Oliver wound up the passenger-side window and shivered. ‘Is the heater working in this thing?’
‘It’s on,’ Kate said curtly, as her partner noticed her open window. No matter how cold the weather, she could not bring herself to completely close herself in. She needed the fresh air.
Oliver took a sip from his personal travel mug.
Kate screwed up her nose. ‘What’s that smell?’
‘A carrot and watermelon smoothie. Great way to start the day.’
When she thought about it, Oliver seemed preternaturally chirpy in the morning. For a man with four kids and a pregnant wife, he looked clean, ironed and lacked the requisite black bags under his eyes. Kate wondered how he had escaped the house without one of his children wiping dirty hands on his suit, or jumping all over him and creasing his shirt.
Running late this morning, Kate silently thanked all those clothes designers who had discovered iron-free, pre-wrinkled fabrics, and hoped they never went out of fashion. With a dry-cleaner for her suits, she hadn’t used an iron in months. Just pull things out of the washing machine, twist them in a ball and leave them out to dry. Today’s white shirt was only unravelled minutes before she left for work. Time efficiency at its peak, she thought.
Oliver removed the contents of a brown paper bag sitting on his lap. He munched on one of two salad sandwiches cut into halves.
‘Where do you get the time to be so organised?’ she asked.
‘My wife, actually,’ he answered with a full mouth.
Kate deliberately exited the corner faster than she should have. The remains of Oliver’s meal slid around his lap. He caught the paper bag just before it hit the middle console.
‘Do you get some sort of vicarious thrill out of being childish?’ he admonished.
Kate smiled and revved the engine. His reflexes were fast and maybe that’s how his clothes stayed so clean.
Oliver clutched what was left of his sandwich. ‘If you wanted some, you only had to ask.’
Kate slowed to a stop at a pedestrian crossing. A group of disabled children were being escorted across the road by two carers. ‘Any mayonnaise on it?’
‘Home-made.’ He handed her a half.
After her breakfast of a takeaway egg and bacon roll, which was still repeating on her, this tasted moreish. The mayonnaise made it.
‘I don’t have a wife, so Mr No-Name Brand makes most of my sauces.’ She licked her fingers to collect every drop of the creamy dressing. It reminded her that she would have to do something about her fridge sooner rather than later. The only things left in it were a rotting banana, some expired yoghurt and a bottle of tomato sauce.
‘Do you realise how many artificial additives are in that stuff? It’s full of thickeners, vegetable gum. The list is endless.’
Kate waited until the last carer had left the crossing before accelerating. All she needed was a health food freak ear-bashing her all day. And with traffic grinding to a standstill thanks to roadworks ahead, the day was about to get longer.
Oliver continued to speak. ‘My wife makes me something every morning. And before you think I force her do it, she says she enjoys it.’
With four kids and another on the way, Kate doubted that any woman would be happy creating extra work for herself. More likely, Oliver’s wife would swap places with him in a snap.
‘Did you see the papers?’ She reached into the back while keeping her eyes on the brake-lights in front of them, and handed him a copy of the tabloid Daily Mail. The headline they had run with was ‘Young Mother Burnt in Horror Blaze’. If that didn’t grab attention and heartstrings, nothing would.
Oliver scanned the article. ‘Your quotes don’t say anything about cause of death or murder. Just concern about where the baby is.’
‘There’s a reason for that.’ She tapped the horn to alert the car in front that the lights had turned green. ‘Murders are mostly committed by someone close to the victim. If the killer knows her, he might not come forward if I called it murder. The way that reads, it’s not obvious how she died. If he set the fire to destroy evidence and he thinks it worked, he may be cocky enough now to make contact.’
‘That’s clever.’ Oliver finished off his sandwich. ‘But if someone killed for the baby, we would have needed to appeal to a wider demographic, to see if someone has just turned up with a child somewhere.’
‘You’d be surprised how little attention most people pay to others, and how many keep to themselves. A wife disappears and the husband tells friends she left him and most people don’t think twice.’
More than once Kate had been hindered by the time lag between people going missing and someone reporting the disappearance. The first twenty-four hours following a murder were the most critical and had already passed, which was why they needed to identify their mystery woman as quickly as possible. With each day, they were less likely to get a result.
Oliver finished his smoothie. ‘Maybe someone will complain if they have a problem like the sound of a crying child waking them. Mind you, it’s sometimes hard to pick ages in the first few weeks. A small baby could easily be mistaken for a newborn who has just come home from hospital.’
‘Let’s hope someone out there is more observant than the average punter,’ Kate said. Someone had to know the dead woman. Later today she would chase up the DNA database and see if they got lucky with that.
A few minutes later they entered the fire investigators’ office. John Zimmer was helping himself from a plate of muffins.
‘You should try the chocolate chip,’ he enthused through full cheeks.
Kate glanced over to see only savoury muffins left. Typical, she thought. Crime scene beat homicide to the good stuff every time.
‘Thanks for coming, detectives. I’m Inspector William Maloney. We met at the fire. Can I get you anything before we start?’
‘No thanks.’ Kate followed him into a meeting room and wedged the door into a fully open position. She swung her jacket over a chair and sat. Oliver chose a seat at the round table directly opposite her. Zimmer grabbed a china mug from a cupboard and made himself a cup of tea.
Inspector Maloney was an experienced arson investigator. Independent of the police, members of his unit were used to working with insurance companies and were invaluable in cases of fire involving homicide. Maloney had a reputation for being like an auditor when it came to details. He had begun as a fireman and worked his way up. Age and years of more sedentary work did not disguise the man’s massive frame. He would have been formidable at his physical peak, Kate thought.
From the way John Zimmer seemed to know his way around the office, it was clear the fire investigation unit had liaised with crime scene more frequently than she had realised. With better-informed criminals, the result of shorter prison sentences and tricks gleaned from crime shows, an increasing number attempted to destroy evidence of their handiwork with fire.
Maloney sat toying with a laptop while the others waited. ‘Anyone know how to work these things? It’s just flashing at me,’ he appealed, and Oliver went to his aid. After a quick check of the laptop, the junior detective plugged it into a power point.
‘Battery’s low, that’s all.’ Oliver switched off the light and returned to his seat.
Maloney apologised. Technology was obviously advancing faster than he could keep pace with, but no one minded. He began his presentation.
Slides of the outside of the house appeared first. ‘We’ll go over the scene from the outside in.’
Kate watched the images projected onto the wall. The ferocity of the fire seemed more evident now than when she was at the site. Without the distraction of smoke, sirens and camera crews, the scene was more chilling. She could not help but wonder what the dead woman’s last thoughts were, or whether she had seen her killer.
‘There was no sign of breaking or entering. No glass inside. The windows have blown out from the intense heat, shattering onto the ground. It doesn’t appear that anyone smashed one to escape.’
Zimmer nodded. ‘No blood or fingerprints found on the sills, glass or putty.’
The next few photos focused on the back door. ‘As we all saw, the outside of the door was not burnt and was soot-free, which means it was closed during the fire.’
They viewed sections of the floorboards in progression. ‘We removed samples of the different types of flooring where we believe accelerant was used, and then compared this to samples taken from other areas, where there was less or no fire damage.’
Oliver sat forward in his seat. ‘Why don’t you simply test any suspect piece of flooring for accelerants?’
‘The problem with that is when some materials break down in a fire they release hydrocarbons and can be mistaken for accelerants like methylated spirits, turpentine and lawn mower fuel. It’s also why we took samples from various spots on the bed. We need these other pieces as controls, to confirm that a separate accelerant was used.’ He shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Arson is more difficult to prove than people think.’
He continued the slide show. ‘Now, the trail of the accelerant is closer to the right-hand walls in most cases. If you look carefully, when it crosses rooms, like from the bedroom to the corridor and then into the living area, it curves a little to the left.’
Kate had always been fascinated by evidence and how the smallest things could mean the biggest breaks. In this case the pattern minimised the risk of the arsonist splashing petrol on himself.
‘It’s not a fixed rule, but my guess is it’s unlikely to be a left-handed person,’ Maloney said.
The scene progressed to the bedroom. The body of the unknown mother lay in her peculiar position, arms ready to fight. After enduring a head injury, maybe the victim was trying to tell them something about her killer. But what? When Kate was close to being killed, she made sure to leave behind bits of herself – torn fingernails, bits of skin she dug out, anything that could help the police learn of her fate. Maybe this woman did the same. Once the body had been removed, they examined the bed.
‘The body was fully clothed, which explains why some of the mattress appears less damaged – the parts she was lying on suffered less direct heat.’
‘Which is why her back was not burnt as much as her front.’ Oliver seemed to be thinking out loud while he stared at the image on the wall through squinting eyes.
Kate realised they had been staring at the scene for more than an hour now, and needed to stretch.
Zimmer unpeeled himself from his chair and stood up. ‘I don’t know about everyone else, but I need a coffee.’
Oliver raised both eyebrows at his partner, as if asking permission. She nodded.
‘I’ll get them.’ He stood and flicked the light back on.
Maloney showed Oliver where to find the coffee and John Zimmer followed Kate out the door.
‘How’s the new partner working out? Looks like you’ve already got Drover well-trained.’
‘That’s because he’s intelligent,’ she retorted. ‘Let’s just say that he is a pedigree, whereas someone like you is . . .’
Zimmer grinned. ‘A junk yard dog?’
‘Ah . . .’ Kate forced a smile. She pulled out her mobile and flipped it open. ‘Insight as well – admirable.’
As the crime scene officer laughed, she dialled Peter Latham. His secretary said he was unavailable. There was a mechanical problem in the mortuary he had to sort out but she would definitely pass on the message.
‘Oh, wise homicide detective,’ Zimmer bowed. ‘Any luck with the canvass?’ His tone had become serious, which Kate much preferred.
The pair returned to the meeting room, where Oliver had coffees ready. Normally, she didn’t like being waited on, but today she would not show it.
They resumed their seats as she began. ‘Neighbours didn’t see or hear anything unusual. No screaming, yelling, no visitors. You’d think they all had blinkers on.’
‘Mrs Gorman, the owner’s wife, drives a yellow Porsche but none of the residents of Moat Place could remember when they last saw it,’ Oliver added. ‘One man I spoke to thinks it might have been there a week or two before the fire.’
‘Are you sure she’s not missing?’ Zimmer had a spark in his eye, like a child who was awe-struck by anything to do with a crime.
‘Not exactly, the Gormans are still overseas and out of contact.’
Maloney finished off the last of a muffin. ‘That would explain why no one has contacted the insurance company yet,’ he said.
‘What does Mrs Gorman look like?’ Zimmer asked.
‘Unless the killer somehow took six inches off her height and removed two large breast implants, she doesn’t fit the victim’s description.’
Everyone stared at Oliver. ‘What? I asked a neighbour what she looked like.’
‘Don’t suppose the petrol was unique in any way?’ Kate asked.
Maloney checked his watch. ‘What we have is unleaded petrol, nothing unusual, that was poured in a trail which started at the bed and led out towards the back door. The garage was largely untouched. We assume our person then closed the back door and lit the petrol, which caught fire and travelled under the door. My guess is this wasn’t his first fire.’
‘Or whoever killed her then did some research before coming back,’ Kate added.
‘All we know is that there is a remote possibility that our arsonist could have burns to his arms, face and hands. That is, if we’ve overestimated his abilities.’
Kate had already alerted doctors and hospitals in the area to be on the lookout for anyone with burns.
Zimmer coughed, as though wanting attention. ‘We went right over the place. There’s no sign of a child’s body in or under the house. No blood underneath floorboards either, as far as we could tell. And no sign of a murder weapon in the debris.’
Kate knew that made it almost certain the woman had been killed somewhere else. Head injuries were notorious for causing significant blood loss. If the victim had been hit inside the house, she would have bled on the floor. A large volume of blood would have seeped through the wooden boards. Kate also remembered that the body did not smell of petrol. It had been poured on the mattress, but not on the body. She wondered why someone would go to that much trouble to incinerate the woman as quickly as possible, but not pour petrol on her.
‘Can you estimate how much petrol we’re talking about?’ she asked Maloney.
He scratched his bulbous chin. ‘About five litres would have done the lot. You would find that kind of quantity in a garage normally, but we couldn’t find a tin. And as I said, the garage was pretty much untouched by the fire.’
‘How about checking the local petrol stations to see who filled up into a tin?’ Oliver asked.
Zimmer frowned. ‘Petrol’s so common. Often people fill up the tank then the can for the mower. No one ever looks twice at them. Do you know how many people go through a petrol station in an hour, let alone a day? Trying to get the solo attendant to remember any of them is pretty pointless, especially if they paid with cash. That’s why arsonists like this are so hard to catch.’
Unless you had a specific time frame, Kate thought. Surveillance tapes at stations caught numberplates. It was a very long shot, but might be worth requesting from the stations in the area of the fire. Images of hire or stolen cars might just give them more than they already had if the fire was premeditated and the killer well prepared.
She felt the buzz of her mobile in her pocket and excused herself from the room.
‘Peter Latham here. Can you talk?’
‘Have you got good news about an ID?’
‘No, dental records will take weeks. But there’s more information about the body.’
Kate started to pace. Maybe the woman had left them something after all.
‘I checked the histology for our unknown victim. There was notable cell rupture and crystals present in the liver.’
‘Peter, can you make this simpler?’ she said. Pathologists might have understood the implications, but she had no idea where this was headed.
‘Sorry, I’m getting to that. At first I thought it was an error in the slide preparation so I checked the other organs. Each specimen showed the same thing. It was even in the vitreous humour, the fluid behind the eye. It means that the organs reached freezing point at some stage.’
‘Before or after they got to you?’ she asked. The secretary had mentioned a mechanical problem in the morgue.
‘I checked the fridges. We have to record them every shift to prevent any problems. I’ve been through all the temperatures for the last week, for every one. None of them had any aberrant recordings. I spoke to the others and no one has had organ specimens with cell rupture or crystals.’
Kate felt her pulse quicken. She had a bad feeling about what was coming next.
‘It makes sense now,’ Peter continued. ‘The organs were in such good condition. Normally they shrink in a fire that severe.’
Kate stopped pacing. ‘Are you saying the body was frozen?’
‘Completely. It must have been totally frozen to have sustained that degree of cellular damage in the organs.’
‘So when did she die?’
‘We have no way of knowing how long she was frozen for. All we know is that she died from a head injury, not from the fire.’
Kate thought about the baby. Please don’t let it have been killed, too. ‘What about the uterus? Does freezing affect that?’
Peter sighed. ‘No, it just means the body was frozen within weeks of giving birth. It’s confirmed by the presence of foetal squames and lanugo in the lungs.’
Kate had no idea what that meant. ‘In English?’
‘Lanugo is that down-type hair that covers a foetus and squamous cells come from foetal skin. I found them and vernix fat globules in the lungs. They’re the hallmarks of what’s called an amniotic fluid embolus. It’s where a bolus of the fluid in which the baby grows gets into the venous circulation and gets trapped in the lungs. It usually happens during labour. The effects are similar to a blood clot, if you like.’
Kate paused, confused by what she was hearing. ‘I’m not clear. Are you saying she died while giving birth?’
‘No. An embolus of amniotic fluid can be fatal, but this one wasn’t big enough to obstruct blood flow to the heart or cause significant lung damage.’
‘Did she know she had this? Would she have had to see a doctor for it?’ A medical record might be their only chance of identifying her.
‘Possibly not,’ Peter explained. ‘She may simply have experienced shortness of breath, which she could have put down to being at the end stage of pregnancy. It would have been reabsorbed over time so wouldn’t necessarily have caused any long-term problems.’
Kate tugged on the back of her hair. So the unknown woman had a baby then, after surviving a clot during labour, she was murdered and her body frozen for God knows how long before being set on fire. She could barely believe the scenario herself.
‘Is there any way of determining how old the baby is now? I mean, meat goes an odd colour in the freezer after a few months. Do humans do the same?’ She was grasping for means to narrow the time frame. ‘Can’t you tell anything more about when the woman died?’
Peter sighed again. ‘Unfortunately, it’s impossible to tell. I couldn’t even begin to guess with any certainty.’
Kate rubbed her eyes and thought of the media articles seeking a motherless baby. The case had just become far more complicated. They still had no idea who the victim was, where she was killed or what damn month it happened. They didn’t even know how old the missing child was. Unless they found answers soon, the murderer was likely to get away with it.