arms, legs, and back suggest Nancy struggled with her attacker, possibly in the immediate time before she was strangled.”

“Good for her,” said a voice from one side.

“Much sodding good it did her. Poor cow!” said another.

“Probable scenario, then,” Resnick went on, “for whatever reason, either he’s coming for her or she’s trying to make her escape, the two of them struggle, he subdues her with a blow to the head, strangles her while she’s unconscious.” There were other permutations, worse still.

“As far as can be ascertained,” he continued, “there was no sexual attack, no evidence of semen inside or outside the body. There’s no recent evidence of sexual intercourse.”

“Bloody waste,” Divine said quietly.

“Thought you were one of those,” Cossall said, overhearing him, “didn’t give a toss if they were alive or dead.”

“The fact that she was buried where she was,” Resnick was saying, “makes examination of the body difficult. There were some samples of skin tissue found under her nails, however, and here and there particles of fertilizer-enriched soil which don’t seem appropriate to the ground she was buried in. Tests are continuing on all of these.”

“Time of death, Charlie,” Skelton prompted.

“Again, not easy, due in the main to unusually low temperatures. But the best guess as of now is that she’d been dead for four or five days, with the body only being transferred to the point where it was found as little as six hours or less beforehand.” Resnick looked around. “I don’t need to spell out for you what this means: she was almost certainly already dead when the attempt to follow the ransom instructions were carried out.”

Muted cheers and more than a few prayers answered. At least they didn’t have to take the blame for that.

“Not a lot else from here,” Resnick said, flipping over another page of his notebook. “As you know, there’s a partial print of a boot, composite rubber, Wellington or similar, size eight or nine. Tire marks are marginally more interesting, weight and spread suggests a medium to large saloon, but I think we’re being a bit hopeful going that far.”

“Hopeful isn’t sodding in it,” intoned an anonymous voice, miserably.

“What we still lack is anything positive to link whoever killed Nancy Phelan with the person who returned her clothes to the flat. Analysis of the skin tissue found under her nails might give us that, if we can find a match in our records.”

“And pigs might do the proverbial,” Cossall remarked sourly.

“Something to add, Reg?” asked Skelton.

Cossall smirked and shook his head. Resnick stood his ground. “What we might have, however, is a better suspect than any of us thought. Someone a few of us have actually seen.”

In the hubbub that followed, Resnick moved back towards his seat and now it was Helen Siddons’ turn. The level of conversation rose again as she stepped forward and she was careful to wait, eyes surveying the room, until it had died down and she was sure of everyone’s attention.

“Most of you will know something about the Susan Rogel investigation and will be aware there are certain basic similarities with this one. Woman disappears without trace, after a brief period a ransom demand is made, and when an attempt is made to make payment, the money is ignored. So far, so good. Here, though we have a body, in Susan Rogel’s case we’ve turned up nothing and it’s not outside the realms of possibility that she engineered her own disappearance. Except … listen to this.

“Thirty minutes after the time appointed for the ransom to be collected, a car pulled in at the pub where the money had been left near the outside toilet; the driver went inside and ordered a half of bitter and a ham roll, left ten minutes later, still finishing off the roll and went to the Gents’.”

“Must’ve pissed with his left hand,” Divine said.

“When he drove off, he was followed and detained. At first, he got a big shirty, thinking it was a random breath test, but as soon as he realized it was something else, he was as co-operative as you like. Ended up asking almost as many questions as we did. Claimed he’d started studying once for a law degree, but for some reason had dropped out. Still thought about going to university, reading criminology.

“He said he was currently working as a sales rep for a firm called Oliver and Chard, based in Gloucester. Specialized in work clothes, farms and factories, you know the kind of thing, overalls, protective clothing, reinforced boots. He was on his way to a dairy farm in Cheddar and after that had a call to make in Shepton Mallet. Car he was driving had been hired from Hertz that morning; normally he used his own, but he’d been experiencing difficulties getting it to start.”

Helen Siddons looked right to left around the room; not too many people were staring at their shoes.

“His name was Barrie McCain. Of course we checked him out with his employers, appointments log, car hire, everything. It all tallied. There was never any follow-up; there didn’t seem to be any reason. Not until Patrick Reverdy turned up at the Little Chef and fished the duffel bag of money out from the toilet.”

“This McCain,” Reg Cossall said, “I presume we wouldn’t be going through all this if he was still working for the same firm.”

“Gave in his notice,” Helen Siddons said, “the week after the noncollection of the ransom. Some story about his mother being ill Manchester way, Wilmslow, the personnel manager thinks she remembers. He’d been a good salesman, friendly, they’d been sad to let him go.”

“Photograph,” Cossall said, “too much to hope for.”

“Company policy is to keep one on file. McCain kept forgetting to bring one in. After a while, they got fed up asking. Figures were so far up in his area, they didn’t want to get the wrong side of him. However,” continuing among the moans and groans, “D.C. Divine described the man he saw close to in the Little Chef, the one calling himself Reverdy. According to the personnel manager, in outline it fitted him to a T. Similar height, five eight or nine, medium to slight build, sometimes she said he used to let his moustache grow a little but before it became established normally he shaved it off. McCain was seen at close quarters by two other officers-getting a photo-fit together is a priority, I think, as soon as this is through.”

“Thanks, Helen,” Skelton said. “Charlie. All right, the rest of you. Without shutting off other avenues, there’s a lot to work on here. I want every element of this Reverdy’s story checked forwards, backwards, then checked again. McCain, too. If we can clear connections between them, anything that’s more than circumstantial, for the first time we might be ahead of the game.”