Dance of Ghosts

15

The business of death …

‘Did he rape her before stabbing her?’

‘We believe the wounds were inflicted during the rape.’

‘And then he strangled her?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did he get into the house?’

‘There were no signs of forced entry, so at the moment we’re assuming that Stacy let him in. Which either means that she knew him, or she was somehow tricked into letting him in.’

‘Do you know what time it happened?’

DI Delaney looks through the papers in the file. ‘The pathologist estimates the time of death at between 3.30 and 4.45. Stacy’s watch, which was broken during the attack, was stopped at 4.17.’ He looks at me. ‘You were still at work, John. You couldn’t have done anything.’

It’s a pointless thing to say, but I don’t hold it against him. I ask, ‘Have you got any witnesses?’

He shakes his head. ‘Not yet.’

‘No one saw anything?’

‘We’ve still got some follow-up interviews to do, and we’ve got appeals planned for the press and local TV. We’re doing everything we possibly can, John.’

‘What about forensics?’

‘The crime-scene evidence is still being analysed. No fingerprints have been found, so we’re assuming he wore gloves … and preliminary reports indicate the use of a condom during the rape, so we don’t expect to find any — ’

‘A condom?’

Delaney sighs. ‘It’s not unusual, I’m afraid. Rapists, sexual predators, murderers … they all watch CSI these days — CSI, Waking the Dead, Silent Witness …’ He shrugs. ‘They all know about DNA … at least, they think they do.’ He looks at me. ‘I’m sorry if I only seem to have bad news for you, John … but there is one thing that’s giving us hope.’

I don’t say anything, I just wait.

‘During the post-mortem,’ he tells me, ‘the pathologist found a small piece of scalp in your wife’s stomach.’

‘Scalp?’

He nods. ‘We think — and I have to emphasise that forensic work is still being carried out, so at the moment we can’t be sure — but we think that at some point during the assault, your wife must have fought back, biting her attacker on the head … and, incredibly, we think she must have actually bitten off a piece of his scalp …’

‘And swallowed it?’

Delaney shakes his head in admiration. ‘Whether or not she knew what she was doing, making sure that he wouldn’t get away without leaving his DNA behind … well, I don’t know. But either way, what she did … well, all I can say is that she must have been a remarkable woman.’

‘Yes … yes, she was.’ And I’m crying now. ‘Will you get DNA from this piece of scalp?’

He nods. ‘There’s no reason why not. It’s got everything the forensic team need — blood, skin … hair. We’re expecting the results within the week. Of course, everything then depends on matching the DNA to a suspect. If we can match the DNA profile to a profile we already have on our database, we’ve got a result. But if not, if the man who killed Stacy has never been arrested before …’

‘But he probably has.’

Delaney nods cautiously. ‘Probably, yes. This doesn’t look like the work of a first-time offender. But just because he’s done it before, that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s been arrested before.’

‘So … we just have to wait.’

‘Yes, I’m afraid so. As I said, we should have the DNA results by the end of this week, and I promise I’ll let you know as soon as I get them.’

‘Thanks.’

‘And, in the meantime, if anything else turns up …’

I nod my head, getting to my feet.

What else is there to say?

Nothing.

I just have to wait.

I’d told Ada that I didn’t have any proof of Bishop’s involvement in Anna’s disappearance, but the simple truth was that I didn’t have proof of anything at all. Despite everything Cal had done, hacking into the CCTV system and searching through hours of footage, all we’d really done was confirm what Tasha had told me, that Anna had been picked up by a man in a Nissan Almera. That was it. That was all I knew. I had no idea who the man was, no idea of his intentions, no idea what he’d done with Anna.

For all I knew, Bishop had been right when he’d suggested that Anna had simply ‘met some bloke who’s promised her the world and they’ve fucked off together somewhere’. Maybe the man in the Nissan was just a punter intent on rescuing Anna from her life of depravity … or maybe he was nothing more than just another punter. Charles Raymond Kemper, a lonely businessman from Leicester, visiting Hey for a sales conference or a meeting with investors … he picks up Anna, takes her to a nice quiet spot somewhere, pays her to do what he wants, then drives back to town and drops her off somewhere.

Why not?

I didn’t know.

But although I’m a stone-cold realist, and I have no belief whatsoever in anything even remotely supernatural, spiritual, or mystical … when I’d watched that blurred video footage of Anna Gerrish getting into the Nissan, I knew that I’d been watching a ghost.

Anna Gerrish was dead.

I had no doubt about that.

And I knew that I wasn’t going to find her by simply driving around, following the possible route of what was possibly her last journey, but I also knew that she could be out there somewhere — buried in a shallow grave, left to rot in a lonely copse, or just discarded at the side of the road somewhere, thrown away like an unwanted toy — and if she was out there, she would have been out there for a whole month by now … and no one had made any effort to find her.

No one had gone looking for her.

No one had cared.

And I can’t say for sure that I cared either. I cared about something, but whether it was the ghost of Anna Gerrish that was willing me on, or the haunting echoes of Stacy’s death, or just the amphetamine-fuelled yearning of my own self-pity … I simply didn’t know. I was just doing what I was doing — driving through the late-afternoon streets, looking for something, anything …

The daylight was beginning to fade as I passed along London Road, the pale purple skies edged with the dying redness of the sun. There was no sign of Tasha or any of the other girls. The streets were quiet and empty. I drove on. Through the tunnel, under the bridge … and then I slowed down and pulled in at the lay-by. It was just a lay-by: a dull grey crescent of gravelled concrete and weeds, an overflowing litter bin, cigarette ends strewn on the ground … a small and desolate place. In a verge at the back of the lay-by, clumps of wild grass swayed stiffly in a roadside breeze. I could feel the emptiness in the air.

It was no place for anyone to spend the last half-hour of their life.

I pulled away and drove off.

The hedge-lined greyness of Great Hey Road led me out of town, past the turning back to Hey, out into a semi-rural world of ploughed fields, out-of-town pubs, and small housing estates with rundown mini-markets where kids in tracksuits hung around benches waiting for things to happen. The further I got from Hey though, the more rural the landscape became, and as the farmlands passed by in a blur of abandonment — ramshackle buildings, polythene greenhouses, wasteland nurseries selling cheap pots and poorly-made bird tables — I realised just how many places there were where a dead body could be left with little fear of it being found: ditches, woods, overgrown streams, hedgerows, old quarries, deserted farm buildings. And I knew, as I approached the Ranges — a large expanse of wooded moorland that was used by the Army for military exercises — I knew that if Anna was out there somewhere, it was quite possible that she’d never be found.

I was trying to think logically, telling myself that if her abductor was a local man, he might well know about the Ranges, but if he wasn’t — if he was a man from Leicester called Charles Raymond Kemper — then he probably wouldn’t know the area that well, and if he had a dead body in his car that he was desperate to get rid of, he’d most likely just pick the first suitable spot he came across … probably somewhere much closer to town.

Which was logical enough reasoning … at least, it would have been if I’d known for sure whether Anna’s abductor was local or not. But I didn’t.

I didn’t even know if he existed.

I slowed the car and turned off into a deserted picnic area at the edge of the Ranges. It wasn’t much of a place, just a concreted square with a wooden table in the middle, surrounded by acres of litter-strewn scrubland, and as I parked the Fiesta and turned off the engine, I wondered if it was worth getting out of the car for a quick look round. It was an ideal spot for getting rid of a body — remote, but easily accessible; out of sight of the road, but not suspiciously so; and bordered on all sides by tangled hedgerows, drainage ditches, brambles, nettles, fallen trees …

As I lit a cigarette and gazed out over it all — wondering once again what the hell I was doing — my mobile rang. It was Cal, and he sounded quite excited.

‘I think I’ve got something, John,’ he said, the words spilling out rapidly. ‘Where are you?’

‘I’m at the Ranges … what do you mean you’ve got something?’

‘You need to turn round and head back towards town. Have you got a map? There’s a camera — ’

‘Hold on a second,’ I said, trying to slow him down. ‘Just tell me what you’ve got first.’

‘OK, well … I’ve been doing what you asked me to do, looking for more footage of the Nissan, and I found a couple of CCTV cameras on Great Hey Road … there’s one at the junction with the road back to town, and another about a mile further on at a railway crossing on the branchline … you know, one of those barrier crossings?’

‘Yeah, I know the one you mean.’

‘All right, so I worked out roughly how long it would have taken the guy to drive from the lay-by to the junction, and then on to the crossing, and I hacked into the stored footage at the times I estimated he’d be there … and guess what? I only fucking found him, didn’t I?’

‘Where? At the junction?’

‘At the junction and the crossing.’

‘And you’re sure it’s the same car?’

‘Yeah, but — ’

‘The same driver?’

‘It’s the same guy — ’

‘What about Anna? Is she — ?’

‘Fuck’s sake, John,’ he said angrily. ‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Just listen to me, all right? Are you listening?’

‘Yeah, sorry — ’

‘OK,’ he sighed. ‘Right, well … when the Nissan passes the junction, there’s definitely someone in the passenger seat. The footage is still too blurred to tell if it’s Anna Gerrish or not, but whoever it is, she’s in the car when it passes the junction. But then … well, if he’d carried on at the same speed, he should have got to the railway crossing about a minute later, but he didn’t. I double-checked the footage, going back a minute, then forward a minute, but there was still no sign of the Nissan. So then I fast-forwarded the tape — ’

‘Did you find him or not, Cal?’ I said impatiently.

‘He passed the crossing half an hour later.’

‘What?’

‘The Nissan passed the junction at 01.55, and it didn’t get to the crossing until 02.26.’

‘Shit.’

‘Yeah, and the thing is, when it got to the crossing there was no one in the passenger seat.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Fucking positive. I’ve watched it over and over again. I’ve paused the video as the car crosses the tracks … in fact, I’m looking at it on my laptop right now. It’s definitely the same car, with the same guy in the driver’s seat, and there’s definitely no one in the passenger seat. No one in the back seats either. Unless they’re hidden away somewhere, there’s no one else in that car but the driver.’

‘Shit,’ I said again.

‘Exactly.’

‘So that must mean — ’

‘He’s stopped off for half an hour somewhere between the junction and the crossing, and during that time he’s got rid of Anna.’

‘If it is Anna.’

‘We know it’s her, John.’

‘Yeah …’

‘And now we know where to find her. I mean, it’s half a mile at the most between the junction and the crossing … there can’t be that many places on that stretch of road where you can park a car without it being seen. You need to get going, John, before it gets too dark — ’

‘I’m on my way,’ I said, starting the car and reversing across the picnic area. ‘I’ll call you when I get there. In the meantime, if you can get hold of a detailed map of the area — ’

‘I’m looking at it on Google Earth right now. I can try sending it to your mobile if you want.’

‘Who the hell do you think I am?’ I said, reversing into the picnic table. ‘Jack fucking Bauer?’

By the time I got back to the railway crossing it was almost 5.30 and the daylight was nearly gone. It was that pre-dusk time of day when the light becomes hesitant, unsure what to do with itself, and the form of things is indistinct. There were no streetlights here, and as I pulled in at the side of the road on the south side of the crossing, the view up ahead seemed to lack definition — the grey ribbon of the road itself merging into a green-grey dullness of roadside ditches, low hedges, and barren trees.

I lit a cigarette and called Cal.

‘Where are you?’ he said.

‘At the crossing. Are you still looking at the road on Google Earth?’

‘Yeah, and I’ve found a few places that might be worth checking out. If we assume that he killed her and dumped her body somewhere between the junction and the crossing, then he would have had to find a place where he could park the car and do his stuff without being seen. Right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘OK, well, the road from the junction is pretty well lit for about half a mile, and the only places he could possibly pull off and park are in the fields on either side of the road, but the hedges are quite low around there, and he’d still be out in the open. But further on, heading towards the crossing, there’s no lighting and there’s a couple of places where he could get off the road and not be seen. Do you want me to direct you to them?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You’re facing north, right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘OK, the nearest one to you is about four hundred yards away, on the left-hand side of the road. That’s your left. All right?’

‘Yeah,’ I said, pulling away. ‘What am I looking for?’

‘There’s a right-hand bend in the road, and just past that there’s a little dirt track that leads down to a patch of wasteground that looks as if it’s filled with piles of gravel or something … some kind of roadworks storage, I suppose. Are you there yet?’

‘I’m just at the bend … hold on. Yeah, I can see the track … but there’s a gate.’

‘A gate? I can’t see any gate.’

‘Well, it’s there,’ I said, stopping beside a six-foot-high wire-mesh gate. ‘And it’s locked … it’s got a big brass padlock on it.’

‘Yeah …’ Cal muttered. ‘I can see it now. It’s not very clear …’

‘I don’t think he’d bother with a locked gate, Cal. Even if he could get it open, it’d be too risky. He’d have to stop the car, get out, pick the lock, open the gate — ’

‘Yeah, OK. Well, leave it for now … you can always check it out later. The other place I found looks more promising anyway.’

‘Where is it?’ I said, pulling back onto the road again.

‘Keep going for about another two hundred yards and you should see a lane on your right. I think it’s some kind of access road. It heads down towards the railway tracks, and there’s a few little buildings down there … railway buildings, probably. But there’s all kinds of other shit down there too — piles of pallets, old girders, sleepers, rusted machinery — ’

‘Just a minute, Cal,’ I said, slowing the car and peering over to my right.

‘Are you there already?’

‘No … I’m looking at something else.’ I stopped the car. Although there was very little traffic, the road here was quite narrow, with nowhere safe to pull in, so I flicked on the hazard lights. ‘Can you check something for me?’ I said to Cal.

‘What is it?’

‘I’m about fifty yards north of the gate, and on the right-hand side of the road there’s a kind of lay-by … but it’s cut off from the road behind a strip of trees, so you can’t actually see into it from the road. It’s like one of those pull-off areas for lorry drivers … can you see it yet?’

‘I’m still looking …’

‘There’s a slight bend in the road just past it, and the entrance on the north side — the town side — is blocked by two big piles of earth.’

‘Yeah, I’ve got it now.’

‘What do you think? It’s got to be a pretty isolated spot, because if you’re coming from town the first entrance is blocked, and the other entrance, which I suppose is the exit really, that’s a really tight turn.’

‘Yeah, and if you’re coming the other way you’d have to cut across the road right after the bend, and you wouldn’t want to do that.’

‘Can you make out what’s in there?’

‘Well, like you said, it’s not really a lay-by, it’s just a lane … a pull-off area. I can’t see any buildings or anything. It looks like there’s a little stream running alongside it … maybe a ditch. It veers off to the right about halfway along and heads down a bank towards the railway tracks.’

‘I’m going to take a look.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yeah, there’s something about it … I don’t know. It feels …’ Like a dead place, I was going to say. It feels like a dead place. Which it did. It felt rotten, decaying, empty, soulless … but, for some reason, I didn’t want to voice those feelings.

‘Listen, Cal,’ I said, glancing over my shoulder to check that the road was clear. ‘I’m just going to put the phone down for a minute, OK? I’ve got to make a U-turn and … well, you know what my driving’s like.’

‘OK.’

I put the phone on the passenger seat and glanced over my shoulder again. The road behind me was clear, but I had to wait for a lorry to rumble past from the opposite direction. Once it had gone, I put the car into gear and swung a tight U-turn so I was heading back in the direction I’d just come from, and then almost immediately I slowed down again to make the 180-degree left turn into the lay-by. It was just a narrow track at first, curving round to the right, before gradually straightening out into a slightly broader stretch of gravelled concrete. The night was almost fully dark now, and as I drove slowly towards the widest part of the lay-by, the beam of my headlights lit up the gloom in front of me. The lay-by itself was just a flat slab of emptiness, a pot-holed lane with a bulge in the middle. There were a few scraps of litter around — an empty KFC box, some burger wrappers, carrier bags hanging in trees — but none of it looked fresh. This wasn’t a well-used place. The surrounding trees and hedges seemed to lean in towards the lay-by, giving the whole place a tunnel-like sense of enclosure and isolation.

I parked the car and turned off the engine.

The silence was acute.

I sat there for a while, gazing around at the rapidly dimming surroundings, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness, and I tried to imagine what I’d be thinking if it was 2.30 in the morning and there was a dead body in my car. Would you get rid of it here? I asked myself. Would you feel safe getting rid of it here? And, if so, where exactly would you dump it?

I picked up my mobile.

‘Cal?’ I said.

‘Is everything all right?’

‘Yeah. I’m in the lay-by now. I’m just going to take a quick look round, OK?’

‘Keep your phone on.’

‘Yeah.’

I reached under the seat and pulled out a torch, checked it was working, turned it off again, then opened the door and stepped out. I’d already spotted the stream that Cal had mentioned — or, at least, I’d seen the top of a tree-lined clay bank that ran alongside the lay-by, stopping about halfway along, and I was pretty sure it was the bank of the stream that Cal had seen on Google Earth. As I crossed the lay-by, heading for the point where the bank dropped away, I could smell a growing sourness in the air — rotted leaves, waste, dead things. The stagnant odour of decay. There was a small gap between the end of the bank and a thick black tangle of hawthorn trees — just enough room for an adult man to squeeze through — and as I approached the gap, I turned on the torch. I’m not sure what I was expecting to see — footprints, maybe … a scrap of cloth caught on a branch — but, of course, there wasn’t anything there. If anything had happened here, it had happened a month ago — time enough for the wind and rain to remove all traces of evidence.

I moved closer to the gap, raising the torch to see if I could make out what was on the other side. I saw darkness, an empty space, the tops of trees. I edged into the gap, turning sideways to avoid the worst of the thorns, and slowly eased my way through. My feet kept slipping on the rain-moistened clay and I had to grab hold of a thickish branch to steady myself. I cautiously inched forward, sweeping the torchlight over the ground in front of me. To my left, it was all trees — a dense thicket of hawthorn — while away to my right I could see the stream, a shallow run of muddy brown water oozing along a dirty clay ditch. To my immediate right, where the bank fell away, there was a surprisingly sudden drop of about eight to ten feet, at the bottom of which was a boggy black pool. The stream trickled down into the pool, before oozing away again into a sparse patch of littered woodland. The pool had clearly been used as a dump over the years, and as I shone my torch down into the darkness, I could see all kinds of discarded waste down there: great lumps of concrete, dried-up sacks of cement, rolls of rusted wire mesh, sheets of corrugated iron, an old metal trough, iron poles and rusted chains and …

‘Shit,’ I heard myself whisper.

There was a face down there.

The remains of a face.

There wasn’t much left of it, and it was half covered by sodden strands of long black hair, but there was no doubt in my mind whose face it was.

Breathing slowly, I took the phone from my pocket and held it to my ear.

‘Cal?’ I said.

‘What’s happening, John?’

‘I’ve found her.’

‘What?’

‘Anna Gerrish … I’ve found her.’