Murder Mile

Chapter Eleven

Moran and Lawrence were once again in attendance at Ladywell mortuary. Professor Martin was concluding his post-mortem on the hostel victim as the coroner’s officer entered and told Moran that DI Gibbs was on the phone.

After speaking to Gibbs, Moran returned to the mortuary, looking slightly less stressed. He told Martin and Lawrence that the body was believed to be that of Eileen Summers, a 23-year-old teacher from Chalk Farm, and explained the circumstances that had led to the headmistress reporting Summers as missing, finally updating them on Jane’s subsequent visits to the school and Eileen Summers’ flat.

‘Tennison’s having a pretty productive day,’ Lawrence remarked.

Martin laughed. ‘At this rate, she’ll be the first plonk in the Met to make DCI and run a murder squad.’

‘Yeah, and pigs might fly,’ Moran retorted.

Martin handed Lawrence the blood and urine samples he had taken during his examination. ‘There was undigested fish and chips in the stomach. Your victim must have eaten them shortly before her death.’

‘No sign of fish and chips wrappers at the crime scene,’ Lawrence said.

‘Edwards told Gibbs that Eileen Summers bought herself and her neighbor fish and chips at about five p.m. last night,’ Moran put in.

‘My time of death estimation is pretty good then.’ Martin smiled.

The pathologist had removed the brain and placed it on a small work table, where Martin now proceeded to examine it.

‘There’s no major damage to the skull or brain. The blow to the head with the wine bottle didn’t kill her, though it would have knocked her out. The hyoid bone in her throat is broken due to strangulation, which is the primary cause of death. Like your first victim, the suspect straddled her from behind as he strangled her. The cord is the same type as found on the first victim, as is the slip knot, and both ends are cut and frayed.’

‘Sexual assault?’ Moran asked.

Martin nodded. ‘The torn underwear at the scene was an obvious indication, but there are also scratch marks on her inner thighs and vaginal bruising consistent with rape. I’ve taken swabs for semen. I also suspect, from the injuries to her back, that the rape occurred whilst she was face down and unconscious, which may explain why no one heard any screams.’

The duty leader at the Soho Samaritans was polite and helpful, but had clearly been very shocked to hear about Sybil Hastings’ death.

‘Would you like something to drink while you go through the paperwork?’ he asked Jane as he pulled out copies of all the sheets relating to Sybil Hastings’ duties for the previous six months.

‘A coffee would be nice,’ she replied.

‘I’ll get one of the volunteers to bring you one. I was wondering,’ he added, ‘can I tell the other volunteers about Mrs. Hastings?’

‘Well, seeing as they’re all trusted Samaritans... But I’d appreciate it if you didn’t go into any detail.’

He looked relieved. ‘Of course. Now I’ll leave you to it.’

Jane decided to start looking from the previous Thursday, when Sybil Hastings was last on duty, and work backwards. As she looked through the records of calls and one-to-one meetings, Jane saw nothing that leapt out at her. Two of the calls Sybil dealt with were from women and one from a man who had become paralyzed after a serious car accident. The names Ben Smith and Eileen Summers weren’t recorded anywhere, and there was nothing to suggest any of the callers were teachers or homeless drug addicts.

She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling exhausted, and knew that it would be better to look at the documents back at the station, with the assistance of Edwards and Gibbs.

There was a knock at the door and a pretty young woman in her mid-twenties, dressed in jeans and a turtleneck jumper, came in carrying a cup of coffee and some biscuits on a plate. She looked as if she’d been crying.

‘Are you OK?’ Jane asked.

‘Yes... sorry... I just heard about Mrs. Hastings. I can’t believe anyone would want to harm her. She was so gentle and kind.’ She put the coffee and biscuits down on the desk.

Jane picked up her coffee and took a sip. ‘Thank you. What’s your name?’

‘Alice. Alice Hodges.’

‘Had you known Mrs. Hastings long, Alice?’

‘A few months. She was training me to be a Samaritan, so we worked the same shifts.’

‘Were you working together last Thursday?’

Alice nodded.

‘How did she seem to you?’

‘She was fine to start with. Then she took a call that seemed to bother her. It was unusual because one of the most important parts of our training is not to show any emotion or distress when dealing with a caller.’

‘What time did the call come in?’

‘Between quarter past and half seven, I think.’

Jane checked the call log for that evening. ‘According to the records, the last call Mrs. Hastings dealt with was at 7:10 p.m., from a woman whose husband had repeatedly assaulted her. After that there’s no record of her dealing with another call before she finished at eight p.m.’

Alice closed the office door and sat down opposite Jane. ‘Mrs. Hastings started to make some notes on a call sheet. Then she picked up a bit of paper, put it on top of the call sheet and started writing on it. I thought it strange at the time, as she told me every call should be logged and filed.’

Jane realized the importance of the information and instantly forgot about her tiredness. She took out her notebook to make some notes. ‘Did you hear what was said during the call?’

‘Only bits. I was sat next to Mrs. Hastings at the time, completing the paperwork from the last call for filing. It was a female caller, and I think she had a northern accent.’

Jane remembered Mrs. Rowlands telling her that Eileen Summers was from Manchester. ‘I need you to take your time and think hard, Alice. Try to remember anything strange that was said during the conversation.’

Alice sat quietly, her eyes closed, trying to remember the call.

‘She asked the caller if the boy’s mother was aware of the situation, and the last thing she said before she put the phone down was: “When you find out where he was treated, you must tell the police.” That’s really all I can remember.’

‘Did you hear any names during the conversation?’ Jane asked.

Alice shook her head. ‘No names, and Mrs. Hastings didn’t say anything to me about the call afterwards.’

‘What did Mrs. Hastings do with the notes she made?’

Alice paused. ‘She folded the call sheet and bit of paper up and put them in her handbag.’

There had been no call sheets in Mrs. Hastings’ handbag when she had searched it. Jane wondered if her killer had destroyed the notes because it linked them to Sybil Hastings. She also realized the note could be somewhere in Mrs. Hastings’ house and decided to contact Agnes about it later.

‘Did you or Mrs. Hastings deal with any other calls or visitors that night?’ Jane asked.

‘I dealt with the next two calls, under Mrs. Hastings’ supervision. I think you have copies of the call sheets?’

Jane looked through them and saw the two calls. She heard sniffing and looked up to see Alice wiping tears from her face.

‘I should have told the leader about that call, shouldn’t I? Do you think if I had, Mrs. Hastings might still be alive?’ She looked distraught.

Jane leant forward. ‘Don’t blame yourself, Alice. You’re in no way responsible for what happened. You’ve done the right thing by telling me about the phone call. It could really help the investigation. As far as I’m concerned, this conversation is just between us, and you won’t get into any trouble.’

Alice smiled gratefully, as Jane jotted down her office phone number. ‘Call me if you remember anything else about the call or just anything you think might be significant.’

Jane was keen to get from Soho to Ladywell mortuary before 5 p.m., to make sure everything was ready for Mrs. Rowlands to identify Eileen Summers. She turned on the CID car siren but didn’t like driving at high speed. Other officers found it exhilarating, but Jane constantly worried about having a police vehicle accident or ‘POLAC,’ as it was known in the police.

She arrived at the mortuary at ten to five and was shocked to see that Eileen Summers’ body had been left on a trolley in the storage area, with just a white sheet over it. She pulled back the sheet and could see that Eileen’s tongue was still slightly protruding from her mouth and her face still had blood smears on it. Seeing the morgue attendant, Jane asked him to make the body presentable and take it to the small chapel for identification by the victim’s head teacher.

The attendant casually leant over and pushed the victim’s tongue back in her mouth. ‘I should get more warning about preparing a dead body to be taken to the viewing room. There ain’t anything more I can do to make her look better without proper notice,’ he said gruffly.

‘Please go and get the viewing room ready,’ Jane said sharply.

The disgruntled morgue attendant walked off, muttering to himself.

Jane soaked a sponge in water and used it to wipe the blood from Eileen’s hair and face. She could now see how pretty Eileen Summers had been, almost angelic.

‘What a waste of a young life,’ she said sadly, patting Eileen’s hair and face dry with a towel.

She took her own hairbrush from her handbag and gently brushed Eileen’s hair, then used a rubber band she found in a drawer and tied it in a ponytail. She had never touched a dead body so intimately before and began to feel quite emotional. She applied a bit of make-up to Eileen’s face and placed the white shroud over her neck to cover the strangulation marks, then stood back, satisfied that the young woman now looked at peace.

Mrs. Rowlands wept as she stood beside Jane and formally identified Eileen Summers’ body. It was the first time Jane had seen the dignified headmistress really break down. Mrs. Rowlands leant forward and kissed Eileen’s forehead.

‘If I’d had a daughter, I’d have wanted her to be like Eileen. She was a wonderful woman and teacher, so kind and thoughtful. She loved all the children and they loved her. I don’t know what the school will do without her. She’s irreplaceable.’

Jane could feel herself welling up. The identification of a body in a murder investigation had become a routine task since she’d been in the CID and she had become desensitized to it. But somehow this was different. She reached out and took hold of Mrs. Rowlands’ hand, squeezing it.

‘I promise you we will do our very best to find whoever killed her.’

Mrs. Rowlands wiped the tears from her cheeks and looked at Jane. ‘I spoke with the school secretary, who told me something about Eileen that might be relevant to your investigation.’

Jane lead Mrs. Rowlands to the coroner’s office so they could speak in private, then took out her notebook and nodded that she was ready.

‘On Monday morning, just after ten a.m., the secretary answered a call from a well-spoken man who said he was a friend of Miss Summers and needed to speak to her about a personal matter.’

‘Did he give his name?’ Jane asked.

‘He said he was Mr. Smith, but he didn’t give a first name.’

Jane’s breathing quickened. Was that their suspect, Ben Smith? ‘What happened?’

‘Miss Summers was in the school yard, supervising the children during their morning break. The secretary kept an eye on the children while Eileen took the call.’

‘Did anyone overhear the conversation?’

‘No, Eileen was alone in the secretary’s office when she spoke with the man. The secretary said it wasn’t long before Miss Summers came back out to the yard and she seemed fine. Do you think the call might be connected to her murder?’

Jane kept her voice neutral. ‘Obviously I can’t say too much about the investigation, but the information you’ve just given me may be useful and will certainly be followed up. I’ll also need to take a full statement at some point, with more details about Eileen Summers’ employment at the school.’

Mrs. Rowlands nodded. ‘That’s fine, and I’m quite happy to do it now, if it would help.’

It was 7:30 p.m. before Jane completed the detailed statement and left the mortuary, much to the annoyance of the morgue attendant, who had to wait around until she’d finished. Driving home, she wondered if Eileen Summers had been lured to the Peckham hostel by Ben Smith because he intended to kill her. It seemed strange that he had not tried to dispose of Eileen’s body, as he had done with the other two. But Jane’s excitement that the investigation was now moving forward was tempered by frustration: although the murders had been linked by forensics, there was nothing to help them find Smith quickly before he killed again.

It was just after 8 p.m. when Jane got back to her flat. She didn’t have the energy to cook and opted for a takeaway sausage and chips instead. She’d got to know the owner of the local chippy after an incident one night when a drunk was being obnoxious and Jane had stepped in and told him to get out before he got arrested. As a result, the owner always gave her a larger than normal portion of chips, which she always felt was a bit of a waste as she never ate them all, but she appreciated the gesture.

After she had eaten, Jane had a long soak in a hot bath. It had been a tiring and emotional day, not only investigating the murders but comforting the grieving friends and colleagues of Eileen Summers. Jane had been impressed by Mrs. Rowlands’ dignified manner at the school, but had seen the pain and hurt come pouring out at the mortuary when she identified Eileen’s body. She wondered how Mrs. Rowlands would cope with informing all the parents, and especially the children who had lost a teacher they loved so dearly.

Jane was bone-tired when she went to bed, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t sleep. She sat up and read through the notes in her notebook, going over the details of the case.

As she thought about her conversation with Alice at the Samaritans about the call that ‘seemed to bother’ Mrs. Hastings, she remembered Alice telling her that Mrs. Hastings had written on one of the call sheets and then on a separate bit of paper, both of which she folded up and put in her handbag. Jane jumped out of bed, went to the living room and opened her briefcase containing the Samaritans call logs. She hurriedly removed the call sheet log Alice had made under Mrs. Hastings’ supervision, after the suspicious call. Jane ran into the kitchen and placed the call logs on the table, before getting a torch from the kitchen drawer.

‘Please, please let there be something there,’ Jane said to herself. She had learnt about indented writing from an old Hackney case. Lawrence had shown her that when a document is written whilst resting on top of other papers, impressions of the writing were transferred to the underlying sheet and could sometimes be seen if illuminated with side-lighting.

Jane could have kicked herself for not thinking about it earlier, realizing that even if she didn’t have the original sheet Mrs. Hastings had written on, she had the one that was underneath it. She turned off the kitchen light and shone the torch at an angle across the sheet. There were definitely some faint impressions of writing, but her torch wasn’t anywhere near as good as the forensic ones at the lab, so it was impossible to read what Sybil Hastings had written. Jane carefully placed the two call logs between two pieces of cardboard to preserve them, feeling at least she could get some sleep now, knowing she had found what might be a vital clue in the investigation.