Matt finished his second post mortem of the day and stripped his blood covered gloves off and dropped them into the special waste bin; everyone else had gone for lunch. It seemed as if the whole town was dying. He had come into work this morning to three more bodies. His predecessor had never been one to rush anything, sometimes making relatives wait days before processing their loved ones. Matt didn’t agree with that. The quicker he worked the faster the families could get the funeral arrangements sorted out. He had made a promise to himself when he took over as head pathologist for the South Lakes area that he would process his clients quickly and as professionally as the circumstances allowed. Six months ago he had applied to go on the register of forensic pathologists for the Home Office because sometimes it took days before one would be available to come down from the cities to carry out this work. It added to his caseload but he loved his job and was a workaholic.
He stared at the bank of fridges thinking about Emma Harvey. She wouldn’t be out of here as fast as he would have liked. After stripping off his scrubs he made his way to the office. He had a mini fridge in there especially for his cans of diet Vimto and his cheese and onion sarnies. Taking out the plastic Chinese carton containing his sandwiches and a can of pop he sat down at his desk and began rifling through the pile of post on his desk, weeding out the junk mail from the ones that actually bore some importance.
His computer pinged and he opened up his emails. Giving them a cursory glance he leant forward: the address on the latest one was from a colleague who worked at the newly formed Institute for Forensic Science. The wound on Emma’s neck had particles of blood and DNA along the cut and they were showing as a match for Jenna White’s. He read further down the report, which said there were minute traces of dried blood found inside the wound. These had been run through the database. They were so old and deteriorated there was no match. His colleague hazarded a guess that those traces of blood were pre-Chernobyl, which meant that the sample had been somewhere that hadn’t been exposed to any of the particles which could be found almost everywhere after the nuclear plant had a catastrophic accident in 1986 and they were probably a whole lot older than that. Matt scratched his head and stuffed the rest of his sandwich into his mouth. He put his feet on the desk and began to think about the possibilities of what it meant.
As Will arrived at the station he had a hunch that today was the day things were going to get better. Hopefully they would find some link which would help to locate Jenna. He walked past the community office to a lot of high pitched squealing and laughter. Turning around he walked in to see what was happening.
‘Now then, ladies, do you know that this is a place of work and it’s against staff rules to be happy while carrying out your duties?’
Four faces smiled back at him. ‘Morning, Will.’
‘Come on then, what has tickled you lot so early in the morning?’
Sally stood up and walked over to switch the kettle on. ‘It’s disgusting, you wouldn’t want to know, I didn’t want to.’
He watched her open the fridge and begin to make him a coffee and for the first time ever he felt bad.
‘Right then, you go and sit down I’m going to make you all the best coffee you’ve ever had.’
Liz turned to look at him. ‘Are you feeling OK, Will? Did you hit your head on the way in?’
He winked at her. ‘Cheeky. I’ll be back in a minute; don’t go anywhere.’ He went off to his office to get the ground coffee and unused cafetière out of his bottom drawer. It was his Secret Santa gift last Christmas. He strode back around to the community office.
Sally looked at him. ‘We were talking about our exciting sex lives, well, more the lack of it. Anyway why are you in such a good mood? Are you after something because we did loads of house to house for you yesterday? It took me twenty minutes to get the cow shit off my boots when I got home.’
Will gasped and clutched at his heart doing his best to look hurt. ‘Why don’t you just stick the knife right in, go on push it harder? Do you lot honestly think I’m only nice when I want something?’
They all looked at each other and nodded.
He shook his head as he spooned the last of the coffee into the pot. ‘I’m hurt. You know how much I adore you all and I never agree with anyone who gives you a hard time.’
Sally wandered over and squeezed his arm. ‘Sorry, Will, we know you do and we love you really.’
He squeezed her arm back. ‘I forgive you.’
He was the first one in the CID office and the pictures of Jenna and Emma both stared back at him from the whiteboard: Jenna, still breathing and full of life; Emma’s lifeless white face, her lips tinged blue and a huge gash across her throat, her eyes glazed over. I promise I’m going to catch him. He walked closer to see if anything new had been added to the lists below each girl. The phone began ringing but he didn’t answer it, then it stopped and started again.
‘Good morning. CID. Will Ashworth speaking.’
The voice on the other end paused. ‘Good morning, Detective Sergeant. It’s Andrew Marshall. I’m taking over as the DCI and I’ve been reviewing our two cases. I just wanted to catch up with you and see how it’s going?’
Will sat down. He had struggled running the cases for the few days while his boss had been off sick but he knew they would send someone in to take over. It was all far too high profile to leave to him and his team.
‘To be honest, boss, it’s not going that well. We have a few leads as far as the murder victim Emma Harvey is concerned but nothing concrete. We also have a last confirmed sighting of Jenna White near to Abbey Wood, but as you will be aware it’s a huge area to cover and we have search teams out again this morning.’
‘Good. I take it we are assuming these cases are linked. When you say we have a few leads does one of them include a name for the offender?’
Will blew out his cheeks. ‘No, we don’t. It doesn’t make sense at all: abducting one girl and then killing another. Leaving the body on show is quite unusual behaviour but then again I can’t say I’ve had much experience in this kind of situation.’
‘Have you thought about consulting and external advisor, you know, a psychological profiler? If not, I have a very good friend in Manchester who would be willing to come down and take a look. Obviously it’s your shout and I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes.’
Will tried hard to contain his excitement. ‘Sir, I think it would be wonderful. If you could ask them to come down as soon as possible because I’m afraid that time’s running out for Jenna and the chances of finding her alive are very slim. I’ll take all the help I can get.’
‘Good, that’s what I like to hear. No point being too proud to admit you could do with a helping hand, is there? Not when lives are at risk. I’ll arrange it now. I spoke to her last night so she is aware and she should be with you by mid-afternoon. Her name is Grace Marshall. I’ll tell her to report to the front desk.’
‘Thank you, sir, I appreciate it.’
The voice on the other end erupted into a coughing fit and put the phone down. Will had thought today would be the day and he was right. He thought about how perfect it almost was with Annie this morning and he was still grinning when Stu walked in followed by Laura.
‘Morning. What do you want: tea or coffee?’
They did a double take, confused. Will left to go and wash his coffee pot. Stu leant over and whispered in Laura’s ear. ‘He got a shag last night, that’s why he’s in such a good mood. I’ll bet you a fiver.’
Laura glared at Stu and hissed. ‘Not everything revolves around getting your end away, Stu. It’s possible to be in a good mood for things other than sex.’
‘I’m telling you when you’re a bloke the only thing that puts you in a really good mood is having great sex, well, any sex or watching reruns of Dr Who.’
‘I worry about you. I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that now I know when you’re in a good mood that you and Debs have been at it like rabbits or that someone bought you the Dr Who box set.’
‘I wonder who it was then. First one to get it out of him gets a cream cake from that new bakery down the street.’
Laura considered it for a moment. ‘You’re off your head, Stu, but I’ll do anything for a cream cake.’
Will walked back in. ‘What are you two conspiring about?’
Laura smiled sweetly. ‘Nothing in particular, just Stu’s twisted take on life. Stu, why don’t you tell Will what you just told me?’
Stu turned a vivid shade of red and spluttered, ‘I was just explaining to Laura how great it is when you get a shag and how much it puts you in a good mood. Well, not just you, I more meant us, well, all men on the whole.’
Will scrunched up his face trying to work out was Stu was saying as Jake walked into the office.
‘Ooh serious conversation, what’s up?’
Stu looked as if he wanted the floor to swallow him whole and Laura started to laugh.
‘You lot are unbelievable, I’d rather have a bar of chocolate and a cup of coffee.’
The phone on Will’s desk began to ring just as he’d shoved a slice of cake in his mouth.
Laura stepped forward. ‘I suppose you want me to answer that?’
He gave Laura the thumbs up and she picked it up. Will got a whiff of her perfume and it smelt good.
‘Good morning CID, hang on he’s here now that he’s finished stuffing his face with Mars bar cake. I’ll put him on.’
Will didn’t know what was the matter with her lately. She was snappy and miserable and she looked like she’d lost a lot of weight. He would ask Stu later. Maybe she had boyfriend trouble although he wasn’t even sure if she had one.
‘Will speaking.’
‘Hi, it’s me Matt. I just got some results back that were fast-tracked through to the lab from the wound on Emma Harvey’s throat.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘The swabs showed two separate blood samples as well as our victim’s. I’m afraid one is a match for Jenna White.’
‘Shit.’
Everyone in the office stopped what they were doing to listen to Will’s side of the conversation.
‘I’m afraid so. Our suspect used a sharp knife to slit her throat. The only way to explain Jenna’s blood being on that knife is that he used it to cut her before he used it on Emma.’
‘You’re sure about that? There’s no chance the samples could have been contaminated or anything?’ Will regretted the words as soon as he said them and Matt snapped back at him.
‘Are you saying I’m an idiot who can’t do his job properly?’
Will lowered his voice. ‘No, I’m kind of wishing for Jenna White’s sake that you’re an idiot who can’t do his job.’
The anger left Matt’s voice. ‘This is where it gets strange. The other sample is really old and there are only minute specks, but it’s there and a completely different blood type to the others. It looks like our killer favours antique knives as his weapon of choice and it looks like whoever owned it last time didn’t clean it very well. There is some strange shit going on.’
Will was busy scribbling notes. ‘Thanks, Matt.’ He put down the phone and stood up. ‘I take it you all got the gist of that conversation. The knife used to kill Emma had Jenna White’s blood on it and another sample, which was really old. So while it’s possible Jenna is lying somewhere injured we now have a firm connection between Jenna’s abductor and Emma’s killer. I am assuming the worst that Jenna was killed first. Laura, I want you to contact the White’s Family Liaison Officer. Tell them to prepare the Whites for the worst. Not a word of this to the press, they are already printing utter bollocks and scaring everyone in a ten-mile radius so let’s not give them anything to go on. Stu, I want you to go around the secondhand shops and antique dealers, see if anyone has sold an old knife lately.’ He glanced at Jenna’s picture and clenched his knuckles into tight fists then left the room, he needed some air.