Lost

16

London has three private laboratories that do genetic testing. The biggest is Genetech Corporation on Harley Street. Although it's late Friday afternoon, the place is still open. The reception area has a granite counter, leather chairs and a framed poster that reads, PEACE OF MIND PATERNITY KITS. Isn't that an oxymoron?

The receptionist is a tall pale girl with straggly hair and a vacant face. She's wearing pearl earrings and has a plastic cigarette lighter tucked under her bra strap.

“Welcome to Genetech, how can I help you?”

“Do you remember me?”

She blinks slowly. “Um, well, I don't think so. Have you been here before?”

“I was hoping you might be able to tell me. My name is Detective Inspector Vincent Ruiz. I might have been here about a month ago.”

“Did you order a test?”

“I believe so.”

She doesn't bat an eyelid. I could be asking for a paternity test on Prince William and she'd act like it happens every day. She jots down my details and flicks at the keys of a computer. “Was it a police matter?”

“A private test.”

“Yes, here it is—a DNA test. You wanted a comparison done on an earlier sample . . .” She pauses and gives a puzzled hum.

“What is it?”

“You also wanted us to analyze an envelope and a letter. You paid cash. Almost £450.”

“How long did the tests take?”

“These were done in five days. It can sometimes take six weeks. You must have been in a hurry. Is there a problem?”

“I need to see the test results again. They didn't arrive.”

“But you collected them personally. It says so right here.” She taps the computer screen.

“You must be mistaken.”

Her eyes fill with doubt. “So you want copies?”

“No. I want to speak to whoever conducted the tests.”

For the next twenty minutes I wait on a black leather sofa, reading a brochure on genetic testing. We live in suspicious times. Wives check on husbands; husbands check on wives; and parents discover if their teenage children are taking drugs or sleeping around. Some things are safer left alone.

Eventually, I'm escorted upstairs, along sterile corridors and into a white room with benches lined with microscopes and machines that hum and blink. A young woman in a white coat peels off her rubber gloves before shaking hands. Her name is Bernadette Foster and she doesn't look old enough to have done her A levels let alone mastered these surroundings.

“You wanted to ask about some tests,” she says.

“Yes, I need a fuller explanation.”

Sliding off a high stool, she opens a filing cabinet and produces a bright-green folder.

“From memory the results were self-explanatory. I extracted DNA from strands of hair and compared this with earlier tests done by the Forensic Science Service, which I assume you provided.”

“Yes.”

“Both samples—new and old—belonged to a girl called Michaela Carlyle.”

“Could the test be wrong?”

“Thirteen markers were the same. You're looking at one chance in ten billion.”

Even though I'm expecting the news, I suddenly feel unsteady on my feet. Both samples were the same. This doesn't breathe air into Mickey's lungs or pump blood through her veins but it does prove that at some point, however long ago, the hair fell across her shoulders or brushed against her forehead.

Miss Foster looks up from her notes. “If you don't mind me asking, why did you ask us to do the test? We don't usually do police work.”

“It was a private request from the girl's mother.”

“But you're a detective.”

“Yes.”

She looks at me expectantly but then realizes I'm not going to explain. Referring back to the folder, she takes out several photographs. “Head hairs are usually the longest and have a uniform diameter. Uncut hair appears tapered but in this case you can see the cut tip from a hairdresser's scissors or clippers.” She points to a photograph. “This hair hadn't been dyed or permed.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Can you tell her age?”

“No.”

“Could she be alive?”

The question sounds too hopeful but she doesn't appear to notice. Instead she points to another highly magnified image. “When hair originates from a body in a state of decomposition a dark ring can sometimes appear near the root. It's called a postmortem root band.”

“I can't see it.”

“That makes two of us.”

A second set of photographs show the postcard. The wording is just as I remember, with large block letters and completely straight lines.

“The envelope and card didn't tell us much. Whoever sent this didn't lick the stamp. And we didn't find any fingerprints.” She shuffles through the photographs. “Why is everyone so interested in this case all of a sudden?”

“What do you mean?”

“We had a lawyer phone last week. He asked about forensic tests relating to Michaela Carlyle.”

“Did he give his name?”

“No.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him we couldn't comment. Our tests are confidential.”

It may have been Howard's lawyer, which begs the question how did he know. Miss Foster returns the file to the cabinet. I seem to have exhausted my questions.

“Don't you want to know about the other package?” she asks.

My confusion lasts a fraction of a second—long enough to give myself away.

“You don't remember, do you?”

I feel a wave of heat down my neck.

“I'm sorry. I had an accident. I was shot.” I motion to my leg. “I have no memory of what happened.”

“Transient global amnesia.”

“Yes. That's why I'm here—putting the pieces together. You have to help me. What was in the package?”

Opening a cupboard beneath the bench, she takes out a hard plastic box. Reaching inside she produces a transparent ziplock bag. It holds several triangles of pink-and-orange polyester. A bikini!

She turns it around in her fingers. “I did a little research. Michaela Carlyle was wearing a bikini like this when she disappeared, which I assume is why you asked us to analyze this.”

“I assume so, too.” My mouth is suddenly dry.

“Where did you get this?”

“I don't remember.”

She hums knowingly. “So you can't tell me what's going on?”

“I can't, I'm sorry.”

Reading something in my eyes, she accepts this.

“Is it Mickey's bikini?”

“We couldn't extract any DNA materials but we did find slight traces of urine and feces. Unfortunately, there isn't enough to analyze. I did, however, discover that it was part of a batch manufactured in Tunisia and sold through shops and catalogs in the spring of 2001. Three thousand units were imported and sold in the U.K.; five hundred were size seven.”

Rapidly I try to process the information. A few triangles of polyester weave, size seven, don't constitute proof of life. Howard could have kept the swimsuit as a souvenir or someone else could have found one similar. The details were widely publicized. There was even a photograph of Mickey wearing the bikini.

Would this be enough to convince me that Mickey was still alive? I don't know. Would it convince Rachel? Absolutely.

Stifling a groan, I try to make my brain function. My leg has started to hurt again. It doesn't feel like part of me anymore. It's like I'm dragging around someone else's limb after a failed transplant.

Miss Foster takes me downstairs.

“You should still be in the hospital,” she warns.

“I'm fine. Listen. Are there any more tests you can do . . . on the bikini?”

“What do you want to know?”

“I don't know—traces of hair dye, fibers, chemicals . . .”

“I can have another look.”

“Thank you.”

Every criminal investigation has loose ends. Most of them don't matter if you get a confession or a conviction; they're just white noise or static in the background. Now I keep going back to the original investigation looking for something we missed. All the unexplained details and unanswered questions rattle through my head when I should be sleeping.

We interviewed every resident of Dolphin Mansions. They all had an alibi except for Howard. He couldn't have known the exact contents of Mickey's money box—not unless she told him. Sarah told me she didn't know. Kirsten might have learned such a detail.

I need to see Joe again. He has the sort of brain that might be able to make sense of this. Somehow he can join random, unconnected details and make it look like dot-to-dot drawings that even a child could do.

I don't like calling him on a Saturday. For most people it's a family day. He picks up before the answering machine. I can hear Charlie laughing in the background.

“You had lunch?”

“Yeah.”

“Already?”

“We have a baby remember—it's strained food and nursing home hours.”

“Do you mind watching me eat?”

“No.”

We arrange to meet at Peregrini's, an Italian restaurant in Camden Town where the Chianti is drinkable and the chef could have come straight from central casting with his walrus mustache and booming tenor voice.

I pour Joe a glass of wine and hand him a menu. He soaks up his surroundings, collecting information without even trying.

“So what made you choose this place?” he asks.

“Don't you like it?”

“No, it's fine.”

“Well, the food is good, it reminds me of Tuscany and I know the family. Alberto has been here since the sixties. That's him in the kitchen. You sure you won't eat something?”

“I'll have pudding.”

While we wait to order, I tell him about the DNA tests and the bikini. The likelihood of other letters is now obvious.

“What would you have done with them?”

“Had them analyzed.”

“By the same lab.”

“Maybe I didn't want anyone to know about the ransom demand. I would have put them somewhere safe . . . in case something happened to me.”

Joe nods and stares into his wineglass. “OK, show me your wallet.” He reaches across the table.

“I'm not worth robbing.”

“Just give it to me.”

He thumbs through the various pockets and pouches, pulling out receipts, business cards and the plastic that pays for my life. “OK, imagine for a moment that you don't know this person but you find his wallet on the ground. What does it tell you about him?”

“He doesn't carry much cash around.”

“What else?”

This is one of Joe's psychological games. He wants me to play along. I pick up the receipts, which have dried into a clumped ball. The wallet was in the river with me. I peel them apart. Some are impossible to read but I notice half a dozen receipts for takeout food. I bought a pizza on September 24. When Joe came to see me in the hospital he asked me the last thing I remembered. I told him it was pizza.

Glancing at the table, I feel depressed. My life is piled in front of me. There are business cards from rugby mates; a discount voucher from some random shop; a reminder note from British Gas that my central heating needs servicing; a Royal Mail receipt for registered mail; my driver's license; a photograph of Luke . . .

It's a snapshot taken on the seafront at Blackpool. We were on a day trip and Daj is wearing a dozen petticoats and lace-up shoes. Her hair is hidden beneath a scarf and she is scowling at the photographer because my stepfather has asked her to smile. Luke is swinging from her hand and laughing. I'm in the background, staring at the bottom of one of my sandals as if I just stepped in something.

“You were always looking at the ground,” Daj used to tell me. “And you still managed to fall over your own feet.”

I remember that day. There was a talent competition on the pier. Hundreds of people were sitting in the sun listening to amateur Joe Blows singing songs and telling jokes. Luke kept tugging on Daj's hand, saying he wanted to sing. He was only four. She told him to be quiet.

Next thing we were watching this guy in a checked jacket and slicked-down hair pulling faces and telling jokes. He suddenly stopped because a little kid had walked right onto the stage. It was Luke with a blond cowlick and ice cream–stained shorts. This comedian made a big fuss about lowering the microphone so he could ask Luke a question.

“Well now, little boy, what's your name?”

“Luke.”

“Are you here on a holiday, Luke?”

“No, I'm here with my mum.”

Everyone laughed and Luke frowned. He couldn't work out why they were laughing.

“Why are you up here, Luke?”

“I wanna sing a song.”

“What are you gonna sing?”

“I don't know.”

They laughed again and I could have died, but Luke just stood there and stared, mesmerized by the crowd. Even when Daj dragged him off the stage and they all clapped, Luke didn't wave or acknowledge them. He just stared.

Joe is still sifting through the contents of my wallet. “Everyone leaves a trail,” he says. “It isn't just scraps of paper and photographs. It's the impression we make on other people and how we confront the world.”

He glances to his right. “You take that couple over there.”

A man and a woman are ordering lunch. He's wearing a casual jacket and she's dressed in a classic A-line skirt and cashmere sweater.

“Notice how he doesn't look at the waiter when he's being told the specials. Instead he looks down as though reading from the menu. Now, his companion is different. She's leaning forward, with her elbows on the table and her hands framing her face. She's interested in everything the waiter says.”

“She's flirting with him.”

“You think so? Look at her legs.”

A shoeless stockinged foot is raised and resting on her partner's calf. She's teasing him. She wants him to loosen up.

“You have to look at the whole picture,” says Joe. “I know you can't remember things—not yet anyway. So you have to write things down or make mental notes. Flashes, images, words, faces, whatever comes to you. They don't make sense right now but one day they might.”

A waitress arrives at the table with a plate of sardines.

“Compliments of the chef,” she says.

I raise my glass to Alberto who is standing in the kitchen door. He thumps his chest like a gladiator.

Sucking fish oil from his fingers, Joe begins to focus on the bikini and who might have had it. Mickey was wearing very little when she disappeared and her beach towel became the most important piece of evidence against Howard.

All investigations need a breakthrough—a witness or a piece of evidence that turns theory into fact. In Mickey's case it had been her striped beach towel. A woman walking her dog had found it at East Finchley Cemetery. It was heavily stained with blood, vomit and traces of hair dye. Howard had no alibi for when Mickey disappeared and had been working at the cemetery in the days that followed.

A precipitin test confirmed the blood on the towel to be human—A negative, Mickey's group (along with seven percent of the population). The DNA tests were conclusive.

Without hesitation, I ordered a search of the flower beds and recently dug graves. We used ground-penetrating radar and Caterpillar diggers, as well as SOCO teams with hand spades and sieves.

Campbell went ballistic, of course. “You're digging up a fucking cemetery!” he yelled. I had to hold the phone six inches from my ear.

I took a deep breath. “I'm conducting a limited search, Sir. We have the cemetery records showing all the recently dug graves. Anything that doesn't match is worth investigating.”

“What about the headstones?”

“We'll try not to touch them.”

Campbell began listing all the people who had to sanction an exhumation, including a County Court Judge, the Administrator of Cemeteries and the Chief Medical Officer of Westminster Council.

“We're not snatching bodies or robbing graves,” I reassured him.

Eighty feet of lawn and flower bed had been dug up by then. Paving stones were propped against walls and turf rolled into muddy faggots. Howard had helped plant the garden two months earlier for Westminster in Bloom, a flower competition.

Twenty-two other sites were also excavated within the cemetery. Although it sounds like a clever hiding place, it's not an easy thing to conceal a body in a graveyard. First you have to bury it without anyone noticing, most probably at night. And it doesn't matter if you believe in ghosts or not, very few people are comfortable in cemeteries after dark.

A media blackout covered the dig, but I knew it couldn't hold. Someone must have phoned Rachel and she turned up that first afternoon. Two police officers had to hold her back behind the police tape. She fought against their arms, pleading with them to let her go.

“Is it Mickey?” she yelled at me.

I pulled her to one side, trying to calm her down. “We don't know yet.”

“You found something?”

“A towel.”

“Mickey's towel?”

“We won't know until—”

“Is it Mickey's towel?”

She read the answer in my eyes and suddenly broke free, running toward the trench. I pulled her back before she reached the edge, wrapping my arms around her waist. She was crying then, with her arms outstretched, trying to throw herself into the hole.

There was nothing I could say to comfort her—nothing that would ever be able to comfort her.

Afterward, I walked her up to the chapel, waiting for a police car to take her home. We sat outside on a stone bench beneath a poster on the noticeboard, which said, CHILDREN ARE THE HOPE OF THE WORLD.

Where! Show me! You can want them, worry about them, love them with all your being, but you can't keep them safe. Time and accidents and evil will defeat you.

Somewhere in the restaurant kitchen a tray of glasses shatters on the floor. Diners pause momentarily, perhaps in sympathy, and then conversations begin again. Joe looks across the table, inscrutable as ever. He'll say it's the Parkinson's mask but I think he enjoys being impenetrable.

“Why the hair dye?” he asks.

“What do you mean?”

“You said there were traces of hair dye on the towel. If Howard snatched Mickey off the stairs and killed her in his flat, why bother dyeing her hair?”

He's right. But the towel might have been stained earlier. Rachel could have colored her hair. I didn't ask her. I can see Joe filing the information away for future reference.

My main course has arrived but I'm no longer hungry. The morphine is doing this to me—ruining my appetite. I roll the spaghetti around a fork and leave it resting on the plate.

Joe pours another glass of wine. “You said you had doubts about Howard. Why?”

“Oddly enough, it's because of something you once said to me. When we first met and I was investigating the murder of Catherine McBride, you gave me a profile of her killer.”

“What did I say?”

“You said that sadists and pedophiles and sexual psychopaths aren't born whole. They're made.”

Joe nods, impressed either by my memory or by the quality of his advice.

I try to explain. “Until we found Mickey's towel, the case against Howard was more wishful thinking than hard evidence. Not a single complaint had ever been made against him by a parent or a child in his care. Nobody had ever called him creepy or suggested he be kept away from children. There were thousands of images on his computer, but only a handful of them could be classed as questionable and none of them proved he was a pedophile. He had no history of sexual offenses, yet suddenly he appeared, a full-fledged child killer.”

Joe peers at the wine bottle wrapped in raffia. “Someone can fantasize about children but never act. Their fantasy life can be rich enough to satisfy them.”

“Exactly, but I couldn't see the progression. You told me that deviant behavior could be almost plotted on the axis of a graph. Someone begins by collecting pornography and progresses up the scale. Abduction and murder are at the very end.”

“Did you find any pornography?”

“Howard owned a trailer that he claimed to have sold. We traced the location using gas and dry-cleaning receipts. It was at a campground on the South Coast. He paid the fees annually in advance. Inside there were boxes of magazines mostly from Eastern Europe and Asia. Child pornography.”

Joe leans forward. His little gray cells are humming like a hard drive.

“You're describing a classic grooming pedophile. He recognized Mickey's vulnerability. He became her friend and showered her with praise and presents, buying her toys and clothes. He took her photograph and told her how pretty she looked. Eventually, the sexual part of the ‘dance' begins, the sly touches and play wrestling. Non-sadistic pedophiles sometimes spend months and even years getting to know a child, conditioning them.”

“Exactly, they're extremely patient. So why would Howard invest all that time and effort into grooming Mickey and then suddenly snatch her off the stairs?”

Joe's arm trembles as if released from a catch. “You're right. A grooming pedophile uses slow seduction not violent abduction.”

I feel relieved. It's nice to have someone agree with me.

Joe adds a note of caution. “Psychology isn't an exact science. And even if Howard is innocent—it doesn't bring Mickey back to life. One fact doesn't automatically change the other. What happened when you told Campbell about your doubts?”

“He told me to put my badge down and act like a real person. Did I think Mickey was dead? I thought about the blood on the towel and I said yes. Everything pointed to Howard.”

“You didn't convict him—a jury did.”

Joe doesn't mean to sound patronizing but I hate people making excuses for me. He drains his glass. “This case really got to you, didn't it?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“I think I know why.”

“Leave it alone, Professor.”

He pushes the wineglasses to one side and plants his elbow in the center of the table. He wants to arm wrestle me.

“You don't stand a chance.”

“I know.”

“So why bother?”

“It'll make you feel better.”

“How?”

“Right now you keep acting as though I'm beating up on you. Well, here's your chance to get even. Maybe you'll realize that this isn't a contest. I'm trying to help you.”

Almost immediately my heart feels stung. I notice the bitter yeasty odor of his medication and my throat constricts. Joe's hand is still waiting. He grins at me. “Shall we call it a draw?”

As much as I hate admitting it, Joe and I have a sort of kinship—a connection. Both of us are fighting against the “bastard time.” My career is coming to a close and his disease will rob him of old age. I think he also understands how it feels to be responsible, by accident or omission, for the death of another human being. This could be my last chance to make amends; to prove I'm worth something; to square up the Great Ledger.