A VITAL MISTAKE, HOPEFULLY A FATAL MISTAKE.
DAY NINETEEN
Yarrow sits to one side, smoking furiously. He has a sore throat, the result of smoking too much but finds it difficult to cut down. He is under such stress-tension that he finds he has to smoke to relieve the pressure. “Goes with the job,” he told himself, “if I wanted a stress-free life I should have gone into another way of life – such as gardening.”
Bullock is not here; he has been summoned to HQ in Wakefield, and we can guess that it is not to be congratulated on the progress of the investigation into the murder of Emily Black. DCC Wilfred Pole is not happy. Not happy at all. He fears that the lack of an arrest is damaging his chances of promotion to Chief Constable.
I can let you into a little secret here. He has already been overlooked. In fact, the Police Commission took a decision even before Emily’s killing, but the announcement has been delayed whilst the chosen officer clears his current workload and hands over to his replacement.
It is now almost three weeks since the murder of Emily Black on the 8th August, and due to Yarrow’s sore throat, Marcus Harding is conducting the briefing, reviewing the current state of the investigation and outlining the subsequent actions to be taken. The room is full.
“Right, progress on fingerprints,” Marcus began, “DCI McDermott and the fingerprint boys have done a magnificent job. So far, they have printed about 98% of hospital staff, visitors, patients, just about anyone in fact who had reason to visit the children’s ward from where little Emily was snatched. Mr McDermott hopes to finish up in about a week’s time. Obviously, there will be some people they’ve not been able to contact yet, they’re on holiday or are not from the district, had possibly only come to visit a sick relative from someplace else. But there are only a few, no more than 10 or 12; these will be tracked down by their local forces, printed, and the prints sent to Mr McDermott’s boys for comparison.”
Marcus loosened his tie; he felt nervous. This was not the first briefing he had conducted, but none had been as important as this. He cleared his throat again. “So far, 178 prints have been taken and compared with those lifted from the ward. None of the prints taken match those on the glass found below the bed.” He pointed to the photograph of the glass. “As previously noted, three sets of prints have been found: one set belonged to Emily herself, one set to Mrs Dorothy Biddle, the tea lady who filled the glass and gave it to Emily.” He paused for effect. “And the third set, still unidentified. As more and more people are printed and eliminated by Mr McDermott’s team, it becomes more and more hopeful that these prints,” he tapped the photo of the glass again, “are actually those of the killer. Find the man whose prints are on the glass; we think we will have found our killer.”
“Sarge, how can we be so sure it’s him, I mean the fingerprints on the glass, anybody could have touched it, and we don’t know how long it’s been there?” asks Dennis Brighouse, a red-faced copper known as Death Breath, seated at the back of the room.
“Thanks, Dennis, good question,” even though Marcus thought it was no such thing. “The Matron, Alice Murdoch, states categorically that the glass was not there the previous evening. The tea lady, Mrs Biddle, confirms that she gave it to Emily that early evening on her rounds, and we believe that anyone who had business in the ward that day have already been mostly eliminated. Therefore, it is likely, although not certain, but very likely that the fingerprint belongs to the killer. QED.”
“Eh?”
“Quod erat demonstrandum - as has been demonstrated.”
“Oh yeah, that’s French, right?”
“Latin! But this is not a language class; we’ve a job to do, to find the murdering bastard who killed poor Emily. Like I said, the fingerprint on the glass is the best evidence we have so far. No usable prints could be lifted from the back-exit door, or from the emergency ambulance gate or from the stone used to batter poor Emily to death. Whether the killer wiped the exit door, or whether the cleaners did, is irrelevant; there are no prints on either. Obviously, the cleaners don’t clean the back gate, so by then he must have either worn gloves or wiped them himself. If he did think to wipe his prints, fortunately for us he overlooked the glass. A vital mistake, hopefully a fatal mistake. Find the owner of those prints and we’ve got him, or very likely so.”
Harding continued to review the investigation. It is now almost three weeks since the murder and despite the cataloguing and cross-referencing of hundreds of prints, hundreds of statements from hospital staff, visitors, patients, the interrogation of Nasty Bastards, door-to-door enquiries, nothing substantial has led them any closer to finding a suspect. The investigation is going nowhere, and the overstretched detectives and uniformed police have begun to lose their enthusiasm.
The initial anger and zeal that Yarrow stoked up in the initial briefing are slowly dissipating; the steam is running out of the search for Emily’s killer.
Not that they will ever give up on her, absolutely not. Shuggie McDermott still has a few staff and visitors to print; in particular, they are waiting for Michael Shoesmith, an orderly who was on duty that night, to return from a holiday in Scotland. He is a keen climber and was hiking and climbing with his friend Jackie Calf, another climber. Neither of their families nor any of their colleagues knew exactly where they were going except that they were taking a train to Fort William via Glasgow and playing it by ear from then on. Even though the weather in Scotland can be capricious at any time of year, especially in the mountains, they had taken a tent with them, intending to camp since they could not afford to stay in Youth Hostels or B&Bs. The police at Fort William were contacted, but they had so far found no trace of them.
“Michael Shoesmith should be back in Garside on Sunday morning and will be interviewed and printed.” There is a simmering expectation, an expectant hope, that he might be their man. Sylvia Parsons, not quite three years old, had told her mother that she had seen Emily with a ‘doctor man’ on that night. It was dark, and she could give no other details other than that – it was a doctor man wearing a white coat. Hospital orderlies also wear white coats.
“Next. Mrs Annie Entwhistle at Midmorning Farm. Here.” Marcus pointed to the location on the map pinned to the wall, “you see, it is not that far from Bolehill Copse,” again pointing it out on the map even though everyone in the room knew exactly where the murder site was. “She told PC Edgeley that she heard a motorbike stopping, possibly at the copse, about 2.30 – 2.45 the night of the murder. Is this significant? Did the killer take Emily to the copse by motorbike rather than carry her?”
A PC from the other side of the room spoke up, “It’d make his life a lot easier if he did, take her by motorbike, I mean. Emily, she was only a little kid, but believe me, carrying a kiddie is hard work, no matter how small; they get bloody heavy after a while carrying ‘em, and I speak from experience. Our Audrey was only a littley, a sprat, but you couldn’t carry her for more than ten, fifteen minutes without having to put her down,”
“Thanks, Danny; it’s a real possibility, a lead we have to follow up. Therefore, we’ve asked the County for details of all motorbikes registered in Garside and the surrounding villages, within a fifteen-mile radius. We should be getting those tomorrow or the next day. We asked for priority on this. When we get the list, we will talk to every motorbike owner in the district, and those who can’t give a satisfactory account, a watertight account, of where they were that night will be asked to give fingerprints. This is a hopeful lead.”
“Excuse me, Marcus,” Yarrow wheezed, “We need to go back to the hospital and surrounds, ask everybody who was there that night, did they see or hear a motorbike? Ask at all the nearby houses, I know we’ve already done house-to-house in the locality, but this is fresh information that we need to follow up. OK, Marcus. Go ahead.”
“Just another point, Sarge,” Dennis Brighouse spoke up again, “We are all concentrating on the fact that this guy, this killer, is a local ‘cos he knows the … whereabouts of Bolehill Copse. No doubt we’re all agreed that it’s likely he’s a Garside lad, but what…what if he is a local but has moved away, say gone to Leeds or Manchester and just came back for a day or so to see his old mum, in that case, we’ll never get his prints … you see what I mean,” he tailed away lamely. “Not wanting to be negative or owt.”
Marcus was about to speak, but Yarrow held up his hand to stop him. “Good point, Dennis, good to see that you’re thinking about all these issues. The idea that he might be a visitor who happens to know the area is one we have given thought to. It’s an idea that has validity and one which we can’t – and will not ignore. We will harness the power of the press, to be precise, Arnie Muckraker, let him do something useful for a change. We will ask him to print an article in the ‘Gazette,’ asking anyone who had a visitor the day in question to come forward, so that they can be eliminated from the enquiry. I’m sure that most folk will be public-spirited enough to say that their son or brother or whatever was visiting at the time, that’s not to say we would catch him this way, but it is a means of eliminating some names. Of course, Arnie himself, not being in the least bit public-spirited, will want something in return, an exclusive or access to the site, which he won’t get, not yet at least. I’ll get onto Arnie later today.”
“Sir?” asks another copper, raising his hand as though at school.
“Yes?”
“DC Markham, sir. Could there be two killers? I mean, so far as we know; only one person abducted the little girl from the ward. What’s to say he didn’t have an accomplice, maybe with a car or the motorbike the farmer’s wife heard? It is possible, isn’t it?”
“A definite possibility, one which cannot be discounted, and I will ask the pathologist to check if there is more than one sample of semen. Thank you.” Yarrow sat down again and lit up another cigarette, leaving the floor for Marcus again. His throat is very sore, and he had spoken for longer than intended. “Somebody send for the tea lady,” he orders.
Marcus has lost his train of thought and has to think for a moment or two; there is something in the back of his mind, something raised by Yarrow, and he is scratching at the elusive thought. “Right, yes. As the SIO says, there might be locals who visited Garside on the day but not necessarily come to see family. They might be here on business and no longer have family connections; we need to check all the hotels, lodging houses, bed and breakfast to see who was staying here over that period. They must have left home addresses when they checked in. Mary,” pointing to WPC Mary McDonald, “please draw up a list of establishments that might have taken in paying guests. Sir,” he turned to Yarrow, “you could ask Arnie Muckraker to include something about visitors that stayed in such places, asking the proprietors or landladies, whatever, to come forward.”
“Good point; I’ll make the note.”
Marcus continued, “All known local sex offenders have now been questioned and have all been eliminated.”
“Best thing for ‘em.” quipped a voice at the back.
“Eliminated from the enquiry,” Marcus responded dryly.
“Oh right, thought you meant we’d dropped ‘em off in Tapton Reservoir wearing concrete lifejackets,” and a ripple of laughter circulates around the room.
Marcus continued, allocating various tasks to teams or individuals, another round of house-to-house enquiries following up on the motorbike heard by Annie Entwhistle. DC Rawlings and DC Markham will question Michael Shoesmith on his expected return on Sunday.
“Finally. You’ll recall the footprint found not far from the scene. After intensive forensic investigation, we have tracked down the owner of the print, a highly dangerous and perverted monster we’ve had our eye on for some time. DC Rawlings, Harry, you are now our main suspect,” said Marcus, deadpan, pointing at Rawlings.
“Bugger, I must have trodden in the mud when I was running down when we found the body,” Rawlings answered as the laughter rolled around him, tempted to give Marcus a V sign but decided against it. He would get his own back in due course.
The briefing over, the assembled police made their way out. Yarrow signalled Marcus to stay behind.
Yarrow sighed deeply, rubbing at his tired eyes, reached for another cigarette, grimaced at the pile of stubs in the ashtray, and put the cigarette down again. “I’m smoking too much,” he wheezed, apropos of nothing. Marcus said nothing. “Sit down, Marcus.”
“Sir?”
“Where are we going wrong, Marcus? We have all the manpower, all the resources, we have the forensic lab in Wetherby analysing all that we have, we’ve got good brains, good thinkers. You saw it this morning, good sensible questions are raised, but we are no closer today to finding Emily’s killer than we were the day we found her. Where are we going wrong; it’s eating away at me?”
“I don’t know that we are doing anything wrong, sir. Far as I can see, we are doing everything by the book. We track down everything, every lead, house to house, follow-ups, fingerprinting, elimination of known Nasty Bastards, that is, sex offenders, as I say, we’re doing everything right as far as I know. It’s not yet three weeks; can’t expect miracles.”
“Miracles are what we need right now. You, me, and every copper in the job know that the first 24, 48 hours are the most critical, that the trail gets progressively cooler as time goes by. We’ve got a responsibility to her parents to find him; I gave them my word on that.”
“And we will, guv, sure of it. Sure of it.”
“I wish I felt as certain.” Yarrow leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, steepling his fingers together as he did so. Harding was about to go when Yarrow spoke, without opening his eyes. “Are we concentrating too much on chummy being a local? We concentrate all our efforts on him being a local or somebody with local knowledge. Are we missing a bigger picture?”
“No, sir, I don’t think so. He must be a local. He knew exactly where to take Emily.
Exactly! He’s local, and we will get to him, just a matter of time and patience.”
Yarrow sighed heavily again. “Sod it, let’s go and see the Muckraker.”