Scream: A DCI Mark Lapslie Investigation (8 page)

‘Don’t worry – there’s a café across the road.’ He paused. ‘Talking of which, can I get you a coffee?’

‘Please. Black, no sugar.’

‘Chris,’ he said, turning to the PCSO in the doorway who had been trying to steal glances down her T-shirt; ‘A Whoopie Goldberg for the DS, please. And a Julie Andrews for me.’ He gestured to a seat in front of his desk. ‘Take the weight off your feet. Is there anything I can tell you before we start setting your incident room up?’

‘I’m a bit unsighted on the area,’ Emma said, sitting down. ‘Can you tell me something about Canvey Island?’

He shrugged. ‘What’s to say? It’s a reclaimed island in the Thames Estuary, separated from the rest of Essex by a network of creeks. At various times in the past it’s been known as Counus Island and Convennon Island. It lies about three metres below sea level, on average, which probably makes it the closest thing that England has to Holland. That means it’s prone to flooding on occasion. Last time that happened was 1953, before I was born. Fifty-eight people died then, and it’s still a scar on the local psyche. That flooding led to the building of fifteen miles of concrete sea wall around the edge of the island, which provides a level of protection against all but the worst tides.’

He paused, brow furrowed. ‘What else? Originally the place was a source of salt for the Roman invaders, although they switched to Maldon, further up the coast, where the salt is purer. It was then turned over to sheep farming for a long time. More recently the petrochemical industry built a large oil refinery down in the Hole Haven area, and the island was the
site of the first delivery in the world of liquefied natural gas by container ship, which makes us feel like we’ve contributed something to history. Of course, the whole thing is disused and partially dismantled now, and it’s a nature reserve.’

‘What’s the population?’

‘Nearly 38,000 people, 30,000 of whom moved in since the Second World War. For a while it was one of the fastest-growing seaside areas in the UK, although it’s stabilised somewhat now.’

‘What about you – are you local, or were you posted here? You said “we’ve contributed something to history” just now.’

‘Well spotted. I’m a local, born and bred,’ he said. ‘My family go back to the eighteen hundreds. Best way to be taken seriously around here is to have a name that’s familiar from the tombstones in the cemetery.’

‘How nice.’ She paused, remembering. ‘I saw a building on the way here – looked like it was a restaurant of some kind. What’s that all about?’

‘You mean the Labworth Café?’

‘Is that what it is?’

He nodded. ‘Designed by some famous engineer – I can’t remember his name. It’s the most notable landmark we have.’

‘Why “Labworth”? Was that the guy who designed it?’

‘No, apparently there used to be a Labworth farm there, before the café was built. I remember my nan, God rest her soul, telling me that the name came from two Old English words:
lobb
, meaning spider, and
werda
, meaning a low-lying marsh. Easy – ask me another.’

Emma grinned. ‘Where’s the best place to get a seafood linguine around here?’

‘Chelmsford.’

She laughed, unforced. ‘Yeah, I was afraid of that. Oh – something else I meant to ask about that I saw when I was driving
around. There’s a church called “Our Lady of Canvey and the English Martyrs”. What’s that all about then?’

‘Ah, now my nan used to wax lyrical about that as well. Back when she was a girl, there were a fair few Roman Catholics on the island, but no Roman Catholic church. This was before the bridges were built, so if they wanted to go to Mass they had to walk to the ferry and take a trip over to the mainland – or if the tide was out, walk across the stones in the creeks – and then take a train from Benfleet to the nearest town with a church, then do the whole thing in reverse to come back. Apparently, permission was given for Mass to be said in a local house belonging to a Mr Levi—’

‘Doesn’t sound particularly RC.’

‘No, he was Jewish, but his wife was RC. He converted after a while. They built a shed in the back garden for Mass, and then later, just before the Second World War, a church was built. It was named “Our Lady of Canvey” after a navigation beacon erected at Deadman’s Point around the turn of the century.’

‘I assumed it was a reference to the Virgin Mary. A kind of wish-fulfilment that she had some special interest in Canvey Island.’

‘No, it was this beacon. Apparently it looked like a woman, with a ball for a head, her hands on her hips and wearing a triangular skirt. The beacon’s gone now, sadly, but the church remains.’

‘And the English Martyrs?’

‘You’ve got me there. I think that was some kind of sop to the bishop. They’d snuck this local joke past him, naming the church after a shipping beacon, so they threw in the English martyrs to compensate.’

‘Clever.’

‘Right,’ he said, standing up, ‘enough of the history and geography lesson. Let’s go and get that incident room set up.’

The room was large, whitewashed and lined with pinboards which were covered with posters highlighting Essex Constabulary’s position on sexism and racism in the workplace (they were against it, Emma was pleased to see) and with fliers advertising meetings of the Police Federation. A couple of trestle tables were scattered around, with plastic chairs pulled up to them. Another table, set against one wall, formed the base for a filter coffee machine which, judging by the nose-wrinkling smell, had been continuously keeping its coffee warm for several weeks. Two constables and a Community Support Officer were sitting together and talking. They looked up when Keith Murrell and Emma Bradbury entered. Murrell caught their eye, and they quickly drained the dregs of their coffees and left.

‘Will this suffice?’ he asked. Emma looked around. She’d seen worse. ‘It’ll do nicely,’ she said diplomatically. ‘The pinboards will come in useful. What are the chances of getting some whiteboards, a couple of computers and a couple of local maps?’

He pursed his lips. ‘The maps we can get straight away from stores. The whiteboards I could order for you, but you’d have to wait a couple of weeks until they arrived. Or I could send a PC across to the mainland with a handful of cash and get him not to come back until he’s found a Staples, or something similar. The computers could be a problem. Any chance you could get some spares from a bigger police station – Braintree or Chelmsford or even Southend-on-Sea? If they’ve got the PCs then I can get a police van sent across to collect them.’

‘I’ll make some calls,’ Emma said. ‘Oh, phone lines. We’ll need to get some phone lines in here.’

He grimaced. ‘I’ll have to talk to Christine on the switchboard. She can tell me how to go about doing that.’

‘Appreciated.’

He glanced around the room. ‘Give it a day or so and you won’t recognise this place. You’ll have your own little kingdom.’

‘Just what every girl wants,’ Emma replied drily, ‘after a My Little Pony and a fairy dressing-up costume – the chance to be a princess.’

Murrell smiled. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, indicating the anti-sexism poster on the wall, ‘you won’t have to fight for respect here. The men will be bowled over by your brusque charm and the women will envy your stylish plainclothes shoes.’

He left her there to think about how she was going to arrange her incident room. Ten minutes later, her phone rang. She expected it to be Mark Lapslie, but it wasn’t his number flashing up on her screen. It wasn’t Dom McGinley either.

‘Emma Bradbury,’ she said.

‘DS Bradbury. This is Jane Catherall.’

‘Doctor Catherall. What can I do for you?’

Typically, the pathologist didn’t answer the question directly. ‘Where are you? I remember you said you were heading over to Canvey Island when you left the restaurant.’

‘I’m there now, setting up my incident room.’

‘
Your
incident room. How very possessive.’

‘Don’t you start. What’s up?’

Emma heard what sounded like a snort from the other end of the line, as if Doctor Catherall was exasperated at the lack of witty banter. Too bad. ‘I’ve got the preliminary results back on the dead girl.’

Emma’s interest was suddenly piqued. ‘Go ahead.’

‘Well, firstly the sexual assault kit was negative. She had not been raped, and if there was any sexual activity then it was some days ago.’

‘Okay. That rules out one motive, I guess. Anything else?’

‘Indeed. You may remember that we took samples from beneath the girl’s fingernails. There was something there: a powdery, white substance which we sent off for analysis. The results are now in.’

‘Cocaine?’ Emma asked, feeling a sudden rush of excitement. A drug connection might lead to a whole set of new leads and a whole load of arrests.

‘No, sodium chloride.’

And her interest subsided again. ‘Salt. Just salt.’

‘Don’t be so dismissive of salt, my dear. This is not your common or garden table salt. There are no anti-caking agents, such as sodium silicoaluminate or magnesium carbonate, and no iodising additives such as potassium iodide, sodium iodide or sodium iodate. There are, however, significant mineral additions: sulphate ions, magnesium, calcium, potassium, bromine and minute traces of boron and strontium.’

‘Contaminants?’

‘More like something naturally occurring as part of the chemical formulation. I think you will find it is sea salt: salt that has been created by the natural evaporation of sea water in large, flat pans.’

‘Sea salt.’ She remembered something that Sergeant Murrell had said earlier, and her excitement quickened. ‘They used to make salt on Canvey Island. They made it for the Romans. Apparently.’

‘This isn’t from Canvey Island,’ the voice on the other end of the phone said.

‘How can you tell?’

‘Gas chromatography. There is a distinct difference between the chemical composition of sea salts from different coastal regions, even if they are only a few tens of miles apart. Tidal patterns create unique chemical signatures.’

‘So where is this salt from?’

‘Maldon, if the particular percentages of the various ions are to be believed.’

‘Anything else on the samples?’

Jane hesitated for a moment. ‘Let me see if I can get this confounded computer thing to cooperate.’

There was silence for a moment, then the sound of keys being hesitantly tapped. Silence again.

‘Actually, I do have an email from the chemical analysis laboratory. It came in a few minutes ago, shortly after the one about the salt sample. Yes, they have apparently also analysed the blood and the various organs I sent them, which is quite unusual considering the timescales to which they usually work. Perhaps they are underemployed at the moment. Perhaps the rate of serious crime in Essex has gone through an unusual statistical blip. No matter.’

She paused for a moment, and Emma imagined her peering through bifocals, trying to focus on the words on the screen. ‘Yes … let me see. They have found traces of an anaesthetic in the blood of the corpse. It’s a variant water-soluble form of propofol known as fospropofol. I believe it is marketed under the name Lusedra. It is a quick-acting anaesthetic which is injected into the bloodstream.’ She hesitated again, then continued as if talking to herself. ‘Interesting, because I did not notice any marks from a hypodermic syringe. Any injection point may have been hidden in the area of the nipple, or the armpit – it’s a relatively common trick.’

‘Yes, thanks for that. So, she was drugged.’

‘Indeed. Presumably to prevent her struggling when she was abducted.’

‘And this propofol …’

‘Fospropofol.’

‘Fospropofol. How easy is it to obtain?’

‘Easy enough if you are a doctor or have some kind of medical reason for using it; more difficult if you are a member of the general public. Remember, the singer Michael Jackson died from a mixture of propofol and the benzodiazepine drug lorazepam.’

‘Doctor Catherall, I’m amazed you even know who Michael Jackson is – was.’

The Doctor had the good grace to laugh – a sweet sound, like the tinkling of bells. ‘After that case we had involving the TV presenter whose arm was stripped of its flesh I decided that I needed to find out more about popular culture. I am now a proud subscriber to various popular magazines, including
OK
,
Hello
and
Bella
.’

‘I don’t know what to say. I think you’re scaring me.’

‘I’m scaring myself. I’ve become an avid fan of
Britain’s Got Talent
and
The X Factor
. I never miss an episode.’

‘DCI Lapslie’s not going to recognise you when he gets back. Whenever that is.’

‘Actually, Mr Burrows at the forensics laboratory mentioned that Mark was already back in the country. Apparently he’s got a case on. Someone has sent him a “sound file”, whatever that is, of a person being murdered in a particularly protracted and horrible manner.’

Emma was stunned. ‘And he flew back just for that?’

‘The file was emailed specifically to him. He’s been singled out for some reason. He felt it best to return.’

‘Meaning that he never wanted to give a presentation in the first place and he’s offloaded it to some other poor bugger.’ She shook her head. ‘Rouse isn’t going to like that.’

‘Yes,’ Jane said shrewdly, ‘another good reason for Mark to have done it.’

‘You said that the lab had analysed the organs as well. There
was something about the liver, wasn’t there? I think you said it was larger than normal.’

‘I did, and well done for remembering. Yes, the analysis showed that the woman suffered from galactosemia, which sounds like some kind of science fiction film but actually is a genetically inherited disease that prevents the sufferer from digesting sugars such as lactose and galactose properly. It is usually diagnosed in infancy, but if left untreated it can lead to various symptoms such as an enlarged liver, cirrhosis, cataracts, renal failure, brain damage and ovarian failure. Without treatment, mortality in infants with galactosemia is about seventy-five per cent. This woman obviously survived, and I found no obvious damage to her kidneys or her ovaries, and no cataracts, but she must have been living on a diet that had a high level of sugar to cause the liver engorgement.’