DCI Steadman had called a crack of dawn meeting and the conference room was burbling with excitement. As senior investigating officer on the Sean Kavanagh case, he had just told the assembled team – detectives, uniformed PCs and forensics officers – what Flyte had known since Cassie had shown her the microscopic images of his tissue sample.
‘Frozen like in a deep freeze?!’ said Nathan Cassidy.
‘How long for?’ asked someone else.
‘Dean?’ said Steadman, passing the baton to Willets.
‘So the HO pathologist says there’s no doubt about it. Analysis of Kavanagh’s tissues shows he was deep frozen, but, incredible as it sounds, there’s no way of telling for how long. Apparently freezing halts all biological processes that would usually give a time of death.’
‘So are we talking some kind of industrial freezer?’ This from Jethro, one of the uniformed officers.
Willets shook his head. ‘An ordinary domestic freezer would have done the job apparently, so long as it had a reliable power supply.’ He paused for effect. ‘As some of you already know, until eight years ago Sean Kavanagh was a uniformed police officer based at Finsbury Park nick.’
That prompted a flurry of gasps and exchanged looks.
Nodding approvingly over at Flyte, Steadman said, ‘Phyllida here has done a sterling job finding his last contacts but nobody has seen hide nor hair of him since then. They believed that he’d emigrated to Canada, but there’s zero evidence for that. As our resident technology whizz, Dean will oversee interrogating Kavanagh’s digital footprint to try to narrow down a window for his death.’ He nodded to Willets.
‘Our working hypothesis is that he was killed and his body stored in a freezer for the next eight years,’ Dean went on, prompting more muttered gasps. ‘His killer sent an email from his address resigning from the Met and put up a couple of Facebook posts – no doubt to prevent anybody raising the alarm over Kavanagh’s sudden disappearance.’
‘How did the killer access his Facebook and email, Sarge?’ asked Nathan.
‘Hacking someone’s Facebook isn’t rocket science – especially if you have access to someone’s phone – and Sean’s was missing when he was found.’
Or if you were his girlfriend and could guess his password, thought Flyte, picturing Bethany’s face. But she didn’t want to share what was no more than a niggling feeling: that Bethany knew more about Sean’s death than she was letting on.
Steadman nodded towards Andy, the crime scene manager. ‘Anything solid yet on cause of death, Andy?’
‘Professor Arculus found a hairline crack in a bony protuberance at the base of the sternum. Apparently, a blow hard enough to cause it could have stopped the heart. It’s usually associated with contact sports.’
‘Which raises the scenario that the injury, although fatal, might have been accidental,’ said Steadman, looking around the room. ‘Maybe somebody he’d nicked previously spotted him off duty and decided to pick a fight. Kavanagh could have been killed by an unlucky blow, causing the assailant to panic and hide the body.’ Turning to Flyte he went on, ‘Phyllida, you’ve met his last known contacts?’
‘Yes, boss. There’s a security guard who used to attend the same gym as him, no more than a nodding acquaintance,’ said Flyte. ‘And his ex-fiancée, who broke off their engagement when she discovered he’d been serially unfaithful.’
Steadman nodded. ‘It sounds like Sean – or Shane as he sometimes called himself – was a bit of a ladies’ man. So a jealous boyfriend or husband getting into a fight with him is a key line of enquiry.’
Willets turned to Seb. ‘Didn’t you work at Finsbury Park nick a while back?’
‘Yeah briefly,’ he said. ‘I didn’t overlap with Kavanagh but there must be some guys still there who would have done.’
‘Great, give them a shout, would you, see what you can dig up about him?’
As much as it pained Flyte to admit it, Willets was coming across as sharp and professional, with none of his usual playing to the gallery.
But to her mind no one was addressing the elephant in the room. ‘Why would the killer risk keeping the body for eight years and only attempt to dispose of it now?’ she asked.
‘Maybe he kept it as a trophy,’ said Willets. ‘You know, the body of his enemy?’
‘Or maybe he was moving house so he had no choice but to get shot of it?’ offered Flyte. ‘And I’m guessing our suspect probably lived alone?’
‘That’s a good point, Phyllida,’ said Steadman. ‘I think it’s safe to assume a wife or live-in girlfriend might object to a body in the freezer next to the oven chips.’ A ripple of laughter.
Willets got up to refer to a map of Camden centred on the canal which was projected onto the wall. ‘The estimate is that the body was dumped around two weeks ago. Finding out where it went in is obviously key. Guv, you’ve fished a few bodies out of the canal in your time?’
‘That I have,’ said Steadman ruefully. ‘I’ve already spoken to Ray, the lock-keeper.’ He looked down at his notebook. ‘He said that he’d expect the current to carry an unweighted body at least a hundred and up to two hundred metres. That’s a lot of towpath.’
Willets indicated the map. ‘So somewhere along this two-hundred-metre stretch between Kentish Town lock in the west and the narrowboat where it was found, here.’
‘What about the road bridge?’ Flyte pointed to where a minor road crossed the canal roughly halfway between the lock and Cassie’s boat. ‘Wouldn’t that offer the quickest way to get a body out of a car and over the parapet into the canal without being noticed?’
Steadman nodded approvingly. ‘Quite right, Phyllida. Why don’t you look into that side of things? Check out the CCTV coverage around there.’
He stood to go. ‘Dean, I’ll leave it with you. Keep me in the loop, OK?’ He paused before adding in a quiet voice, ‘I want you all to keep in mind that Sean Kavanagh was one of us. That could be you or me lying there in the mortuary, so I expect everyone to give it one hundred and ten per cent. All leave is cancelled for the next month.’
The room was clearing when Willets came over to Flyte and bared his teeth in an insincere smile. ‘As IO, I’ll take over the key witnesses – Bethany Locke and the one who found the body. This Cassie Raven.’
‘Wouldn’t it be best if I handled Raven? Since I’ve worked closely with her—’
‘There is such a thing as too closely, don’t you think?’ Speculation danced in Willets’ eyes. ‘Let’s see what a fresh approach might bring.’